Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings or any characters and/or places thereof

Upon the fifteenth of June in the year 2998 of the Third Age (being the day upon which Faramir received a letter from Theodred of Rohan, attaining permission to sojourn in that country)

Boromir of Gondor shifted slightly, searching for the most comfortable, most stable position possible. Ah--there! He relaxed, having found his 'sweet spot.' Though never as careful as his little brother Faramir, who would tend even the most hateful weapon with care and patience, Boromir had a nasty habit of "forgetting" preparative steps he considered superfluous. In tilting, however, Boromir took great heed. He checked he horse's tack, hooves, then tack again; he hefted his lance and swung it thrice to check the weight; most importantly, he always had to find the perfect position atop the horse before beginning the match.

Though the unusual armor, half chain and half plate, chafed his balance and nerves, Boromir found himself adjusting more and more rapidly to the change from full plate or chain mail. Of late he had taken to wearing a chain shirt beneath his outer clothing. If anyone noticed they kept it to themselves, and Boromir's muscles complained less and less. The first week had been agony, but after a month he hardly noticed the added weight. With that small matter seen to, Boromir focused freely on his love of a good joust. He loved the speed, the adrenaline, the feeling of popping his opponent out of the saddle...He also loved the flying sensation whenever he was unseated, and to some degrees the painful numbness of landing. Boromir liked to win, but he did not mind losing.

The man opposite Boromir raised his lance in salute. Boromir raised his lance in return. He dug his heels into his horse, and both men surged forward, as powerful and unstoppable as the ocean waves. Boromir stopped thinking. He never discussed this with others. Nights in the taverns, Boromir sat quietly nursing his drink and listened to the accounts, boasts and bewailings of knights and squires, and offered nothing. They spoke of an acute knowledge of the target, of thinking, of anticipating the pain. Boromir released himself to the song of the hoofbeats, felt the horse beneath him and the air around him. He knew peace, as only a soldier can know peace. The drumming of hooves grew louder and louder, until like tide on the rocks it slipped away into nothingness. Listening to birdsong and the rustling of leaves, Boromir hardly knew he was positioning his lance and striking until the impact shot up his arm.

Both men landed blows. Boromir's, a square hit, sent his opponent reeling. The other man's lance merely glanced off Boromir's shield. Both men turned their horses and readied for another round. Again the thunder of surf in a windstorm, then the gentle breakers over white sand. A clap of lightning flared within Boromir as a more focused blow shattered his opponent's lance against his shield.

Set off his balance, Boromir had no choice but to focus again as he shifted his weight in the saddle. 'Now,' he asked himself, 'do I want to spar today?' He sized up his opponent. Usually Boromir refrained from identifying his challenger, knowing he would be inclined to play lightly against any squires or young knights. Squinting at the man opposite him, Boromir decided that this could be Lindir or Antlas, both men older than Boromir but neither older than five and twenty years. Shaking his head, Boromir chided himself, 'I do not know every man in Gondor: this may well be a stranger.'

Boromir raised his lance at the same moment as his opponent, then lowered the weapon and charged. A perfect hit sent his opponent flying! Wasting no time on celebration, Boromir leapt to the ground. He handed the reins of his horse to a waiting page. Pleased to see an older page calming the other riderless horse, Boromir drew the practice sword from its scabbard, warily approaching his opponent.

In Gondor, an unseated knight might continue the bout on foot, if he had the strength. Approaching his fallen opponent, Boromir called, "One!" If, by the count of ten, the challenger had not risen, the bout was ended and a victory for Boromir. "Two!" The opponent twitched. He seemed to be considering a spar, equally uncertain. "Three!"

The challenger rose. Boromir grinned as sweat cooled his neck. As their weapons met, Boromir reflected, 'Here is a peace only a soldier may know.'

..

Refusing to be lulled into a false sense of security, Boromir tilted the cup and splashed wine against his lips, swallowing only the tiniest amount of the vile stuff. Not only did he despise the taste, he knew that wine more than ale, rum, mead or beer would crush him after...Boromir knew not how wine was measured. He could hardly imagine a pint of wine, for the scholar's drink reeked of sophistication and the soldier's pint of heavy merriment, vulgarity and occasionally violence. 'Not the stuff of a soldier's world,' he thought, wary of his father's even gaze.

Denethor leaned forward as he spoke to his son, meeting Boromir's eyes all the while. "I understand that this is something of a tender subject, Boromir, but it becomes a more pressing matter with the progression of time. You are twenty years of age, yet you persist in jumping from one woman to another like some sort of toad."

