Faramir Fiction Archive

Under Pressure (NC-17)

Written by RubyElf

20 October 2011 | 40533 words

Title: Under Pressure
Author: RubyElf
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Faramir
Warnings: violence, hurt/comfort

With Boromir and the hobbits missing, an attempt on Arwen’s life that endangers Legolas instead, and an army gathering at Gondor’s southern borders, Faramir’s unique abilities are called upon to help defend Gondor even while those he loves most are in grave danger.

---

Faramir stepped into Aragorn’s office, finding the King standing at the window.

“You called for me?”

Aragorn nodded. “There’s a… situation I wanted to make you aware of.”

Faramir glanced at the cluttered surface of Aragorn’s massive wooden desk, looking for some clue as to what the situation might be about, but the stacks of neglected papers revealed nothing.

“Isn’t your Steward supposed to be assisting you with problematic situations?” he asked.

Aragorn turned and nodded. “Ordinarily, yes. But he’s not here at the moment; he’s unhappy because the hobbits left to go fishing this morning and haven’t come back yet.”

Faramir smiled, thinking to himself that the sort of fishing Merry and Pippin engaged in was unlikely to produce much in the way of results, but it was rather unlike the two young hobbits to miss both lunch and supper, so he could understand why Boromir had decided to go off looking for them.

“Besides,” Aragorn added. “This situation particularly concerns you more than Boromir.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because it concerns Legolas.”

Faramir’s first thought was to wonder who the occasionally capricious elf had managed to offend this time, but while Aragorn would often call upon Boromir to deal with some mischief committed by “his” hobbits, he had never specifically called Faramir in to discuss any of the questionable behavior “his” elf might engage in.

“What’s the problem now?” he asked. “If it’s about tricking those poor idiots at the inn into a drinking game with him, you already talked to him about that, and so did I…”

“A delegation of elves from Mirkwood arrived this afternoon.”

Faramir stopped, frowning. “From Mirkwood?”

“That’s right. A group of diplomats, according to the letter they brought from Thranduil.”

“What do they want? Is… do they intend to do Legolas some harm?”

“I don’t know,” Aragorn said, shaking his head. “He still won’t tell me what happened while he was in Mirkwood, and all Boromir will tell me is to talk to Legolas. Even the hobbits haven’t told me anything. What has he told you?”

“Legolas? Nothing more than he’s told you. But Boromir did tell me something…”

“What was that?”

“He told me that no matter what Legolas said or how much he pretended nothing bad happened there, that he intended to make sure Legolas never had to go back there as long as he was alive to keep it from happening.”

Aragorn sighed. “Your brother doesn’t make such statements lightly.”

“He doesn’t do much lightly. So why are we even allowing these elves into the city?”

“Because the letter’s not just signed by Thranduil. It’s also signed by Celeborn, as the Lord of East Lórien in Mirkwood. And I can certainly refuse to engage in diplomacy with Thranduil, since I’m fairly certain that he’s gone quite mad over the decades, but Celeborn… the elves of Lórien are our allies and fought beside us in the War, and I can’t refuse his request.”

“Does he know… whatever happened there, when Legolas was there?”

“He might,” Aragorn said. “But Thranduil is a King and he can’t be ignored.”

“So there’s no avoiding having them here.”

“No avoiding it. That’s what I wanted to speak to you about… I want you to keep Legolas and these Mirkwood elves far away from each other. I can’t keep Legolas from knowing they’re here, but I don’t want him doing anything reckless, and if they do intend to harm him, I intend to make sure they don’t manage it.”

“I’ll do my best, but you know how elves…”

Aragorn smiled. “I’m married to one. I know. Just try to keep an eye on him, please.”

Boromir strode down the path among the trees, looking for Merry and Pippin’s favorite fishing (and napping) spot. He’d considered bringing Finn along, but her habit of obsessively pursuing every squirrel that dared to show itself in her presence made her a less than useful companion in the woods.

“Hey! You two! Wake up! It’s past supper!”

He heard no reply and scowled fruitlessly at the impassive trees.

“If I stumble over the two of you doing something filthy…”

This time he did hear something, but it was not the giggle of a hobbit. It was a soft crack as something large shifted its weight among the trees.

“Too close to the city for any sort of trouble,” Boromir muttered, but his hand went to the hilt of his sword just the same. “You two had better get over here, or I’ll…”

Another twig cracked. Boromir’s sword hissed as he drew it from its sheath.

“Who’s there?”

A low chuckle seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. “Hello, Lord Steward. We expected you’d come eventually.”

Boromir spun, eyes looking for a movement or a shadow to give away his enemy. The path behind him was clear, and he could see the walls of the city among the trees. What kind of threat attacked in the shadow of Minas Tirith itself?

“I’m not quite stupid enough to go running off among the trees looking for you,” the man growled. “Show yourself, and I’ll happily make you wish you hadn’t.”

The voice did not reply. However, another sound struck him, freezing his heart in his chest and erasing all other thoughts from his head. It was unquestionably a scream of pain and fright, and the voice was unquestionably Pippin’s. Boromir’s hand clenched around the familiar hilt of his sword as he charged in the direction of that frantic cry.

Faramir hoped that Legolas was in his rooms and not out wandering somewhere; he didn’t want to have to chase the elf all over Gondor to talk to him about the arrival of the Mirkwood elves, and he had resolved that this time he would insist on finding out at least some of what had happened under the trees of that strange place.

He tested the door and found it unlocked, which was a hopefully sign, as Legolas usually locked the door when departing. He pushed the door open and found the main room dimly lit; at this time of evening the sun slanted away from these windows and normally there would be lamps lit by now to provide light for reading. The lamps were dark, though, and showed no sign of having been lit at all that day. Faramir frowned and stepped farther into the room, wary and alert to anything out of place. Nothing seemed odd, though. The hearth was cold; the day had been warm, but the nights had begun to turn cold and if Legolas was around he usually started a fire for Faramir’s benefit, knowing the man’s healed wounds still ached in cold, damp weather.

“Legolas?” he called.

The remains of a light afternoon meal sat on the stand next to the elf’s preferred reading chair, an empty mug and a small wooden dish with a few small mushrooms still in it. He smiled; forest creatures by nature, elves seemed to have a tremendous fondness for mushrooms and collected them avidly, having learned as small elflings which were safe to eat and which were harmful. Perhaps Legolas had gone out and neglected to lock the door, since he was not in the main room and there would certainly be no reason for him to be…

The door to the washroom was open, and blond hair lay across the floor in the doorway. Faramir thought for a dizzy moment that the elf had to be playing a joke on him; they did tend to have a slightly macabre sense of humor. Two more steps told him that this was not a joke. The usually graceful figure was sprawled awkwardly, neck and back painfully arched, hands clutched into fists, jaw clenched, every muscle tensed and rigid.

“Legolas!”

The blue eyes flew open, wide and stunned and near to panic.

Faramir, relieved to at least see the elf looking back at him, knelt and grasped him by the shoulders.

“What’s happening? Can you hear me?”

The quick flicker of the eyes told him he could hear, but not answer him. He attempted to lift him from the floor but found that the motion only sent the already unyielding muscles arching into further spasms, forcing a choked cry from the elf. The man quickly laid him back down, horrified.

“I’m going to get Aragorn. He’ll know… I’m not leaving you; I’m coming right back with Aragorn and he’ll be able to help you…”
The blue eyes followed him as he stood. For a moment he lingered, afraid that something terrible would happen if he left the elf even for a moment, but he had no idea what was happening and could only hope that Aragorn would.

Merry huddled against the trunk of the broad tree, holding Pippin tightly to his chest. The younger hobbit trembled, trying to muffle his sobs.

“Shh, Pip. It’s all right. Someone will find us.”

“My shoulder hurts,” Pippin murmured.

Merry looked down and winced at Pippin’s crooked and misshapen right shoulder. “I know, love. I’m sure it does. I think it’s dislocated… you remember, like the little Barnaby boy when he fell out of that tree in Maggot’s orchard?”

“Yes,” Pippin said softly. “I wouldn’t have laughed at him if I knew how much it hurt.”

Merry’s stomach clenched; he’d felt on the verge of being ill since he watched the orc haul Pippin off the ground by the arm and then drop him, crying out in pain, to the hard ground.

“I told you not to try to fight with them,” Merry whispered, stroking Pippin’s damp curls.

“I thought they were going to hurt you.”

Merry sighed and held him closer, avoiding any motion that might jar his injured shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, my little one. Just lay still for now. We’ll find out soon enough what they intend to…”

Pippin raised his head, eyes widening. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That voice! Merry, it’s Boromir! He’s coming for us!”

Merry looked around, alarmed. He was fairly certain there were at least eight orcs, and the forest was falling into twilight. If Boromir barged into this camp, Merry doubted he would have even a chance of surviving it. He clutched Pippin against his body and closed his eyes, hoping that Boromir would, against all odds, have the good sense to go back to the city for reinforcements before coming after them. He wished there was some way to tell the man they were alive and hopefully would still be in the morning; Pippin’s injury, though painful, was not life-threatening.

“He’s going to be killed if he comes after us, Merry,” Pippin whispered.

“Shh. Don’t think about that, Pip. Just… don’t. Close your eyes, love… just lay your head down for a moment.”

Pippin’s head slowly slumped against his shoulder, lulled by Merry’s soft voice. The older hobbit cautiously slid his hand downward and found the handle of the knife he carried in his boot, the one the orcs had not bothered to take from him. He might not be able to fight their way to freedom with it, but he clutched it in his hand and vowed that any orc daring to lay a finger on Pippin would be missing that finger if Merry had anything to do with it.

When Faramir barged into his office with no knock or greeting, Aragorn looked up from his work with a flash of annoyance that rapidly transformed into concern.

“Faramir?”

“Please… come with me. Hurry.”

Aragorn stood, frowning. “What’s going on?”

“Something’s happened to Legolas.”

“What do you mean…”

“Just come with me!”

Aragorn’s sense of something terribly wrong grew as he followed the younger man down the hall at something between a walk and a run. Faramir, unlike his brother, was not excitable or prone to outbursts, and he was clearly distressed. Faramir reached his door and shoved it open, motioning for Aragorn to follow him.

“Hurry… please.”

As Faramir stepped into view, he was relieved to see Legolas flick his eyes in his direction, although the rest of his body was still arched and tight as a bowstring. Aragorn inhaled sharply.

“Shit.”

“What’s going on?” Faramir demanded.

“We need to get him out into the main room so I can see better.”

“I tried to move him… it seemed to hurt him.”

Aragorn nodded, looking down at the elf, whose eyes remained fixed on his. “Well, we can’t very well leave you on the bathroom floor, can we? Get his legs, Faramir.”

The elf was not heavy, but with his back and legs rigid and unyielding it was rather like carrying a man-sized log. He twitched as they moved him, and when they deposited him on the couch, the look he directed at Aragorn was definitely a displeased glare.

“Sorry,” the man said absently, lifting the elf’s arm and carefully flexing it. Legolas made a sharp sound of protest. “I know… sorry. What have you done to yourself?”

Faramir would have laughed at the elf’s impatient and irritated expression if the situation hadn’t been so serious. “Don’t be too sharp with him, Legolas, or he’s likely to leave you here like this. Aragorn, what’s going on? What is this? Is he ill?”

“He’s an elf. They don’t suffer from illness,” Aragorn said.

“Then what…”

“This isn’t illness. It’s poison.”

Faramir looked up, startled. “Poison?”

Aragorn nodded. “This wasn’t an accident. I’m not sure what this is but it would take a large dose of any poison to affect an elf this severely. Where would he have…”

Faramir pointed to the empty mug and bowl on the stand.
“Mushrooms?”

Aragorn picked up the bowl . “No… these are harmless. They’re Arwen’s favorites; she eats them all the time. Although I suppose something could have been put into them, or into the drink… we need to find out where this all came from. That will have to wait, though. I’m going to get some things; I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

Faramir sat down on the chair by the sofa, hearing the door close behind him as Aragorn departed. Legolas watched him intently.

“Aragorn will have something to cure this,” the man said.

Something in the blue eyes made him uneasy.

“You don’t think he will? He’s a healer. He trained with Elrond. He’ll know what to do. I wish you could tell me what happened… did the elves from Mirkwood do this to you?”

The surprise in the elf’s eyes was obvious.

“You didn’t know there were elves from Mirkwood here? That’s what I was coming to tell you. If they did something…”

Legolas sighed and made a small sound of pain and frustration.

“I know,” Faramir murmured. “I wish I could help you. I don’t even want to touch you… I’ll just make it worse.”

It seemed like a very long time before Aragorn strode back into the room, this time with Arwen close behind him. Faramir felt her presence like a balm, soothing and protective; while she did not have the full powers of her grandmother, the Queen carried Galadriel’s aura about her, which could be deeply calming or entirely terrifying, depending on who you were and why she was with you. Some of the wild near-panic in the other elf’s blue eyes eased as he glanced at her.

“Oh, Legolas,” she said gently. “You do get yourself into the strangest situations.”

Her words did not hide the grave concern in her eyes. Aragorn, who had been rummaging through his bag, nodded and held up a bottle of some sort of black, oily liquid. Legolas’ eyes widened and he gave Aragorn a sharp glare. The man laughed.

“You know what this is, do you? I thought you might. Most Mirkwood warriors are bitten at least once, right?”

“Bitten?” Faramir asked.

Arwen nodded. “The spiders in Mirkwood grew, under Sauron’s influence, very fond of elf and man flesh for their meals. Their bite is poisonous.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Not unless someone smuggled a horse-sized spider into the city,” Aragorn said. “But the bite has an effect much like whatever this poison is. The muscle spasms happen almost immediately and prevent the prey from being able to resist. After they’ve wound them up, the venom wears off, but leaves the victim too weakened to escape, even if they could.”

Legolas stared defiantly at Aragorn.

“Look, I know it tastes foul, but if I don’t do something for you very soon, you’re going to have some permanent damage, so just put up with it.”

The elf gave a resigned sigh and closed his eyes. Aragorn smiled and nodded to Faramir.

“Hold his head still. This stuff is awful and I want to make sure it all ends up in his mouth.”

“Can he swallow it?”

“Probably some of it,” Aragorn said. “But he doesn’t have to. For elves, or men, who are too severely affected to swallow it, the Mirkwood healers spread a good bit of it over the lips and inside the mouth, and it’s absorbed that way reasonably well.”

Faramir laid his hands cautiously on either side of the elf’s head. Legolas flashed him a quick, unreadable glance before Aragorn poured a good quantity of the thick black liquid into his mouth and his eyes squeezed shut in a scowl of disgust. The smell was acrid and sharp enough to make Faramir cough, and he felt Legolas twist his head in an effort to escape the awful taste.

“Now what?” Faramir demanded.

“Wait a few moments,” Aragorn said. “It works quite quickly… it has to. Anyone who’s been bitten by one of those monstrous spiders is on a very short timeline.”

Faramir kept his hands where they were, and after a minute he felt the elf’s head shift as the painfully contracted muscles in his neck began to relax. In a short time the tight arch of his back eased until he was slumped on the sofa, limp and calm under Faramir’s hands as he rubbed his shoulder.

“Feel better?”

Legolas managed to tip his chin in a small nod. Faramir frowned.

“Is that all the more you can move?”

Another small nod. Aragorn grasped Faramir by the arm and pulled him toward the door, motioning for Arwen to follow. On the way to the door, he pointed absently at the bowl on the table.

“Those mushrooms aren’t poisonous, are they, my dear? They’re the ones we eat often, I think.”

“Yes,” she murmured, but Faramir noticed she had gone very wide-eyed and still.

Aragorn ushered Faramir and Arwen out into the hall, his expression grave.

“Is he all right now?” Faramir demanded. “When will that stuff you gave him wear off? Will he be back to normal…”

“Not if this is what I think it is,” Aragorn said, his voice low.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I believe this is a poison the Haradrim use to dispose of undesirable people, such as elders who are in the way of a younger man’s place as chieftan. If that’s what this is, I’m not sure what will happen.”

“Why would Mirkwood elves have a poison made by Haradrim?” Faramir said, frowning.

“They wouldn’t,” Arwen said, her voice unsteady. Both men turned to look at her, surprised.

“What’s that?” Aragorn asked.

“This wasn’t the Mirkwood elves,” she said, shaking her head.
“How do you know?”

“Because,” she murmured, glancing toward the door before replying. “The poison wasn’t intended for Legolas. It was intended for me.”

Merry sat up quickly and tucked his knife back into his boot as one of the orcs lurched in their direction. Pippin, his shoulder jarred by Merry’s motion, squeaked and grabbed Merry’s arm tightly. The orc grinned down at them and prodded Merry with its filthy foot.

“Hello, little creatures. Your friend the Steward is on his way here, you know.”

Merry scowled and kicked at the beast’s foot. “Get away from us!”

“You don’t believe me?” the orc chuckled. “Listen… here he comes.”

Sure enough, Merry had no trouble recognizing Boromir’s colorful curses and insults ringing out in the gathering darkness, but there was a pained and frantic edge to the man’s voice. A group of orcs emerged from the trees, several carrying flaming torches and two of them dragging Boromir along as he kicked and shouted at them.

“Boromir!” Pippin cried out.

The man twisted in the orcs’ grip, his hands bound behind him. Seeing the hobbits, his eyes brightened and he gave them a quick grin before the orcs jerked him back.

“Let go of him!” Merry demanded, stumbling to his feet, which were numb from Pippin lying on them.

The orc standing over them laughed and motioned to his associates, who hauled the man over and dropped him unceremoniously on the ground next to the hobbits.

“You took all his weapons?”

One of the other orcs nodded. “Not easily. He took five of us.”

The other one shrugged. “Leave them be for now, then. Post guards. If you see the man try anything, just shoot the little creatures.”

“I’ll rip your throats out if you harm them,” Boromir growled.

The orcs chuckled and shuffled off into the darkness, bows drawn and torches lit. The leader moved a short distance away and settled himself at the foot of a tree, sharpening his sword. Merry slipped his knife from his boot and hurried to cut away the ropes binding Boromir’s arms behind his back.

“Boromir!” he gasped. “What happened to you?”

The man thrust his arms forward and studied the deep, bleeding gashes across his arms and hands. “Hmph. That’s what happens trying to block sword blows when you’ve lost your sword. Are you all right, little ones?”

“I am,” Merry said. “They hurt Pip’s shoulder, but he’ll be all right.”

Boromir immediately reached for the younger hobbit, picking him up carefully and standing him up in front of him and examining his injured shoulder while Pippin stared at him with large, solemn eyes.

“I’m sorry, Pippin,” he said, rubbing the hobbit’s curly hair. “I tried to get here faster…”

“I’ll be fine,” Pippin said bravely.

Boromir glanced at Merry. “I can try to put that shoulder back in place, and it will feel a great deal better, but it’s going to hurt doing it.”

Merry nodded and grasped Pippin’s trembling hand.

“Are you sure you know how to do that?” Pippin asked uneasily.

Boromir nodded. “It’s a fairly common injury, especially with soldiers training on horseback who aren’t used to it and take a few tumbles.”

“All right,” Pippin said, stepping closer and closing his eyes tightly.

Boromir wiped his bloody hands on his tunic before grasping Pippin’s small arm carefully but firmly. Merry resisted the temptation to close his eyes and put his hands over his ears as Boromir gently raised Pippin’s hand until his elbow was bent and his hand across his lower chest.

“Take a deep breath, little one,” he said.

Pippin obeyed, and Merry could see how hard he was trying not to shake. Boromir, intently focused, began to flex the arm and injured shoulder out away from Pippin’s body. The younger hobbit bit his lip but could not hold back a sharp cry. The orc looked up from sharpening his sword, but did not move from his spot.

“Oh!” Pippin gasped, gingerly moving his arm as his eyes brightened and a smile spread across his face. “Oh, Merry, look! He fixed it!”

Boromir grinned. “Better now?”

“Oh, yes! So much better!”

Merry smiled and patted Pippin’s back. “Excellent. You were very brave, Pip.”

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that next time you make fun of me and call me a baby.”

Merry waved him off. “Not now, Pip. We must see to Boromir’s wounds.”

Pippin took a moment to study the man’s gashed and bloody arms and hands. “Oh, my. Yes, we must. We don’t have any clean cloths or any water, and I doubt those brutes are going to give us any.”

“Do you still have that salve in your pocket?”

Pippin flushed slightly. “Well, yes, but that’s for…”

“I know what WE use it for,” Merry said impatiently. “But that’s not what it’s made for, you know. It’s for treating wounds and keeping them clean.”

“Oh.”

Boromir sat back against the tree, knowing better than to protest as the two hobbits busily tore strips of reasonably clean fabric from their undershirts and set about cleaning the blood from his hands and arms, their little hands careful and gentle. He was surprised to feel himself nearly dozing and realized absently that he must have bled quite a bit to be nodding off now.

“It’s all right, Boromir,” Merry said, leaning over to plant a kiss on the man’s cheek. “Rest for a bit. If they wanted to kill us, they’d have done it already. They seem to want you alive, and they won’t kill us as long as we’re keeping you here.”

“And I can fight now,” Pippin said, spreading salve over the worst of the gashes with his small, quick fingers. “Merry and I are a match for any number of orcs, you know.”

“You are not,” he muttered sleepily.

“Well, at least one of them,” Merry said.

“Two small ones,” Pippin added.

Boromir felt them tying strips of cloth around his arms and wrapping up his hands before they curled up, one against each side, tucking themselves up against his chest. He pulled them closer with bandaged hands and allowed himself to drift off.

Both men stared at Arwen as tears began to well up in her eyes.

“What do you mean, it was intended for you?” Aragorn demanded, his voice rising in alarm.

“One of the ladies from the kitchen came up earlier and said one of the boys that collects mushrooms for them had just brought some fresh ones in, and she knows how much I like them, so she brought them to me. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want them to go to waste, so I told her to go down the hall and see if Legolas wanted them.”

Faramir’s eyes widened. “You told her to give them to him?”

“I didn’t know, Faramir,” she said, tears spilling down over her cheeks. “You know I would never harm Legolas.”

Faramir was immediately apologetic and took her hand. “I know, my Lady. I’m sorry. Who would want to harm you, though?”

Aragorn frowned and, spotting one of the citadel guards at the end of the hall, motioned for him to approach. Only the most trusted and well-trained guards served in the citadel; it was considered a great honor and one that the men did not take lightly.

“Sir,” he said quickly, bowing.

“Please locate my Steward for me immediately. It’s urgent. If he’s not in the citadel, have some of the other guards look around the city for him.”

“Yessir,” the guard said, looking rather unhappy; Boromir generally did not appreciate being summoned when he was busy with something else, and had a tendency to be rather sour with the bringer of the summons.

“He’s probably being dragged around the forest by Merry and Pippin,” Faramir said, as the guard hurried away.

“I need him to start looking into this right away,” Aragorn said, tense and uneasy. “And I need to think of a way to keep you, my dear, safe. If this poisoner finds out their plans failed…”

“They don’t have to know that,” Faramir interrupted.

Arwen raised an eyebrow. “Let them think that they have succeeded.”

Faramir nodded. “Have the guards spread the word that the Queen is ill… dangerously ill, and let them drop some rumors that she may have been poisoned.”

Aragorn smiled grimly. “Very good. Arwen will go back to our rooms and let no one in but our most trusted staff. I’ll instruct one of the guards to keep an eye on the kitchen, and no one who doesn’t belong in the citadel will be allowed in.”

Arwen kissed his cheek. “I should go now, before too many people see me up and walking around.”

“Yes…”

“And Boromir will find out what’s happening, my dear. If I were really on my deathbed, all your people know you would be at my side, not roaming the city asking questions.”

“She’s right,” Faramir said. “But what if the poisoner starts to wonder whether they’ve… finished the job?”

Arwen turned her gaze to him. “They are probably quite certain that they finished the job, Faramir. For that poison to have affected Legolas as badly as it did, any one of those mushrooms probably had more than enough poison in it to kill several mortals.”

Aragorn had gone rather pale as he listened to her, and Faramir knew he was imagining what would have happened if Arwen had eaten the food that was intended to kill her.

“Legolas is not a mortal, though,” Faramir said, glancing from Arwen to Aragorn. “Elves don’t die from illness… they survive many things that would kill mortals.”

Aragorn sighed. “Elves don’t die from illness. They can survive wounds that would kill a man, and they can survive a dose of something poisonous that would kill a man. But an elf can die from a wound that’s bad enough, and they can die from poison if they’re exposed to enough of it.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Faramir argued, hands clenching. “You’re a healer. There’s something you can do for him.”

