Adult-FanFiction.org : Lord of the Rings

Nothing Gold Can Stay	By : TAFKAB Category: +Third Age > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 5309 -:- 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 company climbed into the foothills the next day, making good time along the road. They saw a few remote houses of men, none of which gave signs of welcome; some were abandoned. Gimli rode mounted behind Legolas again now that Haldir had departed, and found himself at leisure to ponder his bittersweet pleasure in the Lothlórien elf’s absence. He had no need of Legolas to mind him through the day-to-day drudgery of travel, but it had stung his pride to be so swiftly and completely abandoned. Now he was of interest to Legolas again, but it was a mixed satisfaction to have the prince’s attention.

The elf had redone his braid again since Gimli returned to ride with him, and Gimli spent much of his time eyeing the careful rope of bright hair, feeling rather as if it might turn into a viper and bite him, should he glance away. For his part, Gimli had remade his own braids in his preferred fashion. He vowed he would not swiftly be tempted again to change them and give answer, not after having seen the elf’s fickle braiding first-hand.

The braid meant nothing to Legolas, just as the elf’s long fingers in his beard had meant nothing. Best not to think on it. Gimli squared his jaw and put such things far from his mind.

He busied himself when they stopped in doing small services for the lady, whose smile was worth far more to him than the labor. He also talked frequently with Strider, for now he perceived the lad might feel as lonely as Gimli himself had felt while Legolas was preoccupied with his kinsman.

*****

That evening while Gimli and Strider gathered wood, Legolas overcame his shame and went before the lady, going to one knee before her in the snow. "Lady Galadriel, Haldir advised me to speak to you regarding a matter that greatly troubles my mind," he confessed.

"I know of your disquiet." She gave a gentle smile, raising him to his feet again. "There is no stain of the wraith's touch left in you, Greenleaf."

"But my lady," Legolas gasped, his fists clenching tight. "There must be! I cannot think how, how...."

"Oft evil will shall evil mar," she said softly, smiling kindly on him. "The powers of Mordor know nothing of love. The wraith perceived the seed of a secret in your heart, and in trying to turn your feeling to loathing and disgust, it planted the very seed it sought to crush."

"Speak not so plainly!" He whispered, anguished, and bent his head. "Such a thing... it cannot be. It shames me beyond bearing."

"Why? The son of Glóin is brave and true of heart. Do not let your fears and pains rule you." She touched her fingers to his face, lifting his head again. "For if that happens, then evil will indeed gain a foothold in you, Thranduilion." Her voice lingered on the final word, her eyes holding his.

Legolas thought he understood her meaning. "Is that what ails my father, then?" His voice turned harsh, though he would not have had it so.

"Have pity on one who has lost so much he loved he cannot bring himself to show his love for any," she whispered. "Lest he have nothing left for himself when they, too, leave him."

Legolas hesitated, pondering her words. "As one who has received little love, perhaps I too have not enough to spare," he said.

"Love does not work thus." She smiled, though her eyes were sad. "Your father is mistaken. Love may always be renewed by those who have the courage to bear its pain."

I will think on what you have said," Legolas promised, and bowed his head, though the prospect frightened him.

*****

After that day their path steepened, and they rode in long slanting paths that turned sharply upon themselves, winding back and forth as they climbed to ridge-tops far above the valleys. Anduin was a silvery snake in the distance now, reflecting the light of sun and moon, and each day the snowcapped peaks drew nearer. Drizzles of bitter rain fell, mingled with ice that collected on the hood of Gimli’s cloak. Throughout the night mist settled in and froze on the branches of trees, leaving them painted with a delicate lace of hoarfrost that soon burned away whenever the sun showed its face.

After sunset wolves howled, mournful and faraway, calling and answering one another from peaks and valleys. "We must beware of white wargs," Gandalf tilted his head, his sharp eyes searching the night as if to pierce the darkness and find lurking foes. "They come down from the north in winter to haunt the passes and prey on unwary travelers. I crossed their tracks when I traveled to Erebor, and saw one upon a ridge as I descended. They will be bold now from hunger."

Gimli kept it well in mind, staying near the camp when he ventured forth to hunt or find wood. The elf stayed near him, he noticed-- and tried to seem as if he wasn't, but Gimli rarely found himself outside the range of Legolas's watchful eye, not even when he went to relieve himself among the trees. He wondered grimly what he would do when they rose above the tree-line and he had no option other than to piss where the lady might see him. He couldn't hold his water forever!

