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?"

Comments

[shieldofrohan]

They ride to Aldburg first, along the borders: her father's old seat, which should have been Éomer's, and which is now with some half-remembered lackey of the Dunlendings. It pains her to see it, with the banners torn down and changed, an old home become an enemy stronghold - but the people there, as she calculated, are still her own. They are amazed to see her, many of them having assumed she was dead, many more having thought themselves abandoned by the Line of Eorl. They ask questions she has no answers to, which leave her shaking at the memories; but they are readily convinced, seeing her, and the look of hard determination in her eyes. And the word begins to spread, at once: the Queen is returned.

A week after leaving Galinda, she writes: We have Aldburg. I have my father's sword. There is a more detailed report, but this part is addressed to Galinda directly, and written in Éowyn's hand. It is short. She does not trust herself to write too much, or too openly. It ends, as all her subsequent missives will end, with I am alive.

They leave a skeleton force at Aldburg, and split their forces, one half riding south to Dunharrow, and Éowyn's command riding north to sweep through the Eastfold. I am alive. They are outnumbered, but as she predicted, the country rises to meet them; there are horses aplenty, the finest that can be given, and men - and not a few women - who will join them. Their advantage, then, is not in combat but in speed and nimbleness. They draw out the Dunlendings and their ilk from the cities and the foothills, and through exhaustion and ambush, the hunt commences.

I am alive.

To Edoras at last, and her heart has always leapt to see the thatch of the Golden Hall rising from the plains, but now it is not joy alone which seizes her. She rides into view with her helm off, her golden hair fluttering like a banner, and sounds the horn; and outside the gates, alone and far ahead of her little army, she rises to stand in her saddle and finds all the strength she has, to call out in a high and carrying voice that echoes out across the plain and bounces off the mountainsides: "Gríma! Gríma Wormtongue, Gríma Wærloga, Gríma of the false claim; come out, if you are even one-tenth a man, come out and hear me!" And she cannot see at this distance whether he does, or which of the figures upon the inner wall he might be; but it does not matter. If he is here, he will hear her. If he is not, he will still hear her, her words passing back to him through whispers and report. So, after a moment, she sounds her horn again, and continues to call out her challenge. "I swore thee no oath, Wormtongue; I made thee no vow; and I am not thy wife, and if ever I were, then a thousand times I divorce thee! Come out and face your people, O unnatural king, or cower craven behind stolen walls; I will find you out, one way or another, and see you dead for all that you have done. Come out, and spare yourself the siege. I will be waiting."

All this, she writes to Galinda, to assure her of how things are going. She does not write of how much she shook as she turned her horse and rode back out of arrow-range; nor of the way that, almost as soon as she dismounted, she had found herself seized by a terrible enervation, as though all her strength had been in that cry and now there was not even enough to keep her standing.

She does not write of what her opening sally leads to, Gríma's reprisal delivered with callous brutality. You are my wife, is not enough: he drags out the truth of things, reminds her as if chiding that she has been on her knees for him, that all present must have seen how for almost two years she was meek and willing, that she did not rise until it was her own power at stake, and not her uncle's. And does she mourn the old King, he asks, all mock-concern, or did she not wish he had died long ago, to leave the crown upon her brow? She opened her arms and her legs to Gríma when he gave her power, and now that he is no longer in her command, she means to see him dead; is that the deed of a Queen, or of a brazen whore?

It is not true, but too much of it is true. She cannot bring herself to speak, trembling with fury and humiliation and remembered horror: she is glad for the helm that covers her face, for no-one should see her so undone.

Nor does it end with public speeches. He sends messages out to her camp, and reading the first one, she is rendered almost insensible: all others after that, she burns unread. In them, he reminds her of their marriage, as he persists in calling it: writes of her wet and grasping cunt, her mouth put to better use than warcries, her breasts and her buttocks yielding to him. Surrender, he writes, quit the battlefield, and I will not show them your nature.

She does not write of this to Galinda, nor of other things: how, walking through the camp, she feels all eyes upon her and hears whispers behind her; how she wonders what they say of her, and does not know whether she fears more that they believe Gríma's lies or her own; how her nights are a terror and her days a hideous, unending wait for action. She does not write of the nightmares. When she is wounded, she writes of that, but in the lightest terms she can manage. And always, at the end of every letter: I am alive.

It is almost four months, and winter is coming on, before the last letter comes. She has written faithfully all this while, weekly or as near as the messenger may manage, often hastily-scrawled notes but always to the same end. I am alive. I am alive. I am alive.

We are victorious. Come, please.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is only four months, but it may as well be years for all Galinda knows or cares of it. There are the letters: faithful, constant letters, each with Éowyn's name in her own hand at the end, that reassuring refrain and terrifying reminder: she is alive.

