A/N: Spy my POTC fandom streak briefly showing itself lolol.
Differentiating between the days in Moria was impossible. Even when she spotted what might've been a shaft of daylight that had worked its way through some distant crack, it was impossible to know what day it belonged to – the one that followed on from the night in which they'd entered the mines, or another entirely?
They inched along in the dark, fearing when they might run into enemies, but finding only more corpses in the interim – so many that Gimli had long since ceased reacting to them, save for glum, heavy silence and shakes of his head that were so imperceptible that only the slight swaying of his beard gave it away.
For her part, Sybil walked in silence – too angry with herself for not having foreseen any of this, and dreading any interaction with the others, for it felt only inevitable that she'd see that anger reflected back at her then. So she didn't speak unless spoken to, and she looked at the others not at all. The trick, back in the cabin, had been to escape notice completely. If Bera forgot she existed, she'd forget whatever sharp words she had in store for her.
It was Merry, though, who first pierced her silence.
"I don't know about you…" he paused and then continued a moment later, "…but I never could have pictured this in all of our training sessions back in Rivendell."
The walkway they were navigating, single-file, was particularly perilous – so dark that the light from Gandalf's staff could scarcely help, and littered with debris to such an extent that they had to tentatively feel their way forward, shuffling as though testing the ice of a frozen lake.
He ruffled dust from his blond curls as he spoke, and then turned in expectation of an answer.
She had to clear her throat before she offered one.
"You shouldn't do what you did, you know," she said softly.
"Brush dirt from my hair? I'm afraid the dry and dusty look isn't much in fashion in the Shire," Merry replied distractedly.
"Try to protect me – in battle," she corrected. "Out there by the lake. Seer or no, we can't afford those kinds of risks. Our Ring-bearer needs you."
More than he needed her, that was damn sure. One phial of oil had been discarded since they'd entered the mines, as she was certain – or she wished to be, at least – that it had lost its potency and that was why she hadn't gleaned anything of use. But another had been opened, and all it had given her was a stabbing pain to her right temple.
"Seer or no, what kind of hobbit would I be if I didn't protect a lady in battle?"
A living one, hopefully.
But she couldn't scorn him for his chivalry, instead forcing a smile.
"I'm not a lady," she pointed out. "A woman, but not a lady. So your conscience can rest easy."
"We'll see," he replied with a knowing look.
That was an argument she knew she'd never win. The silence came easily to her – too easily – and she slid back into it seamlessly after that, in a world of her own the next time Gandalf called a halt so he could discern the correct choice between three potential archways.
An scuttling echo drew her towards the rightmost one. Leaning forward, she squinted into the blackness but didn't stray forth – and when a hand landed heavily on her shoulder, she just caught herself before she shrieked in fright.
"Stay with the group," Gandalf greeted, letting his hand fall back to his side as he came to stand beside her. "There is at least one in our number who would sorely lament your absence."
Sybil sighed, bowing her head – the last person she'd expected needling from over her blossoming thing with Boromir was Gandalf the Grey. But a rumbling chuckle followed his words, and he continued.
"Master Peregrin would lose a staunch defender, were you not here," he said. "And that would be rather a shame."
Breathing a weary laugh, she hugged her arms to herself.
"He reminds me of myself. When I was young."
No doubt if Boromir could hear her, he'd scoff at how she spoke as if her youth was a thing of the distant past. Or he'd point out that she was the youngest of the Fellowship, at least when years were taken solely into account and not relative lifespans. But he was out of earshot, and the only admonishment Gandalf offered was an exasperated chuckle.
"And I of your mentor?" there was a knowingness to his tone, with neither accusation nor malice, that had her flushing scarlet.
"She lacked your warm and fuzzy qualities," she mumbled.
Gandalf's laugh startled her – truly, she jumped – but he kept it down beyond the first peal of laughter, simmering it down into a chuckle.
