Summary: Days and nights become one in darkness, and Éowyn is as much a prisoner as her brother.
Universe: Books
Author's Note: Hello. Before you ask, if you think this was really dark, than yes, it was meant to be dark. And understand, all of my stuff is speculative to some extent. This is no different. If you find it objectionable in some way, then I'm sorry, but I'm not going to take it down, so don't bother flaming.
Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings.
Days and nights become one in darkness, and Éowyn's eyes can not discern the stars in daylight nor the sun at nighttime. The candle at her bedside flickers, and she wants to grasp at it as thought it were a distant star.
She is trapped, she knows. A fair creature of white and pale, lustrous gold, caged behind gilt bars, pacing restlessly, a trammeled prize. Running fingers against cool metal does her no service, no more than railing against her captivity will give her her freedom. All that is left for Éowyn to do is try to circumvent the lock and escape.
All grows surreal and indistinct. The walls spring up, cold and dark, torch-lit but seeming darker and dimmer since the day Éowyn watched her uncle Théoden King fall under the sway of that accursed advisor, Gríma Wormtongue. The corridors of Meduseld seem more as a tomb than a golden hall, spectral and bleak.
The thought of bars returns, and Éowyn's troubled thoughts turn to her brother.
Imprisonment no more suits Éomer than it does his sister. He has decent quartering in the dungeons; no one would dare incarcerate the nephew of the king, Théoden's heir in light of Théodred's death, in the lowest ring of the dungeons, filthy and furthest from the sun, whatever his crimes, but the ring on which Éomer is imprisoned still seems to Éowyn's eyes a tomb in which men are walled up alive. It is cold and dank, austere in furnishing, with only slots of windows, carved high up in the walls, to let in narrow shafts of light, checkered by iron grilles.
Éomer is, of course, restless and angry against his unjust detention, but time in the dungeons seems to have at least taught him how to curb his tongue, for when Éowyn visits him he no longer mentions Wormtongue by name, though it is clear to whom he refers.
They both kneel on opposite sides of the bars, quiet and hushed, Éowyn seeming a white brand of light in the gloom. She reaches through the bars and clasps his hand in silent strength, and finds his skin cold.
There is fear, though Éomer would never own to it. Fear exists in the grim flicker in his eyes as he inquires after Éowyn's daily affairs, trying to discern anything in her face, fully aware of what puts shadows on the face of his younger sister. Éomer never manages to glean much; Éowyn keeps her own counsel, for her brother's peace of mind.
Footsteps sound in the hall beyond, and Éowyn stands, suddenly irrationally angered that she can not even spend more than a few minutes with her brother before such intrusion. But it can not be helped. Her white skirt is musty and soiled by the dungeon floor as she retreats back to the hall.
Éowyn is, too, imprisoned and caged, though there are no bars surrounding her. Her imprisonment shrouds her shoulders and freezes her blood in her veins.
She is alone. Her brother was her only ally against growing darkness. Éowyn forged herself into steel chilled and made brittle by winter's ice for this silent war, but she stands as steel, alone. Éomer can not help her anymore.
Alone, Éowyn watches her king fall into listless apathy, half-slumbering and half-dead. Vainly does she try to rouse him from this waking death, revive the dead heart of her king and uncle, but her eyes on Théoden's face finds nothing that she can recognize. The man staring back at her is a stranger wearing her uncle's skin. Théoden King, and by extension, Rohan, is ruled, dominated, in the thrall of a walking corruption. The House of Eorl sinks further into dishonor.
Alone, Éowyn is aware of the not-shadow that now is free to dog her footsteps with impunity, is sickeningly aware of the milky eyes on her at all times, hungry, and the dark, clammy memory of his tongue in her mouth, invasive and greedy, before Éowyn is able to push him away from her with cold fury (Her bedchamber door remains locked and bolted every night afterwards, a gleaming dagger ready by the bed in the event that that fails). She strains to defend herself against the poison of Wormtongue's words, but more and more she can not help but listen. He is at once contemptible and compelling.
And, utterly alone, Éowyn leans over and blows out the candle, and lies awake with a dull, leaden heart, listening into the night in case she hears footsteps against stone outside her door, again.