after the storm | for aleifr

[shieldofrohan]

She has avoided him for several days now. Not only him, in fact: without entirely intending to, she has been avoiding almost everyone. She cannot look them in the eyes, her people who trust her and who hold her in such high regard, knowing that she has betrayed her duty. She has wept herself dry, and wrestled with her own weakness and guilt, and found herself doubting everything she is and all that she should be, wondering what she can do, how she can make amends - and then, all at once, things resolved themselves into sharp, pragmatic clarity.

There are no amends. There is no undoing it. What has been lost cannot be restored, however much she might regret it.

And soon after that realisation, another: she does not regret it.

Oh, she feels guilt, to have let her own desires overtake honour. She feels a degree of trepidation, knowing that eventually the truth must come out, and she will not be the only one shamed by it. There is a knot of complicated, uncertain sorrows at the heart of it - and yet, she does not regret it. As soon as she lets go of that immediate horror, she realises that other burdens are lessened, too. Her loneliness, her grief, that hollow ache in her which has never faded since Gríma first began to drip his poison in the King's ear... they are not gone, none of it is gone, but they are less. She feels more herself, for all that she is a maiden no more, than she has felt in years. She feels, for the first time since the battle, alive.

Once this has all sunk in, it is clear enough what comes next. It presents itself as an inevitability, with a certainty she has felt only once before, when she donned helm and armour. She does not bother to question it further, knowing that she has already made up her mind.

So it is that, a couple of days after her mysterious illness passed and she returned to her full duties, Éowyn comes to seek out her guest more directly. She finds him outside, in the early afternoon; she will not let herself hesitate in striding up to him, clearing her throat.

"I would speak with you, if you have a moment."

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[aleifr]

Éowyn has little trouble finding him - by virtue of both his stature and his taciturn nature.

Left to his own devices, Aleifr is largely a solitary creature, content with keeping his own company as often as not. On this morning, as with many since he came to Edoras, he begun the day with a walk - a loose circuit about the perimeter of Meduseld to take in the brisk morning air and survey the vista of broad plains that surrounded the Rohirrim city. He was near the end of this winding path - having settled on one of the carved stone benches near the Golden Hall's outer walls to enjoy the tranquil quiet - when Éowyn approached.

He looked back over his shoulder at the sound of closing footsteps, and seeing Éowyn ...

It the shadow of a smile to his face - one that betrayed nothing but pleasant surprise at her presence as he rose to his feet.

"Of course, Lady Éowyn."

[shieldofrohan]

And now that she is here, she finds that she does not know what to say. It is one thing to determine that she must speak to him, but when it comes to actually broaching the subject, it is hard to know how to begin. I know that I fled from you before, but fuck me again? No.

But she has begun, she has committed to this conversation, and so she must see the matter through.

"In some more private place, perhaps?" They are alone here, she knows, but at the same time, she knows that anyone might happen upon them, and that fact makes her feel profoundly exposed. "It is around..." She can feel the colour rising in her cheeks, and she hates it, hates how clear her uncertainty is even as she is firm in her resolve. She has rarely felt so clumsy, when she so much wants to be graceful. "...around the last time we spoke."

Not that speaking had factored all that heavily.

[aleifr]

There's a shift in his expression - slight, but not so slight as to evade the notice of someone keen eyed.

It was something Aleifr had expected they would discuss, more than likely sooner than later.

To him, there was no shame in sharing one's bed so long as all consented to it willingly. He knows, though, that Éowyn did not see it in the same way. She had been quiet once they finished ... still, consumed by thoughts that clearly distressed her in the brief time before she took her leave. Any doubts he had that she felt shamed by it were dispelled by her sudden and inexplicable illness, and while he had wanted to seek her out - to talk with her, and attempt to offer her some measure of comfort - the timing of it seemed poor. While he values directness and decisiveness, he isn't so single-minded that he doesn't realize that some things require time. If her solitude lasted long enough, he would act ... but it had seemed best to allow her the space that she desired, at least for a time.

And now, she had emerged. Now, she had sought him and raised that topic of her own accord.

He studied her for a moment, trying to decide what to make of the flushed color that had crept across her face, before simply nodding.

Lead the way, Lady Éowyn. He follows.

[shieldofrohan]

There are relatively few places that are truly private, fewer that can be reached without it being strange that there is a man with her. She is quiet for a moment, and then nods back, clearing her throat and setting off with a purposeful stride.

She does not speak to him as they walk, keeps her head held high and trying to summon up that distant, cool confidence which should come so readily to her. It no longer seems so natural, though. Something in her has been cracked - and not by him, either. It feels as though it has been that way since the battle, that strange mixture of open vulnerability and numbness, like a wound refusing to heal. But around him, perhaps because the numbness fades, it feels even more vulnerable.

