To Be Queen
A/N: This is my first story (or, rather, collection of vignettes) that I've published, criticisms are welcome by all means!
Disclaimer: Except for Sadie, I own none of the characters mentioned herein
"Where do you think you're going? You know it is not safe outside these walls"
"I'm going to find my brother," I said, pulling myself up onto Shadowfire.
"I will not allow it! I shall send the guard-" he began until I cut him off
"I was not asking permission" I said, nudging Shadowfire into a run, almost knocking Elrond over as we flew out of the stables and out of Rivendell. I felt a twinge of regret but if I was to be queen, I had to get accustomed to commanding others, I half heartedly reassured myself.
To think back, I was a fool then. I knew not what it was to be queen.
"Aragorn, come" I said, departing the chamber, "I will not have the people see you as a dirty king. The glory of Gondor is about to be restored and so should you"
He followed me to the bathing chamber I had ordered set up. He stepped behind the screen in the corner and I faced away from the tub. I started unbraiding my hair and carefully pulling a brush through it. The sound of my brother getting in the water behind me told me he was submerged beneath the water and I could turn around yet preserve his modesty. I grabbed the vials of oil from the small table near me and placed them by the tub next to him. I set them in order, naming off their purpose for my hygienically challenged brother. Once I was sure he knew what he was doing, I allowed myself to relax. Slightly. As I worked my boars hair brush through my hair, I heard Aragorn get out of the tub.
"There's a blue robe on a peg near the fire," I said, not looking back.
"I have it" he said
"Then come sit on this stool. I need to take care of that hair of yours," I said with a slight smile. He came and sat in front of me and as I brushed his hair, he asked "What do you want to be remembered as? A queen? The kings sister?"
I paused and said "I wish to be queen. By birth it is a title that is rightfully mine. I should hope that you will crown me so."
I looked over the edge of the cliff with Legolas, expecting to at least see some remnant of my brother or his horse but there was nothing. Nothing but the river moving swiftly below. I had endured years away from my brother in the past without word from him but this was final. I had seen him knocked off his horse by a wolf of Isengard and I felt as though there was a dagger of ice ripping through my spirit. I did not cry, I did not show any emotion. I felt Legolas put his arm around me but I shrugged it off. I was not some high strung woman to be overcome with emotion. I may have felt like I was dying inside but I had to keep an emotionless face if I was to go before the people of Rohan and their king, for some day I was to be queen of Gondor and they must respect me as a queen of a foreign nation.
My horse was swift and light of foot, for a warhorse. His movement beneath me comforted me, although I could feel him twitching beneath me, and he continued to toss his head, if gently, signaling to me that he wanted to run. Keeping him steady wasn't difficult, but it was painful to me to have to deny him his most basic of pleasures, freedom.
I realized what I was doing by making him the horse of a queen. I was confining him to ceremonial purposes, a miserable life for a horse so great as Shadowfire.
While he would live a pampered life, it would be confined. I realized the same was happening to myself. Behind my smiles and waves to the citizens of Gondor, and indeed from all of Middle Earth, I came to the realization that I would begin a sheltered life. I would be confined to the palace, and would no longer be able to do as I pleased.
But to be queen was to be confined. I would have power but not freedom. I was no longer a normal woman, but a woman of power and I would be until the end of my days.
Fin
