Gimli hated working late at the office. He trudged up the stairs of his home with heavy feet, shrugging off his suit coat as he climbed.
He knew he missed dinner by at least an hour or two. He glanced down at his watch to see exactly by how much and winced. Gimli was going to slaughter the idiot who botched the Moria deal he had to spend the last half of his day untangling. He was just lucky that Legolas was understanding.
Days like this made Gimli want to find a way to work from home the way Legolas had.
He just figured that he’d just change into some comfy clothes and grab some leftovers from the fridge when he heard a voice wafting down the hallway.
“My shiny teeth and me!” his husband’s voice sang. There was a slightly poppy tone to it, so unlike the soft lullabies Gimli was used to hearing him sing.
“My shiny teeth that twinkle, just like the stars in space,” Legolas’s voice floated out of the open door of the bathroom. Gimli followed it there, leaning against the door jam to watch the scene inside.
Legolas was bopping as he sang, their little girl bopping along with him as she scrubbed her Princess Merida toothbrush over her teeth.
“My shiny teeth that sparkle, adding beauty to my face!” Legolas sang. He caught Gimli’s eye in the bathroom mirror and winked, grinning as he apparently ran out of lyrics he knew.
“Sing the shiny teef song ‘gain, Daddy!” their daughter chirped, foamy toothpaste still smeared around her mouth.
“Those must be some really shiny teeth,” Gimli said, grinning as the little girl squealed ‘Papa!’ as high as she could!
Legolas put a hand on her shoulder.
“Rinse and spit so Papa can see how shiny they are,” Legolas instructed with a smile as he set a cup of water in her reach.
She quickly grabbed the cup, swished, and spat before rubbing her little face dry with the hand towel. Then she sprang into Gimli’s arms as he scooped her up.
“Look how shiny my teeth are!” she cried, before showing off her freshly brushed pearly whites.
Gimli inspected them critically, humming in a very serious manner before declaring, “Why, Gracie, those must be the shiniest teeth I’ve ever seen!”
Legolas was giggling behind a hand, positively beaming.
“Have you decided what PJs you’re wearing tonight?” Gimli asked his little treasure.
She shook her head.“Then you go pick out a pair and I’ll help you finish getting ready for bed,” he said, setting her back on her feet.
Legolas walked over to him, giving him a quick peck on the lips as Gracie raced off to her bedroom to pick out some PJs.“Thank goodness for that show,” he murmured, a little laugh still lingering in his voice. “It made toothbrush time fun for her. Hard day?”
Gimli let his head fall on to Legolas’s shoulder.
“You have no idea,” he groaned.
Legolas gave another peck to the crown of his head, lifting a hand to rub at the tense muscles of Gimli’s shoulder.
“I’ll heat up some spaghetti and garlic bread for you while you tuck Grace in,” he said.
“Thanks,” Gimli said gratefully. He stood a moment more enjoying the closeness before he felt a smile steal over his face at the sounds of Gracie discussing pajama choices with her stuffed elephant.
“Think she’ll choose a matching pair this time?” he asked with grin.
“Well there’s a first time for everything,” Legolas said wryly before heading downstairs to make up a plate of dinner.
Later that night, after he had gotten Grace dressed in her PJs of choice (ballerinas on the bottoms and spaceships on the top), tucked into bed, and told her a bedtime story, Gimli stood in the doorway and couldn’t bring himself to move away. He still hadn’t changed out of his work clothes and he could smell garlic and tomato sauce from downstairs, but he just couldn’t help but pause and count his blessings that this was his life.
It had been a long, frustrating, drawn out process to adopt Grace, but from the first time he ever held her as a tiny, lonely baby to now as he watched her sleeping peacefully he had never regretted a moment of it. And he knew he never would.
“So what story was it tonight?” Legolas asked quietly as he came up to stand by Gimli’s side.
“Tonight she wanted a story about how the littlest elephant in the herd fought a scary dragon and freed the jungle,” Gimli replied.
Legolas just shook his head with a fond smile. Gracie’s imagination was something of a marvel.
“We’ll have to take her to the zoo again soon,” he said, looking at their daughter with such a tender expression on his face that Gimli felt humbled. He reached for Legolas’s hand, running his thumb over the ring there.
“How did we get so lucky?” he murmered.
“I don’t know,” Legolas replied, leaning into Gimli’s side. “Ten years ago I wouldn’t have thought any of this was possible, and now it’s just…”
“Perfect,” Gimli completed. “It’s absolutely perfect.”
