2. How Things Change

Three years later, Edoras

Éothain

"Did you ever see such a beautiful thing?" I say, a smile breaking across my face as our company of newly-made riders of Rohirrim, escorted by a few old veterans, comes over a rise and the city of Edoras appears in the distance. "Home."

Beside me, Éomer, the young nephew of Théoden King, who trained alongside me at Aldburg, and who has won the seat of the Marshal of the East-Mark, young as he is, lets out a sound that is less optimistic. "It is home for you, but this place holds many sad memories for me, along with the good, and an ailing uncle who is also my king," he says. "My sister waits upon him like a nursemaid for an old man, the poor creature, doomed to a life of dark, dank sadness."

Four years my senior in age, Lord Éomer is twenty years my senior in his outlook. I suppose he has cause to be.

"Be that as it may," I remind him, grinning evilly, "At least you will be able to wash off the grime of the road. And about time, too! The flies will be saddened by the loss of your sweet scent, though."

He looks about ready to launch his fist at me for a moment, then his face splits into a grin that lifts the maturity off his face. "Your words ring true for you as well."

Together, we urge our horses ahead of the rest and canter down the rise, two young knights of Rohan, with the morning sun shining off our hair and our heads held proudly high. Today we are brave and strong and the world is ours.

Once fed, clean, and rested in my parents' home, I have time to do as I please for the first time in what seems like months. Poor Éomer has been received in the Golden Hall, and I am for once glad that I am not a lord and have no such formal obligations. After promising to be back for supper, I kiss my mother goodbye and wander through the village, wondering how nothing seems to have changed and yet I can feel slightly out of place in this home in which I was raised.

The market was this morning, and now in the heat of the afternoon vendors are packing up their wares and stalls, but a few let me browse, patiently waiting as I look. Hunfred, another young rider, falls into step beside me. We have spoken very little since we met on the road, but he is friendly and easygoing and I find that I like him and do not mind the company.

He is strong – any warrior must be - but built more slightly than I or Éomer. He is handsome, I suppose, with more gracefully-hewn features than mine. His manner is cheerful and he is always light-hearted, quick to jest, but he strikes me as quiet and brooding by nature, as if much of his laughing and jesting is put on for the benefit of others. He has a sensitive air underneath his bravado, and I confess I wonder if he has the true makings of a warrior. He seems as if he might be more at home elsewhere than on the battlefield – still I cannot pass judgment. We are all here for different reasons.

"Mercy, who is that?" he asks beside me, and startled, I raise my head to search out what has caught his eye. A girl. Of course.

I don't recognize her at first as she walks pasts me, not even seeing us watching. Long golden hair, tied back simply, a simple gown of grey broadcloth, holding a basket of colorful woven goods, back arching with the weight. Fine, delicate features, pretty enough, a well-formed figure. A younger girl, about nine or ten, trots behind her, struggling with more goods in her arms. I watch them, perplexed. The little girl glances behind at us, and a glimpse of that unmistakable freckled, heart-shaped face and large blue eyes under a wild tangle of flaxen hair and suddenly I know them both.

"Excuse me," I say to Hunfred, and go after Brithwyn and her little sister Isemay.

"Do you know them?" I hear him say but ignore him. I race to catch up.

"Brithwyn, Isemay," I call, and she and her sister stop and turn.

"Éothain, it is you!" cries Isemay, and she drops her bundle of goods and rushes towards me, arms outstretched. Laughing, I bend to pick her up and swing the little girl around. She is all legs and gangly arms.

"Hello, little goblin," I say, using my old pet name for her. "You've gotten so big, I wouldn't have known you."

"So have you," she said, drawing back to look at me. "You're all muscle-y and you've grown a beard."

"You'd better not grow a beard," I warn her. She giggles. "Then people would think you were a dwarf instead of a goblin."

"I'm not a goblin," she protests but is still giggling uncontrollably.

I set her down and turn to Brithwyn, expecting a welcoming smile and a happy embrace too, but she is only gathering up Isemay's dropped goods and shaking the dust off of them. Her face is a mask and she doesn't look up at me, her brown eyes shielded by long lashes and a bowed head.

I kneel beside her and help pick up the weavings. "A warm welcome from your sister, but not from you, it seems," I say softly so that only she can hear.

