"Yet hope remains while the company is true."
Hope can be found in a gentle smile, the reassurance of the continued company of a friend, and perhaps more that that, one close to ones heart. It lies in his presence still steady as rock when the world threatens to take you down under the all too heavy burden you are forced to carry. It is within the simple joys of being with someone, it hides in the fact you are still able to put one foot in front of the other, and the one at your side whom you can always trust to catch you when your stride falters.
There is hope in his blue eyes, tired but determined, and in his arms in the cold nights. Even when the stars have faded from the night sky and the days are as dark as the nights there is hope. There is hope in the small carved box of home you carry with you in your pocket. And in the everyday rituals there is hope, even when they no longer serve much of a purpose but to provide your weary mind something to cling to as you see the one you love sink into despair. When he manages to smile in the face of doom and against all reasonable thought, there still is hope.
Hope resides in a known face when all the world is changing around you, when all you have known dissapears just while you are changing yourself. Hope is the hand on your shoulder when you realise you have left everything behind. After the nightmares of endless days of marching, hanging upside-down, painfully real against your waking dreams, hope lies right next to you, there when you reach out. The lighthearted jokes and friendly rivalry all provide hope, as does losing yourself in clouds of pipeweed.
There is hope in the wish to go home, and knowing that if you get through everything that is thrown your way, your wish will come true. Hope is the innocence you see beside you, and even when that is taken away, the unfailing optimism to shape the world as he sees fit. Hope is believing everything will be alright, even when that belief is borrowed. The hope lies in the one who truly believes it, and so makes it impossible for you not to.
Hope is in the memories of your long years getting to know the little people, and how strong you know them to be. You know it is there when you think all is over, just for everything to begin anew. Watching your friends, in all their diversity, seeing them all cope, brings hope that you can do so too. And most of all, there is hope when those friends recognise you after you long absence, when you had lost hope they would remember your name where you had failed.
The sun itself is hope, the stars and the moon. The trees around you, singing in the light of a new day. The fact that a mortal could surprise you brings hope for their entire race. Him being able to blatantly smile in the face of his betrothed with you standing right next to him is not just hopeful, but also hilarious. It is in those many silent, stolen nights, just the two of you, all unaware of the world for some brief moments. And there is the cry of a seabird, endless water as far as the eye can see and the pull somewhere in your unconcious, knowing you have yet your role to play.
Hope is a strange thing, it lies as well in the solitude of a vast rugged landscape, with only a small fire to keep the night's cold away, your presence not more noted that that of the next stranger, as in the acceptance of a land full of people, all looking up to the one carrying their crown. It lies in your own race as it struggles to survive, as well as an other, deciding their part has been played, but still finding comfort in leaving their long time homes and houses to reach their destiny.It lies in the ones you have come or learn to love.
Where you have found a friend at the moment and place you last expected to, hope is born. The steady swinging of an axe, determined of its course, it's simplicity clearing away all unnecessary thoughts. The comfort of tradition brings hope, yet breaking some traditions sometimes proves to be even more so. When finding death in a place you expected liveliness, your hope must lie in yourself living on. While you still draw breath, you will always be able to find some hope, whether it is in the marvellous sights of nature in all its beauty, or a good mug of ale.
They all had their hope. Whether it was embodied by the love of a single person, or the friendship and closeness of our group. A group I felt left out of. I had no hope, for my hopes lay in the object we were travelling to destroy. And when I saw there was nothing good to be found of the ring, my only hope was an honorable death. In the end, I died in the arms of the one in whom I had hoped to find my comfort, the one who had refused me. I asked him in Lorien, after the golden lady had told us to hold fast to our hopes, what his greatest hope was. His answer surprised me, that he could love one not of his own race so deeply. And when he asked me, I had to answer I had hoped to find hope where my world had come crashing down in its all to sharp edges and bleak colours. There will be no hope for Boromir, son of men, son of the forsaken.
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Hopeless by Silverquill
Story notes: This thing has been haunting me ever since I've seen the FotR for the who-knows-how-many-th time, I quite like the idea and I'm not sure if I managed to get it across right. So, feadback, please! Swamp me with mails telling me how bad I've done XD
