Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Which of them d'you think's the woman and which the man, then, my lads?"

"Ah, what a question! Only look at them, you fool. Look at that beard! Stands to reason it's got to be the elf what's the woman of the pair, doesn't it?"

"Hmm, aye, there's that—but the other one's a dwarf, isn't he? And you know what they say about dwarf-women: can't rightly tell them apart from the men, can you, on account of how they've both got such beards. Maybe he's the woman."

"Huh! A woman with a beard like that, what a thought!"

"So are we putting bets on this, then?"

"Bets, sure! But how d'you propose we settle them, eh? Are you going to ask?"

The words, and the raucous laughter that followed, came from a table of rather tipsy men, some clad in the somber colors of Gondor's armies and the others in the brighter, hard-wearing tunics of craftsmen and laborers. Some still had dirt from fields or stone-working on their faces, and all were at least three mugs into their many rounds of ale.

The patrons at the table that had drawn their interest could not have looked more different if they had been crafted to that purpose with no other intent: two elves and a dwarf, the first two as brown and slender as young saplings and dressed in shades of green; and the latter short and broad and pale as mushrooms beneath his magnificent copper beard.

Such folk were not a common sight in these parts of the White City, although Elves and Dwarves could both be found regularly in Gondor in these early years of the Fourth Age, if never in great number. The gates of Minas Tirith had been rebuilt by dwarven hands, and most of those craftsmen had departed for the lands of their own people soon after, but some worked on other projects yet, returning the old city to an echo of its former glory; and a small colony of elves dwelt these days in nearby Ithilien, likewise laboring to restore the blighted land to bright green life.

It was the leader of that colony (if such elves could be said to have a leader) who sat drinking in the tavern now, along with his elvish friend and dwarvish lover. None of them were regular visitors to this part of the city, and certainly not alone; not even Legolas, who came occasionally with Faramir or Éowyn or other friends of his among the prince's folk. But a group of his oldest, dearest friends from Eryn Lasgalen had come to take up residence with him in Ithilien some days ago; and Gimli had been there already on one of his regular visits from Aglarond; and so they had determined that the time was meet to introduce Legolas's elven friends to the White City.

All but one of those Woodland elves had retreated now back to the trees (Legolas's tolerance for the cacophony of mortal lives, Gimli had learned, was not something shared by many of his fellows) and so Legolas, Gimli, and Tulinwen were now ensconced cheerfully by themselves at a table in one of Minas Tirith's lower level taverns, laughing merrily together over the strange flavors of weak mortal ale.

Or they had been, until Gimli's face went first pale and then crimson and he slammed his mug down and shoved off from the too-tall bench with enough force to rattle not only his table, but the three closest to it as well.

The two Elves watched in bemusement. "Hmm. Do the men over there not know that we can hear them?" the taller one asked the shorter.

"No," Legolas answered his friend, shaking his head as he set his half-empty mug back down beside Gimli's more forcefully abandoned drink. "I suspect they do not. The ears of Men are much less keen than those of Elves—or even of Dwarves."

"Hmm," said Tulinwen again, and sipped at the thin, sour ale. "Your Dwarf does not seem keen on what he has heard, does he?"

"No," said Legolas a second time,  bewilderment in his voice now. He tilted his head as he watched Gimli stomp across the floor, shoving his way brusquely between two tables, until he reached the corner where the laughing drinkers sat. "No, he does not. In fact, I—oh! Your pardon, Tulinwen, excuse me!" 

Legolas leapt up, vaulting the table and springing forward deftly between the tangle of chairs and tables to grab Gimli by both arms, wrapping him tight at the elbows as though attempting to restrain an angry bear, and stopping him before he could take a second swing. "Gimli!" Legolas cried, tugging backwards against the Dwarf's efforts to struggle free; he had to lift Gimli nearly off his feet to stop him. "Gimli, peace! What is the meaning of this violence?"

"I am going to put some manners into those dense mannish skulls if I have to break them open to make room within," Gimli roared back, as the Men who had stirred his rage now cowered slack-jawed with drunken fear. One had already spilled a full mug down his front and now sat there, damp and sticky, too stupefied to move and mop it away; another had scrambled backwards off his bench and tripped on his own unsteady feet. He now lay prone upon the wooden boards, his eyes very wide as he whimpered up at the angry Dwarf.

The one that Gimli had struck lay on the floor as well, but he was not staring at anything: he had blacked-out at the first thrust of Gimli's first, for all that anyone who knew aught of dwarven-strength could see that Gimli had put very little real force into the blow. It had still been enough to knock the drunkard cold, and he now lay snoring in a spreading pool of ale.

"Gimli!" Legolas cried again, when Gimli roared and lunged to head-butt a fourth member of the unfortunate group who had been foolish enough to try to rise and slip away. (He sat down very quickly, looking pale.) "Gimli, enough!"

"Did you not hear them?" Gimli bellowed.

"I did, yes, of course I did; I can hear everything in this tavern, Gimli—but I do not understand why what they said has outraged you so!"

"How does it not outrage you?" Gimli retorted. "Such slanderous, scurrilous—!"

"I think perhaps it is time to leave," Legolas said quickly. "Your pardon for the—well," he interrupted himself, shaking his head quickly. "Actually, I do not think that I will ask your pardon at all, for you have been quite rude to my friend, and even if I do not understand it yet myself, I am sure that you have earned this wrath; for Gimli does not rise to anger lightly. So for him to do so now—well, then surely it is merited. So I will not apologize for the…the disruption." He paused awkwardly and then blurted, "But I bid you all good night!"

He had to all but carry Gimli to the door, so reluctant was the Dwarf to leave before he had finished speaking his mind (and fists). Gimli continued to glower over his shoulder at the fearful drunkards, even as Legolas shuffled him out past the other gaping patrons and onto the white streets beyond.

Tulinwen joined them a few minutes later, having taken a moment to settle their bill before departing with a rueful grin. "Well! That was bracing! Are all mannish taverns so entertaining?"

"Sometimes they are moreso," Legolas admitted drily. "Although usually it is not Gimli who is providing the 'entertainment,' I must admit."

Tulinwen laughed again, then sobered after a look at the simmering Dwarf. "Perhaps I shall take my leave as well," she said quietly. "No—there is no need!" She held up her hand as Legolas started to speak, cutting-off his words with a swift, smiling shake of her head. "I can find my way well enough from here on my own; you go see what ails our good dwarvish friend so, and tell him I wish him better spirits when next we meet." Tulinwen turned to go, then paused and turned back with a thin smirk. "And I will leave it up to the two of you to decide what sort of spirits of which I speak."

Legolas managed a weak laugh as she skipped around a corner and easily scaled a tall white wall, eschewing the complex turnings of Minas Tirith's streets for the straighter road that fleet elvish feet could walk; but his humor all fell away again as he turned back to Gimli.

The Dwarf had not waited for him: Gimli was already halfway up the block, and picking up speed.

Legolas hurried to catch-up. "Gimli! Gimli, my dear, what in all of Arda has upset you so?"

Gimli spun around to glower at him. "Did you not hear them, Legolas!?"

"I did! But Gimli, please. I do not understand," Legolas implored him. "What came over you to make you act in such a way? It is not like you!"

"Not like me!" Gimli exclaimed. He spun and stomped forward again, his boots ringing-out upon the dusty white stone. "And what is that meant to mean, pray!"

"Only that I am not accustomed to seeing you show such wrath in response to the foolish words of Men," Legolas replied. "That is more often my part to play," he reminded the other, his voice less teasing than it was uncertain, for all that he ventured to offer a wary smile with his words. "Would you rob me of it now?"

After a while Gimli huffed out a breath, and a little of the rage went with it. His scowl was still dark and dangerous upon his brow, but the iron-hard set of his mouth softened a little beneath his beard. "Ah, well…you have a terrible quick temper, Legolas. Half of Middle-earth knows that." He glanced up, and then away, and while his eyes were still dark with rage, they twinkled a little, too, as he added, "The part that dwells in Rohan most especially."

Legolas laughed, as much relieved by the lightening of Gimli's tone as he was amused by the familiar jest. "Indeed!" he smiled. "Yes, very much indeed! But, Gimli," he said, his bright eyes darkening with concern, "will you not tell me what upset you so?"

"It was extremely offensive," he grumbled. "Their words—calling a Dwarf a woman. Or a man. Pah!" He spat, right onto the ground, as though to clear his mouth of the foul taste of some orc-stink. "Were you not offended, Legolas? They said the same of you."

Legolas shrugged. "What care I what mortal Men say of me?"

"But to call you a woman!" Gimli cried. "Or a man! Legolas, how are you not enraged right now? How is your very skin not crawling on your bones?"

Legolas blinked. "Well, I suppose I simply do not care," he said after a moment's thought. "It is a silly thing to say, of course, for I am clearly neither; but their words cannot make me anything but what I am, so why should their foolishness mean aught to me?"

Gimli stomped onwards without speaking for several moments. At length he said, "There is some sense in what you say, I suppose." His voice was grudging, his scowl still thick. His beard moved, as though he was chewing over the words themselves: a great and terrible grinding, like a mountain working itself down to pebbled ruin. Then he burst out, "Well!" The word was gruff; the thump of his feet sullen and heavy. "I gather you understood the nonsense they were talking too, then? Trying to determine 'which' of us was 'which'? And why they felt that one of us must be either?"

