Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 The Solitary Arrow by Mack the Knife

   Part Six

   Harlen excused himself to his work room so that, as he put it, he could
try to keep an income, and left Hyandai in the common room.  She went
through her few belongings and cleaned up stuff as she found needed
cleaning, which is not much.  Restless, she went out into the front lawn.
The sun was getting low in the sky and she figured that there is little
left of that day.  She walked to the road and watched people leaving town
for outlying farmsteads and such.  They, naturally, stared back.  A few
stopped and they chatted, light banter about it being wonderful to see an
elf again, and how pretty she is, and such as that.  The hour passed
slowly, and eventually she tired of watching the people go by, as pleasant
as it was.  She walked the yard, looking at the various plants in the lush
grasses, and at the two large willows that grew in front of the house. 
They were beautiful, and they comforted her in her disquiet.

   She knew that soon she must leave these lands and return to her own, to
face what she may.  The feeling of impending doom had been growing in her
heart for two days, and showed no sign of abating.  She tried to sing to
make herself feel better.  Her voice lifted in lovely melody, filling the
yard and the road before it with the ringing of her clear voice.  It
attracted a couple of passing youths, young, good-looking lads in their
middle teens.  They admired the sound and watched her as she moved through
the yard.  She smiled and waved to them, causing them to chuckle and blush.
She enjoyed how the humans reacted to her, it's sweet, and very endearing.
The song, however changed tone in the middle, and slowly descended into a
rather alarming sound, a song of distress and fear.  Once begun, it is
unwise for an elf to end a song before it comes to its own close, and she
did not.  Songs follow their own evolution as they are sung, and they can
sometimes turn on the singer, like a viper, and just as likely, they will
uplift and go higher than the performer could have hoped.  This was one of
the former, she feared.

   The yard seemed to darken as the syllables and words flowed forth from
her.  The sound was still pure, and clear, and beautiful, but the boys were
now gone, disquieted by the general sensations they felt from the tones and
melody.  The sky felt darker, and the yard was crushingly small.  A edge of
panic set into her tones, and even the birds in the tree fled the sounds of
this doom befalling them.

   Harlen came out of the house, and looked around frantically.  He ran up
to her, and grabbed her arms, roughly, shaking her from the reverie in
which she had fallen.  "Hyandai, wake up!" He yelled, she could barely hear
him over the discordant wail that filled the air.

   She looked at him with terror in her eyes.  "Harlen, what is that horrid
noise?" She asked, and realized it was gone as soon as she started to
speak. It had been her own voice that was causing the leaves to fall from
the willows and the grass to wilt around her.  The darkness left her and
the light of late afternoon once again pierced the yard.

   "What were you doing?" He asked, looking with intense worry into her
face.

   She looked back up at him, her golden eyes flashing.  "I do not know.  I
was just singing, and that came upon me." Tears were welling in her lovely
eyes, and starting to trail down her cheeks.  "I am very afraid, Harlen."
She whispered to him.

   "I am too, my love." He replied, and pulled her to him.

   She went willingly enough, not resisting, but neither did she return the
embrace.  She instead looked over his shoulder, panic still causing her
eyes to flicker this way and that, watching for some unseen menace.

   "I am going to die." She whispered into his ear.  "It was my own dirge I
sang."

   Harlen stepped back and looked at her.  "What?" He asked.  "How can you
know this?" He demanded.  "So far as I know, even the foresighted cannot
accurately tell one's future regarding death."

   She wept into her hands.  "I know not how, or why, I simply know it was
so." She looked at him through her fingers.  "When an elf sings another's
dirge it is joyous and glad." She said, her voice muffled by her hands. 
"But when one sings their own, it shows them their limits, and brings to
mind that even the elves have but a few years upon the world.  She smiled
bitterly.  "Few wish to know how unimportant they are, ultimately."

   Harlen said.  "I know how very important you are to me, even if I am
unimportant." Taking her hands and pulling them to his lips and kissing the
fingertips.  "You are important, and for more reason than just my opinion."

   She smiled.  "I am, in my own limited space on the world." She said. 
"But against the backdrop of time, I am just a speck of sand, we all are."

   Harlen nodded.  "I suppose that is true." He said, then grinned.  "But
nothing says two grains can't enjoy themselves when they wash up and sit on
a sunny bank in the summer."

