Canon: Book and movieverse A/U.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I wish that Boromir was mine… all mine, I tell you! But Tolkien got there first. Tamar, Chulainn, Kored, and all the rest are my own shadows. Gandalf, I suspect, is entirely his own.
Description: Boromir - centric fiction, giving the unfortunate anti – hero a happy ending of sorts. After death he is thrown into a different existence and has the chance to experience joy and contentment before he must make a choice that will change both worlds…
Chapter 1: Samhain/ Between Worlds
When Death finally claimed him, he ran towards it, sobbing in relief and collapsed into it, arms extended, head down, tears of gratitude on his face. But Death bent to him, and took his chin in one cool hand, wiped the tears from his bloodied cheek and smiled at him with kindly eyes. Thankyou, Boromir thought. I have waited for you. Death shook its head slowly, and pointed – not back the way he had come, nor the way he had thought to go, but on, another way. Boromir frowned in confusion. Where? Death took his hand, and kissed it with chill lips, then placed one bony digit on his brow. The impact shook him to the core, and he blacked out, as if he had died again…
-Today-
Tamar struggled with the arm load of wood she had picked for herself. The logs she had split had been old wood, left behind the cottage by previous tree lopping, home to mice and voles, and many many spiders. She had selected only enough for a load, leaving enough to shelter the animals who lived there. Then the swinging of the splitter, and the crack thud of splitting wood sounded crisply in the morning. She shifted the wood as she reached the cottage, depositing it noisily into the large cane basket by the back door. The door was painted green, and was one of those half doors that Tamar had always read about but had never actually seen until she bought the cottage.
The cottage. She stood back for a moment, and looked around her, a small smile on her face. The cottage was old, stone, full of memory and still half asleep. The back of the cottage was divided in half by the green door. To the right was a large window which let the morning sun into the old kitchen. To the left, a small window which allowed the same sun to illuminate her small desk. Then blank wall until the corner, behind which was the living room; two large chairs, a fireplace and several book cases. At the end of the house, next to the kitchen window, the remains of an old drystone wall extended about twelve feet away from the house before crumbling to a disorderly end before it reached the chicken coop. A cobbled path met the green door, and led her feet past the overgrown garden to the outbuildings, a few small tumble down sheds that she had not investigated yet, and another stone building which had been a barn, and retained a sweet fagrance of hay and horses still. There was an addition to the side, by the broken down wall, an extension to the kitchen side of the house put up by the previous owner, an indoor bathroom and laundry. At the front of the house were two goodsized bedrooms, one with Tamar's old timber framed bed, and the other still the storage room, stacked and packed with stuff for which Tamar readily admitted she may never find a place. The top of the green door was open, and Tamar could smell the fresh bread she had left on top of the stove. Her eyes wandered to the few old remaining apple trees on the other side of the old wall, several of which were still fruiting, close as it was to winter. Apples and fresh bread and rosehip tea for breakfast. She sniffed the crisp sunrise air, inhaling green scents, and autumn scents, and she closed her eyes with pure delight. An inquiring snuffling interrupted her reverie, and a large grey head appeared over the bottom half of the green door. Chulainn watched her with what she interpreted as patient amusement, his large dark eyes fixed on her as he reminded her that he had not yet been fed. The Irish Wolfhound had been given to her as a gangly gift by a local farmer four months ago when she had first arrived, and had almost doubled in size by then. He was not yet finished growing, and was looking to be the size of a small pony when he finally stopped. Tamar grinned at him.
"Fine then, hungry boy, let's see what we can do for you, eh?" she said. His ears pricked up, and he stood with his two massive front paws on the door frame, his tongue lolling from his head comically. She shook her head and went towards the door. Chulainn's ears went up further, and he looked past her, a soft growl starting in his throat. Tamar felt her hair begin to prickle, and her back muscles to twitch. She turned around quickly – to see nothing out of the ordinary. She turned back to Chulainn who regarded her calmly, as if nothing had happened. She shrugged it off, and went inside to feed her dog, and herself, in that order.
