This is the first of my series of oneshots in the LOTR verse. This one is Pippin, please enjoy.
I do not and have never owned The Lord of the Rings franchise, everything belongs to the writer J.R..
Loss
The Green Dragon was a busy pub with hobbits stopping by for a mug 'o' beer throughout the day but it was at its liveliest in the evening. This night was no exception. A fire roared in the grate and candles shone from their mismatched sconces on the walls, their smoke adding to the cloud of pipe smoke that floated above the room. The room itself was a sea of curly heads and pink cheeks. Musial laughter hung in the air with the fragrant wisps of Old Toby pipe-weed.
The hobbits themselves gathered in groups Gaffers stood and sat in one corner, pipes at their lips, speaking of food and families. The voices of fathers and farmers came from another side comparing the hops and harvests that their small worlds revolved around. Younger hobbits provided the liveliest group, laughing loudly and spinning tales of past mischiefs and hobbit lasses both lost and won. The largest group, however, was gathered around four individuals. The Four Travellers.
These four were the most famoustest of Hobbits and, when the beer was flowing; they were known to tell grand tales of their adventures. Every story brought about awe and frequent peals of laughter. Unknown to their homely audience, the Travellers only told sections of their tale. They regaled their willing audience with only the parts suitable to their jovial hobbit audience and the evening in question was no different.
"And then Gimli said "He just can't hold his liquor" before keeling over backwards unconscious!" Pippin concluded his anecdote by demonstrating, much to his drinking companions delight. Everyone roared with laughter and the other small members of the Fellowship were wiping away tears.
"Oh you never told me that one" chortled Sam.
"Just ask Legolas. He'll not just tell it, he'll boast about it" laughed Pippin.
"Where was I during all this?" asked a confused Merry.
"Singing and dancing on the main table with the Riders of Rohan. I'm surprised Eomer did not tell you when you rode with him to the path under the Dimwalt. I only know because Gandalf told me when we were staying in the White City."
One eager listener, however, had not heard beyond the first sentence and excitedly asked,
"Singing? What were you singing?"
"Sing it now."
"Yes, sing, Pippin, sing."
"No, I couldn't. Really, I couldn't." Pippin protested.
"Sing for us Pippin."
"Sing Pippin."
"Sing."
"No."
The group froze. This was no longer the jovial hobbit who they had laughed with. This was the voice of the steel-clad voice of the knight of Gondor, messenger of the King and the son of the Thain whose speech broached no argument.
There was an awkward silence. hobbits were unused to being commanded and yet even they were forced to bow to his authority.
Pippin stood abruptly and swept from the now silent tavern. The awkward quiet continued while Merry exchanged glances with Frodo and Sam. He too stood.
"I'll go see what's wrong" he told them, before leaving in his cousin's wake. Merry heard the volume begin to return to normal as he shut the round door behind him. Looking around, Merry saw no sign of his wayward friend. Instead of running through the dark as he once would have, Merry trotted around the back of the tavern to the stables. Such searches were much more easily done on his own. When he reached there, however, he was surprised to see that his search was unnecessary for Pippin was stood by his pony, the tabard of his knightly garb in his hands, endlessly tracing the embroidered silver tree. Merry walked over to him but before he could alert his cousin of his presence Pippin spoke,
"Merry."
The Rohirrim squire stopped and sighed.
"Hey Pip." the air hung with tension but Merry asked, "Pippin, what happened in there?"
"I don't sing."
Merry was shocked.
"But you always used to love singing."
"Not anymore. Not since…"
"Since when?"
"Since the siege of Minas Tirith." Pippin's eyes shone with unshed emotions.
Merry stepped back, struck by the intensity of the pain, anger and guilt in his cousin's eyes. He had no idea what had caused Pippin such emotional turmoil. They had never spoken of the events in Minas Tirith before the battle. Merry knew that he had sworn into the service of the steward and that he had fought beside the soldiers of Gondor to defend the walls of the White City. He had heard from Bilbo that Pippin had saved the lives of both Gandalf and Faramir during the battle but the details of those times were still unknown to him. Now he saw the scars in Pippin's soul that had been hidden behind the visage of a jovial hobbit returned from bold adventures to the life he had left behind.
