for ein

[shieldofrohan]

The war is over. They have won. It is hard to entirely take it on board, Éowyn finds; after years of a shadow overhead, it is lifted, and even her grief at her uncle's death does not quite mar the knowledge of victory. He did not die in vain. She can tell herself that, if nothing else, and try to silence the part of her that whispers that if she had only been faster, if she had come to his aid sooner, he need not have died at all.

Still, it is done. He has joined his forefathers in the rows of barrow-mounds, and the world turns onward into a new age. She stays for a time in Minas Tirith, restlessly lingering in the Houses of Healing, while the mangled mess of her arm and ribs begin to heal, the darkness in her own heart beginning to lift. When at last she sets out for Edoras, riding with the last few men of Rohan who have stayed with her in Gondor, she can move the arm again, and even begin to forget the knot of scar tissue marring her chest and arm.

It has been three months now since the war was won. Three months since the Ring was destroyed, the hordes of Mordor scattered. Three months since she stood on the battlefield, cold terror and colder anger warring in her heart, and slew the Witch-King. She rides back through the heat of summer, an older and more weary shieldmaiden than the one who rode out in a man's disguise.

Edoras, when she arrives, is all athrong with the lords and ladies of Rohan, enough to fill the great feasting hall and spill out beyond. When first she arrives, she ignores them, making haste to the lord she has longed most to see - her brother, who now is King, but who greets her with the same warm embrace and gentle ease as when they were children. She cries when she sees him, and is not ashamed by it, and the first day of her return she spends with him. They talk, and mourn, and celebrate, and it lifts her heart more than she could have expected.

He has not yet been crowned. Rohan is a large kingdom, and its people scattered and displaced by the fighting; there is rebuilding to be done yet, and Edoras itself is in no fit state for a coronation, the city scarred by fighting. He is King, and all know he is King, but there is still that one step to be taken. To that end, all his lords have been called to Meduseld, the great hall that stands above Edoras, to gather and witness his investment. Many, Éowyn knows - she has lived most of her life at court, at her uncle's side, and has spoken with a great number of the nobles of the land. Others, she does not. But she is the King's sister, and famed now for her battle with the Witch-King as well as for her beauty and steadfast loyalty to Théoden King, and it is her place now to reach out to them, to circulate among the guests and offer them a welcome, a smile, a polite conversation.

It is tiring. She is still not entirely recovered from her long convalescence, and it is very tiring. By evening, she can bear it no longer; she makes her excuses and escapes out into the twilit air, the light summer wind tugging at her long golden hair and the white and green skirts of her gown. There is a small courtyard she has often frequented, a grassy space with a low stone wall. She rests against that wall, looking out over the plains of Rohan, towards the mountains, and breathes deep. It does not occur to her for some time that she may have company.

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[shieldofrohan]

She hesitates, and he may not look at her, but she is looking at him; she fixes him with a deep and searching look as they ride, her brow furrowing a little and her lips pressed taut, not in anger but in almost-surprised consideration. At last, she shifts in her saddle, and her face softens into a half-smile that is only a little sardonic.

"At least," she decides, "you are honest in your dishonesty. Better that than nothing at all." And there is a hint of something in her tone that might almost be gentle mockery, although whether she is mocking him or herself, she cannot tell. "Let us have no more honesty, then; no words at all. It is too early to burrow deeply into sickness and fear, and we came to ride, not to talk of dark things." She tosses her head back, then, and looks up towards the rising dawn, over the walls of the hill-fort; and the smile that touches her lips then is less queenly, less sorrowful, and more human. There is an echo in that smile of a younger Éowyn, before duty drove the mischief and the wildness into retreat. "I will race you beyond the barrows. Let your Híril show her mettle."

[ruinedsky]

He can see her looking at him, from the corner of his eye. It is an intense gaze that drives him to want to fidget, to brace himself. For sharp words, or a rejection, for something that makes sense.

An out, a measure of understanding, is not at all what he expected. It inspires a dangerous amount of affection in him. Sure, she mocks him, but she should not tease and smile like that. Should not play games. She should get far, far away from him. "You are right, once again."

In spite of himself, he smiles as well. A warm, boyish thing that dimples one cheek and crinkles at his eyes. Éowyn tosses her hair like a mare herself, her smile so achingly human and free. He could deny her nothing she requested, he realizes, and he would be horrified by that if he had any surprise in him for it. Perhaps part of him foolishly thinks this could be a safe infatuation, a courtly thing that Éowyn in her wisdom would never let become anything more. Even as he thinks it, is partly convinced of it by his own self-deprecation, he thinks of the double-speak and knows that it isn't quite true.

"I never turn a fair challenge. On your mark, my lady."

[shieldofrohan]

"I am right often." This, at least, she does not doubt herself in: she is not right always, but, she would certainly assert, more often than not. Even if, in this case, she is not entirely sure what she is right about.

She reins in Windfola a little, to ensure that the two horses are neck-to-neck as much as possible (though, given the difference in their breeds, this places them a long way from haunch-to-haunch, and sets Éowyn herself a little behind Sylvain), and looks over at him, head tilted slightly, still with the echo of that thoughtful look.

"On my mark, then." She looks away, forward past the rippled barrows where her ancestors lie, where the simbelmyne grows white as snow on their graves, to the plains beyond; and she settles herself a little lower in the saddle, and she shifts her grip on the reins, and raises one hand slowly, lets it fall sharp as an axe. "Hai!"

