And here we are with the second of the anniversary oneshots.

Thanks on this one go to me4evaful, who wanted to see the point in Lothlórien where Legolas and Gimli finally break the ice between them. It was actually a scene I'd been wanting to write for a while and the idea captured me, so off I toddled and dutifully wrote the first scene in this collection. The last one is thanks to Honor Reid. I'm not going to spoil it (you can read it when you get there) but her suggested scene was one I'd promised myself I'd never write, because I didn't think I could do it justice. Well... now I have, and I'm very nervous about the reception, so feedback please guys!

These anniversary fics have been good fun to write, and quite cathartic in places. I hope you enjoy them both, and I'll see you all soon with The Silence in the Song. Who knows; it might make another year! :)

xx

~{O}~

When he first approaches me I refuse it.

Sat beneath golden leaves – a stranger where he is not – I do not want any company, much less his. I am tired and grief stricken, I am at odds with this place because although it is beautiful, it is strange and alien and it is not home.

Deep dells of shadow hide soft, moss filled nooks where the Halflings rest in a tangle of exhausted limbs. Wide carpets of deep grass undulate beneath restful silver starlight, and all about us rise wide sentinels: ancient trees so large I can barely grasp their size or their majesty. It is wondrous, truly so, and the air of this realm is quiet and hushed. Peace… it is peace that I should feel, but I do not.

The elf twitters about with his people, and he is no longer odd or unusual. He is one of many amongst his kind, all of them straight and tall and fair. He is welcomed, comforted… he belongs. No matter my dislike for the ridiculous creature he and I have always been alike in one way, and it is that we are so unlike all of the others around us. We are both alone: the only elf, and the only dwarf. Now I am a dwarf in an ocean of these creatures and it is making my beard itch.

I watch them and I try to hide my displeasure. I try to hide it because I have been granted entrance here, I have been given passage where none of my folk ever have before. I have seen things they have not, I have been given comfort and respite, I have been allowed to walk freely amongst them and so I try – by Eru do I try.

They pass like shadows, their strange language halts and trips, dances on the air. I can hear them singing in the treetops, from all around, and their voices are not the hearty and booming song of the dwarves but rather like a dream: sad and ancient and enduring, as though it is the stars themselves that have been given voice. They are pale skinned with moonlit eyes that see right through me, their faces like carven stone. I try to trust them – I try so very hard – but dwarves have trusted elves before and it has not ended well. They cannot be trusted… they simply cannot.

Legolas approaches me, he comes to me beneath a Mallorn tree – ancient and golden, straight and grey – and I ignore him entirely. He stands as still as an oak, burning with the air of one who wishes to speak, but after a while he takes a soft breath – deep and then out again – and he is gone. I do not see him again for all of the rest of the night, or even the following day. He is in the trees, as all wild things tend to be when one is in a wood.

The next evening he approaches me again, and I have had time to think upon things. I have had much time to myself; time in my mind and time to see what is about me.

I have watched the dance between Gondor's sons. Boromir and Aragorn both respect and despair of one another, and I do not know that they will ever come to realise how similar they are. They have a common ground in what they fight for, they are both brave men of honour but they will never be friends. They are simply too alike.

I have watched the Halflings – simple because they are always in the same place together. Even when Frodo wishes his silence the other three are always nearby. They are not friends, they are family, and we are excluded from their world by virtue of the fact that we are not Hobbits. They make time for the rest of us and I am grateful for that, but I can see that they find us unaccountably odd. They are homesick and worn, and all we do is remind them that they are far from where they should have stayed.

I have watched the elf as well, what little I have seen of him. I have tried to watch him without suspicion and without anger, I have tried to clear it from me completely… to ignore the curl of dislike that I feel every time I glimpse golden hair or summer blue eyes. His voice sets my teeth on edge, the very way he moves makes something ugly twitch and growl in my chest, but I try to silence it. I watch him because watching is all there is to do when you are a dwarf in a wood full of elves.

I am grieving and numb, and I am starting to grow tired of our feud. It is exhausting. We are different, so very different, and perhaps it is enough.

