for veryfond

[shieldofrohan]

It has been four days since the gates fell. Four days since the Steward of the City, maddened in his grief, barricaded the doors against all comers and tried to kill his own son; four days since Faramir's body was taken from the pyre and borne, with great care, back to the Houses of Healing. Four days since reinforcements came from the North, with the blowing of horns and the rush of hooves and the clash of spears against green-and-white shields, to meet the enemy before the walls of Minas Tirith; four days since the Witch-King was slain and the foe driven back. Four days since the King returned.

The city is reeling. The gates, shattered by the assault, are propped up and barred; the walls rebuilt where they may be. There is an uncertain silence throughout the streets and the Citadel: a silence waiting for resolution. The battle is won, but the war is not. The eyes of every person in Gondor are turned west, toward Mordor, waiting.

How many things can change, all in a day! Faramir, thought dead for two days, is alive after all. Gondor has a King again, and its Steward is gone. The King of Rohan is borne back dead and broken upon his shield. The most feared lieutenant of the Shadow is defeated; there is no body, but among the scattered corpses on the field, the great black mass of his wingéd mount lies beheaded. There are whispers, hushed and uncertain, of what happened: so far, no-one seems quite certain.

What is certain is this: the King has returned. If there was doubt of it from Aragorn's name, his bearing, how he is spoken of, then there is no doubt of it now. The word has spread like wildfire throughout the city. The hands of a King are the hands of a healer, it is said, and did he not save three lives that were thought past recovery? Did he not emerge from not one, but three rooms in the quiet halls of the Houses of Healing, having awoken the dead?

Of course, there were few witnesses to the deed itself. Ioreth the healer-woman, and her companion; and the King himself; and Gandalf the White. Prince Imrahil, who had led the sally to retrieve the man in the bed - to save his nephew. And Faramir's wife, who no-one would try to separate from him, now that it was known that he might live.

So she would know what few could speak to - how Aragorn knelt at Faramir's bedside, and placed his hand to the unconscious man's brow; and called Faramir's name, over and over again, as though to summon him; and how his voice had grown weaker and his skin almost as waxen as that of the wounded man, as if whatever he was doing was unbearably draining. How at last, he was brought dried leaves which, when he broke them in his fingers and dropped them into hot water, made a steam that was fragrant beyond all reason. How, when that steam was brought close to Faramir's face, his eyes opened. My lord, he had said, what does the King require of me? But the smile of relief, weary on a face made haggard by long fever and injury, was not for the King first, but for the dark-haired woman who stood nearby; and when the King and the wizard and all of the others left, she remained.

That, too, was four days ago. Whatever Aragorn did, it cured some ills, but not all; and Faramir has slept most of that time. It is sleep that claims him now, at least, and not the deathly unconsciousness of a few days ago; there is colour returning to his face, and he has taken a little food, and while he is rarely awake for more than a few minutes at a stretch, he does seem more himself each time.

Less than one day ago - that morning, in fact - things changed again. Not for Faramir, who still lies sleeping, but for the war, and for Minas Tirith. It is quieter than it has been in some time, now, and strangely empty. The commanders of the war - Aragorn, Éomer, Imrahil, and the Elven-commanders of Imladris - have set out for Mordor, to make an end of things, one way or the other. With them have gone most of the survivors still fit to seat a horse and carry a sword, a fraction of the number that stood in defence of the realm a week ago. There are still soldiers on the walls of Minas Tirith, guarding the shattered gates and ready to defend - but only a very few. There is that tension in the air, wherever you look. The end is coming, and soon. Nobody seems quite sure whether to hope.

In the Houses of Healing, the tension is no less, but it is, perhaps, better-hidden. This quarter of the city, at least, is well-populated. The halls are filled with the convalescent injured, men of all ages, lying in white-shrouded beds, sitting propped in half-raised seats, the fortunate few walking in the gardens. Men of Gondor, men of Rohan, men old enough to be grandfathers and men barely old enough to shave. Men with missing limbs and open wounds, with bloodied dressings bound tight. Men who gingerly attempt to walk, and who speak in whispers, and some who shout in pain, and some who sing. Men with hollow eyes and looks of grief.

And, stubbornly struggling out into the hallway, one woman.

She is as clearly a patient as the rest, and for the same cause. Her pale skin is mottled with healing bruises and half-healed cuts, and she walks stooped like an old woman, her face taut with pain, stopping every few steps to lean against the wall and catch her breath. Her waist-length golden hair hangs down around her, tangled from the effort of getting out of her room without the Healers' aid (they would not allow her out of the bed, but she is restless, filled with a deep and unbearable fear). Her left arm is bound in a tight sling, bandaged from shoulder to wrist, and it is difficult to see, under those bandages, but the shape seems wrong. It hangs limp from a broken shoulder, like it belongs to someone else.