   She giggled at that.  "Your grasp of the banal is staggering." She said,
and kissed him on the lips.  "You make light of my woes, and make them
lighter by doing so." She looked up at the sky.  "I will not yet despair
for myself or my clan."

   "What is all this about your clan." Harlen asked.  "Why is it your
responsibility to do whatever it is you're doing for them?"

   She regarded him a long moment, then said.  "There is no reason to not
tell you, it is not a secret.  My clan has lost something, a weapon of
great power and virtue." She explained.  "The war between the Windy Isles
and Ghantian City States has greatly reduced our warriors, and we have
great need of defenders." She sighed and looked at the willows.  Each clan
provides for their own defenders and to the king during time of war.  Many
died on the Isles.  The Ehladrel I seek to recover for my clan was stolen
many years ago, and we only recently got word of its possible whereabouts.
We need that weapon, if I can reclaim it, then it will help the wielder to
train others, and we can rebuild our warrior caste." She shrugged.  "We
will do so, over great time, anyway, but we fear we may not have such time.
Rumors have come from the Abian Empire having designs upon the now reduced
Windy Islanders."

   "Aren't the Windy Islanders men?  How is it you concern yourselves so
much in their welfare?" Harlen asked.

   She looked at him.  "The men of the Windy Isles are our allies, and we
have had a hand in making their culture as it stands now.  We are also
responsible for them being as little militarily as they are." She sight
again.  "We have to help them defend themselves as they have weak defenses
by our hand.  So," she was concluding, "we must be strong for them, until
we find a way to make them stronger."

   "What about the Starre Island elves?" Harlen asked.  "I have heard they
will not help men, but you're elves."

   "Who are helping men.  They have already made clear they will not assist
us in our projects concerning the Windy Isles, which they see as an
experiment doomed to fail." She said automatically, as if it were well
entrenched rote.

   Harlen thought a long moment.  "Since the seer saw you coming to regain
your clan's heirloom in the company of a betrothed man, they arranged for
your betrothal?" He said.  "It seems somewhat cold to me."

   "Yes." She admitted.  "They felt that I should try with Eleean, who
sought to become the wielder of that weapon.  He was distant within the
clan and our betrothal was sanctified by the priests of our land." She
looked at him again, her eyes tearing.  "But we never even reached the
mountains where the thief of our Ehladrel lay."

   "What was Eleean's profession before you set out on this misadventure?"
Harlen asked.

   She smiled a thin, sour smile.  "He was a sculptor." She replied.

   "And you, my love?" He asked, looking rather dazed.

   She squared her shoulders yet her head drooped slightly.  "I am a
scribe." She said, giving him another wry smile.  "My clan sent forth a
sculptor and a scribe to recover an heirloom from an enemy known to be
dangerous." She met his eyes.  "We were that desperate.  And Eleean and I
volunteered when the call was made, no warriors could be spared."

   "You were frightened?" Harlen ventured, already pretty certain of the
answer.

   She smiled at him.  "Terrified." She said, and looked down at her hands.
"I had never wielded my hyandai in contest before, and within three days,
it was bloodied, and my bow sang deadly notes." She looked up at him.  "I
have never taken life before, Harlen, not the life of a being who could
think, even the foul orcs think, and I had to kill them."

   Harlen nodded.  "I know, it is ever so for people who are kind and
decent." He said.  "They try not to become what they must kill out of
necessity while preventing that evil from taking their own life."

   She stood up and took his hands.  "You have killed before, though, I saw
that on the first evening with the orcs.  You had a look." She said,
looking into his eyes.  "There was a resignation in them, of having a
distasteful thing to do that simply must be done."

   He nodded.  "I had killed before that day." He said.  "I killed a man
who tried to kill me."

   "Then it was self defense." She said, nodding.

   "No." Harlen said.  "It was vengeance." He looked from her eyes. 
"You've seen my scars on my back, I am sure." He said.

   "Of course." She answered.  "They are unsubtle."

   He nodded.  "Yeah.  Well, those were given me by the sheriff of this
land at the order of the duke, for the crime of vigilantism." He said.  "I
hunted the man down, the same fellow who showed me that cave, for trying to
kill me and steal my pelts." His face looked distant.  "I killed him right
in front of his home, with his wife, and two children watching."

