Author's Note: Okay! I decided, "Maybe fanfiction needs some attention, eh?" because I've been working nonstop on my Original Fiction on Fiction Press. Happy Easter!
Disclaimer: Ever hear of Monty Python? Yeah well I'll give a Pippin Plushie to anyone who can tell me what all the guys think of Immanuel Kant. WHOO!
Pippin's First Love Chapter Nine
At first, Diamond didn't know what to do with the ring. Surely if she wore it on her finger properly, Nob would be angry and that would be the last time she saw it or Pippin. Or both! She clutched the ring closer and looked nervously to the rising sun, folding her blankets half-heartedly. A booming knock echoed on her door as Diamond clasped her gold necklace to her neck.
"OUT!" Nob yelled thickly and moved on to the next door. Diamond leapt out of her window and into her sister's before Nob's hungover steps could reach them. Leaping to the door, Diamond undid the locks and jumped out of the window as her sisters woke up. She heard him say a sluggish good morning and then he was off to wake up Matteus and the others. With a sigh Diamond opened her door and looked about the near empty house. She felt a hand bury into her hair softly and pull her out of the way. Matteus grinned stupidly at her and yanked her hair again. Diamond toppled to the floor silently, hoping that his swimming sight wouldn't see her there. Matteus groaned softly and leaned on the wall, leaning over Diamond he frowned.
"Diamond, what're you doing on the floor?" he asked, cleary confused and hungover. Diamond skittered clear of him as he passed out noisily onto the floor, fast asleep.
"Behemoth!" she spat and gently kicked her brother, feeling tears. With a snort and ferocious shake of her head, Diamond helped her sisters to the cart gingerly and then loaded their meager possesions. Looking skeptically at the sleeping figure of her older brother, Diamond poked him with her foot. Matteus groaned and rolled over softly with his eyes fluttering.
" I-is it t-t-time to go now, Diamond?" he stuttered, trying to blink his bloodshot eyes clear.
"Indeed, dear brother, let's go. Come on, I'll help." she assured and let him lean on her shoulders for balance. With a gentle push, Matteus fell into the back of the cart, asleep again. Mirabella looked at Matteus, frightened by his inability to stay awake.
"He didn't catch what Mamma had, did he?" she prodded him with her foot. Diamond looked at Matteus's sleeping form and sighed.
"Naw, Mirabella, he's just caught ale and wine. Mamma had a sickness." she said bitterly. Mirabella put her head down softly and bit her lip.
"I wish that we weren't moving." she whispered. Diamond felt another tear slide down her cheek. With another furious shake of her head, the single tear flew off her face and out of her sight.
"So do I, little one, so do I." she hugged her sister and watched the sun rise over the trees in the Old Forest. Diamond cautiously pulled the ring from her pocket and undid her necklace. She attached the ring to the plain chain she normally wore. Smiling at the glittering jewels, Diamond climbed to the front and looked to Nob who was nearly asleep again. He handed her the reins to the ponies pulling their cart without a word. With a gentle slap with the reins, Diamond put the animals in motion. Every clap of the ponies' hooves on the dusty road made Diamond's throat choke up even more. When they had finally made it clear of Hobbiton, Diamond let Nob take the reins again so that she could sit in the back. She laughed bitterly as the river babbled under the bridge they crossed, earning several odd looks for her behavior. She looked at the house they passed, a young hobbit stood blearily outside the house, beating on the door sleepily. He set his various packs down and shouldered the door gently before setting himself on his largest pack and laughing. He looked up and saw Diamond on the cart, sitting so carefully, a gentle breeze would've blown her off the cart. Diamond gaped, pulling on the older hobbit's shoulders impatiently. The cart rolled to a stop as they began second breakfast, right in the road. Diamond slid off the cart silently and walked over to the young hobbit seated outside his house. Merry gaped as she neared with a grin.
"What're you doing, stranger?" she asked sarcastically. Merry felt a smile tug at his face as she looked at his bags.
"Moving back in. Pippin's in trouble. Again." Merry shook his head slowly, still half-asleep from riding in the back of Farmer Maggot's chicken cart until he tried to cross the bridge.
