Reunion

Boromir never spoke on the trail. A silent, taciturn man, he rebuffed all efforts of the Fellowship to draw him in. Ever present before him was his family's requirement and his own vainglorious belief in the superiority of the Stewardship and his father's good intentions. More than that, he found it difficult to balance the difference between the glorious kings of old, descended from the Elves, to the scruffy wilderness-weary Ranger who steadfastly led the way through the ancient lands of Eregion.

The hobbits found it difficult that he wanted none of their chatter and had no concern about the need of second breakfast. Frodo was thankful for this though Pippin and Merry were miffed that he did not want to be friends with them. Sam, sensing Frodo's discomfort with the powerful Captain of Gondor, did not even try to make friends with him, aware that it wasn't necessary and his duty was to Frodo and to the pony, Bill.

However it peeved and worried Aragorn that he could make no headway with the Gondorian. He was not ungrateful and willingly accepted Aragorn's leadership. He never made any comments that threatened the goodwill of the Company. An excellent swordsman, he made a good sparring companion and beyond this, Legolas seemed to feel that he was a loyal compatriot. But still the silence of the Captain.

But then as they huddled in the cheerless hollow where the cold winds and snows of Caradhras could not entirely reach, the silent Captain spoke. Ere he did so, he turned his features to rest upon those of the smoking Aragorn, the evanescent smoke and small ember lighting up the gray-green of his eyes and the sparkling silver in his beard. Perhaps it was his profile that prompted the man to speak, perhaps it was the need for warmth and memories that encouraged his sudden confidences.

" I had a wife."

Though Frodo had been dozing and the Company were in various stages of cold discomfort, a warmth flooded through all of them when Boromir spoke and they turned to look at him in amazement.

Aragorn coughed and even Gandalf who could never be surprised unless by a dragon turned to look speechlessly at the laconic Boromir.

" She was one of the Rangers of the North. I met her just before my mother died. Though grief shortly tainted my youth, she brought with her the bright light of the North and the glorious snow which cleanses everything that it touches. She was a mystic to us all, a creature of mythology and yet I could not keep myself from falling in love with her. We would haunt the watches of Ithilien, make certain that no harm could ever fall upon our sleeping people and in the deepest nights, we would laugh and pleasure and wonder at the joy that we had before us."

Then he fell silent again, his mind untroubled by what he had revealed, and he did not sense that he needed to speak anything other than what he had. It did not even enter his mind that the Fellowship would puzzle his words over again and again, wondering what had happened to this mystery wife of Boromir. Had she died? Had she left him? Had tragedy befallen?

Aragorn alone was silent, remembering the maiden as Boromir did. He was also able to puzzle out why Boromir had spoken when he did so. The night was cold and the snows fierce, their bombardment something of mystery and legend, magic affecting the ancient forces of nature. And she, Feredisagaur, had been something of legend and mystery herself. He recalled her emerald green eyes and the long wolf cloak she would wear about her shoulders, and underneath the cloak of wildness, was the haunting song and belief in Eru. That they all had purpose and a glorious reunion awaiting them. Cold had no power over her and she would walk for miles only to shot a wolf between the eye. She had always had an enamorment of wolves.

Throughout the terrible silence of Moria it had become apparent that everyone was talking only to alleviate the ancient stillness of that dismal abode of Dwarves. Gimli would chant about the hospitality that they had been wont to give and would rejoice in the power of Dwarven delving. Legolas spoke ardently of the rich, heady wines of his homeland and would long for the thick boughs of the trees that had sired him.

Gandalf was silent except when looking for the way and the four hobbits, save for Frodo, would babble about anything that came to mind. Anything, food, women, drink, homelands, languages, riddles, and any other nonsense.

Aragorn would occasionally join in all conversations and had the watchfulness of the Ranger always about him. Boromir had ceased charting Frodo's every step and had deigned to fall in with Strider. And thus it was the stillness had again risen up and everyone was aware of the mithril studded walls and the fearful drop to the right to them. Every one of them was seeing their death again and again as they imagined one misstep and one flurry of rocks and then the terrible nothingness of death and whatever lay at the end of that gorge.

Finally Frodo could stand it no longer, what with the tremulous footfalls echoing in his consciousness far behind them all. " Boromir, what happened to your wife?"

The query was so harsh that it stunned them all. Boromir flinched as though visibly hit and Aragorn caught his breath ere he show that he was intimately involved in the narrative.

Gandalf huffed and then turned to Frodo, " Master Baggins, such intimate things should be entered into with soft words and cunning framing, do you not think?"

