Imagine you are pippin, you're basically a teenager and you and your best friend join your favourite cousin and his boyfriend on an adventure, you are a teenager, you do not understand that this adventure is dangerous, only that your cousin seems to be under some kind of burden, he is sadder than he was last week, and this is why you want to come on this journey with him. The wizard is constantly annoyed with you and only ever calls you "fool of a took". You are a teenager, you just want to help. You see your favourite cousin get stabbed and start frothing at the mouth and almost die and there is nothing you can do to help him. You are a teenager. When he heals from his wound you find out that he has agreed to go on an even more dangerous journey to stop the end of the world, and you and your best friend decide to go with him because you love your cousin. You are a teenager. The man Boromir talks and laughs with you almost like your dad used to, and you and your best friend play fight with him, it makes everything feel a little less scary as you travel further than you ever have before. You are a teenager. You watch Boromir die trying to save you. He fails and you are taken. You are a teenager. The wizard who is always annoyed with you dies and you think that its your fault because you accidentally tipped the bucket down the well. You are a teenager. You are separated from your best friend and your cousin and end up in a city you've never been before and you have to tell a father that his son is dead. You are a teenager. You then have to pull said father's other son off of a burning pyre and you realise that some families are not like yours, happy and loving. You are a teenager. A huge battle happens and you have no idea if anyone you love is going to survive, you don't know if your best friend is even still alive, if your cousin is still going. You are a teenager. The battle is won and everyone pulls through and you hug your best friend and your cousin and laugh. You are a teenager. Your cousin is changed, he does not smile as he used to, Sam says that the journey broke something in him, you cannot get him to laugh anymore. You are a teenager. when you think about it, your cousin's laugh never came easily, your best friend tells you that it did once, before his parents died, but you were so young you hardly remember it. You mourn a version of your cousin you've lost, or maybe one you never got to meet. You are a teenager. You return home, and maybe you are changed too, but you do not speak of that and you remain reckless and impulsive because its all you know how to do, you never got the chance to learn how to be an adult on the journey, you were only a teenager. Your cousin sails away to Valinor, you will never see him again, not even in death. You are not a teenager anymore, but you never really grew up, you're still stuck watching Boromir die to try and save you, Gandalf fall because of your stupid mistake, Frodo fracture because you couldn't pull him out of the dark. You're not a teenager anymore - but you might as well be
