July 28, Third Age 3021

Simply musing

I don't have much to say today. I just needed to write something besides my damned storybook. I am writing Mordor from Sam's recollections, and it hurts far more than if I were writing my own. I made one great choice and sacrifice when I took on the Burden; Sam made sacrifices every single day, choosing hundreds of times to deny himself a mouthful of water or bread when that was all our hearts could conceive of to want, to take just a little more weight upon his breaking back and into his breaking heart, and all for my sake. But I was a shell then, burned and hollowed out by the fire without and within. I do not wholly remember it – my mind has put up walls against those memories, for else it would break – but Sam saw what I had become, and it hurt him anew every day, while my soul had been numbed by the long, unceasing pain and time and memory had lost any meaning. I cannot write it any longer, knowing that my suffering, in some ways, was not the deepest, and that for love of me, one I love felt pain.

Empty…empty is what I feel most days. I do not constantly the feel sharp, fiery pain of my wounds, but something has left me partway empty, and it is an ache half like hunger and half like fear – fear of I don't know what. Of emptiness, perhaps. Of the horrible, terrifying prospect of nothing.

There are two things that have been said to me that I have never forgotten and will never forget:

"If your hurts grieve you still and the memory of your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed."

"Do not expect me to wish you good health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell."

One was said with kindness and compassion, the other with the utmost of hate and bitterness, but I think that they have something to do with each other. And with a dawn that was not mine, and a Shire that cannot be mine, and a little white gem I wear – but that is mine. It was a gift.

Author's Note: After more than a year's hiatus, I think I'm actually going to try to finish this fic. Doubtless the people who were following it have given up on it; maybe it'll find some new followers – a faint hope; but I don't want it to die with unfinished business. Then it will haunt me.

See Chapter 12 for full fun and understanding of the last two sentences.