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Otik enjoyed the tune without recognizing it. He watched Tika,
her eyes shut and her arms waving in the air as she sang, and he
thought with a sudden ache, "She's old enough for her own place."
Tika had lived with him for a long time; she was as close to a
daughter as he would ever have. Before that, for many years, he
had lived alone happily. Now he could not imagine how he had
stood it.
Finally she finished, and he said, "Nicely sung. What was
that?"
"That?" She blushed. "Oh, the song. It's called The Song of
Elen Waiting.' I heard it last night."
"I remember." The singer had been all of twenty-three, most of
his listeners fifteen. He had curly dark hair and deep blue eyes, and
by his second song half the girls of Solace were around him.
"Some young man sang it, didn't he?"
"You're teasing me." Tika scowled, even when Otik smiled and
shook his head. "You don't take me seriously."
"Oh, but I do, I do. This young man that sang-"
"Rian." She said it softly, and the scowl went. "He wasn't so
young. Do you know, he had seven gray hairs?"
"Really? Seven, exactly?"
She didn't notice the tease, but nodded vigorously, her own
hair bouncing off her shoulders. "Exactly. He let three of us count
them after he was done singing, and we all came up with the same
number."
"Nice of him to let you."
"Oh, I think he liked it," Tika said innocently. Then she
frowned. "Especially when Loriel did it
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