Archive of Our Own ^beta

"But why would you do this to your body?" Legolas asked, frowning slightly and sitting backwards in his chair.

"If you’re not going to be quiet, you’re going to have to leave," said the decorated man, as he swabbed the relatively soft and hairless skin of Gimli’s inner forearm.

"Because it is a fitting tribute," Gimli said, taking a swig of his beer. The man carefully lined up a piece of paper with a line of script across Gimli’s damp skin and rubbed it down, transferring the letters. "Aye, that’ll do well."

"What does it say?" Legolas asked, leaning forward and tucking a slender braid behind his ear.

"Momento Moria," Gimli said firmly, thumping a fist against his heart.

Legolas smiled thinly.

"All right, no more of that," the decorated man said. "Are you ready?"

"Aye," Gimli said.

The tattoo artist started his gun and dipped it into a fresh pot of ink, beginning to trace the first lines. Gimli sighed and relaxed into his seat.

"Does it hurt?" Legolas asked quietly.

"Nothing hurts a Dwarf!" Gimli replied. "Things only kill Dwarves."

"But does it?"

"No, lad, of course not," Gimli drawled, sipping his beer. "This fine fellow is only piercing my skin hundreds of hundreds of times, forcing ink beneath the surface, to create an artificial scar upon soft and vulnerable flesh. What would make you think that it would hurt?"

Legolas grumbled.

"Besides, I have gotten many others."

"Really?" Legolas asked, lifting his eyebrows. "I have never seen them."

"I do not prefer to bare myself at the slightly provocation," Gimli replied, "unlike some of our company. They are placed more privately than on my arms or neck."

The tips of Legolas’ ears turned red, but he turned his nose up. ”Remarkable that you would have space for tattoos. I was under the impression that beneath your jeans and t-shirts, you were naught but a massive pile of hair.”

Gimli barked out a laugh. ”Ah! Have you found my secret, then? Have you been peeping on me with those sharp eyes of yours? Kinky princeling!”

"That’s it!" The decorated man scowled at Legolas. "Get out. I can’t work with the two of you bellowing at each other."

Legolas huffed and rose from his seat, flouncing away towards the waiting room.

"And bring another beer later!" Gimli barked after him.

—

"How does it look?" the elderly fellow asked.

Legolas squinted at it. “‘Honk If You Love Hobbits’?” he read.

"It matches this," Gandalf said, holding up his right hand. On the inside of his wrist was a tattoo resembling a wrist watch, its arrows both pointed at the 4.

Legolas furrowed his eyebrows, trying to figure it out.

"What time is it?" Gandalf asked, grinning like a cheeky schoolboy.

"Four-twen—oh," Legolas sighed. "Hilarious."

Gimli staggered back into the room with a fresh white bandage covering his arm. ”Well, and what did you get, old man?”

"Just a bit of philosophy to watch my back," Gandalf said, as the tattoo artist covered the script. "And are you pleased with your decoration, my lad?"

"Aye, it will be well-received by my kin—solemn and memorial," Gimli nodded. "We must get some ink for the Elf, if we are to be a matching set."

"I just don’t understand why anyone would do this to their bodies," Legolas said, shaking his head.

"It is a form of art and of self-possession," Gandalf observed. "One may life one’s life full of choice and all its consequences, even when one is bound by fate and duty."

"And an awful lot of people do it to piss off their parents," Gimli murmured, in the voice of the Tempter himself.

Legolas thought about that for some moments. ”Do you think they could do ‘blonde, rich, and a bit of a bitch’ across my lower back?”