Farielle's Room, Seaward Tower
Bright morning air fills the room, cool breezes coming through the open window. Farielle hasn't been back here long, but already a plate of food is set waiting for her to nibble on whenever she chooses. A jug of water sits because the low wide bed. And all of her things, few though they be, are there yet.
The painting supplies on the table, the slippers at the door, more dresses than just two hung at the wall, an empty bowl ready for grain and fish for a bird - absent from the room. Is it even alive? Farielle doesn't know. She is standing at the table looking down at the paints. A thought forms slowly in her mind, almost wordless behind the wall there. Brown. I have brown paint. She holds up her hand and turns it over, looking at it.
There is a knock at the door.
"Who is it?" Farielle asks, making no move to open the door, though she looks up from the paintpots.
"A friend," answers Nisrin's voice. "It is Nisrin..." The handle turns.
Nisrin. "Come in," Farielle says after a moment's pause. She is far too thin, though no longer emaciated; her bones seem sharper, her skin whiter. And there is something in her eyes that has never been there before - a wall, hard and slippery as glass - through which nothing of her feelings or thoughts can be seen. But she smiles as the door opens, genuinely enough, even if it doesn't reach her eyes.
"Farielle," says the dark girl, her attention wandering shyly across the unchanged room. "Oh, I am so sorry I could not stop them. Are you feeling better? Do - do you need anything?" She is dressed oddly in a mix of azure Corsair finery and a ragged beggar's cloak.
Farielle makes a motion as if she would come towards Nisrin, then hesitates. Memories filter up slowly and her gaze drops to Nisrin's leg. "You tried," she says softly. "You - you were hurt?" A pause. "No, I am well." It is her automatic reply these days, true or not. "Nisrin... will you teach me to speak your language?"
"I'm fine." Another ready-made reply. The girl moves to the wall, leaning against it with one shoulder. "Why do you want to know it?" Nisrin asks bluntly. "Alphros speaks perfect Westron."
There is still no change in the Gondorian girl's dispassionate eyes, though her voice turns slightly wry. "If you truly wish me a most terrible future, condemn me to speak to no one but he... " She shrugs slightly. "If you do not wish to, never mind. But everyone walks past and talks, and I can understand none of it. If I must live here, I would like to be able to talk to people."
"I will teach you, if you wish it," says Nisrin resignedly.
She steps forward, a new urgency lent to a low tone. "After what has happened, do you not wish to leave all the more? Forgive me, Farielle, but it will be difficult to find your home here. Especially since Alphros -" the girl pauses abruptly, smoothing down the edge of her tunic.
Farielle looks away and is silent, struggling with herself. At last, looking up again and lowering her own voice, she says, "I would be lying if I said I did not want to go home. But when have my desires been heeded? Since I am here, it would be nice to know what is being said."
"Especially since Alphros...?" Farielle asks, curiosity tinting her words now.
"They haven't told you," says the Haradrim girl. "Lord Alphros is ... not very favored right now. I do not know what is happening exactly, but his sister, Lady Farside, is quite upset with him. I do not know if being his bride would be very desirable right now..."
"If I were in honor bound to marry a man," Farielle answers, lifting her chin proudly, "It would not matter if he was in favor or not, nor with whom." Then pride is gone and she shrugs again, sitting down on the bed as if overcome by weariness. She reaches for the plate of fruits, taking one and eating it, and holding it out to Nisrin with a questioning look. "But if I marry Lord Alphros, it will not be by my own wishes. I have never desired to be his bride. But what other choices have I? I don't wish to be a slave or - or worse." For the first time, a shadow of fear crosses her face, and she shivers.
She shows nothing by word or expression of the one choice that is slowly taking root in her mind.
Nisrin takes a tangerine, unconsciously squeezing it to a pulp. "I like talking with you, Farielle," she admits. "Were I houseless and without loyalty, I would think it best if you were to leave Harad. Alive and unfettered. But there is much I cannot do," she sighs, looking to the other girl.
"I will swear to you that Eron shall not have you as a tool for his ... practices."
Farielle seems lost in some memories - her hands slowly clenching into fists, her face still whiter, her eyes focused on nothing in this room. At last, she drags in a great breath of air with a shuddering gasp, and sees the girl she's been staring at blindly for the past few minutes. "I wish I could," she says, longing plain in her voice. "I have liked talking to you, as well, but I - oh, I want to go home!"
"If it comes to that," she says, as Nisrin speaks of her brother, "I will kill myself. And I will not fail this time." Her young face hardens implacably.
Nisrin watches the other girl, her face softening imperceptibly from its harsh, imperious expression when suicide is again mentioned. "Your bird is in the gardens," she says. "Its wing is broken. I had to cage it so the snakes couldn't get at it."
The wall is gone in an instant, hardness and indifference vanished. Farielle's eye's widen and she stares at Nisrin, afraid to believe. "It - it is alive?" she whispers. "I thought - I thought he'd killed it!" She blinks several times, hard, and a wavering smile lights up her face. And she flies off the bed to fling her arms about the younger girl. "Oh - thank you!" Her voice catches slightly, but she doesn't cry.
Nisrin reaches to pat Farielle's shoulder gingerly. "It was a simple task of wrestling it to the ground," she smiles. "I daresay it is quite unhappy. Shall I have it brought up?"
