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Tell Me What the Rain Knows

 

Miserably, Pippin stared out of the window into the grey scenery. “Merry?”

Merry looked up from his book. “Hmm?” he said. “Yes, Pip?”

“When is the rain gonna stop?” Pippin asked, turning to face his older cousin.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Merry replied thoughtfully. “Not in a few days, at least. Why do you ask?”

Pippin wriggled unhappily in the windowsill. “Do we have to stay inside all that time?” he asked sadly.

“That depends,” Merry chuckled. “Do you like to get all wet and cold and muddy?” Pippin pouted and Merry smiled at him. “Come here,” he said, opening his arms so Pippin could join him in the armchair.

Pippin jumped on the floor and hopped skilfully on Merry’s lap, settling between his arms. “What are you reading?” he asked curiously as he noticed the book on Merry’s knees.

“Something about herb lore,” Merry answered. He closed the book, careful not to damage the old pages, and put it aside on the side table. “You have an amazing library here in the Great Smials.” He moved Pippin in a slightly different position so they could both sit comfortably.

“Hm.” Pippin nodded and shrugged, clearly not interested. “I don’t like books,” he told Merry grumpily. “They’re so big and boring.”

Merry laughed. “That, my little Pippin, is because you can’t read a word of them. Yet,” he added, knowing Paladin would probably want his son to learn as soon as possible.

“Oh, no,” Pippin protested. He crossed his arms stubbornly and looked away from his cousin’s face, peeking at him every now and then from the corner of his eye.

“Oh, yes.” Merry grinned and wrapped his hands around the little hobbit, tickling him until he shrieked with laughter.

“Hmph!” Pippin did as Merry finally let go of him. Grumbling good-willingly he leaned his head against Merry’s shoulder. “If you say so.” He looked up at Merry with his big green eyes. “Will you teach me then, Merry?” he asked him. “I won’t learn it if you don’t.”

Laughing, Merry stroked Pippin over his head. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll teach you how to read, all right.”

“Great!” Pippin squealed. “But not now.” Lazily, he snuggled into Merry’s chest, hands clasping his shirt tightly.

Merry tugged playfully on his cousin’s curls. “Then what should we do, right now?” he asked.

Pippin sat up straight so quickly he nearly broke Merry’s nose. “Is Frodo coming over today?” he asked excitedly. “Or Bilbo? Or are we going to visit Bag End?”

Merry cocked and eyebrow. “That’s a strange answer to my question, even for you,” he said. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

Pippin slumped. “I was thinking I’d really like to hear a story,” he explained. “I guess I’ll wait until the weather clears up.” He sighed and collapsed against Merry’s shoulder again.

“If you want a story, you can just ask me as well, you know,” Merry said frowning. He had told Pippin many stories already (of which most came from Bilbo, of course) but he was sure he hadn’t told all of them yet.

“Well, yes, I know,” Pippin said, wriggling. “It’s just that, you know…” He finished in a murmur Merry couldn’t catch, but it was easy for him to guess what was on Pippin’s mind.

“Oh, I know I’m not half the storyteller Bilbo is – Or Frodo, for that matter,” he said.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that!” Pippin said quickly. He shifted uneasily in Merry’s lap.

“But I know it’s true.” Merry grinned and pinched softly in Pippin’s nose. “I’ve been listening to Bilbo’s stories ever since I was a little twit like you and before, Pip, and I know very well that’s the way it is. So wipe that look of your face, twit.”

Pippin snorted at the word ‘twit’, but then smiled and gave Merry a sloppy peck on his chin. “He only tells them better because they’re his own stories,” he assured Merry. “And Frodo knows them as if they’re his own, so he doesn’t count.”

Merry sincerely doubted if Bilbo had made up all those tales himself, but then decided it would probably be nicer to both Bilbo and Pippin to just let Pippin assume he had.

Pippin turned a pleading gaze on his cousin. “Tell me a story?” he begged and Merry chuckled.

“Of course, he said fondly. “What should I tell you a story about?”

Pippin pondered for a while. “The rain,” he then decided. “I want a story about the rain.”

Merry raised his eyebrows. “The rain?” he asked surprised. “Why that?”

“Because I want to,” Pippin said stubbornly.

That was a reason he would never let Merry argue no matter how hard he tried, so Merry simply gave in and tried to think of a tale that would satisfy Pippin. “I know one story,” he said slowly, “but I don’t remember it too well, as it’s been a long time since Bilbo told me. And it’s not a happy story, either.” He looked down on the heap of curls on his shoulder. “What do you think?”  

“Is it a good story?”

