Sweet Dreams

by illyria-pffyffin

Pippin did not return from his journey unscathed. Riddled by sleeplessness one night, he remembered past events that linked his life with Frodo, events that involve a feather bed and a diamond ring, among others.

7. Shapes of Sorrow

Bag End, Solmath 1420 SR

And even after the journey, I don't think that I am inured to sorrow yet.  And that's after I witnessed Boromir's valiant sacrifice.  After Treebeard, Quickbeam and their dying race.  After seeing Denethor, driven to insanity by so much grief and despair, leap to his funeral pyre.  After that dark, choking fear of losing Merry to the cold death of the Ringwraith's touch.  After Morannon, when death had been but a heartbeat away.  After seeing you and Sam, looking sadly out-of-place on that huge bed under the beeches of Ithilien.  There are many shades and shapes of sorrow and I think I have tasted most of them.  Yet it can still stun me, strip me bare of any defenses, weaken me.

And your sadness, Frodo, is the one that troubles me the most.  It doesn't come in fits and starts, but runs in your blood, pulsing behind that thin veil of make-believe normalcy you put on for us.  It's so deep, I drown in it, helpless.  I watch you staring silently at the sputtering ember in the fire, and wonder what is rushing through your mind.  Are you thinking of Weathertop, Frodo, or that flame-red chamber in Minas Morgul?  Is it the memory of the spider, or of the columns of fire in Sammath Naur, that makes your face twitch in pain?  Tell me what I can do.  What I should do.  I used to make you laugh; tell me I still do.

***