Golden keeps giving me starter elements. She is quite the task master. This is the first idea I had for these words, but there was a section she didn't like. So I wrote a different story which is at SOA called "Pippin and the Empty Bottle". I thought I would debut this one here and at PippinHealers.

Elements: seven lasses, green silk, drunken Pippin, unwanted kiss, older cousins

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Seven Sisters

The evening mists rose in the valleys that wound through the Green Hill Country, creeping its way silently up the hillsides until, from a distance, the hills looked like islands in a grey lake. The autumn nights were like that, crystal clear skies above ground that was draped with a soft, thick blanket of grey. Only those who climbed above the fog would see the dazzling stars.

Pippin was above the fog; heavily dressed, heavily cloaked and heavily drunk. He had climbed into the hills to escape, taking a large and unopened bottle of Took Whisky with him. It was now nearly half gone.

It had been one of those days.

His mother had been quite put out with him. She had asked him two days before to go into Tuckborough and fetch some items that she had ordered that were now ready to be picked up. Yes, she could have sent a servant, but she and Paladin liked to have their children do occasional errands for them. They did not want them becoming too spoiled by their new place in Tookland society. Paladin was now The Took and Thain and his two younger daughters and his twenty-five year old son were still living with him and his wife. All of Lanti's errands were to lasses shops to pick up lasses things. Pippin didn't mind going to the bakery or the grocers, but he felt awkward going by himself to the dress makers and the milliners shops. This morning he finally went, getting all fussed over by the matrons in the shops just as he had dreaded he would.

At least he had his afternoon with his father to look forward to. They were going to do some hunting. But the Took ended up being called away to render his decision as to the quality of the repairs on a bridge, and their "lads outing" was cancelled.

But the errands and the loss of his afternoon with his father were not the worst the day delivered. Oh no. There had been much worse.

Pervinca had several of her friends over that afternoon, which had been why the "lads outing" had been planned, and even though Great Smials was huge, Pippin had been unable to avoid the flock of giggling girls. Why they had taken an interest in tormenting him, he had not the slightest idea. They were all five years older than him, plus or minus a year or two and as such really oughtn't to have any interest in him. Well, perhaps that wasn't quite right. Aunt Esme was four years older than Uncle Saradoc after all, so it did make a little sense, their wanting to harass him.

One lass in particular, Delphinium, was the worst of the lot. Ever since his family had moved to the Smials two years previously she had been like a boil on his bum. Not that she was hideously ugly. She was alright looking; neither unattractive nor attractive, simply somewhere in the middle. But her voice reminded Pippin of a cat in heat and she was a snob. Pippin truly loathed snobs.

He had fled to the library, but they found him. He had gone to his room, but they stood in the hallway outside of his door calling to him and laughing. Where his mother had disappeared to, Pippin had no idea, but she did not come to his rescue. They were in the garden, they were in the dining room, and they were in the games room and the common rooms. Always smirking and giggling, with Delphinium, and a couple of the others, batting their lashes and blowing kisses at him whilst calling him sweetums and dearie.

Finally the seven lasses trapped him in a small hallway. There were lasses before him and lasses behind him, with nothing but himself and solid uninterrupted walls between the two giggling groups. He stood there wishing a large hole would appear in the floor beneath his feet. Slowly the two groups moved forward. Closer. Closer. Until they were so close Pippin could not even turn around without bumping into them with his shoulders. Then . . . Delphinium grabbed his face and kissed him.

A deep kiss.

One of those intrusive sort of kisses that, if not given by someone you really like, made you wish to spit and keep spitting until you got somewhere that you could rinse out your mouth.

And that was what Pippin did. When he finally managed to push her away he spat on the floor right at her feet. The lasses all gasped. Red faced and feeling completely ill used, Pippin pushed several of them out of his way then he ran as hard as he could down the hall, leaving seven lasses in stunned silence behind him. He stopped only long enough to steal a bottle of whisky from the sideboard grab his heaviest jacket and cloak off their hooks by the door, then he ran out of Great Smials and up into the surrounding hills.

