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The Gifts in Small Packages (NC-17) 
Written by December06 February 2021 | 50244 words | Work in Progress
Chapter 23.
He follows the Queen’s maiden through the corridors, and as they pass the other inhabitants of the palace, Pippin can feel the curious gazes. An Elf servant, radiant like buttery sunlight and easily fairer than any mortal noble-woman, and with her a Halfling clad in Gondorian black. He understands they make for an unlikely pair – but it irks him nevertheless that after all this time, people still stare.
Not as much, of course, as they would at the Queen herself.
In all the time of Faramir’s absence – in all the time of Pippin’s being in Minas Tirith, he has had extremely little interaction with her. Whether because Aragorn shields her from the tedium, or because of lack of interest on her own part, she involves herself little in the governance of the realm, and their paths seldom cross.
He knows no sure way to discern what Aragorn may have told her, what she may have perceived herself, and what she may want of him now – so he opts for his well-trodden and only available route, taking everything as it comes.
As the doors to the Queen’s quarters part, Pippin is greeted by the sound of music and water running.
Stepping through, he cannot help but gape about wide-eyed.
This is a very large place, almost a hall – or more or less like one, for on the far end where windows or a balcony should be, there is nothing at all. Not even a safety parapet – it opens straight into the cobalt mountain skies beyond.
Along both walls tall columns wrought in the likeness of trees stretch up to support the vaulted ceiling, marble branches adorned with golden leaves intertwining high above Pippin’s head. Two long pools of water, set right into the floor, run from one wall to the other. They cut the room into three sections: the one at the entrance, another leading to the open drop in the back, and a raised platform in between, from where water is cascading into the two pools. It is there that a desk is set up for the Queen, and Elven songstresses stand gently echoing the melody of the current with their crystal voices.
He is uncertain how he is meant to get there until his guide walks across the water.
Pippin gazes down and sees pillars set in the pool floor. Rising level with the surface, each is crowned with an ornate tile to form a path of sorts. As he carefully walks over, the water at his feet seems bottomless from the black-stone lining of the pool, and he can see many silver-bodied fish swimming swiftly below.
The illusion of depth plays with his balance, and he looks to the side instead – but this does not help at all, for suddenly the space around him explodes and unfolds into endlessness, and he is at once enclosed and out in the wide open. It takes a long, dizzy moment of blinking and tightness in the chest to realise that this, too, is an artful effect made with craft.
Every inch of wall between the stone trees is filled with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, so it is as though he has been carried through space and time and is crossing an enchanted river flowing through an infinity forest. The panes must be set at the slightest of angles, for somehow there is no image of a small Hobbit multiplied countlessly into the distance – only water and trees, as far as the eye can see, as far as the mind can imagine.
He breathes out, looks back down to his feet. Not far left to go, he can get through this with some semblance of poise.
The last few pillars rise up into the air like a disembodied staircase to allow access to the elevated platform, and Pippin’s knees are soft with relief as finally he steps back onto solid ground.
He dares not lift his eyes to his royal host straight away. So much of why Faramir cannot be happy revolves around her, and she is not only Queen of Gondor but so much beyond, yet somehow he is meant to not acknowledge any of it.
As Pippin tries to buy time by stealing a glance around, it becomes clear to him that this lofty place is, in fact, a workshop. Most of the floor is taken up by one enormous length of canvas, on which parts of a complex design are set in coloured inks.
The Queen herself is clad in a cold, dark blue, like deep water. It is, of course, expensively made, and the fabric is luxury incarnate, but if ever he has seen one, this is a working dress. The cut of the hem is wide and without a train – for unrestrained movement; the sleeves and bodice fit snug with no loose bits to get in the way, and the sole adornment is a white pearl at the cuff.
“You are come,” she says.
As he looks up and is caught in her gaze, suddenly he realises that although there is no apparent source of heat, the air is soft and young like the breath of spring, despite winter taking over outside.
