Attack of the Plot Bunnies Chapter Eighteen
Timeline: May 1, 1419/3019; Chapter 6.V
Credit where Credit is due: Written for Marigold's challenge #4 and previously posted to the LJ called "talechallenge04"
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Tolkien (except for the bits that belong to Peter Jackson and the rest of the people who made the movies.) I'm just playing with the toys.
Author: rabidsamfan
Title: Sleeping
Frodo sat up abruptly. Next to him the other three hobbits shifted uneasily but did not wake. He counted them, reaching out to touch each curly head, before he snuggled down again beside Sam on the soft grass. His breathing deepened, but his eyes stayed open, seeking out the tall figure on watch by the terrace rail before they closed and he sighed into sleep once more.
Gandalf watched, sending a comforting wisp of pipeweed smoke to mingle with the scent of the flowers in the garden. Memories came to him of hours spent in just such a fashion, a vigil and a tangle of sleeping hobbits nearby. He hadn't had time or inclination before this to sift through those memories, so close were they to the battle in Moria. But now he remembered: the long walking, and the chatter of youngsters, the bareness of Hollin and the snows of Caradhras. It was like a dream.
Sam had given up first. The beds in the house that Faramir had prepared for the Fellowship were too soft and too high, and it hadn't been dusk yet when he'd wandered out into the garden with his blanket, to stretch out with the smell of good earth in his nose and the clear sky of stars overhead. Pippin had followed him a little later, bringing a pillow, and they had murmured sleepily about the wheeling constellations until Frodo had joined them, settling unabashedly in the middle. "For warmth," he laughed, "and to keep Pippin from talking your ear off, Sam."
Merry stood wistfully by, keeping watch as he had in Ithilien. Those memories were closer, but Gandalf had not needed them to know that Merry would fret himself ill if he were left to guard his sleeping friends through the night. He hadn't been sure if Merry would accept his offer to watch instead, but the day had been long, with many ceremonies, and the smallest knight of Rohan had accepted the wizard's offer with weary gratitude. It hadn't taken him five minutes to divest himself of armor and go and fetch a blanket. But once he was ready to sleep he'd hesitated, looking over the other three hobbits with a small frown before settling down alongside Sam, so that he and Pippin bracketed the Ringbearers, their longer bodies blocking the night breeze from the two whose faces still bore traces of the long journey to Mt. Doom. Their voices mingled a while longer, like the small voices of birds flocking at night, before the murmurs faded into soft snores.
And Gandalf sat and smoked, and listened to the sound of celebrations still tapering off in the lower city, contemplating the four small beings he guarded into the night.
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Author note: Although I've encountered the notion elsewhere since, the first place I really hit the "hobbitpile" was in Baylor's wonderful story "The Care and Feeding of Hobbits." (Go, read if you haven't, it's at ff.n, as well as elsewhere) It made instant sense to me, and I hope she doesn't mind that I borrowed the idea for this vignette.
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