Work Text:
August 14, 3019
Arwen called softly to Frodo. She stood a little apart from the Elves of Rivendell, who waited by the horses, ready to depart. It did not escape Frodo’s notice that Elrond’s gaze was upon Arwen, and the grief that marked his countenance was great, and his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. His sons stood gravely beside him.
Although in Arwen’s eyes there was also the glimmer of tears, she held herself tall and straight. The stars bound about her brow caught the fading sun, sinking behind the rose-stained hills, and glittered. In her hands she held a letter.
“Farewell, Ring-bearer.” Her voice was the murmur of distant rivers running beneath the stars. She spoke only for Frodo’s ears. “We shall not meet again on these shores or any other for as long as the world endures. Remember my gift to you, when wounds and weariness trouble you.” Her glance strayed to the white gem that hung from his neck.
Frodo curled his hand around the gem and nodded. The gem glowed against his hand with a gentle warmth that echoed the warmth in the queen’s eyes.
“Should you accept my gift, I would ask that you do something for me, in memory of Arwen Undómiel, whose fate lies upon the twilit shores.” Arwen pressed the letter she held into his hands. “It is for my mother, Celebrían, who has dwelt in the West for many long centuries. I would have her hear of my choice from both my father and from me. I want her to know of the love I have long waited for and now enjoy; of my sorrow at our parting beyond the ends of the world; and of my gift to you, Frodo, and my wish that she might befriend you and ease your pain, should you choose to journey West.” Arwen held him in her gaze. “Will you do this for me?”
Frodo bowed. “It would be my great honor, my lady.”
Arwen smiled. “Then I bid you farewell, Frodo, and name you honored and blessed among Elf-friends.” She drew back. A clear light shone in her eyes, and she seemed in that moment more queenly than when she had stood beside Aragorn and accepted the queenship of Gondor, grave and glad all at once, an image of the queens of Elder Years, come again in the twilight of their age. “May the stars shine upon the end of your road.”
Frodo bowed once more, feeling keenly the loss of the Elves of one so gracious and fair.
Arwen turned once more to look upon her kin and the people of Rivendell, and her face shone with tears, and then she passed back into the shadow of Edoras, gleaming like a star in the gloaming.
With a jingling of tack and bells, the Elves mounted and called farewell to Arwen, Faramir, Imrahil, Éowyn, Éomer, and the household of Edoras. As Frodo mounted his pony and looked back, raising his hand in farewell, he saw the queen standing next to the Lady Éowyn. Great sorrow clouded her face, though she bore herself tall and straight.
It would be the first of many griefs, Frodo thought, stricken with sudden understanding. Many were the griefs of Elrond’s line, and this not the last, nor the least.
It would be so for him, too, when he left—if he left. There was a piece of his heart that still yearned for the comforts of the past—the narrow borders of the Shire that had seemed so stifling in those last months before he had left but now seemed a memory dearer than any, his books and his old walking paths, the familiar tunnels of Bag End that smelled of pipe smoke and old books. The thought of sailing was still distant, a faint and untouched future, and the desire to return to Rivendell and Bilbo burned brighter than any wish yet to sail and see the Undying Lands.
He watched as Sam, Merry, and Pippin spoke softly to each other and looked with wonder upon their bright companions, Sam most awed of them all. They had not asked what Arwen had said to him, nor had they seen her press the letter into his hand, for they had been occupied with their own farewells. He decided then that he would not tell them, just as he had not told them of the jewel Arwen had gifted him. It was too soon to speak of her gifts, jewel and passage alike, and all the more so when his own heart was not yet decided.
Merry drew him into the hobbits’ conversation, and Frodo nodded and smiled when apt, but his mind was distant, still caught in the rose-stained hills that circled Edoras, watching the last star of twilight that walked sorrowfully between their shoulders.
The path turned, and Edoras disappeared from view, and gradually the voices of the Elves lifted, stirring into a song both lovely and sad, of greetings and partings, of pathless roads and the fading of the stars. Their voices lilted like silver in the falling dusk, and the grasses stirred and murmured at their passing. Though Frodo did not know the words they sang, he understood them nonetheless, and the words sank deeply into his heart.
He thought of the sons of Elrond, who rode ahead of him glimmering in the dusk, bearing the blood of two kindreds, their choice not yet made. He thought of Galadriel and Celeborn—Celeborn whose only home was Middle-earth and had never set foot upon the shores of Westernesse, and Galadriel whose ancient home was in the West. He thought of Legolas, son of the forests, in whose heart burned the call of the Sea, a restless longing forever urging him to leave, even as he sought to stay.
He was not the first to bear the weight of such a decision, nor would he be the last. And the days until the day of deciding came were many, and the road stretched long ahead, and the farewells that must come were still distant. And those thoughts brought him more comfort than any words might have done.
He turned to Merry and remarked upon something he said, and then sat straighter his pony and hummed softly along with the song of the Elves.