"Oh dear, not because of me I hope!" Diamond joked, trying to lighten her own mood. Merry smiled and reached up to touch her hand when he spotted the ring hanging from the chain. He seized the ring and pulled her down next to him, looking the ring over.
"Diamond, you could get that boy in trouble just looking at him." Merry said distractedly. Diamond shifted uncomfortably as Merry fingered the ring in awe of what Pippin had done. He looked up into her nervous eyes and smiled, letting the ring drop.
"We're going to have to be going pretty soon." Diamond didn't like the look in Merry's eye. He looked at her form, in a plain blue dress so she wouldn't have to change for the ceremony when they moved in. Family was coming from all over Long Cleeve to celebrate their return.
"So you will. You'll be missed, you do know that?" he asked, playing with her hair and whispering. Diamond shuddered softly and looked at Merry questionably as he continued to play with her curls.
"I should hope I wasn't enough of a jerk to ensure my friends' happiness I have gone." Diamond tried to scoot away from the young hobbit. He let her hair go and looked at her shaking hand, which until a second ago had hovered, ready to hit his hands away. He smiled again and looked at the bronze comb in her hair, holding it off her face. A dragonfly was etched into the bronze lightly, as if by magic. Merry shook his head sharply and looked at his feet.
"Whereas I was enough of a jerk to have my own Uncle send me on my way." Merry whispered bitterly. Diamond sighed in relief as he tore his gaze from her. She looked at his pathetic attempt to break the lock on the door and snorted.
"Come now, you weren't a jerk, Pippin was in trouble. No fun for you when your cousin is in trouble." she punched his arm lightly and smiled. Merry smiled and looked up from his feet to the cart just around the bend in the road.
"No fun when Uncle Paladin is yelling every night about the reasons we're late. He seems to think we're nasty little hobbits with too much in mind already." Merry laughed bitterly again and folded his hands in his lap. Diamond had half a mind to scream and tell him he'd practically molested her in front of his own house, but she didn't want to make an ordeal of that brief look he'd given her.
"I know about screaming." she pointed a finger to the cart. "Used to be Nob home every once and a while, drunk enough to think we were defying him. Now it's Matteus too, depressed and sobbing when he gets home with Nob. Then the hitting" she whispered and looked at her bruises as if to assure herself that's what was happening. Merry put an arm on her shoulder and looked at her wrists, bruised and bloody marks all over them. She tugged her light jacket back over them and looked up into Merry's eyes. "For the first time in my life, I'm really scared for my family. We're moving out a secluded farmhouse. Merry I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm scared." she let another tear fall onto her cheek as Merry looked into her flooding eyes with sympathy.
"Bravest people I know are scared for the ones they love. If you ever need a place to stay, you know where I live." Merry gestured to the house behind him with a smile. Diamond smiled through her tears and let her head drop onto his shoulder softly. She heard Rosie scream loudly and jump off the cart. With a jump Diamond sat up and looked at the cart. Mirabella and Rosie clutched at each other like rag dolls as Nob towered over them. Diamond opened her mouth to scream when Merry leapt up and sprinted to the road. He pulled the young girls into his arms and ran to the shrubs off the edge of the road. Nob grumbled softly and plunged a drunken hand into the bushes. Merry snuck around the backside of the shrubs, still holding the terriefied girls in his hands. Diamond stood and took her younger sisters from Merry's hands as he quietly walked up his pathway.
"What now?" Diamond fretted. She held her sobbing sisters to her chest as Nob blundered away down in the bushes ferverently. Merry beat on the door long and hard now. Finally a bleary-eyed woman yanked the door open and upon seeing Merry looking nervously towards the road and Diamond holding two young girls by Merry's side, she stumbled slightly.
"What? Who's this? What's going on?" the woman asked her son. Merry shushed her softly and pulled Diamond inside.
"Mum, this is Diamond." he tried to think what to say when his mother pointed a shaking finger at the two young girls in her hands.
"And who's are those?" she asked. Diamond laughed and placed the shaking girls on the floor.
"These are my sisters." she assured Merry's mother. Merry took her arm and led his mother to the kitchen, looking for something.
"Where is the Harbosia plant?" he asked irritably. His mother narrowed her eyes and raised a suspicious eyebrow.
