A/N:  To keep everyone on their toes or perhaps just totally confused, I've done a little juggling around with this story.  This first meeting of Frodo and Celebrian is now its own separate chapter instead of being part of the last one so the first part of this is not too new (though you may want to re-read it just to refresh your memory because it's been so long since I've posted a chapter to this - sorry about that!) but I've added another meeting too and some other stuff so the second part is new to all.  And I've also changed the title of next chapter which you've all already read (Frodo admitting to Bilbo and Sam how badly he was raped by the Ring/Sauron and Bilbo's first tentative steps back to faith) to Big Steps, formerly known as Now I See which will be the title of the next chapter which I hope will be posted soon.  But you have to forget that you read about Frodo's big steps because this chapter takes place before that.  Completely confused now?  I tried so hard. :)

Chapter Twenty: Kindred Spirits

Frodo withdrew from the sea and came to the iaun, seeking strength to continue. But he saw that this time he was not alone and though he desperately needed the solace the silence and comfort of the room and light provided him, he did not wish to intrude on another. "Ani apsene, herinya," he said with a bow as he saw someone look up at him.

Celebrían looked at the small being who had just asked for forgiveness and in her own tongue, but with a lilt that she didn’t recognize. Certainly not an Elvish child, but still shining as brightly as any, especially from the left shoulder and the gap between the fingers on his right hand. The Elf lady was entranced by the incredible beauty of the little one and struck by the pain that radiated from his fea. For a long time, she had felt much the same pain and suddenly she knew. This had to be the perian that her husband had told her about that he hoped she could help, the one she had dreamed would be coming. She said a silent prayer to Ilúvatar. Hantanyel, Atar. [Thank you, Father.] Now I know why you wanted me to come here tonight.

"La mauya nin apsene," she said as Frodo turned to leave.

Frodo flushed. "Nanye nyerinqua. Umin hanya."

Celebrían smiled. "I said it was not necessary to forgive. You speak our language very well."

The edges of Frodo’s mouth twitched. "My uncle Bilbo taught me Sindarin, but I don’t know much Quenya yet. Just enough to say that I’m sorry that I don’t."

A soft laughter came from the Elf lady like music, a soothing balm to Frodo’s soul. "Then we shall not speak it yet. But please stay with me, if you’d like. I find much comfort here and my husband thought I may be able to help you for long ago, according to your years, I suffered similar wounds to those of yours, though yours are more grievous. I am Celebrían, Elrond’s wife."

"An honor, herinya," he murmured. He bowed low. "Frodo Baggins at your service."

Celebrían bowed her head. "The honor is mine, Iorhael. My husband has told me of the debt we owe you, even here. And I have learned from...other sources as well. Please sit down and we can talk, if you wish."

Frodo did so. "If there ever was a debt it has been repaid by allowing me to come here. I couldn’t stay anymore at home."

His feet dangled, far from touching the floor and Celebrían marveled anew at him, at his child-like size, at his beauty and the tremendous hurt in him but also a strength tested to and beyond the point of breaking. He stood close to the edge of the abyss she had stared into herself. She wanted to hold out her hand to him, to keep him back. "Neither could I. I was sorely wounded in hroa and fea. My husband healed my body, but there were wounds far deeper than nothing but this place and our Atar could heal."

"So I hope to be healed also."

"The journey back is an arduous one, but rewarding. There is much work that must be done and I have found it best to do it here."

"I have found it the same. I began in Rivendell but it is so hard."

"Our Atar gives us the strength we need."

"I have found that. I hope it will be enough." Frodo’s voice became very soft. "I fear it won’t be."

"It will be. I couldn’t bear the memories or the pain where I was before. I couldn’t feel our Atar there as well as I could here. I think the torment was too much a part of me for me to be truly aware of His presence as much as I had been before. He was shut out by thoughts that maybe I should have fought harder against my attackers and so perhaps I wouldn’t have been so harmed."

"I have thought that so myself, many times."

Celebrían looked at him kindly. "Did you discover it was folly to think so? There are some powers which are stronger than we are and it is not our fault that we cannot always win against them. It was a hard lesson for me to learn."

