On all levels except physical, i am a wizard

They found her one morning, cold as the winter gale under the warm layers of her bed. Her eyes had closed for the last time somewhere during the night, when, none could say, and her parted lips had exhaled her sorrow and torment away to lighten her heart as it came to a halt. After years of agony, she seemed at peace at last, with the hint of a grateful smile haunting her hollow cheeks.

While his maid changed his clothes to meet with his family for their daily breakfast, Boromir heard the hurried footsteps outside the door and sharp cries as servants and ladies-in-waiting darted towards another chamber. His young brow furrowed, but he thought nothing of it at first. But when the noise persisted after ten minutes, suspicions arose. Had the bridge behind the citadel collapsed from the storm the previous night? Were the beacons lit for a mysterious reason? Had war begun while he still dreamt of sunny days?

Once the laces of his boots were secured, the young boy cast a last glance into the mirror to ensure that no lock of his hair appeared out of place. He knew how long the lecture on proper appearance from his aunt, Lady Aerin, would be, and he was not willing to be subjected to such a disturbance. Faramir was finally healed from an ailment which had befallen him for the previous week, and he was looking forward to sharing a meal with his younger brother again instead of meeting him in his hot room and ensuring that he ate at all.

As soon as his toe grazed the tiled floor of the corridor, a courtier collided with him and profusely apologised. Tears flooded the man’s reddened eyes, and a gnawing feeling grew in Boromir’s gut. Whatever the matter was, it was serious. But no collapsing of bridges could have triggered such a vivid emotion in the man.

Something must have happened to his family.

And, instinctively, he knew precisely what it was.

Pinching his lips as to not regurgitate bile from the grief that suddenly wrung his guts, Boromir lunged away from the hall. On his path, Faramir’s door cracked open and the child’s face peered out. At once, the older brother pointed a stern finger at him.

‘Do not get out, little brother,’ he commanded, ‘I will fetch you myself. Stay in your room!’

A wailing crowd of maids and servants had gathered at the doorframe of a certain room, confirming Boromir’s instinct.

‘Mama…’

He shouldered his way among the mass, grunting and ordering them to let him through. Some obeyed and parted, others were too blinded by the immense sadness that overwhelmed them all to see the child lord berating them. When he reached the room after what he felt was an eternity later, Boromir halted and clenched the doorframe, his arms outstretched on either sides of his body as though to shield its main occupant from prying eyes.

Denethor stood on the other side of the room, between the barricaded windows, his arm folded against the stone and his head buried into the crook of his elbow. Even from where he stood, Boromir could discern the quivering of his father’s shoulders, a sight he had never encountered and never would again.

And, sheltered and comfortable in her bed, Finduilas lay dead.

Shooting pains burnt through the boy’s limbs as he beheld the woman’s frail appearance in her eternal rest. Without caring about all those who mourned at the doorstep, the boy slammed the door shut behind him and hesitantly advanced towards the bed. His eyes were fixed on the lifeless form of his mother, with her black hair finally combed the previous evening forming an ominous halo upon the fluffed pillows. The boy approached until he could enclose her hand in his and press a kiss to the rigid knuckles.

He did not find the strength to cry. His reaction was nowhere near as loud as all those who unabashedly indulged themselves in grand displays of pain. How it felt absurd to him in the moment. Inadequate. Inappropriate. Unseemly. How dare they mourn before her family could!

Boromir knelt on the floor beside his mother and reached out a trembling hand to caress her cheek and comb a loose lock of hair away.

‘She looks peaceful.’

Denethor sniffled and glanced over his shoulder, visibly unaware of his son’s entrance. Before he could speak, the door flew open again and a woman in a silver gown and brown tresses woven with ribbons appeared, her hands hanging limp at her sides.

‘Brother, is it true?’ she asked bluntly at Denethor before her gaze naturally drifted to Finduilas. Her jaw clenched at the sight but Boromir could not read her expression. So was Aerin; inscrutable for most of the time until she spoke her mind as bluntly as a hammer’s fall. But in this instant, she was locked behind an impenetrable wall.

