The night was cold, and dark, and dreary, and the rain was falling fast. A young boy of five years lay awake in his bed listening to the howling wind that screamed in from across the Anduin. It always sounded much worse in the Citadel than it really was, for here at the top of the city there was nothing to break the storms. Here it sounded like Nazgûl had the city surrounded.
Faramir lay there feeling frozen in fear. He desperately wanted to run to his brother for comfort, but the last thing he wanted to do was wake him. Faramir thought that the last thing he would ever do in his life would be to wake a sleeping person, for it very nearly was the last thing he had done just a little less then a month ago. That night he was alone and afraid and had gone to his father's bedchamber and when he woke suddenly startled, the Steward had pulled a long knife from under his pillow before realizing that it was only Faramir by him. The child had only been much more frightened by that and was then all the more alone when his father had told him to go back to bed.
Faramir knew much better than to think that Boromir would never take anything against him, but the fear remained. Suddenly a memory caused a shudder to course through Faramir. The last time there had been a storm like that, Faramir had gone to his mother. Anytime he had ever gone to Finduilas, she had always held him until he fell back asleep and he had always woken up comfortable in his mother's arms.
But naneth was gone and Faramir felt alone and abandoned. Again the wind shrieked mournfully from the East. Faramir trembled, pulling the blankets tighter around him. The night was black, but outside his bedroom window, which faced northeast, it was darker than black.
Faramir could see flashes of light up high and braced for the loud crash, but there was none. It frightened him further that there was a lightning which was not followed by thunder, naneth had told him that not all storms were to be feared, for they were often the work of the Valar Ulmo and Manwë. But because there was no thunderclap, Faramir had a feeling that it was not the Valar, but some evil device of Mordor.
Within a chamber high in the tower on that torrential night a grieving Steward had gone to take his mind from the loss of his wife. There he found a token of the Men of the West who had founded the kingdom and city. Indeed, the Steward's mind began to be taken that night.
"Naneth!" the child sobbed in the dark. "I need you...," he trailed off in a scared whispered, drawing his own arms about himself for some small measure of comfort, praying that dawn would hasten.
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Not quite as "nice" as the last one, eh? I may do a few more of these, if i feel so inclined.
Thanks to those who reviewed the last one. I suppose these tie into Chaos Theory in that, assuming that Denethor is not Faramir's biological father, we get a glimpse of how differently Elrond and Denethor treat the knowledge that the children in their care are not theirs technically.