Elrond knew well the agony he felt in the hearts of his little brothers as they said goodbye to their beloved ones. He had stood where they did now, when five hundred years before he had embraced half of his own heart and soul in farewell and had not known when he would see her again. He hadn’t wanted to let go, but he couldn’t have not let go either. He couldn’t have done any differently than what the four hobbits were now doing. Frodo’s light was just as shattered as Celebrian’s had been and they all knew that this terrible parting was a necessary one.

Bilbo made his own goodbyes and then watched the others with a sorrowful face. He looked most at Frodo and then at Sam. At least he had the hope that the sons of his heart would be reunited. Sam’s tear‑filled eyes looked up at Bilbo after he had let his beloved master go and Elrond could almost hear the wish and promise that passed between them. Look after him, until I can come to do it again. As Bilbo smiled and nodded, Sam let go a held breath as a little peace stilled some of the turbulence in his heart and soul. Elrond was glad that the little gardener’s light shone a bit brighter because of it. That dear one’s light was almost as bright as Frodo’s but now almost as dimmed as though each depended on the other for his own as the moon depended on the sun.

They have ever been each other’s light, living Silmarilli for one another and for all created lands and people. And they will continue to be.

Not now. They are lost in darkness.

It is in the darkness that the light shines best. Do not fear for them, My child. This will not separate them. Even in the dark, they will find each other.

Elrond had no answer. He had wandered long in his own darkness after his beloved had left and long it was before light had returned to him, before he found her and held her again. Still she was always a dim light ahead of him, that he had followed. The only way out of his own darkness was to pursue her through hers and ahead of them both had been a brighter light. Her feet had always been on that path, finding her own way out. He had followed, but for long, he had not believed or trusted enough that the darkness would end. If it had not been for her light and the Light ahead of her, he would have wandered forever lost in the black.

Elrond watched as Frodo and Bilbo boarded the ship, Frodo walking alongside Bilbo’s pony while Gandalf guided the pony of the younger Ring‑bearer. Frodo’s head was bowed. His maimed hand rested in Bilbo’s. Elrond followed with the Lady Galadriel and other fair folk. When they were all boarded, the scarred hobbit turned to his beloved brothers and watched them as they watched him. They were all crying, but had such tremendous love in their eyes and hearts, that Elrond’s own heart clenched at the beauty and sorrow of it.

He now has his lights to guide him in the dark and I will be there also.

Elrond didn’t answer. The scene was too much like it had been when Celebrían had left. The Elf-lord saw in Sam’s eyes and broken heart the same hope that he had himself had tried so hard to grasp during and after that grief-filled parting so long ago. He saw in fact that Sam’s was stronger than his had been, but what could Merry and Pippin hope for? He knew the grief they did in a way he had never wanted to or thought he would, for he knew he would not see his daughter again, just as they wouldn’t see their cousin.

This is not the end, My child. You know well that love does not end simply because the beloved is no longer at your side.

It is still a bitter sorrow to endure.

It shall be endured and the sweetness of love will be rediscovered as you rediscovered yourself and will rediscover once more.

Frodo held aloft the phial of Galadriel which grew bright in his hand and the hobbits watched that light until it was swallowed by the ever‑growing distance. And then they watched some more.

 

* * *

It was raining the night before they arrived in the West. Frodo had spent part of the time on the deck, not caring whether he was soaked. The rain hid his tears and there were many still to be washed away. Elrond watched him silently as he stood with him.

“I used to sleep outside in the summer and stare up at the stars and dream of going on adventures,” Frodo said softly. “Sometimes Sam would be with me or Merry and Pippin. Sometimes Bilbo came. When will I be able to do that again?”

For the first time since the Fire, Elrond found himself wanting to trust in Ilúvatar again, needing to find meaning in the meaningless. He reached out almost as desperately as he had during those long nights as he watched his wife suffer and was helpless to stop it and all the while the Why?!, Why?!, Why?! echoing through his head.

“You will be able to do it here, Iorhael. And one day even with Panthel.”

“But not with Merry or Pippin. And probably not even with Bilbo. I don’t know if I chose right.”

The Elf lord took Frodo’s maimed hand gently in his own and felt the hobbit’s fingers wrap around his. “You chose right, Iorhael. You made the only choice that could be made for one hurt as you are. My wife made the same decision when she was similarly wounded. The One Who made you would not have allowed such a pain without already having a remedy for it. Be at peace with your decision, tithen min. There is not a moment you are not being held tight.”

The troubled hobbit looked up at him. “Who do you mean?”

