Middle-Earth, Gondor, Minas Tirith: F.O. 16

It really began Éowyn suspected, when a wizard crowned a man– that nobody in the kingdom knew – king because he just so happened to have the right bloodline. No, not the right bloodline, not Gondor's bloodline, just a close enough relative that it would do.

Yes, it had really started then, but there had been a prophecy of a great King and Aragorn had fit the description, so no one had really cared that he was an unknown. Not even Éowyn, too newly in love, too newly married, still too much infatuated with her new husband. Too busy, too distracted to see the mistakes, too consumed by her own lingering pain after the battle to notice when Aragorn really began to fail. No, she was being unfair - he had saved the kingdom, why shouldn't he get to rule it? That's what she told herself anyway, even when she no longer belived it at all.

It was hypocritical of her to think these thoughts, after all her ancestors had taken a land that wasn't theirs. They had killed and slaughtered the people already there and called themselves Kings, because some man in a high tower had granted them a right to. But then maybe that wasn't entirely relevant, after all Rohan wasn't exactly its own kingdom anymore .

Aragorn had been called the king of men many times, Éowyn had never thought it meant anything. He was king of Gondor and Arnor, but that was as far as his dominion over the world of men went. The Men of the North had their own kings, as did the Rohan when it still lived, and the Men of the East and the South – or at least she thought they did, her knowledge of that region was deplorably lacking. Even the Dunlanders…when there had been Dunlanders…. had had their own chieftains and tribe elders, who they'd rather follow than some upstart ranger on a stupid looking chair. Of course, this entirely reasonable argument had clearly never occurred to Aragorn

'The Lands of Men must stand as one against those that would oppose us…which is why I've called you all here today.'

The men situated before the throne were leaders of their people in their own right. Many a grand captain or general of the Eastern borders – those that hadn't fallen to the strange blue army, and its mad wizard, stood side by side with lords of the west, and chieftains of the North. Faces red and angry from the wine that had been plied on the guests by Queen Arwen. It was as if she knew they would need to be sufficiently in their cups, before they took what her husband was about to tell them at all seriously.

'We are all men, not even our enemies will deny that title to us, yet some of us are of Greater stock than others. As much as many of you may grumble, this is not an insult, simply a stated fact. The Men of Numenor were the mightiest of us all. I'd always known it of course, but I'd never truly lived it before I ruled here. This is my home, Gondor is my home, Gondor's people my people, but they are not the only kingdom in which my ancestors once ruled.'

'We all have ancestors who ruled over someone, your Majesty.' Spat one of the lords of the North.

'Indeed my friend, but we don't all have ancestors who had the right to rule over all of it. The right that they were stripped of by the treachery of others. This land, all this land from Rohan to the very tops of the Misty Mountains is my land. Even the lands beyond that, the North, and the South and East, they are all mine. My kingdom to rule as I see fit, you are just my Stewards. Even the lands where my rule is accepted and supreme, they defy me at every turn. Gondor farmers whisper in their drinking holes, spit in my name and cry when I burn them. Yet it is in Arnor, my lovely reformed kingdom of Arnor where the true treachery has arisen.

'Well, I could sit here and tell you all about it but why should I, when I could show you. Bring him in!'

This last part is screamed to the empty doorway to the left of the throne. Faramir, sitting in his father's chair closes his eyes and looks away as they drag the prisoner in. Éowyn had suspected it would be another farmer, or some poor wench who had spoken out of turn to one of the king's kin in the North. But it wasn't, no this prisoner was not of the race of man at all, he was a hobbit. And as the guards wrenched the sack off his head, she realised that she knew him…knew him very well indeed. It was Merry, Merry Brandybuck. She tried to scream, but the toddler in her arms began to fuss and she had to remain calm to keep him still.

'Once again, my people's right of ownership questioned, and stolen by the lesser men around us. Invoking riots against me, taking lands that do not belong to you. All this the Halflings have done under the guise of peaceful co-habitation with the men of Arnor. But they forget what king it was that they swore to obey when he granted them their lands, they forgot just who would be swinging the sword when they stepped out of line. This lesser cousin of Man is no creature of the kindly west anymore, this creature is an enemy of the free people…of the freemen of Middle-Earth!'

Merry laughed at that, a tired, crooked kind of laugh. The laugh one only hears from a dead man.

'Joke's on you Strider, Hobbits are no relation to Man. Pity you forgot how to read while sitting on that fancy throne, or you might've known that.'

'Are those to be your final words, Meriadoc Brandybuck?'

'I can think of worse, if you'd care to hear them.'

'No, I don't, guards if you will?'

While the second guard forced Merry to his knees, the first brought his axe down on the hobbit's neck. Merry's head rolled away under the force of the blow, leaving a bloody trail in its wake, and smacked against the steward's chair. And not even the son in her arms could keep Éowyn from screaming then.