AN INNOCENT GAME
By: Rai
Rating: K

Author's Note: In this latest and most recently completed piece to the Tales from the Hall of Fire, comes a story as relayed by King Éomer of Rohan on the final days of his childhood and the bond he once shared with his beloved sister Éowyn. It is a tale of lost innocence and love, but one also tinged with regret and sadness. Because everyone was once a child.

Spoilers: As far as Tolkien's direct works, there are none, although it would be logical to at least have an already establish knowledge of said characters. Some names of places (such as Aldburg) were also taken from the game The Lord of the Rings Online.

Disclaimer: The characters and universe exemplified within this short story are the property and purchase of one Tolkien Enterprises. Please be advised that this is a fan-made endeavour in which no money is solicited for its distribution and is written solely in celebration of the original works, which this piece supports fully.

"Whatcha doing?"

Éomer yelped in surprise, almost dropping the axe he held in his hands as the messy blonde mop of hair that was the top of his younger sister's head popped up over the pile of firewood he was chopping away at behind their home in Aldburg.

Realizing who it was, the eight-year-old adopted the grown-up scowl he learned from the stable-master the other day. "Don't do that, Éowyn," he hissed as he carefully put the axe down and out of harm's way before brushing away his own mop of blonde hair from his eyes. "I could have chopped off your head!"

"Why would you do that?" asked Éowyn innocently as she climbed the remainder of the way onto the woodpile, her brown smock covered in splinters and wood chips which was very un-lady like, and yet very much like Éowyn. She perched herself at the top of the pile, brown slippers swinging as she looked down at her brother in a way that only a four-year old could. "I didn't do anything."

Éomer ignored the question as he plucked his sister from the top of pile and swung her back down to ground level, an action that made her shriek with the happy laughter that can only be found in children.

Éomer resisted the way his mouth tugged at his cheeks as he looked upon the little girl that he loved. Instead, he adopted a frown and in the most serious voice he could muster, he asked, "Aren't you supposed to be inside with momma?"

The question wiped the grin off Éowyn's face and drew a stubborn pout from his sister. "Maybe," she said quietly.

"So why are you here, little imp?" he scolded gently, his hands on his hips.

"Because I want to play with you!" She reached over and tugged on his little green tunic excitedly, a big toothy grin stretched across her chubby face as she looked up at her older brother expectantly.

Éomer couldn't help himself. She always knew how best to make him happy.

On this day, he smiled at the little sibling that so often followed him about the town like a happy shadow, singing her funny little songs about the ponies and the flowers. It always cheered him up, especially when their father was on yet another one of his hunting expeditions on the Eastfold plain of Rohan. It is a trip that lately has left Éomer so scared for his father, that he often found himself missing him terribly.

And so, even with the four year difference between them, he could hardly say no to the little grey-eyed girl that he lovingly nicknamed "little imp."

Seeing her older brother's grin, Éowyn squealed happily as she grabbed his hand and dragged him away from his woodpile and work. Laughing, they both ran towards their favourite play spot, the small hill above their home covered in long grasses in the summer. At the top of the hill sat a large rock, of perfect height and level for the two of them to treat as their stage of great adventure and heroism.

Together they ascended the hill, racing each other to the top, with Éomer allowing his little sister to streak ahead of him with a giggle, the long grasses of Rohan swaying swiftly as they scampered past on little feet.

"Let's play horsies," she called breathlessly to him as she hopped from one foot to the other in excitement.

Éomer stopped sharply, the colour on his face draining. "No way," he said firmly. "No more horsies! Not after what happened last time!" He was still smarting from the scolding their mother gave him for letting his sister roll around in the mud after they had played that particular game the other week. According to her, they were still finding patches of mud in Éowyn's hair.

Éowyn frowned at the rejection. "Well then..." she said slowly as she looked at the ground before giving him a mischievous grin, "wanna play... war?"

It was Éomer's favourite game right now and she knew it. "Are the swords still in their hiding place?" he asked excitedly as he scrambled his way on top of the rock that was their make-believe mountain.

