Chapter 1

Frodo was walking with the King on a lower street in Minas Tirith near the city gates when he saw her for the first time.

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Ever watchful of Frodo since his recovery from the near-mortal wounds he had suffered in Mordor Aragorn, now King of Gondor, frequently accompanied the Ringbearer on his restless wanderings about the city.

The King saw Frodo’s isolation and pain but all his skills as a healer could only bring this, the greatest hero of Middle Earth, small comfort. Some hurts ran too deeply for any skill of men or elves to heal. And Aragorn cursed his failure to ease the sufferings of one who deserved so much more.

Hence, as often as his duties allowed, Aragorn kept close to Frodo’s side, ready at any instant to bring what small relief he could of the agony Frodo suppressed but which emerged to overpower him far too frequently.

Aragorn was beginning to despair.

Frodo, though brave and uncomplaining, was slipping away from him and from all his friends into what dark torments, Aragorn could only barely imagine in his worst nightmares.

What had happened to this once lively and joyous young Hobbit? He had gone knowingly into grave peril a vital, glowing being. Now, though he retained a memory of his former radiance, Frodo was a sad, lost, yet valiant , terribly fragile survivor of some horror he could not or would not share . He bore his inner torment with fortitude and always the sense that he must not burden his friends with his sufferings.

The savior of Middle Earth had survived things unimaginable and unspoken. He carried it all within himself and refused to let others have more than the briefest glimpse of what threatened to consume him. To devour him whole and piteously. He covered it all with a kind, protective, sad smile and words of reassurance that his friends saw through immediately yet would not contradict in risk of threatening Frodo’s dignity. His slender grasp onto life and sanity.

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Twilight was falling with deep violet shadows upon the white walls of the city. The first bright stars were appearing in the clear deep blue sky above. A sky that only weeks before had been blackly tainted by the gasping , noxious fumes of Mordor and the stench of death and putrefaction of war. Now much of the reminders of the battles had been cleared away and the walls were being rebuilt. Minas Tirith was regaining all of it’s former beauty and grandeur and it’s people were recovering from their wounds and losses and were feeling a joy that had been withheld from them by the Dark Lord for far too long.

Some though, would carry deep and abiding scars of what they had suffered.

Frodo bore wounds both internally and externally that no one else could fathom.

Yet others had suffered terribly as well.

As Frodo and Aragorn wordlessly turned to ascend back towards the upper reaches of the city a long line of darkly cloaked and hooded people emerged from the archway before them. Few of their faces were visible since most looked downwards and seemed weighed down by pains and vast sadness. Frodo felt it as a palpable thing in the deepening shadows around them. And that silent anguish was answered from within his own heart.

“Aragorn, who are they?” He asked in a whisper.

“They are the Black Elves.”

“I have never heard of them. And they are not as tall as elves nor do they seem as stately. Surely something grave has befallen them.”

“Grave indeed. They were prisoners of Sauron. Some captured long ago and held and tormented by him in the dungeons and torture chambers of the Black Tower. A few even had the misfortune to be born in Mordor and have known no other life till now. Though all did their best to cling to their fair ways and lineage you can well imagine that much was lost.”

“Yes. I can imagine it.......Too well.” Frodo said with a deep sigh filled with memories he wished would leave him but haunted him constantly.

“I’m sorry, Frodo... To make you recall......” Aragorn said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“It’s all right. I am learning to bear it.” But Frodo felt weakened and slightly ill as he tried to suppress his flood of dark thoughts.

He and Aragorn had stopped to let the line of Black Elves pass.

It was then that one hooded face looked up. It was a she-elf. Only half her face was visible and that still in shadow. Frodo only saw a dark slightly slanted eye above a pale angular cheek. She was not tall by elvish standards more the size of dwarf women or teen-aged humans.

She halted and stepped out of line towards him. Then to Frodo’s amazement and embarrassment she knelt before him and kissed the hem of his dark cloak.

“Ringbearer.” She said in a reverent, low voice that broke with emotion and tears.

“Please, don’t.” Frodo told her. He did not feel worthy of anything like reverence. Yet, now this happened all too often. The people of Gondor often stopping him and bowing so and thanking him. He felt terribly uncomfortable with it. And now an elf was doing this thing. An elf. It was nearly too much for him to take. “Please...get up. Please stop.”

