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tathrin · 10 months

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Please do gimleaf kiss 48: out of habit. Thank you!

Certainly, anon, thank you for asking! Prompt taken from this; anyone can feel free to send other numbers in at any time, I don’t care how long it’s been. (Just maybe add some context to your ask if it’s been like a month or more since I posted this, because otherwise I won’t know what to do with the random number in my inbox lmao).

The Men of Gondor are careful, cautious people; Gimli cannot blame them for it. They have lived alongside the threat of Mordor for a very long time, and their history is stained with the losses they have suffered to the dread powers of that land. Of course they have learned caution; of course they have learned care.

Gimli respects them for it and more than than, he understands them; for dwarves are careful and cautious too, keeping their own secrets close and allowing change into their hearts and caves only slowly; only once they are certain that they do not let danger in alongside. (And if Gimli chafes at some of that sluggishness these days, well, that is not the fault of the Men of Gondor.) They are right to be cautious, these Men of Gondor...

But they need not be so cautious about this.

"I assure you," Gimli says, not for the first time, "my people know their work well, my good lord." He cannot remember the name of this particular counselor; without proper beards by which to distinguish their lined, thin faces, too many of these Men look far too alike to his dwarven eyes. He has found that simple politeness can usually cover for his lack of recognition, however, and if ever it does not—well, he would like to challenge the Men in front of him to name and identify each dwarf that he has brought with him from Erebor to work their pale white stone.

He suspects they would do an even worse job of it.

"Your gates will stand a thousand years or longer when my people are done with them, and it would take an army twice as large as that which assailed your city three years ago to so much as crack their surface," he tells them. "No one builds doors like the dwarves."

"That is all well and good, Lord Gimli," says another one of these half-bearded, grave-faced Men. "But we need doors that will open, too, not just shut and stay that way. Perhaps dwarven arms would not balk at such a weight as that which your plans show," he says, glancing pointedly at Gimli's strong arms in a way that Gimli thinks is somehow meant to make him feel guilty or ashamed, "but Men are not so endowed, I fear. We—"

"Your pardon," Gimli says, holding up a hand in apologetic interruption. "A moment, if you please."

The flicker of gold and green that Gimli saw out of the corner of his eye resolves into a blur of movement swinging in through the wide window and, as the Council of Builders start and stare, Legolas trots over to their wide table as casually as though he has entered by the door at the far end of the hall and not via a window seven floors above the ground.

"Greetings, my friend," Gimli says, smiling warmly at the nimble elf. "Your meeting with the Healers has gone well, then, I hope?"

"Quite well, thank you Gimli," Legolas says, inclining his head in a regal bow to the slack-jawed Men. "Their garden of medicinal herbs will soon be flourishing, I do not doubt! But I do not mean to interrupt your own discussion..."

"Then have a seat, and we shall get back to it." Gimli pats the bench beside him—the Men sit in chairs, well-carved things of wood and age, but Gimli's shorter stature was ill-suited to the furnishing that filled this conference room; this tall workman's bench raises him to a more comfortable height against their table, and the small stool beside it makes climbing up and down easy on his thick legs—and Legolas folds himself gracefully down upon it, his own legs long enough that the toes of his soft shoes still brush the white stone floor.

"Now," Gimli says, smiling at the flustered Men (they will have to get used to elves eventually, he thinks, his mental voice smug; they have had three years to adapt to what took him mere months!), "where were we?"

"The...the weight of the gate, Lord Gimli," another Man says, picking up the thread when his companion merely gapes back and forth between the elf and the window. "It is too much; you must design something lighter."

Gimli shakes his head. "There is no need. The stone from which the gates will be hewn will be heavy, yes; but the hinges will be weighted so perfectly that they will be able to be opened with barely any effort at all. Why, a child might open these gates, if he had a sturdy friend to stand beside him!" Gimli reaches for the plans and draws his finger down the section that shows the proposed hinge-design (both functional and elegant, of course, as the Gates of Minas Tirith deserve!). "You see?" He looks up, waiting for the glimmer of recognition to fill the eyes of his audience. "They will be lighter to open than your old ones were, I promise you!"

"Lord Gimli, it is not that we do not believe you," a different Man says, in the tone that Gimli has learned means precisely the opposite. "It is only that we worry for the people of the city..."

"You need not worry," Legolas assures him blithely. "Dwarves are masters of stone to surpass all others, and Gimli would die before he spoke false word. Your gates will be marvels by the time he and his people are done with them!"

Gimli feels his cheeks flush a little at this earnest (and accurate) praise, but the Men of of the Council of Builders seem to be even less keen on the proposed gates now than they were before Legolas spoke. They exchange gimlet-eyed glances while the elf beams at them.