He ought to greet the Lady in the appropriate manner, he is vaguely, distantly aware of this. Just as he is only distantly aware of his own self, of his own existence. She is everything, and the only reason his primitive consciousness is even permitted to mar the earth in her wake is that he may gaze upon her with love and wonder. Her eyes are like summer twilight, brimming with all the magic of the world. All the good that has ever been, and that could ever be, is already foretold in her face, and there is nothing else at all, no reason…
Arwen waits expressionlessly for him to weather the blow that is her beauty.
At the exact point when the pause would become a disgrace for him, she turns away to dismiss her maidens.
Pippin wakes up with a start and hears himself draw in a rushed, loud breath.
He throws his body down at the waist, for only a bow of this degree could be suitable. “Your Majesty!”
Bracing himself, he straightens up slowly, delaying as much as he can until he must look at her again. It is not much easier the second time around.
Her beauty radiates such tangible pleasure directly into his heart that he cannot help but stare, drink her in with his eyes. It is rude, but surely it would be even ruder not to give this divine loveliness its due.
Her bosom rises in a stifled sigh, and Arwen stands up, relieving him of the sight of her face.
“I would that you assist me.”
“Of course, my lady. Whatever you may wish.”
She sighs again, and it seems to him that he catches a heaviness, a note of disappointment in the turn of her head. That even someone like him cannot resist the sweet haze that surrounds her.
“I am making a tapestry. You will advise me.”
“Of course, Your Majesty. Though I am afraid I am not that much versed in the arts.”
“That does not matter, it is not style you shall be helping me with.”
She walks over to the canvas, presses some concealed lever with her foot, and the frame upon which the canvas is stretched turns upright, so they see it as though it were hung along a wall. A panoramic view of a landscape unfolds before him, done as a meticulously detailed, heavily stylised map. His eye instinctively goes to where a river cuts close to the perpendicular meeting of two mountain chains, and there sits the City of Kings, in all her fragile glory, across from a brewing pool of dark shadow.
“A remarkable project,” he comments respectfully.
“I have no interest in mediocrity,” she replies. Coming from her, the words strangely lack in arrogance, for she states them without affectation, as simple fact. “This is to show all of Middle-earth as we knew it at the cusp of ages. Five-score feet in length it will be, to give each realm its due. You,” she tips her right hand at him while with her left indicating an empty space towards the far end of the canvas, “will tell me how to best represent your homeland.”Pippin laughs. “Your Majesty, you honour me beyond my merit to suggest I could grant you any understanding such that you could not gain yourself. Perhaps Frodo, and especially Bilbo, could tell you something new, but of all of us, I have always been the clueless one ambling along and walking into things.”
She gives him an odd, unsettling look. “It is not possible to call on their services.”
“Then I shall be glad to serve you to my best ability, my lady.”
“Do you require time to gather your thoughts, or can we begin now?”“Whichever Your Majesty would prefer.”
“I have no desire to wait,” she says, picking up what looks like a long stylus, “I no longer have all the time in the world.”
That is hard to believe. She seems not so much young, as altogether untouchable by age. As though she gets brand new skin every day at dawn, as though hers is not so much one woman’s face, but rather the pure concept of a face. The thought of Illuvatar made visible.
Pippin’s heart cramps and hurts him at the thought that she will be lost someday, that her goodness must leave the world. He will do anything he can to make her stay if a little more worthwhile.
Arwen interviews him thoroughly, methodically, with a scholarly detachment – which in her case puts him much more at ease than any forced attempt at friendliness. Watching her at work, it is impossible to ignore how strangely alike they actually are, her and his lord. The same solemn nobility, the effortless grace, the smooth lustre of their raven hair. The measured, thoughtful tone of their voice, the at times unnervingly sharp edge of their minds.
