A Diamond In The Storm

1.Long Cleeve In Winter

February 21, 1427

   The swirling blankness of the blizzard surrounded him, the biting wind and icy kiss of the snow stinging past every layer of warm clothes on his body.  The haze was dimming to black at the edges of his vision.  Unless he happened on some shelter from the cold soon, Pippin knew he was probably going to freeze to death.  He clung tightly to his pony’s back in the vain hope she would go on longer than he could, perhaps even long enough to save his life.  A sudden burst of wind shook him and muscles cramped by continuous shivering failed to move to regain his balance.  He hit the ground hard, half-sinking into the snow, stiff fingers still gripping the pony’s reins.  Head forced down close to his, she wuffled warm air against his face, melting the snowflakes that settled on his cheeks.

   “Sorry, old girl,” Pippin murmured, closing his eyes.

   It seemed howling voices came winging on the wind as he sank into his final sleep.  Pippin smiled at the last illusions his mind had conjured to start his frozen limbs into action.  Darkness fell.

***

   Voices teased at his consciousness, the words flitting lightly across his mind.

   “Is he alive?”

   “Just barely…  He’s gone down deep.”

   “We’ve got to get him warm.  There’s a supply cache nearby.”

   “That’s going to be tight quarters.”

   “The tighter the better.  What about the mare?”

   “I’ll ride her out and come back when things clear.”

   “It’s too thick!  You’ll loose your way!”

   “The day hasn’t dawned yet this wolf could get lost on the Moor!  Just keep him alive till then.”

   Pippin felt himself lifted across his pony’s back.  His eyes slid open and he glimpsed for a moment gray-green eyes close to his face.

   “Hang on just a while longer, just a little while,” a soft voice murmured into the darkness as he blacked out again.

***

   The weight against his chest compressed his breathing, though not as much as he’d expected when the troll had fallen on him.

   “Damn troll’s getting lighter…” he muttered, weakly shoving at the warm body in the darkness.

   “What’s he saying?”

   “I don’t know, something about a troll.  He must be delirious.”

   The weight shifted and small hands pressed against his face.

   “He’s not fevered…” the soft voice murmured.

   “Maybe he’s crazy.  It would explain why he was wandering through a blizzard.”

   A small breath of icy air brushed past him and he shivered.  The weight pressed down against him again and the warmth was well worth the discomfort.

   “Strange, I didn’t think it snowed this far south…” he said, dizzily falling back to sleep.

***

   The sharp pains lancing through his extremities tore him fully from the warm haze of his dream-filled doze.  The sensation that had begun as a scattered pinprick sting had blossomed into dagger-point agony.  Writhing against the warm bodies that lay about and over him, it felt like his fingers and toes were on fire.

   “Make it stop,” he whimpered, and gentle hands clasped his own together against his chest.

   “It’s alright,” the soft voice, a lass’s, said in the dark.  “This is good actually.  It means the blood has gone back, and the feeling with it.  With a little luck you’ll keep all your fingers and toes.”

   “Luck indeed!” a low growl came from his left. “Real luck would have seen him clear of that storm, and me warm in my own bed.”

   “And you’d be complaining of the lack of company then,” replied a younger male voice to his right.  A wordless grunt was the other’s only answer.

   They had each snaked a strong arm beneath his head and neck, the older of the two supporting half of his weight against his chest, keeping most of Pippin’s shivering body from the cold ground.

  “Pay them no mind,” the hobbitess said, helping him to sit up.  She pressed a leather cup to his lips.  “Here, drink this.”  The water, warmed between their bodies, slid sweetly down his parched throat, and a little of the dizziness that had come with movement passed.  The pain ground on, spreading its fiery waves under his skin, hardly more bearable for the good portent it signaled.

   “Thank you,” he murmured, “but a spot of brandy would do wonders to dull the ache…”

   “And kill you off quickly too,” she replied, pushing him back down into the nest of cloaks and blankets the others had arranged to shield him from the icy rock below.  “Besides,” she added, lying across his body once more, “All I need now is to be trapped in a four by six supply cache with three drunken idiots for the next six hours.”

   The soft fur that lined her cloak brushed against his cheek as she settled her head on his chest and her hood fell forward to cover her hair.  The storm outside raged on.

***

   Some sound on the edge of consciousness tugged him insistently towards wakefulness.  The wind still howled about above their heads, but there was a distinctly eerie note in its echoing wail.  It came again, noticeably closer and clearer, the yipping call of a wolf pack on the hunt.  Pippin scrambled to his knees, dislodging his sleeping companions from the tight pile they had formed around him.

   “Wolves!” he cried, before crashing to the ground, having knocked his head hard against the low ceiling of their shelter.

   “Well, of course they’re wolves,” his female rescuer grumbled, fingers searching his scalp for whatever damage he’d done himself by standing so precipitously.  “But not the kind as will eat you.  Can’t you tell the difference?” He barely heard her past the ringing in his ears.  “Are you all right, or have you dashed yourself silly?” she asked, annoyance coloring her concern.

   “M’alright…  That hurts!” he said, wincing as she pressed closed the small gash on the crown of his head.

   “Good!  Be still while we get things set to leave,” she ordered.

   As the others shifted about, gathering cloaks and satchels, Pippin sat very still, eyes closed and dizzy head in his hands, trying to stay out of their way without moving an inch.  The space was tight indeed, and the three northern hobbits bumped and jostled each other, tossing good-natured insults at each other as they worked.

   Before long, the sound of hooves and footsteps were heard outside and a wedge of blinding light blazed into the tiny space.  Pippin caught a momentary glimpse of his gray-cloaked companions.  The dark-haired hobbit to his left nodded briefly in greeting and the round-faced youngster at his side grinned back at him from under a thatch of wild brassy curls, but the lass knelt between Pippin and the open door and he could only see her slim shadow against the light, head haloed in fiery red.  A large shadow blocked the entryway for a moment as a newcomer crawled in and the door was closed again.

   “So I hear you’re still alive, stranger!  None too worse for being left at my sister’s tender mercies I hope,” his voice boomed into the confines of the supply cache.  A warm bundle was dropped into Pippin’s lap, which unfolded into a fur-lined cloak and, by the strangest of mercies, boots.  He quickly set about slipping into the strange but welcome footwear and outer garments as the others spoke unconcernedly around him. **

   “Is he well enough to move then?” the newcomer asked.

   “Well, he dashed his head on the roof just now,” the lass replied, still sounding a little annoyed.

   “Now then, my friend,” the loud-voiced hobbit said, plucking Pippin’s sleeve to get his attention.  “Do you still know the wheres and whats of the world or are you daft?”

   “I’ve heard tell I was daft before I ever hit my head, but I’m not entirely sure where I am, actually,” Pippin said, repressing a chuckle and trying to sound reasonable despite the strangeness of his statement.

   “Where do you think you are?”

   “I was on my way to Long Cleeve.”

   “You’re a tad off the road.  What ever possessed you to wander across the Moor?” the older hobbit asked sharply.

   “I…  I was in a hurry, I thought to cut straight across rather than wind about for two days on the road.”

   “Not daft, but crazy then.  You southerners never learn,” his questioner said with a laugh.  He clasped Pippin’s hand with calloused fingers and gave it a firm shake.  “Erangrim Took, at your service.  Welcome to the North Farthing.”

   “Peregrin Took, at your kind mercy, cousin,” Pippin replied.

    “Well, now, that explains a lot,” the hobbitess muttered under her breath as she brushed past her brother to crawl out of the cave.

   “Why do I get the feeling I should have just played dumb?” Pippin wondered aloud, not altogether pleased that some rumors and tales about him had reached even this far north.  His task would be far more difficult to accomplish if he had to combat the sum total of his misspent youth to gain the aid he sought.

   The hobbits around him laughed and pushed him towards the open door.  A stinging wind skirled through a high blue sky and swept full force across the flattened expanse of the moor.  Six shaggy ponies waited nearby, and Pippin was helped onto one, bundled between Erangrim’s burly arms.

   “Blast it all, you southerners are getting big!” Erangrim growled.  “You’ll have to ride behind and try not to fall off this time.”

   “I can ride on my own, you know,” Pippin said, dragging himself up and settling as comfortably as he could behind his cousin’s broad back.

   “Not without my sister’s say so, lad, and she’s unlikely to give it right now.”

   “How long until we reach Long Cleeve?” Pippin asked, feeling too keenly the cold breath of the wind.

   “Two hours.  I’ll make them as short as I can.”

   Staring around at the stamping ponies that waited on their riders, Pippin suddenly remembered his equine companion with a stab of guilt.

   “My mare…  Is she…?”

   “Warm and safe, along with all your gear.”

   “Thank you, she’s a good lass, I’d hate to lose her.”

   “Aye, she took a little convincing to leave you, but she plowed on through like a trooper.  You breed them strong south of the Road.”

   “Oh, she’s foreign born.  Straight off the plains of Rohan.”

   The hobbit in front of him grunted in surprise, ending the conversation as the little troupe kneed their mounts into the teeth of the wind.

   Coming up on Long Cleeve in the hard grip of a winter snow was a potentially deadly experience.  The rolling flatland of the high moor was interrupted by a long gash, sowed deep into the surrounding land by some ancient waterway that had long since changed its course.  The settlement wound from between the edges of the rent it was named for to the narrow valley of two adjoining hills.  From the moor, the precipitous plunge into that sheltered space was invisible until the very last second, and at a gallop, Pippin was sure the unwary would easily fall to their death.  The few humps of rock that lay upon the edge, barely distinguishable beneath the snow, where likely the only markers the locals needed to remember the danger.  Turning west along the widening gap, he saw the lights of many homes dug into the cliff-like walls and the gentler slopes of the hills.  Outbuildings and barns lay under deep snow yet untouched by the residents, though a few youngsters chased each other nearby.  Coming down the long shoulder of the southern hill, Erangrim took them east again, deep into the cleft to a large red door, set into the northern wall.  Several huge, double shuttered windows, painted the same flaming crimson hue, flanked the entrance in careful ranks to either side.  Solid oak and heavy drapes parted to admit them, ponies and all, into a large circular space whose walls were dotted with many doors.  Their mounts were immediately led away and the riders quickly ushered past brilliant red curtains into a blazing warm chamber, filled with light and noise.  A great babble of calls and welcomes fused around them as the returning hobbits were stripped of their outwear and pushed to the low benches by the fireplace.

   The red-haired lass that had thus far taken charge of him set to doing the same for Pippin, after shedding her cloak and boots by the door.

   “Well, now, Diamond, you’ve caught yourself a tall one this time,” said a round little hobbitess who, by her tone and her gray-green gaze, was like as not her mother.  “Come, lad, before she takes ill herself fussing over you.”

   “Mother!  I’m not fussing…”

   “Tut tut!  You sit yourself down, and try to remember you’re a lady, for all you run with the pack like a common flit.”

   Pippin watched, hiding his amusement, as the fiery lass seethed on the bench across from him, and the others in the room snickered into their cups at what appeared to be a long-standing argument between them.

   “Now, Mara, be kind.  Lets get the poor lad thawed before you sell him off at market,” said a broad-shouldered hobbit, whose ginger-gray curls hinted at a fox-red past.  He crouched before Pippin where he shivered in his steaming clothes and examined his hands and feet.  “You must forgive my wife.  After four biddable daughters and three adoring sons, Diamond puts her at wits end.  Well, you look none the worse for wear, my friend.  Erangrim told me you had the foresight to cover your feet before they froze; not every hobbit would have had that thought.”

   “It isn’t the first snow storm I’ve seen, though it moved rather faster than I expected.”

   “Well, you’re lucky they found you at all.  Welcome to Long Cleeve and to my house.  My name is Angrim Took, and I hope you’ve brought a song or two with you out of the storm,” the older hobbit said with a short bow.

    Pippin rose to bow unsteadily to his host, feeling the eyes of every hobbit in the room fixed on his and Angrim’s faces.  “Peregrin Took, at your service.  In truth, the pleasure is all mine.”

   A short breath of silence crackled between them as the older hobbit looked him up and down with narrowed eyes.

   “Well met, nephew,” he finally said with a smile. “Lets get you warmed up.”

** Boots & Hobbits:  we are told that Buckland hobbits were known to wear boots in very muddy weather, and this was yet another reason they were thought quite strange by hobbits from the Shire proper.  I have taken a leap of logic to surmise that, just as the Bucklanders adapted something to fit their needs, so too might the hobbits living on the northern moor, which is reputed to have seen snow and freezing weather more often than the rest of the Shire.  The hunters and watchers among the North-Tooks and their neighbors would likely want to protect themselves from said weather, and though the preference is always to be barefoot, the risk of frostbite still exists, despite tough soles and hair.

2.  Curiosity

   Pippin sank all the way to his ears in the steaming water with a delighted sigh.  The last hot bath he had so enjoyed had been his first in Minas Tirith after the War.  For all the splashing, sponging and cold river dips they’d managed in the weeks before returning to the White City, it had taken a real bath in a tub with steaming water and soap to just feel normal and clean again.  It might well have been in his head, but the stench of dead troll had refused to leave his nose until this ultimate return to civilization.

   Not that waking under Diamond Took had been even remotely comparable to that stinking creature.  Pippin could easily imagine what her heavy winter clothes had muffled, the solid weight of slender muscle and soft curves stretching across him and the warm scent of fur and lavender tickling his nose in the dark.

   He was startled from his pleasant daydream by the click of the closing door and sat up to find a dark-haired lass gazing back at him from across the room.

   “Ah…  Can I help you, miss?”

   “That’s what I was wondering myself actually,” she answered with a smile.

   “Uhmmm…  No, I’m fine, thank you.”

   “All right, then,” she mumbled, leaving with a curtsy.

   “Well, that was odd,” Pippin muttered, settling back into the water.

   He was slipping back into a pleasant haze when the door again opened without warning to admit a little round hobbitess, carrot curls peeking from behind a stack of towels.

   “I thought you might need these,” she stammered, nearly tripping over the little bench by the door.

   “Thank you,” Pippin replied politely, though he could see a large number of them were already neatly folded on a nearby shelf.

   “Where shall I put them for you?” she asked, eyes fixed on the copper tub that still concealed the rest of him.

   “By the door is fine with me.”

   “Anything else I can do for you?”

   “Nothing comes to mind right now,” he answered, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in the face of her unblinking stare.

   She mercifully chose that moment to leave and Pippin reached for the round soap that lay near to hand.  He was standing with his back to the door when it opened yet again and he dropped into the water with a loud splash.

   “Don’t you people ever knock?” he shouted over his shoulder, blushing furiously and rubbing at his bruised knees.

   “Well, really!  Next time you can wander the halls looking for your own dry clothes!” his latest intruder snarled back as she left, slamming the door nearly off its hinges.

   Determining that haste would be his best strategy, he hurried through the last of his soapy chore in the cooling bath.  He ducked beneath the water one last time and surfaced to find a pair of gray-green eyes peeking over the rim of the tub.

   Checking the blistering comment that had first come to mind, he smiled and winked at the little lad.  “This is a very busy place for a bathroom, wouldn’t you say?” he asked, wiping the water off his face.

   “Aunt Opal says you’re awfully rude,” the little boy said, idly pulling at one stray lock of fine brown hair.

   “Your aunts, all of them, should know better than to surprise a strange hobbit in his bath,” he replied with a grin.  “What else did she have to say?”

   “That a girl might have to let out more than sleeves and hems to accoma… accodo…”

   “Accommodate?”

   “Yes, accommodate you.  What does that mean?” he asked, his little face scrunched in puzzled concentration.

   “Ah….  I’m just awfully tall is all,” Pippin replied with a slight blush.  “So what’s your name?  I’m Peregrin Took,” he said, offering the lad a dripping hand to shake.

   “Bandogrim Took, but no one ever calls me that, they just call me Ban.”

   “No one ever calls me by my proper name either, unless I’m in a great deal of trouble.  My friends call me Pippin.”

  The small boy nodded and finally took his hand with a serious smile.

  “Well, Bandogrim Took, what say you we escape your curious aunts and see what the kitchen might yield?  I’m utterly famished.”

   The little boy’s face lit with a familiar mischievous grin and he turned to hand Pippin one of the fluffy towels that lay nearby.

***

   “Bandogrim Took!  You’ll be washing dishes for a week if I find you in that kitchen!”

   The little hobbit crammed one last crumpet into his mouth and ducked into the second pantry with a final wave.  Composing his face to his most innocent expression, Pippin set his fork down on the empty plate, which had only moments before held a most excellent slice of apple tart.  Sated, clean and well informed on all the latest goings on in the North-Took smials at Long Cleeve, he felt ready to tackle the problem of talking a dozen strong hobbits from Angrim Took, who at that very instant walked in, trailing casually behind his rotund mate.  The mistress of the house strode into the large kitchen, swept the room with a glance and finally stopped a few paces from where Pippin sat, hands on hips.

   “Well, there you are,” she said briskly.  “I’m afraid my daughters have quite lost their minds.  They swore you washed yourself straight to nothing!  I can see you found the apple tart without much trouble.”

   “Yours is a most welcoming and organized kitchen, and therefore a true comfort to a hungry hobbit far from home such as myself,” Pippin replied, standing to offer a handsome bow, only slightly awkward in his borrowed clothes.

   “Why, thank you, Master Took.  Whoever said that southerners had little sense of order or decorum has never met your father’s sons,” she said, a pleased smile wreathing her round face and lifting from it the worry lines that hid a gentler disposition than anyone supposed.

   “On behalf of my long-suffering mother, I thank you.  I’m afraid she despairs of my ever making a proper gentlehobbit, but your words will give her hope, at least.”

   “Well, you’ve a silver tongue if nothing else, lad,” she said with a little laugh.  “Angrim, will you show our guest his rooms before you go?  I must find my son and tell him little Ban has wandered out of my grasp once more.  That boy will be the death of me…”

   Pippin repressed an amused grin as his host rolled his eyes dramatically behind his wife’s broad back.

