"I regret to announce that this is the end; I'm leaving now...I bid you all a very fond farewell." –Bilbo Baggins

--

After those lazy Minas Tirith summer days, so full of sounds and riots of emotion, the days breezed past without much new happening, like leaves floating down a stream in a passing autumn breeze, little tiny boats bearing another year off to the sea.

The twins grew, as children are wont, toddling through corridors and into council sessions quite by accident and mishap of maid, only to be swung up on an uncle or papa's lap and cosseted, quite content in the companionship of the company of advisors who served the king (who was often inclined to steal a twin from their father's arms when the work got boring).

Finally, word came from Fornost that work had finished, and Boromir rode north with a company of the King's Knights, clothed in the black surcoats embroidered with the White Tree that showed they served none other than Elessar Telcontar, Isildur's Heir, the Renewer, Aragorn son of Arathorn.

When the Steward of the Northland was satisfied with the progress that had been made, he sent a summons of his lady wife and their children to essay to the North and their new home without delay.

Which is what found Rhoswen, Princess of Arnor and wife of the King's steward Boromir, son of Denethor, bickering with the captain of her escort at the fork in the Greenway.

"My Lady Princess, I beg you, your husband will have my head if I do not bring you straight to Fornost! My orders were clear; escort the Lady wife of my Lord Steward via the Greenway to the newly established royal capital of Arnor at Fornost. We must not delay any longer!" the captain pleaded. Rhoswen stared him down, her riding gloved hands on her hips.

"And again I tell you, Captain, that my husband has given me instruction that I am to pass through the Shire via the Greenway, and he, along with Sir Peregrin, Sir Meriadoc, and the Councilors to the North Kingdom Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins shall meet me in Hobbiton. Now please, captain...it has been a good five months since I have seen my husband, and I would not doubt his word." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know that this is a heavy burden, and I know you know that my husband would have you executed if his orders were disobeyed and I was lead on paths unknown and lost, to blind guides or death, but his words to me I know he would not have overlooked. Please, Captain. Send my belongings and the rest of this caravan," she gestured behind her at the train of people," and tell him that I have gone to visit Hobbiton."

The man sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Very well, my Lady Princess...At least take a few guardsmen." He beseeched again.

Rhoswen smiled. "Attend to it, then...I cannot be late." One of her grooms helped her astride her pale gray gelding, and she reined the horse about to trot smartly back to check on her children.

Lifting up the cloth shade of the wagon, Rhoswen peered inside to check on the twins, both sound asleep in the watchful arms of their nursemaid, Synne. The tall, housewifely woman who served at the children's nurse looked up and smiled.

"Aye, mi Lady Rose, they sleep like angels...haven't woken but a-once, when the road was a wee rocky, and it wasn't anything a little feeding didn't help."

Rhoswen smiled, brushing a tiny tendril of light brown hair out of her son's face with her soft dove gray glove. She blew the sleeping babes kisses, not wanting to wake them, and rode back to the front of the line.

--

The lady princess and stewardess of Arnor looked around with pride at the land that now her flesh and blood was bound to rule; the rolling hillocks and gently sloping greens of this country she loved. Now the fields were carefully tended grain, flowing over the plow furrows like a sea of liquid gold, rippling in the breeze. The odd scarecrow stuck up from the crop, not rising above her waist, and every so often a brown curly haired head peeked above the grain only to go rushing back through it.

A child (or so it seemed, this little girl couldn't have been more than a foot high) stepped out of the field in front of the caravan, and she stared up at them in wide eyed wonder, then set out running down the lane.

"The Big Folks are here!" Her little voice cried, over and over again, and Rhoswen laughed.

"So this is the Shire." Little by little, a town crept into view, beswagged with banners and little people, not higher than four feet, all decked out in their festival best.

A retainer held Rhoswen's reins as she stepped down, looking around in amazement at the small village. There was a tiny tug on her dress, and Rhoswen looked down to see a gaggle of small children, all of them bearing bundles of carefully picked flowers. She smiled, and graciously accepted them all, handing them off to Maire, who found a basket and set the flowers in it.