Hours flow one into another, but he remembers neither thirst nor hunger. She listens attentively to his every word, nodding to herself and sketching down her understanding. Her long brows crease if perfection eludes her; she fills a pitcher from the waterfall, and pours it over the canvas, where by some unknown Elven method it dissolves the ink without wetting the fabric.
The light begins to change, it will soon be time to bring in the candles.
This has not been so bad after all. Quite a nice way to spend the day actually.
Until she asks him, with no change in tone, as she taps the Shire area with the butt of her instrument, “And what is missing here – to compel you to go all the way over there?” She nods her head, without looking, towards the layered white cake of Minas Tirith.
Pippins starts, looks at her in alarm.
She is just as before, her inquisitiveness calm and aloof. “I need to understand that which moves the heart. To show the essence of things, not their mere image. Appearance is not always directly proportional to what lies within.”
“It is not, Your Majesty,” he agrees.
“And so?”
“Must… something be missing, my lady?”
“Always – such is the way of the world. Ever since the first marring of Arda, in the time of the Great Music, every single thing has something amiss. And those few that do not, that are the closest to perfection – are not allowed to exist overlong. We are told not to rue the marring, for Arda remade shall be greater than Arda unmarred. I won’t be there to see it, and for now this is how it must be.”
“I am not sure I understand this sort of thing, my lady, I am sorry…”
“What this means in practical terms is, joy always has loss written into it, as love – sorrow. It is why we know fear, but also – hope. Desire holds a key to every heart. My people long for a glimpse of the things that had once been, the Dwarves yearn for cold things that shine and glimmer, and the evil creatures that hobble and crawl – they envy and ache to destroy all things of grace and beauty. And nowhere in the world will you find such hunger as burns in the hearts of Men – for many wild things, beyond reason and comprehension. But you!” she turns to him with such intensity that he nearly jumps. “I was told that of all peoples, yours are the only who can know true contentment, who are freed from the hankering for the innocence of your ways. But if you were free – why are you here?”
He tries to look nonchalant and composed, not like he is working hard to stall and think.
“Well, Your Majesty… It does not seem such a bad place to be.” Pippin spreads his hands to indicate the wonder of the room about them as just one of the many examples of Gondor’s greatness, but she looks about as impressed as if he had tried to offer her a dog’s bowl in the guise of a royal dinner.
“That may be for some, but certainly it would be less so for you. If my memory does not betray me – which it seldom does – you were of a high birth in your land, and would have been the lord of your people one day?”
“Well, we do not call it lord, as such. But yes, I would have, I was meant to.”
“Is it not also true that you had friends, and kin, and a way of life that was blissful and simple?”
“It is true, yes.”
“And you tore up that life, and what did you trade it in for? To toil as a servant, to scour and run errands – for a man not even of royal line, who will never see you as one of his own kind.” She tilts her head, watches him keenly. “Among people who are nobody to you, who neither understand nor care what moves you, who stare at you, at your height, your ears, your feet.”
He blinks, lowers his head.
“I suppose that I did, Your Majesty. When you put it like that, I guess that does make it look like things must have been pretty drab in the Shire, but if you’ll excuse me, I don’t think it had anything to do with that at all. Perhaps it speaks to my foolishness – but then again, I am a Took – it’s just that it was…”
“…it was the only way you could think of to be able to come here.”
He looks up, lets her eyes pierce him as he knows they would.
“You would pay any price,” she says quietly.
“I… I am not sure I am even given a choice, Your Majesty.”
Arwen turns to the empty skies in the distance, which are rapidly losing colour to the impending dusk. He cannot quite tell whether her pale face is stern or sad.
It is a long moment before she speaks again. “Do you…” she frowns, “do you ever wish to not have been woken from the life that you had? To keep your peace undisturbed, to have never known.”
“Your Majesty, I am sorry?”
She shakes her head, waves the question away, and the moment of candour passes.
