Disclaimer: Losers that have no life are probably not Professor J. R. R.
Tolkien. They are probably losers that have no life. I am a loser that
has no life. Therefore, I am not Professor J. R. R. Tolkien. Therefore, I
really didn't steal Professor J. R. R. Tolkien's stuff, seeing as how
this is a /fanfiction/ site... *glares menacingly at evil band of kung-fu-
poisonous-serpent-stuffed-down-t-shirt lawyers*
A/N: Well, it took me long enough... Hope you enjoy, because otherwise you
may have to...
Miss Tae: Take crochet lessons with me!
Audience: *gasp* Nooooo! Anything but that!
Miss Tae: *pouts* That's not nice... *smacks Audience*
Audience: Ow! What'd I do? It was in the script!
Me: I think I've had too much sugar today... oh well. Love all of you, and,
as ever, please read and review!
A few notes to my reviewers of olde... in backwards order!...:
aihjah: You read both! Aww, how sweet! *pat on head*
greenleaf-in-bloom: You might understand it better now that I've updated
four chapters...
TheRabidHOBBITFangirls: Pippin is MINE. *hiss* But you amuse me, so
that's all right...
Miste: Hello!
Kristen: Hello!
EvilGenius92389: Hello!
MUSHROOMS: What? Why am /I/ there?
Miste: Hello again! Isn't that the review I got all pod at you about?
ShireElf: Hello there! You reviewed me a long time ago and I never
thanked you... *ashamed*. But I'm thanking you now, so... thank you!
Miste: Hello once more!
Miste: Geez, what is this?!
i-h8-sclub: Of course Merry and Pippin rock! What, are there people that
think that Merry and Pippin... *gasp* DON'T rock?! What infidels!
Me: That's it, I believe. I love all of you! Now... let the games begin!
Isilwen: *whispers*
Me: Okay, fine then. Let the games /continue/. But it doesn't sound as
good.
***
Explanations
They all gathered around the small table in the corner. Frodo pulled up a few extra chairs to the table.
Gandalf surveyed the scene. The dining room was full with hobbits; the Gamgees, Folco Boffin, Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger, Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Draugwen, Gwathwen. Gandalf watched as Gwathwen composed herself with grim determination. /The secrets are about to come out/, he said to himself, and worried.
Gwathwen breathed in slowly. "Gandalf?" she said at last. "Would you assist, please?"
"Gladly," he replied; and before anyone could enquire, he spread a white cloth that he had concealed under his cloak on the dining-room table.
"Thank you." Gwathwen breathed in again, and took off her chain, placing it carefully in the center of the cloth, mirror-side down. She carefully traced the rune on the back once more, saying, "/Nil eledh, ono tenn hin dûr annun!/ Lover of the elves, give unto these the dark tale!"
Suddenly, the cloth began to shine and tremble, as if something within it was stirring and waking; and a bright light shot out from it, and bored into the ceiling of the room, and blinded all the hobbits for a moment. They dove to the floor; the only ones still standing were Gandalf, Frodo, Draugwen, and Gwathwen. Draugwen had tears in her eyes, though, and Frodo looked stern and shrunken; Gandalf was watching them both. Gwathwen was watching only the column of light shining from the wizard's cloth.
As the hobbits that had dived for cover recovered their dignity and sat slowly down again, Gwathwen seemed to go into a sort of trance; she watched the column fade into darkness, until it seemed completely gone; and then she watched the darkness, like ink on the white cloth, shape itself into shadowy forms, small and sad. Then suddenly the cloth was divided into two: a great forest and a beautiful Elvish house, fading into each other, and overlapping.
"It is time at last." All present were startled by Gwathwen's sudden voice. She was still staring, seemingly hypnotized, at the figures on the cloth; but now she spoke to the hobbits and the wizard, and her voice seemed louder, and deeper, and more powerful than it had been before.
"It is time at last," she continued, "to say whence we have come, and why, and how; but we must intermingle the answers, as we must intermingle the questions. They are connected; but I will start with how—at least for the beginning.
