I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster

I called it Fate that I should fail

Read I called it Fate that I should fail

A part of him stands in a muddy field, above him a sky boiling with leaden clouds.  Particulate matter, he notes clinically.  On an industrial scale.  Careless extraction and no filtration leading to the spread of potentially-lethal pollutants. It reminds him of the skies above Armenelos.  Darker.  Uglier.  A larger network of factories.

There is a battle raging around him, but he hears none of it, feels nothing of it.  Mud churns up; oily black rain spatters down around him, but none of it touches him.  It is like an illusory stage play, images conjured from the ingenious contraptions of smoke and mirrors.  He and a crowd of the other philosophers once attended a showing at the National Theater—they were very drunk at the time, which is perhaps why he thought he would enjoy a noisy, rowdy theatrical spectacular.  It was interesting, though the headache he got from it lingered for days.  (The National—it was shut down in the latest purges for supposedly harboring Faithful elements. He wonders what became of the machines they used for the illusions—they were very complex.  Very beautiful.)

There is a warrior beside him, fighting a monster.  This is, he knows, what warriors do; he himself has never been so brave.  This warrior throws back their head, but the only words that he hears are, “I am no man!”

A single shaft of sunlight pierces the clouds high above and lances down to land upon her upraised sword.  From thence, the light—whether it is a disturbance of the ether, as claimed by the Royal Physician, or a series of tiny particles, the theory he himself favors—bounces into his eye, piercing through it into the skull behind in a burst of pain.  The monster roars, tinny and faraway.

black oil oozes

a steady dripping noise

“What did you see?”

“Nothing.  Phantasms.  Nothing.”

He pried his eyes open slowly, but with the visions fading, there was nothing to take their place.  He lay in pitch darkness, shivering.  He hurt, everywhere—no extreme exertion, he thought slowly, but fatigue.  Intense fatigue, and a sort of sharp, knife-edge awareness that the touch of his tonic was ebbing.

He wracked his brains but could not bring to mind why he lay on cold, dank stone, or why his eyes were wet.  Then the light returned, sharp as a knife, moving from eye to eye.

“Your pupils are dilating well,” a cold voice said.  “There is no concussion or other damage to the brain.”

Another light snapped on, harsh and white, striking him with a full-body intensity (this could not be the movement of some aphysical wave, he thought stubbornly, it must be particulate in origin).  

“Look at me,” said the cold voice, and he looked as directed, and—another part of him is looking, too—saw a tall, slim figure with golden eyes and red-gold hair, lips pursed in a contemplative expression—sees a form of riven plated metal, loosely centered in a roaring blaze, the ventral plates above the chest hewn open and gaping empty, like a man with his heart torn out—

—and Nimruzimir remembered.

Answering questions and directing the students in one of the Royal Physician's booming lectures, half his mind on this dispute over the nature of light, not that said Royal Physician would ever hear the opinion of someone barely out of his apprenticeship—the doors opening—the King’s Men.  The High Priest.  He had thought there must be some mistake—seen that one of them was carrying that tell-tale vial of turquoise-blue, the only thing that stopped his visions and his fits—thought Lady, as if there was any use in that, and Be damned at whichever of the others had told them (who had even known? he must have been careless)—

—and then he had a hole in his memory, and now he was here, beneath a sharp white light, listening to the sizzle of the lightning-lines and looking up at the swooping vast architecture of the Black Temple itself.  As he looked up at them, the lines of the columns above seemed to undulate, as if they were underwater and he felt

an immense pressure compressing his chest, the impenetrable blackness of the uncaring sea, tainted black with the bloody oil of the isle

“Oh, dear,” he said quietly, half to himself.

The king’s mad priest regarded him with those queer cat-like golden eyes.  He wore white, and it was not stained, so either the stories were exaggerated, or it was early, yet, in the day’s work.  

“So,” said Tar-Mairon, conversationally, as if they sat across from one another in one of those little cafés that were so fashionable, and not at all as if Nimruzimir were spreadeagled across a slab of cold stone that had likely already been colored with the blood of prior sacrifices.  “You are quite a far-sighted prophet, I take it.”

“I am also a f-f-fair hand at natural philosophy,” Nimruzimir shot back waspishly, then realized—perhaps too late—that it might not be wise to behave so under the current circumstances.

Tar-Mairon smiled, however, and Nimruzimir wished, not for the first time, that he was possessed of an ability to read the emotions of others in their expression.  A smile could mean so many things.  “It is commendable to search for an understanding of the world, and I have been told that you are indeed driven.  That is not, however, what I want from you.”

Nimruzimir’s breath shuddered in his lungs.  The flame crackles and pops; he can feel the heat of it on his unprotected face, blazing.

“Wh-wh-what do you w-w-want from m-me?” he whispered.  (There were rumors, of course—among the natural philosophers, some of these amounted to something rather more substantial, as certain among them required cadavers for their experiments.  There were also rumors that sometimes the subjects were not actually delivered fully deceased, though Nimruzimir had always dismissed these.  Now, he was wondering very urgently whether he ought to have dismissed them.)

“How far can you see?” Tar-Mairon asked.  “When you are not taking that interesting concoction?”

“I d-d-don’t know.  I h-h-have been taking it since I was quite y-y-young.”  He had worked out the recipe with help from his tutor before beginning his apprenticeship at the academy of natural philosophy.

“Foolish, to dull so brilliant a mind.”  His hand ghosted through Nimruzimir’s hair, and it hurt—though it was only the pain of sparking nerves left overexposed by the ebbing of their expected dosage and in desperate need of relief.

“My mind remains sh-sharp,” Nimruzimir protested.  “It is only the—f-f-fits—that are impacted.”

“I stand corrected.  You are, after all, a natural philosopher of some repute.  I imagine you have documented the side effects.”

“I h-have.”

“I shall still name it foolish, to shut your eyes to such power within your grasp.”

“I don’t want it.”

But this, Tar-Mairon did not seem to hear; or, if he did, he paid it no heed.  He pursed his lips again.  “Open your mouth, please.”  Nimruzimir obeyed without question.  “Hm.”  A finger lifted up the lid of his left eye, then his right.  The priest stood.  “Your name, before entering the service of our dear Lord Pharazôn, was Pharâzindil?”

A bolt of electricity fizzed down Nimruzimir’s spine.  “N-n-n-no,” he protested.  “No, it—no.”

That golden gaze flicked to his face.  “I apologize,” Tar-Mairon said, with apparent sincerity.  “Your name is Nimruzimir.  But others sometimes called you Pharâzindil?”

