A Simple Request
A Simple Request
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I do not own LOTR nor do I make any money off of my fanfiction
A Simple Request
by Larrkin
“Oh, nooo!” I cried.
“Oh, yes. A broken
leg, young Took,” Old Rory Brandybuck repeated in an impatient tone.
“But,but,but --!”
“But what?” he asked.
His bushy white eyebrows knit together to form that great eagle-eyed
glare for which he was deservedly famous.
He stood next to Merry at the end of my bed, watching me with that look,
no doubt knowing he was unnerving me.
“Just what did you think had happened?”
Merry’s granda went on. “You
fell out of a tree you shouldn’t have been climbing, one of the forbidden
trees, and you broke your fool leg.”
“But, but --”
Granda crossed his thick arms over his wide chest.
perched that close to the Old Forest without chancing a bad ending.”
“But --”
“And a bad ending you came to. Your family likely heard your screams down in the Great
Smials. The Green Hills of Took-land
are likely echoing your cries.”
If Granda was trying to cheer me up a bit he was failing
miserably. I could feel tears
threatening, pressing behind my eyes and tightening in my throat.
memory of that blinding wrench of pain when I’d hit the ground like a sack of
meal.
Merry’s face had been a mask of horror as he ran to me, my
bellows filling the air, sending the birds scattering and shrieking from the
trees. Uncles and da’s and male hobbit
relations had come streaming from Brandy Hall, out into the cold, racing across
the long distance of the Great Lawn now crusty with frost.
little nippers crowded out round doors, craning their necks, trying to see the
goings on.
And there I lay, sprawled out ‘neath Grandfather Oak, the
oldest and hugest tree on the grounds.
No attack by wandering brigands or horrible orcs.
disaster again.
I’d known climbing that tree was forbidden.
saying that if you went high enough up into the branches of Grandfather Oak you
could see right over the High Hay, the wide tall hedge separating Buckland from
the Old Forest. They said that from
such a height wondrous strange things could be seen off in the east where few
sensible hobbits ventured.
“Wondrous strange things?” I’d said to Merry as he’d dragged
me away from where we’d halted to listen.
“Stop right there,” he said. “Don’t even think of it, Pip.
Grandfather Oak is likely to shake you right out of his branches.
head. I won’t hear of it, understand?”
I scowled at him.
Merry had been getting more and more dictatorial of late.
me. After all, Merry was only eight
years older than I was and still a tween like me. He was at the height of his tweendom! So his occasional far-too-sensible attitude astonished me.
Depending on my mood and how important something was to me,
I’d stand up and demand my rights.
Merry’s response to my eagerness to climb Grandfather Oak was akin to
what he usually did – he crossed his arms over his chest and listened with a
stern frown, then displayed his famous stubbornness: “Finished?”
said no. And I mean it, Pippin.
NO.”
It made me furious when he did that!
tummy in that delicious way that only Merry could. And any time he’d taken to ordering me about a sharp inner voice
always warned me against asking him what I felt was a perfectly valid question
– ‘Or you’ll do what exactly?’
No. No, no, nope; I
wasn’t comfortable asking him that.
And, again, I couldn’t quite say why.
This matter, however, was easily gotten ‘round.
time and clamber up Grandfather Oak.
How I’d love to share a tale of the wonders I’d seen from the tree’s
high branches! I had to look.
My opportunity came when Merry headed into the Hall for more
pipeweed. And when I wasn’t sitting
under our favorite tree where he had left me waiting for him, Merry knew just
where to run to when he heard my screams.
“Oh, Pip!” Merry
had gasped under his breath, collapsing to his knees beside me.
“I’m sorry, Merry!” I’d
gasped. “I-I had to look! I just
had to look!” And then I’d burst
into tears, and Merry put his arms around me and gathered me to him, saying,
steady. I’ve got you.
sweetheart.” And he’d started to
lift me when his da had thundered up, the first adult to reach us.
Uncle Saradoc was built bigger than my Merry and he could
move me without jarring me. Merry shot
him a look of relief when his father knelt next to us.
da!” he’d breathed.
“There now, son,”
he’d said to Merry in a voice full of quiet calm. “Give him to your ol’ da,
now. Up we go, Pip my lad.