"We are the children of Donnamira Goodbody, of Bree, and Nick Bolger. We had, as far as we can recall, good lives there, and our parents were loving and kind; but evil befell our family, and our parents were taken sick when we were but a few years old. They died. We were then shunned by our neighbors, thought to carry a danger or curse; for our parents had been perfectly healthy, never sick a day in their lives, until we came.
"Driven out of the Shire, we went as far and as fast as we could on our young feet, until we got to Rivendell. It took us several weeks, I remember now, weeks of scrounging for food and water. But hark! At the cloth of Gandalf!"
The cloth was showing two small figures stumbling near the elvish house, and collapsing; it showed them being taken into the Last Homely House by the servants of Elrond; and it showed their healing.
"I knew that I had remembered that house," said Merry quietly. "It is Rivendell, truly enough; it is where we ended up with Strider, and where we left from to take the Ring . . ." He fell silent. Sam and Pippin stared in wonder at the House of Elrond; but Frodo did not look at all surprised.
"I had healed from my journey," Gwathwen continued, "but my sister—Draugwen was ailing in her mind. She ached for home, and she ached for those we had thought were our friends; but they had betrayed us, and it had shattered her heart. You must remember that we were only a few years old; we did not remember much of what had happened. Draugwen did not even remember who had hurt her, but she remembered the feeling of darkened hopes and betrayal, and she remembered the flight from the Shire. We did not even remember our own names. The elves gave us names of their own kind, Draugwen and Gwathwen; Draugwen for my sister, who fought whenever her healers came near and tried to help her—she fought tooth and nail, screaming and snarling; so they called her the Wolf-Maiden. I was called Gwathwen; I sat on the bed next to my sister and would not open my eyes. I would not speak. I would not get up. I would only sit and cry on that bed, in the darkest corner of the room, for many days—so they called me the Shadow-Maiden.
"The elves did what they could, but soon they realized that there was not much more to be done for Draugwen that was within their power. Elrond then decided to send her to the least likely place any of the Eldar would have imagined: he sent her to Fangorn.
"We do not remember much of my sister's departure; Draugwen, in fact, remembers nothing, except that someone she loved very much was crying and wailing as she was taken away. That person was me. I was still so very ill, but when I realized they were taking my sister—my only ally, I felt, in this whole strange place—I ran out of my bed, screaming, and out of the safe house of Rivendell, and down the road. There the elves apprehended me; but still I screamed, long and loud, crying, 'Draugwen! Don't leave me! Fight them!'
"But Draugwen was sent with her guard to Fangorn, and I remained in Rivendell; I certainly could not go back to Stock, the home village of my father. Gradually, I regained parts of my memory; but as the years passed, and I remembered more, I knew that I had to find my sister and bring her back to me; and then we had to find somewhere, away from the elves, to stay for good."
Draugwen swayed slightly, unnoticed by all but Pippin and Gandalf. Her face was gray, and her eyes were only half-open.
"Draugwen was taken to Fangorn, and there she was met by Treebeard and Quickbeam. They took her into the deepest regions of the forest; and then and there Quickbeam was instructed to care for her until she could care for herself. He took her to one of his homes, and made it his only home, and cared for her as if she was his own Enting. He was as a father to her, just the way Lord Elrond and his court were as parents to me; but one thing he could not fathom was the way the wolves came to her. You did not often see wild creatures in Fangorn; they preferred to keep themselves quiet and away from the Ents and rogue trees; but the wolves came to my sister as if she were their own. The packs fought over her, and she did not like it; she was but five years old, but she didn't approve, and she cried. Quickbeam says that the wolves looked at each other, embarrassed, and then there was an unspoken agreement: that they should become one pack, rather than see my sister cry. They all came over to her, and licked her, and nuzzled her, and warmed her with their bodies; and Quickbeam says that she stopped her crying and smiled, one of the first smiles she'd ever smiled in Fangorn, and there was a collective sigh, from the pack and from Quickbeam himself.
