"He often used to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep and every path was its tributary."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Chapter 7: The River

Yes, I had known. I sat now, Frodo's head pillowed in my lap, wiping his brow with a cool cloth. It did no good. I could know, but it would do no good.

At least I knew he would survive. My memory of the beloved childhood tale hadn't faded that much.

Over our heads loomed the figures of "three monstrous trolls," glaring down as if they could have their stony revenge, not on the wizard who had tricked them to their doom, but at least on his weak and weary friends. Their presence cleared my head, brought back the memories, the things I had forgotten over the years. I remembered…

What did I remember? I remembered that everyone had died at the end of The Hobbit. There had been a dragon and a Ring – the same Ring that was resting just over the weakening heart of the hobbit in my arms – and a battle with a lot of different sides and a lot more casualties.

As I remembered I had to consider…was this what it had been like for my aunt? The Hobbit had had a gloomier ending than The Lord of the Rings, though it was the children's story. Except it wasn't. It was the foreshadowing, the hint that things weren't quite right in the world, and wouldn't be right until they were changed for good.

Maybe my aunt's departure had been the foreshadowing that things weren't quite right in my world. Then again, maybe they would have been if she hadn't left.

Beside me, Sam was muttering and kissing Frodo's hand intermittently. Aragorn got him to his feet with the good sense to send him looking for kingsfoil, which was not, as the hobbit assumed, a weed. I remembered that it was much, much more than a weed. At least if Aragorn was the one using it.

Before setting off on his own quest for the elusive plant, Aragorn knelt beside me to check on Frodo.

I opened my mouth, stopped when I saw the look on his face.

"Do not tell me," he said. "It was your aunt's province to ensure the quest of Thorin Oakshield never strayed off course. She never told anyone the future. It would be wrong for you to do so now."

"How awful," I said before I could stop myself.

Aragorn squeezed my shoulder. "Will you stay with him? Ensure he gets where he is meant to?"

Where he is meant to…I thought ahead. Rivendell? Or Mount Doom? Aragorn had no idea what he was asking me, and by his own instructions, I couldn't tell him. What a ridiculous thing to ask someone! I barely knew the hobbit. And yet…

And yet, as I looked down at Frodo's pale face I recognized something. An echo of my own pain, perhaps, with two parents gone and an uncle who loved the wider world more than home. He'd been left a house. I'd been left a house. We both preferred the quiet to all this adventure. Or did we?

I was answering Aragorn before I knew I had decided to, "I will stay with him. Until…until the end."

He met my eyes, then went off in search of Sam and the kingsfoil.

When they returned, they were not alone. A woman was with them, a…goddess, I thought. I'd never seen anyone that beautiful, even in the magazines my brother had kept hidden under his bed.

My instinct as they approached was to retreat, to let the larger and grander folk do their thing. My promise stopped me, and I continued to cradle Frodo as the woman bent over him.

Their conference was quick, and they were lifting Frodo onto the white horse the woman had brought with her. "We must take him to my father."

Arwen then. This was Arwen. No wonder she was so beautiful. I stared up at the Elf woman in awe, until I realized I was being left behind.

"Wait!" I said sharply. They stared down at me. "I…No," I said to Arwen. "Go. We will catch up." I looked at Aragorn again, hoping he understood that my promise was not so easily broken.

He grasped Arwen's hand, and they were off with the shudder of horse hooves and a whisper of Elvish.

"We should break camp," Aragorn said, and we set to work.

Our progress behind Arwen and Frodo felt sluggish. A new urgency was in my feet, a need to get to Rivendell and know that we had gotten them there safely. Sometime between Weathertop and the trolls I had lost sight of my original concern: how I had gotten to Middle Earth and how I would get home. That wasn't happening for a long while anyway, so I was free to spend all my worry on the hobbit. Maybe I could send my brother a message. My dad certainly wouldn't be around to get it.

I was surprised at the bitterness in my own thoughts. After all, I hadn't put up a fight about staying home, going to community college, and not going out to conquer the world. I'd never wanted to conquer the world. I'd always just assumed my life would add up to more than it had. What was I complaining about? What was missing?

These were the selfish thoughts that plagued me as we crossed the last few leagues to Rivendell. When we got there, we found a swollen river, devastated banks, and a large company guarding the other side. How we were going to get across, I had no idea.

Someone – an Elf, I supposed, shouted at us. Aragorn returned the greeting, and there seemed to be a sort of conference on the other side. A boat appeared, far too flimsy looking for the roaring tide in front of us, but it made it across without a problem, and the hobbits, the Ranger, and I, were all hauled aboard.

Once across, there was a flurry of conversation, most of which I couldn't make out. I looked down at the hobbits and shrugged. They looked even more bewildered than I felt.

"Where's Frodo?" demanded Merry.

"He has been taken to Lord Elrond," answered one of the Elves. "He will be taken care of, but his condition is grave. If you will follow us, we will find you food and clean clothes and bring you to him."

Even distressed hobbits cannot resist the promise of a hot meal, and we followed him without argument, Aragorn just behind us. I felt slightly better knowing he was there, even though I was sure he had other things he needed to attend to. The Elf led us through the trees, up a path, and eventually down into the valley.

I stopped on the edge, forgetting everything. The sight before me drove it all away.

A high, lilting voice at my shoulder spoke. "Welcome to Rivendell, fair lady."

"I'm not a lady," I squeaked. "And I'll never call anything 'fair' again."

They laughed, and I shook myself out of my stupor, and once more we were moving down the path to The Last Homely House. My own cabin suddenly felt cold and uninviting.

We were passing through a back corridor that seemed to have a great amount of activity than any others – I guess this was near where they had taken Frodo – when Pippin suddenly shouted and burst ahead of us. We followed at an increased speed and ended on a small porch, where sat a very old hobbit and a figure that could only have been Gandalf.

"Mr. Bilbo!" Sam cried. The wizard rose, raised his bushy eyebrows at me, but before anyone else could speak, there was another cry, off to the left.

"Rae!"

I whirled and was swept up into my brother's arms.