It was hard to trust in a thing like water.  It moved not with the steady, near-silent rhythms of stone, which sung Dwarven babes to sleep at night, but with swift strokes, restless as a delver dreaming of the lode just under his fingertips…

How was it that the Elder folk loved it?  Would not something that changed so only remind them further of their fate, to linger after all else had passed?

He had asked Legolas that once, but he hadn’t known the answer, and Legolas did not like much talk of death these days.  Strange, how ready they had been for it those years ago, and now how it stole upon their loved ones, each after another, and Gimli knew who was next…

He was still getting accustomed to the idea.

Water was a fickle thing, but Gimli trusted to it out of love, and because he had no choice.  He was growing weary, of grief more than of age, though his bones creaked.  He had taken to the boat because Legolas would be more aggrieved if he did not come, and because he hoped that it truly would lead to a land better than the one he now left.

It was a hard journey for him.  He could not sleep, he could hardly eat, and what he could eat he rarely kept down.  Legolas worried about him, but he worried still more about finding the Straight Road, and being turned away, even if dreams had already told him otherwise.

Gimli did not see the Bent World fall from beneath him, for he was ill.

Afterwards, time seemed to shift, and the water shifted more.  It was living here, pulling them in.  Gimli thought at first that it would ease his passage, but it only made things worse.

Then, Legolas having no need to steer, they spent long hours together in silence.  If Gimli showed worry, Legolas steadied him, and said, “Courage, my friend, for we are going to our reward.”

And when the ship pulled in at the dock, Gimli knew it was so.

He stepped onto the dock, and from there, to the land.  The rock was sturdier under his feet, and Gimli knew it was not solely from long days at sea.