This is my first fic, so any constructive criticism is welcome. Thanks go to betas Lotos-Eater and mione the kneazle!
Disclaimer: I do not own any Lord Of The Rings characters, races, etc.
All he could see was blackness.
He could faintly hear the sounds of battle around him- the yells of men, the cries of monsters, the scrapes of swords clashing with swords.
When he inhaled, dust tore at his nose, throat, and lungs.
Merry came to with a gasp, and the sudden intake of more dust sent him into a fit of coughing. He had momentarily forgotten where he was, but when he instinctively grabbed his nearby sword, he remembered that he was in the middle of a war. Around him, thousands upon thousands of men and orcs were fighting—the orcs to bring down the city of Minas Tirith, the men to stop them.
All of the sounds of fighting, the omnipresent stench of death, the battle cries of men, Uruk-hai, and orcs, and the pain felt in every inch of his body overwhelmed Merry. He tried to gather his bearings and make sense of the cacophony around him, but before he could, one sound rang above all else. One terrible cry pierced his confusion and shook him into reality.
The inhuman wail of a Nazgûl.
Merry wheeled around, toward the source of the ear-shattering shriek, and what he saw sank his heart. He saw Éowyn, and, hand wrapped around her throat, a hideous creature, much similar to the Ringwraiths, but Merry had seen nothing as spine-chillingly evil as this.
He was overcome with an unfamiliar rage. All of the sudden, he wanted nothing more than to kill this creature preparing to kill Éowyn. Without a second thought, he started running. The fatigue rooted in every muscle; the screams of pain from every bump, bruise, and cut; the short reach of his hobbit legs that couldn't seem to move him fast enough—even the Dark Lord Sauron himself—couldn't stop Merry from protecting Éowyn, who had kept watch over him ever since he pledged his allegiance to Rohan.
After the longest instant of his life, Merry found himself right behind the Nazgûl, and lunged—arms outstretched, sword in hand, ready to plunge into the demon. He would have noticed how easily his blade pierced the Nazgûl's clothing, as if nothing was underneath it, or how the knife seemed to disappear in a cloud of smoke, or Éowyn ripping off her helm, proclaiming, "I am no man!" and driving her sword into the Black Rider's mask, slaying the monster, but as soon as Merry's knife made contact, every nerve in his arm erupted in blinding pain. His vision turned white, and a moment later, the pain ceased as quickly as it had set in. Unaware of how he had fallen to the ground, he pushed himself up, and the Nazgûl was writhing, shrieking, hissing, his armor collapsing as if the body inside had vanished.
Overwhelmed with relief that Éowyn was, at least for the moment, safe, and his exhaustion, and the memory of the pain from stabbing the Nazgûl, Merry slipped back into the darkness, and the last thing he remembered seeing was a wave of green…
"Merry?!"
"Merry, it's me…"
The rush of blood to his head after the Uruk-hai was lifted off him caused Merry's vision to fade in a shimmering of stars, from the uncomfortable, yet unavoidable sleep to the image of his cousin's distraught face looking down upon him.
"…it's Pippin!"
Merry opened his mouth to speak, but it was so dry he couldn't even taste the dried blood in his cheek.
"I knew you'd find me," he managed to croak.
"Yes…" Pippin stroked his cousin's hair. Tears welled in Pippin's eyes, from both the recent fear of losing his best friend and the joy of finding him again.
"Are you going to leave me…?"
"No, Merry…"
Tendrils of darkness wrapped around Merry's vision. He started to slip back into sleep, safe in his cousin's arms. He hardly heard Pippin's whispered promise…
"…I'm going to look after you."