A short little vignette of when Pippin’s thoughts for his distant cousin changed. For fans of The Village, you’ll recognize a quote in here – but know that I am not M. Night Shyamalan, and I don’t own The Village, or Signs, or anything else that he did. Also, the title comes from a sonnet by Keats, and I am not him either – since he’s dead and all. Nor am I Tolkien, to whom these characters belong.

This is intended as a little preview for a Pippin/Diamond story I’m working on now – for anyone who has read/is reading Flowers, Gems And Estella, it’s somewhat concurrent with that.

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She had not changed her appearance in any way – her brown hair still hung from her head, the same way it always had, fashioned into a long braid that reached halfway down her back – her eyes were still the same enchanting shade of green that sparkled when hit by sunlight, and still seemed to dance with laughter and pleasure as the moved back and forth across the pages of her favorite book – her face had always been tiny and delicate, with her sweet dimples and freckled chin making her seem younger than her years She was almost of age, it was true, but seemed not a day older than twenty, the innocent light in her eyes revealing the shortcomings of her years. Still a little girl she was, whose tears that were the result of an immature prank pained him to see – he would push her done, like cousin often do, her youthful tears leaking from her eyes like raindrops, and immediately he regretted his juvenile actions. He would take her hand, and pull her up from the ground, replacing the smile upon her face once more. “Thank you, Peregrin,” she’d say, and all feelings of anger she had for him were gone.

To him, in his youthful days, this was nothing to ponder on, nothing to keep him awake at night in wonder, to think on the hidden meaning of her words, to hope and pray that there was a meaning. He was a lad, and she was a lass, and there nothing more to it than that – nothing more than the fact that she possessed something called cooties, and that he should stay away from her. But even in his youth, he found it impossible to do so, for his sisters had taken to ignoring him, and Merry was not always with him in Tookbank – there had been a time when the yearly visits to Long Cleeve were a hassle to him, a waste of time that he would have rather spent back at home, with Merry.

Like his view of females, those feelings had changed as well – he never truly wanted to go to Long Cleeve, but the yearly visits grew not so boring and tedious after some time, and he began to enjoy them after some time, enjoyed being with his distant cousins – with Fastolph Took, who was much like his own father, and a great teller of jokes around the dinner table – and his son Fosco, who was quite a match for Pippin’s own mischievous self, and from whom he’d learned a few good pranks. “Child’s play,” Merry called them when Pippin later told of them, but despite his words it was easy to see that he was jealous. Even Fastolph’s daughters were tolerable – Amethyst and Garnet, the two oldest daughters, were quite lovely, though they always seemed to look down on his youth and mischief, and never really approved of Diamond’s association with him. They would associate with his sisters, mostly, and claimed to have no time for him, which suited him well. There was also Ruby, who was more than a little obsessed with him, and would act as his second shadow whenever he stayed at Great Smials – she was the youngest, and therefore might have had the greatest desire for any sort of attention. She reminded him greatly of Merry’s cousins, Mentha and Melilot, and wondered if they had never met before.

Diamond, unlike her sisters, was soft-spoken and shy – she was by no means afraid of being socially active, but it was an activity she did not often take part in. Those who knew her had long since realized that she spoke not so much with her mouth as she did with her eyes – always, her liquid orbs seemed to hold some little known truth, some secret that was meant to be known only by her. There was a quiet serenity to her that Pippin had never been able to understand – but this always intrigued him, and he found himself seeking her company whenever possible.

It was after his travels with the Fellowship that his view of her began to change – it was perhaps during these travels, in which he came in contact with many different beings never before heard of, that he begun to appreciate the peaceful life so unacknowledged by him before. Wars and death changed his outlook, and before where mischief and absurdity were so esteemed, he now valued peace and tranquility – for he had seen things. They all had, things that they would never forget, and it was the best they could do to even get some sleep at night through all the nightmares. Pippin often looked upon the faces of the other hobbits, imagining what each saw – Merry, and the horrendous battle of Pelennor Fields, and a great darkness afterwards that clouded his senses and made him blind – Sam, the sight of a giant spider that Pippin could not even imagine, and a feeling, more than an image, of hopelessness, and death – and Frodo, whose nightmares were the worst, dark plains of woe and misery, with a great eye roving over, a searching light of evil that threatened his very existence.

Though Pippin had perhaps seen the least of war, his dreams were not free from the occasional bout of fright – a fire that burned to his very bones, that was so bright it blocked out the oncoming darkness – a great pinnacle of light that installed fear into his heart, though he knew not the reason why, and could not explain it. It was a fear that tore at his heart, and made him weaker than he’d ever felt before.

It was Diamond who had comforted him in this period of darkness – Diamond, whose soft eyes and comforting arms had been so consoling to him. She’d held his hand when no other would, just as he had done for her, when they were children. But they were no longer children, and it was no longer a game that they were playing – but she seemed willing to play, if only to be near him again. She was only twenty-five, and he thirty – neither were even of age yet, and she had never expressed any feelings of love towards him. Nonetheless, he found himself unable to hold onto her hand any longer and let go promptly.

Her eyes were searching, but her lips below said nothing – he himself was confused by it. She, looking at him stoically, in the mysterious way that was common to her, and so well known to him – but she seemed to understand, and seemed to know. “Sometimes we do not do the things we want,” she said calmly, “Because we do not want others to know our intentions – to know that we want to do them.” She said no more after this, and he saw her little afterward – not of her fear, but of his own. His own fear that struck him to his very soul – his own stupid, foolish fears.

Her words were true, though, he had to admit that much – his desire to be with her, to hold her hand, to feel her lips upon his, were the very reasons why he kept his distance. If he were to tell her – which he no longer need to do, she as good as knew already – and she were not to feel the same, he wasn’t quite sure what he would do. Perhaps he would be happy enough to love her from afar, to allow his desires to go unfulfilled – Merry might call him coward, and perhaps he was – but he could deal with this fact, for now.