"Yep yep," said Éowyn as she pulled two straight sticks from beneath the pile of dead grass that had constituted as their hiding spot. She held one of them up so that Éomer could retrieve his imaginary weapon before she ran around the rock waving her stick wildly at the imaginary monsters she went about slaying.

"Stop, stop, stop," yelled Éomer as he jumped down from his perch next to his sister, holding his hands wide. "That's not how you use a sword, little imp. Remember what I taught you the other day? Swing it with purpose."

Éowyn stopped her swinging to turn on her brother, grimacing. "But that's what it looks like they're doing on the walls at home or pictures in the books," she said. She pointed her stick at him. "Many monsters everywhere! But I will save you with my big sword."

"No Éowyn," he said firmly, but it was too late. She had begun to swing her stick about wildly once narrowly missing his head as she went about slaying the imaginary demons that surrounded them. "Éowyn, slow down!" cried Éomer as he ducked another swing of her stick as she twirled, laughing manically, ignorant to his pleas.

"Stop!"

He had only meant to disarm her, to sharply rap the side of his sister's hand and make her drop her weapon. He had seen his father do it once, and others since in the training halls at home. And it had seemed like a simple thing to do.

But perhaps her swings were too wild, and her movements too unpredictable.

He could only watch in horror as he watched the stick he held, his imaginary sword, bypassed her wide-spread arms and made contact with the side of her head with an audible thwack. In slow motion, he watched in terror as her little feet lost their balance for she had slipped at the impact of his swing at her head. And his eyes widened as her head then collided violently with the rock that had been their stage and their mountain throughout their childhood.

Her body crumpled to the ground, unmoving.

It was over in a few seconds and happening so fast that not even a breath passed his lips. And it seemed that time did not move as the little eight-year-old Éomer stared unwittingly at his sister's prone body for a second more.

A horrified scream escaped his lips. And it was unlike any that had been heard before in Aldburg before or since.

"Éowyn!"

The crickets cooed softly as twilight fell in Aldburg. But Éomer deigned not to notice it, though the cacophony of noise was once a source of great joy to him in the summertime. Instead, his head was between his knees as he sat despondently on the steps leading up to the Mead Hall.

Inside, his mother and the town's healer were tending to his little sister.

Drawn by his frightening cry, a scream that sent a chill through the bones of many of the adults in town, they had found him wracked with sobs as he cradled his sister's unconscious head on the hill behind their home. His arm was slick with blood from the head wound she had incurred and his words undecipherable as he tried to coax his sister awake.

Many thought the worst at first, until they saw that the little one still breathed.

He had screamed when they pried her from his grasp in order to rush her back to town. The stable-master had to hold him tight as Éomer struggled to reach for Éowyn as the town's folk hurried away to tend to her. And in a state of utter despair, he could only watch as his mother and the healer raced down the hill and indoors with his sister, her blonde hair now matte with her blood.

As Éomer calmed down, he allowed himself to be wordlessly and slowly led homeward, barely listening to the hushed whispers of the people around him. But once he was left upon his own doorstep, he found that he was unable to go inside, especially alone. And so he turned around and began to allow his feet to lead him on a meandering trail through the suddenly quiet town of Aldburg, until he found himself standing at the front steps of the Mead Hall, where the healer and his mother had taken Éowyn.

Without a glance or a word to any around him, he sat down by those doors with his head down and remained there in silence for the remainder of the day.

And those who saw him did not bother him.

So absorbed was Éomer in his miserable thoughts that he did not hear the soft tingle of metal upon metal that drifted into the night's music, nor did he notice the shadow that moved toward him, stopping at the sight of the boy on the steps. It wasn't until his name was said softly did he look up at the man behind the shadow.

He saw his father.

"Papa?" said Éomer fearfully as he looked up into the green eyes of the Third Marshal of the Mark. "Papa, I..."

Éomund smiled gently at his son, giving the boy a reassuring nod before entering the Mead Hall, closing the door quietly behind him.

After a time uncounted, his father emerged again from the Hall, though his face was shadowed by the night. A sigh escaped his lips as he strode straight towards Éomer and sat down next to him, placing the helm that had been tucked under the crook of his arm by his feet with the care that only a true warrior would demonstrate.

