"Drowning in
Amber"
by s1ncer1ty
Notes: Nope, no slash yet, unless you want it to be. I like slash, just not tremendously so with Merry and Pippin (though I can in some circumstances see Frodo and Sam, but that's not really relevant here). I don't want to limit reader interpretations, though. To me, as I'm writing it, it strikes me as very close intimacy, without sexuality. This one's for you, eretria -- Merry angst! Hooray!
Musical Inspiration: 'Don't Cry' by Guns 'n Roses
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Alas, alack, etc.
~*~ Tindoome : Meriadoc : Parth Galen ~*~
"Don't you cry tonight.
There's a heaven above you, baby."
~ Guns 'n Roses
It's been many a night since I've lain beside Merry, yet this evening I find myself yearning for his warm weight against my back as the abyss of dreams gives way to a restless awakening. Within my ears, I hear my heart thudding ever so swiftly faster in a hard, steady thrum, and I lie still for some time before I realize that a return to sleep will be a long time coming without my best mate at my side.
Despite the inherent dangers, Parth Galen is peacefully still at night, set beneath a canopy of thousands of stars and the full face of an ever-watching moon. I pull my cloak fast about my shoulders, wriggling to unknot the tension in my back and shoulders, and I climb to my feet. I take great pains to be even quieter than normal as I pad across the makeshift camp in search of my cousin.
I pass each member of our dwindling Fellowship, each in various states of slumber –- Aragorn, sitting up propped against a tree, the hood of his cloak drawn atop his eyes; Boromir, restless, as if plagued by disturbing dreams; Gimli, a massive ball of leather and helm curled upon the ground; Samwise, lying protectively close to Frodo, who himself twists and whimpers in an unending web of nightmares and Ring-whispered temptations. Legolas does not rest, but instead maintains a patrolling watch of the wood for any sign of Orc activity, and although his back is to me as I pass, he knows of my presence.
There is space made in the camp, a bare portion of unspoiled ground, in the very unlikely event that Gandalf might return.
I turn away with a rising lump in my throat, but any tears have long since been spent for Gandalf. Right now, what aches more is my inability to find Merry among the huddled sleepers. With a deep exhalation of breath, too shallow to be a true sigh, I twine my thumbs in the loops of my suspenders and move down the worn path leading away from camp, towards the river.
My tracks take me through the break of forest towards the makeshift dock where we'd moored our boats earlier in the day. The night is peaceful, the stars shimmering like fireflies against a full-moon backdrop, yet at the same time it is unbearably lonely.
Ultimately pausing beside the water, I find through the thin stream of moonlight that trickles through the treetops a still, huddled figure sitting atop an overturned Elvish boat. My footsteps make no noise whatsoever as I pad atop the packed riverbed clay, and though I strain to see through the darkness, I instantly recognize the shape of my cousin. I do not suppress the smile that comes to my lips, although I approach him with undue caution -- who's to tell whether or not he's still angry after all these days?
"Merry?" I whisper aloud, once I've soundlessly closed the physical distance between us.
Merry turns towards me in a sudden movement, his eyes blazing with apprehension. Even in the darkness I can see his right hand jerk to the hilt of the sword at his waist.
"Merry, it's just me. Peregrin."
His tongue snakes out, wetting his lips, and he releases his breath in a heavy sigh, hand falling limp against his leg. "Pippin. It's not nice to go sneaking up on people like that. What if I'd drawn my sword upon you?"
"Then perhaps you'd have run me through if I didn't jump out of the way in quick enough time." I offer a very faintly joking smirk and a nudge to his shoulder, but Merry takes it in almost uncharacteristic anger.
"Don't speak like that, Pippin!" he snaps, recoiling his shoulder from beneath my searching hand.
I unfurl the edge of my cloak beneath me and simply join Merry's side, keeping sufficient distance between our two bodies atop the night-chilled wood. "I was hardly serious, Merry," I explain. "I doubt you'd have run me through. Your wits and my feet are both fast enough to avoid such pain."
"Nonetheless, you shouldn't do such foolish things. That way neither of us would be inconvenienced," Merry states awkwardly, settling his arms upon his knees. He turns away from me and stares moodily out across the great expanse of water.
"Merry...?"
"Don't talk right now, Pippin. Please, not another word," he interrupts, pleading.
My cousin's unease is almost tangible, emanating from him in dark, strained shivers of confused anger. I fall silent at his request, my fingers finding a break in the wood upon the overturned boat and holding fast there. I keep my eyes downcast, and I know that he will speak in due time. But it must be of his own volition.
And after a long, drawn out, uncomfortable silence, he finally does speak, words drawn out in labored reluctance. It is a struggle -- perhaps even one so intelligent as Merry cannot find the proper words to express the extent of his grief.
"Oh, Pip," he whispers. "I'd never truly realized it until now, coming as far as we have upon this journey. We're small. We're so very small." His confession is painful, intensely so. I can no longer bear to look away.
