Fear of a Cage
By Starfish of the Elves
Disclaimer: All Tolkien.
*
Eowyn darted into the room, chasing her brother.
"Look Eowyn!" he cried, pointing to a silver wired cage at the other end of the room. The two children ran to it. "I caught it all on my own." In the cage was a bird, a common brown songbird that was often seen around Rohan.
Eomer thought his little sister would have liked his catch, for she loved to watch the birds. He was, as it often sadly turns out, wrong.
"But Eomer, it can't fly like that. I like to see them fly." Eowyn stared at the cage with the expression of a young girl looking for the perfect word. "It's all…caged. It won't be able to do anything…to sing or fly…and it won't remember how if you keep it there forever."
"I like it," said Eomer, growing defensive. "And I caught it and I want to keep it."
Eowyn began to cry piteously. "Please Eomer, let it go!"
Eomer, slowly melting to the sister he had always protected, said, "What if it dies out there?"
"I don't want it to die in here. It'll die anyway, please let it go!"
Eomer nodded, resignedly trudged outside with his prize, and opened the cage's door.
As the bird flew into the sky, bright as Eowyn's eyes, the girl laughed.
The cage still stands in the corner of that room, ever unused, until the end of days.
*
