Disclaimer: I don't own the Lord of the Rings.
The light wraps you in its mortal flame.
Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way
Against the old propellers of the twilight
That revolves around you
—The Light Wraps You by Pablo Neruda
.
She had been begging for something, anything to do. She was restive, her entire, tall, lithe body tense with strain and misery. She had wanted nothing more than to ride back into battle, right back into the abyss that nearly claimed her life.
It was saddening, but unfortunately, not at all baffling.
"Do not misunderstand him, Lord," said Éowyn. Her light gray eyes kindled with an earnest light. "It is not lack of care that grieves me. No houses could be fairer, for those who desire to be healed. But I cannot lie in sloth, idle, caged. I looked for death in battle." Her voice caught, and her eyes flickered away for a moment before she grew stern again and stared Faramir in the eye again. "But I have not died, and battle still goes on."
Faramir could see, plain as day, the Shadow playing so heavily on her mind, dark and wicked, a foul, noxious thing. He had felt it himself and knew how it could alter dreams and reality and make that which was light seem so dark.
Steely and strangely calm, to the eyes of others all that may have seen her, there was little else to Éowyn except that she was a stately, gracious lady of Rohan who inexplicably sought death in the heat of battle. She was a young, fair maiden with much to live for, yet she wished to throw it away for the sake of a war that might not yet be won.
But there was something there, something else that Faramir realized that he alone could see with stark clarity. The hint of despair that had been bending her straight back for months, trying to break her under the yoke of doubt and fear and staring into an abyss without seeing any way out. And she had nearly broken when the desire for death in battle had grown too great and she, against the wishes of her lord and uncle, had ridden out with the Rohirrim. What Faramir knew he was seeing now was one who could break or stay unbroken, depending on whether or not the forces that had left for Mordor returned victorious.
Later, when Faramir learned Éowyn's sad tale from the Halfling who had been her companion, there was more understanding of her grief and her want of death, but for the moment, he was left to feel nothing short of bewildered at the strange, cold pain in every inch of her, frozen solid like the deepest winter snowfall, and when the thaw came and her face melted, he was left even more taken aback.
He could pity her. She was, like any of all the races of Men, fearful for those she cared for, afraid on behalf of the brother of hers who rode into darkness without turning back. Faramir recalled with pain all the terrors he had felt for Boromir when he had left for Rivendell so long ago—was it really so long ago? Faramir's still-recovering mind could not define whether it had been months of merely days since he had last seen his brother laughing at him as he left and promising to bring tales of the famed Rivendell with him.
And Éowyn had been smiling ever so slightly, a slight warm touch to her cool, white face, pale and fragile like a snowdrop just peeking from the snow, as she walked back into the House, quieted and, strangely, more serene than she had been when she and Faramir had first met barely minutes prior, long fair hair flowing smoothly over her shoulders behind her. Faramir stopped and stared after her as she took her unrest with her yet left it behind, the unhappiness lingering on like a caul over the clear, early morning sky, or like the cool sprays of mist that had fled barely an hour before.
As Faramir continued on through the gardens, he mused on what he knew of Éowyn, just from seeing her in those few minutes, begging for a death on the blood-soaked battlefield.
She had been reduced to a shadow of her former self. He could catch glimpses, in the single tear that had dripped down her pale cheek, and in the way her face softened so slightly and her head drooped like the wilting of a plant, of when she had herself had been softer, gentler, more human. Back broken by the Shadow of the Enemy and all the hardships that had come upon her, Éowyn had, to save herself, allowed herself to shatter and wait until it was a safe time to re-forge the broken steel shards of her soul.
Éowyn stood alone against the coming twilight, by her own design. No longer whole, she was wrapped in mourner's garb constantly, whether she knew it or not. She was a steel flower growing dull and tarnished, drooping against the onset of cruel winter.
And strangely, Faramir found that he wanted nothing more than to see her whole again.