Note: The quotes from the members of the Fellowship are taken from "The Fellowship of the Ring" the chapter "The Breaking of the Fellowship."

Esme was troubled. Since the 16^th of Solmath she had not been able to feel quite at ease. Along with the disquiet came the knowledge that she would need to be cautious. When she told Saradoc of her ability to sense things concerning Merry and the others, he had said he would try to believe, but she knew he wasn’t doing very well. From their long years together she could tell what he was thinking, she needed no gift bestowed by Fairy-blood for that. She knew he feared madness. It was the common explanation non-Took hobbits gave for the strange behavior of certain members of her large and wealthy family. Even now weeks later, she would catch a glimpse of the fear in his eyes if she mentioned having a headache or feeling weary. And so, at the start of this uneasy feeling, she had begun a deceit. She put pepper into her handkerchief to cause herself to get teary eyed and sneeze. She drank spoonfuls of honey to coat her throat, causing her to have to keep clearing it and coughing. Perhaps if she could convince Saradoc that she had a cold coming on it would mask any effects that might come from . . .

Pippin

The unease within her swelled for a moment before she swallowed it back down. She feared the anxiousness, the tension she was feeling was coming from her nephew and the other lads, not from the troubles she and Saradoc were facing here in Buckland. There had been a long stretch of calm but it was now replaced by this expectant, anxious feeling.

She wandered about the smial nodding to some, not noticing most of the relatives she passed by. Restlessly Esmeralda walked and walked. She did make it to the main dinning room for luncheon, but couldn’t remember afterwards what she had eaten. She resumed her wandering through the tunnels of Brandy Hall. A part of her felt she should take her husband into her full confidence, but a deeper part of her knew she should not. He was better, so much better than those first days when they realized what had happened in the Shire and Buckland. He might not care for the way he was having to handle the affairs of their homeland, but he was stronger for having a way to work against the crushing Rules Lotho had burdened them all under. At first he had asked often about Merry and the others, but his inquiries grew less as the needs of Buckland grew more obvious. Esmeralda knew it wasn’t that he had ceased to care about their lads, only that he had really not believed she truly knew anything to begin with. He had been humoring her, but was now too busy to do so.

The meals of the day came and went. The shadowless light of the grey day faded outside the windows of the huge smial. She went to her sitting room. Sitting down before her desk, she lit her desk lamp with a taper she had picked up and lit at the fireplace, put the chimney back down around the small flame then blew out the taper. She sat staring blankly at nothing for a while until her gaze shifted to the calendar page. 25 Solmath. She shivered. The chill of the world outside her window somehow worked its way into her room. Into Esme herself.

"Something is amiss with the lads," she wrote in her diary. "I feel no peace in my heart. I’ve spent the day wandering The Hall, unable to put hand or mind to any task. I hope wherever they are, they (or at least Pippin) can sense my love and concern for them all, even dearest Sam. Be strong, my dear ones. You are not forgotten by the ones you left behind."

She blew on the ink, closed the small book then returned it to the hidden drawer in which it was kept. She lit the taper from the lamp, used it to light her dainty porcelain oil lamp, blew out the desk lamp then made her way to bed.

The gloom remained outside the window and inside her mind when the dull morning came.

"Esme?"

She sighed.

"My dearest are you getting up?" Saradoc’s concern put an edge on his voice.

She slowly shook her head. "No." Esme sniffed a bit, then sneezed. She hadn’t even had to use the pepper. "I’m not feeling well, dear." She opened her eyes, smiling as she reached over to caress the line of his jaw. "My cold seems to have gotten the better of me at last. Just have the cook send along a small tray with a cup of broth, a bit of toast as well as some camomile tea. I shall be remaining abed today."

"Very well. You know I’ll miss you?" He stood up then bent to kiss her cheek. "I’ll come by at meal times to see how you’re faring."

She nodded then was once again sleeping.

Soft images of a sun speckled stretch of lawn. Morning sun and warm shadows of leafless branches, the feeling of early spring. The glade seemed close to Esme. The glade seemed far away. A group of people walked about or sat upon the grass. They were hard to see, blending with the shifting shadows. Six of them she counted.

No spring like warmth touched her. Esme still shivered. The grey chill of the Shire clung to her, passing before her sight as a dimming of the dappled sunlight in the glade.

The people sat in a circle now.

"He is debating . . . most desperate . . . more hopeless . . ."

A deep voice, now in her head then coming from the circle.

" . . . make a brave stand . . . keep the Burden a secret . . . which way . . . in Frodo’s place . . ."

"Why cannot we decide?" A melodic voice.

" . . . help the Bearer . . . seek Mount Doom . . . I cannot leave Frodo." A voice like the ground itself, deep and strong.