It takes a few weeks before she realizes that if those notes ever stop, Éowyn will be dead.

A handful of days together, and yet she finds herself waking up on Éowyn's side of the bed, curled around her pillow; she cries herself to sleep if a letter is delayed or if the young queen's message is more ragged than usual, the hand writing it clearly battered and bruised and exhausted. Galinda is well, and idle, and it grates on her more and more every day that she cannot be there, following in Éowyn's footsteps, knowing within hours or days how the battles go. But, too, she knows that she would have been only a burden. Éowyn has enough to do without her, without the retinue that would make her a target and take away valuable resources from the main army.

She keeps every letter, folding them away into the little wooden box of her most precious possessions, and wipes her tears in private, walking out each day to greet her people with nothing but sunny smiles and sweet words. She is endlessly confident, endlessly optimistic, never doubting that Éowyn will triumph and all will be well. It is the finest performance of her life, and it costs her dearly.

And then one day, at last, the message she has been waiting for arrives: Come, please.

---

They progress through the lands Éowyn has taken slowly, so slowly that Galinda could scream. She waits until she can wait no longer, until they are no more than a day's riding for a swift horse, and calls together her officers to give them her commands. They come, quickly obedient more to please her distant father than herself - but they come, and that is the important thing. And when she tells them that Éowyn the queen will call her Glinda, and that it is her decision that all of her own people in Rohan will also call her Glinda as a mark of respect, they glance at each other but they bow and agree.

There is less agreement when Glinda tells them that she is riding out now, with a small escort and no more, and they are to follow at their own pace. There is, in fact, some argument - but no one quite has the courage to grab the bridle of Glinda's horse as she mounts and kicks it into motion. For a few minutes she rides alone, but ten or so men catch up with her swiftly enough, and that is more than she needs. All she needs, really, is herself.

It is the depths of night when they arrive. The court is in some disarray - as expected, so soon after a regime change - and Glinda makes use of it. The main courtiers are asleep, the night watch not expecting anything to happen now that the Queen is in power and the overthrown King - somewhere. Glinda does not know where, and does not care, save that he is not in Éowyn's bed. Perhaps he is dead already. He is, in any case, completely irrelevant.

No one quite knows who is allowed where, or what is happening, and she walks boldly, fearlessly, through the halls. Her escort fall away behind her, stopped by one guard or another, but Glinda does not stop. She does not even bother to glance at anyone who seems interested in finding out her identity or her intentions, simply glides past with the cool self-assurance of the princess she is.

Eventually there are only maids, and these bob curtseys and point when she stops them and asks the direction of Her Majesty, Her Grace, the Queen. She is only one woman, and clearly of high status: who are they to stop her, when she has passed by so many guards? This is not how she should be arriving at Éowyn's court. Glinda no longer cares. If she does not see Éowyn soon, she is quite certain she will die. And perhaps it is the steel in her eyes, the set of her chin, that keeps the maids curtseying and gesturing. She is strong right up until she opens the door, and finds the bedchamber within, and then her hands are shaking and her voice trembles when she asks, at last, "Éowyn?"

[shieldofrohan]

The room is brightly-lit, considering the hour: there are at least a half-dozen candles, and the fire roaring in the grate. She tried to sleep in the dark, the first night, and found it worse than the camp: this is her uncle's room, not the room she used to keep, but it is enough the same to be unsettling. The carved wooden walls which once seemed so warm and homely now leer and laugh at her, the high vaulting of the roof seems crushingly close, and there is a smell - a smell she never noticed, of smoke and ancient wood and thatch - which should be comforting, but now makes her want to gag. So she keeps her room bright, to tide her through the shadows of the lengthening nights, and she is restless in it, all the same.

All of which to say: there is more light in the bedchamber than without, and it does not disguise its occupant. Éowyn is standing with her back to the door, silhouetted against the fire, her hands on the mantel as she stares intently into the flames. She is in her nightgown, her hair braided loosely down her back, a bandage visible around her left arm.

She is thinner than she was, and she had little softness about her to begin with. Now, she is winnowed almost to nothing, and when she turns, wide-eyed, at the sound of her name, the firelight catches the harsh planes of her face: weary, haunted eyes deeply set and shadowed by exhaustion, cheeks carved out into sharp angles, skin so pale that even the firelight cannot lend it warmth. Her smile looks strangely out of place on such a face. She smiles, all the same, and then she is rushing across the grand bedchamber, grabbing Galinda's hands tightly.

"I did not look for you for a day or two yet." Her chest hurts, but it is a pain born of relief, so dizzying she almost sways with it. Up close, it is apparent that she has been crying. "And not at such an hour. Are you not tired?"

