Hi, everyone! I apologize if this chapter seems to be coming late to you; I had to drive back to university after a much-needed Thanksgiving break. I hope all you Americans had a wonderful Turkey Day and I hope all of my international readers had a splendid day/week as well!
And we made it to the 145! Let's make it to 155! Thanks, everyone! I love you all! And thanks as always, to those who favorited and followed my story! BDS has over 100 followers! Woot!
And so glad to see that the lovely term Borothell is catching on! Maybe not everyone is in agreement with the ship... but it is a ship, people. And I know I have fans out there rooting for Legolas; let me know what you think their ship ought to be called. And any other ship, really! I also wanted to mention that the ship Borothell was coined by TwillinOfTheWillows! Thank you so much for your involvement from practically day one, my friend! :)
This chapter picks up RIGHT AFTER the last one, so you know. Next chapter will be a new day. I promise. :) And since I love you all, it is pretty long. :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing affiliated with Tolkien or Jackson. I only own Arathell, Kara+kiddos and horses!
Part Three - We Barely Make It
Something Beautiful - NEEDTOBREATHE
"Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees, I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful"
She abandoned his presence quickly and walked to her room, closing the door hard behind her. Her heart was racing in her chest and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw just how flushed her cheeks were.
That night at dinner, she made an acute effort to not speak or even look at Lord Boromir of Gondor. She kept her attentions to Glorfindel, who looked at her with concerned gray eyes. He had asked her several times already what worries were lingering in her mind, but she could not put a name to them herself, and as such offered no real answer to his questions.
The Hobbits easily held her attention, and she watched them with a spark of joy in her soul. It was rare to see such pure souls sit at her table and they were so playful and happy that it was simply infectious. Her troubles with Boromir and Legolas were practically forgotten after ten minutes of talking to the Hobbit, Sam. He was the quietest of the five, as Bilbo sat at the table as well, but he was stout of heart. He was modest, saying nothing to honor himself, other than he was rather proficient at gardening. But apparently, all Hobbits were according to him, so he was nothing special, at least in his eyes.
"Samwise, I do believe you undermine your worth on this journey," she told him, seeing him blush all the way to the tips of his pointed ears. "I have walked this earth for thousands of years, and I can tell you with surety that there are few things that are better than a loyal friend. Frodo is very lucky to have you in his life."
"Lady Arathell is very much a believer in the powers of friendship," Legolas said gently, pouring more wine into his goblet. "But she does not have many friends herself."
Sam and the other Hobbits looked bewildered, but Bilbo stood at the table with a determined face. "You bite your tongue!" Arathell's eyes widened and everyone else at the table stared with bemusement at the headstrong Hobbit, making a stand against a Prince of Elves. "She has been one of my dearest friends for many, many years! And she is one of the few Elves who have won the friendship of the Dwarves of Erebor."
"Thank you, Bilbo," Arathell said with a smile. "But I believe that Legolas is correct. I am a rather hardened individual and I do not let many people into my life. The ones you speak of probably don't even like me. They only respect me."
"The King of Erebor is your friend, and his heirs will forever be," Bilbo rebutted. "And that is a fact that you will never be able to change, my lady!"
She chuckled and raised her goblet to him. "I shall count myself lucky to have you for a friend, Master Baggins. I do not think that there is another who would defend my solitary life as heartily as you."
The feast continued on and she looked over at Legolas and smiled nervously. "He fantasizes that I am such a benevolent person and that I have no flaws," she mentioned. "You must forgive him, but his experience with Elves has been very diverse."
"You mean to say that he will always pick your side because you did not throw his friends into cages as I did." She shrugged and took a bite of her salad. "I think that his business with the Dwarves may have left an imprint on him of their behaviors. He seems to be very good at holding a grudge."
She smirked. "Tell me of a race that would not remember their captor with some animosity and I will believe your words."
"Fair enough," he conceded.
"My lady," Glorfindel whispered into her ear and she looked up at him with a graceful smile. "The Man across the table stares at you – Lord Boromir."
"Let him stare, my lord, Glorfindel," she replied with a cheeky smile. "If he thinks that he can unnerve my dinner with fierce stares, then he will learn his worth in my eyes."
"I think he fancies himself in love with you," he argued. "And as your betrothed, I cannot like this."
"We are not betrothed, Glorfindel," she snapped, the smile gone as she looked at him. "You are my suitor and nothing else. And he has known me for but a day – he cannot love me. I most certainly do not love him."
