"Father!" Boromir strode through the door, his eyes ablaze and his face red from exertion and anger. "Father! What are you doing? The city is breached! The first level is burning! Why do you sit here?"
Denethor smiled. He regarded his son with an unstable glint in his eyes. "My Boromir, come home to me just in time to die. To burn."
"What are you talking about? Our people fight!" Boromir moved across the expanse of the throne room to where his father sat. "Faramir and I do our best, but these men need their lord behind them."
"Yes. You do your best. My sons. But you don't see, Boromir. You never did see. You haven't the vision that I have, or even that of your useless brother. You have joined the side of a wizard who bewitches and seeks to control." Denethor laughed, a hollow and odd sound. "The war is already over, son. The victory is not ours."
Boromir stood for a moment, flummoxed entirely, and felt the beginnings of fear running through him. His father's words were odd, well enough, but his father had spoken oddly before and been right. His father had vision, had a talent for looking into the future and seeing the paths fate would choose.
Denethor stood then. "You will die today, Boromir. Faramir is already dead."
Boromir's entire body clenched, went tight.
"And I will die as well. It is all decided already. Fight if you wish, but you may only change the manor of your death, not death itself."
His head shook slowly without him even realizing.
Denethor moved to him and clasped him on the shoulder. His eyes, wise and deep and glazed, peered up at his son intensely. "We should die together. You and I, in the manor of our own choosing. "
"No." Boromir spoke uncertainly, his attention on his father but his body twitching to get out into the heart of battle where he was needed.
"No." Denethor repeated it, not surprised, just...repeating, thoughtful.
Boromir backed away a step, scared suddenly for more than himself and his brother. "You have looked too long into the future. You don't see the present anymore."
"I see what I need to see. Death is coming."
Boromir knew then - this face, his father whom had ruled them and commanded them and had their devotion all their lives...he was gone. Sometime in the months Boromir was away he had delved too deeply into his own foresight and had simply not returned.
He spoke hoarsely. "Choose death if it's best for you. I will not abandon our people or this city for any hazy future."
"And I will not see you slain and lying in a bloodstained mud pile surrounded by orc filth! " Denethor stumbled forwards and grabbed his arm in a solid grip. "We will die as men of honor used to die. As heathen kings in older years would choose to make their path."
"I will not!" Boromir tore from the grasp of that clenching hand. "I will die as I always meant to - with my men in battle. I am no king, and I am no heathen. " He backed away, and in his eyes Denethor was already lost. Another casualty of a war taking far too many.
Denethor took a step towards him, but the sound of distant horns from far below reached their ears, and sudden cheering from many tired throats.
Boromir half-turned, drawing a breath of relief. "Rohan! Theoden has come!"
"Fools! They are useless!"
But Boromir was more certain than ever, and he didn't even turn back to his father. He couldn't. He wanted to remember a strong and proud and wise man, not this wild-eyed creature.
He moved down the length of the room and out the doors, and though his father called and cried and shouted his name he didn't look back.
Theoden, he thought to himself simply. Eomer.
Merry.