Faramir tilts his head back, seeing now the stars and the ice on the lake. The sea in miniature, and the silent stars. A vision of the end of the world, here and there, the great wave, the dying suns... fire. Fire in his skin, lapping at his hair, crackling under his fingers, fire in his blood as the poison made his veins throb. Fire in the cold white snow... the cold white of a woman's half-remembered face, fair, dark hair, red lips, who would have thought that such whiteness could grow even whiter in death? An open casket. He was five years old. The smell of heavy cloth, the sound of empty hallways, and stars, stars, stars on a dark cloak and in the sky, a small child punished for loving too much, a young man loved by all but the man whose love he sought. All the warm eyes in Gondor couldn't melt the ice in his father's stare. Ice and snow and an ocean of winter silence. Three days from now would be the anniversary of his brother's death.

Faramir stoops slowly down to one knee, and with an elbow on his raised knee and his face cradled in his hand, his body trembles with the rhythm of his gasping breath and voiceless sobs...