Oatie was moving quickly up the hill. The exuberance of youth. No respect for elders, thought Lugh. He was about to ask her what the rush was when she stopped, looking out from where she stood. Lugh saw that it was the top of the ridge and he saw that she was gazing out over the landscape below.
“I love this view,” Oatie said.
It was beautiful, the land laid out in green and blue, a patchwork of wilderness. Perhaps more to a Norfolk like Oatie who might think, there’s where I planted those trees, hey look there is my field of wildflowers. “I see what you mean. You can see for miles up here.”
She looked at him and smiled, “Know what you don’t see?”
He scanned the land laid out before him. It was beautiful, there were lakes, hills crowned with trees, swaths of color, but it was a puzzle to him what she meant. He looked back the way they came, searching for some idea. Strangely, but not really, the Norfolk intended, but still, it was surprising that the world seemed as empty behind them as before, “I can’t even see the sidhe from here.”
She laughed again, “That’s it!” Without another word Oatie Moss began to march down the path, whistling as she went.
Lugh paused to look around a bit more and to ponder. He hadn’t pegged Oatie as being anti-social. Perhaps she had her reasons. Lugh, for his part, was accustomed to solitary periods. Fleeing for one’s life makes it preferable, but Lugh thought he mostly liked to be around people. Whatever, his current company had improved. He thought, It seems that Oatie might not actually hate me at all, but rather she might have suffered the oppression of the thick human soup that was life in the sidhe.
Lugh started after Oatie. Not for the first time, he wondered why he found her so intriguing. Then she turned and smiled at him and there was no more reason to think.