“Ringbearer. We live because of you. When the Dark Lord fell we escaped to this world that we feared no longer existed .” She said still kneeling before him.

‘I am glad you escaped......But please...do get up.”

She did not seem to hear him or she could not obey his request out of her respect and gratitude.

Again she kissed the hem of his cloak.

“Ringbearer. We owe you our lives. Only... can you tell me?”

“Tell you what, My Lady?”

“HOW to live? I fear I do not know how to do this new thing. To live in a clean land without pain and fear. I do not know how. Tell me how?”

Frodo was choking back his own tears. How could he answer such a question?

Since she would not rise he knelt down in front of her and took her hands which she held clenched before her. She looked into his face and though he could still see only one half of it her eyes appealed to him for help.

He swallowed the sorrow in his throat.

“I cannot tell you how to do this. I do not know how to live any longer. Yet we must. We have gained a new ......... a new.... chance to live. Though we may not have expected it. I did not expect to live and yet here I am faced with the same problem. Do not give up. We must try to find a way to go on with what has been given to us.”

Aragorn knelt beside them both.

“Frodo,” he said. “They are going to Lothlorien to be healed and to relearn who they are. Then perhaps some will return to their own lands.... Mirkwood, Rivendell or journey over the Sea.”

“Can they be healed?”

“Time alone will tell. But Lothlorien is a place of light and health, thought it fades still. Nowhere else can so much good be done for them.”

“Go then. Go with your people and find peace.” Frodo told her.

She nodded.

“What is your name?”

“Earinii.”

“It is a form of Earendil, the star of the elves.”

“Yes.”

Frodo reached inside his cloak to a pocket sewn within it’s folds and drew out the star glass of Galadriel.

“This. It contains the light of Earendil. The Lady Galadriel gave it to me and it saw me through great darkness.

“The Star Glass!” Earenii said with awe.

“ I would give it to you but Galadriel insisted it be mine and I fear I need it still.”

“I could not dream of taking such a thing. No it is your’s alone, Ringbearer.”

“But let it remind you of who you are and where you come from. For you , too, are a creature of beauty and light.”

“I have never known these things.... till now.”

“But you are learning and will learn much more in the Fair Land to which you are headed. Look! Your people are far ahead of you. Go now and catch them up. Go and .... and try to find happiness.”

Again she bowed low before him.

“Ringbearer.” she repeated with a note of gladness and obedience to his wishes in her voice.

Then she rose and Frodo noted with a pang that though she tried to walk rapidly to rejoin the line of elves she walked haltingly as if great pains assailed her body. Then she drew herself up and with brave resolution , inhaling deeply to ease her suffering , she walked off.

At length, long after the Black Elves had gone out of the range of their sight Frodo and Aragorn returned with sadness of heart to the upper reaches of the White City.

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TBC

Two

The road home was long and filled with emotion and bittersweet partings.

By the time the dwindling Fellowship neared the Gap of Rohan they had buried King Theoden in Edoras. Legolas and Gimli had gone their way to visit the Glittering Caves and Fangorn.

The remaining travelers visited the ruins of Isengard , now, already becoming a garden spot due to the swift and dedicated work of the Ents, then bid farewell to Treebeard.

Now Aragorn was soon to return to his throne and wife in Gondor.

This distressed Frodo because, selfishly, he told himself, he needed Aragorn’s empathetic company and counsel. It seemed that more than the others the King knew how badly Frodo was really feeling despite the brave front he put on. Frodo felt he could tell Aragorn things he could say to no other. Even...even... about..... Cirth Ungol. The truth that not even Sam knew and Frodo would never tell him. If Sam knew he would blame himself and Frodo didn’t want to burden Sam anymore than he had already.

At times Frodo had almost told Aragorn but could never bring himself to say the words. So, Frodo assumed , all blame for Frodo’s suffering was laid upon the effect the Ring had had on him.

Oh, and it had nearly destroyed him! Its scars ran deeper than any other . It still filled his mind and ate away at his heart. He still regretted that he had claimed it and not really succeeded in destroying it himself. And he still craved it and loathed it at the same time. That would be more than enough to drive anyone mad.

But there was more....