"Father," Boromir could hardly help but protest, amused as he did so, "you yourself were six and forty years of age when you married our mother, mine and Faramir's. How then do you lecture that I, less than half that number, should be wed now?"

"Out of kindness and my learning," Denethor replied, "for by your years I had more interest in books than swords, and see what the men did say about me!" Though his well-schooled faced displayed no emotion, Denethor's heart burned at the memory of the jeers and crude rhymes whispered behind his back, sometimes even before him. What fault of his that he took more interest in books than in looks? True, in his day any woman seeking his courtship was more likely interested in power than his looks, for as a youth Denethor had been not proud of face nor in slight attractive, though in his later years he came to this.

"Give time then," Boromir bargained, "and I will find me a wife. I have yet to meet a woman I adore so." Yet, thinking of his current female counterpart Meril, he could not keep a slight blush and smile from his face. Marrying her might not be so terrible.

"If you cannot choose a woman, perhaps an arranged match would better suit?" Denethor noted the faint horror on his son's face and felt terrible for it, but steeled himself, recalling the taunting voices of his youth. The earliest, when he was no more than nine, rang thusly: 'Denethor, Denethor, steward of the land/Couldn't catch a woman so he settled for a man!' He had not been steward at the time, and the lines didn't quite rhyme, but in spite of this the sting remained with him. "There is a noble in Rohan, one Lady Eowyn I believe--"

Boromir remembered hearing his brother speak of Theodred's cousin. "Lady Eowyn is three years old!" he cried in disgust and protest.

"She will not be so for ever," Denethor observed. "There are others--"

"No. I will not marry a woman chosen by anyone but me."

"What if Faramir were to assist? He well knows your heart, does he not?" Denethor knew his eldest child's weakness.

Boromir leapt to his feet. "Leave Fara out of this matter! He is no pawn of yours, use him not against me!"

Denethor remained calm. "Then what of the Lady Meril?" he asked, naming the young noblewoman whom Boromir was known to be courting. "Would you consent to marry her?"

Outraged and unable to speak, Boromir bowed, and said, "By my lord's leave?" then left the room without an answer. This was a battle he could not stand to lose.

..

Boromir scrawled quickly a letter to Meril, asking her to meet him at midday on the morrow. He gave no reasons, simply stating that matters needed seeing to, then signed his name and folded the parchment. Taking a candle, he dripped wax over the loose corners and stamped them with the image of a dove. Boromir swore. "Stupid Faramir," he muttered, knowing who kept a dove seal, then immediately regretted his words. "Stupid Boromir for not looking."

He took the letter to the practice yards, encountering along his path a much distressed Faramir. Boromir caught his brother by the shoulders; the impact spun them both round. "Watch yourself, Little Brother!" Boromir chided, his voice lighter than air in his happiness, for his mind dwelled upon Lady Meril, whom he did love, even if marriage threatened to destroy this emotion. Seeing his brother's disappointment, Boromir frowned. "Here now, let us not have this for you, Bear." He might have dried Faramir's tears, had Faramir cried any. "I warned you he might say no, Fara, you know how Father is--"

"He hates me!" Faramir interrupted. "Father hates me!"

"Now!" exclaimed the elder, rubbing his brother's shoulder to calm him, "that's never the case, Faramir." Boromir was loyal to Faramir before nearly anyone in the world, but even in his anger with Denethor would not hear his father slandered.

"He said it himself, though. Or, as good as," Faramir admitted. "He refused to send me to Rohan--he says I will disgrace him. He all but called me unworthy of his blood!"

Recognizing hysterics closing in on his brother, Boromir said, "Take some rest, Little Brother. You are weary; surely this confuses you. Everything will look better after a good sleep."

Faramir shook his head. "I must solve this...there must be a way!"

"Must be agony for you, Little Bear, a problem you cannot solve. With rest and a clearer mind--"

"You know naught of this, Boromir. Yours is a fighter's mind."

"Then I shall treat you as an opponent!" Boromir cried, and swept his brother off his feet. Finding himself suspended above the ground, Faramir knew at once that the slightest protest would cause Boromir to exact his most secret revenge. The younger child grimaced, hating that anyone knew how ticklish he was. "What is it now, Little Bear? Sleep or giggle like a little girl, your choice."

"What if I say giggling?" Faramir challenged, in a perverse set of mind. "Will I laugh and be released?"