"Warm and fuzzy, indeed," he mused. "To have lived so long, and experienced so much, only to be described thus…"
There were far, far worse things that time and experience could turn someone into. Especially someone of Gandalf's kind. Saruman was example enough of that. But Sybil kept those thoughts to herself, about as eager to lecture Mithrandir on such philosophical points as she was to stride into Rivendell and begin telling Lord Elrond how it should or should not be run.
But she hadn't been lying when she'd used those words. Yes, he was curmudgeonly, and yes, his sharp tongue – and its propensity for seeking out Pippin – made her wince, but none of it was ill-meaning. Bera would never sit and speak to her like this. Bera would not care for Frodo as ardently as Gandalf did. Bera would not smile softly and chuckle at the antics of Merry and Pippin. And while she still did not doubt that Bera was the way she was because she thought it best, she had no difficulty in admitting that Bera was wrong. To school constantly against hope and mirth just because they may prove disappointing was a surer path to folly than blind, foolish faith could ever be.
She was learning that well enough here, with the Fellowship. Bera's advice, had she been here, would be cynicism and selfishness masquerading as realism. She'd urge her to find somewhere to ride out the storm and hide, when Sauron inevitably took over ruling Middle-earth. Or even to leverage what she could from Boromir's passing fondness for her, as she'd no doubt call it, to take what she could before his attention was snagged by a prettier prize more befitting the firstborn son of the Steward of Gondor.
Then she'd mock her, when she had neither the heart nor the willingness to do such a thing – not to anybody, but certainly not to him.
"If Bera was here, I'd already have been given the ear-beating of the century for not preventing this."
The point of the admission was twofold. Firstly, it was true. Secondly, if a hefty berating was on the cards, she'd rather just nudge him into getting it over with now, rather than spend the next however-many days waiting for it to happen.
"Preventing this?" Gandalf echoed, his tone unreadable. "Sybil, my dear, if there was a single soul in this world who could make it so that we might achieve our aim while avoiding any and all manner of disaster, they would be leading our company – and ruling Middle-earth thereafter, in all likelihood. And I'm unsure we'd be better off for it."
Sybil blinked, her mind falling blank as she had no idea how to respond – too busy lost in the shock that her fear had been only that. Fear. Baseless fear. The relief was a tangible thing, dragging weight from her shoulders until she felt taller. Gandalf continued before she could speak.
"If fate conspired to bring us all to Rivendell at the opportune moment, then it is also fate that brings us here and decrees that we should wander these mines. We must defer to it, and hope that the path it sets us on leads to the destination we seek."
"Not all those who wander are lost."
"Did Bilbo tell you that?" he eyed her as if he already knew the answer.
"No…but I've…always liked it…"
And she couldn't say where she'd heard it first.
"It has certainly never been truer than it is now," Gandalf said, but not without humour as he eyed the masses of craggy dark rock about them. "My point remains, though, my dear. You must do all you can with the gift you have been given, yes, and we will likely ask much of you before this is over. But you must not blame yourself for the things that happen on this quest. Tragedy has a manner of giving way to that which is better than what came before it…and that which appears to be a blessing can often cloak a curse."
She'd seen that firsthand, hadn't she? Bera's death. The fire. The burns. All of it brought her here – and while some would hardly call that better than a peaceful life as a healer, Sybil would.
"I have a suspicion," she admitted quietly. "About my visions. It occurred to me out there, in the mountains, but the more I think on it, the more it…feels right."
"Oh?"
"I think I'm seeing a version of events where I'm not here."
The utter lack of surprise on the Wizard's face only confirmed her suspicion.
