Long Live the Captains

You don’t need the answer as much as you need to see that deceitful mouth twitch and tighten, as too predictable images float up before his mind’s eye. The sight is fleeting, yet you cherish it better than any words he could say.  

“You utter the strangest things, dove,” your Captain states with no particular expression.

His eyes are still closed. Your heart forgets how to beat, shrinking in sweet pain, as you touch the very tips of his eyelashes and stroke them as carefully as you can afford it.

“I do them, too,” you whisper more to yourself than to him.

He looks so distant, and so close, and stern, and defenseless.

The armchair by the fire is built sturdy enough to hold the weight of you, curled on his laps and clinging to his exhausted self like bindweed.  

It is unkind – wicked of you to enjoy such moments, when you have to thank his tiredness for that.

For a blissfully long sting of minutes all you can think of is how his breath becomes more and more even, tamed by the movements of your hand, running through his hair over and over again.

“I must go down.”  

“Yes, do,” you agree easily, “Nobody wants you here.”

“Shall I stay and make them?” there’s no single kind note in his voice, but the gleam in his eyes makes up for it to the full.   

You allow yourself a laugh that is more of a sigh.  

“Stay and sleep. They will look for reasons to put up with you meanwhile.”

The arm, which was up to now slack around your waist, gains strength and presses you to him too hard for a caress.

You lose yourself in another endless kiss.

“Consider this one,” offers he as evenly.

You nod, not ashamed of letting him see how you’re learning to breathe again. Lifting his spirits is worth the fear of denial in your book.

“I’ll bring you the furs,” you say, as he finally relaxes back into the tattered seat.

“No,” the protest is sharp and almost order-like.

Startled by this sudden harshness, you pull back, yet he doesn’t let you to slip away too far. It is not his embrace, but his look that stops you this time. The weariness and despair in it drive a knife through your chest, wiping out everything except your love for him – that and pity you hope he’ll never know you harbour for him.

“Please, dove,” asks he under his breath, “I need…”

“I know,” you cut in, unable to bear it any longer, “Take your rest, Boromir.”     

 His palm ghosts against your cheek in gratitude, and you wish you could shut out every emotion that comes with it. You wish for it to end and to go on.

You close your eyes, too, and dissolve in his arms, longing to be reborn into a safer world tomorrow.

He pondered on the matter so deeply that he barely noticed he had already reached the Great Gate, where he must face the night watch on duty before he could flee towards his day of freedom.

Dark eyes underneath a silver helm squinted up at Boromir’s face, showing recognition but registering no surprise. After a brief pause, nothing more than a cough left the sentry's lips. No names uttered, no interrogation, not even an order to lower his hood. The lead guard gave a signal to his fellow watchmen to open the great door and then stepped back, waving the Captain through the City Wall. 

Concerns over being stopped had never even crossed Boromir’s mind; not once in their shared lifetime had Faramir ever failed to deliver on a promise. 

And so out of the White City Boromir rode, driving his horse off the Gateway and galloping into the grassy fields of Pelennor. He headed north-east, traversing farmlands and cutting fresh trails through rough terrain just to forge the shortest possible route to his destination. 

To her. 

His heart thundered in competition with the pace of his horse’s hooves. Just conjuring her face in his mind, imagining how it would feel to stand within reaching distance of her, close enough to receive her smiles and be caressed by her sweet scent…

He shifted his weight forward and increased the pressure of his legs on his horse’s sides. The mare responded by surging forward with full vigor, as though charging into one of their many battles together, and Boromir made a silent promise to reward his faithful steed accordingly upon their arrival. 

Bring her flowers. Faramir’s parting advice hounded him throughout the ride, refusing to be dismissed as an optional gesture. His brother meant well, but the suggestion did little to bolster and plenty to shake Boromir’s confidence. The Captain-General of Minas Tirith, Heir to the Stewardship of Gondor, commanded plenty of admirable skills, but wooing ladies had never been one of them. At least not in ways considered customary, if his ignorance on gifting protocols was of any indication. Courting traditions were something he never considered worth taking the time to learn, since there were no women who motivated him enough to care about such frivolities.

And then he met her, in whom he found every motivation to start caring. Every reason to even continue being. Boromir had come face to face with a battle he could not rely on his sword or strength to conquer. This confused and frustrated him in ways that should have made him angry. Instead, he could not think of another time in his life when he had ever been happier. 

