Steel Flower
100 word ficlet. The characters belong to the brilliant Professor Tolkien.
She never looked for sympathy, so I never offered it to her. She desired no pity, even as she stood pale in the gardens, her broken shield-arm in a sling and her face drawn.
I understood her on some levels, but on others I was lost.
She would stand sorrowfully by her window and on the walls with no cloak, the wind whipping about her. Long after I retired, she would be there, still and white, slender as a sword-blade.
I offered her my mother's mantle, and she took it. I stood with her, and she did not walk away.