Chapter Text
Boromir fought his way back to life, like the captain of Gondor he was, like the warrior he had been forced to become, he refused to let the darkness take him so easily; to see the halls of his ancestors without putting in one last fight would not suite him, would not suite everything that had made him what he was, he would fight until the bitter end to keep the shadows at bay.
Slowly he won the battle, inch by inch, moment by moment, breath after laborious breath, and soon the shadow across his heart faded and he found himself once more.
The first few times he woke meant little more to him as waking from an ill dream would have, it felt as if he were halfway between wake and sleep, and though he was in command of himself once more he was not yet in full command of his mind.
He drifted in and out of consciousness until at last he won that battle as well and opening his eyes with new clarity, he found himself in the smallest and shabbiest of huts he’d seen in quite some time.
It was a wonder it was still even standing; the very thought made him uneasy as a sudden heavy wind shook the rafters above him, but the figure out of the corner of his eye moving about the room was unaffected and calm, and it eased his sudden bought of nerves enough to allow him to study his surroundings.
Carefully turning his head and wincing at the sudden pain it brought, a sharp pain around his temples and a deeper aching in his bones, Boromir studied the small hut and found his first impression still relevant, but it had brighter touches of a warmer feeling than before.
The hovel was indeed in desperate need of repair, in some places along the roof large tarps had been stretched over broken wood shingles above to keep the weather at bay, and the walls were sturdy enough but as heavily repaired as the roof and looked to be slowly rotting away.
The floor was dirt but was so well packed it was as stiff and unyielding as if it had been stone, and across the area his cot lay on, a thick woolen rug had been laid down to give some illusion of comfort.
The cot itself he was resting upon, from feel alone, was made of thick ropes bound back and forth over a sturdy wooden frame and had a mattress filled stiff with perhaps the scratchiest, most irritating straw he’d ever felt stuffed within. It dug into his back and scratched his skin and made his nose feel as if he were forever on the edge of a sneeze.
It was far from the worst place he’d ever slept.
The hearth was the only true work of craftsmanship about the place, and he could clearly see it had been cleverly made and with care as it was the strongest piece the room held, and while the shack around it had fallen into disrepair, its stones were still whole and carefully tended to.
All in all, while it was crumbling around him, the room held little touches of life; the well-kept stone fireplace, the woolen rug underneath his cot, the little collection of hand worked trinkets and jars along the windowsill, they all spoke of hardships but peace within those hardships.
As Boromir took all this in quickly, the lone figure moving about the hut caught his attention again and as he looked to her, he found he knew her.
She was a ghostly phantom in the back of his mind; images of fire and gold surrounded her figure, and as she bent closer toward the hearth, a fire crackling loudly and bright within, the light caught against her hair and he understood the shadow of flames in his long dark dreams had come from the sight of her hair.
It was strange and alluring compared to the ladies of Minas Tirith, both in court and out of it; the women of Gondor had dark tresses, very rarely any other color excepting a deep brown or rich black, to see gold was rare, to see shades of amber even rarer.
Both hair colors were sought out among the ladies of court, with some even going so far as to try and make their hair unnaturally colored, in Boromir’s eyes those attempts had never worked and simply tarnished their image in his sight.
The ladies of Gondor always had their hair pulled back or heavily covered with kerchiefs or veils of some type.
If he had ever got a glimpse of uncovered, and more importantly unbound hair, it had been mostly from his mother during those softer nights when he had been but a child and she’d come to the nursery rooms to visit him and his younger brother.
This had been when the world had been asleep and she had thrown the mantle of the lady of Gondor from her shoulders and was simply and above all things his mother.
It was in those moments when he’d seen her carefree, with hair unbound, the length of it nearly reaching her knees, and she had shown a different side of herself to him. When she had laughed and sang and danced and they had acted without constraint, there had even been times when his father had joined them and though those nights had been subdued she’d still shown a more open air than when she was a lady of the court.
Now that she had passed, Boromir had rarely seen such a sight from a woman from the race of men; elven maidens didn’t count in his mind, they were otherworldly and while he had stayed many weeks among them and seen many an unbound head of hair, the effect of it had been slightly soured by the fact the men had their long tresses as freely unbound as the women had.
This woman was different however, her hair unbound and untethered, fell across her back and over one shoulder like a molten waterfall, its length, he guessed, would reach to her waist when she straightened, and the rich amber like color caught the light from the hearth and made it almost glow with a fiery intensity.
Boromir didn’t wonder too much why his mind had turned to such odd thoughts, to his mother, to the odd sight of the woman’s hair, he had faced death many times over the past few weeks, and it was a comfort to turn his mind to such trivial things such as a set of fine amber tresses.
