Passersby ➵ ONC 2021

➵ gifts of moon waters

Though ordered against it, Legolas sneaks out anyway.

He is followed silently to the gate by Elu, who knows entirely what he is up to but doesn't make the move to stop him. Ulvinowyn sees them both and turns her head away, flicking her ears in dismissal and pretending she hasn't seen a thing. She pushes open the gate, and Legolas slips through.

Elu watches him run silently into the forest. He does not have to ask where the foreign elf is going. Instead he goes to retrieve his own swords, fastening them onto his back with his hand and his opposite elbow and returning to the gate to see that Farriel has followed him.

"I ithil napant," he explains to her wordless eyes, which say more than Sindarin is capable of. "The moon is full. We are going to watch the kudu. Come if you wish."

Farriel takes her own sword and buckles it to her waist. The two follow through the gate.

"Wait! Wait for a dwarf!" calls a voice behind them, and they turn to see Gimli waking up from his sleeping position by Ulvinowyn's watch post. He grabs a heavy axe, loping up next to them as they wait patiently and know that he will slow them down to an intensely slower speed.

"We will have returned to this gate by sunrise," Elu says to the cat, who nods and closes the gate. They walk away.

Although he is already sure of the exact location Legolas has traveled to, Elu finds comfort in following his trail like he would a runaway animal, smelling him on the ground and against the brushed leaves, tracking his light steps through every small and hidden path in the trees and clearings. The path, of course, leads to the river, where Elu sees him crouched between leaves and shrubs to watch the animals that are already making their way down to the water.

"Cin garú edhel plural edhilo dilthen galad," Elu says softly, causing Legolas to turn away from the kudu to meet them all. "You have never been an elf of little curiosity; little light. And here you are, just as I expected you would be."

Gimli, who has known of Legolas' nightly escapes but not the reason for their happenings, is confused about all that is going about, so Elu explains to him with as much swiftness and as few words as he can that they have come to better understand the kudu. As he finishes speaking, Legolas puts a hand in the air to demand silence, and he points to the animals by the water.

They all inch forward to watch the large ethereal beings, which have lined up against the edge of the shore. As the moon reflects brightly from above them, they dip their heads and drink from the river. Elu, having practiced what Legolas taught him, can hear the trees begin to sing and the water make music. He hears the spirits of the kudu join them as well, singing of peace and connection and life.

And then Elu begins to understand that these beings are too free to cage, and as long as they try to put them in fences, the less they will wish to exist within them.

The deep blue world around them, glowing with soft moonlight, sways beneath the stars. The waves grow stronger, casting larger crashes against the earth it touches, and then, as the kudu move away, something catches Legolas' eye.

Slinking out of the plants and making his way to the sand, the elf bends down and picks up something washed up from the waves, which are now still and calm. There upon the shore has traveled a shell, polished and perfect and empty, and Legolas finds himself filled with a feeling of lightness that is difficult to put into his own words. He has been waiting for this shell, even if the reply has arrived quite late after it was expected. But this is alright and not at all surprising. Aragorn has never been early.

The elf takes a string from the end of his bow and ties the shell to it, hanging it from around his neck to cherish the memory of Aragorn, because something deep within him understands that it is most certainly he who put the gift by his feet at all.

➵