New fic: Twilight
Monday, December 15th, 2003 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seraiSo on the eve of Trilogy Tuesday, here's a fic for you. A first draft - I'd usually want to polish it more before posting, but Sam insisted.
Title: Twilight
Rating: G
Disclaimer: All credit for Middle Earth and its extraordinary characters, locations and situations go to the blessed Professor Tolkien. I don't make a dime off this, nor would I wish to.
Summary: In the Blessed Lands, Sam and Frodo sit by the sea.
Twilight
by Serai
The elves say everything began with a song. They say that song can be heard in all things, if you listen close. In the wind through the trees, in the heart that beats, in the thunder. But clearest of all, they say, it sounds in the Sea.
Every evening we sit here, you and me, on sand so fine it hardly weighs in the hand. I sit comfortably next to your silence as the stars come out, turning the calm sea into another sky full of diamonds, as if we were floating in the heavens. And mayhap we are. Mayhap this island is yet another Elven ship, and we're still sailing towards something we don't know, or can't imagine.
There now. See what happens when I stay still? Naught but odd fancies and silly ramblings. It's the sound of the waves; gets me dreaming, I suppose. Something in it calls a body, makes you think about things as are outside yourself. I suppose that's what you mean when you speak to me about the voice of the Sea. That song of the Ainur, though I've always wondered what kind of throat would make a song like that. It's a startle when you interrupt my thoughts, but it's the words themselves as surprise me.
"Forgive me, Sam."
Your voice is calm, and I look over at you to see the breeze pulling your hair away from your eyes, the silver of it catching the dim light. "Forgive you?" I ask, wondering. "For what?"
The long silence flows, turning in the shallows with the sigh of the waves.
"For the things I've done. For treating you so -" You stop for a moment, then go on, "I haven't always been kind to you. Forgive me."
I'm at a loss now. Your words are so quiet and clear, yet they make my stomach go hot inside me. Relief burns in there, but a little shame as well, and I don't know what to say but what might ease you. "There's nothing to forgive, sir. There never -"
"Sam." The starlight shines in your eyes as you turn to me, and the words fall quiet in my mouth. For a moment, I want to stay silent, but in the end I can't. You've asked, so I answer, though it's hard to keep looking steady at you as I do it, hard not to duck my head.
"I forgave you long ago, Master," I say quietly. "None of that matters now."
That makes you smile a little. I've seen many a fair thing in my life, but not a one of them to match your smile. That it's small and gentle and lined with all the years gone by makes it that much more a treasure. Something flickers like a candle between us, a tiny flame from a long-ago fire.
"Do you remember the Queen's Laceflower you planted under my window?" you ask, taking my hand. "Every morning when I woke and leaned out into the sun, that scent greeted me. Those golden blossoms, like the sun's children. I missed them so when I came here."
The memory rushes over me bright and sweet, the sight of you young and careless, and all of life ahead of you. The sound of your laughter. Good morning, Sam. How the sun shone off your skin, and how all the garden seemed to fall into place with you there to give it a center.
"They were primroses, actually," I remind you, and your laugh makes my heart skip a beat, all these many years later. Oh, Frodo.
"Dear Sam," you whisper, as if in answer to my thought. Then with a squeeze of your fingers around mine, you turn back to the waves and settle into their music once again, the moment past. Often through the years I've wondered what you hear in that song that never ends.
Now, in my heart, I know.
Title: Twilight
Rating: G
Disclaimer: All credit for Middle Earth and its extraordinary characters, locations and situations go to the blessed Professor Tolkien. I don't make a dime off this, nor would I wish to.
Summary: In the Blessed Lands, Sam and Frodo sit by the sea.
Twilight
by Serai
The elves say everything began with a song. They say that song can be heard in all things, if you listen close. In the wind through the trees, in the heart that beats, in the thunder. But clearest of all, they say, it sounds in the Sea.
Every evening we sit here, you and me, on sand so fine it hardly weighs in the hand. I sit comfortably next to your silence as the stars come out, turning the calm sea into another sky full of diamonds, as if we were floating in the heavens. And mayhap we are. Mayhap this island is yet another Elven ship, and we're still sailing towards something we don't know, or can't imagine.
There now. See what happens when I stay still? Naught but odd fancies and silly ramblings. It's the sound of the waves; gets me dreaming, I suppose. Something in it calls a body, makes you think about things as are outside yourself. I suppose that's what you mean when you speak to me about the voice of the Sea. That song of the Ainur, though I've always wondered what kind of throat would make a song like that. It's a startle when you interrupt my thoughts, but it's the words themselves as surprise me.
