Troubled Minds Of Men
He is tired, more tired with every passing day, and there is no rest to be found in sleep.
"What was it you dreamed of last night? I lay awake for some time, and heard you speaking to the phantasms. You seemed distressed by the things you saw."
Boromir hears the question clearly, but does not answer Aragorn, does not even turn his eyes away from Lothlorien spread out before him. It is a beautiful sight, but unnerving, for the lights give the impression of stars, of a world inverted.
"Boromir?" Aragorn's voice is softer, and for that yet more intense.
"Nothing," Boromir says, his voice cold even to his own ears. Nothing but death and pain and doom, nothing but the White City in shadow, her children murdered, her maidens raped, her good men cut down defending their homes and honor.
Nothing but a slim hope that taunted him with his own vows from a chain around a Hobbit's neck.
"Nothing," he repeats, and Aragorn is not convinced, especially not when Boromir attempts a weak smile, a laugh at his own idiocy -- a foolish child, frightened of dreams.
"If you would speak to me on these matters," Aragorn begins, and does not continue.
"Would you give me counsel?" Boromir asks, the last word mocking. "I would not trouble you with my weaknesses."
"If you have weaknesses, they may cause us all more than small trouble," Aragorn says, his voice maddening in a calm that Boromir takes as smug condescension.
"My dreams," Boromir says, rising and shoving past Aragorn as he walks off, "are nothing for you to concern yourself with."
"Talk with the Lady," Aragorn shouts after him. "She has some wisdom in the matters of dreams and visions. Perhaps she can -- "
"The Lady," Boromir says, turning around, sea-gray eyes flashing, "is an Elf. She and her kin care nothing for the troubled minds of Men, Aragorn."
He is tired, more tired with every passing day, and there is no rest to be found in sleep.