[sent_to_try_us]

"No." She is, but Glinda is not about to say anything of the sort, not when Éowyn stands here before her looking like she is only a step away from collapse. Not when she can gather the other woman into her arms, hold her close, and try to fight back her tears as she realizes just how thin Éowyn is now, just how small. This is not the woman who left her four months ago, so brave and proud. This woman could barely stand in mail. This woman should be in bed, an invalid, being fed nourishing broths and tended by physicians.

"Come, sit," she says softly, and does her best to pretend tears are not glittering in her eyes as she draws away again - but her hands do not leave Éowyn's arms; she may be tired, may be sore from hours of riding a fast horse, may want nothing more than drink and rest, but she is still far better off than the young queen is. "Let me call for food and wine, sit with me and tell me - everything. I would know all of it, Éowyn. I have missed you so dearly."

There are chairs by the fire; there is an uncertain maid by the door, flanked now by one of the courtiers Glinda glided past on her path to see Éowyn, but neither of them dare enter or say anything now that they see how Glinda is received by their queen. She glances back at them, daring them with a look to do anything but her bidding, and is rewarded by the maid bobbing another curtsey and disappearing. The man is less easily intimidated, and so she simply ignores him. He is unimportant. Éowyn is here: there is nothing else in the world.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn knew, of course, that she had missed Glinda; that she had written all those letters for a reason, that she had wished for Glinda at her side a hundred times over the past four months, and that there was unfinished business between them. But it is only now, when she is embraced in warm, gentle arms and held close against her friend's soft, unwarlike form, that she realises just how much she has missed her. How much she has needed her here, returning to the lion's den; how much she needs someone who needs no more of her than this.

She clears her throat, looking past Glinda at the door, and speaks to the courtier in the Rohirric tongue, telling him in a few short, authoritative words that Glinda is the expected guest, and that she is more than capable of defending herself if needed. He leaves, less because of the words and more because of the force with which she says them. Only when he is gone, pulling the door to behind him, does Éowyn sit, her posture softening noticeably, her hands still gripping Glinda's sleeves as though a part of her is afraid that Glinda may simply vanish.

"Everything," she repeats, and it seems to her a strange word, vast and hollow. What is everything? What can she say, that will not be ruinous or incomprehensible? She could outline every move of the armies she has led, every victory and defeat; the practicalities of siege or the brutalities of war. She does not wish to say any of it to Glinda, who alone among this whole place retains some innocence.

"His men gave him up eight days ago, to break the siege." And almost immediately after, she had written to Glinda, before they even moved into the city. Now she smiles a little, wry and humourless. "If he were less of a fool, they might have held out until January, and a hard winter might have driven us back; but he kept too little stock laid in, and trusted his advisors too little, and I understand that their supplies ran out by mid-October. Now he is in the best cell I can think of, which is the room he kept me in; and I have delayed his sentencing as long as I can." Again, she takes Glinda's hands, her expression pleading for understanding. "Forgive me, Glinda, that I would put this upon you; but I could not face it without you. I cannot. I will break, and they will all see me break, and then it will have been for nothing. I need your strength, when he is brought before my throne."

[sent_to_try_us]

She is not surprised - Glinda is, after all, the daughter of a king, and one who holds his throne in an iron grip. Since her earliest memories she has attended executions for treason, the king and his family watching as traitors paid the price for their crimes. Wormtongue will, of course, have to die. Even if he had not harmed Éowyn, he is an usurper and pretender who seized the crown from the legitimate ruler.

But he has harmed Éowyn, and for Glinda that is what makes the difference.

"I will stand by your side," she tells Éowyn softly, squeezing the young queen's hands gently, shifting forward to sit at the very edge of her chair and be as close as possible. Her knees bump into Éowyn's, and she does not care. They are still not close enough. "You must pass the sentence, dearest; it is your court - but of course I will be there." She cannot seem to stop wanting to touch Éowyn, to hold her close; Glinda reaches up to tuck a loose strand of hair back behind the other woman's ear, her hand lingering against Éowyn's cheek.

"I dreamed of you," she says, very quietly. "Almost every night I dreamed of you, and every day I thought of you; you have not been out of my mind since last I saw you." Some of the dreams were nightmares, especially when a letter was late. Some of them were merely pleasant thoughts, imaginings of them walking together, riding together, simply cuddled together to talk. And there were others - the kind of dream she has never had before, ones that make her blush to think of. "I do not think I could bear to leave you again," Glinda adds, and tries to smile.

[shieldofrohan]

As Glinda leans in, so too does Éowyn, as though drawn inexorably towards that touch, that connection she has so dearly missed. She leans into the touch against her cheek, drawing in the warmth of a friendly hand. Her chest seems to constrict, and then to relax at last, as though her body has finally found a safe place to rest.