“Wh-Why d-does this m-matter?” whispered Nimruzimir miserably.  

Tar-Mairon stooped over him, and Nimruzimir could not look away.  Their gazes locked.  “Your father was good to you,” he said, in a low intense voice.  It feels like fire scorching the skin of Nimruzimir’s face.  “He paid a man to teach you, despite the fact he thought you were a female, and Númenoreans believe females do not have the necessary logical minds to perform natural philosophy.  But you could not attend classes with your fellows.  You were always relegated to the end of the day.  To the edges.  Once, a man you thought was offering to share the joy of knowledge attempted to rape you.  Finally, when your father offered you in marriage to a fool, and you saw the life this island would force you into, you fled.  But you found no real camaraderie among the other philosophers, did you?”

No.  He had not.  Nimruzimir breathed hard.  This was not how he had expected to be stripped open.  “I d-did not b-believe there was a way to r-read minds,” he said, feebly.

“There is not.  I recognize a like soul,” said Tar-Mairon.  “Did you know that I am a slave, kept entirely for the emperor’s pleasure?”

Nimruzimir shook his head.  Three fingers traced, burning, down his cheek.

“Well, I am.  I can more easily cloak myself in my preferred shape than you can, but there the differences end.  We are similar.  Will you not become my eye, little prophet?”

Nimruzimir was trembling, he noticed, and he briefly caught himself wondering how it was that the human form was capable of responding the same way to both cold and fear so similarly that it was hard to tell which impetus was the root of a tremor.

Wilt thou, little prophet?

The echoes of laughter run up the sides of the temple walls.  The hands of the clock tick forward.  The ocean runs in, biting eager chunks out of rock like bread, collapsing pillars, consuming everything in its path.  Look at the weight of the dead, Nimruzimir! exults the Lady in Red.  By thy hand, this can all come to pass.

The clock hands spin backwards.  “Mother!” screams Nimruzimir, but his voice is not louder than the howling of the wind.  The open door rattles against its frame.  Lightning flares; thunder rolls across the sky, and he gives a short scream, stumbling back and almost falling.  His father’s hand catches him and slams the door shut so hard it almost bounces back.

“She’ll take no harm,” says his father’s clipped voice.  “Her people can walk through the forest in any weather.  What did you say to her?”

What did you do, Nimruzimir?  What will your legacy be?  Which way will your hand turn the island’s rudder?

A pair of hands in his; he looks up into the hooded dark eyes of the Royal Physician.  “Too late now,” the man says, but he gives Nimruzimir a queerly kind smile.

The scalpel is cold beneath his hands.  “You’ll need to sever the spinal cord quickly.  You don’t want them thrashing.”  He turns and meets the terrified eyes of the boy on the slab.

What have you done?  What are you doing?  What will you do?

He opened his eyes into the bright mad gold ones of Tar-Mairon and shook his head.  

“Oh, come now, Nimruzimir, don’t be foolish.  I will celebrate your accomplishments as well as your visions, you know.”

He clenched his fists.  He was not brave.  He was not kind.  Sometimes he hated the other philosophers, with their braying laughter, their easy camaraderie, the way they had always been encouraged in their paths with no thought given to it.  He hated his mother, for leaving; his father, for never, never seeing him for who he was.

But he could not hold that scalpel.  Just last month, he had gotten into a flaming argument over the correct disposal of some of the processed waste from a particular alchemical reaction.  He was still sending letters to the Royal Physician in the hopes he would be listened to, and he had surprised himself by sending a warning letter to the poverty-stricken families living in that area of the river.  He would not be listened to.  He was never listened to.  He had never said anything about the sacrifices taken to the Black Temple.  He had once let out a rat who was to be sacrificed to an experiment he personally felt would not bear fruit, but he had not let them all out.  He was not a good man.

But he could not hold that scalpel.

“Hmmm,” Tar-Mairon said.  “I will have to convince you, then.  I am sorry.”

Nimruzimir closed his eyes.

* * *

The actual injuries were not so very terrible, Nimruzimir pointed out to himself, cradling his hand to his chest.  Not yet, at any rate.  In addition, anything that could become infected had been cleaned and carefully dressed.  It seemed that Tar-Mairon would prefer to have his cooperation than his death, though he had no idea how long this sufferance would last.

After careful consideration, he was not certain this was a material improvement over immediate sacrifice, though he certainly preferred it to vivisection.

When the light appeared this time, it was not the sudden bright flood of overhead lighting accompanied by the snap and sizzle of the lightning lines, but a stealthy pooling of soft gold, beginning as a crack and growing to an oblong.  Now unbound, Nimruzimir moaned softly and tried to huddle back into a dark corner, the animal instinct to hide too powerful to be ignored, though some small corner of his mind pointed out he was only using up precious energy.

“P-P-Please,” he heard himself say.  It could not have been more than a few hours since Tar-Mairon had left him.  “C-Can I j-just have—just a little l-longer?  To consider?”  His voice was hoarse and rough with pain, and at any other time the sound of it so might have been rather encouraging.  It was far easier to sound like the others did when he had been screaming.

“He’s alive and unbound,” someone said.  

“All right.  Hurry,” said a second voice, sounding tense.

The golden light continued to grow, slow and gentle.  Irritably, he was forced to concede that this kind of soft and apparently continuous luminescence was easier to explain as a disturbance in the ether.  And then his thoughts were scattered to the four corners because the person who entered was actually the Royal Physician himself, holding a lantern, and, behind him, a man Nimruzimir did not recognize.

He flinched back as the Royal Physician handed the lantern to the other man and went to his side.  “Nimruzimir,” he said gently.  “How badly are you injured?”

“Why ask him?”

But Nimruzimir was answering automatically at the gentle authority in the voice of the man whom thus far he had largely seen in the context of particularly important seminars.  “Two broken f-fingers, th-three m-missing f-fingernails, and a s-single cracked r-rib on the l-lefthand side—ah, that is, m-my lefthand side—third d-down from the top, I th-think.”

“Do you think you can walk? That rib might make it harder to help you, but I’ll do my best.”  He had always seemed short and stout from a distance in his voluminous academic robes, but he was now wearing a simple shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and Nimruzimir saw that what he had always taken for fat alone actually boasted a fair admixture of brawn as well.

“I, I d-don’t—kn-know,” Nimruzimir said stupidly.  “What’s, I duh—I don’t understand.”

“Come on, up you get, lad.”  With terrible, focused gentleness, the Royal Physician slipped an arm around Nimruzimir’s waist.  “Careful now.”