“I can try,” Aragorn said, lowering his eyes. “I’ll speak to the healers, and I’ll look in the library, but I’m afraid that I may not…”

“You’ll find something,” Faramir said sharply. “He’s strong. You can find something to…”

“He is strong,” Aragorn agreed, his voice low. “That’s why he’s still alive. But enough poison to have that severe an effect on him that quickly…”

“You’ll find something,” Faramir insisted.

“I may not have time,” Aragorn said.

This stopped Faramir abruptly, and he stared at Aragorn as if seeing him for the first time. “What do you mean, you may not have time?”

“I mean, he’s fighting off the effects now, but he won’t be able to do that for very long, and then it will be…”

“How long?” Faramir demanded.

Aragorn glanced at Arwen before answering. “Maybe a few days. Maybe less.”

“What? That’s not… you can’t mean that!”

“Shh,” Aragorn hissed. “He’ll hear you, and he doesn’t need to know…”

“He already knows,” Arwen interrupted, laying her hand on Faramir’s arm. “He’s not a fool. He knows how bad this is. And he’s afraid, though he would never have either of you know it.”

Aragorn nodded slowly, seeing Faramir’s stunned expression. “I’ll go talk to the healers now. As far as they know, it’s Arwen I’m asking about, not Legolas. You, my dear, will go directly back to our rooms and stay there, out of sight, and perhaps have a few of your handmaidens spread some gossip. If you see your brother, Faramir, please send him directly to me so I can have him and the guards start investigating.”

“What can I do?”

“You can stay here with Legolas.”

“I want to do something to help him!”

“That will help,” Aragorn said. “Whether he wants you to know it or not, he has to be frightened and upset, and if you can keep him calm and keep him from wasting his strength with dark thoughts, it may buy us a bit of time. So go talk to him, please.

Arwen waited until the door closed behind Faramir before glancing at her husband. “Do you really think that will make a difference, my dear?”

Aragorn shook his head. “No. But I don’t think anything else will either, and at least he won’t be alone if…”

Arwen interrupted him with a small smile. “You aren’t giving up on Legolas just yet, are you? You are the Healer-King, my love, and if hobbits can be heroes and dwarves and elves can work and fight side by side, I doubt anything is entirely impossible.”
“You’re right,” Aragorn said, then frowned. “Speaking of hobbits, where exactly is Boromir, anyway?”

“Wake up,” a voice grunted.

Merry woke abruptly as a large, ugly foot prodded him. His first instinct was to kick it away, and his second instinct to grab for Pippin and pull him closer. The younger hobbit, the muscles of his injured shoulder still aching and sore, cried out and woke up in wide-eyed alarm, clutching at Merry’s shirt. Boromir blinked, dazed, before realizing where he was.

“Get up,” the orc muttered. “We’re moving on. Can’t just sit in the shadow of your city and wait for them to find us, can we?”

“But it’s night time,” Pippin protested.

“Mmm-hmm. Night time. Time for orcs to be on the move. Now get up, before I pull your other shoulder out.”

Boromir, still struggling to bring his mind back to full awareness, glared up at the beast. “If you hurt him, I’ll make sure you die very, very slowly.”

“Just get up,” the orc growled, reaching down to grasp Boromir by the shirt and haul him to his feet. Bruised and battered from fighting, he could do little more than attempt to keep his balance when he was abruptly set on his feet. Merry and Pippin hurried to grab his hands to steady him. The orcs were shuffling through the dark clearing, rapidly gathering their supplies. Boromir squeezed the small hands that held his.

“You can run, little ones,” he said quietly. “You may be able to get away.”

“We’re not leaving you here,” Pippin said.

Merry nodded his agreement. “Definitely not. Besides, there are quite a few of them, and I doubt we’re as valuable as you are, Boromir… if they catch us running, they would probably just kill us.”

Boromir shuddered and rubbed their heads. “We can’t have that, can we? Don’t be afraid, little ones… Aragorn surely has already noticed we haven’t come back, and they’re probably already looking for us.”

“Your king has other things on his mind,” one of the orcs grunted, grinning at them.

“You know nothing of my king,” Boromir muttered.

“I know that if the Southron men have done as they said they would, your king is too busy mourning the death of his wife tonight to worry about you.”

Boromir’s eyes widened. “Arwen.”

“They can’t hurt her!” Merry said angrily. “The citadel guards would never let a bunch of filthy Haradrim get to their Queen.”
The orc chuckled. “Of course not. But do they guard every bite of food she eats?”

Boromir’s fists clenched. “I’ll find a way to stop this.”

“Hehe. Stupid man. Do you think I tell you this in time for you to run off and warn her? She is already dying. Did you not hear the bells ring while you slept as the people offered up prayers for her?”

“I thought I dreamed that,” Pippin whispered.

Merry clasped Pippin’s hand without letting go of Boromir’s, suspecting this touch was the only thing keeping the man frozen in place instead of lunging at the orc.

“They’re full of it, Pip. What do orcs know about anything? They could have been ringing those bells for lots of reasons.”

Another orc approached and scowled at them. “I thought I told you to start walking. You… tie their hands.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Merry said quickly. “We hobbits see in the dark quite well, but men can’t see a hand in front of their face at night, and if you tie our hands, we won’t be able to lead him.”
The orc shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We see better in the dark than any hobbit, and if you try anything we will hurt you so badly that you won’t try it again.”

Faramir stepped into his room, finding it now in darkness. He quickly gathered a few lamps and lit them at the hearth before carrying one to set down on the table by the sofa. He didn’t like seeing how still the elf was; Legolas was always in subtle but constant motion, even if it was only a brief flick of a wayward braid or long fingers dancing over a surface like dragonflies about to alight. Despite his stillness now, though, the blue eyes were busy, following every move he made.

“You could probably hear us talking in the hall,” Faramir said.

A slight nod. “Yes. I heard you.”

Faramir smiled. “At least you can speak now.”

“Yes, well… Estel was a bit overly enthusiastic with that foul medicine of his, but it wears off quickly.”

“How do you feel now?”

He frowned. “Like my muscles have been turned into lead weights. I wouldn’t say it’s a pleasant feeling, but it’s not painful.”

“So you heard that it was supposed to be Arwen…”

Legolas smiled. “I did hear that.”

“You’re not angry?”

“No. If she had eaten them, or Estel, or one of the hobbits, or you… any of you would be dead already. I would not wish for Estel to lose his Arwen.”

“He would prefer not to lose you, either.”

“Hmm. That may not be his decision to make,” Legolas said, looking up at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

The blue eyes flicked back to him, amused. “Of course not. You would have to find someone else to keep your bed warm.”

Faramir scowled at him. “Is that what you think…”

“No, but I do find it funny that you would get so irate at the suggestion.”

Faramir grasped the elf’s hand. “You’re an intolerable creature.”

“Well, perhaps if you’re lucky you won’t have to tolerate me much longer.”

“Don’t joke about that!” Faramir said sharply.

Legolas looked up at him. “Would you prefer that I be terrified, Faramir? Because if I stop joking about it, I’ll have to think about it, and…”

“You don’t need to be frightened. Aragorn will find something.”

“I hope so,” Legolas said, glancing away.

Faramir sat up. “Is there something you could eat, or drink? Are you thirsty?”

“Hmm. I don’t think I could eat anything, but perhaps some wine… at least that would steady my nerves a bit.”

“I didn’t know elves had nerves to steady,” Faramir said, rising to retrieve a bottle of wine from the cabinet.

“Normally, elves have very little cause to lie around and contemplate their own death.”

“We’re not talking about that.”

Legolas raised an eyebrow. “Under the circumstances, what else were you planning to talk about?”

Faramir stood, thinking about this, as he poured two glasses of wine. He found himself remembering how many very long and pleasant nights had begun like this, with wine and lamp light. He turned back to the sofa and sat down.

“Can you hold this glass?”

“Possibly, if you prop me up so I’m not spilling wine all over my face.”

‘I thought of something else to talk about,” the man said, reaching for some extra pillows.

“Oh?”

“That’s right. I think we should talk about all of the things I intend to do to you when you’re back to your usual self.”

Legolas glanced at him. “Are there things you intend to do to me that I don’t know about?”

“Things I’d thought about doing to you, yes, and hadn’t got around to suggesting, but since we’re looking for distracting conversation, now might be a good time to bring them up.”

Legolas chuckled as Faramir propped him up with the pillows. “I must admit, I’m quite curious.”

He handed the elf a glass of wine, waiting for a moment to make sure he had a grip on it before letting it go. “That’s only half the bargain, though.”

“What’s the other half?”

“You have to tell me all of the things you’d like me to do to you.”

“Oh, and I don’t get to do things to you?”

“Have you forgotten how this game is played?” Faramir asked, and his voice dropped just slightly into the tone that always sent a shiver of anticipation up the elf’s spine, even if whispered to him in the middle of a crowd. “What you do is entirely up to me.”

“Perhaps when I’m feeling a bit better, I will need to be punished for my forgetfulness,” he said, smiling. “Now, what were those things you’d been thinking about doing to me? This is a most interesting topic of conversation indeed.”

Aragorn tapped his foot impatiently. “What do you mean you can’t find him?”

The guard took a wary step backwards. “We can’t find him anywhere, my Lord. We’ve been through the city from top to bottom and no one has seen Lord Boromir since after lunch today.”

“What about the hobbits?”

“No one seems to have seen them either, my Lord. And yes, we checked all of the kitchens.”

Aragorn frowned. Boromir being off somewhere where he couldn’t be found was unusual, but hobbits going all day without showing up at one of the kitchens was unheard of. “Keep looking for him. Has anyone looked outside the city?”

“I sent some men out to look around that pond in the woods. They didn’t see anything, but it was rather dark by then. They’re going back out to look in the morning.”

“I need him tonight. Keep looking.”

“Yessir.”

Arwen waited till the guard had given his report and departed before emerging from her room. She found her husband at the window, scowling at the darkness. She crossed the room, feet light and almost silent on the stone floor, the heavy tapestries on the walls muffling the faint echoes. She glanced at the heavy wooden table with its elaborately carved legs and pale oak inlaid into the polished surface, now hiding beneath several stacks of books from the library.

“If Boromir isn’t here, you must become the master of threatening glares?” she asked.

“I would very much like to know where he is.”

“So would I, my dear. It’s not like him to be away for so long without telling anyone. Did the healers have anything to tell you about the poison?”

“Nothing useful,” he said. “Some of them had heard of such things being used by the Southern tribes, but none of them knew of any treatment or antidote for it.”

She sighed. “And nothing in the library?”

“Not that I’ve found. There are still those books on the table I brought back to look through.”

She sat down at the table and lifted one of the books, a heavy leather-bound volume with her husband’s handprints in the dust on its surface. “What are we looking for?”

“I’m not sure. Something useful.”

She glanced up at him. “How long have you been reading?”

“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his eyes “Hours.”

“Perhaps you should take a walk.”

“I don’t need to take a walk.”

She smiled slightly. “I’m telling you to go away, Estel. Go see how Faramir and Legolas are managing.”

“They’ll ask me if I’ve found anything, and I don’t have an answer for them.”

“You have an answer, my dear. Your answer is that you haven’t found anything yet, but we’re still looking, and there’s no reason to give up yet. Or tell them something else, but please, Estel, go away for a little while before you drive me quite mad.”

The sky above the walls of the city was overcast, with only a few stars and a weak outline of the moon visible overhead. In a few hours the eastern horizon would begin to brighten. Aragorn wandered through the halls for a while before steeling himself to go look in on his friends. He knocked softly on the door but received no answer. Trying the handle, he found that the door was unlocked, so he pushed it open enough to look in. Banked coals glowed in the hearth, and an empty bottle of wine stood on the table, but he did not see Faramir or Legolas.

“Is that you, Aragorn? For a Ranger, you’re not very stealthy.”
Aragorn stepped into the room, looking around, but he had to make his way back to the bedroom to find his friends, both stretched out on the large bed, taking advantage of the cool air from the open window that gently stirred the curtains and wisps of Faramir’s hair. The man was asleep and oblivious to Aragorn’s presence, but Legolas watched him alertly from here he lay with his head pillowed on Faramir’s shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Aragorn asked.

“I can name at least twenty things I’m not doing,” the elf answered, smiling lazily.

Aragorn blinked at stared at him. Legolas laughed.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that there seems to be very little point in worrying at the moment,” he said, flicking his eyes in Faramir’s direction. “So we have determined that we aren’t going to.”

“Oh?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“How is that working?”

“Very well, with the addition of alcohol. Now I know why mortals like getting drunk so much. Makes it remarkably easy to forget about one’s problems. And of course, no point in worrying about unpleasant effects in the morning when you’re not entirely sure you’ll see morning, so…”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” Aragorn asked, frowning.

Legolas raised an eyebrow. “I strongly suggest that you have some wine. It will improve your sense of humor.”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Oh, not terribly much. Faramir finished that one bottle, and I think I had the other four…”

“Four bottles of wine?” Aragorn exclaimed, loudly enough that Faramir stirred and muttered in his sleep. Legolas glanced over to the sleeping man and murmured something Aragorn couldn’t hear before turning his attention back to him.

“It takes a lot of work to get an elf drunk. You should know, Estel. Now, don’t you have some work to do?”

Aragorn shook his head and smiled. “I’m glad to find you in a better state of mind than I expected.”

“For now,” Legolas said, his smile vanishing for a moment. “Estel, you must promise me something.”

“Legolas, you know I’ll do everything I possibly can…”

The elf rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Stop it. I just want you to promise me you’ll make sure Faramir takes care of himself. You know, the man will do anything for anyone, but nothing for himself?”

“I know,” Aragorn said, thinking that he probably did not, at least not the way that Legolas and Boromir did, being the only two people who could convince the quiet young man to speak freely.

“Well, promise, then.”

“All right, I promise that I’ll make sure he looks after himself. And I promise to look after him too.”

“Excellent. That’s all. Thank you, Estel.”

Returning to his task, Aragorn found Arwen still at the dining table, now flipping through a large book bound in darkened green leather.

“What have you got there?” he asked. “I don’t recall seeing that in the library.”

She glanced up at him and smiled. “It’s not from the library. It’s mine. It was in one of the chests my father sent here… things he wants me to keep after he’s sailed.”

“What is it?”

“It’s all of his notes from his training as a healer and from all of his research. I used to see him writing in this all the time. I know he spent a lot of time with Galadriel before I was born, writing down everything she would tell him about elves and their history and everything else she knew.”

“You think there might be something in there about…”

“I thought it was worth looking. How are Faramir and Legolas?”

Aragorn raised his eyebrows. “Drunk. Well, Faramir’s asleep, but I’m sure he was drunk before that. And…”

“Well, that’s good,” Arwen said.

“What? It’s good that they spent the evening getting drunk?”

“Would you have preferred them to spend the evening worrying, or fearing the morning, or fighting off tears?”

“It hardly seems an appropriate response from someone whose life is in danger.”

“And what response would be appropriate, Estel?” she asked, standing and straightening her dress before walking toward him and taking his hands. “Elves don’t think about their death like mortals do.”

“Like you do, now,” he sighed.

“True, but I chose that. And I’ve also found that as a mortal I do need to sleep occasionally, and so do you.”

“I can’t sleep now. I can’t waste time…”

She tugged him by the hands toward their bedroom; he followed, still mumbling protests, but she was insistent, steering him patiently and pulling back the sheets for him, and he was asleep almost as soon as he fell into the bed.

Boromir looked up at the overcast night sky. “I wish the clouds would clear. At least then I’d know for sure which way we were going, but I believe I know anyway.”

“Where are we?” Merry asked, looking around at the flat land scattered with trees and brush. Many of the trees were crooked and scarred, as if a great storm had passed through.

Boromir recognized the blighted land where some of the armies of Mordor had made camp in preparation for their assault on Minas Tirith, the ground still bare in places where the mumakil had trampled and gouged it in search of food.

“South of Minas Tirith, and traveling southeast now. If we keep on this way we’ll reach the Anduin some time tomorrow.”

“Not toward Mordor?” Merry asked uneasily.

Boromir shook his head. “We’re too far to the south, past the gates, and the entrances to Mordor are well-guarded these days.”

“So what were these orcs doing lurking around so close to the city?” Pippin asked, rubbing his aching shoulder unhappily.

“I believe they were waiting for you, little ones, knowing I would come looking for you. They had apparently been told where your fishing spot was…”

“We would have noticed if orcs had been wandering around our fishing spot,” Merry said, frowning.

“If you weren’t too busy entertaining each other,” Boromir said, chuckling. “But yes, Merry, you would have noticed, and so would the sentries. The orcs already knew where to find you two, and they also knew that I would come for you. That means that someone gave them that information… someone who would have been able to pass freely around and through the city, and ask questions about me and about you two, without rousing suspicion.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Merry said, glancing cautiously at the three orcs walking behind them, spears in hand. “But any ordinary-looking man could do that.”

Boromir nodded and started to say something else, but Pippin suddenly stumbled over a rut in the ground and fell. Merry and Boromir stopped abruptly, ignoring growls from their orc guards, and Boromir lifted the young hobbit and set him back on his feet. Pippin rubbed his face miserably.

“Are you all right, little one?” Boromir asked, frowning.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re not,” Merry argued.

“My shoulder hurts,” he mumbled, looking at the ground.

“I’m sure it does,” Boromir said, rubbing the curly head gently. “Those muscles aren’t made to be pulled that way, and they will ache for a while.”

“I know you’re tired, Pip, but I don’t think these brutes are going to let us rest.”

Boromir shook his head and stood up, reaching down to lift Pippin and tuck him against his shoulder, cradling him with one arm.

“Put me down,” Pippin protested. “You’re hurt too.”

“Hush, Pippin,” the man said. “They’ll stop somewhere at dawn to get out of the sun; even if these are uruks and can stand the sunlight, they still don’t like it. We just have to go a little while longer, so be still and don’t complain.”

Pippin sighed and buried his face in the man’s shoulder. “Thank you, Boromir.”

Boromir glanced down at the other hobbit. “Are you all right, Merry?”

He nodded. “I’m fine. I’m the only one of the three of us that isn’t hurt. Don’t worry about me; just take care of Pip and yourself.”

Boromir picked up his pace again, looking toward the eastern sky and hoping that it would begin to lighten soon. His battered arms had pained him even without carrying Pippin, and the adrenaline of the fight had long since drained away, leaving him numb and weary. He had no doubt that Merry knew it, observant as the older hobbit was, but would not speak of it; the orcs behind them were listening, and if they knew Boromir was wearing down they might take advantage of it.

“Do you think they meant what they said, about Arwen?” Merry asked, as they walked.

“I don’t know, little one. But if someone wanted to make sure Aragorn was too distracted to respond to a threat, taking both his wife and his Steward from him would be a good way to do it.”

Merry sidled closer and smiled up at him in the darkness. “You aren’t just his Steward.”

“No, little one,” Boromir argreed, smiling back. “But these idiots don’t know that.”

“I hope Arwen is all right.”

“I do too, Merry. Aragorn would never forgive himself if anything happened to her.”

“Or if anything happened to you,” Merry said. “I wish morning would get here sooner.”

“So do I.”

Faramir woke slowly, fighting off strange dreams, to find a pale gray morning outside the window. He struggled for a moment to remember the night before, and as soon as he could drag it back into focus he rolled over quickly to look to Legolas. The elf was so still that for a brief instant Faramir feared that something terrible had happened, but then Legolas smiled, eyes still closed.

“Good morning, Faramir.”

The man exhaled, relieved. “How are you?”

“Hmm. Tired. I think I was asleep. Aragorn came in last night to check on us.”

“Oh? What did he have to say?”

“I don’t think he approved of us being drunk.”

Faramir chuckled. “That doesn’t surprise me. Did he say anything about…”

“No.”

Faramir sat up, rubbing his face. “Hmph. All right, I’m awake… what do you need?”

Legolas yawned. “More sleep. Wake me up in a little while and maybe I’ll feel like eating something.”

Wondering how bad a state an elf had to be in to need sleep, Faramir found his pants tossed across a chair and pulled them on, watching Legolas out of the corner of his eye. He was hunting for a clean tunic to put on, preparing to go looking for Aragorn, when there was a knock at the door.

Expecting Aragorn, he was startled to find a slender, blond-haired elf in green clothes standing in his doorway.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is Berendir, sir. I’m looking for my brother.”

There was no need to ask which brother he meant; this elf had the same golden hair as Legolas and the same high cheekbones, but his eyes were green. Faramir’s eyes narrowed, remembering what Aragorn had said about Legolas and his last visit to Mirkwood, but this elf smiled back at him without any indication of malice.

“Your brother isn’t here,” Faramir said. “He may be back around lunch time, if you wish to come back then.”

“Certainly, if you don’t mind. Is there any possibility I could speak to Lord Boromir?”

“Why do you want to speak to the Steward?”

The elf’s smile faded and he glanced over his shoulder before answering. “I wanted to thank him.”

“For what?”

“Since he and my brother came to Mirkwood, word made its way to Galadriel and Celeborn about… things that were happening there, and Celeborn has been spending quite a bit of time visiting my father’s palace… things are much better there, since then.”
Faramir did not like the haunted look that flashed through the elf’s eyes. “I’m sure Boromir will be very happy to hear that. As soon as I see him, I’ll have him come speak to you.”

“I would appreciate that… I would like to…”

Before he could finish, Faramir heard a voice behind him, and saw the Mirkwood elf’s eyes widen. He turned to see Legolas leaning against the bedroom doorway, his expression distant and puzzled.

“Hello, Faramir… I just wanted to see who you were out here chatting with…”

He abruptly lost his grip on the door frame and slid to the floor. Alarmed, Faramir ran to grasp him by the arms and pull him to his feet. To his surprise, the fair-haired Mirkwood elf was at his brother’s side almost as quickly as Faramir, his eyes wide and shocked. Legolas, held up between them, glanced from one to the other and laughed.

“Well, hello, Berendir. What brings you here?”

“Legolas? What…”

Ignoring the stunned elf for the moment, Faramir hooked his friend’s arm over his shoulders and pulled him toward the bed, laying him down carefully while Legolas looked up at him with a dazed, curious expression.

“Faramir? What is my brother doing here?”

“Shh. I don’t know, Legolas. Stay here, please, and go back to sleep, and I’ll be back in just a moment.”

“All right,” he agreed, eyes drifting closed. “You’d better come back, though. It’s cold in here.”

Faramir stepped out of the bedroom to face Berendir, who was still standing wide-eyed and bewildered.

“Sit down,” he said, motioning toward the chairs. The elf obeyed silently and waited for Faramir to sit down across from him before he spoke.”

“What happened to my brother? I’ve never seen…”

Faramir sighed. “It’s… I don’t know if I can explain…”

“What do you mean? How can you not tell me…”

“It’s… it’s bigger than just Legolas. It’s…”

The elf stared at him, green eyes darkening just as Legolas’ blue ones did when he was upset or intensely focused. “Please. I have to know. Do you have a brother, Lord Faramir? If you do, you must know…”

“I have a brother,” Faramir said. “And I do know. If I tell you what’s happening to Legolas, though, you must swear that you will discuss it with no one else.”

“I swear it. Please.”

Faramir took a deep breath, then leaned forward and started talking.

Furious with himself for allowing himself to sleep and waste more of whatever time was left, Aragorn was so lost in himself that he did not think to knock before pushing Faramir’s door open. For a brief moment he thought that Legolas had suddenly and unexpectedly recovered; the elf sitting next to Faramir had the same long, golden hair worn in Mirkwood braids, the same slender built and lightness of motion. As soon as he turned, though, Aragorn recognized the Mirkwood prince who had arrived the day before as part of the delegation from his kingdom.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, unreasonably angry.

The elf’s green eyes widened in surprise, and Aragorn could see immediately that there had been tears in those eyes only a moment before.

“I was looking for my brother,” he said. “I did not expect to find him… like this…”

“How much did you tell him, Faramir?” Aragorn snapped.

Faramir looked up at him, calm and steady against the storm of Aragorn’s confused frustration, his gray eyes darkened and filled with something that seemed to strike Aragorn in the chest. He remembered Boromir telling him about the strange moods that would overtake his little brother when he seemed to be seeing things others did not. Gandalf had told him once that the blood of Númenor ran so strongly in Faramir that it made him different than ordinary men, and the hobbits had often mentioned to Boromir that in certain moods his brother reminded them very much of Gandalf himself. Now, Faramir looked up at him as if from a very great distance, his eyes intent but serene.

“All is well, my Lord,” he said quietly.