“It’s more than perfect,” Legolas said. “It’s ours.”
And as Gimli stood there, married to the man he loved, watching over the best daughter he could dream of, he found he really couldn’t argue with that.
End.(Thank you for the prompt! This was the silliest one I’ve gotten and so it got the most tooth rottingly fluffy ficlet I could write!)
Tag: notanightlight
If your still doing prompts maybe “we’ll be your new family” ps:i love you dearly and your superb!!! *smooches then runs away to hide*
Legolas had known that he would face some opposition when he travelled with Gimli to the mountain. He had known that there would be dwarves who hated his very presence there, much less his upcoming wedding. That not even his status as one of the Nine Walkers would shield him from some. He thought he was prepared.
Now he just hoped that no one would notice the quickness of his breathing or the heat he could feel at the tips of his ears and recognize them for the tells they were.
He had thought that he would face any dissenters with Gimli at his side, but Gimli was in meetings with his king discussing the colony he wanted to set up in Aglarond. So Legolas was alone amongst a host of unfamiliar faces, trying to weather the scathing vitriol being thrown his way by the dwarrow he had approached about purchasing fabric for a new tunic from.
He tried to maintain a stoic expression as he had no hope of presenting the placid one he had worked so hard to learn from his father. He must not make a scene. He would not give any dwarf reason to say that Gimli had chosen some volatile wild elf to wed.
Legolas kept his fingers from twitching as the dwarrow cursed his family, his race, and his beardless face. He tried to imagine the words rolling off him like rain off a leaf as the dwarf called him a craftless, soulless, stretchedout, bateared bastard.
The mounting insults were almost too much to take, and Legolas was about ready to just throw the bolt of fabric in his hands at the dwarf and make a quick retreat when a gruff voice rose above the uneasy murmuring of the crowd.
“Firin son of Firus, what nonsense are you shouting about now!”
A familiar old dwarrow with a massive white beard and a sturdy walking stick planted himself between the two.
“It’s nothing to concern yourself about, Gloin,” the dwarf replied, straightening out his shoulders. “I’m just dealing with this thingtrying to purchase my wares.”
“Well I find myself concerned about it,” the old dwarrow said with a huff. He turned to Legolas.
“What possessed you to come to a stall like this?” Gloin asked, shaking his head. The younger dwarf spluttered from behind him.
Legolas clutched the fabric reflexively, feeling younger than he had in centuries. “The color caught my eye,” he tried not to mumble.
Gloin took the fabric, holding it up and looking back and forth between the bolt and Legolas with critical scrutiny.
“Well I cannot fault your eye for color, and you are going to need more blue in your wardrobe,” he conceded with a nod, “but you will find better quality fabrics sold by dwarves with much more business sense in that direction.”
“What are you saying, Gloin!” the dwarf bristled.
“I’m saying I have seen your finances, Son of Firus, and you could not hold onto a coin if someone nailed it to the palm of your hand!” Gloin said, shoving the bolt of fabric into the furious dwarf’s chest. “And no member of my family will do business with you as long as I still draw breath!”
Legolas saw where Gimli inherited his sharp tongue from. He let Gloin usher him away from the fuming merchant and towards the stalls he indicated earlier.
“Thank you,” Legolas said once they were away from the crowd.
Gloin snorted.
“I’m not going to let anyone talk about a member of my family that way.”
Legolas stopped.
“Master Gloin?” Legolas asked, confused.
Gloin paused, running a contemplative eye over the elf.
“Your the odd ore in the family vein, and no mistake about that,” he said, “but you should understand that we’ll be your new family.”
He started walking and Legolas followed, slightly dumbstruck.
“Now we really should find some fabric, you will be expected to wear our family’s blue on formal occasions, and we should look into some new beads and a few more adornments until Gimli has a chance to make you some himself,” Gloin said mostly to himself as he started perusing the goods on the nearest stall. “I don’t suppose you lot pierce those ears?”
Legolas couldn’t help but laugh.
“No we don’t, Master Gloin,” he confirmed.
Gloin gave him a flat look.
“Now what did I just say? We’re family, so drop the ‘Master’ business.”
“Alright, Gloin Adar,” Legolas replied with a smile, “can we look for carving tools as well. I left mine in Greenwood before the quest.”
Gloin nodded absentmindedly and began instructing Legolas on the fine art of haggling in a Dwarvish market.
