Title : Those Who Have Been Forgotten

Author(s) : Marie Noire and AZ Telcontar

Summary : Gandalf finds a broken and bleeding Grima near Orthanc and decides to help him.

Cowering at the wooden feet of Fangorn, still within sight of the Tower of Orthanc, Grima Wormtongue huddled under a ragged blanket, his lank hair and dark clothes blending with the shadows. But the moonlight shone pale on his face and terrified eyes. Even the blind one saw horror reflected. Tens of thousands of orcs, all bent on the destruction of mankind... somewhere in all of this, he had forgotten that he was of the race of Men as surely as Theoden or that arrogant Eomer were. It had been o long since he'd been treated as a Man, if indeed he ever had been... he was not certain.

He bled like a Man...

He trembled with fear like a Man...

He loved like a Man...

 

Even the needed haste of his task could not deny the wizard’s need for rest. He may have been graced with great power, it was true, but even he was bound to the world around him to some extent, and he had gone forth without much rest. He was still too new to the place, still like a young fledgling testing its wings before long flight, and time had grown too short. But he had done what he had needed to do, for now. He had found the riders as they had thundered over the grass hills of Rohan and sent them to aid their fellows, gone to the oldest of the old of the world and urged them to action: whole forests marching to a destiny they had long been awaiting. For a brief moment, the wizard wanted only rest.

Gandalf knew his steed Shadowfax could easily overtake the riders, and sent them ahead. He had followed a small stream from Fangorn forest to a small open clearing, a meadow just beyond the shadow of the trees. A dark smudge of sooty smoke stained the sky above the treetops, and over the harsh cawing of crows he could hear an earthly bellow, a disturbing hissing of wind through the boughs and branches. But they did not concern the wizard. He collected the scattered twigs and dead underbrush, bowing towards the forest as if in thanks, and made his way to the stream's edge, setting up a small camp. The horse lingered, but not too near: they were equals in a way, and gave each other their solitude.

From under the grey cloak and among the folds of the white robes, a pipe was produced and filled, and using an ember, lit. Soon lazy rings of blue smoke drifted up as if to surround the smudgy stain on the dusky sky. Shadowfax, grazing near the woods, gave a startled snort, stamping. Something had disturbed him.

Grima shivered as the wind picked up, the trees creaked and groaned like a building about to collapse...or an army about to attack. He had nowhere he could go; nowhere he could hide. Saruman and Sauron's forces would kill him for failing them, for losing his nerve at the last possible moment and refusing to tell Saruman about the grate... though he suspected the white wizard already knew about it. Oh, but Saruman had been livid with him: he had kicked him down the countless stairs of Orthanc. Grima realized he must have made a small whimper of pain, alerting a creature nearby to his cowering presence. He froze, breathing heavily in terror.

"What's this, then?" Setting down his pipe and taking up his staff, Gandalf made his way to the horse, patting the silver hide to calm him. He peered closer, making out a small tattered bundle shaking in the half-light. "Show yourself," he demanded, a bit louder.

Grima cringed at the sound of Gandalf's voice, certain he would be blasted into oblivion now. Slowly, refusing to look up from the leaf-littered ground, he parted the thin blanket to reveal his face, lip still cracked and bleeding, bruises on his left cheekbone where Saruman had flung him against a wall.

Gandalf sat back, leaning on his staff. "Grima Wormtongue," he said, a mere statement. "So you find yourself with no den to hide yourself. I would have thought Saruman would not cast you away so soon."

"His temper is shorter these days." Grima whispered. "So save him the trouble and finish me off. At least you might be quick about it."

"I did not slay you in Theoden's hall and I will not slay you now, worthy or not." Gandalf's expression shifted, eyes softening to a gentle blue. "Come now, even you must be cold in this early spring air. The trees have allowed enough to warm myself, and there's room there for another."

Grima finally slid his mismatched gaze up to the wizard's face, suspicious and fearful. Movement now would be painful for him... and he was not certain he could trust anyone in this world, particularly a wizard.

Gandalf sighed. "Do not mistake me for your master, Grima. We may be of a like kind, but we are not of the same mind. But I think that you are so accustomed to your own trickery that you have forgotten kindness and caring." He bent closer. "Will you stay here, alone and cold in the dark then?"

"To say I have 'forgotten' kindness and caring implies that I knew it once." Grima said in a watery voice, though he crawled on the ground, closer to Gandalf, one hand tucked against his chest to keep it from further harm.

