The Heart of the Maze

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARANDUIN!!!

*cough cough*

Happy Birthday to Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…
Happy Birthday to Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu……..
Happy Birthday, Baranduin,
Happy Birthday to Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu……..
….AND MANY MOOOOOOOOOOORE….

My first gift to you is NOT singing that or recording it or in any way actually making sounds. Cannot carry a tune in a bucket.

My second gift to you is a little pressie, one written specially for and actually inspired by you!

This fic is set after the events related in The Fall of the Steward. After Denethor fell, Frodo and Faramir and others began to resettle Ithilien. I actually got the idea for this when I read your "News from Umbar," and the idea of following their lives afterwards seemed so much fun. But I didn't finish it. However, since it's your birthday, and you inspired this, it seemed a good chance to finish it!

Disclaimer: Written for fun, not money, and no intent to infringe on copywrite!

PG-13

Unwrap and enjoy!



Frodo was careful to stand upright, legs slightly spread, and shoulders well back. In the past few months, he'd learned ways to reinforce the message that he was not a child despite the fact that most of the people around him were two to three feet taller than he was.

"Faramir, the guard at the gate turned me back. He said it was your orders. Why?"

Faramir looked up from the desk where he was going over old maps of Ithilien with Beregond.

"Hmm? Oh, the gate. Yes, I've ordered that all the women and children stay in the settlement until further notice."

"But I'm not."

"What?"

Frodo could tell that Faramir wanted to get back to his work, but this was important.

"I'm neither a woman nor a child."

Faramir straightened entirely, letting the scroll he'd been poring over roll messily up. He looked at Frodo, an expression Frodo recognized as wariness in his blue eyes.

Frodo stared back, refusing to give ground.

Faramir turned to Beregond. "I'm sorry, Beregond. Could we talk later, after lunch perhaps?"

Beregond smiled at Frodo, then rose to his feet and nodded. "Certainly, my lord. Send for me when you're ready."

Frodo stepped aside to allow Beregond to leave, but maintained his erect, even martial, posture.

"Frodo, come sit down." Faramir had moved away from the desk and was sitting in a large chair, tattered and worn, but soft and comfortable, one he had insisted upon moving from Minas Tirith.

Frodo shook his head. If he went to Faramir, they'd end up cuddled together in the deep, soft chair, and he would never be able to make Faramir listen to him. This way, they were more or less eye to eye.

"Later. After we talk. Why are you doing this?"

Faramir stretched out his long legs, clad in green leggings, stretching a bit as he relaxed. "The men have reported Orcs in the area. It's not safe for anyone who's not armed to be outside the walls."

"They report Orcs at least once a week," Frodo said. "And most of the time, no more is seen of them."

"Most of the time, yes. But…"

"But I cannot stay indoors, inside the walls, all my life," Frodo interrupted. "I need to be outside."

Faramir sighed. "I know, love, but, it's not forever. Just until the scouts can be sure that it's safe. Until then only armed men will be allowed out. I'm sure it won't be long. Shall we plan nuncheon?" Faramir held out a hand, coaxing.

Frodo blinked, ignoring the hand and the promise of food, concentrating on what Faramir had said. Only armed men. "So if I'm willing to carry my weapons, I can go outside?" he asked.

"You've not been trained," Faramir said. "So, I don't--"

Faramir had begun training Frodo to fight both with a dagger and a sword, but the training had been interrupted when they'd been summoned back to the city, and by Denethor's death, and the new attempt to settle Ithilien which King Elessar had appointed Faramir to oversee.

"But I can finish training," Frodo pointed out.

"True," Faramir said reluctantly. "But I would still worry about you."

"You cannot keep me in some room wrapped in silk," Frodo said. He did not want to argue with Faramir, but he was feeling that Faramir's desire to protect him was becoming stifling. Something had to change. He'd been thinking this for some time, but this recent order reinforced the feeling.

"Would you let me prove myself to you?" he asked.

"Prove? How?"

"A challenge. A wager. To show you that I am able to take care of myself."

