how to live when all is lost | for sent_to_try_us

[shieldofrohan]

She had been prepared for the end. She had been ready to die with sword in hand, to watch Edoras burn and bring her down with it, while the Shadow covered the land and all that they clung to was swept away. She had done all that she could, and even doing it, she had known it would not be enough. She had been ready.

She had not been ready to survive it. Every day since, she has wished with all her heart that she did not.

He had tried to woo her, at first. If it had not been so terrible to see, it would almost have been funny: the sheer clumsy stupidity of it, to think that power was enough, that a grief-stricken captive would flee to the architect of her misery. He had brought her flowers, and tried to make himself a confidant. She had spat in his face, and bidden him to kill her too, or else she would kill him.

Even Gríma's foolishness had its limits, but his covetousness did not. He would have her, he told her, and she would be his wife and kneel for him, and she would know her place. At the time, she had laughed openly, certain that nothing he could do would break her will, knowing that she had resigned herself to pain and death, believing that there was nothing left for him to turn against her. Éomer was dead. Théodred was dead. The only leverage he had over her was Théoden, who lingered half-conscious and no longer himself; and he needed the King more than he needed his desires met.

She had been so innocent, back then. Even in what had seemed to her the darkest possible hour, with everything lost and all that she loved ripped from her, she had still been so naïve.

The first time he had tried to bed her, she had clawed her nails across his face, snarling and spitting like a wildcat; and Gríma would not have overcome her alone, being both smaller and weaker than his unwilling bride, but he was not alone. She had been held down by his new guard, muscular men of Dunlending stock, and her maidenhead was lost to her most loathed enemy beneath the eyes and hands of three uncaring strangers, and she had wept as bitterly as ever a woman wept - not for her lost virginity, nor even for its circumstances, but because that was the moment at which she understood fully how utterly helpless she had become.

She tried to rally. She tried to find some strength, some pride to carry her forward. At every turn, it was ripped from her.

She had not given way easily. She had made him fight for every inch: made him drag her by her hair sooner than go where she was told; met his demands with stony, proud silence; watched for any weakness. She had left her mark on him more than once, biting and scratching and kicking and punching, and in time, it seemed, he had changed his aim. If he had once seemed to hope that she would love him, he soon sought only to see her broken, like a horse to the bridle; if he had once intended to make her his wife, now he was content to make her his whore. Anything, it seemed, to make her crawl.

She tried to escape, more than once. She knew the King's hall better than anyone still living, and they could not guard her all the time. Her second attempt, in hindsight, had come close to success - would have been successful, in all likelihood, if she had simply fled. But she could not bear to flee and leave him living, and she had managed to come so close, had had the knife almost to his throat, when the men he hired had heard his screams and dragged her off. That she had been soundly beaten did nothing to dissuade her; that thereafter she was locked away for over a week without light or food only hardened her resolve. But then there had been the prisoners.

Gríma needed the King alive. He needed Éowyn alive. The other Men of Rohan, those who had survived his takeover... he needed them far less. He had brought her out of her captivity, weak with hunger and grief, to see the ends of the men who had tried to help her. Háma, Ceolfrith, Harbeorn, and the rest, all men she had known since her childhood, bloodied and beaten and trying to remain strong; he had made her stand there as they were hanged, and their bodies thrown onto the dungheap, and all she could do for them was to give them the honour of not looking away.

And then he had turned to her, and said in a tone low enough for her, Their wives, their children. And when the guards released her arms, and Gríma told her to kneel, she had knelt.

That was a year ago. She has rebelled since, in smaller ways; twice more she attempted escape, alone in her planning, but that made no difference to the deaths that came from it. The second time she came close to killing him, wrapping her hands around his throat so that he could not call for help, was the last time he was alone with her. He was still alive, and she was still a slave, and all that she had accomplished was that her humiliations were more public.

Little by little, he broke her down. She rarely spoke, rarely moved without being ordered to. For a time, she tried to kill herself: refused food and water, until they forced it down her throat anyway; sought any weapon to end things, without success; tried to break her skull against the walls of her room, until they bound her helpless to a bed. In the end, with even that escape blocked to her, she surrendered. She hated herself for surrendering. She hated Théoden, in his sickness and his weakness, for surrendering them. She hated everything, with a ferocity that was the only thing she could still feel, and she had no recourse.

When he told her to kneel, now, she knelt. When he told her to stand, she stood. When he told her to open her legs, or her mouth, or any other part of her, she did. She stood behind his seat, beside the empty throne, and she was a shell: she said not one word, nor shed one tear, nor moved a muscle unless she was told. She had spoken against him perhaps a dozen times since the winter, never for her own sake: to denounce some political cruelty, to refuse him some right that was not his to claim, to say aloud You are not King. Each time, she had been made to pay. Each time, her people had been made to pay. She would never allow herself to close her eyes, as the bodies were brought before her. She would never give their lives lightly, and so she surrendered, over and over again, and hated herself more every moment.

And then, the King died.

She did not weep, finding Théoden cold and stiff in his bed when she came to bring his breakfast. She felt no sorrow, only a dull ache where her feelings had once been. She thought, without the horror she should feel: I would that you had died two years sooner, and spared us all this end. She closed his eyes, and settled his withered hands upon his counterpane, and, despite it all, she kissed his brow.

If he was dead, then Gríma was King. He was King by her hand, by her claim. He was King because he had married the Queen, and so long as she surrendered to him, who was to dispute it? And in time, she knew, his attempts would bear fruit, and she would fall pregnant with his son, and then the line of Eorl would be reduced to a whore's get, and what remained of Rohan would mean less than the dirt.

They had ceased to watch her so closely, now. It had been months since she had made any attempt at escape or rebellion. She had no contact with her own people, those who were loyal to the line of Eorl; she had no weapon and no horse. She had only one thing to aid her: the last scraps of Éowyn, Éomund's daughter, who had once sworn that she would never bend.

She would die, she swore, there in the dead man's room. She would die, before she lived a day as King Wormtongue's queen.

And she hurled herself at the guardsman, and as he stumbled back, taken by surprise, she scrabbled the eating-knife from his belt, and drove it into his eye, and then his throat, and she ran. There were few windows in the living-quarters of the hall, and fewer still large enough to climb through; she ran for the nearest door, a headlong and desperate dash which had no chance of success, no hope of escape...

And out into the summer sunlight, so dazzlingly bright after months almost entirely spend inside. She staggered at the heat of it like a hammer-blow, and tried to catch herself, looking back into the shadows of the hall and out into a city that was no longer hers, and wondered why they were not yet upon her; but there was no virtue in wondering, or in pause. She held the knife white-knuckled, turning toward the stables. It would do nothing to defend her, if armoured men came to reclaim her. It would not save her from capture - but it could save her from once again surviving it.

They did not come.