Rhoswen followed the path through the throng of people until she saw the four hobbits who'd invited the lady wife of the Lord Boromir. She approached them on light feet, sweeping a curtsey at the four by whose courage and fortitude good fortune and happiness had been secured for the world for a good many years to come.

"My Lady." Pippin said, proud in his uniform of the Citadel guard. Rhoswen smiled at him as he kissed her hand in the manner of the court.

"Peregrin, this is not Minas Tirith; I would have settled for a welcoming of your own people...not this grand party." Rhoswen waved a hand at the bunting and mass of hobbits in their festival best.

"If it's not to bold to say, Milady, we hobbits are very fond of parties. All we need is a reason to celebrate." Samwise put in, seeming a little nervous in the midst of this grand company.

"Well then, Master Samwise, I must say that this is a very grand party indeed."

The tall, elegant lady was led to the party field, hung with streamers and ribbons, where the tents and tables and chairs had been erected.

Rhoswen sat at her undersized chair with a true lady's grace, genteel, kind, witty and smiling, accepting the flowers and small tokens of the hobbits that showed they adored this tall, graceful woman whom their upstanding citizen-heroes had spoken of with adoring looks in their eyes.

Merry was recounting for a large audience of youngsters crowded around the Lady's skirts the monstrosity of the Cave troll in Moria when a fanfare of trumpets interrupted him mid sentence.

The crowd turned to see another brigade of knights, banners flying proudly in the breeze, attending the one who rode at their front; a tall man, proud and stern of glance, his rich robes appointed with fair embroidery as if he were a prince of men. And indeed he looked it: the other riders wore helms with the sun's ray's etched upon them, but the head of their party rode without helm or hood of any kind, his golden brown hair shining in the sun.

The horsemen stopped, their mounts' hooves raising a cloud of dust on the dirt track outside the party field, and the princely man stepped down. Pippin ran to greet him kneeling before him and then letting the man kneel so the two could embrace like brothers.

The taller man stood, and Pippin pointed over in the grove where Rhoswen sat, all the little children sitting at her skirts, and the tall man smiled, looking over the festival grounds with a half surprised and half proud eye.

Rhoswen spotted the tall princely man, and extricating herself from the small mass of children after Merry had begun his tale anew, went to greet her husband, kissing his cheek chastely. There would be time enough for indecency later.

Boromir embraced his wife, savoring the smell of her hair, faint of the rosemary and lavender she washed it with. "I have missed you, my White Rose." He whispered in her ear. They broke apart, and Rhoswen looked up at him.

"I have missed you also, beloved. Come, Merry is telling the children the story of the Moria cave troll." She led the tall Steward of Arnor through the crowd, a few hobbit lasses curtseying as they passed.

When they reached the storyteller and his captivated audience, Merry looked up. "Children, this is Lord Boromir. He went with Frodo and Sam and Pippin and I on the Quest."

The children ohhed and ahhed, and Boromir was made to sit down a little clumsily amidst the group of little ones and tell his part of the story, to his great amusement and their great wonder. One little lad climbed on his lap, and he held the child there in his great arms until the story had finished, returning the wayward little boy to his mother.

Rhoswen watched the proceedings with a smile, occasionally looking down at the basket next to her with a special smile. Boromir rose from the group listening to the knight of the Riddermark and went to sit next to his wife, inspecting the basket's contents with care.

"How did they fare on the ride here?" he asked, his eyes fretful for the welfare of his children.

"I could not have asked for two more patient and silent traveling companions. They slept most of the trip today." Rhoswen said with a smile, one of her fingers tracing the tiny hand of Eilinnoir. The little girl stirred in her sleep, grasping the finger of her mother with that inner child strength, surprising for one so small, holding on to that finger as if life depended on it.

"I can feel it in her hands...she would make a good shield maid." Rhoswen said with a smile, letting Boromir's finger replace hers. Her husband smiled.

"You are right. But I think she would be a scholar first. She shall ask often of me, and every other who knows them, the tales of this age, and delight in them, like Faramir. I can feel it." He looked at his son, the thin curls of dark blonde hair covering his head making him look like an angel. "I think this one will take after me." He said with a smile. Rhoswen laughed softly and drew the small coverlets around their chins gently, picking up the basket and taking it back to the wagon it had traveled in these many miles.

