Chapter Seventeen: Kingly Words

Aragorn found Frodo the next morning in the dining room, finishing elevenses by himself. “You are eating alone?”

The Ring-bearer smiled faintly. “Everyone else has eaten already. Sam told me I couldn’t move until I had finished my share.”

The king smiled widely. “So once more, Master Samwise has forgotten who is master and who is servant.”

Frodo’s smile brightened a bit. “He’s been doing that more and more, but I can’t deny him. He and Rose have gone to the market to buy more food to stuff me with. They are determined to turn me back into a proper hobbit again.”

It did Aragorn’s heart good to see that smile. “Perhaps then I could join you, by your leave. It’s tiring work to play in the snow.”

Frodo’s eyebrows quirked and his light flared momentarily. “Please sit, my lord. So Merry and Pippin got you again, hmmm?” he asked as his king sat beside him and began to spread jam over a piece of toast.

“It is well that this is happening in the Shire, for I don’t want to imagine how I would suffer in the esteem of my people if it happened in Gondor.”

Frodo’s smile blossomed fully. “You’ll have to make sure your queen and steward don’t start spreading malicious rumors about your prowess then.”

“I shall have to warn them not to.” He poured himself some of the tea that Sam had made sure was kept hot. “But I don’t think I need worry, for my steward is faring as well as I. He is younger though and still determined to regain his honour.”

“I doubt he can, but he may. But still, I must tell you that I taught my cousins all I know and it will be most difficult.”

“We are well aware of where your kin learned all their tricks, for they loved to tell us of it each time they scored a hit. When am I going to be able to engage you in a game?”

There was a pause. “I was going to say that I wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation anymore, but seeing that it is already in tatters... Perhaps. Your Ranger skills are obviously growing already quite soft with all your time as king. I would be doing you a favor I suppose to help your sharpen them again.”

Aragorn smiled faintly, rejoicing in his mind that his friend had enough spirit to tease him, even if was mercilessly at his own expense. “I am in your debt once more,” he said. He finished the piece of toast and drained the cup of tea.

“And I am in yours,” Frodo replied, “since I don’t know how I could have finished this all on my own and then Sam would have been cross with me, though I don’t know if he would have said anything. He doesn’t have to anymore. And then I would have been stuck here until lunch and then there would be more to eat! I don’t want to worry my Sam anymore than I already do, but if you hadn’t come along then I might have exploded. I used to be able to eat so much more, but I can’t since... I hardly feel a hobbit anymore.”

The cheer had evaporated from Frodo’s voice and the clouds had closed around him once more, who had sat for a few moments in the sunlight. Aragorn grieved and put his arm around his friend. Frodo sank against him.

“The darkness is getting deeper, isn’t it, mellon nin? I have felt that myself long ago. It could have been perfectly sunny and bright out but inside my own mind, I was in a dark room with the walls very close around me. I only had to reach out a little with my hand and feel them. I imagine sometimes you feel you are back in the spider’s lair with no light around you, only suffocating darkness. But there is light around you as it shone then through the Lady’s phial and it is around you now from your family and even more than you cannot see.”

“When did you feel such darkness?”

“At the times I have been hunted by the same servants of the Enemy who haunted and wounded you. And there was Moria years before we passed through together. You have faced and are facing a much worse battle though. Don’t give up the struggle, tithen gwador. My mother felt despair more and more toward the end of her life and she died because she could not see any hope for light. All she saw was the deepening shadows and she did not want to live longer in such a darkling world. I was her hope and I tried so to give it to her, but I could not. She did not live long enough to see the light return.”

“I think sometimes I see it, just beginning to climb over the far horizon, but most times I am still lost.”

“You are wandering, but not all who wander are lost.”

Aragorn was rewarded by a ghost of a smile from that bit of verse.

Frodo wrapped his arms around him. “I suppose you don’t know any shortcuts through this blackness.”

