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tathrin · 1 year

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Back at you with the asks! You write Gimli and Legolas as distinctively representative of their own peoples, and clearly you have some pretty strong headcanons about dwarves and elves, as kindreds. What counts as "smart" and "capable" for each, and how much would your Gimli and Legolas be considered smart and capable by their respective cultures? What might each of their peoples think of Gimli's and Legolas' particular strengths? What might their relative weaknesses be, in their own contexts? How much do you consciously or unconsciously write them to balance each other's weaknesses, within or across cultures?

Ohhhhh boy wow this is an extremely delightful and, frankly, flattering question and I feel like you are maybe giving me more credit for Thinking Things Through than I have actually earned or deserve, but I am going to try to answer it in full the way such a fantastic query deserves as best I can anyway!

(the not-so-secret secret is that I write a lot more by instinct/seat-of-my-pants than I probably should shhhhhh.)

Legolas and the Wood-elves: he's everybody's little brother. He's one of (if not the) youngest elves in Mirkwood, one of the very last to be born before the Shadow (which was already creeping over the forest when he was born, although only a little bit; not enough that they had to really acknowledge it yet, even if they had sort of noticed its first unwelcome tendrils) grew so dark that they stopped risking birthing new children into their woods.

So Mirkwood (Greenwood still, then; Greenwood for a long, long time before they finally resigned themselves to the truth of the name everyone else had given them a long time ago) has always, in my head, been a very we'll be happy to spite you on purpose sort of place. Their forest is awash in darkness, so they will be joyful as a weapon against the dark. They're happy on purpose. Their merriment is a weapon. And they raised their children to be happy, dammit. Not naive, not vulnerable; they couldn't afford that. They raised them to know the dangers of their forest, and to know how to protect themselves against it, yes; but also to do so without ever giving up on joy and laughter. Which was a weapon, yes, but it was also very important to them that their children would still grow-up happy. That no matter how dark Mirkwood got, the children would never stop laughing.

Which was great, and I think informs Legolas's attitude and consistent cheerfulness during the Quest very much (of course it does, since it's being worked backwards from the canonical fact of said attitude, as an explanation for it lol)...but also, as a sort of unintended side-effect, the elves of Mirkwood didn't really want to see their youngest generation grow up, not entirely. Elves clearly have to be able to adapt to seeing someone they knew as a baby as a whole-ass adult, because they live forever (unless you kill them) so there's no just aging-out and letting the new generation eventually take over; the new generation lives alongside all the old ones too. So they'd have to have become adept at this shift in perspective, culturally.

However. The last generation of children born in Greenwood before it became Mirkwood is a special case, because their youth was such a source of joy to everyone else that they just sort of...never entirely stopped thinking of them as kids. (The fact that there hasn't yet been a generation of kids to follow them contributes to this too, of course; they're seen as The Youngsters because they still are the youngest.)

So on one hand, yes everyone has learned to respect the skills and fighting prowess of "the youngsters" because this is Mirkwood, and you aren't going to have many elves who don't go out and fight because practically everything in the forest wants to kill you a little bit. And Mirkwood values things like swift reflexes and sharp eyes and good aim, because that's how you stay alive; they value being able to judge the difference between a shadow and A Shadow at a glance because if you guess wrong "dying" is sort of the best-case result. They value loyalty and determination and the ability to be joyful even in the face of defeat and despair. And Legolas has all of those traits and skills, for sure.

In fact I think Legolas is one of their best archers (in a scene I can't remember whether I've published yet or not, his sister muses on how it might be because his spirits are so bright that his vision is yet unclouded by the Shadow that hangs heavy on the rest of them) and he's definitely trusted to, like, Walk Into The Murderforest And Come Back Alive, sure. They trust him in a fight! He's a competent adult and a skilled archer! But he's also still a kid to their eyes, in a lot of ways, even though he isn't and they know he isn't...but he still feels like one.

So it's not like they're condescending or cruel or anything, but they do I think look at him and instinctively think "oh no baby, must take care of" on some level. So: is he seen as smart and capable? Yes, for sure. But also: "omg Elrond did you really send A CHILD to MORDOR?" Elrond: he's six-hundred years old wtf. Mirkwood: "yes, a six-hundred-year-old BABY!" Elrond: .....wtf tho. So, again, it's not like his opinions or suggestions would be dismissed or ignored...but there's always going to be a bit of a protective urge there (because the elves of Mirkwood worked so hard to protect their last generation of children, and it's a hard habit to break even though they aren't children anymore) and a kind of eternal-head-pat vibe.

Also he is sheltered. (Or was, before the Quest. I expect Elrond was smart enough to try and avoid Thranduil as much as possible before he got on that boat to Aman.) I go back and forth on whether or not Rílaerloth was involved in the Battle of Five Armies, but Legolas was absolutely not brought along when Thranduil marched a bunch of their forces off to potential-war-with-the-dwarves. It's one thing to let your kids go out and shoot spiders and possibly risk a glancing encounter with a Nazgûl ("and what do we do if we see one of the Lords of Dol Guldur? That's right we run the fuck away, thank you children") and another thing altogether to bring them purposefully to something that might become a war.

Especially for the elves of Mirkwood, who lost so much in the War of the Last Alliance. None of the folks who lived through that would be keen to bring any of the "youngsters" into a full-fledged war I don't think, even a comparatively little one that they were all expecting would end up being nothing more than some Posturing With Weapons in the end. (If Thranduil had known that it was going to be an actual war he wouldn't have brought Rílaerloth, either, even if he'd have had to have Eregmegil sit on her to stop her.)

