So this one has been mooching around for a while, but there was something wrong with it. Cheekybeak and Vanimalion have both had sight of the original version, both said the same thing, but it wasn't until recently that I figured out how to fix it. Then I found about twenty other problems with it, and so it's only just in a position where I'm fairly happy with it.

This is a bit sad, I think, but I wanted to explore something. There's one character observation missing, I am aware of that, but I have a completely different plan for that one and it will follow as a second chapter should it ever emerge. If not, I hope that this is adequate on its own.

You won't need any other knowledge of any of my other fics, apart from a vague acceptance of the fact that I have put these boys through a LOT over the years. This is just a Three Hunters fic, one last oneshot to say farewell to a challenging year, and the editing is entirely me so the mistakes are as well.

Thanks to those who reviewed the last three chapters of Steward of the Second - I've found one problem in posting three chapters at once, and that is how to reply to multiple reviews at once when they're scattered all together. I will work it out though and I will get back to you!

Happy New Year everyone xx

MyselfOnly

Gimli

"Are you not envious of them, sometimes?" I am asked.

It is Girthgim, a distant cousin of mine, I think. We have grown together since boyhood – he is stout and dark haired, a curl to his hair, with blue eyes that stand out against the ruddiness of his cheeks. He is kind and careful, perhaps the only one of my cousins that would understand who I have become. I like Girthgim.

I follow his gaze, look across to where the elves are.

There are a number of them, all sprawled upon a spread of grass, because if there is anything green then of course that is where we will find them. They lie in recline, some with heads in the laps of others, leaning against one another with a tactile familiarity that is entirely un-dwarven and alien to me, but also so familiar. I have become accustomed to elves, almost too accustomed. Dwarves are careful – removed and distant – although we care for one another, there is no argument at that. It is different. It is very different.

I see Legolas, my dear friend Legolas. He is sprawled upon clover, timothy-grass drifting around his brightly-laughing face. He is blue eyed and pale haired, and his colouring should not blend into the world the way that it does, but it does. He is a part of it: his laughter wisps with the wind, his movements shift with the breathing of the trees. Eru, they are so fair… so very fair.

Legolas is brightness and youth, life and joy. He burns with it… I can taste it upon the tip of my tongue when I am near him. He has lived endless years, more years than I can fathom, more than my mind can truly grasp, but still… but still.

He laughs again, light and fine and musical. His every movement is grace, he is beautiful. He is touched by the Valar… favoured by them. Their light will always shine upon him, their love will touch him all the deeper.

"No," I shake my head. "I envy them not in the least."

And I mean it.

Because Legolas is blessed and beautiful, but I have seen the scars that he bears. I have held him tight when he has woken from wracking nightmares, screaming until his throat is raw. I have seen his eyes fade to blankness when his memories wipe his mind clean… too awful to recall, simply too awful. I have seen the raw desperation that lives mere inches from the surface of the performance he plays. I have held him down, gripped him tightly: whispered into his ear when he has not been able to recall what year it is, what battle we fight, who is here and which of his long dead friends are by his side.

Legolas is fair, Legolas is beautiful and endless, but Legolas is a sadness that I will never wipe clean. Legolas is an aching wound, and I do not know that I will ever have the skill to heal him, but I will try.

I envy him not in the least.

Legolas

"Are you not envious of him sometimes?" I am asked.

We are high up in a sycamore, silver barked and handsome, with green all around us and the whispering of leaves light upon the wind. It thrills with the Song, delighted to have elves within its branches, and I catch whispers of its story. It was small and twisted as a sapling, and once there was a huge mushroom upon its lower limb although it has been long gone. It adds to the Song with a constant and harmonious hum: it feels sunlight, and knows water, and has lived a long time.

The wind hushes through its branches and the sun lights it softly, and it is happy. I look down.

It is Orthorien who asks. Orthorien, who should have been born laegrim although he was not. His hair drifts silken in the wind, he grips a branch and leans toward me, and I feel leaves soft against my skin. I smell crushed wood – sharp and thick – right at the back of my throat. Disturbed lichen, crushed moss. I smell the rain that will be with us by nightfall… bright and clean.

