Xposted fics (1)
Oct. 16th, 2004 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfanI noticed that one of the drabbles I had in my memories was linked into a journal that doesn't exist any more, so I thought I should create some entries to hold anything I'd posted elsewhere, just so I know that they're findable as long as I keep up this journal.
Apologies to those who've seen these elsewhere
Bagginses
Originally posted to LOTR100 (dead link)
Title : Bagginses
Word Count: 100
Characters Bilbo/Frodo
Adult Content/Slash ? not unless you want it there
Author notes For the “loved in silence” challenge
I always loved him in silence: in the still quietness of evenings in the garden, when he’d sit in his favorite chair and send smoke rings out to greet the first shy glimmerings of starlight. I loved him in the quiet rustle of pages: in the dust and ink scented library and the skittering of his pen whispering counterpoint to my slow pencil as we construed our lines. I loved him in the clattering kitchen; in the taste of his honeycake for my tea. I loved him in the bang of Gandalf’s fireworks at our party.
I shall miss him.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Pipeweed
Original post
Elrond Half-Elven, Master of Rivendell, didn’t have any warning. He sneezed. Loudly.
“Are you all right, Master Elrond?” A small hand patted his knee worriedly, and Elrond made himself smile reassuringly at the elderly hobbit who had appeared in the corridor in answer to the explosion. It was too late to rescind the offer of permanent hospitality. Gandalf would blame him forever if something happened to Bilbo now. Of course, Gandalf never stayed for long, and always took his obnoxious habit out onto the porches.
“I’m fine,” he lied, fumbling out a handkerchief. Rivendell had rooms aplenty. Rooms for dancing, rooms for singing and playing, rooms for food, and rooms for friendly company. Surely there was room for one small hobbit! Even one that insisted on igniting himself on a nightly basis. “I came to see if you were comfortable.” And not burning the place down.
“Oh, well enough,” Bilbo replied, fidgeting with his pipe. “It was kind of you to put me so close to your rooms.”
Something in the way he said it rang a slow bell in Elrond’s head and he peered over the linen with streaming eyes. Bilbo was definitely working his way up to saying something. “You are our guest,” he said, hoping to invite further confidences.
Bilbo flushed, and fidgeted some more, and bowed. “I wouldn’t put you to any trouble,” he said carefully. “But…”
“But the room does not suit you,” Elrond finished for him, going on into it and through onto the porch, where the night breeze brought him some relief. When Bilbo joined him he carefully maneuvered so as to be upwind. “I am sorry.”
“It’s a grand room,” Bilbo said, avoiding the edge of the porch and the magnificent view. “But it is… upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” Elrond echoed.
“Well, and the ceilings are very high,” Bilbo added, very uncomfortable now. “And the bed is…”
“Too large,” Elrond guessed with a laugh. “A new bed, more to your size is already being made,” he told Bilbo. “That much at least I have already done. But you would like a room which has a lower ceiling, and not on the upper levels, would you not?” One lined with brick, and with a good chimney. And so both our desires can be granted. “I think I know the very room. Give us a day or two to make the arrangements.”
“Wonderful!” Bilbo perked up immediately. “Care to join me for a pipe, Lord Elrond?”
“No thank you,” Elrond said gravely. “I have never acquired the taste. And I have things to do. If you’ll excuse me?” He bowed and left, making plans. A window, a door. And a good cleaning, too, before Bilbo moved in. It could all be arranged. And he’d be conveniently close to the kitchens as well.
Now all he had to think about was where to put the new oven.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Counsellor of Elrond
Originally posted to LOTR100 (dead link)
Title: Counsellor of Elrond
Word Count 100
Characters: Erestor
His chief counsellor Elrond calls me, and it is an honor, but it means that I must be at every meeting in this room, and just taking my chair is enough to make my mind wander. Especially since I’ve heard the story of how Isildur took the Ring at least a thousand times. I heard Gandalf’s report about Saruman and the Ring too, and he said it in fewer words when his dinner and a bath were waiting for him.
The fate of the world hangs on our words, and all I can do is concentrate:
I will not yawn.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Sleeping
Original post
For Marigold challenge #4
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.
****
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.net, 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.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Banisters
Original post
“What on earth made you do it?”
“Hobbits don’t have … ouch… banisters. We hardly ever even have stairs. And I’d been going up and downstairs all day.”
“Stop squirming. Going down is the easy part.”
“Maybe for you tall people it is. Besides, Pippin dared me.”
