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Wind howled past the entrance of the little cave, stirring the snow to dance in violent whirls and plumes. Bëor watched it pensively. The storm had already dropped a few inches of the stuff, and the light was waning fast. He wanted to get moving, but one of his men had been hurt in the hunt, just badly enough they had to stop to tend to him before moving on.
“Eilik, hold the torch a little closer, I can hardly see.”
“Don’t set my hair on fire!”
“He’s not going to, Gislin. And stop squirming.”
“I’ll stop squirming when you stop manhandling me- Aagh!”
Two men’s worth of invective filled the air. Bëor rolled his eyes, but Finrod watched the proceedings with interest. Eirik was taking care to show his son, Eilik, how to wrap moss against the wound to staunch the blood. The elf seemed to be endlessly fascinated by how Men did things, though no doubt their ways were far inferior to his own.
“This storm is showing no sign of letting up. We need to get moving again,” Bëor added, louder.
The men shouted back assurances they were almost ready. Finrod turned back to the entrance, gave a measured look at the snow, then knelt down to undo some small buckles on his boots. Bëor stared as they expanded forward and sideways to almost twice their breadth. What on Earth... “Oh! How clever.”
Finrod looked at him, bemused. “What is?”
Bëor pointed. “You have snowshoes built into your boots.”
Finrod frowned over the new word. “...Snowshoes? Snowshoes…. Oh! My feet.”
“No, I’m talking about your boots.”
“Yes, no, it’s my feet. The ‘snowshoes.’”
Bëor frowned. “No, not ‘feet.’ Um. ‘Hebaid’?”
Finrod shook his head. “Feet.”
“...’Hebaid’ is ‘feet’?”
“No, ‘hebaid’ means ‘shoes’-”
“Yes, snowshoes. In your boots.”
“Ready when you are,” announced Eirik.
Bëor shook his head as if to dislodge the conversation. “We’ll clear it up when we get back.”
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Finrod was drying off in front of the fire with the other hunters when Bëor finally rejoined him. The Elf held up a hand to forestall his friend. Then he pointed at his boot. “This is a ‘boot.’ The ‘foot’ is inside the boot.”
“Yes. And a snowshoe is a type of shoe that helps you walk on snow.”
“Yes. Why do you need that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Can’t you do that naturally?”
Bëor shook his head. “No. But neither can you, or why-?” Finrod deftly shucked the boot and sock off one foot. Bëor screamed. “Aaaaaagh what happened to your foot?”
“Nothing!” Finrod looked down to assure himself nothing was amiss. Nothing felt amiss. And nothing was - the folded up toes and webbing were all just as they should be. He even stretched it all out to be sure.
When he looked back up, all the men were staring at him with something between disgust and horror. Eirik dropped the wad of bandages he’d rushed over with.
“Um. Are your feet different?”
“Yes.” Bëor pulled out one of his own feet to show. It was more like a paw than a proper foot, one big solid sole with nubby disconnected toes sticking off the top.
“Huh,” said Finrod. “No wonder you need special shoes for snow.”
Bëor snorted. “No wonder indeed! Will Elves ever stop being full of wonders?”
“You’re the ones who are strange, not us!”
Everyone laughed. Mostly because they were still freaked out by Finrod’s weird collapsible duck feet and needed to ease the tension somehow, but in any case it all worked out. Elves and Edain learned a… well, not valuable, but probably interesting? lesson about each other, which ultimately led to their people sharing some very clever cobblery technology.
The End.