"So there was peace in the forest, between the Ents and the wolves, and Quickbeam's adoptive Enting grew and flourished and became almost an Ent herself. But one day, she wandered, far away from Quickbeam—so far away, in fact, that she ran out of Fangorn Forest itself! She was frightened, and she was lost, and vague memories were stirring up dust in her mind, memories of another run, many years ago . . .
"But then, before she could begin to walk the paths of true terror, a party of Elves found her. They stared at her in wonder, then spoke to each other in Elvish. She could not understand it then, but what they were saying was, /A Hobbit on the plains between Fangorn Forest and Lothlorien? How can this be? We must take her to the White Lady./
"But the White Lady already knew of my sister; she had conferenced with Elrond on the matter of the two Hobbits, and he had convinced her that Fangorn Forest was the only way to heal my sister. The White Lady invited Draugwen to stay in Lothlorien for a few days, until she could get her back to Fangorn.
"There was a guard in Lorien, by the name of Haldir; he had two brothers, Rumil and Orophin, and one sister. The sister's name was Hithwen."
There was a sudden intake of breath around the room.
"/Hithwen?/" said Sam incredulously. "You mean Legolas's—"
"Yes. That is Hithwen." Gwathwen traced an Elvish H-rune, then an L-rune, in the air. It shone for a moment, then sank slowly into Gandalf's cloth.
The vision on the cloth changed; now it was a new forest, the Elvish Lothlorien, and within it were two figures, far too tall to be hobbits, standing close together and watching something. They turned to look at each other, then simultaneously turned and shot two arrows towards the red bullseye on the target of a dead maple tree. The arrows both hit the mark dead-on. Peals of laughter echoed through Frodo's dining hall.
"This was, of course, many years later, and we do not meddle in things that are not our business," said Gwathwen, smiling a little and sounding a bit more like herself.
Draugwen swayed again. This time, Gwathwen noticed. /Get on with it!/ she hissed to herself.
"We are not concerned, at the moment, with what happened two years ago, when two fates intermingled," she continued; "we are concerned with what happened seventeen years ago, when Draugwen was only fifteen.
"What happened," she pushed on, "was that my sister found Hithwen—or Hithwen found her. Whichever it was, they became friends very quickly. Hithwen showed Draugwen the paths of Lothlorien and the White Lady's city. Hithwen took Draugwen to the different flets, taught her some Elvish, and introduced her to her brothers. Hithwen took Draugwen on guard patrol, around the borders of the city. But, most importantly, /Hithwen taught my sister to fight/—with bow and arrow, with sword, with slingshot, with knife, with axe, and with her hands . . . Hithwen is the fighter of Lothlorien, and she was in those days as well. No one could have shown my sister more.
"Never in her life has Draugwen learned any lessons more important than those. She knows it now, and she knew it then, too. She was very grateful, but Hithwen would not accept thanks. She wanted friendship, and Draugwen gave it gladly."
Gwathwen sighed heavily. "So it was that these two became like sisters, close enough to jest and fight together. Would that I could have been there . . . but I was off in Rivendell, growing in my own way and learning in my own way.
"What my sister and I have never understood is why the Lady Galadriel did not tell Draugwen about her past—or, for that matter, why neither Treebeard nor Quickbeam did either. They've never answered us straight.
"In any case, Hithwen continued to teach Draugwen, and even after the hobbit had gone back to Fangorn, she returned for visits every so often, and a shaky peace was kept between the two forests. Hithwen taught Draugwen about life outside Fangorn, about the Elves, about the Dwarves, and about Men. She taught Draugwen also, what she could, about other hobbits. There wasn't much that she could teach, however, because there was not much that she knew herself; but whatever she did know, she passed on.
"So my sister was taught her life lessons, not by an Ent or by a Hobbit, but by a young, fiery Elf who wanted many things, but nothing more than a war for peace.