Nimruzimir went up with him, whimpering slightly at the pain of his body’s motions.   He found that he could stand, if he canted sideways against the Royal Physician, though his rib twinged terribly.  This close, his breasts must be visible, as they were no longer bound, but though the dark eyes flicked appraisingly across Nimruzimir’s form, all he said was, “We’re leaving.  We don’t have much time.  This is Corco, he’s one of Elendil’s men.”

The lean, dark figure glanced back down the passageway.  “This is madness,” he said.  “You wouldn’t do a thing for any of the other sacrifices, but he comes for a boy in your order—”

“I know,” the Royal Physician said gruffly, his face pulling in a queer grimace.  “I am aware of the fucking hypocrisy.  Do you want my help, or don’t you?”

Corco made an expressive noise, but he sidled over and offered Nimruzimir an arm.  Between them, they got him moving, and once his legs had started to move, Nimruzimir found that he was mostly capable of walking on his own, although it hurt a little, and his head was very muddled.

They went out of the room and down a long corridor with a too-high ceiling.  Nimruzimir had some trouble here.  The walls kept—keep—fading in and out, and he can see tiny jellyfish, limned by some shimmering internal blue light, floating upward away into the darkness.

“Czerneboth’s cunt, don’t faint on me now,” growled the voice of the Royal Physician, and the obscenity brought him back to the present (or was it the past), to the final place of darkness and despair.  

“It’s my t-tonic,” he managed to say.  “I h-have f-fits without it.”

Another very vigorous obscenity.  “What kind of fits?”

Nimruzimir’s throat closed up.

I will have to answer him.  I am sorry.  She rises from the water, stained white dress clinging to her form, so like Nimruzimir’s hated incarnation.  She looks like a bride of Númenor a week after drowning herself.  (White is the color of truth and death according to Nimruzimir’s mother’s people.  Foolish superstition, it is only a pigment, or the lack of one.)  Despite her passage, the water’s surface remains so still it might be glass.  Reflected in the glass is Lilóteo, the Royal Physician.  A hand reaches out and shatters the image into a thousand thousand shards.

All the reflections move at once, all in different directions.  It is too much for Nimruzimir’s beleaguered mind, but he catches some of them, all the same.  A yelling child, standing beneath a great spreading oak and—

—a young man in a black greatcoat, standing on the other side of a wrought-iron fence in the pouring rain and—

—that same dark young man drives a wicked-looking knife into the throat of a red-suited King’s Man, and the light drains from Nimruzimir’s own dying eyes and—

—he wears the maroon robes of an Academy man, dark eyes snapping, wild long beard sleek and tamed, walking between rows of apprentice philosophers and Nimruzimir’s head turns up as if listening to his lecture and—

—he wears the white robes of the Black Temple, and his face is expressionless, though his hands are crimson, and Nimruzimir stands one pace behind him, face cracked open in a queer and terrible smile and—

—he convulses with a fever, drenched in sweat, the terrible swollen mark of an eye burned deep into the muscles of his shoulder, while an exhausted-looking Nimruzimir blots the sweat away from his forehead with a white handkerchief and—

—frail and old, beard white but wrinkled face open, he leans back against a tree in the dappled sunlight, and another frail old man curls into the crook of his arm, and—

—that too is Nimruzimir himself—

(“Your fates are intertwined,” whispers the voice of the Lady in White, “one way or another.”)

There was a light swaying gently above him, a roaring noise that grew louder and fainter, punctuated by arrhythmic rolling bursts of sound.  His head lay pillowed on something soft, and his mouth tasted like death, as dry as if sand had been poured into it.  After blinking a little, he automatically started to reach to the side to find his tonic.  This was a mistake.  A soft whimper fell out of his mouth.

“Hold still, hold still,” the Royal Physician’s voice said hastily.  “Moving that arm isn’t going to be fun for a while.”

“Where am I?” croaked Nimruzimir, craning his neck in lieu of trying to sit up.  All he could see was a flickering lantern, casting rings of shadows on the wall. 

“You are on the experimental vessel Shakalzôr, which I am told should attain Andúnië in about another hour.”

“We’re on a ship?” Nimruzimir said.  He frowned.  Something about this did not seem quite correct.  “Armenelos is landlocked,” he asserted, though he was forced to admit that if the Royal Physician himself told him he was wrong about this, he might be willing to accept it.  Geography was not his strong suit.

“Not quite.”  Those strong brows drew together.  “The Shakalzôr does not ride the waves, but the winds.”

“The…ah—I had not realized that research into flight had progressed so far.”

“Well,” said the Royal Physician.  “We haven’t landed yet.”

“Oh.”  He sank back against the cloth pillowed beneath his head.  “What—is happening?”

“That’s kind of a loaded question.”

It seemed like a normal question to Nimruzimir.  “Is it?” he hazarded.

“Well, it’s kind of a loaded answer.”  The Royal Physician grunted.  “You should drink something.”

There was the sound of someone moving around.  The whole room seemed to shift and wobble, but Nimruzimir decided not to mention this, as he could not tell whether this was a consequence of his lack of tonic or if the room was actually dancing around.  He was not certain which was worse.

“Why are you d-d-doing this?” he asked, as the Royal Physician appeared at his side, carrying a battered tin cup of water, which he held out for Nimruzimir to sip at.

“You’re probably dehydrated, man.”

As he grew slowly more conscious, Nimruzimir became steadily more aware that having the Royal Physician’s full concentration on him was an exceedingly intense event, moreso because he was not in a situation where he knew what was expected of him.  “N-no, I do not mean that.  That is self-evident.”  He cautiously raised his uninjured right hand and slowly began to pull himself up onto his right elbow.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” the Royal Physician asked sharply.

“I would prefer not to risk choking, thank you,” Nimruzimir said, nearly as sharply. With an embarrassing little mewling noise, he managed to get himself canted halfway upright without too much strain on the injured rib.

“What did you mean, then?” asked the Royal Physician, as Nimruzimir took the cup with another slight hiss of pain.

It took a moment for Nimruzimir’s beleaguered brain to retrace its way along the previous lines of the conversation, but he managed.  With a great effort, he looked into the Royal Physician’s piercing gaze.  Much as he preferred to avoid the unsettling impact of direct eye contact, he was at least intellectually aware that it had some power to evoke honesty in a conversational partner.  “Why did you c-come for m-me?”

The eye contact was broken immediately.  The Royal Physician turned away from him.  “You’d rather still be there?” he snapped.

