Who: Legolas and Pippin When: Game-time Where: Out and about in Tirith What: Pippin and Legolas have a talk about a not-so-fallen comrade. And sing a song. Status: Long-form, complete. Rating: G
Pippin was restless. He swung his legs impatiently as he sat on the bench. Life was so.... slow, sometimes. He felt tired and sluggish in the city, and longed for the Shire and the green grass. He missed the warm comforts of Tuckborough and the smell of his father’s pipe and the sound of his sisters, laughing and flirting through the kitchen window with passing lads. It was good to have all his friends gathered near him, but it was terribly hard, sometimes, not to be home.
Still, Pippin understood now, as he never had before, that these things took time, and it wasn’t the right time. Not yet. Strider was still unmarried and the king of Rohan was still unburied and the world was still waiting. Pippin waited too, watching the busy street. He thought about looking for Merry, but instead sat in silence, wondering how he had come to this city and become one of its own, entirely without meaning to.
As Legolas worked his way diligently through the winding streets of Minas Tirith, he could not help but appreciate the apparent irony of how difficult it was to find a Hobbit when one wished to find one. But he was well-accustomed to looking for Hobbits by now, if for less happy reasons than his own currently, and the task put him in no worse a mood for it. He hummed as he went, his constant habit, though this time, he could not be bothered to even try to remember the words to the tune in his mind, a song about the long-ago days of the Greenwood, lilting and clear, like all Silvan songs were wont to be. He supposed, really, he could ask if anyone had seen the young Halfling, though that seemed an unappealing suggestion. Mortals sometimes acted strangely if he spoke to them, flustered and uncertain. It was easier to trust his eyes and let his feet take him the way that it seemed best to go rather than trouble anyone. He was a forester, after all, he could find anything he wanted anywhere in Mirkwood. This was not so terribly different.
So the Elf looked, and hummed, and wondered at times if the stones here would ever speak to him -- and if that meant that surely, he had been here far too long, or if the city itself simply liked him, whatever that might mean.
The soft, sweet sound of music, strange and yet familiar, drifted up the road to where Pippin sat on the stone bench. He felt the sound of that song wobbling inside of him, setting off topsy-turvy cascades of happiness and familiarity, but also the strangeness and sadness he could never explain. He jumped up, scrambling on top of the bench, and strained to see over the dark heads passing before him for sight of one very fair, pale one.
“Legolas!” Pippin shouted, waving his hands vigorously in the air. It was not a dignified way to behave, not a way these men would have expected from one who had served their steward, but Pippin was so very young, and had been so very sad, he thought they would forgive him a little lack of decorum. “Legolas!”
That was the voice indeed Legolas wished to hear, and his head whipped around towards its source. Less than a heartbeat later, he smiled broadly as he saw the Hobbit in question. On a bench, no less, and straining to be seen. It made something in Legolas go warm with affection.
“Young Master Pippin,” he said, and that affection was plain in his voice as he went to the bench. “I take it my company is not unwelcome, then?”
“Oh, Legolas,” Pippin sighed, happy to have a friend as he sat back down on the bench, “I am glad to see a friendly face, someone I know. Things can be so...” Slow. Boring. Sad. “...so strange here. Will you sit with me? Tell me where you’ve been, what you’ve done.”
“This is a strange city,” Legolas agreed. “And the hardships of long war have only magnified that.” As for his answer to whether he would stay, he answered that by settling gracefully on the bench next to the Halfling, like a cat deciding on its chosen perch for the time being. “As for my comings and goings, they are unremarkable at best. They are making great strides to the repair of the city, and I have done what I can to contribute to the efforts, though my skills are somewhat limited here. Gimli works to remove the stone that has littered the streets and destroyed the houses from the siege, and I do not think the Men of Gondor knew for what they were in store when they had a Dwarf come amongst them with his axe and pick.”
Pippin smiled a little. At least Legolas sounded... well, Legolas-like, and that was comforting, in its way. Legolas had always been very Legolas-like. He wasn’t like other elves, at least, not that Pipping had met, but Legolas, his cheerful songs, his comforting warm presence, had always done Pippin considerable good. “I’ve been helping the bakers,” he said, quietly. “I have been telling them how to bake heartier bread, stronger and thicker, but not so expensive, as is the way of hobbit food. Good for the soldiers. Good for the people who work so much.”
