Lady Galadriel, 02.2024

Lady Galadriel, 02.2024

My favorite overpowered, scary, tall elf. Women, am I right?

Really having way too much fun with my gray-tone sketchbook || Éowyn

A delight to read, a shame it's over... Thank lord I can re-read it 💜

Hard Words: Epilogue

Boromir/Original Female Character, Boromir Lives, a Shire wedding, culture clashes

Rating: T (adult humor, language, and themes)

Chapter wordcount: 3300

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<Previous Chapter

The previous March

“Enjoy it,” Aragorn said. “Just enjoy it. That’s the main thing. If you can’t enjoy a Shire wedding in June, something’s wrong with you.”

“You’re not answering my question,” Boromir said. “Because you didn’t look at the schematics I sent you, did you?”

The king sighed, releasing a stream of pipe smoke into the air. He dropped his head back against the black damask cushion. He was packed awkwardly onto the very end of the day couch, his lanky arms and legs bent up at awkward angles, because it was the only free space available amid the meticulous inventory spread throughout Boromir’s sitting room. Military camping provisions in oilcloth packages marched in crisp rows. Spare shirts, trousers, and tunics were folded into sharp bundles. The standard of Gondor was rolled in a tight spiral around its pole, ready to be slotted into its leather sheath. A velvet-lined lockbox stood open, showing a tidy array of valuables—a coin purse, a duplicate of the king’s seal, and wedding gifts: chased silver goblets from Faramir and Éowyn, fire opal cabochon fibulas from Aragorn and Arwen. The formal Class A blacks of the Captain-General were laid out like a dead man, taking up most of the couch.

“Did you know one of your uniform sleeves is starting to fray?” Aragorn asked.

“Don’t change the subject,” Boromir said, squinting at the edge on a hunting knife. “The schematics.”

“Yes, yes. I did, in fact, review them, but I didn’t need to, because the information hasn’t changed from when we went over them two days ago.”

“The Baranduin bends more to the east before it reaches Lake Evendim than we initially plotted,” Boromir said. “Originally, we’d thought I would scout the ruins of Annúminas before traversing across to Fornost, but the bend in the river brings me closer to Fornost first. Do you want me to scout Fornost first?”

Aragorn threw a long leg over the back of the couch to avoid setting it on Boromir’s uniform. “Do whichever the fuck you want first, Captain. I just want an estimation on how long they’ll take to rebuild. How much of the city is flooded? Are the cisterns ruptured? Has the plumbing gone to shit? And all the other things we’ve been talking about for the past eight weeks.” He drew on his pipe and blew another cloud into the air. “And be sure to call it the Brandywine, not the Baranduin, or you’ll be laughed at.”

Boromir, satisfied the hunting knife was keen enough, sheathed it with a snap. “I’m hardly going to be fussed about making social blunders. I doubt I’ll be in the Shire long enough.”

“You might be surprised,” Aragorn said. “Perhaps you’ll want to stay and enjoy the fruits of the country. There are few finer places to be on a summer day.”

“This isn’t a pleasure trip.”

“You’re going to Pippin fucking Took’s wedding,” Aragorn said, picking his head off the cushion. “It better fucking well be a pleasure trip. The survey of Evendim is just a bonus, since you’ll be in the region anyway.” He tilted his head to follow Boromir as he moved around the far side of the couch to set the knife with his other weaponry. “I’ll order you if I have to. Shall I order you? I order you to have a fucking great time.”

Boromir gave a mocking heel tap without turning around. “Sir. I promise I’ll have a fucking great time.”

“Not just at the wedding, mind you. Take the whole month of June. Take July as well. Eat cheese and cakes until your belt doesn’t fit. Get drunk in every tavern in the four farthings. Take all your clothes off and roll around in a meadow for a few days. Let a pile of pretty hobbit lads and lasses give you a bath.”

“I wasn’t going to bring my shield,” Boromir said, looking down at his weaponry. “But now I’m having second thoughts. Should I bring my shield?”

“Boromir!”

Boromir pivoted around and tossed up his hands. “Yes, I will have a delightful time at the wedding and visiting with our friends, all right? I’ll drink your ale and eat your cheese and keep my clothes on, if you don’t mind. But you gave me a job to do, and I’d like to do it thoroughly. I’m not traveling over rough country for six weeks to laze around the Shire.” He gripped the back of the couch and leaned down. “Get your dirty fucking ranger foot off my blacks.”

Aragorn blew a stream of smoke in his Captain’s face and dropped his bare foot to the floor. Boromir puffed an aggravated breath to clear the smoke, neatened the hem of his uniform trousers where the king’s toe had creased it, and straightened.

