Faramir Fiction Archive

Brothers (G)

Written by Monica

09 May 2005 | 4731 words

Chapter 2: Reading

Boromir scowled at the book before him, trying to will the letters to make sense. His tutor had assigned a particularly hard section to read, and Boromir knew that he would be tested the next day on the information. He sighed and raised his eyes, wondering what good was it to read facts and dates. He liked reading stories of soldiers and battles, but this dull recitation of laws was boring.

"Boro?" a small voice sounded beside him. He looked down to see his four-year-old brother standing beside his desk. "What you doing?"

"Reading something stupid," Boromir answered, and Faramir giggled at the reply. He tugged on Boromir's shirt, and his big brother responded to the unspoken request by picking him up. Faramir settled on his brother's lap and contentedly watched and listened as Boromir returned to his book.

A few minutes later, Boromir frowned anew when he came to an unfamiliar word. Hesitatingly, he started to sound it out. "A-pen- dee," he tried. "No, ap-end…."

"Appendix's," Faramir piped up.

Boromir looked at the child, his eyebrows drawing together in surprise. "What, Faramir?" he asked. His little brother pointed to the word.

"That says appendix's," Faramir said confidently. "That's the stuff at the end of the book."

Eyebrows now rose as Boromir considered the child. "How do you know that?"

"Mabel is teaching me reading," Faramir said, referring to his nurse. "And mama teaches me too when she can."

Boromir looked at the book, and then back to his brother. "What else can you read?" he asked. Faramir giggled and began reading aloud to his big brother.

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time change

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"Kh…Khazâd ai-mênu." Faramir paused, considering the words. "The dwarfs are upon you?" he guessed.

"Yes!" Gimli slapped his back, nearly sending the young man sprawling across the desk. "I knew you were intelligent enough to read Dwarvish, lad," he boomed in a proud voice.

Faramir rubbed his bruised shoulder, smiling warily at the pleased dwarf. "Well, at least with reading I don't have to worry about the accent," he commented. Gimli had lamented that no one in Gondor spoke a word of Dwarvish without making him wince at the horrible accent. "But the characters are still hard to understand. It is quite different from most writing forms."

"Nonsense," Gimli scolded looking over Faramir's shoulder at the book. "Just requires some patience and concentration. This is a perfect book for you to practice reading; it's a nice easy children's story."

Faramir raised an eyebrow at Gimli's description. The title roughly translated as "Lust for mithril" and there was a small drawing of one dwarf bashing in the head of another dwarf with a pickaxe so he could presumably steal his pot of mithril. Not what he would call a children's story, but he wasn't about to argue with Gimli; he valued his life too much for that. Faramir conceded though, that it was unlikely that Gimli would ever cause him permanent harm. The dwarf had taken a liking to the young man and bossed him around worse than Boromir ever had. Anyone who even frowned at the new Steward received a death glare that made it clear one who valued his life would not cross the dwarf's honorary little brother.

"Now, let's continue the story," Gimili said brightly. "We're almost at the part where the mithril is found! It still brings a tear to my eyes every time I read it."

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