This was written for the June 2007 Marigold’s Challenge.
I had two starters and used both in the one story.
“Didn’t you bring any money with you?”
“Don’t blame me,______, you wanted to come.”

Merry is 33 (21) and Pippin is 25 (16)

Way Out West
by Pearl Took

beta Llinos and Marigold
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Didn’t you bring any money with you?” Pippin looked shocked at his older cousin.

“Don’t blame me, Pippin, you wanted to come.” Merry looked as innocent as a babe in arms. “I only said it was somewhere we had never been and that I wondered what might be over this way. I never said I’d foot the bill.”

“Oh, all right,” Pippin sighed as he handed over a few of the coins in his purse to Harlo Innsman, owner of the White Downs Inn and Tavern which sat alongside the Great Road on the western edge of Michel Delving. Pippin didn’t see Merry’s self-satisfied smirk. He actually did have money with him, quite a goodly sum in fact, but it was a game he enjoyed playing with Pippin. He would let the lad pay for everything until Pippin would begin to run low on funds and start to worry then, with a flourish, claim to find some coin he didn’t know he had in the bottom of his pack and come to their rescue. Merry chuckled to himself, one would think the lad wouldn’t be fooled by it any longer.

“Does that include meals?” Pip was asking their host.

“Evenin’ meal and first breakfast only, young sir.” Harlo replied.

“Thank you, Mr. Innsman,” both lads said as they turned to follow one of the servant lasses to their room.

The lass opened the door then stood to one side to let Merry and Pippin into their room. As they sat their packs on the floor she spoke.

“Hope all’s well for ya, sirs. Would ya be takin’ yer dinner in the common room, sirs, or would ya be wantin’ it brought here?”

Merry and Pippin looked at each other then nodded. There would be a night with just each other’s company between Michel Delving and arriving in Greenholm, they might as well enjoy listening to someone else’s stories tonight.

“We’ll dine in the common room tonight but take our first breakfast in our room, Miss,” Merry informed her.

“At what time are ya wantin’ it, sirs?” She paused, then added, “Cook usually isn’t in the kitchen afore five thirty.”

Pippin made sure he spoke up before Merry could answer. “Seven is early enough, Miss.”

The lass nodded. “I’ll be puttin’ fresh water in yer pitcher, sirs and fluffin’ up yer beddin’ whilst ya have yer supper. Good even to ya, sirs.” She bobbed a small curtsey to the two young gentlehobbits then went on her way.

Merry raised an eyebrow at his cousin. “Seven?”

“There’s no reason to get the cook in a dither with a needlessly early start, Merry,” Pip said cheerily. “And speaking of the cook, shall we go and have our supper now?”

“Yes. Lead on, Pippin!” Merry laughed and they shut the door of their room behind them.

Supper was excellent and the stories and singing lighthearted. It was four hours later when the cousins made their way back to their room. They both sat on the bed with the map spread between them.

“You’re sure you have this correct, Merry?” Pippin pointed to the thin, slightly wiggly, black line that represented the Great East Road as it extended westward beyond the borders of the Shire.

“Totally. I went over it and over it on old Cousin Bilbo’s maps every time I’ve been to Bag End over the last year. My father promised me I could take a long holiday at any time other than harvest the year after I came of age. I decided last year that this was what I wanted to do.”

“I’ll wager Uncle Saradoc doesn’t know where you’re off to,” grinned Pippin.

“No more than Uncle Paladin knows where you’re off to.”

Pippin paled a bit at that. Not only was he still a tween, but his Da had just four months ago become The Took and Thain. Paladin had known of Merry’s plans for a celebratory holiday trip, and of his intentions of taking his younger cousin with him. It wasn’t the best time for Pippin’s family to be letting him go off, but they had agreed to the trip well before Ferumbras had died. The only problem was that the two cousins had not been terribly specific, nor honest, as to where they would be going on this holiday.