"You were once a child of men, that much I know; you didn't always bend under the weight of your poor luckless fate. And you are wounded now, in great pain, and I would be heartless indeed to not offer you aid." The wizard held out a hand to him, wordless, waiting.

After a second's consideration, Grima reached out his good hand and took the wizard's, half expecting to be hauled to his feet and run through by Glamdring. Instead Gandalf drew him up slowly, almost tenderly. Mindful of Grima's winces and hissing gasps of pain, he led the battered man back to the fire, setting him close enough to benefit from its warmth.

Sitting before the fire, Grima could not quite relax, fearing that Gandalf had some ulterior motive for treating him as such. One did not meddle in the affairs of wizards and live to tell about it very often and he had meddled in the affairs of *two* of them. Trying to calm himself, he catalogued his injuries in his head. Cracked ribs... one broken perhaps. Broken hand; bruises and gashes all over. The sticky flow of blood between his legs as well, though it had stopped for the most part. Valar, that's what hurt the most: that sick, burning feel inside of him.

Wordlessly, Gandalf took up the water bottle from his pack, handing it to Grima. "Drink," he urged. "You have need of it. If your teeth can manage it, I've bread, too." He settled near him, taking up his pipe again, taking a long pull on the stem and looking into the flickering flames.

Grima drank gingerly from the canteen, his split lip troubling him. He dared not even contemplate trying to eat the way his stomach felt. After a few moments without a word, he could not take the wizard's blasted silence. "Why?" he asked softly, looking at the fire.

Blue pipe smoke wafted over the campfire. "Why what?" Gandalf replied.

Grima shivered. "Why help me? I'm an enemy, remember?"

"I have just one Enemy, and you are not him," Gandalf said. "Why help you? Well, that is answered easy enough! I was once the recipient of Saruman's hospitality, and I found it lacking. I know too that the soft beguile in his words is surpassed by the harshness of his hand; something I think you know well, Grima Wormtongue. If you feel equal to it, I would have you tell of how you came to be cowering there by the forest."

Grima looked up again, his mismatched eyes wet and glassy as always, but with a softer edge to them. "I would not tell him what he wanted to know." Gandalf glanced at him with surprise, but said nothing. "He has... a powder... that he says will undo stone... let the army break into Helm's Deep as if it were made of egg shells. He knows that I knew where best to put it." Grima whispered. "When I would not tell him, he grew angry..."

This news made Gandalf tremble with anxiety, for he knew even more than Grima did of what he spoke. He himself had used similar powders, in the little amusements he would make for the Shirefolk, rockets that formed flowers of flame and embers of stars in the dark sky. But as a weapon, it could be deadly, causing destruction the likes of which had not been seen since dragons fought in battle.

"He... threw me out... the long way." Grima shivered, not wanting to divulge what had happened just before he had found himself rolling down stone stairs, though the evidence still burned in him like black poison.

Gandalf stood, moving to the edge of the stream. He returned a moment later, holding a damp bit of cloth. "You've suffered a great deal since you ran from Edoras, I can see that much. Wash yourself, if you will, and take some rest. I am only here for a brief time, but you may spend it in my company or go where you will. I have no hold over you."

Grima stared at the cloth dully. "Where am I to go? I am traitor to both sides now... I will be killed should I try to go to Rohan or Gondor. No Elven sanctuary will admit me, for I am no elf-friend. And I will be tortured for my information by either Saruman's or Sauron's forces..."

"Then stay the time here, for now. Things are happening in the world that will change the fate of all living in Middle Earth, and perhaps there is a kinder doom awaiting you. You are not wholly evil, Grima, I know that. You have chosen unwisely, but even you are not beyond redemption." Gandalf offered the cloth again. "Wash your wounds," he said quietly. "All of them."

"Redemption... who would believe me even if it were possible? I just want it to end. I’m tired... so very tired of trying to get by... trying to earn love that will never come." he continued, taking the cloth but making no moves. " I *loved* Eowyn... with all of my heart... and not once did she look at me with anything but distaste! Neither has anyone else. I am always either a bug to be cruelly crushed, or a tool to be used and discarded."

"Love cannot be forced, Grima Wormtongue, but it may be fostered. Eowyn is a proud woman, and is beyond you. Her doom lies elsewhere. But you have more than the reflections that others give you." Gandalf took up the cloth from Grima's hand, gently dabbing it on a gash on Grima's brow. "You drive others away with your self-loathing. It is time to throw off your cage of loneliness, Grima; time to change."

