If Boromir felt awkward as he helped her move away from the river's edge, he didn't show it - and if Sybil hadn't been in so much pain, she might've felt it, herself. It didn't help matters that he was so very tall and she was so very not, the top of her head scarcely coming level with his shoulder, so the most he could help in the way of assistance was to allow her to cling to his mail-clad arm as she hobbled up the riverbank. It amazed her that she'd even been able to walk as far as she had in order to reach the river, but she supposed it was easier to keep going than it was to stop and start…especially when there was simply no choice but to move.

When they were back on even ground, she slid her hand from his arm, trying not to make it look too obvious that she struggled for the loss of support.

"Thank you for your help," she said, "I don't mean to keep you from your business."

And he did have business. She knew that without him having to say so - and without one of her 'nagging feelings' to make her suspect so, too. A man dressed as finely as he was did not wander without purpose, and the state of his clothing suggested the purpose was a dire one. It was a wonder he'd even paused to investigate the smoke.

"No business could be so pressing as to leave an injured woman alone in the wild thus," he waved off her thanks - and brightly, too.

So brightly, in fact, that she almost missed the hesitant glance he shot back in the direction she'd told him the East-West Road lay in.

"Well, now that you've seen that I'm quite all right, I don't mean to keep you," she said.

She was sure she'd be able to get by. In some way or another. And the prospect of sitting and being tended to (whatever that would look like) by a perfect stranger who wished to be anywhere but here was quite frankly mortifying. Her hint that he could leave, however, earned her little more than an exasperated look - and he didn't even dignify it with a verbal dismissal after that, turning his mind instead to practical matters.

"You salvaged nothing from your home? No supplies? Nothing at all to travel with?"

"I tried to get to my pack," she made a face "But the cabin was coming down around me. All I got for my efforts were these."

The cold water, in fact, made the burns look redder and angrier than they truly were. She'd sustained worse, at times, boiling herbs for Bera. In fact, the worst of these had come from when she'd had to pry the fabric of her dress up and away from them, taking little patches of skin with it. Her true concern was her leg…but, benevolent or no, she didn't particularly want a strange man looking at that. It was doubtful that he'd be able to heal it, so why endure the awkwardness and the embarrassment after being introduced for all of five minutes? After already being mortifyingly reliant on this stranger and whatever kindness he saw fit to show?

"And the leg?" he asked - as though he'd sensed her reluctance.

"I hurt it escaping through the window."

His lips set into a grim line "Well if you can walk, it's unlikely that anything is broken."

Sybil was in no rush to correct his assumption, instead nodding.

"I can make do, I assure you."

Boromir spent a moment assessing that claim, before nodding in return, his eyes flitting back to the smoke on the horizon - which was gradually turning from black to grey.

"How did it happen?"

"A flaming arrow to the roof," she replied "Perhaps two. I was…somewhat preoccupied after the first to keep count."

"I've never known orcs to resort to such tactics," he said, tone doubtful "Ordinarily they would have…"

Sybil bit back a bitter grimace of a smile. He trailed off, apparently thinking better of getting into the details of what orcs would ordinarily do to innocent folk that they happened across. She was half tempted to let him keep that misconception as to who her assailants had been, too, but as he spoke one gloved hand already drifted to the lethal looking sword on his belt, his brow furrowed in concern. He'd strayed this far from his own business in order to help a stranger. The last thing she could do was return that kindness by allowing him to stew in unneeded fear.

"They were men, not orcs," she said "They didn't linger for too long."

"Men did this? Did that?" he stared in dismay.

"It's a long story," she murmured.

Now that her shock at his appearance had faded, and the pain was becoming a sort of ebbing background noise that did not demand all of her attention, awkwardness threatened to seep in. If he felt it too, he didn't show it - but why should he? He had a title, as he'd told her, and he had money, as his clothing had told her. Men like him dealt with people constantly, whereas Sybil had been shut up in Bera's cabin with little interruption for the better part of a decade. If she'd once been a master at talking to people, it was a skill that her mind had done away with when it shunted the rest of her memories, and her time with Bera had consolidated that fact. Her people-ing skills were a bit rusty. Unhelped by a number of recent experienced. Just as she hadn't known what to do before he appeared, she now did not know what to say.

"One best saved for after breakfast, I should think," he said.

"I cannot eat your provisions," she shook her head "Truly, I'll be fine-"

"We've a river right here - I can fish," his smile was so warm and genuine that she was almost tempted not to trust it.

If he hadn't had ample opportunity to harm her without doing so, she wouldn't have trusted it, really. It was just difficult to believe that he would so seamlessly slip into a role of helping her when he stood to gain nothing for it. Even with Bera, she'd had to sing for her supper. Had she been useless, she'd have been cast off during the very next trip to Bree.

But he was already shrugging his pack from his shoulders, digging through it for what he would need. Sybil could only watch dumbly.

"Did you lose many?" he asked quietly, the smile slipping from his face as his brows knitted together in sympathy "In the fire?"

"My…mother," she said.

She only ever referred to Bera as such when she didn't want to go through the entire explanation of their meeting. Although now it was mostly because she was sure she wouldn't be able to find the words to stumble through it rather than an unwillingness to do so. Often she avoided the explanation because she feared it might make others view her differently. These were strange times, and the notion of a foundling - one who was grown but with no memories to match - easily gave way to distrust. Belatedly, she continued.

