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shieldofrohanShe had wished for glory and great deeds. She had wished to be remembered. It had been what chafed most deeply about the silent service of her time in Meduseld - worse than the fear, worse than the slow grief of losing her uncle piece by piece, worse than the shadows drawing in. Worse than any of it was the loss of hope, the knowledge that there would be no songs of her sacrifice, only the cold creeping closer of an end that would not come.
But she had wished, always, to live and die in glory; to be a warrior, if only once, and be the stuff of songs.
And it had been granted to her, in the end. There had been the clash of steel and the thunder of hooves, and the reek of blood and sweat and shit, and the roaring of her blood in her ears. There had been terror, and she had almost quailed; but she had stood against it, stood against an evil that might have crushed her, and she had prevailed. Glory and great deeds. The stuff of song.
The thing about songs was that they ended. The hero awoke, against all odds, and the day was won, and the story was over, and then there was only another kind of silence.
The Houses of Healing were a quiet place. They were not dark and shadowy, as Meduseld had seemed to her in those final days, but neither was there any warmth in the white stone of their walls. They seemed hushed, even when she ventured outside of her room, as though the whole place held its breath. Perhaps it was the whole city, that was holding its breath. The whole world. Waiting for the final end. Waiting for word of the final sortie, the last force of the kingdom of Men, riding out to Mordor's gates to make its last stand.
And she, again, left helpless to do anything but linger and hope. As though her hope had not burned away years ago.
She grew stronger, as she had promised, and stronger meant only that she realised how weak she had become. The Witch-King's mace had shattered her shield, and flesh and bone were more brittle than wood and steel: her arm hung limp and useless in its sling, and it hurt to breathe, where arm and shield and mail-shirt had been driven into her ribs. Her head spun when she stood too long. Her body, which had always done as it was commanded, turned against her. She grew stronger, all the same; and, growing stronger, grew into the realisation that she would never be strong again.
But she was strong enough now, at least, to stand, and to walk a little way. Out into the garden, then, where the March wind cut through her cloak, but where the light was stronger, and where she could breathe cold air. She walked slowly, white-faced and tight-jawed, her pain apparent; but she walked tall, all the same.
From here, she could almost see the outer wall of the city, ruined and broken down. She had no desire to look down at the battlefield where her song had reached its crescendo - the place where she had failed, even in her triumph. The place where Théoden King had died, and had he even known, in the end, that she stood in his defence? Had he felt himself alone, at the last?
No. She did not want to look there. Her stomach lurched at the thought. But she leaned against the low wall, steadying herself with her good hand, and looked farther out, westward over the plains and the river, towards the jagged mountains of Mordor. Looking at the shadow that gathered there, that would consume them all. Imagining how small the force was, that stood for the realms of Men: how small, and how hopeless, and how her brother rode at the head of them. And how she waited here, again, because her song was done. She had won glory and great deeds, one moment of triumph - and for what? To wait, again, for the end? Or to live, and be broken, and never be herself again?
Standing there, staring out at the end of the world, she cut a striking figure. She was tall, and fairer than most men of Gondor - and, while there were other Rohirrim among the injured cared for here, the Houses of Healing, so soon after a long and bloody battle, were not filled with other women. That alone made her incongruous, when the bruised and battered look she had, and the sling holding her ruined arm to her side, made it clear that she was a patient. But there was something else, too: the stillness of her, standing there at the wall, rigid and intent even where the cold and exhaustion made her tremble. She was easy to see, and yet she seemed not to see anything or anyone else, as though she had closed out the rest of the world.
So much so, indeed, that she did not realise she was not alone until the effort of standing grew too much, and the cold too great: until she turned reluctantly from her vigil to find some place to sit and gather her strength, and found that there was someone else in the garden with her. For a moment, there was colour in her white cheeks, something that might have been anger or embarrassment - for it was clear from the redness of her eyes and the tearstains drying on her cheeks that she had been crying, and equally clear that she did not appreciate it being witnessed. She tried to draw herself taller still, as if to shore herself up against judgement, only to wince and hunch for a moment against the sharp pain in her ribs.