"Forgive me, Sam."
Your voice is calm, and I look over at you to see the breeze pulling your hair away from your eyes, the silver of it catching the dim light. "Forgive you?" I ask, wondering. "For what?"
The long silence flows, turning in the shallows with the sigh of the waves.
"For the things I've done. For treating you so -" You stop for a moment, then go on, "I haven't always been kind to you. Forgive me."
I'm at a loss now. Your words are so quiet and clear, yet they make my stomach go hot inside me. Relief burns in there, but a little shame as well, and I don't know what to say but what might ease you. "There's nothing to forgive, sir. There never -"
"Sam." The starlight shines in your eyes as you turn to me, and the words fall quiet in my mouth. For a moment, I want to stay silent, but in the end I can't. You've asked, so I answer, though it's hard to keep looking steady at you as I do it, hard not to duck my head.
"I forgave you long ago, Master," I say quietly. "None of that matters now."
That makes you smile a little. I've seen many a fair thing in my life, but not a one of them to match your smile. That it's small and gentle and lined with all the years gone by makes it that much more a treasure. Something flickers like a candle between us, a tiny flame from a long-ago fire.
"Do you remember the Queen's Laceflower you planted under my window?" you ask, taking my hand. "Every morning when I woke and leaned out into the sun, that scent greeted me. Those golden blossoms, like the sun's children. I missed them so when I came here."
The memory rushes over me bright and sweet, the sight of you young and careless, and all of life ahead of you. The sound of your laughter. Good morning, Sam. How the sun shone off your skin, and how all the garden seemed to fall into place with you there to give it a center.
"They were primroses, actually," I remind you, and your laugh makes my heart skip a beat, all these many years later. Oh, Frodo.
"Dear Sam," you whisper, as if in answer to my thought. Then with a squeeze of your fingers around mine, you turn back to the waves and settle into their music once again, the moment past. Often through the years I've wondered what you hear in that song that never ends.
Now, in my heart, I know.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 06:11 am (UTC)Thanks for the kudos!
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 06:18 am (UTC)And as for the icon, that was for my GIP post, the one just before this, and it still has the Baby Elijah pic attached to it. :)
Re: Thanks for the kudos!
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 06:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 03:13 pm (UTC)Lovely. Great Sam voice, and a sweet and peaceful moment still haunted by the past. Even in this time and place there are still things about each other that the hobbits have yet to discover: Sam grounds Frodo in the things of this world, and to Sam Frodo seems to be a catalyst for understanding something -- the music of the waves -- that otherwise might be beyond him. Thanks for this; I'm sure I'll need to reread it after I see RotK!
no subject
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 05:51 pm (UTC)*hands over tissue*
Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 2003 05:48 pm (UTC)Yeah, Sam insisted on my posting this now. Seemed to think folks ought to have it to keep in mind. The gods know I'll need it!
Have fun today - I'm getting with Spike and her hub in a couple of hours for the Trilogy as well.
EEEEEEEKKK!!!
How appropriate
Date: Wednesday, December 17th, 2003 02:01 pm (UTC)FantasyFan
Re: How appropriate
Date: Wednesday, December 17th, 2003 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, December 19th, 2003 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, December 19th, 2003 06:33 pm (UTC)just lovely
Date: Friday, December 19th, 2003 04:50 am (UTC)hugs
Goldie
no subject
Date: Friday, December 19th, 2003 05:29 pm (UTC)Definitely an important reminder, given the end of the movie with its damnable lack of a reference to Sam's eventual trip West...
no subject
Date: Friday, December 19th, 2003 06:31 pm (UTC)Personally, I'm glad there's no reference at the end of the film to what happened after. Tolkien was right to leave all that for the appendices, because it doesn't fit in the story. I hope there's no epilogue on the EE, too. It would ruin the shape of the ending. The kitchen-sink approach to these stories only means we end up with stuff that was better cut out (witness that lame stew scene in the 2T EE). Myself, I don't need PJ to tell me Sam went off into the West (for one thing, because there's no certainty that he did, only that his family held it as a tradition). Some things should stay in the books and be left to the imagination, I think. It ends perfectly for me.
no subject
Date: Monday, December 22nd, 2003 02:44 am (UTC)