Seven Moments - Artereht
Artereht is three years old when her brother leaves. There’s one small picture of him in the house, a fair-haired baby painted by her father’s own hand, but even to her older eye it looks like every other baby she’s seen. He is never real to her.
She’s six years old when they move house, somewhere slightly larger in a tiny village off the coast. She doesn’t like the smell of the sea; it makes her nose feel raw. She meets others her age there, though, that grow to be friends. It makes the smell easier to bear.
She is eight years old when her mother falls ill with a third child. Artereht doesn’t notice a great deal of difference, because her mother is mostly bedridden these days anyway. But it does make her a little more grateful when the kid is born, even though she’s sure he’s just a replacement for the first.
She’s ten years old when the child dies, no more real than her first brother. She begins to play with the smaller children around the village, particularly the boys. She’s always afraid that they might disappear as well, but she likes to make them smile until then.
Artereht is thirteen years old when she decides to join the Guild. Her parents don’t entirely approve, because she’s the only child they have left, but it’s no longer in their power to stop her. They part on decent terms, and she keeps in touch for a long while.
She’s fourteen years old when her mother falls ill again. This time she doesn’t recover. Art is pulled away on another mission for the Guild, but she later hears that the funeral was a busy affair, with half the village coming to pay their respects. That the others are still looking out for her pa is the only thing that eases the guilt of leaving him on his own.
She’s sixteen years old when she strays across a boy in the streets close to Sol Venia. He’s barely younger than her, perhaps a year or two. He’s older than the brother that died, and too young to be the other, so she takes him as a third. After just a few months in his company, she knows which of the three she prefers.