Title: A Different Kind Of Glory
Category: Angst
Rating: M for dark themes and suggestion of rape.
Spoilers: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Summary: They are her battlegrounds, these internal struggles in the night, in her mind, and she fights on them alone.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by J.R.R. Tolkien. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Several lines come from various things that I have read before (novels, other fanfictions, etc.) and I just couldn't keep them straight. So if you see a line in here that looks like something original that you wrote, feel flattered that I wanted to use it and I apologize for the (semi) plagiarism. This story is extremely loosely based on "Everybody's Fool" and "Farther Away," both by Evanescence.
Author Notes: Aha! Finally I have posted something. This was just a little ficlet that has been kicking me in the head for a while. May be a one shot. May turn into something more, depending on what the reaction is. It's basically self-explanatory and needs no further introduction. So please, read and review.
Enjoy!
A Different Kind of Glory"And that's when she put her book down. And looked at me. And said it: 'Life isn't fair, Bill. We tell our children that it is, but it's a terrible thing to do. It's not only a lie; it's a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it never has been, and it's never going to be.'"
William Goldman, "The Princess Bride"
The room could never have been called lovely. There is a massive bed in the middle of the chamber and a high backed armchair faces a large fireplace but the quilted cover is without embellishments and the stone floor is bare and rough to cold feet. Two skillfully woven tapestries are the only decoration adorning the walls. They hang on either side of a window that faces the rolling plains outside, white with the winter snow but now silver in twilight. It is a room that one can see was created with an austere taste but not without love. This is her haven and she rarely leaves it nowadays. There is pragmatism within the sparse furnishings and memories seem to cling to the cherry wood of the simple coffee table, echoing from the vaulted ceilings.
But the dimmed room is quiet now.
A shaft of moonlight filters into the chamber to reveal a tall, willowy woman, standing at the window. Though her skin is alabaster white, darkness seems to cling to her. Sadness clouds her ice blue eyes. A silver gown shrouds her slender figure and a cobweb like veil glitters against her pale hair.
Once there dwelt a girl who dreamed of a life of adventure and true love, a girl who dreamed of meeting her fair prince and galloping away with him on his white horse. Later, after a visit to Dol Amroth, the white horse became white sails. But the girl, grown and world-weary now, is a shadow of her former self.
She has not long left in this realm, she knows. There is a sense of fragility about her that has never been there before, a feeling that at a single touch, she may shatter into a thousand pieces, shards too sharp to put back together.
She has sacrificed too much of herself in an attempt to protect her people, to save her uncle.
She gazes across the fields and whispers to the land of her birth the names of those that are beyond her reach, as she has every night for the past few years, in every language that she can recall. Even though she sees how much pain it causes her brother, her liege lord, and (hardest of all to bear) her husband who is here with her (who loves her) but who does not hold her heart. Even though she knows that it's useless, that her loved ones will not return to her from beyond the grave…still she waits and she watches for white sails and the hope that they will bring, the strength that they may feed to her brittle soul.
But the hope has at last faded. So, in the darkness of the room she wearily begins to accept that there will be no white sails and no love but only waiting. It is her fate and now there can be nothing left for her to fear.
A taunt lingers at the edge of her mind, a whisper of longing...
She pushes the thought away. Long ago, she threw away her honour as a woman. She sacrificed her chances at happily ever after for just enough. She did not then believe that she deserved to be happy; she still does not and, in a way, amidst the pain, she finds a perverse pleasure in standing at the glass. Perhaps, she thinks, if it hurts enough, she will begin to atone for the horrific transgressions that she has committed in the name of others.
But sometimes, sometimes the emptiness, the numbness, within her feels as though it may swallow her alive and despair creeps over her heart.
