He could not sleep. The heavy-hanging boughs still resonated with the elves’ lament for Gandalf, and the luminous moonlight seemed too bright. Rising, Boromir moved quietly out of the glade where the fellowship had made camp. His compatriots slept--hobbits in a pile of blankets and curly heads, Aragorn with one hand on his sword-hilt as ever, Gimli snoring softly amid his bedding, and Legolas a silvery curve in the hollow of one of the great trees, taking comfort from it.

   What comfort for a Man? He had not felt so very far from home in all their travels. Trees might speak to elves, caverns and rock under earth to a dwarf, and a Ranger’s home is wherever he lays down his cloak. Hobbits, it seemed, were content anywhere so long as a meal was offered. But Boromir son of Denethor was separated from everything. The white towers had been replaced by shining trees, the jokes of the court and guardsmen by murmurs in elven and dwarfish tongues (not to mention whispered discussions of the Ring). What did hobbits know about the guardianship of Minas Tirith? Would a prince of the Mirkwood find any common ground with the warrior son of a Steward? The voice of wisdom--the voice of Gandalf--was silenced in the bowels of the earth, and there was no one to counsel him in the wake of Galadriel’s pronouncement.

   Skirting the hobbit-pile, he followed a narrow path that wound among the trees, trusting it to keep him in safety. Let it never be said (not even by en elf-witch whose eyes saw within him) that any Man wandered where he should not in Lorien. Although if they were guests, surely they were free to go where they chose. He was a son of Gondor, and could be trusted. His father trusted him, even above his brother. Gandalf had trusted him. The halfling was unwontedly suspicious. A son of Gondor would not keep what was not rightfully his. How strange that the little one would be so possessive of so small a thing. Almost unnatural--

   “It binds you even now.” The voice, rich and deep, vibrated through him, and he stopped where he was. Wherever he was. A glade (there seemed to be a preponderance of those in Lorien), so thickly overshadowed with trees that the moonlight was intermittent at best. Silver flickered on the small pool of water, over low slabs of stone. The lyon shone with his own soft light.

   It was the lyon who had spoken. There was no one else it could have been, and no elf had a voice so deep. It stood beside the pool, looking at him out of great golden eyes, and spoke again. “It is only a thing, son of Man. Should a mere thing have such hold in your thoughts?”

“It is hardly ’mere’.” He would consider the impossibilities of speaking to a lyon later, right now it was somehow important to make him understand. “It is the key to our lives--to the lives of the land. My borders are menaced even now; the Ring could keep them secure. My people flee in fear of their lives; the Ring would keep them safe. The smallest of things, yes, but I could use it for so much.”

“You could. Until it used you.”

Gandalf’s argument--and Aragorn’s, and Elrond’s--repeated yet again. “I would use it for good! Only to heal, and to aid, never for any other purpose. It would be my most precious possession--”

A low sigh, exhaled on something very nearly a purr. “That is the dragon’s defense, son of Man. The dragons gather their hoards for love of the beauty of gold and gems. Over time, love corrupts into lust and greed, and their lives, so many spans of years, are spent enslaved to their treasure. Do you think, Boromir, that you are any different? What you claim for love would own you in a very little time. You would be used for its cause, not it for yours.”

“I am not so weak as all that!”

“The Lady saw it.”

The memory alone of that gentle blue gaze made him lower his head. It was echoed in the lyon’s lambent eyes. “The Elves have always disdained us. Men are weak, men are short-lived, men above all things desire power…”

“All of which are true. As elves desire beauty and peace, and dwarves desire wealth and honor. Each have their weaknesses. Yours is closest to the surface, and so it reaches for you. You have not closed your ears to its call.” The velvet voice continued, though he did not want to listen. “Son of Man, you do not know my name, for my name is not known in your world. But I am, and I ask this of you now. Lay down your fears, lay down your worries. You are not your land’s only hope. The fellowship in which you travel was so forged for a reason, and you are a cord of it. Take strength in your comrades, and be strong together. All will be well. Sing the Greater Music, not only your own song. The Ring is a dischord, your harmonies together drown it out. Is it so difficult?”

 It almost made sense. He had read of the Ainur and the Greater Music in the libraries. Yet--”Who will save them, if not I? There is no one in the fellowship but myself to consider the needs of Gondor. Not even Aragorn will agree to turn aside and defend Osgiliath, and he Isildur’s Heir. Will you, Lyon?”

“How do you know that I have not?”

This made no sense. Deliberately, Boromir turned from that bright face. “Avatar or dream, whatever you are, you cannot know what I fear, or fear to face. Leave me to make my own choices.”

“That is the Deep Magic.” The voice was a warmth against his back. “When your heart is a dragon’s heart, gilded with poisoned gold, remember. Your song is your own, a melody in the Greater Music. It will always be. Nothing, even the Ring, will change it past recognition by the Singer of the Theme.”

He hurried away, goaded by the soft pressure of that voice, now gently sad. And found himself back with his companions, the path having taken an unexpected turnaround. There seemed to be one less hobbit--but perhaps Pippin was using Merry for a pillow; that happened regularly. He lay down upon his cloak, mind whirling slowly as sleep warred with thought. What I do is for me. And for mine. And for them. If I can serve the fellowship and Gondor, I will. Nothing will own me. Nothing.

Any disharmonies in that thought were lost in sleep, and dreams of gold--a gold of rough velvet instead of cool metal, and a song that sang in one voice made up of a thousand.

“…and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.” ~~~The Silmarillion, Ainulindalë