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Following the Other Wizard: journey into healing  by jodancingtree

Prelude

Sam's face kept coming into his dreams, shocking him awake as if someone had pressed cold steel against his throat.  The mask of grief on Sam's honest, dirty face, looking up at him without seeing him…

He lay trembling in the dark; beside him Radagast snored gently.

Frodo had known before he ever reached the Shire that there was no going home for him.  The Ring had burned into him as if his very soul had been branded; waking or sleeping, he craved it as a starving man craves food. He had stood at the Havens with Gandalf and Elrond, hoping against hope that they would invite him to go with them into the West, into the realm of light and peace where evil was cast out forevermore.  The invitation had not come, and he saw now that he had been a fool to let himself hope for it. No mortal was permitted to make that passage, and himself least of all, tainted as he was.

So Elrond had kissed him solemnly on both cheeks and wished him well, and Gandalf had embraced him, shrouding him for a moment in robes of snowy white. For that one moment he had felt safe, but then Gandalf had kissed his forehead and turned away. The gangplank was drawn up and the ship had sailed, Gandalf in the stern holding up his hands in farewell.  Frodo had watched until the sails disappeared over the horizon, and then he had ridden home in despair, keeping up a façade of cheerfulness for Sam while his heart seemed to dry up and blow away on the sea breeze.

He was left with his shame and self-contempt.  He set his teeth and bore it, spending his days writing the book, the story that had to be told, the Ring and the War and the return of the King.  But nightmares haunted him and his mind began to wander; it was all he could do to finish the book, and when it was done his strength was spent. 

 He had crept away from Bag End in the middle of the night, intent on finding a place where he could end the pain and his life at one blow, without grieving Sam, or Merry, or anyone who loved him.  And he'd ended up hiding in a tree with the Brown Wizard, who had walked into the middle of his attempt at self-destruction, and called him Donkey and given him an apple for breakfast.

Sam had ridden after him, fearing the worst, and Frodo had hidden, still trying to protect his dearest friend, to conceal what the Ring had done to him.  And Sam had stared up at him without seeing, his face streaked with tears – Sam was not deceived; he guessed what Frodo had come there to do!

So it was all out in the open at last, and in the end it was Sam who begged him to go with Radagast.  Sam saw hope for him with the Brown Wizard; Sam still believed that he could heal from the Ring.  Frodo could not deny him that hope, even if he did not share it himself.
 
There was a soft whinny in the darkness and a rustle as the horses moved about, before they settled down again.  Radagast shifted in his sleep, throwing his arm across Frodo as if he would shield him from some peril.  Frodo lay staring up at the moon, shining pale and far away, a thin sliver in a black sky.  Perhaps there was healing in the wilderness.  There was danger; he had journeyed enough in the wild to know that.  If he could not find peace, he might at least find an end.  He was willing to settle for that. 





        

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