“You cannot be seen with him, Legolas.  He is a nogoth.”

“I fear I have some very bad news for you, Luinar,” Legolas returned with thinly veiled sarcasm.  “All the mortal world has seen me with him.  From Rohan to Gondor, ‘Legolas and Gimli’ are part and parcel.”

“But that is disgusting!” Luinar protested, slouched rakishly over the divan beside the bookshelf.

“Enough!” Legolas rounded on him with a vicious curl of his lip.  “He is as much my friend as any of you, and I will not allow you to insult him in my presence."

Luinar fell silent at the snappish rebuke though he was far from satisfied.  Anorrín said nothing as was his way, standing placidly in the corner lest he become a target for any stray frustrations.  They all felt drawn to Legolas now that he had returned, but their presence only seemed to exacerbate the present problem. 

“We worry for you,” Calenmir said for himself.  “Now that the Dwarf has come with you to Lasgalen, will you be obliged to accompany him to Erebor?  That mountain is unkind to solitary Elves.”

“Calenmir,” Legolas assured him, kindred affection smoothing the irritation in his voice, “after the forsaken places I have seen in the past year, Erebor will be child's play.”

“You say that now,” said Anorrín.  “Once alone behind their doors it may not seem so simple.”

“Always simple,” Legolas maintained.  “Not necessarily easy.  Smile for introductions, say ‘yes, my lord’, and remember to compliment the ladies.  How complicated could it be?”

Calenmir coughed discreetly.  “And have you ever seen a Dwarvish lady?” he asked pointedly.  “I wish you the best of fortune in telling the difference.”

“You have known him so briefly,” Luinar challenged him, rising to his feet.  The two lifelong companions faced one another belligerently.  “They are an uncouth, fickle-minded race.  You naturally assume everyone is worthy of some measure of dignity, but how can you fathom the unspeakable things that go on in the heart?” 

Legolas seethed at this jaundiced slight to Gimli's honor, his eyes ablaze with Thranduil's fire.  “The time may have been brief,” he snarled, “but already he and I owe one another the debt of our lives ten times over.  We fought together, rode together, ate together, slept beneath each other’s watch.  You will forgive me if I choose to honor that.  Or would you have us be guilty of the same treachery and ingratitude you would pin upon him?” 

Luinar looked bitter.  “But you . . .”

“No!” Legolas silenced him, pulling rank.  “I have heard enough.  I have only just returned and now you would henpeck me to death!  Let it alone, for pity's sake!”

He looked like a Dwarvish Elvenlord.

Gimli observed himself in the mirror, not entirely unsatisfied with his stout tunic of deep green lined with forest brown.  It had probably been hastily thrown together from several cannibalized garments, but even then it was a respectable piece of work.  Perhaps the Elves’ skill lay with needles rather than hammers.  He supposed would not mind wearing it for Legolas and Thranduil.  Still, he imagined he would die the laughingstock of the Mountain if any of his kin caught him so attired.

His beard was forked and braided in the old style.  He need not make any concessions there, he thought rather smugly, for the Elves knew not the first thing about it.  His hair was still a bit wild, but he thought nothing of it.  And speaking of hair . . .

His rough hand slipped down to the slender pouch of dark leather on his belt, in which he had discovered, carefully attended and reposed, the three strands of gold granted him by the Lady.  Studded with diamonds that glinted like stars, he deemed it a worthy receptacle until he could arrange to enshrine it later in crystal.  Legolas thought of everything. 

Cautiously he opened the door into the corridor, but stopped when he heard a heated argument underway.  He plainly heard Legolas' voice rise above what he knew were bitter objections, though he understood not a word of it.  The Elf was in a mood, shouting down all dissent even as he left them, waving them off in disgusted frustration.

He soon appeared at Gimli's door to fetch him, a formidable figure of green and summer yellow, the accents of gold and silver lending him a subtle but agitated shimmer in the light.  “Come,” he said, in an evident huff as he endeavored to forget the brouhaha in the hall.  “I would show you something.”

