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Prologue
Elrond is holding a meeting with Galadriel, Gandalf and Saruman at Imraldis, known as the Last Homely House by the elven people. It’s certainly the elven planet closest to the Core which swarms with humans and their machines.
Galadriel and Saruman are leaders of the worlds Lothlorien and Isengard respectively. Galadriel is 6000 years old and one of the last living beings in the system who could say they had seen the Elvenhame. This is the origin of all elves and if Galadriel knows where it is, she isn’t saying.
Gandalf and Saruman are another species entirely, although they both look Standard Human. Their true natures are known to Elrond and Galadriel, but it’s a truth that belongs in the mists of time.
Suffice to say, Galadriel has been friends with Gandalf long enough to risk a wink as Saruman settles into some serious pontificating.
Perhaps to change the subject, Elrond turns to Gandalf.
“How go the good people of Hobbiton?” he asks him.
Gandalf smiles deeply in his beard, his eyes fond and distant as if reviewing memories.
“Well enough, well enough,” he replies, “although they have declared me a Disturber of the Peace!”
“You feign indignation, dear Gandalf, but we all know how much you love your charges and their merry ways, “ smiles Galadriel.
Saruman does not look so indulgent.
“When will you cease this foolishness, Gandalf?” he remarks. “There is no strength among hobbits - no valour, no wealth. A being of your talents, merely adequate even as they are, could be better deployed closer to the Core.”
Galadriel and Gandalf exchange amused glances while Elrond suddenly seems taken with examining the fine, filigree stonework of the balustrade he is standing by. Ever is Saruman, the head of the Council, a schemer and a plotter.
Saruman sighs in exasperation. “What news, Elrond, that made meeting in person so essential?”
Elrond turns slowly back towards them as if gathering his thoughts. With his hair carefully braided under his circlet there is no mistaking his pointed ears, like Galadriel’s - the hallmark of a member of the Elven race.
There had been a time, all knew, when the races of the galaxy were unknown to each other. The details are lost in antiquity, but still there lingers, sometimes, a sense of the other about the Elves.
Elrond joins them at the stone table, clasping his hands before addressing them.
“Word is reaching Imladris from my agents all over the system that there is a growing dark alliance of Humans in the Core planets. They are spreading corruption and brutality and must be resisted at all costs.”
Saruman scoffs, his patrician nose and long white beard adding to his haughty demeanour.
“We do not need to concern ourselves with the fate of Humans. They do not have interstellar travel, they are no threat to the galaxy. Their petty squabbles are not our concern. Rest easy, I am monitoring them from Isengard. It is well placed to observe any crisis that should arise - although I highly doubt it.”
“We should not close our eyes to the suffering of any creature, even lowly humankind,” replies Galadriel, her sarcastic emphasis making clear what she thinks of Saruman’s nonchalance. “What is worse, my scouts tell me there is a dark power rising - in Mordor.”
At this, Saruman starts to become purple in the face.
“Is there no end to this nonsense?” he almost shouts. “That I should be dragged half way across the system to be bothered with these imaginings and gossip! Mordor is uninhabited!”
“No. It is not,” replies Elrond, calm and stern. “Rumours abound of outlaws and criminals gathering there.”
“Brigands and ne’er do wells! Do they even have ships or fuel to leave again?” says Saruman in a tone of long suffering. As if he is only humouring them.
Galadriel gets up from the table and drifts as if floating to the open balustrade which looks across the pleasure gardens of Imladris. Galadriel may look like an angel with her long, golden hair and long, white robes, but at 6000 years old, she gave up humouring the stubborn and pig-headed long ago. There is a hint of frostiness when she speaks.
“I have heard tell of a Necromancer creating a seat of power, with plans to overrun the Core. The people of this system are under our protection albeit unknowingly and we must - I will - investigate. I will send scouts”.
The finality of her tone quells even Saruman. Let the dice fall as they may, he thinks, darkly glowering.
Chapter 1
Many revolutions of the solar system later, and completely, blissfully ignorant of the political machinations of the great and the good, a dwarf called Gimli, aboard the starship Arod, eases back on the throttle. The vessel comes to rest, suspended in a gantry and held securely by the lock beam.
Rivendell is as much home to him as Ered Luin, the dwarven home world, but it hasn’t always been so. Thinking of his introduction to this fair planet makes him smile in recollection and glance at the agent of that change. Legolas stands beside him as always, his gaze fixed on the HUD. But at Gimli’s glance he looks back and smiles. Perhaps he too is thinking of that day, hard though it is to tell on the inscrutable face of the elf - although Gimli fancies himself a reasonable translator after all this time.
For Rivendell is the home planet of an entire elven people, known as Imladris by them. And while outsiders aren't forbidden, they aren’t exactly encouraged, either. Gimli takes his acceptance for what it probably is - a courtesy to Legolas who is kin of these elves, and leaves it at that.
If one was the kind of sentimental creature given to transports of delight, which Gimli avowedly isn’t, the first sight of Rivendell is beauty enough for anyone. The docks, as delicate and lacey as a bridal collar, hang suspended over the water which covers much of the planet.
Rising behind it in tiers and terraces is the citadel of Rivendell, itself as frothy and dainty as the docks, and from each terrace a waterfall tumbles over the rocks on which Rivendell was built, thousands of years ago.
Despite its great age, there is nothing of decay in the warm stone of its buildings and yet there is still a sense of autumn about the place; even to Gimli’s untrained eyes, used to space and the rocky subterranean halls of Ered Luin.
Standing on a bouldered pier still some way off is Elrond, one of the most senior of the leaders the high elves don’t have. Elrond doesn’t style himself lord or king as the leaders of many other space rocks are wont to do, but nevertheless, Rivendell is his.
Why he has chosen to personally greet a dwarf and a wood elf is an urgent question Gimli isn’t sure he wants answering. It’s not like they mix in the same social circles.
With a gusty sigh, he turns to face his business partner and friend, Legolas.
