#while legolas just shoots-off whatever comes to mind the moment he puts fingers to his string ZIP BANG

[tathrin]

Ahhh thank you @realtacuardach​! And I agree. And I think it bothers them much more to see their friend not being appreciated enough/properly than it does themselves (in part because they’re used to that, they don’t notice). I also think they’re probably much more distressed at seeing their friend’s people not appreciate them properly than they are at seeing their people do it to them.

They expected their people to have a hard time seeing how awesome the other was, because of all the baggage between elves and dwarves. They aren’t happy about it, and they want to fix it, absolutely, but at least they were braced for it. Realizing that their friend’s own people don’t see how awesome they are...well, that’s just upsetting. How can that be!?

“How can Gimli’s people take him for granted so? Do the dwarves not realize what a gem they have among them???”

“How frustrating that Legolas’s people persist in viewing him like some feckless child! How can a people so keen-sighted be so blind???”

etc etc.

And they try to explain their distress to the other one, and are just met with “oh pfffft you’re blowing things out of proportion, don’t be silly, I’m fine they’re fine this is fine! Now, the way they treat you on the other hand...”

Back at you with the asks! You write Gimli and Legolas as distinctively representative of their own peoples, and clearly you have some pretty strong headcanons about dwarves and elves, as kindreds. What counts as "smart" and "capable" for each, and how much would your Gimli and Legolas be considered smart and capable by their respective cultures? What might each of their peoples think of Gimli's and Legolas' particular strengths? What might their relative weaknesses be, in their own contexts? How much do you consciously or unconsciously write them to balance each other's weaknesses, within or across cultures?

Ohhhhh boy wow this is an extremely delightful and, frankly, flattering question and I feel like you are maybe giving me more credit for Thinking Things Through than I have actually earned or deserve, but I am going to try to answer it in full the way such a fantastic query deserves as best I can anyway!

(the not-so-secret secret is that I write a lot more by instinct/seat-of-my-pants than I probably should shhhhhh.)

Legolas and the Wood-elves: he's everybody's little brother. He's one of (if not the) youngest elves in Mirkwood, one of the very last to be born before the Shadow (which was already creeping over the forest when he was born, although only a little bit; not enough that they had to really acknowledge it yet, even if they had sort of noticed its first unwelcome tendrils) grew so dark that they stopped risking birthing new children into their woods.

So Mirkwood (Greenwood still, then; Greenwood for a long, long time before they finally resigned themselves to the truth of the name everyone else had given them a long time ago) has always, in my head, been a very we'll be happy to spite you on purpose sort of place. Their forest is awash in darkness, so they will be joyful as a weapon against the dark. They're happy on purpose. Their merriment is a weapon. And they raised their children to be happy, dammit. Not naive, not vulnerable; they couldn't afford that. They raised them to know the dangers of their forest, and to know how to protect themselves against it, yes; but also to do so without ever giving up on joy and laughter. Which was a weapon, yes, but it was also very important to them that their children would still grow-up happy. That no matter how dark Mirkwood got, the children would never stop laughing.

Which was great, and I think informs Legolas's attitude and consistent cheerfulness during the Quest very much (of course it does, since it's being worked backwards from the canonical fact of said attitude, as an explanation for it lol)...but also, as a sort of unintended side-effect, the elves of Mirkwood didn't really want to see their youngest generation grow up, not entirely. Elves clearly have to be able to adapt to seeing someone they knew as a baby as a whole-ass adult, because they live forever (unless you kill them) so there's no just aging-out and letting the new generation eventually take over; the new generation lives alongside all the old ones too. So they'd have to have become adept at this shift in perspective, culturally.

However. The last generation of children born in Greenwood before it became Mirkwood is a special case, because their youth was such a source of joy to everyone else that they just sort of...never entirely stopped thinking of them as kids. (The fact that there hasn't yet been a generation of kids to follow them contributes to this too, of course; they're seen as The Youngsters because they still are the youngest.)

So on one hand, yes everyone has learned to respect the skills and fighting prowess of "the youngsters" because this is Mirkwood, and you aren't going to have many elves who don't go out and fight because practically everything in the forest wants to kill you a little bit. And Mirkwood values things like swift reflexes and sharp eyes and good aim, because that's how you stay alive; they value being able to judge the difference between a shadow and A Shadow at a glance because if you guess wrong "dying" is sort of the best-case result. They value loyalty and determination and the ability to be joyful even in the face of defeat and despair. And Legolas has all of those traits and skills, for sure.

