Disclaimer: I do not own anything from LOTR.


Faramir sat under the shadow of the White Tree, and its branches cast well needed shadows across his face, keeping the light away from his tired eyes. A new day had dawned, and yet there was no hope to be found in the rising sun. What hope was there, if Nienor's eyes did not open to see it? What hope was there when she lay silent in her sick bed, her soul all but fled from her body?

It was the third day now since the remnants of the betrothal gathering had returned to the city, the bridegroom dead, spitted on a pike by one of the enemy, and the bride not expected to live. Faramir knew full well that he should feel sorrow for the Lord Orodreth, younger than he was and cut down in his youth, but he was dead. His trouble was over. He would be buried, and mourned, and perhaps he would be forgotten and perhaps he would not be. But Nienor was alive still, and yet not alive at all. The city and the citadel wept over her fate, the beautiful young girl who had been ruined by the flames of the enemy. Some who had gathered flowers for her betrothal now picked rue and thyme to throw upon her funeral bier, it seemed so certain to them that she would die.

The smell of the wretched plants had followed him throughout the citadel as he paced frenziedly along stone walkways and through corridors ripe with echoes, even the Houses of Healing, where his sister lay on her sickbed. Why did they harvest plants of mourning so soon? Nienor was not cold and lifeless yet! She still breathed; even if she had not yet woken, she still lived! She did not yet warrant incense being burned in her memory, or morbid decorations noting her passing. She was not dead, like their mother.

Here, on the sunlit bastion, was the only place that he could escape from the funeral plants, where the wind blew fresh and clean. He hated the smells that met him at every turn, he hated that he could smell them again, after so many years, and he hated that the only memory he had of their mother in her last days was the scent of her wake, the cloying scent that brought to mind Finduilas's dead face. He hated that Nienor's face, bruised and beaten, began to replace that of their mother. Nienor would not share their mother's fate. She would not die.

But the news that Ioreth, one of the chief healers, had given to him this morning, was crushing his hope as easily as an enemy rock upon his tender chest. That Nienor would most likely not die but would never wake was truly more terrible than if she had died from her burns that dreadful night, or had passed away in the days afterwards. If she were truly dead, then he could allow himself to weep and to cry for his sister, even if their father would not permit it, and after that he would live on through each day with another hole in his heart and his mind. But instead he would still see his sister's face perhaps every day, and would speak to her, knowing all the while that her eyes would never open to meet his and he would never hear her voice again.

It was as if Nienor was already dead, but mourning for her was forbidden by all, himself as well as his father and his brother.

He raised his fingers to his throat, to feel the stitches that had sewn his skin back together after his wound had been cleaned, and then to his eyes to wipe away the tears he knew that he would find there. He found himself having to breathe hard so that more would not come. He closed his eyes, and his free hand curled around his legs and pulled them to his chin, seating himself as he had not done since he was a boy. He did not care what the guards, standing by the steps that led up to the bastion, thought.

It should not be like this. It was not right that Nienor should sleep her life away, forever dreaming, never waking. She deserved so much more; she was worth so much more. She had survived the night where others had perished, she had stubbornly held on to life when all had thought that she would die by the day's end, and yet now she would spend that life trapped inside her body, inside her own head. She would become weaker and weaker, and when she did die, as all of the race of Men must, whatever their bloodline, she would never know of it.

Faramir looked up to see the dead white branches of the tree moving softly in the wind the blew around him and above him, the tree that had been dead for many years and yet was still preserved, the tree that would only live again if the king came back. His eyes watered anew, both with his sorrow and with the force of the wind. If a king could heal the disorder in Gondor, and heal his sister, then the empty throne was his for the taking, and the tree was his to heal or replant anew. He would not oppose such a man.

He looked away from the branches in time to see a familiar shape making its slow way up the steps that led from the second level to the citadel, a figure from three years ago and longer than that. He could not help but smile, and stand and walk to take Mithrandir's hand.

"Greetings, Grey Pilgrim," he murmured, as he helped the old wizard up the last few steps and onto the bastion. "What brings you to this sorry city?"

