Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Surprise, surprise.
Notes: I am suffering through a scary bout of writer's block at the moment. This is just something I wrote in an attempt to write through the block. I've had this idea brewing for a while, but I never had to time to try it. It was inspired by the scene in TTT in which Arwen visits Aragorn in a dream. I wondered if he was the only one being visited in his sleep.
Thief
By Bohemian Storm
She had always come in his dreams, flitting like an elven princess just beyond his field of vision and smiling demurely behind a curtain of hair when he would finally catch her. She felt like grace to him, like silk beneath his calloused fingers, hair and skin sliding over his touch like a breath of wind. He felt like no real woman would ever match the beauty of the girl in his dreams, no real woman would ever come close to capturing his heart the way the dark haired woman had done.
The first time she spoke, he felt as if his heart had been set afire. He had wondered for so long what she would speak and hearing his own simple tongue cross her lips made his limbs tingled with desire. He had not paid any heed to her words, her solemn warning of the world that would begin to tumble down about him. His fingers wanted nothing but to feel her and his body yearned for her.
His heart never failed to break when he awoke and he remembered she was nothing but a dream. He woke with disappointed weighing heavily on his heart when she did not appear for days at a time, only to be overjoyed and pay no heed to her words when she finally did appear. Her voice was like music, her words meant nothing to him save for the times she would press her hand into his and whisper for him to be safe.
'Stay safe, my warrior,' she would breathe over his ear, leaning close, as if it hurt her when he woke.
He would always know when he was going to open his eyes and find himself at home in Gondor. She would press close and he would feel a heart beat strumming against his own body, knowing that it was her way of telling him she lived. Somehow, she lived.
Weeks before he joined the Fellowship her words to him became more frantic and alarming. He wanted not to hear what she said, but feel her against him. He desired nothing more than to stare her in the eyes and ask her where he would find her living in Middle Earth. She tried desperately to make him listen, to make him see what he was walking into, but he never listened to her words. They were music to him, nothing more.
'You will die,' she had breathed one night, a dream that he had of them walking in the depths of a silver wood. 'If you do not hear my words, warrior, you will die.'
He had smiled, blessed her with a rare and genuine smile, and then he pressed his lips to her cheek. He had whispered to her that she should not worry, that he was a warrior of Gondor and he was well trained in battle. He would not die, not in this war.
The night he had joined the Fellowship and cut his thumb on the shards of Narsil she had visited him, anger apparent in her demeanor. He had tried to hold her, but his thumb had bled freely in the dream, dropping red stains upon the hem of her white dress.
'You bleed,' she had stated, her eyes shining. 'You bleed like any other man, woman or child and yet you refuse to see.' Her hands had clutched at his. 'Please, Boromir. Do not go on this quest.'
'Your words are not needed,' he had insisted. 'You know nothing of the world I live in. You are a woman of my dreams and nothing more.'
'I am a warning you will not heed,' she said sadly, her fingers tracing circles on the palms of his hands. 'The Ring will bury you alive beneath its power.'
While in Lothlorien he had wondered why she had only flitted around the edges of the dreams, coming to him with whispered warnings and nothing more. Her breath had come out sharp and ragged to his ears, nothing like the melodious sounds that had escaped her earlier.
'Thief', she had hissed and he had been hurt, taken aback by her angry words. 'You'll be the thief of them all. You'll steal their world from them. You're sending them to their deaths.'
She had recoiled from his touch then, disappearing into the woods that surrounded them, her dress swirling around her. He had stood, waiting for her return, only to find himself woken by the sun shining through Lorien trees.
She had not returned to him for some time and when she did, it was only to look upon him with pity.
He wished now that he would have listened to her earlier words. Perhaps she had said something in her soft voice that would have prevented all the problems from ever occurring. Perhaps she had explained to him patiently what he would have needed to do in order to safe his own life and the lives of the little ones.
He did not feel the pain any longer, just the heaviness of sleep weighing down upon him. He wanted nothing more than to escape to his dreams once more and forget what he had done. He wanted to forget the guilt, the anger, the knowledge that he had betrayed them all and risked the lives of the entire Fellowship. He wanted nothing more than to sleep, for she came when sleep did.
He drifted away slowly, the knowledge that Aragorn was there registered somewhere in his mind. Words were exchanged, he felt the pressure of a gentle kiss on his forehead and when he forced his eyes open she was there.
Her cool hand swept over his brow and she smiled very softly.
'I missed you,' he breathed.
She smiled sadly. 'You are dead, Boromir.'
'We can be-'
'I do not exist,' she said. 'I am nothing but air and you are dead.' Her eyes became very sad and she traced a circle over his cheek, before cupping it very gently. 'Did I not warn you of the consequences? You are their thief. Your death will slow them for but a second and they will move on, they will struggle.' Her eyes met his. 'They will save the world, and Gondor, without you.'
She stood and drifted away into the shadows, leaving him to die with her words on his mind.
He had stolen their chance at life, broken their trust in him. He had done exactly what she had warned him would happen. He had betrayed them and he had died.
He had become their thief.
End