(A/N: Here's a little something inspired by a line from the extended version of The Return of the King. It's been a long time since I wrote any fan fiction, but I hope you enjoy this, and I'd appreciate your thoughts if you can spare the time to leave me a review.)
The Dragon Slayer
Eleven year-old Faramir heaved a sigh of frustration. He was having immense trouble with his homework. The sums his schoolmaster had set were unfathomable to his young mind, and the carefully inked out numbers on the page before him seemed to be written in the script of some foreign tongue.
His slate-coloured eyes lingered idly on the paper, but his mind wandered. Before he knew what was happening, the ink lines swirled out of place, forming the colossal reptilian outline of a fearsome dragon.
This one was particularly terrifying: longer than the Steward's Hall and taller than anything he had ever seen, with gleaming black scales and a row of razor-sharp spines along its back – no, two rows, all blood red in colour. The dragon opened its mouth to reveal a set of deadly, shining teeth.
"Back! Back, foul beast!" Faramir yelled, jumping out of his chair and brandishing his quill bravely.
His enemy leapt off the page, and the Steward's son fought it off valiantly. It pursued him around his room, over the towering bed and under the cavernous desk, but the young warrior never backed down.
"To arms, men!" he called, and a row of wooden toy figurines instantly joined their Captain.
As the beast reared back on its hind legs and let out a mighty roar, Faramir spied an exposed spot on its great underside, and did not hesitate to plunge his sword deep into its belly. The dragon roared in pain, so the youngster stabbed it again and again.
"Die, beast!" he shouted. "Die, die!"
Eventually, his foe let out a low, pathetic moan and rolled over onto the floor as its legs gave way. Faramir cheered triumphantly, holding his weapon high above his head and proudly surveying his vanquished enemy.
"Well fought, Sir Faramir," said a voice behind him, and he spun round quickly.
"Boromir!"
In the doorway stood his sixteen year-old brother, tall and broad-shouldered.
"Although," the Steward's eldest son added, "I daresay father won't be too happy with the state of the battlefield."
Faramir looked around his room in horror. In his hand he held the quill that had posed as his sword, now snapped and useless. Somehow, he had managed to splatter the ink from this all over his bed linen, and the bolster which but moments before had been dragon-shaped was dotted with large black blotches. His sheet of sums still lay unfinished on the table.
"Whoops," he said quietly.
"Really, brother," Boromir sighed, "You must learn to concentrate. I thought father asked you to have these finished by supper?"
"He did, but I can't do them, Boromir! They're far too hard for me, even Annie said so when I showed her, and —"
"Faramir." The sixteen-year-old silenced his brother. "What would Annie know about your homework?"
Faramir paused for thought. Annie was a seventeen-year-old girl who worked as a maid in their house, and was constantly on hand whenever he required a glass of milk and a biscuit, or perhaps a new bottle of ink. The former far more regularly, of course.
"Not much, I suppose," he confessed.
Boromir crossed the room to the table, picking up the ink-stained bolster and placing it on the bed as he passed, before proceeding to examine his brother's work.
"Tell me, brother, since when have there been six fours in twenty?"
Still clutching his broken quill, the younger joined him by the table with a sigh. "Since now?" he suggested.
Boromir grinned down at him, but shook his head. "I have an idea," he said. "I'll help you get this finished, and if you do it well, I'll get Annie to change the dirty sheets and not tell father."
"Really?"
Exchanging smiles, the pair set to work on the remaining sums. Faramir worshipped his brother, and, eager to please, hurried through the remaining calculations. As he finished the last question, Boromir called for Annie.
Small and slender in stature, she curtseyed neatly as she saw the Steward's eldest son, smiling prettily.
"Would you do something for me?" Boromir asked her, returning the smile with a playful twinkle in his grey eyes. He was an exceptionally good-looking teenager, and even Faramir saw from the girl's expression that she would willingly do anything for him.
"Of course, my lord," she replied.
"I'm afraid there's been a minor catastrophe in here," he explained. "My brother has been fighting dragons again, you see, and it's a messy business. We're in need of some clean bed-linen."
"I'll fetch some right away, sir."
She made to leave, but Boromir called after her. "And Annie?"
"Is there anything else, sir?"
He gave her a smile that most girls in the city would kill to be on the receiving end of. "We'd rather the Steward does not hear of this."
She grinned mischievously. "His lordship won't hear a word."
Then, with another curtsey, she hurried away, her cheeks considerably pinker than when she had arrived.
"I wish I could do that to girls," Faramir said as soon as she was gone.
Boromir grinned. "When you're older, maybe you will."
"And I'd never have the courage to hide anything from father."
"You should try it sometime." Boromir paused. "You must learn to stand up for yourself against him. I won't always be around to help you."
Faramir stared, shocked by the prospect of ever being without the guidance of his beloved brother. It was too horrible even to imagine.
"We've got another half-hour till supper," Boromir said, changing the subject. He paused briefly, casting his brother a sidelong glance. "Tell me, Faramir, did I ever tell you of the time I sparred with the prince of Rohan?"
The younger son's eyes lit up. "No! Tell me!"
Smiling warmly, Boromir obliged. Faramir delighted in nothing more than his brother's stories of the life that, for him, was yet to come. His homework lay vanquished along with the dragon, and the young dragon slayer tucked his knees up under his chin, his eyes shining, eagerly awaiting the tales of the greatest hero of them all.
THE END