Hey all! I am still working on this chapter (wrestling with it is probably closer to the truth) but I wanted to give you all a little looky, for being so patient with me… 

and also to reassure you that I AM TOTALLY DOING THINGS OTHER THAN SINGING WITH MY HOLIDAY i solemnly swear i can’t help it, hamilton has eaten my heart whole

So! Have some aftermath of battle! Hope you like 🙂

Sansûkh Chapter 41 – Draft

“Pippin!” Gimli stumbled over the battlefield, his voice
carrying over the shrieks of the wounded and the screams of the fleeing Orcs.
“Pippin! Mahal curse it, you wool-brained little pesk, please be living, please
be hale and well, you have cost me too many pains to die now!” He turned over a
great grey Orc’s body with an almighty shove and a curse, but found no Hobbit
beneath. “Pippin!”

“Meleth, he is nowhere to be seen upon the Eastern flanks,” Legolas
said, close behind. He had not once left the Dwarf’s side since finding him
unharmed amidst the wrack and ruin of Mordor. “Surely he will have found a
store of provision somewhere. We will find him smoking and drinking at the
supply wagons, you may be sure.”

“That was the first place I checked,” Gimli said,
frustrated, and he kicked the Orc’s body with a growl. “Pippin!”

Legolas’ eyes grew soft. “He will be well,” he said, and
laid a hand on Gimli’s shoulder.

“Aye, until I get my hands on him, he will be,” Gimli said,
and he roughly dashed at his eyes and brow. “Your eyes are better than mine,
ghivashelê. You could see nothing?”

Legolas turned to peer out at the desolate, silent ruin that
was the remains of all Mordor’s might. “I can see the fallen Tower and the
Mountain of Fire that still belches its smoke everywhere. I see the bodies of
Men and Elves, horses and Trolls and Orcs, all lying where they fell. I see the
silhouette of Eagles upon the sky, the shine of the stars beyond the Mountain’s
fume that now begins to pierce through at long last…”

“In other words, you see everything,” sighed Gimli, and he
patted Legolas’ hand consolingly. “Everything except one dratted fool of a
Took. Tis a damned good thing we know the look of a Hobbit’s foot. Do you
recall where he was fighting?”

“He flew ahead as fast as his furry feet would carry him,”
said Legolas, and he dropped to his knees and pulled Gimli’s helm from his
head, pressing their grimy foreheads together. “I did not see him.”

Gimli’s eyes closed and he breathed out slowly. “I will not
lose him, young stout-hearted little rascal,” he said, almost soundlessly.
“This should be a field of victory, and yet…”

“I feel it also,” Legolas said, and he kissed Gimli with feather-light
swiftness. “We have won – but now we also count our losses, and they are great
indeed. We will turn towards a new age, and with it we will farewell much that
was beautiful and sorrowful in the old.”

“Elvish and cryptic, as always,” Gimli snorted, and he carded
a hand through Legolas’ hair, and kissed him again. “Come, let us keep
searching, before this New Age of yours grows any older.”

“It may have been the clamour of battle playing tricks with
my ears, but perhaps it was his voice shouting near where the Men of Rohan made
their stand. Something about Eagles?”

“Well, you could have said so earlier!” Gimli exclaimed, and
he gripped Legolas’ hand tightly and dragged him from his knees and towards the
crumbled heap that had been the Right-hand Tower of the Teeth. “The Horse-Lords
were over here, I think…”

“They held the line to the centre, I thought,” Legolas said,
caught in Gimli’s wake.

“No, to the right,” Gimli repeated stubbornly, and he tucked
his helm under his arm and pushed at a fallen horse with one booted foot. “You
see?”

“One horse does not an Éored make,” Legolas said dryly, but
he was cut off by Gimli’s soft gasp. The Dwarf was stock-still, before he
dropped Legolas’ hand and broke into a run, sprinting as fast as he was able
across the churned earth to the corpse of a gigantic troll.

Gimli dropped helm and axe onto the ground, before he pushed
with all his strength at the beast’s body. “Help me!” he shouted, before he
redoubled his efforts, the muscles in his neck cording under the strain. “He’s
underneath!”

