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.

Chapter List
- 30
- 31
- 32
Legolas left his companions when they were ready to sleep and went to the Hall of Fire alone, greeting friends and kin long unseen. He stayed long enough to be polite and joined in the singing for a time, then slipped away to wander in the valley on his own. He felt a desperate need to withdraw and think.

Perhaps showing one another their tattoos and piercings in the steam bath was what dwarvish friends did when they were not actually drinking to excess and having metal bars or inked needles put through their skins. That seemed to make sense, and if so, then Gimli had chosen to honor their unnamed friendship for reasons of his own.

Legolas found a small empty plinth in a moonlit square and sat down on it, staring up at the whispering froth of a waterfall cascading from the opposite ridge. He had seen orcs who had piercings, of course, and war paint decorating their bodies. On them such things looked unhealthy, foul and barbaric tortures performed on corrupted flesh, but Gimli’s body had been sound, with no wounds or bruising, and the piercings themselves were clean, well-healed and tidy, not caked with rust or blood. They obviously did not pain him. The inked designs were beautiful and had been crafted with an artisan’s care. Yet these things numbered among the reasons why elves thought dwarves uncouth, little better than beasts.

Legolas remembered telling Gimli’s kinsman that it would give him pleasure to kill a dwarf. He had meant the words in the heat of his wrath. “Do we fear and hate what we do not understand so much we would destroy it eagerly? And if we do, how are we better than orcs ourselves?” He asked the night, which whispered mercy back to him. And yet, he did not feel he deserved its forgiveness.

“You begin to understand how orcs were made, or how any heart may be slowly turned to shadow.” Galadriel’s voice was soft behind him. She glided from beneath an arbor path and came to join him. “It happens just as rivers create valleys: a little at a time is worn away through custom and use, through fear and pain and anger, until we hardly notice the channels carved through our souls and folly seems as natural as reason.” She gazed up at the water alongside Legolas. “Even Morgoth began life as Melkor. Nothing is created evil.”

“It is no wonder Gimli reveres you so,” Legolas said softly. “For you know much where I know little.”

Galadriel smiled, but her smile was sad. “I do know much, but knowledge does not always bring happiness.” She turned her gaze aside, sitting beside Legolas and folding her hands in her lap. “I have watched the shadow of mortality fall over Undómiel, and I see the choice of Tinúviel will be laid before her. I grieve for what will be.” She looked to Legolas. “She is peredhel, and such is her fate: to choose. I do not know what is more cruel: to choose mortality and perish, or to live on without ending and watch all you love wither and fail around you, until the long years are filled with sorrow and all else fades beside it.” She rose and laid her hand on Legolas’s shoulder. “Life unending is an even harder burden when you grow to care for mortals. Use well the days, Thranduilion.”

So saying she left him, slipping away into the night. He watched until the glow of the moon on her pale dress was lost.

Legolas went back to his lodging and sat by Gimli’s bedside to gaze at his companion. He whiled away the night thinking on the lady’s words.

In the morning a knock roused Legolas from his thinking, and he went to find Lindir standing before his door bearing a tray of bread and honey. “Break your fast and wander as you will. The lord Elrond is still in council with your companions,” he said as three more elves came up behind him, carrying heaped platters of food, mostly meat, and a pitcher of wine. “For the dwarf,” he explained when Legolas’s brows rose. “Has he begun to burn the furniture?”

“No. He would not. And he is not so ravenous as that,” Legolas protested.

“No? Let us see what he will finish!” They carried the food in and set it before the dwarf, who rose from his bed, grumbling, and sat down.

Lindir eyed the furnishings after the manner of one who is making a careful count, then withdrew in haste rather than watch Gimli eat. Legolas took a slice of salted pork from one platter to supplement his own breakfast. Then he watched, torn between dismay and admiration, as Gimli cleared all the plates that had been brought for him and finished the wine.

“I would not want to insult my host by leaving what was offered,” Gimli said, his face too innocent.

“Or fail to live up to the standards of your kin?”

“Exactly. That stiff-necked young elf needs taking out of himself.” Gimli stabbed his fork in the direction Lindir had departed. “A little aggravation will do him good.”

Legolas laughed. “Just as it did me?”

“You learn fast.” Gimli downed a last bite of sausage and stood up. “Should I wear my elvish clothing, do you think?”

Legolas laughed. “I have come to prefer the other.” Or nothing. He bit down on the words before they could escape, surprised at himself.

They went to find Strider, who had also received a visit from Lindir, and was cutting up an apple for himself as he sat at his table. Legolas smiled on him. “Gimli and I have been told to wander today while the great confer. I thought you might prove a willing guide, having grown up in this place.”

“I would be glad of it, for Arwen is busy attending her grandmother this morning.” Strider looked at his stained clothing, wry. “And I would be glad of a bath and a change of clothing before I meet her again.”

“We have already found the baths,” Legolas agreed. “But I would not mind visiting them again.”

“I’ll make a dwarf of him yet,” Gimli rumbled with delight. “This elf will learn the comforts of hot water before we are parted!”

Strider laughed and rose, wiping his knife, and they set out. “I think I know of a place that will delight you, but it is a climb from here,” he said to Gimli.

