A/N: My favorite literary friendship, as it begins.
They had already fallen into patterns, watches and meals and the tread of footsteps on rock and field. Gimli was torn by the equally dwarvish traits of stubbornness and practicality—stubbornness, in not wanting to pay much heed to the habits of other races (particularly elves) and practicality, in recognizing the usefulness of unity.
And so it was that he grumbled in his mind over the fact that he knew why Legolas liked to take the watch in the wee hours of the night, which began in darkness and ended in the faint glow of dawn. He knew that Merry and Pippin whistled in harmony together when the sun shone brightly, but only when Gandalf was far enough ahead that they thought he could not hear him. Gimli knew, too, that Gandalf did hear them, but did not rebuke a sound so small in the great wilderness—and that the wizard smiled faintly at the cheer that seemed to bring something of fresh air and greenery into the winter wastelands.
Gimli was fond of the hobbits, and that was not un-dwarvish. His own father and Frodo's uncle had journeyed long together. Gandalf was a comfort to have at hand, if he did have a tendency to be gruff and imperious bytimes, and Aragorn and Boromir were sturdy men. Only the elf did he distrust more openly. Worst were the times when Gimli forgot his anger for a moment and their eyes met in laughter or understanding. One or the other would catch themselves first, and then elf and dwarf would spend the next hours as far from one another as possible.
.
(Afterwards, these days—the first days of the journey, before Caradhras—will seem a dream to Gimli. Snow and shadow and all that would follow after formed bonds unshakable. Later he will say that his immortal and unexpected friendship with Legolas began in Lorien. It is not false to name the time so; but there were days beforehand.)
.
Gandalf said that would reach Hollin the next day. From afar, Legolas claimed he could see the remains of the Elves' city. Sam built a fire and roasted the last of the sausages.
Gimli watched as Legolas shied away from the toothsome smell, and though the Dwarf would begin no conversation, Boromir spoke for him.
"You recoil from the smell of meat?"
Legolas's eyes were cool. He and Boromir were civil, but no more than that. "On the road, yes. It weighs heavy on the stomach. Our waybread, were you to know it, would give you strength without sluggishness."
Gimli wondered how any elf's stomach was large enough to hold something that would weigh on it. Elves, he would never admit aloud, were not scrawny—but they were lean and compact. Not given, Gimli would have thought, to great feasting. His father's bitter tales of the Mirkwood revelries must be exaggerated.
"Come now," said Pippin merrily enough—"If Legolas will not join us, there will be more sausages for the rest of us!" Merry restrained him from snatching one then and there.
"I will eat with the rest of you," Legolas said, "for such is our meal."
"Do elves have feasts?" Pippin asked, voicing Gimli's unspoken thoughts of a moment before.
The elf's aloof features softened into a smile. It was kinder than any expression that Legolas ever directed towards him, Gimli thought, and was vexed that he should mind at all.
"Great feasts. My father holds court for the turning of seasons in the Greenwood, and food and wine run freely enough to satisfy even a hobbit."
"One hobbit was not so entranced by your father's feasts," Gimli could not help interrupting. "Nor drugged by your wine."
Legolas lifted a brow. "We have never disparaged the wit of hobbits in the Woodland Realm—only that of dwarves."
Gimli's hands clenched, but Aragorn, moving closer to the fire from the shadows, set a hand on his shoulder. "Many proud families meet in this fellowship," he said in a soft voice. "My own father I knew not, save for the tales I heard in Imladris. But I would hear tale of others. Thranduil and Denethor are known to me, somewhat. But let us speak as friends of those who stand behind us."
Boromir leaned forward, shifting his mantle around his shoulders. He was eager for conversation, but Gimli did not think it was from a need for warm companionship or the others' approval. No, Boromir longed to speak at length of the things that seemed good to him—the White City, its people, and his own dreams for its glory restored.
"My father is a proud man," he said. "Yet between us there is great love. When the duties of his post were not so grim and heavy, in my youth, we would oft ride out hunting together." He patted the horn at his side—a beautiful thing, Gimli had often thought, of skilled craftsmanship. "I was not yet twenty when he gifted this to me."
"That was my age when I was given my first pipe," Pippin chimed in, ever the boldest of the hobbits. "Though twenty for a hobbit is younger than twenty for a man, or so they say."
"And younger for an elf than any," Legolas said, "Though we age only a few years further to the eyes of men." To Gimli, the elf's gaze was suddenly distant. "I remember my father even then. Ever has he been the mightiest of rulers to me. A kingdom which few consider, perhaps, but the heart of a forest needs protection and care." He sighed. "I fear for our forest, and our people. I fear—" His voice broke off as he met the hobbits' eyes, Merry and Pippin looking solemn, Sam with his chin on his hands, and Frodo's haunted features. "My father rides a great elk when he leaves the Woodland Realm," Legolas said, in a merrier tone. "Few know it, but he cares for the beast and all its line. He names them carefully and remembers every one."
Dwarves had little interest in creatures, save for the goats or occasional boar they rode. But Gimli thought of his father's axes, the great and the small, his hammers, and the love with which he cared for them. We are not alike, he thought. Not alike. But Gloin too guarded a kingdom forgotten by many. Gloin, too, feared for his people. And Gimli wondered if, when he spoke of his father, the same fondness slipped into his voice.
"My gaffer grows potatoes," Sam interjected, in a hushed voice. Doubtless he had only meant for the other hobbits to hear, but Boromir was intrigued, wishing to know what manner of plant potatoes were. In the exchange that followed, Gimli met the elf's eyes across the fire, in a moment of laughter and understanding.
And for the first time, he did not hasten to turn away his gaze.