AN: And finally, the part you've been waiting so terribly patiently for: the Quest. Or at least the real lead up to it.
Chapter 24: California Dreaming
Grumpily I squinted at my semolina, ignoring the chatter that surrounded me at the enormous table. It had been weeks since I got a proper refreshing sleep and I was even contemplating staying home this rotation northward; with the road getting ever more dangerous, everyone needed to be on their guard and fully capable. At the same time I dreaded the idea of staying home.
Not the least because Electra has lately been asking what had this stick up my ass. Just like this morning.
After days and days of grumbling that it was nothing or distracting them, I finally grumbled, "Been having this stupid repeating dream and it won't let me get any real fucking sleep."
Sympathetically Electra nodded. "Those," she said knowingly and continued with her breakfast.
Unfortunately Rosie asked what my dream was about and I couldn't be nasty to her, so I blandly repeated the words that by now I knew by heart, "Seek for the sword that was broken: in Imladris it dwells; there shall be counsels taken stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token that Doom is near at hand, for Isildur's Bane shall waken, and the halfling forth shall stand." I was rather proud of my spoken capitalization of the correct letters, despite my exhaustion.
The part of the table near me went quiet a moment, then renewed chatter broke out as my relatives deciphered the stupid fucking rhyme I had imagined into being. Morgul apparently means sorcery in some ancient language, so there would be sorcery spells? Maybe out of Minas Morgul? According to the map Imladris was tucked up into a mountain dale about the same distance from here as Bree, in a rough triangle with the rivers Bruinen and Greyflood forming one side and the roads the others. What halflings had to do with magic or Isildur nobody could imagine; they were the most peaceful people I've ever met.
What everyone puzzled over was what Isildur's Bane could possibly be. Everybody except me, anyways; it brought back memories still vivid years later, of a night spent whispering about the darkness in the east. A pang went through my chest but my mind went clear with sudden panic as all the pieces came together.
"Doom is near at hand," I whispered under my breath.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. If history repeats itself here as much as at home… Fuck.
Energetic and bubbly, Cressie teased, "Maybe somebody's sending you a message."
I scoffed and waved a tired hand at her. "Psh. What, to run off to Imladris with a hobbit?" The mental image made me laugh; I was short but still a foot and a half taller than the tallest hobbit I've ever seen.
"You'll have a bunch of furry-footed little babies in no time!" Madhav teased.
I snorted with laughter, which unfortunately sent hot semolina up my nose and took several minutes to recover from. "Yeah, well if that dream was a message, whoever's sending it can have it said directly to my face," I declared stubbornly.
It was fishing day, so once breakfast was finished I gathered the net and with Gander's help, netted a dozen fish by lunch. Half soaked from Gander shaking himself off on me, I brought back the bucket of fish with a sense of accomplishment. This was enough for dinner and some to dry or jar for later! Ha!
"Look what's on the menu tonight!" I called cheerfully as I practically pranced into the house. The bucket of fish was set beside where Gran was preparing some eggs for hardboiling.
"Thank you, dear," she told me, before asking, "You remember what you said at breakfast about the message in your dreams?"
"That it can be said straight to my face or whoever's sending it can fuck off?" I answered casually.
Movement caught my eye at the privy door and at first I disregarded the shape as Liam; he was the only one around here who was that big. Except that scarlet and gold caught my attention. My heart went fast before I consciously realized who was standing there.
Boromir looked about the same as the last time I saw him, riding away from Edoras. Still with that short beard and shoulder-length hair and even wearing the same outfit as during the wedding raid. Vividly I remembered yanking that shining chainmail over his head.
"Cass?" he asked, and fuck, even his voice was the same. A smile began to spread on his stupid handsome face.
Emotion welled up. It felt like I was splitting in two, half wanting to jump into his arms and cry all over him and half wanting to physically push him from the top of the tower. More than anything I wanted to throw that bucket of fish on him. My hand even went for the handle.
Temper, Cass. Remember the last time you lost it around this family? You're trying to learn from that, I reminded myself.
I took a deep breath, drew myself up to my full unimpressive height, and stated, "I'm going to go muck out the stable for a few hours. ALONE." Childishly I gave into the urge to slam the door on my way out.
Thankfully nobody encountered me on the short journey. I wasn't sure how I'd react.
After all these years, Boromir is here?