"Well, of course we're small, when you look at such strong Men as Strider and Boromir," I remark in a soft, offhanded voice, joking in hopes of taking his mind from his grief. "Even other Men pale in comparison to those two."
"Yes, I know that," he returns testily, and the teasing light in my eyes dwindles. "Don't you see, Pip, up until recently, I'd thought us to be normal in size! That the rest of the world was sized to accommodate us, and that Men were the anomalies for being so unbearably large. I realize now that we're the ones who are abnormal, for being so small." The last several words are said in a pleading whisper that almost breaks my heart.
"Merry, Merry," I murmur, sliding an arm across his back. He swipes at his eyes, pushing away dark glimmers of tears or amber, and struggles to regain composure.
"Why hadn't we listened to Elrond, Pip?" he whispers in a strangled voice. "Do you think, if there were ones larger to take our place, that he would still be with us?"
I know he speaks of Gandalf, and my heart aches at the allusion to the old wizard. The memory of his stern voice filters through my thoughts, as do his bushy eyebrows and his delicate, Man-shod feet. "I don't know, Merry. But we can't wind back time, now can we?" I murmur, reiterating the lesson that Legolas had taught me so keenly in Lothlorien.
"What if we weren't so small?" Merry looks up, dark-swimming eyes desperately straining to find mine in the darkness.
I cannot see the blackening tide that pulls at him, but I know, either from intuition or from experience, that it tugs fast at his ankles and at the edge of his cloak. But I will not let him go under. I will not let him succumb as I had to this great anguish made tangible. I wrap my arms around my cousin and hold him aloft.
"So what if we're small, eh, Merry lad?" I murmur fast into his ear. "Are we lesser for it? Does it make us any more or less significant? We've always known that there was a vast world outside of the Shire. I'd just never thought we'd ever have to leave. If we'd known what lay ahead, would we ever have wanted to?" I understand, and I sympathize –- I truly do. You do not come away without scars after watching your worldview shatter to millions of crystal shards before your very eyes.
"Oh, Pip," Merry mumbles, his voice no longer sounding quite so choked. He pulls away, and I see the grief in his eyes replaced with grim determination. "If I survive to return to the Shire, I shall never set a single foot outside its borders again."
I know it is a brash statement, for Merry -- like myself -- possesses the 'unhobbitlike' love for travel and for great adventure. I find myself saying nothing in response, allowing instead a suffocating silence to blanket my thoughts, for I would not deny Merry his sadness; yet I would also not wish to see him regret his words later down the road. And perhaps he, too, knows it's folly, for he lets the silence of the moment hang like a stifling veil between us.
"Merry," I finally manage to whisper. "Have we been too long in the company of Men that we must adopt their mannerisms?"
He turns to me, brows knitted in an unexpected contemplation. "Perhaps we are, Pip."
"I can't say that I particularly like it."
Amazingly, Merry manages a weak laugh as he shakes his head. "I do not like it either. If this is what Men must feel within their hearts all the time, then perhaps I should prefer to be so small."
"I don't believe it's something that all Men feel all the time," I return. "There is a time and a place for despair. It's just that Men feel this despair too keenly. They cannot look beyond their grief to see the beauty in the present."
Merry leans back against his hands and points towards the sky where a million tiny shards of diamonds look down upon us. "I recall an old saying that my Da' used to say to me when I was a child. 'If you weep because the day has passed, your tears will not let you see the stars.'"
Looking at Merry out of the corner of my eye, I give him a quiet, sincere smile. "Yes, I do believe I'm through with crying."
"As am I, Pip," he says, shifting forward and slinging a companionable arm across my back. "Perhaps not for good, since we've so far to go before we reach peace at the end of our road. But for now, I am done."
"I find it amazing that you, the magnificent Meriadoc Brandybuck, actually weep," I state with a quick laugh.
"More than I'll ever let on. Yet still less than you, crybaby," Merry returns with a smile and a nudge to my shoulder.
"How I've missed you, Merry," I suddenly whisper, feeling a deep -- but tearless -- well of emotion stirring within me, choking the strain of my voice.
Merry does not respond, and instead cradles me in the warm comfort of his arm, until the radiance of his companionship weighs upon my eyes, and I shut them against a lulling swirl of shimmering thoughts. I hardly realize I've begun to doze until he shakes my shoulders lightly, and we crawl to the ground beside the overturned boat. With heavy eyes and sleep-fumbling fingers, I help him untangle both my cloak and his own before curling up in a heap beside him.
We are tangled, but comfortable, two great, warm hobbits beneath a vast sky. And tomorrow may bring a time for fighting, or for further grief; but for now there are no tears obscuring the stars, and there is no great tide of amber threatening to drag us below its depths. There is only the sound of the river lapping gently against the shore, of vigilant Elf-feet made deliberately audible, and of Merry's gentle, comforting breath in my hair.
...owari...
(Chapter title translations from Quenya: Quorin - drowning; Nienaite - in tears; Tindoome - starry twilight)