Written for the LOTR Community "Gratitude" challenge.  For Illereyn and Nieriel Reina for their birthdays as well as for Thanksgiving.

Memories of Cleansing

            As the two of them stood near the western end of the Lonely Isle, Frodo pointed out the entrance to the Fanes.

            Gandalf carried me there when the spider stirred within the wound on my neck, and there they removed it at last.  You cannot imagine how much weight felt lifted from my shoulders to have that gone, there where Shelob sought to poison me.  After that the Powers came to me and strengthened me.  It is Nienna I remember best—how she wept over me, and how I wept with her, and how the tears washed away all of the pain, the grief, the loss, the anger, the disillusion, my arrogance, even my jealousy of you, leaving me clean, ready again to be filled with joy, thankful for the chance to live and love again.  I remember when my tears burned my heart.  Who could have realized how they can free one to know true hope once more?  And now my own Hope Enduring is again by my side, and I no longer am required to endure without it again.

            Thank you for coming to me at the last, Sam.  I know what I sacrificed is now fulfilled.