Posted on 12/17/2002 7:32:02 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)
Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.
Why so blue?
My grandfather passed away last night. Not a real big surprise...he'd been in the hospital for the past 2 weeks. But it's the first grandparent I've ever lost....it's a bit weird to deal with.
And as usual, you all have put a smile on my face and made the day a bit happier!
The Falling of Small Stones
by Sharon Ferguson
Ghost Dreams
Disclaimer: All names, places, dates, events, geology, ideas, etc belong to JRR Tolkien and his books, “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” I have only wanted to ‘fill in some blanks’ on some of the characters. I do not claim them as mine.
History: Peregrin Took has ALWAYS been my favorite character since I first read the trilogy, and probably always will. There are various reasons why, from his puckish curiosity to his youthful indifference to important information, spirited and smart-alecky comments, and sheer courage and strength. This story is my thoughts on what his role might have played out as if Tolkien had written more into the trilogy. My sneaking suspicions are that he had a sub-story going on that snuck up under the radar with the youngest and most impulsive of the hobbits.
*****
"There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same, for I shall not be the same." Frodo, Homeward Bound
****
It was in his dreams again.
The long approach, the beckoning edge, the soft scrape of the pebble as he pulled it into his palm. He looked up to see if he had been noticed, the cold fear at his fingertips welling like drawn blood into his face.
Gandalf debated with Boromir and Aragorn. Legolas meditated, Sam bustled, and Merry was preoccupied with his own pack. Frodo ignored them all.
His eyes returned to the dreadful well, questions flitting through his mind as emotion rather than pure thought. The unknowing had nagged him since they entered this terrible room.
And in the dream, while his heart hammered for his muscles to stop, he watched his small hand, a hand he could scarcely call his own, reach out over the abyss…and released the pebble. It fell in a trail of regret.
This time, Gandalf did not hear the cold impact of stone on water. This time, Gandalf did not yank him to his feet and scold him. This time, the sound itself reached up -- and up -- and up --
He squirmed, trying to push away from the edge, muscles thick like treacle, but the echo became soft lights burbling from tragic depths, roiling….lights of echo?…pulsing stronger…
Pippin felt his mouth drop in wordless terror, unable to breathe or sigh, for in the rising bile of dismay, he felt the approach of a familiar question:
‘who are you?’
***************
Perhaps it was the glowing colors of the sunset behind the mountains where Minas Tirith had braced itself that gave Peregrin Took pause for thought, or the idle chit chat between Frodo, Gandalf, and King Aragorn. He had led them to the same embrasure he and Beregond took refuge on his first day in the City, perched as it was above the spread of the city, its posture like an eagle content with its brood, now that the Dark Lord had been defeated. Gimli had excused himself to the armory, Legolas to the remaining elves, and Merry? Where was that rascal? Sam still puttered about in the gardens that sprung up in the corners and avenues of the city, encouraged by the peoples’ enthusiasm for herbs and flowers.
Peregrin did what he learned to do on that first evening and stood tiptoe upon the bench against the sill, his gaze following the rays of the sun to their end where Minas Ithil hunched, defeated and forlorn. Warm breezes of the summer wafted over the Pelennor, subtle with river-mist and sunshine, no longer tainted by the stench of war, which in the soft gold of the evening, seemed so far away in memory.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Frodo glance up at him.
No, not for Frodo, he thought. Pippin could see it in every line of his face. Haunting flashes of pain. Sam had said the old Frodo that they knew and loved was “returned”, something he meant as an encouragement, to be sure; but somehow the assurance pained Pippin in a way he could not name. He could only imagine what Sam witnessed as he described their journey to the Crack of Doom.
But does Frodo still see it, the Ring in its Firey Glare?
In moments of unguarded and unexpected silence, Pippin could almost see confirmation of that. But someone would pick up the conversation and the ghosts were lost in another venue of thought.
Pippin suppressed a sudden shudder, his mind turning over the images of his dream. It had been weeks since he had dreamt anything memorable; and, since the fall of Barad-dur, it was unimaginable that evil could still reach out, veiled though it was in nightmares. This, in itself, was a bit frustrating tohim, since Frodo’s trials were over, Merry’s arm was healed, Sam had the energy of a hobbit-lad in spring, and Gandalf laughed more than talked.
The dream was as livid as anything he had experienced since the palantir, exhuming fears that the victories over Mordor should have dispelled. He should be happy. He should be at rest.
What was wrong with him?
“Pip?” Frodo climbed up onto the bench to imitate his slouch against the wall, his face tilted in such a way as to suggest that Frodo recognized his unusual mood. There had been a few days of uncertainty after their reunion, each one of them trying hard to reconcile the hobbit they had known before with the hobbit that remained. Whether it was the long influence of the Ring or the blessed nature of their Elven friends, Frodo had developed a knack for honing in on more sensitive thoughts.
