Fic: Mists of Memory (LoTR. Legolas/Gimli)
May. 2nd, 2007 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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keelywolfe wanted it.
This is Legolas/Gimli slash, although not graphic, it is R rated.
Mists of memory
By Angel
2004
The steady blows of the axe in the woods of Ithilien came to his ears as he planed the keel of the boat into shape. Long delicate elvish hands, never meant for harder work than fletching arrows, moved over the mist-colored wood, marred by small cuts and bruises from their labors.
The axe stopped. Stomping and dragging noises followed, then Gimli came out of the woods, with a tree in tow. The sun was starting to come out of the fog this morning.
“That’s the last of them. How thick do you need this one sliced?”
“Two-fingersbreadth, as the others.” Legolas smiled at his dwarf. Typical of Gimli to ask a question for which he knew the answer just to have an excuse to talk. “The work goes well. We shall be ready to sail within a fortnight.”
Gimli was setting the wedge to split the log. He looked up to see his elf looking at him. “Not if you spend all your time watching me.” He continued with his splitting. A stack of wood two-fingersbreadth thick accumulated as Legolas began work on the ribs of the boat.
“Foolish elf. Taking to the Sea in a little boat,” he grumbled under his breath. “Drowning, or capsizing, mark my words. I’m daft for going along. That’s for elves, not an old dwarf like me.”
“Never old, my love.” The slim ageless hands covered his, and a warm mouth came down onto his grey streaked beard. “And in Elvenhome you will be renewed, younger than when we met at the Court of Elrond.”
“Ah, lad, what do you see in me?” Gimli knew there was no hope of getting more work done for a time. Elves were flighty. Had it been a dwarvish project, they’d been done a week before. But for all Legolas was a hard worker, he was prone to stop, and make Gimli stop as well. Their lovemaking had been more frequent in the last fortnight than in all the prior century.
“You are strong as the oaks, solid like the earth I love. Your beard is plowed ground with snow in the furrows.”
“Silly elf, mixing me all up with poetry.” Gimli pulled him in for a kiss. “I suppose we can spare a moment.”
“See, not so old after all.” The next kiss was deeper. Legolas tasted the earthy taste of his lover’s mouth, let the beard tickle his face and broke with a smile. One hundred-twenty years, a bare flicker as elves marked time, together and he still was unused to the hirsute body and face of the dwarf.
“Gold and crystal and oliphaunt ivory, you are,” Gimli murmured as he peeled away the grey tunic from the slim elven body. “And the ringing of anvils through the halls, music in the dark.”
“And you say I confuse you with poetry,” Legolas said
Gimli kissed the bare skin, so strange and hairless. There had been a time when this niggled at him, speaking of a taste for those too young for beards. He reminded himself often in those early days that the elf, for all he was and would forever be beardless, was the elder. The smooth body still delighted him, speaking of leashed power, slim and deadly as one of the arrows his lover carried.
He opened the grey trousers, licking the underside of Legolas’ belly in a way that made the elf shudder and drop down beside him.
“We may not, dearheart. I must have all my power to ensure we reach Valinor. I cannot have you drain me until we are there.”
“Aye, and should you not be permitted, I have no business asking it of you.”
“There are ways, Gimli, that do not draw out my powers. Lie still and close your eyes.” Gimli lay back, and let his beloved’s words sink in. The touch of the long-fingered hands lay along his face and chest, and he curled into the slender body. “Remember. The night in the Glittering Caverns beneath Helm’s Deep.”
Gimli remembered.
There, in the heady rush of victory, swept by the great pleasure of being alive, they had first kissed. The soft, narrow lips, so strange with no beard. The shocking entrance of the tongue, the way elves and men did it, the way no dwarf would ever imagine. The glitter behind his eyes that matched the glitter of the stones. Taken aback, he had at last remembered to breathe. Legolas had broken from him, his fair face amused and pleased. Gimli had growled, caught the braids and pulled him back for another.
He understood now. There would be no touching, save for their embrace, but their minds would wander the paths of pleasant memory for a time.
“Remember,” Gimli said, for two could remember as easily as one, “the night here in the woods of Ithilien.”
Legolas remembered.
