A Broken Bridge in Erebor

by Tathrin

Shortly after the War of the Ring, Legolas visits Gimli at the Lonely Mountain. A startling accident precipitates a conversation about some of the cultural differences between elves and dwarves, particularly modesty and attraction. Mostly about hair, unintentionally. Note: contains no actual plot.

2. Chapter Two

"Throw me."

Gimli finally tore his eyes from the horrifying sight of the dangling dwarf-bairn only when the outlandishness of Legolas's suggestion forced its way through his ears. He dragged at the elf's hand as though he would pull him back from the idea by force. "What?" he said, gaping at his friend. "Are you mad?"

"Gimli, there is no time. Trust me."

"Aye," Gimli said immediately, for while Legolas might be as mad as any elf at times, there was no being in Middle-earth that the dwarf trusted more. Outlandish or not, he would see his friend's plan through. "Tell me what you need."

Legolas's gaze moved to the dangling child and back again, an archer measuring for an impossible shot. His explanation was spoken in Sindarin almost too fast for Gimli to follow. He nodded anyway; the understanding that had developed between him and Legolas during the War of the Ring seemed at many times to transcend any need for words, whatever tongue they spoke.

Switching to Khuzdul, Gimli grabbed the nearest likely-looking dwarf—sturdy, young, and thick-bearded—and barked instructions. The conscripted dwarf moved to draw away until he recognized either Gimli's status or the blazing confidence in his eyes; then, while making no attempts to conceal the bafflement in his own gaze, he obediently nodded and dropped to one knee beside Gimli. The other dwarf copied him as Gimli laced his fingers together, each of them making a cup of their hands into which Legolas placed one of his long feet. He pressed his hands down across their shoulders and said in Westron, "Together!"

Gimli trusted Legolas—he did, he did. But could even the combination of dwarvish strength and elvish agility accomplish a feat as daft as this? He had little hope of his friend's mad plan succeeding—but a fool's hope was better than no hope at all, and had carried the day against steeper odds before. It was, at any rate, worth a try, because to do nothing while a child fell to their death in front of him was something that Gimli could no sooner bear to do than he could walk across an open pool of water without wetting his sturdy boots.

"I need a beat!" Gimli roared in his native tongue. Dwarves turned askance to stare at him where he crouched on the stone ground with an elf perched on his shoulders. "A soft one," he added roughly. "We don't want to shake the child loose!"

Once again, the commanding tones of Gimli's voice—or maybe just the familiarity of his face, here among his own people—tumbled the walls of bafflement that had risen against his absurd demand. Three dwarves standing near began to pound their feet against the floor. Rhythm came naturally to dwarves, and the three of them moved in perfect lockstep by the second stamp. By the third, Gimli could feel his own heartbeat melding to the tempo, and he knew the dwarf who knelt beside him felt it too. By the fifth beat their breaths were linked, their pulses throbbing in time with the quick stamping behind him. "On four," he commanded, and Legolas's head twitched in a little nod although the elf did not take his eyes from the distant dangling child.

On the fourth beat following Gimli's command, he heaved upwards with all of his strength in one mighty thrust that reached from the tips of his toes to the curve of his fingers, throwing every ounce of his body's weight and power into the movement. The dwarf beside him moved as well, matching Gimli's thrust with his own mighty shove, the two of them mirroring one another's motion as perfectly as if the drumbeat of the dwarves stamping behind them marked the steps of an ancient dance they had known since childhood.

At the same time, Legolas pushed down with hands and feet alike, flinging himself off of his dwarvish lever and into the air. The combination of thrusts left Gimli staggering, for he had put all of himself into the throw and saved nothing by which to catch his own balance as he roared upright; other dwarves caught at his arms, steadying both him and his hapless helper.

Gimli wasted no breath or time on thanking his people; his eyes were already turning back up to watch the elf. Legolas shot through the air as though fired from one of his own bows, a thin arrow of an elf streaming golden hair behind him like fair fletching. Even to Gimli, who knew well how light the impact of elves upon the physical world could be when their thoughts were bent elsewhere, this flight seemed impossible. Legolas was a full-grown elf, and should not have been so easily tossed into the air—but elvish weight pressed but little upon the world, as though they were not quite real (or perhaps were more real than all else around them) and with dwarvish strength to propel him, Legolas soared like one of his thrice-damned gulls.