Legolas stands talking in his soft and dancing tongue and he is changed here. He is relaxed, un-guarded, his eyes no longer that unpleasant wolf pale stare. He is never loud, never noisy even amongst those of his kin; he speaks softly and smiles often, and he is different. I have not seen him this way before.

His smile is a softening of his face only – a barely perceptible change – but I feel my dislike of him washing clean for just a heartbeat when I see it. When he smiles that way he is youthful and foolish, mischievous and kind.

Deceptive. They are deceptive.

When he approaches me I fall into stride beside him as though it is the most natural thing in the world.

Neither of us speak. We walk in the darkening pale of a winter sunset and all about me is starlight and the soft light of elves. It is beauty and sadness, a lament upon the air, and although we are solemn and silent I do not feel alone for the first time since I arrived here.

The next evening he tries to engage me in conversation, but he is not very good at it. I can tell that it does not come easily to him – Legolas is not one for casual or needless conversation, certainly amongst those that he does not know – but instead of allowing for the effort that he is making I find it all too easy to fall into bad habits.

I know that he is trying. I know that perhaps – despite that he is amongst his own kind – he needs company from one who knows the same grief as he must surely feel. I am starting to relax about him, I am starting to wonder if our differences could be cast aside. I am starting to think that two creatures so at odds with one another might find a common ground in our isolation.

Instead I take offense easily at something he says – something innocent when I know that offense was not meant. I twist his words and I goad him. He has extended the hand of friendship to me and I knock it aside. I am cruel and unkind, I wound him and yet still he tries. He is raw and grieving, and as clumsy as it is… for a time, he tries.

In no time at all he is back to his old self, because I give him no choice. He is a knot of tension, a promise of violence: distant, cold and frightening. He regards me with feral eyes and I laugh at him.

"You are not very good at this," I tell him.

Wordlessly he is back to the trees, and I am alone again.

I do not see him the third night or the fourth, but I sit in the same spot just in case.

Regret burns at me, I feel ugly and foolish and cruel. I listen to the grief of the elves thrill and shimmer about me and I wonder if he sings up there. I wonder if his voice is one of the ones that I hear. I feel as though I am intruding upon something because I am not worthy of it... I am not. Elves might be deceptive and sneaky, they might be unkind and cold, but I know another who has been unkind and cold. I know him, and yet I do not, because I never thought of myself that way before now.

I am patient and I am rewarded for it, because no matter his dislike for me, the elf has high regard for the Halflings and I have positioned myself so that he cannot reach them without passing me by. No matter how sneaky or strange he is, I am stubborn and am willing to wait out our whole time here if I need to. But I do not need to.

When he sees me he freezes, he actually looks to the treetops as though assessing how high the nearest branch is. I feel guilt and it is not the first time. Now that I see him, I am annoyed that he makes me feel so wretched when I was already wretched to begin with. I am annoyed, but I will be dead and buried before I am made to look a lesser dwarf before an elven princeling… Thranduil's get, no less.

He has made an effort, and now I must make an effort, and when all ends in violence and shouting then we will both be equally to blame for it.

I rise to my feet and I hold up one hand to stop him. His eyes go from that awful, heavy hostility that makes me want to drop my eyes and run, and instead they become guarded and curious. His right hand stops clenching as though he misses a weapon there, he relaxes a fraction. Just a fraction.

"I apologise," I grumble through my beard, and it doesn't sound like an apology at all. I somehow manage to make my attempt at reparations sound as though I am vexed with him, and so I try to soften my next words. "I am not very good at this either."

Legolas' face turns amused, but I do not feel angry at it. He does not laugh at me but instead he is pleased; he smiles that soft, breath of a smile and it is the first time that I have been its recipient. I am not annoyed by how suddenly he seems able to change his mood – although I imagine that I might find time later to be annoyed by it. I do not feel as though he is laughing at my expense, but rather as though I have pleased him. He smiles that smile, the wild and distant warrior replaced by a young Silvan elf right before my eyes, and suddenly I want him to always smile like that.