They had walked the moon-silvered forest, kissing in the shadows of the trees. Gimli had led him to a vine-draped grotto, where a bed of soft moss awaited them. Gimli had lain down, and Legolas, mindful of his greater height had lain beside him, unsurprised when the dwarf kissed him with an open mouth, tasting him. Gimli had removed his garments so deftly that Legolas had almost failed to notice, distracted by the kisses.
The dwarf’s mouth, tickling and hairy, had moved over him. First into his neck, sending quicksilver shivers through his body. Then over his shoulders and arms, the full lips exploring more thoroughly than the nimble, thick-fingered hands.
Gimli had lingered, learning each plane and angle of the elf, enjoying the clean, sweet taste of him. Blind, he could have sculpted his beloved using only the memories of his mouth. At length, he found the shaft that awaited him. The thickness of a bow-grip, supple as a willow-wand but with a core of steel, it had drawn first his fingers, then his mouth.
Legolas had never known dwarves to be so graceful with their tongues. Gimli was well-spoken, but this was an art few outside Legolas’ own people ever learned. He was driven to gasping need by the light licks, and the brush of the beard, then pushed into wordless exaltation when the dwarf had taken him in entirely.
“You tasted of sweet wine and moonlight, fair one,” Gimli said softly.
“I remember, for you kissed me.” And Gimli had, softly, in love and gratitude, but Legolas had kissed him back, hard and searching. His own flavor had lingered in the dwarf’s mouth, and together they devoured it, drawing out the last nuances of taste.
They lay together, as the midday sun burnt off the last of the fog.
“Now we work, and soon we sail,” Legolas announced, getting to his feet. He returned to his building. Gimli watched for a time and returned to the forest. They seemed to need no food and little sleep as they worked. The last of the Eldar had departed years before from the Havens. The elves that yet remained loved Middle Earth too much to leave. Legolas had begun building his own ship here in Ithilien.
Gimli had given what help he could, cutting trees with guilty memories of Fangorn Forest looming over him. But none had talked back, and he was certain there were no ents or entwives about. He worked steadily through the afternoon, providing two trees, and the mast.
The sun had begun to set when Legolas called the next rest. They sat together and watched her descent, as had become their custom, comfortable in each other’s silence. They waited until the full moon took the sky, then worked under his silver light
Mists shrouded the work as night faded into morning. They lay together, under the grey cloaks of Lothlorien, received from the Lady of the Golden Wood, woven by her own hand, so long ago.
“Legolas. Tell me true, will they take me in Elvenhome? I am but a dwarf.”
“You are an Elf Friend. Frodo was accepted, and Samwise as well. Why should you not be?”
“I am no Ringbearing hobbit who loves songs under the stars.”
“In Valinor, it shall not matter. Rest, beloved. The name of Legolas, son of Thranduil is known and awaited over the Sea. And when is it said apart from Gimli Gloin’s son in recent decades?” He stroked the crystal that Gimli wore on his cloak clasp, a single golden hair sparkling within it. The other two remained behind, one under the Lonely Mountain, one in the Great Hall of the Glittering Caves: symbols of the lasting peace and friendship between the Mountain and the Wood. But this last strand, Gimli would not be parted from. “And your Lady awaits her devoted knight.”
“Aye. And between her and you, who am I to fret?’
“Rest easy, beloved.”
“Remember,” Gimli said, “Minas Tirith.”
Legolas remembered.
They had climbed the White Tower in the cool of the morning, the green banner of Elassar snapping in the light breeze above them. Legolas had run up lightly, stopping every score or two of steps until Gimli’s shorter legs could catch him up. They had stood at the pinnacle, a thousand feet above the plain, and looked over all the lands they could see. He had told the dwarf tales, stories of the trees and earth before men had come. His hands had explored the solid compact body, teasing their way through the hair in places no elf had it. The sun had run her course, and the stories did not stop. He traced the topography of the dwarf’s body as he told the tales of the lands about them, the same love fueling both.
Gimli, with the patience of his kind, endured the sweet torments, as he would endure the labors needed to produce a fine work. In the end, it had been a fine work, Legolas’ hands as careful as any artisan’s had produced: a perfect jewel of a moment, fitted into the setting of the words of love from the elf.
The sun rose, burning the fog away. So the work continued. Steadily, day in and night out, they worked, pausing only for memories. Food had become a memory, and sleep was no longer needed, as their work drew them closer to Valinor.
On the eighth dawn, Legolas finished carving the final letter into the prow of the ship. Gimli looked over the words. They were carved in the fair flowing script of the elves, and followed by the stiffer runes of the dwarves.
