Disclaimer; not my character, unfortunately, and I am not making money out this (also unfortunately), however the storyline is my own.

Summery; Gimli discovers some unnerving things about elves, and is almost killed.

This is set somewhere on the slopes of Caradhras, before the going got tough. This story is past in the hypothesis that eyes open. Plus a few things that I made up on the spur of the moment.

I thought this story was brilliant when I wrote it, (that being yesterday) but I now think it is trash. So please tell me what you think and how I might improve.

Many Eyes In the Night

There was some thing about this valley that just didn’t bode right with me. I felt as if we were being watched. The snow fell silently, wiping out any remaining tracks we might have left. The trees around the small glade were leafless, and would provide very little if any, cover an enemy. Yet I still felt those awful eyes bore into my back.

Of course it was my own fault for volunteering for the first watch, for being with an elf made me jumpy. I had heard once that they never sleep, they are always watching through slitted eyes to see when you would drop off so they could steel your weapons. Nervously I touched my ax, if he laid so much a little finger… lets just say that the fellowship would no longer have nine members.

I felt a sigh escape me, and rose from my seat. Despite the glories a stone can hold, they get very chilly if one sits on them in mid-winter. Then again, pacing around the camp though snow knee-deep to a dwarf was not exactly a charming thought either. Yet the feeling that I was being watched made me restless.

A cold wind blew through the frozen branched making them rattle in an unnerving way. I could not help but scan the trees again; may the mountains crumble, there was something wrong! I, the only dwarven member of the fellowship was going to find out. You could bet your hiking boots on that. Not that any self respecting dwarf would own a pair of hiking boots.

Nothing! How could there be nothing? I shook myself, maybe if Gandalf had not forbade Sam to make a fire I would not be so jumpy. I went back to the indent in the snow where the rest of the fellowship lay. Sometimes my mother would have these premonitions that something was wrong, and then someone would choke or just stop breathing.

As I took a deep breath I felt coldness on my face. Blast it! The snow was soaking into my beard and making it look as if I was sweating.

Slowly I walked around the sleeping forms. Gandalf was alright, I could see his breath forming clouds in the air. Merry and Pippin were snoring, and Sam was talking in his sleep. Something about a rosy person and ribbons. Frodo was still and quiet, he stirred as I walked passed and shivered. At this slight movement Sam half woke and drew closer to “Mister Frodo” till they were back to back and drew his blanket more over Frodo than himself.

I looked at them for a long moment, then went and got my blanket from my pack and spread it over the both of them. I didn’t need it, after all, what good is a beard of it didn’t keep you warm?

I turned away and continued of my inspection of the sleepers. Aragorn and Boromir were both sleeping silently and lightly. They were good warriors, and good men.

And the elf. I could see him on the other side of Aragorn, he seamed to be glowing slightly. That is ridiculous! Only an elf would want to glow. Then, not wanting to wake the elf, I carefully made my way around Aragorn.

He was laying on his side, with his head pillowed on his arm. His posture was relaxed and he was facing me.

Then my breath left me, and my beard seamed to freeze. His eyes were open! And he was looking right past me. I shifted to the right, but his eyes did not follow me. I swiftly turned around to see what he was looking at; but there was nothing but the trees and the waning moon. Turning back to the elf, I felt as if my gut was being squeezed by an iron fist. Cautiously I waved my hand in front of his face. Not a movement, not a change.

I looked around to make sure every one was asleep, then stealthily drew off my glove and touched the elf’s face, it was chilly to my fingers. He was dead.

That was preposterous! How could he be dead, there was nothing, nothing… I dropped into a fighting stance and jumped back, scrabbling for my ax. My foot came in contact with something, and it moved. I jumped forward again and stepped on the elf. I stumbled and tripped over a flailing arm and landed on something that was actually rather boney.

My elbow sunk into something soft; I could only imagine it was a stomach. The former sleeper leapt up and I heard the schink of a knife being drawn. In almost the same moment I felt some thing poke through my beard and tickle my throat. Before me I saw the luminescent silhouette of that blasted elf. He was most defiantly not dead.

Behind me some one was breathing hard, as if he had the wind knocked out of him. All around me I could hear the sound of the camp awake; Merry and Pippin had stopped snoring, Sam muttering about starting too early. Gandalf whispered, and then a light that seamed to emanate from his staff.

“Legolas! Lower your bow!” Gandalf snapped.