He was moving slowly, as if underwater, caught in a current against which he was made to struggle. He did not know where he was going, or why. Or where he had been. There was only the struggle, the current, the snatches of a laughing voice, and a dapple of morning sunlight. Then nothingness once more, and a sense of waiting…
They had been coming since the afternoon shadows began to grow long, both real and unreal, sometimes unintelligible from the other. Real generally came dressed as children dressed as ghosts and vampires, and popstars, demanding candy and treats, which she handed over with an indulgent smile. The Unreal were more insidious, edging in on her vision and her mindspace with polite nudges, letting her know they were there. She smiled at these too, and bid them good journeying as they moved on. Later, she stood before her altar in the copse of slim ash trees behind her house, and let the cold night air move over her skin. Samhain, Halloween, the night when the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest, and the dead came to tea. She extinguished the final candle in its glass holder, and sighed. She felt a little drained, but exhilarated. Samhain, and a full moon. She needed a drink. Before entering her back door, she turned, her hands extended before her.
"I bid thee welcome, wandering spirits, on this night. Stop awhile with me if thee has need, and you shall be welcome until sunrise, when I bid you good journey back to your own world." She stopped and bit her lip, then added, "As long as you don't disrupt me too much. I have a lot of work to get done tonight." The she turned and entered through her green door, grey/black in the moonlight, as the clouds passed over the stars, and a fierce wind answered her in the treetops. She sat up a while, the screen of her laptop computer casting blue and white reflections on her face while she typed, using the inspiration of the night to fine tune a few of the scenes of the novel she was crafting, before retiring to her large white bed, and turning over once before falling asleep, Chulainn snoring in the kitchen.
It was the light which he found at last, the light he felt he was to search for. It was a house, he saw, a small house, and a longing overtook him. A longing for comfort, and a place to belong, and an end to the struggle in the current. He saw the house, and yearned for it. A small spot on his brow pulsed cold, and for a moment, he remembered who he was, and screamed in horror and dismay, before landing, silenced, on the cold, hard ground, with noone near him but the stars in the sky, and the chilly wind that blew almost right through him. His skin was silver in the moonlight, silver the spot on his brow. He looked at his hand, and saw and felt flesh once more. He wept. He did not know why.
It was the scream that woke her, full of horror, and sadness, near agony that wrenched her gut to hear it. She awoke fully, and sat up in bed, listening. Nothing but the wind in the trees and the night sounds of this place. Her skin was prickling, and she shivered hard. Her stomach was tight and nervous, and she felt a momentary fear, unexplained. She shook her head, and exhaled, forcing herself to calm down. She heard Chulainn stirring in the kitchen, his nails clicking on the tiles as he paced. She got up, glancing at the green glowing numbers on her alarm clock. Four AM. She swore quietly, and slipped on an old soft terry towelling robe over her over sized t – shirt and tracksuit pants, and padded into the kitchen. Chulainn was up on his hind legs, paws on the draining board of the sink, looking intently out of the window. He looked over his shaggy shoulder at her, and she came to stand beside him, one hand on his head.
"What's up boy, huh? Do we have a guest tonight? Come on, let's go see."
She slipped a hand under his collar and he stood on four feet behind her as she opened the back door, and stepped outside.
The sky was still dark, and the air still moist. She smelled compost and stone. Chulainn snuffed, then took a step forward, and pricked his ears, growling softly. Tamar frowned, and cocked her head to one side, listening intently. At first, she did not hear it, so soft it was, carried only by the breeze. But then she could make it out. Weeping. Despairing and lonely and abject, low and not too far away. She inhaled sharply, surprised, and a little worried. Who would be weeping so tonight? It sounded Real to her, felt Real. She glanced down at Chulainn, who let out a small whine, and moved restlessly.
"Come on dog, tonight you can pretend to be a St Bernard. Won't that be exciting?"
Anticipating that she would not sleep again tonight whatever happened, she laid a fire in the grate before grabbing a red plastic flashlight from a kitchen drawer, and slipping her feet into a pair of worn trainers. Closing the green door behind her, she bent to Chulainn, and rubbed his nose.
