Little Bird Blue
"Pip," Merry said, seriously, "you won't fix it. But you can be with her."
"I have been," Pippin said hoarsely, wiping his face with his handkerchief. He wanted to cry again: the symbol of the Thainship was embroidered in tiny, delicate stitches on the corner. Diamond could not garden, but she dearly loved to sew. This was one of the Midwinter gifts given to him while they were courting – and it was among his closest possessions.
"I do not know what will ease her heart, or my own. We are lost, Merry, and I am afraid we will not find each other again." Pippin stared at the empty stein in his hands. The last bubbles of the cider were fizzling out slowly, popping in shades of gold and brown.
He could feel, rather than see, the gazes Merry and Estella exchanged. There seemed to be a silent communication, for moments later, Estella knelt in front of him, took his face into her hands. They were cool, like the cup he used to give Diamond water. No, do not think of that.
"Ye love your wife?" she asked. No trace of her earlier laughter, or any mockery; she was wholly focused on him, and sincere. He nodded.
"Ye want to fight for her?" she asked again. He nodded once more, his heart thudding painfully. More than anything, he wanted to hold and love Diamond again. Dance with her. Laugh with her.
"Then ye must reach across the table each morning, and try," she said simply. "Take her hand. Stay with her at your bed. But do not leave her, until ye can find your way forward again."
"You can do it, Pip," Merry added from beside him. "We fought the Orcs, we can manage this." Pippin felt Merry's hand, gently calloused, squeeze his shoulder. "I hardly think Diamond an Orc." Pippin lifted his head – Merry was not smiling exactly, but remembering in half-amusement where they were, presently, to where they had been, all those years ago. He could see the humor, now.
Pippin laughed shallowly. "No, she is not." He smiled a little, in spite of himself. He ordered more mulled cider, and the conversation turned practical: ways in which to lift Diamond's spirits. What he did not ask was how to lift his own.
Meanwhile, Diamond left the garden eventually. Despite the thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders, she grew too chilled, and the landscape too uninteresting: most Hobbits were tending their own hearths. As the smial sat near an intersecting path, she often watched passersby. There were none to watch from the garden today, and the snowhobbits she built were too bleak to consider anymore.
The smial felt just as small and desolate when she returned inside. She banked the fire, for warmth against the cold, the flames waving a friendly flicker; yet she soon grew too hot. She brewed tea in their copper kettle to settle her temper, yet drank only half; it did not work to soothe her growing agitation. She could bake, she thought; but they were due for a market day in the next week, and did not want to use their supply too far ahead of time. She closed their pantry door with a sigh of frustration.
She paced their smial restlessly, her steps echoing lonely against the empty rooms...she wanted to resent her husband for going out, but could not muster up the anger; instead, she felt grateful he was not here to see this peculiar, fey mood of hers. She wanted to scream; she wanted silence; she wanted to run; she wanted to sleep.
Finally, in what felt like the hundredth turn about the smial, almost dizzy from her effort, her eyes alit on something curious: Pippin's old brushes, dusty, shoved into the same handbasket as some brightly colorful scrap knit-work. She sometimes knitted to pass the time if she felt like it; she occasionally made socks or the crooked sweater; sewing was far more her preference. Frequently the knitting needles sat unused, a rejoinder to his brushes that she argued with him over.
"You could paint, you know," she would say over a cup of tea. "Even just a leaf or two."
"It's not the same," he'd answer, patiently. "I can't handle it as well, anymore." And he would smile that sad smile of his.
"You could paint on me," she'd say again, slyly, hoping for a particular response. Frequently, she would get it, as he would pull her close, and kiss her from neck to nose.
"Why use brushes, when I could use something else?" and they would sigh together in the night...a distraction from the argument that never was resolved. Welcome, though never answered.
If he won't paint, then I will, she thought defiantly. She rummaged through the basket: three brushes, one in ill-repair, but the other two serviceable enough, though their tips needed a trim. What could she practice on? She had never done this before. She remembered visiting the Tooks dimly as a young Hobbit and the strong smells that came from behind their home, and the brushes that were lolling about.
Well, if she did not have the right materials, she would just have to improvise.