Author's Note: Promise this story isn't abandoned, just taking longer than planned!
Disclaimer: If I owned even a smidgen of this, I wouldn't have medical bills or debt. Not for profit, just for entertainment.
Warnings: AU. Boromir/OC.
The Captain's Wife
A large ocean is before me, as far as I can see. I am on a narrow jut of land that is barren, save for creeping moss. It is everywhere I look, the only color I can find. Despite the dread sitting inside my heart, I kneel, where the moss is especially vibrant, a sea-green so brazen it is almost sickly against the ocean's fathomless dark.
Just as I am placing my hand upon it, something new gathers my attention: a wail. A wail that seems both unfamiliar and timeless, one that I knew I would die to protect.
My child is out there, I gasp, but no sound is here on my island. All is utterly silent.
I turn my head to see the tiniest boat drifting towards me. It is startingly well-made, after the fashion of the people of Dol Amroth, no holes or wayward seams, and of the driftwood the Prince Imrahil mentioned. From where I kneel, I can see swaddling – and the embroidery on it, neat, precise, and somewhere I've seen before. While I am not sure I recognize the handiwork, I do recognize the design: that of the combined seal of myself and my lord Boromir – but what is this? Something has been added to it, a new element.
A branch of a tree, of a kind now rare in Gondor. I twist my neck to try and get a better look, but the boat shifts abruptly.
With good reason – the ocean beyond has suddenly grown. And grown. And grown. A giant wave!
The child! I try to clamber to my feet, yet find I cannot. I look and discover why – the moss has grown over my hand. I yank and tug and pull frantically.
The wave gets closer; I see its shadow thrown across my island.
The boat seems, if possible, even smaller now. The babe – my child – is wailing piteously and I can do absolutely nothing.
If I reach with my other hand, I think, maybe I can grab the boat. I reach – and suddenly the wave crashes over the boat with a mighty roar, worse than thunder.
All I can see now is the swaddling, sodden, and it drifts just beyond my fingertips.
"No!" I wake, tears streaming down my face and clogging my throat. I choke, coughing myself into blurry vision.
Pale light from the thick glass turns the room that curious shade of morning blue, and I am shivering, hard, before I come to myself and remember where I am. That remembrance comes with a shaking of my arms – I am not trapped – and a tender hug around myself.
"You are safe," I whisper, with a gentle caress. My heart aches, however, as to the reality of the statement.
I am young, young enough that I have not begun my education at Court yet. Mother and I, and my brother, are out of the City to meet Father. He wrote of the wains his business was bringing and wanted help, and so we are out by one of the orchards, a little distance from the Road, but not completely from its sight. We can still see it wind its way through the plains into the distance. Mother is sitting by a tree closest to the Road, occupied by some sewing – she complains often that my brother and I grow too quickly. Father once said to her to send out her sewing, but she sniffed proudly. "I'm the best seamstress on this Circle!"
That night I looked critically at my stockings and shifts. It was true; her handiwork was among the finest I in my young years had seen. Though I had little to compare it to. I couldn't understand then sewing was one of the few things Mother actually loved doing – aside from her constant criticisms.
My brother and I are galloping through the lines of trees, sunlight dappling the soft ground. He is pretending to be from Rohan; even the Steward's legendary coldness cannot prevent warm stories of Riders and horses and rolling grasslands. I am, however, a rider of the Gondorian Knights, of perfect form and etiquette, giggling because Randir knows I am, in fact, imitating Mother.
"'Wen! Look!" He calls me by his nickname for me, from far down the lane. He has stopped galloping and drops his "horse" – an old dead branch of one of the trees – and is peering at the ground. I gallop precisely to him, drop my own branch, and look also.
He has found an old well, hidden by the leaves that have fallen here. Covered by rotted planks and vine-wrapped stone, either of us could easily have fallen in. "I wonder who left this here?"
"Maybe it belongs to a farmer?"
"Maybe it belonged to an adventurer," he says, his brown eyes gleaming. This is what I love about him – all things have intriguing possibilities. He tells the best stories, and can regale the ballads with full memory. I heard him say once to Father he wants to travel and collect them, but Father looked so forbidding of it I backed away from eavesdropping.