When the maiden turned her head as she worked at something in a pot being held over the fire, he was allowed a better view to study her face and found two alarming things at once.
First, she was far younger than he’d first assumed, even in his half dreaming state he’d thought she had been older than himself, all healers who had tended to him in the past years had been so.
The strong capable hands that had cared for him in his sickness had made him feel this was true, but now he could clearly see she was younger than him, perhaps even younger than his brother and they were nearly six years apart.
As for the second thing that shocked him, he found her skin wasn’t just glowing from the fire, it was tanned and as sun kissed as his own.
Of all things, this shocked him the most, even the lowest maid of Minas Tirith did their best to keep their skin unblemished and untouched by the sun, and though he’d often heard of the differences between the women at home and those of the fields of Pelennor, he never dreamed they would be so brazen as this.
Then again, as he studied the shack around him, her age, and the great skill she showed in healing, he wondered if she were an abnormality among their women. Certainly, they could not all be so bold?
As she worked and he watched her in silence, the haze filled dreams of the previous few nights crashed over him.
The forests of Parth Galen, the orcish arrows piercing his skin, the breathless run across the fields of Pelennor aided and kept alive only by his brethren.
Yes, he considered them all his brethren now, the very thought of anything else was abhorrent to him, they had been more than willing to die alongside one another in that forest and all three had pulled him from deaths calming embrace with as much intensity as they’d fought.
If they had not stopped a precious half hour and the heir to the throne of Gondor himself not treated his wounds, Boromir knew without a doubt he would have passed into the halls of his ancestors that very hour he had fallen.
The very thought of defeat crawled under his skin and urged him to move, to do something, anything, other than laying in a sick bed, and Boromir used this sudden surge of determination to sit up.
Tossing aside the thin blanket covering over him, it was little more than ornament it was so frayed and worn, he shockingly found he was naked from the waist up.
Or at least he would have been if not almost every inch of exposed skin had not been covered by a cloth either soaked in some odd smelling poultice or bound around him in thick layers.
The strain in his muscles as he moved showed the skill of the healer wasn’t born from magic or strange things he could not understand as he still keenly felt where the arrows had once been deeply embedded into flesh and muscle.
The deep-set aching around these wounds also showed that the arrows had been very likely dipped in something foul and Boromir knew whatever Aragon had done to him before that mind numbing race had kept the poison at bay.
The sudden movement from him had the woman stilling and she turned towards him with a surprising purse of her lips in disapproval.
At the sudden and odd sense of embarrassment that rushed over him, Boromir chided himself over the fact she’d tended to his wounds and knew him now as well as he knew himself, though found it was difficult to be completely unaffected simply because the healer woman was young, and he could not deny now that he saw the full effect of her face, she was rather alluring.
While not uncommonly pretty, there was a certain set of her brows that showed a strength of character and a fullness in her lips that softened an otherwise harsh outline of the jaw.
Boromir would’ve shaken his head had he naught though the move would’ve send him into a dizzy spell and had she not been staring at him, all these strange thoughts were getting to him.
He shouldn’t be studying the woman who had saved his life so intently, he shouldn’t be beguiled by the long, lush mane of hair she possessed. He should be working to regain his strength, he should be doing everything his power to get back on his feet.
Boromir blinked a the sudden wave of dizziness that crashed over him from his sudden move to sit up and realized he had every right to let his thoughts wander again, he clearly wasn’t fit enough to even stand much less take up both shield and sword, so he inwardly chided his weakness and allowed his mind to wander at will.
At the moment he thought the healer woman before him looked unusually beautiful when she was upset.
Instead of her face showing surprise at his sudden move in sitting up, she displayed a flat brow and a mouth pursed to one side in clear displeasure.
Her voice was neither sweet nor alluring as he imagined it would be as she very bluntly stated, “I would have hoped you would be different than the men of Rohan, but I suspect that all men are the same in manner and stubbornness no matter where they are from.”
She walked across the room as she talked and gathered a wooden bowl and spoon and then moved towards the hearth to scoop something from the pot that was bubbling away over the flames into the bowl before walking towards him.
“Here, as long as you can sit up for yourself, I think you are quite capable of eating for yourself.”
Boromir took the bowl and found it filled with a hearty looking stew, it was mostly root vegetables of some kind, but he did spy a bit of what looked to be mutton or rabbit peeking out within.
Carefully tasting it, because it had come out of the pot at a rather molten like temperature, he found that while it needed a bit more seasoning for his own preferences, it was made bland and filling enough for a weakened stomach like his and he was grateful for it all the same.