Dwarves all around the cavern gasped or swore. "He will miss—!" one started to cry, but at the apex of his arc Legolas tucked into two fluid somersaults that deposited him neatly on the thin span of stone.

Even the light touch of elvish toes upon the narrow bridge was enough to knock the slipping hands of the child free but Legolas did not so much land on the stone as curve forward across it, flinging himself immediately around and downwards as though the fragment of bridge was a maypole that he spun himself around with the barest slide of his feet.

Every dwarf in the cavern, Gimli included, seemed to draw in their breath to gasp or wail. The child fell; Legolas swung; and long elvish arms reached beneath the arch of stone to clasp around the small dwarvish form. Some around him began to release their breath in sighs of relief but Gimli only drew in more, horror spilling ice through his limbs as he pictured elf and dwarfling falling together to the stony floor. Surely it could not have been Legolas's plan to simply grab the child and fall, cushioning the small body with his own!

Not even elvish wits were thin enough to think that such a thing would be survivable for either of them—but perhaps he had forgotten that here in the Lonely Mountain, there were no trees waiting to catch him. Would he be killed by misplaced instincts now? Gimli had seen Legolas drop twice the distance of this tall cavern before, and his breath had caught in his throat then too, but that had been in Fangorn when the elf stepped recklessly from the tops of those queer old trees and landed laughing. There were no branches here to check his fall, as there had been then. If Legolas fell to this bare stone floor from such a height, he would die—!

But he did not fall. His downward swing was caught and reversed at the ankles, the tops of his feet pressing tight against the bridge so that he dangled now upside down, the child clasped against his chest and his long hair dangling loose below them both. For a moment he wobbled, his soft-shod feet slipping against the smooth stone, but Legolas spun in one of those impossible curves of elvish agility and swung one leg wide, twisting in place, then flung the loose leg back up and turned his foot in so that he was now gripping the thin span of the bridge with one foot on each side. The child whimpered and Legolas spoke to it too quietly for Gimli to make out the words over the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears.

Gimli swore very quietly to himself for several seconds until he had expelled the full length of the gasp of horror he had meant to breathe, then drew in a fresh breath and bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Someone get out there and pull them up!" If his voice shook more than the pale sliver of an elf dangling helplessly over fathoms of empty air and distant stone, no one near him commented on the low tremble.

The dwarves who had raced for the tunnels in their futile attempt to reach the child before it fell were soon inching their way across the narrow span. "Hasten not," Legolas called in breathy but clear Westron. "We are secure, and I would see no one risk themselves needlessly so that one aborted fall begets another."

Gimli saw bushy heads turn askance towards each other, the dwarves on the distant bridge clearly doubting Legolas's assurances. He raised his voice and called, "Trust the elf. If he says there is no need to rush, there is no need." The words were hard for Gimli to speak—he would much rather both Legolas and the child be pulled from their precarious perch as quickly as possible—but they would be a thousand times harder for his people to believe, he knew. Only the fact that Gimli son of Glóin, dwarf of the line of Durin, spoke them now kept such an absurd idea from being laughed right out of the Lonely Mountain.

The dwarves above did not dawdle, but none of them hurried recklessly enough to slip either, and soon enough stout arms were reaching down to drag the elf and his small burden back up onto the bridge. There was an ugly moment there where sturdy dwarven footing met flighty elvish equilibrium and the two warred against one another, and it seemed as though the hands helping Legolas upright might unwittingly shove him off the edge instead; but the elf caught his balance and the dwarf trying to brace his leg let go, and through some miracle everyone kept their feet.

The child refused to let go of Legolas, despite the dwarven hands trying to tug the small form away. Gimli saw Legolas duck his head and speak more unheard words into the curls that hid a small ear, and the little one relaxed their grip enough for the elf to turn the child upright in his arms, at least, and together the little crowd of rescuers walked safely back the length of the narrow bridge.

