Title: FOR CONTINUING STRANGE (25)
Author: Annie Harris
Email: annie_mouse2001@yahoo.co.uk
Pairing: Legolas/Gimli
Rating: R.
Summary: Legolas presents his gift and plans another.
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.

25

'What elvish mischief have you been up to? Hunting wild butterflies
to adorn our chamber?'

Legolas shook his head, smiling, and to Gimli's surprise, closed the
curtains and set about lighting all the candles in the room. Gimli
took off his brown robe, fully aware of the Elf's opinion of it, and
seated himself on the bed, much as Legolas had done the night before.
Once satisfied with the light, Legolas went to the chest at the
bedside while Gimli studiously looked the other way until Legolas
stood before him with something concealed between his hands. 

'I have no skill in making,' he said; - 'But I am a hunter, and here
is what I have caught today.'

He laid the little wooden box in Gimli's hand, and the Dwarf felt its
tiny weight and then opened it slowly. The look on his face as he saw
the fire that shone within was all that Legolas had hoped for. Gimli
took the stone between thumb and finger and held it up, understanding
now the reason for all the light.

'Oh, marvellous! A fire opal, a flame from the very forge of Mahal! I
have never seen the like! You are a mighty hunter indeed. How did you
find it?'

Gimli's words fell over eachother in his amazement, and Legolas
smiled.

'Dare I say that you were as close to it as I, not long ago, in a
little dark shop at the end of a long court, one day when we sought
what you needed for your enamelling. It shone a flame at me, but I
think it hid itself from you until it was wanted. Merry and Pippin
and Bergil helped me find it again: a star of earth, for you, my
star.'

Gimli's thanks for the gift were mostly wordless, and lasted until
many of the candles were burned out.

At length they lay still in the darkening room. 

'When I said save it for tonight, I thought only of your love; but it
is that love that makes the stone, rare as it is, truly precious.'

Legolas responded with a contented murmuring sound. Then on a sudden
impulse, Gimli sat up and did what he had never done before, even in
their tenderest moments. He undid the ties that held the twin braids
of his beard and shook free the long wavy tresses.

Legolas raised himself quickly on his elbow. He, and the rest of the
Fellowship, had learned very early that no Dwarf would willingly be
seen with an unbraided beard except by his closest intimates. The
practicalities of washing and grooming were the only acceptable
excuses.

Gimli leaned back on his pillows, seeing that Legolas understood, and
smiled gently, turning a little to draw the Elf back into his
embrace. Legolas buried his face in the luxuriant waves of dwarf
hair, and then said:

'You are an endless mine of treasure!'

'That you alone may find.'

Now Gimli was growing drowsy, but the smell of a guttering candle
disturbed him, and he stirred and grumbled.

'Ssh! I'll snuff the candles,' said Legolas, and rose quietly to put
out all but the one by the bed and open the curtains. 

Gimli watched through half-closed eyes, relaxed and content, but
noticed how Legolas made sure that the casement bar was securely
fixed.

'I sense a weather prophecy coming on,' he smiled.

'Yes, rain and wind out of the south-west soon.'

'Why do you foretell the weather at night?'

'It is my spirit turning back to the wild world, preparing for rest.'

'And do all Elves do that?'

'All the Silvan folk, certainly.'

Then Legolas returned, a dim golden form glowing in the light of the
single candle, and lay down again. Softly he stroked the outspread
beard.

'Tell me, Gimli, whether I understand dwarvish ways aright. I do not
mean to hurt by asking, but' - (he lifted the the wavy skeins of hair
and let them slide over his fingers) - 'THIS, had things gone
otherwise, only your bride would have seen?'

Gimli smiled at him in the dim light.

'There is no hurt now, Legolas; only the memory of it. You understand
well.'

'And I think - may I venture - that a Dwarf's beard has a language of
its own?'

Gimli smiled again, sleepiness disappearing, delighted by this bold,
loving curiosity.

'You are the wisest Elf that ever was! A language of beards: yes
indeed. Well, whether you have guessed or reasoned, you are right so
far, and I, I shall go against our customs and the habit of a
lifetime, to keep you right!'

Legolas stroked and kissed the beard in reply.

'You are so dear to me, my Elf, that I bestow on you the right to
unbind my beard in our chamber when you will. Dwarvish custom does
not DEMAND it when two lie together, but only then may it be done.'
Legolas could not suppress a quiver of excitement at this, and
thanked Gimli tenderly.

'Ah! I know I will love this - though I may be forced to rise an hour
earlier in the morning to comb and rebraid it!'