   “And clean up after yourself, you backsliding old dog,” she snapped, swatting her husband’s  arm as she swept from the room.

   The older hobbit threw his hands up in the air with a weary smile and sat down across from his young guest.

   “My uncle always said that Tookish lasses were like the Brandywine in flood; you can ride the waves or stand out of the way, but only a fool will try to cross them,” Pippin said with a grin, thinking fondly of the mistress of Brandy Hall, who’d surely have found a kindred spirit in Angrim’s little wife.

   “Your uncle is a wise hobbit.”

   “My uncle married Esmeralda Took; not everyone would call that wise.”

   “And you?”

   “I call that lucky, but then I had the benefit of her protection rather than her wrath most days.”

   “Aye, can’t say they don’t have heart, our Tookish ladies,” Angrim answered with a smile, pouring them both a fresh cup of tea.  “So, you were too smart to die out there yesterday, but either foolish or desperate enough to take the chance by cutting across the moor.  What brings you to my door, Peregrin Took?”

   “Ah… Well, there some trouble that needs looking into, and from what I’ve heard, you’ve sturdy hobbits hereabouts that might be able to lend a hand.  There are too few of us bounders in the area to do it on our own.”

   “You’ve gone for a bounder, then?  I don’t imagine your father’s overly pleased by that,” the older hobbit said, sharp eyes noting the quickly concealed grimace that twitched over Pippin’s face.

    “I often fail to please my father these days,” he answered, his tone falsely light.  He looked up into the clear gray eyes of his host and shrugged.  “However, that is neither here nor there.  Several families have disappeared from their homes near the Northwest marker and that is my only concern at this time.  I need cool heads and good eyes to help me track down the cause.”

   “That is indeed a rather serious matter.  What are the mayor’s thoughts on this?  Will he not dispatch more shirriffs to see to things?”

   “My partner has gone to inform the mayor’s office of the matter, but I’ve the authority to deputize as many as are called for in this kind of situation.  I didn’t want to wait for word back before I started to get together a few likely lads and I have heard encouraging things about your folks.  After all, you’ve no need of bounders up here do you?” he asked, referring to the strange circuitous route bounders took to bypass the upper reaches of the North Farthing.  The long-standing agreement between the North-Tooks and the Mayor had come as a surprise to Pippin, and had been the first of many facts that had driven home to him how little he truly knew of the Shire.

   “Haven’t seen one all my life, save to serve him lunch at my table,” Angrim said proudly.

   “Well, the Rangers claim that no creature, great or small, crosses the moor with ill intent and lives longer than a day.”

   “Rangers, eh?  Well, they’re not far from wrong, in spite of being too tall to think straight, in my opinion.”

   “Oh, Big Folk aren’t all that bad, and most Rangers are fine fellows, if a little on the odorous side,” Pippin said with a smirk.  “But they do praise the sons of Bullroarer Took as canny and brave, and I most certainly agree.  I would ask for your aid in service to your neighbors, if not at the mayor’s call.”

   Angrim stirred another spoonful of dark honey into his tea, pride and caution warring across his weathered features.

   “The moor is a dangerous place, and not all of us love the choice Bandobras made for us, placing us in the path of the north wind and the wolf.  But it was a good choice, to protect his brother and the Shire, and I, for one, do not regret it,” the older hobbit said, determination setting his face.  He reached across the table to offer Pippin his hand.  “Give me a few days to make preparations and it’s with a wolf pack you’ll head your hunt.”

3.  Bounders Welcome (Or Not)

Despite having slept away some ten or twelve hours in the supply cache, the ride to Long Cleeve and the questions that had followed had exhausted him, and Pippin was glad to drop into the well-appointed bed of his borrowed room.  His saddlebags and gear had been set upon the trunk at the foot of the bed and a cheerful fire had been laid in the small fireplace.  Realizing that one last task would put off his rest a few minutes more, Pippin rolled across the bed and flipped open the well-worn cover of his satchel.  It was the very same one that had accompanied him from the Shire to the Falls of Rauros.  The endlessly mended pack, which had contained many treasured and useful items he would have been sorry to lose, had been retrieved for them before they left Gondor for home, and he carried it still, the material rubbed soft in all the right places, as comfortable as an old shirt.  As he reached into it for his report journal, a small bundle of fur pounced from its darkened depths and raced up his arm, chattering furiously in his ear.

   “Settle down, little fellow,” Pippin laughed, pulling the angry squirrel from his shoulder.  “I thought you’d abandoned me with the first snowflake!  I’ll bet you’re hungry, though,” he said, digging in his pocket for a slightly crumbled biscuit he’d sneaked from the kitchen, more out of habit than real need.  The little animal snatched up the offered treat and bounded away to perch upon the nightstand.  The woodland creature, unusually bold and friendly for its kind, had attached itself to him when he and Sancho had come upon the second deserted farmhouse on their rounds.  The family that owned and worked the surrounding fields had been particularly welcoming to the two young Bounders since they had taken over this route last year, and the thought of those brave and cheerful souls coming to harm was very disturbing to them both.  Pippin admired the spirit that prompted these families to move away from the more settled lands in the heart of the Shire, carving out home and bread from the wilderness here on the bounds.  If duty had not tied him to Great Smials…

   The tired hobbit shook his head and yawned hugely, dismissing the impossible notion.  He glanced guiltily again at the opened bag that sat near at hand.  Self-discipline had always been a challenge, particularly with anything even resembling bookwork, and the daily entries into the report journal were the only part of riding the bounds he didn’t care for at all.  Brushing from the slim leather-bound volume the crumbs that the hungry stowaway had made of his rations, Pippin unwound the thong that secured it closed against his sketchbook amidst the other odds and ends that he carried.  Opening the pages to his previous entry, he read back his awkward words of two days ago.

                 “Feb. 20, 1427.  5 more farms abandoned.  No sign of life or struggle.

                   Livestock set loose.  Sancho Proudfoot reporting to Michel Delving.

                    Am heading to Long Cleeve for aid.  I hope they are still there.”

There followed a list of the eight holdings they had found empty, new friends, some of them kin to either of them or both, and all gone without a trace.  Pippin sighed, adding a few brief sentences about his last two days, as well as Angrim Took’s decision.  He closed and tossed the journal into his satchel and lay back down, stretching out his long frame as best he could on the small bed.  Diamond Took’s sharp features swam across his closed eyelids and he thought she must have a smile to dazzle even the Sun, if one could manage to earn it.  Sleep stole quietly over him and spirited gray-green eyes pursued him into his dreams.

                                                                 ***   ***   ***

   Sancho Proudfoot was coming close to losing his temper.  Pacing the small confines of the entry hall of the Town Hole in Michel Delving, he had waited through the morning and nearly half the afternoon to make his report, and his long patience, well exercised by his partner’s idiosyncrasies, was wearing thin.  He came again to stand over the busy scribe that sat behind the small desk that guarded the Mayor’s door.

   “Hello there.  Remember me?” he asked.

   “How could I forget?” the functionary replied with a grimace and a sniff.

   “Now, look, I’ve watched a dozen hobbits pass those doors in either direction since I arrived this morning, and while I’m sure they all had good reason to be here, I have very important news to deliver.”

   “You should have made an appointment.”

   Sancho forcibly restrained himself from simply picking up and shaking the annoying creature behind the desk and he put on an exaggeratedly friendly smile.

   “May I *please* have an appointment then?  As soon as possible?”

   “The Mayor can see you two days from now, first thing in the morning.”

   “Two days!  Have you no concept of life and death, you useless paper pusher?” the dark-haired hobbit shouted, finally at his wit’s end.  “I should have gone straight to Great Smials with this!”

   “I’m sure Reginard Took guards the Thain’s valuable time as effectively as I do the Mayor’s, something you young lounge-about dandies obviously do not understand,” the gray secretary said primly, seemingly unruffled and unimpressed by Sancho’s outburst.

   “Reginard Took I could trust to resolve this matter, and I’m off to put it to him now.  I’ll be back in two days, with a troop of Tookland archers in tow, to deliver my report.  And by the way,” he added over his shoulder as he turned to leave, “Master Reginard’s desk is *inside* Thain Paladin’s study.”

   Stopping outside the door to calm his angry breath, the young hobbit sat upon the low stone wall that enclosed the colorful garden that had been planted around the Town Hole.  He wasn’t sure which made him angrier, the fact that it had been an empty threat, or that he had had to make it at all.  The Thain was on the outs with the Mayor again, mostly because he had accepted Pippin into the shirriffs, and for outside work no less.  Thain Paladin had some rather set ideas on where his heir’s duties and loyalties should lie and despite all evidence to the contrary, he seemed to feel he could still impose them upon his son.  This was, of course, the very reason for Pippin’s decision and a year had not yet been long enough to soften the old hobbit’s stance.  Tookland Bounders, of which there were only a few, came home with their caps tucked into their saddlebags or not at all.  Setting his own cap back on his head, Sancho sighed and was rising to leave when the door edged open and the Mayor’s new deputy stepped out.

   “Master Bounder,” the round-faced hobbit said, offering his hand in greeting.  “Samwise Gamgee, at your service, sir.  I overheard a shout…?”

   “Master Chickenscratch and I simply disagreed on the urgency of my dispatch,” Sancho replied acidly, returning the firm handshake.

   A small smile quirked the other’s lips.  “You’re not the first he’s rubbed rather the wrong way, lad, but tell me, what’s so urgent?”

   Sancho hesitated a moment, looking down at the shorter hobbit’s brown eyes and serious face.  This was someone Pippin trusted implicitly, and whom he had praised countless times for his courage and honesty.

   “That serious, eh?  Where is your partner?” Sam asked, noting his reticence.

   “Fifty or more hobbits have disappeared along the bounds.  Peregrin has gone to Long Cleeve, hopefully to find help rather than more trouble.”

   Any trace of humor immediately left Sam’s face and he signaled the young Bounder to follow him over the wall and into the garden.

   “You’ve got my attention.  What’s going on?”

   “Eight farms, at last count, have been abandoned and their folk vanished since we last rode by in January.”

   “Vanished?”

   “Without a trace.  They were isolated holdings and no one else seems aware of it yet, though I hope Pippin has reached the North-Tooks by now.  If they are still there…”

   “Did you warn anyone on your way back?”

   “Not specifically, I didn’t want to cause a panic, but I told them to watch for anything odd and keep the children close in for a while.  They already lock their doors that close to the bounds.”

   Sam stood a long while in thought, fingers moving unconsciously along the crackled bark of the small tree that shaded the corner of the garden where they stood.

   “Alright.  Listen, here’s some more news for you to keep under your hat.  The Mayor’s not well, he’ll be resigning at the end of June.  I’ll do what I can to get a few more shirriffs together and sent your way, but you’re right about doing things quietly, at least right now.  A panic this soon after the Troubles would throw all awreck and likely for no good reason.  Wait for me at the Red Hill House,” he said, naming the one of the local inns.  “I’ll find you there as soon as I can.”

   The Sun sat like a red egg upon the Downs when Sam found Sancho at the inn’s common room.  The Mayor’s deputy looked tired and frustrated, and he sat down heavily, sliding a thin envelope across the table.

   “I hope you’ve had a restful afternoon,” he said, nodding his thanks to the lass who plunked a full tankard in front of him. “Make straight for Brandy Hall and have them find you Master Meriadoc Brandybuck.  Give him this and he’ll hear you out.  I can’t go into the details, but don’t wait on the Mayor’s office on this matter.  I’ll do what I can, but…” he shook his head worriedly.

   “I’ll leave right away, then, if you don’t mind,” the young Bounder said, dropping a few coins beside his empty mug as he rose.

   “I’ll join you as far as the Bywater road,” Sam replied, draining his ale with a sigh.  “You’re welcome to rest up at Bag End, though it’s a mite crowded and out of your way.”

   “I’d like nothing better, sir, if I weren’t so pressed for time.  Pip’s gone on quite poetically on the delights of Mistress Rose’s pies.”

   “He would,” Sam laughed, hoping the young Took would indeed find help among his northern kin and not more desolation. “I certainly suspect he would.”

4.Willy Or Nilly

   “You do not care for feasts, Miss Diamond?” Pippin asked the lass seated to his left, who continued shifting restlessly on the bench.  She had been frowning and muttering through the meal and picking at her food, and though his other neighbor was doing her level best to ensnare him in conversation, he had been watching the tall huntress and hoping for an occasion to speak.

   “It isn’t the food, but this impractical and bothersome garment my mother insists is the only proper attire for a lady in the presence of a guest,” she snarled, glaring at the offending dress as one might at a toad in one’s soup.

    “Well, if it’s any comfort, it is a very fetching gown,” he said, suppressing a grin as her sleeve trailed into the gravy on her plate when she reached for her wine.  A disdainful sniff was her only reply.

    He was about to steer the subject to what he hoped would be a more pleasant topic of conversation when she noticed the state of the lacy material, now clinging coldly against her wrist.

    “Oh, a pox on guests and all their complications!” she muttered under her breath, sponging at the mess which was now dripping into her lap.

   “I’ve often thought the same of those that overstayed their welcome in my father’s house,” Pippin said quietly, handing her his napkin.

   “Why an uncouth dandy from the South should hold such an opinion is entirely beyond me,” she said acidly, snatching the proffered cloth without thanks.

   Pippin let fall his hand, stung by her remark, and his eyes hardened, though a polite smile remained on his lips.

   “Forgive me, I had not realized I was in the presence of so keen an arbiter of good taste and conduct.  I can promise you to be gone within a day or two at the most, and so cease to poison your existence.”

   He pointedly turned his attention to the lass on his other side, belatedly recalling the carrot-topped hobbitess’s avid stare, and his resolution to escape it at all cost.  He muttered some inanity in her general direction and hid his face in his wine glass, wondering for a moment why any hobbit would marry, trapped between sharp-tongued vixens and whey-faced mice.

   Diamond choked back a surprised apology and rose from the table, resisting at the last the urge to fling the gravy-stained napkin at his back.  She was not entirely sure why his remark, though milder than many she had been subject to, had struck her so.  Perhaps because it had been true, and well deserved besides, perhaps because she had only just noticed the friendly light in his eyes when it had disappeared at her sharp words.  Storming from the dining room without another word, she forced herself not to look back to see if he had taken note of her departure.

                                                               ***   ***   ***

   “I cannot believe you are doing this to me!”  Diamond said angrily, glaring at her father across his desk.  “I have far better things to do with my time than go chasing after the fancies of a harebrained Bounder who couldn’t find his way across the Moor with a map and a month-full of sun.”

   What regret and embarrassment she had felt the night before for her hasty words and sharp tongue had melted like snow in the sun with her father’s request.

   “You are the one always harping on that we need to extend our concern to protect our neighbors, and though I’ve never said so, you are the best tracker in the North Farthing.  Young Master Peregrin has need of your services and you *will* give satisfaction.  Come now, lass,” Angrim said, his voice softening somewhat.  “This is no fool’s errand, but a real problem that needs a clear head and a keen eye.  I am entrusting this task to *you*.”

   She nodded, defeated by his reasoning as well as the niggling itch of curiosity that she had been trying so hard to ignore.

   “Now, you may wish to remember, however, that it is the next Took and Thain that you so glibly denigrate, my daughter, and though we are far from Tuckborough here, he could be a good friend to your brother someday.”

   “I’ll do my best to be polite,” she said sourly as she took from him the short list of hobbits she would be taking with her.

   Muttering and planning out her route and supplies, she quickly strode through the small parlor outside her father’s study and failed to notice the dark-haired hobbit who sat quietly behind a book, an amused grin twitching at his lips.  Pippin stood, one finger marking his page, as Angrim stepped out of the darkened room, catching sight of him with a start.  The older hobbit paled, Diamond’s strident words echoing in his mind.

   “You heard…”

   “Aye, well, walls are thin and chance is perverse.  Merry warned me this would happen.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “The worst of my reputation has caught up with me, and in the face of the only one I’ve ever met to match me for sheer contrariness and stubborn pluck.  Fate has a twisted sense of humor.”

   Angrim watched the young hobbit anxiously, having expected anger or wounded pride rather than the bemused thoughtfulness that filled his guest’s face.

   Pippin smiled, seeing his uncertainty, and clapped the older hobbit on the shoulder.

   “It should be an interesting expedition.”

                                                            ***   ***   ***

   Wearily handing his tired mount to a lad playing in the courtyard, Sancho slowly approached the main door of Brandy Hall as evening darkened the sky.  He walked into the noisy brightness of its wide dining hall, where the thirty or so Brandybucks who lived within the vastness of the Buck Hill were getting ready to sit down to supper.  A half-grown girl with a pair of sticky-faced toddlers in tow brushed by him, dragging her charges towards the hand basin and towels sitting near the entrance.

   “Miss!  Excuse me…” he said, reaching to tap her shoulder.

   “Wash your hands, lads!  And no splashing!” she said to the little boys, pushing them forward, before turning to smile up at the young Bounder.  “Did you just ride in?  You need a wash,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

   “Well, yes, I imagine that I probably do,” he replied, staring down at his dusty, slept-in clothes.  “But first, I need to speak to Master Meriadoc Brandybuck, if I could.”

   “Oh, you’re in luck, he should be about tonight,” she said, running back to interrupt the incipient flooding of Brandy Hall’s red tiled floors.

   Stepping back outside to brush off the worst of the dry mud and dust he had acquired on his hurried ride across the Shire, Sancho ran into the very hobbit he had been searching for.  The tall Bucklander looked rather weatherworn himself, mud-spattered trousers and feet and windblown hair a sure indication he too had been riding through much of the day.  He nodded a polite greeting to the stranger standing uncertainly at his door and reached for the knob, eager to put down the heavy satchel that bowed broad shoulders under his winter cloak.

   “Master Meriadoc?  I’ve a message for you, sir,” Sancho said, stepping out of his path with a short bow.

