“Unfortunately, it’s written in Elvish,” Elowyn says as she reclaims the text. “I’ll just have to translate.”
Rominy frowns. “Elvish?”
She turns confused eyes his way. “Do you not know what written Elvish looks like?”
“I do, but that looked like Nunian to me.”
They stare at each other for a moment.
“You see Nunian?” she asks.
“Don’t you?”
She shakes her head.
“Let me see it again,” he says.
She hands it to him this time, and he flips through the pages. There are diagrams accompanied by letters forming very clear words. Nunian words.
“You don’t see letters?” he asks.
“No. Those are Elvish runes.”
“I see letters.” He reads a section to her, and her eyes grow wide.
“You translated that perfectly.”
“I didn’t. That’s what I see. I’m just reading it.”
“Fascinating.”
That actually is fascinating.
And convenient.
“I guess we should start at the beginning,” she says.
Having something to do seems to be helping her mood. He’ll spend all day attempting to build this treehouse of hers if it will keep that smile on her face.
He flips to the first page. “It’s a materials list. I think we have everything we need. We don’t need to count the nails, do we?”
“Rominy! We want to do this right, don’t we?”
He eyes her as her mouth twitches.
As if this elf of his wouldn’t self-destruct from the tedium of counting nails. He’s still learning so much about her, but that facet of her personality seems pretty obvious.
“Go ahead,” he says. “I’ll work on pulling out the wood we need to start.”
Her teasingsmile immediately falls away. “I wasn’t serious. We don’t need to—”
“I know exactly what you were doing, love.” He steals a kiss. “I can give it, too.”
He winks, and her smile reappears. “So, no counting nails?”
“Definitely no counting nails. If we run out, we’ll ask for more.”
“Brilliant.”
