Add Story to Favourites The sea, the sea! by Amarok
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Story Notes:

Disclaimer: Middle-earth and its well-known inhabitants are the property of Tolkien, and not mine. I am just playing around, and make no monetary profit with them.

Beta: Many thanks to Chris!

A/N: I hadn’t intended to participate in this Teitho contest, but somehow I could not get ‘The sea, the sea!’, said in a child’s voice, out of my head. So I sat down and wrote this short gap-filler... mix of book-verse situation, movie-verse persons, and own imagination…

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The face on the white linen was pale and drawn. It looked almost dead. Aragorn heaved a sigh. Praying that he was not too late, he laid one hand on the other’s brow, gripped the cold long fingers with his other hand, and tentatively probed...

“The sea, the sea!”

A young voice, from a boy of perhaps 12 years of age, cried the words in excitement and wonder. Then, as if in answer, a low laughter could be heard, one that sounded vaguely familiar to Aragorn. He tried to see, to gain a clearer impression of what was going on, but again all went silent for a moment.

Next Aragorn found himself on the shore of the sea. It was a stormy day; the sky was dark, and the waves were high and forbidding. Searchingly Aragorn looked around. On one of the rocks nearby he finally saw who he had come to look for. The face was much younger than the one on the bed in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, but it was not that of a boy, either. A man in his early twenties it was, with wavy hair and fine features.

Quietly, Aragorn approached and greeted the man he had seen in the outer world today for the first time, “Faramir.”

He seemed to have startled the younger man, and Aragorn could feel first excitement and happiness, and then hope mixed with fear, flare through the other. But, when Faramir finally looked at him, these emotions were replaced by confusion. Aragorn suspected that for a moment Faramir had expected first Boromir, and then his father, the late Denethor, to come and join him, or possibly accompany him to the next world.

Despite the fact that every moment spent in trance would sap his own strength considerably, Aragorn sat down next to the younger man. He felt that Faramir’s spirit was about to depart his earthly vessel on the slightest provocation and therefore was resolved to wait for him to talk first.

Faramir’s voice was quiet when finally he spoke, “Always I envied the elves, who could simply sail, when it became too much to bear.”

Softly Aragorn answered, “I also sometimes wished to be more like the firstborn.” And after a moment he continued, sterner, “But for them it is not simple either. It is not a decision they would undertake lightly. And it always leaves those who remain behind in sorrow.”

Faramir’s voice was surprisingly calm when he answered, “I leave no one behind. Boromir is dead. I saw it. I felt it. And I feel also that my father has perished.”

“What about the people of Minas Tirith? You are their ruling Steward now, and they love you.”

“They will have their king. I saw his coming.”

Aragorn started at that. The quiet statement, given with firm and unshakable conviction, coming from one of his own distant kin gifted with foresight, was a welcome and yet shocking surprise.

Now for the first time Faramir turned towards Aragorn, studied him for a moment, and then asked, suddenly tense, “Who is it that will accompany me to Mandos’ Halls? I can not remember having met you before.”

Aragorn had been confused with a messenger from the next world before, when healing with his special gift, and chuckled softly. But he was not sure how Faramir would react to the knowledge of who he truly was, and did not want to upset the fading man, so he only said, “I am from the living world and not from the dead. As a healer I am here, and you may call me Strider for the moment, if you wish.”

Aragorn gave the younger man a moment to digest the information. He had to admit he was curious if Faramir would perhaps see through the mask he wore once more, recognize him as the future king whose coming he just moments before had spoken of. But when Faramir kept quiet, Aragorn bit back a sudden feeling of unease and focussed once more on the reason why he was here.

He said, “I am come to bring you back, Faramir. The people in the White City need you. They have lost Denethor, and Boromir, and so many more good people during the battles. They need you now.”

Faramir stared at Aragorn for a long while before he turned towards the sea again. Aragorn once more resolved to be patient, in spite of the lessening of his strength. Concentrating got harder and harder for him, and ever so slowly the world he was in seemed to dim and darken. Like Faramir, he stared out at the windswept sea.

Finally, the younger man spoke again, “As a boy I always wanted to see the sea. I begged and begged my father to take me, but he never had time. It was Boromir, who finally had pity with his younger brother, and the day we came out here was one of the happiest days of my life.”

So it had been Boromir's laughter Aragorn had heard at the beginning. No wonder it sounded familiar. Again a stab of pain went through Aragorn when he remembered the last minutes of the brave Gondorian, and their farewell. But he hid his feelings, and gently asked, “And from which day is the memory of this?”

“It is from the day before I started my duties as Captain of the rangers. I had a vision here, on this shore, on that day.”

Faramir fell silent once more, and Aragorn, considerably weakened by now and knowing they must depart soon or both of them would be lost, urged once more, “Faramir, pray, come with me. Boromir would want you to live. I know it.”

But Faramir seemed to not have heard him. With the same calm voice as before he continued, “It was in that vision that I saw the coming of the king. And you are come.”

Aragorn gasped. So Faramir knew who he was. The darkness around him lessened somewhat, and Aragorn realized that it had partly been a darkness from within himself, and not only Faramir's, nor came it from his declining strength alone.

“Do not fear the future, my Lord. I know not if either of us will live to see it happen, but I do know that Middle-earth will be free of the darkness, and soon,” Faramir quietly said, as if knowing where Aragorn’s troubled mind often wandered.

Aragorn bowed his head in acceptance and gratitude. He had never lost faith completely, not even during the darkest hours, but the long hard years and months and weeks had tired him. Somehow Faramir's quiet words gave him strength and power, and trust in a future far beyond of what he was hoping for the span of his own life, however short or long that might be.

He said, “Faramir, come back with me to see it happen. If not for me, then come for your uncle, Prince Imrahil, who is nearby and worries for you. Come for Gandalf, whom you know and love already, and for the wood-elf Legolas who would want to meet you, and for all the lore and knowledge both of them can share with you. You still have so many things to live for.”

Wearily Faramir asked, “Do you order me to come, my liege?”

“No, Faramir, I do not order you. But I would beg it of you. There is much to do, and we can not do it all alone. I can not do it all alone,” answered Aragorn softly.

And for the first time there was a hint of joy in Faramir’s voice, when he said, “Then lead the way, my king, and I shall follow!”

… and then Aragorn found himself back at the Steward’s bedside and he felt joy himself, and he smiled.
 

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