His anger was like a physical blow, but it seemed like nothing in the face of the memory of the mad priest’s lack of any detectable emotion as Nimruzimir screamed and babbled.  “I w-would r-rather understand,” he said.

“Fuck,” muttered the Royal Physician.  One hand disappeared in front of him, and Nimruzimir rather thought he was tugging on his beard.  “Look, there’re other things to deal with.  Your tonic, for one thing.  You’re going to need a dose soon.”

“Five hundredths of a g-gram of an analogue to the primary active component of setwall,” Nimruzimir said promptly.  “Not d-difficult to synthesize in a laboratory but I f-find it unlikely you have the f-facilities aboard this craft.  Wh-Why are you trying to avoid answering m-me?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about it.”  The Royal Physician turned around again.  “I don’t answer to you, you’re barely out of your apprenticeship.”

“Y-Yes, I am n-not important,” agreed Nimruzimir quietly.  “I am t-talented but have had little opportunity to demonstrate it.  Is it because you w-want my f-foresight for y-yourself?  Because then I think I w-would rather you had l-left me there.”

The Royal Physician rounded on him.  “Are you insane?” he snarled.  “I wouldn’t leave a dog there!”

Nimruzimir blinked at him.  “You would, and you have?” he said questioningly.  “W-We have all of us l-looked away from the s-sacrifices of the Black Temple.”  It had been easy, then.  He was still surprised at himself.  He would have thought the obvious thing to do would be to cooperate with Tar-Mairon, not allow himself to be tortured.

“Well, what of you, then?” asked the Royal Physician, as if his mind had followed the exact same line of inquiry, and Nimruzimir felt a chill despite himself, thinking of how Tar-Mairon had so easily read his entire being in a few sentences.  “You didn’t need to let him torture you.  He wanted something from you.  You as good as said so.”

Taking a long drink of cool water, Nimruzimir stared down at his hands, which were trembling.  “I asked y-y-you f-first.  And it is not f-f-fair to ask me that.  If you want something from m-me—”

“Fuck that.” The Royal Physician cut him off and turned back to him.  “I need a drink.”  He produced a shining metal hip flask from his pocket and took a long draw, then looked at it critically.  “Can’t justify offering you this,” he said after a moment.  “I know he drugs some of the sacrifices, and you’re already suffering from withdrawal.  Sorry.”  He took a deep breath and settled himself on the side of the cot.  “All right.  Shit.  No, I don’t want anything from you.  I don’t want your—whatever the fuck you have going on.”

“Then why?” Nimruzimir persisted, as if he were also asking himself.

“I don’t have a good fucking answer, I said this to Corco earlier.  Twin gods, I don’t know if he believed me.  Shouldn’t be different, should it?  But the other philosophers were with me, most of ’em.  Wouldn’t have believed it of half of ’em.”  He laughed, strident and harsh.  “You asked what was happening?  The academy’s broken up.  The king’s philosophers have scattered, all but five of them or so.  The queen—”  He brought the flask to his lips again.  “If Corco’s plan works, she’ll be picked up by a small group of Elendil’s men.  About a million things could go wrong, though, so this might mean civil war, or it might just mean the King’s Men crush what remains of the Faithful.  Maybe everything changes, or maybe—”

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe—cold breath ghosts down the back of Nimruzimir’s neck.  What will he mean to you, I wonder?

nothing

everything

changes

always

“—at all.”  Pause.  “Nimruzimir?”

Nimruzimir blinked, trying to will the smears of light to resolve.  “Light is particulate, you know,” he mumbled.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he heard.  “Stay with me, stay—”

There was a violent wrench, and he opened his eyes to daylight.  There were hands on his shoulders.  

“Fuck,” said the Royal Physician’s voice.  His eyes were dark, pupils constricted.  Bright light, perhaps, or he had obtained the aid of a chemical stimulant.  “Pupils responsive to light.  Thank Bieleboth.  Can you hear me?  Nimruzimir?”

“I can hear you.”

“We survived landing.  I’ll get someone on making your tonic as soon as we get out there.  How are you feeling?”

“Terrible, I think,” Nimruzimir whispered.  “It is hard t-t-to s-say.”  He was becoming cognizant of a ferocious headache.

“Do you know how long it’s been since your last dose?”

Wearily, Nimruzimir shook his head.  “I have k-kept myself on the s-same r-regimen since my l-late adolescence, as well,” he said, pre-empting what he presumed to be the next question.  “So I d-do not know how I will react to the l-l-lack.  What—what has the f-frequency of the f-fits been?”

“Oh no,” said the Royal Physician, slipping a surprisingly gentle arm beneath his shoulders.  “You let me worry about that.  For now, I’m your doctor.”

For some reason, this made Nimruzimir giggle.  “You are the Royal Physician,” he said plaintively.  “I am not royalty.”

The eyebrows went up.  “You think I’m still the Royal Physician after all this, man?”  He squeezed Nimruzimir’s elbow gently.  “No.  And it doesn’t matter, because you’re still one of the bravest patients I’ve ever attended.”  He set Nimruzimir on his feet, and Nimruzimir found, to his relief, that he could walk, although his legs were a little shaky. 

“I’m n-n-not.” He could still hear the crack as the first finger broke.  He had not been able to hear the second.  “I don’t—I d-didn’t—th-the only r-reason I said n-no to him was because of a v-vision.  It wasn’t courage, it was m-madness.  Stupidity.”

Shrug.  “Have it your way.  Whatever it was, it was contagious.”

A slim archway had been opened in the side of the ship, and sunlight streamed through it.  They went down three steps and came out into a bright, sunny morning.  Nimruzimir smelled salt on the air and heard the raucous sound of joyous gulls.  He turned sideways and clutched at the Royal Physician’s robe—a gesture unthinkable forty-eight hours previously.  “Why?” he said again.  “I mean, why me?  W-Was it r-random?  You had simply—had enough?  Was it that?”

“What do you want me to say?” the Royal Physician retorted.  He was tired, with less energy available to summon the anger of their last conversation.

“I want—I just want the truth,” Nimruzimir said doggedly.  “It sh-should not matter, should it?  One man should be weighed as another?”

A helpless shrug.  “Yeah, maybe, but they’re not,” said the Royal Physician.  “Listen, with the others, I could tell myself it was nothing to do with me, but you’re a philosopher.  You’re one of mine.  He just walked in—I guess you might not remember after all that, but he just walked in and took you right out of one of my lectures, while you were helping direct the students, Nimruzimir.  I tried to say something, and he didn’t—even—look at me.  Didn’t even bother to have the King’s Men hold me.  I had no power to stop him, and he went right for the most brilliant man I’d seen come into our ranks in years and—and just—” He snapped his fingers.

