Disclaimer: Look at the previous chapters.
*note: Sorry it took so long for to post this. I've been working on another fic and schools been kind of hectic. Hopefully, the next one won't take so long.
Ch. 16
OTHERWORLD
Pippin walked the shadowed lands, hugging himself against the bitter cold. Always, he returned to this dark world, ever since she had come to him that time when the magic consumed him. He longed for her to return, just as she had come before. To take him out of the lost land that he knew naught where nor when nor why he was. He only wanted out. He feared this place like nothing he had ever feared before. There was an evil presence in the depths of this land. He could feel it, however faint, watching him, laughing at him--at his futile attempts at escape.
Cold.
Pippin looked around him. He sought for the owner of the voice . . . or lack of voice. It hadn't sounded like anyone had spoken but the word had been clear in his head, almost as if he had thought it, but not quite. "Who's there?" he called out.
Peregrin?
Pippin halted his steps.
Pippin, where are you?
"Who's there?" he called again, his voice shaking with hope. No one had come to him, not since before.
It's me. Don't you remember?
"Yes," the hobbit whispered, for he did.
It's so cold, Pippin. I'm so cold.
"Where are you?"
Th-that place. Where I found you before.
"But where?" Pippin asked. He turned a full circle, searching for any sign of another. There was no one else, though. He was alone. "I cannot see you."
I don't know. It's so dark.
He didn't know what to do, for her voice was in his thoughts and he knew not what direction they came from. They seemed to come from every and no direction.
Pippin?
"I'm here," he said softly, shivering. Why was it so cold?
Do you feel it?
"Feel what?" He looked around nervously. Someone else was there, seeming to stand right beside him.
Someone's here.
He swallowed, for his throat was dry. "I know it."
I hate this place.
"Me too."
How do we leave?
"This is your world, Apryl, not mine," Pippin said, in a hushed sort of manner.
No . . . I do not know this place. I . . . no.
"I never knew it," Pippin said, "Not until the magic came. Now, I cannot escape it." For many moments, there was no answer, and Pippin feared he had lost her. He looked down at his hand and saw that it shook--from fear or cold, he knew not.
I have been here before.
Pippin was silent.
When I was little, I would sometimes dream of this place. I walked its dark lands all alone and I could never find another here. But since I came to Middle-earth I have seen you, Pippin, and Frodo and Gandalf, I think. I do not know why I've come here now.
"How do you leave this nightmare?"
Only when I wake. She was silent a moment, then: Do you suppose . . . ?
"Perhaps," Pippin murmured softly. "But how do we . . . ?"
I don't know.
"I don't know," she sighed. Apryl looked around her but saw naught save a deep nothingness that almost resembled night, but not quite. She wondered at how she came to be here and even more of where she was before she came here, for she remembered nothing. No, I remember Sam.
Sam? Pippin wondered.
Yes. I remember Sam . . . faintly. As if I saw him, but . . . but I can't remember anything else. Frodo maybe? I can almost see him, but not quite. She shivered. Why was it so cold? Her hands were blue and her legs she could not even feel. Her jaw constantly chattered so that she didn't even use her voice anymore but only thought. For some reason Pippin could hear that just as well, more maybe, than if she had spoken aloud. It was strange.
Apryl? he called softly, hesitantly.
What is it, Pippin?
He was silent a moment. I-it's terribly cold.
Apryl nodded, though she suspected he could not see her and, slowly, almost painfully, she sat down upon the ground. If one could even term it that, for it was dark, black and dead. Not dirt, not ash, but something quite similar. She buried her hands in it, hoping to warm them but it was chill, colder even than her skin. She shuddered.
Apryl?
She brought her knees up to her chest and rested her chin upon them. Yes?
Are you cold? he wondered, his thoughts holding a tinge of fear.
Yes, she said softly.
My hands are numb. Are yours?
Her eyelids drooped sleepily. Yes. Pip? it was no more than a quiet sigh.
Pip?
Pippin shivered uncontrollably and his teeth chattered wildly so that he could no longer speak aloud. His legs had moments before ceased to support him and he crumbled to the blackened ground of a blackened world. He hugged himself and prayed for light, for warmth, for heat but knew beyond a doubt that it would never be granted. This cold was a wretched, evil thing.
Pippin? he heard again, softer still.
I am here, he assured her.
It was long moments before she said aught else. Finally:
You won't leave me, will you?
Pippin--in the midst of the eternal darkness--remembered the rain, remembered her. Never, he said, and meant it with all his being. To him, she was a delicate thing, someone needing protection and care. And . . . and something else. She was not like other humans; she was not like any he had known. Never.
