Title: Aniratha
Author: Sabine Hawks
Feedback: PLEASE!
Disclaimer: See chapter 1's
Synopsis: This is chapter 2, in which we see Eomer speaking to Faramir once back in Edoras and a year has passed since his time with his Elven love.

Losto mae, meldir nin
Laston bain fileg
Maethor nin
An uir ned elenath
Caun en guren nin

"Singing, my Lord?"

Eomer stirred at the sound of his friend's voice, looking way from the window. Lord Faramir, Steward of Gondor, stood in his chambers inspecting him carefully. Faramir's steps toward him were tentative.

"You never sing."

"I suppose not," Eomer replied, he hadn't really thought about it. Had he been singing? He couldn't tell anymore, it was becoming harder and harder to separate the voice that spoke to him in his head and the sound of his own instrument. The voice in his head was nothing like his own, but it certainly felt real. Faramir's cool eyes regarded him carefully, "My lord?"

Eomer, a king now, with the responsibilites of a king, turned his gaze back to the window, watching his subjects below going about their daily activities. Everything here seemed foreign. It was his home, the life he had to lead, the life he wanted to lead, but there was no comfort left in it. No, he never sang.

"Who was she?"

That question bought Eomer's attention and he turned his head toward the man that had married his sister. Had it really been a year since all of that had transpired? Was Gondor another year older along with its King and Queen? How quickly youth slipped away...

"Who was who, Lord Faramir?" his own voice sounded far off.

"You forget, friend, that I too have been--and still am--in love."

"What prompted this question?"

"My lord, you never sing."

Faramir looked younger, Eomer thought, his face held the vigor of someone just beginning in the world--who had sought and found their place among things. Eomer felt as the outsider did, the stranger looking in on a reality he supposedly owned. He shivered despite the warmth of the spring day.

"She..." Eomer felt odd explaining this to someone, "she was an Elf." Countless times he had explained the situation to himself, trying desperately to understand exactly why he had left that day and never looked back, or at least, tried not to look back. Every day seemed like one struggle against glancing over his shoulder.

"An Elf, from Lorien," he continued, looking down at his lap, "she was the most beautiful creature I have ever known." His legs were bent against the window frame, the stones digging into his shins. He was bare foot, the way he liked to be when he was away from his duties. Away from his life.

Faramir nodded, pulling a chair next to the window where his friend, his brother in marriage, sat curled as a lost little boy. He wondered how long it had been since Eomer had considered his life without the loss of this woman. He wondered if Eowyn knew.

"When did you know that you loved her?"

Eomer's laughter was soft and low in his throat, unobtrusive as his sad hazel eyes scanned the ground below. "We stayed in Lorien for weeks, my men were starving and exhausted and they needed time to rest. She had been out scouting with a party of archers and invited us to stay in Caras Galadhon. I remember how scared we were at first, frightened that the White Witch would curse us all and take our lives. But the Lady Galadriel was gone, along with most of the Galadhrim, gone to the Gray Havens. Those that remained looked after us with great care and invited us to attend court and various ceremonies," his reflection was full of fondness and small, half-chuckles. Faramir dared not interrupt. "The second week of our respite there, I was walking down the Golden Road, through the trees, and I heard laughter below. That same Elf was there teaching the youngest men in our group how to dance. I don't think her face was without a smile the entire time, she was so patient with them, so kind..." he paused, "and..."

"And what, my Lord?" Faramir interjected quietly.

"And I was jealous. Jealous that she would spend time with them and not me--but my pride, my pride would not allow me to join them. So I watched, for hours I watched them, all the time wishing I could be as carefree, abandoned to life and to happiness." Eomer's breath shuddered with emotion, "I think I must have followed her at a distance for the next few days, and when she finally approached me, I knew." His fingers combed through his beard, his eyes straight ahead on the stones of the window.

"You knew what?"

"I knew that I loved her. I had never lost my control in such a way. There was nothing I could do, no remedy for her domination over my thoughts. We spoke very little when we were together, but I think I can remember every word that ever left her lips. And that song," he cleared his throat, "that song was echoing in the trees the day I left her." He paused and then continued with deliberate, false confidence, "We decided never to see each other again, that any sort of...of union would be impossible."

"Do you regret your feelings, do you regret her?"

"No, no I could never."

"But do you regret leaving her?"

"Every day," Eomer replied hurriedly, shutting his eyes, "every second of every minute that passes as an eternity without a sunrise. My dreams are filled with her face, her voice, her scent--but every muscle in my body wills me to leave it at that. At dreams."

Faramir rose, recognizing the glaze that covered his friend's eyes. He would not force him to cry in his company. Bowing shortly, the Steward left, shutting the door at the first choked sob. As he put distance between himself and the King's chambers, he knew this could not come to a good end. Eowyn's bitterness toward the Elven people did not stop at Arwen, though that was the source. Any knowledge of this woman's dominion over her brother's heart would surely enrage her temper. And Faramir tried desperately to keep her raging fire locked securely away. This developement would keep Eomer from marrying and Rohan without a queen, Eowyn's impatience would grow and Faramir would eventually have to tell her. Eventually.