And suddenly, having dropped an innocent instrument on the floor, Trandyl jumped out of the room, rushed through the corridors and after a few moments he was already moving the branches hiding the IH glade. Ellerian was there. The girl was sitting on the grass, weaving something of thin stalks. When she heard the branches rustling, she slowly raised her head, knelt down her work and smiled a little:
- I thought you weren't coming today. You'll be wrapped up with the training camp, not before you go for a walk under the stars... You are leaving at dawn, aren`t you?
Thranduil barely took a breath, stepped on the glade, sank to the grass in a step from the girl. How difficult it is to pick up words that they did not sound stupid! And how I want to say something so that Ellerian also remembered in a good way this short friendship. At least sometimes!
- Yes, it's time to go. We are not close to our forest home, and autumn will not wait for us...
The king of the forest was silent, looking at Noldeh's thin fingers through the woven blades of grass, not knowing what to talk about next, not knowing why he came here at all ... Somehow you have to politely say goodbye and leave! Leave, leave... To keep at least self-respect!
Ellerian started talking herself.
- And I am also going on a trip. Only you go east, and I go west. I want to stay in Silver Harbor with Kirden Korabel. I have already said that Lord Nowe, though I have never been to Valinor, is known to be one of the wisest Eldar of the Midlands. I'd like to learn from him, to hear stories about the times when there was no sun or moon when the waking Quandis took a first look at the world around them, young, amazing, incomprehensible... Kirden's wisdom is like a well from which one can draw infinitely different knowledge but never see the bottom... Thranduil, you keep silent today... Let's go for a walk, I'll show you another magical place to say goodbye.
The girl jumped up easily and reached out to a friend. Sinda got up slowly, gently grabbed his thin fingers in his twitching palms. He didn't know how to proceed, desperate to do something stupid, seem ridiculous, or hurt the girl. And Ellerian confidently pulled him through the bushes towards the rocks.
Suddenly the thick bushes parted, and the two Eldar appeared as if in a green room without a roof. On both sides of the tiny meadow was surrounded by steep rock. Such rocks hid from strangers the whole hidden valley of Imladris. The peanut bushes were lavishly sprawling and made up two other walls. Behind the bushes there were huge sprawling birch trees. A ringing spring was beating from under the cliffs, immediately disappearing under the branches.
- Here's my secret hideout," smiled Ellerian, "nobody knows about it. When I want to be alone with Arda, I run away here...
Thranduil was silent, imbued with the tender beauty of a wonderful place, shocked by the trust of the girl who suddenly opened the hidden things to him... and not able to express with words the feelings raging in his heart...
Ellerian's smile slowly faded away. She sighed quietly and almost imperceptibly touched the hand of the Forest King.
- Well, my friend... Let's say goodbye. You have to leave early tomorrow. You have a long way to the east, me to the west, to the sea... Maybe one day we will meet again... In many, many centuries...
- Ellie... - Not realizing what he was doing, Tranduel suddenly squeezed the girl's thin hands in his fingers, - Golden Blossom is my gentle... Or maybe we should go to the East together?
And we froze, covering our eyes. The contemptuous glance of proud Noldeh shone before his inner gaze, the mountain landslide rattled in his head mocking words: "I'm not a wild girl, not an orca, to get into the wilderness and spend my life in a cave!
"What have I done? - The Forest King cried out in his mind. Now even to remember this story in a good way will not work. The bright fairy tale will end now with bitter humiliation...
But... Ellerian was silent... And did not take away her hands... Thin fingers of Nolde slightly twitched in the palms of Thranduil. He decided to open his eyes. And he met the girl's look. This look as if the furious mountain stream washed away all fears, all the uncertainty of Sindh, the constant expectation of ridicule and arrogance, destroyed all the far-fetched obstacles between the representatives of different peoples ... Between two Kwandi...
- Trandyil! Will you teach me to really hear the Music of the Forest?