   Hyandai gasped.  "It must have been horrible."

   Harlen chuckled.  "I suppose, for them, it was." He looked at her.  "He
had been a terrible man to them, and she was not overly tearful at his
passing." He said.  "But he was their breadwinner, and without his hands to
work, they had a bad winter." His eyes filled with tears.  "One of the
children, the younger, died and the widow was reduced to whoring herself to
shepherds and soldiers for firewood and food." He finally let the tears
fall.  "Every month, I send a third of my money I have earned to them, not
that it is sufficient, but I send it anyway." He now sat upon the bench and
put his head into his hands.  "No matter the amount, I will never get his
blood off me, and I will never quit seeing that small girl, dying in a cold
room, or the widow upon her knees servicing drunken soldiers in alleys for
copper pennies."

   She just stared at him.  "That is much guilt to bear for doing only what
would have happened if he had been charged, I deem."

   Harlen nodded.  "So I was told by the duke's lash." He said.  "I was not
charged with murder, as he was a criminal, and none contested that he would
have been hanged for his crimes." He looked up with his blue eyes wet with
tears.  "It was that I did it without going through the trials and proper
ways, and letters of the law." He said.  "My crime was vigilantism for
thinking myself as high as the law, and as wise." He pointed at his back.
"These," He said, "are not my punishment, they were but a reminder.  My
punishment is seeing those children as I sleep, and passing the widow when
I go to Winlow's Crossing, and seeing the gravestones in the cemetery
there." He sneered at himself.  "My punishment is living with what I had
done to them, not to him."

   "But it was not your doing, solely." She said, trying to defend him from
himself.

   "Please, spare me the justification and the explanations." He said.  "I
have heard them before, many times." He looked at her with haunted eyes. 
"The widow is still sucking shepherds, the child is still dead, and the
man, who had been a friend, still molders in a shallow grave."

   "I even tried to marry her, to bring her here, and take the family on as
charge." He said, throwing his arms out expansively.  "And she accepted,
saying that one man is much like another to her." He laughed bitterly at
that.  "But the duke forbade it, saying that I had committed a most heinous
crime, and not being able to fix all the woes I had inflicted was part of
the punishment."

   She gasped.  "A stern punishment, I think." She said.  "And most
unkind."

   "Perhaps." Harlen said, shrugging.  "But it is what it is." He looked
around.  "I get along fine, I suppose, considering." He looked back at
Hyandai.  "But I still see them on the ocassion." He looked deeper into her
eyes.  "You know what bothers me most?" Hyandai shook her head.  "She
forgave me.  Can you imagine that?  The widow forgave me." He laughed
again, and the laughter was frightening to her.

   She looked at him with those golden eyes.  "Maybe you should forgive
yourself.  You were young, and brash, and wronged." She said.  "Maybe you
did go too far, in killing the louse, a scoundrel who would backstab a
friend.  But you did not intend to hurt the family."

   "Whatever my intent, it is what happened." He said.  "But I go on." He
stood and took her hand, not terribly gently.  "Let us retire to the common
room."

   As they entered the room, his face changed, as if he left his woes at
the door.  She worried that he could shift his visage and apparently his
mood so handily.  She wondered what else lie buried under that idle smile.
As they sat upon the long padded bench he asked.  "What exactly did your
seer say?"

   She looked at him a long moment.  "She said.  `The Hyandai and the Arrow
will gather the Ehladrel to them in the mountains east, their betrothal
fresh on their lips and their love in their hearts.  She is the Mother Not,
and He is the Father Not.  They will face down the evil and come to their
gain, gathering forth the weapon that was lost.'"

   Harlen looked at her.  "That's it?" He asked.

   She nodded.  "Yes.  It's not long, foretellings are often is short and
cryptic like that." She smiled bitterly.  "I suppose its why we do not rely
upon it for more mundane tasks."

   Harlen looked at her.  "It's worse than cryptic." he said.  "It's
downright confusing." He thought a moment.  "I can't make heads or tails of
it.  What is that business of mother not and father not?

   "We assumed it meant they were childless, which Eleean and I were." She
shrugged.

   "I don't think foretellings work that way.  They don't point out the
obvious." Harlen said.  "If it was in there, and the seer saw it, then
there was need for it." He thought a moment.  "Also, from what you say,
there was little actual love in either of your hearts for one another." He
added

   She giggled.  "Like you and I?" She said, smiling and leaning into his
waiting arms.

