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Nothing Gold Can Stay	By : TAFKAB Category: +Third Age > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 5311 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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The companions rode northward, picking their way along the riverside with Gandalf and the lady leading, Haldir following close behind them. Legolas came next, with Strider bringing up the rear. Gimli craned his head back to look at the young man, who rode with his chin on his chest, completely lost in thought. Something was amiss there, he had no doubt. Gimli resolved to make inquiries as soon as he could get the lad alone.

They made slow time, hampered by the rough countryside. Any vestige of a path was so little-used it had all but vanished. What remained had been overgrown by bush and thorn or overrun and left drifted with stones when the river left its banks in flood. Gimli began to see why the elves of Lothlórien could not easily send stores to Erebor.

The lady and Gandalf drew slightly ahead, talking quietly, and Haldir remained close behind them as though to guard. Gimli was pleased when Legolas fell back to ride next to Strider.

“What troubles you?” The elf asked the man quietly.

Strider shook his head, running his thumb over a ring on his left forefinger, truesilver in the form of two twined serpents with emeralds for eyes. His expression most resembled a kicked puppy.

“Did your time in Lórien give you pain?” Legolas kept his voice low. “Did you meet with some accident there?”

“No accident.” Strider shrugged, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly. Gimli frowned, thoughtful. The lad looked like Váli when he first realized Nýr was his One--

“A girl!” Gimli pointed one thick finger toward Strider in triumph. “You met a girl and fell in love!”

Strider flushed and would not meet his eyes.

“An elf,” Legolas corrected, his voice slow with dawning surety.

Strider smiled, a little more sincere, if wry. “Yes, an elf-maid. She was very beautiful.” He laid his hand over his heart, his look turned inward, as if he saw her still. “More beautiful than anything I have seen in all my days, so beautiful I called her Tinúviel, and she stayed her flight to speak with me, though I--” He stopped, glancing ahead, then fell silent and shook his head.

“What was her name?” Legolas stiffened, urgency sudden in his voice. “Strider, who did you meet?”

Strider sighed, lowering his voice even further. “Arwen, she the elves call Undómiel.”

Legolas blew out a long, slow breath. “I wondered what brought the queen forth from her land. Now I begin to see.”

“The queen?” Gimli blinked, shocked.

“Yes. That is Galadriel, Queen of Lothlórien.” Legolas laughed softly, the sound humming against Gimli’s palms, which rested firmly on the elf's waist. “One of the oldest elves yet living in Middle Earth, mother to Celebrían and grandmother to Arwen Undómiel.”

“Her grandmother? You have put your foot in it, lad.” Gimli shook his head sternly at Strider. “But I cannot believe it so,” he told Legolas. “Lady Galadriel looks like a maid of no more than twenty winters.”

“Perhaps she does, to mortal eyes. How old do you think me, Gimli?” Legolas asked, his tone amused-- giving Strider time to recover, Gimli guessed.

Gimli hesitated, wondering. Legolas seemed very young to him, looking no older than Strider though he bore himself with great grace and surety. But his father had been king in the time of Thrain, and Nardan had spoken of Thranduil’s service to Thingol. Gimli had no idea when that king had lived. “Eight hundred years,” he guessed. It was more than twice the lifespan of the oldest dwarf.

“You are wrong. I was born when the third age was yet young,” Legolas said. “I have seen the leaves fall in Middle Earth nearly three thousand times.”

“Yet in all that time you have not learned better than to wash a dwarf by force.”

Strider and the elf both laughed aloud, surprised.

“It was a lesson I left until late to learn,” Legolas admitted, his voice light. “But I have learned it and more since you came into my keeping!”

“Then you will not try again?” Gimli felt laughter of his own bubble up, unexpected, fresh and clean as the scent of the elf’s pale hair.

“Perhaps I must one day, but I have learned better methods.” Legolas smiled; Gimli could hear it in his voice. “I shall say, ‘Respected Master Dwarf, water has been heated for you. Wash yourself well, and after it is done you will have food and fire and ale and fresh clothing, and you shall smoke your pipe. No harm will be done to you or your beard while I am near.”

