Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Midsummer, 110 of the Fourth Age

Gimli spends the whole summer of his two-hundred-fiftieth nameday in Aglarond. It's a rarity—usually by Midsummer's Eve Legolas has called on him for an errand, and more often than not that "errand" becomes an adventure, and he doesn't traipse back to his halls until the young twin mallorn trees flanking the gates are full gold.

The whole settlement celebrates—and for the whole summer, it seems. On Midsummer's eve itself, the King Elessar sends fireworks, and Dwarves and Men alike gather on the battlements of the Deep to watch them light the valley. Legolas does the lighting, scrambling and careful at once. Gandalf had taught him some little of the art, centuries before when he himself was something of a firecracker.

On his nameday proper, Gimli fills the Great Hall. They feast and drink ales and red wine, and when the festivities wane, the children of Aglarond begin to fight for Gimli's attention.

It has been a tradition for decades—ever since Legolas and Gimli had spent the better part of a year the Shire for Faramir Took's wedding. That had been almost seventy years before. Samwise had celebrated a birthday, and his guest-gift had been among the most thoughtful Gimli had ever received—perhaps even taking a second place to the three strands.

During their time at Bag End, Sam had noticed Gimli's attention to the New Tree: he wandered down to it in the mornings, ran his hands over it, sat in the shade beneath it and watched its shadows shift in the evenings. So on Sam's birthday, his guest-gift for Gimli had been two of its fine nuts, and a small leather sack containing a sample of soil. It was, he confessed, some of the last of the original soil that Galadriel had given him all those years before. When Gimli had returned to Aglarond, he'd planted the mallyrn, and with Legolas's careful tending they have grown into tall guards of the gates.

And ever since then, Gimli has taken up the Hobbitish habit of giving gifts on his nameday.

Most of the gifts go to the children, and none in Aglarond object to that. The Dwarflings' gifts are always carefully chosen, playing to their hobbies and encouraging them to hone their natural gifts. And he is skilled in such gift-giving. The Men who are now full-grown still remind him of what he gave them in such-and-such a year.

This year, he has had more time for the crafting. The smallest get toys: carefully carven knucklebones; shell games with real shells, intricate symbols carved into their pearly undersides; glass stars for decoration; sleek and slender iron hoops for rolling; tiny wooden birds with moving wings; little drums, or, for one small girl, a set of pipes made from true reeds. Older children get tools for their tradecrafts: child-sized picks and hammers accompanied by a strict warning not to use them without adult permission, perfect molds for soaps and candles, trowels for the ones who love the living things, and cunning leather pouches with many pockets for those with an interest in healing. And a scant few, mostly the children who are favorites of Legolas, noisily share their delight over a new book or quill-and-inkpot while the other Dwarflings wrinkle their noses in confusion.

The children spend some time examining one another's treasures, chattering in Khuzdul and smacking away uncareful hands.

"Umâmê," Gimli intones, "it is rude to speak the Tongue in the company of Prince Legolas."

Legolas, at his side, waves a dismissive hand. "I need not understand them," he says. "After all, if they wish to speak to me, they shall." And suddenly there is a clamor of attention for the elf, the children pulling themselves up off the floor and throwing them at his knees.

"When is your nameday, Legolas?" asks Markûn, one of the smallest Dwarves present. His hair is a dark wild mane about him, but in asking the question he has stilled, looking up.

"Elves do not celebrate our nameday, but instead the day of our conception," he explains. "Mine is in the early autumn, in the month we call Ivanneth. But I have lived many years—more than you can count, young ones—and often I celebrate with only a meditation."

Gimli roars with laughter. "How dull seems the life of an Elf, at times! And yet how bawdy. I never asked my mother after my conception day, so I cannot take on your celebration."

The children tire not long thereafter, and after they tumble off to bed the adults gather 'round, Dwarven and Rohirric both. They have grown close in community, and Gimli has watched with interest as the gap between their races slims. Still, he had been surprised six years before when he was asked to solemnize a marriage between a Dwarrowdam and a Man of Rohan. Adzik and Eadmer are near the front of the throng tonight, their fingers intertwined and their smiles luminous.

"My Lord, will you honor us with a story tonight?" Fjalar asks.

"That can be your gift to us," Haleth agrees.

"Bah," Gimli says, "but you've heard all the interesting ones! I have had enough birthdays already. I'm running out of stories."

"Then tell us of the last year," one of the young women suggests.

"Very well," Gimli says, his surliness gone in a moment, and he launches excitedly into telling of his last trip to the settlement at Moria.

Legolas finds his mind adrift, but when the candles begin to gutter, Gimli raises his voice for a powerful finish.

"As Dwarves, we are a people of stone, but do not let it be said that we cannot learn. King Durin is cautious, and he explores more than he mines, as we do here in Aglarond. We will not make the mistakes of our forebearers. We are building for the future: preserving our legacies, but tempering our haste with wisdom, our greed with craft, our ambition with love. And we are joining together with allies, instead of keeping our proud distance. Do not forget this when I am gone. This is who we are, who we have become, and who we must be henceforth."

Chapter Text

Once they have traveled a half-dozen times across the reaches of the land—from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills, the tip of lonely Andrast to the border with Near Harad, and so near to Rhûn that Aragorn has to beg them not to go again—Gimli suggests that he and Legolas might settle down. Not stop traveling entirely, he says hastily. Just… settle into a routine.

It is a day Legolas had known would come. In truth, there have been times he has wished for this day to hasten. It is difficult to watch his companion’s steps begin to slow on the road as the day wears on, or to wake to find he has fallen asleep on his watch. But Legolas, scarcely older than the day they met by Elven standards, could never be the one to ask. Could never say slow down to a creature as fiery and fierce as Gimli.

So when winter nears, they turn their steps toward Aglarond. This is not unusual: both their races are built hardy enough to withstand the snows, but even the great adventurers are guilty of preferring a few comforts to the wilds, when the choice is theirs to make. As in years past, they bring ample supplies, stocking the caves until spring. And they make plans: when they will go alone, and when together. How they will travel, and whom they might invite along. Legolas might have thought such restrictions would seem to stifle, but he finds a strange freedom in it instead.

Soon it is the New Year, and the plans they have built over the past months seem less wise as the day nears, but in the middle of January, Legolas sews fur into the lining of his spring cloak, and Gimli helps him pack his horse, fretting like a Hobbit over his light supplies.

“You’re sure you wouldn’t prefer a little meat? Básda has a stock of dried venison that even you could not scorn. And Adzik and Eadmer have offered a dozen times to share their honeyed goat cheese.”

“You have asked them a dozen times to share, and they have said yes,” Legolas laughs, “which is not the same thing. The journey is not so very long, and the food in Ithilien will be plenty. It is for your sake I packed more than just lembas, my friend.”

Gimli sniffs. “Nuts are for rodents and birds, and dried berries not much better. What will the men of Gondor think of my hospitality, when you arrive with your pockets full of seed?”

“I will eat the seed, and my pockets will be empty,” Legolas answers lightly. “Gimli, pen-vuil, your pretense is in vain. You worry not of your reputation, or of the pride of our friends, but of my own well-being. Can you not say so?”

The solid Dwarf seems to shrink into himself for a moment, and he reddens under his iron-gray beard. “I can,” he says. “But it is not my way, as you well know. Very well, I do worry for you. The road is long, and you do not often take it alone.”

“I took it alone, and others, for many centuries before I knew you, steadfast heart,” he says gently. “But for you, I will have a round of that cheese.”

---

Gimli has never been much of a letter-writer, so Legolas gets only one stunted message, at the beginning of March, sent by raven: We’ll come at the first thaw as planned. Tell the Builders to expect us: we will see to the bridge at Osgiliath. (He thinks of sending a response, and showing how to send a proper message, but Gimli’s ravens have never taken to him in any case: they take wing as soon as he has thanked them.)

Gimli’s caravan arrives as Anduin swells with meltwater. With him are two teams of his Dwarven craftsmen, along with a handful of the Caves’ young Men who are eager for a chance to leave home, even if only to move stone for a few weeks. But all of them spend their first days in Osgiliath helping heap sandbags: it’s the worst flood the city has seen in decades, bad enough that the prince Eldarion and his companion, the Steward Elboron, come on the King’s behalf to determine the need for aid.

Legolas has met them both before: Elboron is the Prince of Ithilien, like his father before him, and Eldarion seems at times a natural extension of his father, overlooked when others are dismissed for the sake of a private conversation.

But in these days at Osgiliath, they seem to him equals for the first time. There is no mistaking Aragorn’s age, his impending grace and his Choice: Eldarion is near a king, although still full of a boyish energy. But suddenly, beyond the shadow of his father, he does not seem a starstruck child—at least, no more than all Men seem so to Legolas. He is a worthy Man: he heaves sandbags along with the rest of them, lightens the mood of all around him with well-timed wit, speaks to everyone he sees, from the worried old women to the crying children to the soldiers who stand stoic-faced. And on their third day, he leaps over the fortifications and wades chest-deep into the swift water to retrieve a drowning pup.

Once the waters begin to sink back to their natural banks, the Dwarves refocus their attentions to the main bridge, which was hastily remade after the War, fortified some years later, and since then has been left to itself. Legolas stays for long enough to see them tear it out entirely, and then returns with the Lord Steward Elboron to Ithilien.

When the new bridge is finished, the Dwarves and Men take their caravan back to the Glittering Caves, and Gimli comes to the caves at Ithilien. Elboron returns to the White City at the close of April, and thereafter Legolas spends many of his days alone, or with the other Elves, planting some days and tending to the old trees all others. Some days he finds one of the old trees of the forest, spends hours climbing it gently or curling to sit among the tangles of its roots and speaking to it in the old tongues. Then he and Gimli take their evening meals together, and they talk or craft or wander late into the night, every day until the planting season is over.

Once, Gimli suggests it might not be time for them to retire their travels after all. “You’ll go mad with this stillness,” he says. “You’re young and hale yet. We needn’t go alone: we can join a party of adventurers. I can make some use of myself, even if I’m no good against the beasties any longer.”

“Why do I have the feeling that I am not the one you think will go mad with the stillness?” Legolas asks. “Need we find you a hobby, Master Gimli?”

“I have one of those,” Gimli answers, “about a hundred leagues that way.” He jerks his thumb toward the northwest, toward Aglarond. “I had only so many caves to explore here, lad. If I was sure five years ago that there were no more secret passages, I’m even surer now.”

“Then you shall go to Minas Tirith,” Legolas suggests. “The company of Aragorn will keep you from boredom.”

“He’ll complain,” Gimli says drily. “He always does, when I come alone. Says you must be tired of his old face.”

“I’ll visit, ere we ride out again,” Legolas promises. “When will you go?”

“Tomorrow,” Gimli says. “When shall I tell him you’ll be along?”

Legolas thinks of the trees he has not visited, the trunks he has not touched, the new growth of leaves he has not seen, and more: the time he could spend instructing the young humans of Ithilien how to sense which wood to cut; the rumors of a patch of tree-disease to the south. But he says, “I’ll leave a week hence.”

---

By the time Legolas arrives in Minas Tirith, Gimli has promised to bring four teams of builders a year hence. Aragorn will hear nothing of the Dwarf’s pleas to improve the oldest parts of the city, but he will allow work on the Fourth Level, where much of the City Guard resides.

Good, then. The talk of more adventure is ended. He wonders if Gimli had spoken of it to Aragorn, if their friend had laughed his expansive laugh and forbidden it, or whether he had come to the conclusion on his own on the short trek alone from Ithilien to Minas Tirith.

One night, when Gimli has taken the guardsmen up on their offer of a drink, Legolas finds Aragorn in his private study—alone, for once. He sits wordlessly in the chair across from his friend, and the king’s dark eyes meet his. The ghost of a smile crosses his face.

“My son has been asking about you,” he says. “You would think him a child of ten, the way he persists.”

“And what does he ask?”

Aragorn hesitates, as if he had not predicted the question, obvious though it was.

“He asked why you had not sailed,” he says finally.

“And what did you tell him?”

“That I could not presume to know your mind on the matter. I did make him to understand that it was a deeply personal question, but he may come asking in any case. His curiosity and his prudence are often at war.”