   "Exactly like you and I." Harlen said, and embraced her warm, compact
body.  "We chose one another, not some fortune teller." He shrugged behind
her, making her smile as he tickled her arms.  "You can't go ramming the
pegs into the foretelling, you mold the words around the pegs."

   "What do you mean?" She said, looking up at him.  "Mold it to the pegs?"

   He looked down and kissed her forehead.  "I mean, that you don't force
it, you interpret it." He said.  "It's not there to be kludged into a
working reality, its there to be kludged around a reality that is."

   "It's all a bit much for me." She said.  "I am just a scribe, as I have
said."

   "Yes, and I think we might should retire for the day, perhaps the morrow
will bring more enlightenment to us and to those words." He agreed, and
took her hand and led her up the stairs.

   She stared at him as he disrobed and watched with a smile as he crawled
between the warm-looking blankets.  She then took off her clothes and
slipped in beside him.  "There is too much room on this bed." She said,
snuggling next to him.  "I do not wish to be so far from you." She turned
to face him, laying one leg over his.

   Harlen breathed in deeply and said.  "Nor do I want you that far,
either." He said, sniffing her hair.  He smiled at her gently.  "You said
you would do that thing for me anytime I wanted?" He asked.

   She grinned.  "Yes, do you wish it now?" She replied, beginning to push
down the covers.

   "No." He said, smiling wider.  "I just wondered if you were willing."

   She kissed his neck.  "More than willing." She said, and her hand slowly
crept down his belly.

   He stopped her hand with his.  "No." He said.  "I beg leave tonight, I
wish to be able to perform that much better on the morrow."

   She made a mock pouting face, but relented.  "Very well, if you will
have naught but my maidenhood, then on the morrow."

   "I would." He said, and gave her a very long kiss.  "And I hope to have
it for a while after."

   She smiled.  "Perhaps, my lover, perhaps."

   --

   Morning found them entwined with one another, and Harlen wakeful.  He
had his arms about her, and she about him, a first.  He liked the feeling
of her belly against his, and the soft breath that tickled his nose.  They
were pressed together quite firmly, he noted, as if they had just embraced.
Her legs were intermixed with his, alternating, and he wondered how that
came to pass.  He could feel her moisture on one leg, and liked that.  He
could also feel her leg with the soft skin of his organ.  Not that it
remained soft for long, the thoughts he was having would see to that.

   She must have felt him move, as her eyes flickered open and she looked
at him, with golden regard.  "Good morrow, my love." She said and kissed
him with barely any movement needed.  "This is a happy waking." She added,
then paused and giggled.  "And growing happier still, I feel." Her leg
moved between his and rubbed softly against his growing manhood.

   Harlen, however backed up a bit, and smiled down at her.  "Not just
yet." He said and climbed out of bed and put on his pants.  "We have all
day to take care of that bit." He grinned, and went out the door.

   Hyandai blinked a few times, wondering what she might have missed, then
got up and padded after him.  As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she
turned the corner toward the kitchen and came face to face with Trevir.

   Trevir gasped and looked down then squeezed his eyes shut, then covered
them with his hands.

   She giggled.  "You really must stop that." She said.  "Harlen, I am
going to make Trevir quit staring, is that agreeable?"

   A voice came from his work room.  "Yes, dear, he would certainly get
more done."

   She took his hands in hers and pulled them down.  "Trevir, please look
at me." She said.

   He slowly opened his eyes, and blinked, trying to not see anything below
her face.  She smiled sweetly.  "No, Trevir, LOOK at me." She said, herself
looking down.  His eyes naturally followed her gesture and he was looking
at her breasts, then her long torso down to her pubic mound, then on to the
long legs.  She let his hands go.  "Look until you are content that you
have seen all." She said, and moved her feet subtly apart, and put her
hands behind her back, causing her chest to stick out slightly.  "If you
need, ask, and I will turn about." He stared at her body, and his green
eyes flicked from spot to spot.  "You may get closer, Trevir, if you wish
it." She said, and he leaned closer to her.  She was smiling sweetly at
him, watching his fascination with a slight twinkle of humor in her eyes.
She was not quite certain if Harlen had examined her quite so thoroughly.
He seemed to be trying awfully hard to look between her legs at her
womanhood.  She gently pushed him to his knees, and stepped half a step
closer, and moved her feet even farther apart.  Now, he had a perfect view
and he examined it quite a lot, then he looked at her long, shapely legs.