“Do you really think it’s all out there, Merry?” Pippin looked hard at the map.

“Yes, I really do, Pip. Just because they aren’t on any hobbit-made maps doesn’t mean the White Towers and the Grey Havens aren’t there. Bilbo always said there were Elves passing through the Shire on their way past the White Towers then onto the Grey Havens. Frodo has said so as well. In fact, he said he saw some just two months ago.”

Pippin nodded. “Then it must be so, Frodo wouldn’t lie to you about something like that. Still . . .” Pippin sighed as he lay down on his side. “It’s a long way from home, Merry.”

Merry rolled up the map then slipped it into its case. He slid off the bed to return the map case to his pack. “Don’t tell me a Brandybuck is more willing to seek adventure than a Took? My Mum would be shocked, Peregrin Took.”

But Merry received no reply to his taunt. Pippin was already asleep.

The next day they began their trek across the rather unpopulated lands west of Michel Delving. There the land was flat and the hobbits who kept herds or tended to crops lived in low, single story houses like the one Pippin grew up in at the farm in Whitwell. The holdings were large to allow for plenty of grazing lands for the sheep and cattle.

They spent the night under the moon and the stars as trees were scarce. There was no wood to make a campfire, so they ate the dry meat they had bought in Michel with cheese, bread and raw vegetables with apples for afters. They talked about the constellations until they drifted off to sleep.

A small group of Elves passed them, lying there asleep beneath the star-strewn sky, and they smiled. They held dear all the goodly beings they were leaving behind in Middle-earth. As with all of life’s choices, there were easy aspects and hard aspects of returning to the Undying Land. A few there were in the group, who had dwelt in Imladris, who wondered if the small ones might be kin to Bilbo. They smiled as they thought of the old hobbit and said a blessing over the two little folk.

The town of Greenholm was more an outpost than a town and it was difficult for Merry and Pippin to keep their secret of intending to leave the Shire. There were only a few houses. The Last Inn was also the post office, the shop, the smithy and the Shirriff’s office. Mr. Hambut Foxburr was the innkeeper, postal clerk, shopkeeper, smith and Shirriff. He was also very curious.

“What has brought ya two young gentlehobbits this far west? Isn’t much out this way of interest ta Tooks, nor even more ta Brandybucks.”

“Well, we like adventures.” Pippin began, but Merry stepped on his little toe. “Ow! Why’d you . . .”

“My father,” Merry said, a bit too loudly, “is thinking of looking into buying wool from the shepherds out here. He’s has quite the reputable weaving business and he is wanting to offer his customers something new.”

Mr. Foxburr didn’t say anything for a few moments, he just stared Merry in the eye. When the younger hobbit didn’t back down, he shrugged his shoulders. “As ya say then, young sir. Yer room is down the hall, next ta last on the left. Dinner’s at seven.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Foxburr,” Merry said as he nudged Pippin towards the hallway. Once in the room, Merry leaned his back against the closed door.

“You nearly let the cat out of the bag, Pippin, talking of adventures as if they were a common thing. How many hobbits do you know who go adventuring?” Merry rolled his eyes before heaving himself off the door. “Let me talk to folks, please.” He mused a moment before adding, “We can tell them you’re mute.”

Pippin grinned. “A tad late for that, Merry, as I’ve already spoken to Mr. Foxburr.”

“Yes. Well, short of my having to stuff a handkerchief in your mouth every time we meet someone along the road, please try to think a little before saying something that could ruin everything.”

Pippin looked abashed. “All right, Merry. I’ll try. I’ll try very hard.”

His older cousin smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s all I can ask, Pippin. I know you’ll do your best. Now, all we have to do is get all the supplies we’ll need without raising a lot of suspicion.”

The next morning, after first breakfast, the lads stepped into the area of The Last Inn that was a shop.

“Might I be able ta help ya?” Mr. Foxburr said as he moved out from behind the bar in the tavern to walk over behind the counter in the shop.