“In that case I should have him apply this ointment, shouldn’t I?”
“No thanks… he’d have far too much fun.”
"And who says I’m not?”
“What was that? You’re mumbling.”
“Just thinking of an appropriate duty for Pippin tomorrow.”
“How about polishing banisters?”
“Sounds good. Now, move your legs out, there’s another blister underneath…”
“Yeow!”
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Memory of Ents
Original post
“We could use old Treebeard now, couldn’t we Merry?” Pippin said, depositing another well-wrapped sapling into the pony cart and wiping his face with his sleeve in a failed attempt to clean off some of the dirt. “He’d just tell these trees where we wanted them and… hoom, baroom, away they’d go!” The December sun shone thin through a frail fretwork of high cloud, but he’d been working hard and was sweating despite the coolness of the day. He stopped to take a drink of water, stretching his back against the ache of hard work.
“I’m not sure regular trees could go like that,” Merry answered thoughtfully. “Just huorns.”
“This is the Old Forest,” Pippin pointed out cheerfully. He grinned mischievously at the third hobbit of their working party.
“Just the very edge of it,” Sam said firmly. “And we’re not a-going to go in no deeper. Tom Bombadil saved you two from that willow tree once, and I don’t expect as he’d want to make a habit of it.” He surveyed the nearby woods with a grimace. “And how the two of you talked me into getting saplings from here I don’t know. I should have stayed back in Hobbiton, helping Mr. Frodo with seeing to the new smials in the Hill.”
“You’re the one who knows which kinds of trees are wanted,” Merry pointed out. “And unless you plan to grow every one from seeds you’ll have to choose from what’s already begun to grow. The Forest is just the easiest place to get a lot of young trees,” Merry took a deep breath and looked around at the quiet wood. “Saruman’s thugs couldn’t get past Buckland. And besides, after being in Fangorn Forest, it’s not as frightening here as I used to think it was. It’s just a matter of explaining.” He tied the burlap sacking around the rootball of his chosen sapling and patted it fondly. “The trees know that we didn’t come to burn or slash. And these little ones will all have a place to grow where they can stretch and reach the sun.”
“They’ll get taken care of, and that’s true enough, with a bit of the Lady’s earth to set their roots down right.” Sam said. “ I expect that none of these little ones are likely to take it into their heads to walk around.” He shivered. “At least I hope so. I wouldn’t want to get that Treebeard mad enough to come along to the Shire.”
Merry looked at him curiously. “I thought you liked the Ents, Sam,” he said.
“I liked hearing about them, well enough” Sam said. “But Treebeard…” he scratched his head. “It was different actually meeting Ents, than it was in a story, if you see what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” Pippin said, rummaging hopefully in the picnic basket. “What do you mean?” he asked, around a cheekful of cheese.
“Well,” Sam said, taking the next sapling in the row and beginning to wind a strip of burlap carefully around the clump of dirt and roots at its base. “You didn’t happen to mention as how they kind of wade through the earth like it was water, with their toes going down underneath, for one thing.”
“No, I don’t think we did,” Merry admitted.
“And I don’t think I rightly appreciated how big the Ents are, either,” Sam admitted. “I’m surprised you didn’t run for your lives.”
“We might have, if Treebeard didn’t already have hold of us when we met him,” Pippin said. “But he was a lot less scary than orcs.”
“But you weren’t frightened of him, were you Sam?” Merry asked. “Not after we’d told you about him.”
“Not frightened, exactly,” Sam said. “Startled more like. The last tree I saw moving on its own was Old Man Willow, after all, and the last thing I’d seen that size was Shelob. If we hadn’t been with Gandalf and the King and all, I’d have had my sword out – for all the good it would have done.” He shook his head. “He made me feel even smaller than Minas Anor did.”
“It’s funny, but once I got used to him I never felt small,” said Merry, remembering. “At least not the way you make it sound.”
“I did,” Pippin said. “But I didn’t mind. I’m used to feeling small. It’s being tall that feels funny. It’s a shame you didn’t have more chance to talk to Treebeard, though, Sam. You’d have liked his songs and stories.”
“Stories?” Sam repeated, his hands going still for the first time since the conversation had begun. “He told you stories?”
“Well, one story, mostly. About the Entwives.” Pippin boosted himself up onto the end of the cart and let his feet dangle as he rested his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. “Do you want to hear it?”
