(Untitled)

[fire_of_mahal]

While Gimli deeply and truly appreciates the ingenuity of modern forms of plumbing, sometimes the more traditional ways of getting clean are called for after a hard day of work. Streams are good. So are lakes

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[bad_as_he_is]

And he is joined by a young man with a truly amazing appetite who settles beside him and orders breakfast himself.

"Morning, Master Gimli."

[fire_of_mahal]

Ah, another who has to do a bit of scrambling to sit- very well, perhaps he's not so peeved as he might have been. "Good morning, young Tom," the dwarf answers. "And how do you fare this fine morn?"

[bad_as_he_is]

"I've had a good night's rest, sir," he answers, "and I'm fit and ready for work as soon as you'll need me today. After, I was thinking perhaps to--oh!"

And he turns with a grin, leaning his arm on the counter.

"That is to say, sir, there was a gentleman interested in having something done for himself, sir. Some sort of sword as he didn't like the one the bar made for him."

[fire_of_mahal]

"Ah, is there now?" Gimli inquires, eyebrows up. "Do tell. It's been a while since I had such an order."

[bad_as_he_is]

"He didn't say exactly what he wanted, sir, but I was wandering around the pub and saw him sketching out a curved sort of sword. I've never seen anything like it, to tell the truth, Master Gimli, but I'm assuming that'd be the sort he was looking for."

[fire_of_mahal]

"Hmm." Gimli strokes his beard thoughtfully, considering this. "The men of Harad, in the far-away south of my world, carried such swords. Dark-eyed, they were, and garbed in strange fabrics that kept them from the bitter sun of that land; they often wore gold ornaments even into battle. Was he one such?"

[bad_as_he_is]

He shakes his head.

"No, sir, not in the least. He looked like me, sir, blond and fair-skinned and with blue eyes, sir, though he dresses in a strange sort of fashion, I'll say. He says it's what they wear in the deserts of Arabia."

He grins and pulls out the volume Lawrence had given him.

"He showed me a picture book the one day of the place, sir, though this isn't the volume I mention. This is another book he gave me, this one mostly words though there are a few pictures that I might show you."

He opens it and looks for the photographs left inbetween the pages and held down.

"Like this, sir."

And there is Lawrence, dressed as an Arabian. The light has caught his eyes and his hair that their color may not be mistaken even in the black and white photo and around him, sand. He holds a scimitar.

[fire_of_mahal]

"Hmm." Gimli leans over to have a look. The pictures get an appreciative whistle. There is fair enough painting and art in Middle-earth, and fairer far in Valinor, but Gimli has come to appreciate simply rendering things as they appear to the eye in his time.

"The clothes are not so very different from those of the Haradrim," he muses, "though the cut and colour are different. Then again, I have not been to Harad myself; I know only their warriors' garb. If they dress so in time of peace- well, strange indeed that they should take a man who looks much like one of the Rohirrim to themselves, but that is no business of mine. The sword is very like to those raised in battle at the Pelennor Fields..."

[bad_as_he_is]

Tom nods.

"As you say, sir."

Mostly because he hasn't the faintest clue what Gimli might be talking about, to be honest.

[fire_of_mahal]

Gimli casts a sidelong glance at the young man. "Perhaps," he says, "I ought to acquaint you, at least somewhat, with the particulars of the world from which I come. I daresay it will save the both of us time and trouble, later on."

[bad_as_he_is]

"Almost certainly, Master Gimli," he says with a crooked grin. "I doubt my opinion will help much otherwise."

[fire_of_mahal]

"Very well," says Gimli. "We should begin, then, with this: I come of a world called Middle-earth, and in that world there are more races than Men alone. The Elves awakened into that world at the first lighting of the stars, and the Men at the first rising of the Sun; but my people, the Dwarves, have another maker, and we came into the world in caverns laid deep beneath the roots of mountains."

[bad_as_he_is]

He nods, listening intently. He's not a bad lad when it comes to schooling, when the lesson interests him.

[fire_of_mahal]

"My world was shaped, in its beginnings, by the Valar- you would call them 'powers', I suppose. They laboured to bring forth the world that the One, whom the Elves call Eru, had envisioned and wished to be. But the mightiest of their number wished the world to be all of his making, and would not stand to see the craft of others advanced ahead of his own; and so he rebelled against the others, and against the One. Long, long Ages of the world passed- Ages of lamps, and stars, and Sun and Moon- ere he was put at last out the Wall of Night, never to return until the Last of all Battles. He has many names, though he is most often called Morgoth- the Black Foe- and was once called Melkor

[bad_as_he_is]

He nods, eyes wide. He'd heard such a story from Reverend Thwackum concerning the Creation of the world, though never in such a way to make it seem so real.

"And he was defeated, yes?"

[fire_of_mahal]

"Aye, he was," says Gimli. "Sauron had poured much of his power into a thing of his own making- a golden ring that might make its wearer invisible, or give him the swaying of the hearts of Men and others, or any one of a thousand things. The Ring was destroyed at the very last, and it broke his power forever. His armies remained, of course, but they were defeated in the end as well."