Protect & Serve LotR-Lord of the Rings Fanfiction - Fan Fiction -WattyAwards2012

Chapter 5: The Comfort of a Friend

The next several days and nights carried on in much the same pattern. We all started to fall into a comfortable routine. Almost too comfortable.

Intellectually, I understood why a group of all males in this kind of culture had such a hard time allowing a "lady" to perform tasks of a physical nature, but the feminist in me itched at them constantly trying to do things for me.

I began to realize what a fine line the women of my own world had expected our men to walk. We wanted to be able to perform certain tasks for ourselves to feel our own self-worth, but God help the man too rude to open a door for a woman. Being here where the men were taught from childhood to protect and do for their women was an eye-opener to how much my own culture had progressed. I just wasn't sure if the men here would say it was for the better. Maybe not even the women.

It wasn't that Boromir and Aragorn didn't think I could handle certain tasks—I'd proven to them I could march as far as them and take my share of the watches too—but it was a matter of honor that drove them to be so unsettled with allowing me to take on those tasks.

After arguing with the two men about taking my turn at watch duty for the umpteenth time, I'd finally gotten frustrated and told them both to stop thinking of me as a damned woman and to think of me as just another guy. Aragorn had laughed and finally walked away (seemingly anyway) deciding to give up on arguing with me. His people, the Dúnedain, were a wandering people, more used to their women having to perform some of the heavier duties.

Boromir was tougher. His upbringing was more rigid, making it much harder for him to treat any woman as though they were a man. They're both honorable men. You just have to keep reminding yourself of that.

Ironically, I hadn't had to have the same arguments with Legolas or even Gimli. Gimli had laughed and said that though their females were very few in numbers, they did not stand much for coddling either. And Legolas—Legolas was still very careful to keep a certain distance between us, and he certainly avoided anything that might cause an argument.

The two men, Gimli, and Gandalf, took turns pairing with one of the hobbits when taking watches, leaving me to be paired with Legolas each day for our turn.

Regardless of my apologizing to Legolas for telling him to stay away from me and being so rude to him, he continued to keep a modest distance. At least at first.

Each day during our watch, he would stand ever so slightly closer to me. And it irked me to know deep down, it was exactly what I needed. Bit by bit, I grew used to his presence, until he could stand by my side and we could quietly chat. At first just about generalities, and what the hobbits had said or done that day. But eventually we began to speak about our lives and our worlds. He reminded me so much of Mike at times. Mike had known not to try touching me in the beginning of our partnership too. He'd known I'd been damaged by something from my time in the Marines, but he'd been patient, waiting for me to trust him, and eventually, he'd become my closest friend.

Of all the Fellowship, Legolas was the least unnerved when I asked about something or someone in their past that they hadn't yet spoken of. I wasn't certain if it was elves who were more open to that strangeness, or if it was Legolas in particular. He'd looked startled when I asked what it was like to grow up as a prince, but he hadn't hesitated in answering me.

It almost amazed me to realize we had somehow formed an uneasy friendship. He was still careful not to approach me if I might not see or hear him coming, and our conversations hadn't gotten much more in-depth than some basics of each other's pasts. Still, it was a start.

More than that, I felt like piece by piece, I was burying that old childish fear of my father. That old nightmare that he'd find me and take me to Tar-Na-Leigh or find me and just kill me outright. It had been years since I'd seen or even heard of him. So why had I let my fear of him in particular grow so strong?