She did not discover why until she was outside the city. She had taken, of all among them, the King's own horse: Snowmane knew her well, and he had almost smashed down the door of his stall when she called to him. He charged through the street and down the Barrow-Road, and she clung bareback to his mane, almost flat against his back, the bloody knife still in her hand; and as the gates were closed to bar her leaving, the guards at last moving to prevent her, she dug her heels into the stallion's flanks and urged him on, with all the swiftness that only Rohan's horses could claim, and the guards were Men of Rohan, and they hesitated a split second to recognise the King's horse, and then he was upon them, and bursting out onto the open hillside, and he did not stop until the strength left him, and then he settled from a gallop to a trot, his white flanks heaving and dark with sweat.

And it was then, and only then, that she found she was not alone.

That was two weeks ago. Now, she and her strange rescuers are far from Edoras, outside the borders of the Mark, farther than she has ever been. She has spoken to them, by now: enough to know that they were sent to retrieve her, that their rulers seek an alliance, and that they will see her returned to the throne. It should be a hopeful thing, but it fills her with a terrible dread to think of it. Will she be Queen, who has already betrayed her people a thousand times, and surrendered them and herself to the man who would destroy them? Will she take up their cause, only to fail them anew?

She should have died, she thinks. She should have died in the escape. She should have died in the imprisonment. She should have died a year and a half ago, when she saw her people fall. But she is alive, and she cannot pretend that she has no duty to them, and even in the direst moments of her imprisonment, she has never been so afraid.

They brought clothing and supplies, and at last she is permitted some of the things she has been denied: she is given a knife to eat with, and a belt, and riding-gear. She looks, as they ride into the courtyard, almost the woman she was before the war: she is tall and fair and she sits upright in the saddle of a milk-white warhorse, her chin raised and her long golden hair fluttering in the August breeze. But there is an emptiness behind the grey eyes that fix themselves on some imagined point, and her hand clutches tightly to the horn of her saddle, the mark of a shackle half-visible on her wrist, and, inside, she is nothing the same.

She does not dismount when they draw to a halt. She barely seems to have realised that they have stopped at all. It is with the slowness of one moving through a dream that at last she turns her head, looking uncomprehendingly at the small party who have left the palace to meet them.

"They will follow me here, as like as not." Her voice feels rusty, alien on her tongue. It is the voice of the old Éowyn, who had never knelt with her head bowed and called herself whore and slave. It is the voice of a woman who expects to be taken seriously, coming from the mouth of one who has grown to expect mocking laughter. It is the voice of a Queen, and she is not Queen; she is not sure she is even human any more.

She wants to scream. She wants to say: Kill me or leave me to the wolves, but do not ask me to be Éomund's daughter now. She is dead, the Lady Éowyn is dead, and all is lost. Do not look at me as though I carry hope; I have none even for myself. She wants to say: I cannot offer you alliance, I cannot offer you help, I can offer you nothing at all. But there is no other Lady Éowyn, and she is needed, all the same.

"They will follow me," she repeats, and her hand winds tighter in the reins, her nails digging into her palm. They are longer nails than she would choose. It has been a long time since she has been trusted with either work to keep them short for, or with scissors. "Are you ready, if they come?"

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[shieldofrohan]

She cannot help it: she sags as soon as the door is closed, and the mask cracks from her face, the fullness of her weariness shining through. She should hold up the façade, should maintain a queen's composure - as she has somehow managed to do in countless audiences and feasts, when so much rides upon her performance, her ability to stand behind a man she loathes and hold her tongue and pour the wine, and not throw it in his face. She should call upon that desperate determination now, and be still and steady and silent, and not let Galinda see her falter.

But it is more difficult, somehow, to be looked upon with kindness, to be waited upon by someone who genuinely seems to want to please her. She leans back against the doorframe, covering her face with her hands, trying to hold back the tears and master herself again.

"It will do." Her voice is muffled, thick and unclear: this, it seems to her, is her true voice now, not the steady command of a proud queen. "It will more than do. It is a surfeit." It is a trap. It is a dream, or it is a snare, or it is some more evil thing. How long has it been, since she bathed without hurry or fear? How long since there was someone to attend her with a soft hand, not a mail-fist? She lowers her hands at last, and looks at the bath for a long moment with an expression trembling between fear and hate and hope. How long since she took a bath to wash the dirt of travel away, and not to prepare herself for some further humiliation?

She will not weep, she tells herself. If she did not weep when those things were done to her, why should she weep now? Things are not over. They never end. There is no place to collapse and weep and scream, only to put one foot in front of the other and stagger on, towards the next trial. She steadies her expression, although it is not altogether as convincing, and straightens her back, pressing her lips together against the lump in her throat. It is easier to manage if she thinks of the task immediately before her, and does not look up at Galinda or let herself dwell on anything but kneeling to unfasten the laces of her borrowed boots.

Her feet are bare, inside them, and red with blisters from ill-fitting boots on a long ride. She looks down at them as though the pain belongs to someone else, and stands again. Her hands are steadier now, as she lifts them to the fastenings of her dress; this is more routine than anything.

[sent_to_try_us]

Of course she had known that the journey had not been an easy one - she had heard the men muttering to each other before setting out, seen the way they checked and double-checked their equipment. And, too, she had seen their grim faces when they returned, the little group riding tight around the young queen, two men fewer than when they had set out. Somehow Éowyn's exhaustion is still something of a surprise to Galinda, and she stands uncertain and useless as the other woman masters her emotion.

It seems wrong to be admiring Éowyn's beauty when she is distraught, but the difficulty is that she is beautiful, a very different kind to Galinda's own but far more entrancing. The arch of her brow and the line of her cheeks seems almost Elven, her willowy figure closer to a boy's, and her slender fingers seem fit for both embroidery and a sword. And she is lucky, for Éowyn doesn't look back up and see her staring, so Galinda can move forward as the young queen straightens, her hands automatically moving towards Éowyn's shoulders.

"If I may?" she asks, but it isn't really a question; the forms of courtesy are so drilled into her that she knows her task well. Playing the maid, as is only right for a royal lady, she can have Éowyn out of her dress easily - and that's when things become considerably less easy, for there are marks on the other woman's arms and legs that make Galinda's throat constrict. No one has taught her how to manage this when not on a man of war; men, after all, do seem to enjoy their bruises and scars, with a story for every one. Women - women do not boast of scars. And if there are bruises peeping over the top of Éowyn's shift, how much worse might be under it?

"Will you bathe in your shift?" At least the words come out readily enough, even if Galinda's voice has gone up a notch as she says it - and they can both pretend it's only a preference, a custom of a different land, because certainly there are some who hold that being completely naked is unseemly. Whether or not Rohan is one of them Galinda has no idea, but that is entirely irrelevant. There is nothing else she can say without upsetting her guest, or going back over unfamiliar and probably painful ground, or foreshadowing a question that Éowyn will perhaps be asked a hundred times. "I am here at your will, your grace," she adds, softer, hoping Éowyn will understand what she's trying to do.

