Earenii understood Frodo but he soon discovered that he did not fully know the sad elven woman’s mind.

It was long past the middle of the night and only the stars illumined the darkness of the sky above Frodo as he walked sleepless in the groves of sighing trees that climbed the slopes around Rivendell. In the deep shadows he felt that he was completely alone. Indeed none would see his small hobbit form as he moved along soundlessly. None but elvish ears and eyes could discern his prescence.

When he heard with his own sharp hobbit ears a quick, startled intake of breath he looked up to see Earenii in a clearing only a yard or two away. The starlight reflected from her slightly less than it did the elves of Rivendell but still she was elvish enough for the light to shimmer just enough about her thin, bent form for a hobbit as attuned to his surroundings as was Frodo Baggins to see clearly.

The stars also glimmered on the edges of the sharp elven knife that she clutched before her with it’s point aimed at her heart.

Then he fully understood the meaning of the look she had given him across the Hall of Fire earlier in the night. It was a look of knowing and of farewell.

Frodo did not utter a word but walked towards her , reached with his maimed hand and wrapped his nine fingers around the blade and held it firmly. She could not wield it against herself without harming him and he did not think she could do that.

Their eyes locked and for what seemed hours they remained so. Still, tense, and in total union of all that each of them were now and had been and ever would be.

“Please...” she begged him.

“Try to go on.” Frodo said. He didn’t say ‘don’t do this thing’ or ‘you will be all right if you just wait awhile’ or ’this is a selfish act’ he didn’t utter any of the platitudes or cruel rebukes others might commonly have said.

“There is no end to the pain.” she said. And it was not physical pain of which she spoke. It was a far worse soul devouring torment of the mind that was never silent, never rested nor granted a moment’s peace.

“No,” he said. “there isn’t. At times it fades but it is always present.”

“What do I do?” she implored him.

“I do not know.”

The blade fell slack in her grasp and gently Frodo took it from her and placed it on the ground.

Her hands remained held out before her as though she did not realize she could now lower them. Frodo took them in his own and gently guided her to a seat on a boulder beneath a tall elm. She allowed him to do this but she moved stiffly as though she did not know what she did or cared whether she was still or in motion.

Then Earenii did something he had never seen an elf do before. She began to weep; to sob as if her heart were rent within her. To cry as if her life’s-blood flowed out from this torn gaping wound inside her breast. This heart's-blood flowed in violent rivulets over her cheeks, lips, neck and down into the folds of her robe to return to the wound from which it had so savagely erupted.

Then he knew that his own tears were falling silently but just as full of his own heart's-pain as were her's.

When his own eyes cleared for a moment he saw what she had long hidden beneath her hood, for in her distress she had let it fall back unheeded. Her tears clung to long harsh scars that ran about her throat down beneath her robe to her chest, and up the sides of her cheeks to end in a deep dark slash beneath one eye.

He let go of one of her hands and softly ran the remains of his wounded finger along the scars on her throat.

“What did they do to you?” he whispered.

She could only shake her head.

“Tell me, for I am scarred and wounded too.”

“It was too bad...too long. I was in Mordor for hundreds of years and could not escape.”

“Hundreds............ I fear your scars are far worse than mine.”

‘No! You bore the Ring. You let it fall into the fire and with it it tore away a great part of yourself. There can be no pain greater than this.”

Frodo blanched white as the unwanted memories flooded back as they did so very easily so many times.

“I will not compare my own suffering to another’s. It is not fair to deny you your own torments that so haunt you still.” he said in gasps as he fought the agony the memories brought with them.

“How do we live with this?” She pleaded for an answer and Frodo had none with which to comfort her.

Then all he could do was gather her into his arms and she too clung to him.

“Perhaps all we can do is share it.” He said.

And so they sat throughout the night and the comfort of their embraces which came from like damaged souls helped them survive till yet another dawn.

TBC.