for hobbitstho

[shieldofrohan]

There has been a new life in Meduseld since the coming of the Fellowship. Some of the oppressive shadow has been lifted, the slick touch of Gríma scoured from the place, and, of course, the darkness has passed from the King's eyes. Théoden, whose care has been Éowyn's first thought for months upon months, now sits hale and hearty in his seat at the end of the table, the old light back in his eyes.

Yet the shadow has not lifted from Éowyn. Grief hinders her, a sense of something lost that never was, a love that might have been but has been stunted at the root. He does not want her, will not want her. His heart belongs to another, and so a tale that might have been written is cut at the first line. The worst part is that she has no reason to feel so spurned. He has good reason: he is betrothed, she hears, and occupied in other matters. Still, some of the light has left her, and in the dying of that hope she sees the dying of her glory and her rise, of the queen she might have been and the love he might have given her.

She walks then, with heavy tread, and holds her quiet while others laugh and cheer. But over the day, her eye begins to fall to another: to Boromir, no king perhaps but a fine and noble man, and himself, she fears, much consumed by grief. For some time she watches him, considering, until at last at the night's feast, she comes to his side, bearing a flagon of wine and a smile. "You hold yourself apart," she observes, setting the wine down in front of him. "What ails you so, my lord?"

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[shieldofrohan]

"No more than is my duty." She considers a moment - a rather brief moment - then slides into the seat beside him, smoothing her skirts. Her hand comes up to touch his arm, briefly and gently, and her smile softens a little. "We have all lost much in this war, my lord. Take heart that your friends' fate is not yet certain. If they yet live, they may yet be found." Not all are so lucky, is the implication underlying her tone - she does her best not to let herself be too stern, but sternness lies deep in her. Clearing her throat, she does her best to ameliorate it: "We thought - I thought - for a time that Théoden King was lost to us, that he would never return from the madness that drove Éomer from our halls. Yet there he sits, and is himself once more. In such strange days as these, who can say what fate may be?"

For a moment, she regards Théoden, sitting at the head of the table in deep talk with Éomer, and a rather wistful smile tugs at her lips before she turns back to Boromir, filling his glass for him.

"Come, let yourself be at ease for one night, my lord. Turn your mind to other things. It is too rare we have men of Gondor in this hall, and I would know more of you."

[hobbitstho]

Boromir knows that to sit beside the warriors who pass through this hall-- to offer them brief comfort, a gentle touch-- is as much her duty as carrying the flagon. The wine marks only the hospitality of Théoden's hall, the guest-right that the Rohirrim regard so highly. The touch is a reminder that there are brighter things in the world than war, and entire lives that pass without seeing it. She is dutiful, this Éowyn, though her heart is heavy.

He follows her gaze to Théoden, and regards her as she watches him. It has been some days, he thinks, since he has seen her smile; she smiled much in their earliest days at Meduseld, but her sternness now feels to him the more accustomed expression. "...Indeed," he says as she turns back to him. "Who can say?"

He sets his cup closer, to allow her to pour. He knows he cannot promise her an easy mind; but it is a tacit agreement that he will try. "You must tell me first what you know of me," he says. "You heard me announced; you know that I traveled from Minas Tirith to Rivendell and there was given a part in the Fellowship. You have spoken with Aragorn, and so you know something, perhaps, of our journey. What curiosity remains?"

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn sets the flagon down beside her, considering him. It is a moment more before she speaks, a moment in which her eyes do not shift from him.

"Why you hold yourself apart, my lord," she says, at last. She ought, properly, to dissemble, to be mannered and gentle and, if she is to speak of dark things, to ease him into them. She certainly ought to pretend that his explanation is enough, that she believes there is no more to it than worry over his friends. But honesty comes more easily to her, and this, above all else, is what she wishes to understand. "Your mind is much weighed with grief, I know, and celebration in such times is raw as sand on an open wound. But you draw back from your own fellows, not only ours. They must be dear friends indeed, these Halflings, to work such a change in Boromir, Denethor's son."

She smiles a little then, almost apologetically. "In truth, your coming here is not the first I had heard of you. Rumour speaks not so of you."

[hobbitstho]

It is a more measured man who walked away from Parth Galen than who rode to Rivendell. Boromir's urgency has been tempered with shame; there has been a silence in him since that day, hitherto unknown to him. He was famed ever as the more masterful between the sons of the Steward, a man born to captaincy, but he does not now feel worthy of his titles, born or given.

He looks at Éowyn with troubled wonder. He did not know that he was observed so keenly. Only rarely has he sought to conceal his thoughts in the past; is he still so easily read?

"...You bid me be at ease," he says, with a pull at his mouth that is bitter and resigned, "yet you cut immediately to the heart of my grief!" He passes a hand over his eyes. "Yes; the Halflings are dear friends. My companions are noble-hearted, and if they assign blame for the breaking of our Fellowship, it will find no voice in this hall." It is a cruel kindness, though not cruelly-intended. "Not unless that voice be mine; and I know best of all where blame must be assigned."

[shieldofrohan]

A touch cryptically-spoken, yet for all that, clear enough. Much of what Aragorn has said now falls into place, as does Boromir's self-imposed isolation. Éowyn presses her lips together, and touches his arm again, more lightly than before.

"Grief lies heavy on all our hearts," she says, her voice low, meant only for him. "And guilt. There is no man in this hall who can truly say they have brought no hurt. Nor woman." Comfort is hard to summon. She's no optimist - even if his friends are alive, which she doubts, what has been done will not be undone, and the Shadow lies over him more heavily than it did before. But perhaps, she can at least try for understanding - though her guilt is smaller, if she allows herself to be honest, guilt over a kingdom and not a world.

She takes a deep breath, lets her hand fall back to her side. "The past cannot be changed," she says at last, to herself as much as him, and looks up to meet his eyes. "We can but meet the future. And if all it holds is darkness, then we can meet it with courage and with honour, and with blades drawn. With our heads high, for mourning is no atonement."

[hobbitstho]

"The weight feels too great to bear, sometimes," he says. His voice is low to match hers. "What can I do but mourn? The worst is done, and as you say, the past cannot be changed. I have ever been a man of honor; I have never failed another, and failed then to make whole what was broken. But in this-- I cannot make right what I have done."

He looks at her, and his grief is fresher now, stirred to wakefulness by her words. "I cannot draw blade in defense of those I drove away; I cannot meet with courage an enemy who has already devoured them, because I bid them flee into its maw."

[shieldofrohan]

She is quiet for a moment. A long moment, the silence only deepened by the burr of conversation around them. At last, she moves, hesitantly, to take his hand in both of hers - not a mannered thing to do, perhaps, but one born of honest concern and grief.

"I can offer you no comfort," she tells him, her voice low. "No promises of peace to come, nor hope restored. Such hope dwells not in me. But even a man dishonoured can live honourably thereafter, and die well, and if it does not wipe away the stain of guilt, yet it is not meaningless. It is not nothing." She meets his eyes, surprised to find that she is no longer looking at him as a princeling or a bold warrior, but as a man whose grief touches her more rawly. "Endure, Lord Boromir. If you must bear the weight, then I see in you the strength to do it well and bravely. Endure, as did the earliest of your line, for shame and grief may be shadowed by a stout heart."

She pulls away, a little embarrassed, and clears her throat. "Forgive me. I ought not to lecture you so, nor rake up such painful thoughts."