Rating: PG
**WARNING**: This story is strongly implied Frodo/Sam, so if you don't like hobbitslash
then you may want to go elsewhere.
Feedback: Questions, comments and snide remarks directed to <FyrDrakken@juno.com>
will receive guaranteed responses. As an Elitist Fic Bitch in good
standing, I welcome constructive criticism -- if there's a
problem in something I've written I *really* want to know about it so I can fix
it!
Disclaimer: Tolkien must be spinning in his grave enough already without
my being able to add much insult to the injury. Obviously any characters
you recognize aren't mine.
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"Not Such Paradise"
by FyrDrakken
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The thing about the elves was, they didn't mean to be superior. They just were.
It wasn't a matter of putting on airs or looking down their noses at everyone who wasn't
one of them, so much as a pervasive knowledge that they were the eldest and
fairest of the sentient peoples. Wisest, immortal, skilled in all crafts
and holders of all knowledge that might be worth possessing, and they knew
this of themselves.
They didn't have to rub everyone else's noses in the fact that the
elves were better. They simply knew that they were, and that you knew
as well, and everything proceeded from that assumption.
Such as when they welcomed the newcomers to the Undying Lands, providing
them with soft and radiant garb of Elvish manufacture and gently confiscating
the humble clothing they had worn in Middle-Earth. Frodo couldn't argue
that the new stuff wasn't more beautiful, more comfortable, and more fitting
to his surroundings -- but he couldn't say that he would have minded keeping
a touch of home about himself, either.
(A more obvious touch of home than the little packet, that was. He
kept the envelope near him at all times, but he opened it only rarely.
He dreaded the thought of curious questions about the little keepsake, and
so -- like another golden treasure that had brought him nothing but pain
-- he kept it secret, and he kept it safe.)
But Valinor was all that Frodo could have hoped it would be. Gentle
voices all around, song drifting through the fragrant air, a light to the
very air that seemed far removed from the simple sun and moon of stars of
prosaic Middle-Earth. With the healing arts at the disposal of the
Vaiar, his scars were smoothed, the wound in his shoulder ceased to pain
him, and the mark left by the spider's sting faded to near invisibility.
They might even have been able to restore his missing finger, but...
He refused the offer, chose to let what had been taken remain lost.
Perhaps as penance, a concession to the memory of Smeagol, who had suffered
far longer under the same burden and had died bearing it yet again, in Frodo's
place. Perhaps simply to remind himself of who he was, and what he
was doing there in the Uttermost West.
He was petted and made much of, for there were those in Valinor who remembered
Sauron from when the Ring was newly-forged, or even Morgoth before him, and
there was great honor accorded to the one who had the strength of will to
finally bring him low. It made him uncomfortable whenever his supposed
strength were alluded to -- for hadn't he snapped and forsaken the quest
at the very end? Hadn't it been no more than clumsy treachery and sheer
blind luck that had destroyed the Ring at the last moment? But
the elves did not press him on the matter -- for they came to Valinor to
escape the death and darkness of Middle Earth, and though they might preserve
the good things in their flawless timeless memories or honor the heroism
that had responded to strife, they did not wish to dwell on the dark times
themselves.
Time passed -- how much, Frodo could not have said. Valinor seemed
seasonless, always balmy and perfect. And since the wounds of sword
and sting had ceased to give him annual reminders, the calendar -- whatever
day it might <i>be</i> back in Middle-Earth -- seemed less than
unimportant. He would let his weary soul bask in the beauty and joy
that surrounded him, spend his days with Bilbo, and his nights with whomever
he might happen to find himself with. It would be like being a tweenager
again, like those years in Bag End with his cousin as a carefree lad with
life and adventure ahead of him, only better.
Only no Sam, whispered that small unwelcome voice inside him -- the
same one that pointed out how little he deserved the honors done him, or
how much he missed furniture made for people his size, or that Valinor might
be paradise but it wasn't exactly home, now was it? (The same voice that reminded him of that little envelope he'd brought with him, tucked into his jacket.)
But that was alright, because Sam was coming, eventually -- just had a little business to take care of first, some loose ends to tie up -- a life to live, whispered the voice -- and then he'd be there, too, and it would all be perfect.
They would have forever and ever in the Undying Lands and everything would be beautiful and finally, finally, that blasted business with the Ring and the War and all the rest of it would have a proper happy ending.
Frodo let the uncounted days pass, waiting peacefully for everything to be perfect.
Then Bilbo died, and he realized that perfect would never come again.
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It seemed so unfair. They were called the Undying Lands, weren't they? You'd think the name meant something, wouldn't you?
Well, they were called the Undying Lands because they were where the people
who wouldn't die lived. You didn't become immortal just by hopping
on a boat and coming over. (The Numenoreans had found that out the hard way,
as Frodo eventually learned.) He later had to admit to himself that no one
had ever, ever promised or claimed or even hinted that he would never
die if he went to Valinor -- just that his wounds might be finally healed,
and that it would be considered a fitting reward for what he had done. (Even
if what he'd done was a sham, an accident, a case of succeeding in saving
the world through sheer incompetence at setting himself up as a new Dark
Lord.)
Had he been paying attention, he might have noticed Bilbo growing ever frailer
as the days and months passed. But he had let himself be caught up
in the eternal now of those who let the seasons pass as days and the
centuries as months. Any absentmindedness on Bilbo's part he had dismissed
as part of the same process of being swept along by those around him.
Any tendencies towards inactivity on his cousin's part he had considered
to be a more sedentary version of his own attitude, letting events whirl
around him while he watched, participating only as the mood struck him.
He hadn't been paying attention, and Bilbo's death came as an utter shock.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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