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

Chapter 9: More Questions than Answers

Legolas and I stood together for several more minutes before we both heard Aragorn calling the elf's name. Slowly we parted and walked back to the others.

Aragorn avoided looking at me, turning to the elf, he said, "I want to push across the river by nightfall. You go ahead and ensure our path to at least the edge of the woods is safe, I will push the others along behind as fast as we can travel."

Legolas paused to gauge my expression. I gave him a soft smile, and then nodded my head slightly to the side to indicate for him to continue. He returned my smile with one of his own and a nod in return.

True to his word, Aragorn was soon pushing the remaining fellowship onwards. I silently fell in step with Boromir at the rear as the others followed behind Aragorn.

Boromir was silent and brooding, contemplating what I'd told him about his eventual death. Thank god, he hadn't pressed for more details. Still—he brooded over what I'd told him.

I could hear and feel him fighting and arguing with himself. He wasn't so far lost to the Ring yet that he wasn't unaware of what it was doing to him. He was alarmed by his own fluctuating moods and greatly feared the loss of his honor. Though I'd told him he would die bravely, he doubted that he would ever be able to face his ancestors—and especially his father.

Boromir knew the strain his city was under and his greatest wish was to push the enemy from his land. And that tantalizing question posed by the Ring hung heavily in his thoughts: Could the Ring drive the enemy from his lands?

I couldn't stand listening to his internal arguments and self-flagellations any longer. My mind was weary from the strain of anticipating Gandalf's fall coming, and I didn't have the mental strength left to maintain my mental defenses that were normally able to block out the thoughts of others.

Placing my hand on his arm, I told him, "You're a good man, Boromir. Never forget that, no matter how terrible the situation seems. And your city will not fall. I promise you that." I squeezed his arm once and then jogged to catch up with Gimli, falling in stride with him and letting the strange guttural sounds of his thoughts drown out Boromir's thoughts and self-doubts.

Gimli had never talked aloud in anything within my hearing other than the common speech, or Westron, whatever they called the language here. But his thoughts were almost wholly in some other language, one dwarves spoke, I guessed. But it was soothing to listen to the strange words in my mind and not understand them. He could be cursing me up one side and down the other for all I knew—he wouldn't have been the first—but I was blissfully unaware.

Although, I could still feel emotion from him, and I didn't sense any hostility, so I doubted he was cussing at me in his mind. There was plenty of curiosity though. Along with his sadness.

"Kind words of hope ye offer the lad," Gimli softly commented.

I glanced down as I walked beside him, keeping stride. Being a dwarf, he was shorter than I was, but somehow taller than I'd expected as a child when I'd read the stories. The top of his head reached just to my shoulders, but he still had no trouble keeping pace beside me. His gait was quick and steady without seeming hurried, telling me he was accustomed to matching his stride to taller folks.

"I don't enjoy seeing anyone torment themselves," I responded to the dwarf's words.

"Still, you can'na change what others think in their own minds, no matter how kind your words. The lad has to fight his own demons," he advised, looking at me curiously.

His words nearly made me stumble, and my feet did hesitate before I pushed on. His words were eerily close to the truth of my cursed little quirk, and his gaze and smile were a bit too sage for my taste. I'd survived my whole life by being so careful not to let on to anyone that I could read minds, fearing what the backlash would be. Could it actually be that this dwarf knows or at least suspects me? No one had before, not even my own husband.