Noticing Gandalf’s eye upon him, studying him from beneath inscrutable brows, he smiled at the Wizard. There was still time yet and many days of peace ahead.
Valinor, T. A. 3021
The leaves of centuries of autumns past lay thickly upon the ground, crunching softly underfoot as Frodo wended his way along the path. It was his favorite walking path he had yet found since his arrival, for it passed a small waterfall and a babbling river whose voice sounded so much like the Bywater Brook’s that his heart ached, and it wound through a grove of mellyrn, clad in their golden autumn mantles, so alike to those of Lórien, and yet so much greater and fairer.
A mist lay upon the woods, drifting rootless between the trunks of the trees, which rose out of the mist like mighty pillars of ancient halls. A faint chill clung to the air, a presage of autumn’s coming. Frodo’s hair clung damp and curling to his neck. He was glad for his cloak.
Where the trees thinned here and there to form glades, the sun lanced down into the mist and struck the leaves of the mellyrn in flashes of fire and poured golden through the mist. Frodo could almost imagine that it was the light of Laurelin of old, suffusing the forest with its golden light. A sudden longing filled him for the beauty of Valinor of old, that he could have seen Valinor beneath the light of the Trees, that he had not arrived in later days when the bliss and beauty of Valinor had long been diminished by strife and grief.
The sunlight shifted, deepening, throwing rays of light deep into the forest. For a moment, even the silver boles of the trees were drowned in light and mist, and Frodo walked not beneath the leaves of the mellyrn, but beneath the leaves of Laurelin in ancient days before the rising of the sun, and all was kindled with golden light. And then the sunlight withdrew, passing behind a cloud riding above the mist, and the moment passed, and Frodo walked once more through golden woods.
He wished Bilbo could have seen it.
Bilbo had declined to accompany him, as he had many times since their arrival, saying that he wished to speak with this or that Elf and to hear the great tales of the Elder Days from their own lips. It was not the true reason Bilbo had declined—his hands trembled more than Frodo remembered and his voice had grown thready and thin and and he spent much of his days napping in the sun—but Frodo did not let himself dwell on those things. There would be time later to think of them, time when the peace of Valinor had settled more fully into his heart, and he could bear to think of what must come—what already came.
He turned his thoughts to the gleam of the sun as it lanced through the silver branches of the mellyrn, piercing the mist, to the songs of so many strange and wondrous birds he had yet to grow accustomed to, and to the growing lightness in his heart.
He did not know what to name it—hope, perhaps, and the rightness of having found the only place where he could truly feel at peace.
Frodo breathed in, drawing deeply of the clear autumn air rushing cold and crisp into his lungs. Yes, there was a rightness to his being here, a deep-rooted peace that he had made the right choice; he had done, after so long, what he needed to do, rather than what others needed him to do. He bore no burden but that of finding rest.
He was not fully healed, nor would he likely ever be. But he could bear his wounds here, and his sorrows seemed already to be distant dreams of the past, rather than waking terrors. Gandalf predicted it would take some time for him to heal more fully. But already the powers of this land were working upon his body and spirit, knitting together the old wounds and lessening their sting.
Gandalf visited occasionally, but he was often called across the bay to Valinor proper, to the halls of the Valar. He was a person of some importance here, Frodo had learned. It was less of a surprise than it might once have been, for he had wondered for some time if Gandalf was merely just a Wizard, and he had pondered many things on his journey over the Sea—Gandalf’s true nature not the least.
He patted the letter tucked into his breast pocket. It was time, Gandalf had told him when he had visited Frodo and Bilbo earlier that morning. Frodo had nearly given the letter to Celebrían the moment he had stepped onto the dock—for she had been there waiting, as if she had known that that day would be the day her husband would come from over the Sea—but Gandalf had placed his hand on his shoulder and bidden him wait.
Gandalf had been right, of course. Gladness had needed its due, and grief. Too many tears and sorrows had had to be shared; the gulf of too many years had had to be bridged. The memories of centuries must first be unspooled and shared before the griefs of the present could cloud the joy of the reunion.
And so Frodo had waited for the right moment to deliver the letter, trusting that Nienna’s pupil would know more of these matters than he would. (For all that he had wondered about Gandalf’s true nature, it would still take some getting used to—thinking of him as Gandalf, student of the Valar, rather than Gandalf the mighty Wizard.)
Feeling wholly unequipped for the task set before him, Frodo sought the jewel he still wore about his neck, seeking courage in Arwen’s gift. He was a poor substitution for a beloved daughter, and he felt his own inadequacy keenly.
The path branched to the right, and he followed it. This, he had been told, was where Celebrían had spent her many centuries of waiting, in a small cottage tucked in the arms of the forest, away from the white-shining city of Avallónë, where many of the Returned dwelt, kings and queens, princes and princesses, lords and ladies, and commoners all dwelling side by side.