   “Well, come in and tell me, the sky’s about to fall,” Merry replied, holding open the door as the first drops struck the dirt of the courtyard.  “Oh, good, supper’s on.  I’m utterly famished.  You’ll join us, of course?” he asked dropping his burden on the dark bench that spanned the length of the entry hall.

   “Ah…  Well, a hobbit’s got to eat sometime, I suppose, but my business is rather urgent.”

   Merry sighed and scratched his head, abandoning all thoughts of well-deserved rest, and finally gave the bedraggled Bounder a short smile.

   “We can take our plates to my study then, and you can apprise me of my cousin’s latest mischief,” he said with a good-humored sigh.  “Wait here a moment.”

   Sancho watched him gather up a well-loaded tray as he spoke to a lovely lass, round with child and obviously less than pleased with his news.  She followed Merry back to the entry hall, dark gaze taking in the young hobbit’s disheveled state, the feather that graced the cap in his hand and the anxious look in his eye.  She gave Sancho a small smile, not unfriendly for all the suspicious concern that filled her face, and shook her head with a sigh.

   “Well,” she said quietly, addressing her husband, “Do see he gets fed and warmed up before you go galloping off, Merry dear.  You have two months to get my cousin out of trouble and my husband home to me, Master Bounder,” she added, turning to their guest, one hand smoothing the soft fabric of her winter dress against the swell of her growing child.  “I’m afraid this lad has his own schedule we all need to abide by.”

   “Yes, ma’am, ” Sancho replied, with an embarrassed blush.

   She smiled and gave him a friendly wink before returning to the busy tables in the next room.

   “Well, we’ve our marching orders, let’s get on with it,” Merry chuckled, waving him towards the small door that led into the north wing of the smial.

5. Barachiril

 “I still don’t understand what use the Big Folk could be in this. If the Wolfpack isn’t enough for you, you should have run straight east to this king you keep talking about,” Diamond grumped as she artfully stacked the small pile of firewood and worked her flint to light it.

“King’s men don’t run,” he answered flatly, and Diamond caught a quick glimpse of grim pride in his face before a good-humored expression masked it. “The Rangers may have some idea of what is going on outside our borders. I’d rather know my enemy before he pops me into the stew pot,” Pippin remarked with a wry grin as he watched her quick hands from the corner of his eye while he pulled and tugged at the surcoat he had just passed over his head. He smoothed the dark fabric with its brightly embroidered tree and stars with a slightly nostalgic stroke.

“Well, you’d look a fine fool trying to surprise anyone in that get-up,” she said, smirking at him from across the newly lit fire.

“It kept my fellow soldiers from spitting me for an undersized orc, so I’ll not complain of its flash, for all your sneering, Lady Diamond,” he shot back, looping the sword-belt with its long scabbard about his waist. The red gems set upon the dark leather winked in the flicker of the growing flames.

Her eye caught on the spark and lingered a moment on the hidden blade. He certainly carried it like a hobbit who might do more than nick his own shins in a tight spot. She shrugged and stumped off through the small wood to find a patch of undisturbed snow to melt in the little pot for a hot tea.

He watched her go, her gray cloak quickly fading into the shadows of the trees, annoyed with the mixed feelings she evoked in him. He had found her wry wit and gruff kindness at their first meeting quite charming, but the more he tried to relax the guard she had raised before him, the tighter she clenched her fist. Uncertainty made her quick tempered and sharp-tongued, and Pippin knew himself to be the cause. She was obviously used to being in charge and completely unmindful of her sex, but the presence of a stranger had cut her off from the familiar ease that had grown up between her and the lads she led.

He idly wondered what would happen if he were to simply kiss her. But no, that was exactly why she so resented his presence, that she would have to prove herself as more than a lass, good only for kissing and flirting, yet again, when she had probably already spent many frustrating years doing so. He shook his head and busied himself to dressing the skinny hare they’d lucked on for their supper.

“I don’t expect she’d take it well if I asked her to cook either…” he mused, chuckling under his breath at her imagined reaction to that request.

                                                                     ***   ***   ***

 The tall ranger watched curiously from his perch as the small figure below worked quietly around the camp. The little fire’s flickering light glinted off the silver thread upon the hobbit’s breast as he knelt upon the cleared ground, wielding a quick and skillful blade on the makings of his meal. He finally leaned back, bread and cheese in hand, to watch the spitted meat roast over the orange flames.

He had seen the small group of hobbits making their way northward towards Lake Nenuial, well past the bounds they usually guarded. The wilderness a few days north of the lake was still dangerous, full of unsettled men and half-orcs, though most of their full-blooded kin had been driven into the frozen waste of the Forodwaith. As he had trailed the small Wolfpack, for he recognized the fur-trimmed cloaks of Long Cleeve’s hunters from long acquaintance, he had seen two of them set off on their own just after midday.

He had not been surprised to see the little ‘Barachiril’, as they had begun to call her, the fiery-haired lass that braved the dangers of the Moor with her brothers. They had all remarked among themselves how unusual she was, and worried for her, as strangely distanced uncles might, wondering what life had in store for the little huntress, now that peace had returned to her world. He saw now, with not a little curiosity and amusement that this was not just any hobbit she was leading through the wilds, but young Peregrin Took, for none other among his people had ever worn the silver and sable of the King. Settling back among the creaking branches, he turned over in his mind the possible explanations for their strange direction.

“I may not be a ranger, but I do know a thing or two about sneaking around in the woods,” the hobbit’s clear voice rose to startle him from his reflections. “Won’t you come down and share my fire instead?”

Laerion dropped lightly from his hiding place and slowly approached his smiling host, as he stood to greet him. He noticed the other’s small hand carelessly draped on the hilt of the sword at his side, the deceptively casual stance, and the sharp eyes following his every movement.

“I am Laerion,” he said, bowing hand over heart, discreetly displaying the rayed star upon his shoulder.

“Peregrin Took,” the other replied with a wide grin, shoulders visibly relaxing beneath his borrowed cloak.

Waving him near, the young hobbit settled himself against the tree again and pulled the stopper from a leather wrapped bottle. Taking a sip, he passed it to the tall ranger now sitting at his side. Rich and heady, the ale was welcome after today’s long and snowy trek.

“Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Such as it is,” Pippin said with a laugh, handing him a portion of the roasted hare that sizzled deliciously over the flames.

The young hobbit was bringing his own portion of the meal to his mouth when he saw his guest freeze, one hand drifting towards the knife in his boot.

“Dear Diamond, please don’t spit our guest at my fire. It would be both rude and counterproductive, as he is the one we’ve come looking for.”

“How can you be sure he is no common brigand? Have you met him before?” she asked, stepping into the light with her bow still drawn.

“She raises a good point. You’re a mite neater than any ruffian I’ve ever seen and a tad closer to respectable than Strider ever was, but that bears little proof you didn’t steal that cloak and star.”

“Ah, well, if my manner and my attire are not enough, young Peregrin Took, I will say that the Dúnedain would wonder that the Ernil-i-Pheriannath roams still so far from his father’s house, though he’d be glad to see that the blade of Westernesse that served so well at the Morannon is still in your care.”

“Now there’s a mouthful of history and high tale worth a morsel of my dinner! You know more about me than is reasonable or fair, even for a Ranger of the North who served on the same field.”

Diamond snorted and tucked away her bow, placing the little kettle near the fire.

“Well, you’re both brazen and silver-tongued, Ranger and Bounder alike, and you certainly spin a pretty tale among you. I had no idea all that foolishness had spread beyond the Shire.”

The gray ranger glanced inquiringly towards the black-clad hobbit.

“Not many know,” Pippin murmured, “And the three of us prefer it that way, at least for now.”

Laerion nodded, quietly considering the youngest member of the Fellowship. Valor, foolishness, loyalty and kindness all had their part in the tales told of him, a veritable wealth of mirthful contradiction, at least until one recalled this was a hobbit, not a man. He wondered for a moment how the years had tempered what the war had wrought.

“Well, setting the past aside, what has brought you so far north in such capable company?”

Diamond shot him a sharp and searching glance, raking his expression for a sign that would give his compliment the lie.

Pippin hid a momentary grin, but his face lengthened with worry and he looked into the ranger’s gray eyes.

“Folk are disappearing on the northwest borders of the Shire. Eight farmsteads, emptied without a trace. Have you had any word of troubles that way?”

“No… But come to think of it, we have not heard from that quarter in the last several weeks, though that is not necessarily unusual.”

“How long before you’d know if your men had run afoul of something beyond their strength?”

“We meet at the full of each moon with our contacts at various points throughout the realm. Anyone missing would be noticed then. We are necessarily solitary and independent still, and likely will be for some generations.”

“That’s several days away.” Pippin shook his head. “We cannot wait here that long. I’m afraid for the other families in that area. What more can you tell us?”

“Very little, save that no Men or orcs have been sighted that far south in over a year. I will go to the hollow in advance for whatever news and signs I can gather, and I will send for a few more hands out of the new garrison at Annuminas.”

“My thanks, Lord Laerion,” Pippin replied with a nod.  “At least we know what isn’t waiting for us in the foothills of the Evendims,” he added wryly.

Diamond wondered at the shift in his manner of address, as though something in the rough-looking Ranger’s words had revealed a more noble station in life than his appearance would warrant.  He looked as disreputable and untrustworthy as ever to the young huntress’s eyes and she broke into their polite exchange, disdain writ clear across her sharp features.

“Ha!  He’s told us nothing at all, save what we already knew!” she said challengingly.  “He’s admitted to not even knowing of the welfare of his fellows, much less what news they might have of our troubles. Shoddy way of running things, if you ask me.”

Pippin shot her an exasperated glance and poured their guest some tea, volunteering his own little travel tumbler and the carefully corked flask of honey he always carried.   Turning back to the young hobbitess, whose frown and crossed arms silently demanded an answer, Pippin resisted adopting the patronizing tone his elders, at home and abroad, had always taken on to reply to his own stubborn requests.  She simply didn’t know any better, and though it wasn’t her fault, Pippin thought she might have found more politic ways to express her doubts.

“Actually,” he started quietly, “We now know that whatever’s causing the disappearances did not come from the north or east, at least not recently.  Orcs would never lay quiet for so long, and even Men are rarely so patient, especially the sort as would harm women and children.”  Though she could not miss his glance or its meaning, Pippin shot a questioning look at the quiet Man at their fire, receiving an approving nod of his conclusions.  He looked back at Diamond, whose face was still set in a skeptical mask.  “I also very much doubt that the elves at the Havens would have failed to notice a boatload of troublemakers upon their shores, so you see, my dear, our guest’s news rather clears the map of the more obvious players, at least in my mind.”

Yet, if he expected her to soften her stance, the young Took was quite mistaken.

“Are you so certain of these elves? Could they not have a hand in this?” Diamond asked pointedly, and they could only stare in shocked silence.

Laerion finally stirred, face severe and eyes sad, and the young hobbit-lass felt herself shrink under his sorrowful glance.

“Much lore is lost among you when the Eldar fall under your suspicion, Barachiril. Perhaps you can learn better from your companion ere we speak again.” His voice was low and cool, a pale note of melancholy bitterness buried deep within its silk. “We shall meet at the Northwest Marker a week past the full moon. Fare thee well.”

He disappeared into the night, barely stirring the snow at the edge of the camp in his passing.

“It is a sore lack and something I intend to remedy in time,” Pippin murmured to the shadows, reaching for the half-empty cup, kept warm by the ranger’s long fingers.

“Are they always so unpredictable and fey?” Diamond asked, puzzled and utterly unguarded for a short instant.

“You could have called his cousin a swineherd and he’d have laughed at your misprision, but the elves are well beyond our simple concerns, what few of them remain upon these shores. Those who knew them feel keenly the loss.” He stood, emptying the cup into the snow. “I think I shall foster all my children outside our borders for a time, that they should know the world is wider than our own small corner, and there is much of worth to be found beyond our borders. We have forgotten too much.” He too walked out of the light of the flickering fire, and Diamond was left alone, bewildered in the resulting silence.

                                                                         ***   ***   ***

 When the young Bounder crawled quietly into their small tent and curled himself wordlessly into his cloak and blankets, she was still awake, pondering all that she had heard.

“Peregrin?”

“Yes?”

“What was that he called me? Barachiril?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him when next we meet.”

A few minutes later, she broke the silence again, pulling him from the exhausted doze he had immediately fallen into.

“That was elvish?”

“Yes…”

“Well, it sounded nice enough, even though he was angry with me.”

“Even curses sound lovely in elvish…” Pippin replied sleepily, unable to resist needling his strangely subdued companion.

“Then whatever he called you must be a smart insult, I’m sure,” she shot back, stifling a yawn of her own.

“It isn’t, but I’ll never tell,” he said, and she could feel him laughing against her back.

“Well, that’s not very fair!” she complained, though sleep muffled her returning petulance.

“You already know quite enough about me without me adding fuel to the fire of your disdain. Now, go to sleep Barachiril…”

“Don’t even pretend to give me orders, Peregrin Took, or you can sleep outside my tent,” she grumbled.

“You’d be a lot colder without me…”

She muttered something inaudible and probably less than lady-like, and rolled as far from him as the small space would allow. Pippin sighed, tucking himself ever deeper into his cocooned blankets and missing Merry’s solid warmth at his back and his cheerful company with troubles ahead.

                                                                       ***   ***   ***

 Pippin woke slowly in a haze of perfect warmth and a tiny contented sigh escaped his lips. He determined right away not to move even an inch before he had to, feeling the chill air against one exposed temple. He knew that the sun was lifting her fair head above the horizon, throwing shadows against his closed eyelids, but he too dearly treasured the pleasure of warmth after the numbing cold of the blizzard that had nearly killed him to pass up such a gift of comfort in the midst of the wilderness. His companion had obviously relented in the night and was curled tight around his back, face tucked into his hair. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He wanted nothing more than to stay nestled here to enjoy the gentle desires her warm breath on his neck sent skirling through his mind. He knew instinctively, however, that he would pay for the privilege with the sharp side of her tongue if she woke soft and vulnerable in his sight. It was almost worth it, but he would be friends with her, if she could ever allow it.

With a small regretful sigh, he rolled carefully away from her sleeping form, bundling the furred cloak in his place.

“Still hard as diamonds, Barachiril…” he whispered, slipping from the shelter of the tent into the stillness of a snowbound dawn.

***   ***   ***

 Why was he so careful of her? He should be snarly and condescending, even hostile or at least shocked. Even her brothers had begrudged her gifts, so far outside the province of her sex, and it had taken years of running, ignored, at the back to prove herself. Her mother deplored her queer pursuits, calling her strange and common in the same breath, and poured her disapproval into a desperate race to marry off her older daughters in order to settle her youngest with a proper husband. Diamond secretly blessed and pitied her third sister Ruby, whose carrot curls and owlish gaze put off most hobbits at a glance. The young huntress would be old and gray before her turn would come, and that was fine with her. The proud and overbearing hobbit that thought he could ‘settle her down’ would find his hat handed to him, rather than the key to her chamber door.

She sighed and pressed her face into the fur-trimmed cloak her importunate companion had laid against her side.

‘As if I wouldn’t have know the difference, even sleeping, between a body and a bundle,’ she thought, lips thinned to a resentful line. ‘He can’t think much of my skills if he thinks I would be so easily fooled.’

Really, she couldn’t quite figure him out. Even the rumors disagreed on all points save his unpredictability and the strange ties he maintained with folk outside the Shire. He had proven both to be true in their short acquaintance, by turns seeming a joking youngster, carefree and conscious of his charm, then suddenly revealing a maturity whose hidden source had yet to be brought to light. And he hadn’t even blinked when her father had put her in charge. She shook her head and sat up. Whatever angle he was working, she would find and foil it. No one toyed with her and had the cheer left to laugh up their sleeve.

6. Traces Of Life

Rejoining the good-natured half dozen of their little company was a relief from the sullen silence Diamond had imposed between them upon waking, obviously still chewing over the previous evening’s events. She had frowned into her tea and refused Pippin’s help striking the little tent, and their wordless trek back had begun shortly after dawn. Aside from a few questioning and amused glances from her brother, they all seemed to detect her brittle mood and broke camp with quiet efficiency. Three days from the Northwest Marker, with a fine warming breeze blowing up from the south and a high blue sky full of sun, they set out, mulling over what little they each knew of the mystery ahead.

The northern-most farmstead lay empty and still, its small stretch of pastures and fallow fields shimmering with snowmelt in the morning sun. They stopped just beyond the neat lane that led up to the farmhouse, low and turf-roofed, and eerily abandoned already, though after the snowfall, they were unlikely to find any tracks in the muddy ground. Feet padding softly over the winter-pale grass, boots gratefully packed away two days past, Pippin led them into the deserted courtyard, where a few forlorn hens flapped dispiritedly in their direction.

“I don’t know what you hope to find here, Master Bounder, for the weather has surely taken any trace of the culprits,” Diamond said.

“Perhaps, but we must still try your skills to find the missing. Sancho and I did not make thorough search of the place, certain of what we’d find by the time we got here.”

The others scattered at Diamond’s direction while Pippin trailed her as she slowly entered the house. The little squirrel, whose anxious body was curled in the angle of shoulder and neck, suddenly jumped with a skittering screech and dashed about the still kitchen before coming to rest disconsolately among the flowery pillows of the wide chair by the cold hearth. A knitting basket sat at its foot, a half-finished scarf neatly folded on top of the yarn.

“There, now, little fellow, your mistress will be back soon enough,” Pippin said, gently scooping up the quivering creature. It chattered angrily at him and bounced again from his hands, disappearing into some shadowed corner of the room.

Diamond walked back in from exploring the small rooms beyond the hall, her expression grim. “They left with nothing more than the clothes they stood in. The children’s rooms are tumbled, the master bedroom neat as a pin,” she said, poking through the cabinets and shelves. “It looks like they left half an hour before lunch,” she added, wrinkling her nose at the withered remains of a salad. “Lucky for us the baking had already been done, or the whole place might have burned down.”