Just for a moment, and not for very long, but it is a start.

We fall into step, and everything changes.

{O}

He is meant to be catching our evening meal.

We stand in a sea of warm, swaying grasses and the summer sun sets behind us. The world is aflame in light; honey gold and red, flooding my senses and turning me into nothing but a mass of crimson hair and squinting eyes. Shadows cast long before us, rippling upon the shivering grass and birds startle into the air every moment or two, or so it seems.

Despite that my skilled and sure sighted archer has been stood like a clod – exactly where he is – for an age, he has yet to shoot a single one of them.

I move to approach – I am a good twenty paces from him – and even from here I can see the tension in him. His shoulders quiver, he is as tight as his bow string and thrilling with whatever he seeks to contain. I know that it has nothing to do with the strain from the draw of his bow, nothing to do with his stance or weariness. His concentration has nothing to do with focus or aim – nothing at all – because my elf can shoot a bird in mid-flight with his eyes closed… I have seen it. Even so, our evening meal keeps on simply flying away into the sky.

I make to approach him and he drops the bow to his side, turns and holds one hand out to stop my approach.

"Gimli no," he begs, "I cannot bear it."

And with that, his focus is lost. My ancient warrior, my fearsome archer who has lead elves into battle for thousands of years, this immortal prince… he begins to laugh, and once he has begun he cannot stop.

"I cannot, my friend, please!"

I scowl and move forward and he dances back… away. His laughter is not raucous or loud; it is soft, bright and breathless and I cannot be cross for long. I feel my own mouth curl into a smile of its own and I fight it, I duck my head.

"I did not mean to step in it," I mutter through my beard, embarrassed. I try to clean my boot off in the grass but elven noses are fine noses, and Legolas backs away again.

"I will shoot you in the foot if I must," he warns as I continue to ignore his plea. It is an idle threat – he is laughing too hard to shoot the ground itself with much accuracy – and I sigh.

I grin, and my fouled foot and I both race after him.

~{O}~

"You are holding him wrong," I hiss, softly enough for an elf to hear but not loud enough for a man. Legolas turns his head to face me very slowly, very certainly, and the look that I am given is terrifying, but I am right and he is wrong. So badly do I wish to leap to my feet and come to the rescue: not to Legolas', but the tiny crown prince of Gondor who the elf is holding as though he is perhaps dangerous in some way, rather than a baby, which is what he is.

To his credit, the tiny prince is unfazed. He kicks his legs twice, a string of the constant moisture at his mouth trails to settle upon the elf's boot and then he makes an odd sound. It is a soft squeal, pleased, and he smiles. Legolas frowns.

"He is trying to speak, perhaps."

Legolas holds the tiny Eldarion at arm's length in precisely the same position in which he received him, deposited in our care by Aragorn a good while ago. The king of Gondor has vanished further into another room in search of some item or another – he seems even more distracted than ever I have known him – and we have been left in charge of keeping his son alive for a few minutes. I am doubtful, and Legolas looks endlessly perturbed by these events.

"He is too young for it. Do not hold him so; you will vex him if you continue to hold him that way."

"You cannot smell him as I can."

I get up, I cannot help it. I take the child from him, and Legolas makes no move to settle into the large armchair that he perches upon the edge of. We are warm and comfortable before a great fire, we have eaten well and been provided with all we could possibly need, but since Arwen abandoned us the elf has yet to relax for a moment. He is ready to snap into pieces, and when he looks at the child he has the same expression that he wears when going into battle.

I settle back into my chair, Eldarion fitting perfectly into the nook of my arm. He smiles again, a guileless and tooth-free thing and then yanks a good handful of my beard free. I grimace, despite that I try not to, and Legolas snorts as though this has only proven him right in some way.

The elf is up and pacing before the fire in no time: as tall and straight and graceful as he always is, but I have never seen him so out of his element before. He has no knowledge and no understanding of children, none at all, and continually casts a guarded look in the prince's direction as though he might catch fire or attack us. I hear him muttering to himself, wondering aloud as to the whereabouts of his parents, and I sigh.