In fact I think Legolas is one of their best archers (in a scene I can't remember whether I've published yet or not, his sister muses on how it might be because his spirits are so bright that his vision is yet unclouded by the Shadow that hangs heavy on the rest of them) and he's definitely trusted to, like, Walk Into The Murderforest And Come Back Alive, sure. They trust him in a fight! He's a competent adult and a skilled archer! But he's also still a kid to their eyes, in a lot of ways, even though he isn't and they know he isn't...but he still feels like one.

So it's not like they're condescending or cruel or anything, but they do I think look at him and instinctively think "oh no baby, must take care of" on some level. So: is he seen as smart and capable? Yes, for sure. But also: "omg Elrond did you really send A CHILD to MORDOR?" Elrond: he's six-hundred years old wtf. Mirkwood: "yes, a six-hundred-year-old BABY!" Elrond: .....wtf tho. So, again, it's not like his opinions or suggestions would be dismissed or ignored...but there's always going to be a bit of a protective urge there (because the elves of Mirkwood worked so hard to protect their last generation of children, and it's a hard habit to break even though they aren't children anymore) and a kind of eternal-head-pat vibe.

Also he is sheltered. (Or was, before the Quest. I expect Elrond was smart enough to try and avoid Thranduil as much as possible before he got on that boat to Aman.) I go back and forth on whether or not Rílaerloth was involved in the Battle of Five Armies, but Legolas was absolutely not brought along when Thranduil marched a bunch of their forces off to potential-war-with-the-dwarves. It's one thing to let your kids go out and shoot spiders and possibly risk a glancing encounter with a Nazgûl ("and what do we do if we see one of the Lords of Dol Guldur? That's right we run the fuck away, thank you children") and another thing altogether to bring them purposefully to something that might become a war.

Especially for the elves of Mirkwood, who lost so much in the War of the Last Alliance. None of the folks who lived through that would be keen to bring any of the "youngsters" into a full-fledged war I don't think, even a comparatively little one that they were all expecting would end up being nothing more than some Posturing With Weapons in the end. (If Thranduil had known that it was going to be an actual war he wouldn't have brought Rílaerloth, either, even if he'd have had to have Eregmegil sit on her to stop her.)

*You'll note that I haven't mentioned anything about lore or wisdom or any of the more traditional Elvish Talents here, just fighting and survival; this is tied to the whole more dangerous, less wise aspect of Mirkwood. They certainly do value wisdom and lore still, and it's not like Legolas is ignorant or an idiot; but there's a reason he forgets the words to old songs halfway through, and Aragorn doesn't. In Mirkwood they're more focused on "this is how you kill a spider before it can eat you" and "how to recognize a web that's fresh enough to be sticky versus one that's old enough to be safe to touch" and "when you feel a creeping darkness like this brushing against your soul, run like fuck" than on the things you learn in Rivendell.

In the evenings they don't gather in their peaceful Hall of Fire and exchange poetry compositions, they get drunk and dance around the fire and sing as loud as they can to scare the shadows away. They're more practical in the sort of lore they value because they have to be. They don't have a magic Ring to protect their borders; in fact, they literally have Ringwraiths and Dark Lords squatting in their own damn forest far too much of the time. Also, honestly, a lot of that lore is the history of other people anyway.

The elves of Mirkwood stayed in their forest because they wanted to; the ones who fled from Doriath and joined them there came precisely because they wanted a "simpler and more natural" elvish way of life. They weren't really involved in a lot of the Elvish Drama going on outside their woods (and when the stakes got high enough that they did get involved, three-quarters of their army died so. yeah. that's not really going to inspire them to go out and socialize more, is it?) most of the time. So if maybe Legolas can't remember the difference between Andreth and Adanel...does it matter, in Mirkwood?

(No, no it doesn't.)

