Okay, guys, before i actually start, I'd like to say that this is written solely to help me channel some of my emotions out, and it actually was pretty good, so...here it is!

Faramir walked down the hall, feeling numb and cold even to himself. How could this have happened? Had it really gone this far? That he would allow his pride to cloud his judgement like this. Even as he breeched the courtyard and shouted orders to his men, he couldn't believe it.

At least the part that was still him couldn't. He stared past horrified looks on the soldiers faces and kept walking. He knew that father's weren't supposed to have favorites, but nearly every parent did. Faramir had never been anyone's favorite. Not his mother's not hisfathers...

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Clumsey fists had done more harm to themselve that damage t their opponants. Faramir, undersized for his age and with the temperment of a boiling kettle, refused to release his enemy even as the other seven-year-old shoved his fist into Faramir's nose.

"Take it back," the young boy grunted as he got in a good hit of his own. Bothe of the boys were now bleeding and lips were split, both of them scattered form head to fott with abrasions.

"No!" The other little boy shouted in a high voice. "I won't, you whoreson!"

The two struggled for a bit before they seemed to both separate to regroup. Faramirwiped his blood from his face and struggled valiantly with his tears.

"My father said your mother was a whore who run off with a bastard rogue in the night." The little boy, close to tears himself, still managed to sneer at Faramir. All Faramir seemed to have the energy for was to sniff. "He says that it's all your father deserves! That he's a poor steward and half mad."

To the jeers of their watching peers, both boys lunged at each other and were soon rolling on the ground once more.

That was when a slightly taller figure appeared. The watching boys fell into a hushed silence as the heir to the steward ship of Gondor approached and halted to look at the two tussleing boys.

"Take it back!"

Faramir had just screwed up his arm to deliver a blow when Boromir stepped in and grabbed him. What's going on?" the older boy demanded in a tone shockingly like a generals. Little Faramir's chin trembled and his tears spilled over.

"H-he called ma-m-ma a-a-" Faramir closed his eyes, unable to continue. But Boromir got the picture. As the heir turned back to the group, all but the one still on the floor fled. Baramir gave him one look that sat oddly easily on his younr face.

He released his little brother, who now cried openly. He lept upon the younger boy who cried out. A few harder more skilled hits had the younf page screaming. Even as he heard footsteps approaching, Boromir lept to his feet and hurried himself and his sibling away. "We are the sons of the steward," he told his brother when they were safely in a corner of the library. "We are expected to act better than them." Boromir knew what they had called his mother. This was not the first incident like this.

"But," Faramir began his voice quavering.

"Mama is gone Faramir. It doesn't matter what they say, it won't change the fact and you shouldn't trouble yourself over it." Faramir nodded glumly. "ather will get angry if he finds out you've been fighting so you'll have to skip dinner. I'll say you're sick."

As Faramir walked away, he said to himslef, "Father never punishes you when you fight, brother."

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As he and his company had rode out, he couls hardly see straight for the tears in his eyes. No he had never been anything to his father. The women slowly began to throw flowers to the leaving men. it was not but suicide and they all knew it.

White overwhelmed his sight.

"Your father loves you, Faramir," Mithrandir told him, from his perch upon the mareas Shandowfax.

No, Faramir thought, he had never loved him. Only Boromir. And now Boromir was gone. But maybe if he did this one thing, maybe just this once...