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Family Games (NC-17) 
Written by December19 December 2010 | 65301 words
Chapter 4. To Capture an Elf
First it was only the eyes he saw, and the contact struck the man as though indeed he had been shot.
The gaze meeting his from above was full of suspicion, and mistrust, and grave determination – yet it was also lucid and clear, and Faramir knew it for the gaze of someone who could be reasoned with – reasoned but not intimidated, for one capable of communicating such fuming defiance in a sheer look would rather lose their life than risk losing their dignity.
Those eyes were so bright amid the general shade and gloom, that for one surreal moment Faramir had even fallen under the ludicrous impression they belonged to the tree itself, but then he saw it was not so. As his vision adjusted, the young man was able to make out the other’s shape: he was squatting low on the base of a thick powerful branch some fifteen feet above the ground, his back against the knotty trunk, and both his torn overworn clothes and his very skin and hair were of such colouring that indeed he blended seamlessly with the bark. Had it not been for the faintly otherworldly radiance of his large perceptive eyes, for the sharpness and weight of their glare, Faramir would have strongly doubted the haggard being before him had anything to do with the race Gondorian lore depicted as beautiful beyond comprehension and graceful beyond description. Despite his bent position it was quite obvious the stranger was tall, long-legged and athletically slender of build, but apart from that little could be told of his appearance or age, for the features of his face still were strangely obscured, and his hair was pulled back save for a few loose shaggy tresses hanging limply to the sides of his face.
What was not obscured at all, on the other hand, was the bow he held pulled taut, the long sharp-pointed arrow aimed at the center of Faramir’s chest.
Faramir stopped in his tracks, and the Elf smirked coldly.
“What’s there for me to talk to you of? I have no need for any mercy a soft-hearted man like you could offer,” he said quietly but very clearly. He had an unfamiliar accent to his speech, his pronunciation soft and melodious, as though water running in a creek, the words flowing smoothly one into the next, yet Faramir could understand him without difficulty. “You are a damned fool for taking pity on that Orc. If you were in its place, it would just spit in your face, and laugh, and leave you to die like a dog!” The stranger’s words may have been harsh, yet the scorn in his tone was mixed at least in equal measure with wonder, and Faramir knew he said not exactly what he felt, or at least not all of it.
Nevertheless the Man shrugged, showing he had nothing to reply in way of objection. “I am sure it would – that is what they do. But it is not what we do. And I would much rather waste a good dart on it than watch it suffer without need: ‘twould have been a slow and ghastly death, and why would I wish that upon anyone?”
The Elf narrowed his eyes, studying Faramir appraisingly, then shook his head. “Well, either you are not a warrior at heart, or you are plain insane.”
Faramir laughed softly. “A little bit of both, I suppose. But look at it this way: I had put faith in your good nature before knowing you, and trusted you to not kill me if I come to you – and now that you actually know something of me, would you in turn not have a little faith for me, however odd you may deem my attitudes? Or do you truly find it below yourself to even hear me out?”
The Elf let out a heavy sigh and lowered his bow wearily. “But you see, there is nothing you could give me that I would desire, for I know you would not let me go in peace.”
Faramir shook his head solemnly. “That I cannot do, ‘tis true. For many miles west of the Shadow Mountains all the land is in the care of Lord Denethor Steward of Gondor, and these woods that lie between the Great River and the mountains are ever assaulted by the servants of the Unnamed, thus those who tread here are either my Lord’s soldiers, or his foes. Hence no, without his leave, I cannot let you go, even if I would.”
“Then this chat is pointless,” the Elf observed drily, and threw a quick glance around the clearing, apparently checking that Faramir’s Rangers had not been creeping closer while the Man distracted him. “For I shan’t be surrendering myself to you and your gang: you are sadly mistaken if you reckon I value my life highly enough to risk my honour. I have come to this place already prepared, if not altogether wishing, to meet a violent end, but disgrace I have faced before, and I shan’t stand to face it again.”
