My Good Friend Aleksander.

Shadow Ⅴ| Year 9: Smile

The giggle of a baby bounced through out the halls, the child's stumpy legs clumsily maneuvering around the corners and passages as a smile climbed onto her face and settled on the curve of her mouth. A similar smile could be seen on Alina's face as she playfully chased after her clever little girl, feeling as much happiness as when she soaked beneath the sunlight.

"I'mmm going to get, I'm going to get you~!"

Alina pounced, grabbing Illya's waist gently and hauling her bundle of joy up into her arms before exclaiming in a happy tone, "I got you!" to which her daughter responded with a loud giggle and a babble of incoherent noises, "Uh goh meh!" 

Alina laughed and walked to the sitting room before laying to rest on one of the couches, cradling her daughter within her arms and gently rocking her, a content smile on her face as she gazed down on her precious, blue eyed child. 

The said blue eyes looked up at her happily when Alina stroked her soft black hair, a mumble of, "Mama" breaking free with a charming smile.

Alina laughed gently at her, rubbing her nose tip with her precious daughters, a love she'd never expected to know glowing from within her chest. 

She unwittingly began to summon, a soft, golden glow encasing her as her daughter looked up at her with glittering blue eyes, exclaiming, "Pweeti, Mama pweeti! Gwow, gwowing!"

Alina smiled adoringly and held her child to her bosom with an experienced, tender touch, her eyes closing and her grin full as she cradled her child. Illya stretched her stubby arms around Alina's neck, a soft hum of contentment coming from her mouth as she soaked in the warmth of her beautiful mother.

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Illya was a very intelligent child despite her being only a year old, her reactions and mind incredibly developed for a baby. 

She was crawling at 4 months old, walking at 6, and running at 8; she began making her first words when she was walking, and seemed to be on the quiet side, hardly ever bothering her parents at night, save only when she was a newly born baby.

That was what the shadow had observed over the course of the year.

He was always there, watching in the silence, in the calm; at the edge of the trees, gray quartz eyes staring fervently and intently for a glimpse of the life that the one he once favored lived in. She seemed more beautiful now, having grown over the course of the years, a smile could be often seen on her pink lips now. 

He would often peer beyond the tree line, stretching his shadowy face out as far as he could whenever he saw her bathing in the sunlight. A dreamy smile would overcome her features, her pale, small hands caressing the air, her fingers gliding in the sun's basking gaze. 

She seemed full of faint euphoria, her brown eyes flashing gold with every wave of her hand.

But then she would grow sad, her expression one of mourning and silence as if she missed it, the ache of power that once thrummed beneath her skin. Sometimes a tear would fall from her eyes; sometimes a bitter smile would overcome her older yet younger features.

It was then the child would come to her.

The child with the black hair like his, the blue eyes like her father, and a face that had a faint similarity to Alina's. 

He guessed the merzost he and Alina performed had something to do with the black hair, and what he sensed to be a distorted power of sunlight; whenever he looked at the child, he saw the night in her eyes. 

Those eyes that peered at him now. 

Big, and wide, and curious blue, the expression one of innocent curiosity.