Various stages in the life of Peregrin Took...

Challenge #19

I asked Marigold to add the “L” to the first selection she assigned to me. I explained I was already a “PEAR” shaped Took as it was. She sent both lists at the same time and they put themselves together into this story.

P. Injured or ill Pippin
E. A dance
A. Rivendell
R. Denethor
L. Merry fighting

T. Little Merry
O. A missing child or companion
O. Cormallen
K. Boromir

Stages

It was dark, but then again, it had always been dark . . . hadn’t it? Whereas before he had been able to move somewhat, now there was only room to squirm a bit. At least, he thought he had moved more before this. But he was still warm. He was enclosed. All must be well.

And yet . . .

The space seemed to be getting smaller, or he was getting bigger. He felt it was getting too small. Much too small.

Then it was gone. The closeness was gone. He was frightened because even the comforting closeness was gone, not just the frightening closeness. Something was wrong. There was a change to the darkness. It wasn’t . . . dark. Not as dark as it had been.

And his body was doing something different, something it had never done before. Or had it? Something strange entered him and left him. Entered and left. Something somewhere inside him felt as though there ought to be more to it. That it ought to go deeper than it was going, be stronger than it was, that it ought not ache. That he ought to do something more with all of this . . . but whatever it was . . . he could not. It entered and his body ached. It left and his body ached. Neither stopped.

He chose to rest, trusting to the feeling of being touched, wrapped, enclosed, safe, warm. He would rest.

******

He whimpered. He fussed. It really was most annoying as that was all he could do. His eyes seemed to like being closed and even if they did sneak open a bit he didn’t like the brightness. Dark and bright. Dark and bright. There seemed a pattern to it that was somehow reassuring.

When he felt an ache in his middle, the ones who touched and comforted him would put liquid into his mouth. He would swallow. More liquid, more swallows and the ache would soon go away.

When he would feel wet or sticky . . . they took care of that too.

******

It was frustrating that he could understand them better than they understood him.

“EEWW! Pearl, he’s wet, Pearl. Pearl!”

“Merry calm down, for goodness sake.”

He had tried to tell Merry before Merry picked him up, but as much as he tried to make the same words they did, his never came out quite right.

“Well, change him, Pearl.” Merry thrust the baby, who hung dangling and dripping from his grip under the child’s armpits, at his older cousin.

“No.”

“No?”

“You can change him, he’s only wet.”

“But Pearl, he’s wet with Pippin pee.”

The Merry person whined almost as well as he did, Pippin thought. It made him laugh.

Merry scowled at his little cousin. “Don’t laugh, it isn’t funny.”

“Pippin pee which you already have touched, Meriadoc Brandybuck, from the way you sounded when you announced that he’s wet. You know what to do, you’ve done it before. Go change him.”

He didn’t understand why Merry was making all this fuss, he had changed him before.

“Why can’t he just use the privy like the rest of us?” Merry’s eyes twinkled with mischief. This was a game he loved to play with his older cousins.

“He’s not a faunt, Merry, he can’t walk yet.” Pearl turned around from the dishes she was washing to look at Merry and the baby. “Why am I telling you that? You know why. Even though he’s a crawler he can’t use the privy, and it will be a while even after he is walking before he uses the privy. And that won’t be that much nicer for a while as someone will always have to go with him; rain, shine, cold or dark.” She smiled at Merry who was still holding her wet baby brother out in front of himself. She knew Merry’s game, that was why she played along. She loved them both dearly. Pearl turned back to the sink. “I’ll make sure you always get the job when you’re here, Merry. Now go change him before he starts to cry. And don’t forget to come back in here and mop up the Pippin puddle.” Pippin heard her giggling as Merry carried him off.

Merry changed him. Merry sang a song while he changed him. Merry talked to him and fussed over him while he changed him. He liked Merry. He tried to tell him but the words didn’t make sense to Merry.

******

Another voice. A different song. A song and a voice that seemed to be a part of the very air he breathed. The voice and the song were perfect together, blending and glowing like a gem turned to liquid, flowing like a gentle stream. Warm. Golden citrine gems flowing like warm honey, the light glowing from within while also reflecting on the surface.

For a while he listened, eyes closed, a soft smile curving his lips, until he felt it, that feeling of knowing someone is near to you, looking at you. He slowly opened his heavy lidded eyes.