“Three guesses?” he asks. They’ve been together so long he knows Legolas will get what he’s referring to.
Legolas smirks. “I’m guessing it in one - a high value passenger for us to courier.”
Gimli narrows his eyes. “You cheat! I suppose we had a comm while I was busy docking.”
“We did indeed. Elrond’s foster son requires passage, but that’s all the details we have.”
Intriguing, thinks Gimli. “A pampered teenager who wants to tour the Core?” he asks.
“Hardly,” replies Legolas. “The last I heard of Estel, he was a fully grown man. Young by elf standards of course! But fully mature by humans’.”
Gimli initiates disembarkation procedures and they step on to the dock. Gimli breathes in deeply, glad to breathe the soft, sweet air of Rivendell, and goes to meet Elrond.
“Find a job, and keep flying,” he thinks to himself as he wonders what he’s letting himself in for this time. He really has no idea and on this occasion, that’s probably for the best.
Chapter 2
Gimli and Legolas are standing on the bridge of Arod, looking out at space, teeming with ships this close to the Core.
The HUD overlays navigation routes in orange dotted lines over the magnificent sight of the Core’s inner planets and their moons - Rohan a golden marble in the corner of the screen and Gondor hanging like a blue-green hive before them. Further away, just visible, is Isengard - the last planet before the vast empty gap that bridges the Core and the Outer Rim planets.
Gimli has his hands on the controls, deftly guiding their ship among the traffic, slipping into place in the lane that will take them to the refuelling station.
Legolas is by his side, his hand in its customary place on Gimli’s shoulder, his silvery grey-green leggings and tunic contrasting as ever with Gimli’s more rugged leather and stout wool.
They both wear their hair braided - those moments of zero gee as the ship manoeuvres during the landing sequence make loose hair impractical.
Gimli’s is a thick, bristling copper braid that extends down his spine. His beard is also secured in one single, practical braid. Legolas’ silky, blond strands are braided tightly around his head, before forming at last into one tail down his back.
It looks like a helmet - both martial and beautiful, which Gimli supposes is Legolas in a nutshell.
After being thrown together in the war and finding friendship there, they have chosen this wandering life together. Find a job and keep flying is their mantra.
They have two jobs right now. First, to deliver Aragorn, a human, to Isengard to meet with friends. This is one and the same Estel.
Gimli would grumble to Legolas about how elves like to complicate things by giving people an elvish and a human name. However, the dwarves hide a secret name that only they and their Maker know, whispered to them in the dark of their birth. So he keeps quiet just this once.
Their second job is to go to Mordor to drop off two hobbits, Frodo and Sam. There are rumours out here in the stars about Mordor, a hostile rock of a planet with barely a wisp of breathable atmosphere. Gimli wouldn’t choose to go there, but paying customers can do what they want.
Thanks to the long journey time to the Outer Rim, they’ve had plenty of time to tentatively get to know one another.
They play cards in the galley of an evening, chew pipeweed nuggets and long to smoke them (but you need to land for that) and share out the protein bars.
Sam brought baskets of fresh food on board as part of his passage and cooked amazing stews until it ran out. It’s been nice and all, but Gimli grew up under a mountain where fresh food was rare, so he can make do with the best protein their credits will stretch to.
But Aragorn and Frodo are keeping secrets, and it makes the back of Gimli’s neck prickle.
“They’re good people, I can tell”, says Legolas softly, when he voices his concerns.
“Well, you don’t steer us wrong, laddie,” he replies and tries not to stress about what secrets would take such little folk as hobbits to Mordor of all the forsaken backwaters in the system.
As for Aragorn, he looks foul but seems fair. His clothes are patched and mended but of the highest quality. He is taciturn, exhausted-seeming, a crease between his brows at all times.
But he can be playful with the hobbits, quite gentle really, drawing them out of themselves and their serious secrets. He’s certainly the only one who can raise a true smile from solemn Frodo, except for Sam.
Mind you, thinks Gimli of his own partner, Legolas is often solemn, and melancholy. He assumes it’s the sorrow of the elves he has heard about, to be so far from their legendary world, Elvenhame.
***
Gimli, a dwarf, and Legolas, an elf, are exchanging heated words.
An observer might assume the ancient enmity between the races is flaring once more between these two, and take a prudent step or two back, perhaps sheltering under the nearest table.
Aragorn, who has come to know the crew well in recent times, merely rolls his eyes and gets ready to interject a voice of reason, when he can do so without drawing fire on himself.
He should feel a touch responsible as it was his own request that had lit the touch paper this time. But since this pair seem to live for bickering, he doesn’t bother.
“Whatever keeps the flame alive, I suppose,” he mutters to the other two passengers.
It looks like Gimli and Legolas are about squabbled out. Time to interject, thinks Aragorn.
“It’s imperative for Sam and Frodo to get to Mordor, and honestly guys - we need to trust them. They know what they’re doing.” He gestures to the other passengers, Frodo and Sam, who are trying to project competence.
Gimli starts huffing anew, but Legolas is the more measured of the two.
“Assuming we are able to dock with the space station and assuming we are not immediately overrun by whoever they’ve got running things down there, how are two hobbits going to move undetected, steal a shuttle and reach the surface without anyone knowing?”
Frodo speaks, his gentle, cultured voice firm and clear. “Hobbits have more talents than you know, Legolas. Besides, all eyes will be on Isengard, thanks to you three.”
Gimli’s eyes start to bulge, his face red. Apparently to forestall another argument, Legolas places his hand on Gimli’s shoulder, which as nearly always has the desired effect of calming him down.
“Pray what will we be doing on Isengard?” Gimli says, sweetly sarcastic.
Sam, Frodo and Aragorn look at each other and discreetly nod. Yes, it’s time to tell the captains of their transport the whole truth and hope it doesn’t get them flushed through the nearest airlock.