And her heels dig into her horse's flanks, and the white horse springs forward, fleet as any in the King's stables, and the wind catches her hair and makes of it a golden banner, and - as so often before - doubt and fear and darkness fall away for the moment, drowned in the thunder of hooves. Even the memory of that doomed charge on the darkness does not taint the freedom beneath it; it feels as it has felt since she was a child, since she and her brother raced through the pathways of a place that was not yet home.

It is not a fair challenge. If Sylvain were the best horseman in the world, still it would not change that she is riding a horse a full hand higher than his, and one of Mearas-stock, closer to an Elven horse than to his hill pony. But victory is not the point; the point is to give the horses their head, and ride careless at full gallop, and pay no heed to hesitation.

When she reins Windfola in beyond the graves, turning to meet her rival, she is flushed and panting a little, her eyes bright and her hair touseled. The wind has brought tears to her eyes, but they are not the shameful kind; she wipes them away readily on her sleeve, smiling, her heart thudding with the echoes of hoofbeats.

"A valiant ride. She sits well, your Hiril."

[ruinedsky]

He easily reins in his mare, though she twitches her hide at the closeness of Windfola. He is amused by the contrast between the interactions of the horses and of their riders, and he continues to smile that innocent smile, first at Éowyn, then out toward the barrows as he follows her gaze out. The sight of the burials turns his joy into a softness. Not sadness, really, but a slight awe and a love for one's land and people. His eyelashes lower to shield from the wind, and he breathes in deep the scent of the growing things.

He sees her hand drop out of the corner of his eye, and he is ready. All the readiness and swift response in the world would not make him a victory, though. He knows it isn't a fair challenge, though he said so. He will sing his mare's virtues all his days but he knows she is no kingly elven steed. She is strong and surefooted, fast enough for jousting and lancework, tall enough for a big man in armor like himself, but she is still a mountain pony racing a Mearas bred king of a horse.

Her feet thunder, and he stands out of the saddle, so she knows to cut loose. The flat ground here is a treat for her, and she tosses her hand with a little spring in her step before she hits top speed. Sylvain laughs, feeling her start to frolic, and he is laughing still as they finally catch up to a halted Éowyn.

Híril slows steadily, ending at a prancing trot, tail swishing behind her. Sylvain looks with his own wind-burned face to see the shine on Éowyn's. Like the sun glows from within her skin. It's lucky that his cheeks were already pink from the wind and the thrill, but that doesn't cover the way his eyes shine all the more when he looks at her.

"She has earned her pride," he agrees, as the horse in question snorts, finally showing some relaxation in front of the stallion. It doesn't need to be said how the lady of Rohan and her horse are the wind itself, freedom itself, when they gallop. It shouldn't be said how much of her hair has come loose from the speed, and now floats around her face the way thin clouds crown a sunset. So closes his teeth and he says nothing else.

[shieldofrohan]

It suits him, she cannot help but think, to laugh that way. It seems unselfconscious, in a way it did not the night before: though perhaps it is only that now she, too, feels more like laughing. Still, his eyes are bright, and his cheeks are flushed, and he is neither wholly charming nor wholly put-together, and she cannot help but think that he looks better for it.

That thought of how he looks, and the fact of how he looks at her, all too quickly returns her to the conversation they were having before their race, to honesties and the fear of them. She clears her throat, and looks away first, sweeping stray hair out of her face with one hand. Her heart is still pounding, and her blood is high, and it makes it too easy to be carried away; and she has earned her pride, too, and she cannot give it away easily. She cannot admit that, for a moment, her weariness has lifted, lest in doing so she admit that he has some power over her, dishonest as he is. She cannot admit that she does not care whether he is dishonest, when he plays so well a part she did not know she was lacking.

"Where did you think to ride to?" she asks abruptly, after a moment, realising that she is not sure of where they are heading; that, beyond giving their horses their head, she had not considered what his intentions are. "Come; take the lead, I will follow."

[ruinedsky]

She looks away first, and he looks away as well, out of respect for her need for... what, privacy? He isn't sure. He pats his mount and puts his legs gently to her, making her prance in place and at a slight diagonal, her steady footing making it an easy little show of her skill. After, she drops her head down to take a bite of grass, lest their company think that Sylvain has her perfectly under hand.

"Naughty," he scolds her, but does nothing about the snacking. Shaking his head, he smooths his own ruffled hair away from his face and gazes out at the land before them.

"I didn't really have a plan," he admits. "I don't know the lay of the land, I just wanted time in the saddle, away from the court." He turns to her, slightly bashful, as if she would judge him for that, after their moment the night before. "I only thought to find a path and let it lead us somewhere."

He looks for such a thing, and he sees one; not a footpath by any means, but clearly horse-trodden. He clicks his tongue and Híril makes for it at a marching walk.

[shieldofrohan]

Isn't that the crux of the matter - not only of their brief acquaintance, but of how everything in life has felt since the war ended? No plan, no knowledge of the terrain; only the need to go somewhere, wherever it might lead?

She smiles at the thought, a little sadly - but, to her own surprise, a little hopefully, too. If this is how things are to be, then perhaps there are worse things. The sun is shining, and there is a cool wind brushing her face, and she is not alone. Whatever might come, whatever path she might find, perhaps there is somewhere for it to lead her, after all - somewhere far from the shadows of Gríma and the Witch-King and the losses she could not prevent.

Settling a little taller in the saddle, she clears her throat and lifts her chin, shaking her hair back out of her face. "Well enough," she decides, and nudges her heels against Windfola's flanks, urging him to follow Sylvain and Híril. "I suppose, sometimes, that is enough."