To find a new green by elliska

[elliska.livejournal.com]

Title: To find a new green
Author Name: elliska
Prompt: "I sit beside the fire and think" -- Bilbo's poem from Fellowship of the Ring, "The Ring Goes South"
Summary: Legolas has one, final favor to ask of Gimli, Elf-Friend.
Rating: General
Warnings: Brief mention of canon deaths
Beta: picara
Author's Notes: This song has always made me cry. I love it, but it makes me cry. And I've always thought it was very applicable to my head-canon for so many characters. Under pressure of time, for this event, I've stuck with the character I know best. But I may eventually make this into a series for the entire Fellowship and for some of the other major characters, like Elrond, Arwen and Celeborn.

Strangely, writing short pieces is extremely difficult for me. I hope this works. :-)



Legolas hummed softly as he worked--a song he first heard while in the company of those who were very much on his mind this day.

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been.

The shuttle of his loom bounced back and forth in rhythm with the tune.

"What are you doing, Elf?" Gimli exclaimed, his gravelly voice drowning out the melody and abrading any sense of peace Legolas might have found in his repetitive task.

No matter. Gimli's presence offered peace in its own way: the much needed companionship of a dear friend. Of perhaps the last person remaining in Middle Earth that understood, at least in the same way Legolas did, the grief of this day--the one year anniversary of Aragorn's death. Legolas pulled his mind back from the world of waking dreams and focused his gaze on his friend, offering him a wane smile.

"Hmm?" Gimli grunted, impatiently prompting an answer. "What are you doing?" He tapped his pipe on the hearth, knocking out the ash and punctuating each word. Since Gimli finished building this fireplace, he always sat on its hearth when visiting. It was the only stone in Legolas's home in Ithilien. Gimli would probably sleep on it if Legolas let him. And tonight, Legolas might. Despite the fact that the long winter was now running steadily along towards spring, it was still unseasonably cold. Gimli's old bones appreciated the warmth of the crackling fire Legolas had built for his benefit.

"Weaving," Legolas finally responded.

Now Gimli growled. "Do you think I can't see that?" he asked. "Though what you are weaving remains a mystery." He paused for an explanation.

Legolas did not offer one. He was not ready to speak of it.

"Well, whatever you are making," Gimli pressed on, "I will advise you to get some woman to weave it for you, if plain, coarse, white cotton is the best you can manage...."

"My mother taught me to weave, Gimli," Legolas interrupted mildly. "I often sat with her while she wove fabric for my family's shirts and cloaks. It is a skill I learned and have practiced since Durin was still the Lord of Khazad-dum."

"And a fine weaver your lady mother likely was, but you are clearly not her equal. This cloth," he pointed at the loom with the stem of his pipe, "is the plainest I've ever seen. Regardless, weaving is not what I was asking about. You have been staring at the fire and humming the same daft tune for well-nigh half the morning. What is on your mind, Elf? Out with it!"

"I am thinking about summer," Legolas replied, evading the inevitable just a little longer.

Gimli snorted in surprise. Summer was clearly not the answer he expected. "That, I understand," he said. "I, too, am ready for this cold to give way to warmer days. You'd do better to come stay in my home rather than inviting me here. The temperature is steady in the Glittering Caves. Not like Ithilien, where the wind cuts across the plain and through the trees."

"I appreciate the offer, mellon nin, but I do not feel the cold as you do, nor was I thinking of summer solely in longing for the warmth it will bring." He paused and looked back at his loom before continuing in a quieter voice. "Nay, I was longing for something entirely different and thinking of one particular summer, when I was still a very young child. My cousin had just come north from the southern forest to live with us, so that he and I could be raised together and have the company of other children. There were not many children, even then. We spent that summer chasing butterflies in the crowns of the trees. Huge butterflies, as big as your hand and so deep a blue that they almost appeared black." His voice grew more and more distant with the memories. "There was one special glade, full of wildflowers, where we always went. It had the tallest tree in the area around my father's stronghold that was within our bounds to wander. We would climb to the top of it and send those butterflies floating onto the breeze." Legolas's tone grew rueful. "My cousin was a bit too adventurous. He fell from that tree and broke his arm chasing those butterflies that summer."

