A young girl sat in her tower, brushing her long blonde hair. She sighed. She was so very bored.
"What should I do, Pascal?" she asked.
Pascal shrugged.
Just then, the girl heard a sound. "Flower!"
She ran to the window. Mother was home!
"Flower, let down your hair!"
The girl smiled and threw her hair down. Her long golden locks flew out the window and nearly touched the ground. Her mother grabbed on to the golden hair, and the girl pulled her up. Mother was soon inside, taking off her big black cloak that hid her hair and face.
The girl smiled as she saw her mother's familiar green eyes and short brown hair. Her mother had told her that her hair had been long and blonde once, just like the girl's was, until she had cut it and it had turned brown.
"Hello, Mother," said the girl.
Mother held out her arms. The girl ran into them, and was caught in a hug. "I missed you, Sunflower," said Mother.
Sunflower smiled. "I've missed you too, Mother. There's not much to do around here without anyone."
"You have Pascal," said her mother.
Sunflower frowned. "Pascal, he doesn't really talk," she said.
Her mother smiled. "That's true, but he has other ways of communicating."
Sunflower laughed as Pascal walked out from behind her mother's hair. He had been her mother's pet when she was young, and he had always liked her better. But her mother never let the chamelion come along when she left home, and on those occasions, Pascal was left with Sunflower.
Sunflower sometimes wondered about Mother's past. She had never talked much about it. All Sunflower knew was that when Mother was young, she had lived in the tower with her mother, and one day she had left the tower against the wishes of her mother. Because of that, her mother had died. Sunflower knew what her mother's mother had looked like from a painting in her mother's room. She'd had light blue eyes and curly black hair. Sunflower sometimes wondered why her mother didn't look anything like that woman, but she decided her mother's father had given her the looks. She knew that she herself had gotten her brown eyes from her father, most likely.
But Sunflower knew there was more to the story than just that. Her mother had told her that if anyone ever came looking for her, not to let on that she even knew her. And there were floating lights that only came out every year on her mother's birthday. Also, her mother never went outside very much, only to get the basics, and always at night.
She wanted to know what was the reason for those, but she knew her mother wouldn't tell her. There had to be a reason why her mother was hiding from the world, but so far Sunflower hadn't figured it out.