Boromir worried for his new charge. She was unsure of him, but that much was to be expected. If anything, he would be privately questioning her judgement (as well as her intentions) had she warmed to him immediately and begun treating him like an old, close friend from the moment the first introductions were out of the way. So he did what he could to set her at ease – as far as was possible, for she'd been through much – and he did so carefully, hopefully without appearing as though he was trying to worm his way into her good graces for nefarious purposes. The act wasn't entirely selfless on his part, either. After so long of travelling in solitude,
It was tempting to take her willingness to sleep so near to him as a good sign, but one so exhausted and injured as she would likely slumber at the side of Sauron himself. Still, they'd built a rapport, he was reasonably optimistic about the rest of the journey to Rivendell. Until she woke him at the end of her watch on the second day of their journey.
When he'd awoken her so that he might rest, she'd been markedly more subdued – but that much was to be expected. The reality of her situation was no doubt setting in, there was still much travel ahead of them by the standards of one unaccustomed to it, and Boromir himself could not profess to be much of a morning person himself. A fact Faramir often took great delight in teasing him over. Sybil had risen stiffly, murmured reassurances when he asked if she was up to keeping watch, and then took up the space he'd just been situated, her back against the great rock that shielded them from the worst of the wind.
She'd moved stiffly, but he'd chalked that up to the aftermath of everything and settled down into his warm bedroll for a few hours of rest. It scarcely felt like he'd dozed off before he was awoken again – by a small boot-clad foot hooking itself beneath his calf, shaking his leg back and forth until he jolted awake.
"Sorry," she said quietly. "I can't lean down – the leg."
As if to illustrate her point, once she was sure he wouldn't doze off again, she hobbled back over to the rock and leaned on it.
"It's no matter," he rasped. "Have you eaten?"
"I didn't wish to rifle through your belongings."
He nodded. It wasn't much of an inhibition that he wished to dissuade her of. Sybil was silent as he dragged himself out of his grogginess, combing his hair with his fingers before he pulled his gloves on and began to pack up his bedroll. At first he'd taken that silence for mere patience, but when he turned to her afterwards, the fast-encroaching dawn afforded him his first real look at her for the day, and he found her face worryingly pale and a sheen on her brow. Dark curls in disarray about her shoulders, she seemed hardly aware that he was even present, her gaze fixed on the empty space ahead of her as she steeled herself for the day ahead.
"Your leg?" he enquired carefully.
"It hasn't improved," she said, a grim note lacing her voice that told him more than her words themselves did.
The sleeve of her dress was once again pulled up, exposing the burns at her arm – likely so that the thick wool would not irritate them as she moved. They looked angrier than they had yesterday, but in the way that bruises often looked worse as they healed.
Boromir wasn't ignorant to the awkwardness that her injury threatened to cast upon them. Were it an issue with her arm, or even her shoulder, he could ask to take a look at it. He was no healer, but all shoulders had some experience with hasty remedies to be slapped on in the field until they could be seen by someone who truly knew what they were doing. It mattered not, though, for the injury was with her leg. What was he to do? Request that she hike up her skirts for his inspection? It seemed a good way to quash any rapport they'd built up the previous day.
And as he'd said, if she could walk, she would likely be fine. A sprain would not thank her for walking on it repeatedly, but what other choice did they have? And, as much as he disdained the bind they were in, he could not help but respect her for how she endeavoured to push through it.
"Perhaps you will find healing herbs as we push forth," he said, handing over her share of breakfast.
Her responding smile was wan, and did not instil much hope in that regard. But he feared that if he showed his concern too much, it would only deaden her morale, and so he tried to remain jovial without being a nuisance.
If all else failed, he could carry her to Rivendell. She was certainly small enough. Although, beneath her mild exterior, he had a feeling she wouldn't particularly thank him for it, should his hand be forced.
Sybil was beginning to worry. When she'd fallen asleep the night before, her idea of a worst-case scenario had been that she'd wake to find it didn't look like her leg would improve without treatment. Now, though, she was forced to reckon with the fact that it was doomed to get worse without treatment. And there was not much that it could worsen before she'd be unable to walk.
All from just underneath her backside to a little below the back of her knee, the skin of her bad leg felt tight – unbearably tight, like one wrong move would have it splitting entirely – and all the while it burned as though it were still ablaze, so badly that she was half-tempted to pat it down and check for stray embers, whatever logic dictated. One thing stayed her hand. The fact that every so often, an ill breeze would send her skirts brushing across the burns, and the sting that gave way to was dire. It was all she could do not to cry out whenever it happened, although once or twice her breath caught in her throat and Boromir would watch her worriedly until she forced a smile and murmured breathy reassurances.
She was already eating his food, drinking his water, sleeping in his bedroll, and slowing him down. The last thing she wished to endure under the sun was his being forced to carry her to Rivendell. It might be preferable if he just left her at the mercy of the elements.
They reached the Road not long after breakfast, crossed the Last Bridge swiftly thereafter (with one last pause to collect water and drink their fill – which Sybil had to do from Boromir's waterskin, unable to crouch down by the river's edge) and at that point she had still not managed to settle into the striding rhythm that had her able to somewhat forget her pain the day before. No, today she remained constantly aware of it, and barely able to carry out the same sort of shy conversation she'd stumbled through the day before.
A sore blow came to her morale when she came across the plant she'd been most hoping for – Athelas. Or rather, what had once been Athelas. For whoever had been here last had taken it up, root stem and flower all, and all that was left were a couple of useless leaves that had already wilted and died. Sybil cursed – and if Boromir was disturbed by her language, he didn't let on.
