AN: This is for Marigold’s Challenge and inspired vaguely by Billy Boyd’s unfortunate mistake at the end of the RotK commentary which, unfortunately, kind of spoiled the whole thing for me until Christopher Lee took over again. Maybe now that I know what’s going to happen it won’t be so bad...
I am to include: A Fantastic Creature, any child, a missing weapon and an earthquake.
This is a mix of book verse and movie verse because I like the idea what Pippin is much younger than everyone else but I also like Peter Jackson’s portrayal of The Party. Some sections are lifted directly from “A Long Expected Party”.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not mine at all.
Rating: Kid Friendly
Summary: Could I perhaps interest you in a tale of your father’s daring? Your mother has made me promise not to tell you anything too adventurous, but I think that so long as the tale doesn’t leave the Shire, we shall escape her wrath…
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Dragon Fire and Slingshots
When Pippin was a hobbit-lad, he suffered from a confluence of females. He had his mother and his sisters to deal with, and while he did have lad cousins, those closest to him and his immediate family always seemed to be lasses. It had been rather infuriating at times. The older lads hardly wanted to play with young Pippin, being fearful of his nurse and mother and reluctant to allow such a small participant into their games. Were it not for his older cousins, Pippin’s years as a young lad might have been altogether unmemorable.
When Diamond told him that she was pregnant, Pippin was flabbergasted. He knew, of course, how things worked, but he never imagined that he would have children of his own someday, except in very hypothetical and abstract daydreams. He had great plans, and quite a bit of success, at being an Uncle, but suddenly the looks his sisters would give him as he sent an over-stuffed and over-exerted hobbit lad or lass back to their parent made a terrifying kind of sense.
Pippin was worried that he would have a lass and completely fail in rearing a proper hobbit lady. The progeny of his friends, of course, did nothing to help him through his worries. Elanor was model child for all her young years and his sisters’ lass-children were all excellent examples of Took blood and breeding.
When Faramir was born, some of Pippin’s worries were assuaged. Having been a hobbit-lad himself, he felt he had at least some qualification to raise up another contributing member of his clan. When Faramir developed colic, his father began to have second thoughts about the whole thing.
“Diamond, love, why don’t you let me watch him tonight.” Pippin said after one particularly bad day. “You didn’t sleep last night either and the poor lad’s nurse is due for some time with her family regardless of the condition of her charge.”
“Oh Pippin, I don’t know.” His wife sighed in weariness. “I did send her home today, but Faramir won’t go down unless someone is talking to him and – ”
“I think I can manage talking, love.” Pippin said, pulling her towards their bed and then turning to walk into the baby’s room. “I have so very many stories to tell.”
“Nothing scary!” Diamond said with vehemence, eyes wide. “Nothing about that time you went off to the South.”
“He cannot possibly understand me yet.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want you telling dark tales to my baby before he’s eating solid food.”
Pippin quailed under his wife’s look. She wasn’t hard like her name suggested, but she was exceptionally difficult to cross and it was easier on all of them if Pippin just did what she said.
“Go to sleep, love. Good stories only, I promise.”
Pippin smiled impishly and blew her a kiss. He then shut the door to their room and went to tell the lass looking in on his son to seek her own bed.
Faramir was fretful, as always these days, but Pippin picked him up easily and carried him, wrapped in one of Pippin’s old blankets, over to the rocking chair by the fire. Pippin sat down and rocked for a while, suddenly unable to speak as he beheld his son, still surprised that such a thing could happen. Then the baby’s cries reminded him of his task.
“Ho! There, my lad.” He spoke in what he hoped was a quietly cheerful tone. “Could I perhaps interest you in a tale of your father’s daring? Your mother has made me promise not to tell you anything too adventurous, but I think that so long as the tale doesn’t leave the Shire, we shall escape her wrath.”
Faramir gurgled and reached up for his father’s curly hair. Pippin did not manage to dodge in time.
“When you grow older, you will hear all sorts of things about your cousin Bilbo Baggins. They will tell you he is mad. But really, he is the second most famous hobbit in Middle-earth.
“Bilbo always had a very large birthday party. I only remember a few of them, as I was a young lad when he went away to stay with the Elves, but they were always fantastic nights. There was food and presents and music and dancing, and the last year was the best of all.”
Pippin fell silent for a moment, and the only sound in the room was the popping of the fire. Then Faramir realized no one was talking to him and began to fret.
“Hush, my lad.” Pippin said. “I’ll keep talking.”
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Frodo’s birthday party the year he came of age produced some truly amazing presents. Pippin knew that he was supposed to say “Happy Birthday, Cousin” to both Frodo and Bilbo and then be very surprised when they gave him his gift, but since he had spent the past few days watching dwarf-driven wagons trundle up The Hill, he was finding it hard to contain his excitement. The present they gave him was truly magnificent. It was a slingshot, made of wood and hide like every other slingshot Pippin had ever seen, but there was a tiny crystal in the sling that served as a target. Pippin had a great deal of fun that afternoon.
