Midsummer- A Second Frodo and His Cats Story

This is my first post-ROTK viewing story and is very much influenced by post-quest Frodo as portrayed by Elijah in the film.

As usual the characters, apart from the cats Tom and Goldberry, are not mine but belong to Tolkien.

The golden warmth of the sun fell upon Frodo’s pale, often-cold hand as he wrote, or rather, tried to write on the blank page before him. The words would not come to him today. The air was so redolent of the bright roses and hollyhocks and cheerful daisies growing tall and luminous in the afternoon heat outside his open window that it allowed nothing as productive as scratching away with a quill inside on such a brilliant day.

He could feel it. He could feel!

It happened so rarely that he felt anything vividly any longer. He felt half-asleep and faraway and tired, so tired, most of the time. As if he was fading away into nothingness. A pale shadow that was barely touched by the goings on in the lively world around him.

He was glad, so very glad, for Sam and Rosie and their beautiful new daughter Elanor. Their happiness filled the smial and it did touch him. The prosperity of the revived Shire touched him. The unbelievably green richness of the land and the bountiful harvests and happy faces of satisfied and merry hobbits touched him. But the touch was light and faint and seemed unable to reach his core of being. That place that had once thrived inside him with great joy and enthusiasm but which had died on the Plains of Mordor and was irretrievably lost when the Ring was destroyed. His core was empty and it seemed that nothing could fill it ever again.

But Frodo was never one to give up and the glorious summer afternoon beckoned him outside and he could not resist it.

His two large, plump and ever-observant cats, gifts to cheer him from Gandalf, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry looked at him expectantly. They knew he was about to do something. They always did. As soon as he got up from his desk with a little sigh at the ever-present ache in his muscles and joints they were also up and instantly ready to follow him wherever he might go. He smiled at them. They WERE a great, great comfort to him. Always there to warm him when he was cold and keep him company when he was too sad to move. They would climb into his lap and watch his eyes and seem to know his pains and sad lost thoughts. And they would purr softly as they kneaded his chest as if trying to massage away his grief. And it helped. It really did.

“All right. Come along, you two. We’re going for a nice long walk. I can’t get anything else done today.”

Tom and Goldberry, for so the cats were named, nearly scampered about with joy at getting this chance to ramble about the countryside and chase bees and butterflies and hopefully, after a while, on a green bank somewhere, lounge in the grass beneath the lovely heat of the golden sun.

Their Master did not go out often enough, their looks to one another seemed to say.

After a brief farewell to Sam and Rosie who were happily busy with little Elanor, Frodo made his way through the Bag End garden and out the back gate, the two cats trotting along right at his heels. He took the way over the gently rolling land towards Tuckborough. It was a pretty and quiet walk and if he got as far as Tookland he wouldn’t mind a visit with Pippin. But it was a long walk and he hoped he didn’t come upon any other hobbits for awhile.

This glorious warm day almost made him feel as he had before..... before everything that had happened. The sky was almost high and clearly blue, and the air richly golden and headily-scented with honeysuckle and wild flowers enough to take him back....almost.

It was all he could hope for. This was the best he would ever feel on this Shore. He knew that now. He knew and took in the goodness of the day as fully as he could. Not as fully as he wished, but it was enough. He knew he had to settle, for the time being, for what was merely, enough.

By three in the afternoon he had gone many miles and he and the cats paused for a rest and a small meal from the light pack he carried. He ate very little now and didn’t need much. Frodo shared most of the slice of ham he had brought with the cats and he only swallowed a few mouthfuls of it and the cheese and bread. He did drink a good amount of his water. After Mordor he never felt he had enough of it. Then he made a cup of his hand and filled it with water for the cats who neatly lapped it up and looked up at him gratefully and thoughtfully.

“Have you had enough, now?” He asked them.

The cats both gave him what he had come to call their cat-smile. That look of being quite pleased and content. Goldberry climbed daintily into his lap and looking at him eye to eye began to purr and then she licked the tip of his nose. After which she settled down with her paws on his chest in her customary way that told him she was fully intending to stay put there and nap for awhile. Tom, not quite as inclined to lick noses, instead draped himself across Frodo’s knees and closed his eyes and fell into a sound cat-sleep.

“Oh, I see.” Frodo said to the drowsy felines. “We’re to take a nap, are we?”

They answered him by making themselves seem heavier as only cats can so that he really couldn’t budge them and was obliged to lie back on the soft grass of the little hillock they rested upon.

Goldberry expressed her approval by stretching out all along his chest from top to bottom with her paws gently gripping the fabric of his shirt just beneath his chin which she softly kneaded as she purred deeply and watched his face till her eyes slowly closed. Tom had possessively claimed Frodo’s entire lower portion and was stretched all along his legs and was quite warm and comfortable and was not prepared to move for a long while.

Frodo stroked Goldberry gently with his maimed hand and placed his other arm behind his head. After only a moment of watching the high white clouds drift slowly in the clear blue above he too dozed off to sleep.

It might have been an hour later that some kind of sound disturbed their blissful tranquility.

“Oh, dear...”Frodo sighed. He had been genuinely sound asleep for the first time in he could not remember how long. "Naturally...” He went on, to himself and the cats, who were trying to ignore the disturbance and were refusing to open their eyes.

Pippin could be heard on the other side of the hillock just out of sight speaking with some Tookish befuddlement to someone.

