A/N: Written for the Green Room 2015 challenge (Rlt), Challenge #11 - the sleep is for the dead challenge, and for the diversity writing challenge (BoB), d40 - write in the romance genre.
The Drowning Maiden of Rohan
The Black Breath dragged her under but she was already drowning. Even though she'd defied expectation and command and the long flowing tassels of gold hair that marked her a woman in the company of men, she was drowning.
War was not the glamour she'd foreseen, the glamour she had sought. It wasn't fear that pierced her though, nor the blood that was splattered on the battlefield when they finally arrived. Even before that, it was something else. The long weary ride from Dunharrow where every man seemed companion to every other, and yet there was silence between them all and she was left out of it. No-one noticed, of course: not the men otherwise one would have cried out and she would have been sent back in a bitter shame to sit in empty halls with fearing wives and children and men too old and wait for the hammer of doom to fall. But it was a weary ride, and weary not only in body but in soul. She could not even speak with Merry who rode with her lest her cover was blown, and after a day or so she could spare the breath to attempt so. She was weary: as weary as she'd been waiting the King and his company in Edoras, waiting to hear the news of victory or doom and knowing she could only keep the halls in order and keep vigil.
She loathed that: that silent sitting while, outside, a war raged. She loathed how her brother and cousin and uncle would all ride with the wind in their hair and on their faces and sword in hand, cutting down the evil in their lands while she could only close the doors to them and watch as they hammered at them, watch as one day, inevitably, they collapsed. And then what? She was no warrior. Only tradition taught her to wield a sword and she was the last of the House of Earl, the only shield maiden and, should her uncle the King and her brother Eomer fall in battle, the Queen of a kingdom already overcome. She did not care for that, care to wait in dying lands with a dying house when she could have, instead, fought for it, fought to keep it alive. If the King and Eomer fell, the kingdom of Rohan would fall with them and she would be able to do nothing to prevent it. And yet they bid her remain nonetheless, bid her to keep the halls, bid her to keep hope to the people when she had none for herself let alone hope to give, as though there was a hope elsewhere that would outlast them.
Perhaps there was. Perhaps Frodo and the Ring of Power were that hope, but in which case why did the others ride to war and not wait with her, in those halls, for that hope to decide the freedom or the doom for all? It was because she was a woman that she was burdened with the wait, because she was a woman that she'd stayed behind in Medused by her uncle's side when his poisoned mind barely recognised her and the slimy advisor gazed at her with a lust that made her shudder in the dark, alone. Perhaps it was those years that made her need for freedom all the greater. Trapped in those halls she felt his gaze amidst the slowly brewing despair and she longed to be away from it.
The visitors were a brief respite, in the end. Oh, she'd thought they'd change everything when they'd first come. At that point Theodred was dead and Eomer was a prisoner as well and the House of Eorl trapped underneath Grima's tongue. The darkest days of the House of Eorl, she'd thought – and then the four riders had come, one of them Gandalf the White and with a swat from his staff the slimy Grima Wormtongue was sent back to his true master with his tail between his legs.
And the King came back to life and Eomer was freed, but Eowyn was bid once again to hold the halls while they rode out with their company grown. The four rides had come like beacons of hope and, for the men, they were hope. But for Eowyn, little had changed. She only had to not watch her House dwindle to death but instead watch empty fields and halls filled with women and envision them fighting for the noble cause of saving their land.
And though she begged to go, they would not allow her. Not her uncle the King of Rohan. Not Aragorn who'd come with Gandalf the White and who she'd thought in a fleeting moment that later clung to her that he would whisk her away to freedom. It was almost a tradition with their family after all, to marry men of Westernee and whose blood would be stronger than the heir to the throne of Gondor himself. And he rode with an elf and a dwarf and two hobbits – so surely he would not begrudge the company of a woman as well?
He did not begrudge, but he pitied. She saw the tenderness in his eyes and mistook it for love at the beginning, but Dunharrow spoke the truth. It was but a mere shadow of love, that pity, and she had drowned in shadows enough, she thought. Aragorn was not the path to her freedom. Aragorn would have her do her duty just like her uncle, just like her brother. Her sword was a heavy weight on Windfola, humming, aching for blood and she ached for a fresh air that couldn't be found on the roads from Edoras to Dunharrow.
So she tucked her long hair under a spare mail shirt and put a helmet on and took the name Dernhelm, rider of the Mark and no-one questioned her. She rode with the others and took Merry as well – Merry who likewise could not bear the thought of being left behind to wait. And so the two of them began the long three day ride to Gondor, to the battle of the Pelannor fields, and in that ride she drowned even more because the wait on a horse seemed even more unbearable than a wait in the halls.
Or perhaps it was the added constraints of physical tiredness and the lack of chatter to distract. Or perhaps it was the broken heart she'd heaved with her from Dunharrow. But she had no desire to turn back, no regret. A part of her had long since become at peace with the idea of riding to death in war and that was what she road to. And when they came upon the battle and dove in, she only froze a moment to take in the sight of a true battlefield before she drew her sword and hacked at her foes.
And when Windfola stumbled and threw her charges, she did not run and her panic was only for the other passenger WIndfola had borne.
And when the Nazgul came, bearing the Witch-King on its shoulders, she did not flee with her comrades because there was a heavy veil in her heart that spared her the undulated fear from that cry. She bared her sword and stood firm – firmer when she saw her uncle fallen. And she slashed the foul Nazgul from ear to ear before its jaws snapped over her own neck, before the Witch-King picked her up by the neck and spread the Black Breath through her soul.
She struck the Witch-King and fulfilled an Elf-prince's prophecy from a thousand years ago before she fell, and then she sunk into state of near death before the aroma of Athelas and her brother's calling voice revived her.
But her soul still drifted, and the despair the Black Breath had pronounced still clung to her soul. She begged for reprieve from the Healing House in those early days, but as they passed with rejection she lay and stared listlessly. The House was filled with other ailing souls, hurt in body, hurt in mind, and she was as alone as in the halls of Edoras except now she was also away from home and there was no-one familiar at all except Merry, and though it was no fault of his, she did not really wish to speak to him.
But then the Warden took her to the Steward of Gondor and she asked for her leave again, though half-hearted because she knew full well the reply. And his eyes bore pity as he replied, and she did not help at all in her appearance, or her manner of speech. But that pity led him to bid the warden to move her bed so she may walk upon the gardens, and look east where the Black Gate was, where those who remained and in health from the armies of Gondor and Rohan marched. And he was there, day by day, to converse with, and slowly the heavy veil on heart began to lift in her company.
She wondered, sometimes, if it would have similarly lifted in the company of any other in a similar situation, but it mattered not in the end. Faramir Steward of Gondor was there, and companiable and kind, and she felt herself weak and frail and despaired and accepted his pity. When the pity turned to love she could not say, and nor, really, could he, but when he bid her to stand by his side as his wife and Lady, she realised the transition had come to an end and the light her heart truly yearned for as well. And Eowyn, daughter of Eomund from the House of Eorl, awoke.