"Alas, I can offer no such elucidation," Legolas apologized. "You know that I understand the strange ways of Men much less than you do, Gimli. If you in all your wisdom cannot fathom their thinking, even after several seasons living by their side in Aglarond, how might a simple Wood-elf such as I hope to unravel their secrets?"

Gimli grumbled to himself in unhappy Khuzdul. Legolas watched him with concern as they continued to wind their way up towards the higher levels of the city. He was not used to the sight of Gimli, ever so gentle and understanding towards the ignorant and ill-spoken, wracked with such outrage in the wake of thoughtless words.

"To put bets on us," Gimli muttered. "Pah!"

"And what bets would you put, then?" Legolas asked, trying to turn Gimli's thoughts more to jests than grudges. "If you were to set such bets upon us?"

Gimli glanced at him askance. "Bets," he repeated. "Bets on which of us is more likely to be a woman or a man, you mean? Legolas, you speak nonsense."

"So I do," Legolas agreed with forced good cheer. "But is it not more pleasant to laugh about their nonsense than to sulk on it?"

"I am not sulking," Gimli protested.

Legolas made a very deliberate point of saying nothing whatsoever.

Gimli glowered and walked faster. Legolas, of course, kept up with ease with his long lanky legs. Gimli swore to himself in Khuzdul again. "Well, how exactly are you going to place bets on such absurd things, then?" he asked after a while, in spite of himself.

Legolas frowned. "That is a difficult question," he admitted. "Since we both of us already know that we are neither…hmm. I suppose," he mused, "that that is the wrong way to look at it. Since we are not betting on what we are, but rather on what Men are most likely to think us to be."

"Yet how are we to do such a thing, when even Men themselves do not seem to be in agreement on the issue?"

"Ah!" exclaimed Legolas. "Oh, Gimli, I know not. I am sorry; it was a silly thing to say. I only sought to cheer you somehow, but I fear I have made a poor job of the attempt."

"It was a kindly attempt nonetheless," said Gimli; yet he was still scowling, his feet thudding hard and cheerless on the stones.

Legolas skipped beside him and twisted a thin braid around his fingers, thinking hard.

"Perhaps the problem," he mused aloud, "is that you would win the bet on either side."

Gimli shot him a look, his frown tempering slightly with confusion now. "How is that, then?"

"Well, you are certainly more womanly than me, from what I understand of the word at least; and indeed, you are more manly, too!"

Gimli stopped walking to stare at the elf. "Perhaps you might explain precisely what you mean by that," he said in a low, warning rumble.

"Oh, I do not mean to say that you are a man," Legolas said, fluttering a hand dismissively. "Nor a woman, either, for that matter. Surely not! But I am merely a simple ellon, Gimli: a flighty spirit of bow and arrow, a warrior whose wars are all done now, and who has aught to do in these peaceful days but to make merry, and pester my more responsible friends to shirk their duties and make merry with me."

Gimli's scowl did not lighten, but a smile began to inch its way beneath his beard. "Go on," he drawled.

"You, on the other hand, Gimli—you are a statesman, the ruling Lord of Aglarond. And you are not just responsible for the management of your people, you are crafting for them a whole new home—and you are their caretaker there, nurturing each dwarf beneath your care as gently as you do your glittering stones."

Gimli's scowl had surrendered wholly now, and his brows were nearly in his hairline. "And this makes me something of a man?" he asked, politely incredulous. "And a woman, too?"

Legolas shrugged and nodded together, a gesture that would have seemed awkward on any creature but an elf. "According to the meaning of these mannish words, anyway," he said. "At least, so far as I think to understand them." He twisted one of his narrow side-braids around his fingers again, like a bird testing the strength of a thread before weaving its nest: a gesture, Gimli had learned, that meant that he was deep in thought; and not in fraught distress, as such a motion would have indicated upon a dwarf. At last Legolas said, speaking more slowly than his usual birdsong twitter of a voice, "If I were to be as foolish as those Men, Gimli, and assign elvish labels to a dwarf…"

"Yes?" Gimli prompted, when the words trailed off.

"Well," said Legolas, "then I would call you an elein before I would anything else. Although you will note," he added archly, "that I am not so foolish as a Man, and thus I have not done so!"

"So noted," said Gimli, smiling as he gestured them both forward again. They fell into step together at an easier pace now, Legolas's long legs skipping along with customary Wood-elf lightness while Gimli's steps fell bold and solid on the flat white stone. "An elein then, am I? Very well, Legolas, tell me of your elvish genders, so that I might understand."

Legolas frowned, tugging harder at the braid. "Is that the word?" he asked, seeming for a moment as though he spoke more to the empty air than to the Dwarf beside him. "I am not sure that I have heard that one before! Ah, well; it will suffice, surely. So, to your question:

"We have three such divisions of identity, although there are many subtleties within them all, of course; and sometimes an elf will find that their self lies wholly within the overlap of two, or even of all three, and may thus prefer to be known as none: but for the most part an elf may be an elleth, an ellon, or an elein."

Gimli frowned. "Now those words I have heard before," he said. "But I thought…does elein not mean poet?"

"It does," said Legolas. "Sometimes."

Gimli's eyes narrowed. "Sometimes," he growled. "Ah, yes: elves. Nothing is ever a clear, clean cut with you people!"

Legolas laughed at him. "Well, people are so rarely cleanly cut as your pretty gleaming gems, are they?"

Gimli harrumphed indistinctly rather than give an answer. "Go on, then," he said, waving one broad hand in an expansive gesture. "Explain these elvish distinctions to me."

Legolas hummed a little under his breath, as though ordering his thoughts (something he could never do without some snatch of song, Gimli had noticed) and then said, "All right; although understand, please, that my own people are in many ways a less than perfect representation of the names and natures of other elves—"

"You do not need to caution me on this," Gimli interrupted, a smirk spreading beneath his beard. "I am well aware that your folk are strange, Legolas; I have met them, after all!"

Legolas laughed, bright and sudden. "True enough!" he said. "Well, then: understand that my people made no such distinctions of our selves, in our early days; these are things which developed later, and elsewhere: Doriath, and Valinor, and Tirion. Places where the influences of the Valar were strong and direct. But to keep the explanation simple, I shall speak of these things the way the Light Elves and the Grey Elves practiced them; not we of the Green or the Dark.

"So," he said, holding up one long finger to mark each definition as he spoke them. "An elleth is a caregiver and nurturer; one whose spirit is drawn most often towards healing arts and to the crafts of shaping: those of clay, or stone, or paint; or those which are fashioned of fiber and thread. An elein is, as you say, a poet: one whose thoughts are moved most by word-crafts and communication; they are diplomats and storytellers, and poets too, of course; song-writers and lore-keepers and the like. Some of them turn their hands to the fashioning of instruments or books and manuscripts, the elements by which words are most readily shared; but others feel no stirring for creation in their hands at all, but strive to craft with their words alone. And an ellon is a guardian and explorer—and," he added, his voice dropping briefly low and grim, "in later days, a warrior. It is their spirits which yearn to see beyond the next horizon, or to craft protections against its dangers: tall walls, heavy shields, bright armor. They are stonemasons and smiths, or scouts or soldiers—or, yes," Legolas added with a bright, sharp grin, "archers."

Gimli walked wide-eyed and blinking in thought for several moments. "So then each member of your people has but one nature to themselves, one area of interest alone that moves their spirits; one that does not change?" he mused speculatively. "And only those of one sort of spirit are drawn to one sort of craft, or creation, or place within the world? And to no other?"

"Ah, I fear I have explained it poorly," said Legolas, dismayed. "No, that is not it; I must try again." The song he hummed was lower and faster this time, and it ended with a cluck of disgust. "Ah, Gimli, I am not the person to make these things clear to you, I think. I have not the spirit of an elein; nay, nor the clever tongue of one either!"

"I have found your tongue to be clever enough, in its way," Gimli said, his voice extremely mild.

This succeeded in startling a laugh from Legolas, and Gimli grinned to himself. The sight of his elf's mirth helped ease some of the tension drumming in his bones, making him feel more like his customary steady self and less like a kettle left too long on the boil.

"Well," Legolas said, his own eyes dancing in an answering merriment, "my skill there is not one that expresses itself well in words, at any rate."

"Perhaps not," Gimli agreed demurely.

Legolas rolled his eyes. "At any rate," he said firmly, striving to steer their conversation back to the pertinent topic, "my own people have ever been less concerned with those distinctions themselves, for we learned them only belatedly, when my father and his people joined our forest in the later years of the First Age. And in Mirkwood—well," Legolas said grimly. "In Mirkwood, everyone was a warrior of some sort or another, nearly. There was very little other choice, for any of us. So healers fight, and fighters heal, and even our songs are turned often to a warrior's purpose—or they long were, at least. Things beneath our trees are different now, but memory of the Shadow lingers."

Gimli nodded in understanding and sympathy. "My own people have endured times like that, occasionally," he said. "It is a grim thing, to have no better choices in a life."

"Yet such times are in the past for both our peoples now," Legolas answered, raising his head high in bright defiance. "This is a new Age, and it shall be one of peace."