[shieldofrohan]

Although Éowyn looks at her as though she has gone insane for asking it, that is perhaps the kindest question Galinda could ask. No; she will not bathe in her shift. She has grown altogether accustomed to being seen in ways that were once beyond her imagining. Being naked ceased long ago to be any kind of private thing - and even before, would she have hesitated to undress in the company of only another woman? She was never quite so self-conscious as that.

But it is the way it is asked, the offer of choice, that makes the thing less dreadful. She shakes her head.

"You need not call me that," she says, and her voice is clearer again, if still a little hoarse. Your grace. What grace is there in her, at this point? "Call me Éowyn, or call me lady if Éowyn is too strange to your tongue, but not that." And, before Galinda can continue, before she can once again be stripped by another's hand - even a woman's, even a kindly woman's - Éowyn moves as swiftly as she can to drag her shift off over her head.

There is this to be said: it is not quite so bad as it could be. Beauty has been her virtue and her doom, and Gríma, in his greed, has tried to preserve it. (Tried, indeed, against her will; but her nails are not as sharp as claws, and when she tried to rip the fairness from her own face, the wounds healed too fast and too clean.) He has seen her beaten and whipped, certainly, but always to the edge of scarring, and not beyond. There are a couple of stray stripes scoring her back and shoulders, where the whip cut too deeply and the healing was not complete. There is the old mark of a deep bite on the side of her breast, visible only because of the fresher bruise that covers it. There are worn lines where the shackles have cut. That is all; there are many free and peaceable men with worse scars.

That is not to say she is unmarked. He has avoided permanent damage, but he has delighted in hurt. The bruises on her arms, finger-marks yellowing as they begin to fade, are more than matched by those on her breasts and belly and legs, her pale skin a patchwork of older and newer injury. It takes only one look at the state of her thighs and backside to conclude that the long ride must have been agony. A fresher bite-mark, still scabbed, sits like a circlet around one nipple; another sits high on her shoulder. All marks that will pass, but all marks that cannot be mistaken in their cause.

She has almost forgotten that she is marked, the ever-changing map of abuses has grown so familiar. It has been a long time since she saw herself without bruises. It comes as a surprise, then, to look up and see Galinda's reaction, and to remember that she has not always been this way, that she is not expected to be this way. There, again, comes the violent horror, the despair and fury and grief she has tamped down so hard for her own survival, rising like bile in her throat, and she looks away quickly.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is impossible not to notice the marks on Éowyn's skin, even with the briefest glance, and - at least for Galinda - almost equally as impossible not to imagine what has left them. Some are easy; her father has occasionally lost his temper and gripped her arm just a little too tight. Others, though...even the thought of them makes her blush a deep pink again, and decide it's best to pretend she simply hasn't seen a thing. Besides, none of it matters right now, when all they have to be concerned about is getting Éowyn clean - and perhaps more importantly hoping that if anyone is following, the men are able to beat them soundly or close the gates in time.

She is at least reasonably confident that they can close the gates in time.

Wordless, for a change, she offers an arm for Éowyn to support herself as she steps into the tub; wordless, she waits until the other woman is settled in the water before reaching for the soap and hesitating. Éowyn does not seem the sort of woman for florals, but she is also not about to insult her with the sandalwood that men seem to prefer. In the end it's the rosehip that finds its way into Galinda's hands, and she reaches to gently draw the other woman's hair back away from her face. Ordinarily there would be little or nothing to do with a woman's hair, but there is nothing ordinary about this, and so she takes up a brush and does her best to tease out the tangles that always seem to happen after riding.

What she ought to be doing now is asking how Éowyn's journey went, and where she plans to visit in the kingdom, but both of these seem rather insensitive. Worse still would be inquiring into the health of the other woman's family, who are - Galinda knows with a certainty - either dead or soon to be. And she is not at all inclined to say anything whatsoever about the bruises that colour Éowyn's body. It is part desperation that finally gives her the words, but once they come she does at least mean them.

"We are all glad to see you," she says, a little weakly, "my lady Éowyn." It's Galinda's turn to stumble a little over the name, stretching the first syllable more than it ought to be, but she thinks it's a credible attempt. "We had not looked for you so soon, and I beg you will forgive if anything is not quite ready, and tell me at once so I may have it fixed." It sounds foolish to her own ears, at best, and to cover her discomfort she takes up a pitcher to wet Éowyn's hair and begin to lather the soap.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn is filthy. There has not been a chance to wash thoroughly until now, and while Gríma has made sure she was kept clean and (relatively) healthy in his care, a lot of dirt can accumulate in the course of killing a man and fleeing for one's life. Small remnants of days-old dried blood are still caught in the thicket of her long hair, tangled from riding, and when she steps into the bath, the dust of the road blossoms off her, clouding the clean water.

"I did not know you looked for me at all." The water is warm, at once stinging and soothing on her blisters, and she sinks into it readily, trying to look up at Galinda. She wants to say something of how it felt, to flee without hope of rescue, expecting at every moment to feel the hand at her throat; how she did not know why she fled at all, had thought a thousand times in those few moments that she should give in and drive the knife through her throat sooner than wait for them to catch her. How, when the strange knights bore down upon her, she had almost done so, thinking them sure to be Gríma's allies. How part of her still wondered why the knife had not done its work, why she had stayed her hand long enough to see them fighting the Dunlendings at the gate. How impossible it seems that anything should be ready, or here at all.

There are no words for any of it. She can only sigh, and let Galinda slowly ease the knots out of her hair.

"I do not need any of this," she says at last, after several more moments have passed. "Neither your kindness nor your armies. If you give me weapons to bear, and time enough to sit a horse without pain, that will be enough." She would die, of course. But it is all she hoped for from the first, the most that had ever seemed possible: that she might die fighting, carving the Wormtongue's head from his shoulders.

(But you are all there is, the voice of reason whispers, and she wishes she could not hear it. You are the last of Eorl's line. You are Queen of the Mark. You have a duty, even now.)

And as abruptly as that, and without any clear trigger but her own thoughts, the foundations crack, and the tears begin to flow, and this time she cannot hold them back. She lies in the water which she has made dirty with her own body, and there are gentle hands against her hair, and she is safe and warm and there are men fighting for her, and she weeps as she has not wept since her brother's death, the kind of wracking sobs which tear themselves up from the very pit of her and shake her in every limb.

[sent_to_try_us]

Galinda is glad that Éowyn's back is turned to her, and the other woman can't see how she flounders. No one has bothered to tell her exactly what the men were supposed to do, nor why they came back early - although the reason for that is certainly sitting in the bath in front of her. Her mother had kept all the information of Éowyn's condition away from her, and of course her father would not trouble himself to speak to his daughter of the war he intends to wage and place her in front of.

"I am sure you know better than I," she says instead, feeling it to be a rather weak and feeble excuse - a feeling that only intensifies as Éowyn starts to cry, curling into herself and trembling with the effort of the sobs.

