Chapter 56. Considering Choices

(Note to the Reader: This is pretty much an unedited draft chapter, and may contain background material subject to excision. Behold the writing process at work. If you think this stuff is boring and slows down the story interminably, say so. If you think it's essential, express that opinion as well. I don't have much time for editing right now, and my editor-friend is offline for a week or so. We'll be happy to consider your opinion when we get back to refining these final chapters.)

A day or two later, having joined the hobbits for a picnic tea, Elladan heard Pippin mutter, in a tone as close to despair as he’d heard from the hobbit, ‘Is there nothing to be done?’ The two sat alone for the nonce. All the others were wandering over the meadow, plucking bright wildflowers that nodded and beckoned in the gentle breeze beneath the summer sun.

He knew the words were not meant to be heard, but his hearing was sharper than a hobbit might suspect. He took a deep breath. Perhaps this was the right time to speak, to encourage Pippin with Elessar’s idea that the hobbit could live in relative health for many years yet, if he were to leave the Northlands and move to Gondor as the King wished him to do.

Turning his head he was struck by the bleak expression on the invariably cheerful face. He followed Pippin’s gaze, fixed as it was, to see that the hobbit was staring at his kinsman, Hildibold, bending over his beloved Posey, proffering a double-handful of bright wildflowers he’d plucked from the meadow. Posey’s delighted laughter wafted to them on the breeze, even as Hilly bowed lower, seizing one of Posey’s outstretched hands to lay a kiss in the palm.

 ‘What is it, Pippin?’ Elladan said.

Pippin started. ‘O Elladan,’ he said. ‘Would you care for another slice of seedcake? They’ve packed more than I can eat in this basket, and that’s saying something.’

Elladan accepted the cake, encouraging Pippin to help himself to an additional slice, and the two sat, companionably chewing, until Pippin said, ‘His days are numbered, you know.’

Elladan looked from Pippin to Hilly and back again. The escort had dropped on the blanket beside his love, and his laughter rang out as she bedecked him with chains of bright flowers. He looked healthy enough... was well over the fever and the bruising he’d received from his battle against the river.

 ‘I don’t understand,’ Elladan said.

 ‘How long?’ Pippin asked. ‘How long will it be?’

 ‘Is he ill?’ Elladan said. ‘I examined him myself, when Denethor carried him to the clearing, though I must admit I might have been distracted, seeing Arwen’s reunion with Liriel.’

Pippin shook his head and seemed to change the subject. ‘What happens to Elves when they die?’ he asked.

Elladan looked at him in astonishment. ‘Why do you ask?’ he said.

 ‘Frodo told me once that Elves marry for life,’ Pippin said, ‘much as hobbits do. What happens when they die?’

 ‘We are bound to the world,’ Elladan said. ‘If one is slain or withers with grief, he goes to the Halls of Mandos.’

 ‘As Men do,’ Pippin said. ‘So Frodo said.’

 ‘But Men depart the world thence, and go beyond.’ Elladan said.

 ‘Beyond,’ Pippin mused. ‘Beyond... where?’

The son of Elrond shrugged, and Pippin chuckled. ‘Frodo always said I had perfected the art of asking unanswerable questions.’

 ‘There is always an answer,’ Elladan said. ‘It is just that I don’t have them all.’

 ‘Among my people...’ Pippin began.

Elladan leaned forward. This was one of the answers that he didn’t have. ‘Yes?’ he said.

 ‘Hobbits mate for life, as well,’ Pippin said. ‘It is almost unheard-of, for a hobbit to marry again after losing half of oneself.’

 ‘Ah,’ Elladan said to encourage him.

 ‘There are exceptions,’ Pippin said, and stopped. ‘Of course, in earlier times...’

Elladan’s breath froze within him as sudden memory arose, hobbits he’d known long ago, many lifetimes ago by hobbit reckoning, not even distant memory and yet for the son of Elrond, they were faces that he could bring to mind when he closed his eyes, their laughter and song still echoing in his ears. Pippin didn’t seem to notice his companion’s abstraction.

 ‘In earlier times, hobbits didn’t re-marry simply because one usually didn’t survive the death of a mate,’ Pippin said. He picked a many-petalled flower from the grass and raised it to his nose for a thoughtful whiff.

Elladan nodded.

 ‘Even in these days, they call it “turning one’s face to the wall”,’ Pippin said. ‘You simply lose all interest in food. A hobbit who doesn’t eat is soon, as they say, no hobbit at all.’

