This version Beta’d by Lindorien, Lyllyn, and the incomparable Theresa Green. With the earnest hope of not offending those with grammar and spelling bumps. Plot and characterisation bumps are a matter of opinion, let me know yours.

AU Fourth Age fusion of book and movie-verse. Set ninety eight years into Aragorn’s reign.

A:L:G  OC  Friendship fic. Not slash. PG for violence and some adult dilemmas in later chapters.

Angst/Adventure

Previously posted as Unbinding the box

Adagio3/9

Late Winter

The Lord of Aglarond - scrape the shovel in gravel- thought to himself- swing the load up- that the trouble with repetitive manual labour- dump the load - was that - scrape the shovel in gravel- whilst it fully occupied the body-swing the load up- it did not do nearly enough to distract the mind.

He flipped the load into the waiting barrow, a sequence so practised that it needed no conscious direction at all.

The wheelbarrow was now full, the rock catching the flickering light from the torch on the wall.

Gimli glanced again at the vein of mithril he had finally traced to this decent seam, and waited to feel the soul-deep completion such a find would have brought him pretty well any time before the last century.

The mountains of Thrihyrne nurtured their adopted children like seeds in an apple.

 The constant cool breath of Yavanna still dried his sweat. 

When he stood his shovel up against the shaft wall to spread his gnarled and work hardened hand against Aule's bones, that connection was, at least, as full as ever.

Gimli was very pleased to know he was not so lost to dwarven-kind that his soul had died.

It just felt as if it had.

The light of the torch caught the glitter of the ore in the stone again and Gimli tried to work up enthusiasm, a sense of victory, anything that he should be feeling.

It was mithril; it was so rare a find this size would fund his people for the next few decades.

 He shrugged and picked up the handle of the barrow again; trundled it out into the main passageway of the new workings, and hailed an apprentice to take it away, relieving the young dwarf of his empty one.

Then called over to his senior mine-hand to see the find.

Thoral's reaction was much more satisfactory.

0000

That evening there was a feast in his hall, above the original glittering caves.

The space was modest but airy; the ceiling groined and gilded, as were the slim pillars that lined the sides.

By day it was lit by three great arched windows that looked down the Coomb to the Hornburg and Helm's Deep, but this night a great fire of logs crackled in the hearth and flaming torches and trees of candles lit a scene of revelry from out of the songs of old.

From where he sat on his great chair, proud in the middle of the high table, Gimli could see across ranks of tables laden with meat and fruits.

Horns of ale were making their unsteady way around the company and dwarves were merry and full of cheer, toasting him and their great good fortune.

The Lord of all this found his eye captured by the light of Earendil, visible even through the misted window, sailing his ship forever in the frost bright heavens.

"Spending what we have yet to mine?"

Gliver, his old friend and named heir, broke into his wool-gathering, splashing more ale into the stein that sat neglected in front of his Lord, before sitting back heavily into his seat on the right, the worse for his own imbibing.

Gimli picked up the brimming cup and toasted Gliver, automatically, but the ale suddenly seemed tasteless, the celebration overwhelming, the night interminable.

The colony was now assured a future here in the south; mithril would fund expansion, and deck these so far simple halls with all that was good and costly.

Gimli felt glad for them and for himself, uninterested.

He shook his head and yawned.

Perhaps he was merely tired, he was no longer quite the dwarf he had been, although hard work did not dismay him it would be good to sleep.

He stood and toasted his people, to cheers and stamping acclaim, and then retired with as much dignity as he could manage, stumbling a little as he found his way to his rooms alongside the hall.

Dwarves kept no personal servants, but those that kept his household and the colony running had made a particular effort this night to make his room look inviting.

A fire warmed the air and was banked against the night, shuttered lamps burned on the tables beside his canopied bed and someone had thoughtfully provided a covered tray with small breads and cheeses lest he hunger in the night.

Gimli knew his people supported him and was touched by their care; and felt more than ever a fraud.

Sighing he leaned against the solid wood of his chamber door and started shedding his festive robes.

When he bent to deal finally with his boots his eye was caught by the graceful white pot that contained the only piece of greenery growing in Aglarond, a strap-leaved plant Legolas had sworn could not be killed by ignorance nor moderate neglect. It lifted its narrow leaves bravely to the light well that directed daylight into his quarters.