She had sat down beside him, most likely to not appear to be towering over him. Her hair was like the deepest night, small gems were the stars in it. She held out one slim white hand.

“Would you,” she said in halting Common Speech, “move . . . to the music . . . dance,” she corrected herself, “with me?”

For a moment he looked past her at the graceful arches and beams of the Last Homely House, at the graceful Elves moving in a flowing pattern to the music. There were instruments playing now as well, as much a part of the firelight and air as the voice alone had been.

Pippin nodded. He seemed to himself to float to his feet, then to float next to the Elven lady, float in the dance. Was it Elven magic, he wondered, that enabled him to follow the dance so well? Or merely that the dance was slowly paced and he a good dancer? No matter. He danced. He looked about and saw Merry dancing and Pippin wondered if he wore the same sort of look on his own face. Merry looked as a sleepwalker might, seeing yet not seeing, moving to the music with an enchanted ease. Though aware of the difference in their heights, it oddly made no difference, all moved together to the music.

The floating feeling left him. The instruments had faded leaving only the voice. The perfect voice, singing softly. Liquid citrine, warm and glowing, filling his soul with peace.

******

Noise.

A clashing.

A clamoring.

Something dropped? Something thrown?

Distant.

Closer.

Someone gone mad? Someone raving? Someone screaming about Orcs.

It changed. It grew. And now the screaming was his own.

Pippin’s head throbbed with the sound . . . with fear.

Merry was swinging his sword and shouting. The swords of the orcs clashed with Merry’s. Merry shrieked, grunted, uttering sounds of rage from deep inside himself. Pippin gradually realized he was doing the same, though Merry, being older, bigger and stronger was having more of an effect. Whatever spirit was possessing his cousin was a powerful one.

Boromir.

Boromir!

He was come to save them!

Blur.

Everything a blur.

Blood. Clashing. The sounds of rage. The bellowing of triumphant Orcs.

Boromir with arrows sticking from his body. A thought in Pippin’s mind; it reminded him of his mum’s pincushion. The thought sickened him. Boromir leaned against a tree and tugged at a pin/arrow. Then Boromir was gone. Merry was gone. The Orcs were gone.

Gone.

All was lost to him.

Lost . . .

. . . in the heat around him.

In the flames in the glass ball.

In the flames and the pain and the voice from the glass ball.

In the flames and the pain and the voice inside him.

He was lost.

Lost.

First, it was within. Then, it was without.

Heat and flames.

They swirled around the chamber.

Flames and smoke.

They swirled around the man lying upon the bier.

They danced within the palantir upon the chest of the man upon the bier as they danced upon his body.

Scorching heat.

*******

With a flooding of water and a gasp Pippin’s eyes at last flew open.

“His fever is broken! His eyes are open!” He heard someone excitedly calling out. “Pippin?”

Merry. It was Merry’s voice.

“Pippin? Can you hear me? Can you see me?”

He blinked a few times to clear the swaying blurred images his eyes saw. Blinked until Merry’s face was clear, and beyond Merry - Legolas and Gimli.

“Merry?” Said a voice that came from his throat while not sounding at all like his voice. “Are we . . . all . . . dead now?” He ached all over. He didn’t think the dead had pain any longer. It was rather disappointing.

Merry laughed as tears trickled from his eyes. “No, you silly lad, we aren’t dead. None of us is dead.” The words came fast through lips that couldn’t stop smiling.

Aragorn and Gandalf were suddenly with the others standing behind Merry.

Merry, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf and Aragorn. There would be no Boromir. There would be no Frodo and Sam.

“But, It’s lost. We lost. We’ll be dead soon.” Pippin said slowly for the ache in his heart and the growing pain in his ribs.

Aragorn knelt on one knee beside Merry. He took hold of the youngest hobbit’s hand. “It is lost, but to the fire. Life is ours, ours and Middle-earth’s. We all have lived to see the new day. Frodo and Sam lie in a tent next to this one, deep in a healing sleep.” He brushed sweat-soaked curls from Pippin’s eyes as he smiled. “Welcome, Ernil i Pheriannath, to the Field of Cormallen in the country of Ithilien in the realm of Gondor at the beginning of the New Age.”

Pippin smiled.

Pippin laughed.

Pippin wept . . . till sleep over took him once again.