Aragorn stepped forward cautiously, torn between the desire to grasp Faramir and yank him back into himself and the need to see where the young man’s gift might be taking him. He was wary, recalling Boromir’s words that these periods of heightened insight and vision took a heavy toll on his brother, but something told him not to disturb Faramir’s thoughts at this moment.

“Faramir,” he said, his voice slow and steady. “What do you see?”

“I see my brother. And the hobbits. They are far from here, and moving under dark skies… my brother is weary, and he is hurt…”

A wave of dread washed over Aragorn. “What else, Faramir?”

“Him,” the young man said, pointing in the direction of the startled elf sitting across from him. “I see him speaking to my brother.”

“We spoke in Mirkwood, perhaps…”

“I see you speaking to him. I hear him… thanking you. I don’t know what for.”

“Where is your brother, Faramir?”

“Under trees marked by fire. I hear water running. I think he’s trying to reach me, Aragorn…”

The young man’s eyes widened suddenly, and he sat up from his slump, startled and confused. Aragorn laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly.

“Easy, Faramir.”

The elf was staring at the two men. “I had heard that the Steward’s brother had the power of second sight…”

Aragorn glared at him. “You should not be here. This is not your business.”

The green eyes flared with a spark Aragorn recognized; he’d seen it more times than he could count from Legolas when he was angry.

“It is my business. My brother is my business. I journeyed here from Mirkwood against my father’s wishes; he forbade any of us to speak to Legolas again, or even to speak his name under the trees of our land, but I wanted to see him anyway. We were children together, and we were close, once, until… things happened, and drove him away, and made me…”

He shuddered, and Aragorn remembered Boromir’s words about the King of Mirkwood and why he would never allow Legolas to be taken back there, and he wondered now what the King’s numerous other children might have suffered. Faramir, still only half in his own world and his senses painfully sensitive, winced at the elf’s words and closed his eyes.

“Don’t shout at him, Aragorn. He’s telling the truth. He came to see Legolas,” he said, glancing at Berendir. “You were… under some force. Your will taken from you. It’s different now…”

Berendir nodded. “I told you, Lord Faramir… when the Steward left my father’s house and took Legolas with him, my father’s power was undermined, and his deeds could no longer be hidden. The Lady Galadriel saw, and she and her husband have forced him to release us…”

Faramir nodded. “I could feel Legolas’ fear when he talked about Mirkwood, but I didn’t know what he was afraid of.”

“I wanted to see him, and to tell him that whatever part my brothers and I had in my father’s actions was not of our own free will,” he said, turning to Aragorn. “Will he be all right? Faramir says you are a powerful healer, and you’ll find a way to save him.”

“I’m trying,” he said. “Faramir, your brother has not been back to the city since yesterday afternoon. Was what you saw a vision of where he is now?”

“I think so. I think he was reaching toward me, trying to show me. He knows part of me is always tuned to him.”

Aragorn closed his eyes, trying to ignore the weight of despair beginning to settle on his shoulders. “So instead of being here to help me keep my loved ones safe and find out why they’re in danger, he is in danger himself. He wouldn’t be so far from here willingly without telling someone. He must have been taken, captured, he and the little ones. I’ll go and have a troop of your Rangers prepare to go after him, Faramir…”

The younger man’s eyes widened. “I can’t leave… what if Legolas…”

“He needs you here, for now,” Aragorn said, wondering how much longer it would make any difference. “I’ll have one of your captains lead them, although without knowing where to send them…”

Berendir stood up excitedly. “Send me and my men, my Lord.”

“What?”

“Please. Send us. There are no trackers on Arda more skilled or more swift than elves of Mirkwood. Surely if you know Legolas you know that. Please… Lord Boromir had a great part in freeing me and my brothers, and I would be honored to go to his aid now.”

Aragorn glanced at Faramir. He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded, his gaze still distant and strange.

“Let them go. Whoever has my brother and the little ones will be expecting troops from Gondor. They know you’ll send men after your Steward. I’m quite certain they’re not expecting Mirkwood elves.”

Aragorn was torn; Boromir trusted his brother’s visions unquestioningly, but an error in judgment now could cost Boromir his life. In his mind he imagined asking Boromir what to do, and smiled slightly as he realized that Boromir would growl at him for being indecisive and tell him to trust in Faramir.

“All right,” he said finally.

The elf grinned, excited. “We won’t fail Lord Boromir, my Lord. And if those holding him captive have anything to do with… with Legolas, I’ll make certain they pay for that too.”

“I hope you do,” Aragorn said. “Are you sure your men will agree to this?”

He laughed, and Aragorn was startled by how much like Legolas the green-eyed elf looked in this moment of enthusiasm. “They will be delighted, my Lord. We love the hunt, no matter what we’re hunting.”

“Go and prepare them, then, and decide what supplies you need. I’ll send a message to the quartermaster to equip you with whatever you need.”

Berendir grinned, and again Aragorn recognized the expression; it was the one that flashed across Legolas’ face in the moment before his fingers released an arrow from his bow. “We need nothing, my Lord, but a place to start tracking.”

“I suspect they may have been captured in the woods outside the city, near a fishing pond…”

“That will do,” Berendir said brightly. “We will be on their trail before the sun is high.”

“Should I have the stable boys prepare your horses?”

“We hunt on foot, my Lord. Horses tread on signs that might point the way.”

He grasped Aragorn’s hand, shook it enthusiastically, and vanished out the door, pausing only long enough to close it behind him.

“I hope you’re right, Faramir,” Aragorn sighed.

He got no answer. Turning, he discovered that Faramir was no longer sitting in his chair. He made his way back toward the bedroom and found the man seated on the bed, shaking Legolas firmly. After a few brisk shakes, the elf blinked at yawned.

“Hello, Faramir. And Aragorn, too. Is it morning already?”

“You were sleeping,” Faramir said.

“Elves don’t sleep,” he muttered, closing his eyes again.

“Hey, there… wake up, Legolas,” Faramir said, shaking him again.

“What do you want?”

Faramir glanced at Aragorn for a moment before answering him. “I want you to come out in the other room where there are more windows. The sun is starting to come out, and I’ll have the kitchen send us some breakfast.”

The elf made a face. “I’m not hungry.”

“I didn’t ask if you were hungry,” Faramir said, continuing to shake him until Legolas swatted at him half-heartedly and allowed the man to pull him upright.

“I wish you’d just let me sleep,” he said, voice irritated and sharp.

“Why?”

“It would be over faster that way.”

“Nothing is over,” Faramir said determinedly. “Aragorn is still looking. He’ll find something.”

Aragorn could not listen anymore, and there was nothing else he needed to see. His old friend was running out of time and he had no answers, and his Steward, the man he loved, was far away, his life hanging on a small band of elves and Faramir’s intuition. The ruse that the poisoner had successfully targeted his chosen victim could only be kept up for so long, and with no idea who might be responsible, he had no idea how to protect Arwen or anyone else. He turned and left Faramir and Legolas alone, not wanting to hear Faramir’s words of faith in him, faith he feared was drastically misplaced.

Legolas watched the man go before looking over at Faramir. “He’s given up.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Faramir said. “And even if he had, I haven’t. So get up, and we’re going to go out in the other room and have something to eat.”

Legolas smiled slightly. “You’re persistent; I’ll give you that.”

When the sun made its appearance over the edge of the gray horizon, the orcs took shelter beneath a stand of trees, their sparse leaves casting half-shadows, their trunks darkened and scarred from some past violence. One of them directed their exhausted captives to the center of the grove, where they could be watched from all directions, but none of the three had any intention of making an escape at the moment. Pippin, though his shoulder ached painfully, was the best of the three, having been spared the last few hours of walking. Merry, who had struggled to keep up with the much larger orcs who threatened him with spear points when he fell behind, was so exhausted he could barely stand, and as soon as they were given the order to stop, he slumped against a tree and closed his eyes. Boromir, who had been concentrating for the last hour on putting one foot in front of the other, set Pippin down next to Merry before lying down beside them.

Merry roused himself enough to make his way to Boromir’s side and examine the rough bandages they had wrapped around his hands and arms. Boromir opened one eye and smiled at him.

“Go lie down and rest, little one.”

“In a minute,” Merry said, untying a bandage and frowning.
“These wounds don’t look good.”

“Orc blades are dirty, just like orcs,” the man said, shrugging.
Merry pressed his small hand to Boromir’s face. “You’re warm.”

“We’ve been walking all night, Merry, and with as much as Pippin eats he’s not as light as he looks.”

Merry ignored him and stood up, walking determinedly toward a cluster of orcs who stood nearby, grumbling to each other. One of them turned and looked down at him with a chuckle.

“Look here, it’s a bug. Perhaps we should squash it.”

“What do you want, little bug?” another orc asked.

Merry made a determined effort to make his voice authoritative. “The man is hurt. He needs water to drink and clean his wounds.”

The orcs laughed, but one waved his hand sharply and silenced them.

“Quiet, fools. The old man told us that the man is to arrive in Umbar alive, or we won’t receive our part of the reward. We’re not far from the river; go and get some buckets of water. And you, find this halfling some clean cloth to tend to the man.”

The orc looked down at Merry; the hobbit glared up at him defiantly, refusing to drop his gaze, and eventually the orc chuckled and turned away.

Merry returned to his friends to find Pippin sitting by Boromir’s head, working tangles out his blond hair with his small fingers.

“What are you doing, Pip?”

Pippin shrugged. “Just doing things that don’t require thinking.”

“He’s all right,” Boromir said, smiling, eyes closed. “Feels rather nice.”

“The beasts are going to bring us some water so we can have a drink and clean up these wounds,” Merry said.

Pippin stared at him. “You asked them?”

“I told them,” he said.

Boromir raised a hand to gently brush Pippin aside. “I need to sleep a bit, little ones, and so do you. When we wake up we can worry about other things.”

The man closed his eyes and was asleep almost immediately. Merry was dozing himself, despite the hard ground, when he felt Pippin slide closer to him and felt the younger hobbit trembling. He opened his eyes and looked into Pippin’s wide green ones.

“Hey there, Pip. Are you all right?”

“Once we get where we’re going, they’re going to kill us, aren’t they?”

“You don’t know that,” Merry said, pulling Pippin into his arms and stroking his hair as Pippin pressed his face into Merry’s chest. “We’ll be all right. Aragorn has probably sent half of Gondor’s army after us by now. When they catch up with us, these orcs will wish they’d never come near us.”

Pippin nodded, and Merry felt his lips pressing against his neck. “As long as all three of us are together…”

“It’ll be fine, my little love,” he whispered, kissing Pippin’s forehead.

“Merry… did they say something about an old man? And Umbar?”

Merry nodded. “They did say that, yes.”

“What old man? And isn’t Umbar a city?”

“I don’t know about the old man, Pip. Umbar is a city and a port. A big one, a long way to the south. It belonged to the Númenoreans, I think, a long time ago, and then to Gondor, and Gondor has been fighting the Harardrim and Corsairs for it ever since. Remember, it was their ships Aragorn captured and brought to break the siege of Gondor…”

“I remember, Merry… are they taking us there?”

“It sounds like it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s an important port, though, and without it the Haradrim probably wouldn’t be able to keep fighting against Gondor, and the Corsairs, or what’s left of them, would lose their base of operations.”

“You were always good at maps and history,” Pippin murmured. “You’re the smartest hobbit I know.”

“And you,” Merry said, kissing his forehead again, “are the silliest. Stop pawing at me and go to sleep, my little one… when we wake up, we have to be ready to take care of Boromir. He needs us.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Pippin agreed sleepily. “You won’t hear him admit it, though.”

Boromir woke slowly, groggy and aching from sleeping on the hard-packed ground. For a moment he didn’t know what had awakened him, but then he felt a small hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently.

“Wake up, Boromir.”

He blinked and looked up into Pippin’s concerned face. Seeing Boromir awake, he grinned broadly.

“Hello, there. How are you?”

The man forced himself to sit up, although his muscles protested and the wounds on his arms and hands throbbed painfully. Merry and Pippin watched intently until he had managed to get himself into a reasonably comfortable cross-legged position. He looked around for their orc captors; several of them were sprawled in the shade, snorting and snoring loudly, but several armed with spears were still crouched sulkily under the trees, watching them. Boromir turned back to the hobbits.

“You’re all right, little ones?”

Merry held out a wooden cup. “They brought us some water…”

“I wouldn’t drink water that orcs…”

“It’s all right. It’s from the creek just past those trees. It looks clean.”

Boromir nodded his approval and accepted the cup. As soon as the water passed his lips he realized he was desperately thirsty, and he had to chuckle when he put the cup down and found Pippin holding another one already full and waiting for him.

“You two… I don’t think anyone has kept such a close eye on me since I learned to walk.”

“Someone SHOULD have been,” Pippin said. “Look at all you’ve gotten yourself into since then!”

“Besides, someone has to look after you, because you certainly don’t take much care of yourself,” Merry said, his little fingers working at the now dirty and bloody bandages around his right arm. Pippin began the same task on his other arm, while he watched them with amusement and obediently lifted his hands at their instruction so they could unwind the bandages. Merry frowned, turning the man’s much larger hand over in his two small ones.

“This one is deep. You won’t be able to get a proper grasp on anything till it heals.”

Pippin giggled. “Aragorn will be very disappointed, since that’s the hand you probably use for grasping…”

“Pip,” Merry said disapprovingly.

“It is!” he protested. “And it’s…”

They were interrupted by Boromir’s rumbling chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Pippin asked.

“Just wondering what the healers would think about the effectiveness of certain things as a wound salve,” he said, grinning.

Merry bit his lip, trying to maintain his serious expression. “Well, if the King has the hands of a healer…”

“Perhaps one could derive healing benefits from some other parts of him, too,” Boromir agreed, struggling to keep from bursting out laughing.

“That would be a useful skill, for a healer,” Merry noted. “Especially since he has an unlimited supply of the stuff at hand…”

This was more than Pippin could bear, and despite his sore should he collapsed to the ground, eyes squeezed shut, chest convulsing with laughter. Merry joined him a moment later, leaning heavily on Pippin as he fought for breath amidst bursts of giggles. Boromir finally succumbed, ignoring his aching back as he surrendered to laughter. Several of the orcs stirred and growled in their sleep, and the spear-wielding guards gave them sharp glares, but all three of them were, for the moment, beyond caring.

Aragorn found Faramir sitting by the window in his room, letting the sun fall across his face as he lay in a half-doze. Only his eyes acknowledged Aragorn’s arrival; he looked as drawn and exhausted as Legolas had when Aragorn had seen him last.

“I brought some herbs to brew into a tea that might help both of you…”

“I don’t know that it matters,” Faramir said, his voice neutral and flat, but he sat up and took the packet Aragorn held out to him.

“Why would it not matter?”

“He won’t drink any. I haven’t been able to wake him since earlier this morning. I don’t think he can hear me anymore.”

Aragorn lowered his head. “Faramir, I…”

“It hardly seems right, does it? And just a few days ago I was wondering how he would feel when his mortal friends left him…”

Aragorn searched desperately for something to say, but failed. As he stood, helpless, there was a sharp knock at the door. Faramir seemed not to notice it, so Aragorn strode to the door and opened it, prepared to shout at whoever had ignored his orders to leave this room undisturbed.

“There you are, my Lord,” the young guard said breathlessly. “The Queen said I might find you here.”

“What is it?” he demanded, feeling a cold hand grip him.

‘My Lord… a messenger arrived just a few minutes ago from Pelargir.”

Aragorn frowned. With Umbar in the hands of the Haradrim and the Corsairs, Pelargir on the Anduin was Gondor’s chief port and the harbor where its ships of war and commerce were docked.

“What was the message?”

The guard took a deep breath before replying. “My Lord, the message was that a large number of Corsair ships have been spotted sailing up the Anduin, and at the same time there are two large troops of Haradrim moving along the west side of the river.”

Aragorn’s eyes widened. “They’re blockading Pelargir.”

“Sir, the messenger’s report is that they believe there are enough men arriving that it appears they intend to try to take Pelargir.”

Aragorn nodded and turned away. The young man, sensing he was dismissed, hurried to depart. Aragorn looked back to Faramir, but the other man had not moved and was still staring blankly into the beam of sunlight. Aragorn wasn’t even sure if he had heard the guard’s message until he spoke.

“You’ll want me to lead Gondor’s army against these invaders, since my brother is not here.”

Aragorn shook his head. “I wouldn’t ask that of you, not now.”

Faramir closed his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Faramir…”

“There’s nothing you need to say, Aragorn. I know this… will be just as hard for you to bear as it will be for me.”

Perhaps not quite as hard, Aragorn thought. He was no stranger to loss and had learned, if not how to accept it, at least how to push it away and save the grief for when there was time. And there was no time now; with Gondor’s chief port under attack, Minas Tirith would be deprived of supplies. The Haradrim surely knew they could not hold Pelargir against the armies of Gondor, but if they were able to take the city they would burn and ruin it.

“You know the tribes of Harad didn’t put this together,” Faramir said quietly.

“I know it.”

“And you know the attacks on Arwen and Boromir are beyond their abilities to plan or to execute.”

Aragorn nodded. “Do you have any idea who might be behind this?”

Faramir glanced over at him. “I wish I did.”

There were some mutters of confusion and uncertainty among the captains of Gondor’s troops when the King strode into the meeting room without Boromir at his side. While they willingly acknowledged Aragorn as their King, they had continued to look to Boromir, still the Captain-General of the White Tower, to command them. They did not doubt Aragorn’s leadership, knowing that Boromir trusted him completely and would box the ears of anyone who suggested otherwise, but to discuss battle without their commander made them uneasy.

Aragorn took his place at the head of the long table, leaving his Steward’s seat to his right noticeably empty. He laid out his notes in front of him and studied them for a moment before speaking.

“According to the message we’ve received, there are four large Corsair ships and several smaller ones on their way to Pelargir, which alone are not enough to blockade the harbor, but the numbers of Haradrim are somewhere in the hundreds. If the ships can win them access to the city, as well-fortified as it is, it will be extremely difficult and destructive to rout them from it.”

“My Lord,” one of the men said. “If I may speak…”

“If you would say it to Lord Boromir, please say it to me now.”

“It will be nearly impossible to prepare that number of troops to move out in time to prevent the attackers from reaching the city.”

Aragorn nodded. “Can you tell me how long we would have to delay their progress to give our men time to fortify Pelargir?”

“At least a full day, my Lord. But I don’t see what we could do to delay the progress of such a large…”

The door to the room opened, and all heads turned as Faramir walked silently to the table and sat down in Boromir’s chair. Aragorn could see the weariness on the young man’s face, but he was in uniform and he was a face the captains knew just as well as his brother’s. Aragorn saw heads raising around the table, gaining a measure of confidence, and he glanced at Faramir, who returned his gaze with a small, tired smile before taking the notes and looking them over.

“I heard you speaking of some way to delay the progress of our opponents,” he said. “We have dealt with the men of Harad before, haven’t we?”

“We have,” one of the captains agreed. “But only when they were fighting under Sauron’s commanders could they mount an effective attack.”

Faramir nodded. “The tribes of Harad are at war with each other when not with Gondor. There’s a leader somewhere putting this attack together… and in an attempt to prevent us from acting, this person has ordered attempts on the life of both your Queen and your Captain.”

Exclamations of alarm rose down the length of the table, and demands for more information. Faramir looked to Aragorn, uncertain how much to reveal.

“Boromir has been captured,” Aragorn said. “He is alive, and even before we knew of this larger threat, we sent a skilled team of trackers to liberate him.”

He deliberately neglected to mention that the trackers happened to be Mirkwood elves, but he did not find this bit of information necessary to disclose at the moment. Information about Arwen, however, was trickier.

“The Queen’s life is in grave danger,” he said solemnly. “But I’m hopeful that she will recover.”

The attitude at the table had rapidly transformed from one of uncertainty to one of anger; this unknown foe had not only dared to kidnap their Captain-General, but had also stooped so low as to harm Gondor’s well-loved Queen, a cowardly and underhanded tactic that seemed below even the Haradrim. Vengeance was clearly called for.

“The Haradrim cannot carry out a plan like this without a leader,” Aragorn said. “And if we knew who this leader was or where to find him, targeting him might delay the attack, but we don’t have that information.”

“We don’t,” Faramir agreed, smiling slightly, “but we do know other things about the people of Harad that could be used against them… if not to defeat them, at least to create confusion and delay their progress.”

Aragorn raised an eyebrow.

“The Haradrim are a superstitious people,” the younger man went on. “Highly superstitious, and they put great faith in signs and omens and evil spirits. I’m sure their encounter with the Army of the Dead did not decrease this.”

“The Army of the Dead are gone,” someone said.

“True,” Faramir said. “But there are other things the Haradrim fear enough for us to make use of.”

“What are you suggesting?” Aragorn asked.

“My Rangers are too far away to summon them quickly. I need ten men who can travel very quickly and avoid detection. They are to meet me here with their travel gear before sunset, and we’ll leave…”

Aragorn shot him a surprised look. Faramir ignored it.

“Faramir…”

The captains glanced at each other and muttered back and forth

“Captain Faramir,” one of them said, “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, sir, you are the acting Steward in your brother’s place, are you not?”

“It appears so,” Faramir said, raising his eyebrows. “What are you thinking?”

The man looked down at the table before speaking. “Sir, if the Queen were to… take a turn for the worse… or if something were to happen to you, King Elessar… it would not do to have no Steward here to take the reins. Our enemies might take advantage of that situation…”

“He’s right,” Aragorn said. “Faramir, I cannot have you away from the city now. Too much is uncertain. As long as you’re the acting Steward, I need you here.”

“Sir,” one of the other captains said. “Our men will carry out your plan exactly as you direct them to.”

“I’m sure they will,” Faramir said, and Aragorn could not help but notice how these men, though all of them were older than Faramir, listened to him attentively and with respect. “Ten men will be able to prepare and move much more quickly than an army.”

“Sir… ten men to stop an army of hundreds?”

“Not to stop them,” Faramir said. “That will be the task of our troops. These ten men will be responsible for delaying them so that our troops can be waiting for them when they arrive.”

The captains departed with instructions for preparing their men to move out the next day, and discussing amongst themselves which ten men would be sent to carry out Faramir’s plan. Aragorn waited until the room was empty before turning to Faramir.

“What are you doing here?”

“My duty to my country,” he said evenly. “If Boromir isn’t here to serve as your Steward…”

“What about Legolas?”

Faramir smiled wryly. “I highly doubt that he’d approve of me neglecting my duties to sit around and stare at him all day.”

A chill made its way up Aragorn’s spine. “He’s not…”

“He’s alive, for now. And if I thought he could tell whether I was with him or not, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave him. And if you’re keeping me in the city to stay with him…”

“I’m keeping you in the city because your captains are right. You know perfectly well that the laws of Gondor dictate that the King and his Steward can’t both place themselves in battle or otherwise in harm’s way at the same time. One of us must always be here to command, and right now, it’s hard to know what might happen to any of us.”

Faramir nodded. “All right. If we could go to your rooms and I can explain what I’m thinking of as a way to delay the Haradrim… I can’t guarantee it will work, though.”

“We have nothing to lose, Faramir. There’s no way to get enough men in place unless we can delay them, and if we send a smaller contingent to fight them directly, they might delay them, but they would certainly all be killed in the process.”

“Good. Let’s go, then, and I’ll lay out my plan for you.”

“Should we stop and look in on Legolas?”

Faramir shook his head. “I’ll go back after we’re finished. Anyway, he’s not alone… Arwen is with him. She came to see me not very long after you left us earlier and said she wanted to speak to him alone for a few minutes. I told her I wasn’t sure he was listening, but she just smiled at me and told me to take a walk. And once I was outside and could think properly again, I realized that where I should be was at your side when my brother can’t be. So I asked her to stay with him, and I headed up here.”

“When did you think of this clever plan of yours?”

“Between when I opened the door and when I reached my chair,” he said, smiling.

“Arwen has known Legolas most of her life, and that’s a longer time than you or I can possibly imagine. She’ll take good care of him.”

“I know.”

“She said she wanted to speak to him alone?”

“That’s right.”

Aragorn shrugged, suddenly weary. “Perhaps she had some last words for him. I would try to think of some, if I had time, but that’s a luxury we don’t have right now.”

“Not at the moment, no. So let’s go and get to work, shall we?”
Aragorn studied the young man; his eyes wore circles so dark they looked like bruises.

“You look terrible, Faramir.”

“So do you, my Lord,” he said, chuckling. “Let’s go and get this done, before I fall asleep halfway through what I’m telling you.”

