[Authoress's Notes:
[Because I am always far more interested in the stories we don't see. Because there were so many people affected, and we hear of so few of them.
[I have chosen to follow the movie more nearly than the book, as the movie is clearer in my memory, and I have not the time to re-read the book again to make sure my facts are straight. Please excuse any inaccuracies. The dates I have borrowed from the Appendix, but I tampered with a few of them to make them more nearly fit the movie's plot. Similarly, this will end where The Two Towers movie ends, after the battle for Helm's Deep. Why? Because I didn't make it through the book version of Return of the King the first time, and the chances that I will now when I barely have time to read anyway is extremely unlikely. Except a sequel to this when the movie of RotK comes out.
[This vaguely ties in with my work-in-progress, Chaos Is Come Again, but few people will understand why. I'll make it apparent when I get to it.
[Mandatory Disclaimer: Eomer, Eowyn, Grima, Theoden, Theodred, those of the Fellowship, those of the Enemy, Edoras, and Helm's Deep, and indeed all of Middle Earth, do not belong to me, and I'm not the least bit sorry. I wouldn't want ownership of so chaotic a place. This is fanfic, I'm not making money off of it, so don't sue me. It wouldn't do you any good, anyway, all my money goes to fuel my car.
[Mandatory Warning: Abelyn, Hathneyn, and their relatives are all mine. No steal. Should you, for reasons beyond my comprehension, wish to borrow them, just ask me.
[Right. Enough of my rambling. Read on, intrepid explorer.]
Maiden of Rohan Abelyn's Foreword
I was nineteen that year. (I would turn twenty that summer, but as what we now call the Great Days took place before the break of spring, that is of no matter). Nineteen, and a simple peasant girl. But a simple peasant girl who could read and write enough to set down what she knew.
In those dark days, each of us took what comfort possible in the smallest things. In her prayers every night, my mother gave thanks simply that my brothers and I were still alive. My eldest brother occupied his time with the care of our horse, my youngest with the top I had made him from a bit of bone. And I? I took my comfort in writing, in the little notebook that had been my father's last gift to me. It somehow seemed very important to me that I take record of what happened in those days. I can not explain why. Though I now serve the Lady Eowyn, I was then no one important. I had no say in any battle, I made no decisions – I was simply affected by them. But it seemed to me then – as it does now – that someone had to set down what it was like for the common people. I think too often those who rule us make decisions without really considering what it does to those below them.
I am Abelyn, daughter of Alewyth, peasant girl and handmaiden to the Lady Eowyn, and these are the stories of my days.