Category: The Lord of the Rings
Title: Fields of Gold
Author: Crystal Charmer
Genre: Drama/Supernatural
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some very mild references to violence
Summary: During one night of slumber in the Black Land, Frodo's dreams allow him to become even more fascinated with his burden than ever before.
Disclaimer: All characters recognized in The Lord of the Rings books are under copyright of J.R.R Tolkien.
-oOo-
Fields of Gold
His dreams were often shaded at night by the shadows of what he feared; of what he despised. Nightmares – formed from blackness that swims across minds like a cloud of angry dust.
Frodo often became smothered by it. The ebony cloud of ash that danced across the air in Mordor had choked him many a time, but nothing like the nightmares that suffocated his mind. And this night was like one of many.
Rages of hot ash and clouds and sand built up against his eyes and nose; coating his lungs and causing his head to spin. The air seemed to grow thinner – he couldn't breathe! He covered his face and felt the world around him shrink and throw him away.
Sam...Sam! Where is Sam?
His first instinct reaction left him disappointed and speechless. Sam wasn't there. He...he was all alone. Sam – Sam...
You said you would never leave me.
A shimmering curtain of starlight and fire embers embraced his eyes and he blinked against it – protecting his sight. He opened his lids and rubbed at them, for it seemed as if the entire land had been coated in a layer of gold.
He frowned, full of confusion, and squinted against the blinding light. What was happening? He coughed to rid his body of the smouldering dust and blinked again.
Sam was still not there. He was completely alone.
Just as It has told me so many times...
To his complete amazement, he felt himself shiver. Secretly he wondered how he could possibly be cold in the Black Land, but something inside seemed to be telling him that this was natural – as it was a different kind of chill.
Almost like the feeling when you know you are being watched.
A rush of searing sand blasted across the plain, racing through the Hobbit's hair and nipping painfully at his cheeks. His eyes watered from the effect and he scrubbed at them with his knuckles.
All of a sudden the golden plains vanished. There was no sign of the beautiful bronze sky, the entrancing, glittering stars or the smooth curves of the rocks. Painfully sharp images rolled in front of him, littering the ground and causing him to shudder inside.
Around his toes seemed to be a ground sprayed with blood as thick as cream, curling around his toes and staining them with its juice.
He heard screams – screams amid chaos. They sounded familiar...and yet they didn't. Pleads and yells. Small children in pain. Hideous cackles from their tormentors. Pressing his hands to his ears did nothing to calm the agonising atmosphere that was stampeding through his head.
Stop it – stop it! His mind pleaded. Make it stop!
His eyes stung with sharp tears. How terrible it was to squat here, all alone, and unable to escape the tyrannical sounds – no matter if he tried to run away, he would not be able to break free of them. He wanted them to stop, but he knew there was not a thing he could do. O, what could he do?
Except sit here and listen?
Listen...
That song...that haunting, enticing lullaby, repeating over and over again in his head like a child's musical box. It's tinkling, angelic hum sounded in his head – relaxing him.
Oh...It was smothering those cries...their dying screams. It was making them all go away.
He didn't think of them anymore. They were not his main priority right now. Right now, all he wanted to do was to sit here and succumb to this pleasant sound that brought smiles to his mind instead of falling tears.
Sam...if only you could hear this...
Rustling, shuffling feet and arms disturbed him and he scowled. The voice became harsher...angrier, reflecting Frodo's mood. He didn't want It to stop. Who was interrupting? Who would dare interrupt such a pleasant, heavenly sound?
Sam.
His thoughts bubbled with anger. He clenched his fists hard against the floor and felt his eyes burning with white hot flames. How could he? How could he disturb this!
Stop it, he thought, enraged. Get away. Let me be at peace with this.
But then, everything came to a staggering, frightening halt. Frodo gasped and looked around. What had become of that voice? Where did It go?
He cupped his head in his hands and moaned softly, mostly from frustration than anything else. That song...the angelic voice...It was magnificent, and now It had suddenly disappeared, almost as if it were a delicate feather that had been puffed away by the wind.
Frodo wished to catch it again.
His eyes felt sore and dry from the dust that sucked away at them, draining life from the blue pools. He sighed angrily and drew himself up, hugging his knees and chewing at his ridden nails.
He heard his own heavy breathing, ragged and desperate as it passed through his lips. His hands were shaking. He stared at them and watched as they trembled like autumn leaves in a winter breeze. He pinned them together in folded arms and closed his eyes, praying for the voice's return.
"Frodo...Frodo-love. I am here. I lie here with you..."
The trapped fingers flew to his chest and grasped for the feel of that sheen, golden skin and smooth metal touch. To him, It felt like the gentle curve of a shoulder – however, not an ordinary shoulder. It felt like the touch of gleaming gold, and It was as smooth and precious as silk trailed over a torso.
Precious...
He closed his eyes in complete bliss, folding the golden band hung around his neck and sighed; as if It could have been touching him in return.
Strokes passed through his curls with smoky fingers and traced sweet touches across his bare skin and lips. A smile grazed across the Hobbit's face and his cheeks felt as if they were beaming. He lay down once again onto those golden plains and felt the ground tickling his toes.
The sky danced and shone elegantly down over his tired body, relaxing and massaging his aching feet and shoulders. Soft kisses of ash traced the wounds left by that beastly chain around his neck, all the while the voice sang sweetly to him, in that passionate and melodic tone that was so magical Frodo felt as if he were flying through the air.
O, Sam...if only you could feel what I am feeling...
"Mr Frodo?"
And all of a sudden, he could hear Sam's voice.
His eyes blinked open lazily, and to his disappointment, the golden hills had disappeared again. In their place were jagged, spiteful black rocks and weathered ground. The bronze sky had shattered into ebony smoke clouds, enveloping the stars.
Frodo sighed; it escaped in a rasp through his dry throat. He noticed Sam's hand squeezing his shoulder and realised that Sam had roused him from that incredible dream.
Secretly he cursed him. However, his exhausted eyes travelled to Sam's dirt-stained face and the tiniest, weakest smile passed his mouth.
"I didn't want to wake you, master," whispered Sam. "But I though' you should know it's time we should be movin' on, now."
The older Hobbit nodded stiffly, sitting upright, his heart heavy with despair at the fact that the beautiful paradise of gold was merely a dream, and this place – this hell – was reality.
"Yes," he murmured, rubbing his throbbing eyelids and staring into Sam's deep chocolate eyes. "We must."
Gathering his shaking legs together with the strength to stand, he took his friend's hand with a wry smile and felt its warmth run through the ice of his own, melting it. He sighed and Sam heard it.
"Your hands are freezin', Sir," Sam noted with concern, recalling the lost warmth in his master's hands after the attack on Weathertop, where he had lain in bed for many days. "Did you have a bad dream, now?"
Frodo almost chuckled at the motherese tone in his companion's words. "No, Sam," he said bitterly. "No...not a nightmare. Just a dream."
Sam nodded in reply, rather curious about the pleasured glint that he had just seen sparkle in Frodo's eyes.
And then, unknown to Sam, his master heard that beautiful, harmonious voice again, haunting his mind outside of his dreams and comforting his disappointed heart.
"They doth not need to be dreams forever, my beauty," he heard It whisper delicately, almost tickling his ear. "One day, they may seize to be dreams and will embrace reality."
And Frodo could have sworn that he felt an invisible hand entwine with his, with the touch of flawless silk, and the glimmering smoothness of something precious.
Precious...
The End