As lunch turned into dinner and dinner became dancing while eating dessert, Pippin had an argument with his mother about staying at The Party after the truly little hobbit-children were sent to bed. Bilbo’s family supper was, after all, a special occasion. And it would hardly do for the heir to the Thainship to be absent. In truth, Pippin could not bear the thought of being left out of what was sure to be a very good time because his elder cousins, it was guaranteed, would talk of nothing else for months afterwards, and if Pippin were unable to join in, it would be intolerable.
The long tables were set up and place setting after place setting lined the edges of their surfaces. All manner of benches and wooden stools were brought out, along with seat cushions for some of the older relatives. In all the excitement, Pippin snuck off behind one of the food tents, which had been pitched on the gravelly side of the glade, in hopes of replenishing his stone collection. He came around the corner and ran into a large wall of gray material that seemed to exude a great deal of smoke.
Yelping, Pippin fell back upon the ground and looked up into the face of Gandalf the Grey.
“Pippin, my lad,” said the wizard jovially as he pulled the hobbit to his feet. “What are you doing back here? The next stage of the evening’s entertainment is about to begin. You wouldn’t want to miss it.”
“They’re still setting up the tables…sir.” Pippin said, not entirely certain what one called a wizard.
“Oh, not the supper, young Took.” Gandalf smiled, eyes almost disappearing beneath beard and eyebrows. “I mean my own contribution to the festivities.”
But he would say nothing else on the matter and left Pippin standing behind him looking rather confused before trotting back in the direction of the party.
“Pippin! Come over here!” Came a shout from across the glade as Frodo waved his young cousin over. “Come watch with us.”
And then began a spectacle unlike anything Pippin had ever seen. He had heard his older aunts and uncles, and of course Cousin Bilbo, tell stories of Gandalf’s fireworks, but this was the first time he had seem them for himself. As he and his extended family watched, the sky lit up with trees and flowers and ships and rain and a host of other things. All the hobbits clapped for each display, delighted with the colour and imagination.
And then the lights went out and the earth shook as a mountain appeared before them. Cups rattles as green and scarlet flames shot out of the mountain before it revealed its true inhabitant. Pippin had never seen a dragon either, but he had heard enough stories to know that what bore down upon them now was indeed that fiery creature of terror.
Shrieks went up all around him, except from Cousin Bilbo, who seemed remarkably calm, as the dragon came close in above their heads. Pippin had never believed that his cousin was truly mad, but now he knew it must be the case. For Bilbo didn’t have the sense to defend himself.
The dragon swooped down for another pass at the field of stricken hobbits breathing fire and roaring terribly. The earth shook again as he neared. Pippin pushed his way through the crowd yelling at Bilbo to duck, but to no avail. Finally and nearly in tears, Pippin reached his cousin as the dragon roared back for yet another pass. Pippin reached for his slingshot. It had come from Dale after all, and the target made it very hard to miss. He would be like Bard and find the weak spot and defend his family from the Worm.
But it wasn’t there. He had put it in his pocket and gone behind the tent to look for stones and…run into the wizard. Pippin cast about him in desperation, hoping that he had dropped it more recently, but to no avail. His only means of defending himself and his family lay behind the sweets tent.
He closed his eyes and felt two hands dragging him around. They were Bilbo’s, of course, and he opened his eyes at last to see the dragon turn a magnificent somersault and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion of colours and light and sound. Pippin gasped for breath as an awful silence descended on the terrified hobbits.
“That is the signal for supper!” said Bilbo, and suddenly everything seemed better.
Pippin dried his face and took a few deep breaths to calm down. He felt quite silly, but decided that almost everyone else would feel the same way so it didn’t really matter very much. And food would help.
“I told you that you wouldn’t want to miss it, Master Took.” Came a great voice from above him.
Pippin looked up at Gandalf, suddenly angry and impressed all at once. It must have shown in his face, because the wizard laughed.
“It’s all right, Pippin.” The wizard said, patting him on the head. “Your response to the situation was noble indeed.”
Pippin smiled, feeling better already, and Gandalf handed him his slingshot.
“Thank you.” Pippin said simply.
Gandalf nodded and went off in search of his seat while Pippin scrambled off to find his own. Bilbo winked at him from the high table and Pippin decided that this was the very best birthday party he would ever go to.
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The chair creaked softly and the fire snapped in the hearth. Pippin thought back on those he had lost and then looked down at the finally sleeping bundle in his arms. Faramir’s face glowed in the firelight and Pippin remembered that night long ago, and many since, when Bilbo’s last birthday party was a topic of conversation.
Faramir, he resolved, would not grow up thinking that Bilbo was mad. And Pippin would teach his son that Frodo Baggins was a hero too, even if he hadn’t fought in the Battle of Bywater that had made Pippin and Merry (and Sam, though he didn’t really know it) so famous. He would tell him of the elves and of the dwarves and of men. When he was old enough, he would take him to Bree and to Rivendell and maybe beyond that. And if there were lasses to follow him, Pippin would take them along as well.
But tomorrow, Pippin would tear the burrow apart until he found that gift he had lost once already all those years ago. And he would gift his slingshot to his son.
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finis
GravityNotIncluded, December 2, 2006