He had heard it said whisky was a powerful drink, so he reckoned it should be able to get the taste and feel of that wretched lass out of his mouth. The first two mouthfuls of whisky Pippin swished vigorously around in his mouth before spitting them out. The stuff burned, but better that than the feeling of Delphinium's kiss. The third mouthful he gargled poorly and ended up swallowing. He coughed, choked and gasped then he felt a warmth start to replace the chill he had had inside. "Why not?" he said aloud to himself. "An ale is good for what ails you. This should do the job even better." He gulped down a huge mouthful. Then another. And another.

"I hate lasses!" he shouted skyward after several swigs of the hard liquor. "Hate them, hate them . . ." he belched and hiccoughed at the same time. "Hate them!"

Pippin started walking about the hill top stopping occasionally to take another swig of whisky from the bottle. Soon his walking turned to stumbling.

"I will kill Per . . . Perv . . . ma suster what's `er name, an' then I shall kill all (hic) all her widdle guggling fwiends. `Specially . . . `pecially . . ."

Pippin spat on the ground. "Ick! She tas'ed icky! Icky. No' like whisky. Icky no' like wicky!"

He began to sing "Icky no' like wicky!" while dancing disjointedly around on mushy legs that almost seemed to bend backwards at times. He wobbled about the hilltop as the sun sank and the mists rose and the stars burst out of the deep blue of the autumn night sky.

He tripped and fell on his rear, belched and said "Ouchy!" then fell over onto his side where he lay giggling and taking more sips out of the bottle.

Which brings us back to where we came in; Pippin heavily dressed, heavily cloaked and heavily drunk with a half empty bottle of whisky in his hand.

Pippin tried to get up, rolling up onto his hands and knees. But the ground spun to the right while he was spinning to the left. He vomited, then fell away from it to his right and knew no more.

He awoke on the hill top. A thin crescent moon put a silvery-blue edge on everything its light touched. Everything below him was covered with a shimmering mist that swirled and eddied around the hills. It was beautiful, yet strange and Pippin shivered from the feeling inside himself more than from the chill in the air.

Movement caught his eye. A dark line was snaking its way through the fog in the valley below his hill, following where he knew a road lay. Slowly, disappearing only to reappear in the moon-kissed vapors, the line approached until it became recognizable as it began to inch up a nearby hill.

It was a funeral procession heading up the hill where one of the larger Took cemeteries stood beneath ancient oaks and beeches. Pippin sat up to get a better look. The procession seemed unusually long, even for a Great Smials funeral. He counted the hearses as they slowly immerged from the fog on their laborious climb up Cemetery Hill. There were seven coffins on seven hearses drawn by seven teams of black ponies.

Seven.

Why did that number trouble him so? A chill shook Pippin to his bones as the wailing of the mourners found its way into his ears. Strangely, it also seemed to be coming from behind him as well. Feeling pulled against his will, he turned to look at the hilltop behind him.

Seven ladies circled in a slow dance upon the grey lawn of the treeless hill. They all were gowned in green robes that shimmered like silk in the pale moon light. Big People, they were, not hobbitesses. Worse yet, they seemed to pass through each other in their strange, stately dance. As they glided o'er the ground they moaned and wept, trailing filmy green scarves about them as they danced. A feeling of heaviness came upon Pippin, growing darker and weightier with each new pattern of the dance.

He looked back to the long funeral. The last of the mourners were nearly at the cemetery, yet something still trailed behind. A long black cloud flowed back down the hillside, atop the fog that lay in the valley, and rolled heavily up the hill upon which he sat and the dancers danced. It lay deep on the face of the earth so that the ladies appeared to be dancing in black water that reached halfway to their knees. And the blackness swirled like molasses stirred into batter, and the ladies wailed and wept.

One of the dancers broke from the dance, gliding to a stop before the trembling hobbit.

"You need not fear us, hobbit child. Sorrow shared is sorrow halved. It is our purpose to share in sorrow. We will cause you no harm. Mourn your dead."

"M-mourn m-my dead?"

She reached out a long white hand and rested it upon Pippin's head. He felt as though something inside him was being drawn out of him to meet her touch.

