Disclaimers: Well, I don't know exactly who owns LotR, but I'd be prepared to bet that it isn't a penniless teenager with a twisted sense of humor and a proclivity for writing fanfic. (Obviously, I use the term "bet" figuratively, as the literal interpretation of the word implies that the speaker has some capital with which to gamble).
A/N: Somewhere between the incomprehensible joys of Modern Education and Organized Sport, I have found time to update. You have my social life, or lack thereof, to thank largely for this fact.
Well, I have a pot of Ramen for twenty simmering on the stove… would you lot prefer "Oriental" or "Chicken Teriyaki"?
"By order of King Théoden, the city must empty!" the loud and officious voice of Háma boomed over the milling crowd of somewhat unkempt citizens that lined the cobbled square of the city of Edoras. "Immediately, at once, and in a reasonably orderly fashion! Gamling here will explain the proper Evacuation Procedure™!"
A second guardsmen, also red-haired and rather singularly unattractive (as indeed seems to be their wont) appeared at Háma's elbow, thrust out his armored chest importantly, and cleared his throat pointedly. "Ahem! My name is Gamling, and I'm here to explain the proper Evacuation Procedure™! All civilians are to make their way to the nearest shelter, avoiding glass windows and unstable structures, where they are to crouch on their knees with their hands placed firmly on their heads, until such time as…"
"Gamling!" hissed Háma.
The guard paused, irritated. "What?"
"That's the Tornado Drill, not the Evacuation Procedure."
"Oh." He looked disconcerted for a few moments; then, seeming to gather his bearings, he straightened and coughed once more. "Ahem! The proper Evacuation Procedure is to progress thus: all civilians are to make their way to a previously designated room of the house, or to the nearest house available, where they are to crouch well out of sight of doors and windows. It is also advisable to barricade…"
"No, no, no, that's the Intruder Drill!" cut in Háma.
Gamling paused again. "It is, isn't it? Wait, I'm sure I've got it right this time… Ahem! All civilians are to exit the home by a prearranged route and convene at a designated meeting place…"
"Fire Drill."
"Oh, blast… er, All civilians are to place their heads between their knees and kiss their asses goodbye…"
"That's the Atomic Bomb Drill, you imbecile!" barked Háma. " And look, now you've made me go and make an anachronistic remark in front of commoners! What have I told you about that!"
"Sorry," muttered Gamling sheepishly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and staring at the ground penitently, interspersing his performance with well-placed sniffles of contrition.
"Oh, here now, don't act as if you're a small puppy and I've just kicked you," replied Háma gruffly, though his admonitory tone was somewhat softened. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a small scroll of yellowish paper and proffered it to his companion.
"Here, just read this."
Gamling looked up, nonplussed. "I thought the Rohirrim didn't read…?"
Háma rolled his eyes. "Play along..."
"Right, then." He unfurled the parchment and turned to once more address the masses, which continued to await their orders patiently, albeit with increasing perplexity. "Ahem! The… standard Evacuation Procedure of… Rohan!" He halted, squinting at the authoritative lettering. "By the order of King (Name of Ruler), the city of (Name of City) must empty! We make for the refuge of (Name of Refuge)! Do not…"
"Oh, shove off, I'll do this myself," grunted Háma, elbowing Gamling aside. "The city of Edoras must empty! We make for the refuge of Helm's Deep! Do not burden yourself with treasures! Take only what provisions you need! And by 'provisions', we mean food, water, and clothing essentials, folks! We'll be searching every barrel, bottle, and haycart that leaves the city, so don't bother trying!"
"Damn," muttered the toothless old woman in the front.
"What about the prisoners?" called the city bailiff, who was standing on a large barrel in the back so as to have an elevated view of the proceedings.
"What prisoners?" asked Háma impatiently.
"The Edoras jailhouse is full, sir," the man explained. "Nothing too serious… some petty theft, a few assault and battery, several drunk and disorderly, a fraudulent banking scheme or two… but, amidst the confusion of the evacuation, there always runs a possible risk of escape, and I wished to inquire how best to transfer…"
"I see," nodded the guard, stroking his bearded chin thoughtfully. "Well, do you suppose you'd have time enough to just execute them all before we leave, and save the trouble?"
