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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[sent_to_try_us]

It is still true night when the maid creeps into Éowyn's room to wake Galinda, before the sun has even become a line of light across the horizon - and waking her is easy enough, for she has barely slept. In truth, she is sick with worry, for today is the day she has been dreading, the day when everything must change again. Today Éowyn rides out at the head of her army to reclaim her crown, and to take her revenge on the man who calls himself her husband. And Galinda is afraid - terribly afraid - that she will not come back.

They have scarcely been out of each other's sight, these past few days. They have walked together in the gardens, chatting about everything and nothing; Éowyn has sat patiently while Galinda tends her bruises with poultices that, in truth, she is not the best at making; they have brushed out each other's hair, like sisters would, and each admired the other's beauty. And Galinda, for her part, has started caring so much for Éowyn that she can no longer imagine a world without her in it.

It is ridiculous to think like this, she knows; they both of them have responsibilities, futures planned out that do not and cannot involve the other. She will marry, and be sent to her husband's country, never to see Éowyn again. And Éowyn must reign in Rohan, be the queen she was born to be, and likewise marry and have heirs to keep the succession stable. Knowing this does not, however, stop her from dreaming otherwise.

Reluctantly, Galinda pushes the covers aside and goes to stoke up the fire, waiting until it crackles into life before returning to the bed and Éowyn. She leans over to kiss the other woman's forehead, smoothing loose strands of golden hair away from Éowyn's face, taking one last long look at the beauty of the young queen's face as she sleeps.

"Éowyn, my dear," she says softly, wishing she did not have to. "Come, my sweet, it is time."

[shieldofrohan]

Rohan will rise. She knows it, with every fibre of herself; when they see that she is alive, and that the usurper has no right to command them, the last of the Rohirrim's chains will be broken, and they will rise with her, and together they will free the land, or die in the attempt.

(They will die. Many of them will die. Perhaps she will die; and she is not unhappy with the thought.)

She needs only to be seen, to speak bravely and cry out for justice and they will come to her aid; and if she can lead them by the correct paths, then she would not wonder if the army that comes to Edoras is twice the size of the one that leaves here today. It will be enough. It must be enough. They will all have justice, for Théoden and Éomer and Théodred, for Háma and Ceolfrith and Harbeorn, for all of them. For herself, in time, when she can see the light fade from Gríma's eyes. It will be enough, and they will, one way or the other, be freed - in victory, or in death.

But despite all that, she is afraid. She has said a little - a very little - of this to Galinda, over the past days, as they grow closer and as she begins to trust that Galinda will not inform the others of her weakness. She is not afraid of death, but she is afraid of her own failings, her weakness; she is afraid that she is not worthy to be followed, that the men who die will die for less than they deserve. And most of all, what if they do win? What if she is Queen - a woman who could not even defend herself, much less her people, and whose honour was so easily perjured for fear of who might suffer? A woman who far too many people have seen stripped and violated and forced to her knees, who will never reclaim her dignity? And who will marry her, and give her heirs, when she has been so thoroughly misused? What comes next, if they should happen to win? It is a yawing, pitching uncertainty, too vast to imagine.

All of which to say: she has not slept easy, this final night, and she is not asleep when Galinda returns, although she lies still with closed eyes as though she were. There are signs that she is awake, if one should look: the harder set of her mouth, the sternness of her features, which tend to relax a little in sleep. But she does not move until Galinda speaks, and then only to open her eyes, slowly, to look up at her handmaiden.

Galinda has been the comfort she needed, in the past days. She is kind and careful, and she asks few questions, and she has never once seemed scornful of Éowyn's weakened state - has not accepted Éowyn's own scorn of it, either. And, perhaps most importantly, she has been present, a friendly hand and a warm companion, ever since that first meeting. Éowyn, who never had a sister and has had only very few friends in her life, cannot help but latch onto that closeness, and it fills a space inside her that has been achingly hollow for far longer than Gríma's reign. It grieves her to go, to leave the first such friend she has made. Now she looks up at Galinda, rolling onto her back so that she can see her more clearly.