On the next gift giving occasion, Legolas presented Gloin with an elaborately carved walking stick, that he carried with pride.
End. (Thanks for the prompt! And lots of hugs for you anon!)
Ladies, gents, and those who are both or neither:
Please give a warm welcome to our new mod, notanightlight!
She has the illustrious and daunting title of Music Director, and she is in charge of all singing-related business. If you are interested in singing for the podfic, she is who you will be dealing with. Be nice.
NOTAAAAA
“dead furless smelly infected bodies” Good luck on this
Warning: blood, gore, death, implied torture, this is from an orc’s perspective. This ficlet is horror. If that is going to trigger you than DO NOT READ IT!
Gnalbag cringed back into waking, the insipid sunlight filtering down into his yellowed eyes. Sticky black blood plastered loose dirt to the side of his head and he could feel the weight of another body pinning his legs down. He hissed and spat as he struggled to pull himself out from under the heavy corpse, cursing every form of life he knew of.
Dagor Dagorath lived up to its name. It truly was the battle of all battles, and the time for orcs to rise. Gnalbag believed the war would already be over, if it wasn’t for the unexpected charge of those mangey rock grubbers.
The thrice damned stringy elf Warriors were struggling against the might of the Dark Lord’s armies after a year of bloodshed, so close to caving that Gnalbag could practically see the battlefields littered with heaps of their dead, furless, smelly, infected bodies! And then doors opened in the mountainside and bellowing, thick-skulled dwarves poured out.
Gnalbag cursed at the mangled stump that used to be his left leg and the wound in his side still oozing tar black blood and bile. Where was his pike? He was going to drive it through the mouth of the next dwarf he saw and carry their head on it until it rotted off!
He spotted the jagged head of his pike and began scrambling over to if when a thick, steel-toed boot stepped down on it, pressing it into the sludge of dirt and blood.
“I don’t think you’ll be needing that,” said a deep voice.
Gnalbag growled and spat a black curse at the pompous dwarf.
“Do not get comfortable with victory. This is the last you’ll know it!” he ranted. “Our dark master will grind you into the stones you came from and the ground will be stained as red as your beard!”
The dwarf snorted at him dismissively, calling out that he found a live one while leaning casually on his axe, as if to emphasize how little of a threat Gnalbag was to him. Gnalbag wished he had a knife to drive into its belly. Then he noticed the nine figures engraved on the dwarf’s chest plate.
“I know who you are,” Gnalbag said, feeling unholy glee build up inside him. “You’re the dwarf from the nine!”
Other dwarves were starting to draw near.
“You’re the one who was sticking the elf!” he cackled, spraying flecks of black blood and spit.
“I would watch your tongue, orc, or I will remove it for you,” the dwarf growled.
Gnalbag only laughed louder.
“Still looking for your elvish whore?” he continued. The dwarf didn’t answer, but Gnalbag had seen the way his eyes swept over the battlefield. He bared his teeth in a crooked grin.
“How do you know you didn’t already meet him out there?”
“What are you implying?” the dwarf spat.
“Gimli, don’t listen to a thing like that,” another dwarf tried to reason, but Gnalbag knew he had the red dwarf’s attention now.
“You might have greeted him with your axe,” Gnalbag carried on, “after all, our Master needed thousands of orcs for his armies for his armies.”
Gnalbag relished the simmering mass of emotion practically radiating from the dwarf’s skin.
“Do you know how orcs are made, dwarf?” he taunted with a falsely sweet voice, “I’ll give you a hint.”
Gnalbag lifted a finger to his own torn, but still pointed ear, nearly bursting with manic glee.
“I used to be an elf once!” Gnalbag crowed.
The last thing he ever knew was the exact taste of Dwarvish steel as the axe shattered his face.
End.
(Thanks for the prompt. You didn’t think I’d go there, did you?)
Okay, for a five word prompt how about ‘we should probably do that?’
Gimli was trying to beat the next level of his video game when Legolas sauntered back into their dorm. He dropped his backpack by his desk and crouched down in front of their mini fridge to inspect the contents as the sounds of Gimli trying to take out an evil alien race filled the small space.
“We still haven’t gotten any more breakfast burritos,” he remarked as he grabbed a couple of cans of Mountain Dew and wondered what would make a better breakfast for the next day; Easy Mac or canned ravioli.
“We should probably do that,” Gimli replied without taking his eyes off the game.
Legolas came over and sat on the futon, opening one can of Dew and pressing the other against the back of Gimli’s neck until he paused the game to grab it.
