In Twilight

Éowyn lay on the bed, twisted up in the blankets, but lacking the strength to move.  The healers said that she was well!  She could not lift her head, her heart felt like a stone in her breast, and yet they said she was healed.  They knew nothing. 

Tears started to flow down her cheeks as she cursed the fate that had led her here.  Aragorn should not have healed her.  He should at least have respected her right to make such an end as she wished. Why did he resurrect her for a life in which there was nothing for her to live for?  Perhaps once she had dreamt of his rescue; now she cursed him for it.  What right had he to put her in his debt when he refused her friendship? 

If, by some miracle, they survived this war, she could only return to Rohan and wait for death.  There seemed to be little else she could do.  Once she had dreamed of the moonland, of peace, but those dreams had vanished like wisps of smoke in the long dark of her uncle’s enchantment.

She knew that the women whispered about her. She was the spurned lover of the mysterious king who had come and gone; she was the bravest woman who had ever breathed; she was a fragile beauty whose gentle spirit had all but broken under the Witch-King’s assault.  They knew nothing.

She could find no courage in what she had done, though she supposed others might.  She had withstood fear for so long that it had been no great feat for her to resist the fear the Witch-King had conceived in her.  And yet she feared that he had taken her soul even in his defeat.  And as for Aragorn, perhaps she had loved him – she did not know. She could not remember what it felt like to feel hope.

He had come to sit by her bed, late in the evening, the day after the Pelennor.  He had thought her asleep, until she, not being aware of his presence, had summoned the strength to turn over in her bed and reach for a handkerchief.  She had cried for so long that her skin was raw.  He had looked her in the eyes for a long moment – she had been shocked.

He had touched her face, gently, stroked the tearstains on her cheek, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  He stooped to kiss her brow, and walked from the room.  She had called out, “Fare thee well,” but was unsure if he heard her.  That night, at last, she had slept without nightmares.

Éowyn stood against her door, trembling, though she did not know why.  She had been granted the right to walk in the gardens, though not to ride out in battle; but to gain this right she had had to appeal to the Lord Faramir, Steward of Gondor.

The Steward was the real reason for her confusion, though she did not want to admit it.  He was... disconcerting.  Young, handsome, polite: there was no real reason for him to make her anxious.  He had been kind, and concerned for her welfare, though she was nothing to him.

His eyes were keen and yet they were warm – she knew not how it was possible.  Stranger still, somehow she had liked the feeling of his eyes upon her.  She felt herself blushing, and put a hand to her cheek.  She was uncomfortable in even thinking such things – the Steward was in no way unusual.  For sure he was not the first handsome, nor the first polite man she had ever known.

But he had called her beautiful.  The only other man who had ever called her fair was Gríma.  Was it possible that this Faramir saw her in the same way Grima had?  She shivered.  She could not be trapped by another.  She would not be trapped by anyone.  He wanted her to walk with him in his gardens, but how could she know if that was the full extent of his desire?  Though he might not be of the same kind as Grima if he thought her beautiful he might seek to bind her to him in some way – after all, that was the habit of men.  Beauty was to be possessed, caged for its own safety. She clenched her fists; he would not bind her to him, not while she had strength left.

Éowyn cursed the fear that made her suspect all she met.  There was no reason for it, no reason to fear a man who both her own heart and every person she had met in this cold city told her was honourable.  So he had called her beautiful.  What of it?  He would not be the first man in the world to say many gallant if meaningless things.

It was mere foolishness; of a type she had always despised, to consider his words as meaning anything.  Was she to be disconcerted, to have her peace robbed, all because of a few words?  Her strength of mind was indeed prestigious – her brother fought the hordes of Mordor, and yet it was the speech of a man she hardly knew that took up all her thought.  Her heart might lie in fragments on the floor, but that would not stop her from contemplating the compliments of a handsome man.

She lay down on her bed, torn between her fears and recriminations.  For all her pride, she could not hold back the thought that he was handsome, that his face and shape and length were all as good as ever she had seen.  Her broken heart had not stopped her from noticing how well he could please a woman’s eye.  She scorned herself; how Théodred would have laughed if he could have seen her now.  Éowyn, cold lady of Rohan, huddled on her bed, quivering, and for nothing but a few paltry words.  Any of the Rohirrim would be amazed at such ‘wooing’; words were not their usual weapons when it came to courtship.

Éowyn goaned and determined to sleep; anything was better than such a whirl of thoughts.  Indeed, perhaps if she stopped pulling her every thought to pieces, she might actually find that peace she wished for.  None of it meant anything – and she would bring herself further pain by assuming it did.  She would sleep, and she would welcome anything, even the face and voice of this Steward, if it would drive the darkness away.