"What sort of challenge?" Faramir sounded doubtful.

Frodo thought a few moments. "Hobbits are very good at moving quietly and unseen," he said. "We aren't trained warriors, but we're not untutored children either. Could we set up a contest of sorts? We can pick an object, anything, say, one of the ceramic goblets we have. Place it at an agreed-upon location in the woods. You surround it with your guards, and I try to retrieve it. If I can make it safely back here, you agree that I can come and go as I wish unless the settlement is under attack, or you have good reason to believe that it soon will be."

"It seems a great deal of the men's time would be taken up by such a contest," Faramir said.

"Set a time limit. Make it voluntary. Off-duty only." Frodo said. He'd spent some time talking to the men who were the White Rangers, the Guard appointed to protect Faramir and the settlement. He'd seen the kind of contests and wagers with which many of them filled some of their off-duty time, and thought that his idea would be seen as an interesting way to spend an afternoon by many, and a good chance for a bet by many others.

"I'm not planning on trying to outdo your whole Guard," he said. "What was the number of Orcs reported that led you to order that the women and children be confined to the settlement?"

"Eight or ten," Faramir said.

"That number, then," Frodo said. "And you can pick the location and set the time."

Faramir sat, arms clasped in front of him, watching Frodo for some time. Then he nodded. "Very well," he said. "I'll ask Beregond to see if any of the men are willing to volunteer. And if enough are, I'll decide upon the location and time."

Frodo smiled, relieved. "Thank you," he said.

Faramir held out his arms again. "Why don't you come over here and thank me properly?" he asked.

Frodo crossed the room and climbed into Faramir's lap, clasping his arms around his neck, and facing him, legs bent and braced against the chair. Faramir set his hands on Frodo's hips and waited.

Leaning forward, Frodo placed his hands on the smooth leather of Faramir's surcoat, shut his eyes, breathing in the fresh, green scent of Faramir, brushing his lips across his, nuzzling a little closer, pressing down. Teasing him with his tongue, Frodo slowly deepened the kiss, wiggling forward, feeling Faramir harden beneath him, his hips twitch up. Faramir's arms went around Frodo, tightening.

Pulling back, Frodo laid his head on Faramir's shoulder. "So what is for nuncheon," he said sweetly.

Laughing, Faramir relaxed underneath him, arms still around him. "Frodo," he said, "Everyone should live with a hobbit in order to appreciate what the most important things in life are."

"Gandalf says that too," Frodo said smugly.

"I know. He's the one who told me. Right before he advised me to always keep a generous supply of food handy."

Frodo kissed him again to punish him for that remark. In fact, it would probably need several more kisses before Faramir would be sufficiently punished.

* * * * * * *

A handful of days later, Frodo waited in the Lodge until the agreed-upon time. One of their half dozen ceramic goblets was currently sitting next to the overflow of a small pool about an hour's walk from the settlement. Frodo was amused at Faramir selecting the pool, the place where they had first made love, a place they still visited whenever they could.

Eleven of the Guard would be around it, hiding in the woods. Frodo would have three hours to attempt to retrieve the goblet and return to the Lodge. The starting time was the tenth hour from the rising of the sun, what would be just about teatime in the Shire.

Faramir opened the door. "It's time, Frodo."

Frodo fastened his elven cloak and made sure his dagger was handy. Faramir had insisted that he be armed if he was in the woods. He kissed Faramir, then left the settlement.

He saw none of the men in the first half of the walk from settlement to pool, moving quietly through the flowering groves and woods. He had thought Faramir would group them fairly closely around the pool, with only eleven to work with. The first man was in a large cedar. The second lay on the ground, in a thicket of dense, leafy shrubs.

Frodo's strategy involved two gifts--the first being that hobbits just knew how to move quickly and quietly through the countryside, especially in woods, and the second, his elven cloak. The ignorance of the men of Gondor about the Elves meant that Faramir did not realize the cloak had any virtue other than warmth and a resistance to water. But since Frodo always wore his cloak in the woods, he did not think that his use of it was unfair.

