Frodo spent the next morning with Boromir on an extended walk. He was going to return to the Dead Marshes in the afternoon and he wanted to surround himself with beauty and life first. He also wanted to reassure the man through his company and the hand he clasped that all was truly forgiven. They didn’t speak but much was said.

Frodo took a light meal in the early afternoon for he feared the weight of the memories would make him ill. Carefully he laid his writing tablet on top of his crossed legs and breathed deeply several times to fill himself with the freshness of the air around him. The grass tickled his feet and the wind caressed his curls and cheeks. He looked long at the bright blue sky and listened to the sounds of the birds around him. Then he brought to mind the Lady’s light and entered the Marshes.

Dusk fell quickly around the Ring-bearer and soon the only illumination was the candles in the water. He tore his eyes away from the rotting bodies but was always drawn back to them. To counter the light from the corpses, he looked at them through the light of the Lady. They were not then as frightening and sad, and he was able to fight the compulsion he had felt before to join them and explore the murky depths that had been their home for so very long. He traveled on, past the sickening smells and terrible sights, forcing his uneasy stomach to remain calm. Soon he felt the growing weight and dreadful exposure to the Eye. He told himself it was not there anywhere. The Enemy’s power was gone. It could no longer hurt him. The Lady was with him. Part of him believed that. He wandered through the reed beds until the rest of him did and he could stand aright again. If he was unveiled to the Enemy, he was also just as clearly seen by the Lady. She would protect him.

Frodo came to himself, feeling only slightly nauseous. The day was still bright and alive and he breathed in the fresh air as if it had been hours since he had last sensed it. Perhaps it was. He began to write and continued through to meeting with Faramir, his confrontation with Smeagol at the Forbidden Pool and the sign he had received at the Cross-roads. The thought of the man brought a smile for himself and for the pleasure it would bring Boromir, but the memory of what happened with the capture of Gollum and the strain it caused to Smeagol’s journey back to the light caused Frodo to think of his own betrayal at the Fire and the struggle he still had to overcome that.

Frodo’s voice was not nearly as haunted as his eyes. In the former, there was a hint of hope, like a single flower pushing up from the foulness and struggling to live amidst such ruin. “It was the safest route with Smeagol’s guidance. If you could visit it now, it would not be as heavy with the weight of the Enemy’s will. Perhaps one day it will even heal and be a more proper memorial to the fallen.”

“I would hope it to be so. It was a great victory for Elves and Men, and such a great defeat too. If Isildur had not failed in his duty, the Ring would have never come down to torment us. You would be happy in your Shire and I would be at my father and brother’s sides. But I cannot blame Isildur, knowing the terrible lust that rose from within for the Ring, and the power of it so freshly cut from the hand of the Nameless. It would have been a marvel indeed if he had not fallen.”

“Lady Galadriel told me she wished the Ring had never been wrought or never found. So do I and any who knew of its power. As futile as her wish was, my own vain desire would be the same as yours, to return to the Shire and you to your City. But that is not within our power. We have been given a greater gift, though it may not always seem so. I do not blame Isildur either. Gandalf told me its power was too great for any. If we paid in our flesh and hearts for Isildur’s fall, and our own, we have the opportunity to make amends for it. You already did so by saving the lives of my cousins.” The flower that strained valiantly to live now withered. “I do not know what I can do to make proper my own fall, which was as great as Isildur’s of old.”

Boromir’s heart ached at Frodo’s torment. “I did not know before as much about the Powers as I am learning here, but they would not have brought you here, little brother,  if they thought you had failed. There is no evil in this land. The Lady who came to you wept for you. Would she have done so for someone evil? I say not. She wept because someone was hurt so terribly by the Nameless.”

“She showed me great honor and love, and I know it will only through the Powers that I will heal, if that can be done. She has helped me so much already. I can only hope she will continue to do so, for the darkness sometimes is still so deep.”

“She will do that. Did you not hear your own words when you said Mithrandir said it was too great a power for any? We both know that. You have forgiven me. Can you forgive yourself?”

“Yours was a temporary madness that harmed no one. Mine was far worse and would have brought all Middle-earth under the Shadow. Even my seeming betrayal of Smeagol at the Pool still cuts my heart. How much worse does my betrayal of our whole world. Would that Isildur destroyed the Ring, so I would not fail my own test!”