Work Text:
December 11th, 1420 S.R.
Morning dawned cold and brilliant over the hilltop, sparkling in the thin frost on last summer’s grass blades. The sky was bright and empty of all but the wisps of clouds on its edges, and the pleasant glow of fires could be seen flickering comfortably in many of the windows down the lane. Pippin sighed, watching his breath form a little cloud, and then he turned into the house, shutting the door behind him. The Brandywine was sure to be cold that morning, and he looked a little sadly at the kettle steaming on the table, and Merry Brandybuck busy over the fire with something that smelled promisingly like soup.
“Merry, it’s very hard to want to leave when you are here, warm by the fire with something nice in the pot! I almost wish I hadn’t promised Camellia and Mouse I would help them!”
Merry chuckled. “Well,” he said, turning from the hearth, “if you hurry down to the water and back again, I’ll have the soup ready and maybe some bread too if I can get it from the Hall. Then you won’t feel so cold and disgruntled, Pip!”
Pippin yawned. “I suppose so! Though why it seemed a good idea to go out onto the ice in this weather I’m not sure.”
Merry waved a dishcloth at him as he fastened his scarf. “Best get a move on before you change your mind and stay here!”
Laughing, Pippin stepped out onto the doorstep, the scarf pulled tight about his ears.
The sound of his pony Splinterfoot’s hooves on the hard-packed lane rang out clearly, and Pippin sang snatches of song that hung in the thin wintery air. Mostly, they were snippets of Bilbo’s old tunes, but a few were of his own invention. Soon, his voice was raised in a song he’d thought up while helping Sam plant trees before the frosts came.
Sometimes they say (hey!) that its hard to describe me,
And sometimes they say (hey!) that I must not exist,
And some people say (hey!) that they’re better without me,
But my friends the trees and I know that they’re wrong (ho!),
My friends and I know that they’re wrong!
It was the Elves that taught us the speaking,
And it was the Men that taught us of crowns,
And it was the Orcs that brought us to creaking,
And we are the ones who put them in song (ho!),
We are the ones who put them in song!
Sometimes folk say (hey!) that they do not know me,
And sometimes they say (hey!) that I’m no longer here,
And some people say (hey!) that they’re better without me,
But my friends and I’ve been here so long (ho!),
We’re Ents and we’re here all along!
The road toward Standelf wound along the high bank above the Brandywine, steadily tumbling downhill toward flatter country. Into the hill to the left were set the occasional burrows inhabited by various Brandybucks wanting the relative peace and quiet to be found on the outskirts of Bucklebury, away from the bustle of the Hall.
When Merry had asked him to return to Buckland not long after their reappearance from the wider world, he had expected that they would live at Crickhollow again, or in Brandy Hall as most young hobbits without families seemed to do. Instead, Merry had found a tiny burrow just down the Hill where they could have a little peace from constant visitors while being close enough to the goings-on. The burrow, though cozy, perhaps did not afford as much peace as Merry had hoped. The two of them were the talk of Buckland, and for the first several months, the knocking and requests began nearly the moment the sun shone over the crest of Buck Hill. At last, though, the excitement died down enough that he and Merry could ride about without quite so much commotion, though if anybody needed help with anything especially unusual, the advice was always to go down to “Mr. Meriadoc and Mr. Peregrin the Travellers’ house” and see what they could do about it. While it could get a bit tiresome, they really didn’t mean any harm, and sometimes Pippin quite enjoyed his reputation as such a very wise and distinguished hobbit. At thirty and yet to reach his coming-of-age, that was nearly unheard of.
It was this aforementioned reputation that had Pippin riding down the lane so early in the morning, his breath and his pony’s billowing away into the wind in clouds. Ms. Camellia Brandybuck and her small niece, Marigold – who was more often called Mouse due to her tiny size – had come knocking yesterday to see if either Mr. Meriadoc or Mr. Peregrin would help them in stringing a rope across the river. A little south of Bucklebury, the ice was at last thick enough, now that it was several weeks into December, to hold a hobbit or two along the river’s banks, and Ms. Camellia intended to take advantage of the shorter distance and put up a little ferry line so she could visit relatives on the other side more easily without fear of falling in. Why she didn’t simply go up to Bucklebury Ferry or the Brandywine Bridge neither Mr. Meriadoc nor Mr. Peregrin inquired – if she wanted to go about on the cold water, that was her business.
