Chained

***Well (much to my surprise) it turns out that people are still reading this story, so I worked atle tle faster to get the chapter I was working on done, but its been pretty hectic for me lately. So anyway, theres little, heck almost no Aragorn in this chapter. Just poor little Frodo whom I seem to take such joy out of torturing. Anyway he's pretty much all by his lonesome with only his thoughts for company, which may or may not be a good thing. Anyway this chapter may be kind of boring, but it kind of adds up to the rest of the story (I think anyway). I have ideas for the next chapter, all of them worse than the one before, but fitting for it somehow. Well I think Ive said enough, anything else you need to know about the chapter you can find out by reading it.***

Frodo awoke the next morning with a start. He sat up quickly and looked around him, the chain rattling as he did so as a reminder of his captivity. Would he ever be rid of the cursed thing? Somehow his current situation reminded him a lot of the situation with the Ring. With the Ring he could go where he wanted, and do what he wanted, just so long as it got to Mordor before the enemy got to him, but the Ring would torture him inside, holding his soul captive. Now he had no where to go, nothing to do, and no one to help him, and his captor was someone he had dearly trusted, and abused him verbally and physically.

He let out an exasperated sigh. He hated how things were since he had been given the Ring. It just never ended. The torments went on and on, always more horrifying then the last. Sometimes there was a pause in between them, and in that time you’d regain your self-assurance that it was over, but it never was. It would always come back and attack you again with more force than the time before. He was, perhaps, being treated better than he was on the quest, but he was no better of. Here he was trapped by a friend, and there was no way for him to leave.

Frodo was surprised when he rolled over to get up and nearly fell out of the giant bed that Aragorn slept in. How had he gotten there? He filed that thought away, assuming that someone had moved him there and he quickly climbed out of bed and made towards the window to see what time of day it was; This didn’t work out properly, and he found that he had to stop and climb back over the bed and go around do to the posts on the bed catching his chain. *His chain. * It was his chain now? He had already become so accustomed to it that it was “his chain” now? Frodo let out a weary sigh and pulled on of the curtains partly open.

Generally looking out a window would have cheered Frodo up, but under the circumstances the fact that he could look out the window only more deeply implanted the fact that he could not do more than look upon the streets of Minas Tirith. What’s more the sight was not exactly cheerful. A stone courtyard with nothing growing save for moss and weeds where Frodo sometimes would find Aragorn in deep discussion with people, or giving some of the newly recruited soldiers personal training to keep them ready for battshoushould it come.

Frodo looked up at the sky and found he was having a hard time telling what time it was, due to the fact that this window faced the west, but it must have been early morning for he could see no trace of the sun, save for the light that managed to creep over the top of the building. Frodo sighed. He made to turn away when movement in the courtyard below caught his attention. He turned and looked down to see someone enter.

He narrowed his eyes and focused harder on the person below. As it was it would appear that two people had entered the courtyard, not just one, and one of them was Aragorn. Frodo starred down in confusion. Aragorn only went in there to discuss things with rather important people, and guards, for no one, save those he allowed, went in there, and it was really one of the nicer courtyards, though rather plain. But this man appeared to be neither a guard, nor a person of importance. In fact he looked rather the way Aragorn did when he played the role of Strider, ranger of the North.

Frodo might have watched more if two things had not happened. The first was if his stomach had not given an angry growl telling him to go and find some food, and the second was Aragorn and the other men looking up towards the window he was looking out of. He jumped away before they saw him, but he was certain that they would have noticed the curtain falling and would have known it too be him.

Letting out a weary sigh, Frodo turned and looked around the room. He gave a frustrated huff. Why did men have to make everything so big? He could hardly see the side of the table let alone the top of it and the rest of the furniture. He made to walk towards the table to further investigate the possibility of food, but was delayed when he managed to get his foot entangled in the chain. He did not noticed before he tried to take a step forwards, and this resulted in him falling spectacularly on his face, cutting a cheek in the process.

This was made worse by the fact that it was the bruised cheek that he cut, and was now stinging horribly and bleeding a rather large amount of blood for such a small cut.]