“You would have likely faced it indeed had the Uruks bested you after all, yet like I said, we are not them, and our ways are different,” Faramir replied patiently. “I understand you come from afar, and as my people have not had any dealings with the Fair Folk for many a century, I reckon you might be just as wary of us as we are of entering territories where Elves are rumoured to linger still. Yet we in Gondor have never ceased to hold the Eldar culture in reverence, and honour it many a time every day through the way we perform our chores and take our rest – hence to bring undeserved abuse upon one of your people would be the last among our intentions. Besides, I would have you know it is not in our practice to torture or humiliate our captives, especially not for the purpose of entertainment. Yet let us not speak of this now, for it may be so I would not need to apply that unwelcoming term to you at all once I learn of your reasons for being here in the groves of Ithilien. Would you tell me naught?”
The Elf smirked again, this time with sad irony in his eyes. “And what if I do? You would make me your guest?”
Faramir spread his arms. “I cannot know beforehand – and like I said, ‘tis not up to me to pass any conclusive judgement on this matter; but if indeed I like what I hear, and I believe I might, then for the term of your stay with my company you shall be treated with care and respect, and your hands shall be untied.”
“For the term of my stay…?” the other repeated guardedly, his fingers tightening their hold on the stave of his bow.
The Man bowed his head in confirmation. “Yes, on the morrow I am to return to the city of Minas Tirith, our capital, some fifty miles to the south-west of here, and I would have to take you with me to my lord. The laws of my people are strict, but they are neither cruel nor unjust, and I suppose you already have a few circumstances speaking in your defense.”
Suddenly the Elf smiled, and leant forth a little. “Oh, but again, you are a fool. Standing before me thus, lacing flowery speeches – I could take you hostage, and make your men release me else I slay you. They may not like you, but you are their leader all the same, they would lower their bows.”
Faramir smiled in return. “But you see, I am not interested in being your hostage. To buy my life this way is not my purpose – in this matter we seem to be rather alike. Not to mention that indeed my men obey my word regardless of what they make of me, and you would not come to order them about. So you would either have to slay me, or come with me eventually.”
The Elf settled more comfortably against the oak’s trunk and hung one of his long legs down from the branch. Faramir noticed his foot was unshod.
“‘Eventually’ is a highly ambiguous concept,” Faramir’s potential guest observed in barely concealed amusement, “especially for someone like myself.”
“Well, I for one am certainly in no position to hurry,” Faramir replied with a grin directed at the situation he had landed himself in. “I can wait, I have pretty much all day at my disposal, seeing as thanks to your little row with the Orcs there are none likely to have remained for miles around. That must have been their whole camp you had uprooted.”
“All day?” the other snorted. “Indeed, we have different understandings of time. But truth be told, I have not had an intelligible conversation with another for quite a while even by my own reckoning, and seeing as I am as good as stuck here, and you are so resolute to keep me company – fine, let us talk. So what is the way to call you, o Man of Gondor?”
The young warrior smiled. “The proper way would be ‘Captain Faramir’, but it is… seldom used, so ‘Faramir’ would do.”
“Faramir… Fair enough, ‘tis a name I can say without getting my tongue tied in a knot, and so I see ‘tis true your folk are mostly hight after the manner of mine.” The Elf regarded the Man for a while, then finally acknowledged his questioning look and continued, “And I am Orophin of Lothlórien, or I used to be, for it no longer stands – so ‘Orophin’ would do.” But before Faramir could reply anything, he threw his head back and laughed, and although the laugh was filled with little else besides tiredness, it still sounded fairer than any other Faramir had chanced to hear. “Don’t you find the irony quite hilarious, though?” the Elf asked, beginning to twirl his arrow in his fingers. “Were our fathers to behold us now, they might have had to question their own wisdom, for you have not made such a jewel of a hunter, have you now, Faramir, what with your putting yourself at your game’s mercy? And I myself, not so highly nimble I have proved, given I’ve let myself be chased up a tree as kitten silly with fright,” he shook his head ruefully and chuckled to himself.
“Were you not nimble, Orophin, would have you evaded the wrath of five dozen Uruks? And as for my game, if indeed you wish to refer to yourself thus, I shall say to you that fair and softly goes far. But do tell me, what is it that brought you here to Ithilien whereas you name the fabled Golden Wood as your former home, and why had your formidable luck turned today? But pray speak the truth, at least as you know it, for I may overlook my life being threatened, but I shan’t overlook deception.”
For a while Orophin was quiet, seemingly absorbed by playing with his bow, although Faramir saw clear as day it would take him less than a blink of an eye to reassume his aim if need be.