"You need not leave me," she whispers, and their foreheads are almost touching, her own hand coming up to the side of Glinda's neck, gently holding her in place, keeping her close. The callouses on her hands have deepened since they parted, passing blisters along the pad of her thumb from swinging a sword so often when she had so long been prevented from it. There is still strength in her, more than her reduced appearance would suggest. "You can stay as long as you wish, Glinda; you will always be welcome here." Then, more softly still, "I have dreamed of you, too."

And their faces are so close, and the memory returns to her of how they parted, of the softness of Glinda's lips and the heat of the only truly wanted kiss she has ever shared, and she yearns closer still, their breath meeting in the shrinking space between them, the warmth of Glinda's body close and so readily brought closer, her lips parting just a little, and...

There is a knock on the door. She recoils as if she has been burned, clearing her throat sharply, and moves to stand. "Infar," she calls, and the door opens.

It is the maid from before, with wine and two cups; and behind her is another woman, older, with a tray of bread and cheese and dried fruits. All these are placed down on the table nearby, and the two women look to Éowyn first, but their eyes keep darting to Glinda, almost doubtfully.

"Go and rest," Éowyn tells them, switching smoothly back into the tongue all four of them share, "but first see that the rooms are made ready for all who came with Lady Glinda. She will stay here, for tonight." It seems certain enough, right now; certain enough that she can say it certainly, and there are no more questions.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is hard to say what causes the thrill that runs through her - Éowyn's voice, so soft and yearning; the words, the promise of welcome, of being together; the way Éowyn leans in, about to kiss her. Glinda stays seated as the other woman stands, looking away from the door and pretending she was merely gazing into the fire. It is, at least, a good excuse for how her cheeks have heated - and it gives her a moment to regain her composure, to act as though she hasn't dreamed of kissing Éowyn for four months.

It takes a little effort to remember herself and smile at the women as they lay their trays down, the cool smile her mother made her practice for use on domestics and other lowly creatures. She is grateful that they are doing no more than glancing dubiously at her when Éowyn speaks next, for she has to swallow hard and barely manages to keep from biting her own lip at the thought of staying here with Éowyn overnight. The idea is not a surprise: it is what she had hoped for, dreamed of. The swell of feeling inside her at the thought of waking once again in Éowyn's arms - it is almost like a fire blazing up out of embers, sudden and overwhelming.

As the door closes behind them, Glinda realizes she has been holding her breath. Now they are alone, truly alone, as she has wanted for so long, and she is standing and coming towards Éowyn almost before the sound of the women's footsteps dies away. Her arms fit around Éowyn's neck as if they were supposed to be there; their bodies, too, seem a perfect match one against the other. And certainly she wants to kiss Éowyn - but for now, for a start, Glinda only holds her tightly, perhaps too tight: but it has been so long, and she has ached to be able to do just this until she thought she might go mad with wanting.

[shieldofrohan]

And for a moment, for a start, Éowyn only holds her, too. She is aware of her heart beating a little harder, a little too wildly. Her arms come around Glinda's waist, without even a thought, and it seems to her that, as close as they are, Glinda must be able to feel that unruly heartbeat, that thundering of blood in her ears.

"I dreamed of you," she echoes quietly, against Glinda's ear. They are holding one another tightly and closely, her hands pressed flat to the small of Glinda's back, and she finally feels she is here: finally solid, finally grounded, held in place in the warmth of her friend's embrace. It is so strange, that someone she has known so little should matter so much, should give her so much more safety than any of the men and women she grew up around. "I dreamed often of our parting, and of things left unsaid and incomplete." She draws away, just enough to meet Glinda's eyes. "You should rest. You should eat and drink and rest, and be at peace - but I mean to kiss you again, as we did all that while ago, if you will let me." And it is not queenly, and she is not proud of it: how her voice lowers and cracks a little. "Please."

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn says please so softly, with that almost broken note, and Glinda has to bite at her own lip again and try to blink away the tears that spring to her eyes. She shakes her head a little, tightens her grasp on the other woman, and swallows before she can speak.

"I have wanted you to," she answers, fervently but trying for gentleness anyway. "I have dreamed of you - my officers said we must wait, and perhaps arrive tomorrow, or even the next day, and I rode away anyway - Éowyn, they will be ever so cross, and I cannot find it in me to care." She cannot seem to look away from the young queen's eyes, cannot seem to step away. The aches in her lower back and hips seem irrelevant, cold and hunger mere trifles. Glinda is not used to feeling this way: as though she might overlook almost anything, so long as Éowyn is near her.

"I am at peace," Glinda adds, and this time her smile is real. "For I am here now, am I not? And so are you, so I am content." She tilts her head up a little, brings one hand up to cradle Éowyn's head and tug her down just enough to kiss her - chastely, sweetly, yes, but evidence enough that it is not only one of them who has dreamed of kisses.

