The Bear and Barnacle

Faramir is completely unfamiliar with the entire concept of pickup lines.

His contact with remotely acceptable romantic possibilities has been nil despite his brother having once bribed the cook's daughter to corner him in the library. His contact with unacceptable ones has been slightly more extant but still not what one might call ... educational in the ways of romance.

The closest Faramir has ever gotten to a pickup line is a wine bottle brought too often near the target of his affections' cup. But he would be the first to say that it works surprisingly well on a surprisingly large percentage of the people he has tried it on.

Faramir was given his first sword so long ago he doesn't remember not owning one and while he was at first much more interested in his books than in weaponry it was not long before the influence of his adored brother began to set in. Boromir is ten years his senior and Faramir has spent the entirety of his sixteen years thinking his brother a god.

In some ways the two could not seem more different even though they look so much alike. Even as children it was so. As Boromir sat beside their father Denethor in court and eagerly learned from the citadel guard all he could discover and some things he shouldn't have repeated, Faramir spent his time following the keeper of Gondor's ancient library and doing odd jobs for the Wardens of the Houses of Healing. He was at his father's knee only to ask for answers and stories rather than to absorb and adopt the ways of the ruler. By the time the brothers were eight and eighteen Boromir had picked up many mannerisms of their father and commanded his first expeditions with a tone and mind very familiar to the men in his service. Faramir was said to resemble his mother or neither parent in his shy nature and his willingness to listen to any snippet of lore or history that someone would tell him.

So it startled a few of his tutors and the servants of the house when at thirteen quiet, bookish Faramir began challenging Boromir to practice swordsmanship with him. Boromir indulged him and Faramir always lost.

But he persevered and refused when Boromir kept offering to go easy on him. He learned more from the losing than he would have from a swordsman of his own ability and soon that ability was greatly expanded. Their illmatched practice never seemed to draw more than half curious glances from Denethor, but Boromir's laughter and the rough hand ruffling Faramir's hair – those gave the boy a warm, steady glow that no other's praise and no other's touch could equal.

Now that he is uprooted from home and far from the warmth of his brother's love and the long-held hope of his father's approval, Faramir carries his sword close by him even though he's already noticed that very few in this place go armed. Its weight at his side is comforting as he pushes into the Pub having come on Mina's recommendation. Here in this strange and frightening place it is a touch of home and a memory of his brother that he cannot imagine doing without.

He is only circumstantially a soldier but he is well trained and the first thing he does when he realizes he is not in his own bed is reach for his sword. Yet he does not draw. He only gives his surroundings an intent, searching look.

He is alone on a sandy strip beside a sea. This in itself would not be strange for in the past he and his brother have travelled together south to the Bay of Beleriand, but it is most strange because he would not have slept there in the open. Stranger still because the last he knew he was in Minas Tirith in his bed, losing himself in a book. The strangest of all for the unfamiliarity of the bright town that lies before him past the shadowy sand.

After his surroundings he thinks to examine himself. His grey-green wool cloak is spotted with fine beach sand. To his left he sees a travelling pack of the type he carries on his saddle and when he draws it close and opens it he finds it contains his own clothing, precisely folded, and a thick book. It is the book he was reading but if he were to bring a book on a journey to lands unknown he thinks he would choose a less fragile and more relevant work than this poetic Elvish history.

Again he looks up and around and tries to reconcile what he sees with any detail of the maps he has memorized in his studies. Is it just after dusk or just before dawn? He cannot tell and the stars are all wrong for the season. Is it not still winter?

He decides to wait for one hour for some memory to return or failing that for some inquisitive local who will direct a 16yearold boy who is very clearly lost. One hour and then he will go into this strange, bright, populous city, much though the idea makes him nervous and try to ascertain where he is and how he came there.

Hello to the world. Faramir and I are glad to have arrived or at any rate I am glad and he is confused. I have placed some basic info on his journal if anyone wants to see it and I am eager to play.