Chapter 3: Boromir And Sméagol Have Bad Dreams

“There’s water ahead. Fresh water.”

“Is there? That would be well, but there is none on my map, so it would be a new discovery. I suppose it must be a new discovery! I trust your ears and nose more than my map, particularly in these parts where few travel.” 

“A new river, gollum!” Sméagol was so excited by this that he stood upright in order to clasp his hands under his chin like a child. “Then! Someone must go and see, mustn’t he? Someone must go and see!”

“Indeed, I suppose someone must, and he must be keen of sight and quick of mind in case of any danger,” said Boromir. Sméagol flitted away at once, dipping out of sight into the featureless brown undulations in the ground, and Boromir was alone in the desolate landscape.

They had by mutual agreement plotted a course that avoided Lorien and the Elvish settlements in Greenwood by a wider margin than was strictly needful, which was how they had found themselves spending so much time in the Brown Lands. They might have followed Anduin longer if they were willing to remain on its west side into the forest. But instead they had crossed from Rohan, and had now spent nearly a full night in the wastes.

Boromir waited a moment, and then his manner of waiting struck him as foolish. It helped no one for him to stand and look noble when he might sit and rest his leg. He was not commanding a company.

Boromir sat and reviewed his map. Indeed, there was no river or creek or anything of the like marked there, in fact there was nothing marked there at all- but Sméagol came back dripping.

“Was there trouble?” Boromir got to his feet at once. “You look troubled, and you were gone longer than I expected.”

“No trouble. It is only… no, my lord, it is nothing.”

“Yet I would hear your thought.”

“There is a beautiful little stream, but it smells odd, and it is strange on our handses.” He looked at his hands in bemusement, as if they were unfamiliar objects. “But it is clear and cold, and I drank a little, and I am not poisoned. It is not poison. And it is not muddy and dusty, it is clean rockses. There’s no danger. But I wonder. It isn’t quite… friendly water.”

“Do you think it bewitched?”

“No,” he said, but first he had hesitated. “No, not at all. It is not of- sss- that sort.”

Boromir lowered his voice when asking: “Is there anything of it that is of the Elves?”

“No. No, it would have tasted worse if it was, wouldn’t it, my precious?”

He did not inquire of his ‘precious’ nearly so often as he once had, and when he did it meant he was feeling desperately doubtful. “Think you we ought to avoid it? We have water stores.”

“We do, but they are stale, and there is not so much as we ought to have and we cannot wash. Sméagol is only being silly, it is a nice stream and you might wash the dusst away in it, and drink, and fill the bottleses. Come here, it is nice!”

“Still I am not minded to disregard your sense of trouble, are you not famed as a guide and a scout?” However he followed where he was beckoned.

“Then- well, of course, my precious, if he thinks- if you think anything is wrong we must go away from it at once! Flee like hareses!”

Yet when Boromir saw the stream he was minded to say it was a cheerful one and wholesome- but not so unearthly beautiful that one suspected the touch of the Eldar. “I see nothing amiss, I confess.”

Sméagol scented at the surface of the water and dabbled his fingers in it. “No, nothing! It was only us being silly, perhaps, or- perhaps it has gone away? Sscrumptious sweet water it is.”

And so both of them washed and drank, and found comfortable shelter nearby before the Sun had risen.

Boromir stood just outside a circle of figures. Within the circle was the fire. He liked not the fire, its leaping and smoky scent and crackling like cruel laughter, and yet he must go closer. He had his orders, though he knew not from whence they came: to join the circle.

As he stepped closer, dragging his leg, for it was stiff and his stick was not at hand, he saw the oddity of the figures- they were of a like height to himself, it seemed, but with large heads. They had a squat look. Most were seated, but one stood nearby, hands in his pockets. He wore a flat cap and a shrewd expression- he saw Boromir and gave the quick nod and disingenuous smile of one constrained to be friendly to another he does not like. It was an expression any nobleman learned young, even a nobleman who was granted the frequent escape of the parade ground and battlefield.

(In fact the Captain-General sometimes got the worst of it, when a noble decided to turn to the army and believed whole-heartedly that he would be made an officer and that it would somehow be easy. Boromir welcomed these sorts, of course, as was politic- and then he smilingly showed them at once what it would really mean to defend Gondor, and they found out their quality. Few remained, and those who did were truly welcome.)