Behind her, their younger sister arrived, out of breath with a thin sheen of sweat covering her brow. She gazed inside and whimpered.

‘Oh, Finnie…’

‘Does Faramir know?’ Aerin’s practicality emerged in that single question.

‘No, not that I know of,’ Denethor answered in a whisper, pressing his back into the wall until it hurt.

‘I told him to stay in his room,’ Boromir continued, his eyes never leaving his mother’s immortalised smile. ‘I promised I would find him.’

Aerin pulled Fíriel by the arm until both sisters stood inside the defunct woman’s chambers, closing the door again behind them and locking it swiftly with the thick key lodged into the slot. The older one approached the bed and bowed her head to pay her respects to Finduilas, as a woman of her standing deserved, even in death. Her sister followed suit and they observed a moment of silence before Aerin cleared her throat and joined her hands against her abdomen.

‘What is the protocol, Denethor?’ she enquired matter-of-factly, which irritated Boromir beyond belief.

‘What protocol?’

‘Surely you devised a plan, should your wife not overcome her demons. Who should inform the little one? Where should her body be laid for viewing and public mourning? Who should be entrusted with the embalming? How do we announce it to the realm? How do we reach Imrahil?’

Denethor swatted a hand before him, as though flies clouded his vision and threatened to land on his face.

‘Aerin, for Ilúvatar’s sake!’ he barked, his mouth twitching down and stretching into a thin curve. ‘I do not have a mind to think about such issues in this moment.’

‘But you must have disclosed the procedure to somebody, brother, have you not?’ she insisted, stepping towards him with her eyes scalding his skin.

‘I have not.’

‘You incompetent fool! I have been telling you for at least a year to prepare for the worst so as to ease your mind should the worst unfold. Now is the time. And you have got nothing. You are casting unnecessary grief upon yourself and your children!’

‘Aerin, will you hold your tongue for once in your life?! My wife is dead. Dead!’

At the sight of her brother’s tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks, Aerin bowed her head as a silent apology. She squeezed his arm and sighed.

‘I shall take care of it all,’ her voice interrupted Denethor’s sobs. ‘You and your sons will not have to worry about a thing.’

Fíriel gently nudged Aerin away and threw her arms around her older brother, rubbing his cloaked back to let him weep freely and murmuring condolences in his ear. Boromir watched with wrath boiling within him. Of all moments to bicker, his mother’s death was the poorest choice of all. He could not stand the thought of Aerin tormenting his father with her heartless down-to-earth demeanour. Who cared about embalming when her younger son still knew nothing of the tragedy! Neither Denethor nor himself was granted a moment to grieve this lost life, one so precious to them and integral to their being. Boromir still had not shed a single tear, too baffled was he by the news and his aunt’s reaction.

‘Must I tell Faramir myself?’ his high-pitched voice asked as he attempted to distract himself from the resentment by posing the only question he deemed pertinent.

‘No, son,’ Denethor sighed, pawing at his pale face and politely parting from his little sister. ‘I will.’

‘You should not wait. He should hear it from you, Father, not from anybody else in the household. Not even from me, really.’

‘I suppose you are right.’

‘I shall keep watch over Mother,’ the child insisted. ‘Faramir needs you now.’

Denethor gave him a curt nod and placed a hand between his shoulders as he passed his son by on his way out. As soon as the ancient lock rattled open, the crowd gathered behind it resumed its dramatic display. Some of them might have been sincere in their suffering, Boromir thought, but most only exaggerated their crying in order to get in Denethor’s good graces. If a courtier showed enough compassion for their loss and mourned along, then there would have been no reason for the steward to disregard their presence. It was a wicked game, that of the nobility, and even as a child, Boromir knew how rotten it was at its core.

When the commotion was muffled by the barrier between the chamber and the corridor, Fíriel knelt beside her nephew and encircled his shoulders with an arm, affectionately placing her free hand over his forearm.

‘It is a great loss we are facing today, my darling,’ she murmured, so eager to put her own grief aside to console the boy. ‘You may find solace in knowing that you were a wonderful son to her. She often praised your virtues and deeds, louder than any proud mother would. She loved you, and not even death may take that away from you.’

