for reignfall

[wouldhavefollowed]

If he is honest with himself, the visiting dignitaries are a frustration. They are not of Gondor and they do not know Gondor's customs, and, more importantly, they are a distraction from the more important work that must be done - and Boromir mislikes Lord Tywin almost at once, sees in him a man who is too arrogant to give due deference to the Steward of the City and his sons, and altogether too keen to barter away his daughter for gain.

And that would be enough to settle the matter. He is the heir to the city, and he will not be compelled to barter his own future against his will, and it would be easy enough to wait out the few weeks of their stay and then send them home again. Graceless, perhaps, but Boromir is a proud man, and he will not sacrifice pride for grace. His father, largely disinterested in such petty politics, has left the matter in Boromir's hands and withdrawn for the most back to his high tower as he so often does. Boromir, then, has both right and power to send Tywin Lannister and his daughter hence, see them safe from Gondor's shores, and think no more about it.

He might have done so by now, if it were not for his brother.

Not that Faramir has asked any such thing of him, of course. That is not the point. Faramir rarely asks; it is not how their relationship is built, nor, Boromir sometimes thinks, how his brother himself is built. No, it is, as it has always been, Boromir's duty as the elder to see what is needed, and Boromir's duty to see it done.

A duty that has always been stymied, when it comes to Faramir's loneliness. He knows that his brother would deny loneliness, if pressed, would swear (and believe) that his family and his people are enough - but he is not fooled. His brother is an extraordinary man, of stern morality and quiet wisdom, and his is a poet's soul - but to Boromir, a more earthly man by his own account, it has always seemed that to be so aloof is to be alone. Boromir himself, while unmarried, finds companionship readily enough: among his men, among the people of the city, among women when the need drives. But Faramir... Faramir has always held himself apart. It is the concern which Boromir, for all his wish to protect and comfort his little brother, has least been able to address. He cannot order Faramir to happiness - and he has, on occasion, tried.

But he is not blind to the nature of the looks the Lannister girl has cast across the dining table, when she thinks she is unperceived. Faramir is blind to them, he knows perfectly well - Faramir is always blind to such lingering looks, most of all when they are turned upon him - but not Boromir, who may not share his brother's wisdom in lore and learning, but who far surpasses him in simpler matters. Cersei is hardly the first person to show an interest in Faramir, but she is comely and noble, and she has come here meaning to make a match, and if there is any woman who Faramir might be obliged to open himself to...

The complication, of course, is obvious. Whether they dance around it or say it plainly, it is not Faramir her father means to marry her to. In itself, that is not a wholly awful proposition - she is, Boromir would say, a great deal too young for him, but she is beautiful, and she is mannered enough, and there is a stubbornness and fire in her green eyes that he can respect, and it is not as though he has another woman to hold his heart. And Boromir is the heir to the noblest line that remains in Gondor, and - he knows perfectly well - he is handsome, too, and valiant in battle, and not at all a bitter prospect; and he is the elder, and it would be his right and perhaps even his duty to take a wife first. To claim, as he has always claimed, the first portion of both joy and duty.

But he does not want to. Not in this. And that is awkward, and all the more awkward now, when he and his prospective bride are left alone for the first time.

He rather misses the simplicity of the battlefield. He will be Lord of the City one day (should the City stand long enough, should he live long enough) and he is not afraid of politics, but he does not like it, and least of all when it must be brought against a woman fully one-and-twenty years his junior. To be kind, to be gentle, and to turn matters to his will - it is not easy to balance.

"I will show you the city, my lady," was his offer; but by that he largely means to take a turn around the gardens, and through the courtyard where the White Tree stands stark and dead, and to look out from the citadel's walls across the seven rings of the city from above. It is not the most private of places. Truthfully, that is part of why he has chosen this for their afternoon. He offers her his arm - a sturdy grip; he is a solidly-muscled man even without the added bulk of armour - and leads her out into the warm sun. "And tell me, while we walk: what think you of Gondor?"

