So here it is, the third installment of the Shadow series! A brief(ish) foreword before we crack on.

This story follows on from the first two tales: 'The Child and the Darkness' and 'The Path we Walk', and addresses the fallout from what happened in the summer. You know, whilst the boys get themselves into a whole load of trouble! For those of you who have not read either of the earlier tales, you may be okay but it would certainly help if you knew the characters and the background. Please don't let that put you off!

For the familiar faces that I hope have returned - welcome back! I've missed regular posting, and although I'm rather nervous about posting this I'm going to just go ahead anyway. Updates will not be as regular as they were for Paths, but I will make up for it by chapter size. They're all about the same length as this one.

This isn't a horror, this a mystery, and as such it's a different beast to the last two fictions but I really hope you enjoy it. I'm sure it'll end up with elements of horror in there anyway because I can't seem to help myself.

As always, my super special thanks go to Lindir's Ghost. She has been an ongoing support right from the outset and has kept me going. This story is for the vast majority un-beta'd, but you can tell the bits that she's looked through - they're the good ones.

Enough from me, let's get on with things!

MyselfOnly

~{O}~

It is early autumn in north Ithilien, and the night is crisp and sharp.

The night sky above us is a wide sweep of burning lights, thrown like firebrands across the heavens, but the moon is naught but a thin cut of silver. My breath plumes before me when I turn from the warmth of the fire and so I tug my cloak tighter about me, settle down against a heavy log and try to find some measure of comfort. I can hear nothing but the occasional snort and stamp of our horses, the snap and shift of our fire, and when a breeze catches the trees about us there is a brittle rustling high above.

It is a beautiful night indeed, and it may well be the last that the elf ever sees.

He sits across from me, further back from the fire so that he is little but a silver limned ghost – more shadow than light. He still sits upright; tireless and straight as he stares up at the stars in the deepest of thought. In one hand he holds the small hunting knife that he normally keeps within his boot. It is nothing compared to the silver blades that sit beside him – they are beautiful things of deadly grace and he prizes them greatly – but it is elven made, and despite being wrought for function only it is still a pretty and delicate thing. He is spinning it idly in one hand. He does it to exercise his hands; to regain the dexterity and skill that is still stiff and dulled since our adventures this summer, but by Eru is it irritating me.

He flips and turns and catches the small knife – it is but a blur to me and he is not even looking. It slips between his fingers; a dancing blade that catches the firelight and momentarily blinds me once, twice and then again. He does not even think on what he does, he has more skill in damaged and broken hands than I will ever have in my life and it is driving me to distraction. He has been at it for hours!

I huff again, and I see that perhaps his mind is not so far away as I had thought. One distant eye twitches and I see his jaw clench, and I feel an odd sense of satisfaction that I irk him as much as I am irked. I would hate to be the only one so bothered.

The spinning of the knife does not abate and I am on my last nerve, frayed raw and thrumming with the need to speak. I open my mouth ready to say something – I know not what – but he anticipates my words. I am fixed with a glare so baleful and feral that any other being might quail and shake beneath the weight of it. The knife stops, is held downward and plunged firmly and certainly into the ground as though punctuating something that has not been said.

My friend looks at me as though he hides a thousand paces behind his gaze. I am a stranger, someone that he does not wish to be near, and he flows to his feet without a sound. He is gone into the night, and I am thankful.

~{O}~

We have been travelling for many weeks now in the company of none but each other. I would readily lay down my life for the elf but at the moment I do not know whether I like him, and the feeling certainly seems to be mutual. He is distant and cold – more ready to remove himself off into the dark wilds than spend time with me. I am snappy and irritable, and although I am sure that both he and I are cause for the consternation of the other we cannot seem to break the cycle. He is becoming far too ready to flee into the wood, and I am becoming too ready to let him.

I sigh again and stare into the flames. We cannot come to Minas Tirith too soon.

Legolas is haunted, I know that. I know that he barely sleeps and I know that whispers and darkness follow him like a shadow. I know that he requires patience and I know that I am perhaps the only thing walking upon Arda that understands what he fights to reconcile, but I am just one dwarf. I do not have the endless years that he has… I do not have the patience.

I wonder if our positions were reversed whether he would be a better friend to me than I am to him, and I know that he would. I am flawed and mortal, but he is aggravating and a complete mystery to me.

I break apart a small twig in my hands and throw it angrily toward the fire. It is light and small, and falls far astray.

Damn him.

Damn him for the guilt I feel lodged beneath my heart, for he knows well enough how he aggravates me and little does he attempt to soften it. I am starting to resent him, I know it. His burdens are mine to carry as well, but I do not know how to make peace with his shadows any more than he does. I am just one dwarf!

I lay my head back and see before me the full array of Gilthoniel's mantle. My heart hammers and my stomach tangles, and I am angry but I do not know why. I watch the stars and let my breathing calm, and for a time I wish that I could take comfort in them the way that my friend does.

My friend. He is my friend.

"Legolas!" I call. I hear the frustration and annoyance in my voice, and so I soften it. "Legolas, I would speak with you."

I wait, and I wonder after a while whether he has chosen to ignore me but I do not have to wait for long. There is a flickering upon the edge of my sight; the soft nimbus glow of an elf in the dark… the softest of movements. I turn my head and I see him ghosting upon the furthest reaches of the firelight. He is careful, guarded. I wave him back to where he was sat before, not looking to see whether he obeys. I know that he will.

