Parental Consent: Part II
by Honesty
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"What on earth is going on in there?"

The second watcher shrugged eloquently, not taking his ear from the keyhole. "What does it sound like? Family feud, minor war, end of Ea - how should I know? They all sound pretty much the same."

"But shouldn't we intervene?"

"And get an axe thrown at us? No way!"

"But Gróin! He's his son. He wouldn't want to hurt his own son, surely?"

"That's not how it sounds from here, Grís." The phrase was spoken with the typical ill-disguised impatience of the older brother. "They wouldn't be throwing axes about if they didn't want to hurt each other."

"But that is terrible! Surely we must do something."

Trust a younger sister to state the obvious. "Grís! Of *course* we've got to get help. Or rather *you* will. I'd better stay here - we can't just leave them to kill each other."

Grís did not move. "It won't come to that, will it?" she asked nervously.

"It will if you don't get a move on. I'll wait here. Now hurry!" Grís scuttled off nervously, and Gróin edged a little closer to the door, wondering what had gone wrong. Uncle Glóin had always been such a sweet old codger. What could possibly have made him so angry?

An enraged shout filtered through the stone door, and Gróin sighed. The militia, he thought, had better arrive *quickly*.

* * *

It had all started so very well.

As in Mirkwood, there had been a ceremonial welcome, and an interminably long evening of celebrating. Fair enough: Gimli was always up for a party; though he generally preferred to be nearer the beer kegs than the dignitaries, and so far he had managed to acquire but a modest four pints of ale. The food had been good, though, and plentiful. Being Dwarves, of course, there had been fewer courses, but larger, and the speeches were even more interminable than in Mirkwood. Endurable when drunk, of course; but after only four pints Gimli was still all but sober. And he was missing Legolas something chronic.

A shame, really. It looked like everyone else had been enjoying themselves.

It had been gone six in the morning before the party had broken up - or rather, when the musicians had flatly refused to play yet another encore of 'Orc heads and Axes'. They had been threatened in a variety of interesting and unusual ways, mostly involving large metallic objects in conjunction with various bodily orifices - but they had held firm. In the end they had simply packed up their instruments and walked out, in spite of the rain of thrown ironmongery they'd endured on the way to the exit.

The party-goers had eventually accepted it, the party had ended, and those still conscious had walked, limped, staggered or crawled home to their tunnels. Gimli had been finally been free to leave, and Glóin had escorted his son back to the family cavern, his head held high with pride.

It did not take long, on their return, for *that* subject to come up. Glóin broached it himself, in fact, studying him under one of the lamps in the large main hall of their burrow.

"You're looking well, my son," he said, his voice slightly louder than usual. "Life above ground suits you well."

Gimli shrugged. An explanation would simply take too long. "It's not the same," he said.

"No ... It never is. But you *do* look uncommonly well - most unusually so. In fact I'd almost say you'd found yourself a Dwarf-maid at last." He laughed, again slightly too loudly, and Gimli tried to remember how much Glóin had drunk. He suddenly felt depressingly sober.

"Well? Tell on. What's her name, where's she from, what's her craft?" Gimli said nothing, and Glóin hiccuped loudly. "Come on! It's not every day my only son finds a mate! I was beginning to think you'd never would."

Gimli suppressed a sigh. He had not meant to come to this quite so quickly. Actually he had hoped not to come to this at all. "I have found love," he said as forbiddingly as he could. "But you're not going to like it."

"Oh come, my boy! Dwarves love but once, and none of us can choose the direction our hearts take. And besides, at 140 years of age you hardly need a parent's approval."

"You are not going to like it," Gimli said firmly. "My lover is male." He gave that a few seconds to sink in, before dropping his bombshell. "And he is an Elf."

"An Elf!" Glóin paused to chew the idea over, but did not seem to be about to explode. "Well, that *is* strange - but it can hardly be accounted a crime. The Elves of Rivendell are honourable folk, in their own strange way. Mind you," he added after a pause. "Elves vary."

Gimli tensed at that, expecting him to bring up the business in Mirkwood, but Glóin had drifted off into reminiscences.

"They can be a strange bunch if they put their minds to it," he had said, absently, running his fingers through his white beard. "I remember one very odd fellow who was visiting Rivendell back when I was there with Thorin Oakenshield. An Elf from some wood down south, I forget the name - and he was in the habit of painting his eyelids blue and his lips red. He had the strangest walk I have ever seen - as if he was trying to polish a gem between his buttocks. What was his name, now? Hilda? Ah, yes! Haldir, that was it. *Most* strange." Glóin froze suddenly, his eyes wide with horror. "I hope it is not him!"

"By my beard, no!" Very much no, in fact. No need to tell him how Haldir had made a pass at Legolas, shortly before they had left the Golden Wood, and had to be threatened with an axe before he would discard the idea. Haldir's limited knowledge of Dwarves, alas, had not extended to their fabled jealous streaks in matters of the heart. It did now.

"You set my heart at rest! That poncing, primping pretty-boy for a son-in-law! I should sooner have died." Glóin gave a low chuckle; a bead of cold sweat made its way down Gimli's spine. "But I still do not know who your loved one is. Was it one of those we met at Rivendell?"

"It was." Gimli paused, and reminded himself that he had survived Wargs, a Balrog, multiple Nazgul and rather a lot of orcs and Easterlings in the last year. This could hardly be worse than they. "His name is Legolas."

