Private with
@Rillewen
Domanol Raxëlilta, meeting
Duinion
FLASHBACK – approx. 35 years ago. Marketplace, 2nd Circle
In response to
THIS POST
Whoever had once told the small boy that it helps to retrace your steps, had probably not meant that he should walk – literally - backwards, very wobbly and therefore .. slowly; but for all that .. very unsensibly. The entire ‘adventure’ of course was essential and so the terrifying amount of times that his young life had come under threat just in the last hour alone had to be worth it. Even if he had been told in no uncertain terms not to leave the house by himself. What better way to prove that he could do so, than by doing so ? Besides he was going to be seven years old on his next birthday (if he lived that long); which meant he was six and at least two weeks old thus far. And
Domanol had already learnt how to weigh up the worst case scenario when he got stuck between a rock and a hard place. As he invariably did. At an amazingly consistent rate for one of such an age. This would be at least the third time this week.
The book he remembered .. he had put it down, ever so briefly .. when he had stopped to pick up an interesting looking beetle. Just before
Addhor had called for him suddenly to keep up and
Olthel had started walking back to help her classmate up, in case he had fallen. But rising to his even meagre height, the younger boy had grinned and raced his laughing neighbour back to their elders. And he had never thought to pick the book back up … so it
had to still be there ! It had to be ! He really really needed it to be. Not a month before he had gotten into trouble for proudly writing his name inside the cover of the school book. And only after having been reminded that it
was the school’s book, and he ought not to have done that, nor used his elder brother’s ink to manage it at all .. he had sensibly (or so he had thought at the time) tried to do away with the devastation, so the school would have no care. Unfortunately the school did still care, after the small boy had managed to tear the inside cover to a point where the teacher and his mother had both been very unimpressed. And so .. the thought of having to confess he'd lost the replacement book .. after his mother had been forced to reimburse the school for the previously damaged one .. failure was not an option !
He'd done very well so far, in sneaking out undetected. Because sneaking out in order to recover the lost book would be the only way he’d be able to sit and do his homework .. which was what he had been told to do in the first place. He had
tried, albeit halfheartedly to tell
Add what had happened, but his sibling was already embroiled in a serious debate with
Narradir over their school project. Apparently
Thorondir was the worst and most boring Steward for their homework group to be assigned to write a paper on, because he’d ‘lasted no time at all and done nothing at all in that very short time’ ..
Domanol did not care. Neither did
Narradir by all accounts and, while
Olthel was very carefully walking a hot cup of tea upstairs to her father,
Narry had met
Addhor’s unhappy “
But that’s only five sentences” with a triumphant “
So we’re all finished with it then ?”
Domanol had been grinning as he snuck out of the house. Their respective mothers would be home from work in a matter of hours though, and
Narry would be sent home before then, so the young runaway was on the clock here, if he were to get back in time to convince the others not to tell on him.
Walking backwards, wobbly, and slowly … so far had not shown him much success.
If you did not count success as the highest amount of vendors and shoppers and passersby that he could possibly inconvenience, trip up, or otherwise walk in to. Having backed up into a most disagreeable man who did not take kindly to the collision,
Domanol was forced to run in order to avoid a tongue lashing, or worse, and so it was that he was glancing behind him, at such a furious pursuit, and did not rightly realise he’d pushed an even smaller boy out of the middle of the street … not until they both collapsed in a heap safely together after. The speeding cart and it’s horse which had almost trampled one, warding off the angry man who’d chased the other, from interrupting the two boys’ very first introduction.
“
W-who’re you ?” were the first words that
Duinion had ever said to him.
“
I’m Domanol,” he had confessed, as though it ought to have been obvious, even to somebody who he’d never seen before. So when the younger boy simply stared, the ever so slightly elder young boy had slapped the dust off his legs and held out a hand. “
Are you hurt ?” he appraised the stranger, taking in the hint of grazed hands and tear-brimmed hazel eyes. “
You kind of look like you’re hurt. Or are you just sad ?” His waiting hand trembled with encouragement, inviting their friendship to commence. “
Come on, I know what will make you feel better ..”
