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The plain is in shimmering flux towards the hazy line between earth and sky. Tall grasses brush against his legs. They used to reach higher – he has sprouted lately. He’s like a hitherto unknown plant-species, and not at all home in his new elongated body.
Boromir feels exposed and subdued by the swaying endlessness around him and the tight-fitting lid of sky that encloses it. He watches his brother’s narrow back and long tangle of hair, and feels an embarrassing, overwhelming need for reassurance. In a fit of conflicting emotions, he closes the distance between them and wrestles Faramir to the ground.
Faramir is stunned at first; it’s so unlike his brother to jump on him from behind like this. He slams his fists into Boromir’s head, tears at his clothes. Boromir pulls back, abruptly, sits up with his back turned and starts pulling big handfuls of grass out of the dry ground. Directionless anger shimmers around him like a heat haze.
Faramir feels a sudden, absurd urge to protect him, but doesn’t know from what. He sits down on a lump of yellow grass, kicking his heels into the ground in frustration. He’d been happy. Walking aimlessly, feeling gloriously insignificant, Boromir like a shield behind him. In an effort to regain his peace, Faramir moves across to his brother and pushes a tentative shoulder against his arm. After a short moment the pressure is answered and held. They sit fused together, saying nothing, not looking at each-other.
The evening breeze gathers force behind their backs. Seeds, dust and fragments of grass drift across and between them towards an empty horizon. Boromir’s hair whips Faramir’s face and Faramir closes his eyes. A part of him wants to break free, float away on the breeze, aimlessly. But he feels the hard shiver, the heat from the arm pushing against his shoulder; feels the inescapable, merciless bond between them. That bond anchors them together on this hot, dry grassland, anchors them in the flux of time – and sometimes cuts hard into the skin.