AUTHOR: shoneaugen
EMAIL: [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION: Ask and recieve.
FEEDBACK: Pretty please?
DISCLAIMER: Sam and Frodo belong to Tolkien. I just bring them out to play. [Or brood, as the case may be.]
SUMMARY: Frodo can't find the right words to say anything anymore.
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One of the advantages of having lived with Bilbo for so long was having lived around his belongings just as long - in particular, the books. Books of all kinds, and so many words, and Frodo has enough of a vocabulary to be able to wield words to his purpose better than most hobbits wield cooking ladles or trowels. He used to use it to tell stories to a younger Pippin, and talk of ale and crops with old Rory, and ask after the outside world from Gandalf. Pleasant words, interrupted by laughter and companionable silences that filled space better than speech could.
But now the words he finds in his repertoire can only hurt, wound, lash out; the quiet after his rages makes his head ache and his heart ache more, because in those pauses he's certain that there's something of him slipping away with the last whisking tails of his unreasoned fury. He's not sure if it's the Ring or really him, because as the Ring grows heavier, it seems to ensnare his very soul and make itself part of him - it twists his words as they come out of his mouth and makes him harsh, spitting out condescending ire instead of the contrition he wants so much to offer to Sam.
what do you know about it? nothing!
And maybe it's to Sam's own disadvantage that he can't come up with the right words to compel his master into listening. But Frodo thinks that maybe, just maybe, the Ring affects his friend more than he'd like to believe, and warps the words coming off his gardener's tongue so that he won't heed the advice given.
His apology, when he manages to get it out, sounds plain and lacking in everything he'd wanted to imbue it with - 'I'm sorry, Sam' doesn't seem adequate to heal the rift growing between them, does it? It doesn't make up for every insult, every snarl he's thrown at his faithful friend, and he doesn't know how to make it do so. So he stutters out whatever the Ring wrings off of his tongue. He goes on trying to make it up afterward with flagging hopes that Sam's ears are still pure and that he can hear what Frodo can't say.
But now and then, Frodo can only despair, and it's times like those when he can't even find words enough to make known his hollow regret.
can't you hear yourself?