Elanor
Chapter one: The binding of souls.
T: Feel much better now that I'm doing serious again, though fluff levels are higher in this part than in the last. I am extending an inspiration credit for this fic to the beautiful Any Lenox song into the west which if you haven't heard it is hauntingly beautiful. Anyway, the plot is mine, everything else is not. Slash warning as usual with my stuff and a shadowed plot which is not.
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'Mr. Bilbo became like a second father to me and thus when rumours that he might be taking up a ward began to circulate I was less than pleased. I felt even worse when I learned the two were not really related, little more than second and third Cousins either way and my anger over whelmed me when I learned that he was a Brandybuck by blood rather than Baggins.
'That was my father's prejudices rubbing off on me, for I'd had little cause to think ill of any Hobbit before I came into his tutelage. Later I'd learn the folly of such thinking, but at the time I believed, as my father before me, that Brandybuck and Tooks were little better than the big folk, what with their queer ways and diverse beliefs.
'I'm ashamed to admit now that once I had heard all of these things and more of the lad I considered a rival, I shut myself into my room and like a spoiled child refused to immerge until things went my way. My father did not believe me serious for the first two days, but after the week was out he had begun to plead at my door, his voice all but a sob as he talked of how painful it would be to lose me.
'Another week after that and he brought in Mr. Bilbo to "sort things out" as he told me later. Of course by that point I was sick with hunger and yearning so badly for more to drink than the few sips I allowed myself each day from the flask kept always at my bedside that I would have agreed with anything Bilbo said.
'Thus it took him mere moments to cross into my room with my permission, where he enquired,
"What has brought this about, Samwise?" Using my full name as he only did when I had pleased or grieved him in some way.
"Everything is changing, sir and I thought that I might stop it before it became too late." I replied, my voice cracked slightly for the thirst. Bilbo smiled and dropping to his knees he took my eyes in his own and said,
"Change is not always a bad thing, Sam, if you stop it you might lose out on learning or seeing some amazing things."
"Yet this change is bad, for through it I shall lose you and contentment you bring me." I said and he seemed to be expecting that reply for he turned his head slightly behind him and enquired,
"Well, lad?" No response was forth coming for a moment and then a Hobbit child stepped through the open door and into my eye line.
'I see now odd parallels between that, our first meeting, and one of the last memories I have of our life together, for in both I was dehydrated and emotionally taxed, while he bore shadows caused by a heavy burden not ment for his shoulders alone. It is as if our lives had moved in a circle, as though even then our fate had been decided.
'Of course I did not know him then and so I cannot explain why when I first saw him he both scared and intrigued me. Though mayhap it was because I had not seen his like before, for he was so pail and so thin that it seemed almost that he would break if the wind changed direction.
"This is the lad I have been telling you about, Frodo. Sam this is my soon to be ward Frodo Baggins." Bilbo said and Frodo extended me his hand a challenge in his bright eyes that I could not resist, then or much later in our lives. Thus I took his hand and Bilbo's smile brightened before he said,
"That is much better. It would not do to have my two dearest Hobbits at odds without even having met.
"Young Samwise, I hope that I have set your worries straight and that you shall soon be fit enough to come and visit me again." He said, smiling once again before both he and Frodo left my room.
'I was back at Bag End within the week, suffering still from such an extended fast, yet working as hard as my father demanded so as not to cause him any more undue worry.
'As dawn broke across the skyline the door to Bag End twitched open and Frodo came out into the garden, his skin all but glowing in that light.
"Good morning, Master Hamfast." He said, his voice a soft melody that fitted well the aura of quiet good nature that surrounded him.
"Morning, Mr. Frodo. What brings you out at this hour today?"
"The same as every day, Master Hamfast, to admire your hard work and to enjoy how quiet Hobbiton is."
"Aye, such a vast change it must seem from the noise and crowd of Brandy Hall."
"Yes indeed it is. Though there are things I miss greatly about Brandy Hall."
"Would one of those things be young Master Meriadoc, sir?"
"Yes it would, though I had thought that I had not yet told you of my friendship with Merry."
"Ye haven't, Sir, but I listen to the idle chatter that circles about this place."
"I see." Frodo responds and the pair fall into silence. Father returns after a while to his work and Frodo takes the path down the garden, his eyes fixed upon the plants.
'Thus when he finds my hands amid the soil, it is understandable that he is a little surprised, Yet he recovers a moment later and meets my eyes with his own and my head clearer now I can recognise well the emotion shadowing the otherwise perfect clarity of his eyes. Grief.
'A stream of questions rise up my throat, why is this lad here in a place so far from his fellows? What is the cause for the hurt in his eyes? Why had his kin allowed him to leave their homeland to live with such a Hobbit as Bilbo? All this I wished to ask him, wish to have clarified; yet I could not for it was not my place. This I knew well. Too well.
"Samwise." He acknowledges after a moment.
"I'd rather you call me Sam, Sir," I reply. The smile that blooms onto his face is all the reward I need for the request and I find that I am smiling also quite despite myself.
"Of course, after all we shall see much of one another if you are learning your father's trade."
"Trying to learn, sir, I'm no match for his skill. Something he reminds me of all too often." And though I am serious Frodo begins to laugh, the sound like music to my young ears. I never had wish to hear that sound other than it was then, pure and unsullied, yet I have and each day it hurts me. For I allowed it to happen, allowed that innocents to fade.
'Yet I run ahead of myself for back then it seemed to me as if I would be always lifted by that laughter. Always drawn to it.
"You will forgive me if the humour seems misplaced, Sam, but I had thought that you would be more as your father. Stern but with a good heart."