“One of the reasons you were brought here was so you could discover that. You have long felt His Presence, even if you didn’t know it.”

“I have felt something at times. First I associated it with my parents, then with Bilbo, then with Merry and Pippin and especially with Sam. But there’s someone else, like I heard at the Council?”

“Yes. He manifested Himself most times to you through the love expressed by those most dear to you.”

Frodo sighed. He went back in, dried his hair and got into a dry nightshirt, then curled up against Bilbo. He tried hard to believe what Elrond said as the Elf-lord himself tried to do.

 

* * *

It was during one of Frodo’s early explorations of his new home that he had found the iaun. The darkness of the room appealed to him for here was another place in which he could hide his tears. He and Bilbo had settled along the shore and it wasn’t long before the very air of the place had invigorated the ancient hobbit enough that he wanted to go on a “proper walking party” and insisted that Frodo join him. The younger Ring‑bearer took longer to accommodate himself to his new surroundings, but the Tookish part of him was roused enough that he often went tramping around with his uncle or sometimes on his own. He was alone the day he found the iaun.

Or at least he was alone until he entered the room. He sensed a warmth and a Presence that he had always felt, but dimly and not understood. His gaze was drawn to the red light that hung from the ceiling in the front center of the room, giving off the only illumination.

Welcome, My child, came a Voice in his head and it sounded like all the voices he had ever heard that had ever spoken words of love to him. That Love wrapped around him like a warm cloak.

Who are you, my lord? Frodo asked for the Presence seemed to him to be of very great majesty, even greater than any of the Elves he had known.

I am your Father and your father’s Father and your mother’s and the Father of all.

Frodo bowed deeply, though he didn’t quite understand the whole meaning behind the words. “Frodo Baggins at your service,” he said.

The troubled hobbit felt the warmth spread inside him, like the largest smile he had ever seen, even more powerfully than he had always felt when his parents, Bilbo, his cousins or his Sam had smiled at him. You have served me very well, My beloved child.

You were at the Council.

Yes. And every other moment of your life.

Then you know I failed at the end. How can you still love me?

I have loved you, My dear one, since before time began. I formed you from My own heart as I have all My children. How can I not love you?

Because of what happened, because I claimed that terrible thing, because I want it still.

Do you think you should have been able to withstand something no one could?

Yes.

So you did, as I created you to do, until your task was complete, but the power that had made that thing was beyond any child of Mine to withstand forever. Do not blame yourself. You did not fail Me.

But I didn’t complete the Quest. I failed myself, I failed Gandalf and Sam and the Council, all of Middle‑earth. I failed you.

My beloved, stubborn child, and again Frodo felt the smile and Love increase in him, you accepted a task to rectify failures of others of My children. It was beyond the hope of any to accomplish, but still you did accomplish it because it was not beyond My strength, even if you feared it was beyond yours.

It was beyond mine. What little I did was because of Sam, because of Sméagol.

It was also your own will and Mine that got you there. The others supplemented it or became it when you could not supply it yourself, but you were not wrongly named, Bronwe athan Harthad. You endured beyond anyone’s hope and fear, anyone’s but Panthel’s and Mine.

Who are you, lord? Frodo asked again.

I am the One Who fashioned you and knit you together in your mother’s womb, Who watched you quicken inside her and give your first kicks. I watched your birth as you took your first breath and gave your first cry. I was there to see your first smile and laugh and step and word. I was there to watch you grow, when you learned to read in your and My Bilbo’s lap, when you wrote your first story and every story after that, when you marveled at the world around you. I was there when you presented your first flower to your mum and when you took her and your da by the hand and tugged them into your next adventure. I was there when you giggled as they tickled you and you rode on your da’s shoulders and danced at the Free Fair. I was there when they tucked you in each night, as they sang to you, hugged and kissed you goodnight and told you how much they loved you and you hugged and kissed them and told them that you loved them even more. Each night you had that competition. How they loved to hear you giggle and how I loved it too. I was there with them when they died and with you when you found out and every moment you grieved and cried. Even if no one else saw your tears, I saw them and every visit you made to their graves, placing flowers there and telling them how much you missed them and loved them and wished they were with you. I was with you when your and My Merry was born and you smiled for the first time in two years. I was with you when you laughed again. And when you stole mushrooms. I was with you when you met your and My Sam. I was with you when Bilbo left and no one else saw your tears. I was with you when you left with the Ring and when you were left without it. I know all about you, my beloved one.

