Disclaimer: I do not own Mahtan or Gimli, or anyone/anywhere else mentioned. They all belong to Tolkien. Think he'd notice if I stole Mahtan?
A/N: Gonnhir, 'stone lord' is a more polite way of saying 'dwarf' than 'stunted one'. And I think Mahtan doesn't get nearly enough attention, especially as he had to suffer through being Fëanor's father-in-law.
It didn't actually register at first, that the dwarf was actually here. There were many who had come to the West in the past few years, and Mahtan had ignored them for the first part. There were Sindar, most of whom had no interest in him and his forge, and not a few Noldor, some of whom he even vaguely recognised. He greeted these if they passed him on the few occasions he ventured beyond the forge and Aulë's halls. Other than that, he ignored them, and they him, and that was as it should be.
There had been some sort of hubbub at the quays, he understood, but he never paid much attention to such things, and when Aulë had smiled and told him that a child of his had come to Valinor and would be visiting the forge, Mahtan just nodded and cleaned some of his lesser creations off a section of bench to make room. He had had things to sort out in other parts of the forge, and it was not until one of the other smiths came to him, wanting to know if Mahtan really didn't mind having the Gonnhir in his forge, that he'd realised that Aulë had been speaking literally.
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He really didn't mind. The dwarf spent much time talking to Aulë, and quite a bit talking to another Elf, a flighty Sindarin fellow who turned up and dragged him away from the forge on a regular basis. Neither of these things fell under the category of 'interacting with Mahtan', and thus they could hardly be annoying to him. Mahtan liked to sit in a corner of the forge, watching things, absentmindedly polishing away or making lengths of chain for pendants or other tasks that he could do without thinking. It gave him time to watch.
He'd always been curious about the stunted ones. He'd heard some who had met them in the lands of the east and returned speak of them harshly, but he had discounted those stories. Along with the fanciful tales that they were made of stone, and that their woman looked like their men. Mahtan decided privately that if you were to make a dwarf out of anything, it would be iron – it leant itself to the making of things that were strong, not delicate, and Mahtan had more skill at metalwork than stonework as it was.
Perhaps if he remembered sometime, he would ask his lord what it was he had made the dwarves out of.
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The dwarf never worked on anything when people were watching. Sometimes he and Aulë would disappear into one of the forging rooms and would reappear some time later, but Mahtan never got to see what he made.
It drove him quite mad. He thought of things like that at times like this, when the forge was emptied due to some festival or other. Nerdanel tried to get him to come along, every time, and he refused, every time. It was a sort of tradition that they had, and he knew his daughter felt better for having at least tried to coax him away from the forge.
He put another twist in the sculpture he was playing with, tilting his head to try and find the best angle to look at it from. Like a flower, he thought, only it was all sharp corners and angles, a flower with teeth. An awkward, ugly, thing, and he liked it. Copper was so responsive to the attentions of a smith; Mahtan had never grown tired of playing with it. With a shrug, he took the sculpture in a pair of tongs and let it sink back into the melting-pot, watching it fold in upon itself.
"What did you do that for?"
Of course, there would be only one other person who would choose forge over festival. He refused to look the dwarf in the eye, instead settling on staring at the greying hair and long beard. There were braids in both, decorated with copper bands, and Mahtan grinned at them. "Do what?"
Instead of answering, the dwarf said, "There was nothing wrong with it."
He shrugged. "Why do you think I did it?" Mahtan had long ago learnt if you tried to explain yourself to people, they just kept asking questions. Make your comments as obtuse and irritating as possible, and they'd go away faster.
"So that nobody could have it. So that no-one but you would ever see it, touch it, know it existed." The dwarf was smirking, he knew without even looking, and he could feel his jaw drop. The point of asking questions like that was that people were not supposed to answer. And they most definitely were not meant to get it right. "So far I've heard people say that you are stubborn, crazy, obsessed, reclusive, and a right bastard. Thought you sounded like the kind of Elf I ought to get to know."
This time, Mahtan met the dwarf's gaze. "They're wrong. I'm not crazy." He hopped up and away from the melting-pot, choosing a key from the numerous ones he kept in his pockets by touch, and unlocked a cabinet that lay along the back wall, each deep drawer hiding an ingot wrapped in velvet. The lock was there only to stop people touching his things; no, no-one in the forge would stoop to stealing, but they seemed to think it was fine to poke their fingers at things that did not belong to them.
In the back, third drawer down, two across, it was. A failed experiment from a few hundred years ago. A swirl of iron and something that gleamed almost like mithril but was not; they had refused to mix and Mahtan had never had the heart to do anything with the resultant chunk. It was a little larger than what could comfortably be held in one hand, and cold and heavy. "What would you do with this?" It wasn't really a test so much as it was curiosity, and he watched the dwarf as he passed it from hand to hand. Muscles strained along the dwarf's arms; Mahtan would not have thought less of him if he'd chosen to take it in both hands, but it appeared that pride was not a flaw limited to the Quendi. He realised, also, that he'd forgotten to ask Aulë what he'd made the dwarves of.
"Nothing to it. With it – you could make a cradle of iron for it, or work it into the base of a statue, or anything of that nature. Put it on display. I wouldn't" and the dwarf's eyes were bright and piercing "hide it away where nobody could see it, locked in a cabinet at the back of an Elf-forge." He handed it back, and Mahtan grasped it with both hands, staring.
"It was locked away because no-one ever saw the beauty of it before." He turned it over in his hands, once or twice, caressing the surface. "And now it is yours." Holding it out, he realised this was probably the longest conversation he'd had in years with someone who was not Nerdanel. Most strange.
"Elves are fools." snorted the dwarf, and grinned up at Mahtan. "They cannot see the beauty that is right under their noses, just because it has nothing to do with trees or songs or any of that nonsense." What are you made of, Mahtan wanted to ask. From what strange materials did my master forge you, and why do you look at me like that? Instead he looked away. "Come on." said the dwarf, "I'll make a stand for it for now, so that it can be displayed properly."
But I am not needed for that, Mahtan thought, but the thought was lost amongst a flurry of other words, an argument over which way would be best to display their trinket, which materials to use, and all the minute details of the design. It was in a lull in this most enjoyable battle of wits, while the dwarf bent over the workbench sketching out the plan with long, florid strokes of charcoal, that it came back to him. I am not needed for this.
I am not needed for this, but he wanted me here anyway.