"From your beardless lips to Mahal's ears," murmured Gimli.

"To the point of your question, however…" Legolas toyed with one pale braid in thought, then suddenly straightened. "Ah! Perhaps I may explain it better thus. Let us take a tale of some several elves of whom I am certain you are familiar, instead! You know the long and bloody history of the Sons of Fëanor?"

"Some of its basic facts, at least, yes," Gimli said carefully.

"The Sons of Fëanor, we say, when we reckon the tale in Westron: because all seven of them became terrible warriors indeed, once they swore their father's oath and chased his Silmarils into darkness. Terrible ellyn. And sons is the closest translation for ionnath into the Common Speech, and that is a word that speaks of ellyn, for the most part. Things, as you say, are rarely so clean cut in the elvish tongues!

"Yet to the current point: Maglor, at least, is spoken of as an elein in earlier tales, that know him for his song-craft rather than his sword-play; and Maedhros would have been an elleth: a crafter of some sort, although I know not what arts he favored; only that he took after his mother in his younger days, it is still said, although as to how, precisely, the tales are more unclear—overshadowed, perhaps, by the grim things that came after, when he chose to walk his father's path instead. And even Fëanor himself was reckoned an elleth once, too. It was only when his mind turned to the smithing of shields and cages to hold the light and beauty he so freely worked with once—and of course to swords, and the bloody things that could be done with them—that he would have shown himself to be an ellon instead."

"So elves can change their natures," Gimli said.

"Say rather that our natures do change, over the long count of years, sometimes; and sometimes we change the naming of our identity with it, and sometimes we do not." Legolas shrugged. "Again, elves do not tend, as a people, to be especially…"

"Clear-cut," Gimli finished for him. "Yes, you need not belabor the point; that part, at least, I understand all too well!"

Legolas laughed a little and they turned from the wide path off to a small side courtyard, low-walled and verdant, with one winding tree growing tall above the other foliage. The white house where the Fellowship had rested once, for a time after the War, lay at the far side of the little space of green.

The windows were dark, the beds within all empty; for the Fellowship was long scattered and much-sundered, now—yet still, when Legolas and Gimli came to Minas Tirith, that little house was where they preferred to lay their heads, rather than in the grander spaces to which the Lords of Aglarond and Ithilien might have been kept instead. But like the cunning wizard and wounded Hobbits who had shared these rooms with them before, they preferred their privacy to the luxuries of stately rooms and noble servants: preferred the warm memories of friendship that still filled the walls of this place, even when those friends had scattered to lands both far and farther.

They took seats now upon one of the low stone benches there, in the dim light of a city aslumber. It would have been a dark place, to mannish eyes: yet elves and dwarves both could see keenly in the dark, and there were stars shining bright above. Gimli leaned back against the stone wall behind them and Legolas tucked his feet up along the white bench beside him, one long leg stretching out to brush the brown trunk of the flowering green tree.

"So," Gimli said, "you are an ellon, for your heart inclines more towards the bow than to speech-craft or care-giving; while Arwen, doubtless, is an elein, for as Queen of Gondor she is a diplomat and statesman of note; and Aragorn, no doubt, an elein then also." Gimli frowned. "Although he is a healer, too, and a warrior as well…"

"And Arwen is trained in the healing-arts also; and her hands incline most readily towards needlecraft; and she is a great nurturer and care-giver of both her own children and those of the nobles of Gondor—and the Shire—who are commanded into her guardianship; and so she might be seen as an elleth as easily as she is an elein," Legolas added. "Yes! It can be a complicated thing, to discern the nature of another. Or even of oneself, for some." He shrugged. "The High Elves, it is said, were stricter about the divisions, too, especially in older days: believing that it was not fitting to mingle the skills too much, especially those of the ellith and ellyn, which are the most opposed; the eleinnaith lie somewhere in between the two, in many ways, and form the bridge between hearts which nurture and those whose thoughts are bent most oft towards peril.

"Indeed," Legolas continued, his brow furrowed slightly in the way of one who repeats a fact with confidence in its veracity yet no understanding of its reasons, "among the High Elves, I am given to understand that they held those divisions nearly sacred in many ways. Those of the same nature were not quite forbidden to wed, but they were strongly discouraged from bearing children together: for it was thought that two such similar spirits would not have the necessary breadth of variety between their own two souls to create together a well-fashioned spirit for a child, nor be able to balance one another enough to raise those children well."

"Now that is interesting!" said Gimli, raising his brows so high they nearly reached his hairline. The scar from the Battle of the Hornburg crinkled and Legolas reached instinctively to smooth the crease of the long-healed skin. "What of those elves whose hearts yearned for one another, and whose natures were the same?" Gimli asked. "For surely some did!"

"Oh, certainly they did!" Legolas replied. "And many wed regardless, and raised children, and were happy thus." He shook his head. "Do not ask me to explain the traditions and superstitions of the High Elves, Gimli; for I understand their folk but a little more than I do Men—and less, I think, than I now do Dwarves!"

He grinned, and Gimli chuckled. "Fair enough!" he declared. "Indeed, your understanding of my people blossoms by the day, while Men will likely ever remain a mystery to us both."

"And as you now use such terms as blossoming in your daily speech," Legolas murmured, "it seems that your understanding of my people does likewise."

"Perhaps it does," Gimli agreed, although his own grin soon faded back into thoughtful contemplation. "As for these High Elves, though…" He frowned and stroked his beard in thought. "How could they keep the divisions of each nature separate like that?" he asked. "There seems so much overlap already…"

"Through deliberate choice and education," Legolas answered simply. "What one's nature most inclined to was what one learned, and did; and what was not, one did not."

"But how?" Gimli demanded.

"Those who learned to heal did not also learn the arts of bringing harm; and those who studied blade and bow were not taught the healing arts. And those of word-craft often learned neither."

"What!" Gimli exclaimed. "But that is foolishness itself! To have none on a battlefield who know the art of tending wounds, and healers who could not defend themselves when their defenses were overrun? Legolas, you speak madness!"

Legolas raised his hands as though in surrender, but he could not stop a hint of a smile from twitching at his narrow lips. "You need not tell me!" he retorted. "Gimli, I am an elf of Mirkwood. As I said before, we had not the luxury of dividing such skills so starkly—and even the High Elves learned to mingle them more, over the long years, I think. Yet perhaps there is something to be said for their ways as well, for their healers have ever been greater than ours—yet," he added with a flash of green in his pale eyes, "I will argue that our warriors have ever been their equal."

"And that is an argument I will not venture into at all," Gimli said fervently. He shook his head, and drew his pipe from the pocket of his jacket. For several minutes neither of them spoke, as Gimli carefully pulled out the little bag of pipeweed and packed the bowl, then lit a spark and gently puffed it into flame. When the pipe was kindled and the smoke was rising in a pale curl against the sky, he spoke again. "So, you say that even your High Elves learned to mingle these divisions. Does that mean that the identities themselves mingled too, or merely the teachings offered?"

"Ah, Gimli, you would have to ask each elf that question individually, I fear; for myself, I have felt only a fleeting interest in the arts of the ellith, and while my needle-craft is fair enough, it does not sing to my spirit the way a bowstring does: I am an ellon through-and-through, and that understanding came easily to me. It is not the same for all."

"Certainly no one who has met you would ever mistake you for an elein," Gimli muttered, and Legolas let out a bark of laughter and shoved him lightly.

"Pertly spoken, Lord Dwarf!"

"Am I not an elein myself, by your elvish measure?" Gimli retorted. "Then I must sharpen my speech-craft now and then to keep it honed, surely."

Legolas laughed at him again and then leaned in to rest his head on Gimli's shoulder. Gimli quickly switched his pipe to the other side of his mouth, where the smoke would not blow into the elf's thin brown face.

"Well," he said after a while, "I feel as though I am on the brink of understanding, at least; a little more clarity, and I think the gem will show its full facets to my eyes at last."

"How can I help in this cutting?" Legolas asked, his voice a murmur against Gimli's soft braids.

"Tell me of those I know," Gimli suggested. "Your words are more helpful when you speak of examples than when you try to explain these things by your own understanding alone."

Legolas hummed again, the sound traveling down through Gimli's shoulder and fluttering his beard like a soft spring breeze. "Well, take Hírilhúrin. You remember her, surely?"

Gimli laughed so hard that Legolas sat up quickly to escape the jostling of his broad shoulder. "I do indeed!" he said. "I do not think that I will ever forget her, if I live to see five hundred winters!"

A shadow passed across Legolas's face, but in the darkness Gimli did not notice; and it smoothed away quickly, like a cloud crossing before the moon.

Gimli was still chuckling at the thought of Mirkwood's much-beleaguered lead-healer. She was, of course, mostly beleaguered by the other elves of Mirkwood (now called Eryn Lasgalen, yes; but the folk who dwelt there were still, by nature and habit, elves of Mirkwood, with all that such a name entailed) none of whom, in Gimli's experience, were very good at being either patient or patients when they had wounds in need of tending (Legolas and his relations least of all).

"That poor, long-suffering healer!" Gimli sighed, even as he laughed. "No, I will not forget her in a hurry!"

Legolas tossed his head, both pushing aside thoughts of Gimli's mortal span of years and acting as though he was wholly unaware of the reason for Gimli's amusement.

