Another Life

Chapter 4 - Feasting and drinking.

The feast was, like Rivendell, visually spectacular. Great tables, covered in dark blue cloth, with banners flying around the hall. Elves everywhere in all kinds of garments. I had been awake for just a few hours and I was already so overwhelmed by this- all this beauty!- that I couldn't really take it all in.

The smells were amazing too. Food, flowers, musky woody scents, no one stank here. Wine, alcohol, and somehow the scent of water mingling over everything and everywhere. Creepers scaled each wall, each pillar, through the knotwork on the ceiling, and flowers cascaded from the edges of the room to serve as natural walls, some falling from the ceiling, everything perfectly positioned.

And the outfits. I could have stood there, gawking in the doorway, staring at everyone's clothing for hours and hours. Dresses, robes, jewellery, and the way it always seemed to move and dance on Elves just right.

But while I saw it, I felt a bit strange here, because there were mostly only Elves here. And they were aloof, barely noticing or paying attention to anyone not of their own, with the Fellowship being the only exception. I saw open hostility several times, just as I was shown to my seat, flashed in the direction of the little hairy men. Dwarfs, I suspected, though I wasn't really sure how I knew the name for them.

To my relief I was sitting beside Pippin, Merry on his other side, and he looked as gobsmacked and overwhelmed as I probably looked. He wasn't even eating that apple hidden in his lap yet!

“Hi.” I offered. I actually surprised him, he jumped, stared at me for a few seconds, and the dots connected in the hobbit's brain. Messy ratty haired large woman, pretending to be guy, turned into clean haired large woman who was now clearly a woman.

“Oh, it's you! Hello.” He grinned and gazed back to the room. “When do you think we'll start feasting?”

“Think we're waiting on the Lord Elrond, Pip.” Merry replied from his other side. He'd leaned back in his chair to see me and was still staring, as openly at me as he'd stared at the Elves. “Definitely a woman.”

“Yes.” Pippin agreed. His eyes were back on the room now though.

I saw two other little men beside them, not bearded, but clean and curly haired. Frodo and Sam. They both looked kind of overwhelmed too, sitting there in nice but fairly simple clothing, cleaned up and totally out of place. Not far from them was the dark haired man. He looked much more at ease, talking with an Elf fluently in their language, already with a goblet of something in hand.

After a few minutes, once the sight had set in, I started to really take it in. We, the Fellowship, sat slightly separate to the majority of the feasters. They sat down below in a open area, one side overlooking the river, a good floor below us. There were half a dozen Elves up here, sometimes more coming or going up and down the stairs, but the seating arrangement was probably for just three or four extra people. There was also another Hobbit, an elderly looking man, who looked like he was half asleep already.

We too had an amazing view of the river but with a rail up, twisted or carved wood, and gauzy curtains waving backwards and forwards with the flowers from the vines on, over and between each one.

“Wenduin?” A voice asked, from my previously empty side, and I jumped to see Legolas sitting down with as much grace as any Elf here, maybe more so. Prince Legolas?

“Hi, um... Your highness?” I offered, and his lips twitched at that. “Prince? My Lord?”

“Just Legolas, informally. Which is what this is.” His eyes swept over the amazing sight.

Could have fooled me, I thought to myself, staring back to the Elves. It felt about as formal as these things came. “What is formal for Elves?”