Dipping the stylus in ink, Arwen returns to her project, and speaks to him as she etches new lines into the hills of his childhood. “So you are enamoured of their ways – few would blame you who walk the earth today. But it does not go the other way, remember that. This is the dominion of Men; the likes of you and I may join them in it, but do not think that it makes it ours. When the day comes that you and I are long gone, what do you think will be left of us in their memory, in their lore? Beyond such aspects of us that they found useful, or entertaining, or such that made them feel more important. You must look out for yourself, if you are to last here. Do not forget the capacity these people hold for greed, and pride, and selfishness. It is to them that we owe it that the great kingdoms of the Elvendom of old, and many of the lands in between, and the forests and beasts that grew and dwelled there – all lie at the bottom of the cold seas where the sun does not reach.”
He is trying to listen with due deference, but can feel his eyes glazing over.
She grins, and on such a fair face it is a disconcerting look.
“So, you think your master is different. I had thought so, too. He is quite… eager to please, isn’t he? Do you know, when first I came to Gondor, it was he who went to the greatest pains to ensure I was glad and had everything to my liking.”
“I had… not known that, my lady. But I cannot say I am exactly surprised.”
“Indeed. He…” her hand pauses over the canvas as her gaze turns inwards, “he can be so genuine about it. As though he actually cares, as though he truly sees the person in you, and not because station or interest dictate it. Take this room – had you heard of it before, or that it was he who designed and had it built for me?”
Pippin feels his mouth hang open. “Faramir? This?” He looks around with newfound awe, the previously intimidating space suddenly full of warm wonder.
“And so much else, too. Things that no one else had thought of, he took care of for me. He knows how to put at ease and gain trust, how to spark a connection that leaves you feeling like you’ve never known something quite like it. And so for a while he had seemed to me more as one of my own kin than a son of Men. Your master was – and is – among the few who look upon me with neither desire nor fear, which I had deemed a good thing. I had rejoiced to think that I would make a great friend in him.”
She gazes into space for a long time, and seems to Pippin surprisingly calm. Self-contained the way the sea can be self-contained, such that even when it overflows it can only overflow back into itself, return to itself, enclosed into its own unfathomable vastness and depths.
When she motions for him, he does not understand at first, until he sees the ewer. He fills it and hands it back to her, which she takes without looking.
She takes a step back to appraise the canvas, and shakes her head. “And you know what, in the end, he is just like everyone else. What is this phrase they use in Gondor? When push comes to shove, isn’t it? He will put himself first.”
Arwen lifts her arm and pours the water over the entire expanse of that day’s work. Not a single nerve moves in her face as the invisible force eats all the pigment away.
Pippin shudders, tries not to stare at the blank gap. “I am sorry it has not worked out as you would have liked,” he says, and for want of anything better to add, offers, “but I am sure Your Majesty has no lack of friends here.”
She laughs.
“I have no lack of loyal vassals and adoring servants, that much is true. But I did not come for friends – I would welcome them gladly, but if it does not happen, then so be it. There are other things I must attend to.” She glances towards the vast draft of her tapestry. “I have my task to continue, and you must be growing tired, for it is late.”
Like from a slap, he wakes up back to his body. To a parched mouth, stomach twisted with hunger, and an ache chewing on his lower back from all the standing.
Pippin bows, and the Queen thanks him for his assistance.
Just as he is about to turn and brave those aerial stairs back into the water, as though on an impulse, she reaches for him. The touch of her cool fingers on his arm is at once the softest and the most steel-like sensation he has known, these young fingers that have held things which are long ago nothing but dust.
“Pippin.”
She looks upon him, and he sees that despite the divide, despite their respective places in this mess of Aragorn’s making, she is not beyond compassion.
“Go to the Houses of the Kings,” she says. “In the Silent Street. You shall find comfort.”
“Your Majesty…?”
She knows he does not understand, but does not consider it necessary to explain.
“But do not go at night,” she only says.
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Wow, very promising – and finely written, as always. :) Hope to see more soon!
— elektra121 Sunday 10 April 2011, 15:13 #