Gimli laughed.

'Already you see the wisdom of making the unbraiding a choice only!'

They laughed together, and Legolas pretended to be tying knots in the
springy hair. Then he said:
'Now I remember something, though I gave it no thought at the time.
At the Council in Rivendell, you, and all the other Dwarves, had your
beards dressed quite differently, with only small braids ... '
Legolas sounded puzzled; Gimli was impressed by the way he recalled
something that had not seemed important at the time, and was now
feeling wakeful enough to explain.

'That's right, Legolas, small braids, but quite elaborate.'

'Yes, with gold bindings, I remember that, but with part of the beard
left free.'

'That's right. Such styles are used for occasions that are important,
formal even, but call for openness and honesty. That's what the
unbound beard means; truth, no secrets, peace, friendship, love, even
holiday.'

Legolas nodded slowly.

'So you braid your beard in the plain fork for work, for every day;
and you always did it closer before a battle ... '

'Right again!' said Gimli; - 'And if a trading party turns up with
their beards braided really close and tight, you may be sure they
mean to drive a hard bargain!'

Legolas laughed again.

'The more I learn of your folk, the more there is to learn. Yet I
think I have learned enough to know that I must not speak of this to
any but you.'

'Ah, my Legolas! I think you learn faster than some young Dwarves I
remember. But even unspoken, you may still find it useful knowledge.'
'That I may!' said Legolas happily as the last candle guttered
towards extinction.

He snuggled closer to Gimli, and stroked his beard again, delighting
in the rich waves formed by near-permanent braiding.

Gimli yawned suddenly.

'Ah, forgive me, I have tired you with talking. It is late, and you
still have work to do.'

'I would rather be tired by you than rested and alone, fair one. But
now I shall sleep, and dream of how I may set your wondrous gift of
the star of earth.'

'Your gift to me is no less, though it is you that wears it.'
Legolas' hand curled gently among the tresses of Gimli's beard and he
was soon aware that the Dwarf slept.

His own mind drifted towards elvish reverie, filled with the sweet
joy of the night, the bold generosity of his noble Dwarf ... and even
in that loving moment, elvish mischief summoned an image of Gimli in
his dreary sack of a robe, and Legolas found himself smiling in the
dark.

This would never do. Ond day he would surely laugh at the wrong
moment and cause offence. He must do something - find a new robe that
would please the Dwarf and suit his character. What would be best?
He considered carefully. Keep the plain shape and style - nothing
wrong with that. It was the colour and the coarse stiffish stuff that
gave the effect of a barley sack with what Sam would have called a
'bit o' band' tied round the middle. But that same shape in a finer,
more flowing fabric would look perfectly well. And the colour - that
would make all the difference. The colour ... Legolas settled at once
on green, a dark forest green, like holly leaves, perhaps. He could
picture Gimli's hair and beard set off to perfection against such a
green. Or green as dark as pine trees in winter: that would be sober
enough for any Dwarf, but also rich and handsome. He would speak to
Faramir's Chamberlain the next day.

Then he thought again. The dark green should be silk, for warmer
weather, but for winter, what? And he saw the shining hair spread
against creamy white; fine undyed wool, soft and warm ...
And something strange began to happen. In his waking scheming dream
he seemed to see himself standing in a darkened chamber in the
twilight. It was not a room he recognised, and yet he felt that he
knew it. He was aware of wood panelled walls and ceiling, a large
bed, wide and low, and a pale shape in the dusk, which he knew at
once was the white woollen robe, hanging somewhere on a peg.
He, or the figure of himself in the vision, turned and looked away
from the bed and the robe, and saw tall windows opening onto a
balcony with a timber rail; beyond that lay a wide dim prospect over
wooded land sloping down and down to a broad misty vale almost lost
in shadow; and, further off still, the snow-tipped peaks of great
mountians  glowed faintly in the last light of the sunset beyond.
Then he knew that he was looking out over the Vale of Anduin towards
the White Mountains, from a room he would one day share with Gimli, a
room in a house not yet built, high on the steep slopes of North
Ithilien.

His thought returned to the present, to Gimli now sleeping soundly
beside him, and he smiled again in the dark. He would order those new
robes, keep the white one back for a while; and he would build that
house in Ithilien. Already he seemed to have a picture of it in his
mind, a sort of sketch, complete yet indistinct, without detail, for
he had seen only one room of it in his reverie, and that in near
darkness. Now he would try to go back and look again. He turned onto
his back, gazed at the stars outside the windows and let his mind
drift.