[shieldofrohan]

At peace. And it seems to Éowyn that Glinda shares some of that peace with her, that it flows between them in the moment their lips touch: and, soon after, there comes the terror that it is because she is taking that peace, that there cannot be content enough for both of them when she herself feels such a void in her heart. But Glinda promises her, with so sweet a smile, that she is content, that this is what she wants, and the tears spring unbidden to Éowyn's eyes even as she feels her heart leap to sudden, painful joy.

It is chaste. It is sweet. It is both achingly insufficient, and all she has wanted for months. One hand leaves Glinda's back, shifting up so that her fingers can curl in her friend's - lover's? - hair, and her lips part against Glinda's, but that is all. She is content, for now, to linger. She is afraid of haste, of pressing too hard and too far and breaking whatever this fragile thing might become - and now, there is no hurry, there is nothing to fuel the need in the empty pit of her chest. She can take her time, and she can hold someone softly, and not be trapped, and be in command. For once, among all the charges she has led and all the rulings she has made, she can be truly in command of things.

She draws away slowly, and there is colour in her cheeks, a warmth in her tear-bright eyes. "...Your mouth is dry," she observes, quietly. She has not moved far away at all, her body still pressed close against Glinda's, their faces perhaps an inch apart. "I am an ill hostess, to treat you so. Drink a little, please." Which would be a better voice of reason, if she did not immediately follow it with another kiss. "Drink a little, and eat a little, and then come to bed with me. To sleep, or not." She does not much care for sleep, these days; there are too many nightmares. Being awake with Glinda feels far more appealing.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is such a small thing to be worried about, whether she has had a drink recently or not, that Glinda cannot help but laugh. She tilts her head up to steal another kiss before - very reluctantly - stepping back. Even then it seems too much to take more than one step, and she reaches to take Éowyn's hand and wind their fingers together.

"If you will join me," she says, still light, as though she hasn't seen how sharp Éowyn's cheekbones are, how fragile the older woman felt in her arms. "For a meal is much better shared, don't you think?" Which is both true and an excuse, for Glinda is trying to persuade herself that hunger is the most pressing desire. She is hungry, yes, and thirsty too, but she is also very certain that both of them could easily be forgotten if Éowyn were to kiss her again. The only difficulty is that even if Glinda could go without a meal, Éowyn has clearly gone without far too many recently; she cannot take advantage of the other woman for her own wants. There will be time - if not tonight, then the next, or the next. Glinda does not especially like to be patient, but she does know how to wait if she must.

She sits, drawing Éowyn down to sit beside her, unwilling to let her friend go. The meal is simple, but the bread looks very fine, the fruits are plentiful, and the cheese is creamy. Rohan's kings and queens are well served, it seems, and she makes a note to find out who is in charge of running the household and see they receive a reward. Her mother has always been very firm on the matter of ensuring good servants are well recompensed, and her mother never receives anything less than the best.

"What shall you start with?" she asks Éowyn, reluctantly withdrawing her hand so that she can pour them both cups of wine. "For I hardly know where to begin."

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn looks down at where their hands are joined, as though she has never seen such a sight before. There is an almost careless intimacy in how easily their fingers intertwine, as though they were made to fit together, and it strikes her like a knife to the heart. It should not be possible, to feel happy at so small a thing: it is a trap, must be a trap, and yet she cannot draw away.

She does not want to draw away. For the moment, she is alive again: even finds some of the appetite that she has struggled to keep of late. Enough, at least, that at Glinda's scarcely-subtle prompting, she puts out a hand to take a roll. It is a day old by now, and has not been warmed, but it breaks readily enough between her hands, and she sets down half of it, giving Glinda a small smile.

"My father always said it was best to begin with bread, when you have it; and your belly knows sooner when it is full."

[sent_to_try_us]

It does not take long for the two of them to demolish their small feast. Glinda keeps up a chatter throughout, telling Éowyn all the petty problems of her little court: the noble lady mooning over the lowliest of her husband's grooms; the fight that broke out over who was to carry a headboard to a cart; the maids who quarrelled for weeks over one of the serving boys and were then caught kissing in the scullery late at night. She does her best to make it entertaining and light, to get Éowyn to smile or even laugh at the antics of the court in motion. Compared to what the young queen has faced, these scandals and disagreements are nothing, but that is the point: if she can take Éowyn's mind away from her troubles, Glinda intends to do just that.

