"Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
"You're acting like a child." Amelia snapped at Boromir, clenching her hands at her sides. The houses of Healing where Frodo and Sam had been flown were located in northern Ithilien, quite close to Cair Andros, and had gardens where the patients could walk. Their maladies were mended with fresh air and gardening, a treatment that Amelia imagined Sam only approved of. She had yet to see either of the hobbits, since she had spent hours tracking down Boromir, only to find him hiding in the gardens. "You're going to have to face Frodo sooner or later." Boromir sent her a dark look and she cocked her head, crossing her arms tightly.
"I would not force him to relive anymore of his pain than he already has."
"Enough with the excuses!" Amelia had, at first, been understanding of his trepidation, but after spending close to an hour of her time attempting to convince him to overcome it, her patience had been worn thin. "You keep telling me that you're thinking about Frodo, and yet you're acting like a selfish arse about it!" His eyes narrowed slightly at her. "Did it occur to you that it might help him, seeing you again in one piece? That it might help you?" When he didn't answer her, she threw up her hands in frustration, groaned loudly and turned, stomping away and trying in vain to not let his stubbornness ruin the excited anticipation she felt at seeing Frodo and Sam after many weeks spent apart.
She could already hear the laughter before she was anywhere close to the rest of the Fellowship.
As she climbed the steps to the door, the one that led into the room where Frodo had been resting for a while by then, she could hear Gimli's throaty chuckle mixing with Gandalf's laugh, Merry and Pippin's cries of joy rising above both.
When she turned to walk in the door, she stumbled, as she had not seen that a fourth hobbit already stood in the doorway before she decided to enter it.
"Sam!" She exclaimed happily as she toppled over and landed heavily on the floor, face first, and she heard that it only made the others laugh even harder. Sam had nicks, cuts and fading bruises covering his face and forearms, yet his complexion was healthy and his eyes were the same as ever, but he had lost weight.
"Miss Amelia!" He exclaimed in surprise and immediately moved to help her up. "I didn't see you there…"
"I think I ought to be saying that." Amelia answered dryly as she got to her feet and stumbled slightly before she regained her foothold. Then, she looked at Frodo, who still laid in the large bed in the middle of the small, but bright room, and she stared.
His eyes were sunken and his skin had the color of candlewax, covered in nasty bruises, cuts and scrapes as it was. His face was gaunt and hollow, he looked as underfed as a wild dog, and his lips were grey. Still, a faint, exhausted smile played at the edge of his mouth, pulling it upwards just a bit, while his eyes were drooping. For a moment, Amelia lost her tongue, a rare thing to happen, and she scrambled for something to say as all eyes in the room rested on her.
"You look like you just stumbled out of Mount Doom." She quipped, but her voice wasn't as preppy as she would have liked, making her words come out almost sad.
"Miss Amelia…" Frodo croaked, and nodded to her. Through the gap in his shirt, Amelia could see a stark, red brand on his chest where the ring had hung, alongside a nasty, round scar in a sickly shade somewhere between green and yellow, the obvious result of the poison of Shelob. Amelia tried not to grimace at the sight and managed to control her own facial expression. Frodo's face fell a bit and she blinked at the change. "Where is Boromir?" Amelia glanced at Aragorn and shook her head slightly.
"He's, well… he's fine. Mostly intact and all. He just lost his father, even though he was a colossal…" Aragorn coughed and Amelia sighed. "Well, he's gone and I think Boromir's still brooding about that. Plus, he's still up in a twist about Amon Hen, even though I have literally been trying for months to get him to realize that, yes, he messed up, but in the end, he…" She shook her head. "Never mind about that. I've given enough tirades to him already. Don't need to bring you into the mix." She gave him a pointed look. "You look like you've had enough to do with the ring to last a lifetime, and then some."
"And quite right too." Gandalf added, nodding to himself, still smiling widely.
