When Gimli is fourteen, his babysitter looks the other way a few minutes too many, and he wanders into the nearest mining system without looking back.

They find him two days later, shivering in a dark corner, tears running freely and silently.

He does not make a single sound for two weeks, and then his mother is forced to multitask and enter the mines carrying him. His screams are loud enough for the entirety of Ered Luin to hear, and they do not quiet before he's back in his own quarters in the upper levels of the mountain.

His hands will never cease trembling.

He turns forty, and, as is custom, he begins to look for a craft.

He cannot be a smith, nor a jeweler, nor a carpenter, nor a mason, nor a scribe, nor a musician, nor a fletcher, nor a leatherworker, nor a hairdresser, nor a, nor a, nor a. They all require finesse he does not posses. On his best days he can almost draw a straight line, and on his worst, he can barely hold a spoon for fear of spilling food.

That would be fine on its own – there are dwarrow who cannot perform a craft and get a mastership, for whichever reason. They can still help the community – can still function and perform their part.

The issue is that Gimli cannot ever be a miner, for the darkness and closeness suffocates him and pulls him down into murky waters. He will faint, and he will scream, and he will panic. And what is a dwarf, if he cannot mine?

Gimli takes up warcraft, when he is forty-two. He begins because it does not need finesse, and because he is angry. He continues because the finesse it truly requires is a finesse he can perform – precision in the body, in the feet, in the mind – and because the axe is heavy enough to still the trembling of his hands.

It is the axe he settles for, for that is the heaviest weapon he can find. Swords are too delicate, and he can never aim true with a bow, nor with a spear.

Dwalin Fundinul teaches him and does not care for the way his fingers can't properly grasp anything lighter than his armor, only grunts, pleased, whenever he does something right.

Ori becomes an unlikely friend. Gimli finds him in the library, sent there on his father's request, poring over some ancient texts.

They find solace in each other. Where Gimli's hands shake, Ori's aim is true. Where Gimli's words come as readily as the sun in the morn, Ori's stutter and halt and tremble.

Ori writes. Gimli reads. Together they come to an understanding.

Gimli's secondary craft becomes his words. He cannot write them down, but he can speak, and think, and read.

That is enough, for a while.

Then he turns sixty-two, and a Company of thirteen sets out to reclaim Erebor and slay the dragon that rests there.

Gimli is desperate to join. They say he is too young, but their eyes stray to his hands, and Gimli clutches his shaking fists until his nails draw blood.

His father is going. His cousins are going.

Ori is going.

Ori does not stop apologizing. Gimli does not forgive him for leaving.

He does forgive him for everything else.

"Goodbye, my friend," he says, and Ori throws himself at him, looping his arms around Gimli's shoulders, and Gimli cries into his neck.

"I – I wish," Ori stutters out, quietly, so quietly that only Gimli can hear among the dwarrow gathered to see the Company off, "that – you had – that you had been my…" He trails off, is quiet for a moment. His hair tickles Gimli's bare skin. "That you had been my One."

Gimli knows he's not. He has the Longing – has born it and carried it since the day he first opened his eyes – and so does Ori. Yet he is not Ori's, and Ori is not his.

They are not each other's.

"Aye," Gimli says, muffled by Ori's hair, and that is the end of it.

There is not a single practice doll standing untouched by Gimli's blade by the time Ered Luin is informed that the dragon is slayed, Erebor reclaimed, and her heirs dead.

When the first caravan is to leave Ered Luin, Gimli puts his foot down and demands to be part of it.

The day they are to leave Gimli stares at himself in the mirror, and with trembling hands he weaves a braid in his beard that he and he alone can do. It's shorter than he'd wish, but longer than most his age, and he is certain of its meaning.

He carves the symbol he needs into a blank wooden bead – a temporary solution until he can buy something better.

Amad merely takes his hand when she sees, pressing their foreheads together gently. She smiles.

The caravan from Ered Luin meets the caravan from Erebor half-way, and adad is one of the first to tear free from it, running ahead.

"Gimli!" he cries. "Gimli! My star, my son!"

(Adad has always been fonder of Gimli than amad, though Gimli knows he loves them both all the same. He's simply had amad for longer than Gimli – he will greet her later, after assuring himself Gimli is fine.)

