Work Text:
The air was strange in the depths of the Hornburg. Every man, woman, and child was restless, many walking aimlessly and whispering to each other as if they were not in the throes of grief. Though so many lives were lost not days before, little mourning seemed to make its way into the throes of those preparing for the next battle, so soon after the last. Too busy, too worried about those still living, too frightened to grieve as they should be allowed. And Gimli watched. He watched, because if he did not observe something, if he did not focus on what needed to be done, he would lose himself to the same grief that lay thick over the stone. Stone that felt unfamiliar to him. Though none of his own kin had been in the battle - and indeed, he had lost none that were blood - the last months had created a bond so tight with the fellowship that each of their losses felt like a stab into his soul.
Though the Dwarven blood of his people had been spared as far as he was aware, he joined the men in their grief tonight as much as any would allow. He grieved for the fallen, for the soldiers who had been mere boys, for the wives without husbands, for the fathers without sons, and for the last of the great would-be kings. For Aragorn.
Oh, Aragorn.
Oh, the loss of so many men.
And oh, how strange it was to grieve for those unlike oneself. Gimli hadn’t been raised around men, and certainly hadn’t known a Dunedain before Aragorn, and yet sorrow dug its icy fingers into his heart nonetheless. An attachment to those who had to look down to even see him was not something he had considered possible before starting this perilous journey, and he certainly hadn’t thought that he would be the single one of his people to join in the sorrows of men.
Though he knew he wasn’t alone. Not really.
Different in almost every conceivable way, though exactly the same in their shared grief, sat the sole elf of their Fellowship on top of the wall. Gimli knew better than to be nervous at his dangerous-looking position, knew that elves weren't ones to slip with a mere gust of wind, but the thought of Legolas falling to his doom as Aragorn had was too much for him to take. Especially as the elf seemed to be distracted by his own soft singing, the words indecipherable over the wind.
“You damn elves and your obscene heights.” Gimli called in the bowman’s direction, “Get down from there, you fool!”
Legolas didn’t move his eyes from the horizon as he stopped singing and spoke, “I won’t fall.”
“I’d feel better if someone couldn’t come by and shove you.” Gimli stopped and looked up at him, “You’re in a dangerous position, elf.”
“I feel better up here.” Legolas responded so quietly that Gimli almost didn’t hear him. “I despise the stone walls of this place.” He finally tore his eyes away from the forest and looked down to meet Gimli’s gaze. Gimli blinked, shocked at the slight redness that tinged them. “Though I suppose it must feel close to you, yes?”
“Not really.” Gimli chose to ignore the tears in Legolas’s eyes, untrusting of himself to be gentle in the way the prince might need him to be. “The stones here are sturdy, but roughly cut in the way men do. This place is made from the work of men and it shows - it feels as foreign to me as it might to you.”
Legolas hummed, shifting slightly atop the stone and making Gimli’s heart jump into his throat. The wind pulled at the prince's hair - oddly unbraided, Gimli finally noticed - but he didn’t seem to be affected. “It is heavy with sorrow and fear here.”
“Are you not as well?” Gimli asked, regretting his quick tongue as soon as the words escaped his lips.
“...I don’t know.” Legolas finally said, the wind nearly taking his whisper away from Gimli’s ears. “I…I don’t…” He seemed to search for the words and found none, his head dropping into his hands. “Gimli, this feeling is so foreign to me, despite this not being my first time feeling it.”
Gimli looked around, noting the men watching them mere steps away. He sighed, “Come with me. There are ears here who may not understand.”
Legolas took another look at the forest, a longing in his expression that Gimli was beginning to understand, but eventually he slid to the floor, safe from falling, and let Gimli lead him away from prying eyes. The dwarf wasn’t certain what worried him more - the prince’s silence or the far-away look on his face.
Gimli wouldn’t pretend to know the halls of Helm’s deep well, but he knew how to find a good hiding place, and eventually one of the many spaces he checked was empty, save for battle-worn and damaged armor that seemed to have been discarded, at least for the time being. He let Legolas sit by the window, intent on not distressing the elf further by shutting him behind stone walls completely, and sat down on a bench himself.
The two listened to the sounds of the living outside, and Legolas’s gaze once more turned to the sky, the light making the sheen in his eyes once again obvious. Gimli scooted a bit closer, bringing a knee up. “Legolas.”
The use of his name and not a moniker got the elf’s attention, and he turned from the window. His skin was pale and his usually proud posture was slightly slumped, worrying Gimli ever more. “Aragorn is gone, Gimli.”