“What brought me here…?” the Elf mused at last, and began to swing his leg to and fro a little, as though he were engaged in casual light-hearted chitchat. “Hm, you could say it was chance – or you could say otherwise. Speaking plainly, I was lost – not in terms of direction, but in the sense I knew naught of what this land was or who it belonged to, although I had hoped it was free of claim. I had wandered to and fro in the wilderness for a few seasons, and had been to all sorts of places, and then last autumn I came here, and it reminded… You do know how lovely it is here in the autumn, do you not, Faramir? I walked here for a time, and my heart lifted – but then I discovered I was not alone in having an interest in this place,” at this he frowned sternly, an unkind light coming to his eyes. “‘Twas a company of heinous Uruks the likes of those that had pestered me today. Such indignation filled me at seeing those beasts soil this fair land, that once I had learnt their routes I climbed high in a beech tree to the side of a track of theirs, and when they were passing by, I discharged my full quiver at them before they knew what hit them – I take it you’ve seen I shoot without fault or tarriance. Only two survived, for I had run out of arrows, and they fled in fear. But I could not retrieve what was mine, as the stench of their blood does not wash off; thus I left the darts in the corpses, only breaking off the feathered ends so as to make them harder to recognise for Elven-work – but I was troubled, for I knew more Uruks would come, and I no longer had the means to meet them in style. And would you believe it, by then I had grown so fond of this place you call Ithilien, I would have rather fought them bare-handed than accepted defeat to depart elsewhere…”
“And then one day you saw Men the likes of myself in the woods,” Faramir said quietly.
“So I did,” Orophin agreed with an appreciative smile, and looked at the young captain thoughtfully. “So I did… You were correct, my people are wary of your kind, they are wary of any other kind but their own nowadays, and in my living years none but the exceptional few of your race had been allowed entrance to our realm. Nor do we welcome trespassers however well-meaning, and I reckoned these Men who apparently deemed themselves masters of this land would do likewise. So I stayed out of sight and did not make my presence known, although I saw these were good and honest folk, and they were passionate about their work. But…”
“You needed your arrows,” Faramir offered again.
“Aye, I needed my arrows,” Orophin raised his face and looked up at the branches and foliage above, “and the Men had plenty – and they, unlike me, had a replenishable supply. Most importantly, I knew I could get at the Orcs where these warriors could not, for I could follow them unobserved even in the dark of night, and catch them unawares, and have two or three down and disappear ere they knew which way to run. So yes, I took the arrows,” he stared Faramir square in the face. “If ‘tis any comfort to you, not one of them had failed to find a foul-snouted target, except for the last one I had saved for later,” he nodded in the direction of where the warning bolt he had fired at Faramir was still stuck in the ground, “and mayhap it has served a purpose as well. Oh, do not tell me, I am well aware I had made it hard for your folk: of course the Uruks had gone quite mad what with these constant assaults of out nowhere. The fletching was yours, and they knew no one else to be around, so they took it out on your men…” He fell silent for a while, then grinned down at the Man. “Are you going to guess again?”
“And then one day you decided to stop taking our arrows.”
The Elf pursed his lips and looked away.
“Aye, and that was my undoing. The Uruks were angry enough that I shot them, but when I started stealing from them as well…” he chuckled grimly. “Nay, ‘twas bound to end sooner or later – and so it did in the last hour before today’s morning. They had tried to snare me many a time before, and at last luck had fallen on their side. I only escaped because initially they strove to take me not only alive but unharmed, no doubt to make me atone in full for all the discomforts I had caused. Had they only wished to finish me off, they would have, there had been plenty of chance for that. They ceased me and wrestled me to the ground – goodness, it was savage, I thought I’d suffocate under their weight…” he shook his head with such a smile as though he were recounting the good old times, and in that moment suddenly reminded Faramir of Boromir. “They tore my cloak off – and I even lost my shoe,” Orophin dangled his bare foot for Faramir to see, “I do not know how, but I did manage to fight free – and then I ran. I was not entirely fortunate at that, though, for I was, as you might guess, a little agitated, which ever renders me clumsy: so I tripped and fell in a gully. Before I could scramble out, they were upon me once more, yet again they tried to catch me, and we wrestled in the dirt for a time – and that is how I got filthy as a hog after a mud-bath, so there’s not an inch of me that isn’t covered in dried-up mire or silt. There even might be some weeds left in my hair, but oh, I truly could not care less for the present. Anyway, I ripped one of their bellies open with my dagger, and got away again, and thank Elbereth I had retained my bow and quiver. At that point they finally decided to try to shoot me, although they never aimed to kill – and by then indeed their whole company was after me… Well, I wager you know what happened next.”
