Author's Note:
Thank you for reading and your reviews, everyone. Apologies for the tardy arrival of this chapter – I've been busy, and with Euro2004 running non-stop it ain't that good a thing. ;-D
Silliness ensuing, I think…just for a bit.
Chapter 7: Semblance of NormalcySome time after the War of the Ring
"Baw…!"
Oh Eru, he was slipping!
Screaming inwardly in frustration, he tugged at the reins of the horse – breathlessly garbed with the now distant determination to succeed – adjusting what he believed was a wayward saddle, only to realise it was indeed securely fastened. Where there was usually posture-perfect stance, he now swayed atop his seat, pressing on with stubbornness as his only girdle.
A loud shout bounced from the far end of the field with what felt like the intensity of a quake; he shook his head in an attempt to clear the sudden blurring vision and drown out the unpleasant, ringing echo. There was laughter; he had faintly heard its coarse sound circling in the morning mist.
The musty, cool air seemed to swallow the sluggishly emerging light, enlarging the gold glory of the new dawn. In a cloud of dust, soil and grass, he tumbled ungracefully to the earth among the weeds and wild flowers, scattering the nearby bevy of butterflies, stunned into momentary silence.
A horse's protesting neigh floated towards him, accompanied by a round of applause.
Yet to be found in such a state fittingly demanded unreasonable behaviour and stroppy reaction. The Elf muttered an expletive without batting an eyelash, petulantly unmoving from his awkward heap on the ground.
Recognition flooded his face and he saw the same mirrored in the Dwarf's. It was a defeat he grudgingly conceded, knowing that his undoing was merely the consequence of a foolishness he had sworn some time ago to abstain from. Now a pounding headache threatened to chain him like a felon to the bed, indisposed for the day, yet the thought of its welcoming comfort was now infinitely pleasing and perhaps, hard-earned.
A rough, stubby hand sliced the pale light of dawn and stretched towards him. It spoke reassuring strength when his own was exhausted.
"Aye, laddie," A gruff voice turned even gruffer with great amusement, with the slightest hint of mockery. "Your feeble senses have forsaken you after they sniff out but one mug of ale! You will be the roar of the tavern for some time."
Legolas Greenleaf sighed, admitting to himself that all efforts of the preservation of elven dignity was truly in vain. Grabbing the out-stretched, sturdy hand, he hauled himself up to a sitting position in the feeblest of attempts, albeit with no small amount of dizziness. He looked up, thankful to see the tavern folk already pottering about their own duties, suppressing a groan at the mortification that was just beginning to turn his face a dull pink.
"Soft elven sensibilities," the Dwarf laughingly snorted and sat cordially beside him, muttering several other jibes in a tongue the Elf thankfully could no longer comprehend.
To Legolas' own faint but pleasant surprise, he found that he was not as annoyed as he thought he would have been at the Dwarf's scoff; ambitious pettiness no longer infested even the shallows of their unfaltering camaraderie; the sorry result of this particular wager was after all, self-inflicted. Shoving deep-rooted vainglory, excruciating headache, and sorely tested pride aside, he realised after substantial reckoning that to remain disagreeably engaged for long with Gimli was already, nearly impossible.
That absent thought satisfied him greatly, only to recede a little as the Dwarf continued his full-bodied chuckle.
"So you lost the wager," Gimli noted matter-of-factly, and lit his thin pipe in a flourish, taking slight care to puff the smoke away from the Elf's face.
"So I have, Gimli," Legolas slowly acknowledged. "What about it then?"
"Hearty entertainment it is!"
The battered Elf said nothing, and for a moment, they nursed their own thoughts under the warming rays of the rising sun.
"Come on, laddie…let me hoist you up."
The unlikely pair cut a comic picture as they struggled into the compound, unceremoniously collapsing onto the grounds of the Dwarf's own dwelling, one from insensibility, the other from waning strength that came from supporting an inebriated Firstborn.