No one has ever cried in front of her before, not like this. Her mother did not cry when her younger siblings failed to thrive; her father's granite expression had not changed. Her ladies have cried from time to time over some especially sad poem recited by a visiting minstrel, and the younger ones have cried with disappointment or regret when a love affair went wrong. But this is something new, something elemental and terrifying, and Galinda has no idea how to handle it.

She settles for resting her hand gently on Éowyn's back and rubbing her shoulder, very lightly, the soap bobbing forgotten in the bath. What else is there to do? Galinda feels instinctively that any efforts to reassure the other woman will be counterproductive at best - and besides, she has no idea what she would even try to reassure her about.

"You will be well cared for here, I give you my word," is what eventually comes out, a little wobbly, and Galinda squeezes the other woman's shoulder gently. The only thing she can do, apart from sit uselessly, is to take up the soap again and return to her task of cleansing Éowyn's hair - which she does, having run out of other ways of comforting.

[shieldofrohan]

It has become a novelty, to be comforted. It was never something that she sought out, not since childhood, preferring to project unyielding strength - but there was a time, she remembers, when it found her all the same. Her brother, holding her tightly against his shoulder and stroking her hair; her cousin, gripping her arm when she felt like she would fall; her uncle, his hands wrapped around hers, meeting her eyes and telling her it was no weakness to weep. She has so nearly forgotten how it feels, by now, to be soothed by hands that mean no harm.

It should help, she thinks. It makes things worse. She covers her mouth with shaking hands to stifle the wail that tries to escape her, and she can still be embarrassed, still find a new kind of humiliation even now, falling apart in front of a stranger.

It takes her minutes - not moments, but minutes - to catch her breath again, to steady the shaking, hiccoughing sobs that catch in the base of her ribs and tighten into a vice-grip. It is long enough for Galinda to be most of the way into the task of washing her hair, which only makes things feel more helplessly bizarre. But slowly, little by little, Éowyn regains control of herself.

"I am sorry." Her voice is low, and she does not raise her head. The tears drip from her chin, into the water. She wipes them away with the back of her hand, not caring if she gets soap in her eyes. "I would... I am very tired. I would appreciate it, Lady Glinda, if you did not speak of this to anyone."

[sent_to_try_us]

It seems hours that she sits quietly, helplessly watching as Éowyn sobs as though her heart has broken. Part of Galinda feels that she should leave the room and offer the other woman privacy; another part longs to reach out and take Éowyn into her arms, however inappropriate such a gesture would be. She has been schooled to courtesy, to repressing unwanted emotions, and in the end all she feels she can do is continue to help Éowyn wash.

Every now and then her fingers touch Éowyn's skin, skidding off as quickly as Galinda can manage, afraid of accidentally pressing against a bruise. Helping another person bathe has always been a matter of pure courtesy before, with talk of nothing but superficial matters; Galinda is entirely undone by the other woman's vulnerability, by the horrors she has so obviously lived through. It is difficult not to think of them each time she glances down, and so Galinda is trying ever so hard not to glance down, only she has to in order to work the lather properly through Éowyn's hair, and the more she thinks of them the more upset she gets.

Which of course cannot compare to how upset Éowyn is, and she is in the middle of scolding herself for daring to be even the smallest bit upset when the young queen speaks again at last. The sound startles Galinda, and she holds herself rigorously still so as not to jump and pull on Éowyn's hair.

"You have my word," she says quickly, her voice as soft as the other woman's - not that there's any chance of being overheard, but it seems only right to be quiet. "We shall see you fed, and to bed after that, and I am sure you will feel quite yourself again after resting." She is not at all sure about that, but Galinda does her best to put conviction into her voice anyway, because it does rather seem that she ought to try to believe it. But the bruises alone will not heal after only one night, and Galinda has had to sit by the bedsides of men who suffered in the wars and who still thrash and cry out in their sleep.

"Shall I wash your back?" she offers, a little hesitant to do anything more than she already has - but Éowyn did seem to be luxuriating in the bath, and certainly Galinda herself would be eager to be warm and clean after such a ride, and if she's careful perhaps she can avoid the bruises.

[shieldofrohan]

Quite yourself is another strange thought, for if she is honest, Éowyn is quite unsure who herself is these days. But it is a well-intentioned thought, all the same. It makes it easier, if not to believe it, then at least to join in the pretence. Yes, she tells herself: yes, when she has eaten and rested, when she has washed the dust of her flight fully from her skin and scrubbed the last traces of his hands off herself, then she will be Éowyn again.

She splashes water over her face, washing away the worst of her tears, and feels a little better for it. Perhaps (the thought does occur) she feels a little better for crying, too, even as the embarrassment of it makes her toes curl. Perhaps it is a good sign, that she feels safe enough to weep at all.

"Yes," she says, both to her own thoughts and to Galinda's question, and turns her face up to look at the other woman again. Even with her voice still thick with tears, there is a certain undercurrent of wry, bitter humour. "And though I grant it may not be apparent, I am made of flesh, not glass. I will not fly apart at a touch." It is hard not to notice, now that she is a little more coherent, how careful Galinda is being, how light and brief every touch against Éowyn's skin has been. "You will not hurt me, lady; I am not so weak as I seem."

[sent_to_try_us]

Now it is Galinda's turn to blush, cheeks heating as Éowyn turns to look at her. She had thought she was being a little more subtle, hiding her concern beneath a blanket of politeness, and - well, it is too late now. She bites at her lip, then straightens her back and meets the young queen's gaze.

"You must call me Galinda," she says, "if you will be Éowyn; it is hardly fair, otherwise." It feels a little like an offer of something more; not a truce, for they are not enemies, but perhaps a pact to forget, for a little while, what has brought them both here and the gulf that has separated their lives. Galinda knows, at least in theory, that she has been carefully coddled and protected; Éowyn has grown up rapidly, lost all her family, and become reluctant wife to an usurper all in a few years. Those years are the space between them, and Galinda can hardly imagine surviving all that Éowyn has in so short a time.

Reminding herself firmly that the other woman is, after all, flesh and blood as she says, Galinda reaches out to take up the soap again and rub it between her hands. It very quickly forms a soft foam, and she can let it fall and set her hands on Éowyn's shoulders. They are stronger than any other woman's she's touched, much closer to some of the younger warriors, and yet Éowyn's skin is soft and smooth beneath her hands. Galinda has been taught how to help ease some of the aches and pains a fighting man tends to feel, and she supposes that Éowyn is after all a fighting woman - and so, with a quiet breath in, she presses her thumbs a little harder into the muscles of Éowyn's shoulders, rolling them in circles as she's been taught.

[shieldofrohan]

"Galinda." She hears it, the burring of the name, too soft on her tongue; and she smiles a little apologetically. "Ga-linda. I am sorry, it sits strangely on my tongue. I will grasp it soon enough."