"Do you mean this?"
"I mean both statements," she answered. "Love in that way has never been a strong area of mine and I do not truly believe that it will ever take hold of me. So he may try to garner my love, but I believe that I have none to give to him in return. His search is fruitless and he will learn this soon enough."
"Do you not love me?"
She stared into his gray eyes and touched his cheek gently with her hand. "You have been a dear friend to me, Glorfindel. You listen to my pains and you converse with me when I wish to speak. But no, I do not love you. I do not turn away from you as a suitor, because I believe that you may the only one who really could ever love something as dark as myself."
"You deserve the greatest of happiness, Arathell," he retorted, looking hurt. "If it is not with me, then I would release you from this bondage. You could not be happy with me, and I do think that I deserve to love someone who would love me as passionately as I love them." He looked away from her and pushed her hand from his face. "But as Elves only have one love in their lives, I see that I may never experience love in Arda."
"Please do not speak like this," she begged, forgetting the guests at her table. "You simply do not know true love and there is still a great hope that you will be able to find it someday soon."
"Time is running out, Arathell." She didn't have anything to say to that and only looked to her friend with a sad expression on her face. But she could see the hurt in his eyes with a potency that made her ache inside. She wished desperately that she did love him. He was a good soul and he would have stood beside her through the worst of torments, giving her encouragement and smiles all the way. But she didn't want that! And it made her so angry! "Arathell, my sweet, don't grieve for me. The Valar have long been sending me thoughts of your distance from me, and I ignored them, praying that they would be wrong. But now that they are, I have no one but to blame for my pain but myself."
"I should not have confronted you with this here," she murmured. "It's hardly proper dinner conversation."
He shook his head. "You are right about that." She looked down into her lap, catching the curious eyes of Aragorn on the way. Again he sat next to Arwen, each with hands under the cloth of the table. She was willing to bet that their fingers were entwined away from wandering eyes such as hers. "But I suspect that dinner conversations everywhere are gradually to become more grim than mere broken hearts," Glorfindel continued, and she focused back on the topic at hand.
"Is your heart broken, mellon?" she whimpered.
"I have been your suitor for many years, Duvainith," he replied and she could not help but cringe at the title he had given her. In his despair, Duvainith was all she had become to him. She was no longer the sweet that made his blood race, rather the beautifully dark sister who had squeezed his heart dry of life. "Tell me, did you think that it was possible that I was only infatuated with you?" His tone was not as gentle as before, as if the kind words before had never been uttered at all. Wishes for her happiness were no longer at the front of his mind. "Was this all a game to you?" he demanded, his voice escalating so that it caught the attention of more than just Aragorn.
"Glorfindel, may we speak of this later?" she pleaded, reaching for his hand that was tightly clasped around a dinner fork. "You agreed that this was not proper dinner conversation, and there are far too many ears for my taste." She saw Legolas scoff into his goblet.
"We are done speaking," Glorfindel snapped, standing from the table and dismissing himself. Tears welled in her brown eyes and she felt many gazes on her, but she dared not meet any of them. The most prominent was that of her father's. She could feel disappointment radiate off of him into her soul. Even on the brink of war, the matters of the heart were not to be tossed aside by the Elves, and what she had done was an act of betrayal. In the eyes of her people, she had done more than just betray her suitor, but she had betrayed the wishes of her family. There was no greater dishonor in that.
Arathell didn't wait for dismissal from her father, standing up on her own and leaving the table. Tears ran down her face now in the shelter of her privacy. Her room would be too obvious, so she avoided that room like a plague, rushing to her familiar corner. The décor of the room was not beautiful, rather quite plain, and there was no natural light that leaked into the space, making it quite undesirable to her fellow Elves. She would be safe here, or at least until her tears were spent.
Glorfindel had never held her heart in his hands, but he certainly held her pain. She still wished that she could find it in her to love him. Even now, she considered running to him and lying with a proposal of marriage on her lips. But he was wise and would see through her scheme immediately. He was not a fool, and the veil of love had been pulled from his eyes at last.
Why could he have not have seen her indifference sooner? Or rather, why could she not confer her indifference sooner? Perhaps it was because she always thought that in her heart she could learn to love him. She could learn to find a home in his willowy embrace and harmonic voice. As a fool, her hopes were dashed. It was a grim reminder to her that hope was pointless in the beginning. Hope did not bring love into her heart. And now hope would not bring victory into her Middle Earth.