“Something fair of Elvendom?”

“No, I am afraid not.”

Gimli followed, piqued with curiosity.  Legolas led him purposefully from the more populated wings up an inclined passage, one not so well lighted as those they left.  There was no one to be seen here in the upper levels of Thranduil's caverns.  There was something unsettling in that, as he had no right idea where they were going, but the calm assurance about the way Legolas carried himself in the midst of his own world was a comfort.  

At length they stopped outside one dark and forbidding door closed heavily against them, branded deeply with a single black initial.  It was the same sign that adorned their banners, and Gimli construed it must stand for “Thranduil”, a chill prickling up his spine.  If any Dwarves had set foot here before, it was likely not of their own will.  The door was without latch or handle, but Legolas lay his palm against it and pushed it aside easily.

It opened into a room of darkness, but this darkness was chill and smelled of dust, gripping Gimli's heart with the same hushed reluctance that comes upon entering a tomb.  Legolas spoke a quiet command as he swept silently inside, and at his voice the lamps glowed to life.

“This, Gimli,” he said, “is where my father lingers in his . . . darker moments.”

Gimli said nothing, for he felt as though he had entered a room where time itself was suspended.  He could feel the brooding presence of the Elvenking looming about the entire place, revealed not as a tomb, but a trophy hall.

The walls were hung top to bottom with ghostly banners wreathed in shadow, not all of them Elven.  The display upon the first wall included all the captured standards that had fallen prey to Thranduil's army; many were no more than orcish rags, but each rent and bloodstained scrap had been bought at a price.  Others flaunted strange badges, signs of wicked Men of the past age who never returned from the depths of Mirkwood, earning for the forest a haunted name.  Some were ancient, those near the ceiling threadbare and threatening to fall to dust with the passage of the centuries.  Others were newer, the dark stains upon them fresher, all that remained now of Dol Guldur's last howling horde.  He could find no Dwarvish heraldry among the spoils.

There upon low shelves were kept also a silent row of arrow points, spearheads, and other grisly relics.  “Each one has its own tale,” Legolas said.  He took up a long and wicked barb, dark with age.  “Each one has left its mark upon him, and he remembers them all.”  He set it back then, its vague outline plainly seen in the grey dust that had long gathered there.

“And this,” he continued, taking up another, eyes hardening and shoulders stiffening, “was the bane of our Queen.”  He held the barb of black obsidian between his thumb and forefinger, as though loath to handle it further.  

After lingering there for a time, his words falling into dust and silence, Legolas turned away toward the back wall, which stood in even deeper shadow.  There on one side hung many of the banners of Lasgalen in victory.  Most were in a pitiful state, torn and bloodied, but still kept in honor.  The evergreen and silver were in many shades of age, retired standards that had commanded the woodland battlegrounds.  But to the other side there hung another display beneath pennons of the same kind, but marked with a different letter.  From his sleeve Legolas produced a ragged handful of black and sedately hung his acquisitions beneath his own device.  There was a smear of the White Hand upon a tatter from Helm's Deep, a wisp of ashen grey from the Pelennor, and a strip of the Red Eye from Mordor itself.

Gimli had no idea he had carried those all they way home.

He stood back after adding these to his morbid collection, a considerable tally of fallen ranks, if no rival to his father's.  Gimli squirmed to see a small assortment of culpable arrowheads there as well.

“Now, Valar willing, this place is complete,” Legolas said, an unmistakable note of relief in his voice.  “I have seen enough of war. But in truth I have no great hope of it.”

“Why so gloomy?” Gimli asked, his voice falling rather flat within the darkly caparisoned walls.  “It is not even a year yet since Cormallen.”