“You think I am a man?” blurted Nimruzimir.

“Huh?” said the Royal Physician, clearly not expecting this.  His gaze went to Nimruzimir, then up and down him.  “Oh, right, the tits.  Are you a woman in disguise?”

“N-No.  At least—I do not th-think so.”

“Then I think you’re probably a man, I don’t recall Númenor having any other options.”

This was so far from what Nimruzimir had expected from the conversation that he nearly tripped and fell flat on his face.  The Royal Physician dropped a startled obscenity and grabbed him around the waist.  “Careful!”

“I am—I am n-not—I thought you barely knew who I was,” Nimruzimir said.

The Royal Physician grunted.  “I know everyone,” he said.  “Most of them aren’t half as clever as they think they are.  Don’t say much about it, can’t be bothered.  Making friends isn’t—” he cut himself off and shook his head, turning it to the side to change his grip on Nimruzimir, and Nimruzimir smelled alcohol on his breath, though he was evincing no difficulty with motor contorl, fine or otherwise.

They made their way along a wide pale strip of sand towards a path that wound off into the lush forest.  “Elendil’s estate,” said the Royal Physician, shortly.  “It’ll have the best facilities we can get without Pharazôn’s resources.  I told them I wouldn’t come if they couldn’t promise me that.”

“R-Reasonable,” Nimruzimir said faintly.

“You’re going to be okay,” said the Royal Physician.

“It will be interesting, at any r-rate,” Nimruzimir said miserably.  “I presume y-you will take m-meticulous notes.”

“Fuck’s sake, man.”  There was a long, stone bridge.  Several uniformed guards stood along it, but they stood aside when they saw Nimruzimir and the Royal Physician.  “Do you think I’m going to experiment on you?  You’re a patient.”

“It is information,” Nimruzimir said tightly.  His teeth were chattering so hard it was difficult to form his words coherently, and he ground them together.  “It will be useful to me in the future, and perhaps to others.”  Presumably he would have use for it in the future.  He hoped.

(He can see those clear gold eyes looking through him, overlooking everything that makes Nimruzimir himself, as if the substance of his mind is utterly transparent to them, as if all that matters is the disease lurking inside the delicate meat, the fire that burns from the breaking of physical matter or, if you believe his mother, that burns from the touch of the Lady in White’s tears.  He could scream himself hoarse, and it would make no difference.)

(You could?  You will.  You do.)

He is taken apart, piece by piece.  Tar-Mairon, the world, it makes no difference.  His father’s voice repeats the name his mother gave her daughter over and over, in a tinny loop.  The high priest clicks his tongue and fits a metallic device around his hand.  “You will agree, in the end.”

You will be who we tell you to be.  Your voice will make no difference.

The grin on the face of his would-be rapist, the nauseous sensation of hands tracing over his chest, the grain of the wood against his hand as he clutches at it—

“I’m sorry,” his tutor apologizes, “I know I’m late again, but the boys had some questions,” (and you are here on sufferance, on sufferance)—

He can taste bile on his tongue, and the straps hold him still as the pain sears through his hand, a pain that goes on and on and on—

Every face that looks through him without catching on his true self rips out another nail, breaks another rib, and no one cares for his cries, no one ever will—

(Pharâzindil, Pharâzindil, Pharâ—)

“Nimruzimir!”

He woke, this time, with a start and a gasp, and promptly threw up all over the Royal Physician.

“Hm, your muscular control is improving, that’s good.” Apparently unperturbed, the Royal Physician slipped an arm around his shoulders.  “Here, have some water.”

Nimruzimir groaned.  “Wh-Wh-Wh-What happened this time?”

“Seizure again,” the Royal Physician said shortly.  “I caught you before you went off the bridge, but it was a near thing.  You’ve been out for—a while, this time.”

“F-Funny, it d-did not s-seem as long.”  Though his head was one long, hollow ache.

“Got a dose down your throat.  Finally.”  He looked exhausted.  “The seizure response was different, and the progression changed notably after you were medicated.”

“D-Did you—”

“Yes, I have some fucking notes for you, your fucking majesty.”

“Th-Thank you, um…Royal Physician.”

The Royal Physician barked out a laugh.  “Hardly, at this point.  Last I heard there was a hell of a civil war on, but either way—Nimruzimir, just use my name.”  

Anthus. The unfamiliar word rings like a gong through Nimruzimir’s head.  

“Anthus?” he said uncertainly, and not-the-Royal-Physician flinched.  “What, how do you kn—” His eyes, going wide and dark, fathomless.  There was a long, tense silence.

“I am sorry,” Nimruzimir said miserably.  “That is—wrong, isn’t it?  It is like that, s-sometimes.  If it is a n-name that is n-not—welcome, well, I know about those, I—”

“Shut up.  Lilóteo,” said the other man.  “You can call me Lilóteo.”  He put a surprisingly gentle hand on Nimruzimir’s shoulder.  “Listen. My—people don’t give children names before they know something about themselves, I’d never have been called by a girl’s name.  It’s just a name I haven’t heard in a long time, that’s all.”

He was of the Drúedain, Nimruzimir dredged up from somewhere in the depths of his memory.  But he was very tired, his mind still foggy, so it took him a moment to put together the different parts of the offered explanation.  “A…a girl’s…then y-you…?”

“I’d rather you didn’t bandy it about, I’m sure you can guess why,” Lilóteo said.

“Of, yes, well, of course,” agreed Nimruzimir.  “But then how did you g-grow such a magnificent beard!”

Lilóteo chuckled.  “There’s a tonic for that, too,” he said, mildly.  “Though before I start you on that, I’d rather we ensure you’re seizure-free.”

“They always c-come,” Nimruzimir said, a little sadly.  He looked around.  He was tucked into a little bed beneath a smallish glass window showing a view of some grass and a square of clear blue sky.  The bed was covered in a worn but pretty-looking quilt with a pattern of blue and gold stars, which fortunately he had missed when vomiting.  “I c-cannot stop them entirely before reaching a dosage at wh-which other side effects become problematic.”

“Come on, don’t give up on me.  There might be another tonic out there, I’m sure you haven’t tried everything.”

Nimruzimir shrugged.  “S-Some things must be l-lived with.”

“And sometimes we have to push on them to see what’ll give,” grunted Lilóteo in answer.  “Damn, I need to get out of these robes, and you need to have something to eat.”