This stranger was no noble, despite his attitude- he had the shaggy hair, the doughy figure and soft, rounded features of a Halfling, though not the cheerful expression. Boromir looked down at his feet and saw them bare and hairy. Yes, the stranger was a hobbit, though he was not dressed in the odd short, layered garments of the Shire- he wore a simple tunic and jacket, a plainer version of that worn in the upper regions of Rohan.

Boromir nodded to him in courtly fashion and limped into the circle. It was all of Man-sized Halflings. They had not a friendly look, and indeed Boromir did not seem welcome, yet none told him to leave.

In a place of prominence near the fire sat an elderly she-hobbit, tall and slender and dignified. She looked at Boromir under her eyelids in a way that struck him as familiar. It was one of Sméagol’s looks, in fact, when he felt a Man had said something foolish- the creature did not know how transparent he was. This woman differed- she gave a sense that she wanted Boromir to feel her displeasure, that it was hers by right. “I suppose you wanted us all to know you had somewhere more important to be, eh?”

“Forgive me, ma’am,” said Boromir. His voice came out thinner than he expected, and he realized he was not after all surrounded by Man-sized hobbits. Rather, Boromir had become a hobbit-sized hobbit, which was much more sensible. That was why the others looked as if they knew him. Yes, of course, he ought to have known! A Man among hobbits would have confused them, and none were confused.

“Praps one day your head will be as smart as your mouth,” said the woman. No laughter followed the remark, but a silent chorus of smirks and cutting looks in Boromir’s direction. “Sit down, lad.” Her accent, too, was Sméagol’s, and Boromir guessed that these were hobbits of the River, not hobbits of the Shire- that would account for why their clothing differed.

Boromir bowed slightly and turned to look for an empty seat. One of the hobbits was beckoning to him. He looked angry. Boromir found he preferred honest anger to the seething coldness of the others, and he approached.

He found something familiar in the face of this hobbit, something about his pointed chin. And, like the old woman, he was wearing one of Sméagol’s expressions- not a friendly one. It was one that suggested even his dearest friends should keep their hands away from his teeth for the moment.

“Sit down!” the hobbit snapped.

The Man Boromir would have taken extreme exception to such treatment. But as a hobbit, he was forced to concede that he did not know their customs and it seemed he had done something objectionable. Else why would the whole of the circle seem so ill-tempered? He sat, therefore, as he had been commanded, and held his tongue though many retorts came to his mind.

His companion was broad-shouldered, and leaner than some of his fellows. Boromir was accustomed to note strength in others and he saw strength of arm in this hobbit, an unwholesome combination with anger. Boromir looked down at his own body. It looked rather unfit, flabby and weak, unlike most Halflings, who were disarmingly plump but also sturdy and compact. Boromir frowned. He had never thought he would be in a position to lose a physical contest with a Halfling, but if the one beside him was stirred to a rage, Boromir would not be victorious.

“Is anyone else barging in or might I go on?” the woman asked. There was general silence. She cleared her throat. “As I was saying, the Men began to gather stone and rock, great mounds of it-“

“Where were you?” Boromir’s companion said in his ear. “She was getting angrier and angrier, yes, by the minute, and you know everything you do is my fault sooner or later-“

“Hush!” another hobbit hissed.

“Ach! There, you see! Now it’s my fault!”

“It’s not his fault you’re talking, is it?”

The storyteller had paused again and now everyone in the circle was looking at Boromir’s companion, who sat in mulish silence. 

“They brought stone in great heaps,” the storyteller continued. “And they made great smooth white walls reaching up up into the sky as if they had said ‘Be’ and the stone made itself into what they wanted. O, vast fortresses they built, and no one knows now how they did it. Away, away to the South-“

Boromir’s companion began to mutter in his ear. “They don’t want us here anyway, I don’t know why it’s always such a fret and fuss when we don’t turn up.”

Alas, Boromir did not believe that in this form and place he had authority to silence him. He tried to catch what the storyteller was saying.

“-like bleached bones in the Sun, the Men created their cities of light. They rule there, just and fair, watching over the fields and the River-“

“No one here even likes you,” said Boromir’s companion, as if he was stating simple fact, and once more interrupting what sounded like an intriguing tale. “I said, that is why he will not come, it’s because you don’t like us and we know it. And they just looks at me.”

“It is the same River, the same River that runs past our homes-“

“Can’t be the same River. That’s silly.”

“Sméagol, lad,” said the storyteller, “if you say one more word you can leave.”

