First and foremost my thanks go to Lindir's Ghost who rescued this from the bin. I have had quite a bit of a play since though so any grammatical errors are entirely mine.
This is set after The Child and the Darkness but you probably need not read that first; this is just a bit of character study that I had in my head and wanted to see the light of day before the sequel starts. For those of you waiting for it, I promise it is very nearly ready, and for those of you familiar with my previous work you may be surprised to see that this is not from Gimli's point of view, it is from Legolas'. I hope you enjoy it.
It is a beautiful day.
It is full spring and it is warm. Sunlight shines brightly above the spreading boughs and dapples past the leaves, a distracting play of light upon this clearing of dancing flowers and fresh pale fiddle heads. The breeze sets the trees whispering and I hear their voices; they are happy and they speak to one another of the life growing within them. A bird sings 'I am here! I am here!' and I turn my gaze aloft, finding it in a branch far above us where it has chosen to nest this year. I yearn to go, to run, to feel the wind upon my skin in the highest of places and to let my blood sing with the Song of my Greenwood. I want to walk hidden paths and know that I am a walking part of the land, as welcome here as the rain. The scents upon the air, the voices I hear from all of the living things and the Song that threads through all of this are eternally distracting and I hear my name.
I turn and see my friend. He is stood like an oak with his arms crossed about his broad chest and his beard is bristling in irritation. Most certainly it is not the first time he has spoken to me. He is annoyed by my distraction as he so often is, but there is a hint of fond exasperation in the way his eyes crease. He has very expressive eyes; it is a good thing as he has so much hair about his face that I must often rely on them to gauge his mood.
"We came out here as the palace had you twitchy with confinement," he growls. "I would have preferred that to not having your attention at all."
Gimli growls often. His voice is deep and rumbles within him and he is very good at showing his despair of me just in the timbre of his voice. I feel my face flush for a moment and I resolve not to be distracted any further.
He sits upon a rock, legs folded and he seems rooted deep into the earth as is his way. I am upon the ground like a child and he has found me a suitable piece of stone that rises from the earth as though it grows there, all covered in moss and lichen. He has also located a hammer and chisel from my father's palace although I cannot fathom for a moment where he found such a thing. I flex and massage my hands and feel the same deep ache I am becoming used to. My hands heal but they are not so strong nor as dextrous as they were – I must work to regain what I have lost and Gimli is helping me. He has put up with my ill temper and frustration all of these days, allowing me no time to sink into melancholy but has kept me at work. If he believes that learning to hear the Song of the stone will help in my healing I will do all I can to learn it, whether I agree with his methods or not. I recall the months I spent teaching Gimli the ways of stealth and silence and how near to sailing I was just out of frustration with it. I resolve to be a far better student than he ever was.
I dust my hands clean from where my fingers root into the forest floor, pick up the hammer and chisel and look to him in readiness. In an instant he is there correcting my grasp of them. Whoever would have known that there is a wrong way to hold a hammer!
Once he is satisfied he sits back upon his rock. He takes out his pipe and I cannot help but let out a noise of annoyance; if I must spend all afternoon listening like a dolt to the unhelpful silence of the stone I shall not do it choking and spluttering on such foulness. I am distracted enough, surely? He sighs and puts it away again.
"Now, if it is even possible for an elf you must clear your mind of what is around you, everything but the earth and rock and stone. Feel it, but you must not feel it as you feel this Song." He flits his hand into the air, meaning all of the wood. "You tell me that you feel that Song with your spirit. This you feel in your blood."
I put my hands down and I look at him in despair. I have no thoughts on how to feel a thing with my blood. The Song that I hear I have heard since my begetting, I have never had to learn it. Elbereth help me, I would not even know how! He is patient and hops from his seat again, coming beside me and resting one hand upon my chest. His hand is very large and very strong but he is gentle when he places his other hand upon mine and holds it against the stone. Gimli is careful of me these last weeks; he watches me constantly as though disbelieving that I am truly well. He has flashes of memory as his head heals and I must always be ready to remind him that we are both here and hale.
"Feel it here," he insists, pushing gently against me. I close my eyes and instantly the Song of the wood takes over. It is clamouring noise and scent, the wood pushes at me to hear it and I feel a quickening in my blood but I silence it as I dislike doing; I am on no quest, I am not in the world of Men, I am at home. I should not need to deny the call but should be free to become tangled in the Song for days upon end, but I have promised Gimli that I will try this for him and so I focus.
