I don't know why I did it, Frodo. Or maybe, in a way, I do...because I understand now, like I never did before, the power of that stupid thing. The power it has over fate, over you, and me, over the whole world. I didn't mean for this to happen. I can see it in your eyes, how much it pains you. There are lines in your face that weren't there when I left you. You've grown tall, at least, tall for our kind, and you don't smile anymore, not like you used to. I wonder if it's my fault that you've come to this lot in life.

You're afraid of me, now. You've seen the hunger in my eyes, how my clutching hands reached out to grasp the treasure from you, the one ring, the one ring to rule them all. Yes, it does rule them all...all the hearts of those ensnared by it, and all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. I think you didn't have the childhood you should have had. Perhaps it was your parents, dying so young...or perhaps it was my stories that poisoned you.

They were innocent stories...embellished tales of my travels, dragons, elves, knights, dwarves...all those magical things that I wanted you to someday see. Yes, oh yes, I wanted you to have the chance to meet them all, to quest, like I did. But not like this...not when every time I see you, it seems like your shoulders are weighted down with a burden, far too heavy for you, or I, or anyone younger or weaker than the earth itself to lift. No, this is not your weight to carry...it should have been mine. But alas, I could not, I think, have struggled so little against the pain. You're quite brave, you know.

Brave...but lost somewhere you can't find. You have your friends, Pippin, Merry, Sam...all the others, but they're in another world from you. And it's my fault, isn't it, my dear child. But I'm only half right...you aren't a child anymore.

I remember how you used to run and laugh when you were small, with the other children. How have they taken it away from you? And now you're scared, your frightened, you're angry...but you've changed...you're ready. I can tell you're ready. And that's what scares me most of all.

Because I don't want you to go. I don't want to lose you, you're like a son to me, my only son, my child. We were so happy...ach, why did I ever have to take that thing off the floor in the first place? None of this would have happened...and you'd be safe, you'd never have left the shire...nor would I, for that matter. In fact, would I have lived? Would I have reached the shire?

I think not, not without the ring...which now hangs there, around your neck, the ring which I cannot see, not without desiring it, without putting everything else away from it and seeing only it, and those flaming letters that I can read in the back of my mind, but that I don't really see. But without that accursed ring, you'd never have had what happiness you did have in the shire...really...

So it all comes together, in the end, just like Gandalf said. Fate, and destiny, and you, and I, and the ring...and all of us caught up together in it's snare, going where we will be taken, until the day dawns when we're released from it forever. And it all rests on your shoulders...

I'm scared, my child. I'm scared for me, and for you. I'm scared my heart will break, losing my dearest nephew, my son, my only real family.

Why aren't you scared?
You aren't, really.
Are you?