"Pippin, please, why? What happened?" Meriadoc begged.
"When I came to Minas Tirith with Gandalf, Denethor, the Steward of the Citadel, was in mourning for the death of his son, Boromir. Knowing I was the cause for his loss, I offered up my freedom to repay my debt to him. He accepted and I entered into the service of the steward. I was bound to do what'er my lord command. So when he sent out his own son on a suicidal attack to retake the city of Osgiliath, an outpost of Gondor that had been overrun by the dark forces of Mordor, I did not speak, for I was sworn to obey him. When he commanded me to entertain him while he sat at luncheon that day, I obeyed. I sang, Merry, I sang. When the world fell to darkness around me, I sang. When the Great Eye sought the One Ring, burning its way through rock, cloth and flesh alike, I sang a song of home. When all that is good in the world turned to ash and the armies of Mordor were at our very gates, I sang. When the armies of Rohan mustered. When an Elf, a Man and a Dwarf summoned an army of the cursed undead, I sang in the halls their forefathers built. While the golden leaves of Lorien fell and the Elves were lost to the Undying Lands, I sang in a city of cold stone. While the green fields and hills of the Shire were scorched and burned before the White Hand of Saruman, I sang to please a mad man as he sat at table."
"But you did not know, at the time, you did not know I was safe with the Rohirrim and Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli were with me then. And Sauron did not have the Ring, he never did. It was better then, when we did not know."
"I did."
"What?" Pippin had twisted away in pain but now he turned back to look at his cousin with eyes filled with such suffering that he could not be lying. Merry was flabbergasted. "That's impossible. But…how?"
"The Palantir. You remember that I told Gandalf that Sauron, he hurt me…but I never said how…he showed me…he showed me the future, Merry, the future. His victory. How he would win and how we would fall. The Rohirrim would fall first, to the Mumakil. Gondor, was next, to his armies. And the Fellowship. We would be picked off one by one. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli would take the Paths of the Dead and the dead would answer. But they would not be commanded. Aragorn did not wield the shards of Narsil, the sword of Elendil, so they would not acknowledge him as Isildur's heir. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli died by their hand.
"Then Gandalf rode out from the White City, from Minas Tirth, to aid the charge of Rohan. Mounted on Shadowfax, at the head of a column of Gondor's finest. They all died. Killed by the Orcs and Wicked Men, allies of Mordor. All dead, except for Gandalf. He was…untouchable. A beacon of light in the midst of rising army of darkness. The white staff and Glamdring, the elf-forged blade, in his hands, he was bright whirling death. The great elven ring Narya on his finger glowing with magic a ruby ember in the dazzling white-fire. The remaining forces of good rallied to his call and it seemed as if the tide of battle might turn…but it was not to be. The Witch-King of Angmar came. Even the white wizard was no match for the mightiest of the Nine. Gandalf fell to his Morgul blade like so many before and the remaining soldiers fell within moments. And so ended the race of Men."
Merry was pale with fear.
"And what of hobbits? What of us? Of Frodo? Sam?"
"You were thrown from your horse in the first charge. The beast foundered on the rough terrain and you were cast from the saddle…into the path of Snowmane. Trampled to death beneath the hooves of Theoden's horse. Killed by the very king you idolized and adored."
Merry gasped for breath. He had…he had died. Dead not by the sword or of a wound earned in the fraught violence of battle but by an accident…a simple accident. A young horse spooked by first blood and battle, stumbling on the rocky terrain. It was so…possible. So easily, it could have been true. It pained him that Pippin had born such knowledge, such a burden and had not been able to tell anyone, stranded in Gondor as he was. Then he remembered his earlier question,
"Pippin, what of Frodo and Sam?"
"That was my one comfort. Sauron did not know of their existence. The power of the One Ring hid Frodo and Sam from his sight. That was how Gollum stayed hidden for so long as well. Sauron presumed they had been killed at the Falls of Rauros, along with Boromir."
Merry sighed in relief before recoiling in horror at a harrowing realisation. One member of the Fellowship was still unaccounted for.
"Pippin? What happened to you?"