The hobbit beside Boromir stood up to his full height, straight-backed and whole and young and haughty. “Goodbye!” He turned and walked away a few steps, and then he stopped, looking over his shoulder at Boromir with confused exasperation.

Boromir followed him into the dusk. How could he not?

Sméagol stood half a head taller than Boromir, or whoever’s form Boromir was borrowing, and strode along at a pace Boromir found himself hard-pressed to follow. After he had lagged behind somewhat Sméagol abruptly stopped without looking in his direction. When Boromir caught up to him, he continued onwards at a slower pace. “She’s told that story before anyhow,” he said, “I could tell it myself, I could.” He ran his fingers through his hair. It was thick and unruly, and dark- Boromir couldn’t see its exact shade in the dim night. “They never let me talk. Eh, what’s gotten into your throat? You haven’t said a word. What was you bowing to Gran like that for? You’ll make her angry enough to cut a switch!”

“I meant no disrespect,” Boromir said automatically. If only he could convince Sméagol to return to an area with better light! He was deathly curious for a proper look at his face.

Sméagol snorted laughter. “Neither do I, neither do I, my love. Why would Men want to build a tower that reaches to the sky? Do you think any of it’s real?”

“It is real. I have seen it.”

Sméagol rounded on him and Boromir stepped back in instinctive caution. “Seen it? When? Why? In a picture?” Sméagol was not angry, rather confused, and a little afraid; Boromir saw now that he was barely more than a boy as Halflings counted it. He must be. He looked of an age with Pippin.

“Yes, of course,” Boromir said, running a hand over his chin (it was rough with bristles).

“Are you sick?”

“No, surely not! I am quite well.”

“You don’t sound it. You don’t look it.” Sméagol looked back at the circle, uncertain. It was plain he knew the Halfling whose body Boromir had been put into, and Boromir did not- he was at a loss for how to play-act the role, and he was distracted by the eerie sight of a healthy young hobbit putting forth expressions and tones of voice, even gestures that were Sméagol’s. The manner of talk, of course, was not quite the same, though it was less different than Boromir might have supposed.

Sméagol had ever been wont to fill awkward silences with his own voice, and he did so now. “But, here, now, pet, if you need any help, let’s just and ask your mam later, when the stories are over for the night, and then they won’t get uppity about breaking the circle again. Isn’t it better that way?”

“You would know best!”

“I know best?” Sméagol again turned to him with an almost animal fear. “Do you want something, Déagol? Or are you very sick?”

Déagol! Why- perhaps Boromir ought to have guessed! Déagol was the only person Sméagol spoke of spending many hours with. And now Boromir looked again at Sméagol’s broad shoulders, and reflected on the infirmity and weakness of the body he wore, by comparison. A dreadful thing, indeed, was going to happen, and yet Sméagol was still not as much greater than Déagol as Boromir was than Frodo- so what right had he to make comment?

Knowing himself to be Déagol put him on firmer footing. Boromir recalled now the impression given of all Sméagol’s anecdotes about his ill-fated cousin- that of a mocking trickster. Naturally Boromir’s forthright nature did not match him at all. He had little patience for pranks. “Why,” said Boromir, “this manner of talk seemed the best way to trouble you.”

Sméagol glared at him and gave him a shove- quite a firm one- and called him an unpleasant name. It was not an unusual way for a boy nearing manhood to behave. Boromir had seen many a raw recruit behave in like manner, and many of them respond favorably to a guiding hand.

Unfortunately, Déagol was in no position to tell Sméagol that another such curse would see him cleaning latrines; he must accept the shove.

“I have troubled you?” Boromir asked, trying to sound light. In fact it was a dreadful disappointment to find Sméagol in his youth only to discover him so hostile.

“What’s the point of it, Déagol, eh? What are you trying to do?”

Boromir shrugged. In fact he was truly at a loss. It seemed plain enough to him now that he was dreaming, and it may be a dream with some deeper meaning, for although it did not often specially touch him in this way Boromir did carry the blood of Numenor. Yet he did not know what he was meant to do with the dream.

“Why did you say you’d seen it, Déagol, what do you mean?” Sméagol was on the scent now, he circled Boromir like a wild dog. “Do you have something you’re hiding away?”

“I have not. I was only teasing, as I said.”

Sméagol’s mouth made a thin line and he turned away, shaking his head. It was just the way he looked when he thought one of the Men had said something repugnant or cruel.

“You wish to see it, do you not?” Boromir asked. “The cities of Men?” He knew what Sméagol did not, not yet; he would remember talk of Gondor five hundred years hence.