“No, he was trying to kill Aragorn!”

I am a rather calm dwarf, but being accused of a murder by that elf was more than I could stand.

“I am not you bloody elf!” I growled. The point of the arrow broke the skin on my throat. The look in the elf’s eyes could have killed a blind kepper-fish at ten paces.

“I saw you, dwarf!” the elf spat, “I saw you raise your ax and fall on Aragorn! You lie if you say you did not!”

“And what about you!” I spluttered, trying to edge away from the arrow, “Your supposed to be dead!”

“So you tried to kill me too, you are a poor assassin.”

I heard Pippin pipe up in the back ground “I though the stew tasted funny!” then Sam smacking him, “I made the stew mimbleshanks!”

“The stew tasted funny, Peregrine Took, because you ate more of it that any one else.” Gandalf said crossly, “Legolas, havo le philin!”

It did not surprise me that the elf did not do exactly what the wizard commanded, he stepped away but kept his arrow trained on me.

I got up from the wet ground and turned to face the assembly. Aragorn was on one knee with his knife on his hand. He looked surprisingly chipper for a man who just had a three hundred pound dwarf fall on him. Boromir had his shield in hand and his sword half drawn, he looked from me to Legolas and cursed. Gandalf stood behind him with is glowing staff, and the hobbits were behind them, looking wide eyed and frightened.

“I was not trying to kill Aragorn.” I said stubbornly.

“Then why were you sitting on him?” Legolas growled.

“Because I though you were dead!”

“So you sat on him?” Legolas snapped, his voice a trifle confused. I fumed. The elf opened him mouth to speak, but Gandalf beat him to it.

“Gimli, explain to us what happened. Legolas, calm down!”

I started explaining, but I found my self babbling, “Sometimes my mother would get premonitions and would just die, or get hurt. I never liked it. You were dead! We were being watched, some thing was wrong, I knew it. So I walked around. Gandalf was breathing and Merry and Pippin were snoring…”

“Of course Merry and Pippin were snoring! Stop blathering like a drunken hobbit!” here there were giggles from Merry and Pippin. “Speak plainly and to the point, or I shall not stay my arrow any longer.” I felt my anger deflate, it was very funny watching the elf try to glare at the two youngest hobbits and I at the same time. However I was still annoyed that he thought I was such an incompetent assassin.

“You are the drunken hobbit if you think I would kill Aragorn in that inane way!” I said calmly. “I was startled, I tripped and fell on him.”

Legolas scowled and adjusted his grip on the bow. “You are forgetting something, dwarf. There is more to it that that!”

I shook my head, I was not going to tell them of my antics and that the elf had almost given me an apoplexy.

“Yes, there is.” A voice came from the huddle of hobbits, it was Frodo. He was holding my blanket. “I saw you standing in front of Legolas waving your hands around. Then you touched his face and jumped about three feet in the air, grabbed your axe then landed on Mr. Strider.” I glared at him, Traitor!

A choking noise came from Aragorn, when I turned to him I realized that he was laughing; or rather, trying not to laugh. For some reason, when he saw I had discovered him he lost the last of his self control and laughed in earnest.

The human seamed to have an infectious laugh, soon every one but the elf and I were laughing. The only good thing was that Legolas fully relaxed his grip on the bow, and stared at them in confused scorn.

Finally Aragorn stopped laughing and sheathed his knife, “It is all you fault Legolas, you wide eyed, cold blooded elf. He thought you were dead!”

A faint smile pulled at the elf’s lips. It is all very well for him but I still had no idea what was so funny.

“Legolas put your weapons away.” Aragorn stood up and put his hand on my shoulder, “Elves sleep with their eyes open, Gimli, I know dwarves never do, but that is the way of the elves. Unlike us, they do not need to keep their bodies as warm as we do to survive.”

Suddenly every one started laughing again, and I heard Merry say some thing about a fishes expression when you take it out of water.

When the laughter had quieted down again Legolas bowed and smiled, ” I am sorry for scaring you, Master Dwarf, but it did look as though you were trying to kill Aragorn.”

I grunted and nodded, trying desperately to keep my scowl on my face.

“Now,” Gandalf said merrily, “all is well! Get your rest master dwarf. Legolas, you can take the next watch so that no one else thinks you are dead.”

As I lay down in my place I though grimly that I would never live this down.

Then again the elf probably wouldn’t either.