Title: From Rauros to Isengard
By: Ithiliana
Overall Rating: Variable, PG at start and in places but as part of overall AU, NC-17
Section Rating: Part 6 is PG if that
Pairing: Boromir/Aragorn, Boromir/Aragorn/Éowyn, Boromir/Éomer (10 years previous)
Feedback: Always Appreciated!

Disclaimer: All characters belong to the Tolkien estate. This story is written for fun, not for money, with no intent to infringe upon copyright.

Warning: the dreaded possibility of "het" looms upon the horizon! Blah hah hah...Or we consider the possiblity that both Aragorn and Boromir at least are bi (in my AU universe).

Not very long, sorry, but figured better a little bit than none...more next weekend fersure.



Chronology: I am taking the 'five days' that are mentioned in the film and adding them to the chronology in the book. Need those extra five days…for character interaction! hot sex and hot talk about sex Éomer: I am working from book rather than film, so he was briefly imprisoned at Grima's instigation then freed. He is NOT out wandering around the Riddermark with 2000 or whatever Rohirrim. On horses that can tiptoe up to a Ranger. *snort* One of my (few) real gripes about film. Helm's Deep: Am blending elements from book and movie. And making up some stuff. AU stuff, heh.



My earlier AU in this series can be found by accessing my Memory Page:

From Rivendell to Rauros 1-22 Here

The current AU parts will be identified at the same place as I post them.

FRR is posted entirely on my journal since it consists of both interspecies and sons_of_gondor narratives intertwined. For those who don't wish to read all 22 parts (137 pages if memory serves), you can read a brief summary of the main premise and action I posted here:

Summary FRR

From Rauros to Cirith Ungol (4 part Frodo/Faramir AU) was posted in my lj (listed on memory page) and on the interspecies community.

From Rauros to Isengard will be posted in my journal and on the sons_of_gondor community. Part 5 of this WIP can be found:

FRI 5




Boromir sat cross-legged on the ground, his empty bowl in front of him. The night wind whispered through the tall grasses on the plains that stretched around them. They were camped near a small stream which provided fresh water. Reluctantly, Boromir had come to eat daymeal with Éomer and Éowyn. He'd asked Aragorn to accompany him, but his request had been met with a laughing refusal and the claim that he had to stand watch.

However, the meal had not gone as badly as he'd feared it would although most of the credit for that was due Éomer. Either he failed to notice Éowyn's silence or, Boromir was forced to admit, her quietness was her usual manner. Éomer had talked happily of the past throughout much of the simple meal, calling on the other two more for agreement or a missing detail than for conversation.

They sat close to one of the many cooking fires. Around them, others sat or lay, resting for the next stage of the march. As had been true every day, the food was part communal, part individual. Fires were built throughout the huge camp, with everyone who could contributing food, while one or two women oversaw each individual cooking pot.

Around the fires, watched by tired adults, children ran shrieking and laughing. Boromir wondered where their energy came from. They had spent the day walking alongside their parents, yet the children still ran and played. The first night, he had struggled with the impulse to order them to silence as he would a company of his men. Only his realization that the size of the train and the necessity to travel during the day made it unlikely that they could travel in secrecy had stopped him.

"Lord Éomer, the King asks you to attend him."

One of the King's guards from Edoras, mail shining in the firelight, bowed. Éomer set his bowl down, rose quickly, and, nodding farewell to Boromir and Éowyn, followed the man off into the dark.

Silence wrapped itself around Boromir. He had not considered he would have to be alone with Éowyn. He was not sure what to say. To give himself time, he reached out and refilled his bowl. The pot was full of the basic thick soup or thin stew that they'd been eating on the road. The first day or so there had been bread, brought from Edoras. Now, every night, water, grain, dried meat, and root vegetables were simmered together until edible. Boromir had noticed a range of results even with such simple foodstuffs.

Earlier, Boromir had not paid much attention to the food. Now, eating a bit more slowly, he was surprised at how good this meal tasted, how different it was from what he'd eaten previously.

"It's very good," he said, looking up from the bowl.

Éowyn smiled at him for the first time that night, the first time in days, he thought, her face and hair shining in the light from the fire. "Thank you," she said.

"You made it?" Boromir spoke without thinking, cursed himself when he saw her face change.

