Chapter Sixteen: A Meeting with Father

Much of Frodo’s thought over the following days was preoccupied with his words to Bilbo. It helped the two of them to talk about their mutual burden and Frodo was happy to see that his uncle seemed less stricken with guilt the younger hobbit thought he never should have had, but was saddened that he still was not entirely healed. The last Ring-bearer still struggled with his own guilt and sense of responsibility but as he walked slowly in the gardens, staring thoughtfully at the ground, with the peace of the land seeping into him as sunlight and his hand held out and curled inward as he felt Sam beside him, he heard his own voice repeat back to him what he had told Bilbo. That the Ring would have found a way to kill Sam no matter what, if that was its intention and no matter what his own will in the matter was, the Ring’s will was at times stronger than his. It was still a hard thing to wrap his heart and understanding around, though he well knew there indeed had been times the Ring had overwhelmed him or almost had despite his best efforts. He had blamed himself for all those times, on the way out of the Shire when he had been saved by Gildor and his company, at the Prancing Pony, at Weathertop...

"There are times we are not ourselves but the instrument of another," Gandalf told him one bright afternoon, "for good or ill."

"Gandalf!" Frodo cried, broken out of his reverie. "I didn’t hear you come up." He squinted up into the sunshine. "Do you know all my thoughts?"

The wizard smiled kindly. "What else have you been thinking of all these months?"

Frodo sighed. "I should know by now I have no secrets that I can hide."

"Not among those who love you most, no. But you also mutter a lot to yourself."

A ghost of a smile teased the edges of the Ring-bearer’s mouth. "Bilbo used to always do that when he was trying to figure out a big problem with translating or something else. And Sam was always talking to his plants. I guess I picked that up."

"As they picked up qualities from you."

"Oh, Gandalf, what am I going to do? I think Bilbo believed me when I told him it wasn’t his fault, but he is still struggling. I don’t know what else to do. I spend all the time with him I can, just being there with him and it has helped us both because we can see that we still love each other and have forgiven each other, but he’s still not entirely forgiven himself and neither have I. I’ve barely begun to start."

"But you have started and now that you have, continue on that path. I said sometimes we are instruments of another power greater than ourselves. You have felt that from both the Light and the dark as all do, but much stronger than most. The Shadow hates the Light, though without it it would not be. It wishes only to destroy that which the Light has made, though it would destroy itself in the process. It tried very hard to destroy the Light in you but there were others who fought for you just as hard and not just Sam. You submitted your will to One of them at the Council. There is a difference between that free choice and when the Enemy sought to enforce its own savage will. Neither can be hid from, not forever. One will call softly, the other will scream when its whispers are not heeded. While those screams must be fought and resisted, there will be times in which you are penetrated and used. Perhaps you cannot utterly undo the evil done while in its control, but you can seek to heal the damage as much as possible. You can allow the gentle hand of the Light to restore what the Shadow has rent within you with its claws."

"I have felt them both in my heart. I thought I would be torn apart utterly. I still do."

Gandalf looked down at his beloved friend sympathetically. "So it does feel at times. But it will not always be so violent a struggle. Let the Light re-enter you and the Shadow lessen, my dear boy. When Bilbo sees that, he will heal also. Your healing will cause his. But don’t hurry it or put a false front on it. You may think you are fooling others, but those you have given your heart to cannot be deceived. You will still have to struggle in other battles, but this one you can win as you can win the others, step by step."

"I will try."

Frodo spent much time in the library in the days that followed with Sam or Bilbo or both or walking in the surrounding land taking in the healing power that still lingered. They spent long hours in the evening in the Hall of Fire, often falling asleep there propped up against each other.

Frodo felt Sam’s joy at being surrounded by Elves and their songs and he felt some more peace steal into his heart that his brother was still with him and still loved him. He knew he was watched over each night by his two guardians and he felt that Other presence as well. He didn’t cry himself to sleep as he had done so often before. He and Bilbo were nourished as well by the lembas which also helped ease the grief of their hearts.

