Things slipped into a familiar routine soon after that. A comfortable one, even. One that had Sybil relieved that she'd brushed her worries aside and asked Boromir to train her after all – for if she hadn't, not only would she be worrying about when her next instructor might be called away and who the next would be, but she'd also be dreading being out on the road with Boromir much more than she now was. There was civility between them now, and she no longer had a pit of dread in her stomach at their every interaction, waiting for it to inevitably devolve into a fight.
Aragorn returned to Rivendell some weeks later on a chilly morning that foretold the swift-approaching winter, and soon thereafter it was decided that the time to leave Rivendell would soon be upon them. That decision brought the reality of the matter down upon all of them. Sybil was no exception.
What troubled her was the line she felt she had to walk. With her place in the Fellowship being such a contentious matter, part of her feared that any show of apprehension would only be taken as confirmation that she did not have the stomach for what lay ahead. Contrarily, if she appeared too at ease and unburdened by the gravity of the matter, they would think her a fool – one who either did not understand what was at stake, or worse, one who did not care.
There were a lot of "final" things to attend to. Not just in preparations, but in saying farewell to Rivendell – which would be their last bit of true comfort in a long, long while. Their last night was not their truly last night. For the night before they left, they could not indulge in drinking or feasting and the like if they were to greet departure with clear heads and all of their wits about them.
So their penultimate night was not their last night here, but it felt like it. The next night they would have a formal feast to bid the Fellowship farewell, but on this one – much like the first night after the Fellowship had been formed – they had a dinner just to themselves. Sybil wore the same dress she'd worn to that one, knowing tomorrow she would have to make more of an effort and wanting to conserve the energy.
The gown, though, was just about the only thing that was the same as it had been back then. Most of the changes were for the better, too. Now, an encounter with an enemy wielding a blade was not a certain death-sentence. She knew that Gimli did not hate her – and she found herself wondering if Boromir did not either, for there had been no more unkind words between the two of them since that day in the healers' workshop. Legolas did not intimidate her as he once had, and she knew him to have a sense of humour that she had not initially expected. But, serene as they were, it was difficult to imagine any elf being funny upon first encountering the people. Sam's discomfort of her, too, seemed now only to extend to her sight rather than her as a person.
Her introductions with most gathered here had been less than ideal, and she could forgive them for thinking she spent all of her time sweating rivers and stammering out prophecies, but time had remedied that assumption. Hopefully it would earn her some grace when she next had to unstop a bottle of that damned oil.
Frodo, always the more subdued of the hobbits, was quiet all night – speaking mostly to his kin and to Gandalf, and even then usually only when they directly addressed him. Aragorn had been appraised of her satisfactory progress upon his return, and seemed relieved by it. In part, she suspected, because Boromir was the one who had reported on that progress. No doubt he'd expected to return to find that one of them had throttled the other.
Gandalf she had not seen much of either. When he greeted her, he sought assurance that she had not told any of anything she knew, and that she had not seen anything of further importance – she confirmed that she had not, save for the small detail about Legolas and his thawing association with Gimli. He'd reacted to that with a chuckle, and no ire. Sybil was glad for that, for she'd seen the scoldings Pippin often got from the wizard and did not want to be next for the chopping block.
Aragorn took his leave first, perhaps going to find Lady Arwen, and Gandalf bid them a goodnight next. Sybil took that as her chance to slip away. Solitude could be a comfort as much as a burden, and she knew she was coming to the end of the time where she'd be able to get much of it.
The night was cold but she enjoyed the chill, for it cut through the wine she'd drank and grounded her. Although perhaps not enough, for when she found a secluded balcony, she stared out at the starlit valley for a moment before scooting on her backside up onto the balcony, and then turning so that her legs hung over the edge. She wanted nothing between herself and the view. Like if she stared at it long and hard enough, she'd be able to bring it all with her when they left.
