In the Undying Lands, they had two hundred years of contentment together, and they used them to the fullest. By this time, neither of them were Lords of anything any longer, and had any such duties been required, there were many better suited for it. They were forced to fulfil such promises as they had made each other in the before times, and if Legolas had spent hours in exasperation that a dwarf could see any difference between two chips of stone no larger than his thumb, he was reassured that his beloved had spent at least as many hours wondering that he could need both maple and cedar in the woodlands he tended near the house they had built themselves.
Nevertheless, when Gimli left to wherever Aulë called his kind, Legolas felt the bitterness of it well up in him. Less than three hundred years had they had together.
Perhaps his father would have been able to dissuade him, but perhaps not. Regardless, his father had not come, fulfilling whatever duties or penance he had set himself in the West. Thus, easily was Legolas able to deafen himself to such advice as came his way, mostly by avoiding people altogether.
Only Gandalf (for Legolas would not now call him anything else, when they were the last remaining of their ill-fated Fellowship) still set himself in his path, looking no different from when he had still been a Wanderer, still Gandalf the Grey.
“You continue to be a fool,” Gandalf remarked.
“Yes,” Legolas agreed.
“Are you still going?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Legolas replied.
At first, he went towards the Halls of the Smith, thinking perhaps of only seeing, of asking whether he was Dwarf enough in craft now to be given a few moments in his unending life of meeting Gimli again.
He spent three long years in this travel, slowly treasuring his memories of the first days he had met Gimli, when they had been far from friends, far from friendly, when they would have fought to bloodletting as soon as introduced themselves. It would have been a fine battle. Gimli had remarked more than once that if they had been allowed to have a fight, they would have become friends faster. Legolas had retorted that he did not wish to only be Gimli’s friend. When Aule came to him, he was remembering Gimli describing to him, slowly and with relish, what dwarven friends and shieldbrothers may do, under the polite cover of night.
“Thou art near as hotheaded as some of my Children,” Aulë said, appearing before him, in an ironsmith’s smock. “Where fled the wisdom of the Elder Children?”
When Legolas looked around, he realised he was in the Smithy. He bowed in the dwarven way. “I am Thranduilion of the Wood Elves,” he said, “we are not known for our wisdom.”
“And foresight?” Aulë asked, absently, taking a look at the long spear in his hand and then bending it, that had been two palms thick and over six feet long, into a ball, before he tossed it into the furnace.
“I am not known for that either.” Legolas did not rise from his bow. “All I have is my honesty and my heart.”
Aulë nodded, and then the young smith became all at once a greybeard. “And what will thee here, Wood-Elf?”
“My husband,” Legolas replied.
“And will thee take him away from his rest and his family and keep him undying beyond his spirit’s ken for the rest of the Age?” Aulë asked.
Legolas would not. “And yet I would see him,” he said. “Can I not join him in his rest?”
The greybeard sat down in his stone chair and seemed hunchbacked with age. In the next moment Legolas was back in the forest, but his eyes saw the memory of Gimli no more. It was a grave price to pay, but Legolas would have paid more, if only, if only.
He turned his weary footsteps to Mount Taniquetil. The very wind and air were against him, not harsh but warning. He knew he would not reach Ilmarin, but he also could not stop. Time slipped by him as he remembered the words Gimli had spoken to him, over a fire, against his lips, pressed to his hair. Dwarfkind revered the hair of their lovers in a way that had almost embarrassed Legolas, leaving him feeling more naked than when he washed in waterfalls under stark sunlight. Gimli had learnt, he remembered, with many false starts, to sing to the queen of the Valar.
“Unwise,” said a voice that was almost his father’s, in the rebuke covering an infinitely gentle patience.
“Elbereth,” he pleaded, dropping to both his knees.
“Everything and everyone has its place in the Music,” she told him, and it felt like he was a babe again, hiding from his own nightmares, his father stroking his back. “You fail your place. I tell you, you have no hope of seeing him in this Age again.”
“Even without hope, I must persevere,” he whispered.
She sighed. A moment later the cold winds had stopped but he was near the grove that would take him to Tirion, and he knew that if tried to turn to Avallonë where he had lived with his beloved, then he would find himself back here. He had lost all memory of his face, that much-beloved voice, even his name would not come to his lips anymore.
It had been near seventeen years since he had set out on his quest.
Eyes blinded by tears, he searched for stone on the edge of the cliff looking down onto the sea. Tears continue to drip slowly, against his will, as from a single piece of stone he carved himself and carved out all the parts that were hollow in him. This, he knew, must have been the shape of his husband who he did not know anymore. And finally he carved tulips where the stone called for it, for in these years he had finally learned how stone spoke to dwarves. And still his tears did not cease, for he could not give up and fade in despair, but less still could he give up his quest.