Pippin had elected to go as he hadn’t had a decent ride in a week or so, and also, he liked Mouse’s company. Actually, he liked a lot of Merry’s little relatives and found their antics rather interesting whenever he and Merry spent an evening at the Hall. Merry laughed and said he suspected that it came from Pippin being the youngest of three older sisters. Pippin said it was because the small Brandybucks were endlessly entertaining, and besides, he could remember being such a young scamp not so long ago. Mouse especially had taken to Pippin. Though she was shy, she was always wanting to hear stories about the world beyond the Shire, and Pippin had promised that if ever one of his distant friends set foot in Buckland, she would be the first to know and to meet them.
* * *
The hill to Pippin’s left had become less steep, and soon he passed Camellia’s burrow, which had a neat yellow door and drying red and green peppers laced with frost hanging from the lintel. The shallow part of bank that Camellia had chosen as her crossing place was only a little way down the lane from her burrow, and Pippin could see her moving about just below, a bright yellow scarf wound around her head in place of a hat to protect her from the wind.
“Why, hallo Ms. Camellia! Is this the place?”
Camellia glanced up in surprise. “Mr. Peregrin, there you are!” she cried. “We were beginning to wonder if you were going to come.”
Pippin laughed ruefully as he slid off Splinterstar and tied her in a patch of dry grass beside the road before scrambling down the bank to join Camellia. “I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you waiting!”
“It’s alright,” Camellia muttered, a bit grudgingly. Just then, a small brown nose appeared around Camellia’s skirts and was followed by two piercing black eyes. Mouse smiled hugely, displaying a number of missing teeth, and stepped shyly into view.
“Hallo, Mr. Pippin,” she managed, before she had to hide her face in her aunt's skirts to recover herself.
Pippin spotted something gold draped across her tiny shoulders and laughed in delight. “Mouse, is that a cloak I see? Where did you get such a wonderful thing?”
Mouse, still behind her aunt, attempted to nod and then had to move a little so that she could actually be seen. “Yes,” she said softly, fingering the thick golden cloth. “Auntie made it for me so’s that I could stay warm when I go on ‘ventures. It hides me from spiders and dragons an’ things…”
Pippin chuckled and rubbed his nose. “Does it then? Silly me, I seem to have forgotten mine… A Black Rider could see me coming from a mile off!”
Mouse shrieked with laughter as he pretended to hide from the aforesaid Ring Wraith behind a rather prickly bush. As he extracted himself, she skipped out from behind Camellia and hopped over to show him the cloak. Pippin exclaimed over it with proper admiration and then turned to Camellia.
“So. The rope!”
* * *
It wasn’t long before they had the first cord of rope strung across the river from the Buckland bank to the Marish bank and tied taught. Camellia had a small coracle that they used to ferry carefully back and forth across the slow, cold waters of the Brandywine, and the work was quick. The quivering woven strand suspended over the clear water brought another such crossing to Pippin’s mind, though the cords the elves of Lórien had strung across the Silverlode to let the eight companions of the Fellowship pass had been far lighter and gleamed of silver. He imagined convincing Camellia to cross in elf fashion, running along the rope as if it were a bridge, and had to stifle a sudden laugh. While the children born of the Shire since he and the others’ return were said to look astonishingly like elven children, it did not seem likely that the Shire hobbits would adopt such elven customs as running over water.
Before they tied the second rope of course, there was lunch. Camellia, whatever she said, was an excellent – and rather brilliant – cook, and she had taken to using the strangest seasonings and flavors that anyone in Buckland except Merry and Pippin had ever tasted. She was especially fond of spice, a concept that most folk in the Shire could not comprehend. The idea that food could hurt to eat simply didn’t make sense. Camellia said people couldn’t taste flavor if it came up and bit them on the tongue.
They had just sat down to a lovely pork pie with apricots and a spice called curry that Camellia had gotten from a traveler from Harad, when a shout came across the water, and an old hobbit hailed them. Mr. Auggie Puddifoot was his name, and he was one of Camellia’s across-the-way neighbors and a funny old fellow with a big straw hat prone to chuckling over anything even remotely amusing, and much that wasn’t. When he had had a long, bellowed conversation with Camellia about what she was up to that made both of them hoarse, Pippin rowed across to bring him some of the pie. He suspected that it was the smell of food that had brought Old Auggie over.
