Okie, first off. None of these characters are mine except possibly that poor nurse. Tolkien owns the copyright on this lot. Well, did. I don't know who owns it now.
Secondly, thanks to my beta readers. Nani, Finabair, Fatima, Michelle and Kielle.
Heavy inspiration for bits and pieces of this courtesy of this article. Mostly the bit about Eomund being Elfhild's little brother.
Okay, onto the fic.
Fell Deeds Awake
By John Harris/Rosencrantz
Theoden gazed at the mound. The funeral had been over for an hour now. He felt that if he looked long enough, he could absorb the fact that Eomund was not coming back. He was sure, on some level, that Eomund was gone for good. That level was completely ignored by the rest of him, which was screaming that they'd found the wrong soldier and buried it. That they'd made a mistake. It still hadn't come up with a good reason why this unknown soldier would be wearing Eomund's armor.
It hadn't been a great day. The weather had been terrible and he'd had to spend it all outside being reminded repeatedly that there was a chance if he'd just paid more attention, he could have stopped this death at least. If Theoden had offered to give Eomund the extra riders he'd said he might need to seek out the orcs he'd been convinced were stalking his lands. Instead Theoden had told Eomund that it was merely paranoia and sent him on his way. The last time they'd spoken hadn't been pleasant. It had been nearly hostile, despite attempts on both sides to end the fight and just make up. But Theoden refused to admit that Eomund might not be overestimating the orcs and Eomund refused to back down on his belief that Theoden was just refusing to acknowledge them. Each had hoped the other would break before it was time for Eomund to leave again.
"You absolute great fool, Eomund," said Theoden, sitting down in the wet grass. "You couldn't just let them run or wait until you had more forces to back you up? You didn't consider that there might have been more?" he glared at the mound, imagining Eomund defending himself.
"But they might have escaped if I had! And they'd taken some of our horses! I told you I was right!" Eomund defended himself in Theoden's head, waving his hands everywhere as he spoke like he always had.
"Was it worth dying? Just to prove you were right? Leaving your children and wife behind? And me?" Theoden replied to it silently. He had noticed a shadow behind him a bit ago and decided that maybe speaking to shades of dead men was not the best way to inspire confidence in a ruler.
"Is that what all this is about?" Eomund glared, looking amazingly like Elfhild in that moment. He and his sister had always closely resembled each other with similar fair features and matching facial expressions. Theoden had used to deliberately rile Elfhild up just to see her frown like that. He'd done the same to Eomund. "I didn't die just to abandon you. This wasn't about you."
Theoden looked up at the sky and banished Eomund from his mind. In that last sentence Eomund's voice had changed to Theoden's and he wasn't going to allow himself to fall into self-pity.
He had, as these things went, terrible luck. First had been Elfhild, a beautiful creature that he had killed. They had said she had been sickly to begin with and that her pregnancy was solely responsible and it had not been his fault that her body couldn't have handled it, but he knew he'd been responsible for that. Then there had been Eomund, so much like his sister it had hurt Theoden.
Eomund was dead now too and Theoden was sure there had been some way for him to stop that.
Near Eomund's mound was that of Theoden's older sister, killed a month before this when she had gotten too close to the borders. Farther down was his mother, who had finally given up on her illness a year earlier.
There were getting to be very few people left.
Behind him, Grima coughed discreetly.
"You're going to catch your death out here, your majesty. At the rate we're going through people, your son will be on the throne by next week," Theoden didn't turn around to look but could nearly feel Grima's crooked smile. His advisor had yet to give up in his attempts to lighten up the mood that seemed to have settled on Edoras. Theoden was beginning to suspect a slight madness on Grima's part. He'd seemed to decide his true calling in life was to be a jester. Theoden wished Grima would just go back to trying to teach Theodred to write properly. His son was more interested in riding and fighting then learning the basics of anything and Grima's new distractions weren't helping any.