"How long?" Another clue that she was not asleep: her voice sounds altogether unfogged by waking. "We leave at dawn; how long until then?"

[sent_to_try_us]

There are times when Éowyn is unfairly, unbearably beautiful; this is such a one, as she rolls over and looks up at Galinda with those clear grey eyes, still a little dishevelled from sleep, and Galinda has to swallow hard so that she can answer. If only she could say there are hours yet, if only she could say she was mistaken, it is not today - but she cannot, and will not.

"An hour, perhaps," she says softly, and bites at her own lip, almost hard enough to make it bleed. "Time to eat and dress, and then I will take you down to see your men."

They were Galinda's men, until those few days ago, at least in theory - she could never command them in practice, not the way Éowyn can (not the way Éowyn will), and she does not feel the loss of them in any very real way. Unlike Éowyn, she is only a figurehead, not a queen in her own right, not someone they will listen to. Galinda has made a point of attending at meals with the men as often as she can, descending from the high table to walk amongst them, smiling and bowing her head in answer to their greetings and - above all else - listening.

They will follow Éowyn. They speak of her with admiration, with awe; like Galinda, they have fallen under her spell, they understand the rightness of her cause. To them she is the undoubted Queen of Rohan, and the Wormtongue nothing but an usurper who sits upon a stolen throne. And if these men, who owe her nothing, will follow so easily, then Rohan will surely rise as she rides to reclaim her crown. Galinda would, if she were a Rohirrim boy. In truth she would follow as she is, and the only thing that holds her back is the knowledge that she can do nothing but get in the way and distract the men and their commanders. The only choice for her is to stay here, and wait, and hope.

A tap on the door is swiftly followed by it opening to admit a maid, a tray of bread and cheese and honey and wine in her hands. Galinda rises to take it, dismissing the girl with a smile she does not really mean. Breakfast means that time is drawing on, and soon Éowyn will leave.

"Come, dearest," she says, doing her best to put cheer into her voice. "They have prepared a feast for you, and you must eat, you will need your strength."

[shieldofrohan]

She has little appetite, and less when she looks at Galinda - when she sees the way Galinda bites at her lip, the falsity of her smile, the grief behind it. There is no joy in the thought of leaving, even if it is for the fulfilment of vengeance. Even if it is to reclaim what has been lost.

I may never see her again, she thinks, and it is a stab to the heart. She still longs, in so many ways, for this to end in her death - end in blood and glory, end in justice, end with her locked in mortal combat with her foe, but most of all, to end. But looking at Galinda, she feels for the first time that her death would come at a cost, that it would truly grieve someone who has not already been long-submerged in grief. Galinda, she thinks, would weep at the news, would be harrowed by it as bitterly as any: and it is not right that it should be so, for they have known each other so short a time, but she knows it is so, all the same. I may never see her again, and a part of her cries out against the injustice of it, to have found someone new whose loss would be a grief, and to lose her again at once.

She sits up slowly, swinging her feet off the bed. The marks of the blisters remain, but they are no longer tender, and she has properly-fitted boots now: just as well, for it will be a long time before she can rest like this again. The bruises are gone, or else faded to an unpleasant but less-lurid yellow against her pale skin. She is not herself again, but she can dress up as herself, and try to pretend.

She does not want to. She can hardly bear to stand, to go and collect her breeches and tunic (for she may be a queen, but she must be a warrior first; there is no place for gowns on this journey) and return to settle on the edge of the bed.

"What will you do, when I am gone?" she asks quietly, beginning to pull on her breeches. "Will you return home, where it is safer? I would not like to think of you lingering here, waiting for news."