“I f-feel disgusting,” Nimruzimir confessed.  “I am covered in s-sweat, at least, p-perhaps urine, as well.”

“Just sweat,” offered Lilóteo.  “Loss of bladder control was demonstrated, but I cleaned you up.  There’s a pretty nice bathroom in there, and it’s private.  So no one but me has seen, if that’s a concern.”

Taking a long, shuddering breath, Nimruzimir nodded.  “Th-Thank you,” he said.  “H-How long will a meal take to prepare?  Even if it is only sweat, I would l-like another bath.”  He considered.  He was not at all certain how he felt about Lilóteo having cared for him so intimately, though he was, after all, a professional.  Their relationship had changed so rapidly, and he knew that there were more queer shards in his mind concerning the two of them than he could presently recall.  But, after a moment, he said, “I think it would be best if you helped me.  Although the injuries are not severe—”

“Gods wept, man, what do you consider severe?”

Nimruzimir looked pointedly at the air to the side of his head, which might be taken for eye contact if one were inattentive.  “Although this will impede the use of my hand, it is neither life-threatening nor likely to be permanent.  I am c-certain you know this.”

“It’s one thing to say that they’re not severe on someone else.”

“I do not s-see the d-difference.”

A scoffing huff of breath.  “Well, never mind.  Go on.  I should help you because, although the injuries supposedly aren’t severe, according to you, what?”

Nimruzimir bristled slightly, and then realized, in some confusion, that the Royal—that Lilóteo was treating him as he had sometimes seen the other young natural philosophers treat one another, with a sort of rough kindness.  Like a puppy worrying gently at another’s ear.  This was too fearful a revelation to contemplate, especially when he was unsure what it portended, so he put it away for further consideration at a later time.

“My mobility will be limited, I w-would rather not r-risk another injury, and if y-you have already needed to bathe me, there is no reason to hold to m-modesty in your presence.”

“Well-reasoned,” Lilóteo agreed, and Nimruzimir had a sudden and confused feeling of warmth at the praise, despite how inconsequential the subject.

This annoyed him, so he retorted, “Your theory on the n-nature of l-light is asinine.”

There was a sudden silence, and then Lilóteo guffawed loudly.  “All right, we can have an argument about that, but let’s get you into the tub while we do.”

His hands, unlike his manner, were both gentle and professional.  He did little to aid Nimruzimir in disrobing, only stood back and put a hand out underneath his elbow or his back when he needed support.  Nimruzimir told himself that Lilóteo had seen everything already, but he still felt a little the way he had on the table before Tar-Mairon, as if he had been pried open like a dissection sample on the table.

“Hey.  Would it help if I got naked as well?”

“Hmuh?”  Nimruzimir was so startled he forgot he had been trying to press his good arm across his breasts and yelled slightly as the redistribution of weight tugged unpleasantly on the broken rib.

Lilóteo pulled a face.  “I’ve never felt comfortable being the only naked one in a room.  I didn’t know if you were the same.”

“I have never been naked in a room with anyone else,” Nimruzimir said, voice clipped.  He was aware that sometimes the other natural philosophers would bathe naked in the river together.  Clearly, that had not been an option for him. 

“All right.  So is that a no?” His voice had gone neutral and rather professional.  There seemed to be no weight at all to the question, so with the first shock out of the way, Nimruzimir considered it calmly.  He had to admit to a certain amount of curiosity.

“I th-think it is worth trying.”

“Right, then.”  Lilóteo stripped quickly, efficiently, and with no trace of embarrassment.  He was, as Nimruzimir thought he had remarked at one point, solid, a mix of muscles and fat.  He did not really have breasts, though his areolae and nipples were somewhat enlarged in comparison to those Nimruzimir would consider baseline for a man.  His hips and waist were curved a little more than was obvious beneath the shapeless academic robes.  And of course, he, like Nimruzimir, had a cunt.  He also had rather more wiry dark hair growing thickly across his body than Nimruzimir did, and several moles in unexpected locations.

“I suppose it is a b-bit easier this way,” Nimruzimir observed, letting Lilóteo lead him into the bathroom.  It was quite modern, well-lit and with a high lion’s claw tub, obviously connected to running water.  He supposed he should have expected nothing less.

“Here.”  Lilóteo picked up a piece of discarded oil-cloth from where it had been hanging across the edge of the tub.  “Been wrapping the hand with this when I was washing you off.  I’m going to want to check and clean the dressings on your fingers, but I’d rather not redo the splint again if I can help it.”

“Th-Thank you,” Nimruzimir said, and he held still, letting Lilóteo gently lift the injured hand and wrap it with care.  He was extremely precise and very efficient, gentle enough that it only tugged a little at the injuries.

“Let’s get you in here and then I’ll go out and order a meal for you.”

“Thank you,” Nimruzimir said again.  He leaned shakily against the wall as Lilóteo started to draw the bath.

“You should sit,” Lilóteo said, looking back to him.  “Is the temperature all right?”

Hesitantly, Nimruzimir leaned over and tested the water.  “It’s nice.”

“In you get, then.”  He let himself be urged over the lip of the bath and sank gratefully down into the shallow hot water that had begun to pool in the bottom.  Lilóteo helped him settle himself with one large, crooked-fingered hand on his back.

“I still don’t understand,” Nimruzimir confessed, as the water slowly rose around him.

“What don’t you understand?” Lilóteo sounded lightly startled this time.

“Anything, I th-think.”

“Oh, well—I’m not sure I do, either, at that.”  His hand slid up Nimruzimir’s neck and hesitantly ruffled his hair.  This felt very nice, but simultaneously Nimruzimir was very conscious of how greasy and unpleasant his hair was feeling.

“Is there soap?  Shampoo?” he asked awkwardly.

“Should I wash it?”

When was the last time anyone beside Lilóteo had actually touched him gently?  Nimruzimir thought he was shaking, and it had nothing to do with his fits.  “I, I—I can do it, y-you do not need to.”

“What if I said I want to?”

“Why would you want to?”

A harsh sigh.  “Because I failed you, all right?  Because I—just do.”  

Nimruzimir paused, trying to sort through all this.  In the end, the conclusion he came to was that it would feel nice.  The water had reached the bottom of his breasts.  “All right,” he said.  “I am s-still quite hungry, though, so if you could—”

“I’ll just be a few moments.”  He shut off the water as he headed towards the door.  When he returned, he had thrown his robes loosely around his shoulders, but he flung them off again as he came in through the doors.  “All right.  Let’s get you bathed, and then you’ll be fed.  Tip your head forward, okay?”

