Faramir sat in the passenger seat, feeling both ill-at-ease and strangely excited. However this strange state of affairs had come about – how he wished he could remember – there was no doubting that this was an adventure, a veritable quest, beyond his wildest imaginings.
The tall blond man had got out of the… what was it called again? The car. Presumably short for carriage. To retrieve the steed of steel. Now his sister, his very beautiful sister, was steering the strange wagon. A wagon with no horses. Powered by who knew what wizardry or devilry. Terrifyingly fast, with a casual mastery of the situation that added to the mixture of fear and exhilaration. He sneaked a side-long glance at her. She was every bit as lovely as that first moment she had removed her helm. And for some reason, some blessed reason, she had found it in her heart to make herself his protector in this strange realm.
He turned his head, and gazed out of the window at the bright lights dangling across the street.
"They are so beautiful."
"Christmas lights," the young woman said. (Wyn, he thought he'd heard the man call her. Mistress Earle, the healer had called her. What an extraordinary coincidence. With her colouring and hair, she'd have made a true daughter of Eorl had she been born in his world). "Christmas is our mid-winter celebration. Some people have religious beliefs about it, some just enjoy the party."
"We have something like it – Mettare. But nowhere near as bright lights as this. Some wizardry at work, I'll wager. Like the fireworks Mithrandir makes to entertain the hobbits."
Éowyn wasn't quite sure how to reply to this stream of words which meant nothing to her. And the mention of wizardry freaked her out a little. Mostly she was finding she felt comfortable in Faramir's company, but every so often he'd come out with one of these comments which reminded her she was dealing with someone a bit bonkers. She decided to change the subject. "Do you like music?"
"Yes, very much." He smiled at her. She reached out and pressed a button below the sloping window in front of them.
Suddenly the most vile cacophony Faramir had ever heard filled the car. He slapped his hands over his ears. "That is not music. That is the noise of the forges of Orodruin."
"Dunno what you're worrying about, can't beat a bit of thrash metal," Éowyn shouted above the din, giving a broad grin while turning the knob between her fingers. The cacophony subsided to a mere ear-grating background noise. "It's Éomer's playlist. Here..." she pressed a button, and the hideous noise was replace by a woman singing, or perhaps more accurately alternately sighing and warbling, with drums in the background. "This button takes you through all the radio stations. Keep pressing it till you find music you like."
Rather cautiously, as if it might bite him, Faramir started to work his way through the stations. This land's minstrels seemed to favour a lot of drums and discord, and a certain Bacchanalian excess in their approach. But finally, after a dozen or so attempts, he stumbled upon something really quite beautiful – voices, and what sounded a bit like viols, with woodwind and brass, used sparingly to great effect.
Éowyn cast her eye over to the glowing display on the radio. "Why does it not surprise me that you've landed up on Radio 3," she said, with a sigh. She rolled her eyes, but there was a slight quirk of her lips, as if trying to suppress a smile.
Faramir realised he was being teased, even though he couldn't understand the import of her words. He replied, deadpan, "This music is not to your taste? And yet you seemed to like the din that we started with. Can it be that you too did not escape our earlier collision unscathed? Perhaps the fall damaged your hearing in some way."
Éowyn pursed her lips, realising that her attempt to pull his leg had been rather neatly turned round. "It's just a bit old-fashioned. Like the way you talk. Which is why I'm not surprised."
"Old fashioned? You make me sound like my maiden aunt. The bane of my cousins' lives."
"That's the second time you've mentioned your cousins. Just enough for me to think they're younger than you, and perhaps a bit badly behaved." She shot him a side long glance and added, "I bet they'd like a good bit of thrash metal." This time, Éowyn was definitely smiling.
"Do you know, I think they would at least affect to do so, if for no other reason than to annoy our aunt."
"Well, so long as you don't annoy my aunt… well, sort of aunt. Because it's her we have to persuade to let you to stay."
"I shall be on my best behaviour. I shall even endeavour to make appreciative remarks about this thrash metal if you think it would help," he said, smiling back.
Éowyn gave a laugh. "It wouldn't. The thrash metal, that is. The good behaviour probably would."
~o~O~o~
Éowyn sat on the floor in the doorway while Éomer made up the pull-out bed in the room they used while on leave. The dark-haired stranger stood in the corner, propping up the wall.
"On the whole that didn't go too badly," she remarked.
"I'm just sad I missed the initial reaction. I was expecting Jane to have a cow," Éomer said.
Faramir frowned in confusion at this strange idiom, but the siblings were so used to chattering at high speed he found it difficult to get a word in edgeways, especially as their form of the common tongue was not really one he was used to – it seemed stripped down, much sparer than the version he was used to, but at the same time with lots of additional words. Many of them, he suspected, that one wouldn't want to use in front of his Aunt Ivriniel, or his father. Both siblings seemed to swear like troopers.
"Surprisingly Uncle Theo was pretty laid back about it all. But you're right, Jane wasn't best pleased. Freaked out a bit about how did we know he was okay and not going to murder us in our beds..."
