Title: Staying Near the Earth
Author: Tiamat's Child
Rating: PG
Characters: Frodo, Nienna, Bilbo, others
Genre: Drama
Disclaimer: I do not own any of them, except Illisse, who I would probably be willing to lend if asked.
Warnings: Some very odd and slightly slashy implications, and an original character
Staying Near the Earth
Tiamat's Child
Nienna has taught Frodo not to nurse grief. Grief is not meant to be tucked beneath the quilts and fed hot chicken soup. That will only make it grow sicker, and will give you its illness as well. You will die, poisoned by the closeness of your patient. You must never nurse grief.
Nor may you wrap it up into a locket and carry it over your heart as you would a lover's token. This is wrong, for it would be a cruel lover indeed who would give you such a gift. The scars this lover left cannot be helped save by time, but it is not right to honor them by carrying a trinket of theirs. You must never treasure grief.
Frodo has learned these things well, though slowly. It is hard, as Nienna tells him almost every day, and he is strong to learn at all. Frodo is not sure that he is strong. It seems to him that he is as weak as a morning glory, needing Nienna to cling to so that he can stand at all. But Nienna is certain, and Nienna is wise in the ways of grief. He will trust her.
Bilbo makes it easier. He makes sure that Frodo eats, and will often tell him old stories from the times before the shadow flooded their lives. Sometimes Frodo even forgets that they are not back at Bagend, before Bilbo left and the Ring became his charge. But then he remembers, and he recalls Sam's face at their parting, and he is shocked at his own forgetting.
Illisse, Nienna's little Maia, says that if Nienna is Frodo's trellis here, then Bilbo is his sun and light. "And," she always adds, her soft smile at the closest it ever comes to mischievous, "Whoever it is you left behind you is your earth." She will tilt her head to one side, examining Frodo as if she's never seen him before. Never mind that they have this conversation at least once a week, she always seems to find something new in him. Then she will smile, and excuse herself. Sometimes to do dishes, sometimes to clean the floors, sometimes to cook dinner. And while he listens to the comfortingly ordinary sounds of her work, Frodo stays where she left him, and is each time struck again with wonder at how right she.
That's a new habit. Being too amazed to move, even at simple, little things, is something this place and these people do to you. He's had to get used to it. It's odd, but it seems right somehow, fitting perfectly into the pattern of life here. Here no one comments if you stop and stare off at the hills. They might touch you, if you were a Ringbearer once, and your hand was clenched in a fist just below your collarbone, but they wouldn't badger. They'd just look at you, concern on their lovely faces (and everyone here was so very beautiful, even when they were worried), and place a hand-impossibly long fingered-on your shoulder. When you shuddered and pulled out of the trance they would nod and go on their way and nothing more need be said.
Frodo likes that. It's nice not to have to explain to each passerby. But he finds that he misses Sam's fussing and Rosie's bossing. Bilbo does not fuss, he never has, but it would not be what Frodo misses even if he did. Frodo misses being part of something both older and younger than himself. He misses smiling at Sam's flustered reaction to Rosie's teasing, and he misses blushing himself when that laughing tongue was turned on him. He misses being woven into what Sam and Rosie had between them, and he simply misses them, Sam the most, but Rosie too.
He tries not to think about it too much.
But today Nienna takes him out into the garden and tells him he must think about it. She holds his hands out and leads him down the gentle slope of the hill Bilbo and Frodo's cottage rests on, comforting words flowing from her to him. He cannot tell what she says though, for his senses have gone strange again and he is unable to hear anything but what her voice sounds like. Nienna has every song sung over the grave of a loved one in her voice; every dirge made for a king or healer, every stilted word of goodbye between lovers. Her voice is husky with the tears of others. It suits her, and Frodo finds himself lost in it, buoyed up by the rise and fall of the tones, held to reality only by the tenuous thread of her hands wrapped around his.
They stop at a small plot near a tree, the ground tilled up and turned over. The earth here is soft and rich, waiting to be planted as if it waits for a lovers touch and vow. Nienna draws him down to kneel next to the churned up soil, and places a rather large seed in his hand. With a touch that is at once gentle and forceful, she places his hands in the earth. It is cool to the touch, but there is an underlying feel of warmth to it that makes his breath catch at the force of the reminder of Sam. The scent is heady and rich, far more alive than anything he has ever come across. His head swims with the sudden glory of it. He looks to Nienna, confused by her actions; uncertain of what he is expected to do.
Her lips turn up at the edges. It's not quite a smile, but it's as close as she ever gets. "Let the seed go." She tells him. "Give it to its own life." Frodo nods, not sure he understands, but he lets go of the seed, and draws his hands out, leaving it behind. She takes his hands, and holds them between her own, her long black hair falling down to hide her face. "You must do the same with your grief."
He glances down at his hands between hers and looks back up at her. He does not speak, does not say, "But Sam is my earth." He does not, for he does not need to. She knows.
"Wait." she whispers. "Be ready. Be strong." And Frodo nods, because how could he not, when it is someone he has come to love asking him to do all that he can for one he has loved far too well?
He will wait. He will not stop fighting the weakness his wounds cause. And he will never make himself forget that he misses people dearly. Because if he does, then he will lose his earth, soft and strong and yielding beneath his hands. And then he would be lost for forever, and even Nienna wouldn't be able to find him again.
He can't let that happen. So he walks up the hill with Nienna, and stops on the doorstep. The sun is burning away the mist on the lowlands, and he freezes with awe. He will show this to Sam, when they find each other again. And it will be good.
Pots clang in the kitchen as Illisse calls out a greeting. Nienna answers, her eyes bright. Bilbo yelps as the sound of grease spitting badly floats out to the two outside. Frodo thinks he hears Nienna laugh, but he isn't certain. Whether she laughs or not she leaves him on the stoop, going inside to help with the food.
Frodo stays outside for a moment. The earth smells sweet, and pure, and healthy. Rosemary grows between his toes, the smell released by its bruising strong. Anything could grow here. Anything at all.
He smiles, and goes in. He can wait. Bilbo's jokes float past him, chased by Illisse's laughter. Today will be a good day.