4. The Fourth Age

Merry missed Pippin after they left from Rivendell. He would have liked to have his cousin by his side, even if Elrond had judged that he should return home. When they passed through Moria though, he suspected that Elrond was right and as he struck down the Witchking he knew Elrond was right, this was not a place for Pippin. Even if Pippin would never forgive him for letting them send him home, at least he was spared this darkness.

When he returned though, Pippin was as bright and cheery chatterbox as ever and Merry found that he could no longer match him. Pippin was a child still, chasing lasses and pulling pranks. Merry found that he wanted to shout at him and shake some sense into the fool boy. Grow up, Peregrin Took, there are more important things in life.

He couldn’t talk of the quest after Rivendell with Pippin and he knew it hurt his cousin, but how could he explain Sauron and orcs and Frodo lying so still after Mount Doom? So if it hurt Pippin that Merry would no longer speak to him unguardedly, it hurt Merry that Pippin looked upon him with scorn that he was now so silent and solemn.

It was inevitable then, that Pippin drifted away from him and left him in the dust. Merry watched him grow older and more distant and knew that Elrond was wrong after all. Pippin did not need saving, but Merry needed Pippin and now Pippin was slowly but surely breaking Merry’s heart.

When Merry decided to take the road that led east he told Pippin and Pippin looked up briefly from his duties as Thain and said “Go then.”

Merry went.

He visited with the people of Rohan and talked to the ents and wondered what Pippin would be like if he had a little bit of entish in him that made him think before he spoke and tempered his brashness. He came to Minas Tirith and spent his days with what remained of the Fellowship. He had thought that he would be returning to the Shire but found that he could not leave this place where he had finally found peace.

When his days were winding to a close, he realized that Pippin had known that he would not be returning. He thought of Pippin’s brisk, hassled dismissal and closed his eyes and did not wake up again, for how could he live with a heart so broken?

When they found him in the morning they laid him to rest among the greatest of Gondor and when the king died they set Merry beside him.