For Marigold’s Challenge #38
My gap filler had to be for the chapter “In the House of Tom Bombadil”
My elements were: a hawk, a button, a ladle
Editing by Llinos and Marigold

Pippin gains some insights during his last night in Tom Bombadil’s house.

A/N: This is based on something that happens only in Tolkien’s books and is not in the movies at all.

Alone, Yourself and Nameless

The hobbits would be leaving in the morning, which Tom Bombadil assured them would be bright and gladsome unlike this day’s steady grey rain. He gave them each a candle then went with them to their bedroom with its soft, deep mattresses and warm blankets. He taught them a song to sing should they find themselves in need of his help, then, with a smile, a laugh, and a pat on the hobbits’ shoulders, he shut the door behind him leaving them alone. Pippin quietly undressed. He scraped his hand unexpectedly while undoing his trousers. One of the buttons that held his braces in place had part of the edge broken off. Pip reckoned it would be all right for a while. He would ask Sam about repairing it later.

He stretched his arms up over his head then scratched his belly as he yawned. Just one more thing to do before getting into bed. He picked up the ladle and poured himself a cup of water from the large bowl on the bench. Tom, the Master, had said the first night that his pitchers would be too big for hobbit lads to easily lift, so he had provided the bowl and ladle in its stead.

Pippin hadn’t spoken much since the Master had left the room. Really, for Pippin, he hadn’t spoken very much a great deal of the time they had been in the house of Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. Oh, he had talked and sang at the meals, when all the hobbits had found themselves singing as much as talking yet feeling quite right to be doing so. Peregrin Took liked to sing anyway. Yet, the usually verbose youngest hobbit had been strangely silent most of the time since they had first crossed the house’s threshold. There was a strangeness in this house, in Tom and his Lady. A deepness of wonder that the stories Tom told them during the day only made deeper and more mysterious.

Pippin had been silent this evening, even as the others spoke quietly while getting into bed. He didn’t even notice that part of their whispered conversation had been about him. Merry was worried at his youngest cousin’s quietness. Frodo had told him not to worry, even Pippin should be allowed to be contemplative at times. They all said “good night”, then Frodo blew out the last of the candles Tom had given them to light the room.

Just beyond where Frodo lay was the room’s eastern window. The curtain, which was yellow when there was light in the room, or light shining in from without, looked grey in the darkness. It had not been pulled to and, from where he lay on his bed, Pippin could see a small strip of the night sky. His thoughts gathered as he gazed out of the small opening. He heard the call of a night hawk and watched as its silhouette moved to and fro over the stars.

“ Frodo certainly was bold this evening,” Pippin thought. “He had the courage to ask Tom, ‘Who are you, Master?’ And then later, when The Master toyed with the Ring . . .” Pippin shivered a bit at the memory. “It had no effect on him at all! If we all hadn’t been wondering the same as Frodo before, we surely were by then. Just who, or what, is he?” The lad wriggled further down under his bedclothes until only his eyes and the top of his curly head were showing. “That willow,” Pip shivered again, “it was afraid of him! And it wasn’t the voice of someone singing silly rhymes that made it let Merry and me go. It was a voice more like Gandalf’s when he is being stern.”

Pippin's eyes and curly head disappeared completely beneath his blankets. “I shouldn’t even be thinking about any of it, I suppose. The Master knew all about our bad dreams from last night. I’ve the feeling there isn’t much he doesn’t know.”

The stuffiness under the covers began to feel like the inside of the willow tree. Pippin quickly popped his head back out into the fresh air of the bedroom. He sighed and told himself to go to sleep, but his thoughts kept up their monologue.

“He feels it too, old cousin Frodo does. He knows there is much here that is well beyond us. It makes sense that he would. He is an ‘elf friend’ after all. I’m not, at least not that I’m aware of. So why have I felt so strangely the whole time we’ve been here? I felt this way when we were with Gildor and the Elves in the woods in the Shire. But no. That was like this yet . . . different.”

The Shire. Thinking of the Shire took the lad’s mental wanderings on a detour for a few moments as a bit of homesickness swept over him. He closed his eyes the better to picture his family, the Great Smials and the Tooklands, then he shook the thoughts away before once more looking out at the stars.

