Title: Opening Negotiations
Fandom: Silmarillion, The Exeter Book
Challenge: Screw
Other prompt: Riddle
Rating: G
Length: 500
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zhie, Morgynleri & Runa for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Summary: Fingon observes Elrond in his element at the negotiating table.

Elrond brought forth a sturdy, elegant glass bottle of Greenwood make, green-gold wax covering the top. A silver ribbon threaded through the wax, sealed with Gelion the cellarer's mark. He set it gently on the table. Fingon did not recognize the bottle, though it was obviously a vintage of some note. Thranduil and Celeborn, both did, as did, unexpectedly, the Speaker of Those Who Stayed. Well. That improved prospects for this negotiation considerably. It only needed a corkscrew.

Which, of course, Elrond had provided himself with. Fingon recognized the shape under the napkin. This particular corkscrew came with a riddle.

Elrond had that particular glint in his eye that Fingon had come to recognize as -- not mischief precisely, but a rarely expressed humor. Never mean or hurtful or at anyone's expense, he could deflate pretension, give support to voices and perspectives too often ignored or overlooked, or simply lighten a fraught atmosphere with a few well chosen words, -- quote, verse, riddle or question. Fingon had a suspicion he knew what was coming. The Iathrim and the southern Sindar appreciated riddles, but generally did not use them seriously. The northern Sindar and the Speaker's people did. Elrond was opening the negotiations.

Elrond arranged the crystal goblets before him, smiling gently at the company around the table. "I have it on the best authority - Master Bilbo - that this is a traditional riddle among his people, translated from the Westron. Here it is in post-Beleriandic Sindarin:

I draw outward, unstopping stern
The firm-shut door
Undaunted I by oaken age
I breech bound tuns
I twist and turn, bypass bee-work
Release rich ghosts
I free a flood of words and wit
Un-wisdom waits
And still my skill is often sought
Effort employed
To let flow forth in steady stream
Joyful waters.

Who am I?

Fingon sat back. He knew the answer of course, though Bilbo had very nearly stumped him the first time he had presented it. They had generally used two-pronged devices to draw corks in his youth and in Beleriand, and thin-bladed knives for wax stoppers and seals, but he had seen spiral blades used for boring and excavating, and worked out the answer, to Bilbo's laughing encouragement. He watched the Speaker's face, and Thranduil's.
After a moment of silent thought, the Speaker tapped the table in signal to speak. Thranduil closed his lips on what he had been about to say.

"A curly cork-drawer, no?" the Speaker said, framing their answer as a question, but sure of their answer all the same. Thranduil had come to the same conclusion no doubt, but not as quickly. There was more respect in his nod acknowledging the point.

Elrond produced the corkscrew, "One very like this, made to the pattern of one from the Shire." He drew the cork from the bottle with a musical 'Pop!' and began to pour out the wine as cork and corkscrew were passed around the table to examine. A green-gold summer scent filled the room. A good beginning.