A knock on the front door made Gimli grunt in relief and straighten to his full height. Nodding in satisfaction when he turned to see the Elf now unconscious, swinging open the door with an easy force that came from a hand too suddenly relieved of dead weight.
A young messenger, ill at ease and still ruddy of countenance, stood stiffly at the entrance.
"Master Dwarf – Gimli son of Gloin, King Elessar Telcontar and his Queen have arrived in South Ithilien; they request the pleasure of your presence as soon as you are able."
"I come," Gimli nodded thoughtfully. There was no room left for argument. "The foolish Elf stays put." It was while before he spoke again, when they passed the noisy streets and into a quieter opening that led to the guest dwellings.
"Had not we agreed to meet at time later than this? Why the urgent hurry?" Gimli probed curiously, a hand unconsciously shifting to the familiar position of where his axe normally hung, only to find it helplessly empty.
"Master Dwarf, King Elessar Telcontar would not say. He requires –" the messenger began, rudely cut off by a hoarse shout.
"Gimli!" A voice interrupted, turning from a disembodied fixture borne by wind into the familiar shape of a briskly walking man. The Dwarf grunted wordlessly to himself, seeing the same expression of amusement in the face of the Prince of Ithilien.
"I assume that Legolas is not coming?" Faramir inquired with a laugh, falling easily into step beside the Dwarf and the messenger.
"Not when his wits are lost, that senseless Elf! I swear my arm will remain sore after I lifted his dead weight past the doorway! By Aule, I would be surprised if he manages to wake in the next week…"
"I just received the news that Elessar has arrived," Faramir said, sobering a little.
"It was also my question, but there was no time to –" Gimli's voice died on his lips as they entered the royal dwelling in Ithilien with seamless movement.
It was quiet – strangely quiet as it was not long ago when they sat in the throne room of the White City held under the Stewardship of Denethor, without soul and life.
"Gimli! Faramir! Come, my friends!"
They turned around, to see a legend of Kings walking towards them – Aragorn – Elessar Telcontar, who wore royalty as raiment and carried friendship as dearly and unchangingly as he had even before he took his throne.
"Where is Legolas?" Aragorn's question had made Dwarf and Man eye each other slyly, before the retelling came in disjointed spurts.
"Surely Narvinye was not the cause!"
"Ah, but it is!"
"The Lord Faramir convinced the vain Elf that the ale was brewed suitably even for delicate tongues, wagering that even he could mount and rise a horse in a straight line after several tankards."
"And?" Aragorn asked incredulously with narrowed eyes, subtly raising a hand to cup his chin, hoping that his action sufficiently concealed an emerging grin.
"And drink he did!" Gimli scoffed, "and mid-way his foolishness peaked, and so he still mounted a horse, intending to ride and shoot with Elven accuracy. It came – wondrously executed – as far as him falling off Arod!"
"…indeed?"
"'Twould be unbelievable to all except to those who see it with their own eyes!" The Dwarf smugly replied through his beard. "Faramir insisted on buying the ale, omitting that it was part Dwarven in strength."
"You give yourself little credit, Gimli," Faramir objected merrily with an outstretched hand that gestured mock gratitude. "And I merely added onto it by suggesting the stronger alternative - Dwarven ale."
"And he never knew!"
"So this is what happens in Ithilien without my knowledge," Elessar Telcontar murmured thoughtfully, moving to the open window to stare toward the East. "And I discover it in the most unusual of manners, as a guest in your reconstruction efforts."
"The sun is scarce up the sky, and he slumbers! Oh, he will never hear the end of it!"
"I wager he disremembers all when he wakes."
"Until we tell him so."
"And what more opportune moment than at the time when he is perfectly lucid?"
Aragorn turned back to them, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter at their lively discourse – arrogantly and impossibly charming. For the moment that they were mired in humour and keen visual imagination, the assault of weariness dropped from the face of Arda.