"Arwen requires some peace, she has gone to bathe. Aragorn fetches changing cloths, although he has quite possibly fallen asleep upon his feet somewhere. He should hurry; even I can tell that they are needed."

Eldarion seems entirely unconcerned that he has messed himself. He kicks his feet again, waves his arms about and then stuffs one into his mouth. He is a charming thing, it has to be said. He has an inordinate amount of hair for one so young and it is constantly upright or sticking out even after his mother has brushed it flat. It gives him a wild look, as though it is always windy where he has come from, and the way that he regards us is with amusement and pleasure. He is a happy child, although his parents tell me that the small hours of the morning find him otherwise.

I find myself smiling at him, because he is a wonderful thing. There are many years to go before he becomes particularly interesting in any way but he certainly has appeal.

"How have you never learned how to hold a baby?" I ask Legolas curiously, looking up at where he stands by the fire. I cannot unravel the look I am being given, I have never seen it before: I cannot tell if it is suspicion or curiosity, but I do not think that he had ever imagined to see me this way. I care not. I can be a warrior and hold a baby. I do not need his permission.

"When might I ever have learned?" he asks me curiously, pointedly. He tilts his head and makes a small gesture with his hand as though prompting me to think, to understand.

Legolas is the youngest of his people. He has grown all of his years – hundreds upon many hundreds of them – never seeing one this young, never holding one, never knowing what to do if they cry or become upset or angry. I had not thought on it, and for some reason I find this unaccountably sad.

I hide it by turning my attention back to the boy in my arms, because Legolas does not need to see that look upon my face, and because Eldarion is fine to look upon.

"I might have liked to have had children," I muse. The prince of Gondor is staring at me but it is not uncomfortable in any way, and he is making the odd congested snuffling noises that the very young make all of the time. His skin is slightly imperfect in places, his hands and mouth permanently wet and he keeps kicking me in the gut, but he is so small and important that something in my chest constricts and tightens.

I look up again, and this time Legolas has stilled. He is watching not me but the child, and although he is still wary he no longer looks ready to leap from the window. I stay still, I do not say anything, and it is long enough for the elf to relax. He steps forward and he looks much like his father right now; his whole body held tight and carefully guarded, a cool and curious look upon him. He shifts his glance up to me and I meet it with a wry twist of my mouth, a soft huff of a laugh and I do not have to say anything.

Wish to try once more?

He holds my gaze and it is too long, always just a beat too long with elves. I begin to feel uncomfortable beneath it but then he moves, breaks it and returns to his chair. He sits back, and I would laugh if I were not so afraid of his reaction. Suddenly Legolas seems so frightened, so open and bewildered that I am up and in movement before he changes his mind.

I place the baby – the child of our brother – into his arms, and to his credit Legolas does not freeze. He takes a breath, anxious, but when Legolas looks at Eldarion… finally looks, the smile that softens his face is enough to twist one onto my own without warning or permission. The elfling sees so much, he sees everything with those eyes of his and what he sees in the baby in his arms is beyond my comprehension. Eldarion will grow up with Legolas here, just as he is now. Legolas will teach him to ride, teach him the bow, teach him nonsense and naughtiness just as I imagine he taught his father. I feel a hint of envy at that, but only for a moment. I have only known Legolas a handful of years and it has been more than enough.

Legolas shifts one arm out from beneath the squirming weight and brushes one hand across the child's brow. The prince of Eryn Lasgalen murmurs something to the prince of Gondor, too quiet for me to hear, but I know what he has said in any case. I know because I know the elf better than I know myself.

He finally greets him, smiles and introduces himself.

~{O}~

"We cannot do this!" I gasp. I cannot catch my breath.

I am stood shin deep in water that runs so fast, so powerfully fast that I can barely keep to my feet. I am bootless and shirtless, my trousers rolled to the knee and the sun pounds down upon us. It is a contradiction: the icy water, the spray of it, the heat blistering upon my bare skin. I shiver but it is not the cold, it is fear and anticipation.