When Gimli bolts ahead to greet him in return, they do not slam their heads together. Nay, adad presses gently, softly, and it's enough for Gimli to come close to weeping.

Then adad pulls back and lays eyes on Gimli's braids, and his eyes fill with tears. "Gimli," he says gently, before grasping Gimli's trembling hand and raising it in the air. "Gimli, child of Gloin! Gimli, my child!" he cries, loud enough for the caravan from Erebor to hear, and adad must have earned quite the reputation on his Quest, for there are many who cheer.

Ori is not in the caravan.

Ori is, however, one of the first to greet his arrival. Much like adad he tears out of the awaiting crowd, sprinting towards the travellers, and much like adad, he shouts, "Gimli!" as he runs.

Gimli has no words to respond with, for his throat collapses on itself. He bolts – flies across the ground – and slams into Ori in a hug, holding him tight, tight, tighter still.

They embrace long enough for the other dwarrow to mingle around them before they pull apart.

Gimli laughs. "I see you have a new braid, Ori-friend!" He nudges the courting bead nestled in Ori's hair – not the hair itself, never the hair of this braid – and is pleased to find Ori flushing furiously in return.

"And – and I see that – that so do you!" Ori returns, nudging Gimli's gender bead. "Gimli, friend, I have found my One, and he is all I've ever wanted."

He does not stutter once in that whole sentence. "Practiced, have ye?" Gimli asks, laughing again, and oh, how wonderful it feels to laugh! "Who is it I have to go greet with the most thundering skull crusher I've ever delivered?"

Ori laughs, bright and young, mirth dancing in his eyes at the old nickname they have for the dwarven way of greeting. "It's Dwalin," he says, "Dwalin Fundinul!"

Gimli thinks back to the teacher who never once spoke a bad word about his hands and nods approvingly. "Aye," he says, "he will do!"

In Erebor there is a magnificent, albeit worn, library. Gimli explores it with Ori, happy to have his friend by his side at last.

It is during one of those days, where Gimli clutches at books heavy enough to still his hands, that Ori speaks. "I'm sorry. I knew – I know – "

Gimli puts down the book and glances at Ori, taking in his expression, judging what he wishes. Sometimes he dares brave his own treacherous tongue, but sometimes he is too frustrated for that. Today is one of these days, and Gimli simply offers his hand, opened and palm facing up. Ori nearly sags in relief – Gimli can imagine he has not been able to speak this way much, in the company of thirteen others who do not understand – and takes his hand.

The pad of his index finger presses against Gimli's palm for a moment. Gimli waits, patiently, for runes to start shaping –

but instead Ori only lets out a frustrated sound, reaches into his pocket, and presses a bead into Gimli's hand instead.

Gimli looks at the polished amber, inlaid with a simple onyx on one side, and the G rune on the other.

"Ah," he says.

They had both agreed – they had both known – that if they had not found their Ones, they would court and marry in the way so many dwarrow chose to do, once Gimli came off age.

Ori has found his One.

"It's alright," Gimli says, looking into Ori's worried and terrified eyes with a comforting smile. "I understand." He looks down at the bead – the one he had commissioned, when he was fifty. "You wish not to keep it?"

Ori puts two fingers on the bead. "I would," he says softly. "If I may."

Gimli tilts his hand around and presses the bead against the two fingers. "Do so, then, and wear it if you will, in the braids of true friendship." Ori looks up, startled, but Gimli shakes his head. He will not take happiness from his friend, not when he has found it – not when Dwalin and he can coexist. "Nay, not courting, I know you cannot – will not – would not. Only, well, I missed you." And he brushes his hair back to reveal, looped around his ear, a true friendship braid secured with a pearl bead, inlaid with a simple onyx and the O rune.

Ori reaches out to touch it. Gimli allows him – will always allow him – for his heart beats strongly for him, in friendship, the kind closer than any other. "I wish…" says Ori, yet he trails off, his words hanging in the empty air between them.

"Aye," Gimli says, taking Ori's smaller hand in his own and stepping forward to press a kiss to his brow. He has always been gentle, in ways few dwarrow are. "I know."

