A/N: Hi! I started this little fic a couple of months ago in between writing my other much longer LotR story. Just felt the need for some Hobbit fun since that story is more intense! It's set in the Fourth Age about 20 years after the events of Return of the King. Frodo has already gone to the Grey Havens, Sam is the Mayor, Pippin is the Thain and Merry is the Master of Buckland. Faramir Took is Tolkien's creation, but Merry's children are entirely my own. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1- Parties and Pranks

The lights were bright in the Party Tree as scores of Hobbits danced and sang cheerful songs at its base. Though not yet as tall as the tree which had once stood here in days gone by, the young tree was by far more beautiful. It was the only mallorn tree anywhere in Middle Earth outside of the woods of Lórien; it's wood was smooth and silvery-grey and seemed to shimmer with moonlight itself. It's leaves, green on one side and silver on the other, fell during springtime and new ones were sprouting alongside beautiful golden flowers. It had been planted here by Samwise Gamgee after the Scouring of the Shire. The land of the Hobbits, which had been scarred and mutilated by Saruman's forces, was restored and brought to life under Sam's careful ministrations, aided in no small way by the earth he had been gifted from the garden of Lady Galadriel herself, and was thriving and as vibrant as ever. The mallorn tree was the envy of all those who came from far and wide to see it.

Faramir Took knew all of this, but he didn't care.

The party was in full swing, and, as in all Hobbit parties, there was a great deal of drink, food and song on offer for all. The Party Field was crammed with Hobbits of all ages and sizes; Tooks, Brandybucks, Bracegirdles, Proudfoots, Bolgers, Gardners and a whole host of others. Though not quite on the scale of the legendary eleventy-first birthday party of the esteemed Bilbo Baggins, there was sufficient merriment and enjoyment on display to make this a day worth discussing in the taverns of the Shire for a good couple of months. After all, it was their Mayor's 60th birthday, Samwise Gardner, formerly Gamgee, and if that was not an excuse for pipe-weed and beer then what was? Not of course that Hobbits needed any such excuses.

Faramir grinned as he surveyed the field of mismatched tents and half-drunken hobbits. The night was ripe for some good mischief. And mischief was what he was good at.

He ducked behind one tent as half a dozen Gardner children ran by, all shrieking with delight at their new toys, their father's birthday forgotten, and waited, making sure he was concealed from sight of most of the party-goers. Many hobbits had gathered in this tent for the story-telling portion of the evening, one of the highlights of any party in the Shire, but greater still because everyone knew that Sam Gardner's stories were the best on offer. It was here, once a year they could allow themselves to sit and listen to stories of Trolls and giant spiders, Elves and Dwarves and mountains of fire, before bidding everyone goodnight and wandering back to their own safe beds, the limits of their curiosity filled. After all, no one wanted stories like that every day. It would only encourage strange and un-Hobbitlike behaviour among the young.

Through the thick canvas, Faramir could just about hear Sam's voice, only a little slurred by the multitudes of beer he had consumed. He was speaking of the coronation of King Elessar, and his audience were in raptured silence, though they had heard the story multiple times. Some lucky hobbits had even seen the king from afar as he rode past the Shire on his way to Annúminas for his visits to his northern kingdom. Faramir knew without looking that his father was also there by Sam's side, perhaps hoping he would be called upon to give a story or two of his own. He never failed to wish to show off his Gondorion sword and mail.

Faramir crouched there for a while, his knees beginning to ache, impatience growing rapidly. Now, where was he? They were running out of time!

Just as Sam began to move onto talk of Elessar's wedding, Faramir heard a shuffling behind him and a hand clapped him on the shoulder. Gobby's face, red and sweaty, loomed into view through the dim light.

"Sorry!" he puffed, wiping his brow. "I couldn't find the right cart! And it was heavier than I thought!"

"Shh!" Faramir hissed, glancing at the tent, worried anyone had heard. "Did you get it?"

Gobby chuckled, and patted a small crate at his side. "I got it. Had to drag it here, but I got it."

Faramir's face split with glee. Finally, the mischief he had been planning for nearly a year was about to come to fruition. He stretched out and pulled the crate closer, hearing with pleasure the scuffling and squeaks of the creatures within. It had taken months of careful planning to gather all this together. Hours and hours he and Gobby had spent combing every inch of Brandy Hall and the Great Smials of Tuckborough searching for enough creatures for the task. They had been bitten, scratched, covered in filth but nothing had put them off. For weeks now the great crate had been squeezed under Faramir's bed, only coming out twice a day for some food to be thrown in and some of the mess to be removed. It all came down to this.

