Author's Note: I'm sorry it took me so long to update! I don't even have a very good excuse; after finals for school ended, I spent two and a half days simply lying on the couch and either sleeping or watching chick flicks (specially chosen because they take absolutely no brain power whatsoever). I guess I'm just lazy. Anyway, thank you for being patient with me, and here is the second chapter. I'm not as happy with it as I would like, but I'll let you decide what you think. The same 'rules' apply as in the first chapter, so I won't elaborate on that. Because I like to get all my facts straight and be as accurate as I can, I figured out that at the time of the story, Faramir is thirty-six years old, and Éowyn is twenty-four. Also, Faramir is eight years older than Éomer, and twelve years older than Éowyn. One more thing. I am going on vacation for about a month and a half here (evil laugh), so I will not update for a while, but that does NOT mean I've forgotten you! Ok, thanks for listening to me ramble, and PLEASE review!
Chapter II: The Lady Éowyn
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase…
- 'My Immortal' by Evanescence
-Faramir-
When next I woke, pale morning light was trickling in through the little window, sending a few bold shafts of sunshine streaming to sweep along the far wall. The cool blue bowl had been replaced with a cheerfully steaming pot of a fresh green colour. I leaned over to smell the tea in it and found that the pain was subdued; now it was just a dull throb in my core, deep down beneath my rib cage, where I could feel the blood rush and subside.
And- a miracle! - I could a faint twittering from outside, as of songbirds, or- or larks. I always have loved larks. They always seem so happy and full of life, even in nasty weather. I would watch them swoop just outside my window when I was bored. I remember I was always daydreaming as a boy, especially during lessons. Boromir was the wild one, running and wrestling and full of spark and challenge; while I was the shy one; I didn't talk much to people I didn't know, and I preferred to spend my time in my own world, a world where I could be whatever I wanted to be and do anything I could imagine.
But that was a long time ago. After I became a Knight of Gondor and swore my allegiance to defend her, I didn't have time for daydreams.
I sat up warily, still remembering the last time. To my immense relief, I felt no more than a sharp twinge in my side where the Southron dart had struck. Cautiously I pulled aside the bandages and peered at it. Dark blood crusted around the edges, but the skin seemed to be pulling together without much inflammation. The wound was small and shallow- it was rather surprising that it had caused so much pain and kept me so ill for so long. But that was probably also a side effect from Denethor's reaction to my injury and his 'cure'. I am no healer, but I assume that nearly being burnt alive is not good for one's health, both physical and mental. I smiled at the thought, the first simple, sincere smile I had had in weeks; no, months; then I looked around my room, slowly walking, delighted with my progress, careful not to strain my side, where the dart had struck.
It was a cheerful little place; they probably designed it like that to lift the sick man's spirits. High ceilings and white-washed walls made it seem bigger than it was; I discovered a tiny enclave to the left of the window; this contained a door of the same dark carven wood as the low table; and I found that the door opened onto a small balcony overlooking the gardens of the Houses of Healing. This lifted my spirits even more. Some luck at last.
I stayed there for some time, for I had become suddenly weary with the small amount of exercise I had done. I leaned against a thick stone pillar, and when my legs gave out, I let myself sink to the floor and bask in the sunlight, strong and warm out here.
There was no one out in the garden this early; the larks still swooped and twirled undisturbed; the misty air still a crisp chill to it; the dew still glimmered on the clipped grey grass and translucent tree leaves and nodding flower buds.
There was another balcony to the right of mine; it was empty, save for a small sparrow hopping along the railing, pausing every few feet to cock its head and peer at the engravings of leaves and twisting vines with bright little bird eyes.
At last I returned to my room, and had a light breakfast of tea and some white cakes I found next to the teapot. In the middle of my second cup of tea, a maidservant came almost noiselessly in and placed an alabaster flask on the table, keeping her eyes lowered. After she cleared some of the empty plates and picked up a few of the damp cloths still lying on the floor, she made a low obeisance to me and backed out of the room, her white healer's cap bobbing all the while.
