Blue-eyed Boys
Parth Galen, 25 F.A.
The day comes at last when Faramir is able to make the journey to Parth Galen. It is late in the afternoon when they reach the southern edge of the lake. Looking ahead, Faramir sees the vast stone backs of the Pillars of the Kings, gatekeepers of Old Gondor. His brother saw this, he knows, nearly thirty years ago, but from the other side. How his heart must have lifted at the sight, he thinks, knowing this was the border to his own country, that soon he would be home. Léof, he sees, is looking east, pushing his blond hair back from his eyes. Gondor behind him; the Road ahead.
Léof has the true freedom of the second son. Elboron will never travel this way. Faramir too in his youth had thought once or twice that he might like to travel, but the idea was impossible. He was bound to Gondor and, in truth, the places he most longed to visit were gone: Lórien at noontide; Osgiliath at its height; Armenelos. It is one of the marvels of his life that other dream-lands are resurfacing before his eyes: Annúminas; Arnor; his own garden country.
They have heard the story many times. Here, they think, is the place where Boromir died. Father and son light candles as the sun sinks. The ceremony over, Léof is keen to leave. He has always kept his own counsel, this boy; has always known his own mind. Faramir has taught him all he can to keep him safe – stealth; four languages; how to ask questions and win (or lose) at cards; where best to put the knife.
They embrace. He holds Léof close until the boy becomes restless. He stands and watches him leave, fading away under the cover of the darkening trees. A north wind rises and the candles shiver. He remembers with fresh pain Boromir's departure: the stony set of his father's face, the way they walked back in silence to the Citadel like pallbearers. He turns for home, travelling beneath the moon. In the quiet and the dark, he thinks of his father: hopes never to receive the blow that he was dealt; hopes that when this son returns it is in full health, not the faint desperate sound of a horn carried on the wind, nor a broken body carried from the field. He never wants to know what his father felt.
Léof will be back after eight months with a fistful of secrets and a chipped front tooth. He will be full of the tale of his travels. His father closes his ears at the dicier moments, but his mother's eyes are shining. As he tells the King all the news he has gathered, his father sees that his son's gaze is already straying south, to Harad and beyond. He is gone again by summer…
A/N: Léof is my own creation. You can read more about him in Bequests, The Broken Men, Garden of Gondor,and The Case of the Silver Letters.
For Sian22, who liked Léof's song.
Altariel, 30th September 2018