"How long have you been there?" There was an accusation in her tone, as though he did not have just as much right to be in the gardens as she did.
But she had wished, always, to live and die in glory; to be a warrior, if only once, and be the stuff of songs.
And it had been granted to her, in the end. There had been the clash of steel and the thunder of hooves, and the reek of blood and sweat and shit, and the roaring of her blood in her ears. There had been terror, and she had almost quailed; but she had stood against it, stood against an evil that might have crushed her, and she had prevailed. Glory and great deeds. The stuff of song.
The thing about songs was that they ended. The hero awoke, against all odds, and the day was won, and the story was over, and then there was only another kind of silence.
The Houses of Healing were a quiet place. They were not dark and shadowy, as Meduseld had seemed to her in those final days, but neither was there any warmth in the white stone of their walls. They seemed hushed, even when she ventured outside of her room, as though the whole place held its breath. Perhaps it was the whole city, that was holding its breath. The whole world. Waiting for the final end. Waiting for word of the final sortie, the last force of the kingdom of Men, riding out to Mordor's gates to make its last stand.
And she, again, left helpless to do anything but linger and hope. As though her hope had not burned away years ago.
She grew stronger, as she had promised, and stronger meant only that she realised how weak she had become. The Witch-King's mace had shattered her shield, and flesh and bone were more brittle than wood and steel: her arm hung limp and useless in its sling, and it hurt to breathe, where arm and shield and mail-shirt had been driven into her ribs. Her head spun when she stood too long. Her body, which had always done as it was commanded, turned against her. She grew stronger, all the same; and, growing stronger, grew into the realisation that she would never be strong again.
But she was strong enough now, at least, to stand, and to walk a little way. Out into the garden, then, where the March wind cut through her cloak, but where the light was stronger, and where she could breathe cold air. She walked slowly, white-faced and tight-jawed, her pain apparent; but she walked tall, all the same.
From here, she could almost see the outer wall of the city, ruined and broken down. She had no desire to look down at the battlefield where her song had reached its crescendo - the place where she had failed, even in her triumph. The place where Théoden King had died, and had he even known, in the end, that she stood in his defence? Had he felt himself alone, at the last?
No. She did not want to look there. Her stomach lurched at the thought. But she leaned against the low wall, steadying herself with her good hand, and looked farther out, westward over the plains and the river, towards the jagged mountains of Mordor. Looking at the shadow that gathered there, that would consume them all. Imagining how small the force was, that stood for the realms of Men: how small, and how hopeless, and how her brother rode at the head of them. And how she waited here, again, because her song was done. She had won glory and great deeds, one moment of triumph - and for what? To wait, again, for the end? Or to live, and be broken, and never be herself again?
Standing there, staring out at the end of the world, she cut a striking figure. She was tall, and fairer than most men of Gondor - and, while there were other Rohirrim among the injured cared for here, the Houses of Healing, so soon after a long and bloody battle, were not filled with other women. That alone made her incongruous, when the bruised and battered look she had, and the sling holding her ruined arm to her side, made it clear that she was a patient. But there was something else, too: the stillness of her, standing there at the wall, rigid and intent even where the cold and exhaustion made her tremble. She was easy to see, and yet she seemed not to see anything or anyone else, as though she had closed out the rest of the world.
So much so, indeed, that she did not realise she was not alone until the effort of standing grew too much, and the cold too great: until she turned reluctantly from her vigil to find some place to sit and gather her strength, and found that there was someone else in the garden with her. For a moment, there was colour in her white cheeks, something that might have been anger or embarrassment - for it was clear from the redness of her eyes and the tearstains drying on her cheeks that she had been crying, and equally clear that she did not appreciate it being witnessed. She tried to draw herself taller still, as if to shore herself up against judgement, only to wince and hunch for a moment against the sharp pain in her ribs.
"How long have you been there?" There was an accusation in her tone, as though he did not have just as much right to be in the gardens as she did.