"Then she got it.
"The War of the Rings began when my sister was twenty-eight years old. The Ents did not know anything of it; the only reason my sister knew of the troubles was because of Hithwen's fury. Hithwen was absolutely adamant to her mother about one thing, and that was that she would go to the Council of Elrond and put in her part in the war. Her mother, however, was too frightened that her only daughter would die in war, the same way her husband had died. She forbade Hithwen to go. Hithwen was angry, for months and months, and got her vengeance by listening at keyholes and learning all she could from the Lady of the Wood, and by telling everything she knew to Draugwen.
"My sister was fascinated with Hithwen's tales of the deeds of Frodo and the Fellowship. She wanted to help destroy Mordor with them—and why shouldn't she? She and Hithwen were both perfectly qualified—but it was forbidden, by Hithwen's mother and by the Ents, who did not want to know anything about the war and gently chided that Draugwen was being 'too hasty'."
"I wasn't," whispered Draugwen, gray-faced and nearly crying. "I /wasn't/."
"She wasn't," continued Gwathwen, looking with concern at her sister. "She knew nearly all that could be known about the War—almost as much as the Lady Galadriel herself. But, especially after the breaking of the Fellowship and the death of Boromir, son of Denethor, neither she nor Hithwen was permitted.
"Then, one day, two young hobbits, one not even thirty, entered Fangorn Forest."
Pippin and Merry looked at each other mutely. Then each pointed to himself.
"Yes." Gwathwen smiled. "You." In the air, she traced the year of the end of the War and the Entmoot: 3019. Then she traced the names of Merry, Pippin, Treebeard, and Quickbeam.
"What in the Shire...?" Pippin gasped.
***
A/N: Hello, lovely people! Sorry to leave you hanging like that – I know, I know, I'm no good at cliffhangers – but I'm about fed up with this chapter... four is a much better number than three, don't you think? So I'm going to start a new chapter and get this one out to the masses. Enjoy. Or else. I worked really hard on this, children... *menace*
Tolkien. They are probably losers that have no life. I am a loser that
has no life. Therefore, I am not Professor J. R. R. Tolkien. Therefore, I
really didn't steal Professor J. R. R. Tolkien's stuff, seeing as how
this is a /fanfiction/ site... *glares menacingly at evil band of kung-fu-
poisonous-serpent-stuffed-down-t-shirt lawyers*
A/N: Well, it took me long enough... Hope you enjoy, because otherwise you
may have to...
Miss Tae: Take crochet lessons with me!
Audience: *gasp* Nooooo! Anything but that!
Miss Tae: *pouts* That's not nice... *smacks Audience*
Audience: Ow! What'd I do? It was in the script!
Me: I think I've had too much sugar today... oh well. Love all of you, and,
as ever, please read and review!
A few notes to my reviewers of olde... in backwards order!...:
aihjah: You read both! Aww, how sweet! *pat on head*
greenleaf-in-bloom: You might understand it better now that I've updated
four chapters...
TheRabidHOBBITFangirls: Pippin is MINE. *hiss* But you amuse me, so
that's all right...
Miste: Hello!
Kristen: Hello!
EvilGenius92389: Hello!
MUSHROOMS: What? Why am /I/ there?
Miste: Hello again! Isn't that the review I got all pod at you about?
ShireElf: Hello there! You reviewed me a long time ago and I never
thanked you... *ashamed*. But I'm thanking you now, so... thank you!
Miste: Hello once more!
Miste: Geez, what is this?!
i-h8-sclub: Of course Merry and Pippin rock! What, are there people that
think that Merry and Pippin... *gasp* DON'T rock?! What infidels!
Me: That's it, I believe. I love all of you! Now... let the games begin!
Isilwen: *whispers*
Me: Okay, fine then. Let the games /continue/. But it doesn't sound as
good.
***
Explanations
They all gathered around the small table in the corner. Frodo pulled up a few extra chairs to the table.
