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 47

The next morning Faramir, with Misto and Naurfin Squee in tow, entered the King and Queen’s private dining room. There he was greeted by Aragorn, Arwen and others present. Already seated were Elrond, the twins, Gimli, Gandalf, Éomer and the Mirkwood elves, including Finrod,. The Steward sat down in the vacant seat between his ada and Legolas. Misto, after seeking and receiving a caress from Arwen and a pat for Squee, which he held out to the Queen, scurried over to a corner of the room to play with his kitten. Faramir noticed Éomer shaking his head at the, admittedly, strange scene.

Faramir was not seated long when his uncle and cousins entered the room. He looked at Erchirion and noted that his seafaring cousin was not moving with his normal powerful grace, effects of the chastisement the evening before evident still. Prince Imrahil and Amrothos moved to the other side of the table to be seated. Identical expressions of surprise and amusement graced their features before they sat down, leaving a seat vacant between them. Erchirion looked down at the vacant chair, blushed furiously through his seaman’s tan, and looked up sharply at Faramir. Expression at first bemused, Faramir leaned back and looked askance to see what had elicited such reactions from his kin. On spying the brightly coloured pillow that had been placed upon the chair Faramir rolled his eyes, at one point looking cross-eyed at his cousin.

“Your new kin are wondrously strange, Fara,” Erchirion whispered loudly, eliciting chortles, snorts and nods of agreement from Aragorn and the Rivendell elves and slightly feral looking smiles from the Mirkwood elves, having guessed correctly that Faramir had not known about the pillow and one of the Mirkwood elves, in all likelihood, was responsible. He seated himself gingerly upon the pillowed chair sighing unconsciously in relief, eliciting a smile from his cousin.

At the conclusion of the morning meal all present, with the exception of Arwen, Misto and kitten, walked to the large council meeting room where a council of war was due to begin. Present were high-ranking commanders and some captains from the combined forces of Gondor, Rohan and Dol Amroth.

Plans for the march to Minas Morgul were finalised. The broad strategy of attack that had been agreed to previously was refined in the light of the new information brought by Erchirion. The seafaring prince would leave on the morrow to rendezvous with ships of his fleet, already on their way past the Isle of Tolalas, off the coast of South Gondor, to blockade the only river capable of being utilised to transport food and armaments to where the Haradrim and Orcs had found a way through the Ephel Duath (Moutains of Shadow) and were gathering forces.

A contingent of ground troops from the combined forces, to be led by the surviving remnants of the old and elements of the new Ithilien rangers, would be transported by ship and taken up the river to seek out and plug the hole, so to speak, ensuring that the passage being used through the Ephel Duath by the Haradrim and Orcs could not be used for escape if the main force was successful in routing the enemy at Minas Morgul.

“So we begin the march in two days time,” Aragorn said, signalling the conclusion of the meeting.

The commanders and captains stood and began leaving the room.

“Lord Dragor!” Erchirion called out to gain the attention of the man over the noise of the dispersing officers. “A moment of your time, if you please.”

“Aye, my Lord?” the knight replied warily, being very careful of his manners as he was in the presence of five princes, three Kings, high ranking elves and dwarf and a wizard.

“Elphir has requested that I advise you of a change of orders. You will not be joining the troops as they march for Minas Morgul,” Erchirion advised.

“I am to be returning to Dol Amroth?” he asked with an expression close enough to a lust-filled smirk as to make Faramir and Erchirion grab the back of Amrothos’ overtunic just as he went to lunge at the man. The last place Amrothos wanted the weaselly git was in Dol Amroth, anywhere near his sister.

“Nay… nay… that is not what I have been advised” Erchirion replied, seemingly confused for a moment but maintaining hold of his brother’s tunic even though he suspected that Faramir was using his wizarding skills to hold his hot-tempered brother. “Nay, you will be joining my fleet,” he added with a bright guileless smile.

“But… but… I-I am no sailor!” Dragor blustered, indignantly.

“There is no time like the present to learn such skills,” the seafaring prince reasoned.

“But, I get seasick!”

“A few months at sea will see you past that. And if not, the old remedy of tying a rope around the waist of one so afflicted, throwing them overboard, and dragging them behind the ship has cured many a man of seasickness,” Erchirion replied in the same conversational tone that Imrahil and Faramir affected occasionally, much to the consternation of those at the other end of the tone and to the amusement of others within hearing distance. “Well… of the ones that could swim, or at least float, that is…” he added as if thinking seriously upon the subject, leaving the rest of the sentence to the imagination of Lord Dragor.

Lord Dragor turned positively green for he could not swim to save his life.

“Buck up, ‘milad. The fresh sea air will do you good,” the prince said in a merry tone. “You had best go and pack as we leave on the morrow.”

