The Greater Sword "What are you doing, Boromir of Gondor?"
Boromir jumped and cut himself, cursing. He looked around. "Where are
you?"
Aragorn stepped into the clearing, amusement dancing in his eyes. "You did
not tell me what you were doing."
"I am polishing my sword, as any fool could see," Boromir said, gesturing at
the cloth, sharpening stone, and vial of oil in front of him. "I was about
to oil my mail."
"Were you?" Aragorn said, a small smile that could best be described as a
smirk playing about his lips. He crossed the clearing and crouched before
Boromir, picking up the vial of oil. "How... prudent of you."
"Take a seat, Aragorn son of Arathorn," Boromir growled, snatching the vial
out of Aragorn's hand.
"You do not like me," Aragorn observed, sitting cross-legged on the moss of
the forest floor.
"It is not that I do not like you. I simply do not trust you as charge of
my people."
"Your people." Aragorn arched one eyebrow.
"My people," Boromir replied. "For they are mine, not yours."
"'He triumphs who has the greater sword?'" Aragorn asked.
"Perhaps."
Aragorn was crouching before Boromir again before the man could blink, his
fingers interlaced with Boromir's on the sword's hilt and his face so close
their breaths mingled. "Have you never heard, Boromir of Gondor, that it is
not size that matters—" In one smooth movement, Aragorn was standing,
Boromir's sword in his hand and the point at Boromir's throat. Aragorn's
eyes flickered downward for a moment and he grinned wickedly. "—but how
you use it?"
"No," Boromir said, pressing himself back into the tree in a futile attempt
to put distance between himself and the point of his own sword. As arrogant
as a bloody elf, Aragorn was. "I cannot say that I have."
Aragorn seemed to relax, and he removed the sword from Boromir's throat,
handing it back hilt-first. He did not release the hilt when Boromir went
to take it, but asked in a husky voice, "And would you toy with my sword as
I have with yours?"
"No," Boromir said, shaking his head. "A sword so noble as yours is not to
be toyed with."
"I think," Aragorn said, slowly relinquishing the sword to Boromir's capable
hands, "I think I might make an exception."
by La Corneille
oromir was braced against a tree, his hands moving rapidly and efficiently
on his great sword.
