Light Under the Shadow of Black Wings

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑

The years had begun to slowly slip away from them.

One day, Deora was crouched low to the ground, her hands running through the cluster of flowers at the base of the White Tree. They, as always, matched the mysterious and mythical bark perfectly in complexion.

That day happened to be the anniversary of her mothers death, and she hadn't been able to bear staying within the walls of her house. Not with her father prancing about as if it had been any normal day.

Faramir was standing off to the side of the tree, carefully watching her every move. She hadn't spoken a word to him since she had arrived on the hillside that morning. He could easily sense that something was wrong, but didn't quite have it in him to confront her about it directly.

In the end, he decided to employ an alternate tactic.

"You know, I always did like these flowers." he mused, stepping towards the tree. "They're wild, and don't always need the caring of the gardeners like the others do."

He reached down to pluck one of them up and out of the ground, turning it over a few times in between his fingers. Deora hadn't turned to look at him quite yet, but she had fallen still, telling him that at the very least, she was listening.

"They remind me of you, now that I think about it." he dared to add, only a little bit cheekily.

There was a beat of silence. Before suddenly, Deora had risen to her feet. As she did so, she appeared to purposefully stomp on the bushel of flowers she had been crouched in front of.

"I am not a flower!" she barked loudly, her voice echoing out over the entire courtyard.

Faramir had jumped at the abruptness of her tone.

"Flowers are- they're weak! And frail! And it- it is an insult to be compared to them!"

As silence fell over them again, the young boy immediately took note of just how rapidly his friend's shoulders were rising and falling. He noticed how white her knuckles had become, clenched there at her sides. And the very last thing that he noticed, were the bright tears that were beginning to collect in the corners of her eyes.

He glanced back down at the flower in his hand.

"I do not see it that way." he replied after another long moment, voice as calm as ever.

Deora subtly took in another breath, but otherwise remained silent.

"Flowers are a perfect balance." he began to say. "Of both resilience and beauty. When they suffer any sort of injury, they always manage to right themselves-" he said, then pointedly gesturing towards the flowers at the edges of her boots. Already, the stems were beginning to unbend. "They always turn their faces back towards the sunlight."

Slowly, Faramir glanced back over at his friend. And the instant that their eyes met, a small gasp fell out of her throat, a single tear beginning a slow trek down the path of her cheek.

"My mother-" she spoke in a broken whisper. "I said the same thing to her. I screamed at her not to call me a flower. And that was the last thing...she died a few days later."

Deora then lowered herself back down to the ground, her breathing shallow as her hands cupped the flowers that she had crushed.

Immediately, Faramir had crouched down in order to be at her side.

"Not a day goes by where I don't think...where I don't think that it was somehow my fault." she admitted, choking on her words as her shaking hands continued to surround the flowers.