The Glimmer of Light

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
~Faramir, to Frodo in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers during The Window of the West

Merry knew that old age was creeping up on him. It snickered from behind the headboard of his bed and watched from behind the doors at night. He heard it when Pippin complained about his knees. It waited in the creak of the old rocking chair and the snap of the fire.

When he thought of the old days, he usually thought of Pippin, lying motionless on the bed, his face mottled with bruising, and Sam and Frodo, both pale and much too thin. He mostly remembered that they were so very haunted and would sit together in silence, because there were no words strong enough. He remembered Boromir, and Gandalf. He remembered what he couldn’t remember; the Shire, his family, his three friends laughing for the sheer joy of laughter.

His deeds were large enough to mark him a hero among all the free peoples of the world. He was an esquire of Rohan. He faced the Witchking and walked through the dark of Moria. When he returned to the Shire, bigger and fiercer and wiser, his own people thought him only reckless and foolhardy. Hobbits, he was reminded over and over again, did not approve of adventures.

As old age slipped in through the window, he often wished that he hadn’t let Strider put that first sword in his hand. When he closed his eyes he could see the flash of the sword in the sun and hear the distant cries of pain and fear on the battlefield. When they returned home and found it overrun, he realized that he had learned violence well, so he hung his sword over the mantel because he did not know if he wanted to remember or forget. The sword knew that the Merry who left the Shire was not the Merry who returned, but he didn’t know when the change occurred, or how, or why. Why did he stray so far?

Now, with the sword reflecting the firelight into his eyes, it told him the story of the day the sun did not shine and the day he first killed and how far in the east there was a glimmer of light.

Many years ago, as orcs’ blood ran over his hands and he discovered how easy it was to be scared and how difficult to be brave, the Shire was waiting for him.