Disclaimer: Still am not J.R.R. Tolkien. Still don't own LotR or Faramir.
A/N: Happy New Year everybody. Long time no see. I've been itching to write this for the longest time, hope I've done good. So please read, enjoy and let me know what you think.
This is how they remember.
-
She remembers in color.
A swathe of red, a banner of green, the expanse of grey-gold outside her window.
She recalls a sword, shining in the red-gold rays of early dawn.
She remembers the coral tip of her mother's tongue and the grey of her father's eyes, thick as smoke and strong as steel, the eyes that peer back at her on the few occasions when she can catch sight of herself, a thin and sickly maiden with hallow eyes that echo past glory.
She recalls the sight of her first horse, coat like jet, a moving shadow on the plains and flaxen waves pinned back and plaited into crowns that the wind shuffled about. She remembers shades of brown, leather and good earth, trusted and proven true.
What she cannot recall, cannot fill in the moving slides of past times that flicker behind her eyes as she carries on her days, days that beat and wear her down as surely as a storm does wear away a stone, is sound.
She sees great poses, like living tapestries that do not breathe or utter sound. She cannot recall the sound of her father's laughter, her mother's voice singing as gentle hands tucked her into bed, or the rustling of armor as her father swept her up upon his return—though she thinks she might remember the pressing silence of the time he did not return.
She cannot summon words or laughter, joy and sorrow alike stripped from her past, though she thinks that sounds of sorrow might be found anew before the rest as these she can almost find in the haze of colors that overwhelms her. The wails that were ripped from Theodwyn's lips echoed a thousand times over, repeated in every cry of sorrow shed when a company returns with empty saddles, the sound almost a constant now as war grows and her brother is called from home more and more often.
All around her she finds wasted reminders, bloodied banners torn in battle, leather and earth alike seeped in the blood of both brother and enemy. Her golden fields are graying now and the only sound that rings clearer in her mind now than that of sorrow is the echoing of haunting steps that follow her as surely as the sickly pale eyes that burn hole into her flesh.
Yet in the quiet of her chamber she rests, pale hand over her ear as closed eyes see a wash of color without sound.
(Raven black, smoke grey, a bur of summer blue, her mother's mouth a pale pink smile)
At times she can find comfort in the silence.
-
He remembers in flashes.
The murmur of water, roaring waves, screams that still echo within his blood and the silence that he thinks expands beyond the end of time. He remembers cold and silence and the heaviness within his bones that comes after every battle—and there have been many, he knows, as the heaviness grows and collects and he fears one day he will be lead, stiff and unbendable.
He remembers the sting of steel as it cut through his flesh, recollecting men he has never battled. The moments overtake him, freeze him with white and distant lights that startle him into brief nothingness.
He looks at stars and thinks of his mother with hair like night and the heavens on her shoulders, envisions fields of stars that fade into clothe; the heaviness of the fabric on his shoulders and the smell of lavender that floods his nose though the scent has long since disappeared.
He can hear his uncle's voice, as lulling as the ocean itself, "Your mother is sick, Faramir. You must be strong for her now. Do you understand?"
"I understand." He still responses years later though there are none besides him, and only his own echo reaches his ears. He remembers the ring of steel and the sweetness of honey and the tang of copper that still fills his mouth from time to time, mixing and blending inside him until he wretches.
The song of steel and battle cries, the calls of dying men and the roar of beasts and men alike filling his ears until he thinks he will shatter at the noise.
He remembers his mother, smiling, pale hands scooping water that dried his throat, clumsy child hands that wrap around fistful of sand that becomes trapped in raven locks. There is the tartness of berries he and Boromir pick on Midsummer Eve, their laughter catching on blue lips and stained hands that Father frowned down at.
There is the scent of pipe weed and a pilgrim that travels his dreams, sharing tales of treasures and dragons, though from time to time his dreams are filled with light, brilliant white light that reflected off the water and made his brother's face glow, peaceful and rested. And other times still there is no light at all, only great dark waves and a quivering landscape, and he thinks he sees strands of the sun itself carried in the wind.
For all these things; a place, a time, a person, all hidden in half shadows that tease and pull at the insides of his head.
He has no time for fixing, for sorting, for discovering. Times of war do not call for history, not his own or any other. It is time for the sword and the sword alone will lead. But still he makes attempts, quick fingers scrawling quicker words, fragment thoughts he must pen to save, for flashes tell little but contain a world, one he wishes to understand.
For in the mix of blinding lights he finds an overwhelming knowledge which he has no memory of learning. His past is riddled with holes and he finds gaps in his memory, missing moments that make all his memory stutter and stumble into dark places he has little hope of untangling.
So in the night he rest, trying to conjure memories that do not allow themselves to be fit together, memories that do not form a tale or tell a history. He finds himself with nothing but parchments full of moments that remain as incomplete in form as they do in the hollow spaces behind his eyes.
There is no comfort to be found, he discovers, in memories that are only half his.
-
This is how they live.
-
He is color, jet and cream; he is shadow and light, a paradox that boggles the mind while catching her unaware at the most inopportune moments.
She is precise, clean cut planes and angles that remain well defined images in the corners of his mind, drawn out in the dark solitude of night when all the world dreams and dreads in turn.
They walk the walls together beneath the bleary sun, and in him she finds the shades of evening and the hope of Spring and thinks he is not so unlike the hope that abandoned her twice before and her heart hardens at the very thought. But he speaks to her as others have not in so long a time and her heart softens at the sound of his voice, smooth and even, reminding her of the steady drum of horse hoofs on the fields, of music in a high hall when there's was occasion for music yet.
He looks at her and sees summer on the crown of her head, and in her eyes the sadness of lost and the strength of steel, he sees cracks that must be mended, wounds that will not heal. He looks at her and sees a maiden sad and fair, and yearns to know her story. She speaks little and finds comfort in the silence, silence he has endured too long but will endure longer yet if she should find peace in it.
The sun grows higher in the sky and the day begins to drift away from them, as countless others have, until at last she turns to him, pale face drawn, "Will you not speak, lord?"
"Of what, lady?"
"The women tell me you led the men across the river. Will you not tell me of that? I fear have grown weary of silence…"
He smiles then, and she smiles in turn, and he speaks to her of a fair green country, tall trees and clear streams, all of which seep into the Great River, out to sea. All the while she watches him, studies the rise and fall of his voice, light of his eyes.
"I would like to see that." She breathes, a sound too whimsy to have been brought forth from her lips.
"Perhaps one day…" he says and the silence falls again.
-
This is how they love.
-
He whispers to her in the quiet, soft words that warm her blood, all gentle shades of blue and green, tipped with gold and she blooms to life, a lily in the spring.
And her hands are persistent as they tend the puckered scars and dimpled skin from past wounds, nursing each hurt as well as the hurts that linger beneath his flesh.
She does not mend the holes in his memory, does not fill the gaps.
He brings no sound to hers.
But in each other there is something like peace.
It soothes them.
-
The End
Feed back is Love