For his part, Boromir is glad of the other man's support beside him as they enter the rush of light and warmth. It would have been exhausting to a degree he isn't prepared to admit to come here wounded and alone, to have to bear the pain without showing any sign that it has only grown worse, to have to explain what he saw in the voice of someone who can be trusted and perhaps even obeyed. It is a relief, to a degree he is not prepared to admit, to let someone else bear part of the burden.

The night-watchman is not alarmed enough, Boromir thinks, at their news. (Never mind that he's a night-watchman, who appears to have been doing all his watching from inside the Rose & Thorn.) He does not say he knows what the beast is, but he also does not say that he has never seen its like before. When he thanks them for their description and moves off toward the door, it is not with the haste Boromir wants him to.

"Tell me, friend," he says quietly to the man beside him when the watchman is gone-- realizing as he does that they have faced down death together already tonight, and he hasn't so much as asked his name-- "Did he seem less surprised to you than he ought?"