Merry and Sam exchanged knowing looks. There were six saplings yet to bundle, but Pippin had obviously reached the end of his patience for the monotonous task. He’d go back to work if he was asked, they both knew, but it had been so long since they’d seen him acting the irresponsible tween, they silently agreed to indulge him this time.
“All right, Master Peregrin,” Sam said. “Tell your tale.”
“Well, there were Ents, and Entwives, and the Ents liked wild woods, and the Entwives liked gardens, you see, so they didn’t always stay together,” Pippin began, and as he went on, with Merry correcting him and sending the story back on itself and forward again, it seemed to Sam that the air grew still and quiet, and the trees at the edge of the clearing bent closer to listen. They sidetracked for a while on exactly when the Entwives must have disappeared, and argued over the details, but the thrust of the story was plain enough, and Sam took a deep breath when he thought of how long the Ents had been alone.
“Do you remember the song, Merry?” Pippin asked, jumping down to make space for the last of the saplings at last.
“Of course I do,” Merry answered, and began to sing the long plea of the Ents:
“When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough,
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow,
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!”
Pippin answered as the Entwife, grinning at first until the sense of his words softened his elation. Sam could almost hear the words in Treebeard’s deep voice when Merry sang the next verse, and as the song turned from summer to winter he felt tears sting at his eyes. The two hobbit voices twined around each other, joining at last.
“Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away we’ll find a land where both our hearts can rest.”
Sam was glad his head was bent over the rope he was tying across the back of the cart to keep the saplings from falling out. He wanted to cry, and he wasn’t entirely sure if it were only for the Ents’ sake. He tugged at his knot, fiercely, wishing that he and Frodo had come back to a Shire where they could rest instead of having to mend what Saruman had broken.
But he couldn’t dwell on it. Pippin was waiting for a reaction to the story. Sam made himself smile at the younger hobbit. “That’s quite a tale. I expect you’re right. I should have liked Treebeard’s conversation, if we’d had any time for it.”
Pippin smiled back, “Maybe you can visit him, if you ever go south again,” he offered.
“Maybe,” Sam said.
Merry, feeling the silence lengthen, took charge. “Come on, let’s get back to Crickhollow before the sun goes down. I’m ready for dinner.” He roused the drowsing pony, and guided it back into the traces while Sam and Pippin gathered the tools and leftover burlap and string. It didn’t take long. Soon they were on their way, back to the Shire, and out of the Forest.
And not one of them saw the green eyes that watched them go.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Apologies to those who've seen these elsewhere
Bagginses
Originally posted to LOTR100 (dead link)
Title : Bagginses
Word Count: 100
Characters Bilbo/Frodo
Adult Content/Slash ? not unless you want it there
Author notes For the “loved in silence” challenge
I always loved him in silence: in the still quietness of evenings in the garden, when he’d sit in his favorite chair and send smoke rings out to greet the first shy glimmerings of starlight. I loved him in the quiet rustle of pages: in the dust and ink scented library and the skittering of his pen whispering counterpoint to my slow pencil as we construed our lines. I loved him in the clattering kitchen; in the taste of his honeycake for my tea. I loved him in the bang of Gandalf’s fireworks at our party.
I shall miss him.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Pipeweed
Original post
Elrond Half-Elven, Master of Rivendell, didn’t have any warning. He sneezed. Loudly.
“Are you all right, Master Elrond?” A small hand patted his knee worriedly, and Elrond made himself smile reassuringly at the elderly hobbit who had appeared in the corridor in answer to the explosion. It was too late to rescind the offer of permanent hospitality. Gandalf would blame him forever if something happened to Bilbo now. Of course, Gandalf never stayed for long, and always took his obnoxious habit out onto the porches.
“I’m fine,” he lied, fumbling out a handkerchief. Rivendell had rooms aplenty. Rooms for dancing, rooms for singing and playing, rooms for food, and rooms for friendly company. Surely there was room for one small hobbit! Even one that insisted on igniting himself on a nightly basis. “I came to see if you were comfortable.” And not burning the place down.
“Oh, well enough,” Bilbo replied, fidgeting with his pipe. “It was kind of you to put me so close to your rooms.”
Something in the way he said it rang a slow bell in Elrond’s head and he peered over the linen with streaming eyes. Bilbo was definitely working his way up to saying something. “You are our guest,” he said, hoping to invite further confidences.
Bilbo flushed, and fidgeted some more, and bowed. “I wouldn’t put you to any trouble,” he said carefully. “But…”
“But the room does not suit you,” Elrond finished for him, going on into it and through onto the porch, where the night breeze brought him some relief. When Bilbo joined him he carefully maneuvered so as to be upwind. “I am sorry.”
