THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SOLDIER'S HOUSE
By Jashi Troasien
N O T E: Yay! Second chapter! pets little Ocendade I don't own LotR. Please read and review.
CHAPTER TWO
And in the quiet of the winsome wind
When days have passed
And nights are dim
The graves are deep
When wars are over
And shadows sleep
Though you are tired
And you are weak,
Look at the sky.
The stars will speak,
And they will say,
"You must still help those
Who have lost their way."
-Excerpt from "A Soldier's Vow," Anonymous. Poetry and Prose of the Third Age, archived in Minas Tirith in the year 3036
"Explain your reason for being late," the guttural voice of Gondor's Steward seemed to make the air frosty with his shiveringly cold tones. He sat a table with another man, whom Ocendade realized was his son Boromir. He was fair and broad-shouldered, as her cousin Legessa had giggled in her ears often.
"Such a handsome man," she'd twitter, wringing her hands at her mental image, "How I wish he'd take a look at this woman of the soldier's house..."
"Answer!" The Steward's harsh voice jerked her out of her thoughts, making her step back in distressed surprise.
"My lord Steward..." she said, bowing, and then bowed her head at Boromir in clumsy, attempted courtesy, "I apologize profusely for being late."
"You are nearly two hours late," he practically hissed at the librarian, "I demand an answer for this impudence."
Ocendade honestly tried to steel herself. To make herself look like a member of Edain Dagorais: unafraid, unfaltering. It failed miserably. She could barely stop her voice from quavering as she stared at a spot on the floor.
"I...er...Another man was reading one of the books you requested, my lord...and I would not take it from him until he was finished," she mumbled.
"You would not take it from him," the Steward said in disbelief, "even though the Steward of Gondor blatantly requested it?"
Ocendade swallowed bile that had begun to rise up her throat.
"Yes," she said.
Said Denethor of Gondor, "I will not tolerate this impudence from a simple librarian! The next time I require a text, I want it on time. Do you hear me?"
Ocendade nodded, trying not to look as humiliated as she felt. She caught a glance of sympathy from Boromir, who looked as though he wished to say something. He did not.
"...Give me your name, woman, so I can report it to the Head Librarian next time I have the luck to meet her," said the Steward.
"Ocendade, daughter of Careocyn," she quavered. She had hoped he would not take her name.
"Careocyn?" said Boromir, eyes narrowing, "of the soldier's house? Of Edain Dagorais?"
Ocendade felt her heart slipping down to somewhere in the neighborhood of her intestines. "Yes."
Denethor, Steward of Gondor, laughed. He laughed loudly, so that his voice rang through the hall, banging on windows and the high stone columns. She saw Boromir, heir to the Steward, visibly wince. Ocendade bowed, her face flushed red with shame, and took large strides backwards, missing the door and walking backwards into the wall. She jumped and nearly ran out of the room.
"A librarian!" he howled, as Ocendade ran down the hall, "The librarian of Edain Dagorais!"
Ocendade ran blindly onward, her focus on getting out of the castle as quickly as was humanly possible. Stumbling over the hem of her dress, she fell, nearly striking her head against the stone floor. The sound of quick footsteps came near. Hands grabbed her shoulders as she got up.
"Milady, are you all—"
"I am fine!" she cried out, her voice shaking in a mixture of both rage and shame. She wrenched away from whatever hands had helped her stand and ran towards the great doors of the castle, fleeing, scampering, retreating. The opposite of what any proper Edain Dagorais would do. She imagined what Aetheorean, would have done in her place. Perhaps he would have taken the Steward's beating out of love for his country, but he would not have shamed the soldier's house with a shaking voice or trembling hands or flying feet.
As she reached the doors she banged them open, taking a last fleeting, cowardly glance behind her. She saw the face of the mysterious hands. Faramir, second son of Denethor II.
Ocendade ran out into the open air.
Manôsâi sat next to his sister's desk, idly organizing tiny bottles of ink on his small table. Though he would never have admitted it, his twin's presence helped him work a little better. The bottles were painfully small, a tribute to how unlucky their financial situation was. Manôsâi had honestly tried to make money, but now he was totally reliant on Ocendade's pension, which was not scarce, but not suitable for two people to live on. Especially now with the war and the darkness rising...pay days were getting farther apart and fewer between.
He restlessly waited a few more moments before unscrewing a bottle of dark green ink, and delicately dipping the tiny, thin thistles of his brush into the musky, emerald paint. Meticulously, he began a flower's stem at the corner of a page. The tendrils began to sprout on the tan parchment, winding around the page number, embracing it in its lovely hold of jade life. Directing all of his thoughts and energy to the miniscule, delicate flower before him, he soon was lost to his own world where he was a priest of art, worshipping the luscious hues upon the page as they spread and created themselves into works of exquisiteness.
Manôsâi worked for nearly two hours on the flowers, which by then had turned into a garden that crept secretly up the side of the page, entangling the viewer with its mystic colors and hypnotizing blossoms, and the vines that seemed to want to reach out and curl about the reader's fingers as he held the page open.
He was rudely jarred away from his secret world of art when the door to the Architecture and History section opened with a loud creak, then closed with a deafening crash. Manôsâi scarcely managed to not splatter the ink all over his work.
"Ocendade?" He saw his sister, her hair windblown and mussed and her eyes wide and upset.
"Oh, brother," she said, sinking down beside him at her desk.
Manôsâi put down the book and his brushes, looking concerned.
"I'm going to lose my job. I was late to the Steward's...he's going to speak to Hothien...I'm going to lose my job..." she repeated over again, in a dull, disbelieving voice that made Manôsâi narrow his eyes.
"How late were you to the Steward's, sister?"
"Nearly two hours. I let a man finish his book before bringing it to him. And then he asked me for my name, and I told him." She looked into his eyes just for a moment, and suddenly he understood her upset.
It was that same look that he had when Aetheorean muttered about artists being poor and worthless, when Addrynnyn laughed so loudly the rafters seemed to shake when Careocyn had informed him Ocendade was going to be a librarian, the look of disbelief and utter shame upon Thaliondal's face when Manôsâi showed him a drawing he'd done instead of sparring. The disappointment, the let down, the feeling that they would not live up to the standards set for them before birth.
"Sister..." he trailed off, not knowing what he should say. What comfort could he offer? Even as her twin, there was nothing he could say that would prove the opposite. He placed his arm around her shoulders.
"Hothien won't release you. She seems to like you. I recall her saying that she's never approved much of the Steward anyway. It'll be alright, Ocendade."
Ocendade nodded, looking a little better considering the moment before. "Are you sure?" she asked him, with an almost childlike innocence in her voice, knowing full well what his honest answer would be.
"No."