“I would not begrudge him the question,” Legolas admits. “Your son is a good man. He will be a good king.” And now he hesitates. “I do not mean—”

“I know,” Aragorn says gently. “But he is good, is he not? Better than I, in ways. And nothing at all like me, I think at times: oft I see his grandfather in him. Lord Elrond’s wisdom, his fierce protectiveness at odds with his strange openness. They both believe in emotion: in feeling it truly, I should say. How well did you know Lord Elrond?”

“Ah,” Legolas says, and lifts his head to look at the ceiling, casting his mind years back, although not so many years. “I was meant to pay him more attention than I did. You see, one summer my father sent me to attend him, but a scrappy Ranger boy stole all my attention.” For all his attempt to remain expressionless, he cannot suppress the small smile that comes with the memory.

“Scrappy!” Aragorn says, and laughs. “You wound me. A boy I was, certainly, for I am still a child in your eyes, and I know that well. But my scrappy years were behind me. When you came, I had spent the four years past training with the Dúnedain, and I had grown tall and well-muscled.”

“You were attempting to grow a beard,” Legolas remembers, and the king groans.

“I was,” he says. “And I had cut my hair. A sort of defiance, I think, for when I was a child Lord Elrond had always had me grow it long—as if that would help the others forget I was not an Elf.”

“To think back on that boy,” Legolas says, “I should scarcely recognize you now. But to answer your question: I did come to know Elrond better, in the years after.”

“But to you those were short years.”

“Like a season would seem for you, I should think.”

“A season can be long,” Aragorn says wistfully, and his eyes drift slightly before his jaw tightens and he returns his attention.

“Nevertheless—I knew him as a Lord while you knew him as a father. So, as short as your years may be, I should say you knew him best.”

“Still—can you see it?”

“In your son? Yes. It is true that he has a way about him. I have known many with the heritage of both Man and Elf, but none whose carriage bears it so well. He does not feel himself divided between worlds, or at least it does not seem so to me. I see his mother in him, and you, at once, and constantly. The grace you both bear, and the wisdom; the fierce and the gentle natures.”

“You are lucky he is not here,” the King laughs. “He spoke much of you - he admires you greatly.”

“He knows me but little.”

“He is a shrewd judge of character,” Aragorn says, smiling gently again. “In that regard, at least, he is like his father… who once took pity on a bored Elf and provided a distraction.”

“Dedicated his life to that cause, I should say.”

“A good cause.” The smile fades from Aragorn’s face, and he leans back into his chair. “I have missed you, mellon nín. I know you have love for the work you do and the life you live, else I'd beg you and Gimli both to wait on me here.”

“What use would you find for a crotchety ancient Dwarf and a sea-addled Elf, my king?”

But Aragorn does not take kindly to Legolas’s ribbing. His voice is a rumble of certainty: “I would have you chase off the old Men who advise me, and take your rightful places at my table,” he says, his brows furrowed and firm.

Legolas is silent for a moment. Despite his friend’s preface, it is clear that this is a true request. It was simply phrased so that it could not be interpreted as a command.

“My king,” he says, and finds his throat dry. “My friend. Estel. If your wish should ever become a need, do not hesitate to say so. I would serve you, and gladly, if you could not tread the path without me.”

Aragorn seems to calm once more at this. “I know you would,” he says, his voice rich and warm, as if he is young again. “And for that I love you, and I will never ask.”

These are not the words Legolas expected, and he answers in earnest: “If it should come to that, you must,” he says.

“I put my Kingdom first. This you know. So I will say: should Gondor need you at my side, then I will call.”

“Estel, you are Gondor.”

Aragorn grimaces. “Would that it were so. No more than your father was the Greenwood, Legolas. No more than Rohan died with Théoden King. It is not so.”

“To me, it is. I see how you ache when the land bleeds, how you are strong when the seasons are full-ripened. Eldarion will be a good king, but in my heart, the place he rules will never be Gondor. When you are gone, there shall be no more Gondor.”

Aragorn lifts his cup of wine and drinks deeply, then lifts it toward Legolas as if in a toast. “Then I shall aspire to live a while longer,” he says softly, and that is all: there is nothing more to say.

---

Just but before the sun begins to scorch, Legolas and Gimli return together to the Glittering Caves. A new passage has been found in their absence, and Gimli spends three days exploring it with a small contingent of younger Dwarves. When they return, Legolas takes the separate scraps of their mapping paper and joins them, creating a complete map of the new wing in his fine, neat strokes. He does not go, himself, into the great depths: away from the gleam of crystals he begins to feel that he has lost the sun. But the Dwarves who go next into the new wing assure him his map is near-perfect.

Legolas wishes for Meriadoc, who had always loved maps. He had not begun his own mapmaking until after the Hobbits had passed.

Together, Legolas and Gimli while away the summer in the cool depths. Or rather, Legolas whiles, and Gimli works and works, returning to their quarters only to slide wearily onto his bed, face-down, and moan complaints until he drifts to sleep.

When it is time for the harvest, together they ride back to Ithilien. Legolas works in the farms of Men, assisting in the harvest, feeling the good in crops and helping them to avoid those that have been taken by disease or rot. He has always been strong, but after these days in the fields, with the autumn sun on his back and the earth whispering to him, he feels wearied. Some days he brings home gifts for Gimli: a special stone uprooted with potatoes, a wide leaf in burnished gold, an ancient trinket buried in the long grasses. This season Gimli has found the companionship of the elder children of Ithilien, teaching them to fight safely, replacing the war games they had played before with the rough recklessness of youth with no comprehension of danger.

“Did you ever want children?” Legolas asks one night when he comes across his friend by the Pool, his young companions only recently scattered to their homes.

“I? Oh,” Gimli says. “I suppose not. In a different time, perhaps, but I could not have stomached having a child during war.”

“You were yet young when the war ended. Did you never, then, think to seek out a dwarrowdam?”

“Ah, I lusted after a few, it is true. But I no more wished to settle down than you. We could not have lived the lives we have lived, this past century. I have no regrets.”

“I did wish to settle down, once,” Legolas says, and sits on the path with his back to the stone, still fifteen paces from where Gimli is perched on a boulder that almost looks carved as a seat. “It was expected of me, you know. But my… tastes… differed from my father’s. He would never have consented to any of the matches I wanted.”

“Did you require his consent?”

“Not by law, but by code and honor. I loved my father, proud and selfish though he was. To disappoint him was near-unbearable.”

“I cannot imagine you had to bear it often.”

“I did. I was his favorite child—and alas, he was a cold enough man to tell that to my brothers. Now that he is gone, I can reflect clearly, and see that his expectations of me were often unreasonable. And he cared little for my own desires. He wished to shape me: sometimes I wonder if he intended me to succeed him, although by what means I cannot think. But I was made of a tough clay, and only grew harder with age.”

“You have not spoken of him in years, khâzash.”

“Somehow it seems easy tonight.”

Gimli comes to sit beside him, lowering slowly and awkwardly onto the ground. “I am not good at saying these things,” he says, “but any time it seems easy, my friend, I will listen.”

“My thanks,” Legolas answers softly, looking at his own knees.

“Do you speak to Aragorn of these things?” Gimli asks. “He is a strong listener, and could speak wisdom.”

“I would not trouble Aragorn with such things,” Legolas answers. “Beyond which, he must deal with my brothers in matters of state, and I would not taint him with my stories. The peace is nearly whole. I will not be the one to introduce strife.”

“Ah,” says Gimli, and they sit for a while until the night’s chill is too much to bear.

The winter comes not long thereafter, earlier than expected, so they spend only two days in Minas Tirith before returning to their home in Aglarond, to the shared chamber large enough to house both of them—decorated in the colors of both of their houses, rich with the artifacts of both their peoples, until the New Year comes and it is time to start again.

It is the way their lives have been since they met: somehow, it works, so they keep going.

----

Translations:

pen-vuil: dear one; Sindarin

mellon nín: my friend; Sindarin

khâzash: brother; Khuzdul

Also, I forgot to translate from the last chapter: Gimli called the Dwarven children umâmê, which means “my little makers”. (Or at least, it’s supposed to! I’m still getting the hang of neo-Khuzdul.)

The Dwarven and Rohirric names are all either cobbled together from existing names or, in the case of as many of the Dwarven names as I could manage, taken from the Völuspá (the Norse poem from which Tolkien took most of his Dwarf-names). But Sindarin I’m better at, so most of the Sindarin names have very deliberate meanings. If I forget to translate one, ask me!

Chapter Text

The fourth year, Legolas stays south for the summer.

It is the first year that has not seen a disaster of some sort: first there had been the floods, although in the end there had been little damage. Then a disease that had eaten away at the trees of the Lossarnach and threatened to spread to the crops. In their third year, when the Dwarven caravan bound for Minas Tirith was near the Whispering Wood, bandits had attacked and killed two of the young Men, throwing Gimli into a foul mood that had lasted the full season. Legolas and Gimli had retreated back to Aglarond earlier than planned that spring, and now was time to make up for it.

Gimli sends a raven when he reaches the Caves, brusque as usual, and Legolas writes a lengthy message that he sends with the Lord Steward Elboron’s fine message-hawk. He uses the most florid language he can, flourishes in ink that he is sure will make his friend snort in amusement, and signs with a sentimental closing and his full title.

When the hawk returns without a response, Legolas is more amused than surprised. Gimli is not a demonstrative Dwarf. Their friendship is built on actions, not words. Still, when midsummer approaches without so much as a note, he worries somewhat. This will be the longest they have been separate since Legolas’s solo journey to the Greenwood, some two decades before. Doubtless the Lord of the Glittering Caves is busy, too busy to think of a proper response to a letter intended as a challenge. Were anything awry, Legolas would have heard.

The Prince Eldarion visits several times that summer, and Legolas finds himself secreted away with the young Man and his Steward companion more than once. On Midsummer’s Eve, they celebrate together, all three: Eldarion admits that he is forsaking the fine fireworks and sumptuous feasts of the White City with his family in favor of a small bonfire in a moonlit clearing, but that does not seem to Legolas an entirely terrible choice. They drink a lebethron-aged red wine from the rich vineyards of Dol Amroth, and when he has taken a few glasses, Elboron begins to speak of the Lady of Swans, Aerandir daughter of Alphros, the younger sister of Romenaur, the Prince of Dol Amroth.

“Silver her hair, but not like that of a crone: it shines like the sea-spray in moonlight. But no. It has none of the harshness of the sea. It is a soft halo of moon alone. And her face is small and delicate-featured, her fingers long and nimble on her harp, but her arms are strong from rowing: she cannot be taken from the water.”

“Then you might as well give her up, because I cannot think my father would much like his Steward living in Dol Amroth,” Eldarion says. He, too, has had more drink than Legolas: he has thrown himself backwards onto the grass, gazing up at the stars, but when he speaks to Elboron he throws an arm outward as if to comfort.

“Well,” Elboron scoffs, “our Elven friend here manages it quite well enough.”

“What does he manage?”

“Two homes,” Elboron says. “His and his love’s. They are much like us, the Lady of Swans and I. For like Gimli, she fades when separated from the land for which she was made. But like you, Legolas, I could not be torn from the forests.”

Eldarion begins to laugh, clutching his stomach and curling his legs inward toward his chest so that he can roll onto his side. “Ah—ah—ah,” he cries, “his love, oh Elboron, you riotous fool! How have you lived these years not understanding? Legolas and Gimli are not—ah!” Tears stream down his face.

“You are not lovers?” Elboron asks, his eyes widened at Legolas as if in alarm.

“No,” Legolas says, uncertain if he should be amused or affronted. “But perhaps you are not so wrong in your thinking, Elboron. I do love Gimli, and to be parted with him is like to miss a part of myself. We are gwedyr, sworn brothers, shield-brothers. But we are not—we do not belong to one another.”

“You,” Elboron says, uncertain, “you share quarters, do you not?”

“Aye, but not a bed. And Gimli’s interest is certainly in dwarrowdams,” Legolas says. It occurs to him that Elboron, who has known them for years, must have all along thought of them this way, and he imagines kissing Gimli’s bearded face and laughs aloud.

“And you never have been?” Elboron follows, seeming unable to conceive of this.

