starspray | Into Grief and Beyond It

Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: G
Characters: Frodo Baggins, Maglor, Celebrimbor
Warnings: n/a
Summary: Frodo speaks with Maglor in Minas Tirith. Some years later, in Valinor, he meets Celebrimbor.
Note: This fic is a gapfiller set between Clear Pebbles of the Rain and High in the Clean Blue Air. It was also written for the SWG's Title Track challenge.

Previous Chapter

Deciding whether or not to leave Middle-earth was the hardest choice Frodo thought he had ever made. Deciding to take the Ring to Rivendell had been easy—even standing up to volunteer to take it to Mordor had not been so hard. He’d made those choices in an instant, and if he had been faced with other hard choices along the way he had always known what he must do, however much he did not want to.

Queen Arwen’s words played over and over in his mind all the journey back to the Shire. He wanted to ask for advice, but there was never any real opportunity to speak to anyone alone about it—anyone who might have advice to give—and though he had hoped to ask Bilbo what he thought, he found him so wearied and so suddenly old that he didn’t have the heart to burden him with such things. He spoke a great deal to Maglor—about many things, since out of everyone Frodo knew or had met on his journeys Maglor was the only one who had ever really seen Sauron up close, who knew what it felt like—but he hesitated to ask about the West. It did not seem very kind, especially since Frodo did not know whether Maglor ever intended to go back himself.

Even when Elrond spoke to him before they left Rivendell of seeking for Bilbo, and for Elrond himself, in the Shire when the leaves turned gold with autumn—Frodo was not sure. That Bilbo would be going West had made him ache with longing to go too, but at the same time he wanted so badly to return to the Shire, to go home, that he only nodded to Elrond and made no promise one way or the other.

And then he had gone home, and he had found that Mordor’s reach was even longer than he had feared. There would be no quiet retirement for him in Crickhollow. Frodo had stood in the middle of the garden of Bag End after the Battle of Bywater and wept many bitter tears at the sight, of churned up blackened earth and ripped up plants left to rot where they lay. The Party Tree had been felled, and there were no more snapdragons or laburnums, and the forget-me-nots that had been Frodo’s favorite, because his mother had once worn them in her hair, were all gone, trampled and smashed and poisoned with the filth that Saruman and his Big Men had dumped there.

But it had been after he was so ill in March that he realized he could not stay. He had been wounded too badly for even Master Elrond to heal, and some small part of him that yet held steel had made itself known, refusing to allow the Enemy this last victory. If the Powers across the Sea had really granted him such a grace, he would be a fool indeed not to accept it. Even after Bag End was rebuilt and the gardens replanted—with plenty of forget-me-nots peeping among the roses—it no longer felt like home. Though he was glad indeed to have Sam there with him, and Rosie, and then little Elanor, Frodo found himself more and more often feeling much like he had in those horrible days after Weathertop—when the world seemed to be fading away around him, all the color draining out until there was nothing but shades of grey and shadow. It wasn’t the world, of course, it was him, and he could not leave Sam in such a way, or Merry and Pippin, and would not shadow Elanor’s earliest years with such grief.

So when the leaves turned gold on the trees but hadn’t yet fallen, he looked for Bilbo in the Shire, and found him—and Master Elrond, and Lady Galadriel, and Gildor and many others beside, all riding to the Havens. Maglor had been there too, and Frodo had asked him, a little hesitantly, “Can you tell me what it’s like?”

“A little—though you may find it very different now. I have not seen those lands in a very long time.” But Maglor spoke then of lands fair and wide and wild, and of glorious cities and shining beaches that gleamed like rainbows in the light that spilled between the mountains that reached higher than even the tallest of the Misty Mountains, and of Elves singing all through the day and night. He did not sing, but as he spoke Frodo had been swept up in his words, almost as though—like Sam had once said—he were inside a song.

Finally, before they parted, Frodo asked if Maglor was not going with them. He smiled a little sadly and shook his head. “Not yet. I will someday, but I have promises to keep. Farewell, Frodo Baggins.

Just before Middle-earth had slipped out of sight forever, the wind had picked up, carrying a voice rich and fair, singing of paths that ran beyond the Moon and beyond the Sun like one last farewell.

Now Frodo was in Valinor, and no matter how many times he said so out loud to himself it never stopped sounding ridiculous, almost absurd. Gandalf had whisked him away to Lórien—to the first Lórien, that Lady Galadriel’s realm had only been named after—and he’d stayed there a handful of years. It had felt like longer and shorter at once, for time passed strangely in those gardens, and Frodo had emerged feeling more like himself than he had since Bilbo had first gone away on that fateful birthday evening in September.

