Prey
Boromir knew this from the moment their eyes first met, and he knows that
the division causes Aragorn pain.
Raised by Elves: this, too, Boromir knows, for he has heard the Firstborn
speak of the pledge between the Heir of Isildur and the daughter of Elrond;
he has seen the Man with Elrond's sons, talking like equals in the tongue of
the Sindar, sharing laughter and closeness like kin, like brothers.
That is the part that belongs to the elven blood in Aragorn: the soft light
of the elven halls, the glory and beauty of the starlit glades, the
graceful, ageless singing of the slender streams while they fall over rock
and stone.
That is where the Elf in Aragorn belongs.
Then there is the part that is locked inside his Man's blood. The part that
smiles gladly at Boromir in the cool, beautiful halls; that asks for tales
and companionship, and delights in sword practice in the sunlit morn; in
riding hard upon the mountain slopes when the Sun rides high in the sky; in
reminiscing, when the first stars appear and Eärendil sets his sail to the
West.
That part... It is too painful to think of where Aragorn the Man should
dwell, if at long last called by destiny and legacy. Yet Boromir knows this,
too, and cannot ever forget: for it is in the city of Men, in Boromir's
home, that the King of Men should abide.
That part belongs to Boromir's people.
And then.
Then there is Aragorn's last part. The part that looks out at Boromir
through pale shadows in the woods outside Imladris, in that dark blue moment
when twilight wanes and night sets in. The feral gleam of a wild thing,
hunting in the night, uncaring for songs and poems and companionship and
beauty.
The part that calls blood with blood—and the freedom of blood is all it
knows of song.
It is the part that has no words, no songs, no pain when thought of, for no
thought belongs to it. That is the uncomplicated part of Aragorn's heart, of
Aragorn's being. That is the most dangerous, also—for in it, Elf and Man
mingle, and fade away, leaving only flesh and blood and primal hunger,
undivided.
That part—night after night, after the setting of the Sun—seeks to
soothe the unrest of the spirit in the only way it knows. It seeks out the
hidden paths of the forest, the darkest corners of night where light of Sun
or star or Moon had never entered, to stalk and prowl and hunt its prey. It
talks in growls and breaths and teeth and hardened flesh.
It draws blood from the flesh and rapt brilliance—like no star ever
could—from the spirit; it stirs want and hunger heavy in the centre of
Aragorn's being, it takes and gives and eats away at the...
At the pain that is the rest of it.
Boromir knows; and he sees shared knowledge burn in the grey-blue look of
bruised eyes when they close at last, sated, to rest upon his breast, in the
forest that is no Man's, nor Elf's abode.
That part of Aragorn Boromir knows well, better than any other—for it is
part of him as well.
For it always was, and always had hungered, until one night his eyes had
fallen upon the Man in the house of the Elves.
Boromir is the prey.
Boromir knows, and Aragorn knows; they know, at night, in the slow, strong
beating of their hearts, a mated rhythm, unchanged since Arda was created,
when Elf and Man and Beast were still no more than hidden notes in the
melody of the Song.
This is the only part of Aragorn that always was free; the part that never
hurt, for it never knew words nor songs to express its pain. It never knew
joy. Blood and freedom, that was all it ever was.
Now this part is free no longer, and the pain of it—the joy of it—makes Aragorn's blood sing: Boromir can feel it pulse through his own veins.
Predator and prey, the primal joining.
Belonging.
Boromir's blood sings in Aragorn, and its song is whole.
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by
Cinzia
ragorn's being is divided.
