Chapter Two: Dreamer's Influence

For Disclaimer and introductory notes, see Chapter One.

The poem throughout this chapter belongs to JRR Tolkien, taken from the chapter "The Council of Elrond". I don't pretend I wrote it, and neither should you. The one line that was quoted from the movie in this fiction is copyrighted to Peter Jackson and co and is from the extended edition of Two Towers.

From now on, events in the story are based on both book and movie, with the main emphasis on the book. I've tried to fit movie events into the book as best I can, but some were best left out for consistency (such as Elves in Helm's Deep)

Faramir Speaks

July 4, 3018, Third Age

Seek for the Sword that was Brocken:

In Imladris it dwells

            "You cannot follow my path for me, brother."

            "No, but I may follow it for myself." Boromir clamped his hand on my shoulder; "Our father has sent me to Imladris, not you."

            "But the dream was mine before it was yours, you should stay to captain the armies against the growing shadow." The shadow had grown steadily in the month since it had found Mordor, after it had left Mirkwood and grown into the powers that surrounded Minas Morgul and Cirith Ungol. The dreams had come to me, not by accident. It was no mere coincidence that the dreams had come with the shadow. Isildur's Bane, whatever it may be, was back.

            "You are as good a Captain as I, Faramir. Our father has sent me, and I shall go. I will see what the answers may be."

            I knew there was no stopping Boromir, not when he had it in mind to do something. He was as stubborn as our father, and often as proud. I picked up his sword and handed it to him, the hilt aimed toward his chest, "Then luck and all speed be with you, Brother." I accompanied him to the stables and helped him to his horse. With a careful hand, I passed him the Horn of Gondor, the symbol of his status as the son of a Steward, the keeper of Gondor, and so they would remain until the breaking of the world. Many had lost hope for the returning of Isildur's heir, and though I had not given up the hope that one day he would come forward, I had the fear that it would not happen in my life days.

"Remember this day, little brother."

As I watched my brother leave, and saluted him for luck as well as respect, I could not help but wonder whether he would ever run the Kingdom of Gondor, or if the shadow would rule us and only the Dwarves and fabled races such as Halfings would stand free.

            "Captain Faramir?" Parn's voice echoed through my mind and through the crowded hall of a barracks in Osgiliath, filled with sleeping men drunk on ale. I felt that I would never get used to the idea of Captain Faramir, "A message has come, from the Elves, Sir, from Mirkwood."

            I turned to Parn slowly, "Parn, Why did you not take it to my father?" I took the small piece of parchment from him and looked at it. The writing was thin and gentle. It was as delicate as spun gold and as beautiful as anything I had seen.

            "The messenger said the Lady left request for it to go to you or your brother, no other."

            Lady? "Thank you, Parn, return to your post." I turned the parchment in my hand before I concerned myself with what was written. It looked rougher than most Elvish parchment. I had heard tales of Mirkwood, as bad as Lothlòrien, if not worse. The shadow may have moved from there, but there was no proof that it did not still hold sway. I traced the first letter of the paper, written in my own language;

Lords Boromir and Faramir of Gondor,

Rumor has reached me of strange visions you have received in your dreams. Is it that these rumors are true, or simply tales concocted to explain the movement of the shadow and to attempt to begin a prophecy about that is the hope of your people? I, Thranduviel, daughter of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, have also felt omen of a new coming. It is not my place to discuss what is known to me of Isildur's Bane, or the heir to Gondor, but I am inclined to tell you this; my brother has been sent to Imladris to consult with the Lord Elrond. Since I believe men to be far wiser than I believe many of my people do, I know you to have sent a man also, if not one of yourselves. My brother left knowing nothing of the omens I felt, but to you I offer this wisdom: A war comes, and your lands and mine will be the first to receive it.

Nothing is, or will be as it was.

            There was more to the note that I could not bring myself to read. Perhaps, I thought, it was simply more I already knew, or news of ill omen. I gathered my fingers are around the paper and squeezed, stopping myself only when my fingers met the palm of my hand. I would have tossed the parchment away, into one of the fires that burned in the hall, but something kept me from it, something drew me to scrunch it tighter and slip it in my sheath, between the blade and the leather.

There shall be counsels taken

Stronger than Morgul-spells.

            I woke suddenly, the horns blowing in my ears and the men of arms running by my door. The dream had come again, and now that my brother was gone, I was Captain and what was to happen to Gondor was to fall on my shoulders.

            "Captain Faramir, there is movement in the black lands. Your father wishes you to call your men to Minas Tirith immediately."

            My father wishes nothing of the sort. Would that I had fallen in the first battle! I rose slowly and took hold of my sword. I dragged myself up, my soldier's sense dimmed by mead and pipe smoke, "Do they attack our lands?"

            "Not yet, sir, but by all accounts, they come near."

            I pulled my tunic and jerkin over my head, reaching roughly for my breastplate, "Does my father not understand I am needed here?" I pulled my breastplate on and took up my cloak and bow.

            "Wake the men, Parn, we best not keep my father waiting."

There shall be shown a token

That doom is near at hand,

            "Faramir, your dream has been heard by many of us, and none can give you answers. You must now wait for your brother's return, when you may hear what has been told by the Elves of this matter."

            I shook my head; my father remained silent as Parn spoke as freely as he dared. The stewards were a long proud line, and while the people waited still for the King of whom the stories and songs spoke, the guards were finding the Stewards sufficient. This, at the very least, was what we were told, "The Elves will not help to hold Osgiliath."