   "Those stitches need to come out, there." He said, rather surprising
her. "Harlen says that when the skin starts getting dry near the edge, it
is ready."

   She nodded.  "Then I will inform him to do so.  Unless you would do it
for me, since you are versed in the ways of wound treatment."

   He shook his head, looking up her long frame.  "I don't thin..."

   "Harlen, young Trevir says that the stitches in my leg need to be
removed.  If so, he should get some practice removing them." She said
loudly over her shoulder.

   The hunter's voice came from the work room.  "They probably do.  Trev,
get your sharp knife and come get some fine tweezers in here and take them
out for her."

   The lad stood, looking embarrassed and somewhat excited.  She watched
him run off to the workshop and come out with a small metal implement that
looked somewhat dangerous, and his short skinning knife, still in it's
sheath.  He said "He says I should cut the string, then pull the knots out
with these." He held up the tweezers with his left hand, clicking them
together.

   "Very well, Trevir." She stepped up onto a chair near the dining table,
and steadied herself with a hand on the table.

   She watched him with his knife nearing her thigh.  As his hands drifted
closer and closer to her pubis, they shook more and more.  "Trevir." She
said.  "Calm yourself.  I am not a woman right now, I am a patient."

   "Right." He said.  "That's why I'm shaking." His smile took on a crooked
hook, much like Harlen's.  "I've never had such a pretty patient." He
stammered out.

   "Please, though, for my safety, put your thoughts of my appearance out
of your mind." She said.  "Think, instead, of my leg as afflicted and in
risk of falling off if you do not repair it properly."

   Trevir's eyes focused intently, and his tongue peeked out of his mouth.
He was the very picture of concentration.  He was a good lad, and doing
amazingly well, when faced with touching his first nude woman.  His hand
rested on her thigh, just inches from her folded pubic area, his little
finger, actually on the lip, somewhat.  His thumb pressed down, stretching
the skin slightly.  He cut the string.  Hyandai gasped.

   The boy looked up worried.  "I'm sorry, Miss Hyandai, it will probably
hurt a little."

   The elven woman looked down.  "That is fine.  I am reasonably immured of
pain." She said, biting her lip.  Pain was not what had just lanced from
the nerves of her thigh to her brain and back to her womanhood.  He cut
another, and she managed to simply blink at it, though the nerves were now
jangling and secretly longing for the next.  He moved his hands and cut
another, then another.  By the time he had cut all of them, she was nearly
crying.  When he stopped, she said.  "Well done, Trevir."

   He smiled up at her.  He truly did not seem to now notice she was nude,
he was in his work, where she wanted him.  Now if only she did not realize
that she was unclad and standing before a young lad who was fully her own
height, and probably considerably stronger than she, and who, like his
mentor, smelled of hard work and earth.  She simply smiled back.

   He took the tweezers and pulled the first string out of the stitch, it
caught a little, then slid through the flesh, and seemed to hit every nerve
in her thigh.  She swallowed as she fought to keep from moaning.  He
immediately pulled out another, then another.

   "Are you well, Miss Hyandai?" He asked.  "Your knees are a bit
wobbly-looking." He looked honestly concerned.

   "I am fine, Trevir, just a bit tired from all the long walks in the
wilds up to yesterday." She said, her mind racing for a way to control her
reactions.

   He pulled another, and kept pulling them.  She could feel her moisture
on her thigh now, and he was only half done.  He pulled a couple more and
she did moan, she could not stop it.  Her eyes shut as a ripple of pleasure
went through her, and she opened her mouth a little.  He seemed oblivious.
Another stitch then another, and another, more intense ripple tore through
her.  She moaned louder this time, and her eyes blinked, her breathing was
becoming shallow.

   "I hope it is not hurting too much, Miss Hyandai." He said, "I'm almost
done."

   "That.  That is good, Trevir, you are doing well." She stammered out. 
Another stitch came out then four more in quick succession.  Her eyes
widened as she felt the signs of an orgasm nearing her.  He pulled another
and another, and it began to come forth.  She bit her lip hard to keep from
crying out as the mild climax made her shudder, and her body tense up.  She
felt her body blush pink and the thin layer of sweat cover her.  She
twitched as he pulled out the last.