Gimli's heart did not stop thudding until he saw Legolas reemerge, dwarfling still in his arms, from the side tunnel whose stairs led up to the new bridge that had nearly caused such disaster. Dwarves flocked towards them like an avalanche, their exclamations of surprise and relief rising from them like a roar, and Gimli saw Legolas flinch for a moment at the sight of so many unfamiliar charging bodies.

The flicker of dismay was gone in an eyeblink and the faint smile that he was used to seeing on the elf's narrow face replaced it so smoothly that none who did not know Legolas well would have noticed aught but the amiable smile. He held that polite expression on his face as dwarven hands reached out to thump him on the arms and back in relieved accolades and gratitude.

The tumult of the overlapping words being showered on Legolas's head in Westron, and even some breathless Khuzdul, was such that even Gimli could not make out the individual sentences, but the thankful tones and impressed cheers needed no translation. He saw Legolas's eyes flicker with mingled discomfort at the attention of so many strangers and delight at the sudden warmth from a people who had been heretofore cool at best in their regard towards him.

Gimli pushed his way through the crowd with his elbows, shoving himself to the front right on the heels of a wailing dwarf who had to be the near-fallen child's parent. That dwarf clutched at the small form, tears streaming into his beard, but the child had fixed its hands into diamond-tight grips on Legolas's hair and tunic and would not be removed even into the safety of familiar arms. For the third time Legolas bent his head to speak softly to the little one, and one hand was pried loose beneath the reassurances of his gentle words. Legolas stooped so that the child could be transferred to its parent, but when he moved to step away he was stopped by the tight grip of a tiny hand around one of his narrow braids.

Gimli could see the elf's ears flush in embarrassment, although the polite smile on his face did not flicker. Still half bent-over, he tried to gently tease the child's fingers loose; the parent, his beard quivering with mortification at the behavior of his offspring, tugged likewise. The child would not budge.

"Ah, well," Legolas said lightly, although Gimli could see from the faint tension at the corners of his smile that the elf longed to retreat from the noisy crowd, "the child has had a frightful day. I take no offense, Master Dwarf, I assure you."

The parent's grateful response was but half-coherent, spoken as it was in part to Legolas and in part to the child that now sat in its parents arms and partly in the elf's. It would have been an awkward pose even if one party hadn't been so much taller than the other. Gimli stepped forward to try and help disentangle them, then stopped, with no idea how to go about the process without scaring the dwarfling further.

"Ah!" Legolas said suddenly, and there was a flicker of motion as he crouched lower for a moment and drew something white and gleaming from his boot. Once again, the watching dwarves had time only to draw in half of a gasp before the motion was complete, Legolas's knife flashing through the space between him and the child. The elf stepped back and nodded politely as he returned his long knife to the sheath that must have been tucked in his boot. Several inches of thin-braided elf-hair remained clutched in the child's fist while the parent jerked away in shock. Gimli's jaw dropped while around him, dwarven gasps deflated into amused chuckles.

"That's one way to untangle things!" chortled an elderly dwarf, slapping Legolas approvingly on his back. Further approving statements and gestures followed and Legolas nodded politely at all of them, a thin smile on his face, but Gimli could see the growing discomfort in his eyes and in the way his weight shifted up onto his toes. He looked like a deer staring down a pack of hunters, or a bird poised on the edge of flight.

"All right, all right!" Gimli bellowed, waving his hands like a merchant shooing curious dwarflings away from his stall. "Enough, there, give them a chance to breathe."

Legolas shot him a grateful look over the tops of the other dwarves' heads. It was several minutes yet before they could extricate themselves—and only after many exchanges of gratitude and apology with the child's parent, and Legolas's repeated assurances that everything was fine and he was only glad that the little one was unharmed—but the crowd thinned around them as dwarves moved off to inspect the damage that the falling stones had done and to see about clearing them away so that repairs could be assessed and initiated.

Eventually parent and child were led away by a cluster of friends to sit somewhere calm and recover from the ordeal. Gimli beckoned and Legolas followed quickly, although he slowed to exchange friendly nods with every dwarf who shouted or waved to him as he passed.

