Title: FOR CONTINUING STRANGE (21)
Author: Annie Harris
Email: annie_mouse2001@yahoo.co.uk
Pairing: Legolas/Gimli
Rating: R.
Summary: More of life in the city: Gimli's opinion of Men becomes
more mixed.
Disclaimer: The usual: No claims, no pack drill - and of course no
profit. Just living in the gaps and round the edges.
Warning: None.
Archive: LoM, Axe & Bow Yahoogroup message archive. Anyone 
interested
just ask.

21
In the morning, Gimli woke early, eager to study his red hawthorn
spray before returning to his rented workshop. Legolas lay beside
him, awake and watching him with a gentle smile.

'You were frowning in your sleep, Gimli. What was troubling you?
Gimli stretched, feeling not at all troubled.

'I can't say that I remember - wondering how best to make that
pinkish red of the hawthorn blossom, no doubt.'

'Do you not remember your dreams?'

'No, not always.'

'Strange. And I believe men do not either.'

'Well, no time for dreaming now. Time to get up and set to work.'

'Industrious dwarf! Will you not take time to enjoy the world and the
day?'

'But I enjoy my work, you idle Elf, and work enjoyed means a day
enjoyed, and the treasures of the world also.'

So they laughed at each other, and agreed to differ, with a kiss more
enjoyable than work or idleness.

When Gimli went to collect his tools for the day after breakfast, he
heard Legolas on the terrace, whistling to the birds again, and
looked out to see him scatter crumbs for them and then turn his
attention to the plants. He started swiping greenfly from tender
shoots with his fingers and an unexpected air of relish. Gimli
grinned to himself <and that's the wood Elf who looked as if he never
knew anything about the lower end of nature! Funny how you don't
always know what it is you do know when you get into a new situation>
He leaned out of the window.

'Will you come to Master Bergthor's today, or have you enough to do
with the trees here?'

'I'll come with you,' Legolas replied, with a smile that put a spring
into Gimli's step. 

He had more than half expected to hear that the elf would prefer to
avoid the old craftsman's company if he could.

As they walked off through the busy streets, Legolas said:
'The short life of men is not one dark gate to me but many, I fear,
and perhaps I must pass one such each day until we reach our end.'

'Things are little different for mortals', Gimli told him.

When they reached Bergthor's home, they found that both had been
mistaken. The old man was neither so near death as Legolas had
believed, nor had he been free from illness. He had taken a chill
when they last saw him, but was now much better, sitting in the
sunshine outside his door in an old wicker chair, and talking to
friends and neighbours coming and going across the court.

He welcomed his two visitors gladly, and Legolas stayed talking with
him once Gimli had gone up to the workshop, for the thought had come
to him, as they walked among the people, that he could learn from
this old citizen many things about the life of this kingdom of which
he was now a part, things concerning the daily life of the folk that
he would never discover in the councils of the great. 

As May wore on, they fell into a pattern of work, between the
Musicians' Hall and the jeweller's loft, often taking their lunch
with the old man, sitting on the stone steps beside his chair and
enjoying the surprises Sam would provide for them, neatly wrapped in
a blue-striped linen cloth.

They wondered at first at Sam's insistence on cooking and preparing
food for them, but soon concluded that it was not entirely
disinterested, and that they were on the receiving end of series of
Hobbit experiments in food. Since the return of the King, things were
looking up in the markets of Minas Tirith. It seemed that supplies of
goods improved almost daily in quantity, quality and variety, and Sam
missed no chance to investigate (though he could be heard from time
to time asking himself what the Gaffer would say to him buying such
stuff). Soon he was the favourite of shopkeepers and stallholders
across the city, and any of his friends who showed an interest would
be asked to try some novelty. Somehow his native Hobbit sense ensured
that the failures were few, though people were frequently regaled
with dishes whose names Sam had forgotten, or meant nothing if he did
recall them.

Legolas and Gimli seemed to spend half their lunch times in fits of
laughter, trying to guess what it was they had been given that day
("chicken's lips and snail's elbows" was judged to be one of Legolas'
better guesses). Even old Bergthor could not always help when offered
a taste, but he was happily proud of his eccentric new friends, and
loud in his praise of the Dwarf's skill and the Elf's courtesy. Some
of the others who lived or worked in the court lost their shyness of
the strangers, and would stop to join in the conversation now and
again.

Sometimes Legolas would go out of the city to bring fresh flowers for
Gimli to study, and startled all who saw him with the speed of his
passing: elven fleetness was something no one in Minas Tirith but the
King and his companions had ever witnessed.

