Seven Moments - Ilimya
Ilimya is seven years old when her mother finally allows her to join her father’s side in the Guild. For the first few months, it feels as though she has both parents close by again. It doesn’t take long, though, before her first transfer, and visits lessen on both sides.
She’s ten years old when she realises that her father’s smile no longer warms to his eyes. He rises higher in the ranks of the Guild until he stands just below the Ten. She no longer gets to see him as much as she is used to doing, though it gives her plenty of time to realise that only she can take herself anywhere in the world.
She’s twelve years old when she is assigned her first partner, a young man four years her senior. She is smitten from the first moment they meet, try though she might to hide it. He fits that fairytale standard of tall, dark and handsome. She tries to please him as best she can, working to propel them both forwards.
She’s sixteen years old when she begins to tire of him treating her like a child, and threatens to ask for a transfer. He doesn’t seem bothered by the prospect. She just happens to be an insignificant girl placed by his side. She will never be his fairytale princess.
She’s eighteen years old when she loses her own smile, forgetting it like he appears to have forgotten his. She remembers that she once had one, and tries in vain to bring it back. But these things take time and patience, and they are both losing that with each other.
Ilimya is nineteen years old by the time she is exhausted by just trying to keep up with him. He spends his time in other company, leaving her cold and alone most nights. She has long since given up trying to win him over.
She’s twenty-two years old when she realises that the rebellion aren’t all so cold and detached as he is. The youngest of the three ringleaders, a man her own age with a smile that warms to his eyes, willingly travels with her for a while. She thinks he might even have grown fond of her, had duty not interrupted such things.