"Your pardon, Lord Legolas," one of them says at last. "While your confidence in your friend is just and honorable, you are...if you will forgive me...a Wood-elf." The smile of the Man's beardless face does not reach his eyes.

Legolas blinks at him. "Why should you need to be forgiven for that?" he asks. "I am a Wood-elf; you are correct!"

"Yes," the man says thinly. "And...well...I mean no offense, you understand, my lord, but...what does a Wood-elf know of stone?"

Legolas blinks again, as Gimli draws in a sharp breath in an attempt to cool his temper. It has the opposite effect; as though he has become a bellows, the embers of his wrath kindle all the hotter as he glares at these Men who would insult his beloved.

"My people's Halls in Mirkwood were built by dwarves," Legolas says. He is speaking slowly now, as though he believes that he is speaking to drunks or fools who need obvious things spelled-out with care. "I have lived within the embrace of dwarven craft for longer than any of you have been alive. I am no stone-shaper myself, no." He shakes his head, his long golden hair gliding like silken sunlight across his shoulders, and Gimli feels his temper ebbing away as his eyes catch and hold upon the sight. "But," Legolas continues, "I have sense enough to recognize skill when I see it, and to trust in the expertise of others when I find myself in an area in which I have none myself."

Gimli bites his lip to restrain a grin. How beautifully done! he thinks. Ahh, his elf has been learning. Three years ago, Legolas would have lost his temper and snarled something unforgivably rude; now, he answers almost as elegantly as Gimli himself might: tidily insulting the entire Council of Builders, but so politely that to rise to the insult they would first have to admit to their own lack of expertise.

Not that they are without all skill, these Men who claim to be the most talented and knowledgeable builders of Minas Tirith; but the skills of stone-shaping that created the White City have atrophied over the long years of Shadow, and there are now no Men in Minas Tirith who can claim even half of Gimli's gift with stone—if there ever were. Men have done great things with stone over their years of waking, it is true; but it is hard for anyone to claim to greater understanding of stone than the dwarves whose very blood pulses with the drumbeats of the earth.

Gimli sits back with a smile. "Well said, my dear," he murmurs, his lips barely moving beneath his beard; only one with the keen ears of an elf would be able to hear the soft words.

His elf turns and beams at him, and Gimli smiles back warmly. He takes Legolas's hand where it rests upon the bench and squeezes it tightly, then turns back to reach again for the gate plans with his other. "Kind words, Legolas, thank you," he says aloud, careful to keep his expression placid now (not that he thinks any of these Men know how to read his face beneath his beard). "And now, gentlemen, if I could draw your attention back to these hinge-schematics here..."

Gimli talks at length, explaining as best he can to Men who have only a rudimentary grasp of the stone-shaping skills upon which his people's plans for their gate rely how the dwarves will weigh and balance the great stone slabs of the gate so that their hinges will swing as easily and soundlessly as any delicate trinket-box; as lightly as elvish feet upon a forest floor. He sees glimmers of understanding begin to kindle in a few eyes and he talks faster, encouraged by the sight.

Legolas slides closer to him on the bench, tilting his head to stare avidly at the drawings that surely mean as little to him as the twittering sounds of his birds do to Gimli, a faint smile on his narrow beardless face. There is much about Legolas that Gimli still does not understand—and much in turn that he knows Legolas does not understand about him—but the understanding that they do have transcends such gaps in knowledge; they understand one another's hearts and souls, and have learned to appreciate the differences between them that they will never fully know. That is what truly matters.

"But what happens if one of the hinges cracks?" a Man asks, his scraggly-bearded face furrowed in concern. "The whole door will shatter under the strain..."

Gimli snorts—a rude response, but he cannot help himself. "A hinge crack!" he exclaims. "Balderdash! Such a thing has never happened, not to any dwarven door ever carved. It would take a battering ram larger than twenty trolls could lift to crack one of these hinges, so smooth will be their pivot and their fit. You might as well crack Andûril upon a twig as one of these hinges!"

He chortles, shaking his head in disbelief at these Men—at this so-called Council of Builders—and Legolas grins beside him and leans down to press a kiss to Gimli's cheek just above his beard. Gimli catches the elf's hand, those spindly twig-like fingers, and without thinking he presses a kiss of his own to the slim knuckles before he lets it go again. Legolas rests his head on Gimli's and they both sigh in contentment—

And then Gimli goes still, realizing that every single member of the Council of Builders is staring at them now.

He feels his cheeks coloring, bright and hot against his beard. "Ah," he says. He clears his throat. "Well. About the bars to lock it, then..."

#(p.s. i still have several more of these sitting in my drafts so if you sent one and i haven't answered yet...i will! Eventually!)#the gates of gondor #gimleaf #gigolas #lotr fanfiction #ask meme #send a kiss meme #my writing #legolas #gimli #minas tirith

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