Comments

[reignfall]

Their hands remain entwined, and she remains unwilling to change this. Same as him, or so it seems, when he rather takes his cup of wine in the other hand than let go of her own. She does the same thing, takes the cup with her left hand so that her right may remain in his. It is innocent enough, or so she tells herself.

Not that his flirtatious promise of an afternoon in the gardens doesn't immediately have her imagine all sorts of other activities they could get lost in between the bushes. He can whisper poetry to her all the while, it only seems fitting – and besides, it adds to the sweetness of the fantasy. Her eyes flick to his lips, but he rather moves on to ask a question she is, once more, unprepared for.

He ought to ask about her father's valuables, his skills and wartime expertise. He should regale her with tales of his own adventures and battles. What a woman does in her own spare time should, to him, be largely irrelevant. It makes no difference: once wed, he will give her children to occupy her time. What she does now is the waiting. Yet his interest seems genuine, and she has no neat, sorted answer to it. "When I was a child, I used to love to swim and to draw." But drawing is for children, and swimming – well, she still rather enjoys it, but no self-respecting man would hear this of the woman he is thinking of marrying.

She has temporarily forgotten that she should continue to aim for the elder brother.

"I am quite skilled at embroidery, and I was taught to sing, of course." Neither things that she loathes, but also fine occupations for a lady, suitably soft to draw in the attentions of a prince. "I spend my time with the other young ladies in King's Landing. We share our lessons, go hawking together –" that she does enjoy, in fact, she finds it utterly exciting, a day on horseback with a bird of prey. But she cannot go on too much about it, important here is for him to know that she is young enough still to partake in some lessons. Already, the circle of ladies in waiting includes girls far younger than her, and already, some of the younger ones are wed, most all of them betrothed. She is not the eldest, not yet, and Elia of Drone was older than her by several years when she was wed to Rhaegar.

Still. She is getting on in her years.

[nearamir]

It has, even as his fascination lingers, the opposite result of what she intends - although perhaps it is truer to say that it has exactly the result she wants, and the opposite effect. He is sharply reminded of her youth. It makes him, more than anything else, uncomfortable; he takes a long draught of wine, and clears his throat, and his gaze lights once again on their joined hands, this time with less wonder and with something more like shame.

She is, after all, so very young; and innocence is one thing, that innocence and beauty that feels so antithetical to the ugliness of the war, but childhood is another. He has no desire to defile a child, even in a momentary thought, and no desire, either, to draw her into some false understanding. She is a child, he thinks, despairing: a child playing at being a woman, as we were once children who played at being soldiers. And his hand loosens in hers, and falls away, even as he smiles as though to lessen the blow.

"When we were younger and more carefree, Boromir and I took some delight in hawking, too." When there was time for such idle pursuits, when their duty was to train for leadership and not to lead themselves. It feels a very long time ago, and, as though summoned by his very doubt, the thought comes to him: But we were soldiers long before we were her age. When you were seventeen, how many lives hung on your command? Were you a child then?

It is difficult to know what to do with it, with that doubt. He clears his throat again, and empties his glass. "I always thought it was beautiful. He despaired of me, said that I barely seemed to care if I caught anything - and he was right, for the real joy of it was in seeing the hawk take flight, and lunge free into the air, clean and sharp and fair. They know no doubt, and no fear; they only know their purpose. But it has been too many years since I set loose any bird but a messenger pigeon."

[reignfall]

He withdraws his hand, and she looks immediately put out. She has known from the start that it wouldn't last, of course, he is far too concerned with matters of honour and duty to make something so bold a fixture of their evening when his brother might yet return to catch them. Immediately, her eyes dart to the door: perhaps he has heard something outside to indicate they might no longer be alone? There are other ways he could go about this, she thinks.

He could, for instance, take her by the hand and guide her through some secret back door into an all that much more secret backroom, where they are utterly undisturbed for the night. Surely a castle as old as this isn't lacking in secrets of that nature.

