Author's Note: No, "'Samwise Gamgee and the Ring'" didn't really need a Chapter 2/Part 2/sequel-posted-as-part-of-the-original-just-because. I just had a strange idea because when I wrote this, "yesterday" was March 25, the day the Ring was destroyed, and I wrote a follow-up sort of in honor of that. This describes the ceremony, which I mention in Part 1, honoring the Ring-bearer, in more detail; it's the thoughts of various people on Frodo's death and funeral-type-thing. And no, I didn't mean to be all-inclusive, which is why there are few parts – I didn't forget people. Not everyone has something I needed to say.
A Time to Mourn
It was difficult for Galadriel, on September 22 of the year 3019 of the Third Age, that as the Lady of Light she could not weep. The Queen of Lothlórien was not to display human fits of emotion; she was kind and gentle and sad, but tears were too personal for Galadriel to shed. Her voice ached as she sang, betraying how much her sorrow truly hurt her, but did not crack with emotion, for the Lady of the Wood's inhumanly perfect, ethereal voice could not have the flaws of other races.
She sang her mournful Elvish lament:
Frodo of the Shire, bravest of Hobbits,
Most courageous of Men and Elves,
How far you wandered from your home
Pursuing fulfillment of a task too daunting,
A burden too heavy, a road too perilous
For any but you, who alone could stand and take it.
A candle you were in the darkest hour of night,
Extinguished by shadow when struggling to light the way.
Never too small to counterbalance the pending darkness,
Though barely four feet high, for it is not size
But the weight of courage that must be measured
Against the magnitude of the duty and burden.
Frodo, Frodo, a candle that burns yet
In the memory of its small, flickering but beautiful light,
In the Sun, the Moon, the Stars that shine still
Because that candle's flame did not waver 'til the last.
The last note cried its pain to the stillness of the courtyard around the White Tree. Galadriel, before lowering her eyes at the end of her lament, noticed that tears were flowing freely down the faces of most of the thousands of black-clad people in attendance to pay their respects to the Halfling who had saved their lives, homes, and world. She especially noted the tears of those who knew Frodo as well as understanding the Elven tongues – Legolas, Gildor, Glorfindel, Aragorn, Arwen, even Elrond. Most Elves mourned in white, as they often dressed, for purity and peace.
Mithrandir would save his grief until after the ceremonies, for the officiator could show nothing more than solemnity. But when alone, Galadriel knew, 'in the North Gandalf,' friend of the Hobbits, would mourn for the Ring-bearer like no other – Gandalf was anything but emotionless.
Galadriel bowed her head, so that no one would see that when she closed her eyes, she blinked back tears. She gazed down at the tiny grave at her feet that held only a grayish cloak with a leaf-shaped brooch clasp, a chain mail shirt of shining silver-white mithril, and a small sword of Elven make whose runic inscriptions flowed down the blade like a winding stream. The Lady knelt beside the grave and added to its contents an intricate glass phial that held nothing but pure light, the light of Eärendil, the Galadrim's most beloved star. Rising, she touched her hand to her bowed forehead, as Aragorn had to her when the Fellowship came to Lothlórien, in a sign of reverence. So softly that none could hear, she whispered to the spirit that slumbered in the earth, "May it be a light to you in dark places when all other lights go out."
Be at peace, Frodo, no longer Ring-bearer, Galadriel sent in her thoughts to the air. Your task is done, and now you may find rest.
"Namárië," she murmured, remembering when the Fellowship had left Lórien; she had foreseen without the aid of her mirror that the Ring-bearer's path would only become more difficult from there.
His soul would only fly free from here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Merry felt that he could not bear to stay longer. Galadriel's song was heartrendingly beautiful, but he did not understand the words she spoke in Elvish. Quenya or Sindarin…Merry couldn't tell. Frodo might have been able to decipher more of Galadriel's words than his younger cousins' grand total of zero, but his own lament wouldn't have made a great deal of sense to him, either. It didn't seem right to pay the kind, humorous, friendly hobbit that Merry had once known the same solemn sort of tribute that a cold, distant warrior would receive.
Tears in his eyes, Merry looked up at the sky, clouded and pale, bleak gray to fit the occasion. It was Frodo's birthday, which was why the day had been chosen for the ceremony honoring the fallen Ring-bearer. He would have been fifty-one years old. It was far too young for any hobbit to take his last look at the Sun – though, Merry supposed, Frodo wouldn't have been able to see the Sun from where he was, in the ash-blackened land of Mordor, which itself meant "Land of Shadow," "Land of Darkness." He died without light, without hope, without the peace that should attend departure from this world. And I wasn't there, Merry thought miserably. I never said goodbye – I didn't even have the chance when he and Sam left the Fellowship. He won't hear me now.
As Galadriel sang, Merry wished he could fall to his knees beside the too-small grave and cry until his heart was torn from his mortal body. Instead, he just glanced at Pippin standing next to him, and watched tears make their way down the younger hobbit's cheeks. Pippin noticed that Merry was looking at him, his eyes terribly sad, and put his head on his cousin's shoulder. Merry wrapped his arm supportively around Pippin, trying in vain to cover his own misery by comforting another. He had a sudden memory of the blinding light of the pale white sky outside the grim blackness of Moria; Pippin was curled up on the rocky ground, sobbing his grief for Gandalf disconsolately, and he, Merry, was rubbing his back sympathetically but weeping himself, hardly more composed than the prostrate Pippin. He felt much the same today.
