A/N: Awhile back, I wrote this to try and show what I think ran through Frodo's head after the ring was destroyed. In this piece I tried to use repetition of certain phrases and variations of phrases to create a dark, despairing mood. I was aiming for angst here, and I hope that I have achieved it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing more than the way that the words are put together on this page. The characters and events from The Lord of the Rings do not belong to me, and I doubt that they ever will.

Now, on with the story.

Fallen in a Ruined Land

By

Silver Feathered Raven

I've failed.

I've failed so terribly and utterly that I don't care that the mountain has erupted around me. I don't care that I might die within a few minutes. I don't care because I do not deserve to live. I've failed, and if it were not for one wretched creature we would all be lost.

I deserve to have had my hand mutilated and now to have it bleed freely onto my stained and tattered shirt.

Sam has picked me up from where I lay but I barely notice. The burden of the ring has been lifted. It is gone, no longer plaguing me, no longer calling and pleading and taunting. It is gone, but it has been replaced by something that is worse. By guilt that I, the ringbearer and the one appointed to destroy the ring, could not, in the end, do anything more than claim it for my own. I would have been the one to destroy the world, for I know that I have not the power to control it.

There is heat and I see liquid fire around me. Sam is there, as he always is. Worried about me, as he always is. But no matter what I hear him say, all I can think of is how this is my fault.

My fault, for taking him from the Shire and from Rosie.

My fault that he suffered throughout this journey.

He wouldn't have come, if I hadn't said that I would take the ring.

And now we will die, surrounded by fire and ash and rock that thickens the air.

Night is closing around me. Pain, unbearable pain, and I cannot breath. Here, at the end of all things, I find that I am glad that I will die. Glad that I will never have to stand in shame before my friends, never have to know what has happened.

Night is falling…

And then morning comes and I somehow find myself safe and alive, in a warm place, my hand bandaged, my body healing. An old man sits in a chair, smoking a well worn pipe, his kind grey eyes resting on me, white smoke curling around his white hair. He doesn't look the same. He looks wiser and older, more vulnerable and yet more powerful. Old and hale as an oak tree.

Gandalf.

He's alive. Sweet Elbereth, he's alive. How can that be, when I saw him fall? Is everything bad that has happened going to be undone? Will everything return to the peaceful and beautiful way that is was before?

I sit up, the wonder showing on my face. And he laughs and tells me that he is indeed alive and that I am alive, and that we have survived. That the war is over. That I have prevailed.

The shadow passes back over my thoughts. I have not prevailed. I have faltered and foundered and fallen short of what I was sent to do.

Gandalf sees this. He knows. But he doesn't seem to mind. He is all kindness and warm words.

I don't deserve this.

Sam is lying in a cot beside me, his breathing as one of a person sleeping. He is alive. He will be able to return to the Shire, to live his life.

And I think that thought is what let be get through everything else.

Merry and Pippin have come. Grown, all grown up, knights and squires and guards, in bright mail and fine raiment. Alive and well, but changed beyond repair. I wonder if it is for the better. I hope that it is.

They are serving kings and lords. And I find myself before The King. None other than Strider, now dressed as befitting who he is. No longer a tattered and ragged ranger, but a high and handsome and strong man in the prime of his life. But his eyes, as everyone else's that I have seen, are full of weariness and yet filled with hope.

And he looks on me with pity and kindness.

And that does nothing but remind me how far I have fallen.

They sing my praise. They tell of my deeds. And when they bowed to us, the four of us, the small folk, hobbits, halflings, perian, and holbytla, my friends blush and stammer and look uncomfortable. But they deserve this.

I do not. I failed and night has fallen in my heart. And I do not think that anything will ever lift it.

They tell me that I am a hero. Arwen and Aragorn, sitting by the pond, and the Queen tells me to take her place on the ships, if I wish. To go into the undying lands and find peace.

To find peace. That is what I want. But do I deserve it? They assure me that I do, that I deserve so much.

But I don't think so. I have done nothing more than the rest of them. In fact, I have done less, and in it, far more evil. I fell to the temptation of the ring.

Fallen…

Night has fallen in this ruined land.

Endnote: Perian is the word used in Gondor for hobbits, and Holbytla (if you have read the appendices in the back of LotR you will know) is the Rohirrim word that 'could' possible be derived from.