Elf Killers by Carol Marrs Phipps, Tom Phipps Page A

said Lilee as her face appeared beside Doona's knees.
    "Well, since Kieran has always been chums with Olloo, he's always been around making me laugh, making me mad and being my friend and companion. He also has that smile of his..."
    "So it's Kieran then, is it?" said Lilee, suddenly looking crushed.
    "Why Lilee! Are you...? Never mind. Listen girl. Kieran's not it. I've decided on Oisin. He's come to be an even better friend. He just seems to know what I'm thinking. And when he looks at me, Fates! There are moments he takes my breath clean away and sets my heart to racing..."
    With a sudden bounce, Lilee threw her arms around Doona's legs as her chick kicked and scrambled into Doona's lap.
    "You and Cairys are going to fall right off the side of this rock. I'm not going to tell you another word about it until we get up on top."
    "Sounds like love to me, Doona."
    "Do you really think so?" she said as she handed over Cairys and carefully turned about to resume the climb. "No wait. If we talk here, you'll get yourself killed."
    "No I won't. And I also think that with a bit more encouragement from you, he'd ask Brenden if he could come courting you."
    "But surely, the way he smiles at me he knows that I ..."
    "Well, at least enough to keep on flirting with you, but he knows you care for Kieran, too, and it's holding him back. You know it is."
    "So you think I need to let him know, aye? Maybe I need a new dress after all."
    Lilee paused to give Cairys a private little squeeze. "Well, I've got a few notions about that, Doona. And we're really, really not going to talk any more until we're on top or you'll be the one to fall and kill all four of us."
     
    The Strah fowl could be heard booming from somewhere well away over the grass from Carraig Faire. Up on top, under the vault of blue sky growing light, the Elven women squatted around Onora's skillet, working sticks into the coals beneath it as they tended sputtering strips of elk. Presently Onora rose to her feet with several pieces of hot meat in a deer skin. She gave a generous piece to Brendan and came to wake the girls. "Time to wake up," she said as she gave Doona a pat on the shoulder, "even if you two did stay awake all night whispering about young men and clothes."
    "You heard us?" said Doona, up on her elbows at once. "Fates! We didn't keep you and Brenden awake, did we?"
    "You know as well as I do that nothing short of a troll raid would keep him awake. And I only heard you from time to time as I was drifting off, but I was a young lady myself once, you know."
    "What do you mean by that?" said Doona, sharing a quick look with Lilee, who had just closed off a yawn.
    "Oh, trip on trenchers," she said as she held out her deer skin to each of them, "I just overheard snippets, but I was enough like you ones once to know how they all fit together..." 
    "Well, just how do I let Oisin know that I'd like him to court me and not break Kieran's heart at the same time?"
    "My. That is a most serious question to ask at breakfast, young lady. I'll tell you what, though. It's our turn to watch the children this morning while everyone works on sod or thatch. Maybe after we get the children rounded up, we could talk about this."
    Doona gave Onora a sudden hug. "Thank you for not treating me like a silly girl."
    "'Silly girl.' I'm right aware that you passed 'silly girl' long before you came over the mountains and are now on the doorstep of being a woman grown."
     
    The sun was just rising as Oisin, Olloo and Kieran rode into the briary edge of the East Maidenhair Woods, weary at the prospect of the long climb ahead yet grateful to be able to cross the Strah at night, safe from the shawkyn spooghey. And even though there were not any trolls on this side of the Eternal Mountains, they were grateful to be able to climb their flanks by day. For the rest of the morning they climbed as the sun rose higher and hotter at their backs. By noon, they got above the trees and began the laborious job