Irritated by her misplaced platitudes, Boromir gritted his teeth, his eyes downturned towards his mother’s frail fingers.

There was dirt under her nails. Her hair had been brushed and the knots had been tirelessly undone, one by one. But nobody thought to run bristles between her skin and nails. She never left her bed, how did grime even find its course there, of all places? What could she have touched to warrant this dark strip along the curve of her fingertip?

And even though she was still young, her skin was stretched thin over the bones and the grooves of her skin were more discernible than he could remember. Dry. Yes, it was dry, too. Some patches of white flakes, then still attached to her lively limb, hung just below her wrist and on the outer side of her little finger. And even though her nails were always well cared for, her last shred of dignity, strips of torn flesh protruded around her nailbed. So often did she gnaw at the sides when anguish seized her in bouts of uncontrollable panic, her knee bouncing against the mattress and causing a perpetual cracking sound. Her teeth would tear through the cushions maintaining her nails in place, leaving in their wake nothing but a flat, inflamed, and red canvas.

And there, that scar along the base of her thumb! The memory was still vivid in Boromir’s mind. He must have been four when it occurred, and, come to think of it, it was his oldest memory. The child, as reckless as any bairn of his age, greatly enjoyed climbing every structure, furniture or balcony, falling into his sight. Tables, chairs, and vases often collapsed under his weight and erratic movements, irritating and disturbing the entire household residing at the citadel.

One afternoon, as Minas Tirith adorned itself with multicoloured blooms before the summer equinox, Boromir stood on the balcony of the highest level, admiring the wild flowers peppering the Pelennor Fields and spreading towards the horizon, almost all the way to the desolate Osgiliath. While Finduilas and Prince Imrahil engaged in a long conversation about the yearly spectacular changing of the guards, Boromir felt his mother’s fingers unconsciously loosening around his little hand. He slipped free from her grasp and patiently stood by her for a moment.

That is, until he paid closer attention to the balustrades topped with great stone planters, from which blossoms of various hues sprouted. In his child’s mind, he wondered whether the ramparts below them bore similar ornaments and what view the superposition of the levels would offer from where they stood. He tiptoed towards the end of the balcony, reaching the narrow opening there, around which two great terra cotta vases bordered with bronze stood. These, he learnt later, were diplomatic presents from Rohan to celebrate his birth. As he leant over the edge, a hand on a vase, the latter shook and tumbled off, shattering on the stone. The noise caught Finduilas’ attention and she yelped, darting forward as she saw her then only son losing his balance. As his small body was about to be pulled to the ground far below, she fell to her knees and jerked her hand forward to catch him by the ankle. Imrahil lifted his sister and helped rescue his nephew, who was dangling above the void. When she placed him on solid ground again and berated him while patting his short limbs to ensure he was not injured, his eye was drawn to the tiny but numerous ruby puddles gathering on the white stone. In her frantic motion to catch her child, Finduilas’ hand had scraped against one of the shards of the broken vase, and its edge had torn through her flesh, more deeply up her thumb, where the tendons were bared. In her panic, she had not yet felt the pain. But the blood was dripping off her skin and slowly descending along her forearm into her sleeve. Boromir, although shaken up from his brush with death, only wailed at the sight of his mother being hurt.

And there, the deepest cut remained, carved in the shape of a purple curve.

And the hand that bore it was forever still.

How unfair, Boromir thought. Finduilas never harmed a single person, never would she have thought of hurting a fly. So why did she have to go?

Further down the corridor, a piercing shriek shook the walls of the citadel and Boromir squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away. His father must have told Faramir. And all could hear.

Fíriel tightened her grip around his forearm as though to ground him, but he curled up, facing away from his aunt. With a sigh, he rested his head on the mattress, weaving his mother’s cold fingers through the locks of his hair for the last time, to immortalise her touch in his memory. Fíriel’s throat closed up at the sight and she produced an ugly gargle, hoisting herself on her feet, pressing the back of her wrist against her trembling lips.

