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Speaks to the Trees	By : kspence Category: Lord of the Rings Movies > Slash - Male/Male Views: 4968 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings book series and movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
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7. On an interlude in Minas Tirith
Anticipating another adverse reaction, Faramir tightened his hold of his companion before he spoke again. “Now we’re sitting here so happily Shagrat,” he began, “wouldn’t you agree that it’s a little early for such excesses of drama as we’ve already enjoyed together on this fine morning? Now, what on earth –“
- here the Orc wrenched himself away from Faramir’s side and proceeded to pace agitatedly back and forth in front of him -
“Shagrat! What on earth was going through your head when we were together...before?”
“You tell me!” the Uruk cried. “There I was, just having a nice sit-down, minding my own business. Then all of a sudden you turn up, prancing about and waggling your morning stiffy in my face – catching me all unawares. What was I supposed to think?”
“I have never – pranced about - in my life!” protested Faramir. The colour rose to his cheeks. “ And I most certainly did not have a – ‘morning stiffy’ or anything like it, either!”
“Not half, you didn’t!”
“Honestly, Shagrat, sometimes you have a one-track mind.”
“I’m just speaking as I find,” the Orc replied stubbornly. He continued in a reluctant voice - “and - you’re not long back from a spell in the White City either. A lot of times you start out being a bit off with me after that.”
This seemed outrageously unfair to Faramir. “But of all the people at Court,” he protested, “I’m the one who’s always on your side – the only one, if it comes to it!”
“I know that,” the Uruk sighed, “and I’m – grateful to you Goldilocks, of course I am, really. But it’s just last time you went, didn’t you got a right rollicking about – well, the state of things between you and me?”
Actually, the reaction to Faramir’s airily-delivered confirmation to the Court of Minas Tirith at large that all those scandalous rumours were quite true and that yes, he had indeed taken a frightful ex-of-Mordor Uruk into his bed, hadn’t been so much a ‘right rollicking’ as a group of his nearest and dearest standing around staring at him in a ghastly, stunned and embarrassed silence. Though he’d done his best to brazen out the situation while it was happening, Faramir still felt hot and cold with mixed indignation and shame whenever he thought back over it. Shame, if not exactly for the fact of his Orcish lover’s identity then at the time for having caught himself out: as for a split second following his revelation, he’d found himself wondering why he couldn’t have chosen a partner from at the very least – some slightly less socially-unacceptable species.
This truth was obviously something from which Faramir felt it would be better to shield Shagrat, and so he merely replied - “what does it matter if the idea of – the two of us – might take some people a bit of getting used to? I’m sure most of them will come round to it sooner or later.”
“Because that only took about twenty-odd years in your case, didn’t it?” the Orc muttered astutely.
“Be fair, Shagrat! They’ve only just found out!”
The Uruk persevered. “And then there was that ‘special chat’ you went to have with your new King.”
Faramir stared at him for a moment. “Oh, you mean when I received instructions for my covert undercover assignment. Yes, but I told you all about that.”
“Well I’ll tell you something Faramir, when it looked like you were really going to go for me back there for a minute, I couldn’t help thinking maybe you’d had a change of orders, and come back on another one of those secret mission-type things –“
****
It was evening in the Citadel of Minas Tirith, perhaps three months or so before. At the close of that chilly winters day, the Mountains of Shadow were painted with a queer red light as they reflected the sky above them, still blazing in the afterglow of a frosty winter sunset. The time was that quiet span of hours after the main dealings of the day were done, when the upper echelons of King Elessar’s court retired to their quarters in the city, and could attend to personal or private business.
His new Steward Faramir’s public declaration of deepest personal depravity earlier that day notwithstanding, King Elessar would certainly have preferred to try and keep the matter that was currently occupying him as something closed and private. Word had come to him a while before of trouble of some sort, involving the good name of his chief and trusted counsellor in the city coupled – most incredibly – with that of an Orc. The King always made a point of discouraging this kind of scurrilous gossip - no matter who its subject; but he knew that rumour-mongering in one form or another would almost always be a feature of life among the idle at court, and had paid little attention to the tales that the bolder of his courtiers had dared repeat to him.
A flying visit from an outraged Lady Eowyn and her contingent of Rohirrim, who confirmed that Faramir had indeed taken up with the notorious Uruk Shagrat – together, in fact, with a small company of other Orcs - had made him change his mind about the scale of the potential problem. And so earlier that day he had requested an urgent audience with his Steward, fresh on his return from a visit to the provinces. Circumstances however had caused first the King, and then the Steward, to be delayed and before he knew it he was watching the new Prince of Ithilien standing before the assembled court and expressing – with all apparent sincerity – the depth of his feelings for this so-called Mordain ‘lover’.
Faramir was already waiting for him in a chamber off the throne-room. He had been standing by the floor-length windows, gazing at the sunset, and turned at once on hearing King Elessar’s approach. The Steward stood up very straight as he turned to face his King.
“I’ve lived a long life, Faramir,” he began wearily, sitting down in one of the low chairs provided. “And I understand that we cannot always choose to whom we give – or claim to give - our hearts. But, my friend, when you talked openly today in court of your recent intrigue, with your – companion, the -“
“The Orc,” Faramir said, in a serious voice. With a quick shake of the head, he declined the seat the King had offered and remained standing awkwardly before him, his pose painfully self-conscious.
