Author's Note:

So, last weekend I had a serious case of ants in my pants. The Silence in the Song was causing me a bit of grief and I wanted to write something a bit lighter, and so Lindir's Ghost set me a challenge. What fun I had with this!

The challenge was: 'third person, because it's more of a challenge for you. Aragorn and Legolas share a past adventure with Gimli over the camp fire. 3k words.'

The 3k words was the thing that frightened me most - because we all know how I can go on a bit - but I ended up coming in WAY under, so apparently I am quite capable of not rambling too much. I dedicate this to Lindir's Ghost as a thanks for the challenge, and for all of her support over the years, and so I present to you: Aragorn and Legolas sharing an adventure.

I hope you enjoy.

Fireside Tales

~{O}~

"Legolas, take your hand off your blade!"

"You are going to scalp me," comes the reply through gritted teeth, and he does not take his hand off his blade. It remains in his lap, one hand resting upon it, but the elf remains seated. Aragorn continues to scrape away at a burr that has become – perhaps permanently – tangled in his hair.

They are sat peacefully, or at least they would be if a certain elven princeling and a mannish king could behave more like adults, and less like boys. It is warm, and the air is fragrant; the sky a soft darkening as the light finally fades into gloaming. Birds roast upon the fire, their journey has been uneventful – almost unheard of for the three of them – and a dwarf smokes his pipe in long suffering silence. He has the look of one who has left his body, his mind sailing elsewhere… preferably somewhere with better company.

"This is impossible," the ranger huffs irritably. "Who last cut your hair?"

"If it is at all relevant, it was Idhren," is the snapped response. There is a pause before:

"Did he use his teeth?"

Legolas hisses, and when his head is yanked once more his lips curl into a snarl. Gimli – who can see that the ranger's life is currently in real peril – speaks from where he lounges quite comfortably before the fire.

"It is only a burr," he grumbles, slaps at something that has bitten him, examines the smear left upon his palm. Firelight glints upon a mighty red beard, upon coal black eyes, and casts shadows dancing across a face weathered and creased by both laughter and hardship. It is a good face. "I probably have about twenty in my beard right now."

"You probably have rodents living in your beard, Gimli," Legolas bites, and instead of taking offence, the dwarf laughs. It is deep and low and amused, and at the sound of it, the elf softens from the iron hard knot of tension he has been in most of the evening.

"Just cut it free, Estel," he sighs.

"Aye," the ranger snaps. "Two days from your father's palace and I will return you with only half a head of hair, I can imagine exactly how that conversation will go. Gimli, have I ever told you of the time the Lasgalen elves left me to be eaten by wargs?"

"Estel!" Legolas exclaims with a sudden lurch, and yelps as he loses another handful of hair. He rubs his head ruefully, glaring at the ranger, who holds up a burr triumphantly between thumb and forefinger as though it is the One Ring itself.

Legolas shuffles away, his eyes narrowed and dangerous, and pointedly lays his blade upon the forest floor between them. He starts to comb his fingers through what is left of his hair. "We did not leave you to be eaten by wargs."

"Hush," Aragorn waves him away. "I will tell Gimli the tale. He might decide for himself."

The dwarf taps his pipe and empties the ash into the edge of their fire, pulling himself upright with a glimmer of interest. He sits, cross legged like a hairy boulder, and he looks at the elf who meets his gaze steadily. They speak to one another when they do that, Aragorn knows that they do, and he clears a flicker of irritation with an impatient snort.

Legolas waves him ahead with an imperious gesture, his poor temper melted away like morning mist, and there is mischief now dancing in summer blue eyes. He is still combing his fingers through his hair, but it is more for something to do now. Legolas has never been vain. It is perhaps the first time he has combed it in weeks.

"Well," the ranger starts, leaning forward as well. His own hair falls across his face, and it is not clean or combed or held in place by a circlet or crown. His face is grimy and his grey eyes seem all the brighter for it. Aragorn has always suited being a ranger far better than a king.

"I was only sixteen – barely a man, the way our people count the years. My brothers were bringing me to Lasgalen for the summer so that Legolas might further my education with the bow. He had been grievously injured the month before, and his healing would keep him in the north for many months yet…"

"I was not grievously injured," Legolas interjects. "A complete over-exaggeration."