Of a sudden he could see his friend as he had stood, peering up the shaft of the well and placing the pot just so.

"Rub its leaves with some of that oil you use for your leathers if it looks dusty, and throw a cup or two of water in the soil most weeks."

The Elf had backed away from the plant, gauging its effect in the room and Gimli remembered scowling at his merry tone.

"It will die, master Elf, and then you will blame me."

Legolas had laughed at his crossness, and swiped him across the back as he had followed him back into the main hall.

"Not for nothing is it known as the cast iron plant, my friend. It will brighten your morns to have a living companion amongst all these stones."

The Elf shuddered a little and moved to the window.

"And are these stones?" Gimli had exclaimed, indicating the other dwarves going about their business in and around the hall.

"Nay."

Legolas had replied readily enough but then turned and fixed him with that damnable blue gaze, "But mayhap a Lord needs reminding of his other friends betimes, Gimli?"

Gimli had grunted and stumped up beside the Elf to look at the mist bedecked view.

"Sentimental Elf," he'd grumbled, but Legolas had only smiled and the plant had survived.

Even thrived, for two years now, until it had become like a wall hanging, comfortable, a part of his surroundings but not noticed.

Gimli tugged on a sleeping robe and padded barefoot over to the plant. He stood beside it for a while, his hands behind his back, and then reached out gently with one finger to touch a leaf.

Not much happened, he felt neither Vana nor Yavanna, which on reflection was something of a relief. But his troubled spirit was soothed, and with no more ado he quenched his lights and climbed into bed.

The next morning, rather later than dawn, he was working with Gliver in the now workaday hall, standing at a table set up in the good light under the windows, poring over some new drawn plans for the ore bearing shafts.

The mithril seam would need careful shoring to avoid undermining existing works.

They were disturbed by one of the door wardens who arrived escorting a human messenger, from Edoras by his livery.

"He carries a dispatch from Bardor, my Lord."

The warden bowed to Gimli, indicating the messenger who was even then pulling an ornate scroll from his leather pouch.

Gimli considered the youth, who was surreptitiously glancing around the hall. Few humans came guesting here as yet; although the Master Smith of Rohan, Bardor, was one who had visited many times during the discussions and negotiations that had taken place over the dwarves supplying the ovens and furnaces that Elfwine, the present king of the Rohirrim, needed to expand his country's foundries and armour-making craft halls.

"Is the Master Smith expecting a reply?" Gimli asked mildly.

The youth nodded so Gimli sent him with the door warden to seek such refreshment as could be found for him in the kitchens, while he perused the message.

"Bah!" Gimli flung the scroll down on the table and strode over to the fire.

"The man appears to be a fool, Gliver."

Gliver snorted as if the news that men may be fools came as no surprise.

Gimli kicked moodily at a log that had rolled near the front of the hearth, causing a flurry of sparks to fly up the chimney.

"He complains that the smelting oven we sold him still will not get up to temperature."

Gliver protested "But we…."

"I know, I know, old friend. We have discussed this with him on at least three different occasions, and I know he is using it for a purpose for which I never designed it, but even so."

Gimli paused for a moment and tugged absently at his beard. He then walked over to the window and rubbed a hole in the condensation so he could look into the snow girt landscape below.

" The worst weather is well past and the snow is still firm, I will travel back with this messenger and look at the problem myself."

"But the mithril?" Said Gliver aghast.

Gimli did not look at him but started gathering up the papers and scrolls on the table.

"Gliver, there are two hundred and fifty nine dwarves resident in Aglorand. Do you think we will have the slightest problem mining the mithril?"

"But, but my Lord. It is your discovery. Do you not want the…"

Gliver trailed off again, realising he had already lost his Lord's attention. Gimli had paused by the window again, and was gazing pensively out to the plains in the distance.

"Like a caged bird," the fancy struck Gliver as so strange he shivered.

He truly loved the unassuming Lord of Aglorand, despite his uncommon independence of thought and love of strange company; he was wise and fair and seemed to embody all that was good in dwarven-kind while never being bound by dwarven limitations.

Gliver was neither stupid nor blind. That some grief sat on his Lord like a rockslide had been evident since last he returned to them at the beginning of winter.