“Now really, you must come down from there.” Pippin said in his clear high voice. "Please, you must!”

“Pippin..... “ Frodo said resignedly, trying to rise with the weight of the two ample cats resisting his efforts. “All right, you two, let me up. A Took is in trouble again.”

With what could only be described as grunts of profound disapproval Tom and Goldberry reluctantly gave up possession of Frodo’s person. They yawned widely and stretched as Frodo got to his feet. After he too stretched and shook the sleep out of his head he went towards the sounds Pippin was making.

Frodo spied Pippin standing beneath a mid-sized apple tree squinting up into its branches and fretfully calling to someone high up in their midst.

Pippin’s litany went on as before......

“Come down. Please, do come down! You cannot stay up there forever, you know.” And he paced round and round the tree looking upwards with much perplexity.

“Pippin!” Frodo called. “Whatever is wrong?”

Pippin looked up to see Frodo approaching him down the side of the little hill.

“Frodo!” Pippin exclaimed with his usual delight whenever he ran into his cousin. “Ooh, you’re out and about! That’s good! You spend far to much time indoors, Frodo.”

‘You’re right, Pippin. But I couldn’t stay in on a day like this.”

“No, so I’m happy to see. And I see you have Tom and Goldberry with you. That’s good, too. Maybe they can help.”

“What is the problem, Pip?” Frodo asked again peering up into the branches where the sourse of the trouble seemed to be.

“You know it’s your fault.” Pippin said.

This was a usual response from Pippin whenever he got into trouble, and Frodo smiled at his younger cousin as he had every time Pippin had said that since he was a child.

“What is my fault?” Frodo asked him patiently.

“Naming him after me, of course.” Pippin said, as if this made perfect sense.

Frodo just blinked at Pippin as he tried to make out what he meant. Then it dawned on him.

“Oh.... Your kitten has run up the tree.”

“Of course! What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing else. He’s always loved to climb. Just like you, Pip. That IS why I named him Pippin. And he was always getting into trouble.”

”And he still is!”

“I expect he’ll come down when he’s ready.”

“But I can’t wait all day and night, can I? I’ll miss supper!”

“Oh, we can’t have that, can we.”

“We certainly cannot!” Pippin was clearly distressed at such a terrible possibility.

Frodo was enjoying this too much, he knew, but teasing Pip was an ingrained habit.

“I’ve heard that some cats can live for days up in a tree.” Frodo said.

“No! Really? That can’t be good for them, can it?”

“Who’s to say? Perhaps it’s something certain young cats.. as well as hobbits, need to do. How many times did I have to fetch you down from a tree or other dangerous place when you were small, Pippin?”

Pippin looked at him guiltily.

“I couldn’t help it, Frodo!. I... I just needed to climb.”

“Well, I guess little Pip couldn’t help it either.” Frodo said, not being the least bit helpful.

“But I must get him down. I daren’t leave Little Pip up there alone all night!”

“No. No, I suppose not.” But Frodo didn’t seem about to do anything in the way of assistance.

At that moment Little Pip peeped out from amongst the high leaves, and seeing his parents Tom and Goldberry glancing rather knowingly up at him, began to meow. It was that type of kitten meow that says...... ‘Oh, my! I’ve gotten myself in an awful fix. Help me!’ And for all the world it reminded Frodo of Pippin and the many tree rescues he had been obliged to perform to ‘save’ his younger cousin.

Tom and Goldberry instantly recognized their young one’s call.

Goldberry nudged Tom and Tom clearly seemed to reply ‘Oh very, well, I’ll fetch him, never fear.”

And while Goldberry watched with every appearance of motherly concern Tom clambered with amazing agility for so large and plump a cat right up the tree trunk and after a bit of scuffling and the falling down of a few leaves and twigs upon the hobbit cousins below Tom reemerged from the branches with his offspring clamped firmly in his teeth grasping Little Pip by the scruff of his neck.

The father and son reached the ground and little Pip was deposited between Tom and Goldberry. Goldberry licked her kitten gently and Tom seemed to say.. ‘Really, you ARE spoiling the little scamp.’

“Well, thanks Frodo.” Pippin the Large said.

“I didn’t do anything.” Frodo reminded him.

“No, well, thanks anyway. You’ll come back home with me for supper and stay over for a bit of a visit won’t you?”

“I think I shall, Pippin.” Frodo said. Now that the excitement was over and the day was waning he was beginning to feel weary.

‘Oh, good! I’ve missed you, Frodo! And I was hoping you were feeling better. Of course you do look much better today. The sun has put color back in your cheeks. You HAVE been much too pale. You do feel better don’t you, Frodo?”

‘”Yes, Pippin. The lovely day and seeing you has made me feel much better.” Frodo said draping his arm affectionately around Pippin’s shoulders as they began walking off toward Pippin’s family home.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re better! You’ll soon be your old self again! You’ll see!”

Frodo didn’t reply but ruffled Pippin's bouncing curls.

Pippin took that as a 'yes', although it wasn't, and smiled happily. He hated being so worried about Frodo and it was so good to see Frodo feeling better. He was better..he WAS!

Frodo and Pippin and the three cats made their way through the dusk toward dinner but they didn’t reach home till after Little Pip had scampered up and down three more trees and fallen accidentally into a large puddle.

As the lights of Tuckborough glimmered in the twilight Frodo was thankful for this one bright and very good day.

*END*