She takes it as an offer, as it is given, though she is not sure what the offer is. She does not dare to think it is friendship, but perhaps it is something of the kind: perhaps it is merely that, if she is Éowyn and her host is Galinda, they need be nothing more. That it need not be a disaster how she has crumbled, so long as she is only Éowyn and it is only Galinda who sees. It is a fragile thought, but it is something.

And then she loses the thought at once, because Galinda's thumbs working against her muscles do hurt, whatever she might have said - but it is, for once, a good hurt, the ache of something misplaced and weary resettling. She lets out a low groan, surprised by the relief it brings. For two years at least now, she has never allowed herself to relax or hold her head less than high, keeping herself as much as possible straight and steady against a world increasingly pushing to make her bend. Even in kneeling, she has always tried to stand tall - and her back, under the bruising and the raised whip-scars, is a solid wall of muscle knots.

She lets out a quiet grunt, pressing back into Galinda's touch, a wordless encouragement to press harder. Something is unwinding inside her, a tension kept so tight that it almost snaps. Part of her is afraid of what will come of loosening the muscles that keep her head up and her shoulders back - if it will all come undone, and cannot be restored - but it feels good. And so she does not ask, as she has not asked until this point, the question that still hovers in the forefront of her mind and must eventually be voiced: Why am I here?

[sent_to_try_us]

"I like it as you say it," Galinda says - perhaps a little too quick, and the admission makes her cheeks heat again. But there is something in the way Éowyn's voice warms her name that she does indeed like, and she sees no harm in reassuring the other woman over something so small. "So you mustn't apologize to me."

And at least she can blame the words on how she flushes again when Éowyn makes that sound and arches back into her touch. Flustered, her hands stop moving for a moment, and it takes a solid effort for Galinda to remember herself and return to working her way down Éowyn's spine. She ought not to be admiring the strength in the other woman's body, the way her muscles move so smoothly, the softness of her skin, but knowing that doesn't make it so. Instead she swallows hard, and tries to train her eyes on the wall past Éowyn's head, only glancing down when her hands need to move a little more.

Éowyn is not alone in her wondering. This is, Galinda is beginning to feel, more like the start of a war than any kind of greeting between two courts; these men are here to fight their way through the Wormtongue's men and set Éowyn back on her throne. No one had mentioned that the situation could be so dire, and yet now that she looks back at it her father clearly had the thought that this would not be so easy as walking in and saluting the young queen. What, then, is a princess to do? She cannot command armies, cannot take the field of battle, has no idea how to cope with the rough living that war brings. Éowyn, she feels, is quite able to care for herself without any help - she has come this far, after all, without need of anyone to help her dress and bathe and choose her jewels.

Besides, she is starting to think that it might be rather difficult to help dress, and bathe, and all the other little intimate tasks of a lady-in-waiting, when you have just realised that your mistress is rather beautiful. Even bruised and battered, there is something about Éowyn that keeps drawing her eye, her attention. Galinda has no idea what to do about it - no idea even what she might want to do about it - but she can hardly refuse her help, after all, when it is so obviously Éowyn's right to be served.

"You will tell me, I hope, if you hurt?" is what she ends up with, pathetically weak against the things she perhaps ought to say, starting with if you make a sound like that again I don't know how I shall continue, and following with my father will avenge whatever wrong has been done you, and I wish I could promise the same of my own accord, or even you are quite the most fascinating woman I have ever known.

[shieldofrohan]

She always hurts, these days; or perhaps she never hurts, the numbness she has built around herself muffling even the worst abuses. Either way, she is certain that she will tell Galinda no such thing, for there is certainly no way that this meekly attentive maid can hurt her worse than she has borne before.

"I will tell you." She has become, to her distaste, a good liar. It has ceased to matter whether what she says is true, as it once did, or even whether it is wholly honourable. Honour is one of many things that she had thought herself incapable of losing, which has been ripped little by little out of her. Honour, and honesty, and courage, and pride.

It strikes her again that she must relearn them all, and quickly. She is safe here, with Galinda's hands warm and surprisingly strong against her back, the bathwater lapping around her, the door locked from the inside for once; but she cannot stay safe, and her people need her. If Rohan is ever to be itself again, then she must be herself again, and the thought of it is painful; it was such a long and brutal way down to where she has found herself, the idea of climbing back to the beginning is an exhausting one.

"Will you stay with me?" she asks, suddenly and without thinking, and clears her throat awkwardly. "That is... how long will you stay? You must have other duties to attend to, and I do not know..." Anything, really. There is still so much she cannot make sense of, starting with exactly who Galinda even is.

Besides, that is, the first person in a long time who has seen Éowyn cry, and has not laughed. The first pair of gentle hands on her skin in months upon months, the first person to feel like she is not a threat. Besides all that.

[sent_to_try_us]

So it is both of them who have been thrust into the situation with not quite enough information; somehow that makes it a little better, that she is not alone in her uncertainty, but also a little worse, since neither of them have the answers. Galinda picks up the jug of clean water, tests its temperature against her own wrist, and begins to pour it slowly over Éowyn's hair.

"Oh, well, as to that, I shall remain at least until you are quite settled," she says, doing her best to run her fingers gently through the other woman's hair to untangle it as the suds wash away. "Unless you send me away, of course - the king my father would find someone more suited to you, if you liked, only he thought I would be - " A figurehead. A guarantee. A warning to those who might oppose Éowyn's rule. An acceptable sacrifice, perhaps, if things go badly. " - well enough suited as a lady in waiting, since you are a queen; and a tie to his court as well." And this might be an apprenticeship for her, as well, out from under her mother's gaze, in a court that has not known her from her earliest days. Someday, like Éowyn, she will have to manage her own court; but she will go to a new land as a king's bride, rather than rule the people who are in the habit of obeying her father, and his father before him.

"The men are yours to command to war, and I to peace," she adds, more quietly. "My lord father thought - he had information that - that your throne was not held by you, that your husband was an usurper, and we have long been friendly with Rohan - they had discussed marrying me to your brother, before..." The words trail off as she searches for a euphemism for what they both know happened to Éomer instead of a wedding and future - what happened to so very many, and how lucky Galinda's father has been to come out of the war with both a son and daughter still living. "And I think, perhaps, that he was not wrong in his thoughts." This last is a whisper; the bruises across Éowyn's body tell their own story, and not one of a cherished, beloved queen.

[shieldofrohan]

It is strange, hearing it, to realise how little she has let herself grieve Éomer; how the thought of him has become an ugly scar, not an open wound. She has not missed him, not because she has forgotten the love they had for one another, but because she could not miss him: because the thought of him seeing her brought so low was worse than the thought of what befell him.

Now she misses him, now that she has been freed. He would be a better King, she thinks, than she a Queen: not for any inherent lack in her, but for all that has been stripped away. He would take up the crown proudly, and the sword, and never in her life would she have thought herself capable of wanting some other hand to take power from hers.

