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Prompt: Legolas sometimes forget Westron words and since Aragorn and Gandalf are not always there to translate, Gimli is getting very good at elven charades.
"Meriadoc, do you have the...." A look of concentration contorted the fair elven face, quickly replaced by one of frustration. Legolas threw a quick glance over his shoulder but Aragorn and Gandalf were deep in discussion about the road ahead and it would not be polite to disturb them with simple matters of setting camp. He tried again. "The....what is it called...large, floppy..." He waved his hands around in increasing frustration while the hobbits stared at him, trying to make sense of the gestures and stuttered words.
"I don't think there are any fish here, Mr Greenleaf, sir," Sam said carefully, looking at the elf's waving hands.
"No, I mean...." He made another gesture, large and sort of thin.
"Blankets?" Gimli suggested slowly, frowning in concentration as he watched the graceful but annoyed gestures.
Legolas went still, staring at the dwarf. Then he nodded, obviously torn between gratitude and irritation that the dwarf was the one to help him out.
"Yes, the blankets. Thank you." He finally relented.
"Oh! Of course, here you are." Merry unpacked the required items from his bag and handed them over. With a word of thanks and another, small nod of gratitude to Gimli, Legolas set about making camp.
"Don't you freeze, master elf?" Boromir asked, leaning over the tiny fire Gandalf had managed to light on Caradrahs, the hobbits all but huddled under his cloak like chickens under a mother hen. Gandalf and Aragorn had dozed of, exhausted after the day.
Legolas merely shrugged and smiled, the only one in the fellowship still in a good mood.
"I am cold, but not dangerously so. It galls me more that the fire would not light for me."
"Nor me," Gimli muttered, stamping his feet.
"Aye, that seems to me to indicate....." he stumbled on the word, shutting his mouth. Closing his eyes he tried to recall the word, but to no avail. "That there is....some kind off...." he trailed of, frustrated, his hands performing some kind of elaborate dance almost by themselves as he rifled through his memory.
"Snow?" Frodo suggested.
"Too wet kindling?" Boromir tried.
Gimli watched the gesturing hands, chewing his beard.
"Sorcery," he finally concluded.
"Yes, that is it." Relieved, Legolas put a hand on his shoulder. "If both me and Gimli son of Gloin was defeated by kindling, it must surely be sorcery!"
Gimli guffawed at that, but didn't move away from the hand and even managed to get them both a bit closer to the fire, while the men and hobbits just shrugged.
"I would never have figured that out," Pippin confessed. "How was that 'sorcery'? it looked like he was trying to strangle a cat."
"Maybe that would be sorcery for an elf, who knows?" Merry shrugged back.
"Gimli seems to know," Frodo mumbled almost under his breath.
"I thought your home was underground," Merry said mostly to try to distract the obviously ill at ease elf from his fretting. He had been checking and rechecking the fledgling on his arrows for more than an hour and his motions were getting slightly frantic.
"It's in carved out caverns, yes, but it does not have an entire mountain on top of it." Unusually short-toned, Legolas barely looked up from his working hands. "But more than that, it's the feel of this place. Something is wrong here. Something lurks in the shadows."
"Three days to the other side is what Gandalf said," Boromir tried to soothe him. They were none of them very happy about Moria, but none were as badly afflicted as the elf. "It's been two days already. We'll see the sun and the clouds soon enough."
"I hope so. Yet we must proceed with caution. It is nor Moria, but the unknown that hides here that...." he blinked and for a second let go of his abused arrows. His hands moved slowly through the stale air and when no words were forthcoming all of them, including Legolas, looked to Gimli. The dwarf sat back to back with the elf, but cast a focused glance at the motions.
"Weights on your spirit. Frets on your mind," the dwarf nodded and sighed. "Aye lad, I feel it too. This is no longer the home of my ancestors but the dwelling of something evil." He slumped a little.
"I am sorry, mellon-nin." Legolas leaned back further, sharing warmth between them. Golden hair spilled over both their shoulders.
Gimli muttered something back, but none of the others where close enough to hear it.
Dusk and dawn seemed to linger longer in Lothlorien than elsewhere; long silvery shadows fell between the silvery trees and the lights of the people living here didn’t reach all corners of the woods.
It was in such a place, at such a time that the rest of the fellowship came across two figures holding hands, standing alone and oblivious to all around them. They were talking with soft voices but with nothing but the call of birds to disturb the peace, their words carried anyway.
Words in sindarin, and khudzul.
“So, um.” Merry said even as Boromir quickly but quietly herded them away from the private moment.
“I think I understood that! I think I actually did!” Pippin chimed in, rather unnecessary.
“I think we all understood the meaning of it,” Boromir muttered, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and more or less lifting him away.
“But what does ‘meleth’ mean, Master Frodo?” Sam asked.
Frodod didn’t answer, just smiled and took Sam’s hand.
The blush on Sam’s cheeks made it clear that the gardener understood to.