A Face in the Crowd: Faramir

Chapter Seventeen - Rohan

A/N: So what did you guys make of the mic drop revelation in the last chapter??

Keren needs to move on already, so she's literally moving on, to another country...

Éowyn was happy. It had been a long final stretch of their journey, and she looked up at the white walls towering above the plains with great relief. She was to see Faramir in a matter of minutes, the man who had finally brought her to life.

She had loved before, deeply, unrequitedly, but she had had no joy in it. Aragorn was to her what an elf was to Merry, she realised with some humour. Too different, too distant. Faramir was her equal, her mirror, somewhat constrained by his position and fears, like her. And yet he had a simple wonder and respect for life that she had not formerly possessed. Friend or enemy, he would always choose life over death, the pen over the sword, unless there was no choice.

There was much he could teach her, but it was slow progress, for she had yet to shake her stiff, somewhat formal manner around him sometimes. But there had been days when they had laughed together until she had cried, and it was with a hidden, secret smile that she rode towards him now.

For Keren, gone were the days of not feeling – now she felt greatly, sometimes a little too much, and could swing from happiness to grief quickly, leaving all who knew her confused and a little worried. But she had confided to Palen that she would rather live thus than return to the horrible state of nothing-ness.

Palen could not say for certain what had brought about this change, but she had a suspicion it was to do with her sister's instructions from the strange Lady Galadriel.

She had questioned Keren at length about her plans, but Keren said she had none. She knew not what was coming, but at least it was something.

"But this is so unlike you," Palen had said.

"That's the point," Keren had replied.

"And once you reach Rohan, what then?"

"The Lady didn't say."

"Well, will you come back?" Palen's voice had wobbled a little.

"Of course," Keren had said, taking her hand. "It's just a... a holiday. An adventure."

"But for how long? You can't just leave your job and expect to come back whenever you wish. You'll be gone months, not weeks, Rohan is not Cormallen."

"Cormallen seemed a world away, then. Rohan does now. Don't you see that's why I must go? I needed mother, I needed father, I needed Faramir. They've all gone, and so now I need you. But I shouldn't Pal, I shouldn't. I want to find some independence."

"Keren, you lost your mother when you were eleven, and started work the same year. Father is useless for the most part, and I've been... well, I have Dannor. You save people's lives almost every day. You've faced more heartache than most already. Don't be so hard on yourself. You're far stronger than you think."

Keren shook her head.

"I won't feel it unless I go. You said yourself, we have fallen into the strangest pattern of chances. I don't want to miss this chance. You would do the same."

And Palen had conceded that she would, if she had had no husband she loved in the city, and if she had had a mysterious elf seek her out and tell her to leave.

"But you must tell the Warden."

"I'll tell him something."

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"But, Keren, you are one of my best healers, and at such a young age you could become highly renowned for your skill given time," the Warden had said, bewildered at her sudden desire to leave.