And he would have held her when she wept, the way he had when they were children, when their parents died. She would not have had to explain anything, or hold herself together, or assert herself. She always hated the desire that he had to protect her - he, and Théodred, and Théoden too. Now she cannot help but wish for their protection, for their love, and the grief hits her with the violence of a mace-blow. They are gone. They are all gone, and she remains, and not since the beginning of her ordeal has she been so brutally conscious of it.

Her hand comes up, gripping Galinda's wrist, holding her still as Éowyn looks up at her. For a moment, that is all she does: look. Then, softly: "You would have loved him. He was easy to love. I am sorry that it could not be so." For a thousand reasons.

Letting go of Galinda again, she clears her throat and leans forward, resting her arms on her knees. Her back, she notices, moves more easily already.

"Your lord father," she says at last, when she has composed herself to do so. The pieces have begun to fall into place, too slowly, and at last she places Galinda. "Lord Arduenna. Yes, I suppose..." It makes sense. His delegation to Meduseld, not so very long ago (although time has changed its meaning, of late); this holdfast; the daughter meant to wed Éomer. She remembers him now, and not (though she would never say so) with great fondness. There was never any real question that his petition for Éomer's hand would be accepted. Some men wore their ambition too nakedly to give them an opening.

Well. Things change.

"He was not wrong in his thoughts. And the Worm is not my husband." She spits that last, with undisguised loathing. "Shall I call him my husband, when the ring was forced onto my finger, when I made no marriage vow to him?" She had not yet been broken, then. She had stood stubbornly silent, until she had been brought to her knees, and even then she had not said the words. It had not mattered; there were enough in attendance who were in Gríma's pocket, and by the next day the tale was put about that she had wept for joy as she swore to him.

There is no ring on her finger now. She flung it in the dungheap as she fled.

"I thought I would kill him. I thought that will alone would make it possible." Her smile is small and bitter. "He is not a strong man, only a cunning one. I should have killed him years ago, before things came to so evil a pass: and absent his poison, would Théoden King have rallied? Would Éomer and Théoden have returned home, to call the muster? All this might have been averted; and if I perished for it or was forever dishonoured, how small a cost! And even at the last, I thought that I would kill him, if only I got my hands around his neck. But he is a cunning man, and he did not stand alone, and perhaps I was not so strong a woman as I hoped; it is to my shame that I have fled, and left him living."

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn's hand is tight around Galinda's wrist, and it does not seem like quite the time to say that she had not wanted to marry Éomer - had not wanted to marry anyone, for that matter; had not wanted to become a wife and mother, to bear child after child until she died or her courses dried up. And now, see - she would have been a widow, and her children threatened or even killed 'in the confusion', and she is certain that she would not have been able to flee as Éowyn has.

It takes a moment for her to catch her breath once the other woman lets go, and by the time she has, it has become clear she's made a misstep.

"I am sorry - it is only that everyone says it - " Galinda tries, guiltily aware that this is no excuse. But it is what everyone says, even her parents; the world speaks of Éowyn's husband, whether or not they choose to call him king or king consort.

She is unused to such strong emotions as Éowyn has, and is both fascinated and a little afraid. All her life has been a series of lessons in how to be courteous and bland, a perfect ornament in a great court, not someone who would ever show anger in public - or even in private, even if she were entirely alone, which she never is. Galinda swallows, and tries for a smile, for what else is she to do?

"Well," she says, after a long hesitation, "you can go back, and with an army, and I dare say none of them will do anything but admire you if you do." Because she is a woman, and women are feeble; she is a queen, fighting against a king, and queens do not win in that kind of fight; she does not hold the crown and the throne, and he does. But Éowyn has one advantage that most women, most queens, do not: Galinda's father, and the army he has sent to put her on her throne, even if they both know it will create a debt she will find it hard to repay.

"Will you stand up, and I will help you rinse off?" Galinda offers, not knowing what else to do or say, only that Éowyn must be clean by now and perhaps does not know that she can command whatever she likes. She bites at her lip and watches the other woman, ready to stand or reach out if it should seem Éowyn needs any help - but not about to make any assumptions about this fierce, broken woman she has been sent to care for and report back on.

[shieldofrohan]

"They will do something but admire me." The bodies, twisting slowly in the wind. The look in Háma's gaze at the last, meeting hers from the gallows. Ceolfrith's wife, and the hate in her eyes. "They will die. They will die in my name, because my own arm was not strong enough."

Her fingers flex against the surface of the water, and she presses her lips together tightly and moves to do as she is bidden. Standing aches worse than settling, her worn thighs aching and trembling under the strain. She steadies herself against the sides of the tub, teeth gritting as she stands. A part of her is aware, dimly, that she is being unfair: that this is not a just way to respond to someone who is trying to comfort her. Galinda does not seem hardened, the way Éowyn has become; she seems kind and genuine and soft, and she does not need to know the worst of it, nor be made to feel guilty for not speaking to it.

But it is difficult, now, not to let herself be honest. For once, she is almost safe, and there is so much that has so long gone unsaid. She turns where she stands, meeting Glinda's eyes.

"I know that everyone says it. I know that in the eyes of the world, I am his wife and he is my husband, and so even in my absence he is King; and if there is one relief it is that he is not man enough to have gotten a child on me, so that he will never rest easy in his ownership. And he will be my husband by that accounting until I prove otherwise, and he will claim so until I cleave his head from his shoulders, and even then, there will be those who say that I allowed him mastery over me, that I sold the Mark to preserve my own skin and turned against him only to sell it to another lord. I cannot make it otherwise. I can fight all my life, with an army or with my own bare hands, and I can rend him limb from limb and cry out all that he has done to me; but the histories that are told, even if they sing my deeds and acclaim a victory, will make me his wife." There is a gleam of tears in her eyes again, but there is a sharper glint there too, a ferocity that cries out for an outlet. "And I will not fight history. If he were my husband, then I divorce him utterly, and if I were his wife, still I would be the one to see him choking on his blood. But I would have you know it, Lady Glinda; I would have it clear between us, if nowhere else. He is not my husband, not my kinsman or my King, and he never was."

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn trembles as she stands, and Galinda's hands clench into fists to keep herself from reaching out to help. Now, she feels, is not the time, and perhaps she is not the person. Instead she stays still, watching the other woman's eyes, pretending not to see the tears brimming in them - and listens silently until Éowyn runs out of words.

Then and only then does she reach out her hands towards the young queen, not touching - just coming close enough that Éowyn could take her hand for support, should she wish to, or her arm, or lean on her shoulder with only a step closer.

"I understand," she says softly, gazing into those clear grey eyes. "I will not forget it." It seems suddenly very important that Éowyn should know it to be truth, that Galinda should remember. For a moment there is nothing in the world except the two of them: Galinda, and this entrancing woman who has cast a spell over her within minutes of their very meeting.