"There is nothing salvageable?" he guessed by the grim set of her jaw.
She took a half a moment to collect herself (because seeing the vague promise of help before finding it was futile was worse than finding nothing at all, and her mind was already swimming with useless hypothetical situations that would have found her here a day or two prior), and then she sighed.
"No. Whoever got here before us took it all."
He frowned. "Is it possible we will find them injured, ahead on the Road? They may have some spare."
"Athelas is potent," she shook her head. "I've never seen an injury of the like that would require this much to heal. The person that took it likely did so to turn a profit."
She only hoped they knew how to properly store and care for it so that they could do so. There was something about the notion of enduring this pain for days on end because some fool saw fit to waste good resources that really got to her.
"It matters not," she said – and ignored the fact that he seemed to believe her words even less than she did. "There are other plants in these parts…I hear feverfew grows rife here. We will find some."
And then they pressed on in hopes of doing just that.
Boromir, at least, did not ask her if she was well beyond the first time just after they set out. Either he knew her answer would fail to reflect the truth of the matter, or that the only thing worse than having to walk through pain was having that pain constantly enquired after. Were it not for how he quietly offered his arm to her every time the terrain grew uneven or difficult to cross, she might've thought he didn't notice her difficulty at all for how little he commented on it. She found herself growing more and more grateful for him by the hour.
After crossing the Last Bridge, they did veer south as planned – and swiftly found that the footing off of the beaten path was much more uneven and arduous to cross. Sybil congratulated herself at having discovered the very purpose of roads at the ripe old age of…well, twenty-something. At an estimate. Still, they scarcely seemed to cross a stretch of more than twenty feet of thick grass before they were having to stumble their way down a steep slope, and then a few minutes later haul themselves back up again – at times up stretches so steep that it was more of a climb than a walk.
It was during one such climb that Sybil became keenly aware of how her underskirts were beginning to stick to her bad leg – to such an extent that could only mean it had started bleeding. She gritted her teeth through it, and pressed on, keeping her mind on the mountains on the horizon that didn't seem to grow any nearer for all they pushed ahead.
They reached a stream around midday, and rather than putting his head down and leading the way across it, Boromir instead stopped.
"This seems as good a place to take a rest as any. Remain here, and I shall procure lunch for us."
She murmured her thanks and pretended not to notice the way he lingered, worry clear in his eyes, before he finally turned and set off hunting. Once he was gone, Sybil counted to thirty – then to sixty, just to be safe – and then she looked to the stream. They would reach the Bruinen before they got to Rivendell, but that was a far way off yet, and she didn't know whether she'd have this opportunity again. Especially without her new travelling companion present.
Limping to the water's edge, she fumbled her way to the ground and pulled up her overskirts. The next part was what she was dreading – the peeling away of her underskirts from the burns. Taking a deep breath in, she made to do it and then lost her nerve, sighing and repeating the process. After repeating that more times than she'd be happy to admit, she grumbled to herself.
"If you'd just done it the first time, it would be over by now."
It was that very good point (if she did say so herself) that had her working up the nerve, seizing the mucky linen that had once been white, and yanking it away from the skin. And it hurt like a bitch. Wedging the sleeve of her dress between her teeth, she closed her eyes and breathed hard until she was sure she wasn't going to make a sound. Pulling it away slowly would've been the wise move – or wetting it first – but she didn't have the time for the first, and she didn't fancy walking around with soaked skirts for the rest of the day, either. A warm trickle of blood slid down to her ankle.
Regardless of how she twisted and contorted, the burn was at too odd an angle for her to get much of a good look at it – although the stains on her underskirt told all the story she needed to know. What glimpses she could catch showed that it was a dark purple-reddish hue, angry, and riddled with blisters. It looked like more of a bruise in colour than a typical burn…which had her fearing that it was infected. More than fearing, really, for she was fairly certain it was. It would explain how dire she felt. Whatever argument she tried to make to herself that it was not sounded more like denial and vain hope than mere optimism. Blast.
The stream was deep enough for her to fully submerge it, though, so she bolstered her hopes, clumsily removed her boots, and made for the water. There was no time to pause and test the waters with the tips of her toes, not if Boromir's hunting proved fruitful especially quickly, so she white-knuckled her skirts up to just below her backside, and strode in. This time, there was nothing for her to muffle her cry of pain with – but the water drowned the worst of it out.
It was cold, but the cold she could tolerate. What she struggled to cope with was that however her skirts had irritated the wound as she walked, the water did the same. Tenfold. The sting was excruciating, and the longer she forced herself to stand there, the worse it grew. Breathing became a thing that she had to do consciously and purposefully – slowly in, and then slowly out so that she didn't begin gasping, lose her nerve, and wade back to the bank. All the while she forced herself to stay, she screwed her eyes tightly shut, every muscle from her shoulders upwards clenched tight against the pain in order to stay silent.
And, because the world was truly determined to be against her this week, that was when Boromir's voice came drifting towards her.
"Miss Sybil? I believe I've found one of the healing plants you described – but you shall know better than I. This is feverfew, is it not-"
She wasn't daft enough to think the dead silence that cut him off was a product of the shapeliness of her legs.
A/N: That last line had me, the author, like "not in a slow-burn, Sybil, no x" – anyway, in the book, Aragorn has to do a fair bit of searching before he finds any Athelas – in the film it's (understandably, for pacing) much more readily available. I'm leaning more towards the book on this score, because it just adds to the *drama*, which we love to see.
As if Sybil isn't going to be dragged through enough before this is over. Gotta start the way you mean to go on and all that.