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Magma shooting across a darkened sky like meteors and jagged rock clawing at his skin-torn back and an explosion reverberating through air thick with ash and a warm hand in his and the sound of jagged breaths by his side
The edges of the world grow faint.
Blinding light and the flap of feathered wings and talons wrapped around his side, and the loss of an embrace
A glance upwards
A hint of sun peeks through the overwhelmingly thick shadow above
He never should’ve been able to,
But he was going home.
<3<3<3
( My favorite part of prose has long been the ending.
But I’ve never been one for the epilogue.
Let the end be the end.
I’ve never written an epilogue.
I don’t think I would know how.)
<3<3<3
The bedsheets in Minas Tirith are unfathomably soft.
It feels wrong.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Mr.Frodo.”
A warm hand in his.
“I know, Sam.”
Arguably the only thing that feels right.
“I was worried sick about you. We all were.”
“I know.”
There’s a brightness in Sam’s eyes, but there’s still a weight upon him.
Frodo can tell. He can always tell.
“But we’re here, now. We’re going home.”
He can’t recall the microexpressions of anybody else’s face, but he can always tell when it’s his.
Sam lets a soft smile grace his lips. Frodo decides it's his reward for making it this far.
“We’re going home.”
A thumb strokes the back of his hand.
“Do you remember it?”
There’s a thousand lies he could tell. A thousand lies he’d been telling.
But here he felt like glass.
“Not anymore, Sam.”
Frodo can see him try to keep his face steady. He’s almost there.
His guilt is visible in the little things. The slightest furrow of the brow, his crow’s feet crinkling, a near invisible down-turn of the lips.
Frodo wants to wipe it away. He cups Sam’s cheek, smooths the deepest of the wrinkles.
It doesn’t work, but for a brief moment his chest feels lighter.
“I’ll show you the world, then.”
<3<3<3
(I was always drawn to the side characters.
I’d pretend to be the protagonist in the yard of Bag End, stick sword in hand. You remember that, don’t you? You were my trusted companion and Bilbo was the evil tyrant.
We’d always win, and there’d always be lunch right after.
But when I read, I wanted to know more about the companion. Why were they on a quest? Why were they so devoted to the hero? What called them, what kept them going?
I’d come up with my own answers, but they never seemed right.
They didn’t get mentioned in the epilogue.
So I always imagined that they got everything they needed.
I would’ve waited for you.
Not as well as you did for me, but I would’ve waited for you anyways.)
<3<3<3
They came home, and the grass was emerald green and the sky was the color of the Brandywine River.
The flowers in front of Bag End had withered and grown the sickly brown of rot. “It’s okay,” Sam said. “I’ll make ‘em beautiful again. I’ll make this whole place beautiful.”
Within a few months, they bloomed again. The garden shone with the silver-gold hue of Elanor flowers and atop the hill sat the mallorn sapling. Light always came through the windows. Good ale and better conversation flowed in the kitchen.
Sam fulfilled his promise.
But his shoulder still ached, and he still picked the scabs adorning his shortened index finger.
<3<3<3
(Things didn’t go as I had planned, and I’ve lost the ability to adapt.
The world keeps spinning in spite of me. I wrote my ending. What comes next is meant to live only in everybody else’s imagination.
Everybody wants an epilogue out of me.)
<3<3<3
Sam showed him the world.
He fed him strawberries with sugared cream and kissed the juice off his lips. He brought him to the river on the anniversary of his parent’s drowning. He picked peaches from the orchard and nursed a baby bird with broken wings back to health and ran with him through the crop fields. And every time, he’d ask him if he could remember. If the world became a bit more livable.
It got better. In fragmented pieces, he began to rebuild his life.
It wasn’t enough.
<3<3<3
(But I still don’t know how to write one, Sam.)
<3<3<3
“Have you ever been to the sea?”
“Can’t say I have. That’s where the elves go, isn’t it?”
“Yes. They go to the Grey Havens, and they sail home.”
“You’ve never been either, have you?”
“No.”
“...”
“I hear it, sometimes.”
“...”
“The waves keep sounding in my ears.”
“...”
“It calls me.”
“...”
“...”
“I’ll take you sometime. We’ll get ourselves a few ponies and we’ll ride on out there. We can swim, and we’ll talk to the elves, and we’ll watch the boats in the harbor.”
“...”
“It’ll be good, Mr. Frodo. I promise.”
“...”
“...”
“I don’t think I’d be able to come back.”
“You have to.”
“...”
“Please. You have to. ”
“...”
“...”
“Sam.”
“Please.”
“There’s a chasm in my heart.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’ve done your best.”
“You can’t leave, you can’t–”
“This world’s not enough. You’ve done well, you’ve done so well.”
“...”
“But nobody could make it enough. No one.”
“Let me try again. Just one more thing.”
“I can’t come home.”
“Just one more thing.”
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“...”
“I’m so sorry.”
<3<3<3
(This is as close as I can get.)
<3<3<3
The crash of waves and teary eyes and one last kiss and the sun disappears over the horizon, Lindon fades, and Sam is still there.
Frodo goes home.
<3<3<3
(I’m sorry.
But you’ll get your ending too.
One of these days, you’ll get your ending too.
There’s pages left in this book that I can’t fill.
You can write an epilogue.
There’s so many things left for you to do. There’s still so much love in your heart. Share it.
There’s an epilogue for you. One that I hope you’ll share with me.
But you have to write your ending first.
You’ll get there.
I promise.)