"I will tell you, Faramir, if first you might tell me why the White City is so sorrowful," Mithrandir replied, as he took his hand from Faramir's glove-clad one. "I smelled the rue at the first gate, and it has preceded me all the way up here. Who is it who has died?"

It was surprising to Faramir how easy it was to speak of it. "Not one who has died, but one whom all believe will die. Our sister is the one they mourn, Mithrandir. Our sister, Nienor." He watched as Mithrandir's blue eyes widened, and answered the wizard's questions as quickly as they were asked, of the betrothal celebration, of the attack, of how Nienor's escape had been thwarted and how she had been so badly hurt, of how their father had carried her back himself, refusing to let any other touch his daughter, and of how for two days now she had lain in a fevered sleep that would not break, that the healers said would never break.

"The healers try and they try, but they can do nothing for her mind," he finished, hardly trusting himself not to let his tears slip into his voice. "They say that something inside her is broken. They say…Mithrandir, they say that her body lives, but her mind is dead." His fingers tightened, the leather of his gloves grinding. "Father has hardly left her side. He does not eat, he hardly sleeps. My brother and I fear that he will make himself ill. We do not know what to do any more, Mithrandir. Our little sister is as good as dead, and our father is killing himself because he cannot bear to lose her." The knowledge that their father was willing to follow his daughter, rather than to stay with the sons that were alive, was painful, but not as painful as Nienor falling down into darkness from which she would never rise. His gaze dropped to the stone of the bastion, as he closed his eyes to make a dam and hold the salt water back. "He keeps muttering that if a man named Thorongil were here, he would save her…he is part way to madness already…"

Mithrandir's hand came down upon his shoulder, and squeezed the flesh there. "This is indeed evil news, Faramir. I feel sorrow for you all, more than I can tell. If something could be done…"

There was a hint in the wizard's tone, a hint of something that he chose not to voice, that made Faramir look up again and into Mithrandir's face. Something he faintly recalled as hope began to grow in him once more, struggling against the tightness in his chest. "Do you mean that something can be done, Mithrandir? Speak more plainly, I beg you."

The wizard took away his hand to clasp his staff, the sympathy that had been in his face dying away to be replaced with a kind of gaze that Faramir did not think he had ever seen on the face of any man or woman, not even his own father. If wisdom and power and restraint, all melded and alloyed together, had eyes, then they would look at him with a gaze something akin to Mithrandir's. "Something could be done, Faramir. But that does not mean that it will be done."

"But you could help her." Faramir seized onto the idea even as he voiced it, as he seized the wizard's arm. "You could help to bring her back, from wherever she is now. You know that you could, Mithrandir."

"I could." The old man said nothing else, and lifted Faramir's hand away from his arm with surprising strength.

"But will you?"

There was a space between his words, in which the wind blew and his cloak and Mithrandir's robes rippled in the breeze, before the wizard spoke at last. "Take me to her, Faramir, and I will see what can be done."

It was all that he needed to take Mithrandir by the sleeve and hurry him back down the stairs, past the wondering guards, and into the Houses of Healing. Quickly he led the wizard to the room he had so recently quitted, the room in which his hope and that of his brother and father had drained away, but which had now come back in full flood. He led him inside, into the dusk and the quiet.

The first thing any person saw when entering the chamber was the bed, and the one who lay upon it, above all else. Faramir half feared that Mithrandir would not believe that this was Nienor. He had told the wizard that his sister looked so very like their mother, but now she did not resemble anyone very greatly; much of her beautiful dark hair had been burned off by the same fire that had scorched her flesh, and her face was badly beaten. Her nose, when she had been found, had been broken and flowing with blood, and though it had been expertly set it had lost the elegant slope he faintly remembered from his mother's face. But most of all her eyes were closed, so that no one might see the darkness in their depths, the dear darkness. How frail she looked, the sister who had always seemed to be so strong!

A sound to his left made him recall the presence of others in the chamber besides the healers, who even now were muttering at his sudden reappearance, and the presence of a stranger in their midst; one had even rushed out, brushing past them. He thought only now of what the Lord Denethor would say or how he would act, knowing that his younger son had brought the wizard he so hated to his daughter's sick bed. Would he banish Mithrandir outright? That must not be, not when there was hope!