Frodo hung his head yet still his ears caught the wagging of those fearful footsteps. " I'm sorry. I meant to say it more graciously, my lord. But still, Boromir, what did happen to your wife?"

Gandalf lifted his hands in exasperation and the pranksters giggled at their friend's interest in the matter. Aragorn faced Boromir and saw that the desire to confide was warring with the ever-present diffidence and disgust that he viewed the mission. " She was banished. From our country, from our home." Then so stilly that they almost doubted he spoke, " From me."

Gimli hung his head and Legolas was silent as they contemplated the fact. " So she betrayed you then?"

Boromir motioned for them all to start walking again, " No. No, that was the fault of my father. He proclaimed in public that he had traced her lineage and found that she wanted to overthrow the glory of the Stewardship in favor of the leadership of the foul Rangers of the North. That she was even now in fellowship with Thorongil who had infiltrated our borders under the Stewardship of my grandfather Ecthelion. Somehow, everyone believed him. Everyone felt that she was dangerous and wild and unworthy of trust. They cast her out."

Sam, his voice quiet and trembling with tears, " Did you ever see her again?"

Boromir's lip trembled and a single tear slipt down his features, mingling into his grizzled red beard. " Aye, I saw her once more."

Aragorn looked away, unable to repulse the memory that flooded up within him, even as he knew that it must have been overflowing in Boromir's mind as well.

The ground was splotched with gore and the fangs of dead and dying Wargs. The black blood of Orcs warred with the white snow of Vanna. The snow fell as a mockery of beauty and quiet grace in the still hissing valley of death.

The Rangers of Ithilien and of the Dúnedain had met that day. What had promised to be a volatile meeting had come to be a union of two peoples, rife with enmity and distrust, joining together to fight against an enemy that they considered much the worse. Aragorn and his lieutenant Halbarad had been tracking a group of Orcs who had fled from Lorien and were now tacking towards Mordor. Unfortunately this course had brought them to the unwelcome regions of North Ithilien.

Lord Denethor, unlike the policies of his fathers, did not believe that the Dúnedain meant the people of Gondor no harm and had thus instituted that they were to be repulsed at all the borders as undesirables. He didn't quite declare war upon them, but at the same time, he showed that they were in no wise welcome.

Thus it was that there had almost been bloodshed at the borders that day. Almost, except for the arrival of a Ranger Captain.

Fierce and bold, Feredisagaur had always lived up to her warrior's name. She loved the hunt, thrilling in the extermination of her foes and lived for the day when her song would meld into the glorious one that haunted the very core of the world. For a while, she had put this desire aside, forgetting her passions and leaving them to become one with the Gondorian Captain that she had married. But she had lived too long amongst the Dúnedain to forget their calling, to forget the blood that raced through each of their veins. They were the descendents of Kings, and their duty was to defeat those Kings' enemies.

She had rallied them, the common rangers' belief that she had not betrayed them, calling to the truth in her words, and what was more, the haunting call of a horn came soon after she had convinced them, proving that she never played false.

That day, her song was ended. Boromir had wound the Horn of Gondor seeking reinforcements as they had been attacked by the prowling wargs. Faramir, his lieutenant at the border, had dispatched many of his own men and then retained the Dúnedain to help him guard the remainder. Boromir had destroyed his enemy and then come to the border, hoping that his brother had not been attacked, as he was aware that the Orcs' forces had been divided.

Silence had met him. The silence of the victorious, of the defeated, of the dead. Blood had been woven into the chaste tapestry of the silvern snow, writhing corpses in various poses of terrible agony decorated the clearing with their vividness, and before him, her sword broken beneath her, a wolf's jaw still clenched in her side, was his wife. Feredisagaur had died, destroyed by those she had hunted for years.

He later learned that her brother, a Dúnadan, had been fighting and had almost been overpowered by a Warg rider. Exposing herself to the wolves, she had leapt to his side, pushing the fearsome Warg and his rider off of him. The Warg had leapt at her, breaking her sword. With the shards, she had slit its throat and a dagger had dispatched his master. But she had not been able to destroy the Warg that had come behind and crushed her frail waist in his masterful mouth. Her brother had killed it and it had collapsed, taking her life with his own. The last Warg to fall, it marked the victory of the battle.

" Aye, I saw her once more," Boromir repeated. " She was dead ere I came upon her. A Warg, her greatest enemy, destroyed his greatest enemy."