*You'll note that I haven't mentioned anything about lore or wisdom or any of the more traditional Elvish Talents here, just fighting and survival; this is tied to the whole more dangerous, less wise aspect of Mirkwood. They certainly do value wisdom and lore still, and it's not like Legolas is ignorant or an idiot; but there's a reason he forgets the words to old songs halfway through, and Aragorn doesn't. In Mirkwood they're more focused on "this is how you kill a spider before it can eat you" and "how to recognize a web that's fresh enough to be sticky versus one that's old enough to be safe to touch" and "when you feel a creeping darkness like this brushing against your soul, run like fuck" than on the things you learn in Rivendell.

In the evenings they don't gather in their peaceful Hall of Fire and exchange poetry compositions, they get drunk and dance around the fire and sing as loud as they can to scare the shadows away. They're more practical in the sort of lore they value because they have to be. They don't have a magic Ring to protect their borders; in fact, they literally have Ringwraiths and Dark Lords squatting in their own damn forest far too much of the time. Also, honestly, a lot of that lore is the history of other people anyway.

The elves of Mirkwood stayed in their forest because they wanted to; the ones who fled from Doriath and joined them there came precisely because they wanted a "simpler and more natural" elvish way of life. They weren't really involved in a lot of the Elvish Drama going on outside their woods (and when the stakes got high enough that they did get involved, three-quarters of their army died so. yeah. that's not really going to inspire them to go out and socialize more, is it?) most of the time. So if maybe Legolas can't remember the difference between Andreth and Adanel...does it matter, in Mirkwood?

(No, no it doesn't.)

Gimli and the Dwarves: I have a lot fewer Concrete Headcanons and Societal World Building done for the Lonely Mountain than I do for Mirkwood, so this is going to be very much a briefer response, I'm afraid. But I think Gimli was likely equal parts respected and overlooked by his people, because he is a very talented and erudite dwarf of a very fine line of dwarves, so on one hand everybody definitely would respect him and his capabilities...but on the other, I think they do take him for granted a little bit, because of course he would be good at x and y and also z, because he is Gimli son of Glóin of the House of Durin! And he's certainly talented—but also hasn't really done anything of great significance before the Quest, due mainly to the fact that there simply wasn't anything significant to do. So: respected, yes. But not always acknowledged, in a way.

Not given the "he's a kid!" treatment like Legolas is, but just having his competence and skill taken for granted much more often than it gets remarked upon. People expect Gimli son of Glóin of the House of Durin to be awesome (and he is!). Mind you, over-achiever that he is, he goes out and gets himself sent on this massively important Quest and then proves to be so much more awesome than anyone was prepared for...but it's not until he gets back, and the full accounting of his deeds and accolades and honors is recounted, that anyone in the Lonely Mountain really stops to go oh huh.

And I think even then, they probably still continue to take his prowess for granted a little bit, simply because they're so used to him being that way—and so used to expecting him to excel at whatever it is he's asked to do. I think the full breadth of his brilliance probably won't be properly realized and appreciated until some years later, when he's Lord of Aglarond and there's a bit more distance there, and more younger dwarves who grew-up on the stories of Gimli more than just "yeah that's Glóin's kid, he's good hand at [insert-skill-here]" running around to be in proper awe of Gimli of the Nine Walkers, Gimli Lockbearer, Gimli Elf-Friend, Gimli Lord of the Glittering Caves, Gimli Silvertongue, Gimli Friend of Kings...etc etc etc.

I think the older dwarves might actually end up a little blindsided by it, in a way, when it does sort of click in their heads.

Weaknesses & Balance: Legolas has a tendency to run-off half-cocked without thinking things through, trusting his instinct and skill to get him out of whatever he might end up running into (part of this is because of the aforementioned sheltering: yes Mirkwood is a dangerous place, but he's never really been anywhere but Mirkwood before, and the dangers of Mirkwood are dangers that he knows how to deal with so he doesn't need to worry that he's going to end up in over-his-head there). He's also definitely the short-tempered one of the pair (hello, Éomer!) although he's also the more easy-going in a lot of ways simply because there aren't a lot of things that do make his temper spike.

Gimli by contrast is more of a craftsman in his approach to the world, although not so much as to hesitate when faced with a need to act (for instance: "dwarves can't shape stone with our fingernails, but I'll come figure it out anyway!") but that's countered somewhat by his extremely overpowering sense of loyalty: if his idiot friends run into a bad situation, you can bet that Gimli will be right on their heels even if he ought to know better. He's more self-effacing, too, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing, although in his case it's mostly the former. Conversely, he's very prideful, too, although he's such a gentleman about it that you don't really notice ("I would take offense at x, if you weren't too ignorant to know better!" etc) because it's not a rude sort of arrogance; just a supreme, contended confidence both in himself and in his people.

I think Gimli wears his heart on his sleeve a lot more, although Legolas is the one who's more directly open about his own thoughts and feelings whereas Gimli is more inclined to keep things to himself. (Gimli thinks; Legolas blurts.)

Gimli certainly does share his feelings ("what about your companions! what about Legolas and me!"), sometimes trying to cover them with gruffness (see: "I was upset to think you might be dead when I found you underneath that troll, only because I'd gone to so much effort to keep you alive, you see! I definitely wasn't running around the battlefield frantically searching for you out of pure friendship and love, nope!" and "say not so! I'd be bummed if all the elves left because elves are kind of cool you know?") and sometimes dropping some full-on poetry at us (see: "I have looked the last upon that which is fairest!" as well as literally every single word about Aglarond lol) but it tends to pop out in half-involuntary bursts where he just gets so overwhelmed by how much he cares that he can't help himself.