"I have a little of that too me also, sir, but of course you are right; I am more my mother than my father. Bright like the son and hopeful even in shadows." I reply and he bends towards me so that I might hear him whisper,
"Do you recall still her face and the sound of her voice? Or is there a whole where her image should be and silence for her voice?" And there was so much guilt to the enquiry that I had answers to my questions without ever having posed them.
"How long ago did you lose your parents?" I ask and he starts at the question,
"I had believed that everyone knew the answer to that question, believed that everyone was talking about their death." He said after a moment.
'I wasn't as much of a listener to idle chat as my father back then, but I'd heard him muttering to himself every now and again and I knew that the year of my birth had also been a year for a great loss within the Baggins lineage. Yet that would make the pail, slight, thing before me, twenty-one years old and twelve years my senior. But how could that be? He looked little more than sixteen and acted so much younger than that. Thus with the belief that my guess was wrong I enquired,
"Ye would not be talking about Primila and Drogo Baggins would you?"
"Indeed I would, I knew that you would know."
"Take no offence, sir, but ye don't look old enough to be their child."
"I know and sometimes I am angry at that fact while other times I am quite glad for it means I can have Merry as my friend. But somehow we have wondered from answering my question."
"It's not fare to compare sir. I've only had to be without my mother for five years now, while ye have not seen your parents for nine. Ye also lost them in tragic enough circumstances so as ye can be forgiven for forgetting."
"You have a good heart just as you said, Sam, thus you will say that. Yet I know the truth, I have forgotten them because I am incapable of love, of any emotion but selfishness."
"Yet how can that be true when all but two seconds ago you were saying how much ye missed Master Meriadoc?" I enquired and Frodo opened his mouth to retort to that but thought better of it and merely smiled and said,
"True enough I suppose. I see I must watch my words about you young Samwise, for you have a sharp mind." Before he gained his feet and continued on down the path.
"You've a task ahead of ye if you're thinking of setting that one to earth Samwise. His head and his hearts in the clouds with the fair folk, not tangled in the silt and the good earth with folk like us.
"But I know ye and I see already that he's caught your sympathy, so I'll not stick my nose in. Yet mind me lad, that one will be your Master as Bilbo was mine, so mind your place." Father said, before he set his shoulders again into his work.
'Aware that this was as permission to have Frodo as a friend of sorts I too returned to work, my thoughts abstract at best and my concentration all but lost for the thought of my lessons with Bilbo in the afternoon.
'As always that time came quickly and soon enough I was crossing over the threshold of Bag End and reviling the thick kaleidoscope of scents that had become as home to me. The musk of the old tomes in Mr. Bilbo's library, the faint acid of his pipe smoke and the odd hint of chemicals that was the quill ink. That smell changed as time moved on, new layers combining with it to become first something to recall with a smile when times were harder and then to think on with worry and doubt. Of these smells those clearest in my mind are the sharp lavender and ginger of Frodo's bathing oil, which makes me smile even now to recall, the hard ammonia of the ointment that the elves gave him to ease his pains, that scent snuffing out his old one until both he and it were gone from my life and the pure sunlight of new children, that the dearest of smells and recalled well in my old heart.
'But I run as always far to far ahead of myself and risk ruining the telling as I do so. Lost in the scent of Bag End, it took me a moment to register Bilbo's voice calling me to the study, yet when I did I moved towards it, apologies for most on my tongue.
'Yet I was not met with a scolding, nor with an enquiry for the delay but a smile and an apology of,
"You will have company for today's lesson, Sam, I fear. But I have no wish for this to affect your progress and so I ask you ignore him as best you can." He said as he gestured with his head over my left shoulder. Turning just slightly, I was surprised to see that the corner had been cleaned of the books and maps that had been scattered there to make way for a chair, yet the occupant of that chair, an awkward looking Frodo, was of little surprise.
'Afternoon, Mr. Frodo.' I said and the young Baggins smiled and replied,
'Good afternoon, Sam, I thought I would see how you have gotten such a bright mind for one so young.' I smiled at the memory and felt my skin burn for the compliment and feeling more than a little out of sorts I sat myself down in the only unoccupied chair.
'I believe a little more from this today, Sam' Mr, Bilbo said as he passed me thin green leather bound book. It was a history tome that dealt with the First age of Middle Earth, a subject so intriguing that I soon forgot about my audience and lost myself within it. If ever you've had the time to read up on such things you will understand why I was so enthralled, for much occurred within that time that has had bearing upon this world and all the lives born of it.
'Soon, indeed too soon for my liking, I felt Bilbo's hand upon my shoulder and I was called free of the deep imaginings conjured within my head. Finding the end of the sentence I stopped and passed the Finding the end of the sentence I stopped and passed the book back to Bilbo.
"As usual, Samwise a perfect display of your heart and of the fascination you show for everything of this sort. But of course my opinion is biased and so perhaps we might ask Frodo." Bilbo said.
'My eyes drawn again to the other I found that he was staring, an odd fascination clear in his eyes and a peace to his face that I had not seen there until this moment. "Frodo?" Bilbo enquired and he started as if stung, a faint flush coming to his cheeks before he replied,
"It was very good, much better than I had expected from one of his age." And I could tell merely by the way he avoided my gaze then, that he was not speaking a whole truth. That he was hiding something from the pair of us.
'It is odd, but I believe that was the moment I knew that my life had changed, that the presence of this slip of a tweenager had changed my very destiny.'
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T: And another chapter is done. I have given in apologising for the lateness of posts and I make no promise as to when chapter three will appear. It is worth the wait for Merry enters the tale, as does a newly born Pippin.
