And There Are Many Paths to Tread
By: Engrish Spy
Rating: R
A/N: Hey welcome to my new obsession… Legolas and Eowyn… this is their story set after the Lord of the Rings… Don't argue with me when this story is done… Its fan fiction and I can write the way I please.
He watched as she stood on the steps of Edoras. She was clothed in a white dress of warm wool and green trim. It was much like the one she had worn that day to the camps as they departed for Gondor. Her hair was down and brushed straight so that a person could never tell that there was once wavy curls in her long hair. She was cradling a babe, wrapped in white wool, in her arms, rocking it back and forth ever so gently, cooing to it every once and awhile.
As if she was being watched, she turned her attention from the babe in her arms and looked for her stalker. She did not smile as she caught him from his post in the door way. She looked at the babe again and continued to rock it back and forth ever so gently. The watcher sighed and then moved towards another man who was holding the reigns of his horse at the bottom of the stair that led up to the Golden Hall.
She smiled down at babe in her arms but out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the wind whipped the flags of Rohan and the hair of the man around as he mounted the white horse he had acquired when first he came to the fields of the Mark. She let an unshed tear role down her cheek as if it were her form of goodbye. He would return to his stewardship to his lord and friend in Gondor and she would be here in Edoras to watch her child grow and change. Her little girl with big blue eyes, pale skin and golden blonde hair would grow up to be a shield maiden, much she had and she would never know the truth about her father.
She had at least given the father the chance to name the babe, but she did not tell him the child was his. She had given the excuse that she was only honouring a debt from two years ago. If it had not been for him, she would have been buried with her uncle in the field below Edoras.
He had chosen wisely though. Given her a proper elvish name. He had called her, Authwen, when translated from the Sindarian was a maiden of war. She had held back the tears as he had picked the little babe from her arms and named her. She was blessed that she would be named so well yet fearful that her daughter might not live the peaceful life that had been created for her.
As he clucked to the horse and took off, she noticed the presence of another person, who was now at her side. She glance up from the babe at her side and tuned to be greeted with the tall imposing form of the white wizard who had also come to visit and bless her babe.
"It is time," he said in the deep yet gentle voice that she had know since her first meeting with the wizard.
She nodded and continued to watch as the man on the white horse rode towards Gondor and out of her life for a time.
TBC…