“Of course not,” Sméagol snapped.

“You do wish to see it,” said Boromir, “your heart yearns for wonders and marvels and you believe I mock you. Your family mocks you, or you feel they would- they are small-minded creatures repeating things they have heard without feeling their truth. I am in earnest! You shall see wonder upon wonder, you will see things no Halfling has witnessed, you will go where even the Rangers of Ithilien cannot fare, and the fate of the world will hinge on your silent feet and questing hands.”

Sméagol looked back at him with eyes that were suddenly much older. “You aren’t Déagol.”

“Nay, I am not, my friend- I am not he.”

“He’s gone.”  

“Gone, perhaps, but not forgotten! I know of him, and you are not alone, and Minas Tirith stands yet, hundreds of years hence.” Boromir reached out to take one of his unscarred hands.

His hand was gripped by long fleshless fingers. Sméagol lay beside him, knees to his chest, the hand not clasping Boromir’s tucked under his chin. How withered he was! His form had been worn down to wire and bone, and his breathing was troubled by age and ash. Boromir touched his hollow cheek and found it cold.

He slipped back into sleep, half fearing to return to the distant riverbank and the time past, half hoping- for the face his friend had once worn was already fading from his mind, and he would have wished to retain it even if the dream was mere fancy and its company unpleasant. He wished he had looked upon Déagol- found a mirror, or a calm surface of water…

The room was so bright, but it was bright the wrong way, completely the wrong way, all soft and yellow. All the colors were different. Sméagol wondered if perhaps he’d had something burst in his head. He lurked about the Houses of Healing sometimes, they were close to his home and they were such pleasant cool places to rest, and as a consequence he had learned some things; people could have things burst in their heads and it was a terrible trouble and often the King himself had to come and fix it. And what was he perching on, to be level with the heads of all the Men in the room? There was a table just in front of him, a big round one. Actually it looked like the one in Aragorn’s war-room, which Sméagol sometimes sat on to look at maps of Barad-dur, but he was not sitting on it now, his feet were under him and he was upright.

He looked down. The floor was at least five feet away- six, perhaps, or seven, and there was nothing keeping him up but a body stretched out like a pole. He was wearing full armor with the standard of the White Tree on it.

It wasn’t real, then, was it? He began to speak his thought aloud as he so often did by habit, but one of the Men beside him gave him a warning look- surprised and appalled that he would speak out of turn. Sméagol recalled that Men in armor did not speak unless spoken to. He bit his lip. 

Everyone was looking at something on the other side of the table and Sméagol looked too. It was only Boromir, but he looked odd- smaller than Sméagol remembered. He was looking over a map- not of Mordor, of the region near Cair Andros. His face was so smooth. He was a hardly more than a boy, no- he was still a boy, a tall one, of course, and close to full grown, but not yet there, not a man. Why was he different? And why couldn’t Sméagol smell anything, and why did it feel as if he were hearing things through cotton-wool in his ears?

Boromir was grimacing and biting the nail of his thumb and his eyes were fierce on the map. He was leaning over it, one hand planted on the table. “Can there have been some mistake?” he asked. 

A whisper of disquiet passed over the gathered Men like wind rippling a field of grass. Through some mysterious consensus of looks and weight-shifting, one unfortunate took on the burden of answering the question: “It is always possible that the mind of a Man may mistake things. Yet it seemed unlikely we would mistake this, my lord.”

Boromir looked as if he wished he were a dog, and the map were a rat to shake apart in his teeth. “We must stop them at once, of course, and I am to lead the charge.” 

The Men in the room were respectful, as they were trained, but they were not happy. They were all full grown, and they were taking their orders from Boromir who was not. One of them spoke. “My lord, is it needful to speak to the Lord Denethor?”

He raised his head sharply. “I am the answer the Lord Steward would send.” He paused a second and Sméagol grasped what he meant to say: Denethor is not going to help you, so don’t bother; he won’t help me either. “Mobilize two groups. We will strike at them from each side. A basic pincer. So basic they may expect it, of course, but it is thick forest and we know it better than they.”

Silence followed. Sméagol couldn’t even fill it with his own thin whining, which must stay trapped in his head like a buzzing wasp: The War! We’re back in the War, my precious, right in Gondor in the thick of it! Boromir is in charge of it! (So soon? So young?) And I, a soldier of Gondor? I don’t even know how to swing a sword- I’ll be cut down! 

