HALF-LIT

This is a "test" chapter, so to speak. I wrote this a long time ago and have since decided to approach my Legolas/Eowyn story in a different way. I uploaded this in order to get ageneral reactionthough Imyselffeel that such a short snippet of the storyI'm planning to write can't allow anyone to already have a reaction, if you know what I mean.Still, comments of any kind (I really want to write a perfect piece on Legolas/Eowyn)would behighly appreciated. :D

By the way, this is in movie-verse, though I try to reconcile the books and the film as much as possible when I brainstorm. :)

This was as she had first known him—

She had been standing on the windswept terrace of Meduseld, and her uncle Theoden, the resurrected king of Rohan, was casting the Worm-tongued Grima from hall and realm.

"Your leech-craft would have had me crawling on all fours like a beast!"

There had been cries—of shock, of spite or of warning she had not been able to decide—from all who looked upon her liege and kin, possessed with wild and willful fury.

Her uncle had raised his sword, ready to hammer it down and smite Grima through and through. The snake had cowered, but the darkly-clad Man had come flying down the steps of Meduseld, thrown his arms about Theoden and prevented Grima's execution.

As Grima had clambered atop a horse and burst through the gates, returning to his true master, Theoden had whirled around to face the Man who'd stayed his sword-hand. The Lord of all Horse-lords had glared fiercely at the gaunt Ranger at that time, as if ready to strike this Man who had held him from his revenge.

She had thought of rushing down to Theoden's side, to cool his temper herself.

But at that moment, she felt him. Felt, as one feels the presence of unseen spirits lingering near, but this soul had indeed been near her, beside her, a spirit so close and intense that she could not have helped but be arrested by its presence.

"Hail, Theoden King!" the Ranger then cried, and all at Edoras fell to their knees, as the Ranger himself did so. She, too, had bowed her head in reverence, as the awareness of him sent a prickling feeling shooting through her skin. Before Theoden King had been able to respond, she had lifted her eyes, battling the weight of consciousness, to know what, or who, was the source of that fire…

She had not been able to see his face. But out of the corner of her eye she had glimpsed a tall, angular profile, and a head crowned with flaxen hair. The figure, too, had had its head bowed and a hand was upon its breast—she could not have had, as of yet, fathomed the significance of that strange gesture.

But still—and she had been certain of it, even at those very moments of first meeting—she had felt the very fire of his being. It was a subtle flame, she remembered, not one that was restrained, yet not one that was so easily released. It smoldered, just beneath his skin, and it simmered in his blood, and it shone, purely and powerfully, from the chasms of his spirit. And it was a fire, a flame, to her at once so exquisitely foreign and familiar that it both lured her and repelled her, in fear and in awe.

She had tried to further glimpse him, but then the question had come: "Where is my son?"

Love and duty to her uncle, her father, her lord and her king had assailed her. With hurried steps she had slipped behind the strange figure beside her (nay, she had not even noticed the Dwarf!) and had run to Theoden's side. It was her place, as shieldmaiden— sister-daughter—to tell him.

She could not have known that his own eyes had followed her path, or that he himself had perceived at those moments the great burning of her spirit. Yea, she had intrigued him even before she had first known him upon those cold stones of the Golden Hall.

But she would know—or would begin to know—now.