"What kind of adventurer?" I ask, ready for one of his tales.
He does not get the opportunity to answer – Mother shouts from the distance, and with her the faint rattle of many wheels.
The prince Erchirion meets my eyes as I enter the main room of the cottage – "you look more peaky than you did last night! Did little one keep you up?" It is brighter and homelier in the light of day, and I can see how meaningful the scattered touches – the books and ships – are to the guards who rotate through. I am flooded with homesickness, and the touch of a man whose arms are far beyond my reach or gaze.
"No, but I am honored you noticed," I answer, with as little asperity as possible. It must not have passed muster, for he laughs.
"Sit, lady, and I will get you plenty of food. Gentle," – he adds, when I raise a hand to comment about my stomach, "and with the ginger tea I promised."
The prince has been busy in the time I slept (did he sleep?), for now the arrangement seems different in here. A table, though small, is where he gestures me to sit, pulled into a corner of the room where it will fit. There is a chair, laden with cushions I can only see the back of, nearest to the fireplace; and on the desk I had seen before where Glandur mentioned they kept their logs, now sits a small crate overflowing with candles.
Evidently they have made room for me, and really, I am genuinely moved. Perhaps it is the dream of the night before, perhaps it is the memory of my brother that is plaguing me with it; by the time Erchirion returns with a plate of food that smells more delicious than I can remember, I am wiping my face with my wrist to clean it of tears.
It is not the first time I have cried in recent months. I know it is not the last. Yet it feels different – almost cathartic.
"It is no small thing," he says to me almost conversationally, "to forge a new path when the old one is no longer tenable. I was told that once."
"By who?" I cannot help but ask.
"By my father, who of course taught it to your husband. And I hope it is some comfort to you." He pats me on the shoulder, placing a steaming mug beside the food, and leaves the cottage.
Was it? I am not sure, and I look to my breakfast for an answer that I know is not present.
It is, of course, fish and some root vegetables. Not my ideal morning meal. Enough, however, to draw me from the pallor of my dream enough to think on it without tears constant on my cheeks. The spice of the ginger tea helps a great deal to keep the food down, and I am grateful that whatever impertinence Prince Imrahil's son has, he is also a man of his word.
With the prince out of doors, and finishing the plate, I take the opportunity to sit before the fire for a few moments. A constant presence, apparently; no doubt because of the constant damp. I stare at the flames, mug between my hands, willing myself to picture the dream as carefully as I did my people at the Healing Houses, with calm reserve and patient detachment. The mug serves as a way to keep my hands from trembling. The dream felt too real. I could still hear the crash of the wave…
I most wanted to know of the embroidery in my dream. The attachment to the seal Lord Boromir and I created…the seal was familiar to those around me, sewn into my clothes as a marker of possession and identity. Not only did it help prevent theft on laundry day, but it served as a marker of status when cunningly woven into patterns on collars, sleeves, or hems.
Yet the addition of the branch is startling. So vivid - where had I seen the branch before?
The orchard. The orchard where Randir and I had galloped – it was a maple tree orchard, very precious and now rare, most of them razed by the orcs and some by Easterlings out of sheer spite. The Head Healer had instructed me to use maple water many times in the potions for his recovering patients from the last remaining trees kept in the House's orchard, claiming its function for renewed energy; I did as he bid, though I myself could see no difference. I only ever knew the maple trees to be useful for sweets, especially around the winter solstice.
I shake my head. The dream was not a portend of the future, that much was clear; my brother was already mourned and gone. Perhaps it was only an anxiety dream, of the kind some of the healers in the Houses said women were prone to having.
Snorting, I drain the mug. Worry, I have learned quickly with my husband, was not limited to one sex or the other. As often as I had seen him wake from terrible dreams…I spent my time in the Houses trying to be careful of those who sought sleep, particularly if they spoke of similar dreams.
As I leave the cottage, I knock the cushions off the chair. One of them is distinctly familiar, blue, with white circles. Lothiriel again, that cheeky girl. I squeeze it, and place it carefully back with a loving pat, remembering her cheerful demeanor and conversation.
I square my shoulders, and face the day, ignoring the small voice. You're overlooking something…