Faramir Fiction Archive

War of the Wizards (PG)

15 July 2010 | 120215 words | Work in Progress

Title: War of the Wizards
Author: KC
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Faramir
Warnings: Spanking
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. They belong to Tolkien.<br>,Please let me know what you think of this story by leaving a comment.

This is number seven in the series that started with Grief, Elf, Wasps and an Angry Wizard and Stubborn Stewards and Bright Red Paddles, Human King, Elven King & One Stubborn Steward, Sweet Revenge or Let Licking Dogs Lie and Elves, Orcs and the Road to Recovery.
Added: Chapter 52

Part 12

The attention of those gathered was diverted away from the blushing elf abruptly by the sound of the great doors at the entrance of the meeting room, which had been closed after the men had left, opening wide to reveal Gandalf. The White Wizard stormed into the room, staff in hand, wizard robes billowing about him and glowing brightly with restrained power as he marched over to where Legolas and Faramir were sitting.

“What in Eru’s name is happening in here?” Gandalf bellowed as looked about him. “There are men fleeing as if being chased by the very hounds of Sauron…”

Gandalf would have continued had he not spied the hatchling sitting upon the table near Faramir, resplendent in unravelling pink bow.

“What, pray tell is that thing doing here?” Gandalf asked, waving his hand at the hatchling.

“It arrived in the post,” Faramir answered without thinking.

“What do you mean it arrived in the post, ion-nin?” Thranduil asked, his confusion evident.

“It was in the trunk that had been placed on the desk in my drawing room by the detail from Mirkwood, ada,” Faramir explained.

“I do not remember requesting a hatchling as a gift for you. I did not request a hatchling did I, Maglor?” the elven King asked, turning to his Seneschal.

“I admit, mellon-nin, that you have done many strange and stranger things in the time that I have known you but you did not, and have never to my knowledge, requested a hatchling,” Maglor responded, garnering a indignant glare from Thranduil, badly disguised chuckles from Aragorn and Gimli, similar smirks from Elrond and Imrahil, but no reaction from either Faramir or Legolas; each somewhat distracted. Faramir was distracted by the spider, which seemed to find the quill endlessly fascinating and Legolas, by the effort of trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible in the hope that they would forget about what he had been about.

“We think it was Armas, ada,” Faramir suggested, tearing his attention away from the hatchling. Legolas fought the impulse to kick his brother on drawing any kind of attention to him, however vague the reference.

“There is something singular about this spider,” Gandalf mused as he looked at the small creature that was amusing itself with the quill that Faramir held. “I can sense no evil in it.”

“That is wondrous strange, mellon-nin, for I can sense no ill intent either,” Thranduil agreed, perplexed. “What say you, Maglor?”

“I too, can detect no evil. That is indeed very odd,” Maglor replied, looking as perplexed as Gandalf and Thranduil.

Frowning in concentration so intense that his eyebrows formed a bar across his forehead, Gandalf looked ‘into’ the spider. The hatchling, as if sensing the wizard’s intense regard, stopped playing with the quill, scurried around until it faced the wizard and looked at the wizard as intently. After several long moments Gandalf’s eyebrows seemed as if they would take flight as his expression turned to astonishment before he threw back his head and burst out into hearty laughter.

“Only you, my wizardling…” Gandalf could not continue as he wiped tears of mirth from his eyes and face.

The wizard’s laughter gained in strength as he saw identical looks of confusion on the faces of men, elves and dwarf with the exception of Faramir who had looked at him with an annoyed expression.

“What do you mean, mellon-nin?” Thranduil asked, from where he was standing between his sons.

“Some wizard’s are sent a familiar or familiars, in animal form, by the Valar to act as warners of danger and protectors. Radagast for example, was sent a bird that keeps him from wandering off pathways and over cliffs when he is in deep thought. Most familiars are animals such as cats, birds and dogs. Only you, my wizardling, would be sent a spider that is going to grow to the size of a small horse, which is probably an indication of how much trouble the Valar think you will get into,” Gandalf laughed.

“Familiars,” Faramir squeaked, his voice containing more than a tinge of panic. “Do you mean to say that I could have more than one familiar…more than one spider…?” He was not able to finish the question for the sheer horror that his imagination insisted on conjuring in graphic detail.

“With your penchant for attracting and blindly forging headlong into trouble, my boy, you could indeed end up with an army of spiders sent by the Valar to protect you,” Gandalf teased.

Faramir’s already rapid breathing escalated to an alarming level, making him somewhat light-headed.

“Oh behave, Mithrandir,” Thranduil reproved as he squeezed Faramir’s shoulder to comfort his distressed son. “You are not helping.”

“Could the Valar not have seen fit to send something that is a little less conspicuous, like a cave troll for instance and mayhap a little more advanced in age?” Faramir moaned, when he could find breath enough to do so, as the spider pounced on the quill only to have its legs skate out from under it again, resulting in a spectacular belly flop and the ribbon, which had unravelled further, to whack it in the face.

“I feel obliged, my wizardling, to point out that you were not supposed to chance upon the ring for many years,” Gandalf chided. “The Valar simply worked with what was available; a hatchling on route to Minas Tirith.”