The ground was so dizzily far away. He wanted something solid under his hands and his weight wouldn’t feel so perilous and vertical if some of it was braced by his shoulders. He leaned on the table. Boromir was leaning on the table too so it must be fine.

Boromir had a hawk’s gaze when someone displeased him. Sméagol had never displeased him so before. Whatever had he done? “Are you ill?”

“Yes,” Sméagol stammered, his querulous voice a rumble in his chest that made a noise like falling boulders. “Yes, I think so, yes, my- my lord.” He knew enough not to call him by his bare name. He swallowed, and it made barely any noise! This was the final disembodiment and Sméagol could not bear it any longer. “Help! Help!” He’d never thought he could be taken away from his own precious self this way- even Sauron hadn’t managed it. His knees gave way.

“Quiet, man!” Boromir took hold of him firmly, keeping him from falling out on the floor like a tall tree. Sméagol went still- it was the sort of trap that could choke him or cut him if he struggled in it. “You- you have had your orders, I would ask that you go and carry them out. I am taking this man to the Houses of Healing.”

By himself, without sending an under-man to go and do it? It seemed a kindness, except that Boromir was so grim and angry about it. Boromir looked like a boy but he was not acting much like one, he was acting like a Man who did not like his life much. 

Boromir took him outside. His grip restrained as much as it helped. “What did you last eat?”

“I don’t remember.” Sméagol had gotten altogether too used to being coddled- he wished so that Boromir would lift him up snug against his chest instead of dragging him along like a sheep! But he would not, and it was precisely because Sméagol was not Sméagol at the moment, which was a little irony. And Boromir was young. Up close he was even younger and lighter-framed than he had looked before. The little scar under his jaw was gone, it had not been made yet. His eyes were cold and his voice was abrupt. 

“What did you last drink?”

“I don’t remember-“ He swallowed again. It didn’t feel right. He was going to choke. His big fat Man-throat did not work right. He wondered what would pierce Boromir’s body later on, to make the little scar that would sit just under his jaw.

“Have you lately seen anyone that you did not know?”

“Yes, lots of them.” He’d just gotten here. “Ach!” He had belatedly guessed the meaning of these questions. “But I’m not poisoned, I’m not bewitched, my lord, I’m not a spy.”

Boromir took him by the shoulders and held him quite close. “Do you mock me?”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Tears were streaming down his face and they were so strangely hot and thin. He could not smell whether Boromir was really angry, or angry because he was frightened. “Never, not ever, I’m your friend.” If only he had behaved like an ordinary soldier and not been found out like this.

“Dare you claim thus? I have never seen you before today.”

“No, I suppose not, no, hasn’t seen us.”

Boromir shook him. “What is your true name?”

“Sméagol! The burrower! The Halfling- the perian! I am only Sméagol!” But Boromir did not know Sméagol at all, no one did just now, and Sméagol was hardly the size of a Halfling!

Boromir averted his gaze, that terrible gaze. Someone had run up to them and Sméagol hadn’t seen or heard or smelt him. It was a gawky boy, younger than Boromir and wearing armor. 

They said, in Gondor, they said the boys had to fight. Sméagol had never paid it terribly much mind but now he was seeing it for himself. Orcs didn’t even send out boys that young. They were forced in Gondor, they were forced to it.

“Do you need a message sent?” the boy asked in a voice not yet changed to deepness.

“Nay. I am only having a talk with him.” 

“That is not so.”

The boy was familiar- he was familiar with Boromir moreso than a random boy ought to be, and he was familiar to Sméagol, and his eyes knew too much. It was Faramir, Faramir of the Rangers! A child in armor. And Boromir was only five years older.

Sméagol shrieked like a madman. 

“Hold! Do not strike him, it is not best to strike someone in a fit, that is myth,” Faramir said, saving Sméagol from having his fool brains dashed out by a no-doubt well-meaning Boromir winding up to slap him. The boy Ranger came closer- yes it was the armor Pippin had worn or would wear- and looked in Sméagol’s eyes, and did not know what to make of them.

“I am not His creature,” Sméagol sobbed, “I am yours, I am Gondor’s, I swear it!” He caught up double handfuls of Boromir’s cape. “I was never His, I was never His!”

“I must take him to the dungeons,” said Boromir in a shaking voice. This nameless possessed soldier of his own army had frightened him when Gollum’s gnashing fangs certainly could not. Ghost-stories for hobbit-children, indeed.

