Never Lost, Not Really (The Finding His Way Remix) [Lord of the Rings; Pippin/Diamond]
Title: Never Lost, Not Really (The Finding His Way Remix)
Author: danachan
Summary: In which Pippin goes to find Diamond, and finds more than he'd expected.
Rating: PG
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Warnings: Het
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my wonderful beta!
Title, Author and URL of original story: He Came To Meet Me, by sophinisba.
He thought of her quite suddenly, one day at the start of June, and then he thought of her again the next day, and the day after that. When he mentioned her to Merry, Merry questioned him about her: so Pippin told Merry of Diamond of Long Cleeve, or at least the Diamond he remembered. He wanted to put in to words the reason why she had come to mind, but no words would come: and Merry teased him for having brought her up in the first, and Pippin didn't frown and it wasn't that he was upset, but he hardly thought Merry had the right to tease Pippin for thinking of a girl, most especially when Merry had ridden back to front with Éowyn, and somehow had missed her breasts.
Merry told Pippin that he wasn't being very fair, and Pippin told Merry he was only being as fair as he himself had been treated. That settled that, and Merry asked for forgiveness and Pippin told Merry he was being quite foolish, he hadn't ever really been cross: but he accepted Merry's apology, anyhow, considering it his due.
"But you do want to see her," Merry said once that was settled, and it was true, Pippin did. "However did you come to think of her again?"
"I don't quite know," Pippin said. That had been the start of all this, hadn't it? "But I like thinking of her. And I'd like to see how she's been, all these years." He grew thoughtful at that. It had been years.
"Well then," Merry said. "You should visit her, I think, and make the best of it."
But, even with that said, if Pippin meant to plan, then the planning didn't go much further than that. Pippin thought of Diamond often, from day to day, and even, on one grey afternoon, from minute to minute. But he did not plan to up and go from Crickhollow, to ride north in hope to find her.
Life really could lead you down unexpected paths, and Pippin was fully acquainted with that, having been on his own adventure, one more hobbit who had gone away and come back.
But his going to Long Cleeve, he found himself as unexpected as the North-tooks at North Tunnels, though they took him in anyhow, and made him welcome. He had planned on returning to Crickhollow, after leaving Tuckborough, but somehow, he hadn't quite gone the right way.
For all he intentionally had done just that, it seemed something short of miraculous that he had not lost himself on the moor. But he did make his way up to North Tunnels, and he asked after Diamond not long after his arrival. Diamond's mother smiled at him even though she seemed somehow sad, and Diamond's father smiled as well, though in a different way.
They told him where Diamond had gone, and he laughed a little, knowing he had missed her. But she had been gone a long time, treated the place that her brother lived with his wife, and her family, more like home than she did this place, anymore. Pippin thought to follow her, but it was dark out and he was warned against travelling out at night - he took that advice and stayed the night instead, sat as an honoured guest at the head table and, when they were finished with that and afters as well, when stories were called for, Pippin thought perhaps that he should tell them at least one or three, so he did.
He did not ask after her directly, not again, but they told him of Diamond, anyhow, and Pippin thought on each thing he was told, and then put it beside his heart. It seemed a good place to keep it, both close and safe. In some ways she did not seem to be the Diamond that he knew, but in other ways she still did: she still sang and she still was strong, and if she had been a pretty lass as a child, and a prettier one now that she was grown, well, Pippin hardly thought that mattered, though it seemed beyond the point.
But then he excused himself and went to the room that had been set aside as his own, and he went to sleep and didn't dream, and morning welcomed him and, as a new day had come, he found this new day, this bright new morning, better suited for him to go out onto the moor.
So he did go out onto the moor, following the directions Diamond's mother and father had given him, going from North Tunnels to where he thought he would find the Clowes' home, but finding himself lost instead. It took some backtracking, and then again, for him to finally make his way there. He made the acquaintance of Mrs. Clowes, and he told her how he'd lost his way. She smiled at him, told him where he might find Diamond, and so Pippin thanked Mrs. Clowes for all her help, and her hospitality, and then he went off again.
