Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Here is the Tumblr post I made, which this story is based on(Link)

"Strider! Strider!" Sam panted, trying to keep up with the man's long strides. That was, perhaps, why someone decided to nickname him Strider, Sam reflected.

"Yes, Sam?" Aragorn kept walking, which was making it very hard for Sam to catch up and even harder for him to talk.

"We need your help. Master Pippin's gone and twisted his ankle and he can't stand on it."

Aragorn stopped and then hurried back to the camp they had set for the night. It must have been a pretty serious injury if the fellowship sent Sam to fetch Aragorn away from his hunting. After all, at least four ninths of the fellowship counted food among the most important matters in life.

Camp was not far, and Aragorn could tell he and Sam were drawing closer because he could hear Pippin's crying getting louder with each step. Aragorn almost rolled his eyes, but then remembered that Pippin really was still a child by the reckoning of hobbits, and he had come quite a way from crying over bug bites at the beginning of their journey. 

The two entered the clearing of trees that served as their camp. In the time it had taken for Sam to fetch Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas had come back from refilling everyone's waterskins. Now, they- as well as Gimli- stood awkwardly around the camp while the remaining hobbits and Gandalf tried to calm Pippin down. Frodo was drawing seemingly endless numbers of handkerchiefs from every pocket- and some, it seemed, out of thin air- Merry had wrapped his arms around his younger cousin, and Gandalf spoke quietly to him, hoping to get the lad to stop crying, at least.

"Strider!" Frodo called, very happy to see the only person in their group who had any skill in healing such matters. 

"Hello. What seems to have happened?"

"Pippin was running 'round like usual and he tripped over a tree root," Merry answered. "He must've twisted his ankle pretty bad because it's all swollen up now. I didn't know what to do, we don't have any ice." Merry himself looked very upset to see his cousin hurt. The older members of the fellowship hoped that none of them would get more hurt than twisting an ankle on this journey, but some reflected that it was unlikely. 

"Okay," Aragorn knelt down and checked out Pippin's ankle, feeling it as delicately as possible, but it still caused some pain, as was evident by the way Pippin stiffened and cried even louder.

"Strider, it hurts everso bad!" He sobbed. "And now I can't walk and I'm useless and you'll have to leave me here!" 

"No, no one is leaving you here Peregrine," Gandalf shook his head, voice much softer and kinder than it was when he usually dealt with the rambunctious youngster. 

"Wait," Boromir knew that Pippin loved to talk, but he was also confused. Best to kill two birds with one stone, "Why does Mithrandir call you Peregrin, and everyone else calls you Pippin except for Sam who calls you Master Pippin and Merry who occasionally calls you Pip?"

Pippin stopped sobbing, thinking on the question a bit. Aragorn sighed in relief. It was much easier to heal a distracted patient than a crying one.

"Well," Pippin started, "my full name is Peregrin Took, but my nickname is Pippin, and Sam calls me Master Pippin because it's only proper, you know, although once I'm of age it will be Mister Pippin, and Merry sometimes calls me Pip because it's easier to say. I guess it's the same as you calling Gandalf a nickname."

"What? Mithrandir is his real name, not a nickname! Gandalf is a nickname."

"No," Pippin didn't even give a counter-argument. He just plain old disagreed.

"Well, Gandalf," Frodo asked, suddenly curious. "Which name is the nickname?"

Gandalf only shrugged and took a draw of his pipe.

"Now that we are talking about this," Boromir said, ignoring the fact that Gandalf was being entirely unhelpful, "how many names does everyone here have?"

"Two," said Merry. "Just Meriadoc and Merry."

"Same for me. Sam and Samwise."

"Is it a custom among hobbits to name yourselves in this manner?"

"No. Only if you've got a long stuffy name. Frodo has only got the one," Merry answered.

"I've only one name. I haven't earned any others," Legolas explained. Gimli looked furious, which told everyone else that apparently dwarves and elves have the same custom of giving a second name for a deed.

"Strider has lots of names," Pippin said, watching as Aragorn splinted his ankle. "For example, you call him Aragorn, but I heard Elrond call his Estel, and the people at the Prancing Pony had all kinds of names for him like Strider (that's the one we call him, of course) and bastar-"

"Alright!" Frodo silenced him, "let's not repeat any of the 'names' the Bree Folk gave him!"