Back inside, trying not to let her doubts show; down the hall, hoping nobody is around. She waves him into a small side room, locking the door behind them.

"You have ruined me." She still cannot find a tactful way to open the conversation, and somehow, this has translated into bluntness and borderline cruelty. "You know that?"

[aleifr]

"I've done no such thing."

Aleifr does not snap nor raise his voice, but he does bristle at the accusation ... both because he finds it difficult to take such an accusation as anything but an insult, and because of his belief that she isn't somehow lesser for them indulging in their passions.

After a moment, though, the scowl that lines his face slackens ever so slightly.

"Neither have you."

He isn't unsympathetic to her pain. He believes that the Rohirrim's views of sex and love are wrong-headed, but he's not so stubborn as to think that his certainty makes what she feels any less real.

[shieldofrohan]

"You have." What she is saying has changed, but it seems right for it to have done so: a path opening up before her. She seizes on the thought that comes to her, and her tone has changed a little, but the sense of it has changed more. "You have."

She turns more fully towards him, takes a step closer - close enough, given his height, that she has to tilt her head back to look up at him. Her expression is no less intent, but there is something different in it - less accusing, perhaps. Not softer, but more honest.

"I was resigned to misery; I made peace with grief. I knew that I was dead, even as I breathed and moved. My body was not mine, and Éowyn was not in it; she lingered in the shadow, and wept, and suffered, but it cost nothing that she did, for she was not here. She died on the field, and the dead have no more to lose."

She has moved closer still, almost against his chest now, her eyes still holding his. Her blush has not faded, but there is no uncertainty in her tone any more.

"And then, you. You put me back into my body, which is broken and scarred, and you banished the Lady of the Shield-Arm and put a mere woman in her place, and you dragged me into joy; and now I know I am alive, and I cannot be resigned any more to hollowness. Do you know what you have done to me?" Her hand comes up, twisting against the collar of his shirt, not pulling him in but pulling herself up a little, bringing her face closer to his. "You have ruined me. You have made me something other than what I must be. You made me feel."

Again, she shifts, pressing closer, and a small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth even as her gaze remains solemn. "And as it seems I cannot return to numbness, you had better do it again."

[aleifr]

Aleifr remains still. Watching, listening as she speaks. Word by word, the hard lines of his face soften - understanding supplanting the stubborn urge to stand his ground and push back on what she might say of him and of herself. By the time she stands before him, there is no more sternness to be found on his face. By the time she reaches up, taking a hold of his collar, it's an easy thing to draw him nearer.

"Éowyn is no mere woman." His voice is gentle, but firm. "And whatever she would ask of me, I would give freely."

And of that, she can be certain.

Aleifr is a man of his word, and despite his taciturn nature, he wears his feelings plainly to those who know how to watch for them. All she needs do is look into his eyes to see that he wants to erase that distance between them ... and that knowing that he brought her joy brings him joy as well.

They have not known each other long, but he is fond of her for more than just her fair beauty.

She is kind. She is stronger and wiser than she believes herself to be. Most men and women born to her place are not worthy of it, but she is, and strives to be moreso.

[shieldofrohan]

She sees it in his eyes, hears it in his voice, and that is enough: she needs no more reassurance than that to remind her of her resolve. She hesitates no longer, but leans up to press her mouth to his, kissing him hard, her tongue almost immediately pushing between his lips.

The memory of that first time has been burning in her since it happened, whether she wanted to dwell on it or not. It was a sweet thing, a relief she had not known she needed, but it was also - even at the time - poisoned by doubt, by the knowledge that she should not be doing it, that what she gave freely to him was not hers to offer without question. Now that the deed is already done, now that there is no turning back, she feels an opportunity to try again without that burden; and she seizes on it whole-heartedly, her grip loosening on his collar only long enough for her to snake her arm around the back of his neck instead, where she can better pull herself against him.

She is flushed again when she draws back, her teeth grazing his lip, and her eyes are noticeably heavy-lidded and dark. "She is a woman, all the same. I had half-forgotten it, before you." A woman, no longer a maid; and now that the point is made, now that they are in private and they both know why, there is no reason at all to disguise anything. Her other hand shifts, her fingers hooking under his belt to pull him closer there too. There is a strange sort of shyness in her smile, behind the flirtatious invitation of it, as though there is still a small part of her watching and judging her own movements from outside.

"I would ask you to show me all the ways you please a woman - when she does not run from it." This last with a certain dry self-deprecation, which is at once set aside. "And I would ask you to undress me, and then yourself, and to touch me and hold me and fuck me every way you know, until I forget that I am anything more or less than a woman. Will you give that freely, Bjorn's son?"