I watch the fire, and something within me relaxes and softens when I see on the edge of my eyesight that he approaches; sitting with a long weary sigh as though indulging a petulant child. I quell the irritation within me at the sigh and focus only on his presence here.

"Take up your knife again," I tell him with a vague wave of my hand. "Your left hand though… you favour your right."

He picks the knife out from the ground but does nothing more than inspect it in both hands. His brow is touched with the faintest furrow.

"We quarrel much, of late," he tells me. He speaks quietly but certainly, and of course the elf hits right at the heart of matters. It troubles him, I can hear it in his tone and when he looks up I am fixed with a focus that would take away the breath of any not so used to the weight of elven scrutiny. Instead I shrug and throw the rest of my twig into the fire. This time I throw certainly and carefully, and it lands dead centre within the flames.

"We have travelled too long together," I tell him. "Too long, and we are too different."

He snorts. "I have travelled decades with the same warriors without a single harsh word spoken. We have managed mere weeks!"

"Months," I correct him. "And elves deal far better with elves. Those of us from races more sensible can find the company of the Eldar taxing after just one conversation. I am to be lauded for my endurance, if for nothing else."

I look up at him and our eyes meet, and for a moment it is all washed away: his distance and wildness, my stubborn rudeness. All is gone. He grins, and his whole face softens into the elf I know better; the elf who is my friend. I feel my own face relax into a smile and it has passed. I feel a breeze shift through my beard, I smell the sharp autumn tang of leaf mould and a shiver runs through me, but I feel more rooted to the earth than ever I have. The Song of Mahal beats with the pulse of my heart, but there is no joy to it if it is weighed down by strife. Legolas gives me that strife, but also that joy. I cannot for all the words in the world explain how frustrating that is to me.

I watch him as he scrutinises the blade, rolling it from finger to finger and from hand to hand. That furrow still touches his brow and I wait; he is ready to speak but his thoughts are like crows upon a field; ready to scatter and flee at the first sudden movement. I wait, and when he speaks his voice is slow. He is thinking his words as he speaks them. It shows great trust that he feels no need to temper them as he would with another.

"You are too careful about me," he tells me: "too careful, and pulled tight as a bowstring."

It is perhaps more than I was expecting to discuss tonight, but he is not wrong. I think on it… he is not wrong at all.

"You were almost lost, Legolas."

He shoots a look at me and it is odd; is it part defiance, and part beseeching.

"But I was not," he speaks. "I am here, now, before you. I do not hold any blame for what occurred… or so you tell me."

"You were not," I agree. I shake my head most certainly – I feel it within every fibre of my being but I cannot meet his gaze right now. I finish with a murmur: "you were not to blame."

"Just as you were not to blame."

I think for a while on his words. I think of the many weeks in which we have travelled since leaving Mirkwood; the weeks that have moved into months in the blink of an eye and the many leagues passed behind us. I think of the shadow that my friend now wears about him; his lapses into dark thoughts that I must always be ready to pull him from; the new distance in his eyes; the nightmares. I think of my own as well. Is there any blame to be apportioned? I would say not, but within me I do not believe it to be entirely true.

I think on our more recent tendency to argue rather than to talk. I think on how easy it has been for me to fall into annoyance with him, how simple anger has been next to understanding. The Shadow is gone; burned and buried deep within the deepest parts of Arda far behind us, but still I feel its presence here. It has followed us every step of the way.

"This is not a discussion for tonight," I tell him, and I pull my cloak even tighter about me. I feel a chill.

"It is never a discussion for tonight, or any other night." He exhales loudly. He is frustrated with me. "Never do you shy from conversation this way; never have you been so unwilling to speak!"

"Perhaps it is the company and not the conversation!" I snap back, and the moment the words have escaped me I regret them. Ai, how I regret them! It is not true, not true at all but he recoils as though I have slapped him. There is a moment when I see Legolas retreat, when I lose him. His eyes become cold again, his face fair marble and this time when he leaves I allow it. I do not call him back, and he does not return.

~{O}~

By morning I am gritty eyed and heart worn, and although the morning dawns fresh and sprightly there is nothing that can ease how heavy I feel. I have caught mere snatches of rest all of the night through; guilt has eaten at me and I have dreamed of my friend returning, of all being the way it once was, but with each waking I have been alone.

The sky is a sharp autumnal blue, white clouds scud swiftly past and the trees release a deluge of pale golden leaves with every breath of the wind. There is the scent of leaf and wood and it is beautiful, but I sit and I stare dumbly at the blackened fire that I allowed to go out sometime in the earliest part of the morning. A shock of birds startle from the trees: a huge number that sweep and play upon the air, filling the wood about me with chattering excitement. They will fly south soon, and they seem anxious to be gone. I do not blame them for a moment.

When my gaze returns earthward I am no longer alone. Legolas sits exactly as he was sat last night and the look I am fixed with is too penetrating and harsh for me to meet right now. His hair catches in the wind. He is a wild thing caught ready to flee and a countless leagues separate us right now.

"If I were to apologise, would you hear it?" I ask him quietly.

"It is an empty thing if you do not mean it," he informs me flatly. "You will say things that you regret before the day is through, and apologise again when your own heart is too heavy to bear it. I would rather Gimli were Gimli, instead of being Legolas."

There is no humour in it but I huff a laugh in any case. He is correct: I am acting like he is wont to; never before have I shied away from such things and I realise again that Legolas is capable of great understanding when he is forced to. He sees much, my friend.

