Note: See the disclaimer in Chapter One.
Three
The morning arrived and spanned over the valley in soft, misty hues. The brooding sky became washed with swathes of gold and red, and slowly lightened to a bluish slate gray. Colors saturated. The brown grass turned green, the individual blades flickering with the light breeze. The mountains in the distance were purple like watercolor, and the sun that glowed from behind them was a great ball of warm orange fire.
With the morning came the end of silence. The wind picked up and blew in silky whispers through the grasses and trees. Birds, circling like autumn leaves above, echoed their cries to the earth below. Footsteps that once sounded like hollow treks in a sweeping expanse of nothingness now formed a steady rhythm through the meadow, adding their tiny crunches to the whole symphony of small sounds.
Eowyn no longer felt the pain in her foot as she followed Legolas's firm, steady strides. She sensed only a blessed sensation of numbness that allowed her to forget about herself and keep up with the quick pace.
The forest, Eowyn's destination, was so far away it was impossible to accurately gauge the distance; it was just a blurry dark line on the horizon. The meadow spanned to infinity to the left and right of her, and she dared not twist her head around, lest the landscape swallowed her whole. Her mind began to wander in the vastness, forming questions without answers, questions that unnerved her.
How did I wake up one day to find myself with a kingdom in my hands? she asked herself in a disembodied haze. And will I die before the day is over? Will I die and suffer an eternity as wide as these meadows?
Eowyn's heart pounded wildly. No, she shouted. Don't think like this. You are just tired. Tired and hurt and scared and uncertain at all that's happened.
She set her attention directly ahead, trying to find something tangible, something near and real to hold on to. The elf. Legolas. He was near, he was real. She found his presence strangely comforting.
Eowyn directed her whole being toward him, clinging to his image. The miles passed, melted together. She memorized his posture and the way he adjusted the quiver over his shoulders when the leather strap slipped loose. She saw how he shook his head to clear the white blond hair from his temples. She curiously scrutinized his pointed ears, wondered if he heard the same things she did.
Eowyn's thoughts gradually returned to familiar territory, and she began to think disgustedly of concrete things again, of the elf's frigid, haughty attitude, and of the horridness of all males, men and elf alike, and how they destroyed or sacrificed whole kingdoms and worlds for one small moment of glory. She thought about Rohan and felt the painful regret and helplessness shattering her body into a million tiny shards.
"Eowyn."
She gasped at the voice.
Legolas had spoken abruptly, surprisingly, stopping in his steps and breaking the momentum of the march. He turned around to meet her. The edge of his hair shone like silvery liquid diamonds where the sun was caught in the strands.
Eowyn blinked rapidly as she fell out of her innermost contemplations. "Why have we stopped?"
"We will rest. You are tired," Legolas answered.
Eowyn studied Legolas's face dubiously. Pale, smooth, and composed. The flush of anger he carried last night seemed to have faded with the coming of the daylight. His eyes now were clear and unabashed, and she felt him searching into her soul for the answers to everything she had hidden from him. She shivered, but it wasn't from the cold. Looking down at the trodden grass, she retorted, "I am not tired."
"Yes, Eowyn, you are."
"Don't presume to think you know everything-"
"I do not. However, I do know last night I mistook your injuries for only a light cut," Legolas said. "I did not know that you had sprained your ankle until I heard you limping a moment ago. You hid your wound from me well." A suspended second passed, in which he waved to an area of dried grass beside him. "And now you must rest. It will slow us down if you continue walking like this."
Eowyn trudged to the patch of grass and sat heavily upon it, collapsing in a way she berated herself for. She saw her body stretched out before her, scored with countless scratches and streaked in grime. The hem of her nightgown was in ribbons. Peeking out from under it was her right ankle, swollen and bloody and still bound in rope. She wiggled it from side to side and felt the eerie sensation of numbness.
"Stop," Legolas commanded, moving to kneel beside her. He trapped her ankle in cool, slender hands. "Do not do that. You are only agitating the swelling. Stay still while I feel what's wrong."
Eowyn did not reply to him for there were no words to say. She simply watched him test his fingers over the ugly bruise, and repeated to herself that he had been the one to cause it. But he had been doing what was right. He had been chasing after a traitor, she thought. Me. "Legolas."
"Yes?"