But Celebrían had chosen to live apart amongst the birds and briars, with the leaping rivers and whispering trees for company. It was not uncommon for those who had suffered great harm in body or spirit to do so, Gandalf had said. It was easier for those who had recently returned from the Halls or from across the Sea to recover in the stillness of the sprawling lands outside the cities. There was a peace that could only be found in dew-clad mornings and quiet hills, with only the chatter of birds and beasts for conversation.
No doubt that was why Gandalf had arranged for Frodo and Bilbo the use of a little cottage, low-built and sprawling, like Bag End of old, nestled against the foot of a gentle hill and shaded by ancient oaks, rather than one of the tall houses or towers that filled Avallónë. As learned as Bilbo was in Elven lore, and as much as he had passed that knowledge on to Frodo, neither of them felt suited to live amongst so many heroes of the Elder Days, where memory and legend dwelt in every shadow and pool of light, as sharp as the tang of the wafting sea.
Celebrían lived still in her cottage, but she was no longer alone. Elrond lived with her, and they spent their days quietly in the forest, welcoming guests on occasion.
It was a far different role that Elrond held now, Frodo thought, than the one he had borne as lord of Rivendell, though he did not doubt that the hospitality of Elrond’s house had at all lessened.
A curving stone path lined with dense shrubs of rusty pink stonecrop wended beneath the trees, as if leading to some autumn bower hidden in the heart of the woods. Coneflowers and chrysanthemums in patches of gold, rust, and bright scarlet—a mirror of the trees stretching their arms in their new-clad autumn glory overhead—ranged alongside the path, tall and wild and thickly blossomed. The autumn was yet mild, and the frosts had not yet come to wither the undergrowth.
The sloping red roof of a cottage peeked beneath the branches of the trees, framed by golden leaves. Smoke issued from a chimney hidden between the graceful peaks of the roof, and the windows were open to admit the gentle autumn breeze that passed whispering through the trees. Pale curtains fluttered from the windows, and late-blooming roses still flushed with summer’s glory grew beneath the low sills, rising nearly to the fluttering curtains. From one of the windows, Frodo could just glimpse the shelves of a library, brimming with many tomes and scrolls.
As he drew closer, Frodo saw no movement inside the house and heard no sound of conversation or work. But for the open windows, he would have thought it unoccupied. The path curved behind the house and Frodo, wondering, followed it. Gandalf had said he would find Celebrían here, for she still did not venture often into Avallónë except to see her family, but he began to doubt if she was really here.
A stand of elms girded the path as Frodo rounded the corner of the house. An arbor of oak clad with pale climbing roses rose over the path, heralding the entry to a garden.
The garden spread green and wild beyond, bursting with the colors of summer even as the year slipped into the reds and golds of autumn. Unlike the gardens of Avallónë, which bore the marks of careful planning and cultivation, a form of art as much as the statues that lined the streets of the city and the towers that pierced the sky, this garden seemed to grow as it willed, wild and untamed, not brought to heel by any hand, but carefully tended so that its beauty endured through the changing of the seasons.
Clouds of yarrow danced upon slender stems, and swathes of lavender, neatly pruned of their blossoms, grew grey and ranging, clad with silver dews. Here there were more coneflowers and chrysanthemums, clad in their autumn-hued raiment, tucked between tangled patches of blue-flowering sage, thyme, and verbena, grown woody and wild over the summer months, still clad in bright blossoms that nodded sleepily in the breeze. A delightful scent filled the air, and Frodo was reminded of the sweet pungence of Ithilien and all of its disheveled, ancient beauty. Rosemary and hyssop shrubs crowded beneath the drooping boughs of silver birches and great wych elms. Many more herbs that only Sam could have named grew in wild splendor, in thickets and shrubs and tangled clouds of blossoms. It was a healer’s garden.
A grey wolfhound lazed in the sun, lying across the path. It rose as Frodo approached and sniffed him curiously. Frodo, remembering Farmer Maggot’s hounds, stood very still. When it finished sniffing him, he stepped cautiously away. The wolfhound padded a short distance behind him, ears perked with interest.
There, at last, Frodo saw her, kneeling in the dirt before a bed of roses. Celebrían. She who Elrond had lost and found again, after many griefs. She who had been hurt so in spirit that she could never find joy again in Middle-earth. She who knew the weight of a grief too heavy to be borne, too peculiar to be shared.
Dirt covered her hands and dusted her wrists, forming dark half-moons beneath her nails, and dirtied the knees of her tunic. Scars raced like veins of silver up her arms, and the scar above Frodo’s heart flared in recognition.
Celebrían lifted her head, and a smile bloomed upon her face. “Welcome,” she said, rising in greeting. “Mithrandir said you wished to speak with me.” Her hair fell over her shoulder in a long braid, gleaming like spun silver in the sunlight. She was dressed in plain, sturdy clothes, suitable for toiling in the dirt, but she bore herself with as much grace as any of the ladies of Avallónë.
