Notes: This is a strange pairing, I recognize. I was struck with inspiration, however.
Winter Rose
It is like watching a ghost. She is there one moment, and gone the next. The sun shines through her she is so translucent. But does she even feel the warmth of the sun as it passes through her thin body? Aicheber, the Warden, calls her a statue. Yet I don't think so. She's too delicate to be a statue. Others see only her ice, but that is not her. That is what surrounds her. She cannot help it. It is not part of her. It is like an uncontrollable winter. When the frost comes, the flowers under its fingers are silenced.
She walks away from the wall where in the past she stood with the Lord Faramir for so long, talking of things unknown. They often walked through the gardens together.
But the Lord Faramir is gone now, and we all seem to be holding our breaths until his return. When will he be back to claim his prize? When will he break through, finally, the icy barrier that surrounds the Lady Eowyn? He will return, we all know.
But he's not here now. Only I am. I must keep her for him, I know. I must keep her alive until she can find happiness in him. It is difficult, however, knowing that she is his, and not mine.
But all she has is me. Her friends and family have abandoned her. Even the Lord Faramir has abandoned her. Does she not see this?
But she does. What she does not see is me.
I am just another stone on the path on which she walks. She does not even notice me. I go to her each day, but she pays me no heed. If I had gotten down on my knees to worship her, she would still not see me.
She bends over some flowers, examining because she has naught else to do, but not because she takes any joy in seeing the fair roses bloom. They are not my roses. Those are Aileen's. Mine are next. But she does not look at them. She ignores them, as though they were not there.
Why does she ignore me?
Because I am nothing. I know this in my heart. There is nothing to me to add dimension. I walk through this world in that ungainly way of mine without so much a glance from others. Not even a glance of disgust.
But she is different. She is more than is seen, so why can't she see more than is seen? I will never understand.
She bends over another rose. Hallawen's. Not mine.
I have a small rose bush. All the others have large ones, which they tend constantly. For me, my patients are my roses. She is my rose.
She is my rose, but not just any rose. She is like a rose in winter. So delicate, yet able to endure beyond belief the harsh winds that are thrown at her. But she is vulnerable. Someone must shelter her from the cold, but let the sun reach her. I am her shelter. I defeat the bitter cold, and protect her, never abandoning her, until the summer comes, and with it the sun. Faramir. Her sun. I will protect her, but I will let the sunlight in. Because I love her. The sun will shine through me—the cold statue of a woman, the one they call Ioreth—and reach her.
Because I am translucent.
But my rose will live.