Whereas Legolas is just like "oh yeah let me tell you about the Sea-Longing that's eating my soul from the inside out, nbd" or "sorry, can't translate these songs for you because I Am Sad." He may not walk around actively volunteering his thoughts or opinions unprompted often, but he doesn't seem to make any efforts to maintain a pretense or keep whatever he's feeling private either, when the topic comes up. He'll just walk around Singing What He Feels for the whole world to hear, why not?

And on the aforementioned topics of poetic phrasing and Not Having A Filter, Legolas is definitely The Awkward One when it comes to conversation and diplomacy. Gimli Silvertongue knows how to craft a clever phrase, thank you very much! He is eloquent and gracious and even-tempered and Legolas...well, we're all probably lucky if he's remembered to speak in Westron rather than his own weird forest dialect of Sindarin, tbh. When one of them needs to do the talking for them both, it's almost always going to be Gimli. Legolas is the guy you get when you need to shoot-down a flying Nazgûl; Gimli is the one you call when there's a delicate diplomatic situation to be discussed.

Legolas is also definitely the more easily distracted, and I think Gimli teases him about that a lot—although that's also a bit of a cover, because Gimli knows that Legolas's senses are so much sharper than his. Said distractability is in part a result of the natural flightiness of Wood-elves and in part the result of having those keen senses: he notices more things, so of course he's more likely to be distracted by them. Having said sharp senses also means Legolas can more safely afford to allow himself to be distracted, because he doesn't have to actually pay attention to notice an approaching danger the way Gimli does. (And yes, Gimli gets grumpy about that sometimes, but this is part of that "cover feelings through gruffness" thing: he doesn't want to admit that he worries that Legolas will get himself into trouble by not paying enough attention, and he definitely doesn't want to admit that dwarven senses can't keep up.)

In fact, I think post-Quest one of Gimli's biggest weaknesses is his concern that a mortal dwarf can't keep up with an elf. I think he worries about it a lot more than is merited by reality, actually, and I think that's informed in large part by his knowledge of his own mortality and how much it will eventually hurt Legolas to lose him. He cannot help but dwell on all the things a dwarf can't do that an elf can, because he's so preoccupied by the one big one: an elf can stay, while a dwarf eventually has* to leave...has to die. So while it doesn't exactly shake his sense of confidence in himself, it has him paying a lot more attention to what he can't do than what he can. He doesn't forget his strength or skills; he just ends up weighing them less than they deserve when balanced against what elves can do instead.

*he doesn't, as it turns out! but he doesn't know that yet.

(As much as he comes to dread Gimli's death, none of the rest of that has ever occurred to Legolas. If anyone asked Legolas if he ever got "tired" of being "held-back" by the "limitations of a dwarf" you'd get a very confused look in return and an apologetic explanation about how Different Types Of People Have Different Strengths, Silly...or, depending on how rudely you phrased the question, a very quick and probably painful lesson on what more dangerous and less wise can mean. Legolas doesn't really understand mortal limits—see: "are you sure you don't want to just keep running all night? why not?" and of course the infamous "gee why don't y'all just walk ON the snow? what, like it's hard?" incident—but when somebody says "No Legolas, that's Not Physically Possible" he rolls with it, even being able to later point-out to marchwardens who don't know Mortal Limits as well as he (now) does that his friends need more than a single rope to run on, pls!)

Legolas is right, though, because their different strengths really do balance one another well: Gimli is the solid, thoughtful, reliable rock who makes for both an unwavering foundation on which to build and an eloquent shield upon which the waves of the world will break and leave them both unscathed behind his kind and dauntless walls. Legolas is the swift, sharp knifeblade that darts out mercilessly from the shadows to dispatch a threat and then turns around and returns just as fleetly with armfuls of unquenched joy and laughter to brighten even the blackest, deepest night without any caution or hesitation. Legolas reminds Gimli of how much he delights in curiosity and exploration; Gimli reminds Legolas of the joy and comfort of coming home after wandering afar.

Of course they had to go to Aman together. Gimli could never have resisted following Legolas somewhere so interesting, and Legolas would never have managed such a portentous journey without Gimli there to steady him along the path.

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tathrin · 1 year

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Quick little designs for a few of the elves of Mirkwood from my fics.

Height not exactly to scale, because it was a very small doodle, but generally accurate. Rílaerloth should be buffer tbh, but I was running out of room on the paper I was doodling on when I got to her so she accidentally got a little skinny because I was trying too hard to squeeze her in, sorry. Also there isn’t any embroidery or patterning on anything not because they dress bland in Mirkwood but because again: very small doodle. We’re talking each elf up there was drawn smaller than one of my fingers, so. Not a lot of space there to fit in smaller details.

Third Age designs for everyone except for Gilthawen and Oropher, who didn’t live to see the end of the Second; they’re in their Last Alliance gear.

#mirkwood #eregmegil #thranduil #angmeril #merilgais #gilthawen #oropher #tiraran #tarlas #rilaerloth #legolas #also i really do need to figure out a name for oropher's husband sometime huh #not really relevant but: the thought struck me as i was contemplating some more of the folks who need designs #yep. putting that one on the to-do list for sure...some day #my stuff #my writing #my art #greenwood #elves

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tathrin · 9 months

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Hi! Can you talk about the 'Thranduil: A Crown of Silver and Blood' WIP, please?

Certainly! Thank you. So it's actually the same concept that @babybat98 talked about in their post here, about Thranduil being crowned during the Last Alliance after Oropher's doomed charge, and I only have a little bit more of mine than they do of theirs but I'll give you what I have got so far:

Thranduil had never been meant to be a king.

He knelt on the battlefield, knees stained with blood and mud, and oh! how his heart longed for his forest. How his heart longed for his fathers. The first lost so many years ago in the ruin of Doriath and mourned forever; the second a grief too new and raw to yet be understood. None of them had ever been meant to be kings.

