Gigolas (Legolas/Gimli) One Shots Book

In Which Things Begin

Author: rubberbutton
Summary: Legolas and Gimli come to an understanding.

In the long, quiet hours before dawn, Legolas, son of Thranduil, stood alone. The city of Minas Tirith lay before him; even in the dim light of a waning moon, the devastation was evident. He could see the stars where lofty towers once stood. Much lost in the final battle; victory won, but the price of it had been very dear indeed. Though the populace now celebrated the new king's coronation, an air of melancholia underlay the revelry. No man or woman within the city's walls did not grieve the loss of kin or brothers-in-arms.

His keen, elvish hearing caught the sound of boots on the steps up to the watchtower, but Legolas did not turn.

"Why do you not seek your bed at this late hour?" Legolas asked.

Gimli snorted and came to stand beside the Elf. His head cleared the wall, but only just. "Here you've taken my part - I sought to ask the same of you!"

"I confess my limbs are weary, but I do not need to sleep and find that I cannot take such solace this night."

"What grieves you that would keep you from repose? The battles are over, friend, and we are victorious." The Elf did not answer immediately, and Gimli grasped his companion's arm, the Dwarf's countenance becoming grim. "If something troubles you, speak of it and do not delay. That which pains you pains me."

Legolas smiled then, though a sweet and inexpressible sadness lingered in his eyes. "I fear I shall appear foolish, for in truth, there is nothing." He laid his slender fingers over the Dwarf's. "Do not concern yourself over my strange sorrows."

The Dwarf hrumphed. "I may not understand -- for what Dwarf can understand the mind of an Elf? -- but I would hear them all the same."

Legolas sighed a little and dropped Gimli's hand. "We've spent a year together, battling the darkest foes and facing toils unending. A year? It was so short a time that no elf would mark it. Yet I have done more and seen more in that time than in the rest of my long life. Each moment was made significant by its very precariousness. Always I looked ahead to greater labors, each arising as the last had been overcome, with the final task hanging over all." Legolas cast his gaze out over the city. "To my shame, I despaired."

"Do not criticize yourself. No Man, Elf, or Dwarf saw Sauron's army and did not know hopelessness," the Dwarf said sternly. "To stand fast when naught but duty and love hold you is a true honor."

"Your words comfort me," Legolas replied, ducking his head so his hair, now unbound, fell in his pale eyes. "In those harried days, I thought about what lay after victory, if victory should come. I lived as Man or Dwarf, for death seemed as likely for me as for any of their number. Now the promise of life unending is restored, and I can continue as I have these past centuries." The Elf's fair brow furrowed, and he grasped the cold stone of the wall, leaning heavily against it. "But the thought of home holds not the joy once it did. Mirkwood remains constant, but I fear I have changed."

"That is the way of it, lad," Gimli replied. "Do not think about it tonight. You may yet delay your return. Much work done in Gondor, and we have both pledged our aid to Aragorn."

"It is true, we have. I would see the gardens renewed and made glorious. There is too little that grows within the city."

"And I would hew fine stone for the rebuilding." Gimli hesitated, stroking his beard. "And yet another promise you made to see the Glittering Caves if you still hold to that."

"Hold to it, and gladly." Legolas smiled. "Though I must, in turn, remind you of your promise to visit Fangorn."

Here, Gimli shuddered. "I will go, and with you, as a guide, I shall not fear what lurks there in the shadows. But it is a mark of the great love I bear you that I consider the journey at all."