   "There you go." He said, and patted the wound.  "Good as new." She
stepped off of the chair and looked at it.  Then he added.  "You smell
good, you know that?"

   She was still breathing heavy.  "Very well done, and not too painful."
She said, smiling at him.  "Now, do you feel that you can see me unclad and
not stare like a bumpkin?"

   He grinned.  "Yeah, I could now.  You are pretty, though, but it is all
kind of the same, isn't it?" He said.  "Stitching and stuff are pretty much
the same on people as animals."

   Hyandai agreed.  "Indeed, it is so." She said, and positioned herself
directly behind him.  She tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned,
she kissed him, with mouth open and forced her way into his mouth with her
tongue, then took his into hers, sucking it gently, all the while rubbing
her body against his and her fingers in his short-cropped hair.  She felt
his young manhood stiffen instantly at the contact, and made sure to rub
against that with her thigh.  When she parted lips with him, she said. 
"Except animals cannot thank you quite as well."

   He stood stunned for a few moments, then nodded slowly.  "I see." He
finally said.  She turned to go see what had distracted Harlen so much.

   When she walked into the workshop, Harlen said.  "You think he's cured
now?"

   She looked at the various work benches, stretching frames, and pelts and
leathers in various states of completion.  "Yes." She said.  "He will
probably not gawk at me quite so much now." She giggled.

   "You didn't hurt him did you, or break his mind?" Harlen said, turning
on his work stool to face her.

   She tilted her head.  "It depends on what breaking a lad's mind
entails." She said.  "Will a kiss break a mind?"

   Harlen nodded seriously.  "It could, if you did it." He smiled, though.
"But Trevir's a tough lad, he'll manage."

   "Then all is well." She said, walking up to him.

   Harlen sniffed the air appreciatively.  "Mmm.  You smell good." He said.

   She nuzzled his neck and said.  "So I've been told." She kissed his neck
and chin.

   "It wasn't that strong this morning in the bedroom." He said.  "Does it
always change intensity?"

   She smiled into his neck.  "It goes and comes." She said.  "Depending on
our mood and other considerations."

   Hyandai watched him work a while, when she could keep her hands off of
him long enough, and the reverse was true, he might be reaching for a
scraper, only to find his hand diverted by a small, pert breast, or
well-turned thigh.  But he managed to get some work done before declaring
that he needed a break.

   He said.  "Hyandai, you need to get dressed, my love.  We need to go
somewhere." He said, following her up the stairs, and watching her perfect
small backside move side to side as she went up the stairs.

   "Very well." She said, and slipped on her half top and skirt.  She also
donned a loincloth, to make herself proper for public.  Harlen put on a
very nice looking blue tunic over his black trousers, and his knee boots.
"This must indeed be an important trip." She said, eyeing the attractive
hue of the tunic.  "It matches your eyes, my love." She said, stepping up
to him.

   He gave her a quick kiss and gripped her shoulders.  "It is pretty
important." He helped her with her low boots, and they checked themselves
in the mirror.  Trevir came in and informed Harlen that he had put the
tweezers away.

   "Wonder what took him so long?" Harlen asked.

   Hyandai shrugged.  "Probably had other things to tend to.  You keep him
busy." She said.  Then her face snapped with an epiphany.  "Harlen, is
Trevir the child..."

   Harlen grimaced a little.  "Yes." He said.  "How do you think I send the
money to her?"

   She smiled gently.  "I will say no more of it." She said.  She wondered
if anyone noticed that Trevir, unlike almost all apprentices, was well paid
for his minor chores and services.  Possibly, but no one seemed to want to
call attention to it.  "He is a good lad." She said.

   Harlen nodded.  "Yes, and I want to help him become a good man."

   She hugged him fiercely from behind.  "I am certain he will be." She
said, then asked.  "Where are we going?"

   The hunter put on a fine bracer of silver and put a similar bracer on
her wrist.  She looked at it, it was lovely, and fairly heavy.  "We're
going to go see the first woman I loved." He said.

   Hyandai looked a bit confused for a moment, then shrugged.  She trusted
this man, he would not do something to hurt her feelings, she was sure. 
"Ah." She said.