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His brother's memory is surprisingly impressionable, and he's found that at times he has been able to alter it within his hands; to create events that never took place, and have the child nod his head and eagerly say, Yes, I too remember.

--- Too eagerly.

It's a cruel game, he knows, but it seems to come to life of its own accord, and the words play out through a hazy mass of memories that he feels are twisted by themselves and not by the subtle mumblings of his tongue.

Or maybe that is what he wishes; he does not like to understand the words that slip from between his set lips, for he knows there's a truth between the lines that is hard to read, though there nonetheless.

He always begins with the truth; it's easier that way.

"She was beautiful."

No, that is not a lie. Beauty, he's found in his short years, can be distant and cold; a leaf that refuses to spring forth out of the gridlock of vines and seek the light of the sun.

Beauty, he's often thought, can tempt men, and alter an entire mind; a life. He's watched his father all these years, and he has since begun to understand.

He can still bring to mind the flush across her cheeks those early years, before the sun bleached her bare; before she was bled dry; before all gentleness was seeped from underneath her feet, as with everything within the glistening, cool city. But some can find peace within the calm; inside white and the possibilities within it. But not she. No, a blank page was never meant for her, but rather the dance of colours upon the distant vale; the streaks of light that oft fought and still fight out a losing battle with the approach of the patient night.

"And she liked to laugh. Do you remember her laugh? Everyone could hear it, everyone."

Not quite as true-- when did he ever hear her laugh? Her mouth was ever set grimly; a line of red that she often hid behind. Her smiles? Rare. Rare and… empty, almost. He had been more at ease with those frowns, for no lies, no sprout of malice could ever seek refuge behind a truthful frown.

"Some days she would take us with her into the garden---"

The garden had been dead; was still dead. She was not strong, no she was not. No strength was there in her bones to tend to a rose garden or a thistle bush. And time. She never had any of that. She would lay in bed half the day, saying little; saying nothing. And when he would clamber into her room, hands outstretched and full of earth and sky and all that lies inbetween, she would turn her ashen face from him, and murmur that she was tired. Always tired.

He remembers how he used to stroke the down of her hair, and he'd thought there was acceptance in her unmoving body; her still eyes. He knows better now; he understands it was merely indifference. And that realization seems to be the final ripping of the cord that he's struggled to hold onto since his first cry; his first breath.

"---and we would sit and play with her. She liked to sing in the garden best, because from there she could see more of the sky. The sky reminded her of the sea."

He's not sure if he's made this up, but he likes how it sounds, and the look on the child's face is too sweet to ignore.

Was he ever so believing, so true, like this little creature before him? Did he ever watch someone with this same adoration and utter belief? He likes to think he did.

He continues:

"Everyone loved her."

He cringes here, and his breath he realizes, seems to slow and press heavy upon him. Love? She never knew the meaning, not in Gondor, not in the city; not in the Steward's arms. Maybe; maybe in the beginning, he likes to think, before she was forced to endure the heavy hand of a constant sun; before the taste of salt was lost to her parched lips-- maybe then she was loved.

"And she loved everyone."

Had she ever loved anyone? He rests his chin in the warmth of his palm, and ponders his own words. She had never loved him, that he was certain. Or maybe she had, before she realized that he would one day become a man; maybe that was what had taken her away from him.

And the child at his knee? Had she ever loved him? He recalls how she used to sit beyond the walls, and touch the babe's closed eyes with fingertips, and somehow it seemed sacred at the time: a mother in awe of motherhood; a babe who has placed his trust within his mother's trembling, unsure hands. Innocence made twofold.

But then, at other, lesser times, she would look down at them, almost surprised it would seem. Her eyes would grow large, then narrow, and one slender finger would slide to the corner of her mouth as she watched them stare back at her. That habit, of biting the tip of one finger, has been passed on, he notes, to the little one before him. Gently, he takes the finger out of the boy's mouth, making sure not to look into the young one's eyes; he's afraid of what he'll recognize within that steadfast gaze.

"Sometimes she would gather us round, and we would crawl into her bed, and the spread smelt of flowers, and she would sing to us--"

He pauses for a moment, then hurriedly continues, words tumbling over and atop each other in a rush that strums against his chest. There's a river he's long kept secret; a spring that's been bubbling within him, beneath the hills and the valleys of his ready smile, that no one has of yet unearthed.

"We would fall asleep, you and I, on either side of her, and would rest with her. You would cry sometimes, and she would hold you close, like this--"

Like this!

"And she would tell you to not cry, because you were her own little one, and she loved you very much…She'd say, "My little babe, I love you;
Don't cry,
don't cry,
don't cry…
I will always be here for you,
always,
always,
always…"

He holds his brother close, and the air seems strangely full. There's a thread, a knot, at the back of his aching throat, and he keeps his eyes shut securely, thinking that if they stay like this long enough, the past might well change.

--And she will come forth out of the woodwork; a portrait he's painted over these slow passing years, at last complete, and the dream will end--- or maybe it will begin?

"Yes, I remember," says the child, smiling unknowingly up at him. "I remember all of that, and even more, for I was there as well."

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