Gimli bit his tongue, stuck somewhere between appreciating the prince’s forwardness and wishing he had a bit more time to ensure he wouldn’t cry during this inevitable conversation. “Ay. I’m sorry, lad.”
Legolas frowned, “You were his friend as well.”
“Not like you were.” Gimli shook his head, “I grieve as the men here grieve. You grieve the loss of something more, I think.”
“Does it always hurt like this?”
Gimli shifted closer, moving to his knees so that he could look at the prince face-to-face. “Describe it to me.”
“I wish not to speak of it.”
“Speaking it often helps, I’ve found.” Gimli thought about the scream that Aragorn had let loose after finding the little one’s belt in the pile of orcs, thought of the cries of women over their husbands, and thought of the endless whispers that followed the living after battle. “Speaking or crying or screaming. Though I don’t think I’d recommend that last one, you might start a panic.”
Legolas looked down at his hands where they rested in his lap, “I am not like you. I am not like those here.” He nodded out the window, “Mortals take every step knowing that someday they must leave this world. Elves are not so touched by death, and yet…I feel it follows me now.” He turned back to Gimli, a trail of wet on his cheek outlined by the sun. “If not because of this war, everyone in our Fellowship will be taken from me eventually, by virtue of age or by nature of blade. I have come to terms with this…so I know not why it hurts so terribly.”
Gimli leaned forward, taking Legolas’s face in his hand as he thumbed the tear track away, leaving a trail of grime on the prince’s smooth skin. So strange looking, younger in appearance than most of the men he’d seen and yet so very old. Old eyes, burdened now with sorrow of a kind that his people shouldn’t have to bear. Legolas leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and inhaling shakily. Gimli wouldn’t be surprised if he began weeping right then and there. “Loss is something we all must bear, someday.” Gimli murmured as Legolas brought his own hand up to touch the one on his face. “I think even elves cannot escape it, not during these times. But lad, we’re not all gone yet.”
“You will be. Someday. Just as Aragorn is now. As Boromir has been for some time. As the little ones might be in that mountain.” Gimli could think of nothing to say. The elf was right - if he wasn’t killed in battle, he would outlive every member of the fellowship, every man, woman, and child within the walls of Helm’s Deep and beyond, and every dwarf, hobbit, and creature would have to be buried as Legolas still stood, lonely amongst the trees. The mental image hurt more than Gimli thought it would. Instead of speaking then, Gimli let his hands move to Legolas’s, wrapping the archer’s long fingers in his own large and stubby ones. Legolas held tight, the calluses along his bow-drawing fingers oddly surprising to the dwarf. “It hurts, Gimli.”
“I know, lad.” Gimli ran his thumbs over the back of the prince’s hands, offering what little comfort a mortal could to one like him. “I’m so sorry.”
“How do you do it?” Tears were flowing freely from Legolas’s eyes now as they seemed to search Gimli’s for the answer. Desperate and scared and unlike anything Gimli had seen from an elf before, “How do you watch those you love die day after day without wishing to be gone yourself?”
Gimli’s heart jumped, “Legolas. You don’t wish to-”
“No.” Legolas shook his head, “No, but only because I know there is still work to be d one. I fear if there wasn’t…if you go too…”
“Gandalf is here. The little ones are here. As far as we know, your people are safe.”
“Mithrandir is different, and we know nothing of the Hobbits beyond Pippin.” Legolas squeezed Gimli’s fingers tightly, and Gimli didn’t react when he felt the slight prick of his nails in his skin. “You needn’t worry for me now, but I cannot assure you of anything if you go too.”
Gimli squeezed back, attempting to ground the elf before he spaced out completely, “You won’t get rid of me that easily, dwarven stubbornness and all.” He took a deep breath, “I hate the idea of you leaving before me, though. So you had better not die on the battlefield, or I’ll find my way to your spirit and drag you into the halls of my forefathers myself.”
Legolas let out a watery half-laugh, his eyes squeezed shut. “I fear you would be no match for my father’s wrath. He wouldn’t let you take me.”
“Ay, well, you’ll just have to take me with you then.” Gimli pressed his lips to Legolas’s temple before knocking their heads together gently, “Keep your spirits high, Legolas. Aragorn would not like to see you this way.”
“And he will not. For he’s not here.” Legolas reciprocated the gesture, untangling one of his hands from Gimli’s to place it on the back of his head instead, keeping him there. “Do not go where I cannot follow, Gimli.”
“I can’t say that I won’t.” Gimli felt his own eyes begin to burn, “But I’ll do my best.”
