The Holly-Folk of Gondor by AdmirableMonster  

Eowyn

Though he was awake and his mind was largely clear, Faramir found that there was a lethargy in his limbs that he had not realized in his first moments that still clung to him.  He had lost so many in Ithilien, and though he could see the light in the sky from the open little chamber in the Houses of Healing in which he had awakened, it seemed paltry and weak compared to what he was used to.  He could not help wondering if he had woken now only to wait and follow Boromir when the Dark Lord finally overtook Minas Tirith.

Little had been said to him of the situation, and he could not tell whether it boded well or ill.  He wanted to hope.  Noltar would tell him to hope.  He tipped his face up into the wan sunlight.  “Was I ready enough for the Shadow, I wonder?” he said aloud.

“Ready enough that you have survived it, yonya.”

He had not heard the sound of the door opening. Faramir turned          at the soft of the soft, rasping voice, his throat seizing up.  “Ada,” he choked without thinking, though he had never called him so, and Noltar hobbled across the room, his face drawn tight and grey, and gathered Faramir into his arms.

“You came back,” he whispered into Faramir’s ear.  “You came back despite all of it, and I am so proud of you and so grateful.”

He was shivering, Faramir realized, and at first he thought it was simply reaction.  Faramir thought he was probably shivering a little as well.  Then he felt moisture and pulled back to see that Noltar’s face was pale and drawn with pain.  “You’re hurt!” he exclaimed.

“I have been hurt far worse,” Noltar told him.  “This is—”  He stopped whatever he had been to say at the sight of the look Faramir gave him.  “I needed to know you were all right,” he said softly.  “I suppose I had better let the healers take a look at it now.”

He had come to Faramir perhaps before he came to anyone.  Faramir felt his eyes fill with easy tears.  “Please, Ada,” he whispered, and the word did not sound unfamiliar to his tongue at all.

“Don’t worry,” Noltar told him, his trembling voice full of fondness.  “Don’t worry, it will be all right.”

* * *

The light was so pale and watery, Éowyn thought, the Sun barely visible through the heavy clouds.  She touched her fingers to the glass of the window and startled when she found that it was cold.  Somehow she had half expected her hand to pass through it entirely.  She ought to be a ghost.  She felt enough like one.

Besides, she ought to have died when Theoden did.  She would have died a hero and a warrior, her tale ended neatly, the skald’s voice dying away as the crowd cheered and clapped.  How she had loved such stories when she was a child; how she had begged Éomer and Theodred to act them out with her, over and over again.  

They had often squabbled over who was to play the hero in this night’s particular story, though Éowyn insisted on getting all the parts who were not, strictly speaking, Men, because, as she often angrily pointed out, the minstrels were so ready to ignore the deeds of anyone else that otherwise she would never have any parts at all.  This meant shield maidens, of course, but also Elves and Dwarves, when they were spoken of.  Éomer and Theodred rapidly learned better than to take those parts from Éowyn, and once they grew a little and sometimes began to act such stories in a larger group of mostly boys, the two of them defended her right to them.

So why was she still alive?  Well, that might yet be mended, she supposed, if Sauron triumphed in the end, and if the Dark Lord’s forces came for Gondor in the end, she supposed she could take up a sword and die fighting.

The door of the little reading room opened with a click, and she looked up listlessly to see a stooped and ancient-looking figure.  As this was Éowyn’s first day outside of her bed, she did not know the occupants of the Houses of Healing particularly well.  “Can I help you?” she asked frostily, assuming another one of Ioreth’s coterie of twittering nursemaids.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” said a rasping voice.  “I was looking for Faramir.”

“Whoever Faramir is, I have not seen him.”

“Ah, well.  Do you mind if I wait?  He often spends time here.”

Éowyn shrugged.  “Suit yourself, I cannot stop you.”

She realized in the next moment that she had been terribly rude and braced for the scolding, but the old man did not seem particularly bothered by her sharp words.  He chuckled.  “You could ask me to leave,” he said, with a shrug.  “But perhaps that would be too much trouble.” 

He hobbled across the room with a peculiar sideways gait, and it occurred to her that perhaps he was not one of the healers but also one of the patients.

“Who are you?” she asked, a dull spark of curiosity lighting in her breast.

He shrugged.  “Most folk here know me as Noltar, but Celebrimbor has been my name for much longer.”

Why did that name sound so familiar? After a moment, Éowyn laughed, sharp and brittle.  “I used to play Celebrimbor as a child—the Elf, I mean.  I was just thinking about that when you came in.”  She was surprised at herself; it was more words than she had said the whole time.

The old man’s breath caught.  “Did you?”

“Wasn’t he fortunate?” Éowyn asked bitterly.  “He got to die a hero in the end.”

“Ah.”  There was a moment of silence.  “Well.  Stories have a way of getting the details wrong.”  He put up a pair of oddly young-looking hands and drew back his hood.

Someone made a soft little noise, like a squeak.  This was no Man.  Éowyn was shaking, and she realized she was laughing.  “Am I still dreaming, in my fever?” she said.

“I am afraid not, my lady.”  He paused.  “Many of those close to me did die heroes.  My cousin—my uncle—”  He cut himself off, and his scarred mouth drew to the side.

Again, a little spark of some emotion surfaced.  “So did mine,” she whispered.  “I could not save him.”

“And I could not save mine.”  He looked over at her.  “You cannot keep a count of those you did not save, lass; it will drive you mad.”

The door opened again.  Éowyn sighed sharply.  “Is all the Houses of Healing to intrude upon me in my grief?” she demanded, looking up again to see a fair, thin-looking young man with a mane of fluffy hair falling about his shoulders, who gave a guilty start.  He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Éowyn cut him off in her frustration.  “Are you a great hero as well?  An ancient Elf lord’s great son, perhaps?”

“Ah—”

Celebrimbor snorted with laughter at her shoulder, and Éowyn looked over in confusion.  He waved a hand at her.  “This is Faramir,” he said.  “And, well, perhaps not by law, but…” He drew himself up as much as Éowyn supposed he could.  “The son of Celebrimbor of Hollin.”

“What is this jest?” The young man named Faramir asked.  “I have been hearing this all over the Houses of Healing.  I came to ask you about it, Noltar.”

“You would not account yourself my son?” Celebrimbor asked, in a tone of voice Éowyn could not read.

Faramir clucked his tongue impatiently.  “That is not the jest to which I referred.  The Lord of Hollin—”

Celebrimbor spread his hands.  “Hollin is no longer.  Gondor remains.  I am afraid I was rather outspoken in my anger when the Orcs came to the door of the holly-folk’s forge.”  He sighed.  “But Celebrimbor is the name I was given when I entered Beleriand.  Before the Sun rose, I was Telperinquar Silmencë.”

There was a long silence.  Then Faramir said, in a small voice, “Oh.  I see.”

“I did not mean for anyone to know,” Celebrimbor said, rather apologetically.  “It does not mean anything.  I am who I am.”

A faint nod.  Éowyn began to realize she was watching something momentous.  Faramir took a long, strange breath.

“And so am I,” he said, after a moment, and then he smiled a rather weak, crooked smile at Éowyn.  “I am Faramir, the Steward of Gondor, and—and apparently the great son of an ancient Elf lord.”

The smile did something quite strange to Éowyn’s insides, and before she knew it, she found that she was smiling back.