@Boromir_Aesir

With the troops planned departure the next morning the city had become restless, a hustle and bustle that was typical and wont to confuse those who were less than good observers. Usually Faramir's attentions were on the troops, on signs of unrest in the populace, on people showing too much distress, in short: on anything that indicated bad morale. But this time he had been distracted, and said distraction was his own older brother.

Usually Boromir was not such a puzzle, and Faramir would have teasingly said, that his brother was not that complex, but these last weeks had been strange ones. That his brother should strike up a new friendship... now it was rare but not unheard of. When Faramir had noticed him often slipping away in evenings to seek out the smithy of the Undercity, he had been amused. The blacksmith down there was something of an exotic being for this city. A dwarf who had come here during the late reign of their great-grandfather and had become a citizen when their father took the reins of this city. To the boys of the city the dark forge was a place of fascination and many of them would return there when they were called to arms.

That his brother might befriend the blacksmith who'd be send out with them into war-camps was no surprise for Faramir, the dwarf's diligent keeping to his duties to the army, would certainly appeal to his brother's own sense of duty, and who knew what other knowledge of war the dwarf (who might well be thrice their age or more) might possess?

Another thing had caused Faramir's attentions - it was the orb of flame obsidian that showed up in his brother's possession shortly after that friendship began, along with a candle holder that was a very precise depiction of the Argonath. While the candle holder was a simple necessity, of an artful one, the stone orb was strange, as it seemed to go where his brother went. It often sat on his desk, or a shelf in his room, if he did not have it on his person. And one evening - the evening before they were marching - Faramir had walked into the Captain's Guard room, to see a pale, ghostly figure stand by the table and read a book. It vanished the moment he walked in, but he knew what he had seen in that split-second - the apparition of a ghostly woman. He had not been tempted to dismiss it as a trick of the light, a ranger learned to know what he had seen and what he had not seen.

Carefully he approached the desk, to see the stone sitting on it beside the book. Faramir frowned and peered down on the pages.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote....

Of all possible things to find on his brother's desk - the Lay of Elune was the last thing he'd ever have guessed there. Boromir never read poetry and he detested love songs, and certainly this was not a book he'd chose to read, though he certainly could have ordered it brought here from the citadel's library.

Faramir touched the pages, wondering. This song... it had been one of their mother's favourites. Had he seen her spirit? Was this stone... was this stone somehow a soulstone? If so... why would his brother have it? It could only have come from one source. But why would the dwarf have made it?

For a moment Faramir contemplated asking their father's advice. Stern as Denethor could be, he was wise and Faramir trusted his father. But no... this was not the time to go about with unfounded accussations. Better he went and talked to the dwarf directly.

Thus Faramir had gone down to the Undercity, to avoid attention he had chosen the hidden pathways. They often ended inside rooms, and while it would be rude, the dwarf would understand why they best had this conversation without someone seeing Faramir come and go. Faramir knew the passage that ended inside the rooms behind the smithy, and entered quietly. He had no wish to embarrass the dwarf in case he had visitors at this late hour. All he wanted was a very quiet talk about arcane gifts.

The rooms were silent and dark. Faramir wondered if it was possible that the dwarf was already asleep. It seemed unlikely his species was said to be nocturnal. Quietly he moved across the rooms and spotted a door ajar opposite of him. Peering inside he saw that he had come across the dwarf's bedroom - a faint light from a stone illuminated the room vaguely. And what Faramir saw made him freeze - his brother and the dwarf lay on the bed, curled up into one another, and worse even - his brother was awake, gently stroking the sleeping dwarf's long hair.

The gesture was so tender, so... intimate... Faramir felt that he was blushing so hotly that it should light up the corridor and give him away. Only barely he managed to regain his senses and sneak away again, sealing the passage behind him. All thoughts of a soulstone fleeing his mind when the realization about his brother's friendship with the dwarf hit him. For a long time he sat in the dark of the hidden tunnels, before he made his way back to the citadel. He'd have to talk to them some time in Osgiliath, it might be wiser that way. Unbidden and unwanted his father's voice sneaked into his mind, a comment from years ago, that Boromir's taste in affair certainly was somewhat... rough. He sighed... things had just to get complicated.

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