Bee-Elves by darthfingon

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Bee-Elves 2

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Although Canamírë wished to push on south in an effort to reach Cuiviénen as soon as possible, I had it in mind to discover who had made that bridge.  It could not have been the Nandor in the forest on the western shore, according to Canamírë.  Nandorin tribes tended to be fiercely territorial, and they would not have built a structure to encourage visitors from the east.  Nor would they have bothered to build it for their own use, either for hunting or exploration, as they preferred to stay within their own borders.  Additionally, said Canamírë, the style of construction echoed very closely some Sindarin examples he had seen in the vicinity of Lestanórë.  And the logs had been coated in tar to preserve them from the effects of water.  As far as he knew, the Nandor had no such technology.

The story of Celeborn's Lestanórin deserters came to mind.  He said they had gone into the east, and here we encountered an eastern bridge built in Sindarin style, obviously still in use.  Ahead on the horizon, the edge of a dark forest loomed.  It was a logical destination.

"Let us travel east," I said to Canamírë, "to that great forest."

He looked up from adjusting his boots to stare at me.  "Cuiviénen lies to the south."

"We know, yes.  But we also believe it to be prudent to take advantage of unforeseen opportunities.  By Prince Celeborn's account we may find lost Sindar in the forest yonder, and they are most certainly in need of guidance."

Canamírë seemed unconvinced.

"They may also be more amenable to intrusion than Nandor the likes of whom we have thus far discovered."

"True," he said.  He stood up, stretched, and shook out his arms.  "Then again they also might have better weapons."  Gesturing to the porters, he gave a little shout.  "Oi!  We go east!"

East, to my relief, was easier terrain than the tangling meadow on the western shore.  Some of the clover-like plants still grew, but seemed confined to scattered clumps surrounded by more passable tall grass.  A faint trail, hardly less overgrown than the surrounding countryside but a trail nonetheless, lay in a straight line between the bridge and the distant forest.  We were able to walk with greater speed.  We rested well off the trail that night, then resumed our journey in time to reach the eaves of the forest by midday.

With our encounter with the Nandor of the western forest still fresh in our minds, we approached loudly and on a strict lookout: we wanted any dwellers of these parts to be well aware that we were coming, and we wanted to see them before they had a chance to catch us unaware.  The porters chatted and shouted to one another, while Canamírë sang a Sindarin song that was, to the best of my understanding, about an immodest mermaid.  Still, we saw no-one.  Apart from the path, which grew steadily more trampled the closer we drew to the forest, there was no indication that anyone lived here.

It was not until we were close enough to see individual leaves on the trees that we spotted one of the elusive Sindar.  Unlike the naked Nandorin men, he was fully clothed in garments of brown and green.  So well did he blend into the scenery, standing perfectly still against the bole of a great tree, that at first he appeared to be nothing more than a pale, disembodied face.  I nearly leapt in surprise to see him there.  He stared straight ahead at us as we approached, not speaking, though Canamírë hailed him twice.  He did not move, not so much as twitch of the finger.

"Is he... even alive?" I whispered to Canamírë.

To judge by his uneasy expression, Canamírë could not answer.  He looked to the Sindarin porters with a questioning glance, but their faces matched his for confusion.  So this was not some strange Sindarin death ritual, to stand their fallen warriors against trees as gruesome sentinels.

We continued forward until we were fewer than twelve paces from the motionless Sinda.  He still did not move, and seemed not even to breathe, but he blinked.  The four of us exhaled in relief.

"Well met, fellow," Canamírë said to him, but, as before, the man did not reply.  He was alive, of that much we were certain, but whether or not he had any wits about him was an entirely different question.  The four of us came to stand beside him, and still he remained oblivious to our presence.  Hesitantly, Canamírë reached out to touch his shoulder.

The touch brought him to life.  He turned his head sharply, causing us all to step back in surprise, and grinned at Canamírë.  "Well met, fellow," he echoed in his Sindarin bee-voice.

There was a rustle of leaves in the tree's canopy above us, and suddenly we were surrounded by a ring of green- and brown-clad Sindar as they dropped from the branches or appeared from behind nearby trees.  Canamírë swore under his breath, and I was inclined to join him.  We had been lured in by a decoy like perfect idiots.  The encircling Sindar were not brandishing weapons, but they had no need to.  There were nearly two dozen of them and four of us.