“No,” Legolas says, and this humor, the laughter held back in his throat, joins with the wine to create a feeling like bubbling. This is a sort of joy, this friendship with these two young Men. He will be sorry to lose it, when he sails.

“While we speak of it,” Eldarion says, sitting upright again. “Have you had a partner? I have never had the nerve to ask: I know Elves join for life, but so many now have sailed, and many also passed in the wars.”

He has thought little of it in decades, but the question continues to return. “I have had lovers,” Legolas answers, “but never a partner. As a Prince, I had certain responsibilities I was expected to fulfill with the choice of a life-mate, and none of those I could have chosen were ever suitable.”

“Are they gone now?” Eldarion asks. “The ones you would have chosen.”

“Yes,” Legolas says, and he keeps his voice calm, but he has had enough wine that he cannot prevent himself from thinking of a morning that should have been triumphant: of golden hair matted in a veritable lake of long-cooled blood, of an empty face on the stones among so many others.

“I am sorry,” Eldarion says, and he refills first his own cup and then Legolas’s.

“And you, my Prince? What of your marriage prospects?” Elboron asks, and Eldarion scowls.

“You know full-well the answer to that question, my Lord Steward,” the prince answers angrily.

“But I do not,” Legolas says, and Eldarion gapes at him.

“Surely you are not interested in such idle gossip,” he says.

“The future of the line of the Reunited Kingdom seems far from idle to me,” Legolas says, and Eldarion’s frown deepens.

“Then surely you know, as you have just told us of the rejection of your own matches, how awful it is to be required to find someone suitable,” he says, throwing himself to his feet and stalking some paces away, his back to them. Elboron swiftly gets to his feet and moves to his friend’s side, settling a gentle hand on his shoulder as if he expects it to be thrown off.

“I should not have asked,” he says. “You are right, Eldarion. We both know that it is difficult to bear the weight of our positions when matters of the heart are at play. In truth, I am sorry.” Eldarion’s shoulders sink slightly.

“But it is true,” he says, turning back to them, “unless my father is less discreet than I think him, that Legolas does not know of my trouble—and the two of you may be the only men within leagues capable of truly understanding me in this matter.”

“If you wish to speak, then speak,” Legolas says. “If you do not—I make no demands.”

“There are plenty of suitable women,” Eldarion says, sitting again beside Legolas. “I find many of them charming, their conversation scintillating; they are none of them hags, for my father’s taste, although different from mine, is not poor. And there are a number of politically expeditious marriages that I could make, and I do wish to serve my kingdom in that way. But my parents married for love, at great personal cost, and so I was raised believing that I could do the same, if it came to that.”

“Can you not?”

“No.”

“Shall I speak to your father on your behalf?” Legolas asks. “Tell me more, and perhaps I can intercede.”

“The union I wish would bear no children,” Eldarion says. “The line would pass to the sons of my sisters, upon my passing. My father… does not wish that for me.”

“But you wish it for yourself,” Elboron interrupts quietly.

“No,” Eldarion answers emphatically, looking up at them, one to another, pleading with his gaze for understanding. “I wish that I could overcome my nature. I wish that I could marry a beautiful women, that she could bear my children, that it could be I who raised the king who will follow me, much as I love my sisters and my young nephews. I wish that I could make my father proud.” And although they will not say more of it, Legolas knows now that he and Eldarion are of a kind. The young Prince understands better than anyone Legolas has known.

“Your father is proud of you,” Legolas says, because he wishes that someone had told him that when he was younger: someone true, someone trusted. “If you choose not to marry, he will accept your choice. And if he does not, you can call upon me, and I will slap sense into him.” He pauses, and Elboron finishes for him.

“And we accept you, Eldarion, as you are and not as you might be,” the Steward says. His eyes are sad: he, too, knows Eldarion’s truth.

“We do,” Legolas agrees.

“Well,” Eldarion says, “my thanks.” He dashes a hand across his eyes. “Ah, I have needed this. This past season I have been more stifled at home than usual, and it has been difficult to identify the reason, but now I see that hiding my feelings has does me injury.” He smiles at both of them. “I am due to return to the City next week, but I do not believe I shall. Would either of you come with me to Pelargir?”

---

Elboron stays in Ithilien, promising to supervise the tree-tending in Legolas’s stead. It has been years upon years since Legolas saw Pelargir, its shipyards and its winding streets, and there is good reason for that. It is dangerous for Legolas, to go so near the Sea, but his love of the salt air is matched by the young prince’s.

They tour the building yards, and then together they spend two weeks in the back room of their inn, drawing designs for new ships. Each time, they change this feature or that: to better withstand storms or carry more cargo without needing larger sails. On days when their imaginations run dry, they walk along the water and talk of the old days. Legolas tells stories, and finds in Eldarion both an avid listener and a great asker of questions. The young prince makes him think in ways he has not in years, and he sees even more clearly that which Aragorn had spoken of—the wisdom, the quiet focus. And although the King sees Lord Elrond in those manners, Legolas sees two hundred years back: a scrappy Ranger, learning that his manhood cannot be earned by the sword alone.

On their last day, they visit the Master Shipbuilder and give him copies of all of their prints. He is amazed at some of the ideas they put forth and dismissive of others, but he promises to put several to the test, and inform them of the results.

Then it is time to go home. He has been half a year away this time, many months separated from Gimli, and he thinks at first of all the things he will tell his friend: of Elboron’s misunderstanding, which will undoubtedly result in some crude and insulting conversation regarding Legolas’s appearance. Of Eldarion’s graceful friendship, and he hopes that Gimli will not feel badly that Legolas traveled to Pelargir without him. But mostly, he thinks of water.

Legolas has thought much of the Sea, but little of ships. On his journey back to the Caves, he thinks of little else, dreaming of masts and boards until his fingers are stiff on the reins and he has gone long past the time for rest.

Mithrandir's was meant to be the last ship. No one knows by what means Elladan and Elrohir had departed, and it was said that a ship waited for Samwise in the harbor, but then he was a Ring-Bearer.

Legolas knows there is no such ship that will await him. Círdan is gone, with his great gray face and great gray ships, and perhaps the Longing can guide Legolas beyond the place where the stars vanish and all is fog, but he cannot row to Valinor. He will need sails and supplies, water and lembas at least to carry him numberless days.

But thinking of water and lembas, he again thinks of Gimli. Of his friend’s blustering concern when he travels alone, of the gruffness in his face when he pushes a perfectly wrapped wheel of cheese into Legolas’s hands, of the way his glances dart up at Legolas’s face and down at his own feet when he shows his true feelings: the worry, the regret, the confusion.

Will Gimli be there to see him off? Will he stand at the shoreline like a statue until the ship disappears in the distance? Will he demand that Legolas pack meats and fruits and greens?

He thinks on it long, and concludes that it could never happen that way, but part of him cannot be certain.

---

In the autumn, after Legolas has returned to the caves, he finds the messengers come for him twice as often as before. Every few weeks, the young prince sends more sketches: his preference is for larger ships and more ambitious changes. Legolas draws atop the prints and sends them back corrected, or sometimes starts from scratch, improving upon the designs with the caution learned from age.

But along with the ships, Eldarion sends images of his home, and Legolas finds he enjoys them almost as much. The Man has a steady hand and a good eye for composition. Here is a drawing of the King Elessar at his table, sitting back in his chair with his eyes closed in a gentle contentment. Here is the Lady Arwen by the fountain, holding the hand of her eldest daughter, Eldarion’s sister Estaranel. Here, a rough sketch by memory of the Master Shipwright. And one of Legolas himself, the lines of his body smoother than he believes they truly are. Eldarion remembers him made of soft edges. He is not sure what to make of that.

He would hang the drawings above his work-desk were the walls not made of solid stone. Instead he sets them aside and determines that he will bring them to Ithilien next year. There will be plenty of places to display them there.

“Does it make it worse?” Gimli asks one night while Legolas pores over the latest ship designs from the prince. “Thinking of it so much?”

“I think of it no more often than before,” Legolas answers, which is no comfort to Gimli, but is the truth.

A few weeks later, when the next batch of sketches arrives, Gimli again appears beside Legolas’s desk. He watches the work for a while, as if admiring, and then asks, “You would not leave without me, would you?”

Legolas looks up from his work and furrows his brow, wondering if he has forgotten something, if this is a continuation of a prior conversation. Has his mind wandered so far? “My friend, speak clearer,” he says, looking back to the papers.

“On the ships,” Gimli says, fumbling with his words as he does when he’s nervous. “You wouldn’t… go. Before I die. Would you? You wouldn’t leave me here?”

Legolas sets down the papers and turns to face him. The Sea-longing in him quiets of a sudden, and he feels a rush of horror: no, surely he is not capable of that. Surely not even the Longing could draw him from his best of friends, his warrior-brother, the other and darker half of himself.

But he had imagined it, hadn’t he? Gimli on the shore as he sailed away. Gimli fretting over his foodstuffs.

He stands, then kneels in front of Gimli, who is standing now stiff and awkward, clearly alarmed both that he had dared ask such a question and that Legolas has not swiftly answered it. Legolas lifts his hands and places them on Gimli’s forearms, but that is not enough: he embraces him from this awkward height, pressing his face into Gimli’s shoulder.

“I will not,” he whispers. “I will not go without you.” He withdraws and meets the Dwarf’s dark eyes. “You are right to ask. I know I have been changed. You scarcely knew me before I had the Longing, but even after these long years you remember who I was before it. You remember how I loved Middle-Earth, the wood and stone both. And now, you see that I do not always remember it. You see, you must see, that it happens more and more: sometimes I forget to love the forest, or the things that glitter here in Aglarond. But I do not ever forget you, Gimli. You and Aragorn are the remaining moorings that tie me here, and I will set loose from neither of you before your times.”

Now Gimli’s eyes glitter, and it is no reflection. He presses his lips together in the gruff smile he makes when he is sad and happy at once, and nods, clapping a hand onto Legolas’s forearm.

“Good,” he says. “I don’t like to think of it. You, out in the water and all alone. Now I will not worry, during our seasons apart, that you might be taken by a fit of this Longing you speak of and go beyond. You’ve a span much longer than mine, Legolas. I don’t mind the thought of you staying another hundred years beyond me, or more.” He gives a weak chuckle. “But if it gets too bad and you can’t help but go, call on me and I shall come with you, rather than be left behind.”

Legolas senses that he is meant to think that Gimli is bluffing, but he knows his best friend better than that. For the first time, he sends Eldarion a drawing of his own: a drawing of a ship that he could not steer alone.

Translations/Names:

Aerandir: Sea-wanderer, Sindarin (the great-granddaughter of Imrahil)

Estaranel: First princess, Quenya (Aragorn and Arwen’s first daughter)
(I know this is a little bit of a boring translation, but Eldarion’s name means OF THE ELDAR, so I think it’s fair for A&A to go for another very-literal name.

Chapter Text

The spring that follows is a hard one. A late frost in the northern settlements kills most of the early crops, and another bout of heavy flooding takes the second planting. Minas Tirith has stocked well to prepare for such setbacks, but the villages are hit hard. When Legolas comes from Ithilien to offer his aid, Aragorn is beset with letters from the outskirts, begging for aid, asking if there will be room in the city for them for the winter that comes. Their grain will run out before the New Year.

Among those hit are the farmers who supply much of the fresh food for Aglarond. With the Elves who tend Fangorn so nearby, Gimli’s people will not starve. Even should the ample pantries of the caves empty, they have been promised enough to sustain them: lembas, the dried fruit and nuts that the Dwarves so scorn. The Men of Dale have already sent a supply of cram. Gimli sends another of his rare letters: Will not be coming south this season. To the northern settlements instead. They need new stockhouses and more. This must not happen again.

Legolas finds the King in his study again, alone once more and ragged-faced as Legolas has ever seen him. He looks up and offers a weak smile.

“The Shire may have better luck,” he says. “I’m writing to them: to Elanor Fairbairn, Faramir Took, Theo Brandybuck.” He holds up the letter, and Legolas reads, My children, it is my hope that the Shire is expecting a ripe harvest this year. Aragorn looks up at Legolas ruefully. “I have always called them ‘my children,’” he says. “I suppose they think it strange: they are all full-grown, long since. Lords and Ladies of their small houses, masters of their lands. Elanor is expecting a grandchild: did you know?” Legolas had not known. He has not seen Elanor since before Sam sailed. “But they have always seemed to take kindly to the address,” Aragorn continues. “I am hopeful. The soil of the Shire is rich, and the Hobbits have always been steadfast in their protection of their food.”

