Faramir Fiction Archive

For your sake Badur (NC-17)

Written by Nerey Camille

20 February 2013 | 19253 words

Chapter 2. Meeting among the ruins

Badur was woken from unconsciousness by a thin ray of light and the soft, merry sound of water nearby. She felt a general discomfort all over her body that she came to recognize as pain as her foggy mind slowly started to uncloud. Then she remembered where she had lost consciousness and opened her eyes in alarm, but closed them almost immediately, blinded by the sunlight. Her move had caused the left side of her head to throb awfully, and she winced. Not daring to open her eyes again at once, she tried to make out her surroundings.

She found she was lying on a couch that was probably made of greenery, since the scent of leaves and herbs rose softly to her nostrils. Though she was still unclothed, someone had wrapped her in a woollen blanket to keep her warm, and her hands and feet had been untied. Running her fingers carefully over her body, she guessed that this someone had also somewhat cleansed her, for she could find no trace of either dirt or blood. Inhaling deeply, she thought she could smell the remnants of a fire.

Her closed eyes had now become accustomed to the light, and she carefully opened them. She was in a small cave, definitely different from the one she had been brought into by the Orcs; there was barely room for three or four people here. It might have been the haunt of some wild beast originally, but the ceiling was higher and the entrance larger than one would have expected for a den, and she came to the conclusion that it must have been enlarged by human craft. Light flowed in through the entrance and also through some openings in the rock above her.

For a few seconds she lay motionless, drinking in the sensation of being alive and out of the Orcs’ cavern, and at the same time wondering what would happen to her now. She sat on her couch cautiously and found that next to it were a large goblet full of water, some berries on a big leaf and what looked like a set of clothes. She suddenly realized she was dying of thirst and ravenous. She drained the goblet and crammed the berries before reaching for the clothes and examining them. There were no pants; only a shirt, a string of leather that could be used as a girdle, and a long green cloak. She donned them quickly and got out of the cave… only to stop dead in her tracks, her heart pounding.

The cave opened onto a level terrace that faced west, looking on the woods of Ithilien. Some rocks on the sides and above her allowed cover to observe the landscape beneath without being seen; but the ground before her was flat and smooth, and ended abruptly in a steep fall towards the trees below. Near the brink, hugging his legs with his arms and looking away into the distance, sat Faramir.

His upper body was naked. He might have heard her approaching, or else he felt the weight of her gaze upon him, for he said, without turning to her:

“There’s a stream just down the path on the left, if you want to wash. It will help diminish the irritation. I shall not watch you.”

For some reason, those words and the neutral, almost humble tone in which they were uttered, angered her.

“Why would you care about my pain? You inflicted it, didn’t you? And you’ve brought me here to be your slave, so there’s no need to pretend you’re respecting my privacy. For all I know, you’ve raped me ten times while I was unconscious.”

“Do you feel sore inside?” he asked, with bitter irony.

“No, I don’t. But I may as well tell you that you were wrong not to take the opportunity while you could, then. And you were still more imprudent not to keep me tied. For if you allow me the chance to seize any weapon, I shall kill you.”

His only answer was to draw his dagger from his belt and throw it at her feet, without looking at her. There was such forlornness and indifference in the gesture that she stopped.

“Why are you giving me this?” she asked.

He looked at her, his face a mask of bitterness.

“Do you think that I care in the least about my life, after what I’ve done to you? Would that my death would be enough compensation!”

“I don’t understand you. Are you telling me that you feel bad about it?”

“Is that so difficult to understand?”

“Well, yes. It was up to you not to do it, wasn’t it?” She was shivering with rage. That it should anger her so that he appeared to regret his acts surprised her, but she pushed amazement aside with annoyance. All she knew was it had made her suffer horribly to have to change her opinion about him, and she’d rather he was clear once and for all and she could know what to do with him, with herself… with everything that had happened.

“Yes, the choice was up to me. To do what I did or to allow the Orcs to torture and kill you.” He then said very softly, “Would you have preferred death?”

