Chance Encounter: part 6
Jan. 26th, 2005 04:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamflowerMenelcar tells his story...
Menelcar drew out his pipe, and looked a question at his companions. Faramir and Éowyn nodded, and Merry and Pippin grinned and took their own out. They lit up, watched with resignation by the Steward, and fascination by Éowyn. She was intrigued by this smoking business. And there was something about the minstrel that tugged at her memory...
Pipes lit, the bard sent up a puff of smoke as he began to speak. “In a way, I have you to thank, Pippin, for my homecoming. My time with you in the Shire made me think of my own family as I had not in many years. I found myself wishing to see them once more. I had been barely older in Men’s reckoning of age than you were by hobbits’ when I left them. I was sure they had been glad to be rid of someone so useless as I thought I was then. But now I began to realize that perhaps my ideas at that age were not so true as I had believed then.” He stopped a moment to look at the perfect smoke rings his small companions made. Now *that* was something he’d not yet mastered.
“So, anyway, I slowly made my way South, and glad I am that I did. I arrived not long after the Enemy had retaken Osgiliath, and found that my older brother, a soldier, had perished there. My sister had wed some years before, and removed to Belfalas, and my parents were alone, my father, ill. I was able to take my parents to my sister’s home, and I stayed with them there to the end of my father’s days.” Menelcar’s eyes had grown misty. “Excuse me,” he said, taking out a handkerchief and blowing his nose. Pippin put a sympathetic hand on his friend’s arm.
“They had thought me dead, you see,” he continued. “lo, these many years. I was glad to have made them happy by my return. My mother has remained with my sister and her family.” He smiled. “I have a bonny niece and a sturdy nephew, who was named after me.”
Merry and Pippin exchanged a rueful look. It was quite possible their own families thought them dead. And Pippin missed his little nieces fiercely.
“Anyway, after the Enemy was overthrown, and I began to hear the tales circulating about the four halflings who had come to Gondor’s aid, I knew who it must be. Hearing a friend of mine, another bard, sing to me of ’Frodo of the Nine-Fingers’ only confirmed what I suspected, so I came back to the White City in hopes of perhaps encountering you.”
****
There are bunnies leading from here back to Legolas and Gimli, and also to Frodo and Sam--not sure which one to follow next...
Menelcar drew out his pipe, and looked a question at his companions. Faramir and Éowyn nodded, and Merry and Pippin grinned and took their own out. They lit up, watched with resignation by the Steward, and fascination by Éowyn. She was intrigued by this smoking business. And there was something about the minstrel that tugged at her memory...
Pipes lit, the bard sent up a puff of smoke as he began to speak. “In a way, I have you to thank, Pippin, for my homecoming. My time with you in the Shire made me think of my own family as I had not in many years. I found myself wishing to see them once more. I had been barely older in Men’s reckoning of age than you were by hobbits’ when I left them. I was sure they had been glad to be rid of someone so useless as I thought I was then. But now I began to realize that perhaps my ideas at that age were not so true as I had believed then.” He stopped a moment to look at the perfect smoke rings his small companions made. Now *that* was something he’d not yet mastered.
“So, anyway, I slowly made my way South, and glad I am that I did. I arrived not long after the Enemy had retaken Osgiliath, and found that my older brother, a soldier, had perished there. My sister had wed some years before, and removed to Belfalas, and my parents were alone, my father, ill. I was able to take my parents to my sister’s home, and I stayed with them there to the end of my father’s days.” Menelcar’s eyes had grown misty. “Excuse me,” he said, taking out a handkerchief and blowing his nose. Pippin put a sympathetic hand on his friend’s arm.
“They had thought me dead, you see,” he continued. “lo, these many years. I was glad to have made them happy by my return. My mother has remained with my sister and her family.” He smiled. “I have a bonny niece and a sturdy nephew, who was named after me.”
Merry and Pippin exchanged a rueful look. It was quite possible their own families thought them dead. And Pippin missed his little nieces fiercely.
“Anyway, after the Enemy was overthrown, and I began to hear the tales circulating about the four halflings who had come to Gondor’s aid, I knew who it must be. Hearing a friend of mine, another bard, sing to me of ’Frodo of the Nine-Fingers’ only confirmed what I suspected, so I came back to the White City in hopes of perhaps encountering you.”
****
There are bunnies leading from here back to Legolas and Gimli, and also to Frodo and Sam--not sure which one to follow next...