"You are a Wood-elf, anyway, though Elves of any kind are strange folk. Yet you comfort me." -Gimli (to Legolas), The Two Towers

"But you are a dwarf, and dwarves are strange folk.... But you comfort me, Gimli." -Legolas (to Gimli), The Two Towers, (49 pages later)

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The tower parapet was deserted, and Gimli sought sanctuary in its seclusion, looking out with coal-black eyes over the city of Minus Tirith from his perch upon a solid stone bench. His feet dangled in the air as the bright sun and harsh wind stung his eyes, but he did not move for the security of his solitude.

The yellow flower, small and fragile, was grasped between his fingers, strong and rough. The little thing had managed to take root between the well-set stones of the street far below, and Gimli had taken pity on it, tearing it from the ground before it was trampled under the boots of the hard-working city. Finding some small comfort in this plant that he wouldn't have taken a second look at a year before, he'd tromped his way through the gates and to the castle, ignoring and avoiding the many soldiers and acquaintances rushing about in preparation for the leave-taking.

The leave-taking on the morrow. With the question still hanging over him: where now would he wander?

Home did not seem to fit the idea of home, and there was no particular purpose that appealed to him. He felt longing for neither family nor for mountains nor caves, nor for friends nor forge.

As his thoughts grew heavier, his coal eyes turned downward, and he thanked the wind for carrying away his tears.

Of a sudden, that same wind brought to his ears the call of a fair voice, soft and almost sad on the air. The song was glad, and the voice... the voice was as light as his thoughts were heavy.

The song came nearer and Gimli smiled at its approach. The echo carried about the castle's turrets and corridors, and the dwarf measured the call and repeat, knowing how far the singer was. Fifty feet. Thirty. Ten.

Abruptly, a shadow fell upon him. Gimli looked to the flower as he spoke. "Still caterwauling, Legolas?"

The elven laughter should have been matched by his own dwarvish chuckle, but Gimli could only find despair in the happy sound. "I thought I'd taught you respect of song and skill," the laughing voice scolded.

Gimli ignored the elf who poured himself onto the bench beside him in a catlike move.

Legolas tilted his fair head at the dour mood of his companion, and fleeting fear flecked his features as he frowned upon the forlorn figure.

Curious, he reached out a delicate-seeming hand to lay it upon Gimli's in a gentle touch of warm comfort. The elf wrapped his fingers about the tiny flower and removed it from the dwarf's grasp. "I take back my jest," Legolas said softly, "if you thought to carry such beauty with you."

Gimli grumbled unintelligibly. "You have taught me much of song and skill, and of beauty," he finally spoke, his own voice a rough gravel compared to the birdsong of his friend.

"Beauty?" Legolas asked curiously. "I have never doubted a dwarf's eye for beauty," he soothed. "I do not see how I could teach it to you."

"You have taught me much, to look beyond hewn stone for splendor, to find loveliness in all that lives," he answered, looking the elf in the eye.

Legolas smiled, and for Gimli, that look shone brighter than the sun. "You shock me, Gimli," he teased, "for I believe you may yet master the art of poetry."

The dwarf shook his head at the grinning elf. "Nay, I shall leave all words and song to you, my friend, for your fair voice to fashion and form. Dwarf-kind is not meant for such things."

Smiling still, Legolas answered. "You would lead me to believe dwarf-kind is meant for little but furnace and forge, boldness and battle. Yet you have already proved yourself wrong on our travels. For one so fearful of forests, he has willingly journeyed into two such haunted places. For one's assertion of simple speech, he has yet used poetical words to charm many. And," the elf grinned, "for one so keen to keep his feet on the earth, he took to riding well enough."

"Well enough to master the art of falling."

Another laugh. "Maybe so," Legolas acknowledged. "But if I have taught you to see the beauty of nature," the fair voice faltered as the elf spoke in a wavering whisper, "then you have taught me to listen to my heart."

Gimli looked askance at him, bittersweet hope rising in his spirit. "And how did a simple dwarf manage such a feat?"

Legolas' smile saddened. "You do not know?"

"I do not claim to know the hearts of elves."

Legolas went silent at this, turning the weedy flower about in elegant elf-fingers.

When the hush was finally broke again, it was by the elf's light tenor. "What possessed you, Gimli, to tear this fragile flower from its haven in the earth?"

The dwarf heard no accusation, but only curiosity in the question. "It was no haven that housed that weed, but a crack in the stone down in the city where its life would have been trodden out before day's end."

"So you rescued this poor plant from its fate?"

Gimli did not answer for a moment, but when Legolas' clear blue gaze turned upon him, he spoke. "I am not in the habit of rescuing flowers, but I found sudden kinship with the mortal plant and took it upon myself to find a brother in nature's cruelty."

"'A brother in nature's cruelty?'" the elf asked. "I think we are about to share yet another lesson, and I am an eager student. How might a dwarf find familial bonds with a green growth? And how would you call nature cruel?"

Sighing, Gimli reached out to gently retrieve the yellow-faced flower, pushing away the sensation of smooth skin against his own. "There are few creatures – like yourself - who shall spend eternity - like the undying sun - in song and skill, while all the rest shall band together in a common fate. All but the firstborn shall force their way into the world to look upon this world and find it fearsome. All shall crawl amid the sludge and slime of the gutters in hopes of something better, in hopes of looking upon the eternal sun and sharing its eternity... when all that awaits us is death. This flower and I share a fate. While you and the sun share yours."

"So your destiny ties you to a plant? And nature's final reward is cruel? I begin to see."

"Do you?"

"Aye." Legolas scooted nearer on the bench, hunching in his seat as he had accustomed to doing with his dwarven friend. "I see that the flower may envy the sun."

"Envy?" Gimli asked. "Perhaps for some, but I think awe and reverence more common. And it is tragic, for both the flower and the sun know their place. Therein lies the cruelty."

"And yet," Legolas considered, "the flower cannot live without the circling sun."

"That is true." And Gimli cursed the next words that poured from his unthinking mouth. "A flower can love the sun and be greater for its light, but never can the flower and the sun be one." Ashamed at his own words, Gimli turned away, hiding his face in one large hand.

Stunned, Legolas replied, "And would this be especially true for a sturdy flower who loves a sun that will never set?"

Bowing his head, the dwarf clasped his hands before him, crushing the green stem between them. "Aye, it would. And the flower should float adrift in despair, despite the sun's bright light."

The elf, wearied of their combat of metaphor, spoke plain, smiling as he set a hand on the dwarf's shoulder. "Gimli. You are hardly a flower," he laughed. "And I am not the sun."

Turning in shock, Gimli looked at the smiling face.

"Let us leave flowers and suns to Middle Earth; this 'sun' shall take his 'flower' over the sea, where they can be one."

Gimli, still overcome, took some stumbling moments to find his speech. "And how did such a sun find anything of love in a poor weed?"

The elf's grin grew fiendish. "Why, in this weed's brusque bravery and witty words and skill on a horse's back."

Rumbling laughter shook the air and Gimli set his rough hand over the smooth one on his shoulder. "And does this sun truly think such happiness can be found with such a flower?"

"Did I not say that this dwarf had taught this elf the sound of his own heart?"

"You did. And though I do not understand it, I am glad of it," Gimli marveled.

"Dwarves are strange folk," Legolas wondered, leaning closer. "Yet I love you, Gimli."

"Elves are strange," Gimli protested weakly. "Yet I love you."

Squeezing the firm shoulder beneath his hand, Legolas' grin grew. "Then on the morrow, we shall take our leave together and live what lives we may, and when the western wind whistles and wails, then shall we two journey to the sea, and be one: the flower and his sun."