Young love, young love, I hope you are well
At least we now both have a story to tell
Young love, I feel you know me better than most
In spite of real distance, we'll always be close.

- Sarah Minor, Keaton Henson


"You will betray us! You go to your death and the death of us all. Curse you! Curse you and your Halflings!" He spat, writhing on the dirt floor, the captain fallen, strange and cursed. When she looked at him she felt cold, unable to do more than freeze, still and staring. He was taken by the ring, ensnared by it. She had come too late for him. Seeing him so she froze, her broken nails digging hard into her palms as she tried to make sense of him, but seeing her friend so fallen made her want to scream. Eventually, she moved, and when she moved she ran to him, fell to her knees and reached for him, shouting his name. He flinched away from her as if the very touch of her made him sick. She tried to pin his bucking form and spoke her own name, but he would not look at her, seeming to see right through her. "Boromir be calm! It's me - it's me, please!" She shouted, hands cupping his face, trying to make him see her as he cursed the hobbit who was nowhere to be seen. He was shaking and she feared he'd hurt himself. In one swift move, she pinned him down with all her strength and weight of her above him. "Be still my friend!"

"And who are you? Who are you but a stranger?" He cursed her, the words like another cut. "Another ghost whispering lies?" He keened, higher, reaching, knotting his gloved fist in her hair and shaking her. She cried his name, screaming at him to stop. In all their years he'd never hurt her, his words could be cutting but his hands ever gentle, treating her like the princess he thought her. He swung them, covering her body with his own and pressing her into the dust. His eyes were wide, mouth wet and teeth bared like a crazed animal as his other hand folded around her throat, shaking her again. "You have the same name, the same dagger but you are not Idis!" He shouted and his words could have cut out her heart. After all these years he understood so little and yet every little piece of her.

"I'm not her - I'm not Idis anymore but you know me!" She screamed, words cutting through her throat, her eyes wet. She could not give him time to pause, time to keep pressing down on her throat as his madness took him. She brought her hand to the sheath of her dagger, breath short and drawing it. He knew only half of her, knew her oldest, buried, most honest selves and yet nothing true at the same time. In her, he saw a shade with the face of someone long dead, and she could not let him meet the ghost she was now. With one sharp action, she brought the heavy butt of it upon his temple, shattering his hold on her, knocking him away and she clambered clumsily to her feet above him. He was shocked, shaking as if he hardly knew who or where he was. Blindly he called for Frodo, crying out for him, but she was gone, tearing into the forest, dirt and leaves clinging to her elvish cloak. Behind him, he called for Idis as well.

The girl ran, disorientated and afraid, pain piercing her to the very bone until she could run no longer, panting against the bark of an old tree. She gripped it, seeking her strength, hardly able to breathe. In her mind, in her heart, she felt rage, pain and hate, unlike anything. A voice whispered at her to hurt him, hunt him, to keep herself buried. In the dark back of her mind, she hated him for making her hate herself so. All her wild years she'd been able to push it down, be someone different, something else without reprimand. All these years she'd been free to run, now he tried to trap her again, she snarled, rage bubbling inside her. End him, end him and you could be anyone.

It was the horn of Gondor that brought her back. The sound a sonorous call that shocked her into the bright day so strongly she hardly knew where she was, all that hate inside her fading away. Did she know him so little know she had barely noticed that he carried it? The pride of his house he'd dreamt of, shown her, sounded for her in the halls of Minas Tirith. The horn of Gondor brought her back.

Again and again, it echoed through the dappled wood and she followed it without thought, called back. She ran, leaping over fallen trees and ancient ruins, breath short and eyes as wild as his had been. In her path there lay a foul army taller, stronger, faster and able to walk in the light of the wood they were painted with the white hand of Saruman. Before her, somewhere close the horn sounded again but she could not come her sword pierced straight through the bare head of one monster. Its black blood could not stain her black leathers anymore, and she was glad for it. She did not want to carry their filth as she fought through their numbers. They brawled hard, slashing at her with fierce blade and axe when they saw her coming. Her shield took the brunt of every lunge, paint chipping off its face as she ducked, snapping out her sword to cut at the tender meat of their weak shins and inner thighs, cutting tendon and artery until they fell screaming before her to be finished by her blade.

