Foresight

            Pippin stood already upon the prow of stone, looking beyond the wharf of the Harlond, down the length of the river that lay silver beneath the moon, toward the distant blue glimmer that whispered of the sea.  He was quiet--a contrast to the chatter of children in the Sixth Circle, sounding like monkeys in their play.  The bottle in his hands was mostly full; a plate and fork lay beside him.

            The Hobbit looked up.  “You knew, didn’t you?  When we parted at the Gap of Rohan?”

            “That Frodo could not remain in Middle Earth?  That I could not lock him behind bars to hold him among us?  That I would never see him again?  Yea, I knew.”

            “And his going tore as large a hole in your heart as in ours, I suppose.”

            “Yes.”

            A single violin from an inn in the Fifth Circle began a mournful tune.