by Cuthalion
I’ve always been dreaming, my entire life. I’ve dreamt of the great wave, rising to drown Númenor, again and again over the years. I dreamt of my brother the day he fell from his horse and broke his left arm, and I saw him passing by on the river Anduin, lying slain in an elven boat. I dreamt of my mother the night before I lost her; she stood on a wide beach, her feet buried in soft white sand, like on the shore in Dol Amroth, her home she so bitterly was missing.
I watched her from a distance, from a dune overgrown with marram grass, and I saw her walking down to the water, until the sea rose to her knees and washed around her waist. And then she vanished under the surface and I heard myself screaming her name with my high boy’s voice… until someone jolted me out of my restless sleep. It was my nurse, and her eyes were red and swollen, and when I asked for my mother, she burst into tears again and gathered me in her arms, and I lay without crying and without any surprise, for I knew with painful certainty that my mother was gone.
I dreamt that fatal dream of the Halfling and Isildur’s Bane, and though I know that I couldn’t have changed anything, there are still days when I wish I had been silent; or that I had not been burdened with this strange gift… to see things that others don’t.
Last night I dreamt again.
*****
I was waiting in the gardens of the Queen; the last roses filled the air with their sweet, nearly desperate fragrance, and the elegantly laid out beds were flaunting with an abundance of autumn asters. While I sat on a marble bench, I saw them approaching… two tall figures, hand in hand, looking as if they’d stepped out of the frame of an ancient painting. But they were quite alive; I saw him leaning down to whisper something in her ear, and I heard the sound of her laughter, bright like music, warming the cool day.
I rose from the bench and bowed.
„My King Elessar…”
„My Lord Faramir…”
I saw the twinkling in his eye as he bowed his head in response, and again I was reminded of the fact that this great ruler had spent uncounted years wandering in the wilderness, sleeping beside a small campfire, hunting to still his hunger and often enough having not enough food at all. And sometimes I had the nagging suspicion that he would have liked to enjoy at least a glimpse of those old times again, and that the pompous court ceremonial unnerved him.
„Prince…”