As soon as the sun began to sink toward the horizon, the orcs were awake and prodding their captives to get up and start walking. Boromir had some choice words for them, and one seemed to be considering prodding him with a spear, but one of the others that seemed to have some degree of authority snapped at him, and he grudgingly lowered his spear.

“They want us alive for something,” Boromir said.

“Alive and in reasonably good condition,” Merry added. “They did let us have water and clean your wounds.”

“They did. And the big one there doesn’t seem to intend to allow any of the others to harm us.”

“I think it’s mostly just you,” Pippin said. “We’re not important like you are… the only reason they’re keeping us around is to make sure you mind your manners and don’t do anything foolish.”

“If they try to hurt either one of you, I will do something very foolish, and they’ll wish I hadn’t,” Boromir muttered.

Moving in twilight, the orcs brought them to the banks of the Anduin. At this point, having collected most of its tributaries, it was a vast river, broad enough for large ships to travel up from the coast. While to the hobbits any dimly lit riverbank was likely to look much the same, Boromir smiled and looked down at them.

“I know where we are now, little ones.”

“Well, I’m assuming this is the Anduin, but considering that it runs from the Grey Mountains to the sea, that doesn’t tell us much,” Pippin said.

Merry rolled his eyes. “That’s what you get for never looking at maps, Pip. We haven’t crossed the Anduin, so we’re still on the west side of it, and we haven’t crossed the River Erui yet, but we must be getting close, considering how far we’ve travelled… so we’re somewhere in the lowlands of Lassarnach, and we should be crossing the Erui very shortly.”

He glanced at Boromir, who smiled proudly. “Excellent, Meriadoc. Very clever. I expect we’ll cross that river within the hour. That means that if we are on our way to Pelargir, at the pace these brutes are setting, we’ll be there about two days from now.”

“Two more days of this?” Pippin said unhappily. “I hope they’re planning to feed us soon, at least. That bread they gave us wasn’t much of a meal.”

“You’ll make it through the night, little ones,” Boromir said, “and when we stop at dawn we’ll see if they’ll let us find some food.” The man tried to ignore his own stomach twisting emptily at the mention of food. He had slipped the hobbits most of his bread before they’d noticed what he was up to and insisted that he eat the rest of it.

Boromir’s estimate had been correct, and within the hour they had reached a juncture where a small river, wide and rocky and shallow after flowing across the lowlands in the summer heat, poured itself into the Anduin.

“You wouldn’t walk across this in the spring,” Boromir said. “It’s much deeper, and the meltwater from the mountains is freezing.”

“It still looks deep enough to me,” Pippin said, eyeing it suspiciously.

The orc behind them growled. “Move.”

Boromir reached down and gingerly lifted one hobbit in each arm. “I’ll carry you across, but I’m putting you down on the other side, you know.”

The party of orcs and their prisoners reached the far side of the Erui. Boromir set the hobbits down and took a moment to shake the water out of his boots, looking around at the dense, scrubby trees that followed the smaller river’s banks off to the north and west.

Something moved among the trees. Boromir spotted the shifting figure, but the orcs had not, so he said nothing, but drew the hobbits closer to him. A quick look at his face told them that he was on the alert, and they shifted to stand at his side, Merry shifting his weight so he could get at the small knife in his boot quickly.

When he turned his gaze from the hobbits back to the trees, he was startled to find a pair of vivid green eyes watching him intently. A quick flash of white teeth in a hint of a smile, and then the face vanished again.

The orc behind Boromir made a strange, choked sound, and then it collapsed to the ground with an arrow still quivering in its neck. The other orcs spun in circles, seeking the source of this silent attack. Boromir glanced down at the arrow and smiled; it was clearly of elf craftsmanship, although the arrangement of feathers was unfamiliar. He grasped both hobbits and scooped one up with each arm, and they grasped his shirt tightly, prepared for anything.

The air was suddenly filled with the hiss of flying arrows, and orcs began to drop all around them. As the three of them watched, more arrows flew from the trees, and their aim was so precise that almost every one of them struck an orc target. The ground became rapidly smeared with black blood as the creatures thrashed and died. Within a minute of the first shot, Boromir and the two hobbits were standing amidst a field strewn with orc corpses, blinking in surprise and confusion.

The blond-haired elf dressed in Mirkwood green that came striding toward them reminded Boromir first of Legolas, but then he realized he had seen this particular elf before.

“Greetings, Lord Boromir,” he said, grinning broadly and extending his hand. “Do you remember me?”

“You’re Berendir,” Pippin said. The elf, man, and his fellow hobbit all stared at him. “What? I’m good at remembering names. You’re one of Thranduil’s sons. You look much different, though…”

“I am much different,” he said, lowering his hand when he realized that Boromir’s hands were both full of hobbits. The man quickly set them down and shook the green-eyed elf’s hand heartily.

“What exactly is a Mirkwood prince doing hunting orcs in the Pellenor?” he asked.

The elf laughed. “Looking for you, Lord Boromir, and your two companions. When I heard that you had been captured, I begged Aragorn to let us come after you.”

“Us?” Merry asked.

Berendir waved, and eight more elves stepped out of the trees, these ones darker-haired and obviously wood elves. Boromir looked past them and frowned.

“I’m surprised Legolas didn’t decide to accompany you.”

Berendir’s smile vanished. “You don’t know what’s happened to my brother, then.”

“No. What are you talking about? What’s happened to Legolas?”

Berendir motioned to one of the wood elves and spoke quickly in a dialect of Sindarin that Boromir had no ability to translate.

“Sit down, friends, and rest for a moment. My associates will bring you some food, and I’ll tell you where things stood when we left Minas Tirith.

As the sun hung low in the sky, guards pointed Aragorn toward Faramir in an empty storage room at the far end of one of the halls. Aragorn re-lit his pipe before striding off down the hall, drawing on it until the burning pipeweed glowed red in the dimming light. He found the room the guard had indicated and, finding it barred from the inside, knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Aragorn.”

“Come in… carefully.”

Aragorn stepped into the room, which was lit only by the fading light from the windows. He had a brief moment to see Faramir standing over a table stacked with jars and paper packets of some sort, but then Faramir looked up at him, eyes widening with alarm, and before he knew what was happening he had been shoved unceremoniously out into the hall and the door slammed in his face.

“What was that for?” he demanded.

“Put out that damned pipe before you kill us both!”

Puzzled, Aragorn stepped several paces away from the door before tapping out the still-burning pipeweed and tucking the pipe into his pocket. He knocked on the door again.

“It’s out.”

“Leave the pipe in the hall. Your matches, too. And your sword, if you’ve got it. Nothing that might spark.”

Aragorn frowned, but did as he was told. “All right. Can I come in now?”

“Carefully!”

Gingerly opening the door, Aragorn became aware of a sharp, acrid scent in the air, and gray dust drifting across the last streaks of sunlight from the window. Faramir looked up at him, smears of gray and black across his sweating face, his hair powdered with the same stuff. His hands were nearly black, and the surface of the table was covered with small piles of various powders, which Faramir appeared to be carefully measuring into wooden tubes. The younger man’s eyes bore the blankness that came from working under extremely stressful circumstances for too long without a rest.

“What are you doing?” Aragorn asked. “What is all this?”

Faramir grinned wearily. “Gandalf’s secret recipes. Although I’m not at all sure I’m doing it correctly.”

“Recipes for what?”

“Fireworks.”

“What?” Aragorn exclaimed.

“He was going to teach me how to make them next time he came back to Minas Tirith. He had started showing me last time he was here. He left his materials in this store room and gave me the only key and told me to make sure that no one came near here with fire or with anything metal. All of this stuff was in jars and packets till I started getting it out…”

“What is it?”

“Powdered metals, most of it. He left the book about what kinds and where they’re found… powdered metals and this stuff… it’s charcoal and saltpeter and some other sort of rock that smells like rotten eggs.”

“That’s what he makes his fireworks out of? I thought there was some magic to it.”

Faramir smiled. “This isn’t enough magic? To take rocks and metal out of the earth and grind them up and turn them into bright flaming lights in the sky? Mine won’t be as pretty as his, but I don’t intend them to be. And I’m hoping that with a bit extra of this stuff here, I can get a bigger bang out of them…”

“You’re getting that odd look in your eye that Gandalf gets when he’s thinking of doing something extremely dangerous,” Aragorn said.

“This is fairly dangerous,” Faramir said. “If you drew your sword right now and it sparked off the scabbard, everything in this room would explode with enough force to blow this entire wall of the citadel off.”

Aragorn looked around, alarmed. “Err… perhaps I should go.”

“Are the men almost ready? The ones that are leaving tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll be finished with these before dark… I have to be, since I can’t light a lantern. I’ll come to the room where we met earlier. Make sure that some of the men have some very sturdy leather bags that can be tied up tightly enough to keep out water… these won’t work if they get wet.”

Aragorn nodded and backed out of the room quickly, closing the door carefully behind him, thinking that perhaps Faramir was becoming a bit more like Gandalf than was probably good for him.

Berendir glanced down at the hobbits with some amusement.

“They certainly can eat a lot.”

“True,” Boromir agreed, laying a fond hand on Pippin’s head. The younger hobbit grinned up at him with his mouth full of buttered bread.

“We’ve been starved for days,” Merry said.

Boromir rolled his eyes and turned back to the fair-haired Mirkwood elf.

“And they’re certain this poison was intended for Arwen?” he asked.

“It doesn’t sound as though it could have been intended for anyone else. The poisoned food was a favorite of hers and sent directly to her rooms. It was only her luck that she wasn’t hungry.”

“And Legolas…”

Berendir’s previously bright eyes darkened. “He was alive when we left, but I’m not sure he is now. He looked too much like my mother looked as she was fading…”

Both hobbits looked up, alarmed.

“Did you say Legolas is…”

“He didn’t say anything,” Boromir said firmly.

“He did,” Pippin argued. “He said Legolas might be dead.”

“I thought you were supposed to be eating, not listening.”

“If we couldn’t eat and listen at the same time, we would miss a great deal of useful information,” Merry said. “Besides, Legolas is our friend. It’s not fair not to tell us what’s happened to him.”

“He was alive when I left,” Berendir repeated, glancing at Boromir for approval before continuing. “I fear he was closer to the other side than to this one, and from how he looked when I saw him, I have very little hope that he will still be with us when we get back.”

Boromir frowned, realizing that Berendir was speaking of his youngest brother. “I hope you didn’t miss your chance to be by his side just to come here hunting for us.”

The elf smiled uncertainly. “Elves are not accustomed to farewells. I doubt I would have had anything to say. And your brother… he has a way about him… no matter what happens I doubt Legolas could be in better hands.”

For a moment Boromir feared that the elf was going to inquire about the nature of the relationship between Faramir and Legolas, but the hobbits interrupted that with exclamations of alarm and defiance.

“Of course he’s still alive!” Pippin protested. “Aragorn is the best healer…”

“That’s right,” Merry agreed. “And he wouldn’t let… and neither would Faramir…”

“Little ones,” Boromir said solemnly. “Do you think that if they intended to poison Aragorn’s wife, they would use a poison he knew how to cure?”

“Oh,” Pippin said, his voice small and quiet.

“Do they have any idea why someone would do this?” the man asked.

Berendir shook his head. “No… although elves do hear things. As we were at the main gates preparing to leave, the guards were talking amongst themselves, saying that a messenger had come from the south, and that the attacks on you and on the Queen had been a cover for a large number of enemy troops to make a move on a place called Pelargir.”

Boromir’s head snapped up. “The city of Pelargir? The great port of Gondor?”

“That’s the place they spoke of.”

Boromir frowned and glanced down at the hobbits before turning back to the elf. “Can you and your men get these little ones back to Minas Tirith safely?”

“Of course…”

“Oh, no!” Merry said sharply. “We’re staying with you.”

“Always,” Pippin added.

“It’s not safe…”

“We don’t care,” Merry said. “We’re not going back without you. If you make us go with the elves we’ll run away and come back to you.”

“We will, too,” Pippin said firmly, in case Boromir doubted it.

“You don’t understand, little ones,” the man said. “If there’s to be an attack on Pelargir, I have to go there.”

“We understand,” Pippin said. “We’re going with you.”

Berendir looked down at them and smiled. “Captain Boromir, I have seen men command much larger troops, but never ones more loyal.”

Boromir tried not to laugh as he looked at the hobbits with mock sternness. “If we’re going to Pelargir, young Pippin, I am NOT carrying you there.”

Pippin made an indignant sound. Boromir ignored it and turned to the elf sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of him.

“I thank you and your men for coming to our aid. I’m sure you’re anxious to return to Minas Tirith and…”

Berendir shook his head. “And what? There’s no battle to fight there. I see no benefit in sitting helpless at my brother’s bedside when I can be out putting arrows through the heads of anyone who might be remotely responsible for putting him there.”

The hobbits glanced at each other, grinning knowingly. Boromir laughed and extended his hand.

“Well, then, Master Elf. Who am I to deny you your opportunity for vengeance?”

The elf smiled fiercely. “If we had as many arrows as the enemy had troops, Captain, we would kill every one of them. Let one of my men see to your wounds while the others go hunt us some supplies, and then we’ll proceed.”

Boromir nodded. “Maybe you should have one of them look over the little ones… the younger one had his shoulder dislocated, and I put it back in place, but… Pippin?”

He looked to where the hobbits had been, but both of them had vanished. Boromir rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Berendir raised an eyebrow.

“Shall I send someone to find them?”

“They’re fine,” Boromir sighed. “Just fine.”

Pippin raised his head to peer through the bushes where they had hidden themselves.

“Is Boromir looking for us?” Merry asked.

“No. He’s just sitting there, and one of the elves is bringing some water and bandages.”

“Good,” Merry said. “That will take them some time, don’t you think?”

“Mmm. He does have a great many cuts and scrapes all over his arms,” Pippin agreed, as Merry’s hands found their way beneath the hem of his shirt and began to trace along his ribs.

“He does. And they should make sure to take the time to clean them correctly,” Merry said, his last words muffled as he lowered his head to Pippin’s throat.

“Merry?”

“Hmm?”

“The… ooh! The elves are going to hear… you know they can hear everything…”

“You’ll just have to be very quiet, then.”

“You know I can’t be quiet when you’re doing… oh, THAT!”

“Hmm. Perhaps I’ll have to give you something to keep your mouth busy,” Merry suggested.

“That’s definitely worth trying,” Pippin agreed happily. “But then it’ll be you they’re hearing, Meriadoc, and I know YOU can’t be quiet while I’m doing that.”

“Let them hear,” Merry said breathlessly.

Pippin giggled and returned to his work.

Aragorn stepped quietly into Faramir’s rooms, finding Arwen at the hearth, taking a kettle of hot water from the fire. Seeing him, she smiled.

“Hello, Estel. Did you find Faramir?”

“Yes… I’m a bit concerned he may have gone quite mad, but I suppose I have to assume for the moment that he hasn’t. Is the tea for Legolas?”

She shook her head. “No… I was just making some for myself. I tried to get him to drink some earlier, but I think he’s too far away to hear what I’m telling him.”

Aragorn sighed and slumped into a chair at the table as Arwen set the kettle down and sat across from him.

“There may be a way, Estel.”

He looked up. “What?”

“There may be a way to help him.”

Aragorn frowned. “Whatever you’ve found, I’m afraid it’s too late… he’s much too far gone to fight for himself, no matter what…”

“What if someone else could fight for him?”

He looked at her sharply. “How…”

“You know how, Estel.”

He raised his eyebrows, eyes widening. “That’s… we can’t do that. There’s no one here that could, even if I did think it was…”

She laid her hand on his. “What about Faramir?”

He drew his hand back, alarmed. “We can’t. He can’t… no. Your father refused even to bind two elves like that, much less an elf and a mortal. If it doesn’t work, if it’s not enough… we could lose both of them. I can’t take that risk.”

“It’s not your risk to take, Estel.”

He frowned. “Have you spoken to Faramir about this?”

“Not yet.”

“Then don’t. You know he’ll jump at the chance to save Legolas, without considering the consequences… even if they both survive it, what will happen to them afterwards? I can’t…”

“It’s not your choice,” she said, meeting his gaze with a flash of determination that reminded Aragorn of her father’s stern expression. “It’s Faramir’s. Estel, if I were dying, and there was a chance you could save me…”

“Don’t ask me if I would do it. You know I would.”

“I was going to ask you, my love, how you would have felt if you found out later that there was a chance, and no one told you because they knew what your choice would be.”

“Damnit,” he muttered, frustrated. “Don’t you understand? Legolas could still die, and he could take Faramir with him.”

“It’s his choice.”

“You know what he’ll choose.”

She nodded. “Yes. But I won’t be the one to deny him that choice.”

Aragorn sank back in his chair, closing his eyes. “I can’t lose both of them.”

“It’s Faramir’s risk to take, my dear.”

He glanced at her. “Who put this idea into your head? I know it wasn’t your father’s notes. He refused to ever conduct that kind of binding.”

She laughed softly. “You’re right. It wasn’t my father’s idea. It was my grandmother’s.”

“Galadriel? She thought this was a good idea?”

“No,” she said, smiling. “But she gave me permission to try.”
“He’s meeting with the men in a few hours. He’ll be back here after that.”

She nodded. “I need time to prepare anyway. This is complex, and I’ve never even seen it done, much less done it myself. Just make sure Faramir comes back here soon. I don’t think this can wait till morning.”

Aragorn found Faramir walking out of his meeting with the ten men he was sending south toward Pelargir. The men had departed, walking past their King, each of them with arms full of oddly shaped bags and containers, all eyeing Faramir as if he might possibly have lost his mind. Faramir stopped in the doorway when he saw Aragorn, but waited to speak until the men were gone down the hall.

“They’re leaving now, so they’ll have most of the night to travel in darkness. They’ll be on horseback, as least as long as they’re in friendly territory, so they’ll cover ground very quickly.”

“Good. You still think all that stuff will work?”

Faramir grinned wearily. “Do I think so? Yes. Am I sure? Not really.”

The two men stood quietly for a moment, looking up at the stars strewn across the dark sky overhead. Aragorn opened his mouth to ask Faramir a question, but fell silent when he saw the distant look in the young man’s eyes.

“Faramir?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Yes?”

“What do you see?”

He closed his eyes, and a peaceful smile drifted across his face.

“My brother.”

Aragorn’s heart jumped in his chest. “He’s alive?”

“He and the hobbits… I see them walking together. They’re with the Mirkwood elves. The sky… they’re traveling south.”

“South?” Aragorn exclaimed.

Faramir jerked back to full consciousness, rubbing his forehead.

“Ugh… the more tired I get, the faster that seems to come on… what did you say?”

“South? Why aren’t they returning to Minas Tirith?”

“Who?” Faramir asked, frowning.

“Boromir.”

“What about Boromir?”

Aragorn quickly repeated what Faramir had just told him, but his mind was racing. The young man must have worn himself dangerously close to the edge of exhaustion if his visions, which normally came to him only in sleep or in certain quiet moments, were pulling him away so abruptly and leaving him with no memory of what he’d seen. He was even more determined now that Arwen would not attempt her dangerous plan; besides the many unknowns involved in the process and its consequences, Aragorn now feared that the attempt would take more of Faramir’s strength than the man had to offer at the moment. And Boromir might be safe at the moment, but he was traveling into danger, and Aragorn was quite certain Boromir knew it.

“I’m going back to my rooms,” Faramir said, interrupting Aragorn’s thoughts. “Not sure whether I’m hoping that there’s still time, or whether I’m hoping it’s just over…”

Aragorn frowned. “Maybe you should take a few minutes to collect yourself first.”

And give me a moment to speak to Arwen, he thought to himself.

Faramir shook his head.

“I don’t think I’m going to get any more collected than I am right now, Aragorn. Are you coming with me?”

“Of course.”

Arwen was sitting by the hearth in Faramir’s room when the two men walked in. Aragorn shot her a stern and slightly desperate look, hoping she would understand it. She caught his gaze and returned it with a sharp-edged stare that Aragorn knew well; he had been on the receiving end of that look from Elrond many times as a child.

“Faramir,” she said, ignoring her husband and taking the young man’s hands.

“My Lady,” he said, lowering his head. “Any change?”

She shook her head. “Much the same.”

He nodded. “I should at least go look in on him…”

“Wait,” she said, pulling him back gently.

He cocked his head and studied her, puzzled. “What is it?”

“Arwen,” Aragorn protested.

“Estel, be quiet,” she said, her voice offering no room for argument. “Faramir, I need you to tell me, honestly, how you feel about Legolas.”

He closed his eyes, weary. “Must we discuss this now, my Lady? I can’t…”

“You can, and it’s important. Please.”

Faramir glanced at Aragorn, who was shifting his feet and clearly struggling to stay silent. Arwen released Faramir’s hands and walked to her husband, placing a hand on his chest.

“Estel, you need to leave.”

He scowled. “I’m not leaving…”

“You are leaving,” she said evenly. “I’m not giving you a choice. This is between Faramir and I now, and between Faramir and Legolas.”

“But…”

He did not realize that she had been backing him toward the door until it closed abruptly in his face, leaving him standing blankly in the hall. He grabbed for the handle, but found it locked. For a brief moment he considered calling the guards to come and open it, but that would certainly not improve the situation, so he leaned back against the wall and let himself slump to sit on the cold stone floor, elbows on his knees, and waited.

“Did you just throw your husband out?” Faramir asked, amused.

“I did,” she said. “Answer my question, please. It’s just you and I now.”

“You want to know what I feel for Legolas?”

“I need to know.”

“I… he’s…” he began, but lowered his head. “Please, Arwen.”

“Do you love him?”

“Does it matter now?”

“It matters very much. Answer me. Do you love him? When you think of your future, do you see him in it, or do you expect that one day there will be someone else?”

“Are you trying to torment me?”

Her eyes fixed intently on his. “Faramir.”

The young man sighed. “All right. Yes, I love him. Yes, I would like him to stay with me, for as long as that’s possible… I’m mortal, and I’ll leave him one day no matter what, but… of course I love him. How could I not love him?”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I love him too, Faramir, and I think there may be a way for us to give him a last chance.”

Faramir’s eyes snapped to alertness. “How?”

“It would be dangerous for you, Faramir. And I don’t know what will happen to either of you if it succeeds…”

“But he might live.”

“He might. If we don’t try, he will certainly die, but you will certainly live. If we do… he may die in spite of it, and there’s a distinct possibility he might take you with him.”

Faramir was wide awake now, the slump gone from his shoulders. “Tell me what I have to do.”

“Do you want time to think about this?” she asked.

“No,” he said impatiently. “If it’s a matter of giving him a chance or just sitting back and watching him die, there’s nothing to think about.”

She nodded, reaching up to touch his cheek affectionately. “I suspected that would be your answer. Come with me, Faramir.”

“Aragorn was going to try to stop you from doing this, wasn’t he?”

She glanced over her shoulder as she walked toward the bedroom. “Probably.”

With dawn beginning to touch the horizon, Berendir ordered his elves to halt. Merry and Pippin, grateful for the moment of rest, flopped down on the ground immediately, but Boromir growled in protest.

“We can’t stop now. We need to keep moving.”

“We will,” Berendir said.

Boromir scowled. “You’re as bad as…”

He stopped abruptly; he and the elf both knew what he had been about to say.

“As bad as my brother?” Berendir said, quietly but without anger. “I doubt that. Legolas was always the most infuriating. You could know him a thousand years and never get a straight answer from him.”

Boromir chuckled. “That’s the Legolas I know.”

Berendir studied him for a moment. “You will feel his loss.”

“We fought side by side many times. He’s a warrior, and this is a death no warrior deserves.”

Berendir nodded. “I understand.”

“Why have we stopped, then? You want to go and inflict some harm on these brutes as much as I do!”

“Maybe not quite as much,” the elf said, chuckling. “I ordered a halt because, first of all, your little friends are quite exhausted, and second, because you and I need to decide our path from here. You know these lands, and I would like to know what we’re facing.”

Boromir nodded; while he still didn’t want to be wasting time, at least there was a reason for it.

“All right. If any of your elves are carrying paper, I’ll draw you a map of the area. If troops are moving toward Pelargir from Harad, they will be making for the Crossing of Poros, but they will likely have already made the crossing before we can reach them. To reach Pelargir, though, they will have no choice but to cross the Anduin, and I can almost guarantee they’ll actually have to go north of the city to make that crossing. Pelargir sits at the junction of the Anduin and the river Sirith, and the Sirith is a vast river in its own right. Its flow adds considerable speed and depth to the Anduin, and crossing above that junction would be far easier than below it.”

