Dim amber light filtered through the high arched windows, glancing off the white-veined stone of his chambers. Silence lay upon the place, broken only by the restless whisper of parchment turned beneath weary fingers.

Alone, Faramir sat beneath the ribbed ceiling. That brave warden of Gondor stroked the ancient spine of a Númenórean codex, though he was too exhausted to retain what he read. A storm of thought, half-formed and sorrow-cloaked, swelled behind his eyes – those dreams again, silver-veiled and shadow-stitched, of fire devouring the White Tree, his father’s voice echoing down tomb-lined halls, a woman’s shadow watching through time.

Yet it was not dreams alone that plagued him, for there was the horror and hardship of his last campaign along the borders. Mordor, ever-creeping, seeping its filth into the green a living world. Pits in groves and glades, sunken earth turned grave over the bodies of rangers slain and left far from home.

A breath. Faint and warm as summer’s sigh through river-reeds, it brushed his temple and pulled him from the depths of reverie. After it, the lightest pressure, the sacred solemnity of a kiss laid upon his brow.

The blood in Faramir’s veins quickened, though his body stilled. His heart beat thunderously for a moment, then quieted, as though cradled in something vast and ancient. Thoughts fled him like startled deer. What lingered was a comforting and ceremonial stillness, the kind felt beneath the vaulted sky of the Pelennor at dusk, when the meadow birds had ceased their song.

He closed his eyes.

Something within him softened. That painful thing calcified behind his ribs, wrought by his father’s cold regard, by Boromir’s fading laughter, by the long, slow suffering of the city. It did not break but it yielded, thawing by fragile degrees.

Anoriel stood over him – fair motherland made flesh – a vision of bounty, memory, mournful wisdom.

STAYING THE NIGHT PROMPTS || @kingsfcil

The flickering light of the candles did nothing but highlight the grave features of the dúnadan that had come from the foundered land over the seas, his crew a host of broken people bereft of a home. 

And while that was a kind of misery he wished he wasn't acquainted with, Gil-galad knew the worst was yet to come. It would be a compilation of little signs that would go unacknowledged until it was too late and then it would hit unexpectedly, like the tsunami that had battered their shores mere weeks ago.

There was something within this man that the High King couldn't quite place, like a word resting on the roof of one's mouth that refused the brush of tongue and teeth and avoided all attempts of pronunciation, that told him his fate would become entwined with that of the númenóreans again.

I'm staying, Elendil had said. I will keep you company, Gil-galad had offered. He then poured a glass of the amber liquid his people favoured for the númenórean, hoping its sweet bouquet would evoke in him memories of a better kind.

“It is in these hours of darkness when all our fears seem to endure, is it not?” the elven king mused, returning to his place near the high windows. There, down the gentle slope of his city, the lighthouses shed light on a tranquil sea, and the lamps along the docks allowed white sails to gleam in the night. “Light is slow to come, and when it does, its shine always comes first to all that which we have tried to ignore. It felt easier in the dark.”

Gil-galad's voice softened to a murmur and then died, as though those reflections were for himself only.

Míriel turned her head slightly in his direction as she heard the approach of Elendil. She knew when it was him that neared her, even if no longer could she see his handsome face. Her lips parted as she made to greet him, but before she could form any words, she felt a light sting on the exposed skin near her shoulder. A shiver ran down the length of her spine at the graze of his teeth, the feeling of his warm breath following. Yet ever caring and courteous he was to his queen.

"Captain," she breathed, light blush beginning to form on her cheeks. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"