Merry swallowed the draught supplied by the Ent, Treebeard, and felt refreshed for the first time since the battle in the woods. Since seeing Boromir fall. He sighed to himself and his brief moment of peaceful rest twisted into sadness again.
"Do you know, I think we're taller."
He blinked and looked over at Pip. "Hmm?" Beyond them the Ents were saying and talking to each other in their low, creaking, rustling language, and Merry and Pip were left to their own devices as the moot continued.
Pip gestured at himself, straightening. "I'm taller. I could swear it. And this." He shook out his hair, and Merry noticed with a sudden wry sort of amusement that his hair was longer.
"You look like a girl."
"I do not!" Pip humphed at him. "Anyway, it's happened to you, too. I think we'll find ourselves an inch taller, maybe, when we leave here."
"And inch? We'd be the tallest hobbits in the Shire." Merry smiled faintly.
"So we would." Pip took another sip of the Ent draught. "It's the drink doing it. Treebeard said it would keep us green and growing. Maybe he didn't realize hobbits aren't meant to grow more than this."
Merry humphed, looking down at the pitcher he held. It was a good drink, and...
He stopped suddenly, staring down at it in a rather miserable realization. It made them bigger. He could hear Boromir in his head suddenly. "If only you weren't such a small race, I wouldn't notice the differences as much."
He sighed and set the pitcher down, his appetite gone.
"Merry." Pip moved o sit beside him. "You've got to stop this. You can't stay lost in despair. We'll likely die in this war ourselves, and then what's the good of having lived your last days in mourning?"
"If you're right then what's the good of living any way at all?" Merry sighed and curled his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees and watching the Ents sway. "I don't know what's wrong with me, Pip. Only that he came to mean so much to me somehow."
"Sounds like you were in love, cousin. But not for the first time, if I remember right. And maybe not for the last."
Merry frowned, because it was for the first time. He'd used the word before, of course, all silly young besotted hobbits talked about love with whatever girl had caught their fancy. That didn't make it true. He'd certainly never felt the grasping, needy, painful feeling that Boromir caused with anyone else. Or the sheer delight, and fascination, and the need to make everything better somehow.
"I don't want to talk about it," Merry said finally. "It's too painful."
"Very well," Pip said with a sigh. "Then I'll sit here and sulk with you."
And he did.