Merry walked into the training room. The first thing he noticed was the helmet lying on the floor. The second thing he noticed was the draft. He went to the window, shocked to see it shattered, and peered out.
In the bushes near a patch of strawberries, Pippin laid on his side, his back to Merry.
Merry smiled at his silly little friend, seeing him covered in strawberry juice.
"What have you gotten into, Pip?" Merry chided.
Pippin rolled over, hugging his arm to his chest. The bright red juice was soaking his shirt front. "Merry?" Pippin groaned and licked his lips.
"Having a bit of breakfast, are we?" Merry stepped around the glass and stood in the window ledge, staring down at Pippin. "Could you not have found a door?"
"It hurts, Merry..." Pippin curled his knees to his chest.
"I suspect so." Merry nodded gravely. "Too much fruit'll do that too you."
"I'm sorry, Merry. I'm so sorry." Pippin trembled violently and then held himself still, squeezing his eyes shut.
"Don't tell me that," Merry said blandly. "You can tell King Theoden yourself. It's his window you broke, not mine."
He stepped down from the window carefully, avoiding the shards of glass. He reached towards Pippin. "Come on, up you get." He took Pippin's arm and tried to pull him up, but his arm was so covered in berry juice that it slipped from Merry's grasp. Merry stumbled back a step, then looked at his hands. "Funny," he mused aloud. "This juice is really hot..."
Merry licked his finger, and the horror of recognition punched him in the face. Blood. Blood...? Blood!
"Pippin!" Merry cried. "What happened?"
"I'm sorry!" Pippin said again. "I didn't mean to fall..." He let out a small groan.
Merry felt sick, seeing the blood covering Pippin's body and coating the bushes and tainting the fruit. The bits and pieces of glass on the ground shimmered with red.
"Let me see." Merry knelt beside Pippin.
Pippin held out his arm shakily, holding onto it with his other hand. Blood ran down between his weak fingers.
"Move your hand," Merry ordered.
Pippin obeyed. Blood gushed out from a gash in his muscle, twitching and bubbling like a pot of boiling water.
Invisable hands stretched apart Merry's eyelids.
"Don't they smell good?" Pippin asked softly.
"What?" Merry bit back his fear.
"The strawberries..."
Tears whelled in Merry's eyes. He closed his hand over Pippin's gash. The blood pounded against the palm of his hand, trying to get out. Some of it did, slipping warmly across Merry's hand and down his arm.
"I'm scared, Merry," Pippin said suddenly.
"It's okay, Pip," Merry said soothingly. He sank down to his knees so he could hold onto Pippin's arm more tightly. He glanced around for any signs of people. No one. The little garden was quiet, apart from the crickets and the soft hum of the bees.
Merry took Pippin's hand, guiding him to hold his wound again. Merry stood up.
"Where are you going?" Pippin asked, panicked. He tried to sit up, but his hair was tangled in the bushes and it tugged him back.
"Nowhere, lay back down," Merry told him.
Pippin blinked slowly, laying his head down, watching Merry.
Merry stuck his head back in the window, leaning over the jagged ledge and cutting up his clothes and scratching his stomach. "Help!" He screamed. "Legolas!"
"Is it that bad?" Pippin asked quietly as Merry sat down beside him.
"No, not really," Merry kept his tone light. "It's just, I can't carry you back inside. You've gotten too fat."
"You're one to talk," Pippin retorted weakly. "You're the one that eats so much bread..."
Merry forced a laugh, straining his ears for any sign that help was arriving. "Yeah." He smiled thinly. "Yeah..."
...
Gandalf went with King Theoden to the funeral of his son and niece. Gandalf didn't want to bring the rest of the Fellowship along, seeing how one of them was the cause of Eowyn's death, so he left them in the castle to sleep and regain their strength.
Theoden was grateful and he let Gandalf speak for him in that great, assertive voice of his. Wreaths of flowers were placed on the coffins and townspeople gathered in mourning. Black was the color of choice, for it is as dark and lonely as midnight.
After Gandalf's brief speech on the bravery of the two relatives and their strong spirits that shall live on in everyone's hearts, Theoden started everyone in song. A song without instruments, to which all the people sang without fear of how they might sound. For is not alleviating another Man's grief more important than the fear of being judged by one's singing? So is how the people thought, and all their voices joined as one to carve through the dark bitterness of death in hopes of bringing back the joy and sunshine.
...
"Thank you, Gandalf," Theoden said after the tombs were shut and the people dispersed to their homes. "I know you wanted so badly to move on to Mordor, and yet you stayed here for me. Thank you."
Gandalf bowed humbly. "I am glad to be of service," he said.
Theoden sighed, watching a flag of Rohan blow in the wind from atop a nearby shop. "Will death ever cease in this place?" He asked regretfully.
"Not as long as we are mortal," Gandalf replied.
Theoden smiled slightly. After a moment of thought, he patted Gandalf on the shoulder. "Come. There is no sense in mourning the dead," he said lightly. "They will stay dead no matter what we may hope for."
Before Gandalf could say anything, Theoden went on.
"And as soon as your Hobbit friend destroys that Ring, death will come when nature decides, not violence or war."