He had moved quickly through the woods, alert for any sign of men. Even Faramir's Rangers, trained in the woods, seemed noisy to hobbit ears. Frodo located the first one by a muffled sneeze before he even came in sight of him. So he was able to pass well to the left of the large cedar in which one branch hung unusually low.

The second one wore an elaborate cloak brooch, something Frodo was surprised that he was allowed to wear. Still, he was off-duty today. The bright reflection of his brooch could be seen some distance away. Nothing shone like that naturally in the woods.

Frodo passed that man easily as well, and was soon in sight of the pool. He could see the goblet, blue and white, sitting on the carved basin next to the overflow. Frodo settled himself under a cypress and carefully watched the pool and its surround.

Faramir could have posted one of the men right beside the goblet, but Frodo knew he would not be so unfair. However, Frodo was sure there would be someone fairly close. Finally, he caught a glimpse of movement a little above the lake, in a thicket of dark-leaved bay trees. He spent a while examining the rest of the area carefully in case there was another, but finally decided there was only the one.

The Guards had to cover all possible approaches to the pool, so they were probably scattered.

Frodo pulled his hood well over his face, and went to his hands and knees. The cloak covered him completely, and he moved silently and slowly toward the goblet. If he moved too quickly or made a noise, the cloak could not protect him. It was not magic, only woven to reflect the beauty of tree and leaf, water and sky, earth and air. But over the years, Frodo had learned that if he moved slowly, the cloak tricked the eye of any observer into believing he saw only something like wind in the grass. Slow, uneven movements blended into the rhythm of the earth.

The secret was never to think of the time, just the goal. An uncounted time later, measured only by his heartbeats, Frodo was beside the goblet. And then the goblet was inside his tunic.

Frodo began to move slowly away, in a different direction. If the watcher in the bay thicket had his eyes on the goblet at the exact moment Frodo had taken it, he would probably be caught. He was banking on the need of someone on guard to watch the area, not just a single object, fairly small.

And as he slowly faded back into the cover of the trees, Frodo was glad to see that he had apparently been right. Or lucky.

He took even greater care returning to the Lodge, returning a different way, discovering three more men in various hiding places. The last had taken the contest so lightly that he was asleep and snoring.

Well before the bell rang to mark the end of his time, Frodo pushed open the Lodge door and handed the goblet to Faramir.

Later that evening, as they sat in the Hall eating dinner and watching the Guard settle all the wagers that had been made, Faramir asked him, quietly, "Are you going to tell me how you did it?"

Frodo smiled at him. "I told you, hobbits are good at moving quietly in the woods." Frodo was happy to see that nearly a third of the Guards had bet on his success, and they were enjoying collecting their winnings and teasing Anborn, the man who had been set in the bay thicket, over his apparent sleepiness in the afternoon.

Faramir slid an arm around his shoulders. "Very well, Frodo. And I will tell the gate guards the order restricting women and children to the settlement does not aply to you. But promise me, you will always be as quiet and caareful as you were today."

"I promise," Frodo said. "But I've beeen wondering about something."

"What?"

"Given that the people here are no longer living behind the stone walls of Minas Tirith and that there can be many dangers in the forests, why aren't the children, boys and girls, all trained in basic woodcraft and self defense? Then the women wouldn't have to be restricted either."

Silence fell around him.

Frodo looked up to find Faramir gazing at him, mouth open. Beyond Faramir, the men sitting on either side of him were looking at Frodo with horrified expressions. The women sitting beside the men were looking at Frodo and smiling.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

After a moment, Faramir shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "But I think I'd better take you to bed before you come up with yet another idea that will completely turn the world upside down."

"What do you mean? It only makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Come, Frodo," Faramir said, standing up and then leaning over to pick Frodo up. "Bed. And tomorrow we can talk more about this idea of yours."

Frodo snuggled down. Usually he would protest being carried, feeling as if he was being treated like a child. But tonight was different.