"Yes, Lord Boromir, I did," she said, face flushing enough that he could clearly see her anger even in the uneven light of the flames. "I do not know what is expected of women in the court of Minas Tirith, but in Edoras, there is no great distance between the King's house and the people. My uncle's wife died young. I am the only woman in the House of Éorl of my generation. I oversee his household and work with the women. I have to know how to cook, clean, weave, and sew in order to make sure those jobs are done well, everything from storing food to serving it. I do not say I cook every day, but I have done so, to learn how to do what must be done well. Warriors could hardly fight without clothing, hot food, and someplace to sleep. No woman during these times can spend her life idling about like a courtly decoration."

Boromir clutched his bowl, fighting down his first anger at her assumptions about what he'd meant. In truth, she was not so wrong. But she was not entirely right either. He had no right to reply to her anger without trying to explain. He looked steadily at her.

"My apologies," he said quietly. "I did not mean to imply that you led an idle life. In truth, I know little of the lives of women in Gondor or elsewhere. Our mother died when I was ten. She.." he halted, swallowing.

Boromir rarely spoke of his mother to anyone. When she'd died, he had to care for Faramir, lost and grieving, repulsed by their father who was drowning in his own black wave of grief and had little time for children. Boromir had swallowed his own tears, comforted Faramir, and had thought the time for such grief long past. Now he was surprised by how close he had come to tears.

Éowyn's lips were still parted, her cheeks flushed, her hair loose and tumbling unnoticed over her shoulders and down toward her lap. After Boromir finished speaking, she was quiet a moment, then, pushing her hair back behind her ears, leaned forward. Still flushed, she seemed to finally look at him for the first time.

"I did not know. Forgive me," she said. "My mother died when I was seven, soon after my father was killed fighting Orcs. Éomer and I lived with my uncle and…..cousin."

Boromir remembered Théodred from his earlier visit, an able commander and heir, a strong warrior in his own right. Silent but not unfriendly. Certainly Boromir had known that Éomer and his sister's parents were dead, but he had not truly thought what that would mean for a girl, alone, until this time.

"I think we can both forgive the other, if there is even need to do so," he said. "I had not thought what your life must have been like then."

Éowyn shrugged a little, twisting her hair around her fingers. "It was not all sorrow," she said slowly, gazing into the fire as if at the past. "My uncle and cousin were kind, my cousin especially, to Éomer and to me. I grieved, certainly, but there was much to do which helped." After a pause, she looked at him again, blue eyes reflecting the dancing light. "And you?"

"Me?"

"What was it like for you and your brother--he's younger, is he not?--after your mother died?"

Boromir thought back as he had not in years to the bare and echoing halls of the Citadel, white stone pure and shining, black columns, huge doors. Servants clad in black robes moving silently about duties. Silence for the most part, echoing through the rooms, that had before seemed filled with light, music, and flowers. Nothing had really changed in the place, he knew, but love had died.

"Lonely," he said, slowly. "Though I did not realize that then. We soon began to learn our duties as pages, then as squires, then warriors, training together. Faramir was only five and, I think….more like our mother than I. And perhaps too young for what our…for what was expected of him. It's so long ago now that it is hard to remember."

Éowyn nodded. "Although sometimes it feels as if it were only yesterday," she said, almost as if speaking to herself.

Boromir closed his eyes, trying not to let the pain he felt show. Perhaps it did, but he could not afford this weakness.

They sat in silence a while long while around them people arranged bedding and settled down to sleep for as much of the night as they could.

Boromir stood, walked around the fire, and knelt besides Éowyn, taking her hand. Startled, she looked at him, eyes wide, silent. He kissed her hand, held it a moment. "I am glad we had this chance to talk, Lady." he said. "I had thought you were angry at me because of what happened when I was last in Rohan. But tonight gives me hope that is no longer true."

She shook her head. "I have never been angry at you, Lord Boromir."

Boromir smiled, relieved, then bid her good night. He rose and returned to where his bedding was waiting for him. Aragorn would call him when the watch changed.

He did not see how Éowyn watched him as he left her.

* * * * * * *

The last day of the march, Boromir kept to himself. The clouds above had thickened, a cold wind blowing from the East. He was reluctant to talk to anyone, feeling as if danger from within and without was too close. The others around him seemed to share this feeling, and the large train moved as quickly as they could to Helm's Deep. If all went well, they would arrive there sometime the next day. And then things would become simpler, Boromir thought, if more dangerous.