"Well!" he said haughtily. "Hírilhúrin was an ellon for much of her early life, and fierce indeed with knife and spear alike was she! Yet her spirit was much rent by the terrible fighting of the Last Alliance and the grim siege of Mordor; and her heart turned more and more to the healing tents than to the killing fields. When she returned to our woods, she gave up both her blades and the name and life she had borne before, and refashioned herself an elleth and a healer instead. She has never touched  a bow or swordblade since, save to lift them from a patient's grasp."

"Ah!" said Gimli. "So it is a change of nature as well as inclination."

"Sometimes," said Legolas.

"Sometimes!" Gimli repeated, and rolled his eyes. "All right, tell me of someone else then. Another healer, perhaps! Tell me of Lord Elrond."

"Ah, Lord Elrond," Legolas said soberly. "As perhaps is fitting for one of such mingled heritage, Lord Elrond demonstrates a combination of all three natures. I am actually not sure which, if any, label he prefers; my own father refers to him as an ellon, sometimes, for they knew each other in war; and perhaps more often as an elein, for even when he served as a warrior in the Last Alliance, Elrond was also a Herald, wielding words as often and as gracefully as he did his sword,  and the latter he has seemingly abandoned while the word-craft remains; yet also Elrond is a healer, and in some ways is known best for that; and healing is generally the province of ellith, particularly among the High Elves…but Elrond, of course, is a singular and complicated person. He has the blood of the High Elves in his veins, and was raised for a time by those of High Elf lineage; but the blood of many other peoples lives in him too." Legolas shrugged. "You would have to ask him for a clearer answer as to his own nature and naming; and I do not know if Elrond himself would indeed be able to offer one, even if he still dwelt on this side of the Sea."

"I see!" Gimli said. "Well, tell me of someone who dwells in a more accessible place, then. Your father, perhaps! What is he?"

"Ah, my father!" said Legolas. "Well, he was an ellon of Doriath when he was young, like me; and an ellon in the terrible war in which his father and so many of our people died. If you asked him, Thranduil would still name himself an ellon now, Gimli, out of that long habit—and yet, it seems more a habit than a truth, I think, for he uses speech-craft as oft as swordplay now, and has grown as skilled and careful with word as blade, and more fond of using the former than the latter; and he is also the caretaker of our forest and all who dwell within, his own heart nurturing our folk nearly as dearly as the forest does itself. So then Thranduil is both elein and elleth as well, these days.

"I think," Legolas mused, "that perhaps all leaders—all true leaders, anyway; all good ones—must be at least a little of all three, if they are to lead their people well; or at least to recognize the lack of one or more of these elements within themselves enough to gather those whose skills and natures will compensate for that lack, and listen to them well to fill those gaps."

"Ah," said Gimli, nodding in illumination and satisfaction both. "Yes," he murmured, "yes, I see what you mean, I think! Indeed, yes, I do begin to see."

Legolas's words were complex, particularly to a Dwarf whose people made no such dividing lines among their own souls; but there was something pleasing in them, too. Something that, unlike the ugly words of Men, stirred his own soul to interest rather than revulsion. "And do your divisions—your elleth and ellon and elein," he asked. "Do they correspond in any way to the mannish ones of 'man' and 'woman'?"

Legolas's shoulders twitched in their customary birdlike shrug. "I am not sure," he admitted. "I confess that I have never quite been able to understand the natures of the distinctions that Men make among themselves."

"Ah!" Gimli grinned. "I am glad to hear it, for I have not either! I would hate to think that you had so outpaced me in this area, my dear." He sighed, and scratched his beard, and muttered, "Men! Unfathomable creatures. You know, in my youth, I thought it simple: those who could grow beards—such as they are!—were men, and those who could not, women. Yet there are folk like Aragorn and Faramir who put the lie to that, and many others too. Even gossipy old Ioreth, for all that her beard is barely a wisp on the wind. But if they do not measure by such an important feature as a beard, then I confess, Legolas, I am all at a loss."

"I had thought I understood them for a time as well," Legolas said, his voice dipping into an almost childish petulance. "When they said he and his, they seemed to mean those people who were warriors and statesmen: our ellon and elein, rolled together into one, as word-crafters and sword-wielders must oft serve both roles, in these times of war. And their ellith were the healers and caregivers, those who nurtured children and tended the ill and the infirm; yet with a little of the ellyn to them too, yes, for they are oft the ones who guard the home as well—but still, a clear enough division that I had thought I knew how to order the things in my own thoughts. But then!" He sighed. "Ah, then we came to Rohan, and I learned more of Men. Then," Legolas said heavily, "we met the Lady Éowyn."

Gimli nodded. "Éowyn, yes," he said. "Yes, I can see where she would have upended all of your assumptions there."

"Quite so!" cried Legolas. "For here was one who had been pressed by circumstance into the role of an elleth, carrying for her infirm uncle—and all, of course, must sometimes bend to such circumstances, whatever our spirits may prefer; for no one lives in a world where such neat divisions of interest and nature can be left ever unchallenged by reality; not upon this side of the Sea, at least—and yet, when Théoden rose from his sickbed and took up his sword again, Éowyn was not allowed to do likewise, though the spirit that burned within her heart was clearly that of an ellon. Why?" Legolas shook his head. "I confess, Gimli, even now I do not know."

"She has declared herself a Healer now," Gimli ventured. "An elleth, as your folk would say; as she was when she tended Théoden in his age; and she seems happy enough with the role these days."

"Indeed she does, and has," said Legolas, his smooth brow marred by a bewildered frown. "And that is fine and good, for spirits change; that is true of all people, I think, not only of elves. And yet—are the spirits of Men less mutable than ours, perhaps? Could Éowyn's kin recognize somehow that she was ever destined to claim the role of an elleth for herself, and they sought only to guide her to the satisfaction of that realization, more than to trammel her within its bounds? Yet that is not what it seemed to me, at the time!"

"I confess I am in agreement with you on that count," said Gimli. "By my understanding of your words, I would deem that Éowyn had been very much an ellon in those days. Perhaps…" He stroked his beard, thinking hard. "Perhaps among Men, being such a short-lived people, folk are expected to choose one role and cleave to it for all their lives? Perhaps they do not feel that they have the time to take up more than one nature alone, and so for Éowyn to have been a caregiver once—an elleth, you would say; for her to have been set in that role, once, that was where her folk thought she should stay, no matter how ill it suited her spirit at the time?"

"Perhaps," said Legolas, his agreement thick with disgruntlement. "Yet that does not sound a pleasant way to live, to me."

"Nor to me!" said Gimli. "Nay, nor to me. Yet we are not Men, Legolas; perhaps it is not meant for us to fathom their queer ways."

"Perhaps not!" said Legolas, and looped a long arm around Gimli's strong round waist.

Gimli stroked at his beard for a little, letting his thoughts turn and tumble against the walls of his mind, polishing their sharper edges away. "So tell me, then," he ventured after a while, "how is it that you elves know which words to use for one another in the Westron tongue, if there is no correlation between your descriptors and divisions and the ones that Men use? For we Dwarves, of course, use only the one set, for the most part; yet you elves use both. How do you determine which fits then, for one another? For you and Tulinwen are both ellyn, are you not? And yet you, Legolas, Men almost always seem to call he; while Tulinwen I have ever heard called she. So what do those words relate to then, for you, if not these natures we discuss?"

"Well, you are right about both Tulinwen and myself, anyway," Legolas answered with a shrug. "We are ellyn indeed. But as to the rest—for the most part, we simply do not."

"Do not what?" said Gimli.

"Choose." Legolas's narrow shoulders twitched again. "As you say, it is not something that corresponds to aught of what we know ourselves to be; and yet since Westron offers two distinct choices by which to refer to a person—or perhaps demands that such a choice be made, might be the better way to say it, with the way Men are!" he huffed under his breath, scowling for a moment; then he shook the dark mood off and continued with a lighter tone. "Well, then we will use them both, for the words are equally fair and valid, are they not?"

"I suppose," said Gimli. "I have never given much thought to the differences between them, to be honest."

"If there are differences, we Wood-elves do not know them," confessed Legolas. "And so we choose at random, for the most part: whichever sounds more appealing to our ear, perhaps; or more often, as I say, we do not choose at all, and simply adopt and answer to whatever words the Men around us offer forth."

"You let Men decide?" Gimli repeated, his low voice laced thick with skepticism and scandal.

"Often, yes," answered Legolas, his own tone light. "On occasion an elf will decide that one or the other feels better for some private reason or instinct of their own, and will declare a preference, though rarely. Tulinwen, in fact, chose she for herself deliberately, for when we first started meeting with the Men of Laketown and of Dale, and began using Westron with some frequency with them, at first they called her he, and she disliked that and thus insisted upon the other."

"Insisted, did she?" Gimli murmured, a smile tugging at his lips.

Legolas's eyes glittered. "Quite stridently," he said, grinning. "It was most amusing to watch the Men squirm under her scowls, until finally they acquiesced to her wishes!"

Gimli barked a laugh. "And you?" he asked.

"I have been called both, and never minded either."

"Huh," said Gimli, rolling the thoughts around in his mind. "And do all elves choose the words of their selves in so cavalier a fashion?" he asked.