[sent_to_try_us]

A woman wearing breeches is so completely out of Galinda's experience that for a few moments she stares, more than a little startled, and only belatedly recalls herself and looks away. The difficulty of it is that Éowyn in breeches is quite as handsome as Éowyn in a dress, or in a nightgown, and there is something about the line of her calf that keeps drawing Galinda's eye. Or at least it does until Éowyn asks the questions she has determinedly been trying not to think of, and thus thinking of all the more.

"Oh, well, of course I shall be here," she says lightly - she is trying for lightly, at any rate, even if her voice has developed a sudden tendency to wobble when she tries to talk - "and I shall probably be so bored as to start work on embroidering the sky." The tapestry she has been working on is large, and the sky a particularly unexciting stretch of monotonous blue, and Éowyn knows that Galinda has been procrastinating on it as long as she is able. Up until now, she has been wonderfully successful at it.

Up until now, she has had Éowyn by her side.

Galinda swallows hard, and reaches for Éowyn's tunic - just for something to do, not because it really needs holding. "So I will thank you to send word as soon as you can, if you please," she adds, trying for at least a more steady voice. "For I will be waiting." Waiting, and wishing, and hoping, and fearing - she can imagine it all too easily, scanning the horizon for a messenger who does not come, hating the dusk as night settles and the road becomes part of the endless black, waiting all night without knowing Éowyn's fate.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn pauses with her hands on the strings of her nightgown, and there is a terrible look upon her face for a moment, unnoticed and so unhidden. She has been struck all at once by memory: by what for so long she had thought the worst of a woman's fate. By standing at the walls, when the end had not yet come, watching first her cousin and then her brother ride away, knowing that she could not spend all her life watching the horizon, knowing that her mind's eye would always be turned there. How long the nights, how dark the days, how restless the hours, when those you care for are in their hour of peril, and you cannot move to aid them; how endless the waiting, and how terrible the fear.

More immediate horrors have consumed her in the past years, but it turns out that she can still remember the duller, no less crushing horror of waiting.

She stands abruptly, seizing Galinda's hand, and her eyes blaze with sudden intensity, her expression one of pity and grief more than anything. "Do not wait," she says, and her own voice is not altogether steady, either. "Do not. It is the last thing I would condemn you to, Glinda, to that dark unknowing. Come with me, if you will; or else turn for home, and I will send word as often as I can; but do not wait here in the darkness for what evil or triumph may come. I cannot bear to think of it. I know it too well." And then, as it strikes her what she has said, and how deeply it is meant, she lowers her voice a little, and says it less passionately and more seriously: "Come with me, if you will - and only if you will, for it will not be safe nor comfortable. But I have found strength in you, where I thought it was lost, and I cannot bear to keep you prisoner to my uncertainties. You need bear no sword, nor come in sight of battle; you need not linger if you are afraid; but come with me, if you do not want to stay, and I will do all that I can to protect you."

And saying it, she is aware of the horror of what she suggests, and the guilt. She has always known what becomes of women in war, and now it is all the reality she has left of herself, and will she condemn her friend to it, too?

But it should be Galinda's choice. It is not a much lesser doom to wait than to suffer; it is not less fearful to be helpless one way than the other. It should be her choice, and it cannot be her choice unless it is offered.

She looses her grip on Galinda's hand, and leans in to kiss the other woman on the cheek, softer than she would have thought herself capable of. "Only if you will. I will be as grateful to you either way, for you have been all my comfort since I fled."

[sent_to_try_us]

It could be a fairytale, straight from the memory of her old nursemaid - it almost is a fairytale, only in fairytales everyone knows it will all be joyful in the end, and good will triumph, and no one will have to flee their own land bruised and battered and worse, and only the evildoers will die. And Galinda is terribly afraid that this is not enough like a fairytale to be certain that only the evildoers will be the ones who die.

Even so, even knowing perfectly well what the right answer is - what the only answer is - she hesitates, and Éowyn's hand is warm in hers, and Éowyn leans in to press a kiss against her cheek.

