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Chapter 7: Hurt and Comfort
"Aragorn! Aragorn!" Merry yelled while running as fast as his short legs would carry him.
Aragorn looked up from whitling on a piece of wood and saw Merry running towards him with something in his arms. As Merry got closer, he saw that it was Pippin that Merry had in his arms.
"You found him!" Aragorn said, surprised.
"He's hurt, Aragorn. He needs help." Merry said desparately.
"Here, lay him down over here." Aragorn said, walking over to his bedroll, which he had layed out.
Merry gently layed Pippin down and Aragorn went to examine him for injuries. After carefully looking him over, Aragorn concluded that the harsh beatings had broken several of his ribs, bruised his lungs badly, and bruised his internal abdomen very badly. He was covered in deep gashes and was badly bruised all over. The whiplashes were harsh and deep. The kicks in the face had surprisingly not broken any of his facial bones, but had caused deep cuts, which would probably leave scars. The stab wound to his shoulder had gone all the way through and the blade was poisoned.
The poison that the Orcs had used was one of the cruelest in Middle-Earth. It caused the victim to suffer a very slow, painfull death. It would cause the victim to not be able to eat or drink and would cause severe internal pain. It would also infect the victim's lungs, causing them to have trouble breathing. Aragorn didn't have much hope for the tiny Hobbit, but remained opptomistic for Merry's sake.
After Aragorn carefull cleaned and bandaged Pip's wounds, Merry sat next to him, holding his hand and gently stroking his curly, chocolate-brown hair. As Merry sat there, he noticed something that he had missed earlier: Pippin's neck was very bruised and had harsh whelps around it. He knew of only one thing that could cause something like that: being severely choked.
"Oh, Pip...what have they done to you?" Merry whispered as he gently fingered the whelps around Pippin's neck.
Pippin whimpered in his unconscious state and whinced. Merry drew his hand away quickly.
"I'm sorry, Pippin, I didn't mean to hurt you." he said softly.
He leaned down and gently kissed Pippin on the cheek, "Sweet dreams, my Little Pip." he said softly.