She was worth feeling like an idiot for. 

Halfway through his journey, he stopped by a small stream to give his hardworking horse some water and a brief rest. As he paced up and down the loamy bank, ruminating upon reunion scenarios and conversation topics in his head, Boromir's gaze drifted across the running waters. It idly scanned the open fields that stretched out all the way to the nearest farmhouse, located at least a mile off. Suddenly, his anxiety-ridden brain registered the sight of bright yellow dots scattered about the freshly sprung carpet of pale wild grass, bobbing merrily upon their long stalks with the passing breezes. 

Flowers! Boromir rushed forward eagerly, drawing his dagger to immediately start cutting up bunches and bunches of the yellow blooms, until he had enough to fill the clutch of his left hand. He produced a passably clean cloth from his saddle pack and used it to tie together the bundle of wildflowers, finally feeling relieved and mayhaps even a little proud of his victory. 

The rest of his journey passed with greater ease in the knowledge he would not be arriving empty-handed. The sun had completed its ascent into the cloudless azure sky as he approached the small farming village known simply as Northmere. Once a place of such meager consequence that the Captain of Gondor did not even know of its existence, it had become the most precious location outside of the White City to him before he even had a chance to set foot in it.

A straw-roofed cottage with a fenced-in front garden and a blue-painted door. She had told him exactly how to find her house, and there were not many around to choose from. Walking alongside his horse, Boromir crossed what seemed to be the market square, just a handful of shops to provide the locals with basic essentials.

One store keeper, a burly older man with flour-dusted arms and apron, came out to his doorway to watch the stranger pass through. He caught Boromir's gaze over the distance and simply nodded his head, perhaps even cracking a smile behind his bushy gray beard. Boromir suspected some other curious eyes tracked him from surrounding windows, but no further interactions were attempted.

He found the blue painted door towards the end of a long, worn dirt road that bisected the cluster of houses comprising most of the village. Like reaching mythical treasure at the end of a quest, it filled him with triumphant excitement to approach it. 

And nervousness. Valar, his hands never trembled this much clutching his sword as he faced down death on the battlefield. But there he stood at the pathwalk of the cheery cottage, unarmoured and weaponless, preparing to stand in the presence of his greatest weakness, the one who made him feel more vulnerable than any deadly foe from Mordor ever could. 

He felt a sudden, firm shove on his back that made him stumble slightly. He chuckled and reached over to pat his horse's neck; he had stood there frozen for so long that his friend felt the need to check on him. "Yes, yes, yes…" he muttered, half to himself. "I am going!"

"Boromir?"

His heart soared at the voice that spoke his name, a sound fairer than any birdsong, and he turned sharply in its direction, pulsing with anticipation from head to toe.

The image of her face had scarcely left his thoughts since they parted exactly one week past. But his memory was a lying, grasping fool that had done no justice to the vision that now stood before him. She stepped out of her little front garden and walked the short path to him, her ear-to-ear smile and sparkling eyes flooding Boromir with mutual joy, even though she could not possibly be as happy to see him as he was to finally gaze upon her. 

She had been tending her garden while waiting for his arrival; he noticed the potting soil that lingered on her slender hands and the smudges on the white apron over her skirt. Her cheeks bore the rosy flush of physical labor, and the long waves of her unpinned hair blew freely around her shoulders. She was so effortless in her natural grace, so wonderfully different from the prim and powdered ladies of Minas Tirith that his father regularly forced (or forced themselves) into his company. 

It still astonished Boromir how such beauty could have escaped his notice for so long, and he had praised Eru ever since for opening his eyes to Ioreth's young apprentice from the Houses of Healing. For all the times he had teased Faramir for burying his nose in books instead of looking at the world around him, it turned out he had been the one cursed with certain blindness all along. 

“You came,” she said softly, stopping tantalizingly short of his arm's reach. She stared up at him with open affection that warmed the Captain to his deepest fibers. "I had hoped for it, but I did not think you would be able to get away."

“I told you I would come, and nothing would have stopped me," Boromir said quickly, and perhaps too fervently. 

"I… I have missed…" Her voice failed her on the last word as shyness overpowered her excitement over his arrival. She ducked her head, hiding her blush behind her curtain of hair, as she twisted up the fabric of her apron between her jittery hands. 

"I just could not wait to see you again," Boromir said hoarsely. "I could not have borne a second longer without you."

