Life in Death

4. Stronger than you know

I looked up from my book when I heard footsteps. I smiled as I recognized the wizard.

"And what might you be reading my dear?" He sat down next to me looking at the book in my lap.

"Uhm... I borrowed a book about the history of Middle Earth. Since I will be here I figured it would be helpful to know some more of the past." I closed the book and looked at him.

"Have you thought about what Lord Elrond told you? There is still time but you must decide what you will be doing." He gave me a warm smile and I smiled back at him.

"Honestly I am still trying to wrap my head around being this... drifter and all that. Only a few weeks back I was living a completely different life. Everything I could think about was to get away from the life I was living. In a way I got that I guess. Still it feels like making this decision is choosing between something that resembles my old life so much, meaning depending on others to make the right decisions for me and having to accept whatever comes of it, or to choose for once in my life taking control of what is happening. I think I know what I want but it frightens me. I know nothing about how to protect myself though I'd rather fight my own battles instead of letting others fight them for me anymore." I stared off into the garden around us, not sure if Gandalf understood what I was trying to say.

"Your heart will tell you what to do. Your former life was dominated from the outside without you having control over it. Maybe this is another reason why you came to this world, to give you the choice to be in control this time. However, would you like to keep an old man company? I was told Frodo woke up and I thought you would like to see him and the other Hobbits." I nodded and got to my feet. I had already been wondering when Frodo would finally wake up.

I entered the room after Gandalf and relieve flooded me when I saw Frodo was awake and colour had returned to his ashen face. After his initial joy about Gandalf's return he looked past the wizard and smiled at me.

"You made it. I cannot thank you enough for trying to help us." I returned his smile and slowly walked closer.

"There is no need to thank me, Master Baggins. I did what everybody would have done though I didn't make that much of a difference after all." The Hobbit still smiled at me and squeezed my hand.

"Frodo. I would be glad if you would consider us friends after what we went through. Sam told me you got stabbed as well... How are you feeling?" A sigh escaped me and I tried to keep smiling.

"I am doing good, considering I was out of consciousness almost as long as you. Still I fear I am far from healed." Frodo nodded and started talking to Gandalf. A shadow by the door caught my attention and I turned to face Aragorn. With a small smile he retreated from the room when he saw Frodo was eager to catch up with Gandalf and so I followed him.

"How are you holding up? I mean honestly." He had pulled me a bit to the side after leaving the room and was now looking at me with searching eyes. My shoulders sank a bit as if a great weight had been laid on them.

"Honestly? I don't know. Hell I don't even know what I am feeling, if I am feeling anything at all. I feel this dull pain in my arm that reminds me there is something that should have killed me right away. I don't even want to think about the other possibility if it hadn't killed me and Lord Elrond wouldn't have been able to help me. I am trying so hard to understand what is happening, I don't even know what I am supposed to do. A few weeks back I tried so hard to get away from a life dictated by my mother, a life where I was a mere prisoner even if I was of legal age. No decision made was my own, I was to follow orders, to obey or face the consequences. My mother tried to marry me off against my will and the moment I finally was ready to get away, to have my own life... That moment were freedom was only inches away that pig shoves me down the balcony because I refused getting molested by him. I was supposed to be free and what did I get? I cannot forget the feeling of blood pouring into my lungs, seeing my best friends shocked face and the pure disgust and disappointment in my mother's eyes as she looked down on my broken body. That should have been the end. And instead I wake up in this world. I nearly got myself killed again, because I made a decision. I decided not to stand back and look what it got me! I can feel this evil pulsing in the wound and I am afraid it will consume me one day. And now? I got two decisions. One: staying here, hoping somehow, someone manages to figure out how to deal with this stupid ring that apparently decides over my fate now. And that is none different from the last twenty years of my life. Sitting there while others make decisions for me and I am doomed to deal with the aftermath. And if I decide not to stay here I am thrown into something I have never known before. The freedom of choice. If I leave here they will hunt me down, Gandalf and Elrond said so themselves. I don't know how to fight, I don't know this land and I have no idea where I should go or what I should do when I cannot stay here. I had made plans for my life and now I have nothing, because I died and woke up here! This is so unfair! Why is this happening to me? All just because of something that happened while I was only coming into life. What cruel force puts something like that on a defenceless newborn and seals its fate before it is even able to breath on its own?! I just don't know who I am any more..." Everything seemed to crash around me. The carefully build facade I had been able to hold up for years now. It had crumbled away now that there was no more consequence in talking about what happened behind closed doors. If the world had only known what my mother did to me since my father left us. Caleb was the only one who knew, the only one I could trust. I didn't lie, I really didn't know what to do. It was like I said, trading one cage for another or be truly free for once in my life and having no idea what to do with it.