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by Adina
Category:
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JRR Tolkien. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
Feedback: Yes
Summary: A defining moment in Gimli's life.
A/N:
This is a pentadrabble, or at least it was supposed to be exactly 500
words long. Alas, I could only manage 433. It was written in response
to my friend Jae Gecko's "defining moment" challenge on her live
journal.
"Pick a fandom. Pick a character. Describe a moment from that character's life that shaped him[*], made him into the person he is now. Any fandom. Any character. 500 words -- on the nose, if you can (and you can).
[*] or her, natch"
He grew up with tales and songs of the Lonely Mountain ringing in his ears, louder at times than the dull thunk of pickaxes into the coal they mined instead of their rightful gold. The dragon came and killed many of their people and left the rest wandering poor and homeless through the wilds.
In Erebor they crafted gold, his father told him when he was a small child, as his father shaped silver rings, thin but beautiful. His first journeys were to local fairs, where they sold his father's rings to hobbit lads to give to their lasses. Dwarf-work sold to peasants, his father grumbled.
We had gems, his father added when he was a little older and they could afford to work in gold. Rubies and emeralds as big as your thumb! He went with his father to sell those rings to the elves--tall, fair creatures who looked down on them, dwarves stained with dust from the coal they still mined to afford gold for more rings.
He was sixty when his father and uncle went with Thorin to retake the Lonely Mountain, too young, his mother said, to go along. Kili, his distant cousin, was only fifteen years older, yet he was allowed to go. Nine months later news came back to them that the dragon was dead, but so were Thorin and Kili and two others.
They were bidden to travel as quickly as possible to help hold the mountain. That trip was long and not without troubles, despite the safety of numbers. There were still orcs and bandits, ice and cold in the mountains, and the long, drear trek through Mirkwood. But it mattered not, because they were going *home*!
Except....
None of them had ever been there. The dragon came years before his parents were born. Home was a foul lair, reeking of dragon smoke and littered with bones, not all of which belonged to mountain sheep. The halls under the Lonely Mountain were cold and comfortless, despite their new-found wealth of gold and gems. Home was an illusion, a lie.
He journeyed then, traveling back to the Blue Mountains carrying messages for those left behind. He visited the Iron Hills, carrying messages and trade goods. He took gold and gems and weapons to the Long Lake and brought back food and wine and wood. He even went to Mirkwood, trading emeralds that the elven king loved so well for venison and such wood as the forest elves would cut.
He journeyed, and if any wondered at his eagerness to leave home only his mother commented.
-End-
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Issue No.: 2.6
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