Very agitated with how the day was going so far, and his anger was only made worse by all the inconvenience the chain had caused barely half an hour after he had woken, he hauled himself up and turned towards the mirror Aragorn had hanging on one of the walls, making sure to pick up the chain this time to stop it from entangling his feet again.

He pulled a chair up to the dresser Aragorn kept in front of the mirror, and then, thinking this process over, gave another exasperated sigh at going to all the trouble of hauling a chair over there when he could have merely climbed on top of the dresser. Why was he having such a hard time thinking up these solutions that normally came to him so simply?

Frodo put that thought aside for the time being, and turned his attention to the reflection staring back at him from the mirror. What he saw startled and surprised him. That couldn’t really be him could it? He had seen glimpses of his face in pools of water when traveling through Mordor, but they were not very strong, and only back towards when they first entered it, for afterwards there was hardly any pools to be found, and he did not care to much to see what he looked like. All his focus was on the Ring. Now he looked somewhat similar to the face he had seen then.

He was pale, very pale, his cheek was bruised and bleeding horribly, though even when he wiped it away with his hand blood seeped out, and now his face was smeared with red, as if he had fallen in a pool of blood. His lips were cracked and appeared to be dry as if he had not drank anything in days, which, truth be told, he hadn’t. His face looked like it was caught somewhere between being too thin, and being almost the right weight, which made sense considering he had lost a lot of weight, and then gained most of it back, and was now loosing it again all in a short time. His hair was matted, and unkempt, and some of the curls closer to his forehead appeared to have been wetted with some substance and then left to dry and harden, which was true, the substance being sweat.

But the thing that caught his, that caught most people attention the most were his eyes. He remembered how before he had begun the quest they had sparkled cheerfully in a rather carefree matter, then in Rivendel they had lost most of there sparkle, and looked more thoughtful and serious. In Lorien they had become even more grim still, and after the quest was over, though they had regained a small bit of their cheerfulness, they had an almost haunted look about them, and they never lost one trace of the grief and grimness the quest had settled on him. But now they had, again, changed.

There was a great amount of awareness in those eyes, almost like an unsettled fear, and that in itself startled Frodo, for though Aragorn had struck him, and chained him, he had not felt too great an amount of fear, which surprised him as well. Surely he was now cautious around Aragorn, and angry, and there was always some fear, but the amount of fear he saw in his eyes was like a huge exaggeration to what he felt. Along with this newly discovered fear there was a great deal of anger (which Frodo noted was not nearly as much as he felt inside.) But the emotion that ruled his eyes the most was weariness.

Weariness of the fact that his heart was beginning to understand what his mind had refused to accept long ago. The quest would never be over. The Ring was destroyed, yes. The fellowship was ended, yes. Everything seemed as it should be. For the others. But for him the quest would never end. The words that Bilbo had once told him long ago when he was telling him tales of elves and such.
‘Frodo my lad,’ he had said, closing the book he had been reading from on his finger to catch Frodo’s attention, for Frodo had been staring at it, enraptured by the stories that Bilbo read out of it. He looked up, mingled disappointment and confusion showing clear in his eyes.
‘These tales I read you all are written in books with endings, usually happy ones at that. But the truth is for great tales there is no ending. Life goes on, and the tales continue; though the original characters may not exist in them. Some characters fall out of the tale sooner than others, but all play a part, and the true tale will never end; though it may not be as important as the beginning of the tale. Do you understand Frodo?’ Frodo remembered that he had looked confusedly at his uncle, and that he had not understood, but that he had told Bilbo he understood anyway. Those words had sunk in over the years, and he knew now that they were words of great wisdom, true words at that.

He could also faintly remember similar words being spoken to him sometime before he left the quest, but he could not remember who spoke them, or when they had said it. Funny how his mind seemed to be forgetting more recent events, but holding onto the ones of the quest and the ones of the far past.