The king held his friend tightly. “No, mellon nin, for such journeys there are no shortcuts that can be made safely. As a healer and as a friend who loves you, those are among the most painful that can be said, but as the same, I wish to give you hope that by the long way you will find rest and healing at the end, if you have the same determination to make it as you did before. You traveled step by step to the Fire and you must travel back the same way, but that Road your heart must take instead of your feet.”

“It’s so much longer. I barely have the strength at times.”

“Just like the first time, but you kept going.”

“I had to.”

“And you don’t think you have to this time?”

“No, I still do, and I will, but it’s hard. I am well fed here, I have plenty to drink and plenty of opportunity for rest and I don’t have to coax my muscles to walk miles when there is so little strength in them and Sam will carry me again, in his heart as always, if not in his arms. But it’s harder now then it was then. I feel more like only I can make the journey, even if Sam is right beside me, and my Merry and my Pipsqueak, and you and Faramir and our queen. I have so much help, but I still feel so alone.”

“You are not alone anymore now than you were then. But you are right, this is your own journey and only you can decide which steps to take or whether to take them at all. The whole of Middle-earth does not hang in the balance this time, dependent on your will. Only your heart does. But I daresay that I know enough about how stubborn Bagginses can be so I have ample reason to hope that you will keep going and will triumph. I shall celebrate that day.”

“I did such evil, Aragorn. Can I truly come back? I wonder if I can.”

“You cannot be the same person that left on the Quest, gwador nin. You have grown beyond that and are becoming an even more beautiful being. If you do not wish to remain in the darkness, you have only way to go and that is forward. You cannot go back, but you can regain much of yourself that you have thought lost forever if you are willing to do so. Your brokenness can be made whole again. You have been tried by fire and found worthy.”

“But I failed at the Fire.”

“I am not speaking of that. But even so, would the eagles have been sent to rescue you and Sam if you had turned evil? What happened at the Mountain was more than anyone could have endured and anyone else would have fallen sooner. What happened was not your will choosing it. The good acts are the ones you chose, when you had full control of your will, such as at the Council and each step and breath you took toward your goal. You were hallowed for this one task, mellon nin. You fulfilled it and you were given your reward and there is still the greater one to claim, if you will. Would all that have been done if you had become a villain? You are so beloved, so very, very beloved. You cannot ever imagine in this life how much you are.”

“I know I am and I wonder why at times.”

Aragorn smiled and held his friend even tighter. “You already know that answer to that. I have been kept well-informed of all your naughtiness as a lad by your esteemed cousins who speak quite proudly of it all and of you. So I know how your Aunt Esme and Uncle Sara and Bilbo and Sam knew all your tricks and still loved you.”

Frodo opened his mouth to reply, but the king would not let him. “Now I know you would say that stealing a couple biscuits from the pantry or not going to bed when you are told or raiding a farm for a handful of mushrooms is hardly on the scale of what happened under the most terrible duress on your way to the Mountain, and you would be right in most ways, but not in the only way that truly matters. Your parents and your aunt and your uncles and your Sam all loved you so very much, that forgiveness was given you, usually without thought. If they can forgive so easily and love you so much, despite you being a rascal at times, then you can realize that you will never not be loved. You made it to Mordor because you were guided and guarded by more than you know or saw. The child in Rose’s womb will be born in peace because you said ‘yes’ at the Council and embraced the Will of the One Who created you specifically for that task and strengthened you with graces throughout your life so you could succeed and now generation upon generation will live in peace because you said one simple word over and over and Sam did as well. I am very glad you will be able to see the first fruits of that success.”

“That is all I will see. I have decided to accept the Queen’s gift.”

Aragorn felt a painful stab at his heart, a blessed mix of grief for himself and happiness for his friend. He realized now, as he had never before, the cost of Arwen’s choice to cleave to him. It was indeed sweet and bitter to choose to stay - or to leave. He held Frodo ever tighter and the hobbit returned the embrace with equal strength for he was just beginning to realize the weight of those words himself and wondered if he would be crushed under the weight of them, and even worse, that his brothers would be. But what other choice was there?

A/N: Mellon nin is Sindarin for my friend, mell min is dear one, tithen gwador is little brother, gwador nin is my brother.