There is a moment, then, that seems to stretch out forever: a golden moment when there is nothing but the two of them, Éowyn so very close, Éowyn's lips against her skin, and Galinda forgets how to breathe. If she turned her head, she could kiss Éowyn. It would take only the very smallest movement, but so much courage that Galinda fears only a knight from those same fairytales could do it - and she is not a knight, only a girl even if a princess. So she takes a breath in, hears it catch, bites her lip again and smiles.

"I would only get in the way," she says, almost whispering it, not wanting to say the words. "I would put you in danger, and I cannot - I could not bear it, Éowyn." She would say much more if only she could, would tell Éowyn that she has been the first thing of any import in Galinda's life, that she has opened up a world where Galinda's future seems to consist of far more than marrying a king and bearing him sons and smiling and standing behind him, just a step behind him, always a step behind him.

Maybe it is the thought of that future that gives her courage - or selfishness; it is most certainly selfishness, and Galinda knows it even as she turns towards Éowyn, even as she reaches up to cup the other woman's cheek in her hand, even as she leans in and kisses Éowyn. It is clumsy, and awkward, and perfect, and Galinda is taking a quick breath to apologize even as she draws away.

[shieldofrohan]

It has not occurred to Éowyn, because she has not allowed it to occur to her. There is too much to consider, too many fears and hopes and furies, too much of duty to conceive of anything else. Her nights have not been filled with longing; they have been too full of nightmares. She no longer wishes to be kissed by anyone, having had more than her fill of the kind of kisses that taste of salt.

Or so she would have said, until this moment.

But it is like that first night, when she fell apart in Galinda's arms. There is one touch, and the touch cracks her walls, and the cracks run all the way to the foundations until the whole edifice crumbles, until there is nothing but need and loneliness and the realisation that, in a strange way, this was inevitable. It was always inevitable, right from the start.

She does not let Galinda draw away. Her hands find the other woman's shoulders, and then the back of her neck, and she holds her fast, with that same desperation; and her mouth chases Galinda's, with a heat that cannot be denied or questioned. She holds her for almost a minute, and there can be no pretence that the kiss is at all chaste or sisterly, that it can be merely two friends parting. Her lips have parted, devouring Galinda's as though she is starved of something vital, as though all the answers might be found on her hostess' mouth; and her grip is firm, her fingers curling in Galinda's soft curls; and it is only when she finds her tongue probing at the edges of Galinda's lips that she suddenly recoils, staggering back as if struck, her hands flying to her mouth. There are tears in her eyes, a horror turned not outward toward Galinda, but inward, to herself.

Is that what I have become? Is that what you have made me, Gríma? Someone who will follow desire without care, who will hold someone still and push a worming tongue down her throat? Someone who will lead a friend into danger, and drag her headlong into worse? She kissed you first, whispers a small voice; but can it matter? It was, Éowyn now realises, what she wanted, what she hoped for. That seems just as bad as forcing it.

"Sorry," she whispers, and takes another half-step back, barking her calf against the bedframe. "I am so sorry, Glinda."

[sent_to_try_us]

Somehow she had not quite thought of the possibility that Éowyn might kiss her back, and Galinda finds herself very swiftly out past all the bounds of not only her experience but her fantasies too. That does not stop her from leaning into the other woman's touch, stepping in again, her hands coming up to Éowyn's shoulders and fingers curling tight. Her breath catches, comes out with a soft sound that could be a plea for more, and when Éowyn breaks away Galinda finds herself still reaching after the other woman.

"No, I - " she starts, dazed, trying to make sense of what has just happened. "I am the one who - you needn't apologize to me, not at all - " It is rather difficult to think when her body seems almost to be crying out for Éowyn to hold her again, to wind her fingers through Galinda's hair, to kiss her as though there is nothing in the world but the two of them and this moment.

