Lament - by Cunien.

argh. Sorry. What more can I say? It's so hard to write these last bits. I don't know how it's going to end, really. My plot bunny has run away. I'll just write and see where it goes.

Summary: Who knows? I'm making this up as I go along!


Disclaimer: Things I Would Do If I Owned Lord Of The Rings -
8. Joyously run naked with the Hobbit's in Tom Bombadil's garden. (Read the Fellowship - they do run naked - it isn't in my mind.)

Chapter 9 - A Light in the Dark.

Frodo was half awake and half asleep when it happened. At first he thought perhaps he was dreaming - his mind had been full of strange hallucinations this past few hours, from lack of sleep and worry no doubt.

He sat by Sam's bed, clutching his cold and clammy hand as though he himself was responsible for keeping the younger hobbit in this world. Frodo held Sam's hand as though he were the anchor that kept him here, alive. Like clutching a drowning man, being pushed and pulled by the heaving ocean.

And so it was set in his sleep-dizzy mind that it was up to him. He was the only one who could help Sam. There was no way he could die if Frodo wanted him to live so much.

He began studying the hand in his, a hand that suddenly seemed small and childlike. He had seen that hand so often, he knew it as though it were his own. The little blemish there, a scar here where Sam had cut himself with the garden shears when he was in his tweens and learning his trade, a small burn that had been angry and red a few days ago when Sam had scalded himself on the pot of water he was boiling for them all. And then in the white, slightly translucent skin, a faint blue line was a vein.

Frodo frowned as he studied this. A vein. Blue. Now darker blue. Now purple black. And darker and darker.

The hobbit gave a gasp and dropped the hand in shock. He did not want to look at Sam's face, but had to bring himself to do it. What he saw made him sick to his stomach, it was so unnatural.

Black lines, little threads spun across his body. A fine webbing of delicate veins, clearer now than they should be, crisscrossing his beneath his skin. Black.
Sam's blood was black.

*
(Not too bad for utter ramblings I guess. Right, what next? Um......
Um........)

*

Legolas woke to here someone rushing towards him. His eyes were instantly open and fully awake. He stretched out an arm and caught the slight figure as it ran past him.

Pippin. Why do you hurry?
Pippin gasped, out of breath. He doubled over and breathed in wheezy puffs.
What has happened? asked Legolas urgently, but Pippin was coughing and gasping and could not answer.
Breath Pippin! Then tell me, what has happened?

s Sam! Oh I can't say! I have to find Strider! And he ran off, leaving Legolas utterly bewildered.

*

When Aragorn reached Sam's bedside he found the Company already there. Even Boromir, whom no one had seen in hours, was there. He seemed to be fearful of coming too close, and stood near the entrance to the little room, looking flighty and on edge - as though he might turn and bolt at any moment.

But Aragorn prayed him little notice, moving straight towards the little figure on the bed. What he saw as he neared made him stop and gasp.

Merry and Pippin turned to him, and the look on their faces was clear.
They looked to him to make things right, as though he might rummage through his pack and produce the miracle cure at any moment. They all looked to him for answers.

Frodo though, did not even notice the Ranger enter. He sat clutching Sam's hand, his face utterly blank.
Gimli knelt by the bed, mumbling a prayer in dwarfish. It was a strange and secretive tongue, and one they had not heard him speak before.

But Legolas stood stock still in the middle of the room. At first, Aragorn thought that he was sleeping, with eyes wide open but expressionless, the way the elves do.

And Legolas was in almost a dreamlike state. He struggled to grasp with a memory, a thought, but it ran elusively through his fingers like water.

He knew. That was the worst part.
He knew that the Light would heal Sam, but there was no way of doing it.
The Light was the Beginning and the End. It was everything. The darkness had covered it once, but Legolas knew that the sickness stalking Sam could not defeat the all encompassing Light.

But the Light was not on Middle Earth anymore.

He knew the stories, had been told them often enough.

The Silmarils. The three Jewels shining with the light of the Two Trees. Made by Feanor in the years following the unchaining of Melkor. The Silmarils were the greatest works of craft ever produced by the children of Iluvitar, and like the two trees their creation could not be duplicated. The shell of the Jewels was composed of silma, but at their heart was the ever radiant light of the Trees, and the Silmarilli shone by themselves.'

But the Silmarilli were all gone, lost, perhaps until the End when they would be recovered and reunited.

TBC...
Thanks for reviews - I do mean it, really. I know I don't post often enought, but it's so hard! Hang on. There won't be much more of the story anyway.