Gimli loosed a dramatically surprised guffaw and spun towards Legolas with bright eyes--eyes nearly as bright as Legolas remembered when the beard below them was a rich chestnut, rather than its current silver. "So woodelves do fall out of trees!" he exclaimed with a triumphant tone.

"Even the most devoted tree cannot save the young and foolish," Legolas admitted. He did not have the strength to rise to Gimli's bait. Not today.

"Well, your cousin learned a lesson, then. The same lesson boys of all races learn. Elves and dwarves and men. We are not so different," Gimli said, settling back against the hearth.

Legolas nodded. "Not so different," he repeated. Then, as often happened when he thought of his cousin, he could not resist a grin. "But I fear my cousin learned nothing. He was just as reckless the next time he climbed that tree and that was when the splint from his original accident was still on his arm." Legolas sighed. "I truly miss him. He was the closest thing to a brother that I had. Before I met you, of course, gwador nin."

Gimli made a sour face that did not fool Legolas in the slightest. "Do not apply that foolish elvish gibberish to me," he said. "And thank Mahal your father is no longer around to hear you say things like that. You took years off his life with such words and I always feared he'd take a few years off mine in exchange."

Legolas dutifully laughed at that old joke and managed to sincerely feel some of the happiness he feigned when Gimli nodded, apparently satisfied that he had succeeded in cheering his friend. The merry expression remained on Legolas's face through nearly a dozen courses of weft on the loom before it faded as his thoughts traveled back down their original road.

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

"What now, Legolas?" Gimli asked, his voice a little gentler.

"I was thinking about my father, since you brought him up, and our hunts for the Fall Festival. That hunt was always special for he and I, from the first time I joined him on it. My favorite part of it, every year, was when we passed that tree I just told you about--the one my cousin fell from. It was one of Adar's favorites in all the forest, since it was so tall. And golden in the autumn."

"Your father did love his gold, in any form," Gimli interjected quietly.

Legolas rolled his eyes, but made no further acknowledgment of that barb. "At least once during every hunt, we climbed that tree together to watch the sunrise and enjoy the breezes high up in its arms. We could see the length of the forest from that height and the Misty Mountains and the eastern plain on either side of it. Even the Long Lake and Erebor," he added with a nod to Gimli. "But the sight we always hoped to see, and occasionally did see, was the dawn light glowing in the mist over the forest and sparkling in the dew on the leaves. When that happened, the trees glittered silver and gold in a way that Adar said he fancied was reminiscent of the light of the Two Trees mingling in Valinor."

Legolas stumbled over that reference.

"Once, when I was much older," he finally continued, "I showed that sight to one who had seen the mingling of the Lights and she told me it did remind her of their beauty." He shook his head, as if doing so might clear it somewhat. "At any rate, climbing that tree during the hunt for Fall Festival was a ritual my adar and I followed until the year that tree finally collapsed from vast old age."

"How old was it?" Gimli asked in an obvious attempt to continue distracting Legolas. His efforts were appreciated.

"It was very old--hundreds of years old--when I first climbed it," Legolas replied. "And we watched sunrises in it for hundreds more. I would wager it was nearly a thousand years old when it collapsed. Its saplings are now that same age and near to falling themselves, when last I saw them. But they survived the Battle Under the Forest. They were scorched, but did not burn down." He focused on Gimli, realizing something. "In fact, you met those trees. It was in that grove that Adar greeted us when we returned to the forest after the War."

"Ah, those trees," Gimli said, nodding, a frown puckering his brow.