Suddenly she straightens her bowed head and holds it up proudly. She reminds herself that she is not a weak maiden, bleating helplessly for a savior. She is proud, a daughter and sister of kings, a princess in her own right. She led her people out of the darkness and into the light; she defeated the demon that no man could to become the Lady of the Shield Arm (1). Even in the blackest days in Rohan, after Éomer was banished and Theodred was dead, she did not shy from shame or pain or death; she never abandoned her responsibility, no matter how much suffering she had had to endure. And there had been so much suffering and so much grief.
Later now, she can look back on those bleak, endless days and find herself only darkly amused at the naiveté of the men in her life, in their stubborn insistence on believing her to be helpless and incapable when, in reality, she had perhaps saved them all, or at least stalled the wrath of a powerful enemy. But nothing about the situation had seemed amusing at the time. She remembers feeling nothing but the unadulterated terror of a child as her uncle's mind deteriorated and he changed from the assured noble king of her youth into a feeble old man and she had had to fend for herself. However, pragmatism and coldness soon supplanted what little innocence she had possessed.
Out of necessity, she consciously built the wall around her heart, piece by piece, and it became her armor. There could be no crack in the stones, no gap in the mortar. She let go of her losses and became strong again; she swore to do anything to protect her people. For them, she had decided to walk, eyes wide open, down the road to hell.
She still wakes in the middle of the night, fist stuffed in her mouth to keep herself from screaming at the memories that assault her.
She can still taste the bitter taste of the serpent's mouth on her own; sometimes she still wakes in the middle of the night, shuddering from the feel of his greedy hands roaming over her body, tearing at her clothes. She still remembers his hot breath by her face and the way that she silently accepted his advances to save her brother from his own hotheaded temper.
Éomer will never appreciate the sacrifices that she has made for him. She knows that he will not feel understanding but horror and disgust. Even now, in his blissful ignorance, Éomer likes to pretend that she is happy in her marriage; he pretends that she is as much in love with her husband as Éomer is with his beloved. He still thinks of her as the innocent girl who begged to be allowed to tag along with him to gallop recklessly across the plains of Rohan.
But that girl has been dead for a long time, longer than Éomer can ever know. He has been gone for too long to know it, to see her dark side.
As for her husband…he sees her as he wishes her to be: pure and beautiful, with a soul as strong as mithril.
But then, Faramir and Éomer have always seen the world in black and white. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Separate and distinct and never the twain shall meet.
She possesses no such illusions. As a woman, she is privy to the other side of the glory that men exalt in. She deals in smoke and mirrors and subtlety. She knows intimately the messiness of the grey areas that no one ever speaks of.
They are her battlegrounds, these internal struggles in the night, in her mind, and she fights on them alone.
For the men in her life are too afraid to stand with her. At the briefest flicker of a shadow in her eyes, they stay only long enough to fulfill some sort of obligation before rushing away. And she sees the look of relief on their faces as they go.
"Give her time," they murmur to one another, exchanging knowing glances. "This melancholy is only womanly vapors. It will pass in time."
And so she faces the darkness alone.
They who place such value on courage, they who speak so poetically of defending their respective kingdoms from barbaric foreigners…they aren't brave enough to stay with her when the shadows close in.
She knows that this grievance is selfish. Some things are more important than the concepts of good and evil, such as the good of the people, no matter the cost to the individual.
But sometimes she allows herself to be selfish and she allows herself to admit it, if only to herself.
She only wants someone to stay. For once. To the bitter, bitter end. She wants someone to take her hand, not to tell her that it will all turn out right in the end (because who can promise that?), but to offer silent support and companionship.
She wants someone to go all the way, go with her all the way to the bottom and help her come out in some safe place on the other side. (2)
When she draws in another deep breath, it hitches in her throat. But she does not cry.
She does not shed a tear at all, but only gasps with small, shuddering breaths, as people do when they are truly alone.
A/N:
1. I did not make this up. In the book, Éowyn was granted the title "Lady of the Shield-arm" after the Battle in recognition of her triumph over the Witch-king.
2. This line comes from the fabulous novel by Morgan Llywelyn, "Lion of Ireland."
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