Amelia looked at each face in the room and she recognized none of them from Rivendell. There was no ranger, but a king. There was no prince, but an elf who had, for the first time, come face to face with what death really meant for the lesser races. There was no skeptical dwarf, but one who had seen that which was fairest. There was no old man, but a true wizard. There were no young rascals playing with fireworks, but swords sworn to mighty lords. There was no gardener, but a hero. There was no hobbit, but a ringbearer and all that came with that heavy title.
She did not know where she fit into the Fellowship, but wherever it was, she was content to simply let it be and so she sat on a chair in the corner of the room, uncharacteristically quiet, as she observed the scene before her. Merry and Pippin babbled on endlessly about the wonders they had seen, Gimli pulled out and puffed on his pipe, Aragorn conversed casually with Legolas and Gandalf spoke in a low voice with Sam, his face graver than Amelia liked, but she didn't care to worry about it.
Absentmindedly, she twisted Cilya on her finger, finding the familiar feeling of the band a strange comfort.
A cough from the doorway caught her attention. Her eyebrows jerked upwards when she saw Boromir, who looked like he was already regretting his decision to show up at all, with his hands hanging restlessly at his side and his head bent, avoiding Frodo's eyes. Amelia stared at him, but his grey eyes were fixed on anywhere that wasn't those of another person.
"May I enter?" He asked softly and Amelia blinked, perplexed. He had yet to even cross the threshold. Frodo glanced at Sam, who gave him a strange look that Amelia couldn't decipher in return, and then, he wordlessly bowed his head to Boromir. He looked weary, but also sad, as he watched Boromir awkwardly approach the foot of his bed, all within the room keeping a sharp eye on him.
Then, Boromir bowed deeply to the hobbit.
"Master Baggins," He said gravely, "I stand before you in deepest shame. In my folly, I nearly brought about the ultimate end, and for that, I have only my eternal regret to offer." He looked as if he had much more to say, but Frodo cut him off.
"You should not have tried to take it." He said, but it was more of a regretful sigh than an accusation. Even so, Boromir's face twitched slightly and Amelia recognized immediately that Frodo's words cut deep. "But I cannot fault you for any of it, Boromir." He sunk back into his pillows. "I, myself, felt its power. It's allure. It held all the promises of the world to me… and it is gone."
"And good riddance to it, I might add." Sam added grumpily. Amelia hid her snort of laughter behind a hand, though she still followed the proceedings with massive interest.
"The ring ensnared the both of us." Frodo breathed, melancholy thick in his voice. "But it is gone. Any guilt you may have had is gone with it." Amelia barely suppressed her wide grin, but she did manage to present it merely as a proud smile instead. Boromir didn't react as strongly to Frodo's words as Amelia did, but she knew him well enough to see that they did lift a burden from his shoulders. Then, an awkward silence ensued, where no one really knew what they ought to say or do, but then, Amelia clapped her hands together. Sam, Aragorn and Boromir jumped at the sharp sound, but then frowned at the strange way she grinned at the lot of them.
"What are you grinning about?" Pippin asked suspiciously from his position on the bed and Amelia laughed a short laugh to herself, shaking her head.
"I never actually thought we'd make it. I mean, look at us, the actual Fellowship of the Ring, all in one piece…" She glanced at Frodo's bandaged hand. "Well, almost in one piece, that is, and everything's so sugary, I almost feel nauseous." She beamed at her friends, of which the majority looked at least mildly disturbed. "I honestly couldn't be happier."
Riding back into Minas Tirith was the definition of a once in a lifetime experience.
For centuries, the people of Gondor had lived in the shadow of dark mountains. Generations had lived and died with the distant glow in the east. There had been a neverending darkness overshadowing every time of joy and happiness, with skirmishes with orcs having been fought by unlucky scouts and rangers every day, and too many lives had been lost to Mordor to ever be counted.
No longer.