Berendir thought for a moment, his green eyes absent and turned inward. “So if we proceed directly down the Anduin, there’s a possibility we could stumble directly upon the full force of their troops before we even reach Pelargir.”

“That’s right. If they make the crossing to the north, they’ll be between us and the city.”

“What do you suggest?”

Boromir sighed, wondering how it was possible that he was about to make such a statement. “How quickly can your elves build us a few boats?”

Berendir laughed. “We are not the elves of Lórien, friend, but in Mirkwood we travel the Forest River in boats quite often. Surely you’re not thinking of trying to take small, roughly made boats down the Anduin? Its flow is much too strong…”

“Not the Anduin,” Boromir said. “Its tributary, the Sirith. If we could get onto that river in boats, we would arrive directly at Pelargir from its southern side, and we could move very quickly.”

Merry, who had come strolling over during the conversation, grinned up at the man. “I thought you said after Lórien that you’d never get into a bloody elf boat again if your life depended on it.”

Boromir shot him a sharp look. “I didn’t say…”

Pippin sauntered up behind Merry. “ Was that before or after he said that elves were a lot of prissy, arrogant creatures who spent more time on their hair than…”

“Peregrin Took!” Boromir growled, glancing uneasily at Berendir.

The Mirkwood elf raised an eyebrow. “If you did say such a thing, Captain Boromir, after your time in Lórien…”

Boromir glared at the hobbits.

“I must say,” Berendir continued, “that I would have to agree with you most whole-heartedly.”

“What?” Pippin exclaimed.

“Ridiculous creatures, the Lórien elves,” Berendir said, grinning. “You’d think they were the only creatures in all of Arda who can make pretty braids or wander through the forest looking solemn and elegant and wise. We often say in Mirkwood that they would be much improved by a few centuries of battling giant spiders… might set their priorities in order.”

Boromir laughed and clapped Berendir on the shoulder. “You know, I think I’ve realized where I went wrong. When I said I didn’t like elves, I had apparently not met enough of them from Mirkwood.”

“Well,” Merry said, realizing that Boromir had entirely forgotten about them in his glee at sharing mockery of the elves of Lórien and Imaldris.

“Hmph,” Pippin huffed.

“Come on, Pip. We’ll go have a nap in the shade while Boromir chats with his new friend.”

Pippin giggled. “Perhaps they’ll sneak off in the woods together for a ‘private chat’, hmm?”

Merry laughed, but shook his head. “You know Boromir’s got eyes only for Aragorn. But I’m not at all sure that our elf friend knows this.”

“Boromir’s not terribly observant about such things, is he?”

“He is possibly slightly less observant than a brick,” Merry said. “Do you remember how long it took us to get him and Aragorn together?”

Pippin rolled his eyes. “They’d been wanting into each other’s pants since two days out of Rivendell, and it took us almost till Lórien to get it through to them.”

Merry glanced back at the elf and the man; the fair-haired elf’s stance, leaning in to listen, face animated, eyes fixed on Boromir, was all too obvious to a hobbit who knew what he was looking at.
“You don’t think Boromir will…”

“No, Pip. You know he wouldn’t. He won’t even play with us, and you know he loves us as much as he loves anyone in the world except his brother and Aragorn. Besides, his mind’s on battle… that’s what’s got him all fired up.”

“Mmm-hmm. But I think Berendir may think it’s a rather different sort of fire.”

“Hmm. That may be problematic, Meriadoc.”

“True.”

“Perhaps we should attempt to interfere before things go too far in the wrong direction.”

“Pip, when does your interfering EVER improve a situation?

Pippin scowled indignantly. “I am quite certain that if you give me a few minutes, I’ll think of lots of times.”

Arwen busied herself with lighting the lamps in the bedroom, giving Faramir a moment to sit down on the bed and look at Legolas. Against the white sheets the elf’s skin was dull gray, his limbs slack and his face still.

“He looks dead,” the man muttered.

Arwen nodded, hanging up the last lantern, filling the small room with a warm glow to chase away the chill of hopelessness that hung in the air. “I know he does, but you must remember… elves are stronger creatures than mortals, and they can linger on the very edge of death when a mortal body would have surrendered.”

“How close to that edge is he?”

She laid a hand on Faramir’s shoulder. “Probably as close as it’s possible to be. You understand that there’s a good chance nothing we do will be able to bring him back from that edge.”

“I understand.”

“You understand what you’re offering him, Faramir?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

She took a small, sharp knife in a jeweled sheath from her dress and pulled it out, studying the blade in the lamp light. “You’re offering to have your spirit bound to his, and his to yours. This can’t be undone. He’ll be part of you for as long as you live, and you’ll share a bond that will make it difficult and painful for you to be apart.”

“I understand.”

“That’s not all of it, Faramir. Binding you to him will allow you to share your strength with him, which is the only chance he has, since he has none left of his own. He may be too far away to reach. But if you do reach him, and open yourself to him across that distance… too much may be taken from you, and you may not survive it.”

He nodded. “I’m not afraid. I have strength to give him.”

She reached down and took his left hand, and before he could ask what she was doing, she had drawn the blade swiftly across his palm. He winced, and blood welled up in the gash and began to spread over his palm. He watched as she lifted the elf’s left hand and sliced smoothly across the palm. She frowned as the blood, instead of flowing briskly like Faramir’s, only oozed from the gash.

“Are you sure he’s alive?” Faramir asked.

She nodded. “Yes… but his heart is beating very, very slowly.”

She wondered briefly if she should have listened to Aragorn’s concerns; the elf’s body could be too damaged to survive despite their efforts, and she succeeded in binding the two and Legolas died anyway, Faramir would suffer.

Faramir held out his bleeding hand to her. “I’m ready.”

She swallowed hard. “Faramir…”

“I know. I don’t care. I’m ready.”

Arwen stood for a long moment, looking down at Faramir where he sat on the bed in the golden lantern-light, holding out his bleeding hand.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I was just realizing why my father refused to perform these bindings, no matter how desperate the situation.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because he’s a healer. And as a healer, it would be against everything he had learned to take the life of a healthy, unharmed person into his hands and put them at risk of death, even if it was to save another life. It’s the same reason Estel would stop me from doing this, if he could.”

“But you’ll do it.”

She nodded, sitting down on the bed beside him. “My father chose immortality, when given the choice. I had the same choice, but I chose to live as a mortal.”

“And…”

Smiling, she reached toward Legolas and lifted his pale hand marred with a streak of red.

“There are things in this world that are worth giving up everything for, Faramir.”

He nodded, understanding. She drew the elf’s lifeless hand into her lap, then reached for Faramir’s and brought the two bleeding palms together. Faramir held his breath, not sure what he was expecting, as Arwen took a strip of white cloth from beside the bed and wrapped it around the joined hands, binding them together. The lanterns seemed to flicker and flare more brightly as she began to speak. The words were Quenya, Faramir was sure, but he read the old elf language better than he spoke it, and he had a feeling these words were not to be found in any book he’d ever opened. Her eyes were closed, all attention focused on her task, and as she spoke, Faramir realized that the blood-slicked contact between the elf’s hand and his was rising to a burning heat, as if the blood had become something caustic and searing. Startled, he might have jerked his hand away, but Arwen’s cloth binding kept their hands together. The man felt sweat beginning to run over his forehead and down his neck, his tunic clinging to his skin. The heat seemed to flare through him, and he found that his free hand was clenched tightly into a fist, grasping a handful of the bedclothes.

After what seemed like a very long time, the burning pain began to fade, leaving behind a hollow numbness. Arwen watched as Faramir’s eyes drifted closed.

“Faramir? Are you still with me?”

He nodded.

“Good. Do you feel another presence?”

“Only yours and my own.”

She frowned. “He may be too far away to realize you’re reaching for him.”

“What can I do?”

“Is there something you could say to him, reach out to him with? Something he knows only you would say, that would have some meaning to him?”

She saw a trace of a smile cross Faramir’s face. “Perhaps.”

“Tell him. See if he can hear you.”

She watched the man’s face closely. His eyes were still closed, his expression intent, but after a long moment he suddenly grinned broadly.

“What? What is it?” Arwen demanded.

“Oh, he heard me,” Faramir said, chuckling. “I don’t think he appreciated it, either.”

“You insulted him?” she asked, shocked.

“Do you really think terms of endearment would have got his attention from that far away?”

“Is he reaching back to you?”

“Maybe… I can’t…”

She knew the instant the connection had been made. The joined hands under hers flared with a sudden heat, and Faramir’s eyes flew open, registering confusion and a flash of alarm, then rolling back as he slumped to the bed. Arwen kept her hand on theirs as she glanced toward Legolas, and for a moment she saw no change, but then his chest heaved, drawing in an unsteady gasp of air before falling still again.

She heard footsteps in the room behind her, but only smiled to herself.

“How did you manage to get the door open, Estel?”

“I went home and got one of the master keys.”

“It’s too late to stop it.”

He rested a hand on her shoulder. “I wasn’t going to stop you.”

“No?”

“You’re right. This is between Legolas and Faramir.”

He stepped past her and leaned over, pressing his fingers under Faramir’s jaw to find his pulse, rapid but strong. When he touched Legolas, the elf’s body twitched and he took another gasping breath. Aragorn drew his hand back abruptly, staring.

“Faramir managed to reach him?”

“Faramir may be a bit more refined than his brother, my love, but he can be equally stubborn. He appears to be all right for the moment.”

Aragorn glanced back at Faramir. “His pulse is fast, as if he’d been running hard, but he seems to be all right.”

She smiled and took her husband’s hand. “Your pulse would be racing too, Estel, if your heart had to beat for both of us.”

He looked toward Legolas. “He’s far from safe, you know. I’m surprised he had strength left to reach back to Faramir, but there’s no telling how badly damaged his body is, and whether he’ll be able to come back to it. Or want to come back to it.”

“He’ll come back if he can,” she said.

Aragorn nodded. “If you wish to stay with them a little longer, I’ll go home and get my bag. I doubt either of them will be up for drinking tea at the moment, but I can still brew some… even the scent of athelas is healing, and to elves particularly it’s soothing and refreshing.”

“It reminds me of my father’s halls,” Arwen said. “He used it, though it would not do for him what it does in the hands of the King. Of course I’ll stay with them… I don’t intend to leave them any time soon.”

She watched him go. Through the windows in the main room, she could see dawn beginning to creep across the sky.

Boromir paced and wandered impatiently in the early morning light, to the great amusement of the wood elves. They had felled three large trees already and were now busily working them into a rough canoe shape with their knives.

“This is taking too long,” he muttered.

Berendir, who had just returned from checking on the boats’ progress, chuckled and patted Boromir’s shoulder. “They’re working quickly, but the boats must at least be able to keep us afloat before we can use them.”

“I only see seven of your elves. Where’s the other one?”

“Scouting. I sent him out to make a quick circuit of our surroundings. He’ll be back shortly. Where are your little ones?”

Boromir smiled. “Either sleeping or engaged in some other sort of activity.”

Berendir nodded, glancing across the clearing to the edge of the trees. “We did hear them making… odd noises earlier.”

“Every chance they get.”

“I see. Are all of their kind such… enthusiastic creatures?”

“As far as I know, those two are worse than most.”

“They certainly don’t seem to be ashamed to take their pleasure where it’s available,” the elf said, looking sideways at Boromir out of the corner of his eyes.

“I don’t think they understand the concept of shame,” Boromir said. “How long till those damned boats are ready?”

“Within an hour or two. Perhaps while they work, you and I should take a walk along the river bank and you can tell me about the course of the river before it reaches your city.”

Boromir nodded, happy to be doing something other than standing in the clearing watching elves carving chunks of wood. He started off through the trees and down toward the Anduin, kicking occasional fallen branches to express his overall annoyance with the delay. Berendir followed him, light on his feet as all elves were, smiling inscrutably.

Merry had arranged a very cozy bed under a treee with his cloak over a nice pile of dry leaves, and he and Pippin had been dozing there contentedly since Berendir had called for a halt. The two hobbits, however, were well aware of Boromir’s location and movements at all times, and as he left the clearing, Pippin yawned and raised his head.

“Where’s Boromir off to?”

Merry looked up and plucked a leaf from Pippin’s hair. “Appears the elf is taking him for a stroll.”

Pippin scowled. “He didn’t even come to find us and tell us he was going off.”

“Are you jealous, little one?”

“I’m not little. And I’m not jealous. It’s just that we belong to him, and he belongs to us, and that stupid elf has no right taking him off wandering around…”

“Hush, silly thing. There’s no tag on the man that says “Property Of Peregrin Took”, first of all, and second of all, can you blame the poor elf for wanting him?”

“No,” Pippin admitted grudgingly. “But I still don’t like it. And what if he should… tempt Boromir too much?”

Merry snorted. “I don’t think he’s the sort that Boromir would find tempting. And even if he was, you know how he is about Aragorn. He’s not just his lover, you know; he’s his King, and that’s a loyalty he’s not going to waver on, not for the prettiest elf in Middle Earth.”

Pippin crossed his arms. “I still don’t approve of this elf going off with him. He might… try something.”

Merry flopped back in the leaves, laughing. “You are funny, Pip. You don’t think Boromir can protect himself from being molested?”

“You may think it’s all a joke,” Pippin said sharply, standing up, “but I’m going to go and keep an eye on this situation.”

Merry sighed and gathered up his cloak, shaking off the leaves. “Then I’m going to go and keep an eye on you… and watch you make an idiot of yourself.”

The two hobbits followed the man and elf at a distance, knowing that Berendir’s elf hearing would pick up any wayward footstep, but also that with Boromir trudging along and kicking things it was unlikely the elf could hear much over that racket. When they caught up to the pair, they were standing along the side of the fast-moving Anduin, looking out over the water. Boromir’s hands were gesturing, probably pointing out possible points of attack or defense, while Berendir stood easily, hands clasped behind his back, listening. On the western bank of the river, with the sun hanging in the eastern sky, they were both painted gold and luminous, the warm light bright on their faces.

“I don’t like the way that elf is looking at Boromir,” Pippin muttered.

“He’s not even looking at Boromir.”

“Fine. Then I don’t like the way he’s listening to Boromir.”

Merry snorted. “How exactly does one listen in an offensive way, Pip?”

Pippin scowled and leaned against the tree they were using for cover. “Just look at him. He’s listening so hard it looks like his ears are going to come off his head and start groping Boromir.”

Merry raised an eyebrow. “That could possibly be the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

Pippin glared at him. “You don’t seem to be properly concerned about our friend.”

“You’re quite right, Pip,” Merry said, peering around the tree. “I mean, just look at him. Surrounded by danger, about to be attacked at any moment.”

“You’re not being nice,” Pippin pouted.

“You’re not being smart,” Merry shot back. “And I…”

Pippin grabbed his arm suddenly and pointed. Merry followed his gaze and found that the elf had stepped quite close to Boromir, who was still busily discussing the merits and drawbacks of fighting along the Anduin, and was watching the man’s face intently with bright green eyes. His hand drifted slowly to rest on Boromir’s shoulder. The man appeared to be entirely unaware of this and continued talking.

“That’s enough of that!” Pippin hissed, standing up and stepping into view. “Boromir! Hey! Boromir!”

The man immediately turned, frowning with concern, and strode toward them, hastening to pick Pippin up and look him over.
“Are you all right, little one?”

“Yes. I just… err… I thought I saw an orc.”

Boromir glanced at Merry, but the older hobbit just shrugged and rolled his eyes. Boromir set Pippin back on his feet and straightened up.

“Well, I suppose we should be getting back to see how the boats are coming.”

He headed back toward the clearing. Berendir followed him, giving the hobbits a curious glance as he passed them.

“There. Happy now?” Merry asked. “Now not only does the elf know what you’re up to, but Boromir thinks you’re going daft.”
“I’d be happier if you would go away,” Pippin said, following the man and elf through the trees. Merry trailed after him, trying not to laugh.

Arwen refused to leave Faramir and Legolas for the rest of the morning, but as noontime approached, Aragorn found her dozing off sitting by the bed and insisted that she go home and sleep.

“Only if you promise to stay with them,” she said, yawning.

“I will. Have you seen any changes?”

She smiled ruefully. “Not as much as I’d like. Faramir is starting to look rather exhausted, and Legolas takes one of those gasping breaths now and then, but he doesn’t seem any better.”

Aragorn sat down on the bed and studied Faramir’s face in the light from the window. The man’s face had lost most of its color and his forehead was creased as if lost in thought. Pressing his fingers under the younger man’s jaw, he found that Faramir’s pulse was still fast, but weaker and less steady.

“This is taking too much from him, and it doesn’t seem to be helping Legolas.”

“We have to give it time, Estel.”

He sighed. “I’ll give it time, but if I think Faramir’s life is in danger and Legolas is beyond hope, I’ll do whatever I can to try to break this bond before Faramir loses too much.”

“I don’t think it could be broken now even if you tried,” she said, shaking her head.

“It’s not fully complete yet. Neither of them have been able to speak the bonding words, or…”

“It won’t break,” she said, smiling as she stroked Faramir’s hair. “The only possibility for breaking this bond before it’s completed would be if one of them wished to break it, and that’s not going to happen.”

He looked over at her, frowning. “Are you sure this was the right thing to do?”

“Yes,” she said. “I wasn’t before, but I am now. Legolas wants to come back to him, and Faramir wants to bring him back. I don’t regret giving them the chance to try.”

“Even if it kills them both?” he demanded, wincing at the harshness of his words, but Arwen didn’t seem to notice.

“Even if it kills them, Estel. All mortal lives end. Faramir knew the risk. I have no regrets.”

She rose, kissing her husband on the forehead, and left him sitting on the bed to contemplate her words in silence.

Boromir sat with his back against a tree, impatient and irritated, while the two hobbits laid across his outstretched legs, Merry dozing in the noonday sun and Pippin occupying himself by putting small twigs among Merry’s curls.

“Stop tormenting your cousin, little Pippin,” the man muttered, chuckling. “Otherwise you’ll fight when he wakes up, and I’m cross enough waiting for these bloody elves to get these boats finished.”

“That’s what you get for associating with elves,” Pippin said, refusing to look at him.

Boromir raised an eyebrow. “I thought you liked elves.”

“I like SOME elves,” the young hobbit replied, reaching for another twig to put into Merry’s hair.

“You’re not still angry with them because of what happened in Mirkwood, are you? Seems things have changed quite a bit there since our visit, from what Berendir told me…”

“Oh, yes. Berendir tells you lots of things.”

The man frowned. “What in the world has gotten into you, little one?”

“He’s been nipped by the green-eyed monster,” Merry muttered sleepily. “And if he keeps putting things in my hair, I’ll box his ears.”

“Green-eyed monster?” Boromir repeated. Pippin flushed bright red as the man looked down at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Boromir!”

Berendir was walking briskly toward them. Boromir gently disengaged his legs from the hobbits and stood up.

“What is it?”

“The elf I sent to make a circle of the area has just returned.”

“Must have been a large circle, considering how fast your folks move.”

“There are other folks moving faster,” the elf said. “From the north. Ten men on horseback. Accordng to the report they’re wearing dull green and brown clothes and carrying bows and swords.”

Boromir thought for a moment. “You said Aragorn knows of the planned attack on Pelargir, right? These men may be from Gondor. Did your elf try to speak to them?”

“No. That would have given away our position, if they should be enemies.”

“How far from here?”

“They’re traveling along this side of the Anduin. At their pace and direction, they’ll run right into us within two hours or so.”

“How long till the boats are done?”

The elf grinned. “Two hours or so.”

“Damned elves… all right. Have someone go keep a look out and alert us when they’re getting close. If they are from Gondor, they’ll know me as soon as they see me, but if they’re not…”

Berendir reached over his shoulder and brushed his finger over the feathers on his arrows. “Ten men on horseback would fall before they knew what was happening if I ordered my men to fire.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Boromir said, grinning at the picture in his mind of their enemies falling under a hail of elf arrows. “When we get word that they’re getting close, I’ll have you fellows hide and let these men stumble upon me, and we’ll see whether they’re friend or foe.”

Faramir woke to a sharp acrid smell, which he discovered upon opening his eyes to be coming from a small jar Aragorn had stuck under his nose.

“Ugh!” he protested, as Aragorn’s face came into focus. He raised a hand and smacked the jar away, drawing a giggle from Arwen somewhere in the room.

“There you are,” Aragorn said, smiling.

“What did you stick that foul stuff up my nose for?”

“It woke you up, didn’t it?”

Faramir moved to sit up and realized something was attached to his left hand. When he looked down at it, he abruptly recalled at least a good part of what had happened, as the thing attached to his left hand was someone else’s left hand.

“Oh, that,” Arwen said, leaning over to untie the white cloth holding the two hands together. Faramir, alarmed, looked over at Legolas.

“He seems to be much better,” Arwen said, nodding.

“He still looks awful,” Faramir said, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the fog from it.

“I doubt he’d appreciate you saying so! His breathing and his pulse are still very slow, but they’re steady. Aragorn spoke to him earlier and I think he may be able to hear us.”

Faramir jumped as a voice seemed to speak not into his ear, but deeper in his head. For a moment he had difficulty understanding it, as the words seemed muddled and slurred, and it didn’t help that the voice was speaking an odd combination of Westron and Sindarin. After a moment it paused, as if realizing it wasn’t making much sense, and tried again, still hard to make out but at least speaking one language this time.

Tell them I can hear them.

Faramir glanced over at the elf, but he had not stirred.

Tell them I can hear them and if they’re going to say stupid things I want them to go away.

Arwen cocked her head. “Faramir? Are you all right?”

“He can hear you,” the man said, trying not to laugh. “He doesn’t seem to appreciate whatever you’ve been talking about, though, and thinks you should go away.”

Aragorn frowned, but Arwen laughed.

“My wife seems to think you both ought to be outside in one of the gardens for a while,” Aragorn said, looking a bit doubtful.
Faramir shared his doubt and thought that the bed was a perfectly acceptable place to be, but the voice in his head began to clamor so vehemently that Faramir raised a hand to his ear as if to block it out.

Yes, yes, yes, outside!

“Fine!” Faramir exclaimed. “Just be quiet!”

He realized Aragorn was staring at him as if he’d lost his mind, which was when he remembered that he was the only one who could hear Legolas.

“I do believe he thinks we should take you up on your suggestion,” the younger man said.

“You can hear him.”

“Unfortunately, yes. He’s rather loud at the moment and not very patient.”

“You can really hear him?” Aragorn repeated.

Faramir scowled at him. “Yes, I can really hear him. Why? I assumed it was because of this binding business.”

Stupid mortal.

Arwen shook her head. “This isn’t normal, even for people that are bound together. I can only assume it’s because of your gift, Faramir… you’re able to sense and see things others don’t.”

“I’m not sure that ‘gift’ is the proper word for it,” he muttered. His head hurt.

Arwen turned to Aragorn. “I believe we should escort our friends here out to the garden and give them some peace and quiet.”

Faramir dragged himself to his feet, feeling stiff and weary. Aragorn managed to lift Legolas, although Arwen laughed at the effort he had to put into it; the slender elf was heavier than he appeared. The four of them made their way through the halls and toward the walled garden. By the time Arwen had gotten the latch on the iron gate open, Aragorn was making rather impatient noises, trying to communicate his anxiousness to put Legolas down soon.

Faramir glanced toward the large hammock strung between two of the largest trees, woven like a fishing net stretched over a wooden frame at each end. Gandalf had installed it at his last visit, noting that he had discovered the thing on one of his mysterious travels, and Boromir and Aragorn had established through personal testing that it was fairly comfortable for two men to lay in together, but that it was not designed to tolerate two men engaging in any sort of activity. Arwen studied the spot for a moment before nodding.

“That will do, Estel. Faramir, make yourself comfortable.”

The younger man climbed into the hammock and stretched out, enjoying the feeling as it swung gently. It swung more roughly when Aragorn unceremoniously dumped Legolas into the hammock, half beside Faramir and half on top of him.

“Estel!” Arwen scolded.

“He’s heavy,” Aragorn muttered, but obeyed her sharp look and helped Faramir arrange the elf in a more reasonable position. All the while, Faramir could hear Legolas muttering comments about the overall intelligence, behavior, and aroma of mortals.

Eventually Arwen declared herself satisfied with the situation and offered her arm to her husband, allowing him to escort her back toward the gate.

“I’ll come back later with something for you to eat,” she said, glancing back at Faramir. “No one else will disturb you. And don’t worry about my husband… he won’t have too much time to worry about his back, since he’s riding out at the head of the army of Gondor in an hour.”

