When the clan banished Smeagol the Stoor, his wife stood in the doorway of the family dwelling, their son in her arms. For an instant, she met his glance, and then carefully turned away, dismissing him from her life and memory. He was dead to her. Hatred replaced his affection for her.

        The child squirmed in her arms; too young to appreciate what was unfolding mere steps away from him. His father gave him one last look, burning the child's image into his soul - his own dark hair, eyes like green leaves scattered on the surface of a muddy pond. There was nothing so beautiful as his son, he thought as he continued on the narrow path that would take him away from the community forever. As of this moment, he ceased to be the lad's father. Part of him thought it for the best. Another sliver of his tainted soul reminded him that he was orphaned young; why should his son enjoy the blessing of both parents when he had not?

        That night his grandmother's rasping voice entered his memory. "Kin-slayers invoke the worst of curses upon themselves." His punishment was to live, knowing what he was and what he had done. He clung to life until he almost forgot his reasons. In the darkness, days melded into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. A lifespan once reckoned in seasons and decades came to encompass centuries. Scores of years would pass during which he gave no thought to his son, why should he? His child was long bone and dust in the brown earth.

        Alone but for his precious, he fell out of the habit of speaking. His voice grew coarse and his body withered. Thoughts became snarled and mangled, focused on food and his golden beloved. In all those centuries, he saw only five others of his former kind. One stole the precious from him. He hated that one - Bilbo Baggins - and determined to find him even if it meant going once again into the hated daylight when there were few shadows to hide him.

        He endured the torture of the darkest ones, the man Aragorn, the elves and their too-knowing eyes, the wizard who turned the past as one turned a compost heap. He lay on the floor of his cell, gibbering, unaware of the truth sifted from his ravings. When the Orcs came, he slipped away to seek the precious again.

        He was in the company of two of his former kind now: the master, pale and thin with dark oak curls and a face that reminded him overmuch of the elves. The other was taller, more sturdily built, and possessed a thicker form similar to those he once called kin.

        As they traveled his master told him what he knew of his people - how they journeyed into the land of Shire and merged with other breeds of hobbits. Glancing sideways at the fatter hobbit, amid the strange features he saw traces of his son in his eyes. The shape and mingled brown and green color that once reminded him of a summer's day. He also saw his wife's people in the line of his jaw and the disapproval and disgust that flowed off him like water. He hated him. His bony fingers ached to wind themselves around his throat. He knew he could accomplish the deed, he had after all, done it before.

        Old taunts resurfaced in his mind, like sludge brought up from the depths of a murky pool. Murderer. Kin-slayer. Gollum.

        Was this was his punishment, the cleansing fire before his redemption? In Deagol's tales, to be released from their guilt the tainted ones always had to perform a terrible chore. Perhaps this was his.