Sam sat quietly with his head down, eyes rummaging through the floor, unable to focus on anything; his large ears were perked up as he listened attentively to the conversation going on in the room. The words that had been spoken left him as confused as he was shocked. When he decided to come along on this journey, not even his wildest dreams had come close to what the story of the Ring actually was. Not once had he imagined that it was something so evil, with the power of corrupting beings and turning them into another Dark Lord. He wondered if Frodo was informed of all this information when given the Ring. Looking over at his friend, he did not have to wonder for long; Frodo looked as confused as Sam felt.
‘Blimey!’ he thought to himself, ‘How could they do this to poor Frodo?’ He could wrap his mind around how anyone would use his friend like this, taking a kind soul and giving him an enormous responsibility he did not understand. He felt overwhelmingly sorry for his fellow hobbit, who bore the weight of Middle-Earth on his shoulders. The Ring had brought Frodo from the Shire to Rivendell, a route that was filled with danger and peril, and to think that they weren’t even done the journey. Elrond said that it needed to be brought all the way to Mordor, flooding the room with silence.
Sam waited nervously. He had known Frodo for long enough to know what he was about to do. As much as he admired his friend’s seemingly limitless courage, he already mourned for what might happen to him. After what seemed like a lifetime, he heard his friend’s small voice.
‘I will take the Ring,’ he said, ‘though I do not know the way.’
He struggled to look up, almost paralyzed with fear, but he managed to look at Elrond. He had his eyes set on Frodo, looking at him expectantly with a piercing gaze. ‘If I understand aright all that I have heard,’ he said, ‘I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?’
Sam cared not for the Elf’s encouraging words. He congratulated hobbits for something that should have not been brought upon them in the first place. He longed for the days he and Frodo were able to enjoy their quiet fields, and dreaded the moment they would have to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. ‘If they’re so “Great”, why aren’t they doing it themselves?’ Sam thought bitterly.
‘But it is a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it on another. I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty Elf-friends of old, Hador, and Hurin, and T ́rin, and Beren himself were assembled together, your seat should be among them.’
The words tied Frodo into a promise, one he could not break. Sam knew his fate was set. Since they left Bag End, Sam had made a promise of his own: to stick by Frodo’s side, no matter what. He jumped out of where he was hiding, as if breaking through the invisible wall that separated him and the Council.
‘But you won’t send him off alone surely, Master?’ he cried.
‘No indeed!’ said Elrond, turning towards him with a smile. ‘You at least shall go with him. It is hardly possible to separate you from him, even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not.’
Sam sat back down, his cheeks burning. He had no regrets about hiding in the meeting, and Elrond did not seem to be bothered by it.
He then turned to Frodo and said: ‘A nice pickle we have landed ourselves in, Mr. Frodo!’
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