“I’ll send you weekly reports from the north marches,” he said.

“Don’t,” Aragorn said. “I don’t want to hear from you until you’re back through the Gap of Rohan.”

“I’ll send them just to spite you.”

Aragorn stretched. “If you want to spite me, spend all summer indulging in hedonistic Shireling pleasure.”

“You’re going to be disappointed, my king.”

Aragorn smiled and closed his eyes. “You might be surprised.”

---

---

“You should stay for Midsummer,” Fern murmured from his waist.

“Oh fuck,” Boromir gasped, gazing down at her. “Oh fuck.”

---

---

To Éomer Éadig, son of Éomund, King of Rohan and Lord of the Mark, from Boromir, son of Denethor, Captain-General of Gondor and High Warden of the White Tower, Greetings:

I trust this missive finds you well. On my departure from Edoras in the spring, you bid me inform you when I began my return journey so you might look for my coming. I write to you now on the sixth of August.  I have spent two months in the Shire, and though my heart grieves to leave this bountiful land and its good folk, I shall be departing south tomorrow morning. You will be glad to hear our friends are all in fine health and spirits, and they send you their greetings, which I shall deliver in full upon my return to your esteemed city. With fair fortune, I estimate I shall be under your roof again within the second week of September. I shall send you a more accurate arrival from the Tharbad outpost.

With best regards to you and dear Lothiriel,

Your servant,

Boromir

---

---

“I’ll convince you one way or another,” Fern said a little while later, her voice warm and breathy. “It’s a great deal of fun, Midsummer. I think you’d like it. What do you say?”

Boromir didn’t answer. She looked down, and he looked back up at her from under hooded eyes. She smiled and brushed a strand of hair off his forehead.

“I’ll ask again when your mouth is free,” she said.

---

---

Dear Faramir,

I shan’t bother posting this letter until I reach Edoras, but you asked that I write from the Shire with an account of the wedding and my travels north. I recognize I have neglected this duty, not out of lack of inspiration but rather out of distraction. I hope you’ll forgive me. I have spent much time in the company of our old friends but have also been kindly embraced by others of their kin. They have shown me great hospitality, as well as encouraged me to sample the delights of their country. I admit I have not been drawn into such merriment since the days surrounding the coronation, so much so that I ended up staying far longer than I meant to. I had the benefit of experiencing a Midsummer in Tuckborough, which I feel I am still recovering from, and witnessed the Overhill kite festival (it turns out I have an unexpected knack for kiting). I spent a great deal of time swimming, not least because I am still a wretched boater, though I do claim that Brandywine watercrafts were not built to accommodate someone of my stature. I was able to assist with the digging of new domestic holes in the Greenhill country, which I found to be a fascinating process, and I helped a new acquaintance replant her summer garden, which taught me a great deal about   She’s   To my surprise,  about plantlore. Most notably, I also had the privilege of being on hand to celebrate the birth of Samwise and Rosie Gamgee’s fourth child, a boy they’ve named Merry, much to Pippin’s chagrin.

I shall spare the details of my reconnaissance of the northern marches until we’re together again. Regrettably, I was only able to conduct a cursory survey of Annúminas and didn’t make it to Fornost at all. I make no excuses for my dereliction, except that my hosts in the Shire were extremely persuasive and terribly loth to see me leave, and I felt I could not insult their generosity with a hasty retreat. Perhaps this means I shall have to return to supplement my rash work, which I shall gladly do if my king commands it.

I hope the diplomatic visit from Harad went well. I look forward to hearing about the restoration of the South Gondor road, though I look forward even more to seeing you on my return, for I have missed you greatly. Samwise, Merry, and Pippin send their greetings and the love of their families. I have been asked by Pippin to pass on his thanks for your generous gifts to him and his new wife Diamond, and by Merry to remind you that you still owe him six crowns from cards.

Give Éowyn my greetings and Elboron my love.

Your devoted brother,

Boromir

---

---

“Yes, yes,” he groaned, his body tight as a strung bow. “Yes…”

Fern lifted her head, eyes alight. “You’ll stay?”

“Yes, I’ll stay, I’ll stay as long as you like.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

“Please,” he choked.

She bit her lip in flushed happiness and resumed her patient work, kindly now, and he broke apart in agonized glory.

---

---

To his Majesty Elessar Telcontar, Aragorn II son of Arathorn II, High King of Gondor, Lord of the White Tree:

You weren’t FUCKING kidding.

