A double drabble for the birthday of Mews and Cheryl Ann Alexis

Accepting the Dwarf

             Gimli stopped in their journey through Moria, or Khazad-dûm, as he named it, his eyes alight as they fixed upon a particular pillar.  Legolas could not appreciate what made this different from the hundreds of others they’d passed, but the Dwarf stepped up to it as if he recognized it.  “This is the mark of my house!” he proclaimed to the Elf.  “It is said that my great-grandsire carved it in front of his dwelling here in the realm of Dúrin the Deathless, which means that my grandfather….”  He turned slowly, and indicated a smashed doorway to their right.  “My grandsire must have been born there!”

            The Elf considered the ruins of an ancient home within these dark precincts, and for the first time he realized that this was for Gimli what Amon Lanc had been to him, the ancestral home to his family and people.  Here, too, evil had taken possession, and Gimli had reason both to feel both pride at what his people had accomplished and grief for what had been lost to them.

            It suddenly struck him that he actually had a good deal in common with the irascible Dwarf, and he bowed his head in shame.