“That is no trouble.” Gimli and Strider led as Legolas followed. He had expected Gimli to be as out of place and uncomfortable in Rivendell as he had been in his father’s hall, but the dwarf seemed easy. Perhaps it was the comfort of having friends about him.

They gathered the party’s horses at Strider’s suggestion and journeyed to the southern cliffs, leaving the city and crossing the floods of tumbling water in the foot of the vale. Legolas listened to the birds as they went, glad of their welcoming song; in the heart of the valley spring was not so far away.

Strider led them up the southern cliff along a well-worn trail that showed the sign of horses. At last they reached a place near the top of the cliff where wind whistled down from the mountains and took the warmth from the sunlight. There they found a building long and square, with a thick chimney that released transparent wavelets of heat and a slight smoke, which blew away without a trace.

“A smithy!” Gimli exclaimed in delight, seeing horses nestled in stalls, some waiting to be shod.

“A proper forge, though a small one. Some elves of Rivendell delight in the craft of metalworking. They have great skill, having practiced their craft since the first age,” Strider said. “Here it will be that--” he paused and a shadow passed over his eyes. “I have brought work for the weaponsmith by the order of lord Elrond,” he amended.

Legolas thought he understood. “Let us go in,” he said gently.

Strider delivered to the smiths a bundle wrapped in pale green velvet, which whispered with the sounds of metal when it was handled. “The lord Elrond says it is time,” he said simply.

“We will undertake this task gladly for your sake, Estel,” an elf accepted the parcel and took it away, handling it with reverence.

“Be welcome here,” another said, though he gave Gimli a wondering look. “Have you need of any other work of our hands? It is said you will depart again before long, on a journey of peril. We would gladly supply you with weapons, or repair those you have.”

When Legolas gave his long knives over to be sharpened, Gimli allowed himself to be persuaded to give up his weapon as well. “Have you throwing axes?” He asked. “A pair of those would not go amiss.”

“I will see what we can provide,” the elf handed their weapons to an assistant, who took them away and began to hone Legolas’s blades on a turning wheel. “We rarely use such, but there may be something tucked in storage from days long past.”

Gimli cast a longing look at the forge and anvil, where a craftsman was beating the dents out of a piece of plate with a rounded hammer. “You work in metal as well as leather?”

“We prefer to combine the two to save weight. That pauldron will join to a leather breastplate and gorget.”

“You might reinforce leather with scale, and save some weight while gaining strength.” Gimli picked up a bit of light metal. “Such would work better with mithril, I confess, for it is lighter than iron or steel, if hard to get.”

“We have little of that, pulling what we have into wire for embellishment and heraldry.”

“My people do the same in these days, when we may mine no more. But for the armor of kings, we may use some of our precious stores.”

Legolas laughed softly to Strider. “Here we may linger long, while they talk and argue smithcraft and forging,” he said.

Strider smiled. “The dwarf is as happy here as I have seen him.” He pulled at Legolas’s sleeve. “When he emerges, he will be covered with ash and soot, ready to go to the baths.”

“These elves accept him more easily than those of the Greenwood or even of Lórien.” Legolas paused. “Except for Lindir, whom I fear has not forgotten the company of Thorin.”

“I think these elves are easy with him because Gimli no longer mistrusts them so much himself,” Strider mused. “He speaks to Arvegil with no thought of race, only their shared love of this craft.”

“He is changed much since meeting the lady of the Galadhrim.”

“Yes,” Strider agreed. “He is changed much since I met him. As are you, I think.”

Legolas raised a brow. “Am I so changed?”

Gimli came bustling out, looking for them, his face eager. “The smith has given me leave to use his tools,” he said, his voice glad. “I have seen how elves love jewels and adornment. Legolas, what think you of this?” He held forth two bits of parchment with rough drawings on each. After a moment of puzzlement Legolas realized they were meant to show elven ears with adornments of wire twined along their curve.

“This one you could wear and remove at will, but it might fall off unnoticed, and it would not be well-suited to battle. This other is meant to be permanent…. but you will not want that.” Gimli’s face fell and he began to withdraw his hand, but Legolas stopped him. The drawing showed an elegant helix of wires piercing the shell of the ear like climbing vines with beads twined in the inner loops. It was fluid and graceful, the design elegant and clean. Gimli had marked well the jewelry he had seen upon elves, and had matched its style. Added to the dwarvish love of piercing, it had become something all its own.

“Make it,” Legolas said softly. “Then I will let you put it on me.”

“I will make it for the left ear, so it will not hinder your draw,” Gimli answered him, and Legolas smiled, meeting his eyes. Their gazes held for a long moment, and Legolas felt his heart warm within him.

“I must measure you,” Gimli said, and took him by the hand, drawing him into the smithy where calipers awaited.

“Give him wire of mithril,” Legolas heard Strider murmur to Arvegil as they entered and Gimli set to work. “And such beads or gems as he wants. He will craft this for the Prince of the Greenwood. Set the cost to my purse.”

“There will be no cost for this,” Arvegil said just as softly. “I would gladly see him work his craft, the first dwarf to lift a hammer in an elf’s smithy since Narvi walked the land.”