If mithril could not shake him out of his despondency then perhaps a jaunt to Edoras, and not to the cursed elves he thought parenthetically, would provide the balm his spirit obviously needed.

He left Gimli gathering up the scrolls and bustled off to find the messenger.

 0000

"Are you sure you will be all right staying here, my Lord?"

Telfaren the messenger was reluctant to leave his charge in the indifferent hands of the hostelry nearest to Bardor's compound.

He had not known what to think when he found himself with a companion for the return trip to Edoras.

Telfaren had been somewhat anxious that the grizzled old dwarf would be tedious, slow, company. As it turned out the four day trip back, towing two sturdy pack ponies piled high with tools and miscellaneous pieces of metal plate, was one that he would remember until he had grandchildren to tell of it.

The tales the old Lord knew, the places he'd been, the people he knew.

Telfaren felt more and more humble as Gimli warmed to his eager audience.

As they strode along the trail or chatted after supper whilst sharing the comfort of a pipe beside the fire, he filled the young man's head with tales of kings in exile, battles against impossible odds, wizards, elves and hobbits.

If even a third of it were true it would have been a wonderful tale. Telfaren suspected that all of it was true. He was beginning to doubt that the venerable dwarf had an untrue bone in his body. And tough; the dwarf had been slowing down for him, a trained messenger.

Telfaren looked again anxiously into the crowded common room of the inn.

"People here," he hesitated, and then finally put a hand on the dwarf's shoulder to get his attention.

"Please Lord Gimli, some of the common folk, they have strange ideas about dwarfs. Will you not come with me to wait on Master Smith Bardor and seek hospitality there?"

Gimli looked up and sideways to the messenger's concerned face. Aule's bones did the lad think he needed a nursemaid? He loosened his axe and growled.

"Sonny, I've been frequenting bars for nearly as long as there have been bars in Edoras."

He stepped into the doorway and met the messenger's eye.

"The stable lad has secured my room and now I want to wash the dust of the road off with the good ale of this house. Not waste time and words on being polite to the Master Smith."

He patted the young man on the forearm.

"Never fuss yourself, trouble will not find me this night, and Master Smith Bardor will feel more kindly disposed to me if he has some warning of my coming."

Finally, reluctantly, Telfaren left him.

Gimli's axe gleamed sharp in the flickering firelight and his gold was as good as any other being's.

He sat in a corner and drank away his weariness and quietly surveyed the current crop of humans in Edoras.

Most of the men were tall and blond, typical Rohirrim, and their talk, overheard in snatches and waves as the company moved around the room, was all of horses and bloodlines. Only one party, established in the opposite corner of the room to the one Gimli was sitting in, were of mixed darker and lighter haired men.

Young they were and bulkily muscled and drinking as after hard work. As the evening progressed they became more rowdy and tormented the pot girls as they filled their flagons, one dark visaged lad never missing a chance for a pinch or a grope, smiths and engineers, Gimli surmised.

The dwarf kept a hand to his axe as he made his way past the table to reach the stairs to his room.

The crowd in the common room had thinned as the evening progressed and it was obvious that the table fell quiet at his approach, the drunken men whispering to each other then giggling behind their hands.

The words short-changed and shoddy reached Gimli's ears but he reached the stairs with no incident and suffered their vulgar laughter propelling him up to his bed.

However he resolved to stay armed in Edoras.

The next morning he was not surprised when, as he was touring the newly installed and problematic ovens in the company of Master Bardor, he was introduced to three of the erstwhile drinking group.

Bardor, happy to play the genial host now Gimli had come to him, clapped the black browed ringleader on a broad shoulder, and boomed in his ear.

"My future son-in-law, Frecern. My Lord Gimli, am I not fortunate in my daughter's choosing? He will be a fine heir to all this." He waved his hand expansively around.

Gimli did not miss the wince that crossed the young man's face and put it down to the last night's excess. Serve him right to have a tender head, he thought to himself, with a little satisfaction.

The lad touched his forehead to his master and gave Gimli a hard stare. The Dwarf held his gaze until the youth looked away.

"And here comes my turtle-dove." Bardor beamed at his daughter with all the besotted devotion of a mother hen with one chick.

Gleowyn strode up the workshop towards them.