‘Let us get some fresh air, Fíriel,’ Aerin spoke sternly, already reaching for the door. ‘Look at you, you can hardly stand!’

A muffled cry responded to her comment, and while Boromir did not look over his shoulder at his aunts, he clenched his jaw. The two women exited, one holding the other firmly by the arm, leaving the child alone to mourn. Before the crowd could wail again, Aerin barked something at them, but Boromir refused to listen.

He could not feel a thing.

—*—

On the evening of that same tragic day, after a seldom eaten dinner, the family returned to the steward’s quarters and lined up in the corridor, facing Finduilas’ door. Denethor stood first in line, hands twitching against his robes. Some colour had returned to his traits, but his cheeks and eyes were hollow, the grief still haunting them. Behind him stood Aerin, who had since changed into a black gown she had not worn since Ecthelion’s passing. A black veil covered her hair, enhancing her solemn but austere demeanour. She did not reach for her younger brother nor lock arms with him to demonstrate her compassion. She kept her hands folded against her abdomen, her spine upright and unmoved. Beside her, Fíriel, also clad in mourning garments, kept her head bowed under the veil covering her eyes, attempting to conceal the tears which could not cease to fall. Her hand clasped Faramir’s as he clung to her skirts, hiccupping and sniffling along with her.

Boromir’s hand rested between his brother’s shoulders but he had not uttered a word since the morning. His eyes had traced the parading of servants and courtiers as they inquired over the processions, somewhat detached from it all. He sat on the same chair for a few hours, arms tightly crossed against his chest. They would only loosen whenever Faramir ran and tripped towards him, seeking solace from his older brother, who gladly provided it to him without restraint and without opening his mouth.

But he had not shed a single tear. He did not find it in him. Perhaps he had been mentally prepared for Finduilas’ departure after seeing her withering away all his life. It was bound to happen, perhaps. He did not have an answer to it, but considering how poorly she was doing the previous months, it did not come as a surprise. Of course, he wished he could have held her one last time, pressing his ear to her beating heart. He would have learnt its melody, however weak or irregular it might have been, so that he could still remember it at will, even at seventy. Fate, the cruel weaver, had decided otherwise.

What could he do besides accepting it?

So there he stood with the rest of his family.

They waited.

Minutes.

Nearly an hour.

Then, the door creaked open until it grazed the wall and the embalmer appointed for the occasion bowed to the steward’s family. Behind him, four guards emerged, carrying Finduilas on a stretcher, upon which a white sheet had been laid. They lowered their heads at the sight of the steward and silently carried the deceased out, making their way to the crypt where the embalmer would work on her for public viewing before being laid to rest the next week.

Denethor fell into step behind his wife and the guards, and his sisters followed. Their private procession began but halted almost instantly. Out of the blue, the steward commanded the guards to stand still and turned towards his sisters.

‘Aerin, Fíriel,’ he croaked, ‘escort my sons to their chambers and put them to bed.’

A gasp rose behind him and Aerin stepped forward, her fists balled at her sides.

‘Denethor, what is the meaning of this?!’ she scolded without shame. ‘We have started the procession, let your sons see their mother to the crypt!’

‘No.’

Aerin snapped her head back to behold her sister, who appeared as flabbergasted as she was, although more willing to comply than Aerin was. Understanding that she would not dare contradict him, she sighed. From where he stood, Boromir could perceive the slight twitching at the corner of her lips. She was refraining from causing a scene. How unlike her.

‘Denethor, you are diverting from what has been planned,’ she attempted to calmly explain, her soft voice threatening to . ‘You had nothing prepared until this afternoon. Understand that maintaining the protocol is crucial in such a moment. You cannot throw it all away on a whim.’

‘Aerin, for once in your life, hold your tongue,’ he hissed without granting her a single glance, repeating the harsh words he had told her earlier that morning. ‘Your steward orders you to see the boys to their beds and you shall obey. Do not have me act erratically on your account.’

His older sister wished to retort something, and she opened her mouth to speak, but she refrained. Taking a deep breath to soothe her nerves, she curtseyed coldly and spun on her heel to grab Boromir by the hand, inadvertently crushing his fingers in her hold. With Fíriel and Faramir in tow, they retraced their steps towards the children’s bedrooms.

