3 Náerië

Dear Brother,

How you have tempered me with your words!  Across the leagues I sent you grief and you return me only strength and love where I looked for scorn and reproof.  So you have earned the place in the hearts of our men, our city, that you have always had in mine.  I will now be hardened again to our purpose.

Orcs are easy to hate in their unnaturalness, seems almost a mercy to return them to the void; but Men – what excuse can I not make for them in their desperate ignorance?  So the burden of this fight will lie heavy on me, as I know it does on you.  And here I find I would caution you – and in doing so recognize yet one more gift you have given me – be not so eager to raise your sword yet against the Enemy.  What we do here in Ithilien is but a beginning; it will afford us but little ground, perhaps, when the storm we both know is coming at last overflows the Anduin.

And for you – you needn’t tell me of your state, my brother; your words strain and stretch upon the page even as you must be straining against the lead placed upon you.  Yet I would say to you be patient with our father, and as I write do not think I cannot perceive the irony in my words.  He has always had powers greater even than the wise of our City to weigh the ever-expanding ripples of consequence.  If he is reticent to unleash you and your forces to a fight yet undeclared, no matter how fought, no doubt he has reasons, though we may never know them.  Boromir, I fear our father struggles with facets of his rule that neither you nor I will ever fully comprehend.  His silence, always deep as a well, has deepened these past many months; I worry for him, though I cannot say why.

But I do not wonder that he still keeps you; he has always held you close and may need his strongest weapon ere the end.  Let yourself remember he has chosen you, by more than birthright, more than blood, and our people look to you for their strength.  As you have lent it me so you will give it them; as you stand so they will stand.  The lords of the Southern Fiefs will answer your call alone.  No doubt Father knows this, as he knows all such subtle things.  While they will heed him out of duty, they will come to you for love – the love you bear for them and for their land, our land.

Fear not that when the time is right your great army will be loosed upon our enemies like a great wind to beat back the storm tide; the small damming work we have done here will be washed away and forgotten.  Then I, for one, will look to ride with you together back into our White City beneath snapping banners and belling trumpets.

Still, I cannot help but wonder if, when all is done and written, we will not be seen as courting this war, though it is ours through right and time.  I fear it will prove a match made in haste, repented at length.  Yet I am resolved, alloyed by your faith, my brother, to see its consummation.

Your loving brother,

Faramir