“Do you know what time it is?” He questioned as he slowly ate, finding the single window to his left was covered heavily with a well-oiled tarp that blocked out both the light and any curious individuals wondering who might be inside.
She moved closer after she’d filled her own bowl and took a seat near his cot and stirred her own spoon slowly around the bowl in her hand as she answered, ““It is nearly sunset, you have slept nearly all day and I am glad for it. The wounds you suffered from were of a dangerous type, but you are healing fast and I see no reason for you to worry yourself over them. You have passed out of harms way, I have no doubt you will recover with only a few scars to show for your troubles.”
Boromir nodded not truly caring if another set of scars came is way as long as he would survive the wounds they had been born from, and then with another sudden rush of confusing embarrassment hitting him, he said softly, “Forgive me, but I cannot seem to remember your name.”
At this her face softened into a look of amusement and it caused her deep brown eyes to gleam and her entire expression to soften in a way that almost made her beautiful, “Hilde. We spoke last night, though I am not surprised you remember very little of it considering how close to death you were.”
Boromir looked more deeply at her face again as he tried to remember their conversation and it was then he saw the unmistakable signs of sorrow in her eyes and he was deeply moved by it.
In a moment, he remembered the hushed conversation between herself and what he now assumed was one of the men of the Kings court during the darkest hours of the night, and with that remembrance brought the news that the king’s son was dead.
He sipped carefully at the soup, ignoring the spoon as he used the rim of the bowl to eat by, and gathered his thoughts before he commented as gingerly as possible, “I am sorry to hear of the loss of prince Theodred.”
Hilde was quiet for long moment as she stirred at the bowl of soup in her hands listlessly, and her answer was carefully controlled though he could still detect a sense of strain in her tone, “He was a good man. He would have made a good king.”
“He was indeed a good man.” Boromir nodded.
She looked at him with sudden interest though it was veiled heavily with suspicion, “You knew him?”
“I met with him, once, many years ago when…” Boromir paused as he realized while she had saved him she might not feel as inclined to treat him again should he need it if she knew he was the son of Denethor, he knew she’d taken a chance treating him at all knowing he was a soldier from Gondor.
Instead, he chose his words carefully, “He came through Gondor many years ago, to the city of my home, Minas Tirith, he was but a young lad then, but I could still see a sense of greatness about him.”
To his surprise and alarm she suddenly stood and looked so bitter he regretted ever mentioning the subject.
“He was foolish.” Hilde turned from him suddenly but not quick enough to hide the tears glistening in her eyes and Boromir found her open remark about the prince quite interesting.
Again, if she had been a lady of Gondor she would have never been so brazen and bold to make a statement like that in front of someone like him, and again he found the difference vastly confusing.
Her voice was hard to catch as she almost whispered, “He never should have gone with the scouts.”
“He was a soldier of Rohan, was he not?” Boromir questioned and she glanced over her shoulder to him with sudden furrowed brows.
Her eyes glanced him over and he felt suddenly, and again surprisingly, very small as she showed a sense of pride as she stated, “All of our kings are warriors. Born and bred by hardship and war. We will not be led by anyone who does not show they have a heart and will to protect our people with their very lives.”
Boromir tried not to feel the sting of that comment, knowing quite well how the people of Edoras felt about the steward of Gondor, knowing quite well his father would never make such a sacrifice, knowing quite well now that his people needed their true king back on the throne.
Boromir took the comment bravely and stayed silent.
With a nod he sipped at the bowl of stew again, nearly finished with the portion he’d been given, “He knew the risk of war then…as we all do.”
Her expression faltered underneath a sort of look of understanding and then as she turned to face him again, he found her eyes could show as much fire as her hair could, “They will not win. They cannot win.”
Again, her expression shifted, and she took in a deep breath before looking at him with more tenderness than she’d shown yet, “Forgive me, we should not speak of such things. There will be time enough after you are well, you should sleep now, you need your rest.”
“I am quite able to keep speaking.” Boromir protested but the slight set of her mouth told him she knew he was lying, the aches and pains that he’d been ignoring were hitting him in full now and he felt as if he had just ran the full length of the fields of Pelennor.
From the set of her brow he had a feeling if he protested again she would outright shove him back onto the cot, and while a part of him wished to challenge her just to see if his suspicions were true, Boromir realized the thought was a dangerous one so he relented.
Just before he drifted off again, this time sleep beckoning him in a comforting way rather than trying to pull him into the depths of shadow and despair, Hilde took a seat near his cot, and he was glad to have her beside him as he slowly drifted back to rest.
Just as he drifted off, he thought he heard her murmur, “Sleep well, Captain.”
Then for the first time since he’d fallen ill, his dreams were sweet and free of pain.