"Hardly. Some days I feel I will be the only one left. I wish to stay a bit longer. He was my kinsman," said Theoden, dismissing Grima.
"Unfortunately, sir, you are needed. Your sister has had a relapse and wishes to talk to you," Grima bowed apologetically.
Theoden sighed and gave the mound one last look before getting up and walking alongside Grima back to where he'd tethered his horse.
Grima talked excitedly of various things while they rode back, attempting to keep Theoden's mind on different things. Grima was a slight thing, especially compared to Galmod, the giant of a field marshal who had been his father and had died alongside Eomund. Theoden winced, having forgotten to ask Grima about that.
"Your sister," Grima started, warming up to what had become his favourite subject of late to complain about. Theoden knew he shouldn't indulge him in this, but he couldn't see the harm in letting Grima blow off a little steam. At least, he sometimes thought he had found a reason but it scrambled out of his thoughts as quickly as it would come. "Your sister," Grima continued, "thinks I am her maid. She thinks I am there to cater to her and make sure her blankets are properly tucked. I would appreciate it if you told her she was incorrect in this notion. Everytime I have tried I nearly lose an eye to whatever she throws at me that time. I think by the time her time with us is over there will not be a single breakable object left in all of Rohan because it would have been flung at my skull and broken against the wall!"
Theoden carefully schooled his face into an expression of seriousness, trying not to snigger at the look of pure annoyance that covered Grima's face as he related this news. If Grima wasn't trying to be a clown he was slipping up and showing how young he actually was. But Theoden had needed a trained scribe and there Grima had been and so far he hadn't turned out to be a disappointment.
"It's just her way of showing affection. Unless you haven't been phrasing your oh so reasonable requests as politely as you could?" said Theoden with a tone of blissful curiousity.
"I am perfectly polite!" Grima protested. "I wouldn't show disrespect! In front of any of you, at least." He said, grinning crookedly once more.
Theoden pulled his horse just close enough to Grima's to allow him to pat Grima on the knee. "She'll learn who the servants are and who my errand boys are soon enough. Don't you worry."
"Errand boy?" Grima glared and then yelped as his horse bolted from being too close to Theoden's.
Theoden cantered behind at a polite distance, making a mental note to ask one of the stablemasters to have a quick word with Grima over how to properly train a horse. Before he broke his neck at any rate.
Besides, it was easier to plan how he would face his sister properly without Grima nattering on in the background.
"The thing is, sir, she seems to have made a decision about something. It doesn't seem like a pleasant one either," Grima explained after they'd finally arrived and re-tied their horses. "Of course, you're supposed to already know this but you spent the entire day staring at a pile of dirt and the former shell of lord Eomund..." Grima trailed off, getting the sudden hint he'd gone a bit further then he should.
"Don't you have my son to teach? Along with my sister-son and daughter while they're here?" Theoden raised an eyebrow.
"So I do. Best of health to your sister," Grima bowed quickly and raced off.
Theoden pushed open the door and poked his head in. A nurse tending to his sister gave him a glare like he was an evil spirit come to take more of Theodwyn's life. The nurse blanched when she realized who she'd been glaring at. Theodwyn waved happily from the bed, looking to be in perfectly good health except for the grey tones around the side of her face and an unsteady hand as it waved.
"May I speak to my sister?" he asked the nurse politely.
The nurse scurried out without answering much beyond a squeak and a nod.
"Have I burned down her home or something?" asked Theoden, sitting himself beside Theodwyn. "Because I'm sure I didn't do anything to get that particular look of terror. Maybe I ran over her garden once."
Theodwyn grinned at him. "Or you had her put in the stockades for cold hands on patients."
"Entirely possible! Now," he said, grabbing her hand and ignoring the various stabs of guilt screaming at him. "What did you want to see me about?"
"Eomer and Eowyn. I'm getting worse, as you should know unless you've been under the fool impression I'm about to make a miraculous recovery. And with Eomund gone I don't really feel I'll get better. He was..."she trailed off and her face closed before she forced herself to continue. "When I die, I'd like you to take them in. Our sister already volunteered, but I wish for you to do it. You, unlike her, are not a scholar. I want my children to be warriors."