Master Elrond’s wife, Lady Celebrían, had built a house in Valinor while awaiting him that was very much like the Last Homely House in Middle-earth, but also nothing like it at all—Imloth Ningloron was a wide valley, filled with streams and wildflowers, with an apple orchard that was in full bloom and sending its sweet scent sweeping over the house and gardens on the breeze. The Pelóri towered over them to the east, but were not quite so close as the Misty Mountains had been to Rivendell. It was bright and beautiful and the most welcoming place Frodo had yet seen in Valinor—though he had, admittedly, not seen many places beyond Tol Eressëa, Tirion, and Lórien.

He sat on a bench beside some forget-me-nots and Queen Fíriel’s Lace, swinging his legs and paging through a book. Somewhere nearby Lindir was singing a very merry song with the bluebirds, and somewhere else Bilbo—who had roused considerably as soon as they had come within sight of Valinor and was back to his old inquisitive and witty self—was inside drinking tea with Finrod Felagund. Such grand figures out of old myths and legends came and went with shocking frequency from Imloth Ningloron, eager to meet Master Elrond—and even to meet Frodo himself.

Absorbed in his book, Frodo did not at first notice anyone coming down the path. When movement caught his eye he looked up to see a tall figure, dark-haired and grey-eyed, pausing to look up into the flowering branches of a dogwood tree. He was dressed more plainly than most Elves that Frodo had met, particularly the Noldor. He had no jewelry at all, and his hair was loose and a little tangled. There was also something familiar about him. Perhaps it was a family resemblance to someone else Frodo had met—Elrond had so many relations that Bilbo had started to put together a family tree that he had told Frodo with delight would probably cover an entire wall—but Frodo didn’t think that was it. There was also something strange and almost fragile in him, which Frodo did recognize, having met several Elves lately who had just returned to life from many long years in the Halls of Mandos. That never stopped being strange, the idea that someone might die and then come back.

Finally, the stranger looked away from the flowers toward Frodo. “Well met, Master Baggins,” he said, not in the Quenya of Valinor but the Sindarin of Middle-earth. Frodo was relieved to hear it—he could speak both quite well by now, but Sindarin was still more familiar and felt easier in his mouth. “I hope I am not disturbing you.”

“Not at all,” said Frodo. He rose and bowed. “Were you looking for me?”

“I was. I am—” He broke off and looked away, out toward the pond. Finally he said, “My name is Celebrimbor.”

“Oh,” said Frodo. So this was Celebrimbor of Hollin, who had made the Doors of Moria with Narvi, who had made the Three Elven Rings, and who had died a terrible death when Hollin was overrun. Frodo had sought all the records he could find after he’d returned from Lórien, curious about the nephew Maglor had spoken of with such deep and quiet grief. Now that Frodo knew his name he could see the resemblance to Maglor, too—in the shape of their noses and their hands with their long elegant fingers, and in that unhappy expression that spoke of remembered pain that Frodo recognized too from his own mirror. Celebrimbor did not seem to know what else to say, so Frodo filled the silence. He bowed again. “Your uncle already tried to apologize to me on your behalf, you know. I would not accept it then and I won’t now, so you needn’t trouble yourself by trying.”

Celebrimbor blinked at him, expression so baffled that it was almost comical. “My uncle?” he repeated. “Which—which one?”

“Oh,” said Frodo, “yes, you do have rather a lot of them don’t you? I don’t think I’ve met any here but Caranthir—Bilbo is quite fond of him, you know—but I meant Maglor. Won’t you sit down? I’m afraid my neck gets stiff when I’m always having to look up so high just to speak to people.”

Celebrimbor joined Frodo on the bench, moving carefully as though he was afraid to get too close—as though Frodo were something very fragile that must be handled with a great deal of care. He wasn’t—not anymore—but he knew from experience that saying so would just make things even more awkward. After a moment Celebrimbor said, hesitatingly, “My uncle—Maglor—he was lost to us long ago. How is it you came to meet him?”

“Well, he isn’t lost anymore. I first met him in Rivendell, at the Council. He had been there for some years by then, I think. I don’t really know what he was up to before that.” It didn’t really seem like Frodo’s place to share what he did know; that was for Master Elrond, or someone else who knew both Maglor and Celebrimbor better. “Then he came to Minas Tirith after—everything—and we spoke a little of you then. I hadn’t realized that the Celebrimbor of Hollin who helped to make the Doors of Moria was one of the Ring-makers. Elrond never mentioned your name in that tale.”

“I was one of the principal Ring-makers,” Celebrimbor said. “And I’m—” He stopped himself, and this time Frodo did not try to fill the silence. “I should have destroyed them all as soon as I learned the truth,” he said. “Except the Seven had already been given away, and…”

“I told Maglor, and I’ll tell you, that I’m certainly not going to place any blame on you for being deceived,” Frodo said. “And I’ve read some of the things you wrote, you know. Master Elrond has copies here. You wanted to make the world better. I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”

“Not in itself, but I went about it all wrong.”