“Because there is no such thing as a lasting peace,” Legolas stated sadly, as though at last renouncing forever the vain hope that had never been realized.  “We have been betrayed before.  When Angband fell, the Elves thought the dark wars ended forever.  But then we had only to suffer beneath Sauron until we had spent ourselves in his defeat.  Now he is fallen, but other evils will come to supplant his foul memory.  One year or ten, they will pass all too quickly.  Peace after war is like crystal,” he decided.  “Long and costly in the making, so very easily broken.”

Alone in the Hall of Archives, Thranduil paced the floor softened by the dark carpets, ceremonial robes of dark green and yellow swirling pensively around him.  The entire household was busily at work pulling together the last details of the celebration to be ready at sunset.  Now he was given a precious moment of solitude to mull over the questions in his own mind, pressing issues that had haunted him all that day.  

Why was it that every time he beheld a Dwarf he saw the sack of Menegroth all over again?  That had been two full Ages ago.  Why had he not shaken free of those memories yet?  Because he did not wholly want to be free of them.  His grandfather, his mother’s brother, and countless others brutally slain in their own homes, the doom of Doriath begun and assured.  Seldom had he known any of the noegyth since that he did not suspect, for their ways were strange and alien to him, riding roughshod at will over the immutable laws of justice and honor that had stringently governed his own life, fostered in him from childhood. 

Now by those same stark principles he was called to accept that which he feared.  After all, Noldor had been equally culpable of those ancient atrocities, and he had learned to tolerate them.  To arbitrarily turn Gimli away would be to favor blind prejudice over what was undeniably right, in turn making himself no better than those he despised.  

And not all Dwarves were blameworthy, he reasoned.  The Belegostrim had repudiated the Nogrodrim for their blood feud with the Elves of Doriath.  Dáin of Erebor had been truly a prince among the Gonnhirrim, with whom he had had no quarrel.  Perhaps Gimli was like to him.  It would do no harm to wait and see.

“The air roils with your unrest.” 

Thranduil glanced aside to see Galadhmir lurking in the doorway.  “The disquiet is enough to make one think a storm was upon us.”

“Is it indeed?”  Thranduil returned his half-hearted smile, finding it easier now that he had temporarily decided his course.  “Come, Galadhmir.  I know when you would give me an unsolicited piece of your mind.  Let me have it.”

“Very well.”  His tone fell, becoming dreadfully earnest.  “Be cautious, Thranduil, in how you deal with this protégé of Mithrandir.  Do not let the past cloud your judgment.”

“What leads you to believe I intend to be severe toward the Dwarf?”

“The Old Realm aside,” Galadhmir explained, pacing aimlessly into the room, “you still retain a less than favorable impression of his father.  Moreover, you dislike the influence he wields over Legolas – do not try to deny it.”  His smile broadened, and Thranduil saw misgiving melt into old confidence.  “But I believe I know you better than that.”

“I should hope so.”  Thranduil said, appreciating his candor.  “You did not follow me all these years for nothing.”

Leaving the grim trophy hall, Gimli followed as Legolas led him back down into the mainstream branches.  After more twists and turns they stopped once again in the corridor.  Lifting a tapestry, Legolas slipped behind it, and after a moment had pushed inward a hidden door.  Gimli was reluctant for a moment to follow, but Legolas held the passage open for him.

“Come.  Do not tell my father I brought you here.”

There was a twinge of a smile in his voice, so with a quick glance around Gimli ducked inside after him.  Again, the room was dim, but he soon surmised why Thranduil would have preferred that this place be left unexplored.  He knew a treasury when he saw one.  Chests and crates were stacked and ordered along every wall, arranged beneath symbols that indicated their contents.  It was a small room compared to many, but none the lesser for it.

“So this is the Elvenking’s renowned hoard?” he asked, running a rough hand over a chest near him, wiping away dust.  It was great, but hardly legendary.

“No,” Legolas said with a smile.  “This is mine.”

He retrieved the satchel of Celeborn's mithril, which he had stashed there before.  Then he pulled a key from his belt and crouched beside one of the larger strongboxes, working the lock with an authoritative air.  Everything here was his to dispense as he pleased.  Gimli drew nearer, drawn irresistibly by the promise of what lay hidden within.