Theoden blinked. "Both of them?"
"Yes. I would... appreciate it if you trained Eowyn as a shieldmaiden. I'd already begun before I got too weak to continue. And Eomund had carried it on a bit past that." Theodwyn ducked her head and examined her blanket. "I wanted her to be like mother, you see. It would do us well to continue that tradition, in any case. Please, Theoden? Will you take them and do as I ask?"
Theoden remembered Eomund telling him about that once. A bright tale of his pride over his children back when Theodwyn had first been bedridden. Theoden quickly derailed his thoughts before he went to the conclusion of that memory. He steadfastly refused to think of it in front of his sister. His guilt when she spoke happily of Eomund was enough. He wanted to apologize to her desperately.
But how do you apologize for bedding your sister's husband?
"Well, what's your answer?" Theodwyn said.
"Huh?" his head snapped up.
She rapped him on the head. "Will you take them in and train them or not? I swear father was right some days. There really isn't a thought in there,"she added teasingly.
"Ow. Yes. Like my own. Although it might do me well to pay them more attention than that," he smiled. "Any other demands to make of me?"
"I'll come up with something. Now get me back my nurse. I hunger," Theodwyn brushed her fair hair from her eyes. "And I can interrogate her to find out just how many days you kept her in those stocks."
Theoden smiled and went off in search of the nurse and then Grima. He had to give Grima the grand news that he'd be dealing with Theodwyn's children much longer then he had previously thought. Already Grima had started wearing bandages over his hands from all the bites Eowyn was giving him. What possessed her to do that to him was a mystery but Theoden was willing to bet it was just the impulse most people got on meeting poor Grima.
Grima, he reflected, was going to have a fit when he found out. Watching his reaction would prove to be an excellent distraction from his current mire of guilt. Besides, if he ignored it long enough it might go away.
He had a kingdom to run. He didn't have time for this sort of thing.
Fin.
Secondly, thanks to my beta readers. Nani, Finabair, Fatima, Michelle and Kielle.
Heavy inspiration for bits and pieces of this courtesy of this article. Mostly the bit about Eomund being Elfhild's little brother.
Okay, onto the fic.
Fell Deeds Awake
By John Harris/Rosencrantz
Theoden gazed at the mound. The funeral had been over for an hour now. He felt that if he looked long enough, he could absorb the fact that Eomund was not coming back. He was sure, on some level, that Eomund was gone for good. That level was completely ignored by the rest of him, which was screaming that they'd found the wrong soldier and buried it. That they'd made a mistake. It still hadn't come up with a good reason why this unknown soldier would be wearing Eomund's armor.
It hadn't been a great day. The weather had been terrible and he'd had to spend it all outside being reminded repeatedly that there was a chance if he'd just paid more attention, he could have stopped this death at least. If Theoden had offered to give Eomund the extra riders he'd said he might need to seek out the orcs he'd been convinced were stalking his lands. Instead Theoden had told Eomund that it was merely paranoia and sent him on his way. The last time they'd spoken hadn't been pleasant. It had been nearly hostile, despite attempts on both sides to end the fight and just make up. But Theoden refused to admit that Eomund might not be overestimating the orcs and Eomund refused to back down on his belief that Theoden was just refusing to acknowledge them. Each had hoped the other would break before it was time for Eomund to leave again.
"You absolute great fool, Eomund," said Theoden, sitting down in the wet grass. "You couldn't just let them run or wait until you had more forces to back you up? You didn't consider that there might have been more?" he glared at the mound, imagining Eomund defending himself.
"But they might have escaped if I had! And they'd taken some of our horses! I told you I was right!" Eomund defended himself in Theoden's head, waving his hands everywhere as he spoke like he always had.