"A drunken Elf is hazardous and unreasonable."
Arwen Undomiel stood at the threshold of the door, an indulgently wistful smile that signalled the brief reminiscences of long departed kin. She moved towards her husband, taking his hand in hers.
"Have you told them of your plans?" She reminded her husband, and he frowned immediately at the mention of duty.
"Nay," he shook his head wearily. "I loathed to break the spirit of merriment because its brevity adds to its sweetness."
"What is it, Aragorn?" Gimli asked sharply, all trace of humour wiped from his face.
"The Easterlings…" Aragorn's voice betrayed the depth of his own incredulousness at his findings. "They…cannot be found. Men of Gondor have only begun to ride out from Minas Tirith. The Balchoth who attacked Gondor under the orders of Dol Guldur, dwelling near east of the plains of Gogoroth have vanished. Broken chariots, destroyed wagons…only these were recovered after the army of Gondor scoured the black land of Mordor."
"They fell when the Dark Lord fell!"
"Nay, Gimli. Even the Variags of Khand have suffered this similar fate – and not all had fallen when Mordor fell. Several tribes of Khand have come and pledged allegiance to Gondor and they are accounted for. But the majority did not, and we have found remnants – in the similar way of the Balchoth…it simply demands further inquiry."
"Perhaps King Eomer of Rohan might know more," Faramir interjected heavily. "The Balchoth overran the plains of Calenardhon, but defeated by Eotheod near half a millennia past. It seems futile to come to any conclusion prematurely, however. We need not yet worry too much about the East. Harad has been and will be for some time, Gondor's focus."
"It does not worry me any less," Aragorn shook his head. "that Southrons are so freely given to every sway of promise as they did readily to me –"
"And the Umbarian treaty is already in order. Eomer of Rohan assures it with his betrothal to the Princess Lothiriel of Dol Amroth," Arwen chided gently. "Faramir is soon to be wedded to the noble lady Ijaba…" she paused as she tested the foreign name on her tongue, nodding towards the Prince of Ithilien. "Do not worry overly, meleth –"
"It is both our fortunes that it is more than just a political alliance," Faramir put in, recalling the memory of Elessar Telcontar engineering an uneasy political alliance out of a blossoming attraction.
"We require the assistance of Eomer King of Rohan, Faramir. I have sent him a letter requesting his presence in Gondor for us to work this out together, should he agree. There is the growing probability that you will see the Lady Eowyn once more," Aragorn glanced at Faramir, who nodded in understanding.
There seemed no end to establishing peace; its difficult progress only worsened under unresolved conflicts, buried hurts that eventually resurfaced sharper than the sharpest of swords. In their faces, uncertainty moaned its name loudly.
"Is not the time for bitterness past?" he smiled at the company almost sadly. "The Lady Eowyn will not have herself broken easily…and my eyes now hold themselves only on the Lady Ijaba."
Smoothing a hand over the leather that protected her forearm, Eowyn glanced sideways, satisfying herself with the enraptured gazes of the crowd – a rarefied allure that lay at the core of banality – before finally turning her own eyes upward.
A swift, white bird soared on the air currents and glided over the plains of Calenardhon in a trajectory inspired by Bema himself, the focal point of an ever-growing crowd. Crossing an impossible distance, its body appeared to invert itself as its arc of flight abruptly reversed, its outstretched wings retracting suddenly, gravity tipping its own body into a dizzying dive as a shooting star flared the night sky.
A flock of mallards on a small pond rushed to disperse, but for a young mallard it was however, too late. In a collision of fluttering wings, sharp talons and soft flesh, both the feathered target and the peregrine dropped to the ground as the crowd burst into smattering applause.
Their voices mounting, they spoke among themselves excitedly, without pause for breath and thought, their chatter clinging like the unforgiving plague, an ugly duet.
"Aethelric's skills are great and impressive!"
