After I watched Return of the King, I was devastated. More than most people realized. The feelings I felt were very real. It didn't matter if the characters weren't real. They were real to me. Their pain was real to me. Everything was real.
"A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities."
Tolkien himself said that.
I spent the first month and a half after I watched the ending in a state of depression. How could Frodo have left Middle Earth? Of course, I knew why. It was just hard to accept. He is my favorite fictional character of all time. The thought that he was so tragically hurt that he couldn't wait until death to find peace was unbearable.
There had to be a way to make it better.
One day, I wrote an unsent letter on a website's forum to Frodo, lamenting his departure. My dear friend, who goes by "Glomp" on this particular website, responded, signing the letter as "Frodo." Since this was a thread for unsent letters, we moved the back and forth to Private Messaging. That February, a roleplay was born. It helped a lot. The pain this fictional story had caused me became bearable, and there were (and still are) times that I had forgotten that Frodo had ever left. Before we knew it, it was October, and we had written over 40,000 words. That's long enough to be considered a novella, which is not quite a novel, but close!
We can't keep this story to ourselves, I thought. There must be other people we can help.
So here it is. It's not done yet, and probably won't be for a long time. There's too much to explore with the characters of Frodo and Gabrielle and their friends and family and loved ones.
Just so you are all aware, Gabrielle was always played by me, and Frodo Baggins was always played by Glomp. We both used the rest of the characters as we pleased, so it would be too difficult to attribute every line of the story to one or the other.
Know that we wrote this together, and these are not just my words. Far from it.
I dedicate this retelling of this RP firstly to Glomp. Thank you for your friendship and inspiring words, mellon nin.
And to all who hurt as deeply with Frodo as I did (and still do):
Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
And all will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass...