More than Loss of Light

A/N: The challenge this time around was to take the first four letter of your penname, and write a story containing four elements already attached to those specific letters. My things to incorporate in the story were: Pippin fighting, a morgul blade, Cormallen and Boromir misplacing something.

Yet no song or tale could contain all the grief and terror that then befell. The Light failed; but the Darkness that followed was more than loss of light. In that hour was made a Darkness that seemed not lack but a thing with being of its own: for it was indeed made by malice out of Light, and it had power to pierce the eye, and to enter heart and mind, and strangle the very will. - The Silmarillion

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More than Loss of Light


Merry ached. Opening his eyes in slow deliberation, he was sensitive to the sunbeams that had come to explore the once shadowy tent. Pieces of memory floated about disjointedly in the corners of his mind, all blurry and meaningless and strange. And the colors of the world seemed to blur together as he blinked, creating the strange sensation that he lingered someplace on the edge of his own distorted thoughts, smearing the boundaries between his reality, and what he wished would be true.

As recollection came into place, he felt his heart lurch, as if somewhere deep inside of himself that innermost core had failed to beat, had stopped, as if hesitant to continue again inside of him, unsure as to the worth of going on when what was at hand seemed so utterly bleak.

He had been here forever, hadn’t he?

No. One night. - said his sensible mind. For Merry was ever sensible. But how could that help him now? His heart wailed like the essence of fear and hope inside of him, a spear point into the very core of his shaking doubt.

It couldn’t. It couldn’t help. And suddenly his stomach turned in on itself and he was sick all over the ground.

He coughed, utterly miserable; the vile taste of acid gathered at the back of his throat, and burned him all the way down into his empty center.

He hadn’t even the state of mind to realize how miserably sore he was, hunched over on the stool where he sat, where moments before he had been sprawled across the edge of the cot before him, lying on top of his arms. His whole body whimpered of the tenderness and pain that leaves muscles sensitive after an awkward night’s sleep. His back, his neck, and his limbs cried in protest as he let himself dangle, with no regard to the mewling of his body.

His eyes ached, they were red and raw from tears he did not realize had fallen. And his stomach felt hollow and ill.

But to him, his hurt was nothing of that, but simply the pain of heartache and guilt; a sorrow he bore while he staggered below its incredible weight.

He stared at the dirtied floor and narrowed his eyes in a weary defeat, remembering with unwanted clarity that this nightmare had become frighteningly true; and now he strayed into the realm of this waking torment attached to the tendrils of his shadowy dreams – unsure exactly in which place he actually was.

His arm was so cold.

"Pippin," He whimpered, and was struck by the sound of his voice. Was it he who had spoken?

No. It could not have been. His strong voice was not so high and desperate. But the mewl of someone so lost and alone could only be his own, and he sobbed as he reached for the bruised and purpled hand, smeared and black with dried blood and twisted in disfigurement, that lay motionless before him.

And though he held it lightly, as the sun to her smallest flower, inside he gripped the limp and battered thing like the very clamp of life itself.

And while he sat, he gazed at the body of his most beloved cousin, so foreign draped in the cloths and casts of healers, and he could not recognize him through the blackened face. Merry felt his throat close, and coughed again as his breath came shorter, he could not find the air, as he watched Pippin’s chest rise and fall as shallowly each time as if it would be the last. And he would wait, and wait, and wait for the next breath, as surely as if they were his own.

Another breath. There. He was fighting. He still lived, then. Or, did he? Was this thing, this bruised and battered body, was this even his cousin at all? It could not be. No, not Pippin. This wretched figure could not endure life. It did not breathe. This was a corpse.

Were they both dead, then?

Did death hurt so much? Like love turned inside out?

"Merry," he heard a voice say. It seemed far away, distant, like on the very border of hearing, but echoed as if it had strewn into a cave; his mind – it pulsed with a pain that was subtly crippling. "Merry," it said again, as if calling him out of a dream.

Was he dreaming, then? Was this real?

"Merry," suddenly the voice was very clear, and he felt pressure on the shoulder which he only now realized was practically numb with cold. Though, the person did not draw back, but proceeded with an even stronger gentleness. "Merry, I think it is time that you retire to your own needs. Did you come here during the night?" the voice was quiet, reassuring, so much a disparity from the spiraling confusion of his own consciousness, that Merry only wished to please it.

"Merry, I asked you, did you come here during the night?"

