XXXVIII

In Green Eyes

Merry continued to watch Pippin closely, at least as closely as he could without being obvious about it. As often was the case with Pip, getting things out in the open appeared to have helped him a great deal. Merry could tell. His cousin’s smiles sparkled in his eyes and his laughter was deep. Yet, there were still times when the light in Pippin’s eyes dimmed and Merry knew Pippin’s strange daydreams had not ceased.

Nor had the nightmares become any fewer, with the youngest hobbit now creeping out into the night to ease his mind by walking about. Sam and Frodo still slept more soundly than the Brandybuck and Took, while knowing what Pippin was up to allowed Merry to readily return to sleep. Unless Merry’s own memories haunted his sleep in which instance the cousins went walking together.

And so at last the company came to Isengard. They rode along the road to where the massive gates once stood, but the gates were there no longer. The stone walls the furious Ents had torn as easily as a Man tears stale bread were gone as well. Already there grew within the circle of Isengard beautiful groves and orchards of trees. The only thing in Isengard not of the Ent’s planting was the tower of Orthanc, still shiny black, rising from the center of a sparkling clean pool. News was passed along. Saruman had been released from his former home. Treebeard had seemed hesitant to admit to letting him go, indeed, Gandalf had not been pleased with the news. Greetings and fare-thee-wells were exchanged between Treebeard and the high-borne folk. Sad was the parting of the Eldest, the Elven lords and the Lady Galadriel. Merry and Pippin shared a parting Ent draught with the old Ent while Sam sat upon his pony thinking to himself that those two had already let themselves get enough taller than Mr. Frodo. When all had been said, the company moved on its way along the road to the mouth of the Wizard’s Vale.

Soon they arrived to a point where, had they turned aside off the road to the west, they would have come to Dol Baran and so to the place where Pippin had looked into the palantir. But now, there was no need to seek a sheltering place to hide from prying eyes and the company would stay to the road. When they came to the joining of the road to Isengard and the Great West Road, King Elessar took his leave of them as the West Road was the route back to Minas Tirith.

* "I wish we could have a Stone that we could see all our friends in," said Pippin, "and that we could speak to them from far away."

"Only one now remains that you could use," answered Aragorn; "for you would not wish to see what the Stone of Minas Tirith would show you.  But the Palantir of Orthanc the King will keep, to see what is passing in his realm, and what his servants ore doing.  For do not forget, Peregrin Took, that you are a knight of Gondor, and I do not release you from your service.  You are going now on leave, but I may recall you.  And remember, dear friends of the Shire, that my realm lies also in the North, and I shall come there one day." *  

So they parted company. Though those who had been there the night Pippin looked into the Stone wondered at his comment, they said nothing to the young knight of Gondor. Only Gandalf rightly guessed. It was the strong love Pippin had for Boromir, who had died trying to save him; for Faramir, whose life Pippin had saved; and for Strider, who had served and guided the hobbits from when they met in Bree, and loved them still as their High King, that had brought such a statement from the youngster’s lips. Gandalf knew Pippin had no real desire to look into a Seeing Stone, even though the lad knew that Aragorn was now their keeper, but he kept his musings to himself.

Pippin stayed up late that night. Only the guards on duty for the night remained awake when he finally made his way to the hobbit’s pavilion. Made his way there . . . and past. Warily he left the fading glow of the campfires and entered the darkness beyond the line of sight of the guards. Pippin stopped his outward progress on the far side of a large boulder, but did not sit nor lie down; he paced.

"I’ll be fine if I just stay awake," he whispered to himself. "Just stay awake. Shouldn’t be that difficult, I’ve stayed up all night often enough when I’m on duty. Nothing to it really," he chuckled lightly. "Just pretend I have to guard this boulder and keep pacing back and forth before it. Nothing to it."

But another will had other plans. Pippin’s pacing gradually turned to stumbling, stumbling to falling, falling to end up sprawled in the dirt at the boulder’s base.

He was standing below the crest of a hill, so as not to be seen as a hole in the thinly misted night sky behind him. He wasn’t quite sure where the hill was, nothing looked familiar in the faint glow of a shrouded moon. The dark mouth of a cave gaped in the side of another hill across from him. He crept toward the black hole. But the creeping felt odd. His body didn’t seem to fit him. Closer. Closer. Small figures moved undisturbed in and out of the opening. Small figures carrying things. He crept closer. Closer. Closer. The body that didn’t fit Pippin pounced upon a hobbit who carried a sack of grain upon his shoulder. He could feel the hobbit, small and squirming beneath him, fighting for breath beneath him like a hobbit ‘neath a troll, until it lost consciousness from lack of air. Large hands that were his yet not his bound the small body.