Once they are finished, and Glinda is warm and fed and comfortable, she leans against Éowyn and takes the other woman's hand in her own, lifting it to her lips to kiss Éowyn's knuckles. And then she cannot quite bear to let it go; instead she measures their hands against each other, traces the lines of Éowyn's fingers, the curve of her palm. There is something enchanting about it, this play of their hands together, the softness of her own skin against the calluses Éowyn has won from training. It is hard to believe that she can finally do this, that her head rests on Éowyn's shoulder, that Éowyn's hand is in her lap, that all she need do is speak in order to hear the other woman's voice.

"I missed you terribly," she says - for the fourth or fifth time, perhaps, but the quiet need in her voice has not yet diminished. "I had always thought the lovers in the minstrels' songs were being perhaps a little unreasonable, but I see I have misjudged them all along."

[shieldofrohan]

She has never had much time for gossip, but it is different when it is Glinda telling it. It is precisely because they are nothing, because they are petty things that seem a thousand miles away from war and rule (although, to be truthful, she is well aware that equally petty dramas are playing out within these very walls, as they were in the war-camp outside them until a few days ago). She does not much laugh, or even smile, but she does relax visibly, listening as intently as though these are every part as important as the audience she held earlier that day.

And it is easy to be intent upon Glinda, whatever she says - especially when Glinda leans against her side, warm and soft and solid, her hand gently tracing Éowyn's, her skin soft and her touch gentle. She leans into Glinda in turn, her eyes half-closing, relaxing into the caress to her hand.

At that last comment, she starts, and looks up at Glinda for a long moment, her eyes searching the other woman's face.

"Is that what we are?" Her voice is low, wondering - almost childlike in that wonder, as though she needs an assurance that she has not misunderstood. "Lovers?"

[sent_to_try_us]

The question is one she had not expected, does not know how to answer. Glinda sits upright, her fingers tightening briefly on Éowyn's hand, gaze searching the other woman's eyes.

"I don't know," she says, uncertain, "I don't - how do you tell? I have not written you a poem, or anything like that..." For poems are usually a staple of the courtly romances, with a lover wooing his mistress, although deciding which of them is the mistress is another puzzle. "I do not think either of us are supposed to have a lover," Glinda adds, very reluctantly. "But I am not supposed to have kissed you, either, and I did." And will again, she thinks - or will as long as Éowyn wants to be kissed again, as long as she can do it without ruining both their chances for a good marriage. That is the main problem: marriage, which is inevitable for a queen, for a princess. And while Éowyn may choose her suitors, Glinda knows she may not.

[shieldofrohan]

"I do not think any of this is supposed to be as it is," Éowyn says quietly. She should not be Queen: Théodred should be here in her stead, or Éomer, and they would not falter as she does. She should not be ruined as she is, with her dignity and her maidenhood both shredded, unmarried and too much married all at once. She should not jump at shadows, or long for oblivion; she should not fear to pass judgement on the greatest treason the Mark has seen in three hundred years. She should not bind the Mark to another kingdom, split their loyalties against the Oath of Eorl, make herself beholden to another lord. She should not have kissed Glinda, and she should not take a lover, but these are so slight in the great avalanche of things that are not as they should be, it is hard to see their wrongness at all any more.

She looks at Glinda: her hair and skin cast gold in candlelight, her blue eyes wide, earnest and unsure. She looks at her for a long time, and it seems to her that the light does not come from the candles at all, but from Glinda, shining in the darkness that has overwhelmed the world. Glinda, who has been the first person in two years to make Éowyn feel safe, who has ridden through the night to find her, for whose sake Éowyn has half a hundred times picked herself up from despair and resentment to drag herself back into life and towards the throne. Glinda, whose shining eyes seem to be filled to the brim with the belief that Éowyn is more than she is, that there is hope to be found here.

Her hands tighten in Glinda's. She pulls the other woman closer, and she kisses her again.

"Be my lover," she says, and it is both a plea and a command. "I can give you nothing but myself, and I am a poor prize these days. I can offer you no power and no position, I can write you no poems, I can promise you nothing and I cannot even give my life to you; but be my lover, all the same, and stay with me."

[sent_to_try_us]

For a long moment, all she can do is look into Éowyn's eyes, so clear and so troubled, and try to think past her immediate, instinctive response of yes. It is not a good offer: she knows it, and Éowyn does too. If she is to gamble her reputation, it ought to be for benefit either for herself or for her family. Rohan is close to a client kingdom, if her father has his way; Éowyn can give her nothing. But Glinda is having a very hard time making herself care.

There is no one at this court she might be expected to marry; there is no one who will carry tales back to her father and be believed, especially not if those tales are rumours of an unwarranted closeness with the young queen of Rohan. She is, after all, here specifically to be close with the queen. She is here to be the Uplands in person, the proxy of her father the king. No doubt he would be pleased to think that Éowyn will have no suitor, will take no lover, without Glinda being able to tell him at once about it.

