The Surprise
By Dancingkatz
"Do you got it, Ori?" Faramir whispered as he joined his big brother in the hallway outside their parents' rooms. "Is it finished?" The four year old was so excited the whisper could likely have been heard down in the kitchens.
"Shhh! It's supposed to be a surprise. Yes, I have it. Did you get the flowers?" The nine year-old heir to the Stewardship hushed his little brother and grinned as Faramir proudly pulled a rather bedraggled handful of daisies from behind his back. Apparently, he'd picked them from the borders of one of the kitchen gardens because there certainly weren't any daisies in the King's Garden.
"Do you think she'll like them? And…"
"Shhh! Hold still. Your collar's crooked." Boromir straightened the collar and pushed a wayward strand of hair from off of his brother's forehead before pulling a ribbon wrapped packet from his pocket. "There, now we can go in."
The guards who stood on each side of the doorway were hard put to keep straight faces at this little comedy as the Steward's sons prepared to visit their lady mother, but finally Boromir knocked on the door, and barely waiting for an answer opened it and pulled his sibling with him into the apartment.
"Happy Birthday, Mother!" "Happy Birthday!"