"How?" Grima asked, flinching at the wizard's touch although it was gentle. "How can a lifetime's worth of lessons be unlearned?"

Gandalf sat back a moment, looking long at Grima. Grima was a dark thing, a creature of shadows, lurking in the darkness, wanting and needy, full of greed for any gesture of acceptance. It was a desire that was the downfall of many a mortal, Gandalf knew. It was a weakness of want, easily exploited by one who knew how. Gandalf felt pity

for the man before him. "With time," he answered, and kissed the man's brow gently. "With time."

"Is it so much to ask?" Grima asked in a soft, faraway voice, very different from his normally purring sneer. "So very much to ask... that someone love me?"

"No, it is not so much to ask; it is the desire of all things, but one must make themselves lovely. No one can do that for another. Grima, do you think yourself so unlovable?"

When he looked up, Grima's eyes were fierce through his tears. "If I were given half a chance, I could be! I am not handsome; I know that! But if someone would just see beyond that and hear me! I have used my words to enslave and ensnare... I can use them to worship and cherish as well."

"Then do so, Grima, and that is where it will begin. Find one worthy of you, that will listen and see."

"You make it sound as though it's *easy* to find such a person. Who am I to go to? The pretty, blonde elf you came with? One of the riders I banished? *Who* in their right mind would listen to me now?" he sighed, taking the cloth and dabbing at the still bleeding cut on his shoulder.

Gandalf smiled, eyes glittering with kind amusement. "I am listening now," he said quietly.

Grima froze and swallowed before looking back at the wizard. "That's... true.”

Gandalf smiled warmly. "So, Grima, speak and be heard. I have time yet, and I hope you find me worthy of listening."

Grima made a helpless gesture. "What shall I say to you? You are an Istari, a wizard... second only to the Valar. I am only a poor wretched shadow of a man... spoiled goods at that. What would you care to know of me?"

Gandalf bent close, so close that Grima was filled with the sight of him. "I would care to know all of you, Grima; I would have you cast off your misbegotten disgrace and see that you are not by far as spoiled and wretched as you believe."

Grima sighed and closed his eyes as if he were very, very tired, bowing his head so that his dark hair hung and covered his eyes. "I... don't know where to begin... but... my mother died in childbirth, something my father blamed me for at every chance. He was also shamed that I was neither strong nor fast. I showed no great skill on horseback or with weapons. I merely *was*... and for that, he rewarded me with contempt. I learned, by necessity, to watch his body language; to gauge his mood, anticipate his blows. This carried over onto my peers, such as they were. I learned to predict attacks, I learned to hiss and hide to keep them away."

"I've never belonged. I expect blows before any other contact. I've never been loved... not permitted to love." his voice broke slightly, choking on tears, the tears of a frightened child, wounded from birth.

"Eowyn...oh, Eowyn! I first saw her when she was but fifteen winters, already a great beauty beyond my meager experiences. I was snared from that first look, caught in a hunter's trap. I would have died for her on the spot. And I tried, I tried so hard to earn a favoured look from her... but she never looked on me with anything but distaste. Oh, Saruman was cunning to approach me when he did, fresh on the heels of a new rejection, when I was at my lowest despair! He told me of Sauron and preconceived Fall of Man. Better to be at the right hand of evil than in its path, so I thought, but I did not join to save my own wretched skin. You all believe that Saruman offered me Eowyn's hand once Rohan fell... that is not the case. The only bargaining hip offered was her safety. He assured me that Eowyn would not be killed or harmed. That was my only price..."

Gandalf regarded Grima with a new understanding. "Your trust in Saruman was your downfall. But it was not unfounded. Saruman was great once...and is still powerful. And dangerous; it was fortunate that you left him." Gandalf stirred up the embers, adding a few more twigs. "You can start anew, Grima. The world is changing."

"Start anew... my life has been one disappointment after another so far. What makes you think starting over would help?" Grima whispered, voice still still raw with pain. "It is my Fate to be hated... all I want is for it to end."

"Despair does not become you, Grima. Cast it away and take on hope instead." Gandalf sighed. "So cold you've grown...so dark your heart, your thoughts..."