-B

---

---

When Faramir received word that his brother had returned to Minas Tirith in the last week of September, he packed up Elboron, kissed Éowyn goodbye, and made the short journey from Ithilien to welcome him home. If Boromir seemed particularly effusive when greeting them the afternoon they arrived, Faramir put it down to his brother’s fondness for his nephew and the extra inch or so Bo had grown during his uncle’s absence. Boromir doted outrageously on Elboron, always bringing him gifts, and this reunion was no different. But if Faramir noted that instead of a Rohirric cavalry toy or wooden blade, Boromir flourished a Shire-made kite shaped like a red bird, he attributed it to the novelty of a trinket from a far-off land.

“I shall teach you how to fly it,” Boromir said enthusiastically, showing Bo the way the bird’s tail was crafted to flutter out behind it. “I am quite good, actually. And it flies well—I tried it out for you on the long ride back home.”

If Faramir noticed, too, while reclining in his brother’s sitting room as he unpacked the last of his kit, that he spoke with unusual verbosity about Pippin’s wedding—the merriment of it all, the flowers and lace the lasses wore, the mead and strawberries, the games and dancing—then he put it down to the fact that his brother had spent most of their lives in a constant state of militant vigilance, with barely a pause or anything close to a holiday. If he noticed, while Boromir shook the wrinkles from his dress blacks, that one of the uniform sleeves was missing its star-embroidered hem, he figured it had frayed off on the journey.

He did puzzle over the small, dried posy bound up in a lace ribbon that Boromir handled with unusual care. It was an anomaly in his brother’s stern, stark rooms, though he realized the little bud vase containing the ancient dried rockroses had moved from high up on the dusty bookshelves to his desktop. He couldn’t tell what the flowers in the posy were—bluets, perhaps, or forget-me-nots, and some curled greenery that could be ferns. Boromir didn’t comment on it, and Faramir simply assumed it was a memento from the wedding, and he smiled inwardly at the thought that his brother was finally—after four and a half decades of a captain-general’s asceticism—nurturing a few seeds of sentimentality.

The sight of fresh flowers in his brother’s room was highly unusual, though. He couldn’t recall the last time Boromir had requested any kind of adornment, not even in the infrequent stretches when he was occupying his apartment in the White Tower full time and not out in the field camps around Osgiliath. The rooms were handsome but dark, the bedclothes plush but slate gray and white, the paintings fine but impersonal, the furniture rich but hard-edged. And yet, in the window overlooking the courtyard of the White Tree and the Pelennor plain stood a glass pitcher spilling with autumn flowers.

“And just what are those?” Faramir asked, gesturing with his boot to the window as Elboron scrambled over the couch, giggling as Boromir playfully stalked him. Did Boromir have a paramour in the city who was welcoming him home? Had Queen Arwen gone out of her way to make the Captain’s stark rooms pleasant for his return? Was a gardener in the city offering a gift of their labor?

Boromir snatched Bo up and flipped him upside down to shrieks of delight.

“Dahlias,” he said—exclaimed, really, in an enthusiastic way—through Bo’s kicking legs. “I spotted them in a vendor’s cart on the fourth tier as I rode up. They’re red,” he added, unnecessarily, as Faramir could see their color for himself, though he didn’t know why his brother might sound disappointed about it. “Still. I hadn’t realized they were grown here. The city’s gardens are flourishing, are they not?”

“I suppose they are,” Faramir said, wondering if his brother had taken a fall and knocked his head sometime on the return journey.

“All that ash,” Boromir added cryptically.

“Again!” Bo squealed, wriggling out of his uncle’s grasp. Faramir stared as Boromir crouched back down behind the couch to start the hunt again, and he marveled that his brother seemed to finally be letting his city embrace him, instead of fighting tooth and nail for its survival.

But the thing he couldn’t explain away came near the autumn equinox, when he and Éowyn and Elboron were back in the city for the harvest parades. They were at the midday meal together when a courier arrived, bearing a travel-stained letter on a tray. Faramir didn’t recognize the handwriting on the front—it wasn’t Éomer’s or Lothiriel’s, and the vellum wasn’t sealed with the green wax of the Greenwood or the red stamp of Erebor of any of their various acquaintances abroad. And yet, he watched in consternation as his brother’s face ignited at the sight of the letter. His cheeks went rosy and round, and he split into a delighted smile that crinkled his eyes. He plucked the letter up, thanked the courier, and pushed back from the table.

“Beg everyone’s pardon,” he said, with an amusing attempt to look remorseful and stoic, which was undermined by the fact that he couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “I must attend to this correspondence.”

“Who’s it from?” Faramir asked. “I don’t see a seal.”