"Was it worth dying? Just to prove you were right? Leaving your children and wife behind? And me?" Theoden replied to it silently. He had noticed a shadow behind him a bit ago and decided that maybe speaking to shades of dead men was not the best way to inspire confidence in a ruler.
"Is that what all this is about?" Eomund glared, looking amazingly like Elfhild in that moment. He and his sister had always closely resembled each other with similar fair features and matching facial expressions. Theoden had used to deliberately rile Elfhild up just to see her frown like that. He'd done the same to Eomund. "I didn't die just to abandon you. This wasn't about you."
Theoden looked up at the sky and banished Eomund from his mind. In that last sentence Eomund's voice had changed to Theoden's and he wasn't going to allow himself to fall into self-pity.
He had, as these things went, terrible luck. First had been Elfhild, a beautiful creature that he had killed. They had said she had been sickly to begin with and that her pregnancy was solely responsible and it had not been his fault that her body couldn't have handled it, but he knew he'd been responsible for that. Then there had been Eomund, so much like his sister it had hurt Theoden.
Eomund was dead now too and Theoden was sure there had been some way for him to stop that.
Near Eomund's mound was that of Theoden's older sister, killed a month before this when she had gotten too close to the borders. Farther down was his mother, who had finally given up on her illness a year earlier.
There were getting to be very few people left.
Behind him, Grima coughed discreetly.
"You're going to catch your death out here, your majesty. At the rate we're going through people, your son will be on the throne by next week," Theoden didn't turn around to look but could nearly feel Grima's crooked smile. His advisor had yet to give up in his attempts to lighten up the mood that seemed to have settled on Edoras. Theoden was beginning to suspect a slight madness on Grima's part. He'd seemed to decide his true calling in life was to be a jester. Theoden wished Grima would just go back to trying to teach Theodred to write properly. His son was more interested in riding and fighting then learning the basics of anything and Grima's new distractions weren't helping any.
"Hardly. Some days I feel I will be the only one left. I wish to stay a bit longer. He was my kinsman," said Theoden, dismissing Grima.
"Unfortunately, sir, you are needed. Your sister has had a relapse and wishes to talk to you," Grima bowed apologetically.
Theoden sighed and gave the mound one last look before getting up and walking alongside Grima back to where he'd tethered his horse.
Grima talked excitedly of various things while they rode back, attempting to keep Theoden's mind on different things. Grima was a slight thing, especially compared to Galmod, the giant of a field marshal who had been his father and had died alongside Eomund. Theoden winced, having forgotten to ask Grima about that.
"Your sister," Grima started, warming up to what had become his favourite subject of late to complain about. Theoden knew he shouldn't indulge him in this, but he couldn't see the harm in letting Grima blow off a little steam. At least, he sometimes thought he had found a reason but it scrambled out of his thoughts as quickly as it would come. "Your sister," Grima continued, "thinks I am her maid. She thinks I am there to cater to her and make sure her blankets are properly tucked. I would appreciate it if you told her she was incorrect in this notion. Everytime I have tried I nearly lose an eye to whatever she throws at me that time. I think by the time her time with us is over there will not be a single breakable object left in all of Rohan because it would have been flung at my skull and broken against the wall!"
Theoden carefully schooled his face into an expression of seriousness, trying not to snigger at the look of pure annoyance that covered Grima's face as he related this news. If Grima wasn't trying to be a clown he was slipping up and showing how young he actually was. But Theoden had needed a trained scribe and there Grima had been and so far he hadn't turned out to be a disappointment.
"It's just her way of showing affection. Unless you haven't been phrasing your oh so reasonable requests as politely as you could?" said Theoden with a tone of blissful curiousity.
"I am perfectly polite!" Grima protested. "I wouldn't show disrespect! In front of any of you, at least." He said, grinning crookedly once more.
Theoden pulled his horse just close enough to Grima's to allow him to pat Grima on the knee. "She'll learn who the servants are and who my errand boys are soon enough. Don't you worry."
"Errand boy?" Grima glared and then yelped as his horse bolted from being too close to Theoden's.