"Great? Is that all you can say?" One snorted in derision, in a cinch of bushy eyebrows, pointing determinedly in the direction of the fallen mallard and the peregrine's proud hold on it. "Had I such a bird and a prey, my husband and children would have our stomachs full a sennight!"
"A sennight? –"
"Nay, had I forgotten that you do so have a bigger household to feed…" A scornful voice reminded the other somewhat stiffly, the slightest hint of mock distress drowned suddenly by a loud bellow emitting from the lingering, apathetic livestock.
"A smaller but unhappier house…" The other woman dryly retorted, pleased at her comeback, and at the turn of the conversation that seemed to have tipped in her favour.
Eowyn stooped to retrieve the wild mallard, speeding her movements as she returned the peregrine to its perch on her arm, before turning with brisk strides after the disagreeably engaged women.
"Hedda! Beornwyn! I overheard you talking…and I thought…well," She called hurriedly, nearly skidding to a giddying stop, adding meaningfully and emphasising her next words, "This catch is yours to share. There will be many others that Aethelric will hunt."
They turned to her with sour faces that morphed quickly into dawning surprise. Eowyn wanted to laugh at their incredulous eyes, adorned by the sparkle of surfacing glee. The women received her gift with too great an awe to stomach and she turned away before pursing her lips in repressed laughter.
"Such a gift, your Highness!" Hedda looked in disbelief at the limp mallard that she now carried.
"Oh your Highness…oh…--"
Eowyn was being thanked in the most profuse manner of speech, dramatically created with the wheeze of heaving bosoms and shrill exclamations of gratitude. She found her hands suddenly clasped tightly to each woman's heart, counting the seemingly long minutes until the sky changed from its sapphire blue to a fiery indigo-red.
The darkening sky reminded them of the duties of the home that had yet to be fulfilled, and with a last chorus of gratitude for such generosity, they departed.
A soft mutter reached her ears.
"Aye, I see you have extricated yourself most skilfully from foolish company," her brother said irritably with a sharp raise of his eyebrows, regarding her with comic dread. "So far it seems that you are by far the country's most sensible woman with whom I have the pleasure of acquaintance."
"Really?" She laughed, loving his rare sarcasm that surfaced at the oddest times. "As tempting as it may be, do try to refrain from unruly behaviour, Eomer."
"Unruly?" His eyebrows shot upwards and remained in a reasonable show of feigned innocence. "I know not what you speak of…perhaps it is at this point in time I should ask what misconceptions you have about me," he quipped in an attempt to remain light-hearted.
"Nothing more than what people talk about," She brushed the matter aside, ignoring his increasingly startled look. "They are naught but idle talk…why should you even give heed to them?"
"Eowyn! And pray," he exclaimed indignantly. "What of the rumours that you hear?"
"It does a king little good to listen to all everything that is spoken – your days will be passed in greater peace…" she said softly, grinning at the annoyance that was beginning to surface on his face. "But let me take this back to the subject at hand – the one that we were so jesting about before we lost the thought."
"Eowyn…" he started, demanding her acquiescence but she held up a merry hand.
"I believe you paid me both a compliment and an insult, Eomer and for that, I thank you…as you can see, for you have just given me more than a kind word," she replied bemusedly, mounting Windfola comfortably. "But it is a disappointment that your future queen has now to endure the status of the second-most sensible woman. The princess Lothiriel of Dol Amroth will be an unhappy woman if you insist upon continuing in this manner."
"We shall see, Eowyn," he sighed darkly and moved to stand by the side of her horse, bending down to adjust her slanted saddle before looking back up at her. "The betrothal stands but everything else is yet some time away."
"Eomer," she turned to him, and he was amazed at the hint of solemn admonishment in her expression that had so quickly replaced the earlier cocky exuberance, "Did you not already consider this – after having debated with everyone from Eothain to young Eldred in the most cunning of fashion?"
A frown creased his brow.
"A cunning fashion? What do you mean?"