When she had gone, I reached eagerly for the flask across the table. It proved to be rich red wine, helpful to the spirits and curative for the body. I found it gave me strength- and courage- to venture outside my room.
I was cautious, glancing both to the left and to the right, and over my shoulder, when first I crept out into the long spacious halls. But as I got through first one hall, then a second, then across a plaza, always skirting at the edge, hugging the walls, I began to imagine I had become invisible, somehow. It was an eerie feeling; everyone seemed to be looking not quite in my direction, or they simply looked straight through me; the one man who accidentally looked me directly in the eyes merely nodded and touched his brow in a salute. I came to appreciate it, though; I had had too much of the wrong kind of attention from my father to enjoy being the center of it for too long.
I had no clear destination in mind; just to get out, to prove to myself that I still could do something useful.
The Houses of Healing was a place of much activity: the sound of water dripping in basins, the women's skirts rustling softly, the quiet moans from the gravely ill, and the cries of joy from the recovering; all filled this place. The scent of a thousand different herbs, pungent and minty and bittersweet, drifted about and mingled until it smelled like a marketplace.
Eventually I came to one of the many doors, where I sat on a bench and watched people move in and out into the bright streets where the noise and chaos still filled the war-ruined city; in here it was quieter, even with the bustling and busyness. For a while I simply sat and enjoyed the feeling of laziness: I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to fear. I did not have to keep alert for the next possible enemy, I did not have to worry about the safest way back to the nearest hideout.
Once in a while I even saw someone I knew: one of my Rangers from Ithilien, a member of their families, a particularly friendly guard. They were the only ones who willingly acknowledged I existed. When I saw them, and they saw me, we smiled and waved, maybe even exchanged a few words of greeting. But that was all. They had their errands to attend to, and I should not be disturbing them.
I began to grow tired again; even the wine could not keep me up forever. I began to make my way back to my room, glad I had marked a path in my mind. I stopped in the main plaza to rest for a few minutes, and I helped a healer woman bind a wounded man's leg; it was torn and the muscle was badly damaged, but the wound was washed clean. The entire time the woman did not look me in the eye; her gaze rested somewhere on my left shoulder. She merely said 'Thank you' when we had finished, and smiled encouragingly at my tunic sleeve.
I had to stop again outside a door not far from my room; I could see my own door not fifty feet away, but I had to rest, or my legs would give out.
As I recovered, I heard hushed voices speaking from within. "Alas! For she was pitted against a foe beyond the strength of her mind or body…" I recognized this voice as the Lord Aragorn's, and I dragged myself forward to the doorway to hear better and peered into the gloom.
The King sat on his heels at a low bed pulled against the wall. His companion was a young man, probably not much younger than myself; he bore armour worked of leather and metal and was strong-looking, with thick shoulders and well-muscled arms, but his face bore a look of worry, and always his gaze was drawn from the King's to the bedside.
On the bed lay a young woman, so like to the man in form of face that she looked to be one of his close kindred. Her bright hair gleamed with pale gold upon her shoulders, and her face, though stained with dirt and blood and grime, was lovely. Delicate yet sinewy hands lay crossed on her breast; she looked slight, even fragile, but something told me that she would not break easily. Even grievously injured and filthy, I thought she looked the fairest lady of a house of queens.
I was startled to see that she too wore armour, and at her side was a sword scabbard; but where her sword had gone, I could not tell. She lay quietly, save for the occasional murmur or a twitching in her left arm; the right arm, the sword arm, hung nearly motionless; it seemed there was no life in it. She was still, so still, too still; at times I thought she had stopped fighting for life, but then she would give a shallow gasp and her chest would rise almost imperceptibly.
I was brought out of my thoughts as Aragorn continued speaking with the young man, who was apparently called Éomer and was the woman's brother. I forgot about returning to my room and shifted closer to hear better.
The Lord Aragorn gently wrung some of the water out of a cloth and laid it on the lady's forehead. Éomer leaned forward in his concern. Aragorn glanced at him and sighed.