A big woman, she stood nearly as tall as her father and had to be taller than Frecern. She was a warhorse to a pony; compared to other human women Gimli had become familiar with.

Well proportioned but large, her short sleeved chemise showed off arm muscles that would put many a lad to shame. Her gleaming chestnut hair was braided around her head to keep it out of the way in the workshop, which had the unfortunate effect of emphasising the roundness of her features. She wore a leather apron studded with smithing tools and was obviously an active part of Bardor's operation.

She reached her father and cast a melting look at Frecern, then glanced at his guest and let out a shocked gasp.

"My Lord Gimli!"

She sank into an impressive curtsey, not the least startling for where it put her cleavage in relationship to Gimli's eye-line.

The men around her looked a little aghast. Gleowyn was not known for her submissive ways and many of them had forgotten, or never known, that she had spent her fifteenth year in the service of Queen Arwen.

She rose without a wobble and fixed her father with a wrathful gaze.

"Why didn't you tell me we had such an important guest, Father?"

Then turning to Gimli she said, "Surely you are not going to work on the ovens yourself. My Lord."

She looked around as if expecting a hoard of dwarves to appear from under the workbenches.

Finally she glared at her father again. "Father, you can't…."

Bardor raised a meaty hand to stop her in mid-tirade and turned a rueful eye on his guest.

"My Lord Gimli says the since he designed the ovens he will assess what is needful to fix them, Gleowyn."

His daughter narrowed his eyes at him, apparently unconvinced of his sincerity, and then turned back to Gimli.

"My Lord. It will do my father the greatest honour if you would consent to stay with us while you are in Edoras. Tell me of your lodgings and I will send for your gear."

 Gimli opened his mouth to protest but she would brook no nays, "Please, my Lord, let us pay you the honour you deserve," she sent another snapping glance at her father who nodded quickly.

Gleowyn turned to go, "I'll go and arrange everything then, and a feast for tonight, if it please my Lord?"

Gimli knew when he was overmatched and looked agreeable.

After dropping another flawless curtsey to him, she spared a coy smile for Frecern, and swept off.

A silence followed.

Bardor shrugged, "Since her mother died she has managed us all. I am afraid she is rather used to getting her own way, my Lord."

He shook his head at Frecern, "You'll have your work cut out, lad."

Clapping the surly youth on the back the Master Smith moved on taking Gimli with him, so missing the expression of purest hatred that crossed Frecern's face as they departed.

Glaring round the other workers as if daring them to tell, he spat on the spot where Gimli had been standing, then turned again to his workbench.

0000 

Gimli's weeks soon settled into a pattern, after working on a furnace from dawn to day meal, he would fire it up.

The afternoon was spent alternately stoking it, and pottering from one viewing hole to another checking his temperature indicators to see if his morning's labours had resulted in an improvement in efficiency.

In the evening he let the furnace go out so it would be cool enough to work on again in the morning.

It was absorbing work, for him at least, but after the third day he lost almost all of his audience.

The Master Smith found other work to do and the engineers got so used to his presence that he was hardly noticed.

Gimli's most constant companion in the afternoons was Gleowyn, who had many small projects she was working on like window catches and door latches or pots to mend from the great houses' kitchen or ones in town.

The two of them fell into the habit of chatting as the indicators glowed and Gleowyn learned much of the mechanics of furnace making, and Gimli learned much of Gleowyn's happy anticipation of her wedding and of how wonderful, the to him dubious, Frecern was.

"He is the first man who loves me despite how ugly I am," she chirruped happily one afternoon.

" He said he didn't even care about my inheritance, that he would have loved me if I was a beggar."

She smiled into the pot she was polishing and went quiet for a moment. Gimli looked at the moon struck woman, and closing the peephole walked back to her bench.

"Who ever told you that you are ugly, child?"

Gleowyn blushed, and looked away from him, "Do you think I am stupid, my Lord? I have been to court, you know. My shortcomings were well shown up for me in that company."

She smiled back at him with some dignity. "I wouldn't be surprised if I am not still famous for being the maid who broke the thousand year old vase."

Gimli lied in his teeth and denied it hotly.

It was a subject that was sometimes brought up in his hearing because he had been there when it happened.