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Date: 2023-11-07 07:14 pm (UTC)"All walls chafe," she corrects him, quietly - an echo of the same sentiment again, perhaps. All presence, all moments, all walls. Nothing personal, neither to him nor his country: only the pressing weight of everything. For a moment, she had felt that weight raise: felt Aragorn call her back to the light, and felt, for a moment, that there was something more than duty - but that moment had passed, as all else passed, and now there is only the weight again, and the high walls that will not let her breathe.
Though, she must remind herself, he has no way to know how many walls there have been, or how long they have held her. He does not know her, cannot possibly know how long she has lingered in a prison of her own creation - and he is a man, and that means he would not wholly understand it, even if he knew it.
At the same time, there is a surprising freedom in the thought that he does not know her. She has never had that luxury of being anonymous; she has never sought it, never thought she desired it, but there is a comfort in it, all the same. It means, at least for the moment, that she need not be the Lady of Edoras, the sister of the King, perhaps the last of Eorl's line if Éomer does not return. She can be, at least briefly, Éowyn alone.
Perhaps that is why, when she looks at him again, her gaze is a little less hard and a little less hostile. "My people were not made to linger behind stone walls. Nor to linger at all." She nods down at her crushed arm, and lets out a low, bitter huff of laughter. "And yet, one battle, and here I find myself again, lingering. And what else shall I ever do but linger behind walls, when I cannot raise a shield or hold a halter rein? That chafes."
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Date: 2023-11-08 05:45 am (UTC)"Is it never to heal?" he asks with the blunt pragmatism of a warrior long subject to the sights of permanent maiming. The healers would know and likely would not seek to give her false hope. She speaks as one certain her life is forever changed.
They have yet to tell him his prognosis. He has yet to ask. He shifts the crutches to the side and props them against his arm of the bench. "You were in the battle itself?" He has heard no tales of Rohirrim shieldmaidens. The prospect piques his curiosity. Unthinkingly, he leans just enough to draw up short with a soft hiss through his teeth. No turning for this conversation, then, nothing more than his head and upper shoulders.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-08 01:23 pm (UTC)It is a thin reassurance, especially when the dread is still so heavy upon her that there will be no future for such things.
"I am fortunate to be alive at all, so they tell me. I should say that an arm is a small price to pay." Should say; but it is clear from her tone that she does not believe it. The sense that she has been shortchanged, that she was robbed of an ending, still lingers painfully. Her life was a small price to pay: her arm, somehow, a steeper one.
She closes her eyes, tipping her head back, the air cold on her face. He asked her a question, and she can hear the question beneath it, or thinks she can: Is Rohan so desperate that it must send its women to fight? Perhaps he does not mean it that way, but she has always heard that lurking under the surface, in how such things are spoken of - where they are spoken of at all. It has been a long time since women rode openly with the éoreds of the Mark - many lifetimes since women were expected on the battlefield - and she cannot help but feel defensive of her place, as though she has not proven it.
Just as she cannot help but feel an obscure guilt that, having proven it, battle lacks the glory that she had always imagined. That, now that the moment of adrenaline and vitality has passed, she finds herself wondering whether it was worth it, whether she is the warrior she thought herself after all. What she remembers is not the song of steel and the thrum of hooves, not the glorious apotheosis she had hoped for: it is blood and shit and death, and mud churned by the thrashing of dying men and horses, and the terrible, cold fear in the Witch-King's shadow.
She has been silent too long. She swallows, opening her eyes, not to look at him but up at the wide, cold sky, and sighs. "Why should I not have been? When the full host of Rohan is mustered, should I remain to tend the hearth and weep, watching the horizon for their return, finding only darkness and death? Sooner would I die as my father did, with sword in hand and shield raised, defending the realms of Men." It is clear in her tone that this is a well-rehearsed thought, more often considered than spoken; equally clear that it is not aimed at him, so much as at the world more largely. But all that anger fades as swiftly as it came, and she sags a little where she sits, wincing. "Yes. I was in the battle, though I rode disguised. And, as you can see, I did not die."