"Nothing hidden within that, Eomer. I merely wonder why you seem overly eager for the union, having decided on it after lengthy discussions with your advisors and the other Marshals of the Mark."
They shared a growing look of understanding, before Eomer turned his lips up briefly at the Rohirric lattice of the twisted assemblage of grass, blooming flowers and rolling hills.
"Walk with me, Eowyn." He motioned towards the mounds that partially hid the tombs of Theodred and Theoden. "Aethelric will not mind the slight delay, methinks."
She descended with the ease of a rider and they moved slowly through the gentle breeze, until they reached the lifeless stones that preserved the residue of the pulses of life as long as memory remained faithful. She stooped to brush a wilted leaf that had descended on Theoden's epitaph, not wanting even natural elements to tarnish the gilded pinnacle of mourning that stretched intemperate and extravagant.
"I do not think I should even ask for the purpose behind your impending marriage. I think I already know the reason."
The bricks of reconstructed peace they were laying were still fragile. Yet it seemed unthinkable that this same Eomer – quietly catastrophic even – with whom she recalled carefree hours of hunting and romping, should now trespass the boundary of this familiarity that she had absently but surely held fast to through the years.
Unencumbered by the customary courtly protocol, she knew he appreciated the frankness in their conversation.
"Rohan needs political stability as much as its King needs an eventual heir. Elessar Telcontar wastes no time as the new ruler of Gondor. Already he sends mediators, healers and town planners into Harad and the East, rebuilding their towns, consolidating old allies and gathering new ones. Treaties are signed with such haste that I wonder if both parties realise the effort in keeping the peace," Eomer interrupted firmly, stooping with her, gazing hard at the cold stones that tried to stir memory and emotions. "Theoden and Theodred – fresh in their graves, aye, we need these badly. Already my memory of a childhood with Theodred grows dim, and I fear the inevitable – that it will be the same with Theoden."
"You sound resigned –"
"Tell me if there is another way, Eowyn."
"Nay! With Faramir…it was…different…I…I cannot say…" she shook her head, "I do not know." Aghast, she found herself growing in agitation, when the panic of loss of reason and sense obliterated immediate reality. Her own reaction set her a masquerade that she was yet unable to solve; it stirred an agitation and restlessness that still beset her each time she thought of her rejection of Faramir's proposal.
"It is neither madness nor mockery." Eomer reassured and smiled ruefully. "Perhaps for a lady it is more easily forgiven when she rejects a suitor."
She shrugged.
"It lies in the past now." Standing up abruptly, she gave a last glance towards the graves before turning towards Windfola. "I wonder why the Princess of Dol Amroth chose to accept the offer of marriage."
The twinkle of mischief was back, burying the doleful discourse.
"Correspondence has only been with her father, Eowyn," he said exasperatedly. "He accepted on her behalf. There is nothing remotely romantic in this, I believe."
"I will not – cannot – fault you for this – even if this is solely done for the reasons you stated," Eowyn said, raising limp hands from her sides in a helpless fashion. There was little to make of it now; she was now determined to purge the trial of the past in order to enjoy the full fruition of the present bliss – and to nurture the undying hope of being caught in great things to come when it was still within desire and recall. A path away from Ithilien was a track she had chosen to carve for herself, in that moment of obstinate illumination in the Houses of Healing, and now, it seemed fitting that he received the same opportunity to choose what he wished to do. "How can I," she reiterated in a kinder way, "rebuke you for a decision in which you have made so as not to compromise Rohan's future? So noble, Eomer…I just fear…and wonder at the irrevocability and inevitability of this decision – that perhaps happiness may not be within your reach."
He nodded towards the bird, whose wings flapped more each passing minute. "Aethelric grows impatient."
A shout accompanied the breathless sounds characteristic of a hurried messenger.
"My liege!"
They turned in surprise.
"My liege…a pressing missive from King Elessar Telcontar awaits."
Narvinyë – month of the new sun, roughly corresponding to the New Year