notbecauseofvictories:

“It is beautiful, is it not?”

Gimli startled at the unexpected intrusion, turning. Legolas hovered beneath the archway, looking uncertain; certainly, he was twisting the signet-ring at his finger, again and again. In truth, Gimli had not expected to see him until morning, at least—Legolas had disappeared with Haldir, that marchwarden, and Gimli understood the longing for one’s kin and kind. (However dear the Fellowship, they were not dwarves, the tongue they spoke among themselves was not Khuzdul, and the Mountain bore no meaning to them. Gimli would not exchange their company for any other’s, but he did oft wish for his cousins, his forge-brothers, those who knew, who understood without question or explanation. He would not begrudge Legolas that same longing.)

“Isn’t it—beautiful?” Legolas repeated, stepping forward into the dim twilight falling over the Golden Wood. “It is said that Lorien lives in the light of Ilúvatar, more than any other place in Middle Earth. Here, we come as close to our creation as we—might, I suppose.”

“It is indeed beautiful,” Gimli conceded, turning back to look at the wooded glade, the shards of starlight disguised as lamps that flickered into being as dusk settled over the valley. “It is not…well. It is very beautiful, only a blind creature could deny as much.”

He felt the pang of uncertainty as Legolas came to stand beside him. He had changed from his livery, Gimli realized dimly—the Lady Galadriel had offered all the Fellowship fresh clothing, but it was of a fit for Men and Elves, not dwarves or hobbits; somewhere he suspected Pippin was still rolling up those long sleeves, Merry inelegantly tucking his jerkin into his trousers.

Legolas, though, looked very fine in green picked with white-gold thread, leaves embroidered along the collar; the very incarnation of the Dream-wood itself. Gimli was too aware of his own rough hands, a smith’s hands, how tightly the fine fabric sat over his broad shoulders—he was a creature of Mahal, not Iluvatar, and this place was not for him. It was not for him.

“You do not like it,” Legolas said, and the disappointment in his voice was too much to bear, however truthful. Gimli could not meet his eye, staring at the thicket of silver-gold mallorn until it blurred beneath his gaze.

“No, no,” Gimli assured him. “It is beautiful. It is—Eru’s light, you have that correctly. And evident is the great power of the lady who rules such undiluted light. But standing here and beholding such beauty…I am reminded that your creation is not mine. For dwarves are that creation within creation, beneath and below; we are not Ilúvatar’s children, but Mahal’s—Aulë, in your tongue. And so however beautiful, this is not for me. It is not mine.”

Legolas was quiet. “I—surely, though, it is from the same wellspring,” he said thickly, at last, and Gimli still did not trust himself to look. “For Aulë was himself a creature of Ilúvatar, and any creation made in his image is likewise made in the image of his creator.”

“That is a pretty thought—”

“Do you think you are not of Eru’s beauty?” Legolas asked, stumbling over himself, and Gimli could not resist looking to him then. Legolas’ expression was a stone mask overlaid his features, but he was still twisting that signet ring at his knuckle. There was the faintest of lines, etched between his brows. 

He was fair as the lamps of Lorien, and wearing the green of its trees against his skin. Gimli had no trouble at all imagining this was what the Father of All had imagined, when he decided to birth life unto Middle Earth; something, someone, like this, tall and fair as a sapling, grave and haughty and bright as starlight.

“I have always been taught that it was the Firstborn who inherited Eru’s beauty,” Gimli said at last. “The brightness of the stars—”

Legolas gave a full-body shudder, and Gimli’s throat tightened around whatever he had planned to speak next. For the life of him, he could not recall it. But it was caught in his throat, beating like his pulse, like the wings of birds.

“Is—ah, I think that your mountain must be very beautiful as well,” Legolas said, clearing his throat uncertainly. “Perhaps, though, it is Aulë’s beauty.”

“Aulë’s beauty?” Gimli repeated dimly.

Legolas was still twisting the ring at his finger, and Gimli had the unmistakable sense that he would blush, were such indignity allowable to the beautiful Firstborn. “Well, yes,” Legolas said. “I am not—I was not so distracted in the flight through Moria that I could not see what dwarven hands have wrought.”

“Ah,” Gimli said wisely. 

“It is not…the beauty of Lorien,” Legolas said, with a strange twitch of his hand, half-gesturing to the dusk filtering through the golden leaves. “But not lesser. Stronger, I think. Enduring and thriving—a gate of mithril can be remade, if there are willing hands for the building. A mallorn tree once cut down is gone forever, so much wood for the fire. That is…there is beauty in the work of one’s hands, the lasting of it.”

“I think you are right,” Gimli breathed, and he saw a taut smile pull at the corner of Legolas’ mouth. “But I also think that—we have need of this too. There is room enough in the world for trees and gates both, yes?”

“I have seen—” Legolas swallowed, and Gimli watched his throat bob, his hands flutter. He offered the next sally casually, as though his eyes were not glittering and fixed on Gimli: “I have seen trees grow together with the work of hands, before. A—a growing thing has freedom, to wind itself through a made thing.”

Gimli smiled. “And so the reverse. Whole great edifices are built around a living thing…We have carved many a hall cradled in the powerful roots of a great oak.”

“Yes!” Legolas laughed, and Gimli could not help a laugh of his own. They smiled at one another, too warm, over-close. (When had they come so close? Gimli was near enough to reach out and fist his hand in the fabric of Legolas’ green-gold tunic.) “Yes, that is…that is exactly right.”

“I agree,” Gimli said. Dusk had fallen, and the lamp nearest them was flickering slowly into starlight, mirrored by the emergence of the bright-cold stars above them both. “Yes, you are correct.”

“Yes,” Legolas echoed, his grey eyes the color of starlight.