Small Freedoms

While Merry and Pippin always disputed his wife’s claim as their adoptive parent, it was when Gimli gave birth to a squallingly-healthy daughter that Boromir started to believe that the hobbits’ protests were ones of duty rather than belief. The two doted on his daughter in a way which reminded him of how he had doted on Faramir as a child. The two young hobbits lived with the Steward and his wife, after having found their beloved Shire no longer to their liking.

The little girl was nearly bald, which Gimli tried not to be horrified at—and Boromir himself tried not to laugh too much at Gimli, who had threatened him with amputation of the face while she had been giving birth. She was a tiny child, cradled in his arms hours after her birth. Merry and Pippin had been sent out into the city to look for birth gifts, and their absence had given Boromir and Gimli time alone with their daughter. 

Gimli wanted to name the girl after Boromir’s mother, but that name brought too much pain with it. He barely remembered his mother—a beautiful woman, pale but with the vestiges of a coastal-tan clinging to her cheeks, her hair straight and dark compared to the curls of women from Gondor—only his father’s dark musings on how Faramir had sapped her strength. No, he did not want to name his daughter after that beautiful woman with sad eyes.

“What would you name her?” Gimli’s blue eyes opened a little and focused on him. The beads woven into her beard sparkled and reminded Boromir of the wonderful things they stood for. In the distance, the excited voices of their two little ones could be heard—returning with gifts for the new parents and the child—and at the prospect of soon losing their privacy, Gimli perked up a little bit. 

“I would name her Har’ili,” she said, reaching out her arms to hold the little one.

“Harili?”

“Har’ili,” Gimli reiterated, “But yes, that’s what I would call her.” Boromir deposited the infant in his wife’s arms. Of all Dwarf women had had met in the last few years, with their children in tow, this one woman was the one who looked the most right holding an infant. Probably because it was his, but Boromir would examine those thoughts on another day. There was just something tender about the way Gimli held the sleeping baby, stroking the backs of thick fingers along a rosy cheek. 

Boromir couldn’t help but ask, something about the name tugged at his memory. 

“What does it mean?”

Gimli blushed red immediately, but managed a response with the attitude Boromir had always admired. Her voice, deeper and gruffer than his own, was his favorite thing to hear. 

“It comes from Hari, which Men often translate it as ‘boulder,’ but it means more than that. They lose the context. A boulder is the child of a living rock, free to do the things its parent cannot. But Har’ili means the boulder originates from Gondorian granite.” And suddenly it clicked.

Ili. Gimli’s pet-name for him, said in their private rooms away from servants and nearly-adopted children. Said to him when he did things to her which got his hair pulled, and made her cry out. Boromir’s heart constricted—every one of Durin’s Folk would know immediately who his daughter was, that she was the free daughter of Boromir of Gondor.