"You were bitten by five spiders Legolas. Your shoulder and your ankle were both broken. You slept more than you were awake, and be silent."

"You are telling it wrong."

"Legolas, I swear to…"

The elf sighs hugely, cutting the ranger off before he can get a true head of steam built up. He waves him on and a muscle in Aragorn's eyelid flickers.

"Lasgalen," Gimli prompts. "To learn bad habits from the elfling, and likely do something foolish and reckless and fall into some terrible peril all of your own. Continue."

Aragorn opens his mouth, realises what has been said, and pauses to eye the dwarf with a sour glance before carrying on.

"Elladan and Elrohir had commissioned a fine bow for me, and I had been learning it since the spring. Fool that I was, I was terribly excited: I had yet to learn what a chore Legolas truly is, and I had not been allowed to Lasgalen many times. My father thought I was too young for a place so dangerous."

"It was not Lasgalen that was dangerous, it was you," Legolas mutters. "I am surprised you were allowed into the library without an armed guard."

"Legolas!" Aragorn cries, grabs at the nearest thing he can find and flings it. Legolas moves only slightly, a casual movement, and a pinecone flies harmlessly past his ear. He is twisting his hair back into warrior braids now, and with a final flourish he is done. He hunches over, elbows upon crossed knees, and sighs.

"Do you wish to tell the tale?" Aragorn grits out.

"If you cannot recall it Estel, then of course. It was not so long ago though, you have been hit in the head too many times; you should get a helmet like Gimli's. He is hit upon the head a lot as well."

Aragorn looks ready to scream, his fists clenched, and Gimli simply taps his fingers upon the ground. Legolas looks at him, their eyes lock and something passes between them. Gimli is telling him off, reining him in, and the elf actually responds to it. Aragorn quashes another surge of irritation, because it took him decades to learn how to control Legolas even slightly and the dwarf can do it with just a look. He shakes free of it again.

"I was confined to the palace," Legolas speaks. "Unnecessarily, I might add, but the archery masters in Imladris are woefully inadequate and they needed a proper archer to teach the future king of men how to hit a target on occasion. In my incarceration I was volunteered, and I am a passable archer so I agreed, but the Imladrin Noldor cannot read maps…"

"The bridges were out, Legolas. You said nothing in your letter about the bridges being washed away. We had to find another route."

"We cannot keep track of everything, Estel. We do not use those bridges. In any case, unless they had somehow learned how to eat poetry, a handful of lost Noldor had no possible chance of surviving in the forest, so when they were late in arriving I sent a patrol to look for them."

"You sent eight patrols."

"You were very late in arriving."

"At the time the Forest Path was unsafe," Aragorn continues. "And because someone does not maintain his bridges, we had to take a detour north of the Path – safer than the south, but less navigable by far. We were quite fine, perfectly safe, enjoying the last few days of sensible company before we were forced to endure the Silvans…"

"That is not what Sidhion told me," Legolas snorts. "When he found you, he said you all but wept with relief."

"It was not relief that had us weeping, Legolas, it was because we were found," Aragorn sighs airily. "In any case; they hunted us down and dragged us onto paths even less navigable…"

"Safer," Legolas corrects. "Paths far safer."

"And what should we find on these 'safer' paths, Gimli? Well, I am glad you asked! Wargs, are what we found. Huge, stinking wargs. Wandering about Lasgalen as happy as you like…"

"You are still here," Gimli points out and reaches for his pipe again, but a dramatic sigh from the elf has him abandoning the idea. "It could not have gone so badly."

"Oh!" Aragorn crows, a hugely exaggerated reaction. "Oh Gimli, you would think so, would you not? Lasgalen is ruled by a warrior king, and a prince who captains the finest archers in Middle Earth. They were the hand that held back the forces of Dol Guldur for centuries. You would imagine a handful of stray wargs a walk in the gardens for them!"

This time Legolas rolls his eyes so hugely that Gimli glances at him, and Aragorn wonders whether he can hear them grating around in his eye sockets. The elf leans over, stretches, and pulls a handful of long grass free. He begins to weave it together with fingers long and pale and nimble, and although he is losing interest in the tale he has at least stopped interrupting.