He sighed, lacing his leggings back up.

"Nad no ennas," Legolas murmured, very near at hand, much closer than Gimli had thought. The dwarf lifted his eyes-- and locked eyes with the flat, pale stare of a white warg, standing stone-still among the trees, snow in its fur. "Peng nín linnatha go hathol lín!"

Legolas's bow sang behind GImli and a blossom of blood sprouted between the warg's eyes. It flung itself back, head over heels, snapping, and collapsed in a writhing frenzy of fur, blood, and saliva.

"None of your elf-gabble," Gimli complained, drawing his axe and setting his feet.

"There are many more!" Legolas cried. "Gandalf, Strider, we are beset! To arms, my lady of Lórien!"

Gimli gazed through the forest with new awareness, and more than two dozen white mounds he had taken for drifts of snow blinked at him, rose, then began to prowl forward with deadly intent, lean bodies flowing silently forward across the snow.

Arrows sang around Gimli in a stinging cloud, causing barks and growls, the only noise from the oncoming wargs. "Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!" Gimli bellowed, and waded forward to meet the pack, annoyed as Legolas's arrows found target after target, depriving him of foes.

"Save some for me!" He growled, swinging at a stumbling warg.

"You can have the trolls behind them," Legolas called. The elf was right; half the mountainside seemed to be rising to fight, white craggy trolls lumbering forward with snow and ice heaped on their shoulders.

"Every troll I kill will count for five of your wargs," Gimli snapped, ducking one white furry shoulder as it barreled past, stalking forward with his axe in his hands and singling out the leading troll.

"That's cheating." Legolas followed, shooting the warg point-blank, then drawing his knives. "But be swift. We will have more than we can manage if they wake the stone-giants!"

A wild call over their shoulder heralded the arrival of Aragorn, who burst into the fray at speed, sword flashing. Gandalf followed hot on his heels, the light from his staff casting sharp shadows across the battlefield. Gimli hewed at the knee of a troll and it toppled, bellowing; the elf leaped gracefully to avoid it, flipping over Gimli's head to launch off the back of a warg and slicing its throat as he landed. Blood sprayed, glittering in the wizard's light. Legolas caught the falling troll in the throat with one long knife, then darted away as it flailed. "You will have to halve that one with me!"

Gimli only growled and swung at another troll, dodging aside to avoid the clumsy strike of its stone club. He caught it on the backswing, knocking its kneecap askew. Gandalf's sword flashed, and he stalked forward to enter the fray. The lady appeared over the hill, moonlight a halo in her fine-spun hair. She raised her hand and the mountain rumbled; a tumble of stone gave way, taking several trolls with it as it cascaded toward the valleys below.

Legolas danced along its edge as Gimli watched, his heart in his mouth; the elf spun and leaped on the verge of falling, using carefully judged kicks and launching himself off the trolls' teetering bodies to send three more of them toppling over the verge.

Gimli could barely mind his own fight, slamming the haft of his axe against a warg's head when it tried to bite his arm, then darting between a troll's legs and hewing at its crotch, bringing it to its knees with a howl. Legolas lingered on the crumbling verge to kick aside a final troll, the very stones he stood on giving way beneath his feet, but he danced as though he could fly. If they counted trolls for five kills each, the elf was already above thirty kills!

Gimli scowled, hamstringing one with a side-swipe of his axe, scowling as Legolas finally sprang away from the crumbling cliffside and returned to the fray, knives in his hands, spinning and turning as he dealt damage to all the beasts he passed.

"I was mistaken. The trolls only count as one," Gimli snarled, and Legolas laughed, distracted, a warg slinking up behind--

It was not a throwing axe, but Gimli spun his blade and threw it nonetheless, the heavy bit catching the warg and severing its spine, crumpling it before its jaws could seize Legolas. Gimli flung himself forward and caught the haft, jerking it free, In the same motion he spun, a roundhouse move that caught another warg before it could catch his ankle. An arrow creased past his arm, fraying his sleeve, and caught a third; then Legolas was at his back, the two of them surrounded by snapping jaws. The white knives darted and flashed just at the edge of his vision while he severed limbs and crushed skulls with the axe's heavy poll.

