➵ forest friends

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They all teach one another songs on the ship. Tinnuir knows many from his times of travel, as do Legolas and Gimli, and the group sings them in the mornings and nights when everyone wakes up to change lookout shifts.

Ulvinowyn is often the one to steer the ship, just as she had been before, while Faerthurindir watches with a respectful silence. When it gets dark, the air and the water do not seem to be separate entities, and all they can do is see it dance as one long sky.

On one of the nights, Elu and Legolas are the ones to stay awake in the cool night air. They speak stories to one another and Legolas teaches him how to pull seaweed from the waters to eat. Elu, not being one for the taste of salt, decides that he will get used to the water plants in time, though tonight is not the night for it. But he reaches his hand into the waves nevertheless, feeling the life beneath brush against his palms and wrap over his wrists, and he pulls up many leaves of it, which he wraps around some caught fish as an edible package.

"You must quite prefer plant foods at home in Mirkwood," Elu comments as Legolas eats it plain. "And you speak to the wilderness as well. I assume you have a much more lush forest around you, in the place where your father rules, if you are so accustomed to it."

"My forests are none the more thicker nor greener than your own," Legolas replies. "I am merely more friendly with it."

"If only you could stay longer," Elu says. "If only I could learn how to be friendlier to the forest like you were taught in your home."

"And if only these waters were gold," Legolas says with a slight taste of cynicism. Although he has never truly taken a liking to gold. He prefers the light blue shimmer of the ocean over any coin or treasure.

Elu looks over to him and smiles with the gentle wind.

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