Passersby ➵ ONC 2021

➵ gravity answers

"Stand straighter up," Elu instructs, "and face the wind."

Legolas puts his bow back over his shoulder, leaving his arms at his sides and looking out ahead of him. They stand on a high hill, looking out over the ocean, the great forests of Shfashara on their left and its mountains behind them. They've been shooting targets, Legolas practicing with spears; Elu borrowing his bow and practicing with arrows. He's figured out how to shoot with half his forearm missing, pulling the bowstring back in the crook of his arm and holding the bow with the hand he has left. He isn't a bad shot. The tarps can prove it.

But they've stopped, standing on the topmost point of the hill and looking out at the skyline of pure water. Elu takes in a long breath and hands the quiver of arrows back to Legolas, who straps it back behind his shoulder as they take in the beauty around them.

"It is said that these lands know the answer to our every aching question," Elu speaks, not making an effort to be louder than the wind itself. "Sometimes if you close your eyes and ask it, gravity itself will pull you towards the answer. You just need to know how to decipher what it tells you."

"How is it that you decipher such things?" Legolas asks. "How can you be sure what it is urging you to understand?"

Elu only closes his eyes and listens to the wind.

"I feel it pulling me towards the water," he speaks. "I feel it speaking to me about the sand."

Legolas, whose eyes are closed softly as he listens to the rest of the world, is slightly disheartened as he does not feel the pull of the earth any more than the usual.

"I asked it a question. Why does it not answer?"

Elu smiles, his eyes still closed against the cool midday sun. "Sometimes it does not wish to," he replies. "It is our job to accept when there are things we must find out on our own."

They sit cross-legged on the ground. Farriel, walking out of the shooting range through the tall trees, sits next to them, but says nothing. It is said that she does not know how to speak. She only listens.

"Back home in Mirkwood," Legolas says, his outstretched fingers running through the soft grass, "we learned from a young age how to listen to the trees."

Elu laughs. "But trees do not speak."

"And the ground does not pull," Legolas replies smugly before gazing off at the forest. "They say many things, the trees of the woods. You can smell it in their scent and hear it in their movements. You can touch their bark and feel what they are singing."

"And what do they say?"

"Greetings," Legolas replies. "Mostly hellos and cordial introductions. But when they do not notice you — which is when you are lucky; they notice nearly everything nearly all the time — you can feel them laughing and telling stories and speaking of rain."

Farriel, listening intently, watches Legolas braid the blades of grass in his fingers and thinks of speaking to the forest. She is silent like plants are; perhaps they can get along most nicely.

"Many of the trees are poets," Legolas adds. Elu finds this charming, giving a nod as he stands to his feet and grabs his spears to head back to the shooting range.

"Then you must tell me the next poem you hear," he replies. "I must get back to supervising the others. Farriel can keep you company."

Legolas does not need company. He only needs the grass beneath him, the forest to his left, and the ocean ahead. He needs stories of the dead in the water, and kudu, and seashells. He needs his bow and quiver and he needs his friends.

But Farriel will do. She is kind and soft and comfortingly silent, and they sit and watch the trees for ages and ages. The sun is down when they return home and Ulvinowyn opens the gate with her large gray paw.

➵