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“The river is… beyond description this morning.”
It truly was. The dawn had swept in with a cacophonous melody of birdsong; the Fellowship’s passage along the Anduin wrapped in a cocoon of sound and light as both bounced from the gentle waves and into the trees, as if nature itself intended on illuminating the whole river entirely for them alone. Legolas had never seen a sight quite as beautiful before, and as he leaned over the side of the boat, craning his neck to take in every last morsel of the stunning scene before him, he breathed deep. Inhaling the very essence of the land itself and committing it to the memory of his lungs.
Strangely enough, Gimli’s response was not entirely what he had expected.
“Back in the boat,” he grumbled; the water that splashed from his paddle becoming that bit more furious. “You don’t want to fall in here.”
Odd. Pulling himself in with a vaguely hurt glance shot Gimli’s way, Legolas resumed taking in the view from his seat instead, his oar loosely trailing in the river behind him.
“I have never seen water this clear,” he murmured, trying once again to engage his unusually gruff companion in conversation. “If it were not for the sun’s reflection, I believe my eyes would easily reach the bottom.”
Silence. And then a sigh, long and drawn out.
“We’ve been travellin’ on the same river for days now, Legolas,” the dwarf huffed. “You’ve seen the water. You’ve spoken on the water. Nothin’ more to add.”
Now that was it. Legolas turned on him with barely concealed worry alight in his eyes and a fire of curiosity burning within his chest.
Gimli was never one to turn down a conversation on the splendour of nature. His enthusiasm for the topic was boundless; Legolas half assumed that the dwarf dreamt in shades of green and blue, the stars and the very heavens themselves keeping back the best of their beauty for his eyes alone. The way he spoke on it was effortless, and yet here he was, refusing to so much as engage in a casual discussion on water itself.
“What manner of spirit has possessed you this morning?” Legolas asked insistently. “You are not Gimli, but a stranger I have never before met.”
The dwarf sighed hard, rolling his eyes as he did so.
This told Legolas exactly three things.
The first was that Gimli was indeed perturbed. Perhaps this was not so much a fresh realisation as a confirmation of truth he had known all along… scratch that, it was absolutely a confirmation, as Legolas had already noted his friend’s unwillingness to discuss the landscape as it swam by. A deeper perturbation then. Something that ran far below the surface, echoed in the strain around Gimli’s eyes. There was a tiredness there that ran far beyond the simple exhaustion they all carried.
The second was that he was entirely unwilling to disclose a single detail on the matter. Which Legolas had expected, really. The dwarf was secretive – less so than Dwalin or Nori, although the latter of the two had been most forthcoming with information as of late.
And the third was that, even when so tired and aggrieved, the dwarf’s eyes still shone with a fire that warmed him from the inside out. This was slightly more surprising than the first point, although Legolas had somewhat expected that to be the case. Especially considering the little carved dragon nestled deep in one of his pockets; protected from the elements and forever by his side.
To new beginnings, Gimli had said as he’d pressed it into Legolas’ unsuspecting hand. Well, new beginnings did not start with grumpiness and withheld information. He was putting a stop to this right now, before Tauriel’s prediction that they would be even more argumentative following their exchange of words came true.
“I wish to know what it is that troubles you, friend,” Legolas said firmly, in a manner almost reminiscent of an authority figure demanding knowledge. At least, that is how he hoped he had come across.
Gimli huffed. Huffed! “No dínen, Legolas. I’m not in the mood to talk.”
Despite the pleasing way the Sindarin curled around Gimli’s tongue, irritation still managed to break through, and the elf spun fully around on his seat (much to Tauriel’s chagrin) to face the awful evader behind him.
“Then you will listen,” he proclaimed, unwavering gaze pointed ever forwards. “Listen and heed my words, friend, for I will not repeat them. We have agreed upon a fresh start, and I will not have it tainted by your inability to hear me when I speak to you.”