It wasn’t precisely an order, but it was easy to obey.  Nimruzimir bowed his head, and Lilóteo’s hands combed wetly across his scalp.  A deep tingling warmth followed his fingers.  Nimruzimir shivered again.  Lilóteo began to rub something into his hair—soap, or shampoo, perhaps—something cleansing, gel-like, and foaming, that smelled of rain and clean grass.  Knuckles pushed into the vertebrae lining the back of his neck—pressure that went up to but not over the line of pain.  A noise dropped from his mouth, one he barely recognized as being in his own voice.

“All right?”

“I—I think so.”

“Your muscles are all knotted up.”  He turned the water on again and began to massage away the tightness in Nimruzimir’s shoulders as the clean water washed the grime away.  A sob caught in Nimruzimir’s throat.  The heat of the water, the pressure of Lilóteo’s hands, the scent of the soap—it was all quite vivid, a far cry from the way he had been slipping in and out of time for the past few days.  “There you are,” Lilóteo murmured absently.  “You’re safe, now.  You won’t be hurt again.”

“You c-cannot make such a promise,” Nimruzimir objected, shocked.

“Fuck what I can and can’t do, man.”

There it was, again—that casually-dropped reference.  True, Lilóteo was the same, in a sense.  But then, so too was Tar-Mairon.  Clearly, similarity did not ensure understanding.  “Thank you,” whispered Nimruzimir.  Lilóteo just grunted in response and began to wash his back as well as his hair.  Nimruzimir wondered vaguely if he would also wash his chest, and then wondered if he would mind.  Oddly, he did not think so.  It was hard not to trust Lilóteo after everything that had happened.

“Anywhere else I should clean?” Lilóteo asked, just as he was thinking this.

Nimruzimir blinked a few times and yawned.  To his surprise, his head was truly starting to clear at this point.  The tonic must be working.  

“All the r-rest of it, I think,” he said eventually.  “I would rather be thoroughly clean, and the combination of injuries will make it rather hard for me to be thorough.”

“Right.  Let me know if there’s some reason you need me to stop.”  He began to soap down Nimruzimir’s torso and abdomen, being particularly gentle near the injured rib.  The rubbing motion continued to be simultaneously soothing and wakeful—presumably the heat and friction stimulated circulation.  Unfortunately, Nimruzimir noted, to his chagrin, after a few more moments, it also contributed to arousal.  It was good to realize his body was well enough to divert blood in such a manner, and one of the few advantages to his anatomical configuration was that it was less obvious about such things than it would have been otherwise.  Of course, Lilóteo’s anatomical training was probably sufficient to be able to tell in any case, but to Nimruzimir’s relief, he made no comment on the subject.  He did not even change the tempo of his rubbing motions when he went over Nimruzimir’s inner thighs.

“Thank you,” Nimruzimir said again, stiffly, as the water washed the soap away but failed to erase the feeling of those callused hands on him, as if his flesh were made of wax and had imprinted.

“I assume you’d rather feed yourself, but if you need it, I’m a man of many talents,” Lilóteo said with a chuckle.

“Thank you, I am n-not an invalid.”

“All right, let’s run you through the shower one more time.”  He had been turning the water on and off as needed.  “There.”  The water this time ran cool—not chilled, but not warm either, and Nimruzimir sputtered.  “Right.  You’re as clean as I can get you.  Up you get and I’ll dry you off.”

Tottering a little and shifting uncomfortably against the persistent arousal, Nimruzimir clutched at the side of the tub but managed to push himself up.  Lilóteo met him with a large and fluffy towel, which he began to rub briskly across Nimruzimir’s torso and extremities, then his hair.  This continued to improve circulation, which continued to exacerbate the present difficulty, but it did feel nice.

(Awkwardly, Nimruzimir was forced to recall that he had occasionally touched himself late at night, thinking of the brusque sound of the royal physician’s voice as he lectured. Very occasionally, of course, and only since finishing his apprenticeship and graduating to the ranks of the philosophers, though he was forced to admit this had less to do with propriety and more to do with proximity.) 

Finally, very shaky and very pink, but feeling clean, relaxed and still clear-headed, he was able to follow Lilóteo into the bedroom without support, where there was a tray with piping-hot skewered meat on it, with flatbread and steamed and spiced vegetables set to the side.  Nimruzimir’s stomach rumbled.  He sat down awkwardly sideways on the bed and began to eat.  Lilóteo laughed.

“Well, I am hungry,” Nimruzimir snipped, in irritation.

“Oh, no, please do eat,” said Lilóteo.  “You can consider it doctor’s orders, even.”

“I don’t know that I ought to c-consider the orders of a man who believes l-light to be some sort of etheric wave,” grumbled Nimruzimir, though he was already on his third bite and did not intend to stop.

“This is at least the second time you’ve brought that up,” Lilóteo said, thoughtfully, sitting down on the opposite side of the bed.  “Etheric propagation is the only thing that explains the observed patterns through Sapthêth’s comb.”

“Well, particulate matter is the only thing that explains the lines observed when light from burning salt is bent through a prism,” Nimruzimir fired back.

“Oh, so you’ve been working on that?  I guess I have been busy, I’d missed it.”

“Y-You are supposed to be arguing with me,” Nimruzimir snapped, tearing off a bite of flatbread.

Lilóteo grinned, and his black eyes seemed to crackle as if with electricity.  “Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to find someone who will argue with me?”

“Well, then I would imagine you would jump at the chance!”

“You explain the way light moves around solid objects, then.”

“Some number of the particles are bent around them, c-clearly.”

“And the pattern cast by the comb?”

Nimruzimir had to confess that the comb’s pattern was one of the weakest points of the particulate theory.  Trust Lilóteo to fix upon it immediately.  He put his head on one side, still eating absently, trying to marshal his arguments.  Before he could finish putting them into order, there was a sharp rap on the door.  Lilóteo spat out a quick oath and grabbed for his soiled robes, throwing them on to conceal his form.  “Into the bathroom,” he told Nimruzimir, who obeyed him without argument after his first confused response.  He had no such robes and could not conceal himself from curious eyes.

“Didn’t I say we weren’t to be disturbed?” he heard Lilóteo’s voice growl as he shut the door behind himself, panting a little with the sudden shock.

A low voice murmured back, apologetic.  Nimruzimir couldn’t quite make out the words.

He heard, “What?” from Lilóteo, and then his voice dropped as well, into something low and energetic but no longer quite audible.  This went on for a few minutes longer, before he heard the door shut again.