“That would work,” Gimli agreed, the elf’s kindness warming him.

They rode on, leaving Strider to brood on his lady, and stopped for the evening when the sun sank low.

Strider kindled fire and Gimli began to unpack their food, but Legolas stopped him. “The queen has brought waybread for us.”

“Cram?” Gimli looked at the wafer Legolas held out, pale golden and wrapped in leaves. He nibbled a corner, and his eyes went wide. “That is not so bad!”

“Lembas.” Legolas glanced toward the fire. “Do not eat too much, for a little will satisfy great hunger. If you would, gather more firewood while I put the kettle on to heat. Then you and I will go hunting with Haldir. The lady wishes to have speech with Strider.”

Gimli winced. “Poor lad.”

“Gandalf will be at hand. Strider will survive.” Legolas laid his hand briefly on Gimli’s shoulder, then slipped away to fetch water.

Gimli stared after him. The elf had never touched him without need before, but he seemed easy with it, offering comfort in the way a friend might reassure another. Perhaps it was foolish to note after Gimli had spent the day riding behind him, hanging on for dear life. But he marked it nonetheless.

No sound alerted him to the presence of the other elf stepping behind him, only the shadow cast by the growing fire.

“Thranduilion has spent too long among the silvan elves.” Haldir’s smooth voice was cool.

Gimli had no idea what he meant. Surely elves were elves? But perhaps not; dwarves had clans and groups that might differ very widely, and elves must have the same. “I know nothing of the types and behaviors of different elf clans,” he said evenly, though he knew at least that Haldir’s sort did not care overmuch for dwarves.

Haldir merely stepped past him, picking up his bow to check the string. “You should not come hunting with us. You step so loudly the hares will think it thunders in the mountains, and they will flee to their burrows.”

“I go where the Prince of the Greenwood asks,” Gimli told him shortly.

“I have heard of your bargain.” Apparently satisfied with his bow, Haldir slung it over his shoulder. “And of the madness of your king, Thorin Oakenshield, his reason devoured by gold. Is it true he cares for nothing except the hoarding of his treasure, as if he were become a dragon himself?”

Gimli bared his teeth in a snarl, trying to remember the kindness of Galadriel more than the rudeness of her retainer. “Speak to him thus, and he will not welcome your embassy no matter how well-intended. He will send you home with your well-meant burdens stuffed right up your--” he forced himself to silence. He would not have the lady hear the crude remark he had intended.

Haldir raised a brow, arch. “How then should I speak to him, if I would have him listen?”

Gimli stared at Haldir for a long moment, trying to conceive how the haughty elf could persuade the King under the Mountain to hear anything whatsoever he or any other elf had to say. “From a distance? On your knees? Through an intermediary? Do not insist on being admitted into the mountain, or even to Dale. I know not.” Bitterness welled in him that he must speak so of his king, as though he had answered Haldir’s impertinent question by admitting Thorin Oakenshield had become no better than a dragon.

Haldir still looked at Gimli, waiting, so Gimli tried again. “Make it clear you ask nothing of him. No gold, no gems, no alliance or promise to come in time of war. No obligation. Defer to his wishes if you can, and keep a civil tongue in your head. Deny affiliation with Mirkwood. Speak not as a representative of elves, but as someone who would see children fed.” He hoped that might help, but if Haldir raised Thorin’s hackles as he raised Gimli’s….

“Do not offer him cheek or haughtiness. Have patience. Listen and answer with respect.” Gimli flung his palms up, helpless, half-amazed. Despite his rudeness, Haldir was still attending, not arguing with Gimli. Even so, he remained aloof, wearing a superior expression. “Do not put your nose in the air as if you smell something foul! That would help, for starters.”

Legolas appeared with water, and Gimli huffed; he had fetched no firewood. “I have work to do,” he told Haldir, and wandered away seeking windfall branches.