“Yes,” answered Merry while Pippin busied himself looking at the baked goods. “We have decided to head northwards, toward Gamwich and wish to go across the open country rather than going back all the way back to Michel Delving. Do you have much in the way of foodstuffs that keep well and aren’t too heavy to carry?”

With little more than a raised eyebrow, Hambut Foxburr helped the two young hobbits make sound selections. He was accustomed to supplying shepherds and herdshobbits who would pass through the area, so he kept well stocked with dried meats and fruits and waybread. He also sold them some dried fishing bait, two sheets of oilcloth and some stout, heavy weight cord. The two assured him they had sufficient water bottles, tinder, fishing lines and pipeweed. With their packs considerably heavier than they had been when they arrived, the two bid Mr. Foxburr a good day and left his establishment, heading north.

They went northwards only as long as the village of Greenholm was in view, then they turned westward. About two miles later they turned south until they came to the Great East Road, then followed the road where it sloped downwards into the Westmarch.

Pippin spied it first, the small marker that stood to the left of the road. He and Merry slowed to a stop when they drew abreast of it. They stood there looking at the small green painted post that marked The Bounds.

“That’s it, Merry.” Pippin’s voice was hushed.

Merry gulped at the lump in his throat. “Yes. That’s it.”

They both looked along the road. It ran straight, through countryside that was endless, flat grasslands; exactly like what lay behind them for a mile or so before the rise that was the edge of The Far Downs. The land did not change beyond the small marker - only one’s feelings.

“We’ve never done this, Merry. Never . . . crossed the Bounds. Well, I haven’t.” Pip looked enquiringly at his older cousin. “You’ve been to Bree.”

Merry’s face brightened, more than his heart inside him did. “Yes! I’ve been Outside. Several times. Nothing to it, really.”

The cousins looked at each other for several long moments. Together they took a deep breath and each set his right foot over the imaginary line separating The Shire from everywhere else. Their left feet followed their right. And again. Keeping their eyes fixed on the western horizon, lest they lose their nerve, Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took walked away from their homelands.

It was three days later when they came to the edge of the Tower Hills, but they saw the White Towers well before that. Three slender spires rising above the treetops into the blue sky, the middle one taller than the others. They were seeing something built by people who were not their own kind and it raised in them feelings for which they had no words. That they had been walking for days upon a road built by those same “others” had not entered their minds; the Great Road went through Buckland and The Shire, so in their minds it was something that simply was there. But nothing like the White Towers existed in their little lands. They were glad they could no longer see them when they reached the edge of the hills at the setting of the Sun. But the presence of the Towers was felt by the hobbits nonetheless.

It took all of the next morning to get to the base of the Towers. The hobbits walked until they stood in the centre of the triangle formed by the three towers, then they simply stopped.

“I’m not sure we should be here, Pippin,” Merry whispered. “I-I think we should leave.”

Pippin shook his head. Something here touched a feeling inside him, something deep in his spirit. The night before he kept thinking he saw the figures of small people flitting around the tree trunks just past the edge of the light from their campfire. They seemed to be only a bit smaller than he and Merry though more slender - and they were laughing. He could hear it at the edge of his hearing just as they stayed at the edge of the light. He tried to watch them but gave up when he noticed that Merry wasn’t doing the same. If it was all something dredged up from his imagination, he didn’t want Merry thinking he was going off his nut, so he stopped trying to spot them amongst the trees; but their laughter had followed him into his dreams.

“I think we are all right here, Merry,” Pippin whispered back. Whispering fit the way the place made them feel. “We just need to . . . to . . . stay quiet and just look about.”

They stood, letting the ancient “otherness” of the place fill them. They both felt there was magic of some sort in this place.

Finally Merry shook himself then gently touched Pippin’s shoulder. “The road runs along the edge of the hills to the north before . . .” He paused. He felt as though the Towers were listening. He shivered then went on. “Before it goes west again towards the Havens.” He tugged on his cousin’s sleeve. “We should go back to the road.”