Gimli had meant at first to return to his own chambers and the privacy and comforts they offered, but he thought better of that plan after only a few steps and instead led the elf to a narrow staircase that eventually spilled out to a small lookout perch on the side of the mountain. The sight of the open sky relaxed Legolas so much that he seemed to lose almost an inch of height as he sagged in relief, or so it looked from Gimli's position below him.

"Hannon-le," Legolas murmured, turning his face up to the fading sun's light and stepping forward to the edge of the balcony.

Gimli slumped back against the sturdy comfort of the mountain behind him and wiped a shaking hand over his face. "Mahal, elf, don't frighten me like that again."

Legolas looked down, startled. "Frighten? Oh, Gimli, I apologize. I meant no offense. Did your people notice? I am sorry. Pray, make it clear to them that I was not ungrateful for nor insensitive to the earnestness of their praise; it was merely the crowd, and the closeness, to which I am unused—"

"Not that you flitter-brained dafty," Gimli interrupted. "You were perfectly gracious, I doubt any of them noticed a thing. And if they did, they'd have just thought you were being…elvish, not giving insult." He shook his head with a dismissive snort and the smile flickered anxiously back into place on Legolas's face. "I mean, that whole stunt! What were you thinking?"

Legolas blinked, a sign of deep confusion, then winced as though in apology. "Had you a better way to save the child, then? I am sorry; we are in your home, I should have taken the time to listen. I did not mean to override your knowledge or authority with peremptive acts—"

"Nay!" Gimli cut him off again, a bluster of frustration accompanying the word. He straightened against the stone of the mountain sharply, his chin jutting upwards in defiance. "Nay, I only—I am not upset that you acted, Legolas, only that you acted so contrary to your own safety." The dwarf hunched in on himself, remembered terror making him small below the towering peak. "I did not…I did not expect that," he finished hoarsely.

The apologetic twist of the elf's face turned to a baffled frown. "You did not expect me to think a dwarvish child worth risking myself over?" he said, and his ordinarily lilting voice was made muted and dim by pain. "I…had hoped you thought better of me, by now," Legolas murmured, and turned his face away from Gimli towards the distant trees below the mountain. "Never mind."

Gimli's mouth worked for several seconds before he could make sounds come out. When they did, the words burst forth like a torrent from a broken dam. "You daft fool elf!" he snarled, the fury in his words thunderous enough that Legolas spun back around in shock to stare at him. "From the moment your fingers left my shoulder I could do naught but picture your limbs broken upon that floor of stones, the starlight of your eyes extinguished by my own hand! It was not your selflessness that surprised me, Master Elf! I have seen more evidence of that in our journeys together than Mahal has seen stones! It was terror that gripped my heart, not scorn, you pointy-eared halfwit!"

The wide-eyed shock on the elf's face quieted the tumult of Gimli's heart, and his next words fell softer from his lips. "You frightened me, Legolas. You were reckless with your life, and it frightened me to think your death might be the result—and worse, to think that my own hand might have a part in such an unspeakable thing."

"Oh Gimli," said Legolas, and stepped forward to kneel in front of the dwarf and wrap his hands around those of his friend, and Gimli only realized that his own were shaking when they stilled in the strong grip of the archer. "I am sorry, my friend," Legolas continued, and his voice was as soft as the songs he had beforetimes sung while a Fellowship of mortals slept around him. His eyes were wide, still pools staring up at Gimli. "I did not mean to scare you."

"I know," Gimli admitted gruffly, glancing away. "And I do not begrudge your quick and selfless act to save the little one, truly. I only—"

"You were frightened, and in the wake of the vanished peril that fear now bubbles-forth like churning froth over sharp river stones," Legolas finished for him. "I understand."

Gimli snorted and let his shoulders sag, nodding over their conjoined hands. "I would not have phrased it thus, perhaps, but aye. You speak the truth of it at least, in your strange elvish way."

"I am very sure of my footing, Master Dwarf," Legolas reminded him gently. "And even surer perhaps of my aim. I would not have lightly risked the child's life on a reckless gesture, had I not thought the chance of success to be high."

"You did not aim yourself, though," Gimli pointed out. "You trusted in two dwarves to throw you."

"I trusted in you, mellon-nin."

Gimli turned his hands so that he could lace his fingers through Legolas's where the elf's longer ones curled around his own. "I am sorry for not trusting you more, then."