And, as it had been after the events of Khazad-dûm, Pippin was wracked with guilt as well as sorrow. If Gandalf had been there when Frodo had to make the choice to go into Mordor alone, abandoning the Fellowship at Amon Hen, perhaps a group might have been assembled to accompany the Ring-bearer…perhaps he might have been saved from his bleak fate… But Gandalf had not been there because of Peregrin Took's folly. My folly, Pippin thought. He let his tears soak into his cousin's shoulder; Merry's arm tightened its warm, meagerly comforting grip around Pippin's back. Utterly consumed by his misery, Pippin was surprised when a tremor shook the supportive pillar that was Merry – the tremor of a sob. Somewhere far off, Gandalf was speaking in what seemed an unfamiliar tongue about the valor of the smallest of possible heroes; Pippin comprehended every hollow word as it came, but each lost meaning as it fell, breaking like waves on the shore of eternity. Such dry, long-winded speeches said nothing about Frodo. Pippin put his arm around Merry, wishing, for once, to be giving someone else solace in grief.
Merry didn't know what the Elvish word meant; but he had heard Aragorn and the Lady use it before. Perhaps it meant 'find happiness,' or 'find comfort,' 'find hope,' or 'find peace'; perhaps it meant 'may there be light for you' or 'may you be a light.' Perhaps it meant 'I love you.' Whichever of these was contained in the Quenya word – maybe a bit of each – Merry felt it fitting to imitate Galadriel and murmur: "Namárië."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Mithrandir finished speaking and, like Galadriel, reverently bowed his head and touched his forehead, Faramir echoed the gesture. Éowyn beside him did the same, glancing searchingly at her husband. He stood gravely at respectful attention, his eyes fixed on the cloak, mail, and sword that lay in the ground, glinting from certain angles in the muted daylight that shone through a veil of cloud. He seemed deep in thought. Tears did not make their way down his face, nor sobs tremble in him, as it was with many of the people in attendance – notably, the members of the Fellowship of the Ring. Faramir's eyes were sorrowful, though. Éowyn speculated that he might be feeling renewed grief for Boromir, seeing that the Quest of the Ring had taken another brave life. But she spoke nothing of these thoughts. She said only:
"I never knew him."
"I met him near Henneth Annûn. He and his companion walked knowingly into death," Faramir murmured in reply. "Their backs may have been bent with weariness and toil; their eyes may have been haunted with sorrow, hunger, and fear. But their hearts did not fail, even when doom was nigh. He knew he would perish on this mission, and pressed on."
Éowyn was silent. She thought of Merry, who would not be left behind, and who very nearly sacrificed his own life to save hers. If all Hobbits are thus, then it must be a noble race indeed.
"Then I loved him," she answered softly.
~~~~~~~~~~
March 25, 3020 was a feast day in Gondor for the destruction of the One Ring and the victory of the forces of good in the War of the Ring. But, understandably, Merry and Pippin were not in attendance at the festivities; they could not celebrate when neither Frodo nor Sam was there to rejoice in the victory that their lives had bought. They instead sat at Sam's bedside, praying that he might wake to see the world saved for renewal because he had carried on his fallen master's duty and destroyed the Ring of Power.
Aragorn, because he was King, feigned joy and presided over the celebration in Minas Anor of the Feast of the Ring. But he left midway through the meal, and was gone for an hour, during which time Arwen sat and waited for him, a smiling and gracious hostess. She had a feeling that she knew where he had gone. When he returned, she too departed to pay her respects to the little monument in the courtyard beside the White Tree of the City. Approaching, Arwen noticed a white flower atop the headstone that marked the cenotaph. No doubt Aragorn had placed it there. Once more, she briefly read the inscription carved on the stone: "Frodo Baggins of the Shire, Ring-bearer: He took the Ring to Mordor, though he did not know the way; he found courage, though small and beset by fear; he fell in a lonely battle and became a hero. Third Age 2968 – 3019."
Arwen looked more closely at the solitary white blossom on the headstone, trying to identify it. It was athelas. Involuntary tears stung the Queen's eyes.
"Can you heal, now, Frodo of the Shire?" she asked of the empty air, kneeling on the cold ground, only just beginning to thaw with the recent arrival of spring. "Has the scar on your shoulder faded, wherever you lie? Will you ever know healing? Will you ever find peace?"
King Elessar returned to Frodo's empty grave every Feast Day of the Ring on March 25 and every Fast Day of the Ring-bearer on September 22, and every time he came he left an athelas flower. When Samwise, ever sleeping, finally left his state of limbo on the second Feast of the Ring, he was interred beside the cenotaph of his beloved master. It was clearly meant to be that they should go to Mordor together, and at last rest together. Maybe that, and not the athelas that could heal only the body but not the spirit, would allow the lonely soul of the Ring-bearer, who never found true rest in life while journeying to complete his task, to heal and be at peace at the end of the road.
When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labor past;
I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!
Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.
Author's Note: Well, it seems to work and get people intrigued, so I'll say it: if you liked this story because angst is ever so much fun, I suggest that you read some of my other hobbit-angsty works of Lord of the Rings fanfiction, including "Remember Me," "Drowning Alone," and "Pity." Or, if you like Merry and Pippin, you may consider "Pippin's Song" or "Meant to Be." Or, if you want me to shut up and stop prostituting my writing, I'll do that right now.