Protect & Serve LotR-Lord of the Rings Fanfiction - Fan Fiction -WattyAwards2012

Epilogue: To Honor Wishes

I knelt beside the gentle flow of the icy spring, rinsing the dirt from my hands as I absently listened to Gimli's tale of masonry work in Gondor. He spoke animatedly about the great works of his kindred in helping to restore the White City, but stonework had never been the favored realm of most Elven craftsmanship and held little interest for me in particular. 

"Are ye well, Legolas?" Gimli suddenly asked.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I realized Gimli had fallen silent for some time before rousing me with his latest question. 

"I am well, my friend," I assured him, forcing a smile that I feared lacked any conviction.

"How goes the colony?" he asked, gesturing back through the forest where the unseen buildings of the colony were congregated. The elves of the colony worked busily to finish more housing for the influx of elves moving to resettle in North Ithilien. But in deference to Gimli's unexpected visit, I had chosen to instead replant saplings that had been sent by my father from Eryn Lasgalen to replant the woods of Ithilien, hoping that Gimli would feel he had the privacy to say that which had brought him unheralded to my colony.

"The colony is well. Growing larger than I had imagined as those elves not yet ready to leave for Valinor resettle here," I absently answered, standing to inspect the saplings I had planted near the stream. So much of the forest in North Ithilien had been burned and cut down before and during the War. And what had not burned we were steadily working to see thrive and become healthy once more.

I looked again at the last sapling. I knew that so close to water, the saplings were nearly certain to thrive, but I spoke softly to them in Silvan, encouraging them to put forth their roots and drink deeply.

"Good. Ver'a good," Gimli nodded.

He watched in silence as I inspected the young saplings, his mind obviously intent upon something he wished to say. I could have probed his thoughts for his intentions—for strangely, the gift of mind reading granted from our binding had endured though my mate had not—but I had never come to enjoy the skill and had over the years perfected locking that power away, preferring the quiet of my own mind. I had no envy for the childhood I could imagine my love had been forced to endure because of her burdened skills.

I shook myself from such distracting thoughts of my lost love, returning my attention to the dwarf before me.

"Speak your mind, friend-Gimli, censor not words between such friends as we and speak that which your heart so struggles with," I at last told the dwarf.

He harrumphed loudly, but soon did begin speaking his mind.

"We worry 'bout you, Legolas. Most especially Aragorn an' I. He says ye've not entered the White City yourself since we all departed after his coronation an' wedding. Ye send yer elves to help with restorin' the city, but do'na yourself leave the woods of North Ithilien. It's not healthy, Legolas, to so wholly cut yourself off from yer friends an' bury yourself in work. Had I to guess, I would say none of these elves have the gumption to tell you you're working yourself too hard an' leaving yourself no time for enjoyment. That's not what the Lass would have wanted. She'd of told you herself that the life you're slaving yourself at be no kind of life to live."

I turned away from my friend's admonitions.

"Yet I am keeping my promise to her, my friend," I whispered, though I could not face the dwarf's knowing stare. "I am honoring her wishes that I remain in Ithilien and build the colony she foresaw, and there is much work left to be done to complete her vision."

"Ye know you don'na have to build it all at once, my friend. You be using that as an excuse to remain in these woods lickin' yer wounds. The Lass wouldn'na wanted that," he said, stepping in front of me again, his face grave and the pain as clear in his eyes as it was in my own.