In response, Pippin turned on one of his brighter smiles, more out of self-defense than welcome. He loved Frodo too much right now to break the thin skin of peace.
“Minas Tirith is just as Boromir said it would be…in the sunset,” he answered, then regretted it, for Frodo’s face blanched slightly at the mention of the former Walker.
Frodo covered it quickly with his old amused expression, one he always seemed to have on his face with dealing with Pippin, which cheered him up. Pippin used to think it was condescending, but in the joy of finding all four of them alive, the expression was now the most wonderful thing he could see on his cousin’s face.
“Yes, I remember his description. I remember wanting to come to Minas Tirith. That he wasn’t with us when we finally arrived makes it that much more….” He floundered, moved by the dying light of the city.
“More beautiful?”
“I meant bittersweet, but yes, beautiful, too.”
“In a way,” Pippin replied. “I am glad he did not see it when…when the horror crossed the River.” He paused, not wanting to sound plaintive. “I am glad for many things.”
“Then why so glum? I have never seen you like this,” Frodo pressed, voice quiet. Gandalf and Aragorn moved away, oblivious to the hobbits now in their conversation. The wizard teased the new king of falling into the speech pattern of Strider’s day, something that the people of the city found amusingly common when the hobbits were present.
“I’m not sure what I was thinking…” Pippin began, realizing that to tell Frodo of his dreams was asking for further analysis…and he was not ready for that. “Something Bilbo said Gandalf had told him at the end of his quest, about how it could not possibly be our sole ambitions that brought us where we are…that there is some greater destiny. I used to wonder at that.”
“Sam said something very similar when we were in Mordor. It helped me a great deal,” Frodo said, nodding.
“I think, perhaps, I am still wondering what I have to do with it all, with all that I have done.” There I go. It would come out, anyway. How had Frodo learned to uncover uncomfortable thoughts since Crickhollow?
“Besides outwit an orc, converse with trees, rummage through wizard’s belongings, and defend the stricken son of a Steward? Not much at all, I would say!” Frodo teased, laughing.
“I did not tell you everything.”
“No, but Gandalf did.”
It was Pippin’s turn to wince.
“It won’t go from me. After all that has happened…” He trailed off. All right. Stop it, Peregrin Took.
Frodo rubbed thoughtfully at the nub where his ring-finger had been.
“You know,” he admitted, voice lower now, almost wistful. “I can still feel it, like an echo of what had been. It is almost as if it is a ghost that shouts for attention.”
It was on Pippin’s tongue to ask if it were the Ring or the finger Frodo referred to, but he quelled the impulse to ask.
“We’ll never be the same,” he stammered instead. Frodo turned a very loving expression on him, and placed his arms about his youngest cousin.
“No, Pip. It is the end of the Third Age, and the echoes will die away, but not because we have forgotten. We will only direct them elsewhere.”
“And what destiny will that have?”
Frodo clapped Pippin on the shoulder as if to nudge him out of the mood.
“That I cannot say. But! I see a brave and noble Peregrin Took before me,” he said. “One worthy of the title of Thain. And that is the destiny I am looking forward to seeing.”
Pippin turned away acutely reminded of Frodo’s ability to see past his words. He needed to think this one out before he spoke again.
Which would be a first, Merry would point out.
But then, Merry knew what he had been doing when he disobeyed King Theoden.
And fine optics. And fine tools to maintain the weapons and optics. I have to confess to a guilty pleasure in collecting vintage military optics, and buying exotic tools at www.brownells.com.
A couple of mistresses would be cheaper.
[[[ hugs ]]]
I'm so sorry, sis...I'm glad you told us.
Those of us that have been here a while have gone through troubled times together such as this. Know that you have friends here that will keep you in their prayers and thoughts today.
I enjoyed it though! Great descriptive talent!
LOL!
Thank you both :-)
******
Destiny Calls
******
"And now our fates are woven together...It was a bitter struggle, and the weariness is slow to pass." Aragorn, The Passing of the Grey Company
*****
Gandalf had dismissed himself early this morning, taken, it would seem, by a sudden interest in Samwise Gamgee’s horticultural handiwork in the streets of Minas Tirith.
Which left King Aragorn to his own judicial devices in the court. He sighed as courtiers left the room for the mid-day meal. The heat of the day was beginning to encroach and the Man of the West wished it were closer to evening.
He glanced around him to see what Guards remained, his eyes resting on Pippin, as still as stone in his position at the dais, the muscles of his face betraying a weariness and strain uncharacteristic of this most optimistic of the hobbits. Indeed, the energy that usually radiated from him had been rather muted these last few days, replaced by a pensive restlessness he tried to hide behind the flash of Gondorian armor.
Aragorn pulled off the circlet around his head and laid it on the chair behind him, leaning forward to query conspiratorily,
“I understand the larder in the Guard room has excess amounts of fare for even the heartiest appetite. Do you not think a hobbit could show them how it should be dealt with?”