Aragorn chooses his words carefully, just as he had chosen the Arod and its mismatched crew. Their cross-species partnership, almost belligerent in the face of the prevailing winds of intolerance that had and are swamping the system, makes them also potentially the kind of people who would be on the side of Light.
Their obstreperous, forthright natures will also hopefully lend themselves to getting one over on the agents of darkness who are permeating life in the system so perniciously. And effectively, although it squeezes Aragorn’s heart to think it.
“Sam and Frodo will make their way onto the space station and locate a suitable shuttle while we journey to Isengard. They may need to lay low for a short while, although it can’t be above a few days’ journey. That will bring us to Isengard around the same time as the White Hand. My sensors tell me that they will be that long in getting there. We can only hope that our friends, Merry and Pippin do not suffer too much in the meantime. Our advantage is that the word on the comms is that they must be delivered ‘unspoiled’. Our other advantage is the speed of Arod, may the Valar be willing.”
It’s Gimli and Legolas’ turn to exchange looks.
“So you’re going to rescue your friends, not just meet them,” Legolas summarises.
“Find a job, keep flying,” mutters Gimli. The pair grasp forearms and Legolas bows, touching his forehead to Gimli’s in a graceful facsimile of a dwarven gesture.
“This isn’t a job really, is it?” Legolas replies, a touch ruefully. “If we turn away, people will die.”
“If we don’t, we’ll be part of this,” says Gimli, “For better, or probably, worse”.
Aragorn’s heart sinks. Maybe he’s misjudged and these two are purely mercenary after all. He doesn’t yet know them well enough to know that this is their dance. Legolas is smiling a little now, looking fondly at Gimli.
“You aren’t telling me that bonehead of yours has finally developed common sense? Or is age finally catching up with you that you dream of dying in your bed?”
Gimli growls at the insult, mostly playful.
“No elf will throw that gauntlet down to me, laddie. If you’re game for mayhem, so is this dwarf.”
“I would have it no other way,” grins Legolas and they turn as one to give their reply. And not a moment too soon for Aragorn; their flirting really is a lot to bear on an empty stomach.
“Breakfast while we go over plans,” he says, not a little desperately.
……
“I’m intrigued how you think Saruman fits into all this,” remarks Gimli as they break their fast with meal bars and coffee.
Legolas still calls them Lembas after the meal bars from his home planet, but these bear little resemblance to those. A tiny piece of Lembas could fuel a person all day. In not quite the same way, eating one of these cheap knock-offs is enough to drive hunger from the mind entirely.
“Sure, he’s rumoured to be body-modding an army, but what eccentric ruler of a whole planet doesn’t?”
“It’s more than rumour,” Aragorn answers grimly. “I have seen them with my own eyes. Ten thousand space marines jacked up to their eyeballs, branded with the White Hand of Saruman on their helmets.”
Even Legolas’ composure is rattled and it takes a lot to rattle an elf.
“Does rumour tell what he plans for this army? Although I think I can guess. No-one builds an army like that for home defence.”
Aragorn nods, his expression dark. “Yes. He plans to swarm the Core. He may even be in league with Mordor. They are seemingly both interested in the same super weapon.”
“Which would be?” Gimli asks.
Sam pipes up and Gimli pays attention - Sam is a hobbit of few words but good sense.
“Noone knows for sure. But it’s something portable, or a gene splice, or a body mod. Maybe even an in utero genetic modification. Otherwise Saruman wouldn’t have needed to bring Merry and Pippin to Isengard.”
Frodo is tight around the eyes with worry. “It can’t be hidden knowledge. Merry and Pippin are dear friends of ours so I tell you with confidence that two hobbits more innocent of system politics you couldn’t find.”
Chapter 3
Approaching the space station at as sharp an angle as possible, Gimli at the helm hopes to avoid detection until the very last moment, using the planet itself as a shield.
“Of course, as soon as Arod crests the planet’s penumbra, the station’s proximity sensor will light up like a Yule tree, but we’ll just have to move fast,” Legolas explains to the hobbits through the comm.
Frodo and Sam are stood in the airlock, suited up. The reactive polymer of their suits has formed snugly around their bodies on contact, but helmets, jetpacks and tethering gear only come in one size and the tiny hobbits are comically overloaded.
If this were a time for levity, thinks Legolas, looking at them through the view screen.
Aragorn also watches, tightlipped, knowing that further debate is useless. Frodo is convinced that he and Sam can slip into the station undetected and has rejected Aragorn’s company. No appeal to common sense or even emotional blackmail has budged Frodo into letting Aragorn accompany them.
“Don’t worry about us. Save your energies for rescuing Merry and Pippin,” Frodo says, for at least the third time. It doesn’t sit well with Aragorn, or with Legolas and Gimli for that matter, but time is running out. Both for Arod remaining out of sight, and potentially for Merry and Pippin too.
With a quick nod, Legolas releases the airlock and Frodo and Sam’s little bodies are whipped out into space, tumbling over and over until they deploy their jetpacks and right themselves, disappearing from view.
Gimli gentles Arod back into Mordor’s penumbra using very minimal power to avoid the tell tale burn registering on the space station’s monitors. For better or worse, Frodo and Sam are on their own now. The three onboard hope for better but fear for worse.
***
Now it’s time for Arod to make a serious pursuit after Merry and Pippin. The band that captured them on Rohan had by all accounts been searching for this mystical item, and couldn’t believe their luck when they tripped over the two hobbits. Many good people died trying to prevent them being taken, Aragorn knows with a heavy heart.
“There will be time for mourning later,” he thinks to himself grimly, “when the time is not so short and the danger so close.”
The good news is that the band of Saruman’s people don’t have a fast ship and are hopping from planet to planet, needing to refuel. This ship, Arod, is fast, light and used to stealth flying. It can chase them down, hopefully before they ever reach Isengard.
Aragorn is explaining this to Gimli and Legolas as they make preparations.
“Let the Valar be on our side - if they make it back to Isengard before we can extract the hobbits, our task will be ten times as hard.”