Greenwood had had no king when Thranduil and his father arrived with a handful of refugees from Doriath; kings and lords and court were not things the Silvan elves who lived in that great forest had ever bothered to establish. They needed no kings, no lords. They lived a simpler, purer elven life; free of the influence of the Valar and their wars. But war had come to all of Middle-earth, and the Greenwood had chosen to stand with their distant brethren against the Shadow.

Their Sindar asylees had warned their Silvan fellows, when they prepared to march off and join the war, that without a king the High Elves and the Gondorians would look down on the people of the Greenwood; and so they had crowned one, and sent Oropher before the lords of Elves and Men to stand for the woods and the Wood-elves. Lórien had added their banner and force to the Greenwood, rather than pledging allegiance to Gil-galad; the Wood-elves of neither forest were keen to bend the knee to a Noldor. They would fight with them, and with the Men who stood beside them; they would not be ruled by either.

And thus they had chosen a king, so that the noble lords of the Alliance would not discount the Wood-elves' strength, their value and their valor; so that they would look on them not as an uncivilized rabble to be commanded, but rather as equals to respect and fight beside.

Still they had not been seen as equals; still they had been left to fight alone.

And now their king was dead, and so many of their people that Thranduil could not yet bear to count them. Oropher and Amdír both were dead, and more than half their people with them. His fathers were both dead now, and Thranduil knelt in the mud, orphaned and alone.

Tiraran stood before him, his face impassive and his eyes streaming with hurt. He held the thin crown of Greenwood in his one good hand; the other, rotting from both orc-poison and the Black Breath of the Nazgûl he had so bravely stood against, was bound tight against his chest.

It was that wound that had spared him from the dreadful charge across the Dagorlad, that wound which had saved his life when so many of his kin had perished; confined to the Healing Tents, he had not been allowed to join his friend and kin upon that killing field. He should have been there still, but he was as stubborn as any elf of Greenwood; he had demanded to be brought to the field, and he stood now on shaking legs before his dear, dead friend's son and offered him their simple silver crown.

Talk about how that wound is what kept Tirarn from the battle; what kept him alive, when almost all the forces of Greenwood and Lórien alike now lay dead upon this killing field, slain by Sauron's dark minions and by the pride of their allies who proclaimed themselves the leaders of his ill-begotten Alliance. Thranduil knows that Tiraran, too, is wondering if things would have been different if he had not been lying in the Houses of Healing—where he should be, still; but he bade himself be carried to the battlefield for this, and stood now upon trembling legs to crown his king, his dear dead friend's son. If he had been there at the side of Oropher and [LÓRIEN DUDE], would it have made a difference? Would his quiet sense and patience have been enough to quench the blaze of Sindar pride in the face of Noldor ego? Would he have been able to keep his own patience, and argue against the charge? Would he have been able to talk them out of it? If he had been beside his friend, would all those Wood-elves yet live?

Thranduil bowed his head and Tiraran placed the crown upon his head.

It was a thin band of braided silver, three pale moonstones across the brow; three white gems, his father had laughed when he had had it made, to mock the Noldor who had brought this war to them and were too proud to accept the fault of it. The bitter looks of the High Elves who saw the crown, and understood the dark jest behind its design, had set a grim smile on Oropher's face as he walked among them.

But Oropher would walk no more, and now the crown rested on Thranduil's head. It sat there like a brand, burning; he almost fancied that he could smell the smoke of its deadly touch upon his hair, but that was fanciful illusion. The crown did not scorch him, for all that it seemed it should; and here in Mordor, there was naught to smell but blood and the filth of the great Shadow.

Thranduil rose. The crown was light, a thin band; pretty enough in its design, but cheap and plain; hardly a crown by the standards of the Noldor. Thranduil lifted his head. He would bear it proudly nonetheless.

The crown was heavy; it seemed to press him deep into the mud. The crown was heavy, like the unbearable weight of grief; heavy, like his breaking heart.

. . . .

Upon returning to Greenwood, Thranduil will throw the crown away, never wanting to wear the horrible thing again. He is no longer a king; Greenwood no longer needs a king, so neither he nor his forest have need any longer for the torture of a crown.

When Tarlas gently points out, later, that he's going to need a crown if he's going to act as king for them in matters dealing with the wider world, Thranduil will snarl and refuse to ever touch the thing again. He is a Wood-elf king of a Woodland realm, is he not? Then let him crown himself with leaves and flowers; let him crown himself with his own forest, if he is to be the king of it.

Children—for there were many children born in the years of light after Sauron's fall, and the much-diminished trees rang, briefly, with the silver song of their laughter; Rilaerloth has many friends, when she is young, although she is one of the eldest of them and accepts the role of leader in a big sisterly fashion, just as her father finds himself quickly deemed father to the whole forest. Children braid him flower crowns out of joy, after they see him wearing them when he returns from or finishes speaking with some outside ambassador; it becomes a favorite pastime of the children, and they compete with one another to craft the best, and even make a game of trying to snatch away the crown someone else gave him so that he will wear theirs instead. Thranduil laughs at this, and is glad of it, and ignores the sidelong looks of outsiders at both the game and the lack of jewels and finery upon his brow.. He is a woodland king; the woodland, thus, shall be his crown.

And the children are so happy.

#thranduil #mirkwood #greenwood #last alliance #lotr fanfiction #tiraran #lotr #my writing #my stuff #ask meme #wip weekend #rilaerloth

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tathrin · 1 year

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Hi! You know I love your Mirkwood OCs. Can you say a little more about Eregmegil? Backstory? Any secrets? Why does he appear to have become a Gimli fan, after the life you've hinted at?