“It says the same in both tongues, beloved,” Legolas said softly.
“I read both well enough,” Gimli said, gruffness covering his pleasure that Legolas had written their tale for all to see as they sailed. “On this day, the twenty-fifth of march, one hundred and twenty one mortal years after the fall of the Dark Lord, Gimli Gloin’s Son and Legolas, son of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, set sail down the great River Anduin for Valinor.”
They launched the ship, and climbed aboard. Legolas raised the sail and let the morning breeze and the strong current carry them down Anduin. They sailed, remembering the battles of the Great War, the lovemaking of years past. Twenty leagues took them past the island of Cair Andros and past Osgilith.
The White Tower of Gondor was visible even seven leagues distant, and Legolas sang another lament for Aragorn, as he had weeks before when the High King had passed. As they sailed, he lengthened it, taking in all the dead of the company, Boromir and Aragorn, Merry and Pippin. His voice mingled Elven and the common tongue, and Gimli was content to listen as they sailed past Minas Tirith.
The sun ran her course, and they sailed under the half-light of the moon. They walked the paths of memory together, Gimli young once again, from the Lonely Moutains to the Shire, through Mirkwood and across the plains of Rohan. Together, they loved on silken beds, and grassy hillocks, on stony shelves and flowered arbors. They hunted out reluctant orcs, and planted seedlings with Fangorn. Gimli talked of forging the gates of Minas Tirith, and Legolas of the resettlement of Ithilien.
Dawn found them at the mouth of the River Sirith. The current flowed more swiftly here, past Lebinnen and Southern Ithilien. The cry of the gulls rang continuously.
By midafternoon, they could smell the sea, and at dusk, they found the mouth of the great river.
“Do we sail into darkness, beloved, or shall we wait for dawning?” Legolas asked.
“Sail on!” the dwarf cried. “We have sought and found the Sea. Let us sail it, dark or dawn.”
The boat caught the outgoing tide, and they were swept out onto the Sea. They sat together, holding each other as the waning moon rose late over the waves.
Valinor awaited them, and they sailed out of this Story, and into the eternal one which is never written or told by mortal men.
keelywolfe wanted it.This is Legolas/Gimli slash, although not graphic, it is R rated.
Mists of memory
By Angel
2004
The steady blows of the axe in the woods of Ithilien came to his ears as he planed the keel of the boat into shape. Long delicate elvish hands, never meant for harder work than fletching arrows, moved over the mist-colored wood, marred by small cuts and bruises from their labors.
The axe stopped. Stomping and dragging noises followed, then Gimli came out of the woods, with a tree in tow. The sun was starting to come out of the fog this morning.
“That’s the last of them. How thick do you need this one sliced?”
“Two-fingersbreadth, as the others.” Legolas smiled at his dwarf. Typical of Gimli to ask a question for which he knew the answer just to have an excuse to talk. “The work goes well. We shall be ready to sail within a fortnight.”
Gimli was setting the wedge to split the log. He looked up to see his elf looking at him. “Not if you spend all your time watching me.” He continued with his splitting. A stack of wood two-fingersbreadth thick accumulated as Legolas began work on the ribs of the boat.
“Foolish elf. Taking to the Sea in a little boat,” he grumbled under his breath. “Drowning, or capsizing, mark my words. I’m daft for going along. That’s for elves, not an old dwarf like me.”
“Never old, my love.” The slim ageless hands covered his, and a warm mouth came down onto his grey streaked beard. “And in Elvenhome you will be renewed, younger than when we met at the Court of Elrond.”
“Ah, lad, what do you see in me?” Gimli knew there was no hope of getting more work done for a time. Elves were flighty. Had it been a dwarvish project, they’d been done a week before. But for all Legolas was a hard worker, he was prone to stop, and make Gimli stop as well. Their lovemaking had been more frequent in the last fortnight than in all the prior century.
“You are strong as the oaks, solid like the earth I love. Your beard is plowed ground with snow in the furrows.”
“Silly elf, mixing me all up with poetry.” Gimli pulled him in for a kiss. “I suppose we can spare a moment.”
“See, not so old after all.” The next kiss was deeper. Legolas tasted the earthy taste of his lover’s mouth, let the beard tickle his face and broke with a smile. One hundred-twenty years, a bare flicker as elves marked time, together and he still was unused to the hirsute body and face of the dwarf.
