A twelfth LOTR fic by Iorhael

Summary: Did Aragorn and Gandalf save Frodo for his good or their own? How does Frodo finally come to terms with his failing condition? Post quest. Frodo’s POV.

AN: This story is inspired by:

- Shireling’s poem Do Not Wake Me

- Nilmandra’s review on the poem

- J.R.R. Tolkien’s poem The Sea Bell

- A friend’s comment: “I think it’s gonna be better if Frodo was left to die.”

Great thanks for Emma and Celandine, my two betas. And for Illyria for the inspiration!

Rated: G

I feel soft breezes gently slapping my face. And I smell a taste of salt. I shudder as the wind bristles harshly over my skin and I cannot find my covers. Where am I? Where am I?

I push my lids wider and gasp at the sights surrounding me. Surely it is not an illusion? For I am no longer resting in my ornate, four-poster bed. I have been wrenched away from my luminous bedroom in the serenity of Bag End.

To a different kind of solace.

It feels so different here. The breeze changes steadily, slowly turning chilly, so unlike the constant warmth of my home. The pungent odor nudges my nostrils; it makes me cringe, something my lavender-scented room would never do.

And I am walking now. Strolling, instead of lying on my bed. My feet graze at something coarse but yielding, slowly dampening, and capsizing deeper and deeper. I often sink into my mattress but this is another kind of softness.

I reach for a white shell thrown carelessly to the shore by the last waves, and then look up at the horizon. The vast stretch of ocean lay before me along with the luculent sky of blue. And I wonder. My palm spreads open with the shell lying upon it. Not once do I glance at it yet my mind sees it clearly. Why is it sent to me? And what am I doing here, standing alone by the sea?

The wind sweeps by again, causing me to quiver in its wake.

I am shivering though there is no more wind. And my hand, still holding the white shell, trembles quietly. I sigh and drop down on the grainy, grayish sands. I am aging. I am weakening – fast. I have been hurt and my declining body cannot do much to help. I once had the greatest sustenance but it has been destroyed. It had to be destroyed, because it could easily alter from sustaining to destroying.

My beloved Ring.

The thought makes me gasp and I toss the shell away. What am I thinking? It is not beloved. It has never been so. The thing is evil, was evil. It is destroyed now – and will never be back.

My beloved Ring

* * *

But neither will I return.

I have awakened from the dream, for a dream it is. I am back at Back End, no longer sitting on the beach. I am reclining against the headboard of the bed. I am home. Physically.

But not my soul.

I know It has been undone and Orodruin has vanished.

But so have I.

I can still feel the shaking as Mount Doom belched and erupted torrents of lava. I can still smell the burning fumes and feel them licking my hair and skin. I can still hear the angry rumbles as the mountain vented all its wrath.

And I still suffer from the hunger and thirst--and yes, the fear. I am back at the mountain, panting to breathe in air, I press my stomach to the ground, I cover my head with both arms to protect it from flying rocks. I pray that someone will come soon to save me.

But sometimes I hope no one will come. I wonder how I would have fared had they just let me die. A painful death? Yes. But at least it would have been over. At least I would not feel anything anymore, since my soul would also have died.

I know my outer shell was saved but it has been drifting ever since, without any particular destination. Just like the water, it is formless, just waiting for a loud wave to crash it somewhere.

While my soul stays trapped deep within the dark, obliterated chasm of Doom.

* * *

I awake to the sounds of silence. But it is the middle of the night so silence is the most rational thing.

But the silence unnerves me so. For silence is what accompanied me in my long slumber before finally I woke up in the middle of a huge, elegant, human bed. I dipped in the mattress and let my fingers roam over the silky sheet. I was amazed at the grandness of all the things that came into my sight. Where were all the burning flames, the fiery landscape, the rotten-smelling air, and acrid, poisonous water? Were they all just dreams? Or was this bed the dream?

I was not dreaming when I heard the voices. Strange human voices, light, melodic elven tones, and the chirping noises of my fellow hobbits – dear Merry and Pippin, and Sam!

And then I knew I was conscious. I saw the bandage swathing my right hand. Ah! And thus my heart was reminded and my shame returning. I felt chilled all over and the silence was my only haven.

Yet I was still not granted peace. I was expecting a deep, vibrating invitation asking me to join it – or it to join me – to places I loved, to periods when I was loved, to people I would be willing to die for. But it never came. What I got was only suffocating, empty silence. There were no more hands extending into me to take my soul to things I desired.

The Ring had abandoned me.

But then my heart settled into its thoughts. I deserved all this. The silence and the emptiness inside. For the Ring had not abandoned me – it was I that abandoned my predestined task. And now I was punished. I was damned to live with this chagrin.

But why?

Aragorn, the newly-crowned King Elessar, paraded my story before his people. Everyone saluted me. Everyone praised me as a hero, something I gravely wanted to believe but my heart would not lie to me.

And waving to those folks from the balcony, I threw a side-glance at the king. Contentment was all over his face. He was proud – that was certain. Why ever not? He had succeeded. He had defeated Sauron. He freed the peoples of Middle Earth.

And he saved me, the failed Ringbearer.

“No!” Aragorn had said. “You haven't failed. You brought the Ring to Mount Doom and destroyed it – in one way or another.”

But I knew. Aragorn did not want to show his real feelings. He never told anyone what really happened--to save my face. And he did not want his people to turn their backs on him, or worse – to reproach him.

What mattered most was that the Ringbearer had returned in flesh and blood.

Not the soul. Still, who could tell that anyway? Flesh and blood was all that showed to others.

So – what difference would it have made had he left me to die? Is it so difficult to say that Frodo has destroyed the Ring and perished in the attempt?

It would be more preferred than leaving me like this – a corpse-like creature wandering between life and death. Without anybody realizing it, I am slowly turning into a wraith, enthralled by the memories of the golden trinket.

Why did you save me?

Why did you wake me?

Why did you send Gandalf on a great eagle to the ruins of Doom to scoop Sam and me up and bear us away?

“Because, my dear Frodo,” echoes of Gandalf’s voice ring in the cells in my brain. “We all have to decide what to do with the time that is given us. And so does Aragorn.

* * *

I learned a new word tonight. It is destiny. Gandalf reminds me of such things. Bilbo was meant to have the Ring. I was meant to inherit It from him. I was meant to carry It to Mount Doom and to have it undone.

I was also meant to suffer from the wounds and the long-standing burden of guilt.

And not to ever heal from them.

I fall into to my blissful sleep, bit by bit, and I am back on the shore.

The white shell that I threw away is back on my palm. As I look down, scrutinizing it, I become aware that the shell, too, was meant to come to me. There is no necessary reason. It just happened.

And when I gaze back to the sea and catch sight of a ship slowly nearing, I finally get the meaning of my dream. I might be preordained to bear such sufferings but I am not beyond hope.

I realize now that my time has come.

And I am ready to go.

Finish