Although sorry for his brother’s visible distress, Legolas could not help thinking that Gandalf’s arrival had indeed been fortuitous for him and his posterior, as everyone’s attention was focussed on Faramir. Before the Mirkwood prince could so much as sigh in relief at the thought, all attention was diverted yet again by the arrival of Arwen looking angrier than Legolas, or for that matter Aragorn, Thranduil and Maglor, had ever seen the she-elf. Dressed in leggings and tunic and her long dark hair still wet, she descended upon Legolas like an elven warrior. Elrond took one look at his daughter’s expression and neatly sidestepped so that he was not between her and her intended target, who at this moment sat frozen and pale with fear; all blood having drained from his face. Grabbing hold of his pointed ear before Legolas could even think, let alone think of escape, Arwen took a deep calming breath and turned to the hatchling which had, on seeing the she-elf in elven warrior guise, practically jumped into Faramir’s tunic.

Arwen had heard Gandalf’s words that the baby spider was a familiar and so calmly approached the hatchling, which was huddled close to its mama.

“I apologise, tithen-pen, for frightening you and throwing that bucket of soapy water on you,” Arwen soothed, in her gentle lilting, if sounding a little exasperated, voice; all the while maintaining an iron grip on the Mirkwood prince’s ear, “but you startled me appearing before me in my bathing chamber as you did.” On hearing the softly spoken words, the hatchling approached Arwen tentatively and then all but purred when she stroked its head. Turning to Legolas she said “You are in such deep, deep trouble, elfling, that you will be lucky if they ever discover where I have buried the pieces” in a tone Aragorn had only ever heard used on the twins and only when they had done something spectacularly awful.

Arwen pulled on the wood-elf’s ear, forcing Legolas to follow or risk having his ear torn from his head. Bent over sideways in an attempt to reduce the pull on his ear and yelping and wincing in pain, Legolas had no option but to follow Arwen as she marched towards the entrance. As the angry she-elf was about to pass by Maglor, the Seneschal produced ‘Faramir’s Bane, elvish version, and handed it to her. Faramir winced wondering yet again where the elf hid the heinous thing about his body and Legolas whimpered. Arwen thanked Maglor and exited the room with the hapless wood-elf in tow. Legolas’ yelps and pleading could be heard receding into the distance.

“Baaaddd!” the hatchling hissed after Legolas. The tone held an odd hint of satisfaction, eliciting chuckles all around, as it watched Arwen and Legolas leave.

“Well that explains why the hatchling is wet,” Aragorn said with a rueful smile. “But it does not explain the pink ribbon.”

After a few moments, Thranduil burst out in such gales of laughter that the hatchling startled badly, jumped into Faramir’s lap and then looked up at the elf reproachfully.

“I would venture forth,” Maglor supplied with a smirk as Thranduil was having difficulty enough finding breath to breathe through the laughter he could not contain, let alone find breath enough to talk, “that the prince played a ‘prank’ on Arwen but did not want to give her too much of a fright, so he tied a pink ribbon around the hatchling’s neck.”

“Is this some kind of elven logic of which I have been hitherto unaware?” Imrahil asked, trying unsuccessfully to contain his amusement.

“I am afraid to say that it is elfling logic and some never do outgrow the tendency,” Elrond sighed thinking of the twins.

“I certainly agree with that,” Maglor said, looking askance at Thranduil whose eyes narrowed in suspicion as he took in his Seneschal’s meaning.

“I do doubt most sincerely, that my beloved would have seen the ribbon for the spider, however pink and prettily tied it was,” Aragorn laughed.

“Oh aye. I think the laddie will rue this day,” Gimli chuckled, shaking his head at his friend’s lapses into elfling behaviour.

“Where am I supposed to house the creature? And how am I to feed it?” Faramir muttered in despair.

“I have noticed that you have a mouse problem, Estel. From whence do they originate?” Thranduil asked.

“The dungeons, ada. We are using them currently to store stacks of grain,” Faramir responded before Aragorn. “That is where I had put it before the meeting, secure under lock and key or so I thought,” he grumbled.

“You can thank the Elrondion twins for teaching Legolas to pick locks, ion-nin,” Thranduil said, giving Elrond a sly look. Elrond simply rolled his eyes and sighed. “So for the moment there should be plenty of food for the hatchling to eat. It should keep down the mouse population if nothing else.”

“And as it grows it should also keep down the rat, cat, dog and undersized domestic staff member populations as well,” Maglor added with a sly chuckle, eliciting an exasperated glare from Thranduil.

Faramir groaned.

“It will not be as bad as you think, ion-nin,” the elven King soothed.

“People have been saying that to me a lot lately and it has yet to be ‘not as bad as I think’,” Faramir retorted sullenly. “People think me strange and frightening enough now. I can just imagine what the reactions will be when they see me with a giant spider in tow, pink ribbon or not.”

“The bright side is that Arwen is not adverse to the spider,” Aragorn ventured optimistically.

“That is all well and good but you are married to Arwen. I will be married to Éowyn, if she can accept a spider-toting wizard for a husband. I only hope this hatchling is fully grown by the time they meet. It, not to mention me, will need all the advantage we can get when it meets the woman who killed the witch king,” the young Steward groused.

“It could be worse, mellon-nin,” Aragorn said with a rueful smile.

“How, pray tell.”

“You could be Legolas right now,” the King chuckled.

Faramir winced at the thought of what Arwen, as angry as she was, was doing with that… that… thing but could not fault Aragorn’s logic.

“I suppose that if I am to keep this ‘familiar’, I should give it a name,” Faramir sighed, thinking that his life had been quite complicated enough, thank you very much. “What sex is it?”

“Congratulations, ion-nin,” Thranduil laughed. “You are the proud mama of a bouncing baby boy.”

“Mama,” the hatchling agreed.

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