“It may not be enough,” Legolas says.

“And what of your brother?” Aragorn says, and Legolas stiffens involuntarily. The King raises a hand, his brows knit in instant regret. “Peace, Legolas. You need not be my emissary. I can do my own work in this, but before I waste my parchment I should ask: do you think he would help us? The Fangornings do not have enough lembas for all Aglarond and Anórien too. Besides, we have too many children: the youngest cannot subsist on such simple rations.”

“I have not spoken to Alafhthôn, nor Belleryn, since our father’s passing,” Legolas says. “As you must know, I have learned that I cannot tell their minds any longer.”

“I am sorry,” Aragorn says, and he looks it truly, beyond the kingly sorrow that Legolas has seen in him since he arrived. “I will not involve you.”

They are silent for a while, because Legolas’s mouth is tight and his stomach churning and he cannot think of anything, anything to say. But Aragorn speaks:

“Gimli told me of your promise,” he says. “That you will not sail until he dies.”

“That is not the promise I made,” Legolas says, perhaps more reckless in this confession than he might be at another time. “He made me swear not to leave him behind.” And Aragorn’s eyes grow wide with astonishment, then darkly serious.

“He cannot sail,” he says, almost pleadingly. “Surely you are not so foolish to think different. Frodo did so with a token from Arwen. Sam and Bilbo by special permission from Gandalf, and with the cooperation of Círdan. And who can say what would become of you, should you attempt to bring him? Your ship might sail endlessly in the mists, or set on by storms, or you might be turned away. He could be struck down for the daring. Swear to me you will not try this.”

“No. I cannot say,” Legolas answers. “But if it is consolation to you, we have not spoken of it, other than for him to secure my promise not to leave him alive here while I travel on. I cannot say what his intention, and I will defer to him on the matter. But Aragorn, he does bear the three strands, and the name of Elf-Friend. Should he wish to sail, I do not share your certainty that it would end poorly.”

“I fear for you,” Aragorn says. “For you, mell nín, as well as him. I have seen, each year, your spirit growing more restless. You have resisted the call for this long. But Gimli is right to worry. It has grown more difficult, has it not?”

“The song has always been sweet,” Legolas acknowledges. “But to me nothing can be sweeter than the friendship of Gimli. And of the King Elessar. I will keep my promise to him, and I will make another to you: I will not sail, Aragorn, while you live. Even should Gimli pass before you make your choice, I will not sail. He knows as much, but I have not said so to you, so you should bear witness.”

“I cannot think of it,” Aragorn says, his lips twisting. “But in any case, I suspect it will not come to that.”

“Have you chosen your time?”

“Not yet. But it is approaching. Eldarion is a man full-grown, soon to take a wife, and my line is already assured through my daughters.” Legolas has heard Aragorn speak of this already, as his consolation when Eldarion refused the latest match: his eldest daughter is yet to wed, doting on her mother rather than seeking her match, but the twins have each given birth to three children, and the youngest has one in infancy. Since Eldarion has not bade him do so, Legolas does not speak out on his behalf, but he feels a strange stirring in his chest to hear Aragorn’s careless certainty: soon to take a wife. Surely he would have heard if the Prince had such plans.

“You do not seem unwell,” Legolas says instead.

“I am not,” Aragorn answers, “and I would prefer not to become so. I must be able to rule until the moment of my choice.” He hesitates, and then his lips purse gently and he sighs. “In truth, Arwen is beginning to show signs of her mortality. You will see, doubtless. I wish it were not so, but she refuses the care of the physicians, so in time her affliction will become evident.”

Legolas reaches his hand across the table, and Aragorn takes it gladly. “I am sorry to hear of this,” he says gently. “Will she allow my help?”

“She may,” Aragorn says, and a smile touches his lips again. “We will wait. You’ll return for the harvest?”

“I would not miss it.”

Legolas has seen Dwarves age before. In some ways they grow old in the ways that Men do, more slowly by a small measure only. Like men, first their bodies wrinkle, and their hair turns to silver or iron. Then their blunt fingers begin to lose their finesse. By the time Gimli has passed two hundred fifty-five, it has been more than two decades since he has held a hammer or an axe larger than a Mannish hatchet. But Gimli’s mind does not grow dim, does not fog over or begin to misplace its careful ordering. Gimli’s eyes stay sharp, a dark hue that wavers between slate-gray and dusky brown. Gimli’s steps shorten, but never falter.

But there are more signs. At night, he sits down on the edge of his bed rather than throwing himself upon it. He finds the beads and bindings in his hair and combs his fingers through the strands. The braids, wider and looser than they were in years past, fall apart easily. He lifts one leg, then another, and tosses his coverlet across himself instead of meticulously straightening it from foot to throat.

But it is after Gimli falls asleep that his age shows itself to Legolas at its worst: in the night, Gimli is cold.

The better part of a century they had spent on the road, making tracks north and south, west and back, sometimes alone, other times with a passel of Greenwood Elves or resettling Dwarves. Even in the bitterest cold Gimli was like a furnace, and at those times he offered to share his warmth while the other Dwarves kept to themselves. Not from greed, Legolas now understands, but tradition. When they thought Legolas could not hear, the older Dwarves in their party berated Gimli: the canny knowledges and physical gifts of the Dwarves, they said, were not meant to be shared. They spoke of Aulë, who they called Mahal, of his will and his defiance, and the next night when Gimli brought his blanket to settle in his usual place, Legolas gestured that he wished to speak before sleep.

“I have heard your kinsmen speaking. Gimli, I did not know. There is no need to defy your people’s tradition on my behalf.”

“No need?” Gimli had asked. “You are not cold?”

“Where your Maker gifted you with warmth, I was given endurance. I am hardy. If your gift is not meant to be shared, you should not share it.”

“Then it is no gift,” Gimli rumbled angrily. “If the Maker gave me a gift of meat in a time of want and then told me to hoard it and keep it from my brothers, to watch them starve, is that meant to be a comfort to me? What is a gift if its disposal is not of your choosing?”

“But I will not freeze in the night,” Legolas answered softly. “And besides, I am not your brother.”

“No?” Gimli’s eyes were flinty. “Who told you so?”

Thereafter Legolas accepted the offerings of warmth. Night have passed without counting that they have shared blankets, or lacking that, have pressed close in the night.

Now, in their rooms in the deep of Aglarond, beneath the glittering veins shot through the wall above his head, Gimli is the one who shivers beneath his blankets. Even in the warm of summer and the safety of his own caves, he shivers.

His fire burns low.

Legolas does what he can to stoke it, because there is only this. For himself, he has heard the gulls. He knows he will sail, but not yet. And Gimli will go to the halls set aside for the children of Aulë, or perhaps he will be returned to the stone from which he was carved until it is time to rebuild after the Final Battle and the Second Music. And Aragorn will go to Mandos, as Faramir has, and his White Lady, and eventually Arwen when she fades and her empty sleep comes to an end.

For the first time in his long life, Legolas thinks to beg. All this is to come, and he will embrace it when it does, each to their appointed rest, but not yet. Not yet.

----

Legolas is aging, too. Not as his father had—a growing bitterness, a slow weakening of his small gifts, and eventually what his brothers had only described as “decay”. Nor as Arwen has begun to, with her mind wandering when she is alone, returning to herself surprised to see her children grown, or asking after her brothers.

For Legolas, it is a better fate, perhaps: at times he finds his senses begin to change. Whatever noise is in his ears turns to buzzing, then softens to naught. Whatever is before his eyes becomes clouded until all is white and gray. He has, several times, broken dishes and small trinkets in these fits, as his hands forget them.

Gimli says that he grows pale and still and seems far away. Legolas believes this is truer than his dear friend knows. He is fading from the world, and his ears are given to the waves and gulls, and his eyes to fog, his hands to the sea spray and his tongue to salt air. Whether he wills it or not, he is going to the Sea.

---

Arwen’s affliction grows worse each time Legolas visits. Much of the time she is as she has always been, her face of merry sadness, her hands of gentle strength, her words of certainty and questionings. She helps the King when his muscles are stiff at the end of the day, gently chastises her children and grandchildren if they say something uncouth. She eats well, sleeps well, laughs when leaves brush her bare face.

But when she grows still, she does not seem far away: she is present but wrong. She covers her hands with her face and weeps. She calls in a garbled mess of language for her mother and father, her brothers, her grandmother. She does not recognize her surroundings—even when she is in her own chambers, Aragorn confesses. Even in her beloved garden, by her fountain. In that state, she can look at a piece of artwork she has just spent hours drawing with no recognition.

When Aragorn is present for these moments, their duration is short. He comes beside her in an instant, wraps his arms around her and presses his face into her hair, and speaks to her so sweetly that Legolas wants to turn away. (At first he had, but afterwards Aragorn had begged him stay, in these moments.) She returns to herself gasping, reaches up to cup Aragorn’s face with her hands and twists her face in frustration. Then she looks about the room and apologizes, which is more painful for the onlookers than the rest of the ordeal.

When the King is not there, she will not bear for any to touch her. Even her daughters’ hands she rejects, batting them away with whimpers, shaking her head. In these times she often settles to murmuring softly, and it lasts much longer. Legolas sings to her, when he is there. Eldarion might read from the storybook she had favored when he was a child. Her daughters sometimes call the physician, whom Arwen refuses to see when she is aware. On one such occasion when Legolas is present, he convinces her to drink a warm draft that sends her to sleep. But when she wakes hours later, her confusion is still present.

“Eldarion?” she says. “Is that you?”

“Ná, i naneth nín.”

She weeps again: “You are so old! How long have I slept? What has happened?”

“You are unwell, nana. You slept only a few hours. You will remember it all in a moment.” And if Eldarion looks over to Legolas, his eyes pleading: help me.

“Vanimelda, your son speaks the truth. We were with your twin daughters, Altáriel and Aurëlissë, speaking together of Eldarion’s recent travels to Dol Amroth, when you became confused. This has happened before. You will be well again in a moment, I promise you.”

Her eyes narrow at him, and she tightens her lips. “What must I do to speed it?” she asks.

“There is naught we have found.”

She turns to Eldarion. “My fine little prince,” she says, “give me your arms. Perhaps if you hold me, I’ll believe you to be real.”

Translations:

mell nín: My dear; Sindarin

Ná, i naneth nín: It is, my mother; Sindarin

Nana: Mom; Sindarin

Vanimelda: "the highest word of praise for beauty"; Sindarin; canonically used as a name for Arwen

Name translations:

Alafhthôn: elm and pine; Sindarin (the eldest son of Thranduil)

Belleryn: strong wood; Sindarin (the second son of Thranduil)

Altáriel: radiant garlanded maiden; Quenya (one of the twin daughters of Aragorn and Arwen; Altáriel was also another name for Galadriel, their great-grandmother)

Aurëlissë: sweet sunlight; Quenya (one of the twin daughters of Aragorn and Arwen)

Chapter Text

One summer, when Ithilien is calm in the heat and the Glittering Caves are under the stewardship of a particularly adept Dwarf, Legolas and Gimli visit Lothlórien. It will be the last time: Gimli seems certain of this, and Legolas trusts him.

They wander the forest for several days, but it is not the Golden Wood any longer. Legolas thinks of what he had told Aragorn: When you are gone, there shall be no more Gondor. It is certainly true of the wood and its Lady. Without her, the trees are quieter, their branches hanging heavy. The beautiful homes and telain among the branches are gone, although in places remnants linger, lightly curved boards of the silver wood hanging loose and faded.

Their fifth day in the woods, Legolas hears footsteps above in the branches. He places a hand on Gimli’s chest and calls out, “Gwanur! We thought this place fully abandoned! I am Legolas Greenleaf, son of Thranduil, and this is Gimli son of Gloin, Lord of the Glittering Caves, called the Lock-Bearer, who the Lady Galadriel named Elf-Friend. Will you come to break bread with us?”

“Who is it?” Gimli asks gruffly. “I cannot see.”