Gandalf smiled because that's what Theoden wanted to see when he looked at him. Theoden patted Gandalf again, and Gandalf patted him back.
...
Aragorn was uncertain whether or not he had ever been more aroused than he was at that moment. With Boromir on top of him, pounding his fist repeatedly into his face, lust burned within him and he wanted to laugh and scream and cry. His legs twitched and he wanted to kick Boromir off of him, chop off his head, and rape the bloody neck-hole. But he wanted to feel this, those hard knuckles bursting into his chin, his lips, cutting against his teeth and splitting apart his skin. He wanted to see how long he could take it.
Boromir was yelling something with the most hateful voice that Aragorn had ever heard, but he couldn't understand the words. It was just loud noise, and combined with the constant thumping of Boromir's fists into his face, the sounds just muddled together like two different songs playing at the same time. A dazed expression passed over Aragorn's face, and stayed there.
Boromir seized him by the throat and lifted him up, then slammed him down against the ground. His fingers tightened around Aragorn's windpipe, his eyes dark, dark gray and blushed red from their watering. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. Boromir thought blindly as he screamed obscenities, his body shaking all over. But then his eyes met Aragorn's, and something soft cusioned his anger. Are you crying? Boromir wondered in amazement.
Suddenly, Boromir released him, leaning back and sitting on his heels, still straddling Aragorn. He sat there, his hands trembling in blood fists at his sides. His mouth was open and he sucked in his breath rapidly, his heart racing. He avoided Aragorn's eyes, staring instead at the gored body of his horse, that moments ago had been a living, breathing creature. I cannot kill you, he thought, and in admitting that to himself he felt oddly at peace.
Aragorn blinked, seeing purple and white behind his eyelids. He coughed violently for a moment before taking in a deep breath. Blood ran down from his cracked teeth and puddled in the back of his throat. He swallowed it, but more kept coming. He reached up tenetively and touched his swollen, busted lips, but he could not feel them. Then he realized Boromir on top of him, but not pinning down his arms anymore, and he sat up sharply and shoved Boromir off of him.
Boromir fell over onto his side but quickly jumped to his feet, his eyes wide and alert.
"I don't feel good," Aragorn said drowsily, poking his thumb into a gash in his cheek unconsciously.
Boromir relaxed slightly.
"What did you do to me?" Aragorn asked, rocking side-to-side, his mind swimming. He looked up at Boromir, seeing him as if from a great distance. His head began to throb, and his vision pulsed with it.
"You had gone mad," Boromir told him stiffly.
"Had I?" Aragorn asked, slumping over on himself. He crossed his arms over his chest in a weak attempt to stop the world from shaking him apart. Why am I feeling so ill? "I believe I have a fever," he muttered, raising his hand to cover his forehead.
Boromir went to him, moving Aragorn's hand out of the way and replacing it with his own. "Tis possible," Boromir concluded.
"Where are we?"
"About fifteen miles from Rohan," Boromir told him.
"Rohan?"
Boromir felt a pang of guilt. I've hurt him too much, he thought miserably. He went over to his dead horse and removed the flask of water from his saddle bag. He brought it back to Aragorn and held it to his lips.
"Drink," he said.
Aragorn drank, or at least, he tried to. His mouth was broken and bruised, numbed by the damage Boromir had done, and it no longer knew how to hold water. It ran down between his gaping lips, mixing with blood.
Aragorn coughed and sputtered. "Is that sand?" He asked madly. "What a cruel joke."
Boromir frowned. "No," he said, then took a drink from the flask to be sure. "Just water." Then it hit Boromir that perhaps he had shattered some of Aragorn's teeth, and he was drinking the grit. Shame, shame. He hung his head guiltily. "I'm sorry, Aragorn," he said pathetically.
Aragorn waved at him dismissively. "It's nothing to fret over, just don't tease me like that again."
Boromir glanced up. The sun was high in the sky, soon to be dipping down towards the West. No doubt Faramir was in Rohan by now.
"We must go," he said, standing up.
"Where?"
"Rohan."
"Why?"
"Do you remember Frodo, and the Ring?" Boromir asked.
"Of course I do!" Aragorn snapped. He stood up to emphasize that he was no weakling or fool. But he did not divulge what all he remembered, or what he forgot.
"He's in Rohan, and he may be under attack." Boromir caught Aragorn as he stumbled on his own feet.
"Then why are we here? We must go to him!" Aragorn pushed himself away from Boromir and walked in a uncertain line, headed to his horse, which was eating grass a few yards away.
Boromir followed and helped him mount up, getting on the back with him. He wrapped his hands around Aragorn's waist, taking the horse's reigns.
"Hold on tight," Boromir told him gently.
"I'm not a child," Aragorn scoffed, but he held on to the horse's mane as he was told.
Boromir kicked the horse and it lept forward, quickly beating its pace into a gallop. Aragorn lolled in front of him like a potato sack, and Boromir did his best to hold him upright with his arms, stretching out in front of him and steering the horse with his fingers wrapped around the thin reigns. I hope we are not too late, Boromir thought, seeing the tracks of Faramir's army blurr underfoot as they gained speed. Please, don't let us be too late.