"Boromir!" She shouted, cutting one through the heart with a desperate slash, her whole body turning to avoid another blow and putting the first in its path. She leapt over their bodies, wounded, twitching but immobile and made for him, following his call until she came to a low valley where he battled a dozen alone. She near slipped down the soft earth, quiet behind them as they roared and took him on. Keeping low, unashamed she slashed at their ankles, severing feet until they fell and necks when they did. Behind him crept a small creature, skinny, screaming in his black speech something foul and without thought she loosened her grip on her shield, tossing it toward her friend. Despite its heft and the action, he caught it, using the momentum of her own throw to bring the face down hard across its ugly face, shattering the beats skull with satisfaction. She could have roared, impressed and blood pumping from battle but behind him came another. A beast bigger than most, dark and bloody, a palm print across his brow and bow in his hand. "Shield!" She shrieked, seeing it draw its weapon.

She saw no arrow fly but saw it sunk into the wood of her shield in her friend's hand, raised to shade his unarmored chest. The arrow was heavier and thicker than any she'd ever seen, but she had no time to think while she was stood at his back, cutting out the throat of a beast that brayed and screamed in her face, knives aloft. Pippin and Merry were beside them, stabbing, untrained but desperate at any fallen foe. They made good throat cutters beside her, helping her finish any survivors she wounded. Had she been able to turn she might have seen it. Had she been able to look on her friend or guard her own back - had she not trusted Boromir so, and turned away from him she would have seen the beast too close, sword swinging wide and headed for her back, sickly sharp and shining with black blood already. Had she not trusted Boromir so, she might have seen him shield her from the blow, and the bolts he took to his uncovered chest because of it.

Behind her, she could only hear Pippin and Merry's screams, hear the war cries of many and the smell of blood, thick and red and iron in the air between them. In her haze, her mind was only upon weak links in armour and full, bloody veins she could not turn, not without losing her head to the beasts she fought. When she heard the hobbits scream she kicked out, foot finding his armoured thigh and putting all her weight upon him until he faltered, the blade a bare few inches from her but enough to bury her knife in his neck.

She swung looking for the next enemy but none she found. Around her lay only the dead and she gasped, her shoulders lifting with the very effort of it. She spun, fast and panicked to find herself seemingly alone in sudden silence, looking for Boromir, looking for her shield, but when she looked down, she saw him upon the floor with two long shafts feathering his chest and his eyes, wide, open and afraid.

"Idis - please," he gasped, his words pained him so dearly she wanted to look away. Instead, she knelt beside him, hands going to his face which looked so pale, his gold-red hair glowing in the late sun. Her hands were on his wounds without thought, pressing around the arrow shafts to staunch the flowing blood as if she could save him from this.

"No - Boromir - no," She moaned, the sound weak, reaching over him to her fallen shield, the shaft of one arrow still buried in its wood, only the head of it, deadly sharp and black still buried there. "You didn't have your shield - you needed it - you should never fight unguarded," she gasped, the lesson he'd given her in her girlhood falling from her lips in an instant, the words paining her as well. He reached for her face but she felt wild, as mad as he had been when he'd hurt her. His touch brought her no comfort, only making her feel sick and scared. There was a scuffle beside her and Aragorn found them, huddled in the centre of their battle and Boromir reached his other hand to the ranger.

"They took the little ones!" He cried out, and she'd think to hate herself later for letting them go. Boromir had let an arrow come between the Uruks and the hobbits, she had not noticed they were gone for protecting him. For failing to protect him. "I went to Rohan -" he gasped out, his body shaking softly, forcing out his words. "To find you, to bring you back or know why,"

She shook her head, wordless, her excuses and her lies knotting her throat. Water filled her eyes and her body shook. She'd seen hurt, wounds and pain, but never had she seen a friend fade like this.

