They didn't want to bury him. It would take too long.
They didn't want to raise a mound around him. They didn't have the resources.
They didn't want to send him down the river either, but it was what they had to do.
According to Aragorn, the river lead to Minas Tirith, so maybe his brother and father would find him. Fine. Legolas had never even known that he had had a brother.
Aragorn had directed them to lie him in the boat, as if he were sleeping. But he wasn't sleeping. If you could fall asleep in the middle of a battle, Gimli thought, and stay asleep as orcs riddled you with arrows, then you had a problem.
Arrows. There were too many. Legolas had briefly considered taking them, plucking them from his body like feathering a bird, to fire them back into the skulls of the Uruk-hai that had caused his death. Avenging the fallen.
To avenge, or for revenge?
If Legolas had cared to share this question with Aragorn, he probably would have gotten an answer. A good answer, because Aragorn was good at that sort of thing. Aragorn was a natural leader. Unfazed by anything.
Aragorn fell to his knees beside the body and laid a hand on his friend's face. It was so hard to send him away, just a body now, stuck with arrows jutting out at odd angles. But it was his duty to be strong and watch his companion part company with the attainable world.
Because Boromir was dead.