Gimli and the Dwarves: I have a lot fewer Concrete Headcanons and Societal World Building done for the Lonely Mountain than I do for Mirkwood, so this is going to be very much a briefer response, I'm afraid. But I think Gimli was likely equal parts respected and overlooked by his people, because he is a very talented and erudite dwarf of a very fine line of dwarves, so on one hand everybody definitely would respect him and his capabilities...but on the other, I think they do take him for granted a little bit, because of course he would be good at x and y and also z, because he is Gimli son of Glóin of the House of Durin! And he's certainly talented—but also hasn't really done anything of great significance before the Quest, due mainly to the fact that there simply wasn't anything significant to do. So: respected, yes. But not always acknowledged, in a way.

Not given the "he's a kid!" treatment like Legolas is, but just having his competence and skill taken for granted much more often than it gets remarked upon. People expect Gimli son of Glóin of the House of Durin to be awesome (and he is!). Mind you, over-achiever that he is, he goes out and gets himself sent on this massively important Quest and then proves to be so much more awesome than anyone was prepared for...but it's not until he gets back, and the full accounting of his deeds and accolades and honors is recounted, that anyone in the Lonely Mountain really stops to go oh huh.

And I think even then, they probably still continue to take his prowess for granted a little bit, simply because they're so used to him being that way—and so used to expecting him to excel at whatever it is he's asked to do. I think the full breadth of his brilliance probably won't be properly realized and appreciated until some years later, when he's Lord of Aglarond and there's a bit more distance there, and more younger dwarves who grew-up on the stories of Gimli more than just "yeah that's Glóin's kid, he's good hand at [insert-skill-here]" running around to be in proper awe of Gimli of the Nine Walkers, Gimli Lockbearer, Gimli Elf-Friend, Gimli Lord of the Glittering Caves, Gimli Silvertongue, Gimli Friend of Kings...etc etc etc.

I think the older dwarves might actually end up a little blindsided by it, in a way, when it does sort of click in their heads.

Weaknesses & Balance: Legolas has a tendency to run-off half-cocked without thinking things through, trusting his instinct and skill to get him out of whatever he might end up running into (part of this is because of the aforementioned sheltering: yes Mirkwood is a dangerous place, but he's never really been anywhere but Mirkwood before, and the dangers of Mirkwood are dangers that he knows how to deal with so he doesn't need to worry that he's going to end up in over-his-head there). He's also definitely the short-tempered one of the pair (hello, Éomer!) although he's also the more easy-going in a lot of ways simply because there aren't a lot of things that do make his temper spike.

Gimli by contrast is more of a craftsman in his approach to the world, although not so much as to hesitate when faced with a need to act (for instance: "dwarves can't shape stone with our fingernails, but I'll come figure it out anyway!") but that's countered somewhat by his extremely overpowering sense of loyalty: if his idiot friends run into a bad situation, you can bet that Gimli will be right on their heels even if he ought to know better. He's more self-effacing, too, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing, although in his case it's mostly the former. Conversely, he's very prideful, too, although he's such a gentleman about it that you don't really notice ("I would take offense at x, if you weren't too ignorant to know better!" etc) because it's not a rude sort of arrogance; just a supreme, contended confidence both in himself and in his people.

I think Gimli wears his heart on his sleeve a lot more, although Legolas is the one who's more directly open about his own thoughts and feelings whereas Gimli is more inclined to keep things to himself. (Gimli thinks; Legolas blurts.)

Gimli certainly does share his feelings ("what about your companions! what about Legolas and me!"), sometimes trying to cover them with gruffness (see: "I was upset to think you might be dead when I found you underneath that troll, only because I'd gone to so much effort to keep you alive, you see! I definitely wasn't running around the battlefield frantically searching for you out of pure friendship and love, nope!" and "say not so! I'd be bummed if all the elves left because elves are kind of cool you know?") and sometimes dropping some full-on poetry at us (see: "I have looked the last upon that which is fairest!" as well as literally every single word about Aglarond lol) but it tends to pop out in half-involuntary bursts where he just gets so overwhelmed by how much he cares that he can't help himself.

Whereas Legolas is just like "oh yeah let me tell you about the Sea-Longing that's eating my soul from the inside out, nbd" or "sorry, can't translate these songs for you because I Am Sad." He may not walk around actively volunteering his thoughts or opinions unprompted often, but he doesn't seem to make any efforts to maintain a pretense or keep whatever he's feeling private either, when the topic comes up. He'll just walk around Singing What He Feels for the whole world to hear, why not?

