Title: By The Eaves of Lorien
Author: AsianScaper
Disclaimer: Middle-earth and its characters belong to JRR Tolkien. This piece of fiction was not made with the intention of making money. I write only to share. The poems were adapted from earlier works and are entirely mine.
Rating: G
Category: General
Spoilers: None
Feedback: Friends, enemies: Send your comments or constructive criticism to asianscaper@yahoo.com. Advice is highly sought after!
Summary: Legolas and Gimli veer towards Lothlorien in their many travels through Middle-Earth and come by an artifact that Galadriel leaves for them to find. A stand alone sequel to 'Meetings and Partings' and set after 'The Lord of the Rings'.
Archiving: Just email me the URL to allow me a peek.
Dedication: In memory of the genius and imagination behind Middle-Earth, JRR Tolkien, and a fan's tremendous effort to bring his vision to the silverscreen. Peter Jackson, your work is phenomenal.
Author's Note: It's incredible how one man's universe could create visions of many more. More courage and heart to writers; let there be ceaseless wisdom in the work they do. This piece of fan-fiction is itself experimental, as is always the case with my writing style. I warn the most seasoned readers that this is my first fanfic in a very long time. Please feel free to point out any errors yet most of all, I invite you to simply enjoy!
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He stared up at the sky like a lost rider of the woods, when first he gazes upon the verdant weald, listening to the chirps and whistles of a wind blown by crickets.
Murmuring fireflies were out tonight, little islands of brilliance lingering about the grass. Their life, the Elf thought gently, was based on the sun's talent. Without the pulse of their twinkling bellies, hunger swallowed their determination and their flight became a blind endeavor.
Legolas sighed heavily, knowing that in his breath, all things living, green and otherwise would live by it. Even now, the fire spitting and cackling beside him, was a mere detail for he could see further without it, with only the moon and living memory to light his way.
Sitting as he was upon a jutting stone overlooking the woods of Lórien, Legolas espied the groveling trees swayed by breezes and the moon's calm descent into rays of ivory and white. For now, he kept fire company only for its heat and for its use to his companion, the Dwarf.
The stars and the moon wrecked the darkness, the bulwark of night clouds vanishing. Against such light, Legolas saw a sea undulating and waving about the songs of Elves. He could hear their hymn, sung on tongues beyond which voice could utter. It was an echo of his own; yet it was older and heeded a melody far removed from the quick trilling of younger trees. Deep within the dreams he dreamt even in waking, notes leaped forth and wrote themselves into his voice.
He sang then, in brief lament and longer joy:
I built my house in bliss beside the streams of thought
Where dreams alight in summer breezes then
Shower the chambers in listless light cheaply bought
And enliven to mold the poet's pen
Such a blessed house holds the breath of Elf lords near
As my heart moves, it sways to songs just sung
And never yet has sadness seemed weak and unclear
When now my soul upon the hearth is hung
Ballads such as no one knew from times fore and now
Created 'neath the fire my hands have wrought
From pine not far from here, fragrant needles endow
The scent of home, for which most Men have fought.
Despite the world Legolas painted by the skill of his tune, the Dwarf beside him cleared his throat in excuse, his brows fretful and seeking Legolas' consent, that he may speak his mind. The Elf halted his ditty and the smaller being bowed stiffly in thanks.
Gimli's speech was uttered in a hoarse and heavy voice, one scratched by time and dependent on the courage it nurtured. "I have long ached for the Wood over yonder and more so, for the sight of the Lady that walks it," Gimli complained. "Yet here we are, watching the wind sway and touch what I have not, in many a long year, attended whilst you enjoy yourself and sing away."
Gimli's frown owned the authority of creatures that bore their paths through mountains and hills. A weighty knitting of brows told of land that neither Men nor Elves could span. A Dwarf's virtue lay in being stalwart and stubborn, matching the earth's hardness and lording over its hesitance, to yield the keen qualities of their kind.
Though gratefully, for all things living within an Elven wood, Dwarves such as Gimli owned a grave respect for the trees and things, which grew by their rocky abodes. Only by Legolas' goodness and Elves of the same passion did such Dwarves exist.
Legolas the Elf laughed aloud. A cool zephyr rose to touch his hair but blew in vain for it did not move the strands of silver as it would a Man's. Wind from dreams moved Elves, wind in the waking world rarely did; fleeting aspects of Middle-earth seldom roused their endlessness.
Legolas patted his friend who stood to his waist and indulged in a flighty show of cheer.