"I do not know," Legolas confessed. "I know only the ways of my own people."

"Doubtless that lack of concern is why you were not offended by the words of those Men earlier tonight, however."

Legolas nodded. "Will you tell me why their words upset you so?" he asked quietly. "For you seemed in great distress, Gimli, and I would know more of all things that distress you, if it does not hurt too much to tell me of them; for I know no way to be of help in facing-down a hurt, if I do not know the cause from which it fires."

"I am not even sure I know," Gimli admitted softly. "But for you, Legolas, I will try." He lowered his pipe and turned it this way and that a few times between his hands, then finally knocked the ashes from the bowl and set it aside. This was too weighty a matter to be spoken over a pipe; and Legolas stilled, waiting wordlessly while Gimli thought. He leaned back against the good stone wall and sighed.

Finally he began. "When they said that I was a woman or a man, it felt to me as though they were saying that whichever I was, I was not a dwarf: that they were saying that a dwarf was not enough a thing to be. Yet a dwarf is what I am, Legolas: all the way down to my very bones, I am a dwarf. A lowly thing in the eyes of much of the world, perhaps! And yet it has always been enough for me."

"I am sorry, Gimli," Legolas murmured, and held him close. "No wonder it hurt you so, to hear those words! How cruel they were, how loathsome! Your people are not lowly, and nor are you; and I am sorry that those wretched Men made you feel that you were seen as such. I am sorry, Gimli. I did not understand the weight of those foolish words upon your head before; but now I do. I am sorry."

They sat for a while together in the dark, and the silence of their arms was a comfort and a warmth against the slights and stumbles of the night.

Yet after a while, Legolas grew restless. Not of Gimli's embrace; for he could never tire of those broad arms, that loving face and lovely beard. He could have spent all the Ages of the world wrapped in Gimli's soft dwarven warmth and been contented there. But questions of his own danced in his heart now, and Legolas had never mastered the skill of sitting on his questions until they were tempered; had never mastered the arts of speech-craft that were best wrought in silence.

Eventually he blurted, "Dwarves use he I know, Gimli. All know this fact of your people, I think, even those who know Dwarves but little. And yet—" Legolas hesitated a moment, biting at his lip; but he had begun the question already, and had no choice now but to finish it. "Yet I have heard, Gimli, of some Dwarves who use the other. She. One of your own kin, in fact!"

"Dís," Gimli said. "You speak of Dís."

Legolas nodded, a little guiltily, and resisted the urge to plead for further explanation.

Gimli gave it to him anyway, saying, "Yes, Dís is called she and sister and aunt among our people, it is true, although those are words that we use but seldom. In our own tongue, of course, there is but one set of words with which we style ourselves, and they mean simply—Dwarf! We have no other identity, save that of our own individual persons; and our crafts and clans, of course," he added dismissively. "But those are things that we choose or that we are born into, not things that speak of our natures or our spirits. That, only our Dark-Names define."

Legolas nodded again, his expression now rapt and reverent, as it ever was when Gimli spoke upon the secret mysteries of the Dwarves.

"However," Gimli said, "while for ourselves, Dwarf is all we are and is enough, we are not ignorant of the mannish ways that fill the world around us. How could we be? And sometimes—sometimes, I say! It is very rare!—but sometimes, a dwarf will see these strange ways of Men and their odd genders, and will find them pleasing, and will choose to pick up that little bauble of a mannish word; and declare himself a dwarf-woman or a dwarf-man, instead of merely the same unadorned dwarf that serves to speak for the hearts of the rest of us. Perhaps, in the first days of the Dwarves, when my folk dealt with Elves more, and Men were not yet waking, some of our people styled themselves with your elvish ellyn and ellith and eleinnaith; if they did, it is not remembered, so I do not know." Gimli shrugged. "At any rate, this interest in mannish genders is a thing that makes little sense to those of us who do not see the beauty in those strange stones. But it is a thing that does no harm, either; and so we accept and honor such choices, for we Dwarves respect those among us who find beauty in strange places."

Legolas's eyes gleamed and he leaned down to press a kiss to Gimli's brow. "So you do," he murmured, and Gimli smiled and caught his hand, drawing long elvish fingers to his lips to bestow upon them an answering kiss of his own.

"As for myself," Gimli said, his voice a low deep rumble, "such things are not for me. I am Gimli the Dwarf, and that is all, and all I ever wish to be."

Legolas nodded with great solemnity, his eyes shining as bright as the pale stars above. "Gimli the Dwarf is a perfect thing to be," he agreed. "And as for me, I should want you to be no other thing but that which you are, Gimli my love; my love Gimli the Dwarf."

Gimli smiled up at him, and held those long brown fingers tight. "And for my part," he answered, "I love you as an ellon, Legolas, and I am happy to; I need no wise statesman nor nurturing healer at my side. A simple archer is more than enough to fill my dwarvish heart, thank you."

Legolas beamed, and bent and kissed him, and the smooth gold of his hair slid down to mingle with the heavy braids of Gimli's copper curls. The moonlight gleamed upon their heads for a while, bent so close together now that the difference of their heights had vanished in the dark; and then they rose, and walked hand-in-hand past the tree to the old white house, and there they fell into their bed together, where it did not matter who was ellon or elleth or elein, nor man or woman either. They were merely Elf and Dwarf—Legolas and Gimli—and that was all, and that was indeed enough.

# # #

It was not until the next day, when they returned to the pale green fields of Ithilien, that they learned the answer to this strange conceit of the words and identities of Men. They were taking tea with the Lady of Ithilien, the self-same Éowyn of whom they had spoken so speculatively the night before. They were yet curious now, and knew Éowyn for a sensible woman, and one who was not easily ruffled. Too, as a daughter of Rohan who now lived among the people of Gondor, she was used to navigating the differences between two mannish cultures; surely, they thought, she would be able to explain the matter in such a way that they might understand.

Gimli had meant to lead into the question gently, laying the groundwork for the asking of it out carefully beforehand: a sturdy foundation on which the answer might firmly rest. He had crafted the framework of his intended words on the ride over, shaping them with care and cunning, and he was pleased with the results. He thought, when he was done speaking, that Éowyn would understand both the nature of the question and the reason for their asking, and would thus be able to offer a fair and forthright answer in return: one that would explain in such a way that their un-mannish minds could grasp the knowledge with ease and understanding.

But he was not to speak those words. No sooner had they exchanged their pleasantries with the Lady of Ithilien and settled in their seats than Legolas was blurting, "Lady, would you tell us of the ways Men make distinction between the nature of 'man' and 'woman'?"

Éowyn looked startled by the blunt question, and Gimli shook his head above a fondly despairing smile. Oh, his sweet elvish leaf never changed! Not the nature of an 'elein,' indeed! Gimli thought, with a private snort.

"What my friend means to say, Lady, is that the two of us have been wondering on the source for this distinction among your people; for neither Legolas's folk nor mine hold any categories of identity which seem to match with what we have learned, or at least have learned to think, that Men mean when they speak those words," Gimli clarified smoothly.

Legolas's long ears colored, flushing a ruddy carnelian with embarrassment as he realized too late the clumsiness of his own quick words. Gimli took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly, and Legolas mustered a thin smile, although his ears remained dark with unspoken dismay.

"Ah," said Éowyn, and offered Legolas a sympathetic smile of her own. She had known the Elf too long now not to know him for a blunt and sometimes awkward speaker; indeed, it was one of the aspects on which they had bonded in their long seasons in Ithilien together, for while Éowyn had none of Legolas's coltish awkwardness in her own speech-craft she was nonetheless given to plainer talk than the nobles of Gondor, and sometimes felt as uncertain and ill-placed among them as did he. They commiserated also on the pains and joys alike of being wed to such fair-spoken husbands, and Gimli and Faramir had more than once found the two of them giggling together over a pair of cups and some amusing discussion which they refused to share.

"Truly, do you not?" Éowyn asked them now, rubbing at her beardless chin as she looked back and forth between Elf and Dwarf. "I had thought that elves, at least…?"

Legolas shrugged. "I had thought that I had a sense of which elvish identities corresponded to these mannish ones as well, but I have since learned that I may have—assumed incorrectly."

"Dwarves, of course," Gimli put-in, "have but the one gender, and it is neither; although some of my folk do on rare occasion borrow one or another from the ways of Men. Yet that does very little to explain the thing to the rest of us, I fear; for while we respect the choices of our fellows who wish to do this thing, that does not mean we understand what they mean when they name themselves 'dwarf-man' or 'dwarf-woman.' Nor, in truth, am I certain that all those dwarves who do claim such names for themselves know quite what Men mean when they use these words, or if they mean the same as them or not when they do; but they seem to be content with the matter either way, so I suppose it matters little to them or to any other whether their naming is accurate by mannish reckoning."

"Oh," said Éowyn. "That is interesting; I had not known that there were any dwarf-women at all. Or—" She cut her own words off, her fair face coloring; and Gimli smiled at her.

