Title: Scent of a Dwarf
By Keelywolfe (keelywolfe@aol.com)
Author's webpage:
http://www.ravenswing.com/~keelywolfe/Rating: R
Archive: Sure.
Summary: Even Elves can get bored from time to time.
Disclaimer: Are you kidding? Not only do I not own them, I think Tolkien is going to come to my house and haunt me for this one.
Author's notes: Written for May! The Merry Month of Masturbation!
~~~~
Seated comfortably on an outstretched tree limb, Legolas toyed idly with a buckle on his tunic as he settled in for his nighttime watch. Needing little rest in comparison to the others, he gladly stood watch over them as they slept, enjoying the brief solitude it offered.
Leastwise he usually enjoyed it. This night seemed to provide little for him but melancholy. Too cloudy for gazing at the stars and even if he could without waking the others he felt no urge to raise his voice in song.
No, it was not solely the fault of the night, he decided. His restiveness had deeper roots, twined into their quest and feeding off his own growing unrest.
For all that this was a noble and purposeful quest it was also terribly dull, with little to occupy the mind. Legolas was accustomed to a certain amount of travel but always before the purpose had come quickly, whether it was to purge some place of the presence of orcs or to play ambassador for his father. Journeying for weeks on end, with little hope of a conclusion in sight was wearying to him.
A sound came from the direction of the camp and his hand reached for an arrow automatically before Legolas recognized it as a nothing more than a tired murmur from one of the sleepers. It was both irritating and amusing to note that out of the entire group, only Aragorn stirred at the sound and even he did not wake.
He'd often considered that being a Man must be like living with a burlap sack tied over your head, hardly able to see or hear at all. But perhaps that was too harsh a thought. Surely if Legolas had not been standing watch they would have slept lighter and he knew that all of the Company was weary from so much unaccustomed traveling, the Hobbits especially. The subtle arrogance that often seemed so common amongst his people where Men were concerned exasperated him to no end; the very fact that they saw themselves as superior to Men made their opinions suspect.
Legolas was beginning to find them fascinating, and not only the Men, but the Hobbits and the Dwarf as well. Never before had Legolas found himself with companions such as these, and with nothing else to engage his thoughts, he had taken to studying his companions; their habits, their words and their silences, and just lately, more for Legolas' amusement than any true study, their scents. It was a game of sorts he'd invented to entertain himself.
Beneath sweat and the accumulated filth, inevitable on such a long journey but still bothersome to Legolas, each person had a distinctive scent. It interested him because this was something that Elves lacked. All Elves scented alike, even Elrond whose blood was mingled with that of Men. Legolas had not so often spend time in the company of others that he realized it was not the same with all species; that their scent might change by the day or a meal, yet still held an underlying thread that remained constant.
Interestingly, all the hobbits had a certain similarity in their scent, somehow sweet and fresh like new mown hay. Curious that it would be so with Hobbits, because the same could not be so for Men; Boromir was nothing like Aragorn, his odor an almost uncomfortable one, reminiscent of soured milk and several times Legolas had had to distance himself from the Man, as it seemed very strong on occasion and was not affected by bathing.
Or perhaps that was how all other men scented? Aragorn was not purely of the blood of Men, and underneath the layered smells of travel, there was still a note of warmth, of purity, unsullied by the dark paths he knew Aragorn had been forced to tread at times.
Gandolf, on the other hand, scented most unusually, the sharp scent like that one carried in the air in the moment just before lightening struck and to concentrate on it too long made the head swim.
Yet for all the unusualness of the others, it was Gimli's scent that intrigued him the most. He'd noticed it when they first met, something earthy, as rich and heavy as the mountains he surely came from, and yet, also oddly familiar to him, in a way he could not place.
On nights such as these, it picked irritably at the back of his mind, and he worried at it like he might a ragged fingernail. He had lived many long years, it was true, but his memory was a clear as the air in early dawn. That he could not recognize this one thing was quite aggrieving.
The forest around him was alive with the sounds of nighttime, and even far in the distance there was no indication of a threat. With boredom looming ever closer, Legolas finally gave into his whim to consider the matter again.
Shifting his feet silently on the rough bark to settle himself more comfortably, Legolas closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, holding his breathe a moment before releasing it, relaxing as he sifted through all the humors of the night air to focus on that one scent.
Pipe smoke, sweat, yes, but something else as well, something he knew, warm and thick, rich as the cloth his mother's ladies wove during the winter months and almost as tangible, as if he could wrap himself in the comfortable heaviness of Gimli's essence, bury his face into the coarse hair of Gimli's beard, feel it chafe enticingly against his own bare cheeks, against his chest and perhaps lower, perhaps against the aching flesh between his legs, rough and yet not so, rubbing until Legolas was giddy with the delight of it, until the ache would rise up and consume him, heating him as he shuddered his way through need into joy...
Legolas blinked, the half-dream fading away and he was disturbed to find that dawn had come while he'd drowsed, tinting the dark clouds gray.
More disturbing was the uncomfortable state of his trousers and the fact that his hand seemed to have wandered inside them without his permission.
Pulling his hand free, he shifted somewhat awkwardly into a better position before he fell from the tree and made the situation that much worse. His hand was wet with damning evidence and he wiped it on a rag he kept for cleaning arrowheads, and he was silently grateful that the length of his tunic would conceal any other stains.
It was better that they weren't traveling with other Elves, he noted wryly, because
he would be the one scenting strangely on this day, and he well knew that no Elf would be able to resist a playful comment or two. He doubted he would be able to explain trance-induced masturbation about a dwarf to any of the Elves in his acquaintance, no matter how fascinating it had been...
Fascinating?
Legolas focused on Gimli's blankets, frowning thoughtfully as he studied the sleeping dwarf. How very interesting, that he scented like a memory of lovemaking, or perhaps not because Legolas could not truly recall such a memory at any time in his long life. A memory wishing to be made, then?
He considered that for some time, until the others began to stir, moving into wakefulness to resume their uncertain journey.
Laughed softly at his own dilemma, Legolas leapt down to join them, ruefully grateful they had slept long enough to give his leggings a chance to dry. Gimli was grumbling under his breath as was his wont at this hour of the day, to low for anyone but Legolas to hear him, and for the first time Legolas decided to actually listen. Perhaps there was something interesting to do on this journey after all.
-finis-
5/2/02
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