They walk the walls again.
They walk in silence looking outward, he looks for the coming of the Company, she looks at him. Raven hair and clear grey eyes that shine with the light of the stars. She has missed his company, missed him, since his departure but she cannot bring herself to tell him, for too comfortable is she in their silence.
Indeed it is he who breaks the silence and her peace.
'Eowyn, why do you tarry here, and not go to the rejoicing in Cormallen beyond Cair Andros, where your brother awaits you?'
She can give him no answer and so he makes his own, ever close to the truth in her heart.
His words pity her, though his eyes do not, for she is too high and valiant a lady to be pitied, by him or any other. So she tells him a shadowed truth, for she cannot bring herself to speak her new found secret aloud yet.
'You are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond the words of an Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you.' The words hang between them.
Her mind wills him to stop, bids him to leave her again, abandon her the sullen creature with no hope. But her heart calls to him, and listens to his words, his promises, those he speaks aloud and those only his eyes tell her.
He loves her, has hope for her still and so her choice is made.
She will stay with him and keep a garden and love and grow and tarry in the Shadow no more.
And she asks him if he will take his proud people's scorn for his love of her, a daughter of the North, an unruly thing that will not be broken, not by shame or love alike.
"I would."
And so he takes her in his arms and kisses her freely. And she sees her future once more and she does not fear it, for it is a dark and sullen thing no more.
For she is with him.
She is loved.
She is happy.
THE END
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Happy Holidays.