"Battle-scars"  by Tialys

Frodo suffers another affliction besides his maimed hand to remind him of his journey – and he is not alone.

Note: I am not sure I am entirely pleased with how this story turned out, so please review and tell me what you thought. I would love you suggestions and might change and repost the story later if I can find a way to rewrite it to fit my liking. Thank-you!

Immersed in his book as he was, Frodo did not notice the silent form drifting through the shadows behind him. He had retired to one of the smaller libraries of Minas Tirith earlier that evening in the hopes of earning a few moments of peace and what he had grown to miss even more -- solitude. It had been difficult to manage, but he had, in the end, succeeded in convincing Sam to spare himself a quiet walk in the city’s large gardens, buying himself the full emptiness of the library. Flitting, entranced, through a particularly ragged copy of elven myths, Frodo was jarred from his imagination by a sharp and sudden pain in his scalp as fingers closed around a lock of his sable hair.

Jerking forward from the heavily cushioned armchair, Frodo's strangled shout of pain nearly drowned out the exclamation from behind him.

"Frodo, what in Middle-earth happened to your hair?" Pippin inquired, tugging again at the captive lock of hair.

"It has been pulled mercilessly from my scalp!" Frodo complained, "That is what happened to it!" And with a final and more than slightly painful wrench he pulled his hair free from his cousin's grasp.

Raising a hand to gingerly feel his abused curls, Frodo turned in question to Pippin.

"What's wrong with my hair, Pip?"

"Well it's white, Frodo, look!" Pippin's hand shot toward Frodo's head again and the ring-bearer was quick to put the plush armchair between the hand and his hair. Pippin grinned, dashed around the chair, and began a mad chase after his cousin around the furniture.

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Merry stopped at the door he was passing, vaguely aware of the shouts coming from behind its thick wooden frame. Swinging the heavy door open, the unnatural sight of his cousins’ shouting forms left him silently frozen in the entranceway, mouth open and eyes wide.

Frodo was currently diving behind one of the library's silken couches, sliding part of the way on the polished floor and grasping the couch's arm for support. Pippin was close behind him, calling remarks and pleas to stop -- all of which were blatantly ignored by his elder cousin.

"Frodo, I won’t touch you! Just look though, right there!"

Frodo shouted inaudibly and again placed a piece of furniture between him and his cousin’s flailing hand. Stumbling backward, a hand held protectively over the back of his head, Frodo ran back into a small table. Being knee-high to him, the table’s edge hit the back of his knee, causing the hobbit’s legs to crumple underneath him and he landed rather unceremoniously in an undignified heap on the one of the library’s many ornate rugs.

Trying hard to maintain a straight face, Merry managed to croak out a muffled, "What is going on?" before braking into an offensively amused grin.

Crawling from the floor and settling himself on the table with what remained of his self-control, Frodo carefully smoothed a wrinkle from his weskit before stating, "Well, Merry, our dear cousin is currently trying to pull my hair out. How has your day been?"

Stepping through the doorway to stand beside his younger cousin, Merry shot Pippin a bemused grin before replying, "My day has been quite uneventful so far, cousin. Though I cannot seem to say the same for you." Frodo scowled at Pippin, hand still hovering over his hair.

"Now, Pip," Merry continued, turning to his cousin, "What has become so fascinating about cousin Frodo’s hair that you would deem it necessary to pull it out?"

"Look at the back of it, Merry! It’s white! Frodo, let him look."

Grimacing in the expectation of pain, Frodo cringed and submitted himself to the examination of his hair with only a sparse scatter of mutterings.

Careful of his cousin’s tender head, Merry gently swept his fingers through the curls until he found the place Pippin spoke of. As Pippin had said, the lock of hair was a spotless shade of pure white, standing out brilliantly against the sea of dark curls around it. Merry whistled in surprise, his eyes widening, and placed a comforting hand on his squirming cousin’s shoulder.

"Goodness, cousin, your hair!"

Frodo’s scowl deepened and he turned his head in futile attempts to examine the phenomenon himself.

"So I’ve been told. What, by Elbereth, about it?"

Pippin dashed quickly out of the library and soon returned, bearing two hand-mirrors, one of which he thrust into Frodo’s hand, the other he kept.

Angling the mirror down slightly, Frodo was finally able to view what his cousins spoke of. Just to the right of the center of his head was a lone, bright white lock of hair. Not another curl around it had a shade of white or even gray to show. Just the one.

"Wh --" but Frodo cut himself off. What, indeed.

"You must be aging faster than you thought, cousin." Merry chuckled. But the look of confusion and slight fear on Frodo’s face did not go unnoticed and Merry was quick to extract the mirror from his older cousin’s trembling grasp.

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A half-hour later found the cousins in Frodo’s bedchambers, this time accompanied by Gandalf.

With the wizard seated and Frodo standing before him their heights were evened out enough for Gandalf to view the ring-bearer’s curls. He ran his fingers carefully through Frodo’s hair, fingering the lock in question gently before leaning back in his chair again, sighing deeply.

"Well, Frodo, I admit it looks a bit odd but it’s really nothing to worry about," he said.

"But Gandalf," Frodo returned, stepping away from the chair and turning to face his friend, "what happened?"

"Your hair," Gandalf began, causing Merry and Pippin to lean forward slightly from their seats on a nearby couch, "has lost its coloring in that particular area. This does not happen very often, but it is a sign that a person has gone through a time or many times of desperation and very high tension. The stress will cause the person’s hair to lose coloring in certain parts. My guess is this is what has happened to you."

Frodo’s frown returned with a new depth. He did not have to be reminded that most of the past year for him could easily constitute as a time of desperation and high tension.

"So," Frodo raised a hand to run through his curls again, "will it ever... change back?"

Gandalf shook his head. "No, lad. It will stay that way, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, though. It will do you no harm."

"It’s like your finger, Frodo." Pippin piped up. Merry dug an elbow into his ribs but the damage was done.

Frodo’s face paled slightly and he swallowed hard, hand tightening in his hair and eyes darting to the large window overlooking Minas Tirith’s gardens. Merry sat forward in his seat, tense and looking ready to spring up at any moment.

"Yes..." Frodo breathed, "I suppose it is, Pip." But Pippin’s face had clouded and his cousin’s words brought no condolences.

"I – excuse me, will you both?" Frodo mumbled to his cousins. "I think I will go.... take a walk. Yes..." And, muttering to himself, he stumbled out of the room.

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Turning another stone-paved corner of Minas Tirith’s circular gardens, Sam stopped by a particularly bright patch of flowers tucked away in the plot’s corner. The plot stuck out from the wall, forming a curved path around the flowers that then returned into the same wall as the entrance, leading off to other portions of the gardens. Kneeling to examine the plants’ stems, Sam did not notice the figure slowly making its way around the opposite corner in front of him.

Standing across the flowerbed from Sam, Frodo winced guiltily at the sight of the friend he had sent away, only to buy himself a moment of quiet. Not that Sam was loud – quite the contrary – but Frodo always felt that Sam was watching him, auditing his condition – especially now, after their return from Mordor.

Blinking silent tears from his eyes, Frodo followed the path around the flowers, kneeling by Sam next to the damp bursts of color and wrapping an arm around his friend’s shoulders.

Sam looked up from the flowers to smile at him, not missing his sparkling eyes.

Frodo managed to smile back through his tears, glancing sadly at the single white lock of hair falling across Sam’s brow and leaning his own head silently onto the younger hobbit’s shoulder.

June 8, 2004