"I haven't seen anything from this journey featuring myself. Not once. I was absent in the flashes I caught of the Fellowship hiking through the mountains, and at first I thought it meant something terrible – but I faced no more danger out there than any other. There were no close calls, no narrowly avoided demise…not unless someone here thought about shoving me off of the mountain and then changed their mind…" she paused then, to return the smile that Gandalf stifled with his pipe, "but it…it makes sense, does it not? I'm seeing what might happen were I not here. If my knowledge, visions, whatever you'd like to call them, weren't here, with us. What would be the point in my seeing these things if they could not be changed? What would be the point in my being brought here, if not to change them?"
Maybe it was blind hope. Hope brought about by the image of Boromir's body riddled with arrows – and of Frodo, bloodied and broken by the burden he bore.
"Not everything that you saw was terrible," Gandalf pointed out – but he had the tone of a teacher leading a student to the correct conclusion, rather than one who disagreed outright.
And she was ready for what he was saying, too.
"I've already considered that," she replied. "But there's nothing that says I have to prevent everything that I saw. It's possible that I'm being both cautioned and guided. If all that I saw was terrible, it wouldn't allow us to hope, would it? And without hope, we'd be doomed here."
Hunched where he sat, fiddling with his pipe, Gandalf stared ahead and pondered her words for a while. A long while, until she was forced to wonder if her conclusions had the sound of a raving madwoman to them.
"Do you disagree?" she prompted, only when she could bear it no longer.
The question brought him back to the present, and only then did she realise how solemn he'd become in the interim, that same heaviness in his eyes that she'd spotted here and there when she discussed what she'd seen with him.
"No," he admitted readily. "I do not. But my point remains, Sybil. You'll spare us from some hardship on our journey, that much is true, or else you would not be here. But you cannot spare us from all of it. And in times such as these, solutions are wont to give rise to perils greater than that which we sought to avoid. Frodo may bear the greatest burden amongst us, but yours remains unenviable, especially for one so young. You must not blame yourself for what happens here."
"How long before the others do, though?"
"Do you truly believe they will? That they'll turn on you?"
"…No," she admitted – incredibly softly, because she resented the admission.
Mostly because if there came a time where she was proven wrong, she'd despise herself for it. For not anticipating it. For being so stupid as to think that it wasn't inevitable.
Nothing that she'd seen from any of the others so far suggested that they'd have the heart to do such a thing. And even if they did, even if she was mistaken in one or two instances, she knew she could rely on some. Boromir. Aragorn.
Bera would counsel otherwise – she'd insist that the moment Sybil decided she could rely on them, trust them, was the moment she'd exposed her back and handed over a dagger. But Bera's ways had left her alone in a cabin, with only Sybil for company – company that she berated more often than she took solace in it. Her example didn't seem much worth following. And if it came to it, Sybil would quite happily hand either of the two men a blade and turn her back without fear. She'd do that with any gathered here. And that didn't feel like a bad thing.
On the contrary, it felt like a victory.
"Good," Gandalf nodded his approval. "We'll need to trust each other more than that, if we're to succeed."
The ease that slowly worked through her – tentatively, like she couldn't even trust herself not to shun her own relief – was a laboured process, but her shoulders did gradually drop, her back straightening a little, and her brows easing out of the permanent furrow she didn't even realise they'd been in since entering Moria. When the shift was complete, Gandalf offered a small but warm smile…and Sybil felt guilt drag at her insides for any subconscious comparisons she'd made between he and Bera.
They weren't alike in the slightest. When she murmured as much to Gandalf in parting, it earned her a grandfatherly smile before he waved her away – and when she took her leave, she made a beeline for Boromir.
Her approach dragged him from thoughts of his own, if the way he had to blink himself back into the present was anything to go by, but when he did return to the present, he smiled tiredly at her, looping an arm about her shoulders as she took a seat by his side. Warmth blossomed throughout her chest as she leaned into the hold – and it blazed into fire when he pressed a subtle kiss to the top of her head.
A/N: It's all about to hit the fan, huh? As always, thank you guys so much for your lovely comments! I'm perpetually behind on replying to them, but I do read them all as they come in and they absolutely drive me forward with this thing!
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