EPILOGUE: Just wanted to thank all those who stayed with the story and stuck it out to the end! That is an accomplishment!

What I wrote was basically a dark story, and a very dark period in Merry’s life. The reason why I wrote the second story was so that there would be time for Merry and Saradoc to reconcile and begin building some sort of relationship before he goes off with Frodo on his mission...quest...thing! Yet I still maintain that in The Two Towers it was Merry who made a big deal of Theoden being ‘like a father’. And in Fellowship of the Ring, Conspiracy Unmasked, Merry talks about someone alerting ‘the Master of the Hall’ about the intrusion of the Black Riders. Why didn’t he just say ‘my father’? I know it’s all speculation on JRRT’s part (bless him for leaving gaping holes in his fiction!), but those are some of the reasons why I wrote Merry’s life as I did.

The next story isn’t quite so dark, but it shows the relationship that Merry and Saradoc have built at that point.

Thanks again!

Pippinfan