Reunions, by Fadesintothwest
Mar. 12th, 2019 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fadesintothewest posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
b2memB2MeM Prompt, Card and Number: O67. 67. Emotions 2, Joy; O67, 18. “Beachy” and “coastly”, Seabirds
Format: drabble
Genre: gen
Rating: gen
Warnings: none
Characters: Legolas, Gimli
Pairings: none
Creator’s Notes (optional):none
Summary: Legolas and Gimli have sailed.
Near Avallónë Legolas watched as the waves crashed on the shore. His ship was docked and Gimli sat next to him, his old bones resting on the sand. Gimli had complained on the Straight Road, never finding his sea legs, but here he was quiet, content to have firm earth under him.
Seabirds did their duty: some diving into the waves to find fish; others foraging and stealing from the many elves that busily worked in the docks; the sounds of bird songs and cries piercing the quiet of the morning.
Gimli looked up at his friend, who looked the same as the day Gimli first set eyes on him on what seemed so long ago. Except the eyes. Gimli there could see the age of Legolas and whatever emotion stirred within. Gimli pondered if the seagull’s cry now brought his friend peace. Gimli grimaced, settling himself deeper in the warm sand. It was a salve for his aching bones.
Without tearing his eyes away from the waves that crashed on the shore, Legolas answered his friend’s thoughts, guessing where they would turn upon hearing the sounds of the seabirds. “It seems but yesterday I sung of the sea and this place.” Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isle calling, both Legolas and Gimli could hear the song that Legolas sang of the sea.
Gimli replied, his voice made rough by his long years, “It is strange for me to say that now that I hear the sweetness of that song you heard so long ago....” Gimli looked upon his friend with renewed love. “Aye, my boy, to know that such sweetness called to you so long ago.”
“But a moment,” Legolas reminded Gimli.
“A moment,” Gimli repeated, fully aware of his own mortality.
“Fear not,” Legolas turned to his friend, “your old bones will find youth here for a time.”
Gimli nodded. “Aye, it seems the years are melting away.” Looking from under his bushy eyebrows at his dear friend, he spoke, as always in that direct way of his: “But I will die.”
Legolas’ smile faltered, even here on these shores where he understood joy anew, felt like a young elf again, he would have to confront Gimli’s mortality.
“Do not mourn for me yet, and do not mourn for me then, for I will got to my fathers,” Gimli gently rebuked his friend, his mind turning to those that had passed on beyond the veil of the living.
“It is selfish, I understand, to want you here with me for all time. When that time comes for you to leave, I will think of the joy that you will find on that other side of death.” Legolas too could see that veil close to Gimli, a border he could never cross.
Gimli grunted, willing the conversation to an end. He would not be the reason Legolas would not find joy on the shores Legolas had so longed for. “Very well,” Gimli muttered, shaking the sand off, his body feeling less tired, less old. “Let us find our friends of old and rejoice in those reunions.”
Legolas stood and the two walked back to the port of Avallónë to meet up with the carriage that would take them to Elrond’s home, there to be reacquainted with so many. Legolas heard the seagulls cry out. It brought him joy to know that he would soon see his mother again. Gimli too would be reunited with his loved ones on that other side.
“It’s a good boat,” Gimli grumbled, catching a glimpse of the boat Legolas had built and ferried them across the sea.
“Only because your watchful eye made sure I was committed to the task,” Legolas offered, falling back into their familiar and comforting banter.
Gimli managed a chuckle. “I knew nothing then of building boats though I think after helping you, I might be able to craft a handsome vessel, with some modifications of course.”
“Shorter riggings, for example,” Legolas teased.
Gimli let out a loud, rumbling dwarven laugh, the kind that filled Legolas with peace and joy. It startled the elves around them but Legolas paid no mind for he knew how quickly Elvendom would fall in love with Gimli.
Legolas once believed he would sail back alone, never imagining that Gimli would make this journey with him. Yet having Gimli here with him filled Legolas with gratitude for he could not fathom he would have been able to find joy otherwise.
And yet that too would pass.
“Ouch,” Legolas cried out, feeling a sharp pain at his side.
Gimli was looking up at him with his keen eyes, his walking stick threatening to hit Legolas again. “I know that look.”
Legolas laughed aloud and he heard others join in his merriment, Gimli’s own deep laugh resonating as a part of the song that was Elvenhome. Legolas settled into himself and felt joy, a joy so wide and wondrous that he broke out into a song of old, a song of longing, that now was a song of welcome!
And for Gimli what had once broken his heart, filled him with peace. The world was truly made anew and he looked forward to all that was to come, even that which lay behind the veil.
“To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,
The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying.
West, west away, the round sun is falling.
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.
Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling,
Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isle calling,
In Eressea, in Elvenhome that no man can discover,
Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!’”
Tolkien, The Return of the King
no subject
Date: 2019-03-12 01:24 pm (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2019-03-12 11:08 pm (UTC)