Writer's Workshop #4 "Loving"
He is everything to me, he always has been. I’m told that he held me the day I was born-after mother and father did. She was tired and wanted to sleep and my brother held out his arms then. He was five.
He was there for me when she died. Father’s grief was too great and he locked himself away. He was different when he came out of that room and I know it. I don’t really remember what he was like before he went in but when he came out everything had changed. Boromir was there, though. He let me cry and explained what it meant that mother was dead. I have a vague memory of saying something vastly stupid like… so that meant we wouldn’t be going to Dol Amroth to see Uncle Imrahil. She’d said we would go when she got better. We cried together. He was ten then and he tried not to cry: I think sometimes that he was keeping me company because I can’t recall him crying before or since.
He would turn to me when we were studying together. He didn’t enjoy it like I did. He complained sometimes about his lessons but he looked at me doing mine and there would be an odd look on his face. I didn’t know what it meant. I’d learnt to read early and was soon reading the same books and studying the same things he was. I didn’t realize until he went into the army and I took my lessons alone--he was fourteen and I was nine-just what his presence had given me. Things went faster when he was gone and there were more things to study but no one praised me like he had.
He had his first command at seventeen. He stood before Lord Denethor and received a fine sword to go with his commission as lieutenant. It is the sword I now carry. He turned to me after the ceremony and smiled. He was a man then, not a boy any longer. That he looked to me first before anyone else seemed perfectly natural-I am his brother. Not all older brothers would have done so but I didn’t know that then.
He was there on my sixteenth birthday when Lord Denethor gave me the order to report to the rangers. I’d spoken of joining the army at fourteen like he did but Lord Denethor said no. I was disappointed to learn that I would have to go to Ithilien, having once hoped that perhaps I would be allowed to do something else; study, travel with Mithrandir, learn with the Elves perhaps. Boromir, though, filled my head with tales of the rangers. He said how good I would be at it, all of the details that I noticed about things that he did not. Rangers hunted and tracked and did things so much differently from regular soldiers. The way he explained it made it truly seem like I was made to be a ranger. The only bad thing was that we’d not see each other so often, being in completely different units. He embraced me then and told me what a fine man I’d become.
I saw him just over a year later when I was able to return to Minas Tirith the first time. He came in just to see me. He was twenty-two and now a Captain of the White Tower but you would have thought it the other way round the way he went on about me and how I’d changed. That year was the longest length of time we’d ever been apart, he told me. He swore that it wouldn’t happen again, our being parted for so long.
When he was made Captain-General it was a replay of his first command. The sword was finer but he turned first to me and smiled. Who else would he turn to? He was twenty-six.
He stood next to Lord Denethor when I was made a Captain. He held the sword until its presentation and he smiled so. I was twenty-five and he thirty and I finally, finally understood those looks he’d given me back in lessons, saw the pride in his eyes.
The war escalated and I saw him perhaps twice a year we were both so busy. Sometimes-very rarely-I would use my Long Sight to check on him. I just needed to know he was well and it made me less alone. Being able to see what was in his heart made me stronger. I can’t do it on the island but I know what’s there, what he feels because I remember it.
He was here for four days after his death. If I hadn’t known in advance, if Éowyn hadn’t told me, I would have broken then to know that he died. He was forty-one.
I miss him so much sometimes my heart aches. He can’t see how I feel about him. When I return home after all of this, I’ll tell him often. He won’t understand, will look at me with that puzzled expression he gets sometimes. Like he doesn’t understand how we can be so different and still brothers.
But so very proud that we are.
He was there for me when she died. Father’s grief was too great and he locked himself away. He was different when he came out of that room and I know it. I don’t really remember what he was like before he went in but when he came out everything had changed. Boromir was there, though. He let me cry and explained what it meant that mother was dead. I have a vague memory of saying something vastly stupid like… so that meant we wouldn’t be going to Dol Amroth to see Uncle Imrahil. She’d said we would go when she got better. We cried together. He was ten then and he tried not to cry: I think sometimes that he was keeping me company because I can’t recall him crying before or since.
He would turn to me when we were studying together. He didn’t enjoy it like I did. He complained sometimes about his lessons but he looked at me doing mine and there would be an odd look on his face. I didn’t know what it meant. I’d learnt to read early and was soon reading the same books and studying the same things he was. I didn’t realize until he went into the army and I took my lessons alone--he was fourteen and I was nine-just what his presence had given me. Things went faster when he was gone and there were more things to study but no one praised me like he had.
He had his first command at seventeen. He stood before Lord Denethor and received a fine sword to go with his commission as lieutenant. It is the sword I now carry. He turned to me after the ceremony and smiled. He was a man then, not a boy any longer. That he looked to me first before anyone else seemed perfectly natural-I am his brother. Not all older brothers would have done so but I didn’t know that then.
He was there on my sixteenth birthday when Lord Denethor gave me the order to report to the rangers. I’d spoken of joining the army at fourteen like he did but Lord Denethor said no. I was disappointed to learn that I would have to go to Ithilien, having once hoped that perhaps I would be allowed to do something else; study, travel with Mithrandir, learn with the Elves perhaps. Boromir, though, filled my head with tales of the rangers. He said how good I would be at it, all of the details that I noticed about things that he did not. Rangers hunted and tracked and did things so much differently from regular soldiers. The way he explained it made it truly seem like I was made to be a ranger. The only bad thing was that we’d not see each other so often, being in completely different units. He embraced me then and told me what a fine man I’d become.
I saw him just over a year later when I was able to return to Minas Tirith the first time. He came in just to see me. He was twenty-two and now a Captain of the White Tower but you would have thought it the other way round the way he went on about me and how I’d changed. That year was the longest length of time we’d ever been apart, he told me. He swore that it wouldn’t happen again, our being parted for so long.
When he was made Captain-General it was a replay of his first command. The sword was finer but he turned first to me and smiled. Who else would he turn to? He was twenty-six.
He stood next to Lord Denethor when I was made a Captain. He held the sword until its presentation and he smiled so. I was twenty-five and he thirty and I finally, finally understood those looks he’d given me back in lessons, saw the pride in his eyes.
The war escalated and I saw him perhaps twice a year we were both so busy. Sometimes-very rarely-I would use my Long Sight to check on him. I just needed to know he was well and it made me less alone. Being able to see what was in his heart made me stronger. I can’t do it on the island but I know what’s there, what he feels because I remember it.
He was here for four days after his death. If I hadn’t known in advance, if Éowyn hadn’t told me, I would have broken then to know that he died. He was forty-one.
I miss him so much sometimes my heart aches. He can’t see how I feel about him. When I return home after all of this, I’ll tell him often. He won’t understand, will look at me with that puzzled expression he gets sometimes. Like he doesn’t understand how we can be so different and still brothers.
But so very proud that we are.