The Elf’s Perspctive

            Legolas sat on the chair between the two beds where lay Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, watching the play of light and shadow on their faces as sunlight filtered through the leaves of the beech trees overhead.  He found his fingers combing through Frodo’s dark curls, seeing the silver strands already growing in amidst the dark brown that had been previously his.  When found, Frodo’s hair had been as dry as his skin, and had felt almost like straw to the touch, but already it was softening once more.

            “What you have seen, mellon nín,” he whispered softly.  “No one, mortal or of Elf-kind, should have been forced to see and do what the two of you have done, and particularly not you, Frodo.”

            He knew it had not been necessary for this Hobbit, as innocent as he’d been when they first met in Imladris, to suffer so.  He could have taken the Ring himself, of course.

            “And it would have destroyed me,” he admitted.  “It would have focused on my suspicions and resentment toward Gimli and other Dwarves, and would have not let that go.  Indeed, during the first portion of the quest, was It not doing just that?  Did we not almost drive the rest of you to distraction with our mutual suspicions and constant bickering?  Not until we were under the influence of the Lady did that truly change, and I realized how great and beautiful had been the ruined realm of Moria, and how true to all Gimli had proved himself, and how I’d honored his grief for his fallen kinsmen.”

            He remembered the imaginings he’d found himself entertaining—of himself returning to his father’s halls as the conquering hero, the Ring upon his hand, Sauron no more than a blithering memory of malice, the Dwarves subjugated as servants to the Firstborn.