Once

I

When Faramir first read the old stories (once, once upon a time), he wanted to be Túrin, because even though he had fallen into madness, Túrin had a mother and Túrin had a Finduilas, and both of them had loved him, and both of them had left him memories when they were gone.

Faramir remembered very little of his mother, who was also his Finduilas; he remembered her smile because it was the same as Boromir's, and he remembered the smell of her, all lilies and roses wafting into his room with her and lingering, half-remembered and half-felt, after she had gone, and he remembered, faintly, the sound of her voice, low and sweet and hinting at the edges of his memory.

He wanted a mother. He wanted a Finduilas. He wanted a mother who was a Finduilas. He wanted his mother, because she was his Finduilas.

He wanted to be Túrin.

Finduilas. Faelivrin, Finduilas, Finduilas.

II

He asked his brother, once. "What was our mother like?"

"She sang you to sleep."

He did not remember. He imagined her face close to his, he remembered her smile, imagined her singing, with a little lilt at the end of each line, imagined her laugh like he had heard the girls in the city laugh, light and merry and musical.

He wished he could remember. He wanted to remember.

He wanted to be Túrin. Túrin had a mother he could remember.

He wanted to be Túrin.

III

His father had once said that Finduilas was never the same twice.

He had thought that it meant that she was like a spring, or like a breeze, or like the sea; every second like and yet unlike, every second different but still the same, always changing and eternal, beautiful. Faelivrin, Faelivrin.

He grew older, and he went to war, and he watched his city die, and watched his father begin to fall into madness, and he wondered if it had meant that every day something inside her sickened and grew worse, every day she fell a little deeper, wondered if it had meant that every day she died a little, slowly.

Every day, she died again.

At least Túrin's Finduilas had gone quickly.

He wanted to be Túrin.

IV

Alone in the Houses of Healing, he thought of his father, imagined him dying, wreathed in flames and madness. He did not want to think, but he thought.

(He wanted to be Túrin, because Túrin had died.)

V

On the rampart he wreathed another in his mother's mantle (the mantle of Finduilas), and held her in his arms. She had golden hair like Túrin's Finduilas.

And he did not want to be Túrin, because Túrin had a mother and Túrin had a Finduilas, but Túrin had never had Éowyn, lovely golden-haired fierce injured Éowyn in blue with silver stars on top of the City.

(He had never really wanted to be Túrin.)

Túrin had only had a mother who sent him away and a Finduilas who loved him and who he did not love, a Finduilas who died, and Túrin had lived out a doom, and Túrin had killed himself.

Túrin had never really loved.

He did not want to be Túrin. He wanted only this.

Sing now ye people.

end