"It is not a common thing," he reassured her. "Although it is growing in commonality, these days; I am not sure why. Both the number of dwarf-women and of dwarf-men. Perhaps merely because we are spending more time among Men, now that Dale has been rebuilt and Erebor reclaimed, and so it has become something of a fashion among my people; or simply something that it occurs to them to think of more, as they see it more around them." He shrugged. "Still, it is rare enough that I can say with some confidence that you have surely met few if any dwarves, lady, who would call themselves anything but 'dwarf,' for less than a handful of the folk who came to work on Aragorn's gates were of such a kind; and even in Aglarond, which is a place that attracts those who have great interest in exploration and in the making of things that are new, still there are not many such dwarves as will style themselves anything but dwarf."

"How very interesting," Éowyn said again, sipping her tea as though in hopes that the solid drink might help to ground her whirling thoughts. She blinked at Gimli, as though he was a gemstone that she was studying now in unfamiliar light, assessing his facets all anew.

"Your brother certainly thought so, when first he met a dwarf who called herself a woman," Gimli said, a smirk spreading beneath his beard. "Ah, but that is a story for later! Please, will you not first cure our confusion on this matter, dear lady? For Legolas has spoken to me at length upon ellith and ellyn and eleinnaith now, and how elves measure such things; and yet neither he nor I can find the means of understanding 'men' and 'women' yet, for none of the measures of his people seem to hold any consistent correlation with those of yours—and of course, as I say, my folk do not ourselves measure such things at all. We are simply dwarves, and that is all we have ever cared or longed to be. How is it then, please, with your people, Lady Éowyn?"

Éowyn tugged at her own fair hair thoughtfully before saying, "Well, this is one case in which I fear I must be as blunt-spoken as a common horse-woman, my friends; for I suspect that you have made the matter much more complex in your minds than it is in truth. There is no way to say it save by the simplest: such things are determined by the shape of the body to which the name is placed, and that is all."

They both stared at her. "The shape of the body?" Gimli repeated, as though he might have misheard her plain words.

"But that makes no sense at all," Legolas protested. "Are not you shaped the same as many men, my lady? And many indeed do I know who go by the title of 'man' who are shaped very like others whom I know as 'women.' And how can so very many different shapes be named by but two words?" He shook his head, plainly baffled. "Of what aspect of your shaping do you speak, that serves to distinguish one another so?"

"It cannot be your beards," Gimli said hurriedly. "We have discussed that chance already, and know that it cannot be that."

"No," Éowyn laughed, "not beards alone—although few women can grow much hair upon their faces, and most men can grow at least a little."

"None of you can grow more than a little, to my eyes," Gimli grumbled to himself, and Éowyn laughed again while Legolas failed utterly to hide his smile, despite the length of the spindly fingers he raised to shield his mouth.

"It is not our beards," Éowyn confirmed, chuckling. "No, it is…well, it is the shapes of the parts that are oft concealed most thoroughly beneath our clothes."

Legolas frowned. "Yet if you conceal those parts of your bodies, how can you be known by them?"

Éowyn hesitated. "There are more external signs that one can read as well: the beards, that Gimli mentioned before; the way our hair is worn, sometimes, or our clothes; certain aspects of form and feature that are more common to one sex or the other…but it is simply something that one learns to see, when one grows-up around it, I suppose. Still mistakes are made, at times; but they are easily enough amended…"

"But why conceal these parts of yourselves at all, if they are the parts by which you wish to most be known?" Legolas pressed. "What is the sense of that?"

"Some things are not decent to be seen by all and sundry, Legolas," Éowyn said gently.

Gimli snorted. "Good luck convincing him of that, my lady. Wood-elves are shameless. Utterly, abjectly shameless. Believe me, I have been trying to instill a sense of decency in this one's head for years now! It will not take."

Legolas gave Gimli a very knowing, deliberate sort of look; Gimli pretended that he did not see it, nor feel the warmth kindling in his cheeks. He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to Éowyn, who was doing, he thought, a much poorer job of holding her own composure; but then, she had no beard in which to conceal her grin, and he could hardly fault her for that, for by his (admittedly shaky) understanding of the nature of Men she had no more choice in the matter of whether to grow one or not than did Aragorn or Faramir—or, for that matter, Legolas and any of his fellow Wood-elves, either.

Gimli gave his own luxuriant beard a thoughtful stroke and said, "I suppose it must be simpler, at least, to have such things defined solely by such a plain and concrete thing as your own shaping. Among Legolas's elves it seems to be exceedingly complex, and prone to vacillating over the course of a life, and furthermore is difficult to assess from the outside. At least with your folk, there must be no question about the thing, if it is based on something so plain." He shifted a little in his chair, uncomfortable; then he braced himself, and asked, "But these shapes that you speak of, and the distinctions of them…will you not speak more clearly of what they are, lady?"

Éowyn met his eyes firmly, although there was a faint flush upon her pale cheeks. "I will," she said, "although I will caution you not to repeat such conversation widely: for the folk of Gondor, I have found, are rather more retiring in discussing such things than are those of Rohan. Probably," she added with a wry twist to her beardless lips, "because they are less accustomed to horse-husbandry than we are. It is difficult to blush and stammer about such subjects when one sees them carried-out in the fields in plain view of anyone who passes by, and indeed are oft discussed and managed with great care for the sake of the breeding line."

Gimli snorted. "Ah," he said.

Éowyn grinned as she nodded. "Yes, those parts," she said. In answer to Legolas's curious head-tilt, she explained more clearly: "Those who can sire children are men, and those who can bear them are women; and the parts which distinguish which one is capable of are those very parts which I speak of, which give the name to our nature. I pray you will not ask for a clearer explanation than that!" she laughed. "For even I might blush to give one, to a Dwarf Lord and an Elf!"

Gimli chuckled and shook his head. "No," he replied, "I do believe that I can see it clearly now, and you have my thanks for the information. It seems a strange thing, to me, to pay such mind to such inconsequential things as to build an entire identity around the shape of the flesh between one's legs; but then I speak as a Dwarf, and not a Man. It is surely not given to me to fathom the ways of your people any more than it is for me to claim to understand the nonsensical ways of Elves." Gimli slanted a teasing smile sideways towards Legolas, but Legolas was not looking at him: he was gaping instead at Éowyn, his expression one of aghast shock.

"And are your folk truly content with such…such simplicity?" Legolas asked her. "To have so much of the nature of your spirit determined by something as crude as…as flesh?"

"Many of us are," Éowyn said quietly, "although not all, no."

Gimli sat forward, while Legolas sank back into his seat, frowning.

"We do not all find that our spirits match with the bodies into which we are born," Éowyn explained; "nor into the roles which are thus thrust upon us by the eyes of others. My own dear Faramir is one who was thought by his parents to be a lass when he was born, and who had to make some not-inconsiderable effort to declare his identity against their assumptions later when he came to know himself in truth. He is not the only one among our peoples who has endured such confusion in his life, of course, although it is thankfully a rare situation; say, perhaps no more than one in fifty? Or one in a hundred, even?" She shrugged. "I am not sure anyone has ever taken a tally, mind you, so I may be estimating that wrong; and too, it seems to be something that is a little more common in my own Rohan than it is here—although that may be only because I grew-up in Rohan, and thus over my years there I witnessed such folk as they went about the declaration of their true identities and the corresponding shifting of their place in life. I have lived here only a few years; of course I would have seen it less.

"And, too," Éowyn added, her fair face drawing tight into a brief grimace, "there was a time where I thought my own spirit was such a one myself; but no, I am a woman indeed, just as I was named upon my birth. I only did not like the role into which my womanhood had thrust me. And yet even though it would have made my life much easier when I was young, I found that I could not endure the pretense of calling myself a man when it was so against my nature. Well," she amended with a fleeting smile and a glint of mischief in her eyes, "not for any long period of time, anyway. The occasional disguise in order to escape to the training grounds, or for a short foray with the Riders, was another matter! That, I will admit, was joyous: to take the name and nature of a man, and wear it close against my heart, and walk through the world as another version of myself? Ah! Yes, that was a joy indeed!

"Although it was a joy I long ago gave-up, when my uncle's health failed him and he grew to require me ever near his side, and my duties as the Lady of the Golden Hall precluded my ever being anything else," Éowyn continued, sobering. "At least, until I fled those duties for that last ride to war, of course…but Dernhelm was a name that I had borne before, and those I rode with were accustomed to seeing—and pretending not to see!—such a Rider at their sides. I have not felt the need for such a mask since settling here in Ithilien, but perhaps I ought to ride out as Dernhelm again sometimes; it was indeed a joy, to don for a time the guise of the self I might have been, had I been born otherwise…"

Her voice trailed-off as she realized that both Elf and Dwarf were staring at her.

"Do you mean to say," Gimli asked slowly, "that your folk may be born into a body that is not shaped to suit their soul? Surely your Eru Illûvatar is a better craftsman than that!"

Éowyn shrugged. "Sometimes; although it is not so much the body in some cases as it is the assumptions of others that go along with it that suits a self poorly," she said. "My Faramir, for one, is perfectly content with his body as it is; and only chafed against the eyes of others, who looked at him and insisted upon seeing a woman where he knew himself a man. But there are some who feel as trammeled by the constraints of their skin as I did by my role as nursemaid and serving-woman, yes. They do what they can, to adjust their bodies to a shape that suits them better, and the Healers help; I know that the king has brought new knowledge in this matter from Rivendell, and some that I believe he learned from the folk of Harad, which has been a great boon to the people both of Gondor and of Rohan. Is it truly so strange a thing to you?" She laughed a little at the shocked looks upon their faces, as though she spoke of some common and meager ailment of Men, no more worth fretting-over than sunburn or a summer cold. "It is not only those folk who are named man or woman incorrectly who find themselves discontented with the bodies they must wear, after all! We all must learn to live within our skin as best we can, even those parts that feel as though they do not quite fit; it is only a matter of degrees how much so."