“That is all that I can ask of you, my friend.” Legolas finally pulled away and Gimli sat back against the wall, both of them staring at the view outside of the window. A slight breeze caught Legolas’s hair, and Gimli watched it twist around itself, the thin strands moving in a way that coarse dwarf hair never could.
“You took your braids out?” Gimli asked after a moment of silence.
Legolas blinked, touching the hair by his ears, “Last night, after we came here. It’s been a while since they’ve been down.”
“You look nearly naked without them.”
Legolas hummed, “I hadn’t the energy to put them back in, if I’m being honest.”
“Would you like them back in?”
Legolas shrugged, not quite meeting Gimli’s gaze, “I still don’t think I have the will right now to do so. It is strange, but I feel…tired. Like grief has taken my strength and buried it where I cannot find it.”
Gimli nodded, tapping his fingers on his knee as he thought through his next words carefully. “I know not the intricacies of elvish culture, and less so of Mirkwood, so please do not take offense when I offer you my assistance.”
Legolas’s eyes widened, “Oh?”
“I should like to put your braids in for you, if you miss them.” Gimli held up his hands, “Though I’m certain my fingers cannot yet create the delicate ones you often wear, I could do them similarly, or else give you dwarven braids. If you wish.”
“Dwarven braids?” Legolas asked, the smallest hint of mirth in his expression, “And shall I announce our future marriage as well?”
Gimli swallowed, already feeling the tug of regret. “If that is what it means among your people, I apologize for my brashness. I realize it is no laughing matter.”
“Nay, my friend.” Legolas allowed himself a small laugh, easing Gimli’s heart slightly. “It does not have to mean anything. It can be a declaration of unity - hence its significance between lovers - but I wouldn’t mind it.” He looked outside once more, “I think we could use unity in these trying times.”
“So…you will allow me to help?”
“If you truly wish to do so.”
“I do not offer such things lightly.” Gimli said firmly.
“Then please.” Legolas pulled a few strands of hair out of his collar, “I would trust it to no one else.”
Legolas’s hair was fine beneath Gimli’s fingers. So used to tugging through tangles and coarse curls was he that the process felt slightly tedious. Too many times did the delicate braids loosen and fall out as Gimli cursed himself, far too used to his own people’s hair and beards. Legolas remained silent through the process, unjudging of Gimli’s struggles, and only making a slight humming noise when Gimli pulled a bit too tight only once.
The sun shone a bit too bright for the heavy air over Hornburg, but it made Gimli’s job a bit easier. Legolas seemed to soak it in, his eyes shut and his hands resting on the window sill. Gimli’s braids were not the delicate fishtails that had adorned Legolas before, but instead an intricately patterned weave resting on the back of the prince’s head, having given up on elvish braids and instead focusing on what he knew.
“Your hair is slippery.” Gimli complained, earning a chuckle from his friend. “There is nothing for the braids to hold onto.”
“I imagine that is why elves do not often wear dwarven braids.” Legolas replied, “I imagine an elvish braid would look fat and rough in your beard.”
“I hate to agree with you, so I won’t.” Gimli said, just to hear the laugh that spilled again from Legolas’s lips. He smiled, “Even so, with a bit of modification, I’m almost done.”
“I thank you, Master Dwarf.” Legolas said earnestly, “You’ve done me a great honor. I hope to one day repay the favor.”
Gimli flipped the braid inside-out at the bottom, annoyed when it didn’t knot like a dwarven braid should. “And then our marriage shall be true.” In response, Legolas tensed, his eyes going wide before Gimli could bark a laugh. “Oh, I tease. It is the same of your world. It needn’t mean anything.”
“You are tormenting me.”
“Nay, I wouldn’t. Not now, at least.” Gimli instead twisted the braid around and flipped it again, grunting in satisfaction when it held. “There. You’re less naked now.”
“Oh, hush.” Legolas reached behind him to feel it, his fingers dancing along the intricate weave. “It’s beautiful. I thank you again, Gimli.”
Gimli gently knocked his head against Legolas’s again, earning a sigh. “Shall we go see what preparations we can make for the upcoming battle? People may wonder where we’ve gone off too.”
Legolas nodded, standing. His eyes were still wet, but his face was steeled in a determined expression. “Let us not allow Aragorn’s sacrifice be in vain.”
Gimli took his hand and squeezed the elf’s fingers once more, “Ay. And we’ll meet after the battle.”
Legolas nodded, “I’ll allow myself that hope.”