Immortalitui // Faramir 🥀

Chapter Forty-Five - Influence

Word Count: 1,814 words. 

Warnings: None. 

It had been a long time since Arathiel had practiced her form. Her sword had been used only to kill, to defend and never to calm. Standing in the Training Grounds, the stone familiar under her feet, she did so then; remembering how the elves had taught her to fight... with predictability and precision.

Memories returned of the men she had trained, the Gondorians that she had taught to be monsters to fight the darkness. With a heavy breath and the swing of her sword, Arathiel cast a glance to a nearby bow.

"I thought a great warrior was going to teach us how to fight," his words returned to her, and the echo of his image breezed across the air. "Not a woman."

Arathiel did not grow tired, her Elven nature would not allow it. Raising a hand to her forehead, she wiped away the sweat. It was leaving her.

Turning, another memory returned to her. Dom, a soldier that she had called blind, slumped with exhaustion and a human smile.

"I can't just get a simple well done?" he had posed while sheathing his sword.

With a heavy sigh and the closing of her eyes, Arathiel ran a hand through her hair. "Well done, Dom," she muttered.

"You look tired," Faramir commented on his approach, leaning against the nearby wall.

She scoffed, straightening. "That is certainly the way to compliment a lady."

He shook his head with a smile. "You look beautiful, radiant, perfectly imperfect... but you are tired. You need rest."

Thunder rumbled from Mordor. "I will rest when I am dead, or Sauron is vanquished." She thought then that they may be one and the same.

Approaching, Faramir took the sword from her hand, discarding it. He ran his hands down her arms, lacing his fingers with hers. "You will be of no use if you collapse from exhaustion."

"Dom was well rested," Arathiel countered, pulling away and returning to the array of weapons, "and he still met his end."

"Death comes to us all," he returned, approaching her back. Faramir rest his hands on her shoulder comfortingly. "You know that better than most."

Arathiel turned, sword already drawn. Its hilt rested in Faramir's stomach, the blade one that she had not seen in a long time. Blood ran from the wound to her hand as she pulled back.

Betrayed, Faramir's eyes met hers, coughing blood. "Why..."

"Death comes to us all," Arathiel repeated, but they were not her words, not her voice. "It comes to us at the hands of those we love."

Arathiel jolted to attention, leaning against the balcony of her room. The she-elf had been watching the fire of Mordor grow, the smoke grow to be a cloud over Gondor.

Her hands were not covered in blood, but she knew that they would be soon.

"Did you like it?" Halbrand asked, leaning against the wall to her left. He smiled, one leg over the other.

Breathless, Arathiel shook her head. "It was not real."

He pushed off the wall, smile dropping to a cold, hard line. "But you see, it will be real. I will make it real."

"You do not have that power." It was a shout, a plea from a woman who felt as though she might give in. With the power of Mordor so close and his voice in her ear, it was hard to remember why she stood on the side that she did.