"In that cupboard there, why?" she asked. Merry handed it to Diamond and looked up to his wall clock in alarm. (A/N: Pun not intended. o_O)
"Diamond needs it for her brother." Merry said without real concern if that made sense. "Even a drunk man will figure it out soon, okay. I need you to go out there and throw some of this in his face. Not too much or he'll hurt himself. This'll sober him up." he explained. Not bothering to ask why they had such a plant in their house, Diamond opened the door and walked out calmly. Nob was stumbling up the path in a frenzy.
"Where are th-they? I'll kill them for running away." Nob hiccuped several times before continuing. Diamond walked up to her brother fearlessly as he grabbed her throat and squeezed. Diamond heard herself choking back pain as she fumbled for the packet of herbs.
"Put me down!" she choked out as Nob shook her gently. Nob's bloodshot eyes slid in and out of focus as he looked at Diamond. First she looked like their mother, then she was herself. His eyes narrowed as she found the packet in her pocket, she pulled them out and thrust a handful in his face with some skepticism. Nob bellowed and dropped Diamond, clawing at his nose madly. He inhaled more and more of the plant before falling his knees in pain. Diamond looked horrified as Nob whimpered at her feet.
"Diamond?" he asked suddenly, looking up into her terrified eyes and seeing disbelief. "What happened?" he looked at her bruising throat. Merry pulled the door open gingerly and looked relieved as Diamond helped her brother to his feet.
"You were still drunk. You chased Rosie and Mirabella. You tried to hurt them again, Nob." she sounded much too mature for her age as she took charge of her older brother. He looked horrified with himself as Rosie and Mirabella buried their faces into Merry's mother's dress.
"I'm so sorry! I'll never do it again, I swear." he began to weep uncontrollably. Diamond shook Nob softly and then slapped his cheek softly.
"You promised that last time." she brandished her wrists to her brother. "I had to lock you out of the hole." she sounded weary. Nob put his face in his hands and walked to the cart somberly as Diamond took her sisters' hands.
"I'm worried about you." Merry's mother confessed to Diamond as she assured her sisters that Nob's monster had left him.
"So am I." Diamond whispered.
Disclaimer: Ever hear of Monty Python? Yeah well I'll give a Pippin Plushie to anyone who can tell me what all the guys think of Immanuel Kant. WHOO!
Pippin's First Love Chapter Nine
At first, Diamond didn't know what to do with the ring. Surely if she wore it on her finger properly, Nob would be angry and that would be the last time she saw it or Pippin. Or both! She clutched the ring closer and looked nervously to the rising sun, folding her blankets half-heartedly. A booming knock echoed on her door as Diamond clasped her gold necklace to her neck.
"OUT!" Nob yelled thickly and moved on to the next door. Diamond leapt out of her window and into her sister's before Nob's hungover steps could reach them. Leaping to the door, Diamond undid the locks and jumped out of the window as her sisters woke up. She heard him say a sluggish good morning and then he was off to wake up Matteus and the others. With a sigh Diamond opened her door and looked about the near empty house. She felt a hand bury into her hair softly and pull her out of the way. Matteus grinned stupidly at her and yanked her hair again. Diamond toppled to the floor silently, hoping that his swimming sight wouldn't see her there. Matteus groaned softly and leaned on the wall, leaning over Diamond he frowned.
"Diamond, what're you doing on the floor?" he asked, cleary confused and hungover. Diamond skittered clear of him as he passed out noisily onto the floor, fast asleep.
"Behemoth!" she spat and gently kicked her brother, feeling tears. With a snort and ferocious shake of her head, Diamond helped her sisters to the cart gingerly and then loaded their meager possesions. Looking skeptically at the sleeping figure of her older brother, Diamond poked him with her foot. Matteus groaned and rolled over softly with his eyes fluttering.
" I-is it t-t-time to go now, Diamond?" he stuttered, trying to blink his bloodshot eyes clear.
"Indeed, dear brother, let's go. Come on, I'll help." she assured and let him lean on her shoulders for balance. With a gentle push, Matteus fell into the back of the cart, asleep again. Mirabella looked at Matteus, frightened by his inability to stay awake.
