Gentle Loyalty's Trial
Author: Antane
Rating: R for violence which mostly takes place off-screen but not entirely. No slash as always.
Elements: "I'll speak in a monstrous little voice” from Midsummer Night's Dream, which fit very nicely something I had already written months before.
Summary : What if all four hobbits were taken at Parth Galen? The very end is taken directly from the Red Book. Very angsty - you have been warned!
Word Count: 1741
“They have not found the Ring. Neither have they brought away any hobbits as hostages. Had they done even so much as that, it would have been a heavy blow to us, and it might have been fatal. But let us not darken our hearts by imagining the trial of their gentle loyalty in the Dark Tower.” - Gandalf, “The White Rider”
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They had been taken, all four of them, at Parth Galen, overwhelmed in the woods by the servants of the Enemy. Frodo remembered little of the time that immediately followed except for the overwhelming horror and despair. They were stripped by their captors and each beaten and roughly interrogated in front of the others. Resistance and trying to protect one another had only gained more strokes, yet none of them yielded. Everything was taken from them, except the one thing that truly mattered. In a moment of desperation, just before the Orcs had overwhelmed them, Frodo had hid the Ring between his cheek and teeth. He had nearly cried out as it burned him there, but had bit down instead as tears ran down his face. Beyond all hope, his ploy worked. The foul Orcs did not search inside, having found many other treasures among the four of them and not bothering to look any further. Yet their dark master had demanded not only what could be found on the bodies of any halflings, but the creatures themselves. It was still daylight when the wraith, Khamul, came to them on his fell beast. Strapped to its back, the only thing the hobbits felt for a long time beside their fear was the rush of wings and wind.
Frodo bit down harder on the Ring to steel himself from yielding to it. Doing so only increased his pain, yet he did not surrender to the almost overwhelming force to either give it up or to swallow it and so become it and it him. The Ring-bearer sought to hold onto his cousins as they sought to cling to him and Sam to his master. They closed their eyes and knew not how many leagues they traveled until they arrived after dark at a most terrible tower and were hurried inside a dark, dank cell.
They were broken apart almost at once with Merry and Pippin spirited away, even as Frodo and Sam made a brave but futile effort to stop it. When Orcs came back for the Ring-bearer, however, the foul creatures found a monstrous being standing between them and the one they sought. It pulsed with a terrible menace that they dared not approach and behind it was a bright light and black power that cowed them even more. When they left the cell without either of the two remaining prisoners, Sam marveled at their good fortune. He stepped from in front of his master to look back at him and smile. “Fancy that, Mr. Frodo! They looked like they had seen a ghost!”
Frodo could not smile back. “They’ll be back, Sam. There are more frightening things in their lives than whatever they saw in you.”
“Me?! Certainly I could not have done that.”
This time Frodo did smile a bit. “‘Twas you, my Sam. I saw it from behind, and it would have scared me too, if I hadn’t known it was you.”
Sam shook his head and muttered something about wondering what his Gaffer would say, then looked at the door where Merry and Pippin had been taken. “Wonder where they’ve been taken?”
Frodo shivered. He looked at the door as though his fierce glare could burn a hole through it, and he could see where his cousins now were. “We’ll find out soon enough, I dare say.”
The Ring continued to call to him and he clenched his jaw to keep from responding. It flooded him with terrible temptations to use it to find his kin and defeat their adversaries. Even worse werre the images it showed him of what was happening to them. He denied the visions the best he could, but they were made all the more real by the screams that he could not.
It will all stop if you yield yourself up to me. That’s what all this is for. Just to find out where I am. Tell that and all the pain will stop.
Frodo shook his head and groaned. Sam looked at him in concern, sensing as he had on Weathertop, that his master was in trouble.
Another scream rent the air, clearly recognizable as Merry’s. Tears flowed down Frodo and Sam’s faces.
Yield and it will stop. Continue to resist and their pain will continue. There is no telling what will happen, but you will be responsible for it. Whatever happens will be because of you.