“I was bold with the Elves. I talked and asked questions like I usually do. Not nearly so afraid as I’ve been here . . . Well, no, it isn’t fear I’m feeling. I’m not sure what it is, timid perhaps, though I’m rarely timid. But Tom is different, even more so than Elves are different. For all that he laughs and sings and talks in rhyme, which is rather silly when one thinks about it though he’s not in the least bit silly. Not really, he’s . . . he’s . . .” Pippin pulled his covers up around his head like a hood. He didn’t wish to cover his face and feel all closed in again, but he was feeling too exposed. “I shouldn’t be thinking about him like this, I’m sure he knows. And I’m sure covering my fool head makes no difference at all, but I feel better this way.”

For several minutes, Pippin stared at the night sky out the window until, like Frodo had earlier that evening, he felt surrounded by the depths of the heavens, nearly pierced through by the sharpness of the starlight.

“*’Who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?’*” Tom’s reply to Frodo crept quietly into Pippin’s thoughts.

Alone.

That was an uncomfortable thought for the youngster. Not alone as in just being in one’s bedroom for a think. Not alone as in a favourite hiding spot in which to cry when teased.

Just . . . alone.

“I’m Peregrin To . . . no. That’s not nameless.” Pip wrestled with it all. “Alone and nameless. A hobbit then, but no, that’s a name of sorts as well.”

He closed his eyes and saw an odd looking solitary creature that looked like himself. (Creature should be all right, not really a proper name as any living thing could be called that, Pippin thought.) It stood there in his mind, pale in its nakedness. Odd thin appendages dangled from either side of it. It stood upon two more such appendages and there was one more . . . His thoughts, and the creature in his thoughts, blushed. Enough said of that. At the top of it, it had odd looking curly, stringy hair (needing to be combed as usual) coming out of the round thing that sat atop a . . . a . . . short, thin stem. So, that was what he would be like, alone and nameless. Pippin smiled. At least whilst alone there was no being small, the Peregrin Took-like creature in his imaginings could be quite tall with nothing else about to compare it to. But, when all was said and done, it wasn’t very impressive. Pip sighed sadly.

Then the creature opened its mouth and music came out. A pleasing sound which also told a tale. It was singing a song. Well, that was a little better. The scrawny creature could do something, and something rather pleasant at that. Pippin decided he was glad the creature was he.

The song he sang was about other beings and suddenly, the Pippin-like creature was no longer alone. Others beings that looked similar appeared around him. He was clothed as they were clothed. He was one of many. And a crowd stretched out into the heavens that surrounded them. Pippin was no longer alone or nameless. He was Peregrin Took of the Shire. He was a hobbit amongst Hobbits.

But hobbits had not been the first of this sort of creature, those that walk about on two legs needing clothes to cover their naked skin. Others were already there, all like the hobbits in the shape of their bodies, but of different builds. There were some not much taller than the hobbits, but stockier with beards upon their faces. Dwarves, Pippin knew them to be. Others were tall, slender, graceful creatures with a glow about them. Elves, like ones he had met in the woods of the Shire. There were beings, small like the Hobbits yet daintier, with a glow about them similar to that of the Elves and somehow Peregrin knew they were the Faerie Folk. Last he saw others. Tall, like the Elves, and broad shouldered they were; some with a noble look upon their faces and a star upon their chests. Big Folk, Men, Pippin reckoned them to be. And all of them, Men, Faeries, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits, stretched out into the Heavens.

The Master was there, and Gandalf. With them there were still others. Not as like each other as Elves were all like Elves or Hobbits were all like Hobbits, but Pippin knew they were kindred. Beings that shone with light and power. Shone like the stars in the Heavens. Some of the star-beings placed themselves in amongst the creatures who lived upon Arda, moving amongst them, enlightening them, guiding and caring for them.

Then Pippin knew, he had been saved from certain death inside Old Man Willow by one of those star-beings. He had sung its songs, eaten at its table, then its gentle hand had patted his shoulder to send him off to bed.

The dream faded, and Peregrin Took was back in the bedroom, asleep in the house of Tom Bombadil.