Curious

Setting: A long time before the war of the Ring, when Faramir is around twenty.

Beta: theron09

Note: There's mention of slash, due to the nature of the books.

It drove Faramir mad. Even as a child these books had fascinated him but no one had been able to tell him what they said, as no one was able to read them. Of course, those people who knew of them had been curious about their contents as well, but no one had been as stubborn as Faramir. He had striven to learn Sindarin the best he could, and his tutor had been most pleased with him, calling him his best student in his entire career.

But young Faramir had been disappointed to find that he still could not read the books. Five they were in total, all written in some Elvish language no one in Minas Tirith – or at least those with access to the library of the king – could read. There were no images which could give even a hint of what the text said. Occasionally, some rumour or other about them came to young Faramir's ears: that the books were about elven fighting techniques and thus encoded in a secret language; that the books contained the earliest history of the world; that they were the diaries of an elven maid; or alternatively the tally of the victims of a warrior.

Faramir was fourteen when he brought Mithrandir into the library, climbed the shelves because he was still too small to reach so high, and handed one of the books to the wizard.

"I cannot read this! Please, Mithrandir, I'm sure you know what it says. Tell me, please, for I wish to know."

The wizard's eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline as he carefully read the title. As he leafed through the pages, his eyebrows seemed to rise even higher, repeatedly, and his lips quirked upwards. At one point he could not contain a laugh, although he cut himself off quickly and tried to maintain a serious expression once more. Thus he went through all five of them until at last he shook his head, returned the books and said:

"Faramir, I'm afraid you're wasting your time. The contents are so inconsequential that you should not be bothered by it."

"But what does it say?" Faramir insisted, unwilling to be deterred.

"Absolutely nothing a lad like you should be concerned by. Leave it, Faramir."

And no matter how much the boy pleaded and bugged him, Mithrandir would not say any more on the matter, and soon the wanderer left the city again.

As he started training, Faramir did not have as much time any longer to ponder the contents of the books. What little free time he had became precious, and he usually spent it with more fruitful tasks. But the matter would not leave him. Boromir laughed at him for his curiosity. He had stopped wondering a long time ago.

The years passed. Faramir became a ranger, Mithrandir still visited from time to time, and the books remained a mystery.

"If you are so interested in those daft books, why don't you learn the language yourself?" Mithrandir burst out one day.

Evidently he didn't think that Faramir would take his advice.

Convincing his father to allow him to travel and be absent from the city for a year was easier than Faramir had thought. Once the steward heard that Faramir wanted to go to the elves to study, he gave his permission on the condition that it included weapons training, of which Denethor thought his boys could not learn enough. Moreover, Denethor thought of the knowledge they could gain from intelligence on the elves. Faramir was observant, a trait the steward valued.

And thus the young ranger took his leave of his father and his brother and travelled north, copies of old maps in his pockets, for the way to Rivendell was not known and Faramir would have to search for the hidden valley. As ever, he was stubborn. And it served him well, for he found his destination.

Rivendell welcomed all friendly visitors, and Faramir was honoured to be greeted by the famed elven Lord Elrond himself. Faramir had painstakingly copied a few sentences from one of the books – his father not having allowed him to take the old books to Rivendell – and showed them to the Lord, who told him that this was the elder language of the elves, Quenya, and not some secret code. Curiously enough, he had frowned, too, when he read the words. But he seemed pleased that Faramir exhibited such interest in elven culture and immediately promised to have his best tutors teach Faramir; he himself would not be one of them, as he considered two other elves to have greater skill in Quenya. At first, Faramir was relieved to not be sitting across Lord Elrond and risk being found unworthy. Until he heard and understood who would be teaching him instead: Lord Elrond's chief advisor Erestor, and the valley's commander Glorfindel, an elf who had seen the First Age and returned from death.

Faramir adjusted quickly, however, and his tutors found no fault in him. The young human was like a sponge soaking up water. He made progress quickly, aided by a large number of books in Quenya in Lord Elrond's library, and the fact that whoever knew Quenya in the valley would speak to him in that tongue only.

Faramir had handed his tutors the copied excerpt, gaining a laugh from Glorfindel and Erestor. Still, the elves had all refused to tell him why and instead had said that he should find out himself when he had learned enough Quenya to read.

Thus the Gondorian was very surprised that his tutors gave him not only texts on warfare, history and poems, but also texts of more... explicit nature. With flushed cheeks he stuttered:

"Why... why is this important?"