"Where have you - you been? Not there - you were not there." She took his hand, holding it to her cheek and she nodded, barely able to see him through her wet eyes. "You left because of me," he gasped out, blood clotting in the corner of his lips, unable to speak the words she had always dreaded to hear from him. This question had hung between them all the thousands of steps they'd taken since Rivendell, every day she'd danced by him to avoid it. This question had been always there, in every tavern brawl she'd fought and in every battle, he'd rode in.

"Not you, Boromir, I didn't leave because of you. I was your friend then - I am your friend still!" She promised him, the words weak, wobbling but he seemed gladdened to have some true answer from her. He'd seen through every lie on her lips about that day. This at least was true. His nodded his pale face and turned, breathless and desperate to Aragorn beside them, leaving her to scrub the tears from her eyes with her bloody hands. "There's so much I need to tell you."

Aragorn pressed his palms to the captain's chest, seeming for all the world to be as desperate to save him as she was. His hands were red, trying to stop the blood as she had. Aragorn was a healer at heart, but even he could not heal her friend. "Frodo…where is Frodo?" Boromir struggled to say, more shame, more sadness pinching his face.

Aragorn looked down at him, the steward's sons blood painting his hands and sleeves, his face full of a weakness shared between the three of them then. "I let Frodo go." She looked at him, looking at the dark-haired man she knew so little and she swallowed, looking away.

"Then you did what I could not - I tried to take the ring from him."

"The ring is beyond our reach now." He said, looking at both of them, and she was glad for it. She could not lose another to its power, she could not lose Gimli or Legolas to the rings cruelty and madness. She could not protect her oldest friend from foe or power, how could she protect a king of men?

"Forgive me, did not see … failed you all." He gasped, his words growing weaker, shorter. She shook her head, words sticking in her throat as she looked to the leaves beneath them, Boromir's hand still clutched between her own. She could not speak, her whole body shaking weakly in the breeze around them.

"You have never failed me,' She promised him, her hand tight on his, a voice more sincere, sharper and more honest than she had sounded in so many years it shocked her. Aragorn met her gaze, and she could not look away, seeing the words written on his face. When she looked at him she knew he was done, his heart slow, sluggish and stopping, wounds too deep and the arrows too deep. Aragorn whispered to the captain, folding his sword into his hand but Boromir reached out, the hand in hears slipping free, seeking out something and without looking she found his horn, letting his hand go and replacing it with the cold symbol of his house.

Beside her Aragorn made a vow to her fallen friend, kingly, wise and good as he was, she felt only rage. Even the numb, nothingness of Gandalf's loss would not return to her now. She had sworn herself no more tears beneath the boughs of Lothlorien, now she kept her promise. She felt raw, exposed, her heart bubbling with things she had not said, with what he'd never know and all the pain she'd wrought.

"I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you... I will not let the White City fall, nor your people fail…"

"Our people… our people… I would have followed you, my brother, my captain, my King." He breathed, looking to the ranger with such respect she felt ashamed to look upon him this way. "I would have fought with you, my sister." He swore, pushing the horn of Gondor, broken in two into her hands with the last of his strength. When she took it from him she knew he was gone, his fingers loose on the old thing. Hedda breathed deep and bellowed, animal and angry, bringing Boromir's hand closer as if she could rip him herself from the stars.

She stood, legs shaky like a young babe, eyes wide and wet she'd stumbled from him, unable to look at his cold, quiet face. She could say nothing. Her hands knotted in her hair, a loose mess from their battle to ground herself. She took more steps away on shaken feet, barely in control of herself until she felt warm arms opening, sheltering her in the comforting black leather and soft well she knew. When she fell to his knees he fell with her, her head buried in Aragorn's neck and arms knotted around his waist. Regret burned inside her, every lie she'd ever told her friend like an arrow piercing her own tender flesh. All the love she felt for Boromir was hidden, broken and polluted by her failure to trust in him. All these years she'd felt so. Like the scum carried along by the river. The wild years of her life hadn't cleansed her, made her pure again, they'd only added more filth to her flesh.

She'd thought it circumstance that failed her. Now she knew she'd carried it with her, dirtied everyone else along her way. She couldn't run from it.

