Body in the Abyss, Heart in Cornetto

“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”

“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”

Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”

“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”

“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”

“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”

“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”

“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”

Research

Dissertation (piss off your entire field)

Teach middle-schoolers

Be the first person to be in contact with alien life (non-sentient)

Have your dissertation (also what killed your career) be proven wrong

Kill and also breed alien life

Become expert in said life

Become first person to be in contact with alien life (sentient)

Successfully communicate and solve the universe’s biggest problem with sentient alien life

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

For that particular vintage of hurt-comfort fics with hurt caleb and protective essek with a proportionate (or disproportionate and very hinged) response and im like smiling-cat-in-front-of-plate-of-pancakes dot jpeg

Please check fic warnings as appropriate before reading. General warnings for blood/injury, descriptions of canon-typical violence etc. The Night Where Dark Stars Rise by onyxshinagami

An unknown magician tries to ensnare Caleb. Essek reminds the fool why he was once a Shadowhand.

In the hope of open hands by SkyScribbles

Essek extends a hand towards the base of Caleb’s neck. Then freezes, as if he doesn't quite dare to touch. His fingertips hover over Caleb’s throat, a breath away from the pale streak of a scar, the place where a Scourger’s shiv struck home and sprayed blood over the walls of the Dungeon of Penance. ‘I did this,’ Essek says. His voice is quiet enough to scrape in his throat. ‘I allowed this to happen.’

bow shock by SaltCore * (AO3-locked)

Adventuring might be behind Caleb, but danger is not. Late in the night, someone comes to settle a score with him on behalf of their mutual teacher. They did not account for Caleb playing host to someone with very strong opinions about that, and the magic to back them up.

Paper, Ink by aeli_kindara

“I would like you to know me,” Caleb says. It feels like a secret. Like the darkest part of him cracked open; all his months and years of hiding, of wrapping his arms and scratching the bindings, of not loving, not loving anything but an unkillable cat — it’s unraveling around him. He feels naked. He feels the way he did the first time Pumat Sol spelled him clean. “I find that — I would like you to know me,” he says, again.

Fear Won't Keep You Safe by athena_crikey

Caleb feels his hair falling heavily over one shoulder, loose at the back. He reaches up, manacle clanking, and feels that Essek has woven braids into his hair on one side, some large and chunky, some thin and delicate. His eyebrows climb and he looks at the drow who seems almost to… blush? “Apologies – you were in pain and I… I do not deal well with being helpless. You can take them out, I know they are not an Empire style.”

of things yet to come by ghostsquidswrites