There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence. Gimli reminded himself again about the Wargs, Balrog, Nazgul, orcs and Easterlings, but the feeling of impending doom did not recede.

"Legolas." Glóin's voice was low and dangerous. "I remember him all right. He was an Elf of Mirkwood." Glóin's voice rose, and the last word sent a spray of spittle over Gimli, who just managed to stop himself flinching. "He was the son of their King - that greedy, grasping, selfish little elfling lord that held us prisoner for all those weeks in his dungeon."

"He is different from his sire."

"Not - different - enough!" Glóin clambered heavily to his feet, leaning on the hilt of his axe. "You are my son - and you take that - that whoreson to be your mate! How dare you? How *dare* you?" He had the axe raised over his shoulder by now, his face contorted with rage.

Gimli leapt to his feet angrily. There were things he would not take. "Take back your words!"

"Do not speak to me so!" The axe had begun to tremble in his hands as his rage increased. "Ingrate! Traitor to our house! Betrayer of your father."

He swung the axe down in a wild, and fortunately innacurate swipe that narrowly failed to Gimli's nose off.

Gimli retreated rapidly, wondering if drawing his own axe would make the situation worse. Almost certainly, he decided, as Glóin lapsed in to a stream of Khuzdul invective, and raised the axe again. But on the other hand, *not* drawing his axe was likely to leave him very dead. Assuming, of course, that he had time to draw the thing before his father took his head off.

Another roar of rage; another semicontrolled swing with the axe. Gimli was almost out of range, but it still came within inches of shaving his scalp; and its backswing caught him a glancing blow on the temple, the impact of the blunt haft sending sparks up before his eyes.

All thought of non-retaliation vanished. He rolled out of reach, and came back to his feet, axe in hand.

"Do not make me do this," he growled, raising his axe - and then ducking frantically as his father's axe once more swung down upon him.

* * *

"Hold! HOLD!"

King Thorin Stonehelm. Here. *Now*.

Gimli froze instantly, frantically jerking his arm forward in an effort to stop his axe's backswing hitting the King on the forehead. Then he felt himself hurled forward, as his father's axe-blade caught him heavily just below the elbow. The axe fell from his hand, and a second later he heard Glóin's axe clatter onto the floor.

Just typical. Trust a monarch to choose the most embarrassing moment imaginable to interfere in family politics - especially at a moment when the fight had not been going at all in his favour. To receive a thrashing in combat was always a blow to the pride - but to be hammered by your own decidedly elderly father in front of your King-! *That* hurt more than the damage to his arm.

Talking of which -

He reached down gingerly to examine the extent of the damage. By some miracle his arm did not appear to be actually broken, though it was all but useless, and there was blood *everywhere*. The gash burned like fire, but he clenched his fingers firmly over the cut and squeezing it closed in an attempt to stanch the flow of blood. Gimli pulled himself cautiously upright to sit on the floor, his back set firmly against the wall as he surveyed the scene before him.

Glóin stood directly facing the King, breathing heavily from his recent exertions. Thorin stared back, grim-faced and grave. A little behind him stood Gimli's cousin Gróin and his sister Grís, their faces chalk-white behind their bushy fox-red beards.

*More* witnesses - to what could only be construed as an ignominious defeat.

"And what, I *shudder* to ask, is the meaning of this most disgraceful display?" the King asked darkly. "Glóin? Explain yourself."

Glóin did not seem to hear the King's words, though. He had turned to stare down at Gimli, his eyes filled with tears.

"How could you, my son? How could you? And with the son of Mirkwood's King at that."

"Gimli, explain yourself," Thorin Stonehelm's gaze was turned on Gimli now, seemingly somewhat perplexed by Glóin's words. Gimli gripped the cut on his arm a little more firmly, and did not attempt to rise from the floor. He was not about to make himself even more ridiculous by passing out while attempting to bow.

Gimli sighed. Best to get this over with. "I have declared my love for Legolas, son of King Thranduil. He has returned it, and we have chosen to unite," he said sullenly. "That is all."

With any luck they would stop talking soon enough for him to find a medic without any further loss of face, or significantly more loss of blood. Unfortunately the leeches (as the Dwarf-doctors were universally known) kept their halls a good half-hour's walk away.

"That is *all*?" Glóin gave a despairing wail. "My only son! And the son of the Elven-King! He must have been bewitched even to contemplate such a thing!" He paused a moment, to get his voice a little more under control. "It must be stopped, your Majesty. We *cannot* allow him to do this." He stepped forward and knelt before the King, his eyes suddenly uncertain. "Please?"

"You know our laws, Glóin," Thorin said gravely. "No Dwarf chooses the direction of his heart. You do not have the right to come between a Dwarf and his mate. No Dwarf does."

"But-"

"The laws do not change, Glóin. You know that." Thorin paused a moment. "However, I do give you leave to raise your grievance with the King of Mirkwood. If, as seems most likely, some kind of enchantment has been placed on Gimli, he is the only one who could force his son to relinquish it-"

*No!* Gimli clambered heavily to his feet, gritting his teeth at the jolt it gave his arm. "My Lord, I must protest..."

Yes. Standing up had definitely been a mistake. Gróin had to elbow his way past the King and seize Gimli by the collar to stop him falling ignominiously onto his face. "Come with me, coz," he muttered, seemingly oblivious of the breech of etiquette he had just perpetrated. "I'll get you to a leech."

Gimli's wish for dignity was granted: he made it out of the door and a dozen steps down the corridor before he passed out.


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