Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young maiden. Her life was quite calm - or at least as calm as it could get when it came to where she lived - until she was married off and sent to live in a new world. There she became very depressed and missed her family back at home. Many times when she was home alone, she thought about her childhood and her friends. However, she was also very excited to live with her husband and enthusiastic about all the things to come later on.

A few years later she conceived a lovely little girl. She raised the girl with love and affection, forgetting about her past life back with her family and friends. Memories of them would rise and fade, but never stay for too long, for her attention was always kept on her daughter.
         

A few more years passed and her daughter started to feel lonely, playing by herself. The daughter asked her mother for a little sister to play tag and run around with. The little girl's parents had never quite thought of having another child. They never deemed it necessary. So the mother started asking her daughter more frequently if she wanted a sibling. Each time the daughter would say yes. And so the decision was made to have another child.
         

Years passed and the mother bore a another child, wide-eyed and wild. Her primary daughter drifted to the back of her mind like her family and friends had done once. Now her attention was occupied with the secondary child. Fire burned in that child's inquisitive eyes. It reminded the mother of her younger, unmarried self.
         

As her children grew older, the mother started to feel the effects of old age set in her bones. The older daughter started to drift away while the younger one took more and more of her mother's attention... she started to grow weary. She, like her first daughter, felt the hardness of metal set into her muscles. Her routine became very simple and consisted of only three words: cook, clean, drive. She became robotic. Much of her fire had been extinguished since she last conceived a child. That fire now burned in her young daughter, creating a bond between them.
         

Change was always welcome in the mother's life. It took some of the hardness away from her muscles. If change didn't come, her muscles would start to squeak and clank. So she strove to provide change in her life, trying out many short activities or long projects. Some worked better than others, but the three mechanical words still dominated her life: cook, clean, drive. No matter what she did, she could never fully remove the solidness from her muscles. She realized that only, time could ware away the metal. Even then, she wondered wheather some hardness would stay with her forever.
         

The older daughter tried to express her gratitude towards her mother but didn't understand how to, for she was born with an inability to speak. Through her years, the daughter learned to write. She used her gift to write for her mother, to show her understanding of her mother's helpless life. The daughter realizes that just having an understanding of her mother's labors is not enough. She recognizes that her mother needs help, she recognizes that her mother feels alone. But instead the daughter yells and screams at her mother. The daughter lashes out at her mother because she only thinks of herself and her problems. She breaks her mother's heart as well as her own in this process. The daughter realizes she is selfish and ignorant and will try to make efforts to bring happiness into her beloved mother's life.