The Steward and the Queen

by Komillia (komillia@telekinetic-orbing.net)

Notes: This is an AU fanfic that I got the idea for when I read the chapter "The Steward and the King" in ROTK and Faramir telling Éowyn "...were you the blissful queen of Gondor, still I would love you." So I decided to write a fanfic about what would have happened if that last line had come true. Please read and review... I could use a lot of constructive critisim.

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She was walking in the fields of Rohan again. The morning dew felt cold against her bare feet. But a warm wind blew softly into her face and when she closed her eyes she imagined that she felt free... uncaged. This was the feeling she had longed for... the way it always should have been. No cage that trapped her, no heavy armor or relic to weight her down to submission.

But the moment she opened her eyes a shadow fell over the green grass. The dew turned into sticky, fresh blood and in her hand a small dagger appeared. She stared at it and at the blood that now stained her white dress. Her eyes, full of shock and confusion widened.

Then suddenly, a screech.

So loud, so sharp that she fell back and covered her ears in an effort to spare herself from the pain. The dagger dropped from her hand and fell into a puddle of blood. She lay twitching on the grass, struggling to keep the sharp sound from her ears in vain. It was too much, too strong.

She cried out in pain.

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Twitching and stirring, her eyes suddenly opened and she found herself looking up at the dark, shaded ceiling. It was familiar to her, for this was not the first time she had awoken in the middle of the night, haunted by painful and eerie feelings. Taking slow breaths, Éowyn closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down. Save for the quiet sound of rain against the rooftop, there was silence in the room. Comforting and safe silence. The screech was nothing but a terrible dream.

'Nothing but a dream...' she thought to herself.

But despite her effort to calm herself, the image of her own blood smeered dress lingered in her thoughts. Éowyn reached out her right hand, expecting find comfort and, if not that, warmth. But the only thing she felt were the soft but cold sheets. She turned her head to the right and despite the darkness in the room she saw that the other side of the bed was empty.

She slowly rose, half sitting and supporting herself on her elbow. The right side of the bed had a cover carefully pulled aside and the sheets and the pillows were slightly wrinkled. Someone had laid there and then left. Judging by the coldness of the sheets, he had since long been gone. Perhaps he had not even slept at all.

A sigh escaped from her, but whether it was out of frustration or loneliness she did not know. A familiar smell suddenly caught her attention and she looked up to see that the door out of the bedroom had not been entirely closed. He had not gone far. For a moment she contemplated simply waiting for him to come back and just going back to sleep. But she had no desire to return to the dreamland, not after when she had seen and heard in her sleep.

Making up her mind, she pushed the heavy covers away from her and sat up on the bed. A chill rushed through her entire body as her feet made contact with the cold floor. Ignoring it, Éowyn quickly grabbed a robe that had been careless tossed over the back of a chair and slipped her arms through it. Adjusting the robe slightly, then she made her way towards the door and quietly opened it just about wide enough for her to walk through. She entered the sitting room and the smell that had first caught her attention was stronger here.

And there he was.

The room was only lit by the pale moonlight, yet Éowyn could see him so clearly. Sitting on the wide window sill, one leg draw up and the other down to support himself. He held a pipe in one of his hands and although the pipe was not in his mouth, she could still see the swirling forms of smoke rising from it. The rain that fell outside mattered not to him and he stared out the window, eyes either dreaming or reminiscing memories of the past. In the moonlight and in his plain sleeping clothes, he reminded Éowyn very much of the ranger of North whom she had first known him as.

She took one step forwards, not sure if it was right of her to disturb him. Looking at him was like looking at a painting of a dreamer. He seemed so distant, so unreachable. Part of her wanted to leave him with his dreams but a bigger part of her wanted to share them, to know if she was a part of or even thought of in those dreams.

"My lord...?" she finally said in a voice almost as quiet as a whisper.

But a whisper was all it took to get his attention. Aragorn blinked and then slowly turned his head to his left to see who it was. Upon seeing and hearing his wife, it was as if he had woken up from a dream. The usual expression on his face returned but yet she could not figure out what was going on inside his mind.

"My lady, why are you up?" he asked rather casually.

Something in his voice told Éowyn that he was not asking out of curiousity or worry, but out of courtesy and habit. The next moment Aragorn went back to smoke his pipe. He didn't even look at her, instead he stared at a spot on the floor.

"Should I not be asking you that question?" Éowyn inquired. "I woke up and saw that you were gone. The bed was cold... have you not slept at all?"

She wanted to come closer. She wanted him to look at her and tell her what he was thinking about, for it had been a long time since she had last understood him. And at that moment, she started to doubt whether she had ever understood him at all. Thunder quietly roared in the background and the rain continued to fall. It was the only sound that could be heard in the sitting room, for she waited for Aragorn to answer her question and he did not. They stood there in silence for a long time before Aragorn finally spoke. Even then, he did not give her answers to the questions.

"Go back to sleep now. You need the rest to recover from the loss."

Those words struck her like a sword into her heart. Éowyn felt her knees weaken and she felt the urge to just let herself drop to the floor, for it felt as if she was bearing the weights of the past and the future on her shoulders. But she stood firm and did something but stare at Aragorn. He would rather sit alone in the dark rather than grieve with her. He did not want her here with him.

Refusing to let herself cry or even start to, Éowyn turned around and started to make her way back towards the bedroom. Once she reached the door, she suddenly stopped and looked at Aragorn over her shoulder. He had gone back to staring out the window and he had returned to dreaming, looking not that much different from when she had first entered the room.

It was at that moment, that Éowyn realized that the window Aragorn was staring out was looking westward.

With a heart heavy and full of hurt, Éowyn quickly escaped into the bedroom and underneath the protection of the covers. There, she lay sleepless for the rest of the night.

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