Frodo stood for a moment, mesmerized, feeling suddenly witless. If Galadriel was the morning and Arwen the twilight, then Celebrían was surely the evening, with her hair like starlight and the silver leaves of Telperion of old. And yet she had not the remoteness of Galadriel, nor the sorrow of Arwen.
Remembering himself, he bowed and spoke a courtly greeting taught to him by the Elves who visited him and Bilbo.
Celebrían laughed, and the sound of it went to Frodo’s heart. “There is no need for such ceremony on my account. We live simply here.” She gestured to Frodo to join her. “Come,” she said, “I would learn of the hobbit whom my daughter gave her passage on the ship to, and who has done such a great deed for Middle-earth.”
She gestured to the wolfhound and it retreated. “Pay no mind to Bellon. He thinks of himself as my guard, but he will do no harm.” Satisfied that Frodo was no threat, the dog laid back down to sleep, one eye cracked open in sleepy interest.
Frodo unclasped his cloak and laid it upon a nearby bench, then knelt in the dirt next to her. A pair of gardening gloves lay in the dirt next to her, as if she had known that today would be the day that he would come to her.
Frodo knelt down next to her, wondering if he ought to have dressed more plainly. “I confess I know very little about gardening," he said ruefully. "I had a gardener before, and though he taught me various things, I’m afraid very little of it stuck. The greatest extent of gardening I’ve done has been watering the flower boxes of my old home.”
Celebrían smiled over her shoulder. “It is fortunate, then, that this garden has little purpose other than for beauty. There is little to do here of healing, other than the setting of a rare broken bone and the tending of injuries incurred by crafting or sport, but I have kept it out of habit.” She wiped her brow, leaving a smear of dirt. “A fitting pursuit, perhaps, for the wife of a healer who has long tended a love of green and growing things. And I have found the mind fares better when the hands have work to engage them.
“You may use those, if you wish,” she said, nodding to the gloves. Seeing his glance at her dirty hands, she added, “I prefer to work without gloves. It reminds me that nothing is ever too sullied to become clean again.” Her scars stood out stark and pale beneath the dusting of soil.
Frodo looked at his maimed finger and lifted his hand to the old wound in his shoulder.
“Even the deepest hurts,” Celebrían said, turning her clear gaze upon him, and Frodo felt as if he were a clear lake that she could see to the very bottom of. She passed him a pair of shears. A silence fell, broken only by the snipping of her shears.
Words slipped over his tongue, but he did not know how to speak them, or if it was too soon to say what he wished, and so he turned to the work at hand, watching Celebrían carefully as she pruned dead blossoms and uprooted weeds, and he mimicked her movements—poorly at first, but but as he repeated the motions he improved. The sounds of the garden became louder in the silence—the calls of the birds in the trees overhead, the faint buzzing of the bees as they went about their business amongst the flowers, the stirring of the wind in the branches of the trees. It was a pleasant, companionable silence, free of expectation, and Frodo’s mind drifted as his hands followed Celebrían’s.
In the garden, beneath the warmth of the sun, it felt as if summer had not yet faded. Frodo tugged his sleeves up and plunged his hands deeper into the cool soil, seeking the roots of weeds. He felt a pulse of life threading beneath his fingertips, strong and deep, tangled amongst the roots. It was the same joy of living—of being, of growing—that he had first sensed in Lórien, only stronger and keener, stirring in the cool soil.
Frodo knew without asking that Celebrían was waiting patiently for him to sort through his thoughts and speak. He did not feel hurried to do so—he did not think it was possible to feel hurried here. Things simply were; innate and whole and enough. Secrets could be safely spoken here; hearts could be laid bare without fear.
And so it was that his thoughts at last slipped free, as if loosed from moorings he did not know they had been chained to. “I don’t believe I will ever heal fully,” Frodo said softly, as if speaking only to the flowers. "Even here.” Only with Gandalf had he shared his fears. But though he had only just met her, he felt that Celebrían would understand. “It will lessen, I think, but it will never fade.” He fell silent, plucking at his thoughts.
Celebrían waited, working silently beside him.
When he spoke again, his voice was quiet: “Gandalf has said the measure of my years will be shorter here, shorter than they would have been if I had stayed.”
Celebrían heard the question he did not ask: What if I should not heal before my years are through?
She plucked a weed and shook dirt from its roots; it sprayed over the knees of her trousers. “Would it have been better to you to stay and endure, knowing that every year would grow dimmer, every day less able to be endured?”
“No,” Frodo said. “I could not have had the Shire or my friends become a burden to me. Perhaps I could have borne more, but not that. Already the Shire had become something I had hoped it would never be.”