Gandalf surveyed the scene. The dining room was full with hobbits; the Gamgees, Folco Boffin, Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger, Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Draugwen, Gwathwen. Gandalf watched as Gwathwen composed herself with grim determination. /The secrets are about to come out/, he said to himself, and worried.
Gwathwen breathed in slowly. "Gandalf?" she said at last. "Would you assist, please?"
"Gladly," he replied; and before anyone could enquire, he spread a white cloth that he had concealed under his cloak on the dining-room table.
"Thank you." Gwathwen breathed in again, and took off her chain, placing it carefully in the center of the cloth, mirror-side down. She carefully traced the rune on the back once more, saying, "/Nil eledh, ono tenn hin dûr annun!/ Lover of the elves, give unto these the dark tale!"
Suddenly, the cloth began to shine and tremble, as if something within it was stirring and waking; and a bright light shot out from it, and bored into the ceiling of the room, and blinded all the hobbits for a moment. They dove to the floor; the only ones still standing were Gandalf, Frodo, Draugwen, and Gwathwen. Draugwen had tears in her eyes, though, and Frodo looked stern and shrunken; Gandalf was watching them both. Gwathwen was watching only the column of light shining from the wizard's cloth.
As the hobbits that had dived for cover recovered their dignity and sat slowly down again, Gwathwen seemed to go into a sort of trance; she watched the column fade into darkness, until it seemed completely gone; and then she watched the darkness, like ink on the white cloth, shape itself into shadowy forms, small and sad. Then suddenly the cloth was divided into two: a great forest and a beautiful Elvish house, fading into each other, and overlapping.
"It is time at last." All present were startled by Gwathwen's sudden voice. She was still staring, seemingly hypnotized, at the figures on the cloth; but now she spoke to the hobbits and the wizard, and her voice seemed louder, and deeper, and more powerful than it had been before.
"It is time at last," she continued, "to say whence we have come, and why, and how; but we must intermingle the answers, as we must intermingle the questions. They are connected; but I will start with how—at least for the beginning.
"We are the children of Donnamira Goodbody, of Bree, and Nick Bolger. We had, as far as we can recall, good lives there, and our parents were loving and kind; but evil befell our family, and our parents were taken sick when we were but a few years old. They died. We were then shunned by our neighbors, thought to carry a danger or curse; for our parents had been perfectly healthy, never sick a day in their lives, until we came.
"Driven out of the Shire, we went as far and as fast as we could on our young feet, until we got to Rivendell. It took us several weeks, I remember now, weeks of scrounging for food and water. But hark! At the cloth of Gandalf!"
The cloth was showing two small figures stumbling near the elvish house, and collapsing; it showed them being taken into the Last Homely House by the servants of Elrond; and it showed their healing.
"I knew that I had remembered that house," said Merry quietly. "It is Rivendell, truly enough; it is where we ended up with Strider, and where we left from to take the Ring . . ." He fell silent. Sam and Pippin stared in wonder at the House of Elrond; but Frodo did not look at all surprised.
"I had healed from my journey," Gwathwen continued, "but my sister—Draugwen was ailing in her mind. She ached for home, and she ached for those we had thought were our friends; but they had betrayed us, and it had shattered her heart. You must remember that we were only a few years old; we did not remember much of what had happened. Draugwen did not even remember who had hurt her, but she remembered the feeling of darkened hopes and betrayal, and she remembered the flight from the Shire. We did not even remember our own names. The elves gave us names of their own kind, Draugwen and Gwathwen; Draugwen for my sister, who fought whenever her healers came near and tried to help her—she fought tooth and nail, screaming and snarling; so they called her the Wolf-Maiden. I was called Gwathwen; I sat on the bed next to my sister and would not open my eyes. I would not speak. I would not get up. I would only sit and cry on that bed, in the darkest corner of the room, for many days—so they called me the Shadow-Maiden.
