By: Dana
Summary: A look at hobbits and death.
Characters: Sam, Merry, Pippin, Frodo
Pairings: None
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: A look at hobbits and death, expanding on moments or creating moments of their own. A set of four 100-word drabbles. Set through the quest, the first in FotR, and all the others in RotK.
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema. Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

Wrong

It really didn't hit him until they'd left the darkness of Moria, when the light seemed faded and bitter and the loss of Gandalf weighed upon them all. And Sam realised that he had killed, with his own blade, and it felt... wrong.

"I don't think we were meant for something so big," Sam said to Frodo, with a sad sort of frown. "If you know what I'm saying, sir. It doesn't seem right to take life, when the proper is to give."

And there was nothing that Frodo could say to that when Sam had said it all himself.

Fate

Merry guessed that this was something that was simply meant to be; after all, if it was not meant to be, then he would not be in this place, at this time, and she would not need him now. And Merry knows that he cannot leave owyn alone.

Perhaps, then, this is fate.

So he lifts his sword up, and in that moment, stabs forwards, through the mantle of the Witch King. And no matter what comes, next, he knows at least that owyn will not die alone.

And he wouldn't know what to think, to know that he's failed.

Thought

Was this what it felt like to die?

Pain at first, mindless crushing, but Pippin knew that he was beyond that now; he drifted instead, in a great numb darkness, where there was no end and there was no beginning.

Pippin wondered if Merry was dead, as well, because it didn't seem right to leave this world, with Merry left behind; and Merry would not forgive him, and if there was something that Pippin wanted, it most certainly wasn't that.

"The Eagles are coming! The Eagles are coming!"

There was only thought left, and it was time to say goodbye.

Unsaid

It felt rather strange to Frodo, to wake when he had been certain that he would never wake again; and he would think back, to the last moments, of facing darkness and death and fire, and being saved on the wings of a dream.

"Sam?"

"Yes, master?"

"I suppose this all seems peculiar, to you."

"I thought so, at first, but it just seems right, if you know what I mean."

"It's still a bit strange, to me."

The world had changed too much, facing death; and being alive just didn't seem right. And some things are better left unsaid.