Frodo shook his head and turned away from the mirror. He could not explain it, but his head was starting to hurt. He considered going back to bed, but his stomach gave another growl, and he remembered that he needed to eat. Perhaps that was why he was getting a headache, from lack of nourishment. He quickly climbed off of the chair, and made to drag it back across the room, but gave up. As if making the chairs that big wasn’t enough, Frodo was sure that the men made it with the heaviest wood they could find, and added extra amounts that were not needed. He sighed. Normally he might have laughed at his own silliness, but now he was trying to keep himself from despairing.

*After all,* his mind said quietly to him. *It’s not like you’re in a situation worth despairing over. Your only trapped in a land of men who are twice your size, with no one to help you, or to talk to you, and it was only your friend, who’s become suddenly violent who chained you to the wall. Why should you despair about that?* Frodo heard the sarcasm in his own minds voice, and that made him feel even worse. *Now my own mind is mocking me?*

He sighed again, but stopped about halfway through his exhale, why did he keep sighing like that? He filed this thought away with the others and made towards the large table, picking up his chain carefully as his cheek gave a nasty throb.

There was no food to be found on the table, as Frodo found out when he clambered onto another of the large chairs that Aragorn had in his room, nor was there any to be found in any other part of the room, leastways not in the places you’d expect to find food. Frodo soon gave up and went back over to the dresser in front of the mirror. He climbed back on top of it, and just sat, resting his back against the cool wall, and letting his thoughts chase one another through his head, not paying attention to any of them.

Frodo was unsure of how long he sat there, but when he finally took the time to open his eyes and look around, the sun was almost completely visible from the window, which meant that it would soon be setting. Frodo turned towards the mirror and again saw that same reflection looking back at him, if not worse then it was before. He decided that he should at least comb his hair.

He quickly scanned the top of the dresser and picked up the comb he found there. He was about to run it through his thick curls, when he paused to examine it further. Such an odd looking comb. It was made of ivory, rare and hard to get, in fact they the only creatures that he knew of that had them were the oliphants, and they lived in the southern lands. Frodo lifted the comb to his hair and ran it through carefully, gritting his teeth as it snagged on some knots. *They must have gotten this ivory from the dead oliphants.* He thought, remember how they had still been hauling oliphant, and men, and orc, and horse bodies away from the gate of Minas Tirith.

Frodo felt a great pang of sorrow for those animals suddenly, as well as the horses, though more so for the oliphants. They were great creatures indeed when they were alive, Frodo remembered seeing the oliphants on the quest with Sam just before Faramir had captured them. *Funny how fate works out. One day I’m captured by a possible enemy who captures me and further delays the quest, but then becomes my friend after the quest is over, and the next my friend during the quest turns into a violent, more than likely crazy person who captures me and holds me against my will in Minas Tirith.*

How true that was. Frodo set the comb down, and looked into the mirror. His face was still pale, and blood still smeared one cheek, which was also dark with a bruise, and his eyes were still haunting, but at least now his hair wasn’t such a mess, though it was still being stubbornly unmanageable. Frodo sighed and slowly climbed down from the dresser, annt tnt to sit in front of the window, watching as the sun moved slowly over the sky. Would Aragorn even come tonight?

Frodo knew that if he did it would be soon, and so there was nothing left to do now but wait for him. He was very anxious as the minutes flew by, and the sun slowly began to sink lower in the sky, and still no Aragorn had come. He slipped in and out of a semi-consciousness for some time, tarknarkness trying to overtake his mind, but the light always pushing it back to the edges so that it was only just visible. *How ironic that is. Just like the battle with Sauron.* And, just like with Sauron, the light won over, but only at the sound of footsteps echoing through the hallway, getting closer to the door. Frodo tensed, highly doubting that Aragorn would send a servant here, for a servant would most likely feel some sort of pity for him, and go against Aragorn’s wishes. So that only really left one person. Frodo heard the footsteps grow louder as the person came closer to the door, and then stop outside of it. *He’s back!* Frodo instantly jumped up, in a very defensive manner, as the sound of a key turning in the lock of the door reached his ears, and the doorknob slowly began to turn.