Chapter One: Edoras
She woke abruptly from the same reoccurring dream she'd had for the past several months.
She was walking alone in a forest, shaded trees drifting past her, and fog looming about her bare feet. She would come to a clearing and within the clearing there was a small child. It was a boy, with dark brown hair, an oval face, and strong violet-blue eyes. She didn't understand the significance of the child but somewhere inside of her she knew that the boy was linked to her. His face would turn to stare at her and while he looked akin to an angel, she could feel the otherworld qualities residing within him. He bent back away from her to hide what he was doing. When she moved forward to see what he was doing his head would snap back to look at her and she froze. In his eyes she saw something—someone—familiar, and yet so strange.
It were those eyes that had haunted her dreams and each time prompted her awake, whether it was the middle of the night or early morning. She'd even tried a tincture to help her sleep more soundly, something she would rarely have done in the past. She thought about it time and again. It was as if being away from her home had made her mind restless and while her body had physically recovered from the weariness of war, her mind refused to recover.
She slipped out of her bed, pulled on her night cloak and drew herself up from the unpleasant slumber and nightmare altogether. She then wandered the corridors of Meduseld in search of some answers. She would not find them in anyone residing in the Hall, but she hoped to remove herself from one state of being to discover another state in another place. Sometimes walking aimlessly while working on a problem was the best way to solve it.
The fires of the hall were glowing red with embers. It was warm in the hall and so the fires hadn't been necessary at the dinner aside from cooking the meat and bringing light to the hall. She drifted through the empty hall towards the far right side where she knew a slip-door was and she could leave without drawing too much attention to herself. She didn't really want to be disturbed.
She exited the enclosed and fortified hall to stand on the parapet of stone that surrounded the vast building. From that vantage point she could see the village down below, the fields beyond that, and then the mountains bordering those fields. For miles and miles, Edoras had long been able to see its enemies as they approached. This was no different from Minas Tirith, but something about Edoras gave her a sense of being grounded to something. In Minas Tirith she had hoped to escape the people and man-made enclosures. Perhaps it was the white stone that she had disliked. Edoras was not like that. It was, despite being on a high hill, very rooted and for once she enjoyed being this close to the earth.
There was light to the east and the sun was rising. Soon the city would rise with it and begin the day.
"Aranee?"
She jumped slightly, placing a hand on her heart as she whirled around to see who had called her name. It was Éomer. He was plainly dressed in what she knew to be his bed clothes; a pair of dark brown breaches and a pale blue tunic. He didn't have his boots on however.
"You scared me," Aranee sighed.
"I apologize for the intrusion. I saw you leave and was compelled to follow." He came to stand beside her and smiled gently.
"Your compulsions where I am concerned are strange, Éomer."
"So you claim," he replied. He then took her hand in his and linking his fingers with hers, brought her hand up to his mouth for a small kiss. He did not release her hand when the kiss was over but Aranee didn't mind.
In the months that she had been at Edoras, trying to bring herself back to the way she had been before the war and before the attack on Aragorn as well as the loss of Arwen's child, Aranee had come to rely on Éomer a great deal.
"Was it the dream?" he asked her.
"Aye. It's always the same and always shakes me to my core in the same way. It's becoming a nuisance." Aranee leaned into Éomer, hoping to use some of his unyielding strength to power her soul.
"It does seem to trouble you so." He was silent for a time, trying to find the words to say to her. In the time since becoming king, as well as in the time that Aranee had been a guest of his hall, he had been patient, a skill he had never entirely learned to master. He refused to push or pull Aranee one way or the other. He would help her make the decision she wanted to make and when it was beneficial to her, he was overjoyed. His sister had advised him against pursuing Aranee, and while he outwardly had, he still held secret hopes that one day she would see him as he saw her. "What would you like to do today, my dear?" he asked, using one of the small endearments she had allowed him to use.
"Surely as the king you cannot take the day to entertain me, Éomer, and I wouldn't ask for it," she turned to smile at him, "no matter how I would wish it."
