In the darkness.
A/N: First Lord of the rings fanfic. Flame all your conscience can bear.
Disclaimer: The old dead guy deserves credit for my entire imagination, so I won't try to claim any part of this story as my own.
Faramir never really knew what to make of Eowyn.
He had watched her at those rare occasions when Théoden had brought her, Èomer and Theodred to The White City. When they were very young, he had found her distant, secluded even. The four boys had played, gotten them self dirty; She would be sitting at her uncle's side, like a princess. Her eyes were fixed on dust in the air, and her thought elsewhere. He had thought her clever, thought she was thinking about intelligent things.
Then she grew older. She now left her uncle's side; went straying around on her own account. When the boys found her and ambushed her, he would see a flicker of amusement in her eyes, but she never joined them in their games. She did what was expected of her. Then they became teens, and her distant mind seemed colder.
He had been proud of his home. He and Boromir had flaunted it like they owned it, and shown the three children from the Mark all the greatest sights, their hunts, their prides, and she, Eowyn, had made it all seem so worthless. With her proud, clod-hearted attitude and her icy blue eyes she had made his dream, his life, seem small, insignificant. But she followed them around none the less, listening to his words.
The girls always found Boromir's empty words easier to relate to, but Eowyn would listen to him, Faramir, and sometimes she would even smile. She hit puberty, and she skipped a few summer visits. When she one year returned with her brother and cousin, he realized that she had grown out of his reach. The years apart had put out any spark of life she had carried before.
Now, again, she would be sitting at her uncle's side, not as a princess, but like a leashed dog next to its owner. She had acted as though she didn't mind, but it was clear that she was burning with envy. She too wanted to train with swords and ride the untamed horses on the field. But she acted perfectly. As a miniature lady. But inside of her the heart of a warrior was beating, and every drop of her blood called to her, begging to be spilled for what she believed in.
It wasn't until much later, as they both hit their teens that he realized that she had been putting him down, because she hated her own life so much. She was jealous of his freedom, and his possibilities; his opportunity to do and become what he wanted; his independence.
Little did she know, or, as he swore, would she ever know that he had admired those very trades in her. He was linked to this place forever and the White City was all he knew; She had no responsibilities, no locked destiny.
Eomer was given Firefoot; a gentle horse that would serve its master into death. Eowyn went to Hama, and talked him into giving her one of the broncos, an Isabella-coloured stallion whit a temper that rivalled her own. She named it Freawine after her ancestor, and asked it to uphold its temper and never be tamed as she had been.
When she was sixteen of age, she spent her last summer in the White City. She had, just before leaving Edoras, been in the Golden Hall with her uncle.
"Eomund once told me how proud he was of his son." Theoden said as they were walking down the length of the table. "And he said that his hopes for you were drowned the day you were born a girl." He smiled, because he knew what was coming next. Eowyn waited. "I agreed with him then. And in some ways I still do. Oh, the leader you could have been, had you only been a man." He turned and kissed her cheek. "And I know that inside of you burns the heart of a man and in your veins the courage of a soldier. But there is hope for you yet to do great things, Eowyn. Your sex prevents you from going to war, but not from fighting. And I think that your father would agree that your fight, the fight that has brought you to where you are today, has been worse and more deadly than any fight I will ever engage in." She smiled because he had understood her, but it was a stained smile, because she now, like him, knew what was coming next.
"But now your fight must end. It is time for you to find a suitable man and settle down."
So he hadn't understood her at all. The fight wouldn't end with her getting married. That would just be a new fight, a worse fight, a war. She smiled and nodded. "You're right uncle. That is what I need now. I shall do as you ask of me. May we both be happy when it is done!"
In Minas Tririth she had met Faramir. He had, ahead of her, grown beyond adolescence and into adulthood. He looked at her, with admiration, like all men did, but in the depths of his soul rested memories of being hurt by her, which tainted his behaviour towards her with bitter awareness of possible defeat. He dared not hope, as the other men did. He stayed at a distance, so she would have to come to him. And she did.
She found him standing at a balcony one night, seemingly unaware of her presence.
"Why do you stay out after the sun set, before the moon rises? The dark gives no answers to men." She whispered as she leaned against the railing next to him, her eyes seeking out stars that she knew from her home.
"The darkness is a part of our lives, just like the shadows and the bright sunlight." He answered after a while, just when she had accepted that no answer would come. "I don't love any of the three more than the others."
She smiled, and looked upon his face, for the first time without knowing what she would find there. She did not expect love to be shining back at her, but it did. She felt his hand rest on top of hers, gentle, as if fearing that it would be fragile and break at his mere touch. A distant, tepid wind blew in to meet them, as they planed their future in silence. Little did they know that a war was brewing in the darkness, and little did they know, that it would be years before they would meet again, but still they savoured every second as their last, waiting for the sun to rise on their future.
Note: I love reviews. I love feedback. I love praise. I can take flamers on how wrong my entire picture of the Lord Of the Rings universe is.
Eam