Realms of Gondor, February of 1439
Pippin cast a sideways glance at Merry as they galloped across the plains. A few days had gone by now since they left Ithilien in a hurry, left for the Shire Pippin had thought. Merry was however going in the wrong direction but he seemed so sure of where he was headed that Pippin hadn't questioned the choice of direction nor the pace. Merry kept his pony in a gallop for as long as the animal had the strength to run; it was as if he was in a great hurry to be somewhere. Or as if he wanted to create as big a distance between himself and Ithilien as possible. Though Pippin longed to go back home he was not in a big enough hurry to point out to Merry that they were headed the wrong way. Still he couldn't figure out why Merry couldn't ride in the same pace but in the right direction.
Very little was said between them. Merry didn't want to talk about what had happened and Pippin didn't want to ask. During the first hours Pippin had gotten the feeling that Merry was glad that he was with him but that feeling had been replaced by one of feeling like he was in the way. But he was not about to leave Merry now and head back home, not when his cousin was acting this way. He had a strong feeling that if he let his cousin out of sight Merry might disappear again and that was not something Pippin was about to accept. He would not allow his cousin to run away from his problems that way.
The odd thing was that Merry seemed to know where he was going. Every now and then he halted his pony and took a good look around before deciding on what course to take. It bewildered Pippin but he chose to keep quiet for now. Something told him that if he were to ask, Merry wouldn't give him a satisfying answer. He probably wouldn't give him any answer at all. Whatever was going on, Merry obviously preferred to keep it all to himself, at least for the time being.
One afternoon Merry slowed his pony down to a walk and got a look of determination on his face. He steered his animal towards a certain goal and Pippin had no choice but to follow. By the time the sun was setting and it was time to make camp they reached a campsite populated by the same tiny creatures that they had encountered on their way to Ithilien. It even seemed to be the same group, even though Pippin could have sworn this was not the same campsite as before. How Merry had been able to find them Pippin would never know.
The old woman from before came up to them and Merry said something to her in a language that Pippin didn't understand. The two debated for a while and then Merry turned to Pippin and dismounted his pony.
"They will let you stay for the night" he said. "I gave them my word that you would never breathe a single syllable about them, not to any living soul."
"Even if I wanted to no one would believe me" Pippin muttered and got down on the ground, wondering if he even wanted to spend the night with them. All of his instincts told him it would be a bad idea.
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That evening turned out to be the queerest in all of Pippin's life. The tiny figures, Merry called them fingots, made a fire and served the Hobbits food. They were all very quiet and seemed wary of Pippin but comfortable around Merry. Pippin had never heard anything about these creatures before; they were not in any stories. It was as if they had just appeared out of nowhere. Pippin found himself very uncomfortable in their presence.
The old woman sat by Merry's side as they ate and spoke with him in her own language. Pippin felt isolated and secluded; there was nobody around who seemed to be willing to speak with him. He longed for when the night would be over and they could leave. He wondered why Merry had brought them here.
"Do they speak the Common Tongue?" Pippin had to ask Merry after a while, feeling he would go crazy if no one said something he could understand.
"No, only their leader does."
The old woman looked at Pippin and said something to Merry. They seemed to debate for a while and then they began speaking in the language Pippin knew. Pippin guessed they had been discussing whether or not they should allow Pippin to understand what they were saying.
"Now you have completed your unfinished task" Glagah said to Merry in the Common Tongue. "Is it so, Kali?"
"I thought I had" Merry said with a hesitant look at Pippin. "Though as it turns out, it was not an unfinished task but something which should have never come to be in the first place. I've put myself right back to square one."
Pippin concentrated on his food and wished he hadn't asked for someone to speak in the Common Tongue. He would rather not listen in on this particular conversation. It was odd enough to hear Merry being called by another name, getting insight on some of his private thoughts made Pippin very uncomfortable. He was not used to finding out Merry's secrets through someone else.
"Him…" Glagah said and pointed at Pippin.
Pippin looked up from his supper with large confused eyes. He wondered what he had done to make the old woman point her finger at him and have something specific to say. He glanced at Merry for some idea but his cousin didn't return the look.
"He is your friend, yes?" Glagah said to Merry.
"Yes but things are different now" Merry told her in her language and filled his mouth with food to avoid being asked to say anything else.
"Yes…" Glagah said in the Common Tongue and looked at Pippin again. "You no longer ride on one horse."
She got up and left the two cousins alone. Pippin watched her go and then leaned over and lowered his voice to speak with Merry.
"What was that now?"
Merry was quiet for a while before he answered.
"She means that our lives no longer follow the same path. We used to be unified, as if we rode on the same horse and had no interest in going in different directions. Now we ride separate horses and can go wherever we choose."
