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carewyncromwell · 1 year

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LOTR AU tag here! // set directly after this more light-hearted drabble by @drinkyoursoupbitch // referencing Gwendolyn “Wendy” Gordon and Selene and Artemis Clair de Lune @twins-born-in-a-new-moon

x~x~x~x

The Fellowship set off for the Pass of Caradhras with a very business-like affect. They had a mission to fulfill, so they approached it seriously, as one would think they should. But because of this, it took a little while before anyone really noticed just how little Carewyn had looked Orion in the face, since they’d left Rivendell.

Orion noticed, though. He noticed it from the start, however much he didn’t bring it up to anyone.

It was only once the rest of the Fellowship had devolved into leisurely, amiable conversation that Orion tried to reach out to Carewyn, putting down the stick he’d been using to poke the fire and getting up so as to help her untie the kettle she’d tied to her pony’s saddle.

“May I?” he asked.

Carewyn was taken aback. Then, abruptly, she grabbed the ropes herself, right out of Orion’s hands.

“Oh -- no,” she said very quietly. “I’ve got it.”

She finished untying the kettle and bustled back over to the fire, just as quickly setting about peeling some potatoes. Orion watched her go, his frown deepening that bit further. Then he slowly walked back over to the fire, settling down on the stone beside her as she worked.

“May I help you peel those?” he offered. “Two sets of hands could do the job faster.”

Carewyn looked up, startled.

“Yes, but...I can more than manage,” she said quickly, as she once again averted her eyes back down to the vegetables she was cutting up. “Thank you.”

Orion tilted his head to try to look at her better. “Then...how best can I offer you some assistance?”

Carewyn determinedly didn’t look at him.

“You can sit down and let me feed you, so that you can keep up your strength,” she said at last, her voice oddly forceful.

Orion's frown twitched. Before he could say anything, however, Charlie brought an amiable arm around his neck, giving him something of an awkward headlock.

“Aw, don’t take it personally, Orion!” Charlie said with a cheeky grin. “Carey’s just stubborn as a mule -- ”

“In the time I’ve known her, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Carewyn accept help from anyone,” said Selene with a wry smile. “At least, not without stubbornly refusing it multiple times beforehand...”

“She’s always been like that,” said Ben, as he shot a slightly pointed, cooler smile Carewyn’s way.

“Always,” Bill agreed.

The tallest of the Hobbits’ lips spread into a slightly fonder, but still very wry smile as he glanced at Carewyn out the side of his eye.

“I remember her mum, Lane Cromwell-Took, telling stories about Carey when she was little,” he said mischievously. “How she used to insist on riding a pony all by herself, even back when she was still a wee faunt...”

Gandalf chuckled. “That was true. And the pony stood a good two feet above our little she-Hobbit.”

The rest of the Fellowship couldn’t help but laugh at the adorable image painted for them. Even Cedric was snorting with laughter behind his hand despite his best efforts.

“Aw, really, Carey?” he said, charmed. “I didn’t try riding a pony until I was nearly ten...”

Charlie laughed. “Better than me! Bill and I didn’t properly learn to ride until we set off with Carey for the Misty Mountains.”

“Couldn’t exactly afford lessons,” Bill added in explanation.

“Well, I’d say Carewyn was just the right age to learn how to ride a proper pony!” said Rowan with a broad smile around his beard.

“I agree,” said Wendy. “The Rohirrim learn to ride right alongside walking...and our horses are way bigger than the ponies you lot ride. I reckon even you learned how to ride pretty young, right, Orion?”

“Rather young, yes,” Orion granted.

He glanced at Carewyn, but she once again avoided his eye. Instead she brought herself up to full height, her expression very cool as she focused on her cooking.

“I merely wish to make myself useful,” she said primly. “I was not chosen to accompany Cedric to Rivendell at the start, nor am I any sort of warrior who can protect him or the Ring from harm, as Prince Rowan or Amari can.”

Her use of Orion’s Ranger name was pointed. No one else had called him that since the Council of Elrond, when his true name was revealed. An envoy from Gondor, a dark-haired man called Felix, had questioned Orion’s presence at the council, demanding what a “mere Ranger” would understand about the One Ring and the might of Sauron. Both Wendy and Selene had been offended by the man’s rudeness, but Carewyn had managed to lay him out first --

“He is a Man, just as you are, is he not? Therefore it’s just as much his world, and his life, that are under threat from Sauron.”

