The Sea my Cuckold
AUTHOR: Honesty
CATEGORY: Angst/Romance
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Legolas/Gimli
WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and
owned by JRR Tolkien. No money is being made and no copyright
infringement is intended. Boy, that sounds officious.
FEEDBACK: Please. Sad to admit, but I live for it.
SUMMARY: The sea-longing leaves no room for other loves.
A/N: I've had a thoroughly depressing weekend. Let's just say I'm
spreading it around.
The concept of Dwarf love that I'm going with may seem a little weird -
basically that Dwarves have *no* sexual desires until they meet their
only mate. It seemed a natural outgrowth of that passage in the
Appendix.
------
To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,
The wind is blowing, and teh white foam is flying.
West, west away, the round sun is falling.
Grey ship, gre 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 te Lost Isle calling,
In Eressea, in Elvenhome that no man can discover,
Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!'
And so singing Legolas went away down the hill.
(JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King)
*****************
He strode away, light-hearted, carefree; and as the other members of the
Fellowship prepared to seek their rest, perhaps their hearts were lifted
by the sight of his joy.
Aye, perhaps.
There was a dull ache in Gimli's chest where his heart should have been,
and it was all he could do to keep it from showing on his face.
<> he thought bitterly; <>
It had been the gulls - and he would hate the voices of those birds to
his dying day - the gulls wheeling and circling far above them as they
rode, and crying out eldritch words. He had felt Legolas tense against
him, for but an instant; and Arod had checked slightly in his pace, and
then continued, with not a word spoken or sign given.
He had barely looked at Gimli since that moment. He had not touched him
at all.
And how he missed that touch! He had not thought it possible to be so
dependent on any being's presence, but - but it hurt. Legolas was
slipping away from him, and it hurt like knives.
He had come to it so late in life that his family had presumed he was
destined never to love - yet another of the many Dwarrow-folk who would
leave no kin behind them - and when it came it had been so beautiful,
and so bewildering, and on occasions so terrifying, that he had been all
but lost.
Dwarves love but once. He had never needed the touch of another before
Legolas, and never would need the touch of any other but he. It was the
way it was, among the Dwarves; but nobody had warned him it would be so
strange.
It had started slowly, almost tentatively, with gentle caresses, and
kisses that did not invade, growing bolder as they had journeyed on, and
the full force of the Dwarven love-longing had gradually awoken in him.
It had been strange, to find his body no longer quite under his command,
as if it were his master, and his mind but an insignificant passenger,
humoured when no distraction presented itself. But there had been
little time, and no privacy, and in truth so far he had attempted only
as much as he had dared.
They had snatched their moments when bathing, in the early mornings,
being sure to wake before others and head first down to the water's
edge. Now he could not help but associate the taste of Legolas's mouth
with the sound of running water, from their first tentative explorations
on the banks of Anduin, to their deeper, more desperate embraces by the
Deeping-Stream, and later by other waters, further afield.
He missed it more than any being had the right to miss anything; and
even with Legolas absent his traitor body still ached for him, in places
where for forteen decades of his life it had never troubled him.
They had promised each other.
When the time came - when they could - they would be together. They
would love fully, not in snatched moments by the wayside, but take
entire nights together, to learn each other fully. To bind themselves
together so that they might never be unbound.
And then those hell-spawned gulls had crossed their path, and Legolas
had heard their voices and looked only West. Gimli had said nought, and
left him alone ... but keeping silence about the ache did nothing to
assuage it. It was a rival - a rival he did not understand and could
not fight.
He looked up suddenly, and found that, unbidden, his feet had taken him
to the room he should have been sharing with Legolas. He went inside,
shutting the door behind him. Legolas's pack lay abandoned in one
corner, but no other sign of his presence had he left. Its contents had
not been unpacked, and Gimli found himself doubting that they would be.
He sank down onto the low bed, and with slow, tired fingers reached for
the lacings of his boots, working the tight knots awkwardly with his
thick fingers.
It would be as well to sleep. He would have no companion this night.
* * *
He woke suddenly, at dawn, roused by some faint noise in the silence of
his room, and found Legolas crouched by his pack, changing almost
noiselessly into clean clothes.
He shifted and turned over, and Legolas stilled, his chest and arms
bare, a clean shirt hanging untended over his pack.
"What is it, Elf?"
Legolas picked up the shirt once more, and slid it gracefully over his
head. "Have you forgotten my name so quickly?"
"Have *you* forgotten our agreement so quickly?"
The Elf straightened up, as Gimli pulled himself upright in his bed. "I
... no. But things have changed."
"What has changed?" Have you now ceased to love me? he almost said,
managing - just - to catch himself in time. Such words could only widen
any rift, whatever its nature.
"Everything ... The sea is in my blood now, and it will never leave me.
The things which bound me to Arda are now but distant shadows beside it
- and though I may stay here many decades always my eyes will be drawn
towards the West." He sighed, fixing his eyes on Gimli in the
semi-darkness. "You are my strongest tie to this place, Gimli ... but
the call is so strong. An I stay for an hundred years, my future does
not lie here."
Gimli stared back at him for long, painful seconds. "So," he said
unhappily, "you are no longer truly bound to Middle-earth, and since I
am of Middle-earth, your ties to me also fade."
"I am sorry. But it would be grave dishonour to make love without
love."
Gimli nodded, unspeaking. Dwarves never touched without love - not from
principles or prudery, but because they were incapable of it. The
love-longing was only for one alone; to join with another would be
futile.
Legolas had asked him once, of the fate of those Dwarves whose hearts
settled on one who would not have them. Did their grief destroy them,
as it would the Elves?
No, he had said. We endure it. It is the way of our people, to endure,
no matter what the hardship.
Then happy are you, friend Gimli, Legolas had said - you shall not have
to endure such pain, as long as we are together.
"Yes," he said, somehow managing to find his voice. "I too am sorry."
<> he thought. <>
He looked up at Legolas, and saw that his eyes were shining as if with
tears. And then Legolas came to him, kneeling on the floor by the bed,
and kissed him, very lightly, on the mouth.
Unbidden, Gimli's arms came up as if to hold him, and his mouth tried to
deepen the kiss, but Legolas melted away from his touch like mist.
"I am sorry, dear one," he said again. "Perhaps in time it shall return
to us." He turned and left then, disappearing from the room
soundlessly, save for the soft *click* of the door's catch.
Gimli stared after him, at the shut door, cursing his body's ache that
was demanding the Elf's touch, and demanding it *now*. How did others
among the Dwarves endure *this*?
Perhaps in time it shall return to us - those had been Legolas's words.
"'Perhaps'," he muttered. "'I cannot live off 'perhaps'."
END
| Index |