Aragorn watched Frodo closely and regretted that he must leave him.

Frodo looked well. TOO well. He had taken to keeping himself fastidiously clean. As if the imbedded filth of Mordor and the poison of the Ring could never be cleansed from his person. He looked princely in his grand, yet somber Gondorian clothing and would not allow a spot to stain them. And at every chance Frodo washed his hands and face and sought out all opportunities to bathe the rest of himself in seclusion.

Frodo looked regal, and immaculate and immeasurably sad.

Aragorn found Gandalf at his side.

“He will never be the same.” Gandalf said.

“No. And he keeps much to himself. He has not told all of what befell him, I fear. It worries me that I must leave him. Watch him, Gandalf.”

“I have been, and I will. You must return to your duties as King. Frodo will be in good hands. He has friends that will never desert him. And he has me. And Elrond who is also much aware of our Ringbearer’s pains.”

Aragorn nodded.

“Yet, will all that be enough?”

“My dear, Aragorn, I do not think there is anything or anyone in Middle Earth that will be powerful enough to cure all that ails Frodo. And that is the greatest tragedy of this great war. And one that far too few will ever acknowledge or even notice.”

“Yes. Watch him, Gandalf.” Aragorn repeated.

Gandalf rested his arm on the King’s shoulders reassuringly.

“Go. Return to your land and your bride.”

Aragorn would not depart till he had a last talk with Frodo.

Frodo was standing apart from the group of travelers, as he did far too often, and seemed lost in thought as he gazed of into the West.

Aragorn knelt down beside him.

“What are you thinking of, my friend?”

“The sea. When other things do not fill my mind it is what I often think of. It’s freshness. None of the taint of anything that has ever come upon our world.”

“Still this world has become a good place now. And in no small way is this because of all you endured.”

Frodo shook his head.
“I played only a small and very flawed role in all that has happened.”

“Frodo. Will you ever credit yourself with what it is you have done?”

“I only did what I could. Others did far more than I.”

“No, Frodo. No. No one did more than you.”

Frodo tried to meet Aragorn’s eyes but had to turn tearfully away.

‘That is not true.” he murmured.

Aragorn gripped Frodo’s shoulders and turned him to face him.

“In all your pain, allow yourself this one thing. That what you set out to accomplish was done. Not one of us did anything without flaw or error. But we did what we needed to do and Sauron is defeated. The Ring was destroyed. You carried it through horror, and thirst, starvation and pain. You got it to the brink of the fires of Mount Doom and it WAS destroyed. And that could never have been done by anyone other than you. It is why you were chosen.”

Frodo could not speak.

“Will you allow yourself this one comfort, Frodo?”

“I will try.” Frodo managed to say, at last.

Aragorn watched him steadily and with unabated concern.

“Is there anything else you would tell me before I must leave?”

Frodo looked as if on the brink of saying something but then he pulled it back within himself.

“Only that I will miss you, Aragorn. Otherwise I will be fine.”

Aragorn did not believe the last part of Frodo’s statement in the least. But he respected Frodo’s dignity and that whatever it was that troubled him he could not yet reveal.

“I will miss you, Frodo. Be well. Be happy.”

Three

As the travelers route wound along the feet of the Misty Mountains and the time drew near to bid farewell to Galadriel and Celeborn Frodo found his thoughts dwelling frequently on the strange Black Elves. They should have been in Lorien for several weeks now. Had Eariin and the others found any relief from their suffering. To think of someone else’s pains helped him keep his own in perspective. He hated to think how enwrapped in his dark memories and wounds he could become and it took so much of his strength to fight these off and the self-pity he loathed. He had not been the only one damaged in the War of the Ring. Numberless others would also carry deep scars for the remainder of their lives.

Late at night during the week that they tarried within sight of the Mountains of Moria Frodo would lie awake for hours after Sam, Merry and Pippin and gone off to sleep. While they snored softly nearby Frodo lay there watching the stars in the high black sky above. The vastness of the heavens reminded him how very small he was and how little in the endless stream of time anything he had done really meant. Did it mean anything at all?

Pippin coughed and snuffled in his sleep and turned over and resumed snoring contentedly.

