Title: Warriors’ Bond

Author: Joey112

Pairing: Legolas/Gimli

Rating: G

 

Warriors' Bond

Gimli spoke his last words quietly and then waited.

The elf turned and walked out to the edge of the rampart.  He shook his golden head as if the word "no" was not  enough to say.  He looked down on the fields of Pellenor and said  quietly,  "This is not so easy a thing."

Gimli nodded and lifted a hand to the pipe that rested in his mouth.  He moved so that he stood at the elf's side and  looked over the fields newly green with spring.  Legolas took a seat on the wall and Gimli stood next to him.  A hard warrior's hand moving to touch the wool of the elf's cloaked shoulder.

Gimli cocked his head.  "This is something I made in my youth. It's a small trinket."  He took from his belt a broach, a leaf form, almost as if a leaf from a beech tree had fallen and made itself into gold.   He took Legolas's hand and put the  object into it.  "It was nearly the first thing I made when I learned smith craft, and I kept it.  It has been months since I've known; I made it for you, and I kept it for you.  I've nothing to offer you other than this."

Clasped in the elf's hand was a small token a symbol that had been his from birth.  "You cannot give me this."  Legolas spoke, still his voice was soft and distant.

"I can and I do give it to you.  Say no.  Have done with it."  Gimli spoke each word like the stroke of his axe.

The elf's shoulders rose and Gimli felt a frisson go through him he could not yet define.  Something like joy, something like lust, surely not what he had thought as they fought side by side for these many months.  But Legolas said nothing. The dwarf turned away his shoulders slumping, and finally said, "I'm not one for romance and seduction, and you deserve both."

Legolas held the golden leaf in his hand, when he looked up it was to see the dwarf's retreating back.  "Gimli, Gimli please do not go, I had not thought of it."  The elf smiled.

The dwarf gave a grin only half hidden by his beard.  "Will you think on it now?"

"I will."

"Then I will wait."