The boat is rocked by the water. Gimli, who has always lived underground and rarely felt the sun on his face, finds that he adores it.
"Gimli," Legolas says, from where he's sitting opposite of him, hands clasped around the ores. "Will you tell me of – of your love?"
Gimli blinks. "My love?" he repeats. While he has a One he does not know who they are, and so is unable to tell Legolas of them. Why would Legolas even know of a love in the first place? Gimli has only spoken about –
oh.
"You mean Ori."
Legolas nods.
The grief is fresh. Very much so, it twines around his heart and lungs and squeezes so tightly it's hard to breathe. Gimli swallows, then holds out his hands. They're shaking, still – it's a good day, and they're out in the open, and there's nothing to be afraid of, so they're not at the worst they could be. "See how my hands shake?" he says. He waits for Legolas to nod. "Ori's words shook the same."
"What do you mean?"
Gimli tucks back his hands, folding them tightly. "He stutters. Stuttered." He looks away, not fully able to hide the grimace of pain. "Sometimes he forgot words, or was unable to say what he meant. His words shook, and his tongue failed him."
Legolas' mouth falls open in an o and his hands still, for a brief moment, before he resumes the rowing. "You were his voice," he says quietly. "That is how you know…"
"How to help you," Gimli finishes. "Aye. You do not struggle the same, for all that it is similar – your words don't shake. You just lose them. Or am I wrong?"
Legolas shakes his head. "You are right, friend. Westron is…" He trails off and scowls.
"Hard," Gimli says, smiling.
"Hard," Legolas repeats, the scowl fading. "It is not my chosen language. I am – " He hesitates, but does not stop, and Gimli lets him have a few moments to try and find the word he's looking for. " – scared," he continues, hesitantly. "I am scared of what people might think. I do not understand."
"And that's alright," Gimli assures him. Ori had felt the same way, at times. "Aye, Legolas, I was Ori's voice. I learned. And I knew him well. When his words failed, I could read them in his eyes, in his expression, in his movements." He chuckles, tilting his head back to cast a wistful glance towards the heavens. "And when that failed, I gave him my hand, and he wrote the words upon it."
Legolas is silent for a moment. "He wrote, then?"
"You would not believe how beautiful his words were, Elf, if I told you," Gimli says, though he offers Legolas a cheeky smile to show he means no harm by it. "What he could not say, he wrote. What he could feel, he wrote. I have my tongue from him; he taught me how to express myself." He shakes his head. "In some ways, he was my voice in return. I could not – cannot – write so others may understand, and Ori wrote until his wrists ached. Were there words I wanted to keep, he gave them to me."
Still he has some of the letters Ori had given him, when he had longer things to speak of and Gimli's hand was not enough.
"You were close," Legolas notes.
Gimli smiles wistfully. "I've never been closer to any other."
The Fellowship is sundered.
Boromir is dead.
Dear Sam and brave Frodo have made for Mordor. Alone.
Loyal Merry and cheerful Pippin have been taken by orcs.
Gimli runs.
Aragorn, when he lies down to rest, falls asleep almost instantly.
Gimli, too riddled by his worry and fear, does not.
Legolas, Gimli sees, does not do so either.
"Do we light a fire?" Gimli asks, and though he is tired, he cannot make himself rest.
Legolas looks at him. "I need no flames," he says.
"Neither do I," says Gimli. "That's a no, then?"
Nodding, Legolas lies back in the grass, hands folded behind his head. They have not even pulled out their bedrolls. "I," Legolas says, but he cuts himself off. "No. Forget it."
Gimli looks at him, but his pose makes it hard to see his expression. "If you will it," he says. He's close – not very close, but close enough to be considered near. He shifts, presses his palms against the grass behind him, and leans onto them. His hair – the very same braids that Legolas had braided, and isn't that a strange thought – falls over his shoulders and cascades down his back.
Above them the sky drips of stars – shimmering, twinkling, as though there isn't a war going on, as though two innocent creatures haven't been kidnapped, as though Gimli doesn't shake.
"You know," he says, and Legolas shifts – only a little bit, just slightly, but enough. "I could have gone with Ori. To Khazad-dûm."
Legolas sits up. He brushes some hair out of his face. "Why not?"
"Why I didn't go with him?" Gimli asks. When Legolas nods, he looks back to the stars, smiling grimly. "I was terrified. I've never been good with caves. Or the dark."
"In – Moria – Khazad-dûm – " Legolas stumbles, shifting again, closer this time. Now he sits on his knees, hands in the lush grass. "You – "
"My grief was thick," Gimli says. "It sounds horrible, but it was enough of a distraction."
Legolas stares at him.
(ethereal – he looks ethereal, in starlight, in moonlight, hair like mithril, eyes like celestine – skin glimmering only ever so slightly –)
(Gimli remembers, then, Ori had told him, after Erebor, that Kili had found himself an Elf, had said she walked in starlight, and now –)
(now he sees –)
Gimli swallows and looks away.
He's familiar with this, with having a silent companion. Ori never minded when he jumped between subjects like an eager miner looking for gold. Hopefully Legolas doesn't mind, either. He looks back up, taking in the stars. He hasn't been out of the mountain often enough to see the stars much. Being deep in a mountain is pressing, so he tends to keep to the upper levels – both when he lived in Ered Luin and now, in Erebor.
In Erebor there are balconies he can clamber onto during both day and night, and he wasn't kept from going outside, exactly, but there were few chances of being out at night – and the lights from Dale and Erebor herself were often enough to cloud and hide the stars.
There is nothing like that now. "I rather think these are the most beautiful stars I've ever seen," he says, softly. "I know they are the same stars everywhere. Yet I feel…" he trails off. Thinks of it all, of all that has happened, of how the braid tucked close to his heart burns. When he continues, his voice is low and quiet. "Yet I feel like I have never seen something quite as breathtaking as them."