Her right arm is whole, though, and it gropes along the white wall of the corridor, and the hero of the Pelennor Field, the fabled slayer of the Witch-King, lets out a low whimper of pain and effort as she fights past the complaints of her broken ribs to take another step towards Meriadoc's chambers. She exhales, shaky and triumphant, and looks up through the fall of her hair.

She sees a ghost.

Her grey eyes - bloodshot and one half swollen shut - widen, and she stares for a moment. Her mouth opens, and she seems to be trying to say something, to grope for words that will not come. The hand that holds against the wall flexes, grasping for purchase. She swallows, on a dry and rasped throat, and at last manages to speak.

"...Elia?"

Comments

[veryfond]

With all that has happened in the last few days, there is little need for anyone to consider Faramir's pretty, quiet, foreign-born wife. For those who have taken notice, though, her devotion cannot be denied. Her stoic demeanor, which had held up even as she sent her own children from the city of her own accord with her trusted maids, betraying her belief on some level that staying there meant certain death, had broken violently apart when her husband's lifeless body was returned from the front.

But when Denethor had ordered her out of the room, she who was foreign and untrustworthy and who had never deserved his son, Lady Elia found the strength to rise from where she'd collapsed to the floor weeping, standing at her full height and declaring that no one was deserving of as good a man as Faramir, but she would go to her grave (however soon that may be) regretting nothing of their marriage. She did not say whether she thought Faramir felt the same, but she did kneel beside him, take his hand, kiss his brow- and then she had taken her leave, head held high though tears still streaked down her face. She would not be dragged out, hysterical, by the order of a man who had never cared for his second son, until it was too late.

And Elia had thought it was too late. She had thought that Faramir would cling to life for an hour at most. If she had known what would go on, what Denethor would do... she wouldn't have left so easily. Though perhaps it was for the best, because she was no warrior, especially when it came to fire, especially when she was already wracked with grief. She could not save him, but she would stay with him now, because the men who had saved him had brought her to his side, and only made her step away so that Aragon could heal him.

It has been four days since then, and Elia feels a new woman, and not just because of the calming draught she herself had been urged to take by the healers when they noticed how gaunt and pale she was, or that she has finally been able to sleep. Ever since she heard her husband speak of some inexplicable dream he had, some part of her had been tense, waiting for the blow, for hadn't that been how it all started with Rhaegar, a dream he thought was prophecy? But the worst has come, and he is alive, and she is alive, and whatever happens next they will face it together.

She loves him. She knows that now, knows she has been foolish to pretend differently. Perhaps it had started that very first night they spent together, or the morning after, perhaps love could come on that strong, that fast, when you were least expecting. Elia whispers the words to him while he sleeps, and whenever he wakes she is there, to assure him of her presence. He always looks at her that same relieved way, and Elia does not deserve him, that is for certain, but by some trick of fate Faramir has managed to love her despite all her flaws.

It is not that she is unaware of the tension that still lurks, the battle yet to be fought, but she has decided to hope in spite of all. Maybe it is foolish, given what she has learned of the war, the enemy, the darkness- but it is all she has to cling onto. That one day the sun will shine again, and the children will return to her, and she will tell Faramir everything she was too frightened to say before, and he will love her just the same.

But for now, all there is to do is wait. It is harder now, with all the men gone, with the knowledge of what their failure may bring. Elia wishes she had something to do, but she would not want to burden the Healers with finding her a purpose when they are already stretched so thin. She decides to focus on Faramir, willing him to wake up even as she knows the rest will heal him. Then, she hears her name.

Just hearing it at all is strange- she is always "my lady" in this land, except to her husband. As she turns, as she stands, she feels a new sort of shock hit her, for she does indeed recognize the injured woman in the hallway.

"Éowyn?" How could this be? No one in Gondor knew much of Westeros other than the name of a far-off land. She had heard, distantly, that warriors from nearby kingdoms had come to assist, that they had turned the tide, but there was no reason to connect that to the beautiful woman with golden hair and sad eyes she had known so many years ago.

Without even thinking, she has done what she promised never to do only a few days prior: left her husband's side. The incongruity of the moment is so great she almost thinks she is dreaming- but no, she would never dream Éowyn with such injuries. Soon she is in the corridor too, looking far more pale and worn and concerned than she had ever had reason to look in Dorne. "How are you- how are you here?"

A question that she should be answering, really. But it isn't so much that Éowyn is here in the House of Healing (she must have fought in the battle- hardly the strangest thing Elia has heard in the past few days) but that she is suddenly back in her life, a person who knew her when she was unmarried and childless and free.