Oh, well, who knows why? I keep finding new opportunities for fluff within myself. Bah, humbug.
Disclaimer: Faramir, Éowyn, their relationship, the Houses of Healing, the Witch-King and the Stewardship of Gondor all belong to Tolkien or whoever is in charge that-a-way. My heinous interpretations: want? Take.
"Would you still love me if I were as large as a mare?"
The tone was idle, and the unfathomable eyes of Éowyn were half-shut as she sprawled across the bed, but the question came, suddenly, from nowhere, and startled Faramir to full wakefulness. Their chamber was silent and dark, the sun not yet rose. Faramir roused himself from a contemplation of his lady's hair by the light of a single candle, and smiled, lazily.
"I should," he said, his voice teasing and low. "Even if the men should urge me to mount a siege-tower on your back."
Éowyn laughed in her quiet way, deep from her throat. Her eyelashes settled peacefully on her cheeks. "Thank you," she murmured.
Faramir pushed himself onto his elbows, woolen blankets sliding from his bare back; the air that came through the slits between shutters was cold and refreshing and dried the dampness in the small of his back. He smiled perplexedly down at her. "Now what prompted you to ask that, I wonder?"
A little frown creased the right corner of Éowyn's handsome little mouth. Her only answer was to turn over, and ask, in an embarrassed sort of way, "Would you still love me if I couldn't fight or ride?"
"Of course I would." Faramir sat up fully, eyebrows held up and amused. "What is this, Éowyn? You are beautiful and you are a shield-maiden, but that is not why I love you. I love you because you are Éowyn and you will always be Éowyn and my own fair sweet child and because I love you," he finished lamely.
Éowyn gulped convulsively, almost a laugh; Faramir admitted to himself he could sometimes love her best when she was being weak and a silly girl, because he was the only one who knew she was a little, deep inside, a silly girl. He brushed his hand along the curve of her jaw, from ear to chin. Éowyn turned and drew Faramir to her until their foreheads touched. "Thank you," she whispered, and being so close, he had must kiss her, and their talk turned to other things…
Again it was silent, and Faramir was drawing his fingers through the long flaxen tangles of Éowyn's mane, the worried look that sometimes settled on his brow completely smoothed away. The room was grey with dawn.
Éowyn was lying flat on her back with the blankets knotted around her legs and a small puzzled smile gracing her lips. "One more," she begged, laughing, and Faramir chuckled.
"Very well, woman!" he pronounced. "Everything must come in threes. Let's have it, then."
She grinned, wide and lazy, all throughout her question, with her eyes sparkling but her voice carefully held solemn. "Would you still love me if I were cruel to you, and cursed you every morn?"
Faramir tossed his hair back and stroked the beginnings of a beard with a mad smile. "Now that is a hard one!" he said. "But wait – were you not cruel to me when we first met? Did you not scorn me, you, the cold-hearted girl who slew the Witch-King? Would you not have slain me when I could not allow you to leave the gardens?" He fell back upon the bed in an exaggerated parody of a swoon.
Éowyn laughed again and pushed her curled fingers to her lips. "I was, and I did, and I would have, and I desire your answer, milord."
He turned his head with an indolent smile. "Yes, for my part, yes again and thrice yes. Look, it is morn now – you may issue foul oaths against me if you like." Éowyn laid her head upon his shoulder, and Faramir allowed his eyes to close. "I await your pleasure."
Faramir stood at his table, marking maps with a quill, when Éowyn entered. Her bearing was upright and her step hasty, and her voice was tight with excitement when she said, "Milord Faramir, would you love me if I were as large as a mare?"
Faramir harkened back, and frowned, and placed down his quill. "I would," he acknowledged, fixing his brocaded cuffs and awaiting the second test.
Éowyn stepped once closer. "And would you love me if I could not fight or ride?"
"I would," the Steward said.
The passion in her stance and eye and tone were easily apparent now, and nearly getting the better of her, as she had to control her stride to a walk. Her words, tumbling over one another, matched the beat of her feet, and she laughed as she spoke. "Would you still love me if I were cruel to you, and cursed you every morn, though I would know not what I was saying? You will have to excuse me when I do," she added. Éowyn and Faramir stood separated only by a three-foot expanse of wood.
Faramir quickly rounded the table and placed his hands upon her shoulders. "I know not why you speak thus, but I would," he swore.
"That is good," Éowyn cried happily, her eyes alight with a terrible fire and her voice trembling. For the first time Faramir noticed how strangely she stood, with her hands folded and shaking restlessly across her belly. "Because – because, milord – because Faramir, I am carrying your son – "