"But if I should return, think better of me." - JRR Tolkein

Chapter 21

Migraines. Something I had been dealing with since I was thirteen years old and puberty hit me hard. Fortunately, I had been lucky that none had hit me in this strange land. That is, until I woke up in Gondor's Houses of Healing. I wanted to meet Faramir, I really did, but the sun that shone through the thin curtains of the room I had been given sent the harshest of pains through my head. I just wanted to sleep, but my body had decided I'd had enough of that lately. I couldn't shift my body into the shade either. I couldn't move. Once, a healer had been sent to change my bandages. She encouraged me to not look at my wound. I trusted her judgement. All I knew was that even the littlest movements caused pains that just added to the migraines. And then, on the rare occasions I did manage to fall asleep, there were the dreams. Dreams of my friend Catherine back home, fluorescent lights that did not exist here, and the teeth of some hairy beast.

But I was determined to meet Faramir. The healers had supplied me with a salve of mint and lavender for my temples. It helped, but did not erase.

A small knock sounded on my door, two mornings after I had woken with Pippin and Hallewyn had been by my side. "Hello?" I answered, trying not to wince at the sound of the sharp taps.

A man, who appeared to be in his mid-to-late twenties opened the door and I was instantly transported. His face was so like his brother's, a kind face I never thought I would see again. "Mallory Gilmore," he said, with a bow of the head. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances."

"At least we can meet at all. Pippin tells me I am lucky to be alive."

"I heard from Gandalf that a Fell Beast's talons pierced your shoulder. Encounters with the Nazgul do not often result in the luck of keeping your life." I didn't know what to say. I just smiled. "May I sit?" he asked, motioning to the healer's chair in the corner of the room. I nodded. "When Gandalf told me the name of his companions upon my return to the city, I was surprised your's was one of them."

"How did you know my name? I thought Boromir never returned to Gondor before his death?"

"I received one final letter from him before his travels turned away from Imladris and towards the shadows of Mordor, sent from a village in the horse-realm of Rohan, known as Aldburg. He wrote to me of you and your story." He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, folded open and shut many times, judging by the deep creases. "I do not know what to do for this maiden, dear brother. Her story, impossible as it is, must be true, for what mind as seemingly sane as her's could imagine a world which she claims to hail from? I know not if I will ever return to the Riddermark, for I know not what lies ahead for me in Imladris, but as much as I wish to pass it along to Elrond and be done with it all, I cannot. This is the last chance I will have to send letters until I begin to return from the Elf kingdom, I imagine, so I assume many months until I reach another land of Men to send more letters. I will pass along her queries to Elrond, but I worry that it will not be enough to help her, in the end. Always the scholar, I hope for your assistance in this, brother. The Library of Kings may hold an answer, though I know not where to even start scrolling through books. Little time I know you have not, which is why I write to you a mere hour after leaving her in Aldburg's stables. I need you to know how important this is to me, for I now know what it is like to have left your home and unable to return due to forces beyond your control."

He folded the letter back together. "Many times my eyes have poured over that sheet of paper. And still it is full of riddles beyond anything I have ever encountered."

"Do you want me to answer any questions you might have?"

"The thing is," he said, taking a deep breath, "I have none, for I know your story to be completely true."

"How?" I said, surprised at receiving that answer for the first time since my arrival here.

"Boromir knew me well and he asked the right person in Gondor to thumb through books in the Library of the Kings. And while I probably do not have every answer you seek, I may have fulfilled the last task ever given to me by my beloved brother." He reached into a bag strapped around his shoulder and pulled out a small book. "This is the journal of an Elf who was supposedly gifted with something akin to foresight, though they had no name for what it actually was. She was kept hidden from the world until her adulthood, when her kin immediately sent her to the boats journeying to the Undying Lands where her mind could heal. I found it two weeks after receiving Boromir's letter and have kept its contents to myself. I wanted to come find you, my lady, but the battles that have raged in my land threaten to raze every city I know to the ground. There was no messenger I trusted to convey its contents to you but myself."

"Stop," I said, forcefully enough to twinge my migraine. "I don't want to know."

He leaned away from me in the chair, his eyebrows wrinkling. "I do not understand, my lady. Boromir wrote that this was your only desire, to return to your home."

"It was, once. You have to understand, when I met Boromir, I was immensely distraught. But since then, my life...it got better. I found purpose. I found someone to care for, and who will care for me in return. And I've realized this is where I'm meant to be."

His head shook. "Forgive me, my lady, but I do not think you understand. Nazgul do not simply attack for sport. They are hunters. They have prey. And for reasons I believe I have found in this Elf's writing, I believe I know why the Nazgul have decided to hunt you."

"Faramir, I don't want to know."

"Peregrin, Son of Paladin has told me the Dark Lord uttered your name through a seeing stone once controlled by Saruman of Many Colors. There is no escaping this, Mallory Gilmore. There is no choice, for all choices have already been made for you."

"I can't," I protested. "I can't be that important. I never wanted to come here. Faramir, please. Boromir asked you to help me. Help me be normal, please? Help me not know what Sauron wants with me. Please," I begged, but his kind face did not betray him. He wasn't backing down.

"I am sorry, Mallory Gilmore. But you must hear what the journal says." He opened the journal and began to read. "Melkor's servant will rise to power and will fall from forces beyond the control of Celebrimbor's forge. Ill-omened will be the woman possessing the knowledge of Tolkein's words. The words that forge this world for another. Her world will know his story and how from his fall, he will rise again, forever seeking Celebrimbor's forge. Forever until her knowledge assists and Men rise against Melkor's servant. And he will fall and she will return, death escaped in two worlds."

He pulled the book from his eyes and stared into my own, eyes that shined with the same silver as his brother's. "I have been pouring over these words for many months and have pulled assumptions into facts in that war-riddled time. This Elfling knew you would come here. She saw that you, a girl from another world, would know the outcome of Sauron's second rise to power. Power fueled by the One Ring forged by Celebrimbor."

But I didn't need him to explain. My migraine disappeared when he uttered his name. The minute "Tolkien" escaped his mouth, it all came back to me. Where I was, who sat in front of me now, and whose love I had earned since taking residence in his homeland.

Love that I was never meant to earn.

Death escaped in two worlds. A bear attack and a Nazgul attack. And he will fall and she will return. The Free Peoples of Middle Earth just had to win and I would go back home.

I smiled at the young captain whose eyes probed me for answers I now had. "Thank you Faramir. You broke whatever spell was over me. And now, I can help you win this war."

A/N: Can we all agree that this story has taken me too damn long to write? I understand that and I hope you'll forgive me. I am going to finish and I am going to write more stories. I hope you all stick around.