And on the aforementioned topics of poetic phrasing and Not Having A Filter, Legolas is definitely The Awkward One when it comes to conversation and diplomacy. Gimli Silvertongue knows how to craft a clever phrase, thank you very much! He is eloquent and gracious and even-tempered and Legolas...well, we're all probably lucky if he's remembered to speak in Westron rather than his own weird forest dialect of Sindarin, tbh. When one of them needs to do the talking for them both, it's almost always going to be Gimli. Legolas is the guy you get when you need to shoot-down a flying Nazgûl; Gimli is the one you call when there's a delicate diplomatic situation to be discussed.

Legolas is also definitely the more easily distracted, and I think Gimli teases him about that a lot—although that's also a bit of a cover, because Gimli knows that Legolas's senses are so much sharper than his. Said distractability is in part a result of the natural flightiness of Wood-elves and in part the result of having those keen senses: he notices more things, so of course he's more likely to be distracted by them. Having said sharp senses also means Legolas can more safely afford to allow himself to be distracted, because he doesn't have to actually pay attention to notice an approaching danger the way Gimli does. (And yes, Gimli gets grumpy about that sometimes, but this is part of that "cover feelings through gruffness" thing: he doesn't want to admit that he worries that Legolas will get himself into trouble by not paying enough attention, and he definitely doesn't want to admit that dwarven senses can't keep up.)

In fact, I think post-Quest one of Gimli's biggest weaknesses is his concern that a mortal dwarf can't keep up with an elf. I think he worries about it a lot more than is merited by reality, actually, and I think that's informed in large part by his knowledge of his own mortality and how much it will eventually hurt Legolas to lose him. He cannot help but dwell on all the things a dwarf can't do that an elf can, because he's so preoccupied by the one big one: an elf can stay, while a dwarf eventually has* to leave...has to die. So while it doesn't exactly shake his sense of confidence in himself, it has him paying a lot more attention to what he can't do than what he can. He doesn't forget his strength or skills; he just ends up weighing them less than they deserve when balanced against what elves can do instead.

*he doesn't, as it turns out! but he doesn't know that yet.

(As much as he comes to dread Gimli's death, none of the rest of that has ever occurred to Legolas. If anyone asked Legolas if he ever got "tired" of being "held-back" by the "limitations of a dwarf" you'd get a very confused look in return and an apologetic explanation about how Different Types Of People Have Different Strengths, Silly...or, depending on how rudely you phrased the question, a very quick and probably painful lesson on what more dangerous and less wise can mean. Legolas doesn't really understand mortal limits—see: "are you sure you don't want to just keep running all night? why not?" and of course the infamous "gee why don't y'all just walk ON the snow? what, like it's hard?" incident—but when somebody says "No Legolas, that's Not Physically Possible" he rolls with it, even being able to later point-out to marchwardens who don't know Mortal Limits as well as he (now) does that his friends need more than a single rope to run on, pls!)

Legolas is right, though, because their different strengths really do balance one another well: Gimli is the solid, thoughtful, reliable rock who makes for both an unwavering foundation on which to build and an eloquent shield upon which the waves of the world will break and leave them both unscathed behind his kind and dauntless walls. Legolas is the swift, sharp knifeblade that darts out mercilessly from the shadows to dispatch a threat and then turns around and returns just as fleetly with armfuls of unquenched joy and laughter to brighten even the blackest, deepest night without any caution or hesitation. Legolas reminds Gimli of how much he delights in curiosity and exploration; Gimli reminds Legolas of the joy and comfort of coming home after wandering afar.

Of course they had to go to Aman together. Gimli could never have resisted following Legolas somewhere so interesting, and Legolas would never have managed such a portentous journey without Gimli there to steady him along the path.

[theemightypen]

“okay i get that there are no seats left in this cafe but like i am trying to read here no you cannot have this chair my feet are using it thank you very much please get out of my face now” au

for @nyxfox

Lothiriel can only blink in horror at the sight that greets her.

The usually quiet cafe is jam packed. Every table is full. Every chair occupied.

And there’s not a familiar face in sight.