“You can come out again!” Lilóteo called.  “It’s safe.”

“What was th-that about?” Nimruzimir asked, as he did so.

“The queen.  She’s here.”  He looked—well, Nimruzimir wished once more he was better at reading facial expressions, but his expression had certainly changed since the last conversation that had been interrupted.  “They want us to greet her.”

“Us!?”

Lilóteo smiled.  It seemed lopsided.  “You are the man of the hour, you know.  You defied the high priest.”

“It w-wasn’t like that,” Nimruzimir pointed out, wrapping his arms around himself.  He was suddenly noticing that being naked was quite a cold endeavor.

“Yeah, and if you don’t want to go, I’ll tell them you’re still not well enough to see anyone.”

Nimruzimir considered this, very seriously.  “That w-won’t keep people from thinking I am…”

“A hero?  No.  ’Fraid not.”

His shoulders sagged.  “I may as well get it over with, I suppose.”

Lilóteo put a hand on his shoulder.  “I’m a good diplomat, and you’re my responsibility.  And Míriel’s not, uh—she understands that people aren’t storybook heroes.”  He quirked one eyebrow upward.  “Even if they’re named after them.”

Huffing, Nimruzimir shifted beneath the touch.  “I know they are somewhat—simplistic novels, but—”

“Ah, you don’t have to justify yourself.  I think you cut a very dashing half-Elven first mate, myself.”

His cheeks were heating up at the discussion of the favored series of his childhood.  It was not really surprising that Lilóteo had correctly identified the origin of his name, but it was a little embarrassing.  After all, most people would assume his parents had named him after the philosopher of the Verië from the Menel Mentie series of novels.  They would hardly come to the conclusion he had named himself.  Unlike Lilóteo, who had naturally managed to come to exactly the correct conclusion.

Clearing his throat, he avoided Lilóteo’s gaze.  “Thank you.  I think.  In any case, I s-suppose I must trust your, um, insight into Tar-Míriel.”

“If it turns into a mess, I’ll get you out of it, anyway,” Lilóteo muttered.  Nimruzimir supposed this was close enough to a promise, even if he wasn’t certain that Lilóteo had intended him to hear it.

* * *

Everything glittered.  Nimruzimir winced slightly, looking away from the many candles lighting up the hall.  He shifted uncomfortably in the outfit he had been given—soft velvet, but he had had to bind his breasts quite tightly beneath the fitted shirt, while the sleeves were both long and voluminous.  “I will not be able to use m-my hands,” he had objected to Lilóteo.

“Well, you look awful, but you’re fashionable,” Lilóteo had told him distractedly.  He looked rather better, Nimruzimir felt, since he had been able to dress himself in a spare set of his dark maroon academic robes.  Nimruzimir’s absurdly-shaped shirt was bright orange, shading to red at the ends of the sleeves. 

“They’re taking the Sunset Land literally these days, I guess,” was all Lilóteo said about this when he demanded to know why.

Lilóteo’s hand on his shoulder steered him unerringly.  “We’re going to do the minimum possible social obligation,” he said quietly into Nimruzimir’s ear.  “Take you to see her, introduce you, get you out.  Sound good?”

“Yes,” Nimruzimir whispered back.  He was already trying to block out lights and music and the too-loud burr of many voices.  He had the sense of hundreds of eyes on him, prickling between his shoulder-blades, and he nervously tugged at his uncomfortable shirt and huddled slightly against Lilóteo’s side.

He kept his eyes firmly on the floor as they advanced across the room, steeling himself.  There was a long table, probably full of food, though he didn’t look high enough to see.  They stopped in front of a pair of feet in soft kid boots, flat-soled and comfortable-looking.  Above those bagged the recent balloon-like trousers that some women were favoring for athletic endeavors.

“This is the young philosopher?” asked a woman’s voice, and Nimruzimir forced himself to look up and meet the steady gaze of the queen of Númenor.

The world stutters, hanging by a thread—many threads, woven together.  Elendil’s hall melts away like a fiercely-burning candle, and there is only Nimruzimir and Míriel, standing in the center of a muddied field.  She is a tall woman, and she prefers to wear her hair in a simple braid at the back of her neck.  This has not changed, even now that the flesh of her soul is stitched up into dark armor—the memory of her hair still falls in a braid down her back.  

“I am no man!”  The fair-haired warrior wears her hair similarly, and it tumbles out from beneath her loosened helm, which she flings to the earth.

The dark clouds boil overhead.  The contaminated winds are hot, smelling of sulfur and effluence, but the oily rain is cold, and the mud soaking into Nimruzimir’s trouser legs is frigid.  Tar-Míriel raises a great sword, eyes blazing in the hollow of her skull.

“Well met, Nimruzimir,” she says, sounding faintly amused.  “Have you a greeting for me?”

“Not by the hand of a man will you fall,” coughs out Nimruzimir.  “But all will end in ruin, in fire.”  The White Lady watches him silently, one hand on his shoulder.

He blinked, and the storm was reflected in the queen’s eyes, only.  She seemed—not unreasonably—startled.  Heat crawled up Nimruzimir’s cheeks.  “I’m sorry,” he said, terror rising and twisting in his stomach.  She would want it, now—the foresight.  One more person to look through him, to use him.

“It’s a condition, Your Majesty, the one I mentioned,” Lilóteo broke in hurriedly, but before he could say more, the man at the queen’s shoulder leaned forward.

“They say he is a prophet,” he said to her, so that only the four of them could hear.

The queen’s eyes widened, flickered from Nimruzimir to Lilóteo and back.  Then she settled herself more securely in her chair and held out her hand to Nimruzimir.  “You seem uncomfortable,” she said, smoothly.  “Don’t be.  We need no visions of a future that may not come to pass.  It is the present that matters.  Even if we should fail, we must fail being who we are, must we not?”

Nimruzimir took her hand, awkwardly.  “I should prefer that, Your Majesty,” he agreed, his frantic heartbeat ebbing, and for once, his voice did not even shake.

---

Chapter End Notes

"Menel mentie" is Quenya for "star journey" -- with thanks to Calimë for the translation.  "Verië" is a Quenya word meaning bold. Yes, Nimruzimir named himself after Númenorean Spock.

"Setwall" is another word for the plant valerian, which contains valeric acid.  One of its analogues (i.e. a compound that is similar to it) -- synthesized for the first time in the nineteenth century, is valproate, or valproic acid, one of the front-line treatments for seizure disorders.