5. After the Last Battle

They would not let him travel to Cormallen for fear that he was too fragile yet after the Black Breath, so when Merry finally arrived he was two days too late. The soldiers made way for him and Legolas and Gimli were there to meet him so that he would not wander the battlefield. Merry wanted to run and sing and bounce on a bed with someone else his size, but instead he followed his companions to a dark tent and knelt before the king.

Nothing smelled quite right after that. His nose had stopped working as had his eyes. As had many things. Years later, bad news and dark times always smelled like that small tent with the king’s large hand on his head and Gandalf standing by—and if Gandalf had returned, maybe there was hope left.

In the midst of the victory celebrations, Merry found that hope had deserted him.

The next day they took him away from the fields to a small spot where three child size mounds of stone lay—except that they were just Merry’s size and there was only one child among them. Merry knelt on the ground and found that he had no tears.

“I will not return to the Shire,” he told Gandalf soon after, and then, when Gandalf was silent, “What would I tell his parents?”

“Then I will go with Legolas and Gimli and we will tell them for you,” Gandalf said gently.

The remains of the Fellowship rode for the Shire and Merry remained with the king in Minas Tirith.

He kept a garden for Sam and wrote a book for Frodo, but he could do nothing for Pippin except look at the Mountains of Shadow and curse.