"Gimli," Legolas breathes, and Gimli looks over at him, sees his glistening eyes, sees his flushed cheeks.
"Aye."
Legolas breaks into rapid muttering in the elvish tongue of his, lithe and graceful like a bird. He chokes off and buries his face in his hands, hair falling over his shoulder like a curtain. "I – can't – "
Gimli looks at him.
And then he holds out his hand.
It's barely shaking.
Legolas stares down at it, a flicker of surprise before he closes cool fingers around it. "Runes," he chokes, "I don't…"
"Westron," Gimli says, and the words sound dry even to him.
Legolas presses a finger to his palm. You, he spells, an expression of intense concentration taking over him. Are.
Then he stops. His fingers twitch – forming half-letters and broken lines before he stops again, thinking.
This is not Ori, who knew what he wanted to say but could not speak. This is not Ori, who's words shuddered and halted in his mouth.
This is Legolas, who feels, but does not know how to say so. This is Legolas, who fears language.
You are, Legolas spells again, and then he folds his fingers around Gimli's, clutching at him like a lifeline, looking at him as though he is – not a gem, Legolas is an elf – as though he is the brightest star on the sky.
"Legolas," Gimli says, before the battle of Helm's Deep can truly begin, when they're still just staring down at the orcs below them. "Don't die."
Legolas smiles.
Gimli's hands shake when he untangles some strands of his beard and undoes a braid.
He pulls out the bead, reaches for Legolas' hand, and presses it against his palm. "Return it," he says, "after the battle. I will not have it unless it comes from your unharmed hands."
Bending on one knee, Legolas puts his free hand on Gimli's shoulder. He leans forward until their foreheads touch.
Gimli's heart stutters.
He cannot know what it means. He cannot.
Gimli leans into it.
"I will," Legolas whispers.
"Gimli child of Gloin," Gimli whispers harshly to himself, staring at the dark tunnel before him, "you will flourish."
He takes a deep breath and steps into the caves.
The voice at the back of his heart returns with vigor. He must survive this. He must come to the battle. He must see Legolas again, must see the stars in his eyes, must hear his voice –
The voice whispers. For Ori! For Ori! For Ori!
And yet still, the voice also screams. Legolas, Legolas, Legolas, Legolas –
The caves are magnificent. Gimli looks upon them, riddled with gems, and thinks of the stars.
"Gimli – Gimli!"
It's Aragorn, pushing his way to the crowd to where Gimli is sitting, perched on a stone and with a wet cloth pressed to his headwound. Gimli looks up when he approaches. "Aye, lad?"
"It's Legolas," Aragorn says.
Gimli's up before he can finish speaking.
Legolas lies with bandages around his shoulder, with bandages around his hands. There are splotches of blood on both of them, staining the white red.
"Legolas," Gimli breathes.
The daft, idiotic Elf merely smiles serenely up at him. He beckons him closer and takes his hand when he does. Is he going to start spelling? Gimli fears he will be unable to still the tears, if he does.
No. Legolas hands him the wooden bead Gimli gave him before the battle.
Gimli shakes his head, braids dangling wildly. "No," he croaks, pushing the bead back, wrapping Legolas' bloody fingers around it. "Lad, no, I told you – I said – I would not have it, not unless it came from you – from your unharmed hands."
Legolas' gaze flickers to his bandages. "Oh," he says meekly.
He does not let go of Gimli's hand.
They ride on to Isengard – to Saruman, and to the Hobbits.
The first night on the road Legolas looks through his pack and curses softly. "I seem to have exhausted my store of arrows," he says, more to himself than Gimli. "And my hands…"
Gimli takes in his hands, still bandaged and hurt. "You cannot make new ones," he concludes, and Legolas nods tiredly.
One would have thought that with Gimli's track record for crafts, masters would turn him away when he wished to learn a new one. It was quite on the contrary, however – there is nothing more dwarvish than overcoming obstacles, and what is Gimli's hands, if not an obstacle?
No master had been able to teach him. They had all admitted after some time that he would never be able to finish the fine work that was needed for a masterpiece, and so he would never earn his master's.
Well – until Dwalin. Until Ori.
Gimli has tried fletching.
He picks up his knife.
"You don't – " Legolas tries, but Gimli scoffs.
"You are an archer, lad," he says, starting to hack his way down the branch.
Legolas has arrowheads and feathers aplenty, but no shafts.
"I – I have blades, as well," Legolas complains, shifting once more, now to sit beside him, frowning down at his hands.
"You," Gimli repeats, "are an archer."
It quiets him, for some time. Yet he stays, watching with careful eyes as Gimli whittles away at the branch.
It's been some time since he had to do this – his memory is good, but not good enough to make anything of fantastic quality. Gimli has, however, been able to see quite a lot of Legolas' arrows since this godawful war began. He knows what to do.
If only his hands would co-operate! The knife slides over the wood without results, and when it does bite it either chops off just a little too much or not quite enough.
Legolas. Needs. Arrows.
The knife-hand gives a particularly violent twitch, causing the knife to cut off to the side, nearly sinking into Gimli's thigh.
"Gimli," Legolas says gently, leaning closer, his hair falling over Gimli's shoulder. "You will hurt yourself."
"You are," Gimli grunts out, lining the knife up again, "an archer."
"I know how to work wood for arrows," Legolas says. Close. Close. Close.
Gimli scoffs, casting him a brief glance. "Your hands," he says simply.
"I know," Legolas replies softly, and then he leans forward to put his hands over Gimli's.
Steadying them.
Guiding.
And for once it's not Gimli's hands that quiver, but his heart.