When her eyes were dry, her throat sore from screaming she stood, finding Gimli and Legolas to her side and they looked at her with kindness she could not accept. But she could not run from it this time. She had to face it now, she had to see the stain on her scrubbed even a little cleaner. She would not survive it if she didn't.

She did not speak as they cleaned and dressed him, his strong body tucked into one of their boats and his sword laid in hand. When she laid his broken horn at his feet the heavy bands around it had come loose along the break in the old horn. In her palm sat the silver and bronze ring of intricate metalwork, worked loose from where it had sat for centuries but still intact. She could not take his horn from him, not when it would sound his coming to his father and to all Gondor, but this she could take. Fitting the broken ring around her wrist and higher until it ringed her bicep with precious, ancient metal. She took a breath, slow, drawing in the cool air around her and the fog still on the river and when she spoke she spoke to each of them.

"I was Idis - once. I've not been her in fifteen years. Gandalf had me hold her name again to join your company." She spoke, her eyes on his face, peaceful, cool and pale as it was she imagined he only slept, head pillowed in the bow of the boat. "Elrond would not have had me - I've not been anyone that matters since last I stood in Medusheld." Her voice shook, fearing to turn to look at them on the bank as she slowly pushed the boat into the water, her feet sinking into the silt at the bottom, holding the boat steady on the current. "I called myself Hedda, and I have no armies to offer you. I haven't seen the golden hall in fourteen years." She turned, letting go of the boat and standing, waist deep in the water, watching him go. She turned, still watching him as she walked back toward them on the bank.

"Boromir knew who I was then. Gandalf who I made myself. Both are gone now, but I'd have you know something of me today." She finally gave them this, a name that felt truer. Maybe it was selfish now, to burden them with her name and past when their path was still so long. Legolas looked at her, his brow furrowed but he reached out a hand, laying it on her shoulder.

"Whoever you may be he cared for you… Hedda." He said, looking into the distance where the boat fell over the falls. When he spoke her name her eyes fell shut. Hedda still felt like a mask, but it was a lighter one to wear. One she could stand a while.

"Aye and whatever name ye have does not change what a talented fighter ye are," Gimli said, a smile weak but kind of his face, knocking his big, stony hand on hers and she smiled despite herself. Aragorn came closer but he said nothing, meeting her eye as he strapped on Boromir's vambraces for his own, carrying him there with him. Meeting his eye, he merely nodded, offering her a small, kind smile. Offering her kindness and calm.

"We should leave," She said eventually, drawing herself up to a greater height. She'd allowed herself a funeral, it was only proper for the captain but she would not betray their quest longer than that. Legolas nodded his head, darting away to a near boat and pushing it into the water, their resolve shaken as she hefted her pack, the fire of the chase growing in her belly.

"Frodo and Sam will have reached the eastern shore!" He said, looking toward them, but his expression fell, his elvish looks twisting into confusion when Aragorn did not move, hardly even looked to him. Hedda knew better, he knew the temptation he had given up when he let Frodo go. "You mean not to follow them?" He said, looking to the ranger, to the king, to their leader.

"Frodo's fate is no longer in our hands. His burden is too heavy for us to carry."

Gimli's emotion was clear in the thickness of his growling voice, "Then it has all been in vain! The Fellowship has failed." His emotions were deeply buried there and the dwarfs strong body seemed bowed toward the bank beneath him as he spoke. Hope dimmed within him.

"Not if we hold true to each other." Said their king, reaching for them, hands laid on the shoulders of the elf and the dwarf and eyes dancing from each of them. "We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left." She felt a warmth blooming in her chest, heart already seeming to beat faster and bouncing lightly on her toes. "Let us hunt some orc!" He grinned, a wildness apparent in his eyes even there, among their broken group. They would hunt, rough and free across any land, but when she looked to the distance, she knew Rohan lay there, the golden plains stretching for miles between them and Isenguard.

Rohan awaited them.


I can't tell you how excited I am for Rohan.

And because of that, I've written an awful lot of it already.

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