A storm had raged above the sea mere hours ago. People escaped to safety, they grabbed their playing children and feeble possessions and ran. 

The music that sometimes hounded the beach, made by the cliffs and the delicate rage of the winds was gone. It was exchanged with eerie anticipation and silence waiting for the next to come. The gloomy bravado had finished. 

The feeble light of the rising morning sun had shone dearly upon the calm yellow of the sand, an odd shell left here and there, a piece of wood, and a few things brought to the remote shore by the raging waves of the night prior laid on the beach.

The birds had begun to chirp again and the smell of saltwater, sand, and storm tingled in her nose. Her footsteps are singular and foreign prints in the flat and still wet sand. The small wooden fishing boats rocked with the waves, some still there, others vanished, gone for good. The clever ones among the fishers had taken their small boats and brought them far up the shore in the foreknowledge that a boat was the safest during a storm if it was as far, far away from the raging nature as possible.

Her long silver hair trailed after her as she stared at the one she called her friend. Had called her friend. “Why?”, she asked him. “I am retired, I have fought and shed my blood for our beliefs and for the Coalition.” 

“Indeed and we feel honored by your service but we need your capability in battle but you refused so we had to take measures," his voice dripped with poison.

“You will fight in this tournament and you will bring victory to the Sage Coalition once again.” She closed her silver eyes and balled her fists bowing to the man in front of her. 

“Then I will follow your words, but. My Lord, should any harm befall my family then I promise I will rip you apart.” 

“I know, but I also know you are loyal.”

“I am not so sure about that anymore if my lifelong loyalty is rewarded with my children being threatened.”

Character Overview

Name: Ocene 

Author: RainingSky

Allegiance: Sage Coalition

Age: Unknown

Race: Mermaid 

Bio: She is a retired loyalist and an extremely skilled combat mage of fairly high rank working for an executive of Arc Trading that raised her. She left due to marrying a vampire who works as a cook. The two of them opened their own place where she is an entertainment mage and dancer who attracts customers. She has a pair of cute mixed-race children and her husband helps her with everything. 

Sometimes, she still has flashbacks and nightmares from her time as a soldier but since her husband does not know of her former occupation, she told him nothing about it and merely said she grew up in a warzone to explain her uncommon knowledge and skill to him and the neighbors. She is in general a soft-spoken person who dislikes swearing but has strong protective instincts over whom she considers her allies and her friends, whom she considers as such is completely separate from her allegiance which she is very loyal to and will always be loyal to. Despite being a rather gentle and conflict-shy person, she is a merciless fighter and considers it not below her to fight dirty if necessary for the sake of survival. 

Abilities: 

• Water Control: The ability to control water however she likes. It has to be present in physical form, she carries a magical jar with her where she stores a few dozen liters of water inside for battle. 

• Entertainer: A testament to her occupation as an entertaining mage after her time in the military before she was obligated to join the battle.

• Jiu-Jitsu: A flowing close-combat martial arts style. 

• Nether Blade: Her secret weapon and only used in an absolute emergency, it is a small hairpin-like blade that eats souls if it causes enough damage. She has to touch it with gloves or else the blade would eat her for having the nerve of using it

• Shifter: Can shift from her mermaid form into a human form and back.
  

Appearance: She is normally sized, neither big nor small, has long straight light blue hair kept pinned up by the Nether Blade in disguise in a ponytail. She wears light blue oversize shirts and tight black trousers. Her water storage is inside heavy silver earrings with sapphires inside them and a pair of black gloves. Her skin is pale with a bluish tint and has shiny blue scales spread sporadically all over her body. She has light silver eyes that work and look like those of a cat and she prefers to walk around barefoot.

How they got recruited: She didn’t want to join originally but Arc Trading made certain her two children were moved to a private school and threatened to sabotage their future. They also threatened to destroy her newly gained peaceful life. She joined them but her previous ironclad loyalty is deeply shaken by their actions.

Bonus: RainingSky isn't just a writer, they're an artist as well. Check out this awesome illustration they made of their character!