Pippin nodded slowly and finished his meal. He had thought the comment referred to Éowyn, who literally used to ride the same horse as Merry. But nothing seemed to be able to make Merry speak of Éowyn or his feelings for her anymore and the old woman must surely know it. How the she had known that Pippin and Merry had been close in the past was a mystery to Pippin at first, then he figured Merry must have explained everything to her while they were eating. But it gave him an odd feeling which he couldn't shake, and he wished the night would be over soon so they could leave.
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Glagah joined Merry by the camp fire later that evening. Pippin was asleep not far from the fireplace, curled up on his left side with his backpack as a pillow and his cape as a blanket. Most of the fingots had gone to rest as well, but Merry could not sleep. He had too much to think about. He had glanced over at the two ponies grazing nearby several times and tried to come to terms with the tough decision he had made.
"You have come back to us for good" Glagah said, in a tone which made it either a question or a statement. Merry couldn't tell which. "You no longer belong to the other world. You won't go back there."
"I cannot go back" Merry said. "There are too many people I cannot face. I was happy living here, with no memories I was still content with my life and I wasn't when I lived among the people I originally belonged with. That ought to be a sign as clear as any that life will be better for me here."
"You know now what caused you to lose your memory" Glagah said matter-of-factly. "There was something that was too difficult for you to remember and the trauma you went through made you forget it. Only you forgot everything else along with it."
"Almost everything else."
"It was easier for you not to remember anything at all than to remember what had happened."
"I threw away friendship and fidelity… For the rest of my life I would be forced to serve people I had betrayed. I could not escape. And all that waited for me at home was someone I had promised to marry but could not give my heart to. I remember now. Since I went out riding again my memories have begun to return to me, one after the other. And I cannot face now what I couldn't face then. Especially not since things are much worse this time around."
"When you left us that day to go hunting and you never returned I assumed you had found your own kind again" Glagah said. "Judging from what you've told me you hit your head and it caused you to forget everything again. Only this time the one thing you remembered was the one thing you had been trying so hard to forget. The reason you never remembered anything when you were with us was that your mind was fighting for all its worth to forget the truth that was too difficult for you. You denied that it existed. The price you paid for that was to forget everything else and then in the end the tables turned on you and you only remember a shred of the very thing you wanted to forget."
"Éowyn" Merry mumbled.
"All the years you lived with us you remembered someone you couldn't let go of, then you forgot that person and remembered the one you wished to forget. Now you are back with us and you are ready to live here for good" Glagah said. "There can be no more returning to your own kind. If you do go back to them you cannot come to us again. You have to make the choice now."
"I made the choice already" Merry said. "I am here and I will stay here. I belonged with them once but not anymore."
Glagah cast a glance at the sleeping Hobbit five yards from the fire.
"And your friend?"
"My friend will go on tomorrow without me."
"You will never see him again. The one thing you could never forget was a friend and he is sleeping here within your reach. Tomorrow when you wake up he will be gone forever. Can you let go?"
"Absolutely."
"And you are aware of what that means?" Glagah said. "He will be as dead to you. You will never see his face or hear his voice again."
"My memories of him have begun to come back as well, but slowly. Only a shred here or there. He was my good friend once but times have changed and so have we. What you said about us no longer riding the same horse was true. We struggle to get along, to be friends, but what we really want is to break free. It's so hard to marry the memories of him that are coming back to me with the way we are to each other now. Too hard. It is time for us both to cut our losses. It is better for us both if he rides off tomorrow and never looks back."
"You are willing to give him up to protect yourself from the hardships that a life in his world would bring you?"
"Glagah I have confessed love for someone who should never have heard it… I know you don't feel love the way we do and so you cannot fully understand it, but I gave her my heart and she… she could not give it back to me but she couldn't keep it either. She broke it. And though I already knew she would I…" He sighed and tried to find the words. "I know it seems to you like I am running but I'm not. Life is too complicated in that world. I love someone who loves me in return but loves her husband more. I can never look her in the eye again, nor her husband. And everyone I know will wonder why. Back in the Shire, the place where I come from, I am expected to rule a group of my own people but the truth is I'm not the best person to do the job. My cousin ruled in my stead and he deserves to continue to do so but that can't happen so long as I'm there. I have promised someone that I will marry them but the truth is I love someone else and can never be happy with my fiancée, nor can I ever make her happy with me. If I stay here I will be accepted, I will be at home. All the friends I have forgotten about will no longer be a burden or a problem. I have come to love this simple life and I don't want to live any other way."
"And the friend you could not forget?" Glagah said with a nod in Pippin's direction. "He will be the price you pay for staying with us."
"His horse is headed in a different direction than mine" Merry said and stared into the fire. He didn't want to discuss the matter any further.
Glagah cast another glance at Pippin. It was interesting to finally get a face and a name to the person their Kali had never been able to forget. It was obvious to Glagah that the two had been close in the past, closer than she had ever been to anyone in her life. But the closeness was gone. Glagah only wondered if there was enough of it left to make her taller friend miserable. If he had been able to forget all other things but the friend who was with him now, would he ever be able to set him completely aside and be happy with his life without him?