This elicited a quick grin from Pippin, not so engrossed with his own thoughts that the prospect of a hearty meal did not register. The stiff reserve he was learning so quickly to uphold in the Court of the King disappeared.
As they made their way through the streets to said larder, Aragorn watched how others greeted Pippin. The hobbit had a certain air that pulled all eyes towards him, and the women laughed with delight over his courtesies. Children could not refrain from touching him, and he accepted their embraces and tackles with warmth and pleasure. They were soon making the tiered streets ring with merriment. Peregrin Took had found a niche in which he could flex his full personality without penalty.
Perhaps it was the shadows of the hall that had made him seem so glum, Aragorn thought, as they finally settled on a bench in the kitchen of what was to be his home.
“Do you know, it does my heart good to know that the fellowship we had remains in the city,” Aragorn ventured, speaking around a mouthful of fresh baked bread. “If I had seen an elf take gardening advice from a hobbit anywhere else, I would have thought I had crossed the seas into a different world.”
Pippin forsook table manners as well, leaning back in the large chair to prop his feet upon the seat of another, gaining full advantage of the moment of leisure.
“What surprises me,” the hobbit rejoined, “is that we are together at all. I feel as a small pebble that had bounced just the right way into the right path, knocking just the right boulder into motion.”
And setting off an avalance, Aragorn finished to himself.
“Well, you must remember what Galadriel spoke to us, how perilously close we were to falling to the wayside,” Aragorn replied, not at all taken aback by the directness with which Pippin faced the conversation.
Pippin’s gaze turned sharp, almost rueful.
“Do you think it was mere circumstance then?”
Aragorn took a deep breath. What was bothering this otherwise unquenchable hobbit?
“I mean,” the hobbit stammered, taking the puzzled look on the King’s face for amusement at his expense. Reflex. “I mean, all of this. That you became king, that we defended Gondor, that Frodo made it to the Crack of Doom, that Gollum, that horrid creature, actually fell in…”
Ah.
“Was it prophecy? Or was it chance? Only the Valar know,” Aragorn cast out the most obvious reply, mind racing to discover which way the hobbit’s thoughts were flowing.
“And Gandalf?”
“What about him?”
Peregrin shifted uneasily.
“I shouldn’t speak without him present to defend himself,” he demured. They sat in silence for a few moments, chewing up the remains of the meal, quaffing the last of the mead. Collecting thoughts.
“Gandalf had much to do with what has gone before us,” Aragorn said, breaking the silence. “For as long as I can remember, he has always marveled how a chance meeting set him on the path of this the final days of the Third Age, where the Dark One is ultimately defeated. Finding Thorin just as he did on his way to gather up a final effort against Smaug the Destructor was truly an auspicious meeting, but was that a meeting made by the stars?” Aragorn shrugged, a knowing smile flitting across his face. “I do not know. Personally, I do not think you were the first pebble cast, if that is what is bothering you.”
Pippin grinned at Aragorn’s turn of phrase.
“Dear Strider! I think you, as well as Gandalf, know more than you are willing to say.”
“I think I know hobbits,” the king replied. Now it was time to aim for the heart. “Four of them in particular, well enough to see when something is troubling them. And coming from one who has watched hobbits for a long time, one in a state of despondency is a trouble to my own heart. I know that you, Frodo, and the others care to return to the Shire. I myself am curious to know what has transpired there.”
Pippin frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Aragorn almost wished he had not said anything. Apparently, the Shire was still untouched in Pippin’s mind.
“Reports of fighting in Lorien and distant Erebor leave me to think that not even the Shire could have been missed,” he explained, as gently as he could think to phrase it.
"Aye, I am concerned about that as well. But surely, there would not be much to fear. If fighting did reach the Shire, there are plenty there who would fend them off." Pippin stated, matter-of-factly. "My family has long defended the Shire. They will notice anything amiss, and deal with it accordingly."
Aragorn nodded, more out of a desire to draw the hobbit out than to debate his point of view.
"But I know Frodo has begun to think of starting home," Pippin added, apologetically.
"Our days together have not come near to closing…or it is my hope,” Aragorn replied, smiling. “Gandalf has much to do with that as well.”
“Yes, it’s Gandalf’s fault,” Pippin laughed.
“So, Master Took. What is troubling you, if not the destiny of the Shire?”
Pippin shook his head dismissively, gathering up the crumbs of his meal to discard.
“I’m sure it’s minor in the scheme of things, Strider.” He got up from the table but Aragorn caught Pippin’s arm and eye and held them, voice now grave with command.
“Knight of Gondor, you stand beside me in the Court as my guard. This honor does not disregard the state of mind you are in. If there is something you would speak of, say it now.”
Pippin blushed and bowed, immediately apologetic.