Galadriel drew her long, slender sword and stepped forward to join the fray, helping Gandalf carve away at one of the remaining trolls, batting it between the two of them as if they were sly and playful cats toying with a large and clumsy mouse.

Strider managed to drive a troll over the edge, and it fell with a rumbling wail. He jumped to join Gimli and Legolas, his blade flashing with speed and skill, helping clear away some of the pack. Then there were only trolls and whimpering heaps of warg, and the three of them ran to support Gandalf and the Lady, taking on the remaining trolls between them.

It was a matter of hack and slash after that, avoiding flailing clubs and stamping feet until they inflicted enough damage to bring the beasts down and give them mercy: a chop of Gimli's axe to the spinal column beneath the skull, a sword across the throat. An arrow to the eye, and the last troll went down, the battlefield suddenly silent, snow sifting down from a louring sky.

"Eighteen."

"Sixteen!" Gimli roared with outrage.

"We will count the kills!"

"We must go into the valley and try to find which are yours and which are the lady's!"

Gandalf laughed abruptly and offered Galadriel his arm. "Leave them to it," he chuckled, his eyes twinkling as he escorted her away. "For this is a battle we cannot win, my lady."

"Strider, you will mediate," Gimli insisted. "There were only four trolls on the cliff after the lady's spell!"

They went about the battlefield retrieving Legolas's arrows and attempting to verify kills, arguing insistently, though Gimli could see Legolas trying not to smile, and he thought the elf did not much care who might have won the game.

You won the more important game," Legolas said at length when the elf had finished reclaiming all the arrows he could, and sat cleaning them as Strider departed, returning to camp. "Do not think I failed to notice: you saved me in the fight, and are now ahead again."

Gimli glanced aside at him. "Aye, well. I could not let you outdo me in numbers without leaving myself the chance to catch you up!"

Legolas laughed softly at that and replaced his arrows in his quiver, then stood and offered Gimli his hand. "Let us return to the fire, mellon nîn."

They walked through the stillness together, fingers laced for long moments as Legolas helped Gimli through the snow, before they finally let go and sat down to eat their long-delayed waybread.

*****

That was the last trouble they had for several days, but the mood of the group did not lighten as they neared the tree line, still riding upon their horses, though the increasing depth of the snow warned that would not be the case for much longer.

Legolas sat straight before Gimli, gazing back and forth, noting all that passed with his keen eyes. “The mountains know of our coming,” he told Gimli. “They are wary, and they resent our desire to pass.” He glanced toward Galadriel. “But for the lady, the horses would already be knee-deep in snow.”

Gimli eyed her with uncertainty. He could see no sign of magic on Galadriel, but as they climbed she did not often speak, swaying slightly as she rode. It seemed to Gimli that she dreamed in the way of elves: still aware of her companions, riding with her eyes wide open, seeing both the waking world and some compelling vision she held deep within her mind.

They lit fire whenever they stopped, and at Gandalf’s urging, Strider and Gimli gathered wood, loading the horses with as much as they dared. “Even a wizard must have something to burn,” he explained. “When we pass above the tree line, we will be glad of this.”

Snow soon stuck upon the ground, and the beeches and oaks of the forests turned to pine and then to fir. The wind grew keener, and Gimli realized the lady had begun to sing without ceasing, the words inaudible to him, only the melody rising with her breath, hardly more than a chant. He could feel the effort in her now as the fir trees thinned and the snow grew so deep the horses began to struggle. Gimli and Strider and Gandalf dismounted to walk, breaking a path to their next camp. Legolas dismounted from his horse and began to walk atop the snow, his tread feather-light. Flakes settled on his hair and in his lashes, and the wind whipped cruelly about the elf, but neither he nor the lady needed cloak or coat to keep them warm.

“Gather a last load of firewood tonight and ensure every horse carries as much as it can,” Gandalf said. “The lady Galadriel will ride as far as she may, but the rest of us will walk when we rise tomorrow.”

Gimli woke to clear singing-- the lady, walking barefoot among the snow as though in a meadow of spring flowers with Legolas at her side. She had released her hair, which lifted on the wind, and sun filtered in through broken cloud to illuminate it, turning it to a glowing cascade of silver and gold. She raised her white hands to the sky, mists wreathing around her slender arms, her fingers almost translucent in the light.