Gleowyn sighed deeply, "You are kind, my Lord. And were then too, to a very gauche young girl. As was the Lord Legolas, Oh what a fool I made of myself that day."

Gimli snorted reminiscently, "Well you were not the first young attendant of your Queen to get flustered in my friend's company, my dear. It is something of an occupational hazard around elves."

Gleowyn laughed a little at that, "Yes we are all dim candles in their presence. Well never mind, at least I have found love now."

Gimli patted her on the back and returned to his furnace, rather the fire than go there, and that was the truth.

A couple of mornings later he was working on the last furnace, this one located in a large shed between the yard and the stables.

He had the large double doors on both ends and sides of the shed open because he was half in and half out of the oven trying to fix a tricky baffle to the roof of the flue and needed all the light he could get.

"Aule's beard!" he exclaimed, his voice booming in the oven.

He sat back down and sucked at a grazed knuckle and glared at the wrench that had just slipped and caused his injury.

"My Lord, is there something amiss?" Gleowyn's face appeared at the oven doors.

Gimli removed the abused knuckle from his mouth and waved it at the girl in negation.

"I thought you had gone riding, my dear."

He felt a little embarrassed at being caught out in his clumsiness.

"Helm threw a shoe," she explained simply.

Then leaned further in to see what was causing Gimli's problem.

"If I held that wrench on the bolt head could you not climb on top of the oven and tighten the nut?"

Gimli looked a little shocked, "But you would need to climb in here and it's not very clean."

Gleowyn laughed merrily and turned round to show the back of her dress, which was all over mud.

"Helm threw me too."

"Horses." Gimli's comment summed up his feelings in one word.

"You are prejudiced against horses, my Lord. Come on, get out so I can get in."

Once Gimli had climbed onto the roof of the oven and Gleowyn had climbed into the body of it the work proceeded with a lot more ease, until Gimli heard two voices coming round the side of the shed.

"Come on, come on my sweeting. The great cow has gone. I saw her ride out more than half an hour ago. Come to the stables with me."

"Oh Frecern, you are the wickedest man. How can you say you love me when you are going to wed her? Cruel you are."

Frecern and the prettiest kitchen maid now came into view through the open door of the shed and the girl gave a little gasp when she spotted Gimli on the top of the furnace.

Frecern hardly glanced at the dwarf lord, reached into his pocket and threw a large gold coin at him. Gimli reached up in purest reflex and caught it.

"For your silence, Gold Grubber." Outrage silenced Gimli more effectively than any further statement from Gleowyn's intended.

The couple moved on entwined, laughing and giggling. The girl mock protesting until the stable door opposite shut behind them.

 0000

The woman who slithered out of the oven, then paused to look at Gimli with grief deadened eyes, seemed ten years older than the blithe twenty three year old who had climbed in.

"Gleowyn," Gimli offered lamely.

She started edging sideways around the oven and, when she managed to put its bulk between her and the stable door, she sagged against it and pressed both hands to her lips. The silence lengthened, then she twisted round and cast an anguished look at Gimli.

"I am so sorry, my Lord," she stepped away from the oven and moved towards the door to the home yard. She said, almost in a whisper, "how could he be so rude to you?"

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, as if holding her chest together then caught at the doorframe and stilled again. She picked at a splinter in the wood in a distracted way then once again she met the dwarf's eye.

"Please, my Lord. Please leave me to tell my father."

Then she was gone, and Gimli was left perched on top of the oven like some ungainly decoration, itching for his axe.

That she had not told anyone of her distress by suppertime was evident in Bardor's cheerful manner. Gleowyn was absent.

"Some sick headache, her maid said," replied Bardor to Gimli's enquiry.

He shrugged in an unconcerned way, expecting Gimli to understand his lack of interest in the foibles of women.

Gimli was finding the meal intolerable and ate quickly.

"I will be going home tomorrow, Master Smith," he announced gruffly as he stood up from his meal, "So give my kindest regards to your daughter if I see her not. I will be leaving at dawn, I think."

Bardor expressed all the expected thanks due to Gimli for his work, but did not seek to detain him and Gimli retired to his room to pack, rather grateful to have been spared the emotional fireworks that would no doubt erupt in the house tomorrow.

In the light of a new day he was farewelled on Bardor's steps by his sleepy and slightly puzzled host.