The horses were out in the pasture with Pitaajee, so I truly was alone in the slightly smelly building. It wouldn't be smelly for long, I told myself, and got a shovel. Manual work was one of the best ways for me to process and by the time my brain even started working again, my shoulders were warm with the effort.
So, Boromir was back. And for some reason he was happy to see me. Why he was here I wasn't sure, but I hedged my bets on it being good news.
At the same time I couldn't help remembering the promise he gave me when he left: he would return for me or send for me. Had his dad unexpectedly croaked?
Or was this something unrelated to me personally? Perhaps official business about Tharbad being established, since this used to be Gondorian territory? Or alliance/trade talks? In that case I thought that they would send Faramir or an official ambassador; Boromir was a rather physical being.
At least, he was when I knew him for half a minute. Maybe he'd changed a bit since then. Perhaps I never really knew him in the first place.
Whatever the reason, Boromir was in Tharbad and by the time I got my head around that, half the stable was clean. Trying to figure out my feelings about that fact was much more difficult. As I shoveled and scraped and any number of other bits of cleaning, emotion spun through me at a dizzying place. Shock had given way to fury, joy, and gut-churning confusion that melded and moved until I didn't know what I felt in the rush.
I was so out of it that I barely noticed Pitaajee enter the building, even with him calling out my name in that playful sing-song we used so often. "Hmmm… You okay?" he asked, peering over a stall divider.
My hands clenched on the pitchfork I was using to lay down fresh hay. "I don't know," I answered in a croak.
Dark eyes kind, he cupped my face with his hands to pat my cheeks. "Don't be sad. It will be okay," he assured me.
"You think so?" I asked, eyes begging him for an answer. In my sudden uncertainty it felt like I was six again. Only instead of a tall red-haired man, the dad I asked was short and swarthy and had a gap in his teeth when he smiled at me.
Firmly he nodded. "It will be different. But it will be okay," he said with such conviction that I had to believe him.
"Thank you," I whispered, blinking away tears.
"You are very welcome, my child," he answered in that wonderful accent that I hoped never fully faded, "It is dinner. Are you hungry?"
Logically, I knew I was absolutely starving. My guts were just too twisted with emotion to feel it properly. "Yeah," I answered with a short jerk of my head, "Let's go."
We finished spreading the necessary hay and put the implements away before the horses were guided in. With them was a handsome pinto that I had never seen before, presumably Boromir's, that I made sure to fill the manger of after her long travel. I may not be ecstatic to see her rider but that wasn't her fault.
Thankfully it was still warm enough to clean up in the river before we tramped into the full house, me to change clothes and him to join the revelry. I took a brief moment in my room to wonder if I'd have a reason to dump hot soup in Boromir's lap, then I remembered that there wasn't soup tonight anyways. Is this the night my life is going to change again?
Ridiculous, I reminded myself. There was no reason to get worked up again after all these years.
I trekked down to join the family with a tight smile pasted on my face and with only a brief nod to the table seated myself at one end of the table. Unfortunately Boromir was in the middle and well within range of conversation, asking, "Are you alright?" And he seemed so sincere, too.
"Oh, I'm about to explode and very curious about why you're here after four years, but sure. I'm fine," I replied passive-aggressively. As if none of it mattered and my half of the table hadn't gone quiet, I went about loading my plate. Fish, potatoes, cauliflower.
"Is somebody on that one author's diet?" I called down the table, wishing I remembered who it was that ate only white things. And also trying to avoid looking at Boromir.
"Don't diss the cauliflower," Stevie threatened, "It was either this or broccoli." Dammit, I was tired of broccoli.
"Do any of you know where I can find a place called Imladris?" Boromir questioned, scanning the table but settling on me.
I pretended I hadn't heard and kept eating.
"Imladris, you say?" Electra asked and gave me one of those awful looks like she was telling me to take an unwanted hint.
With a huff, I rolled my eyes. Coincidence.
"Yes. My brother had a dream several times and I've had it once, always the same," Boromir described, "The east is dark but from the distant west a voice rings, saying: Seek for the sword that was broken: in Imladris it dwells; there shall be councils taken stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token that Doom is near at hand-"
"For Isildur's Bane shall waken and the halfling forth shall stand," I finished, not quite believing this. My breath was shaky as I released it.
For a beat, Boromir stared at me in similar disbelief. "You've had the dream as well?" he questioned, "When? For how long?"