"He didn't catch what Mamma had, did he?" she prodded him with her foot. Diamond looked at Matteus's sleeping form and sighed.
"Naw, Mirabella, he's just caught ale and wine. Mamma had a sickness." she said bitterly. Mirabella put her head down softly and bit her lip.
"I wish that we weren't moving." she whispered. Diamond felt another tear slide down her cheek. With another furious shake of her head, the single tear flew off her face and out of her sight.
"So do I, little one, so do I." she hugged her sister and watched the sun rise over the trees in the Old Forest. Diamond cautiously pulled the ring from her pocket and undid her necklace. She attached the ring to the plain chain she normally wore. Smiling at the glittering jewels, Diamond climbed to the front and looked to Nob who was nearly asleep again. He handed her the reins to the ponies pulling their cart without a word. With a gentle slap with the reins, Diamond put the animals in motion. Every clap of the ponies' hooves on the dusty road made Diamond's throat choke up even more. When they had finally made it clear of Hobbiton, Diamond let Nob take the reins again so that she could sit in the back. She laughed bitterly as the river babbled under the bridge they crossed, earning several odd looks for her behavior. She looked at the house they passed, a young hobbit stood blearily outside the house, beating on the door sleepily. He set his various packs down and shouldered the door gently before setting himself on his largest pack and laughing. He looked up and saw Diamond on the cart, sitting so carefully, a gentle breeze would've blown her off the cart. Diamond gaped, pulling on the older hobbit's shoulders impatiently. The cart rolled to a stop as they began second breakfast, right in the road. Diamond slid off the cart silently and walked over to the young hobbit seated outside his house. Merry gaped as she neared with a grin.
"What're you doing, stranger?" she asked sarcastically. Merry felt a smile tug at his face as she looked at his bags.
"Moving back in. Pippin's in trouble. Again." Merry shook his head slowly, still half-asleep from riding in the back of Farmer Maggot's chicken cart until he tried to cross the bridge.
"Oh dear, not because of me I hope!" Diamond joked, trying to lighten her own mood. Merry smiled and reached up to touch her hand when he spotted the ring hanging from the chain. He seized the ring and pulled her down next to him, looking the ring over.
"Diamond, you could get that boy in trouble just looking at him." Merry said distractedly. Diamond shifted uncomfortably as Merry fingered the ring in awe of what Pippin had done. He looked up into her nervous eyes and smiled, letting the ring drop.
"We're going to have to be going pretty soon." Diamond didn't like the look in Merry's eye. He looked at her form, in a plain blue dress so she wouldn't have to change for the ceremony when they moved in. Family was coming from all over Long Cleeve to celebrate their return.
"So you will. You'll be missed, you do know that?" he asked, playing with her hair and whispering. Diamond shuddered softly and looked at Merry questionably as he continued to play with her curls.
"I should hope I wasn't enough of a jerk to ensure my friends' happiness I have gone." Diamond tried to scoot away from the young hobbit. He let her hair go and looked at her shaking hand, which until a second ago had hovered, ready to hit his hands away. He smiled again and looked at the bronze comb in her hair, holding it off her face. A dragonfly was etched into the bronze lightly, as if by magic. Merry shook his head sharply and looked at his feet.
"Whereas I was enough of a jerk to have my own Uncle send me on my way." Merry whispered bitterly. Diamond sighed in relief as he tore his gaze from her. She looked at his pathetic attempt to break the lock on the door and snorted.
"Come now, you weren't a jerk, Pippin was in trouble. No fun for you when your cousin is in trouble." she punched his arm lightly and smiled. Merry smiled and looked up from his feet to the cart just around the bend in the road.
"No fun when Uncle Paladin is yelling every night about the reasons we're late. He seems to think we're nasty little hobbits with too much in mind already." Merry laughed bitterly again and folded his hands in his lap. Diamond had half a mind to scream and tell him he'd practically molested her in front of his own house, but she didn't want to make an ordeal of that brief look he'd given her.
