Author's Notes
There are differences between the Sindarin as spoken in Middle Earth and Quenya that was used in Aman. Those who lived on Tol Eressëa most likely used as many Sindarin words as Quenyan, considering that it was to this island that most refugees from Middle Earth came first. So it is that I have felt free to use words from both languages in this this story, sometimes in the same conversation.
In his letters, the Master has let it be known that Frodo would not live as an immortal in spite of living in the Undying Lands. In time he would die. But in the Silmarillion and the appendices to LOTR we learn that mortals could not live long once they reached the actual shores of Aman, as its air was so enriched by having been breathed by the Valar that Men’s lives would burn out within moments. So it was that Frodo and Bilbo were sent to Tol Eressëa to heal, not to Aman itself. How would this affect the thoughts of these two mortals, or Sam or Gimli who would arrive there in time? And how would this affect relationships between Frodo and the folk who surrounded him? How would it affect a possible romantic relationship?
Ir and Tar translated to the titles Lord and King respectively. It is likely that when describing Frodo formally using his Sindarin name, he would be named Ir-Iorhael by the denizens of Tol Eressëa. After all, he and Sam had been named Princes of the West during their acclamation in Cormallen, and there are indications that Frodo at least was considered to be among the Wise as a result of his interactions with the Ring and his actions afterwards in insisting on mercy to those of the Big Men that surrendered to the Hobbits and who freely gave up their weapons, not to mention his recognition of Saruman’s true nature as a Maia that led him to seek to give him time to return to spiritual health once more. Frodo was resistant to the temptation to take vengeance on those who put aside their own assumed belligerence toward those seen as weaker than themselves, and sought not to allow his people or friends to become corrupted by the desire to avenge themselves upon those who had done them physical and emotional harm.
Elsewhere I have postulated that Saruman had reached the point that he was desperate to be freed from his Mannish physical state, which was why he prodded Gríma to the point that the Man slew him at the last. In The Silmarillion it was indicated that any of the Ainur who held a particular physical shape for too long would take on the nature of the shape they’d assumed and eventually lose the ability to return to their true spiritual selves. Apparently Saruman’s nature had been so damaged by being kept too long in a Mannish body that he had taken on Mannish ambition, and his fascination with Sauron’s power prompted him to also take on the plan to seek to ally himself with the enemy of Middle Earth and perhaps find the means to oust him and take his place as the one in domination over the whole world.
As for the growing attraction between Frodo and the Elven maiden Livwen—why not? We know that when he met Tom Bombadil’s Goldberry he was inspired to utter his own paean of praise to her, and that when he realized that Arwen’s arrival in Minas Tirith meant she would be Aragorn’s Queen, that she would bless the evening and drive away fears of darkness. It is likely that he had been drawn to her in much the same way he’d been drawn to Goldberry.
As one who has raised children who’d lost their own families while young, I have seen that such children usually find themselves wishing to start their own families sooner rather than later. I think that Frodo would have been drawn this way, but on finding himself under the influence of the Ring once he’d achieved adult status to the point It was likely to prompt him to abuse women, he would avoid relationships that would possibly bring him to violence against the woman he loved and the possible children they might produce.
Then, after the destruction of the Ring, how would he respond to the realization that he was now free to court and possibly marry? As movie-Frodo says, How do you go on when you realize there is no real going back? Saruman had indicated that Frodo would not know a long or healthy life—insisting he merely foretold the truth of Frodo’s future. Marry when it is likely you won’t remain long enough to see the family you want so desperately grow? So he adopted Sam and his family as his own, and left it to Sam to produce the family he would not have the time to enjoy.
Elves come to adult status when they reach their fifties. If Frodo met Livwen as a child when he was already at least fifty-three, he would be at the very least in his nineties when she was recognized as a woman of her people, if not older. Bilbo lived into his one hundred and thirties before he left Middle Earth; would Frodo linger as long? I doubt it. If Frodo lived to see Sam’s arrival on the island he was at least one hundred fourteen. As Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday was considered to be remarkable, Frodo would also be very old by Hobbit reckoning when he and Sam were reunited.
Plus there was the complication of a union between mortal and immortal. Perhaps Mithrellas was able to escape renouncing her immortality when she gave birth to the children of the first Prince of Dol Amroth, but that grace was not granted to Lúthien or Arwen, although it is not known what fate was granted Túor and Idril. Would this not concern both Frodo and Livwen?
So, in my-verse Frodo remains celibate to the end of his life, letting Livwen know of his love for her only as he leaves his mortal remains to dance among the stars before finally turning West.
~~o0o~~
Hmm. It appears that this story grew in the telling. Somehow I managed to stop adding details to it that would have made it bulky and ungainly, but I managed to contain it somewhat.
The suruli are mentioned in volume one of The History of Middle-Earth as creatures of light that were to be glimpsed at the edges of reflected light. I would imagine that as Frodo became more and more one becoming as a glass filled with light for eyes to see as can as noted by Gandalf as he sat by Frodo's bedside in Rivendell, that the suruli would have been drawn to him.
As for Livwen--perhaps she truly wished from time to time to be at one with the nature of the one she'd come to love.