Disclaimer: Lord of the Rings is owned by J.R.R. Tolkien, his family, New Line cinema, etc. Not me. I’m not getting paid for this in any way and am only dabbling my unworthy fingers in his magical worlds.

Redemption

‘Tis a strange thing to see one’s life flash before one’s eyes.

'Tis a feeling I have experienced before, though not with such finality. This time shall be the last. Every fibre of my wounded body tells me this and the Orc arrows that protrude so mockingly from my chest confirm it.

I am dying.

The cries of the little ones resound through the air, but my failing form will allow me to do naught to answer their desperate calls. They are captives now and I find myself wishing my little friends the mercy of a swift death, rather than suffer agonies untold at the hands of the Enemy.

Oh, the pain! ‘Tis a merciless force that leaves me gasping for the breath my ruined lungs will scarce allow me. I bid my disappearing friends farewell for ever as my body falls against a tree, powerless to support the weight it once carried without thought.

I have failed them both.

Nay, I have failed all of them: the Fellowship, my people, my kin - and I yearn for the sanctuary of death as the Ring-bearer‘s look of betrayal comes once again to my mind‘s eye. 'Twould be an agony beyond endurance to live with the knowledge that I am a traitor to the People of the West.

What would my father say now if he knew that his favoured child was devoid of the honour of his proud ancestors? That I had been the instigator of the Hobbit’s flight from the security of the Fellowship?

For I know Frodo has fled.

I saw it in his eyes as he flew from my fevered grasp not minutes ago. I have shattered his trust in the goodwill of my people and he roams undefended on the banks of the Anduin with a weapon that may now fall into the Enemy’s hands without the protection of the Fellowship. He will die and my people will fall because their Lord failed in his sworn duty. The reality of what I have done shames me more than anything else that has passed in my life.

Once, Boromir of Gondor was a proud and noble man: a warrior who fought to rid Middle Earth of the blight of Darkness, but now?

Now I am naught but a shell of the noble line of Stewards. No longer a bastion of honour, a defender of the weak. Nay, now I am a pillar of infidelity, an agent of weakness who spreads distrust and fear amongst his friends and tries to crush the innocence of the smallest in our Company.

Death, take me now! Why do you linger so when I am eager to taste your embrace? Show me the mercy of oblivion that other mortals have ever feared, for I offer myself to you freely! Why has your presence not blessed me with its touch? Must I endure knowledge of my actions beyond this day?

I cannot.

The wind stirs the leaves that lay on the forest floor and I watch them flutter past with my fading vision as I remember times of old.

Forgive me, Faramir, for my weakness. Though I yearn to be at your side once more, stilling the terrible momentum of the Enemy towards our City, I fear I am no longer worthy of your noble company. You have ever been my heart’s anchor, brother, my mind’s ease. Though it was I that soothed your childhood woes at our father’s bitter rejection of his truest son, and I who taught you the arts of warfare; you are the better Man, the wiser child. Would that I could see you now to tell you this! Would that I could make our father see the truth of it! But, alas! I must abandon you to your own path and trust you to make of it what you will. I know that you will not disappoint me: you never have.

You never could.

Cries of dismay echo through the air and I know that the others have found me. Aragorn drops to his knees and cradles my broken body, tears shining in his eyes, and I want to tell him that he should not let them fall on my account.

He does not listen.

My guilt at attacking the Ring-bearer consumes me and I speak of my actions in the forest, when I tried to take the cursed thing from the Hobbit’s gentle grasp. 'Tis a shame I have never before experienced, admitting to such a thing, but at least I have the comfort of knowing I will not live long enough to try it again.

But he does not judge me for my weakness. Indeed, he comforts me: he talks of redemption and honour and I dare to hope that it may be true. This stranger from the North who claims to be Isildur’s Heir holds my dying form and offers forgiveness to this errant soldier. His eyes hold not pity for the suffering, but sincerity and nobility - and only now do I see that he is whom he claims to be.

A King. My King.

Gondor’s King.

My heart swells with hope for my country. This Man will save her! I know it now - I feel it.

With the remnants of my life‘s strength, I clasp his arm and beg him to save our people where I have failed and he grasps my shoulders firmly, speaking with vigour when he replies that I have not failed, that I have conquered my foe.

That I am victorious.

Can it be thus?

The desperate flight to save Merry and Pippin would make it seem so, but I was little concerned with my own failures or the glory of victory at the time. Perhaps that may be considered a victory of sorts, though it would have been a sweeter one if I had saved them.

I could have rushed after Frodo instead, to finish what I had started: if I had found him, he would not have been able to stand defiant for long when the overwhelming call of the Ring in my mind demanded that I act to secure it for Gondor’s deliverance.

Fool that I was! Only now, at the end, do I see that the One Ring is little more than a deliverer of strife, a harbinger of evil. Only now do I understand the burden the Hobbit carries, the struggle he endures to control his own thoughts as he bears it ever nearer the land of its foul creation.

Only now do I pity him his burden.

I hope he can forgive me as easily as my King does.

“…be at peace. Minas Tirith shall not fall!”

My lips turn upwards in their final act, but I am unable to reply to his spirited declaration, unable to tell him that he has my absolute faith to achieve that which I could not.

I am unable to ask that he bid my troubled father and my beloved brother farewell.

Death has finally graced me with its presence and I cannot regret it.

And as my last breath is expelled at its gentle touch, I rejoice in the knowledge that I shall soon be with my dearest mother.

Death is not the end: it is merely the start of journeys new.

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Author’s Note: Aragorn’s dialogue (what there is of it) is taken directly from The Two Towers: Book 3, Chapter 1.