The Holly-Folk of Gondor by AdmirableMonster  

First Blood

Faramir had never been so thankful that he was a small boy and could fold himself right up beneath the forge benches so that he was not immediately visible.  He was not frightened, he told himself, over and over again, but there was a tearing, awful pain in his throat and his stomach, and his eyes would not stop leaking tears.

The first person into the forge, thankfully, was the person he had been waiting for, tying up her skirts at the threshold as she always did, her rather heavy-boned face screwed up thoughtfully.  “Níniel,” Faramir hissed as she entered.  “Pssst.”

She blinked as if coming out of a daydream.  “Faramir?  What are you doing under there?”

“Um.  I, I needed to ask you, because, because you’re a girl, and—”  His face was so hot, and he hated it, and did this mean he wasn’t truly a boy?  Was this even what it was?

She came over and squatted in front of him.  “Ask me what?”

“I’m bleeding,” Faramir said, in a small voice.  “It happened once, last month, and I thought it must be the first blood people talk about, but I’m bleeding again, and it won’t stop, and, and—is this a thing that happens to girls?  I’m not a girl, but, but—”

She flung her hands up.  “Uh, I don’t, I don’t know, I’m—didn’t you know?  I’m a girl the, uh, the way you’re a boy, I never had any blood…”

He shook his head.  “No, I didn’t know.”  The tears just couldn’t be stopped now.  He ran a hand over his face.  What was he going to do?  He knew Níniel didn’t know how to handle crying.

“I’ll get Elemmirë,” Níniel said rapidly.  “Her grandma is a healer.  I’ll be right back.”

He could feel the blood, sticky and hot, against the inside of his thigh.  He shut his eyes.  He hadn’t wanted anyone else to know.  He was the Steward’s son, he wasn’t supposed to be afraid.  He wasn’t supposed to need help.  Not even from the rest of the holly-folk.

Níniel returned with Elemmirë, who was a small and quite shy little girl.  She was very fond of her colorful skirts and ribbons, but she went down on her knees on the forge floor with no hesitation.  “It’s your monthly?” she said softly.

“I—I d-don’t know what that is,” Faramir chattered through too-frightened teeth.

“You don’t know what—” Elemmirë blinked at him.  “Boys are so stupid,” she said, long-sufferingly, and if Faramir hadn’t already been crying, he would have cried to hear her say it.  “All right.  Every month your body gets ready to have a baby—”

“A baby!” Faramir echoed in horror.  “But I don’t want—”

“Hush!”  Elemmirë rapped his knuckles with hers.  “You needn’t have one, of course, and I’ve never heard of a boy having a baby anyway, so I expect you won’t.  Your body gets ready, and then if you don’t put a seed inside—you know, just as you have to fertilize plants? well, as long as you don’t do that, you won’t have one.”  Faramir decided not to ask what you had to do to put a seed inside yourself.  He had enough of a notion, in any case.

“If you don’t have a baby, your body will get rid of the cradle it was going to use, so that’s all the blood.  There are some herbs that will make it hurt less, but it will happen every month if you don’t put a baby inside.”

Faramir relaxed a little.  “But…then what do you do about, about all the blood?” he asked helplessly.

“Oh, well, usually you use rags to stop it, my grandma has some.”

“I could give you a cup, if you would prefer.  I’ve known some men and women who did not like the cloth,” said a new voice, and Faramir looked up to see that Master Noltar had entered.  He went red, but Noltar seemed quite matter-of-fact about it.

“A, a cup?” he said, in a small voice.

“Oh, Grandma told me about those, but I’ve never seen one,” Elemmirë said.  “Can you show me how to make one, Master Noltar?”

“Certainly,” Noltar said.  “For now, though, perhaps you could fetch those rags for Faramir, and then we can start our daily lessons.”

“Yes, I’ll do that,” Elemmirë said.  “Don’t worry about the crying, Faramir, by the way, that’s just your monthly, too.  It’s ever so annoying.”

He sniffed and wiped his face on the back of his sleeve and, taking the hand that Níniel held out to him, let himself be pulled back into the quiet warm atmosphere of the holly-folk.