For a moment he thought that he saw Gandalf again, but when she spoke he bowed.
“I understand you,” she said, and it was a great and terrible thing, to have both the pettiest of his anger and his fears be seen, to know that she saw how he wanted to rail against his beloved for not staying longer, and rail against the world for creating them so unalike. And he knew she saw also the love that would shore him against even the destruction of his soul.
Legolas was tongue-tied.
“Will you not give up this fools’ quest?” she asked.
Even as tears continued to roll down his face, some flash of his old merriment came to him and he said, “My lady, it takes wisdom to give up a fools’ quest. I have searched near and far but have not found any trace of wisdom. Perhaps it hides from me.”
Then she raised her head and under the grey hood he saw her eyes were bright with tears that had not yet been shed. “You will find him, but perhaps you will fail before you may speak to him,” she said. “As it comes nearer to his time of rebirth, and as you come nearer to him, you will fade quicker.”
As she spoke, Legolas felt something grow in the hollow of him.
“I would know him by the tracks left behind when he walks or the sound the wind makes when he speaks,” Legolas told her. “Qalmë-Tári, I thank you.”
Legolas blinked and Nienna was gone and the statue as well.
The growth continued, slow, as years and centuries and aeons passed and the world was made anew. And in the New Age, it grew fast, as if it fed on the spirit of the time. Legolas wandered, wherever he went, he left little carved stone sculptures, no bigger than his thumb. He left Valinor, even as all of Elvenkind were renewed, apart from him.
The world was fresh, like a flower slowly unfurling in the low light of dawn. The growth hastened, and Legolas felt perhaps his urgent heart was feeding it. He began again to count the years as he walked with more purpose, and then as the growth reached his throat and left him unable to hear, he began to count the days.
Then one day, as he sat on the side of a road leading to a small town and carved, he began to cough. He dropped everything and stood up, looking around with urgency pumping his blood and feeding the growth in him. There was a tumult of people, Men and Hobbits and Dwarves, and even Ents. Legolas started walking into the crowd, into the heart of it, and his eyes blurred again, as if a grey veil covered it. “Ai, Elbereth,” he said, “Aulë, Nyenna,” he prayed, hoped. If he could only have kept his husband’s name he would have called it out, just to hear one word from him before he failed.
He coughed again and then couldn’t stop coughing. Petals dropped into his hands, they would be red, he knew, if he could see. Then he turned as the sound of the wind rushed at him, even as he fell to his knees, he raised his arms.
They were caught in broad hands, calloused yes, from axes, and from carving stone. Legolas coughed and coughed, until a forehead pressed against his own. The veil lightened to a flimsy silvery thing, then to nothing.
He saw his beloved, the shape of him, now. The joy rose even as the tulips urged him to rip them out or collapse.
The gaps in the shape of him began to fill out in Legolas, where they had held each other, where they had laughed and fought and cried together.
The Dwarf before him could have none of these memories, having been reborn, but still he moved one hand cautiously to press it to Legolas’ cheek and then say very simply, “I know you.”
When Jason was born, not even an hour old, his dad had taken his heart out himself, hadn’t even let the midwife near it, not safe, he said, and proudly, it came right out, not scared at all, you were a plucky kid. And obviously they didn’t let him keep it in him, it wasn’t safe, they told Jason.
Until Jason was eleven, his mom had kept his heart. Dad and she had agreed, he worked weird hours and anyway, undocumented as he was, they could hope he wouldn’t be picked up by the pigs, but they wouldn’t count on it. So mom kept his heart, mostly carrying it in her, but sometimes keeping it in the little gold necklace dad had bought her, that they’d only found out was painted copper when it went a little green and gross. And Jason always knew when it was with mom, all soft and squishy, and when his dad took a turn to give her a break and it was so warm he wanted to take his jacket off even in September but still soft.
None of the kids kept their hearts apart from when they were sleeping, not like the rich kids who apparently optimised their schedules, Liz said, and she had got a scholarship to the fancy high school.
When Jason was eleven, his mom got ill and dad took his heart and hers too, trying to reduce the burden on her. And then dad was working days and nights so Jason stole his back, and the first couple of times dad had noticed and then the docs gave up on his mom but his dad didn’t and he didn’t, of course he didn’t, but she did eventually, and then –
When Jason was twelve, the pigs took his dad, even though he wasn’t even undocumented anymore, and his mum died, and then he had his heart in him, which wasn’t safe, he knew, but there wasn’t anywhere else to keep it.