And found himself lost again, and wondered if he forever would be stuck wandering the moors. No amount of backtracking seemed to help him, as the land about him looked like all the rest of the land.
Somehow, though, he made his way to the point where Diamond had spent her night, watching the sheep: there was a little tent, and the sun shone down upon it and everything around it, and Pippin thought it perhaps the second most beautiful thing he ever had seen. He didn't call out to her, but found he didn't have to.
Diamond stepped out from the little tent, and Pippin knew it was her, could not doubt it: and he must have smiled like a fool but didn't much mind, and she smiled as well and that smile seemed brighter than the sun.
She was bright against the Valley, as well, though she seemed to fit it, just the same. It was very good to see her, and no matter how unexpected his coming to see her might have been, Pippin still found himself thinking that it had happened just as it was meant. He knew how that sort of thing often did happen, and likely would not have been alive if it hadn't been for the unexpectedness of fate.
So, thinking that, he told her how very good it was to see her, and how he had missed her at North Tunnels, when he arrived the day before. Diamond looked at him, though not like he was a fool, and then she told him it was lucky for him that he hadn't become lost.
"Actually," he admitted, not at all with shame, "I rather lost my way in finding my way to Long Cleeve, and then again in going to the Clowes' home, and once more in finding you. But if I'm lost in finding you, well, I'd rather not be found."
She seemed to understand him, no matter how insensible that might have been, and she smiled fondly. She reckoned he'd had enough of walking today, but Pippin shook his head and said, "No, I'd be delighted to see the Valley again in your company," and Diamond seemed to take that to heart.
She smiled once more and nodded, and said, "Very well, I shall show you a shorter way back," and Pippin, who had seen almost the whole of Middle-earth, and had never been one for taking short-cuts, said, "Oh, you see, I am an adventurer, and I like taking whichever path it is that's strangest to me."
Diamond likely knew better, and Pippin should have known better, but he was rather caught by her smile, and stood speechless for a moment. Then Diamond nodded, and she told him at least he should be careful, and she would show him another way if that was what he wanted. It was what he wanted, so he followed her as she went off, let her lead his way.
He did not realise it until then, walking at her side and listening to the sound of her voice, that he had been lost, and now quite happily had been found. No doubt Merry would tease him again, but Frodo -
Pippin paused, as often he did when thinking of Frodo. It did not cause his heart as much grief as it had, at one time, that time not so long ago as it might have seemed. But Frodo was gone, and Frodo would have smiled at him and he would have been happy for him (not that Merry wouldn't be happy for him, also, but Merry would be Merry), and knowing that made Pippin smile, too. He did seem happy, and the bright summer day was the brightest he could remember in at least a half dozen years.
He missed a step and started to go down, but Diamond caught him and told him there were reasons why they stuck to certain paths, but she was laughing, and then she let him go.
He rather had liked being held like that, so he smiled at her instead and found himself laughing as well. Surely the sheep were prone to wander, also, and so he compared himself to one, and so Diamond instructed him to be a good little lamb.
He liked that, and it thrilled him that he liked that, and likely he might have grinned so wide his face would have broken. But Diamond was resplendent, even now as the moment of her boldness passed then by, and thought to himself, if she wanted to touch him again, then she was more than free to do just that.
But she did not, standing instead in the stillness of another moment, and Pippin looked at her: studied her, in that moment, and she was strong and beautiful and no wonder he loved her, or felt himself half in love with her already.
Nor was he surprised at that thought, and he listened to her as she told him he ought to sit: it was true, with him having come to find her, he had walked more than half the day, and his leg had long ago began to ache. He found that he did not mind it, or at least he did not mind the pain as much if he had dwelled on it, as he might had at some other time.
