Disclaimers: If I owned LotR… trust me, you'd know it.
A/N—
Eggos: Right, now I don't know which of my readers called PETA on me…
Boromir (mouthing): Thank you! We love you! Hugs and kisses for all!
Eggos: … but they came by this morning, surrounded the house, trampled the petunias, TP'd the car, and ended up sequestering my Labrador. Thanks a lot.
Boromir (rounding on Faramir): They took the dog? Faramir, I though you said these "PETA" people would come and rescue us!
Faramir: I had no idea it was an animal rights group! I thought it stood for Prohibiting the Evil Tendencies of Authors!
Boromir: And they call you the smart one!
Eggos: Oh, stop being such a pair of wusses. I could have done a lot worse by the two of you! I mean, Boromir! You're alive!
Boromir: … maimed …
Eggos: … but alive! And Faramir… come on, you're not even in the fic yet! (pause) Though that's shortly to be remedied…
Faramir: (Censored)!
It had been two days since the morning when Faramir, with the keen perception of his Ranger senses, had half-fancied that he had heard the resounding cry of a horn echoing in the distance. And not just any horn—only one instrument could have produced a note of such volume and timbre, and that particular instrument was of certain interest to Faramir, mainly on account of the person who bore it.
It had been two days, and Faramir's nights had been uneasy. On the first day, the eve after he had first heard the horn, he had dreamt of Boromir. A ghastly and sinisterly life-like dream, during which he watched his brother fall—no new experience for Faramir's troubled mind, which was wont to manifest his most innate fears in the form of nightmares. But this time it had felt different, more vision than nightmare, and the telltale sound of the winding horn, which was only blown at great need, only served to further heighten this conviction. In his dream, there had been Orcs, many Orcs, and arrows, and then water, heavy and dark, stifling, smothering—a drowning. He had almost supposed that he had experienced another historical vision, and that he had dreamt of Isildur. But it most certainly been Boromir that he had seen.
On the second night, he dreamt of Boromir again, but not of his death. He was not sure exactly what the second vision entailed, but it was much more vague than the first, phantasmagoric flashes of light and feeling. Grey mist and interlacing branches—he almost thought that he had seen his mother at some point—and then fiery pain, and frenzied running. Running across the plains of Rohan.
It was no good, Faramir decided. There was no way to be certain of whether his dreams were visions, or whether they were simply dreams. At all events, he was in no mood to play at ducks and drakes with Boromir's safety, especially in the event that the Valar had seen fit to send him a warning, and decided, reluctantly, grudgingly, that he would have to write to his father.
He mused at great length as to how best to word his letter to Denethor, how best to convey his visions such that they came across as serious enough to compel the Steward to action, but not as so dire that the news would upset the balance of his father's ever-more-precarious mental state and drive him to such acts of arson as he had indulged in immediately following his mother's death.
Eventually, he worded a communication to his satisfaction, and sent it off with a courier.
"This is to be delivered directly into the Steward's hands, and no other," were his implicit instructions. "If he is not at liberty to accept the delivery, then it is not to be delivered at all."
Faramir sank into his chair, wearied. Wearied with worrying about Boromir and Denethor and Mordor and Ithilien and Haradrim. All he wanted was a pack of hounds and a beach house in Dol Amroth. That was all. Was it really so much to ask?
… yes, it was. Faramir was not sure whether there was any age during which Men were, or would be, afforded bliss, but it was obviously not the third one.
The courier was back in twenty minutes.
"Sweet Eru, how did you travel so speedily?" came Faramir's astonished inquiry.
There was a noise not unlike ten thousand Harry Potter fans crying, "He Apparated! He Apparated!" and ten thousand Lord of the Rings fans crying back, "GET YOUR OWN BLOODY FANFIC ALREADY!"
"I traveled so speedily," explained the courier, "because, in this world, time and distance have no congenital meaning."
"Why, because it's a parody?"
"No, because the author can't be bothered to look at that blasted map another time."
"Ah."
Faramir saw that the courier bore a response, and appropriated it.
Do us all a favor and take a long walk off a short pier, you whiny bastard. And if your nightmares are bothering you, buy yourself a damned nightlight.
Love and kisses,
Daddy
Well, that was that, then. Denethor, son of Ecthelion, Steward of Gondor, had gone mad. He obviously still loved and cherished Faramir to the same extent that any father might. He was simply mad. That was all. Really.
But there was still the matter of Boromir being dead, or, at best, running mortally wounded across the plains of Rohan, though Faramir did not think that the latter was quite as likely. Action needed to be taken, but Denethor quite obviously would not be the agent.
Faramir knew that this called for something quick, spontaneous, rash, and utterly OOC.
"A red sun rises," intoned Legolas, dramatically silhouetted against the pink-tinged sky. "Blood has been spilled this night."
"Yes, and I know whose," wheezed Boromir, staggering forward and wincing as his wounds persisted in their gaping state.
Legolas glared. "I wasn't talking about you, if that's what you meant."
"I'd just like to know how exactly you can determine whether blood has been spilt by the color of sun," sneered Boromir, who found that superfluous near-death experiences afforded him new levels of cynicism. "Is it an art that one can learn? Because I imagine that it might be useful in the military, you know, when it comes to planning strategies and the like…"
"The statement was metaphorical," scoffed the Elf, flipping his golden hair.
