Reverse Challenge - Licht am Ende des Tunnels

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Team: Kobold

Challenge: Reverse Challenge – Licht am Ende des Tunnels (fürs Team)

Fandom: Herr der Ringe

Charaktere: Frodo, Bilbo

Sprache: Englisch

Wörter: 665

Warnung: Charakter Death

Frodo was watching the horizon, absentmindedly stirring the stew he’d been given for dinner. They had travelled so far that they could no longer see the coast of Middle-Earth but not yet within sight of Valinor, yet he felt his eyes and thoughts drifting again and again to what and whom he had left behind.

“Not hungry, my boy?”

Frodo jumped. He hadn’t even noticed that someone had joined him. “Bilbo!” he exclaimed, surprised to find his uncle beside him, especially as Bilbo had been unable to move on his own just yesterday, and had not seemed to recognize any of them.

“My dear Frodo, you shouldn’t let thoughts of adventure distract you from your meal,” Bilbo chided gently, as he had done so often when Frodo had been a faunt or tween.

Frodo laughed wetly. “Yes, Uncle.” Oh, but he had missed Bilbo! It was good to see him so aware. Perhaps it was the proximity to Valinor? If it was already improving Bilbo’s mind, then perhaps his own would soon also start to heal?

They ate together, casually talking about their family and friends in the Shire, speculating about how things were going (“I’m sure Faramir Took will shake things up when he is Tháin, even more than Pippin did.”). It was nice to talk about such casual topics, talk to someone who understood life and relations in the Shire. Gandalf and Elrond were dear friends, but they did not understand.

After a while, Bilbo started yawning. “I think I will turn in, Frodo.”

“Have a good night, Uncle.”

“You too, dear boy.”

~*~

The next morning, Frodo prepared two plates for first breakfast, one for himself and one for Bilbo. He waited a while, but there was no sound yet from the alcove the elves had set up for Bilbo. Perhaps he was still asleep? He had been sleeping in more and more often as he had grown older.

Frodo set the plates aside and went to see if he was awake yet.

“Bilbo?” he asked softly, brushing aside the curtain hung up to offer some privacy. No reply, no sound. And yet something made Frodo’s hair stand up. “Bilbo? Uncle?” He hesitantly stepped closer to the bed.

Bilbo was laying on his back, a peaceful smile on his lips. He wasn’t breathing.

“Bilbo? Uncle, wake up! Bilbo!”

Gandalf and Elrond hurried in, attracted by his calls. Gandalf gently pulled him back, giving Elrond room beside Bilbo’s bed.

After moments or hours, Frodo could not tell, Elrond straightened slowly. “He is gone.”

“No.” Frodo shook his head. “No, he can’t. Yesterday, he was better, he was aware and talking to me.”

Elrond slowly turned to face him. “It happens sometimes, a seeming improvement before...” he trailed off.

Frodo felt Gandalf’s hands on his shoulders, but he shrugged them off. “Frodo...”

“Come, Mithrandir, let us give Mr. Baggins a moment,” Elrond interrupted.

Gone. Bilbo was gone. His uncle/cousin/guardian was gone. They were travelling to the Undying Lands, yet he had died.

He suddenly remembered Bilbo reading him Elvish stories about Valinor, stories and the death and violence that preceded the elves returning to Middle-Earth. Deaths and the horrors of war could reach Valinor as well. Had reached it, in the past. There was no certainty that he would find healing there, no certainty that he would even be allowed to arrive. And yet he had left everything behind for that chance, his home, his friends, Sam. He had left behind the other hobbits who had come with him, and now he was alone on a ship with immortal elves and Gandalf. With no one who knew what it was like to grow up in the peace of the Shire, of celebrating spring and the harvest with their whole community. No one who knew the songs and stories of his childhood. No one who understood how jarring it was to leave the Shire to go to the land of the Big Folk.

Frodo was alone.