She sat in the darkness, staring out at the stars, her legs dangling over the precipice before her. When the tears came, she did not fight them – instead letting them slip down her face and paying them little mind. Few passed through here, and open sobs and sniffles would only bring the attention of the folk in Rivendell with especially keen hearing. They weren't so much the sobbing kind of tears, anyway.
"Sybil?"
Stilling, she sighed and bowed her head. Boromir was quite possibly the worst possible person to find her like this, so close to their leaving. He'd only misunderstand and take it as evidence to support his misgivings.
Perhaps she'd looked more shaken than she intended when she left, for they were by no commonly used walkways, and he couldn't have found her here accidentally. Unless he was seeking his own solitude.
"Good evening," she said, her voice shaky.
The addition of my lord was almost tagged onto the words, but she stopped short – not wanting to provoke his ire. He was silent for a few moments, and when she did not raise her head he approached, leaning on the rail she sat on. The precarious nature of her perch bothered him, she could tell, but he did not speak of it.
"It's natural to be frightened," he said finally.
So quietly were the words spoken that she almost doubted she'd heard them at all.
"I'm not," she said.
Not in the way he thought, at least.
"I am," he admitted freely. "For my people. Of the unknown. Of the consequences of that unknown. All of us are. Even the elf-prince and the Ranger. I would question your wits, were you not."
"Of course I…I feel that, too. But you misunderstand my tears. They're not born of terror – nor of regret. Not in this quest, at least."
"…Might I ask of what, then? Sharing it may help."
They held the gaze of one another for a few moments, and she felt her face soften before she decided to respond.
Sybil gestured to the view before them. "All of this. It…it defies imagination. It defies belief, here, now, before my very eyes, beautiful as it is. And before all is said and done, if I am lucky, I shall see more. Unimaginable things. Terrible things. Perhaps breathtaking things, amidst the terrible. And all of it was…there. Here. The whole time. While I shut myself away in a cabin, caring for little other than whether the next patient would be rude to me, how long the firewood would last, or how well the herbs were faring. Ten years. Gone. Perhaps more still, beyond the reach of my memory, if Bera's theories and observations as to my origins were…well. It seems a waste."
"You're young," he said – not dismissively, but with warmth and encouragement. "You've time yet. Much time."
Before she could think better of it, she snorted. He did not like it.
"Is your view of what lies ahead truly so bleak? Do you believe there is no cause to hope?"
"There is every cause to hope," she said firmly. "For Middle-earth, and for its people. But for me personally? I doubt it."
"Have you…seen something? Something that gives rise to this fear?" he leaned closer, voice intent.
"No. But I don't need to. I know myself – my abilities. My…prospects. I have never belonged, and I have little to look forward to once this is done. I do not hope to meet my end out there on this quest, but would only make sense if…"
"It would make no sense!"
The fervour of his exclamation caught her off-guard, and she eyed him for a moment before she responded gently.
"It would be no great loss."
"You cannot say that. You cannot mean that!"
She eyed him with humour. "I should not be mourned for long. I have no home. No friends. No family. I am a spinster-"
"A spinster?" he echoed in disbelief. "You cannot yet be thirty!"
"Then I shall be a spinster in a few short years," she said drily.
"You're beautiful."
That caught her off-guard, despite how the words were said ruefully – not so much an admission of opinion, but a statement. Sybil stared at him in surprise, and he seemed just as shocked by his own words as they hung in the air between them, faltering a moment before he hid further expression from his face.
"…Perhaps that is so," she said slowly, once she was recovered, "but it matters little when weighed against the rest. Don't mistake me, I didn't say it because it grieves me deeply that no man would wish to marry me, it's simply a fact. Neither a good nor a bad one in itself – but one that adds up to a larger picture. If I do indeed have family somewhere, a doubtful notion, they have not been seeking me. Indeed, they have scarcely breathed a word of my absence, if no Ranger has found a trace of my past. My healing has been my only purpose this last decade, and I do not take the sort of joy in it that Bera did to justify devoting my life entire to it. I have been lucky, in this venture. Not at what the world faces now, but that I might have a part in it. It has given me a purpose. With luck, I will see much, and then…"
Trailing off, she shrugged a little – feeling oddly resigned and numb to her fate. "…then it will have been for something."
