Éowyn
Éowyn's journal in the Houses of Healing.

Disclaimer: see first chapter.

Year 3019, March: 20
early hours of the day / sky is lightening

I must have drifted to sleep yesterday. It seemed to me as suddenly the room would swirl around and around and close me in, and instead of getting up I closed my eyes, and the last thing I saw was my eyelids swirling around and around, too, producing images in blurred colours.

When I woke up, I was feeling astonishingly peaceful and rested. I turned my eyes to the ceiling and smiled at the stone. I looked upon my blanket and realised it was smooth, and laughed. I looked around me and felt the happiness overflowing in me and glanced outside. I was wondering what I had dreamt of – it was something about me and Éomer, and Théodred – and what I had done yesterday to make me wake up so gladly when I looked out of the window. Something was disturbing there, though I could not put my finger on it. I tried to draw happiness nearer to me and not let it escape, but it was leaking out, like from a broken cauldron.

I looked out of the window again, and remembered. It was not facing east. I could not see the sun rise, or… what? The last time I had looked out of the window came to me, and the thoughts I had had flowed in as easily, too.

"The sun rises – I can't see it really, but even though I'm not looking toward the east, the sky is slowly lightening, the sun rises, and I hear horns and trumpets. Yes, I can hear them: The men ride."

They ride? Why, and to which destination?

My brother? Théodred? No, not Théodred. He could not possibly –

And intruding my innocent, forgetting thoughts, reality bore me into a stumble of the past and present.

Théodred was dead, I realised. He had been slain long ago. Or was it not as long ago as I had thought? I must ask my uncle to tell me when it happened. It is embarrassing I do not know. The king knows… where will he be? In Meduseld? Or… and then the image of a tomb floated into my mind, and it was clear to me he was dead, too. I had failed – I had wanted to save him, but I had not succeeded. Or had I?

But my mind wandered on. Who was the king of Rohan now? Who was to rule in Edoras? Théoden was dead, and Théodred could not his place. The next kin was my brother. My brother! Then my rational mind concentrated on him while my view strayed around the room and out of the window again. I blinked. Oh. My only brother Éomer was in war, wasn't he? And the war he was riding to was dangerous. Perhaps he would never come back and I would never know when Théodred died.

Yet, when I thought about it, it perceived me that if Éomer would not return I myself would be queen. Frightened at such a thought, I gripped the pillow I had been toying with such a force that I see the white of my knuckles. I scolded myself for being so superstitious. And if it were so, I would be queen.

I tried to regain composure, relieved that no one had entered the room to see me in this state, and wiped a few tears that had cunningly slipped into my eyes away with such a force that they burned. It was most likely he would not return, I mused. After all, he was riding into a war only a few days after fighting, and this one would be hard. They rode with less men than had come to the last war. Plausible, many had fallen or been injured.

A queen – I had often, in my childhood, dreamt of being queen. I remembered how I had adored Théodred, and followed him everywhere where he went while he dwelt at Edoras. I knew I could not wed my brother, but Théodred was my cousin, and he had to marry. He was always kind to me, and our relationship never involved quarrels like I often had with my brother even though we loved us dearly.

I was too little to think of love, but it was a pleasing idea – my brother would approve, for he liked Théodred as well as I did, though in another way: to him, the older boy (almost a man) represented a sort of authority, and an idol – and when I asked Éomer once what he thought of me marrying, he said I must, and taunted me that Théodred was not yet engaged. "Maybe he's waiting for you to grow up", he shouted, when I stood up, trying to look insulted. But inside me, though I was mad at Éomer to hint I was not grown–up, I rather much fancied the thought of Théodred waiting for me. Later I took up the courage to ask him "would you wed me someday?" perfectly solemn, to which he laughed and said perhaps and distracted me. I didn't pursue this matter any further. Not long after that a shadow fell into my life and he was gone.

Frowning at my childhood memories, I went over to planning my life as a queen. I would have to rebuild Rohan – the destroying had been raging all over the country, and with the march to Helm's Deep, people still had to settle. I promised I would create a new and peace – loving country in Rohan that would battle with evil forces victoriously, with honourable and trustworthy inhabitants. I would prove Gríma Wormtongue, the fool, utterly wrong.

If I were to be queen. I smiled at my far–fetched imagination.

And then I froze. My heart beat in chest as if to set up a record, and I realised that a while ago, reality had not come crashing down upon me, but, like the sun, revealing slowly what had lain in the shadow. And now she stood in the zenith.

If Éomer dies, there is nothing to lose. If he is dead and the mission the host set our for is failed, I will never find any time to return to Rohan and set up my country. There will be naught I could do.

I reproached myself for thinking anything about his return.

And now, I have been sitting in my bed for hours, writing, looking out of the window and always then thinking of the stupid and idiotic things I thought of.

I feel so guilty for my thoughtlessness – I was in a daze, but that does not justify anything.

How could I forget the doom? If I do nothing now, I will ever feel guilty – how long ever may be. I cannot stay here while my brother and many valiant men fight for us.

It hurts, more than any wound could, and I shall always blame myself for thinking of a life when others die trying to save it.

There is nothing I can do to aid them. I wish I could, but it has not been possible.

I hear the footsteps. Perhaps I cannot aid them, but aid could be given to me. I have decided.