“I had wondered what you might have done to fill the time, if you would have found the city too much to bear now with the worst part of the quest over, and all thoughts turned to the future,” Legolas said, his voice gentle. “They need hearty bread here, I think. I have never seen so many hunger before.” He thought for a moment of the sea-captain, and his concern for the poor, the hungry. They seemed to be ever-present in the world of Men, and it was a strange thing, indeed.
“In the Shire no one goes hungry.” Pippin mused. “I cannot remember anyone ever going hungry for more than half a day. There is so much food. We eat so often.” His stomach remembered wistfully the great aged days of 6 meals a day, 8 meals a day instead of the Gondorian three. “I feel so useless, but at least I know about food. I am too small to do what Gimli does, I know nothing of politics, I cannot advise Strider, but I know about food. All hobbits know about food.”
“I know too little about politics, I am learning that,” Legolas admitted. “Too little about the world of Men in general. But I shall learn, I am determined to learn, so that I might be of some use to Aragorn as long as I am to remain here.” To help, to do good. It was the same thing that they both wanted, he and Pippin, and they were both attempting to find the means to do so. Hobbits were terribly marvellous creatures, Gandalf was right, he thought. To be so small and to try so hard, it was an amazing thing. But he had learned early on in the quest of the heart and courage of Hobbits, and it was a lesson that had stayed with him. “I do not know what advice of mine Aragorn might need, however. I am sure he will do great things, quite sure.”
“Well,” Pippin mused, “Strider is a very great man, isn’t he?” He looked up over the city before him. So many busy men and women, bustling past, tired and brave and strong. With hearts and courage that made him think of Boromir, now. A city full of brave men.“Great men do great things.” His voice quieted, a little. “But so do all these people who are as little in their great world as I am. Sometimes the bravest ones have no great destiny. Their only destiny is the one they make.” He fidgeted, thoughtfully. “Maybe a baker has no noble parents or a great sword or an elvish lady to call his own, but surely he does good when he feeds the hungry, after all.” Pippin had found, as time went on, that he admired the Gondorians more and more. They were strange, and sometimes their ways confused him more than anything, but they were so kind to him, they bore their terrible burdens bravely and with care. And he thought, every time a Gondorian was kind to him, of Boromir, of Denethor, of Faramir, and their terrible burdens, their terrible bravery.
Legolas thought his sharp ears detected a sort of sadness in the words, and it pained him on a level he did not expect. Pippin was no longer the young, impulsive little thing he had been when the quest started. But he supposed the same could be said about him, too. “Acts of kindness, acts of compassion, they are surely good. Perhaps the best kind of goodness there is, for they expect no glory or renown in return.”
He hesitated, and his voice softened, clearly not meant for a passer-by. “I have something I would tell you, but only if you give me your word you will speak of it to no-one else,” he said, solemnly. “And there would be kindness in that promise, though it perhaps is not clear at first glance.”
Pippin blinked solemnly. He thought of Gandalf’s strange mirthless laugh when Pippin had sworn fealty to Denethor -- Gandalf had not often frightened Pippin, but that day, Pippin had felt something terrible and old and heavy in Gandalf, and he felt it now looking at Legolas. “I promise,” he said, clear-toned and steady, “I will not tell another soul. Not even Merry, though that might be hard. What is it, Legolas?”
Legolas glanced around. Men walked back and forth, lost in their own business and oblivious to the conversation of an Elf and a Hobbit -- were they commonplace creatures now, both of them? it was almost rankling -- but he was not keen to be overheard. “Come. Let us walk. Find somewhere quiet. I have some things I would explain, and I would not wish to give my words more wings than they need to have,” he said. “But fear not. There is joy in what I would explain. Much joy.”
Pippin sighed, and stood up. Sometimes, Legolas was... well, very elf-like. That was to be expected, he supposed. Quietly, with a smile, he reached out and caught Legolas’ hand, as if the elf prince was one of his own cousins, and led his way through the winding white streets, looking for a green spot or the shade of a tree to sit beneath in comfort and rest. The city was busy, and would not mind giving them privacy and secrecy for a moment or two.