Pippin looked confused, unsure why he wasn't allowed to say all the other names he heard. Meanwhile, everyone else tried to conceal their laughter.

"Most of the things the Bree Folk call me aren't names, Pippin," Aragorn explained gently. "A lot of them were just unsavoury words."

"Oh… like fuck?"

"PIPPIN!" Frodo shrieked, absolutely horrified at the language coming out of his young cousin's mouth.

"Who do you think taught him that word?" Merry asked, a grin on his face. "Don't act so surprised he repeats the stuff you say, you know. 'Sides, it's a bit hypocritical to scold him for saying a word you use all the time." Merry's grin promptly faded when Frodo- face red with anger- grabbed the tip of his pointed ear and pulled him away. 

"... Rest in peace, Mister Merry," Sam whispered as he watched the two cousins disappear behind a tree. Undoubtedly, Frodo was privately scolding Merry and assigning him some nasty chore to do for talking back.

"If Strider is something the men in Bree use as an insult, why do you hobbits call Aragorn that?" Legolas asked, choosing to ignore what had just happened.

"Well, Aragorn just don't seem right after hearing him called Strider when we first met and all," answered Sam. 

"And Estel doesn't sound very good," Pippin said.

"What's wrong with Estel?" Aragorn asked.

"Sounds like a lass's name."

"It is not a lass's name," Legolas defended. "It is a name that can be given to any worthy of its bearing and it means hope."

"I agree with Pippin," Gimli said. Not because he actually agreed with Pippin (although he did) but because he wanted to disagree with Legolas on every subject. 

"I think Thorongil was a good name," Gandalf chuckled. "You could've stuck with that."

"What do you mean, Mithrandir?" Boromir glanced between the wizard and the man in confusion. "Surely Captain Thorongil wasn't-"

"Doesn't matter!" Aragorn cut him off.

"Well I think it does!"

"What's the matter with Thorongil?" Pippin asked. "I think it is a nice name. It seems almost hobbit-y."

"Well if he is Thorongil than that means-"

"You know," Aragorn interrupted, "I think it is a good time for me to go back on the hunt! Pippin, don't walk on that foot until I tell you to, Sam please enforce that rule even if you have to sit on him, someone check that Frodo hasn't murdered Merry, and Gandalf, stop telling tales. Off I go!"

Chapter Text

"Sam, that dinner was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my entire life!" Boromir said as he handed his bowl back to the hobbit. "I never knew trail food could be so good. You must teach me your secret."

Sam's ears turned a dusty pink. "Thankee. I don't think I've got any secret to it, sir. Just plain old cookin. I'm glad you liked your breakfast."

"Breakfast? I said dinner. After all, that was dinner, was it not?"

"That was breakfast."

"Oh, I see how that could be confusing," Boromir stated. Indeed, everyone else was confused about his insistence on calling their breakfast dinner too. "It's just that, with us travelling at night, the meal we just ate would've been considered dinner in normal circumstances, as it was eaten at dinnertime."

Sam tried very hard to conceal how much that statement bothered him, but his polite exterior was beginning to crack as he listened to what was probably the most outrageously incorrect statement he had ever heard in his life. "I see… but, well, it only seems proper to call it breakfast. I mean, breakfast is the first meal of the day, and that was the first meal of the day."

"I see the logic in that, but if you sleep through the morning and you wake at noon, you would call that meal lunch, yes? Not breakfast."

"Only if everyone else has eaten their breakfast and such already! If you live alone and you wake up, why, it's just breakfast!"

Everyone else watched in amused (and terrified) fascination as the usually soft-spoken Sam shouted at Boromir. In fact, Sam began to pace back and forth quite angrily, "It is called break-fast because you are breaking your fast ! We just broke our fast, hence breakfast! "

"My, do calm yourself," Boromir patted his shoulder in a way that came across a bit patronising. "I meant no harm, little master. I only expressed my opinion on a matter that I am quite obviously unlearned in."

Sam calmed down, his red face turning its original colour. That is, until Gimli muttered, "Boromir might have a point. It seems wrong to eat breakfast as the sun sets. Better to eat it when the sun rises."

