A/N This is just a cute little one-shot that I created for my friend last year. I hope you enjoy it. Please, let me know what you think.

Pippin's 7th Birthday:

Seven year old Peregrin (Pippin) Took, wandered through his cousin’s house. It was his birthday and he was upset that no one seemed to remember. His cousin, Merry, was doing chores that he was required to complete, and he didn’t have time to play with the energetic child. So Pippin played "imaginary" with himself. Right now he was an elf warrior hunting an evil orc.

Pippin pranced throughout his Aunt Esmeralda’s and Uncle Saradoc’s house stalking the evil creature. Pippin made his way into the kitchen. The orc was going to steal his Aunt Esmeralda’s apple pie! He couldn’t let that happen! His aunt had worked hard on that pie!

Pippin lashed out at the orc with something that looked like an odd combination between immature elf hand-to-hand combat and a person drowning. The orc, regardless of the wonderful fighting technique, escaped. Pippin wasn’t going to give up though. He followed the orc. Suddenly he saw a butter knife on the counter. If he could reach the knife, the orc would surely perish! Pippin stretched as far as he could trying to reach the knife. Being so short made it nearly impossible for him to reach. After a few minutes of strenuous stretching he was able to grasp the tiny hilt of the butter knife. Pippin sprang after the orc with the butter knife waving above his head.

The orc ran into the living room, and Warrior Pippin had no choice but to follow. Pippin sprinted into the living room. When Pippin entered, Merry was cleaning the bookshelves. As Merry heard Pippin’s loud footsteps he turned to tell his younger cousin to play somewhere else while he cleaned. At that time Merry also saw the shining knife clenched in his cousin’s hand.

"Pippin! Put that knife down now!" Merry screamed. Pippin was frightened and jumped, dropping the knife. He let out a scream as the knife scraped his foot. Tears came from his eyes and he fell to the floor in agony. His foot was in so much pain!

~*~*~*~*~

Pippin was lying in bed. His Aunt was sitting on the side prodding his foot. Pippin eyes were tear-stained, he had been crying when his foot was hurt. It was better now though, because it had been cleaned and his Aunt had wrapped it in bandages. However, he wasn’t able to walk for the rest of the day. What a wonderful way to start your birthday! What was worse was that Merry couldn’t play, he still had chores to do. Poor Pippin was going to be alone all day! That was 24 hours! That was... 1440 minutes which was... 86400 seconds! At least some of the day was over though. It wouldn’t be exactly that long! But still...!

"Pippin, why were you carrying that knife?" Aunt Esmeralda asked.

Pippin said, "I had to kill the orc, Auntie!"

Aunt Esmeralda sighed and asked Pippin if he had succeeded. Pippin said that he had with a wide grin. He was proud of himself. He had saved the apple pie and that orc definitely was trying to kill Cousin Merry! It was a good thing that Warrior Pippin prevailed.

"Get some sleep Pippin." Aunt Esmeralda said as she began to sing to Pippin. Within a few moments, he was sound asleep.

~*~*~

Pippin was awakened by a hand shaking his shoulder. It was Merry. He said that he had finished his chores and that if he wanted to they could play downstairs. Pippin rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, ignoring his cousin. Merry had forgotten him. He didn’t remember his birthday! This was the worst birthday ever! His foot had a hole in it, Merry didn’t get to play with him at all, and no one said Happy Birthday! Not even his parents. Pippin felt forgotten. Merry noticed that something was wrong with his cousin.

"Pippin what’s wrong? Don’t you want to play?"

"Don’t you know what today is, Merry! It’s my birthday! And no one said ‘Happy Birthday!’ No one!" Pippin sobbed. Merry then began to understand. Merry told Pippin to come downstairs with him and Pippin hesitantly let Merry pick him up (his foot was still in pain).

They went down the stairs very slowly, because Merry didn’t want to jar his cousin’s foot. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Merry turned a corner.

"SURPRISE!"

All of Pippin’s family and friends were stuffed into the tiny kitchen. There were tons of little presents on the table and covered in massive amounts of icing was a cake that spelled out, "Happy 7^th Birthday, Pippin."

Pippin’s father and Uncle approached the stunned child. His father carried him to the table with the presents. There were ones wrapped in blue, and some in red, some were in yellow, purple, and even orange. The kitchen was an array of all the colors in the rainbow.

"We decided to break tradition this year. This year we are giving presents to the birthday boy," said his father, Paladin Took. Pippin was ecstatic. He had so many gifts to open! He dove into the large pile and began opening his presents. He got so many things, but his favorite was a sculpture of an elf. It was from Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo said that his human friend had carved it, but the tiny figurine looked so much like elven work! When asked about it, Bilbo merely explained that his friend was raised by elves.

After that, the party dove into the cake. By the end of the party, everyone’s face was stuffed with brown icing. But unfortunately, everyone had to leave after that. Pippin’s parents allowed their son to remain at his cousin’s house for the weekend. As Pippin was carried back up to bed he decided that this was definitely the best birthday ever, except for the throbbing foot. He supposed that was not part of the plan.