"As it was for me. It took me a long time to understand. I think sometimes I do, and I believe it, but then the darkness and the doubts return and I wonder if I really do."

"As it did for me, but Atar showed me the truth. Once I accepted it, I began to heal. The darkness began to fade, but until I came here, it consumed my whole life."

"You understand," Frodo said softly. He raised his head to look at her and by the light of the candles and his own light, Celebrían saw the tears that streaked down his cheeks. "My uncle understands part of what hurts so much and your lord husband part, but you understand another. The worst part, perhaps. I grieve to think of what was done to you to teach you these lessons."

Celebrían gently laid her hand on his curls. "And I grieve to think of what the dark Enemy did to you. I was assaulted only by his servants and I wondered for a long time why the One allowed that. What purpose did my torment serve in His plans? I think now I know and I do not begrudge it if it will help you. I don’t doubt that yours was the worse violation for that was done by the Enemy himself."

Frodo was deeply moved and at the same time pierced with pain. "Yes," he said and so softly, it may have been just an exhaled breath. Had not Celebrían not endured some of the same torment? The Ring-bearer looked her full in the eyes. "The orcs are no more, herinya. They didn’t hurt me as they were too frightened of Sam."

Celebrían smiled. "Elrond has told me of your fierce guardian. I wish I had had one."

The edges of Frodo’s mouth curved slightly upward. "Everyone should. I have been very blessed. From the day we met, he has taken care of me and I have tried to take care of him. I gave him a bitter reward for all that and still he remains with me. I don’t deserve all that."

"Yet you have it. Who among us deserves all the love we receive? But it is freely given and the more it is given out, the greater we are ourselves, not the lesser, for giving our hearts away. You have shown that yourself."

Frodo sighed. "I wanted to destroy the Ring, truly I did, but I couldn’t. It was an accident that destroyed it by one who lusted for it as much as...as I did. Even after I killed my Sam at its command, I still wanted it. I fear the stain will never leave me."

"It was no accident that destroyed the Ring. It was consciously Willed to have happened and not by the one who carried out its destruction. Shadow was defeated by Spirit. I have listened much to the Song here and the place of good and the evil in it and I have learned that nothing is left to chance, that everything has a purpose and a reason behind it, even if we don’t know what it is right away." Celebrían raised Frodo’s chin with two of her fingers and waited until his tormented eyes met hers. "Our Atar has given you a great heart, Iorhael. You cannot see it now, shadowed in pain, fractured and splintered, but I can see a little behind the shrouding veils. Listen for your part in the Music and how it effects the whole because of the way you have been moved within your fea to act.

"After I was attacked, I didn’t see how my wounds would ever heal either. The physical ones disappeared after a while, but the ones that held my fea prisoner lingered and I did not know how they could ever be healed. They seemed indelibly impressed upon it. But there was Something else impressed more deeply. You have already begun to feel that strength. You are a beloved child, Iorhael. Rest in your Atar’s arms and feel the return of all that the Enemy took from you. I know it feels as though you have been stripped bare, but you are still clothed in the raiment that the One put upon you, though tattered and torn it seems to you now. But others can see and one day I hope you will see that it is through your scars that your fea shines brightest."

She leaned down to kiss the top of Frodo’s head. "Vande omentaina, Iorhael. Well met. May the One continue to bless you."

"Hantanyel, herinya, " Frodo responded, standing to give Celebrían a deep bow. "May He bless you as well."

* * *

Frodo and Celebrían met many more times in the coming days and weeks, usually in the iaun, but sometimes walking through the fields and meadows. Elrond, Bilbo and Gandalf all smiled when they saw the two hand-in-hand. They did not join them, not even Sam whose smile was felt, if not seen, but all watched satisfied from a distance. The Elf lord was pleased at how brightly his wife shone. Her light had been so fractured before and he had very nearly despaired of ever seeing it whole and complete again. How many, many prayers he had said in the iaun at Rivendell, during the many nights she wrestled with the horrifying memories and consuming pain. How many tears he had shed there. He and Celebrían had been as close as two beings could be, but he could not reach her who had once been a mirror to his own heart and soul, an inseparable part of himself. There had been no barriers between them, just an easy flow back and forth, no place where one could tell where one being started and another ended. They had been one.