Though, to be fair, she’s fairly short, which makes craning over the press of bodies nigh impossible. She thinks she might spot Sam’s riotously curling hair somewhere near the back, but she also thinks she sees Rosie Cotton’s equally curly head beside him, and she wouldn’t interrupt that for all the world.

Finally, after dodging a few elbows and nearly ending up sitting on a table surrounded by what appears to be an entire rugby team, she spots an empty seat.

And a familiar face.

Glad that the stuffiness of the cafe has already put some color in her cheeks, Lothiriel manages to wind her way over to where Eomer is sitting. Normally, she can barely string two coherent sentences in front of Eowyn’s obscenely attractive brother, but desperation to sit and start studying for her final makes her usual tongue-tiedness seem ridiculous.

(Alright, it’s ridiculous all the time. If only he weren’t so good-looking. Or nice, underneath his gruff exterior. And so good to Eowyn, only mildly terrorizing to Faramir, and able to manage all three of her brothers. There’s good reason why she’s had a crush on him for the better part of two years.)

“Eomer,” she says, willing herself not to flush when his eyes flick up to meet hers. “Can I sit?”

Lothiriel nods at the chair where he currently has his feet propped up; it’s rather inconsiderate, come to think of it, when the shop is so crowded, but she knows how much he values his privacy.

He stares at her for a moment, unmoving. “There’s nowhere else?”

Crush or not, there’s no reason for him to be so rude! “Does it look like there’s anywhere else?” She asks, a little more snark than she usually displays around him seeping into her tone.

Eomer blinks at her, as if he’s never seen her before. “I’m comfortable.”

“Oh, for Valar’s sake,” she groans, because she needs to do well on this final and she’s tired of sitting in her flat while Eowyn and Faramir coo at each other, “just shift your feet over a bit.”

He does, albeit grudgingly, giving her a tiny amount of space to squeeze herself into. The upside? His feet have made the chair warm. The downside? He’s obscenely tall on top of being criminally good-looking, which means her feet are nowhere close to reaching the chair he’s currently watching her warily out of.

“I’m not going to bother you,” she finally grumbles, after she’s successfully extracted her book from her bag and gotten settled. “I just need to study and I couldn’t stay in the flat anymore.”

(Honestly, she’s a bit hurt by his reaction. They’ve known each other for years, and while she’d be hard-pressed to call them friends, she certainly doesn’t think she’s ever done something to make him dislike her.)

He nods, turning his attention back to his own book.

And Lothiriel buries her nose in her textbook, willing herself to understand the material she feels as if she could recite from memory. She doesn’t mean to slump lower in the chair, doesn’t mean to be lulled into a daze by the low murmur of the other cafe-goers’ conversations, or the warmth of the nearby fire--she’s just so tired, and surely no one would mind if she shut her eyes for just a few minutes..

Eomer looks up to find Lothiriel asleep in the chair across from him, head slumped over onto its arm and her book dangling precariously from her fingers.

He feels an absurd rush of fondness before irritation follows swiftly after. Lothiriel’s been a puzzle since the moment he’s met her. Eowyn had had nothing but good things to say about Faramir’s youngest cousin: how sweet she was, how funny, how genuine. But the girl he’s seen the past few years has been anything but, when it comes to him. Bema, it’s as if she’s scared of him. Always the first to ease out of a conversation he joins, rarely speaking directly to him if she does get roped into staying...none of it makes sense.

He’s seen her with her brothers, with Eowyn, with Faramir. Helle, even Eothain knows a more outgoing Lothiriel than he does.

To say he’d been surprised that she’d spoken to him, let alone all but demanded the chair, would be an understatement. There’d been nothing of her usual silence, her wariness when she’d dropped herself into the chair as if this were a normal event.

It doesn’t follow.

“Well, well,” comes a familiar voice, “isn’t this cozy.”

Eomer turns his head to glare at his best friend.

Eothain grins back at him.

“She didn’t give me much choice,” Eomer grumbles. He considers getting up, to move away to stave off whatever inane--and completely inappropriate comments--Eothain is bound to make, but there’s no way to do so without jostling Lothiriel out of her sleep. Judging by the dark circles under her eyes, she needs it.

