𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

𝟎𝟏𝟒

a/n; remember to comment! commenting really boosts my motivation & that means faster updates! don't be a silent reader!

—

Three years had been a horrendously long period of time peppered with bitterness. You grew up quickly, with your height inching close to your mother's head. You were tall for your age, and you often towered over your cousins.

Those three years had been nothing short of brutal. You felt unbearably lonely confined within the four walls of your house, like there was a quiet echo following behind you, like there was a prison ball chained to your ankle. In those three years, you found that you had never looked forward to anything. Apart from the small moments in which you would bake blueberry pies and make dried mangoes with your mother, everything was pure pain.

You had to keep reminding yourself that all of this suffering was to serve Silas. To serve the future Emperor. This fact should have caused you to be resentful of him, but instead, it did the very opposite. You liked having a purpose. You liked knowing you were of use to someone.

Silas's face had started to blur in your head, and you would reread your own journal entries to remember the affection you had for him. It was hard loving someone whom you had not seen for three years, but it was also easy, for at times, you could still think of his rare laugh, bright and fond — you could still think of the fun the two of you had together.

You wondered if you were foolish to believe that things would remain the same. Would it be easy to slide into the roles that the two of you had assumed before? To ease into the notion of being friends with him again? You wondered how much you had changed. Apart from getting various skills drilled into you, apart from growing taller and sturdier — had your heart changed either? What about your soul? Would Silas still remember the moments you shared, or had they been tossed away?

You had thought about Silas for these three years. You hoped Silas had done the same. To move from seven years old to ten was a big jump — would he have cut his shoulder length hair by now, or had it grown much longer?

Today was the day you would meet him again. You were excited beyond belief, and yet worry seeped into your bones. You wanted desperately to have the same sort of relationship that you had shared with him before, but what if he would choose to ignore you? What if training had hardened Silas until he was a nothing but a shell of the person he was before?

All these questions, and yet you wouldn't get the answers until later. You had spent the whole morning antsy and jittery until your mother had finally walked into your room and told you to get ready. Your bones and muscles were aching and yet relieved to have been granted a day's rest from the three years of non stop consecutive training.

I can't wait to show off everything I've learned! You thought excitedly, let's see... I've learned poison resistance, I've learned healing, mana casting Tier Five, and...