Already I was shaking my head. "It can't be the same dream," I denied, fear creeping into me with a brief flicker of memory that I pushed back, "They're similar, but we must've been reading the same book before bed or something."
"We literally don't read the same language yet," Liam pointed out.
I gave him the evil eye. "Okay, fine, but there's no possible way it's the same-" I tried.
"You just finished his sentence," Cressie similarly pointed out from further down the table.
"And? It's probably from a song we heard from the neighbors-" I argued ludicrously.
"It most definitely is not a song," Boromir stated, frowning as he apparently tried to stare into my soul, "This is the same dream."
Completely losing my cool, I slammed a hand down on the table and jumped to my feet. "No it isn't! That's impossible!" I snarled, breathing heavily in what I displayed as anger but had shifted into a terror that was almost beyond words, "Dreams are meaningless anyways, so you may as well make a U-turn and go back to Minas Tirith where you belong!" I turned around to leave, automatically kicking my chair back into place, running away like the coward I am.
Of course Boromir wasn't going to take that lying down. "What happened to make you so frightened of your own mind?" he demanded, "What changed?"
At the foot of the stairs I froze, pondering what to say. Then I remembered that this was nonsense and he had no fucking business here. "Go to hell," I told him and then began to climb.
The summer's lingering heat did nothing to warm me; I shivered harshly as I changed into my pajamas and crawled under the blankets I had been collecting. Damn you Boromir, I thought in the lonesome darkness.
Even I could see the writing on the wall: it was the same dream, and it did mean something.
But I didn't want to believe it. Not at all. I wanted Boromir to wake up in the morning, say that he remembered the dream wrong, and go home.
Somewhere in my shivering and dread that made my stomach curl, I must have fallen asleep. It was the same fucking dream again, still telling me about Isildur's Bane and Doom and halflings, and I just wanted them to shut up.
Eventually I woke up. "Fucking fine," I muttered to myself, exhausted but wired, "You want me to go to Imladris so fucking bad, I'll go." Sleeping without that stupid dream popping up was an enticing incentive by now. Even if it meant following orders from a dream.
There was no going back to sleep for a couple hours; it was a routine established over the past years to sleep in chunks with some awake time in the middle of the night. As always I shambled down the stairs to the kitchen for a bit of water.
That the fire was still going interrupted my quest. Briefly I wished for a clock to know just how late somebody was up.
Seeing Boromir sitting on a bench, chin resting on his folded hands, stopped me. Admittedly I felt a bit bad for how I had started a fight and yelled at him- but god, it had scratched an itch.
If we might be traveling together, I may as well try to clear the air, I decided. A bit awkwardly I sat on an adjacent bench and joined him in watching the fire. For several minutes there was silence that almost managed to be comfortable.
When Boromir finally spoke, the suddenness made me jump. "I tried sending a letter," he said half to the flames dancing merrily in the grate, "I managed to catch the same messenger as Father assigned to bring his reply to you. He never returned from the journey."
Oh. Well I felt like a bit of an idiot. "What did it say?" I asked quietly.
"Father accepted your apology, yet he views you and your family as a threat from the east. He will not recind your banishment," Boromir relayed heavily, "I said that-" He cut himself off with a weary chuckle that I didn't like. "Does it even matter, still?" he asked.
"I didn't know there was a letter," I replied, feeling guiltier with every passing moment at my assumptions, "That's the main thing that I was angry about, no communication. What did you say back then?" Even if it wasn't relevant, I wanted to know.
Boromir looked down, took a deep breath, and then looked back up at me. "To keep hope. That I would send for you, even if it took decades," he answered, hurt of his own visible, "Yet now I know that even four years was too long. Was what we had not worth the wait?"
My chest twisted. "Without news or word or even a 'fuck you' in my general direction?" I pointed out, before adding, "I didn't know about the letter or what it said. If I knew, then I might have been able to keep hoping."
I swallowed on nothing and shrugged. "People like us don't get happy endings. Maybe that's why the messenger never made it. Maybe he found a girl and started over," I said, intending it to be funny.
"Is that what you think happened?" Boromir asked incredulously, "That I would break my oath to you and take some other as a wife?" Downright insulted, he scowled at me.
My eyebrows shot up. "You missed a glaring opportunity when you didn't," I told him.