Pippin slowly nodded. “Yes. Back to the road. Out of the woods. We are finished here. We can go on to the edge of the sea.” He looked at Merry; an odd gleam was in his eyes. “It’s all right Merry. We can go now.” Then Pippin turned and hurried off so quickly that Merry had to run to catch up.

They went faster going down the hills than they had going up and were at the bottom and to the road by mid-day. They took time to have a light luncheon before hoisting their packs and setting off. With ten miles behind them and the Sun having lowered herself behind the hills Merry and Pippin made camp just off the side of the road, the side away from the Tower Hills, in a small hollow edged with tall grass.

Once more they stayed on the road, following it northwards until the Tower Hills came to an end on their left and the road curved to run westward. The lads talked as they walked, sharing memories of Cousin Bilbo’s stories, at least the parts that weren’t too frightening. Mostly, it was memories of what Bilbo and Frodo had taught them about the Elves.

As they made camp in the evening of the third day since they had visited the Towers, they had a surprise. Merry stood up from arranging the tinder and kindling to light their fire for the night. He sniffed the air, stopped, then sniffed again.

The wind was from the west.

“Do you smell it, Pip?”

The younger hobbit stood and sniffed, then smiled. “Do you think it’s the sea, Merry? I’ve never smelled anything like it before.”

“It must be. You remember, Bilbo said his Uncle Isengar always described the smell as ‘wild and fresh, a smell that just makes you want to go a-wandering,’ and that is certainly what this breeze smells like.”

Pippin drew a deep breath of sea-scent. “We must be close then. Are we close, Merry?”

Merry turned and knelt down to draw the map from its case. There was still enough light to read it. “I think it is just over that bit of a rise that ‘s ahead of us. We could probably see it if the land stayed flat. We should reach it by luncheon tomorrow.” He smiled up at the youngster. “We’ll have done it, Pippin! We will have made it to the Grey Havens and looked upon a place where a river meets the sea.”

Neither hobbit slept very soundly that night, they were much too excited. The next day they were up before the Sun showed her face above the eastern horizon. At mid-morning they had come to the beginning of the low line of hills that Merry felt were the last hills before the land would drop away to meet the water.

They stopped. No word between them, nothing in their path; they simply stopped. The hills and the woods had the same feeling about them as the Tower Hills, a feeling that they were somewhere they didn’t quite belong. With a curt, determined nod to one another, the two hobbits left the road and took to the woods, walking into the shadows under the canopy of leaves. They moved silently up the face of the low ridge until they came near its crest, then they crouched down to nearly crawl to the edge.

At last it lay spread out before them through a clearing in the trees: the shining waters of the Gulf of Lune and, along its shores, the Grey Havens.

How long they lay there, stretched out prone upon a rock, they didn’t know. Time seemed to have slowed or maybe even to have stopped. They could see people moving about. They were graceful even when viewed from a distance. Many of them were at the quays, tending to the ships.

Elves.

They were watching Elves!

And Elves were watching them, though they did not know it. One was raven haired, the other golden haired. They spoke without speaking aloud, so as not to alert the small ones.

“These are the two we passed that night in Suza.”

“Yes, and the same of whom the Fey Folk of Emyn Beraid sent word.”

Both Elves smiled.

“Bold of them to have come so far,” thought the Elf with the golden hair.

The raven-haired Elf reached out gently with his thoughts. Merry sensed nothing, so intent was he on observing the Elves in the port below him. Pippin felt an odd stirring in his mind, the same as he felt at the Tower Hills. Like how he sometimes felt around Merry’s mother. The Elf smiled.

“They have the touch of the Fey Folk. I think they might be kin to dear Bilbo and his heir, Frodo. Bilbo has told tales that a hobbit ancestor of his married one of the Fey Folk many of their lifetimes ago, though he seemed to think it folly. But every Elf who has met him has felt their touch upon him.” He inclined his head towards the hobbits lying on the rock. “The touch is stronger in the littlest one who lies before us than it is in Bilbo. Her blood is strong in him.”

