AN: This is a bit of a spin off from that common writer's quote, something to the effect of, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is open a vein and bleed"...Perhaps some of you can relate:)

Enjoy!

The book lay open.

Trickles of golden sunlight had spilled in through the frame to cascade over the top of the desk. Wayward rays danced curiously about the hard, wood surface and the pale folds in his hand, dripping eagerly from the empty quill he held onto the blank page beneath.

Blue-green eyes studied that page, watched the light waver and sway across the rough surface. It echoed with a purity. An innocence. The absolute virtue of an unmarred sheet. There was no darkness scarring its face. No black ink spreading and fracturing into the millions of silent creases it bore. It was just a page...and yet...potentially...It was a song. It was the sudden, violent crackle of thunder across the mountains. It was an embrace. It was a tale of wicked men and terrible dragons. It was history. It carried the hopes and dreams of a world on the cusp of change. It was spiders in the darkness. It was fear. It was rage. It was the clash of sword against metal, against flesh, an evil that pierced with red and black and flames and—

But he was no teller of tales.

Who was he to breathe new life into the horrors he had suffered? To taint such a space with the violent tremor of the earth as it split and fell and dissolved into itself, an earth so solid, so real to so many. To those so blissfully unaware, who was he to enlighten them?

No. Shaking his head, the hobbit dropped his quill and made to stand from his chair. The page before him was empty. It was nothing.

Suddenly the pain from his perpetually wounded shoulder stabbed at him with all the intensity of the sunlight streaming through the round window. He fell back into his seat, gasping for air as the moment passed. Remembering. Reliving.

We must take a hard road, Elrond had said. A road unforeseen.

And Frodo had.

He had ventured into hell's mouth and returned. Come home.

The hobbit lifted his gaze out beyond his window. His eyes narrowed in quiet contemplation of the easy shuffling of his neighbors and friends, content as they were in their gardens or with their carts. Rubbing gently at his scar, Frodo looked away. He was not content. Every moment it seemed his mind reeled with images, faces, scenes that had played out both in the darkness and in the light beyond the quiet indifference of the Shire. Perhaps he had been once, but after coming back, after the Ring, he was far from content...and doubted that he ever would be again.

Merry and Pippin, they had returned. Sam too. All three of them filled with a new appreciation for life and living.

But Frodo?

Frodo was surrounded on all sides by lava, the smoldering heat of the dying mountain pressing in on him. There he had remained.

The hobbit reached out and grabbed his pen, dipping it gingerly into the inkwell on top of the desk. He rifled through his chaotic thoughts for a long forgotten image of himself settled beneath a tree in the forest, seeking adventure in a book. He shook his head at how naïve he had been, how eager for the outside world. He figured that had hurt him in the end, his innocence. If he had only known...

Breathing in deeply, he dropped his eyes back upon the blank page laid out before him.

Darkness comes in waves, he thought. Cycles of night and day across the land...

He pondered the dawn that had just broken over Middle Earth, hoped that it would champion a long and satisfying era of peace and serenity. But the night was destined to come once more. In its own time. As it always did. Maybe these pages would persist long enough to spare another the suffering he had endured. Maybe they would be strong. Hold as counsel to the wise. Provide hope and comfort to the masses.

And maybe...possibly...to him as well?

Taking a final moment to watch the sunlight flicker across the page, Frodo lowered the quill onto its surface.

He bled.