It was warm. No, hot. And it seemed to be growing hotter. It was the kind of heat that feels like it is consuming you. There was a heaviness to everything, to even the air. There was light, but it was a light that seemed angry, not calming or renewing. There was a sound that could not be distinguished, but it sounded powerful, like a rushing of wind. There were also shouts, but neither could those be distinguished. It was raging all about him and he was powerless to escape. Sweat beaded on his brow as he frantically tried to fight through the fog in his mind to find a way to get away.

"Faramir! Wake up!" Aragorn called anxiously. His son woke suddenly, sitting up and grasping the arms of the one who had shaken him in the same motion. It took a moment or two before he realized that he was still in their tent on the road south. "You were dreaming," Aragorn said, sitting back. "Have you often dreamed like that?"

Faramir shook his head slowly. "No, father, i never have. I do not know what happened, but something was wrong in that dream. Something was happening to me. It was so hot, as though i had a fever, or i was sitting too near a blaze."

Aragorn looked at his son for a long moment before saying anything. "I think you are essentially beginning to remember what happened the day Denethor died." Aragorn then fell quiet for a moment and looked pensive. "At times i would that he would have been the stronger of us."

Faramir looked at his father and asked him, "What can you mean by that?"

Again, the King was silent for a while. "Do you remember Pippin telling you that when he came to Minas Tirith with Gandalf and met Denethor that he was reminded more of me than of Boromir?"

Faramir nodded. "Aye, i do remember him saying that, though i found it quite curious at the time and i certainly do now. You are nothing like he ever was."

"Have you ever compared the two of us physically?" Aragorn said. "It never fails to amaze me how different members of the same family can be. Sometimes the similarities are subtle, only to be picked up by one of as unassuming as a young Hobbit."

"What are you saying, father?" Faramir asked cautiously.

"My mother and father were wed in the year 2929. In that same yearheir Ecthelion paid a visit to an area then called Cardolan, the most southerly of the Dunedain regions. It so happened that the Steward-to-be was present at the wedding." Aragorn stopped and took a long drag on his pipe, which he had brought out from his pack. "He so chose to bless the marriage, personally. Nine months laterhis adjutant showed up in their camp and my mother never again saw her firstborn child. My father would have killed Ecthelion, heir to the Stewardship or not, but that the coward fled immediately. He would have killed his sycophantic abettor as well, but that he came in the night while the Rangers were well away, chasing down orcs. In the 13 years that i have known this, i have never spoken of it in any manner."

"You and he were half-brothers?" Faramir said quietly after a long minute.

Aragorn nodded, taking another drag. "I do not believe he ever knew it though. He recognized some sort of similarity between us, as i did also at that time, but for Denethor it only turned him against me. And mine," he added unhappily. "I did not know of it until the last time i saw my mother, but by then it was far too late for me to do anything about. I often wonder if Sauron did not reveal it to him, or if he knew."

"I could not say what ever might have been exposed to him in the palantír, but anything that was only ever made him suspicious. I have reason to believe he began to use to just after my mother's death. It nearly caused the fall of all Middle-earth," Faramir said contemplatively as he reckoned with this new information.

"Sauron so controlled that palantír because it was so dangerously near. I truly do not believe that he even controlled the stone in Isengard as entirely as he did the one in the white tower. Denethor really was strong to resist totally submitting to Mordor and at the last it only had him broken to the point of fleeing. And yet even that was too much, even a little despair is venomous."

Aragorn stopped again to inhale the sweet galenas. "I have tried to use that stone several times since and usually all i can see are burning hands. I have thought that perhaps if it might be sent back to Tol Eressa it might work again, though i do not know if my father is willing to take such a thing. But let us not talk of such evil things. We should arrive in Pelargir by midday tomorrow if we leave here quickly, and i hope that this shall not take long. I begin to miss my grandchildren, and i believe i have finally grown accustomed to sleeping in a proper bed again. Either that or i am simply grown too old at last for this camping nonsense."

Faramir smiled as he drifted back into a more peaceful sleep, deciding he would have much time to ponder things later and thinking that he himself had grown too old for camping in the cold several years ago.

Voldie: You rock too, but exhaustion does not.

liz: I read all reviews and consider them. I didn't used to respond to them all, but since i put them at the end of the story, i allow myself to now. It just never wanted AN's to get in the way of the story.

I really don't think Eowyn is ready for the wife/mother thing. She is actually only about 24 and i do not get the impression that her life has in anyway prepared her to take on such responsibilities yet. She tried to give up her "wild and free" lifestyle for Faramir, but that is much easier said than done and isn't going to happen overnight.

Yes, Ripples can be found on my profile page. Enjoy!

grumpy: No, there was no reason for Eomer to go, but i think in Eowyn's reasoning he is her brother and Aragorn's friend and thus should have been asked. Don't ask me why. Perhaps because Legolas, Gimli, and Glorfindel are going along as well. As for Eowyn looking for fights, i'm not so sure it's that as much as it is thatshe is susceptible to conflict and misreading situations.

Did everyone enjoy the crash course on palantiri? Good... it is essentially useless to the storyline, but another interesting element none the less. What about old Denethor's skeleton in the closet? That, too, is essentially meaningless, except that i thought it was an interesting explanation for the following: "Pippin saw his carven face with its proud bones and skin like ivory, and the long curved nose between the deep dark eyes; and he was reminded not so much of Boromir as of Aragorn." -The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 1.