Chapter XIX

I exited the table as soon as possible once the meal was officially over, claiming headache or some other equally foolish reason. I dared not be caught by Marris who might want to have another heart to heart or by Théoden to pester me over whether I liked Marris or even Wormy who might smile gleefully at my discomfort. Bastards.

It was completely humiliating to sit there, and I felt like such an idiot. I was glad I left. There was a sick feeling in my stomach, and I felt like crying again. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, not even needing to close my eyes to rest. Just breathing in and out. I wished more than anything that my mother or even Morwyn was here to put her arms around me and tell me everything would turn out for the best and that they would always be here for me when the tears broke loose. But there was only silence in the room.

I practically snapped Éowyn's head off when she knocked a few minutes later, mostly for interrupting me, and partly for scaring the daylights out of me.

She turned to leave, but I relented allowing her to come in.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly. Éowyn could be a prick at times, as I am sure we all can be, but she knew this time that my life was getting dangerously shitty for me.

I nodded slowly, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, preparing myself for everything.

"There is more to your unhappiness with your marriage than lack of communication, correct?"

For the second time today I was going to be grilled on this. I thought I was going to be throttled by Marris if he ever found out I told someone what he had done to me, and therefore had kept my mouth shut. But the more I looked at it, the more I knew that it didn't really matter that I had lost my will to care what he did to me, strangely enough. I was going to meet death, sooner or later, though preferably later, and if he hurt me or not did not seem to matter. The fact that he was violent and probably would be to me throughout our marriage would damage his reputation little. People united in o-so-holy matrimony because of mutual love were rare.

I nodded in answer to her question.

"I thought so," she replied. She glanced at me curiously. "Did you throw up today?"

Oh gosh. This was going a bit fast, wasn't it? I could lie to her, but we had this little unspoken truce at the moment and it would make me feel guilty to lie to her at this moment.

"Yes."

"The hallway that leads to out of doors?"

"Yes."

"Did he hurt you?"

I swallowed my saliva uneasily. Here was the clincher. Could I say it? Would it even matter? From what I had heard, abusive husbands were the norm. Would anybody care?

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He said I was lying."

"Did you?"

"I would not call it lying."

"What did you do?"

I explained the situation to her, in as few words as possible. There was no need to drag out the situation. I felt sick again, and began to wish that Éowyn had never come, or at the very least, would leave.

She gave a half smile at the account of my interaction with Mortelia, but it faded with my statement of what happened immediately after. She looked at me with pity and I couldn't look her in the eye and we both knew that nothing could be done about it.

"I am sorry."

"Don't say it if you don't mean it, Éowyn."

"I mean it, Ardeas."

I glanced out the window, giving her the signal that this conversation was over. She did not quite take the hint, but remained sitting in the chair.

"Would you mind leaving?"

She gave an irritated sigh, giving me the impression that she thought me ignorant and immature, "Do you want me to leave?"

"Yes. I have a great deal to think about."

She raised her eyebrows and half rolled her eyes. "Suit yourself then."

Éowyn left me alone in the room, and it was such a relief to end the awkward and uneasy chatter.

-

In a rare fit of nostalgia, I decided to watch the sunset, this time from a more secluded position where certain annoying and downright nasty advisors would not find me with designs on my life. I went out to the back porch, if you could call it that. I noticed that all traces of my retching were completely gone, proof that it had been noticed. I pretended to be going for a walk around the practice field, for the sake of the guards' eyes only, but instead turned around out of sight to one side of Meduseld where I looked to see if it was feasible and at least somewhat safe for me to climb onto the roof.

There was really no climbing material on the walls, so I managed to climb up the aging yew tree that stood beside Meduseld, and thereby managed to get a hold of the sturdy wooden decorations that outlined the roof (The thatch did not look quite safe enough for me, even if workmen had climbed up there to paint pitch over the grease-paper skylights.). And while it was a bit difficult climbing, and I expected that it would be even more dangerous climbing down, it was completely worth it to sit on top of roof, leaning against the decorative horse's head, and watched the sunset.

The wind made my eyes water a bit and reddened my cheeks, but it was a completely and utterly spectacular sight and made up for the awful day I had been having.

And when the streaks of light had disappeared completely and the pinks and reds and faded beyond recall and the world sat in darkness, I continued to sit, feeling like a foolish little girl, a stupid little girl who has nothing better to do than to cry and whine over nothing.

I am not quite sure how long I sat on top of the roof but when my head began to nod, I figured it was a good time to get down, especially since I was not particularly exited about falling asleep on top of a building, a building with very steep sides that's roof was a good ways further from the ground than I would have liked.

The journey downward was successful, and neither did I have any sort of emotional breakdown or I fell and damaged something painfully. I sat on the porch, pulling my arms into my dress for warmth, staring out into the cold night, shivering in the biting wind. I gazed out into the distance at nothing in particular, the sky a deep midnight blue lit up with stars that look like jewels. A cloud rolled in and shrouded everything in a cold blackness, and brought with the cloud was a cold damp wind that swirled around everything uncomfortably and spoke of impending rain. Thunder sounded in the distance and before I knew it, tiny crystal plummeted to the earth, whistling faintly through the air. The guards looked at me as if I was a madwoman as I stepped out into the rain and held my arms aloft. Their pleas to return to shelter went unheeded and were drowned out in the beauty of the moment. I closed my eyes and stretched my arms heavenward, as far as I could and sang a lullaby, long forgotten.