Yes. It meant something now. It meant his friends could return home and live happy productive lives. Some of the sorrow of the elves had been eased now that the darkness was driven back. And those who had been freed from slavery and unknown torment in Mordor had a new chance to find some joy in life. He hoped they would.

Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn were, as was their wont each night, sitting beneath the trees further off in long quiet conversation. Only the faint glimmer that always surrounded them told him where they sat. Others would only see them as star-shimmer reflected on grass, leaf and bough.

Frodo arose quietly and stole nearer to the Wise Ones. For a long while he stood listening to their soft fair voices speaking of things far beyond his ken. At length Galadriel drew away from the group and glided soundlessly towards him.

As he was always in her presence, Frodo felt very shy and awed by her unsurpassed beauty and radiance. He could not look up at her.

She reached out her long, elegant hand upon which Nienna glowed and she lightly touched his chin and tipped his head upwards so that he had to meet her eyes.

“We have not often spoken since the fall of the Dark One, Ringbearer. Yet there is much I would
share with you. Much comfort I would give you if I were able. If there were more time. But my time here his ending and yours......... Perhaps it is ending as well.”

“ I wish only to return home and try to live in peace. If I can.”

“Yes.” she said, but her voice was grave and sad. “You wish to ask me something?”

“I do. I wish to ask you of the Black Elves. Will you see them when you return to Lorien?

“I shall. They need much care to regain what they have lost.”

“Look after them. I chanced to meet them... or rather one of them as they left Minas Tirith. They seemed so crushed by whatever befell them in Mordor. But they fought to hold onto their dignity... to themselves. I think that more than anyone else I feel a kinship with them that only those who have been prisoners in the Black Land can share. I... felt it. Knew it.... when Eariin spoke to me. Please help them recover the best that you can.”

“We would do so with or without your wish. But because of your request, Ringbearer, I shall personally see to their needs. And I shall seek out Eariin especially, to aid her and tell her of your concern.”

Galadriel gazed down at him.

“Perhaps you will meet her again to see for yourself if our care has been of benefit to her.”

“Will I? I would be glad to do so.”

“Watch for her.” Galadriel said with her most knowing smile.

“Rest now, Frodo. I know dark thoughts haunt you still. But there may be a future for you that you cannot possibly now foresee. A life beyond your pain. Do not give up hope.”

Galadriel’s reassurance comforted him more than any words yet spoken to him and that night he slept soundly and long for the first time in many weeks.

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TBC

Rivendell. It was good to see the place and dear Bilbo again. It was healing and peaceful but somehow very sad in a quiet way that told of the passing of the Elves and the end of an age that Middle-earth would never see again. It seemed a place that was falling asleep and drifting away on graceful dreams.

Frodo understood this. He was drifting away, too. But not all his dreams were graceful, although their darkness was diminished by residing for a time in this place where the peace of an ancient people filled the earth, the sky, the flowing waters, and the gentle air. Long after the elves were gone that peace would still be there and only a greater and darker evil than they had faced could possibly begin to overwhelm it. He hoped that would never happen. Surely the evil of Sauron could not be repeated.

The evil.

“Mr. Frodo?” Sam’s voice broke into Frodo’s wandering thoughts . Frodo smiled. Sam would always call him Mr. Frodo, no matter what they had passed through together. Some things would never change and that made him glad.

“What is it, Sam?”

Sam sat next to Frodo on the parapet over-looking the whispering waters far below. The mist from the falls filled the rose-tinted air and a rainbow shimmered ephemerally behind Sam’s head. For a moment the beauty of it took Frodo’s breath away. It looked so ‘right’. Sam belonged to Middle-earth and all its simple glories. Sam belonged.

“What are you thinkin’ , Mr. Frodo?” Sam asked with his perpetual look of concern for Frodo in his dear, honest eyes.

Sam belonged.

“I’m not thinking of anything in particular, Sam. Or of everything.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, but you’ve been thinkin’ far too much, of late. Come down to hear the singin’ in the Hall of Fire. It’s more wonderful than ever now. I don’t think I will ever get enough of listening to the elves sing.”

Dear Sam. Didn’t he know the elves were leaving? That their voices would fade away and never be heard again. Sam knew but he didn’t feel it the way Frodo did. And Frodo couldn’t bear to diminish any of Sam’s joy that he so plainly felt amongst the elves.

