Work Text:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The path is a ribbon of water between the trees. The moon is caught in the fingertips of the branches above them. Almost perfectly round, with just a thin patch of earth-smudge across the top of its forehead, like a hat pushed too far forward.
Boromir stops his horse and looks down. The moon looks back at him; surface rippled, outline uneven, as if drawn by an unsteady hand.
‘One eye watching from above, another from below,’ says Faramir.
‘A white flower admiring itself,’ says Boromir.
They urge the horses forward and the reflection breaks. Scatters flecks of moon-crystal and night-sky.
October Moths
Faramir brings a full wineglass outside in the autumn dusk, meal finished.
I have tasted loss and feed on remembrances.
He caresses the glass and lets memories stored in his fingertips ignite and unfold.
A spillage of dark wine trickles down his hand. He stops it with his mouth.
I gorged on life after I nearly lost it. I lapped up moments of sunshine on my skin, devoured the smell of leaves from her hair in the rain.
He drains the wine. Above the rim of his glass, he sees an October moth as it dives into the dimly lit window beside the door.
Faramir cups it gently in his hands, enjoys the tickle of the fierce flutter of wings, and lets it go.
Girl, Embalmed
He found her in the sand dunes one day, uncovered by a violent storm. She was perfectly embalmed. Parchment skin drawn tightly over high cheekbones; her honey hair braided through with a faded indigo ribbon.
Aragorn imagined her in one of the ruined cities in a time before the sands. Standing in a doorway, braiding her hair. And losing her way in the desert one day, meeting someone unknown.
He carried her gently down to the high-water mark and buried her. Before he covered her face, he removed the indigo ribbon and wound it around his wrist – without knowing why.