Shadows

Peregrine Took is no good at sneaking. Maybe it's the big fuzzy feet, or maybe it's the worried little sniffles between attempts to hold his breath. Either way, Boromir keeps scrounging for kindling under the sad icy scraps of old snow, offering Pippin the small mercy of choice in whether to speak of whatever has him so much on edge, or simply to slip away and pretend he's stayed in camp with the rest of the party.

The not-quite-silence stretches. His own boots scuff on the rocks as he crouches to gather another bundle of moss and furze and offer a brief,equally arid thought of thanks to whatever powers might be that the mountainside hasn't thawed in a very long time. A leathery sound tells him Pippin's doing the nervous-foot-scuff thing.

“Boromir...?”

“Mmm?” He finishes winnowing a twig out from under a rock – combustibles are, literally, thin on the ground, like everything else in this lean place – before looking up at the hobbit. Pippin is hugging himself around the elbows and he's left little indents in his already chapped lips from worrying at them. At least he's more red about the face than ashen – after last night's naked snow-shoveling escapades, Boromir has been worried.

“What...what you said last night. About not minding about Merry and me.” Biting his lip again, Pippin folds his hands behind his back. It's a nervous habit that Boromir finds endearing for the tales it tells of a whole lifetime of inquisitive mischief. Right now, though, he just waits, patient as stone, and Pippin rewards him with a blurted, “Why did you say that?”

Because it's true. That isn't what Pippin needed to hear, though, so instead he offers quietly, “Come help me find kindling” and allows the not-silence to settle again, warmed by the scuff of footsteps and the scrabble of searching fingers. When he speaks again he lets the words slide into the quiet like careful fishes, causing barely a ripple.

“Amongst my people, it is considered a rite of passage for a young man on the cusp of full adulthood to lie with other men, usually a few years his elder. It is not a necessary thing, but it is common, and smiled upon, for it is said that the practice shares the wisdom of the more experienced man and the strength of the younger.” He tucks a bit of lichen into the bundle of kindling in his folded cloak. “Some relationships last well past youth, into marriage, with children raised as much by their father's lover and his wife as by their own parents. We call the second father a shadow-friend, because they share a shape and a lifetime's affection. Such were two of the trusted officers I lost at Osgiliath.”

“And you?”

“Father never had a lover, far less a shadow-friend.” He shakes his head sharply, scowling at himself. “He is not fond of the tradition, as it was never one of Numenor.” Cold air, sharp with the scent of snow, stings his lungs as he draws a deep breath and allows himself to kneel, for one moment, with head and shoulders bowed, one palm planted on the scratchy-sharp solidity of mountainside, watching the vermillion play of light through closed eyelids. “My grandfather was shadow-biased all his life, with little sentiment of that sort toward women. Through much of his administration we were at war with corsairs from the south and east...”  


A flare of dull pain in his lower lip lets him know he's been biting it. How rude of his teeth, to do so without his permission. To disengage them requires a conscious effort. The red lights dance in his closed eyes, painfully serene for all they share the colour of the knot lodged in his throat. He presses down, hard, against the gravelly ground, seeking and finding balance in the toothy edges of small stones.

“There fought for him a Numenorian admiral – brilliant, he said, and beautiful and kind, though very solemn. I don't know if they were lovers, but so far as Grandfather knew, Thorongil returned his trust and caring. After the battle which broke the corsairs' power, in the dead of night he left, without word, without warning.”

The red light has faded as the hidden sun sinks behind a mountain's flank. When he opens his eyes, the blank white of winter sky fills them. A few small knives of snow sting down; nothing that sharp merits words like 'flake' or 'drift.' The knot in his throat has frozen into place. He swallows hard but it does no good and he has to speak around it.  Its bulk roughens his voice.

“That was the first I knew, of that sort of love. My grandfather in his study, folded like a dusty paper crane, asking me in an aching voice what he did wrong, that Thoronigil left.” The ache has all but stolen his own speech and the bitter snow has blinded him to all save blurs of wind-leeched colour. He closes his eyes tight,tight, tight, squeezing back the painful pressure that has lazily unfurled from his throat to thump against the inside of his skull. With the sun's descent, the world behind closed eyes is dull red-grey.

A small hand touches his arm, tentatively; opening his eyes he sees, from their corner, a cautiously extended bundle of kindling.  He turns to accept it, folding it into the warm dark wool of his cloak along with the rest he and Pippin have gathered. Pippin's eyes watch him closely, the small ruddy face pinched with anxious worry. He wraps an arm around the little hobbit's shoulders, pulls him close (gently, mindful of the vast gap of size and strength,) and plants a chaste, brief kiss on his forehead.

“Thus I have never seen it as a love less than any other. And Merry is a good man.” The green eyes still search his face. Carefully he sets down the cloak with its armful of potential warmth and folds the young hobbit into a protective hug. “So are you.”

Pippin blurts a small sound – pleased? Surprised? - and hugs him tight for a moment, just a moment, then tenses and draws back, glaring, to level an accusatory “You're shivering!”

“...Damn, you're right.” Unfolding to his full height, heedless of one knee's protesting twinge, he allows himself refuge in laughter, and, grinning, deposits the cloak in Pippin's arms. “Let's head back to camp. You get to carry the kindling.”