“Perhaps I shall come down to the Hall in awhile, Sam.”

“You should. You’re alone almost all the time. Keepin’ to yourself. It isn’t good for you, Mr. Frodo. “

“I will come down soon.”

Frodo thought that Sam would now leave and go to join the gathering in the Hall but Sam didn’t move and seemed to lapse into a thoughtful mood as he too gazed upon the restful beauty that surrounded them.

“It’s right nice here...... “Sam said after a while, “but it isn’t home, is it? Not our home, is it?”

Frodo found he could not answer that question. Home? Where would he ever feel at home again? The peace of the elves and that sense of latent, but tranquil sadness that permeated the very air here seemed more suited to Frodo’s state of mind and heart now than anywhere he had been since they escaped from Mordor. Frodo wondered if he would fit in at all once they returned to the Shire.

Sam took Frodo’s silence as agreement.

“I’ll be so glad to see my Gaffer and ....you know...... “ Sam blushed a vivid red and Frodo knew what he was about to say, “Rosie.”

“I know, Sam.” Frodo said with that distant smile that said he was happy for Sam but that he felt this from someplace far away.

“There must be someone you’d like to see again when you get home, Mr. Frodo?”

“Oh.........everyone, I suppose.”

“Now, you know what I mean. somebody special. For YOU, Sir. What about that Miss Biddy Bracegirdle that you danced with all night at Mr. Bilbo’s Big Party? Don’t tell me you didn’t fancy her. She certainly fancied YOU, Mr. Frodo.”

“Biddy.............? I’d...forgotten. And I imagine Biddy has forgotten about me, as well.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Frodo . She always had her cap set on you. Didn’t you know that?”
Frodo found he could barely recall such things. They were like things that had happened to someone else. He knew that things like this had mattered to him, once, but rarely entered his thoughts now.

“I’m sure she has found herself someone more suitable than me, by now, Sam.”

“More suitable than, YOU? Mr. Frodo! Who in all the Shire could THAT possibly be?”

Anyone, Sam, anyone. Frodo thought, but did not say out loud. What could a sweet, jolly, innocent hobbit-lass like Biddy Bracegirdle possibly have in common with him now. He wasn’t the same anymore. He was .......... tainted. Yes. That was the word. Tainted. By a kind of poison no girl of the Shire could ever comprehend. The things that had happened to him and within him set Frodo some place so far off from anything an average Hobbit would ever know. Somewhere that was so remote and where he was very, very alone.

Sam was looking at him with those worried, oh so sincere eyes of his. Even Sam didn’t see that Frodo was no longer as he once was. Even Sam who had been through ...almost....everything with him.

“C’mon, Mr. Frodo. Don’t be so hard on yourself. If Biddy don’t want you now, it’s her loss. And a silly lass she is if she isn’t waitin’ for you..... Like I hope Rosie is waiting for me.”

All Frodo could do was smile again at Sam.

“Well, I’m sure Rosie is waiting for you, Sam.”

“Oh I hope she is...”

“Don’t worry, Sam. She is. That’s one thing I’m certain of. All right let’s join the others in the Hall now, Sam.”

Frodo was ready to go and listen to the music and stories of the elves now. Only amongst them did he find a resonance with how he felt now. Only they could comprehend the way he was now. But even they did not fully know why he was so changed. No one knew about that. Everyone thought it was the aftereffects of carrying the Ring that had altered him somehow and that, with time, he would overcome what it had done to him. No. Nothing would overcome that. That was the worst thing of all. The Ring was the primary poison that tainted him and he would never truly be completely free of it but it wasn’t the only contamination that had invaded and polluted him.

“Sir, you do look pale! I bet you haven’t eaten enough again today. C’mon with you now. There’s bound to be plenty of good elvish food waitin’ downstairs. Y’know I’ve quite taken a liking to the stuff since we had nothing but lembas bread to eat for so long. Thought I’d come to hate it but I never did. And the elves, they could teach even the best cook in the Shire a thing or two about good cookin.”

“That would be you, Sam. You’re the best cook in the Shire. I hope you are collecting recipes to bring home with you.”

“That I am, Mr. Frodo.”