But he was comforted that it was only Boromir, rising fro ma seat in the corner and rubbing weariness from his eyes, Boromir who stared at the two of them, stifling a yawn. "Faramir? Why have you come back? And…Mithrandir!" The weariness faded from his eyes, as Boromir recognised one who he had not seen in more than ten years, a distant memory made flesh, and standing in his sister's sick chamber. "What are you doing here?"

"Where is our father, Boromir?" he asked hurriedly, ignoring the secret shame he felt that he had perhaps abandoned this vigil when Boromir had been willing to stay, despite the agony that it might cost him. "When I left he was still present. Where has he gone?"

"Only a little time after you left his attendants finally convinced him to leave, to rest. I promised him that I would keep watch…over her." Boromir looked to the bed, his mouth set grimly. "He would not have departed otherwise."

Faramir knew that this meant they had, at best, only a few minutes before the Lord Denethor would be back, like a storm returning in thunder and fury. Most likely that healer had been instructed to bring him news of any change in his daughter's condition, and the visit of an unknown man would be of great concern to the Steward, and even more so when the man was described.

He turned to look at Mithrandir. "Our father will be here soon, then. If it is in your power to help her, Mithrandir, then you must do it now."

The wizard nodded at his words, and then moved forward to the bedside, the brothers following. The three healers, shocked and confused, moved out of his path, and then the old man was at Nienor's right, holding her hand, with Faramir beside him and Boromir on the other side of the bed. He placed his weathered hand on Nienor's poor, shaved head, and Faramir heard his hiss of breath, and his whisper. "Poor child. An evil fire made these marks."

He looked down at his little sister's face, her pale skin barely standing out against the crisp cloth of her pillows. It looked so calm and so peaceful, so tranquil, so wrong. Nienor was not peaceful. She was vibrant and powerful, and it should show in her face. He wanted to see her dark eyes burn once more, not stay closed and quiet and dead. He wanted to hear her voice, not just her breath, so quiet it could barely be heard. "Can you help her, Mithrandir?"

Mithrandir's eyes opened, and turned to look at him. "If you wish to know, both of you, I could bring her back. But, this lies with you both…should I?"

"What do you mean?" Boromir was confused, and not a little angry. "If you have a way to restore our sister, then do it! Do it now!" The impetuous heir to the Stewardship bunched his fists into the sheets, barely missing his sister's heavily bandaged arm.

Mithrandir only shook his head. "You do not understand me. Think on this. I could bring her back to the waking world, but to what kind of life would I bring her?" he looked steadily at the both of them, before continuing. "Would she be able to live with the wounds she has now, that she will keep for the rest of her days? She will walk in pain for all of her life, I can see it all too clearly. There might come a time, all too soon, when she would blame you both for calling her back instead of granting her release, and would think it better that she had died instead."

Faramir looked away, trying not to let tears come once more. He knew what the wizard said was true, he knew the extent of Nienor's injuries. Her arms, her hands, her back and much of her legs, all had fallen victim to the greedy flames, and all bore the brunt of that greed. The scars would stay with her, always. And the thought that his sister, their sister, their little sister, would grow to hate them and blame them for bringing her back to such pain, was dreadful. The thought that their love could cause such pain was…terrifying.

But her eyes would burn again, and her voice would speak again, and she would be passionate once more. And that gave him the strength that he needed to speak. "It would be better than this half life. She has not struggled to live only to dream into death, never waking. It would be worth her hatred."

"She is our sister, Mithrandir." Boromir was more quiet now, his voice near to pleading. "We cannot lose her. Not again."

The wizard sighed, whether with relief or regret he could not tell, for all that he was a great judge of men. "So be it. But it must be your voices that call her back. In truth, I feel that she has been struggling to return, but she needs a bridge to cross the void. Call to her as I speak." He laid his hand across her closed eyes now, and discarding his blue hat he bent his grey head close to her ear, whispering words of recall. He glared up at them. "Call her, as I told you!"

Their voices conflicted at once, each saying words he thought Nienor would hear, words that would lend her strength to fight her way free. Faramir did not know what Boromir spoke – indeed he could hardly even hear his own words – but he knew what he said.

