Reflections

Sunlight sparkled on the river. Bilbo dipped his toes into the water, and pulled them back with a gasp. Although it was summer, the waters rose in the far-away cold of the Misty Mountains. "Too cold for an old hobbit like me," he said.

It had felt like quite an expedition, just dragging himself down to the water's edge. "But I've managed it," he said. He spread his blanket over a damp rock, and sat down carefully, gripping a branch for support. Marsh marigolds clustered at the water's edge, their yellow leaves speckled with shining droplets. Across the river, he could see nothing but trees and the beauty of nature, but he was close enough to the buildings of Rivendell to hear the singing. "I should do this more often," Bilbo said. "I wonder why I keep forgetting."

He saw Aragorn as a reflection first, a tall shape made of darkness and sunlight. "Dunadan!" Bilbo cried. "You're back!"

Aragorn sat down beside him, no blanket for him, just a smooth wet rock. "Not for long."

Bilbo plucked at the blanket's woven edge. "Still hunting?"

He saw the reflection of Aragorn's smile. "Not any more. I found it at last, and took it on a long and bitter journey, then handed it over to others."

"Oh," said Bilbo. "That's good. It's always good when journeys are over." He pulled the trailing ends of the blanket over his lap, and settled them there. "A long and bitter journey, did you say? Well, you should rest here for a nice long time. It's a good place for resting, is Rivendell. After a while, it quite stops you from wanting to go anywhere else. Oh," he remembered, as a kingfisher flashed blue across the water, "you said you couldn't stay for long. That's a shame."

"But how are you, my friend?" Aragorn turned towards him. Bilbo looked at him fully for the first time, seeing his face and not the reflection. Aragorn's grey eyes were surprisingly earnest.

"Oh," said Bilbo. He turned back to the water, and twisted the blanket's trailing fringe around his finger, coiling it tight, then letting it go. "Very well, I think. Yes, very well." Something moved on the far bank: a bird, he thought, hidden by leaves. "I seem to have… settled."

"Yes. I think you have." Aragorn smiled, but the reflection made it a sad smile, broken up by ripples and fading away.

"Oh, I know these are dark times," Bilbo said. "No-one says much about it, or not to me; I think Master Elrond is trying to protect me, for some reason. Sometimes it seems almost as if… as if the dark times affect me in particular, and so they guard their words. But how can that be?" He shook his head, exhaling on a laugh. "When you're old like me, it's easy to think that everything's about you. That's why I like it here: because it isn't about me. Nothing is. Rivendell has endured for thousands of years, and it won't notice when I'm gone. It's not like Hobbiton, where you couldn't change the colour of your pocket handkerchief without the whole of the Shire talking about it by sunset."

"Indeed," Aragorn agreed. "They still talk about the day you started using the one with purple spots."

Bilbo laughed. "You said you'd never tease me. But I don't mind."

The laughter was slow to fade. He listened to the sound of a distant song. Although the singer was far away from the river, the notes seemed to weave through the sound of running water, until it created a single song. "Or maybe everything's just a single song," Bilbo mused.

"Perhaps," said Aragorn.

Bilbo let out a breath. "I know the song is turning dark elsewhere in the world. Will you think very badly of me if I tell you that sometimes it… it doesn't seem to matter." He twisted the coil until his fingertip turned white, then released it again. It stayed loosely curled, and did not return to straight. "I still sleep through whole days. I write songs. I work on my book. I spend whole months lost in tales of the distant past. Rivendell grows quieter and the roads are being closed, but I'm still here. I'm never going to leave, not now. And so the darkness doesn't touch me… Oh," he said, when Aragorn made no reply, "I am such a selfish old hobbit. What must you be thinking of me!"

Aragorn placed a hand on Bilbo's shoulder. "Only that I wish you could stay like this for many years to come."

"That I could," Bilbo echoed; he had not missed that. "You speak as if all this is ending. Is it true, Aragorn? Are the dark times coming even to Rivendell?"

"They may," Aragorn said softly, "but the situation is not without hope."

"Which is why you're rushing off again, off into danger again in the wilds." Aragorn's hand was still resting on Bilbo's shoulder. Bilbo reached up and grabbed it with his own. "I wish you had time to rest. I don't need you to bring me pictures from far away places, because that means you've been to far away places. I wish you could stay here for a while and watch the world go by. Remember that night on the mountainside? That's how it started. We painted that picture together. We can do it again; put the beauty of this river into a song, both your words and mine."

"One day, perhaps," Aragorn said.

"But not today." Bilbo tugged at the edges of blanket, pulling it upwards so it wrapped him like a low shawl. He looked down at their reflections, side by side in the water. "Isn't it strange how the same river can sparkle so brightly that it hurts your eyes, but right next to the sparkles, there are places so dark that you can't see anything at all?"

"Like dark clouds that streak across the moon," Aragorn said. "I do remember it, my friend."

Bilbo wondered whether to say it, but he had never been one to keep silent. "Lady Arwen talks to me sometimes," he said. "We talk about you – oh, nothing bad; don't worry. She doesn't say much about it, but I think she watches over you, somehow, from afar. I know you've been walking through the darkest of places." He looked up at the tree tops, at the sunlight, at the sky. "I told her about your pictures. She's painted some of her own for me, showing me places I've never been. But I think… When she does it, I think… I think all she's really seeing is you."

Aragorn said nothing. A grey wagtail landed on a flat rock, its long tail bobbing above the water. A fish jumped from the water, but Bilbo did not see it; he just saw the splash of its landing.

"I must go." Aragorn stood up. Bilbo bowed his head, and Aragorn bent to pressed his hand lightly against Bilbo's hair. "I hope this time it will not be so long."

"So do I," said Bilbo, but by then Aragorn was already gone, and the only reflection in the river was that of one old hobbit, sitting alone. "So do I," he whispered.