Merry nodded. “It was, they way Bilbo told it back then, but I can’t promise I tell it as nice as he did,” he warned him. “I forgot a lot about it.”

“That’s all right.” Pippin stifled a yawn. “Just tell me.” He pulled up his knees and wrapped Merry’s arms closer around himself.

“Well,” said Merry. He shifted a bit in the chair, careful not to knock Pippin off in the process. “It’s a story about a wolf, a big grey one, that-“

“A wolf?” Pippin’s voice sounded surprised. “Aren’t wolves evil, Merry?”

“Most are, indeed,” Merry agreed. “But this one isn’t. Shall I go on?” Pippin’s answer was muffled, but Merry assumed he’d said ‘yes’. “It’s about a wolf that fell in love with a princess. Every day he looked at her and admired her from a distance. But he could never go near to her, nor tell her how he felt.”

“Why not?” Pippin asked confused.

“Because wolves can’t talk,” Merry replied simply. “Anyway, there was a rainmaker, Ninniach, who pitied the wolf and she made a deal with him. In each drop of rain she created, she put a little bit of the wolf’s feelings, only for the princess to hear. Every day the princess listened to what the rain told her, and she came to love him as well, although she didn’t know that he was, in fact, a wolf.”

Pippin wrinkled his nose. “How could she not have known?” he said.

Merry thought about it for a while. “I think he didn’t tell her,” he said slowly. “He must have been afraid she would not love him if he did.”

“Oh.” Pippin nodded. “Okay. Go on!”

“One day, the princess decided to go looking for the one she loved,” Merry continued, gently rocking Pippin in his arms. “She looked all day and all night, but she could not find him. This made the princess very sad, and she came to Ninniach. She begged her to tell who sang to her so beautifully through the rain every day. But Ninniach had sworn to never tell. Yet she felt sorry for the princess and told her this: ‘Look for him on the highest hill of the forest under the full moon, and you shall find him there.’ And so the princess went to the hill on the night of the full moon. There she saw the wolf, howling to the moon as he sang of his beloved. The princess wondered at this sight, for she had never known there lived a wolf in the forest. But as she didn’t know what the wolf was singing of, she drew a wrong conclusion.”

  Merry paused for a bit. He was expecting Pippin to be sleepy, as he normally was when he got half-way through a story, but he found him looking very much awake.

“Well?” The little hobbit looked up curiously. “What was her conclusion?”

Merry hesitated for a bit, then went on. “She thought the wolf had killed the man she loved. Crying, she ran back to her village and told her father everything. Together with a few other men they went to the hill with bows and torches to kill the wolf.”

  He glanced at Pippin, curled up in his arms. He was staring ahead thoughtfully, fully absorbed into the story.

  “Ninniach realized the mistake that had been made and hurried to stop the princess, but she came too late. Soon the princess and her men reached the wolf and challenged it to fight for his life. But the wolf had a good heart and he loved the princess dearly, and wished not to fight. The king’s men attacked him anyway and set fire to his fur. Howling, the wolf fled from the forest, turning the sky black with smoke. Then Ninniach found the princess and told her everything. With a cry of horror, the princess went after the wolf. She found him on the edge of the forest, nearly burnt alive, and she wept. And Ninniach wept as well, feeling sad for their doom. Her tears turned to rain, flooding the forest, and in that flood the princess and the wolf drowned, together at last. And Ninniach put their tale in the raindrops, so everyone could hear of their sad ending and mourn for them.”

  Merry sighed and leaned back in the chair. “They say,” he proceeded, “that if you listen carefully, you can still hear their tale as the rain knows it.”

Pippin didn’t move for at least a minute, frowning thoughtfully, eyes downcast. Then he snuggled closer to Merry and hugged him. “That was a nice story,” he said, nodding to himself.

“Hmm.” Merry wiped Pippin’s hair out of his face. “Not too sad?”

Pippin shrugged. “It was very sad,” he said, “and I’m really sorry for the wolf and the princess. But it was still beautiful.”

Merry smiled and placed a quick kiss in Pippin’s wild curls. Pippin was too soft-hearted to even hurt the tiniest bug. He knew his little cousin too well to believe he wasn’t bothered by the end of the story.

“It’s still raining,” Pippin stated sadly.

Merry hugged his cousin tightly. “Then how about another story?” he suggested. “Something that does have a happy ending?”

 Pippin cheered up considerably and wriggled in Merry’s arms. “Something about elves!” he said briskly. He bounced against Merry’s chest, causing Merry to gasp for breath. “And dwarves, and dragons, and…”

“All right, all right,” Merry laughed. “Frodo was telling the younger hobbits in Brandy Hall this story a few weeks ago, so listen carefully. A long, long time ago…”