Somehow, the Halfling’s hand in his own was reassuring, Legolas thought. At least he knew he could not lose Pippin. He still had nightmares sometimes of trying to find him and Merry, tracking them over the vast plains of the Riddermark and always fearing that he was not swift enough, that his eyes lied, that they might not make it in time. They left him in a cold sweat, his heart racing in his ears and a sick feeling in his throat. He shook the thought off. All was well, now. Or as well as things could be. But it seemed to him that Pippin knew the city better than he did, and that was an odd thought. Boromir had spoken of the city like it had a will of its own, and he had not thought it strange. Perhaps the city had decided it liked Pippin. Pippin had stood here for the siege, after all, and that made him a part of Minas Tirith, in his way.
A green way opened before the Hobbit’s eyes. Amidst all the chaos of the street, he saw a little wave of a leaf in a shadow, a cool shady garden down some twisting side-street, full of plants in containers and with a little trellis covered in vines. The gate was open, so Pippin led Legolas inside and sat down underneath the trellis on the bench. The house the garden had belonged to stood quiet and empty. Pippin felt more relaxed surrounded by green things. It did not quiet his intense hunger to see the Shire again, but it helped, a little. “Now,” he said, sounding like no one so much as his own mother, quiet and industrious and calm in her way, “what troubles you, Legolas?”
“Not troubled, not in this matter,” Legolas said. He brushed his fingers against the leaves on the trellis, as if encouraging them to grow in that strange way of his. He murmured something nearly inaudible, a few syllables of Elvish that were like a breeze or a song, then joined Pippin on the bench. “You must have heard of the returned dead, have you not? Of the ancient Elves and heroes, come once more from the Halls of Mandos to walk the earth?”
Pippin watched Legolas. The elves could be so strange, so foreign. Legolas’ own ways had become familiar, and he smiled a little to see him talk to the leaves. Hadn’t he seen Sam do the same, in his own way, his busy industrious chatter of hobbit-talk to garden plot? “I have heard of the returned,” he said, slowly, thoughtfully. “I do not know what to think of it, but I have heard of it.” Everyone had heard of it. The Gondorians talked of it openly. Pippin had always felt shy, hung back, uncertain what to say, unknowing of these heroes and why they were important, shocking, frightening, to live among.
Legolas nodded a little. “The dead are not all ancient,” he began slowly. “Nor all Elves. There are some amongst their number that we would find desperately familiar. I did not believe it until I saw with my own eyes, but there are some whom the grave did not hold for long.”
He was not sure how to say what he wanted to say, and it was an odd feeling. The common tongue of Men and Hobbits was often unwieldy on his own, awkward and difficult to bend to the Sindarin he wished he could use. Even Silvan seemed better suited to speaking of mysteries. Not the speech of Men, sad and straight-forward and somehow, always rough no matter the skill with which it was spoken. “Today, through the kind help of the son of the Prince, I spoke to one of the beloved dead. And I believe you would wish to speak to him, too. Pippin, Boromir is in this city, strange and forgetful, but here and himself, though not exactly the man who came to Rivendell.”
Pippin could not speak. His eyes grew wide, and his mouth opened, then shut again. He worked this thought over in his head desperately. Could it really be? Boromir? Really? Truly? Could it be? How could Legolas, an elf, have been deceived? No! It must be! Boromir! But he had seen the terrible sadness in Legolas’ eyes when they had told him Boromir had died. He had seen the terrible broken sadness of Denethor’s face, contemplating his lost son. And Pippin had cried, alone, in his room, when the grief of the city had been so clear to him, and he had understood, though he had lost a friend, they had lost something more important. How could he be alive?
“Are... is it really true?” Pippin faltered. “Is it really Boromir? You are sure? Oh, Legolas, this is so... so... so happy.” Boromir, alive! How could he not tell Merry, tell Frodo, tell Sam? Oh, his heart burned at him. Legolas had seen him! Spoken to him! “What did he say, Legolas? Does he know everything that has happened to him? Oh, Legolas! Boromir, alive!” He could barely contain his thoughts. They raced too quickly, happy and sad tumbling around in his head and confusing him, mixing up his memories and thoughts.