"I will be called back to my father's court," she says, slowly, gently. "Some day. And I do not know when; and I will have to go, and to marry whoever he chooses for me. I will have to be a maiden on my wedding night, and I do not know - I have not - I would rely on your honour to keep me safe." Éowyn has laid her terms out clearly; Glinda feels she can do no less, even as she bites her lip, wishing she did not have to. "But if you will have me, even so, I will be yours and gladly. And - and I will stay, no matter what you choose, for so long as you do not send me away and my father does not call me."

[shieldofrohan]

"I would not take that from you." Not when it has been taken from her. Éowyn will never be a maiden on her wedding night, and if she should marry - when she should marry, for it will not be put off forever, and she is all that remains of the Line of Eorl - it will be nothing like she had hoped. She is not sure she will be able to bear it, when it comes: that she will ever have a man move inside her and not feel the ghost of rough hands holding her down. But she was a maiden once, and she knows what it means, and it seems more precious somehow in hindsight. "I would not keep you, Glinda; I would not send you away, and I would not seek to hold you back. But I would have you, all the same, for you are the first light I have seen in all this while, and the dearest comfort, and I am selfish."

More selfish than she can bring herself to admit. She knows, when Glinda speaks of her father - she knows that there will come a time when they are no longer friends. She is not blind to what he wants, a subject nation indebted to his aid, and she is not blind to the future. She cannot give him that dominion. She will not sell her people from one tyrant to another, only because he is more distant. There will come a time when this alliance crumbles, and perhaps even turns to emnity, and when it comes, Glinda will be caught in the press. She should say so.

She cannot bear to say so.

Instead, she leans in again, kissing Glinda long and deeply. It is easier to act than to speak, and it is easiest of all to melt into her friend's - her lover's - mouth, letting her eyes slip closed and her hands draw Glinda's into her lap. All the same, she draws back after a time, her eyes open and sincere, her expression clouded.

"If you ever want me to stop, you must say so." There is something more than a mere request in the words: there is a command behind it, weighted with the kind of regal certainty that her men have followed. It brooks no question, no disobedience. "If you would have me slow, if you would have us part, if you want to be alone... swear to me that you will say so, and not hold back. I will not be..."

She cannot quite bring herself to say like him.

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn kisses her again, gently drawing Glinda's hands into her lap, and Glinda finds she has to tilt her head up a little to meet the kiss - and there is something about that small kind of surrender that makes her breath catch, sends sparks through her. When Éowyn draws away, Glinda does not quite manage to hold back a soft, needy sound, a wordless plea for more. Still, though, she listens; she is no fool, and Éowyn's gaze is saying this is important.

"You are not," she manages, a little breathless. "I promise, of course I promise, but Éowyn, you would never - " What exactly Éowyn would never doesn't come out; they both understand without them. And perhaps she has only really known Éowyn for a few days, perhaps she is leaping from the edge of a cliff without bothering to look how far below the ground is, but Glinda cannot imagine the young queen ever doing any of the things the Wormtongue has done. Even if she has had to reason out most of it, unwilling to ask Éowyn questions that so clearly hurt her, there was evidence enough on Éowyn's body to speak of just how cruel he had been.

And then there are no more words, only Éowyn sitting so very close and yet not close enough. Glinda reaches up to curl one hand around the other woman's neck, fingers tangling in her hair, as she tugs Éowyn forward and leans in to kiss her. She is still a little clumsy, and perhaps ought to be embarrassed, but Glinda does not care. She has learned enough: how to tilt her head, how to let her lips part just slightly in invitation, how to run her tongue along Éowyn's bottom lip - and how to draw back, eyes hazy with desire, and offer Éowyn a sweet, wicked smile.

[shieldofrohan]

There it is again, as it was all those months ago: that hunger, stirring in her loins, a reassurance that she did not misremember or imagine their parting. She sees the same hunger in Glinda's eyes, and it takes her breath away, to be looked at like that - to be invited, pleaded, wanted, not demanded. It is a stab to the heart, and to somewhere lower.

"I dreamed of you," she says again, without entirely meaning to say anything at all. She feels hypnotised by that look, by Glinda's parted lips kiss-bruised and wanting more, by the warmth of her hands and the closeness of her body. And that smile. That smile alone could destroy her. "I dreamed of you, and I remembered what it was to want." She bites her lip, lifting her free hand to her lover's cheek, tracing the soft line of her jaw. Her eyes fix on Glinda's, soft and heavy with desire. "Tell me what you want."

[sent_to_try_us]

They are both entranced, the two of them; Glinda finds herself studying everything about Éowyn, from the wisps of fair hair escaping around her face to the way the fabric of her nightgown clings to her knee. She leans into the other woman's touch, turning her head to press a kiss to the palm of Éowyn's hand, wanting abruptly to kiss every inch of her lover's body - and if that takes forever, so be it; she will happily dwell in this moment where Éowyn gazes at her as if she is the most beautiful thing in the world.