The gap between the two of them seems to yawn endlessly wide, and it seems completely unreasonable to try to bridge it for any but the best of reasons. So when Galinda picks up the tunic she had dropped, she can tell herself that she needs to offer it to Éowyn; when she sees the other woman wince as her calf hits the bed, she can tell herself that she only wants to make sure Éowyn is unhurt.

By such means she reasons herself onto the floor at Éowyn's feet, kneeling with the tunic draped over her lap, her hand on Éowyn's ankle. The terrible wanting that makes her think of sitting up and simply kissing Éowyn again only gets worse with proximity: but then the difficulty is that moving away is just as bad, in its own way, and Galinda tries her best to pretend that she is only interested in seeing whether the other woman has added to her fine collection of bruises. Not that she is entranced by the delicacy of Éowyn's ankle, the smooth curve of her calf. Not that she is biting her lip again, tasting Éowyn's mouth on hers, and wanting - oh, so very dearly wanting - another kiss, or more than just another, so much more.

[shieldofrohan]

And now she is kneeling, and her hand is on Éowyn's leg as if in supplication, and it should by all rights be reassurance enough that she is mumbling such negations of Éowyn's apology, that she is reaching out so piteously. But, just for a moment, it seems to Éowyn that it is not Galinda she sees kneeling and pleading: that it is Éowyn herself who kneels, and that there are tears stinging behind her eyes, and bile in the back of her throat.

And that there is a part of her that it appeals to. That there is a part of her that looks down on a beautiful woman kneeling, submitting, uncertain - a part of her that looks at that sight, and feels a rush of desire - that makes her stomach lurch, and she shakes her head helplessly, her throat seeming to close. She wants, so desperately, to lean in and kiss Galinda again, to hold her and touch her and... and it has been a long time since she wanted that, but not long enough since she herself was wanted. She shivers and pulls Galinda's hand away from her ankle, trying to drag the other woman to her feet - anything but to see her kneeling, and to want her.

"Please." Her voice is thin and miserable, little more than a whisper, absent all command. "Please, do not... I..." And she cannot find the words for all that she feels, all the desire and the horror and the fear and the want that have all surfaced together, tangling into a knot that threatens to choke her. She cannot explain any of it without explaining all of it, and even if she could, she finds herself terrified of what it would to, of Galinda's look turning to horror or - worse - pity, of that strangely worshipful regard being lost. Galinda knows too much already. She cannot bear to fill in the spaces, to have Galinda know exactly how she has been used or why it fills her with such grief and guilt to be knelt to. All she can think to say, in that same unqueenly whisper, is, "I want you. I cannot... I want you." And she almost, almost manages to keep the tears from overflowing down her cheeks.

[sent_to_try_us]

There is a look on Éowyn's face, as she says please, that shatters the desire that had started to build inside her. Galinda straightens up, already reaching for the other woman before the tears start to fall. It is an odd echo of their first moments together: Éowyn's pain and grief, Galinda's aching need to help her somehow, anyhow. She knows better now what to do: she pulls Éowyn closer to her, one arm cradling the young queen, the other around her back, guiding her head to once more rest against Galinda's shoulder.

"You need not," she whispers, and hesitates before adding, "and you must not be sorry." At this rate they will both be in tears; Galinda blinks hard, presses her lips together, all the little tricks her women have taught her over the years to make sure she smiles when she ought to. At least she need not smile right now; it is enough, she thinks, to hold back from crying. Éowyn needs her: Éowyn has a battle to fight today, and did not need another battle before she has even dressed.

Her hand smooths down Éowyn's back, feeling the strong muscles beneath soft linen, remembering the bruises and lashes she'd seen that first day. Mostly healed now, and Galinda would like to think her poultices had made all the difference, but she is not quite that good at fooling herself. Certainly they helped, she has decided, or else why spend all the effort to make them? She turns her head to kiss Éowyn's temple, a little awkward at the angle, and then rests her cheek against the other woman's. The closeness is soothing, even if it makes her want to kiss Éowyn again, or possibly beg Éowyn to kiss her - but she does neither, only holds her close and warm.

