In later years, Pippin became quite adept at recounting the various events of the war, describing their first meeting with Treebeard with as much the enthusiasm and wonder as he initially experienced. He was a natural storyteller and became a favorite in recounting the tales.

When it came to the palantir, though, his effusion never failed to falter, quelled either by the memories of Sauron or the look on Merry's face when the subject came up. No words, by Common Speech or Elvish, he decided, could impart the feeling of shattering expansion and constraining focus he had experienced in the shadows of Isengard, much less the crushing power that still resided within the ball of stone before him. Every instinct now screamed to refuse it.

Memory upon memory shifting over each other rapidly layering, sprouting into so many directions, each thought trailing, pulling, tugging the mind in its direction, each thread so strong, so strong...

He felt Aragorn's hands over his hold fast and the drift of athelas in the air became stronger. The flickering, afire from Aragorn’s command, intensified until Pippin was certain that the ball quivered like a living thing. The itching he had known before made his hands numb.

There was Denethor standing by the well. He was looking down into the black void, grim-faced and morbid, as if considering the depth of the well with much the same curiosity he had felt.

“A storm has come over us!?” The Steward said, looking up at Pippin, as if the hobbit had approached him.

“Boromir gone? Will Faramir not reply? O, Faramir! What chaos has been wrought!?”

He advanced on Pippin, his eyes a frightening black, a nothingness hovering over him like mourning shrouds.

“My lord, Faramir lives!” Pippin cried. “I only wanted...I only... “

The hobbit faltered, the emotions of all he had done and seen filled his mouth.

“Of course. There were many reasons why you came,” Denethor soothed, his face drooping with age and long forbearance. Then, the momentary softness hardened. “But I saw what Gandalf intended. He brings naught but lies. And he will not win. Not by any design of Numenor, not by any halfling spy. Explain to him that he will not win!”
Pippin swallowed. Something in the darkness waited to happen, but he was terrified of what.

“Where is Faramir? Why isn't he come?” Denethor broke into a sob, wandering about the chamber, away from the well. He seemed to have forgotten that Pippin was there. Pippin sensed him bumping his way through the chamber, an empty chamber. The Company had left mere minutes ago…didn’t they?

A hot flash of thought compelled Pippin to wander after him. Does Denethor have the courage to drop the stone into the well?

“Throw the stone in, my lord,” Pippin said, and found himself offering the same pebble he had dropped.

Denethor took the stone and looked at it, as if it were an alien object dropped from the sky. He moved mechanically over to the rim of the well, staring down once more in the same agony of amazement. He looked back at Pippin, frowning.

“What am I to do with this?” He held up the stone, a mild contempt flashing over his face.

“Drop it in, my lord. It... it will save you,” Pippin heard himself explain, although a part of his brain wondered where he derived this logic.

Denethor sneered in derision, but clasped the stone to his breast.

“It is far beyond what we can do, Master Halfling. There is naught but to wait for it,” he scoffed. “Better to burn, for burn we must.”

There was a rolling boom and Denethor bent to weep into the well.

“Drop the stone,” Pippin pleaded, pointing to the abyss. “It’s the only way.” The only way, he knew, to break the tie…

“He calls for me,” Denethor groaned and turned. Pippin sensed it more than saw it: two patches of cold filled the room and took Denethor by the arms. The old Steward fixed him once more with empty, eyeless sockets, hate and bitterness burning there.

”I will not be your tool! I will rule to my own end!”

“Drop the stone! Throw it down the well!”

Denethor fought with the patches of cold, but they seemed to be in a struggle of their own. For what seemed like long interminable moments, something made Denethor raise his fist and fling the stone into the well. With that, both the patches and Denethor were
sucked into the cold, cold abyss.

***

“He's coming around,” the presence at his ear breathed. Pippin felt a hand, slender and strong, wrap around his own. An effervescence that had filled his mind filtered away. He tried to chase after it, but his hands went through it as though it were water. Then with a happy burst, it soft on his face and melted into emptiness.

“His heart is brightening,” said a lilting voice. “He has followed the Star of Earendil and he wonders now where he is.”

Legolas! Pippin's eyes flew open to see shadows dancing upon the ceiling, a ceiling that was not the tower, a ceiling strange and low...and flat.

He was back in their guest house.

“Master Peregrin,” said the elf, touching his breast and extending his hand to clasp the hobbit's shoulder. “We have awaited your return.”

Pippin sat up to find not only Legolas staring at him, but Sam and Merry, all three hunched on the edge a bench in relief. Frodo stood near, blue eyes ghost ridden with concern. In his Ring-forsaken hand, he clasped the flask Galadriel had gifted him, its clear form gleaming in the dimness of the room. The curtains were drawn, but Pippin could see the full force of the sun straining to break through the woven cloth.