"I do not know how to speak of anything I feel, Legolas." I tell him. I stand up simply for want of something to do with myself and begin to pack my things away. "Nothing that was done was done to me, nothing that you carry now can I understand for even a moment. I am angry, I will admit it, but am I angry at you? Eru only knows, but I can hardly shout at the horses."

He watches me a moment longer, and had I expected more conversation then I am disappointed. I fuss about, waiting for him to speak, and when I hear nothing I stand and look to him. I feel foolish for a moment; unsure of myself for the first time in memory with my blanket trailing from my arms and my cloak tangled uncomfortably by my haste. He is watching me with a look that I do not recognise, and I move from feeling foolish to feeling the familiar flushes of anger beginning to stir within me again. He speaks, and the annoyance is flattened by surprise.

"I shall fetch us some breakfast," he tells me, and he is up and loping away before I have a chance to gather my scattered thoughts. By his tone he is not fleeing, by the whistling I hear from a distance he has not gone to cool his temper. I sit heavily – my belongings still in my arms – and I sit with my thoughts a while. When he returns with early autumn fruits and berries he is as cheerful as though we have said nothing more than 'good morning' to one another.

I watch him and I realise after a moment that I am glaring. I cannot read the dratted creature at times and it is enough to have me ready to fly apart at the seams, but instead I watch him and I let myself calm. Legolas eats the berries first, for he has a taste for things that are sweet, and he watches the birds and the clouds pass by with bright eyes.

"That is all?" I ask carefully. He nods certainly, his gaze still upward.

"That is all," he agrees, "for now. I cannot swear to be less irksome, as it seems that my entire being is irksome to you and I know not how to change that. We cannot speak of what you do not understand, and I do not understand your oddities well enough to coax it from you. If you are to remain dwarf and I am to remain elf, then naught shall be resolved until you are ready to explain matters. So aye… that is all."

"For now," I smile. He nods quite seriously and I feel something in me lighten again. Elves! I cannot fault the logic for a moment, but I see a glimpse behind his struggle to understand the hearts of mortals. Complex matters confound him where complexity is unnecessary, and mortal hearts and minds are complex indeed. Legolas sees much, but where an elf can read an elf we are too confused and conflicted for his liking at times.

I trade him the last of my berries, and the smile I am given in thanks is worth it.

~{O}~

The wind has picked up by the time we are ready to leave and the skittering of the falling leaves, the wild hushing of the trees, the dancing of our own hair and clothing has both horses half wild. For Legolas, this means that his tall sable stallion is perhaps a little difficult to catch and perhaps more ready to play than to stand still. I myself am in for a miserable morning being bitten, trodden upon and then chasing angrily after my own little demon.

Naurwen is well named, for 'fire' she is and fire runs through her. She is small for an elven horse, but still tall enough for the fall from saddle to ground to hurt. She is flaming red chestnut, swift as the wind and I am inexplicably fond of her most days, but not today. Neither am I fond of the elf, who I can hear laughing as I chase her across a field of dancing deep grass.

In a fit of pique I have retrieved my axe, and I give chase as she circles about us. My hair has come loose and I take a moment, puffing and blowing to claw it out of my eyes.

"How do you wear your hair this way?" I demand of my friend. "I can see nothing!"

"Do not compare elven hair and dwarven as the same thing," he calls to me. "You have perhaps more in common with the horse, and you will not catch her by chasing her."

I know that I will not. I turn my head to hide my grin and chase off after my prancing mare, and when she calls out for the joy of it I shout right back at her. I feel as though the wind is clearing my mind of all manner of darkness and self-doubt and I feel the years strip away, leaving me just for a moment as a child without a care or a worry. If my kin could see me now I cannot imagine what they might think; I have become a decidedly elven dwarf of late, but we have only a week left to us until we reach Minas Tirith and there will be no playing in meadows for a while. Once surrounded again by stone and sensible company I will return to whatever senses I have left to me, but for this time until then I have no need to worry about my audience. Legolas thinks me a fool no matter what I do.

Eventually Naurwen believes that I have been exercised enough and allows me to fit both saddle and bridle, then I am forced to jog after her as she trots her own way to join Legolas and Neleth. Legolas does not ride with saddle, but if our mounts were swapped I believe he might reconsider his stance on this. She greets the elf with an affectionate whicker and butts her head to him, and I mutter beneath my breath most of the remainder of the morning.

The darkness does not touch Legolas during the day. He is much as he has ever been if a little more prone to introspection, but there is only a difference in him to those who know him well. To any other he is unchanged. If I had imagined that the imprisonment of the Shadow might release us from our fear of the night then I was wrong indeed. For no longer than a week did I fear the failing of the day for what the darkness brought us – not long at all after such a quest as the one for the Ring – but now I cannot remember a time before it. Legolas is scarred, deep within his fëa, and there is not a thing I can do to fix it.

But for now it is daylight, and neither of us quarrel, and it is a good day indeed.

The horses are highly strung and after a time I notice that the wind has the same effect in the elf, only he hides it far better. He is jumpy and there is a lot of the wildness in him today. We run the horses for a while if only to stop them from dancing so much, and I admit that it does me just as good as it does my friend. The wind that burns tears from my eyes is cold; it catches in my lungs and freezes my hands and cheeks. I do not think a single, solitary thought whilst we run like this and it feels good to know nothing but exhilaration and speed.