"Mourn your dead. You know them all. Six there be who you would call distant kin. One is your youngest sister."

Pippin jerked as a spasm of pain shot through him, upwards toward the lady's hand. His eyes met hers. They were filled with the cold depths of the heavens.

"You wished them dead, did you not?"

Pippin couldn't move. He felt cold and bloodless as a dead fish.

"These are my sisters," she said, her green scarf fluttering as she gestured at the dancers. "Our brothers fell trying to save us from the wrath of the worm that devoured all in its path. We sisters ran in terror from the worm that would kill us. We ran, until strength was gone, until feet were bloodied, until breath seemed no longer to fill our lungs. We ran and prayed to be spared. And the ground fell away, the worm despaired of tasting our flesh, and we were given a place of safety in the firmament."

She lifted her hand from Pippin's head and pointed a slender finger to the sky. His eyes followed and he gasped. Where the Swordsman stood ready for battle, where the Ox grazed, something was missing. Between them there should have been a small cluster of stars . . . but they were gone.

"We wept and mourned for of our kith and kin none of whom remained. It was given us to succor those who mourn upon Arda, for we have mourned greatly. Sorrow shared is sorrow halved."

Pippin's eyes were drawn once more to hers. They were dark as the space where the missing stars should have been shining.

"They were running after you." Her scarf gracefully swirled as she waved her hand toward the opposite hill top. "Your sister had risen to your defense and they were going to seek your forgiveness. A tunnel collapsed upon them all. Mourn your dead, hobbit child."

"I d-didn't really . . . not really. I-I didn't want them to be . . ." Pippin could not see through his tears. His heart pounded. His breath came in gasps. Panic raised gall into his throat. "They had been mean to me. Even Vinca, although, sometimes she and a couple of the others did l-look as though . . . as though they felt sorry for teasing me."

He turned toward Cemetery Hill. The coffins were being carried by the pall bearers toward where the graves must lie. The hobbits paused. He could not see from the distance he was, but he knew the movements. He had been to funerals before. The slow placing of the hands in just the right spots along the coffin's sides. The slow turning as the weight of the coffin is taken onto the hands and off of the shoulders. Now the pall bearers faced each other across the top of the coffin. Now they lowered it upon the ropes. They take up the ropes. They walk on either side of the grave. They stop.

The coffin is lowered into the grave.

Across the valley, Pippin could hear the clods of earth hitting the surfaces of the seven coffins.

The wailing upon the hilltop was his own.

Pippin woke up, the sound of his own screaming in his ears. It was late. The thin moon had set. The Ox touched the horizon. The Seven Sisters sparkled in their place in the heavens.

"Pippin! Pippin! Where are you?"

"Pip? Pippin!"

He heard the lasses long before he saw them. His older cousins Everard and Ferdi were with them as well.

"Here, I'm up . . . Ugh!" He tried to sit up but his head spun. He rolled onto his side and groaned. But relief was flooding through him. They weren't dead. He recognized all their voices. Even Delphinium's, and for once it didn't set his teeth on edge.

He braced his hand to attempt sitting up again. It touched something soft and cool. The light from Pervinca's lantern shone upon it as she crested the hill.

"Pippin! You're all right!" Vinca exclaimed, falling to her knees beside her little brother, setting down her lantern and then hugging him tightly.

"I'm all right, Vinca," he said as he wept. "Better yet, so are you."

Pippin hugged his sister as hard as he could, while clutching a green silk scarf tightly in his right hand.

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A/N: In this I used some of the various mythologies concerningThe Pleiades - or The Seven Sisters. It is the smallest constellation.and is seen in both hemispheres. In Celtic and some other traditions, they were associated with grief, mourning and funerals. The Sioux and the Kiowa tribes of American Indians believed they were sisters who were trying to escape a bear. They climbed a large rock and prayed to the spirit of the rock to save them. The rock began to grow upwards so the bear could not reach them. The seven sisters eventually reached the sky and were turned into the constellation. The rock is Devil's Tower in Wyoming.