"Be well, Gimli. There is much to learn from all this. We do not barge into Elven homes for welcome though we expect no less. Rather, we step upon them for the honor of their presence, as trees may own more years than we do; this vast difference between our years ought to merit more respect. Such is the way we shall arrive. Care must be saved in dealing with the frailty of long and blissful age."
"But I am grown impatient!" came the gruff reply.
"Oh, but my friend, impatience cannot entirely be a fruitless act, if you endure it. Fortitude reveals the deep beauty of things that have been waiting since the dawn of our Age."
"Again, you speak in riddles, Legolas! But forget all this talk. Let us go now and satisfy my desire!" Gimli gathered his things, grabbing his blankets under the twinkling eye of an Elf. Legolas had learned haste only in war and in errand; though, many years had not mellowed it.
Gimli grabbed the axe lying by his foot and took a haughty step forward, expecting the tall Elf to follow in his stead.
The Elf, despite the humor in his eye, only made his own decision more absolute by sitting. Legolas smiled again, his lips a reflection of a timeless arch; a structure built on strength and only moved by it. Gimli's words had little force to impart, as it was made in thoughtless haste and Legolas knew that they held even less reward when heeded.
"Oh! Such torment!" Legolas said, lifting the heavy mood with the taunt in his voice and yet more careful in staying the Dwarf's temper. "I, too, have feet grown lighter with every hour that passes when we stay so close yet never run nearer, impelled to move and see the wonders of Lórien."
"Indeed!" Gimli grunted, and sat by the Elf, knowing that his friend could not be moved and that the Elf's decision had already been made before his own inklings of unrest. "You are wiser than I when it comes to things that grow by water and by sunlight. If you will not follow my lead as yet, then I am strained to follow you. As is the prodding of my own heart, I will sit myself beside you and wait. When at last you deem the night fully grown to carry our weight, I will follow you into the Wood or carry you into it. May we both be merry then!"
"I hope you do not become too heavy for the task," Legolas told him.
"And your own years too many!" Gimli countered.
The Elf's laugh fell by the flowers about them. The white blossoms echoed his mirth; however bathed they were in black. Their disregard for even the most beautiful of their parts proved their happiness. White petals rained sideways and pressed the travelers' cheeks to smile. Like soft rain from clouds black with their heft of water, they refreshed the spirit even as twilight grew ever deeper.
Though soon, the Elf ignored them in alarm and laid his feet more steadily on the ground while standing. The petals now fell downward, as if thieves had filched the wind beneath. The very air ceased its blowing and the land was still. There under the quilt of evening all voices were hushed. Only a being as radiant as he and as eloquent in the language of wind, water, and Elven soul could command the earth's noise to stay its breathing.
"Ah, look," Legolas said, his eyes piercing through branch and thick peduncle in a sweeping gaze. He covered his brow against moonlight and starlight. "One who has not yet heeded the Sea comes forth. Let us meet him! And that, only with as much spirit as we had in our debate."
"I do not doubt your eyes, my friend, but my own betray me. I cannot see beyond this outcropping and the fire we have struck only proves how little firelight reveals. Let us stay here and study his intentions."
"Very well. But stay your mouth, for now, my good Dwarf," Legolas said, watching the space beyond where they sat, to a land far below the ledge of their camp and into the tresses of a forest that aged golden and never a barren brown.
Gimli only saw a waiting blackness and glittering leaves wherever moonlight strayed.
Legolas spoke again, "Ah, we are known at last. Lórien's discovery has drawn an eager audience. There, he has raised a hand outward in greeting." Legolas mirrored the gesture, his palm open and his greeting adorned with quiet mirth. "Their curiosity has been put to an end yet a messenger comes forth and leaves a brooch upon the grass; it is akin to the one we were bestowed with when the Company was whole. Ah! It is not idly that the leaves of Lórien fall. Shall I fetch it for you, my good Dwarf, and then wallow happily in memory?"
"If you will," Gimli said, raising his axe in fear of a stranger that only another of its kind could see. "And take me with you, if prudence allows," he added.
They waded through the distance, climbing down the shallow ledge of rock on which they had camped and allowing their leather boots quiet dominance over the meadow that separated them from Lórien. When the gloom became too deep for Gimli to steer through, Legolas navigated closely ahead. He treaded without hindrance, through a world that he always saw in light.
