Comes Around Again (Gigolas & Bagginshield)

Returns and Reunions

"Cousin," Fíli called, and Legolas looked up from where he was helping one of Bard's bowmen pack a hastily made pull-sled. He smiled in greeting.

"You are prepared then?" Legolas asked and Fíli nodded. Fíli, with his brother, Óin, and Bofur, were taking Bard's boat across the lake. It had been decided that a swift reunion with the Company ("or whatever's left of it," Óin had added, loudy and unnecessarily, though not wholey unkindly), would be in everyone's best interests. That way, Fíli could prepare the dwarves in the Mountain for their unexpected company.

Bilbo, at least, would respect that.

Legolas stepped away from the sled to speak to Fíli in low tones. "I fear what you will find," he admitted. "Not death—you may take comfort there. Gimli yet lives, and though I do yet feel his discomfort, so do I not feel great grief."

Fíli breathed, closing his eyes for a moment. "That is heartening," he said. "Where there's life, there's hope." He reached out to Legolas and pulled him in, knocking their foreheads together with a brotherly familiarity.

"Travel safe," Fíli said. "We will meet you at the Mountain." He grinned, boyish and sly. "I will tell Gimli of your coming."

Legolas grinned, laughing. "Please do," he said.

In the distance, Tauriel was speaking with Kíli. They stood quite close, and Legolas took a moment to simply observe the picture the two of them made. Kill was tall, for a dwarf, but even he fell short of Tauriel's shoulders. She looked like a young sapling in fall, her hair the brilliant scarlet of maple leaves and she slender enough to bend with the strong winds. For his part, Kíli looked like part of the earth itself, strongly rooted and too tough to be moved by mere air.

Still, for all their differences, they fit, and where one curved, the other caved, and they seemed almost as one being, together by the shores of long lake.

Was this how he looked with Gimli? He hoped so.

Kíli took Tauriel's hand, then, and pressed something into her palm. She marveled at it, and tried to give it back, but Kíli smiled and pressed her hand in closer to her chest. He said something, and Tauriel flushed quite red, though she looked so very happy.

"Oh," Legolas said, remembering suddenly. "Here." He unslung Orcrist, and handed it carefully to Fíli, thinking of Gimli's way with words as he said. "Bring this to your uncle. May it make amends enough for us to work together in the dark days to come, so that firmer foundations of peace and trust may be made."

Fíli took the sword carefully, and it was good for he was looking at Legolas with some surprise. "If I did not already know," he said, "I could tell from you now that you were the beloved of Gimli. You sounded just like him."

Legolas grinned. "I will take the compliment. Tell him I miss him."

"That and more," Fíli said. Legolas touched his fingertips to his chest and spread his hand forward, nodding as he would to family. Fill, quite surprising Legolas, returned the gesture. It was a near perfect mimic, and perhaps Legolas shouldn't be quite so surprised. Fíli would make an excellent King one day.

"We ready?" Bofur called from the boat; Óin was already seated inside, and his disgruntled look was so much like Gimli's when they first took to the Anduin in the boats of the Galadhrim, that Legolas had to stifle a laugh. Kíli finally managed to pull himself away, and Legolas joined Tauriel as the dwarves took to the water.

"What will they find?" Tauriel asked. "What will we?"

Legolas found that he could give her no answer.

~*~

Not even a dwarf can search forever, and that night (late, past the darkest hour if Gimli's sense was correct), they finally stopped to eat.