"I will come down with you," Farielle says. She lets her arms fall, backing away as her hug is not reciprocated, but the other girl's undemonstrativeness hasn't hurt her feelings - not to judge by the smile that still brightens her bone-thin face. "And I would like to go outside." For an instant, the 4 weeks of darkness shows in her face, but with an effort, she banishes it. And before they leave the room, the uncomplicated joy is gone as well, locked up behind glass walls.
"I do not know..." Nisrin sounds unsure for a moment, eyes darting fearfully towards teh window. "Perhaps, if we come back before night. I shall ask some of the guards to accompany us. Fight off the snakes." The girl smiles thinly and holds the door open for the Gondorian.
"Long before night," Farielle agrees. "I - I don't like the dark, anymore." Again, a brief glimpse of some horror might be seen in her expression. She looks around the room, and as the door opens, says to one of the guards, "Will you see that some more lamps are brought to my room, please?" But her inconsequential chatter sounds almost happy as she follows Nisrin down the stairs.
...
Back in her room - well before nightfall - Farielle considered the lamps and then decided it was early enough, and light enough, not to need to light them yet. She sat on her bed, looking across the room at nothing, and then impelled by some unknown feeling, went down the hallway to the library.
It is midafternoon and the sun slants off the stone window-well. Farielle herself sits in the reflected light, curled up on a cushion reading. She has found something in a language she can understand in the library here, and brought it back with her to her room. Beside her, standing with one leg pulled up is a large black heron.
With a brisk knock, the guards open the door, admitting one Alkhaszor of Gondor, who stands in the entranceway, looking amused as he sees the heron. "Lady" he then greets the woman.
Farielle looks up, her eyebrows lifting as she glances at the guards - there may even be a faint reproof in her expression. But clearly, she has a visitor. She lays aside the book. "Alkhaszor," she says, stumbling only slightly over the name which she has heard but once. "I did not expect to see you again." A handwave towards the chair. "Please sit."
"Thank you," Alkhaszor says, turning back to briefly glance at the guards before he sits. "I have spoken with my Lord."
The girl remains silent at this, folding her hands in her lap and looking at him with a slight air of inquiry. Even since he has seen her last, she has gained a little in color and strength, though still the bones of her face and hands press sharply against the skin.
"Ah, you are looking healthier. So they treat you well here in Seaward?" Alkhaszor continues, not explaining despite the look she has given him. "Lord Alphros expressed his concern for your health to me."
"Yes. I have no complaints." Something twists a corner of her mouth up, it is not bitterness, but rather as if she almost smiles at some private joke. Politely, she says, "Please tell your Lord that I am gaining strength. Thank him for his concern."
"You will be able to tell him yourself shortly," the man answers smoothly, smiling. "For I am sure he will come visit you..." he glances at the heron, "and the bird. It is his sigil," he says, pointing to the heron and tree on his tabard.
"Will he?" she asks, though there is little of either question or interest in her voice. She glances at the bird though, and a smile, small but true, warms her face. "Yes - I am glad it is still alive. I thought it had been killed." She reaches to one side for a small pail, setting it in front of the heron, which cocks its head then darts its long beak down, then throwing its head back and swallowing the small fish with a gulp. Farielle watches it fondly.
"Killed? Why would he kill such a beautiful creature? Any beautiful creature," Alkhaszor emphasizes, watching for the girl's reaction carefully.
Farielle looks back at him, startled. The smile is gone from her face; so is the fleeting warmth. "The man who took me from this place," she clarifies, her voice flat. "He kicked it."
"Why have you come?" she asks him now.
"To tell you that my Lord still wishes you to be his Queen. And I back him in that." Alkhaszor shows no expression on his face. "I came to apologize for my previous words to you."
Everything about Farielle seems to stop. Motionless, not breathing, even her heart may have, for the moment, stopped beating. Then the world starts up again. The heron stabs for another fish. Farielle breathes and blinks. "Why?" she asks him. "Neither of you have a very great opinion of me." She doesn't sound offended or upset by this, merely that she states a fact. "Nor have seen anything of me to change your mind."
"I do not know the mind of my lord. I obey what he tells me, and this is what he told me," Alkhaszor replies. "Is this so foreign to you-do you think all men of Harad lie? But he is of Numenorean blood."
"And if I do not wish to marry him?" Farielle waits for the answer her gaze is fixed on his face. "I have known no men of Harad until now," she answers simply. "I never considered if they lied or not. But I have learned it is perilous to trust. But you know your own mind. Why have you thus changed?"
"Ah, well that can be remedied, of course. Trust must be built, and I am certain that once you are with my King and Lord, love and trust both will grow," Alkhaszor smiles.
"His sister told me he would not love me," Farielle observes dispassionately. "Will he force me, then?
"Lady...you are to be his Queen," Alkhaszor says, leaving it at that as he smiles again. "In the meantime, is there anything I can bring you?"
No expression at all mars the girl's face. "Not unless you have an embroidering kit at your disposal," she says, unsmiling. "And you did not answer my question. Why have you changed your mind?
"Nay, I told you. Because my Lord says he will make you his Queen. And I obey my lord and king," Alkhaszor says. "Good day, lady. I will search for an embroidery kit for you, in fact."
Farielle bows her head, taking up her book again. "Thank you," she says to his last comment.
She stared at the pages, but saw nothing. Nothing seemed important to her anymore, nothing could touch her. Even the brief flare of happiness that the heron was not, after all, dead, had swiftly burnt down to cold, grey ash. She still did not wish to marry, but neither did she particularly care. Steady as a heart was that one thought: Home. I am going home.
Nothing else mattered.