The moment was implanted into my memory before I was roughly turned around to see Marris's face, so angry in mine. He brought his hand back and slapped me clean across my face while water droplets dripped off the edge of his nose. My cheek stung ceaselessly, and I guessed that there would probably be a mark from that slap. I stared into his eyes to see if I could find a single iota of kindness, of love, of charity, or of benevolence. There was nothing in his eyes except for spite.

"You little fool! If you catch a cold it could be the death of you! Get back indoors."

The one second of unadulterated happiness shattered into a thousand pieces, but I quietly lowered my head and stepped quickly back toward the porch where I noticed one of the guards smirking in my direction. Bastard.

The ground, now soaking, was covered in mud that made unpleasant noises as he pulled me back to Meduseld. Lightning flashed nearby, setting everything ablaze in a white glow for an instant. I felt so tired. I only wanted to sleep and forget everything.

We climbed the steps to the porch and out of the rain, mud coating my fine leather shoes and his boots, which were no less fine. My body kept trying to shiver but I refused to let myself show a sliver of weakness.

We parted at the stairs.

"Change into something dry. And do not ever do that again."

Cold and heartless. I glared daggers into the back of his head as he turned away.

"I hope you choke on your own cruelty, you bastard," I whispered after he was out of view, but even after everything, I could not put any heart into it. I really did not care what happened anymore.

I returned to my room and did change into a black robe and sat by the fire, staring into it. My stomach grumbled petulantly, harshly reminding me of my supper, or the lack thereof. My stomach's incessant grumbling was suppressed, and I continued to lean my head on the wall as I watched the fire.

A quick knock on the door followed by a familiar face looking in.

"May I enter, Ardeas?" Éowyn asked.

"If you must."

"Another confrontation with Marris?" she quietly inquired after hearing my almost cruel reply.

"Men are bastards."

Éowyn's mouth formed a soft humored smile.

"They really can be." She paused, noticing my wet hair and damp skin. "Did you just bathe? That must have been a long bath indeed. You have been gone since just before sunset. You were not even at supper, much to Uncle's disappointment."

I glanced passively at her, "I did not bathe. I watched the sunset and sang in the rain, but one of the guards told Marris who put a stop to me standing in the rain." I did not mention the fact that I watched the sunset from the roof – only gods would know how badly she would react to that little tidbit.

"You are very lucky you did not catch a cold though."

I sent her a withering look. "Yes, as I am sure you know, Marris was kind enough to tell me that, and explain to me that I will never disobey his high and mighty word again."

"Marris can be a little, hmm…, demanding sometimes."

"Understatement," I muttered.

She smiled vaguely and sat down while the conversation died. There was a long pause as I stared into the fire contemplating everything from my betrothal to an utter prick to blasted Wormy to even the Westron books from the library that Krane was hiding under his bureau.

We sat in a cozy silence, each of us watching the flames dance in the hearth.

As the rain pelted the window harshly, demanding entrance into the warm room, I wished for true companionship, like I had shared with Morwyn the short time I had known her. Someone who would not call it treason to criticize the King, someone who I could tell everything, someone who would stand up for me, someone to hold me close when I cried. Éowyn was more of a lady than I could ever be. I hated this life. Sometimes in the deepest darkness of my innermost thoughts, in the furthermost corner of my mind, and the most remote place in my soul, I wished for an end to this, even if in order to accomplish that, I would meet my end.

As Éowyn read a small book that she had found somewhere in my room, I turned away and watched rain drops streak down the window. I had never felt safer in my warm room with a fire blazing and a cold night out of doors, but I had never felt more alone.

AN: Sorry about the long time before an update but I finally got my new computer and I spent all day transferring files via floppy since Lucille does not have a USB port. School has been trying – I only enjoy three of my classes – the rest are pains in the ass. I took a wellness day (yes, already) and I now want more of them. I hate school.

I also have been writing Perks of Being a Wallflower type letters (writing letters to someone who does not know who you are and he or she doesn't reply – like a Blog except only one person can read it) and my goal is to have one letter for every school day and one for each weekend, so a lot of time is spent doing that. Uninfinity is going very slowly. I haven't touched it since August – can't seem to get a feel for it. Charlie, another story that I have been working on, can't seem to decide whether it is going to be a drama or a comedy – and it needs a rewrite. Whatever Happened to Beatrice?, a story of secrets and espionage in the 1870s is definitely going to be scrapped as I don't feel like doing any research on 19th century French customs and cultural influences. Another work of fiction, A Mouth Full of Charcoal and Hair is going very badly, mostly because I wrote an outline for the story. On top of that, I have been considering turning my fictionpress vignette Moonlight Sonata into a full-fledged work of fiction. And finally, a plot bunny about a cellist who loses his mind has been tugging on my hand for a while. I hate school. I could write so much more if I did not have to go to school. Dammit.

School sucks. And Bushie's little No Child Left Behind Act hasn't done crap for my school district, which currently has a problem with a strange mold that "isn't dangerous" but requires men in astronaut suits from the state health department to get rid of. Go figure.

Thanks to everybody who reviewed – I can never get too many reviews.