I turn, and I wish that I had not; Legolas faces me with a grin and eyes that flash with wildness and joy. To argue with him now would be like trying to argue with the wind or a storm, or perhaps the ground itself. He is caught up in the air and the sun, the water and the Song. I have no idea how I have let him persuade me out here, I deserve everything that happens to me.

We stand upon the edge of a waterfall; before us nothing but spray and sky. All that I can hear is the crash and roar of the water, the whistle of the wind in my ears and the pant and gasp of my own breath. I am frightened, right to my very core but I am also flushed with excitement. I cannot resolve the two emotions together at once, it is almost too much.

I grin right back at the elf, and I begin to laugh.

The fall is not too high, but it is high enough to be concerning. There are no rocks beneath us, Legolas has reassured me of it, and the water is deep and clean. It is the height of summer, dry and parched and unrelenting, and here we are about to jump – perhaps to our doom – off a waterfall that is a bit too high for jumping off.

It is too high… by Eru it is too high. From the ground it was foolish, and from here it is stealing my breath away, but I am caught up in it now and I laugh. It is a loud and free sound; it rolls out into the sky before me, falling down into huge emptiness. I could take to the wing and fly away: out into the freedom before me, over the treetops and into the blueness beyond. I take a deep breath and I release it, and I feel everything… everything before and beneath and above me. I feel it all, and it is life and sound and colour. I am going to jump, I know that I am.

I dig my toes into the cold stones beneath them, I look at the sky and not the drop beneath, and I feel my face twist into a huge grin. I turn to Legolas and our eyes lock; he is just as excited as I am, just as thrilled and afraid. We need not say anything; Legolas and I understand one another perfectly whether we speak or not and so he reaches out and clasps my wrist, just as I grasp his.

We take a deep breath, Legolas laughs bright and loud. We jump together into the sky and empty blueness.

Perhaps we fly.

~{O}~

It has taken a long time to get here.

We have walked far in this unseasonal autumn warmth: the horses at the foot of the hill; Naurwen's daughter and one of Legolas' many huge, ridiculously named beasts grazing together contentedly in the sun. We have climbed on foot because it feels right, but I am old now and despite that it feels as though I should be on foot, it does not mean that I find it an easy thing.

I am old but I remember so clearly the first time that I came here with the elf. I remember how easy this climb was, how I had breath to spare for speaking nonsense and joking about, our voices joined in laughter and comfortable conversation. Now I am silent but for the sounds of my own breath in my ears.

My legs ache, my back hurts, every bone in my body mourns with a deep and sad thrum that says there are few autumns such as this one left to me. I wish that I could look about, that I had time to take in the riotous colours of the changing trees… dotted here, clumped together there. I wish that I could appreciate the brook that dances and bounces through the bracken, merry and crystal bright in the sun. I would give everything just to straighten this tired back, to lean my face to the sky and breathe deep of the tang in the air, the scents of fallen leaves and grass and the coming of the cold. I wish… I wish it so badly.

The elfling helps me, and it has been a long time since I stopped shrugging him off. He takes my elbow in hard archer's fingers, soft and careful, and helps me over the uneven ground. I smile at him in thanks, and the one that I receive in return is like the sunrise; young and old at the same time, and so very fair. Legolas looks the same as he did the first time I met him; fresh and wild as the wind itself, but he is very sad now. Legolas has been sad for a long time.

There are so few of them left now. His friends wait for him in his woodland, no longer their home but it is all that they know. Without him in Ithilien there is nothing left for them – nothing except trees that have slowly started to fall quiet – and so it is too much for them to bear. Legolas' father is gone, his people are gone, the empty realms of the elves no longer sing or whisper and the land grieves. They will never return, we have lost much, but Legolas will not go. He is being called, over and over again. The time for him to sail home has long since passed and yet here he remains, in a land of silent trees where his Song softens and stills day by day. It is both of our hearts that break.

We reach the summit of the hill and I limp my way across the ground, the elf light and tall at my side. He rests his hand upon my shoulder – such a familiar thing – and we sit together where the wind is just cool enough to bite, just brisk enough to have my beard and hair – no longer the colour of fire – dancing and shivering.

