For Ashfae

[shieldofrohan]

There is a sadness to being married, a sadness that has hung around all things since the war - a sadness that comes from faces that are not present, spaces that are not filled. Neither of them have parents, and she feels the void at Faramir's side, the shape of a brother she will now never know. She feels Theodred's absence likewise, and Theoden - how he would have loved to see her wed!

But for all that, she is happy. A new day has dawned on her, like spring from a hard frost. The scars on her arm and side have begun to fade, and some of the grief is lifting from her eyes. And now, as she steps inside the Steward's chambers - their chambers - there is only joy in her.

Joy, and a little nervousness. They have kissed, of course, and there is passion there she had only dreamed of ere he came into her life, but they have done little more than kiss. She has her honour, after all, and though she may trust him more deeply than she would ever have imagined, she will do this rightly, or not at all. So she has kept herself chaste, and though she knows not what experience he has - and will not ask - she knows she has none. Nor is she certain of how he will react to the scars she now bears - he knows that she has them, but has not seen more than the edges of the knots of pink-white scars that mar her fair skin.

No. She will not be nervous. She is the Lady of the Shield-Arm, she is the hero of Rohan, the killer of the Witch-King... yet when she turns to face him, she is only a young woman, her cheeks pink and her eyes shyly lowered, her stronger right hand anxiously smoothing the green and white silk of her wedding gown.

"So, my lord husband..." She smiles, worrying faintly at her lip. Husband has such a pleasing ring to it, in this moment. "It seems you have tamed yourself a maid of Rohan."

It feels she has been waiting for this moment for an age. And yet, now it is here, she is unsure what she can say that has not already been said, what she can do that will not overstep the bounds of this unfamiliar new relationship. He has ever been the one of them who can find the better words.

Comments

[whattheydefend]

It has not been an age, but it has been a year they have waited--far longer than Faramir wished. He is a patient man, but that patience has rarely been so sorely tested as in this. If they had been nearer each other during all that time it would have been easier for him. But duty kept him in Gondor while his betrothed returned to her home in Rohan, to lay her uncle to rest and see her brother crowned and a host of other things.

Including preparing for this day--and this night.

He has been so focused on the day itself, and all the days that will follow, that he has taken little thought to the wedding night. In part that was deliberate, to keep from being overly concerned or impatient or frankly adolescent with longing. But now he wishes he had been better prepared, for all that he knows not what he might have done to prepare.

And in truth nothing could have prepared him for the reality of this sight: Éowyn, White Lady of Rohan, in all her bridal finery, her pale skin flushed and her hair as golden as the sunrise, smiling and calling him husband. It steals his breath, how beautiful she is.

But he laughs at her sally, hearing the echo of the words she used when she accepted his proposal, when she all but challenged him to change his mind. He reaches for her hands and brings them to his lips, kissing her fingers. "Not tamed, my wild shieldmaiden of the North," he answers. He turns her hands in his and kisses her palms, smiling at her as he does so. "Or I hope not, for I love your fierce spirit. Perhaps it is I who has been tamed."