Two women stand above ground, while one sleeps below. The wind hisses through the grass, stirring the soul. One is a maiden fair, with a clear brow and hazel eyes and hair like a sheet of cinnamon. She stands bedecked in satins and jewels grand, a gown of azure against the misty sky. Upon her brow is a circlet of gold, a token of her rank, the fair Queen of Rohan. She lays a slender long hand on her swollen belly and feels her child stir within, and she smiles.

            The second is a crone, standing thoughtfully in the shadows. Her hands are withered but strong, and she knows the lore that will help the queen when her time comes. Fair the child shall be, like the fair Sidhe. Her hair is grey, though once it was fiery copper. Her eyes of crystal emerald have softened to the colours of dusk. In her life—which has been long—she has already birthed many babes, and still she remembers the one child, tending him at his birth, and as he died. She watched as his wife and small child wept for him, for one who should ever die so young. And thinking of this she wept for his mother.

            Looking afar and seeing the maiden in blue as she stands above the grave of this brave woman, she smiles, thinking there is little difference between the two. Both with that gleam in their eyes, both with dove-like sweetness and bitter sarcasm, both with a bravery seldom seen. She died in her life’s spring, but she did not die too young, or too fair. Now this maid-no-more is queen, carrying on the spirit of she who they will never see again, dancing in the misty glade at dawn.

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