"Is that why you didn't send word yourself?" Boromir asked, almost accused, right back.
"Nah," I answered with a casual hand wave, "I didn't want to push things and then I figured that the lack of reply was in itself a reply." I wanted to leave it at that, but understandably Boromir still looked unsure. "You're the only romance or sex or any of that I've bothered with since coming to Middle Earth," I said bluntly, "That hasn't changed." There was playful flirting with a few of my ranger friends but nothing serious.
Something in Boromir seemed to deflate; I let my shoulders sag. Out of nowhere, I started laughing but managed to muffle myself. "We're so ridiculous," I muttered, "All this drama over a missing messenger."
He shook his head, smiling bemusedly. "Faramir told me I worried for naught. I'm glad he was right," he said.
"Me too," I agreed. The awkwardness alone would probably have killed me.
For a long moment we sat in calm, mostly comfortable silence.
"Your family told me that the road north is called the Greenway for being so overgrown, and that navigation can be difficult. I have never been north beyond Tharbad and do not know the way," Boromir told me carefully. An invitation? An olive branch?
Whatever it was, I seized it. "If we're both going to this Imladris place, we may as well go together. The local bandits know better than to bother me and Damascus," I suggested. Not that they'd go for anyone as well armed and strong as Boromir, even with his expensive clothing and kit.
Consensus reached, I smiled at him. "If it's alright with you, I think I might be up for hoping again," I said quietly, nervously, "And maybe even learning to trust people. You seem like a good place to start with that." Thank everything that my hands don't tremble under stress; I reached one out.
Boromir took it in his own much warmer, larger hand. "I am very alright with that," he accepted.
A yawn took me and suddenly tiredness crashed down onto me, now that the tension had been cut. "Would you be ready to leave near noon?" I asked through a second yawn.
It was echoed, as it always is. "Of course."
We exchanged goodnights and I got up the courage to kiss him on the cheek before I totally didn't run away up the stairs. Why would I do that?
While I was falling asleep, I smiled stupidly. The world suddenly felt a little better.
After breakfast the following morning the whole town saw us off and we were into the wild blue yonder. Days passed of making a good clip but not riding in any hurry, sometimes conversing and others falling silent. Occasionally Boromir would ask about some landmark. There were several complaints from both of us about the grass that sometimes tickled Damascus's belly and occasionally hid Gander completely.
The weather was fine and we made good headway the whole way to the fork in the road. As we continued on the right side, Boromir asked, "Where does the left fork go?"
"The Shire, where the hobbits live. It's such a nice place," I said, remembering my last trip through with a smile. I adored their houses and more than a little wanted one for myself.
"Hobbits?" Boromir asked.
The dream crashed into me again and my smile went tight. "Halflings," I said meaningfully.
Understanding dawned. "To think that they are more than the children's tales we tell in the South!" he chuckled, "My nanny would tell me and Faramir stories about how they could disappear in a twinkle and make the noises of birds. How much of that is true, I wonder?"
Well, there's always a nugget of truth in every story. "Some people are really good at bird calls, and they're about up to your rib cage, so very easy to miss when they want to avoid you. All they really want is to be left alone in peace," I told him, remembering the villages and towns we had traveled through; wary but curious and ultimately friendly toward the big strangers.
"But speaking of that dream, I can't quite believe your dad let you come this far over it. I thought you were essential to Gondor's defense?" I questioned, horribly curious.
Boromir's lips went tight. "Faramir should have come but Father insisted," he replied unhappily.
What I remembered about Boromir's family flew through my head. "Did he think Faramir would die en route or something?" I asked, frowning, "Cause he seems like a tough dude, to survive in Ithilien." Now that I knew the power of Mordor, I was even more impressed.
"Father gave me an… assignment, that he did not think Faramir would complete. Or could not, I do not know," Boromir told me, clearly stressed about the decision, "We argued. My place is in Osgiliath and Minas Tirith, not in this Imladris place, but he refused to acknowledge that and sent me anyway."
Ouch, on so many levels. Call me selfish but I was glad that Denethor was such an asshole, just this one time. "What's the errand? Maybe I can help?" I offered.
But Boromir shook his head. "Before I tell you, I need to know what his words meant," he replied.
He wasn't pressing about my secrets, so I returned the gesture. Instead I asked if he liked the hurdy gurdy and got a vehement negative answer.
We rode onward.