“O the poor duck, the poor lamb,” said Sméagol, half-aware- and half-annoyed- that he really was having a fit of some kind and it wasn’t helping anyone. “I would cast it away for you, my love, I would cast myself in, only to end the War, only to end it!” He crushed himself to Boromir’s chest. 

“You are no creature of Mordor.”

“No- never- never- it will be over, it will be over, my love, it will end.”

“The War will never end. It will rage on in my breast.”

“I’ll tear it out! I’ll bite it out- gollum!”

A long harsh breath rushed into his chest as if he had just come up from too long underwater. “Gollum!” Sméagol was real again, he was a weight in space, the ground under his flank, Boromir’s rising and falling chest under his cheek! The pain was back, outlining the body he knew, his back and shoulders and neck and hands. Pointed teeth under the tip of his tongue. A million sounds of breeze, water, insects. Scents of over-traveled Man and dirt and leaves. The weave of fabric under his fingers- he was clutching Boromir’s blanket. He was cuddled up at the Man’s side, head resting just under his breastbone. And he was alive, alive! And it hurt to be alive, of course it did, rather too alive for his own good, perhaps, but that was alright.  

Sméagol allowed himself a moment to linger at Boromir’s side, sniffing over his broad heavy Mannish face, lined with care, and with the little scar under his jaw back in its place. Then he withdrew, smiling, and took up his proper place at the Man’s feet. 

In the evening, Sméagol was the first to wake- Boromir always took too little rest, and his need for sleep had caught up with him.

Sméagol went back to the water and eyed it. He more than half suspected it of giving him nightmares, but nasty dreams were better than thirst, by far. After a moment of prevaricating and muttering, he gave in to the water’s clean scent and drank from it, and washed his face. There were no fishes in the stream, but when he had put his head under the surface of the water he saw some specks of green at the bottom- the first sign of life he had seen in these blasted lands. His heart twisted oddly when he saw it, and he blamed Faramir for that; whenever he saw the Ranger and the Lady of Rohan they were always on about planting gardens to reclaim what the Black Hand had taken. O Faramir had been so young in that awful dream, so soft! Perhaps that was what Boromir still saw when he looked at his brother. Perhaps that was how Boromir saw everyone.

Sméagol shook himself out of these nasty thoughts and circled back around to check their trail. It took some doing to keep a Man Boromir’s size from leaving a trail wide enough for anyone and their minions from following. Boromir was no slouch of course but he was also no Ranger, bless him. And Rangers were no hobbits.

Sméagol wasted a few minutes worrying over a bent twig. He couldn’t tell if Boromir had done it or if it was new. He had more than once fancied he caught a whiff of Orc, but Skog was always on his mind- it was hypocrisy, of course, because Sméagol was always after nagging the Men not to kill helpless Orcs when they found them, but how he worried about Skog! Boromir had let him keep his crossbow- sparing him was one thing, a good thing, a wise thing, but letting him go entirely free! With a crossbow! Sméagol had almost spoken up about that but had deferred, thinking Boromir knew best; but at heart Boromir was just that boy looking at the map, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t even think to let on that he did not know best, would he? Everyone looked to Boromir. He was expected to know best. He must order things as if he did know best. And he had no choice, he had never had any choice.

It was pointless worrying. There was no clear sign of Skog, and if he did come back, and if he tried to hurt Boromir- well- Sméagol would have to kill him. He sighed.

He went back to the campsite to find Boromir awake- which was no surprise, Sméagol had been lollygagging.

The big Man watched him in an odd, appraising manner. It was unlike Boromir to look that way. If the water had caused Sméagol’s funny nightmare, then perhaps Boromir had had his own dream, maybe even the same one. Sméagol decided not to mention it. If it had been the same dream- how dreadful! Boromir had been frightened by Sméagol, and the War had been back- he and his brother had been two boys pressed into killing and death so young, it was horrid- surely he wouldn’t like to remember it any more than Sméagol wished to. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked politely. It was a stupid question. Boromir had already packed up his things for the night’s walk. 

“Yes, why not?” Boromir tried to affect heartiness. He knew much less of Numenorean dreams than Faramir did and wished he had learned better. Was there any chance Sméagol had seen the same vision? He had given Boromir an odd look just now, but if he had seen the dream he had not chosen to speak of it. Surely he would not like knowing he had been seen in his unformed state, as a callow and quick-tempered youth, and any reminder of his long-lost people must pain him. Boromir would not speak of it unless asked. 

They departed.