Legolas was a breath behind him, and together they managed
to lift the Troll high enough. Then Gimli turned and took all the weight upon his
back, while Legolas crawled underneath upon his belly.  He inched back out, a small, muddied and limp
body cradled in his arms. The fine Gondorian livery was spattered with blood as
well as mud, and the hair was matted and filthy upon one side of the bright
curly head.

“Shuf!” Gimli let the Troll fall, and rolled his shoulders
back. His neck clicked as he tipped his head. “Is he all right? Does he
breathe? Tell me he yet breathes!”

“He breathes, but sluggishly,” Legolas said softly. “He
needs Gandalf, or Aragorn. If he felled this beast, then he has indeed achieved
the mighty deed he so desired.”

“I will carry him,” Gimli said, a stubborn look in his eye.
Legolas obviously thought better of it than to argue, and gently laid the
Hobbit in Gimli’s great arms. Gimli carried the little fellow as though he were
his own kin, carefully cradling him close to his chest.

“Where is Gandalf, anyway?” he asked as Legolas led them
back across the field of war to where the army gathered together, victorious
and yet solemn, for so many of them had not lived to see this victory.

“He left upon the back of a giant Eagle,” Legolas said, and
he glanced back across the terrible dark plain, past the shattered gates, to
the smoking fire in the distance. “He goes to Orodruin.”

“Mahal tadnani astû,” Gimli murmured, and he held Pippin’s
little frame more closely. “They would have been standing…”

“They must have been right on top of it,” Legolas said, grim and sad. “To the
wagons.”

Gimli looked down at Pippin as they trudged through
the mire, and then he sighed soundlessly. Then he glanced up at Legolas, his
expression slightly deliberating. “You know,” he said, almost conversationally,
“now we get to do everything we said we would. Fangorn and the Glittering Caves
await!”

“As do our peoples,” Legolas said, and he sent a small wry
smile down at the Dwarf. “We get to deal with that as well.”

“Ah, so we do.” Gimli winced a little, and then sighed.
“Well, there’s nothing else for it, Âzyungelê. I will not
hide my love, nor will I run from my people. The price of winning, we might
say.”

“A price, or a prize?” Legolas countered, and he laid a
gentle hand on Gimli’s shoulder and squeezed. “We have yet to discover what
this new Age will bring. But so long as it brings you, I will be content with
it.”

“Not sure how they’re likely to react if we simply show up
together and announce it,” Gimli said, and gave Legolas another considering look.
“What you do think?”

Legolas grimaced. “I feel that it has the potential to go
terribly, horribly wrong. I do not feel it would be fair to my family or to
you, to put you all in such a position. Shock and fear can make a temper
stretch to breaking.”

“Too true,” Gimli sighed. “Nobody likes to have bad news
sprung upon them.”

A faint frown touched Legolas’ face. “You are not bad news,
meleth nîn.”

“From your mouth to Gimrís’ ears. Not to mention your
father’s. There’s Aragorn!” Gimli began to walk faster over the churned earth,
but he was careful not to jostle his burden. “Aragorn, laddie! I’ve found our
rascal, but he needs your help…”

Aragorn was surrounded by soldiers and his counsellors, all
discussing in quiet stunned voices together. It seemed that none could quite
comprehend the sheer magnitude of what had just happened. Soon the realisation
would sink in, and then the celebrations would begin – but for the meanwhile,
the air was hushed and fragile. The King turned at Gimli’s call, and he had
hardly taken the sight in at all before he was sliding down from his horse and
striding over to the pair. Kneeling in the mud, heedless of his mail and finery,
Aragorn smoothed a hand down Pippin’s small round face. “I have nearly
exhausted my store of Athelas, but I will do what I can with what remains,” he
said.

Then he glanced up between Gimli and Legolas, and said,
“it’s good to see that you are both whole. I was worried.”

Gimli made a rude sound in his throat, but Legolas just
smiled. “And you.”

_{Shuf! – Ooof!
Mahal tadnani astû – Mahal guide you
Âzyungelê – Love of all loves
Ghivashelê – Treasure of all treasures.}