By: Dana
Summary: "It calls you home. Do you not hear it?"
Characters: Frodo, Maglor
Pairings: None
Rating: G
Warnings: Sad
Author's Notes: I don't think I really have an excuse. Well, other than that Elly made me. Set post-quest, but pre-sailing.
Yes, this is that Maglor, the one of Silmarillion fame.
A set in progress: And The Singing Sea, The Last Light.
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema. Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

It seems that you have seen him, before, walking at the water, though only in dream. He walks alone – he is always alone – dark and drifting, like something made of shadow, or song. And he does song – music follows him, and some, something ageless, something beyond all time, something so haunting, and so hurting, that you feel it bleeding into bone.

You go to him, though he walks ahead. He understands, you think – what it is, to have, and what it is, to feel such loss. Always ahead, fading into grey-white sea-mist, and the endless rolling of the white-crested surf.

"Do you know this place?" he asks.

There is water at your feet, warm salt-water, and the faint feeling of sinking that comes as your feet press deeply into the wet sand. "No," you say. "Only that we stand at the sea."

"It calls you home. Do you not hear it?"

"What do you say?"

"Do you not hear it, Frodo Baggins? It calls you home."

He has stopped. You turn from him, facing out into the thick mist that hangs low upon the water. It fades before you, a veil parting upon the sea, and there it is, now: light, shining bright and clear, warm and welcoming, as if a light of life, and healing, and home.

He speaks again. There is such wistfulness, such longing, in his voice. "If I could but… " and that is all he says, for he speaks no more. You turn to him, and he looks at it, to the west, with such a yearning in his eyes, and on his face. You could ask him, why?, and he would give his answer, he would know, and you would understand.

"Oh," he says, a whisper of breath, "if I could but go home."

It seems that he is fading now, and this is not right, not when there is still so much that you would ask them, that you would have him say. "No – " you shout, and reach for him, though it seems that your fingers are clutching at mist. He does not speak, smiling instead, as bittersweet and timeless as the diminished light of stars.

He is gone, and you are left there, alone, standing at the water, with no company but the wet sand, and the singing sea: you hear it, clearly, now that he is gone, calling you home.