Theodred (princetheodred) wrote in unfinished_logs, @ 2010-05-26 11:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | finduilas, theodred |
"You, in time, shall be legend, a living thing passed down onto your people."
Who: Thèodred and Finduilas
When: Game-time
Where: Imrahil's House of the Undead guest house
What: Keeping company with the dead
Status: Complete, long-form
Rating: G/PG
The house that Imrahil had for his own was often quiet. Finduilas hardly minded; she was still adjusting to life in Tirith, and hearing the different birdsongs, the sound of the household carrying on, the sound of people outside the courtyard walls calling to one another or laughing, the sound of the wind as it blew not from the sea, but off the mountain. It was a different world, a new one she had to learn, and the sounds were just as different to her as anything else. The courtyard had quickly become a favourite spot, a chance for her to bask in a little sunshine, when it filled the open space, and even though it made her miss the garden in Dol Amroth, the smell of oranges and roses and the hum of insects in the summer heat, it was still a happy retreat for her. Today, she had with her one of the Captain's books on Numenor as well as her own copybook, the fresh one she started after coming back to this world, filled with her intricate notes and symbols, utterly incomprehensible to anyone else. That was for the best, especially now. But even had her notes read clearly and in a common tongue, lately they were merely commentaries on the customs and ceremonies of Numenor, carefully innocuous and perfectly innocent, a historian's curiosity, perhaps.
However, as she read and took notes in the sunlight, it was not birdsong that caught her ear, or even the humming of a servant girl. No, it was a harp, she realised. A harp, cleanly tuned and well-played at that. But where was it coming from? Finduilas blew on the ink in her copybook, then closed it, and set it aside on the bench before rising. The Captain was not a harper, nor was her brother, as far as she knew. Her son? Curiosity drove her, and like a falcon searching out prey, she quietly went into the house, following the sound.
Thèodred sat underneath an open window in the upper hallway between bedrooms, and picked out an old song. His eyes were closed as they passed up and down the harp strings of the sweet, ornate harp that the Gondorians had gifted to him. He remembered the summer wind and the summer wheat, ripening in the hot sun as he had sat beneath an old oak tree and learned the songs of the plains. He had played his fingers sore, many times these past weeks, and could not find in him the urge to rest his hands and leave the music behind. It was reassuring, familiar, comforting and alive in the city so full of the dead. Lothiriel had run away, they'd told him, and Thèodred suddenly had no one to talk to. But there was still the harp. There always was the harp. The great grey wolf-dog from the woods of the Riddermark lay at his feet, watchful of the hall and the many doors.
The sound drew Finduilas through the house and up the stairs, as if pulled along on an invisible string. When she turned the corner and saw the harper by the corridor window, she stopped, not even making a floorboard squeak. His eyes were closed and he played on, apparently oblivious to her presence. However, the great grey beast at his feet was not. Its head popped up, ears pricked towards her, and for a moment Finduilas began to wonder if her apparent immortality extended to being mauled by dogs. Or wolves. Or whatever that was. Then, mercifully, the tail started to wag, a steady thump on the floor. Less chance of being eaten, she supposed. This was a good thing. She was quite certain that death by giant canine was not an experiment in mortality she wished to undertake.
"Like that, do you," Thèodred said, in his own language, opening his eyes to look down at his dog. "Remembering the summer hares and the great deer?" He looked up, then, when he realized the dog was not looking at him, but elsewhere, and saw the woman in blue. He studied her with no small curiosity, for her hair was pale, though she dressed like a Gondorian. Slowly, the song beneath his fingertips faded away. "Well met," he ventured cautiously, in the Gondorian tongue.
"Please don't stop on my account, it's beautiful," Finduilas replied, forgetting to acknowledge the greeting at all in her haste to compliment his song. His accent was odd, she thought, but he had the look of Rohan about him. So what was one of the Rohirrim and his dog doing in the Prince of Dol Amroth's guest house in the middle of Minas Tirith? Her mind flickered to the puzzle boxes from the catacombs for a moment. Nothing was ever as it seemed, after all.