Oh OH! Eregmegil, yes, I would love to talk about him. I'm entirely normal about the elves of Mirkwood shhh. So, I'm guessing that this is largely in reference to the bit here where he carries Gimli through the trees so that he can get back quickly and find out whether or not Legolas is going to be okay after the orc-kidnapping, because there's no indication given in that story of why exactly it is Eregmegil should go out of his way like that for Gimli, yes?

So, yes: Eregmegil has very strong feelings about people being forcibly separated from somebody they care about, because his whole family was murdered in Doriath in the Second Kinslaying, and he has spent the rest of his life in Green/Mirkwood watching the folks around him lose people they love first in the Last Alliance and then in the long, slow defeat against the creeping Shadow of Dol Guldur. Including Angmeril, Thranduil's wife, who was one of the first elves they lost after the Last Alliance and whose departure was extremely traumatic for the whole forest for a host of reasons.

And it was Thranduil who carried little Eregmegil out of Doriath, having been the only one to hear him crying under his sister's corpse amidst the chaos, and having taken the time and risked his own life and that of his father to pull Eregmegil out and carry him out with them. Little Eregmegil latched-on real hard to Thranduil after that and has basically decided to devote his whole life to Keeping Thranduil Safe now.

But also he has a LOT of feeling about Protective Older Siblings, especially sisters, because his own died trying to protect him from the Fëanorians. So that's why he decides to pry himself away from Thranduil to go look after Rílaerloth for a little, because that's about the only impetus that could make him leave Thranduil when he's not 100% sure that Thranduil is going to be okay.

Hopefully all of those background details will get to come out in Coming Home Under The Trees, which is where I'm doing the bulk of my Mirkwood OC Building, but if you want an advance read of the Gimli-and-Eregmegil-bonding chapter that's going to eventually be included in that story...read on.

*also Eregmegil 100% has one of those oversized anime swords but he's so big no one can quite prove it.

NOTE that this is all rough first draft writing at this point.

Gimli stepped back, his palms raised in surrender. He shook his head at the hands that stretched back towards him. "Nay!" he gasped, his chest heaving in exertion. "Peace, you fiends! I must rest 'ere I fall off my feet."

The elves laughed and returned to their dancing, Legolas pausing just long enough to catch Gimli's eye and raise his brows in a silent question. Gimli nodded—he was fine, perfectly fine! He just needed a moment to breathe, for Mahal's sake!—and Legolas grinned and let himself be pulled back into the merry tumult under the trees.

Gimli brushed sweat-damp curls out of his face and looked around the clearing for a suitable seat. He did not want to go too far from the fire: the night pressed-in dark around the vibrant circle of elvish revelry and while Eryn Lasgalen was a more peaceful place than it had once been, his father's stories about Mirkwood lingered in his mind. Gimli was not keen to go wandering these woods with neither path nor elf to guide him back out of the shadows, not even now that those shadows at last were lightening to match the new name of their lands.

He spotted a likely log lying comfortably within the fire's glow, and Gimli made his way across the grass towards his pending seat with only two interruptions of elves trying to pull him back into the dance. He demurred politely and they shrugged and flitted off to their merriment without him.

The dwarf had to admit that Legolas had not been boasting when he had told Gimli that no one in all of Middle-earth hosted a revel quite as enthusiastically as the elves of Mirkwood. He had scoffed at first, expecting celebrations more in line with the gentle merrymaking he had experienced in Lórien, or the cozy nights of song in Rivendell. What he had found instead was carousing more akin to that which he'd experienced briefly in Rohan, yet somehow more raucous and unflagging. Mirkwood's elves cavorted as though they were going to war with sleep and sorrow both, and each twirl of their dance was a salvo in the battle against solemnity.

Gimli had kept up well, at first; dwarves are experienced revel-makers and they take their celebrations as seriously as they do their crafts or mining. But there comes a point in the night where dwarven celebrations turn from rowdy to melancholic, and in Mirkwood no such slower periods were allowed to dilute the tireless tumult of their festivities. The wine kept flowing, the songs kept rising, and the dancers kept spiraling around the fire as swift as arrows in the wind.

The problem, Gimli had finally determined, was that elves did not know how to appreciate sleep. It was because they did not partake of it properly, he thought, wandering as they did through half-waking dreams rather than sinking fully into slumber like reasonable folk. They did not know how to truly rest, so they simply kept going about their revels long past when all sensible peoples would have taken to their beds—aye, and then woke again without taking nearly enough time for slumber in between!

He was only a few feet away from the log where he intended to rest his feet when he realized that one end of it was already occupied; so still was the elf sitting upon it that, in the shadows at the edge of the clearing his green and brown garb blended almost completely with the foliage around him. Gimli was not sure if his presence would be welcomed or not—anyone sitting solitary at a bacchanal like this was doubtless seeking solitude rather than interruption by a near-stranger—but it would have been impolite to immediately turn aside, so he resolved himself to make a few minutes of polite conversation at least before taking himself off to some other seat and leaving the other to his chosen seclusion.

"Mae govanen," Gimli said with a respectful bow. "Forgive the intrusion," he continued when the elf—Gimli thought he recognized him as one of the guards he had met on his first arrival to the forest, although his head was muzzy enough that he knew it would take him several seconds to place the proper name—gave him a nod in response. He was still dressed in the light molded-leaf jerkin that served Eryn Lasgalen's warriors for armor and sported elegant bracers on his arms, but his sleeves beneath the armor were short enough to expose pale arms that were muscled almost thickly enough to belong to a Man although not, of course, to a Dwarf. His dark hair and white face were striking in the firelight—few of the elves of Eryn Lasgalen were quite so pale, and fewer of them sported such sharp contrast in their coloring—but it was the breadth of his shoulders and the stoutness of his arms that Gimli noticed the most. He was still uncomfortably slim to dwarven eyes, but less so than any other elf that Gimli had met. Had someone chopped his limbs down to a more reasonable length, he could almost have passed for a normal, if unhealthily skinny, person—at least if someone had loaned him a beard!