The night? He had thought he had felt sunlight on his eyes. But no, it was only fitting he be stuck in an eternal night, here where death and shadows merged as one and his mind ran away from him, leaving him without a candle to blindly wander home.

"Merry!"

He stumbled forward, and awaited the impact with the ground, he almost welcomed it, for then he might he able to feel through this shroud of uncertainty. But it never came. Hands that were rough cradled him softly, and he looked up with large eyes, and saw in his captor’s gaze fever and delirium reflected back upon him. Kind eyes. Kind grey eyes he had, and a noble face. Was that a crown atop his head...or maybe fallen stars...? "Boromir, have you misplaced something?" Merry asked.

"...not Boromir," the man answered back, though the entirety of it was lost in the haze of all the sounds and lights magnified to pulse strangely against his ears.

"Not Boromir?" Merry asked, and he could feel himself being led away, along with a rising sense of panic inside of him. "No!" He struggled, but could feel hands pulling him from his cousins and looked down, terrified to find black shreds of shadow devouring the plates of Rohirric armor that he hadn’t the concern to remove from the day before. "Away!" he screeched, horrified, and dropped to the ground, searching frantically for the helmet and sword he had dropped instantly upon entering this healing tent, this sanctuary to wait for the knock of death.

For he had known the moment he’d stepped into it that it was not weapons that could protect them all now, they three and himself, but only love – which can only be lost, and can never come from battle.

Where were they now! He struggled against the hands, the gripping shadow fingers, groping along the ground to find his disregarded weapon. There it was! Ah, how it seemed to glimmer in the dust of the ground, so fair and beckoning, and he reached for it and stood, defiant and proud.

It was a weapon of Men and all their craftiness -- for how else could he bear an arm used to slaughter and kill, and still be honored for holding it?

He held it aloft, challenging the wispy enemies. Nausea took him again. He clutched his stomach, but regained his posture, and watched in frightened fascination as the blade seemed to morph in his grip; once shining and golden, the horse-figure's mane seemingly billowing in a forged wind, it was now black and twisted and ugly, and his hand and arm stung with the pain of a thousand sorrows as the vacuous screech of a great King of Shadow echoed in his depths and froze him to the very fringes of his soul.

He held now in his hand a morgul blade. "Fool! Die now!" rung a voice from the past, invading every recess, every reach of his mind, and he grit his teeth in pain as the strident cry seemed to tear his mind in half. – But to him it commanded not.

He heard a scream, it pierced through the cacophony in his mind. His head echoed with cries from soldiers half-mangled in the field, reaching out to him with torn limbs, pleading for help, dripping with blood; and the sound of his mother crying in a darkened room somewhere in his long forgotten home. His mind swirled with the hauntingly beautiful melody, the musical farewells sung by hobbits in the wake of three shining caskets; three which were delivered in escort to the Shire, with he as the reaper in front, soldiers with silver-winged helms flanked his side, a cape not of black – but of elven green – draped over his broadened shoulders.

The praise of all the world strung the paths of the three lives lost – but lost they were still.

"...Meriadoc, Slayer of Evil, has come home to us... yet cloaked he was... and home it shall be, though it stay ever more changed, for the sun has shone gloriously on three, but casts their shadows back onto our Shire..."

Merry heard someone speaking, it was a hobbit. It was the Mayor of Michel Delving. Merry gazed down at the breeches and jacket on his body; attire of black.. Horrified, as he stood apart from a crowd gathered around three flowered coffins. It was a morbid send off – for hobbits danced and sang as well as cried a loved one away, they saw death was a new beginning, not an end.

But this was frightening, and different and real and Will Whitfoot read a eulogy as the rain fell from the sky – but it was salt, like tears, as it trickled down Merry’s face.

Black is so unbecoming for hobbits.

There was his uncle and his aunt; ever had Pippin been trouble to them, but ever had they loved him deep inside their hearts, and now they sobbed for their only smiling son, as he rest, somber in soldier’s garb before them. There was Pearl, her fiery red hair and her mischievous eyes looked so drawn in black, as her grief curled her lips and brought her hand to her chest.

The Gamgees’ sorrow could be heard even from where he stood, Sam’s sister held Rosie as they shook in each other’s arms. And there the Gaffer stood, stoic no more, but still unmoving, as tears as solemn as the great grey ocean rolled down his wizened face in waves.

But who was this in the black veil? Merry wondered and walked closer. He drew back.