Frodo was confused and had actually colored when the thieving of the mushrooms was mentioned, but he also felt nothing but love from the Voice. His Tookish curiosity was roused that someone he had never known could know all about him, even things no one else knew.

Are you a wizard then? You don’t sound like an Elf.

There was a bright sound in Frodo’s mind and heart like a hearty laugh, almost like Gandalf’s, but deeper and richer, as though all the laughs he had ever heard had been rolled into one.

I am the Creator of wizards and Elves, but no, My child, I am not one Myself.

Are you older than Gandalf?

There was amusement in that Voice like he remembered in his parents’ and Gandalf’s and Bilbo’s when in years before, his curiosity about the world had been overwhelming and his questions endless. He remembered it in his own voice as he answered Pippin’s questions which had been even more endless. Yes, far, far older.

Older than Treebeard or Tom?

The smile increased. Yes.

Who was your father?

I am Creator, My own, not created. I am the uncreated Light from which your light and the light of all My children spring.

Frodo sighed. I feel very dark and empty.

I know. I will fill you again. But I will need your help. Will you give it to me?

Yes, my lord.

 

* * *

Frodo spent many hours in the iaun, learning how to heal from all the damage done to him. It was exhausting work and sometimes he even slept there, curled up on one of the benches. It soothed him to be there more than any other place on the island and he spend much time in silent conversation with the One there and, as he found out, everywhere. Many tears he shed there and he felt them wiped away.                      

Celebrían was in the room one day when he came. He stood at the entrance and her breath was taken away by the brilliance of his light and incredible beauty. Her heart broke at how fractured that light was, like a mirror that had been broken, a mirror that she knew reflected her own fëa when she had come here seeking the same thing he was. She had noticed the two periain when they had come off the boat in the company of her husband and so many others. She had noticed his beauty then, but not so much his light in the bright morning. It shone now in the

darkness almost as brightly as that of one of her own kind.

He hesitated on the threshold and almost turned away, but she called out to him softly. “Please stay.”

He came and sat down by her side and he felt the Love around him increase.

 

* * *

After these two kindred fëar met, Frodo continued along his Road, now guided by one who had walked the same path already. To Celebrían, Frodo was like a bird whose wings had been broken. It was the same way she had felt after she had been attacked and when she longed to have wings like her husband’s mother did and fly beyond the torment that engulfed her. It was here that her fëa had learned to fly again and it was under her tutelage and that of the One Who had made them both, that Frodo took his first little hops on the ground, then his first hesitant flutters into the air, flying a few feet before floundering again.

Elrond watched his progress as well. To him, Frodo was a flower that had nearly been beaten down, but was leaning into the Sun and growing again in the rich soil of the West. Slowly his trust was rebuilt that his little brother was truly in the best hands he could be. He began to pray again and find his own healing.

Bilbo watched as well. The ancient hobbit smiled and steadied the beloved son of his heart as he gathered the strength and heart to fly again. It was an uneven progress, but it was steady. Further and further did Frodo learn to fly as he slowly broke the fetters of his pain. Sometimes he and Bilbo even flew together for short distances as both needed healing. Those times, they flew farther than either could have on his own, as though to encourage and challenge each other. It was after those times that Frodo’s smiles were the brightest. It was a struggle though, not always easy and at times very frustrating. Tears of effort and continued pain tracked down the younger Ring‑bearer’s cheeks or followed him into sleep, but always he went on. He told himself that Bilbo needed to see him healed. He also needed to do it for Sam who had always been there for him. Sometimes he thought he still felt his brother by his side, encouraging and loving and comforting.

You are doing very well, My child, came Ilúvatar’s Voice as Frodo lay in bed.

Was it you I always felt when my parents or my Sam or Merry or Pippin looked at me, or Gandalf or Aragorn or Faramir or the Lady?

Yes, My own. My Love shone through their love for they are all reflections of Me.

Sam was the best.

So I made him to be.

Because you knew all this would happen?

Yes. I wanted to be near you.

Thank you, my lord.

Elrond was praying the same words at the same time in the iaun. Celebrían noted the tear in her husband’s fëa healing and closing at the same rate as Frodo’s and smiled at the progress both were making. Her own crisis had drawn her closer to Ilúvatar, had strengthened her already strong faith and made her realize how much she needed Him, though she knew at the same time, it had threatened to destroy her husband’s belief. How many days and nights she had spent in prayer to Him for release, for succor, for strength and had prayed also for him. At times Frodo cried in her arms, just as she had in Elrond’s, and she held him as she had been held, had murmured some of the same words, and had said some of the same prayers.

 

* * *