Realizing he was staring impolitely in his attempt to put a name to the face in front of him, Gimli offered a friendly smile and continued teasingly, "I do not wish to bring merriment with me to where it is unwanted, but if you will allot me a few moments in which to rest my tired feet from the revels you have chosen to eschew, I promise to keep my merry-making to a minimum in the interim and thus refrain from interrupting your repose."

He meant it as a jest, likely to segue into a bit of banter about dwarven endurance or perhaps commiseration about the other's likewise weary toes, but perhaps the elf could not see the grin on Gimli's face beneath his beard for he responded to his words as though they had been spoken in grim seriousness: "It is true, Lord Gimli, I am not much for merriment, but you are welcome to take your rest for as long as you like regardless of however much mirth you might feel or express; your presence brings no distress."

Gimli was taken aback but he hid it well; with another short bow he settled himself upon the lower curve of the fallen branch and stretched his legs out in front of him with a contented sigh.

"My thanks, Master Elf," he said, and finally the name came back to him: Eregmegil, the tallest of the elves of Eryn Lasgalen that Gimli had yet met, although that was not evident while he was seated thus. "You are a most generous host." Gimli glanced sidelong at the elf, but if Eregmegil's pale face evinced any particular feeling it was not distinct enough for Gimli to discern it in the dim shadows at the fire's edge.

As for Gimli, he smiled vaguely as a familiar laugh rose from Legolas's lips above above the nearby tumult, but he made no effort to spot the whirl of his golden hair twirling amid the rest of the cavorting elves. It was enough to know that his friend was happy; enough to sit here in peace and be happy himself.

The dwarf had abandoned his light jest at Eregmegil's words, being much more intrigued by this stoic elf than by his planned banter. "I hope you will not think it over-rude of a curious stranger if I ask why you have come to this revel, then, if you have no care for such things?" He flapped a hand in the general direction of the fire and the frolicking figures circling it. "Surely you would enjoy your evening more elsewhere, if you take no pleasure in such nonsensical cavorting?"

"My king is here, so I am here," Eregmegil said flatly.

Gimli was startled enough that he knew it showed on his face; only the fact that Eregmegil was not looking at him, but rather at the swirl of dancers at the fire, spared him the embarrassment of being seen to give such an impolite reaction. He could not help himself; it was a genuinely startling statement. The elves of Eryn Lasgallen were probably the least conscious of their king's rank as any people in all of Middle-earth, at least any that Gimli had yet met.

Dwarves were not given to standing on unnecessary ceremony themselves, but even at their most casual they were always conscious of their king's status as the king. These elves, by contrast, seemed to treat Thranduil more like a communal father-figure than as a ruler. Legolas and his sister did not even seem to qualify as royalty in the eyes of their people (no wonder, then, that Legolas had been more prone to introduce himself by his land than his lineage!) and while Rílaerloth was at least beneficiary of the respect afforded her as a commander of their warriors, Legolas—despite all of his heroic deeds—seemed to be viewed still as little more than a hapless child by many of his fellows, as though he were the whole forest's little brother rather than Rílaerloth's alone.

This behavior was strange to Gimli, and even after many days spent in company with Eryn Lasgalen's people he was still not used to their casual disregard for rank or ceremony—or so he had thought, until he was confronted by an example of someone acting more according to his expectations. Gimli was intrigued. Thranduil's people regularly showed affection for him, yes, but this was the first time he had seen any of them express the sort of dutiful devotion that beloved kings oft engendered in other lands.

He studied Eregmegil where he sat on the log beside him, but the pale elf's profile was as smooth and emotionless as if he had been carved from white granite.

"Think you that Thranduil requires a guard, then?" Gimli asked. "I thought the threats had been driven from your trees." He could not quite resist the urge to squint into the darkness past Eregemegil's shoulders—broad for an elf, Gimli noted, but still scrawny as a sapling by dwarven standards—although he was certain that the flickers of ominous motion he saw between the black silhouettes of the trees were only the result of his eyes and the flickering firelight playing tricks on him.

He was almost certain, anyway.

"Many of them have been," Eregmegil acknowledged. "The largest are all destroyed, and the rest have been hounded far from our halls, at any rate." His voice was no more coarse than any elf's but there was something to the tone of his words that made them seem more brusque than what Gimli was accustomed to hearing from his friend's people; a flatness that stood in stark contrast to the musical lilt that Gimli had begun to think was an innate part of elvish tongues.

"And yet you stay to guard him?" Gimli observed curiously. "That is admirable devotion."

For a long time Eregmegil stared at him in silence, so that Gimli began to think that he had offended the tall elf. He cast his mind about for a suitable apology, but before he could make one, Eregmegil broke their gaze to look back into the fire instead and said:

"He carried me out of Doriath."

"Doriath?" Gimli repeated, the half-formed phrasing of his repentance dashed instantly from his mind. He knew the name of Doraith, and recognition made his heart sink. "Ahh…"

"It was the Fëanoreans who brought tragedy to Doriath, in my case," Eregmegil said. The glance he slotted sideways at Gimli seemed to shine with a glimmer of momentary amusement at odds with his otherwise impassive mien before he faced forward again, stoic as ever.

Gimli nodded and tried to resist the urge to breathe a telltale sigh of relief.