A trace had been detected near Ithilien, a long defunct station on an asteroid, and a course set. Now the three remaining have nothing but time on their hands and the business of waiting, as Arod speeds through the vastness of interplanetary space.
Even with the hyperdrive folding pockets of space to shorten journeys, space is still unimaginably vast and empty. Gimli sets his proximity alerts, checks the tracker that Aragorn and Legolas have programmed into navigation, and takes himself off to the rec room where the others are already relaxing, boots off and feet up in the ship’s artificial gravity.
As he approaches he hears them softly talking just in time to hear Legolas say, “Gimli? He’s married to his axe.”
And as he walks through the door, he sees a fleeting emotion flash across Legolas’ face before he captures his usual equanimity. Was that pain? It’s gone too quickly to be sure.
Legolas smiles and says, “Aragorn here thought we’re the married kind of partners!” a little too loudly.
Gimli knows the steps to this dance as it happens often - people assuming that they’re together.
“Partners in adventure maybe!” he says jovially, but Aragorn’s gaze is piercing, right to the core of him, and he feels himself redden.
“And yourself, are you wed?” he asks, deflecting. Aragorn hesitates a moment too long before saying, “No, my lifestyle isn’t conducive to settling down”, and Gimli knows that there is someone, or once was.
Chapter 4
The three hunters prowl through the empty mining station, their own breathing comfortingly filling their awareness inside their helmets.
“If Merry and Pippin were ever here, they are long gone,” remarks Gimli.
“If...” replies Aragorn, sounding terse and fed-up.
“What’s that?!” cries Legolas, rushing forward.
“What have your keen elf eyes seen?” says Aragorn as he and Gimli hurry to join their friend. Legolas is picking something up from the detritus-strewn floor and turns to show them, holding out his palm.
Aragorn gasps at the tiny, glinting thing. “It’s Pippin’s communicator, I would recognise it anywhere.”
The little green and gold gadget looks as if it has been trampled and Gimli feels worry for the state of its owner but Aragorn looks strangely cheered.
“This is positive news!” he declares. “That brave hobbit has dropped this here for us to find. I can’t believe it’s chance. The hobbits are alive!”
Gimli and Legolas look at each other, but Aragorn’s optimism is infectious. They may have just missed the hobbits, but the hunt is on. As one, they turn back towards Arod and set off at a run.
—
They’re back on board, the three of them, and huddled around the nav con, studying the tracker programme. Aragorn curses fluently and at length. Legolas quirks an eyebrow at him, which Gimli can relate to - so far, Aragorn has been a man of few words and none that aren’t necessary.
The tracker, although unreliable and intermittent, seems to show that Merry and Pippin may have made landfall on the satellite, but are now somewhere between them and Isengard. They’re blinking in and out of existence as they, presumably, hop their way across the system in and out of hyperspace like a stone skimmed across a lake.
“Our big concern about them reaching Isengard before we can intercept them is how big a planet's surface is. If we give them any kind of head start they could have gone to ground long before we ever get there,” Aragorn had said when they were making their plans.
However, looking at the tracker now is somewhat heartening. The broken down old vessel carrying the hobbits can barely hop a sector before being forced to emerge into real space. Arod is gaining ground minute by minute. And every time they drop into range of the tracker, their position can be fixed once more. Legolas is making calculations, fast.
“At everyone’s current rates, they’re going to have an 18 hour headstart on Isengard,” he says, clapping Aragorn’s shoulder.
“Take heart, friend!” he exclaims, “You have an elven tracker with you, 18 hours is nothing!” He grins with a lot of teeth, to acknowledge that this is no idle boast.
“You guys get some sleep,” says Gimli. “I’m going to stay here, keep an eye on things.”
Aragorn reluctantly stumbles off to his quarters. Humans can’t skip sleep like the other races can. Elves can and do sleep, but prefer to stay conscious. Dwarves are just rock hard and like to make sure no one is in any doubt that they can keep up.
The bridge is quiet, the lights lowered to indicate ship’s night. Somehow the low light makes things seem quieter - a time for soft conversation, or a space for drifting into private dreams.
Legolas slides into the seat next to Gimli, one foot up to clasp his knee. He sighs. Gimli looks over, eyes narrowed.
“What was that sigh for, laddie?”
Legolas darts a look at him as if he was caught unawares. He hesitates but then speaks. “I love an adventure as much as the next elf, but it’s good to be just us for a while.”
“I’m glad there’s an ‘us’,” replies Gimli, smiling fondly. Legolas smiles back but Gimli is perturbed to notice a bit of a wobble to Legolas’ mouth.
“What’s up?” he asks as gently as he knows how.
Legolas twists in his chair to look more fully at Gimli, his eyes searching his face.
“Do you ever get lonely, Gimli?” he asks diffidently.
Gimli is a little off-kilter at the non sequiter.
“Didn’t I just say ‘us’?” he asks. “I’m certain I did. How could I be lonely?” He hopes that reassures his friend. Sometimes Legolas gets these funny moods.
This time, Legolas just sighs again, deeply and tiredly. It has been a long day, Gimli thinks.
“You should get some rest,” he says softly, as if he dares not speak loudly. There’s a fragile note in the air. In reply, Legolas rests his forehead on his knee.
Gimli lifts his hand and after a moment’s hesitation, places it on Legolas’ back. He runs his hand up and down Legolas’ back a few times in what he hopes is a comforting way. Legolas feels tense at first, but then the muscles relax under Gimli’s hand and Legolas sighs again.
The sigh doesn’t sound so wretched this time, and Gimli lifts his hand away, pleased.
“I think I will go and read for a while,” Legolas says, and leaves the bridge without looking at him again.
Chapter 5
Thanks to Arod they make landfall on Isengard only 12 or 13 hours behind. They opt to land on the planet’s surface rather than at the spaceport, despite the huge cost in fuel that re-entry through the planet’s atmosphere incurs. They’ve no time for niceties like ports and surface shuttles. And the cluster of dropships at the space port, like blackfly on the buds of a plant, make all three of them uneasy.