"Rise and shine, we're going for a walk," said Aragorn, poking his head into the room.
Boromir looked up from hearth of the large stone fireplace, where he was curled in a large and ridiculously comfortable armchair. Though he was still suffering from the aftershocks of coffee deprivation and several recent deaths, —as indeed might be expected; the recent deaths had all been his own, and there was not even a frapuccino at hand to ease the pains of heartache…!— but large amounts of sleep, reasonably good food, and a redressing of partially healed wounds had taken their toll on his mental and bodily physique, and he was feeling more optimistic than he had in days. Not, however, in matters concerning the King. Anything involving Aragorn seemed to follow a straight and narrow path to imminent pain. "I think not," replied Boromir coolly.
"Oh, but I think so. Up you get," said the Dúnadan, and, seizing Boromir firmly by the forearm, hauled him from the chair and prodded him toward the chamber door. "The fresh air will do you good."
The Gondorian Captain-General shrugged off the slighter Aragorn crossly and made his way back toward the cushioned embrace of the armchair, stating as he went, "A decent cup of c-c….c-c-cof…f….fff…." He stuttered to a halt.
"Coffee?" supplied Aragorn.
Boromir shuddered. "Yes, that. A decent cup would do me better. I see that you still haven't managed to find me any."
The Dúnadan bristled. "I told you, they don't drink coffee here!" (He tactfully avoided mentioning the steaming mug that he had swiped from Boromir's breakfast tray every morning on his way past the kitchens; it wasn't that he was being greedy, really, he just felt that it was his duty as a sympathetic friend to see that Boromir overcame his addiction before it destroyed him. Really). "Moreover, I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, chieftan of the Dúnedain of Arnor, Captain of the West, Bearer of the Star of the North, wielder of the Sword Reforged, the Eflstone, Elessar of the line of Valandil, Isildur's son, Elendil's son of Númenor, not your personal errand-runner! I am your King, not your coffee-fetcher, and if I say that we are going for a walk—then we—are going—for—a walk!"
He drew himself up to his full height, seeming to tower over Boromir in the chair; power radiated from his frame, his gray eyes burned, and he looked every inch King of the Men of the West.
Boromir snorted.
"You aren't King yet. And perhaps you never will be," he went on thoughtfully. "Many things could happen between now and future. Battles, duels, malfunctioning kitchen equipment… you know what I mean. And, as I might remind you, I am heir to the Stewardship, the line that has very competently ruled Gondor for the past few millennia, while certain royal heirs were gallivanting about the countryside, shirking their responsibilities. And if a Ranger from the North attempts to coerce me into going for a walk when I am disinclined to do so, then I—am not—going for—a walk!"
"Oh, but you are. You swore fealty to me; you are bound to obey my commands," countered Aragorn, folding his arms across his chest.
Boromir considered lifting his eyebrow, but restrained himself; at the rate he was going, he'd have turned into Elrond before much longer. "I swore fealty to you? When was this, pray tell?"
"Right before you died?"
"Which time?" demanded Boromir.
"The first time. You know…" Aragorn folded his arms across his chest, grimacing in an appropriate imitation, and, inserting choking gasps and swallows as required, said, "'I would have followed you, my brother, my Captain, my King'?"
"That does not count," growled Boromir.
"Oh, but it does."
"It doesn't! I was delusional! I was in pain! I was dying, for the Valar's sake; I would have said the same thing to Gimli if he'd been the one leaning over me at the time."
They paused, both thinking of the massive political fiasco that had only just barely been avoided.
"As it happens," stated Aragorn presently, "it was I who was leaning over you at the time. You gave your fealty to me."
"Not officially," countered Boromir. "And the words I used were 'I would have followed you.' Would have. As in, 'if circumstances had been different.' As in, 'if I didn't have three arrows sticking out my chest.' As in, 'hypothetically.'"
"Boromir, you've died three times; this might as well be hypothetical."
Boromir didn't reply.
