milliways_bar | (no subject)

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

"Morning, Master Gimli."

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?"

"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."

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

"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."

"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?"

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.

"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..."

Tom nods.

"As you say, sir."

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

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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

He pauses, thinking. "He cannot come into Middle-earth now, though his servants were long in the world after his exile. Chief among these was the foul Sauron, who had much power in his own right, and who wished to enslave all the races and lands of Middle-earth. The battle I spoke of, the Pelennor, was against his forces and the forces of Men swayed to his side through argument and cunning."

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?"

"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."

He nods.

"It sounds a foul thing to make. There are of course a number of things you could do with such a ring that might be all right, but in the end you'd be tempted to do what you ought not to do and it's not worth the trouble."

"Oh, indeed," says Gimli. "Thus did it always tempt those who came into contact with it- for the Ring had a will of its own."

He thinks a moment longer.

"One of my companions, who bore the Ring longest on the quest to destroy it, wrote of what happened on that long Quest. While I do not expect you could read the original Red Book of Westmarch, it has been rendered into English. Should it happen that you find such things of interest (and do not mind spending a long time with a book), you might do well to borrow a copy of the translation."

He considers for a moment. He's already got a book from Mister Lawrence for the moment and while the story sounds exciting, he knows with the work and his own galavanting about, he probably won't read it. However--

"At the moment, I won't, sir. After I finish the volume from Mister Lawrence, however, I'll be asking for it."

Because it would give Lawrence more to read to him.

"Well enough," says Gimli. "Though perhaps you might begin with the book that Frodo's uncle Bilbo wrote, which spoke of the finding of the Ring, ere anyone knew what it was. The language is simpler going, I've found," he adds.

.... yes, Gimli used his own canon as practise material for English comprehension lessons. Not his fault the author presented it as a translation.

He nods.

"That might be for the best. The beginning is usually the best place to start a story, I suppose."

Lawrence is still sketching his sword down the bar a few seats from Gimli. When he glances up to see the man, however, he glides over quite easily and smiles.

"Good morning, sir." A slight smile crosses his face - this can only be the man that Tom had mentioned to him the other day.

The dwarf glances up, some time after his conversation with Tom, and smiles. "Good morning indeed," he says. "Would I be correct in assuming you were the gentleman young Mr. Jones spoke of to me earlier this day?"

"Most correct indeed, I should say."

He nods, taking a seat on the stool near to Gimli and ordering from Bar some bangers and mash.

Gimli nods with some satisfaction. "Very well, then," he says. "Gimli, son of Gloin, at your service."

A small smile. "Thomas Edward Lawrence, similiarly disposed to you. Do call me Lawrence, however."

The other names were so British.

"As you wish," Gimli says. "Now, Lawrence- I had been given the impression you were in pursuit of some sort of sword?"

"Yes, quite in pursuit of one. It's of a peculiar shape, I'm told - but I've got only the one from the bar and it's rather sub-par."

He pauses. "Tom tells me that you are quite talented - he did go on about your smithy."

"As well he should," says Gimli. "My people are smiths and crafters from the day of our creation. I myself have quite close to a hundred and sixty years' worth of experience before the anvil, and most of that has been spent in the making of arms and armour."

"A hundred and sixty years, you say? That is quite an accomplishment, sir."

He smiled, drawing out a cigarette and offering Gimli one as well. Only polite, after all.

"My people live a long time, and are not considered fit for heavy labour until the age of forty." Gimli shrugs. "I would have worked more, had I not been engaged in other pursuits that had need of Dwarven talents."

He accepts the cigarette, sniffing at it curiously; he's never actually seen one, but the smell- "Pipeweed, is it?" he inquires.

"Tobacco - though I'm sure that the both are similar, I've never heard tell of such things as 'pipeweed'. We do put tobacco in pipes, at any rate." He lights the end of his cigarette with a pop-lighter and inhales, offering it out to Gimli soon after.

Gimli accepts; it's similar enough to the leaf the hobbis raise to be bearable, though it takes him a bit to get the inhalation right compared to what he's used to. "I don't believe I've ever seen the stuff prepared this way."

"It's more convenient than having to roll such things by hand, I think."

He nods, taking a light inhale and smiling. "There is a young woman here who has the fortunate talent of shaping smoke into animals and people."

"Does she, now?" says Gimli. "Knew a wizard like that once. A very master at smoke-rings, and at doing things with smoke that could put anyone else's shapes to shame."

"Well, she's a vampire - perhaps they share similar talents with wizards."

Now he doesn't know that for a fact, but he's only met Mal and doesn't have much basis for comparison with wizards.

Gimli frowns thoughtfully at that. "Perhaps," he says. "I wouldn't know. I recall only one vampire in the legends of Middle-earth, and that one was not spoken of much."

"Only one? I've met a trio at least of them here, so far. One of which I'd known in my time - but I hadn't known about the vampire part, of course."

Not even when they'd shagged - which was a bit puzzling, but Lawrence was always very addled after sex.

"Possibly they are more common in your world than my own," says Gimli. "I've encountered folk from worlds without dwarves often enough; mine may simply be a world largely without vampires."

A nod.

"I myself come from a world without dwarves - quite possibly from a later era of Tom's years." A fond smile - he quite adores Tom.

Gimli nods. "You sound as if you hail of the same country," he notes. "Though I may, of course, be mistaken."

"We are, in fact. Britain - quite unfortunately, I should say. It is a rather unpleasant place to be."

Well, for him.

"Not, I take it, a country as prone to warmth and sun as the one where you got those clothes?" Gimli guesses.

"Rather not. A country as dreary and damp as the minds of those who run it, I should say."

He sniffs with disdain and takes a long pull from his cigarette. "Arabia is considerably more civilized, you see."

"I shall have to take your word for it," says Gimli. "I have never been yet to Harad, the country far to our south where the Men dress as you do."

"Is it a desert?" He has a bad habit of making this the second or perhaps third question that he asks people if he can help it.

Although with Fiona's expression of wanting to take him to a desert of hers...he was rather excited.

"Much of it is, so I am told," says Gimli. "Though in the farthest reaches of Harad, where the stars are strange, they do say the great deserts give way to forests almost as hot as all that."

"A forest as hot as the desert? Surely a man who speaks of such things cannot know what he is talking about."

But he smiles anyway, shaking his head. "I should like to see all the deserts of all the worlds, I think. It would be difficult, but it seems more than worth my time." And it wasn't as if he had much else to do here.