A Face in the Crowd: Faramir

Chapter Nine - Joy and Despair

I wrote this chapter, and the entire first half of the book, in 2016, a tumultuous year for me. In fact my life was turned upside-down between publishing chapters eight and nine! Looking back it was a hugely important time of my life that left me a lot stronger, but the heartache at the time really showed in my writing. So this is probably the chapter that has been the most heavily re-written since the FanFic.net days so far. I want Keren to be vulnerable and, yes, perhaps over-sensitive at this stage in the story, for many reasons. But man even I found her annoying, so I toned her down, and I've tried to make this a very sympathetic portrayal of a young girl realising her first love is over. But I've also let her go full on grief mode, because not every girl has a *prophecy* getting her hopes up... Please stick with her, because boy does she go places. (I'm currently writing the final few chapters of the third, final, book, and she is almost unrecognisable, which was my aim). It's been really interesting revisiting these early chapters and seeing how much she has grown as a character. My own confidence has grown since then, and therefore in later chapters Keren does things way out of her comfort zone, which were never in the original plot when I planned it in 2016 :)

*Some short sections of text in this chapter are taken from The Return of the King, property of J.R.R Tolkien & the Tolkien Estate. All of my fanfiction is not for profit.

Four days passed since Éowyn had risen from her bed. There were still no tidings of the army, and the folk of the city began to lose hope that any would return.

For Keren they had been four days of uncomfortable uncertainty, both for the fate of her friends travelling ever closer to Mordor, and also for letting her mind run away with itself as to what happened every day between Faramir and her other tall, beautiful, royal charge. Despite Keren's best efforts, Éowyn had not taken long to agree to meet Faramir after all, and every morning she walked and talked with him in the gardens.

His afternoons, and often evenings, still belonged to Keren, and she told herself regularly that she enjoyed her daily visits to him, that those few hours alone with him were all she really lived for. But instead of the joy that usually rose in her heart every time she even caught a glimpse of him, there was now a pang – a pinch of embarrassment and awkwardness – whenever their eyes met. The whole thing seemed far more real now – less of a childish fantasy, more of a tentative romance, that she could easily ruin if she said or did something wrong, and she had to admit that was likely.

The thought of him comparing her to Éowyn put her in a self-critical mood, which made her quieter and more withdrawn when she was in his presence, concentrating more on her healing duties rather than talking to him freely as she had at first. She wondered if he'd noticed, or if he cared.

He had sent for her as usual, and as she entered the room there came that strange surge of energy when they were alone together, but again no mention was made of their near-kiss, or of the slightly stilted atmosphere between them. To Keren it seemed that both were afraid to mention anything, and yet were longing to.

He never spoke of Éowyn to her, but Keren doubted that she was a regular topic of conversation between the two of them either. And yet there was no way of knowing, short of spying on them, which she could not quite bring herself to do, just what they spoke of.

Sometimes when she passed the entrance to the gardens she had seen them sat side by side under the willow tree where she had met the elf, the low branches mostly shielding them from her view. Other times they both stood at the wall, gazing out towards the Black Land.

Faramir was improving – no longer did he need support when he walked, and his wound caused him less and less pain. His dark hair was shining once more, and the dark circles under his eyes had faded almost to nothing. His face was even thinner than before, true, and his eyes, unbeknownst to him, sometimes had a haunted look, but he smiled far more frequently. The time was approaching when he would be well enough to leave the Houses.