"If you were in my position last night, would you have made the same deal I did?" she asked. "If there was a choice between life and death, and death meant that your kingdom would likely perish with you, would you have agreed to Wormtongue's demands and chosen life? Would you have sided with the enemy, if for a day, to try to defeat him in the future?"
"There were risks in what you did," Legolas said without missing a beat. His fingers had moved to the rope, and were now swiftly untying the knots. "Risks too horrendous for me to have taken. I would not make a hidden plan only to see it fail. People live on the mere words of leaders, Lady Eowyn. Or they can die on them."
"But what if you had no choice?"
Legolas looked up. "I would fight until I had a choice. There is always a choice if you do not stop searching and fighting for one."
"I see. Then I must have been too lazy and weak to find mine." And a low, sad laugh bubbled out of the depths of Eowyn's throat and surprised even the owner with the grief it carried. "Ah, men. You live your lives in glory and honor and nothing will stand in the way of your being right. You have the choice. You will always have the choice. Of who to fight, who to ally. Who to love. And when you leave us with no choice to choose from, you frown at us and ask why we couldn't have been like you and fought against you."
Wetness tickled as it slid down her cheeks, and Eowyn was distantly amused at how strangely devoid of emotion she was feeling inside her. "And our thoughts, our decisions, all made out of love, are all so foolish and wrong because we've been left with nothing to choose from. Yes, we could fight for our choices. Then what would you have left? Nothing? Everything?"
"Eowyn, the decision you have made is over," Legolas said evenly, tossing the untied rope behind him.
"The decision I made is stupid! You know so and you made it apparently clear to me last night by trying to kill me for it!"
"You are dwelling on the past! The past will not stop Wormtongue from selling your kingdom to Saruman on a golden plate. There is nothing to think about but the future."
The future, Eowyn echoed. The word swelled in her mind and made its meaning known. Now, all at once, the implications of her actions flooded her, and it was too much. Her body was wracked in violent shivers as she began to sob uncontrollably. "What have I done, Legolas? What have I done?" she repeated, rasping hoarsely. "What had I been thinking? What have I done? What had I been forced to do? Oh, Rohan! What have I done?"
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Three
The morning arrived and spanned over the valley in soft, misty hues. The brooding sky became washed with swathes of gold and red, and slowly lightened to a bluish slate gray. Colors saturated. The brown grass turned green, the individual blades flickering with the light breeze. The mountains in the distance were purple like watercolor, and the sun that glowed from behind them was a great ball of warm orange fire.
With the morning came the end of silence. The wind picked up and blew in silky whispers through the grasses and trees. Birds, circling like autumn leaves above, echoed their cries to the earth below. Footsteps that once sounded like hollow treks in a sweeping expanse of nothingness now formed a steady rhythm through the meadow, adding their tiny crunches to the whole symphony of small sounds.
Eowyn no longer felt the pain in her foot as she followed Legolas's firm, steady strides. She sensed only a blessed sensation of numbness that allowed her to forget about herself and keep up with the quick pace.
The forest, Eowyn's destination, was so far away it was impossible to accurately gauge the distance; it was just a blurry dark line on the horizon. The meadow spanned to infinity to the left and right of her, and she dared not twist her head around, lest the landscape swallowed her whole. Her mind began to wander in the vastness, forming questions without answers, questions that unnerved her.
How did I wake up one day to find myself with a kingdom in my hands? she asked herself in a disembodied haze. And will I die before the day is over? Will I die and suffer an eternity as wide as these meadows?
Eowyn's heart pounded wildly. No, she shouted. Don't think like this. You are just tired. Tired and hurt and scared and uncertain at all that's happened.
She set her attention directly ahead, trying to find something tangible, something near and real to hold on to. The elf. Legolas. He was near, he was real. She found his presence strangely comforting.
Eowyn directed her whole being toward him, clinging to his image. The miles passed, melted together. She memorized his posture and the way he adjusted the quiver over his shoulders when the leather strap slipped loose. She saw how he shook his head to clear the white blond hair from his temples. She curiously scrutinized his pointed ears, wondered if he heard the same things she did.