Before Sam could say a thing, Legolas and Gimli began to argue over it. Then he joined the argument, and then Boromir- apparently hoping to make it a fair fight- joined Gimli's side of the argument. 

"ENOUGH!" Gandalf roared, stunning them all to silence. That particular tone was usually only used to below threats at Pippin whenever he did something particularly stupid. "We will call it breakfast-dinner, since you all cannot agree."

This seemed to satisfy everyone, until Merry brought up what he believed to be an error in that logic. "Why breakfast-dinner and not dinner-breakfast?" 

Silence as everyone thought about it. And then complete chaos as now everyone joined the argument. It was a miracle that all the evils of Middle Earth were not drawn to the sound of their arguing. 

The argument was much worse than it should have been. Today was the first day in a week in which it hadn't stormed, so for the past few days everyone had been cold and wet and miserable. No one had slept last night, er… day (day-night? Night-day? Help!), and now they were all using this ridiculous argument about what to call the first meal of the day to vent all the frustrations each had been keeping bottled up this whole time. It went from "that was breakfast, idiot" to "I hate you because you snore loud enough to wake the entire valley" and back again several times over.

*

"Breakfast has to have eggs," Gimli switched away from Boromir's side of the argument onto his own, invented side. "None of our meals since we left has had eggs, so none of them are breakfast."

"Excuse me?" Gandalf didn't even try to remain the neutral peacekeeper anymore, " Where in the definition of breakfast does it say there must be eggs?" 

*

"Breakfast-dinner makes no sense!" Merry insisted, "the time should come first and then the meal! You say a 'late lunch' not a 'lunch late', you know?"

"No, I don't know. Breakfast-dinner makes more sense because it is in alphabetical order."

"Oh, and since when do you know the alphabet, Pippin?"

"Out of everyone I expect better from you! You know I struggled in my studies and you know it hurts my feelings when people bring that up! I can't believe you would be such a jerk!"

*

"Why don't we just combine the words and call it brinner?" Aragorn asked. No one but Frodo heard him.

"No way!" Frodo shook his head, "if you're going down that route it should be dinfast!" 

That caught everyone's attention. And unfortunately no one could agree on that either.

"Beggin' your pardon Mister Frodo, but dinfast just don't sound right. The fast isn't the important part- the breakin' is. It should be called breakfast-dinner if we can't agree on breakfast and I think that's final."

"What if we called it early lunch?" Gimli suggested.

"I still think brinner is a good idea."

"What have I done?" Boromir cried out.

"Dinner-breakfast is obviously the superior choice!" Merry insisted. 

"I don't care enough about this to form an opinion on my own but I will disagree with everything Gimli says."

"If I didn't care about my vows or my duty every one of you would be a frog right now!" Gandalf kicked his pack, envisioning in his mind that it was one of the other fellowship members. 

"Excuse me!" Pippin was trying very hard to be heard, but he was the smallest and the youngest and everyone else was far too preoccupied with their arguments to pay any attention to him. He sighed, looking around for a good sturdy rock to climb onto so they could see him. He found a suitable one and scrambled up the side.

"EXCUSE ME!" Now that he was atop the rock, everyone could see him. "Now that I have your attention, I have a suggestion. We should combine the words, but not as either brinner or dinfast since no one can agree. But, I think we can all agree on my version: dikfast."

Everyone stared at him in silence, blinking. Gandalf looked like he was about to defy all known laws of physics and combust spontaneously.

"Oi, Pip," Merry said, "please do us a favour and say that again, but slower."

"Dikfast! I don't see what's wrong with- oh… um… nevermind then!"

"No, no," Frodo, seeing an opportunity, cut in, "Pippin has the right of it. We should call it dikfast. Now, since me and Pippin both seem to like that idea," Pippin shook his head but Frodo kicked him on the shin, and he stopped, "that makes two votes for dikfast. And one vote for everything else."

Everyone erupted into arguing as they pleaded with Frodo to change his mind. He waited for a few minutes, happy his plan was working. 

"Alright! Alright!" Frodo stopped their arguing. "Breakfast-dinner it is, then! No use combining them anymore than that! Lunch will stay lunch, of course, and we will call the meal after that will be dinner-breakfast." 

