Adult-FanFiction.org : Lord of the Rings

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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Their tents readied, Gimli and Strider went to fetch water. Gimli knelt by the stream to wash his hands, but Strider went on until he was all but obscured by a tumble of boulders at the base of a silvery waterfall.

“Do not fear Haldir of Lórien,” Strider said at length, calling over his shoulder as he filled their water-skins from the crystal-clear falls.

“I do not fear him,” Gimli snapped, and stood, shaking his hands to dry them. He did not know what the lad was about, going so close to the falls. He would be soaked through, and have to sleep wet.

“Have it as you will,” Strider said, patient. “But you do not know the ways of elves as I know them. Haldir means no harm, but he doesn't understand why you and Legolas have become friends.” He stepped into the stream, squinting across it and moving carefully.

“I am not jealous of the elf's friends." Gimli scowled. "Let him wag his fool tongue at whoever will listen!"

"Elves are most comfortable among their own kind," Strider said lightly, but he frowned and made a quick, urgent gesture with his hand, moving one finger in a circle. It was not proper Iglishmêk, but Gimli understood: keep talking.

“I care not to learn the ways of elves, especially not that arrogant prick,” Gimli improvised, watching Strider creep soundlessly toward a spray of brush that had collected at the foot of the falls. “If he and Legolas find each other’s company pleasing, I should be glad to be rid of them both. Let them live in one another’s pockets and and be damned to--”

Strider leaped, swift and sure, and a squeal arose, a thin and terrible voice that scraped and squeaked.

“Let us go! Poor Sméagol! We’ve done nothing!”

Strider stood up, struggling with a kicking, scratching armful of what Gimli might have thought was a halfling, if it had not been all but bald and nearly naked. Its teeth flashed and Strider yelped, struggling as it seized his arm. Gimli snatched his axe from its loop and splashed out into the stream.

“Here, stop your nonsense.” He was afraid to set his axe against the creature; it fought so violently he might slip and cut Strider. “Be still or I’ll have your head off!”

The creature let go the bleeding bite stared at him with rolling, lamplike eyes, and went still, sniveling and whimpering.

Drawn by the scream, Legolas and Haldir appeared, both with arrows already on the string. “What is it?” Legolas called.

“Get the wizard,” Strider said, excitement in his voice. “Here, now, be still!”

They bound the creature and brought him to the fire, where Gandalf and the lady waited. They arose together to examine the captive.

“I have seen this creature’s prints and heard him move when I scouted around our camps. I have been waiting for my chance to capture him,” Strider said. “He was spying on us today by the waterfall, and could not hear me approach. With Gimli’s help, I was able to creep behind him.”

“Here now!” Gandalf stared at the creature with as much excitement as Gimli had yet seen him show. “Are you called Gollum? I have much wanted to have speech with you.”

“Sméagol!” The creature wailed. “Poor Sméagol, he’s lost his way and is caught by cruel men and elves, gollum!”

“Give him food,” Galadriel said. “He is starving.”

Gimli offered the creature waybread, then roasted meat, but he would not eat. Finally Haldir went to shoot fresh game so the creature might eat the flesh raw.

Gandalf quizzed the creature-- Sméagol, he called himself-- to no avail, receiving only complaints and self-pity in response to his questions. Smeagol did not want to look on the wizard, and he positively cringed away from the lady, acting as if the sight of her burned his eyes.

Smeagol’s babbling would drive even a deaf dwarf to madness, Gimli decided after less than a day of listening to him. Gandalf and the lady persisted in trying, though, coaxing and cajoling, feeding the starving creature all the rabbits or fish the elves could provide.

Gimli took a certain sour satisfaction in watching Haldir’s lip curl with distaste whenever he watched Sméagol devour raw rabbit without taking the fur off first. If elves thought dwarves had poor manners, then let them see what poor manners actually were! Sméagol was even worse with fish, eating skin, scales, entrails, bones, and all, leaving only the head.

After the third day of questioning, Gandalf wandered away from the fire and joined Gimli by the river to smoke a pipe with him, rubbing his hands wearily over his face. “Galadriel and Strider are pursuing the work,” he told Gimli. “We have managed to confirm he is the Gollum who met Bilbo, but the rest is drivel-- ‘poor Sméagol’ this, ‘my precious’ that-- he seems to be talking to himself more often than not, as if there were two of him within his mind. An uncommon ailment among any of the races. I am troubled deeply by his plight, I must confess.”

“Why is this creature so important?” Gimli was genuinely puzzled. “So it met Bilbo Baggins on your travels. What of it?”

“I cannot say.” Gandalf frowned into the bowl of his pipe. “The lady can read Sméagol far better than I, but even she cannot get much. There are locked doors and closed windows in his mind, and dark rooms behind them.” He sighed. “In his travels Bilbo Baggins found a thing once owned by this creature. I desire to know more of it, but Sméagol will not tell.” His face looked old and weary, his forehead crinkled into a grim frown. “We do not have time to sit here for weeks on end, listening to him babble. Some great power is on him, and it resists all effort to penetrate the creature’s secrets. We will have to use sterner measures if we wish to learn what he knows.”

Gimli cleared his throat and spat; he wanted no part of such a thing. “I do not know what the stakes are, and clearly you feel you cannot tell me everything, so I may not judge your right to press him.” He picked up a stone and tossed it across the river, watching it skitter over the surface, then splash to sink.

“The stakes are high. They might be… everything.” Gandalf heaved a great sigh. “I will take it on myself to bear the burden of my choice, fear not. Strider will assist me if I must have help.” He tucked his tobacco pouch away. “I want you to invite the lady to spend the afternoon hunting with you. She will stay if you do not draw her away. She is stern as steel, and would not flinch to do what is needed, but I would rather not involve anyone I do not have to. Let the burden of my choice be my own to answer for at the end of days.”

Gimli agreed, though the idea of spending an afternoon hunting with Lady Galadriel left him feeling bashful and nervous. She was so lovely he found it a challenge to speak to her, for every word must be considered with care and crafted to be worthy. He spent much of his time near her worrying she might find his manners as unpleasant as Legolas seemed to. Nevertheless, he would do as Gandalf asked.

“My lady,” Gimli asked with a deep bow, approaching the lady Galadriel as soon as they returned to the camp, “Would you like to walk abroad with me this afternoon? Perhaps we might hunt for hares in case Legolas and Haldir return empty-handed.” Such a thing was unlikely, but he could think of no better excuse.

She lifted one graceful brow, looking to him, then letting her gaze drift to Gandalf and Strider in turn, her wise eyes communicating her awareness without the need for words. Gimli chuffed a soft laugh to himself; one did not pull any wool over the eyes of the Lady of Lórien.

“I will go,” she said softly. “And we will hunt together.”

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Nothing Gold Can Stay