There was no irony in his words this time; he asked as if he dreaded her answer. For one moment she was astonished by the thought that he had done this to save her –as his efforts to tend to her afterwards seemed to corroborate– then rage flooded her again.

“For the stars’ sake, you… you liar, you were there with them! You told me Jahel was dead! You were IN LEAGUE with them!” she said, her voice trembling, not least at remembering her sister’s fate.

“I was there on my father’s orders,” he answered quietly. “And I know naught of your sister’s fate. I hope she is alive.”

“And who is your father, pray?” she fired up, though she couldn’t help a sense of relief at his words about her sister. “Your identity seems rather dubious of late”.

“I am Faramir, second son of Denethor, as I told you the first time we met. I couldn’t admit it in the Orcs’ presence, for they do not know it. They would hardly believe a son of the Steward to be a traitor; they think I am a mere noble.”

“And why should I believe you?”

“You need not believe me, and I cannot prove my words here and now. I am merely giving you the truth, if you want it.”

“If this is the truth, what I want is an explanation about all your lies!”

“They were the only means I found to break your spirit, so that you would stop resisting and the Orcs would be content.”

“What? Have you any idea of the effect your words had? The things you told me… how, how could you ever say them? Have you no pity, no faith…?”

Tears were streaming down her face. Faramir got up, and she took a step back, though his eyes were down and he didn’t appear menacing. Then he looked at her squarely.

“Badur, please. Do not speak of it, I cannot stand it. I did my best, and I did it for you, yet I am feeling worse than I have felt in all my life. I understand your position, and I don’t expect you to understand mine, not now, at any rate. Your reproaches are just, legitimate and deserved, but I can’t stand them, I have enough with my own.”

He turned his back on her and looked away into the West, while she watched him, her astonishment slowly giving way to rage. For a moment she thought how tempting it would be to push him into the precipice, while he stood so heedlessly on the brink. Then Faramir bowed his head, his hand passing wearily over his eyes, and he looked into her eyes again.

“I’m sorry, Badur. It is not for me to decide what you should be saying or not.” He strode away towards the rock wall and she saw that his sword, bow and quiver were laid against the stone. He seized them and came back before her, stopping at a respectful distance.

“Here,” he said, presenting the weapons to her, “I hope this will prove to you once and for all that I intend no harm to you, nor did I ever before. Now you are armed, and I am not. You are free,” he knelt on the ground, “and I surrender myself as your captive, to spare or punish as you will. I shall accept whatever doom you pronounce.”

“You shall accept whatever doom I pronounce,” she repeated disbelievingly, even while taking the weapons. She was still quivering with rage.

Faramir nodded.

“Indeed?”

He lifted his gaze to her and saw she was now bending the bow, an arrow fitted to the string and aimed directly at his heart. As their eyes met, she slowly lowered the shaft until it was pointing at his genitals, and her features hardened. She saw him repress a shudder, but he made no move. For a moment, his eyes flashed with some strong emotion she couldn’t identify, and she saw his lips form the words “Go ahead, do it.”

Unsettled by this unresisting acceptance, she stood hesitating for a fraction of a second, then lowered her bow and managed a sardonic laugh.

“That is hardly a good solution you offer, Lord Faramir. For no true villain would accept it. Therefore either you are punished by me, and the fact itself will prove your penalty to be undeserved, or I spare you and take the chance that you made exactly that bet in order to earn back my confidence for some evil purpose.”

“True, my lady,” he conceded softly.

She arched her eyebrows in a stern, unsmiling way.

“You know what my choice will be. The only way for me to convince myself that you speak the truth is to punish you. I will not take the risk of sparing you. Why would you endure that, if you are innocent?”

He returned no answer, and she understood the choice was up to her. Well, it was already made, she thought grimly. She unstrung the bow, shot him a last hard glance, then Faramir winced as the string landed achingly on his shoulders.