But he did sit, carefully, with Diamond telling him where it was safe - they had spoke of her in wonder, at North Tunnels, and she really did know the land. Strong and beautiful, then, brave and brilliant, and patient in a way that fit her perfectly. And she had been strong, doing all she had done, when all her world had begun to fall apart, when darkness had come to Long Cleeve: Pippin himself had been on the other side of it, of going away, while Diamond had been another of the ones who had been left behind.
He found himself thinking what Merry might think, what Merry might say, and Merry no doubt would he happy for him, that he had found this happiness: he wasn't one for thinking it, less to go speaking it out loud, but he had wondered if ever he would touch this happiness, himself.
It seemed different than any other happiness, though he was not certain if that made it better - only that it was in fact different, and difference, and change, did not always have to be a bad thing.
Pippin knew things had changed, from himself to the Shire, and everything else, and the world, now that Frodo had sailed away. But that did not mean that he planned on not living this life of his, no matter where he might be led.
Now he felt it spread through him, the joy of the moment, almost as if he had been, of late, living life only to lead to this moment, and if that had been his path all along, no matter where else it might have led him, fate had done it again.
At least, since he had thought so suddenly of Diamond, no more than a month before.
And sometime after that, but not long after, as if he found his way back to her again, to that moment they both had been waiting for. Pippin kissed Diamond, sitting out on a rock in the midst of the moor, and the moment that followed was more perfect than any other.
Pippin had found joy in many things, in his life, to that moment that might have been his last, and his greatest joy had been in what might have been his own end. He never had been very good at being patient, though, but this time, it had not his own patience that had ended, but Diamond's instead.
Her mouth had been soft but firm somehow, shaping one word, "Please", and he reached for her once her eyes had shut, and once his mouth had touched hers, only then, did he feel as if he had found some part of himself that he never had thought to seek out.
As for perfect moments, he found himself now in another that was just as perfect, or perhaps more so, if that could even be, and the day was as well. Pippin had realised already that he loved her, and he could only hope that she would love him as well. In thinking that, he found his answer, and Diamond did not have to tell him, not when he could hear her answer already, as if she were singing it, for all she couldn't be, given how her mouth really was rather otherwise involved.
Author: danachan
Summary: In which Pippin goes to find Diamond, and finds more than he'd expected.
Rating: PG
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Warnings: Het
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my wonderful beta!
Title, Author and URL of original story: He Came To Meet Me, by sophinisba.
He thought of her quite suddenly, one day at the start of June, and then he thought of her again the next day, and the day after that. When he mentioned her to Merry, Merry questioned him about her: so Pippin told Merry of Diamond of Long Cleeve, or at least the Diamond he remembered. He wanted to put in to words the reason why she had come to mind, but no words would come: and Merry teased him for having brought her up in the first, and Pippin didn't frown and it wasn't that he was upset, but he hardly thought Merry had the right to tease Pippin for thinking of a girl, most especially when Merry had ridden back to front with Éowyn, and somehow had missed her breasts.
Merry told Pippin that he wasn't being very fair, and Pippin told Merry he was only being as fair as he himself had been treated. That settled that, and Merry asked for forgiveness and Pippin told Merry he was being quite foolish, he hadn't ever really been cross: but he accepted Merry's apology, anyhow, considering it his due.
"But you do want to see her," Merry said once that was settled, and it was true, Pippin did. "However did you come to think of her again?"
"I don't quite know," Pippin said. That had been the start of all this, hadn't it? "But I like thinking of her. And I'd like to see how she's been, all these years." He grew thoughtful at that. It had been years.
"Well then," Merry said. "You should visit her, I think, and make the best of it."
But, even with that said, if Pippin meant to plan, then the planning didn't go much further than that. Pippin thought of Diamond often, from day to day, and even, on one grey afternoon, from minute to minute. But he did not plan to up and go from Crickhollow, to ride north in hope to find her.
Life really could lead you down unexpected paths, and Pippin was fully acquainted with that, having been on his own adventure, one more hobbit who had gone away and come back.