Seeing how dismayed he looked, and regretting it, she added quietly.
"I do not go seeking death. And I am not so daft as to say I will welcome it with open arms and grace, in the moment that it comes, should it come. I only say that if it comes…it comes. My tears tonight concerned what my lot has been, and what I have done with it before now. Not what will come going forth."
"I will not hear this. Why bother learning to fight as you have, if the end is so certain?"
Because it might just help me save your life. Whatever he thought of her, whatever his own flaws, whatever her flaws, Boromir was a good man. Saving him was a greater sort of good than she ever could have hoped to accomplish, not just because of who he was to his people – although that certainly helped. He meant more to many than she could ever mean to even just one. And he'd saved her life once. It would make a funny sort of sense if she was to give hers up to return the favour. Perhaps she could do more along the way, too. The phials of rosemary and lavender oil stowed carefully in her pack were there for such an eventuality.
"So I might live long enough to do what I can, to help where I can, before that day comes," she said and he scoffed as she continued. "I do not mean to grieve you. Especially not at this time."
"And yet you do! If none of this had happened, what then?" he demanded.
Sybil watched him, confusion flitting across her features, prompting him to elaborate.
"If Isildur's Bane had not been found, if we prepared now as we'd thought we might – travelling westwards together, what then? Would you have sought your end on the road?"
"Of course not. I do not seek it now, as I said. I would have done my best with my lot, whatever that may have been. As I am doing now. As I will continue to do."
His nostrils flared and his faced adopted a sneer – one she was familiar with by now, for it often preceded the moment when he would say something cruel, revealing the true nature of what he thought of her once again. Sybil waited patiently to hear what that might be this time. But then he surprised her. Eyes locked onto hers, the words died on his lips, and he fell silent, mouth closing. Then he huffed an aggravated sigh, turned, and took his leave.
"Boromir," she called after him, surprising herself and him then.
Stopping, he did not turn.
"I'm sorry."
When he left thereafter, it was in silence.
Sybil had never felt a greater sense of regret than that which overtook her when she woke up the next morning. It clawed at her chest, heavy and sharp all at once, and no amount of burying her face into her pillow would dispel it. Why had she spoken to him thus? The views she held true to, but there'd been no need to voice them – and every reason not to. To him of all people, too. Just as they'd grown somewhat comfortable in their civility.
And what would happen from here? Would he go to Aragorn, insisting that she came on this quest to meet some naïve notion of a glorious death?
No, despite it all, she thought not. Whether he liked her reasoning or not, she'd been clear in it. That she had no desire to die. And going around voicing such ideas would only harm the morale of the Fellowship, if they thought the one who could see all (whether she actually could or not) was going into this expecting death – he'd understand that.
But it hadn't helped anything, had it?
She hadn't thought herself drunk at the time. Mostly numb. Perhaps that was what had allowed her to say such things to him and be surprised – for she truly had been surprised – when he was appalled by her words, rather than viewing them as mere fact, as she had. As she still did.
What had she expected him to say? Offer a laugh and a shrug before expressing some mild hope that she at least lasted a full month? In the moment, she'd simply found the notion of pretending neither of them knew her odds of survival were slim very, very tiresome. Apparently he hadn't agreed. Of course he hadn't agreed. It was his duty to care for people – to defend and protect them. Especially those weaker than him, in some manner or another. She doubted it was the sort of thing he could switch off merely because the person in question did not hail from Gondor.
A decade shut into a cabin with Bera had left her hopeless when it came to discerning when she should speak and when she should keep her mouth shut – leaving her awkwardly quiet at one moment and then gabbing beyond what was good for her in the next.
