Faramir Fiction Archive

The Current Situation (PG)

Written by RubyElf

18 February 2011 | 1178 words

Title: The Current Situation
Author: RubyElf
Characters: Faramir, Arwen, Aragorn / Boromir
Rating: PG
Warnings: AU (ruby-verse)
Summary: Arwen has a chat with Faramir. Aragorn and Boromir argue. As usual.
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me. They are just here to play.

This is a one-shot, but Faramir’s going to get his own story here at some point. Maybe it’s more like a preview.

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Three unusually warm days in Gondor had turned the frozen fields around Minas Tirith into massive expanses of mud and left the city’s stone streets full of dirty puddles.

Faramir stepped out of his rooms on the fourth sunny morning that felt more like April than February, and he immediately noticed a slender figure in a long woolen coat standing on the small terrace across the hall that looked out over one of the city’s gardens below. He recognized the cascade of dark hair and the perfect stillness with which the lady stood watching.

“Good morning, my Queen.”

“Faramir,” Arwen said, smiling over her shoulder. “I expected you’d be out with your men already.”

“It’s my three days’ leave.”

“I didn’t think you ever took your leave.”

“I usually don’t,” he admitted. “But the men insisted. They said if I didn’t take a few days’ rest I was going to develop a temper as bad as my brother’s.”

Arwen motioned for the young Captain to come stand beside her, looking down at the muddy garden, its plants all brown twigs and muted greens after being buried under snow for so long.

“You’ve not taken the position my husband offered you,” she observed, her voice as light and easy as it always was.

“Prince of Ithilien? Not yet, my Lady.”

She gave him a sideways glance and smiled. “My name is Arwen, Captain. You have not taken Éowyn as your wife yet either.”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Is it you delaying, or she, or both of you?”

“I believe it’s both of us,” he said, knowing that his Queen had already read the truth on his face before he spoke. “Éowyn isn’t ready to leave Rohan. Her people and their land suffered terribly and it will take a long time to restore what they’ve lost. Her loyalty to her people is most admirable, and I wouldn’t take her from them even if she would go.”

“And you?”

He smiled slightly, expecting the question but still not certain how to answer it. “I am… content with the situation as it stands.”

“And how does it stand, Faramir?”

“You’re very perceptive, my Lady. I suspect you know the answer to that.”

“I suspect I do too. But I wish for you to tell me.”

“This situation serves both of us very well. As long as Éowyn is betrothed to me, she has no need to deal with the unwelcome attentions of those who would pursue her because of her beauty or her royal blood, and she can dedicate her time and her heart to helping her brother restore their homeland.”

“And you?”

“As long as I am betrothed to her, I need not deal with unwelcome questions as to why I have not taken a wife yet,” he said, admitting to Arwen what he would speak to no one else, not even his brother. “It is very admirable for a future prince to be waiting for his bride-to-be until she can join him… it is not admirable and raises concerning questions if he has no bride-to-be and refuses to seek one.”

“Is it because of her that you refuse to seek another?”

He shook his head. “No. We talked, last time I went to see her in Edoras… I am fond of her, as she is of me, but both of us have other things that require our full attention and care, and we both understand that our betrothal gives us the convenience to attend to those things.”

“She has her homeland,” Arwen said. “And you have…”

Faramir closed his eyes, contemplating an answer, but someone else answered for him, from one of the windows down the hall that was open to let in fresh air while the unusual warmth lasted.

“Damnit, Boromir!”

“What now?”

“Your puppy’s got my boot!”

“I told you not to drop your things on the floor anymore.”

“If I recall correctly, you’re the one who took my boots off.”

“Well, I was distracted, and so were you.”

“She doesn’t chew up your boots!”

A chuckle. “Not anymore. I rubbed them with hot pepper sauce.”

“And you couldn’t have told me that before she ate my boot?”

“Oh, stop grumbling. There’s only a few tooth marks on it.”

Faramir and Arwen exchanged a glance, and Arwen grinned. “I fear they need more keeping than any two children. You and I have a great task at hand, don’t we?”

He nodded. “It seems we do, my Lady.”

She looked back toward the garden. “Of the four of us, though, you are the only one whose bed is always empty. Is it loyalty to Éowyn that keeps it so?”

He shook his head. “She has a… very close friend. Another shieldmaiden, I believe. They are… very good company for each other, and I think she enjoys… that sort of company at least as much as she would enjoy mine.”

Arwen nodded. “And what sort of company do you prefer, Faramir?”

“The company of someone who suits me as well as I suit them.”

“I see.”

“I know what you’re asking, my Lady. I’ve met no one, male or female, who I could love as my brother loves Aragorn… or as you love Aragorn, for that matter.”

“I don’t think a love like your brother and my husband have would suit you,” Arwen said, laughing. “They are both entirely too argumentative. You would be best suited by someone who challenges you and pushes you, but not someone who…”

“Now she’s got my other boot!” Aragorn’s voice exclaimed.

“Maybe you ought to have picked it up after she chewed up the first one.”

“You’re intolerable!”

Laughter, and something silenced Aragorn quite abruptly for a moment, but not for long.

“Ouch! Boromir! That’s going to leave a mark!”

“I meant it to.”

“I’ll have to wear a shirt with a collar every time I’m out in public for the next week!”

“Oh, well. That’s just what you…”

Something crashed, and then there was the thud of someone being shoved up against a wooden door, and it probably didn’t matter which one of them it was.

“They both give as good as they get,” Faramir said, shaking his head and chuckling. “I’d never be able to tolerate it.”

Arwen studied him thoughtfully. “You’re more like your brother than you know, Captain.”

“Oh?”

“You may not wish love to be a constant battle as theirs is, but you would be unhappy with someone who didn’t test you.”

“Perhaps, my Lady.”

“That person may be closer than you think, Faramir.”

With that, she turned gracefully, kissed him on the cheek, and walked away down the hall.

Continue to Faramir’s Dilemma

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