The Strength and Truth of Men by Raiyana

The King....?

“He is the King.” Boromir paused his pacing across the flagstones of his father’s study, looking at Imrahil. “He is the King.”

“By blood, perhaps.” 

“By claim and deed, Uncle!” He made an impatient gesture, vaguely in the direction of the Halls of Healing. “The hands of the King – you know it as well as I do!”

“Are you so quick to surrender your birthright?” Imrahil challenged. “Do you know he will be a good King? I know him not – an able commander with a false name,” Imrahil exclaims, even as it sits oddly on the tongue to consider Thorongil their lost-lost King, “and a Ranger of the North now with a frightening legend spreading before him.”

“He… I–”

“The man called upon the dead, Boromir – are you not frightened?” Imrahil shivered. “Because I am. I saw it, you know, in my dreams, and the tales I have heard since have not settled my heart. How could any man hope to stand against such power if it turned on us?”

“Aragorn would not, Uncle. I…” Boromir sighed, moving to the single window and pushing aside the shutters.

“How do you know?” Imrahil asks, his voice soft as it ever was when Boromir was a child and asked him to explain something in his books – an entreaty often met by thoughtful questions rather than straightforward answers. “The Line of Kings was ended,” he sighed. “Should we let it be reborn in a warlord with little to tie him to our people, our lands?” 

“Has he not history with us?” Boromir asked. He looked out across the White City, seeing her battered and bruised, touched by the darkness that he has always known looming on the horizon. “You do not deny he was of us, in disguise perhaps, but is that not a better way to learn our country – my own grandfather raised him to a general, surely he saw some merit in the man that would not diminish with mere time.”

“You have travelled with him, Boromir.” Imrahil said. “Tell me he will not turn on us, destroy what his ancestors and ours built.” Aragorn had been as gracious as he might have hoped for, if not as friendly as might have been desired, and yet… Imrahil was wary.

“He will not,” Boromir promised. “He is… Uncle, I believe him to be a good man.”

“But you are not his friend, as the Elf is, or the Dwarf – your brother’s affection I ascribe to his healing,” Imrahil listed. “And so you must understand my caution, Boromir, as one among those who would owe him loyalty. He has made friends of Elves and Wizards and other strange folk, yet not of you, chief among the sons of Gondor.” 

“Because I did not let him – or myself!” Boromir exclaimed. If the Ring had not… perhaps they could have been true friends in time. In his breast, Boromir’s heart was disquiet, grief tearing at the softness of him, wanting a vengeance he could not truly claim. The Ring had gone with Frodo, as it was destined – the thought shaped a wry smile of his mouth – to do, and he had come home to his White City on the eve of war, carrying aid – if not in the shape he had expected. 

A King returned, a Steward perished to despair and flames, and Faramir… How easily he, too, could have been lost. 

And now Boromir must stand, must be the bulwark he was ever famed as, even as his footing is shaky with grief, his foundation crumbled and burnt away by the pyre.

Leaning on the stone sill, he looked out across the stone roofs, shattered tiles catching his eyes here and there; Minas Tirith wounded yet not defeated. 

Because of Aragorn. 

“I was angry,” he admitted quietly. “Angry and suspicious – it was ever my birthright to rule, Uncle, as you said yourself.” He chuckled. “And there I was, sent on a dreamchase when I wanted only to be home, and there he was, this man who would claim all that I wanted for his own simply for being born.” 

He swallowed hard, remembering that long-ago meeting. Always, there was a touch of legend on the quest he undertook, something out of the tales of old, and yet Boromir had believed that it might be a different sort of story he had found himself in when he accepted the quest of his brother’s dark visions. 

He had never believed that the light of Faramir’s dreams might be a new King of Gondor. 

“And he refused to put the people he would claim to rule before anyone else,” he added, “and I did not understand him. How could he think of them,” he said, gesturing towards the city, its people moving about their day, “and count them as naught of his own to care for or tend, yet still expect to be handed Kingship if he but asked.” He turned back to Imrahil, accepting a goblet of chilled wine with a nod. “I am uneasy,” he decides, “handing all power to a stranger – but we could not now stand against Aragorn, either, if that was my desire.” 

“A stranger, still?” Imrahil asked carefully. His eyes saw as clearly as Denethor’s ever did, even though they echoed the gaze of Finduilas as they bored into Boromir’s soul, snatching at the truth of his heart to bring it into the light. Imrahil and his favourite sister both had the talent of seeing to the heart of the matter, and Boromir swallowed a sudden longing for the gentle voice of his mother. Finduilas would have known what he should do, 

“Not wholly,” Boromir admitted. “I know his mettle in battle; his ability to inspire devotion in those he commands is unquestionable.” He even admired Aragorn’s character to a point, and yet Boromir could not help but wish he could put it off – wishing Denethor could have made this choice for him, could have seen through all pretence and avarice as he ever did before. 

“Thorongil had that skill,” Imrahil nodded, leaning against the wall next to the window; the stern dignity of the Prince softened by the appearance of Uncle Imrahil in his posture. “Men wanted to follow him,” he added, pausing slightly, those eyes piercing Boromir’s soul again, “just as they want to follow you.” He smiled, revealing a sudden similarity with Amrothos; the charm the youngest prince of Dol Amroth wielded recklessly clearly not all due to his mother.

“As we journeyed, I saw him clearer – and the merit my grandfather saw still shines in him, tempered, perhaps, by wisdom and age, but no less bright.” Boromir sipped thoughtfully. “Perhaps we may one day be called friends. I… I would follow him, as my commander – should I not then follow him as my King?”

“All the way to the Black Gates, then?” Imrahil asked, raising his own goblet in a toast. 

“And beyond,” Boromir replied, choosing to believe in the name Aragorn had first given him. 

Estel.