Prompt: Tolkien never said Legolas and Gimli ever made it to Valionr, only that they tried. The Valar refuses to let a dwarf into the undying lands and sinks their ship. Sad fic.
So, yeah, this is my first fic for LoTR and my first fic in a really long while. I've been simply reading all this time until I found the prompt and ended up crying at 2 am. That was two hours ago. This is unbeta-ed so tenses may be off in a few parts.
I hope I did the prompt justice and I hope you enjoy this. Let feels claim you. I don't own LoTR.
Legolas's grip on a floating piece of wood, a remnant of the boat he made (created with his bare hands for him and his love), was tight. He hung on to his only lifeline as he braved the raging waves of the sea. The storm was unrelenting, unapologetic in its disastrous wake. He could not hear much except the wailing of the winds in his ears, the thundering rain on the surface of the water.
He couldn't hear his Gimli.
"Gimli," Legolas said, his voice but a whisper against the noise of the storm.
"Gimli!" He tried again, desperate as his eyes peered through the heavy rain. And before he could try again, a wave pushes him under, and his world fell to darkness.
The sight of a mortal's body, unmoving on a slab of white marble, was once such a foreign idea to Legolas. When faced with the reality of it, it remained foreign. The passing of time for the elves has always been different from that of the mortals. Years could go by in the blink of an eye, insignificant in the long, immortal life of the elf-kind. But there are some years that went too slow, that weighed on their backs as if they carried the weight of the sky. Such was the feeling of years in the war.
Such was the feeling of watching mortal friends unmoving on a slab of white marble.
Merry, Pippin, and Aragorn, gone in the blink of an eye.
They looked peaceful in their rest. Merry and Pippin looked like they were smiling as if they welcomed death like an old friend and shared a joke or two, the mischief and the light that they brought on Middle-Earth passed over the next realm. The King Elessar, Aragorn, looked as if he was in deep slumber. Even in death, did he look regal and every bit of the Great King of Gondor that he was. They were all touched by the hand of time, with lines on their faces and hair as white as the stars in the sky.
Arwen Undómiel, for all that her body was untouched by the years, carried the weariness of age in her eyes as she shed silent tears for her beloved behind her black mourning veils.
Legolas hears a small sniffle from beside him. He looks to see Gimli with his head bent down, his shoulders shaking as he heaves in the air as if he was once more in the battlefield. Legolas places an arm around Gimli's shoulder, and Gimli turns to put his arms around Legolas in an embrace, unashamed of the tears he sheds for his old friends.
Time has touched Gimli too. His red hair which once looked like flames in the sunlight was now silver. He had lines on his face, the same ones that Legolas can see on Merry's, Pippin's, and Aragorn's. He walks a little slower each day, where once he walked with a bounce in his step.
Legolas gazes once more on the three stone slabs place side by side, and his heart was seized with a fear that finally settles in. He tightens his grip on Gimli as silent tears roll down his cheeks.
When Legolas opens his eyes, the sea was calm once more. His sight was bleary, and he felt more like a mortal than elf-kind. He could see no land, only a never-ending sea, and a sky overhead with the sun high up in it.
He feels weary but does not falter with his grip on the wood. He may yet see his beloved out here in the open sea, unharmed. But the weariness soon overtook him, and he was once more falling into sleep.
"I couldn't bear to be parted from another friend. I couldn't bear to be parted from you, my beloved. Sail with me to Valinor."
"Anywhere you go, Ghivashel, I will follow."
Legolas searched and searched, for how long he didn't know. Gimli was still out there. But he could not see him. There was little he could do with just himself and a piece of wood no bigger than both his arms. He calls for him, but the sea was too vast, and his voice was drowned by the space of a Middle-Earth he no longer knows.
"Gimli," he whispers against the wood, his voice hoarse from shouting his beloved's name over and over again. "Gimli."
The ship was towering, in the shade of light grey. Its sail was a stark white against the wood of the ship. It was simple in its looks, but it was sturdy. It would carry them all the way to Valinor where they may live until the end of time.
Legolas unties the rope that anchors them to the harbor, that anchors them to Middle-Earth, and they set sail together, their fingers intertwined with one another have they leave a world behind them for another world to explore.
The seas were calm until they were not, and the last he hears of Gimli was his beloved crying Legolas's name, drowned by the wind and rain.
He should have known the Valar would not approve. He set out to live forever with his beloved but instead found a fate worse than seeing Gimli on a white marble slab, unmoving and ravaged by the hands of time.
He could not see, he could not find his Gimli at all. He would never know what his beloved's last thoughts were, if he was alive right now, or if he found death that night in the storm. He would never hold him again, he would never be able to tell him again how much he loved him.
Legolas lets go of the wood and lets the depths claim him where he may yet be with his beloved once more.