The rumble of voices passing by the chamber startles her out of it, and Galinda recollects herself enough to remember that Éowyn is still in her bath and will soon be cold. There is a towel just by her, and she reaches to take it and wrap it around the other woman, smoothing it down over Éowyn's shoulders.

"Come, we shall get you out," she says gently, "and then I will get your clothes and perhaps some spiced wine, if you like? I would not have you catch a chill." And this is only the ordinary courtesy of a host to a guest, but to Galinda it feels oddly like it ought to be something more.

hopefully this is an okay time to fast-forward? idk lmk if you want something different obviously <3

[shieldofrohan]

After a moment's unconscious hesitation, Éowyn does reach out and take Galinda's hand, her other hand coming up to hold the towel around herself. Judging by the weight she puts through her grip, climbing out of the tub is not easy - the warm water has soothed some of the ache in her thighs and hips, but not all - but she manages it well enough.

"I would like that. Thank you." It is palpable, the way she is working to gather herself, to regain some kind of distance between them, as if hoping the bath has washed away the weakness that overcame her. She clears her throat, lifting the corner of the towel to wipe away both water and tears from her face, and lets go of Galinda's hand to lean over and wring out her hair into the tub. "Though if there is a comb or a brush, give me that first, and I will get my hair a little dryer before I drench fresh clothes."

There is more to it than just practicality. She wants to feel like herself again, or at least to look like herself: to seem put-together and ready for whatever comes. Not tangled and filthy, nor wet and bedraggled. Given half a chance, she wants her hair properly braided back from her face, fastened up out of the way; she wants clean, dry clothes and the knife back at her belt; she wants to retreat into looking untouched by anything, as though that will make it so.

And spiced wine. She has not, for the most part, been deprived of such small luxuries - not unless it has been a specific punishment - but it has not been soothing, for some time. Nothing has. Spiced wine drunk by the fire, without haste or horror, is a thing of the past: it speaks to her of winter nights with her kinsmen, in the rare moments of peace, sharing songs and reminiscences. There is pain in that memory, grief unhealed and unaddressed - but it is the kind of pain that calls out in invitation, like an old friend.

It is not a winter's night, of course. It is a summer's afternoon, and this place is a stone holdfast rather than the ancient welcome of Meduseld in better times, and the company she has is like her kinsmen only in the colour of her hair. But it is something. It is enough to start gathering herself again, and to settle into a silence that is a kind of exhale after two years of held breaths and fury and fear. She should take the opportunity to ask more questions, to plan the road ahead and to determine what other interests - beyond the obvious ambition of Arduenna - are at play. At the very least, she should find out something more about the woman who has set herself as her companion.

But slowly, it sinks into her nervous system that she is safe for the moment, that the flight from Edoras is over; and with that slow realisation, the exhaustion sets in fully. Her shoulders, held so stiff, begin to slump, her back softening. She feels leaden in every limb, all the aches and pains and weariness dragging her down, until raising the cup to her lips feels almost more than she can manage. The last thing she wants to do is talk - to ask questions, and have to answer them, and to risk another of those ugly moments where she is set off by the smallest misstep. It is exhausting to be around anyone, even - perhaps especially - someone friendly. She cannot be rude, or risk damaging her situation further; she cannot keep being weak, when all that is asked of her is strength; and she certainly cannot be intelligent right now.

The sun is still quite high in the sky outside, and perhaps two hours have passed since she arrived, when she slowly pushes herself to her feet. "I should rest," she says, and it is clear from her voice how true that is. "You may as well go, Lady Galinda, and make better use of your evening." Then, because she is still prone to honesty and because Galinda has been subjected to enough of it already that there is no sense in dissembling: "I have not been properly left alone for some months. I would like to be by myself a while."

[sent_to_try_us]

Clean and groomed, Éowyn is - stunning. Galinda is struggling to make sense of it. It is not that she is especially beautiful in the way minstrels sing of, or artists take as a muse. It is not how graceful and feminine her movements are, or about the curves of her body. There are countless women who would be accounted more beautiful than her, and yet -

And yet Galinda is quite unable to look away from her, fascinated by the way she shrugs her shoulders, by the calluses on her hands, by how rare and sweet her smiles are. It makes her nervous, which perhaps makes her talk too much, but they are both floundering in a situation neither has encountered before. She had not expected to be lady-in-waiting to a queen such as this, had expected someone more like her mother - elegant and withdrawn, regal and cool. Éowyn is not the kind of woman in the songs and stories Galinda knows, and it makes her even more intriguing.

She stands as Éowyn does, smoothing down her skirts and offering the other woman a smile. Éowyn's voice is a little ragged, her eyes dark with exhaustion, and even if Galinda would have been happy to keep talking for hours she is not about to be unkind to her guest.

"Of course," she says, "and I shall fetch my pallet into your privy room, if you like, so as not to disturb you." There will be other women sleeping there - there are women sleeping all over the hold, and they are lucky to be inside when some of the soldiers have had to resort to the stables - but needs must, as her mother says, and surely Éowyn's wishes are the priority here. "Shall I have the cooks send up supper for you, later on?"

[shieldofrohan]

She had not realised that would be necessary, and perhaps she should feel guilty, but she does not. It is in many ways a relief that she can even exert that small change in someone's plans. She has been a lady in name only for a long while now, consciously denied access to the servants who would obey her, for fear of her awaking treason in them; she has had a position without power, and if she had asked any of her servants - her jailers - to move their beds, they would simply have turned to Gríma for his orders instead.

She can be alone. She can be obeyed. It is a rush of relief that, in her current state, almost makes her sway where she stands.

"No," she answers, after a moment. It takes a moment to settle on an answer. She is aware that she should be hungry - should be ravenous - but she is too tired to think of food, and in any case, all she wants is to be alone. "No, I think food can wait until morning. Besides, it is as well to waste none of it." Not knowing, after all, what force may be sent to fetch her back. Under such circumstances, it is always better to be careful.

(The food she had stocked against siege, two years ago, had all been eaten in the feasting when the gates were opened: a grotesque celebration of a more grotesque peace. It still makes her sick to think of it.)

"I will be myself again in the morning." Will slips out instead of shall, a small truth that belies that it is not a promise to Galinda, but a determined order to herself. She wills it. With all her heart, she wills it. "And then we may talk properly, and determine what comes next. But for now... as I said, all that I desire is to be alone, to regather myself."

And yet, when she is alone - when Galinda has gone, and Éowyn is lying between clean sheets in the dying light of the fire - she finds she does not want it at all. The shadows seem too many and too deep. Her eyes keep drifting towards the door, locked from inside for once, but still a door. She is not alone, she knows; she is never alone. She is only ever waiting, when she is by herself.

