Faramir Fiction Archive

Chronicle of Scars: Cuts (R)

Written by Dernhelm

29 March 2004 | 29961 words

Chapter 6: Eye of the Storm

‘I do this because I love you, my Liege…’ Faramir’s voice rattled in Aragorn’s mind as he stared blankly into the fire, nursing a small glass of brandy he had stolen from the bottle on the library mantle. It seemed every room in the citadel had a decanter at the ready, a lasting remnant of Denethor’s occupation, and the library had been no exception. To weary with grief to venture back to his own bedroom, he had tarried at the site of his disgrace, mulling over both the bitter and sweet of the past day.

He could scarcely believe only twenty four hours had passed since the revelation at the campfire; for he felt that he had been taken to both a height of bliss and a depth of despair he had not encountered in all his years, nonetheless in such a short span of time.

‘…Elessar, the more love there is, the more sorrow will come of it…’

The king sighed and shifted in the oversize chair, taking a sip of the amber liquor. He made a face as it went down, burning a glowing line from his tongue to his gullet, though it did little to warm the chill in his heart. He did not understand Faramir’s riddles, and it frustrated him as much as it concerned him. Truly, all he had wanted to do was help his prince, bring him out of his shadows by showing him how much Aragorn loved him; but now he felt that he had done nothing but hurt the Steward, driving him further away from him.

Perhaps it would have been best for him if he had never sent for Faramir.

His melancholia was abruptly broken as the heavy door of the library slammed open, and the King was on his feet with his hand on his sword before the guard even had a chance to fully step into the room. It was not like the watchmen of the citadel to burst in uninvited, but the reprimand died on the King’s lips when he saw the soldier’s stricken expression.

“My Lord!” the young man gasped, his face red and sweating as he bowed, evidence of his frantic run to find the King, “you are needed,” he took a pained breath, “by the Queen,” another breath, “in the Steward’s chambers,” breath, “it is an emergency.”

Elessar did not hear the rest of the guard’s message, for he was already out the door, breaking into a dead run down the hallway. Something was very, very wrong. The naked fear on the guard’s face spoke to that as much as his words had, and Aragorn’s stomach knotted in anxiety as his mind swam with questions he was scared to know the answers to.

His dread increased as he saw a second guard posted outside Faramir’s door, which was slightly ajar. A red gleam caught his eye from the ground, as if someone had scattered a handful of small rubies in the doorway. It was only when he was close enough so that the soldier pulled himself to attention did he realized what it truly was: fragments of glass, coated in blood.

“My liege, please wait here for a moment,” the guard stuttered, obviously uncomfortable with giving orders to the King. Aragorn had just opened his mouth to protest, ready to push past the man, when Arwen’s face peered around the door. Her expression was calm as ever, but the relief in her eyes at seeing him betrayed the true emotions beneath her visage. She stepped into the hallway to meet her husband, drawing her robe tightly around her with one hand as she pulled the door shut behind her. “Guard,” she turned towards the watchman first, “I need you to go to the house of healing and bring us more bandages, antiseptic, and water. As I told your companion, be quick, but quiet.”

The man nodded and hurried of without a word. Now that the orders had been given and were being carried out, she let out a shuddering breath, finally letting the strain show on her usually lovely face.

“Arwen, what is going on? What has—” Aragorn frantic words were interrupted as his wife quickly placed her fingertips on his lips, silencing him. Her sudden movement had opened her untied robe, and suddenly he could see the gory designs painted in crimson streaks upon her delicate nightshift, and his heart clenched in terror. What had Faramir done to her?

“Estel, I need you to be calm. Faramir needs you to be calm,” she spoke to him in her native tongue, but using the same tone she had when addressing the guards, “for he is ill and wounded, and badly needs our help.”

“What happened? Are you alright?” Aragorn forced himself to relax, keeping his voice low, though he was quickly losing his patience. But he obeyed his wife’s orders without question, for he trusted her judgment better than he did his own. Arwen was always good in a crisis, oftentimes the only one who could truly master her fear enough to face the grave task at hand.

“I’m fine. But Faramir is another matter.” Arwen sighed grimly, as she began to open the door, “I must warn you, he looks horrible, though his wounds are not grave.”

The king nodded, and steeled himself for what lay in the room beyond as Arwen led him in.

The first thing he noticed was the state of Faramir’s bedchamber: the broken glass littering the floor, the chair by the fire on it’s side, the artifacts of Faramir’s life scattered about as if thrown by a storm. His eyes followed the path of ruin to the bed, where Faramir lay motionless, the eye in this tempest of destruction.

Aragorn approached smoothly, ignoring the raging fear that threatened to engulf him, focusing only on what his eyes saw, a friend who needed him. But he almost lost his battle as he came close enough to fully see Faramir, and the shock that went through Elessar almost brought tears to his eyes.

Faramir was still awake, but his eyes were wide and glassy, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. The wounds in his forehead had slowed their torrent, but still fresh, red lines painted themselves down his face and into his hair, trickling like gory tears. His knees, oh, by the Valar, his knees were far worse off, a mass of shattered glass and shredded tissue showing through the sliced fabric of his breeches.