"Legolas makes ambiguous metaphorical statements under pressure," put in Aragorn in what he evidently took to be an undertone. "It's best not to question them."
"Well, I'm glad that he has breath to spare," growled Boromir.
Legolas's large blue eyes filled with tears. "You don't understand!" he cried out in a wail that nonetheless failed to mar his countenance—a feat indeed. "I can't help it! Making ambiguous statements is what I do! I… I had a disturbed childhood!"
Boromir's eyes practically popped with incredulity. "You're talking to me about disturbed childhoods? My father beats my brother and talks to crystal balls and lights things on fire for kicks!"
"My father doesn't even know I'm alive! And I'm an arachnophobic! Do you have any idea what it's like living in Mirkwood with arachnophobia?"
"Oh, stop sniveling, the pair of you! I'm a bloody orphan!"
"… with a loving father figure…!"
"… who won't let me marry his daughter unless I become royalty first!"
"You want to marry your foster father's daughter?" exclaimed Boromir with faint disgust. "That's practically incest!"
"Well, look who's talking!"
"What—!"
"You—!"
"I—!"
"It—!"
"That's—!"
"Stop—!"
"Never—!"
"We—!"
"You—!"
"Argh—!"
"Duck—!"
The three bickering companions jumped behind a conveniently located rock as a horde of sweaty Rohirric horses with a horde of sweaty Rohirrim on their glistening backs came stampeding past.
The odors of blood and perspiration and manure all combined in a delectably pungent whiff of distinctly Rohirric scent that sent Legolas's delicate stomach reeling. Aragorn, who was used to foul odors, and indeed quite liked them, such that personal hygiene was rendered superfluous, had no such qualms, and inhaled deeply before filling his lungs with the heady air and bellowing, "Riders of Rohan! What news from the Mark?"
In a space of twenty seconds, they were enclosed in a ring of fifty angry horselords, all of whom were brandishing singularly lethal-looking spears in their direction.
"Smart move, Aragorn," muttered Boromir, eyeing the nearest spearhead with a kind of detached anxiety. Sharp objects now bore a new kind of menace in his eyes.
"And what business does an Elf, a Man, and… another Man… have in the Riddermark?" snarled a burly and particularly cross Rider with a plume of false hair protruding from his helmet.
"We are tracking a company of Uruk-Hai westward across the plains; they have taken two of our friends captive," said Aragorn.
"Hah!" exclaimed the Rider with cross derision. "Hah! That's what they all say! 'Oh, we're just hunting Orcs!' 'Oh, we're just looking for some friends!' You know, that's what that ragtag bunch of hillfolk told me when they came to border crossing yesterday, and they ended up ransacking a bloody village! I need some ID from the three of you!"
"ID?" asked Legolas, confused.
"I… hold on, wait a minute…" Boromir rummaged through his pockets for a moment and then sighed. "Oh, it's no use… I've gone and left my 'Steward's Favorite Son' card in Rivendell."
Aragorn wordlessly proffered a small plastic card, and the cross Rider took it.
His eyes widened. "Isildur's Heir?" he exclaimed with cross incredulity. "These indeed are strange days. Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass."
"I'm flattered," said Aragorn stiffly. "But I really can't stay and chat… see, we've been tracking these Orcs from Tol Brandir for four days now…"
"On foot?"
"Yes."
"Hardy is the race of Elendil! Wingfoot I name you!"
"Oh Eru, not another one!" groaned Boromir. "What number is that? Twelve?"
The cross Rider glared at Boromir, and Boromir glared back. "At all events," the horselord continued crossly, "the Uruks are no more. We slew them in an ambush and burned the carcasses—see?" He pointed to a cloud of billowing smoke on the horizon.
"(Censored)!" cried Aragorn. "We ran all that way for nothing!"
"Would you like direction to the nearest pub?" offered the Rider with cross neighborliness.
"No thanks, we'd best be moseying on over to that bonfire and pretend to be doing something useful. I may take you up on that offer later, though," added Aragorn, and the three took their leave of the Riders, Boromir feeling almost as cross as their leader at the prospect of a pub turned down.
"Well, that's classy," said Legolas, wrinkling his nose at an Orc head impaled upon a stick.
"Boromir, kindly rummage through that pile and see if Merry and Pippin are hiding underneath," ordered Aragorn idly, seating himself on a rock. Boromir limped over and grudgingly obeyed. The hobbits were not, as it happened, concealed among the carcasses, but, by sheer chance, Boromir lighted upon one of their belts, charred and fragmented among various other indistinguishable articles. He held it aloft soundlessly.
It took Aragorn a few minutes to notice the belt, but when he did, he immediately squinted, said, "I guess it's time for me to lose it, isn't it?" and threw himself onto the ground kicking and screaming. Legolas began praying loudly in Elvish, making Boromir, who was not religious, distinctly uncomfortable, such that he was most relieved when Aragorn abruptly stopped wailing, pawed thoughtfully at the ground, and announced, "Shh, I'm about to pull a Prince Humperdinck!"
There was a noise not unlike that of ten thousand readers sighing simultaneously and wondering if the canonically incongruous references to pop culture would ever end.
A/N: Well, this definitely wasn't one of my more amusing chapters, but things are going to pick up from here, I hope… I'd like to thank all my wonderful reviewers, who are most kind in continuing to put up with this fic, which would appear to be getting progressively weirder and weirder… though I've been having fun, dammit!