Before she can plot her next move, however, and before she can make heads or tails of the clear discomfort in his look, he is speaking of hawking - and then of something truly bizarre. "I took the same pleasure in the hawks as I do in horses – impossible to spend an hour hawking or an hour on horseback without admiring the creature itself. But... forgive me, my lord, pigeons?"

She mostly knows them from her dining table. "Do you not send message by raven, here?"

[nearamir]

Now it is his turn to look at her as though she might be joking, even as he remembers that the messages from her father did, indeed, come by raven. He had thought it strange then, too.

"Pigeons," he says at last, a small frown still creasing his brow, "fly farther, I believe, and take less feeding; and as they are not so cunning as a raven, are easier to train. And they home without training at all, so that a pigeon raised in these walls will fly true back here as soon as it is loosed. Though I imagine they are more vulnerable to the perils of the journey - to hawks, indeed - and I know that other peoples use other birds. It is said, for instance, that the Dwarves of old used to send word by sparrow, and speak their language."

How, he wonders dimly, have they suddenly found themselves on the matter of pigeons? It does not seem in keeping with the tone of the evening so far, nor with the loaded words Boromir gave him earlier in the day.

In a way, it feels safer for it.

[reignfall]

Doubt does not merely cross her features – how would a measly little pigeon outfly a raven? She cannot speak to either's feeding. though she knows a raven will, in exchange for scrap pieces of bacon, fly between two windows of the same castle for hours if needed. She looks to be on the verge of saying as much, when he brings up something entirely worse in the conversation.

Dwarves.

Dwarves, plural.

She gives a laugh, because clearly, he does not truly mean it. It is a jest, the linking of short men and tiny birds, and he does not actually hide a cavern full of men like her youngest brother somewhere in his keep. "Well," she says, trying to move away from that strange jest he'd made, "I suppose it will be the very bird which delivers my words to you that shall give me away."

[nearamir]

There is something searching in the look he gives her: a recognition, perhaps, that something has passed between them that he does not see or understand. He is, for all else, a shrewd man when it comes to reading expression: shrewd enough to have seen that there was not one moment of doubt and disbelief, but two. Why? What has he said, to spur such hesitation before her laugh?

He shakes his head, not in negation but to clear the thought, and smiles. "Do you intend to send on so many words, my lady, when you are gone?"

Which is a mild flirtation, by many standards; and yet, it is more flirtation than he is used to giving.

[reignfall]

No more dwarf talk, and for this she is most grateful – all the more when he does seem happy to return to more flirtatious waters. A few birds exchanged have oft lead to sin, she would think, and if he is as much a poet as Boromir claims, then she would do well to imagine his dove, his pigeon, or even a raven of her own to carry her some stimulating lines of poetry through her window.

How she got from sinning to poetry, she does not know, and she won't dwell on it now. She is hungry and practical, not uselessly given to sentiments and romance like some of her lessers.

"I should think so. I take great pleasure in your company, I have found, and a raven might find you even when you have gone to do your duties."

[nearamir]

She takes pleasure in his company. This, of itself, holds more wonder than it should, for it certainly should not come as a surprise: yet to hear it set forth so plainly, from her own tongue, is still strange; to hear in her tone that is no mere politeness, all the more so. She is not the first to take pleasure in his company, but she is the first for whom it feels a priority that she should continue to do so.

He smiles, then, over his cup, and shakes his head a little in that strange wonderment. "I would be glad of such a letter," he admits, honestly enough. "It is a thing difficult to explain, how among men of great nobility and heart, a man may still find himself alone. But there have been many times when words from gentler company would have been a great salve to me."

[reignfall]

Does he not have dozens of women clamouring for his attention? Granted, Gondor has not been so thoroughly obsessed with courtship as Westeros, as though the nobles here take their sweet time in determining matches. As if it is not a pressing matter, something that needs settling, preferably before both parties have surpassed their twentieth nameday.