“What the fuck?” Gimli had said on initial approach, and turned sharply away for a planetside descent.
Aragorn looks grimmer than usual.
“I guess the rumours are true then. For sure they’re heading off to the Core,” he remarks as they try to guesstimate the size of the force they are looking at.
“Thousands of marines in all probability. But where are the rest?” says Legolas, looking sick.
While Gimli brings Arod down, Legolas and Aragorn get busy on the comms, broadcasting through tight channels the enormity of what they’ve seen. Aragorn messages Elrond first.
Legolas considers messaging his dad, leader of the forest moon they call home, but it won’t help. Thranduil is already paranoid about keeping Greenwood safe and would only go into lockdown. He would never join a fight for the Core, even if it is on his doorstep.
They pile into the lander in Arod’s cargo bay, along with their favourite weapons, and gun out of the bay doors as soon as they’re down.
Legolas smiles, looking fond, as Gimli hoists his twin axes onto his back. He sees Aragorn looking at them.
“Don’t underestimate Gimli’s axes, friend. Many a foe has dismissed them as close combat weapons and then found themselves disconcertingly close to their blades,” he says, smiling wolfishly.
Aragorn holds his hands up, placatingly. “I would not, I assure you both. I have seen dwarfish skill with twin blades, both thrown and in close quarters and have always been glad to have them by the side of Light.”
“None will have had a tenth of the skill of Gimli,” Legolas assures him. “His mastery is without equal.”
Gimli feels his ears redden at the praise.
“Now then, laddie,” he says gruffly. “I thought you didn’t want me to get a swollen head?” But in his soft place inside, his heart gives an unaccountable fillip.
The lander heads towards Saruman’s stronghold Orthanc, making short work of the terrain. It bounces along the broad, dusty road that cuts through the thick forest that surrounds Orthanc.
The three hunters are silent, words run out. The quest hangs on a knife edge. Either they’re in time, or they’re not. They’ve done everything they can to be here in time and now the fate of Merry and Pippin is in the lap of the Valar.
It’s a tense silence, as their lander speeds towards Orthanc, which gradually grows on the horizon - an impossibly tall tower, black like obsidian, piercing the clouds.
As they approach, it becomes clear that something major has happened here.
“I don’t like the look of all that damage,” Gimli remarks.
“I can see smoke around Orthanc,” Legolas says, seeing with his Elf eyes long before the mortals can.
Aragorn says nothing, his face set into stone, his mouth a grim line.
Along each side of the road, huge tracts of the forest have been reduced to ragged stumps, lifeless. There are tracks of heavy machinery, which have churned up vast mounds of earth, now cracked and drying in the sun.
It’s a dismal sight, especially to Legolas, hailing as he does from the realm of the woodland elves to whom every tree is a friend. He starts to softly sing a lament, a heartbreaking sound to Gimli, who twists without taking his eyes off the road to place a hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezes comfortingly.
Now, the great stone gates of Orthanc come into view ahead and with them a view of the whole natural bowl in which Orthanc is central. All three gasp at the sight and Gimli slams on the brakes.
The lander’s engine starts to click as it cools down and they look in shocked silence at the scene. Where there were once beautiful gardens, laid out to flower beds, wilderness, and food production, is now entirely flooded.
Broken trees sticking out of the water hint at the violence of the flood waters. Even at this distance, people clinging to the branches can be clearly seen.
“What the actual, ever-loving fuck?” says Gimli, speaking for them all.
Aragorn hops down from the lander and checks his weapons.
“I fear we may be too late, but we need to find out what happened and report back. If Saruman has been taken by surprise it could make a real difference in the coming war.”
“The space marines we saw are still in play,” replies Legolas.
Gimli jumps down beside him, his axes strapped to his back and ready. “But if Saruman is split over two fronts all the better. Let’s go and find those hobbits”.
The three head for the gate house, which as they approach looks like mostly rubble. Gimli whistles. “Whatever happened here was cataclysmic.”
Aragorn is still silent, like a wolf on the hunt, his every sense apparently forward in search of the hobbits, his focus unwavering.
Suddenly, as they get nearer, they hear high, young voices raised in chatter and laughter. They all look at each other, hope rising, and as one set off at a run.
They thunder through the gate and wheel around to the sound of the voices. There, perched on the top of the rubble, smoking and looking for all the world as if they were at a lunch party or maybe the beach with the way they’re reclining, are two hobbits.
Aragorn lets out a speechless cry that is half rage and half relief, and clambers up to meet them. Pippin and Merry squeal with delight, as Aragorn, unable to contain his feelings, has got a hobbit under each arm and is doing his best to noogie them to death.
Gimli and Legolas look at the scene, at each other, and burst out laughing. In all of this cold, dark space and after their long, tense race against time, to see the hobbits before them enjoying the sunshine and taking a load off, is wonderful.
Aragorn sets the hobbits back on their feet in front of them.
“Explain yourself,” he says, finally smiling. Legolas and Gimli have never seen him look so care-free.
Merry and Pippin sneak a look at each other and start laughing all over again. They both start talking over one another.
“One at a time!” Aragorn mock roars and they both look at him with such affection, smiling so warmly and broadly that Gimli feels his heart fill with joy, to have been part of bringing these friends back together.
“Well, it’s like this,” Merry starts to say before Pippin, who seems extremely excitable and as if he can’t contain himself, shouts over him, “We joined a revolution!”
“I can see that!” replies Aragorn, and the hobbits hoot with delight at their own apparent cleverness.
It’s some time before everyone is calm enough to tell, and hear, the full story, and while the hobbits chatter excitedly, everyone piles into the lander, and heads back to Arod.
While the crew gets everyone settled on board, Merry and Pippin tell their story. It seems that Saruman’s team with Merry and Pippin had landed back on Isengard to find utter disarray. They had been unable to get close enough to Orthanc to deliver their package of two hobbits.
