A/N: For Werde Spinner, with love.
Red is the sun that cuts across the sky of Rohan, a blade that bleeds light over the long grasses.
And red, red runs the heart's blood of Éomer Son of Éomund, who loves his king too well to be silent.
...
This is a long time coming.
A white hand that bears the mark of darkness, a viper hidden in a worm.
This is a long time coming.
...
The Prince and Third Marshall, the people said, feared neither the slavering jaws of the wolf nor the cruelty of orcs. Together they would ride to dawn, to glory, to the meeting of field and sun.
But Théodred falls on the banks of a swollen river, cut down by treachery, and Éomer is not there to save him.
Brothers more than cousins, they had been. Loss of father and mother had brought Éomer to manhood early, but the kind and kingly regard of his uncle had been enough for him, for Éowyn. Home had ever been the Golden Hall; it was, too, the un-measured plains, swept with wind and light.
And with his cousin-brother, he sparred and rode and learned at the side of warriors.
...
Too late, too late, whisper the shivering grasses, parting before him as he rides.
He has been this way a thousand times, heard a thousand voices from earth and plain, but never before have they mourned for him.
...
Théodred dies in darkness, not under the sun that he loved. Éomer looks at his bloodless features, the shaded, empty eyes, and he does not return to the bedside. He bid his own farewells on horseback, with his cousin's near dead-weight shaking against him, his fingers clenched against raked and tattered armor.
The grief is like a shadow over him, a weight on his heart and anger in his veins. He hears his sister plead, my lord, your son is dead, and he knows that he may have given Éowyn her sword, trained her in its use, but he cannot protect her from this.
...
He has faults. They cut deeper with grief. The men have said for years, his temper is as swift as his steed. But what man cannot burn to see a poison choke the king and kingship like a snake, see its cold coils settle too close to his sister?
...
This is a long time coming.
...
And in the end, he strikes, but the snake strikes quicker.
...
Banished is better than dead. That is what he tells himself. That is what he tells the memory of Théodred, heavy and fading in his arms. And that is what he tells his sister, in words muttered beneath his breath, when he rides from the gates of Meduseld with three hundred men following him.
They follow you, comes the comfort, but it is little. For he cuts at the very heart of king and country, and little heart there is left.
But how shall a man judge?
He rides North, away from Rohan, as though he can leave it behind.