The Dwarf's work was going well, and from time to time the soft
rumble of his deep voice could be heard in song- the velvet-toned
song of finding and making. If this happened while Legolas was with
Master Bergthor, the Elf would lose track of what he was saying or
hearing, and pause, spellbound by Gimli's song. He was dismayed to
find that Bergthor could not hear the quiet voice from the workshop
above, and had to apologise for his inattention, saying that Elves
were liable to be strongly affected by all kinds of music, and
Bergthor seemed to be happy to forgive him for that. 

On another morning, Gimli, having spent most of the previous evening
grinding and refining the blue pigment for the next day's work of
enamelling the forget-me-nots for Galadriel's crown, found, when
halfway round the city, that he had left the precious packet behind.
He suddenly stopped and felt the pockets of his jerkin - that
outrageous object that Legolas said was more a portable storehouse
than a garment, and largely responsible for his initial impression
that the Dwarf was as broad as he was long - and uttered a dwarvish
curse. 

Once Legolas understood what was wrong, he ran swiftly off to fetch
the packet, darting like the wind between the startled people of the
city. 

Gimli climbed up from the roadway onto the defensive parapet of the
Second Level and sat down in a sunny embrasure to await the return of
the Elf. He thought about the changes he had seen in the city, even
in the short time he had been there.

Merchants from the nearer parts of Harad were already starting to
appear; spices and fine woods, and other things, such as he might use
for his work, were becoming available, if in small quantities and at
understandably high prices, and the city would have to find the means
to pay for them.

While it was true that there would be gold and other treasure to be
recovered from Orthanc in the near future (and perhaps from other
strongholds of the Enemy too) which would help with building and
rebuilding in the Kingdom, more would be needed. His thoughts turned
to Aglarond, where he had had a first glimpse of what seemed like
limitless beauty, but not, from what he had seen, of a kind that
could be turned to use and profit for Men or Dwarves. But the
Glittering Caves were only one part of the Ered Nimrais: what else
might there be hidden away within that great mountain range? And
those places might be his to command, when the Kings of Gondor and
Rohan had agreed matters to their satisfaction.

Already he felt a jealous care for those wonderful caverns. Gain
there must be, to keep the lifeblood trade of kingdoms flowing; but
despoiling there would not be, while he had any say in the matter.
Those underground halls, full of beauty, should be tended as
carefully as any wheatfield or orchard, and should bear their fruit
of mineral wealth year after year, like any well-managed farm of
green fields under the sun.

While he was considering this and looking out towards the river, the
voices of a small group of men walking to their work caught his ear.

'Who, or what, was that, that passed us, running like a wild hare
back there?'

'That was an Elf, Master Shoesmith, THE Elf, the King's companion,
for there is no other in the city, as you would know if your nose
were less often in your beer mug!'

'And is it a he-Elf or a she-Elf, if you know so much, for one could
hardly tell by that glimpse?'

'Why, it's a he-Elf, you dullard! A warrior and a king's son out of
the north. Are you deaf as well as blind?'

'Well, he or she, such a creature fills the eye nicely. And if that's
an Elf-prince, I shall be glad to set eyes on their wenches!'

'And not just your eyes, if I know you! You like 'em best when you
can't tell if it's he or she till you get your hands on 'em!'

Gimli glared at them unnoticed, lip curling in furious distaste, and
leapt down from his place to challenge their disrespectful words.

<These are the people he fought to save!> he thought. <Or some of
them> and then he growled loudly:

'Watch your words, masters, when you speak of the fair folk!'

The men halted abruptly and looked round in some alarm. There were no
other people close enough to them to have been heard speaking at that
moment, but Gimli saw with puzzlement that they did not see him. In
fact only one of them gave so much as a glance in his direction, eyes
screwed up against the sunlight; and Gimli then realised than when he
left his warm seat on the parapet he had moved into the shadow of the
wall and was hidden by its blackness before the bright light of the
morning sun. His moustache twitched as he smiled, thinking that a
warning from an invisible presence might be more effective than
anything short of an onslaught with his battleaxe, and so he stood
still and held his peace, while the men looked nervously at one
another, and then in unspoken agreement scurried away.

Gimli folded his arms with a satisfied 'Hmph!' and resumed his seat
on the stonework for another minute or two.

Legolas soon came racing back with the packet of blue powder, and
Gimli had to admit that he had seen as yet no one in the city whose
beauty equalled that of the Elf. And he recalled what Legolas had
said about 'an Elf as another notch on the bedpost' and wondered what
exactly lay behind those words, what encounter with Men in the
vanished kingdoms of the north.

He bounded down from his vantage point, thanked Legolas for his
kindness, and walked on with him towards Bergthor's workshop. They
did not see the idle workmen again, and Gimli wondered if they would
ever work out what had happened. But what rankled most was the way
they had spoken of Legolas as 'it'. Of course he was not human, any
more than Gimli himself, but to hear one of the fair folk so called
angered him deeply, and he hoped that all who thought thus would
learn better, and quickly, when they found themselves with a
half-elven Queen.