One evening when Bilbo had already fallen asleep at Frodo’s shoulder and Glorfindel had carried him off to bed, Elrond approached the younger Ring-bearer. Frodo half-stood to bow at the Elf lord, but shook his head and gestured for him to sit back down.

"It is I who should bow to you," Elrond said, but knowing that would make his friend uncomfortable, merely bowed his head. He also bowed in the direction that he sensed Sam. "May I sit beside you?"

Frodo looked at him, surprised that his permission was being asked. "Of course, my lord," he replied in Sindarin. "It would be my honor."

Elrond smiled gravely. "You are picking up more of our speech. I saw you singing softly along tonight and you spend much of your time in the library."

"I have always loved the tales and Bilbo has been my teacher since I was a lad. Sam knows the tales as well as I do."

"Then you know they are filled with much woe. Few of mortal kind have had to contend with the Shadow as much as you. It’s no wonder that your fea suffered because of it. Mine too has been torn that I could not contend better with it."

Frodo looked up with even greater surprise. His gentle manners forbade him from asking why, but he feared the question was clear on his fair features.

"It is partly my fault that you had to contend with the Ring at all," Elrond said in answer. "I was beside Isildur when he came to the Crack of Doom and could not destroy the Ring. I have long struggled with my own failure to prevent him from leaving with it."

"It’s not your fault, my lord," Frodo said, amazed that the Elf lord would even consider such a thing. "There is a power there that overcomes all that come to it. You were not at fault. I wish too Isildur had destroyed the Ring and none of this had happened. My Sam would still be alive. And all the soldiers of Rohan and Gondor who perished defending their lands. But perhaps another Shadow would have arisen and had to be fought even if Sauron had been vanquished. I do not blame you, my lord."

"So my sons and daughter tried to convince me also and my wife before she left. But there are some wounds that are slow in healing and understanding sometimes takes greater wisdom than is to be had at the time."

"I have read the tale of Sauron’s defeat when Isildur cut the Ring from him." Frodo looked up into Elrond’s eyes and saw a pain there similar to what he felt. Tears brightened his own eyes. "You have held that pain long, my lord."

"Yes, very long."

Frodo touched his cheek. "You need not. You didn’t will Isildur’s failure nor could you have stopped it. His will was just as paralyzed from choosing the good as yours. I heard Sam telling me to destroy it, but he couldn’t get me to do it either. I don’t think good could be accomplished there by anyone."

Elrond reached up and took Frodo’s hand in his. "Yet it was."

"Not by me."

"Did you think it had to be? You did exactly what you were created to do. You bore the Ring. It was for another to destroy it."

Frodo didn’t say anything at first. If he had less manners, he would have withdrawn his hand, but he did not. Its warmth comforted him and reminded him of the way his own small hand had often been held in his father’s larger one. "I didn’t want to destroy it anymore. I had....it had...already killed Sam, but still I wanted it."

"As have all those who have borne it, so great is the power it exerts. It took me a long time to understand that about Isildur and myself. I hope you find wisdom by a shorter path. It was long before I could release my own guilt and I could not do it alone."

Frodo’s hand tightened slightly around Elrond’s. "Don’t blame yourself, my lord, for what you couldn’t control."

"As you do?" the Elf-lord asked gently.

"I still think I should have been able to stop myself."

"As I still think at times I should have been able to stop Isildur, but I have been healed of that particular grief or at least the guilt that clung to it. The Elves have long fought the Shadow and it has been a bitter fight with many losses and few victories. But still we fight on."

When Frodo did not respond, but stared straight ahead, and Elrond could barely feel that small hand in his, he spoke again. "Your light is bright, Frodo, son of Drogo. Brighter than any I’ve seen of mortal kind, equal in strength to Aragorn’s and I marveled when I first saw it, fractured and splintered as it was becoming, but still shining. Did you know that Aragorn’s name while he lived here was Estel? Do you know what that word means?"