Legolas felt horror fluttering in his breast like a caged bird fighting to free itself of his ribs as he stared at Éowyn's smiling face. "But surely their bodies change to suit them?" he pleaded with her. "You cannot mean to say that your people are forced to endure a form that does not please their spirits?"

Gimli and Éowyn both turned towards him with raised brows. "What are you saying, Legolas?" Gimli asked. "Bodies are flesh and bone, and not soft stone to be reshaped at a whim."

Legolas blinked at him, his beardless face drawn tight in confusion and his hands curling together in tight knots of dismay.

"There must be some elves who have disliked the form of their flesh before," Éowyn said tentatively. "Some elf-men who wished they had the form of an elf-woman, or the other way around; or whatever such names your folk give to your shaping…? Or even simply an elf who wished to be taller, or stouter, or slimmer…?"

Legolas shrank back in his seat, as though recoiling from her words. "No!" he exclaimed, his fair elvish voice thick with distress. "No, no elf would ever find themselves in a body that they felt did not fit their soul; or not for long, at least, for our forms will ever change to match our feelings of ourselves, whatsoever those selves might be." He shuddered and asked in a voice wavering with anxious dismay, "Are you truly telling me that Men are locked forever in one shape, no matter how they feel about their bodily form?"

It was Éowyn's turn to stare at Legolas; Éowyn, and Gimli as well.

"Elven bodies are so malleable?" Gimli asked. "They simply…change, by mood or whim?" He eyed Legolas with some concern, as though expecting his elf to suddenly grow wings or sprout a second head even as they spoke.

"Of course not by mood or whim," Legolas retorted. "And it is not sudden! Such a change of form takes place over many years, just as it does when an elf is first growing, and deciding upon what sort of shape into which they wish to grow."

"You can simply—decide?" Éowyn asked, in a strangled voice.

"Of course," said Legolas. "Much of it is not a deliberate choice, I suppose, for we are very young indeed when we settle on the colors of our hair or eyes or skin, babes who cannot even speak yet—and yet, if we do find those colors suit us ill for some reason later on, they too can change; although that is very rare, for mostly an elf learns to see themselves so clearly as they are that those elements become utterly ingrained within a soul. Mostly," he admitted in a quiet voice, as sorrow flickered through his eyes, "such changes ensue when an Elf has endured some terrible horror, and the color of both their spirit and their form is leached away by suffering; but it can happen for pleasant reasons, too. Still, I can no more imagine myself with hair the color of Gimli's, or your own, than I can with a second nose, or a third arm!" he laughed, brightening again.

"And of course we cannot simply will an injury away, or regrow a part of ourselves that once was lost," Legolas continued, as they stared at him. "A body may be changed by outside forces as readily as the world around us may be thus reshaped, and we have not the power to will such changes away anymore than we can erase our own memories of the deeds themselves. Yet such things often become so accustomed to us that it is our sense of self that changes to know and hold those altered forms within our very souls, so that even when re-embodied on the other side of the Sea, it is said, such changes to our forms often—though not always—endure." In answer to the raw bewilderment upon their faces, he only shrugged. "That is why sometimes a wound will heal without a scar, and sometimes it will leave the evidence of itself upon our skin forever: it depends on whether or not the Elf in question notes the injury deep enough in their own heart for it to scar there, too, and thus become a part of us; or not."

Gimli rubbed his temples with the sturdy pads of his fingers, as though seeking to ground his very skull against the thoughts that reeled now within. "I am all agape, Legolas," he said. "You mean that elvish shapes and colors are chosen by the elves that wear them? Even elvish scars?"

"Yes, of course they are," Legolas said. "Is that truly not the way of things for Dwarves and Men?"

Gimli shook his head, and Éowyn did likewise.

"Bad enough that your shapes should define your spirits," Legolas muttered, his eyes tracing the faded path of the old wound that had left its mark on Gimli's brow before they flitted back to Éowyn's pale face, "but now you tell me that you cannot even change those shapes if they suit you ill? Truly, the Gift of Men seems like less and less of one to me, the more I learn about the Secondborn!" He turned back to face Gimli. "And Dwarves are the same?" he demanded.

"Dwarves are indeed set in our shapes," Gimli said, "yes; and we love our shapes, for they are crafted for us by our Maker, and thus are both beautiful and holy. I cannot think that I have ever heard tell of a Dwarf who did not love the form into which he was born—although some will complain of things like aches, or old wounds, or a tattoo worth regretting, of course…but that is merely the natural wear-and-tear upon a body, and not a flaw of the flesh itself; for the flesh is given us by Mahal at our making, and thus is as perfectly crafted for us as our souls, and our Dark-Na—well." He shook his head. "Our shapes determine very little of our identities, at any rate, unlike Men; and so perhaps there is less call to be dissatisfied for Dwarves than there is for Men…but I admit that I cannot imagine our Maker ever crafting us to suit our souls so ill, even if that were a thing to be determined by shape alone!"

"Pray, forgive me the question," Éowyn broke-in, "but now I find that I am the one confused; for it seems as though you are saying that the shape of an elvish body—the difference between one who bears children, and one who sires them, I mean—is not only something that you can change, but something that does not even dictate or relate to the elvish identities that Gimli spoke of before. Do I have that right, Legolas, or am I confused?"

"You are correct, of course," said Legolas. "What would such a thing as that have to do with the sort of person one is?" he scoffed. "And at any rate, what about those bodies that can do neither, or both? How could we fit so many different bodies to only three sorts of selves, even if we wished to try?" He looked back and forth between Gimli, who shrugged, and Éowyn, who stared at him in slack-jawed bemusement.

"Perhaps I should have the nature of elvish identity explained to me, then," Éowyn said weakly. "I admit that I have seen more variation in the bodies of my own folk than I expected, since turning my hands to healing…but not, I think, to such a degree as what you seem to speak of, Legolas. Please, will you tell me how—what were the words you used? Ellith and ellyn and eleinnaith, was it not? Will you tell me what those mean, and how they are determined?"

Legolas hesitated, clearly struggling to order his words in response to her request; taking pity on the anxious look upon his face, Gimli placed a hand on his Elf's arm and leaned forward to repeat to Éowyn the facts of the lesson he had learned the night before, in a more succinct and orderly fashion than the rambling speech which Legolas had given him. When he finished, he turned to Legolas and asked, "Do I have that aright? Pray correct me if I have erred in anything."

"No, Gimli," Legolas said, a grateful smile on his face; and one blooming warm within his heart as well. "You have spoken it very well, and I thank you for utilizing the craft of your words on my behalf."

"Ah, sometimes it is easier for the student to pass-on a lesson to another learner than it is for the expert, for the student knows where his fellows are likely to struggle in the learning from his own experience; that is all."

Legolas's smile turned wry. "Also you are indeed a dwarvish elein of great speech-craft, and I am but a simple ellon whose skill with a bow far outweighs my own fumbling words."

"Also there perhaps is that," Gimli allowed, and Legolas grinned at him.

"But this is fascinating," Éowyn murmured. Her bright eyes were clouded with distance as her thoughts wandered through the new knowledge she had just been given. "And it truly has nothing to do with the forms of your bodies?" Legolas shook his head, still plainly bewildered by the concept, and Éowyn clapped her hands together in excitement. "Oh, I must speak to Arwen on this soon; I had no idea that elves looked upon the world and on themselves in such a way. How strange it must be for her now to live in Gondor, which is so very different! I wonder what she styles herself as…an elein, or an elleth?" She blinked and turned to look at Legolas, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"I do not know," Legolas said, before she could ask. "I think that this divisioning is something that affects elves much less than your own distinctions of identity do, my lady; especially in these days. Yet it is not as though we ever went about calling ourselves by such labels everytime we spoke of one another, the way your folk do! And I did not know Queen Arwen before she came to Gondor. Here, she styles herself a woman; I do not know what she might have styled herself in her father's home. And too, she is a peredhel; it may be that she has always chosen to be only a woman, and never selected an elvish label for herself at all." He shrugged. "It is possible. I do not know; I have not asked."

"Well, I will," Éowyn said fervently. "I am utterly captivated, Legolas. I am so very glad that the two of you sought me out to alleviate your own confusion, for I have learned so much myself in the process! You shall have to tell me how your people here in Ithilien are styled, please. If—if that is not an impolite thing to ask?" she added hurriedly.

Legolas smiled and shook his head. "It is not impolite at all," he assured her. "You may not get concrete answers as to such identities out of everyone, for my folk have ever been less concerned with such things than the High Elves or Grey Elves; but none will be offended by the question, no."

"And you say that even these things can change, among elves? Both the naming of the spirit and the fashioning of the flesh alike?"