“Forgive me, my lord. You have demonstrated time and again that friendship trumps duty or position…or even the Seven Stars of the West. If I demur, it is because I fail to find the right words. As Merry said, we hesitate to speak when light comment does not suffice.”
“Speak then, O Ernil i Pheriannath!”
It was Peregrin’s turn to take a deep breath.
“I have heard much about the tales since we came to Gondor. I have not a head for details, but I remember what bears repeating. For instance, we knew the origins of the swords of the Barrow-downs, and Elven memory has spelled out its destiny to fall on Merry’s shoulders. Had we known what it would bring us, I doubt we would have entered the Old Forest at all.” Pippin’s thoughts tumbled out as he spoke. “And Frodo, well, Gandalf spoke of how it seemed the old stories all led up to the doorstep of Bag End. And Sam, I have no idea if it even occurs to him how he is a part of the story. I don’t think it matters to him. All he has ever known is service, and he finds much freedom in that service. But…” and Pippin’s voice trailed off, unable to put words to his own doubts.
Aragorn nodded in encouragement. “You want to know what your part is in all of this?”
“I realize I sound as if I can only complain of things I did not do, or did at the risk of life and limb to others. I sound ungrateful!” The young hobbit plopped back into his seat, despondent. “But I cannot help feeling…feeling as if I have just barely escaped…I cannot explain.” Pippin ended, miserably.
“But we did escape, all of us. Just barely. And you have grown into a hobbit that many in your country will admire and respect.”
“That’s not what I am thinking of.”
“Then, what?”
Pippin’s expression regained its earlier moodiness.
“Why did Gandalf bring me? Why was I allowed to come on the quest?”
This time, Aragorn was taken aback.
“Should that matter even now?”
“It matters when I keep dreaming about it!” Pippin said. “I dream I am back in Moria, dropping the stone into the well…and it…turns horrible somehow…and the palantir…”
“Do you still blame yourself for what happened in Moria?” Aragorn asked, sympathy clenching his heart. How could he reassure everyone in the fellowship that no one could claim that for themselves? Was it fate? Or was it chance?
“I don’t think I really started doubting it until….until…”
A thought clicked in Aragorn’s mind, the image of Gandalf cradling the youngest hobbit in the dark of the valley of Isengard, frightened beyond belief that the power of the palantir had ensnared Pippin, locking him into a trance beyond his recall.
“Did you ask him yourself?”
Pippin sighed, as if that was all Aragorn needed to ask.
“I did...at the wrong time. The Blackness was covering us and the need for Faramir dearly felt. I do not think he quite caught what I wanted to know. And things happened so quickly. So I did not ask again.”
Aragorn opened his mouth to offer encouragement that Pippin try again, except that a messenger from the Court hurried into the kitchen, breathless and red in the face. Bowing hastily, he waited for the king to acknowledge him.
“My lord, you must return to your council, for there have arrived emissaries you sent forth hence to Hollin…” he stammered. Aragorn stopped him in mid-sentence with a raised hand and motioned for Pippin to follow. The hobbit settled his face back into its neutral expression, although he couldn’t miss the glint of gratitude in his eyes for the interruption.
Perhaps those from Hollin will be able to give him relief, the king thought, but neither he nor the hobbit said anything more as they made their way back to the Court.
He & my grandma just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in August. All of the kids and grandkids flew down to Florida to celebrate with them. I'm so happy we did that now.
Yes, I loved hearing the stories.
It sucks that I'll have to go through this 3 more times. It makes me appreciate the ones living so much more now.
Even after that porno Pippin pic posted yesterday??
LOL I'm just kidding..
ARGH I know what you mean. I recently did this thing called "National Writer's Month" in November (NANOWRIMO, if you've ever heard of it...). It's just a group of people that get together on-line or irl in November and the goal is to write a whole novel in one month. Just write write write your brains out, with no editing or anything. I got very distracted and didn't complete it, but I had fun.
Anyway....I was clicking away on people's profiles and reading what they were writing. I came across this one chick who was writing about being Sam & Frodo's love child! *vomit* First of all, I don't see how that's scientifically possible but most of all....I'm so sick and tired of people treating them as being in love. They had a deep emotional PLATONIC bond! I'm so sick of people ruining that with their perverted minds.
Oooo ... post number please? :-D
Thank you Hair! There are three more to come...if that is all right? I too am a bit weary of the atrocities done to the characters. When I first started it, I felt I was digging up sacred ground, committing heresy, committing some foul deed...but I was inspired BECAUSE I was sick of seeing Pippin portrayed as either a hyper-active five year old toddling along, or a whiny teen-ager who was utterly clueless. I don't think Tolkien would have had ANY of his characters as a mindless twit. He installed quite a bit of intelligence in each one of them. So I did this mostly to set the record straight. Hope I did it...
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