“He does not know,” Legolas told him, his voice steady, though there was an undercurrent of emotion in it, the same sort of aching sadness that lingered in his eyes. “He does not remember. He seems younger, but still so old. I cannot explain. He does not remember us, though he welcomed me as a brother-in-arms, a kindness that I perhaps did not deserve, but am grateful for, all the same. I told him of you, of his affection for you on the journey, how he fell trying to defend you, and he said that he would meet you, if you wished to see him.” His voice faltered when he spoke of Boromir’s fall, a wound there that seeing his comrade returned had still not healed, for all that the wound was not visible. But he did not let that falter derail his words. “He does not remember us, or the quest. He does not know Aragorn, does not wish Aragorn to know of his presence here, and that is why I needed your word. He is still finding his feet in this world newly born into peace. We cannot ask more of him than he is willing to give, not if we would repay his kindness with our own.”
Pippin swallowed, his elation turning cold in his stomach. Boromir didn’t remember them? How could that be right? Shouldn’t Boromir remember? Maybe it was better Boromir didn’t remember. Pippin wondered, for a moment, if he would want to go back to the Shire and forget everything he had seen and done. Forget the terrors and the discomforts and the great heavy sadnesses.
No, Pippin thought, he would not go back to the Shire and forget. To forget would mean to forget his friends. To forget the war, all its terror and discomfort, would mean he would forget to be grateful to see his father and for the comforts of the Tuckborough and be glad for the peace the Shire had always enjoyed. He somehow didn’t think Boromir would have chosen to forget, either. Nobody in Gondor would choose to forget the war, even with how awful it had been. That wasn’t what they were like. Not in this city.
“...I am so sad, Legolas,” he said at last, heavily, “and so happy, too. I don’t understand. I do want to see him, though. I am so happy he is returned, even if he does not remember why that would make me happy.” He reached his hand out, and held Legolas’ hand again. He could only imagine what it had been like to see Boromir die. He did not want to think about that. The mere fact of his death had been so sad already.
Legolas had become somewhat accustomed to Pippin’s habits of touch over the long miles, and so he let the Halfling hold on, gently squeezing in return. There was a strange sort of comfort in it, a reminder that neither of them were alone, that they both lived, warm and vibrant and solid. He had come to appreciate that, if nothing else. Anything that affirmed life began to seem valuable, and in the darkest moments of the quest, he had found himself reaching out to touch Aragorn and Gimli, just to reassure himself that they lived, that they were there, that at least that much was well. “After Amrothos Imrahilion told me, I sat and wept. Then laughed. Then wept some more,” he admitted quietly. “There is no shame in either, I do not believe.”
Pippin thought about this, quietly, his eyes dark with thought. Gandalf had called him a fool quite often, but fool, Peregrin Took was not, not when he sat down to think and turn things over in his head with the care he might have taken with a flan. “Things which are beautiful are often strangely frightening, as if they are ugly,” he said, at last, “and things that are happy are often sad. That is what I think I have learned from the elves. The sad songs of the elves can lift my spirits, and their happy songs can make me cry. I would cry for Boromir, except I’ve cried so much, I don’t know if I can cry anymore. But he used to make me laugh. Maybe he’ll make me laugh again.”
“I hope he can,” Legolas said, all the sincerity in the world in his tone. “We have all wept too much. Laughter would be good for us all. But especially you. I recall you in Imladris, in the first days after we set off. You laughed more. But perhaps, so did I.”
Beautiful, terrible, sad, wonderful things. Death, Legolas was learning, had learned, painfully and absolutely, was all of these. Valinor was all of these things, too. And somehow, the closer he came to the beautiful or the terrible, the louder the song of the gulls and the music of the West rang in his ears. Laughter or tears seemed equally appropriate at any time. Was it any wonder Elfsong, distant echoes of the West, of the glories of Valinor, might prompt the same reaction in those who heard it?
