Boromir was never ill – maybe mortally wounded or dreadfully maimed by wild beasts, but nothing that his King’s healing hands and some herbal tea couldn’t fix. This was much worse.
He was shivery, with a head that felt as though it was filled with porridge, a sore throat and his whole body ached. Everything tasted horrible and he was sure he could feel gunge sliding down his poor abused throat to pool in his stomach, from whence it erupted at inconvenient moments. Aragorn felt worse.
His nose ran continually, as did his nether regions. He sat at the council table looking so miserable that Arwen had finally popped another wintergreen lozenge into her mouth and intervened, sending him off to bed before he infected anyone else, but not before she’d relayed the grave news from Ithilien that the Prince Faramir was struck down by a most virulent ague. He was prostrate.
He was also deaf. The yellow glue that seemed to fill his thumping head was blocking his ears – and his teeth ached. Eowyn blew her nose briskly, before tapping him gently on the knee to attract his attention. They were in the stable yard, with Faramir so bundled up in padded jerkins and a heavy grey cloak that he and his horse looked, said Legolas brightly, like an oliphant.
A messenger had arrived from the Houses of Healing to say that King and Steward would be traveling to Elessar’s hunting lodge for specialist treatment and advising the Prince to join them. Faramir smiled bravely down at her and followed his escort at a gentle pace out under the arch and Eowyn waved and sneezed.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Boromir knew he was awake. He could hear birdsong. There might even be light beyond his eyelids that it would no longer hurt his eyes to look upon, but he was loath to break the spell. The warm cocoon enfolding him was soft against his skin and as he drifted between sleep and waking, he tried to remember.
He and Aragorn had arrived at the lodge to find the household at the beck and call of the sisters. When asked later, how the two women had appeared, Boromir could not say, except that they were fair of tongue and merry and seemed to him to know what lay beneath his skin, just by looking at him. Their dress somehow changed colour in his memory, but their jewels were rare, woven through shining hair.
The young physician sent with them, had been torn between awe at the sisters’ confident handling of them and the uneasy suspicion of a man who had never been further than the borders of Gondor, and had certainly never encountered the inhabitants of the Golden Wood at the height of their powers. His suspicions increased when he was eventually politely, but firmly, excluded from the sickroom
By the time that the Prince Faramir’s party had arrived, their master shivering even beneath his great cloak, the long chamber had been turned into a furnace of blazing fires and braziers of hot coals on which herbs were burnt and cold water was thrown to produce clouds of steam.
They had been stripped to their linen to sit breathing in the fog, the women flitting around them, pressing cups of a heady, spiced brew into their hands. By the time that Boromir realized that he could smell the myrtle burnt in the grate, his head was beginning to swim.
The women’s voices came to him through a haze. They would write a prescription to keep them fit and active through the long winter nights, for more than their own well-being depended on it, their followers must be sustained too…so the ‘scrip’ would send them away renewed.
He knew that the damp linen had been peeling from his body. He remembered a whispering across his skin; a feather’s touch everywhere…and then the dark.
Now he lay on the floor, wrapped in softest lambswool coverings and into his ears poured a gentle breathing. Aragorn and Faramir lay with him and Boromir opened his eyes, to gaze on the ceiling and listen quietly as their sighs and yawns announced their waking.
He would stretch out a hand to touch his King, but as his fingers came into view, he gasped and froze. A scarlet vine ran over his palm, tendrils twining about his long fingers. Boromir brushed the tips together and realized that the design had been painted on to his skin, but not only a design.
Beside him, low murmurs and exclamations greeted the morning. Lazily he turned his head and Aragorn’s eyes burned blue like flame before him. He lifted his painted hand to brush a lock of hair from Aragorn’s eyes, but before he could reach out, Aragorn had murmured “Kiss” and leant in to press his lips to the soft inside of Boromir’s wrist.
Boromir smiled back at his love, who repeated “Kiss” and turned Boromir’s hand back towards him to show him an elvish symbol inked on his wrist. He was opening his mouth to ask, when at his shoulder hot breath and Faramir’s low murmured “Lick” was all the warning he got for the broad tongue that swept along his collarbone.
Aragorn was peeling back the coverings over him, to half-choke with laughter when he saw the patterns sweeping across Boromir’s skin. But his Steward’s was not the only decoration and the men now threw off their blankets to find their bodies covered in delicate traceries of red foliage, that led to symbols, to numbers even.
Whilst Boromir’s scholarship might not be to the standard of his brother, he was a quick study, coming to recognize those places where the elvish ink exhorted him to nip, or to lave, or to suckle. They began by trying to follow the instructions to the letter, but were soon carried away on a tide of rising excitement.
From their vantage point at an open window, the sisters exchanged satisfied smiles and as they turned away, involuntary shivers, when a gasp and a whimper behind them reached their ears. “They must have turned Boromir over,” said one, “perhaps we should stay to make sure they’re quite recovered?”
“Oh, they’ll manage now,” said the other, “and we can always write them another scrip if the need arises.”
“Agreed, sister,” said the first.
“Agreed,” the other replied.
Summary: Manflu hits Gondor
Rated: PG-13
Categories: LOTR FPS Pairing: Aragorn/Boromir/Faramir
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 1078 Read: 640
Published: 29 Jul 2009 Updated: 29 Jul 2009
Story Notes:
DISCLAIMER: "These characters originate with their copyright holders. I borrow them for entertainment, not profit."