“The healing of hurts,” Celebrían said, “cannot be forced or hastened. It happens in its time, just as the trees burst forth in spring, then fade and wither, only to burst forth again. It can be aided by love, by patience, by unforeseen kindness. By the peace that can be found only in a place that has never brought one harm or grief.” She lifted a hand to gesture around them at the sprawling garden and the surrounding forest. “By the turning of one’s mind to other tasks, and the discovery of new purposes.” Her hand fell to her shears. “But it must always happen in its time.”
“When I first arrived here, I hardly stirred from my bedchamber.” Celebrían began to prune again, her words accompanied by the quiet snipping of her shears. “I spoke to none but those who gently forced themselves upon me, seeking to draw me from myself. I had little interest in the pursuits I once had found joy in, for nothing I turned my hand to could draw me from my grief. But gardening helped me to remember that things still grew and throve, that beauty still existed. And even if I could not see it, I could tend to it, and ensure that it did not die. It is a small task, but it is a worthy one.”
Frodo took up the shears again and began to remove the withered blooms from one of the rose bushes. The snip snip snip of the shears as they worked brought a wave of longing for Bag End, for all of the simple, unvaried days he had had before the Quest when he had dreamed of adventure finding him, for the sound of Sam’s shears as he trimmed the verge and sang one of Bilbo’s songs beneath his breath.
But an ocean and a Quest and a Ring lay between.
Celebrían remained silent as they worked, letting Frodo keep company with his thoughts. His thoughts roved from the Shire in springtime to the last farewell upon the shores of the Sea, to all of the farewells in between—Bag End, Hobbiton, his favorite walking paths, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry and Celeborn and Aragorn and Faramir and Arwen.
Arwen.
Frodo flushed suddenly and fumbled in his pocket. “I was to give you a letter from Arwen,” he said apologetically, feeling very foolish to have instead burdened her with his fears.
“I know,” Celebrían said, and her voice held no reproach.
Frodo glanced at her, questioning.
“Arwen would never have made her choice without saying farewell in whatever fashion she could, and she would not have wanted me to be burdened by the grief of our parting so soon upon the heels of joy.” Sorrow tinged her voice, but she spoke briskly and cut a glance at him. “But if I had invited you here solely to receive a letter, I would have received you inside the house.”
“You knew,” he said, wondering that she had guessed or read so much of him before she had even read Arwen’s letter. There was, he realized, more of Galadriel in her than he had first thought. Where Galadriel’s power was as the thrum of life pulsing beneath the bark of the mellryn, distinct and unmistakable, Celebrían’s was like a current beneath the surface of a still lake, subtle but no less remarkable.
She merely smiled, then rose and dusted soil from her tunic. “Now, I think we have made fair progress today. What do you say?”
Frodo realized with a start that the sun slanted low over the trees. The day had passed quickly, and Bilbo would be cross that Frodo was late, for he still kept a strict schedule for his meals, even if he ate less than he used to.
Celebrían brought forth a basin of water for him to wash in. He studied himself in the water, watching as the dirt slipped from his hands and clouded the water, wondering if his hurts were so easily read by all of the Elves of Eressëa, as if he were a clear vessel to be seen through at a glance, understood in a moment before ever speaking a word, or if it was because Celebrían knew something of the same weariness and wounding as he did.
He did not wish to be so easily perceived, least of all by so many vaunted heroes of ages past. And yet he knew it to be a greater comfort than the sting of his neighbor’s nescient scorn.
He left the letter with Celebrían and walked long beneath the trees as he returned home, turning down paths that strayed deep into the forest and brought him home on the cusp of twilight.
A note arrived before breakfast the next day, inviting him to join Celebrían again. Bilbo was invited as well, but the old hobbit waved off the invitation. “Lady Celebrían asked for you, my dear boy. I would only be unwanted baggage. She wants answers that only you can provide.”
In moments like this, when Bilbo’s eyes sparkled just as they once had when he was master of Bag End and his voice was strong, if thready, Frodo’s heart lifted in hope. Perhaps it might be put off for a little longer, his heart said.
But the worry that niggled at his mind would not be sated even by this. Frodo pushed the thoughts away and turned his mind to golden summers at Bag End slipping into the burnished gold of autumn, of walking in the apple orchard beneath Bag End and watching autumn fall upon all of his favorite walking paths.
When Frodo arrived, he found Celebrían again kneeling in the garden, shears in hand, staring into the distance. Her face was distant and grieved. She had read Arwen’s letter.
As Frodo approached, she stirred and seemed to collect herself. “You have caught me with my mind adrift,” she said, smiling apologetically. “But I would have you tell me of the Man my daughter married. She wrote in her letter that you were a friend of his, and that you might tell me of him.”
“He was a very great friend to me,” Frodo said, “for a short while. Bilbo knew him for many more years than I did, but I fear he could tell you little of it now. His memories confuse him at times, and he has forgotten much of what he once knew.”
“I am content to learn whatever I may of him,” Celebrían said. “Elrond has told me much, but his is the opinion of a father, and I would be glad to know what his friends think of him.”
