In the weeks that had passed since reading the letter from Éowyn, Faramir had wandered through his daily tasks as though in a fog. Often he would sit down to work only to find hours later that he had been staring out his window all day. He felt as though the world around him was moving faster than usual and he could not bring it into focus. Papers would pile up on his desk but he could not seem to muster up enough energy to read through them all. His dreams were filled again with flame and smoke, and so he did not sleep.

Of everything that Éowyn had written, the hardest part for Faramir to accept was that he knew that it was nobody's fault. He could not blame her, and so his anger was focused instead on the unseen powers that had seen fit to show him paradise and rip it away a moment later. Éowyn could not leave her people any easier than he could leave Gondor. Faramir had been isolated once more by the responsibilities of his title and that tore him apart. Sitting at his desk in a half destroyed building that had no roof, he pressed his fingers to his eyes but was helpless to hold back the tears that began to stream silently down his face.