Legolas nodded. "Yes, certainly," he answered, bemused by her astonishment. "It is not uncommon at all, particularly changes of the flesh. And changes to the spirit are much less uncommon now than they were, too, in ancient days; for the High Elves and the Grey Elves, who first dabbled in these distinctions of self, were quite firm in defining and maintaining the divisions between them in earlier Ages of the world. They seemed to matter a great deal to the Valar, which I suppose makes sense, for the Ainur are things solely of spirit who but garb themselves in flesh by whim or task, and their roles in the shaping and guarding of the world are their identities; and the Elves first created such dividing lines for themselves under the instructions of the Valar of Aman, and the maia Melian. My own folk knew naught of such things until the Sindar of Doriath came to our woods, and so we cared for them less, I think; for ever have we been less concerned with the attentions of the Valar. Yet the lines between these natures and their names have blurred more over the years among all elves, at least all who dwell in Middle-earth, and so today we both tend to cross those lines more often, and to be less concerned with the re-defining of ourselves when we do, than once we were—but it was never unheard of for such things to change, even in the stricter times of the Elder Days.

"My own grandfather, Oropher, the first King of the Greenwood, back when he lived in Doriath?" Legolas ventured, when Éowyn continued to stare at him, enthralled. "He was an elleth then, learning the arts of Melian behind her Girdle, rather than those of war which he later mastered. At that time he wore also the sort of body that can grow a child (forgive me, I know not the Westron words for such things!) and it was there in Doriath that he bore my father with his husband, Nellgind; but both Oropher's spirit and his body changed in the years following Doriath's fall and Nellglind's death." Legolas shrugged away the ancient grief, even as Gimli leaned close to grasp his knee in comfort. "It is not uncommon among my people for such a thing to happen, after an event of such devastation: for one is often shaken down to one's very soul by such a thing," Legolas explained, "and a reshaping of flesh or spirit or both can sometimes help to settle oneself afterwards."

"Just as in the case of Hírilhúrin," Gimli said slowly, remembering Legolas's words about the much-beleaguered Healer. "Yes; I recall now. She was an ellon before she refashioned herself in both life and name, you said, as a result of the darkness and horrors of the Last Alliance; and now she is a healer, an elleth. Did her form then change, as well as that of her nature?"

"Yes," said Legolas. "Hírilhúrin tells me that she changed in every way that a person might from what she was before: that she left that self behind, and became herself anew. The ellon that she was before was thin and hard as bones when she was younger, before the War of the Last Alliance; and she was a sirerer of children then rather than a bearer, too. Now she is the latter, and has had two more children with her wife since; and as you have seen for yourself, Gimli, she is now round and soft and gentle in both shape and spirit, and very happy for it."

"Yes," said Gimli, the words numb with wonder as they fell from his tongue. "Yes, I have seen that very thing. Hammer and tongs! To think of flesh being as mutable as stone…"

Legolas laughed. "Rather more so than stone, to anyone but dwarves!" he replied.

"And…and has your own body ever changed in such a fashion?" Gimli asked hesitantly.

"Of course," said Legolas, as though he was surprised even to be asked. "Many elves try out at least one other shape, if not more, before they settle into the one that proves most comfortable to them; and some never settle at all, but continue to reshape themselves their whole lives; although most, once they have grown into themselves, are content with the shape of that choosing for a very long time indeed. But few will not change themselves at least once or twice over the course of our lives. My own aunt Merilgais is one who has never changed at all, but that is quite uncommon. She and Eregmegil are the only two elves that I know who have never worn another form, even briefly."

"Mahal's bones," Gimli murmured. He laughed, suddenly, his shock giving way to amusement, and said, "Oh, to think that elves might choose to look like anything, and most of you choose to look like that! Truly, Legolas, your folk are a strange people indeed," he chortled. "Were I to go back and tell my people that you might all be as broad-shouldered as Eregmegil, or as round-bellied as Hírilhúrin, and yet most of you prefer to be spindly stick-thin things…" He shook his head, laughing into his beard; then abruptly he looked up, his eyes wide. "Could you even choose to grow a beard, if you liked?"

Legolas seemed suddenly less than comfortable with the conversation, fidgeting in his seat. "It may be possible," he said eventually. "My father knew one Elf, at least, who wore such a thing. It is said that he grew it out of his great love and affinity for Ulmo, who often sports a great beard of kelp and seaweed when he takes an elf-like shape; but I do not know of any other elf who has ever worn such a thing, or could."

"An Elf with a beard!" Gimli laughed, wiping at his eyes. "Oh, Mahal's very teeth, what a concept!"

Legolas was very quiet, and strangely still. Then he asked, in a voice so low that mortal ears had to strain to hear it, "Would you like for me to wear a different shape, Gimli? I do not know if I could manage to convince my spirit to adopt shoulders as broad as Eregmegil's, or a waist as wide as Hírilhúrin's; and certainly I could never hope to match the stoutness of a dwarf; but for you, if you would like it, I will try."

"No," Gimli said at once, and caught Legolas's spindly hands tight within his own broad palms. He lifted them to his lips, kissing first the backs of Legolas's long brown fingers and then turning the narrow hands to plant a kiss in the center of each smooth, slender palm. "No," he said again, steady and certain as a mountain. His eyes were fixed on Legolas's face with such intensity that all the world beyond his gaze seemed to fall away behind some grey mist or shadow. "No, Legolas, I would change nothing of you to suit me better, my love, for nothing in this world could ever suit me half so well as you precisely as you are. No."

Legolas smiled and sank forward to lean against Gimli's side, and Gimli folded a thick arm around his long curving waist and held him close. "That is for the best," Legolas murmured. "I am very used to seeing myself more like a sapling of my forest than as a stout, solid dwarf; I do not think I would be able to convince my spirit to accustom itself to such a form."

"I am stout and solid Dwarf enough for us both, I think," Gimli declared firmly. "You stay your sweet and spindly Wood-elf self, my dear; and I shall be the boulder that holds your fluttering roots in place upon this good earth; and together we shall get along very well, I think."

"I do not think any might do better," Legolas said, and kissed him gently.

Éowyn busied herself with her tea for a few minutes, holding her gaze fixed very firmly to the panes of the nearest window, through which she could see the growing greenery of Ithilien and the distant forms of several Wood-elves flitting like songbirds through the trees. They were too far off for her to hear their voices, but something of their song seemed to linger upon the air nonetheless, like the smell of rich earth after a rain. She smiled, and ignored the whispers being murmured closer to her ear, until they faded and cut-off at last with the clearing of a gravelly dwarven throat.

"Well," she said, turning back as though she had not noticed the little interlude at all, and had merely been examining the trees outside for the sake of her own curiosity, "I suppose I must confess now that I have never noticed any elves ever changing their forms in such a fashion, even though I have lived alongside their folk now for some time. I wonder that I could be so blind!"

Legolas's contented smile fled his face like orcs before a sunrise. "I do not wonder," he said, and his merry voice was suddenly flat and low. "It is unlikely that you shall ever see such a thing, my lady; for such changes take many decades. A mortal would be unlikely to know an elf long enough to notice such a change."

"Oh," said Éowyn quietly. "Oh, I see."

She looked at Gimli, and back at Legolas, and the stiff and cheerless look upon his face; and she reached out and clasped one tense brown hand within the warm cradle of her own.

"I am sorry," she said. Legolas's smile was brittle as he returned the hand-clasp, but it was at least a smile; and Éowyn thought that that was more than she deserved, for reminding him of the mortal lifespan of his dwarven beloved, and of the sundered fates that ultimately awaited them in what to an Elf must seem all too short a time indeed.

"I am not sorry for the choices of my heart," Legolas replied fiercely, and Gimli laid a gentle hand upon his back.

"Well," Gimli said, clearing his throat with another stoney rumble, "I think we have spoken quite enough upon such weighty matters as flesh and souls and their entwining for one day; let us have a lighter topic next. Perhaps I might tell you, lady, of young Elfwine's recent foray into mining? It is a tale that Legolas has heard before…"

"Oh!" Legolas said, breaking into a sudden laugh. "Oh, but it is a very good one; I am very pleased to hear it again if you like, lady."

Éowyn smiled at them both. "I am always eager to hear stories of my little nephew," she replied. "But pray tell me, Gimli, how it is that a child of not yet three could possibly be engaged in any activity that might be described as mining?"

"Well," Gimli said, "it starts with a rather foolish bet involving a certain king of the Horse-lords, and a dwarf's beard…"

Gimli launched into the tale with enthusiasm, and it was met with great amusement on the part of both his listeners. That story was followed by the one that Gimli had alluded to before, of Éomer's first meeting with a dwarf-woman and his repeated fumbling in his efforts to not offend the mischievous Bori; and then Legolas spoke about a mishap he and Tulinwen had had with a stagnant pool in the wilds of Ithilien; and Éowyn in her turn regalled them both with the failed attempts of a rather pompous lord of Minas Tirith to prove that he could ride as well as any woman of Rohan.

That tale was followed by another, and another, and the day wore-on around them full of merry voices and peals of laughter in three very distinct registers: the low rumble of Gimli the Dwarf, the silvery flutter of Legolas the Elf, and the bold guffaw of the White Lady of Ithilien. And if none of them quite fit the roles that certain small-minded folk would have liked to assign to them—well, what of it?

They were happy and free, and they were themselves. As Gimli would have said: that was enough of a thing to be, indeed.