Legolas tossed his head, for a moment resembling nothing so much as distant Arod. "I require no apology from you, so thus I accept none. Instead I offer one of my own for causing you such fear."

"And if I refuse to accept an apology for you saving a child of my people?" Gimli challenged.

Legolas's response was a silvery laugh. "Then I suppose we shall have to admit to a stalemate and call the matter settled," he declared.

Gimli harrumphed, but nodded in reluctant agreement. He kept his gaze fixed on their joined fingers, though he felt the light of Legolas's gaze upon his bowed face. For a long moment neither spoke, the elf apparently content in his patience and the dwarf searching the depths of thought for his words.

Eventually he said, "When you cut that braid…"

"Ah!" Legolas winced and withdrew his hands. Gimli hesitated for a breath before he let him go. "And now as it comes, I do owe you an apology, you and all your people; one that I hope you will show gracious forbearance enough to accept."

Gimli raised his eyes and his brows. "Speak your piece," he said, his mouth hidden in his beard.

"Please, understand that I meant no slight to you, nor to the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain, nor indeed to any of dwarf-kind in all of Middle-earth."

"Speak it quicker, elf, or we will be here all night."

Legolas did not smile in response, and his bright eyes were hooded. "I meant not to hide my knife, nor to breach your people's hospitality," he explained morosely. "It is only that it feels so strange—inappropriate, even—to go unarmed entirely, after so long a time of Shadow. It is not that I fear dwarven treachery," he hasted to add, his voice raising with worry, "or the hand of any of your people against me. It is only—habit, Gimli! Habit, and nothing more! A comfort, perhaps, silly though it is, to know my knife always near at hand even when there is no threat—and I know there is no threat here, in your Lonely Mountain, I swear it to you Gimli. I will swear it on the stars—nay, on the memory of the Lady herself, if you wish me to! I only—"

Gimli had been struggling to interrupt his friend for several sentences, but the effort of choking back laughter left him no breath with which to speak. Finally he held up a hand and managed to force the words out through his teeth: "Peace! Peace, elf! You cannot—oh, Mahal! You need not apologize, still!"

"I must!" Legolas cried, and his face was bleak with anguish. "I swear to you, Gimli—"

"Nay!" Gimli shook his head, nearly wheezing with the effort of swallowing his mirth, although several chuckles squeezed past his guard and slipped loose into the world despite his strength. "Elf—Legolas—I am relieved!"

Legolas cocked his head. "Relieved?"

"Aye! To think—until you drew your knife—I thought—we all thought—oh!"

"What? Gimli, please, spare me not your words."

"You go—into a dwarven mountain—with no armor, with no—no visible weapon?"

Legolas blinked at him.

"Fool elf, until you drew your knife we all thought you naked!"

Legolas said nothing. Then he said, "What."

Gimli nodded and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. "Oh, none took offense, I am sure, save perhaps some of the eldest and most unbending of dwarves," he chortled, "and they would take offense at anything an elf did, merely over the existence of that elf! But then, all know that the ways of elves are strange, and those dwarves who venture outside the mountain to paths where elves walk are used to seeing them go so unarmed and unarmored, and know that it means naught to them, and so your nakedness meant naught to us. But still, many will feel better to look upon you now that they know you carry at least some blade upon you, small though it may be!"

Legolas plopped backwards onto the smooth stone. His mouth worked for several seconds in silence. Finally he said, "You consider it nakedness, for one to walk the world without some weapon or armor on one's body. Nakedness."

Gimli nodded again, still weeping with laughter.

"You consider—and yet—you would have let me go about your home—go in front of your people—in such a state! Without a word!" Legolas pulled his knees up in front of him and covered his fair face behind the splayed fan of his fingers. "Gimli—!"

"Forgive me," the dwarf said, although it was laughter that colored his voice rather than contrition, "I did not realize it would bother you, or I would have spoken 'ere this."

"Better to have spoken before I came to your mountain at all, that I might garb myself appropriately!"

"In truth," Gimli admitted, his mirth finally beginning to subside, although its undercurrent still ran through his words like a vein of silver through a hearty cavern wall, "I did not realize it would bother you so, elf."