Theoden cantered behind at a polite distance, making a mental note to ask one of the stablemasters to have a quick word with Grima over how to properly train a horse. Before he broke his neck at any rate.
Besides, it was easier to plan how he would face his sister properly without Grima nattering on in the background.
"The thing is, sir, she seems to have made a decision about something. It doesn't seem like a pleasant one either," Grima explained after they'd finally arrived and re-tied their horses. "Of course, you're supposed to already know this but you spent the entire day staring at a pile of dirt and the former shell of lord Eomund..." Grima trailed off, getting the sudden hint he'd gone a bit further then he should.
"Don't you have my son to teach? Along with my sister-son and daughter while they're here?" Theoden raised an eyebrow.
"So I do. Best of health to your sister," Grima bowed quickly and raced off.
Theoden pushed open the door and poked his head in. A nurse tending to his sister gave him a glare like he was an evil spirit come to take more of Theodwyn's life. The nurse blanched when she realized who she'd been glaring at. Theodwyn waved happily from the bed, looking to be in perfectly good health except for the grey tones around the side of her face and an unsteady hand as it waved.
"May I speak to my sister?" he asked the nurse politely.
The nurse scurried out without answering much beyond a squeak and a nod.
"Have I burned down her home or something?" asked Theoden, sitting himself beside Theodwyn. "Because I'm sure I didn't do anything to get that particular look of terror. Maybe I ran over her garden once."
Theodwyn grinned at him. "Or you had her put in the stockades for cold hands on patients."
"Entirely possible! Now," he said, grabbing her hand and ignoring the various stabs of guilt screaming at him. "What did you want to see me about?"
"Eomer and Eowyn. I'm getting worse, as you should know unless you've been under the fool impression I'm about to make a miraculous recovery. And with Eomund gone I don't really feel I'll get better. He was..."she trailed off and her face closed before she forced herself to continue. "When I die, I'd like you to take them in. Our sister already volunteered, but I wish for you to do it. You, unlike her, are not a scholar. I want my children to be warriors."
Theoden blinked. "Both of them?"
"Yes. I would... appreciate it if you trained Eowyn as a shieldmaiden. I'd already begun before I got too weak to continue. And Eomund had carried it on a bit past that." Theodwyn ducked her head and examined her blanket. "I wanted her to be like mother, you see. It would do us well to continue that tradition, in any case. Please, Theoden? Will you take them and do as I ask?"
Theoden remembered Eomund telling him about that once. A bright tale of his pride over his children back when Theodwyn had first been bedridden. Theoden quickly derailed his thoughts before he went to the conclusion of that memory. He steadfastly refused to think of it in front of his sister. His guilt when she spoke happily of Eomund was enough. He wanted to apologize to her desperately.
But how do you apologize for bedding your sister's husband?
"Well, what's your answer?" Theodwyn said.
"Huh?" his head snapped up.
She rapped him on the head. "Will you take them in and train them or not? I swear father was right some days. There really isn't a thought in there,"she added teasingly.
"Ow. Yes. Like my own. Although it might do me well to pay them more attention than that," he smiled. "Any other demands to make of me?"
"I'll come up with something. Now get me back my nurse. I hunger," Theodwyn brushed her fair hair from her eyes. "And I can interrogate her to find out just how many days you kept her in those stocks."
Theoden smiled and went off in search of the nurse and then Grima. He had to give Grima the grand news that he'd be dealing with Theodwyn's children much longer then he had previously thought. Already Grima had started wearing bandages over his hands from all the bites Eowyn was giving him. What possessed her to do that to him was a mystery but Theoden was willing to bet it was just the impulse most people got on meeting poor Grima.
Grima, he reflected, was going to have a fit when he found out. Watching his reaction would prove to be an excellent distraction from his current mire of guilt. Besides, if he ignored it long enough it might go away.
He had a kingdom to run. He didn't have time for this sort of thing.
Fin.