“I have removed all the glass from his face,” Arwen said softly, resuming her post beside the prostrate man and picking up a stained rag to put pressure on the injuries on Faramir’s face, “but am waiting for the antiseptic to bandage him.”

Aragorn was struck dumb by the sight, unable to fully comprehend what had happened to Faramir. This was not the work of an enemy, to be sure, but how had the prince sustained such wounds?

His eyes rested on the open medical kit on the table by the bed, which Arwen had raided to find tweezers with which to remove the glass. Luckily, Faramir had not had the time to put away his supplies from their camping trip, and the kit had been easy for her to find among the pile of gear on the floor.

“He is lost in himself, Estel,” Arwen continued, gently wiping Faramir’s slack face with another rag, “when I found him he was in a rage, throwing things and screaming, as if arguing with someone. He, he fell before me, pleading for help, before he became completely unresponsive.”

“And the wounds?” Aragorn asked, staring into Faramir’s eyes, searching for even a flicker of recognition. He was met with iron.

“He deliberately knelt on broken glass in penitence for accidentally hurting me,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the memory of the raw anguish on Faramir’s face when he had lain eyes on her.

“What madness gripped him to make him hurt himself so?” Aragorn’s words trembled, and he reached out to gently touch Faramir’s face, dismayed to find it cold and waxen.

“An old madness, my love.” Arwen said, as she pulled Faramir’s arm from his side, showing Aragorn the ranks of scars gradating from white to red, Faramir’s chronicle of self-mutilation laid bare to the King’s horrified eyes.

“By the Valar,” he whispered hoarsely, and the tears he’d so valiantly fought back finally broke through and spilled down his cheeks. Aragorn had known Faramir was consumed by sadness, a long-seated depression, but he never would have imagined that the prince hurt himself so brutally…and so regularly.

His eyes lingered upon the reddest marks, the thin scabs surrounded by a pink healing halo, and dread twisted in Aragorn’s belly as he realized just how fresh these wounds were. They appeared no more than a few hours old.

‘He cut himself because of you,’ Aragorn’s inner voice rasped, ‘you drove him to this.’ Guilt flooded through the King, hot and blinding. He had never intended to push Faramir into this despair.

‘No, this is a practiced hurt,’ he argued back, reason stepping in to counter raw emotion, ‘these scars were not all formed in one day.’

‘What manner of man commits such acts upon himself? If he can do this to himself, what else is he capable of? Can he be trusted with the weight of the Stewardship, the people of Gondor…the life of the king?’ The voice retorted scratchily.

‘This is an illness of the mind, not a corruption of his soul. Like any other sickness, it can be purged,’ Aragorn thought firmly, ‘and I must help him break this disease. He is still Faramir, and I do not judge him for this madness. He will always be my steward, my prince, my friend, and… my beloved.’

“Beg pardon, my Lords, my Lady,” the older guard stood at the door hesitantly, quite conscious that he was interrupting as his eyes flickered nervously between the King’s tears and the Steward’s unchanged face, “I brought what you asked from the House of Healing.”

Arwen nodded and stood to tend to the guard’s delivery, giving her husband’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze as she left him with his charge, though his eyes did not waver from Faramir’s face.

“Thank you, my good man,” Arwen said gratefully as she gave the guard a meaningful look, “your discretion will be well remembered. Go in peace, if you can find it on this dark night.”

The guard left with a final concerned look at Faramir, slipping out as quietly as he had come.

“‘Tis a good thing for us Faramir likes to take tea before he sleeps,” Arwen murmured as she poured water from the jug the soldier had brought into the copper kettle waiting by the hearth.

Aragorn did not reply, but he finally looked up to watch his wife as she readied the supplies, pulling out bottles and bandages from the large basket the guard had left. She seemed so calm, though she stood with blood staining her face and gown, and Aragorn could still see from within her a lingering trace of the Light that she had so freely given up. Indeed, maybe it had never left her, but merely lay asleep within, only to be seen and never touched again. She looked up, her eyes locking with Aragorn’s, bright as cobalt, pulling him out of his spiral of despair as she always could.

“I must go find him,” Elessar finally said softly, “he has pulled away from us so far that he cannot find the way back.”

“I will tend to his outer wounds,” she replied, “you tend to the inner ones.”

“This may take time,” he said, turning back to Faramir and taking his cold hand in his, “for it will not be a simple task.”

“Then, go, my love,” Arwen said gently, “and bring our Faramir back to us.”

The King did not think of the meaning of his wife’s words, so intent was he on his purpose. Letting the lids of his eyes close into half-slits, his breath becoming slow and rhythmic, he reached out with himself slowly, letting the room slip away from him.

Arwen watched silently as her husband slid into a meditative trance, almost able to see the moment when his consciousness slipped from this plane of being to the next.

Only when he was gone did she finally let out the sob she’d been holding back, the weight of the situation finally crushing into her full force. It had been long since she seen a sight so heartbreaking as the look in Faramir’s eyes, and to watch him splinter before her like the glass under his knees was an experience she hoped to never relive again.

The kettle began to steam behind her, and Arwen composed herself with a sniff of her nose and a backhanded wipe of her eyes. Faramir was not lost to them. He was too good a man, too strong a man, to let himself be conquered by fear and ghosts.

Now it was up to Aragorn to remind him.

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