"I was a child when they came, too small to fight," Eregmegil continued. His bland voice carried a bitter undercurrent. "My sister grabbed me and ran, but they pursued. She tried to fight, but she was no warrior. They dashed her knife from her hand and stabbed her with it. We fell, she curling low to protect me still. They stabbed her again with their long swords—stabbed us both as we lay there, but her body shielded mine and I was cut only along the arm." He gestured to the offending limb and Gimli was startled to see what seemed to be a long, thin scar along the pallid flesh. "She was cut deeper. I lay there, pinned beneath her like a caged bird, and watched as her fae left her eyes. I felt her grow cold in my mind and against my skin as we lingered there in the dark. She died, and I lay there trapped by her dead weight and my own sorrow."

Gimli's breath caught in his chest and strangled whatever insufficient words of sympathy he might have offered. Eregmegil did not seem to notice; he spoke matter-of-factly, although his eyes flashed with dark shadows in the firelight.

"It was Thranduil who pulled me from the ruin of her body," the tall elf continued calmly. "He heard my tears, somehow, even over the clash of battle that echoed through Menegroth's halls. Bleeding, his surviving father dangling half-dead at his side, his hands filled with the bloody swords of his living and dead father both, the Fëanoreans close on his heels, Thranduil still stopped and pulled me from my sister's arms. He set me on his shoulders and carried me, carried both Lord Oropher and myself, out from the ruin of Doriath; somehow still fighting to defend us all despite his burdens and his wounds and his own losses; carried me away from the darkness of our dying home and back into the light of the world beyond."

Gimli did not know if it was some trick of the firelight reflecting off of Eregmegil's grim grey eyes, or a result of the many droughts of heady elvish wine he had quaffed this night, but for a moment he could almost see it: the great halls of lost Menegroth, once a glorious testament to the marvels that could be crafted when elf and dwarf worked hand-in-hand, now incarnadined with blood and darkened with betrayal; its proud torches sputtering or gone out altogether, cut-down by enemy hands; too many fair elvish bodies strewn about the fastness of the Thousand Caves, cut down cruelly by blades of elvish make wielded by elvish hands; and one small child, sobbing into his sister's silent sleeve. Then from the shadows staggered Thranduil, his golden locks stained ruddy with blood, bare blades gleaming in both hands, one arm wrapped tight around his father's waist with Oropher's arm dangling limp across his shoulders, both elves bleeding heavily from many wounds; the elder nearly insensate and the younger wild-eyed and desperate, yet still in enough possession of his senses and his compassion to stop to help a fearful child…

(If the younger Thranduil in Gimli's imagination looked more like his son than like himself, well, what of it?)

He blinked, and the vision vanished, and there was once more only dark trees looming before his eyes. He cleared his throat, and managed to murmur something that expressed his sorrow for Eregmegil's losses without revealing the depths of his horror at such suffering at the hands of those who should have been kith or even kin rather than bloody-handed enemies; dwarves had fought amongst themselves in ages past too, of course, but somehow the level tone of Eregmegil's recitation made Gimli's skin crawl more than any tales of those regrettable conflicts had ever done.

(Maybe it was just that he kept picturing Legolas stumbling down those bloodstained halls rather than his father.)

Eregmegil accepted Gimli's admittedly less-than-eloquent sympathies with an impassive nod. Wishing to draw both his and the elf's thoughts to lighter places, Gimli cleared his throat again and asked, "So, ah, what was next? I confess I do not know the history of this forest as well as I should, but I believe that Thranduil and his father settled somewhere nearby before venturing forth to Greenwood, is that not so?"

"Yes," Eregmegil said. "We fled to Lindon. I was reunited with my surviving relations there. They made a home among the Green-elves and the other refugees who settled in Ossiriand." He was looking at the fire again rather than the dwarf, or perhaps at the dancers; his blank expression was as unreadable as his voice. "But Thranduil and Oropher were not content to live there among so many Noldor, not after the fall of Menegroth. Not after the Kinslaying. And nor was I. They soon left to go east, to find the Silvan elves who still lived there—here," he amended, tilting one palm up to gesture at the forest around them.

There should have been more bitterness in Eregmegil's voice, Gimli thought; bitterness or scorn or something. This cool, too-calm recital made him shiver despite the warmth of the fire.

"Oropher hoped to find somewhere to live in better ways, more elvish ways; the ways in which our people lived before the Valar meddled and the Enemy made war upon us," the elf continued in his passionless way. "My relatives would not leave the new home they sought to craft in Ossiriand, but I already knew then that my place would henceforth be ever at Thranduil's side. I joined with the handful of other Sindar who chose to leave Lindon and seek-out the elves who had never joined the pilgrimage of the Valar; who had never been coaxed to abandon their native lands or customs."

"Were you not still a child?" Gimli asked, surprised. He was no expert on elvish history, of course, but he had been curious enough about Legolas's homeland to question his friend about its founding, and he had thought that he had a better sense of the timeline than this. Had not Oropher left Ossiriand within only a few years? Perhaps Eregmegil had simply been older than Gimli had pictured him in the story of Doriath's destruction; he might have been only a little shy of his majority, like Gimli himself had been when his father had joined Thorin's expedition to Mirkwood all those years ago: Old enough to feel that he was being left behind, but still seen as a child in his people's eyes.

Eregmegil nodded, however. "A child, yes, but not a fool," he said in a dry voice. "I did not ask for permission, and so my relations could not deny me. I left with my lord and came to Greenwood." He looked around at the tall, dark trees that rose into the black night sky far overhead, beyond the heavy leaves, and his grey eyes were as flat as the dullest stone that Gimli had ever carved. He did not smile at the trees. Had Gimli seen any elf in this forest fail to smile at their trees, even the most shadowed and twisted of them? And these trees were bright and merry in comparison to many of their fellows, as though they too shared in the delight of the elves for their firelit revelry.

"And have you been here ever since?" the dwarf asked carefully. "Or are you newly-returned, now that the Shadow has lifted?"