Legolas glanced around at the other hobbits then grinned at Pippin. “Aragorn brought you home after your duties in the Tower.”

“I see that,” Pippin croaked, found that his one reminder of the night before was a sore throat.

“He must have exercised you quite well,” Legolas continued, when the other three hobbits did not take up the conversation.

“Exercise enough, I suppose. I had audience with a glass ball,” Pippin replied. He tried to sit up in his bed, but found that his muscles were also tired.

He didn’t miss the looks exchanged around the room. Sam and Frodo looked in slight bemusement, Merry muttered something incomprehensible, and Legolas cocked a brow.
Spurred by what he knew Merry must have muttered, Pippin defended himself.

“He was explaining some things to me, some things that I needed to know. I wanted to know, you see, there were messengers in the Court, and they...”

“Yes, we all know about that,” Merry said, getting up to come sit on the edge of Pippin’s bed. “Gandalf told me that Strider was going to get to the heart of this….this…you silly Took! Why didn't you say something to us, about these dreams? Just because the War is over doesn't mean...” he faltered, seeing Pippin's expression of regret. He took a deep breath and asked instead, “are you all right?”

“I think so.” Pippin's gaze fell on Frodo, who had remained still and silent. “You helped.”

“The phial helped. Gandalf said I might have need of it once more,” Frodo replied.

“Yes, it did. Thank you.” They all fell to silence, with Sam looking acutely uncomfortable.

“Oh, all right!” Pippin sat up with a grunt. “If you'll help me locate my clothes and let me get dressed without too much trouble, I'll answer any question you so desire.”

“If Master Pippin doesn't mind my asking, I'd like to know if those messengers said anything about the Shire itself and what we might expect to find out when we get home,” Sam interjected.

“I'm sure that whatever Saruman sent their way was stopped by the contingent Aragorn sent after them,” Frodo replied. “They were stopped before they got to Bree.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what Gandalf told us, but I don’t mind saying theres more to the story than that, and I want to know what it is. I was wondering if he’d told Pippin,” Sam insisted.

“I would imagine that Sauron's minions are easily scattered now. If they did reach the Shire, the Tooks and Brandybucks will have taken care of them,” Frodo added, with a nod to the present title-holders of those names.

“That's what I said, but Gandalf seemed to still have some worries in that direction,” Pippin informed.

“And those barrels of Southfarthing are something to think about, right, Merry?” Sam asked.

The Brandybuck cousin had different concerns at the moment.

“What I want to know is what took hold of you, Pip? I've been afraid for you ever since that...that night and to hear that you went and…picked up another one just has me worried all over again. What possessed you to do that? What good could it have possibly done?”

All eyes turned toward Pippin.

“Well now, that’s just the thing, Merry. It had. Possessed me. In ways that did not become evident until all other wickedness had dissipated. I mean, who knows why I even wanted to hold the damn thing in the first place?” Pippin returned Merry’s gaze with frustration of his own. “But that is what last night was about. I am all right, I assure you. Aragorn showed me.”

“Showed you what?”

“The ghost that insisted on visiting you,” Frodo said, to the astonishment of the others. “An echo of what had been. But it can't reach you anymore. It let you go.”

“Yes. I dreamed of Denethor. He... Aragorn said his ghost still clung to the palantir, still wished to reach out. You see, the palantir holds memories... many memories, and when I... took it that night on the plains, when I met with…saw Sauron, it kept a memory of me, a memory that even Denethor could see with the palantir he kept. He saw so much that he shouldn’t have. Its why he knew Gandalf was coming, saw that I was with him…thought that I was the one who had the Ring. He took that palantir with him when he tried to burn Faramir, tried to burn the city…clutched it as he lay dying. It must have kept that memory, too…kept and held him as he...” Pippin closed his eyes as the memories of Denethor in the chamber of the well, the overwhelming desire to drop the stone…

“But what does that have to do with you? It was Sauron who saw you, not Denethor,” Merry asked impatiently. “You haven’t been trying to use Aragorn’s palantir since we got here, have you?”

“No!”

“The palantiri are what connected the men of Numenor, the Kingdom that was,” Legolas broke in. “Palantiri were strong, stronger than many will ever know, but it was Men of Numenor that were strong enough to use them as well as other lines,” he added, with a smile at Pippin. “They were made by a power beyond Morgoth, beyond the reach of Middle Earth and whosoever used them could not escape an imprint. I cannot help but think it a fortuitous happenstance that you used it, Pippin. And there’s a reason why it called to you. Am I right?” When Pippin did not reply, Legolas smiled and motioned for him to continue dressing. “Come now, let us be merry. Aragorn has broken the breach and Pippin will soon be feeling the need to drain the tavern dry again. Aragorn left his regrets this morning when he brought you. He had promised to reveal all, but then realized there was a more effective way of explaining. So he asks that you first rest, then prepare your uniform for duty once more tomorrow.”