"Are you ready?" Faramir asked, and he saw Gobby's answering grin through the darkness.

Together, they slid off the lid of the crate and tipped it onto its side, Faramir simultaneously lifting up a flap of canvas on the tent. Immediately, four dozen large and filthy rats came swarming out from the crate, fleeing into the warmth of the tent where the delicious aroma of cakes and other sweet things still lingered.

Instantaneously there arose such a great clamour within the tent that it probably could have been heard as far as Buckland. Screams and shrieks filled the night air and there was a loud stomping of feet and knocking over of tables and chairs as chaos took over those inside the tent.

Faramir and Gobby cackled with glee as they listened and proudly shook hands, feeling thoroughly pleased with themselves. They stood up and edged around the tent and saw hobbits issuing from it and running in all directions, often pursued by little furry blobs on the ground, still smelling the remains of crumbs on their clothes and faces. Hobbits fell over tables and chairs and hobbit-children went flying, as did cups and plates and other crockery which smashed on the ground.

"The food! The food!" wailed one young Bolger, standing upon a barrel with his plate piled high with cakes, lifting them far out of reach of the little rodents.

"The beer!" cried a Proudfoot, standing in horror as he saw a tankard had been knocked over in the confusion and a small group of rats had broken off to lap at it with little pink tongues.

"The pipe-weed!" a Bracegirdle shouted, seeing some long pink tails dive into the barrels of leaf.

"The children!" one mother shrieked, dragging away a clutch of children from the rats as she ran across the Party Field

Faramir and Gobby watched the utter devastation and tried hard not to crease over in laughter. No one would forget this party in a while!

"Faramir Took! Gorbadoc Brandybuck! I might have known!"

Faramir and Gobby winced and tried to run, but two large, strong hands had seized them from behind. Faramir felt himself be propelled towards another (rat-free) tent and shoved in through the flaps. He wheeled around to see Mayor Sam looking severely down at both of them, arms folded across his chest. Gobby hung his head, but Faramir continued staring back, affecting a look of wide-eyed astonishment. Sam wasn't fooled.

"Don't give me that look, Master Faramir, I know this has something to do with the two of you."

"I don't know what you mean, Mayor, sir," Faramir said as innocently as he could, silently cursing the flushing face of his accomplice. "We're as shocked as you are!"

"And I'm a wizard," Sam said, shaking his head. "Just wait till your fathers hear about this."

"I think I saw them running down towards Bywater, sir," Gobby said, and Faramir could not help but snort with laughter. Sam just sighed.

"You've made a lot of people very upset by this, you know," he said, frowning. "They'll be talking about this for months."

"We were just trying to have some fun," Faramir said, trying to look remorseful, but inwardly delighting at Sam's comment. "We didn't mean any harm by it. I'm sorry."

"And I'm not daft enough to believe that one, not for one minute," Sam said. He shook his head again. "I should have expected something like this. Especially after what your own fathers used to get up to."

Gobby's head shot straight up and even Faramir blinked in surprise. The two exchanged a brief glance.

"What do you mean by that?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so Merry and Pippin haven't told you about their own youth?" He cast a glance towards the tent entrance where the sounds of panicked hobbits could still be heard rushing past. "I might just have to fill you in on that."

Faramir and Gobby leaned in eagerly, eyes wide. "Tell us please!"

Sam glanced once more back at the tent entrance and chewed his lip thoughtfully. It was clear he was debating whether or not to say anything, caught between his love of telling stories and his duties as mayor to keep order. The story-teller won.

"Alright, but I'm only telling you so that I can make sure you know how wrong it is," he said, wagging a finger at them. "Having fun is all well and good, but pranks and mischievous goings-on are no good for anybody, and decent folks won't stand for it. And don't go and think about repeating any of this, mind. Now's I know you know about it, I'll know just where to come looking if I hear about any mischief like it, if you take my meaning."

"We won't," Faramir and Gobby promised, holding their hands over their hearts.

Sam hardly looked as though he believed them, but it didn't stop him from pulling up a chair and gesturing to the two young hobbits to do likewise. He settled himself nicely and cleared his throat importantly.

"Well, now, have you ever heard of a hobbit called Farmer Maggot?"

The two hobbit-lads sat transfixed for half an hour, hardly believing their luck as Sam, the Mayor of the Shire, sat and told them both how their fathers would sneak into Farmer Maggot's fields in search of mushrooms, how they'd once caused uproar in the Green Dragon by bursting in and announcing that an entire army of trolls was descending on Hobbiton, and how they'd sneaked under the tables at one of old Bilbo's birthday parties and tied everyone's shoes together so that when everyone stood to drink his health they ended up falling into each other.

