auntiemeesh | LotR fic update: The Luster of Snow

It's sad, how slowly I write. Of course, part of that might be due to the fact that I can't just sit down and write. I write a paragraph, or maybe a sentence and then go refresh my flist, maybe read something that someone else wrote, tool around the internet awhile, play with my iTunes, and then finally go back to add another few words to the story.

Anyway, I managed to come up with almost three pages of Luster for you all. This particular segment is all the Merry and Frodo show, which I know some of you have been waiting for. It's unbetaed so if you see any typos or obvious inconsistencies please point them out.

Previous chapters

Chapter Seven

Frodo filled Merry in on the details, including Pippin’s injury, while Merry finished up the last of the bread and jam. “Paladin didn’t go into much detail but it seems that on top of everything else, our young cousin has got himself a badly bashed up leg.” His smile was half amusement, half pained sympathy. “I would guess that within a few days, Pal and Teenie are going to have their hands full with a very bored and restless Pippin.”

Merry smirked. “I’m trying, but I can’t even imagine him lying still long enough to let a broken leg heal.” The smile slipped away, then. “Poor lad. I remember how frustrating it was when I broke my leg. I was lucky, too. It was a clean break that healed quickly. I only had to stay abed for about three weeks and even that seemed an eternity to me.”

“Then you won’t mind helping to entertain him? With everything else going on right now, I’m sure Pal and Teenie would be grateful for any help we can offer.”

“I suppose I could take a turn or two at Pippin-watch,” Merry conceded. Although he and Pippin had fought like cats and dogs when they were younger, the two had become fast friends in the last five or six years, bonding over their mutual love of adventure and mischief, as well as their shared affection for a certain bookishly inclined cousin.

“Good.” With that decided, Frodo turned the conversation to other things, inquiring about Merry’s parents, who would be coming to the Great Smials as well. Shortly thereafter, the two friends decided to brave the chill air and wandered down to the Green Dragon for a meal and a beer or two. Most of the conversation there that evening was of the passing of the Thain and what folks thought of his heir. While very few people had been close to Ferumbras, he’d been an important figure in the Shire and his death would be a subject of much conversation for the next few weeks or months, until something else came along to distract gossipy farmers and townsfolk.

The next morning they were up early. While Frodo finished packing for the trip, Merry raided the pantry and made a passably decent breakfast. Or at least, he thought it was passably decent. Frodo grimaced after the first bite and pushed his plate away in disgust. “I think maybe I’m not as hungry as I thought I was,” he muttered.

“What’s wrong with it?” Merry asked, hurt showing on every inch of his face.

Frodo refused to be taken in by that expression, he knew his younger cousin far too well. “Merry, the eggs are burnt, the seedcake is bitter, and I’m not even going to dignify that, that liquid,” he gestured towards the teapot, “as tea.”

“Fine. More for me, then, if you don’t want any.” Squaring his chin, Merry filled his plate with said burnt eggs and bitter seedcake, and choked down every bite, refusing to acknowledge that the food did, indeed, taste remarkably awful.

An hour later he was regretting his stubbornness, as the food sat like lead in his stomach, lurching about unpleasantly as he rode his borrowed pony along the rutted and uneven road from Hobbiton to Tuckborough. “How could you let me eat that?” he whined pitifully as he rode alongside Frodo, feeling dreadfully sorry for himself.

Frodo looked at Merry searchingly, then pulled his pony up, dismounting and moving to the side of the road. “Come on then, a bit of peppermint tea will help,” he said, taking pity on his suffering cousin.

Merry gathered an armful of branches and twigs while Frodo cleared a small patch of ground, gathered some rocks and carefully constructed a small fire circle. A short while later, they were back on the road, Merry’s water bag filled with an aromatic tea that he sipped gratefully.

“Honestly, Merry, how you can have reached your age without having acquired even the most basic cooking skills, I cannot imagine,” Frodo teased gently, once Merry was looking a bit more steady. He did understand, however. Brandy Hall was a large community and most meals were communal, prepared in a large kitchen by a fearsome staff that looked less than kindly on young hobbit lads intruding on their domain. Frodo himself hadn’t learned how to do much more than boil water and fry the occasional freshly-caught fish on camping trips, before moving in with Bilbo, and it had been quite a shock to his system to learn that he would be expected to prepare his fair share of the meals, once there. As the son and heir to the Master of Buckland, Merry had been even more pampered in some respects. Not that the lad was in any way spoiled or lazy. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was very intelligent and loyal, hardworking and willing to do pretty much whatever task was asked of him, but he had some odd holes in his education.

They traveled slowly throughout the morning, stopping occasionally to rest the ponies or pull a snack out of one bag or another. By lunchtime, Merry’s stomach had recovered from its shock and was vigorously demanding that something more substantial than small wedges of cheese or bites of apple be put in it. He was about to say something when Frodo cocked an eye at him and twisted around to open his pack. Pulling out a neatly wrapped bundle, he tossed it to Merry before pulling another out for himself.

“It’s not as good as Sam’s cooking, but a far sight better than what we had for breakfast,” Frodo said cheekily.

Opening the cloth-wrapped bundle, Merry forgave Frodo his smugness. There were several pieces of fried chicken, slices of thick, hearty bread, and some well-scrubbed carrots. “You’re right,” he admitted after a few bites, “it isn’t as good as Sam’s.” Laughing, he dodged the bit of carrot Frodo threw at him.

The two hobbits sobered as they approached Tuckborough later that afternoon. The isolated farmers they had passed earlier in the day had been quietly going about their own business, greeting the two with a respectful nod or a smile, but as they grew closer to the main village of the Tooklands, signs of mourning became more and more apparent. Whatever folks had thought of Ferumbras personally, and Frodo and Merry both knew that he hadn’t been the most popular Thain ever, they were still facing a major change in their lives and they faced this change by following traditions that had been set down so long ago they might as well have been carved in stone.

Despite the chill in the air, windows and doors were thrown open as lasses and matrons swept their smials clean, scrubbing doorsteps, wiping windows, airing bedding and rugs. The husbands, fathers and sons had all retreated, to the Sheaf and Shears most likely, Merry supposed, where they could discuss the state of the Shire over a pipe and a beer, while staying out of the womenfolk’s way.

Soon after passing through Tuckborough, they reached the Great Smials. Handing the ponies off to a scrawny lad in the yard, they shouldered their packs and entered the huge, interconnected series of smials that made up the heart of the Tooklands.

tbc