"Nienor. Come back to us, sister. Come back. This is not your path. You are loved, Nienor. You might not have thought it, but you are loved, you are wanted. We love you so dearly, Nienor. You must come back. You must fight. Fight the darkness, Nienor. You owe it to yourself."

And then, after speaking for hours or perhaps days, he heard Nienor's breath quicken. Already he surged forward and Mithrandir drew his hand back, and all at once his sister's eyes were opening, pale lids opening to reveal the darkness beneath them…for once a tired darkness, a weak darkness, but a darkness that he did not flinch from.

"Oh, Nienor." He had sunk to his knees that he might come closer to her face. Now, more than ever, he wanted to take her into his arms, and hold her and never release her, and Boromir did too, he thought, but he could not. For her sake, he could not. But he pulled the glove off his hand so that he might stroke her face. "Nienor? Do you know us?"

"My…brothers." He could feel her arms straining to reach out to them, but she did not have the strength, he could tell from her voice. Never had it sounded so soft, and so weak, but it was there, barely halting. "You are…safe? Both of you?"

"We are safe." Boromir's voice from beside him trembled, but it held steady.

"And…our father?" But their sister was distracted by the one standing above them, now. "You…you are…Mithrandir?"

"Yes, my lady." The wizard's voice was more gentle now than he had ever heard it, even when he was young, as if he feared hurting Nienor even further with mere words.

He could hardly see Nienor now, his eyes were so blurry with tears. But he heard the smile in her tired voice. "I have…always longed to…meet you. But…" The happiness was gone now, as he had feared. "I did…not think that…it would ever be like…this." He buried his face into her bed sheets, as he felt a weight fall on his head – her hand, he knew it was. "My head feels…so light. And my…arms. They pain me. Faramir? Boromir? There is…pain. Why is…there so much pain?"

Faramir and Boromir of Gondor made no answer, as for the first time in three days, they wept. The tears of their sister fell upon their heads.


This is how the days pass.

I sleep. I dream. I scream. I wake. Ioreth gives me a drink for sleep. I sleep. I dream. I scream. I wake. Ioreth gives me a drink for sleep.

There are times when I dream the old dream, of hands pulling me down into the darkness and stopping my mouth as I shriek, only now they also grasp my arms and legs and back as if they would rip the very skin off me, and tear away my limbs after. When I wake gasping of it, the healers know that they must change my bandages. That hurts all the more, because it is the pain of wakefulness, when I cannot escape.

I wake and Varda, the Lady of Stars, smiles down at me from the painted ceiling of my room.

There are times when I dream that I have not fled from that orc at all, and he has tied me down, and he is pushing something sharp, oh so sharp, between my legs, pushing a blade or a pointed stick right up inside me, cutting through all in its path. When I wake I know that the sheets of my bed will be sodden with yellow water, and I must be cleaned and the sheets changed before I am given the juice from poppies to sleep once more.

The Lady of Stars holds out her hands to welcome me back into the waking world.

But most of all I dream of fire, of a circle of fire, I smell the smell of it; I feel the heat of it upon my skin and crackling in my hair. And I scream. I scream until I wake, and then I scream after that. Sometimes I can hardly make myself stop.

Varda's smile meets my eyes as they open.

I sleep, and I dream, and I scream, and I wake, and Ioreth gives me a drink for sleep.

At the start of the second day I fear that if I were not the daughter of Denethor, they would gag me when they dressed my burns, and I will choke on my shrieks. I ask Ioreth for something that will swallow my cries. She gives me a leather strap, which grown men bite upon when their wounds are dressed or when the healers needs must cut off parts of them that are crushed and mangled, and no juice of poppies will ease the pain.

I sleep. I dream. I scream. I wake. Ioreth gives me a drink for sleep.

By the third evening the strap is all but bitten in two. Ioreth gives me a new one, thicker, which stands up to the sharpness of my teeth and the strength of my bite, made stronger by my pain. I growl in agony as if I were a wounded dog. I growl until my voice is gone, and I could not scream even if I wished to.

I sleep. I dream. I hiss. I wake. Ioreth gives me a drink for sleep.