"Alas not the entire day," he replied, "but I do have some time. Would you like to go riding with me?"
While Aranee had never been good on a horse, living with the horse people of Rohan had enabled her to adapt fairly quickly. She was now an accomplished rider, thanks to Éowyn and Éomer who had both tutored her. She loved the feeling of the wind whipping through her hair, drawing the tendrils this way and that way, making her feel as light as a feather. Her horse, Leitha Fea, literally translated from Elfish into the words 'free spirit', which suited her very well.
"I would like that very much," she squeezed his hand that was still linked with hers and leant her head on his shoulder.
"As would I." They stood there for a few minutes, pondering the landscape. Éomer was focused entirely on the woman standing beside him, enjoying the feeling of having her near, as she had come to confide in him in the past few months. If Éowyn was not readily available or near at hand, Aranee would come to Éomer. He would listen intently and when she asked him "What should I do? he would reply in earnest, giving her the answer he thought fitting thought not necessarily the one she wanted to hear. She always said she valued his honesty and would perhaps squeeze his hand or kiss him on the cheek before she left to make the decision.
Aranee was thinking about how in such a short period of time Éomer had come to mean so much to her. Éowyn and Faramir, before leaving for Edoras, both warned her of his intentions and while that had frightened her at first, she needn't have worried. Éomer was as kind and as gracious as any man. He was perhaps now in second place in her heart beside Faramir. She would always have preferred to speak to Faramir about the things she was thinking, but as he was thousands of leagues away and messages back and forth were possible, they weren't always practical. And she had never been able to write things as well as she could tell them. But Éomer was, while not a brother to her, he was a dear friend whom she trusted and relied on very much. The intimacy that they had shared over time had brought them closer together. She was not ready to accept him fully in the role that he desire, and on the rare occasion would mention to her, he did not pry at her feelings and understood her well.
She found herself nodding to sleep on Éomer's shoulder and he must have noticed because he said, "Come, you need rest. We shall ride later when you feel up to it." She only shook her head in agreement and let him direct her back through the slip-door and back through the hall. Several serfs were about, setting the hall to rights after the night meal and readying it for the morning meal.
Éomer showed her to her room and rather than wait at the door as a gentleman would have done, he followed her inside. He had done it a few times before and while Aranee minded at times, this was not one of those times. She trusted him with her life and therefore also with her virtue. He would not assume anything of her character.
She slipped out of her night cloak and sat down on her bed gingerly, suddenly exhausted. "I hope I can rest without waking from the nightmare this time."
Éomer saw the frightened look on her face, and knowing how much this nightmare scared her he took a chance and dropping down to kneel before her, said, "Would you prefer if I stayed and when you woke again I would be here?"
Aranee looked down at him, wondering if he had said it as a jest, but when she met his eyes she saw only complete earnest. She knew he would gladly stay by her side to make sure she did not awake from her nightmare alone, but she would not allow him to single her out like that. She knew she had his affections, but she would not act on that offer, not even one as innocent and as noble as this. She shook her head, "No Éomer," she said. Her hand lifted inadvertently to his cheek, cupping it gently. The unspoken love between them was obvious but this was not what Aranee needed. "I will be fine on my own. I appreciate the offer though, and will remember it in the future, should I need it."
"Please do. You know I am at your service, Aranee. You need only to call and I will answer." Taking her hand from his face he kissed the back of it and rose, stopping briefly to plant a kiss on her forehead. "Get some rest. Riding later will take some strength out of you and we can't have you falling off your horse." His eyes sparkled as he smiled, lighting up his face, a look that Aranee adored.
She nodded, "I will rest."
He left the room and while there had been no conscious clenching of her heart to protect it from Éomer's affections, Aranee could feel a weight lifting from her chest. This was the reason she knew that she did not want a romantic entanglement with Éomer. While her body might enjoy the closeness with Éomer and she unloaded her mind to him regularly, she knew that she always had this barrier up when he was around. It was not impenetrable anymore, but most of his deeper affection bounced right off her, keeping her safe from being truly hurt. She was not strong enough inside to allow him in fully.