"The elves did what they could, but soon they realized that there was not much more to be done for Draugwen that was within their power. Elrond then decided to send her to the least likely place any of the Eldar would have imagined: he sent her to Fangorn.
"We do not remember much of my sister's departure; Draugwen, in fact, remembers nothing, except that someone she loved very much was crying and wailing as she was taken away. That person was me. I was still so very ill, but when I realized they were taking my sister—my only ally, I felt, in this whole strange place—I ran out of my bed, screaming, and out of the safe house of Rivendell, and down the road. There the elves apprehended me; but still I screamed, long and loud, crying, 'Draugwen! Don't leave me! Fight them!'
"But Draugwen was sent with her guard to Fangorn, and I remained in Rivendell; I certainly could not go back to Stock, the home village of my father. Gradually, I regained parts of my memory; but as the years passed, and I remembered more, I knew that I had to find my sister and bring her back to me; and then we had to find somewhere, away from the elves, to stay for good."
Draugwen swayed slightly, unnoticed by all but Pippin and Gandalf. Her face was gray, and her eyes were only half-open.
"Draugwen was taken to Fangorn, and there she was met by Treebeard and Quickbeam. They took her into the deepest regions of the forest; and then and there Quickbeam was instructed to care for her until she could care for herself. He took her to one of his homes, and made it his only home, and cared for her as if she was his own Enting. He was as a father to her, just the way Lord Elrond and his court were as parents to me; but one thing he could not fathom was the way the wolves came to her. You did not often see wild creatures in Fangorn; they preferred to keep themselves quiet and away from the Ents and rogue trees; but the wolves came to my sister as if she were their own. The packs fought over her, and she did not like it; she was but five years old, but she didn't approve, and she cried. Quickbeam says that the wolves looked at each other, embarrassed, and then there was an unspoken agreement: that they should become one pack, rather than see my sister cry. They all came over to her, and licked her, and nuzzled her, and warmed her with their bodies; and Quickbeam says that she stopped her crying and smiled, one of the first smiles she'd ever smiled in Fangorn, and there was a collective sigh, from the pack and from Quickbeam himself.
"So there was peace in the forest, between the Ents and the wolves, and Quickbeam's adoptive Enting grew and flourished and became almost an Ent herself. But one day, she wandered, far away from Quickbeam—so far away, in fact, that she ran out of Fangorn Forest itself! She was frightened, and she was lost, and vague memories were stirring up dust in her mind, memories of another run, many years ago . . .
"But then, before she could begin to walk the paths of true terror, a party of Elves found her. They stared at her in wonder, then spoke to each other in Elvish. She could not understand it then, but what they were saying was, /A Hobbit on the plains between Fangorn Forest and Lothlorien? How can this be? We must take her to the White Lady./
"But the White Lady already knew of my sister; she had conferenced with Elrond on the matter of the two Hobbits, and he had convinced her that Fangorn Forest was the only way to heal my sister. The White Lady invited Draugwen to stay in Lothlorien for a few days, until she could get her back to Fangorn.
"There was a guard in Lorien, by the name of Haldir; he had two brothers, Rumil and Orophin, and one sister. The sister's name was Hithwen."
There was a sudden intake of breath around the room.
"/Hithwen?/" said Sam incredulously. "You mean Legolas's—"
"Yes. That is Hithwen." Gwathwen traced an Elvish H-rune, then an L-rune, in the air. It shone for a moment, then sank slowly into Gandalf's cloth.
The vision on the cloth changed; now it was a new forest, the Elvish Lothlorien, and within it were two figures, far too tall to be hobbits, standing close together and watching something. They turned to look at each other, then simultaneously turned and shot two arrows towards the red bullseye on the target of a dead maple tree. The arrows both hit the mark dead-on. Peals of laughter echoed through Frodo's dining hall.
"This was, of course, many years later, and we do not meddle in things that are not our business," said Gwathwen, smiling a little and sounding a bit more like herself.
Draugwen swayed again. This time, Gwathwen noticed. /Get on with it!/ she hissed to herself.
