It’s too like Bilbo to ask of things. Especially why his favorite nephew is this age and not hale and hearty as he might have expected. Is instead covered in scars and a terrible look in his eyes, that no person should have in them. The look of someone who is being destroyed but still walks, as if there is no other choice.
Something in Frodo recoils at the idea of telling him anything, and he knows he can’t. The pain of it, of what causes this, along with all that his journey has done to him, was a result of that small little thing in his pocket all those years.
Almost instantly his nephew turns his eyes away, the smile he once had for him fading until it is entirely gone, revealing a figure much like the veteran from a war — who is still within that war. Doomed to return.
“Do not ask me this. I can’t.”
For a second time, Frodo takes a step back away from his Uncle, against a hand that had once been clawed and a face that had been wild and monstrous.
“I..I cannot tell you. Please, be as you are. Happy and content to be in a place full of adventure…not troubled by me. Please, Uncle..I do this for your sake. ”
Everything I do is for your sake, and the Shire’s, and Merry, and Pippin, and Sam and the Fellowship and all the good people that are still alive.
His voice is pained, smile painfully returning to his lips, stretched and broken in too many places.“Think of your little nephew at home. Think much more of him than of me. I am not the same person as he. “ He nearly begged, before he took another step back, turning his back to him before moving as if to walk away from him.
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