A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Thirty-Seven - Alone

Dearest, Stubbornest Mabyn, Gimli's first letter read.

I can't tell you how unhappy I am for having left before you came home, but unfortunately a crisis arose which I believe you'll agree is larger than the two of us. Dain will have told you everything I know about the matter by now, so there's no need for me to impress upon you the importance of it. I know you understand-you're quick like that.

Our journey to Rivendell was uneventful. I don't know what you think about this city is beautiful-nothing is beautiful when it isn't useful, and this city looks like it'll crumple in the first good wind, or the first time a man raises his voice. I fear I'll tread too heavily and fall through the very floor. And who makes floors out of such pale stone? My every footprint shows from the dirt my boots leave behind. It's entirely foolish. They've built this fantastical home which, while impressive at first glance, will never hold in my mind as real.

Your light-haired elf, the younger one, is something else. At first I wondered if you had only been twitching my beard when you told me of conversations you'd had, as I wasn't convinced he could even speak a common language. Then the first thing he comes up with to say is an insult to the heir of another kingdom! I'd say he was compensating for something, but as you know my mind nearabout as well as I do I know I needn't waste the ink.

Oh Gimli, I thought to myself, wiping small tears from under my eyes as I chuckled.

This is only the first of many meetings, so I've no concept of where they'll go from here, but if the first is any indication we'll all have to tolerate each other a little longer. You're welcome to write me here, but there's the possibility I'll put my feet back on the homeward road before your letter arrives, so you may have to tell me about it in person, if that's amenable to you.

With affection,

Gimli

I wiped another couple tears out of my eyes, so relieved I was to have seen his letter, and comforted by the words it held, grazing my fingertips over the paper his hand had rested against to write this to me. I finally put my head down on the desk on top of it, allowing myself one minuscule daydream, one feather's touch of hope. Gimli, I beg you, come home.

If this was how he had felt every time I had left, I had a lot of apologizing to do when he returned.

When I went to slide the letter back into its envelope I saw writing on the back.

Postscript - Please be very careful next time you go to the elves, Mabyn. They don't think the same way we do. They look so far into the future they forget we can't reach that far, and because we can't, they forget that we value our lives just as much as they value theirs. You don't see how they've used you, lass. The fact that death takes us naturally makes us lesser beings in their eyes.

I dropped my face into both my hands. It cut me deeply that the people I loved sometimes hated each other.

*

I returned to my usual work with Dain as soon as I could, with one exception-I had slowed down, waiting for my many fractures to heal, and instead of giving me extra time to catch up with what normally I would already be done with, he sent me off for a few hours every afternoon to work with a composer friend with his, as I had been humming again--distracting myself--and he wanted to hear my favorite song as it was meant to be heard.

"But I don't know anything about music," I said, wide-eyed and baffled.

He waved an entire arm. "Who cares? She does, she's a bloody genius when it comes to musical things. Just sing it to her or hum it to her, and tell her what each of the parts you're humming sound like if you don't know what instrument they're played by, and she'll have her musicians play it back for you so you can listen and correct them."