* * *
Old Auggie could talk, and so Pippin spent the rest of lunch sitting on the Marish side, nodding along as the old hobbit regaled him with many stories, most of which he already knew. Sometimes Mouse would catch his eye from the other bank, and Pippin would wave or pull a funny face, but mostly he simply nodded along. Suddenly, as Old Auggie was beginning a particularly enthusiastic story about Farmer Maggot’s cows, a chill wind came whistling fiercely toward them, plucking his old straw hat from his head. The gust whisked it away down the river before depositing it into a clump of rushes someway down the bank.
Before Old Auggie could exclaim, Pippin leapt up. “Don’t worry, Auggie, I’ve got your hat! Just a moment…” He raced off after it, glad of an excuse to get away. He had been running out of polite ways to say, “I see!”
This bank was lower than the Buckland side, and flatter, so that reaching the place where the hat had fallen was only hindered by a well-made fence Pippin had to scramble over. Peering through the rushes, Pippin spotted the old thing resting on the thin ice at the water’s edge.
He snatched it up. “Well, there you are! What would Mr. Auggie do without you?” The hat’s brim was wet and slightly bent, and Pippin carefully tugged on it as he turned to go back up the bank. But he couldn’t; there was a cow in the way.
She was small and fawn-colored, and she looked angrier than Pippin had ever seen a cow. He wouldn’t have quailed, except for her fearsome pointed horns, which looked far too big for a creature her size. Pippin began to back away cautiously. The cow’s eyes followed him with a look of contempt, and she took one step, and then another, advancing steadily. She didn’t seem to want him on his way.
Pippin felt something cold beneath his left foot. He had reached the water’s edge, and the thin ice creaked under his weight. He stopped, not sure where to go. The cow, without a lick of mercy and with a look of unbridled fury in her eyes, charged.
Several things happened at once. First, Pippin felt his feet slip out from under him, sending him toppling over. At the same instant, the cow’s horn connected with his shoulder, and he felt a sharp stab of pain before she sent him reeling. And as he fell backward into the icy water, he thought saw a person with golden hair appear through the reeds, a look of horror on their face. An elf? But then the Brandywine’s waters closed over his head, and everything was wet and upside down and very cold.
* * *
The golden-haired person was glaring at him and repeating words in a low voice that he couldn’t make out. They were certainly a hobbit rather than an elf, and something about their face seemed familiar. Somehow, it made Pippin think of mushrooms. And there was Old Auggie, his eyes wide with surprise. He seemed to be saying something himself, and his outline looked a little odd without his hat. His hat. With an effort, Pippin lifted his hand, still clenched around the dripping, battered hat, and proffered it to Auggie. The old hobbit looked taken aback, but he accepted it.
“I’ve found your hat…” Pippin thought his voice sounded odd, and he wondered if he was shivering. His shoulder stung painfully, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn’t seen any sign of Camellia or Mouse, and he hoped fervently that Mouse hadn’t seen whatever had just happened. She was too young to have to face the danger cows evidently posed. Pippin rather thought he was too.
The other hobbit was speaking again, and this time he could make out the words. “Peregrin, I need you to keep your eyes on me, don’t close ‘em! I’m Di Maggot, remember me?” Ah, that was it. Pippin opened his eyes. Di was Farmer Maggot’s eldest daughter, and he had spent quite a bit of time running about with her and her siblings in their younger days. “You’re in a bit of a shock fallin’ in the water like that. It was my Daisy that did it, don’t know why or how, but she did.” Her piercing eyes – they were icy blue – bore into him. “Now look at me, Peregrin, I need you ta stay awake!”
Pippin managed what he hoped was a nod. “Right, milady…”
Di glared at him. “Oh, shut up, that’s the cold talkin’… Now hold still!” And she bent down and hoisted Pippin, sodden clothes and all, over her shoulder and stomped off across the fields.
* * *
Everything went vague and hazy for a while, and Pippin’s head hurt. He was very cold, but soon he could hear the sharp crackle of a fire nearby, and he could feel himself slowly begin to warm. Pippin became aware that he was wrapped in a thick blanket with nothing on beneath it, and that his clothes hung not far off, drying by the fire. Somebody had put an odd-smelling salve on his shoulder where the cow had struck him, and it throbbed a little but no longer stung so badly.
He remembered Farmer Maggot’s face, though each time it appeared, it seemed to wear a new look of concern and be of a different age all together. In fact, it was Mr. Maggot’s large family, who were all rather curious about the half-frozen hobbit their sister had brought in from the fields. They knew Pippin well, but now that he had a reputation, having him shivering by their fireside with a bowl of Mrs. Maggot’s famous mushroom stew was particularly interesting.