Saradoc hoisted me up in his arms, and I’d grabbed my
uncle’s shoulders and cried out for Merry and then everything went black.
in the scarcely used Sick Room, my poor leg set within cloth-padded wooden
braces lashed together with strong strips of leather. Aunt Rosamunda had been at me with her healer’s arts.
Now more fussing aunts appeared, taking the savage edge off
the pain by pouring a healthy dose of Old Winyard mixed with some nasty potion
called Achy Joint Remedy down my throat.
Refusal was not an option. I’d
felt that tonic hit me like a smithy’s hammer, every tense muscle in my body
melting, a warm rush blanketing me with a heavy ‘whoosh!’
was able to focus, there were usually gawking family members peering in the
door.
After a while, when they’d all had a good look and left with
plenty to gossip about, I lay there with only Old Rory and Merry in
attendance. My leg still ruddy hurt,
but it was more a dull ache now that they’d settled on a proper dosage of
remedy to help ease the pain without knocking me silly.
I gazed at my wounded limb, horrified by what I’d done to
myself. A broken leg.
anything. Hobbits don’t break easily,
so this was noteworthy. No doubt in the
future my momentous achievement would become an event by which to mark
time: “This happened in the weeks before the Yuledays season when young
Peregrin Took, being a freshly turned and fulla nonsense tween, and you know
what they’re like, climbed up Grandfather Oak and promptly fell and broke his
leg.”
Making history at the tender age of twenty.
reputation.
“Well, Pippin, I’m sorry you came to this.”
lad? There’s a reason for the old
saying, ‘Ware the tween!’”
“Yes, Granda,” Merry sadly muttered.
“I know – you’re a tween, too, and just as full of trouble.”
“Well --”
“But you’ve got a good head on your shoulders when it comes
to avoiding real danger, Merry. You’re
careful and you plan your mischief well.
And there’s no use giving me that surprised look.
means plenty of mischief, but carefully planned.” Rory turned to me with a nod.
“But this wee Took has no such natural caution.
comes of age – that’s assuming he even reaches thirty-three.”
“Granda!” Merry frowned
at Old Rory.
“Good thing you’re eight years older and ages wiser than
Sprout here. Lucky for Pip you’ve
spoken for him, lad.”
“I’m the lucky one,” Merry muttered, turning back to me.
Merry’s comment was sweet, but I’d never had much tolerance
for being talked over like that. My
temper was not at its best, and that nickname, slapped upon me when I was all
of three years old and much smaller than the others my age, was now flat out
annoying. “I can hear you, you know!” I
snapped.
“Just so!” Old Rory
rumbled back, fixing his sharp gaze upon me. “But there’s hearing and there’s
listening, Peregrin. Let’s see you
practice the right one.”
I had no idea what to make of that.
Granda liked to spout platitudes and I liked to ignore them.
“A broken limb doesn’t answer to a pout, lad, so pull in
that sullen lip. The deed is done and
there’s an end to it.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. Good thing Granda was so testily lovable, otherwise we Took and
Brandybuck cousins would have taken real exception to him.
“Mmmm.” I heard him
hum. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time
to mull things over. Until you mend
you’ll be stuck here in the Sick Room.”
My eyes popped open.
“Oh, no!” I wailed. “I dunna want
to be stuck in here! Not with Yuledays
three weeks off!”
“No help for it,” Granda replied with a shrug.
the Hall, but that’s about it.”
“But, but Frodo’s coming soon! And Merry and I were going to go out for pine boughs and holly
with the cousins! And this year I was
going to get to go into the Old Forest for mistletoe, too!
I glanced at Merry, knowing he was remembering yesterday
when we’d been sitting in the Hall with the older lads, smoking and talking
about their annual trip into the Buckland woods for pine and holly and the
glossy Yuletide Ivy to decorate the Hall.
Merry and I had gone with them last year and had a grand time.
risky trip into the Old Forest where the mistletoe thrived.
One never knew what to expect in the ancient Old
Forest. Strange goings-on had often
been reported, and none were fool enough to venture in alone.
in their party for their yearly forage.
Suddenly they surprised both Merry and me by turning to him
and inviting him along. I saw Merry’s
eyes light up, but then he’d glanced at me.
I’d quickly grinned my finest, ‘I’m happy for you’ grin, but Merry knows
me too well.