"O-Oh. Y-You honor me, my lord." And the blushing maiden answered his abrupt confession with a polite curtsy.

Her sweetness and modesty crushed Boromir with a sense of unworthiness to even stand in her presence. He felt torn between a strange compulsion to fall to his knees, and an utterly improper desire to seize her and just hold her close against him. 

How did he get by a whole seven days away from her? And the more agonizing thought: how would he force himself to part from her again after this?

"Are… are those for…what are those for?"

Boromir stared blankly at the bundle of yellow flowers he clutched in his right hand, an overlong pause passing before he remembered their purpose. “These are for you,” he confirmed, reaching out with the offering. “I… I thought you would like them.”

In accepting the flowers, she stepped closer to decrease the distance that separated them, and her fingers grazed against his in the transfer. Boromir’s hand twitched as impulse rebelled against manners, and he very nearly made a greedy grab for her hand.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, gracing him with a gentle smile that was real beauty beyond comparison. By Eru, Boromir thought in sudden despair. What was he thinking coming to her with such a pathetic gift, so far below what she deserved?! For a maiden as gloriously fair as the sun itself, he should have brought the finest treasures from the most expensive shops in Minas Tirith, if not the very jewels from the coffers of the Steward. 

She held the posy up to her nose, sweeping the golden petals across her freckled cheeks and berry-pink lips, and Boromir felt overcome with a feverish desire to trade places with the flowers at that moment.

“It is nothing…” he mumbled weakly. 

She shook her head, her face at once firm and determined. “It is everything,” she corrected, raising her gaze to meet his with renewed courage. “You are everything.”

And with two more steps to eliminate the gap, she pressed herself against the warmth of his chest, tucking her head neatly underneath his chin, their bodies already a perfect fit for each other’s embrace. Boromir enveloped her in his arms, promising with all his strength that he would find some way to be worthy of this, of her, even if he had to scour all of Middle-earth for the right flower to profess just how deeply he had fallen in love with her.

Perhaps his wise little brother could help him again.

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You could be blowing on cold water, though…His posture didn’t change - no strain came into the way he’d leaned against the door relaxedly, as if to decorate it with himself and look at you was all he meant to do for hours. The only alteration in him was how the edges of his mouth were curving upward now, so slightly you were doubting your own vision.

It must have been the damned weightless veil that let the sight you had made of yourself pass unnoticed for his eyes.

“I can leave, if you wish.”

His voice was low and soft.

He was playing with you. Suffocating in this bedchamber, like a bird in a trap, you resented it deeply. Like there was, indeed, a chance to help yourself out of your duty.

“No, please,” was all you could rasp out.

You wouldn’t have the whole Minas Tirith despise you for how you had failed to consummate your marriage to its best and most admired prize.  

His smile turned into a smirk. You’d had no time to bat an eye, before his tunic met the floor, and the undershirt followed it, leaving him half-naked and you – half-dead with consternation.

“I’m not touching you,” repeated he in a slow, mollifying undertone, “But I won’t scream murder if you touch me.”  

Blood surged to your face quicker than your heart could bear it.

Feeling like an utter fool, you allowed your legs to buckle under you and have you land onto the soft wedding bed, as if someone had suddenly cut the strings which held you upright.  

The man nodded, regarding you with as calm an air.   

“Not the time yet, then,” said he flatly, “Do not trouble yourself.”

His was bigger than you remembered even since morning. He hadn’t been that close to you then, or you hadn’t perceived it so acutely as now, when he took a seat next to you, his shoulders down, but still proudly broad.

An almost indifferent hand closed down on yours. You held a breath, as he pulled it up and against his chest, and let it stay there, against the skin so hot it seemed he was burning on the inside.

You bit through your lip – and realized it only when the taste of flesh rose in your mouth, sweet or sour – it was all the same to you. It was impossible to stop staring at the interlacement of his fingers and yours, pressed to his torso so closely that not even a hair could be pulled in between.

“Isn’t it awful?” murmured Boromir with a look of a boy, ready for a mischief unimaginable.

…You couldn’t say how you’d ended up lying next to him under the dusty furry canopy in the bed too huge for two.

Neither could you remember how he’d lulled your vigilance and cradled you into a loose embrace.

All you knew was that your hand was still draped over his chest, touching him lightly and quite willingly now.