Boromir tripped on his own foot as Aerin dragged him away. Dumbfounded by his father’s change of heart, he gawked at his aunt, his mouth opening and closing. A journey which should have merely taken a few seconds felt like an eternity as the culmination of thoughts gathered throughout the day threatened to burst in his mind. Aerin shoved the door of his quarters open, and Boromir hardly had time to look at his little brother before she ushered him inside and released him.

As she slammed the door shut, Aerin grunted and snatched the veil from her own head, tossing it at her feet. Her knuckles paled by the second as she clenched the doorknob, facing the textured wood without paying attention to her nephew. Meanwhile, Boromir rubbed his red and sore hand, immobile in the middle of the room without displaying any intent to shuffle his feet either to the bed or his chest of drawers. Instead, his eyes bored into her back, and she must have felt it.

Aerin grunted again and swiftly turned to him.

‘What are you waiting for, young lord? You must change for bed.’

Boromir scoffed in defiance and the fire in her eyes was stoked.

‘Whether you like it or not, Boromir, your father has ordered that you and your brother go to bed. And that is what you shall do. No maids or servants tonight, for they are in mourning. Hah! They are in mourning, but not her own family! Your father has lost his mind, if he even had one to begin with.’

After hours of silence, Boromir glared, his lips twisting into a grimace of spite and disgust as she spoke. Inside his head, the explosion occurred, sweeping away all sense of decorum, politeness, restraint and obedience instilled in him ever since his birth. His knuckles cracked as he closed his fists and tightened, tightened, tightened, tightened again until the pressure brought him the sensation that his bones would shatter.

And then, the words flew out of his mouth before he could halt them.

‘Have you not a single ounce of kindness in that hollow heart of yours, Lady Aerin?’ he spat out, much louder than he would have wanted to. Unbeknownst to him, his face was unrecognisable; his face burnt with the heat of a thousand suns, his nostrils flared with every shallow breath passing through them, and his narrow shoulders moved along with them. He was still a boy, not yet holding the wisdom of man, but it did not occur to him for a second. Unconsciously, once he realised that his body rattled with intense tremors, he found an explanation for the puzzling silence which befell him all day.

He was enraged. Outraged.

He resented the looming dark clouds that never left his mother’s sight wherever she moved in Minas Tirith, for they obscured her bliss and its vile rot attacked her every hope at recovery. Their poison had seeped into her heart and festered there until it had shrunk and plucked her life like one might flick a fallen leaf on their shoulder. Despite the unconditional love he harboured for the man, he blamed his father for his apathy in the face of his mother’s ailments. Many times did he overhear Prince Imrahil offer to relocate Finduilas to Dol Amroth for a few months so that she could convalesce; it had been successful once when they had only spent two weeks by the seaside, so why not try it longer? But no. Denethor, stubborn as an old mule, had opposed it, so afraid was he of court gossip regarding his marriage. How could he be taken seriously as the ruler of the realm if he was incapable of maintaining peace within his household?

Above all, he was kicking himself for not spending more time with her, even in silence. He could have visited the little bedroom, sat by the lectern to do his exercises and revise the topology of the land. No matter whether she would have fallen asleep; it would have been time spent in another’s company, something she was cruelly denied. Life at court carried on while she was battling her demons in a lightless chamber, with no weapons in hand nor another to offer her protection. He could have been his mother’s shield. He would not have minded one bit. But he forgot.

Forgot.

In his eyes, he had not been any better than his father.

Looking back, Aerin speaking up so bluntly had only been the tipping point, not the cause.

But Boromir was too blinded by his wrath to admit any of it.

His aunt faced him, her eyes as wide as the lavish plates served whenever she would visit the court. Her upper lip twitched as she processed her nephew’s accusation.

‘I beg your pardon, nephew? Surely I did not just hear a child’s mouth perpetrating such insults against me!’