"If I am cold and dark, as you say... then I was *made* that way through years of abuse and hurt. I cannot simply snap my fingers and fix it... I am not a wizard." Grima whispered. "I would need to learn it... and who would teach one such as me about warmth... love?"

Gandalf looked at him, and it seemed he gave his own light, bright above the small fire. With slow deliberation, he turned to Grima, took the man's face in his large hands, and gently kissed him. "But did you not know?" the wizard said, drawing back. "I am keeper of the flame. so I ask you: will you learn?"

If he'd had the requisite colour to do so, Grima would have gone white in shock and more than a little fear. As it was, his mismatched eyes searched the wizard's desperately, wanting to believe this was happening but terrified it was yet another wizard-trick. He's been crushed under Saruman's boot already... it would not take much from Gandalf to finish him off.

Gandalf looked at him sadly. "Fire can only drive away the cold when it is close, Grima. But I leave it to you. I must rest, while I may. I cannot tarry long."

Grima licked his cracked lips and closed his eyes, bowing his head slightly. "I want to learn..." he said in such a soft, small voice that very few would have pinned it as belonging to the man called Wormtongue.

Gandalf brushed back a stringy strand of hair from Grima's face. "That was the first lesson learnt," he said softly.

"To trust you enough..." Grima nodded, still not looking up, but instinctively flinching at Gandalf's touch like a beaten pup.

"To trust, and to act on that trust, yes."

Slowly, Grima opened his eyes, revealing tears in them. One eye was a clear, dark blue... the other was hazy and nearly white... blind from some old transgression. But both eyes conveyed every hint of his pain and what little hope was still lingering. He looked a good deal younger than his forty some-odd years.

Gandalf caressed his face once more, whispering. "It can be done, if you let it.”

Mismatched eyes closed once more, sending two salty drops down over his pale cheeks. "I am... in your hands, Gandalf... I would have you be... my new master... if you will have me, as student and servant..."

"I would have you be your own master and serve yourself." Gandalf touched the man's bruised lips. "But you did not wash all your wounds..."

He actually managed a slightly bemused expression. "One thing at a time, my lord. And I am not certain I *can* wash all of my wounds... with my hand the way it is..."

Gandalf gave a soft smile. "I could assist you, perhaps."

Something that might have been a blush graced Grima's waxen cheeks. With his good hand, he unlaced his robes and tunic, pushing them off with some difficulty. His back, chest, and sides were a myriad of bruises, both old and new, and scars of all sizes and depths. Gandalf traced each one, a look of sadness falling over his face. Grima shivered at the gentle contact, being completely unaccustomed to tenderness. He assumed Gandalf's expression was one of dismay over his form... not the condition thereof. "I know..." he whispered. "I am not any better-looking without my clothing."

"You misunderstand me," Gandalf answered, hands still stroking the bruised flesh carefully. His hands were like the sun after a storm. "How extensive are they?"

"I... I think a few ribs are cracked... maybe broken... my hand is broken..." he avoided speaking of the wound inside of him just yet.

"..And?" Gandalf kissed his hand, then his neck, moving down; slow kisses that warmed his pale flesh like snow in the springtime. Ache and pain seemed to melt away.

"Ah!" Grima sighed, starting to tremble under the wizard's caresses. "S-Saruman... did more than just beat me..."

"Tell me," Gandalf whispered, still tenderly moving over Grima's chest.

"I...he... used me..." Grima shuddered reflexively, pain still fresh. "He forced me... to his bed..."

"Ah!" Gandalf paused, looking at the shaking man. Carefully he wrapped Grima in his cloak and embraced him wordlessly.

Craving comfort of any sort, this was an oasis in a vast desert to Grima. He gave a small cry and burrowed against the wizard's chest, arms wrapping around his waist. He began to cry softly, overwhelmed by the older man's embrace.

Gandalf let him cry without attempting to staunch the flow of tears, knowing how desperately Grima needed the release.

When Grima's crying slowed to low gasping sobs, Gandalf gently helped him up again. "Come sleep," he said. "You need rest as much as I." Settling Grima as near to the fire as possible, the wizard sank down next to him, holding him with an unusual tenderness. "Be assured that none will disturb you, so long as I am here."

Weak, tears drying on his face, Grima nuzzled firmly against Gandalf's chest, pressed the length of his body against the wizard. He murmured softly, whispering Gandalf's name as he drifted off, hands clutching at the white robes.

To Be Continued

 

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