Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings or any characters and/or places
thereof
*****
Faramir sighed but would not allow the tears to come. "My earliest memory is of my mother dying," he said. "Everything seemed to get worse day by day after that." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly, shuddering. Remembering, he wanted to cry. The image of his mother, his beautiful mother, so weakened and frail, brought a painful ache to his heart.
He remembered how cold her hands were. The thick hair on her head thinned. Though not a vain woman, Lady Finduilas had been beautiful. Had she not been her five-year-old son would not have known the difference. The one thing unchanged, even in death, were her eyes.
Faramir, five years old, could be contained by no orders. He crept from his bed at night, feeling fear rise to choke him in his chest yet unable to stop. He had to see his mother, he had to see Mama once more before she went away. Boromir said that Mama would get better but Faramir knew better. Mama could not lift a glass of water to her lips. Her head lacked the strength to hold on to her hair. Mama had left her body behind, soon for good. Faramir understood that.
The door was too heavy for Faramir. He pulled at the handle but without result. Red coloured the skin of his palms and sweat made them slip. As Faramir slipped back into the shadows, heading back to his room to weep, the door swung open!
The little boy gasped and turned, watching first in surprise at his good fortune, then in hope, expecting Mama to come, then in fear as Father instead came from the chamber. Faramir knew he would be in big trouble if Father caught him wandering the halls at this hour. As the man passed, speaking to his valet in words Faramir could not understand yet which rang coldly from the walls, Faramir held his breath. If he managed ten seconds more, Father would be gone.
One...two...
Twenty--!
Faramir had to do it. He breathed. In great fear and almost certain of the blow soon to land, he looked about--Father had gone! And, as if by some miracle, he had not closed the door to Mama's chamber. Faramir pulled the door open a few inches more and squeezed in.
Faramir loved Mama's room. On the walls she had paintings and sketches of the sea and of Dol Amroth, her home. Two Faramir had drawn with bits of charcoal. Neither was particularly aesthetically pleasing, but Mama had placed them on her walls just the same. Faramir felt as though, in entering Mama's room, he had entered Dol Amroth itself. The flickering torchlight gave an eerie life to the sea in the paintings.
"Mama!" He climbed up onto her bed and knelt at Mama's side. "Mama," Faramir whispered, touching her face with his chubby, sticky hands.
He felt tears rising in his throat and knew, in that moment, that Mama had gone away now. Tears for her absence and for the pain of loving her tightened their grip. Then, another miracle, Mama opened her eyes! Her eyes rolled and found her son. Lovingly she stroked his cheek. "My baby," she whispered.
"Mama!"
She smiled. "You are growing up, my little boy. Soon you will be a man." Her smile warmed the boy's heart and his tears subsided.
"You going away, Mama?" he asked brokenly.
"Yes, my son. Yes, I am going away. Where I am going, I will live by the sea and every morning watch the swift sun rise over the water. It is a wonderful place..." she trailed off wistfully. "Do you understand, Faramir?"
He nodded. "Yes, Mama."
"I knew you would," she answered sadly. "You must look after your brother and your father, Faramir, when I am not here to do so. You are the strong one, my little warrior..."
"I will, Mama. I love you Mama!"
"Shh, my child, hush." Though her voice was weak, Mama's words soothed her little boy. "I am going to be very happy, and someday you will join me. We will be together. Every day we will walk on the sands and you will tell me all of your adventures. But you have a life ahead of you, my son, while I have one behind me."
Faramir understood then. He understood that Mama really and truly was going away, and that where ever she was going she would be happy. Mama's eyes closed and her chest shuddered, and she did not breathe again.
"Good night, Mama," Faramir whispered, and he kissed her cheek, and he did not cry.
"Our condolences," Elrohir offered in a quiet voice, thinking Faramir's speech complete for his long pause. "We, too, have lost our mother."
"When Father found me with Mama's body he hit me so hard my head spun. Often he had taken such action against me or my brother before, or so Boromir tells me, as is just punishment, but Mama always stopped him before he went too far. This time he smacked my head and shouted and shoved me from the room." Faramir took another deep breath. The twins wore identical horrified expressions.
Why am I doing this? Faramir asked himself. He knew himself to be unready. Why did he tell his secrets to these strangers, whom he did not even like?
Only minutes ago Faramir had been walking down the corridor, looking forward to spending a quiet, elusive afternoon in the library when he overheard an argument between Thorongil and Elladan and Elrohir. His intentions had not been to eavesdrop, but...