And so Frodo told her all that he remembered of Strider, from their first meeting in the Prancing Pony, to the flight to Rivendell, to the long days in the wilderness and the breaking of the Fellowship, and to the reunion beyond all hope. He told of great deeds and little deeds, of Strider’s rare laugh and his grim countenance, of his helping Bilbo with his poems and of Arwen’s joy when she at last placed her hand in his and became his queen.
He did not speak of the last evening in Rohan and the immeasurable grief of Elrond and Arwen. This, he thought, Celebrían knew well.
When he had finished, Celebrían was silent for a long moment. Frodo wished suddenly that he could comfort her, this lady who had borne so much, and found herself still burdened even here, where she had sought refuge from her hurts so many centuries ago.
Frodo felt the touch of her hand on his as she spoke at last: “Thank you, Frodo. Not lightly were you named Elf-friend.”
Frodo’s heart was moved and he spoke before he knew he did so. “ I ‘ell nîn,” he said courteously.
Celebrían laughed lightly. “And fair tongued, no less! I see now why Arwen bid me speak to you, and why Elrond speaks of you with such praise. If all hobbits of the Shire speak so fairly, they ought all to be named Elf-friends.”
“Not all,” said Frodo, “but some.” His thoughts strayed to his friends.
A shadow must have fallen over his face, for Celebrían said gently, “You must miss your home very much.”
“All my life,” Frodo said slowly, “the Shire had been my home, and I thought I would never leave it. I wanted to and I didn’t want to, all at once. But when I finally did, I found I could not go back, for it was no longer home. It was sullied, and I was worn, and I could never again look on it with the same affection I once had, though I still felt it in my heart. But the affection I felt was for a different home, one that had vanished as soon as I had stepped outside its bounds.”
“I know something of that.” Celebrían’s voice was soft. “Imladris was not my first home, nor even my second or third, but it was the home I had chosen, the home I had helped shape. It was the home Elrond had carved out of war and sorrow, and the home we had wrested from the grief of the Eldar. No fairer land had I seen in Middle-earth, no kinder house had I dwelt in. But all of its beauty and all of its light were naught but ash and shadow to me, after.
“The old places brought me no joy, and the old comforts brought me no peace. It was the same as ever, but I was not. I had incurred a wound too deep for any comforts of home to tend, and all of my husband’s skill in healing could do nothing to bind the wound I bore within me.” The breeze, sighing like the voice of the Sea, stirred through the boughs of the trees. Celebrían’s gaze turned inward, lost in memory.
Frodo understood then some of the grief he had seen on Elrond’s face, when he had caught the lord of Rivendell alone and unaware—that the greatest healer in Middle-earth, lord of the house where so many came to find rest and soothing from hurts, could not heal his own wife.
He thought of the peace of Rivendell and the ease that had settled upon him there after he had recovered from his wound. It would have seemed impossible then to him to not be able to find peace or comfort in that land, even for those bearing the deepest wounds, but he knew now of what Celebrían spoke.
“In the land where so many had found healing for their hurts,” Celebrían continued, “I could not. And all the love of my husband and my children and my parents could do nothing to ease the pain, for their faces and their voices brought nothing but memories of a life I could no longer live. It is the deepest agony to know that the love of those one holds dearest holds no power equal to that which devours from within.”
“Sometimes I wished,” Frodo said, “that I could have been more like Bilbo, that I could have returned home and carried on. He carried some burden from his quest, I think, but it was one that mended, and he lived for many years unburdened.” He looked down at his soil-dusted hands and his maimed finger. “At times I thought it might be easier to explain to others if I had physical wounds I might show them—greater wounds than the scar upon my shoulder and my maimed finger.”
“I have heard it said that the loss of a limb brings with it often a phantom sensation of wholeness or of pain.” Celebrían nodded at his finger. “I have often thought that wounds of the spirit are very like that—a sensation of what was, even in its lack, a knowing of something missing and yet no recourse to fill the hole of its absence.”
“Yes,” said Frodo slowly. “Yes, it is very similar.” He turned curiously to her, a question burning in his heart. “Forgive me,” he said, “but I thought the Elves cared little for the trials of other races. So I have been told. And yet you speak with me as if our trials are akin.”
Celebrían merely smiled. “Some, perhaps, may think so but not all. And you, Frodo, have endured a trial not unlike many that those among the Eldar have shared. To stay for love and endure watching all that you love fade and fade yourself with it, or to leave and embrace that which you have never seen but which is your only hope of enduring.
“And there are some among us who care very greatly indeed about other races. For my part, my mother taught me to never discredit the contributions of other hands, just as she does not. Indeed, you may find my family’s interest greater than others’, for our fates have often been intertwined with those of other races.” Her smile grew. “I must introduce you sometime to my mother’s eldest brother, who would be overjoyed to meet one of a race unknown to the Noldor of old. Indeed, he has already sent word to me that he wishes to meet you.”
