Title: Childhood Heroes
Author: Tiamat's Child
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Rating: G
Summary: Pippin only reads a very little Elvish, and that half remembered.
Notes: Dana asked me for a Frodo/Pippin drabble. This is longer than a drabble, and it's Frodo and Pippin rather than Frodo/Pippin, but hopefully the Dana lass won't mind too much.
Childhood Heroes
You remember when you were a small child, and went to visit Merry at the same time Frodo did.
The sky was clear and the grass was warm and cool at once beneath you as you flopped out full length next to Frodo. Merry's father had set him to hewing back the thick hedges of the field. You and Frodo had volunteered to keep him company, though neither of you was foolish enough to volunteer to help (Merry and Frodo wouldn't have let you help, anyway. The idea of you with sharp objects seemed to scare them).
Merry complained at you for it, as Frodo lay there on his stomach with a book full of strange writing that didn't make sense to you even when you turned your head about to look at it from a proper angle. "Hopelessly rude," he said, "If you were polite, you'd offer to help."
"I'm a guest!" Frodo said, "I'm polite just to keep you company. And anyway, you've watched me do the same thing, often enough."
Merry laughed, and groused good-naturedly, and you pointed to the page Frodo was reading.
"What's this?" you said, "I can't read it."
"It's Elvish," he told you, "And I'm sure you've only been taught Westron, so that's no surprise."
"Oh," you said, and stared hopefully at his hands.
He laughed and smiled at you. "Would you like me to teach you?" he asked.
"Yes!" you said, before you remembered your manners and said instead, "Yes, yes please. I'd like that very much."
He laughed, and smiled, and began to show you how the alphabet worked differently in Elvish. It was amazing, really, the way the familiar letters stopped being jumbled and became strange words, and then how those words took on meaning. You always knew, after that, that Frodo could do anything. Anything at all.
You bite your lip, now, and try not to think of Merry hurt, and look towards the East.
Frodo can do anything. Anything at all.
It'll be all right.