He’d tilted his head a bit to one side and studied me with a
knowing half-smile and said to the lads, “Think
I’ll pass.”
The cousins quickly saw what was going on between Merry and
me. “Oh,
bring him along,” they’d said. I’d
gasped and jumped up and whooped with delight.
“But you’re responsible for the
nipper,” they’d told Merry, and he had nodded and winked at me and said,
“Granda, I-I was going to go, too!” I now repeated, feeling
the sting of fresh tears. “They’d
invited me, too! I canna miss it!”
“’Fraid you’ll have to,” Granda rumbled.
‘round with a crutch in a few days. You
won’t be kicking up your heels this Yuletide, but you can be in the Hall for
some of the merriment.”
Merry came around and sat on the edge of my bed and took my
hand in both his. “I’m sorry, Pip.”
I just looked down at our hands, so sad I couldn’t speak.
“I could say something about foolish tweens who have no
business climbing forbidden trees,” Granda said. “And I could promise you a tanning you’d ne’er forget from my son
once you’re healed, but I doubt that’ll be your fate. Knowing what your naughtiness has deprived you of will teach that
lesson better than any thrashing your uncle could dish out.
by the time you’re able to be hobbling about.”
Then Old Rory cast Merry a roguish look and said, “I cannot
speak for the ire of other Brandybucks, though.”
I ruffled instantly.
“Granda! What do you mean?
Spa-span – he would never!
Many’s the time we’ve been walloped at the same time for the same
mischief, but Merry would never sp --”
And then I glanced at Merry, and my words clogged in my
throat. He was gazing at me with a
smoldering, strangely masterful look I’d never seen before.
stomach and tingles shot along my skin and my whole body became one big quiver.
since I could remember, and now also my beloved bed mate, sat looking at me
with a quietly stern sparkle in his eyes.
“You were saying?” Merry murmured.
“Uhhh . . . .”
Old Rory slapped his hands together, and let loose a chuckle
poorly disguised as a cough. “Well, I
hear my pipe and some good Longbottom Leaf calling me.
“That sounds good,” Merry said, flashing his ready smile at
his granda.
“It sounds good to me, too!” I announced.
Granda scoffed, “Not likely, nipper.
“What?” I tried to
struggle up, hardly believing what he was implying. “No smoking? None?
“I’m afraid you’ve earned your place there,” the old hobbit
said.
Merry looked sorrowful but firm. “It would be dangerous, Pippin,” he said gently.
My mouth fell open.
“I also hear a flagon of good stout calling me.
First his pipe calling and now a flagon of stout.
doffer.
“I’d say ‘no thanks’ to stout, but an ale sounds good,”
Merry replied.
“I’m sure Merry will hoist an ale for you, Sprout,” Rory
said. “In fact, I’m sure he’ll bring
you some, if Rosie approves, that is.”
“Would you like that, Pip?” Merry asked me.
I just stared at him, the bleakness of my next few weeks
yawning before me, and all I wanted to do was cry. In fact, a sore lump of tears was making my throat ache.
“Come, lad,” Old Rory said, and he headed out the door,
calling a farewell to me.
Merry gathered me close and held me.
I know,” he murmured when a whimper escaped me.
sweetheart. And if you’re sleeping,
I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
Merry kissed me then, one of his nice, deep, full kisses
that hits me in my most heated places and makes my heart jolt, and then he was
gone.
I was all alone, and the awfulness of what I’d done and what
it meant, that sudden understanding of the consequences I’d made for myself
slammed into me and I burst into tears, aching inside for what I instantly
missed – being part of this place, enjoying the excitement of the upcoming
weeks before Yuledays and reveling in Merry’s love and in belonging here at
Brandy Hall.
I hated this horrid solitary room. It felt eerie. I turned
my head and looked out the window. The
Sick Room was on the ground floor, nearest the kitchen where things for sick
folks could be gotten to quickly instead of trucked through the many winding
passageways and interconnecting corridors of the castle-like Brandy Hall.
I wanted to be in our
room! I loved sleeping in Merry’s
lovely grand chamber. There was a cot
placed there just for me. I’d never
slept in it of course, but we were careful to muss it up properly each morning
before venturing out. Did we fool
anyone at the Hall? Unlikely.
propriety. If Merry and I did that, it
didn’t matter what we actually chose to do behind the closed door to his
chamber and within the secluded sanctuary of the heavy curtains ‘round his big
bed. We had the courtesy to respect the
sensibilities of others and that was enough.