It is a long time to stay silent and still. It is a long time and all the while I must ignore that constant, ever present itch to be away, to see what is beyond the path, but I have spent a very long time indeed learning how to quell that call. I am not among fellow laegrim and so I must quell the distractions around me. I must try and listen with a part of me I have never listened with before and finally I hear a thread, the tiniest whisper of a Song that is not mine and I gasp. I open my eyes and look for my friend and he smiles at my astounded expression.
"What did you hear?" he asks me. I knew he would ask, and I have no idea how I will respond.
"I felt as a mote of dust upon the sea," I say. It is the simplest way I can put it and he laughs but it is not at my expense, he is pleased. "I have heard it before," I tell him keenly, continuing. "It is the undercurrent of Iluvatar's Song but never have I heard it alone nor so loud."
I know how to do this now. I need not hear it as a dwarf but as an elf. I can listen to my own Song but must listen particularly hard to just one chord, take just one glittering strand of the huge tapestry.
"If you can hear all of Arda, you can hear the call of this one stone," he tells me, meaning the rock before me. "Feel the pattern it holds, feel what it has inside of it. The beauty that dwarven stonemasons carve into the rock is there already, we have learned how to find it and release it."
Release it, he says to me, and I imagine it trapped. To be trapped in stone is a terrible thing indeed and I see its form quite clearly in my mind now.
I set to my task and we continue for most of the day. It is difficult – the hammer and chisel are alien to me and my hands ache horribly in short time but this will help them to grow strong again, this will regain skill. I try to hear the Song of Aulë but to me it is as though all of the men upon Arda shout out as one and I must pick out just one voice. Gimli helps me but he guides me only; he knows me well and knows that I must do this myself.
The Song of Aulë is heavy and huge and it is all I can do to keep my breath. It is no dancing quicksilver thing, it is not green and alive with scent and sound nor does it call to you: 'come, hear me and follow, there is much you have still to see'. This Song makes me feel small, and I feel rooted and confined but I listen and I hear what calls from within the stone. It wishes to be free. All things wish to be free.
By afternoon I am exhausted, not in body but in mind and spirit. I have carved a single bird upon a branch of leaves and to my eye it is childish and crude but he looks upon my work as though I had carved the very gates of Moria. He beams and I feel my own mouth curve into a reluctant smile. With Gimli I am learning that there is no shame in not being the most accomplished at every task I perform, but there is pride to be had in the attempt at it. Never would I have believed that I would be sitting like this – a child beneath his eyes – at the foot of a dwarf learning dwarven things… but then, he says the same things when I teach him the ways of elves.
"This is good!" he nods, pleased. He runs his fingers across the carving and I know that he is trying to feel just as I did; to feel how close I am to the Song of the stone. I hear him mutter beneath his breath 'Fileg' and 'Golas'. He is learning Sindarin in his own time but will not admit to it. "Who knew you had the ability to listen? You have hidden it well from me."
I utter a low hiss of irritation and shove at him but it is in play and he laughs as I get to my feet, feeling the stiffness from sitting too long. I flex my fingers again and massage my hands. He watches me carefully – he is like a hawk! – and I shake them out then return them to my side. I stretch and take a deep breath of damp loam, blossom and sun warmed leaf. I wonder if Gimli wishes to know the weather; he is very interested in it. It will not rain today so I stay my tongue – it is rain that irks him most. Dwarfs are a strange folk. To run in the rain right now would be a fine thing.
He tells me it is now time to return to the bow for a few hours before the day is over, and although I feel exasperated again that he is driving me like I am an elfling and he is my weapons master, I know that he is ensuring that I am returned to myself as fast as possible. I know how easily I could fall to despair over my failures and he does not allow it. I do not know what I have done to deserve such a friend.
We leave the stone with my rude carvings there in the clearing to stand there for the rest of its days. I have given the heart of the stone its wings and I cannot help but laugh with the joy of it. I whistle to it as we leave and imagine that it calls back to me.
I practise with the bow for a few hours and I am pleased. I have improved. Gimli throws clay balls in the air for me to shoot and I hit all – a trick I learned as a child but something I have not been able to do the last weeks. They are just as clear to me: stark pin points in the crystal air and I see them arc, see where they are to fall and know exactly where to shoot but my hands do not obey me as once they did. Today it is as it always has been and my body flows and moves with the movement of the forest, knowing what to do as though it has known all along. I feel something inside me that I had not realised was there relax and let go and I feel right for the first time since I have been allowed out of my quarters. I laugh and I sing freely beneath the trees of my home and the dwarf looks strangely at me, his eyes crinkled with an emotion I cannot read.