“I heard there’s a campus event out on the quad tomorrow,” Gimli said, taking a sip of his Dew. “Looks kind of dumb but I hear they’re giving away free burgers.”
Legolas grinned at the mention of free food.
“Yeah, we should probably do that,” he agreed. He settled in to watch Gimli blow up some digital aliens and enjoy not thinking about his Mandarin class anymore. He didn’t know why he took that class. Even if his Dad said it was a good language for business, just sticking with Spanish would have been much easier.
“You know, Pippin thinks we’re dating,” he said after a moment.
Gimli made an interested sound.
“Apparently he and Merry are certain of it,” he continued, only pausing to drain the rest of his drink, “while Boromir thinks it would be a crime if we never started dating.”
Gimli gave him a little wink, momentarily taking his attention off the game.
“Well then, we should probably do that,” he replied with an amused laugh.
“You know, my cousins think we have passionate make out sessions every time we’ve got our door closed,” Gimli continued, saving his game at a checkpoint and turning it off. He moved to join Legolas on the futon.
“We should definitely do that,” Legolas said with a grin at the familiar feeling of Gimli’s hands framing his face as he went in for a kiss.
Five years later Legolas came into their flat to the smell of Gimli cooking some kind of pasta.
“I ran into that old pastor we helped with the charity last week,” he said as he took off his shoes. “Apparently he thought we were such a cute couple that he’s offered to officiate if we decide to get married.”
Gimli ran a finger over the little velvet box in his pocket and tried to contain his smile.
“We should probably do that.”
End. (Thanks for the prompt!)
If you’re still doing the five word prompts: “sorry, it can’t be helped”
Gimli had heard rumors of elves glowing in the dark since he was a child. There was a long standing miners joke that they would make friends with an elf just to have a light that would never go out. As a child, he imagined elves flickering like candle flames, and was very disappointed the first time he saw that was not the case.
After months spent on the road with an elf, you would think he would have become familiar with it, but that was not so.
During the early nights there was always a fire or starlight to mask the elf’s glow. Even in the pits of Moria Legolas’s glow was indistinguishable from the light of Gandalf’s staff.
It was not as if the elf was hard to spot either way, what with his bright hair, fair skin, and tall stature. It took a long time for Gimli to realize that it was not only his outstanding features that made him seek out the elf before all others of their company, but when it did it led to the first time he truly note elf glow.
Gimli lay on his back in their bed, breathing deeply and letting exhaustion settle deeply in his bones, when he noticed a faint light through the cracks of his eyelids. He cracked one open and his breath caught.
There, in the pitch darkness of their room with the lights snuffed out and the windows shuttered Legolas sat on the edge of the bed giving off the faint hint of silvery light. Gimli first likened it to moonlight, but that seemed wrong. Starlight, he decided, was much more fitting. Yes, it was as if the starlight had clung to the elf’s naked skin to be carried around the way road dust sticks to travelers.
Legolas noticed his staring and gave him a rueful little smile.
“Has my glow disturbed your sleep?” he whispered, “Sorry, it can’t be helped, or I would dim it for you.”
Gimli reached out to brush his fingers over the luminous skin of Legolas’s thigh.
“How could it disturb me when there is no gem I could dream of to catch the light as beautifully as your skin?”
A light flush colored Legolas’s cheekbones and the tips of his ears, and Gimli marveled at the sight.
Legolas laid down facing Gimli, catching one of Gimli’s hands in his own gently gleaming grasp. The light of Legolas’s skin reflecting on his own work worn fingers was a sight he felt he could happily study for the rest of his life.
A thought occurred to him.
“You have no Dark Name to give me,” he began, “but I shall know the glow of your skin in any darkness. And when I have died—”
“Gimli,” Legolas interrupted, clutching his hand tighter.
“I am sorry, love, but it can’t be helped,” he apologized, running a comforting hand over the elf’s pale hair. “And when I have gone to that darkness, my soul shall find you again by the glow of your skin.”
End.
(Thank you so much for the prompt!)
For your writing practise! “Bike riding on a Tuesday.” first thing that popped into my head. Do with it what you will.
Sometimes it seemed like there wasn’t enough time to think during the day, much less relax.
Gimli had almost forgotten what it was like to not have a deadline hanging over his head. He was grateful for the internship at Narvi Architects, especially when it would lead to a full time job in only a year’s time, but being low man on the totem pole meant the least pleasant jobs. It had been after ten at the earliest when he’d been able to leave the firm every day of the last two weeks.