They finally found themselves by the eaves of Lórien, led by Legolas' keen eyesight and better sense; the duration of their walk shortened by their wonder. Gimli contained an urge to pluck every leaf from its place, bark and trunk and roots stowed into whatever pack could take them. Or, with greater difficulty, pluck himself from strangeness and be again, familiar to the twining, stretching arms of Lorien branches.
Such thoughts were dismissed when Gimli caught sight of the brooch, shaped in the form of Lórien leaves and traced in a haunting vein of gold. It sparkled and shown with the long and aching polish of one who loved the receiver too well. Its beauty stood different from the natural trappings of the greenery about. He was reminded once more of memories that glanced at beauty and mighty strokes of good will.
"I would judge it fine indeed that my kin was satisfied to merely bow and give us a gift at the edge of the Woods of Lothlórien," Legolas said, picking the brooch from its place and wondering at the deep indentation it left on the ground, as if it was heavier than it now seemed and had been lying there for ages hence.
"We shan't enter Lothlórien now and I fear that we never will," Legolas continued. "The time of Elves is passing and soon, we who remain will be forgotten. Those who plot to vanish from this world and finally, appear whole in the West are too occupied with the plans and labor of travel. Our token should be enough. We will return at another time or even, if your eyes can endure such sights of beauty and of leavetaking, see to the ships that sail to the West." Legolas' gaze turned weary. It was as though he talked of a future he was living, even as he abided in the present.
He continued in sadness but that sadness soon swelled into a glimmering hope. "'Farewell Gimli, my good friend,' I shall have to say," he said. "Then, the Sea will greet me as I walk forth; I shall know true longing and sail to the West. There I shall remain forevermore."
"I will sail with you, when pledges as sacred as friendship allow," Gimli whispered yet it seemed that Legolas did not hear.
The Elf turned to sit under the protruding eaves of Lórien, neither touching the wood nor entering the first row of trees. He listened to that song he had only heard from afar. As he emulated the tune into a lilting hum, a vagrant breeze from within the Wood whipped his hair and sent it surging to where the River Nimrodel flowed, flying like a flag upon a high and noble sail.
Gimli's face turned somber and the very rock, in whose image his stature had been hewed, suddenly faced that part of a mountain, which light never touched.
"Oh, the night indeed proved too callow to carry my weight and the borders of Lórien, too forbidden for me to enter!" he said. "How shall I ever walk the Wood except in sleep? Though in my heart, I know the Lady meant well and sent another in her stead, to keep hope ever near. For even as I know that my sight is bereft of beauty that none can surpass as Galadriel's shall never be, I will hope."
"Then the Lady was right to keep us here," Legolas said, bearing his bow and his quiver of arrows when at last, he stood to meet the night. The land around them gleamed. Sharp blades of grass glinted like spears, as though brightness from the very edge of the Wood had widened its reach.
"Oh, that my longing and the Lady's tender regard may bring more hope than mere waiting allows!" Gimli said.
Legolas did not allow the Dwarf time to weep. He spoke in blithe tones and kept his own sorrow secret. "Tomorrow, when the light of day straightens the creases on your brow, we shall leave with the sight of Lothlórien behind us. Let this song ease your misery, my good Dwarf. It is old and sung more frequently in Elrond's house than in any other Elven hearth. In the Common Speech, it is rendered thus…"
Those empty winds the tides give forth
Solitude holds dejection near
This lonely journey moans to me
And strife and woe are all I see!
Shuns light from heaven's fastened north!
When dreary dirges haunt my ear
For how I weave the woodland's way
When night is night and woe is day!
Here chattel's trade's but voice and glance
And now I ne'er give rapture chance
To spin the smile of arched delight
For eyes are eschewed of thy sight
Yet I with flutt'ring feet return
To Lothlórien, home's sojourn
And hope to cover blossoms there
With faith and love I please to share.
Then, as Legolas handed the leaf-brooch to his friend, Gimli son of Glóin smiled for the first time that long night. The moon's light reached out as if to embrace him, allowing him the sight of Lorien's deeper heart.
It was soon said that Glóin's son received more blessings than even the trees of Lórien themselves.
"It is enough," Gimli said. "It is enough that I have touched that, which belonged more readily in the past, when things were unstained by the lust of the ages." He knelt on one knee, gazing as far as his sight would allow into the dead of night and through the wistful glow of Lórien. To his heart he held the brooch, knowing that his love would never fail as this Lórien leaf could never wither.
"Oh, Lady, would it were that I should see thee yet again!" the Dwarf cried. "But a token of your favor is enough! Indeed, in the events of all my years, it is never idly that the leaves of Lórien fall!"
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-The End-