Relief washed through his soul and he knew it to be her own. Almost, he could see her quiet smile.
I am glad, she said. After a moment:
Pip?
Yes?
I won't leave you, either.
Despite the cold and despite his fear, Pippin smiled.
* * * * *
Frodo half-stumbled, half-ran up the stairs to the House, supporting a shivering Sam with one arm, while supporting himself on the railing.
"I-it's s-s-so c-cold, Mr. F-frodo," Sam chattered, his numb legs barely keeping him upright.
"I know, Sam," Frodo said, shivering. His friend's wet clothes had long soaked his own and, though Frodo was not numb as Sam surely was, the wet only intensified the quiet chill in the air. "We're almost there."
The fire in Pippin's room was nearly out, though the coals provided an extraordinary amount of heat that Sam was automatically drawn to. He knelt beside its heated blaze as Frodo took the discarded blanket from the floor. "I'll come right back," Frodo told his friend. "If you see anyone, Sam, tell them what's happened, for I may need some help."
"I can help you, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, discarding the heat and his own comfort in less than a second. Already, he was making as if to follow his master.
"No, Sam, you wait here," Frodo said firmly, shaking his head of dark curls. "Get out of those clothes. I shan't be long." And without waiting for a reply, the hobbit turned and went out into the chill air once again.
With a sigh, Sam watched his master go, then turned and looked dubiously at the fire--or lack of. He trembled uncontrollably.
"Do hurry, Mr. Frodo," Sam whispered. Still, he could see the young human clinging to the embankment with a desperate grip, her eyes glazed with fatigue and her body shaking from the cold.
On the other side of the room, Sam heard a quiet moan and remembered Pippin. Glancing over at Frodo's younger cousin, the gardener stayed a shiver and walked over to him.
"Oh, Mr. Pippin," Sam gasped, his dark eyes filling with distress. "What's happened to you?"
In his sleep, Peregrin shivered as much as, if not more than, Sam. His lips were blue, almost purple, as were his cheeks and ears. When Sam touched the younger hobbit with a shaking hand, there was no warmth. He snatched his hand back, almost as if he feared the cold, and wrung his hands nervously at his side. The hobbit looked about, wishing the hearth held a blazing fire, and noting with apprehension that there was no wood in which to feed it.
His gaze fell back upon Pippin and he rested a kind, if not completely gently, hand upon the younger hobbit's shoulder. "Mr. Pippin, sir, wake up," he urged, his voice cracking. "Wake up, please, sir, wake up--"
"Sam? What are you doing?"
Samwise knew whom the soft voice belonged to even before he turned around. Merry's eyes--like the sky on a clear, crisp day--watched the gardener in a curious, bemused sort of manner.
Sam had always been fond of Merry, for the cheer he always had in his eyes and for the way in which he made his master laugh. For without truly meaning to, Merry would make the grumpiest of elders twitch at the mouth and the most tightlipped of mothers would smile fondly at him and beneath their breath whisper, "Now there's a true gentlehobbit." And Meriadoc was, though he would only blush and mumble a few unintelligible words if he ever spied or heard such, while his younger cousin, Peregrin, would snicker behind his hand.
"Oh, Mr. Merry," Sam fairly sobbed and at once the light in Merry's eyes dimmed, overshadowed by sudden fear. He ran to his sleeping cousin. "I don't know what's happened to him, truly I don't. I just came in here with Mr. Frodo and, after he left to go find the girl, I heard Pippin, here, moan and as I came over I saw that he was chill and as cold as death." Merry laid a hand upon his cousin's brow then snatched it back with a sudden cry. "It burns," he gasped. Not for the first time fear gripped his heart. "His fever's come back," he gritted. But different, for you're both hot and cold at once--burning and chill.
Merry looked at Sam and noted for the first time that his clothes were soaked. He frowned at this.
It was then Sam recalled what Frodo had told him before going after Apryl. If you see anyone, Sam, tell them what's happened, for I may need some help.
"Mr. Merry," Sam looked at his master's cousin, his dark eyes filled with apprehension. "I fear Mr. Frodo may be in some trouble; the lass, too."
* * * * *
Rose—You have a very good point and I've actually been thinking on it. Yes, she is a Maia and that's all she is. However, Apryl doesn't quite understand this and only thinks the Istari and the Maiar are on and the same. But honestly, yes, I did make an error (surprise, surprise^^) and I will not refer to her as an Istari any more and later I'll go back and make the corrections. Thank you so much for pointing out my mistakes and, truly, I mean that!
