Arwen was walking in the little garden, thick with frost.
Every bare twig and stone bench was encased in white. The basin pool, drained for the winter, gleamed like pearl. Even the gravel paths were white and stiff, muffling her footsteps.
Sheltered from the wind, the weak sun was most welcome, but once out of the lee of the tower, it would cut through her and she drew her collar tighter. The train of her velvet coat must be collecting hoarfrost. She would shake the worst of it off before she went indoors, lessen the work for her maids, but at this moment she could not seem to find the strength in her to gather her skirts up in her hands and away from the frozen ground.
She could hear voices from a terrace below and would have walked across the plot towards them, except that the weight of her human steps would bruise the grass beneath, leave blackened, dying patches in the turf come the thaw, so patiently Arwen trod the long paths until she stood at the open balcony that allowed those in the garden so fine a view across the city.
The breeze was stinging at her cheeks; she could feel it raising the blood in them and raised her hood to shield her face. Then Gondor’s Queen tucked her chilled hands into her wide sleeves and looked down on the figures below.
On a section of the citadel’s walls the recent icy blast had met with a cracked pipe and gradually icicles had begun to appear as water seeped between the stone blocks. A cluster of great ice spears decorated one tower and Arwen knew that, apart from the danger to all from falling ice once the thaw should come, the ice could crack the stones themselves, splitting blocks apart as cleanly as a chisel once the moisture crept into crevices and hardened and grew fat.
The Lord Steward was come, with surveyors and stone masons, to view the damage, assess what needed to be done. From her vantage point Arwen saw him gesturing towards the blocks he wanted re-set, saw his blonde head together with those of others bent over plans that they had laid out on a wooden crate brought for the purpose.
Behind her, within the tower, the King slept amidst tumbled sheets; a rare indulgence through a forenoon. He had returned late from a visit to Ithilien, tired but full of an irrigation scheme that Faramir was proposing and it was all she and the Lord Steward could do to get him fed and to bed. Even so, he could not settle, but propped himself up on one elbow and tried to trace the canal network on the silk coverlet whilst she nodded wisely until at last he stopped mid-sentence to gaze on her, then chuckle softly and lean forward to snatch a kiss; one kiss that led to more, until they were both breathless.
The meeting below was ending and one of the engineers was rolling up the plans. Boromir’s rich laughter floated up to her; she saw him clap Beregond on the shoulder as they arose and thought once more how careful he was to suit his actions to the scene. She had never seen him touch his King; in public, even within the circle of their friends and family, it was always Aragorn who reached out to clasp Lord Boromir’s hand in greeting, lay an arm about his shoulders, and yet she could not see that it troubled Boromir. This was simply one of the unspoken rules which shaped their existence and his was a willing submission.
She had only to say the word and they would part, with no breath of recrimination and no pleading, but two things stayed her hand. Once met, Aragorn should never again be exiled from Arin, who was dear to her too. The child was innocent, a gift of the Valar and who was she to go against their will. Then to part the lovers would be to wound the King deeply. They had only the years of men to share whereas she would endure too many years to remember, to grieve, after his death; Adar had warned her fairly. Surely it was better to remember Aragorn as joyous, made whole by the warrior lover who had returned to him.
As the breeze stiffened so that she drew her coat tighter about her and prepared to go in, she wondered if Elrond had foreseen Boromir’s child, if Galadriel had known before the Fellowship left Lothlorien that the spark had caught. She shrugged off the thought. This was her chosen way with all its trials.
She had had seven years with her love to build a life together before Boromir had returned. As King and Queen, they had walked this new path with human feet that could stride forward and dance and sometimes stumble too. Amidst the seemingly endless round of new burdens to bear and old ties to unbind, but gently so that men did not think they set the old ways at naught, they had supported one another with grave council and with laughter and deep affection. He could ever make her smile, catch her breath with wonder and burn with hunger too, but Arwen knew from the first that there remained a solitary place which Aragorn strove to close a door upon, and knew with the wisdom of her years, that the man could no more erase Boromir from his heart, than he could set aside his love for her and for their children, or his faith towards the crown and peoples he served.
She had accepted it as part of the man, honoured his grieving by never speaking of it and would match his endurance. The daughter, the grand-daughter, of High Elves, understood duty well and took a pride in shaping the role of Queen of the Two Kingdoms. She strove to carve out a place for herself at the side of the King, not only because she saw work to be done that could support her love as he struggled with the weight of two shattered lands, and not only because she must win the trust of many who were made uneasy by her elf-blood for the sake of their children, but also because in this she could honour her heritage.
She had been there when Legolas had come to his old friend with the news that Boromir was found, had seen the breath all but stop in the King’s throat when he would have cried out, and knew that he could not speak for fear of his voice breaking. Waiting impatiently for Boromir and Arin to come at last to Minas Tirith and she had watched Aragorn fret, watched him decide that he would deny the depth of his loss; smother his feelings in order to make a new way of things, where they could yet be more than King and subject, old comrades, even friends.
