A/N: Well, nobody killed me for the first chapter, so I guess I should be grateful. 8D
Thanks to Clodia, who's amazingly helpful with concrit (---TTLY A SUBTLE HINT CONCRIT LOLOL! I AM TTLY SUBTLE!), and also greeneyespurple on LJ, who has the 'enviable' task of trawling through my work before it's beta'd. ILU, guyz! (Okay, I think this is the point where I take a deep breath and step away from the netspeak, isn't it? Mea culpa)
Enjoy!
ETA: Okay, so the unrealistic timeframe in the latter half of this chapter's been bugging me like woah, so I finally got around to revamping it. Hopefully, it's an improvement - and I have five weeks (well, three weeks) of totally free time now (finished my exams!) so I'm going for a big fanfiction-type push, and I'll try to have Chapter 4 up by next week.
However, I haven't touched Chapter 3, so there may be a few inconsistencies there, especially since I decided to take the major exposition out of this chapter. If there are, bash me with a stick until I repent, kthnxbai.
Oh, yeah, and the edited bit? Totally unbeta'd, for now at least. '~'
2
The boy woke the next morning from dark dreams, shrinking back from the watery daylight. Pain gouged red lines up and down his arm, and for a moment, he could only lie there, breathing ragged and face pale. He had never before been so fundamentally and absolutely hurt, and it shocked him as much now as it had when the arrow had first lodged itself there.
Dawn was filling the sky, and it was clear that most of the men around him had been up for some time. They huddled around the fire like conspirators, although they all knew perfectly well that he barely understood one word in a hundred, and their voices were forceful, though hushed.
Boromir glanced back at him, and the stranger dropped his head back onto the pack that somebody had placed under it, closing his eyes. He wasn't sure whether it was to ward off suspicion, or because of the profound exhaustion that still clung to him like cobwebs, but either way, he was asleep again in seconds, despite the numbly throbbing pain in his arm.
"Hmph," Boromir grunted, frowning. Legolas had worked the arrow free from his shoulder earlier that morning, but as he sat with the others, he still held a wad of cloth against it, stained black with cloying blood.
"He seems harmless enough," Gimli ventured, after a moment.
"What seems and what is can be two very different things, Gimli," Legolas replied doubtfully, casting a glance back at the boy. "I would ill trust my back to him, a stranger in a land so long forsaken. And his manner of dress is strange, his ways stranger. How came he here?"
"And even if he is harmless," Aragorn agreed, "he is no traveller, that much is clear enough. Haste now is needed, if we are to aid the Ringbearer still. Another with the Company will serve but to slow us."
"You could as well say that the Halflings will slow us!" Boromir said hotly, glancing at Merry and Pippin, who lay slackly on the leaf-covered ground, with their cloaks folded under their heads. "For good or ill, he saved our lives yesterday, mine and the Halflings' both. As you say, he is no traveller. Look at him! He is an inch short of starvation, blistered with exposure, so near – so near – to death!" He tightened his jaw, grey eyes as hard as iron. "If we leave him, we may as well have killed him ourselves, for in any event, it comes to the same."
"And if we take him," Legolas retorted, "we may as well condemn the Ringbearer to perish instead, and to what gain? Would you trade all that we have fought for, that this child may travel with us – and, for all we know, may slit our throats as we sleep?"
"I would indeed," Boromir said firmly, in a tone that suggested he would brook no argument. "He saved my life. That is a debt I am loath to cast aside so lightly."
"We shall have to wait a while ere the hobbits are in any fit state for travel," Gimli pointed out. "Why should we not wait a while longer, since we will find it no more difficult to close our lead on the Ringbearer from two days than from one?"
"My heart calls against following the hobbits," Boromir confessed, suddenly downcast. "Or, at least, following that which Frodo carries with him."
Aragorn looked up sharply, frowning. "What mean you by that, Boromir?"
The man of Gondor bowed his head slightly, shamefaced. "I tried to take the Ring from Frodo. A madness came over me, and I scarce knew what I said or did. He fled from me, and that was the last I saw of him. The last any of us saw of him."
Silence fell, solid and impassable as lead.
"You fool," Aragorn said quietly, after a long moment. "You accursed fool."
"I knew not what I did," Boromir repeated, a little desperately. "And yet – no! No, that is not reason enough."
"Yet, mayhap, it is reason enough not to follow the hobbits," Legolas said softly. "We do not know how strong the Ring may grow, Aragorn. Nor who may next succumb to its call. I fear that here, above all other places, we must place our trust in its bearer. He is safer alone."
"No, not alone," Gimli put in. "Sam was with him. And I do not doubt that there is no more steadfast companionship that he could have."
"And yet, the Nine were brought together to aid him," Aragorn mused, staring into the flickering flames.
"But we are no longer the Nine," Gimli countered. "Nor have we been, since Gandalf fell. We are six now. Seven, if, as Boromir suggests, the boy comes with us. Perhaps it is no longer for us to aid the Ringbearer in the way that was intended."