“Mr. Took?” It was really Mr. Maggot this time. “Mr. Took, your friend Mr. Brandybuck’s just arrived.”
Pippin blinked and glanced up, the forgotten stew nearly slipping from his stiff fingers. “Merry?”
It was Merry, his eyes deep pools in the low light of the Maggots’ kitchen. His face was flushed from the cold, and his hair stood on end as if the wind had licked it like a great cat. He chuckled when he saw Pippin and gave him a rueful smile, taking the stew bowl from him and setting it on the table nearby. “Pip, Diamond tells me her cow tossed you right into the river – you look terrible!”
Pippin chuckled weakly. “Do I really? I’d hoped I looked a little dashing…” His eyes settled on Merry’s face, which was bent close to his. Merry looked exhausted, though he was concealing it with his usual cheerfulness. But a piece was missing in Pippin’s calculations. He furrowed his brow in concentration. “Merry, how did you get here so quick?”
Merry shook his head. “I didn’t. It’s evening now, Pip. Stybba’s quick when he wants to be, but I didn’t get the news until late. Camellia and Mouse brought Splinterfoot home without you, and from the story Mouse was telling, we thought you might be dead! Though she did mention a Black Rider, so I wasn’t clear on some of the details…”
Pippin laughed. “I don’t seem to remember any Black Riders, but there was certainly a cow… I hope Mouse is alright! I didn’t scare her too badly, did I?”
“I don’t think so, Pip. She was wondering when the funeral might be and if cloaks were allowed.”
Pippin snorted. “Oh dear…” Suddenly he paused. “Merry, did you say Diamond?”
Merry nodded. “I did – that’s Diamond’s name you know.” Merry glanced up and winked at Di, who was leaning against the mantle watching them.
She raised a brow and Pippin thought he saw her smirk.
Pippin groaned. “Here I was thinking you were just Di all these years… I’m terribly sorry!” He gave Merry a tragic look. “It’s just as Gandalf used to say, Merry – I don’t ever listen, do I?”
Merry ruffled his hair lightly. “No you don’t, Pip. If you had, you might have heard Auggie’s stories about Di Maggot’s vicious cows and been more careful! But it’s too late for that – we’d better get you home. The Maggots have offered we can stay the night, but I’d rather move you now before your fever worsens. Think you can ride?”
Pippin nodded. “I think so! But will Stybba take us both?”
“You forget, Stybba is a pony of Rohan! He’s carried more arms than you or I ever have, and he likes this weather. He wouldn’t go into Farmer Maggot’s barn when we arrived, said he liked the sting of the cold!”
“So you speak to ponies now too as well as Ents? Merry, you grow more attractive every day!”
Once Merry had helped Pippin up and out of the old blanket he’d been wrapped in and into his dry clothes, he bowed deeply to Diamond. He was feeling a little better, and the warmth and the joy of seeing Merry made him rather silly. “I thank you for saving my small life so that I could flirt unabashedly with my beloved Brandybuck in your excellent kitchen! That is a service few have rendered me, and I will not forget it!” he told her.
Almost before Pippin had finished, Diamond succumbed to violent chuckling that continued as they took their leave and hurried out into the cold night. They could hear her still as they found Stybba standing calmly in the front garden, his breath steaming cloudily into the air. Merry flashed a smile at Pippin that glinted in the moonlight. “That’s the first time you’ve called me that around other folk, Pip! Your beloved…”
“I don’t think Diamond minded in the least,” Pippin laughed as he swung into the saddle.
Merry climbed up behind Pippin. “I didn’t either…” he muttered in his ear. He slipped his hands into Pippin’s and tugged lightly on the reins, clucking to Stybba with his tongue. The pony tossed his head and started at a brisk trot down the road that soon had the night wind whistling through Pippin’s hair.
December 12th, 1420 S.R.
As Merry had warned, Pippin came down with a raging fever sometime in the night and was confined to bed all the next day. He would waken from restless sleep certain that they were still riding through the night on the pony, Merry’s warmth at his back and the cold road before them. Then he would remember where he was and Merry would give him tea and remind him not to sit up so suddenly as it hurt the cut across his shoulder and made him cough and his ribs ache. They’d never been the same since the Battle of the Black Gate, when he’d been all but crushed to death – as Gimli had often reminded him – by the hill troll he’d killed, and now they felt as thin as paper, and as likely to tear.
