Elanor

Chapter one: Promises.

T: And hopefully I'm back into the swing again. This is all mine, every inch of it…well the characters are Tolkien's and the scenery and a great deal of the situations…but no direct quotes so yay!

This is a fairly dark fic for me and is based on the film ending, which is almost as the book ending apart from one point. Simply put Sam is not crossing to Valinor, which means…well I think you get the idea. Warning of angst, character death and slash.

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The sea. It was a thing she hated with such passion, such irrational emotion and yet she was drawn to it. That was why she had moved to the Undertowers after her marriage, why she had left despite her Brother's pleas. His fears.

Each day she would walk out and stand on the docks of the Grey Havens, listening to the scream of the gulls and the rampant energy of the Sea's own voice.

She had been there when the messenger had come and she had wept there also, the hard Sea breezed stealing her tears from her as it had everything else.

When her anger had returned she had yelled into the wind, asking questions and hearing no answer but the Sea's own: The crescendo of water upon water and then the soundlessness of the waves retracting again from the sandy shore.

Eventually she had gone back to her home, to the beauty of nature and tranquillity, restored and assured by His hand and now…perhaps it had been her imagination or the weight of unspent grief, but all that had been once bright and untarnished in her childhood seemed sullied beyond repair.

Even the green paint of the door had seemed chipped and cracked, as if He had been the last thing here keeping it as it had been.

Her brother greeted her silently and she could see so much of Him there that it hurt her to look. As if understanding he simply showed her to His room and then he left.

"You came." He remarks and His voice has aged beyond reorganisation since she heard it last. As, indeed, has He, though she has no wish to acknowledge the fact, not when He has been her strength for so long now. "I thought perhaps the Sea had claimed you as it has me." And though there is a humour to the words there is pain also.

"Father." She warns and He smiles and stretches a hand to touch her face before he nods,

"Yes I see. It is calling to you, but you, as I, have had the strength to turn back again.

"I wanted to ask you something, Elanor, before the last flickers of my life are burned away and I can find the way back to my Heart." He gestures weekly to the table to the left of the bed, sat upon which is a red leather bound book, which she knows well. "Take it one I am gone. Take it and tel our true story."

These words are with her now as she stands again at the harbour, the Red Book weighing her hands down and sound of movement from one of the two who are with her, informing her that they are getting slightly impatient.

"Forgive me." She says as she turns to face them. They are dressed both in the black of Mourning and their age shows well in both their faces, though she can still see hints of what they had once been hidden in their abnormally tall forms.

"We understand, Elanor, your Father's loss has grieved us all." One says, giving comfort as he always has.

"Aye and you most of all, no doubt." The other responds, the hint of his Took lineage evident still in the melody of his voice, though faded now from his contact with the men of Gondor.

"I asked you here for his sake and apologise that I have taken you away from anything important."

"At our ages? I do not think that even the Lord Aragorn believes we are that energetic." The younger of the two remarks and his smile gives her the confidence she has needed and bringing the book around to her front she says,

"He made me promise to tell his story…their story." And she notices that the pair look to the horizon and she knows that they too fell the pull of the Sea and the loss of he who once bore her brother's name.

She opens the book and turns the pages until she finds the section where her father's hand begins, sure and confident just as he had always been,

" I am most likely gone by now and my little Elanor is reading this so that you can know, Master Meriadoc, Thain Peregrin, the truth at last.

You know the ending true enough and perhaps you guess a little more of the details in the middle that I have wanted you to, but the beginning will be lost to you as it is almost lost to me now. Weighted by the darker memories.

This life was given to me when my mother died, when her kindness and hope was taken from us by cruel fate. I recall still the pain of loosing her, even though I would have been only four years old at the time. I recall Father's silence and Halfred's anger the most, both ways of grieving, both bringing me fear.

I remember shutting myself away from the world, refusing to see life while I ached for her face and the hole in my heart grew and expanded. I lost myself in my dreams instead, dreams of far away lands, unknown creatures and the Sea. How it haunted me, even then when I knew naught of it, when there was no way that it could be there in my dreams so real, so alive. But that is what it was, that I know now.

Of course my Father would have none of it, a child of his could not be addling about with dreams, nor grieving in such a way for a life well lived and well loved. So he took it on himself to bring me back again, to make me a child that was deserving of the Gamgee name. Had he not done that, had he not decided to let me grieve as I chose to and allowed the misery to work its own course, who can say where I would be now? What my life would be? For through that decision I came into contact with Mr. Bilbo and his stories of Dragons, Adventures and elves.

I recall that he looked hard into my eyes on the day we first met and smiling he had turned to my father and said,

"You have bred a fine one there, Hamfast. Such spirit and such a want for adventure all in those eyes." My Father had taken the compliment, though it was little of what he wished to hear and I remembered that once Mr. Bilbo had gone back into Bag End he'd caught hold of my arm and said,

"Mind you get no ideas, Samwise, Mr. Bilbo's gentry and free to do as he wishes. You and I, on the other hand are of a lower breed and we have to stick to naught more than a good days work and an honest Master." And so the first border has was placed within my life, for while my Mother was alive I had had no schooling in the class divide, indeed she had often told me how all Hobbits were equal, for they loved the soil and the peace of the Shire.

I was now closer to learning the things I would place into practice later in life, (though for a differing reason than that placed to the rules at the time) protect the Master no matter the cost to yourself, respect the Master's wishes and trust the Master without question. All this Father implanted in me, while Mr. Bilbo kept my desire for adventure alive by telling me stories of his own venture out in the real world and of elves. Once he even showed me his Magic Ring and how I wish now that I'd taken the Thing from him, but then again I would not be able to give you this tale.

From Mr. Bilbo I learned to be strong in both heart and spirit, to see that on occasions the gentry could be friends to us of the lower breed and I suppose most importantly he taught me to hope for a better future and to never let that hope go no matter the temptation.

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T: Well there is the first chapter. Depending on how enthralled I become in ROTK there may or may not be another chapter on Tues. If not then it'll be up next sun.

RR please. Go on. Go on. Go on. Go on. Ah ye get the idea.