Gimli is down there… it is Gimli he speaks of, and Gimli who is wrapped in a cloak and fast asleep against the bole of a tree. He is not a trim or gainly figure, not hidden particularly well, not gathered or careful. Snoring horribly, jarring – a stone in the silver-green flow of the forest.

I wipe my face, feel the dusty dryness scrape against my hand, but I do not let my gaze move. My hair is dirty and I feel the itch of it, I feel the throb and leaden dullness of my limbs but I learned a long time ago to ignore it.

"No," I murmur to Orthorien. "I envy him not at all."

Gimli is exhausted. He has run with us all of the day, and although he has complained every moment of it, I think that sometimes he feels it is expected of him. He would run until that great heart of his burst, if I only asked it of him.

I grip tightly to the silver branch of sycamore, shift my weight upon my hip as the wind shifts, and allow for the twist, move with the wind. I smell a fox nearby – rank and musk – and a robin lands close enough to twitch and blink jaggedly at me before flitting away.

He works harder than any of us. He runs faster, pushes harder, fights through the limits of his body and although he complains… by the stars he complains… he continues on. He is smarter and stronger and better than I am. He would run until the end of the world if only to prove he could, this dear dwarf of mine, and I think perhaps if he ever did, I would be close behind.

I have watched him change, just as I watch all things change around me, but Gimli has changed in the blink of an eye or so it seems. Our short time together weighs upon his heart – a mountain of hurt and weariness – but he pushes and fights and continues on just as he ever does. Gimli is comfortable with all folk – all dwarves are – but in the passing of the seasons I have watched him become quiet and subdued, watched his eyes deaden and turn inward.

I have seen panic flare in his eyes, seen him fight just to breathe through whatever memory has taken over his heart. Mortal minds are not made to weather the storms that he has lived through… not long enough to build walls against such things. Their lives are mayfly fast, like lightning and just as bright, but my friend has known such darkness.

Gimli thinks that my strength is in perseverance, he has told me so, but I am a willow in the wind where he is the mountain. I have learned to bend, and all I can do is try to be as good a friend to him as he is to me, because I do not think it is in him to bend. Not to anything. Not ever.

"No," I say, barely anything but I know that I am heard, "I do not envy him in the slightest."

Aragorn

"Do you not envy them?" Faramir asks me.

The fading autumn glints his hair red and gold, but the look he gives me is piercing blue. He leans against a stone balustrade, and I wish I could stand as easily as he does but I cannot. Not any longer.

Legolas and Gimli walk upon the lawn far below us, easily and slowly, and I feel a knot beneath my ribs ease and unfurl as I watch them. So much happens, so much I must do, so much responsibility that I never had before… so very much. By oak and briar I had no idea, no idea what I would be giving up, and I feel a wind brush across my hair. It promises of heather and endless windswept moors that I will never see again. Of nights sleeping upon plains that hissed and roared beneath the anger of the winds, of hot summer days ringing with crickets, of sharp snowfalls.

Standing here in empty stone corridors, no wind behind or before me, I recall what I had. I recall it, and by the stars I regret what I have lost.

Legolas is a part of the wind and sky, the hawk that circles us, the sun and moon and every season.

He is also aching and exhausted, and he will never be healed… not until he leaves. Not until he goes home, until he sails, not until he follows his people and finally… by the stars I wish he would just give up and go!

Gimli turns his head and looks up at Legolas, grins and laughs, deep and rich and infectious.

The dwarf without a home, without a people, because he is changed… so very changed. Too adventurous for a dwarf, too broken and experienced to return to his old life. Too weary, too hurt, too bloodstained.

Legolas and Gimli are a balm, and yet they are the greatest hurt to one another. No one understands Legolas or Gimli the way that they understand one another, although once perhaps I might have. Now they are nothing but furtive glances full of whispers and secrets, of damage and hurt, and we are all excluded now. All of us are. We will never be fractured enough to understand their world.

Gimli laughs and Legolas rests his hand upon his shoulder; a familiar and fond gesture that I have seen a thousand times. I feel tears prick my eyes for the both of them. My brothers.

"No," I say. "I do not envy them. Not at all."

END

I am particularly curious as to your thoughts on this one guys. Please drop me a line.

Have a great New Year :)

MyselfOnly