“Gold and crystal and oliphaunt ivory, you are,” Gimli murmured as he peeled away the grey tunic from the slim elven body. “And the ringing of anvils through the halls, music in the dark.”
“And you say I confuse you with poetry,” Legolas said
Gimli kissed the bare skin, so strange and hairless. There had been a time when this niggled at him, speaking of a taste for those too young for beards. He reminded himself often in those early days that the elf, for all he was and would forever be beardless, was the elder. The smooth body still delighted him, speaking of leashed power, slim and deadly as one of the arrows his lover carried.
He opened the grey trousers, licking the underside of Legolas’ belly in a way that made the elf shudder and drop down beside him.
“We may not, dearheart. I must have all my power to ensure we reach Valinor. I cannot have you drain me until we are there.”
“Aye, and should you not be permitted, I have no business asking it of you.”
“There are ways, Gimli, that do not draw out my powers. Lie still and close your eyes.” Gimli lay back, and let his beloved’s words sink in. The touch of the long-fingered hands lay along his face and chest, and he curled into the slender body. “Remember. The night in the Glittering Caverns beneath Helm’s Deep.”
Gimli remembered.
There, in the heady rush of victory, swept by the great pleasure of being alive, they had first kissed. The soft, narrow lips, so strange with no beard. The shocking entrance of the tongue, the way elves and men did it, the way no dwarf would ever imagine. The glitter behind his eyes that matched the glitter of the stones. Taken aback, he had at last remembered to breathe. Legolas had broken from him, his fair face amused and pleased. Gimli had growled, caught the braids and pulled him back for another.
He understood now. There would be no touching, save for their embrace, but their minds would wander the paths of pleasant memory for a time.
“Remember,” Gimli said, for two could remember as easily as one, “the night here in the woods of Ithilien.”
Legolas remembered.
They had walked the moon-silvered forest, kissing in the shadows of the trees. Gimli had led him to a vine-draped grotto, where a bed of soft moss awaited them. Gimli had lain down, and Legolas, mindful of his greater height had lain beside him, unsurprised when the dwarf kissed him with an open mouth, tasting him. Gimli had removed his garments so deftly that Legolas had almost failed to notice, distracted by the kisses.
The dwarf’s mouth, tickling and hairy, had moved over him. First into his neck, sending quicksilver shivers through his body. Then over his shoulders and arms, the full lips exploring more thoroughly than the nimble, thick-fingered hands.
Gimli had lingered, learning each plane and angle of the elf, enjoying the clean, sweet taste of him. Blind, he could have sculpted his beloved using only the memories of his mouth. At length, he found the shaft that awaited him. The thickness of a bow-grip, supple as a willow-wand but with a core of steel, it had drawn first his fingers, then his mouth.
Legolas had never known dwarves to be so graceful with their tongues. Gimli was well-spoken, but this was an art few outside Legolas’ own people ever learned. He was driven to gasping need by the light licks, and the brush of the beard, then pushed into wordless exaltation when the dwarf had taken him in entirely.
“You tasted of sweet wine and moonlight, fair one,” Gimli said softly.
“I remember, for you kissed me.” And Gimli had, softly, in love and gratitude, but Legolas had kissed him back, hard and searching. His own flavor had lingered in the dwarf’s mouth, and together they devoured it, drawing out the last nuances of taste.
They lay together, as the midday sun burnt off the last of the fog.
“Now we work, and soon we sail,” Legolas announced, getting to his feet. He returned to his building. Gimli watched for a time and returned to the forest. They seemed to need no food and little sleep as they worked. The last of the Eldar had departed years before from the Havens. The elves that yet remained loved Middle Earth too much to leave. Legolas had begun building his own ship here in Ithilien.
Gimli had given what help he could, cutting trees with guilty memories of Fangorn Forest looming over him. But none had talked back, and he was certain there were no ents or entwives about. He worked steadily through the afternoon, providing two trees, and the mast.
The sun had begun to set when Legolas called the next rest. They sat together and watched her descent, as had become their custom, comfortable in each other’s silence. They waited until the full moon took the sky, then worked under his silver light
Mists shrouded the work as night faded into morning. They lay together, under the grey cloaks of Lothlorien, received from the Lady of the Golden Wood, woven by her own hand, so long ago.