For Arwen, seeing Boromir and recognising in him one touched by the old magic had been both as a physical blow and as though a weight she had barely acknowledged to herself had lifted from her breast. This man before her, scarred, troubled, was never-the-less one to whom she could entrust her life and those she held dear without hesitation.
And as the months passed she had seen her love try and fail to stifle his heart, the initial rejoicing at having Boromir once more in his sight, overtaken at last by the sense of something that pulled the men inexorably towards one another.
Aragorn had come to her in honesty before taking that final step, of gathering his warrior into his arms once again, but by then Arwen had long since given them her blessing and felt at peace, knowing that this was a haven reached. Not then, nor in the time since had Aragorn altered by one jot in his affections towards her, but now returned to Boromir’s embrace, there was deep joy and a contentment at the centre of his being that enriched them all.
Boromir had become dear to her too. At first, he was as an open book, his humanity, resourcefulness and compassion, were all plain and most welcome. She had watched him struggle to reconcile himself with his old life and had been glad when a measure of peace had come to him. More recently she had seen him claimed by that old earth magic as a bramhir and who knew what that meant for Gondor in a new age, assuredly Boromir did not, not yet. The Steward’s staff stood sentinel beside the Palantir stone at his command and yet he hardly seemed to recognise the import, and lately he was shadowed from her a little.
The voices of the party below had died away and now only the wind soughed about her, tugging at the edges of her hood as she turned to leave.
..........................................................
So much of the strength of the unspoken agreement between the three was seated in respect for one-another. Arwen sensed that Boromir would always have treated Gondor’s Queen with the deepest respect, but she knew that the consideration he accorded her was coloured by their shared love of their King and a desire to support one-another. So they each of them tried to smooth the way with small courtesies that enabled Aragorn to feel easy that he dealt fairly with both.
Whilst Queens and their ladies were traditionally engaged on tapestries or delicate embroideries, Arwen had from the first seen to it that their skills were employed on more ordinary tasks as the need arose. They stitched all the linen for the royal household and this evening a knot of women was setting cuffs on some new shirts. The King and the Lord Steward were much of a size and Arwen quietly ensured that they wore identical under-clothes and the Steward’s House had a plentiful supply of clean linen from the laundry.
In fact, it was a source of general amusement that the Lord Steward, for so long a plain soldier and champion of his people, should now be quite so scrupulous in his person, with daily baths and clean linen. Some folk put it down to his needing to care for his scars and that was cause enough; Arwen knew differently. No word was ever said between them, but Boromir was determined that she should never have Aragorn come to her and be able to smell him on her lord’s skin, scent their rut on his clothing. The strong soap used throughout the citadel smelt of pine forests, fresh and clean, but it was a more subtle pleasure when Boromir began to distil the flower liquors from his garden and she had been able to request openly from the Lord Steward her favourite scents ‘to go into their baths.’
Reflecting on their lives now, Arwen thought back often to a game that she had played with her brothers. The aim was to move silently, at first across the ground and then, as she became older, stronger, amidst the tree canopy, tied one to another by a single strand of silk thread and not to break the thread. It was long enough that unwary players could take different routes around a tree trunk and it would bear the gentlest of tugs to attract another’s attention, but no more. The skill was in becoming so attuned to her partners’ movements and they to hers, that they could move as one, leading or following as necessary, overcoming all obstacles in their way. In the same way, although either could request his presence, she and Boromir left to Aragorn the decision about where he would lay his head, and both valued those nights when the King slept alone as serving to reinforce the strength of their bond, whereby he was not their slave to be batted back-and-forth between them, but remained his own, much-loved, man.
At this moment, Arwen’s hearing was not so diminished that she could not hear Aragorn’s soft tread on the stairs; she smiled to herself and stretched comfortably beneath the covers. There was something pleasurable left undone, disrupted by their son with a sore belly, who’d wandered sleepily into his mother’s chamber that morning in search of comfort. The King had been threatened then with banishment in a small imperious voice, until his father had twinkled at him and rubbed his stomach, whilst Arwen sang softly and Eldarion’s eyelids grew heavy again.
As she propped herself up against her pillows and loosed her hair from its ribbon, she thought about the morrow. It was a day filled with council meetings and the culmination of work on changes to the courts that King and Steward had been engaged in for months. She would suggest that they take some air when it was done, perhaps a few days of hunting, bring the kitchens back some fresh meat.
Her mate was stood before her and still clad, which made her frown. Aragorn’s eyebrows rose in mock surprise even as his fingers crept towards the ties of his shirt.
Summary: Arwen reflects on their lives together
Rated: PG-13
Categories: LOTR FPS Pairing: Aragorn/Boromir/Arwen
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 2214 Read: 1164
Published: 26 Feb 2011 Updated: 26 Feb 2011
Story Notes:
DISCLAIMER: "These characters originate with their copyright holders. I borrow them for entertainment, not profit."