Self-indulgent author's note: Life has been interesting these past few weeks. Though I have been writing prolifically, I have published nothing due to an overwhelming and paralyzing perfectionism (one of my excellent coping skills). Therefore, I've finally decided to just post this for fear of never taking that first step again if I don't do it now! So, this is a fun little story to shake me out of my funk-something less dark and complicated than I have been recently writing; a nice, formulaic little three-parter with less allegory than usual and some simple early-Fellowship friendship.
Real author's note: I cut myself off from further meticulous editing of this section, so please do tell me if you catch any errors. I also did an ungodly amount of research as to the different names for the object colloquially known as a "slingshot" in American and Canadian English and a "catapult" or "hand catapult" in British English. After much gnashing of teeth, I settled on the American "slingshot," because that is what I am used to, and I couldn't quite wrap my head around the idea of "hand catapult" for some bizarre reason. Legolas also uses the word "sling" to refer to "slingshot," though a "sling" is also a different kind of weapon than a "slingshot." Please excuse the decisions.
Lessons in Leadership
January 2, Third Age of the Sun 3019
On the Road to Hollin
Pippin had slipped from Gandalf and Merry with a plea and a whisper a few minutes before, and now—on the way back from relieving himself—he found Legolas checking his arrows some distance from camp. Pippin immediately sank cross-legged onto the ground beside the elf and watched as Legolas deepened the notch in one of his arrows with a short blade.
"What are you doing?" Pippin asked after some time, peering forward to watch the elf's hands work the wood.
"Fixing these arrows," Legolas answered. He glanced up at Pippin's wide and inquiring eyes.
"Why?"
"Because they are damaged," Legolas said, dropping his eyes again to his task. "Your inquisitiveness is endless."
"Yes," Pippin said simply. "I want to know everything there is to know about this world and the next, of you and of Gimli and of all our Company's strange lands. How did the arrows become damaged?"
"I am not precisely sure how, Pippin. Either from poor storage this journey or from reusing some of them that first hunt after Imladris."
"Well," Pippin proclaimed, and he watched Legolas' hands darkening and blending with the wood and shadows as they twitched in the almost imperceptibly fading light, "they do not look bad to me."
"They do not look bad, no. But they can still be dangerous."
Pippin laughed. Legolas puffed woodshavings from the notch and looked up at the hobbit seriously when Pippin again addressed him.
"Of course they are dangerous—" Pippin cried with a grin. "They are arrows!"
"I mean, Pippin," Legolas clarified, "that damaged arrows can be dangerous to shoot. If I were to shoot an arrow without checking it, it could hurt me, and—if you were standing beside me—hurt you."
"Oh."
Legolas slipped the re-notched arrow back into his quiver and picked up another, glancing to check the sun's progress as he did so. The waning light caught at dark grey eyes, and he spat a strand of errant hair from his mouth.
Pippin's own eyes were watching Legolas closely and they sparkled a muted brown as he watched the elf watching him. He fingered the slingshot tucked into his belt by his dagger. Legolas continued to stare at him curiously until he was suddenly drawn by a movement above and to the left of them, and he sprang to his feet without warning.
"Look there, Pippin!" Legolas exclaimed, and pointed with ill-concealed delight. "That is a kite! We do not see them often in the North."
Pippin clambered to his feet and looked to where Legolas indicated and then swiveled to look up at the elf's excited face, and the elf's enthusiasm confused him… It was an odd declaration from an intelligent elf, a clearly false statement.
So Pippin frowned and said slowly and carefully as he peered up at Legolas' dark silhouette: "Now, you can call me mad, Legolas… But that is certainly not a kite."
Legolas shrugged and squinted at the bird that swooped some distance away from them, and he did not turn to look at Pippin.
"I suppose I could be wrong," the elf admitted. "What is it then?"
"It is a bird," Pippin said warily, looking with true concern now at his companion.