"It was an evil doom that set her in his path…for she is a fair maiden…" he continued, but my thoughts were racing when with a jolt I realized that "he" was him. The Witch-King. The Black Captain. The one who had nearly killed me. And apparently her too. A truly evil doom, for one so fair to battle with- no- don't think about that.
"And yet- I do not know how I should speak of her." The Lord Aragorn spoke of the Lady now. "When first I looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet…" He paused, as if trying to find the right words. "I knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die?" He continued gently. "Her malady begins far back before this day, does it not, Éomer?"
Éomer rocked back on his heels, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown of concentration and wonder. He began slowly, perhaps as if unsure of where his point was headed; but as Aragorn listened in silence, tending to the woman's broken arm and wrapping it gently, his voice grew stronger.
"…Care and dread she had, and she tended to the king in growing fear. But that did not bring her to this pass!" As he finished, his love and worry for the lady radiated from his voice.
There was a slight rustling in the back of the room, and Mithrandir suddenly became visible, sitting on a chair onlooking, his white robes luminescent in the darkness. He leaned forward on his staff.
"My friend, you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man…and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned upon."
As did mine, I thought.
Mithrandir continued, "Do you think that Wormtongue had poison only for Théoden's ears?...My lord, if your sister's love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips, you might have even heard such things as these escape them."
Éomer looked up sharply as if startled. His blue eyes, clear and bright with unshed tears, betrayed him; but then something softened, and he looked at his sister with new vision, as if he were seeing her for the first time and was silent.
"But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?"
Then all were silent, watching her lie still and motionless on the pallet. Éomer slowly reached out to her and stroked her hair gently. After a few moments, he whispered, "Éowyn?" There was no response from the lady. He bit his lip, swallowed hard, put a hand on the floor to stand up.
The King said, "I saw also what you saw, Éomer. Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a man's heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned…
"I have, maybe, the power to heal her body, and to recall her from the dark valley. But to what she will awake: hope, or forgetfulness, or despair, I do not know. And if to despair, then she will die."
I turned away. We were both still captive to a Shadow that had not yet passed. We were still hurt, trapped inside ourselves, forced to become someone who we weren't and wear a mask to the world.
Yet one look at her face tells me she hid it beneath silence and dignity and honour. I was unable to hide mine behind the mask.
And even as I did, she rode to her death, and she too was somehow spared from the slaughter. And yet…she has gained the glory she sought for, has died the death of blood she wished for; she has emptied herself of the tiredness and pain and refusal and circling questions of reproach; I have not. I should be the one lying there pale and dying, not her.
When I reached the safety of my rooms I collapsed in the single chair in the room, unable to force myself to stand any longer. The pain in my side had returned, and I tried to ignore its burning. I felt dizzy and light-headed, and as I gripped the arms of the chair, I half-imagined there would be finger-marks burned into it when I let go. Some time later the healing woman reappeared to redress my side.
When she undid the wrappings, and applied salve to it, and her fingers slipped and jabbed pain into me, I clenched my teeth as the breath whistled between them; but my thoughts went to one who lay motionless, unable to feel pain, save for in haunted dreams clogged with memories.
When she finished she told me, in a voice forced to be too cheerful, that I was healing well and that the worst was gone with the athelas, and that all I needed to do was rest and eat well, and that would help me gain the weight I had lost in the fever and put colour back in my cheeks, and that when the wound was completely healed, wouldn't I like to go down and regain my old strength in the practice fields? Her words fell on ears turned to stone, and I thought of she who would not go down to the practice fields for a long time, if ever again, who it would be rare to see with a flush on pale cheeks, or with a spark in those deadened eyes that did not long for life.
When the woman left me at last, I sat curled up in the shadows against the wall on my balcony and forced all thought and feeling and memory from my mind, until I was numb, an empty shell from which all life would drain, if poured in at all. I sat and watched the sun set, and the Moon rise, and the stars flower and wheel above, and the trees sway in the night; andI listened to the trees whisper to each other,and the night-birds coo to each other, and the Sea murmuring in its sleep; and the Moon set and the stars faded, and one star fell and disappeared forever, and there was nothing but the silent dull grey of despair that comes before dawn.