Faramir stood silent, as though stunned, then nodded slowly. “Yes… Yes, I do know. I am sorry, Orophin, to learn of such experience on your behalf. I do understand how after something like this you would not want anyone come near you, not even one who is not an Orc.” He brought his hands to his mouth and exhaled heavily, then a thought struck him. “You are not wounded, are you?”
“Oh,” Orophin looked a little surprised by the notion, then replied somewhat absently, “No, I… I don’t think I am, not with any degree of seriousness, at least – who would count bruises and scratches on such a day?”
Faramir inclined his head thoughtfully, and both were silent for a while, each thinking his own thoughts – then Orophin budged. He slipped from his seat to jump to a lower branch, his movements displaying the same unconscious effortless grace Faramir had once witnessed in a band of street-performers doing acrobatics back in Dol Amroth.
“Orophin…?”
“Look,” the Elf sighed, “I am tired, awfully tired of this – of this whole charade. I shan’t ever win this wood for myself, and I am tired of sneaking around and hiding, it doesn’t solve anything… And I had never intended to hurt you anyway, as you well knew from the very start. So I’ll come with you, as you’ve said you would give me safety and decent treatment…” he trailed off, catching the change in Faramir’s expression. “That is what you said, isn’t it…?”
Faramir took a deep breath. “Before I give you my word, Orophin, there is something worrying me I ought to ask you about. Why did you leave your home?”
“Oh,” Orophin nodded, his face becoming stern and withdrawn, more like Faramir had first seen it. “‘Tis not exactly a pleasant thing to speak about… But of course you could not promise protection to someone who…” He chewed on his lip, then said, “I fell out with my people, I was no longer welcome, and I left. That’s it – I committed no murder, no treason, whatever my record with your men may suggest I did not steal anything, and I treaded on no property that did not wish being treaded upon.” He stifled a sigh, lowered his gaze and asked quietly, “Is that good enough?”
Faramir looked up at him in great sadness, then spread his hands open. “Yes, it is. Come down now.”
Orophin jumped to the ground with no sound at all – and at last some proper light fell on him, and Faramir saw that indeed he was neither brown nor green on his own, but merely filthy beyond belief. So much so it was impossible to tell the real colour of his hair, as now it was an indefinable mousy shade of dark dirty-blond, hanging in a rat-tail of a plait down his back, and indeed there were twigs and leaves stuck amid the tresses. It did not look he had been bothered to even as much as try and wipe his face, as the only part of it free of grime was his eyes – it became apparent, however, that he did have regular and rather comely features. The Elf’s clothes, on the other hand, turned out to be in far worse condition than Faramir had first taken them to be: his left sleeve was barely holding in place, the front of his tunic was ripped open halfway down, what looked like the remains of his cape hanging around his neck, the trousers torn at both knees.
Faramir hurried to reign his expression, so that his sentiments would not show in his face and embarrass the Elf.
“You understand I must ask you to hand over all your weapons,” he said very evenly, his tone friendly but firm. The young man deemed it would be better if he were to assume a slightly more official manner for the time being, thus giving the Elf a chance to collect himself after what had obviously been a sore recollection.Orophin stood hesitant for a moment, then shrugged wearily. “I don’t suppose this is up for discussion.”
“No, it is not,” Faramir confirmed just as evenly. “And there would be no point in you keeping them in any case. If you try to fight your way out, you won’t stand a chance – whereas if you do as is asked of you and don’t undertake anything rash, no harm shall be done to you. Like I said, you have my word.” He took Orophin’s bow, the wood still carrying the warmth of its owner where he had held it, and allowed himself a faint smile. “Thank you. Now come, we have a bit of a journey ahead of us.”
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Wow, December, I did hope that my request would go to you, I know you write so well… but I never expected to get an eighteen-chapter story! And how will I find the time to read it all, now?
Well, thank you so much, I’m sure I’ll love it, and I’ll start reading at once; but you might have to wait a bit for a full commentary…
— Nerey Camille Sunday 19 December 2010, 13:50 #