Send a symbol for a situation - Accepting @valorshwn sent - ❖ My muse accidentally falls asleep against yours.
Carefully, Boromir maneuvered around the cool almond cordial in his hand to stretch his shoulders and back. His family were too lost in their thoughts to notice his wince, which was by design. “-Sirgon will not want our sympathy, has he even acknowledged she is gone?” Denethor’s look at his sister was disapproving, but Boromir could not say his aunt was wrong, “He made it plain he wished for no word of it from me,” he sighed, “but perhaps words from his cousins would be received differently. Lady Laegeth requested you not leave him to his own devices.”
“Is that not what she is doing?” Terenis growled under her breath, though it still drew a rare scowl from Vanyalos, “Terenis, she has lost her daughter.”
“So she leaves her husband?”
“Terenis-”
“I know, I am being unkind. I know.”
“And he has mother with him, he is not alone.”
“That is worse than being alone-”
Boromir’s legs had remembered solid ground again about halfway to home. A month warring at sea and then days journeying up the Anduin had left him teetering with every step from a dock, which was part of why he had chosen to walk the distance from Osgiliath to Minas Tirith’s gates. It had also been the few hours of quiet he had needed before being welcomed home by a worried family. He had been surprised to see even his Aunt Terenis had journeyed from Tumladen to stay with her brother.
And speaking of brothers... Boromir realised suddenly that Faramir had become a dead weight against his shoulder. His even breathing was so slow it was barely perceptible and to look at his sleeping face you couldn’t imagine the problems he could cause. Despite the mournful and aggrieved atmosphere in the Tower of Ecthelion tonight, Boromir couldn’t help his smirk. This was a far cry from the six foot teenager whom had leaped at him the moment he was through the gates. He had barely caught the boy in time.
“He has not slept since you departed.”
Denethor’s voice broke through his reverie and he looked up to see his father looking over them both with an expression close to fond. Boromir sighed, finding the words to reply a moment later, “That is no good, I will be gone again soon enough.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Denethor’s expression did not show pain, but it showed the suppression of it. And Boromir’s gut clenched as even that grated over his raw nerves. He wondered if Denethor also hadn’t slept while he was gone, he wondered how much time he had spent at the peak of this tower. All too much, too much to hold when he was holding everything else.
He had looked away, and so did not see Denethor reach to pass a paper dry and gnarled hand over Faramir’s head, “he will adapt,” Denethor murmured, which drew back Boromir’s eye. Denethor began edging his arms under and around Faramir’s limp body and he hushed Boromir with a look before he could protest. “Find your own rest my son,” he said as he pulled a still-sleeping Faramir up and to his chest, “you do not need to hold the mourning watches with us, Siriel has already heard your farewells.”
Terenis and Vanyalos nodded in agreement with their little brother the moment Boromir turned to look at them. Finding himself out-voted and crushingly tired, he decided to concede to an easy defeat, just this once. Though, he still stole his brother from his father’s arms to put him to bed himself.