“It’s a grand room,” Bilbo said, avoiding the edge of the porch and the magnificent view. “But it is… upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” Elrond echoed.
“Well, and the ceilings are very high,” Bilbo added, very uncomfortable now. “And the bed is…”
“Too large,” Elrond guessed with a laugh. “A new bed, more to your size is already being made,” he told Bilbo. “That much at least I have already done. But you would like a room which has a lower ceiling, and not on the upper levels, would you not?” One lined with brick, and with a good chimney. And so both our desires can be granted. “I think I know the very room. Give us a day or two to make the arrangements.”
“Wonderful!” Bilbo perked up immediately. “Care to join me for a pipe, Lord Elrond?”
“No thank you,” Elrond said gravely. “I have never acquired the taste. And I have things to do. If you’ll excuse me?” He bowed and left, making plans. A window, a door. And a good cleaning, too, before Bilbo moved in. It could all be arranged. And he’d be conveniently close to the kitchens as well.
Now all he had to think about was where to put the new oven.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Counsellor of Elrond
Originally posted to LOTR100 (dead link)
Title: Counsellor of Elrond
Word Count 100
Characters: Erestor
His chief counsellor Elrond calls me, and it is an honor, but it means that I must be at every meeting in this room, and just taking my chair is enough to make my mind wander. Especially since I’ve heard the story of how Isildur took the Ring at least a thousand times. I heard Gandalf’s report about Saruman and the Ring too, and he said it in fewer words when his dinner and a bath were waiting for him.
The fate of the world hangs on our words, and all I can do is concentrate:
I will not yawn.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Sleeping
Original post
For Marigold challenge #4
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.
****
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.net, 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.
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Banisters
Original post
“What on earth made you do it?”
“Hobbits don’t have … ouch… banisters. We hardly ever even have stairs. And I’d been going up and downstairs all day.”
“Stop squirming. Going down is the easy part.”
“Maybe for you tall people it is. Besides, Pippin dared me.”
“In that case I should have him apply this ointment, shouldn’t I?”
“No thanks… he’d have far too much fun.”
"And who says I’m not?”
“What was that? You’re mumbling.”
“Just thinking of an appropriate duty for Pippin tomorrow.”
“How about polishing banisters?”
“Sounds good. Now, move your legs out, there’s another blister underneath…”
“Yeow!”
Timeline (fiction only, most recent version, includes AU) first previous next last
Memory of Ents
Original post
“We could use old Treebeard now, couldn’t we Merry?” Pippin said, depositing another well-wrapped sapling into the pony cart and wiping his face with his sleeve in a failed attempt to clean off some of the dirt. “He’d just tell these trees where we wanted them and… hoom, baroom, away they’d go!” The December sun shone thin through a frail fretwork of high cloud, but he’d been working hard and was sweating despite the coolness of the day. He stopped to take a drink of water, stretching his back against the ache of hard work.
“I’m not sure regular trees could go like that,” Merry answered thoughtfully. “Just huorns.”
“This is the Old Forest,” Pippin pointed out cheerfully. He grinned mischievously at the third hobbit of their working party.
“Just the very edge of it,” Sam said firmly. “And we’re not a-going to go in no deeper. Tom Bombadil saved you two from that willow tree once, and I don’t expect as he’d want to make a habit of it.” He surveyed the nearby woods with a grimace. “And how the two of you talked me into getting saplings from here I don’t know. I should have stayed back in Hobbiton, helping Mr. Frodo with seeing to the new smials in the Hill.”
“You’re the one who knows which kinds of trees are wanted,” Merry pointed out. “And unless you plan to grow every one from seeds you’ll have to choose from what’s already begun to grow. The Forest is just the easiest place to get a lot of young trees,” Merry took a deep breath and looked around at the quiet wood. “Saruman’s thugs couldn’t get past Buckland. And besides, after being in Fangorn Forest, it’s not as frightening here as I used to think it was. It’s just a matter of explaining.” He tied the burlap sacking around the rootball of his chosen sapling and patted it fondly. “The trees know that we didn’t come to burn or slash. And these little ones will all have a place to grow where they can stretch and reach the sun.”
“They’ll get taken care of, and that’s true enough, with a bit of the Lady’s earth to set their roots down right.” Sam said. “ I expect that none of these little ones are likely to take it into their heads to walk around.” He shivered. “At least I hope so. I wouldn’t want to get that Treebeard mad enough to come along to the Shire.”
