Faramir Fiction Archive

Letters From Faramir (G)

28 April 2010 | 16713 words

Letter Eleven – Alone

Brother!

Father 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.

Boromir – 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, feeling like hollow caverns, etched into my face by some mighty tide of salty tears. Huge caverns that will never again be filled by the orbs that should occupy them.

Father is gone, Boromir. And his fall was so foul. Treachery filled his mind – that is what Mithrandir said. Yes, Mithrandir told me about the voices of the Ring. How it whispered to him also. Treachery! One comfort is – he did not think the treachery was mine. For that, I am grateful.

My mind turns towards that gentle creature, Frodo, and my heart aches for him. There is a foreboding in my very being for him. I wonder where he is? Did he and his gardener survive Cirith Ungol? Are they anywhere nearer to the Crack of Doom? That name causes the blood in my veins to turn cold, but colder yet does that blood become as I remember that 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. Mithrandir said all our hopes lie with him.

Frodo must accomplish his quest. This madness, this evil must not be allowed to continue; it must stop. Will he 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?

Yet, as I sit here on the step before Father’s chair, the Steward’s Chair – I wonder. 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?

I am shaking, Boromir. Mithrandir 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 felt 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 farewell’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 return to the Houses of Healing. 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 last I approached him, before he sent me off to hold the enemy at bay for one last moment 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. Will this madness of Denethor’s bring further ruin to Gondor? Was my place to ride beside Aragorn and that place 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 dead – finished – floating down the Anduin somewhere. Ah, that you would find rest, my Brother. That I would find healing – but there is none in this place. Healing will not come to me here.

Faramir

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