for veryfond
Oct. 11th, 2023 02:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shieldofrohanIt has been four days since the gates fell. Four days since the Steward of the City, maddened in his grief, barricaded the doors against all comers and tried to kill his own son; four days since Faramir's body was taken from the pyre and borne, with great care, back to the Houses of Healing. Four days since reinforcements came from the North, with the blowing of horns and the rush of hooves and the clash of spears against green-and-white shields, to meet the enemy before the walls of Minas Tirith; four days since the Witch-King was slain and the foe driven back. Four days since the King returned.
The city is reeling. The gates, shattered by the assault, are propped up and barred; the walls rebuilt where they may be. There is an uncertain silence throughout the streets and the Citadel: a silence waiting for resolution. The battle is won, but the war is not. The eyes of every person in Gondor are turned west, toward Mordor, waiting.
How many things can change, all in a day! Faramir, thought dead for two days, is alive after all. Gondor has a King again, and its Steward is gone. The King of Rohan is borne back dead and broken upon his shield. The most feared lieutenant of the Shadow is defeated; there is no body, but among the scattered corpses on the field, the great black mass of his wingéd mount lies beheaded. There are whispers, hushed and uncertain, of what happened: so far, no-one seems quite certain.
What is certain is this: the King has returned. If there was doubt of it from Aragorn's name, his bearing, how he is spoken of, then there is no doubt of it now. The word has spread like wildfire throughout the city. The hands of a King are the hands of a healer, it is said, and did he not save three lives that were thought past recovery? Did he not emerge from not one, but three rooms in the quiet halls of the Houses of Healing, having awoken the dead?
Of course, there were few witnesses to the deed itself. Ioreth the healer-woman, and her companion; and the King himself; and Gandalf the White. Prince Imrahil, who had led the sally to retrieve the man in the bed - to save his nephew. And Faramir's wife, who no-one would try to separate from him, now that it was known that he might live.
So she would know what few could speak to - how Aragorn knelt at Faramir's bedside, and placed his hand to the unconscious man's brow; and called Faramir's name, over and over again, as though to summon him; and how his voice had grown weaker and his skin almost as waxen as that of the wounded man, as if whatever he was doing was unbearably draining. How at last, he was brought dried leaves which, when he broke them in his fingers and dropped them into hot water, made a steam that was fragrant beyond all reason. How, when that steam was brought close to Faramir's face, his eyes opened. My lord, he had said, what does the King require of me? But the smile of relief, weary on a face made haggard by long fever and injury, was not for the King first, but for the dark-haired woman who stood nearby; and when the King and the wizard and all of the others left, she remained.
That, too, was four days ago. Whatever Aragorn did, it cured some ills, but not all; and Faramir has slept most of that time. It is sleep that claims him now, at least, and not the deathly unconsciousness of a few days ago; there is colour returning to his face, and he has taken a little food, and while he is rarely awake for more than a few minutes at a stretch, he does seem more himself each time.
Less than one day ago - that morning, in fact - things changed again. Not for Faramir, who still lies sleeping, but for the war, and for Minas Tirith. It is quieter than it has been in some time, now, and strangely empty. The commanders of the war - Aragorn, Éomer, Imrahil, and the Elven-commanders of Imladris - have set out for Mordor, to make an end of things, one way or the other. With them have gone most of the survivors still fit to seat a horse and carry a sword, a fraction of the number that stood in defence of the realm a week ago. There are still soldiers on the walls of Minas Tirith, guarding the shattered gates and ready to defend - but only a very few. There is that tension in the air, wherever you look. The end is coming, and soon. Nobody seems quite sure whether to hope.
In the Houses of Healing, the tension is no less, but it is, perhaps, better-hidden. This quarter of the city, at least, is well-populated. The halls are filled with the convalescent injured, men of all ages, lying in white-shrouded beds, sitting propped in half-raised seats, the fortunate few walking in the gardens. Men of Gondor, men of Rohan, men old enough to be grandfathers and men barely old enough to shave. Men with missing limbs and open wounds, with bloodied dressings bound tight. Men who gingerly attempt to walk, and who speak in whispers, and some who shout in pain, and some who sing. Men with hollow eyes and looks of grief.
And, stubbornly struggling out into the hallway, one woman.
She is as clearly a patient as the rest, and for the same cause. Her pale skin is mottled with healing bruises and half-healed cuts, and she walks stooped like an old woman, her face taut with pain, stopping every few steps to lean against the wall and catch her breath. Her waist-length golden hair hangs down around her, tangled from the effort of getting out of her room without the Healers' aid (they would not allow her out of the bed, but she is restless, filled with a deep and unbearable fear). Her left arm is bound in a tight sling, bandaged from shoulder to wrist, and it is difficult to see, under those bandages, but the shape seems wrong. It hangs limp from a broken shoulder, like it belongs to someone else.
Her right arm is whole, though, and it gropes along the white wall of the corridor, and the hero of the Pelennor Field, the fabled slayer of the Witch-King, lets out a low whimper of pain and effort as she fights past the complaints of her broken ribs to take another step towards Meriadoc's chambers. She exhales, shaky and triumphant, and looks up through the fall of her hair.
She sees a ghost.