“The door had been left wide open, like all the others.”

“They must have left that very day, or we’d see more signs of animals wandering in.”

“This little one is the only one we found here, though we had a time getting him out of the pantry.”

“The pantry? What was a squirrel doing in a pantry?”

Pippin shrugged and set to lighting a small fire in the cold hearth. “He seems to have lived here, probably a fallen runt the children adopted.”

“Still… Why in the pantry of all places? You’d think he’d dash on up a tree when danger struck. Instincts and all that…” she murmured, carefully opening the narrow door. It was quite dark inside, and she absently reached along the doorjamb for the small shelf where a candle stub or lamp must surely rest, as it did in every kitchen she had yet seen. The shelf was bare. Gazing back into the kitchen, she saw the small lamp, carelessly dropped near the door.

“Something’s not right,” Diamond muttered, beginning to comprehend what had disturbed her since she had walked into the deserted farm.

“Eh?”

“The pantry light, did you set it there?” she asked Pippin, pointing it out to him.

“No, we couldn’t find it…” he said, reaching down for its brass handle. It had burned dry, singing the pale wood it had lain against, though not enough to set it alight. “The Burrfoots were not the reckless sort. Someone else was here.”

“Yes, and they, too, searched the pantry for your noisy little friend. We can only hope they left some signs of themselves within,” she replied, lighting a fat candle from the small blaze he had just kindled.

Neat shelves of blond wood ran the length of the narrow space, canisters, jars and sacks lined up on each one, though looking somewhat bare at this tail end of the winter. Upon the tiled floor lay a fine dusting of flour, as if just shaken from the goodwife’s apron. Its fine particles were smudged about where the Bounders had stepped just inside the entrance, but a little further in, clear to her eye in the wavering light of her candle, was a single oversized boot print.

                                                                               *** *** ***

Sancho trailed into the Red Hill House in Michel Delving after the three Bucklanders who had just ridden clear across the Shire upon his word and the thin letter of a simple gardener. A strange mix of mirth and wariness distinguished these hobbits from most of those he had known, rather like a few of his fellow Bounders, and it had been easy to fall into the alternating spells of hurried silence and garrulous talk that had marked their three day trek. He watched them now, wading ahead of him through the dinnertime crowd to a free table at the back of the common room, Merry Brandybuck head and shoulders above the rest. Calls of recognition and welcome met them, which the tall hobbit returned affably, though he declined to join any of them at their tables.

Sancho considered what little he knew of this distant cousin, for though they had met, they had run in very different circles, and Pippin’s tales of his best friend where large in action and short on personal detail. What he did know, mostly from his gammer’s talk, was that after some years of the kind of tweenaged recklessness and disreputable behavior that plagued the well-moneyed sons of the great families, Merry had become a generous and jovial gentlehobbit, whose store of brandy and song never seemed to run dry, but who rarely failed to curb his less responsible cousins’ excesses. His reputation had taken a strange turn after his return from abroad, half a foot taller and a sword at his side, and though, like Pippin, laughter and song still followed his steps, there was now a perilous quality to the graceful physicality that had always animated his frame. Pippin had it too, that steel behind the smile and the rounded cheek, and Sancho had known when they had first been paired up that no ordinary threat would even slow his partner’s headlong curiosity. Nonetheless, the Shire didn’t know what to do with such hobbits as these, save send them off to beat the bounds, and there was something strange and shocking still about the long sword at Merry Brandybuck’s hip and the comfortable ease with which his hand rested upon the pommel. Sancho’s ill-concealed fascination with the blade had led the tall Bucklander to hand it over for his examination one night, a mirthful twinkle in his eye. Sancho had nearly dropped the three feet of heavy steel, though he had had both hands on the leather-wrapped hilt. The horses that formed the guard had seemed to wink in the candlelight, and he had returned the sword with a weak smile, ever more conscious of the other’s strength as he sheathed it without effort. Walking now between his cousins, broad shoulders at ease beneath the green cloak, Merry was just the sort Sancho was glad to have at his side. Few things daunted his partner, and the worry behind Pippin’s eyes had been very real, as real as the unexplained scars glimpsed in months of travel with the talkative young Took. Pippin had spoken freely of his travels, though never of their purpose, and had described the fair lands and folk he had encountered with marvelous detail, but like everyone else, Sancho’s only hint of more dire events was the Steward’s Tale, as it had become known, which had been retold many times since the first, six years ago. The young Bounder hoped that whatever they had learned abroad would serve at home today.

Settling at an empty table and calling for a meal, their small party gladly accepted the tankards of ale the lass dropped before them with a bobbing curtsy. The food had just arrived when Merry’s eyes lit with joy and he waved across the busy room with a shout.

“Sam! Samwise Gamgee! What’s drawn you from your roses, my friend?” he asked as the robust hobbit made his way to them.

“Ah, same as you, Master Merry, a steady hand at plowing a straight row. The Mayor’s garden needed a trim,” he replied, quickly covering his puzzled expression with a false smile. It would, of course, be best if Merry’s presence weren’t connected to Sam or the Mayor at all.

“Indeed. But, come on Sam. Sit with us awhile, and no more of this ‘Master’ nonsense, or I’ll tell all I meet that kings and princes count you as a hero of the Age,” Merry warned teasingly.

“I wasn’t born to the first and can’t honestly speak to the second, but an ale will go down nicely with the company,” he allowed, sitting with a sigh.

“Any word back from Pippin, then?” Merry asked quietly when the maid had left Sam’s ale.

“Not a one, sir, but I think we’d have heard about it if Long Cleeve were troubled. There’s quite a lot of traffic between them and Oatbarton, even in the kind of weather they’ve had this week.”

“Has the Mayor relented on detailing a few more Bounders to investigate?” Sancho asked, leaning over his stew.

Sam shook his head, eyeing the packed tables nearby. Some things simply could not be spoken of under such circumstances, and would have to wait for a more private setting to discuss.

Merry gave him a searching look and a knowing grin. “A steady hand on the plough indeed. You’re doing a little more than trimming the hedges, my friend.”

The round-faced hobbit blushed slightly and shrugged. “I serve as needed, like everyone else.”

Merry shook his head and downed his ale, but his face was serious as he set down the empty tankard.

“We’ll be heading out in the morning. Is there anything you can tell us about the farmsteads in question that Sancho here wouldn’t be aware of?”

“No, the Bounders are rather more in touch with the outlying settlements than anyone else. I would be careful of the waterways though, the snowmelt from that last dusting has everything a little unsteady and unpredictable.”

“Oh, I don’t think a little water will slow us much… And between the three of us, we’ll keep your Shirriff from drowning on the way.”

Both Sam and Sancho shared a worried and rather reluctant glance, eyeing the chortling Bucklanders with some distaste.

“He’s just kidding, right?” Sancho whispered to the dark-haired hobbit at his side, but Sam shook his head.

“Ah, no. I’m sorry to say he isn’t. Not even the Great River in Gondor made him look twice, and you can barely see the other side at some points. I hope you’re not afraid of wetting your feet.”

Sancho swallowed the little lump of dread that had settled in his throat and prayed that the rivulets between the White Downs and the Northwest marker had stayed small. He couldn’t swim, didn’t want to swim, hadn’t yet failed to find a way around the very need to consider having to swim, and if at all possible he certainly wasn’t going to do so this week, or ever at all. Excitement and duty were fine, and short rations and long days were an acceptable risk for the more enjoyable parts of the work, but every hobbit had his limit, and that was his. Leave it to Pippin to have such a strange group of hobbits for friends.

7.  To The North Lay Danger

The tall pillar of stone stood upon a low hill, shrouded by dense shrubbery but kept free of masking trees by a long line of wandering hobbits - bounders, hunters and traders alike - and from the markings in the weathered rock, one could sight south and east to its cousins, and westward to the Towers.  Upon the western face was carved a sun sinking into the waves, and upon the east its rising face peeked over a leafy wood.  To the north lay danger, a broad ‘X’, and there marched the wooded hills of Evendim, dark and unknown.  Though a few hobbits had dared to settle westward of the bounds, upon the broad plain beyond the Far Downs, none had ventured north into those ill-reputed hills, whence wolves and other dangers had often come.

All the signs pointed Pippin and his companions in that direction and the tall Bounder looked southeast towards the humps of the White Downs, hoping Sancho would follow soon.  He had fully expected to find him here with at least a few more shirriffs, hopefully of the bold and level-headed variety, but the small hollow on the southern shoulder had been empty, and the supply cache the two of them had recently replenished was untouched.  Some way below him, the Wolfpack was now gathered in that sheltered nook, trading food and friendly insults, and while his heart wished to join their warm companionship, his mind was troubled by his partner’s absence and the decision that it forced upon him.

It had been ten days since their discovery of the situation, nearly two weeks since these people had disappeared.  The hunters’ day had been spent in painstaking search for a sign of the intruder, and the clues had come few and far between.  It might take days to track him down and then…  Well, then, who knew what would need to be done?  The North Tooks seemed handy enough, but there were only seven of them, and they were still something of an unknown quantity to him, Diamond not the least.  A rueful grin curled his lips.

“I can’t believe I’m worried over someone else’s unpredictability,” he murmured under his breath.

The evening breeze wafting gently in the wake of the Sun’s plunge beneath the horizon played fitfully in his hair and brought to his ear the soft sound of a cautious tread winding up the hill towards him.  A hint of lavender tickled his nose.

“Are the stars pointing your way better than your fellows?” Diamond asked as she stepped to his side.  There was a little less bite than usual in her tone, though the words were still meant to sting him into praise or insult to her skill.

“Hardly.  Your reputation is well earned, though I think Berilac Brandybuck might still be a trick or two ahead of you,” he replied, treading the perilous line in between.

“Hmph!  Well, odd as they are, at least the Bucklanders haven’t gone soft, like some I could mention,” she admitted reluctantly.

“There’s nothing wrong with appreciating the safety and bounty others work so hard to provide.  I’m very thankful my sisters never had to wield a sword.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d have reached adulthood if they had,” he added with a grin, and Diamond rolled her eyes, shoving into his hands the fat hank of waybread she had brought for him.

“I’m sure you were a complete pest!  Which explains a lot, to my mind,” she said.

“Oh, it was a close race among us.  We were every one of us terribly single-minded and stubborn Tooks after all,” he said, looking straight at her in the pale light of the rising moon.

Diamond felt a blush creep across her cheeks, his gaze daring her to set aside the iron shield of her disdain and join him in mirthful appreciation of their contrary natures, despite the consternation, or even condemnation, of society at large.  A hopeful little part of her, fanned high by his apparent regard and friendly face, leaped fluttering in her heart, but long habit and cutting experience would not allow it a breath of expression.  Diamond had dropped her guard once or twice at a comely lad’s feigned interest and acceptance, only to find all her hard work dashed by a single moment of vulnerability.  No hobbit wished an equal, or a warrior, for a wife, and she would not be less than all she was for anyone.  She would be a fool to think he might be any different than those laughing lads.

Diamond turned away stiffly, denying him sight of whatever weak hopes might have shone through upon her face, and she made as sharp a retort as she could manage.

“South Tooks,” she said flatly.  “You may well be reckless and undisciplined but I’ve little doubt you’re still well held under your father’s hand and the demands of your station.  Hardly the sort we breed out on the Moor.”

“Ah, well, none of them ever faced down wolves or blizzards, but if Vinca ever restrained a word at the demand of custom or authority, I never heard of it.  Defiant to the last, and not a suitor sent home without a blistered ear if he didn’t know his place.  She was a force to be reckoned with,” he said, smiling up into the sky.

“Till she was tamed by some stouthearted gentlehobbit of your father’s choosing, I’ll wager.  Is she an excellent housewife now?  Rules her brood with the same flair she did her court?” Diamond asked lightly, a delicate snort of contempt punctuating her final words.

“She is dead.”  Pippin let the words drop softly into the night air.  Silence, shocked and awkward, pressed heavily until he turned from his wordless contemplation of the stars.  “They tried to cow my father into opening the Tookland to the ruffians by…  taking her.  She drowned herself, rather than live with what they had done.”

He paused a moment, and Diamond had the time to regret her mocking words.  No one spoke of the lost ones, the maids and matrons who had disappeared during the Troubles.  They had all vanished without a trace, though it was rumored that the few who had not died had been taken far by their families, some even to Bree and Archet, where they were merely thought simple, and strangers’ questions were more easily answered than the knowing stares of neighbors and friends.  She had not known that the Thain’s daughter had been among those unfortunates, though it explained much of the rumors that had filtered north during those dreadful months.

His lips parted, and Diamond braced herself, dreading the sharp reproach she knew she well deserved for her casual cruelty, no matter how accidental.  Yet, despite the tension that radiated from his body, his manner was not hostile, though a bit cooler than usual.  She therefore watched in stunned horror as his eyes suddenly hardened and he swept his sword from its scabbard.  She stumbled back a step, one hand raised to parry the unexpected singing steel now naked in his hand.

“Down!” he shouted, shoving her to the ground as he lunged past her to skewer the large gray wolf between the slavering jaws that had yawned wide as it had pounced to seize the back of her neck.

The weight of the attacking predator bore him down and over, tumbling hard onto the ground and he twisted to land beside the wolf rather than beneath it.  Even as it died, Pippin could feel the powerful beast start to grind down upon his arm, trapped among its deadly teeth.  Despite the vice-like grip that bit deep into his flesh, he twisted the sword that he still gripped, buried as it was to its hilt in the noisome mess within that ravening maw.

“Wolves!”  Diamond’s sharp call jolted Pippin’s attention back to his companion, who stood warily now, long hunting knife drawn.  The babble and ruckus of hurrying hobbits sounded from the foot of the hill as her kin raced towards them.

“Help me with this,” Pippin said, awkwardly working his knife between the tensed jaws to free his sword-hand.

“The minute I turn my back, he’ll strike,” she muttered, slowly wrapping her cloak about her left arm.  “Score deep from jaw to ear, it’ll spring open like a trap.”

“You’re sure there’s another?”

“Wolves never hunt alone.”

“Surely the noise will drive it off…”

“You’ve killed his mate; he will not let you live if he can help it.”

Pippin finally scrambled up from the cooling body, now lying still in a spreading pool of dark blood.

“What’s he waiting for?” he asked in a whisper, coming to stand beside her, hand and sword still slathered in bloody foam.

“A flinch.  A whimper.  Any hint that we are a weaker hunting pair than they were.”

Pippin could now see the gray wolf’s eyes, glinting in the darkness of the low shrubbery that cloaked the hill in dark green shadow, and as the full force of that icy gaze fell upon him, the chilling realization that he had tonight made an enemy not easily appeased sent a cold finger of dread down his back.

“Any chance a third might be along as well?” he asked, suddenly conscious of their unprotected rear.

“Unlikely, but…”

They moved slowly to stand back to back, though Pippin never once broke that tenuous leash of eye contact with the great beast that waited quietly in the dark.  As the others came closer, feet hammering loudly on the path, the eyes blinked once towards the approaching noise and vanished.

The company reached the flattened hilltop, weapons drawn in the light of the crackling brands they had pulled from the fire, and Pippin breathed a long sigh of relief.  Once the brush about them had been beaten to ensure no more prowlers hid among them, the lads gathered about the body of the dead wolf, idly comparing it to others they had seen or killed while Dan drew Diamond off to the edge of the flickering light.  She stood stiffly against her brother as he hugged and shook her, hands and eyes assuring themselves she had escaped unscathed.  Her muttered protests that she was fine and the single angry glare she shot back over her shoulder convinced Pippin to hold back his own concerned inquiries.  He shook his head, for the moment unable to recall why he even cared.

He turned tiredly to the path down the hill, struggling to master his growing irritation.  She was angry with him, and for what?  Saving her life?  He’d have done the same for anyone, as any sensible soul could see!  She was so prickly proud and stubborn and touchy…  So, so…  Tookish!  Well, he had other more pressing problems than making friends with his ill-tempered counterpart.  For one thing, his arm was painfully bruised and stung where teeth had broken through cloth to tear his skin, and he wanted nothing more than to wash at the quiet spring below and lay himself down to sleep.  Yet even that small comfort would be delayed somewhat, for neither the threat of sudden death nor the few moments of reflection in the marker’s shadow had made his decision any clearer, and he knew he must settle his mind upon their course by dawn.

He now had little doubt that bad news would greet Laerion tonight, for the Rangers had not let slip wolves this close to the Shire in many years.  The one he had killed was rail-thin, not uncommon at the tail end of a hungry winter, perhaps, but surely there was safer game in the wood than hobbits?  Something was indeed amiss, and Pippin suspected that time could only worsen the situation.  He dared not wait a week for the Rangers to join them here, and he worried that even a day’s delay to await Sancho would erase what few traces of their quarry that might remain.  It would be best for them to press forward alone, despite the danger.

***   ***   ***

“What in the world has so rattled your nerves, sister-mine?” Dan asked quietly, stepping back to stare Diamond in the face, his hands still tight upon her shoulders.  They were of a height, and had she had the presence of mind to look past the puzzled grin, Diamond might have seen the lingering concern in her twin’s eyes.

“What are you talking about?  I’m not rattled, just…” Her words trailed off uncertainly as she gazed back to the chattering lads beyond with undisguised annoyance.  She just caught sight of her rescuer’s face as he turned away without a word and disappeared into the night.

“Just what?  You’re bristling like a cat, and you look as though you are about to set on Master Peregrin with fang and claw!”

“Fang and claw!  That’s ridiculous!  You make me sound like a thankless harridan.”