Felix had pretty quickly turned his disdain down upon Carewyn. “Must I repeat my previous sentiment as well, for the halfling?”

Before Ben could fully get up out of his seat and unsheathe his sword (something both Artemis and Wendy were quick to prevent), Carewyn hopped up onto the top of her seat so as to better look Felix in the eye and verbally tore into him --

“I may be half your stature, sir -- but my moral standards clearly are head over heels above yours, for I don’t presume that my blood ancestry makes me inherently superior to anyone else!”

It was only Elrond that quelled the argument, by making it clear that both Carewyn and Orion had plenty of reason to be at the Council -- Carewyn because her brother had disappeared while seeking out the One Ring and had been the one to discover it had ended up back in the Shire, and Orion because of his relation to Isildur, the last doomed King of Gondor who had failed to destroy the One Ring himself so many years ago. And it was indeed this moment when Orion had noticed Carewyn’s eyes had changed somewhat in how she looked upon him, before she’d stopped looking at him altogether.

Orion’s black eyes rippled with something a bit more troubled as he shifted a bit closer to Carewyn.

“You do not need to prove your worth to us, Ms. Took,” he said very softly.

Something in Carewyn’s eyes darkened. She turned fully away, and then immediately got up and started serving stew to the people around the fire.

“Eat up now, all of you -- we may have to eat and travel light, but to do that, you’ll need proper nourishment.”

~*~

As the Fellowship all prepared to go to sleep, Orion tried once again to approach Carewyn. This time he managed to catch her alone while she tended to the Fellowships’ horses.

“Ms. Took.”

Carewyn stiffened a bit at the sound of Orion’s voice. She didn’t turn around even as the Ranger slowly approached her. He watched her for a moment, considering his next move carefully -- then he tentatively brought a hand up to smooth out his own horse’s mane, which Carewyn had been brushing.

“Have I offended you, Amari?” she asked softly.

Orion gave a double blink worthy of a trained animal receiving confusing instructions. “Offended me?”

Carewyn frowned deeply. “Well, yes. I told you that I only care to have strangers refer to me as ‘Ms. Took.’”

Orion blinked again, much more slowly. Then, his eyes welling up with compassion, he got down on Carewyn’s level so as to look her in the eye better.

“...It seems I’ve made a great error. I thought that I had offended you, and in trying to make amends, I’ve ended up offending you further.”

Carewyn looked up at him, her eyebrows high with surprise.

“What? Why would you think that? You did nothing wrong! I merely...”

She looked down.

“...I merely...didn’t know how best to address you.”

Orion tilted his head, frowning slightly.

“I wished to address you like before -- as Amari,” she explained. “It is the name you introduced yourself with, to me, and it’s clearly the name you feel most comfortable being called. I want you to remain comfortable with me. But...even if I did refer to you that way -- by the name you gave me, rather than the one Lord Elrond calls you...I didn’t want you to think that...well, that I don’t respect who you truly are. Sure, perhaps your family hasn’t held the throne of Gondor in generations, but you’re still descended from great kings. From brave Chieftains and wise elves. And as much as you don’t follow in their footsteps, you’ve clearly learned so much from them -- how to nurture and protect...how to lead. And well...I’m just a Hobbit who happened to get thrown into this whole quest while trying to find my brother. The One Ring doesn’t have the history for me that it does for you. This mission’s success is so much more important for you than it could ever be for me.”

Orion’s expression softened. He quietly considered her for a long moment, before he reached out a hand and rested it on his horse’s flank, just over Carewyn’s.

“...Lord Elrond doesn’t call me Orion,” he said at last. “At least, aside from when he introduces me formally.”

Carewyn blinked in surprise.

“In my youth, my name was Estel,” said Orion, as his lips curled up in a small smile. “I was a Man raised with all the education and guidance of an elf, with no knowledge of my true parentage. It was only when I had turned twenty that Lord Elrond told me the name my mother had given me...and it was not long after that that I took on the name Amari, in the wilderness...”

His gaze flitted down to Carewyn’s hand, the small fingers of which his were merely inches away from.

“It’s a name I took due to the danger my real name posed to me, and to the people around me,” he said lowly. “It was for that name -- Orion Elessar II -- that both my father and mother lost their lives...and it is that name that prompts nothing but distrust and verbal poison from the Men of Gondor.”

“That’s nonsense.”