By the time he got home most nights all he really had the energy to do was flop in bed. Sometimes he would wake up when Legolas slipped into bed after his shift tending bar at the Greenwood Tavern, but more often than not he only woke briefly when the alarm went off the next morning and he wished Legolas a good day. Then he would curl up around the still warm pillow, and fall asleep for the crucial half an hour before his own alarm went off. It always hurt to pry himself away from the strange lingering scent that came from someone sleeping there who worked days in a bakery and nights at a bar.
It was tough to see so little of each other everyday while trying to still keep their spirits up at work. Gimli couldn’t fault Legolas for working two jobs. He knew he was saving up to open a bakery of his own someday. It wasn’t like Gimli was much better, seeing as he spent most of his weekends working on designs from his laptop. At least they still made a point to grab lunch with each other at least three times a week.
So when Gimli unexpectedly found both Legolas and himself with a day off one Tuesday, he was quite understandably at a loss with what to do. It felt a bit like his brain was trying to reboot and readjust to the idea of free time. Thankfully, Legolas appeared to have a plan.
Gimli woke up to the smell of baking bread instead of a blaring alarm and shuffled into the kitchen to find his boyfriend singing as he pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven, rolls already cooling on baking racks.
Legolas greeted him with a peck on the cheek and instructions to go get cleaned up while he finished in the kitchen.
After a relaxing shower Gimli shrugged on one of his favorite t-shirts and met Legolas in the kitchen. Legolas handed him a breakfast roll and finished packing slices of bread into his drawstring backpack before dragging Gimli outside.
There at the bottom of the stairs were the old bicycles from their college days.
The day that followed felt almost dreamlike in quality.
They biked to the market place and filled up Legolas’s backpack with cheeses, meats, and produce the kind of quality they just couldn’t get in the groceries. After that they went through the arts district, stopping to take silly photos with some statues outside the art museum and check out some of the smaller shops and galleries. Gimli even bought a new set of drafting pencils.
Afterwards they simply biked down whatever street looked interesting. They ran into a few friends at the corner of Lake ave. and High st. And stopped to listen to some street performers on East Bree st.
Finally they came to a park overlooking the lake and stopped to rest and have a bite to eat. As they sat munching on sandwiches made courtesy of their finds in the market and Legolas’s bread (his great aunt Galadriel’s recipe, Gimli recognized) and watching the sailboats on the lake Gimli couldn’t imagine a more perfect day.
“We should find time for this more often,” Gimli said.
Legolas turned to give him a smile.
“What,” he asked, “Bike riding on a Tuesday?”
“Exactly,” Gimli replied, finishing his sandwich, “Why not?”
Legolas chuckled to himself and flopped down onto his back.
“You know what? I think that’s a great idea.”
It wasn’t easy to manage, but they found a way to set aside at least one Tuesday a month for a bike ride around the city. And the best memories of their toughest year were made coasting down the streets on their bikes.
End.
(Thank you for the prompt! If you have any 5 word prompts let me know!)
https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/determamfidd/115450904028/tumblr_nm9kyvjBSv1r7vxd5?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
https://determamfidd.tumblr.com/post/115450904028/audio_player_iframe/determamfidd/tumblr_nm9kyvjBSv1r7vxd5?audio_file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tumblr.com%2Faudio_file%2Fdetermamfidd%2F115450904028%2Ftumblr_nm9kyvjBSv1r7vxd5
I was messing around with my old lap harp and ended up playing the Iron Hills Soldier Song from determamfidd‘s story Sansûkh! It was really fun to play and a pretty good workout for the fingers.
I hope you enjoy!
brb crying my face off.
thorin totally played this. He totally did.
Nota you are a star beyond compare.
~Breaking News From The Sansûkh Recovery Ward! Feels Victims Hearing Voices!~
A new symptom of “feels” has come to light! Some victims may hear voices. Several victims report hearing hundreds of voices repeat the same phrases over and over again. Is there no hope of a cure?
AHHHHH NOTA YOU UTTER GEM
THE RECOVERY WARD IS AGAIN OPEN FOR BUSINESS I LOVE IT
Lifehack: Don’t listen to notanightlight’s rendition of the “Iron Hills For Me” while reading chapter 35 of Sansukh
No. No, don’t do that. Don’t listen to that heartbreakingly beautiful rendition by notanightlight. Oh no. Stop. Please.
😉
Aw Yiss 