“Forgive me, but I do no more than my duty to ask, and would have you to tell me the degree of import you attach to this current - entanglement.”
“This is no mere entanglement, intrigue – or dalliance!” Faramir cried, colouring up at once. “For in its way it is an affair of many years’ standing. I’ve known this Orc for longer than I’ve known anyone, almost - far longer, indeed, than I have known you!”
The King sighed as he noted his Steward’s desperate manner: his agitation; the over-bright eyes. Knowing Faramir’s character as he did, he had feared it would turn out to be something along these lines. “There’s no use in suggesting you forsake him then, I suppose.”
The young Steward’s expression grew grave. “Do you mean to issue me an order?” he asked softly.
And for the first time King Elessar saw, in Faramir’s narrowed eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw, a definite family resemblance: he thought for a moment of the old Steward Denethor, and found himself forcibly reminded that for all his mild demeanour and pleasant manner, there was a core, or reserve, of something unshakeable in this new Steward and that Faramir, after all, was still his father’s son.
“No, my friend,” he said. “At most I meant perhaps to offer you advice. It will be a difficult course, this path you’re thinking of setting your feet upon. ”
“I should tell you now,” stated Faramir grimly, “that I am resolved to it.”
“You’re quite certain? There would still be time enough, if you wish to reconsider.”
He gave Faramir a period to reply, but the Steward didn’t waver. His face pale now, his jaw set, he shook his head.
The King was regarding him with a long, contemplative look. “The area, then, that you’ve thought to – settle these creatures in,” he said at last, in a businesslike tone, “at least seems suitably remote. Something of a disputed territory – of long standing, in fact, and all the better-chosen for it. That was well done of you, Faramir. Something of a bold decision –“
The Steward shook his head again, thrown off-balance. “But did you not charge me, as warden of the Eastern Marches, with ridding Gondor of all traces of the Dark Lord’s domain?” he exclaimed. “Instead of which, I’ve thrown my lot in with exactly the kind of creature I was sent to extirpate -”
“Your instructions, as I remember them, were to clear the outlying regions of this realm of evil remnants.   So you’d count him as an evil individual, this Orc of yours, would you?”
“I think perhaps - not entirely,” Faramir said.
The King nodded. “That you, Faramir, are willing to stand here and vouch for him tells me more than you might think.”
“But I’d assumed that after this – episode,” the Steward confessed, all perplexed, “I would be sundered of my duties – publicly disgraced - “
“Not necessarily,” the King told him, “Though I won’t deny that opinion among my advisors is certainly divided, as of course it always will be wherever dealings with – this type of creature - are concerned. But still, they do pose a special kind of problem, and it’s one that has ever weighed heavy upon my mind, although – until now – I will admit it’s something I have rarely sought to address. On the other hand, there is a kind of precedent.”
He went on, explaining: “our relations with the Haradrim are always improving, and as you know, there have been several visits already from the emissaries of Dunland at court. We’ve even brokered a peace – of sorts - with Umbar -”
“Largely by assimilating it,” Faramir put in.
“Unavoidably, as I’d be the first to acknowledge,” the King replied, “but again, a kind of truce with those who formerly, counted themselves among our enemies is officially underway. And the fact remains that in Umbar, the people there – well you’ve seen them, Faramir, and it’s obvious that many of them – the Corsair men and women - are more than half-Goblin to begin with.   Do you begin to see the point I’m attempting to make to you?”
Unsure, but filled with a strange, leaping feeling of hope, Faramir asked him to go on.
“It would certainly be – convenient for us, if their kind didn’t, or somehow suddenly ceased to exist.   But the alternative – to set out on the deliberate extermination of an entire race, already wide-spread – already being assimilated, as you might put it – into human bloodlines up and down the land? Whether we, personally might wish to tolerate these creatures or not, that’s a strategy I would never, willingly, embark upon. ”
The King leaned back in his seat. “So, for the time being, we’ll allow your Orcish settlement to stay the mountains, where it belongs. But in addition to your other activities, I expect to have you regularly monitoring the situation up there. Attend to it personally, and report anything out of the ordinary directly to me. I take it that will fit in with your plans?”
The Steward nodded mutely, scarcely able to believe his ears.
“And I’ll speak plainly, Faramir,” the King continued, fixing his Steward with a beady look. “Though you won’t like to hear it, this arrangement we’ve agreed upon may not turn out to be a lasting one. If there should be trouble of a serious type, or other issues we find we can’t resolve – we may have to come up with something else.”
“Which would involve –“
“I said I wouldn’t set out to exterminate your Orcs willingly. It’s in your hands to ensure we won’t have recourse for - anything else.”
Kneeling before his King, Faramir clasped his hands in gratitude, thanking him profusely; until at last the increasingly discomfited sovereign petitioned him to cease.
“Now, Faramir,” the King added as the Steward took his leave, “try and have a word with Master Gimli, before you set off on your travels again. He thinks he’s heard talk about some fabulous source of mithril on that mountain, and has all sorts of elaborate plans for rebuilding the city gates – “

TBC

A/N - Dear Moniquill, thanks so much for the review! It's always great to hear from you and I was really pleased to hear that this series of stories is still keeping your interest.  And you've been following it since the start! Wow, I find that - really flattering, yet kind of amazing!   Many thanks for that.
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Speaks to the Trees