Celebrían heard two words. Birth. Day. Well technically it was one, a combination of two everyday words into something with the singular meaning of appreciation for the very existence of an individual. As an elf she had had so many birthdays she sometimes not only lost count, forgetting until some days later that she was indeed one more year older. But Faramir she refused to have that be the case, he would have a thousand birthdays that one could afford to miss. It was a day of special significance, and thus important.
And so she planned on advance for her Prince of Ithilien, a private affair, his gift would be given on her favorite hill that overlooked the Anduin. It was away from duty, away from titles of Prince and Lord, almost as if stepping back to the time before that. Oh there would be a party of course, and was, she'd done that too, inviting his friends from all their walks of life with enough time to gather in the hall and enjoy the evening together. It was a quiet affair, a small feast, but the final hours of the night were hers. So as they left, she stole him away, thankful that the world was no longer so dangerous that she might take him where she wished.
"I was half worried someone would manage to get to you before I did." She told him, head resting upon his shoulder for a moment before she rifled through the small basket she bright. "It isn't that extravagant, but I thought would end the evening nicely. I may have indulged a little with the basket but it contains your gift and a few snacks should we get a little hungry as we stargaze. I blame the our friends the halflings, they have something very right in how they live."
She set the contents out, small packages of food as mentioned, then held her hand in the basket and turned to him. "I could not make up my mind, so I decided to make up for some of the birthdays I missed while in Lothlórien. First," she drew out a leatherbound book. "I noticed your journal is getting a little thin on one side, so I got you a new one. A little more decorative than usual, but I thought a change here and there might be enjoyable."
The second was a small box engraved with mallorn trees. "Hithlain thread." She told him as she opened it, a rainbow of colors in elven-silk which shimmered their colors even in the moonlit darkness. "I had it made particularly for your embroidery projects. It will last and not dull--and look! Naneth sent needles as well!" A giggle of excitement followed as she showed him the lid of the box, in which were a set of fine needles attached to a piece of silk. The box was set in his lap as well, and she paused with the last gift.
"I used to work in the library of Eregion, and while I was there there was this book which had somehow survived the first age written in Quenya. I don't know by whom, but it rather beautiful poetry and I wanted to preserve it so I translated it into Sindarin. I'm not even sure how it survived the ban, or the sinking, but it did and it was on the shelves. The original was lost of course after the sacking, but my translated copy I was able to save from the library when it burned."
The last book was removed, bound in red and gold, held tenderly in her hands. She opened it with reverence and ran her fingertips along the first page. "Every few hundred years I make a new copy, that way it doesn't become a relic that no one dares touch because it's falling apart. I know the words by heart at this point, so I made you a copy. All yours. I even got very special because if you look at it in moonlight it has designs of ithildin, which I may have bullied the secrets out of Celebrimbor before he died on how to make."
She held it out to him, loving smile reflected in its affection in her eyes as she softly finished at last.
"Happy birthday, Faramirë."
The Anduin bore the starlight in scattered shards upon its surface, as though the sky itself had fallen and been gathered into its keeping. While it sang its endless and waterlogged song, Faramir stood with the weight of the small treasures resting in his hands.
He turned first to the journal, running his thumb along the leather. How fair it seemed – too fair, perhaps, for the hurried scrawl of a soldier’s hand. Yet another thought chimer louder still: Celebrían had seen the thinning pages. She had noticed.
Once, such gifts had been iron-bound and edged. Many of the tokens of his too-brief youth had been daggers balanced for the hand, or belts stiff with studs, or helms pressed upon him with grave approval. These had been the language of love as it was spoken in the house of the Stewards – stern and unsmiling, forged in the long twilight of war. From Denethor, even kindness had worn the shape of expectation.
He remembered the weight of those offerings. How they had seemed to say: become this or be nothing.
Slowly he set the journal aside, as though fearing to mar its untouched promise, and lifted the small carved box. When the lid opened, the threads within shimmered like dawnlight. Colours lived there that no loom of Minas Tirith could have produced – greens like spring beneath beeches, blues like distant hills in rain, golds that called to mind the last light upon the White City’s walls.
He touched them gently, fingers tentative with awe.
Such things belonged to healing and to making – arts of patience, arts of peace. Crafts for long evenings and untroubled days. His throat tightened.
At last he took up the final volume, the red and gold binding warm where her hands had held it. He opened it carefully, pages catching the moonlight. There, the ithildin stirred. Faint lines kindled into silver fire, leaves and flowing forms emerging, secret and fair.
Here was no treasure seized in victory, nor tribute wrung from lesser hands. Here was the slow devotion of centuries laid gently in his keeping.
He thought then – not of kings nor captains, nor of the long labours of Gondor – but simply of her. Of all the ages she had walked beneath the sun and moon. Of all she had endured and all she had preserved. That she should choose to place such a thing into his mortal hands seemed nothing short of a wonder.
Faramir looked up at Celebrían and there was a softness in his grey eyes seldom seen even by those closest to him.
“I have been given many gifts in my life. Tokens of honour, tools of war, things deemed befitting a son of Gondor.” He paused, his hand resting lightly upon the book. “But never aught so fair as these, nor any so lovingly meant.”
Wind stirred faintly over the hilltop, whispering through the grasses. He felt then a strange and gentle ache – the knowledge of years uncounted stretching behind her and years so few before him. Still, no shadow lay upon the moment, only a keen and luminous sweetness.
Faramir closed the book carefully and held it against his chest.
“We shall find a place for this in Ithilien, where the moon may reach it. There I will read it often and rejoice in the fair hands that preserved it.”
His grey gaze lingered upon her then, unguarded and full. His heart, too, was fit to burst its seams.
“I am richly blessed,” he said softly. “For I am known, and cherished, and held in the gentle keeping of one who has seen ages pass and still finds worth in me. That is the greater gift.”