****************************************
The elves had actually asked Merry and Pippin to sing another Shire song for them. The Hobbits were still viewed as an amusing novelty to those elves who had not spent long years assisting in the guarding of the Shire’s boundaries. Even those who knew Bilbo well and appreciated his efforts at more than passably composing poems of his own in elvish seemed delighted , in that subdued and very dignified elvish, way by the joyous, youthful performances of Peregrin and Meriadoc.

They weren’t dancing on the table this time but were re-enacting a local Hobbiton rhyme set to a jig which they energetically performed and repeated several times since they realized the elves didn’t know when the song was really over so Merry and Pip just kept going on and on.

Sam leaned toward Frodo with a slightly disapproving look on his face.

“Now I do wish they’d be done and let the elves sing their songs. That’s what I like to hear and you do too, Mr. Frodo.”

They were sitting quietly on a carved bench in the shadows on the side of the wide hall. Frodo didn’t like being in the middle of a crowd, even here in Rivendell. He felt content to just sit on the fringe of anything that was going on. He was more and more content to just sit on the boundary of life. To just be still and not feel.

To be at peace.

When he allowed himself to feel then he remembered and the memories were not of the good old days at Bag End or Brandy Hall. Those were dim distant dreams of another Hobbit, Frodo Baggins of the Shire not those of The Ringbearer, survivor of Mordor. Survivor. He had survived but Mordor had not been left behind. It travelled everywhere with him. In the dark places in his mind the memories slept and awoke only to rob him of his rest.

But for now he felt still. It was the closeness of the elves and their long acquaintance with patience and peace and the way that this filled the air of Rivendell and held the darkness at bay.

Merry and Pippin were not elves and he was beginning to wish they would end their greatly prolonged, rather loud and raucous, silly little tune.

And then they did finish!

But then Pippin piped up with.....

“Frodo knows some jolly songs! Sing something for us, Frodo!”

“Pippin......” Frodo whispered under his breath wishing he could disappear.

“Why don’t you, Mr. Frodo. You used to always be one for a good song.” Sam said, unhelpfully.
Frodo glared at him.

“No, Sam. Not you, too.” he said.

“C’mon Frodo!” Pippin called brightly.

“Pippin, it’s time to let the elves sing.” Frodo told his younger cousin, hoping that this would make the imp stop pestering him to sing.

“Oh, no, Frodo. They have all the time in the world!”

There was a ripple of soft elvish laughter at this.

“Actually I’d simply rather not, Pip.” Take the hint you rascal, please!

“You might feel better if you did, Mr. Frodo.” Sam added.

“Sam!” Frodo said in a distracted whisper. “No!”

Sam got that resigned ‘ I can’t do anything with him when he’s like this’ look on his face and shrugged at Pippin.

“He just doesn’t want to, Mr. Pippin.”

Pippin opened his mouth to urge Frodo on again but Merry restrained Pip with a hand on his shoulder.

“Let him be, Pip. Just let him be. It is the elves turn. We’ve wasted far too much of their time already with our silly song.”

“But Merry...” Pip protested.

“Let Frodo be.”

Bless you, Merry. Frodo thought. It was always Merry who caught the drift of Frodo’s moods and though Merry couldn’t completely grasp the depth of Frodo’s hurts he respected how he felt. Especially after Merry’s own nearly deadly encounter with the Black Breath.
Then Frodo reproached himself for again being so un-hobbity. But he couldn’t help it. He didn’t feel like a hobbit or much of anything else anymore. He just was.

He hated being so...so........ separate. But he had no idea how or even if he could change this about himself.

Pippin had decided it was wise to heed Merry and the two had wandered off in search of refreshment...again. The elves had almost imperceptibly begun their soft singing and the large space seemed to dim restfully.

Frodo sighed and leaned back closing his eyes. For awhile now he could rest.

Sam sighed too, but with the sadness that he felt so often now about his dear Master. Would Frodo ever be the same again. Somewhere in his reluctant heart Sam knew he would not.
Sam rose quietly so as not to disturb Frodo and followed Merry and Pippin.

********************************
After a time that could have been moments or hours Frodo lazily opened his eyes and as he looked across the pleasantly shadowy hall he recognized another pair of dark eyes watching his. He recognized who they belonged to instantly though he had only met their intense gaze once before. It was Earenii of the Black Elves, the long-tormented elven survivors of the dungeons of Sauron.