Another scream, this time Pippin’s. Frodo opened his mouth. Sam clenched his master’s arm hard enough to hurt. The Ring-bearer turned anguished eyes to him and met implacable resistance to what he had been about to do. Sam’s heart broke to see his master’s tortured features, and even more to see the realization dawn in those tormented eyes as to what Frodo knew he must do. Tears flooded down the Ring-bearer’s cheeks as he sank to the floor and buried himself in his guardian’s chest. Sam held him tightly with one arm and with the other covered his treasure’s ears as best he could. He wished he could cover his own for the only sound that was louder than those continuing screams was when Frodo began to howl in his agony. Sam held him tighter, sobbing with him, yet there had been only one real choice and the Ring-bearer had made it. Frodo’s hatred of the Ring grew to consume him. He was going to sacrifice Merry and Pippin to preserve it, the most loathsome thing ever made, and at the expense of two of the most beloved kin he had!
You could still stop it. Yield to me. You can still save them. None of this needs to continue.
Frodo’s heart and soul split apart.
When Merry and Pippin were returned to them, they were battered, bleeding and nearly unconscious. Frodo dropped to the ground at their side and begged forgiveness over and over with copious tears. He desperately wanted to hold them, but was afraid for there seemed to be no place on their bodies that was untouched by the terrible whips, knives and other devices that Frodo had seen in the visions the Ring had sent him. He howled to see the nightmare scenes were true.
Have I ever lied to you?
Merry squinted up at him, trying to focus through eyes nearly swollen shut. “Why you crying, Frodo?” he whispered. “There was naught I told them. The secret is safe.”
Frodo’s hand was lightly on his cousin’s chest to feel his last breath. Pippin croaked the same assurance then closed his eyes and quietly passed before the Ring-bearer could even say a word. He had been at both their births and now at their deaths. Only then did he hold them and rock them as he wailed in his grief.
See what you have done? You killed them and for what? You think by causing all this pain you will prevent me from returning to my master’s hand? Look at them who you have destroyed for naught and use me even now to gain your vengeance against those who gave so many strokes against such fair skin. Use me even against yourself.
Frodo clenched his jaw and fists against the temptation that welled up in him so fierce and hot. He nearly yielded, yet something kept him back from that madness. His cousins would not have died in vain.
You can still use me and save another.
Frodo looked at Sam then with deeply agonized eyes and the two understood each other. The Ring-bearer saw the same implacable ‘no’ in Sam’s eyes to what the gardener knew the Ring was telling his master. He made sure that Frodo also saw his complete love and forgiveness. Frodo dwelt in that love and in the arms that embraced him until the Orcs came for his beloved guardian, and all the desperate attempts to hold onto him were proved vain. The last thing Frodo saw of his Sam, though he was nearly blind from tears, was that same love with all the strength to endure that such a look could give. It gave him enough will to resist the almost overwhelming desire to give himself and the Ring up. He did not hear any of Sam’s screams for his own overwhelmed them.
Sam was brought back already dead. Frodo curled up by him and his cousins and awaited the next horror. When the Orcs came for him, he did not resist. He looked once at the bodies of those who had made up a great part of his heart and then moved away. There was nothing his enemies could do to him. He was dead. There was a great black hole where he used to dwell. There was no torture that could hurt him. He did not cry out when their whips tore at his tender skin. He did not answer any of their questions. He was dead. Nothing was left but naked will to destroy the thing that had wrecked such havoc in his heart and soul, to destroy the Destroyer. His will was made all the more indomitable by the Ring’s own malice.
You are that Destroyer. And yet you think to destroy me as well, when you could instead all the power of the world at your command?
Frodo did not respond. Disgusted at their prisoner’s lack of response, the Orcs tossed him back into his cell where he was alone. He lay in a swoon. How indeed would he be able to destroy the Ring now? Yet he must. The sacrifices already made would not be in vain. That monstrous voice would be silenced forever.
The next thing Frodo was aware of in a daze of wonder was the sound of singing, then an even more marvelous sound.
“Frodo! Mr. Frodo, my dear!” cried Sam, tears almost blinding him. “It’s Sam, I’ve come!” He half-lifted his master and hugged him to his breast. Frodo opened his eyes.
“Am I still dreaming?” he muttered. “But the other dreams were horrible.”