“You speak of Finrod!” Frodo cried. “Felagund of old! He wishes to meet me?” He sat down on his heels in amazement.
“Yes,” she said. “He was a faithful companion to me in my first days here, and a great aid in my recovery. But he will not press you to meet until you are ready.”
Frodo sat silent in amazement. He had met several Elves of the songs and tales of Elder Days since he had arrived, but the wonder of it did not cease to dim. Not for the first time, he wondered if he had strayed into a dream and was passing blissfully beneath the surface of sleep before waking to a cold morning. Only the presence of Bilbo and Gandalf reminded him that he did not dream.
Will wonders never cease! he heard Sam say, his voice muffled by time and distance, delighting upon some marvel of the Elves.
Will wonders never cease indeed, he thought.
“Indeed,” Celebrían said, plying her trowel beneath a particularly stubborn weed, “I expect Finrod is not alone in his wish.” She nodded at the white gem that he still wore about his neck. “Word has spread of the gem you wear. Its maker dwells here, after long centuries spent in the Halls.”
Frodo touched the gem in wonder. “It is from the Elder Days?”
“It is from Eregion. It was gifted to me long ago by an old and dear friend, and I in turn passed it to Arwen.” She turned her clear gaze to Frodo, and he was struck suddenly by the centuries uncounted she had lived before he ever had been born. “He, too, knows something of the kind of wound you bear.”
“So many do,” Frodo said, feeling suddenly small and unworthy of the honor that had been accorded him, and his fears from the previous day returned.
Celebrían’s voice gentled. “He knows better than many, for it was he who forged the rings and faced the same enemy as you, and he has borne the regret of his actions ever since. His is the sting of guiltn; yours the burden of a weight borne past endurance.”
Celebrimbor. Frodo stilled in wonder.
Celebrían’s gaze remained upon him, studying him, and Frodo felt suddenly that she had read something in him he had rather wished to keep concealed. “But I think,” she said quietly, “perhaps you know something of guilt as well.”
Frodo did not answer.
For several days—or so he thought; time seemed to slip by in Valinor without his noticing—Frodo remained at home with Bilbo, who complained of aches and pains brought on by the cooling weather. Autumn had begun its entrance in full, stealing the warmth of summer measure by measure. The mornings dawned crisp and clear, and the evenings fell swiftly and swept in with mists.
Bilbo was not much for conversation and spent most days napping in his armchair before the fire, wrapped warmly in blankets. On Frodo’s second day at home with Bilbo, an Elf came bearing a parcel of herbs from Celebrían, along with a note she had written of their uses and purposes. Bilbo sputtered at the taste but drank the cups of tea Frodo set before him, in which he had steeped Celebrían’s herbs as she had instructed.
Gandalf came once for tea and spoke softly with Frodo in the kitchen, bringing news and answering what few of Frodo’s questions he saw fit to. Valinor had not curbed his affinity for speaking in riddles.
As evening fell on his third day at home, Frodo sat in Bilbo’s armchair cradling a cooling cup of tea, watching the mists slip pale and silent over the grass and pool beneath the lengthening shadows of the trees.
His thoughts drifted with the mist, remembering his journey over the Sea and the old illness that had gripped him on the last days of the voyage, of the strange nightmares that had plagued him every time the illness struck, and of the white gem blazing in his palm as he clutched it, seeking the familiar shape and weight of the Ring and finding it all wrong, but unable to simply clutch air.
Where shall I find rest?
The nightmares with all their strange visions and meanings, at least, had abated, almost as if the power of Aman forbade such things. Perhaps it did. Gandalf had said that there was a Vala of sleep. Perhaps his power extended even to Tol Eressëa and the many wounded of the Returned—and the small visitors who found themselves sheltered upon the island’s shores.
There are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured.
Time would tell if his illness would return in the spring, and in what measure.
The weather warmed again briefly with the last throes of the waning summer, and Frodo returned to Celebrían’s garden. Bilbo, in better health and spirits, nursed by Celebrían’s teas and simples, came with him in a pony-drawn cart Gandalf had procured for their use.
Frodo settled him on a bench amongst the flowers and wrapped a blanket around his thin shoulders, and the old hobbit dozed in the sun, Bellon napping at his feet, as Frodo joined Celebrían. He looked up often from his gardening to watch Bilbo, worry niggling at him, and Celebrían followed his gaze.
“Fear not,” she said quietly, for Bilbo’s head nodded as he woke and looked with interest at the garden around him. “He is still hale, if wearied. There is time yet.”
Time, Frodo thought. Always it comes back to time, and always there is not enough of it.
“I worry sometimes,” he said, “that I ought to have stayed with him in the Shire, until his years ran to their end, and if it was cruel to bring him here, where they shall run to their end more swiftly than they might have. Or is it selfish of me to wish for him to stay when I have already had so many years with him, and he is weary?”