"And perhaps there are ways we can aid him from afar," Boromir suggested, still gazing thoughtfully at the ground at his feet. "I know only this; that I am loath to bring myself so close to such temptation again. That I am loath to so place the Fellowship and the Ringbearer in danger."
"Then where?" Gimli asked bluntly. "We cannot return home now."
"Perhaps you cannot," Boromir said, lifting the cloth briefly away from his wounded shoulder, "but I can. And I intend to, with or without your company on that road – but the boy goes with me."
"Both ways lie south from here, with the Anduin," Legolas pointed out. "Must we so soon decide which we shall take? Let us rather attend to matters of greater urgency, and to these decisions when they arise."
Aragorn nodded, after a moment's hesitation. "Very well. We will wait until the hobbits are in a state to travel – and you and I as well, Boromir. Legolas is right - we will not get far, injured and exhausted as we are."
Boromir nodded, glancing at Gimli, who only shrugged.
"But if you will take responsibility for the boy," Aragorn went on, "then I charge you with teaching him what you can of our tongue, in such time as we have. I would know a little more about him – as, I am sure, would we all."
Again, Boromir nodded, his face betraying not even the slightest flicker of emotion. "I was planning on it."
***
"Tree," Boromir said patiently, pointing.
"Tray," the boy repeated slowly.
"Tree."
"Tea."
"Tree."
"How goes it, Boromir?" Gimli asked gruffly from the shade of a spreading oak, smirking.
The tall Man rolled his eyes. "Tree."
"Tree?"
Nodding, Boromir grinned at the boy, whose face lit up, then looked over at Gimli, all good humour vanishing from his face. "It goes slowly, Gimli. Very slowly indeed, as I am certain you can see. Me," he went on, turning back to the boy and pointing to himself. "I am Boromir."
"Ee arm Boromir."
With an effort, Boromir restrained himself from swearing. "No," he said firmly. "I. Am. Boromir."
"I am Boromir?"
Boromir laughed, shaking his head. "No, I am Boromir. You are…"
But the boy only blinked, looking thoroughly confused.
"I am so glad not to have had you for my teacher," Legolas commented dryly, appearing soundlessly from the shadows of the trees and kneeling next to Boromir. "Listen, boy. I am Legolas. He is Boromir. That is Gimli."
"Legolas?" the boy repeated, and, straightening up slightly, gave a clumsy, unpractised sort of bow. "Ellen sila lumen ommenteelvo!"
Legolas exchanged a glance with Aragorn, who sat on the opposite side of the clearing with a pipe in his mouth, and raised one sardonic eyebrow. "Ellen sila lumen ommenteelvo?" he repeated incredulously, and laughed heartily. After a split second, Aragorn joined in, his merriment seeming to lift a huge weight off his shoulders.
"I think you should avoid Elvish from now on," the elf told the strange boy solemnly, when he had finished laughing.
The strange boy flushed deeply, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it again with an audible snap. After a moment, clearly wishing to redeem himself, he said, slowly and clearly. "He is Boromir. You are Legolas. That is Aragorn, that is Gimli, that is… Merry, that is Pippin."
"Hey! I'm Pippin!" Pippin retorted, sitting bolt upright. Gimli cracked a grin.
"How long have you been awake, Master Took?"
Pippin shrugged, laughing. "About an hour?"
"And you couldn't help us to gather firewood?"
The hobbit considered this carefully. "No."
"That is tree," the boy said happily, pointing to one of the oaks.
Boromir smiled wearily, vindicated by the indication that his teaching didn't fall on deaf ears.
"That is a river," he told the stranger, pointing to the Anduin.
"Riffer."
"Close enough."
***
So the days passed. Over time, it became noticeable that Aragorn's scouting trips into the woods took longer and longer. Often, he would climb to the top of Amon Hen and sit in the great seat there, as though by so doing, he could lessen their difficulty. Just as often, he returned bruised and cut, with Orcish blood on his blade and a grim expression on his face.
Pippin recovered quickly, but Merry, who had taken the brunt of the blows, only woke a day later, and it was thereafter three days more before he could stand again. As for Boromir, though he would not admit it, his sword arm never truly recovered from the arrow which had stuck there, and for the rest of his days, there was a stiffness there which never quite eased.
The boy had also been deeply hit, but, after the initial shock of the hurt had left him, he treated it with a kind of distracted abandon. He let Aragorn treat it gladly, when he would, but for the most part, he was too preoccupied with learning the Common Tongue to let anything else distract him. Within a few days, he could string together words, phrases, even - on occasion – whole sentences, and even Legolas had ceased in his constant jibing of Boromir's teaching methods, which, if crude, were certainly showing themselves to be effective.
And still Boromir played for time, holding back the day of departure. As Gimli had said, there was not so much difference between one day and two, but two days stretched to three, three days to a week, a week to three, until at last, returning from one of his frequent excursions, Aragorn strode directly to the boats, snatching up his bag as he went.
"We have wasted too much time!" he told Boromir hotly, tossing what he had into one of the boats and turning to collect another bag. "The Ringbearer must be halfway to Mordor by now! We must go swiftly, and we must go now. Too long have I waited here, and my heart is heavy in me."