"Rat catcher’s here, little Shire rats!" a course voice using Pippin’s throat yelled as the large hands tossed the trussed up hobbit to another Man who added the small body to a group of similarly bound, though mostly conscious, hobbits.

Pippin moaned as he lay face down in the dirt near the boulder.

He was shoving a bound hobbit down a road in the glaring light of a cloudless day.

"Come on ya pathetic excuse fer a pony!" He once more shoved the hobbit, who was dragging a barrel behind him. "Look sharp ya useless fool, ya got yerself a crowd come to cheer ya on." Cruel laughter came out of Pippin’s mouth. "Get yerselfs out here, Shire Rats, so as ya can see what be happenin’ ta them what thinks they can go against the Chief ‘n ‘is Men." The Ruffian/Pippin heard a gasp off to his right and turned to see who had dared to make a noise.

Pippin struggled against nothing at the foot of the boulder, but elsewhere he struggled to get out of this body within which he was trapped. More harsh laughter gushed out of him as he saw his cousin Rosamunda and her husband Odovacar clinging to each other at the side of the road. Tears flowed freely down their wrinkled cheeks.

"Look!" Another shove to the battered hobbit dragging his load down the dusty road. "Give ‘em a smile." The ungainly Man’s body convulsed with laughter while Pippin went numb inside it. He was looking at the face of Freddy Bolger.

There was darkness. Cold and vast. Painful darkness. And a voice.

"You know who I am, don’t you, my little knight of Gondor."

Pippin did not reply.

"Did you like what you saw? Was it pleasant to have a glimpse of your home?"

Pippin did not reply, but his sickened heart must have somehow betrayed him for the honeyed voice continued.

"Ah, you did not. I can understand that, small knight of the new King. I am so very sorry."

Deep within himself Pippin felt a pain beginning to grow. A pain he had felt before. A pain he had no wish to ever feel again.

"Did you truly think I would not know?"

The pain and shame grew.

"Did you think my skills had grown so weak that I needed the Stone to see?"

Alone at the base of the boulder, alone in the searing dark, Pippin curled in upon himself. Alone.

"Do you think I did not know who it was among you had used the Stone?" The laughter cut through the small soul which had no other presence to help bear how wretched and filthy he felt. "It served only to magnify, to clarify those things which I already saw. I knew who it was my Lord Sauron held in his fearsome grip. I knew whom it was he saw." Darkness, anger, rage, loathing sliced the little one like knives that could split a hair.

Then it was gone.

Light flowed gently around him like the golden mists of an autumn’s morning. Warmth, not of a roaring blaze but soothing as flame kissed embers, replaced the soul-numbing cold. Gradually Pippin felt dainty fingertips caressing his right temple along the hair-line. He slowly opened his eyes.

"It’s you," he whispered, weariness slurring his voice.

"It is I."

"You were in Lorien and you . . ." His words and thoughts were slow and hard to master. "When I was . . . I was nearly dead."

"Yes."

In a rush Pippin’s thoughts and eyes grew sharp with the memory of what had just befallen him. "You weren’t there!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "The . . . other time. You weren’t . . ." Pippin felt his world collapsing about him again, ". . . there. I was alone then. All alone." The small body on the ground trembled, fragile fingers continued their caressing. "He looked at me. I . . . I was a speck of dirt. He . . . the Dark Lord was in my head. He made me want to . . . to die . . . die if I did not tell what He wanted to know. He . . . was in my mind . . . and I knew I was nothing . . . I was filth, decayed and loathsome. A speck, for Him to flick away then watch crawling through the filth . . . He began ripping me apart . . . for the pleasure of ripping . . . the pleasure of destroying . . . and I was alone. Alone."

Sobs shook Pippin. His agony spilled from him in silent wailing. The soft fingers continued their comforting caress. Time passed until Pippin wept away much of the repulsive burden he had borne in his soul since taking the Stone of Orthanc into his hands. He had spoken to no other about how ruined he had felt, and had continued to feel. At last he was able to look again at the unusual being at his side.

"Why?" he whispered.

