From the Journal of Frodo Baggins

From the Journal of Frodo Baggins

by MysteriousWays


January 12, 1421 Shire Reckoning
Noon

It has been a quiet morning. Sam and Rosie are still visiting with Rosie’s family. They have likely been delayed by the winter storm that has been going steadily and sometimes quite strongly, since yesterday morning. The wind is constantly moaning mournfully. The rain falls steadily only to freeze when it hits a surface. I look out the window and all is silvery in a coating of ice. I do not know that the elves could create something as lovely.

Sam and Rosie are likely better off where they are. In the heart of winter there is little for Sam to do about the place. The earth of the garden is nestled under blankets of mulch to sleep through the winter. Out of long habit Sam and I do much of the house keeping so there are really not that many demands on Rosie either. I know I am not the most cheerful of companions these days. Rosie and Sam ought not always have to be around this.

I have tried to be happy. I have tried to return to some vestige of the person that I was before. I want to be that person. I hoped that once I was home I would find I could live peacefully with my memories of all that had happened during my journeys. It is all over. The ring is gone. Nearly all the dark lord spawned is gone. The Morgul blades have turned to dust. Shelob is dead, thanks to Sam. But still poison flows through my veins. Everyday I live with all this hoping that the next day will see a lessening of torment but I am losing hope of that ever happening. I should stop writing of this here. I should stop dwelling.

I miss Sam and Rosie but it is also rather nice having the hole to myself. It is more like the years after Bilbo left when I lived in innocence. Some of the ladies of the neighborhood have even come by, as they once did, to bring me sustenance and to show off their marriageable daughters, all with reputedly astonishingly good cooking and sewing talents as well as having the very sweetest dispositions.

I am a warm blooded male hobbit with desires and for the fairer sex rather than my own as I know is sometimes rumored. So far, every young lady I have met was far too provincial. I just don’t think I could be happy with a wife who could not share significantly in my interests. At anytime in the past twenty years I may have decided to make the trek to Imladres to see Bilbo and I have not met a single young lady that would have willingly let me go alone nor go with me. Most everyone in The Shire believes Bilbo to be dead and me to be daft for continually marking his birthday as though he is still alive to take notice of the honor.

No, there is one lady I have in my acquaintance a lady that I would consider taking as my wife if I thought she would consent to the match. However I know this lady, as generous as she has been with her affections (and true affections they are) would never consent. She is as I am, a free spirit that can not be caught by the binds of a bucolic life.

I’ve just found that I have lost a considerable amount of time gazing into the fire. I am reminded of the time Sam and I sat on the side of Mount Doom as that mighty volcano rained ash, rock and flame around us. It was amazing to see molten stone and burning rock with my own eyes. In that place fire was a destructive force. Here in my study it is a source of reassuring comfort.

I wish I could always think of my travels with such calm detachment as I am now.

I wish I could stay here.