Off the Ship

I step off the ship ahead of Gandalf, who is helping my uncle, Bilbo Baggins, off onto dry ground. This place is amazing, perhaps more beautiful than the Shire. I find myself thinking with a pang of guilt. All around me are fair elf maidens, stone buildings, much resembling Rivendell in Middle Earth. In a way, it is as if I am indeed in Rivendell on my quest to destroy the Ring, yet without having that burden. I feel only half alive. The Ring took so much of me away; it feels as if a part of me was destroyed with the Ring in Mordor.
I find myself wishing I were back in the Shire with my old gardener and best friend, Samwise Gamgee, and my relatives, Merry and Pippin. The Took part drew me out of the Shire, longing for another adventure, and now the Baggins part of me is drawing me back to it. My life was so simple before the Ring came to me. I was in love with the Shire, never hearing of the evil things that happened in the outside world. My life was so sheltered. When I came back, everything was so dry, so bland, so boring, too simple compared to the complex way of living I had grown so used to. I have barely spoken a word since the ship departed.
My stomach grumbles. I will have to grow accustomed to eating only three meals a day – again. The one disappointment to all Hobbits – no second breakfast, no elevensies, no afternoon tea, no supper – only breakfast, luncheon and dinner. How did I make it those years without six meals a day? How did Uncle Bilbo live in Rivendell those two years? Maybe it was his odd old age of eleventy-one, or maybe not as I am fifty-two, and he is now one hundred and thirty years old.
Uncle Bilbo seems at home here already as I watch him sit down with Gandalf in an arm chair in front of the fireplace. Me? I feel out of place amongst all the tall, fair elves. I long to go back to the Shire, but that’s nigh impossible.
Gandalf and my uncle exchange a few words and Uncle Bilbo leaves. I approach Gandalf slowly, hoping he won’t notice me so I can collect my thoughts.
“Is something the matter, Frodo?” he asks, smoking his pipe, making puffy, white rings.
I sit for a while, debating whether or not to tell him. “Yes.” I say finally.
Gandalf looks into my eyes, trying to figure out what ails me. “The Ring?”
“Partially.” I cast my gaze on the fire.
“And the other part?” he asks, obviously concerned.
“I miss the Shire,” I reply simply. “Sam, Merry, Pippin…even the Sackville-Bagginses! But, I couldn’t bear not to see Uncle Bilbo, or, or – you, Gandalf. You believed in me when I started on a nearly hopeless journey. The Ring would never have been destroyed if it weren’t for you. I would have stayed in the Shire with the Ring taking hold of me and those wraiths would have come to the Shire and destroyed it. Sauron would have control of the world by now.
“You give me too much credit, lad.” Gandalf shifts his staff from its position on his lap to use it to stand up in one fluid motion. “I’ve got some business to attend to, Frodo. I’ll be back.” Gandalf leaves me on my own to think.
My mind goes back to the Shire and Bag End. I barely notice Uncle Bilbo coming back in. He can tell I am thinking, but asks somewhat eagerly, somewhat reluctantly, “My Ring? May I touch it?”
“Uncle Bilbo, I told you, I lost it.”
“Oh, I see. Or-or has it been destroyed?” he asks me suspiciously.
I cannot bear lying, especially to my uncle, I feel so guilty. “Yes…but I had to or Sauron would have taken -”
“Taken over the world as we know it. Yes, yes, I know, my boy. But the precious…she…”
I look at my uncle understandingly.
“Did-did you meet that horrid Gollum along the way?”
“Smeagol? Yes, I did.”
“Did he try to kill you?”
“Eventually, yes.”
“Should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“No, Sam and I would never have made it to Mordor without him. His obsession with the Ring killed him in the end anyway. She had a great hold on him. Sam wanted us to kill him or leave him, not understanding the power of the Ring, but I wouldn’t believe him.” I look longingly at the stump I now have for a finger. I add, “If he hadn’t been there, I would have kept the Ring, and she would have eventually made me like unto him.”
“I see. Why don’t you tell me about your journey, Frodo?” Uncle Bilbo asks me. I sigh and begin to tell him my journey. Maybe I didn’t make so bad a decision coming here as I thought, but I miss the Shire. Only time will tell if I made the right choice.