With her face buried in her knees, she sobbed with this realization. She held herself close, knowing that the only sure thing that she would ever be able to count on would be herself and the reach of her arm. She could trust herself and no one else. Arathell Duvainith would die just like the rest of the world, but she would fight her death until her heart stopped.
An arm was suddenly around her shoulders, pulling her into a strong embrace. For a moment, she wondered if this was the stranger who had held her before. The hand seemed just as powerful but as she sank into the touch and pressed her ear against the steady thrumming heart, she knew instantly that this was not him. This heart beat differently. It was just as strong, like the beating of a drum, but there was no echo behind it. It conferred strength with its solitary beat, but not the whisper of magic underneath it.
Her brown, murky eyes opened to gaze into the gray gaze of Boromir. Quickly, she pulled away, wiping at her tears with a heavy hand. Now there were two people who had witnessed her weak, and she hated this. Weakness was not acceptable to her – she was Shadow, a darkness that preludes to an enemy's death. Her eyes were dark to match the darkness on her soul, leaving no light to hold onto. In a way, she was Death, as Celeborn had once called her. He had said she was the hand of Death and Legolas would not be afraid to take it if he was a true warrior.
But she was neither the hand of Death nor Shadow at the moment. In fact, she felt like water instead, never able to hold onto anything and bending at the will of the wind and crashing in on itself as a wave breaks its own body. The only shadow she displayed was the shadow of herself.
"A lady such as you should not be weeping," Boromir whispered, reaching to wipe at a tear she had missed. "I would see the fire in your eyes again. I would see the promise of brimstone in your gaze."
"I have only water to offer you at the moment, my lord," she croaked. "And I would not have you see me like this. Go back to your dinner and leave me in peace."
"I would not call your solitude peaceful, my lady. My presence alone has ceased your tears. Perhaps my words can make you smile again."
Arathell shook her head. "I have done a terrible thing, Boromir," she whispered. She looked into his gray eyes, the look imploring like he wanted to take her burden from her and rest it on his shoulders. "I have led a man to believe that I love him. And I have convinced him with my silence that I would marry him. I neither love him nor have the desire to marry him. Now his heart stings with betrayal and I am unable to mend it."
"You do not love the Elf?" he asked.
She huffed in disapproval and gave him a sour look. "There are more matters of the heart than just love, my lord. If that is all you wish to console me about then I have nothing more to say. No, I do not love Glorfindel and that is not my concern. My true concern is about what I have done to him with my silence and indifference! I care little for the notion of love and am currently more plagued by sympathy and regret!" She stood from the floor and began pacing. "Ridiculous emotions with all of their twists and turns and extensions – they cannot leave me! I would be rid of them all if I could."
He gave her a look of confusion. "But it is emotion that gives us our defenses. We build our fortresses and our walls with the intent of keep the bad things at bay. We build them not to protect what lies inside, rather who. Emotion gives us this drive to keep them all safe. How can you want to throw away a gift this powerful? What would give you the will to fight back at all if not your emotions?"
"Instinct," she retorted. "The innate desire to live and breathe gives me the will I need. And that is not what we are discussing at the moment, so I would appreciate it if you do not speak of things you do not understand."
He surrendered a nod. "You are much older than me and without a doubt wiser as well. But if it is this Lord Glorfindel who gives you cause to weep, then you can stop your crying now. He is Elf-kind and made to endure more than just heart ache."
"Clearly you are ignorant of my race," she grunted with an eye roll. "Elves die either from wounds in body or wounds in heart. Time is not our nemesis, rather pain. And I have just given him pain unimaginable. He could very well pass into Shadow because of me!"
"You are Shadow!" he barked and she paused. "If he is on this brink, as you say and his choices are Shadow and healing, then I daresay he will not choose you. For you are right: I do not know much of your race, but if pain is your kind's nemesis, then he will not choose the route of pain. He will not choose Shadow. It would give him pain."
"There are multiple kinds of Shadows in our world, Boromir and this you cannot be ignorant of."
"No, I am not. You are right once more, my lady. I also believe that in this world, there is created only one person to match our souls with," he told her in a whisper.
"What has that got to do with anything?!" she demanded in a shrill voice.
"That he did not truly love you if you did not love him back," he answered calmly. "He was not meant to love you because you did not love him back. This means that his heart cannot truly be broken and his only choice is to heal and wait for the real love to take him. He was simply infatuated with you and thought himself in love."
