Given the strangeness of his life ever since bumping into Frodo and Sam after a routine raid on Farmer Maggot's fields, Pippin really shouldn't have been surprised to find himself sitting uneasily at the front of an elven boat, being rowed down the Anduin by the heir to the Steward of Gondor. It was on this front that he felt the closest to Sam Gamgee. Pippin could see him a little ways up ahead, huddled at the bottom of Aragorn's craft. Frodo didn't seem to notice his surroundings: that or his rearing among Merry's folks had cured him of hobbitish sensibilities concerning rivers.

The balance of his own boat shifted, and Pippin, wide-eyed, clutched at the prow. He turned around to see what was the matter. It was Merry: he had leaned to one side and dipped his fingers over the edge. "Have a care, will you?" Pippin snapped.

His cousin looked up, startled out of his thoughts, and quickly drew his hands back in. "Sorry," he mumbled, and rested his chin in his palm, gazing up at the cliffs on either side of them. Pippin pursed his lips, exhaled, and faced forward again. He tried to concentrate on something else, something to distract him from the cold flow of the water and the distance between him and the far shore. His eye fell on Gimli's helmet, which had caught a bit of light and was glinting brightly. He wondered what the dwarf and Legolas were talking about, if they were conversing at all; indeed, he wondered why they had been put in the same boat at all, considering the animosity they had seemed to exhibit back at the beginning.

But then again, he realized, that was before Moria. Moria changed everything and everyone. A fresh pang of shame pierced him, despite Merry's soothing words in Lothlorien. It's a wonder Boromir is taking me in his boat, given the fact that I lost Gandalf for us. But again, Merry's remembered voice forced away the brooding. "We all want you back, Pip -- even Sam's said so."

At this, he smiled a little, then closed his eyes and forced himself to look somewhere else. He settled on the shoreline, trying not to see the long stretch of blue-brown water in front of it. It was a different kind of bank than one would find in the Shire: sandy, with an ominous pine forest not a few paces from the water. Pippin tried to see if there was any movement behind those trees, but the light was too sparse between the boughs, and he could only make out dimness and branches.

"Boromir, can I ask a question?"

Pippin's attention returned to the boat as Merry spoke.

The man grunted to himself, and answered, "I shall answer it if I can."

Merry shifted in his seat a little. "Do you know... maps and things? Do you know what these lands look like on paper?"

Boromir laughed softly at this. "I know Gondor as well as I know my own hands; the lands beyond I am less familiar with, but I know something of them, yes."

"Hmm." Even without looking, Pippin could see Merry chewing his lower lip pensively. "When we were in Rivendell, I looked at the maps Lord Elrond had on his walls, but they didn't go as far as I would have liked. I was just wondering... if this river that we're on, the Anduin is it? I was just wondering if it links up with the Brandywine anywere."

Pippin couldn't contain his curiosity. "Why is that?"

Merry heaved an audible sigh. "Well, just... just like to know if there's any of the same water in here as is in the Shire. It would comfort me a little, I think. I miss home so." Pippin looked over his shoulder: Merry was rubbing his still-wet fingers together, gazing at them.

Boromir made no quick answer. After a pause, he said, "What is your Brandywine like, in the Halfling country?"

Again, Merry sighed, accompanied this time by a wistful smile. "It's the most perfect place in the world," he declared softly. "It's friendlier than this place, and not so straight and bare. This river doesn't really wind, and the cliffs are so sheer and white: the Brandywine has more bends in it than there are rooms in Great Smials.

"There are trees all along the banks -- leafy trees; willows, sycamores, elms, just to name a few. Some of them have these great arching branches that spread over the water and make a sort of tunnel: those ones are great for climbing out on and dropping into the river. And then, if you go out early in the morning, you can see these blue mists floating over the water, and you can tell the trees really love it. They sort of make the birds sing happier, the berries tastier.

"There are these rolling hills on either side of the water too; that or cliffs, though nothing like these over here." He nodded toward the looming chalk overhang to their left. "Ours are browner, and not so sheer. If you want to dive off them, you've got to get a good running start, or else if you don't hit your head on the rock, you'll end up in the shallows and that's no good for you either. The only big one of any real mention is where Brandy Hall is, of course." He paused, and peered over the edge of the boat again. "There's not much fishing to be had here, is there. I've hardly seen any shoals since we left Lothlorien. The Brandywine is good for a day of fishing, right, Pip?"

Pippin had been so mesmerized by Merry's description that it took a second for him to answer. "Oh yes!" he replied, recalling many days spent lazing about, fitted with only trousers and makeshift fishing rods: more often than not they had snuck out of Brandy Hall to do so. They rarely kept what they caught, as neither of them had ever relished lugging a huge dead animal back home to the kitchens, but of course, the actual catch had never really been what had mattered on those days.

Merry's voice grew lower. "Even though we Brandybucks are the only ones in the Shire to call ourselves river people, the Brandywine really is a hobbit's kind of river. It meanders, and dallies, and only goes through beautiful places if it can help it. It likes to enjoy itself, and it takes its time doing so." He fell silent for a while, and neither Pippin nor Boromir interrupted his thoughts. Finally he yawned, and mumbled, "Just wanted to know if I could touch any of that. It's alright if you don't know."

Boromir still made no answer.

* * *

Legolas made no move as Boromir slowly glided up alongside his boat. Night had fallen, but the full moon was bright and ghostly. The Anduin was no less foreboding under Isil than Anar.

"Legolas?"

"Yes?"

"May I ask you something?"

The elf nodded. Boromir looked back in front of him.

"The halflings have a river in their country they call the Brandywine. I know you are from Mirkwood, in the north, and not so far away from their land. Do you know of what they speak?"

Legolas gave only a moment's pause to his reply. "The hobbits still live a long way from my home: they inhabit the lands on the other side of the Misty Mountains, many many day's journey from Imladris. But Brandywine... perhaps in their language this is how they speak of the Baranduin."

"The Baranduin?" Boromir repeated, glancing back at him. He quickly turned away again. "Ah then. 'Tis good I answered Merry not. For I have not the heart to tell him the Baranduin does not mingle with the Anduin at all."