"She passed that afternoon, so it wasn't the fire that did it. I was preparing her body for her funeral rites when they…"

Things were beginning to feel strange - clouded, like the fog around them had managed to sink into her mind and take root. In the span of time that didn't even encapsulate a full twenty-four hours, she'd lost her sole companion, her hope at a livelihood, and her home. As well as the painless use of her limbs. The more it all began to register with her, mostly in waves as she realised that she could not simply turn and walk home, nor as for Bera's advice on whether she should go to Bree or to Rivendell…that it - all of it - had truly happened, the less real it all began to feel.

The same way that none of those things felt real, almost everything else was beginning to follow suit. She was half convinced that if she stepped into the river where it flowed only a few paces away, it would feel no more consequential than a stray breeze - or that if she were to stumble and lean on her new acquaintance for support once again, his arm would give way beneath her hand. Boromir, who was assembling the parts of a fishing rod he'd retrieved from his pack, paused to look at her.

"You have my condolences, my lady. Did she fall ill?"

"She was very old. While she did not appear so for a long while, it…caught up to her. In the end."

He looked at her strangely then, and it took a moment of blinking at him for Sybil to understand why. How could a woman who had not yet seen thirty summers boast of such an incredibly old mother?

"She adopted me as her own," she allowed softly.

A shade of the truth - one that would hopefully have him conjuring visions of an old widow taking in a baby, or some such thing that fostered a feeling of wholesomeness rather than suspicion.

"I see." he bowed his head "Have you any siblings?"

"What? I…er…No."

Not that she knew of, at least. Did she? Were there brothers and sisters of hers out there, wondering what had happened to her?

The strange numbness threatened to intensify, intensified by the borderline infuriating sense of familiarity that hit her every time she looked at Boromir, to the point where she couldn't even quite ask him to stop levelling her with so many questions. In part because she feared that even if she managed it, she wouldn't do so particularly politely. A glimmer of annoyance must've shone through the idiotically blank stare on her face, though, for he offered yet another smile - this one sheepish as he continued to watch her with sympathy.

"Forgive me, but you are badly shaken. It will only worsen if I allow you to lapse into stillness and silence."

Oh. Well. That made more sense than an impromptu riverside interrogation. Inhaling deeply, she shifted more of her weight onto her bad leg and found it jolted her just a little more into reality.

"Have you any siblings?" she asked weakly.

That was rewarded with a brilliant, handsome grin that would have had her blushing on any other day.

"Yes - one. A brother. A younger brother," he smiled a little at the mention of him.

"And you have a ship?"

He blinked, and then something clicked behind his eyes and he breathed a laugh - albeit not a mocking one. "I'm not that sort of captain."

"Ah."

That made sense. Not because he seemed incapable of sailing, but because something about his being a sailor just didn't ring true in her mind. It was at that point, though, where her well of questions ran dry. Although she supposed that if it did so after two measly questions, it couldn't quite be called a well. A puddle, maybe. The tightness growing in her chest - the one that grew worse and worse every time she exhaled, leaving little room for the next breath in - was just too pressing for her to muster whatever small-talk skills she had.

It was just a difficult balancing act to master. If she strayed too far into the fog and away from what she would need to feel sooner or later, she'd become a paralysed unresponsive shell of a woman for…well, who knew for how long? But if she allowed herself to feel it - if she shook away the numbness - she would be reduced to a shivering, sobbing mess before the very nice man who had just abandoned his pressing business to help her. Why did it have to boil down to simply deciding what sort of mess she'd rather be? Although she supposed, given the soot, the burns, and the reek of smoke about her, that that metaphorical ship had already sailed. Even if Boromir would not be the one captaining it.

She needed a moment. Or ten.

"I'll collect firewood," she said finally.

Had she not managed to hold it together on her walk here? Perhaps movement was the answer. Boromir looked like he wished to argue with her decision, his brow furrowing as he finished attaching a hook to a long fishing line, his gaze flickering doubtfully down to her leg.

"It would be easy to become lost in this fog," he said.

Sybil suspected he thought if he tried to outright forbid it, it would only send her fleeing. But she'd already long grown sure of the fact that he was no captor, though she appreciated his tact.

"I'll keep the river within earshot - I won't stray far. Truly."

How far could she get like this, anyway? She'd have to be a real fool to run away from the only help within shouting distance. Although limping away from that help so she could have a little cry in private could hardly be called wise either, she supposed. But he nodded and offered no further argument, and she went walking stiffly off in search of twigs and stray branches so she could at least be of some use on this day. Useful sobbing. It was the most noble goal she was capable of today.

A/N: Thank you for the loveliness towards this so far, friends! I won't pretend writing in this fandom isn't intimidating as all hell, but I'm excited to be giving it a shot! Chapters should get a bit longer as I find my feet, but I keep people updated on when to expect new parts on tumblr, as well as posting sneak peeks of upcoming chapters. I also have an IG where I keep folk updated on when to expect chapters, but other than that it's mostly dedicated to talking about the progress of the fantasy novel I'm writing :)

Tumblr - esta-elavaris

IG - miotasach