Disclaimer: Wakabe Writing Firm doesn't own Lord of the Rings

A/N: I've always been fascinated by the relationships of family, have always longed to delve deep inside, and see how individual ones work, how they survive tragedy and cruelty. Being a child with brothers and sisters, both of blood and bond, I have never wondered about the basic principles that govern most sibling bonds: connection of blood or heart, unintentional hurts and wrongs, and trials and triumphs. But isn't there more? This is my way of exploring what it is to be and have a brother, a sister, someone who helps and hurts with the same hand.

The main characters will be Faramir and Boromir, but also others, such as Eowyn and Eomer, Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen, and others.

I hope you enjoy the journey I will be taking.-Natsumi Wakabe(Writer, Wakabe Writing Firm)

Brothers and sister share a bond, regardless of age, distance or time. Each are given roles early in life, and expected to become something to each other according to the rules of their society, and the expectations of parents, who while aware that the picture perfect family is an illusion, still wish for things in their children and what is between them.

Brothers are expected to protect their sisters, to be examples of all things good and manly, giving love and safety in a world that will be cruel. Sisters are expected to give respect and admiration, to provide him with a reason to continue on and keep the belief that there is some good left in the world.

Big brothers, they say, are born first to take the burden of continuing the line of their family from their younger siblings. They are born first to protect those that follow, to guide them through the hardships of life and help them avoid the pitfalls and trappings that they have gone through themselves. They are supposed to do everything in their power to keep them from harm. And if they fail, they are supposed to be a safe haven for them, their arms a fortress to keep the rest of the world away, at least for a while.

They are told that the bond that they have is supposed to be special, something that no one can get between. Something that they are stuck with forever. Something holy and cherished. They are told that this is a connection that will never be severed, not broken no matter what comes. They are told that they are supposed to not hurt one another, and to always treat each other well, and with all the love and tenderness that is supposed to be so basic in a family.

But that's not always what happens.

Many a time, they hurt each other. Often, words are spoken in anger, the heat of passion fueling hatred and bitterness so much that it is often taken out on those we deem safest to do so to: not strangers who will not care or will turn us in, but to those who love us and will not leave us. And siblings will use this against each other, bringing up past hurts to justify actions against them, to use as a way to deny them or hurt them worse. Often, relationships are twisted and distorted, seeing things that aren't there, creating a kind of fragmented view of what bound one to the other. And images of who the other was were often even more fragmented and twisted, able to make them the savior and hero, or the demon and villain. They can be the cause of our misery or the reason for smiles. It fits needs, to see each other like this, but sometimes, in the quiet moments, the bond forces back the layers of time and the shadings of perceptions, it is revealed.

Moments of a brief peace in times of war, when fathers don't understand what it is that a son does for them that a brother sees and knows and tries to explain to a man that is deaf to the pain of his second born because of the glories of the first.

Moments of grief before departure, where a sister is forced to stand aside and let her brother be banished by a man who raised them as his own, never knowing if they will be reunited again as madness and sickness possess the land and kill its king, sharing in that moment the closeness that might never again be.

Moments of silence, sitting around a fire, weary and tired, but knowing that neither can stop, not while foul creatures that destroyed their own family still roam the world, ready to take from them the last of their loved ones, burning with an identical fury and darkness that will take the innocent love of a child to cure.

And in those fragile moments lost to time and tragedy, triumphs and immortal moments, there is something more precious than all of those. There is a truth to them that cannot be denied, even if the bond fails the test of time. Because those truths, however brief they may appear, are passed up and down, between siblings, through the ages, bypassing race, age, time, and culture.

Because walking alone isn't really an option when, even if only in your mind, they are standing there, waiting, always there even if only in a memory.

And maybe, that's what it is to be a sibling.

Or maybe, it's something more.