". . . all need not go . . . that venture is desperate . . ."

"That won’t do at all!"

Esmeralda gasped. Her precious son’s voice rang in her ears.

"Pippin and I . . . we did not realize . . . it would be mad . . . Frodo go to Mordor . . . stop him."

Her mind spun. Frodo go to Mordor? Help the Bearer? Keep the Burden secret? She heard a different voice, soft yet cutting through all the rest. "He who bears the Burden," the Fairy had called him. Frodo. She saw the little hobbit lad, sad and empty hearted who had crawled into her lap, weeping himself to exhaustion the day his parents died. She saw a grown hobbit, so filthy she hardly knew him, stumbling toward a dark mountain which was wreathed in billowing clouds, crowned with flames. Esme shrank in terror.

". . . ask anyone to go with him . . . off to Mordor alone . . . if we can’t stop him, we shan’t leave him." The Tookish burr of her dear little nephew slew her with its words; "we shan’t leave him." She trembled.

". . . Mr. Frodo . . . to find the Cracks of Doom, if he can . . . he’s just plain terrified . . . whether we’ll go along with him or no. He knows we mean to . . . he’ll want to go alone." Sam’s plain, solid hobbit voice.

Three hobbits amongst those sitting in the circle. Three voices she knew well. Frodo was not there.

The mountain filled her vision. Fire fell like rain as lightening pierced the dense clouds. Four wretched hobbits stumbled forward . . . then one . . . then two . . . four . . . three . . . one alone . . . two. No heat of the fiery mountain touched her, Esme shivered in the dismal grey of the Shire. It froze her even as the image of her loved ones writhed from being viewed through the heat of the mountain.

A Man appeared as the gentle glade came back to her mind’s eye. He sat down heavily, slightly removed from the ones in the circle. She heard nothing. A hobbit popped up from the grass. Another. A third. They ran, two together, one alone, in different directions. The Elf and the Dwarf that she had seen in other visions ran off as well, all in different directions. The Man who had sat with the group ran after Sam, the late comer ran after Merry and Pippin.

Running. As hard and fast as she could go, much too fast for an eighty-two year old hobbitess. The branches of bushes grabbed at her hair. No. Wait. Her hair was braided as always when she went to bed. Pippin’s hair. Pippin’s hair was catching the twigs, it was Pippin who was running. It was happening again.

He and Merry were running wildly through the leafless brush, yelling for Frodo as they ran. Esme could feel Pippin’s growing panic. The longer they ran the more desperate they became, the faster they ran, until they were stumbling and breathless.

Orcs! A shout of alarm! More orcs!

Was it her presence within that had frozen Pippin? She could see Merry hacking off hands and arms as the beasts sought to grab him, but Pippin seemed numb. No. It was being alone, without the Men, the Elf and the Dwarf. Pippin’s mind was twisting in panic without his accustomed protectors beside him.

The Man! The late comer from the glade flew into the fray. Pippin joined in the fight as the Man sent Orc heads sailing everywhere. She could feel her nephew’s relief. Strength flowed in him because the Man was there.

The Orcs fled. In silence the three began to walk back to the glade, Pippin staying so close to the Man that Esmeralda could feel the warmth of him. Merry walked as closely on the Man’s other side. Then arrows like angry wasps came from every direction. They struck the Man but he fought on. He placed a great horn to his lips. The blast shook the ground. It shook the trees and the stones. It shook the air they breathed. Pippin covered his ears but still they rang with the sound. But in the quiet that followed no help came.

The Orcs came. Arrows came. To the side Esme saw Merry grabbed up by an Orc twice his size. She and Pippin screamed as their cousin and son went limp, as the brave Man, bleeding from too many wounds, sank to his knees. She was grabbed about the waist. Pippin felt fingers digging into his side.

"No! Aunt Esme! No!"

Nothing moved. The world was silent. There was nothing but his voice.

"Don’t be here! You can’t be here. You can’t see . . ."

This had never happened before. He had never acknowledged her presence. She knew what he feared. The two brothers of the heart would be tortured. They would suffer untold pain. They would die. She would be there.

"Please." His voice was small and filled with the impending agony. "Please, don’t be here." He was pleading till the pleading hurt them both with its urgency.

A warmth came upon Esmeralda Took Brandybuck. Sunlight through golden-red leaves. The tingle of a crisp breeze breathed upon her cheeks. A boldness, a daring, a disregard for what might lie ahead filled her being until it felt as though she and Pippin must be filled to bursting with the light of it.

"I always, forever, care for my own." Esme whispered in their shared thoughts. "I will not leave my Merry nor you alone." Then their thoughts knew no more.