[shieldofrohan]

For a long time, Éowyn only lets herself be held, her breathing unsteady and ragged, her arms loosely wrapped around Galinda's waist. It feels a mixed blessing, to have Galinda so close, the reminder of her warmth and physical presence so unavoidable and so temporary; but it is a blessing, all the same, and slowly she begins to breathe evenly again.

It is no more than five minutes since this all began, but it feels like a lifetime. She closes her eyes, breathing in the smell of Galinda's hair, fresh and clean and floral. There is, she tells herself, no terrible tension in Galinda's body; it is not taut and trembling with the effort of not recoiling. There is no horror in her eyes, no reproach in her touch.

"You..." You wanted to kiss me, she almost says, but then remembers how often he said such things, orders phrased as statements, or perhaps mockery phrased as orders, and she bites it back. After a moment more, with another deep breath, she manages something a little better. "I do not want to hurt you, Glinda. I do not want... you have been the dearest friend I have ever known, even in so short a time." She draws away just far enough to meet Galinda's eyes, her own still glittering with tears. "And I know there is no time, and I must dress and ready myself, and be a Queen. But... but if it is your will, then kiss me, so I may know it. And if it is not, then I am sorry, for I would sooner die than demand of you what is not freely given."

[sent_to_try_us]

This, at least, is easy enough - far easier than looking into Éowyn's eyes, and seeing the tears, and having the dreadful certainty that she is the one who has caused them. Easier too than getting both of them back onto the right path, the one that leads to Éowyn getting dressed and walking out the door alone. She need not even speak, which is a blessing, for Galinda is not entirely sure she can find any more words.

What she can do is lean in, eyes fluttering closed, to kiss Éowyn once again. It is no less awkward than the first time, no less clumsy; she has had no practice, would not have dared it with any of the young noblemen and had not quite realized she would like to with any of the women. Things that seem as though they ought to be simple, such as the matter of what to do with her hands, turn out to be not quite so. If she doesn't think about it, her hands come to rest on Éowyn's thighs - but then as soon as she does think about it, it seems much too forward.

This time, very daring, she lets her tongue trace the line of Éowyn's lower lip, an offer and not a demand. It had felt - good, but strange - and stirred the melting heat inside her, the ache that seems to pulse through her body when Éowyn touches her. It makes her want to lean in more, to press herself closer to the other woman, and Galinda is concentrating hard enough on kissing to forget that she ought not to appear completely wanton; her fingers tighten on Éowyn's thighs as she pushes forward, her entire body yearning towards Éowyn.

[shieldofrohan]

There is no hesitation there. Even Éowyn's fears, even her guilt, cannot construct a hesitation in Galinda's movements, nor claim that she seems unhappy in them. Relief lifts a great weight from her, and for a sweet, glorious moment she forgets everything else, even duty. Galinda is kissing her - kissing her so gently, as Galinda seems to do everything gently, and so solicitously, and so sweetly - and her hands are resting on Éowyn's thighs, and although very few touches there have been less than brutal, Éowyn does not shy away. There is nothing brutal in this, no threat. She had forgotten, if she ever knew, that a kiss could be sweet.

She lets out a low, soft moue against Galinda's mouth at that first wet brush of tongue, and takes the invitation without question, parting her lips and giving Galinda a moment to explore before her own tongue comes into play, twining against Galinda's and guiding as much as she dares. Her hands drift up from the small of Galinda's back, up to her shoulders, one hand burying itself in Galinda's thick, soft hair, the other tracing the curve of her jaw. She tries to remember if she has ever kissed someone like this, without the urge to bite; she cannot remember a time. There is no fight in her now, no desire to flee, only a softness and a heat which, for the first time in years, sparks actual desire in her - unforced, unconflicted, merely two bodies yearning toward one another. She does not allow herself to think before moving to draw Galinda into her lap, wanting her closer, wanting to lose herself.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is so easy, so simple, to do what Éowyn silently asks of her - to rise, one knee on the bed beside Éowyn's thigh; to let her weight settle a little into Éowyn's lap; to kiss her again and again, learning how to tilt her chin, how to let her lips part, how to press forward and then let herself be pushed back again. Galinda has always been a good student in subjects she finds interesting, and this - this is, just now, the most interesting thing she has ever begun to learn.