Faramir was in awe. His father had never once mentioned any of this to him. All the stories he'd heard of his father had been about his deeds in the wars down south, the battles he'd been in and victories he'd won. He'd never have thought of his father, the Thain, would ever be so mischievous. Gobby likewise was sitting amazed, his eyes as round as saucers.

Sam spoke for so long that they hardly noticed the sounds of the disrupted party beginning to return to normal, with hobbits beginning to laugh off the incident and recover somewhat with a few more drinks and cakes. No one seemed to know or care where the Mayor, whose party they were at, was to be found and they remained undiscovered for a good while until the flap was opened once more. The boys turned, disappointed, and saw their fathers enter. They both nodded at Sam.

"Aha!" Faramir's father cried upon seeing them. "There are the little criminals!"

"Caught them for us, Sam? Good work!" Merry said, looking down at them. "The Shiriffs will be wanting to take them off now."

Gobby's face drained of colour and he began to tremble, but Faramir was not fooled by the bluff. He was now eleven years old, a whole year older than Gobby, and far less gullible.

"Shirrifs only care about what happens on the borders," Faramir said, folding his arms. "They don't bother with things like this."

Merry raised an eyebrow, deadly serious. "They will if the Mayor, Thain and Master of Buckland ask them to."

Faramir faltered for a moment, but then shook his head. "What proof have you got?"

By way of answer, his father held up the crate in which they'd concealed the rats. He tuned it over and read the lettering underneath. "'Property of Brandy Hall. DO NOT REMOVE.' Now, I'm not sure how a crate from Brandy Hall got all the way here-"

"-but I'd hazard a guess that it may have been that large lump under the sheet on our wagon on the way over here," Merry finished, looking at Gobby. "Now, I know hobbits don't pack light, but I'm not fool enough to believe you needed that big bag and that big crate to carry everything."

This was too much for Gobby. He burst into tears and sniffed miserably. "I'm sorry, father. It was just a joke."

Faramir rolled his eyes at his friend; he always was too easy to break. But he wasn't about to stand down, and kept staring back at the two older hobbits.

"A joke like this could cause chaos!" Merry said, but his voice was more gentle seeing his son's distress. "There'll be exterminators trudging up and down Hobbiton for weeks! They'll get into the food stores, they'll nibble through doors, they'll completely take over! Do you see why this was a bad idea?"

Gobby nodded, wiping his nose, but Faramir refused to back down.

"At least neither of us ever stole mushrooms," he said, crossing his arms and smirking as he saw Merry and his father's jaws drop. Their eyes flicked to Sam.

"You traitor!"

Sam held up his hands and shrugged. "Someone would have told them sooner or later."

"Are you trying to corrupt our children?" Merry asked exasperatedly.

"Well, Mr Brandybuck, I think they're doing pretty well on their own."

"Or one is at least." Faramir's father turned to look at him, his gaze sceptical. "This was your idea, wasn't it? I know a Took scheme when I see one! Come on, you two. No more party food for you!"

Faramir said nothing, but he couldn't help stop a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. His father shook his head and just gestured for the two boys to follow them out of the tent, which they did, after a brief farewell to Sam.

Just as they were leaving the tent, Faramir could have sworn he saw a similar barely suppressed smile on his father's face.

Peace seemed to have mostly been restored outside the tent as the party had shifted down to the far end of the field away from the rats who could still be seen scavenging here and there among the debris. Hobbits could be heard toasting their good fortune as to have escaped, even from this distance. The party looked as though it could easily continue for another hour or two, but Faramir's father and Merry guided the two boys away from the party and onto the road which led to Bywater and the Green Dragon Inn where they were staying the night.

Gobby hiccupped terribly as they walked, and Faramir just rolled his eyes. It wasn't as though he had forced the other hobbit to take part. On the contrary, Gobby had been as much the mastermind behind the plot as he was! But Gobby was far more sensitive than Faramir and a perpetual worrier. He was probably just upset at the thought of no more cakes that evening. He was a typical Brandybuck when it came to food.

Their fathers said nothing as they led their wayward sons back to the inn and ushered them both inside with a feeble attempt at looking stern. The inn was empty, with all the patrons still gorging themselves at the Mayor's party. The boys were directed to sit before the dying fire and Merry disappeared for a moment and returned with some bread, cheese and water for them.

"Take that and be grateful!" he said. "By this time tomorrow the rats could have eaten everything in the Shire."