“Because you had Sauron himself whispering in your ear. Didn’t he do even worse in Númenor, and they knew who he was? You had no idea.”

“I knew that Elrond did not trust him, nor Gil-galad, nor Galadriel.”

Frodo swung his feet a little, and watched a butterfly land on a iris just across the path, one of the flowers for which the valley had been named. There were so many different kinds of flowers and butterflies there in Valinor; he had started to try to learn all their names, but knew he would never finish. It was delightful. All the horrors of the past seemed so very far away, like the remnants of a bad dream. After a silence that was broken only by the sound of the water and of a few ducks quacking and splashing at each other nearby, Frodo asked, “Why did you decide to trust him, if you knew no one else did?”

Celebrimbor did not answer immediately. He crossed his arms and tilted his head back to look up at the sky. It seemed as though he was drinking it all in, soaking up the sight of everything as though he’d never seen blue summer skies or white fluffy clouds before. Frodo did not pretend to understand how any of it worked, being brought back to life, but he supposed that this body, at least, had never seen such things. What a very strange thing to have happen to you, he thought.

Finally, Celebrimbor said, “I knew there was something that he was not telling me—I knew he had likely served Morgoth in some way, though I thought him a minor servant, perhaps one who had been tricked or coerced somehow in the beginning. But there were very, very few of us in Eregion who had not done terrible things, things we were not proud of. Nearly all who had followed my father and my uncles, and who survived the First Age, followed me there. But Annatar—that’s what he called himself—Annatar seemed to me genuine in his regrets and in his desire to turn his talents and skills to brighter things. I thought—my grandfather had, by the end of his life, trusted no one. He spurned all other voices that did not already align with his own thoughts. My father was much the same by the time we parted in Nargothrond. I did not want to follow either of them down that path. I did not want to follow my uncles either, to drown myself in despair or regret, and I—I wanted Ost-in-Edhil to be what Elrond later turned Rivendell into. A place of welcome, of refuge, that would turn no one away.”

“That seems to me very noble,” said Frodo, “and it still isn’t your fault that the best liar in the world lied to you.”

Celebrimbor laughed—short and sudden, and seemed to surprise himself with it. “That’s the thing, though,” he said. “I don’t know even now that he was lying—not in the beginning.”

“Oh,” said Frodo. He swung his feet again, and looked down at his hand resting on the bench with its missing finger. “Well, I know a little about that, too.” He told Celebrimbor of Gollum—of Sméagol who had come so close to choosing something better than the path he’d been walking for so many years, but hadn’t in the end. The call of the Ring had been too strong. For both of them. That wasn’t something even Sam could have saved Frodo from.

For some time Frodo and Celebrimbor sat quietly, watching the ducks and the butterflies on the irises. The longer they sat there the more Celebrimbor relaxed, some of the tension fading away until he could lean back and look really comfortable in his seat. The breeze picked up, carrying the scent of roses and the sound of laughter. Finally, Celebrimbor said, so softly it was almost a whisper, “Would you still be so forgiving if I told you that I still miss him?”

“I haven’t been forgiving,” said Frodo, “because I don’t think there is anything to forgive. And—it’s not quite the same, but I miss it, too, sometimes.” That was a truth he had shared with no one else, except once with Gandalf sometime early in his sojourn in Lórien. He’d burst into tears afterward and couldn’t remember what, if anything, Gandalf had said in reply. “Thank you, by the way, for not trying to thank me.”

“An oversight on my part,” said Celebrimbor.

“No,” said Frodo. “Everyone’s been thanking me ever since I woke up in Cormallen, as though I tossed the Ring into the fire myself. I didn’t. I—”

“You carried it there,” said Celebrimbor. “You carried it farther and through more dangers and trials than even the mightiest of heroes of the Elder Days could have endured. Its destruction—perhaps that was always out of your hands. It was always going to be impossible, taking such a thing to the very heart of his power and trying to overcome it. It should never have been asked of you—”

“It wasn’t. I chose it.”

“It should never have been asked of anybody,” said Celebrimbor, “except perhaps me, only I wasn’t there to finish what I had started.” He sighed. “And I don’t think I would have been able to get nearly as far as you did. Certainly not in secret. I would have been too angry—always the downfall of my house. Our anger and our pride.”

“No use dwelling on what-ifs and might-have-beens,” said Frodo. They sat for a little while longer, and then Frodo asked, “Have you met my uncle yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“He’ll be very pleased to meet you.” Frodo slid off of the bench and turned to offer Celebrimbor a smile. “You look like you could use some tea, and if we’re lucky there might be some seed cake left!”