Silver trumpets blew as the king rode into the city, the Fellowship of the Ring following him closely, and the clear sound of tolling bells rose above the cacophonous explosion of shouting, cries and intense relief. Old women wept into their hands, children, who didn't understand the situation beyond that something glorious had happened after waiting for it for far too long, ran after the surviving horses, waving to their riders, and women screamed the names of their fathers, husbands and brothers, some finding them and others collapsing in grief when they didn't. There had been so much death in such a short time, but then, it seemed as if the very city itself was alive.
Amelia didn't see Boromir, Aragorn or any other member of the procession she was in. She only saw the faces, the unforgettable faces and she drank them in, knowing she would never see any expressions like those who donned the faces of the people of Minas Tirith that day. Such relief, such grief, such joy and such joy, so vibrant a joy it shone, was wondrous to behold and in that moment, Amelia felt that the months of trekking across lands that she had never believed existed, months of blood, sweat and horror, that they had all been worth it to see the end of the war, though she was far from willing to go through it again.
The people paid special heed to Frodo and Sam, with a fair amount given to Merry and Pippin as well, and Amelia heard phrases repeated in their cheers, some of which she understood and others in a tongue she had never learned.
'Long live the Halflings! Praise them with great praise!
Cuio i Pheriain anann! Aglar'ni Pheriannath!
Praise them with great praise, Frodo and Samwise!
Daur a Berhael, Conin en Annûn! Eglerio!
Praise them!
Eglerio!
A laita te, laita te! Andave laituvalmet!
Praise them!
Cormacolindor, a laita tárienna!
Praise them! The Ring-bearers, praise them with great praise!'
Frodo looked startled at the amount of attention he received, but Amelia couldn't blame him, and wordlessly extended her sympathies as she glanced back towards him on his pony. No one bothered to hide their pointing as they spotted his missing finger, whispering spreading like wildfire, and some even stretched out their hands towards him, falling to their knees and crying out their blessings upon him. Amelia heard several people mistaking one hobbit for the other, but she seemed alone in noticing Frodo's growing discomfort. She could do nothing for him, short of stopping the entire procession to help him and she doubted that would be well received by anyone, and so she turned back in her saddle.
She jerked when something touched her leg and twisted, looking back to where someone was reaching out for her on the ground. It was a young girl, barely even a teenager yet, with tousled hair, like she had been running and a beaming expression, though she was breathless from running to Amelia's horse. She was holding her skirts in one hand, to make it easier for herself to run, and in the other, she held a small bouquet of dandelions, daisies and a few buttercups, stretched out like an offering. The flowers were the kind that were the easiest to find under normal circumstances, but Amelia suspected that even the simplest of such plants were difficult to find in a city made of stone, especially after a long, hard siege that had wrought great destruction upon it.
Confused, but not surprised, Amelia reached out to take the humble gift, then smiled back at the girl who shouted something at her. Amelia tried to thank her, but the noise around them prevented any words from being heard. She hoped she had managed to communicate gratitude well enough, but her perplexion only increased as she received two more gifts of a similar nature. She could understand why they would wish to express their gratitude with whatever gifts they could manage to give away, but she didn't understand why they gave them to her directly. Aragorn, Imrahil and the hobbits, they all received their own fair share of attention, but all of their flowers were thrown on the ground in front of them so their horses could walk on a trail of offerings, leaving them to be trampled and tread upon. For some reason that Amelia couldn't decipher, she received hers directly instead of the way that everyone else seemed to.
Turning back, she saw that Pippin was also receiving flowers as she did, but Merry, Frodo and Sam were not. She sent him a confused look, but he didn't catch it in the flurry of activity and she shook her head, ransacking her brain for an explanation and coming up with none.
As she received her fair share of small bouquets, some of them no more than a few cloves and a single one containing a primitive whisk, her confusion only grew and she tried, in vain, to catch the eye of any other member of the procession, but after several botched attempts, she gave in and resigned herself to simply receiving the humble gifts.