She was here. Galadriel must have sent her hence. Had she been healed of her grave pains in Lothlorien? He hoped fervently that she had. That healing from the horrors of the Black Land was possible, for some.

How long had she been watching him. He was certain he hadn’t seen her in the Hall before this night. She must have only just arrived.

She was simply sitting there across the Hall with her eyes fixed on his. And it did not trouble him because in her eyes was ‘knowing’. Earenii understood.

TBC

Earenii understood Frodo but he soon discovered that he did not fully know the sad elven woman’s mind.

It was long past the middle of the night and only the stars illumined the darkness of the sky above Frodo as he walked sleepless in the groves of sighing trees that climbed the slopes around Rivendell. In the deep shadows he felt that he was completely alone. Indeed none would see his small hobbit form as he moved along soundlessly. None but elvish ears and eyes could discern his prescence.

When he heard with his own sharp hobbit ears a quick, startled intake of breath he looked up to see Earenii in a clearing only a yard or two away. The starlight reflected from her slightly less than it did the elves of Rivendell but still she was elvish enough for the light to shimmer just enough about her thin, bent form for a hobbit as attuned to his surroundings as was Frodo Baggins to see clearly.

The stars also glimmered on the edges of the sharp elven knife that she clutched before her with it’s point aimed at her heart.

Then he fully understood the meaning of the look she had given him across the Hall of Fire earlier in the night. It was a look of knowing and of farewell.

Frodo did not utter a word but walked towards her , reached with his maimed hand and wrapped his nine fingers around the blade and held it firmly. She could not wield it against herself without harming him and he did not think she could do that.

Their eyes locked and for what seemed hours they remained so. Still, tense, and in total union of all that each of them were now and had been and ever would be.

“Please...” she begged him.

“Try to go on.” Frodo said. He didn’t say ‘don’t do this thing’ or ‘you will be all right if you just wait awhile’ or ’this is a selfish act’ he didn’t utter any of the platitudes or cruel rebukes others might commonly have said.

“There is no end to the pain.” she said. And it was not physical pain of which she spoke. It was a far worse soul devouring torment of the mind that was never silent, never rested nor granted a moment’s peace.

“No,” he said. “there isn’t. At times it fades but it is always present.”

“What do I do?” she implored him.

“I do not know.”

The blade fell slack in her grasp and gently Frodo took it from her and placed it on the ground.

Her hands remained held out before her as though she did not realize she could now lower them. Frodo took them in his own and gently guided her to a seat on a boulder beneath a tall elm. She allowed him to do this but she moved stiffly as though she did not know what she did or cared whether she was still or in motion.

Then Earenii did something he had never seen an elf do before. She began to weep; to sob as if her heart were rent within her. To cry as if her life’s-blood flowed out from this torn gaping wound inside her breast. This heart's-blood flowed in violent rivulets over her cheeks, lips, neck and down into the folds of her robe to return to the wound from which it had so savagely erupted.

Then he knew that his own tears were falling silently but just as full of his own heart's-pain as were her's.

When his own eyes cleared for a moment he saw what she had long hidden beneath her hood, for in her distress she had let it fall back unheeded. Her tears clung to long harsh scars that ran about her throat down beneath her robe to her chest, and up the sides of her cheeks to end in a deep dark slash beneath one eye.

He let go of one of her hands and softly ran the remains of his wounded finger along the scars on her throat.

“What did they do to you?” he whispered.

She could only shake her head.

“Tell me, for I am scarred and wounded too.”

“It was too bad...too long. I was in Mordor for hundreds of years and could not escape.”

“Hundreds............ I fear your scars are far worse than mine.”

‘No! You bore the Ring. You let it fall into the fire and with it it tore away a great part of yourself. There can be no pain greater than this.”

Frodo blanched white as the unwanted memories flooded back as they did so very easily so many times.

“I will not compare my own suffering to another’s. It is not fair to deny you your own torments that so haunt you still.” he said in gasps as he fought the agony the memories brought with them.

“How do we live with this?” She pleaded for an answer and Frodo had none with which to comfort her.

Then all he could do was gather her into his arms and she too clung to him.

“Perhaps all we can do is share it.” He said.