"Listen," said Aragorn through gritted teeth. "I don't like you and you don't like me, and that's fine. But with Frodo and Sam on their way to Mordor and Merry and Pippin somewhere in Fangorn and Gandalf popping around changing colors and Gimli off getting drunk who-knows-where… well, to put it this way, together with Legolas, we're the last of the Fellowship. We're in this mess together. And… and we should stick together."
There was a long moment during which Boromir looked at Aragorn and Aragorn looked at Boromir and the last glowing embers of the dying fire in the grate crackled tentatively. Somewhere in the background of this tension-driven pause there was also a vague continuous sound not unlike that of ten thousand AraBoro shippers breathing heavily in unison, but this passed unheard by either party in question.
"So," said Aragorn finally. "Do you want to go for a walk?"
"No."
Aragorn shrugged and said, "Have it your way," before bending over, seizing the armchair by its two back legs, and jerking upwards with all his strength. Boromir went toppling onto the hearth with a singularly unmanly squeal.
"Eeeiighh! What the (censored) was that for?" Boromir straightened with a flinch, dusting soot from his tunic, and glared at Aragorn murderously.
"I don't bother making sentimental speeches very often," said Aragorn evenly, "and when I do, I very much dislike being snubbed."
In the end, Boromir agreed to go for a walk. Belying his former irritation, Aragorn urged him along the drafty passages of the Golden Hall in the same manner that he might a balky stallion along a narrow causeway, inserting occasional "Just a bit further, now"s that nearly curdled his blood to the core. The Aragorn that brooded in dusky corners and the Aragorn that flipped over invalids' armchairs without warning were both well known to him, but this Aragorn, whom he half-expected to pull out a bag of sugar cubes at any moment, made him even more highly suspicious than before, were that even possible. He was sure that there was more to this little promenade than met the eye.
And he was, of course, right.
Standing on the summit of the steeply sloping stone steps of the hall of Methuseld, Boromir gazed at the entire luggage-laden population crowding the pebble-paved streets and said, "We're going for a walk, eh?"
Aragorn sighed. "Well, it's more of…more of a hike, actually…"
Boromir's eyebrow, arching like the impertinent upper curve of a question mark, leapt up his brow before he could think to restrain it.
"Fine," conceded Isildur's heir wearily, "the city's been given the order to evacuate."
"Evacuate," said Boromir slowly, "to where, might I ask?"
"Er… Helm's Deep."
"We're walking to Helm's Deep?" cried Boromir with a lurch.
Aragorn shifted guiltily. "Yes. A bit." Then, he added quickly, "And Gandalf said I wasn't to leave you behind, or he'd turn my… er, he said you weren't to be left behind. Though Eru knows what use he thinks you'll be…"
"Don't think of the distance in literal terms," interjected Legolas, appearing at Boromir's elbow. "Think of the distance as merely physical, only a pittance—a distance your fëa can traverse with ease…"
"Yes, but it's my hröa I'm concerned about at the moment," said Boromir. "It and my fëa appear to be going through some relationship difficulties."
"Well, if my hröa looked anything like yours, then I would hardly find that surprising," replied the Elf clinically.
Thankfully for Legolas's delicate lily-white Elven neck, Boromir was suddenly distracted by a commotion on the other side of the square. "What's going on over there?"
Aragorn squinted in the direction of the hubbub. "It looks like they're holding a few last-minute executions. Economically motivated, I suppose… I imagine they don't want the city convicts holding up the expedition…"
"Popcorn, sir?" asked a lad in a pleated cap, popping up somewhere around the vicinity of Boromir's knees.
"Er… thanks," replied Boromir, hesitantly taking a grease-stained package of kettle corn from the tray.
"Enjoy the show," he said, with a wink, and disappeared back into the throng.
Boromir gazed down at the popcorn in his hand dubiously. "How very macabre. Do they actually expect us to find this entertaining?"
"Shut up, I can't hear!" hissed Aragorn, craning his neck and hopping up and down on the spot.
Legolas, also peering intently at the scene, suddenly caught his arm. "Say, isn't that Gimli?" He pointed toward the shortest and hairiest of the prisoners.