Who was she? She sounded like Imrahil and his children, not like Boromir or the Gondorian soldiers. Thèodred held out one hand to her, gesturing to the other side of the bench he sat on, before he returned his attention to the harp. A sea-song, for the sea woman in blue. What was that melody the knights were always humming? Something about Mithrellas, whomever she was. "You, also, are at Lord Imrahil's hospitality?" He asked, as he began a new song.
Finduilas took the seat with grace, acknowledging his invitation with a nod before coming to sit by him. The dog lifted his head and nosed at her hand, and she laughed, surprised by the cold, wet nose. "I see, you had to greet me as well," she said, far more relaxed around a friendly, tail wagging beast that wanted to lick her fingers. "I am, indeed. But not long, and rather unexpectedly at that." She listened as he plucked the tune, and it was infinitely familiar, though the words would not yet come to her brain.
"You must remind him of the women of our home," Thèodred told her, as the dog settled back down again. "They are scarce inside the walls of this house." But who was she? She looked a little like Lothiriel -- older, and lighter, and with a different sort of face. But he felt a resemblance there, anyway. She spoke as if she too, were dead. Could that be right? Thèodred had not seen any women returned. "I was Thèodred, prince of the Mark," he said at last. "Who were you?"
"Were," she echoed, and the laugh that followed wasn't much of a laugh at all, a touch too wry for it. "Your wits are sharp, Thèodred, once Prince of the Mark. I am Finduilas, once princess of Dol Amroth, once Lady of Gondor, but still beloved of Captain Denethor, though he is no more a Captain now than I am still a princess, it seems." It was strange, laying it all out like that. She was quite sure she was still beloved of the Captain, moreso now than ever before, and saying it made her heart flutter in her breast like a bird.
Thèodred's playing faltered a moment, as he shifted from the unfamiliar song to one he knew well, an old weaving melody. "...you are Boromir's mother?" He asked, showing some surprise and confusion. She seemed so young. Barely older than Èowyn as he had last seen her. "Welcome, indeed, mother of our much-loved ally." Surely that was not right? And yet Gondorians aged slowly, far more than the men of the Riddermark. Perhaps it was not so wrong after all.
Finduilas smiled at him. The surprise and confusion did not bother her; she had experienced enough of both lately to expect them in the faces of others. He did not school his expression, not well, at any rate. She felt as if she could read Rohan's once-prince quite clearly, if she wished. "You know my son," she said. "Probably better than I do myself, for I died long ago, when he was still small, or so the records tell me, and even still, before that, I can't recall much." Nothing of Tirith. Nothing of her marriage. Nothing of her sons. It pained her, but it did not bear speaking about. Not to anyone but the Captain, at least, or her brother.
"Boromir I count among my dear friends," Thèodred admitted freely. "He, and your lord, were good to the Riddermark when it mattered." He quieted, thinking, though his hand played on. "You must find it strange," he ventured, deciding if she were Boromir's mother, she must be like enough to her son that he need not lie as Gondorians did to each other and to him, that he need not practice the treacherously dishonest courtesy they paid each other in this land so unlike his own.
"I do," Finduilas admitted. He spoke frankly, if in intricate sorts of ways that fascinated her. She wondered if the once-prince had wished to be a bard as well. His manner and talent would suggest it. "But so must you as well. It's bad enough finding yourself once more amongst the living, and I do not know if you find yourself missing memories, whole years. But you're away from your people. I have my brother, and the Captain, and children I did not know I had to keep me company, no matter how much I miss the sea. I am sorry you have not had the same luxury."
"My people are outside the city walls," Thèodred offered her, "or the best of them who live. My father lies sleeping in your bone-houses, awaiting his return to our green hills, my cousin now is king, and I fear to go amongst my people lest it cause them fear and distress in difficult times, when their old king is not yet buried, our new king not yet firmly crowned and settled in the minds of our people." His voice was sad, and he saw no need to hide that from her. "It is... not comfortless, your brother, the great prince, has given me many courtesies, but my place is uncertain and I spend much time waiting."