            "Elves! The Elves would see us serve them, would see the Bane in their hands and the heir as one corrupted into their service." My father seemed to hold more contempt for them than for me. Perhaps I should have taken more note of who was not held by him as unworthy.

            Parn seemed to ignore my father, "If the answers come to us soon, Captain, they may not have to." In one thing, I knew Parn agreed; Osgiliath was the front line. If it fell again, their doom was finally at hand.

            "What answers of banes and swords may help us?" My father said, shaking his head loosely, "Isildur's Bane came close to destroying the Last Alliance, the will of Sauron was then not undone and there seems to be little hope that it shall be undone now."

            I moved to my father's side, "But what of the prophecy, father, of the return of Isildur's heir?"

            My father turned and looked to me, his eyes empty and lost, and not for the first time, he looked to me with true contempt, "That would be your wish would it? To have our line end and wither without gain to fall to some northerner who knows nothing of our ways. Would you see your own house fall to servitude?"

            "I would only have our people restored to glory. The glory of the days gone when men truly were great." I gripped the hilt of my sword instinctively. To stand before my father as he spoke to me like a child was becoming something I came to expect. As I moved my hand, I heard the soft rustle of parchment. I had not needed to draw my sword in many days, and had forgotten the small paper I had stuffed within it. I took out the paper, and parted the crushed edges.

            "I received a strange message, the night my brother left," I began, reading ahead the second half of the note, "The note was meant for me and my brother, claiming rumor has traveled of my visions. It seems rumor travels far, though I am not surprised in it. The messenger also claims…" My words caught in my throat as I read what I myself was about to say, disbelief in my eyes as the dark ink made the hair-thin letters strike me from the very page. I had suppress the memory of who had written the strange words somehow, perhaps then I had thought it un-important, "She says that in the last refuge of men, our line will give way, and the Eye shall cause great men to fall."

            "She? Faramir, do you have some lover you have said naught of? Does your brother?"

            I shook my head, stopping myself before I read on, hoping that what she had written was nothing more than the whim and fancy of a girl too short in the world to know what was best. Somehow, I knew that was impossible, "She is an Elf, the daughter of the Lord of Mirkwood."

            "The princess of Mirkwood? She I have heard about, and heard of all too much. She may be the only one of that sorry place with sense enough to draw herself from the veil her father holds his children to, but she speaks only in riddles of omens and hopeless causes, so the men who know of that family say. It is from that land this accursed shadow comes. Ill omens from ill places can only mean that worse is to happen than even Elvish riddles allow," Beregond, on of Minas Tirith's tower guards, in charge of escorting some of my rangers to the armory, spoke out as he crossed the floor, a small group of men in his wake. He made his exit before I had chance to retaliate. True, the message was unknown and uncalled for, but for a fleeting moment I felt there was more to it than simple riddles. I read the final lines again, pondering whether to speak them or not.

Those the Bane does not corrupt, it makes stronger, and those it does not strengthen die in a veil of shadow and confusion. The bane came once to Mirkwood, and here the shadow came. If the bane comes then to Gondor, there then shall sit the shadow.

I folded the parchment; the last lines had spoken nothing I did not already know. It would be for the better if none of this were spoken to my father or Parn. My father nodded in agreement with Beregond, and without tact, took from me the folded paper.

            "What use is the writing of an Elf-witch against the swords or Orcs? What good is all your knowledge against the shadow, Faramir? Where can prophecies of the Elves lead but to confusion and a longing for the depths of the sea, to where they laugh at our mortality and hope that we should die from the earth before their presence fades away." My father tossed the paper into the small oil dish that burned dimly by his seat. I told myself he was right, that none could know what was in store, not even Elves, and that her pessimism was down to where she lived and the shadow faced there. I stared sadly at the fire, wishing I could read the words again so to be sure of their meaning, though in the dim light the few words I could read were of little importance, and of most I could remember nothing. The paper peeled itself open, revealing writing on the back that I had not noticed, which seemed to lighten in the firelight and glow like strange and wonderful magic. The letters formed, first in the Elvish letters I had seen as a boy, written in the language I had tried but failed to learn. Below, in letters thick and written in gold, in the same gold I had seen on the filigree work of ancient Elvish weapons words I had seen in my dreams, night after night, shaped and toiled by the strange visions of a dying Numenor:

For Isildur's Bane shall waken,

And the Halfling forth shall stand

I decided then that the message held some truth, though was useless to me without specific details, as useless as my dream. I the very least my dream had given a place, she had given little detail. I cursed myself for clouding my mind with drink after reading the first of the letter, for I remembered nothing of it, and the second half spoke of what we all feared in our hearts- Gondor's fall. We were all in for something far greater than any of us, and none knew what would happen, but there was one certain thing; nothing would remain as it was. Boromir had been gone but a fortnight and yet a deep foreboding found me. He would not yet have reached Rivendell, and perhaps would not until October, and when he did, questions would be answered, and questions that are more difficult would arise.

            For all our struggles, and our trials, even in Sauron's defeat, the Shadow would prevail.

Next Chapter: "Maiden of the Golden Ale" Viewpoint: Rosie Cotton

Note: Chapters will get longer, once we get into the story.

Is it slightly less than likely Faramir would receive a letter from Legolas's sister? Well, just think of it this way, the line in the film "Here lies the answer to all the riddles." Also meant her letter, as well as the dreams. All will be explained about her role in time, though people do have a tendency to forget even the most important things…