Eowyn's thoughts gradually returned to familiar territory, and she began to think disgustedly of concrete things again, of the elf's frigid, haughty attitude, and of the horridness of all males, men and elf alike, and how they destroyed or sacrificed whole kingdoms and worlds for one small moment of glory. She thought about Rohan and felt the painful regret and helplessness shattering her body into a million tiny shards.
"Eowyn."
She gasped at the voice.
Legolas had spoken abruptly, surprisingly, stopping in his steps and breaking the momentum of the march. He turned around to meet her. The edge of his hair shone like silvery liquid diamonds where the sun was caught in the strands.
Eowyn blinked rapidly as she fell out of her innermost contemplations. "Why have we stopped?"
"We will rest. You are tired," Legolas answered.
Eowyn studied Legolas's face dubiously. Pale, smooth, and composed. The flush of anger he carried last night seemed to have faded with the coming of the daylight. His eyes now were clear and unabashed, and she felt him searching into her soul for the answers to everything she had hidden from him. She shivered, but it wasn't from the cold. Looking down at the trodden grass, she retorted, "I am not tired."
"Yes, Eowyn, you are."
"Don't presume to think you know everything-"
"I do not. However, I do know last night I mistook your injuries for only a light cut," Legolas said. "I did not know that you had sprained your ankle until I heard you limping a moment ago. You hid your wound from me well." A suspended second passed, in which he waved to an area of dried grass beside him. "And now you must rest. It will slow us down if you continue walking like this."
Eowyn trudged to the patch of grass and sat heavily upon it, collapsing in a way she berated herself for. She saw her body stretched out before her, scored with countless scratches and streaked in grime. The hem of her nightgown was in ribbons. Peeking out from under it was her right ankle, swollen and bloody and still bound in rope. She wiggled it from side to side and felt the eerie sensation of numbness.
"Stop," Legolas commanded, moving to kneel beside her. He trapped her ankle in cool, slender hands. "Do not do that. You are only agitating the swelling. Stay still while I feel what's wrong."
Eowyn did not reply to him for there were no words to say. She simply watched him test his fingers over the ugly bruise, and repeated to herself that he had been the one to cause it. But he had been doing what was right. He had been chasing after a traitor, she thought. Me. "Legolas."
"Yes?"
"If you were in my position last night, would you have made the same deal I did?" she asked. "If there was a choice between life and death, and death meant that your kingdom would likely perish with you, would you have agreed to Wormtongue's demands and chosen life? Would you have sided with the enemy, if for a day, to try to defeat him in the future?"
"There were risks in what you did," Legolas said without missing a beat. His fingers had moved to the rope, and were now swiftly untying the knots. "Risks too horrendous for me to have taken. I would not make a hidden plan only to see it fail. People live on the mere words of leaders, Lady Eowyn. Or they can die on them."
"But what if you had no choice?"
Legolas looked up. "I would fight until I had a choice. There is always a choice if you do not stop searching and fighting for one."
"I see. Then I must have been too lazy and weak to find mine." And a low, sad laugh bubbled out of the depths of Eowyn's throat and surprised even the owner with the grief it carried. "Ah, men. You live your lives in glory and honor and nothing will stand in the way of your being right. You have the choice. You will always have the choice. Of who to fight, who to ally. Who to love. And when you leave us with no choice to choose from, you frown at us and ask why we couldn't have been like you and fought against you."
Wetness tickled as it slid down her cheeks, and Eowyn was distantly amused at how strangely devoid of emotion she was feeling inside her. "And our thoughts, our decisions, all made out of love, are all so foolish and wrong because we've been left with nothing to choose from. Yes, we could fight for our choices. Then what would you have left? Nothing? Everything?"
"Eowyn, the decision you have made is over," Legolas said evenly, tossing the untied rope behind him.
"The decision I made is stupid! You know so and you made it apparently clear to me last night by trying to kill me for it!"
"You are dwelling on the past! The past will not stop Wormtongue from selling your kingdom to Saruman on a golden plate. There is nothing to think about but the future."
The future, Eowyn echoed. The word swelled in her mind and made its meaning known. Now, all at once, the implications of her actions flooded her, and it was too much. Her body was wracked in violent shivers as she began to sob uncontrollably. "What have I done, Legolas? What have I done?" she repeated, rasping hoarsely. "What had I been thinking? What have I done? What had I been forced to do? Oh, Rohan! What have I done?"
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