"All our places are rather uncertain," she replied, and she did not know if it was meant to be a comfort or not. It was certainly true, at least. And there was something to be said from knowing one was not alone with an uncomfortable truth. "It seems wisest to keep one's head down at this stage. The world is new and uncertain, like a wobbly colt. It cannot bear much, not when it is still learning how to live without the Shadow and war."
"He'll find his legs, soon enough, and when they come, he'll run," Thèodred reminded her softly. He'd seen many new foals in his time, never ceased to amaze at that fragile strength. "I suppose we must wait. A new world needs a gentle hand, for it seems its mother has gone, and our little colt must find his way without those who loved it best of old." He spoke now as a disinherited prince to a lady whose husband had no throne. Though Gondorians did not call the stewardship a throne, had it not been, if the people thought to substitute a king for their lord? "What use will a new, young world have for old, dead kin? The answer all wonder, and none can tell. What use is there in searching the stars or shaking the bones? Even these are silent about the dead, as they have always been."
"I do not know, my lord," Finduilas agreed. "But I do know that when the world is at its most uncertain, solid ground is found in tradition. One can hope that in the old ways, made when the world was peaceful, a way of navigating might be found that holds true. There's much harm a horse can do when he runs without lead or guide, and his rider does not know how best to rein him in."
He had a strange way about him, for a man from the Riddermark, even a Prince of the Rohirrim. It pleased her, she found. His words were well-considered and beautiful, and she had to wonder, were all Kings of the Mark warrior-poets? She had not met one, not that she could recall, and it seemed unfitting to ask, suggesting that he was perhaps a finer specimen than his father or cousin. Theoden's son, she thought. She knew of Theoden, or at least, she knew the name. She knew little else. That was becoming an unfortunate trend, and one only diligent study would reverse.
Thèodred struck a new, sudden chord at his harp, sudden and keen and full of lament. "Alas for the bright helm!" He cried. "Alas for the riders of the king! They have passed into the shadow of night, as if they have never been!" He quieted, his harp turning out a plaintive, slow song. "Such were the old songs of my people," he said quietly, "in the days before we had great halls and long lines. I fear for my people, fear that they are losing their songs, the old ways, that they do not understand the great stories that hang in our halls or are sung in our fields. I remember, also, your great lord feared this for his own kin, the men of your cities. Do you mean to lay his fears to rest, to teach your men to sing of their forefathers and honor their old mothers?"
The chord passed over her like a cold wind, and Finduilas shivered delicately. "My lord husband does fear this, he always has, I think," she agreed. It felt natural to call the Captain such here, with the once-prince. The inflection was subtle, the way the words identified the Captain as her own. She found she liked it. It was strangely familiar, somehow. She wondered if she had called him such once they were wed. It seemed like something she would do. "I hope to see the knowledge of our past preserved and taught once more. We cannot make ourselves anew, of whole cloth. No, our entire country rests on the memories of those who built her. But it is not my country to guide, not now. How our past is remembered, that's not for me to decide. Though I hope my sons know their history, for well their father should have taught it to them."
"Is it not the business of the old to look after the songs of their fathers, to worry about the stories their daughters know?" Thèodred mused. "I did not rush to teach Èomer the old songs and the meaning of our stories. I thought I had time. I thought I would teach them to my son, that I would be king after my father and the my cousin would serve by my side as the chief of my marshals." His eyes saddened. "I could not see, then, all the things that become clear to me now. What good is it to know all the old songs, if I alone play them, if they will die when my hands tire and my memory fades? Surely we, who know old stories, cannot be content to hope the young ones learned them."
