Disclaimer: Tolkien owns all, and I bow and offer sacrificial lembas before him.
Longing
He had never really loved me, I knew, somewhere in the depths of the despair that I had been plunged into when the news of his death was brought to me. I had always harbored some childish hope that one day he would see me as more than his Steward's wife and a Shield Maiden of Rohan, but this was not to be.
Maybe that was why I chose to marry Faramir in the first place, to try and forget the sting I had felt at his rejection. I tried to convince myself that he only did it because he had another love, one that had given herself to him completely, and didn't want to hurt her after all she had gone through. He had tried his best not to wound me, but the pain was there, all the same.
My one love perished along with the King of Gondor.
His hands were his best features, surely, the one thing that remained unchanged through all his days as king, a reminder of histime as a traveler and Ranger. I wished for any touch from them, and even the most accidental brush I cherished for days after. I was a fool, a simple, lovestruck fool. I know that he would have appointed Boromir to position of Steward if he had not died, for the two of them had been close during their time with the Fellowship, and whenever he spoke of my brother, there was a certain fondness in his voice that couldn't be ignored.
He was no better than my father—favoring my brother, unconsciously reminding me that I would have remained in the shadows all my life if the Orcs had not claimed his life. And yet, I loved him.
He was my savior, bringing me back from the shadow in the Houses of Healing, and I was forever in awe of him, his perpetual calmness, how gentle he was with Arwen, his queen. Eowyn and I loved each other, of course, but it was more devotion than the yearning I felt for my king.
We, every one of us, long most for what is forbidden to us.