Letters from Faramir
by Agape4Rivendell
IXX: Alone
Denethor is dead.
Aragorn is gone – to battle.
Pippin has left my side – he now rides with his Lord as a true soldier of Gondor.
The Stewardship has failed.
And I am left alone.
Brother,
My heart cries out to you. This loneliness suffocates me, takes my
breath away, crushes my chest in it’s talons – talons sharper than the
fell beast’s. My very arms tremble in this accursed darkness – my mind
is sore. My eyes are dry – too dry – they feel like hollow caverns,
etched into my face by some mighty tide of salty tears. Huge caverns
that never again will be filled by the orbs that should occupy them.
He is gone, Boromir. And his fall was so foul. Treachery filled his
mind. I can almost imagine he heard the same whisperings that you
heard, dear Brother. Yes, Frodo told me about the voices of the Ring.
How it whispers to him also. What horror and beauty seem to be in that
voice that would beguile even our Father, wisest in all Gondor,
My mind turns towards Frodo, that gentle creature, and my heart aches
for him. There is a foreboding in my very being for him. I wonder where
he and Sam, his gardener, are? Did they survive Cirith Ungol? Are they
anywhere nearer to the Cracks of Doom? That name causes the blood in my
veins to turn cold, but colder yet does that blood become as I remember
the creature that Frodo called his ‘guide.’ My only comfort is that Sam
sees this thing as it really is. Sees the menace and the lies that are
its ilk. I pray his Hobbit-sense protects Frodo to their journey’s end.
Gandalf said all our hopes lie with him.
As I sit here on the step before Father’s chair, the Steward’s Chair –
I ponder what has happened to my world, my family. I lay my head on the
cold black stone of its arm and I cry out to him. ‘Ever I wanted to sit
like this, Father, at your feet!’ Perhaps to feel his hand upon my
shoulder telling his love for me, his trust in me. Now, it will never
be. The fire of his pyre has destroyed the House and now I have neither
your body nor his to mourn upon. How can this be?
Frodo must accomplish his quest. This madness, this evil must not be
allowed to continue; it must stop. Will he be able to do this thing –
do it in time to save Gondor? Aragorn? Pippin? I have lost everything
that is dearest to me. Must I lose these besides? My King?
I am shaking, Boromir. Gandalf told me Father had taken me with him.
That he bespoke of his love for me at last. That he arranged my
garments around me, smoothed my hair, and kissed my brow as the
soldiers piled wood around my bier. Would that I could have heard his
words of love and comfort. Would that I could have taken him in my
arms, never have I dared such a thing, and told him of my love for him.
Nay – no good-bye’s allowed me by either of you! How cruel, how very
cruel. My arms are empty, my eyes are empty, and my heart is empty!
The Warden is here and bids me to return to the Houses of Healing, but
I have no desire to leave this place – this place that holds so many
memories. Of Mother – as she would come herself to this Hall to bring
Father home to his meals, for he would heed only her call, not those of
any messenger she might send. I have vague memories of her walking down
this long Hall, holding my hand as we approached the Steward’s Chair –
even then, I trembled to approach him – even with Mother at my side. I
thought I was beyond that, Boromir, but when I last approached him,
before he sent me off to die at Osgiliath, I still trembled.
Now, I can look upon that moment with clearer eyes. I see now that the
madness already had taken him. The whispers of doom...was this the doom
foretold in our dreams?
‘There shall be shown a token
That Doom is near at hand’ *
Did that image of doom so consume him that... I would think that,
mayhap, he would not have asked this of me if he were in his right
mind? Yet, he commanded and I obeyed. And because of that I cannot be
at my liege Lord’s side as he rides to battle. Did this madness of
Denethor conspire to bring further ruin to Gondor? Was my place to ride
beside Aragorn and that design is now thwarted? Do these wounds
received on our ill-fated last defense of Osgiliath prevent me from
being where I am meant to be? Will my unintended absence cause some
further doom to my King, to my land? I am bereft of all comfort.
Again, I shiver and the Warden sees and beseeches me to come away with
him. What matter where I go now? I will go with him to the parapet by
the Houses of Healing. Perhaps, if I stretch my eyes, I will catch a
glimpse of a helm in the sun, or hear the far off cry of a horn. That
it would be your horn, Boromir, but alas, that hope is ended – finished
– floating down the Anduin somewhere. Ah, that you would find rest, my
Brother. That I would find healing – but there is none in that place.
Healing will not come to me there.
Faramir
* JRRT - LOTR
