For once, they were watching a good movie. Kim had gotten a bit tired of zombies (and werewolves, vampires, mummies, aliens, blobs, gill-men, and dinosaurs), so she'd insisted on choosing either which movie to rent, or which restaurant to stop at on the way home. She knew that she was running a bit of a risk – Bueno Nacho was no longer the sure bet it had once been – but the odds were still highly in her favor. Besides, it was a win-win situation: she either got to watch a bearable movie or she got to eat something other than grilled chicken salad (maybe Ron could snarf nacos like there was no tomorrow and neither break out nor balloon up, but not everyone was so blessed. There was no small number of girls at Middleton High who would have killed him if they thought they could loot his metabolism from his body).
The bet had paid off, though. Ron got his nacos, and she got access to the entire video store instead of just the cult, horror, and sci-fi sections. She decided not to press her advantage – there were some movies that were better watched with appreciative girl friends than unhappy boyfriends – but that made it a little bit trickier as she tried to find a movie they could both enjoy. More than a little, really – it had to have enough action to suit Ron's hyperactivity, but enough romance to make her feel like they were actually on a date…or failing that, a few hotties. They ended up going home with Return of the King.
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There was a bit of traffic in the room at first. The elder Possibles made sure that the kids knew they were home, then faded out. The tweebs wandered through a few times, but didn't bother to stay. They knew that there just wasn't any embarrassing Kim in front of Ron, and they'd already built working replicas of most of the magical items in the movie (Gandalf's staff, complete with force field generator, had gone along on more than one mission with her). And their parents had made them stop trying to breed wargs and mumakil.
It was funny how much dating was like hanging when it was with Ron. Not just on cozy, stay-in nights, either. Even real dates were relaxed when they were with Ron. But cozy, stay-in nights could be nice, too.
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Kimberly Ann Possible was very, very smart. It would have been surprising if she wasn't. After all, she was, no less than her brothers, the result of "what happens when a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon reproduce". She wasn't like the tweebs – so restlessly brilliant that they got themselves in trouble – nor was she as intellectually inclined as her parents. Her true genius was physical. Still, she made with the straight A's.
And she had read The Lord of the Rings when she was seven.
She'd identified with Eowyn from the first moment they'd met, of course. Who else was there? In the book, poor Arwen never escaped the appendices! LotR was one of the few movies she'd ever seen where a change from the book was actually for the better. In the book, Glorfindel showed up, took Frodo to the Ford, and was never seen again. At least the way Peter Jackson did it, a character who was actually part of the story (or rather, one who needed to be desperately) got to make the rescue.
Still, even with Arwen getting some actual screen time, Eowyn remained Kim's favorite character. She'd been a little disappointed to see the movie's Eowyn as viking-blond - her personal Eowyn had always had (and would always have - she didn't care what the movie or the book said!) red hair. Not entirely unlike her own. Imagine that.
The first time she'd watched the Trilogy, Kim had seen Eowyn's love for Aragorn and - even knowing how it had to turn out - had rooted for it. Eowyn deserved Aragorn. He might not be the prettiest - that was Legolas - but he was, well, the best. He was the rightful king of Gondor, he was the hero who saved both nations, and he was...just generally cool. Aragorn was the first man (unless Theodred had, against all odds, been very different from Theoden and Eomer) to recognize and value her combat skill. Who else did the heroine who had killed the Witch-King deserve? But no. Aragorn went and had his tragic love story with his pretty princess (okay, so she wasn't totally useless...okay, so she had faced all nine Nazgul in her time...) while Eowyn got Faramir, the consolation prize. I mean...are you kidding? While she was killing the Witch-King, he was up in the tower getting rescued from his funeral pyre by Pippin!
But as the trilogy had worn on, her perspective had started to change.
Aragorn might have been good with Eowyn. He appreciated her in a way that the other men in her life, much as they did love her (it was so much easier to see when they were people instead of pages), never had. But his heart already belonged to another, and that was no one's fault.
Faramir was different. He was a brave warrior and a good leader, but he stood in the company of giants. He wasn't the hero that Aragorn was, or even Eowyn herself. He was a warrior by necessity, not by nature. But when she was standing at the window in the Houses of Healing, broken-armed, Black-Breathed and watching her beloved (okay, becrushed) Aragorn riding off to the final battle, he made her feel better.
So maybe Faramir wasn't a hero. But he could pick Eowyn up when she was down. What was more, he wasn't intimidated by Eowyn's heroism. He didn't look down on her warrior-ness like her menfolk, or even value her as an equal like Aragorn. He adored her for it. She was his hero.
Maybe that was something that Eowyn deserved.
A year ago, that had been enough. She accepted that yes, it was, in fact, happy endings all around (more or less). Everyone ended up with the right person, applaud the end of the movie, go home.
A few things had changed in her own life since then, though. Now she had a new perspective, understood things a little more deeply.
Faramir was a brave man, even if he did need rescuing from time to time. But more importantly, he was a gentle one, and he loved Eowyn unconditionally. She had nothing to prove to him. She could let down her guard around him, be vulnerable. The tough woman didn't have to be tough all the time, because her tender man was there to take care of her at the end of the day and not think for a moment that she was weak because she sometimes cried when he took off her armor and bandaged her wounds.
As she lay her head in her own Faramir's lap (and never mind his Pippinish qualities for the moment) and he began to stroke her hair, Kim Possible found herself pitying Arwen.