Gimli drew breath, stunned by her beauty, and Legolas glanced to him, giving him a nod of greeting. Strider was up, still swathed in his blanket as he heated water by the fire.

Gimli brewed some of his dwindling store of coffee, looking ahead to the snow-clad peak.

“We hope to make the pass by nightfall,” Strider said. “But we may not make our goal. Snow clouds are hovering all around us, and only the lady keeps them at bay.”

“I have listened through the night,” Legolas said quietly, coming to join them as Gimli took out his dwindling store of precious coffee. “There is a fell voice on the air, and it sings of snow and wind, urging the air to bury us or scour us from the mountainside.”

“I believe it is Saruman.” Gandalf joined them. “He has turned the mountain against us.” He spoke heavily. “We must press on. As winter deepens, his power will only grow.”

They set out in single file, winding their way upward as the path led around a stony outcrop. Legolas and Strider took turns escorting the lady, who still chanted, her whole body taut with effort. “It drains her to maintain this effort for so long,” Gandalf fretted to himself.

“I will watch over the lady, whatever may come,” Gimli vowed, keeping an eye on Legolas, who forged ahead to find the path. The wind whistled about them, trying to tear them from the ground. With every step the horses’ hooves slid on black and treacherous ice, as if they would drop over the ledge into the depths, where cruel rocks waited with shattered edges sharp as knives.

“We have reached the top of the pass.” Gandalf’s words were all but lost, torn from his lips.

Snowflakes whirled around Gimli’s head, burning chill on his exposed skin, but a spatter of sleet came among them. He scowled. It was not warm enough for rain, surely!

He lifted his head, squinting against the driven snow, and blanched, reaching to grasp the wizard’s sleeve.

A swirl of air caught the snow, twisting it into a vortex of ice as the whistle of the wind rose to a howl, lifting boulders and stones and flinging them as if they were snowflakes. The lady’s voice rose, piercing the air in urgent command, then was lost in the roar as the whirlwind gained power and bore down upon them. Gandalf raised his staff with a shout, and Gimli felt the wizard’s power lash through him as it had in Dol Guldur, but the winds were not dispersed.

On they came, the wind so strong the stinging snow cut blood from his cheeks. Gimli turned his face away only to see the lady standing tall, facing the storm without fear, her beautiful hair writhing and tangling around her in the wind’s twisting whirl. Strider held her arm, steadying them both, but the ice was treacherous, and even as he watched they faltered. Strider fell to one knee, and half-falling herself, the lady braced herself upon his back, then slipped on a spatter of half-melted ice and slid to her knees at his side.

The ghost of a warning shout reached him-- Legolas, he thought. Gimli cast about for the threat and found it too late. A boulder flung by the vortex struck the mountainside, and a terrible flurry of snow and rock descended as though in slow motion.

Gimli leaped forward with a roar, his thick hobnailed boots finding purchase on the ice where the soft leather of the elves failed. He struck at the falling rocks with the flat of his axe, driving aside a boulder the size of his head before it could strike the lady. Another shower followed, and he parried much of it on the backswing. Then a pummeling white deluge that humbled the flood of Anduin wrapped Gimli in its torrent and bore him backward over the ledge.

He fell, mountain and sky flip-flopping horribly around him as he wheeled and turned. He glimpsed the lady on the edge from whence he had fallen, standing tall and true with her arms upraised and her garments billowing around her, her voice loud and terrible as she rebuked the storm. Then he bounced once off the cliff face and struck a snowbank. Helpless he rolled downward, thrashing. Unable to find any purchase in the maelstrom of the avalanche, at last he came to a shattering halt with half the mountainside rumbling down to cover him in an icy tomb of snow and shattered stone.

Gimli could not even tell if Strider had fallen with him, or if Gandalf and Legolas had been lost as well. He knew only the aching of his wrenched and bruised body, sharpened by the savage cold-- an ache that faded along with his sight as his air ran short and he knew no more.

Notes:
Nad no ennas: Something's out there
Peng nín linnatha go hathol lín!: My bow shall sing with your axe!
Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!: The axes of the dwarves! The dwarves are upon you!
mellon nîn: My friend

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Nothing Gold Can Stay