We run a long time – longer than either of us perhaps intended – and the horses blow and wheel when we are through. The elf is wildness itself when he looks to me; his eyes are bright and frightening and his grin is that of the hungriest wolf. I expect that I am a bristling mass of windblown red, with ruddy cheeks and running nose but he looks at me as though our experience of this mad freedom is the same. I am not sure that it is, but I feel fondness for this exasperating creature again. Our experience has not been the same, but it is something that we have both needed so very much.

We stop early, well before the sun has set. I have announced that I will not go another night eating like a bird or an elf on naught but fruit and seeds, and Legolas has obligingly caught me a brace of hares if only to silence me. We find a fine shaded fen, more open to the sky than enclosed, and once the horses are released to their own devices I set about cooking us a hearty meal. I have collected a number of wild vegetables these last days and all go well into the pot, and whilst Legolas spends the last hours of the day communing with squirrels or however it is that he uses his time, I sit and smoke my pipe in comfort.

There is a fire beside me, a good meal cooking away, a pipe to smoke with no elf to complain about it... what else might a dwarf want in life? I reach within me and seek out the deep, thrumming song of Mahal as it sounds through all of Arda. I feel it in the steady beat of my heart and the blood that courses through me, and I feel myself once more a dwarf… more so than I have at any point today.

The frantic dervish of the trees sings without stirring anything within me now. I hear it, but I do not allow it to take my mind. Today was today, and no more to be said about it. Tonight I must be Gimli again, and tomorrow, and the days beyond.

I smile to myself and I settle back against the stoutness of a wide and old tree. There is a thing to be said for the madness of elves, but let the elves have their ways. To be a dwarf is a fine enough thing for me.

~{O}~

Once we have eaten and the sun has all but set I notice that something is missing and look up from my thoughts. Legolas does not sing, he does not hum, he does not check his weapons or any of the usual things he does of an evening. I look to him and his eyes are not on the stars. He sits in a very low branch, barely a few feet from the ground but his gaze is downcast, shuttered and dark. He flexes and clenches his hands, just as he always does; feeling the stiffness of them and easing it as best he can. I see the scarring upon those hands and I look away again. Instead I throw a stone at him.

I have yet to hit him – he is too nimble – but every time his reaction is the same. He makes barely a movement yet always the stone sails past his head, and always he looks to me with betrayal as though I am repeatedly trying to brain him.

"Your thoughts, Legolas," I warn him, and there is weariness to my tone: "turn them elsewhere. Play with your knife."

This time his look is incredulous and I huff through my beard. Perhaps this time the look I am being given is earned.

"I shall not become vexed," I promise.

"It is not the Shadow that I hear tonight Gimli," he tells me, settling back against the tree but he reaching for his knife in any case. He must exercise his hands, especially now that the weather turns colder. Legolas does not feel the chill as I do, but such damaged and broken hands will note the difference in the weather even if he does not. He spins it once, a lazy movement. "In truth, it is my father that I hear."

"He has a long reaching voice, to be heard from Mirkwood." I sprawl myself even further into the pocket of warmth that I have found and consider whether it is worth lighting my pipe again.

"You are ridiculous, at times." Legolas sighs.

"And what does your far reaching father have to say?" I ask him. "I cannot imagine anything pleasant. Despite the friendship we have Legolas, I cannot promise to be there at your side when you see him again. I imagine he is much vexed by now, and I fear Thranduil."

He snorts, and I can read it as well as if he had spoken.

"It is not cowardice," I shake my head. "It is prudence, and you would do well to think similarly."

"Then I will not be there either," he smiles. He still is not himself though, not quite. I wait for him to speak, knowing that he finds it difficult but that he will eventually put voice to what ails him during the hours of night. Legolas, for all of his faults and differences, understands why he must.

"It is there, though," he speaks finally: "it is a disturbed cobweb; the softest of whispers but I know that it is there and it is listening. Whilst I think of my father and my home, of my mother and my friends it listens… listens to things I would not have sullied or seen by such darkness. I would rather be alone with my thoughts again. I would be washed clean and rid of this stain in a moment if I could."

He shudders and his hands have stopped flexing, stopped toying with his blade. Instead they are clenched and fisted… the only sign of the struggle within himself; the fight to remain collected and calm. He is angry, but he is strong enough to manage his own heart. It is distraction that is my role.

"Does it lessen the further we travel?"

"Not with distance," he shakes his head. "With time, though. It is as though it falls slowly into sleep… although far too slowly."

"Then Lasgalen is not ruined for you – it is a worry you had. You should be happy in that, at least."

He gives me a smile and it is weak but warm. His hands loosen, flex once and then resume their exercises with the blade. He leans his head back against his tree, and finally his gaze rises to the stars. I see the winter pale glow of him strengthen as he reflects the mantle of Elbereth, and I know that it is not just the stars with which he has distracted himself. He listens to the green and silver Song of Iluvatar, and I am relieved.

"You must swear something to me, Gimli," he speaks, and does not wait for me to answer. "Swear that you will not tell Estel how deeply the Shadow has settled within me. I have sworn that I will not sail whilst he is king, but he bears much guilt that I remain on his account. He will be unbearable if he realises the sea longing is only part of the price that I pay to remain here."

"I will not lie to him, Legolas."

"Then do not, but also do not tell him all. I wish to spend some time in distraction with my friends, not spend tireless hours of it dredging up that which I have spent months trying to forget. I will tell him myself one day, but it is still too near and I do not wish to speak of it."

He will speak of it with me, though. I think on that for a moment but discard it after a while for later consideration – it is a strange understanding and one I am unsure of.

"I can swear only to parts of what you ask then, my friend. It will be a loose and difficult oath to hold to."