The Elves laughed lightly and the golden haired one said, “Bilbo thinks it folly, does he! It would appear to be otherwise. That being said, what shall we do with them? Mithlond has long been a place strangers are rarely allowed to see, as hidden as Lothlórien and even Imladris have become. Orcs, or any of an evil kindred, we kill. Men, excepting the Dunedin, we confuse. Dwarves care naught, and do not come near the Havens. But what shall we do with these little ones?”

***********************

Strange are the ways of Elves.

Swift run the horses of the Elves.

The next morning, two hobbits awoke in a small glen, near the shore of a pond in a copse of birches.

“Did you sleep well, Merry?” Pippin said as he stretched out his arms and legs.

“Yes. Amazingly well for sleeping on the ground. But then, the grass is nice and thick here.”

They took care of their morning needs then came back to the camp. Pippin got the fire going while Merry fetched water from the nearby spring. They made a filling breakfast of the eggs, sausages, bread and apples in their packs. Everything seemed to taste unusually good.

“Ready to head home, Pip?”

Pippin squinted at the small green post that could barely be seen through a gap in the birches and nodded. “Yes, Merry. We made it to Greenholm and we stood upon the western Bounds. We’ve done something not a single friend of ours has done.”

“Indeed!” Merry mumbled around his last bite of apple. “An adventure to be proud of.” He grew thoughtful. “Although, I had the strangest dream last night.”

Pippin looked surprised. “Really, Merry? I was just going to say the same thing to you, but seeing as you mentioned it first, you go first. What was your dream, Merry?”

“I dreamed that what we had really set out to do was see the White Towers and the Grey Havens, and we did. I could feel something odd about the Towers, I could smell the sea. There were Elves working on ships anchored at several large quays. It was one of those dreams that just seems so real that one almost isn’t sure if it really was a dream.”

Merry looked at Pippin and his expression changed from wonder to worry. The younger hobbit had gone quite pale.

“Pip?”

“I . . . I . . .” Pippin closed his eyes, took a deep breath and shook himself, then looked into Merry’s eyes. “I dreamt exactly the same dream, Merry. The strange magical feeling surrounding the White Towers. Breathing in a strange new scent and knowing it was the smell of the sea. And watching the Elves. They made working on the ships look like a dance.”

Merry nodded. He was starting to feel a bit shaky himself. He had a feeling like something was crawling on the back of his neck. “I wonder if the dried fruit we ate last night had turned?”

“Or something in the water from that spring?” Pippin felt queasy and he was getting goosebumps on the tops of his feet and his arms.

“Perhaps we should just head home today. I think we’ve been gone long enough.”

Pippin swallowed at the lump in his throat. “I think so, Merry.”

They cleaned up their camp then set off eastwards, back to Greenholm and, eventually, back to the Great Smials and Brandy Hall, quite satisfied with their bold adventure while at the same time strangely happy to be home.

*********************

Merry and Pippin had ridden like the wind to get there on time. They had paid no attention whatsoever to the lands they hurried through as their ponies’ hooves pounded upon the Great East Road.

They arrived in time. They said their good-byes to Frodo, Bilbo, dear Gandalf, and the lords and lady, then stood with Sam to watch the white ship leave the quay and sail away into the West. Together the three of them rode along the Great East Road, slowly now, no longer in a hurry. As they crested the ridge, although they did not look back at the sight of the Gulf of Lune running out to the Sea, Meriadoc and Peregrin did look at each other, each one wondering why they suddenly felt as though they had been there before.

The hair was raising on Pippin’s feet and arms. The skin on Merry’s neck was crawling.

“It wasn’t a dream!” they said in unison.

They had quite a story to tell Sam as they rode along the road towards home.

***************************************************