Legolas knew Gimli did not remember them, though he was present for that reunion, traveling with him on his own way home to the Lonely Mountain. It would never be in his friend's nature to remember a tree, even under the best of circumstances. And those had not been, in Gimli's mind, the best of circumstances, given that was his first acquaintance with the fearful Elvenking.

"There is another part of the history of those trees that you will definitely recognize, mellon nin," Legolas continued. "It was from that glade of trees that Gollum escaped. From the tallest tree there. And thus began my part in the War."

Gimli looked up at Legolas with concern. Over the course of their friendship, he had learned more of the details of that story. Many more than Legolas had shared during the Council. He knew, for example, why Legolas personally delivered the news of Gollum's escape. He knew of the kinsman whose loss Legolas still grieved.

A silence stretched between them, filled only by the sounds of the crackling fire and shuttle flying back and forth. The words of the song played on in Legolas's mind, but now he kept them carefully to himself, not even humming them.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

Just as so many of his family and friends' lives in Middle Earth had ended, Legolas could no longer deny that his own journey here was racing to its close. His gaze drifted to the panes of glass covering the windows in his cottage. Outside them, tender leaves were now opening on the trees. This long winter may soon give way to spring, but it would, indeed, be a spring that he would never see in full bloom.

"Do not mourn those trees that you and your sire watched sunrises in. Not yet," Gimli said softly, no doubt in reaction to Legolas's expression and in another effort to divert his thoughts from crueler losses. "Even if they are near to falling, they will still bud this spring. Like those." He gestured towards the trees outside the cottage. "Better still, new trees will sprout and grow. Try to remember that. What is that expression you elves have? In every wood, in every spring, there is another green? Is that it?"

Legolas smiled at him again. "That is it, though it is not an elvish expression." He sang that verse out loud.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

Gimli frowned and waved his pipe in the general direction of the door and the expanse of forest outside it. "Not an elvish expression? All the elves I met here said that. They said it when you lot first came here to heal this land. The few that remain here still say it."

Legolas nodded. "But it is not an elvish expression," he insisted serenely. "A Hobbit first sang it, long ago, it would seem to you. I taught it to the elves--my closest friends--that came here with me. It seemed appropriate, since we journeyed to this new wood to help cultivate a new green."

"Hmmph," Gimli replied, dismissively. "The point is: you use it and obviously believe it," he grumbled. Then he fixed Legolas with a stern look. Stern enough to remind Legolas of his father, though he would never tell Gimli that. "New green," Gimli said firmly. "That is what you should be thinking about, since it is nearly spring."

Legolas nodded agreeably, but his mind was less obedient. It stubbornly returned to the verse of the song that laid most heavily on his spirit.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

People long ago.... People who had been so present in his thoughts today. His mother, father, cousins, and one...ones he greatly loved. So many friends. They all long since left Middle Earth, some willingly, but most exchanging it for Mandos Halls. He missed them. Terribly. Bitterly. Their absence was a growing weight that was ever more difficult to bear across the ages. He would see them again. But that meant leaving much behind. Forever.

People who would see a world, that he would never see.... Legolas regretted not being able to stay in Middle Earth to see Aragorn's son become the fine king he expected him to be. To see Eldarion's children grow and to teach them, as he helped teach their father, of their elvish heritage. And he regretted leaving the world he had sacrificed so much and so long to free from Shadow. He more than regretted it. He felt guilty, as if he was abandoning the land and few remaining elves that he had served his entire life. He loved Eryn Lasgalen. It was his life. He served and fought to defend it even before he come of age and would have continued protecting and tending it, if only he could. He had grown to love Ithilien and was proud of the work he and his people had done to help return it to its former beauty. It was almost impossible for him to imagine never seeing Eryn Lasgalen or Ithilien's still growing beauty again.

But he would not.