Boromir turned back to the party, the lively makings of music and the smell of food drifting through the air. Pippin came up, a plate laden with food in one hand and two tankards in the other, one sufficiently bigger than the other. He pushed the bigger of the two at Boromir.

"High nose all you like about the wine of Minas Tirith, but the Green Dragon's ale is second to none." They clanked the tankards together and drank up.

Boromir smiled at the taste. "I concede, Master Pippin. This is by far superior. Although Rohan's brings a close second."

Pippin smiled over his tankard rim. "Aye, that it does."

As the evening wore on and hobbit bellies were filled, more and more of the old folk clamored for a speech from their guests. Boromir rose obligingly after much haranguing from his tablemates and looked over the assembly.

"As your fine squires may have told you, the King has returned anew to my homeland, Gondor, far to the south of here. In the days of yore Men once ruled these lands, and so it shall be once more. The King, Aragorn, has granted me stewardship here, to watch these lands and protect his loyal subjects in them. I make known and attest now that the borders of the Shire shall not be open to wayward folk, and the hobbits who live there may keep their peace in anyway as they see fit, free from intrusion by the Big Folk." Boromir finished with a smile to many loud cheers.

Boromir and his wife bid their hosts goodbye, mounting up and riding down the East Road to Bree, where they would spend the night.

Boromir gently snuffed out the candle, covering the flame with his hand and blowing it out, setting the lazily smoking light on the table and climbing into bed. It was a little warm from Rhoswen's body, and Boromir lay down next to her, sharing his body heat as well. The night was chill, and the down comforter was a little thin. Rhoswen murmured contentedly and pressed herself closer, finding one of Boromir's hands and wrapping it around her.

What would he do without this woman? It seemed so right to have her there, in the crook of his body...why would he ever have not wanted this? Boromir mused as his mind drifted off into dreams.

Rhoswen woke up to find her bed empty; the large, warm, comforting presence of her husband next to her was not there. She turned over, and sat up in bed, looking around.

"Boromir? Boromir?"

There was a rapping at her window, and Rhoswen threw open the shutters and looked down into the courtyard. Boromir was standing there, an ever-playful grin on his face and a pile of small rocks in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other.

"Sweet slugabed! The flowers have already shed their dew and yet you are still not dressed! They will wait if I command them so, but we have many miles to travel ere we reach our new home, and if you delay me another hour, it shall be dark!" Boromir said with a mock frown. Rhoswen rolled her eyes.

"You could have woken me, my lord!" she declaimed through the open window. Boromir's smile widened.

"I could not disturb one so fair whilst she slept, my lady. In the dawn light you looked to be an angel." He said, smiling like a love-lorn fool. Rhoswen rolled her eyes and shut the windows again, and finding the dress Maire had pulled from the trunks for her to wear.

A half an hour later, Rhoswen breezed into the courtyard, her hair neatly caught up in a net of pearls, and a strand of sapphires at her throat. Boromir kissed his wife and handed her the flowers.

"You look a goddess of the sea, my Rose. To remind your people it was from the foam you were born and brought to me, a finer prize for no other man but the Steward's son?"

Rhoswen smiled a little. "I am no prize, husband...and there were far fairer women then I who could have had you. A conspiracy of fathers did us in."

"You act as if it were a thing you regret." Boromir added with a smile. "And in my eyes, there is none so fair as you."

"Such is being in love, your lordship. Now, let us away-a little bird knocked on my window and told me we must not delay." Rhoswen said, her smile now playful. Boromir picked her up easily and set her on her horse, much to her surprise and hidden delight.

"We must not disappoint the little bird then."

The sun was now below the horizon, and the halflight of dusk filled the sky. Boromir looked at the half sleeping form of his wife on her horse next to her. He leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"Rhoswen...we are home."

The young woman sat up, blinking her eyes, and her breath was momentarily taken away as they rode through the gates.

"Oh Boromir...it is beautiful." She whispered, her eyes trying to take in all of it at once.

"It is not the White City, but it is ours." Boromir said with a note of pride.

"I shall love it as if it were the White City." Rhoswen said, the troupe of riders clattering through the dark byways on their way to the stables.