"You make me feel old," he tells me, and he gives an abashed laugh that tells me he understands how strange that statement is. His years to me are painfully short and I am forced to consider his statement. I recall clearly as an elfling finding an old and spindly squirrel curled as if asleep as I ran in the wood. It was cold and still but I carried it home to my Ada to warm it by the fire and to see if it wished for some honey cakes – I had been promised them for my tea. My father's bellicose friend and advisor, Lord Ionwë had found me carrying around a dead thing and had cursed and sighed that this had fallen to him, but he spent a great many hours that day explaining to a small elfling what it was to age and die, and why it did not touch us.
I did not understand then, and I admit that I still do not. I counted more years then than Gimli does now.
I am staring, I realise, and my friend shifts uncomfortably beneath my gaze so I look elsewhere. I make the mistake of looking up and am caught in the dance of two courting birds that flit and dart about the sky until I hear a throat cleared pointedly.
"I sometimes wonder," I muse, my eyes still upon the darting of the birds. "I wonder if the elves were gifted so strongly with the Song to make the weight of our years seem less."
"Not all elves hear the Song as you do," he points out to me. He looks up to see what has me so fascinated and huffs through his beard in exasperation when he sees that it is just two birds.
"Aye, and do the Noldor seem happier for it?" I ask pointedly. "They are sad and homesick and spend all of the day writing poetry. If they listened better they might find themselves less insufferable."
I have often suspected that my father's dislike for the Noldor has coloured my perception of them. I have known the sons and daughter of Elrond my whole life and like them well, Lord Elrond himself tolerates me much as my own Ada does…but then Lord Ionwë believes that Silvan elves have no business bearing arms. He says that we are too distracted and fanciful. I have often meant to ask Haldir and his brothers their thoughts on this.
"Perhaps writing poetry makes them happy," Gimli offers. "Perhaps a conversation is being held this moment in Rivendell where they say: 'should the Silvan folk turn their minds to where they are, they would sing less and think more'."
"If I sing, it does not mean that I do not think."
"I know that my friend," he sobers. "Perhaps I should sing more, perhaps the elves have learned well how to bear the weight of grief and years and should be imitated."
He understands it, and I feel gratitude. Gimli always understands better than he will ever admit to; if all dwarves are thus then we have wasted much time in being enemies. I see him in sharp relief; every detail and aspect of him here in this field where we stand still in a swaying sea of hushing grass. His hair and beard are deep red, glinting like fire in the lowering sun and his eyes see me with curiosity – he has ever been as curious of me as I am of him – but there is also a knowing. He grumbles, he huffs and he speaks ill of me beneath his breath knowing full well I hear him, but he understands.
"You are not very good at singing," I tell him, and force apology into my voice. "Perhaps there is another way. Climbing trees is also distracting."
"You are beyond speaking to seriously!" he cries, throwing his hands up in the air and walking away. I cannot help myself and find that I laugh, running behind him to catch up. I rest my hand upon his shoulder as I reach his side and he does not shake it off but rather falls into step with me.
"It is not the years of a person that say 'he is young' or 'she is old', it is here," I brush my fingers against my chest. "Iluvatar's Song is forever and will sing and dance through all of the seasons and the ages – so hear the elves. The Song of Aulë is steady and true and strong – and so hear the dwarves. We should seek to be no different than we are. Healing the wounds the years have wrought comes from those who walk them with us; they cannot be undone in thought or even distraction."
"Then pity me," he sighs. "For the only creature I have to heal my years is an elfling who speaks in riddles and can watch the growing of a plant for hours without movement."
"I pity you indeed for I am fortunate; I walk with a dwarf who makes me feel young again."
He looks up at me then, although I do not meet his eye. Gimli is uncomfortable with speaking honestly of friendship sometimes – he prefers to hide it in insults and jibes – but I do not listen to his words to hear his meaning. I feel his hand pat mine awkwardly where it rests on his shoulder and we walk the rest of the way in silence.
We race the last half mile as though we are children. We tussle and shove and laugh; our Song weaves about our undignified antics us as we play, and we care not if we are seen. Our years weigh heavily, aye, but there are so many more yet to come and by Elbereth, I am thankful.
As always, reviews make this worthwhile and I'd love to hear what you thought whether it's good or bad.
MyselfOnly