Well, she supposed going into her next encounter with him knowing that she was the one who had acted poorly would be a nice change of pace. She didn't enjoy it much.
Luckily, there were preparations to still be made. That would occupy her.
Boromir slept poorly, greeting the dawn with tired eyes and restless hands that kept raking themselves through his hair or rubbing at his bearded jaw. He'd left his conversation with Sybil not quite angry, but certainly infuriated. There was a difference – in his book, at least. And she'd grown rather good at prompting the latter in him. But even by the time he reached his quarters, that anger had faded into sadness. Grief, even. And no small amount of disbelief.
Then none shall miss a hindrance. Those were the words she'd thrown at him in the aftermath of the Council – and he'd assumed that was all they were. Words to throw at him. Words to make him realise how cruel his own statement had been. A way of showing him that she would not pretend she hadn't heard what he'd said. Now, though? Their conversation shed a new light on them. She'd more or less echoed them. I should not be mourned for long. Could they really have summed up the truth of the matter, as she saw it? A viewpoint that he'd supported and fed into, no less, with his own thoughtlessness.
Even worse than her words were how she'd given voice to them. With a faraway look in her eye, and the tone of one sighing that rain was due on a day that they'd hoped would be fair. There was no melodrama to her tone, she hadn't said it in hopes to hear him disagree, or to hear her virtues extolled in return – indeed, she'd seemed astonished when he had disagreed!
What pained him all the more was that she didn't seem so much unaware of her own qualities, but she had somehow concluded along the way that they meant little. That they did not matter.
You're beautiful. He did not regret saying it – but he almost wished he had said more. Something that might mean more to her. That she'd been funny, back when she trusted him enough to let him in on that fact. That she was kind. Or how there was a spark of determination within her that threatened to rob the breath from his lungs when he saw it burning within her gaze, out from a face that otherwise often made a point of showing little.
On more than one occasion throughout the night, he came close to tumbling out of his bed and marching to her quarters to inform her of all of those things – and whatever others might come to mind. But, just as she seemed dispassionately aware of her fairness, he suspected she already knew of at least some of her other qualities, too. She'd listen some off herself, as she'd convinced Frodo to consent to her joining the Fellowship. No, Sybil was aware of her attributes. For whatever reason, she'd just come to the conclusion that they mattered not. Voicing them to her would make little difference. Other than to confuse her, perhaps, given what other sentiments he'd expressed about her in the not-so-distant past.
A better use of his time, he thought, would be to ride to Bree and have words with all that had warped her thinking so. Her mentor, too, from beyond the grave if need be – for Boromir no longer trusted what he'd been told as far as her not being cruel was concerned, if she had a woman such as Sybil believing herself worth so little. Believing that she was some wizened old warrior who had little cause to hope for much other than a glorious end, despite her youth and all of her many qualities. Regardless of whether or not that anger made him a hypocrite. Of course, the best use of his time would be to keep her alive. Whether she thought it a worthwhile endeavour or not.
For the thing she was most wrong of all about was the notion that none would mourn her for long. But could he blame her for assuming otherwise, where he was concerned? She thought his words after the Council were simply the truth of his feelings coming to light – she'd said so, afterwards. And he hadn't disabused her of that notion, had he? Too caught up in his anger, and how his attempt to say whatever it would take to keep her here, to keep her safe, had failed.
Now he had to wonder if there was any way at all of undoing it. That goal, however, remained secondary to keeping her alive – whatever that might take.
A/N: Y'know when Boromir kept his mouth shut instead of giving into the temptation to say something cruel? The Genie from Aladdin was screaming in my head "he can be taught!"
Also cracking up at the thought of Boromir and Sybil quietly deciding that they each have to keep the other alive like that meme of the two Spidermen pointing at each other.
ANYWAY I have three Sybil/Boromir flufftober prompts going up in the next six or so days over on tumblr. The first is already posted, the next two coming on the 22nd and the 26th, so go check that out if you're interested!
Tumblr – esta-elavaris
IG - miotasach