The gate closed behind them, and the garden fell back into its usual peaceful quiet, with a few birds hopping along the branches high in the trees.

About time those two went away.

Faramir chuckled. “Why were you so anxious for them to leave?”

Distracting.
“Distracting from what?” Faramir asked, finding it highly unsettling to be conversing with the elf who was stretched out beside him, unmoving and to all appearances unconscious.

Me. You. I’m trying to keep my attention on you, and they’re making it difficult. Hard to stay focused when you’re this tired.

“You don’t have to pay attention to me. You can rest.”

Rather not. It was hard enough making my way back to you once. Not sure I could do it again. I think I’ll just stay awake.

The voice had taken an uneasy tone to it that made Faramir feel suddenly protective, and he pulled the elf against his side.

“It should feel good to be outside. We’ll just stay here for a while.”

Can’t feel much, except you. And cold.

“Well, the sun is warm, so we might as well enjoy it. Besides, I don’t think we’re likely to get back to my room any time very soon… I think you made Aragorn throw out his back.”

A soft chuckle. At least I accomplished something useful today.

Boromir leaned against a tree, arms crossed, awaiting the riders who approached him with caution. They had clearly been riding very hard; their horses’ sides were lathered with sweat. He could not see faces beneath the hoods, but he smiled, recognizing the cloaks as the ones his brother’s Rangers wore, intended for moving unseen among trees and brush.

One of the riders reined in his horse abruptly and tossed back his hood, eyes wide.

“Captain Boromir?”

“It appears so, yes.”

In moments all ten of the men were off their horses and upon him, patting his arms and shaking his hands as if to make sure he was real. He tolerated it good-naturedly for a moment before ordering them to settle down.

“Captain, what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere all alone?”

Boromir grinned. “Alone?”

He motioned with his hand, and the men jumped in surprise as the wood elves seemed to appear from nowhere, detatching themselves from the trees.

“You’re commanding a troop of elves now?” someone asked.

“No. These fellows are under the command of this elf here, Prince Berendir of Mirkwood. Now, I’m assuming Elessar sent you, so come here and sit down and tell me what you’re up to while these elves finish these bloody boats.”

“Well, Captain, it was all your brother’s idea…”

“Hmm. Not sure I like the sound of that at all. And what’s in all those bags you’re carrying?”

The sun was sinking low in the sky when Boromir set his rearranged plan in motion. Besides a few minor details, the two teams could not have been more in accord if Faramir had known exactly where Boromir was going to be. The major difference was that when the men departed on foot, following the west bank of the Anduin south, they were accompanied by five wood elves; Berendir had correctly pointed out that no creature on Arda could move undetected among trees better than a Mirkwood elf, and when Berendir translated the plan into Sindarin for them, they were delighted by the idea and immediately began plotting to add to the chaos. Boromir proceeded down the tributary, two hobbits and Berendir in his boat and three wood elves in the other. Pippin, who had overheard discussions of Faramir’s plan, was much too excited to concern himself with Berendir and sat at the front of the boat with Merry, impatient to get on with it.

“Are you sure the timing will work out?” Boromir asked. “I want them to start their work before we arrive at Pelargir from the south.”

“It should,” Berendir said. “They’re on foot, but not traveling as far. If we’re lucky, by the time we walk into the city, no one there will be paying any attention to what we’re up to.”

“Do you think the old man the orcs talked about will be in the city?” Merry asked.

“If he’s commanding the Harradrim troops, he may be traveling with them,” Boromir said. “There has to be someone with strong leadership skills in direct command of this operation… the Harradrim aren’t organized enough to work like this on their own, and orcs certainly don’t come up with plots by themselves. By the time we arrive, though, he may already be in the city, waiting for his troops to arrive. He’ll be in for a surprise when they’re delayed.”

“Are we going to miss the fireworks?” Pippin asked.

“If this works like it’s supposed to, little one, no one will miss these fireworks.”

“Are fireworks really enough to stop a whole army?”

“No,” Boromir said, grinning. “Just to delay them. If all goes well, Aragorn himself will be showing up at the head of the whole army of Gondor to deal with them… we just have to give them time.”

“The Harradrim must not be very bright, if this is going to work,” Pippin said doubtfully.

Merry raised an eyebrow. “The first time you saw Gandalf setting off fireworks, you had to go change your pants.”

“Did not!”

“Did so.”

“That’s a lie. Take it back.”

“I won’t…”

Boromir rolled his eyes and grabbed the closest hobbit, which happened to be Merry, by the shirt, and deposited him in the back of the boat in front of Berendir.

“There. Stop fussing. If you two idiots tip this boat over, I’ll…”

“You will not,” Pippin said, laughing.

“Well, I’d at least…”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Merry said.

Boromir scowled. “Give me an oar, Berendir. I’m suddenly in a hurry to be out of this boat.”

Boromir watched the horizon and frowned. “It’ll be dawn soon.”

Berendir, sitting in the back of the boat and using his oar as a rudder to steady them in the increasing swift current, chuckled at the man’ s impatience.

“Not much we can do about that, is there?”

The hobbits, who had finished fighting when the boat started to rock and tip them around, were now huddled between the two larger men, Pippin with a secure grasp on Merry’s shoulder with one hand and Boromir’s tunic with the other.

“We’re nearly to the Anduin; I can see it from here off to our left,” the elf continued.

“I’m not worried about our progress. I’m worried about the others. Those fireworks they’ve got aren’t going to have quite the same effect if they’re being set off at noon, are they? And look at all the fires along the far bank of the Anduin… the Harradrim and whatever other beasts are all camped right there, just north of the river junction, and my guess would be that they’re going to attempt the crossing just before dawn. That’s when I’d do it… start sending the first ones across while it’s still dark, let them establish that the far side is clear before starting the larger troop movements…”

“Trust your men, Boromir,” the elf said. “I trust mine.”

Durian was the youngest of the ten men Faramir had sent, but his captain had chosen him less for his experience and more because he was a quick learner and remarkably adept with any sort of machinery. He had been the first to understand Faramir’s instructions for the use of the fireworks and other supplies, and for this reason he was now crouched amongst the brush along the west bank of the Anduin, watching gray light begin to touch the eastern horizon and keeping a close eye on the masses of explosives sitting at his feet. Ahead of him, two wood elves looked back over their shoulders and began signaling him with their hands: there had been movement among the troops massed on the far bank all morning, and now with dawn almost upon them, a unit of about thirty Harradrim were moving toward the ford. The elves watched as the dark-haired, dirty men approached the water cautiously, muttering amongst themselves and making signs across their chests as if to invoke some spell of protection.

“They’re mostly desert people,” the older man next to Durian said, pointing. “Large bodies of water aren’t something they deal with often, and they’ll make sure they’ve got all their ritual protections in place before they try it. If they think there’s a bad omen against trying the crossing, you’d be hard-pressed to get them to try it.”

Durian grinned and pulled his matches from his pocket, pleased to find that they were still nice and dry. “Let’s see what they think of Captain Faramir’s omens, shall we?”

He waved a warning to the wood elves, who ducked and scrambled to safety. Not all of these fireworks were designed to shoot into the sky, and it wouldn’t be wise to be in front of them, seeing as how they were hardly precision instruments. In fact, they were little more than powdered metal and gunpowder wrapped in paper, stuffed into a wooden tube with a gunpowder primer at the bottom and a rather short fuse. Faramir had made them aware of the distinct possibility that instead of lighting the primer first the fuse might ignite the entire package, transforming it from a firework to a bomb, which had something to do with Durian’s caution as he touched a lit match to three of the fireworks in quick succession and then spun on his heels and ran for cover.

Half-buried in the clay of the bank, the wooden tubes suddenly ejected their contents with a loud crack, sending them hissing in flames out over the water. The men and elves held their breath; if the packages failed to ignite, the fireworks would land harmlessly in the water.

With a tremendous flare of red light, one of the packages exploded over the river, showering the surface of the water with crackling, burning sparks that hissed as they landed. Before the sparks had finished falling the second package detonated, this one aimed closer to the water and containing rather a lot of gunpowder and a good bit of sawdust, which scattered as a flaming dust over the river, swirling like the breath of a demon. The third one landed in the water, but Faramir had followed Gandalf’s instructions and this one was packed into a glass jar, so that when it did explode, it did so with an enormous bang that sent waves skittering across the surface of the water and made the wood elves jump back and cover their sensitive ears.

Across the river, the camp was alive with chaos as if the fireworks had landed right amongst them. The troops preparing to cross the river had scattered into the crowd, shouting and throwing down their swords, and the others had jumped up from their spots around their campfires and were backing away from the water as fast as they could, knocking each other over in their haste.

Durian grinned and hurried back to the fireworks, lighting two more. These ones were more light than sound, but they soared high above the Harradrim camps before detonating, sending blue-green sparks showering toward the ground and then men below howling and running for cover. In moments the entire camp was in complete chaos, men running from the river and towards the safety of the trees, tents knocked down, weapons and tools abandoned.

“Do we have some more of those glass jar ones that go bang?” the older man asked.

“Lots more,” Durian said, grinning. “Pete down there has a bunch of them. Go tell him to light four or five of them at once, and let’s see if we can really get them running. I’ll go have the fellows down river set off theirs and we’ll get a proper spark shower going to go with your bangs.”

Merry and Pippin sat on the overturned boat on the sandy bank of the Anduin, watching the light show over the dark walls of the city of Pelargir.

“Those are lovely,” Merry said.

“Not as good as Gandalf’s,” Pippin sighed.

“No, but Faramir hasn’t had a few thousand years to practice, has he?”

Boromir winced happily as a series of loud explosions echoed down the river. “Always knew my brother was a clever lad, even if he does get a bit side-tracked, what with the visions and the elves and all.”

Berendir glanced at him. “Then Faramir and my brother are…”

Boromir scowled. “Why do you think you found him in Faramir’s bed?”

“I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”

“And what are you going to say about it?” Boromir challenged, crossing his arms. “Whatever I say about my brother’s choice of partners, that doesn’t mean I won’t…”

His eyes widened and he had only a moment to uncross his arms before the elf had wrapped an arm around the man’s shoulder and pulled his head down into a kiss.

Pippin squeaked loudly, halfway between amusement and alarm, and Merry quickly stifled him as Boromir hurriedly stepped back, eyes wide and startled. The elf also took a step back, watching the man’s reaction. The hobbits, reading the complete bewilderment in the man’s body language and, knowing what Boromir’s usual reaction to a confusing situation was likely to be, scrambled toward him. Boromir, though, waved for them to sit back down, and since he did not appear to intend to hit the elf, they warily obeyed.

“I apologize,” Berendir said quietly. “Some of the things you’ve said… I thought you might not be opposed to the idea of another male…”

Pippin snorted loudly, and Merry punched him. Boromir turned very red and his eyes were fixed on the ground.

“I… am not opposed to that idea, friend. But there is already someone… and…”

The elf smiled. “I understand.”

He held out his hand, and Boromir shook it heartily, relieved. “I’m quite certain we can find you some companionship when we return to my city. Elves are still somewhat of a novelty there, and there are women and men who would like to satisfy their curiosity and their gossip, which your brother has done nothing to quiet.”

“Legolas has always done as he pleased,” Berendir said.

Another round of fireworks crashed and hissed over the city, flaring against the brightening horizon. The elf turned away and walked toward the water, and Boromir turned to find both hobbits staring at him, wide-eyed and desperately trying to stifle giggles

“You evil little creatures!” he hissed, glaring at them. “You KNEW that was going to happen, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Merry wouldn’t let me,” Pippin said.

“If you’d told him, he’d have laughed at you and told you to stop being a jealous brat, which you are,” Merry retorted.

Boromir growled and captured one of them with each hand and tickled them ruthlessly until both of them screamed for mercy so loudly that Berendir came back from the river to see who was being murdered.

Faramir muttered in protest at the hand on his shoulder, shaking him and making the hammock swing.

“Stop that… go away!”

“Faramir,” Arwen said, shaking him again. “Wake up.”

“I don’t want to wake up.”

“I know. But someone else is awake, and I think you’ll be happy to see him.”

The man yawned and forced his eyes open to find Arwen smiling down at him in the fading light.

“Look,” she said, nodding.

Faramir turned his head and found himself looking into a pair of slightly confused but very alert blue eyes.

“Well, hello,” he said.

I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.

“Why didn’t you just wake me up like you usually do when you’re bored?”

Thought you could use the rest.
“How thoughtful of you. How do you feel?”

Ugh. Awful. This is entirely uncalled-for.

Faramir laughed, drawing a curious look from Arwen. “Elves really aren’t used to being ill, are they?”

“No,” Arwen said. “And when they are, they are terrible patients.”

Faramir sat up, forgetting he was in a hammock, and then had to swing his legs around quickly and grab Legolas with one arm to keep them from both ending up on the ground. He was pleased to feel the elf’s muscles shift in an unconscious attempt to keep himself from falling.

“So, since we’re up, what would make you feel better?” Faramir asked.

Back to your rooms. Maybe you can read something aloud… I’m bored out of my mind and I don’t think my vision’s clear enough to read.

“We could play draughts,” Faramir suggested, hooking the elf’s arm over his shoulder. “But you’d have to tell me where to move your pieces.”

You would cheat. And although I never thought I’d say this, maybe some of that foul tea of Aragorn’s would be good.

Faramir nodded. “That could be arranged.”

After sleeping through the day, Faramir was content to stay awake late into the night, especially since Legolas was finally back to himself enough to sit propped up on the couch and follow Faramir with his eyes and an occasional turn of his head as the man moved through the room. Countless games of draughts and several books later, as the sky in the east began to turn gray, Faramir sat up abruptly as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder. Legolas looked at him curiously.

What is it?

Faramir grinned and closed his eyes. “Fireworks.”

As the last of the fireworks fell silent and the sky began to lighten, Berendir sent two of his wood elves up the slope to the west of the city, instructing them to find a vantage point in a good tree and survey the situation. They returned shortly, grinning and chatting eagerly to their commander in the peculiar dialect of Sindarin that Boromir could not understand a word of.

“What are they saying?” he demanded, interrupting the discussion.

“Are all mortals as impatient as you?” Berendir asked curiously.

“No,” Merry said, looking up from the piece of wood he was whittling with his knife.

“Depends on the situation,” Pippin added.

Boromir glared at them, but they both beamed at him from their seat on the overturned boat, and he scowled and turned back to the elf.

“They were saying,” Berendir went on, “that it appears your brother’s plan was highly effective. A few of the Haradrim remain in their camps, but most of them fled away from the river and into the forest. It will take quite some time to get them all back together, and some of them appear to be abandoning the fight entirely and were spotted sneaking off to the south.”

“Running for home,” Boromir said, pleased. “Will this keep them busy long enough?”

“I suspect they will not be able to attempt the crossing till tomorrow morning, at the very least. And that’s if they can convince their men to attempt it at all.”

“Could they see my men and yours? Are they safe?”

Berendir spoke quickly to the two wood elves before answering.
“They appear to be well and their position is, for the moment, quite secure. They will be there to meet your King when he arrives.”

Boromir glanced toward the city walls and frowned. “Whoever orchestrated all of this is in that city somewhere.”

“Boromir…” Pippin said. “The intelligent thing to do would be to wait for Aragorn.”

“For once, I agree with Pip,” Merry said.

The man shook his head. “If this person is in the city, he’s got to be aware by now that Gondor has been alerted to the threat, and he’s probably assuming that they’re sending their army to deal with the situation. If he flees and escapes from the city before Aragorn arrives…”

The hobbits glanced at each other, understanding.

“Then Arwen will never be safe, and neither will you, or Aragorn, or anyone else that’s important to him,” Merry said.

Boromir rubbed his curly head fondly. “Yes, little one. I’m going to have Berendir take you two to safety with the men on the other side of the city, and…”

Pippin shook his head and sighed. “Boromir, you do realize that every time you attempt to send us to safety, we refuse to go?”

“I am aware of that,” the man rumbled.

“So why do you bother?” Merry asked, hopping down from his perch and sliding his knife back into his boot.

“I don’t want you two going with me now. You’re…”

“We don’t care,” Pippin said. “We’re going with you.”

Berendir nodded. “I’ll join the three of you. I’d like to meet this enemy in person. I’m going to send the rest of my men back to join the others… they have no experience fighting inside a city and might do more harm than good.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m fully aware of that,” the elf shot back.

Boromir raised an eyebrow and tried to suppress a smile. “Now you sound like your brother.”

“I fight like him, too,” Berendir said, drawing his short sword. “This blade would like to taste some blood today.”

“Very well,” Boromir said, relenting. “I wouldn’t deny you an opportunity for revenge. And you two…”

The hobbits grinned at him.

“You two are beyond impossible. You’re both going to get killed someday.”

“Everybody dies someday,” Merry said.

“Except elves,” Pippin added.

“Shut up, Pip. I was trying to say something intelligent.”

“Well, that was a lost cause from the start, then.”

“Hmm. Perhaps we should see if you’re still smirking after I box your ears.”

“I’d like to see you try… hey, there!”

This was as much of a protest as Pippin could manage before Merry, full of high spirits and nervousness and excitement, tackled the younger hobbit to the ground and tumbling them both into a pile of leaves. Boromir rolled his eyes and waded in, coming out of the fracas with a hobbit in each hand, grasped firmly by the shirt.

“None of that, now,” he scolded, setting them down.

“Just getting warmed up,” Merry said, flushed and grinning.

“Merry, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were starting to look forward to getting into dangerous situations,” Pippin said.

“So what if I am?” Merry said, straightening his shirt. “Let’s go, Boromir. The day isn’t getting any longer.”

With only an hour’s nap shortly after dawn, Faramir was far from happy when Arwen came to awaken him and send him to the King’s meeting room. He’d been curled up quite contentedly in his bed, wrapped around a half-dozing elf who had finally started to properly warm up, when the Queen’s voice dragged him back to consciousness.

“What is it that needs done right away?” he muttered, rummaging through his drawers for a clean tunic while Arwen watched with amusement. “Aragorn’s not even here.”

“No. Hopefully he is well on the way to Pelargir at the head of his army,” she agreed. “And if your plan worked…”

Faramir smiled, losing some of his sleepy grouchiness. “It worked. I could see the fireworks. Boromir was watching them.”

“Then he’s alive and well, and at Pelargir.”

Faramir nodded, pulling a decent tunic over his head. “As far as I can tell, yes. Now, what did you need from me?”

“You are meeting with my husband’s advisors and other concerned parties,” she said. “With the King and the Steward gone, they are very, very uneasy, especially since the Steward’s whereabouts are still officially unknown. And I, of course, am officially on my deathbed. Or am I dead? I lost track.”

Faramir shivered at hearing this, but Arwen’s mood was merry.

“No fear, Faramir. All will be well. Go and tell them that their Steward is alive and well and that he and King Elessar will soon settle all this foolishness. They trust you. Possibly more than your brother, since you are less inclined to throw things at them.”

Faramir chuckled and glanced toward his bedroom. “Will he be all right while I’m gone?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Arwen said. “I believe he is on the way to recovery, though it will take him much longer than he is willing to tolerate. And you are bound to him now… you’d know if something was wrong.”

“I’m sure,” Faramir said, rolling his eyes. “You have no idea what it’s like to have him being able to complain to me while he’s not even with me.”

“I can imagine,” Arwen said, straightening his tunic and rearranging his disheveled hair. “As I told you, that’s something very unusual, even between two elves. But I suspect that it won’t take you long to learn how to manage it, just like you learned to manage your visions when you were young. Out of curiosity… it is just words, this communication, or are there other senses involved?”

“So far it seems to be just his voice,” Faramir said. “And I’d be fine if it stayed like that. Legolas is phenomenally good at being distracting.”

Arwen smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Off with you… they’re waiting.”

The broad streets of Pelargir were still and silent in the gray morning light. Orders had clearly been given for everyone to shut themselves up safely in their homes, and the shuttered windows and darkened store-fronts gave the usually busy port city an air of abandonment. They had not gone far before a guard stepped out in front of them and halted their progress.

“Who are you, and why are you in the street?” he demanded.
Boromir studied the younger man for a moment. “Identify yourself, soldier.”

The soldier frowned and straightened up. “Sir?”

“Identify yourself.”

“I’m guarding this street by order of my captain, sir. If you haven’t heard, there is a large army of Haradrim…”

“Yes, yes. And do you know who I am?”

“No,” he said warily.

“I am Lord Steward Boromir, Captain-General of the White Tower.”

The man’s eyes widened. “I don’t…”

“Take me to your captain. He’ll recognize me.”

Realizing that if this man really was who he claimed to be, giving him a hard time was probably very unwise, the soldier nodded briskly.

“Come with me, then.”

Faces peered through curtains and shutters as the small party passed. Several other guards stepped out to stop them, but seeing that they were already under supervision they allowed them to continue. The men’s boots cast echoes off the cobblestone streets. When Boromir had visited Pelargir in the past, these streets had been so full of people, market stalls, carts, shipping crates, and livestock that it was almost impossible to walk anywhere in a straight line. The city’s quick and thorough response to threat, though, told him that although the city was within territory that belonged securely to Gondor, they were wary of attack and had prepared to deal with it.

“Your preparations are very satisfactory,” he said, looking around.

“Thank you, sir. We find that…”
Boromir had just enough time to think that he should have had enough sense to be wary of dark alleys before the thick cloak was thrown over his head and strong arms were wrestling his behind his back. He heard the young guard attempt a shout of alarm, which was immediately and sharply cut off, and Boromir winced at the knowledge that it was probably the last sound the young man would ever make. He tried to still himself enough to listen, and to his relief he could hear Merry and Pippin’s muffled but noisy and outraged protests. Although he could not hear the elf, he assumed that if their attackers had not harmed the hobbits, Berendir was probably unharmed as well, at least for now. He felt his sword being yanked from him and heard voices speaking a language barely recognizable as Westron. Haradrim, then, he guessed.

“Captain Boromir.”

The speaker had a heavy accent, but at least Boromir could somewhat understand him. “Uncover my face and give me my sword, you bastard, and then we’ll talk.”

“The Wizard wants to see you.”

“Good,” he growled. “Take me to your bloody wizard, and let’s see what he has to say about all this.”

“He can’t be much of a wizard if he has to send filthy humans to do his business for him,” Berendir snapped. “Give me back my bow and we’ll see how magical he is.”

“That will not happen, elf. The Wizard will decide what to do with you. Maybe when he is done he will give your bones to the Wargs to play with.”

Recognizing that it would be foolish to put up too much of a fight with his head covered and his hands bound behind his back, Boromir grudgingly stumbled along in his captors’ grasp. The thought entered his head that Legolas’ temper must be inherited, because the variety of curses that Berendir unleashed in both Sindarin and Westron was most un-prince-like and extraordinarily vulgar.

“Bilingual cursing seems to be a most useful skill,” Pippin said.

“I don’t know about useful,” Merry said, “but it must be very satisfying.”

“If I knew more languages, I would curse them in those too,” the elf said, his voice muffled by the cloak over his head.

“When we’re safe again, will you teach us some proper Sindarin curses?” Pippin asked hopefully. “Aragorn won’t teach us and Arwen just laughs at us, and Legolas curses quite a bit, but…”

“Pip, hush,” Merry interrupted sharply.

“What… oh. I meant… well, I didn’t mean anything.”

Boromir wished he could reach the hobbit’s head to rub it reassuringly. “It’s all right, little one. I think Berendir understands that all of us are fond of Legolas.”

One of the men grunted, and Boromir grinned, suspecting that one of the elf’s blind kicks had finally landed somewhere painful.

“I’m surprised that the guards would allow filthy Haradrim into this city,” Berendir muttered.

“They come here occasionally to trade, on Corsair ships,” Boromir said. “There are spices and other products that only come from the far south, and Haradrim merchants bring them here from Umbar.”

“No more talking,” one of the men growled.

“I’ll talk if I bloody well please,” Boromir shot back.

The man muttered something unintelligible, and Pippin squeaked in alarm, but them a voice spoke over the others, a clear and even voice with such an irresistible power to it that even Berendir’s stream of curses faded to silence.

“I told you not to harm them, Harwan, even if they are being unconscionably rude.”

Boromir frowned; he knew that voice, but could not understand how or from where until Berendir spoke.

“The elves of Mirkwood heard enough of that voice, when you and your White Council came to cast Sauron out of Dol Guldur, only to find that you did it only so you could search for the One Ring on your own, Saruman.”