"He is unwell, Estel."
"Elladan, what do you expect me to do? He is a good person and a good boy and, if you don't like him, there is nothing I can do," Thorongil answered.
"We do not feel Imladris is the right place for him."
"You do not understand--"
"We do, Estel. Truly we do, and we feel for him--"
"Stop it." Thorongil's words were acrid, bitter, somehow unfitting for the man Faramir knew. "I do not have to justify this to you. Once you were my brothers. You had faith in me. Have that faith now! Trust me! I ask, but I will not beg."
Faramir found that air refused to enter his lungs and tears stung at his eyes. 'Do not do this!' he wished to tell Thorongil. 'Do not forgo family for me, do not become what I am!'
He knew no option but to speak up, for himself but in especial for Thorongil. Faramir had simply started talking...
"I was a bad child," Faramir continued, "I never learned to sit quietly and not ask questions and I took better to womanly arts than manly. I often disrespected my father by not acting as he instructed and...my greatest crime: when my mother died I shed no tears for her."
Faramir gripped his elbows against the pain with such strength that Thorongil, seeing this, rushed forward and, kneeling, took Faramir's hands in his. Faramir trembled and bit his lip. No one moved then, but Elladan turned to his brother and said quietly, "What a sick thing to do to a child."
Faramir's head snapped up. He glared at Elladan with a rage even Faramir himself had not known he possessed. Then he leapt: Faramir leapt forward, his fists flying and his feet kicking and his teeth biting. He set into Elladan with every weapon his body held.
Elrohir, who served the sole purpose of observing in this situation, worried for the child. Sometimes Elladan lost control of himself...Estel must have remembered, also, for he stood and pulled Faramir away, restraining his little foundling as best he could.
"Let me go!" Faramir protested. "Let me go, let me down, let me hurt him I want to hurt him I want to kill him he can't talk about my father that way! Let me go!"
As this went on Elladan hissed at Thorongil in Quenya, holding a hand beneath his bleeding nose, "You see, Estel? That is a sick child and you are thicker than an orc's skull not to see it!"
"You are the orc here, Elladan, to give up on a child and be ready to leave him for dead!" Thorongil shot back, and at the same moment they condemned each other to the dungeons of Morgoth, Elladan in anger and Thorongil in angry defense of Faramir. Meanwhile, in all the pandemonium, Faramir ripped himself free of Thorongil's hold and again attacked Elladan.
His shouts might have been far more hurtful, had Elladan very much cared about Faramir. "I hate you! I hope you die! I hate you so much!"
"That's it!"
By the time Thorongil shouted loudly enough to stop them both Elladan was fighting as viciously as Faramir and, surprisingly, winning only slowly. Thorongil strode forward and delivered a swift kick to Elladan's midsection, placing him out of action. He then lifted Faramir, still kicking and screaming, off Elladan and marched out of the room.
Thorongil deposited Faramir in a tub of water.
Faramir pushed his head out of the water and gasped, tears streaming down his face. His eyes grew wide and he shivered with an awful fear, watching Thorongil carefully.
"Wash," Thorongil told Faramir, handing him a cake of soap. He left Faramir alone then, giving him what privacy he needed. In the corridor, Thorongil listened to Faramir's quiet, gasping sobs and his heart plummeted to the depths of a gaping abyss.
"Estel. What you have done is very wrong, and I hope you realize that."
Thorongil sighed, but dared not argue further. He was wet, angry, sorry and exhausted.
Elrond frowned, unable to speak his disappointment. "Come," he said, and led Thorongil to his study. Much to Thorongil's surprise he found Elladan sitting in one corner of the room. Elrond noticed this, and said, "You, too, Estel. Have a seat."
"Ada--"
Elrond crossed his arms, and Thorongil sat.
For an hour of silence Elrond sat at his desk and worked. Elladan and Thorongil sat quietly, also, causing only the noise of shifting positions to keep their legs from losing feeling. They thought each their own thoughts, Elladan wondering where his violence had stemmed from and Thorongil wondering how Faramir was and if Faramir could ever forgive him. Neither thought of the other, for though they sat not three yards away from each other they lived in separate worlds. It was Elrond who at last broke the silence.
"Elladan," he said, "is there anything you wish to say to me or to your brother?"
Elladan took a deep breath. He had been through this ritual before, though never with Estel. "I am sorry his life...Etana's life--" only Elladan and Elrohir still called Faramir 'Etana'; to the others he was Roan "--but I do not withdraw my comment. His father must have been sick to treat him in such a manner."
