The river sang a lullaby for the bone-weary – a low and mournful litany, washed over age-old stones. Faramir stood heron-still on the embankment, with Ithilien sleeping restlessly behind him. Wind tugged at the green folds of his cloak, bringing him the scent of damp earth and bruised grass.
Then came the sound. A muffled thud, flesh to sodden ground.
He moved with the soundless instinct of a hunted creature, his hand to hilt, his mind alight, but what he found was no threat – nor man, nor beast. A figure collapsed beneath a willow’s weeping boughs, slick with the same river-mud that stained the banks of Osgiliath and the fields of Pelennor. Hair like a shadow loosed from the stars tangled against cheek and brow. Blood, rich as autumn wine, soaked his flank. Faramir could smell it, staining the air with copper and salt.
The wounded Elf was beautiful even in his suffering, his pain sculpted by inherent grace. Ageless, though weary beyond measure, laid low as a mortal man might be. He spoke, though barely, his words not a plea, nor a cry, but an invitation to end it.
I have known the desire for oblivion, Faramir thought sorrowfully. I have stood upon battlements and all but envied the dead.
He knelt in the muck and silt.
“Then you are more fortunate than you know, for I am no executioner,” Faramir said, his voice low, shaped in the cadences of Gondor’s high tongue, though tempered with gentleness. His hand found the stranger’s shoulder, the warmth there waning, the breath shallow. “I will tend to you, if you will suffer it.”