"You're calling into question the love of a being who is thousands of years old? Do you think that he cannot tell what real love is?" she retorted with a scoff.
Boromir remained calm and now stood, taking her hands in his. She froze at the contact but did not pull away from his grasp. "I do not think anyone can know what real love is until it has ensnared them," he whispered. "It does not matter how old you are either. Love will come to every good being in time."
Arathell thought deeply about his words, wondering if there was any truth to them. It sounded logical, but since when have emotions and logic ever agreed upon anything? It was her pure reason why she despised emotion – because it defied her logic. But regardless of the soundness of his argument, there was a dilemma that was clear. "We are almost out of time," she said. "We face our doom in the coming months. After being so infatuated with me for tens of years, do you expect him to move on quickly enough to find his real love in only months? You are completely mad if you think so. And even if we do survive this impending doom, what then? He will not stay in Middle Earth. He will go to Valinor."
"Perhaps his love awaits him there," he suggested, his body closing in on hers. She never considered herself a short woman – few Elves, if any were. But this Man was taller, and she was forced to crane her neck to continue to meet his gaze.
"How can love await someone in death?" she wondered, her voice lower with her throat constricting her voice. His eyes were quite deep, she realized, staring harder into them. They were gray – a color she saw every day of her life. But there was a twinkle there that reminded her of a star. There was a youth there that she had not seen in many years and she found herself drawn to this light. So she did not push him away as he released her hands and rested his on her hips, pulling her closer still, their noses now touching.
"The land of Aman is not a land of Death and you know it," he breathed, his breath blowing away the residue of age from her face. "The world has watched with dreary eyes as your kin leave these shores. There are few of you left, and this is certain even amongst my kin."
She blinked. "Then do you believe my love awaits me there?" she whispered.
He grinned and she looked down to his thin lips. There were few smiles that were so grand. His pearly teeth shone with another, sharper light. In the light of his star-like eyes and glistening teeth, he was beautiful. "No, I believe your love awaits you here." Before another word could escape her, his lips were pressed against hers. His lips were tender on hers, the scratching of his beard making shivers run down her spine. She sighed into his mouth, feeling it open to her. It was warm and quite full of life and again, of youth. He tasted like fresh honey, sweet but with a tang of the Wild. Her hands fell on his shoulders, pulling him into her more. It had been far too long since she had been kissed, and she had never had one that had this kind of passion before.
When Boromir pulled away, her eyes fluttered open and she touched her lips faintly, as if to trap his taste into her lips. "You are quite presumptuous," she finally stated with a deep, but shaky breath.
"Perhaps," he agreed with a cheeky smile. "But it would seem that I presume correctly."
"That remains to be seen," she replied, feeling her edge return to her. She stepped completely away from him again and smoothed her gray skirt. "A kiss with another may have guaranteed you a marriage, but it does not do so with me. As I described to Glorfindel, love and I have never accepted one another." He quirked an eyebrow, as if surprised. "You have given me much to consider, and I will need solitude in order to form a proper, unbiased opinion about it. As you can clearly see, I am no longer filled with tears and my fire has been… fanned. You have done what you have set out to do. You may go back to the others now."
He smirked and bowed low to her. "Before I go, my lady, Arathell," he paused, pronouncing her name as if it was a name of the Valar. "I would pose a question to you." Her lips parted and she cocked her head to the side, waiting. "Do you simply look the most beautiful in shadowy grays, or do you not have a dress of any other color?"
"I have many dresses, my lord, Boromir," she replied. "And they are in many different colors."
His smile grew. "Then I would much like to compare your beauty in gray to your beauty in other colors."
"Then maybe you will get what you wish and maybe you will not," she said quickly. "Good night."
She rushed to her chambers then, closing the door and smiling like a madwoman. She touched her lips again, thinking of how wonderful their connection was. Lindir had never kissed her in this way. He was always timid and weak when it came to pleasing her. But Boromir was sure of himself as he laid his claim. It actually felt like a real first kiss, filled with passion and adoration. This was what they were supposed to feel like. Well, she thought with a smirk, throwing herself onto her bed, if that was how all kisses with him would be, she would not be able to deny his affections for much longer.
We got some Borothell going on here! Let me know what you think about this chapter! About Borothell, Glorfindel, Hobbits, Legolas, Lindir, ANYTHING! :) And ship names!
Check out the song, as always!
Love you all lots!
- LM