“Do you not fear he will run away?” Haldir asked Legolas, loudly enough Gimli could hear.

“He will not run,” Legolas dismissed the other elf’s worry.

“But we are in the wild. He could go anywhere he liked.”

“He will not run,” Legolas said simply, not choosing to explain. He looked up as Gimli stamped into camp and laid down a load of wood. “When we hunt, Haldir and I will position ourselves at one end of the meadow with our bows ready, then you can come through the grass from the other end and drive the game toward us.”

“How well does he aim?” Gimli huffed, tilting his head toward Haldir.

“Well enough.” Legolas leveled a warning stare at Haldir. “Do you not, my friend?”

“I am skilled with my bow. I will not shoot your dwarf,” Haldir said, dry. “Come, let us go.”

They shot several rabbits and Gimli roasted them on spits over the fire. He and Strider and Gandalf each took one to eat, though the elves satisfied themselves with waybread and wine.

Gimli hesitated, looking at the lady, then watched Strider and tried clumsily to imitate him, for he would not like his manners with food to offend her, as they had at first disgusted Legolas.

Galadriel spoke with Strider at great length, though her questions seemed to have no bearing upon his possible courtship of her granddaughter. She seemed more interested in his knowledge of lore, tactics, and obscure matters of history or politics than warning him to keep his hands to himself.

Gimli sat content with listening until he noticed Legolas tending his hair at the edge of their camp. The elf unraveled his braids, combed himself smooth, then re-wove them, starting with the two above his ears.

Gimli tried not to stare, knowing he was being impolite, but something had changed in the familiar ritual. Instead of leaving much of his hair free to fall long and straight behind, Legolas began a different sort of braid at the crown of his head, sweeping up all his hair to join the braid as he moved back, working the two small ones into it, then plaiting all the way down.

Gimli’s jaw dropped and his face burned. The elf was altering his braid-- for Gimli’s sake, that his hair might not blow in Gimli’s face!

The why did not matter, only that he had done it. He was doing it even now, braiding himself for Gimli where all could see, his nimble fingers moving swiftly. Gimli dropped his eyes and stared at the remains of his rabbit as if he had never seen meat before, feeling mortified as he had not since he was a young lad who had just dropped a silver dish of his mother’s best venison roast in the lap of their dinner guest-- no less illustrious a personage than Thorin Oakenshield’s sister, the lady Dís.

The elf could not know what it meant to change your braiding for another. He could not.

Gimli arose with care, setting the bones of his dinner in the fire and washing his camp plate, then drying it and putting it carefully in his pack before he fled the camp on the pretense of relieving himself.

He found a large stone outcrop beyond the meadow and crouched in its shadow, looking down into a mossy dell. He felt an urgent need to hide in a burrow like a rabbit, safe from all that walked above. The cold, solid stone against his back comforted him; it was too long since he had been below ground.

He crouched there, seeking calm, while a crescent moon rose in the east. It stood two hands’ width above the horizon when he became aware of the lady walking in the meadow nearby, her pale skin and hair glowing as it gathered the starlight to itself. She moved slowly, her fingers brushing banks of herbs and the leaves of bushes, making no sound.

Gimli sat still, not wanting to disturb her, but she seemed to know where he was, drawing close by gradual stages until she stood below him, her eyes level with his.

“You are troubled.” Her voice was kind. She had removed her leather armor and wore only a light tunic and breeches over her soft boots.

“I am.” Gimli bent his head, unable to meet her eyes. “I have been so since Dol Guldur.”

“Gandalf said the wraith sent visions to torment the company. Khamûl is cruel and clever,” she said. “It is no wonder you still fear what you saw.” She turned her head up toward the sky, looking to the moon, where a halo formed in the air around the light, speaking of wet weather to come. Gimli thought there was enough bite in the air that it might snow when the weather turned.

