Passersby ➵ ONC 2021

➵ a treetop sky

The elf and Gimli play Pebbletoss endlessly on a morning full of sun and birdsong, the rocks bouncing against the smooth dark stone beneath them as the light filters in through the large outlooking windows. There are no tasks for them to do on this day. It is their weekly day of complete rest, and so they naturally fill it with restless activities like throwing rocks at other rocks in competition.

"Ulvinowyn accepted my flower," Gimli mentions, flicking a stone across the floor. "I do not know what to think of it."

Legolas is quiet. Even he himself does not know what this means or what it has to do with anything. How would he know how to console him? He decides not to try.

"It is unlikely that such an elegant beast would think of a mere dwarf in the way I think of her," Gimli continues. "It is much easier to try life with someone who is the same as you are, so you do not have to worry about inferiority or cultural misunderstandings. Feelings are complicated and this only makes it worse."

"Why do you not simply ask her?" inquires Legolas, and the dwarf shakes his head.

"Never have I feared war," he replies. "Nor have I cowered beneath the drowning waves of a sea storm. I've survived every snare Death has set out for me, but this is something that terrifies me more than anything. Telling her what she means to me would ruin my every vessel if she found it not returned."

"What about it do you fear, mellon nin, my friend?" asks the elf, for he does not understand.

Gimli throws another stone. "I fear she thinks the flower was a mere gift."

"Then you must tell her it is not," Legolas replies simply, and he hits the stone into the middle rock with absolute effortlessness. Gimli wishes to say that things are not this easy, but he stops his speaking as Nînthel approaches from the fields.

"Legolas," she calls, and the elf stands to meet her. "Gar cin govannen mín nimloth-caw dór? Have you yet seen our treetop realm?"

"Nînthel. Im garú govannen hi," Legolas answers. "I have not done this."

"Afad nin," Nînthel replies simply. "Follow me."

Gimli huffs out a breath and returns in the direction of the front gate, heading to meet Ulvinowyn as Legolas follows Nînthel deep into their own woods. The long needles of pine soften themselves below his every step. He focuses so intently on their gentleness that he does not even notice when they stop walking and enter a clearing between all the towering trees.

"Suilad!" comes a voice from above, and Legolas is finally signaled to look up above him. "Hello!"

Lifting his face to see what is up in the branches, his eyes widen in awe at what they've built. Sitting so peacefully above is what appears to be an entire elven city laid sturdily in the trees' notches and arms. Bridges of rope and stone connect them, every small building leading to another, not a tree left without a connection. Elu himself leans over one of the bridges and signals down to them in greetings, and they signal back.

"Im garú pedna hi dór," Legolas calls up to him. "I've not spoken to these lands before. How come you have not yet shown me them?"

"Cin pedhi sír," Elu replies. "You speak here now. Climb up and I shall present to you the rest."

The realm can only be reached by climbing the trees themselves, holding on to whatever might be on it as even a slight foothold and inching yourself meters and meters upward. The elf has no problem with this, finding himself at the top most efficiently and landing with a soft thud on the sturdy wooden platform where Elu is waiting. Nînthel has disappeared from the ground below. He does not know where she is, as he did not see her go.

"Only elves are capable of reaching this area," Elu says. "It is a haven of sorts. We have used it in wars, lining soldiers on the bridges for surprise attacks. Enemies do not expect to be hit from above." He gives a partly-stifled laugh. "Sometimes it is funny to watch them fall."

He guides the foreign elf through the treetop village as the sun begins to set. Legolas stops to watch it, looking out in the direction of the fields and ravines. He turns to Elu and motions to it, his eyes ambitious at the colors of the sky.

"It is getting dark," he says. "I must follow the kudu."

Elu tips his head and lifts a brow, his feet supplanting themselves in Legolas' path as he makes his way to the nearest tree leading to the ground. His voice is playful, yet not at all joking, as it sounds behind him.

"Then, Legolas," he suggests, and his voice speaks the poetry of flowers, "might I follow you?"

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