She turned away, in all appearance seething with barely contained wrath, but in truth, Diamond could hardly conceal her confusion and dismay.  It wasn’t claws she’d been ready to use on the tall Bounder who had just saved her life, and the only anger she felt was with herself, that her body and heart so ardently wished to betray her principles to reward what was after all a natural reaction.  Courageous, daring even, but still…

“You’re not exactly the model of graceful gratitude, little sister.  Especially when a lad shows you up.”

“He didn’t show me up.  And what would you know about it, anyway?  You lads did a poor job of making sure of our safety tonight!” she snarled back, hoping he would follow her into the more familiar territory of their roles within the pack, where reprimand was hers to bestow and his to accept, typically with a cheeky grin upon his freckled face.  However, sensing some deeper disturbance behind his sister’s odd behavior, Dan pressed on, curiosity and worry stronger than the tacit agreement of privacy that had grown between them since their shared birth.

“What is it about this Bounder that has you so skittish?  You’ve been taut as a bowstring since we set out, and twice as touchy as I’ve ever seen you.  He hasn’t been foolish enough to court you openly…  Has he made untoward advances, sister?  You have only to say so, and even Father will put him in his place, Thain’s heir or no.”

“No, no!  You are imagining things, little brother,” she said, pushing his hand from her shoulder and turning away.  “He’s as honest as he claims to be, and not as stupid as I’d heard…” she muttered under her breath.  “Besides,” she said aloud again, calling up a wide grin, despite the fact it wouldn’t really fool him.  “I don’t need your help dissuading fools from my door.  You remember old what’s-his-name?  Flambard Boffin, wasn’t it?”

“The one who practically walked home backwards for fear of losing more hair than the single handful you cut from his head?”

“He didn’t seem to be able to hear me too well with all those curls; I was just being helpful.”

They laughed a little at the memory, but Dan could still see through that momentary mirth that his guess had struck close to the truth.

“Diamond…”

“Oh, leave it, Danni…”

He gave her hand a single squeeze and she looked back at him.

“Is it really so bad to meet a hobbit you can respect?  We’re not all cads and liars, you know…”

“That may well be, brother-mine, but neither of you have yet proven yourselves free of either vice,” she said, frown split for one second by a smile.  “I’ll go make sure the gallant fool doesn’t stumble into the gray widower tonight.”

Dan watched her slip down the hill after the tall Bounder, uncertain if he’d doomed or blessed his newest friend by prodding his sister into action on his account.  Diamond was a formidable lass and a fearsome hunter, but for all the satisfaction she drew from her self-imposed singularity, he knew, the way he’d always known her heart, that she was unhappy and alone.  Oh, he and the other members of the Wolfpack gave what they could of themselves, but extending her right to the company of their brotherhood was a far cry from the joy anyone could find in a heart-mate.  Much as he loved his sister, Dan was the first to admit that her sharp tongue and guarded silence had created a barrier only she could break down.  He smiled a moment to himself.  Well, by all accounts Peregrin Took had once vanquished the ruffians that had choked the Shire; perhaps he might survive the full flood of his sister’s fiery spirit.

***   ***   ***

“You shouldn’t be down here alone; he might come back.”

Diamond’s voice startled him as she quietly appeared at his shoulder.  Pippin dropped the heavy coat upon the ground where his cloak already lay beside the quiet pool.

“I managed the one, why not the other?” he replied, rolling up the torn sleeve of his shirt to reveal bright wheals that the wrenching of teeth had left upon his forearm.  His own struggles had done further damage, forcing bruised flesh to part in several twisting parallel gashes, shallow but painful nonetheless, and still bleeding copiously.

“You’d better let me take a look,” she said, shaking her head in exasperation and reaching for her pack where it lay near the fire.

“Just a few scratches…”

“Hardly,” Diamond said, settling beside him and thrusting his wounded arm under the icy flow of the small source where it cascaded with trickling mirth from the rocky outcrop that sheltered the camp.  “You’re pretty quick with that blade,” she added, nodding down at the sheathed sword whose hilt shone in the flickering light. ‘He cleaned it before seeing to his own wounds,’ she thought, suppressing a grin.  That weapon was more than an ornament, as she had just witnessed, and she felt respect gain another inch on her reservations.

“Quick enough to save your neck anyway,” he said with a smile.

“My neck doesn’t need saving by the likes of you, Master Bounder,” she said with a little snarl, annoyed by the reminder.  Her fingers continued their delicate task, carefully cleaning the ugly slashes, and he winced as irritation made her touch somewhat rougher than it had first been.  “Besides, you’d have saved yourself a bit of pain if you’d caught the beast through the throat from the *outside*,” she said.

“I didn’t exactly have the luxury to ponder my move.  It remains that that blade, no matter how badly wielded, still did its duty of protecting you from harm.”

She pursed her lips and stared up at him, poised between prideful scorn and grudging gratitude.  Facts were facts, and he had indeed succeeded in her defense, though it had put him in harm’s way.  She knew enough to be glad these small wounds were the only price he would pay for that brave act, though the depth of her relief still surprised her.  She mentally shoved aside the implications of that thought, digging through her pack for the little pot of salve she knew hid beneath her other belongings.

“You are reckless and very lucky,” she muttered, “But you’re no coward, I’ll give you that much.”

“How very generous…” he said, and though she bent still in her search, she could practically see the little half smile that had become so familiar in the last week.  He was so infuriating!  And not least because of that grin, and the light that seemed to dance in his eyes when some trivial thing caught upon his sharp wit.

She grasped his wrist, absently noting the faded scars that encircled it, and firmly laid a compress upon flesh tensed by pain and cold.  His fingers tightened reflexively about her own in reaction to the bite of the cleansing salve she had daubed upon the square of linen, and she found herself gazing at the contrast of long sun-dark fingers against her lightly freckled forearm.  As the sting eased, so did his grip, but still he held her loosely about the wrist, palm warm where it brushed her skin.

Strangely unwilling to pull away from his touch, her eyes slowly traveled along the line of tensed muscle and past the bunched and torn sleeve to where the fabric was pinned against one solid shoulder by the boyishly bright length of one suspender.  That little bit of innocent ostentation somehow punctuated his strangely subdued attire, revealing roots and temperament in a single flash of bold color against simply cut linen.  It was with a small, amused smile that Diamond’s eyes finally met his in the flickering semi-dark.

The firelight had warmed their color to true amber and cast shifting shadows across his features, and her heart tumbled unexpectedly.  The rakish grin had left his face though his expression was anything but unfriendly.  She teetered for a moment, as on the knife-edge of a precipice, tempted and terrorized by the possibilities offered in the person of the frank and foolhardy soul before her.  Breathless and blushing, she turned to fumble, one-handed, through her pack again, conscious she was merely buying herself a short time, gathering her courage for some decision without knowing where her own heart would lead her.

***   ***   ***

Rarely in his life had Pippin been made speechless by anything short of unconsciousness, and certainly never by a lass, whether he fancied her or no, but now, unnatural caution stilled his glib tongue.  He truly would have leaped in front of that wolf for anyone, but he was incredibly grateful that it had been Diamond on the hill with him tonight.  Not to humble her or give himself some hold over her, but because he doubted she would have felt the need to tend his injuries, and he would have missed the gentle touch of her hand.

The melting ice in her cool gray-green eyes had sent skirling shivers down his back and he was hard put to restrain the desire to tuck the stray curl that brushed her cheek behind her gracefully pointed ear.  But such a bold advance would be the death of this strange truce they were slowly weaving, for there was little doubt in his mind she would react with violent disapproval, regardless of the heat in her gaze.  He was forced to let that small contact, hand to wrist, speak every ounce of the attraction he felt for her, proud and beautiful and intemperate as she was.

***   ***    ***

How could a single touch so burn, a glance so sear without a word or move?  Some now distant part of her mind howled in frustrated terror at the rapidity with which her defenses were unraveling.  She didn’t want this, didn’t need the complication and the grief it would inevitably bring into her life, but to back away from anything in fear was counter to Diamond’s very soul and she stepped boldly into the untested depths of this strange enchantment.  If this feeling burned her to a cinder, she would at least rival the midday sun in its blaze.

She slowly closed the small distance between them, noticing a thousand small things she had until then ignored, the handful of nearly invisible laugh lines that framed his eyes, the tiny scar just below his chin, the spark of red the firelight drew from his dark hair.  She knew, somehow, that the hollow beneath the arch of his brow would be velvet and the gentle curve of his lower lip would taste faintly of smoke and ale, and that she would lose her mind entirely if he didn’t kiss her soon.  A mere inch separated her mouth from his and she could taste his very breath on her tongue, when the crashing ruckus of a half dozen giddy hobbits broke the bubble of silence and warmth that had surrounded them both for a short while.  Diamond jerked herself back from his touch, nearly spilling the bandages from her lap, and pressed a hand to her heated cheek.  Mere moments before her brother entered the small camp, Pippin reached down to sweep back the wild strand that had escaped her braid, and his lips brushed the sensitive tip of her ear as whispered words fanned the blush that already flamed under her skin.  The next moment, he was halfway across the camp, uninjured hand digging into his pack.

Diamond turned to the small pool to hide her heaving breath and red face as the pack entered the Bounders’ hollow, and though she finished bandaging his arm without a flinch, she only dared a single glance at his face while she worked.  Her wit hated the small smile on his lips even while her heart swore to treasure it.

8.  Into The Woods

While the others scattered ahead, searching for whatever small clues would guide them on, Diamond and Pippin busied themselves clearing the campsite.  They were a long day’s ride into the wood, two days of growing tension past the marker.  They were all on edge now, and the strange silence under the trees sent uneasy shivers along Diamond’s back.  There was something menacing about the place that she couldn’t quite figure out.

“There’s no birdsong…” Pippin remarked quietly, and she disliked the worried frown on his face.  He had been almost silent himself since dawn, as if listening for trouble. She was watching him pour out the last of the tea over the embers when Dan’s brief warning cry to run sent them diving for the tangled undergrowth that bordered the small clearing.  They had barely made it behind the first trees when a flash of green light put a stop to the confused sounds of running feet.  The ponies bolted, carrying off much of their gear, and the two of them ducked down, trying desperately to calm their heaving breath.  Peeking past the shielding leaves of the shrubs that concealed them, Diamond softly cursed herself for a fool as she saw their two packs lying, half open, beside the steaming remains of the fire.

“If you never obey another order all your life, just follow this one,” Pippin whispered urgently, working the clasp of the elven cloak to set it about her shoulders.  “They will catch us both if we don’t do something right away!” he added, cutting off her protests.  “You’re the better tracker.  Find help, lots of it, and come back for us.  Now, hide!”  He glanced behind him, towards the sound of the approaching footsteps, and turned back to fix her with one last bright stare.

Heart beating in her throat, Diamond watched him circle the clearing on silent feet and crash noisily from the bushes, sword drawn, a dozen yards away.

“I am Peregrin Took, a Bounder of the Shire.  Declare yourselves!” he demanded, voice steady and blade leveled at his opponents.  Dan’s limp form was slumped over the shoulder of one gray-clad Man, whose dazed stare was as frightening as the open sneer on the gnarled oldster’s face.  Green-clad in tatty robes and carrying a long staff, the old Man’s eyes were fever-bright and focused solely upon the defiant hobbit before him.

“I am above and beyond you, little warrior, which is all you need to know of me.  But what are you doing in my wood, disturbing my peace?”

“I am looking for the families that farm the lands two days’ ride south of here, as was my friend,” he replied, nodding towards Dan.  “I suspect they have come into this forest, though not of their own free will.”

“So you are curious of their fate?”

“Concerned, yes.”

“Well, I believe in giving answers to such ‘concerned’ questions, though they are not always pleasant ones for the questioner.  They are here, all of them, safe and sound.”

“And my other companions, who entered the wood before me?”

“They are also here.”

He made a peculiar gesture towards the surrounding trees and the other members of the Wolfpack slowly stepped into the clearing, blank-eyed and oblivious to the world about them.  Diamond nearly started from her hiding place, anger and dread pounding at her, but Pippin’s last words to her checked her movement.

“Release them,” the hobbit commanded, the edge in his voice a promise of retribution.  “Release them now, or it will go very ill for you.”

The crooked Man laughed.  “Ha!  Ill for me?  Impudent little fool, it is for you that it shall go ill.  None may enter this wood without my leave and none may hinder the task I have been set.  You will do your part and relearn the humility your savage little race has forgotten.”  He raised the staff and barked a sharp command in some other tongue.  Light flooded the clearing, mottled and sickly green, and one narrow beam struck the tall hobbit full in the face.

Half blind and terrified, Diamond clung to the gray bark of the tree she was using for cover.  The long echoing denial from the young Bounder was abruptly cut off by the sound of a hard strike and she peeked out to find the gray-clad Ranger standing over Pippin’s still body, a makeshift club still clutched in one hand.  He stood stupidly, staring down, until the old one snarled at him to pick Pippin up from the ground.  The man stumped off after him with a hobbit over each shoulder and Diamond just caught sight of Pippin’s face, terribly pale in contrast to the trickle of crimson blood trailing across his cheek.  Her brother looked no better, a dark bruise purpling already near his temple.

She continued to watch, breathless, as her companions, hobbits she had known from childhood, walked clumsily after them, blank-eyed and slack-jawed.  As the oldster passed, the vegetation seemed to stir in the wake of his trailing staff, twining and bending to cover the marks of their footsteps.

Long after all sounds of their passing had ceased and hardly daring to breathe, Diamond crept across the greening meadow, eyes darting from tree to tree, expecting at any moment to hear the old man’s laughter and sneering words.  She quickly gathered what little was left of the camp, pausing briefly before reaching for Pippin’s satchel where it lay upon the ground by the cooling embers, notebook pages fluttering in the light breeze.  She closed and bound it, remembering her jesting barb about his handwriting, practically the last thing she had said to him before shouts and running feet had sent them running.  Setting the pack upon her shoulder along with her own, she spotted one last item, gleaming in the waving grass.  Diamond stood a moment undecided beside the long sword, gazing down at the leaf-shaped blade and finely wrought hilt.  If the rumors were true, and all too many of them were proving so, this sword was heavy with oaths to friends and foreign kings, and upon it were laid the spells of Men and elves.  Diamond hesitated to even touch it, much less take it up and carry it as her own, even for a little while.

 “I don’t supposed he’d want it left in the grass to rust…” she muttered, steeling herself to twine her hand about its hilt, and she found it surprisingly light, the leather still warm from his hand.  Taking a deep and steadying breath, she fashioned a makeshift scabbard and belted it to ride opposite to her hunting knife.  It would make for an awkward draw, but she preferred to keep her own familiar blade close at hand.  “Well, lets go find some help,” she finally said to herself, setting off at her longest stride.

***   ***   ***

The note was dated two days past, the remains of the small campfire cold beneath the turned soil in the sheltered hollow of the hill.  Merry read again the brief sentences writ in his cousin’s awkward hand, smoothing the thrice-folded page against his knee.  Tucked safely in the waterproofed pouch that lay among the other items provided in the stone-walled cache, they laid out what clues and conclusions Pippin and his companions had found, as well as the projected meeting with the Ranger Laerion, set for the sixth day of March, still four days away.  Concern and growing suspicion had pushed him to press on, and he urged his partner to follow swiftly but with care; wolves were roaming close again.

Gazing worriedly at his sleeping companions, Merry suppressed a troubled sigh.  The six of them were surely less in the way of reinforcements than the young Took had hoped.  The situation in Michel Delving was far more delicate than any of them had suspected, and there was therefore little help to be had from that direction.  There had certainly been no way to bring a dozen armed Bucklanders clear across the Shire without attracting all the wrong attention when discretion was capital.  Luckily, Samwise Gamgee had far more than half the dose of good sense in his head, and discreet words had reached the right ears in the heart of the Green Hills.  Ferdibrand and Everard Took had casually trotted their ponies onto the path beside them just outside of town and there had been no need for explanation beyond the casual relay of Reginard Took’s kind greetings and best wishes.  Merry smiled, promising himself to send the old fox a barrel of his best brandy for risking Paladin’s ire in such a fashion.  Merry had a very good idea of what his uncle would have to say about the situation.  If the Bounders, by which he meant his headstrong son, could find trouble to get into, they could very well get back out of it without his help.  The old hobbit could be unreasonably stubborn when he felt hard done by, a trait which had unfortunately bred true down the line.  Father and son were once again at odds, and deeply unconscious of the tensions that rippled through the Shire as a result.

Shaking himself from his musings, Merry slid the thin page into his pocket and turned away from the lowering flames.  His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness beyond the camp and the darker shadows of the vegetation cut their silhouettes against a starlit sky.  The Moon was setting, his light already dim, marking the middle hour of the night.  Merry took a few steps further upon the path that wound its way up the hill and was startled by the sudden shift in the shadows as a dark figure rose from the surrounding gloom.  Drawing his blade, and wishing he had spent more time keeping up his skills, he squared himself towards the slowly approaching silhouette.

“Halt!  State your name and business!” he called, but the stranger continued on, undaunted, and Merry steeled himself for the onrush of his taller foe.  “You are crossing into the Shire, where your folk are unwanted and unwelcome!  Announce yourself or turn back!”

By now, he could hear the stir of his companions, aroused by his shouted challenge, and the soft creak of bows hastily strung and drawn.

The figure paused, throwing back the dark gray hood to reveal an equally gray Man, from his worn garments to his steely eyes and windblown hair.

“I believe you are expecting me, Master Brandybuck, though I was not expecting you,” the Man said, with a polite inclination of his head.  The star upon his breast winked in the uncertain light.

“It is unwise to come unlooked for in the night this way, even for a Ranger,” Merry growled, sheathing the long blade.

“Old habits…” the Ranger replied with a small dismissive wave of his hand.  Two more Men appeared, moving soundlessly through the brush until all three stood quietly before Merry.

“Welcome to the Northwest Marker, Lord Laerion,” Merry said politely, though the hard edge in his voice had not disappeared.  “You are early.”