But then others came between them and invaded that space. Elrond, for all his bond with his beloved, could not truly know what it had been like for her then. He had felt a searing pain and horror at first, abruptly cut off, then nothing but tortured glimpses, for Celebrían had held her agony within herself as much as she could, creating a barrier between them that had never existed before. She walled it up where it could only consume herself and not him or so she thought. It was with terrible grief but desperate hope that he had stood at the Grey Havens and watched the ship sail off that bore her away when she could bear it no longer, neither the pain nor the barrier she had placed between them.

He was glad to have seen at last that hope rewarded. He had felt it the moment the barrier had fallen and she had filled his mind and soul again and he had embraced her with all his strength and wept that he could not fill his arms with her, that he had not been strong enough to take away her pain himself. He had spent that evening in fervent thanksgiving to the One who could.

Now he looked upon Frodo whose light was just as fractured and in much the same way. Many prayers he had already offered to Ilúvatar on the perian’s behalf and he knew they were being answered before his eyes.

* * *

"A tira cotumolya. A tulta tuolya an mauya mahta," Celebrían told her small charge. "Face your foe. Summon forth your strength for you must fight."

"Tancave, herinya," [Yes, my lady.]

Frodo found the lessons in Quenya that she had been giving him to be much easier than the lessons on how to work through the pain. Languages came to him easily, sometimes too easily as it took him a long time even after the Ring was destroyed, not to hear anymore all the taunts, promises and blandishments Sauron had spoken to him in the Black Speech. For someone whose ears had always thrilled to hear Elvish spoken, to hear it rendered into something ugly and horrible was an agony in itself. How many times he wished he could have stopped his ears, how many times he had begged within himself that he no longer be tormented. But the words did not come through his ears, but directly to his heart where he could not stop them. How true it was when Pippin said that hearing Sauron laugh was like being stabbed with knives. Each word the Enemy spoke to Frodo was a separate cut, spreading poison and infection. It was no wonder that the wounds found no healing in Middle-earth.

He had been nearly convinced at times that the foe he fought was beyond his strength, for no matter how hard he fought he seemed to be making little if any progress. He had shed many tears of grief and frustration that he could no longer hold back.

"When is it going to stop hurting?" he asked quietly. "Did I leave home for nothing?"

Celebrían knelt and rocked him gently in her arms. He held on tightly, sobbing into her robes.

"I wondered that myself," she said, "for at first the pain was no less and I missed my husband and my children sorely. But then in time that changed and the pain grew less and I began to live again and realized that my family had not left me. I had left them. I had walled them out to protect them, I thought, from my pain. It was not until I dealt with it myself, that I could let it go and let them back in."

"I miss my brother-cousins. I miss Sam even though he’s here with me. I hope when I do heal, Merry and Pippin will somehow know."

"I think they will. I felt my husband’s joy and my children’s when I finally was no longer a prisoner to my pain. Great hurt has been done to both of us, but it is we who have locked ourselves into that and only we who can open the door. No one can do it for us. My husband suffered terribly that he could not convince Isildur to destroy the Ring. I suffered in thinking I should have resisted my attackers better. My children suffered that they could not do more for me. My sons suffered the torment of wondering if only they had come sooner or had already been with me, I might not have been assaulted at all. It took all of us time to realize that we stood within our own prisons and only be forgiving ourselves for what we couldn’t control were we made free. You can be free, too, Iorhael. You hold the key in your hand. Use it. You will because you have hope that you will heal. That is good."

"When I have the strength to hope."