"Then make no oath, for I have trust in you."

An oath might be easier to abide by. To swear to something and then go back upon your word is a blight upon your honour, carried with you all of your days. A broken trust is far, far worse.

"Then you must trust that whatever I do, it will always be because I believe it to be the best thing for you. Even should you not understand it at the time." I tell him. "Aragorn cares for you although I sometimes wonder why."

Legolas smiles but his focus now is upon the stars, and I know that our conversation on the matter is over. I would speak more with him, but to push him now would be of little use. I settle down for the night and think a while again on why I feel as I do – about my guilt and anger – and still I cannot resolve what it is that stokes such a fire within me. I am resolved to think on it and to unravel it – both the elf and I deserve no less – but I cannot make sense of it and I feel myself pushed toward sleep.

Although our quarrel has been put to rest for now I still dream poorly; I dream again and again of those days we spent hounded by the Shadow. I see my friend's face, and I see something else looking back at me through his eyes. I see him taken by it, over and over again in my mind and each time it is no different – I cannot stop it from happening.

I wake in the early hours of the morning to find him gone. It is not unusual; Legolas watches over me no matter where he roosts, but he sleeps little these days and I would not begrudge him the solace that the forest grants him. Even so, I feel worry bite at me until he returns.

~{O}~

We ford the Anduin at our leisure and leave the woods. The river now separates us from darker lands and although the elf is uncomfortable to be out of the trees, I believe that he feels much as I do. We have had too much darkness, and it is good to be travelling away from it. I see him casting his gaze over his shoulder from time to time and the Ephel Duath is a hazy smear of shadow upon the horizon. Far clearer, I am sure, in his eyes. I tell him to keep his eyes frontward, and he obliges without a word.

He tells me that he can smell the woods of the Druadan Forest to the west – I cannot even see the slightest sign of them – but we have had enough diversions and we continue. Mount Mindolluin rises in the furthest distance, the great city fortress still indistinct but the mountain is there and it is a beacon to us. We hurry; I am eager for a warm bed and a flask of ale with company that I can become lost in. I do not doubt for a moment that the elf hurries only on my account and is not as anxious to be within a city of stone the way that I am, but he has promised me this and he wishes to see Aragorn just as I do.

We camp one night in the open and Legolas is as twitchy as a rabbit. I feel myself become irritated with him again. He is silent and cold, his stars are veiled to him and it threatens rain all the night through. A wind passes that is not the friendly wind it has been, but rather relentless and bitter. He tells me that it carries spoil and ruin – it has come past the Pelennor and Osgiliath – and there are whispers in the wind.

I feel only wind against me, I smell and hear nothing and his words grate my nerves raw. I would hear nothing from him of ghosts that I cannot see, for what use is a haunting that cannot be perceived? He is ill at ease and perhaps hears whispers that are not there… perhaps the whispers are within him, perhaps the darkness is his and only made real by the absence of starlight. Perhaps I am being unkind.

I wish for a moment that he might keep such things silent. I cannot fix him, I cannot feel what he feels nor can I see what he sees. He has fought this whole way without a word that I have not had to force from him, why does he break his silence now?

I feel guilt bite at me again then and the cycle continues. I am angry at him, I am angry at myself, I swim in guilt and neither of us is any closer to healing. I keep my silence, I ignore him as best I can and sleep knowing that he cannot.

~{O}~

By the time darkness falls the next night our journey is over, we have reached our destination.

The sunset falls slowly over the peak of Mindolluin although we are already in darkness upon the plain. Sunlight glints upon the highest reaches, a cut of gold against the darkening skies where late autumn sun sets the reaches burning. It is Minas Anor, the Tower of the Setting Sun indeed, and it is a sight to behold. The city dominates the landscape, ring after ring rising up above the field that we ride upon. The Pelennor, a place of mourning now but there is little to show for the destruction that lay here the last time I rode upon it. Fires still smouldered then, bodies littered the floor in a number so great that they ceased to be man or orc, friend or foe… they were simply sad and dead things. Great beasts and small, battle engines and endless flames burned here. Now it is just grass, just a field.

I push the images from my mind, sparing a moment to glance at my friend and his eyes burn in a resolute face. We were not here for the battle that we saw the aftermath of, but our own battle was much the same. All battles are much the same.

We focus on the white city instead and I feel so very small before it. It is a place of hope; defiant it stands and unconquered it remains. There is scarring, aye, any with eyes can see the damage to the city but there is also a great deal that has already been rebuilt. It was a half empty place of ghosts once, but now the ghosts walk with the living and Minas Tirith is a place of colour and sound again. Folk flock to the city to live and to trade, and its rings are filled with new voices and new life.

The reign of King Elessar will be one of providence and glory, I need none to tell me that.

We are allowed entry at the barricade that stands where once the Great Gates stood. They remain there still, set to one side; great things, barred and riveted with good steel but splintered and torn to tinder. No one has removed them, for what is to be done with them? One with skill might rebuild them, one who knows metal and stone might create gates the likes of which have never been seen, but none has yet to try it. I might like to meet the man who does, for it is a task that tickles at my imagination and stirs at my mind. I might like to speak with him very much.

Once within the city we find our way to the third ring – an adequate height I feel – and I stop us. I would visit a tavern, and I would see the city at sunset just for a short time before we are closeted away. It has been a hard ride and I wish to take a time to breathe. Legolas indulges me with a nod.