"You're not, are you?" Éomer asked Faramir. "It'd be nice if you didn't, seeing as how I'm sleeping next to you and would probably be your first victim…"
Faramir guessed he was being teased again, and replied, conversationally, "Would it be all right if I said I'd strangle you – no bloodstains for Jane to clean up in the morning, so it wouldn't be too much trouble for her."
"Yeah, well, you'd be stuck with strangling him," Éowyn retorted, "Because we put all your sharp, pointy metal stuff in the fencing cupboard and locked the door. We keep all that stuff safely locked up from the kids. For stage props, they were pretty damn realistic."
Yet more new words. Which one to ask about first? What were stage props? More or less randomly, though, Faramir found himself saying "Fencing?"
"Sword fighting," Éomer explained. "Wyn is (it pains me to say it) bloody good at it. Top three finishes in épée and foil, won the sabre in the women's competition at last year's joint forces competition."
"Joint forces?"
"Army, navy and air force. We're both in the army."
Faramir tried not to show his surprise. A woman in the army? He looked at her, and once more thought to himself daughter of Eorl. She would make a very convincing shieldmaiden. If such things existed in these latter days. He wasn't quite sure of the state of things in Rohan. Then corrected himself. If such things existed in this strange new world. Then it occurred to him to puzzle over another word, air force, but before he could do so he realised the conversation had moved on.
"… and find him some clothes and a towel… I'll show you where the bathroom is," Éomer said.
A voice called up from dowstairs. "Wyn, can you unload the tumble drier and put the laundry away?" Éowyn got to her feet and padded off downstairs.
~o~O~o~
"Oh God, sorry!" Éowyn realised she'd run, full-tilt, into Faramir. Then… "Oh God! Sorry!" She turned bright red as she realised… A wet, half-naked Faramir clad only in a towel, on his way back from the bathroom to Éomer's bedroom.
She stepped back rapidly, face flaming, clutching the heap of laundry to her chest. She couldn't look him in the face. Though this probably wasn't helping, as it occurred to her that she was now staring at his chest instead. A toned, muscled chest, with a generous dusting of dark hair, the sort of chest you could press your face against, feel the warm skin against your cheek, breathe in the scent of warm male body. Oh God. She looked down rapidly, trying not to linger on what appeared to be a washboard stomach, or on the V of muscles leading downwards, trying not to wonder what was beneath the towel, trying not to register the muscled legs. Feet. Surely feet were safe to look at.
"Uh… sorry. Sorry, I keep saying sorry." Bloody hell, where had her brain gone? "Washing! I mean, I'm sorting the washing. I'll just go and sort the washing." She slid along the wall, back to it. As an afterthought she added, "Ask Éomer to find you some clothes. Ummm, he's a lot taller than you. But there might be some my ex left that would fit you." She bolted for Jane and Theo's room and shut the door firmly behind her, dropping the pile of laundry on the bed, then flopping down beside it, her head in her hands.
She took a deep breathe. Where the hell had this come from? This was the bloke she'd nearly run down. The bloke who appeared to be a sandwich short of a picnic. In fact, about half a loaf of bread with all the fillings short of a picnic. Where the hell had this come from?
Who was she kidding? It was pretty damn obvious where this had come from. Now he was out of the peculiar fake-medieval clothes, she could see he was a fine looking specimen, and pretty ripped too. Not in an obvious body-builder sort of way, more the sort of wiry build she saw in men who went in for a lot of rock-climbing. Any woman with enough of a pulse for the blood to still be circulating would probably have responded the same way. And she was in the middle of a long, dry patch. But… the fact remained: he was probably nuts and she didn't know a thing about him
She gave her head a shake, exhaling. Right, there was only one way forward. Pretend that hadn't happened. Denial, denial, denial. Contrary to what her best mate Liv back in 61st Company said about her approach to life, denial was a perfectly healthy coping mechanism. She was determined to keep any urges in that direction firmly under wraps. Even if she had to resort to the fabled army "bromide in the tea" method.
Methodically, she began to sort out the sheets and towels into the appropriate drawers.
~o~O~o~
Much later that night, Faramir lay in the darkness, listening to Éomer snoring fit to rouse the Halls of Mandos. The most peculiar of days, and frustrating too. He knew there was something vital he should remember about all of this, some information he'd been given. But it hovered, annoyingly, just out of reach.
He felt considerable relief too, that somehow he had fallen in with a family who had taken him into their household and made him at home. A household which included within its number the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Not that he held high hopes in that direction. He seemed to have embarrassed her dreadfully colliding with her while half-naked. His cheeks burned at the memory. Clearly, for all her unconventional dress, she was a respectably raised maiden who was mortified by being exposed to him in a state of undress. He wondered if there was any way he could discreetly raise the issue with her brother and ask how he might make amends. Probably not, on reflection, well not if he didn't want to be soundly beaten by an angry and protective elder brother. He rolled over and pulled the quilt – a sublimely comfortable quilt -over his head, and tried to sleep.
Sleep, when it finally came, was haunted by dreams of running his fingers through flowing, liquid golden hair.