“And you are few.  Is there trouble in some other part of the Shire that Bucklanders should need to leave their March unguarded?” Laerion replied.

“Nothing to concern Outsiders, I assure you.  But I will always answer my cousin’s call for aid, as you would yours.  Come to the fire, and let us sit in the light to speak.”

Pippin had claimed this Ranger trustworthy in his letter, and likely a lord among the Dunedain, so Merry did his best to accord the newcomers what little hospitality he could offer.

“Well, it appears we have a common problem,” the tall ranger said, settling down across from the hobbit, who still regarded him rather coolly.  “Two of my men have disappeared as well.”

“Then our paths must necessarily merge northward.  Into the wood.”

Even as he spoke, a cold dread coiled slowly about Merry’s heart, certain of nothing save that Pippin was walking into danger, if not alone, then at least without him, and in the company of hobbits unknown and untried by the outside world.  But then, what good could even he do, faced with a peril equal to the skills of a Ranger?

***   ***   ***

Diamond dozed fitfully in the crook of two limbs well above the forest floor.  The few tiny budding leaves were poor cover from searching eyes or cool wind, but at least there was little risk a prowling animal would disturb her in her perch.  She didn’t dare light a fire against dark or cold, for fear of attracting the attention of their enemy, and there was no way one hobbit, alone, could remain safely upon the ground through the long night.  Her mind kept straying to the morning’s awful events, and though she had by now expended both her tears and her anger, still the gnawing terror and wrath that had gripped her would not allow her to sleep.  She kept seeing their faces, just before they had disappeared into the wood…

Leaning her head back wearily against the rough bark, Diamond stared unhappily at the stars, fading into the cold pre-dawn sky.  Already, she deeply regretted the presence of her friends, but it was not her brother’s face that painted itself behind her eyes as they finally closed, exhaustion and numbing cold overwhelming her at last.  A whispered echo swept softly across her sleeping thoughts.  ‘Well, now, Barachiril… What fires have you kindled here tonight?’

9. Twinings

The slow pound of his heart seemed to resonate in his aching head, and Pippin reached up to press trembling fingers to his temples.  At least, that’s what he tried to do, but he found his movements trammeled by strangely woody cords that twined about his limbs.  Testing their loose grip he felt them tighten with every gesture.  The darkness that had greeted the opening of his eyes increased his instinctive panic and he thrashed about for a moment, until, squeezed and drawn tight against the sloping surface he lay against, he was completely immobilized.  The sound of his own breath was harsh in his ears so that he didn’t notice the quiet shuffling of an approaching figure, and he was badly startled by the low voice that suddenly issued from the darkness at his shoulder.

“Stop moving before you’re entirely crushed into the walls.”

Pippin started to struggle, vainly trying to back away from the voice, until he felt the bonds press ever deeper and a little dirt fell down across his face.

“Where… am… I…?” he panted.  “Who… in… the… world… are… you…?”

“Stop squirming about…  If you just stop, it will loosen its grip,” the voice muttered, and he now felt rough hands slowly work behind him to create some breathing room behind his back.

“What…?”

“I don’t rightly know, to tell you the truth…  I’ve been here for days; at least I think it’s been days.  These are roots, strong and large, so I’m guessing we are in a chamber below some great tree.”

“A tree…?  Oh, not again…” the hobbit groaned quietly.

“Again?  Not your first time in the Evendims then?” the other said sharply.

“Well, it was the Old Forest the last time actually.  Who did you say you were?” he asked, trying hard not to move as the lash about his middle loosened.

“I didn’t.”

The slight scratching of the other’s fingers and the soft sound of their breathing filled the resulting silence.  Pippin turned his mind to the past a moment, trying to recollect how he had come into this peculiar situation.  The strange old Man…  A wizard, no doubt, for who else could have done what he had?  That flash of light, and the voice, harsh as fingers digging into his mind, snarling, demanding his submission…  Diamond…

“Is there anyone else here?” he asked, dreading the answer, but hoping against hope she had escaped.

“Just one other, like yourself, only he hasn’t woken yet.”

“Dan,” Pippin sighed in relief.  Diamond had escaped then, and though they appeared to be trapped, at least her brother had survived his encounter.  “He’s alive then.  Good.  But tell me, why are you not bound?” Pippin demanded, suddenly suspicious.

“I was.  If you move slowly enough, instead of flailing like a fish, it barely notices you’re gone.”

“Lovely.  Old Man Willow has a stupider brother in the Evendims…” Pippin muttered trying hard to lull his woody captor back to sleep by staying as still as he could.  It was frighteningly difficult.

“Oh blast!” the other snarled, his head thudding softly against the hobbit’s chest.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s got me again…  Are your kind always so damn wriggly or is it just you?” he growled.

“Well I know your kind aren’t always this rude, so I know that must be your own happy burden,” the hobbit snapped back.

They both seethed in uncomfortable silence for a moment, Pippin squashed against the wall and his companion trapped against him by the vine that had clamped upon his arm where he had been digging behind the hobbit’s back.

“Since it looks like we’ll be spending a little time in close proximity, I rather think it might be nice to at least exchange the civilities common between intelligent creatures, don’t you?” Pippin finally said, continuing before his companion could suggest otherwise.  “I am Peregrin Took, a Bounder of the Shire, and I rather suspect you are a Ranger.”

He felt the tension in the other peak and then dissolve into a wary sullenness.

“You can call me River.”

They where quiet again a while, and Pippin could feel the infinitesimal loosening of the coarse tendrils that held him.  Not enough to make him free, or even comfortable, but it was encouraging.  The other’s reticence piqued his curiosity and clearing his throat, he decided to fill the time more usefully than listening to the Ranger’s muffled breath.

“I thought you’d all stopped doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Using another name.  Now that Aragorn is King, I’d have thought you’d go by your own names in the world.”

“The need for caution has not ceased with his ascension.”

“Laerion seems to not share your distrust.”

“Perhaps Lord Laerion has some reason to trust you that I do not possess, little prince,” the Man said, and the derision in his voice was clear.

“Does it really mean nothing to you that we wear the same colors and serve the same King?” he asked, puzzled by the continuing buzz of ill-feeling emanating from this stranger and supposed ally.

“Why should an honorary position change my opinion of you?”

“Honorary.”

Under any other circumstances, such an obvious and deliberate insult would have engendered little more than a cutting jest, but the barb was too well aimed and uneasy quiet filled the damp earthy space they shared.  Pippin chewed over that word and all its implications for some time, until, finding his anger chilled to a tight knot in the pit of his stomach and the taught string of his thoughts twined about in the razor-sharp clarity of understanding, he spoke quietly.

“You think your task a thankless one and no longer vital.  Would you go east to the Wars that remain?  I’ve heard the King takes the battle to the Haradrim next year.”

River did not speak, but Pippin could feel his jaw clench angrily.

“You would join him rather than fulfill the task he set for you?  Then go.  Honorary as the title may be I am still a Knight of Gondor and a Guard of the Citadel, and I give you leave to depart as soon as you may.  We don’t need you.”

His last words fell into the damp dark, clear and sharp as knives.  Head leaning back against the packed earth, swallowing the renewed swell of his own anger and shame, Pippin was glad for the dark that hid the flaming flush he knew shone in his face.  One thing was clear to him now, despite whatever arguments might be brought forth by more generous Men and wiser Hobbits than himself:  his people were a burden and a cause for bitterness, and it was well and truly time they took matters into their own hands.

***   ***   ***

She approached quietly, setting her feet as carefully as she could among the leaves of last fall.  Beyond the screening bushes, the little fire threw a pale light over the six hobbits wearily crouched about its warmth.  One of them bore the feathered cap of a Bounder, probably Pippin’s partner, and all of them were armed.  Throwing back the hood of the elvish cloak that had helped to conceal her, Diamond rose slowly to her feet, taking a deep breath to steady her voice.

“Don’t shoot,” she called, becoming the focus for their startled eyes and the target of a pair of bows.

Hands out to her sides, obviously empty and harmless, she stepped through the shrubbery and into the light.  Five of them relaxed as they saw her more clearly, but the tallest among them held his sword still at the ready.

“Now, Merry, it’s just a lass,” one of them said, his one eye glinting in the semi-darkness, but the tall hobbit shook his head and did not move.

“No common lass I ever heard of wanders the wood at this hour,” he replied.

“I hope you don’t mind if I take that as a compliment.  Diamond Took of Long Cleeve,” she said, shrugging aside the cloak to more freely extend her hand in greeting.

***  ***

Merry’s eyes hardened as the strange hobbitess’s friendly gesture revealed Pippin’s sword strapped to her narrow hip, and he suddenly noticed the gray cloak and worn satchel she carried.  In a movement too swift to follow or counter, he leveled his long blade to rest beneath her chin.

“Not another step until you tell me how that sword came into your hands,” he said, voice low and full of menace.  A tiny part of himself shuddered at the icy violence his tone promised, but the acrid taste of fear was thick on his tongue.

“I…  It’s a rather long story,” she stammered.

“I have all night.  Speak.”

“You would appear to be in need of a friend, Barachiril,” Laerion said, stepping into the light.  “I will vouch for her, Master Brandybuck.  She is who she says she is.”

“I need no Man to vouch for me!” Diamond started angrily, but her voice softened to grudging gratitude.  “Yet, I must thank you, for you have saved me much effort and precious time.”  She nodded stiffly in his direction, still mindful of the sharp blade at her throat, and turned her gaze back to her menacing host.

Merry watched her face another moment, taking in the proud lift of her chin and the hint of fear behind her flashing eyes.  A grim smile lifted the corners of his mouth and he sheathed the sword.

“Barachiril, eh?” he said, glancing at the Ranger.  “It fits well enough, I warrant.”

A slight flush of irritation lit her cheeks again, but she clamped her mouth shut over whatever retort had sprung to mind and accepted the place by the fire that the others offered. ‘Fiery Lady indeed…’ Merry thought to himself, settling down across from her.

***   ***

Tired and hungry, Diamond knew herself to be on the edge of showing just how badly frayed her temper had become.  While she certainly hadn’t expected bed and breakfast here in the Wild, icy menace from a sword-wielding giant of a hobbit who was supposedly an ally wasn’t at all something she was prepared to deal with in a rational manner at that moment.  He thankfully backed off, though not before it had been made silently clear that she still had much to explain.  Ensconced between the one-eyed hobbit and the young Bounder, she gladly accepted the hot tea and thick soup they presented to her.  Quick introductions followed while she ate and she found herself in rather good company.  She knew the names on the Roll of Combatants at the Battle of Bywater, and they were all on it, save the two Bucklanders, whose scars told tales of their own.

“First off,” she finally said, “I think you ought to camp cold tonight.”  She nodded unhappily at the cheery little fire.  “I don’t know that two days’ walk is far enough to conceal us from his eyes.”

“Whose eyes?” the gray Ranger’s voice drifted from across the flames, whose flickering light threw his own clear gaze in and out of shadow.

“The old man…  He…  He bore a twisted staff and he commanded another Man, darkly dressed, like you.”

Narrowed eyes turned to fix the Man in their midst, but none matched the cold suspicion in his own.

“A Ranger aided this…  this person?”

“He was bespelled, as were the others of my pack, all save my brother.  And Pippin.”

“Bespelled?”

“They all just seemed… off somehow.  Their eyes dull, as if asleep, like sheep,” she said, shaking her head. “I simply don’t understand it.”

The gray Ranger traded a meaningful glance with the tall Bucklander sitting stiffly across the fire.  Neither seemed at all pleased with whatever conclusions they had come to, and the hobbit reached to turn over the small kettle that had hung over the flames.  In the last flickers of the dying fire, Diamond saw his features twist in hollow-eyed fear and despair, and her hopes cracked.  What strange peril had she led her kin into?

***    ***

Hidden amid the dark forms of the wood, Diamond stilled her breath, ears straining to catch the words of the two figures she had trailed with every ounce of silent skill she possessed.

“If it is a wizard, and it must be, what can we possibly do?” Merry Brandybuck hissed towards the shadowed silhouette of his companion.

The Ranger Laerion shifted uneasily, but he made no reply.

“A wizard…” the hobbit sighed, leaning wearily against a nearby tree.  “I thought they had all gone…”

“Not all, that is evident.  Yet, history has proved that the Istari are not so desperately great.  They can yet be killed or imprisoned,” the Man suggested, though with somewhat less certainty than the young hobbit lass would have liked to hear.

“Unless you have a Balrog tucked away somewhere about your person, I shouldn’t trust to that reasoning.  What hope have we to affect one with even a little of that kind of power?”

“Saruman was not slain by a power, but only a man, or so I’ve heard.”

“Yes…  I was there that day.  But he was lessened, diminished, already.  Gandalf broke him long before Grima cut his throat, and he is not here to help us now.”

Diamond swallowed a little gasp, finally recognizing a name among the strange words they had been exchanging.  Gandalf she had heard of, the traveling wizard who had befriended the Bagginses and so long bedeviled her southern cousins.  She wondered what they thought he could possibly do to help, as he had been more often responsible for getting hobbits into trouble than out of it.

“No.  This is our problem to solve.  We must choose to act now with what wit and strength we have or go seeking aid,” the Ranger said.

“Aid from whom?  The elves are gone and I can think of no others who might even know where to turn.  Unless…  But no, it is too far…”

“What?”

“No, it is a foolish notion.  Forget it.”

The soft sigh of the night wind rattling through budding branches was all there was to be heard for a long moment, and Diamond stole away on silent feet, wishing more comfort, or at least more knowledge, had come from the overheard conversation.  Bundling herself into their combined cloaks, as close to the cooling embers as she could manage, she closed her eyes and tried to banish the growing dread that crept about her heart.

10. Through Fire

Scouting ahead earlier that day, Diamond had been with Berilac Brandybuck when they finally came upon the missing hobbits.  The wizard, vile as he was, had been true to his word, and enough hobbits labored dumbly amid the ruins of a northland battlement to account for them all.  Almost too angry to notice anything else, it had taken the Bucklander’s hard hand on her shoulder to force Diamond's calm, but she had soon seen the incredible landscape laid out before them.  Tumbled walls and ancient pathways littered a large flat that also supported a lush riot of vegetation.  The ancient structures had been set inside a huge encircling wall, the furthest reaches of which, Diamond could barely see on the horizon.  This had been the seat of some great lord's kingdom in days long before hobbits inhabited the Shire and its ancient courtyard had once been vast and magnificent.  The enslaved hobbits toiled to move the broken stone, carrying it out of the courtyard towards a point on the ancient ramparts where others seemed to be slowly rebuilding the crumbling defenses. 

Where stones had been removed, damp earth was opened to the sun and the youngest among them, mere tots, sowed the empty spaces, their gestures mechanical and free of joy.  One black-haired child suddenly dropped her heavy basket and began to wail at the top of her small voice.  The bespelled Ranger, whom Diamond had not noticed, so perfectly still had been his stance, swept the little one up almost immediately and several of the hobbits started to turn distractedly in her direction.  Striding quickly to the heart of the site, the Man dropped the child before a shabby wooden shack from which the wizard had emerged.  Cruel fingers dug into the girl’s chubby cheeks and he leaned forward.  His words were hidden from the unseen watchers, but their effect was clear.  Without another whimper, the child walked back to her task and Diamond felt her companion’s grip tighten on her shoulder once more.  The one-eyed hobbit drew her back and they silently returned to the others.  There had been no sign of Pippin or her brother.

***   ***  ***

Creeping slowly back towards the fantastical gardens in the dark, Diamond found herself mentally testing the odd little sense at the back of her mind that assured her of her brother’s continued survival.  Like the low thrum of a taught bowstring against her cheek, the lifeline hummed inside her, and she hoped that Pippin had managed to stay close by Dan.  Finding the one and not the other was no longer an option she was willing to consider.

***   ***   ***

Merry knelt near the outermost tumbled wall of the overgrown ruins and scanned the pitiful encampment.  Diamond had not mentioned Pippin’s whereabouts and he had not dared to ask, fearful doubt being preferable to certain grief.  Now, they would all find out, one way or another, who among the lost could be recovered.  They had split into three groups to approach from the west, east and south, and though their limited numbers made it impossible to spare folk to cause a diversion, they had decided that should one group be discovered, the rest would use the distraction to make a more direct attempt upon their enemy.  Creeping through the scarce underbrush since sunset, they were now, at the middle hour of the night, as close as they were likely to come before discovery.

The abandoned ruins were shadowed by the night, but wide swathes of barren ground, where the captives had removed the tumbled stone, could be distinguished as darker patches among the softer shapes of the grassy clearing.  A large wooden structure, like a low-ceilinged barn, had been raised at the north end of the largest cleared area, with a smaller shack standing alone closer to the center, where a large and ancient oak ruled, its branches arching high and broad to blot out the light of star and moon.  A wide slab of grey stone was set between two massive roots, like some massive trap door.  Merry would have wagered a dozen strong hobbits could not have wrested it from its place.

Shooting a quick glance back at his three companions, he saw their faces reflecting the same uncertainty and resolve that he felt.  Even the normally inscrutable Ranger betrayed his anxiety by unconsciously fingering the short staff he held.  Swords and bows secured in favor of staves and short cudgels they hoped not to need at all, the rescuers waited in the darkness for the birdcalls that would signal everyone else’s readiness.

***   ***   ***

Dirt spilled down upon Dan’s upturned face as the young hobbit dislodged a large chunk of stone from the earth above his head.  Feeling his way along with his eyes closed in the lightless gloom, he had long since resigned to ignore the gritty taste that had invaded his mouth, but he had discovered that if he moved only his arms, keeping his legs as still as possible, the sensitive creepers that surrounded them ignored him in favor of his struggling companions.