The horses are stabled by a young boy who seems unsure what to do with the towering sable giant nor the bad tempered red thing, and I must help Legolas interpret which coins he must give the stable lad for his efforts. The boy is almost the recipient of fully half of our coinage before I intercept, and then I hurry my way to the city wall where I stop and all falls to stillness within me.

Dwarves are not meant for height, but within the earth there are places that fall so deep that the very scale and scope of Arda beneath can cause a man to lose himself for a spell. Minas Tirith does not feel to me as an open place, for I feel the Song of Mahal all about me here. It is a merging of worlds; there is the wind of the high places that ruffles my hair and my cloak about me, the scent of wind and rain to come. Beneath me I feel the rock and stone echoing down, down deep through the mountain and into the land that stretches out before me in glory. Light still hits the highest of places despite that the sun is mostly set, and I can still see the land about me – like a vast and green carpet, rolling in hills and rising in peaks. We are only three levels up – just three levels – but it is a thing of wonder.

I turn to my side where I know my friend will be; where he always is. Legolas is sat with his legs crossed upon the wall, gazing out at the sight just as I am. He has pulled the hood of his cloak up about his head to cover his countenance but the effort is wasted. Any who see him know him for an elf, hood or no hood. What man would sit so on a wall this narrow, and with such a fall below? It is thicker at the base, tapering here to a ledge only half a pace across but I have never seen my friend fall, never from any height.

When he turns to look at me with brightness to his eyes and a smile upon him I must show some trace of the horror that I feel seeing him there. He rolls his eyes and climbs down to stand beside me, his elbows resting instead against the wall. He thinks my heart faint and querulous when it comes to the higher places. I think that he would be more respectful had he the sense to realise the danger he is in.

We are receiving looks already. The darkness hides what would be clearer in full daylight, but there are people still about and I am quite plainly a dwarf, and he is quite visibly an elf. My axe is swung about my shoulders and Legolas is fully armed with knives, bow and quiver. We must be a strange sight indeed, but I turn my attention back to see the setting sun.

"There is a thing to be said for this," Legolas admits. "I still cannot understand fully why any would choose to live so removed from the wood, but Iluvatar's Song is here just as it always is. Not so loud and not so bright, but it is there."

"Then I might be spared your sighing and moping whilst we are here?" I ask. "I will admit, I have been practising our arguments ready for it."

"Aye, Gimli," he laughs, and it is light and pleased. I find that I mirror him with a smile of my own. "Providing I can see such sights as this then I will spare your ears as best I can. I shall see much of the stars from here I would imagine, much as I did from the height of Meduseld although what I saw there was dark."

"We are in brighter times now, my friend. Come – I am sure that word of our arrival is making its way into royal ears even as we stand here idling; I would have a drink in peace before we are collected."

~{O}~

The tavern that we find is small but busy; thick with the sound and smell of ale and men. I find us a private booth with a small and heavily scored table near to the fire, but the seats by the window are taken and so Legolas must make do. The men are loud; singing songs after their fashion and making much of a racket, but the flagstone floor is scrubbed and surprisingly clean, and the ale is very good indeed.

Even so, Legolas sits and regards his drink as though I have served him a mug of animal innards.

I might have fetched him some wine – indeed, they serve wine – but this is far more enjoyable. I pretend that I do not see his distaste. I feign an eagerness for him to enjoy the drink that I have bought for him, and to force his hand out of politeness I hold out my tankard for a toast. I see only the faintest glimmer of helpless horror behind his gaze as he realises that he must drink. He counters the toast and sips gingerly, but holds the ale in his mouth for a long time before swallowing. Eru bless his ears… the look that he tries to hide is worth every step we have taken up to this moment. I laugh, and I cannot help myself. I laugh long and loud and every part of me shakes with my mirth.

My friend watches me with a furrowed brow and a smile that says he understands what I have done, but not why.

"I shall never understand the fondness you and Estel have for this brew," he muses, mostly to himself as I am still finding my composure. "That was cruel of you, Gimli."

"Forgive me, Legolas," I chuckle still for a while longer. "You are a far better friend than I am to you; I wished only to see if you would drink. I should have stopped you when I saw that you would."

"Now that it is out of your system need I take more or have I passed your test?" His voice is clipped and tart but there is affection in the look I am given. He shakes his head – I know that I make no sense to him but he will endure it to hear me laughing. He has told me before that I am far too serious. It is good to prove him wrong at times.

We fall into companionable silence, and Legolas spends his time watching the crowd whilst trying to seem as though he does not. At the latter he fails terribly – I do not think Legolas realises what it feels like to be pinned beneath his gaze, but he will ever be a scout. He cannot spend any time in any place without watching, listening… remaining alert all of the time we are there. It is a safe feeling, to be under the watch of those eyes, but it is easy to fall into poor habits. I find that I rely too heavily upon his vigilance at times. I fall far more swiftly into my thoughts or musings knowing that nothing will go unseen. I turn my attention to him for want of anything better to do, although I make no production of it. I watch without watching, which is the better way to avoid his annoyance.

A thing is dropped and his attention is upon it. A voice is raised and it is to that which his gaze springs. He is blinded and senseless by the fume of pipe smoke, of the smells of men and the clatter and loudness of it all, and I know my friend well enough to know that he feels threat where there is no threat at all. He watches everything, and for a time I think that he may simply leave me and flee, but I wait. I no longer underestimate my elf, and I can see that the fingers of one hand trace the grain of wood in the table, grounding him. His nose flares as he catches whatever scents come in through the window and I give him a moment to focus, to regain his composure. He remains seated.