How I loved the way every Brandybuck and Took abiding in the
Hall didn’t so much as blink an eye about Merry and me!
of affection wheresoever it blossomed, and they didn’t choose to question the
wisdom of whom Love chose to bring together.
It had been a year now since that first Yuledays I’d spent
at Brandy Hall without my family also attending, just a year since Merry had
grabbed the mistletoe and raced to the musician’s stand where I had been
playing a lute, grabbed me and kissed me soundly in front of the whole
assembly. Without saying a word, Merry
had said a mouthful.
“You know what I was
thinking?” he’d asked later that night in our bed.
murmured, “The words in my head when I
kissed you were, ‘This pretty wee Took is mine, all mine.’”
And thus Meriadoc Brandybuck had ‘spoken for me’ in front of
all and sundry, and the Brandybucks, famous for their big hearts and romantic
natures, had just smiled. Since that
day none had questioned our devotion to each other. The Tooks hadn’t either, and I’d begun to spend even more and
more time at Brandy Hall.
Now I glanced down at my poor leg, so angry with myself I
didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have
anyone but myself to blame for this.
And I was mighty furious with me.
“For all your sweet,
kindly nature, m’love, you’ve also got wicked temper,” Merry had once told
me. “When
you were two years old you used to scare your poor mum to death when you threw
a tantrum. You’d lie down on your back
and hammer your feet and your little fists on the floor and toss your head from
side to side and wail down the rafters.
We cousins would gather ‘round and watch. You were fine entertainment.”
I’d failed to see his point. “Well, I was two!
don’t do that anymore.”
Merry burst into a short laugh. “No.
My Merry’s lovely dry wit.
I gazed off, thinking of him, thinking of how Merry would stand up on
our bed at night and draw all the curtains shut around us.
up when he raised his arms, and I’d smile.
Merry knew what he was doing, of course, and he’d look down at me and
smile, too. And thirty seconds later,
when he’d shut out the rest of the world and we were enclosed in our sanctuary,
we’d shuck off our nightshirts, and we’d turn the wick down low on the shelf
high above the bed . . . .
My face was wet with crying by the time Merry returned, a
mug of ale in each hand. He watched me
sadly for a moment, then he put the mugs on the nightstand and climbed into the
bed with me, carefully moving me just enough to give him room to sit and pull
me into his arms.
“There now, sweetheart,” he said, one hand petting my curls.
And I did. I cried
and cried. I was just so mad!
“That’s your ‘angry crying.’ Mad at yourself, aren’t you, sweet Pip?” Merry said.
I nodded, and I went on for some time while he petted me and
held me. Finally he said, “Would you
like to lie back and kick your one good leg and hammer your little fists on the
bed and toss your head back and forth and wail?”
I chuckled despite myself, then muttered, “That isn’t
funny.”
“I’d love to see it.”
I fought to grab back my big mad feelings, even though they
were so hurtful. “I don’t want to stay
here in this lonely little bed in this lonely little room,” I muttered against
his now-damp shirt.
“I know.”
“I want to be in our bed, sleeping beside you and doing
everything else we do in there.”
I heard him grin.
“Everything?”
“Aye. We could be
careful.”
Merry chuckled.
“Yes, well, we’d have to be.”
“I’m serious,” I said, looking up at him.
everything.”
“Not that I’m opposed to the idea, you understand,” he said,
smiling at me in that way that makes my stomach flutter, “but one of us has a
broken leg, m’love, and that could prove cumbersome.”
“Thank you so much for reminding me,” I grumbled.
know, and it doesn’t exactly feel good!”
Merry just gazed at me.
I hadn’t meant to snarl, but it had just come out, and there it was, and
although I knew I should apologize, I just . . . didn’t.
“Are you in pain?” he finally asked.
“No. That stuff
makes me woozy,” I said, a little surprised to hear that same peeved tone
coming from me. I wasn’t mad at Merry,
but that tone in my voice wouldn’t seem to leave. “It’s not as if the pain ever goes away altogether, so hang that
ruddy tonic!”
“Pippin,” Merry said in his low scolding voice.