Éowyn clutched the note to her bosom and lay back against her bed. She had only four letters from Faramir in all the eight months she had been back at Edoras. And while she had missed Edoras when she was in Minas Tirith, she had Faramir to comfort her and keep her company. Now that she had returned to Minas Tirith, while there was much to do, when she had a spare moment she could not stop thinking about him. He was on her mind when she fell asleep and when she woke again. The heartache was becoming unbearable. All she had were those four letters that he had written her.
He had written her reasonably sized letters and they told of many changes in Minas Tirith in the months since she'd been home. They also expressed his feelings for her and how he missed her. They were mirrored thoughts of hers and now she found herself wishing to go back to the White City.
Perhaps she would go to Éomer and ask for leave to go back and visit Faramir. She wondered if he would agree to it. While he had been very kind and generous in other aspects of her life, she wondered as the new male head of the house, would he allow his sister to go and visit another man that was not her betrothed. Yet if she asked Faramir to come visit, she would feel guilty at asking him to abandon his duties. Besides, if she wrote him today the message would probably not reach him for a month, and then his response would take another month and it might say that he wasn't coming. Would she want to read such a letter?
"Oh I don't know what to do," she huffed aloud and threw aside her blankets and went through her morning ablutions to get dressed for the day.
She entered the hall to find it busy and full of people, as it had been every day since returning. There were countless things to do and people to answer to. At the end of each day she was worn through and could only fall back on her bed and drift to sleep thinking of Faramir.
She walked over and greeted her brother. "Morning Brother," she said cheerfully.
"Sister," he nodded. "Did you sleep well?"
"I did, thank you." She smiled and broke off a piece of bread from the loaf in front of her and her brother poured her a cup of honey mead. "What are your plans for the day?"
"Soren and Gili have requested an audience with me this morning, and this afternoon I plan to go riding with Aranee." Soren and Gili were high ranking captains of the Rohirrim that Éomer had entrusted a lot of responsibility once crowned king.
"Aranee, have you already spoken to her today? Is she awake?" Éowyn questioned as she looked about the hall for signs of her friend.
"I have spoken with her, in the early hours before the sun had risen." He turned his head to speak closer to Éowyn, "She had another nightmare in the night."
Éowyn's brow furrowed. She knew only too well of the nightmare as Aranee had confided in her first before she went to Éomer. It was something that troubled Éowyn also because she saw that Aranee was rested enough after the attack on Aragorn, but this was something new that had risen in its stead. "Éomer, I have had a thought. Do you suppose that this dream is simply a manifest of Aranee's mind to keep her down? Perhaps it means nothing and it's just something her mind conjured to make her believe she is not strong enough to return to healing?"
"Her mind would do this unconsciously?" Éomer frowned.
"I believe it would. Her self-esteem after all that happened was so close to the ground that she might have imagined up something else for her to worry about as an excuse to stay and not return to Minas Tirith and her duties as a Healer."
"It is possible," Éomer conceded. "But what of the contents of the dream? How does her mind manifest such thoughts that it scares her so? Wouldn't she know she made it up and thus be unafraid of it?"
Éowyn shook her head, "No, her subconscious would bury the creation deeper than she could find it. But yes the contents of the dream startle me too. Somewhere within Aranee they mean something, but I haven't the slightest clue as to what they could mean." Lying to her brother was not an easy task, but in this instance she had to. Aranee had described the boy in the dream to Éowyn and while she hated to think about it, Éowyn thought that the dream boy could very easily be a vision of the child that Arwen had lost in the attempts to save Aragorn's life. This was probably why Aranee said she felt akin to the boy and yet he was so very strange to her at the same time.
Éowyn had been thinking this over the past month or so and hadn't yet brought it up with Aranee. She feared that Aranee might lose whatever progress she had made in the previous months and fall back into the exhaustion and self-depravity that had existed when she'd come to Edoras.
