Note: This is probably NOT going to be medically correct--I'm warning you now. Just go along with it, because I have no head at all for science. :) Thanks for your reviews!

Scene Three: The Death of Confidence

Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The old healer was rattling off what was wrong with him as the red-haired girl sat in the corner of the room, looking red and shame-faced. She had gone to get the old healer because she was too afraid to tell the broken ranger all of his other injuries. The old woman had scolded her fiercely. Through his numbness he had heard them outside in the hall.

"You are a foolish child, Soredamors! I should have known that this would be too much for you. We never leave someone like that alone. Never."

The said Soredamors had followed the old woman back into his room and had sat down glumly in the chair, refusing to look at him.

The woman talked in a raspy, harsh voice. "Your left foot's broken and the right one's sprained, but those'll mend easy. Several broken ribs, a dislocated hip and shoulder, a sprained back…those will be fine. However," she drew up a chair to sit at his bedside.

"…Your hand. Its probably feeling numb and useless right now…we are not quite as sure as we'd like to be about what happened to it. Some of it may come back, but it's very uncertain whether you'll regain full control. And, we…" she paused, relieving her voice of it's terribly matter of fact tone. "We tried to save your arm. But it was too far gone. I am sorry. You look as though you are a fighting man."

Was, thought Strider in the midst of his fear and grief, I was a fighting man.

"Soredamors is here if you need anything," she said briskly and quickly left the room.

He laid back and closed his eyes. Lying here, crippled, being watched over by a little girl…his pride was being mauled as every second went on.

In sleep he found refuge from overly harsh reality. I don't have arms, he thought in those few, brief moments before sleep. My arm is gone and my left one won't ever work again…

Despair made him smash into his dreams, driven by the forces of grief.

Hours later, he found himself being gently prodded awake by the little Soredamors.

"My lord, the lady Healer says you must eat," said the child in soft tones, motioning to a bowl of gruel on his bedside table.

He tried to move his remaining arm. Oh, the gods would have admired his determination to make his arm move. Yet, after half an hour, his fingers had not even twitched.

"The lady healer said that it would be long before you regained control of your other arm," said Soredamors quietly, mustering up the courage to speak to the ranger. She took the bowl of rapidly cooling gruel and placed it in her lap. "We are short of healers, so I am to help you, my lord."

It was then he understood. And it was also then that he watched that brave, wonderful inner pride he had shudder and fall down into tiny, irreplaceable pieces as he let himself be spoon-fed by a little girl..

"Eowyn," sighed Eomer, "Theodred said that he saw you in the training room this morning with my sword again."

The lady Eowyn did not move from the window seat where she was reading.

"I apologize for taking your sword, Eomer, but I could not find my own and you were sleeping," she said sincerely.

Eomer gave another heartfelt sigh. "I would not care, Eowyn, except that apparently Grima overheard Theodred joking about it to me this afternoon."

It was at this that Eowyn felt the first stirrings of alarm within her heart. She put the book down abruptly. "And…?"

"And Grima told Uncle, who wants you to do as Grima advises."

Eowyn stood up and stepped towards her brother. "What does Grima want me to do? I will not sit and sew all day!" she snapped, turning away, furious with herself for letting herself be caught.

"No, sister…he wants you to go work in the healing wing instead of sneaking down to the training rooms. I think it will be good for you, honestly."

"I will not go," said Eowyn stubbornly, sitting down once more.

"They are short of healers, Eowyn, they are in need of any spare set of hands. You have duty, you know."

"I know of duty, Eomer…" she said quietly, and after long moments she said, "I will do it."

"Then go to Gildern, the lady healer, tomorrow morning," replied Eomer with traces of sympathy in his voice. "I am sorry, Eowyn."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she said, her eyes catching a familiar black-clothed figure skulking about the courtyard outside through the window.