“Legolas. Tell me true, will they take me in Elvenhome? I am but a dwarf.”
“You are an Elf Friend. Frodo was accepted, and Samwise as well. Why should you not be?”
“I am no Ringbearing hobbit who loves songs under the stars.”
“In Valinor, it shall not matter. Rest, beloved. The name of Legolas, son of Thranduil is known and awaited over the Sea. And when is it said apart from Gimli Gloin’s son in recent decades?” He stroked the crystal that Gimli wore on his cloak clasp, a single golden hair sparkling within it. The other two remained behind, one under the Lonely Mountain, one in the Great Hall of the Glittering Caves: symbols of the lasting peace and friendship between the Mountain and the Wood. But this last strand, Gimli would not be parted from. “And your Lady awaits her devoted knight.”
“Aye. And between her and you, who am I to fret?’
“Rest easy, beloved.”
“Remember,” Gimli said, “Minas Tirith.”
Legolas remembered.
They had climbed the White Tower in the cool of the morning, the green banner of Elassar snapping in the light breeze above them. Legolas had run up lightly, stopping every score or two of steps until Gimli’s shorter legs could catch him up. They had stood at the pinnacle, a thousand feet above the plain, and looked over all the lands they could see. He had told the dwarf tales, stories of the trees and earth before men had come. His hands had explored the solid compact body, teasing their way through the hair in places no elf had it. The sun had run her course, and the stories did not stop. He traced the topography of the dwarf’s body as he told the tales of the lands about them, the same love fueling both.
Gimli, with the patience of his kind, endured the sweet torments, as he would endure the labors needed to produce a fine work. In the end, it had been a fine work, Legolas’ hands as careful as any artisan’s had produced: a perfect jewel of a moment, fitted into the setting of the words of love from the elf.
The sun rose, burning the fog away. So the work continued. Steadily, day in and night out, they worked, pausing only for memories. Food had become a memory, and sleep was no longer needed, as their work drew them closer to Valinor.
On the eighth dawn, Legolas finished carving the final letter into the prow of the ship. Gimli looked over the words. They were carved in the fair flowing script of the elves, and followed by the stiffer runes of the dwarves.
“It says the same in both tongues, beloved,” Legolas said softly.
“I read both well enough,” Gimli said, gruffness covering his pleasure that Legolas had written their tale for all to see as they sailed. “On this day, the twenty-fifth of march, one hundred and twenty one mortal years after the fall of the Dark Lord, Gimli Gloin’s Son and Legolas, son of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, set sail down the great River Anduin for Valinor.”
They launched the ship, and climbed aboard. Legolas raised the sail and let the morning breeze and the strong current carry them down Anduin. They sailed, remembering the battles of the Great War, the lovemaking of years past. Twenty leagues took them past the island of Cair Andros and past Osgilith.
The White Tower of Gondor was visible even seven leagues distant, and Legolas sang another lament for Aragorn, as he had weeks before when the High King had passed. As they sailed, he lengthened it, taking in all the dead of the company, Boromir and Aragorn, Merry and Pippin. His voice mingled Elven and the common tongue, and Gimli was content to listen as they sailed past Minas Tirith.
The sun ran her course, and they sailed under the half-light of the moon. They walked the paths of memory together, Gimli young once again, from the Lonely Moutains to the Shire, through Mirkwood and across the plains of Rohan. Together, they loved on silken beds, and grassy hillocks, on stony shelves and flowered arbors. They hunted out reluctant orcs, and planted seedlings with Fangorn. Gimli talked of forging the gates of Minas Tirith, and Legolas of the resettlement of Ithilien.
Dawn found them at the mouth of the River Sirith. The current flowed more swiftly here, past Lebinnen and Southern Ithilien. The cry of the gulls rang continuously.
By midafternoon, they could smell the sea, and at dusk, they found the mouth of the great river.
“Do we sail into darkness, beloved, or shall we wait for dawning?” Legolas asked.
“Sail on!” the dwarf cried. “We have sought and found the Sea. Let us sail it, dark or dawn.”
The boat caught the outgoing tide, and they were swept out onto the Sea. They sat together, holding each other as the waning moon rose late over the waves.
Valinor awaited them, and they sailed out of this Story, and into the eternal one which is never written or told by mortal men.
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Date: 2016-01-09 09:39 pm (UTC)Thank you very much for sharing!