A/N: Hello. Thank you all for you patience with my short chapters and erratic updates. There are three more chapters left after this, and then an author's note containing lyrics to the song this is titled after. ^^
Kindle My Heart
Lea of Mirkwood
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Éowyn was sitting on the bench in the dim light, her skin as pale as the white star flower in her hair. Her grey eyes were cast downward with an almost dreamlike expression. Her lashes, coal-black, lay softly against her cheek like feathers. For a moment as the wind whistled through the trees and down into the gardens, bringing with it smoke and dust, Merry was reminded of a time that seemed so long ago, of a fair lady in the Old Forest called the river-daughter. He shivered slightly as the cold wind ruffled his curls. The wind from Mordor was hot at times, like standing some ways away from a bonfire on a cool night, but then it turned cold and sharp. Everything around him seemed blue and pale. It was all like a dream. He tipped his head back, looking up at the sky. Leaves, dark and shiny on the top and red on the bottom, swirled through the air on the wind like snow. Petals, white, gold and pink, ripped from their flowering trees and shrubbery,* flew about, circling like dervishes around their heads and catching in their hair.
"Merry?" asked Éowyn softly, and Merry whirled to face her.
"Yes, Éowyn?" he asked breathlessly.
"I'm getting a bit chilled. Can we head back to my room? I'd like it if the window stay open, though."
"Of course!" agreed Merry. "Of course. Here, take my arm."
She linked her arm in his and shakily stood up, but more steadily than she had before. Merry thought fleetingly, whimsically, that he was helping to heal her. They made it back to her room with almost no commotion, and without being caught by the warden. No one, seeing them, would have realized that the smaller of the two, the same height as a child, was ten years older than the tall lady. Before letting Éowyn further into the room, he ran over to the window and opened it wide, facing the garden. He turned back to her and smiled, then walked back over to take her arm. Merry helped Éowyn lay back down, and pulled the covers back over her body and up to her shoulders. She laughed lightly, the happy sound carrying out of the window and across the garden. A swift gust of wind puffed into the room, bringing with it an unexpected shower of petals. The soft little things floated across to Éowyn's bed and lay on top of her sheets. She smiled.
"I suppose this it my bed of roses," she said wryly, raising an eyebrow. Merry chuckled and dusted the petals out of his hair.
"I suppose it is. You know," he said thoughtfully. "In it's own way, this is pretty. The darkness and the wind. It's all like a dream...that could just fade away, if we don't remember it."
Still with the foggy, dreamy look in his brown eyes, he turned back to Éowyn and bent over her, his nose bumping hers and his curly brown hair brushing her forehead.
"We have to remember it, Éowyn, or it'll fade away...like the Ents. They will be forgotten. And this would be forgotten."
Suddenly he worked up his courage, the slow-kindled courage of the Shire-folk, and kissed her softly. Éowyn's eyes widened in shock, but then she reached up and placed her fingers on his temple lightly. It felt to Merry like she had branded him. She kissed him back- but the moment he leaned away she sighed and closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep. Merry tilted his head to the side quizzically, plucking another flower petal from behind his sharply pointed ear and laying it on Éowyn's bed. A broad smile slowly crept over his face until he was so happy he felt like he was glowing.
But Éowyn's laughter had carried across the garden to the ears of the young steward with the soft grey eyes.
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* - *crows* We want...A SHRUBBERY!