Glorfindel gave him an unconcerned look. "If you want to learn Quenya, you should learn all of it."

Thus Faramir submitted to translating rather embarrassing passages. He tried to tell himself that he had heard a lot worse with the rangers, but it was not quite the same faced with two such revered lords as Erestor and Glorfindel.

As the weeks went by and he came close to having spent eight months away from home, he picked up the excerpt from the book of the king's library and to his delight found that he was able to decipher most of it. And then he blushed bright red when he understood.

The field is only ready for the seed when it is wet and warm. Alas, if the –and this word Faramir did not know, but could soon guess– does not grow firm, the ellon should go find the following herbs: ...

Faramir stopped reading. He started again. And stopped. Suddenly he understood why his tutors made him read those erotic texts – they had known right away what that book in Minas Tirith was about. And so had Lord Elrond and Mithrandir, but neither had deigned to tell him.

Gathering his senses, Faramir stalked out of the room and to his tutors' office. They shared one since Elrond insisted that they complimented each other well and – most importantly – made certain that both did their duty, whether it was the boring and unpleasant task of planning a guard duty roster or reading through the minutes of the last council.

Faramir slapped the paper onto Erestor's desk and exclaimed:

"Why didn't you tell me? I brought an excerpt of a book full of... indecencies and you never told me! Not even Lord Elrond told me!"

Glorfindel merely blinked innocently at him, while Erestor attempted to disguise a laugh as a cough.

"You wanted to learn the language and be able to read the books," Glorfindel pointed out. "What does it matter what the subject is?"

"They're in the king's library! How come no one ever noticed? How did they even get there?"

Erestor shrugged. "We cannot tell you that either, but rest assured, they are not the only books of that nature in Middle-earth. I wager that even King Thranduil has at least one, and he doesn't care for Quenya."

"I'm reasonably certain that he commissioned a translation," Glorfindel remarked.

"Possibly."

"Wait!" Faramir said, holding up a finger. "Who says that the other books are of the same nature?"

"No one," Glorfindel replied. "But it is very likely. You need to know that back in the First Age and the beginning of the second the elves wrote a lot of books on sexuality. Although those copies in your libraries are obviously not very good ones: the good ones always have pictures. It was a veritable revolution at the time." He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "I still remember the days back in Valinor when you couldn't even say 'bosom' without being called to task."

"Hear! Hear!" Erestor added. "If you like, we can give you better copies from our library. I know for a fact that we have at least fifty tomes, and I believe that Elrond himself has a few more."

The ranger blushed hot red. "Thank you, but I don't think that's necessary. I think it would be best if the rest of Minas Tirith never knew what those books are all about."

Erestor grinned. "I'm sure you know your people best," he said. "In any case, I'm certain you've learned much more in Rivendell than how elves couple and how many words and euphemisms we have for 'erection'."

Becoming bold, Faramir said:

"Actually I haven't learned all of those. In fact, there's one here which I have not seen before."

The ranger pointed to the word in question which he hadn't recognized earlier.

"Ah, yes," Glorfindel nodded sagely. "I suppose your lessons are not done then."

Faramir stayed for a full year before returning to Minas Tirith. He had indeed learned more than the many expressions for a man's or a woman's sexual organs and the names of various positions. Glorfindel had taught him warfare as well, and Erestor had added some strategy lessons.

Denethor was pleased with his younger son, and Boromir welcomed him home with open arms. The first thing Faramir did – after a good night's sleep – was to go to the king's library.

"So, what are these books about?" Boromir asked. Having had to do without his brother for so long, he wanted to remain close for the time being.

Faramir opened the first book. He could see now that two of them were in fact volumes of the same title with a type of manual on sexual intercourse as well as a number of remedies against impotence and sexual maladies. Another book contained erotic poetry, the fourth was a series of love letters two princes famous in elven history had reportedly written to each other – Erestor claimed that it was all fiction, while Glorfindel maintained it was the truth – and the fifth was in fact a romance novel with a good dose of sex mixed in.

"Oh they're quite inconsequential," Faramir replied, giving his voice a note of disappointment. "Really not worth anyone's time or thought."

He chose the book of letters as lecture before bed.

According to one of Tolkien's letters, Quenya was in fact known and used by scholars and people of high standing in Gondor (Source: Letter 347). I only came across this information after writing 'Curious'. Thus please bear in mind that in this story, Gondorians do not know Quenya, or at least not enough to decipher erotic literature.

Thank you for reading. Reviews are always welcome.