We finally found a place to sleep across some stream. I noticed Legolas was being a lot more talkative now. He must really like trees.
Everyone sat down and Legolas sang us a little song about the river. I guess it was good, but then what would I know, I was trying to skip rocks, which is really hard to do on moving water.
Legolas finally stopped singing and looked at me and Katy who had just joined me, "Do not do that." He told us.
"Why not? It’s a free river." I said throwing another rock in.
"It is a peaceful river, let it be." He told me.
"Fine." I mumbled and threw the rock I was holding at him.
He caught it and looked at me snafued, "Why did you do that?"
"I knew you would catch it." I told him, then turning to Katy, explained, "Elven reflexes."
She nodded knowingly and laughed. Legolas ignored us and proceeded to climb the nearest tree. Out of the branches an elven voice commanded, "Daro!" Legolas immediately dropped down and I laughed some more at the confused look on his face.
The elven voices laughed too as he warned us to be still. Then they and Legolas conversed… In elvish of course. Finally he turned to us, "Frodo and I are to go up." He said as a rope ladder dropped from the boughs.
They were up there for a while, and on the ground I relayed to the others some of what I could remember being said.
"Legolas will be introducing Frodo now," I said, "Then he’ll introduce Aragorn, and the hobbits and Boromir. I assume he’ll introduce Katy and me as well."
"Hey! I want to introduce myself!" Katy said.
"Yes, it’s kind of rude introducing us without our consent." I told her, "Oh, and he’ll skillfully avoid introducing you, Gimli." I smiled, "I think he’s rather embarrassed to be travelling around with a dwarf."
"Och! I’ll show that elf!" Gimli declared making for the tree.
Aragorn put his hand on Gimli’s shoulder to stop him, "Gimli, be reasonable, none of us can hear their conversation, how would the maiden be able to?"
"I never obey *all* the rules." I said, "Besides the ways of Doppler are very useful for eavesdropping."
"You!" Katy exclaimed, "You’re not supposed to use the Doppler ways to eavesdrop!" Katy played along, "You are disgracing Physicists everywhere!"
Aragorn arched an eyebrow, ‘were they still with that ‘physics’ thing?’ he wondered, he didn’t really believe a word of it… Though it might explain a lot.
"Sam could have used those ‘Doppler’ ways when he was spying on Frodo." Pippin said, "He wasn’t a very good eavesdropper."
"That is ‘was not’, Pippin." Merry corrected him.
"I never wanted to be the spy, you guys wanted me to!" Sam exclaimed.
I smiled, now look what I’d started. I was about to say something when Legolas and who I assume was Haldir came out of the trees. I never saw his brothers, but unless he has a twin I wasn't aware of I was pretty sure this was the original.
"The halflings can sleep up in this tree with Frodo." Haldir told us, "The rest of you can sleep in that one." He pointed.
"Yay! We get to climb trees!" I said, and Katy and I ran to the tree he was pointing to. We soon began jumping for branches but to no avail. They were too high up.
"Look, I’ll give you a boost, then you help me up." I told Katy.
"Okay!" She said and waited for my boost.
Before we got any farther Haldir came over laughing, he yelled something up the tree and soon a rope ladder was dropped.
"Wow." I said to Katy, "These must be the magic ladder trees. They don’t bear fruit like normal trees, instead they grow ladders!"
"Really?" She asked, "They might just be rope trees since they haven’t grown any wooden ladders or anything yet."
I nodded pondering her logic. Aragorn just shook his head and said to Haldir (who I must say was looking rather perplexed), "Think nothing of it, they do this all the time."
I shot a glare at Aragorn then turned to Haldir myself, and after fumbling in my pocket for a sheet of paper said to him, "Aaye, Haldir. Saesa omentien lle."
He looked at me in surprise, then turned to Legolas, "You did not tell me either of the maidens could speak elvish! A little rusty on the pronunciations, but it is elvish nonetheless."
"That is because all I ever knew her to be able to say was ‘Dolle naa lost’ and ‘Auta miqula orqu’. I did not know she could speak anything civil." Legolas explained.
"Legolas!" I whined, then looking down at my sheet said, "Antolle ulua sulrim." Looking pleased with myself I gave the sheets to Katy so she could see what I had said.
Katy laughed and added, "Lle lava?"
"Katy!" I exclaimed, "Don’t ask him that!"
But it was too late, Legolas looked at us and said defiantly, "I never yeild. Uuma ma’ ten’ rashwe, ta tuluva a’ lle."
I quickly shuffled through my sheets of translations, "Oh, great, now you’ve started a war with Legolas…" I sighed.
"Oops." Was all Katy could say… Well not quite, she shuffled through the pages one last time and said, "Amin hiraetha."
Learn Elvish!
Daro- Halt
Aaye, Haldir – Hail, Haldir
Saesa omentien lle – Pleasure meeting you
Dolle naa lost – Your head is empty
Auta miqula orqu – Go kiss an orc
Antolle ulua sulrim – much wind pours from your mouth
Lle lava – Do you yield
Uuma ma’ ten’ rashwe, ta tuluva a’ lle – Don’t look for trouble, it will come to you
And as you may have guessed:
Amin hiraetha – I’m sorry
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