Canamírë forced a delighted smile, as if he wished for nothing more in the world than to be surrounded by strangers in a remote, eastern forest, and began chattering happily with them.  He clapped shoulders here and bobbed his head there, greeting several of our captors like long-lost cousins.  To my surprise, they seemed agreeable to his feigned camaraderie, bobbing heads and clapping shoulders in return.  The circle became a cluster, with us at its centre.  Then, before I even realised what was happening, we found ourselves being herded along deeper into the forest.  Sindarin warriors had placed themselves on all sides of me.  Canamírë, as best I could see, was somewhere further back in the group and to my right.  I had no way to ask him where we were headed, or if the Sindar had told him as much.

We walked for what felt to be several hours, down a path that seemed to open in front of us as we progressed.  Up ahead, I could see nothing but a wall of underbrush and low-growing trees, but somehow the path continued to unfold before us.  These Sindar either possessed some manner of forest magic or were uncommonly talented at disguising their roads.  Whatever the case, we wound back and forth down a meandering route until we reached a large clearing.

It was here that our guides left us.  With no more than a gesture and a few words to Canamírë, something that I took to mean, 'Here you are; enjoy the stay,' they deposited the four of us in the clearing and then melted back into the forest.  The path they took ended abruptly in a large bramble patch, and I could not see where they had gone, even staring at the exact place whence they had disappeared.  We were on our own.  I turned to Canamírë, who looked as confused as I felt.  "Where in the world are we?"

"Their village?" he answered.

But the clearing was more than a village.  It was nearly a city and at least a good-size town.  An enormous circle had been carved out of the forest, though many trees still stood in the middle of roadways, alongside gardens, or even growing out of the tops of buildings.  As we cautiously explored, we saw a two-storey log house whose front left corner was built around an enormous tree sporting a balcony, cottages with thatched roofs and walls of hide, strange little stone huts that appeared to be half underground, and even a few tents sitting on platforms that had been built up in the treetops, accessible only by rope ladder.  It was by far the oddest collection of buildings I had ever seen.

At the centre of the town was a circle of stones encasing a fountain.  At the centre of the fountain was a large plinth, upon which stood nothing at all.  The fountain looked very new, and the earth surrounding it had been newly turned.  Perhaps the townspeople had not yet had time to construct a statue.  From the fountain, we chose the widest of several converging roads, in hope that it would lead us to the King's residence.  It led to a logging operation at the edge of town.

"Is this not the most frustrating place you have ever been?" I whispered to Canamírë.  By this point, we had been wandering around town for a full hour, and not one person had yet either welcomed us or else demanded to know what we were doing there.  It was very obvious from our dress that we did not belong; everyone we had seen so far wore either simple garments of green, grey, or brown, as the warriors we met, or Nandorin-type decorations that were hardly better than being naked.  We were clearly lost foreigners, but nobody seemed to care.

Canamírë squinted at the loggers.  The majority of them were naked, cutting trees, stripping branches, and hauling logs, but a few more important-looking, clothed men stood in the middle of it all, arguing with each other.  From what I could gather, they were in charge of deciding which trees should be cut, and they were unable to agree on anything.

"I'll talk to them," Canamírë said.  He took off across the log field and I followed, carefully.  It was full of stump hazards, discarded branches, and random, inexplicable holes.  Canamírë introduced himself to the logging architects, exchanging what sounded like a long stream of flowery, bee-buzzing words.  At the end of it, one architect pointed back toward the fountain, and the other three in almost the exact opposite direction, to the far side of the log field.  They started arguing again.

"Well," Canamírë told me, stepping back, "popular vote indicates that the King is somewhere over there."  He, too, pointed to the far side of the log field.

"Have we any idea what he looks like?" I asked.

Canamírë stole a quick glance back toward the bickering architects, who were, naturally, still bickering in their bee-voices.  "Of course not."

Nonetheless, he set off across the log field in the direction that the three had pointed.  I followed.  We came nearly to the tree-line without encountering a single being, kinglike or otherwise, when Canamírë spied a pair of naked legs sticking out from behind a heap of discarded branches.  Attached to the naked legs was a naked rump, and attached to that was a naked torso, which had two naked arms and an incongruously clothed head.  The naked man lay prone on the ground between two large branch piles, apparently using a little mole-hill of dirt as a pillow.  His face was obscured by the brim of his hat.