Finduilas couldn't help but be touched by the sadness in his eyes, in his fine voice. What a king he would have made, she thought, a touch wistfully. "Life rarely does what we think it will, or ought, I believe," she observed. "And just when we think we know how to carry on and see that which needs to be done is accomplished, everything changes once more. How much moreso will it be true with new years ahead of us, especially when we don't know their limit or number?"
She thought much, this wife of Denethor, this mother of Boromir, and it does not surprise Thèodred at all. Of course she thought. Of course she had a mind of magnificence, a strong and masterful thing, as clever as any poet of his people or weaver of wisdom. She was fine, indeed. Had his grandmother been this sort of woman, wise beyond the knowing of books? "I wait," Thèodred mused, "I wait to be called to return to my people. I sing, to remember, and hope that in time I will not sing alone. I can do little more than hope and wait, remember and be patient. But what great purpose for a noble lady of Gondor's great past lies ahead? Do you not make plans, or at least have dreams and hopes, that you shall come to something more than merely seeing your sons, knowing your after-kin? You, in time, shall be legend, a living thing passed down onto your people. What will you do with it?"
Finduilas smiled at him. "Wise horse-lord, my plans are many, and my hopes many more. But for me, for this moment, this is the future, far from the world I know, and still I wish to shape it. Like you, I merely wait. For is that not what we have most of? We have time, time to watch and put our plans in motion. More dreams have died than have survived their birth when they were brought forth too soon," she told him. Oh, plans she had. But plans that it did not do to speak of. Not here. Not yet. "We have a saying on the sea. That one cannot launch a ship until it is clear which way the wind blows. Do you not say something of the same kind on the Mark?"
"Who can plant if he does not know the rain?" Thèodred agreed, nodding slowly. "What sort of rain will Gondor's king be? A sweet spring rain, soft and good to the green earth? Hard and hot like summer, a flash of lightning and great thunder in the sky? Cold and long, winter frost and long ice? These things cannot be known. The greatest seer cannot tell you what the future holds, whether the wind will be soft or if the sun will be too hot." And what of Èomer? What would Èomer be? But Thèodred did not have the heart to consider his cousin might make a bad king. Èomer loved the Mark. Surely he would be a better king than cold doubt would whisper.
"So you see, my lord, we may hope and plan and dream, but it's no use unfurling the sails if there is no telling if the wind will blow, or if we shall find ourselves becalmed," Finduilas replied. "Instead, I learn my charts and maps, and discover what other sailors have found before putting my rudder to water. There is pleasure to be had in learning, and it means that at least I can see elements of what came before in all that unfurls now."
Her expression softened a bit as she looked at him. He seemed somehow weary, or at least, as if he laboured under burdens for a long time and had not realised they were no longer his to bear. Life on the Riddermark was hard, brutal, and short, or so they said. Looking at him, trying to guess how old this son of Theoden must have been -- not much older than Boromir, she thought, especially since he seemed fond of her son -- and how old he seemed, even frozen in time as they were now, she was beginning to think the sayings true. "But I cannot imagine that your cousin will not call you to your people, and you shall know how blows the wind on the Mark, and how falls the rain. Wisdom such as yours is invaluable to a people, especially in changing times."
"So I wait," Thèodred agreed solemnly. "I would rather I did not have to wait here," he admitted, for they had spoke many true things, why not another? He sensed none of the classic deceits of the Gondorians in her, their way of lying and telling something truth-like at the same time, to save face or hide their thoughts or be courteous and courtly. "Your city seems very much to me like a cage. It is full of old ghosts, we are but the youngest dead, many sleep under the streets and in the hills, awaiting the call of their fathers and mothers. I do not like living in a bone-house, however beautiful and vast it seems to me."
"Tirith is...strange, to those who did not grow up here, I think," Finduilas admitted, her voice gentle. "They live close to their dead, and they have so many dead here due to the war. We don't live as close to ours, by the sea. Our dead are out in the hills, outside the city walls. That is not a luxury Tirith has."
