Immortalitui // Faramir 🥀

Chapter Forty-One - Choice

Word Count: 2,217 words. 

Warnings: None. 

"There are too many Orcs to the West," one soldier commented. The room had gone from some she recognised and some she did not to none that were familiar.

"The East is completely cut off by barricades, the West is our only option!" another argued.

Arathiel watched them from afar, sat away from the table of battle, but listening intently. They argued. Men, fighting on the same side of an eternal war, were arguing about their next moves.

"Arathiel." His voice was far away, muffled by her thoughts as though they were waves pushing him from the forefront. "Lady Arathiel."

Shocked into attention, the she-elf turned to find all eyes on her. All eyes but Faramir's. The lieutenant had spoken.

"Yes?"

"You're a renowned fighter," he expressed. "What should we do?"

Standing up, Arathiel brushed herself down – although there was no dust to brush and looked at the table where they had intricately laid out every position and every camp.

"My logic would say to scale the border of the Southlands, of Mordor, but that will never work, not with human soldiers," she began with a sigh.

"You think we are incapable?" Faramir questioned, and it was almost playful.

She met his gaze with her arms crossed. "I know you are and that is no insult to Gondor. Only those with the hardest minds can scale Mordor. Regardless, moving that way will delay any journey towards Osgiliath."

"And so what do you suggest?" he asked then.

Arathiel scanned the table for a moment, searching for what every army had. "There," she muttered, placing her finger over a small company of Orcs. "Attack the weak point, force your way through."

"We would still have to fight." It was not a voice she knew.

The she-elf faced the soldier. "You will need to engage in combat no matter which way you decide to go. It is simply the principle of war."

Hands pressed firmly against either side of the table, Arathiel did not entirely notice the men dispersing from the tent. She kept rushing her gaze from cohort to cohort, seeing if there was another. They could attack on two sides – kill more Orcs.

"Arathiel," Faramir began, placing his hands against the tops of her shoulders. His touch was the only comfort she wished for the rest of her days.

"If you had been anyone else, I would have drawn my sword the second you touched my skin," she muttered.

Arathiel could hear him laugh warmly, leaning forward to press a kiss to the back of her head. "But since it is me, the great Faramir, you shall allow it."

"Are you going to tell him?" Halbrand tried. He was only a voice. "Will you reveal your secret?"

"My secret..." she breathed.

"What secret?" Faramir tried.

With the shake of her head, Arathiel turned to Faramir. "Your men seem to want to avoid war."

"All men want to avoid war."

She nodded slowly. "Men are odd."

He hesitated. "What do you want?"

"To protect Middle Earth, to destroy darkness." It was an answer she had prepared and used for hundreds of years.

"That is what everyone wants. That is the universal want, it is not yours."