Disclaimer is the same as Chapter one.

Author's note at the end.

On the Beach—Chapter Four: Testing the Waters

Despite his initial doubts, Frodo became an excellent teacher. Enaiowen was a capable and enthusiastic student. Learning about fire demons, water spirits and sand serpents had not become the chore she thought it would be. The beach remained the haven she wanted and her teacher stayed the friend she needed. The healing had begun for both of them, but each knew the process may never be completed. Each held a pain in their hearts, one more hidden than the other but both deemed necessary for life. The pain made it possible to hope. Frodo was not ready to let it go. He was waiting.

Until then, he had something to occupy him.

As the years passed, Frodo devoted most of his time and thought to his appointed task. To the delight of his close friends, he left little time for his once sullen introspection. He took his job very seriously and soon became an authority on the monsters and magical creatures of this place quite simply referred to as 'the New World'.

He spoke little of his dreams which continued every night without fail. They had become a treasure to him. His window to what could have been. But there were doubts. No matter how much he wanted to believe it, he couldn't be certain if the life he saw was Sam's.

Glorfindel too noticed a similar change in his adopted daughter. The darkness that once lingered behind her eyes had all but vanished. She had grown in grace and loveliness. Reflections of her damaged soul would surface from time to time in her words or in her quiet manner. They would vanish easily enough as the sun moved across the sky and the time for her lessons on the beach drew near. She poured herself into her studies. Nothing made her happier than making her teacher proud.

Lately Frodo's instruction had taken on a new tone of urgency. The time had come for knowledge to be put into practice. Enaiowen would be taken to the New World in supervised excursions.

Field testing was about to begin.

Frodo fretted fitfully over the coming of this day. No one would tell him what sort of monster she would be exposed to first. When he offered to plan the testing, Gandalf simply laughed at him, saying that if the decision were left to him, his charge would be facing butterflies and field mice. Gandalf was right. Challenging her through knowledge was one thing. Challenging her through danger was quite another.

He waited with her much as he had everyday but this time he brought no books and restrained himself from imparting yet another lesson. He was there to support his student, nothing more.

"Are you nervous, Enai?" he asked her as she checked her short blade for the ninth time. She had dressed simply to allow for easy movement, with an elven gray cloak clasped at her throat. Her chestnut hair had gathered in braids at the nape of her neck. She looked ready by every aspect except her face, which wore a grim expression.

"No," she answered simply without looking at him. She paced restlessly around him, her soft boots kicking the sand up in small, glittery sprays. Her eyes scanned the horizon obsessively. After a long pause she added, "I just don't want to do this."

Frodo took her hand to comfort her, forcing her to stand still. She looked to him and smiled. "It's not that I'm afraid. It's more hesitation than anything else. My life is speeding down a path trying to reach this goal."

"It's the goal you fear," Frodo finished for her. He had the same fear. When the thought of it would creep into his mind, he pushed it away wildly. He couldn't allow himself to think of it. It reminded him that his loneliness had not gone away for good. It had been waiting for him, quietly, until his distraction left him.

"There is one bright thought," she said suddenly with a note of cheerfulness.

"What's that?" he asked, mirroring her smile.

"Perhaps my father will be my guide," she said with hope. "I've only seen him for moments now and then. He'll inquire to my well being and leave once he sees I am fine. He must be terribly busy, but I do miss him so." With a long sigh, she added, "I suppose one day I'll understand."

Glorfindel was the warden that she would one day become. She saw her future in her father's actions.

Realizing that she had turned the mood to a somber one, she tugged on Frodo's hand and began to laugh softly. "I spend more time with you than anyone. If my father keeps taking these extended trips, one day he'll come home to find his daughter has turned into a hobbit."

Frodo feigned insult and pulled his hand away. "There are worse things you could be!" he declared.

"I know," she chuckled. "We've spent the past few years studying them."

Frodo watched her smile fade as her eyes focused beyond him. He followed her gaze and spotted a figure approaching them.

Enaiowen's disappointment was evident. She didn't see her father. Gandalf was to be her guide.

As the old wizard came closer, Frodo turned to his student with a look of sudden worry. Nothing he could do would prepare her to his satisfaction. "Enai, be mindful of the passing of time and don't follow unless you know—"

Enaiowen had gracefully placed her fingers across his lips, stopping his last minute lecture. She smiled warmly and bent down and kissed him on the forehead. "Recitation will not save me now, Master Frodo," she said softly. "Trust that you have taught me well and that I will keep my wits about me."

"Good luck," he whispered while their heads remained close. Without another word she turned to meet Gandalf.

Frodo watched them go and tried not to worry. It was just a test. Gandalf would not let her get hurt, he told himself. Yet, he couldn't help but wonder about Bilbo and how he must have felt when the Fellowship left Rivendell. Helpless, left behind, waiting for their return.



Loch Leary, Scotland, 1822.

Any chance traveler to the area would happen upon a most unusual sight: an elderly gentleman robed in white sitting on a log smoking his pipe and a petite, thin, young woman wading out in the water. Luckily enough for Gandalf the wizard and Enaiowen the elf not a soul passed by. The day was dreary, rainy and miserable much like a great many days in Scotland.

Enaiowen stood up to her waist in the frigid waters of the lake facing down what appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, a dark gray horse. This was no ordinary horse. Most horses don't live in lakes. In fact, no horse entices their victims to deep water to drown them and devour their flesh.

As her first field test, Gandalf chose to pit her against a kelpie.