"Gimli?" said Boromir sharply. "How'd he get here?"
"He got bored with sitting around Amon Hen, it would appear," answered Aragorn. "From what he was telling me when we met up last night, he appears to have been clubbing his way through Rohan since… I imagine they nabbed him for drunk and disorderly again. Or maybe assault and battery. With Dwarves, the difference isn't particularly marked."
"But if he's been clubbing his way through Rohan," argued Boromir, "then how did he arrive in Edoras within a few hours of us, given that we ran here like maniacs?"
There was a noise not unlike that of ten thousand readers crying, "BECAUSE, IN THIS WORLD, TIME AND SPACE HAVE NO CONGENTIAL MEANING!"
"What they said," affirmed Aragorn. "Well… do you suppose we should rescue him or something, before he gets the chopper?"
"Must we?" whined Legolas.
"Yes, we must," said Aragorn. "Nothing could be simpler… I'll follow the trail of the popcorn vendor using the trace oil residue dripping from the bags and the comparative pavement temperature caused by the ratio of his weight to the speed at which he was walking, ducking and weaving as I go, until I reach the scaffold, where I'll dip behind that barrel and…"
"Wouldn't it be easier just to cause a diversion?" suggested Boromir.
Aragorn glowered at the incidental slight to his craft. "Like what?"
"Like this," said Boromir, as he filled his lungs with air, turned his face to sky, and bellowed—
"NAAAAAAAAAAAAAZGÛL!"
In the ensuing pandemonium, Boromir reminded himself to thank Faramir for that one.
An hour later, the dismal parade of Rohirrim and assorted hangers-on was wending its way through the straw-colored hills toward the fortress of Helm's Deep. At the head of the party Legolas skipped gaily, to the horror of most concerned, while Boromir shambled (slightly more steadily than previously, it might be noted) somewhere toward the middle. Beside him, a somewhat intoxicated Gimli was propped up on a horse, from which he was flirting clumsily with the King's niece; though Éowyn, Boromir noted ruefully, only had eyes for Aragorn.
What was it about this mangy, unwashed Ranger that drew women to him like moths to a flame? There had been that Elf chick back in Rivendell, and he'd been pretty sure that the loaded looks Galadriel had been throwing the man in Lothlórien weren't all telepathically motivated. Not to mention that his own long-dead mother behaved like a twittering schoolgirl whenever "Gil" was in a fifteen-foot radius. Boromir shuddered slightly at the unsettling memory.
The man walking just ahead of Boromir turned and handed him a stick of charcoal.
The Captain-General held it gingerly between his forefinger and thumb. "Er… thank you?"
"Write your name on your arm. We're all supposed to," explained the man. "It's standard regulation. Classification purposes, you know."
"I though the Rohirrim couldn't write…?"
The man shrugged. "Play along."
Boromir cast a sideways look at Aragorn, who muttered, "It's so that they can identify your body if you happen to die on the march."
"Ah," said Boromir. Such things were not unheard of; a large-scale evacuation was an administrative nightmare when it came to the business of keeping track of people.
He paused for a moment, lifted the charcoal, and scrawled Guess who?
Hours passed, and still the wearisome march went on. Legolas gradually drifted back through the ranks and joined the rest of his comrades, eventually falling into step beside Boromir.
Boromir, meanwhile, was sunk deep in thought, prey to nagging thoughts that had been plaguing him for several days now. Presently, he decided to voice his qualms.
"Legolas," he said slowly, biting his lip. "Can I ask you something?"
"kk!1111 lol" replied the Elf.
Boromir blinked. "Pardon?"
Legolas jumped at the inquiry, looking about dazedly as if waking from a reverie. "I apologize. I meant to say 'of course.'"
"Right," said Boromir, eyeing his companion with a slight misgiving. "Well… what I wanted to ask was… well, it's a bit odd, really… I'm not quite sure how to put it…"
Legolas peered at him expectantly.
Boromir rambled on. "I mean to say… do you ever get the feeling… no, that's not the right word… do you ever get the impression… the impression that we're… that we're…" He trailed off.
After several moments, Legolas prompted, "That we're…?"
