Warrior SonChapter 2/?
Previous ChapterWord Count: 1517 (2168)
It doesn't take long for Boromir to find Bag End, with Bilbo outside smoking a pipe on a bench. A quiet morning, and Boromir is reluctant to break that peace, though he knows Gandalf will do so himself well enough - when, though, he does not know. Not yesterday, or he'd not have found Bilbo here, and not today, as Boromir has not seen the wizard while walking here from the Green Dragon.
"Good morning." He finally breaks the quiet, smiling a little when Bilbo starts. "I was told I could find a Mister Baggins here."
"I am Bilbo Baggins. Do I know you?" Bilbo frowns, studying Boromir intently, though Boromir knows there will be nothing to recognize in his face. Bilbo has not yet met him, as they will again in Rivendell, a lifetime of men in the future.
"I do not believe we have met before, Mister Baggins, though we have a friend in common." True, in a sense, for all that none of the hobbits which Boromir had traveled with are yet born. "I was told if I was ever in the Shire, I could do worse than to be invited to tea at Bag End, by Mr. Baggins of that address."
"Oh." Blinking, Bilbo looks over Boromir again, a smile crossing his face briefly. "Well, tea is at four, and I would appreciate the tale of how you came to hear of me."
Perhaps, too, some tales of Boromir's travels, to learn of the world beyond the Shire that he has yet only seen in maps and books, if Boromir reads the hint of wistfulness in Bilbo's voice right. He can think of many to tell him, though some will have to be kept secret - he does not know what telling of the Ring and the quest to destroy it would do, and that must yet be kept secret that it not be overheard by agents of Sauron. It will do no harm to tell of his deeds in battle, though, nor to speak of a journey with hobbits, of Merry and Pippin, though perhaps not of Frodo nor of Sam.
"What I can tell of it, I shall speak of." Boromir smiles, drawing an echo of the same from Bilbo. "Until then, Mr. Baggins."
"Good morning, then."
Boromir can feel Bilbo watching him as he walks away, and imagines the hobbit is terribly curious what brings a Man to his door when he has yet to step outside the bounds of the Shire. A story that Boromir does not know the whole of, most especially that which fell between his death on Amon Hen, and his waking whole as the swan boat in which he lay scraped against sand on an unfamiliar shore.
His day is spent exploring some bit of the Shire, before he returns to the Green Dragon to inquire after a bath, and laundering his clothes, though he has only those which he wears until he has a chance to speak with a seamstress who is acustomed to making clothes for Men. He is directed to a back room with copper kettles and tubs for the former, and told he might wash his own clothes there, or leave them outside the door for the laundry girl.
It won't be the first time he's cleaned his own clothes, and Boromir tends to them first, hanging them from a line which stretches across the room that they might at least begin to dry while he bathes.
There are new scars on his body since his wakening to renewed life, small ones where arrows had pierced him littering his body, and he touches the one just to the right of his breastbone. A reminder of the failure he'd given his life to amend, though he had not, in the end, saved even Merry and Pippin. Nor shall he live long enough to know their fate.
Snorting quietly, Boromir reaches for the soap he'd bought in the market the day before, cleaning the grime of the road from his skin. Perhaps he shall not live to know what fate they might have had after he had died, but he shall do what he can for Bilbo, and for the quest which will bring Isildur's Bane to light, for all that it might be long years after this that it would be known as such.
Or not as long, if Boromir can find some manner of convincing Bilbo that the Ring is the evil that he knows it to be, when the hobbit finds it. Then perhaps once this quest is complete, and the dwarves once more have their home - and Thorin has the crown and throne he will have taken back - Boromir can find some means to remove the Ring to its birth place, where it can be destroyed.
He shivers despite the pleasant heat of the water, ducking down to rinse away the soap. What will the Ring do to him this time, when he is near to its influence? How will it try to entice him when all that it spoke to him last time is moot?
Shaking his head, Boromir finishes his bath swiftly, pulling the cork stopper from the base of the tub to allow the water to drain down the center of the room. Wrapping himself in his cloak, he takes the clothes to be passed outside to hang on the line in the sun, and retreats to his room while he waits for the shirt and trews to be dry.
"Who did you say mentioned tea at Bag End?" Bilbo sets a small plate of sweet cakes next to the cup of tea he's served Boromir, before settling into the chair next to the fire.
"I didn't." Boromir smiles, taking a sip of his tea. It's not one that he's encountered at home, but a distinctly northern drink that lacks the bitterness the drink has in Gondor. "Merry was all the name I knew of him, and I have not seen him since we were parted by trouble." He won't lie and call the trouble anything but orcs if pressed, but for now, there's no need to mention exactly what the trouble is.
Bilbo grimaces a little, but does not ask what sort of trouble, at least. "I don't recall a Merry among my acquaintances, unfortunately. Are you quite sure your friend meant to send you here?"
"He never meant to send me anywhere, just spoke often of home, and all the good things the Shire holds. Usually when no one else was paying attention to meals beyond breakfast and supper, with dinner eaten as we traveled." Of all the hobbits, Merry and Pippin had most often loudly - if good-naturedly - complained about missing meals. Boromir would have to remember to purchase extra supplies of food - and perhaps an extra pony or two - before he volunteered to join the quest.
"Hmm." Bilbo sips at his tea, watching Boromir for a long moment. "What was your name again?"
"I am Boromir of Gondor." If no longer her Captain-General, nor the son of her Steward. Ecthelion would yet be the former, and Turgon the latter.
"What brings a Man of Gondor where he encounters a hobbit?" Bilbo is watching Boromir with a skeptical expression, bordering on suspicious.
"I came north seeking answers to troubling dreams from the Lord of Imladris. For a while after, I had Merry as a traveling companion." Boromir shrugs, setting his tea aside in favor of taking a sweet cake, dense with oats and sticky with honey. "I do not have a great need to return south and home now, though perhaps in time. For now, I find I am content to spend some time where there is true peace."
As long as he need wait for Thorin to arrive, and give him the chance to volunteer to accompany the dwarves to Erebor.
"There is certainly plenty of peace in the Shire." Bilbo smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "You still have not truly explained why you came looking for me."
"Curiosity. I wished to meet the hobbit spoken of so kindly by my friend." To meet the hobbit who would leave the comforts of his home to follow thirteen dwarves into uncertainty for unknown reward. The hobbit who would carry the Ring for so long with so little effect that Boromir had ever noticed, though he'd known little of Bilbo during the time he'd spent in Imladris.
Too, now that he is certain he has been sent to some time before the reclaiming of Erebor, to meet Thorin, and to do what he can to ease the sorrows of the world - and in doing, ease too the burden upon Gondor, that she will flourish once more.
Bilbo takes a sip of his tea, hiding a moment of frustration, and after, doesn't seem inclined to try to pry more answers from Boromir for the moment. He does invite Boromir back for tea again the next day, curious himself, perhaps. It will hopefully be enough to keep an eye on Bilbo until the dwarves arrive.
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