Kind, green eyes fell on tearful blue ones as Eomund said in a voice softer than the night sky, "Tell me what happened, son."

The gentle command shattered Éomer's silence completely, causing words to spill out of Éomer's mouth in a jumble that would make sense only to a child's mind. But his father did not ask for clarity or for his son to speak more clearly. He instead allowed Éomer's story to take its course as his son blurted out everything, from the request to play, to the game they chose to play all the way to the fact that his stick that was actually a sword had hit his sister when he swung it.

Éomer's voice hitched and often times he had merely babbled between intermittent sobs as he tried to find words that he did not yet own. But through it all his father remained quiet and attentive, and always listening.

Finally, the story spent and Éomer's ragged breath was the only sound that remained as he stared at his father, eyes wide with fear, agony and sadness. Éomund had closed his eyes upon Éomer's conclusion, rubbing his temples slowly as he attempted to process everything that his young son had told him and tried to make sense of all he had been told.

"A game of war," Éomund repeated softly to himself. "A game of war..."

The Marshal sighed heavily and stared up into the sky as if seeking guidance from the stars. "War is not a game, Éomer. It is only death."

Éomer's eyes widened at the words. "Éowyn..." he whispered, his lower lip beginning to tremble anew as a new fear washed over him.

"No son!" cried Éomund as he clasped the shoulder of Éomer's reassuringly, as if he realized what he just said may have implied to the young boy. "No, Éowyn is well and alive. She is confused and tired but she will be fine. Think no more dark thoughts. She may well outlive us all in the end.

"But war is not a game," he continued sternly. "It is not fun. It is not glorious. And it is not honourable. War is only pain and suffering. A place where the people you love get hurt. Like your sister."

He stared at his son, his eyes now hard and cold with the memory of harsh battles and heartbreaking losses on the fields of Rohan. It was a bitter memory that was coming to pass all too frequently of late.

"Éomer," his father said grimly, "it is our job, the man's job, to protect those we love from war. This is our province, so that those less able to cope do not have to feel the pain that war creates. Those like your mother and most especially like your younger sister. Children should never experience that kind of sadness. Tell me, son, would you not wish to protect your sister from the pain and despair that you felt today after what happened to her? Would you not wish to prevent such fears and sadness from again striking the heart of your mother and alas, myself even?"

Éomer's eyes widened at his words as the pain that had only just subsided washed over him anew, but realizing also that it was not just him that felt this pain, for now he looked into his father's eyes and saw as well the fear and the shock that he too had felt upon word of the hurt that had befallen his youngest child.

Shame coloured Éomer's cheeks as he swept his gaze to the floor beneath him, to his father's helmet at his feet, unable to look at his father again. "I never knew," he whispered. "And I never meant to hurt anyone either, especially you, papa."

Éomund sighed as he pulled his son into a warm, reassuring hug, his chainmail chinking lightly as it enveloped his young boy. "I know, Éomer," he breathed. "It was an accident, an accident that I must take some blame for."

He turned to stare at the surprised look from his son. "I am too often away from home of late. So much so that it seems that I have missed too much in failing to realize that my own son, a boy I still remember bouncing upon my knee in the Mead Hall after meals, is soon becoming a full grown man, and not just any man either." Éomund gave his son an appraising look as he continued. "Through your mother, you are of the blood of Eorl, a nephew of the King himself. It means you are destined to do great things in this world."

The Marshal's eyes drifted to the land beyond the town's walls, a land that has become increasingly more disturbed over time. "It is time that we have begun to prepare you for whatever is to coming."

A deep breath into the night air punctuated the last of his words as he shook himself out of the reverie that had held him so that he could look upon his son, seeing past the boy and realizing the warrior within. And he smiled proudly.

"To bed, Éomer," Éomund said quietly as he arose to his feet, his son quickly following suit. "Tomorrow will be a day full of promise and hope, for it is tomorrow that I will set to motion the beginning of the rest of your life." He clasped his boys shoulder with a firm hand. "No more will you occupy yourself with the games of children or the nonsense of youth. Tomorrow, Éomer, you will be a man."

