For the incomparable Laora (happy birthday!) who has been giving me lots of Hobbit/LOTR feels lately. I haven't seen enough of the archives to know if something like this has already been done (and I'm sure that I've written in canonical ignorance), but I hope you enjoy it. It feels really great to be writing for my first ever fandom(s since this does also assume a little knowledge of The Hobbit). :)

Sympatetic

n., a companion one walks with

October 16, 2013

Journeying along the road did not mean that a warrior could allow their weapons to fall into a state of disrepair. That was when it was most important to keep their swords in working order because times were troubled and paths between safe houses dangerous. Soldiers needed their weapons even when there was no armory or professional smiths at your service. Especially then.

Not that any of the three travelers who now went their ways together would have let anyone else handle their various blades. They were as protective of their weapons as they were of each other. For good reason. They knew that if you could not take care of your weapon, you could not expect it to take care of you in return.

The three of them had little in the world, and nothing securely held except what they carried with them on the packs on their backs. They took care of their own fiercely, because it was all they had left.

And so each of them had a ritual, different according to the customs of their race, but acknowledged by the other members of their now too-small company as what was right and appropriate for the weapons they carried. Each of them carried it out in their own time and their own way. They never interfered nor encroached upon another's ways when they focused on cleaning and sharpening the protection they carried.

After months of traveling together, they had come to understand each man's habits. Necessity forced quick fixes when they had to flee a battlefield, barely stopping to wipe a sword on the grass before relegating it back to its sheath as they ran.

At least, Aragorn always made sure to wipe his sword; to Gimli it sometimes seemed that the elf-blades of their tallest companion must be enchanted somehow to ward away any taint of the foul things they killed because they never seemed to be blackened after a battle. For his own weapon, the dwarf let it sit if they needed to run. Axes had no sheaths to bloody, and the only way to clean it was to clean it properly which took more time than they could afford until they sat around their next campfire.

When they were able to care for their weaponry as they wished, they each went about it in a different way. Aragorn would walk to the edge of the camp and sit cross-legged on the ground with his back to his companions and one eye always on the lookout. Then he would unfurl his bundle, laying out his weapons in a semi-circle around him, and taking them one by one, clean and sharpen them until they suited him.

Boromir had acted in much the same way, when he had still been with them. Except he glowered at anyone who began walking near him while his blades lay exposed on the ground. Aragorn was used to roaming the lands and caring for himself and his weaponry on the move. He knew exactly what kind of care they required and how to best give it in their limited circumstances, not caring about where he was able to do it so long as none of his companions tripped over his arms.

Once he finished, he silently rolled up his effects into the pack on his back, impossibly small when they were put away, and rejoined his companions around the fire.

Legolas preferred not to think about his weapons unless he knew he could safely wander away from the others and into the trees or along the river or through the rocks of whatever landscape they happened to be traversing. He never felt the need to stay glued to his companions' sides, although now that they numbered only three, he made sure that they always stayed close enough that they could bound together should the need arise. He would examine his string, to make sure it wasn't wearing, and his bow, to make sure the curve of the wood remained flexible instead of brittle, and strummed his fingers through the fletching of each arrow to make sure it was still serviceable.

After each skirmish, he needed to construct new arrows to replace those he had used. That required searching the woods for perfectly straight branches and strong feathers. The elf was somehow able to find some wherever they stopped, however, no matter how little wood there was or how stunted and gnarled the growth seemed to be or how little or small the local winged creatures seemed to be.

When he had finished his wandering and gathering, he took his finds back to the fire and he sang as he whittled the sticks into arrow shafts he could use. By the end of the night, he would be able to ensure that his quiver was once again full of perfectly trimmed projectiles.

Gimli, on the other hand, couldn't be bothered to care much about a set ritual for maintaining his weaponry, although it was always sparkling by the time he had finished with it. Once their day's journey was done and camp had been set up, he claimed a seat next to the fire and would finally lay down his axe when he allowed himself and his weary feet to rest. Only after smoking a pipe or two did he look to his axe.