The locals, apparently tired of being ground under the boot of Saruman’s overwhelming ambition for war and power, had been fomenting rebellion. They had blown up the dam at the head of the valley and flooded all of Orthanc and its land.
Saruman’s team had seen how things were going and melted away into the night, leaving Merry and Pippin to join a revolutionary band and by all accounts have huge fun.
Saruman is now besieged in his tower and the locals are in talks.
“I see how it is,” grumbled Gimli, already warming rapidly to the delightful hobbits, “we’ve made a completely wasted journey here. You didn’t need rescuing at all.”
The two hobbits looked at each other. “Actually, it was pretty terrifying up until about oh, two hours ago,” says Merry, looking sombre. Pippin nods, his eyes big.
“There’s a story or two to tell here,” says Aragorn gently, fluffing Pippin’s hair. He doesn’t seem to be able to stop touching the two, as if reassuring himself that they are really there.
“There are people who urgently need to know what's happening on Isengard. And we don’t yet know how Sam and Frodo are faring.”
Chapter 6
They’re barely settled when the comms board lights up. Gimli flicks to his favourite news channel. A reporter appears on the HUD, his expression the mix of sober and excited of a journalist fortuitously in the thick of things.
“...no more information about the incursion at present, except to add that the space marines’ helmets are decal’d with a white hand, rumoured to be the mark of Saruman, Lord of Isengard…”
Behind him they can see the gleaming towers of Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor, administrative centre of the Core.
“I need to let the White Council know what we’ve seen,” says Aragorn urgently, “Please can you open me a channel?”
In short order, the three of them are seated around the table in the little used conference room, waiting for Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf, of the White Council, to join them.
Merry and Pippin are galloping through the corridors and peeking into all the cupboards and bunks as if they’ve never been on board a ship before.
Maybe they haven’t, not really, thinks Gimli. Apart from that chilling time in the hold of an orc ship. The hobbits are young adults by hobbit standards but adolescents in the eyes of dwarves and elves. Who knows what they are to Aragorn? But he treats them like younglings for sure.
While they explore, the remaining three are joined by the White Council. Their faces rendered in holographic 3-D, Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf appear around the table.
Gandalf looks like a kindly old man and Mahal, Gimli’s heard of Galadriel. Who hasn’t - probably the most famous elf in the whole system. Famous for her age, beauty and wisdom, with a reputation that gives secretly running things vibes.
So Gimli is pretty amazed to see that Elrond and Gandalf, although treating her hugely respectfully, appear to be her equals. Giving himself an internal shake, he turns his attention back to the conversation.
“We must give Sam and Frodo every chance,” Aragorn is saying emphatically, a palm flat on the table for emphasis, almost rising out of his chair. Elrond and Galadriel look no less intense.
*“Even the smallest can change the course of history,” replies Galadriel. “Then it’s settled. We mass at Minas Tirith and fight!” Her eyes seem to glow.
”And hope to draw the Enemy’s attention towards us,” adds Elrond with apparent satisfaction. “The rebellion at Isengard is a cause for celebration at least.”
“Did you know Saruman had turned, Lady?” Aragorn asks Galadriel.
“I did not. I thought your report of a growing army in Isengard spoke more to Saruman’s paranoia about his seat of power, than anything else. Of course, Saruman always favoured the powerful. But to ally himself with the Enemy? I did not and would not have suspected that.” Galdriel looks grave.
Gimli gently closes his mouth. Did the most powerful being in the system just admit to a mistake?
Elrond shakes his head sorrowfully. “To think. One of the Guardians….” He lets it hang, perhaps remembering that Gimli and Legolas are there. Gimli is certainly tantalised by the mention of mysterious guardians and resolves to pump Aragorn for information later. He definitely heard the capital G.
Elrond’s hologram stands. “Let us move with haste. I will meet you in Minas Tirith - in victory!” he declaims.
Galadriel smiles with a snarl. “In victory!” she replies and clicks off her vid screen.
“You heard them,” adds Gandalf. “Away with you! And keep those hobbits out of trouble.” He clicks off too and leaves the crew on Arod to plot their own route to Gondor, and the great city of Minas Tirith.
Chapter 7
They arrive to mayhem, slipping their way past warships bombarding the surface. They’ll have to leave defence to the heavy hitters - Arod has no armaments. They will be of most use on the ground, defending the citadel.
Gimli with his usual enthusiasm for a fight lands Arod in a square right in the heart of the city. They’ve geared up. Legolas has his carbon fibre bow with various warhead tipped arrows and two wicked long knives. “For any hand to hand,” he says with relish.
Gimli observes Legolas’ beautiful armour, the steel helmet and the chest plate inlaid with mithril. It should be completely impractical but elves have worn it forever and they seem to have pretty good survival rates, so….
Gimli has his two throwing axes, their laser blades glowing dangerously. Many a foe has felt confident with their projectile weapon face to face with Gimli and lost the arm holding said weapon before they’ve even thought of firing. Gimli is formidable - all power to weight ratio, an elite fighter from a race who’ve made fighting an art form and a way of life.
He wears the traditional leather armour of his people and an iron helmet. It might not withstand modern plasma weaponry but as Gimli likes to say, they’ve got to catch him in their line of sight and it better be before he gets to them first.
Aragorn notes their preparations with a grin. As is customary among his adopted people, Elrond’s elves, his weapon of choice is a bloody great big sword.
Sure, its blade is a nano thick laser harder and more merciless than a diamond, but it's still made of several kilos of elvish steel and let's just say with Andúril by his side, Aragorn is quietly confident that he will prevail.
They step off the gangway and into hell. The buildings reverberate with the detonation of heavy weapons. The air is thick with the oily smoke of incendiary armaments, hanging like a fog - but it’s clear at ground level, revealing many bodies.
“We make our way to the Senate building!” Aragorn shouts over the din, leading the way. It’s not a straight forward journey - the streets are thick with space marines with white hands on their helmets, fighting hand to hand with the capitol police force, the Gondorian army, and infantry units of off-planet elves.
