Title: Like Your Mother
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Éowyn wonders if Faramir thinks she is like his mother.
Notes: That last chapter of Skeleton's Truth will be up very, very soon. As in before this week is over… though everyone has likely forgotten its existence. But I haven't, and it will be finished! In the meantime- here's something very, very different.

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"Do you think me like your mother?" she questioned me, teasingly, as I wrapped the starry blue mantle about her shoulders.

"Not in the least," I teased back.

I have long since stopped teasing about the matter, however. My Éowyn is nothing like Finduilas. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I married her- nay, it is a reason.

Men have praised me as 'humble', and I hope they are not misguided, but I am not blinded as to what my position means. There is wealth and power in the Stewardship, and therefore a duty to use these correctly. I have oft been told that my choice of bride should not be taken lightly. My father told myself and my brother what he had considered in looking for a bride. Gentleness. A compassionate spirit. A sense of honor and duty. All of the qualities that befit a daughter of Gondor, for the Stewardess much determines the mark to which all her sisters aspire.

Which is why I could not marry anyone remotely resembling Finduilas.

Gondor does not need a pale, sickly effigy of a woman's frailty, purity, and submissive goodness. She does not need a beautiful and angelic vision, a lovely tragedy. She does not need to dwell on the past and die with distant shores and years on her lips.

The wife I have chosen has been tempted by such morbidly romantic fantasies. But temptation is not the sin, and all of Gondor was faced with the same ruin. She stayed to the last and fought her fight, just as my country did.

And if my country fares as well as my lady, I will be well pleased indeed.

A rosy-cheeked barefoot girl standing in the fragrant heat, an apple in her hand and the sweet juice dribbling down her chin, begging to be kissed off her face. That Éowyn I love, but I would not marry such a woman if she did not possess sterling determination. I would not marry such a woman if I could not look in her lovely eyes and see the same things I see in the eyes of my soldiers. Such unyielding love is dearer to me than a thousand scented rose petals scattered on the path to a glorious death.

Do I think her like my mother? When I met her, I thought her cold. I saw her blossom, warm; a lively fire started in her eyes. My mother is cold, too, but there is nothing to thaw her frost.

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