‘You heard me, aunt. You may not care, but today, my mother died. She may just have been your brother’s wife, but she was my mother. I will never have another. So, to hell with your protocols and your plans! If that is all you can talk about while we hurt, you might as well disappear from our lives. We have no need of you.’

Aerin clenched her jaw and mirrored the tension in his little body.

‘I will not tolerate such language from you. You are a child; my brother’s child, perhaps, but a child all the same. You know nothing of matters of the realm, your father has coddled you too much for you to understand the issues I must concern myself with. Your father is too oblivious to do any of it, so it becomes my task to fulfil, whether you like it or not. Yell at me all you want, but the whole kingdom has their eyes on us and will pry on how we will honour her. It is beyond you.’

Boromir stepped back and stared at her in disbelief. In his rage, he raised his fist, and she instinctively intercepted it with one hand, effortlessly resisting against all the strength he used to try and push her away. He grunted and struggled, clawing at her wrist, but the woman remained unmoved. At first, his short nails attempted to dig into her flesh to coax her into releasing him, to no avail. He punched it over and over again until he exhausted himself.

At once, his eyes brimmed with the unshed tears bottled up since he understood that his mother was no more. His hand dropped and his shoulders sagged in defeat as the emotions washed over him, dragging him into their treacherous currents until he could no longer breathe. He hiccupped, once, twice, and burst into tears.

His voice ripped through his throat into a guttural wail he did not know himself capable of producing. His core churned, the pain shocking him along his fingertips, and he surrendered to their might. His knees buckled and Aerin instantly caught him, encircling him with both arms and pressing him to her heart as they both wept. Forgetting all about his aggression towards his aunt, Boromir crumpled the taffetas of her dress into his fists as he howled into her shoulder, wetting it with his every tear. She cupped the back of his head and placed kisses into his hair, her damp eyelashes staining it.

Everything hurt. His chest. His head. His eyes. His throat. His guts.

And he could not stop it. It bent him to its will.

Aerin was in a similar state, albeit not as intensely. Her hands quivered as she struggled to hold him upright, so weak was she from this emotionally draining day.

‘You claim that I do not care,’ she whispered between sobs once she could regain some composure, ‘but I loved your mother deeply. She was our beloved sister, and the loss is unbearable. Please, Boromir, understand that I must stay strong for your family and shoulder the seemingly superfluous weight of expectations. I do it to shield you from that pain when losing your mother is excruciating enough as it is. Please… Understand. If not now, then once you have grown up; I am patient.’

Boromir tightened his grip on her and let another wave of sobs wrack him.

‘I miss her, Aunt Aerin,’ he whimpered, ‘I miss her terribly. How can I go on without her?’

‘You have your brother and your father. Fíriel and I will always be there for you and Faramir, whatever you might need. We can overcome this pain as a family. It will never dissipate, but we can heal until it scars.’

‘Who will protect Faramir from Father’s whims?’

Aerin sniffled and parted from him for a moment to wipe her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve.

‘You must be there for him, Boromir. I have witnessed the cruelty with which your father has treated your brother. Know that I am opposed to all of it and will let it be known when I am around. But when I must depart again to find my family, you must be his shield. He is but a child, and so are you, but nobody else will dare confront your father.’

‘He is not a bad man.’

‘No, he is not. I know it better than anybody else.’

She forced a smile onto her drenched cheeks and affectionately dried his.

‘Forgive him, Boromir. He is flawed, but he is just a man. There will be times when you, too, will make errors in your judgement. It will be your responsibility to acknowledge and atone for it.’

‘Mother could have advised me on it, but I did not listen.’

‘Do not blame yourself for any of it. You never caused your mother strife. Her pain was beyond any of us.’

Boromir’s face contorted again. As much as he liked to play tough and act as a mature boy for his age, he felt more vulnerable than the time the master-at-arms had disarmed him and shattered his shield in training. He felt oh so little in an enormous world. Naked in a snowstorm.

‘I want Mama,’ he whimpered again, eyes and nose leaking as he clawed at his aunt’s dress to keep him from drowning. ‘I am not ready to be without her. I am afraid.’

Dividers by @portdividers