Very short chapter, I know, but you guys deserve it for waiting patiently while I got myself together. As always, not mine.
The afternoon was casting a soft glow over the garden grass, a pale golden light that tinged the white stone walls an amber hue. If Eowyn looked to the south rather than the east, she could almost forget the ghastly crimson clouds that whirled and circled above the mountains, so near. So she kept her back to the black mountains, instead casting her gaze to the south, where far beyond the sea lapped at the shores, where the monuments of Numenor crumbled in the salt air. She closed her eyes and tipped her chin upward, testing the air, trying to imagine the wilds of Rohan, the vast grassland that she was so suddenly longing for.
Though during the reign of The Worm, she had been largely alone, Eowyn had at least had the shell of her uncle, and the occasionally ghost of her brother to keep her company. There were friendly faces in the Court of the King, though sadness at his dotage marred their eyes. But here, in this cold, monumental city, in a land as foreign to her as Mordor itself, Eowyn realized that she was more alone than she ever thought possible.
Perhaps it was watching her people march eastward that spawned this realization, and she felt that she was now the sole denizen of Rohan here in this empty city. In her mind she knew that her people were here, laid in neat lines in the corridors of the Houses of Healing, but in her heart, she was desolate. Gone the King, gone her brother, gone the stalwart captains of her people. Now there was only the infirmed, the damaged, the dying. And the Lady, silent and pale in the dying afternoon light.
Though her eyes were still closed, Eowyn could hear soft bootsteps in the grass, swishing across the green expanse toward her. She dropped her chin to her chest, conflicted, wanting to be alone, yet wanting someone to gather her close and protect her. A form, tall, steadfast, strong, stopped at her side. He did not touch her, but she could feel him next to her, feel the warmth radiating from his body. She did not need to open her eyes to know who had joined her in the gardens, in the afternoon light. She knew that she did not need to speak for him to know her pain.
The light on her closed eyes turned her vision gold and rose, and she finally opened them, gazing down upon the city spread below them, another monument of the Men of Numenor, hewn by sheer force of will from the bones of the earth. The Men of Gondor must have that strength still, deep down, she thought, to stand and stare into the face of Mordor, knowing that they will be the first to fall. This city would crumble, too, ground to dust, but the Men of Gondor would not. They may scatter, blown by war's winds, but they would never bow. Their bones were the bones of the earth, and would not be easily broken. Eowyn stretched out with her feelings, soaking in the sensation of this Man of Gondor, earth's bones, standing silent at her side.
The heat of his fever drove Faramir to action. He could no longer lay abed, feeling his body rebel against him, and he pushed his healer aside with more roughness than he intended. He needed to feel the wind on his parched, burning skin, needed to escape the cage of the sickbed. He stumbled once as he entered the garden and slowed, willing his body to obey his commands. The grass was soft beneath his boots, and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the lilac-scented air. When he opened them, a sudden pang gripped his chest as he spotted Eowyn standing alone, solitary, her hair shining in the dying light of the afternoon.
He did not speak as he reached her side, for he did not wish to break the spell, the silent stillness that comes as afternoon turns to evening, that quiet moment when time seems to halt, to freeze in a golden vista. Instead, he just stood, watching her. Her eyes closed against the sky, lines creasing her forehead, her mouth pursed with unknown fears. Wonder flooded his brain, fogging his thoughts, as he took her in. As he watched her, he thought of Rohan, of the earthy simplicity of these people, the freedom of the grassland country. The sheer vastness of the huge sky above the plains, and the supple strength of the people. In a harsh land, the people of Rohan bent like reeds against the winds of war, enduring, weathering the assaults that battered them from all fronts. Their strength, thought Faramir, was in their endurance, their refusal to break under the weight of challenge. The woman at his side was the same, battered but not broken.
As he gazed at her, Eowyn's visage seemed to soften into gossamer light, her golden hair a halo around her face, her ocean eyes bright in her pale face. How blessed, he thought, how blessed I am to seek the heart of such a one.
And with that thought, fever overtook him, and his vision faded to midnight. His last sensation was that of Eowyn catching his falling body in her arms, gathering him close and protecting him.