The boys did so, Gobby practically inhaling his. But Faramir still continued to stare at the other two, who sat a little bit away with some beer and seed cake, chatting jovially with each other. He narrowed his eyes.

"You didn't really once put frogs into the beds of everyone at Brandy Hall, did you?"

The other two jumped, and then glanced guiltily at each other. Faramir blinked. The thought of the two most important officials in the Shire apart from the Mayor, advisors to the King no less, acting in such a way seemed inconceivable.

"You did!"

"We were all young once," his father shrugged. "We've all done silly things."

"Yeah, you most of all, Pip," Merry said, rolling his eyes. "A certain well in Moria springs to mind."

His father frowned. "That wasn't my fault. The Orcs already knew we were there. They would've found us eventually."

"Maybe. What about the palantír?"

"Well, I didn't know what it was, did I?"

Merry exhaled, shaking his head, though he didn't look annoyed. His eyes sparkled in hidden memory.

"Sam shouldn't have told you such stories, boys," he said. "We were idiots back then, this one here most of all. I'd much rather tell you stories of all our glory down south."

Faramir groaned and rolled his eyes. "You mean stories about Gondor and Rohan and Moria and all the rest of it?"

"What, don't you like our stories?"

"We've all heard them a hundred times," Faramir muttered.

"Well, Gobby likes them, don't you?" Merry demanded, looking back at his son, who by now had ceased stuffing himself.

Gobby flushed pink and looked at his hands, which twisted in his lap. "Yes," he mumbled. "But … well you do tell them a lot."

Merry looked at the boy with an expression of betrayal and then looked back at his friend. "Imagine that, Pippin. We get chased by Black Riders, almost freeze to death on a mountain and get lost underneath it, get kidnapped by Uruks, capture Isengard from a wizard, almost get killed in battle and then liberate the Shire from Ruffians and our sons find it boring? What was the point of us going through all that if we can't boast about it now?"

"I'll have you two know that the people of Gondor think a lot more highly of us than you do," his father said in mock anger. "In fact, did you know that the people of Gondor call me-"

"-Ernil i Pheriannath," the two boys chorused dully. "Prince of the Halflings. We know."

"Oh," his father said, mouth opening and closing for a moment. He glanced at Merry. "Is there anything we haven't told them?"

Merry looked stumped for a moment. His eyes fell to the glasses of water the boys were drinking out of and they lit up. He smiled.

"Have we ever told you how we came to be the tallest of all Hobbits?"

Faramir and Gobby looked at each other a moment, slightly intrigued. "This isn't going to be something boring, is it? Were you just always tall?"

"Of course not!" Faramir's father cried. "In fact, when we set off on our quest, I was the shortest of all of us."

Faramir stared at him, unable to believe that his father, who towered over all other hobbits at an impressive four and a half feet had ever been short.

"What happened? Did the Uruks stretch you out or something?"

"No, nothing like that," Merry said. "They did give me a nasty conk on the head though," he said, fingers touching the old scar at his hairline. "This happened afterwards. When we met the Ents."

"You've told us about the Ents," Faramir said, falling back in disappointment. "Treebeard and Quickbeam and all the rest of them."

"Ah, but we've never told you about the secret Ent-Draught," Merry said, quickly glancing around as if to check they were alone. "No one knows about that."

"What is it?" Gobby asked, scraping his stool across the floor to be closer.

"It's a secret Ent drink," Faramir's father said. "It's made from the water of the Entwash and some other things as well. It was all we had to drink, and we didn't think anything of it at first."

"But when we started drinking it, we begun to notice strange things," Merry whispered. "Things very un-Hobbit like."

"Like what?" Despite himself, Faramir found himself also leaning in to hear more.

"The drink looked like water, but it tasted different," his father said, eyes lost in memory. "Such a drink you can never imagine. It felt like the lifewater of the earth itself, as if just by drinking it we were becoming part of nature."

"One of the drinks had a smell that reminded you of far off woods," Merry said, "but another was more nourishing, and the flavour was richer like the earth itself. Almost food-like. We didn't eat at all when we drank those. We didn't need to."

"We didn't notice at first," his father said, "but one day I turned around and looked at Merry and thought, 'Hold on, I'm taller than you!'"

"Something which had never happened before, I assure you," Merry said solemnly. "It puzzled us exceedingly. And even more so because the next time I looked, it was me who was taller!"

"Every time we drank those draughts, we grew," Faramir's father said. "Not too much at first, but little by little, so little that we barely noticed."

