"I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again."

carrying the world around his neck

"I see no hope of it now. But I've got to do the best I can."

the road goes ever on; | intro!

unprotector:

ninefingered:

Hooded and cloaked as he was, reminded him too much of the Nazgul. He felt their sting most likely as a product from his mind and Frodo held his ground as best he could. Looking every inch the frightened young man when he was anything but. Frightened yes, young, no, in more ways than one. The urge to quail and hide, slip on a thing he no longer had gnawed at him the way an axe might notch marks in a tree, drawing out great agony. 

By the time the face appeared, Frodo had already taken a step back, one hand going to the wooden blade he knew would do no good to any. He could not afford to be lost here. 

Yet what came surprised him..it was a face with lanky hair, solemn and stoic, much like..Aragorn, who during their meeting had been Strider. 

Little he knew to make of it, The nostalgia rang deep within him, as did the feeling of loss. Aragorn had too been untrustworthy to him in the beginning, but now, staring at his solemn eyes he felt something that could be trusted, in some odd way. He missed him. Missed his protection, his guidance and wisdom. He doubted he would ever meet such a Man he trusted more. 

“…You keep to the shadows, are you a Ranger? No, you are not from my land. ” Frodo spoke cautiously, his own face slipping into something of grim weariness, meeting that stare at last with the fear ebbing away. The danger had passed, this one meant no harm..for now.

“What is this place? It is my experience that those that favor shadow are often not to be trusted.”

A Nazgul blade, piercing shoulder, back and soul — darkness, white figures all around and pain, pain that could never be healed —

“I have met only one of your kind who kept to them, and he was honorable beyond measure. Why do you wear a mask to begin with? What do you hide?”

He felt he could not even begin to speak to this Man if he would not give the reason for such an appearance. For such reasons for hiding at all…

Not that he was any better but his Quest remained..regardless of whether he carried the Ring or not.

“This place—they call it Hive City. It is… an experiment. They take us, from our homes and our families and all that we hold dear… and watch us, as we talk and mingle and try our best to make lives here. It’s for their own purposes.” Past that… Corvo knew little.

Why did he hide his face? Before, there had been a reason—he was a wanted man, the most reviled man in an Empire—though that revulsion was not rightfully earned. He was a scapegoat: the falsely accused. Now… he could say the mask was a way to protect himself, in more ways than one. It was the closest thing he had to a friend in a strange city.

The look of fear faded. It was replaced by another expression Corvo knew well. Weariness. Behind the flat expression he wore, it was a feeling he carried in his own heart. This young man… no, the Serkonan was certain that this was an adult, however old, and one who had seen too much of the world’s darkness to be called innocent. The only similarity he would hold with a child was his stature. 

“I am no Ranger, whatever that may be. I am… a soldier. An assassin. Once a Lord Protector—a guardian of royalty.” Why hide it anymore? “I hide myself because it is what I do. I fight from the shadows. Darkness wards me as well as any armor, and arms me as well as any sword. As for my mask…” Corvo paused, looking down at the metal-wrought skull. “I hide my face for it is not loved. I took up the sword to right the world—and to protect someone that many believe I… wronged.” He was leaving out a world of detail—murders, kidnappings, the dark despair of a city drowning in plague—but he’d just met this fellow. What else could he say?

He listened, certain he was dreaming. It would make no sense. Eru no longer granted him pleasant dreams and the hobbit had ‘nightmares’ instead. But this talk of 'experiments’ of being ripped from that which was proof that all he had suffered with Sam wasn’t for nothing was gone was enough to send his cornflower blue eyes darkening, mouth pressing firm and tight. 

“…So they would – rip from me what I must do? By Elbereth, ” Frodo muttered, heart racing, one dirtied hand going into dusted curls, ringing them out as if in a spasm of nervousness. 

“I thought I had seen all the evils –the greatest of them all, but they show cruelty fitting of the name. Tell me, how do I meet with them? They have..taken things from me that cannot be in the hands of any other.” Already his cryptic speech might have revealed too much. His eyes hooded, the fear gone, slipping in spots within his eyes but all that was left now was weariness and a sense of ragged determination.

The Ringbearer certainly couldn’t stay, not without his guide nor his dearest companion. 

“And what of my companions? Where are they? I do not trust them with one another, more like are they to harm and wound each other than make peace – in a far darker place than this.” Frodo’s voice raised slightly, anger touching his tone, his dark brows furrowing tightly. 

Yet his voice went entirely silent once Corvo began to be as Frodo demanded – honest, withholding nothing of his occupation. Assassins were hardly pleasant occupations and he couldn’t say he rightly approved but his morals were skewed by his need for passage, Smeagol was the prime of example of that. 

By the end, the one thing that Frodo had not lost in any way shape or form, that somehow the Ring had not warped, was his compassion. By the end of the tale he listened with furrowed brows, eyes now lit with sympathy. 

“…So you are a blameless man forced beneath a mask for the sake of a people who..who think you have murdered unjustly? I suppose..that makes sense. But in the land I go, no one wears such a thing without being associated with the Enemy.”

Frodo’s voice was still guarded, wary but unable to keep the compassion from slipping into his words. 

“…So, if you please, keep the mask off, if you mean to aid me.”

“Though I have no funds to repay you, no gold or riches. I cannot even find my own companion. He could be in far greater perils..”