“I am Hrívion,” a voice answers, soft as silk. “I had not thought to meet another soul here, much less ones who knew my Lady. Since she left, the borders have fallen: dark things can enter, but few dare, and those that may I have managed to avoid.”

“You have been here since her departure, then?” Legolas asked. “Sadron, I salute you.”

The Elf slips down then, and Legolas watches Gimli for signs of distrust, but the Dwarf steps forward to greet the stranger with his arms open, and to his surprise Legolas finds that his friend has seen something he has not: Hrívion is injured. He accepts the support of Gimli’s arms under his own to catch his bearing, and then pulls away.

He is bright-haired and grey-eyed, and looking on his face for a fleet second only, Legolas can see the history of his family: he is no Silvan elf, but noldo, and a Finarfinildi. Very few of the folk of that line had settled with the Galadhrim, beyond the Lady herself, and none without her express blessing. This is one who had known her, and known her well: a distant cousin perhaps.

“Mae govannen, friends of Lothlórien,” he says.

“Hannon le,” Legolas answers. “Are you in need of healing? How did you come by your wounds?”

“I fell,” he answers. “One of the talan gave way. She warned us, when she left. She said the wood would change, that all would fall to dust. And the Lord Celeborn, when he followed, he begged us to join him. But it was our home.” Legolas feels a chill: the platforms he had seen had collapsed years past. The stranger must have been wounded long ago, and he has never healed.

“Are you the last?” Gimli asks.

“Others come and go,” Hrívion says. “I stay. I alone.” He huddles near the base of the tree, as if he might need to escape at any moment.

“You do not wish to leave?” Legolas asks. “I could take you to the King Elessar, whose Queen is the Lady’s granddaughter. They are fine healers.”

“Sinomë maruvan.” He smiles, but his tone is serious.

“Tenn' Ambar-metta,” Legolas murmurs in response.

“Tenn’ ninya-metta,” Hrívion corrects. “Not long now.” Gimli, for once, does not object to the language, perhaps recognizing the shift to the formal tongue in which Galadriel had spoken and sung. He watches the newcomer wide-eyed. Someone who loved the Lady as much as he, Legolas thinks, and smiles sadly.

“Will you sup with us?” Legolas asks. “We have lembas, meat and cheese, some seed and honey, fresh apples from the south, and flasks of sweet wine.”

Hrívion crooks a smile and shakes his head. “Natyë raina,” he says. “It has been many summers since I last heard friendly words. Will you come with me? I have something you will find of interest.”

He climbs into the trees: it is clear he is much lither on hands and feet than standing upright. They follow the sound of his motion for several hours, and he says nothing more but an occasional, “Here!” to guide them when they lose sight and sound of him. Legolas knows the woods well enough to tell their destination: they are going to Caras Galadhon.

----

On one of the cold nights after Lothlórien, Frodo had told them of the Mirror. He had spoken haltingly: Sam less so, although as always his eyes were on his master as he spoke, prepared to yield if Frodo wished to say something. Gimli had all but huddled, as close as he could be to the Little Ones, wide-eyed as a child for any story about the Lady. Legolas and Aragorn had held back enough to talk amongst themselves in hushed tones.

“I asked, once, if she would let me look within,” Aragorn had said, looking at the ground. “She refused. ‘It is not for you, Estel,’ she said—a surprise, for she had never called me by that name. And never did again.” He paused. “Have you looked?”

“Such magic seems worth saving for those who need it,” he’d answered. “My path is clear. There is naught the waters could tell me.”

“You may be surprised,” Boromir had interjected, sharpening his blade at the waterside, his back to the camp. He’d said no more, and Aragorn had watched him another moment, his brows knit in concern.

Later, Meriadoc had joined Boromir at the edge of the camp, and asked questions about Gondor until the dark-hearted Man had been cheered enough to join them by the fire.

It had been their last good day before the Breaking.

Now Legolas tries to remember how Frodo had described it: the stones on the ground that seemed clean and strong, the light on the water with a shimmer like mithril, the sense of separation and purity with the trees and stones all around and the gentle descent of the stairs. The rest of Lothlórien has crumbled with sad age, but the Glade has been… ruined. Stones walls torn down, the trees in every direction killed and stripped bare of bark and leaf, the steps up to the platform ripped out. But the dais itself, and the silver basil atop it, are untouched. The stream is dry and dead, but on the ground there is also the silver pitcher, upright and untarnished.

“Orc work?” Gimli asks, his voice hoarse.

“Elves,” Hrívion answers. “Some of them grew angry, when the others left.”

“Not you,” Gimli observes.

“The Lady asked me to join her,” he says. “I told her I would stay for-ever. ‘Nay,’ she told me, ‘but long enough.’ And she foretold that I would be the last, and then she…” He trails off, looking lost, and shifts from one ruined leg to the other. “When I said I would stay—when I said I would never leave—she bade me offer a look in the mirror to those who came for it. She asked that I be watchful. I thought it would be unsuspecting travelers, coarse Men who would not know the gift I gave them. I did not dare dream that you would be my visitors. You, who are worthy. Will you look?”

“It is empty,” Legolas answers softly.

But Hrívion stoops and lifts the pitcher, carries it to the dais, and pours a long measure of cool, crystalline water into the basin. “She made certain,” he says, and breathes on the surface of the water. It ripples. Something seems to move within it.

Gimli looks to Legolas, and he must see some hesitation, because he steps forward eagerly, standing atop a broken shard of stone to peer within.

Almost at once he begins to tremble. “Oh!” he says. “Oh!” And tears form in his dark eyes and run unchecked down his face and into his silvering beard. His face shines in the light reflecting off the water, and Legolas can see the tremble of his strong chin, the shuddering width of his eyes, holding something impossible to fully express, like rapture or horror. “I will,” he whispers after another moment, his voice husky as if he has not spoken in months. “I will, I promise.” And without a moment of hesitation he steps away, off the stone.

Hrívion’s face is still. He stands to the side, the pitcher held still in both hands. Legolas feels a wrench in his gut.

Gimli’s shoulders shake, and when he turns to Legolas he is laughing with tears still on his face. He steps forward in an embrace. All of the Dwarf’s stout body is trembling, and Legolas realizes that he, too, is shaking. “My friend,” Gimli says, “take your glance.”

And so Legolas steps closer. He needs not hoist himself upon a stone to see within, but nothing happens until he leans slightly so that his face is positioned over the still-rippling surface.

He sees, in that basin, an image of his father crying out for him in the dark, his face pitiful and somehow, unidentifiably, wrong. There is no noise, but his father’s lips form familiar words again and again: “Legolas! Yonya! Aryonya! Sarta condoya!” And already he wishes to step away, but the water is already rippling, giving way to another face that takes his breath away: Haldir, looking out across the battlements of Helm’s Deep and smiling. Smiling. Then even more quickly it shifts: now he sees young Estel, shouting furiously at the sky, the Sindarin words recognizable even as his face contorts with his rage: How could you keep this from me? Then a similar face: Eldarion, sitting at a desk and drawing. His hands are swift, his mouth half-open in concentration, and the ghost of a familiar silver crown hovers above his head, not quite settled. And Aragorn, in his full age, walking down the Silent Street tall and proud.

Then two more beloved faces that Legolas has not seen in decades: Elladan and Elrohir, their mouths closed, and although he cannot hear Legolas knows that all is silent. This is Mithlond, its streets and harbor empty, and the brothers are building something. The shape is rough, but Legolas knows what it will be. A beautiful gray ship with white sails.

And then it comes like a riptide: the Sea. The Sea. The Sea. All around Legolas, Lothlórien has turned to mist and noise. A ship beneath his feet. Crashing waves against it, rocking him to and fro. Fog all around him and he can’t steer any longer: he feels fear.

Then, clearer than anything else he has seen, Gimli steps up on the deck beside him.

And Legolas literally falls out of the vision, stumbling onto his knees away from the mirror. In an instant his friend is moving to his side, taking his hands and trying to lift him back to his feet. The Dwarf is a blustering storm in an instant, his eyes flashing lightning, his voice the thunder after.

“What have you done?” he demands of Hrívion, who is still standing unmoved with the pitcher in his hand. “What is wrong with him? Help him!”

“No,” Legolas says, but his voice comes out only a whisper. He breathes a moment, and then says clearly, “I am well, my friend.”

“What did you see?” Gimli demands.

“Much,” Legolas answers. “And perhaps not as clear a message as yours, but meant for me nevertheless.” And Gimli does not ask again.

---

Translations:

Hrívion: the fading time (poetic: winter) (Quenya)
Gwanur: Kinsman/woman (Sindarin/Noldorin)
Sadron: faithful one (Sindarin)
Mae govannen: well met (Sindarin)
Hannon le: well met/my thanks (Sindarin)
Sinomë maruvan: Here will I abide (Quenya)
Tenn' Ambar-metta: Unto the ending of the world (Quenya)
Tenn’ ninya-metta: Unto my ending (Quenya)
Natyë raina: You are/Thou art gracious (Quenya)
Yonya: My son (Quenya)
Aryonya: My dearest son (Quenya)
Sarta condoya: My loyal prince (Quenya)

----

I found out after writing this that Círdan actually stayed in the Havens for a long, long time (supposedly until the last of the Eldar had passed over), and that its population actually grew after 100 FoA. So for any mention of that, I’m aware now that it’s noncanonical, but decided not to rewrite.

Chapter Text

The winter that introduces the year 120 is mild, but Legolas spends it in Aglarond rather than traveling to Ithilien after the New Year. The ride would be no hardship on him, beyond the danger of tumbling from his horse if a sea-spell took him, but Gimli cannot ride any longer, and now he cannot bear to leave his companion behind. They intend to go in the spring, once it has thawed enough for the caravans to come down through the mountains. But the first day that the rill of Aglarond swells with the melting snows, a letter arrives by messenger, addressed to both the Lord of the Glittering Caves and the Prince of the Woodland Realm.

The words are King Elessar’s, but they come scrawled in a different hand, excepting the signature at the bottom. The script above is smoother, the lines firmer, and Legolas recognizes it well.

Their friend’s tone is light, but the words are not so: the time of his choice approaches. He would have them near. Legolas can well imagine Eldarion, pain in his gentle face, writing as neatly as he can as his father dictates these words to him.

“We’ll go, then,” Gimli says, as if there is no more to the decision than that.

---

They cannot leave at once. After all, aged or not, Gimli is still the Lord of the Glittering Caves, and as much time as he has spent away, he has not appointed a true heir. Instead, he has entrusted his responsibilities to a different young Dwarf each time he departs, fond of giving each the opportunity to lead. But despite his calm, Gimli understands that this is not simply another journey.

“You will make the necessary arrangements for our travel,” he tells Legolas, and then retreats to his study for two days, only allowing entrance when young Bastur comes with food. In the end he names Andvari his successor, a Dwarf only two-and-ninety who Legolas has always thought much like Gimli himself: more keen to wander than to stay in the deeps, tending to love that which is different rather than jealously hoard sameness for himself. He will protect the Caves, but will not tie himself to them. He will be an excellent ruler, although none can be so good as Gimli, who found them, who of all Dwarves was the first to love them.

Their means of travel south arrives a few days after that. Their passage has been paid to join a long caravan full with goods but near-empty of travelers. It is still too early in the season for any but the traders and those with dire errands, so there is little talk. Legolas and Gimli keep to their own space, and when they break their silence they do not speak of what approaches. Instead they talk of travels past, and often they grow silent again when their stories touch on a name of one lost to them: Haldir. Théoden King. Frodo. Or more recently: Faramir. Dwalin. Meriadoc and Peregrin.

At night, they lie near one another, but they both shiver.

---

The caravan reaches the gates of Minas Tirith just past midnight, but instead of the Guardsmen they expect, Legolas and Gimili are met by a tall figure in all gray, his dark hair spilling over his shoulders and his eyes alight while the rest of his face is grim.

“Thank you for coming,” Eldarion says. His voice is gentle. Legolas takes his things in one hand, and Gimli’s in another, and they leave the caravan to the Guardsmen and begin up the street.

“How is he?” Gimli asks.

