FicWad

"Here, give me the baby," said Faith, reaching for Elmo.

Elwe smiled gratefully and passed his youngest brother to the kind-faced woman. "Thank you, Mother," he said in heavily accented English. In the two years since their arrival in that strange place, the three brothers had all had to learn to speak its confusing, complicated language. Elmo had picked it up most readily, of course, most likely because he was so young.

Faith Kingston set the tiny elfling on her hip and turned to Olwe. "Where's Zipporah?" she asked.

"Behind you, Mother," said Olwe. Faith and Conrad Kingston had received the young Elves into their home almost a year before, and loved them as if they were their own. Their daughter, Zipporah, was no less happy to call them her brothers and shower them with kisses (or blows, as was more often).

Elwe, now Elmo-free, picked up the tall stack of library books to make way for his sister, responding to the librarian's friendly "Have a good day!" with a hurried "Thank you!"

Zipporah came up to the front desk with her own arms full of books. She smiled at Elmo while her books were being checked out, and Elmo put on his best "perfect darling" look - widening his large, beautiful golden eyes slightly and drawing up the corners of his little mouth.

Zipporah rolled her own brown eyes. That look always melted any female within eyesight, including herself, and he knew it too. Little flirt.

She picked up her books, acknowledging the librarian with a nod and a smile, and joined her mother and brothers. "I'm finished," she said. "Let's go."

They left the library and went out to Conrad's blue minivan. Olwe opened one of the side doors, allowing Zipporah and Elwe to climb in with their books. Faith, meanwhile, was firmly depositing Elmo in his carseat and strapping it in. Then she turned around and put the car key into Elwe's hand. "You're driving us home," she announced.

Elwe froze, staring from the key to the woman. Zipporah's eyes widened. Olwe's pink mouth opened and shut like a fish's. Elmo buried his face in his hands.

Then Elwe pursed his lips and seemed to pull himself together. "Yes ma'am," was all he said.

oo00oo

"You can go faster than 25 miles an hour, dear," said Faith placidly from the passenger's seat.

Elwe made no answer, his eyes fastened on the road and his hands on the steering wheel.

"Please, Mother," protested Olwe. "We'd like to get home alive."

"Oo, look at the puppy!" cried Elmo pointing out the window at the same time that Zipporah said, "Aww!"

"Do not distract me," said Elwe tersely. "We are almost home."

Carefully he turned into the drive leading up the house, pushing the button to open the garage, and steered inside. He shut off the engine and sighed.

"See?" said Faith. "We're home."

"All in one piece," said Zipporah.

Elwe growled and got out to unstrap Elmo.

oo00oo

Olwe tiptoed into the music room and stood in the doorway, listening to the tones of the grand piano at which Zipporah was sitting. She was lost in the intricacies of Chopin's Etude, Op. 25 No. 7, and could only still play the first page well. It was a lovely song even on its minute complexity (though I have yet to hear anything of Chopin's that is not) and Zipporah was most determined to learn it. But eventually she paused, and then noticed Olwe standing there.

"Come in Olwe, I don't bite," she said. "I haven't bitten anyone in the last three weeks. Don't be shy."

Olwe giggled and came in to climb up on the bench beside his sister. "Play for me?"

She smiled indulgently. "What would you like to hear?"

Olwe thought for a moment. "Clair de Lune!" he announced.

"Clair de Lune!" Zipporah shook her head. "I haven't played that one in a long time, Olwe."

"Then it is time to play it again," said he.

So she brought out the copy of Debussy's Works* which had lain abandoned for over a year and found the required selection. Then cautiously she began to play through the parts of the song that she could, smiling regretfully when her fingers faltered. "That's about all I can play off the top of my head," she said, kissing Olwe's forehead.

Olwe cuddled right up to her. "Then you can learn it again."

She laughed. "You and your brothers are the only ones I'd do these things for."

"We know," said Olwe. "You love us so much you cannot help yourself."

Zipporah cuffed him. "If I didn't love you, I'd crack you upside your head for sassin' me."

Olwe giggled again and kissed her cheek.

*a purely fictional colletion of Claude Debussy's compositions.