"The patrol that found us, as Legolas has said, was led by Sidhion," the ranger continues, certain of the dwarf's rapt attention, even if the elf's has begun to wander. "Sidhion had suffered a wound to the head earlier in the week, and was restricted to patrols with the novices until he stopped falling out of trees."

"A tree," Legolas corrects. "He fell out of one tree only, and he insists that it was intentional."

"So there I was," Aragorn continues. "Lost in Mirkwood, about to be eaten by wargs, with the only laegrim in the whole of the wood that could not aim a bow and a handful of novices. Oh, my brothers were there of course – fine and mighty warriors that they are – but they are swordsmen, and there are places in Mirkwood where even the trees cannot fall when they die. It is too dense and tightly packed to fight the way fighting is supposed to be done."

"If hacking and waving a blade around like a dwarf was sufficient an education," Legolas sniffs, ignoring the dwarvish protestations to his side, "then you would not have been in 'Mirkwood' in the first place."

He leans forward, sets down a perfect little bird made entirely out of twined grass. It is exquisitely made: delicate, close to unravelling but just a breath away from bursting into the sky. Gimli stops his complaints, gently picks up the bird with a grunt of approval, and this time when Legolas pulls some more grass he watches attentively. Legolas has a true innocence sometimes – a skill for seeing beauty in the smallest of things – and Gimli never seems to tire of it.

"So what did you do?" Gimli asks, because it has gone silent for a long time. They are both watching Legolas, fascinated now as he weaves grass, and the spell is broken. Aragorn stretches, grins, coughs.

"Well, what could we do? There were a lot of wargs, as I have said; too many to fight. So we all climbed trees, and they were not even very good trees! Too young to bear much weight, too solitary to reach any others, so we were stuck there," he says, and after a moment he begins to laugh. "Oh, Gimli it was utterly absurd!"

"Did you know that trees pick up bad language, Gimli?" Legolas asks curiously, still weaving away, a crease of concentration upon his brow. "I did not. I had no idea such a thing was even possible, but that stand of trees mutters the odd curse word even now. Elladan has a foul mouth on him."

Legolas tsks, shakes his head in disapproval… mutters something in his own tongue about the poor behaviour of the Noldor around impressionable trees. He is entirely focussed on what he does, and so is startled when Gimli begins to laugh: startling, booming – absolutely delighted. He claps a huge hand upon a thigh like a felled oak, his eyes are dancing coals in the firelight and Legolas' face gentles, softens into a fond look. He casts it toward Aragorn as well, who is also laughing, and then sets down a tiny grass pony before dusting off his hands.

"Orthorien found them in the morning," the elf says. "Livid, they were. Absolutely livid. By the time they returned to the palace the twins could barely speak, I thought their minds had snapped."

"You were laughing from the moment we arrived, Legolas," Aragorn accuses, but he is still grinning. He looks young, bright, alive.

"I was laughing even before you arrived," the elf admits, and now he is smiling broadly as well. "News travels swiftly through the trees."

"Gossip travels swiftly through the trees," the ranger corrects, and Legolas does not deny it. He shrugs, an elegant gesture, and this time his smile melts into a laugh. It is a breath of air, a whisper of delight, and Aragorn cannot help but respond to it. The elf affects everyone the same when he laughs that way.

Gimli picks some grass and starts to try his hand at a bird of his own, and after a moment, so does Aragorn. Legolas watches them both with interest.

"Do not ever ask my brothers about this tale Gimli, I am quite serious."

"Agreed," Legolas widens his eyes. "By the very stars, if you ask them about it I will abandon you in a heartbeat."

"A charming thing!"

"Oh, I will abandon you too," Aragorn adds, quite seriously. "But I will remember you fondly."

The three of them quieten, but it is a happy quietening. Their smiles settle and soften, calm into silence. They are comfortable with one another, completely at peace, despite that they are the oddest of companions: a ranger king, an archer prince, a wandering dwarf. Three hunters, weaving grass birds and telling tales in the firelight.

"I must admit," Gimli snorts, "this is hardly the tale of negligent endangerment I had been expecting."

"No," Aragorn shakes his head, sets down his attempt at a grass bird with a critical eye. Its head unravels sadly. "It was probably not the best example." He brightens. "Perhaps I should tell you of the time that Legolas fell into one of his own orc traps?"

"Estel no!"

END

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have a great weekend :)

MyselfOnly