"With all the snow this winter," Legolas said, this time breaking the silence himself. It was time. "Ithilien should be particularly bright and green this spring. Apple trees always bear especially sweet fruit after such a winter. And the first spring wheat crop will be hardy and full." He turned to Gimli gravely. "Eldarion, his sons and their people should look forward to a bountiful year, once this winter yields, as it always does." He paused and braced himself to face Gimli's reaction to his next words--the news he had called Gimli to hear. "But I shall not see it," he added in a whisper.

Gimli only nodded. Nothing more. His gaze passed again over the cloth Legolas was weaving. "That is not plain cloth. It is canvas. For sails. Am I right?"

"You are," Legolas confirmed, too stunned by his friend's utter calm to say more.

"I feared you called me here to tell me you were leaving," Gimli said. Then he waved both hands, as if to erase his words. "I should not say I 'feared' it. I expected it. And I understand. You have denied the call of the sea for a long time. Longer than you should have done, perhaps. I am happy that you have finally decided to take ship. To join the family and friends that have gone before you." He turned to face Legolas fully. "You have lived this Age torn between Middle Earth and Elvenhome. Between your home here and your people there. I see how hard it will be for you to leave, but I hope you will find peace. Finally." Then he leaned back against the hearth and nodded once. "Soon, I will also join my forefathers in the Halls of Waiting that Mahal set aside for my people. I will be glad to do so. I have had a full life. I am ready."

Legolas studied Gimli silently, marveling at exactly how well his friend's words showed that he understood. And appreciating that understanding more than he could ever express. He did, indeed, feel torn. The forest of his birth and Ithilien sang to him still. They likely always would. And while the Fellowship remained in Middle Earth, those friendships helped sustain him. Now, they were gone.

All the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

The doom of his mortal friends was separated from his own until the breaking of Arda. He no longer heard their voices. Neither the Hobbits nor Eomer nor Faramir nor Aragorn--nor even Arwen--spoke to him from afar. They had moved beyond the Circles of Arda. The silence of their voices left an empty chord in the very music of Middle Earth. It would never sing a complete song to him again. It could not.

Other voices--elven voices--he yet heard, calling from the Hither Shore. Now, finally, he would yield and follow their call. He would, at last, leave the wood that bore him and pass the wide waters, lonely sailing. Only, he still hoped that last fate--lonely sailing--he might be spared. He still hoped one mortal need not be lost to him. Not yet.

Legolas laid aside the spent shuttle and reached for a pair of shears to cut the warp of his cloth free of the loom. "Gimli," he said softly, as he severed the last thread. "I have one last favor to ask of you."

Gimli looked up at him expectantly and raised a single brow, a promise on his lips only awaiting Legolas's words before it was made.

Legolas held up a hand to forestall it. "I fear my request is a great one. But I hope it will offer you a worthwhile reward."

"What is this favor, Elf?" Gimli asked.

"I ask it not only for myself, but also in Lady Galadriel's name. Celeborn delivered it to me before he sailed." Legolas knew that fact would be important to Gimli. He remembered well how hurt his friend had been when Gandalf the White delivered no message to Gimli from Galadriel in Fangorn Forest.

Gimli leaned forward. "The Lady Galadriel had a thought of me? What does she ask?"

Legolas allowed himself a smile, his hope growing brighter. "The favor is that you might make one, last quest with me," he said, while loosely folding the white cloth. "To find a new green."

Gimli's old eyes widened as understanding dawned.

*~*~*

Gwador nin -- My brother (in the sense of sworn brothers)
mellon nin -- My friend
Adar -- Father

AN: Legolas's words when speaking of the elven voices calling him at the end of this story are paraphrased from his song in "Field of Cormallen" in RotK.

Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling,
The voices of my people that have gone before me?
I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me;
For our days are ending and our years failing.
I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing.

Comments

[elliska.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much--him weaving sails and memories is exactly what I was going for, so I'm glad it came across. And I figured by this point, Gimli would know him well enough that they couldn't hide anything from one another. I am so glad you enjoyed it.