He was not disappointed.  It was not especially a marvel, for he had seen treasures before, but it was still a beautiful sight, the familiar gleam and sparkle in the lamplight. 

“What have I in here?” Legolas mused aloud, rummaging carefully through the tediously arranged articles, separated one kind from another by deliberate partitions.  “My lord the King has fostered something of the instincts of a pack rat, I am afraid.  His has become quite a collection.  My portion seems to do little more than gather dust, though it will serve me well now in Ithilien.  Aha.”  He pulled out a chain of wrought gold cunningly set with diamonds and rubies, unabashedly of Dwarvish make and style.  “When I remembered this,” he said, offering it freely, “I knew it must have been meant for you.”

Now Gimli was indeed impressed, for such an ornament was fit for the King Under the Mountain himself.  It was heavy in his hands, for clearly no expense had been spared in its making.  How in Mahal's name had Thranduil ever gotten hold of it?  “To wear tonight?” he asked.

“To keep, and to do with what you will.” Legolas said.  “Consider it a gesture of goodwill between the Wood and the Mountain.”  He smiled, putting off his official attitude.  “After all I have put you through already, Gimli, I would like to give you something you can appreciate.”

“That you have, lad.”  It was a princely gift, and moreover one that was not merely an act of whimsy.  This was something he could wear among his own people and be proud of.  And he knew not quite what to say.  “That you have.”

“You have been very obliging thus far,” Legolas commended him, helping to arrange it impressively on his stout shoulders.  “And in that you have made this infinitely easier for me.  I know it has been a sacrifice.  Stay the course and we may even yet see our houses allied, for I swear I shall do no less for you.”

The next order of business was to present Celeborn's gifts to Thranduil.  More importantly, it seemed a second presentation of Gimli himself, a thought that twisted his stomach a bit as they set off down the corridors once more, notably depopulated as most everyone was occupied bringing the festival to timely fruition.  Legolas had mentioned that he had been accepted, “more or less.”  But that was small comfort.

Legolas seemed to know instinctively where to look for the King, if indeed he was not always fully aware of his father's whereabouts here at the epicenter of their power.  They found him in what seemed a library, more pleasant than the musty haunt above had been, but still more forbidding.  Gimli would sooner explore the den when the lynx himself was not at home.  Sedate voices were heard echoing softly in the corridors in rhythmic cadence, the evensong of the Elves, at once comforting and disquieting.

They entered to find the Elvenking seated behind an elaborately carven desk of dark hardwood, scribbling intently with a striped owl feather quill.  He looked up and rose to receive them.  His sheer presence was still as intimidating as before, though it was more benign now. 

A rumbling snarl came from the hearth where lay two more of the Elvish wolves, two great heaps of silver with gleaming eyes of brown and blue.

“Glirhuin!” Thranduil growled back, “Argeleb.”  He did not mistake the chain Gimli wore, obscured though it was by beard – indeed it seemed for a moment that he had all the possessive perception of a dragon – but as it had been Legolas' gift, he could say nothing.  Nor would he. 

“Hir Adar,” Legolas greeted him formally with a slight bow.

“At your ease, Legolas,” Thranduil acknowledged him in return.  “Lord Gimli of Aglarond.”  His reception this time was more courteous, but made it clear upon what terms the overture was made.  Gimli was almost afraid to look him in the eye, but when he did there were none of the unsettling probings of before.  Thranduil was keeping his distance now, taking careful measure of his opponent. 

