Disclaimer: No, these characters aren't mine, and neither is this world, though the weird random sh*t (an expression Meliara adores using) is.
15 May, Third Age 3019
(Shire Reckoning 1419)
I ban self-pity and then promptly proceed to wallow in it;
I get very wet and am philosophical
In these thoughts, I could dwell exclusively on my misfortunes and expound upon my misery. I could say that I am haunted night and day by memories of the darkness, barrenness, and bleak hopelessness of Mordor. I could confide that I am never for a moment able to forget the burning, feral, mindless triumph that consumed me in the moment when my strength failed both me and the Quest and I claimed the Ring. I could rail that I hate the way some people treat me like a thing of glass, yet I hate as much when people act as if everything is normal, when it is not and never will be again. I will not detail the recurring nightmares of being naked in the dark and unable to hide from the monstrous flaming eye that sees endlessly far and commands legions of horrors and is seeking, ever seeking, for me; nightmares that cause me to wake drenched in sweat and trembling with tears.
No – having released such frustrations in the above passage, I will proceed to inform this piece of parchment that the rain today was very conducive to philosophizing. I had been in my chamber, considering aloud to blank paper and as-yet-without-ink quill how to begin the story of my travels and travails, in anticipation of Bilbo's insistence that I make a jolly good yarn out of my quest. (All right, that wasn't fair. I'm no adventurer, nor am I a storyteller of any merit, but I cannot blame my dear long-time guardian for expecting this one tale of my first and only adventure, which will probably prove, intending no conceit, more influential than I myself can grasp.) But although how to begin was the immediate problem, how to willingly bring to the surface of my mind and describe the later stages of my journey was the issue that more persistently plagued me and caused me a moment's resentment toward Bilbo for the ease with which the perfect words come to him and the similar narrative ease he expects from me. And I do not care to voluntarily relive Mordor, even in the name of history.
With full acknowledgement of how juvenile and petulant this will make me sound, it's not fair, damn it.
Oh, yes – the topic of my thoughts earlier today was the reason I promised not to spend these pages complaining and bemoaning my fate. All right, now I'm starting.
Anyway – I was thinking, brooding, moping, and fully intending to write sometime before the Fourth Age came to an end when Pippin came marching in a very businesslike manner up the stairs to my tower room. He was so soaked through as to look like he had been taking a bath fully clothed. He seemed quite short of breath, so I surmise that he would have come pelting up the stairs if he had not realized somewhere in the middle of the staircase that he could not keep up a breakneck pace for more than eight flights of steps. Without so much as a by-your-leave, he flung the door open and announced, "Now that you have demonstrated your very credible impression of a tortoise with its head drawn into its shell, Cousin, you have everyone's invitation to come out of your cave. Or if you are waiting for that paper to age authentically, you might want to be outside enjoying the weather while you wait. A watched page never yellows, you know."
I scrutinized with raised eyebrows my cousin's dripping hair and clothes and the rapidly-growing wet spot on the elven-made rug on which he was standing. I glanced over at the pale gray sky and falling rain outside, and then returned my gaze to Pippin. "Been 'outside enjoying the weather,' have you?" I asked sarcastically, indicating the water accumulating at his feet.
He looked down, noticing the dampness of the carpet, looked sheepishly back up at me, and laughed. "Oh, come on! Do you consider it your duty as our elder to spoil sport?"
Sighing, I stood up, shook my head in exasperation, and reached for the Lothlórien cloak that hung by the door. "Ah, don't bother with the cloak," Pippin urged me, but I ignored him and put it on anyway. He evidently found it easier to go pelting down multiple flights of stairs than up, and so proceeded to do so, while I walked down them in his wake.
The heavy outer door to the tower had been propped open, and a slight wind was sending the rain slanting onto the stone floor of the entry hall. Pippin dashed out of the door without hesitation and joined Merry and Sam where the former was tilting his head back to catch the drops in his mouth and the latter was just standing in the downpour with hands upturned and gazing around at the rain with the air of one beholding a miracle. I pulled up the hood of my cloak and dubiously stepped out into the cascading water on the stone-paved, tree-lined courtyard. As soon as I did, I found that I truly did not want the water-repelling elven garment; I cast it off and stood dumbly with my face turned toward the shining mithril-colored heavens to feel the cool summer rain upon it. I understood exactly how Sam must have felt. It was a miracle, after enduring a torturous trek across the parched desert land of Mordor, to be surrounded by such an abundance of the two things we most lacked and longed for: simple light and water. I started to laugh with pure exultation, shutting my eyes tightly then opening them wide to gaze at the rain and the cloud curtain lit from behind above me, not caring that my clothing was becoming more waterlogged with each moment that passed or that the water was getting in my eyes. When laughter and tears mingled and merged I could not really tell; I only knew that I was feeling a piercing, visceral joy, coupled with an unspeakable sorrow I could not explain, the like of which I had not felt since the celebration on the field of Cormallen, and before then I had never felt before.
And the philosophy I formulated today? It is that a great many things in this world are still wonderful.
Author's Note: This work, written and posted around the first anniversary of September 11, 2001, is dedicated to a country in mourning with the message that although terrible atrocities are committed; although we wish they had not happened in our time, though it is not for us to decide; although wounds are sustained that will never really heal, many things in this world are still wonderful. Namárië and shalom.