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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."
(Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke)
The sun sets over the Shire, bringing a myriad of colours that makes Frodo squint his eyes against the brilliance of it. Its rays fall on the leaves of the trees, on the grass and the hills that are surrounding him.
Some days, he feels almost trapped here. Like the hills and the people and the trees, everything is there to keep him in this one place. If he closes his eyes he can see and imagine the wide, open fields of Rohan, the giant stones of Gondor. He tries to draw deeper within himself, picturing the faces of his most faithful companions, but then his scar – no, his wound – starts to throb, painfully and he grits his teeth and opens his eyes.
He finds it unfair, that he cannot remember the good times without feeling the pain and the loss of all that hardship. On bad days, it drives him almost mad with grief and he has to bite his tongue not to shriek, to scream out everything for everyone to hear, and no one to understand. Because for them, the war is over. The war is won. They can’t see the raging fire burning inside him, the dark hole filled with lava and suffering and a faint voice whispering about power that he let go.
Frodo knows he can’t stay much longer here and the part of him that still remembers the real Shire and taste of strawberries – the part of him that feels so small all the time and is really only here because Sam is still smiling, Sam still has faith, that part is crying at this realization. But his wound is throbbing and he knows, to the deepest core of his soul, that this is the right thing. This is the best thing.
He has to leave.