Pippin spent much of the day dozing, but by evening he was well enough to sit up and watch Merry where he was busy at the fire. Their burrow was really only two rooms, the main room with hearth, kitchen, table, and bed, and a tiny washroom off the back of it, which meant that the scent of soup wafted alluringly across the room to where Pippin was curled in bed. He sighed and lay back. It wasn’t exactly nice to be ill, but he was glad to be in his little burrow with Merry, with nothing worse than a cough, cold toes, and an ache or two.
Just then, Merry glanced up. “Pip, are you hungry?”
Pippin nodded emphatically, and Merry chuckled. “I thought so!” He came over and slipped a bowl of squash soup into Pippin’s hands, and the warmth of it soared through Pippin so suddenly that he shivered with pleasure.
“You’re very kind to wait on me, Merry. Thank you, my dear!”
Merry leant in, and Pippin deposited a kiss on his broad nose. Merry sat back and smiled softly. “Of course, Pippin. I’m just glad to see you hungry! The look you gave me when I offered you toast and cheese this morning, well it nearly broke my heart…”
He watched with the smile still on his face as Pippin ate his soup. It was sweet with a sharp taste to it, as if it had some of Camellia’s spices in it – which it in fact did. Like frost on an apple tree and the wind whistling in the junipers, Pippin mused sleepily. Very very good, even worth a dunking in the Brandywine, he decided, and said so.
Merry chuckled. “Speaking of your adventure, Mouse has sent you a letter. She brought it while you were sleeping this afternoon and told me not to open it until you woke up – here it is.” He handed Pippin a small letter closed with what might have been an acorn cap pressed into red sealing wax. “Open it and let’s see what she says!”
The letter was written in a wide, purposeful script that scrabbled all over the page much like Mouse’s namesake. It read:
Deer Mr Pippen
I hope i find yu well. I no that yuo were not relly takin by blake rieders and that yoo were not killed witch I am glad off as i wood miss yow veary much. I am qwite angery with Mr Maggit’s cows and shall speek with them on this mater. Where yoor cloke necst time. i wood like veery much to see yuw agan soon.
MARiGoLD BRANdYBUCk (it is me MoUSE)
Pippin paused to wipe tears from his eyes. “Goodness, Merry, that was brilliant! I don’t think I can quite find words… I’m glad she wrote me!”
Merry was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak for a moment. “Well, that’s… that’s just… ha! Very sweet of your friend Mouse, Pip! Here, let me take your bowl before you drop it!” He took the bowl and put it in the wash basin before coming back and climbing onto the bed on Pippin’s far side. “Hallo Pip, mind if I join you?”
Pippin lay back and yawned, patting the blanket beside him. “Merry, how did we get here?”
Merry glanced across at Pippin’s wide, glassy eyes. “Having existential thoughts, are we? Well, I like to think that we’d have gotten here whether we went with Frodo or no, but I think this is Gandalf’s fault. Either Gandalf or Elrond, though we probably shouldn’t tell them that… ‘My dear Gandalf, you make such queer things possible! If you hadn’t sent Frodo and we hadn’t been such rascals, Pippin and I might never have really known how we felt about each other or gotten so tall or…’”
Pippin was shaking his head furiously, tears of worn-out laughter spilling down his face. “No, Merry! I mean, that was beautiful! But I meant, how did we get back here to the burrow? I don’t remember what happened after we left the Maggots…”
Merry reached over and wiped Pippin’s face gently with the corner of the blanket. “Is that what you meant? That does make a bit more sense…” He slid close, resting his chin against Pippin’s shoulder. “Well, it was very cold, but Stybba was in his element really, and he went faster than I’d ever seen him in the dark! After awhile, I wasn’t sure if you were still with me, and I was glad to see the Bucklebury Ferry just ahead. It made we think of the last time we found ourselves hurrying to the ferry in the dark… After that, I just hung onto you and hoped...”
Pippin fumbled about under the blanket until he found Merry’s rough hand and squeezed it. “I remember that…”
Merry squeezed back. “Next time, I think you should take Mouse’s advice…”
“And what’s that, Merry?” Pippin muttered sleepily.
“She said to wear your cloak, and I think I agree. You never know when you’ll need it!”
Pippin was chuckling as he fell asleep, and as his breathing steadied, Merry smiled at the silly expression on his sleeping face. “Good night, Pip,” he said and kissed his cheek.
Outside the little burrow, the frosty grass stirred softly in the cold night air.
