Megan: Nenya isn't exactly named after Galadriel's ring. I picked the name because it suonded elven, wrote most of the story (very roughly--Nea's helping me turn this into a suitable work), thought up the general plot... and then found out Nenya was also Galadriel's ring. I tried to come up with something else... but nothing seemed to fit her. So, she shares her name with a ring of adament. Not the worst inanimate object to share a name with.

Thanks to everyone else who read, and waited for this chapter. You know, if you guys bug me when I'm away, I'll remember to upload. Nea gives me the chapters back, I just forget to post them.





Chapter 7

Weary, hungry, thirsty, irritated, nearly to the bottom of their reserve of hope, they all stared blankly at her for a long moment after she spoke. "What?" Dareklien asked after a long pause.

Nenya laughed softly. "I said, 'we're here'."

They looked around, and saw nothing even remotely different about this bit of the wood than they had any other section they had walked through… except for the time they had approached the mountains. Then alone they had been able to see well and truly, since the trees didn't grow so thickly at the base of the mountains… of course, she had led them right by so quickly their eyes hadn't even adjusted to the slightly increased light. Every last one had wished they had been there during the day, instead of on a cloudy night. "Huh?"

She smiled again and looked up for an instant before she gripped the tree beside her and began climbing up. They noticed for the first time she wasn't wearing anything on her feet as those feet disappeared into the branches. "Coming?" she asked from somewhere over their heads.

They looked at each other in confusion, but slowly Miranol reached up and found a handhold, climbing up easily enough once he got going. One by one they followed, and each was struck blind when they reached the top. After so many weeks of walking day and part of the night in the deepest darkness, the midday sun hurt their eyes, forcing them to shield their faces from the rays for several minutes.

When they were finally able to see, they all realized for the first time they were in a flet, a fairly large one with room enough for all of them to sleep in without being crowded. Nenya reappeared from one of the branches, pushing aside the leaves that served as the wall as she entered. She was holding food, and distributed it without a word, disappearing from another side of the flet only to reappear with water.

"Once you are restored to good health and humor, I shall show you around your home away from home," she murmured, before ducking out in yet another direction. They studied the flet when she had gone, noticed that the entire thing was currently open to the sun, stars, and rain. Off against one edge there was a large roll of dried leaves that looked as if it would make a fairly good roof when unrolled. The walls, such as they were, were made of living leaves and branches, the boughs bent to form the room when they were much younger and more pliable than they now were. Some small plants that normally were only found on the very edge of the forest grew in places along the walls, some even bloomed in their aerial beds, soil, water and sun apparently provided for them.

Nenya came in from yet another place that looked like it was merely part of the wall, and tilted a gaze at them which clearly meant to ask if they were ready. They all got to their feet, and with a smile she motioned them over to where she had come from, and then slipped through the leaves again.

Miranol, the first one after her, stopped and stepped backwards when he saw what he was about to step on. "You must be joking!" he breathed.

"What?" Legolas asked, a bit irritated he had had to back up so suddenly to avoid being hit from ahead that he had been jabbed from behind by the hilt of Ertelen's sword. He looked past Miranol, and saw that the path Nenya was waiting for them to use was a branch about six inches wide. "What's the problem?" Legolas asked, still irritated. He shouldered his way past Miranol, who still said nothing, and stepped out onto the branch. It shifted slightly with a slight breeze and with his weight. That, combined with knowing how far down it was even if he couldn't see it, answered Legolas's questions and instantly killed his irritation. He closed his eyes for a single moment and reminded himself it wasn't right for any elf with any amount of wood-elf in his veins to be scared either of heights or of walking in trees. Then he opened his eyes and cautiously followed Nenya to a smaller flet in the heart of a nearby tree.

She looked at him quizzically, having seen and heard what happened. "I thought you were all at least partially wood-elves."

"We are," he agreed casually, trying to brush it off. When she frowned and pursed her lips, he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "We just don't usually run around in the tip tops of trees."

"You have a problem with heights?" she asked, incredulous.

"Not a problem," Legolas hedged. "We're just unaccustomed to them."