"You believed I would be unbothered to be thought so ill-clad by your kinsmen?" Legolas lamented. "When all the world knows the modesty of the dwarves!"

"Ah, well," Gimli shrugged, "as I said, those dwarves who have had dealings with other peoples have learned to tolerate the nakedness of non-dwarves, for there are few indeed who dress themselves properly outside the clans of our own kin. And if the modesty of dwarves is well known, so too is the immodesty of the elves."

"Immodesty!"

Gimli shrugged. "I see not how you can deny it," he said. "You must admit that your people are prone to…frolicking."

"Frolicking," Legolas said, his voice low and flat.

"Will you now repeat my words back to me, like a child first learning to speak? Well, perhaps it will help the words to sink into your flighty skull if you do…"

Legolas's eyes flashed in the dusk. "So by your own words," he observed in a dire tone, "you would state that the Lady Arwen regularly walks before her own people as unclad as a child in the woods. Are you sure that these are words you wish to claim as your own, Master Dwarf?"

"I happen to know that the Lady Arwen goes nowhere without a fine silver dagger belted into her elegant skirts," Gimli retorted loftily. "An example of the good sense and breeding of her grandmother's side showing through, no doubt."

Legolas, who knew precisely why Arwen always had a small blade on her, for he knew only too well what had driven Celebrían across the Sea, said nothing, and his silence now was heavy.

"Ah, peace, Legolas," Gimli said, reaching out to pat the elf's arm, thinking that his friend's discomfort was still driven entirely by concerns for Dwarven modesty. "Peace! Put it down to cultural differences, my friend, and fret not upon it. No doubt the elves have some fine things to say themselves about the penchant of dwarves for going nowhere outside their own chambers without at least some piece of armor on their skin!"

Legolas had to grudgingly admit that this was so, although he left the particulars of what exactly those things might be unspoken.

"At any rate," Gimli went on, "I was not asking you about the knife, but rather about the braid you cut with it." He tilted a curious frown up at his friend. "Were you truly so desperate to escape the crowd that you were driven to an act of such magnitude as all that? Perhaps this visit should be cut short, if the presence of so many of my people distresses you so…"

"Nay!" Legolas exclaimed. "Gimli, no, I was not distressed—well, perhaps a little," he admitted, when Gimli's eyebrow inched towards his hairline. "But not as a matter of course. It was only a momentary discomfort caused by the sudden thickness of the crowd, for I am unused to such things. There are few enough elves left in Greenwood, and we do not crowd ourselves so—well, except in dance, all right," he amended, as Gimli's other eyebrow started to rise to join the first. "You have seen that, I recall! But that is different, for all are in motion together then, and moving to the music rather than standing fast with all attention fixed on one alone. It was more notice than I am used to, and it was…overwhelming, in the moment. That is all."

"Just because you cannot hear the music that dwarven feet move to does not mean it is not there," Gimli retorted, but his heart wasn't in the banter. Instead of pressing the subject, he frowned and said, "But it seems odd that a momentary discomfort, as you say, should push you to so drastic an act as that!" He gestured at Legolas's hair, and the shortened braid that now dangled down one side of his face.

Legolas tilted his head and blinked at him. "Drastic?" he repeated.

"You cut off your hair!"

"A single braid, aye," Legolas said slowly, his fair face a study in confusion at the dwarf's words. "Gimli, who do you take this to heart so?"

Gimli mouthed several words in silence before he finally mustered some that he could speak: "Would you imply that I—I, Gimli Lockbearer!—do not know the import of elvish hair?"

For several seconds Legolas stared at him, and then the elf broke into gales of laughter strong enough that he fell back against the balcony wall where he sat, shaking with mirth.

"Ai, Gimli!" he cried at last, when he could spare the breath for words. "My friend, I am no Great Lady of a Golden Wood, faultless as adamant and stronger than Shadow, with hair whose praises have been sung from here to Valinor and back again! I am but a simple Silvan archer, and given how you gape at me now, I fear that if I tell you how often I have cut strands from my own head to string my bows, you will swoon. A braid of mine matters naught to anyone, my dear dwarf, I assure you!"