"I have no idea what's happening." She exclaimed loudly at no one in particular when she received her sixth, and she was fairly certain that she heard Imrahil laugh up ahead of her. She mumbled an insult beneath a breath and continued on, eventually sticking the smaller bouquets behind her ears and in her belt when she couldn't carry them all.
She patted the neck of her horse as it shifted a bit, a flock of birds setting off from a rooftop having spooked it.
"Having difficulties with your steed, milady?" Imrahil called as he slowed his own, allowing Amelia to catch up to him at last. Maneuvering her horse up to his while managing to keep the impressive procession intact was no easy task, but Amelia managed it well enough in the end.
"I have difficulties with a lot of things, the least of which is my horse." Amelia replied gruffly, stuffing a handful of dandelions behind her ear. "Currently, I'm having difficulties with understanding why I've been targeted as a flowery sort of person when you've all been spared that."
"Oh, don't tell me that you're not enjoying the attention."
"Well…" Amelia teasingly cocked an eyebrow at the trail of flowers that their horses walked on. "There's that, I suppose." Her smile faded a bit, replaced by a thoughtful expression of confusion. "I just don't understand- heh." She grinned at herself and waved a hand at Imrahil's inquisitive look. "No, I just seem to be asking the question 'why me?' an awful lot these days. Don't mind me."
"This one, I believe, is quite simple to answer." Imrahil chatted away and Amelia grunted neutrally in reply, though she was interested in any explanation that came close to reasonable. "Look at the one leading us. Who do you see?" Amelia gave him an odd look before she glanced at Aragorn, whose head was held high and hair tied back.
"I see Aragorn." She deadpanned. "He's good with a sword and better with tracking, but he still has to use way too much time tying his shoelaces and he sleeptalks in elvish. Is that a word? 'Sleeptalks'? Ah, well, it is now."
"Precisely." Imrahil smiled widely at her, nodding. "You see a man. They see a king."
"I still don't see your point."
"Ah. Then, look at Boromir. Who do you see?" Amelia gave Imrahil a suspicious glare and noticed that he looked far too innocent to actually be it. She was careful about forming her reply before she said as much as a word, not wanting to accidentally let something slip and having to endure his smug looks and small grins to himself for the rest of the day.
"I see Boromir, who's probably the best fighter out there, captain of the white tower, yadda yadda, I'm sure you know the drill by now, but he can be as dense as a sodding brick and most of the time, he's so emotionally constipated, he's probably shitting out diamonds." Imrahil laughed loudly, the sudden sound attracting its fair share of curious stares and mumbled questions, but Amelia merely cocked her head at him.
"Correct again!" He chuckled, waving a finger at her. "The man, not the title. You see beneath the surface, milady. Since you've never been trapped by formalities, you don't adhere to them."
"And the flowers?"
"Forgive me for saying so, but you're something else. In not adhering to the norm, you've excluded yourself from being fit into it by others. You're not outside the chain of command, but you're not bound by it either. Instead of a lofty title, an unreachable peer, they see the woman who saved lives in their hospitals, risked life and limb for them and still had time for a drink when the day was done."
"I didn't do it for them. I don't care about them." Amelia frowned to herself and wondered whether she ought to rephrase her unwilling confession, but Imrahil's expression told her that she didn't need to do so at all.
"But they don't know that." Imrahil sent her a good-natured wink and Amelia felt a pang of relief that he didn't seem to judge her for her admission. "They don't see you as above them. They see you beside them and they adore you for that alone."
"Plus, they might be too scared to hand Isildur's Heir or anyone too close to his level a handful of daisies, so they throw them at the one they see as close to them and him both, yeah?"
"That's the gist of it, if you choose to see it that way." Amelia leaned forwards to take a four-leafed clover from a young boy with a fresh scar on his cheek.
"I choose to see it." She answered firmly, twirling the tiny plant between her right thumb and index finger. She looked up as another rain of petals came down from above and absentmindedly reached up for one with her free hand, feeling it fall into her open palm. "I see it."