Passersby ➵ ONC 2021

➵ pebbletoss

It is a day of rain, so they do not go out to shoot. They do not want to risk their oryxes slipping on the muddy slopes or their spears being unsafely intercepted by wind.

Gimli and Legolas sit beneath a slate and pelt roof in the front ends of Longil's palatial lands. It is built like Rivendell, they've both agreed, although the thin and elegant structures are nearly entirely stone. So, then again, it is like Mirkwood in this way.

Gimli has gathered rounded pebbles from the shoreline, and he shows the elf a game he used to play at home, setting a pebble down ahead of them on the floor and tossing another one to try and hit it.

"Get your stones as close to the black one as you can," he instructs as he tosses his own, which are all gray. The ones in Legolas' palm are all a reddish brown; the elf assumes the color separation is for scorekeeping. "Once all the pebbles have been tossed, we will count the closest three to the middle stone. One point goes to the keepers of the stones per every rock of theirs in the triad."

"How many rounds?" inquires Legolas, who tosses a stone between his hands, flipping it up in the air and watching it land back in his palms again. "When do we stop? How would I know if I've won?"

"We stop when we stop. There is no plan that we have determined ourselves. Like life; like death," the dwarf replies. "And as for knowing you've won, that is something you mustn't fret about. You aren't going to win."

"If we are comparing the length of our play to the length of my life," Legolas replies, "this ought to be a very long game."

Gimli gives a laugh a bit too loud, his voice reverberating off the stone posts surrounding them. "Pity," he returns before becoming slightly more serious in tone. "Don't you ever wish the rounds would end?"

The elf's expression does not change, remaining focused on the stones in his gentle hands as he aims one at the large black rock. "It depends on who I am playing with," he says. "Ten thousand years go by quickly when you spend it with those whose company you favor. You only wish to stop when that sense is lost."

He tosses the stone, and it bounces twice before rolling itself frustratingly close to the middle rock. Gimli grumbles under his breath at the aim possessed by that stupid elf before preparing a pebble of his own.

The rain splatters the large window that sits before them, and it smells like life. Legolas barely focuses on the game, but he knows that he won the first round with two and a half points (he let Gimli have half of his third point so as to not set him off), and that it's rare that he doesn't win a round at all.

By the time Gimli gives up, Legolas has gathered nearly thirty points; a miracle in the eyes of the dwarf with only twelve.

Gimli stands and plucks a flower from just outside the small room in the grass, splattered with waxy droplets of rain and adoration from the likes of the sky. He brings it to the front gate to give to Ulvinowyn, who at this point has replaced her gray fur with dark brown skin and her catlike stance for the temporary body of a woman once again. She accepts the flower like one accepts the end: without question.

➵