Gimli could feel embarrassment kindling hot in his cheeks. "Ah," he said in a strangled voice. "I had thought that—well—that elvish hair was…more generally, considered…ah…somewhat more…precious, is all."

"Oh!" Dusk was spreading around them as the sun dipped below the distant peaks of the Misty Mountains, but sudden understanding illuminated Legolas's eyes. "Now I see," he said, and smiled at his friend. "You are not altogether wrong, Gimli; although your measurements on the matter are perhaps not as exact as usual. It is true that elves hold fine locks in high esteem; indeed, if one were to make an accounting of the physical aspects of elvish form that other elves find most alluring, long and lovely hair would almost always rank the highest—similar, I believe, to how dwarves view a particularly luxuriant beard," he interjected slyly.

Gimli scowled at him.

"Eyes tend to be the second," Legolas continued, pretending that he had not seen the dwarf's frown. "You will find them given nearly as much praise in song and tale as hair, but it is comely locks that are almost always foremost seen and remarked upon when first one elf is struck by the beauty of another. It is a thing most pleasing to us as a people, and while each separate elf has of course their individual preferences and favors there as in all things, I think that it is not too bold a claim to me to say that beautiful hair is appreciated by all, to one degree or another.

"It is also something that, aye, we do tend to be proud of in ourselves," he admitted, "which no doubt you have noticed in your time spent in company with elves, dear Gimli." The dwarf snorted softly in acknowledgement. Legolas twitched his eyebrows wryly. "Indeed," he drawled. "And you will have seen that sometimes we leave it all loose, to flow long and free and fine down our backs in the breeze, enjoying the unfettered beauty of tresses unrestrained; at other times we will bedeck our locks with intricate braids and jewels to accentuate their fineness. Although not, I think," he added with a grin, "nearly half so intricate or elaborate as the ways in which dwarves style their fine beards!"

"True enough. Although you wear yours quite plainly," Gimli observed.

Legolas shrugged. "I am but a plain Silvan archer, as I've said. Besides, you have seen me mostly clad for travel or battle or both; those are hardly times for fine adornment! Should you come to some great feast or celebration in my father's kingdom, you may be more impressed than you are now—although perhaps not," he shrugged, "for we are a simple people as elves go, and our adornment is likewise plain. My father would claim that this is because we Silvan elves see more clearly where true beauty lies, and thus do not seek to obscure its natural state with overwrought finery the way the Noldor do; you may judge the merit of his assertion yourself if you come—although I advise you not to tell him to his face if you decide you disagree, for he will argue the point most stridently!"

"I have no doubt," said Gimli drily, and Legolas laughed.

"So, yes," he continued after a moment, "hair is held precious to elves in its way; but what of that?" Legolas shrugged and twirled the cut end of his shortened braid. "It is only a few strands I have lost, and they will grow back. Besides!" he added with a chuckle, "there is no one who will be composing sad songs over the sacrifice of a few inches of my plain hair!"

Legolas seemed much amused by the idea; Gimli was not, but only huffed to himself before sighing and mustering a smile. "Ah, very well, I understand better now."

"Which is not to say, of course," Legolas went on, his sharp eyes now on Gimli's face, "that there are not cases of more exceptional locks that should be more dearly treasured. Lúthien Tinúviel, for one, who wove a cloak of great power from her own lovely hair; or the Lord Glorfindel, who through two ages of the world was praised for the glory of both deeds and locks alike—and then, of course, there is above all others the noble Lady Galadriel!" Gimli could not help but smile wistfully at mention of Lórien's lady, but if his scowl was now tempered by the soft light of her memory, Legolas refrained from commenting on it. Instead he said softly, "Her hair is a marvel unmatched in all of elvenkind and, it is said by many who saw them in the days before the sun and moon rose over this land, those radiant locks long held the last traces yet lingering in Middle-earth of the light of the Two Trees that once grew in Valinor. Their great beauty purportedly even inspired the creation of the Silmarils themselves! The lady's hair is indeed a treasure beyond counting, and to cut at it lightly would be quite a sin! But mine," the elf finished with a grin, "is not nearly so grand or great, and to give up a little of it now is no large thing."

