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Another Moment of your Time  by Larner

                                                   A Dream of Peace

            Rosie paused at the door to the bedroom given to Mister Frodo’s use. She fussily centered the teapot on the tray, balancing it with the two small dishes containing his morning toast slathered with butter and brambleberry jam and a pair of coddled eggs on each side of the cozied pot, a mug of soft blue above it, and a silver spoon with a rose on the handle below it nestled on one of her mother’s best napkins, one of a set of twelve hemmed and embroidered by Sam’s mother, Bell Gamgee.  Satisfied that all was properly balanced, she knocked at the door.  Hearing Mister Frodo’s quiet “Enter,” she opened the door and went in.

            This time, Frodo Baggins was neither huddled for warmth under his quilt nor sitting up with pillows behind him.  Unusually, he was sitting on the chair near the window, looking out at the snow drifting down from the clouds overhead, a faint smile on his face.  That crease between his brows had smoothed out, and the hint of pain he usually wore was gone—for the moment, at least.

            Rosie felt a strange pleasure grow in her to see hope in that face.  She came to him, hooking her foot about the leg of the small table sitting nearby to bring it before Frodo.  Setting the tray upon the table, she lifted the cozy from the teapot, tucking it beneath her arm as she pushed the tray and its contents closer to her love’s Master.  “Here, Master Frodo.  Sam prepared the tea hisself afore he set off for Overhill to check on tales of cut-down trees there.  I hope as it warms you the more.”

            He smiled up at her, his eyes warming her heart in turn.  “Thank you, Rosie.  I am certain it will do me good.  But you mustn’t call me Master.”

            “But you’re the one as was always his Master, the one as him served in Bag End, the one as helped teach him and all, there alongside old Mister Bilbo.”

            “He is the brother of my heart, Rosie.  I’d not be alive today had he not been with me.  And he’s honored throughout the outer world for all he accomplished, staying at my side as he did.”

            She was shaking her head.  “I’ll still call you Master, whether or not you want it.  For it was for your sake as him went away, and it was with you he returned to me—to all of us.  Your brother, you say?  Thank you for that, and for both your sakes I’ll still serve you as if you was my own Master as well as his.”

            She picked up the pot to fill his mug.  “Here, drink up.”  Then after a brief pause she asked, “It ’pears as you had a good sleep.”  At his nod, she added, “And pleasant dreams?”

            He paused as he lifted the mug, his gaze distant, distant yet calm, contemplative, as he reached to hold both hands about the solid earthenware and the warmth it enclosed.  He took a deep breath before he murmured, “Yes, very good dreams.”

            “Can you tell them?” she asked, not certain how it was she had the courage to ask such a question of as private a person as was Frodo Baggins.

            He sipped at his tea.  “It is sweet with honey,” he commented before taking a second sip.  She nodded.  His gaze was focused far away for some moments before he finally said softly, “It was a dream of the Moving Waters.  I first dreamt of them as a child, long ago in Brandy Hall.”

            “Moving waters?  Like the Water?” she asked.

            He shook his head.  “No,” he answered, his gaze still focused on the remembered dream.  “No, larger than the Water or Bywater Pool.  Larger than the Brandywine, or even the River Anduin.  Greater than any pond, pool, or lake you can imagine.  There is naught but water in any direction that you might choose to look, water that moves, rises and falls, seems to breathe, even.  All is water everywhere about you, and you stand on the solid deck of a boat—nay, more than a mere boat—a ship, borne upon the water with the glistening light of stars reflected from the waves about you.”

            Rosie felt her stomach clench at the images he summoned.  Hobbits, after all, were creatures of the earth that housed and fed them, with no love for that which is fluid and not answerable to foot or plow.  “And you found this—comforting?”

            He nodded.  “Oh, yes, I did.  I never realized I was aboard a ship, back when I was little.  I knew I was safe then, but little more.  And I did not know how it was that water could be everywhere I looked.  I know now that in my dream I was looking upon the Sea.  But how, when I was a child, was I to recognize that it was the Sea I that I saw?”  And again he smiled, turning at last to engage her eyes.  “Now I knew what bore me—me and the others with me.  For I was not alone upon the ship.  It was manned by Elves—I could feel them all about me.  And I could see Elrond standing beside Bilbo, who was looking forward eagerly.  It was raining, and I could feel the dampness in my hair although my cloak from Lórien shielded my body from it.  We were sailing westward, for the Sun was rising behind us, her light turning the raindrops to rainbows of jewels before us.  Gandalf laid his hand upon my head, and the Lady smiled down into my face as we all turned eagerly to the West, to the rain as it fell away as if it was a curtain being drawn….”

            As he’d finished speaking his gaze had drifted away from her face, turning to look out the window once more.  But she was certain that Frodo Baggins was not seeing the soft snowflakes that settled upon the windowsill and covered the ground outside with shining white.  She shivered as she drew back, uncertain as to whether he’d eat, as filled as he was with the strange image of water above and about him.

            Later, thinking about his dream, Rosie Cotton herself found herself comforted by the realization that Sam was apparently nowhere upon that ship.





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