Disclaimer: I own none of the following characters or the world in which they live. Tolkien owns such.
A/N: The following tale sort of came out on its own, a manifestation of many things we deal with today. I realize that some of the story may be hard to follow or not make sense at some parts. You needn't comment on this (or you may if you like) but I wanted to point out that life is like that. Many things that happen make the least bit of sense and have nothing to offer us later, they just are.
A tale of friendship and dark paths.
Being the Eleventh Part of….
To Tread the Path of Darkness
The Young, the Old, and the Wise
"Ah, he wakes."
Peregrin Took moaned, for his stomach felt as wretched as ever and the briefest of glimpses upon the outside world burned his mind to unintelligible thought.
A hand reached out and grasped his own. "Pip? Can you hear me, Pip?" The young Hobbit would have pulled his hand away if he had but the strength. He did not, though, and he moaned again in protest, struggling feebly. Would they not just let him be? Did they not understand how wretched he felt?
"There, there, little Hobbit," came a soft, lilting voice and through the haze and pain and misery of his mind, Peregrin thought it to be Legolas. "It is your cousin; Master Meriadoc is at your side."
"Aye, Pip, aye. It is Merry. Dear old Merry. Won't you wake for me? Open an eye. Everything is alright now, everything is alright."
"Shh, Merry," said Legolas softly. "He is well. Do not carry on so, he is well."
The sound of someone crying came to Pippin as from a distance and he shifted, suddenly fighting the pain and illness of heart and body, for he knew whom that someone was.
"Merry?" Pippin croaked, a singular gray eye cracking open slightly. "Merry, what ails you?" He peered up at his cousin, who was being comforted by the Elf. Merry's face alighted instantaneously at the reawakening of his younger cousin.
"Pip! Oh, Pippin, you're well. How do you fair? Does it hurt? Can you breath evenly? It does not hurt, does it?" From the first, Merry had reached across and grasped Pippin by the hands, clinging to him as if he were afraid letting go my cause a horrific calamity.
Pippin groaned and rolled away, fighting weakly for the release of his hands. "Merry," Peregrin moaned but could utter nothing more.
Merry rubbed his cousin's back comfortingly. "There, there, Cousin. I know, I know," he soothed.
'How could you possibly know?' Pippin wondered to himself, grimacing in pain, but aloud he merely said: "Let me be, Merry. I feel ill."
Meriadoc frowned at this, hesitated but a moment and then said, "Can I get you anything?"
Pippin did not at first respond and Merry thought his cousin was being obstinate (as was usually the case when he was feeling unwell), but then he replied: "I am tired. I think I shall sleep now."
The elder Hobbit reached forward and ran his hands through the youngster's curls.
"Merry," Pippin protested and Merry let his hand fall away.
"All right, Pip," he said. "You may sleep." He stood then, and turned away.
After a moment of quiet thought, Legolas rose in search of Gandalf.
"The halfling sleeps contently, Mithrandir. There seems to be naught wrong with him save what can be expected after such an act of foolishness. Give him several hours of rest and he shall be fit and hail once again and able to continue on.
"How does Aragorn fair in his search?" Legolas inquired lightly. Gandalf looked at him sharply for his seemingly careless manner of the question. Seeing the glare, the Elf smiled softly and with little shame. "You forget with whom you converse, Mithrandir. I fear for Frodo no less than any here. Have you been away from my kin for so long?"
Gandalf relaxed into a smile, though it held little humor but encompassed much grief and sorrow. "Too long, young Prince. And those I do come across is but for a brief time, holding little save in the way of the most import of business . . . like now," the wizard sighed.
Legolas laughed lightly and the sound was something marvelous to behold. Sam, who stood some distance away, fretting for the disappearance of his master and staying were he was only for the restraining hands of the Man, Boromir, (and for a stern talking to from Gandalf) looked up in awe and the worry, for but a brief moment, left his face. "Few would name me 'young', Gandalf. I am many times again the age of those among us."
"You are still young," Gandalf said, and by his tone the matter was not to be disputed. Legolas sobered.
"The search?" Legolas asked again.
Sudden fury flashed across the old man's face and Legolas paused to behold such a thing. It was gone sooner than it came, though, and replaced by such grief that few individuals have ever seen, let alone experienced.
"Mithrandir?" the Elf spoke hesitantly, his tone thick with concern.
"It may end, yet," Gandalf said, and the Elf had the feeling the old man spoke neither to him nor anyone else but merely to himself. "Already and within the very bounds of Lord Elrond's lands. Is He now so very strong? Is His reach so far?"
"You speak of Sauron," Legolas knew, and the wizard started and looked up at him.
"Aye," he said, "Sauron," and he spat the name as if it were a vile thing on his tongue. Suddenly, Legolas perceived that Mithrandir crumbled upon himself and became, at that moment, as a thing suddenly very small and fearful and devout of all hope.
"He is winning," Gandalf the Grey whispered and the world became as a very dark and misshapen thing, for that sudden dimming of a very bright and majestic soul.
"No," Legolas said softly. "It cannot be. Winning? The Dark Lord, winning?" The young Prince's features hardened. "It shall not be," he vowed. "We will prevail, Mithrandir. Frodo will prevail. He must!" And the last came out in an almost desperate plea.
"Yes," Gandalf affirmed harshly several moments later. The small, hollow man dissipated then and a man very Wise and clever returned. Legolas' features once again radiated that soft glow of eternal youth, for his spirit, so much like the Sun, could not so easily be cast into shadows. "Yes," the wizard spoke again. "Frodo must prevail, and with him this Fellowship." He turned back to the Elf, his eyes coming into sharp focus. "The Took is well, then?"
Legolas started, having been convinced that he had already explained Pippin's situation quite clearly. "Yes, the young Took fairs well--oddly enough. It should have been different, Mithrandir," the Elf said softly, remembering how high the young Hobbit had climbed and knowing that he had drank far beyond his small body's capacity. "It should have ended very different."
"But it didn't," the wizard said. "And it matters not how it should have ended. Nothing is finished besides. Frodo is not found and none have spoken to the foolish Took."
The Elf nodded somberly. "Do not expect young Merry to carry through with the latter. He is shaken so that I fear for his own health and stability. Especially with the young one's awakening," he said as an after thought, more to himself than to Gandalf. The wizard's sharp hearing, however, caught every word.
"It can only be expected."
The Elf shook his head in confusion. "I do not understand their ways, I must admit. They baffle me. What could bring the Took to tread a path of such darkness?"
"Not so dark," Gandalf commented.
Legolas sighed, clearly sporting a different view. "Forgive me, Mithrandir, but the ways of these folk are strange to me."
Gandalf grasped his staff with both hands, leaning his full weight upon it, and chuckled lightly. "There is nothing to forgive, my dear Elf. These Hobbits are no more confusing than are Men or Dwarves. Each race share individual views. Hobbits are no more confusing than Elves," and the old man's eyes twinkled in silent amusement.
Legolas sniffed. "Elves are not confusing," he said, but he could not help but smile and nod his head in understanding.
~*~