“Yet strong,” Eldarion answers. “My sisters plead for him to stay, but he will not hear of it.” He smiles faintly. “And I would not spend my last days with him so. But I have long prepared for this: we have spoken of it for many years. I do not feel ready, but I know that I must be.”

Legolas sets a hand on his shoulder and then finds that he does not know what he means to say. “We are with you,” he says, and finds it not wholly the sentiment he wanted, but Eldarion seems to accept it nonetheless.

Matching Gimli’s slow pace, they travel up and up. They have rarely been within the King’s private chambers, preferring to meet in one of the other dozens of rooms to which he exercises a right: the great hall, or his study, or the library. They pass all of these, Eldarion leading them, and it is well past one by the time they reach the carven door: the home of the king.

“We need not wake him tonight,” Legolas says.

“He does not sleep any longer,” Eldarion answers, and pushes the door gently open.

“Ada,” he calls within, and a slim figure turns from the window. The King’s lined face lights when his gaze reaches Legolas and Gimli, and wordless, he crosses the room with strong strides and pulls them into his arms: first Gimli, and then Legolas. Legolas closes his eyes and although the gesture is foreign to him, lets his own arms wrap around his friend, and he feels the narrowness of him, the angles where excess flesh has fallen away, but the strong-beating heart beneath.

“Mellon nín,” Aragorn whispers, and Legolas’s grip tightens.

When they pull away, the King kneels to speak to Gimli, and Legolas surveys him carefully. There is something strange in him, in his essence: a sort of glow, a radiance. The choice has been made. There is no return. There is only time.

That night they stay up talking: Gimli falls asleep on a velvety chaise soon after they arrive, but Aragorn and Eldarion and Legolas sit cross-legged on the floor, knee to knee, and speak of Gondor and the seasons and Elboron’s betrothal to his Swan-Lady love and the sons and daughters of Eldarion’s sisters, who are growing quickly.

The dawn comes, with a chirping of birds, and they take in the sunrise on the balcony, watching it burn away the soft mist of the Fields, and Legolas does not say, Think what we could have done with another century at our disposal. He sees where he could have planted trees, and where the gardens should be, and the beginnings of vines growing on the buildings that he will never see cover the walls as they should. He sees the rough cuts of stone that Gimli’s men could replace with smoothness, the winding roads that could be curved slightly to connect to one another, creating smart pathways for those on foot, even if the horses could not pass.

It is over, he thinks. There will be no more work. In Valinor the trees will be ancient and thoughtful. The walls, where walls stand, will be smooth and adorned with perfect ornamentation. All will be life, and there will be no need of our skills, or the sharpness of our wits, and we will be lost in a paradise we did not build ourselves. And for the first time since hearing the gulls cry, he understands again the urge to stay behind.

“Legolas,” Eldarion says softly, his voice breaking through a reverie, and Legolas finds he is alone on the balcony, the midmorning sun beating down on him. The prince standing in the room behind him, parting the curtains as a summons: come back.

He ducks his head to come back within the shaded room, his eyes adjusting quickly. Gimli is still asleep on the chaise, and there is no sign of Aragorn. “My mind was wandering,” he says. “Where has your father gone?”

“To find Mother,” Eldarion says. “And something to break our fast. You have doubtless eaten little of real substance since leaving Aglarond.”

“Ah, Gimli packed us enough for a fine long journey,” Legolas answers, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “He does not approve of lembas and dried fruits. But he will never turn down a good breakfast, or any sort of food. Some days I am surprised he has not taken on the Hobbits’ custom of eating seven meals a day.”

Eldarion laughs, and claps a hand on Legolas’s shoulder. “In truth, I am gladder to see you than I can say,” he says. “I think you are one of a very few who understand me in this time. Even my mother and sisters do not feel as I do. But I can see them in your face, these same emotions. Grief to lose him. Understanding of his path, and his choice. The need to cherish these moments and days. And joy for him: for it is time he goes to seek the rest and peace that he deserves.”

“Yes,” Legolas says. “Gimli feels the same, although he will not say any of it. That is his way. And it is different for you, of course. When he passes, you begin a new life.”

“And you do not?” Eldarion asks. “You brought the designs with you: I saw. And we received word of the naming of the new Lord of Aglarond. I know you, Legolas. Though you are ancient and wise, though I cannot know all of you, I know well enough. You intend to sail once he has gone.”

“I cannot say,” Legolas answers, but his heart pounds in his chest, and the sharp-eared Man can hear it. “I made promises both to your father and my companion that I would not leave these shores while they abide.”

Eldarion’s look is full of pity. “Legolas, surely you have not grown so blind that you cannot see the truth. Gimli is fading: he has been for years, but I have never seen him like this. He is barely a wisp. He will not long outlive my father.” And what he is saying is, The choice may be taken from you, if you do not act swiftly.

“Your father cannot linger much more,” Legolas answers. “A span of days; no more. Gimli will not see the New Year come again, but he is not so weak as that.”

As if in answer, Gimli shudders convulsively in his sleep, drawing both of their gazes. Legolas bows his head.

“I know,” he says finally, under the weight of Eldarion’s sorrow. “But first your father’s time must come. Until then I must not think of what next.”

Eldarion clasps his forearms and meets his eyes. “When the time comes,” he says, “I will aid you in whatever way I can.”

“You will be new-crowned, with your family to care for,” Legolas answers.

“A family I have chosen,” Eldarion answers firmly, and almost Legolas could cry aloud from this. He suppress the swell of emotion in his chest. A family I have chosen. Has Aragorn spoken to his son of the politics of Eryn Lasgalen? Does Eldarion know of Legolas’s brothers, of the things they have done? The kinship he offers so easily cannot replace what Legolas has lost, but he finds he can accept it still.

---

Over several quiet days, it becomes clear that the Lady Arwen has improved. Perhaps, like Legolas, she holds herself tight-wound in the present time and place, unwilling to miss even a moment. Regardless, she does not suffer from any of her fits. She holds the hands of her children, Eldarion especially, and touches their cheeks tenderly. She smiles and laughs with her grandchildren when they join the gatherings. She tends to her husband with unending care, sometimes removing him from their company and sitting by the fountain with his head in her lap, singing to him.

One night while Aragorn watches the young ones at play in the courtyard, Arwen comes to Legolas.

“My Lady,” he says. “It has been our privilege to be with you in this time. I know the hour grows near. I would have you tell me, how long should we stay?”

“Of course you shall be with us until his end, and beyond,” she answers, sitting beside him on a squat stone wall running along a raised garden bed. “And you have my great thanks, for this and every other moment you have spent near to him. Yours has been one of the great friendships of his life; your love one of the greatest gifts he has ever been given. And so it is also a gift to me.” And she turns and embraces him.

Elves do not partake in this kind of physical intimacy, and although it is not uncomfortable, it is unexpected. Legolas feels his breath come in sharply, but he wraps his arms around the queen and holds her for a long moment. There is a certain comfort in this, an intimacy both beautiful and delicate.

“I have envied it at times,” she says, and withdraws. “The love you share. But I do not envy you now the parting before you: the second loss.” Her eyes flicker to Gimli, who is sitting asprawl in a comfortable fabric chair across the courtyard, his eyes wandering. “Unless you choose differently,” she says.

“It is his choice to make,” Legolas says.

“He has already made it,” she answers. “But it is you who must do the asking.” And she stands and crosses back to Aragorn, her hands finding his shoulders, her long hair tumbling across the back of his seat.

Legolas looks to Gimli again and finds his friend looking back, sharp-eyed once again. There is no need, yet, to ask.

The truth is, he is not certain if he has the courage, the daring. Ask Gimli to give up his chance to see his family, his maker? To reunite with his people again? And in exchange, only a hope, an insurmountable risk. Aragorn was right, years ago when he had begged Legolas to promise not to try. They cannot know what will happen. But the Sea comes to him more and more. He will not be able to wait much longer.

And the truth is, now that he has seen it in the Mirror of Galadriel—seen Gimli beside him on his ship in the mist—he cannot deny the joy, the palpable relief, that had woken in him with that image. He knows that he does not wish to sail alone.

---

A week after Legolas and Gimli arrive in the City, they find themselves sitting at dinner with the King and Queen, Eldarion, the Princesses and their spouses, the Steward newly returned from Dol Amroth, and a handful of friends—a Healer who has tended Aragorn with humor and a sharp tongue for several years, the two Guardsmen who had become his household guard after foiling an assassination attempt three decades before, a beloved councilor who looks older than the wizened King himself.

“My dear ones,” Aragorn says after the meal has been cleared from the table, “I have chosen. Tomorrow, at dusk, I will walk the Silent Street. I would have you walk with me.”

All present hold a silence after this, and in the moment of reverence a sort of lightness steals into the room. The candles burn a little higher. Legolas feels himself breathe easily at once, and things seem to shine. Aragorn’s eyes meet his, and the King smiles.

“Of course, Your Grace,” says Elboron, his hand having gently found Eldarion’s shoulder. “It will be our honor.”

“Every step,” Legolas says. “If it is your will, I shall be with you until your last breath in this world.”

The others do not speak for a moment. Then Aurëlissë, elder of the King’s twin daughters, asks, “Your Grace, what of the children?” Her son Elenethon is the current heir in line to ascend the throne after Eldarion, and Legolas has seen him in the courtyard and the gardens. He is a serious boy of fifteen with his grandfather’s sharp gray eyes and his grandmother’s light feet. Two days before, Legolas had watched from afar as he had spoken to the king on his own, looking more man than boy with his back straight and his words unmuddied by emotion. The remainder of the time, his gentle attention to his siblings and cousins has allowed his mother and her sisters more time with the king, in these past days and many more before.

“They will see us off down the street,” Aragorn says. “I have spoken to the elder ones. They do not wish to come if their brothers and sisters do not, and the Silent Street is not a place for those as young as Tarannon and Elírë.” The youngest grandchildren, at six and three years of age.

Aurëlissë begins to cry softly, but she says no more. Eldarion stands, jarring Elboron’s hand from his shoulder and then grasping it apologetically, and moves to kneel beside his younger sister, who buries her face in his tunic.

“Just as you wish, Father,” he says quietly.

“Your grief should be short,” Aragorn says, “for I have lived a long life, and you would not wish me torn from you instead, ruined by age. And so I do not ask you not to cry: but I do ask that you remember this. I leave you now of my own will, and I leave you that which we have built together. Our kingdom, our family, and our peace. By each of these gifts will you remember me.” His eyes move around the table once more. “Now let us take our rest. For me, I will try one last time to dream. Come find me on the morrow, if you will, or else meet me at the entrance to the Street an hour before dusk.”

He stands, and takes the hand of his queen, and kisses it tenderly before them all. Then with their fingers entwined they walk from the hall together.

Once he is gone, scarcely a moment passes before tears are falling down the faces of the other Men present, even light-hearted Elboron and the dignified old councilor. Eldarion’s sisters join him at Aurëlissë’s side: the younger twin Altáriel also in tears; Estaranel, the eldest, passing out comfort with a touch of her palm; the youngest-born Arvanessë dry-eyed but moving to them slowly as if she has shouldered a burden. And Legolas stands, and helps Gimli to his feet, and leaves the hall. This is for Men to share.

---

Gimli speaks little that night, but just before he drifts to sleep, he grasps at Legolas’s hand. “Stay near me tonight,” he says. “I could not bear to wake alone.”

So Legolas sits and watches his friend slumber, and bundles more blankets over him when he shivers. He looks at Gimli’s wide, messy braids, at the many lines around his eyes, at his hands which have lost so much of their strength he can barely cut his meat. Eldarion is right, of course. Gimli is near to his end. Two-hundred fifty is considered very old for a Dwarf, and Gimli is approaching his two-hundred sixty-first birthday.

And so what is right for him to do? If he chooses to sail alone, he will not have long to wait. Gimli will not have to see him go Sea-mad. It will not come to that.

If he asks Gimli to join him, and Gimli agrees, then he must begin building at once.

But what if he should ask, and Gimli should refuse? He has always spoken of it lightly, as if in jest, and it is possible that what he has said is true: he simply could not bear to be left behind. If given the choice between dying in Middle-Earth with Legolas at his side, or sailing and taking all the risks therein, what sane Dwarf would choose the risk?