She raises those eyes to mine. "Welcome back, Éothain," she says loudly, coolly polite. "It has been a long time."

"How have you fared these past – what has it been, three years?" I ask, putting a hand on Isemay's shoulder and hugging her against me. She has gotten tall for her age. But it is the change in Brithwyn that holds my attention. Last I saw her, she was a girl. Now she is a woman, and serious. What does she see when she looks at me?

"Well enough," she says, but something in her tone startles me. "We must be going, though, if you'll excuse us."

"Well, let me at least walk you home and help you with your load," I say quickly. "Are you still living with your mother?"

"Yes," Brithwyn says shortly. "And much has changed since you have gone away. Please don't trouble yourself. We can manage. Come along, Isemay."

The girl looks from her elder sister's face to mine, her eyes sad and confused.

"It's no trouble at all," I protest, worried now by this cold behavior. "I was going that way before."

Brithwyn sighs, relenting, and together we parcel out the wares so they are more fairly distributed, me carrying the bulk of the weight. As I set off, I look back at Hunfred and find that he is watching us. He must have seen this whole exchange. Uncomfortable, I nod to him in farewell and turn away.

"Do you sell these at the market?" I ask, looking at the work. There are woven rugs, and skeins of woven cloth, the colors richly dyed, more vibrant then I have often seen, although I know little of fabric. The work is finer than I remember Brithwyn's mother making, but perhaps her mother is doing well.

"Yes, and Isemay helps me with the dying and the spinning," said Brithwyn. "Also, sometimes I get work in mending and altering clothes, from those who have coin to spare. But there are no great ladies but the Lady Éowyn at Meduseld, and she cares little for fine clothes.

I realize with a start that it is not Brithwyn's mother that does this work but Brithwyn herself. Of course.

"How is your mother?" I inquire quietly.

"Worse," Brithwyn answers bluntly.

Indeed, when we enter the little house, which is as shabby as I remember, although the garden outside is ripe with produce, there is a dank, sick air. Freya lies on a bed in the corner, her eyes squinting at us in the dim light, no doubt wondering who this third person is.

"Hello, Mama," says Brithwyn cheerily, setting down her basket in the adjoining room, where a loom is visible and no doubt Brithwyn works. I follow and set my load down beside hers.

"Hello, my dears," whispers the woman weakly as Isemay runs up to kiss her. "Who's here?"

"It's Éothain," I say, kneeling beside the bed. "Home from Snowbourne. How are you, Freya?" I take her thin, gnarled hand and kiss it in greeting and the woman grants me a small smile.

"Forgive me, my eyes are weak. It has been a long time."

"Mama," interjects Brithwyn. "Would you like to go sit in the sun a while? Since Éothain is here, perhaps he can help me carry you out and you can sit in the garden. It will do you good." She looks at me pointedly and I hurry to oblige, gently scooping up the woman, whose weight is featherlight and carrying her out the door that Isemay rushes to hold open. Brithwyn follows with a chair and together we settle her mother in the sun.

"Isemay, will you sit with Mama and shade her eyes?" Brithwyn asks. "I want to speak with our guest."

Isemay looks like she's about to protest, but one look from Brithwyn and she nods meekly.

Brithwyn takes my arm and leads me into the house. Warily, I follow. The tone in Brithwyn's voice is not a warm one. Once we are inside, and Brithwyn opens the shutters, allowing air and light to flow through the window, I open my mouth to speak.

"What is it? What is wrong?"

"With Mama? She's just...tired, and ill. Her eyes are too weak to sew, her spirit too weary to live. I take care of this family now."

"No, with you," I say. "Why are you so cold to me? I thought we parted as friends. What have I done to make you angry with me?"

She does not immediately answer and begins to fuss with the room, straightening it as best she can. I wait glumly. When she finally responds, her words come out in a rush of feeling.