Éomer nodded numbly, unsure of how to accept this proposition as he watched his father map out the road he would take henceforth; a road that both thrilled and scared the young eight-year-old child.

Little did her realize how much this night would change him, would see him leaving the life he knew to that point behind in order to accept the responsibility he would inherit much sooner than any had hoped or expected.

But on this night, it was only words to the young boy as his father nudged him homeward, a proud smile on his care-worn face as he turned to re-enter the Mead Hall in order to join his wife in the ministrations upon their youngest child.

But as he was about to enter, he turned at a thought towards his eldest child and his heir. "Éomer," he called, his voice booming into the night. "One more thing: promise me that this game that you call war is a game you will never play it again with anyone, much less your sister."

And into the night, the child's soft reply whispered, "I promise, father."

"Whatcha doing?"

Éomer blinked as he was lifted from his brief reverie by the sound of his sister's cheerful and cheeky voice as she poked her head into his bedroom. Only a week had passed since her supposed brush with death and the bruises upon her face along with the linen bandage wrapped generously about her head had made her a terrifying sight to behold.

And yet, despite an injury that likely would have incapacitated a full-grown adult for a great deal of time, it seemed that young Éowyn was no worse for wear after a short time in bed. Such is the spirit and endurance of a child that they could recover from such traumas much quicker than those who seemed more capable of handling it.

On this day however, there was neither a smile nor even a mocking scowl for his little sister from her elder brother. For in Éomer's hands, he held the wooden practice sword that his father had given him the day before, with a promise that in three days hence and every day from thereon, he would be joining other boys of like age to be trained upon its deadly use by the quartermaster.

But until then, his father warned, he would need treat it as a real sword, and give it the due respect that such a weapon required. It was not a play-thing, but something that could be the difference between one's life and death.

And so Éomer sat upon his bed staring at the sword for some time, knowing full well that the weapon represented the final days of his childhood.

But its significance and meaning was lost upon his younger sister.

"Wow, this is pretty!" cried Éowyn as her eyes discovered the thing that Éomer held in his hands. "Is it a new toy that papa gave you?"

But as she reached for the hilt of his sword, her eyes shining with both curiosity and wonder, something snapped inside Éomer, for the fear and sadness that had only recently subsided with his sister's quick recovery arose quickly within him.

"Don't touch this!" he barked, yanking his sword beyond his sister's reach. "This is not a toy and is especially not something for little girls. This is a sword, a weapon made to hurt people."

Éowyn frowned up at her brother as she pointed once more at the sword. "But it's made of wood," she said curiously, "like our sticks. The sword papa and the grown-ups has is made of metal. This isn't meant to hurt."

Éomer exhaled a noisy sigh as he rolled his eyes. "Of course you wouldn't understand, Éowyn. You're too young."

"Am not!" snapped his little sister.

"Are too!" snapped back her older brother as he rose to his feet. "This is more than a stick, Éowyn. It's something that proves I'm now a grown-up. And it means that I'm getting too old for games and toys and such silly little girl nonsense!"

"But only last week we were playing horsies and war and dancing flowers!" said Éowyn sadly, her lower lip trembling slightly as she looked upon the boy that was once her favourite play-mate. "How are you a grown-up now when you weren't one a little while ago?"

"Much has changed, Éowyn," said Éomer darkly. "But you wouldn't understand. Now I must go. I have to prepare. I will become very busy very soon, Éowyn. So busy, that I can't play with you anymore."

"But why?" cried his little sister.

Éomer did not answer; he could not answer. He could not even look her in the eyes as he swept past her quickly and out the door; could not look at the tears that were beginning to fall down her crestfallen face.

All he knew for certain was that he needed to get away.

He raced out the door and into the hills that surrounded the little town of Aldburg, tears falling from his own eyes as he left his childhood behind and by extension, the little sister he loved and would do anything to protect from harm. A little sister he would have to push away because one of the things he had to protect her from was himself and the reality of his future responsibilities as a Man and a warrior.

One day, he hoped, she would understand why he did what he did. One day, he hoped, she would forgive him for pushing her away.

But until that day, he only wanted to stay away; away from the beloved little sister that he would no longer call his little imp.

THE END