How are you here? Éomer asked that of her, too, fear and anger and relief and pride all mingling in his tone, before he left: How are you here, among my soldiers? And she has asked it herself, too, every moment since she woke to Aragorn leaning over her, his voice calling her back from the promise of oblivion: How are you here, among the living?
And now a ghost from the past asks it of her, and Éowyn cannot even answer. She can only laugh: laugh, despite the agony in her ribs, until the tears roll down her cheeks, and until her already-shaking knees give out under her; and when she falls back against the wall, sinking to the ground, the pain jolting outward from her arm so great that her stomach lurches violently and her vision blurs at the edges - only then does her choked laughter peter out. She sits on the flagstones, the tears still flowing, and looks up at the Dornishwoman who, long ago, she loved.
Long ago does not cover it. A lifetime ago. A time when the extent of her uncle's sickness, of Gríma's blandishments, was not yet clear; when he lived and walked whole and hale; when Théodred was alive, too, and when the kingdom was not yet so hard-pressed that she could not set foot outside the prison of the palace. She had been so young, then. She had been so different, before the poison took hold.
And Elia... Elia had remained with her, in the dark watches of the night, in the deepest shadows of her self-imposed imprisonment. When duty pressed too hard, when the losses were too great, when it seemed that the sun would never shine again, she remembered Dorne and its princess, and the too-brief days when she had felt herself a woman first and a king's ward second; and in the past few years, those memories have taken on the same glow as the songs of kings and heroes and glory, the same fabled nature as the histories she longed to emulate.
She had preferred it so. She had never wished, even in her darkest moods, for Elia to be with her, in a kingdom embattled within and without, in the shadowy halls of a grief-stricken city. She had wished to be in the gardens of Sunspear, her fair skin burning scarlet and painful in the too-hot sun, feeling cool water sting against those burns, hearing Elia Martell laugh.
She blinks, and Elia does not disappear, and despite her own broken, breathless laughter, Éowyn cannot imagine laughter in the other woman's hollow eyes. How are you here? she thinks, and there is a hopelessness in the thought. Must you be taken from me, too?
"Gondor called." Her voice is a whisper, a rasp. What strength it had has, for the moment, been drained into that first hysterical response. "Rohan answered."
She swallows. For all the tears, her throat is dry.
"Help me up. I cannot sit in the hallway."
Below it, a plea she cannot quite keep back, just as she could not keep back the laughter, or the tears. She is too tired to be steel. Touch me. Prove that you are real, and not some mockery of my madness.
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sforzinda
no subject
Date: 2023-10-18 11:19 pm (UTC)And now a ghost from the past asks it of her, and Éowyn cannot even answer. She can only laugh: laugh, despite the agony in her ribs, until the tears roll down her cheeks, and until her already-shaking knees give out under her; and when she falls back against the wall, sinking to the ground, the pain jolting outward from her arm so great that her stomach lurches violently and her vision blurs at the edges - only then does her choked laughter peter out. She sits on the flagstones, the tears still flowing, and looks up at the Dornishwoman who, long ago, she loved.
Long ago does not cover it. A lifetime ago. A time when the extent of her uncle's sickness, of Gríma's blandishments, was not yet clear; when he lived and walked whole and hale; when Théodred was alive, too, and when the kingdom was not yet so hard-pressed that she could not set foot outside the prison of the palace. She had been so young, then. She had been so different, before the poison took hold.
And Elia... Elia had remained with her, in the dark watches of the night, in the deepest shadows of her self-imposed imprisonment. When duty pressed too hard, when the losses were too great, when it seemed that the sun would never shine again, she remembered Dorne and its princess, and the too-brief days when she had felt herself a woman first and a king's ward second; and in the past few years, those memories have taken on the same glow as the songs of kings and heroes and glory, the same fabled nature as the histories she longed to emulate.
She had preferred it so. She had never wished, even in her darkest moods, for Elia to be with her, in a kingdom embattled within and without, in the shadowy halls of a grief-stricken city. She had wished to be in the gardens of Sunspear, her fair skin burning scarlet and painful in the too-hot sun, feeling cool water sting against those burns, hearing Elia Martell laugh.
She blinks, and Elia does not disappear, and despite her own broken, breathless laughter, Éowyn cannot imagine laughter in the other woman's hollow eyes. How are you here? she thinks, and there is a hopelessness in the thought. Must you be taken from me, too?
"Gondor called." Her voice is a whisper, a rasp. What strength it had has, for the moment, been drained into that first hysterical response. "Rohan answered."
She swallows. For all the tears, her throat is dry.
"Help me up. I cannot sit in the hallway."
Below it, a plea she cannot quite keep back, just as she could not keep back the laughter, or the tears. She is too tired to be steel. Touch me. Prove that you are real, and not some mockery of my madness.