Long Walk Home

Chapter Eight

Rain pattered lightly against the windowpanes, the sound soothing as Boromir lay there, content with Eleri in his arms, her head resting against him, her arm draped over his stomach. It was only unfortunate that his thoughts were nearly as soothed as his body was, for he'd only told her part of what happened, of why he'd nearly been felled by the Uruk-hai.

He couldn't tell her the entire truth—of how he'd betrayed the Fellowship's trust by trying to take the Ring from Frodo. There was nothing in his life that shamed him more than his actions at Amon Hen, where the halfling was concerned and whilst Aragorn had assured him all was well and he understood, it haunted Boromir to no end just the same. He'd wrestled with the Ring's calling him from the time he'd laid eyes upon it in Rivendell, only to have it become a siren to him, its lure growing more powerful with each day.

She stirred then, rising onto one elbow to gaze down at him. "I thought you were asleep, you were so quiet."

"No. I'm just at peace right now, is all."

She smiled. "Good to know. Tell me," she trailed her finger over a narrow white line across his left lower ribs, "where did you get this scar?"

"My best mate, believe it or not. We fifteen and were fooling about with swords we had no business touching and he caught me unawares."

"A sword?"

He chuckled at the horror in her voice. "It was but a small blade. Small, but definitely sharp. It took fifteen sutures to close it."

"Tell me he at least apologized."

"He did. Especially when I swung back and gave him twenty sutures for his trouble."

"You did not!"

He eased onto his side to face her, propping his head on his fist as he drank in the sight of her. Her dark hair, no longer held back in its braid, spilled over her shoulder in a fall of loose waves, her eyes were no longer quite so sleepy, looking almost black in the fading sunlight of late afternoon.

"I certainly did."

"How terrible."

"He swung first."

"Still." She smiled, her gaze moving along his upper body and he waited until she brushed her fingertips along the right side of his chest, just below his collarbone. "And this one?"

"I ran into a bit of trouble on my way to Rivendell."

"Orcs."

He nodded, his eyelids growing heavy as she continued to stroke over his skin. Then, she traced her fingers along a diagonal from just above the inner edge of his left eyebrow, almost to his hairline. "And this one?"

"That one? My brother."

"What?"

"My brother. When we were younger. Faramir caught me with a boat hook down at one of the docks."

"You are joking."

"I am not. But worry not, he got his in the end."

"I'll wager he did."

"What about you?" he managed to murmur, sliding his hand up along her left hip, where earlier he'd spied the thin white line ran from the bone toward the middle of her lower belly.

"Nothing nearly as exciting, I'm afraid."

He met her eyes. "Tell me."

"When my village stood," she murmured, tracing her fingers over the scar on his forehead, "my mother was the midwife, but my father owned an inn. It was much like this one—rundown and ramshackle—but it was a roof over our heads and a few coins in our pockets, which meant food on the table.