She blinked and then quickly shook her head, moving aside as Miranol made it to the flet. She waited until they were all there. "This is the kitchen, as you would see if you had any idea what the inside of one looked like."

The males all sent her droll looks, while Oleydya stifled giggles. Nenya lifted a few leaves directly across from the now hidden path they had taken to arrive. "This path divides into three others. The one to the left leads to a flet with all the stored plant foods I have here. The one to the right, all the dried meats. The middle has any cooking utensils or storage containers you might wish to use but cannot find here." She went to the left of the entrance and once again slipped out of sight. They followed until they reached a fork in the branch. Nenya's voice came from above them. "The path to the left takes you to the room the guys shall be using as sleeping quarters. The one to the right leads to this flet. Here is the bathing room."

"Bathing room?" Ertelen asked in astonishment. "In a tree?"

Nenya blinked. "Where else would it be?"

The five 'wood-elves' looked at each other in confusion and followed the branch up to the flet, finding it was little more than a sheltered space where one or two could fit. Nenya sat above them, and none could guess how she had gotten up there. Seeing their utter confusion as the looked at the bathing room, she explained. "The water is stored in large containers made with leaves and pitch, and placed into the tree tops. Those funnel down into three holding areas. One is outside the kitchen, one above you now, and one on the other side of the large flet, which is mostly for drinking water and laundry."

She showed them back to the flet the guys would used, showed them another, slightly smaller one that Oleydya would use, and then showed them another surprise—her garden. Stretched from below the laundry flet to below the kitchen, it was a long flet that held a medley of plants. The water not consumed by the flets' occupants filtered down through carefully designed wood and pitch piping which then watered all of the plants. Anything left over from that fell to the earth. This was the only flet with no rolled up roof off to one side.

"That's the grand tour," Nenya murmured. "You have no need to go elsewhere up here."

"Then there is elsewhere?"

"Yes," she agreed softly. "But it is mine."

"So you have a secret after all," Legolas murmured, partially teasing, since it seemed she had nothing that wasn't a secret to the rest of them.

"Everyone has a secret of some sort, Legolas, unless they are truly innocent children." She looked up at one tree they had not been led to. "There are two flets that are mine, and mine alone. My mother and I made them, and we shall keep them."

"Your mother?" Ertelen asked, looking around for another elf. "Where is she? Where is everyone, for that matter?"

"There is no one else. She has gone to the havens," she murmured, before frowning slightly. She shook her head and her attention returned to the elves around her. "Those two flets are ours alone. Even should someone else come here, live here for thousands of years, they will remain ours." After a moment she looked at them and shook her head. "And now there are a few things to show you that are on the ground, for various reasons."

On the ground she showed them first a small pile of rocks with a crude billows set up. Miranol frowned at it, and looked to her. "Can I make some improvements?"

"Feel free to do so," she agreed, before leading the others on as he began moving things around. There was a practice area set up, a few bits of leaves designed into various types of targets that the three weapon carrying elves could fashion into a workable space for their pursuits. Miranol joined them as Legolas and Ertelen wielded their twin daggers at each other in fun.

"There is one other thing," she murmured, pausing from where she had been about to return to the trees. "You will not kill any creature that is not either a black spider or an orc. If you do so, you forfeit your guardians."

Dareklien frowned blackly. "Then how are we to hunt for food?"

"I shall accompany you on such hunts. What I say you can kill, you can. If I do not say it is well to do so, you may find yourself in grave peril from which I cannot release you."

"Your friends wouldn't help us?"

"It would be they who would kill you, Legolas." Her eyes seemed as dark as the forest for a long moment, without a spark of the stars within them, before she called Oleydya to her and climbed into the tree as effortlessly as she did anything physical.

"She creeps me out when she does that," Miranol muttered, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

"I think she's telling stories to scare us into obeying her every whim," Dareklien scowled.

Legolas slowly shook his head. "She does mean to warn us, perhaps even to scare us. But she means what she says."

"That's what worries me," Ertelen said, looking up at the trees their black-eyed leader had disappeared into.