“’Ey! Look who’s here!”
Diamond looked up into a nearby tree, one of the very few that hadn’t been felled.

“Merry, is that you?”
Surely enough, lighted upon a high tree branch was Meriadoc, waving with one hand and holding shakily onto the branch with the other.
“Yeah, right as rain it’s me. Up here getting a better look. Care to join me?”
Diamond smiled and began finding footholds on knots going up the trunk. Merry gave her a hand up and soon they were both seated on the branch, overlooking the Shire. Merry, still holding her hand, bent his head to kiss it.
“A wonderful pleasure to see you again, M’Lady.”
Immediately, Diamond pulled her hand away as if Merry carried the plague, laughing.
“Merry, your charms are best saved for someone else.”
Merry chuckled and nudged her softly.
“Well heaven knows she had better show up pretty soon; I’m getting impatient after all these years.”
Diamond smiled.
“It’s good to have you back, Merry,” she said. “It’s certainly been a long time.”
Merry nodded in a solemn sort of way.
“We had better get down there; Sam’s waiting,” Merry pointed out. Diamond nodded and nimbly began her descent down the tree.
With Merry, it was another story.
Dismounting from the tree branch, his foot slipped, making him slide off the branch, only to have him catch himself on another branch by his hands, which gave enough forward swinging momentum to make him successfully crash land into Sam. No injuries where sustained, except that of Merry’s shin, the target point of Sam’s well timed kick. Eventually though, the three continued on.

Frodo stood up, wiping sweat away from his forehead and rolling his sleeves up a little more. He stared down at the stubborn, old, rotten stump he and Pippin had appointed themselves to removing. Unfortunately, the stump seemed quite happy where it was and had no intention of leaving. Once again, Frodo bent down and pushed with all his might on the more protruded end of the stump. No such luck.
“Pip? Are you even pushing over on that side?”
Silence.
Frodo walked around to the other side of the stump.
“Pip? Pippin? Where did you get off to?”
No sign of Pippin. Frodo shrugged and was about to go back to work on the stump when he eyed the three coming towards him. He walked forward to greet them.
“Frodo! We dragged Diamond ‘ere as well!”

Frodo smiled.
“It’s good to see you, Diamond...we certainly have a lot to catch up on.”
Diamond nodded, smiling. “Yes, I’m sure there will be many days exchanging--”

She stopped short as her vision was cut out; the world around her substituted with darkness. Her mind sort of blanked out; she knew this had happened before, she knew exactly what it was, but she was at a loss as to what she was supposed to do next. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly gone dry.

“Pippin, if you think all your adventuring gave you experience in quietly sneaking up on someone, you are quite erroneous.”

Pippin slowly withdrew his hands as she turned around. They both looked at each other. Diamond extended her hand.

“So, you’re finally back, Pippin....I’ve missed you.” The words sounded too icy to her.

Pippin accepted her hand and merely bowed his head over it momentarily, fearing a kiss, even a soft one, would be too much.

“It’s a pleasure to be back.”