Time after time the fine rope flashed and lashed Faramir’s back until it was stained with blood. He never uttered a sound of complaint. Badur remembered her own yells under his hands and she felt anger and despair welling up inside her, so swiftly that she thought she would burst if she couldn’t let them out through the thin fiber she wielded. Again and again. Only when the cord was lacerating Faramir’s torn skin so painfully that he could barely hold himself up; only when her own arm hurt so much she couldn’t move it and her body was emptied of all sensation but fatigue, did she stop. It was high time: as she stood back, panting and wiping her forehead on her sleeve, Faramir collapsed on the ground.

A dizzying haziness made her reel, and suddenly it seemed to her that she beheld him for the first time.

“Faramir…” she whispered, dropping by his side and shaking him softly, but he did not move.

He has stood it until he passed out.

Emotion flooded her for a second; then she walked into the cavern to retrieve the goblet, found some cloths in a corner and went in search of water to wash his cuts.

She had no difficulty finding the stream. The rocks on the left formed a narrow passage that went down into the woods, and the source sang and danced by its side. It was a strong spring of snow-cold water, sprightly and clear, and she saw that further down it formed a waterfall into a pond.

It took her a few trips to clean all of Faramir’s wounds with the fresh water of the fountain. Then she stretched him out on his belly over the ground, covered his back with a damp cloth, trusting the now high sun to keep him warm, and went down to clean herself.

The water was deliciously cold and, as Faramir had predicted, helped lessen the irritation in her body. All of a sudden she felt much cheered up. It seemed a marvel to be alive and strong, able to enjoy the sun and the water and the birds singing in the woods, without dreading what would next befall her. The nightmare had ended and she suddenly realized that, for the first time since she had left Harad, she was safe and she had found a friend.

As she dried herself she thought of him, true as steel, willing to sacrifice his own life to earn back her confidence. Her cheeks burnt with shame; she ran to his side and washed his face with cold water, calling him by name until he awoke.

“How are you feeling?” she asked softly.

Faramir moved and winced.

“Not well,” he answered, but a weary smile spread over his face. He had not missed the change in her attitude.

“I…” she said, unsure how to best express her feelings. She snorted and laughed nervously. “You were right about the bath, it has done me good. I should have washed first thing in the morning, then I might not have treated you so badly.”

He looked at her, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“What I really wanted to say is… when I saw you falling on the ground, I felt remorseful for giving you such a savage treatment undeservedly. But the feeling only lasted for a moment. And now I am glad… for the action showed that you were still the same man I once knew, that I need not fear you or hate you. I could never regret that knowledge, even if your life had been lost to gain it. And I am unutterably grateful for your willingness to give me such a proof.”

He looked at her with a grave light in his eyes.

“I would say my pain was a small price to pay for the healing that your words bring,” he said simply, not clarifying if he spoke of her healing or his own. “I cannot say how glad I am to hear them. There are many reasons why I should be.”

Badur looked at him and saw such happiness in his eyes that she averted her gaze, suddenly feeling vulnerable and awkward.

“What are we to do now?” she asked thoughtfully, after a few moments of silence. “You’re not my captive any more, of course, though I should think it wise that you don’t move for the moment. Yet we ought to give some thought to the matter of food.”

“There is a rabbit over there,” he said, gesturing towards the rock wall. “I caught it this morning. I had no time for a proper hunt.”

“Then I’ll get down to the pond, I’m sure there’s some fish in it. I will wash your bowstring, by the way. I hope it will still be usable.”

“I doubt it,” he said, with only the shadow of a grin, “but there is a spare one in my quiver. Change it.”

She nodded and quickly had the bow ready again. Before she went down to capture the meal, she turned and gave him a swift, shy smile.

“There, that will do for today,” she said cheerfully half an hour later.

Faramir gazed appreciatively at the couple of trout before him, remembering that fishing was a tradition firmly anchored in Badur’s family. Badur was already busying herself with the fire, and he rose to help her.

“Wish that I had a mirror,” she said, glancing at the midday sun, “we’d have the fire set in no time. Ah, well. I am unbelievably hungry.”