It was his mother, she shook, racked with grief in his father’s welcoming arms, but his face was no longer kind – but old, old and tired and jaded.

This lass, who was she? No! No... his heart palpitated, not Estella...No. But whether his sensible mind reasoned it away or not, it was her. And she stayed kneeling on the ground, her dark hair loose and stuck to her face. She clutched a ribbon in her hand, and it was black and faded. She stared, it seemed, at nothing, and did not move. A rose in the shadow of a storm.

He thought to reach out to her, but couldn’t, for the shock struck him to his core. It was true Pippin, and Sam lay in those beds, though the third held not Frodo – but himself. Merry Brandybuck in Rohirric armor, and his sword lay down across his chest.

Where was Frodo... he gathered himself enough to put another’s need before his own, as he had ever done. He looked around. Frodo was not there.

Suddenly a bright star across a crashing sea shone in his eyes, and he gasped as the image was beautiful, but made him feel ambivalent with both sorrow and joy. A combination that twisted his stomach once more -- and made him feel hollow and shaky when it vanished without a trace.

He heard another scream, it was one from recollection; but the image of Weathertop sang in his mind. The bitter cry was the very essence of the memory of that place and time...now he was there again, and the wind blew around him in torrents of the past and the present and the darkening future.

"Frodo!" He cried and sank to his knees, whipping the weapon he still held away in horror, closing his eyes to the bedevilment.

He whimpered and felt the hands at him again, but this time could not care to fight them, before everything went completely black.

*

Lasto bethnin, tolo dan nan galad

Merry slowly opened his eyes, but he regretted leaving the peace of black oblivion. He couldn’t remember anything except pain and nausea, and he longed for his friends more than his own life, but somehow, knew that they were already gone. Tears spilled from his eyes. Why was he not dead then, too?

A hollow gap in his heart. Caught evermore in between holding on and letting go.

Lasto bethnin, tolo dan nan galad

He soon acknowledged the gentle flicker of candles all around him, and smelt something warm and strong that seemed to lift his heavy soul from the doldrums of his thoughts, and raise it up to a place where light could reach him again.

He felt a hand at his forehead and sighed. It was strong and gentle, and suddenly he knew that peace, if an empty one, would calm his restless thoughts.

There. His heart still beats. Love was not lost then. His voice was soft as he spoke. "Strider, how is Pippin?" The question was a queer one to him, for he already knew the answer. Pippin was... no... Pippin was... But somehow, it had seemed to escape him, and instead of loss in the void of his soul, he began again to feel a quiet hope. Pippin was evermore in his heart, he knew this, at the very least.

Aragorn couldn’t help but smile, and didn’t bother to suppress the laugh that sprung up inside of him like the bubbling of a stony brook. Gently sweeping the hobbit’s body to check for abnormalities he noticed his frozen arm was beginning again to warm.

"Aragorn, how do I know this is not a dream?"

"This is light."

"But sometimes they both feel dark, and I can’t tell the difference," Merry answered, ashamed, and clutched the blanket that covered him warmly.

Aragorn reached for the hobbit’s hand and placed it to his heart. "This is what lights the way. It is your candle and your beacon home." He placed Merry’s hand back, and where it had tingled with coldness before, Merry noticed it was now warmer.

The trip to Cormallen had taken its toll on the young hobbit, and after darkest Shadow had been defeated and he had come not to joyous reunion, but to find all his companions at the door of death, exhaustion and his own vice were quick to grasp him. They ran rampant in his emptied heart, where before the faith in his loved ones had prevailed to thwart it before. And worry had taken faith’s place as the hobbit had sickened himself with fear. Aragorn frowned as the traces of coldness in Merry’s arm still prickled his fingertips. It was too soon for more suffering. He sighed.

But, here Merry was now, strong again after the world had fallen down and rose again before him, strong still after he had been touched by evil beyond compare, a hobbit, scared and lonely, timeworn and fever-ridden – with hope still alive. And through all this his courage would not leave him, and so Aragorn knew it would always stay. And he felt pride then in his littlest companions, saviors of the world, more than his great heart could hold.

"Aragorn?" Merry asked again, his voice quavering. "Where is Pippin?"

As Aragorn answered, his face again became grave, "I will not lie. You have seen enough of blackest shadow to see past the grey veil of untruth. Pippin is not well. Neither is Frodo, nor Sam." He studied Merry’s face but saw no trace of uneasiness or panic. "Though they live yet."

Merry nodded.

They live yet.