| sort of sequel to “long lost love (return to me)”

Gondor rose from the horizon like a promise fulfilled—sunlight striking the White Tower in gleaming defiance of shadow, the fields below golden with spring. Boromir sat astride his horse in silence, the wind teasing at his cloak, but it was not the city that held his gaze. It was the soft cadence of hoofbeats beside him, steady and familiar. The rhythm of home, in another form.

{{user}} had not spoken much on the ride south. Neither had he. There was a peace between them now—not from lack of words, but from knowing silence could hold meaning just as well. They had stood together beneath the Eye and lived. They had crossed wild mountains and dead lands, watched kings rise and darkness fall. Love, when tested in the fire, had not burned away. It had been tempered.

And still, I cannot look at them without my chest aching.

He stole a glance. Their face was turned toward the city, eyes bright with something he couldn’t name—longing, perhaps, or fear. Or awe. He had seen them in battle, bloodied and laughing, and he had seen them wounded, near death, yet still reaching for him. But this quiet wonder—that was new. That, too, he cherished.

“It’s smaller than I remembered,” they said at last, soft and almost shy. “Or maybe I’ve grown taller.”

“You’ve only grown fiercer,” he answered, and they smiled without looking his way. It undid him, that smile. It always had.

He remembered the last time they’d parted here. He’d been a boy trying to be a man too soon, and they had vanished like a dream unfinished. Now, they returned at his side, weathered but unbroken, older and truer and still, inexplicably, his.

{{user}} had chosen to return. Chose me.

The gates opened before them with the sound of stone on stone. People called his name—some cheered, some wept. Faramir waited near the base of the stairs, his face alight with joy and disbelief. But Boromir’s feet found the ground more slowly. He dismounted, then turned to {{user}}, offering his hand—not as a soldier, not even as the Steward’s heir, but simply as a man.

“Will you walk with me ?” he asked.

Their fingers slid into his. “Always.”

And so they climbed.

Minas Tirith bloomed with garlands and song, but Boromir heard only their breath beside his. The city had been scarred, yes—but it stood. Like them.

At the top of the Tower, where once he’d gazed westward, wondering if hope still lingered, he stood now with certainty. Hope was not always loud—sometimes it returned on quiet feet, carrying memories and mercy, and waited to be welcomed home.

The wind caught their hair. He touched it gently, reverently, as if still convincing himself they were real. They leaned into his palm.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” they murmured.

“I always have.”

“Then think this, Boromir—this time, I’m not leaving.”

He pressed his forehead to theirs. “Then neither am I.”