They watched in silence as their meal roasted on a small stick over the fire. Badur was feeling incredibly happy, but somehow found it was difficult to speak. For one thing, she felt more like singing and for another, Faramir didn’t seem to be brimming with joy nearly as much as she was. He didn’t look exactly unhappy, but rather very thoughtful and seemingly not at all inclined to talk.

They started to eat quietly. When the silence between them had stretched for so long it had begun to become uncomfortable, Badur lifted her head.

“Faramir…”

“Yes?”

His eyes seemed to look through her for a moment before fixing themselves on her worried face.

“You are not sad because of what I told you earlier, are you? That I would prefer you dead and innocent than a traitor to yourself and to others?”

“That? Valar, no. Your words do but mirror my own thoughts on the matter,” he said, smiling.

“Then what troubles you?”

“A difficult question… I know what happened last night must have shaken you, but it was unnerving for me as well. And unlike you, the more I think about it, the more trouble I have coming to terms with what I did.”

She didn’t know how to respond to this, and he didn’t elaborate. As Faramir stood up, having finished his luncheon, she stopped him.

“Where are we going now?”

A shadow of infinite sadness flew over his gaze.

“Nowhere. We will stay here for as long as we need, until we are both healed.” Again, she had the impression that his words were ambiguous. Was he only speaking of their physical wounds?

“All right,” she said, smiling.

“I am going to lie down. If you wish to rest as well, I can leave you the cave.”

“Thank you. I think I’d rather stay here for a while.”

She drew her arms around her knees and sat thoughtfully, watching the embers of the fire at her feet. Alone with her thoughts, her mind naturally turned to all that had happened since the previous night: the fear in the Orcs’ den, Faramir’s terrible behaviour and his selfless atonement, his silence at lunch, and that strange remark:

“Unlike you, the more I think about it, the more trouble I have coming to terms with what I did.”

The words irritated her. They almost sounded as if he was suggesting…

Does he think what he did had no effect on me? I’ve had no time to think it over. It’s only sinking in now.

And the more I think about it, the more difficult everything becomes to understand. So many questions, so many things that I don’t know… What’s happened to him?

She pictured the present Faramir in her mind, so somber and taciturn, so different from the vital young man she had known.

Is this change caused by the events of last night, or has it come to pass in these last eight years?

No answer could she give to that, and at last she shook her head and went into the cave. Faramir was lying on his stomach, asleep. The cuts on his back were clearly visible in the dim light. His hair spread over his cheeks and shoulders in auburn waves, and he was breathing deeply. Badur looked at him for a moment before carefully laying herself down against the opposite wall. She fell asleep almost instantly.

When Faramir awoke, he saw her lying across the cave, her body turned towards him. She was sleeping peacefully and he rose with caution, not wishing to disturb her. Outside the cave the sun was slowly moving into the West; in a couple of hours it would light the far end of the cavern. Faramir started to walk to and fro near the brink, glad to have an occasion to stretch his legs and his mind without the interference of duty or company.

He had very serious matters to ponder, but his thoughts mostly dwelt on Badur at first. It was indeed a strange and marvellous fate that had reunited them, when it would have been so easy for them to miss each other. This thought chilled him, and he realized that seeing her again had made him happier than he had been in a long time.

And probably more than is reasonable, he thought. I would be a fool to assume that we can find again that easy happiness we had in Harad. I have changed since we parted, and I daresay she will have, too.

Now that he thought about it, she had. She was slightly taller and her frame was broader than he remembered, in spite of her thinness after a long flight, probably full of hardships. That, however, was but a trifle compared to the alterations in her character. Her traits were graver, more resolute, and her eyes bore the trace of long suffering and disillusion. It was the face of one who has left behind the flowerbed of infancy to enter the arena of merciless fight. And as Faramir realized this, he wondered what her life had been like in those eight years, the life of that beautiful, joyful child that was now as far behind Badur as the eighteen-year-old youth he had been was behind himself. An ocean of memories swept into his mind, and for a few seconds he didn’t see the sun going down into the West, nor the tears blinding his eyes.

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