And that was the last he ever said of her. An argument could be proven that a part of him, the joyous part that believed in the purity of snow and the beauty of life and nature had died with the Hunter of Wolves. Galadriel would later mention to her husband that had Feredisagaur been alive, Denethor would long ago been disposed and a wiser, better Steward in his place. That Boromir's death could have been prevented.

But Feredisagaur lived according to the place that she had in the song of Eru, and though her life was short and did not accomplish what some said should be accomplished, in reality had she not died, Elessar Telcontar would have died long before Andúril had been reforged. For Aragorn II Elessar had been her brother and she saved his life. And it was to his great sorrow that Aragorn would never be able to return the great sacrifice she made for him- by saving her husband.

Boromir gasped, suffocating on air, on the very essence of life even as just seconds before he had been choking on his own blood. Or had it been seconds? It seemed as though he had changed very much in only a few seconds.

" You need not fear breathing, young man, for you can no longer breath." A melodious voice, haunting and wistful as moonlight caressed his senses and he became aware of a great song stirring through his veins.

" Yes, there it is. That is the song that created you, that you are. That is your spirit." The voice spoke again. Then there was a different song playing alongside his own.

" My spirit is a song?" Boromir inquired, thinking that he should sit up now.

Then he rose into the air and he gasped. In front of him was a gilt creation, light and music melded together into an indescribable creature of beauty. He could see no features, but he was aware that he was before a sacred entity.

The creature glowed brighter and then, smiling at him, he could hear it in the song, spoke, " My son, I promise you that a song is a spirit. Every creation has their own song. And every spirit is a song. Thus what you see is my song. Come. I will take you to the Singer."

Boromir floated along, his song pulsing about him and he watched in amazement as dozens, thousands really of other spirits flowed about him, their many songs creating an anthem of freedom and power so great that he could only imagine what their creator must be like. He was aware that he had come to the second homeland of men. That he must soon be meeting Eru Iluvatar as the Elves called him.

Suddenly-," Boromir!"

A voice silent for so long that he had forgotten what it sounded like, melded with the gracious power of the song that he had come to associate with a spirit, exclaimed from behind him. To his left, came one of the most beautiful spirits that he could imagine. Red and gold mingled together into a perfect sunrise of colors, rainbows plying about the edges of the song, and a chorus of life and freedom surrounded him, melding together with his in the most intimate of ways and he was aware that he was before one he loved dearly.

" You are-?" He fumbled for recognition. He knew that the Elves knew each other by the wisps in their songs, but he had not this talent and he knew none that shone that beautifully in life.

The song came ever closer, caressing him and embracing him though it was not physical. " Darling, don't you know me? Has my voice ceased to haunt your dreams and my song be the symphony that you listen for?"

He immediately realized who this was and gasped in surprise and amazement. " Feredisagaur? Can this be?"

The warmth and joyousness of reunion swept around him and for the first time, he wanted to sing, shout, and rejoice with all the noice in his lungs. He felt uplifted, light, and full of hope and purpose. He was no longer overshadowed by the heaviness of his father's spirit and he was at long last reunited with his beloved wife.

She laughed and held onto him in the way that kindred souls do. " Come, my darling, our King awaits. He told me that you'd arrived and that at long last I could go greet you."

Then Boromir remembered with horror the terrible way that he had ended his life and the shame that followed him even here. But Feredisagaur felt his spirit dampen and, heeding her king's commands, pulled him along before he could refuse.

Even as he tried to do so, a great song, more magnificent and indescribable than anything in his entire life, flooded through his spirit and lifted him and proclaimed in its wondrous, awesome voice, " At last! Boromir has returned to me. We are rejoined together. Rejoice! For a prince has come!"

This story is definitely one of those that you're not quite sure about. Whether it's good or bad, I wouldn't even dream to determine.

Hopefully you will all enjoy it and that it will bring a smile to your faces.

The ending section is taking place in what is Tolkien's version of Heaven. It was the belief that they did not know where the humans went after they died as they did not go to Eldamar(Elvenhome). Thus, Boromir would then go to Heaven. Elvish belief was that the Elves would fade away into obscurity but that the Men would have a part in the Second Singing of Eru Iluvatar.

Other than that, the story is kind of disjointed and sad, until the ending reunion. That's what I wanted actually, to focus upon the sadness and weariness of the world and its many paradoxes and the perfect beauty of souls and people who accept Eru or Christ's beauty.

I hope that all of you reading this have a personal relationship with Christ and that you will be able to join me in Heaven. If not, please look long and hard within yourselves and seek if you desire to live eternity separated from perfection and Christ.

Live for Christ,

Jetta Lee