The start of a beautiful friendship by Aprilertuile

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After the Hunt

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The maia helping Tyelkormo stand helped him sit against another tree. He knew they weren’t an elf for even him right now couldn’t miss the non-elven physical traits. Hair the colour of a deer’s fur wasn’t too startling, but deer ears and young antlers were a dead give-away. Or perhaps he was hallucinating. But he didn’t think so. 

Tyelkormo was suddenly startled to find that he was sitting too far from his weapons for comfort, but… Well if he was honest, he was so dizzy right now that if he tried to shoot a large spider standing unmoving in front of him, he’d probably miss it. If the world could just stop moving just a moment…

He closed his eyes just a moment, or so he thought, but he opened them again to find the hounds patched up, the one he usually met standing guard next to him, a very uncomfortable Yarlossë at his side, and the hunters and maiar taken in the process of building pyres to burn the spiders’ bodies before they started to decompose and affected the whole area. 

“Uh. Well, at least the world isn’t dancing too badly in front of my eyes anymore I guess.” Tyelkormo said quietly, looking quite green still. 

“Drink this, it’ll help.” Yarlossë told him, giving him a flask. 

Tyelkormo took the flask and tasted it, cautious of what was inside that flask, before he started to drink it like he had been spending days in a desert and only now met with water. 

“Slowly, don’t go and make yourself sick again.” Yarlossë told Tyelkormo, taking the flask from his hands until Tyelkormo answered him. 

“You’ll have to tell me what that thing is.”

“You probably don’t want to know. If you weren’t so sick right now you wouldn’t want to drink it.” Yarlossë answered amused. 

“It’s working, it’s all I care about right now.” Tyelkormo groaned, accepting the flask back and drinking more slowly despite his deeply rooted desire to drink it all. 

Whatever it was, the drink was sweet, refreshing, felt cool and yet warming. 

“So I was out for a while, I take it?”

“A good hour. Perhaps two.”

“Why?”

“As I told you when I taught you that spell, when you connect to an animal you can feel what happens to it as if it was happening to you. If you hadn’t been fighting against the spider’s will, you could have died when it did. It’s my fault, I should have made sure you’d know not to use this song in this sort of situation, but I didn’t think you’d… Do that! As it is the connection between the spider and you was enough that you feel a disconnect as your fëa feels your body was injured while your body obviously wasn’t injured and that’s what made you sick.” Yarlossë answered. 

“Yes, well, it was the only idea I had at the time.” 

“And firing an arrow? You know that weapon, you have several arrows. A full quiver at that. I know I taught you how to make them and how to use your bow properly.”

Tyelkormo looked at Yarlossë as if he was stupid:

“And you think my arrows could have done anything to that spider to slow it down?”

“Certainly if you had been lucky to shoot…”

“I don’t count on luck for anything.”

“It would still have been a normal reflex!”

“Reflex would mean I’d react without thinking. It sounded to me that you were specifically asking me to THINK before I act when you were lecturing me on the way to this Hunt. So… Why would I have lost energy and time that I clearly didn’t have on a plan I was positive would fail instead of one I thought had a chance of success?”

“You can’t have had that much time to plan.”

“I had enough time to see the situation and to know an arrow wouldn’t help me unless I had such a lucky shot I’d have exhausted my luck for a century! I grabbed the next idea I could think of, indeed.”

Yarlossë muttered something under his breath at that, and Tyelkormo decided to magnanimously let it go. 

Or more to the point he didn’t feel he had any energy left to keep arguing on the matter. 

“So I connected to the spider… Who killed it?” Tyelkormo asked his teacher.

“Our lord Oromë did. Your little trick drew his attention and so…”

“I only remember one single hit…” Tyelkormo started, voice full of curiosity. 

Could a single hit kill such a creature?

“Yes. Lord Oromë fell the spider with one hit. Your attempt to take control of the Spider’s will stopped it from noticing the danger and from evading the arrow so…”

“Ah…” Tyelkormo nodded, finally, feeling well enough that he started to look around for his weapons. 

There was a very annoyed bark at Tyelkormo’s side and the elf turned toward the dog, closing an eye to watch the magnificent creature because somehow with both eyes opened the world seemed fuzzy when he moved, which made no sense to him but made him want to throw up again for all he was feeling better. 

But seeing the dog’s body language, and the growls that he escaped, Tyelkormo understood him perfectly well:

“Oh stop your growling, I didn't endanger myself! I stayed right where the Hunt told me to stay! All I did was lay a song of power on that thing before it decided that toying with you wasn't enough and biting your head off would be more fun!" Tyelkormo snapped back. 

Yarlossë winced and wondered if he should intervene, but neither the young elf nor the dog paid him any attention. 

"You were an irresponsible pup and I have no idea why your parents let you leave their den! You have NO IDEA what harm could have befell you if your Song had failed!" Came firmly into Tyelkormo’s mind.

“If the song had failed, you reckless creature, you would have died and hence whatever happened after would have been of no concern of yours! And if you had called for help sooner, I wouldn’t have had to in the first place!”

There were more growling in answer, and Yarlossë looked toward Tilion for help as to what he was supposed to be doing there. Tilion shrugged, he had no real idea. So long the dispute didn’t turn into a fight, there wasn’t much to be done in his opinion. 

However the argument drew the eyes of every Hunter, including a somewhat amused Oromë, and yet the two kept arguing under the somewhat incredulous eyes of everyone. 

After a short moment of watching the argument, one of Oromë's maiar approached Oromë who was busy, like them all, building the pyres:

"My lord, should we stop them?"

"Why ever for? They're telling each other exactly what we were going to have to tell them anyway. Leave them to it. It sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship."

"Yes my lord."

Yarlossë was quite at a loss on what to do there. He was supposed to stay near his student to ensure he’d be fine but really that argument put him quite ill-at-ease, and the level of understanding between the hound and the young elf was baffling at best. 

And if the young elf had been taken by one of the hounds, why not one less likely to snap at an elf? Like oh, about any other hound currently living?!