"You," she answers, her voice as soft as Éowyn's. "I want you, only I don't know - " What to do. Where to start. Anything, really; the minstrels' songs have not been especially informative, and courtly novels of romance tend to skip right over the wedding night (or, perhaps more frequently, the night when the distant lady finally lets down her guard for her enamoured suitor).

In her dreams, Éowyn had reached for her, pushed her down, kissed her again and again. There had been something frightening and wonderful in the sensation of being captured, being unable to get away but not wanting to even if she could. She cannot explain it to Éowyn, could not possibly say it out loud - but the dreams began with safer, tamer territory, and perhaps she too can start there. Very daring, and not entirely sure of herself, Glinda reaches up to take hold of Éowyn's wrist, guiding her lover's hand slowly down her neck; the light touch makes her shiver and bite at her lip, head tilting back a little almost instinctively. But she is not done: she draws Éowyn's hand a little lower, along the neckline of her gown, before letting go as the other woman's knuckles graze against her breast.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn can feel the dim beat of a pulse distantly under her fingertips, as they glide down the pale column of Glinda's neck. The skin there is so soft, so fine, that it seems to her almost unbearable in its intimacy, and her own pulse stutters at it. And still she is drawn down, to the collar of Glinda's gown, the slight arch of her clavicle, the swell of a breast beneath.

She has experience with women by now, too: Gríma would never have shared her with another man, but his jealousy did not extend to women, and on a few occasions once he was satisfied of her surrender, he had paired her with a maid or a whore, to amuse him with their coupling. She is not innocent, as she once was. But like all her experience of sex, it has been cold and hateful, a performance undertaken through gritted teeth. This is different. Now, she wants to let her hand move down, to explore and be explored. Now the layers of clothing between them feel like a prison, not a shield; now there is a boiling urge in her to rip them all off, to tear off Glinda's gown and her own nightdress, and crash into one another like a storm against a mountainside, kissing and touching and loving.

She does not quite go that far. But she does move with a decisive swiftness, half-standing and closing what little space is still between them, until she is almost straddling Glinda's lap as her hand presses under the neck of Glinda's gown, finding her breast and pressing her palm to it, as much as the confines of clothing will allow. Her mouth finds Glinda's in the same moment, tangling their tongues together, her breath ragged and raw, her other hand steadying her against the back of Glinda's chair.

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn surges towards her and Glinda reaches out, her hands finding the other woman's hips as if they were meant to be there. It is so easy to let Éowyn lean into her, so easy to tilt her head up and let herself drown in the pleasure of kissing her lover again and again and again. Éowyn's fingers graze the curve of her breast, Éowyn's palm presses against her nipple, and Glinda gasps into the kiss. Her body seems to know what to do, even though she doesn't; her back arches, pressing closer to Éowyn, and she finds herself reaching up to wind her fingers through the other woman's hair. That long golden braid will be a mess, and Glinda does not care - more than that, she finds she likes the idea of seeing Éowyn dishevelled and heedless with pleasure.

When she breaks the kiss to catch her breath, Éowyn is almost on her lap, limned with gold in the light of the fire and the candles. Her lover's nightgown, tied loosely at the neck with a ribbon, is temptingly close; daring, Glinda reaches to tug at it until the ribbon comes undone and the linen parts smoothly. Her fingers trace the soft skin beneath, and then she is leaning in to press kisses against Éowyn's collarbone, down her chest, turning her head to find and follow the curve of her lover's breast with her mouth.

[shieldofrohan]

It feels easy. It has never felt easy, before. She bites her lip, her thumb running against Glinda's nipple as she presses her hand deeper into the other woman's dress, not caring how the neckline cuts into her arm at this awkward angle. There is no simple ribbon to pull on that gown, and she will eventually, she realises, have to disentangle herself to get Glinda undressed - but right now, she cannot bear to pull away. Especially not with Glinda's mouth drifting lower, pressing heated kisses to the pale skin of her chest, the small rise of her breast.

It feels so easy, in fact, that she feels horribly sure it is a dream, that she will awake in her tent outside the walls or some worse place. It cannot be that they have simply found one another, come across one another, and now they love one another. That is something that might happen in dreams, in songs and stories and childish imaginings, but it is not something that happens in truth. Except that Glinda's breast truly shifts against her hand, rising and falling with each breath; and Glinda's breath truly whispers against her skin, warm and soft; and there is a crick starting in her wrist and wetness starting between her thighs, and her skirt is pulled taut against her legs where she stands, and it is easy, and it is real.

"Bed," she murmurs, and there is an urgency in her tone, a plea. "Come to bed with me."