Boromir: [to Aragorn] I'm Not Bitter

Boromir: [to Aragorn] I'm not bitter

Narrator: He was bitter

The Small King

When she spoke, her voice broke the silence. It was loud and deep. It was so unexpected that the tone of her words made the men shiver. The sadness she expressed made the gloomy night even colder than it already was.

On her knees, she tried her hardest to seem strong, but the mud on her face and her wet hair falling in front of her eyes made her look like the child she was. Her tormented and saddened dark eyes reflected the picture which stood before her, bodies laying on the ground, friends no longer of this world, strangers already on the other side and their murderers.

The events of that night felt so unreal that she almost thought she was in a dream; the ones her brothers had after coming back from the last war. Fields filled with corpses that will be buried all together in the same hole, lacking time and space.

The wind howled, sounding almost like the cries of the dying men. Her breath, although the excruciating weather of the North, was steady and slow. Her heartbeat was the calmest it had ever been. She did not understand where this peace, floating in her soul, came from, but she knew she was lucky to have it in such time.

On her own, facing an army that was endless, she did not feel scared, she felt disgusted. How could a man convince so many others to slaughter solemnly to destroy and claim what is not his?

The bells of justice rang in her heart even though she knew she couldn’t have it. She knew her vengeance would never end, for she was the last one standing. If being still alive meant standing. And to achieve it, she must kill all the men standing before her, thousands

In this treeless valley, surrounded by high mountains, she felt the ground shake under her and her mind trembled with it. Her thoughts began swirling around in her head as she looked upward and saw the majestic white moon showing itself through the clouds of the storm. She was there, between the darkness of the night and the light of the moon, so lonely.

The man that was leading them all stood before her. His presence was enormous. He took so much place for a man that was so small.

He didn’t seem that evil if you truly paid attention. His small stature couldn’t scare a wolf. His feminine looks couldn’t impose any man. However, his blue eyes were piercing, so much that she thought he might have killed everyone around her with them. And the strong warriors following him were a sign of his true brilliance for he was able to convince hundreds to follow him, whom they called The Small King, although he was no true king.

Her pupils kept moving from one face to another, from one body to the other. She wanted to remember, she wanted to think, she wanted to act all at once.

The birds in the night couldn’t do anything to distract her.

Lightning struck in the distance and it electrified her body. Her heart was moving faster; the beating took the control of her body. She grasped in her cold hand the mud of the ground and squeezed so hard it could have transformed into a rock. In the anger that was growing inside her little and weak body, she made herself strong and indestructible. Her breaths, once peaceful, sounded like the one of a soldier fighting on the battlefield.

She didn’t feel the rain on her cheeks anymore, nor did she feel the weak tremor under her knees that were sinking deeper and deeper into the earth.

She had never felt such a way. She didn’t know what exactly it was, but she knew she liked it, and she also knew she shouldn’t.

A cold wind started to wage the valley and some of the killers felt it, like she did.

‘Kill me if you must, but I shall not bow to a king who wears a crown studded with jewels of every life he has ended.’

And her words were the thunder that followed the lightning. Her anger flowed through the ground and touched every single living being in the area.

Their leader, The Small King, took a few steps forward and looked down at her in such a way that for a moment, a split second, she felt like nothing. And she could have sworn that his clear heavenly eyes flashed darkness and wickedness. But perhaps it was only her own reflection she saw.

The man placed his right hand on his sword handle, but didn’t slipped it out of its holder. The knob of his weapon interested the young girl for it seemed to have the shape of an animal, actually the head of a beast. It was not quite a bear, nor a wolf. He slightly lifted it and she saw what it was. It was the creature her brothers had nightmares about. The one that could live in darkness and in light, the one that could hunt you down even after its death, the one that was the most feared monster of the known world through all species: the man, half beast, half thinker.

And finally, the King closed his eyes and whispered a few words she couldn’t understand for her hearing was gone when the enemy had thrown bombs through the air and on her village. All she could hear was a buzzing sound. He looked up at the sky and got the long piece of metal out of its place.

He raised his hand up, up in the air. Then, he swung his great sword and ended the girl without a second thought.

The survivor was no longer, the war was ended, the air became thicker and the reign of the Small King greater.

The battle is lost and the child with it, for the Queen rests on a bed of mud, without a crown, without a people.