But his going to Long Cleeve, he found himself as unexpected as the North-tooks at North Tunnels, though they took him in anyhow, and made him welcome. He had planned on returning to Crickhollow, after leaving Tuckborough, but somehow, he hadn't quite gone the right way.
For all he intentionally had done just that, it seemed something short of miraculous that he had not lost himself on the moor. But he did make his way up to North Tunnels, and he asked after Diamond not long after his arrival. Diamond's mother smiled at him even though she seemed somehow sad, and Diamond's father smiled as well, though in a different way.
They told him where Diamond had gone, and he laughed a little, knowing he had missed her. But she had been gone a long time, treated the place that her brother lived with his wife, and her family, more like home than she did this place, anymore. Pippin thought to follow her, but it was dark out and he was warned against travelling out at night - he took that advice and stayed the night instead, sat as an honoured guest at the head table and, when they were finished with that and afters as well, when stories were called for, Pippin thought perhaps that he should tell them at least one or three, so he did.
He did not ask after her directly, not again, but they told him of Diamond, anyhow, and Pippin thought on each thing he was told, and then put it beside his heart. It seemed a good place to keep it, both close and safe. In some ways she did not seem to be the Diamond that he knew, but in other ways she still did: she still sang and she still was strong, and if she had been a pretty lass as a child, and a prettier one now that she was grown, well, Pippin hardly thought that mattered, though it seemed beyond the point.
But then he excused himself and went to the room that had been set aside as his own, and he went to sleep and didn't dream, and morning welcomed him and, as a new day had come, he found this new day, this bright new morning, better suited for him to go out onto the moor.
So he did go out onto the moor, following the directions Diamond's mother and father had given him, going from North Tunnels to where he thought he would find the Clowes' home, but finding himself lost instead. It took some backtracking, and then again, for him to finally make his way there. He made the acquaintance of Mrs. Clowes, and he told her how he'd lost his way. She smiled at him, told him where he might find Diamond, and so Pippin thanked Mrs. Clowes for all her help, and her hospitality, and then he went off again.
And found himself lost again, and wondered if he forever would be stuck wandering the moors. No amount of backtracking seemed to help him, as the land about him looked like all the rest of the land.
Somehow, though, he made his way to the point where Diamond had spent her night, watching the sheep: there was a little tent, and the sun shone down upon it and everything around it, and Pippin thought it perhaps the second most beautiful thing he ever had seen. He didn't call out to her, but found he didn't have to.
Diamond stepped out from the little tent, and Pippin knew it was her, could not doubt it: and he must have smiled like a fool but didn't much mind, and she smiled as well and that smile seemed brighter than the sun.
She was bright against the Valley, as well, though she seemed to fit it, just the same. It was very good to see her, and no matter how unexpected his coming to see her might have been, Pippin still found himself thinking that it had happened just as it was meant. He knew how that sort of thing often did happen, and likely would not have been alive if it hadn't been for the unexpectedness of fate.
So, thinking that, he told her how very good it was to see her, and how he had missed her at North Tunnels, when he arrived the day before. Diamond looked at him, though not like he was a fool, and then she told him it was lucky for him that he hadn't become lost.
"Actually," he admitted, not at all with shame, "I rather lost my way in finding my way to Long Cleeve, and then again in going to the Clowes' home, and once more in finding you. But if I'm lost in finding you, well, I'd rather not be found."
She seemed to understand him, no matter how insensible that might have been, and she smiled fondly. She reckoned he'd had enough of walking today, but Pippin shook his head and said, "No, I'd be delighted to see the Valley again in your company," and Diamond seemed to take that to heart.
She smiled once more and nodded, and said, "Very well, I shall show you a shorter way back," and Pippin, who had seen almost the whole of Middle-earth, and had never been one for taking short-cuts, said, "Oh, you see, I am an adventurer, and I like taking whichever path it is that's strangest to me."
