"Seeds of Courage" by Tialys

A past childhood act of Frodo gives Merry the courage to step out in the council of Elrond and swear to follow his cousin into Mordor. Movie-verse. Written for Marigold’s Challenge #6.

At the beginning, the year is 1387. Merry is 5 and Frodo is 19.

Frodo peered anxiously around the corner, fingers digging hard into its surface to keep himself from leaning too far and falling, inevitably revealing his so cleverly hidden presence. From his limited vintage point of halfway behind the wall he could still make out the trembling form of his younger cousin, cowering before the intimidating stare of the figure before him, being so much taller as it was.

Under normal conditions, Frodo would not have thought of his aunt as an intimidating type of hobbit, no matter what her height. She was always the first to smile at him when he entered a room and pressed him to taste whatever dish she was cooking if the room he entered was the kitchen, which it often was. From what he could tell, Aunt Esmeralda was not one to cause the violent tremors that now ran rampant in his young cousin’s form.

Merry’s hands twisted together, fingers knotted to still their shaking, and his trim green vest was quick to find itself a wrinkled bunch in their merciless grasp. He was staring up at his mother desperately, a look of dawning horror spreading across his gradually paling face, eyes wide and sparkling wet.

"Merry, really!" Esmeralda began, "Just go down there and bring up that jar o’ butter. You’ll be back up here in two minutes if you just do it."

Merry began to frantically shake his head, curls bobbing about his face and tears slinging from his eyes. Though the sight caused Frodo to wince in pained sympathy, it had no such effect on Esmeralda. Grasping one of Merry’s pointed ears in her fingers, she dragged him to the door of the ice cellar and left him at its entrance with a candle.

"Go on, dear." She pressed, "I’ve still got half the cooking to do before tonight. Help me with this and then you can go." And with that, she left the tiny hobbit to stare mortified into the cavernous black before him. Merry sniffed pitifully before slowly inching a foot forward to place on the first step leading down into the dark chasm that was the cellar.

As his cousin screwed up his face and fell cowering on the top step, Frodo prodded himself out of his pitying state and carefully weighted the situation. Merry was evidently being forced to make the feared trek down into the cellar. No one liked the cellar, and most of the children at Brandy Hall were downright terrified of the cellar. Merry was one of those children. Frodo had also been – and, he admitted to himself, that had only died down a little as the years had passed. Merry was his cousin.

‘Eru, help us.’

Hoping he would not later regret his choice of actions, Frodo released his death-hold on the door frame and crept to sit next to his trembling cousin on the step.

Frodo waited for Merry to wipe the tear smudges from his face before forcing out a pathetically cheery, "Hullo, cousin!"

This did not bring its hoped-for response, instead causing Merry to burst into fresh sobs and throw himself against his older cousin’s chest, candle flying dangerously close to both of their heads. Wrapping an arm around his cousin and prying the threatening candle away with the other, Frodo began to seriously doubt his decision-making abilities.

‘Idiot. You don’t want to go there any more than he does!’

‘No,’ a tiny voice replied, ‘but it’s certainly not his fault he has to go.’

‘And it’s mine?’ Desperation probed, though quite uselessly, as Frodo had already opened his mouth to speak.

"Come on, Merry. I’ll go with you."

Ten argumentatively stressful minutes later, found Frodo slowly descending the creaking wooden planks leading down into the feared cellar. Clamped firmly to Frodo’s back with his arms forming a slightly choking hold around his cousin’s neck hung Merry, trembling from head to feet – which were currently digging mercilessly into Frodo’s stomach.

Holding the blessed candle high, Frodo attempted to disembark the stairs with what little remained of his current dignity, but it was not to be. Stumbling one-footed off the bottom step, eliciting a muffled whimper from Merry – whose face was buried tightly against his cousin’s back – he straightened up and again lifted the candle to survey the cluttered cellar.

For being the main kitchen cellar of the massive Brandy Hall it was not much to look at. Numerous shelves stacking to the low-domed ceiling lined the wood-paneled walls, brimming welcomingly with assorted jars and wrappings. Blocks of slow-melting ice were piled along the opposite wall, causing both cousins’ breaths to fog into their faces and a shiver pass up Merry’s already quivering spine.

Jar of butter located at least from the cluttered shelves, Frodo gave up all self-control and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"Here we are, Merry!" Again, his voice sounded falsely cheery, even to him, "Just reach out for that jar of the right there and we can go."

Though he could not see his cousin, Frodo smiled proudly as he felt the small clinging bundle on his back shift and stretch towards the shelves, snatching the jar up quickly and retreating back to the safety of his perch.

Merry pressed the treasure securely between his stomach and Frodo’s back before re-fastening his arms around his cousin’s air passages. With the comfortingly painful presence of the jar digging into his back at last, Frodo reached back to the shelf, fumbling for the candle and managing to effectively knock it over.

As the impending dark swallowed the cousins, a startled yelp rang against Frodo’s eardrum, the jar burrowing harder into his spine as Merry’s already death-like grip on him tightened. Fumbling with his hand in the dark, Frodo at last felt the splintering wood frame of the stair-rail against his fingers. Murmuring apologies and random reassurances over his shoulder, he edged his foot forward – stubbing his toes only twice – and stepped, grinning, onto the bottom step.

"Almost there. Almost there." Yes, the remarks were obviously useless and unheard, but they made him feel better, though the jar did not relent from its pursuit of his backbone. But then he caught the faint sound of whispering against his ear and, tilting his head back slightly, could barely make out the words Merry was repeating.

"Almost there. Frodo said so. Almost there."

Smiling faintly, Frodo stretched his arms before him again to ward off the walls and continued his trek out of the chasm called the cellar.

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Merry peered anxiously around the corner, fingers digging hard into its surface to keep himself from leaning too far and falling, inevitably revealing his so cleverly hidden presence. From his limited vintage point of halfway behind the wall he could still make out the small form of his older cousin, forced into silence by the intimidating stares of the men, elves and dwarves encircling him, being so much taller as they were.

Merry was still in a state of shock for the most part. Frodo? Take the ring? Had he not carried it far enough? Had he not been stabbed and nearly killed trying to keep it safe and out of the hands of others? Had he not... no, it was too absurd.

Nevertheless, there stood his cousin, noble enough, despite the assortment of princes and stewards surrounding him. Frodo’s hands were clenched tightly at his sides and he went to great lengths to keep them there and he seemed – for the first time ever to Merry – quite small and very... alone. Yes, that was it. The only one of his stature, that is.

‘It doesn’t have to be that way.’ A nagging little voice pressed.

‘I know,’ Merry returned sharply, ‘But why in Middle-earth did he get himself in this position?’

‘It’s not his fault, Meriadoc.’ The voice pressed.

‘Neither is it mine.’

‘He went for you.’ The voice reminded.

‘That was different,’ Merry pleaded, but the final defeat had already come. ‘You had better appreciate this, cousin.’

Hoping he would not later regret his choice of actions, Merry released his death-hold on the door frame with a clear shout of, "Oi! We’re coming, too!", took up a position next to his cousin – not missing the grateful smile on Frodo’s face – and folded his arms across his chest in finality.

June 6, 2004