"I know about screaming." she pointed a finger to the cart. "Used to be Nob home every once and a while, drunk enough to think we were defying him. Now it's Matteus too, depressed and sobbing when he gets home with Nob. Then the hitting" she whispered and looked at her bruises as if to assure herself that's what was happening. Merry put an arm on her shoulder and looked at her wrists, bruised and bloody marks all over them. She tugged her light jacket back over them and looked up into Merry's eyes. "For the first time in my life, I'm really scared for my family. We're moving out a secluded farmhouse. Merry I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm scared." she let another tear fall onto her cheek as Merry looked into her flooding eyes with sympathy.
"Bravest people I know are scared for the ones they love. If you ever need a place to stay, you know where I live." Merry gestured to the house behind him with a smile. Diamond smiled through her tears and let her head drop onto his shoulder softly. She heard Rosie scream loudly and jump off the cart. With a jump Diamond sat up and looked at the cart. Mirabella and Rosie clutched at each other like rag dolls as Nob towered over them. Diamond opened her mouth to scream when Merry leapt up and sprinted to the road. He pulled the young girls into his arms and ran to the shrubs off the edge of the road. Nob grumbled softly and plunged a drunken hand into the bushes. Merry snuck around the backside of the shrubs, still holding the terriefied girls in his hands. Diamond stood and took her younger sisters from Merry's hands as he quietly walked up his pathway.
"What now?" Diamond fretted. She held her sobbing sisters to her chest as Nob blundered away down in the bushes ferverently. Merry beat on the door long and hard now. Finally a bleary-eyed woman yanked the door open and upon seeing Merry looking nervously towards the road and Diamond holding two young girls by Merry's side, she stumbled slightly.
"What? Who's this? What's going on?" the woman asked her son. Merry shushed her softly and pulled Diamond inside.
"Mum, this is Diamond." he tried to think what to say when his mother pointed a shaking finger at the two young girls in her hands.
"And who's are those?" she asked. Diamond laughed and placed the shaking girls on the floor.
"These are my sisters." she assured Merry's mother. Merry took her arm and led his mother to the kitchen, looking for something.
"Where is the Harbosia plant?" he asked irritably. His mother narrowed her eyes and raised a suspicious eyebrow.
"In that cupboard there, why?" she asked. Merry handed it to Diamond and looked up to his wall clock in alarm. (A/N: Pun not intended. o_O)
"Diamond needs it for her brother." Merry said without real concern if that made sense. "Even a drunk man will figure it out soon, okay. I need you to go out there and throw some of this in his face. Not too much or he'll hurt himself. This'll sober him up." he explained. Not bothering to ask why they had such a plant in their house, Diamond opened the door and walked out calmly. Nob was stumbling up the path in a frenzy.
"Where are th-they? I'll kill them for running away." Nob hiccuped several times before continuing. Diamond walked up to her brother fearlessly as he grabbed her throat and squeezed. Diamond heard herself choking back pain as she fumbled for the packet of herbs.
"Put me down!" she choked out as Nob shook her gently. Nob's bloodshot eyes slid in and out of focus as he looked at Diamond. First she looked like their mother, then she was herself. His eyes narrowed as she found the packet in her pocket, she pulled them out and thrust a handful in his face with some skepticism. Nob bellowed and dropped Diamond, clawing at his nose madly. He inhaled more and more of the plant before falling his knees in pain. Diamond looked horrified as Nob whimpered at her feet.
"Diamond?" he asked suddenly, looking up into her terrified eyes and seeing disbelief. "What happened?" he looked at her bruising throat. Merry pulled the door open gingerly and looked relieved as Diamond helped her brother to his feet.
"You were still drunk. You chased Rosie and Mirabella. You tried to hurt them again, Nob." she sounded much too mature for her age as she took charge of her older brother. He looked horrified with himself as Rosie and Mirabella buried their faces into Merry's mother's dress.
"I'm so sorry! I'll never do it again, I swear." he began to weep uncontrollably. Diamond shook Nob softly and then slapped his cheek softly.
"You promised that last time." she brandished her wrists to her brother. "I had to lock you out of the hole." she sounded weary. Nob put his face in his hands and walked to the cart somberly as Diamond took her sisters' hands.
"I'm worried about you." Merry's mother confessed to Diamond as she assured her sisters that Nob's monster had left him.
"So am I." Diamond whispered.