Elrond waited and, when nothing more Elladan said, he asked, "Estel, is there anything you wish to say?"
"I will not apologize for Roan," he said, "but I do apologize for the hurtful things I said to Elladan. That is all I have to say."
"Elladan, have you anything further to add? Estel?"
Thorongil considered. "I would like very much to be your brother, Elladan. In fact, I...do not know that I can do this without your support."
Before Elladan answered an angry wizard interrupted them. Mithrandir stormed into the room, looked about and, finding his target, scolded him, "Have you any idea how frightened that poor child is? Honestly, Aragorn! Go and tell him to get out of that freezing bathtub and into dry clothing! You will make him ill with your absent-minded neglect."
Thorongil started. "He has not...?"
"Of course not, and he is very frightened," Mithrandir replied.
Thorongil turned to Elrond to ask permission and, receiving a swift nod, left the room. When he saw Faramir he stopped and forced down the rising tears, for the boy sat, blue and shivering, clothed in soaking garments in the bath. "Oh, Faramir..." Thorongil took Faramir by the arms and forced him to stand, drew him from the bath and, silently thanking Mithrandir for leaving warm clothing and towels, stripped the boy and wrapped a towel around him.
"I am so sorry, Faramir," Thorongil said, drying off the shivering child. "I'm so sorry."
Tears ran down Faramir's cheeks, warming him, tears he knew not of but cried for a pain he could not endure. "It's very cold," Faramir said.
"I know, I know it is."
To his shame Faramir could not dress himself, so violent were his shivers. Thorongil helped him as unobtrusively as possible and without a word. Anything he said would make Faramir feel worse: Thorongil understood this. Thorongil also understood why Faramir seemed to shake with increased violence whenever skin brushed skin. 'He fears me,' Thorongil realized, 'he fears the monster of which I have become a part.'
*
Faramir kept shivering into the night as he lay in bed. His stomach growled: fear kept him from attending supper. Cold, hungry and frightened, Faramir dared not make a sound when he heard the hinges squeak and the door open and close. Footsteps, quietly, then the mattress depressed and someone touched his shoulder gently. Faramir shriveled within himself.
"Shh, ne ar del. I will not hurt you, Sunshine."
Arwen knew not what she did. She had mothered no children herself and, being youngest, comforted none. She knew at least what Thorongil, her Estel, had warned her of, which meant that she was stepping on his turf. "Would you like to come for a walk with me?"
They walked in the gardens, crunching snow beneath their feet. "Let me know if you are cold," Arwen said.
"Yes, lady," Faramir answered.
She smiled, taking in the sweet, dewy smell of roses, snow and evergreens. Rogue red flowers persisted in growing through the cold months, sharp thorned and extremely difficult to eradicate. "Do you like the gardens of Imladris?" Arwen asked.
"I...suppose so."
"You did not see them until winter, did you?"
"No, Lady."
"Oh, they are beautiful in the spring." For a moment Arwen fell silent, then she said, "I never liked the gardens."
Faramir wanted badly to know more, he wanted to look inside of this woman's head and know every thought, every feeling she had ever experienced. He wanted to know the most intimate details of her life. "No?" he asked.
Arwen shook her head, cascades waving along her back as she laughed. "I loved the forest, to run and climb trees. What did you do, as a child, when you had leisure time?"
His face coloured with shame. "I enjoyed reading, very much," Faramir whispered.
"Did you love knowledge?" Arwen asked.
"I did," he answered, "and I loved the stories. In history, you know, I always thought...it was like reading stories."
She smiled. "My father experienced such things in his time, if you ask him I am sure he will tell you a tale."
"Truly?" Faramir's face lit up and for a moment he even forgot his growling belly.
"Truly. Especially if you meet Grandmother, as I hope you do; she knew Valinor."
"Valinor!" Faramir hardly breathed the word! To hear tales of such a place! "Who...who is she?"
"The Lady Galadriel."
Awe quieted Faramir, and when again he spoke the two had taken many strides together. "What have you seen, Lady?"
"I?" She laughed at this idea. "I have not lived many significant years, Sunshine. Battles none I know. Nay, it is my elders who tell wonderous tales. I have simply lived."
"Sometime..." Faramir blushed. "Sometime I would like to hear of your life."
Arwen understood what he was thinking, and she said, "Sometime I shall tell you."