When Jason was a little more than twelve, he became Robin, and then Batman told him he was a plucky kid, and he said he knew, his heart hadn’t been scared at all, even when he was born, his dad said so. Robin, he learned, kept his heart in him, even though it wasn’t safe. It was part of what kept the story alive, people weren’t sure if Robin and Batman were really human, because who would keep their hearts in their chests if they had somewhere else to keep them? Who wasn’t afraid of death? Robin wasn’t afraid of death. So Jason wasn’t afraid of death, and for three years, Jason kept on not being afraid of death, because mom was dead and dad was dead and he was doing something worth doing, keeping other kids and their parents safe.
Then when he was counting down to his death, his heart still in his chest, where it wasn’t safe, it counted down with him, every loud beep echoed by a rough thump in him, painful, not warm or soft or squishy. Then he was afraid of death. Then he wasn’t so plucky anymore.
The question was not as abrupt as it could seem, firstly because the news that his brother was courting had left Legolas in deep thought for a number of days, secondly because Legolas had long ago confessed his curiosity about the lives and customs of Gimli's kin, and thirdly because Legolas' grace was well-known to be in his light feet and not his manners.
However, Gimli saw no reason to let him have his own way entirely. "And by my people do you mean the Longbeards, or the Dwarrow of Erebor, or the wandering mender that I now seem to be?"
"I meant," Legolas said, "wandering jesters."
Gimli lightly drummed the stone drum he had been fixing so that the night's music might not be ruined. "That you should know better than I, master wit."
"You acknowledge my wit! Tonight I shall see Vingilot come down and bid me welcome," Legolas replies.
Legolas then threw himself down on the floor beside Gimli's seat and lost himself in the sound of the drumming of Gimli's inexpert hands. It was dwarven-made, but dwarrow themselves did not use such drums, Gimli had told him. This was purely a Gondorian affectation. Yet, the stone came alive under Gimli's hands. Never a stonesmith, but the worn out grooves and scratches had told him where to chip at the stone to rebuild it, smaller than before, yet the sound remaining. Legolas was as still as the drums, except his hair, strands floating with the breeze.
Life after war has much more politics than Gimli thought, and much less Legolas than he would like, but the latter he believes he has to get used to. Or: Legolas leaps, occasionally stumbling, into a new age, while Gimli can't see the wood for the (green)leaf.
Excerpt:
"How do your people court then?"
The question was not as abrupt as it would seem, firstly because the news that his brother was courting had clearly left Legolas in deep thought for a number of days, secondly because Legolas had long ago confessed his curiosity about the lives and customs of Gimli's kin, and thirdly because Legolas' grace was well-known to be in his light feet and not his manners.
However, Gimli saw no reason to let him have his own way entirely. "And by my people do you mean the Longbeards, or the Dwarves of Erebor, or the wandering mender that I now seem to be?"
New fic ahoy! we're doing enemies-to-lovers and fuck-or-die this time
"I mislike this place," he murmured in Sindarin to Estel. Aragorn shook his head but squeezed his shoulder in friendly response nonetheless.
Mithrandir gave him a sharp glance over his shoulder, but Legolas only smiled mischievously back.
Every instinct honed from fighting large and cunning predators in Eryn Galen told him that they were stuck in a trap. Elves of old may have had commerce here, but it had been many years since, and nothing in here said that it knew life at all, for yrch were only life as paper had once been wood and the only remembrances they left in their wake was terror.
"I do not think we should venture there," he said, surprising himself as well as everyone else.
Mithrandir turned to stare at him from under bushy eyebrows.
The dwarf growled, "And what do you know of the roads of Moria, Master Elf?"
Legolas nearly sighed in irritation. "As little as I know the burrows of hares or moles, but I sense some evil."
Gimli stood squarely. "This mole would like you to know—"
Legolas stared at him, almost fascinated by how easy it was to rile him up. Smooth-tongued, Elrond's sons had called him, and yet here was all that polish wiped off in a moment.
this fic is kicking my ass but it is getting written!!
CQL-verse time-travel chengqing (background wangxian, much more background yanli/zixuan)
Three people had been injured other than Wei Wuxian. "And that doesn't count," Jiang Cheng told him, when the Head Healer deigned to stop glaring and allowed him inside. "That happened because you were dropped on the head as a baby, and now you're tragically senseless."
Wei Wuxian smiled. "Aiya, Jiang Cheng, have some mercy on the poor hero who saved your life."
"You're probably malingering so you don't have to help me with the disciples," Jiang Cheng accused, only half-joking.
Wei Wuxian laughed. "I'm malingering so Madam Yu doesn't finish whipping me," he said, more than half-joking, even though that wasn't funny.
"You're needed on the fighting lines. No one's going to hurt you," Jiang Cheng said.
Wei Wuxian stared at him. Jiang Cheng stared back, just daring him to spout more bullshit.
A-jie interrupted to fuss over Wei Wuxian's covers like he was a toddler, and he responded like he was a baby, the loser.