Diamond likely knew better, and Pippin should have known better, but he was rather caught by her smile, and stood speechless for a moment. Then Diamond nodded, and she told him at least he should be careful, and she would show him another way if that was what he wanted. It was what he wanted, so he followed her as she went off, let her lead his way.
He did not realise it until then, walking at her side and listening to the sound of her voice, that he had been lost, and now quite happily had been found. No doubt Merry would tease him again, but Frodo -
Pippin paused, as often he did when thinking of Frodo. It did not cause his heart as much grief as it had, at one time, that time not so long ago as it might have seemed. But Frodo was gone, and Frodo would have smiled at him and he would have been happy for him (not that Merry wouldn't be happy for him, also, but Merry would be Merry), and knowing that made Pippin smile, too. He did seem happy, and the bright summer day was the brightest he could remember in at least a half dozen years.
He missed a step and started to go down, but Diamond caught him and told him there were reasons why they stuck to certain paths, but she was laughing, and then she let him go.
He rather had liked being held like that, so he smiled at her instead and found himself laughing as well. Surely the sheep were prone to wander, also, and so he compared himself to one, and so Diamond instructed him to be a good little lamb.
He liked that, and it thrilled him that he liked that, and likely he might have grinned so wide his face would have broken. But Diamond was resplendent, even now as the moment of her boldness passed then by, and thought to himself, if she wanted to touch him again, then she was more than free to do just that.
But she did not, standing instead in the stillness of another moment, and Pippin looked at her: studied her, in that moment, and she was strong and beautiful and no wonder he loved her, or felt himself half in love with her already.
Nor was he surprised at that thought, and he listened to her as she told him he ought to sit: it was true, with him having come to find her, he had walked more than half the day, and his leg had long ago began to ache. He found that he did not mind it, or at least he did not mind the pain as much if he had dwelled on it, as he might had at some other time.
But he did sit, carefully, with Diamond telling him where it was safe - they had spoke of her in wonder, at North Tunnels, and she really did know the land. Strong and beautiful, then, brave and brilliant, and patient in a way that fit her perfectly. And she had been strong, doing all she had done, when all her world had begun to fall apart, when darkness had come to Long Cleeve: Pippin himself had been on the other side of it, of going away, while Diamond had been another of the ones who had been left behind.
He found himself thinking what Merry might think, what Merry might say, and Merry no doubt would he happy for him, that he had found this happiness: he wasn't one for thinking it, less to go speaking it out loud, but he had wondered if ever he would touch this happiness, himself.
It seemed different than any other happiness, though he was not certain if that made it better - only that it was in fact different, and difference, and change, did not always have to be a bad thing.
Pippin knew things had changed, from himself to the Shire, and everything else, and the world, now that Frodo had sailed away. But that did not mean that he planned on not living this life of his, no matter where he might be led.
Now he felt it spread through him, the joy of the moment, almost as if he had been, of late, living life only to lead to this moment, and if that had been his path all along, no matter where else it might have led him, fate had done it again.
At least, since he had thought so suddenly of Diamond, no more than a month before.
And sometime after that, but not long after, as if he found his way back to her again, to that moment they both had been waiting for. Pippin kissed Diamond, sitting out on a rock in the midst of the moor, and the moment that followed was more perfect than any other.
Pippin had found joy in many things, in his life, to that moment that might have been his last, and his greatest joy had been in what might have been his own end. He never had been very good at being patient, though, but this time, it had not his own patience that had ended, but Diamond's instead.
Her mouth had been soft but firm somehow, shaping one word, "Please", and he reached for her once her eyes had shut, and once his mouth had touched hers, only then, did he feel as if he had found some part of himself that he never had thought to seek out.
As for perfect moments, he found himself now in another that was just as perfect, or perhaps more so, if that could even be, and the day was as well. Pippin had realised already that he loved her, and he could only hope that she would love him as well. In thinking that, he found his answer, and Diamond did not have to tell him, not when he could hear her answer already, as if she were singing it, for all she couldn't be, given how her mouth really was rather otherwise involved.