Rhoswen stifled an un-ladylike yawn as they reached the front doors, handing her horse to a retainer. Once her husband had dismounted he picked her up easily and carried her inside, up the stairs and down the halls to their bedchamber, laying her down on their marriage bed, carefully taking off her riding clothes and tucking her under the soft sheets in her chemise as if she were a small child.

Boromir smiled as he looked at his sleeping wife and went to prepare for bed himself, careful not to disturb Rhoswen's untroubled angelic sleep.

This morning it was Boromir who was going to sleep in, Rhoswen decided as she carefully did up the small clasps of her dress, her husband still sleeping like a bear. She blew a kiss and then shut the door behind her, going off to explore her new home.

Boromir woke up with a yawn; he knew Rhos would have let him sleep had she gotten up before him. She'd probably gone to explore the castle, and Boromir thought he knew where he might find her.

The air was filled with floating leaves and a gentle stillness in the garden, and Boromir again recalled an angel as his wife walked the paths of the large plot of flowers, some of them still in their late summer riot of bloom and color. The sun set a silver sheen on her hair, and she glowed in the morning light.

"He saw her in the garden, as she strayed

Among the flowers of summer with her maid..."

Gently cutting off one of the deep red roses with the dagger at his waist, he tapped her shoulder and bowed, presenting her the flower. Rhoswen took the blossom, holding it to her nose and sniffing it lightly.

"Boromir...What would you say the meaning and mystery of the rose is?" she asked thoughtfully, studying the blossom.

"And said to him, "O Eginhard, disclose
The meaning and the mystery of the rose";

The Steward of the Northland pondered this for a moment, looking at the tender flower in his wife's white fingers, and then up at her face.

"To me, a rose means....love. When I look at you, that is all I see-love. When I see you, Rhos, there is a fixation in my heart I cannot understand, cannot hope to understand, cannot fully explain, even. I can only say that this...feeling is to say that if you ever left me, ever died because of my stupidity or lack of foresight, I should never forgive myself.

"You mean love to me, Rhoswen, and I should never want to lose such a precious gift-in truth, if I ever did lose your heart-gods forbid it should ever come to that-I would rather like to lose myself with it, for what is life without love?" He took the rose from her fingers, and studied it fixatedly. "And youth...since you have come to me, a chosen bride who did not want to wed a man old enough to be her father, I have found in myself-indeed, I think it is you who have awakened it- some deep seated passion from my youth, and there no longer lies a barrier of age between us, because you are older in mind, and I am younger in spirit."

Rhoswen looked at her husband; her eyes were sad. "Never would I leave you, Boromir. Love is too precious a thing to be wasted."

And trembling he made answer: "In good sooth,
Its mystery is love, its meaning youth!"

Boromir smiled widely, holding her at an arms length to look her over again-his wife, all his...

"I see you are wearing my Yule present." Boromir said after a little time, trying to break the porcelain silence. Rhoswen looked down at her cloak and laughed.

"Master Peregrin said that you still wore my stone when you two parted ways." The Princess of Arnor said, looking back to darker days.

"I shall have to thank Pippin-his memory serves him well. I did indeed, dearest Rhoswen." Boromir reassured her, holding her hand tightly and walking over to the nearest bench to draw from the purse at his belt a small package wrapped in soft buttery buckskin, opening it in her lap to reveal two necklaces, one a simple chain on which hung the finely cut white stone Rhos had given him before he left for Imaladris, and the other a circular pendant with the delicate curls of an Elvish craftsman filling the circle to cradle a green stone at it's center.

Rhoswen drew the circular pendant from the bundle curiously, holding it against her fingers to examine it.

"Who gave you this?" she asked quietly, sensing another story.

"The last member of our company of nine-Gabrielin of the Greenwood." Rhoswen opened her mouth to ask where she had gone, why she had never been introduced, but Boromir pressed a finger to her lips, and the questions died in her silence. He sighed sadly.

"She died to save me on Amon Hen-this was her gift to you, to tell you that love is worth dying for. Her bow I have also-I shall save it for Eilionnoir, when she is old enough to test the string." Boromir finished with a small smile. Rhoswen returned his hopeful gaze, and then looked down at the pendant in her hands.