"You walk in here as if we are expected to welcome you as if you've hung the moon and the stars in the sky, bowing down to you the hero, as if we've sat around just waiting for you to come back. But why should you? What have you ever done for this family? Were you here when Isemay fell from the roof and broke her wrist? When the both of them took ill with scarlet fever and the sickness took much of Mama's sight and I was left here trying to make do while carrying for them and fearing that they would die, or that I would take ill as well and we would all starve? When I had to work my fingers to the bone trying to make a living and raise my sister and pay the taxes and tend the garden and clean the house? We have a few helping hands every now and then but in these troubled times no one has much to spare. And now you come here, laughing, shining like the sun, and you will leave soon enough with the same careless smile, proud and untouched, and we will stay here only to continue in living death -"

She is crying, and turns around to hide her tears as if ashamed. I reach out and take her in my arms, unyielding even as her body shakes and she tries to turn and push me away.

"I'm sorry," I whisper in her ear. "I see how hard it has been for you while I have been away. I wish I could have prevented it, or change it now. Is there anything I can offer -?"

"No, there's nothing," she whispers, suddenly turning in my arms and burying her face in my chest. Her voice is small and vulnerable. "Just hold me a moment, Éothain. It has been so long since anyone has held me."

My heart seems to quicken as I become aware of the womanly curves that are suddenly pressed against my body, causing a warmth to spread through me like wildfire. She has grown beautiful, and the temptation to tilt her head up and kiss her is suddenly incredibly hard to resist. All at once I am brought back to that embrace in the stable last time I saw her. I had felt the same stirring in my body then, though at the time I was young and inexperienced. Now I am well acquainted with the signs of lust – but somehow with her it has always been stronger, even sweeter. Brithwyn sighs and softens against me and I am struck by a thought.

"If I married you – " I say, and she pulls away and looks at me as if startled. "I could help all this."

"Help?" she says and breaks away from my grasp. "The way my father helped my mother, always leaving for battle, gone for months, then dead? What good was it all for?"

"He died an honorable death in service to his homeland," I say, slightly offended.

"Damn your honor," said Brithwyn softly, and it is the softness that chills me. "I would rather have had a father. Isemay never knew her father. Why do you think she's so fond of you?"

"All the more reason for you to wed me," I say. She is blushing faintly, I realize, and I take it as a good sign. "Everyone always said that – "

"Everyone has forgotten," said Brithwyn sharply. "When I marry, and I must marry, it will be someone with a trade, a smith maybe, or even a farmer. Someone who will live a quiet, humble life and provide for us, and the Valar willing, someone who will love me a little. Would you give up your life as a Rider for me?"

I stop, sobered by the thought. Would I?

"Nay, Éothain," she says, suddenly tender. She places a hand on my cheek, startling me. "You have a life to lead, a purpose, a duty, a dream to chase, and I am not a part of it. You could never be anything but what you are."

"Then let me help you while I can. I swear to you I will do whatever I can to ensure your happiness, Brithwyn," I tell her solemnly, defeated but stubborn in my desire to help her, to keep her near me. "I swear to you with the same fealty I swore to Rohan."

She smiles at me, a furrow between her brows. "Oh, Éothain. You are too good. Forgive me."

"I have one request, though," I say, "In payment."

"What is it?"

I hesitate.

"Kiss me."

She looks at me with apprehension. "I cannot."

I hold up a hand. Wait. "I have thought of you so often these past few years, with nothing but tenderness. But I always pictured you as I left. Now, you are – " I stop, moved by her expression. She is struggling to smile.

"What?"

"More beautiful then I could have imagined," I say softly, tracing the line of her cheek. "I hope you know that."

She looks disbelieving and pained and happy all at once and my heart is breaking. "Éothain…"

"Kiss me. As a friend. Just once. I won't bother you again. We will be friends and go on as before, though I hope you will be glad to see me next time. Just once, Brithwyn, and only if you want to. I won't press you."

"Just once," she repeats, her lovely eyes searching my face. "All right. Just once."

She moves slowly, a hand, stained by dye and callused from work but still delicate, reaching up to cradle my face. I close my eyes as she rises on her tiptoes and her lips reach up to meet mine, chastely and timidly but somehow sweeter than any wanton kiss I have ever received. For a moment I forget everything and want to fall on my knees before her, to say that I will give up my calling for her and learn a trade, but all too quickly she draws away and I am brought back to reality. I have sworn an oath to serve my King and country and I will not be foresworn, even for a woman. Even for Brithwyn who is more than just a woman but a part of my soul.