Rosie often found herself thinking of Frodo as two people. One was frail but smiling, with clever if imperfect fingers and a laugh as full and rich as any hobbit's. The other, the shadow-Frodo, was quiet and sad and still, and didn't like to be touched. On rare and worrying occasions this mood would end with him grabbing at her or Sam and leaving bruises on their skin, then cowering away from them when he came back to himself and saw what he'd done.

At first, she'd wished that there could be one Frodo without the other, just as she wished that Sam's eyes wouldn't have so many worry lines at the edges so early in his life, that there weren't scars from stabs and stings and bites on their skin. But she was coming to realise over time that one couldn't exist without the other, that there would be no such thing as hot without cold.

He was reading to Elanor again, as he did whenever he had the time and energy. Sam had joked on more than one occasion that Frodo was getting as much storytelling in as he could before Elanor was old enough to interrupt.

"'Caspian, dear,' said Lucy. 'You knew we'd have to go back to our own world sooner or later.'
'Yes,' said Caspian with a sob. 'but this is sooner.'"

"I remember that story from when I was a lass," Rosie said, coming up behind Frodo and rubbing his shoulders. He sat in the rocking chair with the baby on his lap, a blanket over his feet. "Why can't you read her happy tales? That one's too sad."

"There are so many different versions of it, have you ever noticed? It's a very common story. A girl or a boy goes on a magical journey with strange companions, and then, at the end, they have to say goodbye and go back to their ordinary lives."

"I can't imagine that you'd find something of yourself in those boys and girls." Rosie's voice was teasing. "And common or not, it's still sad. Lucy and Edmund are going to miss Caspian terribly in their ordinary lives."

"Have you heard all the stories in the collection? They do see him again eventually." Frodo put the book down beside the chair and spoke in whispers, Elanor's eyes closing. Rosie snorted.

"Yes, after they die. If it's all the same, I'll stick to my tales where the youngest son slays the dragon and the princess guesses Rumpelstiltskin's name at the end. Much happier than dead reunions, in my opinion."

"Not for Rumpelstiltskin and the dragon," Frodo smirked. "Now, help me stand without waking Elanor, and we'll go see if Sam's done for the day." His face was as sunny and gay as any hobbit's, and Rosie felt she knew why people wrote happy endings for tales so often. They were the best things in the world.

~

Pretty Good Year | email Mary