Both Éowyn and Éomer had seen how Aranee had wandered the unfamiliar halls of Meduseld and when she'd tired of the halls she would escape to the streets of Edoras among the people she did not know. She barely spoke to anyone during the first few weeks of her stay and it frightened Éowyn then as much as it did now to think of her going back to such a state.
"Do you think I should question her about the dream, perhaps on our ride?" Éomer asked, finishing the remains of his bread, cheese and mead.
Éowyn considered. She had seen how close he had gotten to Aranee but was still skeptical because of all Aranee had discussed with her. While she was fond of Éomer, Aranee had told Éowyn that she did not want the romantic entanglement yet. Even after eight months of being close to Éomer, there was still something holding her back. Éowyn hadn't asked her what was holding her back, but she suspected that Aranee would return that she didn't know. No matter how much Aranee told Éowyn, she always felt that she was holding something back. She held back from everyone, and while she had grown closer than Éowyn had expected to her brother, Aranee was still very private with her thoughts.
"I think you need to gauge that for yourself, Brother," Éowyn finally said. "Aranee is a very tender soul and the slightest thing could tip the balance for better or for worse. I know of only one person she would probably tell, and he is leagues away from here."
"Faramir," Éomer said knowingly. He knew how close the Captain of Gondor was with the Lady of the Mountain, and even now when Faramir was so far away, he still felt jealous. He nodded resolutely, "If I cannot discover anything then I shall send for him. I am sure that she would like to see him and he would help greatly, more so than either of us can."
Éowyn could not help the smile that spread across her face. If her brother sent for Faramir, then he was sure to come. Éomer would also send the fastest messenger and then she would not have to wait months for him to arrive.
Éomer saw the smile on his sister's face and a grin spread across his face as well. "I know that you too would enjoy having him close again."
Éowyn nodded, "Yes, I would."
"If his presence is necessary, then when he is here, I shall ask him his intentions, dear sister, and perhaps we shall have a wedding ceremony to celebrate in the near future."
Éowyn was not a shy person by nature, but having her brother talk about the idea of a marriage for her in the future brought a blush to her face that she had not known for quite some time. "I cannot deny that I do hope for it," she told him.
"Nor should you deny it. It's a very real possibility." He then stood and said, "I'll let you know what my course of action is before the day is out," and left the table to see to his kingly duties of the day, leaving Éowyn in a cloud of happiness and hope.
Aranee woke for the second time and could not recall if she had had any dreams. She suspected that by not remembering if she had, she hadn't and for that she was grateful. She felt much more rested then the last time she'd woken which was also a good sign.
She washed and dressed quickly, wanting to go out and find some food quickly. She was also looking forward to her ride with Éomer. It had been quite some time since she had been riding on the Riddermark and she was almost giddy thinking about it. There was something about riding that she felt instinctively freer and it gave her a moment to forget herself.
In her riding clothes, a pair of breaches underneath a dress that had been specially made with a slit down the front and back to allow her to ride astride her horse, she exited her room, making her way to the great hall. The pair of breaches underneath the dress were made of a tan-colored leather and her riding dress was a sky-blue color with long sleeves and a leather belt around her waist. She'd tied her hair back in a single braid for the time being, but she fully expected to pull the tie loose and let the wind whip through her hair once on her horse.
She entered the hall and greeted several people she had come to know since coming to visit. Though now that she thought about it, she rather lived here and it was not just a visit. She enjoyed being here, much more than she had enjoyed living in Minas Tirith. Perhaps it was because she only thought herself as a guest here and in Minas Tirith she had roles and responsibilities that many people counted on her for. There were still things expected of her here, but not as heavily weighted as in Minas Tirith. There were very few lives on the line in Edoras and Aranee liked it that way.
