Bor\'s Folly: Many Are Strong In The Broken Places

The Lord Bragollach sits alone within his tent, a single flap open to the camp without. A few hours rest he found and, with the approaching morn, he seems full of vigor, writing away at a parchment upon his modest wooden table.

Lominzil appears at the door of the tent, drawn and pale, a bundle under his arm. \"Imrakhor.\"

\"The watch was quiet, I presume?\" asks Imrakhor Lord Bragollach, raising his eyes at Lominzil\'s entrance. \"And what is under your arm?\"

\"Huan was there, so it was quiet,\" answers Lominzil, hesitating before he continues in, coming a few strides from the table.

\"It is your armor,\" he answers quietly, holding it forth. \"I wore it to the wedding. I am giving it back now. You need it.\"

Imrakhor\'s hand moves across the page to add a few more words before he stops to tap his pen against the parchment. \"You refuse a gift freely given?\"

Lominzil shuts his mouth, his gaze roving away from the Knight. \"Yes,\" he says, his arm lowering. \"We are in the wilderlands now, with wolves encircling our camp, our destination wholly forsaken, and you go about in shirt and cloak.\"

He continues, eerie calm: \"What are we to do without you? What am I to do?\"

\"And who is it that asks me this question? The man who addresses me without title, who hath no salute for his superiors? Or is it he whose face wears an age unbecoming, whose mind strays increasingly aimlessly?\"

Imrakhor makes no move to take his armor back, nor to look at Lominzil.

\"I do not know,\" admits Lominzil flatly, taking a step back, \"Lord Bragollach. But I came nevertheless to give back what I do not deserve.\"

He continues, quietly: \"At times I am one, or the other. Some time ago I was a deaf-mute who fought for his life in Harad, and waking, nearly strangled my closest friend.\"

\"You stand on a lofty precipice. Snow falls about you and you are lucky to see your own hands in front of your face. You feel yourself teeter and stumble forward. Just when it seems you are about to fall, you wake up.\"

Imrakhor looks up to Lominzil.

\"That is my one dream.\"

\"But do you fall?\" Lominzil asks quietly. He is staring at the Dunadan, blue eyes terribly wide.

\"I came also with a question: how to master the demon of a dream.\"

\"Master? You ask a question without an answer for such dreams manifest by your own permission. It is your own mind that you battle, Squire,\" says Imrakhor. \"How does one master one\'s own mind? Not even the Wise know that.\"

\"You have been given a burden to bear, Squire of that, you are clearly aware. You have seen the world within the world. The war within the war.\"

\"And I tell you now that there is perhaps no relief from your burden, or that I at the least have not found it. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.\"

\"And it is killing you,\" says the squire.

\"I will bear this burden, sir, as long as I am able: until it breaks me or kills me, or is lifted. I have known it from the start, that my heart is no longer here.\"

\"But does my burden extend to the ones I have sought to love and protect? My friend, from whom I must hide my mind? My sister? You, Imrakhor?\"

“Nay, Squire. Burdens do not extend. They are merely carried but it is you and not Sir Father who has borne the sufferings of your family,\" says the young Lord.

\"Farielle, with her woe. Your father, with his heavy heart. Yet it is Lominzil who is burdened mostly. Do you think this to be a coincidence?\"

\"No, sir. That is an excuse for multiple failures,\" says Lominzil, closing his eyes. \"Sir Eruiglas, my brother, died at Caldur, and I could not save him. Farielle came because her brothers were there, and was taken. Nor could I save her from her unhappiness today. And I offered my parents no comfort, and they are grey before their time.\"

\"This burden is a fitting punishment. I did not say I could not bear it.\"

\"No, Lominzil. That is no punishment. It is the way of the world,\" says Imrakhor, shaking his head. \"The strong of shoulder must bear the greatest burden.\"

\"So it is with you. You will keep my armor to protect you until the day that you no longer need it.\"

Finally, unwillingly, Lominzil holds the bundle under his arm.

\"Very well,\" he says. \"I will not die in your armor, nor will I disgrace it. And, if I can help it, you will have it back before you ....\" He does not finish, looking away.

\"You do not yet understand, Lominzil, but you will,\" says Imrakhor, his pen returning to the parchment. \"Disgrace my armor? That you wear it...\"

\"You will understand one day.\"

\"Go now. I would be alone.\"

Lominzil laughs, the sound soft and alien. \"Though you say that, I feel that day will never come.\"

He bows into the darkness, and Imrakhor is then alone.