Everyone agreed. Frodo was very good at tricking people into thinking something was their idea when it was really his. Pippin had offered them all a common enemy to fight against, and Frodo took their hatred of dikfast to manipulate them all into taking breakfast-dinner, which was a much lesser evil. 

Content to be done arguing, they all finished up their breakfast-dinner, which had gone cold, and began the march again.

Chapter Text

"Slow down!" Pippin panted, nearly running to keep up with the rest of the fellowship. He was the shortest by a lot and was always lagging behind. 

"Apologies," Aragorn said and slowed his pace. Everyone else followed suit. They often forgot that the smaller members of their party had to move twice as fast to keep up, so what seemed like a leisurely pace to the Big Folk was almost a jog for the hobbits and Gimli.

"I don't know how you expect us to keep up with you and your freakishly long legs," Pippin sighed. Merry, from beside him, made a sound of agreement muffled beneath the way he was chugging water out of his waterskin as though he hadn't had any in days. 

In fact, none of the hobbits looked so great. They were breathing heavily with exertion and despite the cold weather, sweat ran down their faces and plastered their curls to their heads. Gimli didn't look good either. His whole face (what you could see of it, anyway) was flushed red.

"Our legs are not freakishly long," Legolas shook his head. "Perhaps yours are just freakishly short."

"Nonsense," Merry huffed, accidentally spilling some water down the front of his waistcoat. "Everyone knows that hobbits are normal sized and everyone else is big."

"It's why we don't like to be called halflings," Frodo explained. "We aren't half of anything. Big Folk are just double sized."

"That doesn't make any sense," Boromir shook his head. "I've never had much a mind for history but I feel sure I read that Men came before half- er- hobbits, which means we are regular sized and you are small."

"And elves came before any of the other races," said Legolas. 

"I think that is propaganda told by the elves," Merry huffed. Gimli let out a whoop of agreement and slapped him on the back a little too hard for Merry's taste.

"Gandalf, you're awfully old, right?" Pippin asked the wizard, foregoing any sort of tact, as was the usual. "That means you must know! After all, you'd have been there when elves and the sort were being created. Did the valar make the elves freakishly big?"

"I don't know," Gandalf said, in the tone one might use when responding to a very small child's knock-knock joke.

"How can you not know, Gandalf? You one time told me you know everything and that's how you knew I was out past my bedtime!"

"I just don't know," Gandalf chuckled, "I wasn't paying attention."

Pippin glared at the wizard.

"All this talk makes me think- do you think horses are normal and ponies are small? Or are ponies normal and horses are big?" Sam asked, brushing a hand across Bill's flank as the sturdy pony trodded along the path.

"This is getting a bit ridiculous," Aragorn sighed. "Why can we not just agree that it is all about perspective. To a horse, he is normal sized and a pony is small. To a pony, a horse is big, and he normal."

"Wrong!" Legolas called in a sing-songy voice. He always argued in a sing-songy voice. "One of them had to come first! And the one that came first is normal sized."

"Well, the wild animals that horses were domesticated from were more pony sized than horse sized, so I think ponies are regular sized and horses are overly large. I read that in a book, by the way, so you know I'm not making it up," Merry said.

"Sounds like hobbit propaganda to me."

"A book in Elrond's library, thank you very much!"

"Why were you reading books about horses? Frodo was literally dying!" Pippin piped up.

"After he finished dying. Or, well, not dying. He 'finished dying' as in he got better. Not that he died."

"Thanks for the clarification," Frodo snorted, "I was beginning to wonder if I had died and being here right now was some kind of post-death punishment for stealing Farmer Maggot's crops as a child."

"Well, the animals horses were domesticated from weren't ponies," Legolas insisted, "which means horses came first."

"Yes, but they were pony-sized! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"None of these arguments mean anything to me. I just like arguing, you know," Legolas admitted. 

"So do I!" Merry agreed, overly enthusiastic. "If I weren't set to become Master of Buckland I would've shot for a job as a solicitor. I've always enjoyed a good back and forth."

"This is just great," Aragorn grit his teeth, listening to Merry and Legolas discuss the finer points of arguing. At least they weren't arguing anymore, but if they both enjoyed arguing as much as this conversation would suggest, then he could not hope for a peaceful day from this day forth.