Avoidance: Faramir's Tale Begins in Darkness
Two servants came in with trays of cheese, bread, and wine, for the beginnings of a light, quickly prepared dinner. They pulled a low table in front of the day bed. Eowyn sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed her left shoulder, working at the tight muscles.
“It still troubles you,” Faramir remarked as he sat up behind her. He reached forward and commenced to massage both her shoulders. “The weariness and the dreams were what plagued me then, too, as I remember, worse than the pain,” he told her softly.
“Then tell me your remembrances of your days before we met, 'Mir,” Eowyn turned around to face him. “Really tell me your side. For pretty words, as well as silence, can often hide true feelings. Speak prettily or speak plainly, but be true with me now.”
It was cold, cold as a cave, and dank. And horribly quiet, except for the occasional sound of water dripping. The heat and flame that had tortured him was gone, as was the apparition of the penetrating Eye. The stranger who was the returned King had chilled the fever, banished the Eye, and promised him hope. But now he lay on the damp floor of a vast room, chilled and shaking.
His chest was bare; a rough blanket bound his body from waist to toe so that he couldn't move. They had removed his shirt, exposing the angry new wounds on his neck and shoulder. The puncture on his neck where the poison entered his body was particularly inflamed by the cold. The King had neutralized the poison that had left him paralyzed, but the pain from the sting remained.
In the dim light he could tell there were others about him. Bodies piled one upon the other. A few moved and screamed in an ugly, twisted language. And then the hideous face of a Mordor Uruk loomed above him. “I'll have you for my very own lunch, you wretched little slug,” the Uruk snarled but only for a moment. He shrieked as the point of a sword suddenly appeared in the middle of his chest, black blood spurting everywhere. The Uruk collapsed, to reveal the face of Samwise Gamgee in the process of withdrawing his sword from the fallen Uruk's body.
“Come. We must get out of the Tower,” Samwise said as he helped him rise. “The orcs have taken your shirt. They fought over it with the Uruks and now most are dead. We can take the armor from the dead ones.”
In the vague distance, a soft voice pierced the deep dark, “Where is it?”
He felt his neck. “It is gone.”
“No, no. It's here. I thought you were dead, so I took it.” Samwise's hand went to his pocket, withdrawing the chain and the One Ring, which throbbed and gleamed and sent sparks into his unprotected body. He reached out to grab the thing and Samwise didn't stop him.
In the vague distance, the voice asked, “Where are they going?”
“Into Mordor,” he heard himself say. “Down the stairs into the plains. There is the fiery mountain. Ah, I can't stand it!”
The faraway voice persisted, “Who are you?”
The Eye. The Tower and Eye at its apex in the distance to the North. He stumbled and choked and then cried out in defiance as he set foot on the smoldering plain, “I am Frodo, Son of Drogo, of the Shire”
Someone was shaking him. The outline of the Tower and the Eye became wavy and dissolved into nothingness. Just the voice speaking, “Who are you, really?”
He struggled. It was so hard. He could see nothing now. The effort to overcome his paralysis, regain his identity, and move his lips was overwhelming. Finally, in the nothingness his lips managed to move just a little, “I am Faramir, son of Denethor, Steward of Gondor.”
A hand was on his forehead, “Then wake up, Faramir, son of Denethor. You are needed.”