Immortalitui // Faramir 🥀

Chapter Eleven - The Trolls

Word Count: 3,292 words. 

Warnings: None. 

It was bearable. The thoughts of him. The stray memories and pictures that made their way to the front of her mind. Arathiel hadn't loved him. How could she? And yet, every set of eyes she saw the same shade seemed to remind her of him as well as the sight of hair that paralleled the soft, light waves he adorned. He was a man. A simple being who was destined for death. He would live a life. A human live, consisting of no more than ninety years. Perhaps more with his heritage. Faramir was the last person the elf should be thinking about and yet, in the quiet of taverns at the dead of night or in the silent rides from town to town, he was the only thing that consumed her mind.

"Are you thinking about him?" Aragorn asked her.

Arathiel turned to look at her friend. "Are you thinking about my niece?" she retaliated.

They had found each other not to long after her visit to the Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-Dûm. He was struggling to fight off a small force of orcs. The man had claimed that he had them handled, but she knew better. He was every bit the goods parts of her brother. Elros had died thousands of years ago, but his line still thrived and of all of his descendants, the last of the people of Númenor. Aragorn was most like that brother she lost.

He took a deep breath, pushing across a small bowl of broth. "Eat."

Arathiel shook her head. "I ate last night. It is your turn, or perhaps Legolas'."

Aragorn laughed lightly, taking out his pipe from his pocket and placing it against his lips while he looked for something to light it with. "I do not think that elf would even consider eating something not Elven made."

They had run out of lembas bread in the last few weeks. That told her that it had been a long time, since she was so sure that the amount she had taken from Rivendell would last her decades. It wasn't supposed to stay fresh for longer than a few months, but the staleness did nothing to quench its ability to rejuvenate you from the brink of death. 

"I'll have you know," Legolas interrupted, moving into the booth and taking a seat beside Arathiel. "If I was hungry enough, I could manage with this human... mush."

"This human mush," Arathiel replied, "is something that no elf could ever make."

The tavern they had found themselves in wasn't too far from the small town of Hobbiton. From the Shire. It made Arathiel nervous. She had sworn to herself that she would protect Frodo and yet she feared to even enter his home. There was a reason for that. A reason that she had convinced herself was valid. Her presence would only get him killed and so she stayed away. For the better, the elf told herself.

"You are correct. We are too refined," the blonde elf replied, causing Arathiel to scoff, rolling her eyes. "However," – He took up the spoon, taking a small portion of the broth with it before turning over the utensil and letting it spill back into the bowl – "it is a tad more pleasing than that of dwarven food."

Arathiel slapped his arm lightly. "I happen to enjoy dwarven food."

"My dear Arathiel," he attempted, placing the spoon back down, "you have spent so much time with those beings that you are close to becoming one of them yourself."

"And you are starting to sound like you father."

That silenced the Mirkwood elf. He didn't like his father anymore than she did and to be compared to him was not a compliment. There had been a time, a recent time, where his father had been the only person he looked up to, but now, he spent so little time in his father's halls and in his company. Something had shifted between the two, and Arathiel knew it. It was for the better, she told herself.