"Hope," Frodo said quietly.

"Do you have any idea that while Aragorn was the guarded hope for Men, you were the guarded estel for all of Middle-earth? That you had been set aside as he had been for a hallowed task that only you could accomplish, the smallest of the created Children and the greatest?"

"Sam is the greatest and Bilbo and my parents and my cousins and all those fought the Shadow with greater strength than I had."

"All those you name would disagree."

Frodo turned silent once more. He could sense Sam’s exasperation at his stubbornness and sent him a silent apology.

Elrond stood suddenly, his hand still wrapped around Frodo’s. "I have a place to show you."

The troubled Ring-bearer looked up. He didn’t say anything, but allowed himself to be led. The Elf lord measured his steps to the hobbit’s smaller strides. They came to a door which was bracketed by the sconces of two brightly burning torches. The room was dark inside, lit only by candles, the largest of which hung from the ceiling surrounded by a dark red glass.

Elrond bowed and Frodo did the same though he did not know why. The Elf guided him to the last of a row of benches. "This is where I healed," the ancient lord said softly. "It is our iaun, our holy place. Have you read of Ilúvatar in your studies of Elven kind?"

"Yes, He was the One who created the Elves and Men."

"And Hobbits."

Frodo looked up at Elrond in surprise. Then he looked up at the red light and peace settled a little deeper around him. It felt like the wonderful feeling of love he had sensed that night back home. But this felt like home also. Even more.

"How can He love me so much?" Frodo wondered, not even aware he was talking aloud.

"Because He is your Father. He knows your shame and guilt and grief as intimately as He knew mine and just as much as I am His child, so are you. We are all reflections of His light, some of us are more splintered than others and some of us shine almost as brightly as we ought if we truly understood Whose children we were. The Shadow has been part of Creation from the beginning, Frodo. It has marred us all, but it can be overcome. Your Father is stronger than the Shadow for it is merely a warping of creation by a creation, while He is the Creator of all good things. It is His creatures that mar the good, but it is also His children who serve to try to heal the damage done. That is what you did when you said you would take the Ring to the Fire. That is why some of these candles are burning. They were lit with supplication to the One for your safe delivery from peril. Our prayers were answered. Yours can be too."

"I don’t know how to pray."

"You already have. Eru Ilúvatar Himself will make up for anything that is lacking and He will answer you. You are not perfect, son of Drogo, son of Eru, none of us are. Though we come from a perfect Creator, we pass through an imperfect creation, but you are loved for who you are and who you can be. Sit here and listen to Him tell you that. No Ilúvatar na le, Iorhael trannail."

Elrond left then and Frodo sat alone for a long time, staring up at the light and feeling it enter him. He cried silently to feel such love. Though he strongly desired to stay, at last he stood and lit a candle of his own, then bowed deeply and left. He knew he still had a way to go yet, but he felt strengthened to continue along the Road.

Gandalf came to him as he slept, softly glowing and smiled to Sam who sat at his dear’s bedside. Frodo slept deeply and peacefully, his brow less creased than it had been for a long time, his maimed hand wrapped around Sam’s. The Maia sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked the hobbit’s curls gently.

"May the One of peace and love set your heart at rest and speed you on your journey," he said softly. "May He shelter you from disturbances in the hidden recesses of His love, until He brings you at last into that place of complete plenitude where you will repose forever in the vision of peace, in the security of trust and in the restful enjoyment of His riches."

When he had ended his prayer, Frodo’s brow was smoothed and his features more relaxed. Sam smiled. "Thank you," he said and Gandalf knew it was not him who was being thanked.

A/N: Gandalf’s prayer is an almost exact quote of St. Raymond of Pennafort. No Iluvatar na le, Iorhael trannail is May Iluvatar be with you, Frodo of the Shire.