Mother

Seble was on the ground, her gaze sweeping over the blank paper in front of her.  It didn't take her long before the pencil in her hand was against  the paper, tracing a circle.  It soon began to form a chin, a nose, eyes, hair.  Next thing Seble knew, her mother had been drawn before her.  She frowned faintly at the memory of her disowned mother. 

As a child, Seble's mother was the only person to protect her.  From her father to other children, Seble always knew her mother would be there.  A smile flickered across her face as she remembered back to when she had been pushed down on the rocks.  She was gathering water from the river for the stables, and a group of young boys pushed her down.  Seble had rushed home to her mother, who wrapped her scrapped knee with a cloth and taught Seble to not let a little scratch or large boys to scare her. 

"Fear is what will hurt you more than cuts and scraps.  Never let fear take over you, Seble," her mother had told her as she hugged the little girl tightly.  "And never show your fear, that'll only drive them to be worst."

With that memory, Seble began to draw a bear over her mother, and a little cub.  As she finished, she would rest her hand over the cub, murmuring out, "A mother bear protects, and then abandons when her child grows up.  Maybe that's what you intended to do, ma."

After her father was murdered, and Seble ran away, Seble's mother refused to speak to her.  Her mother had tears in her eyes, and whether it was grief or fear, they fought.  Though love for her mother swelled in Seble's heart, accompanied with grief.  No one knew of their fight, Seble refused to talk about it.  

Maybe someday Seble and her mother would reconnect, but today was not that day.