Elendil! Elendil! by Himring

Out of his Depth

Elendil's words as he arrived in Middle-earth, as later reported, sound enormously confident and very quotable.
And maybe that was indeed what he said, in his first relief at having survived. He had fellow refugees to encourage, after all!
But perhaps his initial dealings with the inhabitants of Lindon, after landing, did not come as easily to him as all that?

With a brief glimpse of the beginning of Elendil's friendship with Gil-galad.

Warnings for allusions to the trauma of the Fall of Numenor and cross-cultural issues.

All his life, he had been a leader of elf friends. Elendil’s very name meant elf friend. That did not change the fact that he had never seen an elf before the world changed—and while old Tar-Palantir had kept waiting for elves from the West, in his heart Elendil had never expected another elven ship to arrive.

He had learned from his father that in Middle-earth elves lived just like people among other people. To experience that in reality like this, though—washed up in a state of shock and loss among them with the sea wrack—was overwhelming.

None of the elves of Lindon had offered his people anything but help, despite reservations they might well have had about Numenor. Yet, in a world that seemed to have changed entirely beyond recognition, the fact that these strangers were all elves just piled strangeness on strangeness.

They spoke Sindarin openly in the market here, not behind closed doors. Quenya, on scrolls, was sold at stalls. Neither of these were quite the Elvish he had learned.

He tried to be both diplomatic and properly grateful, but felt wooden. Some Elf Friend!

Until Gil-galad arrived: Elendil felt his grip—so solid.

Chapter End Notes

My chosen character was Elendil and Grundy's prompt was: felt overwhelmed among Elves.

"Elendil" would originally mean "Star lover", but the Numenoreans used it to mean "elf friend" (the words for "elf" and "star" being related), so Elendili was also used of the Faithful in Numenor.

This is a double drabble (2 x 100 words in MS Word).

This version slightly revised from the original Insta-drabbling version.