Gimli grunted reluctant acknowledgement of Legolas's words, even as he frowned over them. "I see, I see! And yet, it still seems strange to me that you would give a whole braid away with so little thought, and to a child you did not even know."

"A child who was frightened, and found comfort in it." The elf shrugged. "To what prouder use could a few simple strands of my hair ever hope to aspire?"

To that, Gimli found he had no words. "Still," he managed after a moment, "a braid of elvish hair seems a mighty gift to give to one who knows not its value."

"One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters," Legolas retorted, the starlight of his eyes dancing merrily. "Has this not been said? Truly, Gimli," he continued with a shake of his head, "I thought very little on the sacrifice—such as it was!—at the time, and would think even less on it now the deed is done, were it not for the fact that it seems to so distress you." A wicked smile curled across his face and he asked, "Would it ease your heart to have one to match?" He tossed his head and reached up to catch and speculatively finger another thin braid as it slid forward across his shoulder. "I could cut the other side and balance things again," he mused, reaching for his blade.

"Keep your knife sheathed and leave your braids be, elf," Gimli growled.

"Of course I know it is but a paltry comparison to the locks you already bear, and under ordinary circumstances I would never dare to make such an offer, for fear that it might reek of impertinent comparison; but if it would soothe you—"

"It would not," Gimli rumbled. "Leave your hair in peace, I pray you."

"As you like," Legolas said lightly. He did not laugh, but mirth danced in his eyes as he studied the dwarf. After a few seconds he said, without preamble, "My mother once cut her hair all the way to her chin."

Gimli felt his jaw drop. "She—what?"

"That," Legolas said with glee, "is apparently exactly how the rest of the Last Alliance reacted when they saw her! My aunt even claims that the High King swooned, although I am not sure that we can in good conscience take her word for it, for she has never held much love in her heart for Gil-galad, I fear."

"Your mother…cut off all her hair? Why?"

"She said that it was because it was too tedious to comb the orc blood out after every battle, and that as a commander in Greenwood's army she had more important duties to attend to than the care and keeping of her braids."

Gimli blinked. "I…did not know your mother fought in those battles," he murmured at last.

"Of course," said Legolas. His brow was curved in a bemused frown, as though he could not fathom the idea of someone's mother not fighting in that three-thousand-year-ago war. "As did her sister, her brother, and their mother. Although only the two sisters made it home."

"I am sorry."

Legolas accepted his sympathy with a nod. "Greenwood lost many of its finest elves in those battles. Would that I might have had the honor of meeting any of them, for they were each and every one a hero," he said softly, and a cloud of shadow passed over his eyes. He quickly shook it off, however, and summoned up another smile. "Ah, but that was also where my father and my mother fell in love. For even in the darkest days of the darkest places, there is always yet a little light."

Gimli felt his eyebrows climb his forehead. "Your parents fell in love fighting the Enemy in Mordor?"

"According to my father's stories, the day when she cut her hair was when he first beheld that she was beautiful as well as fierce and dauntless."

"Wait," said Gimli, rubbing his bearded chin. "You have just told me that among elves, long and fine hair is considered the greatest mark of individual beauty."

Legolas nodded.

"And now you tell me that your father—who is noted across Middle-earth for both his pride and his regal bearing and, indeed, for his long crown of golden hair—you are telling me that the first day he noticed your mother's beauty was the day she cut away that hair which should have been her most physically attractive feature?"

"Aye," Legolas said brightly.

Gimli moved his hand from his chin to his forehead and massaged his temples. "I will never understand elves," he declared.

Legolas laughed at him. "That is fair enough," he said, "for never will I understand dwarves! Although," he added with a sly grin, "at least knowing what I do now about dwarven dress helps to explain why the child was so much heavier than I anticipated."

"Eh?"

"I had intended to swing us both back up onto the bridge, but the little one weighed considerably more than I had accounted for, and I had not the momentum necessary for the deed." Legolas gave a petulant sniff. "Instead I was forced to hang there and wait for others to retrieve us. For, foolish elf that it appears I am, I did not expect a solid metal chestplate on so very small a dwarfling!"

Gimli's laughter rang across the stones.