“I feel as if I was a babe in arms, when I thought to come with Frodo,” Pippin said, sadly. “I am still so young, of course. But I am so tall, now, when I come home my mother will say there’s never been such a tall Took since my ancient grandfather Bullroarer, who could ride a pony, and my sisters will wonder that I can carry a sword as well as any man. Well,” Pippin amended, “what is as a sword to me.” He was thoughtful. Tuckborough, with its big library and the big warm cozy kitchen and his own wonderfully soft bed. It seemed impossible, all of the sudden, that he might carry home his sword and wear his tunic and be called Sir Peregrin Took, Knight of Gondor. After all, no hobbit had ever heard of Gondor.
A tiny, bright thought pierced Pippin suddenly. No hobbit had heard of Gondor yet. They would hear of it after. He would come home, not as he had left, a boy full of mischief, but as a knight of the west, and he would tell the story, and carry it on his heart, that far away, deep in the south, kind men had fought so hobbits might live in peace, and they would know. His father would know, his sisters would hear the stories, and every child in the Shire would fight for the right to play Boromir, to play Faramir, to fence with sticks and carry washbaskets as shields.
“He cannot be all that different, can he?” Pippin asked, after a moment. His voice no longer trembled so much as before. “He is still Boromir, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Legolas affirmed with a nod. “Still brave. Still kind. Still steadfast and stalwart and strong. He is still himself, though...somewhat adrift. It is hard, I think, to last remember yourself Captain-General, and then realise there is no army for you to command, no war for you to fight, and no responsibilities that only you can carry.” Boromir had lost his inheritance. That was what he had said. He had lost his city, his inheritance, to Aragorn. And even though Aragorn’s coronation had seemed the most right, the most fitting thing in the world to the Mirkwood Prince far from his own king and crown and inheritance, he was beginning to see what pain it was for the house of the Stewards returned from other, shadowy halls to their own.
“But he is still Boromir,” Legolas finished slowly. “Still Boromir, and still our friend. And willing to become such all over again.”
“Then I shall be his friend gladly,” Pippin said, promptly, without hesitation. “Maybe I will make him smile and laugh as I used to. We used to laugh. He used to tell me about the things he did as a child, and his brother, the antics of his soldiers, and his beautiful country and his white city. And I never understood a word of it, but he was always so good to me.” Pippin thought he understood now, not only the laughter and Boromir’s love for his city and his soldiers, but the great sadness Boromir had carried, also. “He has always been so kind to everyone,” he said, quietly. “It seems to me such a shame that now he is lost, with no one but us to be kind to him, as we may.”
Legolas nodded, looking at Pippin’s small hand against his own, his fingers long and callused from battle, the only mark they still carried. Boromir had held him and let him speak of the things that still haunted him, had stroked his back like he was an elfling in need of comfort after being frightened by a shadow. It seemed small to call that kindness -- and yet, he knew of no other word. “He is kind. He is so very kind. And I hope we can give him kindness in return. I feel as if I owe him much indeed and cannot ever hope to repay the debt, only chip away at it in small moments,” he said softly, slowly. “So I keep his return secret, and hopefully, I will be able to do more in my time. I am certain you will be able to do much for his spirits, very much indeed.”
“I wonder why he hides,” Pippin said quietly. “No city has ever loved anyone as this city has loved him. Surely, if anyone of the dead has a right to go about and be seen, isn’t it Boromir?” Maybe, Pippin thought, Legolas did not know. He had not seen the city in its dark hour the way Pippin had. Had not seen the downcast faces and the terrible, broken sadness of the men in those hours. “Everyone in this city loves him, but he hides, he wants to be hidden. That makes me sad. He can only be doing it for fear they will not learn to love Strider if someone they have loved so long is among them again.” And that made him sadder still. How could anyone be asked to choose between the man who had loved them, so well and for so long, and the hero who had brought them peace? That wasn’t fair at all. Pippin wished he could unthink the thought as soon as it had come to him. What kind of choice was that? And yet, he knew, people would start making it, if Boromir was found to be alive.