"We were prevented, my Falcon. She whom you love as though she were the mother of your life was thrust away from you. I flung myself uselessly against the wall of his refusal." She ran her fingers through his sweat dampened hair, but avoided looking into his wide, searching eyes. "He . . . He was strong then. We ached in fear for you but there was naught left to us, only to comfort one another." She smiled, her eyes tracking the movement of her fingers through his softly curling hair. "But you did not break, my Falcon. You held true to those to whom love binds you. Cousins, long trusted friend and Fellowship all."

Pippin struggled to quiet his thoughts. Something about all of this was important. He sat up to better look at her. He felt . . .

"Someone I love as my own mother?" He stared hard at her face but still she would not bring her eyes to meet his. "Aunt Esme. You mean my Aunt Esme, don’t you?"

She nodded her head causing her golden red hair to brush against her face.

"You . . . you’re a part of all this, aren’t you? You know about it all, don’t you?" She nodded again. Pippin tried to catch her gaze but she continued to evade him. "Who are you?" he asked. "What are you?" Peregrin Took whispered.

She raised her eyes to his at last.

Pippin stood in an ancient forest. Dry leaves of autumn gave their scent and gentle sound to mix with the deep quiet of the woods. For a moment, he half expected to see a young Treebeard step out of the tree-shadows. What wandered into view was a hobbit. He was tall and fair for a hobbit and Pippin knew at once this was a Fallowhide who had little of Stoor or Harfoot blood mixed within him. The hobbit looked at them, for Pippin knew he was seeing with her eyes. "My Took." came the whisper in his mind. Love, strong and pure flowed around Pippin and the Fairy, then from them to the fair faced hobbit: then he was once again Peregrin Took, gazing into a pair of glittering green eyes.

"It’s true!" Joy and a feeling of comfort overflowed in him. "It’s true. I thought it . . . I had been taught that they were only stories."

The Fairy smiled lovingly at her child. "As you thought the tree shepherds were mere tales told by the hearth-side while Oliphants roamed only the lands of imagination." Her eyes sparkled with merriment.

Pippin laughed. "As the people of Rohan and Gondor told stories to their children of the strange halfling folk." Then he grew thought full. "Are you . . ." He hesitated, it seemed a rather private thing to ask. "Are you a ghost-fairy? You can’t possibly still be alive, you don’t look nearly that old." He clapped his hands over his mouth as soon as the words left it and his eyes widened. He took his hands away. "I’m sorry. I . . . I didn’t mean to be so rude."

She laughed her golden laugh. "My Took was also forthright. It is a trait I both posses and admire, my Falcon." She tipped her head to one side. "In the creation of all things it was given hobbits to be akin to Men, to be of similar heart and mind, though of lesser stature. It was given fairies to be akin to the Elves," she smiled, "though also of lesser stature, and like them we are immortal." She sighed softly and looked down at her intertwined fingers. "Long ages, to your kind, had I lived before I met My Took, before he claimed a heart ne’er before claimed. And I have lived long years since. It was granted to me to bestow a gift on those who would come from our joining. ‘Tis that there will always be, in each generation born to the clan, born to the name of Took, a few in whom my blood will flow nearly pure." Her eyes once more raised to meet Pippin’s. Gently, she again caressed his face. "Small of frame and feature, early born, filled with a knowing that others of their kind have not, and gifted with a Fairy’s eyes. Your eyes. Esmeralda’s eyes. And more. For I placed a blessing upon the Tooks that they be both plentiful and prosperous, and so it has been."

A small frown creased Pippin’s brow. "Before, you called me your Tookling Falcon, now you’ve used just Falcon. Why? Aren’t I your Tookling any longer?"

"You are a fledgling, a Tookling, no longer. You have flown high and strong, though terrors and death surrounded you." Her eyes, now soft and warm, still held his gaze while the soothing caress of her touch continued. "You may not have come of age as it is reckoned by your people, but you are a youngling no longer."

Pippin nodded his head as he yawned. "I’m tired," he murmured as he lay back down, suddenly unable to stay upright any longer; unaware it was her doing. "What is your name?"

"Cullassisul, Sir Knight of the High King. Sleep peacefully. This night I promise you, no horrors will fill your dreams. I will watch over you." She drew his head onto her lap and drew his cloak about him. "Dear child of my child."

* italics are a direct quote from: "Many Partings" in ROTK.