The Gondorian took a deep breath and blurted out, "Do you ever get the impression that our thoughts and actions are being controlled by some unseen being who delights in manipulating our wills for some sick pleasure of their own?"
"Oh." The Elf looked thoughtful. "So you believe in Eru, then?"
"No, and that wasn't what I meant!" cried Boromir. "I meant… I didn't mean a god, or anything of that nature… that would lend religious undertones to this fic that I'm sure we'd all like to avoid…"
"For the love of the Valar, Boromir, stop that!" cried Aragorn testily from their left.
"Excuse me?"
"Look," said Isildur's heir irritably, with the air of an impatient adult explaining something very simple to a stubbornly unresponsive child, "you can't go on and on about your vague fears that some omnipotent force is controlling our lives and then make reference to awareness of your own fictionality in the next breath. It isn't on. You've got to have it one way or the other; either you've got to know that you're a character all the time, or not at all."
"It isn't all me," grumbled Boromir. "You mentioned playing Blackjack a few chapters ago. That's an anachronism."
"Is 'anachronism' the new Word of the Month or something?" put in Legolas.
"And what about Legolas's contact lenses? And the popcorn? And the… and the…. And the c-c-coff…"
"The coffee," said Legolas helpfully.
"Yes. That."
"Look, anachronisms aren't quite the same," said Aragorn defensively. "You can scatter in a few of those and it's only an oddity, but it's not the same as actual consciousness of fictionality. Like when Faramir had his little mixup in Chapter Six; he mentioned that he was being used as a gimmick in the story, didn't he? But by the next chapter, we were all blithely unaware of our status as characters. Come to think of it," added Aragorn, "maybe breaking the Fourth Wall is just a Húrin thing."
"Oh, don't pin this on us!" cried Boromir. "What do you think you're doing right now? By having this argument in the first place, you're stating your awareness of our own fictionality! You've been breaking the Fourth Wall, too."
Aragon paused for a moment. "It isn't the same."
"Yes, it is!"
"No, it isn't!"
"Fine, let's settle this once and for all," said Legolas. He leapt gracefully onto the nearest rock and spread his arms wide. "Riders of Rohan!" he cried. "Do we exist?"
There were rallying cries of "Yes!" and "No!"
The Elf jumped down lightly from the boulder, looking pleased. "See? This just ties in with the whole theme of this story, which is, of course, incongruity."
"I thought that the theme of this story was the frailty of human mortality and the futility of human action?" argued Aragorn.
"I thought this story didn't have a theme because it's a bloody parody?" put in Boromir.
"The theme of this story," said Gimli groggily, "is that sex solves everything."
Everyone turned around in perfectly choreographed unison. "Wherever did you get that?" demanded Aragorn.
"Hey, who's the happiest character in this fandom?" asked the Dwarf indistinctly.
Aragorn paused. "Er, Tom Bombadil, I suppose…"
"Exactly. And when he's not watching young hobbits streak across the Barrow-downs, I bet he and Goldberry bugger like rabbits."
"But Tom Bombadil isn't even in this story," objected Aragorn. "And probably won't ever be, given that it seems to be predominantly movie-based…"
"Valar, who's breaking the Fourth Wall now?" said Boromir.
"It's not the same! We've been talking about it for so long that it's now become indoctrinated into the general premise of the story, and is therefore no longer taboo!"
"You're just saying that."
"No, I'm not! And I'm the King! If I want to be absurd, I bloody well can!"
"You're not the King yet, for the last time!"
"WARGS!" screamed Legolas, and things went downhill from there.
A/N: I'm really, really, really hoping that this is one of those chapters that grows on me after a while (Chapter 7 was one of those). Because I'm feeling the ick factor pretty strongly right now. This has been the hardest chapter to write so far, and is also coincidentally the longest. If anyone would care to explain this to me, please do.
Incidentally, for those who aren't familiar with weird ff lingo, the Fourth Wall is a fanfic term used to describe the invisible barrier between fiction and reality. A character is said to be "breaking the Fourth Wall" when he or she directly addresses his/her audience or makes reference to his/her status as a fictional character.