But that wasn't exactly what he meant, and she knew it. She felt that same strange urge to escape and ride in the open air, much like she had as a girl when she first learned what it was to have a horse of her own to carry her as far as she could wish to go. The transition to life here had been abrupt, and life in her brother's house was confining. The Captain roamed his city at night, relearned her anew. All Finduilas wished to do was ride. Preferably by the sea, but that was impossible, right now. "I miss open air and space to roam. Not the same way you do, but in my own way. It seems to me that only a few days ago, I could ride by the sea if I wished. Now, I have no mount, and leaving these walls is ill-advised, I know. So yes, I understand somewhat how you must feel, my lord. As well as I can, as a lady from my father's house."
"Leaving the city is only ill-advised if you seem to be what people would expect you to be." Thèodred mused, pausing a moment to lean down and rest his hand against the head of his dog. "The fields beyond the city no longer stink of dead men, as they once did, and though they are not the place for a woman, alone, around you in many places are great men, who surely would not slow to protect your freedom for an hour or two." She needn't tell him it wasn't the same. He knew, when he put on plain clothes and ambled through the city or down through the gate with the dog, that it was no exchange for true freedom. But it was better than nothing. "You could find many things to be," he said quietly, "if you did not have to be yourself, the great lady, beloved of the steward."
Finduilas chuckled ruefully. "My lord, I find I'm still learning how to be the once-steward's lady, never mind how to be a great lady at that," she told him, something wry in it, but it was honest. No Amrothian courtly manners here. "It is a rôle I no longer remember how to fill. The grave was not kind to me." But the idea of slipping away? Now that had potential, if only for an hour or two, just to see something other than these four walls, to get a sense for the city she must have loved, for the Captain loved it so. She did not need a guardian. Ivri and Imrahil and the Captain himself had taught her how to defend herself, and it wasn't exactly as if she could be killed, now could she? Oh, it was a tempting idea. A terrible one. But tempting.
"Perhaps," Thèodred offered her with a wry smile, "when the dog needs to run, you would like to walk with me behind him." For such a large dog did need to walk. Quite often. At least once a day. Thèodred could see the loom of her mind loading with thread, preparing to weave. She was weaving thoughts, and the shuttle would move faster and faster the longer she thought. It would not do for her to go alone, he thought, though she needed no escort of knights to protect her. Only that it would not do for her to go alone, when she might have company.
Finduilas returned that smile, as wry as it was. "I would like that, my lord. Very much," she said. Company had its benefits, and she enjoyed the way he spoke. He was much like the Captain, the way he considered words, they way he used them, and while his voice was not as overwhelming as the Captain's -- indeed, it was a visceral pleasure to simply listen to the Captain talk about the things he loved -- she found the once-prince's quite pleasant, indeed. Yes, she decided, she would not mind walking with him, not in the slightest. And if she dressed the part, with the Rohirrim camped outside the city walls, one might take her for one of their women instead of herself. And that promised freedom, didn't it? She did not think of herself as particularly encumbered or caged, but it would be nice to get out for a little while, just a little while.
Thèodred found he was not as troubled as he had been when he sat down to play. So he began again, this time a sweet and lively tune, something to make the sea-maid of Gondor smile. Perhaps she would open her book, and read. The Gondorians read silently, after all, and he would not mind so much to play as he had in his youth, when he had been one of many harpers, the sounds to which people lived their lives.
She realised she had left her copybook in the courtyard, and decided it was of no matter. She could retrieve it later. The Captain's book was still in her hands, forgotten in the course of hearing his harp and speaking with him. She let it lay in her lap and leaned her head against the window frame, the breeze playing with the wisps of wheat-gold hair that had escaped her simple plait. The tune did make her smile, a soft thing, and she watched his fingers on the strings with curiosity. Music was something for which she had no talent, and it always pleased her to be in the company of those who did. His music was especially fine, and she found she was remarkably content to just sit and listen, her mind wandering occasionally. Plans and hopes. Wind and rain. There was so much to consider, and this was a fine way of doing it, she thought.