"You need to confront the pain yourself, Iorhael, then you need to share it with others so it can leave you. I couldn’t do that for a long time. I couldn’t do it at all until I came here. I gave it first to Atar and that was very difficult though I knew I could not hide it from Him. Still I tried. It was when I trusted Him enough to take my pain and I could see that He was not harmed by it, that I felt that perhaps I could trust others. It took me a long time though before I could do that. I didn’t want anyone else to know, especially those I loved most, what it had been like until my sons found me. But I found that keeping it inside was poisoning me and them. They were helpless to help me because I wouldn’t let them. I was helpless because the agony and the shame consumed me. I lived the assault over and over again because it had no way out of me. I wouldn’t let it out so it kept going around and around in me, tearing me apart. The bond between mates and between parents and children is extremely strong in Elves, far stronger than is in Men or Hobbits, for all I hear of how fond your kind is count your kin to many degrees going far into the past. It took all my energy to keep them out and the memories in so the torment wouldn’t affect them. I had no strength left to spend on healing. I had to let the agony out. There is still much my children do not know, but my husband knows everything and I believe you know much too simply because you were subject to much the same. I discovered Elrond was strong enough for it and we are all closer now. I am changed and so are they, but there is not barrier between us anymore. All the wounds have finally healed, including the ones I caused."

Celebrían cupped Frodo’s chin in her hand, raising his tormented eyes to hers. "Believe in the strength of those who love you most, Iorhael. Don’t hold back any longer. They are strong enough to take all your tears and hurt and rage at what was done to you. You have already begun to discover how strong our Atar is. Believe now in the love of your kin. Ease their pain and your own. Don’t let the Enemy win."

"I’m afraid," Frodo said. "They have suffered so much already because of what happened. Why should I cause them more pain? I am the oldest of them and I’ve always tried to prevent them pain instead of causing it."

Celebrían smiled. "You no longer have that claim for here you are the youngest. Do you truly think you were or are sparing those so dear to you anything by not telling? Do you have any idea, melda Iorhael, how you appear to Elves or to those that love you most? You shine with Ilúvatar’s Light, almost as brightly as though you were born among Elven kind, but that Light right now is fractured. They see that and they want to ease it. You aren’t hiding any of the pain from them, just the reason for it. They are afraid to know but they do want to know if that would help you heal which is all they want. Believe me. I saw it in my husband’s eyes and my children’s. I saw his fear and his torment and I could not ease it. I knew also that I was causing it and even then I could not reach out to take it from him. I watched the light of my children fade because of it and I could not stop that either. I think my daughter saw in you the same pain she saw in me, perhaps even before you did. She was, unfortunately, very acquainted with it and perhaps her gift to you was given to help you since she could not help me because I would not let her. I have suffered much but so have they. Don’t carry more weight, Iorhael, than you need to. You are stronger than I have seen in any mortal, but you are carrying far more than you need and should. I carried that weight long myself. My sons told me that they had destroyed the chains that the orcs had bound me with, but I knew that was not true. I was still bound with them for a very long time afterwards. The chain you wore long around your neck was not destroyed either, was it? It is the same one that imprisons your fea even now, is it not?"

Frodo looked into her eyes as tears streamed down his face. "Yes," he murmured. "It is in my pocket. It’s the only thing I have left of it. I hate it and I can’t let it go."

"Then start with our Atar. Let Him know all your agony and rage and frustration and tears."

"He knows so much of it already."

Celebrían smiled. "Melda Iorhael, He knows everything, including all the secrets you have never voiced. But He wants to hear of it all from your own heart. You can’t tell Him anything He doesn’t already know but He wants to hear it from you. He wants you to give Him all your pain so He can fill you with His light and love, but He can’t do that if you are already filled with so much else. And the only way you can be empty is to let go of your pain and your fears."

"I am already empty."

"No, Iorhael, you are filled with poison and infection. Just like I was. Elrond had told me your wounds were lanced in Rivendell and you’ve done more here I know, but they are not drained yet and they will not be until you can trust and release it all to those who love you, your Atar most of all."

Frodo sighed. "I don’t know if I have that strength. I have already given everything. I feel I have nothing left in me to give."

"Then ask Him to give you the strength. There is so much He wants to give you."

After their talk Frodo went straight to the iaun where he stared for a long time up at the light and prayed fervently for strength. The burden had been so heavy on the Quest but it had been his to carry, his alone; he had not allowed anyone to carry it. He was so weary of that load. But he had had Sam on the Quest, the entire Quest and he had had his Father, though he knew Him not until afterwards. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the chained that was still marked with dried blood, his blood. He raised his arms out to that light as a child would to his parent when he wanted to be held. He thought the burden of his guilt and shame would be too heavy, but then he felt himself lifted up and the chain fall to the ground.

__

A/N: Melda is dear.