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Sons of Fellowship  by Conquistadora

The mid-summer sun dawned clear and full the next morning over the White City and the plains of the Pelennor, a final salute to the obsequies of Théoden son of Thengel, King of Rohan.


Legolas stood before the crystal mirror in his stark Gondorian bedchamber of white and black, arrayed again in emerald green and burgundy foisted upon him by Lord Glorfindel.  If one was to pay one’s respects to a fallen King, one must dress accordingly.  And none would ever say of a royal son of Thranduil that he could not act the part when the occasion demanded.


Death struck the immortal heart deeply, and such was the underlying vein of sorrow that ran always beneath the joy of victory, rendering triumph bittersweet.  There would be many empty chairs in Greenwood, he knew, just as there were everywhere.  Survival was a grace dearly bought.


The final touch was his silver crown of beech leaves, which Thranduil had taken special care to send to him.  He was no longer the obscure Wood-elf who served in Aragorn’s shadow, but a son of the High Sindar, the Firstborn Heir of Lasgalen.


“Ho, there, laddie.  I would hardly have recognized you.”


The rough and familiar voice effectively shattered his moment of introspection, but not unpleasantly so.  “I shall consider that a compliment, Gimli,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder to see the Dwarf in the same armored ensemble he had worn through journey and battle, albeit clean and new-burnished, and not without an overlaying cloak of rich crimson he had acquired during their stay, his thick beard forked and braided.  “Does the assembly begin, my friend?”


“In a moment I would not be surprised to hear the trumpets flare,” Gimli replied in his rolling accent, one that was strangely endearing once it had ceased to be annoying, very like a rumbling stampede of horses.  “So it will be farewell to Minas Tirith and to Gondor at last.”


“For the moment,” Legolas corrected, gathering together what other gear he was to bring back with him, notably his weapons and the bundle of his own clothes.  “I trust there will yet come a day when Elves and Dwarves are common as cats in this land which sorely needs them.”


“If they could only get by together without hissing and spitting at every turn,” Gimli returned glumly, wryly extending Legolas’ metaphor.  “And there we must tread but one pace at a time.  I shall do what I can to placate my own father’s ill-will against you and yours, if you agree to do the same for me beneath your roof.”


“Agreed,” Legolas smiled.  Gimli had not been there at the time, and did not realize just whose hand had guided the reconciliation between the Wood and the Mountain before this.  “You are riding with me, then?”


“Well, lad,” Gimli reasoned thoughtfully, “it is indeed a long and weary walk from Rohan to the Mountain.  And it is pretty coincidence that we shall indeed be going the same way.  And it just so happens that you have promised to see the Caves with me if I follow to Fangorn.  So, yes.  If I must ride, I can think of no company I would rather keep.”


“Not even that of the Lady?” Legolas teased.


Gimli blushed furiously at the unexpected prod.  “Now, Legolas,” he scolded, “you should know better than that.  The last thing a brilliant lily like her needs is an old mushroom like me bumping along behind her.  Why, it just wouldn’t do!”


Legolas feigned offense.  “And yet you feel no qualms in bumping along behind me?”  


“You aren’t a lily,” Gimli maintained.  “You, my friend, are a . . .” he waved a gloved hand about for a moment as he searched for an appropriate epithet, “ . . . a daffodil.”


“Thank you, Gimli,” Legolas replied, his voice heavy with irony.  “Think what you will of me.  Though I would advise you to restrain your more poetic comments in my father’s presence, at least until he knows you well.  Think of him as a daffodil or tiger lily or even a snapdragon if you like, but I do not imagine he would much appreciate such comparisons.”


“Certainly,” Gimli agreed.  “I know my own father would not have thought of him as such.  However,” he continued, in a mock-thoughtful voice, “many are the times he has likened him rather to a bear.  Or even an ass.”


Legolas instinctively took a sudden jolt of genuine offense at that, but then slowly smiled.  “Perhaps not so very far from the truth,” he confided in a hushed tone, lest Thranduil hear them two hundred leagues away in his palace.




“It seems you take perverse pleasure in mentioning the Lady to me,” Gimli regressed.


“You never fail to react in your most amusing manner,” Legolas explained, flashing a slightly mischievous smile over his shoulder.


“Besides, I could swear you were quite taken with her yourself.  Friend Éomer was overcome by the sight of both, but pledged his honor by Queen Undomiel instead.  I maintain that no greater beauty ever graced the form of womanhood on this earth than in the Lady Galadriel.  What say you, Legolas?”


The other sobered somewhat then, an unnamed and distant regret passing over his face, all else forgotten.  “No,” he said at last, turning away.  “There are others I deem fairer still, if only to my own heart.” 


He did not explain, and Gimli resigned himself not to ask, at least not yet.  But such a statement made him realize again just how very little he knew of Legolas, whose past was a nigh unfathomable count of years into which he invited few.  What sorrows lay hidden there was anyone’s guess.  But Gimli now resolved to break that courteous barrier of silence, even if it meant chiseling away at it with brazen questions.  Otherwise his relationship with the Elf was alike to walking on a wetfield, never knowing when one would unwittingly tread upon sensitive ground.


He looked on from the doorway as Legolas attended the final thoughtful preparations of his room with the hard-working chambermaid in mind, throwing back the black and silver bed curtains and stripping the mattress of sheets, which he rolled into a neat bundle and left at the side, folding the coverlet and pulling the pillow cases.


To the Dwarvish mind, to whom masculinity was a very rough and taurine attribute, it was a wonder that Elven men could be beautiful while not effeminate.  For Legolas was admittedly a beautiful creature in his own right, surpassing even many of his fellows, yet he was just as virile as any man, and dreadfully strong despite his slender build.  Gimli had never yet beheld the Elvenking, but he had no doubt that Thranduil would be much the same, only more so.  Manhood for the Elves was feline, fair and perilous, a distinction Gimli the Dwarf was now able to appreciate, for he had seen their rougher edges.  And he supposed he could respect Legolas’ catlike ways if the other could tolerate his bullishness. 


The maidens of Gondor had seemed to find Legolas a wonder as well, and Gimli was not the only one who had begun to suspect, and to say as much, that many of those who had sought audience with Aragorn over the first months of his reign had come merely to catch a glimpse of the Elf, drawn to him as bothersome moths are drawn to a candle.  Gimli was often tempted to rue his uncomeliness when he thought of the Lady and how unworthy he deemed himself even to stand in her light; but when he observed Legolas and the desultory troubles his perfection brought him, he blessed Mahal anew for his coarse and practical Dwarvishness.




Legolas looked up to find Gimli staring rather vacantly at him.  “What?” he asked.


“Oh,” the dwarf said, coming back to himself and waving a hand with a dismissive chuckle.  “Just glad I am not you.”  And he turned to walk back from whence he had come.


Thoroughly puzzled by that last remark, Legolas nevertheless chose not to make an issue of it.  “So am I,” he murmured wryly to himself, gathering his things to join his stout-hearted friend in the hall, wondering if he would ever understand him. 








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