She ate what little she could, her appetite not quite back to what it used to be, she blamed the nightmares for that, and then exited the hall, heading in the direction of the stables. Even if Éomer was not around for their ride yet, she felt stronger near her beautiful bay. Walking down the steps of Meduseld was always rather tricky because they were very steep, but she managed and then made her way around the corner to the left to find the King's Stables.
She nodded to the Stable Master, Harrum, who was busy tending to another horse and made her way to Leitha Fea's stall. The horse could hear her coming and poked her head out to greet Aranee, nudging her nose against Aranee's hand and then coming to rest against the inner part of her shoulder, as if she were hugging her.
"Fea, you seem to have missed me," Aranee spoke to the gentle bay horse, who was a deep cinnamon brown color with a white-grey nose and white front legs. "I should not neglect you. I will try to make a visit to you every day, and a ride every other day, how does that sound?" Fea nodded her head up and down and whinnied happily. Aranee smiled widely and leaned her head against Fea's forehead briefly before turning to grab a brush from the stall wall. "I will brush you down before our ride today, and then after as well. Extra love for an extra special girl." Fea neighed appreciatively and Aranee went to work brushing her.
This is where Éomer found her half an hour later. She must have been quite into brushing Leitha because when he poked his head around the corner to see her, she jumped a little and let out a yip of surprise. "Éomer, you startled me," she said, holding a hand over her heart as it jumped frantically in her chest.
"My apologies. For that was not my intention."
"Of course not," Aranee conceded, setting the brush down. "Is your day clear now?"
He nodded, "I have taken care of all I can for the time being. Are you ready to go?"
"I have to saddle Fea, but then I will be."
"Oh please, allow me." He hefted Fea's saddle off the rack beside him and entered the stall. Aranee threw the blanket over her horse's back and then Éomer followed with the saddle and began adjusting the buckles and leather straps accordingly.
"When did you first learn to saddle a horse?" Aranee asked as she stood back and watched Éomer's fingers nimbly work over the saddle.
Éomer laughed, "I don't know if it was ever 'learning' as much as it was always in my blood to know how. As far back as I can remember I have known how to take care of a horse. I wonder at times if I am part horse myself."
"It must be a good feeling," Aranee said quietly, toying with the tips of her hair as she spoke, "to be a part of something and feel one with it so intricately."
Éomer's fingers stilled on the saddle and he looked back to where Aranee stood, her body closed in on itself, her head tilted down. He knew exactly what she was thinking and it tormented him as much as he was sure it tormented her. He hated seeing her run herself into the ground like this. She no longer felt like she had purpose and Éomer wanted, more than anything, a way to show her she was wrong. But as quickly as it had flashed across her person, it was gone and the wall that protected her was back.
He stepped back and held out his hand to her and she took it without hesitation. She did not need the assistance to get onto Fea, but she was grateful for the personal contact. She hooked her left foot in the stirrup and used the saddle horn and Éomer's shoulder to lift herself, throwing her right left over and settling in the saddle comfortably. "Are the stirrup's adjusted well enough?" Éomer asked, stepping back to look at her legs.
"Yes, they're fine," Aranee replied. "Thank you."
Éomer nodded. "You ride on out to the fields and I'll catch up with you. I know how anxious you are to start."
She did not have to be told twice and after Éomer had stepped out of the way, she kicked Fea lightly and started to trot, and then canter, and as she left the city of Edoras atop the hill, she was galloping as fast as Fea's legs would carry her. She reached up to her hair with one hand and undid the tie that fastened it in a braid, letting the wind whip the tendrils around in the breeze.
Éomer watched her go and moved over to his own horse, a brave war horse that had seen just as many battles as Éomer had. Éomer was mesmerized with Aranee and the way she rode. She took to it like a fish took to water and it make him smile knowing he had given her that small freedom in her life. Hooking his foot in the stirrup and throwing himself over the horse's back, he rode out to see how far she'd gotten in the mere minutes that had passed. Éomer didn't not have to even guess guess to know she was going to be a league away by now, racing around, trying to free herself from her own thoughts.