"There are things that cannot be found on a battlefield, nor in the camaraderie between soldiers." But, her tone suggests, they could certainly be found with her. "Just as there are things that I could not find among the ladies at court."

And perhaps it is the wine, or the fact that he has not returned to touching her yet, that sees her pushing further. "I should have liked very much to be a comfort to you."

[nearamir]

He would be lying if he pretended, even in his own mind, that he did not see the look in her eye, or hear the suggestion in her tone. He can convince himself, at best, that it is not intentional: that perhaps she does not mean to put the thought in his head of a warm and comforting body beside his on the cold nights, that the embrace she implies could be a sisterly one, her comfort one of words only. He can convince himself of that, but barely, and it does not exorcise the image itself; it does not prevent him from picturing, all too vividly, the press of her body against his, her hands carding through his hair, her emerald eyes holding his and reminding him, always, always, that he is not alone.

Faramir clears his throat sharply, and it is as well that his olive skin is touched by the sun, for it means he can hold some hope that his blush is not too apparent. He shifts where he sits, uncrossing and crossing his legs, and smooths his tunic over his front, suddenly far less able to meet her eyes. It does not seem right, to harbour such thoughts - even, and perhaps especially, if she harbours them too. It seems to dishonour her, to make of her an object of base desire, and surely that cannot be right or noble to do? Still...

Still.

He drains his cup, his eyes closing for a moment as though in pain, and then exhales slowly, and returns his gaze to her; and he cannot help it if that gaze is a trifle darker than it was, or a trifle less steady. "It is kind of you," he says, at last, "to think of my comfort, when we know one another still so little. And perhaps, when we know one another better..."

He seems to choke a little on his own words, as though their implication has caught up with him as he says them. Or perhaps it is only the dregs of his wine he is choking on. Either way, he coughs, and picks up where he trailed off: "I should like to share more words with you." And the slight emphasis on words is, admittedly, more for his own sake than for hers.

[reignfall]

Were she naive, or perhaps at least merely untouched, the sudden change in his position could pass for any other kind of discomfort, the lack of eye contact a sign of nervousness on his part. As it stands, she is rather convinced that is far from the truth. It seems rather that she has at last succeeded in what she had been aiming for since the start: she has finally found just the right words, conjured - or helped him conjure – just the right image to make his trousers feel too tight for comfort.

So when he slips just a little further than he has planned, and suggests that once they know one another better, then he might invite her to his bedroom or his war tent or the gods only knows where (she is hardly picky), she offers him a bright, even encouraging smile.

But he chokes, and she inclines her head as though not to discourage him. "Would words be enough to comfort you on a cold night, when you know you must leave once more to do your duty in the morrow? For then it is words you shall have, to carry with you."

[nearamir]

His blush darkens. He can feel it, the blood rushing to his cheeks, and, alas! to other places where it is still less welcome. Now there is little chance of denying her intent, of overlooking that gleam in the green of her eyes, or how she looks at him.

Boromir! Must you strand me so, without recourse? He clears his throat again, and looks away, suddenly fascinated by the crackle of the flames.

"Words," he says, a little thickly, "are all that it is proper to ask, or to pass between a man and a maid. But I should carry them with joy, and close to my heart; and count myself fortunate enough, to have their company." Was it always so hot in here? "...Perhaps I should go and seek Lord Boromir, for he has been away a while, and I do not think my father has so much counsel as to keep him this long."

[reignfall]

For all her indecent talk, she does look a bit flushed, too - it could merely be their proximity to the fire, of course, or even the wine she has had. A far more likely cause is that she pictures him above her, holding that little lecture on what is or isn't proper while doing something that would most likely upset her septa deeply.

And then, instead of suggesting that she show him just what she meant to give him on his merry soldier's way, he instead means to go seek his brother.

She highly doubts he means to include him in any improper evening activities (though that is one thing she'll keep in mind for late night contemplations with her own hand).

"Would it not be improper to leave me by myself?"