“He does not wish to challenge Aragorn. He fears that the people might follow him instead of their king. He knows his people, far better than any of us.” Perhaps even better than Aragorn did. Legolas hated the thought, hated the hint of anything resembling disloyalty to Aragorn, whom he had followed and obeyed and loved so well, loved and obeyed still, but he could not deny that there was a ring of truth to the possibility. He did not have to give it voice, however, so he left it silent, pressing onwards instead. “He gives them what they need now -- the future, the peaceful future, without strife from the past. They would love him more, if they knew what he does for them now. I cannot imagine what he will do with himself. He said it was like a man watching his wife married to another and his sons raised in another’s house. The pain of it cuts deeply.”
Pippin swallowed a deep uncomfortable lump of what might have been tears back from his throat, and moved on the bench until he huddled underneath Legolas’ arm, pressing his head against the elf’s side. Oh, Boromir! Oh, poor Tirith! And poor Legolas, who sounded so distressed by it all. Poor all of them, left in strange lands, or at strange times so that even home was foreign. “...it’s terrible, isn’t it,” Pippin whispered, “when countries change hands. Gandalf never told me it would be so sad when Strider became King Aragorn. I never thought to ask, if it would be difficult and uncomfortable and a trial all its own.” He felt a momentary pain, at the thought of what Denethor might have thought if he had lived to see his poor city. The terrible sadness of Denethor struck at him again, the endless lament in the old steward’s face, like a man who had seen the most unimaginable nightmares becoming true.
A little, sad part of Pippin was glad the sad old man could not see his city in another’s hands, his son sad and languishing. He hoped Gandalf had been right, and that death was a quiet green country across a glassy sea, where Denethor, and all the dead could have peace.
Without thinking about it, Legolas held him tight, humming for a few moments, an old song whose words he could not remember, but he swore he heard ever in his head in a high, sweet, female voice. “It is terrible,” he agreed softly, the hum fading into his words, making them seem sweet for all the sadness. “It is terrible, because it means that something has perished from the earth, someone has died, has fallen into shadow, and in the midst of mourning, a crown is laid on another’s brow.”
The songs for the crowning of a king always started as wails, after all. Would they wail for his Elven-lord? Or would he be spared that sorrow before he sailed for the West? But how could he ever think of leaving with no son of his own, with his father in his halls and no-one to take his place should Thranduil fall? His heart constricted. Legolas swallowed the thoughts and bade them rest for now. There was only so much he could do at once, even still.
“We are all so sad lately,” Pippin whispered, peering up at Legolas. “Don’t be sad. A friend is returned to us, and every day things start to get better. There are reasons to sing.” His voice grew stronger as he spoke, and something in Pippin’s eyes lightened, and he looked again like the boy who had followed his friends far from home. “Shall I teach you a song of the Shire, Legolas? I know you are dreadful with words but many of them have choruses and words that repeat over and over.”
That light in Pippin’s eyes pulled Legolas from his thoughts, from memories of Mirkwood and hopes of Valinor. He smiled then, a small thing, though inclined to grow. “I am not as bad as all that. Just forgetful of the middles of things,” he said, his tone lightening, like a star coming out at twilight. “But perhaps Hobbit songs will be kinder than great Elven lays.”
“Well,” Pippin mused, “we really like songs you can sing after too many glasses of mulled cider. So they have lots of the same words and simple tunes. They maybe are not as... magical as your songs but they are awfully easy to sing.” He thought, a moment, and began to sing a simple walking song. It was one of his favorites, all about the autumn leaves turning red and the red ripe apples of the fall, and the fallowing fields and the great harvest of wheat. It was about warm cider and bonfires on cool nights and all the comforts of home. Just singing made his heart feel stronger within him, and he began to smile as he sang the chorus, gesturing for Legolas to join him.
“Come along, come along, the harvest is in hand, the trees are full of apples and happy is the land...”
The chorus was easily learnt, just as Pippin had promised. Legolas found himself humming even with the verses, his smile growing, and it seemed that aching sadness in his eyes faded to a whisper. He sang the chorus happily with his friend, his voice as clean and bright as always, the birdsong of a Silvan Elf, a gift from his mother, just as his father had said to him once when he was so small. Even if Pippin did not think his songs magical, they clearly were to Legolas, enough to push away sorrow and worries, if only for a little while. It was enough.