The cloak was pulled from Boromir’s head, and he found that they had been brought into a small courtyard with high stone walls, and that the white-robed man standing before them, though smaller and thinner than Boromir remembered him, was the same one that had watched from the stronghold-turned-prison of Orthanc as the ents of Fangorn destroyed his forges and machines. At his side was a wizened, gray-faced, hunched little figure that Boromir also immediately recognized as the creature who had been whispering poisoned words into King Théoden’s ears before Gandalf arrived in Rohan and cast him out.

“I knew Gandalf shouldn’t have let you live,” Boromir said sharply.

“Gandalf has made many mistakes in his time,” Saruman said, giving him a thin, humorless smile. “Allying himself with the dying race of elves and the foolish upstart race of men… passing up the opportunity to take the One Ring for himself…”

“Mistakes?” Merry demanded. “So that’s why he rides with kings and is welcome everywhere he goes, while you’re slinking around without your staff or your powers and resorting to poisoning and kidnapping?”

The wizard arched one white eyebrow and glared at the hobbit. “Ahh, yes. Gandalf’s favorite race of all, his beloved hobbits. Most favored creatures. Those relatives of your friend Baggins were so easy to corrupt, the simple, greedy things…”

Both hobbits scowled, remembering the ugly trouble that the Sackville-Baggins family and their associates had caused Frodo on his return. With the considerable political clout of the Brandybucks and Tooks behind him, though, they had been put back in their place.

“Should’ve expected some evil creature like you was behind all that,” Pippin said.

“I would have been behind a great deal more of it,” the wizard said, shrugging his shoulders, “but a certain Steward of Gondor seems to have become unreasonably fond of hobbits and managed to divert a rather unnecessary number of Gondorian troops to patrol the roads to the Shire…”

Both hobbits glanced up at Boromir and grinned broadly.

“Did you do that, Boromir?”

“Possibly,” he said, smirking.

“What do you want, then?” Berendir demanded. “Surely you know that no one can give you back the power that was taken from you when you were cast out of the White Council.”

“True,” he said, with a sigh. “But I have, since leaving Isengard, found myself in a rather unfortunate position, having very little in the way of resources, and very little assistance with the exception of this pathetic creature you see at my side.”

Boromir glanced at Gríma Wormtongue, thinking that the wizened man had aged many years in the short time since being cast out of Rohan, and saw him wince as if preparing to dodge a blow when Saruman spoke of him.

“I don’t know how you thought that poisoning Arwen and taking me hostage would improve that situation.”

“Hmm,” the wizard said. “Have you not noticed that Pelargir is a very fine city? Quite a nice place to live. And vast amounts of trade occur here, trade that Gondor depends on. I think that a Sovereign State of Pelargir would have considerable power over the commerce and travel in this part of Middle Earth, and that its ruler would have the opportunity to negotiate significant tariffs and taxes on all goods transported through the port.”

“You really think Aragorn would just hand over control of Pelargir to you?” Boromir asked.

“Of course not. But if he were to be distracted by other issues… say, by the death of his beloved Queen, and the disappearance of his loyal Steward… he might be unable to collect himself and assemble his armies in time to prevent mine from taking the city. And once I hold this city, your King will have to burn it to the ground to route us from it.”

“Problem with that plan,” Merry observed. “Your ‘army’ is off hiding in the woods and thinking that evil fire spirits are going to attack them if they come back out.”

Saruman scowled. “I did receive news that the silly light show this morning caused some commotion amongst my troops. But I have no doubt that they will regroup and make the crossing in time to deal with any forces that Gondor might get around to sending.”

“Oh, you mean the ones that left Gondor a full day ago, and will arrive here before nightfall?”

“You try to intimidate me,” the wizard said, poorly disguising his surprise. “I think you are lying.”

Boromir shrugged. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

Saruman scowled down at Gríma and struck him in the head.

“Why did your spies not know of this? You become more useless by the day!”

Boromir crossed his arms and smiled. “By the time your Haradrim make it out of the woods and start to turn into something like an army again, they’ll have something much more frightening than fireworks to contend with.”

Saruman studied him, regaining his composure. “True. But I find myself wondering how much the lives of a Steward, a Mirkwood Prince, and a pair of the King’s favorite hobbits are worth?”

“If you think we’re Aragorn’s favorite hobbits, you obviously haven’t heard him talk about us,” Merry said, but his expression was concerned, and Boromir knew why. He and the hobbits all knew that Saruman had no idea what he truly had. Aragorn would halt his entire army before he would let Boromir die; the wizard did not know he had far more than just the King’s Steward in his control.

“You have no power anymore,” Berendir challenged. “Gandalf took it from you.”

“No power? I admit that Gandalf left me with little in the way of resources, but I am not entirely powerless,” Saruman said, turning almost absently toward the hobbits. He opened one hand and thrust it abruptly toward them, and the invisible blow sent Merry and Pippin tumbling backwards to the stone floor. Boromir lunged forward with a growl, but the Harad guard behind him grabbed his bound arms and dragged him back.

“Are you all right, little ones?” he asked anxiously.

Merry looked up at him, but whispered something in Pippin’s ear as the two of them assisted each other to their feet.

“We’re all right, Boromir. He’ll have to do worse than that.”

“Oh, I can do much worse than that,” Saruman said, smiling. “You know, I suspect that compared to you, Lord Steward, the life of this particular wood elf is probably not terribly valuable. Perhaps I should deal with him now, just to make sure that you understand I am entirely serious.”

Berendir squirmed against the ropes that bound his arms and glared at the wizard. “Only a coward would kill an unarmed prisoner just to prove a point.”

“I care not what you think of me, elf, and I intend to shut that obnoxious mouth of yours right now.”

He drew a long dagger from a sheath at his belt and gave Boromir another thin, grim smile before stepping toward the struggling, bound elf with the dagger raised and ready. Boromir lunged forward again, but he could not free himself from the guard that dragged him back again.

“If you hurt him, Saruman…”

“You’ll do what, Steward?” he asked. “Your hobbit friends are next, if you make any trouble.”

Boromir fell back, growling in helpless rage, and looked toward Merry and Pippin. Merry, to his surprise, grinned at him.

“Boromir, did I ever tell you about the one thing that Pippin ever managed to beat me at?”

“Merry, now is not the time…”

“Oh, but it is,” Pippin said. “If we’re going to die, I want to make sure that everybody knows it. Merry has never, ever been able to beat me at one particular Shire hobby. Most young hobbits practice it a bit, but I spent a whole summer getting as good at it as I could possibly be, just so I could show Merry I could be better than him at something.”

Saruman had stopped, dagger in hand, and was listening with condescending patience to Pippin’s chatter.

“Pippin…” Boromir said warningly.

“Pip,” Merry said, “tell Boromir what this particular hobby is that we’re speaking about.”

Pippin smiled, and when his hand came up from his side, it was holding the small blade Merry had been carrying in his boot.

“Oh, you mean knife throwing?”

“It’s all in the wrist,” Merry said fondly. “Do it, Pip.”

Pippin snapped his hand forward, and the knife hissed through the air, spinning end over end, before burying the narrow blade into the wizard’s throat just above the collar bone.

The dagger clattered on the stone as Saruman staggered back, groping at the knife as blood welled around the blade and flowing freely over his white robes. The stunned Haradrim froze, watching in horror, but Boromir and Berendir were too shocked to take advantage of the opportunity.

“I knew you could do it,” Merry said.

“You were hoping for me to miss.”

“Why? So we could all get killed?”

Pippin burst out laughing and Merry embraced him tightly. Saruman lurched toward Boromir, but collapsed to the stone floor, his robes covered with blood. Berendir, snapping out of his astonishment, jerked free of the guard holding him and delivered a vicious kick to the unmoving body.

“Gandalf showed you mercy, but I won’t.”

Boromir pulled away from the guard behind him, but the man did not seem to know what to do. He looked toward the only other person left in the courtyard, the shrunken, cloaked, silent figure who now stood staring at the fallen wizard. After a moment, he looked up at Boromir and his mouth shifted into what might have been a hint of a smile.

“My master has a history of underestimating people,” he said. Then, looking over Boromir’s shoulder, “Guards, you may go. I shall handle this from here.”

The guards seemed almost happy to be excused, now that the situation had changed so drastically. The small man waited until they were gone before he spoke.

“I could have ordered them to kill you, Son of Gondor.”

Boromir nodded warily.

“What do you want?”

“Let me go. That’s all. Before your king and his army arrive.”

“How do I know you won’t go right on being a threat to us like your master was?”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “You think I wish for power? To control a great city or bring down a kingdom?”

“You served Saruman.”

“And I had a choice? Let me go, Steward, or kill me… it matters very little, but either way, you will never see me again.”

Boromir glanced at the elf, who nodded slowly.

“It seems to me, Lord Boromir, as if he speaks the truth.”

“Very well. Go.”

Gríma bowed. “The destruction of the One Ring has freed you of much anger, Son of Gondor. Farewell.”

He ducked through the doorway and was gone.

Merry took Saruman’s dagger from the floor and quickly cut Berendir and then Boromir free. The first thing the man did when his arms were released was to sweep a hobbit up in each of them and pull them close until they squeaked and squirmed and laughed.

“You two…” he said, struggling for the right words.

“Of course we are,” Merry said, and kissed him on one cheek while Pippin planted a kiss on the other cheek.

Berendir raised an eyebrow. “Should I leave you three alone for a while?”

Boromir rolled his eyes. “Don’t give them any ideas.”

“I knew you could do it, Pip,” Merry said, leaning over Boromir’s lap to kiss his cousin enthusiastically.

“Liar,” Pippin gasped, when he could get his lips free.

“Knife-throwing, little one?” Boromir asked, shaking his head in astonishment.

“It works brilliantly for getting apples out of trees when they’re too far out on a branch to reach,” Pippin said, shrugging.

“Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?”

“Because,” Merry said, shaking his head. “He’s always afraid that if he tries it again, I’ll beat him this time, and they he won’t be able to say he ever won at anything against me.”

“I can think of some new competitions that I’m pretty sure you’ll lose,” Pippin said, grinning.

Boromir stood, lifting one of them in each arm. “Come, Berendir. We’ll go out and meet our men and wait for Aragorn.”

“What shall we do with him?” Berendir asked, prodding the dead body with his foot.

“Just leave him there. That’s all he deserves.”

“At least I can say I avenged my brother’s loss…”

“I don’t think your brother is dead,” Boromir said.

Berendir and both hobbits looked at him, puzzled. “How do you know?”

“Because I think if that had happened, Faramir would feel it strongly enough that I would know it.”

Berendir looked hopeful. “You think he may be alive?”

“I think he might. But Aragorn will arrive soon, and he’ll be able to tell us for sure.”

Berendir nodded. “I hope his news for us is as good as ours is for him.”

“Are you going to tell him what we did?” Pippin demanded.

“No,” Boromir said, chuckling. “I am going to take credit for all of it myself.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I would.”

“You awful man!” Pippin exclaimed, glaring at him until Boromir relented and kissed him on the head.

“I promise, little Pippin, that you shall get all the credit you deserve.”

“Hmph,” Merry said, crossing his arms. “It was my knife.”

“Are they always like this?” Berendir asked.

Boromir rolled his eyes. “Or worse.”

Faramir resisted the temptation to rest his head in his hands and doze off as he listened to the King’s advisors debating and discussing the current situation across the table. At the moment, none of them had any idea what the King and his army might find as they traveled south, or what sort of harm might have come to the Steward, and all of them had heard the rumors that Arwen was desperately ill, or worse. Only a few of the royal family’s trusted guards had seen her, and they were under strict orders to answer no questions about her health or her whereabouts. Several of the advisors had already made some comments in Faramir’s general vicinity that if either of the heirs to the line of Stewards would stop messing about and get down to the business of producing offspring, some of these issues might not be so problematic, which had forced Faramir to resist the urge to chuckle. They seemed to have come to the conclusion that the Steward himself, for whatever reason, served his King with a single-minded determination that seemed to distract him from any romantic pursuits, but the Steward’s younger brother, handsome and well-liked in Gondor and lacking his brother’s stubbornness and hot temper, should have been easy to marry off, even if for unknown reasons he and the Lady Éowyn had called off their engagement.

He did not feel inclined to discuss the situation with them at the moment, so he leaned back in his chair and attempted to keep his eyes open and maintain enough consciousness to respond if his name was spoken.

Faramir.
He sat up a bit; the voice was stronger and sounded more like Legolas than before.

I’m bored.
Not as bored as I am, Faramir thought, rolling his eyes and trying to direct the thought toward Legolas.

At least you can move properly. I’m stuck on the couch and I already read all the books you left for me, and I can’t get to the ones on the shelf, and…

Faramir smiled to himself. You’ll be back on your feet soon.

Not soon enough.

Please stop, Legolas. I have to pay attention.

The voice ceased, and for a moment Faramir thought he might be able to get through the rest of the meeting in peace. He had, apparently, underestimated how bored Legolas was and the lengths to which he was willing to go to entertain himself.

The man was attempting to listen to something being said about Boromir’s tendency to take situations into his own hands, which the advisors seemed to disapprove of, when another disturbance flashed through his head. This, though, wasn’t a voice: it was an image. Specifically, it was an image of a particular fair-haired elf stretched out on his bed, smiling, entirely naked, blindfolded, with his hands bound above his head with strips of cloth.

A few of the advisors glanced at the young Captain with concern as he jerked upright in his seat with a gasp.

“Captain Faramir?”

He shook his head, clearing the image away. “Excuse me. I’m just a bit tired. Please go on.”

He had just fallen back into the sleepy half-listening state when another image popped into his head. It was the same scene as before, but this time the elf had apparently got one of his hands loose, because that strong archer’s hand was now lazily but steadily stroking the elf’s hard cock.

He managed to keep himself silent this time, but just barely.

Good gods, Legolas. Please stop it.

A soft chuckle. You’re already hard just thinking about it, aren’t you?

Faramir scowled. Yes, and that’s rather inconvenient in a room full of Aragorn’s advisors!

Well, I told you I was bored.

Faramir sat back in his chair, remembering what Arwen had said about eventually learning to control the communication between them. At the moment, though, Faramir didn’t have time for “eventually”, so he closed his eyes and did his best to ignore any further distractions.

The next image, which did not seem to have any difficulty getting into his head, showed the elf again, still blindfolded, but now standing naked with his back to the cool stone wall of Faramir’s bedroom with his arms bound to the lantern hook above his head, the lean body stretching smoothly from long legs to arched back and arms wiry and tight as bowstrings.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“Captain Faramir?” one of the advisors asked, frowning.

“Err… check. I need to check on something. It’s… important. I’ll be back shortly.”

He made his move for the door quickly, before anyone could notice the rather obvious effect of the elf’s efforts on particular parts of his anatomy. His hands clenched into fists as he strode down the hall; there were two things he was sorely tempted to do to Legolas, but unfortunately neither beating him or fucking him into the wall seemed like reasonable options considering his condition.

“Bloody elf tease,” he muttered to himself.

“I hope you’re not addressing me,” a soft voice said.

Faramir spun. “Arwen! What? No. The other elf.”

She smiled. “I assumed that was the case. Is he taking advantage of your bond to torment you?”

Faramir closed his eyes. “Ugh. Yes.”

“You do know that two can play at that game,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “And unlike you, Legolas can’t even come after you to make you stop.”

“Hmm,” Faramir muttered thoughtfully. “That’s a very interesting possibility.”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “You two are going to have some things to work out, and Legolas is not accustomed to needing help from anyone… or needing anyone. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“Good,” she said. “Legolas and I are old friends, and I am fond of him, but he has pushed most others’ patience far past the limit. Something tells me, though, that he would very much like for someone to rein him in and test some of his limits for a change…”

Faramir looked up, alarmed and wondering if someone had told Arwen about some of the “games” that he and the elf played, but she just laughed.

“He chose you for a reason, young Faramir. And I think he chose well.”

“That depends,” Faramir said. “Right now I’d very much like to strangle him.”

She shrugged. “He probably deserves it. But wait till he’s healed a bit first.”

“What do you mean, making sandwiches?” Aragorn demanded, directing a sharp look at the scout who had just ridden up beside him. Behind the King, a line of captains waited for the scout to give his report and for Elessar to give them the plan of attack. The high walls of Pelargir and the river Anduin beyond were just visible from their hilltop vantage point, with the sinking sun casting golden and orange shimmers off the surface of the water.

The scout shifted uneasily, and his horse stomped its feet. “My Lord, you asked what the Lord Steward was doing.”

“Yes, I did.”
“Well, that’s what he’s doing, sir.”

“Making sandwiches,” Aragorn repeated.

“Yessir. The hobbits told me to inform you that they are ham and cheese sandwiches and that the people of Pelargir make very good bread but their ham is too salty.”

Aragorn rubbed his forehead, hoping that the action might perhaps make this ridiculousness go away, but when he opened his eyes the scout and the captains were still staring at him.

“The ten men Captain Faramir sent are with him,” the scout said. “And also a blond-haired Sindarin elf and a party of what appear to be wood elves.”

“And they’re all eating sandwiches,” Aragorn asked, being unable to think of anything else to say at the moment.

“Errr… no, sir. I don’t believe elves eat ham, sir.”

Aragon sighed. “Just take me to them, please.”

“Sir, you should probably take at least a few guards with you…” one of the captains suggested.

“I need guards to protect me from my Steward, two hobbits, and some ham sandwiches?” Aragorn snapped, irritable. “Just take me to Boromir.”

Boromir and his small group had found themselves a comfortable spot along the bank of the Anduin, across the river from the field of discarded tents and weapons left behind by the Haradrim, who without Saruman’s command had made a hurried retreat to their southern homeland. Boromir had sent the wood elves across the river on one of their rough boats to commandeer several tents, in which most of the men were now napping as a result of the barrel of ale that the appreciative people of Pelargir had provided to their heroes, along with an ample supply of food from their markets. The wood elves had gone off under the trees and taken with them several baskets of exotic fruits that had come to Pelargir from mysterious locations far to the south; while these delicacies occasionally showed up in Minas Tirith they had never been seen as far north as Mirkwood, and the elves were not going to miss out on the opportunity to taste them. The hobbits were stretched out with their heads pillowed on Boromir’s rolled-up cloak, discussing their recent triumph and discussing ways to exaggerate the danger and excitement of it, while Boromir and Berendir sat with their backs against a log, Boromir absently sharpening his sword and Berendir checking the fletching on his arrows.

“What is your king going to say when that scout gives him his report?” the elf asked, smiling.

Boromir shrugged and reached for his mug of ale, frowning with disappointment on discovering that it was empty. “He’ll be all right.”

“I imagine he’ll be glad to find you unharmed and victorious over our enemies.”

“He’ll probably be mostly just irritated that I didn’t wait for him to show up and save the day.

Berendir raised an eyebrow. “You know, you don’t speak of him as most men speak of their king.”

“What? Oh… well, we are friends.”

“I didn’t suppose kings were supposed to have friends,” Berendir said. “My father doesn’t have any, as far as I know.”

Boromir frowned; the more immediate concerns since the elves had come to rescue them from the orcs had kept him from thinking about the fact that the wiry elf with the seemingly boundless energy sitting beside him was the same one he had seen, hollow-eyed and obedient, in Thranduil’s halls. The man wondered for a long moment what his companion had suffered in those halls, and for how many hundreds of years, but then Berendir cocked his head and looked at him.

“Something wrong?”

“No, no. Just thinking.”

They sat quietly for a moment before Boromir spoke again.

“Will you and your elves go back to Mirkwood now?”

“They’re anxious to get back. Silvan elves’ hearts are strongly bound to the forest of their birth, and they miss it when they’re away.”

“Mmm-hmm. And you, Berendir?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it, particularly. Legolas has been so many places, and I know he’s close to the elves in Rivendell and has friends among men, too… I had planned to ask him if he knew of any place where I might be welcome.”

“You can ask him yourself, when we get back to Minas Tirith.”
Berendir shrugged. “You seem very sure he’s alive. You didn’t see him, though… I didn’t know it was possible for an elf to be that ill…”

“Well, you can ask Ara… King Elessar about him right now, because here he comes.”

Aragorn strode into the clearing, stopping for a moment to look over the tents of dozing men, the empty barrel of ale, and Boromir’s smug grin.

“What the bloody hell have you been doing?” he demanded.
Boromir shrugged and laid his sword down. “Making sandwiches.”

For a moment he thought Aragorn might lose his temper entirely, and he relented and stood up and grabbed the other man by the arms and embraced him. Aragorn retained his annoyance for half a breath before he burst out laughing and held Boromir out at arm’s length.

“You and your brother’s fireworks and a pair of hobbits managed to get rid of an army of Haradrim?”

“We did more than that,” Boromir said, grinning. “And there’s a dead body waiting in the city for your inspection as soon as we’re done here. But first…”

He gestured toward Berendir, who was watching them curiously and with some worry.

“The poor fellow is most concerned about his brother. He says Legolas was in a rather bad state when he saw him last… is he all right?”

Aragorn’s smile faded for a moment at the memory, but returned as he spoke. “I don’t think it’s possible to be any closer to death than Legolas has been… but I do believe he’s on the way to recovery, and by the time we return to Minas Tirith, I do believe he’ll be well enough to tell you all about it himself.”

Berendir leaped to his feet. “He’s alive? He’s going to be all right?”

Aragorn nodded, laughing. “I believe he will be.”

Berendir grinned. “I must tell the others! They were concerned too… Legolas is well-loved in Mirkwood, even if not by my father.”

He darted away.

“Energetic creature,” Aragorn muttered, watching him go.

“You have no idea,” Boromir said, grinning. “Let’s leave the hobbits here to supervise things, and you and I will go and let you have a look at the instigator of all this trouble… or what’s left of him.”

Faramir stepped into his room and found Legolas stretched out on the couch, an open book on his chest, grinning at him. Arwen had apparently brushed and braided his hair and propped him up with some pillows before leaving.

“You’re an evil bastard,” Faramir said.

Just having fun.
The man scowled. “I’m here now. Talk to me like a normal person.”

The elf’s smile vanished and he glanced away. Faramir frowned.

“Come on, now. If you can sit up and read a book, you should be able to talk.”

I can… just not very well. Can’t seem to get my mouth and my tongue and all that coordinated. Tried to talk to Arwen and came out sounding like a drunken dwarf with marbles in his mouth.

Faramir chuckled and slid one of the armchairs from beside the fire until it was close to the couch, but not close enough for Legolas to reach him.

“It’ll be all right, Legolas.”

Not fair that you recovered from all this so much faster.

“I’m not the one who was most of the way to being dead, remember? Have a little patience with yourself.”

Legolas scowled. Patience… ugh. I’m bored out of my mind and I want to get up and go outside.

Faramir smiled. “I’ll take you outside in a few minutes. But there’s something else I need to attend to first.”

Oh?

“That’s right. I must do something about the state that your little picture game managed to put me in… in the middle of a council meeting, no less.”

Legolas grinned and pushed himself up slightly. I might be able to assist…

“Oh, no. You’re not assisting with anything. If I have to sit in a council meeting and look at pictures of you naked and tied to my bed, you can lay there on the couch and watch me doing this.”

He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes but still fully aware of the elf’s eyes watching every move intently, and untied the laces of his breeches.

What are you up to?

“Giving you a taste of what you’ve been doing to me.”

He glanced over at Legolas; the elf’s blue eyes widened as the man reached into his breeches and slid them down slightly, releasing his cock, which rose eagerly as soon as it was freed. Legolas’ eyes grew even wider, and he gave Faramir a hopeful and somewhat desperate look, but Faramir ignored it and slumped further down in the chair, making himself comfortable.

This isn’t fair.

“Oh, and you tormenting me during my meeting was fair?”

Legolas licked his lips and shifted uneasily. This is even less fair.

Faramir chuckled as he began to stroke himself. “You’re not in any kind of shape to do anything about it anyway.”

Part of me is!

Faramir looked over again and smiled to see the distinct and growing bulge in the elf’s breeches. “I see that. But you’re still recovering, you know. I can’t just be jumping all over you.”

Yes, you can!

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the man said, leaning back and continuing to stroke himself, picking up the pace slightly when he heard Legolas growl in frustration.

He had intended to keep this up for quite some time and torment Legolas for as long as possible, but he quickly realized that he was not going to be able to carry out this plan. Even though he refused to look at Legolas, just knowing that the elf’s wide blue eyes were fixed on his hand and what it was doing proved to be more exciting than he’d anticipated.

“I think you’re cheating,” he said.

How do you suppose I’m doing that?

“I don’t know.”

If I were going to cheat, it would be more like this.