[nearamir]

He is beginning to regret the wine. He is beginning to regret a great number of things, in fact, beginning with allowing Boromir to browbeat him into this in the first place. He had known from the beginning that this, or something like it, was his brother's intent: he is not a fool. Or perhaps he is more a fool, to have allowed it anyway, assuming that he had the will and the tact to navigate such a situation without damaging the young woman's reputation.

He is no longer so sure it is navigable. She is right: it is not proper to leave her alone, and it is not proper to stay, and he does not often demand apologies from his brother, but he may demand one for this. It is typical of Boromir, noble and brash and thoughtless, to dive full-force ahead with what he has determined to be best, without ever pausing to consider how it may damage her prospects. How it may damage her. She is young, still, and reckless too. He is, it seems, the only one who will hold to the consequences.

He sighs, resigned. "If you would have me stay, then I will stay. Come, let us speak of other things: of your home, perhaps, or your kin?"

[reignfall]

In the morrow, she, too, may begin to think once again about all the ways this could affect how she is viewed. Never mind that there is the other brother she is meant to marry. That Faramir might tell his brother word for word what she has said to him, and whether he took her up on the offer or not, Boromir is like to view her as tainted, and most certainly not a proper woman to take for his wife.

But for now, she is eying him as though she pictures his tunic on her bedchamber's floor, right up until he swerves for a topic that does seem to sober her at once.

She has not, for most of the conversation, thought about her kin. Now her father is looming, and so is her brother. Cersei Lannister is no child of sorrow, she knows very well what sort of future can and cannot be, and she won't deny herself pleasure or a perhaps not entirely awful marriage to spare Jaime's feelings. Doesn't mean she enjoys looking at it that way. "I miss my brother," she says, then, a simple answer brought on by wine and the sudden onset of a horrible loneliness. "He is sworn to the king, and I will not see him again for a long time. He is a lot like Boromir, and he would admire you both for your sense of honour and duty."

In some ways, Jaime had liked the knights from the songs more than Cersei had, and in every conceivable way, they seem more real here in Gondor than anywhere in Westeros.

[nearamir]

It is a bitter victory, to turn the conversation from its dangerous path: bitter to see how her face falls, and the frank loneliness in her tone. Bitter to know that he is its cause, and that it might have been joyous for them both to speak more freely of things both more and less personal. Bitter to be faced, so bluntly, with the reality of the matter, which is that if he were to pursue some greater closeness with her, it would come at a grave cost to her heart. He knows well enough how hard it is to be parted from a sword-sworn brother, not knowing when or whether you will see one another again - yet his partings from Boromir have been counted in weeks or months at most, not the years that the sundering Sea demands.

It is bitter to think of the truth of her situation, chaff on the wind of the machinations of her father, his father, Boromir... of Faramir himself, perhaps. It is bitter, and yet, for all that, he is relieved; for bitterness, he knows and is familiar with, and he need not fear it in the same way he might fear lewder joy.

That relief is unkind, and so that is bitter, too.

Still, he nods, and his expression is one of genuine sympathy. "It is a hard thing," he says quietly, "to be parted. I do not understand why it should so readily be demanded."

There is no kind way to say what comes to mind, no way that does not seem an insult. But his mother's face drifts before his mind's eye, and he cannot help but say it. They say that she died facing the Sea, and Dol Amroth, and the brother she had left there; and Dol Amroth is not so far as Lannisport, nor is its Prince duty-bound away from the Citadel - quite the opposite, in fact. They say that his mother died for want of home. He cannot help but think how far it is to Cersei's home.

He meets her eyes, then, and while there is still a flush on his cheeks, while desire's remnants hang on him, it is not desire that his expression speaks of; it is something more sober and less lovely, and it does demand answer.

"Would you sooner go home," he says, his voice low and gentle, "and wed a man of Westeros, and not be parted from those sworn to Westeros' King?"

His tone speaks as much as his words: tries, as clearly as possible, to show that it is not a trap that he sets before her, that it is a genuine question, asked with genuine intent. He may not have the Steward's ear, but he has his brother's, and while he is often driven before the elder's formidable will, he is capable of standing his ground, when it is needed. If she says that it is needed...