Dan vaguely wondered what words had alienated his companions from each other, for the tense silence between Bounder and Ranger was painfully obvious.  Pippin, his tone terse and troubled, had quickly explained their predicament as they knew it, and they had continued to work wordlessly in the darkness of the underground chamber.  Though they had struggled to lift the stone that barred the entrance to their cell, its massive heft and the proximity of the vine-like roots had forced them to make their own way out as far away from the tree as they could get, though even then they remained within its awful reach.  It was hungry, thirst work, barely allayed by the little bit of food and water they had to share among them, and the hours dragged on, uncountable without sun or moon to mark the passage of time.  They had dug upwards, turn by turn, ever upwards towards the surface, resting each time the prehensile roots, alerted by their movements, held them motionless and awkward.

Dan suddenly felt cool air on his hands and struggled to contain his excitement.

“Got it!” he whispered over his shoulder.  He brushed the dirt from his face and saw a few stars against the black backdrop of the night sky, even as one darkling tendril snagged his ankle and dragged him to the ground.

A long hour of painful stillness later, the three of them crouched beneath the small pit, where the light of the Moon now lit their dirty faces.

***   ***   ***

Everything had gone wrong, or so it seemed.  They had approached quietly enough, but the high-pitched screech of a child had roused the entire crowd within the shelter, and chaos had ensued.  Though Merry could never thereafter recall how the first torch had hit the hay, blinding smoke had quickly filled the wooden building, impeding both the captives and their would-be rescuers in their efforts to escape the flames.  Merry snatched up a pair of youngsters from the corner where they hid, but they flailed about in his grasp, small hands and feet leaving bruises and scratches everywhere they could reach, and it was all he could do to maintain his hold without leaving similar marks upon them.  Once outside and safe from the blaze, a burly hobbit with black suspenders grabbed him tightly, though Merry's fighting skills proved more than a match for one bespelled hobbit.  He wrested himself free and turned to face his attackers just as a second soot covered hobbit swung a fist at his head.  Merry ducked and tried to subdue his kin gently but they fought him with far more force than any hobbit ever used against another.  It would be a bitter epitaph, Merry thought grimly, to be bludgeoned to death by these poor people, but better that than to bloody sword and bow with their innocent lives.

***   ***   ***

Boosted out of their prison by the sullen Ranger, Pippin and Dan stared about at the darkened wilderness, immediately focusing on the sounds of struggle coming from their right.  Flames flared suddenly from that direction, and all three of them started towards the confusion.  Two steps from the pit, Pippin froze, catching a glimpse of the wizard’s cold smile as he lifted his staff towards the wildly running hobbits across the garden.  Snatching a stone from the ground, he launched the small missile at the menacing figure, striking the thin cheek with stinging effect.

“Still looking for a few willing hands?” he shouted, as the furious wizard turned towards him.

Icy green light whipped across the dark air and Pippin took a lurching step back as the gravelly voice snaked about, seeking admittance to his very soul.

***   ***   ***

The short flicker of light on the blade was the only warning they had, and Dan went rolling under the wide sweep of the sword.  Scrambling to his feet, he watched River hurl himself at the bespelled Ranger that confronted them.  Though the embittered Man’s burly frame guaranteed greater strength, River fought only to disarm his opponent, whose willowy strength was unchecked by such care and Dan wasn’t sure if he would succeed.  The young hobbit circled the two struggling Rangers, looking for a way to aid his companion, whose angry words and pleas were becoming more strained and desperate by the minute.  Already two shallow cuts bled freely, shining against the dark fabric of his shirt.

“Kerwyn, damn it all!  Wake up, you addle-brained excuse for a ranger!  I’ll drag you by your ears to your mother’s house, I swear I will!”

Though his words seemed to have no effect on the young man he fought, River continued to harangue him, but blood-loss was taking its toll, and the blade weaved ever more erratically as they danced about the trampled ground.  Suddenly, both combatants slipped and River's sword fell onto the dark grass.  Fiercely pummeling the older Ranger, River’s opponent, the younger and more agile Kerwyn, gained the upper hand, and for a moment, freed from River's restraining hands, he drew a long dagger from his boot.  Dan dove heedlessly at the attacking arm to try and hold back his strike, but the Ranger flung him off easily and returned to drive the blade into River’s throat.  The sharpened steel hovered between them as they struggled, strength to strength, and the double-edged weapon moved steadily downward.  Seizing a fallen branch, Dan returned to River’s aid, but as he stepped up between the two combatants and the light, the struggle ceased.  Dan could not follow the movements in that darkling night, but the younger ranger seemed to sag, distracted and defeated, and fell to lay limply, bleeding out his life atop his fellow.  The shocked silence was broken by River's bellow of angry denial.  Flinging away the bloody blade, he cradled the young man, harsh sobs punctuated by words Dan could not make out.  The hobbit backed away, not knowing what to say to such awful grief.

***   ***   ***

Step by step, the source of that awful will drew nearer, as the mad wizard flung poisoned words to tangle about Pippin’s stubborn denial

“…  You were made to crawl.  To live and die in darkness like a worm beneath the world.  Little fool grown too tall, too busy filling yourself beyond satisfaction to see the theft your very existence inflicts upon the Garden that was made…”

It went on and on, and Pippin felt himself shrink, clinging to a waning sense of self and the single hope that could come of this torture: with every step, his enemy was coming closer to a trap of his own making.  Forced to his knees in the dirt with the hoary oak arched menacingly above him, Pippin strained against the wizard's unflagging malice, but his mind resolutely refused to bend to him.   The wizened figure ignored the cries and calls that shredded the peace of the wood and the hungry flames that would soon devour the garden he had labored to recreate, completely lost in incredulous rage that this insignificant creature countered him so blithely.

“Give up,” the wizard hissed.  “Lay down and let the world make better use of your bones than your feeble will can conjure.”

Another step and Pippin felt the power of his resolve slowly ebb.  A strangled sob forced its way free, but deeper yet, fine lines cracked the shell of a long buried terror.

“I have you!” the wizard cackled and his mad laughter blended with the remembered sound of unadulterated evil, unlocking, at last, the dreadful encounter from the barred vaults of Pippin’s memory.  In a flash, his world was fire and darkness and pain once more and his vision was blotted by the Great Eye.  Helplessly trapped within recollection barely dimmed by the years and without the saving grace of outside intervention, Pippin felt himself drowning beneath the promise of slow agony and the dissolution of everything he had ever been.  Yet a last spark of naked terrified defiance flared up and he opened streaming eyes to watch the wizard stumble and slide into the shadowed pit that yawned at his feet.  His undignified squawk dispelled the fog of blind horror and Pippin lunged forward with a last effort, wrapping aching hands about the carved staff.  The wizard still clung to it, scrambling to pull himself out when more than his frail weight suddenly dragged him back.  The tree, roused and enraged by the threat of flames nearby, had found a new victim.

“Help me, you blasted fool!” the wizard snarled as his hands slipped helplessly from the polished length of wood.

Pippin gave the staff a final twist, lips shaping one last murmured denial.  “No.”

With one last powerful wrench from below, the wizard disappeared from sight.  The world tilted dizzily and Pippin felt soft dirt against his cheek and the knobby staff under his shoulder where he had fallen upon it.  He listened dully as the screams and curses beneath the earth died with a sudden cracking crunch.

‘Not taking any chances this time, eh?’ he thought at the creaking giant, whose leafless branches now bent, claw-like, towards him.   Terror and hope both spent, darkness closed over him.

11.  Broken Strands

In the flickering light of the fires that had broken out, Diamond had seen the lone figure confront the wizard and fall to its knees, but had been unable to free herself from the tangle of bodies to help.  Suddenly, as a burly farmer swung one beefy fist at her face, Dan surged out of the darkness to wrestle him to the ground.  She looked again for the chief villain and watched, disbelieving, as he simply dropped out of sight.  The roof came crashing down behind her, throwing up light and smoke, and for an instant, the face of his challenger was brightly lit as he collapsed.

Hurtling through the strange garden at a dead run, every inch of breathless space that Diamond crossed seemed to take a hundred years.  The long branches of the tree above now seemed to reach for the motionless figure, which made little sense, but then, not much else had lately.  She brandished the crackling brand she had snatched up and leapt before the rattling branches, setting the flames to lick at the twiggy ends.  The limb snapped back and a grinding creak sounded from the very ground.  Diamond pitched the brand at the leaf-filled hollow between two snaking roots and hauled the unconscious hobbit out of reach.  The old oak twisted savagely behind them, scattering the hungry flames that threatened to race up its trunk.

The young huntress tripped and fell hard onto the ground, her burden crashing across her lap.  Looking down, she saw that it was indeed Pippin she held, though beneath the dirt that covered his clothes and skin, it could almost have been anyone.  Almost.  Tears had cut clear paths down his face and she brushed at his cheeks with her sleeve.

His eyes opened slowly to fix her, a slight grin quirking his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes, shadowed by more than night or weariness.  Something quite horrible had happened here; some raw and gaping wound now lay bared that had no right to mar the good spirits of the hobbit in her arms.

“You’re filthy,” she snipped, though she actually wanted to shake him and order away the strangeness in his eyes.

“You’re late…” he teased back, voice barely audible.  “Had to do it all myself.”  One hand rose to still hers against his cheek, and the frightening dullness for a moment receded.  But his eyes fluttered closed again, and the faint smile left his face.

Diamond felt tears well up behind her eyes and she shook them away.  “No, Pippin…  Wake up!  Don’t do this…  Please…” she whispered, leaning down to let her forehead rest against his brow.

“Pippin!”  Merry’s voice rumbled out, roughened by smoke and worry, and Diamond’s head jerked up to watch him kneel beside them.  Pippin stirred, eyes turning to seek his cousin’s silhouetted figure against the crumbling fire.

“Merry…  The Eye…”  His voice was so small, nearly lost in the background noise of fire and shouts.

“What happened?” Merry asked Diamond, his voice tight with a fear he didn’t bother to conceal.

“I…  I don’t know…  The wizard…” she stammered, her hand still laid upon Pippin’s limp shoulder.

Merry shook his head and grabbed his half-conscious cousin under the arms.

“Get up, Pip!” he ordered.

“Tired…  Le’me alone…” Pippin mumbled hollowly, and his head lolled back against Merry’s chest.

“Not now, you troublesome Took!” Diamond said, roughly seizing his chin with hard fingers, as she had many a recalcitrant youngster in the past.  “You’re always laying about, you silly Bounder!  Now come on, get up!” she snarled, though tears spilled from her flashing eyes.

Her words seemed to rouse him a bit and he looked up at her.  “But I keep waking to find you there,” he murmured, and Merry suppressed a grim chuckle.  Leave it to Pippin to turn a reprimand into a flirtatious joke, even on the far edge of catastrophe.

“Well don’t get used to it, I can’t abide lounge-about dandies of that sort.  Tread the grass on your own two feet!”

Merry felt the tension of effort and will pulling Pippin from his supporting arms and he caught a glimpse of the small twist of a smile chasing onto his face.  Rising together unsteadily, the three of them started back towards the milling hobbits that had been freed by the wizard’s demise and Merry couldn’t help but notice the proprietary hand that clasped his cousin’s as they walked.

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As they neared the crowd, Pippin gave Diamond’s hand a gentle squeeze and released her, his smile miles closer to his habitual mischievous grin.  Her small hesitation in letting go spoke loud as thunder to her own heart of the tattered barriers between them she had torn down by her own will.  Going back to that safe and solitary pride would have meant forever; there was no one like him in all the Shire or outside of it and she would be a fool to let her last chance slip.  Propriety and filial duty alone kept her from an undignified public display.

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Pippin watched Diamond walk slowly to join her brother, and he leaned wearily against Merry’s strong shoulder.  Squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as he could, until stars danced against his eyelids, he shoved the last wisps of remembered terror and hopelessness away, clinging to the rock of his cousin’s presence and the promise of Diamond’s eyes.

A soft chuckle drew his attention back to his best friend and he found Merry grinning at him.

“Something of a firecracker, that lass,” he said, jerking his head in her direction.

“Yes, I do believe she breathes fire and eats full-grown hobbits for breakfast,” Pippin replied with a tired smile, eyes still fixed on the swinging braid of russet curls that hung down her back as she moved among the hobbits she was organizing.  “But mark my words, dear cousin:  That’s the only lass I’ll take to wife.”

“If she’ll have you,” Merry said, taking advantage of the distracting conversation to casually check over the other hobbit’s bruised form.  “That one might take a little convincing, from the little I’ve seen of her.”

“Oh, the game’s not won yet, I’ll grant, but when has that ever stopped me?”

Merry smiled, glad to see his cousin’s spirits so quickly revived despite the lingering traces of his encounter.

Their quiet exchange was interrupted by the silent passage of a blanket-wrapped figure, carried solemnly by two Rangers to their waiting mounts.  So, there had been one casualty.  The commotion of the disordered families faded into silence in respect for the fallen Man.

The firelit shadow of a Ranger fell upon Pippin, and he looked up to find River peering down at him, face drawn in bitter grief.

“‘Twas my partner,” he spat, as if the words themselves were sour on his tongue.  “I’ve know him all twenty-five years of his life, and he died by my hand today.  Because of you.”

“Sereghir!” Laerion turned from securing the fallen Ranger to his saddle.  “You cannot blame them for what happened here,” he said, laying a soothing hand upon the angry Man’s shoulder.

“That is your view, Laerion, but for me, some things cannot be forgiven.  Please return my thanks to your cousin.  I cannot remain in his service any longer,” River replied, roughly ripping the star from his breast and dropping it into Laerion’s hand.  “I will see Kerwyn home.”

Shooting a last icy glance at Pippin’s stricken face, River took hold of the reins and strode eastward into the woods without another word.

A heavy silence ground them all under its heel, mixed sorrow, shame and shock blanketing them in momentary stillness.

Not daring to break the strained hush with too loud a word, Berilac moved quietly among the families and they all stirred, slowly gathering into small groups and setting off southward without fuss.

Laerion turned away from the disappearing sound of River’s departure and sighed.  “I am sorry you had to be the target of his grief, Peregrin Took.  His anger is misplaced and unshared.”

“Perhaps.  But his grudge is long held and not entirely unfounded, my lord,” Pippin replied, sagging against his cousin now that the rest of their party had left.  It was plain to see that will and pride alone kept him conscious.

“Nonetheless…” the Ranger started.

“No,” Merry interrupted, his hand tightening around Pippin’s shoulders.  “I could have no forgiveness either if I’d brought back that kind of news from the War, and though I do love Aragorn too well, I could not serve him or his cause at that price.”

“This debt will be paid in some way,” Pippin added, and his tone brooked no denial.  “Now, let us leave here before the Wilds reclaim this place in full.”

Riding behind Merry, head resting against his broad back, Pippin watched Laerion tuck the staff, wrapped and bound, among the supplies on his mount.  That danger at least was past.  Arms tightening about his cousin’s waist, Pippin closed aching eyes, the soft sigh of words ill and fair echoing between every beat of his heart.

12.  Persistence

It had taken a long week to return each family to their holdings and after speaking their farewells to the Rangers at the Northwest marker, the tired but happy escort of Brandybucks, Tooks, and North-Tooks were finally resting in Long Cleeve.  Though entirely recovered, Pippin had had little opportunity to do more than trade friendly glances and greetings with Diamond, and there were words he wished to speak where no others could hear.  Their unhappy adventure had not changed her, or blunted the sharp edge of her tongue from all he could tell, but he dared to hope she might yet return his sincere interest with more than disdain.

Tonight, fiddle, flute and drum rang loud into the night, over the roaring bonfire that lit the center square of the settlement, celebrating the arrival of spring and the safe return of their small group.  The lively music drove the dancers through reels and rounds and breathless jigs, circling the blaze as they moved through the steps, intricate or simple, without pause.  Pippin roamed the edges of the happy crowd, mug in hand.  He could have joined the dance with any partner while he waited for Diamond to appear, but he had the sneaking suspicion that none might have joined him.  There had been remarkably few interruptions of his baths during his second stay with Angrim’s family.  Leaning back against a wall, Pippin was watching Merry swing his partner round, the young matron laughing happily at some clever jest, when a sudden movement of the gathered hobbits across the square drew his eye.  Diamond had stepped into the light, unbound russet curls shot through with flame and he felt his breath catch.  The emerald green silk of her dress clung softly to the gentle curve of hip and breast and swayed about her small ankles with every stride.  The single winking teardrop of a diamond hung trembling at her throat.

The world narrowed down to her face, her eyes, and all else faded beyond thought as she stopped before him with a small smile.  Gray-green gaze fixed on his, she wordlessly offered him her hand, which he took up and kissed, thrilled to giddiness with the hope her changed manner raised.  While he had worried she might not receive his attentions, the look in her eye tonight made it clear that she had decided to claim him herself and on her own terms.  Giving her his most winning smile, he led her into the dance.

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One hand at the small of her back and the other twined about her own, he drew her into the lively round with a flourish, sending her whirling towards the bonfire before recapturing her within the circle of his arms.  One breathless set after another, they led and followed each by turn, sometimes barely touching, sometimes pressed close, face-to-face, as the dance required, until she lost track of everything but the one that seared her with every glance, every touch.  Long as a lifetime, short as a breath, the night wore to its middle hour.

But they were soon parted as the unmarried lasses were sent home under the watchful eyes of the shepherding matrons.  A long year from her own coming of age, Diamond stalked unhappily to her chamber, cursing custom and calendar under her breath.  The look of surprised disappointment on Pippin’s face might have been humorous if she hadn’t felt the same frustration, but it was true that her age had never come into question before tonight, and in a childish fit of willfull blindness she had hoped that small fact would be overlooked.  It had not and now she was trapped between these four walls when her heart’s desire lay beyond them.  And he would be leaving tomorrow.