"When he leaves tomorrow he will be gone for good" Glagah said. "He is never to return and you are never to leave."
"I wish he had left already" Merry said truthfully.
Glagah nodded slowly. It was clear. He had made his choice. She rose to get to bed and gave the Hobbit a comforting pat on the shoulder. This would be his last night of wondering. Tomorrow all the decisions would have been made.
XX
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Pippin shivered in the cold and tried not to wake anybody up. He had said to Merry last night that they would ride at dawn and Merry had nodded and said everything would be ready by then. The fingots would not be awake, which to Pippin was an added perk. The less interaction he had with them the better.
It was only the first days of February and very cold. Pippin could see his own breath and the ground was covered with frost. He pulled his mittens on and rubbed his arms to keep warm. The fire had gone out.
Merry had meant what he said about everything being ready. Pippin walked over to his pony which had been made ready for the journey before Pippin had woken up. The pony was saddled up and ready to go, tied to a small pole in the ground. Merry's pony was still grazing nearby. Only one horse was going to leave the campsite this morning.
Pippin swallowed hard and untied the pony. Somewhere in the back of his head he had known this before he went to bed the night before. Merry was not coming with him, he had never had any intentions of leaving. Pippin's horse was returning to the Shire, Merry's was staying behind.
Forcing himself not to think about it Pippin got up in the saddle and grabbed a firm hold of the reins. He wished Merry had at least had the decency of getting up to say goodbye but in the end maybe it was better this way. What did they have left to say to one another anyway?
He couldn't help but wonder what he would tell everyone when he returned. That Merry was gone again? He couldn't in good conscience let people believe that Merry was dead when he knew for a fact that his cousin lived on, yet he had promised not to say a word about the fingots. It was the second hard dilemma Merry had placed him in within two weeks.
"Pippin wait!"
A hand grabbed a hold of the reins just as Pippin was about to leave. Pippin stared at Merry as if he had seen a ghost. He had not heard him get up.
"You don't have to come and say goodbye" Pippin said. "Let me ride off without anything being said… Perhaps it is easier that way. Either way I don't have the first clue what to say to you and I've already said goodbye to you for real once."
"Don't leave without me!"
"What?"
"I never saw, I never understood before, what this friendship means to you" Merry said and placed his hand over Pippin's. "A sense of security, a sense of belonging. Being so comfortable around another person that their mere presence makes you feel at home. Everything you once believed about us must be true for otherwise why would I feel this so strong even when I don't know who you are?"
"But what does that have to do with you coming with me?"
"All I want to do is to leave my troubles and sorrows behind, forget about the complicated life I am expected to lead in the place where I'm claimed to belong… There is only one thing stopping me. I cannot let you ride out of my life. You must take me with you! I was telling you the truth that time when I said I would remember you if all other things were forgotten, all those years I spent with the fingots I knew who you were! I remembered you, not Éowyn, but I was unable to find you. If I let you leave now I will never see you again, you and I both know that. And the fact is, I need to see you again. The cost of saying farewell to my troubles forever would be saying farewell to the friendship we lost and I cannot pay that price. So please. Let me come with you."
"Where is your pony?" Pippin asked, unable to think of anything else to say.
"I was hoping we could leave him behind…"
Merry reached up a hand to Pippin who took it with confusion and helped Merry up on the pony. He now noticed that Merry had his backpack and most of his belongings strapped on his back and was indeed ready to leave. Merry grabbed a hold of Pippin's cape and leaned closer to speak directly into Pippin's ear.
"We can ride on one horse again" he said.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Absolutely sure."
"What about these… fingots?"
"They will understand. Glagah already does. She knew last night that I would leave for good. There is no need to say goodbye to them."
Pippin nodded slowly and drove his pony to a trot. He didn't feel the slightest urge to look back as they left the fingot camp behind them. Merry had chosen the difficult path, and the reason was that he hadn't been willing to give up their friendship for good. Pippin was starting to feel like he was back with the old Merry again.
"By the way, do you still have that goldish-brown coat you borrowed from me?" Merry asked.
Pippin turned his head and looked at his grinning cousin. Pippin had borrowed that coat two weeks before Merry had disappeared.
"I think we buried it" he told his cousin.
"That's just wonderful. You owe me a new coat."
Pippin couldn't help but laugh when he received a playful boxing on the arm. He drove the pony to a gallop and longed to get back home. He knew they had a tough time ahead of them but that didn't matter much to either one of them at the moment. There were a lot of adjustments to be made once they reached the Shire but at least they were travelling there on one horse.
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I know it's been ages since I last updated. Sorry! I've just been so busy lately that I haven't had the time.
One more chapter and then it's over! I'm glad you've been with me this far.