The other hobbit was silent for such a long time that Merry feared he would not answer, but, when he did at last speak, Merry quickly came to wish that he had not.
"Sauron thought I had the Ring." Pippin began in an empty voice, devoid of any hope or emotion. "He thought that I was the Ringbearer and, for that, he had a special fate planned for me. I would live. I would live when all I loved had turned dust beneath the boots of Mordors armies, I would live. A prisoner in the highest tower of Minas Morgul. And, when all the world was his, Sauron would take the Ring for his own." Now Pippin's face grew pale and his eyes became as hollow as a wraith's. "Oh God Merry. Merry, I was there. I saw his ascension. The Nazgul around us like a guard of honour. The light from the eye was like the sun. Great flames fell like bleeding rain from the sky, a sky covered and turned to endless night. And the Ring. The One Ring. There, in my hand." Almost unconsciously his hand rose before him, remembering the feel of that glorious jewel, grasped for a moment in a world of endless torture, remembering the ecstasy it brought, that marvellous, boundless curve of gold clutched for an eternity in a dusty palm.
"Pippin?"
Blinking like a stranger in the dark, Pippin returned his haunted gaze to his cousin, despair and desperation now colouring his voice.
"Merry. Merry, I tried. I tried to run. Oh God, cousin, dearest cousin, I wore it. The Ring, Merry. I put it on. It was so…perfect. So much power. That little circle of metal. So much power. I put it one. Slipped it on, just for a moment. Just to escape, nothing more. But it was so…And then I was there, the Shadow World. Oh Merry, I think, for a moment, just a moment, I understood. I finally understood how Frodo felt about the Ring. The power, the love no the lust for it, and the war. The war against the fear. The fear of that terrible thing and the cost to become One. Bound to the fate of the Ring for all eternity. Bound to serve the Dark Lord until that end of time."
Merry gaped. The darkness his cousin had carried in secret was as deep and poisonous as any Morgul wound. How had he not seen this before? How had he not sensed the darkness and what it was doing to his dearest friend and cousin? Some distance had grown between them as their paths had divided, leading them to different places, to swear their allegiances to different kings but once they were returned to one another things had seemed to returned to how they had once been, closer than brothers, though both carried burdens they had not born before.
Pippin had fallen silent now, caught up in the agony of remembrance. When he began to speak once more the frantic terror and wild rage of emotions that had so consumed him before and he concluded his bitter tale in a detached voice that almost hurt Merry more to hear than the echoing cries of horror that had come before it.
"In the end Sauron took the Ring for his own and all of Middle Earth was his domain. I was…kept. A prisoner once more in the highest tower of Minas Ithil, chained more by the madness of the Ring than any shackles. Though my suffering was prolonged by the curse of the Ringbearer, I eventually died and passed into the Shadow World, forever cursed to roam the land as a wraith, bound to the Ring, another brother to the minions of the Witch-King of Angmar."
Neither hobbit spoke for no words could span the depth of that void of silence. Eventually Pippin was the one to speak for Merry was still caught up in the darkness that had consumed his other half.
"We all lost something, each of the Fellowship. The Quest changed us all in ways far deeper than any of us may realise. I am not the innocent fool I was when I left the Shire. That innocence was burned away in the fires of Isengard and the fool was taken by the Orcs." At last Pippin met his cousin's eyes. "But I'm still here. And I'm still me, even despite the darkness."
A nervous smile crossed Merry's face.
"Yes. Sauron is gone, the Ring is destroyed and all the armies of Mordor were no match for a hobbit."
The two of them laughed and raised invisible glasses.
"To Frodo!" they cried in unison. Pippin laughed again and lurched to his feet.
"C'mon, this Trollsbane needs a drink, let's go find Frodo and make him pay for it. I'm sure he's feeling generous."
"And if he's not?"
"He can pay for it anyway!"
Laughing and joking in true Hobbit fashion, the two friends and cousins returned to the Green Dragon where firelight and friendship could keep the darkness at bay, if only for a while.
tada! Quite dark but please tell me what you think! please review, it makes my day!
BTW If you hadn't guessed, Pippin lost his innocence and the singing is a symbol of that.