A/n: Wow! Inspiration at last! It's 1:23 in the morning, and I'm watching LotR music videos (again!), and I began to think...a frightening thing, to be sure. But be glad that I was thinking, because it gave be an idea for this one shot...
I gaze as the figure of Gandalf on Shadowfax retreated to the plains of Rohan. The majestic white horse tears through the grasses and weeds. The sound of his hooves seems so far away already. If the Fellowship was broken before, it is surely shattered now. Gandalf is taking Pippin far away, Frodo and Sam is somewhere in the east, Boromir is gone, and the rest of us are trapped in Edoras.
Pippin...why did you have to reveal yourself to the Enemy? Why did you make Gandalf have to capture you? Now I am all alone. You are always doing that, it seems. You have always been the careless one of our hobbit group. Frodo the brave, Sam the loyal, Pippin the funny, and Merry the... Merry the what?
I look around me, at the homes, at the stables, at the Golden Hall. I don't belong here in this world of Men. I feel stranded. Not only do I have nothing to offer in our group, I have nothing to offer here, in this country ridden with war. Merry the stranded. And I can't leave.
But...what can I do? Everyone left in the Fellowship is contributing to the war, and what am I doing? Just existing. Taking up space. An empty shell. That's not right! Where is the Merry from the old days, the Shire days? The happy days. Where is the Merry who was always by Pip's side, plotting to pull some foolish prank? He is worthless now, a shadow of the old Merry.
Restlessness seizes me. I need to do something, or else I shall go mad! I need to do something that will give me a purpose. I guess that's what I'm searching for. An identity.
Well, I suppose one won't come strolling by, looking for me. I have to find it! I smile inwardly. "That's using your hobbit-sense!" Mr. Bilbo would say. I have a quest now, just like Frodo. I refuse to be Merry the stranded. Merry the existing. Merry the empty.
So what am I now?
Merry the seeking.