Pippin snippet

[gilascave]

Growing Pains

He wished he could write songs, poetry like they'd heard among the elves. He wished he could have made something, twined gold or silver around itself to created something wonderful like he'd seen on the helms and the scabbards of the dwarves. He wished he could paint, or build, or wield great command, like men.

He wished he could know history, cull great wisdom from the words and the world, like the ents and the wizards. But he had none of that, and he knew he was foolish for pretending to think he might have had. It was foolish, indeed, and it kept his mouth closed on the fantasies he created to fill up his dreams.

Here, though, closer to earth, where the hobbits lived and made their monuments, he had little enough to hope for. There were no fields for him to point to, and say that each plant growing had been once tended by his hand. He could claim no herds, could not name a single swine that he had fed and cared for. There were no carved wooden tools with his maker's mark, no iron hoes or pots, no weavers' signature bearing his initials placed into anything a single hobbit wore or used.

There was nothing he had made that he could place upon the plate. The chest that maidens filled before their wedding day would have stood stark, and lifeless, had one been expected of him. The tradition for boys not so different, for that - they were still expected to bring their offering, though it would fit not in a chest, but in a livelihood.

He had nothing. The name his father had given him and the title it would carry someday meant only that someday he would have a son, or a nephew, or a cousin that he would name his successor. Even the titular monies collected each year at harvest meant little for this - they were nothing he could claim for more than his family, and a stack of gold and grain were nothing he had made. Without the creation of his own hands, and his own skill, he could not do it. Could not walk through the front door of his beloved's home, and declare himself. Could not impress himself upon the father he would have to beg permission from, no matter how much his intended had his own mind to say yea or nay.

In all his life he had made nothing. It was not until now, when he knew he loved, that he understood that he also needed worth.