The image that flashed into Faramir’s head was vague and half-formed, but the position the elf was in could be made out clearly, and Faramir had to pull his hand away from his cock to keep the thought of it from undoing him immediately.

“That is definitely cheating!” he said, glaring at Legolas.

Why is that cheating?

“Because… it’s not as if I can just come over there and…”

Legolas raised an eyebrow. _Who made that rule?

“Well, you’re not…”

I may be weak at the moment, but I’m not broken, Faramir!

Faramir sat up, attempting to clear his mind enough to think rationally. “I suppose…”

Legolas grinned. You’ll have to do the work for both of us.

“That hardly seems fair.”

Will you stop talking and start doing something?

“You could at least comment on the fact that we managed to end this mess with only one death,” Boromir muttered, as Aragorn walked briskly down the street in front of him. “And the one who died deserved it.”

“What exactly would you like me to say?” Aragorn replied, without slowing down or glancing back at Boromir.

“I don’t know… ‘Good job’, maybe, or ‘Fine work, Boromir’.”

“Are people going to be commenting on what a good job I did when they find out I led an entire army here for nothing?”

“It wasn’t for nothing,” Boromir said, feeling half guilty and half annoyed. “If it hadn’t been for the threat of your army approaching, Gríma Wormtongue might have decided to take up where Saruman left off and renew the attack, or the Haradrim might have decided to…”

Aragorn finally stopped and turned to give him a sharp look with those piercing gray eyes. “That’s fine, Boromir. But you do seem to have a rather frustrating habit of charging into things without my knowledge or consent…”

Boromir scowled. “What do I need your consent for?”

Aragorn smiled ruefully and shook his head. “Not only do you not respect me as your King, but at times I’m not sure you even respect me as an equal, which is really all that I ask of you.”

Boromir forced himself to keep silent as he opened the door to the tall stone guard tower where they had stopped. “At least come up here and look upon the enemy with your own eyes, Aragorn.”

“I don’t need to…”

“Yes, you do,” he said firmly.

Aragorn shook his head. “Fine.”

They climbed the long spiral of stone steps together, their boots echoing in the empty tower. Finally they emerged into a small guard room, its plain wooden table and chairs casting long shadows in the orange sunset glow that entered through the tall, narrow windows.

“There doesn’t appear to be a body in here, Boromir.”

“I know,” the other man said.

Aragorn turned to him and frowned. “More games? Just leading me wherever you want me?”

“No, I wanted to…”

“I know, I know. You wanted to bring me up here where no one can hear us so you can have your little victory over me now that you’ve had your great one over the enemy, right?”

Boromir winced at the bitterness in Aragorn’s voice, and when he spoke his tone was soft and even.

“No, my Lord.”

Aragorn glanced over his shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you call me in front of the people of Gondor. When we’re alone…”

“We’re alone now,” Boromir said, reaching into his pocket. “And I’m sorry, Aragorn, that I didn’t wait for you to arrive. You must understand, though… if your army had been spotted, Saruman might have tried to escape. And even if our troops were able to protect Pelargir and drive the Haradrim away, there would have been no protection from him. No protection for you, for Arwen, for my brother… for anyone close to you…”

Aragorn turned and leaned back against the wall, studying him. “I had not thought of it that way, my friend.”

“I was not willing to let him live and escape to prove a threat to any of us in the future. A creature like that… kidnapping is rather low, but at least I was a tactical prize as well as a valuable one. But to poison a lady in her own house…”

“I had not realized a threat to Arwen would upset you so much,” Aragorn said, smiling slightly.

“Of course it upset me! You know perfectly well that I would kill anyone and fight anything to protect you and the things you love!”

Aragorn straightened up and looked at him as if seeing him for the first time since his arrival in Pelargir. Boromir met his gaze evenly, his face serious but his green eyes bright and flashing.

“Yes, you would, wouldn’t you,” Aragorn said.

Boromir nodded. “You know I would.”

Aragorn shook his head and smiled. “So where is Saruman, anyway?”

“Next guard tower over. I figured that this way if anyone caught us strolling out of here, we could just claim we got the wrong tower.”

“So you did lead me up here with questionable intentions,” Aragorn said, raising his eyebrows.

“There is nothing questionable about my intentions,” Boromir said, pulling a small jar of salve out of his pocket.

“I see that. I suppose you’re going to instruct me to take off my clothes now, right?”

Boromir looked thoughtful for a moment before reaching out and handing the jar of salve to the other man.

“No. I believe I’ll do that.”

As Aragorn watched, Boromir stepped back and untied the laces of his tunic, then dropped it onto one of the chairs before bending over to pull off his boots. Aragorn watched him with some amusement and growing arousal, letting him strip until he was wearing nothing but his breeches before reaching out and pulling him closer for a kiss, tangling his fingers in dark blond hair.

“You would yield to me?” he asked quietly, his lips against Boromir’s ear.

Boromir nodded.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

Another nod.

“All right, then,” Aragorn said, gently steering the other man backwards toward the table in the middle of the room. Boromir felt the edge of the table against his lower back and shivered as Aragorn took him by the shoulders and turned him around, sliding his hands down to grasp Boromir’s wrists and place the strong swordsman’s hands flat on the smooth wooden surface. Boromir leaned forward and lowered his head as the other man’s familiar hands ran slowly over his arms, his shoulders, down the long muscles of his back, tracing the lines of old scars before finding their way to the waistband of his breeches. Boromir leaned back into the touch as the cloth was drawn down over his hips, then down his legs. Aragorn’s lips followed, tracing over the just-bared skin on the backs of his thighs.

“That tickles, you bastard,” he murmured, chuckling.

He felt Aragorn smile against his skin before opening his mouth and nipping him sharply. Boromir jumped, feeling his already hard cock twitch at the sting of Aragorn’s teeth. Then Aragorn was standing again, reaching around to run strong hands over his chest and his stomach while his mouth found the back of Boromir’s neck and, beneath the hair where no one else would see it, bit him again, harder, and sucked at the skin, raising a livid mark and making Boromir moan and press back against him, the fabric of Aragorn’s clothes rough against his bare skin. He felt long, familiar fingers sliding gently, slicked with salve, leaving a line of cool wetness from the middle of his back downward.

“It’s been a while since… are you sure you want this?” Aragorn asked.

“It’s been too long,” Boromir answered, his voice rough.

Aragorn nodded, and his lips on Boromir’s neck distracted him for a moment from the fingers sliding gently over his opening before slipping inside. He jerked forward involuntarily, but as Aragorn’s other hand rubbed steady circles over his lower back, he relaxed and lowered his head again.

“Are you going to growl at me to get on with it?” Aragorn asked, smiling.

“I was thinking about it.”

The fingers slid and stretched, and Boromir realized he was breathing hard.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to stop messing about and… ahh…”

He lost the ability to speak as Aragorn steadied him with a hand on his back and used the other hand to guide himself before pushing slowly but relentlessly forward. He felt Boromir tense, knew he was hurting him, but also knew that Boromir would not let him stop now even if he wanted to; he was pushing back hard against Aragorn now, ignoring the burn in the more urgent need to have all of Aragorn, and Aragorn was willing and happy to give it to him.

He stopped, running his hands over Boromir’s sides, feeling the sleek skin now damp with sweat, the muscles flexing as he shifted back against Aragorn, his ribs rising and falling rapidly. He took a moment to enjoy this stillness, the feeling of Boromir’s body tense and waiting, before he drew back and slid in again, sending shudders along Boromir’s back. The next thrust drew a low moan that he could not quite hold back, and when Aragorn took hold of his hips with both hands and began to move into him in earnest, finding a rhythm, Boromir arched his back, directing Aragorn to find the perfect angle. When he found it he was rewarded with an unrestrained, wordless cry from Boromir, and continued his pace until he could feel Boromir gasping and shaking under his hands, until he was clenching his jaw to hold himself back, and then he reached around and grasped Boromir’s cock in his slick hand and stroked it roughly, his hand demanding and tight. Almost immediately Boromir was moaning, thrusting forward into his hand, and only a few strokes later his body was clenching hard around Aragorn’s cock as he shuddered and his release spilled over Aragorn’s fingers. A moment later Aragorn was gasping and clutching at Boromir to steady himself as he surrendered to his own release before slumping forward, his forehead resting against Boromir’s sweat-slicked skin.

Aragorn finally drew back reluctantly, taking Boromir by the shoulders and pulling him upright again so that he could wrap his arms around him and bury his face in the damp, darkened hair clinging to the back of his neck.

“Are you all right, love?” he asked quietly.

Boromir nodded and tipped his head back, exposing more of his neck to the tongue that was licking at the salty skin there. “I believe I’m just fine.”

The stood for a quiet moment before Aragorn winced and drew back. Boromir turned, worried.

“What’s wrong?”

Aragorn flinched. “Just my back. I think I threw it out the other day.”

“How did you do that?” Boromir asked, frowning.

“Carrying Legolas.”

Boromir laughed. “Perhaps you ought to be letting the young ones like Faramir do that sort of thing.”

“Well, Faramir couldn’t really do…”

He froze, realizing that no one had told Boromir yet about what his brother had gotten himself into. Boromir, though, caught the hesitation and scowled.

“Aragorn, don’t you dare keep secrets about my brother from me!”

“You would have found out when we got back to Minas Tirith anyway…”

“Found out what?”

Woken from a half-doze, Faramir sat up in his armchair when he heard the soft knock on the door.

“Come in…”

Arwen slipped in, closing the door behind her.

“I brought you some supper… I don’t expect you had a chance to eat today. And I brought a few things I thought Legolas might be able to eat, and some tea and wine for both of you.”

He smiled and motioned for her to sit down. She set the tray she was carrying on the table before gracefully slipping into the chair next to his. She glanced over at the couch, where Legolas was stretched out, hair disheveled again, face slightly flushed, obviously sound asleep.

“What did you do to him?” she asked, laughing.

Faramir’s face reddened slightly. “I know I shouldn’t have… but he…”

She shook her head, still laughing, and took the bottle of wine and two glasses from the tray. “Faramir, you won’t harm him. The closer to you he is, the faster he’ll heal. As long as you don’t play too roughly with him, anything you do will only help him.”

Faramir decided not to mention the fact that Legolas much preferred to be played with roughly, and had been quite annoyed by Faramir’s attempts to handle him gently, but he suspected she already knew. She handed him a glass of wine and poured one for herself before raising hers with a smile.

“A toast, Faramir.”

“To what?”

“To many happy days for you and Legolas. To my husband and your brother returning to us safe and victorious.”

“And,” Faramir said, touching his glass to hers, “To my brother not killing either one of us when he finds out what happened while he was gone.”

“That too,” she agreed. “So, have you learned how to keep him from getting into your head when you don’t want him there?”

Faramir raised his eyebrows. “No…”

“I’ll teach you. Galadriel taught me, and my brothers… all her grandchildren have some touch of her abilities, and you can’t imagine how extremely infuriating it is to have Elladan and Elrohir getting into your head all the time…”

Faramir swallowed hard, thinking of the things that had gone through his head on occasion while watching the slender, dark-haired twins with their hands all over each other.

“Err… can they do that to…”

Arwen giggled. “We could only ever do it to each other, all three of us. Besides, even if they did know you’d been thinking things like that, they wouldn’t exactly be surprised, you know. They’re quite used to it by now… even men who think they aren’t interested in men find themselves staring at my brothers.”

“To your filthy-minded brothers,” Faramir said, raising the glass again. “Now, teach me quickly, before the bastard wakes up.”

Six days later, a guard came knocking on Faramir’s door early in the morning, announcing that the returning army had been sighted, with King Elessar and Lord Steward Boromir riding in the lead. Faramir managed to sit up enough to shout at the guard that he’d got the message and to go away before Legolas pulled him back down again.

“You do realize I have to get up and go greet my brother,” the man protested.

Legolas laughed and wrapped the badly wrinkled sheet around both of them. “It’ll be an hour before they actually reach the city.”

He entwined his long legs with Faramir’s and pressed closer to him, letting the man feel his cock hardening against his naked thigh.

“Gods, elf… I thought you were relentless before all this happened!”

“If you won’t let me get out of bed, you’re going to have to do something to keep me entertained while I’m stuck here,” the elf said, reaching down to discover evidence of Faramir’s reluctant but definite interest.

“Arwen is the one who said you had to stay in bed.”

“What does she know?” Legolas said.

“She knows that when you tried to get up yesterday you fell and almost hit your head on the table.”

“A minor detail,” the elf said, stretching. “Besides, didn’t she tell you that being close was the best way to help me heal?”

“I’m not sure that by ‘close’, she meant… oof! Hey there!”

Another knock on the door, this one very loud and very determined. Faramir sat up quickly, frowning.

“Who the bloody hell is that?”

From outside in the hall, a familiar voice boomed, and Faramir winced; he’d heard that Éomer had arrived the evening before but had been making a concerted effort to avoid him. He liked Éomer; it was difficult not to, but the man was loud and excitable and demanding to know where these tales of Arwen’s death had come from and where Aragorn was and why Rohan hadn’t been invited to participate in a good bout of Haradrim-slaughtering, and Faramir hadn’t felt up to dealing with it. The rumor of Arwen’s death had apparently reached Edoras a few days before, and Éomer, always quick to react, had been on his horse and off for Gondor within an hour of hearing the news. Now, finding Arwen alive and a war going on that he had not been invited to play in, he was in a tempermental mood and Faramir planned to avoid him till he settled down.

“Faramir! I know you’re in there!”

Faramir winced. “Shit.”

Legolas grinned. “I can get rid of him.”

“Oh?”

The elf winked at him before sitting up and calling out, loudly enough to be heard outside in the hall.

“Oh, Faramir! Do that again! Oh! No, that other thing… oh, gods, yes, that!”

Faramir turned bright red, but he suspected Éomer was probably blushing as well, and the hall went silent as the Horse Lord apparently decided to go find someone less busy to talk to.

“You’re evil, elf.”

“I told you, Faramir… it’s a very, very bad idea to allow an elf to be bored.”

Upon their arrival in the city, the King and his Steward were immediately mobbed by an anxious crowd of advisors and other people demanding the news from Pelargir, details of the Steward’s capture, and information about the instigators of all this trouble. Arwen stood with Faramir and Éomer at the edge of the courtyard, watching with amusement as Aragorn and Boromir each attempted to redirect the questions to each other while both looking for an excuse to break free of the throng.

“Are you going to rescue them?” Faramir asked.

“Eventually,” Arwen replied.

Éomer grinned at her. “I am very relieved, my lady, to find you not only alive, but with your sense of humor intact.”

Faramir glanced around for Merry and Pippin, but hobbits were almost as good at avoiding attention as they were at getting attention, and they had disappeared entirely. However, he spotted a slender elf with wind-blown but still shining blond hair standing off to the side, leaning against the wall of the courtyard and watching everything with alert green eyes. Éomer followed his gaze and raised his eyebrows.

“That’s not Legolas, is it?”

Faramir shook his head. “That’s his brother.”

“Hmm. I think you should introduce us, Faramir. Perhaps immediately.”

Arwen chuckled. “I think there’s someone else he’d rather see first, Éomer. I’m sure we can arrange for him to join us for dinner, though. Let’s go and rescue my husband and his Steward, and Faramir, you can go and have a chat with our elf friend.”

She offered her arm to Éomer, who took it and escorted her through the crowd toward the besieged pair at its center. Faramir slipped around the edge of the courtyard till he reached Berendir.

“Hello.”

Berendir looked up at him, interrupted from his musings. “Oh… Captain Faramir. I’m glad to meet you again. Your fireworks worked splendidly.”

Faramir glanced toward Boromir, who was at the moment frantically attempting to convince his attackers to go after Aragorn instead.

“You saved my brother’s life,” he said, grinning. “I owe you a great deal.”

Berendir looked over at him hopefully. “King Elessar said that my brother was still alive when he left the city…”

“He’s definitely alive,” Faramir said. “And possibly more obnoxious than before. He’s still recovering, but I’m sure he wants to see you.”

Berendir’s face brightened. “I hadn’t dared to believe it… after I saw him, before we left, I couldn’t imagine an elf being that ill and surviving it… I heard your King was a healer. He must have done something wonderful…”

Faramir held his tongue; he would let Legolas explain his recovery and the circumstances of it. “Come on, then. He’ll be glad to see you and maybe he can torment and complain to you for a while instead of me.”

The appearance of the Queen, alive and well, caused enough stir among the gathered crowd that Éomer was able to push his way through them, escorting her to Aragorn’s side. After a moment of silence, though, a new barrage of questions erupted, demanding to know about the rumors of her death. She listened tolerantly for a moment before the desperation in the eyes of Aragorn and Boromir won her over, and she turned to the crowd.

“Thank you, all of you, for your concern about my health. I assure you I am well. King Elessar will dictate a complete report of this entire incident to his scribe this evening, and it will be read for all of you in this courtyard in the morning. Now, please allow us to…”

Another burst of questions. Arwen raised an eyebrow and, seeing that neither Aragorn not Boromir had the ability to engineer their escape, turned to Éomer.

“If you would, my dear Horse Lord…”

Éomer grinned and turned to the crowd, letting loose with the voice that could carry across an entire battlefield or across the vast plains of Rohan.

“That’s enough! Out of the way! Move!”

He began shouldering his way toward the exit, deliberately knocking aside anyone who happened to be in his path, and Arwen and the two men hurried behind him. Finally taking a hint, the crowd began to disperse, mostly because Éomer was not a small man and his idea of brushing someone aside could be rather painful, and the four of them were able to escape down one of the corridors toward the King’s rooms.

Faramir opened the door to his room carefully; he was never entirely sure what Legolas might have been up to in his absence. To his relief, though, the elf was where Faramir had left him, stretched out on the couch, hair disheveled and face peaceful in slumber.

“I don’t think I’ve seen Legolas sleep since he was a small elfling,” Berendir said, amused and slightly awed.

“He’s been doing quite a bit of it lately, but Arwen says elves sleep when they’re healing”

Legolas blinked and looked over at them. Seeing Berendir, he sat up abruptly, wide-eyed.

“Berendir? What are you doing here?”

“Coming to see you!”

Legolas frowned. “You came all the way from Mirkwood to see me? When did you get here?”

Berendir raised an eyebrow. Faramir shook his head. “He was here before. You don’t remember? He and his wood elves went off and rescued Boromir and the hobbits. He saw you before he left, while you were…”

“I see,” Legolas said. “I’m sorry I don’t remember it, brother, but I’m very glad to see you now!”

Berendir smiled. “I feared I would be returning to mourn your death.”

Legolas shrugged. “I am tougher than you’d think. And…”

He glanced at Faramir. The man laughed. “You can tell him all about that, Legolas. And I’ll leave you to it.”

“Fine,” the elf shot back. “I’ll tell my brother… and you can tell yours.”

Faramir winced. “Maybe we should trade.”

“Oh, no. Because if Boromir hears about this from me, I’ll definitely be dead.”

“Hears about what?” Berendir asked, curious.

“You did what?” Boromir demanded.

Faramir raised his hands and looked toward Arwen for help, but she had collected her husband and disappeared into their bedroom, obviously intending to let the brothers discuss this on their own. Faramir glanced around the dining room, trying to determine how many things Boromir could throw.

“You heard me.”

“You let yourself be bound to an elf? That elf? What does that mean?”

“It means that we’re bound to each other. For as long as I live, at least.”

“Well, you’d better figure out how to un-bond yourself!” Boromir snapped.

“I don’t think that’s…”

“I don’t care! Whatever Arwen did, she can undo, and she’s going to undo it right now!”

Boromir was heading toward the door when Faramir spoke.

“He’ll die.”

The older man stopped. “What?”

“He’ll die.”

“He’s an elf. They don’t…”

Faramir motioned to one of the dining chairs. Boromir stalked to the chair and sat down, scowling, but listening.

“He was dying, Boromir,” he said, sitting down across the table from him. “There wasn’t any other way to save him.”

Boromir frowned. “What exactly have you done, Faramir?”

The younger man sighed. “Exactly? I don’t think I’m entirely sure. But I know that part of him is tied to part of me now, and it’s what I gave him that let him come back. And if Arwen could undo that bond, he would die.”

“Did you even think about giving up the rest of your life…”

“I didn’t give anything up,” Faramir said sharply.

“What about a future with a wife, and children, and…”

Faramir raised an eyebrow. “Boromir?”

Boromir stopped and smiled slightly. “Yes?”

“Of all the ridiculous things…”

“I know, I know. But you… it’s supposed to be different for you, little brother.”

“Why is it supposed to be different for me?”

Boromir looked down at the table. “Because… you deserve more.”
“More than what?”

“More than a bloody ill-tempered, arrogant, smug, impossible elf,” he said, shaking his head and grinning. “I’d like to kill you both right now, but I’m tired and it’s been a very, very long week.”

“Boromir… you have no idea.”

“Legolas is not amused that you wouldn’t let him come to dinner,” Faramir said, reaching for his mug of ale.

Arwen smiled at him across the table. “Perhaps if Legolas would stay in bed like I told him to, he’d recover more quickly and be able to come to dinner.”

“Bloody elves never listen,” Boromir said, rolling his eyes.

“Boromir,” Aragorn said sharply, motioning toward Berendir.

Boromir chuckled and leaned over to whisper to Aragorn. “Are you serious? He hasn’t heard anything all evening except what’s come out of Éomer’s mouth.”

Aragorn glanced toward the far end of the table, where Éomer did seem to have the Mirkwood elf entirely focused on him, the green eyes watching the Horse Lord intently.

“I hope you arranged for Éomer to have a room a good distance down the hall,” Aragorn muttered to his wife. “Otherwise, none of us are going to get any sleep.”

“You’ve been gone for a week, dear,” Arwen said, patting his knee. “If you think you’re going to get any sleep tonight, you’d best think again. Boromir’s had you to himself for days.”

Boromir snorted. “You can have him. I need a bath and a proper sleep in a proper bed. Besides, wherever Merry and Pippin are at the moment, they’ll be fighting Finn for a spot on the bed tonight.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Faramir said. “I should go, though, and take some dinner back for Legolas before he gets bored and starts looking for ways to make my life difficult.”

“Serves you right,” Boromir muttered.

Faramir raised an eyebrow. “So there’s an obnoxiously bored elf in my bed and two hobbits in yours. Which one of us is going to have more fun tonight?”

“Ugh,” Boromir groaned, standing up. “That’s it. I’m finished. Goodnight to all of you.”

Neither Éomer or Berendir seemed to notice Boromir leave, or to notice Faramir departing shortly afterwards. When Arwen rose from the table and took her husband with her, Éomer waited until they were gone down the hall before turning back to Berendir.

“Do you have plans for tonight, Master Elf?”

Berendir’s green eyes flashed. “You tell me. Do I have plans for tonight?”

Éomer emptied his mug of ale before answering. “You had mentioned being interested in learning more about the riding techniques of the men of Rohan.”

“Hmm. Yes. I am quite interested in that topic.”

Éomer stood up, grinning broadly. “Allow me to offer you a first-hand education.”

Aragorn was on the way to the library the next morning, hoping that the scribe would forget about their meeting and spare him from having to dictate the week’s events to be read and posted all over the city, when he spotted an open door and stopped.

“You, there,” he said.

The man walking out of the room with a box of tools stopped and quickly bowed. “My Lord?”

“You’re a carpenter.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Why is there a need for a carpenter in the guest room this early in the morning?”

The man’s mouth twitched slightly. “My Lord… I was called to repair some damaged furniture.”

“Damaged furniture?”

“Yessir.”

“What kind of furniture?”

“Well, my Lord… it appears that King Éomer and his… company have managed to break some things.”

“What did they break?”

The man failed to subdue a smirk. “The bed, my Lord.”

Aragorn groaned and pressed a hand to his forehead. “I see. Carry on with your work, then.”

“Oh, I’m done here, sir. I’m off to Captain Faramir’s rooms now.”

Aragorn frowned. “Captain Faramir’s rooms?”

“Yessir. Seems that his dining table has met with some misfortune during the night. Appears that…”

“I beg your pardon, but I must go and meet my scribe in the library. Thank you for your… repairs.”

The man bowed, still grinning. “Any time I’m needed, sir. And with what I heard from the other guest room on my way down here, it seems that King Éomer may be making some more work for me.”

THE END

NB: Please do not distribute (by any means, including email) or repost this story (including translations) without the author's prior permission. [ more ]

Enjoyed this story? Then be sure to let the author know by posting a comment at https://www.faramirfiction.com/fiction/under-pressure. Positive feedback is what keeps authors writing more stories!