There is something like fire kindling inside her, something that rises higher with each catch of Éowyn's breath, with each time Éowyn's fingers tighten in her hair, and Galinda only breaks the kiss in order to take quick, shaking breaths, her forehead pressed against Éowyn's, one hand curled into the soft fabric of the other woman's nightgown.

"How am I to say goodbye to you now?" she manages, eventually; the castle is beginning to stir, the voices of men and the stamp of boots outside piercing through the haze of desire she is half lost in. Duty is calling, the duty both of them are beholden to, bedrock in both their lives. Éowyn's to go; hers to stay, and wait. Galinda clenches her jaw, forces herself to sit upright - cannot quite manage to let go of Éowyn, despite her best efforts.

[shieldofrohan]

"I think..." Éowyn's breathing is unsteady and sharp, her hand still in Galinda's hair. Her eyes are closed as if in pain, a strained look on her face.

If only it were enough! If only time could stop, and leave them here, in the first time in years that she has almost been able to feel where happiness might be; if only they could step aside from duty and need, and stay here one more minute, one more hour, one more day. But time only stops for terrible things, not for beautiful ones; and duty is a chain that never fully loosens. She takes a deep breath, inhaling the warmth and the scent of Galinda so close to her, and then, reluctantly, opens her eyes and forces herself back into a more queenly mould, forces herself to sharpen her features and set her face toward duty.

"I think we have said goodbye," she says, quietly, and reaches for her tunic again, before she can relent to desire and reach for Galinda instead. It feels strange, now, to undress; she glances back at Galinda a moment, and then turns her back to strip off her nightgown. Only when she is dressed does she turn back, and there is still a brightness in her eyes, but her face is set. "I am sorry," she says again, less desperate and more soft than before, "to leave you this way. But will you go and find my mail-shirt?"

[sent_to_try_us]

They are, as so often, of one mind. Galinda nods, moves to stand up, and is turning her back even as Éowyn looks at her and turns away to put her tunic on. It makes her want to smile, how they know these things without needing a word - and she does smile, but only for a moment, because who now will help Éowyn dress?

Perhaps it will be different, later. The next time Éowyn needs assistance with the fiddly laces of her clothing will be after she has fought and won, and perhaps there will be time in between for the two of them to become accustomed again. The thought of helping Éowyn undress has a new tinge of desire to it - and nerves, too, for Galinda cannot help but think of what might come after that, and how it might feel to have Éowyn's hands on her body, and how very little she knows of - whatever they might want to do together.

She waits until the rustling noises of Éowyn pulling her tunic on begin to subside, and turns back as the other woman does; she tries, but does not quite manage, not to bite her lip at the sight of the young queen at her most regal. Oh, but she is beautiful! And how hard it will be to wait, not knowing if she has triumphed or fallen.

Surely she cannot fall.

Galinda's chin comes up as Éowyn speaks, her face mirroring the other woman's: the perfect courtier, the perfect princess. They have both been taught from childhood how to wear a smile even if the world were falling apart around them, how to show no fear regardless of what faces them. This is, for Galinda, the hardest test yet: but she will triumph.

"At once, your Grace," she says, bland and courteous and perfect. And then a smile - quick and sweet, a real smile, one she would not dare if it were not just the two of them. "Éowyn," Galinda says, more softly, more intimately - and turns to walk away, not pausing at the door but closing it gently and firmly behind her.