"I owe this woman so much, and I have never met her....My husband...my children...Tell me of her, Boromir-tell me of your journey, and how she came to die. I feel I should know her, somehow-tell me of her." Rhoswen's eyes pleaded with him, and so Boromir eased himself back on the bench, and told his wife of the many dangers they had faced, of the darkness of Moria and the light of Lórien, and the lady Galadriel whom Rhoswen had seen in the wedding company of Arwen Evenstar, and then the shame of his country when he had so foolishly tried to take the ring from it's bearer, and how Gabrielin had died.

When he had finished, Rhoswen averted her eyes from his to look back down at the necklace, as if it would show the face of her savior.

"This she-elf...this Gabrielin. I met her in a dream." Rhos said, after careful thought. "I did not know 'twas she, for she knew my face, but I knew not hers. Hearing of her, I know now I cannot be mistaken. She showed me a blackened city...a sad people...a mighty king. And..." Rhoswen's breath shook. "She showed me the gardens of Minas Tirith. In the courtyard of one, there stood a statue, and at its base was a child..."

She turned her face away, and Boromir knew she was hiding her tears. "It was your son, Boromir...and the statue was a memorial. You had died." She finished simply, turning and burying her head in his chest. Boromir held her close, stroking her hair.

"That is the other path, Rose...that is what should have been." He said simply, her head heavy and warm on his chest.

There was the sound of laughter from the farther reaches of the garden, and Boromir and his wife looked up to see their twins, tottering along the stone path with their nurse. They stopped to play in the dappled sunshine under the leaves of a fruit tree, and it seemed, in the strange light, that another woman sat there, robed in white and arrayed in sunlight, smiling and laughing with the children. She turned her face towards Boromir, and smiled broadly.

"You've done well, my friend." A breeze whispered in his ear. Boromir blinked, and the vision was gone. He watched Rhoswen go to their children, kissing the small face of their son, and then their daughter, her once sad face full of laughter and happiness.

"Thank you, Gabrielin." He whispered to the wind.

The breeze seemed to laugh.

For nothing this wide universe I call,

Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all. –W. Shakespeare, Sonnet LIV

bows Thank you all for reading this-it means the greatest to me. I hope you have enjoyed the end, and if you wish, I may write a sequel. You will, of course, if you desire this, tell me what you wish to see in said sequel.

And...for the last time, my shout outs.

The newbies-

Ciel- Undomiel: Thanks, I'm glad you're speechless. And I'm very glad you think it's checks notes "REALLY REALLY REALLY good". It's reviews like that that just make my day.

Kitsume: Glad you liked it-hope you get this far.

And the regulars-I love you from the bottom of my fan fic writing heart, all of you!

Roisin Dubh: thanks for all the carefully thought out critiques, and the suggestions, and all those little corrections you helped so much with. I love you lots!

Unfortunately, no foreshadowing for Boromir and taking a mistress...good idea though. I've got some foreshadowing in this chapter though, if you want that sequel...

Angoliel: I don't have to tell you this-I adore you, you great big sister ball of awesomeness, you.

Dread Lady Freya: thanks for all the wonderful laughs, friend. I loved every one of them. Loved all your quirky comments, your jokes...everything.

Answer to your question-no, it can't grow back, but it does hurt the first several times, and there may be blood. Of course, some women are born without them, or it's already broken due to riding a horse a lot. shrug dunno if I sent you a memo on that one.

Shallindra: Oh, my! I'm so glad! Boromir will be pleased to hear he has another fan.

Mducquette: Thanks for letting me be a part of your writing-I loved every minute of it, and I hope you send me something when your book is published.

Oh goodness, you think I'm a genius? I don't know about that one...

Terries- thanks for everything-thanks for letting me in on some of your story, thanks for letting me stick in my two cents and help, and thanks for all the awesome feedback and the laughs-it's been fun.

The secret to my R chapter- I'm not married, have no boyfriend, and have no romance in my life whatsoever...sigh so...yeah. I'm sorry if it offended.

So tell me, all you crazy, wonderful, wacky people...

Did my fic make you laugh?

Did my fic make you cry?

Do you want any more?

Shall you spit in my eye?

The author shuffles her papers, gets off her stool, bows, and the spot light goes out, waiting for the final applause