Satisfied that he is not about to leap through a window I turn my attention away to give some semblance of privacy. He is laid bare right now, and I have respect enough for him not to watch him tame his own heart.

I see the men about me and I recognise that there is something amiss, now that I look. Legolas says that I cannot even sense rain until it is falling upon my head, but whether it is my friend making me jumpy or not I feel that perhaps something is awry. I look about me at the men with whom we share this evening, and in time I find that my gaze rests in just one place.

There is a group of men by the far wall, just as there are groups of men everyplace I cast my eye, but this time my attention is captured. There is a younger man; fresh from the road and dusty just as we are dusty. He wears greens and browns and his hair is a soft, pale brown, but his features capture my attention for a moment.

There is a hint of Númenor about the cast of his face; his brow is high and he is fair as much as men can be fair. Even so, he is quite drunk and surrounded by men that I do not believe to be friends of his. They are roughshod and heavy-set, with tangled black locks and the harsh, loud voices of men who have spoken loudly and harshly all of their days. They are ruddy from working outdoors and they look upon the lad as though he has angered them. There is violence in the air. I see restraint in them, but the more the lad speaks the less willing they seem to turn a deaf ear. I continue to watch until my drink is half gone, and then I put it to one side.

It is unexpected when it happens, despite my attention. There is a shout and a clatter of wood upon flagstone as one of the larger men shoves at the young man, who is far too deep in his cups to keep his balance. He falls into another man who knocks over a stool, and then all is shouting and havoc. It is quick; perhaps I have given men too little credit in sensing what has been building… certainly they are ready for a brawl. The affronted man shoves back, the lad falls against another whose drink is spilled and a punch is thrown. It connects upon the wrong jaw, and suddenly violence erupts all about us. A lamp is knocked in the melee and a carelessly stored cloak catches, and now there is fire.

Moments it has been, mere moments and now all about us are shouting and shoving and fighting. I am astounded. How has such a pleasant evening turned so swiftly?

"This is how you choose to spend your free time?" Legolas gestures out at the unpleasantness as though it proves a point he has not yet made.

I feel my bewilderment collapse instantly into irritation and set to a lengthy and aggrieved grumbling about men and elves... mostly elves. I am to my feet and heading toward the door without stopping to check that he follows, and I hear a light laugh at my back that simply serves to aggravate me all the more. I shove men from my path without apology or grace and they fall from my way, and when I am to the door that too is shoved far harder than I had perhaps intended.

The night air is crisp and sharp when I finally fight my way free; there is a tang of wood smoke and a brittle quality to the air that speaks perhaps of frost tonight. When my friend joins me in the spilled light from the tavern he drinks the air as though it is the first he has tasted, and then curls up his nose at the smell of his own clothing. Outside we are bathed in lamplight and the noise from the tavern is concerning but far removed now. I hear shouting and crashing, but we may as well be a thousand leagues away.

I see that my friend has made a diversion in his exit from the place.

"What have you there?" I demand. I am still unwilling to let go of the annoyance I feel, but it is not him in whom I am annoyed. What a waste of a good pint of ale!

Legolas looks down and drops the young man who I am fairly certain started the brawl in the first place. He is young, and our young warrior is far too drunk to have escaped this battle unscathed. Nevertheless he lands upon the cobbles heavily and crawls from where he has been deposited to rest himself against the city walls, gulping down air as though drowning. I nudge at him with my boot.

"Oi, laddie. You there. You are well enough to walk?"

"I am well enough to crawl, perhaps," the youth groans, and Legolas moves aside to allow me to deal with his stray. He has performed the rescue, and I must deal with the consequence. He is given a stern look and he meets it with no expression at all.

"Thank you, friends," the youth speaks airily to us both: "I meant for none of this. Perhaps I misjudged the friendliness of those in the city, I certainly misjudged my own capacity for ale."

He laughs but it is light; he is not as drunk as he seems and I cannot find it in me to wonder at his deception. Instead I huff through my beard.

"You have ruined a perfectly good evening for my friend and I, and my ale was barely half drunk," I grumble instead. The youth flits one hand in a gesture that could be a dismissal or an apology. I have only just begun to consider which it might be before my friend speaks the lightest whisper at my shoulder.

"Gimli we are caught," Legolas tells me softly, and indicates his meaning when I look to him for it. Above us on the fourth ring come guards upon horseback, and they will be with us in little time at all from the speed in which they travel.

"You are certain that they come for us?" I ask him in the same low tone.

"They are in full livery and they ride as though our friend's words burn in their ears."

There is a hint of mirth in his voice but I sigh and straighten. I am disappointed to be captured so soon after such an evening so unfulfilled, but I feel a touch of anticipation nevertheless. It has been a while since we have seen Aragorn.

"Gimli?" the youth asks, almost forgotten at my feet. "You are Gimli Gloinson, of the nine walkers?"

"Aye lad," I reply, although I pay little attention to him now. The night can take him; he is well enough to tend to his own affairs for we have our own to conduct.

"And you would be Prince Legolas, of the Woodland Realm," the youth continues. I feel annoyance now that he continues to speak when I am trying to gauge when the riders might arrive. Might we have time to hide? It is unseemly, certainly, but the nature of quarry is to flee and quarry we are right now.

"He is hardly Lord Elrond that is for certain," I bite and then turn to the elf: "come, I would not have them find us outside a brawling tavern."