After any kind of battle, he took the time to methodically clean the blade of his axe of gore, repeatedly scrubbing some kind of oil into the intricate grooves etched into the metal so that they didn't become inlaid with red or black blood. Every few weeks, he took the time to massage a different kind of liquid into the leather wrapped around the handle so that the grip remained taut and steady without splitting open.

And then when the food had been cooked and eaten and the plans had been made and the rare stories exchanged, with his axe beside him, he would fall into a heavy and all too-short slumber.

.

This had been a quiet night. They hadn't been chasing Uruk-Hai at a breakneck pace without a break for food or rest. No enemy was pursuing them and so the three warriors had the leisure to set up camp while there was still light in the sky and light a crackling fire that wouldn't attract every evil thing for miles around.

Aragorn had gone off into the woods in search of edible plants to add to their store of dried provisions for their evening meal, hoping to turn some of the dried meat into a stew since there was no telling when the next opportunity to do so might arise and they were all tired of gnawing on hard, dried hunks of jerky. Vegetation was plentiful, but he had warned that most of it was not useful for culinary purposes and it might be a while before he returned with enough greenery to make a meal.

Which meant that, after lighting the fire, Gimli had sat down heavily on the ground, treating himself to a well deserved rest and was only starting on his second pipe when Legolas returned to their campsite after doing whatever elvish thing he had been doing in the woods. Talking to the trees, most likely, or something equally harebrained.

Gimli snorted to himself at the thought. How strange it was to know that elves not only did nearly everything in the dwarvish stereotype of them, but so much more besides that seemed even more bizarre to the stone-dwelling folk. And he had grown used to his fellow traveler doing the things he had laughed at growing up. He wasn't laughing at any of his peculiarities now.

He paused at the subsequent realization that he had a far more easy companionship and tolerance for the strange ways of this elf than any of his kinsmen that he knew. Granted, the elves and dwarves had almost never seen eye to eye, except in the ancient chronicles in times of direst need. But what existed between these two members of the company was far more than a grudging co-existence— it was the bond of brothers in arms— and even more than that, it was friendship, of the kind he had not known since the closest companions of his youth had gone off to reclaim their wyrm-raided homeland and never returned.

This friendship with an elf was something he'd never dreamed of. Something he had not expected even as they'd begun their journey, and certainly not when they had first met, with sparks flying across the graceful counsel room of Elrond at the formation of the fellowship. Yet there it was: friendship between and elf and a dwarf, a hewer of stone and a lover of leaf.

That was the only reason that Gimli allowed Legolas to walk around the campfire and, instead of sitting down as was his custom, move closer to the axe he had leaned against a nearby tree, examining it closely with a curious furrow in his normally smooth brow.

Gimli examined him out of the corner of his eye as he puffed away at the long-stemmed pipe cupped firmly in his gloved hand. He trusted Legolas and his respect of other people's property enough to curb the impulse to jump up and save his weapon from stranger's hands, but kept an eye fixed in their direction.

The elf had seen the axe before, of course. After months of traveling with its owner, seeing it day and night as they walked or rode together and having his life probably saved by it more times than he would ever admit, he knew the shape of it quite well. But always in the dwarf's hands.

It looked different now, leaning against the tree, and he was drawn to the engraved metal that had always been covered by stocky leather gloves. Legolas knelt on the dark, aromatic dirt and bed of pine needles surrounding the tree to more closely examine the axe's craftsmanship.

As a weapon, it was formidable. Nearly three fourths of the dwarf's height, forged as sturdy as the people that dwelt beneath the mountains. He had seen it cleave orcs in two with his own eyes and knew its strength. Yet, seeing it up close, he realized that it had all of the elegance that the dwarves could provide as well, in the interlocking patterns and inlays of silver and hints of gold along the nearly indestructible metal of the axe's head and winding down toward the handle.

The interlacing leatherwork of the grip was also something the elf could admire. Although he did prefer the work on his own knives, he could tell expert craftsmanship when he saw it and there was a reason that the dwarven metal smiths had been legendary throughout the ages.

