WARNING! ANGSTY AU STORY/ CHARACTER DEATH

The biggest fear

Beta by Dreamflower :)

It was a day like every day. Birds were singing their songs, the wind rushed high in the green crowns of the trees and the river rolled along under the friendly gaze of the sun, as he had always done.

Merry took a deep breath and filled his lungs with fresh air. He smelled breakfast cooking and he heard Pippin laughing about something; probably about the squirrels that were living on the tree next door, he thought.

Every morning since they had been living at Crickhollow the squirrels had shown up, chasing each other about on the trunk of their tree and every morning Pippin had found them highly amusing.

Merry smiled.

That his cousin could find so much joy in the simple things of life, after all that had happened, warmed his heart, like the sun in the sky warmed the skin on his face.

The cousins ate their breakfast as they did every day, teasing one another as was their custom and then, while Merry started cleaning up, Pippin went out to the ponies, going on a morning ride with his grey steed.

Merry saw Pippin waving to him with a smile on his face and waved back.

“Sticky buns for second breakfast?” he called to him. “As always” Pippin shouted back, laughing as he vanished from view.

Half an hour later the pony came racing back…. but her back was riderless.

It was a day like every day. Birds were singing their songs, the wind rushed high in the green crowns of the trees and the river rolled along under the friendly gaze of the sun, as he had always done.

Merry took a deep breath and stared out the kitchen window. The squirrels were chasing each other, as they always did, but the Hobbit could feel no joy.

It was a day like every day, but not for him. It was a day without Pippin's laugher. A day without his Pippin in his world.

The End