He looked bewildered, as though wondering if he’d done
something to set me off. I couldn’t
help him with that. I was pretty
bewildered myself. I didn’t want to be
snapping at him, but I kept doing it, Merry offering anything he could to help
me and me acting perfectly horrible, getting more and more horrible the more
Merry tried to help. This ‘thing’ kept snarling inside me, looking for prey, forcing
sharp words from my mouth.
Finally, Merry frowned and looked studious, the way he does
when he’s mulling something over. Then
he kissed my forehead and said, “Be right back.” He came back a little later with several of the Hall servants
lugging my cot and its bedding.
“I asked Aunt Rosie if you could be moved up to my chamber,”
he said when the servants had made up the cot and gone out.
doing better that is --”
“A week! A full
ruddy week!” My lower lip trembled.
“Yes,” he said, sitting down on my bed and taking my hands
in his again. “But I can stay here with
you, Pip. That’s my good news.
night. I wish we could share your bed,
but it’s just too small. So I get your
cot this time. Not that you’ve ever
used it.” He winked at me.
I saw the hope in Merry’s eyes, the need to know that he had
done something to make me feel better.
I knew he was trying to help, and I was grateful, and normally I’d have
given Merry the appreciation he deserved.
I really was relieved to know that I wouldn’t be alone at night.
like to be sleeping in this dismal room without Merry.
But that was just it.
Merry was being too nice, too understanding and too forgiving.
all-fired wonderful. That’s not what I
deserved. I’d done something stupid and
dangerous, something I’d been warned not to do. I didn’t deserve kindness from Merry. After all, my stunt affected him, too.
That huge anger inside was near beyond me now and I
struggled with it in those few seconds that Merry waited.
allow Merry’s comfort in and my huge bitter remorse. So I just started crying again.
I was sick of tears. But there
was nothing I could do to change this situation! I didn’t know where to go with the rage roaring within me, and
there was my sweet Merry, gazing at me, so clearly fretful.
had when I was two!
Again, Merry slid up and took me in his arms.
murmured. “Of course it’s too much to
expect you to be happy about any of this.
I’m so sorry, Pip.”
“Not your f-fault!” I stammered between weeping.
I longed for him to stay there all night, holding me, but I
knew it was impossible. Merry was right
– this little bed was hardly bigger than a cot. And the cot, though shoved right up close to the bed, was at a
lower level, so we couldn’t even push them together and pretend it was a big
bed. It would be like this for a
week! It had been a long time since
Merry and I had slept apart. I wasn’t
sure I could do it, lie there alone, without the feel of his warm body and his
arms around me.
But I did do it.
Actually, exhaustion won out.
That, and what I suspected was an extra dose of Achy Joint Remedy mixed
in with the Old Winyard that night.
Merry bore up over the next few days like the stubborn
Brandybuck he was, granting me endless patience I didn’t deserve.
without me having to explain it. In
fact, he explained it all back to me:
“This isn’t like you, Pip.
Usually your attitude is there’s ‘no use crying over spilt ale,’ and you
shrug and go on dealing with whatever is.
You only give up when you’re forced to do so, and even then you keep
looking for ways ‘round something.
“But, as granda said,
there’s no arguing with a broken leg.
And that’s done in my Pippin’s sweet nature for good and all, hasn’t
it? ‘Course you’re frustrated.
can’t reason with?”
Then we’d both laughed.
So we had some good moments amidst my general state of unhappiness, and
the next few days dragged by, Merry spending lots of time with me.
that I couldn’t abide myself. Then I’d
get even grumpier with myself for treating him so shamefully.
out, that he was just making matters worse.
So, we lingered in the Hall a few more hours, despite
Merry’s obvious exasperation with me at first.
After a fine dinner, after a few good pipes, after a few tasty mugs of
ale and some rousing singing, he was much more good-humored, though he still
called it an early evening for us.
We left Frodo and Sam enjoying themselves, Merry only
lightly scolding me during our trip back to the little room.
rather lovely feeling, though I also felt strangely and suddenly melancholy.
My good leg went weak.
I could do nothing but stand there and wait for catastrophe to overtake
me, and overtake me it did. When they
were nearly upon me I heard myself utter a ridiculous greeting: “‘Lo,
Merry. ‘Lo, Frodo.
Back so soon?”
end