Before us rises an oak, huge and broad. Its leaves are late to turn: just starting to fade in places so that it is a patchwork of old summer green, bronze and yellow. It is a fine tree, strong and sturdy and grand.

I remember the day that we planted it. My memory fades, day by day, but I remember it just as I remember the day that an acorn was given to me by a friend, new and strange to me. A gift, and one that I carried with me all of our paths together until it split… until a delicate curl of green found its way free, and was planted here.

Legolas gave me this tree.

"Would you have done anything different, Gimli?" he asks me softly.

His voice is almost lost in the wind, and I do not look at him because I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see him just as he always has been, just as he always will be, and know what he sees when he looks at me… old, stooped and grey. I am not the Gimli that has run this land with him all of these years. I never will be again.

"Aye," I tell him. "I would have kept myself to myself in Lothlorien."

He is still and silent for a moment before he laughs; a soft huff of sound, light and exasperated. I smile as well, but only to myself. I have always liked to make him laugh.

I reach out and I pat at his hand, because he is sad. He pulls his knees up, tucks his hands beneath them as though he is drawing everything into as small a space as possible, as though he protects something that hurts inside.

"No, laddie. Nothing at all."

"We have never gone anywhere apart, not for a long time… not so that I can remember how. Soon we must both go where the other cannot."

He is right, of course, but what is to be done about it? I do not know why he is speaking like this. Legolas never speaks of it, and although he does not ignore what is happening, season by season and right in front of his eyes, he does not say a word on it. Neither of us do… neither of us can. I have been silent for too long and he is looking at me, intense and heavy, and it has been a long time indeed since I have felt intimidated by those eyes, but it is still uncomfortable.

"A dwarf does not walk the path of the Firstborn," I tell him, and I can hear the weariness in my own voice. I do not want to talk about this. "We can share it for a time, and I have enjoyed sharing your path very much Legolas, but you should not be here anymore, and I am very tired."

The elfling silences, rests his chin upon his knees and looks out at our tree. It carries all of our memories and footsteps, sorrows and fears. It will be here for a long time, even when we are not. It gives me some comfort, my acorn.

"Come with me?" he asks, and I almost miss it. He does not turn to me, he does not look at me at all. The wind lifts his hair, a brush of golden silk in the autumn sun but everything about him is as still as the hill we sit upon. He is afraid.

"I cannot," I tell him flatly. "I know that you pay attention upon occasion, and I know my being a dwarf has not escaped you."

"You are elvellon, and I cannot bear to leave you behind. Not you."

He still does not look at me and I am glad, because I am stunned. I did not think that he could surprise me any longer: I had imagined that everything Legolas could say or do has either been said or done, or at least so that I might anticipate anything new. My elf is a book to me, or so I had thought, and I am strangely pleased that he can still shock me.

Go with him?

Frodo was neither the first nor the last of those named 'elf friend' to be welcomed to the Undying Lands. He sailed, I could sail, but I had never thought. Not once.

Legolas and I have walked every league of Arda. We have visited every land, we have suffered every hardship and experienced every joy that my years could grant. We have seen all that we wished to see and we have done so side by side, and even whilst he spent his days in Ithilien and I returned home to the Lonely Mountain I was never truly rid of him. Not fully. We have spent nights beneath the stars and before our fires reminiscing of our wanderings: an elf and a dwarf, friends despite that no one ever truly understood it. I still do not.

Another journey? I do not know that I can.

I am too old, too tired, too worn. Even on the shores of Eldamar I will not live until the breaking of the world, not as he will. It is a long road to the sea and a long crossing. I have struggled just to get up this hill, but then Legolas was there to help me. Until the end, Legolas will always be there, and I do not wish to leave him behind either.

He looks at me finally, and when our gaze meets there is much there; many years and many stories. Many leagues, many tears and a lifetime of laughter. I smile, and for a moment I do not feel the years. I do not feel them at all.

'Come with me,' he says, and I smile.

Another journey… aye.

Our last.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

MyselfOnly