 ‘I had heard as much,’ Elladan managed to force out past the lump in his throat.

Pippin gave him a curious glance. ‘Nowadays, of course, we don’t go in so much for the dramatic,’ he said. ‘Most hobbits are too sensible to die of a broken heart anymore. I’ve made Diamond promise that she’d stay, for Farry’s sake...’

It was the closest Elladan had ever heard him refer to his impending end.

 ‘But in some of my relations, the Fallohide strain runs strong,’ Pippin said. ‘My sister, for instance.’

Elladan nodded, though he hadn’t met Pippin’s sister.

 ‘No hobbit child is ever orphaned, you know,’ Pippin said. ‘Even if both parents die, there’s always someone to take the children. Frodo had too many looking after him, as a matter of fact. Lots of fingers in the pie, lots of cooks spoiling the broth, and everyone thinking someone else had taken charge of him. But Bilbo sorted things out, eventually...’

The hobbit returned from this side trail. ‘And Hilly,’ he said.

 ‘I don’t follow you,’ Elladan said quietly.

Pippin smiled. ‘It’s a common failing,’ he said. ‘Hilly’s a Fallohide; the strain runs very strong in him, just as it does in my sister. Posey is his other half; without her he’s...’ He began slowly and carefully to pluck the petals from the wildflower in his hand. ‘How long would you live, if Strider took that fine and ancient sword of his and cut you in half?’ He wielded the half-plucked flower in his hand and made a gesture as if bringing a sword down on Elladan’s head, down and through his body, to the ground.

 ‘I would die, of course!’ Elladan said, a surprised chuckle escaping him.

Pippin nodded. ‘Hilly will die,’ he said, ‘for Posey is his other half, you see. They’ll meet again beyond the circles of the world.’

 ‘Beyond the circles...?’ Elladan said softly.

 ‘When we die, or so my people say, we go beyond the circles of the world, to sit down to an unending feast, eating, talking, and singing, surrounded by love and laughter, where there is no sorrow and no time, and where all we’ve ever lost is restored to us.’*

 ‘Beyond the circles of the world?’ Elladan repeated.

Pippin shrugged. ‘I don’t know what it means,’ he said. ‘My grandfather told me, and his grandfather told him, and for all I know his grandfather made it all up, but most likely his grandfather passed it on from his own grandfather.’

 ‘Most likely,’ Elladan said.

Pippin sighed. ‘So why should I begrudge Hilly his choice?’ he said. ‘I only know that I’ll be heartily sorry to lose him, a fine hobbit, a fine cousin, a friend of my youth. That he should be cut down, short of his full measure of days...’

Elladan looked at Pippin curiously. The hobbit did not rail against his own measure coming short, but rather grieved the anticipated loss of his kinsman.

 ‘And what of yourself?’ he said delicately.

Pippin snorted. ‘What of myself?’ he asked.

 ‘Will you stay in the Northlands?’ Elladan asked.

 ‘Has Strider been talking to you as well?’ Pippin said, and sighed. ‘Has he turned everyone against me, then? Who’s the next to speak? Sam? Diamond?’

 ‘Turned them against you?’ Elladan asked, nonplussed.

 ‘What choice do I have in the matter?’ Pippin said.

 ‘What choice?’ Elessar’s voice was heard from behind them. Elladan had heard his approach, but Pippin evidently had not. The hobbit jumped and turned, frowning.

 ‘I ask you, Strider, what would you do?’ he said.

 ‘The air in Gondor...’ the King began, but Pippin interrupted him.

 ‘If, instead of ruling the land of Gondor and the land of Arnor and everything else,’ Pippin said, making a vague gesture encompassing all the meadow and what lay beyond, ‘What if you’d had the choice of sailing into the uttermost West, where your Lady would not be parted from her kin? No strife, no difficult choices, no heartaches in the Land of Light, where you might live as long as you wished and lay your life down when at last you tired of it, and yet Arwen would live on... whereas, staying here, she will lay her life down when you depart. Come to think of it, that would be a very hobbity thing for her to do.’ His face brightened with wonder at the thought.

 ‘Pippin,’ Elessar said.

 ‘She has a real understanding of hobbits, you know,’ Pippin said, and then he was rising, casting aside the denuded flower as he called a greeting to Diamond and Farry, returning to the picnic blankets bearing armloads of wildflowers to be braided into garlands.

*A/N: What happens to Hobbits when they die? Even the Wise do not know. What appears here, and in other stories of mine, is my invention. JRRT never said, exactly, so far as I know.