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There. I'll set aside the mithril coat and Sting for you, Frodo. If time grants it to you and me to meet again, and if you fly into danger, you shall need the weapons I used once, long ago.
The years have dealt all too hastily with me, and I feel them each come creeping up, swifter than they should. A day feels like a hundred, and my bones ache more with every nightfall, even in the house of Elrond. I am old, Frodo, and now I look it.
Sometimes I miss the Ring. Sometimes. I find myself feeling for it, seeking it, not finding it, panicking. For a moment only. The longing comes over me, and only the quiet moments spent in the sun, or talking with one of the Elves of the household, can ease my pain.
Do you suffer too, in the Shire, Frodo, as I suffer here? And do you miss me as much as I miss you?
They tell me that the Shadow is growing. Out there in the darkness, somewhere, Evil is stirring. And I know my Ring is bound up with that somehow -- do not ask me how. I know it as one knows the footstep of an enemy. Gandalf knows it too. He has been on long journeys over the last few years, trying to find out just what the Ring is.
Oh, but I shouldn't be talking like this. It's not the Ring I miss so much as you. Just to have you here with me, talking over trivial hobbit matters like the number of potatoes Gaffer Gamgee harvested or what those two rascals Merry and Pippin have been up to lately -- what wouldn't I give?
Dear Frodo. I never even said goodbye. Not properly. All I did was leave you a will and a message from Gandalf. Not exactly the most hobbitlike of farewells.
When I kissed the Dunadan goodbye last week, he was rather surprised. But you would not have been. Ah, the customs of hobbits. Even the Elves are a bit standoffish. No race of folk is so entwined with each other as we. No others think a kiss casual. All others would be shocked at what the late nights at Green Dragon really mean. That's usually why we don't let them see, you know. They simply would not understand.
No one touches quite as much as hobbits do. And, Frodo my lad, I miss it.
I miss you. Are you lonely there in Bag End, or have you found a hobbit-lass to share it, or maybe haven't you? You never were one for the girls, always off dreaming over a book instead. I suppose that's my fault, but it's not a bad fault to have. You have Sam, at least, don't you?
And here I am feeling like a dirty old hobbit, prying into my nephew's love life. But really I -- Frodo, I wouldn't have taken it amiss if you had thought to make me part of that love life. No. Not at all.
It's far too late under a full moon, and here I am pouring out my heart on paper in a letter I'll never send, even if I could.
I love you, Frodo. I miss you. And I'm waiting for the day when you will come to see me here.