Word Count: 600 words


2. PET


Sam was happy to be able to do anything for Frodo, now that they no longer pushed toward Mount Doom, and he no longer worried on when he would bury Frodo's body. Sam had thought on it often as they wandered—when Frodo trembled and fell, eyes wide but glazed, picking rocks from worn toes and dropping them from fingers, unfeeling—but Sam did not think he could bury Frodo. Frodo, who had gone farther than anyone should have, and who had dragged Sam along—far far away from the Shire—wholehearted, devoted, willing—with him.

"…the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam."

Sam shook his eyes from the undoing laid out before him. He laughed and fell to his knees, and then Frodo fell beside him like a shadow. They sat facing each other for a moment—silent in their joy and despair—and then they leaned into one another, head on shoulder, head on shoulder.

After some time, Sam pulled away and frowned. He took Frodo's arm in both hands and brought it to himself; he wrapped the bleeding hand in the shirt still on his back. Sam kept Frodo's hand pressed firmly into his stomach with his own, but he could feel the blood saturate his shirt's fabric, and finally run warmly down to his pants' tattered waistband.

Sam dropped dry lips to Frodo's dusted brow as he looked out into the utter ruin, cloaked in swirling dust and an evil, cutting wind. He pet Frodo's hair from crown to forehead, over and over, untangling curls as if he worked the mane of a well-loved packhorse, which, Sam considered—with a surprisingly un-resentful burst of amusement—Frodo very much was.

Frodo: A vessel for the ring. A packhorse with its cargo, and Sam: his reluctant master. Together: A means to the end.

A dry, hot breeze hit Sam's face as he scooted closer to Frodo. He swept the grey cloak of Lorien about their shoulders. For a moment, Sam tasted the sweetness of the light in that place, and his memory brushed deeper—green carrot tops in moist brown soil.

But then it was gone.

Sam swallowed a sigh, or sob, and took that last hopeful memory into his tired lungs. He ran a hand through Frodo's hair again, and his strength left him. He lay down—spent.

It was better that he die here, Sam thought fiercely, alongside Frodo, than he bury his friend in this desolate place—alone!—and then stumble down the mountain to die elsewhere (likewise terribly terribly alone).

They lay now face to face, and breathed.

Frodo's hand twitched against Sam's stomach; he was pulled toward sleep. Sam ran a finger across Frodo's eyebrows to soothe him, and Frodo's eyes came open long enough to raise his uninjured hand to Sam's temple—he wiped blood away from skin.

They would rest here as the darkness burned away—all around them—into light. Later, they could move with all their strength from the mouth of this place and, when hope had finally failed, Sam would stop and close his eyes. He would wait for those silver shores, grass as green as the Shire in May, rolling endlessly on. They would step forward into that land, unfettered and, at last, free.

Frodo had carried the cargo well, Sam protecting his spirit best he could, and this was finally finally the glorious end.

There was a smile, but it was so hot, and the air like poison.


So no one knows where hobbits go when they die because as fastidious as Tolkien is, he is also horrifically vague, so I've given Sam a little of that imagery from Frodo's dream back at Tom Bombadil's (that was later so beautifully paraphrased by Gandalf in PJ's RotK), because why not. The next drabble will be a little more light-hearted. ;) Thank you for reading!