But it is too late. The guards are upon us, and it all we can do just to present as dignified a front as we are able whilst to our right, the sounds of crashing and fighting sails out into the night. I clear my throat uncomfortably as the riders dismount.

I do not recognise the guard that approaches us but he looks painfully young to me. He is dressed in the livery of the city guard but it is very clean and very new, and he adjusts it as though he is still unaccustomed to it. War makes men of boys, that is certainly true, but I feel a momentary surge of annoyance that Aragorn has sent this child to greet us. It feels like a slight, and I know he does it to show that he is grieved with us. With the elf, more than likely, though I do not understand why I must share in his disgrace.

The guard seems ill at ease as he approaches. Legolas stands behind my shoulder, watching; he will always take position where he believes himself most unobserved but instead he is a distraction. I know that he must seem alien and unwelcoming to these men, just as I once found him to be… as I still find him at times.

I know how we must appear. We are travel stained and worn, we are armed, we stand over a clearly intoxicated youth who still bleeds from his altercation and the tavern beside us still smells of flames. As we stand in discomfort, there is a great crash and a man falls bodily through the tavern door to land in an unconscious heap upon the floor. I do not remove my eyes from the guard. He clears his throat.

"Welcome to Minas Tirith," he offers weakly.

~{O}~

We are given very little time to take in the city now that our escort has arrived. We ride up through the rings, right to the seventh level where our mounts are taken for more kingly stables and then we are ushered inside. All is a whirl of clattering hooves and anxious men, all of whom seem nervous about something and I see the elf watching about him… he sees something that I do not. His eyes narrow in suspicion but I have no time to ask what troubles him.

We are given no chance to stop and refresh ourselves, nor are we shown to our quarters but rather collected by another strikingly young guard who is to be our guide this evening. We have been here before of course for Aragorn's coronation and wedding, but it is rude indeed to harry us through the corridors this way. Legolas still says nothing, but I find that I must fill this silence with my complaints for what else am I to do? I am unsettled and anxious and I know not why, and so I voice these feelings as loudly as I may. To whence do we go? Why are we not given time in which to refresh ourselves? Are all men of Gondor such poor hosts, and as such, where is their lord? I am given muttered apologies but naught much else; they lead us ever onward through this stone maze but I continue my rebukes because it gives me comfort to do so.

King Elessar's home is regal enough, in the way of men. I have never found their tastes particularly fine to behold, but they enjoy them well enough and so I endure. Plain walls adorned with tapestries and standards appeal to some, I am told. All is dry and angular, built to reflect strength and past glory rather than to display the fine stone that wrought the place. It feels dusty, deep and endless, and the stone speaks of the passing of a great many men. Sound echoes here; the scuffing of feet and distant voices, the sounds of horses from the stables and the faint ringing of metal meeting metal, all confused and melding together.

We are deep within the mountain and we travel upward, but despite my own misgivings I start to feel concern for one other. I look to the elf, trapped and far from his Song. He has the same look upon him that he has worn all night; his eyes burn with a laegrim fire that speaks of wildness and danger. He is deeply annoyed just as I am that we are dragged so unceremoniously through these passages, but he is also buried within stone, which he has no love for. He is terrible to behold right now and the guards that lead him seem frightened. I wonder if this is their first elf.

I catch his eye and cast him a look that is a question, and he nods an answer although it seems jerky and unnatural.

"Hoy… you!" I call to those who lead us. "Tell us where we go or lead us no more, I know well enough where the kitchens are and will go there without a guide if need be. My friend and I have travelled far and we have no patience for the games of your king."

"We are here, my lord," is the curt reply, but the young guard looks apologetic in his own way. His journey has been just as unhappy as ours as been.

We are at a doorway, and we are divested of our weapons and told they will be in our quarters ready for us. I am done with this nonsense but it is my friend who strides past me without pause for an announcement. Legolas moves forth with all of the defiance of his birth and race, past the guards who shrink from him as he goes and I find myself swept up on his heels in the passing.

The room is surprisingly small; perhaps ten paces from door to wall but it is comfortable in a way that the rest of this stronghold is not. It is not overly indulgent or opulent, and there is a decidedly elvish cast to the décor but it is mannish enough for one to compliment the other. I know not if this is Aragorn's influence or Arwen's, but the windows are wide open despite the chill air, with thick drapes that billow in the breeze and I know the touch of an elf when I see it. A large hearth burns and comfortable chairs are arranged about the room, with a heavy desk unobtrusively pushed into the corner and covered with papers. Shadows dance about the room but they are not worrisome at all; they are a result of the light, and not an absence of it.

The elf is in high agitation. I look and I see again a suspicion upon him, but also an annoyance that he has been summoned like an errant child. Lord Ionwë has said to me that Legolas' inability to check his temper when slighted is a failing in his upbringing but I cannot find it in myself to fault him. I am tense and ready for words certainly, but I feel my demands die on my lips and my anger trip and choke me when I see the occupants of the room. It dies not at all – I am all the angrier in fact – but I am hobbled… forced to remain silent in my anger.

The anxiety of the guards, the summoning and rushed march without a chance to catch even a breath… I finally understand the suspicion that I have seen in the elf.

King Thranduil is here.

TBC

Intro chapter all done, hope you're all warmed up now. Next chapter we'll get the action started :)

I hope you enjoyed it, I'd really appreciate a line from you just to let me know that you're there and with me. It's a strange feeling, telling a story to the internet, so each review is a voice for my invisible audience and let's me know to keep at it.

Have a wonderful day.

MyselfOnly