Her grey eyes - bloodshot and one half swollen shut - widen, and she stares for a moment. Her mouth opens, and she seems to be trying to say something, to grope for words that will not come. The hand that holds against the wall flexes, grasping for purchase. She swallows, on a dry and rasped throat, and at last manages to speak.
"...Elia?"
The city is reeling. The gates, shattered by the assault, are propped up and barred; the walls rebuilt where they may be. There is an uncertain silence throughout the streets and the Citadel: a silence waiting for resolution. The battle is won, but the war is not. The eyes of every person in Gondor are turned west, toward Mordor, waiting.
How many things can change, all in a day! Faramir, thought dead for two days, is alive after all. Gondor has a King again, and its Steward is gone. The King of Rohan is borne back dead and broken upon his shield. The most feared lieutenant of the Shadow is defeated; there is no body, but among the scattered corpses on the field, the great black mass of his wingéd mount lies beheaded. There are whispers, hushed and uncertain, of what happened: so far, no-one seems quite certain.
What is certain is this: the King has returned. If there was doubt of it from Aragorn's name, his bearing, how he is spoken of, then there is no doubt of it now. The word has spread like wildfire throughout the city. The hands of a King are the hands of a healer, it is said, and did he not save three lives that were thought past recovery? Did he not emerge from not one, but three rooms in the quiet halls of the Houses of Healing, having awoken the dead?
Of course, there were few witnesses to the deed itself. Ioreth the healer-woman, and her companion; and the King himself; and Gandalf the White. Prince Imrahil, who had led the sally to retrieve the man in the bed - to save his nephew. And Faramir's wife, who no-one would try to separate from him, now that it was known that he might live.
So she would know what few could speak to - how Aragorn knelt at Faramir's bedside, and placed his hand to the unconscious man's brow; and called Faramir's name, over and over again, as though to summon him; and how his voice had grown weaker and his skin almost as waxen as that of the wounded man, as if whatever he was doing was unbearably draining. How at last, he was brought dried leaves which, when he broke them in his fingers and dropped them into hot water, made a steam that was fragrant beyond all reason. How, when that steam was brought close to Faramir's face, his eyes opened. My lord, he had said, what does the King require of me? But the smile of relief, weary on a face made haggard by long fever and injury, was not for the King first, but for the dark-haired woman who stood nearby; and when the King and the wizard and all of the others left, she remained.
That, too, was four days ago. Whatever Aragorn did, it cured some ills, but not all; and Faramir has slept most of that time. It is sleep that claims him now, at least, and not the deathly unconsciousness of a few days ago; there is colour returning to his face, and he has taken a little food, and while he is rarely awake for more than a few minutes at a stretch, he does seem more himself each time.
Less than one day ago - that morning, in fact - things changed again. Not for Faramir, who still lies sleeping, but for the war, and for Minas Tirith. It is quieter than it has been in some time, now, and strangely empty. The commanders of the war - Aragorn, Éomer, Imrahil, and the Elven-commanders of Imladris - have set out for Mordor, to make an end of things, one way or the other. With them have gone most of the survivors still fit to seat a horse and carry a sword, a fraction of the number that stood in defence of the realm a week ago. There are still soldiers on the walls of Minas Tirith, guarding the shattered gates and ready to defend - but only a very few. There is that tension in the air, wherever you look. The end is coming, and soon. Nobody seems quite sure whether to hope.
In the Houses of Healing, the tension is no less, but it is, perhaps, better-hidden. This quarter of the city, at least, is well-populated. The halls are filled with the convalescent injured, men of all ages, lying in white-shrouded beds, sitting propped in half-raised seats, the fortunate few walking in the gardens. Men of Gondor, men of Rohan, men old enough to be grandfathers and men barely old enough to shave. Men with missing limbs and open wounds, with bloodied dressings bound tight. Men who gingerly attempt to walk, and who speak in whispers, and some who shout in pain, and some who sing. Men with hollow eyes and looks of grief.
And, stubbornly struggling out into the hallway, one woman.
She is as clearly a patient as the rest, and for the same cause. Her pale skin is mottled with healing bruises and half-healed cuts, and she walks stooped like an old woman, her face taut with pain, stopping every few steps to lean against the wall and catch her breath. Her waist-length golden hair hangs down around her, tangled from the effort of getting out of her room without the Healers' aid (they would not allow her out of the bed, but she is restless, filled with a deep and unbearable fear). Her left arm is bound in a tight sling, bandaged from shoulder to wrist, and it is difficult to see, under those bandages, but the shape seems wrong. It hangs limp from a broken shoulder, like it belongs to someone else.
Her right arm is whole, though, and it gropes along the white wall of the corridor, and the hero of the Pelennor Field, the fabled slayer of the Witch-King, lets out a low whimper of pain and effort as she fights past the complaints of her broken ribs to take another step towards Meriadoc's chambers. She exhales, shaky and triumphant, and looks up through the fall of her hair.
She sees a ghost.
Her grey eyes - bloodshot and one half swollen shut - widen, and she stares for a moment. Her mouth opens, and she seems to be trying to say something, to grope for words that will not come. The hand that holds against the wall flexes, grasping for purchase. She swallows, on a dry and rasped throat, and at last manages to speak.
"...Elia?"