*****
To be continued
Translations:
Ne ar del: Do not be afraid. (literally "be without horror")
*****
Faramir sighed but would not allow the tears to come. "My earliest memory is of my mother dying," he said. "Everything seemed to get worse day by day after that." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly, shuddering. Remembering, he wanted to cry. The image of his mother, his beautiful mother, so weakened and frail, brought a painful ache to his heart.
He remembered how cold her hands were. The thick hair on her head thinned. Though not a vain woman, Lady Finduilas had been beautiful. Had she not been her five-year-old son would not have known the difference. The one thing unchanged, even in death, were her eyes.
Faramir, five years old, could be contained by no orders. He crept from his bed at night, feeling fear rise to choke him in his chest yet unable to stop. He had to see his mother, he had to see Mama once more before she went away. Boromir said that Mama would get better but Faramir knew better. Mama could not lift a glass of water to her lips. Her head lacked the strength to hold on to her hair. Mama had left her body behind, soon for good. Faramir understood that.
The door was too heavy for Faramir. He pulled at the handle but without result. Red coloured the skin of his palms and sweat made them slip. As Faramir slipped back into the shadows, heading back to his room to weep, the door swung open!
The little boy gasped and turned, watching first in surprise at his good fortune, then in hope, expecting Mama to come, then in fear as Father instead came from the chamber. Faramir knew he would be in big trouble if Father caught him wandering the halls at this hour. As the man passed, speaking to his valet in words Faramir could not understand yet which rang coldly from the walls, Faramir held his breath. If he managed ten seconds more, Father would be gone.
One...two...
Twenty--!
Faramir had to do it. He breathed. In great fear and almost certain of the blow soon to land, he looked about--Father had gone! And, as if by some miracle, he had not closed the door to Mama's chamber. Faramir pulled the door open a few inches more and squeezed in.
Faramir loved Mama's room. On the walls she had paintings and sketches of the sea and of Dol Amroth, her home. Two Faramir had drawn with bits of charcoal. Neither was particularly aesthetically pleasing, but Mama had placed them on her walls just the same. Faramir felt as though, in entering Mama's room, he had entered Dol Amroth itself. The flickering torchlight gave an eerie life to the sea in the paintings.
"Mama!" He climbed up onto her bed and knelt at Mama's side. "Mama," Faramir whispered, touching her face with his chubby, sticky hands.
He felt tears rising in his throat and knew, in that moment, that Mama had gone away now. Tears for her absence and for the pain of loving her tightened their grip. Then, another miracle, Mama opened her eyes! Her eyes rolled and found her son. Lovingly she stroked his cheek. "My baby," she whispered.
"Mama!"
She smiled. "You are growing up, my little boy. Soon you will be a man." Her smile warmed the boy's heart and his tears subsided.
"You going away, Mama?" he asked brokenly.
"Yes, my son. Yes, I am going away. Where I am going, I will live by the sea and every morning watch the swift sun rise over the water. It is a wonderful place..." she trailed off wistfully. "Do you understand, Faramir?"
He nodded. "Yes, Mama."
"I knew you would," she answered sadly. "You must look after your brother and your father, Faramir, when I am not here to do so. You are the strong one, my little warrior..."
"I will, Mama. I love you Mama!"
"Shh, my child, hush." Though her voice was weak, Mama's words soothed her little boy. "I am going to be very happy, and someday you will join me. We will be together. Every day we will walk on the sands and you will tell me all of your adventures. But you have a life ahead of you, my son, while I have one behind me."
Faramir understood then. He understood that Mama really and truly was going away, and that where ever she was going she would be happy. Mama's eyes closed and her chest shuddered, and she did not breathe again.
"Good night, Mama," Faramir whispered, and he kissed her cheek, and he did not cry.
"Our condolences," Elrohir offered in a quiet voice, thinking Faramir's speech complete for his long pause. "We, too, have lost our mother."
"When Father found me with Mama's body he hit me so hard my head spun. Often he had taken such action against me or my brother before, or so Boromir tells me, as is just punishment, but Mama always stopped him before he went too far. This time he smacked my head and shouted and shoved me from the room." Faramir took another deep breath. The twins wore identical horrified expressions.
Why am I doing this? Faramir asked himself. He knew himself to be unready. Why did he tell his secrets to these strangers, whom he did not even like?
Only minutes ago Faramir had been walking down the corridor, looking forward to spending a quiet, elusive afternoon in the library when he overheard an argument between Thorongil and Elladan and Elrohir. His intentions had not been to eavesdrop, but...
