Chapter Twelve: The Library

After second breakfast, Frodo took Sam by the hand and down the path in a different direction than they had gone before. “Now we are going to another of my favorite places,” the elder hobbit said. “I have so many here, so many places you can get lost for hours and be perfectly happy. I know you will be too.”

“Well, I think the only place I haven’t seen that could make you so happy would be a library.”

Frodo pulled a mock-pout. “Am I that obvious? I did want it to be a bit of a surprise.”

Sam smiled. “How can you possibly think you have any secrets from me, melmenya, a heart I have known and loved for so long?”

Frodo beamed at his brother. “I suppose I really can’t. You do know me, warts and all, and yet you love me. I still marvel at that sometimes.”

Sam held his treasure’s hand tighter. “You shouldn’t.”

“No, but I still do.”

They walked along silently, rejoicing simply in being together again. The library was a large building. Sam felt he had stepped into a grander one than even Rivendell’s and he had thought that had been wonderful. There were many study rooms on either side of a long, wide hallway of gleaming marble. From one of them, the elfing Auna waved and smiled enthusiastically. She ran out and excitedly announced, “We’re learning from your books today, Tecindo! Lady Lerian thought we should know the history of Middle-earth and we are learning all about hobbits today!”

Frodo laughed. “All in one day? Then go back to it, ammelda, there’s lots to learn! Enjoy!”

Auna grinned, squeezed her favorite hobbit tightly and quickly and then ran back in. Eruanna and her brother waved as well and Frodo waved back.

At the end of the hall, he and Sam reached a very large room holding rows upon rows upon rows of books and maps, many of them thousands of years old. Sam craned his head up as far as it could go and still couldn’t see the top shelf. He looked at his brother. Frodo was shining nearly as brightly as the many lamps that illuminated the area.

Frodo looked at Sam and grinned. “Paradise!”

As he guided Sam around, the elder hobbit nodded and smiled to many of the Elves who stood among the shelves or sat at the many tables spread throughout. Sam looked at the spines of some of the books as they passed and looked forward to the day he could read some of them.

“What book did you write, meldanya?” he asked quietly.

“I’ve written several,” Frodo said. “I can show you. I have been greatly honored that they let me have them here. It’s been a joy to write again. I did one for the history of the hobbits, one of the Dwarves, one of Men and I even did one of the War of the Ring. I thought that would be painful to do, but it wasn’t. I did it all as part of the whole history of Middle-earth that the Lady Galadriel and Lord Elrond encouraged me to study so I would know my part in it, that I was not the only Ring-bearer tempted and tested. It helped me understand a lot I didn’t know before and some of the guilt that I had never been able to let go before left me.”

Sam looked up worriedly as Frodo pulled over and climbed a ladder. His brother was going up much too high for his comfort, but Frodo seemed perfectly comfortable as he climbed nimbly up several shelves. He.pulled two books into his arms. “Well, here’s the one about Men and the one about the Ring. It’s all in Quenya, but I’m sure you’ll be able to read it one day, if you want.” He looked around a little more. “I wonder where the one about the Dwarves is.”

“The Lord Kardian took that one,” came a soft voice beside him.

Frodo’s eyes widened and he wobbled just a little on the ladder. Sam’s eyes widened equally in fear.

“Come down, meldanya, please,” he begged.

Holding on to the ladder with one hand and Sam holding it also to steady it, Frodo climbed down with two thick, leather bound books. The younger hobbit breathed a sigh of relief and the elder smiled.

“Oh, Sam, what an honor that Kardian would want to read my book, especially that one! He used to live on Middle-earth when the Dwarves and Elves were most hotly against each other. He lost his wife and children to those conflicts and came here full of bitterness, anger and grief. I had hoped he could heal but he has stubbornly held on to his grudge all these many, many years. I wonder now though...oh Sam, wouldn’t it be wonderful....”

They spent some hours more and elevenses and even lunch passed as they were lost in the tales and histories of the Elves. “This is the only time I begrudge the Elves their immortality,” Frodo said. “So many stories, so little time,” he sighed.

Then his stomach growled. “Well, enough time spent feeding the mind and heart, time to feed the body.”

“That ladder was made especially for Bilbo and I so we can reach the higher shelves without needing to ask someone to lift us or stand on a chair,” Frodo said as they left. “I gave everyone quite a scare when I did that once and the chair shifted under me and I and several heavy volumes came crashing down.”

“Is that how you got that scar on your chin?”

“Yes, I landed rather hard and was buried under enough books that I was a bit dazed when I was lifted up. My chin was bleeding rather profusely and I kept worrying about it going all over the books. It would be just that day that I didn’t have a handkerchief with me to stop it so I was holding my hands over it and it was seeping through that. I gave Bilbo a terrible fright when he saw that, my face and my hands all stained with blood. He was just beside himself when he saw how badly I was bleeding and I was more worried about the books! He whipped out one of his handkerchiefs in a hurry and I held it against my chin for a good long while he looked so pale I was afraid he was going to faint dead away. My arms were all scrapped and red where I had fallen against the shelves, but fortunately nothing was bleeding there or I think he really would have! . He was already in tears and wringing his hands. I kept apologizing over and over again to him and to my friends who had rescued me. A healer came then and I apologized to her too. She looked at my chin and arms and daubed them with a balm that stung at first then took away the pain and helped with the bruising. She put a cream on a bandaged for my chin and I wore that for two days. Then she went and calmed Bilbo down.

“I was able to walk home, albeit with a bit of a limp. Bilbo held me by the arm the whole way and insisted I go right to bed. No amount of protesting that I was fine made any difference to him. He just looked at me and said very sternly, “‘Don’t lie to me, Frodo Baggins! I have been a Baggins much longer than you have and I can be much more stubborn than you any day. So don’t even try to out do me.’”

“I just smiled, apologized very meekly and kissed his cheek. He gave my cheek a little stroke and I could see tears starting in his eyes again, but he kissed my head and left and I was glad he hadn’t insisted getting me into my nightshirt since I was really beginning to ache by that point and knew if the bruises on my hands and arms were any indication, my knees and legs were going to have some beautiful ones. So I carefully eased my breeches off and found I was right. I smeared more of that balm the healer had given me and thought if I just stayed under the covers, Bilbo would never know what a sorry sight I was. Unfortunately, he came in before I could do that and saw the whole thing.

“He spoiled me rotten, fluttering around me, a overprotective mother hen, even worse than you! He wouldn’t even let me move out of bed on my own because I was so bruised and couldn’t walk without a limp for several days. That first night he even carried me to the privy and then the next morning went out to get one of those wheeled chairs like they had in Rivendell because things were even worse the next morning because the knee had stiffened up over night and I practically fell over when I tried to stand.

“When I did start walking again, it hurt, but I think it hurt him more than me. He was practically in tears each time I gingerly lifted myself out for a walk, but the healer had said she wanted me to get walking again, knowing how much I had stiffened up just that first night and I should do some walking more and more each day until I could do it without pain."

Sam smiled, grateful for some mention of his first master. “No one loved you more than Mr. Bilbo did.”

Frodo smiled and looked tenderly at his brother. “Unless it’s you. You both shaped me well. I can never thank either of you enough for that.”

“Well, we both know you were someone who needed special looking after. I wish I had been there to help you. I’m sorry you were so hurt.”

"But even that helped heal me. I realized it was the first time I had cut myself and seen a bloody hand and not thought of the Fire and losing my finger. I knew then how much I was beginning to heal. So even that helped. My physical limp was nothing compared to how badly my soul had been limping and now was strengthening.”