"Then before we knew it, we had grown several inches taller!" Merry announced. "We could probably ride horses now if we wanted."

"Even Frodo and Sam noticed the first time we saw them again," his father nodded. "It was one of the first things they said to us. And they'd just come from Mordor and had a whole host of other things on their minds."

"Are you really saying that a drink made you grow taller?" Faramir asked. He looked into their faces, trying to see if they were pulling some sort of prank on them, but both their faces were deadly serious. "That's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible with Ents," Merry said wisely. "They're the oldest things in Middle Earth, save perhaps Tom Bombadil. These draughts are what help Entings to grow."

"Entings?"

"Baby Ents," his father said. "And don't laugh at me, boy. I'm not making this up. It's a true as the nose on my face. There haven't been any Entings in a long time though."

"Why's that?"

"They lost the Ent-Wives."

Faramir looked between the two hobbits, a laugh threatening to burst out of him at any moment. "You're trying to trick me, aren't you? How could they lose Ent-Wives?"

"That's a long story," Merry said, "one so long Treebeard never managed to finish telling us it. He just asked us to keep an eye out for them."

"Did they try looking for them?"

"Oh, yes. For a long time. There's plenty of songs written about it."

"What do they look like?" Gobby asked, utterly drawn in.

"Treebeard couldn't remember," his father said with a frown, "but I'd imagine they look very much like Ents. Almost tree-like."

"And where are these Ent-Wives supposed to be hiding?" Faramir asked, unimpressed. "The Southfarthing? Buckland?"

"Actually," Merry said with a grin, "they might be."

"What?"

"Sam's cousin Hal Gamgee said he saw a walking tree in the Northfarthing once," his father said. "Everyone laughed at him. But …"

"You never know," Merry said, winking at them. "Maybe it was an Ent."

"Or maybe it was a tree," Faramir said. "Trees don't walk."

"I'm shocked at your son, Pippin," Merry said, turning to his friend in despair. "Have you never told him about the Old Forest and Old Man Willow?"

"I most certainly have," his father said with a frown. "I wasn't about to let myself be near squashed in half by a tree for nothing. Everyone knows the Old Forest is queer. The trees are angry with the hobbits who used to cut them down, and they'll attack anyone that tries to walk through."

"That's just a story," Faramir said, though more uncertainly than before.

"The High Hedge is there for a reason, young Faramir," Merry said to him severely. "Folks are still scared of that place."

"Exactly," his father nodded. "That Forest is exactly why Bucklanders are thought to be so queer." He ignored a jab in the ribs by Merry and continued. "If there are any Ent-Wives around, that's probably where they'll be."

"So next time you're close by, keep an eye out, and you never know what you'll see," Merry said, tapping the side of his face knowingly. "Trees do more than you think they do."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Faramir said, folding his arms, certain now that his father and Merry were having him on. Walking trees? Ent-Wives in the Shire? It was ridiculous!

The two older hobbits just exchanged another look and laughed. Faramir said nothing more to either of them as they cleared away the remnants of their meagre meal. Merry soon left to go back to the party and find the rest of their families, their mothers and Gobby's sister and let them know where they were. Faramir's father remained behind to watch the two delinquents and soon ordered them to bed.

As his father dimmed the light in the little room the two boys were sharing, Faramir looked back at him.

"It isn't really true, is it?" he asked quietly, trying not to awaken Gobby in the next bed who had fallen unconscious as soon as his head hit the pillow. "Ent-Draughts and Ent-Wives and all of it."

His father laughed softly and perched himself on the end of the bed. He smoothed some of Faramir's wayward brown curls away from his face.

"I wouldn't lie to you, my boy. It's all true." He leaned closer, a mischievous grin on his face. "If you were to find an Ent-Wife, it'd be the greatest discovery of the age. Maybe devote some more time to that than crawling around looking for rats. Tooks are adventurers, after all."

Faramir pondered this for a long while after his father had left the room. He turned over in his bed, drawing the bedclothes closer together and listened to the distant sounds of the party. Find an Ent-Wife? It sounded utterly ridiculous.

But then he thought of what would happen if he did find one. His name would be as famous as his father's. Maybe he'd even finally be allowed to go with his father when he visited the King! He could be an explorer like Bilbo, or a hero like Frodo, maybe even a Knight of Gondor like his father. He'd be most famousest of hobbits; a Took to be remembered.

Faramir slowly drifted off to sleep, and that night, his dreams were filled with images of walking trees, of faces in bark and branches which subtly shifted into limbs the more you looked at them.

He would find an Ent-Wife.

A/N: Thanks for reading!