Immortalitui // Faramir 🥀

Chapter Seven - Impending Danger

Word Count: 1,878 words. 

Warnings: None. 

The Steward had woken confused. Frustrated at why he had been hurried from his bed in the middle of the night but the moment he saw the elf in his throne room, he knew she had made trouble.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked harshly, wrapping his nightgown tighter across his body.

"She was attacked father," Boromir told him, taking a step forward. "By the forces of Mordor."

"Elves," Arathiel corrected. "They were elves. My own kind that fell to the darkness long ago. I had thought that they had been all but wiped out."

"Years, we have had no problems," Denethor started, moving to sit down on the throne. "And now, with you here, we are getting attacked in our own kingdom." He paused, mind worried. He knew that he needed to place men at the wall. At the border between life and death, but they would only die, and then he would have to replace them. The thought that he may never be free of this elf worried him more than anything else.

Denethor had thought that if Boromir and her were to marry that perhaps she would become tolerable. An alliance between elves and Gondor that would secure peace between them, but both his son and the elf had denied this request. He thought that perhaps if the union were to happen, that he would have the backing of the elves when he needed it. Denethor may hate them, but they would win him any war. He should have never given them the choice.

"There were two of them," Arathiel continued, moving a couple of steps towards him. "They told me that the men we send to the border will do no good."

It wasn't a complete lie. Sauron had said that, but Arathiel knew that telling Denethor that the King of Darkness appeared to her to ask her to join him would only end in her execution.

"They know that we are strengthening our defences," Boromir concluded. "We must prepare for an attack."

Denethor didn't answer him. He didn't say a word. Simply turned around and faced the throne he so often sat in. The throne that wasn't his no matter how many times he had tried to convince himself that it was.

"My lord," Arathiel spoke up, the title rolling off her tongue line venom. "I will stay as long as it is needed, but I am only one elf against an army of darkness. Your men are strong, but not strong enough. Not yet. I implore you. Allow me to write to my brother in Rivendell –"

"No," he replied sternly. "I will not have any more elves in my kingdom." Without the union to guarantee their loyalty, they may attempt to ruin his Kingdom, and Denethor would not allow that.

Arathiel was getting angry now. Gondor deserved a King. It deserved a man who would do anything to protect it. Denethor was not that man and he would never be that man.

"It is more my kingdom than yours Denethor," she spat. "My brother was the first King of Numenor and his descendants the builders of this great city. It is my brother's legacy that has you your throne. I can guarantee you that I will call for aid with or without your permission to make sure that it remains standing."

He turned quickly. To him, this elf had no right to speak as though she was ruler. As though she had endured the pain and horrors of ruling for as long as he had. Arathiel had no right.

"I heard what happened," Faramir's voice echoed through the large hall as he rushed through the large double doors at the back of the hall. "Are you alright Arathiel?"

She was calmed by his presence. That sudden anger that had overtook her vanishing as his eyes met hers. It wasn't as strong when he was there. The darkness that threatened to take her soul and turn it black as coal. Sauron's hold on her didn't seen so daunting when he was there.