after the storm | for aleifr
Apr. 2nd, 2024 03:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shieldofrohanShe 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."
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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Date: 2024-05-09 05:25 pm (UTC)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?"
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Date: 2024-05-10 10:39 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2024-05-13 11:19 pm (UTC)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."
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Date: 2024-05-16 11:29 pm (UTC)"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.
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Date: 2024-05-17 10:40 pm (UTC)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?"