I must stop thinking of them as my little ones, he told himself. Merry is a man grown, and Pippin not far behind. But how hard it was to think of them as men when they were so small, when they laughed and tickled and hugged and wept in a way that the fell soldiers of Gondor left behind by their fifteenth year. The long shadow of Minas Morgul did not touch the Shire but it had covered Minas Tirith long ago, and even Gondor’s children were grim and silent in that darkness. Boromir had grudged that long vigil a little less these past few weeks, seeing what it protected; but he still wished that Gondor’s children had a bit more halfling in them. And it burned him like a brand that when Gondor fell that shadow would stretch far enough to blight and wither the Shire, and the children of the halflings would trade their happy chatter for that same silence. Pippin had not spoken for hours. It was unnerving. Aragorn and Boromir could have traveled for weeks without ever exchanging a word, but hours of silence from a halfling – from cheerful, nattering Pippin of all halflings – weighed like a stone. He had not spoken a word since they left that accursed mine; and when they had made camp under the silver-lit trees of Lothlorien, he had laid down twenty feet from the pile of moplike curls and furry feet that the halflings condensed into every night. From where Boromir sat on the side of the fountain he could see Pippin laying on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, looking broodily up at the sky. They are not little ones. And they are not mine. No; and yet. While the Fellowship travelled together, the halflings were under Gondor’s protection, and therefore under Boromir’s. He settled down beside Pippin, carefully leaving a foot or so of space between them, and clasped his hands behind his head. “Do you see that arc of stars just above that tree?” he asked, freeing a hand for a moment to point. “We call it the Shield.” A long silence. Then, in a barely audible whisper: “We call it the Sickle.” Silence stretched again. Pippin wriggled restlessly, moving a couple of inches closer to Boromir in the process. Boromir pointed to another constellation. “That line there, do you see? – what do you call that one?” A shorter silence this time. “The cat.” “We call it Isildur’s Hand.” Boromir turned his head slightly to sneak a look at Pippin out of the corner of his eye. The halfling was scowling up at the sky, a look of unwilling curiousity sneaking into his gloom. “Where do you see a hand?” “Where do you see a cat?” Pippin pointed. “See those three stars – those are the tail, and if you follow them up you can see four paws and the ears.” “We call those tail-stars the thumb, and the paws fingers. Those stars that you place in the ears we call a bracer.” Boromir turned his head further and lowered his voice. “Pippin – have you and Merry quarreled?” Pippin looked down, winding his fingers in his suspenders, and the starlight glittered in his eyes. “No,” he whispered soundlessly. “Then why are you all the way over here and not with your cousins?” “I…” Pippin tried, but his voice wavered and he snapped his mouth shut, pressing his lips tightly together. Boromir sighed. “Pippin… if I tell you something, will you have faith in me, and believe me?” With a puzzled frown, Pippin turned his head so that he was almost looking at Boromir and nodded. “The mines of Moria have had an evil name since time out of memory. For Gimli’s kin to try to retake them – it was nobly thought, I suppose, but a fool’s errand. There are more orcs in those mines than fish in the Anduin, and worse things than orcs. We would have been safer in the Gap of Rohan, as close as it took us to Isengard. We could not have hoped to get all the way through unnoticed. It’s a miracle that we went three days without being tripped over by some fell creature or other. Gandalf knew this, and so did Aragorn, and still we went by that path. “Gandalf shouted at you, I know, but he wasn’t really angry. And you are valiant but very small, Pippin, and nothing that happened in those mines was your fault.” There was a long, tense silence; and suddenly Boromir had cause to wonder anew at hobbits, because Pippin had somehow managed to launch himself from a prone position and hug Boromir so hard that it knocked his breath out with an undignified whoomph. And what bizarre path had he possibly taken that had brought him here at this moment – watching the stars glitter above an elven wood and holding a trembling halfling whose silent tears were dampening his tunic? Pippin slid a hand into his; and all of the things that were wrong in the world, all of the signs of coming storm and failing of hope, were right there in the nicks and growing sword-calluses in that small, gentle hand. “There now, little one,” he soothed, stroking Pippin’s hair as he would a child’s. Then, not knowing why he said it: “I had a cousin once, long ago, with hands as small as yours.” Pippin sniffed. “Long ago? What happened to him?” Boromir was silent for a minute, looking up at the stars. "He grew up," he said finally. "And those small hands learned to hold a sword, and to fire a bow so well that he could hit a raven at a hundred yards on a moonless night." Pippin wriggled closer, nestling his head underneath Boromir's chin. How was it possible to think of him as a grown man when he wound himself as tightly around Boromir as if the Man were merely a larger variety of hobbit? "I think you loved him very much," the halfling noted, his voice muffled by the edge of Boromir's cloak. "Nearly as much as you love Merry, I think." "Which isn't very much, or he wouldn't go off and leave me all alone with Sam's snoring and Frodo's sharp elbows," Merry said from right beside Boromir, popping up out of nowhere and sounding thoroughly out of sorts. Boromir started, nearly dislodging Pippin. Without unburying his face from Boromir's shoulder, Pippin stretched out a hand. Merry reached out to catch it, yawning hugely, and crawled over to flop down beside Boromir. Pulling Boromir's free arm unceremoniously around himself as though demoting the Man from hobbit to blanket, Merry wrapped himself as tightly around Boromir as Pippin had and promptly fell asleep. After a minute, Pippin whispered: "Boromir?" "Yes?" "I'm sorry for your cousin. And I'm glad you're here." Something eased inside Boromir, and he tightened his arms around his little ones. Surely hope could not be so lost as all that if the world still produced such creatures. "Go to sleep now, Pippin. Things will seem brighter in the morning." "You go to sleep too," Pippin said around a yawn. Within half a minute his breathing was as deep and regular as Merry's – and Boromir was half-buried under sleeping hobbits. This is not quite what I had in mind, he thought, caught between dubiousness and laughter. There was no possible way that he could get up without waking both of his small friends. He looked down at the tight-clasped hands resting on his chest, then up at the starlight glittering silver on the leaves; then, finally, he sighed and let his eyes drift closed. And surely he began dreaming before he'd fallen all the way asleep; because as he began to drift off he imagined that he heard Aragorn's voice, soft and filled with laughter, saying: An excellent steward, indeed.   Back to the fanfics page Back to the home page