[reignfall]

Would she sooner shed her finery and lose the taste of wine on her tongue? Even now she believes she could find her way through the Rock wholly blind, crawl into her childhood bed, and listen for her brother's footsteps amongst the roar of the waves. She aches for it presently, but at once dull and distant. Her own keep loves her as a tolerated guest, and much lions' blood need flow and then run dry before it would have her for its lady.

She meets his eye and takes a great deal of pride in that she does not weep. "I can never go home, and if it would please me to return, then I would not be warmly embraced for such failure." How different it must be for him, to seize at least some of this fate. If she has moments of regret for what she had Jaime vow, it is nowhere to be found here now. If they are one and the same, it is only just that she sealed his fate to a court he never loved the way she did, and that he is now rooted to, whether he likes it or not.

But there is more to his question, and most all of it takes her aback, of course. That he seems deeply and genuinely concerned with what manner of future would please her, for one, and that he looks keen to enforce it, should she be foolish enough to say too much of the wrong thing. "No Westerosi man has thought to ask what would best please me." She is not sure she likes the softness of her voice there, but if speaking frankly is what he wishes, then why should she deny such a simple request?

More so when she could pour more wine in his cup, and have him forget, hopefully, by the morrow. "I do not believe the key to my joy can be found in Westeros." There are no princes left to be wed, there is only a half-mad king to serve, and she only knows five out of Westeros' seven parts – plenty enough she knows about the rest to know that she is not meant to live as a man's third wife in Dorne, or endure the cold and bitter darkness of the North.

[nearamir]

It seems to him, with a pang, that it cannot be found here, either. Fain would he be the key to her joy; but joy is in short supply in Gondor in these days, in a dour and shadowed time. That is what makes it so selfish to wish she might stay, to hope for a share in the innocence that she has already shown: innocence not of life, entirely, but at least of the truths of war. No; he cannot offer her joy.

But he cannot fault her answer, either. Not from what he has seen; not from her genuine surprise at his concern; not from how her father speaks and acts, and with what carelessness for her own desires. It is a thing he can recognise, can understand. He knows what it is for one's home to be conditional, for duty to override simpler need. This time, when he reaches out to touch her hand, it is no accident.

"I cannot promise that it is here, either. But I would wish to hear what you seek, that I might know it if it should come; for you are a welcome guest in this city, and I should be a poor host not to serve you." His eyes are still on hers, and softer once again; his voice is low and earnest. "And I confess, it does not grieve me to know that you might stay."

[reignfall]

Part of her wishes to argue with him the way she would argue with Jaime, unleash the unbridled rage and fury at the injustice that is set out for her. Like her brother, he is implying that she is seeking, that she has a say in the matter, and that her preference would hold relevant weight.

Unfortunately – or, perhaps fortunately for her depending on the outcome – his last words take the sword out of her hands, and place it delicately back into its sheath, gone as though it has never been there at all. He wants her to stay, even if she is more meant for his elder brother, and oh, he touches her hand, so she is once more prepared to risk it all for Gondor.

"You seem certain that I should need to do more seeking here, even though you yourself wish for me to stay." Where else would she look? What more does he reckon she could find, and how would it possibly match up to a prince who would write her poems and ride for her into battle, and take her council, and look her with those forest-dark eyes?

[nearamir]

"I wish it for my sake, not for yours." He is not a man given to dissembling, and any dishonesty that might be in him is lost in her spring-green eyes. His gaze still holds hers, and he smiles a little, almost rueful, as though to say I am a fool for it. That smile is sad, though, too; so many of his smiles are. "But though I love Gondor, and though once this city was a place of immeasurable light and joy, still this is not a happy land. This, I know, you must have seen; Lord Denethor is shadowed by his old griefs and his duties, and the Citadel is quiet and shadowed, and war is ever at the gates. There is joy to be found here, but at times, it takes some seeking, even for we who already call it home."

