Elerrina

Dance of the Hours

Fifteen minutes seemed a shorter time than she ever remembered. Elladan had gone completely still, his head still cradled in her lap as she watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. His eyes were still closed and his body had relaxed considerably, but she knew he had not fallen asleep. Her hand continued to softly stroke his long dark hair as she let her eyes explore her surroundings.

Elrohir sat on the hard stone ground next to her, silently tending to his twin. He gently pressed more bandages to the wound, stopping the bleeding slightly, but without pressing hard enough to cause any pain. She could still see the arrowhead with the broken shaft lodged in Elladan's thigh, making her immediately look away, as if she could feel the pain by merely looking at the wound.

Legolas paced around the tight space, curious blue eyes as if wanting to take a glimpse at every detail. The passage was narrow, large majestic rocks seeming to nearly collapse into each other, weaving only a tight path in between them. The passage seemed to take a turn to the left, so she could not see very far ahead into it.

Light filtered through irregular openings above, where the rocks separated from each other in an infinite dance, making the light beams appear sharper, like perfectly traced golden lines in the shaded space. Soft currents of air blew from different places, the breeze twirling in endless ways through the space, seeming to come from every direction. It was hard to tell how many possible ways out the path had, but by the variation of air currents she could easily tell that it was at least more than one.

The enchanted sound of a thin thread of water running down the rocks reached her ears. The sound of the silvery drops as they freely fell echoed in the imposing walls, bouncing and repeating itself into a magical, soothing chorus. She could tell that many of the larger waterfalls ran from this cliff, although she did not have the slightest idea as to how far from them.

Her attention was drawn back from the soothing melody as Legolas came to sit down next to her. His eyes turned to meet hers and he offered her one of his dashing smiles. Then, his eyes turned to glance at Elrohir as he spoke.

"My count is sixteen."

Elrohir's eyes looked up to meet Legolas', silver irises sparkling as his lips curved up in a smirk. She turned to glare at her brother, slightly exasperated at their game, not understanding how they could enjoy counting how many of the nasty creatures they had killed. Nevertheless, her lips curved up in a smile, grateful at her brother for attempting to lift the mood and distract everyone from their heavy thoughts.

"My count is eight." Admitted the younger twin, almost reluctantly, and she could see a glint in his eyes that seemed to challenge Legolas.

"It seems I win." Legolas' infinite blue eyes gleamed mischievously at the younger twin, a teasing smile present in his fair face.

"We are not yet in Mirkwood. The counting ends when we arrive." Added Elrohir almost immediately, eyes narrowing in defiance, and yet his smirk only turned into a wide grin.

"You will not be able to catch up with me. My count doubles yours." Said Legolas confidently yet his light blue eyes sparkled playfully as he freely teased the youngest son of Elrond. Elrohir raised an eyebrow at the comment, the grin still present in his lips.

"Who knows." Elrohir shrugged his shoulders as if he knew Legolas' prediction was erroneous. "Rina might catch up with you if she keeps with her mighty rock-throwing. She already scored one."

Both of her eyebrows rose in response as Elrohir turned to look at her, his eyes openly mocking her, the gorgeous smirk, identical to that of his brother, ever present in his face. Legolas let out a chuckle as his eyes also turned to look at her playfully. She had known Elrohir would eventually tease her and joke about the rock she had thrown, but she loved it when he did. It was almost in the same way she had heard him tease Elladan and Arwen before.