I learn to wake myself when I feel the pain upon my skin, so that I can call to the healers to change me anew, and I learn to wake when I feel the pain between my legs so that the healers can bring me a pot to piss in, and I learn to wake when I feel the heat upon my flesh so that I can gasp to myself in the dark and feel my sweat dry in the cool air and in my sheets, before I call for help. But I cannot learn to go to sleep again at my own will. I must have the juice of poppies, or I will not sleep at all.

I do not think that I will ever sleep of my own accord again.

I sleep. I dream. I force myself not to scream, I force myself to wake. I lie in the dark until Ioreth comes.

My flesh feels as if it is covered by nothing, and is open to the pain and poison of the air. Fire runs up and down me. The fire that burned me is still inside me, and it burns yet, it burns away the healing salves they smear upon my arms and legs and back and further down. I can hardly recall a time when there was no fire and no burning and no pain. There are times when I think, shaking with a cold that comes upon me or aflame once more, that I must have been on this bed for all of my life, ever since I sprang from my mother and killed her, and that this fire is my punishment for ending her sweet life as my own foul one goes on and on and on.

I sleep. I dream. I wake, gasping for the breath that hardly comes. Ioreth gives me a drink for sleep.

My brothers come and go, stroking my face and where my hair used to be, sitting by my side. They look weary. They do not cry now, but I do not think that they are joyful. I do not think any man or woman could be joyful in this room, which rings with gagged screams and whines of pain, and still smells of cooking meat. There are times when I hear them speak, and times when I do not, but that is not their fault. The poppy juice claims my wakefulness, and I sink down into darkness. If they are here when I wake and scream, I do not see them. I love that they are willing to come, and that they do not stay away. They want to be here. They called me back from the dark, the strangling dark. They are all that I wish to see.

I wish that they would hold me, but they do not dare do that. They do not wish to hurt me any further. I do not know if the pain of being embraced would hurt more than my brothers being unwilling to touch me.

My father sits in the corner of the room, like a dark spirit escaped from my dreams. Each time I see him his hair is a little more matted, his face a little more drawn and more tired, but I never see him asleep. Always he watches me. I do not think that he leaves, even when I scream and wake, even when I battled the healers on the second day, fearing the pain that they would bring with them, kicking weakly and hitting them uselessly. He does not leave when I awake in my own filth and am handled like a swaddled baby by the stronger healers as they clean me and dress me in new robes, like an infant. He does not leave when I wake, babbling of fire and croaking instead of shrieking.

Perhaps he does not leave because I scream, or try to.

Perhaps he does not leave, because he thinks that this suffering is my punishment.

Or perhaps he does not leave, because he thinks that my suffering is his punishment.

I do not know which is more terrifying.

On the fourth day Mithrandir comes, with Faramir and Boromir at his side. He holds my bandaged hand despite the pain, but I do not mind. He blesses me and tells me that I will not suffer for much longer, and that I will soon be well again. It is soothing to hear his voice. I wish that he will stay with me for a longer time, but I do not think that my father allows it, for he stares at the both of us for all the time that Mithrandir is here, and Mithrandir leaves sooner than I would have liked. I wish that he would have stayed until I could speak back to him. I have so much to ask him, not least why this hurts so very greatly, and what I have done to deserve it, and what my burn wounds look like.

My father and I sit in silence after that. I cannot speak, and would not wish to. He does not have to speak, though I believe that he does wish to.

There is all the difference in the world between speaking because you have to and speaking because you wish to.

But my father says nothing.

There is one person who does not come to visit me, and of that I am glad. I do not want Orodreth near me like this. I would not have him wish me better. I am happy that he does not come.

I sleep. I dream. I wake. I breathe. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I breathe.

On the fifth day my voice returns to me, and I ask Ioreth to let me see my burns. She refuses. I ask. She refuses. I demand. She refuses. Only when I say that I will rip the dressings off to see what I have become does she come forward, her face dark, and she carefully unwraps just my hand to show me, so that I can see.

I see. My father, from his corner, sees too.

Again we say nothing, to each other or to any other. Father sits in his lonely seat and watches me watch my hand. I let Ioreth wrap my hand again. I lie back down and I look at the ceiling of the chamber. The Lady smiles down at me. I have nothing to say, or to do.

If that is my hand, what is the rest of me like?