"Yes," Legolas agreed, nodding and finally looking down at Pippin to meet his eyes evenly, "but it is also a red kite."
Pippin was frustrated and he huffed before exclaiming: "Birds and kites are not the same thing, Legolas!"
"But kites are a type of bird," Legolas challenged calmly.
"No, birds are alive and fly of their own accord," Pippin explained slowly, worried that Legolas had suddenly become stupid or taken a fever. "Kites are made and flown by children in the breeze."
Legolas stared at the hobbit blankly for a moment and then burst into laughter. Pippin's lips unparted as he frowned at the sight. Legolas leaned forward to clasp his thighs in such a way than when he finally looked up from his mirthful fit his eyes were even with Pippin's own.
"Well, yes, indeed!" the elf exclaimed, breathless. "Yes, kites are flown by children—I know that, Pippin. But kites are also a type of bird. A family or species, for example."
Pippin gasped so suddenly that Legolas felt the hair like a halo at his temples tremble against his cheeks, for the hobbit's inhalation had stirred the air between them.
"Oh!" Pippin breathed out. "I would just call that a hawk, not a kite. I thought you were perhaps confused!"
"Well, I sometimes am confused, so it was kind of you to try to help," the elf said, grinning. "We do come from very different places, after all. You have a warm heart, Master Took."
"You are quite funny, Legolas."
"I do try, on occasion," Legolas countered with a wink and he gently touched the hobbit's cheek, and then let his fingers fall away quickly. "But we must not let all the others know quite how much fun wood-elves can be."
"No, we will keep that truth to ourselves!"
"Excellent! So you will go with Boromir to fill the waterskins, and then you can join me. I am going for lingonberries, and we passed a few yellowing greens a quarter-hour back that looked like maybe celeriac, or fresh turnip."
"You know a lot, Legolas," Pippin said, standing and picking up the elf's waterskin and tying it onto his own belt.
"One learns quickly in Mirkwood. But you know a lot, too, and I am not as good at identifying mushrooms as I am at birds," Legolas straightened and then twisted his back from side to side to release the tension that had knotted from stooping half-curled at the hobbit's height. "So hurry up, Pippin!" He shook out his hands and brushed off his thighs out of habit before smiling. "Sam and Merry will be particularly pleased if you can find them some mushrooms. I would hate to poison us…"
"That would spoil the whole point of this mission, wouldn't it?"
"It would," Legolas said, voice suddenly vague as he squinted at the horizon where the sun was setting. "Now go on."
"Wait!" Pippin exclaimed, abruptly pointing and gripping the elf's wrist. He tugged, and Legolas turned to follow the direction of the hobbit's finger. "What is the kite doing?"
The bird had stopped swooping and was hovering about eight meters off the ground above the clearing, head fixed and lowered as its wings beat powerfully.
"Give me your sling, Pippin," Legolas said evenly, holding out a hand and not looking away from the bird; he squinted with concentration.
"Why?" Pippin gripped the handle of his slingshot firmly and squared his shoulders as Legolas' eyes flickered from bird to field and back again, as if calculating.
"If you want meat tonight, give me your sling," Legolas repeated with gentle emphasis, glancing down at Pippin briefly. "Have I failed yet in snagging game for you and your cousins?"
"No," Pippin said simply, and he relinquished his slingshot to the elf's outstretched hand.
"There is a rabbit, just there," Legolas said to Pippin, tilting his head to the side and taking the rock Pippin pressed into his hand. He slipped the stone into the sling's pouch and murmured a line of rhyme beneath his breath. When finished, he winked at the hobbit.
"Watch and learn, Pippin," the elf said.
And then he pulled back the sling, and he released.
Pippin watched with bated breath as the stone soared through the air in a precise and beautiful arc that he longed to replicate, and as the rock thunked against its target and the kite took off in a swoop—thoroughly disturbed by the stone that had beat him to his prey—Pippin whooped.
Happy late Solstice! (And full moon.)