What would ‘help’ was of course, not the lost book, which it’s keeper had already forgotten about seeking for, all over again.
Gwandhyra Harion (and
Lady Ilisys Azrubêl)
CURRENT DAY – with
Duinion, on the day of his Tirdinen promotion.
At ‘Needful Things’ store, Minas Tirith Marketplace. A Reunion.
For a moment the two men seemed to consider each other, as though they knew and did not know, both at the same time, who they were facing.
Domanol held the advantage, of course, to some degree, as he’d asked
Ilisys to bring his old friend, his blood brother, here. Now. Still, the stunned smack of resemblance in the stranger who stood before him, had rendered even the informed man mute. He had not quite known what to expect, after all; what the long years apart would have done to the man he had known last, when neither one was barely old enough to count themselves a man. And the Lady was a reliably ambiguous informant.
As his old friend seized him up by his scarred hand, and held it in some wonder in his own equally scarred hand,
Domanol released a half-awkward, half-amused “
Hu” .. Shortly before an unrestrained embrace was flung at him, which he rushed into equally as gladly as the other. He did not protest the retained grasp
Duinion kept up either, although his smile faltered slightly at the onslaught of inevitable questions which followed soon afterwards.
“
Yes, it is me. What is left of me.,” he laughed, though it was not so hearty as it was vaguely strained. “
But look to yourself ? You look .. ” he took a moment to fully absorb the other man, in his neat uniform, fresh from a promotional meeting no less.
Domanol tilted his head first one way and then the other, as though he was appraising a work of art. “
Little hairier than I remember,” he teased, even as one eyebrow raised and a hand tugged at his own beard, to indicate his friend’s own, if less wild, facial hair. Such was the Ranger’s lot, with so frequent spells out in the wild, after all. The forests of Gondor did not care for a man’s appearance any more than did the ancient mounds of Arnor. “
But .. it’s you. Gracious. Duinion.” This time there was less humour, replaced by a stirring in the mottled tone of the words. That name. It had been a long time since he had spoke it to it’s owner. “
It’s you, and it’s me. It’s .. we.”
“
I take my leave,”
Isys declared abruptly then, as though either of the pair had even really recalled she still was there at all. And doubting they would pay much heed to her absence either, for she had managed her part and now felt quite superfluous to what might follow. The situation seemed safe enough to leave the two to their own devices, at the least.
“
The most welcome discovery of light comes out of darkness,” she mentioned though, toward the Tirdinen in parting. Extending the candle, as though she had meant only the candle, maybe, .. to
Domanol she nodded once and but briefly, earning a faint smile in return, before fading out of sight behind
Duinion. The door which led back into the shop opened and closed quietly behind her, and the small flame of the light between the two men wavered slightly at the rushing forth of air in both directions.
Domanol raised up the small illumination, sheltering it with his other hand, “
Oh, umm .. where ? Well, away,” he allowed, resuming before he lost his resolve from when the Ranger asked him where he’d been. “
I have been .. away and .. pretty much all the places between there and here since then.” A furrowed brow could not be concealed even by the gloom of the small at the bottom of the staircase.
“
It was safest to have it believed that I was dead,”
Domanol sighed. “
For there are worse things and , .. I did not know,” brown eyes searched wildly for hope in hazel, that the other man could comprehend. “
You do not lead a danger back unto your unsuspecting camp. We could no doubt talk more comfortably upstairs ?” he suggested, clearing his throat, even as he considered how the current environment might be affecting his old friend. “
There are windows up there,” he added, pointedly. “
And somewhere to sit down ? I’m getting old ..” he scoffed even at his own expense. And prepared to lead the way. If
Duinion was willing to allow him to let him try to help his newly (re)-found friend to feel better ... after such a shock encounter.