He is not there, she reminds herself. He is a hundred miles away. But she cannot shake the sense that he is there, all the same: that he is outside the door, his hand on the latch, his key in the lock; or worse, that among those many shifting shadows there is one that is dark enough to hide a sallow figure, watching her in that gloating way he has. Or perhaps that this is all some trick to lure her into a false sense of security, so that when she is seized upon by her seeming allies and dragged before him, the despair will be greater. The terror and the despair seize her now, pre-emptively, and she bites her lip hard to keep herself from weeping. He has always loved to see her weep.

This is a dream, she decides, in the half-sleeping wakefulness she drifts in. She has finally gone mad; she has dreamed herself a world where she is free, where she can avenge her kin and her country. She has dreamed herself allies who will give her shield and sword, and set her at the head of an army, and give her some justice. But it is only a dream, and this room, this keep, this hope is only a fading thing. If she sleeps, she will wake, and find herself back in the cold darkness of her own rooms in Meduseld, with nothing ahead of her but shame and grief.

Her mind seizes onto that thought, repeating it over and over. This is a dream. Her escape, a dream. Her reprieve, a dream. Her allies, a dream. Her lady-in-waiting, a dream. The lock on the door, her solitude, her safety: all only a dream.

She does not quite know how long she has lain here, with the world shrinking around her. When she finally rises, white as a ghost in the gathering darkness, the fire has burnt down to its embers, and it is fully dark outside. She feels her way through the shadows until she finds a candle.

The privy room. She finds it, and her hand hesitates on the door-handle. Beyond it, she can hear the rise and fall of several sleeping breathers; she is suddenly struck by the thought of how she must appear, with hollowed eyes and the pallor of the sleepless, trembling where she stands, barefoot and dressed only in her shift, her hair loosely braided down her back. She is a sleepwalker caught in a nightmare, desperate in ways she cannot even name. If this is how she appears, how can anyone ever see her as the Queen she must be?

She cannot be that. And it is all a dream; and she cannot bear it to be a dream, and she has to test its reality, to push open the door as quietly as she can, expecting it to be locked, or for all that lies beyond to melt away at once.

"Glinda?" she whispers, as softly as she can.

[sent_to_try_us]

Galinda is not having a good night.

She is used to sleeping with others around, of course, but not so many others. And not with people who snore, and mutter in their sleep, and thrash around. And not on a pallet, which is so much less comfortable than her own feather bed that she can hardly believe anyone could ever sleep on one. Perhaps she is spoiled, as her mother occasionally tells her, but is she not also a princess? Someday to be a queen? And queens do not sleep like this. Indeed, a queen not sleeping like this is the very reason she is.

And yet she cannot begrudge Éowyn a good bed, and privacy, and quiet. Not after seeing her cry; not after the bruises on her body. Galinda cannot imagine how such bruising can come to be, and the thought of it being done to an anointed queen is far beyond the realm of her imagination. The mere existence of Éowyn's injuries are an affront to everything Galinda has ever known to be true.

The door opening is something of a relief, after tossing and turning for what seems like hours. At least it is something new, and a person who isn't making her lose her mind with snoring.

"I am here, Éowyn," Galinda says, just as soft. "Wait there." She pushes herself up, doing her best not to accidentally lean onto someone else, and carefully steps over and around the other sleepers (although how they can still sleep she does not know) by the dim light through the windows, the single candle left alight coming in useful; she collects it on the way, holding it up to light her path. As she comes closer it becomes clear how pale Éowyn is, and how she is trembling; Galinda has reached out before thinking about it, resting her warm hand on the other woman's cool forearm.

"What has happened?" she asks, almost whispering. "Are you well?"

[shieldofrohan]

Is she well? The absurdity of it strikes her hard enough that she does not know whether to laugh or weep, and so does neither. No, she is not well. No, she has not been well for years. She cannot even imagine what it would be like, that well.

She knows, of course, that that is not quite what Galinda means, but she cannot bring herself to answer as she should, to say: yes, all is well, I only needed to check something. Galinda's hand is warm and gentle and real, and it proves the reality of the world. But it is only real for this moment, and as soon as she walks away, it will be a dream again, only darkness and shifting shadows.

Her pride does not sustain her as it should. She meets Galinda's eyes, and sees concern in them: the innocent concern of someone trying to understand the incomprehensible, of someone who still retains gentleness in the face of such a world. There is a knot in the pit of Éowyn's chest, choking her, the hideous sense that she will corrupt that gentleness by touching it, that she should flee here, too, and run and keep on running, where neither cruelty nor kindness can find her.

No. She is not well.

"I cannot sleep." It is all she can think to say, the least incriminating truth. Her voice is low and soft, trying not to disturb the stillness of sleeping bodies. She does not want to ask, to admit defeat. She finds she has no choice. "Will you keep me company a while?"

[sent_to_try_us]

It seems to cost Éowyn a great deal to say even that much, and Galinda could not turn her down if she wanted to - indeed, she does not want to. If she is to be awake, then being awake with Éowyn is far better than being awake amidst a room of sleeping people. And perhaps, given a while, they will both be able to sleep.

"Certainly," she answers, voice as low as the other woman's. "Come." She knows the bedroom well; it has been her mother's when the family has been on progress here, and Galinda has grown up running in and out of the room. She knows where the chests have been put, where the clothes-poles, and where to find wood for the fire. As soon as the door is closed behind them she is moving to add wood to the embers, poking them into reluctant life, before setting down her candle on the small stone table in the fire's glow.

"I could not sleep either," Galinda confesses, going to the less-rumpled side of the bed and sitting down. "It is always difficult, the first few nights, is it not?" This is probably not Éowyn's problem, but she knows how to give the other woman an out, a courteous thing she can agree with. "Will you sit with me?" This, she tells herself, is for Éowyn's sake, and not her own. Certainly Éowyn's presence is not exactly calming; Galinda feels herself to be almost on tenterhooks, absurdly aware of everything the other woman does for no good reason at all. But neither does she have any desire to leave, especially not if Éowyn wants her to stay.

[shieldofrohan]

It is not entirely subtle, that offer of face saved. It does not have to be. Éowyn appreciates it, either way. "It is always difficult. It will pass, no doubt."

She has stood by, a ghost in her own view, while Galinda busies herself with the fire; now she moves to join her, climbing into the bed she has so recently vacated. It feels a less terrible place, when she is not alone in it.

She feels like a child, somehow, crawling into bed to be soothed from a nightmare. She feels small, helpless in the face of all that has happened and all that must be done. She feels... better, even so, as though Galinda might be able to soothe away the darkness and convince her that all the monsters were in her mind.

Galinda, of course, can do no such thing. The monsters are real, and the darkness may at best be delayed; to comfort Éowyn as she wishes would be to lie barefacedly, and she would never ask that if someone. But it helps to have her here, all the same.

She shifts closer, shoulder to shoulder in the bed. For a moment, she is silent.

"Tell me something of yourself," she says at last, quietly, wishing to fill the sucking void of the silence. "I do not know you at all, yet."