milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Ever seen a dwarf wrestling with block and tackle equipment, a single low-slung cart, and a lot of sizable blocks of stone all by himself?

Well, now you have. And what's more, the dwarf seems to be winning.

Fortunately, this is taking place out back, or the mortar he's using as the stones are manoeuvred into place would cause a bloody mess all over the bar. As it stands, it's still a mess, but it's an outside mess.

Come say hi!

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"Do you want a hand, or anything?"

It's a slender human teenage girl, watching him curiously. "It'll go faster if I help."

Well. This is new.

Gimli blinks up at the girl. "Will it, now?" he asks curiously- and then the thought occurs to him, that the Maiar could take the shapes of men if they so wished. Gandalf, for example.

Cheered immensely by the thought, he says, "If you wish to help and you've the skill for it, then by all means, be my guest." He bows deeply to the girl. "Gimli, son of Glóin, at your service."

"Cassie Sandsmark at yours," Cassie says, returning the bow with only a little awkwardness. "Where should I start?" She lifts a foundation stone and looks at the ground. "I've strength, but I don't know about skill. I've never done this before."

Yep. Maia strength. He can live with that.

Gimli indicates one of the corners of the pit. "That'd be the best spot for that one; you've found the one I meant for a corner-stone, Mistress Sandsmark. Set it there, if you'd be so good?"

He sets his part of the equipment aside and fetches instead the first container of mortar he's mixed up, and the tools to spread it with.

She sets it neatly where indicated, and flies back to lift the next one. "What are you building? It looks like it's going to be something solid and long-lasting."

... Gandalf never did that.

Huh.

"This? This is to be a smithy, Mistress Sandsmark," Gimli says as he starts in on the block with the mortar and tools. "A place such as this, with horses and armoured men, ought to know better than to do without a forge. The Bar's sorcery might be enough to bring forth iron of every kind, but there's no magic in my world to put a shoe on a horse's foot- and no substitute for a skilled hand and eye, either, no matter who casts the spells. Best to set an example of what can be expected of the work with the building itself, instead of having to spread word by mouth, eh?"

"I always thought so. People argue, if you just talk about it, but if you start doing it they tend to fall in line." She grins. "I always found that with my team, anyway. Can you really shoe horses? That's pretty awesome."

"Your team? There's more of you, then?" Gimli looked up, wiping dust from his face and getting mortar in his eyebrows in the process. "What stories they must tell about you and yours, then... Aye, I can, though it's been some while since I've had to do it. My folk don't keep animals ourselves, but the Elves I've stayed among these past nine years did. Made for good practice, when there wasn't other craft to work at."

"There's more," Cassie confirms, grinning. "Most of us have different abilities. We're just kids, really, but ... well, I don't know about the others, btu I know I was given my powers for a reason, and that reason was to help the people who need it, so." She shrugs, and picks up the next stone, waiting for his directions. "I don't think they tell stories about us much. I've never heard any. ... I tried to learn smithcraft once, but I just couldn't get the hang of it."

"Where is it you come from, if you don't mind my asking?" Gimli inquires. "There were those in my world, Middle-earth, who were sent to us with powers like none any other in the world might have, for just such purpose as you describe- though they were wizards, so their talents ran differently than yours."

He backs away from the newly mortared stone, indicating where the next one's to go. "Ah? Pity. Clearly, your bards haven't the imagination they ought."

"Earth. Well, mostly Earth." Cassie shrugs. "We had an alien with us for a while, but he was lost in battle. And one of us is from a thousand years in the future, but he was only sent here to learn to grow up. We're just kids, really. What about you? I've never heard of Middle-earth, and I've been to a few planets."

Gimli considers this for a while before speaking. Construction work is good that way.

"I've only learned of this traveling through the dark between the stars since coming here," he says. "My world has no engines, no motors, no guns. Nor do we have the lights this place has, which burn without fuel or smoke at the touch of a switch. We've the light of Sun and Moon and stars; inside, or belowground, we have candle-fat and oil lamps. The Elves call it Arda, and say that it once was different in form from how it is now. The great mariners among Men have circled the world and say that all roads are bent, that there is no place to take ship where you could not come, in the end, to the same place where once your voyage began... That matters little to my own folk, as Dwarves aren't meant for seafaring. I've taken ship twice in my life, perhaps."

"Wow." Cassie thinks about it. "Very different. My world is similar to the bar, technology-wise, although there's not as much magic. Or at least, not where I am. But my - my family, I guess - the Amazons, they live in a place fairly similar to yours, as far as technology and things go, although they live among the gods. It must have been a shock to you, arriving here."

"Do they, now?" Gimli smiles a bit. "The elves of my world had that option- to sail from the western shores of their homeland and come at last to the Undying Realm, instead of rounding the world as do mortal sailors. Interesting... and aye, it was, since I was expecting the Hall my folk go to after their death. I've no idea what it looks like, but I doubt it's anything like this."

He smiles. "Not, mind, that I'm objecting. 'Tis a fascinating place, even if it's the wrong one."

"Are you dead, then? I've met a few dead people here, and I don't think any of them expected to arrive here. But it's a fascinating place, that's true." Cassie smiles, and wipes dirt off her face. "I had no idea there were so many different types of people in the universe."

[and, er. slowtime, again? or, feel free to wrap if you want. is 2:30am for me, definitely bedtime.]

[Good heavens. That's what, Australia? Wrapping is fine with me.]

Gimli nods. "Neither did I. Not in the slightest."

And the work goes on.

PS. Sorry about unexpected slowtime! RL is evil to me lately.

Pesty, pesty RL! How inconvenient it can be. *snicker* No worries. I thought your modem had been fried by a power surge or something.

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