"No," Boromir replied, "you will laugh, and I will carry you back to your cell and hit you over the head with a blunt object."

Laughing weakly at this threat, Faramir agreed to sleep and was duly released. He was glad Boromir had threatened him: he wanted to rest, but considered it something of a failure to leave a problem unsolved. "You really are a pain sometimes, Big Bear."

"And you are an absolute pipsqueak, Little Bear," Boromir returned, embracing his brother. "Now off, go, sleep!" Faramir scurried away, and Boromir made his way to the practice yards.

In the dusky gloom, with torches round the ring, two pages fought one another with staves of wood. Equal in height, the broader of the boys was a ginger-haired fellow with the first signs of whiskers on his chin. The other was a willowy, lithe creature who ducked and blocked swiftly, and attacked in roundabout manners. The ginger boy had strength as his ally, but the willow would not easily be caught.

It was the willow who first noticed Boromir. He paused for a moment, squinting into the darkness, and the ginger boy nearly hit him on the head. Recovering with not a second to spare, the willow tucked into a ball and rolled swiftly behind the ginger boy, unfurled himself and wrapped an arm around the ginger boy's throat. "Cheater!" exclaimed the loser.

The willow released the ginger boy. "We are watched, Caranlas. Look."

In unison the boys bowed politely, and the ginger--Caranlas--called, "Greetings, friend, and what brings you at this hour to the pitch?"

Boromir smiled at the youths, and stepped into the torchlight. Caranlas's jaw dropped--Willow tugged on his friend's tunic, and he dropped to one knee. "Begging my lord's pardon for not doing you such a courtesy before," Willow spoke with proper reverence.

"Excused." Boromir wished he might be simply a knight to these boys. Courtliness and manners suited Faramir and Denethor fine, but Boromir much preferred the way of the sword. "Please do rise, and may I be only a knight to you who seeks a messenger."

"Messenger, sir?" asked Caranlas. "Where to?"

Boromir withdrew his letter. "Do either of you know the dwelling of the Lady Meril?" he asked.

"I do, sir," Willow offered. "I can take the letter there for you, sir, or directly to her, if you druther. She will not be in her home at this hour."

Somewhat offended by the forward attitude of the young boy, Boromir asked in a voice of iron, "How should you know such things?"

Biting back an amused smile, the boy answered, "Begging my lord's pardon, but she is my sister."

Boromir laughed aloud at this, thinking how silly he had been to assume this youth a watcher of women. He gave the boy his letter and a coin for his trouble, though he needn't have done so, and bade both youths farewell. With a light heart, Boromir returned home.

He headed first for his bed, feeling worn, but with his hand upon the doorknob paused. His heart was ill at ease, and Boromir knew that any sleep he caught would be unfulfilling. Turning away, he went to check on Faramir.

For a long while Boromir only watched his brother sleep. Faramir had braided his hair, much to the annoyance of Denethor, who viewed this as an openly effeminate act. 'Then he has never seen my Little Bear sleep,' Boromir thought, looking fondly upon the peaceful face of his brother. Faramir shifted in his sleep, throwing the covers askew, and Boromir moved to tuck the blankets around his brother's sleeping form. Coming into contact with Faramir's chest, thoughts flashed through Boromir's head--how easily he lifted his brother into the air, the look on Faramir's face when Boromir threatened to tickle him, the way he pushed his food around but never seemed to eat.

Boromir stripped the blankets away from Faramir with a trembling violence and lifted his brother's shirt. The sight that greeted him caused Boromir to gasp. "Oh, Fara," he whispered. "Oh, Bear..." Faramir's chest was emaciated. His ribs protruded against the skin. Prodding his brother lightly, Boromir felt flesh and bone but no fat. Tears threatened, but Boromir bit them back. So Faramir would not eat. Was he so unhappy? Why had Boromir not seen it?

Quietly, Boromir tucked the covers around Faramir and kissed his brow. Then he retreated.

Boromir immediately went to his father. Denethor looked up from his desk to regard with utter poise to harassed-looking son before him. Even the Steward of Gondor, however, could not mask his shock at the announcement which followed an awkward silence. "Send Faramir to Rohan and I will marry whomever you choose."

To be continued

Credit to Mercury Gray for the idea of calling Boromir 'Big Bear.'

Feedback is always appreciated, and I will do my best to have the next chapter up more quickly.

The names of Boromir's female friend and her brother are Elvish words; the girl is Rose and her brother Willow. I don't know much about names in Middle-earth, and am sorry for any grievous injuries done.