Looking as if he were about to faint, Lord Dragor turned to exit the room appearing, for all the world, like a man facing the hangman. He began muttering mutinously to himself causing more than one elven eyebrow to raise at the seditious content of the muttering, and then yelped when what looked like an invisible kick to the behind propelled him forward. The startled Knight turned quickly to confront the assailant but saw none within kicking distance. He glared at Faramir, suspecting that Mithrandir’s pupil was to blame. Both Faramir and Amrothos smirked as they saw Boromir aim another kick at the man’s unprotected posterior. Propelled forward yet again, Lord Dragor paled as he realised that Faramir was not the cause, as the man had not moved a muscle nor raised a hand, which could only leave… Boromir. Éomer also paled, coming to the same conclusion about whom was responsible for what he was seeing. He had little experience of the supernatural and was finding Boromir’s very real presence… confronting… to say the least and felt a wave of brotherly protectiveness flow through him at the thought of his sister exposed to such… unnaturalness.

Before Boromir could land a third kick, Dragor ran from the room, leaving thoughts of his dignity well and truly behind.

“Well played, sir!” Amrothos exclaimed, smiling broadly, impressed by his brother’s skill.

“None of the acorns have fallen far from the old fox haired tree, I see,” Gandalf said, shaking his head at the collective looks of innocence he received in return from the descendents of Adrahil.

“I am just thankful that they are on the side of Gondor, for there would be no hope for Gondor if it were otherwise,” Aragorn said with such heartfelt conviction that it elicited laughter from the elves and dwarf.

As Amrothos left the council chambers in the company of his brother, younger elves, dwarf and cousin he was heard to say in a plaintive voice, the sort of voice known to be used by younger siblings seeking to solicit favours from older ones.

“Could you not somehow manage, Chiri, accidentally of course, to lose the obnoxious git somewhere along the way.”

Faramir enjoyed the midday meal in the company of his human and elven family. The company and conversation were lively and very amusing, although Faramir did find Erchirion’s watchful eye over what he was eating and how much… disconcerting, more so than with the others, maybe because they were of an age.

After the meal, Amrothos decided to enjoy the company of his brother and cousin before his brother’s scheduled departure the next day, so he invited them, the younger elves, including Finrod and master Gimli to join him at the not-so-reputable pub on the second level of the city that boasted a gargantuan of a pig as a mascot, the same pig that had featured so prominently in the recent prank played upon the ‘duo horribus’.

Faramir was sitting at a table in the pub between his cousins when the twins arrived. Misto was up in the rafters above Faramir – minus the kitten, which he had left in the care of Arwen. Boromir was also present, leaning against a wall at the end of the table. Elladan did a double take when he spied the monstrous pig, remembering the last time he set eyes on the beast, which was passed out drunk and sleeping it off next to him in bed, glared at the oblivious pig that was sniffing around Amrothos and Faramir, hoping to be given its beverage of choice – ale. Erchirion snorted guessing by the elf’s reaction that it was Elladan that had awoken in bed next to the pig. Elladan glared at the fox cubs both of who returned innocuous looks that made him want to hit their heads together and sat down on the other side of the table. Elrohir, who had not awoken next to a drunk pig was more forgiving and smiled at his brother’s reaction.

Soon after Legolas arrived in the company of Gimli, Finrod and Éomer. Legolas looked somewhat apologetic at the inclusion of Éomer but Faramir simply shrugged his indifference, as he knew he would have to deal with the situation between them eventually.

The ale flowed freely and the men, dwarf and elves began to exchange amusing anecdotes and stories. Erchirion and Amrothos related several stories of the trouble they got into in their youths under the influence of their wild cousins from Gondor, Boromir and Faramir. Both Faramir and Boromir snorted and exchanged amused looks. If any were wild, in their opinion, it was their Dol Amroth cousins, for their Uncle Imrahil had a greater tolerance for youthful shenanigans than Denethor had ever possessed.

The young King of Rohan, plied with much ale by Amrothos who was attracting warning glares from his cousins and brother, related his own stories of his youth in Rohan, with his sister and cousin Théodred. Faramir listened, rapt, as he got a glimpse of what his, hopefully, soon to be bride’s life was like, growing up in Rhohan.

As the afternoon progressed to early evening, Éomer became more and more intoxicated. He seemed to be attempting to keep pace with the elves which Gimli knew from experience was a big mistake. He had once, silly fool that he was, challenged Legolas to a drinking match, a match that the elf won hands down, although he would never admit so to said elf.

Amrothos plied the Rohirrim with ale in an attempt to ascertain what kind of drunk Éomer proved to be. Faramir, for instance, was a morose drunk as he only drank to excess when attempting to avoid dealing with deeper, darker emotions. This assessment may have been unduly harsh however, Amrothos thought upon reflection, as it was difficult to judge what kind of drunk Faramir was in truth as he tended to go from drunk to exceedingly sick with lightening speed and on very little ale or wine. His brother, Erchirion, was a merry if somewhat co-fuddled drunk in that he was never belligerent, generally jovial but was prone to bouts of foot-in-mouth disease revealing his own and family member’s secrets. Interestingly enough, it did not appear to apply to state secrets, which he never revealed; regardless of how drunk he was at the time. Boromir had also been a jovial drunk as was Elphir, however neither was loose lipped.

Éomer appeared to be quite reserved when he arrived in the company of Legolas, Finrod and Gimli, which Amrothos assumed was partly shyness in the company of mostly strangers and partly his rather… taciturn attitude towards Faramir. As he drank he relaxed and became more open but still stole glances at Faramir that were at best wary and at worst judgemental.

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