She stopped her fretful pacing, coming to stand before her looking glass.  She stared at the strange lass that faced her, soft silk and curls disarrayed by the dance and looking delicate and feminine without another to stand in comparison.  Could she do this?  Wait upon a husband and stand at his side, a trophy or an ornament to grace his home?  That was the common expectation, one she despised and knew she could never fill.  She gazed blankly down at her feet, thinking over all she knew of the one who had stolen her heart.  He had met her as an equal among her brothers and cousins, and never betrayed surprise or disapproval of her position.  He had been the target of her sharp wit and her disdain and returned her wit for wit, and had neither cursed nor ignored her.  “Common” was not a label that seemed to fit Peregrin Took in any fashion, just as it would never fit her.  Perhaps…

Never one to dawdle over a decision, she suddenly shifted from pensive stillness into movement and in a few minutes’ time had left the lovely dress upon her bed, and, hair braided-up and dressed in her favorite ranging clothes, she ducked out of the window, a small satchel over her shoulder.

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“Under age?” Merry shook his head in sympathy.  “That’s one complication I hadn’t even considered, what with her traipsing about the woods…”

Pippin frowned into his mug, untouched since Merry had pressed it into his hand as Diamond was escorted home by the chaperones.  “Yes…  The one thing I can’t do is change her age, no matter what she’s capable of.  It isn’t very fair, but…” He sighed.  There really was nothing he could do that didn’t flout age-old custom and they would simply have to wait, despite the fact that it ran counter to both their hearts and natures.  He had no more doubt on her feelings in his regard, and had been ready to speak for her to her father in the morning.  And now…

“Cheer up, Pip!  I don’t imagine Angrim will mind turning away any suitors that might think to knock upon her door in the next year or so.”

“I know, but I don’t think Diamond waits patiently or well, no matter the reason.”

“Afraid she’ll realize the handful she’s chosen to take on?” Merry teased, trying to lighten his cousin’s unusually pensive mood.  A quiet Pippin was neither normal nor auspicious, and trouble soon followed such episodes unless he was quickly distracted by jest or task.

“Well, several years of consideration didn’t rescue poor cousin Estella from choosing her own burden!” the young Took replied, grinning as he downed his drink.  “I’m off for bed!”

“Already?  Are you ill?”

“I still mean to speak to Angrim in the morning, and that is an anxious thought I rather sleep away.  Till morning, then?”

“Bright and early.  Or my wife will have my hide if we arrive later than your namesake!”

Pippin set off into the shadowed path that led back to the smial, full of more frustration and excitement than he had felt in a long time.  Well, treasures delayed and striven for were sweeter for the price paid, it was said.  Remembering others who had waited longer for their heart’s desire was small comfort, but already plans swarmed his imagination, of the many preparations and distractions a year could afford.

QQQ

Weaving among the darkened dwellings, she soon came to the edge of the brightly lit square, just in time to watch Pippin bid his cousin goodnight and turn towards the smial she had just left.  Darting from the shadows as he passed, she pulled him into her hiding place, heart racing apace at her own audacity.  He struggled a moment before realizing who she was, letting fall one fist raised in defense as soon as he recognized her.

“Diamond?  What are you doing out here?” he asked, sounding puzzled and somewhat alarmed.

Unable to express intent she had not yet clearly formulated even to herself, she remained silent and still, but her expression must have spoken loudly enough for her, because she felt his warm hands in the dark cup her face and place a very soft kiss upon her lips.  The long awaited contact did not disappoint, sending little chills down her back as he gently deepened the embrace, tongue moving slowly against hers.  As he moved to withdraw, Diamond pulled him close again, fingers tangled in his shirt to press them closer still and she felt more than heard the faint moan her movement elicited.

Still, he placed firm hands against her shoulders and slowly pulled away, though she could hear his hurried breath match her own and his eyes shone in the little bit of stray moonlight that peered under the concealing overhang.

“Slow down, sweet…” he whispered, and she felt his breath mist against her cheek.

“Why ever for?”

“This...  This isn’t right, Diamond…  Your parents…”

“What do they have to do with this?”

“Now you know very well there are some rules than cannot be bent, even for us.  Especially for us.”

“No.  I do not see why it must be so.  Those same customs would have me in the kitchens rather than on the hunt.  Is that what you think I should do?” she asked, her voice betraying rising anger.

“I never said that.”

“Right!” she snarled.  “You are as comfortably bound by tradition as the rest of them, but you almost fooled me!”  She made to walk away, but he stopped her, one hand on her arm.

“Now, hold on just a minute…!” he started, though a well-aimed swing at his head interrupted him as he dodged her blow and several that followed.  He finally managed to immobilize her against the stone, wrists pinned above her head.

“Would you please calm down!” Pippin hissed as she continued to writhe against him to free herself.

“Ha!  I’ll scream first!” she snapped back.

“And how will you explain being out and about on your own at this hour?  Just…  Let me finish.”

Breathing hard, she stilled and clamped her jaw shut, though the glare she threw him spoke volumes.

“You’ll find that I’m the last person to put fetters on another’s freedom for the sake of custom, Diamond.  I have seen first hand the ill that it can do.  But there are some things that ought always to be considered, and the happiness of those we love is one of them.”  He paused, hands releasing hers to drift down to caress her face.  “I’ll have none speak ill of you for the sake of my own impatience.  But I will trounce any fool that thinks he can stop you doing as you please.”

“Words.  You twist them well enough, but that is all they are,” she said, twisting away with an angry sob.  “I need no other to fight my battles for me, and I care nothing for the gossips in the marketplace, so I cannot imagine what I could possibly want from one such as you!”

“And I suppose love and respect are beneath you as well, then?” Pippin replied hotly as his own temper got the better of him.

“What?!”

“I love you.  All of you, even the part that hits so damn hard,” he said, reaching out to run hesitant fingers along the hard ridge of her knuckles, her hands still fisted at her sides.  “And I want to marry you.”

“I…  I… do too,” she whispered, throat suddenly dry.

He gathered her close again and felt her relax against him, hands warm on the back of his neck.

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Now faced with what she had sought when she had crawled from her window tonight, Diamond found herself at once ecstatic and apprehensive.  Yet in the face of the myriad conflicting thoughts and feelings that whirled inside her, she reached out and clung to what had felt most right in all the confusion, the perfect rush of that first kiss.

“I still do not care to wait,” she murmured against his neck and, twining fingers into his hair, she pressed her lips against his.

“Diamond…”

“Shush,” she said, laying warm fingers on his mouth to quiet his protests.  “I’m leaving with you in the morning, Peregrin Took.  One way or another,” she said, and she saw acceptance wash over his expression.

“I can deny you nothing, it seems, Barachiril,” he said softly against her fingers, taking her hand to place light kisses upon each fingertip.

Diamond shivered as he drew her tight against him, and his hot breath trailed down her neck in achingly slow procession, lips barely touching her skin.  Reaching behind her with one hand and pulling him along with the other, she sought blindly for the door she knew must stand nearby and found herself crushed up against its wooden surface.  The velvet touch of his tongue tracing the sensitive curve of one ear completely distracted her from her search for the latch for a long moment.

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Pressed hard against her warm body, Pippin could feel every inch of her, gloriously uncorsetted and filling out the boyish clothes with curves they were never made to conceal.  The surface that they leaned against suddenly gave way, and they nearly rolled to the floor of what was obviously the entry hall of a small dwelling.

“It’s alright,” Diamond murmured, “It’s unused at the moment.”

She pushed the door to and drew him across the hall to the bedroom, throwing off the dusty cover.  Turning to face him, silhouetted by the moonlight from the window behind her, she seemed for a moment less a mortal lass than some maiden goddess, just stepping from legend on a moonbeam, and in that instant he didn’t dare move, lest she should vanish like a wisp of dream.

Her hand lightly brushed his jaw and continued in a long line of fire to his open collar.  The beckoning sparkle in her eyes prompted him to draw her into a close and passionate embrace that consumed every thought and doubt that remained.

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As sight and sound returned to him, Pippin became aware again of Diamond’s yielding body beneath him and he smiled down at her, enjoying the look of breathless surprise that was still on her face.  Rolling to his side, he gathered her gently into his arms and she nestled her head against his chest, comfortable silence settling over them, broken only by the rattle of the night wind against the window.  As her breathing settled into the deep rhythm of sleeping calm, Pippin reached down to pull a sheet around them and set a light kiss on her temple.  Curled around her warm body, he slipped into a dreamless rest, content to leave the morrow’s problems for the dawn.

13. Uncertain Dawn

Trouble, however, did not wait for the morning’s light, but gusted in from the darkened street in the form of an exasperated hobbit who unceremoniously shook them awake a short hour later.

“Up now, lovebirds!” Dan growled, his face a mix of worry and ill-concealed amusement.

Pippin frowned, pulled from blissful sleep, and turned a wary eye on Diamond’s brother.  Despite the easy friendship they had begun, there was no telling how far the other’s good humor would hold when it concerned the honor and welfare of his twin.

Diamond, however, was furiously embarrassed and annoyed by his arrival.

“Danobras Took!!  What are you doing here?” she demanded, clutching the sheet up to her chin.

“I don’t need to wonder what you’ve been up to, sister-mine,” the young hobbit replied, smirking.  “I just hope it was worth the fury Father will loose on both your heads if he finds you here.”

“Are we discovered, then?  Or have you come to offer a warning?” Pippin asked quietly.

Dan’s gray-green gaze held his for a long, unsmiling moment.  The tension mounted in the silence until the younger hobbit shook his head, breaking contact, and wandered to the window, where he stood with his back to the bed where the two of them still sat.

“Just a warning, since you will have trouble enough without my word on it.  Just remember, Peregrin Took: where Diamond goes, so do I, with very few exceptions.”

“Well, good, for I cannot imagine a more trustworthy escort for my bride than her own brother,” Pippin replied, pulling on the clothes that had been haphazardly discarded upon the floor.

“And what, pray tell, do I need an escort for?  I’m coming with you,” Diamond said, voice leaving no doubt he would find as little leeway this morning as he had the previous night.  Displeasure radiated from every line of her body, but Pippin came to sit at her side, taking her hands in his own.

“Propriety.  Tradition.  Honor.  In short, to prevent what just happened here tonight,” Pippin said, knowing full well none of it had an ounce of weight with her.  He hurried to interrupt the coming tirade he could see bubbling up.  “The simple fact is that no matter how much we fight it, there are certain things that cannot be ignored.  I’ll ask for your hand at dawn, and I’ll not leave you behind, should it take a year of waiting upon your father’s doorstep.  But you are no longer the youngest daughter of your father’s house, your actions unexamined by any but your kin.  You are the future Mistress of Great Smials, and that is a task you dare not begin as a runaway from your father’s righteous censure.  Trust me, life’s hard enough without that,” he finished, his last words an earnest whisper.

Diamond shook her head, face set in grim determination.  She snatched her shirt from its precarious perch at the edge of the bed and shrugged into it.

“I will come with you to speak to him in the morning, he will have to understand,” she said.

“Are you really sure that his trust extends so far, sister?” Dan asked, still staring at the night outside.  “Others love you…  Are you truly ready to leave us all so soon?”

“I thought if anyone would be glad for me it would be you…” Diamond murmured unhappily, continuing to dress as quickly as she could while her brother’s back was turned.

“I am glad,” Dan replied as he turned to face her.  “But I didn’t expect…  Diamond, why not wait a while, to be sure?”

“I *am* sure, Dan.  When did I ever misjudge the rain coming on the wind, or the path of the predator pursued?”

“It’s not the same!  This is your life we’re talking about, and a choice you will have to live with forever!”

Pippin watched as certainty, doubt, irritation and love crossed her face quick succession, knowing he must wait upon her thoughts, and maybe lose her to the loyalty and caution her brother advocated.  He couldn’t quite bring himself to be angry at the other hobbit, though he would have rather not faced these questions so soon before the test of his proposal to her father.  But it was not long before she smiled up at her brother, and Pippin’s heart fluttered in his chest.

“It is strange to hear such advice from you, little brother, but I am quite sure of my decision.”  She stood up to give him a quick hug and then pushed him towards the door as she moved to pick up a fallen pillow.  “Thank you for the warning, though.  It will indeed be best to greet Father in a decent mood rather than in a temper.”

“I’ll wait for you outside.  Don’t be too long,” her brother admonished, striding from the room with a last pointed glance at Pippin, who returned it with a short nod. 

A happy smile bloomed across Pippin’s face as soon as the other had left, though, and he swept Diamond up in a giddy embrace, kissing her lips and face with light-hearted abandon.

“Oh, tomorrow is going to hurt, my love, but I think we may yet stand a chance,” he murmured, grinning mischievously all the while.

“You are quite completely mad, you know that??” Diamond muttered, pushing at him half-heartedly.

“Perhaps it’s all that fine fierce fire I’m holding in my arms, because now I know that nothing will stop us from riding away together, even with archers at our heels!”

“You’ll have to pay for your doubts, Master Bounder, but sadly at a later date!” she teased, planting a single kiss at the corner of his mouth, and she stepped to the door.  “Mind you leave the room as we found it, or there will be trouble when my sisters return to freshen the place this Spring.”

His clear laughter echoed after her until the front door shut behind her back, gray light marking the approaching dawn at last.

“Aye, Barachiril, I’ll pay long and large and gladly for the trouble I’ve gone this far to find…” he murmured to the empty room as he distractedly straightened the rumpled bed.

***   ***

Bright morning and good-humored company gathered in the broad kitchen of Long Cleeve’s chief family, and it was with a peculiar lightness in his head, due in all likelihood to lack of sleep as much as nerves, that Pippin approached his host as the entire family gathered just outside the great red door to bid the visitors farewell.

“There is a last bit of business between us, sir,” Pippin said, drawing Angrim aside.  “Might we speak in private?”

The burly hobbit raised a curious eyebrow and wordlessly indicated the small sitting room, whose open door revealed it to be empty.  The start of a broad grin twitched at the corners of his mouth when Diamond joined them, fingers just brushing the tall Bounder’s hand as she stopped beside him.  Closing the door, Angrim turned to them, face schooled to calm despite the spreading warmth of happiness that was growing in him.  He had little doubt regarding the nature of young Peregrin’s ‘last bit of business’ here in Long Cleeve.  His moor-wild daughter had finally found a suitor she was pleased with; Mara would be thrilled.

“Well, what may I do for you this fine morning ere you go, Peregrin Took?” Angrim asked.

Pippin colored slightly, certain that the older hobbit had a rather clear idea of his intentions.

“Well, sir, I’ve come to ask your permission to wed your daughter.  Today.”

Angrim’s wide smile lingered a moment longer before the last word penetrated past his laughing reply.

“Well, of course…  Today?!!  Oh, no, my lad!  That is not even remotely possible!” he said, glower chasing grace from his expression as he turned to his daughter.  “Diamond, what is this nonsense?”

“Not nonsense, Father, but our true wish and intent.”

“But you barely know him, lass, and besides you are too young!”

“There are precendents…” Pippin began.

“You will wait upon my word to speak, lad!” Angrim interrupted, and his anger was palpable.  He took two steps closer, accusing finger directed at Pippin.  “I welcomed you here, into my home, despite all I’d heard of your scandalous ways!  I gave you shelter and the aid you sought, and yes, I had indeed considered granting you my daughter’s hand.  But if you think you can carry off my youngest on a whim and without a by-your-leave, you are most certainly mistaken!  Your father may run roughshod over our southern kin, but you’ll not find it so easy here!”

Pippin flushed, anger rising in his cheeks, but he chose to ignore the insult and replied with all the calm and sincerity he could muster.

“It has never been my intention to give either you or Diamond less than all the honor that is owed.  So while I may be reckless and eager to claim a happiness long sought, I truly meant no offense.”

“And if you must blame anyone for impatience, then it should be me,” Diamond said, leaving Pippin’s side to take her father’s hand.  Disapproval leaching slowly from his expression, Angrim’s disbelieving gaze fixed upon his daughter’s face.  He saw there no tears or constraint, only the same stubbornness and fierce pride, now softened by the joy that had replaced the sharp edge of loneliness that had become so familiar.

“You love him, then?”

Diamond nodded.

“You are certain of this path?  There is no turning back…”

“I know.  How strange that choosing happiness makes everyone around me question my judgment and resolve…  I have thought it through, Father, and I am decided.”

Angrim nodded, gray eyes still troubled.

“Very well…  Always you’ve made your own path, over and against any obstacle or challenge.  But you’ll not be going anywhere today.  You know it takes your mother an age to pack for even the shortest jaunt.”

“What?”

“If you insist on doing this quickly, then we’ll have to do it right,” Angrim said, turning to look Pippin squarely in the eye with grim amusement.  “My wife may survive her disappointment of preparing a Shire-wide wedding feast, but you’ll not escape being your father’s heir, Peregrin Took.”  The tall young Bounder squirmed at the reminder. “I am quite certain Paladin will not be the only one with serious concerns about you bringing home a strange and unexpected bride.  We leave on the morrow.”

He strode from the room, leaving the two of them stunned and staring at the closing door.

“Well, that went better than I had anticipated,” Pippin offered with a sigh.

Diamond whirled back to find him smiling at her, one hand held out to beckon her closer.

“Better?  You haven’t yet seen my mother all aflutter, it isn’t a pretty sight,” she replied, staying where she was.  Diamond wasn’t sure what she had really expected to come of this morning’s conference, but the large and loud familial escort her father had just promised was the last thing she had imagined and desired.  This would mean dresses, and lots of them…  She frowned darkly.

“It can’t be all that bad…  Your father, shocked as he was, didn’t throw me bodily through the nearest window or fall in a hysterical fit of laughter, so I do indeed count myself lucky in this instance.  It seems you will have to marry me after all,” he teased with a wink.

“You are incorrigible!” she snapped, but the slap she gave his shoulder was playful, and now that she was within his reach, Pippin drew her tight against him.  The light of her flashing eyes still thrilled him completely, though it was now mixed defiance and passion rather than challenging disdain.  He pressed a burning kiss on her welcoming mouth, sealing between them the promise of long years of gentle tempest and fearless love.

The End

(of this tale, anyway *wink*)