Cold.

So cold. Everyplace they've gone since leaving Rivendell has been either too hot or too cold, it seems, and now struggling up the slope of the Redhorn - he's never been this cold in all his life, and he can't remember what it feels like to be properly warm. Winters in the Shire seem so perfectly weathered, now; recalling dimly the bite of chill air on ears and hands and feet that seemed to melt away with the snow once inside, he can't help but wonder how he ever thought he had known cold, as he plows and flounders along after Merry.

There's a spark of doubt that suddenly lights in his mind - it's been striking since the not-so-secret secret council and his unthinking adamance in following Merry on the quest. Not that he regretted that - he would follow Merry anywhere. But now, watching Legolas all but float atop the snow; watching Boromir's and Aragorn's tireless tread through the frigid etiolation, Gandalf's constant guidance as they go up and up, with nothing but more whiteness to mark the land, that gives abrupt insight as to what the wizard knows of other than fireworks - it all makes him feel so useless, graceless, helpless, just less. Frodo and Sam and Gimli and, yes, Merry too, they can all manage in the snow, and here he is blundering along just like the child he is, to the others, and his half-numb limbs are only adding to his gracelessness. It is with a guilty kind of relief that he watches the toil start to take its toll on the other hobbits, and an even greater relief that he allows Boromir to pick him up as they hit softer, deeper snow - only with Merry on the man's other side, of course.

He is already clinging to Boromir's side and arm as tightly as he can without fear of hindering the man, when the boom of indistinguishable words fills the air. Reaches out instinctively for Merry and succeeds in grabbing his cloak as Boromir - the entire Company with him - presses back against Caradhras' face, shrinking away from the rocks that grind and tumble past, shaking the stone and snow beneath them. Unsure exactly of what prowess in swordplay Boromir had tried to teach him would do in circumstances like these, he nevertheless clutches at the man's side, taking what little comfort he can in the solidity found there until those voices on the wind roar again. Then he willingly relinquishes solidity for a mad scramble out from under the blankets of frozen white to break into a biting wind, where there is - if not much else -air. Cold air, frigid enough that it stings and makes his eyes tear of their own volition until he sees Merry, still alive if not completely well, until they close and Boromir picks him up again.

Now he's sure he's completely frozen, covered in ice and frost and snow that's somehow made it inside his cloak and scarf and everything else. He's equally sure he'll never love snow again, never this stuff that makes up his current field of vision that's soft and hard, light and heavy, gentle and harsh - but always always so cold. And still, that inclemency is nothing compared to the chill that races down his spine when Frodo - poor Frodo - chose the way through the mines.

---

There's that same chill again when he is pulled back from idly throwing rocks into the lake before Moria -once he's defrosted, that is. And again when the heavy scent of death rolls outward from the mine's entrance, and even before he hears Frodo scream and sees the monster rising out of the water, it's that little shudder, becoming almost constant. He's cold again by the time Frodo's safe and on the ground, when they're picking their way around by the feeble light that a wizard's staff casts before them. Still cold when they set up camp for the night, somewhere in the belly of the mine, and he huddles at Merry's side in his sleep, more warmed by the familiarity of Merry's embrace than all of Gandalf's reassurances, Legolas' promises to keep guard, and Gimli's seeming ease in such a place of cold and stone. It really is like a tomb, he thinks upon waking up cold again. The battle, the flight - he ceases to wonder at the growing chill that seems to overtake him with each passing moment, and finally freezes over with the fall of Gandalf.

And when they finally leave Moria, one less, to meet the still-frozen sunlight that fractures the greyish heavens, he leaves his faith in Merry to hold him together as he cries, and he can only despair inwardly when Merry's touch brings no longer the solace he craves.

Cold.