Éowyn has noticed, and once, she might have taken umbrage at it. Once, she could not have borne to be mocked.
Now, she has grown used to the sound of laughter and the bitterness it brings. She does not turn to look at the giggling woman, either in affront or in hurt; it washes over her without stirring her. She has noticed, but it is hard to tell by looking at her. Her face is still stone, her jaw clenched tight under the skin.
What she wants - what she really wants - is to be alone. To be unperceived and unbothered by duty, so that the tight-coiled spring of her grief can finally burst and the past year's horrors can spill out into desperate tears. At the same time, and for the same reason, she fears that solitude more than anything.
What she knows that she does not want is to watch men die for her once again. She has been a passive onlooker for too many deaths already, and it does not feel as needful in pitched battle as it did when they were executed. She shakes her head, clearing her throat.
"It has been a long road." There is a shake in her voice, too, now. It is an effort, holding herself together like this. "A bath would be... would be good." At last, she lets Snowmane be taken from her, and her fingers flex at the absence of his rein, and she feels some nameless darkness sweep up to try and claim her. She would sooner go with him, she thinks, than with Lady Galinda, who is a fair stranger and who may be kind, but is not hers - and who can speak, to question or accuse her. But he is a horse, and she is, at least to appearances, a woman; and she cannot hide in the stables with no concerns greater than oats and water.
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sforzinda
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Date: 2025-06-15 11:24 am (UTC)Now, she has grown used to the sound of laughter and the bitterness it brings. She does not turn to look at the giggling woman, either in affront or in hurt; it washes over her without stirring her. She has noticed, but it is hard to tell by looking at her. Her face is still stone, her jaw clenched tight under the skin.
What she wants - what she really wants - is to be alone. To be unperceived and unbothered by duty, so that the tight-coiled spring of her grief can finally burst and the past year's horrors can spill out into desperate tears. At the same time, and for the same reason, she fears that solitude more than anything.
What she knows that she does not want is to watch men die for her once again. She has been a passive onlooker for too many deaths already, and it does not feel as needful in pitched battle as it did when they were executed. She shakes her head, clearing her throat.
"It has been a long road." There is a shake in her voice, too, now. It is an effort, holding herself together like this. "A bath would be... would be good." At last, she lets Snowmane be taken from her, and her fingers flex at the absence of his rein, and she feels some nameless darkness sweep up to try and claim her. She would sooner go with him, she thinks, than with Lady Galinda, who is a fair stranger and who may be kind, but is not hers - and who can speak, to question or accuse her. But he is a horse, and she is, at least to appearances, a woman; and she cannot hide in the stables with no concerns greater than oats and water.