And yet, how he hopes she will stay and seek it! It is strange to think how quickly he has been ensnared, how readily he falls into her clear green eyes and the promise of her smile. It is strange, and a little maddening, to see that Boromir was wholly correct in his scheming. Even as he warns her against the difficulties of life in Gondor, even as he remembers how far it is to her home, he cannot shake that hope.

[reignfall]

He wants her here for his sake –! And then there is that sadness in his smile, making it more than ever the smile of a poet, smarter by far than a legion of knights put together for it. Surely, she has gone into this with cold calculations in her heart and in her head, but she is a creature of impulse no less than her brother, and she follows the leonine device of act first, think second with more fervour than she recognises or is capable of admitting.

"Back in Westeros, the King has taken to burning all who oppose him, with his idea of opposition being a wholly creative one. Bandits ravage the lands. The Mountain is on his third wife, because something keeps befalling the ladies who find themselves wed to him." How much better, really, is Westeros?

"Perhaps I am more than willing to seek a kinder future here."

[nearamir]

He has, if only in the course of their visit, heard some fragments of this already; he is a conscientious son, and he has not shirked the duty to know of their guests' homeland. Yet it is one thing to know a little, which might be rumour or exaggeration; another thing entirely to hear such horrors placed out bluntly in the open. It is enough, almost, to make a man wonder whether there is any land at peace. It is enough to spark the echo of despair, even if he will not allow it purchase in his heart.

And, at the same time: she wishes to stay. She wants to find some future here. It is enough to hope for - enough, perhaps, to think that there might be a kinder future to seek. It can be hard to see any such future, even as he holds fast to the faith that dawn will come.

"Then I shall wish it all the more." And there is a softness here, between them; there is a dangerous promise of relief. It would be so easy, he cannot help but note, to lean across the space between them and brush his lips to hers. It would be so easy to linger.

He clears his throat, and lets his hand fall back into his lap. "You will build a kinder future wherever you may be; I doubt it not."

[reignfall]

"A future cannot be built alone. I'd rather like someone to build it with." No word she speaks of kindness – or the makings of a kinder world, which seems, to her, entirely impossible. It really isn't so much the words she wants him to focus on, anyway. What she would like for him to note is that she has lowered her voice in an attempt at a seductive tone, and that almost entirely in response to something she isn't sure she imagined.

He did just look at her lips, didn't he? As though he was considering going against the noble instinct that seems to propel him far, far away from a secret night in her bedchamber. Real or imagined, she has caught scent of it like a bloodhound. "It hasn't seemed so impossible lately to find the sort of man I dreamt of as a girl."

[nearamir]

It is impossible to miss that lowered tone, the look in her eyes. He is honourable, but not wholly innocent, and now that he has been alerted to the possibility of her attentions, he can hardly return to ignorance. And that, in turn, brings difficulties of its own: brings the realisation of how easily he might draw her astray, or perhaps be drawn astray himself, and how very alone they are in Boromir's absence. She is so young still, and innocent (at least, in his imagination of her), and whatever hopes he might have, he will not let them outpace honour. He cannot.

His voice is a little taut, a little throatier than it should be. "And what sort of man was that, if I might ask?" A dangerous topic, no doubt, but one to keep her talking, to keep things moving along, to distract him from the flash of her eyes and the rose-pink of her lips.

[reignfall]

She takes another sip of wine, and leans in a touch, and in some way, she is sharing a secret. She feels bold, though, bolder than she had before, when there had even been bouts of shyness. Like this, she can blame it on the wine, and better yet, blame the wine on him, and blame Boromir for all of it. "You are not permitted to mock me for it."

Her tone is playful, but bracing all the same. It is not something she usually speaks of, but she can't let him think of how late it has gotten, and how much his honour and his senses might demand of him to turn her away to her lonesome bedchamber. Not yet. "When I was young, I dreamt of a knight, of course. Though he should be a poet, too, and a bard, with a noble spirit."