Title: White, Blue, Black
Author: Illwynd
Disclaimer: Tolkien gets the credit for the good, Illwynd takes the blame for the bad.
Summary: A double-drabble regarding Denethor's attempts to make Finduilas feel more at home in Minas Tirith.
The cold whiteness of the stone here had been covered for years, long enough that he had nearly forgotten what these walls looked like. When his happy wife grew solemn, he had believed she was longing for her home, and ordered the sea-blue velvet hung all about, hoping it would cheer her. When their son was small, the boy had played in its folds, hiding then springing out, grinning over his own cleverness. This made her laugh at least, he thought. But not enough; still she withered. After their second son was born, he brought a painter to paint a scene of the seaside on the walls of their rooms, so it would be as if she were there again.
"Thank you for trying, my dear husband. But I fear it is not the same; I cannot hear the sea, or catch its scent, and shadow still hovers beyond the stone," she had told him wearily after the painter finished his task.
His sons watched, their young faces drawn and wet, as he himself took down the velvet, bunching it in his hands in silent grief. In its place he hung cloth of another color. Black, for she was gone.