“The wraith Khamûl was a king of men, and has been called the Black Easterling.” She lifted a soft grey moth on her fingertips and watched it fly. “In life, he was known for his ability to plant seeds of discord that drove his enemies apart from allies, friends, and kin. He could twist truth and make it take any form he desired, bewildering those who listened until they did not know themselves what they believed or thought.”

“I have feared that I am... changed, since he touched my mind.” Gimli twisted his fingers together, reluctant to speak so much, and yet relieved he might confess some part of what troubled him. “My thoughts are not as I would have them be.”

“The wraith has no true power to change, only to take what is there and twist it, creating illusion that misguides.” Galadriel smiled on him sadly. “What is in your mind is yours, son of Durin. Do not let fear guide you, neither toward what you saw nor away from it. Fear and anger are the wraith’s servants.”

“What you tell me is little comfort,” Gimli muttered, voice hoarse. “Yet I thank you for your words and for your kindness. I never thought to find such mercy in an elf, especially not one of your beauty. For you make the moon hide its face and the sun pale, and the shine of your hair will never tarnish.” He felt awkward and clumsy, but he could not keep silent.

She laughed. “You have a silver tongue. I never thought to find such eloquent courtesy in a dwarf. I thank you.” She came up to sit by his side, wrapping her arms about her knees. “The rift between dwarves and elves is one of the great sorrows of this age,” she said. “To fight the enemy who rises, we must unite all goodly races and fight side by side against the true evil, not squabble amongst ourselves over trifles. It pleases me to see the trust that grows between you and the son of Thranduil. When Haldir would have pursued you from the camp, Legolas insisted there was no need. He told how you took him home to his father when he was wounded close by Dol Guldur.”

“Aye.” Gimli wished for his pipe, but he would not have wanted to blow the smoke toward her.

“My heart tells me the days of peace in Middle Earth swiftly dwindle. Yet there is hope we may come through this time and find war behind us again.” Galadriel told him, her voice low and soft. “I judge your heart is wise and true. If we come through this troubled time, I predict your hands will flow with gold, Gimli son of Glóin, yet over you, gold shall have no dominion.” She rose and smiled down on him.

“Do not be too long away,” she said. “Legolas will worry until he sees you safe.” She glided through the gathering mist and was gone.

Gimli sat still after she had gone, unable to name what he was feeling.

He might give answer to the elf’s braiding, though Legolas did not even know he had spoken. The possibility was raised, even if both sides of the conundrum existed only inside Gimli’s own mind.

Gimli thought for a long while as the moon rose and vanished behind a layer of cloud, stroking his beard. At last he firmed his jaw. He would not change his braiding-- not for fear of the wraith, nor even for fear of the elf, but because it was forbidden by his indenture. He should make no vow or oath aside from the one he had made to Legolas’s father; not even the mildest pledge of friendship, given only to acknowledge the elf’s intended courtesy.

His stiff shoulders slumped with relief, but even as they did so, some small place deep within him grieved that Legolas’s braiding would go unanswered. Such behavior was discourteous, and went against his grain.

Gimli rose finally, stretching, but he froze, alerted by a scuffling in the grass. Stare as he might, he could make nothing out, though he could see well in the gloom.

“Probably a rabbit or a stoat,” he muttered to himself, and returned to the camp. Haldir leaned against the trunk of a tree, his eyes wide and his stare fixed, dreaming after the manner of elves, while Gandalf and the lady lay peacefully on the ground, their hands folded and their eyes closed. Even Strider slept heavily, sprawled by the fire. All were at rest but Legolas, who sat upright on watch, mending the fletching of an arrow, his golden hair neatly braided and unfamiliar in its new weaving. He sang softly to himself, words Gimli did not know. He glanced up to smile at Gimli, who remembered the lady's words.

Gimli pretended not to notice the change to the elf’s hair, giving Legolas a curt nod before going to his bedroll. He lay down and swathed himself in blankets to await his turn to watch. Remembering the unseen creature, he kept his axe near at hand in case it might be needed.

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Nothing Gold Can Stay