Eothain snorts. “I’d imagine not. Lothiriel must have been truly desperate to sit by your feet, Eomer.”

He can’t help but bristle at at that; even Eothian seems to know the reason she’s so reserved around him. “She could have gone anywhere else.”

The other man looks bemused at his suddenly harsh tone. “I only meant it must have taken her quite a bit of courage--”

“Courage?” Eomer spits. “Because I’m such a frightening, crass, uncivilized Northman?”

Eothain’s expression morphs from confusion to exasperation. “Bema’s balls, Eomer. Is that why you think she’s so shy around you?”

It is, of course it is, though deep down he knows enough about Lothiriel to know she’d never think such a thing. Eowyn is her best friend and flatmate, and she and Eothain are as thick as thieves. She has as much problem with them being from Rohan as she does with Legolas’ archery competitions, or Gimli being a jeweler, which is to say, none at all.

“You really can be thick headed sometimes,” Eothain is saying, running a hand through his unruly red hair. “She can scarcely get two words out around you because she fancies you, you great tit.”

Eomer can feel his mouth fall open into a gawk. Lothiriel, fancy him? In his experience, that would require actually getting to know and spend time with the person one was interested in, rather than running for the hills any time they so much as looked at you. “Right,” he says.

Eothain rolls his eyes. “I am right, thank you very much. She’s liked you for years, to listen to Wilfled tell it, but has herself so convinced of your general indifference that she wouldn’t dare say a word about it. Not to Eowyn, and certainly not to you.”

“You’ve lost it,” he mutters, but the more he thinks about it...oh, Bema, it does make sense. It has been shyness, not dislike, that had made her so reluctant to speak, and all of those blushes hadn’t been born from aggravation, but embarrassment…

“You like her, too,” Eothain informs him, as if Eomer needs anything else to digest at the moment. “Else it wouldn’t have bothered you so much to think she was afraid of you, or some shit--”

Lothiriel’s book slips from her lip fingers at the most inopportune moment, falling to the floor with a loud smack. She jumps, head shooting up and eyes opening in an almost comically quick motion.

Her eyes dart to his, then to his feet--where one of her arms has been wrapped around for the better part of twenty minutes--then to Eothain, who Eomer can just make out offering her a jaunty wave. The blush that floods her face is a familiar sight, by now, but there’d be no reason for it to be out of irritation, or disquiet. It’s sheer, unadulterated embarrassment that has her stuttering out an apology and starting to shove her book back into her bag.

“Lothiriel,” he says, willing his voice to be as gentle as possible. “It’s fine. I should be the one apologizing.”

Her eyes--wide and dark and impossibly pretty--flick back up to his. “For what?”

“For not giving you the chair in the first place,” he says. “And for acting like an utter arse.”

Eomer ignores Eothain’s gleeful snort.

“I--it’s alright,” she says, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t really give you much choice on whether you wanted to share the chair or not--”

“Oh, don’t let him out of this one, Lothiriel,” Eothain interrupts. “Man owes you a coffee, at least, for not moving his giant feet out of your way.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of her lips. It’s such an utterly endearing expression that he’s too distracted by to say anything, until he flinches at the the sudden dig of Eothain’s elbow into his side, accompanied by a loudly hissed, “Dinner, ask her to dinner, you great idiot.”

Lothiriel blushes anew, shooting a glare in Eothain’s direction. “Coffee is just fine.”

Eothain grins, unapologetic. “I’d say both. Milk it for all it’s worth.”

“Eothain,” they both groan at him, and he holds his hands up in a placating gesture. He ambles off not long after, leaving them smiling somewhat helplessly at each other.

“So,” he finally says, “start with the coffee?”

She nods, still blushing, but there’s no mistaking the pleased surprise on her face. Bema, he’s been such an idiot.

(Eothain, unsurprisingly, gives an absolutely mortifying toast at their wedding.

“You thought I was afraid of you?” Lothiriel asks, incredulous.

“It seemed like a possibility at the time,” he grumbles, shifting a little so she can balance more comfortably in his lap.

She rolls her eyes at him, leaning down to kiss him. “You really are an idiot.”

“You married me anyways.”

“True,” and at this, she grins, “and the only one who should be afraid of you is Eothain.”

“Clearly not enough,” he grumbles.)