"Forty-two, Master Legolas!" Gimli cried as he finally exited the Deep, for the first, and hopefully last, time slightly grateful to be free of the stone, rock, and the reek of blood into the clear sunshine. "Alas! My axe is notched for the forty-second had an iron collar on his neck. How is it with you?"
"You have passed my score by one," answered Legolas, relieved to be sure at his dear friend's life; fear had nagged at the back of his mind. "But I do not grudge you the game, so glad am I to see you on your legs!"
Gimli rubbed the bandage that now stood out as a white flag on his temple. "Well nearly friend, just a good knock on the head from the last one." Turning Gimli glanced over to Gandalf, worry lines creasing his visage. "I did encounter a mighty strange thing though, two strange children. I could not communicate with them in any vocal medium."
"That is curious." Legolas replied, his own elvish features descending to serious thought. "Do you believe them to be agents of Sauron?"
"I do not think so, as they seemed just as surprised as I." Gimli countered. "They were repulsed by the dead I think." He added, recalling the look on the girl's face. "Their garb is unlike any I have ever seen."
"We should consult Gandalf quickly." Legolas came this solid conclusion quickly. "He has vast knowledge of most of what is strange to us."
"I believe he is finished with King Theoden." Gimli agreed striding quickly to Gandalf's side and involved him in a quick explanation and query.
"I shall go and see them." Gandalf nodded, agreeing with Gimli's suggestion; he immediately started back to the opening that Gimli had just exited from, with both Gimli and Legolas close behind.
Upon the entrance of the three the boy jumped up from where he had been sitting close beside the girl, his features changing so quickly that it was hard to recall how they had been, moments before, when they had entered. Blue eyes looked somewhat calculating and his white hair flaring back jaggedly from his face.
Such odd hair. Gimli wondered again if these were not some kind of angelic creature sent down for some great purpose. He had never really made any kind of study of things religious and spiritual and so, for him, there was no easy explanation; only his mother's voice somewhere in his long past childhood telling him of the creation of Middle Earth, or something like that.
"You are right about their strangeness; I do not believe I have heard of their kind in any tale from the beginning of time, though the girl, I would say, is most likely human though she be clothed in garb strange to us." Legolas commented, as they looked on Gandalf began trying several different languages, slowly slipping into dialects whose meaning was completely lost to any other's comprehension. No success.
"I have spoken in every dialect of Middle Earth and only accomplished some slight communication, I am confirmed in my beliefs that these two children are not of our world." Gandalf told Legolas and Gimli shortly after closing the prisoner's door behind them. "There still is no easy answer to how to treat them. Where did they come from? These things still elude me." He finished wearily, an absent finger running across his creased brows. "Care for anything they might need, keep them close, and do not let them out from under guard. Let us see if they smell sweet or foul and decide from there. We shall be here a while; let them prove themselves to be whatever they are."