Title: Price of Battle
Characters: Gimli (mentions of others)
Summary: This is why they fought. This was their addiction.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings or any related characters. I consider this a sort of darker side that the War would have on the characters. This is told from Gimli's POV. Tell me what you think, please!
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
There was a sort of surge that went through my body every time I fought. Few others could understand this, only those who lived for the fight, who lived for the lust of blood and battle. Horrible, though, that such a surge came from battle, and I could find one from nowhere else. The heat, the need, the danger that was in the battle could be placed nowhere else. My axes were always at hand; always ready to win another fight.
Eowyn understood this; I could see it in her eyes. She was a great lady, yet she understood what the battle meant. It meant power. It meant never having to back down. It was life and death, dueled by one hand to the end. Aragorn and Legolas understood this, too, to a certain degree. Aragorn understood it perhaps more than Legolas. Elves did not quite have the taste of blood that other creatures carried.
Sometimes ale was able to drown out the want for battle. The need for battle. But that was not often. That was not well enough now. True warriors understood this. The gleam in Faramir's eyes said it. He hated the battle. Fear went through his body every time he was on the battlefield he had once drunkenly told me, but there was something about it… the rush… the danger, something that couldn't be replaced ever.
None of us would admit that we were addicted to blood. We would be considered worse than Orcs. But, even in some peasant's faces I could see it. They had fought; they knew the need. And none of us would ever get the chance to prove ourselves for it again. We would all die, craving the battle. Perhaps we would take our lives because of it. Constantly, my mind needed to be taken off of it. I drank, I laughed, and I told stories of the war, knowing that there could never be anything quite like it ever again.