To his credit, Gimli’s expression twisted into something bordering on bashful. It seemed that he had finally realised just what this resistance could mean for their new, tentative understanding… or perhaps he simply wished for the lecture to come to an end faster. Regardless, Legolas would not stop his speech whilst the dwarf remained unwilling to speak his mind before him.
It probably had something to do with the drying threads of grass that still adorned his brow. A woven crown for a lord and master of words themselves.
Probably.
“I’m listenin’,” Gimli murmured.
“Ah… excellent.”
It was possibly a very silly thing indeed that Legolas had allowed himself to become distracted by the presence of those pale green strands framing the dwarf’s hair, for every word that he had been about to say simply dried up on the chapped skin of his lips. Each last piece of Westron – his second language, the one he had learnt alongside the soft Sindarin that was as much a part of him as his mouth itself – was gone. Explaining himself in a tongue that suddenly felt loose and unimpactful was beyond him.
It was good, then, that the dwarf before him was a master of words. Regardless of language.
“Man carach?” he murmured, slipping into his mother-tongue on instinct. “Ci mael?”
Gimli snorted. “Ni mael. Lomon, ach mael.”
His accent was still just as perplexing. Warm and rough, but distinctly the dialect of Mirkwood, and Legolas still had no idea as to why. He would have to push that aside for the time being.
“Penin andreth,” he announced. “Penin chenia. Mîdh erin glae, ach pelig garfad. Le pessa. Nin nathathog?”
For the longest moment, Gimli was silent. Not a single word left his lips; in Sindarin or Westron, or even Khuzdul… not that he had cause to speak it.
Legolas simply waited, the soft splash of Tauriel’s oar the only sound that bridged the gap between them. Even the birds held their songs back, eternally curious for the answer to come.
When his words finally came, they were in broken Westron – not through the language itself being poor, but through the cracking of Gimli’s voice as it wrapped around the short sentence. It sounded as if it had been dredged up from somewhere deep below the dwarf’s ribcage; lodged in place and held down by sheer determination and sorrow.
“The sea calls to you.”
And that statement was so unexpected that Legolas couldn’t help but laugh at it. Raucously and unrepentantly.
Of all the things he had expected to come out of Gimli’s mouth, that had not even crossed his mind. It was ludicrous! It was ridiculous!
“We travel on the Anduin, pen 'orn.” He chuckled, softening his tone back into one of mirth. “The sea is thousands of leagues to the south – this remains no different to the many rivers of Mirkwood that I have travelled before. Wider and longer, yes, but in principle it is the same.”
Curiously, Gimli’s cheeks were slightly pinked, although his expression was far from embarrassed. No, the dwarf’s forehead remained creased; eyes containing a veiled worry of sorts that did not entirely make sense…
Oh.
“You fear for me,” he breathed, straightening up in the boat and tilting his head to one side as the true magnitude of Gimli’s emotions fell into place. “You fear that I will succumb to the desire to venture West.”
The dwarf’s grip on his oar tightened – only for a moment, because before Legolas had the chance to analyse that particular movement further, Gimli had pulled it back into the boat, laying it across his lap as he turned his sorrowful gaze up to look upon him fully.
“I do,” he said plainly. “I know how it feels to long for a home you’ve never known. Spent most of my childhood hearin’ tales of Erebor, and how we used to thrive there. The deeds that were done in the halls I could have called mine. And when you’ve been given a taste of it, how impossible it feels to tear yourself away. I know, Legolas. I know what it means to feel your ocean, because I’ve waded through my own for more years than I can count.”
That was… well, Legolas had never even stopped to consider…
“You… have never known your home either,” he murmured, gaze tracing the way that Gimli’s jaw clenched in response to his words. “Your true home. That of your father and his father, one only ever known to you in stories and that ache in your bones that never leaves.”
Gimli nodded, his eyes finding a point in the distance and sticking to it. “Stories. Aye.”