No sane Dwarf, he answers himself. For Gimli surely does not fit such a description. And he feels again the strange lightness that he had felt in the Hall after Aragorn’s announcement, and he is filled with such love for his gwador, his khâzash, the strange cenedril o immo—he reaches under the blankets and grasps Gimli’s hand, and he does not wake, but his hand tightens and he grips back.

---

When it is all over, the passing ceremonies and the coronation and the singing, and the crown is upon Eldarion’s head, thousands of the Men of the City process to honor their new High King. When Legolas steps up the dais and kneels before him, Eldarion offers a hand, and when Legolas is standing again he envelops Legolas’s hands in his own. “Kinsman,” he says softly, “that which you need, you shall have. Tell me: shall I design you a ship manned by one, or two?”

“Make it for one, if you will, Your Grace,” Legolas says, and it is not until he is already stepping down so the next can come forth that he sees the shock in the King’s eyes and realizes how he has taken that answer.

Later, hours later, when the procession has ended and feasting has finished, the King Eldarion approaches him again. “Some days ago I would have felt this too forward, but I am emboldened,” he says to Legolas, his voice rushed and quiet. “I do not know if it is he who has made the choice, or you, but if it is you, I beg you reconsider. I believe that he wishes to go with you, at whatever cost, and such a love should not be thrown away for anything.” His cheeks are pink, and as he finishes speaking he turns away, his piece said, but Legolas grabs his arm.

“Eldarion,” he says, “you misunderstood, and I am gravely sorry. I do not know if I will sail alone: I have not yet asked, although I am resolved to do so. But regardless, I shall need to work the ship alone. Gimli has not the strength.”

Eldarion looks at him a moment with wide eyes, and then turns his face away. When he looks back, his eyes shine with tears. “My friend,” he says, “never have I been so glad to learn I have erred. This is a great time of renewal, but even in the midst of all else, I feel that nothing could cause me more joy than this news.”

“It is not assured yet,” Legolas says, “but your gladness lightens my heart again. Long live the King! And as the Dwarves of fond of saying: may your beard grow ever longer.”

Eldarion strokes his bare chin ruefully, then smiles and places his palm on Legolas’s cheek. “I will have you a draft of your gray ship by the week’s end,” he says gently. “It will give me something to do, when the nights grow long.”

“Should you need company, you may call on me,” Legolas says, and the King’s face grows pink again, but he bows his head and turns away.

“I will remember that,” he says.

---

The sketches and pictures Eldarion delivers are so breathtaking that Legolas feels a sharp pain in his chest when he looks on them. For a few days he hides them from Gimli, shakes his head a fraction when the King’s eyes question him. But Gimli has been the dearest of brothers to him for half his mortal-short life, and he senses what has happened.

“Show them to me,” he says gruffly one evening as they drink together: a fine red wine for Legolas, left to him from Aragorn’s private stores, and a mellow-pale ale for Gimli, brought down from the Lonely Mountain.

With no need for pretense, Legolas crosses to the desk and draws the wide rolls of parchment from the drawer beneath, then sits on the end of Gimli’s bed and spreads out the drafts them on the coverlet between them.

Gimli traces his fingers lightly over the designs. “I need not ask if you have forgotten your promise,” he says, “for I know you have not. But my own time is short, and I have not enough of it to partake in this dance any longer. Legolas, what do you mean to do? Are we bound for the Harbors to build? And when shall we leave, if so?”

“I know not,” Legolas says, “but perhaps I have wronged you, for you may not know the choice is in your hands. Gimli, I will do as you will: I can wait until your ending to build; my need is not so great. We can return to your ancient home, if you have kin you would see before your passing. If you wish to spend your last days upon Middle-Earth, I will do what is within my power to make those days your brightest. But we have not spoken in seriousness of the other choice. If you wish it, you may sail with me.”

Gimli’s eyes stay on the ship, his fingers on its bow. Legolas feels a burst of desperation.

“Will you?” he asks. “Will you join me for the waters, and sail with me to Valinor? You need not answer me at once, of course. Aragorn doubted my sanity at such a suggestion: you have not the tokens that the others have, nor did you bear the Ring, so I cannot be sure what would become of us. But if you wish to face it, then I would have you at my side.”

“At your side,” Gimli murmurs, and for a moment Legolas fears he is too late: that Gimli’s age has taken his sharp wit, and that he has not heard, or at least not understood. But when his friend looks up from the parchment, there’s a smile on his face: fierce and wild, like the days of old. The smile he’d always worn just before he swung his axe at an orc, before loosing a battle-cry or a wordless roar, before shouting his number as a taunt. “Well, when shall we begin? I’ve been sitting still for too many years. Even when I was a young thing, I never liked to turn down an adventure, and now is not the time to start.”

----

When the ship is near-ready, Legolas takes it into his own hands. Gimli watches from the shore, settled on a rough cut of rock, as Legolas flies across the deck. He hoists the sails one evening when the wind is dead, checking and rechecking the ropes for security. He sings. He sets up comforts: a bunk and hammock belowdecks, a seat notched into the wood at the rear of the main deck. Abovedecks, the base of the mast is ringed with a platform that will serve as a table, on fair days; there are trays below for the fouler days, though Legolas knows he himself will be staying above at all times.

This is the peril of being the last. Surely Círdan had always been sure to have another able body aboard, another pair of sure hands. Or perhaps he had not needed to sail as others did, when he ferried to Valinor and back. Perhaps at some point magic alone bore them away. Or perhaps some strength gave the Shipwright no need of sleep.

When the time approaches, Legolas finds himself torn between setting out and sailing at all speed—and tarrying a few days more. For the first, the reason is clear: Gimli has come to sleep more hours each day, and although he does not complain, Legolas has noticed he ails in other ways. In the last week alone, his eyes have seemed to grow rheumy, and his limp more pronounced. One hip seems all but immobile with age, and the other moves but only with pain.

For the other, though: after all these years of the Longing, how can there be any part of him still that resists? But he finds there is some part. Even standing on the deck of his fine gray ship, the sails puddled on the deck but ready to be hoisted, the hold filled with water and provisions of the sort Gimli approves, he finds for the first time in decades an ache instead for the forests of his birth. He has not sent word to his brothers of his departure, for though they might pretend, he knows they will care little. Aragorn is gone. The stewardship of the Caves is passed to Andvari; care of Ithilien to Elboron. There is naught any longer to hold him here.

And yet.

Is it fear that holds him here? Of what may await? Of what may not? There is little saying what may happen on the way, and even if they reach the shores, even Gandalf had not spoken with any clarity of what became of mortals in that far realm. If their age slowed, or stopped, or if they simply found themselves at peace, with no lengthening of life.

Legolas disembarks, down the wooden gangway, and claps a hand on Gimli’s shoulder. Gimli opens his eyes. “It is ready,” Legolas says. “I defer to you: shall we go at once, or is there more you wish to do, or see, or taste?”

“So much more,” Gimli says, “but I will content myself with a few things.” He looks around. “It’s near dark? What say we leave the day after tomorrow, at dawn?”

Legolas’s heart seizes with that strange longing again. He nods, but cannot smile. Gimli slides to his feet and begins to amble down the pathway toward their inn. “Come, Master Elf,” he calls behind him, “take a drink with me, and then we will sleep.”

----

Legolas wakes trembling, and turns in the bath of moonlight from their open window to watch Gimli’s slow breaths, and after a moment realizes the Dwarf is not sleeping.

“Is there still moonlight in this Valinor of yours?” he asks.

“Aye,” Legolas answers, and Gimli turns in his bed so that they are facing one another, although both wrapped in covers and dappled in shadow and moon. “Our elders tell that the Sun and Moon came from Valinor. First, the world was lit by two great Lamps, but the Enemy broke them out of the sky, causing such destruction as we today cannot imagine. The Valar went to Valinor, and sang into existence the Two Trees of light in place of the Lamps, but after a long Time these too the Enemy destroyed. But swiftly came Yavanna, she who is the wife of Aulë, who you know as Mahal. Also came Nienna, she who was the teacher of Olórin, who we knew as Gandalf. And they saved from the ruined Trees one flower, and one fruit, and these became the Moon and Sun.”

“That’s a pretty thought,” Gimli says.

“The petal and the fruit?”

“That too,” he answers. “But I meant the singing, and shaping, and going on even when the Enemy throws you into darkness.” He turns onto his back once more, and after a moment Legolas does the same. Some time later, long after he had assumed Gimli was asleep again, Legolas hears him speak once more. “The making,” he whispers.

----

The afternoon that follows, Legolas is sitting at the desk in the back room of the inn, the very room in which he and Eldarion had drafted and debated shipbuilding some years before. He is writing a letter.

It is difficult to know what to say to a man who is your admirer, your friend, and your realm’s King wrapped up in one, but Legolas finds words. He talks about the Men of stories and the Men of the real world, of Aragorn’s legacy and of his pride in his son. On the bottom of the page, he sketches the ship: the wide, smooth lines, the intricate details that only an Elf’s careful hand could capture without a special nib.

Before he has put down the ink to sign it, he hears gentle footsteps, and then slow, even breathing just outside the door. A Man’s breathing—but not the compact innkeeper, nor the servant who has more than once brought drinks.

“Come,” Legolas says, turning, and it is Eldarion himself who enters. “Your Grace,” he says, rising from his seat, “I had not thought to see you so far from the capitol.” I had not thought to see you ever again, he does not say, and his heart seems to swell in his chest, a sensation he has read about in the books of Men but cannot remember ever feeling himself. They had said goodbye in Minas Tirith, some weeks ago, but it had been a messy goodbye, full of broken-off sentences and glances that spoke of words unsaid.

“Elboron is managing affairs while I’m away,” Eldarion says. He hesitates. “Mother has gone. Once she left, I…things seemed to come into focus once more. I spent some time wishing that I had sent you off properly, and then I realized that I am King now, and that might mean occasionally doing as I wish.”

“I should hope so, Your Grace.”

“And it seems I decided just in time,” Eldarion says, his face a mingling of feelings: sorrow on his brow, a smile on his lips. “I met Gimli without. He says you will set sail in the morning.”

“We had just decided as much,” Legolas says. “I was writing to you.” He gestures helplessly at the desk behind him. Eldarion smiles more widely, his eyes kindly and so like his father’s, and nods.

“I am glad to have come in time,” he says, and draws a hollow tube from his belt. Several rolls of parchment have been carefully tucked inside. “These are for you,” he says, “for when you arrive there—to remember us. No, do not open it yet. Wait until you’ve left my shores, at the least. Until you miss them. Although I do not mean—I should say, I know you will not regret this choice. Long have I known that, for you made it before I was born.”

“I may yet,” Legolas answers. “If Gimli is not admitted.”

“The Lock-Bearer?” Eldarion says, as if amused. “One of the Nine Walkers? Perish the thought, mellon nín. It is a foolish fear.”

“Your father did not think so.”

“My father is the one who caused you to think so, if I am not much mistaken. You were quite confident of his admission, when first you spoke of it to him.” Eldarion grows somber again. “He has told me much, this past year. Some, perhaps, that he should not have done, for it was not his to tell.”

“Then let us walk out a while and speak of these things.”

They are more than a mile beyond the outskirts of Pelargir before Legolas can bring himself to speak. “He spoke to you—of me,” he says.

“He did.” Eldarion hesitates. “He said we were like to one another, and that he wished for me whatever life I wished for myself. Whether it be like yours, to live with loving companions but without family of my own, or to make my family as I wish, or to find another way. And there were so many things I wished to ask him, but I knew I ought to be asking you.”

“You should ask now,” Legolas says.

“I am not certain I have any need to any longer,” Eldarion answers. “But if you would speak, I would hear you.”

So Legolas speaks. He has tales from the Three Hunters, tales from the battlefields, tales from deep underground and from nearing death and from the messages from his brothers, telling him their father has died. But these are not the tales he tells.

He tells a story of a tired perch on a talan high above the forest floor. A golden head and eyes turning from wariness to warmth. A proud voice. An old duty. A golden helmet and a steady hand. And he does not speak to this young King of what came after: the bloodshed and horror, with no time for grief. And he does not demand: Find it. He does not say: I have lived a good life, but you could live a better, if you allow yourself. Because that is not what he needs, not what either of them need.

Now is the time for beginnings.