"Oh that cannot be the King," I murmured to Canamírë.

Canamírë leaned over far enough to tap the fellow on the shoulder.  "Are you the King?" he asked, and I could have hit him for his brashness.  One does not simply ask a naked man if he is the King.  Nor does one ask that same question of an obvious king.  One must discover these things with gentler manners.

Luckily, the naked fellow did not seem to take offence.  He lifted his head and half-spoke, half-yawned his answer: "No."

"You're right," Canamírë grumped on our way back across the log field.  "This is the most frustrating place I've ever been."

He conducted another conversation with the architects, this one less flowery and somewhat louder than the previous.  The outcome was as follows: the three insisted that yes, the naked man in the hat sleeping between two branch-piles at the far end of the log field was indeed the King, while the fourth stood with his arm outstretched, pointing toward the fountain, and glared.

We went back across the log field.  "This time we will speak to him," I told Canamírë.

"In Quenya?" he asked.

"Yes, of course.  We will speak very slowly.  The languages are similar enough that if we use small words and speak slowly, we should be understood."

"That is a terrible idea for reasons too numerous to mention right now."

"We find it less terrible than your rude inquiring as to whether or not he is the King.  Truly, Canamírë, have you no sense of monarchical deportment?"

"Sense of what?"

"Precisely," I said.  "Now please, stand behind us and try to have good posture."

The naked man was still sleeping where we had left him.  I stood near his feet, cleared my throat, and began to speak clearly and slowly, using simple words.  "Our most kind sir; we bid you a good afternoon."

Again, he lifted his head, though this time he completed the movement to roll onto his back and stare up at me, hands clasped across his chest.

"We are most glad to meet you.  We are Finwion Arafinwë Ingalaurë Noldóran of Tirion, recently come out of the west on a journey of great importance."  I paused, smiling, to allow him a chance to speak.  When he remained silent, I added, "Do you understand what we have said?"

"Of course I understand," he replied in perfect Quenya.  "I'm not an idiot."

~

Both Canamírë and I were too disconcerted to speak coherently after the naked fellow's demonstration of Quenya knowledge.  We followed him back across the log field in the direction of the architects.  The whole way, Canamírë's eyes looked as if they were utterly devoid of lids, so round and protuberant they had become.

The King-or-not-King still had not given any hint as to which one he was.  However, the bickering architects saw fit to fall silent as we approached, which provided some indication.  All four of them abandoned what it was they had been arguing and turned to face us in a neat line.

"So you... err... are the King?" asked Canamírë.

"No," not-King insisted.  "Which one of these thick-heads told you I am?"

Canamírë pointed to the leftmost three.

"Foolishness."  He turned to frown at me.  "Do I look like I'm wearing a Kinging Robe?"

"No," I answered, and truthfully, as he looked to be wearing nothing at all but the hat.

"Then I cannot be the King," he said, with logic so faulty he might as well have been born a son of Fëanáro.  "Kings do not sleep naked between things of branches in log fields."

Just then, the fourth architect shouted something belligerent at Canamírë and stabbed his finger in the direction of the fountain.

"Yes, yes," said the not-King.  "The King is by the fountain.  Why does nobody remember that?  Follow me."

And so we left the architects as abruptly as we had arrived, without a word of good-bye.  The not-King marched ahead, while I scowled to myself and Canamírë continued to look bewildered and, understandably, apprehensive.  It had become quite obvious that we were in the hands of a complete imbecile, and a naked imbecile at that.  Worse, I could not even complain about it to Canamírë, as said imbecile would understand every word I spoke.

"Here," the not-King said once we reached the fountain.  "Wait here."  He then disappeared down one of the narrower roads, leaving Canamírë and me blessedly alone.

We turned to each other and said, at the same time, "He is insane."

"This is ridiculous," said Canamírë.

"Yes, we agree," I replied.

"Let's leave.  Now."

"No, we cannot leave until we have completed our mission."

"Arafinwë-"

"Your Highness," I corrected.  Being in the middle of a naked madman's nonsensical town was no excuse for Canamírë to forget his manners.

He continued without an apology: "-that mission is something you invented because you were bored!"

"That makes it no less important to us.  We are the King, Canamírë, and have thus-"

"Oh, for the love of Varda, will you stop referring to yourself as plural!" he shouted.