"My Lord, it appears Gleowyn has ridden out already today. To visit her mother's grave according to the note she left me," he held up a scrap of parchment.

Bardor scratched his head and missed Gimli's rather exasperated sigh.

"She becomes more capricious the closer we get to her wedding." Bardor looked the picture of puzzlement.

"She must have left before first light."

Bardor shook his head, a frown slightly creasing his forehead, but then he clapped Gimli on the shoulder,

"Will you be taking the plains road to Aglorand?"

"Nay," Gimli replied shortly. "I think Dunharrow, then the mountain passes."

"Then you may yet see her to say your farewells in person, her mother is buried at Harrowdale, near where she was born."

Gimli only grunted, waved and stumped off down the road. For the life of him he felt that if he stayed one more minute he would trip over his tongue. He shifted his pack higher on his back and placed his hand firmly on the haft of his belt axe.

Some time in the mountains in his own company, that is what he needed, dealing with other species was simply too gruelling.

 0000

Gleowyn was solid, transparent ice. Which is how it should be when you are dead, she thought.

She had ridden from Edoras in the darkest hour before dawn, and walked her horse past the many windings of the river Snowbourne, clattering as un-remarked as a ghost through Upbourn.

Now in the light of day she trotted quickly through Underharrow, a more substantial town serving as it did all the rich farm lands lining the Snowbourne valley under Starkhorn and up to the Dwimorborg itself.

A couple of early risers hailed her there with a cheery "Good Morrow." But ice speaks not, and she rode on distracted.

Past Underharrow she wound through well-known fields and lanes until she came to the great plain of Harrowdale, snow-free now, with willows blushing red on the stream banks.

Birds sang a mighty welcome from the hedgerows to the new day, but she was ice and it did not crack her.

Helm, her patient black horse, finally found his way to her destination, a quiet cemetery nestled under the cliff of Dunharrow.

Gleowyn slid off his broad back and took off first his saddle, and then his bridle. Carefully she balanced his tack on the knee of a nearby willow tree and then turned at his soft breath on her neck, and rested her face on his. But she was ice; so eventually she turned from him and left him grazing there, and wandered down well-trod pathways, through the gravestones that cast long black shadows on her feet, until she reached her mother.

At that long mound she folded herself onto her stomach and laid full length on the soft grass under the grey stone; and waited to melt.

She slept instead. The day arched over her, and when she woke she was under the shadow of the cliff beside her; and was still ice.

Painfully she stood, and let the world sway and dim and then settle, for she had neither eaten nor drunk since the previous noon.

She tilted her head back and traced the zigzag path that wound up to the Firienfield; the sun just caught the last Pukel-man on the top most terrace.

Slowly she made her way to the bottom of the climb and started up, stumbling sometimes from statue to statue, but quite determined to reach the top. It would be high enough. Dimly she heard some shouting behind her, but was ice, so did not look back nor pay anything attention except reaching the summit.

Then the grassy alp was under her feet, and the lip of the cliff cut off the sound behind her, and she wandered away along its edge.

She unbound her shining hair and let it fall around her like a shawl, and the wind from the valley blew it around and into her mouth and eyes so she could no longer see. So she sat on the very edge of the drop, and dangled her feet over the loops and turns of the Snowbourne far below, and still she was ice.

Leaning forward she drew her own beautiful dagger from its sheath at her waist, and held it up to catch the last bright sunlight.

She used its sharp edge to slice through the laces on her bodice, and then gently dug its point into her chest, just between her breasts.

For a moment she watched the crimson well, then she gasped as the wound hurt.

She was ice.

Her hair smeared the blood as it whipped around her and she caught a hank and hacked at it with her knife, cutting her hand and her hair, and it hurt.

She was not ice; and the despair and the desperate pain of Frecern's betrayal was even worse than the fresh pain in her chest and hands, and she swung the knife up and out with the intention of driving it into her heart.

And Gimli caught it on his gauntlet, wrenched it out of her grip and tossed it away, in the same breath catching her under the arms and dragging her away from the cliff edge, and back onto the fresh spring grass of the Firienfield.

Gleowyn fought him, crying and screaming; and then when his iron grip would not loosen, she dissolved into helpless, gasping and overwhelming, tears.

TBC

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Rose Sared