Two years after the Ered Luin caravan arrived at Erebor Gimli stands as Ori's wedder, and over one ear an amber bead is nestled in his dirty-blond hair, and over the other rests one of obsidian.

Gimli weeps, not for his friend, but for his happiness.

He presses his brow to Dwalin's, gently, and greets his brother welcome.

"Ori," says Gimli. They're standing in the Gold Chamber, where the Company battled Smaug the Terrible and lost, where Thorin, King Under the Mountain battled the Dragon Sickness and won. The molten gold shimmers like sunlight, and it has become a place of bravery and courage.

Ori turns to look at him with such open honesty that Gimli cannot doubt what he now will say.

"Kurdubrazul."

It takes Ori only a second to realize what he has said, and then his hand flies to the amber bead in his hair. "Gimli," he breathes, eyes wide.

"Kurdubrazul," Gimli repeats – corrects. He notes Ori's expression and steps forward, cradling his hands. "You need not return it."

Ori's eyes water. "Kurdubrazul," he repeats, and Gimli beams. He did not stutter.

Ori leans forward to rest their foreheads together – and so he whispers his own Name, gentle and perfect.

Ori will leave to reclaim Khazad-dûm. Dwalin will come with him.

No one will hear of Gimli coming along. Not even Ori. Ori, who has seen Gimli's darkest, who wears his bead, who holds his Name within his heart.

Ori says nothing, only squeezes his hands tightly, and he needn't say anything then.

"I am a warrior," he snarls, treacherous, trembling hands clutched by his sides, shaking now in anger. "I have taken my mastery! I am of age!" His cries rattle the mountain, and still none lets him go.

Not adad. Not amad. Not sweet Ori.

And when he takes the matter to King Dain, his King gives him a long look. "They worry for ye, kid," he says. "And for yer hands."

"Finally," Gimli grunts, "someone who can speak straight. I know it's my hands, aye, but they are not a problem."

"They're shakin' even now."

"Aye," Gimli agrees, "and shake they always will, yet my axe is strong and my grip firm."

"Certainly," King Dain says, raising his eyebrows. "Ye will have a hard time finding a warrior as good with the axe in this mountain as ye." Yet, he shakes his head. "Still, there ain't a single dwarf who haven't heard of your Darkfear, nor your Stonefear."

Gimli looks away, ashamed. He's heard it said in the quiet, in the shadows. 'Not a proper dwarf,' they've said, 'can't even mine!'.

"They are the same," he grits out.

"Aye. My point exactly. You know what Khazad-dûm is called?"

It takes a moment for Gimli to understand. "Moria," he says. "The black chasm." It takes another moment, and then he cries, "I am not afraid!"

King Dain levels him with a heavy look. "Then why do ye argue, and not just go? Yer grown. No one can hinder ye. Aye, they can try, but yer strong. So this I ask of ye, Gimli Gloinul. Why do ye simply not go?"

"Be careful," Gimli begs of Ori, holding him tighter than ever. "I will come after you, one day."

Ori takes his hand and signs, I will fill the caverns and halls with starlight, so you may walk them with me.

Gimli chokes back a wail and presses their foreheads together – soft, tight, and long.

Four letters arrive by mail, and then Gimli never hears from him again.

He rages, at first, tearing the pearl bead from his hair, uncaring for the pain. He flings it across the room, and his breath hitches as it slams into the wall.

When it lands unharmed on his bed he sinks to his knees and buries his face in his hands.

He weeps.

Later, he will braid his hair anew, and put the bead in anew, and he will not wear mourning braids, and he will not give up hope.

It has been twenty years and Gimli's hair and beard are full of braids and beads and ties, and still a pearl dangles beneath his left ear, brushing close to his jaw.

He sits in a council of Men, Elves, Dwarrow, and Hobbits, and they discuss the fate of the One Ring.

He's clutching his axe so tightly that no can see his hands tremble. Only adad, sitting next to him, will know. And that, to be quite honest, does not matter to Gimli right now.

This time there are no dark caverns, no deep mountains, and no one to argue.

Gimli child of Gloin is not afraid.

"And you have my axe!"