A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read this story. I offer you lemonade and ice cream of your favorite flavor. Once again, I hope you all enjoy this little collection of musings.

Disclaimer: I do not own either The Lord of the Rings or The Rose.

And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.

Dunharrow, Rohan, March 8, 3019 TA

Éowyn, daughter of Éomund, lay on her bedroll. The dawn had just broken, Aragorn having just left with his kin, Legolas, and Gimli. Aragorn had refused her entreaties to wait for her uncle and brother and join the Muster. Even worse, he had refused her wish to join his company on their perilous road!

Duty! It was all well and good to speak of duty when one's part was valiant deeds and winning renown. But as a woman, hers was to stay behind and be drynurse to the old and the children. She was a woman of the House of Eorl. What need had she to wait for ignominious death in defense of homes the Riders had no more need of? She knew as much as Éomer about battle!

In addition, her love for Aragorn was not returned. He felt only pity for her. What need had a shieldmaiden for pity? She had no desire to be pitied! What greater renown could she have had than to be Queen of Gondor and wife of the first King of the Númenórean Realms in Exile in centuries! If she could not have that, all she had left was to die a glorious death in battle. At the very least, if they won, her name would be in songs sung of this war for a hundred years. If they lost, nothing that anyone did would be remembered.

Whatever the outcome, victorious Riders with new tales of battles in which she had played no part or invading enemy armies come to destroy Rohan and her people, death in battle was preferable to waiting interminably to learn what had happened.