Orion looked at Carewyn. Her eyebrows had furrowed with righteous anger and her hands had flown to her hips.

“No name can prompt such things -- only the actions and choices of weaker, crueler creatures,” Carewyn said fiercely. “Why, Orion’s a very handsome name! The name of a very wise and courageous Man, I should think, since you’re the second Elessar to bear the name! And for anyone to judge you based on what an ancestor thirty times before our time did? There are few Elves alive that can even remember back that far! And even if they can, you are not Isildur, and his failings are not yours.”

Orion raised his eyebrows, faintly surprised but also faintly touched by the sentiment. Then he quirked one of his eyebrows at her critically.

“...And yet your opinion of me changed, once you knew of my ancestry,” he pointed out. “More positively than I’m used to -- but still, a change.”

Carewyn flushed, but her expression stayed stubbornly proud.

“My change in behavior was not because of you being related to royalty -- I already presumed you might have some noble blood when we first met, didn’t I?” she huffed.

She brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

“It just...affected what you told me, about your mother. How she died bringing you to Rivendell, to stay with Lord Elrond. I had no idea it was because of who your family was...that you’d never had a real place to think of as ‘home’...all because your family had been exiled from the place they once knew as home, ages before you were born, all because of an ancestor who everyone even now insists on comparing you to.”

Her eyes grew more solemn upon their two hands on the flank of Orion’s horse.

“...Your whole family...you all lost your home. You were all displaced, never to know the true comfort of hearth and home...all because of one horrible mistake, thousands of years ago.”

Her hand finally moved up to take hold of Orion’s. Orion gave the slightest of starts, but recovered quickly, as Carewyn gave his hand a light squeeze.

“Your family deserved better than that,” she said quietly. “You deserve better than that.”

Orion’s black eyes wandered over Carewyn’s face, even as she kept her own gaze on their joined hands. Then, very slowly, he also turned his eyes down to their hands, and gave hers the lightest of squeezes in return.

“...You have a very large heart, Carewyn Cromwell-Took.”

Carewyn’s cheeks reddened with a light blush as she smiled slightly.

“I suppose...I really should ask properly what you’d like me to call you,” she said bracingly.

Orion considered her. “That really would depend on you.”

Carewyn raised her eyebrows.

“What do you see when you look at me, Carewyn Cromwell-Took?” he asked. “The orphaned ward of Lord Elrond, raised and taught by the Elves of Rivendell? A Ranger with no country who wanders and adventures every day? Or the heir of a disgraced King who now aims to finish what that King could not?”

Carewyn frowned deeply.

“What I see is a Man,” she said, “and everything that entails.”

Orion looked curious.

“All of Men’s great foibles?” he asked amusedly.

“All of Men’s potential,” Carewyn shot back. Her lips spread into a determined, bright red smile. “Yes, perhaps Men do have their foibles. Quite a few of them, really. They can be impatient, and very short-sighted, as their lifespans are so short. They’re not particularly strong, or resilient, or even that fast. They can be as stubborn as dwarves, as arrogant as Elves, and as self-absorbed as Hobbits. And yet...”

Her smile spread into a fuller, gleaming grin -- a truly beautiful expression that made her eyes sparkle.

“...They can also be none of that, and more. They can be tolerant and accepting, when those of the other races turn up their noses. They can be generous and kind, being loyal companions and comrades-in-arms. They can be modest and wise...willing to discard what could elevate their own status, all in a desire to make deep connections with others.”

Orion’s eyes widened just a bit.

“You truly admire Men,” he said.

Carewyn crossed her arms, smiling wryly. “Is that so strange?”

“For me, yes,” Orion admitted.

Lord Elrond was not subtle in his disdain toward the failings of Men -- many elves and dwarves weren’t. Carewyn’s idealism, though, made Orion smile broadly.

“If that is the case,” he said as he inclined his head respectfully to her, “then I should dearly like it if you called me ‘Orion.’”

Carewyn hesitated. “...Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Orion with a bright white smile. “You yourself said it was a handsome name. And perhaps you can see through those flaws in my name, the same as you have seen through those in Men.”

Carewyn smiled a bit more softly as she withdrew her hand from his at last.

“I’m certain I can...Orion.”

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #lord of the rings #au #carewyn cromwell #orion amari #aesthetic #my writing #charlie weasley #bill weasley #cedric diggory #rowan khanna #gwendolyn gordon #ben copper #artemis clair de lune #selene clair de lune

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