Enaiowen remembered enough to know no to try to climb astride this demon horse. Its shiny coat served as an adhesive. One touch and she would be hopelessly stuck. The demon would drag her to the depths of the lake to kill her. She kept well out of its reach, waiting for an opening or a sign of weakness. She dodged its every attempt to strike her with hooves or teeth.

The kelpie snorted in fury at her elusiveness. It reared up out of the water with a terrifying scream and then suddenly turned and dove beneath the surface.

The water became very still. Enaiowen could see nothing in the murkiness below her save her own reflection. The sound of her panting filled the silence left by the horrible beast. She looked around her worriedly trying to guess its next move, but the minutes ticked by too slowly. She began to wonder if she had driven it away. She looked to Gandalf who didn't appear to be paying the least bit of attention to her or her predicament.

Suddenly the beast sprang out of the water behind her. Clamping down on her shoulder with its powerful jaws it pulled her under. As it disappeared beneath the surface its tail crashed upon the water with a thunderous boom and then they were gone.

The water became still again. Gandalf puffed quietly and unconcernedly on his pipe.

Enaiowen's hand broke the surface and began to grope wildly in the air. She was searching.

Gandalf's foot casually kicked a leather bridle out to her outstretched hand. Her fingers wrapped around it desperately and disappeared beneath the water with it firmly in her grasp.

Several moments passed until the peacefulness of the scene was broken by a majestic but somewhat unholy gray horse coming out of the water. It ran onto the shore and stood as if waiting. It stomped and snorted in frustration at having been caught. Upon its head Enaiowen had strapped the bridle, engraved in gold with a cross.

Several paces behind it, with much less enthusiasm, the elf girl dragged herself out of the cold water.

"Next time, remember to take the bridle with you," Gandalf called to her.

Enaiowen looked to him miserably. "There isn't going to be a next time. Is there?" she asked in weak plea. Covered in mud and slime with seaweed trapped in her hair, she resembled a water demon herself.

"No," Gandalf replied eyeing the horse with admiration. "You didn't kill this one."

She sat down next to the wizard on the log. She was soaked to the bone and beginning to shiver. With her left hand she reached up and gingerly touched her shoulder where the monster had seized her. The skin was not broken but it was sore. Much like her pride. "That was an accident. I panicked."

The old wizard smiled. "Clever use of my flask," he remarked.

"Bottled water destroys these beasts," she said absentmindedly.

"It wasn't water," he informed her wryly.

She caught the coy expression on his face and began to laugh. "All the better then."

The kelpie whinnied impatiently at them.

Gandalf rose to his feet. He took Enaiowen's cloak and threw it over the demon's flanks.

She watched him with curiosity. She really needed her cloak at the moment. It was the only thing she had left that hadn't been at the bottom of the lake. She frowned at him when she guessed what he had planned. "You aren't planning to keep it, are you, Gandalf?" she asked accusingly.

He smiled back at her making his intentions clear. "He is not for me, dear Enaiowen. I have a steed with fantastic stamina. I can ride him for days at a full gallop and he would never tire. But in my current capacity, I no longer have the need to ride to or from great peril with great speed. This creature may provide my Shadowfax with the challenge he's been missing." He placed his hand on the kelpie's neck. It bowed its head, leaning into the old man with a gesture of begrudging subservience.

"I'm not sure this is an ideal companion, Gandalf. This is a water demon. Surely you know what it eats," she protested from her seat on the log. She was hardly in a position to argue with him but she began to wonder about the judgment of her guide.

Gandalf mounted the beast in one fluid stride. He reined it towards Enaiowen and offered a hand to pull her up behind him. "Trust this old man, child. I won't feed it anyone you know."

She took his hand and came up behind him. "I find little comfort in that."

Gandalf laughed. "Well, at least find comfort in that you came out of your first adventure unscathed."

Her shoulder ached and her limbs felt full of lead, heavy with little strength remaining to move them. She leaned against the wizard with weariness. "I find adventure highly overrated," she admitted quietly.

"You sound like your teacher," he told her as the kelpie carried them swiftly over the countryside.

"Master Frodo teaches from the vantage point of someone who will not meet these monsters. He frets over the dangers I will face as if I have a choice," she said. "I do not long for adventure but it is my duty. It is being thrust upon me. I'm not sure he understands that. No one is forcing him to live his life a certain way." Of what she longed for, she would not speak. A dream came to her nightly that she held secretly and selfishly in her heart. A dream of laughter, joy and peace, something she had not known and doubted she would ever find.

Gandalf held his words for a moment. She knew nothing of Middle Earth or of the perils its people had faced. She knew nothing of the Ring and very little of its bearer. She based her ideas on the world as it was presented to her. "Perhaps he understands better than you think," he said finally.

Perhaps it was time for her to see the world through a different set of eyes.

TBC

Author's Note: Information on the kelpie comes from "A Field Guide to Demons" by Carol K. Mack and Dinah Mack. It's a cool book.

This was an easy chapter to write. The next few will be difficult. I want to make them REALLY GOOD, so if there is a delay, please forgive me. (I am a mom and have to do my writing while my kids are sleeping.) Unless I combine two of them, there should be three chapters left, full of angsty goodness for all growing boys and girls. Next chapter, as you can probably guess, will be Enai's reaction to Frodo's past. How will she deal with the tale of the Ringbearer?

Sally Gardens asked me if Frodo will ever get "what could have been"? My best answer is no and then yes. Stayed tuned you'll see. He's not quite ready yet.