And so they sat throughout the night and the comfort of their embraces which came from like damaged souls helped them survive till yet another dawn.

TBC.

After that long night it became Frodo’s and Earenii’s custom to spend the hours of darkness treading the moonlit paths that surrounded Rivendell. Whether it was up into the hills that they ventured or down in the valley or along the waters of the Raurous mattered little. It was the companionship of their two damaged souls that brought each some solace and quieted the horrors that would otherwise fill their minds during the empty sleepless nights.

They talked softly at times but more often their time was spent in wordless wandering. Words were not needed because they each knew the pain that dwelt in the other’s heart. Just the knowing was a comfort.

One morning at dawn when Frodo entered his room he found Sam asleep on his feet at his ‘post’ over-looking the valley.

“Sam, what ever are you doing?” He said startling the drowsy worried hobbit out of half-dream.

“Oh, now, Mr. Frodo, you’ve gone and given me a turn!”

“I’m sorry, Sam. But why are you still up?”

Sam just looked down in embarrassment

But Frodo understood.

“You must stop worrying about me, Sam. It doesn’t help me and you’ll only make yourself ill staying up all night waiting for me.”

“But you’re makin’ yourself sick off wanderin’ in the dark and never sleepin’.”

“I do sleep.... when I can.”

“When do you sleep? Tell me that. When?” Sam said in his lecturing motherly tone.

“Here and there when it overtakes me.”

Frodo took off his velvet cape and tossed it over a chair.

Sam clucked and picked the rich Gondorian garment up and hung it neatly in the wardrobe.

Frodo reclined on the large soft elven bed and stretched.

“I think I might sleep now for awhile.” He said shutting his eyes.

“But it’s nearly time for breakfast. You don’t eat right either.”

“Sam, this about the only time of day or night that I do feel able to sleep at all. I thank you for your concern but if you wouldn’t mind leaving me alone for awhile......”

Sam frowned. He’d hoped Frodo would be well by the time they reached Rivendell but instead he still wasn’t eating or sleeping well and he was still too thin. And then there was all this night wandering.

“Where do you go all night alone?”

Frodo sighed and opened one eye.

“Actually I’m not alone.”

“Well now who are you with? And up to all hours like this? Not Merry or Pippin I’ll warrant. They‘re always sleepin‘ like logs by midnight.”

“Indeed not.”

“Then who?” Before the Quest Sam would never have been so forward as to question Frodo so personally. But so much had changed and he now felt Frodo was his special charge to look after under all circumstances and in any way he saw fit even if it meant being presumptuously nosy.

Frodo knew he would get no peace till he told Sam.

“I walk with Earenii.” He said simply.

“That odd elf-woman?”

“I’d appreciate you not calling her anything so unkind as ‘odd’.”

“Well she is.. mighty different.”
“Yes she is. For good reason.”

“So she’s a friend of your’s now?”

Frodo had to think how to answer this. What was Earenii to him? Friend seemed too mild a term for someone who was such a kindred soul. For someone who..... who knew. Who just simply ...knew.

“Yes... I suppose she is.”

“But Mr. Frodo, she’s so..... “

“Don’t say ‘odd’.”

“No... no... Just like maybe she wouldn’t be one to ..exactly... cheer you up.”

“Perhaps it isn’t cheering up that I need.”

“But Sir, you do. You need it more’n anyone I know.”

“Everyone has been relentlessly trying to cheer me up for months and it hasn’t done me much good now has it? Since I’ve been spending time with Earenii I’ve felt..... “ What? Less empty? Less alone? Less haunted? Was he happy? No not happy. He didn’t think that would ever be his lot again.

“What do you feel, Mr. Frodo?”

“She helps me.... and I help her. It’s almost like... Peace.”

Sam wasn’t sure what this meant or if he liked it.

“Don’t worry, Sam. I think Earenii and I are good for each other. That ought to make YOU happy. Now please go away because I do think I will sleep for awhile.”

Sam pursed his lips and thought he didn’t approve of this at all. Not till he found out a bit more about this Earenii.

“Up all night wanderin’.. “ Sam muttered as he opened the door to leave.

“Sam....” Frodo said in a warning tone as he turned on his side and closed his eyes again.. He knew quite well that Sam’s over-protective inquisition had only just begun.

TBC.