milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Moonlight.

Moonlight and stars and one needs no sharper knife in the darkness than the sky reflecting against the bright white snow. And so it is the stars on the snow that light his path as he walks beside the lake.

Winter is a cocoon. The stars are freedom. He could walk here like a man through dreams until sunrise and never know the time had passed.

Perhaps he could use some company, though...

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Power corrupts.

"But you didn't. Break, I mean. You're still - whole."

Right?

"Sometimes I don't know. Am I? Would you say so?"

There's something in his voice that's a little more than just rhetorical.

He needs an anchor outside his darkness. Even if it's only someone to tell him he hasn't gone off the deep end yet.

"Sometimes I'm so afraid I'll end up... like him."

"You won't," Steph says, and this she can say with certainty. "That won't happen. You're - look, you're, like, one of the most awesome people I know."

This is true. Steph has rock-solid faith in Faramir. He could do worse than a little dead girl for an anchor, all things considered.

He looks at her then, his eyes focusing more than they have lately.

"Awesome?" he repeats. The word sounds strange coming from him. He smiles a little. "I wish I could see myself as you see me. I think... it is less difficult for men to face their own demons when they understand their strength in another's eyes. That is what... what makes women so strong. They understand their power as mothers even without having borne children."

Steph isn't sure - she rubs her nose thoughtfully. "I ... don't know. I had a baby, and I didn't feel very strong..."

It took her till after she was dead to really feel like she had a place in the world, ironically enough. But if she can help Faramir out of his current woes, that'll make her feel a little more like it.

"But ... yeah. It's, well, it's kind of embarrassing to admit, but you know, you're kinda one of my heroes. I mean, seriously, you really are awesome."

"I am honored. When did you have a child?"

"When I was alive."

Steph apparently realises this is a pretty stupid answer, and adds "I was ... too young. I was only, like, fourteen."

She's quiet for a moment, and then says softly "Her name is Carrie. Carrie Kelley."

"That is a beautiful name. It has its own kind of music." He smiles to her. "You do not realize your strength. You do not realize how much stronger you are, and can be, as a woman. You remind me of Eowyn, in that way. If you could have seen her..." His eyes sparkle. "She was... is... in so many ways the perfection of her gender..."

Steph's not quite as sensitive to medieval attitudes towards women as her mun is, so it's pretty much sliding past her, with just a quirk of people from history are so weird.

"I'm sure you'll find her again," she says, comfortingly. "She'll come here, or you'll be unBound. It'll happen."

Faramir is actually quite progressive for his time. He does intend to marry a crossdresser, after all...

"I would wait several lifetimes for her," Faramir murmurs. "But... thank you."

Steph settles back into the snow quietly. She hasn't much more to say. And strangely, talking with Faramir has made her feel better.

She lets her gaze drift back towards the stars. They're pretty. Kon would approve. Would have approved. No - would approve.

Though he has no children, though even a lover's touch was still something strange and new to him when he arrived here two long years ago, he guides her like a father to lay her head on his shoulder, and tucks the fabric of the cloak around them both.
Be everybody's hero...
It is protective above all else. That is what he does: he can nurture even blossoms in the snow.
...but your own.
And his soul wanders the lights in the sky, and forgets for a while that it is winter.

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