“Bilbo chose his passage, and he knew what it meant.” Celebrían’s voice was as gentle as her touch as she braced drooping stalks of yarrow that had withered in the chill days. “He, too, bore a great burden, and for many more years than you did. It drew out his life, but not without taking its toll. It is a fading, of a kind, not unlike that of the Elves.”
Celebrían turned to look at him. “You, too, have made your choice, Frodo. To choose is to begin to tend the wound. It is the dressing that draws out the poison. Bilbo’s days will be shorter here, but he will have nothing to trouble him, just as you may set behind you the troubles of land no longer your home.”
“It is hard to,” Frodo said. “In my heart it is still my home.”
“And so it will always be,” Celebrían said kindly. “But it is the home you have left behind, not the home you have chosen.”
Every day that autumn, Frodo returned to Celebrían’s garden, and if it rained, he would join her in her cottage and drink tea with her and Elrond, Bellon curled at their feet beneath the table, as the rain tapped at the windows, and they would speak of bygone days and old longings. And he found as the days passed that he no longer woke feeling as if each day was a mountain that must be climbed, a weary enduring of the hours until he retired to his bedchamber in the evening.
Even as the autumn deepened, a memory of summer clung to Celebrian’s house. The light was brighter there, the breeze warmer, and the trees murmured of summer. Frodo and Celebrían worked together in the garden long into the autumn, until the first frosts of winter began to bite, and Bilbo again complained of the aches in his joints and bade Frodo stay with him.
When spring came and Frodo was again stricken with his old illness, Celebrían came to his house and sat with him until evening. The strange dreams did not trouble him, but he was ill at ease and would speak to no one but remained in his bed clutching Arwen’s jewel. Celebrían sat in silence next to him, clasping his hand when he reached for her, and Bellon kept vigil at the foot of Frodo’s bed.
Celebrían said nothing of it when Frodo returned to her garden the next day, and Frodo was grateful. It pained him to still be so afflicted by his illness, when he had thought himself so much improved.
When the days grew warmer, Frodo drove Bilbo with him in their cart to Celebrían’s house so Bilbo could visit with Elrond and doze beneath the sun in the garden. Elrond would sit with him and read lays and verses written by the poets and lore-masters of Avallónë, and Bilbo would harrumph and say, Is that the best your poets have to offer? I wrote finer poetry in my youth. And when Bilbo drifted off to sleep, Elrond would close his book and take Bilbo’s hand in his and simply sit with him, or rise and press a fond kiss to the old hobbit’s brow.
Others joined them at times—Finrod, who had indeed very much wished to meet Frodo, and Galadriel, and Celebrimbor the mighty smith. Gandalf came often, smoking his pipe and humming beneath his breath. Frodo caught his gaze falling often on Bilbo, and he knew what the Wizard read, and the seeds of grief put down their roots in his heart.
Autumn came again with its golden leaves and silver mists, and Frodo did not need the foresight of the Elves to know that it would be Bilbo’s last autumn. He left the house less and less, not wishing to be separated from Bilbo for any length of time.
On the day of their birthday, Bilbo woke once from drowsing against Frodo’s shoulder, and looking keenly at him said, “I’ve bested the Old Took by two years now, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” said Frodo, and grief tugged at his heart.
Bilbo sighed happily and drifted back to sleep on Frodo’s shoulder. And Frodo, drawing Bilbo to him, laid his head upon Bilbo’s and sat long in thought.
As Bilbo grew frailer, too frail even to ride in the cart to Celebrían’s house, Celebrían took to visiting their house, bringing teas and simples to ease Bilbo’s hurts and sitting for long hours with him before the fire, reading to him tales of the Elder Days, as Frodo sat in his armchair and listened, stroking the rough fur of Bellon's head and resting from tending to his uncle.
When spring came, she brought bouquets of flowers from her garden to brighten their house, and she flung open the windows to admit the spring's warmth. And Elrond came with her and sat at Bilbo's side, and Frodo saw the touches of grief in his face as he held Bilbo's hand. Bilbo woke rarely and spoke only in snatches, but he smiled at Elrond's voice and patted Frodo's hand.
“I think,” he said on the last day of spring, waking from a nap and sniffing the warm breeze that stirred in through the windows, “that I am about to embark another adventure. You must not grudge me it, my boy.” And Frodo found that he could not, even as he grieved.
And when Bilbo passed on a summer morning a year and a half after their arrival, Celebrían sat with Frodo, and they each held one of the old hobbit's hands as he drew his last breath and passed beyond the circles of the world.
They buried Bilbo beneath the spreading branches of a great oak tree near to Frodo's house, and it was the grandest ceremony any hobbit of the Shire had ever had, with all of the great lords and ladies of the Elder Days in attendance. Celebrían and Elrond stood at Frodo's side, and Gandalf at his other, and Galadriel and Finrod and Celebrimbor stood with them.
And when autumn came, Frodo shut the door of his house behind him and set his cart upon the path to Celebrían's house, this time to stay.