Merry looked at him curiously. “I thought you liked the Ents, Sam,” he said.
“I liked hearing about them, well enough” Sam said. “But Treebeard…” he scratched his head. “It was different actually meeting Ents, than it was in a story, if you see what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” Pippin said, rummaging hopefully in the picnic basket. “What do you mean?” he asked, around a cheekful of cheese.
“Well,” Sam said, taking the next sapling in the row and beginning to wind a strip of burlap carefully around the clump of dirt and roots at its base. “You didn’t happen to mention as how they kind of wade through the earth like it was water, with their toes going down underneath, for one thing.”
“No, I don’t think we did,” Merry admitted.
“And I don’t think I rightly appreciated how big the Ents are, either,” Sam admitted. “I’m surprised you didn’t run for your lives.”
“We might have, if Treebeard didn’t already have hold of us when we met him,” Pippin said. “But he was a lot less scary than orcs.”
“But you weren’t frightened of him, were you Sam?” Merry asked. “Not after we’d told you about him.”
“Not frightened, exactly,” Sam said. “Startled more like. The last tree I saw moving on its own was Old Man Willow, after all, and the last thing I’d seen that size was Shelob. If we hadn’t been with Gandalf and the King and all, I’d have had my sword out – for all the good it would have done.” He shook his head. “He made me feel even smaller than Minas Anor did.”
“It’s funny, but once I got used to him I never felt small,” said Merry, remembering. “At least not the way you make it sound.”
“I did,” Pippin said. “But I didn’t mind. I’m used to feeling small. It’s being tall that feels funny. It’s a shame you didn’t have more chance to talk to Treebeard, though, Sam. You’d have liked his songs and stories.”
“Stories?” Sam repeated, his hands going still for the first time since the conversation had begun. “He told you stories?”
“Well, one story, mostly. About the Entwives.” Pippin boosted himself up onto the end of the cart and let his feet dangle as he rested his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. “Do you want to hear it?”
Merry and Sam exchanged knowing looks. There were six saplings yet to bundle, but Pippin had obviously reached the end of his patience for the monotonous task. He’d go back to work if he was asked, they both knew, but it had been so long since they’d seen him acting the irresponsible tween, they silently agreed to indulge him this time.
“All right, Master Peregrin,” Sam said. “Tell your tale.”
“Well, there were Ents, and Entwives, and the Ents liked wild woods, and the Entwives liked gardens, you see, so they didn’t always stay together,” Pippin began, and as he went on, with Merry correcting him and sending the story back on itself and forward again, it seemed to Sam that the air grew still and quiet, and the trees at the edge of the clearing bent closer to listen. They sidetracked for a while on exactly when the Entwives must have disappeared, and argued over the details, but the thrust of the story was plain enough, and Sam took a deep breath when he thought of how long the Ents had been alone.
“Do you remember the song, Merry?” Pippin asked, jumping down to make space for the last of the saplings at last.
“Of course I do,” Merry answered, and began to sing the long plea of the Ents:
“When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough,
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow,
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!”
Pippin answered as the Entwife, grinning at first until the sense of his words softened his elation. Sam could almost hear the words in Treebeard’s deep voice when Merry sang the next verse, and as the song turned from summer to winter he felt tears sting at his eyes. The two hobbit voices twined around each other, joining at last.
“Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away we’ll find a land where both our hearts can rest.”
Sam was glad his head was bent over the rope he was tying across the back of the cart to keep the saplings from falling out. He wanted to cry, and he wasn’t entirely sure if it were only for the Ents’ sake. He tugged at his knot, fiercely, wishing that he and Frodo had come back to a Shire where they could rest instead of having to mend what Saruman had broken.
But he couldn’t dwell on it. Pippin was waiting for a reaction to the story. Sam made himself smile at the younger hobbit. “That’s quite a tale. I expect you’re right. I should have liked Treebeard’s conversation, if we’d had any time for it.”
Pippin smiled back, “Maybe you can visit him, if you ever go south again,” he offered.
“Maybe,” Sam said.
Merry, feeling the silence lengthen, took charge. “Come on, let’s get back to Crickhollow before the sun goes down. I’m ready for dinner.” He roused the drowsing pony, and guided it back into the traces while Sam and Pippin gathered the tools and leftover burlap and string. It didn’t take long. Soon they were on their way, back to the Shire, and out of the Forest.
And not one of them saw the green eyes that watched them go.
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