“Glory hunters from Imladris must have got here first. They’d better leave some for us,” Gimli grumbles, weighing an axe in each hand.
It’s the last time Legolas hears him. A great tidal wave of ground forces sweeps up the street they’re on in the direction of the Senate, and it’s as much as Legolas can do to stay standing, and keep fighting, loosing arrow after arrow, every one of them making their mark.
Hours later, it seems, Legolas finds Aragorn dispatching one last adversary by a heap of rubble that may once have been a civic building. He turns to him, weary but with the flame of victory burning bright in his eyes.
“How do you fare, Legolas?” he asks, once they’ve exchanged updates about the battle. It seems that Saruman’s forces were outnumbered in the end, and outclassed. There’s going to be a lot of mopipng up to do but for now, the side of Light has carried the day.
“I’m fine,” Legolas replies, waving off Aragorn’s solicitous looks. He’s sooty and bloody, but none of it is significant. “Have you seen Gimli? I haven’t seen him for hours.”
At this, Aragorn pauses. His hand stills from sheathing his sword. “Legolas. I have to tell you I last saw him charging a battalion of space marines. He was bloodied about the head, but roaring his battle cry, as indomitable as ever.”
Legolas feels his heart at once thud in his throat, his battle weariness instantly falling away and replaced with one last burst of adrenaline. He goes to grab Aragorn by the shirt, determined to shake Gimli’s location out of him, but Aragorn gets there first. He places heavy hands on Legolas’ shoulders.
“Calm, calm, mellon nin,” he says to him. Friend in his own tongue does calm him somewhat and together they search for Gimli among those still standing, and then in desperation, among those who have given their life in battle of which there are legion.
By the time Legolas’ thoughts have turned to a very dark place, they meet up with Elrond and his unit. He and Aragorn clasp arms.
“I am glad to see you again this day,” murmurs Elrond, not letting go.
“And I you, as ever,” replies his foster son. Aragorn is aware of Legolas by his side, as near to hopping as he has ever seen him and clearly desperate to interrupt.
“My lord, have you seen Gimli the dwarf? We are missing him.” He turns and slings an arm around Legolas’ shoulders, in comfort and to draw him into the conversation.
Elrond smiles. “I am relieved to be the bearer of glad tidings on this heavy day. He is alive, although injured. He has been taken to the hospital.”
Legolas has heard that humans sometimes faint but has never experienced it. Now, as his blood rushes in his ears, he wonders nonsensically if this is what it feels like, or whether he might instead vomit, another human experience he has yet to try.
He hears Aragorn speaking about going to the hospital, and feels him taking his arm. His feet stumble into motion as he follows. His ears ring.
***
Legolas sits by Gimli’s bedside. He’s sat here forever, it feels like, since that awful time on the battlefield when he wasn’t sure if Gimli was alive or dead.
There must have been moments between that one and this vigil by a hospital bed, he reasons, but he can’t for the life of him recall them in any way.
One moment someone (Aragorn? A dim recollection of his stern face, softened with empathy and concern) telling him they had briefly seen Gimli, his face covered in blood from a head wound. The next, after a dizzying, sickening, stomach churning moment, he finds himself sitting here in watch over his dearest person.
He’s kept this to himself for so long. Too long, it feels like, when Gimli could have died. Could have been taken from him without ever having had a chance to tell him how he feels.
Oh, he had his reasons - didn’t want to ruin the best friendship he’s ever had, in 900 years of living, for one, but now it all seems a bit stupid.
Fuck! If he’d lost Gimli and never said, “I love you”? His heart clenches in terror of ever being in that position, and he gazes at Gimli and wills him, wills him with any grace he possesses, to wake up.
Gimli’s eyes are closed and his head wrapped in bandages. His enormous forearms are lying on top of the covers, one hand very close to Legolas. His face is pale between the bandages and his beard, which is plaited as usual but in dire need of grooming. Legolas leans forward and wishes and wishes he would wake up.
Aside from his worry for Gimli, being here on Gondor, in this hospital, is starting to send him slightly crazy. He expects to breathe canned air on Arod. But the air here is unexpectedly stale, as if it is sluggishly recycled or something.
Looking out of the window, he can see nothing but the city. If there was once nature here, it has long since been built over. Sure its white terraces and towers look grand and pristine - where they haven’t been damaged by the recent battles - but it doesn’t feel like anything he could call home.
He feels grounded, and yearns to be back on Arod - back in the open skies and charting a new course for some distant horizon, with Gimli by his side.
He looks at Gimli again, overwhelmed by the need to communicate with him. To tell him how things have changed for him. Very, very gently and greatly daring, he slides his hand over Gimli’s, lying so close by on the bed. He relaxes at the warm vitality he feels there, and looks at the tufts of red hair on the rugged hand that makes his own look so smooth and pale by comparison.
He’s so busy cataloguing the contrast in their hands that he doesn’t see Gimli’s eyes open. Gimli clears his throat, making the unflappable elf jump in his chair, partly in shock, mostly embarrassment at being caught out, holding Gimli’s hand.
He goes to pull his hand away, but Gimli turns his own over and clasps it.
“You’re holding my hand,” Legolas says, intelligently.
“You started it,” replies Gimli, gruff but smiling. “Did you think I was going to die or something?”
“Yes I thought you were going to die, or something.”
They look at each other, Gimli bemused, Legolas still a little shook.
“I’m completely cool with the handholding by the way,” says Gimli softly.
Legolas takes a deep breath. “Aragorn thought we were together,” he whispers back. “I want it to be true.”
Gimli’s eyes drift shut again, but he looks peaceful and content, and Legolas gazes his fill, and holds his hand tightly, and smiles, and smiles.
Chapter 8
They’re back on Arod at last. Dwarves make terrible patients, especially on bed rest. Dwarves are energetic, boisterous, quick and vigorous, until the sleep of the very old takes them, when it is said they turn back to the stone their Maker crafted them from.
