It was Lammas, the Day of the Reaper, when Baby Girl Brandybuck was laid to rest under a willow tree by the front door of Brandy Hall. August first; the day first harvest began.

Instead of being out in the fields, or organizing the harvest, the Master of Buckland stood silent, one arm around his wife and one around his son, watching a tiny casket being lowered into the earth. It was surrounded by two other graves, with small, sad stones. Merry’s siblings; a girl who lived only a month, and a lad who was stillborn. Saradoc Scattergold’s hand tightened on Merry’s shoulder, and he spared a thought to give thanks for a great, fine son.

Merry was quiet, lost in his grief. He held his little sister only two days ago, only a few hours after she was born. He remembered the feel of the tiny, warm body, and her milky, baby-blue eyes. She had been the easiest birth yet, his mum told him with a twinkle in her eye, and Merry had smiled at her, cradling the baby close.

No one knew what Esmeralda thought.

There were others there, as well. Paladin Took, and his family, standing quietly nearby. They had arrived a few days before Esme gave birth, and now Paladin had made the coffin with his own hands. The three girls stood still, silent. Pippin, though, couldn’t stop tears from running down his face. He’d held the babe as well, and Merry had put his arms around Pippin, so that they were holding her together. Esme had been bemused at his fascination with the tiny baby, wanting to count her fingers and toes over and over, marvelling at the infestimal nails the babe already had, and the wisp of golden hair.

Pippin yearned to be by Merry’s side just then, wanting to take his cousin in his arms and hold and comfort him until that sad, cold look left his eyes, but he stayed with his family. Courting they might be, now (though they’d hardly moved beyond shy kisses and quiet declarations of love), but they were still best friends, and Pippin could read Merry’s emotions as he would a book, and he read a need for solitude just then.

So it was, that Pippin returned to Brandy Hall for a meal of cold meats, bread, and the fresh vegetables of the season with his arm around his Mum’s waist, instead of Merry’s. His parents, as always, exuded peace and an acceptance of the twist and turns of Fate, even through their sorrow, and Pippin clung to them, taking comfort and strength.

He did not get a chance to speak to Merry until much later that night, when Pippin found his cousin sitting under the willow tree, staring up at a thin, scythe-like moon. Pippin set down the plate of food he’d brought with him, and knelt behind Merry, wrapping his arms around his dear lad’s shoulders. The hot night air was stifling, but Merry turned around, pressing closer to Pippin, letting the younger hobbit pull him onto his lap, rocking and crooning a lullabye that had been ancient when Bucca of Marish had founded Buckland.

Pippin gently wiped tears off of Merry’s face with the pad of his thumb, still keeping one arm firmly wrapped around Merry’s shoulders.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he whispered into Merry’s ear, rocking them gently, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, my Merry. I miss her too, so much. Shh, shh, let the tears flow—isn’t that what you always told me? Oh Merry, she was so beautiful, she would have grown up to look just like you, I know she would have. But she’s in Overheaven now, and is smiling down on you, and I think she always will, she’ll always watch over you. My poor love, I’m so sorry.” Pippin had begun to run his fingers through Merry’s hair, trying to soothe with touch as well as words. Finally, the tears ended, in hiccuping sighs, and those ended too, after a time, and Merry was silent in Pippin’s arms.

“Little one, do you remember my other little brother and sister?” Merry’s voice was rough with crying, but the eyes he turned to Pippin were clear, tears past for now.

Pippin nodded slowly, with a bittersweet smile. “I was so jealous when your mother was pregnant with Amandine, until you pulled me aside and told me not to be such a dockle, that I would always be your Pippin-lad, no matter what. And then she was so beautiful when she was born, she had those huge, beautiful greeny-brown eyes. And I didn’t understand, completely, why you were so sad when she died just a month later, because my Mum had told me how nice Overheaven was, but she forgot to tell me that you don’t come back.”

He smiled a little, wistfully, and then shifted to free a leg that was starting to fall asleep. Merry shifted with him, unconciously, and lay his head on Pippin’s shoulder.

“I don’t remember your brother at all,” Pippin continued, “but I remember putting flowers on his grave with you. We had gone to pick daisies, and you taught me how to make a chain.”

They were quiet, then, listening to a far-off owl, and all the night-noises of late summer. The moon was high in the sky when Merry spoke.

“I’m so afraid for my Mum. She’s so quiet, and I heard the midwife telling her that she’d not be able to carry any more babes.”

Pippin kissed Merry’s curls gently. “I wouldn’t worry overmuch for her, dearheart. She loves you so, and though she grieves now, she would never leave you.” It had been Esme, in fact, who had asked Pippin to take some food to Merry, and check on him, when Pippin had gone over to hug her, offering condolences.

“She’s so proud of you, Merry, and she loves you so much.” Pippin smiled down into eyes the color of the sky after a storm, and was rewarded with a slight smile. “Now,” he continued, “do you think you can eat a bit, before you waste away?”

Merry’s smile widened as he left Pippin’s lap, reaching to draw the plate closer to them. “When did you become so grown-up and wise, Pippin Took? You’re supposed to be a teen, celebrating your way through life with naught a care nor a serious thought in the world.”

Pippin wrinkled his nose up at his cousin. “19 isn’t so young as all that, Merry Brandybuck!” He leaned over and kissed Merry briefly, but with love, and let that tell his tale. Merry smiled and bumped foreheads with Pippin, but quickly settled down to eating, not realizing how hungry he was until just then.

They sat together, in comfortable silence. Pippin wrapped an arm around Merry’s shoulders once he’d done eating, and they lay back, together, and watched the moon move across the sky in comfortable silence. And if Merry was not precisely content as he drifted off, then that was simply the way of the world and to be expected, and at least he knew Pippin would be there when he woke in the morning, at his side as always.

Return to Kalimac