----

In the end, there is no one waiting on the shore when Legolas and Gimli push out. The sun rises swiftly, and Gimli moves with renewed vigor on the decks. He pours fresh water into silver cups and sits at Legolas’s side, drinking together and tying slow but sure knots into the rigging, and that late afternoon their vessel slides out to the sea.

And he does not stand at the stern and look back as the clouds sweep a curtain across the land behind them. Neither of them see the moment when it happens. They are talking together, Gimli’s hand set on Legolas’s, their voices just loud enough to be heard above the roaring rageless waters.

“I have tried not to imagine,” Legolas says, “for I have always known that the moment would truly come, and I could not bear to be disappointed in the slightest.”

“But do you think they will know?” Gimli asks. “Or will we be taking them by surprise? I don’t mind if they aren’t waiting for us, I promise you that.”

“Uin ista—I think it will be down to the Wise Ones. Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, Círdan. Anyone with foresight might see us at a distance, but they may not tell the others.” He is silent a moment. “We will be the first in years, unless I am much mistaken.”

“Galadriel,” Gimli murmurs, and touches his hand to his waist-pouch, where for many years he had kept the three strands. “Ought I have brought them?” he asks, suddenly anxious. “She may be offended.”

“You told her then and there that they would be an heirloom of your House,” Legolas reminds him.

“Aye, but I have none,” Gimli says gruffly. “Perhaps I should have kept them. Given them back to her, as a gift. Or brought them as an offering.”

“She gave them to you,” Legolas answers, “and that was no small gesture. Gimli, mellon nín, you were not the first to ask, but you were the first to receive. Do not take that lightly.”

“You know,” Gimli says, “you have always promised to tell me that story, and you have always delayed. I think I am due.”

So Legolas speaks of Fëanor. At first, he speaks only of the man, the legend, the deeds. Proud and renowned. Craftsman. Warrior. Prince. His love of his family, and the rift that grew there after his dealings with Melkor. And the Silmarils! Made of a substance he had created, burning with the Light of Valinor, but tainted. The fall of the Two Trees, and Fëanor’s pride: he would not give back the Light of his jewels to restore the Trees, and they were stolen by Melkor, who he named Morgoth, the Enemy.

This story he tells for the rest of the day, never speaking of Galadriel, for so long that Gimli seems to have given up the point, for he is much engrossed. But just before he retires for the night, he stretches and then points a finger at Legolas. “Do not think I have forgotten,” he says. “If this is merely your trick to tell me more of your stories, and the tale of Galadriel a separate matter, I promise I will return it in kind with wearying Dwarvish myth.”

“If you find it wearying, you have only to say,” Legolas says, unable to hide his smile.

“Bah,” says Gimli. “Be ready to go on when I bring up your breakfast, will you? I cannot wait much longer while you chase the point in circles.” And he trudges belowdecks. Legolas’s Elf-ears hear the slosh of water, and Gimli reemerges for a moment: he has brought up a cup and a cake of lembas, handing them off wordlessly, almost shyly. Then he disappears below again, and there is the sound of his boots being dropped at his bedside, and his soft groan as he settles into bed, and then the long quiet of night.

It is not truly quiet, of course. There are night-birds above, and the sails ripple, and the waters rail against the hull, and the new wood creaks gently. But these are the sounds about which he has dreamt, and for which he has felt the Longing, for more than a century. They are like silence: a constant background, like the hum of echoes in the caves or the whisper of wind through leaves in the forest.

----

Legolas finishes the story of Fëanor just before noon. It is well that Gimli had decided to retire the night before, for the story was too dark to be told except in the brightest sunlight. The Oath. The thrice-battled Teleri. The exile, and the fires: shadow and flame, they were called, but Gimli recognized that name for what it truly represented, growling as Legolas described them.

And when Legolas has subsided into silence, Gimli pounds a fist on the wooden table between them. “But what of the Lady?!” he demands. “This was a tale indeed, but not the one I was promised! Not the one that was due to me!”

“I have not finished,” Legolas says. “I merely wished for you to understand about whom I spoke, before I told the part of the tale that concerns you.”

“A mighty chase indeed,” Gimli grumbles.

“You will understand, if you can pause for long enough to allow me to finish,” Legolas says. “I do not speak of this idly. Not without reason have I skirted away from telling this story for so long, because it seems to me that perhaps it should not be mine to tell. And yet I find that I agree with you: you are owed this. So it is, then, my place to deliver.”

“Speak, then.”

“Thousands of years before you, Fëanor asked,” Legolas says. “Three times he asked, Gimli. Three times begged Galadriel, his kin, for a tress. It is said that the light of her hair was the inspiration for the Silmarils, that the light of the Trees was captured first in her hair and thus gave Fëanor the idea that it might be captured elsewhere.”

“This does not surprise me,” Gimli says. “Why do you speak as though this should be some revelation to me? I knew I could not have been the first to see her for what she was, the first to see the stars in her hair…” He trails off, and after a moment looks sharply at Legolas.

“She refused, Gimli. Three times she refused. Because, it is said, she has the gift to see into the heart of those to whom she speaks. And she saw that he was prideful, and she deemed him unworthy. Fëanor of the Silmarils. And later, many would say, she was proven right. But remember then that he was a prince, a craftsman, beloved of many. To refuse him was all but unheard-of, but refuse him she did.” He pauses and looks at his hands, for suddenly he cannot look on Gimli’s face any longer, so brimming with feeling. But he continues. He must.

“But for you. For you, she unbraided her hair, and withdrew her own knife, and cut away three strands. Three. And blessed you with craftsmanship: a craftsman in place of Fëanor who fell to his own pride: over you gold shall have no dominion, she said. She named you worthy where he was not, in front of all her folk. And be certain: all of them knew. And not least of them, I. That was the moment of my certainty of you: I had chosen you, and taken you out into the woods with me, and we had spoken privately already, and exchanged words and secrets. We were friends. But when she laid those strands in your glove—it was then that I knew I wished to be more. To be your brother. Your gwador. In your tongue, I think, khâzash.”

“Khâzash,” Gimli agrees, and when Legolas looks back up, he finds tears running down that worn, beloved face. “Ins Mahal taglibi luknu. Ins Mahal taglibi luknu, hikhthuzul. Khâzashê hikhthuzul. Ah, I am sorry. This is too much.”

“Then I should be the sorry one.”

“No—no—this is joy; do not mistake me. But I am overwhelmed.”

“You truly love her,” Legolas says gently.

“Like nothing else in the world,” Gimli answers, and for once his voice is clear and unashamed, no gruffness, no turning his face away. “I can scarcely explain it: but it is the love of a pure creature. When I saw her—when I truly saw her, in all herself, in her white raiment and her sad face, when she spoke the words of my people and looked on my grief—it was as if all the rest of the world had been a lie. There was nothing but her.” His voice breaks. “And it hurt me, Legolas, my Legolas. I took a dreadful wound, not only at the parting but at the meeting, because I knew at once that I would live my life as not a meagre shred of that goodness. I knew that I was small. I knew that my craft was dull—that nothing I could create would ever—”

“No!” Legolas cries. “Brother, do you not see? Have you not heard my story? She looked at you and saw something kindred—Gimli, she as well as named you her own kin. More kindred than Prince Fëanor of the Silmarils, brother of her father, who opposed the Enemy to his face. More kindred than Frodo, to whom she gave the light but nothing of herself. More kindred than Sam with his growing things, or Aragorn who she deemed worthy of her granddaughter’s life. Do you not see?”

“I do,” Gimli says, almost a gasp. “And if we should make it through the fog, now I can think of greeting her. I have always pushed it away, Legolas, when it has come to my mind before, for it seemed presumptuous to think the Lady might open her doors to me. But still I came aboard with you—does this tell you of my love for you? I did not let myself hope that there was more in store for me. I thought I should be content no matter what, even if I should die at your side in the mists. And still I hold to that, but now you have kindled hope in me, and I scarce know what to do with it.” Indeed, his hands are trembling, and Legolas lays one of his own atop them.

“With all speed, then,” Legolas says, and stands to adjust the sails. Somewhere there, to the West, he can feel the pull of Valinor.

----

On the seventh day, the gray ship slides into the mists.

It is like entering a stormcloud. The air grows thick and damp around them, and all darkens to a dusky gray. The sails are battered forward and back, and Legolas’s skin ripples with a sensation that is neither warmth nor chill. They are here—the in-between place, the farthest any mortal can go. Save a special few.

Gimli comes up from belowdecks: Legolas hears the stomp of his boots but cannot see him until he is mere feet away. “Well, you did warn me,” the Dwarf says, his voice cheery, “but I have to say, I didna quite believe you until this very moment.”

“I am not certain I myself understood,” Legolas answers.

“And now we wait?”

“No different than before.”

“Looks a fair sight different to me, lad.”

Legolas laughs, and finds that it is not forced: whatever strangeness has passed over him is not Shadow, and not even doubt. “Stay above with me a time, if you will,” he says.

“Aye, even had you not asked,” Gimli says, “else I’d feel alone here. It’s quiet, Legolas.” And now it seems strange that Legolas had not noticed himself. The wind and waves and slap of sails continue, but the cries of the gulls have stopped. Not even far-away can they be heard: they are gone.

But these are not gone: the tugging sensation in his chest, like a string reeling him in to Valinor. The mist of neither warmth nor coolness, damp on his skin. The swell of love in his chest for his companion, who settles into his recessed seat and pulls a green apple from a pocket of his vest, polishing it between both hands.

Their third day in the mists, Legolas feels a shiver pass down his body. “I felt it too,” Gimli murmurs a moment later. “Like someone was watching us. Not a nice someone, although not bad, exactly.”

Their fifth day in the mists, he begins to doubt. It had been one of the fates Aragorn had feared for them: to wander endlessly in the mist, turned away but not struck down, too far to go back, not sure if the shore was still ahead. Perhaps the feeling of being watched had been the eyes of the Valar, or the shore-guards or whoever held the responsibility for bringing the ships over the borders. Perhaps they had looked, and not liked what they had seen, and retreated without words.

Their sixth day, the fresh fruits have begun to rot, and it seems like a sign: a beginning of an end. Legolas tries to hide his unease, and seems to succeed, even when Gimli throws the last of his apples overboard—the last color left in their gray world. “I hope there’s something out that can take nourishment from them,” he says musingly. He is still a brightness, still unafraid and hopeful. And the rope is still there, the tugging, so perhaps Gimli is not wrong still to hope.

The ninth day, early in the morning when Gimli is still abed, the ship begins to gather speed. A high wind? A vortex in the sea ahead, pulling them in? There is no telling. He adjusts the angle of the sails, turns the rudder hard, but there is no change. Yes, they are being pulled, and suddenly the rope-feeling in his chest is taut to its fraying point. He abandons the rudder wheel, moving toward the bow, in the direction of the tug.

The waves are terrible, spray reaching him even in the center of the deck. The sails are whipped forward, moaning objections, and the wood creaks as if ancient instead of new. There is nothing to be seen except the gray, but Legolas is fixed, unable to stop looking forwards.

Then there is motion from the corner of his eye. Gimli steps up beside him, placing himself at Legolas’s left side with his back straighter than it has been in years, his eyes flinty and shining. Legolas stares at him: this Lord of Dwarves, almost a stranger as he stands there straight and tall and ready for whatever is beyond.

Legolas finds his courage. He reaches down and grasps for Gimli’s hand, and Gimli returns a squeeze, holding him tight, and the rope in Legolas’s chest snaps.

Suddenly the gray fog about them is silver and shimmering. Suddenly the water is a deep blue. And the winds touch the fog, and a ray of light shines through the heaviness, and the mists burn away.

fin.

----

Translations:

Gwador: sworn brother; Sindarin
Khâzash: brother; Khuzdul
Cenedril o immo: mirror of [him/my]self; Sindarin
Mellon nín: my friend; Sindarin
Uin ista: I do not have [the] knowledge; Sindarin
“Khâzash. Ins Mahal taglibi luknu. Ins Mahal taglibi luknu, hikhthuzul. Khâzashê hikhthuzul.”: Brother. It is so. It has always been so. [Literally: As Mahal would speak. As Mahal would speak, always.] Always my brother. (Khuzdul)