"Then go!" Boromir snapped, on his feet at once. "If you must go, then go! But my own heart lays heavy at the thought of following them to the very Gates, and it is no cowardice that spurs this dread in me!"
"And I say it is cowardice!" Aragorn spun to face him, a fell light in his eyes. "We were set on this road many leagues hence, Boromir. I will follow it to whatever end it may bring, and the longer we linger here, the more I dread that the end will be a dark one. I tell you, we must go swiftly, and we must go now."
"My road leads me as far as Minas Tirith, and no further," Boromir shouted, taking a step towards the tall Dúnedain. "Do not speak to me of what road I am set upon!"
"Then what reason do you have not to stay?" Aragorn demanded. "Here are the boats. There, the river which leads to the White City. We are all, now, in a state to travel. What reason do you have to linger? Nay, do not answer, for I know well enough. The boy. You would stay to teach the boy, to coddle him into good health again. You would stay, because some child saved your life, and in your misguided honour, you place him above the whole of Arda."
"He would stay, because I tell him how is writ," the boy shouted suddenly, leaping to his feet beside Boromir.
For a moment, Aragorn was speechless, his incredulity mirrored in the faces of hobbits, dwarf, elf.
"What did you say?" he said disbelievingly, putting the bag he held back down carefully and narrowing his eyes at the boy.
"He would stay," the boy repeated, defiantly, "because I tell him how is writ."
The Ranger sat down heavily between the twisted roots of a tree. "You can speak?"
"He can," Boromir said, with a triumphant air, and lifted his chin. "Not without pause, perhaps, not without mistakes, but he can."
"Then tell me what has so great a bearing on our road," Aragorn pressed, resting his chin on one fist. "Why I should not make all speed after the Ringbearer?"
"Because…" The boy sighed, sinking down onto his rough pallet, and put his face in his hands. He seemed to have run out of words, out of all energy to shape them. Tears of frustration dripped from between his fingers, running down his dusty arms, and his shoulders shook. Once or twice, he raised his head, as though it held a great weight, and opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was his own garbled, alien tongue. Whatever enchantment had lain on his tongue before, to give him the confidence to say those few words, it was gone now. Gone, and all he could do was stare up at them with wide, lost eyes, like an animal that sees the hunter approach.
Eventually, Boromir sighed, sinking down next to the boy, and looked up at Aragorn. "If I understand him aright," he said slowly, glancing at the boy as though for confirmation, "it is written in some… some manuscript, in his own land, what will happen to us. In it, the three of you continue overland to Rohan, and thence to Gondor, while Frodo and Sam reach Mordor alone. He seems to believe that it is vital that we – that you – are there, in Gondor, when they near the ending of their quest."
"Where is this written?" Legolas demanded, not a little suspiciously.
"Where is it written that the Orcs would attack us in the woods, for him to save us?" Boromir countered. "Where is it written that I would be shot there, then, one arrow of hundreds that could have pierced me and didn't? I hardly think he is an Orc, Legolas, nor one of their foul kind; the fell light of Mordor shines not from his eyes. So how did he know? I believe it is written there, Legolas. Truly, I do."
"The three of you?" Aragorn repeated after a moment, looking around at the six men gathered there.
The boy looked up, glancing at Boromir, who flinched slightly and looked at the ground.
"Well?"
"It… it is not written that I live," he admitted. "That much, I understood for certain. In this… this story, this book, whatever it is, I do not live. He does not save me. I die, and the Halflings are taken, though they live." He smiled slightly, bitterly and without mirth. "Perhaps it would be a meeter ending, befitting my crime. Full well I know that the Enemy worked through me; full well I know that were it not for me, the Company might not have broken." Looking up at Aragorn, he touched his wounded shoulder, almost without realising it. "You must admit," he said, his voice cracking slightly, "it rings true."
"It rings altogether too true for comfort," Aragorn agreed, and looked back at the boy, who was still hiccuping back tears. "Is this how you were able to warn me?"
The boy nodded, swallowing. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "Riffer," he said with dreadful solemnity, pointing to the Anduin. "Riffer. Boats. You must not… You must not!
A dead silence fell.
At length, Gimli clapped his hands sharply together, shattering the stillness of the morning. "Well, if you can speak, lad, then there is one thing we lack, and that is a proper introduction."
The boy blinked, not understanding.
"Your name," Boromir said softly, putting his hand on the boy's thin shoulder, where it seemed gargantuan against the bone that still stood stark against the skin. "What is your name?"
"Name," the boy repeated, blinking owlishly, and then his face cleared, suffused by a slow understanding. "Name. My name."
"Aye, your name." Gimli nodded, sticking his pipe in his mouth as Aragorn sat down, his back against a tree, his eyes fixed as intently on the boy as were those of the rest of the Company. Boromir was watching with as much interest as any of them; although he had found out much about their strange companion, he had never seemed able to prise out a name, a history, anything but the garbled tale he had given Aragorn.
The boy smiled. It was slow, and gentle, and it seemed to spread across his narrow face like the light of a rising sun.
"Nicholas Walker," he said, after a moment, looking around the gathered Fellowship. "My name… my name is Nick."