“But until then, we’re lava! Can’t be stopped, too hot to handle!” Gimli is telling Legolas who won’t stop fussing, as if Gimli really is sick.
“Except between the ears, that’s pure rock,” replies Legolas, part fond, part exasperated. “You really are sick, you lump! Remember the coma?”
“Not really, I was out cold. Okay, okay don’t hit me! I’m injured, remember?”
Legolas ceases swatting about his (injured!) head and sits himself down at the table in the galley where Merry, Pippin and Aragorn are waiting to start their meal. But he’s got the tiny smile that he’s had ever since they got back on board, Gimli notices.
“They’re always like this, you’ll get used to them,” Aragorn earnestly tells the hobbits, and then bursts out laughing at their bemused expressions.
“Well, there’s a sight I never thought I’d see, Aragorn laughing. Times are a-changing,” says Gimli.
“Yes it’s good to see you laugh, Strider,” says Merry. Once again, Gimli bites his tongue on the subject of multiple names, but this makes three. Three! He resolves to enquire more about this new name at some point, but right now it’s time to eat.
“I could eat a dragon!” he exclaims, grabbing a meal bar and a spoonful from each of the trays of real food they brought on board from Gondor. Once the city was secured, it seemed sensible to do a little restocking.
“The hot food’s nice and all but I’m so famished I could happily eat Lembas forever,” he adds, smiling sideways at Legolas and hoping that he understands him.
“I could happily always eat Lembas,” Legolas replies, smiling back at him.
Pippin looks from one to the other, confused. “Great, glad we cleared that up, seemed important, not sure why?”
“Just leave them to it, Pippin, I’ve learned it's the best way,” says Aragorn, but he’s twinkling. And it feels to Gimli like the good mood is infectious because everyone spends the evening laughing and telling stories.
It's a wonderful way to celebrate their victory - and what he hopes is something new between him and Legolas. He can’t wait to be alone with him again but for now contents himself with letting their little fingers brush casually now and again on the table reaching for something, or just because. Each time, his stomach does a little flip.
Finally, finally they are alone. The ship is quiet from aft to stern, the hobbits and Aragorn stowed in their quarters, and Gimli and Legolas by unspoken agreement, are retired to Gimli’s cabin.
He wishes he had tidied his things away before they went down to the defence of Minas Tirith. He feels a bit funny, maybe light-headed, and isn't sure if it's his head wound or the presence of the elf in front of him, standing in his bedroom, by his bed.
He unconsciously touches the dressing on his head, wondering what in Mahal’s name he’s doing here - feeling a bit dizzy, quite foolish, shy maybe? Things are starting to spiral, when Legolas catches his hand at his temple and holds it, his other hand gently inspecting the dressing.
All at once, Gimli’s internal monologue quiets. Gimli understands - this is Legolas. As long as they are together, everything is always alright. They smile at each other, the hum of Arod in the background making the cabin seem even more enclosed and private.
Legolas lightly trails his fingers from the dressing to Gimli’s cheek.
“Is this okay?” he whispers.
Gimli starts to reply but his voice squeaks. He coughs and tries again.
“It’s more than ok,” he manages in a semblance of his normal gruff voice. Mahal! His composure seems to be abandoning him.
“Gimli, I…” Legolas’ voice wobbles and he has another go. “ This can’t be a thing we try out, you know? This is it for me. So tell me now, either way.”
Gimli is aghast. He was relying on Legolas being, as always, the level one. If he’s wobbling, what chance has Gimli got? Then he remembers the stone thing, the rock thing, and pulls himself together. It’s not about him, it’s about Legolas, making sure that Legolas is ok.
He runs the back of his fingers down Legolas’ smooth, beautiful cheek, and meets his eyes. He smiles, feeling his face fill with joy and his being burst with love, and says, “Legolas, my dearest treasure, it’s always been you. It’s a truth I know in my bones, but my head hadn’t cottoned onto. I don’t know why it took so long to join the dots. Please forgive me for being so slow.”
Legolas bursts out half with a laugh, half with a sob. “I’ve loved you since the beginning but never thought you saw me as anything but a friend. What changed?”
Gimli gives him a sheepish look. “I think it was when I opened my eyes in Minas Tirith and there you were, my fierce angel, holding vigil and holding my hand. I’m sorry!” he adds as Legolas is laughing and crying at him. “In my defence, dwarves are culturally very slow at courting. VERY slow!”
Legolas clearly decides to forgive him and smiling, slides his hands up Gimli’s arms until he can cup his face.
“You’re lucky I love you,” he says softly, stroking his whiskers and running his thumb along one cheekbone, and into his hair, which makes Gimli shiver.
“I love you too. And I’m going to show you every day,” Gimli replies as gently as a dwarf knows how.
***
Next morning, they’re drifting around Arod like binary stars, like a pair of fluffy clouds tethered together by a breeze, like..like… Gimli’s similes desert him at that point, but the point is, he can’t help but be in Legolas’s orbit, helplessly smiling.
Their eyes are meeting for the thousandth time, when Aragorn comes in, the levity of the previous evening wiped away. They both turn to look at him, Legolas raising one eyebrow.
It seems Aragorn is back to a few words, tersely spoken. “Chatter on the comms is that it’s kicking off on Mordor. The local warlord, Sauron, has been busy building an army. Minas Tirith was just a skirmish. We need to get to Mordor and keep that army busy. We’ve got to buy Frodo and Sam time. Are you game?
This time when their eyes meet, their gaze is fierce. As one they turn back to Aragon.
“You have my axes,” Gimli growls.
“And my bow.” adds Legolas. “And we would love to help keep Dark troops away from Sam and Frodo”.
“Well met, friends,” Aragorn says, clasping their forearms in turn, and the three Hunters grin like sharks.
Gimli turns to put his hands lovingly on Arod’s flight controls as Legolas swings himself into the navigator’s chair and plots the course to Mordor.
The hunt is on.
The end.