"He is unwell, Estel."
"Elladan, what do you expect me to do? He is a good person and a good boy and, if you don't like him, there is nothing I can do," Thorongil answered.
"We do not feel Imladris is the right place for him."
"You do not understand--"
"We do, Estel. Truly we do, and we feel for him--"
"Stop it." Thorongil's words were acrid, bitter, somehow unfitting for the man Faramir knew. "I do not have to justify this to you. Once you were my brothers. You had faith in me. Have that faith now! Trust me! I ask, but I will not beg."
Faramir found that air refused to enter his lungs and tears stung at his eyes. 'Do not do this!' he wished to tell Thorongil. 'Do not forgo family for me, do not become what I am!'
He knew no option but to speak up, for himself but in especial for Thorongil. Faramir had simply started talking...
"I was a bad child," Faramir continued, "I never learned to sit quietly and not ask questions and I took better to womanly arts than manly. I often disrespected my father by not acting as he instructed and...my greatest crime: when my mother died I shed no tears for her."
Faramir gripped his elbows against the pain with such strength that Thorongil, seeing this, rushed forward and, kneeling, took Faramir's hands in his. Faramir trembled and bit his lip. No one moved then, but Elladan turned to his brother and said quietly, "What a sick thing to do to a child."
Faramir's head snapped up. He glared at Elladan with a rage even Faramir himself had not known he possessed. Then he leapt: Faramir leapt forward, his fists flying and his feet kicking and his teeth biting. He set into Elladan with every weapon his body held.
Elrohir, who served the sole purpose of observing in this situation, worried for the child. Sometimes Elladan lost control of himself...Estel must have remembered, also, for he stood and pulled Faramir away, restraining his little foundling as best he could.
"Let me go!" Faramir protested. "Let me go, let me down, let me hurt him I want to hurt him I want to kill him he can't talk about my father that way! Let me go!"
As this went on Elladan hissed at Thorongil in Quenya, holding a hand beneath his bleeding nose, "You see, Estel? That is a sick child and you are thicker than an orc's skull not to see it!"
"You are the orc here, Elladan, to give up on a child and be ready to leave him for dead!" Thorongil shot back, and at the same moment they condemned each other to the dungeons of Morgoth, Elladan in anger and Thorongil in angry defense of Faramir. Meanwhile, in all the pandemonium, Faramir ripped himself free of Thorongil's hold and again attacked Elladan.
His shouts might have been far more hurtful, had Elladan very much cared about Faramir. "I hate you! I hope you die! I hate you so much!"
"That's it!"
By the time Thorongil shouted loudly enough to stop them both Elladan was fighting as viciously as Faramir and, surprisingly, winning only slowly. Thorongil strode forward and delivered a swift kick to Elladan's midsection, placing him out of action. He then lifted Faramir, still kicking and screaming, off Elladan and marched out of the room.
Thorongil deposited Faramir in a tub of water.
Faramir pushed his head out of the water and gasped, tears streaming down his face. His eyes grew wide and he shivered with an awful fear, watching Thorongil carefully.
"Wash," Thorongil told Faramir, handing him a cake of soap. He left Faramir alone then, giving him what privacy he needed. In the corridor, Thorongil listened to Faramir's quiet, gasping sobs and his heart plummeted to the depths of a gaping abyss.
"Estel. What you have done is very wrong, and I hope you realize that."
Thorongil sighed, but dared not argue further. He was wet, angry, sorry and exhausted.
Elrond frowned, unable to speak his disappointment. "Come," he said, and led Thorongil to his study. Much to Thorongil's surprise he found Elladan sitting in one corner of the room. Elrond noticed this, and said, "You, too, Estel. Have a seat."
"Ada--"
Elrond crossed his arms, and Thorongil sat.
For an hour of silence Elrond sat at his desk and worked. Elladan and Thorongil sat quietly, also, causing only the noise of shifting positions to keep their legs from losing feeling. They thought each their own thoughts, Elladan wondering where his violence had stemmed from and Thorongil wondering how Faramir was and if Faramir could ever forgive him. Neither thought of the other, for though they sat not three yards away from each other they lived in separate worlds. It was Elrond who at last broke the silence.
"Elladan," he said, "is there anything you wish to say to me or to your brother?"
Elladan took a deep breath. He had been through this ritual before, though never with Estel. "I am sorry his life...Etana's life--" only Elladan and Elrohir still called Faramir 'Etana'; to the others he was Roan "--but I do not withdraw my comment. His father must have been sick to treat him in such a manner."