"I left these woods only once, to follow my lord to war in Mordor," Eregmegil replied. "It would take more than Shadow in the trees to tear me from his side. Wherever Thranduil goes I will follow him, even unto the breaking of the world and yet beyond."

Gimli could not help but shiver at the weight of those words. There may have been no oath sworn—or then again there may have been, in days long ago before Gimli's father's father was born to hear it—but there was a surety to Eregmegil's voice that was as unshakable as any vow. He meant what he spoke with every fiber of his elvish fae, and he would damn himself to the Void before he forsook that intent.

"And yes," Eregmegil continued, and once again there seemed to be the faintest flicker of amusement across his grim lips, gone so fast that Gimli could not be sure he had not imagined it, "also to these merry revels that you seem to find so trying."

"I do not find them trying in the least," Gimli protested. "I quite enjoy them, in fact—I am simply tired!" He shifted on the log and scowled petulant. "Well and after all, I am much shorter than the other dancers," the dwarf added, feeling unaccountably as though he needed to justify himself. "I must work twice as hard as them to keep-up with the pace of their cavorting. No wonder I tire before the rest!" he blustered, despite knowing very well that the heart of the problem was not the speed of the dance nor the unseemly length of elvish legs, but rather the fact that elves simply had no proper appreciation for the merits of slumber, strange creatures that they were. Gimli was a stout and hearty dwarf, and justly proud of his strength and endurance; he was simply mortal, that was all, and as such he needed to sometimes refresh himself in ways that these flibbertigibbet elves would never comprehend.

"I stand corrected," Eregmegil murmured, and Gimli was certain this time that he detected a flicker of genuine amusement ghosting briefly across the elf's thin lips.

He harrumphed a grudging acknowledgement of Eregmegil's words and propped his chin in his hands, the better to watch the dancing. His eyes slowly drifted out of focus and he sank into something that was halfway to a doze, content to let his thoughts float as aimlessly and amiably as the blurry figures of the cavorting elves in front of him. As tiring as elvish dancing could be for a mortal participant, there was something restful about watching them too.

"Do not mistake me, Master Dwarf," Eregmegil said after a while, shaking Gimli from his reverie. "I do not dislike the revels of my people." Eregmegil nodded at the fire, and the whirling shapes of the other elves cavorting wildly around it, their lithe forms coming slowly back into focus as Gimli blinked. "I simply prefer to enjoy them from the edges here, where I can find pleasure in their delight without feeling compelled to manifest any of my own."

Eregmegil's gaze slanted back to Gimli, and now the dwarf could see a hollow darkness behind the mirror-like grey eyes that fixed so coolly upon his own. Had it been there all along, unnoticed, or had speaking of the past brought the vacuous shadows to the forefront? Gimli could not say, but no more could he unsee them now. "Whatever joy I once found in dance or in song went out of this world when my sister's spirit fled to the Halls of Mandos," Eregmegil continued flatly. "But it pleases me to see my people's joy, and in this bitter world that is comfort enough for me."

In the months since Legolas first heard the gulls at Pelargir, Gimli had developed a habit of skirting all mention of the Sea. It was thus not difficult for him to restrain the urge to ask why Eregmegil had not sought the healing of the Undying Lands that so many of his people sailed away to find when their spirits fell to the burden of such unendurable grief. He did not need to ask; he already knew the answer. Eregmegil surely knew as well as any elf—and far better than any dwarf, even one named elvellon—that the wounds of his soul could be staunched in fair and distant Valinor. But leaving would mean leaving his king's side, which would be the most grievous wound of all. And so he stayed, and carried the shadow of his losses with him, and endured.

Not for the first time, Gimli thought that the unmeasured lives of the elves was far from the enviable gift that so many mortals seemed to think them. If they had lived solely in joy, then their years unending might be something to covet—but the more time Gimli spent with elves, the more tragedy and sorrow he saw surrounding them. He had never brooded on the inevitability of Mahal's Peace the way so many Men repeatedly shied-away from their own inevitable end, had never feared the inevitability of his own ending; but sitting here at the edge of the firelight with Eregmegil, Gimli thought that rather than simply inevitable, there might be a certain comfort in the knowledge that one day an end would come to him. There would never be a day when he sat, two Ages of the world removed from the deaths of his kin, separated from the joy of his people by the weight of his own grief.

A flash of gold in the firelight caught Gimli's eye and he smiled instinctively at the sight of Legolas whirling like a wild thing in his friends' arms. The dwarf's tired feet ached just from looking at the roister of the dance, but like Eregmegil he was pleased enough simply to watch the unflagging joy of those who spun.

Legolas had described Mirkwood revels as though they were weapons against the darkness that hung over their forests, and Gimli had thought he had understood what his friend meant before, but he realized that it was only now, sitting beside grim and grieving Eregmegil, that he truly grasped the meaning of this defiant cheer.

The elves of Mirkwood—or Greenwood, or Eryn Lasgalen, or whatever else one chose to call this forest; the shadows that had defined it for so long hung over it still, even as they finally began to lessen, whatever name it bore—they were not less cognizant of elvish sorrows than their grander kin; in some ways perhaps they knew those sorrows better, for there was nothing to insulate the simple elves of Mirkwood from their weight, nothing but their own deliberate scorn for the sadness that strove to claim them.

The world wished for them to sigh in sadness? Then they would sing, sing until their voices gave out and dance until their shoes were worn clean through and the very trees around them reverberated with the echoes of their weaponized joy.

#i have a normal amount of feelings about mirkwood elves #eregmegil #mirkwood #greenwood #elves #my stuff #my writing #thranduil #gimli #rilaerloth #angmeril #lotr #legolas

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