"We are not concerned, at the moment, with what happened two years ago, when two fates intermingled," she continued; "we are concerned with what happened seventeen years ago, when Draugwen was only fifteen.
"What happened," she pushed on, "was that my sister found Hithwen—or Hithwen found her. Whichever it was, they became friends very quickly. Hithwen showed Draugwen the paths of Lothlorien and the White Lady's city. Hithwen took Draugwen to the different flets, taught her some Elvish, and introduced her to her brothers. Hithwen took Draugwen on guard patrol, around the borders of the city. But, most importantly, /Hithwen taught my sister to fight/—with bow and arrow, with sword, with slingshot, with knife, with axe, and with her hands . . . Hithwen is the fighter of Lothlorien, and she was in those days as well. No one could have shown my sister more.
"Never in her life has Draugwen learned any lessons more important than those. She knows it now, and she knew it then, too. She was very grateful, but Hithwen would not accept thanks. She wanted friendship, and Draugwen gave it gladly."
Gwathwen sighed heavily. "So it was that these two became like sisters, close enough to jest and fight together. Would that I could have been there . . . but I was off in Rivendell, growing in my own way and learning in my own way.
"What my sister and I have never understood is why the Lady Galadriel did not tell Draugwen about her past—or, for that matter, why neither Treebeard nor Quickbeam did either. They've never answered us straight.
"In any case, Hithwen continued to teach Draugwen, and even after the hobbit had gone back to Fangorn, she returned for visits every so often, and a shaky peace was kept between the two forests. Hithwen taught Draugwen about life outside Fangorn, about the Elves, about the Dwarves, and about Men. She taught Draugwen also, what she could, about other hobbits. There wasn't much that she could teach, however, because there was not much that she knew herself; but whatever she did know, she passed on.
"So my sister was taught her life lessons, not by an Ent or by a Hobbit, but by a young, fiery Elf who wanted many things, but nothing more than a war for peace.
"Then she got it.
"The War of the Rings began when my sister was twenty-eight years old. The Ents did not know anything of it; the only reason my sister knew of the troubles was because of Hithwen's fury. Hithwen was absolutely adamant to her mother about one thing, and that was that she would go to the Council of Elrond and put in her part in the war. Her mother, however, was too frightened that her only daughter would die in war, the same way her husband had died. She forbade Hithwen to go. Hithwen was angry, for months and months, and got her vengeance by listening at keyholes and learning all she could from the Lady of the Wood, and by telling everything she knew to Draugwen.
"My sister was fascinated with Hithwen's tales of the deeds of Frodo and the Fellowship. She wanted to help destroy Mordor with them—and why shouldn't she? She and Hithwen were both perfectly qualified—but it was forbidden, by Hithwen's mother and by the Ents, who did not want to know anything about the war and gently chided that Draugwen was being 'too hasty'."
"I wasn't," whispered Draugwen, gray-faced and nearly crying. "I /wasn't/."
"She wasn't," continued Gwathwen, looking with concern at her sister. "She knew nearly all that could be known about the War—almost as much as the Lady Galadriel herself. But, especially after the breaking of the Fellowship and the death of Boromir, son of Denethor, neither she nor Hithwen was permitted.
"Then, one day, two young hobbits, one not even thirty, entered Fangorn Forest."
Pippin and Merry looked at each other mutely. Then each pointed to himself.
"Yes." Gwathwen smiled. "You." In the air, she traced the year of the end of the War and the Entmoot: 3019. Then she traced the names of Merry, Pippin, Treebeard, and Quickbeam.
"What in the Shire...?" Pippin gasped.
***
A/N: Hello, lovely people! Sorry to leave you hanging like that – I know, I know, I'm no good at cliffhangers – but I'm about fed up with this chapter... four is a much better number than three, don't you think? So I'm going to start a new chapter and get this one out to the masses. Enjoy. Or else. I worked really hard on this, children... *menace*