I have been melted, like candle wax. My bones hold dripping flesh. Why does my flesh not slide off my bones?

What am I now?

What am I?

I do not sleep. I cannot sleep. I lie awake. I breathe.

On the sixth day, nine days after my burning, the moon is right, and I feel the pain between my legs tighten, and I wake and I call the healers to bring a pot with weariness. A little red comes with the yellow, that I can see, but only a very little. They show me, biting their lips. There is nothing else that day, or on the day after it. There is that trickle, but my moon blood does not come. It will not come.

On the eighth day, my sheets are still free of blood. The healers say that this is not right. Ioreth says nothing with words, but she says much with her eyes.

I do not sleep. I lie awake. I breathe.

On the ninth day, twelve days after my burning, Ioreth at last shoos the other healers out of the room, and makes a tent of my bed sheets over her head and my legs, and I feel her hands push my robe up above my hips. She stays down there for a long time, and I can feel her fingers brushing up my legs, rasping over the bandages upon them, and further up, and further up. She undoes the bandages that cushion me between my legs.

Her fingers are cold and thin.

I look up at the ceiling and at nothing else. Would this be different from my wedding night? I do not show that I wish my father were gone. I do not show that I wish he were anywhere but here, watching this.

At last Ioreth straightens, wiping her hands on a damp cloth, and her face comes into view again. She does not cry, but she looks as if she would like to. She looks from me to my father, and to me again, as she smoothes down the sheets over my legs once more. I feel her fingers shake.

I do not think that I want to hear what she has to say. I do not want to hear it at all.

"The burns are very great." Who is she speaking to? "The Lady Nienor's legs were harmed greatly, but I think that she will be able to walk once more, in time. But…" She looks at my father now. "There must be no children, my lord."

She walks up to my head, and she seizes my hand. It hurts. She leans down to straighten my pillow, and she speaks, now to me. "I think, my lady, that there will be no children. The damage is too great."

Barren. I am barren. She is saying that I am barren.

This is not true. This must not be true. Words come from my mouth. They are high and thin. "Orodreth will not marry me, then?" I sound like a child, foolish and disbelieving.

I find my answer in Ioreth's face, but it is not the one I wished for. Her face brings news of an end that reaches far further than my womb. She straightens and steps away from me. She chews her lip. She tells me what no other has told me.

"Lady Nienor, the Lord Orodreth is…"

But it is my father who says the words. His voice creaks from the corner. "He is dead, Nienor. Orodreth is dead. He died in the battle with the orcs. His body had been taken back to Pelargir, for burial."

Dead. He is dead.

I look at Father. He looks at me. In that look, we understand each other. I know why he stayed. He wanted to be the one to tell me. No one else but he should tell me this. He knows that I wish for him to leave, that I do not want anyone one else to be here.

Not now.

Not like this.

He rises and gestures to Ioreth. She obeys, though with hesitance. They leave. My father shuts the door behind him.

I am alone. For the first time since I awoke in my new body, made of pain, I am alone.

When even the echoes of their footsteps have gone, I look up at the ceiling. The Lady of the Stars smiles down upon me, her arms spread wide to embrace, and her laughing face cuts into me. Does she pity me? I do not want pity. Does she mock me? I care not.

I am unlucky. I am bad luck.

Oh, Valar. I prayed to you to help me. I prayed that I would not have to marry Orodreth, that I would not have to share his bed, with all my heart and mind and soul. I prayed with all my life that I would not have to bear his children.

Now I never will. I never can.

Was that your answer to my prayer?


Alas, poor Orodreth, we hardly knew thee! I admit that the lad was something of a plot device character, but it's not as if Prof Tolkein didn't adopt that fad. Erkenbrand isn't much more than a plot device himself.

Poppy juice is essentially opium, which is why Ioreth isn't using more of it to keep Nienor under. Enough of the stuff and you can get addicted to it, and too much and you can die from it. I'm guessing that although the Houses of Healing are very advanced, this is still Medieval type medicine, and I doubt they'd have any stronger pain killers than herbal remedies.

Rue is a plant often associated with mourning, and thyme is often associated with virginity. Throwing these onto a young woman's bier would, I think show mourning for the loss of one so young, and still a virgin.


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