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In which Sam hopes for his master's future. Written for Periantari's birthday. A Fool’s Hope He says nothing’s wrong but I know otherwise. All day he’s hid himself away in his study, the Red Book open to the same blank page as that morning, not a drop of ink on it. I look around and the inkwell is still in the desk, the fresh quills spotless, yet he'll pretend he’s been working. He stares out at the twilit garden, and through the window I can smell the sweet begonias and the sharp mint. I can see the sky filled with reds, pinks and oranges, and down the Hill along the Water folk are strolling along the Road, swinging their arms without a care in the world as they make their way to The Ivy Bush or The Green Dragon. I touch his arm to let him know I’m there, but he doesn’t move, not a twitch or a shudder, not even a sigh. He’s clutching that little jewel Queen Arwen gave him and though he looks outside, he’s seeing something far away. The black centers of his eyes are filled with memories best forgot: the fires of Mt. Doom, the morbid stench of Mordor, the cries of the Nazguls’ fell beasts careening towards us, that wicked Gollum’s teeth breaking off his finger. He thinks I don’t see it, but I do. You don’t save a soul one day and forget how it suffered the next. I know why he keeps them a secret, these days that are so bleak for him. You see, I’m the one who helped him across Mordor, even carried him up the volcano some. I kept him alive in that black land when everything around us would see him dead, including himself. Somehow we survived and escaped, and if I thought my job done, I was wrong. I see that now. I brought him home to the Shire, expecting him to be safe as a kitten at his mother’s teat, but that isn’t what happened. Standing here on this peaceful spring night, looking down at the too-slim form of my master, it’s plain for all to see that’s he suffering here, drowning on dry land and there’s naught I can do to stop it. I kept him alive only to fail him in the end. And that’s the awful truth. It’s not anything either of us want to talk about. So when he finally shakes himself from his stupor and says everything’s all right, I agree with him and get him his tea and build up the fire while he pulls out the inkwell, dips a quill and starts dabbling nonsense on that blank page. It’s a sort of dance we’ve developed over the months since I moved here with Rose and every day we get a little better at performing it. Maybe if we get good enough, the memories won’t haunt him quite so much and he’ll start getting better. Maybe then, I won’t be such a failure. It’s a fool’s hope, but it’s the only one I have. GF 8/5/07 |
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