Almost without being consciously aware of it, Legolas stretched out a hand toward the engraved metal, pulling back at the same moment he realized that Gimli had been watching him and that his friend had stiffened when he got too close to touching another man's weapons, his defence, his protection, uninvited. He pulled back his hand and straightened up, drawing away to a safe and respectable distance while his eyes still lingered on the intricate work that fitted his friend so well.

Gimli's frame eased when the not-really threat was gone. When he noticed that the elf remained stiffly rooted in place, without taking a seat closer to the fire, he huffed and shook his head with fond amusement.

When the blond figure still did not move, he sobered and thought for a moment before hesitantly offering, "If you wanted…" Legolas turned toward him. "To see how to use it…"

The elf smiled amusedly, one corner of his mouth quirking upward. "I have seen you wield it often enough to know how you use it," he pointed out.

"I know," Gimli nodded as he slowly drew in more smoke from his pipe and let it filter through his lips. "But I could show you how to use it. If you wanted," he then added when the silence went unbroken except for Legolas blinking at him.

The elf finally backed away from the tree and the axe, not wanting to seem like he had been impeding in the other man's weaponry as much as they both knew he had been. He shook his head fast enough that the ends of his hair danced across his green-grey jerkin. Then, as if to soften his immediate reaction, he smiled and shook his head again, more slowly this time, almost sorrowfully as his eyes turned once again to the weapon.

"No," he said softly, "No, that would be like showing a dwarf how to shoot with a bow, and can you think of anything more out of place?"

Gimli fell silent, his eyes becoming distant as, unbidden, they looked through the flames of the campfire and back through the years, conjuring in his mind the playmates of his childhood, when he was still deemed too young and inexperienced to join quests with his kin, and the quest that claimed their lives.

He saw again the golden braids of Thorin Oakenshield's sister-son and heir as he jauntily marched through stone-hewn halls of a temporary home and by his side, the dark hair of his younger brother, the only dwarf Gimli had ever seen use a bow, and who wielded it better than anyone else he had ever known, except for perhaps the elf.

That had been the problem, when Kili had first decided to train with the weapon. It was too elvish. Not only would Thorin have heartily disapproved (had they told him), but it was hard to locate a weapon and find someone who knew how to use it that could teach him the basics of archery. The early stages of training were hurtled with makeshift bows and arrows made of bent sticks or metal rods too heavy to be shot properly, but which they could find and spirit away in abundance to the training field and target they had set up.

Thankfully, Thorin had not discovered his nephew's abhorrent skills until he had become quite talented with the weapon. And once he realized that Kili would not give up his training and that it might indeed be useful to have a dwarf who could attack the enemy before it came down to heavy hand to hand combat, he decided that the young heir of Durin should have proper weapons and proper instruction.

Kili had become proficient by the time Thorin and Company had set out, and with his father forcing him to remain at Ered Luin, Gimli's last look of his friend had been a wave and a flash of an always-bright smile, before he turned away and rode out on his pony, bow strapped across his back and sticking out above his head before he turned to share something with his older brother who kept pace by his side, the joke unheard as they were already out of earshot.

Legolas saw the change in Gimli's expression and tried to decipher what it might mean with a deep crease in his forehead. "Have I… given offence?" he asked hesitantly, pulling the dwarf out of his reverie to notice that the weed in his pipe's bowl had burnt out and that the elf was staring at him in what might have been concern. If his perfect mask of a face ever morphed enough to show an emotion he could see and understand.

Gimli knocked the embers out of his pipe and refilled it from the pouch hanging from his belt. Three pipes on one night was an extravagance, but deserved today. And necessary now. "No," he gruffly calmed his friend's fears with a wave of his hand. "You gave no offence; just some old memories," he explained as the tall figure relaxed and moved to take a seat beside him.

Then Gimli looked over with something burning in his eyes. "But a dwarf with a bow might not be as impossible a sight as you think," he said carefully.

Legolas could tell he meant more by it than the words on the surface. He looked at the dwarf for a moment, trying to fathom the hidden depths of the message, and thought he understood, then.

With a small smile, he tentatively offered, "Perhaps an elf with an axe would not be so inconceivable either."

"No," Gimli beamed as he lit his last pipe of the night and puffed it into life. "No, it might not."