Shocked by the outburst, I could think of nothing to say in response.  Never before had any man, apart from my brother Fëanáro, raised his voice to me thusly.  One simply did not behave that way in the presence of kings.  It was little wonder Canamírë had landed himself in prison, with such a temper and disregard for protocol.

"You are a single person!" he continued, ranting like a lunatic.  "One!  Arafinwë!  Alone!  Just you!  Not you and some other mystical entity!  Only you!  Therefore, you say 'I' and 'me'!  Not 'we' and 'us'!  How difficult is that?"

"That is quite enough!" I said sharply.  "Canamírë, we will not be listening to any more of your nonsense.  We have no time for that, and you are very much out of line!"

"You're out of..." he muttered, but I could not hear the rest of his words.   They dribbled down his chin like mud as he grumbled to himself.  It was just as well.  Kings need not tolerate such disrespect.  The only reason I had tolerated his rudeness thus far was that I required his services as a guide.  In any proper setting, he would have been sent back to prison long ago.

"We are willing to disregard this lapse in mannerliness and forgive you," I told him, "provided we be given assurance that it will not happen again.  May we have your word?"

The reply he growled into his collar was too soft to hear.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" asked another voice at my side.

The not-King had returned.  Only now, he was no longer naked, but wearing a long, red robe.  His hat had disappeared, replaced by some manner of wreath.  He sat down on the edge of the fountain, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked up at me.  "Welcome to Galadhost, in the great realm of Eryn Galen," he said, in a voice that had suddenly become melodious and smooth as polished marble.  "I am Reeve Oropher.  You wish to speak with me?"

His use of the title 'Reeve' disrupted my concentration.  Was this his way of admitting that he was not the King?  But, did he not just earlier state that the King was by the fountain, and was he not right then sitting on the fountain's edge dressed in as kingly a manner as could be expected from rustic forest folk?  "Ah," I said.  "Yes.  If we may repeat our introduction, we are Finwion Arafinwë Ingalaurë Noldóran of Tirion, on a mission out of the west.  It is our honourable duty to speak with the kings of all Eldarin lands, so that they may be invited to journey to the glorious land of Valinor.  There we shall all live in harmony under the kind guidance of High King Ingwë, as the Valar intended for us."

"Oh, good," said Oropher.  "And?"

"That is all.  We journey together to Valinor and then live there in perpetual happiness."

"Who does?" he asked.

"Everyone."

"Where?"

"To Valinor," I repeated.  "As we said-"

"Well, yes, Valinor, but where?  Are there different things in Valinor where we can live not together?  With different kings?"

"No, no, the purpose is that we all live as one.  That is what the Valar wish.  Under one king: Ingwë.  Of course, we are the King of the Noldor, and there is a King of the Teleri, as well: Olwë.  We expect you will be ruled by both him and Ingwë, to whom Olwë owes allegiance."

"Oh," said Oropher.  "Hm.  When?"

"As soon as possible.  We must first carry our message to all of the kings, and this may take some time.  But you and your people are most welcome to begin your migration directly."

"Oh," Oropher said again.  "How many others are doing this thing with you?"

"We suspect everyone will."

"Everyone?"

"Yes."

"Right now?"

"Of course."

He nodded slowly.  "I'll need to think about that."

"Please do," I said.  "It is imperative that all of the Eldar are once again united as we were at Cuiviénen."

"Cuiviénen, right, I agree," Oropher replied with a nod.  "Cuiviénen is very important.  That's what we're trying to make here."  Then, before I even had a chance to respond, he changed the subject entirely.  "Say.  As we're on the thing of Quenya, that reminds me of a song I knew years ago."

He began humming to himself, so quietly I had trouble hearing.  Either he had forgotten most of it or it had no discernable tune; he hummed what sounded like several unrelated fragments of melodies and conflicting rhythms.  Gradually, it grew louder and more confident, and the wordless humming turned into lyrics.  He bobbed his head in time with the emerging song.

She has freckles on her bum;
She is nice.

"Do you know that one?" he asked me.

"No," I answered.  This was the honest truth.  I had never before heard such a song in my life, and felt no more fulfilled for having done so.

Oropher sighed.  "Too bad.  But no worry.  I can't remember if it's a real song or one I made up."