“No?” Boromir turned the letter, which was small but thick. “Perhaps it fell off. It’s a long journey.”

“From where?”

“From wherever it came from.” He bowed to the table even as he backed toward the door. “My king. My queen. I shall join you in the courtyard before the procession.”

He couldn’t leave the room fast enough, hitting the doorframe in his haste to get out into the hall. Faramir stared after him, and then looked at Éowyn. “Did you recognize the handwriting?”

She shrugged, wiping jam off Elboron’s face. “No. Why?”

Faramir looked at Queen Arwen, who was nursing Idril. She smiled but said nothing.

“Is he exchanging letters with someone?” he asked.

“I’m sure he exchanges letters with many people,” the queen said pleasantly.

Faramir looked at Aragorn and was surprised to find the king leaning back on two legs of his chair, gazing pointedly at the ceiling.

“You know something,” Faramir accused.

Aragorn’s eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t meet his gaze. “Indeed, I do not.”

“You suspect something, then.”

There was a thump as the king’s chair landed back on the floor. “I suspect our Captain had a pleasant journey, and I suspect I need better information on Evendim and Fornost than the scant report he brought back. The rivers should be passable by May.” He seemed to say this last comment to himself.

“And why should the Captain-General of Gondor be sent north again so soon after his return, when we have two dozen generals kicking their heels since the war?” Faramir asked.

“Because I am deplorably sentimental,” Aragorn replied.

Faramir ground his teeth at his king’s opacity, and Éowyn put her hand on his arm. “Boromir has received a single unknown letter. Why does it bother you so?”

“Because I’ve lived with that ridiculous man for forty years, watched potential suitors bounce off him like pea gravel on plate, and never once have I seen him react to a correspondence like he just did.” He waved to the door. “Did you not see him? He lit up like the Tower beacon! Who’s he writing to?”

“I know!” Elboron exclaimed, bouncing. “I know who it is! He told me!”

Faramir stared at his son. “He told you who he’s writing letters to?”

“Remember that time when I was little?” Elboron asked, wriggling in his seat. “And you brought me to see him when he came home from his trip?”

“That time three weeks ago?” Faramir asked.

Bo nodded and kicked his feet, making his juice cup wobble. “And I wanted to play horses and you were sleeping and told me to go find Uncle Boromir instead, and I did and he was writing a letter? And I asked if I could draw a horse on the letter, and he said yes? And I said who is it for, is it for someone who likes horses?”

“And?” Faramir prompted, but Bo chose that moment to stuff an entire jam scone in his mouth. The whole table watched and waited while he chewed, his round cheeks going red with the effort. Crumbs trickled over his embroidered shirt.

“Smaller bites next time, Elboron,” Éowyn said. “Drink some juice.”

Bo grabbed his cup and gulped a mouthful of apple juice. Faramir bit his tongue until his son had swallowed everything down and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“So?” he finally asked. “Who did Uncle Boromir say the letter was for?”

“He said it was for a deer friend,” Bo said. “And I said like a deer friend with antlers on its head and he laughed and said no like with flowers on its head, and I said can I draw a flower and he said yes, that would be nice. So I drew a big flower, really big.” He stretched his little arms up. “Like if a tree was a flower. I covered up some of the words, but he said it was okay, that the words weren’t very good and the flower was better.”

“A dear friend…” Faramir shook his head in bewilderment. “But who was it?”

“A deer friend with flowers on its head!” Bo repeated. “So I drew a flower!”

He smashed another jam scone into his mouth, beaming. Faramir looked with exasperation to Éowyn, who smiled, then to Arwen, who was humming to the baby, and finally to Aragorn, who was smirking at the ceiling again, while upstairs, under a dried posy of forget-me-nots and ferns, Boromir read his letter and laughed.

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Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed!

Ohhh, this could be so fun. Bilbo wouldn't mind being called "he" bc, gender euphoria duh. Thorin would be called "he" by the company, because it's dangerous for dwarven women to travel. Awkward realisations ensue. Then they kiss about it.

mat, did you just draw bilbo as different famous paintings of women in hats? yes, that I did

Frodo doesn't know what's good. More for me, I guess!

“I think a servant of the enemy would look fairer and feel fouler”

Friendly reminder that Frodo called Aragorn ugly ☝🏻

these two are such couple goals. beautiful work!!

“Then Aragorn was abashed, for he saw the elven-light in her eyes and the wisdom of many days; yet from that hour he loved Arwen Undomi daughter of Elrond.”

I saw all the valentine day posts and it made me want to draw my fave couple 🤍

Also if you were curious the elvish means “I love you”.