The Elvenking resumed his seat, thereby giving them leave to do the same.  Strangely, he seemed to Gimli's eyes even larger when seated, his royal robes of dark green and yellow with shimmering traces of silver only augmenting the illusion, if an illusion it was.  His great mane of golden hair was still only loosely bound, lending him a fair and feral appearance, though not without a slender ribbon of green and silver snaking over his shoulder from where it was braided and tied unseen somewhere behind his ear.  At first glance Gimli would have scorned such frippery, but upon Thranduil he had to admit there was somehow nothing ridiculous about it.  Indeed, save for the ruling counterpart to Legolas’ silver ring upon his left hand and a slender band of gold upon his right, there was little ostentation upon him at all compared to the glittering lords of Rivendell.  His majesty was his own; competent, unpretentious, and uncompromisingly virile.

“Father,” Legolas began, standing again.  “Celeborn sends this in gift from the conquest of the South.”

“Does he now,” Thranduil mused with an elegant half-smile, apparently pleased by the gesture.

Gimli waited with baited breath to witness the confirmation or refutation of another commonly known weakness of the Elvenking.  If silver and white gems held such sway over him as was rumored, his reaction to mithril was sure to be a singular one.  If his memory served him, Celeborn had meant it for both Legolas and his father, but Legolas freely set the whole of it down upon the desk before his lord once Thranduil had swept aside the paper he had been composing.

The intricate masterpieces of mithril that gradually gathered upon the desktop commanded the full attention of all.  It was true that Thranduil's eyes gleamed with a more avid interest than Legolas had seemed to harbor for them.  He clearly knew what they were worth, and his imperious attitude had lightened subtly to resemble more a youth during the holidays, but if Gimli had expected a manifestation of jealous greed he waited in vain.  Granted, these priceless treasures would not be easily parted from him, but he had no fear yet of that.

The Sereguren was displayed last of all, its detail and magnificence enough to sober even the Elvenking.  The sharp points of the leaves which formed the chain gleamed in the lamp and candlelight, the ruby at the center scattering a soft red glow.

“Legolas,” Thranduil said at last in a tone akin to reverence.  “This one I must leave to you, for you have more than earned it.  Without Mithrandir's Fellowship, we would all have perished regardless of our own victories.”

That alone would have made Gimli's jaw fall to his chest if he had not already been surprised so many times that day.  If only Glóin was here to see!  That single marvelous work of mithril was itself worth as much as all the rest combined, perhaps even equal the greater part of the wealth these Elves had amassed over the centuries, worthy to be counted foremost among the crown jewels of Lasgalen.  And Thranduil dared not touch it. 

It was not the first stirring of respect he had felt for that froward Elvenlord.  Nor would it be the last.  By Durin’s beard, that Elf did remind him of his mother!

“Lord Gimli,” Thranduil turned to him, once the mithril had been replaced and its spellbinding gleam removed from the table.  There were other more immediate issues to discuss now.  “Your status within our realm has been in some question of late.  I have thought of little else since we met this morning, and thus is my decision.”  He held up the page of Elvish script that was essentially as unfathomable as the dark side of the moon to Gimli's mind.  “You are granted my safeguard as of tonight, to go whither you will while accompanied by one of my own, until I should choose to revoke it.  Legolas remains answerable for your conduct.  Whilst extended our protection none may harm, hinder, or harass you in any way contrary to the standing law of Lasgalen or the express will of myself or of Legolas my son and Prince Regent.  Any who trespass against you will be brought to bear the suitable penalty, and likewise any breach of faith on your part will be justly chastised.  I alone retain full right to restrict, admonish, censor, and castigate at need and at will your words, deeds, comings and goings, as I deem necessary for the good of us all.”

Gimli smoldered in a tide of thwarted pride, but restrained it, though his approval was neither asked nor needed.  After all, he reminded himself, Thranduil was making many concessions of his own.  He could well have ordered him into what amounted to little less than loose incarceration while he stayed beneath his power.  It was clear that neither the Elvenlord nor his guest yet knew rightly what to think of each other, but they were meeting now on the common ground of chastened pride. 

With a strong flourish, Thranduil swept his signature over the page in ink of green so dark it was almost black, thereby committing himself to the guardianship of a Dwarf-lord.

Times were changing.