"Okay, Chulainn, find him. Go, go on!" She gestured with her hand, and started to walk away from the house. Chulainn snuffed at her, and then bounded ahead, stopping to listen and glance back at her before moving on on his great long legs. It occurred to her that she could be finding just about anyone out there, and that she may be in some danger. A transitory thought warned her to wait another few hours until dawn before calling some help to search for the weeper. She dismissed it brusquely. The night was only going to get colder, and she had Chulainn with her. She was not the sort of person who, by nature, was afraid of the external. What would happen, would happen. There were other fears, deeper, more inhibiting fears, that she had to worry about. Murderers wandering the moors and weeping were not high on that list. The grass made a quiet "sssh" as she strode after Chulainn's grey shape as he moved, and stopped, and moved and stopped. The weeping was growing imperceptibly louder as she moved, and she could now make out individual sounds, cries and sighs carried on the night air. Then it grew fainter, as if the lamenting individual was calming. Chulainn paused, then grunted, and looked back at Tamar, who scurried forward to meet him. She looked to where the dog was gazing, and exhaled in surprise, one hand reaching for his collar.
An outcropping, large and black in the darkness, some scrubby gorse bushes, and huddled against the rockface, a man, naked and silvery in the moonlight. He was still, but breathing. Chulainn surged forward, his collar slipping from Tamar's grasp. He crossed the short distance to the man, and stopped short, leaning forward to sniff at him. The man twitched, and turned, crying out in surprise and fear. Tamar saw his torso was bloodied, and his hair long and lank, and stiff with more blood. She made a shocked noise and he looked up at her. His face was dim in the night, but eyes were wild and scared, and she softened her gaze, and spoke quietly and reasuringly.
"It's alright, he won't hurt you. He helped me find you. I've come to help you. You're bleeding. Are you in pain?"
The man made no reply, instead shrinking back from Chulainn's curious nose. The dog, far from being perturbed at the strange man's sudden appearance, was almost friendly, tail wagging. Tamar looked concerned, and spoke again.
"Can you tell me your name? My name is Tamar. The dog is called Chulainn. Do you know where you are?"
The man's mouth worked, and he made a rasping noise before coughing, and sighing, and trying again.
"Water…"
Tamar took a step toward him. "Of course. Can you come with me to my house? I have water there… You will be safe there." She held out her hand, and the man shrank away. She took another step toward him, then another, until she was kneeling beside him. She did not move to touch him, but instead studied him closely. His eyes were pale, and wide with shock. His hair was to his shoulders, and dark in the moonlight. He had a short beard on a coarse but well shaped face, high cheekbones and a strong chin. His lips were drawn back in a rictus of fear and what she suspected was pain. She glanced down at his wounds, of which there were several, although they seemed to have stopped bleeding. She looked up at him again.
"Do you know your name?" she asked softly. He looked away for a moment, then began to cry softly. She took his hand, and squeezed it, before shrugging out of her robe and easing it around his broad shoulders. It barely fit him, but he took the edges of it and wrapped it more around himself. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her.
"Will you come with me to my cottage? It isn't far, and I can help you walk. I have water and a fire to warm you, and good food to feed you. I can tend to your wounds there."
He paused, his sobs dying away, and then nodded slowly. She nodded back, and stood to help him up. When she finally had him standing, she saw how large he was. Tall, broad, and muscled in a way that she recognised as having come from hard work and hard living instead of carefully cultivated bodybuilding. He was a full head and a half taller than her, and leaned on her heavily, one hand on Chulainn's head as they walked slowly back to the cottage.
When they returned, the clock on the wall read a quarter to five. She helped him through the door – he was leaning more heavily on her now – and then steered him toward one of the two large armchairs in front of the cold fireplace. He sank into one of them with a sigh, and watched her warily and dazedly and she lit the fire. Before long she had cultivated a small, bright blaze, and stood to regard her unexpected guest. He was asleep, breathing in long regular sighs, his brow creased. He was surprisingly handsome, she decided, long legged and worn in looking. Worn out, she thought ruefully, and moved one side of the robe aside gently to examine his wounds. They weren't nearly as bad as she had first assumed. They seemed half healed, three smallish puncture wounds which had bled a lot, judging from the dried smears on his flesh. Resisting a wicked temptation to move the robe aside a little more, she stood and decided to leave the first aid until he awoke. He needed sleep more than anything else now. She took an old soft quilt from the opposite chair and draped it over him. Chulainn glanced at her, then stretched out beside the slumbering man with a peculiarly doggy sigh, and closed his eyes. Wide awake, she went to the kitchen to prepare some tea and await the dawn.