Gimli fussed over Legolas, very much in his element. “Move your hair aside, that it will not be in the way. I must measure every part of the ear precisely so the wires will not tug or bind. May I?”

“Yes.”

Strider lifted his brows as Gimli reached to touch Legolas’s ear, and Arvegil turned away, polite. There would be much talk of this, though Gimli would not realize what he did any more than Legolas had when he tried to dry the dwarf’s beard.

Let there be talk.

Gimli’s fingertips were blunt but gentle, tracing the curve and point of his ear. Legolas drew a breath and held it as the fine hairs rose all over his body. Metal calipers touched him and the dwarf wrote and drew, then measured again and again. Legolas closed his eyes and sat still, feeling the dwarf test his ears for the thickness of lobe and cartilage, their pliancy, their shape.

He could feel eyes on them, so he gave no sign of discomposure. The dwarf had allowed someone to touch his genitals for this; it was a thing of craft, as if a healer worked his art. A healer might touch anywhere that was needed; this need be nothing more than that.

But it was, for Gimli was his friend.

“It would be better if I cast your ear in wax. But there is no bone where I will work, so I can do well enough without.” Gimli finished, and his fingers slid tenderly along the curve from point to lobe a last time, an unnecessary journey that made Legolas shiver-- a caress, without doubt. Arvegil’s eyes went wide, his expression a study in startled amazement.

“Ticklish, are you?” The dwarf laughed softly. “Sensitive.”

“Yes,” Legolas agreed, breathless. Gimli’s fingers had wakened his skin all over.

“You will be more so when I finish-- at least, after it has healed. That is the reward of a piercing, master elf!”

Legolas watched as Gimli heated a slender mandrel form, then took it to the anvil and shaped it, stretching it out and thinning it, curving it to match the outermost rim Legolas’s ear and giving it the varying thickness he desired between quenching it and measuring, careful to consult his notes, working until he was satisfied.

He would not have thought the dwarf’s broad hands capable of such delicacy, but Gimli took mithril wire and wrapped it around the form, muttering to himself as he bent it. One piece, then another, took shape in careful curves. Gimli grunted with satisfaction and took up tools to work the ends, forming a hinge where they might lock together, then filing it smooth with fine-grained sand. He beat the end of one wire thin and flat and shaped it again with sand, then bored a hole in that end with an augur.

Arvegil returned then, carrying a box of jeweled beads. Gimli looked within, then made his choice, pouring the contents of one compartment into his hand. He sorted through them, choosing some and discarding others. “These, I think. What think you, Legolas?”

The stones in Gimli’s hand were the fresh and vibrant green of malachite, delicately veined: half a dozen small beads and a teardrop pendant. They were already pierced with holes, ready to lace onto a necklace or coronet.

“They are beautiful,” Legolas whispered with reverence; Gimli had chosen well without error or need for asking.

“Hold them while I set the wire.” Gimli took the delicate lacings and set them on a tray with a few scraps of wire, then eased it over the heart of the fire in the box of a nearby furnace. “This is the glory of mithril-- that it is pliant until tempered, and may be worked with ease, but when it is done it will not bend or flex under the strength of hands. It may be broken, but only by great force.” He watched the wire with a keen eye. “I must heat it neither swiftly or unevenly, nor too much, or it will warp.”

Legolas waited as Gimli worked, sweat gleaming on the dwarf’s forehead as he looked into the eye of the forge. He withdrew the wires several times to turn them and test the scraps, and finally pronounced himself satisfied, letting them sit near the edge of the forge, cooling them in slow stages until he picked them up in the palm of his hand. He tested the fit of the sharp tips to ensure they hinged together, polished the wires with a cloth until they gleamed, then took off his oversized leather apron and came to Legolas.

“I will put this on you later, elf,” he said softly. “Take them now; they will not bend.”

They tucked the jewels in a little velvet bag Arvegil provided, then took their sharpened weapons.

“These axes have been found for you,” Arvegil said at last, and held two axe-heads out in his hands. They were bright steel, undecorated. “These are well made and balanced. Tell us how you would have them set and I can have them sent to your lodging.”

“I will come back tomorrow, if I may, and fashion handles for them myself.” Gimli bowed low. “You have my gratitude for your kindness and generosity. Hannon le. Le fael,” he said carefully, glancing to Strider for approval, and Legolas smiled, realizing the young man must have tutored him so he might speak in politeness to the lady.

Arvegil matched Gimli’s bow in grace and courtesy. “I will welcome your return, and I am curious to see the results of your working.” He glanced at Legolas, the polite smoothness of his face hinting at the depth of his curiosity. Seeing the finished cuff would not be enough to satisfy, Legolas knew: every elf he met would long to know why such a gift had been offered and accepted.

Let them wonder.

NOTES:

Peredhel: Half-elven
Hannon le: Well met/I'm thankful I met you
Le fael: You are generous A comment response thread for this story can be found at http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/62310-review-replies-for-nothing-gold-can-stay-by-tafkab/ !
- 30
- 31
- 32
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Nothing Gold Can Stay