It was clearly a sore topic for the dwarf. Feeling his pain, Legolas decided to direct the conversation back to the original topic.
“Perhaps it will be different, should I find myself suddenly and unexpectedly faced with the ocean,” he half-joked in an attempt at levity. “But no, Gimli. I do not yet feel the call of the sea. And if I do, I suspect I shall be able to stave it off for a while. I have only just found my way out into the reaches of Arda, and I would quite like some time to explore and see sights I have only ever imagined. Valinor will wait until my feet cease to wander.”
“It will,” Gimli chuckled; the sound more a relieved exhale than anything else. “The world would be a little more empty without your eternal curiosity brightenin’ the days. And Valinor will wait for you.”
“A sizeable claim for a dwarf.”
“You said it first. I’m just agreein’ with your assessment.”
He had.
Legolas had proclaimed that Valinor would wait, and that was indeed a heavy assertion.
Turning back to face Tauriel once more, he dropped his hand to his heart, rubbing the hot skin there in firm circles.
He had not lied; Legolas had never felt the pull of the sea before. But there was an odd feeling entrenched deep in the cavity of his chest that reverberated with not yet. It would come to him – as it did to every last one of the Firstborn. And he would try his hardest to resist.
Besides, Gimli had asserted that there was a place for him here. He intended to carve it out in full.
Frustratingly enough, his musings were cut short when the dwarf in question moved to place his paddle back into the water. That would have been innocuous enough, had Gimli not arced the end of it over Legolas’ head, showering him with water droplets and the chill of the river in the process. He spluttered at the indignity, ignoring the laughter emanating from behind him to swat the moisture from his hair and neck.
“I wish you would refrain from that,” Legolas grumbled, shooting a rather disparaging look at Gimli.
“And I wish you would open your eyes a little faster, gimlelul,” the dwarf chuckled, his gaze sliding off and over to the opposite bank as he watched the scenery lazily glide by. “The longer I spend in your company, the harder it is to remember who I was before you.”
Legolas’ hands stuttered to a halt on the oar.
Gimlelul.
What did that word mean?
A chill colder than the river water itself was steadily making its way through his chest; ice-hot and burning, and for the life of him, he could not unpick why. It was as if some part of him had ignited and quenched itself instantaneously, fizzling out into smoulders that rippled over his skin and danced along the base of every hair, compelling them to stand upright on his forearms and the nape of his neck.
Gimlelul.
It could mean nothing. It should mean nothing – a simple descriptor in a language Legolas did not have the faintest clue of comprehending – and yet…
And yet.
Tauriel’s wry voice called an end to his spiralling for now; her indelibly exasperated tone slicing through the air like a knife.
“And I wish the pair of you would row. I am no more a servant to you than I am a mountain goat, so if you would please attempt to share in this burden, that would be much appreciated.”
Legolas’ gaze snapped forward immediately, his cheeks colouring as if he were a small child caught in the act of some incredible mischief.
From somewhere behind him came the unmistakeable sound of a gruff throat imitating a goat’s bleat, and he was forced to smother his chuckle in the back of his hand as Tauriel twisted around with incandescent rage lighting her features.
Later – when the boats stilled for the evening and Legolas lay on his back, the great unknown above reflecting in his eyes in questions and puzzling mysteries – he could not tear his mind from that word.
Gimlelul. So close in sound to Gimli’s own name.
It was simple deductive reasoning, then, that the dwarf had not called him something unpleasant.
Legolas knew full well that Khuzdul was a secret tongue. None but the dwarves themselves were permitted to learn it, and translations were held close to their chests. But he also knew that this dwarf in particular was prouder than most. A little prodding, perhaps a verbal poke or two… and if all else failed, he could ask Nori for the meaning of Gimli’s name. If he was lucky, his friend would divulge – following a truly astronomical amount of ribbing – and Legolas would be able to work out the rest for himself.
Gimlelul.
The dwarf he had followed this far was proving to be most curious.