Elrond waited and, when nothing more Elladan said, he asked, "Estel, is there anything you wish to say?"
"I will not apologize for Roan," he said, "but I do apologize for the hurtful things I said to Elladan. That is all I have to say."
"Elladan, have you anything further to add? Estel?"
Thorongil considered. "I would like very much to be your brother, Elladan. In fact, I...do not know that I can do this without your support."
Before Elladan answered an angry wizard interrupted them. Mithrandir stormed into the room, looked about and, finding his target, scolded him, "Have you any idea how frightened that poor child is? Honestly, Aragorn! Go and tell him to get out of that freezing bathtub and into dry clothing! You will make him ill with your absent-minded neglect."
Thorongil started. "He has not...?"
"Of course not, and he is very frightened," Mithrandir replied.
Thorongil turned to Elrond to ask permission and, receiving a swift nod, left the room. When he saw Faramir he stopped and forced down the rising tears, for the boy sat, blue and shivering, clothed in soaking garments in the bath. "Oh, Faramir..." Thorongil took Faramir by the arms and forced him to stand, drew him from the bath and, silently thanking Mithrandir for leaving warm clothing and towels, stripped the boy and wrapped a towel around him.
"I am so sorry, Faramir," Thorongil said, drying off the shivering child. "I'm so sorry."
Tears ran down Faramir's cheeks, warming him, tears he knew not of but cried for a pain he could not endure. "It's very cold," Faramir said.
"I know, I know it is."
To his shame Faramir could not dress himself, so violent were his shivers. Thorongil helped him as unobtrusively as possible and without a word. Anything he said would make Faramir feel worse: Thorongil understood this. Thorongil also understood why Faramir seemed to shake with increased violence whenever skin brushed skin. 'He fears me,' Thorongil realized, 'he fears the monster of which I have become a part.'
*
Faramir kept shivering into the night as he lay in bed. His stomach growled: fear kept him from attending supper. Cold, hungry and frightened, Faramir dared not make a sound when he heard the hinges squeak and the door open and close. Footsteps, quietly, then the mattress depressed and someone touched his shoulder gently. Faramir shriveled within himself.
"Shh, ne ar del. I will not hurt you, Sunshine."
Arwen knew not what she did. She had mothered no children herself and, being youngest, comforted none. She knew at least what Thorongil, her Estel, had warned her of, which meant that she was stepping on his turf. "Would you like to come for a walk with me?"
They walked in the gardens, crunching snow beneath their feet. "Let me know if you are cold," Arwen said.
"Yes, lady," Faramir answered.
She smiled, taking in the sweet, dewy smell of roses, snow and evergreens. Rogue red flowers persisted in growing through the cold months, sharp thorned and extremely difficult to eradicate. "Do you like the gardens of Imladris?" Arwen asked.
"I...suppose so."
"You did not see them until winter, did you?"
"No, Lady."
"Oh, they are beautiful in the spring." For a moment Arwen fell silent, then she said, "I never liked the gardens."
Faramir wanted badly to know more, he wanted to look inside of this woman's head and know every thought, every feeling she had ever experienced. He wanted to know the most intimate details of her life. "No?" he asked.
Arwen shook her head, cascades waving along her back as she laughed. "I loved the forest, to run and climb trees. What did you do, as a child, when you had leisure time?"
His face coloured with shame. "I enjoyed reading, very much," Faramir whispered.
"Did you love knowledge?" Arwen asked.
"I did," he answered, "and I loved the stories. In history, you know, I always thought...it was like reading stories."
She smiled. "My father experienced such things in his time, if you ask him I am sure he will tell you a tale."
"Truly?" Faramir's face lit up and for a moment he even forgot his growling belly.
"Truly. Especially if you meet Grandmother, as I hope you do; she knew Valinor."
"Valinor!" Faramir hardly breathed the word! To hear tales of such a place! "Who...who is she?"
"The Lady Galadriel."
Awe quieted Faramir, and when again he spoke the two had taken many strides together. "What have you seen, Lady?"
"I?" She laughed at this idea. "I have not lived many significant years, Sunshine. Battles none I know. Nay, it is my elders who tell wonderous tales. I have simply lived."
"Sometime..." Faramir blushed. "Sometime I would like to hear of your life."
Arwen understood what he was thinking, and she said, "Sometime I shall tell you."
*****
To be continued
Translations:
Ne ar del: Do not be afraid. (literally "be without horror")