Tolkien Fan Fiction
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| Together, One Last Time |
| I can’t help but watch you laying there Mister Frodo, all curled up in a little ball against the chill night air, your wounded fist tucked nice and tight beneath your chin. Aching deep down in my middle, I weep in darkness the tears I dare not cry in the daylight. Sleepless with grief, I tuck my blanket around you too, and think how glad I am you’re resting quiet like at last. It’s been a long ride, and you’re not as strong as you used to be. The elves sing just beyond us, their voices raised to the star-filled sky, but the songs are melancholy and ‘taint no comfort in them tonight…least ways, not for me. Mister Frodo, or I s’pose it could… or should…be just Frodo now, after everything what’s happened these past few years. These days I reckon calling you “mister” seems a mite formal, but no matter how I try, I can’t seem to stop myself. “Old habits die hard,” my gaffer would say. My gaffer’d tell me to call you Mister. “Mind your place Samwise, and no trouble will find you.” Mind your place. And where’d that be, Mister Frodo, if not at your side? Well I kept to my place, Frodo, minded duty and responsibilities, but trouble found me just the same didn’t it? It found both of us and led us where we’d no notion to go. Then when it were done it spat us out, leavin’ us to pick through the pieces of who we’d been once, tryin’ to rescue enough parts to make us whole again. And we tried Mr. Frodo…we tried to put them pieces back together, but there just weren’t enough paste left to fix what that thing broke in you. I reckon only them as are higher than us can fix you now. I reckon that’d be why we’re where we are tonight. So here I am, sitting at your side one last time and my mind, well, it’d be as troubled as it were that day we set out for Crickhollow. If we’d’ve known how much them first few steps would change everything we’d ever known, would we have had the mettle to take them? Had I known then, they’d lead to tonight, and tomorrow’s bitter parting…I don’t know if I’d’ve had the courage to follow you. Not like there were ever really any choice. Aye, Frodo, tomorrow’s the end. I feel sort of a threat of doom hanging over us, stronger now than ever I felt in Mordor. Watching you breathe so gentle in sleep, I wonder at the heavy feel of the air, sort of like the feel of a storm coming in the heat of summer. Maybe ‘tis just the heaviness of the hurtin’ that sits inside of me but I feel more despairing than ever I felt in that dark place. Even on the mountain itself, there were still some hope…if only a little…that some way we’d come home again; and if not, then dying would take us there together. Together. The word brings tears and a sharp bite to the burning in my belly. After tomorrow, there won’t be no more together for you and me – will there Mister Frodo? You’re leavin’ more than just the Shire this time…going where I cannot follow, though I be torn in two for the wantin’ of it. Yes, on the morrow I’ll be left here my Master, my dear, dear friend, and you’ll be going away. I’ll be losin’ you for always, my heart scoured by the wind and the waves. Tomorrow what’s left of my spirit will be carried away by the sea. |