Standard disclaimers apply.
Seven Years
First Year
You remind me of your mother.
It didn't seem like it so much when you were a little girl, so light that, without too much effort on my part, I could carry you on my shoulders and tickle the soles of your feet. You would be a grand lady then, and I your faithful steed, traversing to the riverside to pick flowers and string into a crown for your hair. If we were lucky, there might have been some left to bring home to mama or Lady Sun, when the day was over.
But now that you're older (though not by a great deal) and claim to be grown up, I can already find traces of her there. It's the way you run your fingers through your hair- too long, the elders say, to be kept down- and the candle-glow throws a soft brilliance upon your head, dancing with the shadows. It's the way you incline your head at me when I ask you a question as if you were an equal and not a child, with that funny expression on your face, delicate and polite, a little confused.
Except for your eyes, which are always aware. Your father's eyes.
Still, you are like her. So very much like her.