[Warning] Written in English as a second language. Can be read as a standalone, though it draws lightly on plots from my earlier fanfics in Chinese.
Prologue. An Echo of a Name
The Golden Hall of Meduseld shimmered with firelight and rang with laughter. Mead flowed, minstrels played, and the banners of the Mark stirred softly in the hearth-warmed air. Éowyn sat straight-backed upon the dais beside the King, her chin lifted, hands folded in her lap. Her golden hair was tightly braided, her grey eyes clear and keen.
She was but fourteen that spring, and though still young, she had already begun to gather both murmur and marvel about her name.
She did not giggle like the court maidens. Her frame, though slender, bore the early strength wrought of long mornings with spear and sword. Théodred had taken her as his pupil, sparring with her in the yard beside the King's stables, correcting her form with a soldier's discipline and a brother's care. He never mocked her bruises, nor bade her grow gentler. He adjusted her grip and praised her footwork, offered guidance without condescension—and when she faltered, he would grin and say, "Again, sister. You nearly had me that time."
When she did well—oh, how he laughed! Once, when she bested him in a bout with the wooden sword, Théodred fell back upon the straw mat with mock despair and cried, "Béma shield me—the lady grows fangs!" And the King, standing nearby, chuckled deep beneath his braided beard. "Aye—may they grow sharper yet."
It was the King himself who encouraged her, when she was found practicing with a most reluctant Éomer. In truth, Théoden often watched the three of them from the high ground, arms folded, pride softening the weathered lines of his face. He spoke of her as though she were his daughter, not merely his niece, and his approval gave her strength. When he said, "You ride as well as any of the House of Eorl," she believed it.
She wished that Éomer might be more at ease. He would wince each time he glimpsed her scraped palms or dust-smeared brow—not from disdain, but from a fear deep-rooted and tender. Poor Éomer—he had seen himself as her shield since the passing of their parents, and the thought of her risking herself in battle chilled him.
"You are all I have left of our parents," he said once, quiet and unguarded, after more ale than befitted his years. "I would not lose you to the blade of some Orc or wandering Dunlending."
It was not that Éowyn did not understand him. Indeed, it was quite the opposite, for she loved him the same—if not more. She had been but seven years of age when their mother died of sickness and grief, not long after their father fell to Orcs in an ambush near Emyn Muil. Though still young, the ache of losing those loving hands, the embraces and laughter—and of leaving their childhood home for Edoras—had never passed from her heart. Théoden was kind, steadfast, and no less a father for being an uncle; and Théodred, a sure guide and the elder brother any soul might hope for. Yet the wound of being orphaned at the very gate of memory had shaped her early and deeply. For a long while, her silences were long, and her laughter rare. Even as joy found her in riding, and in the rhythm of steel on steel, sorrow lay quiet beneath her leather armour.
If Théodred made her smile, then it was Elfhild who made her laugh again—Elfhelm's younger sister, three years her elder, a golden-haired tempest, strikingly fair, yet one who bore a sword with irreverent grace. They trained together when Théodred grew busy with the affairs of the Mark, and though Elfhelm grumbled ever to Théodred that Elfhild was "too wild for a maid," the two young women sparred and sweated side by side until the guards, half in jest, named them shadows of sun and moon.
"I wish I could be as strong as they are," Éowyn said to her once, panting and wiping sweat from her brow after a hard practice, as she watched Éomer and the others press on without pause.
Elfhild merely snorted. "Do you see the foals in the stables? A yearling is no match for a two-year-old—but give it time, and the difference shall vanish."
"But they say men grow ever stronger than women, as they age," Éowyn murmured, not wholly convinced.
Elfhild laughed then, as though some memory struck her as especially funny. "Men boast of many things—but we shall see for ourselves. Wait and see, my lady."
Yet for all the delight she took in arms, a lady of the House of Eorl, dwelling in the King's hall—even a shieldmaiden—had other duties. So that night in Meduseld, Éowyn wore a gown of deep green and sat with quiet grace. She watched the court not as a child, but as one who measured and remembered.
From the far end of one table, a woman in heavy fur murmured to her companion, "She bears the look of Steelsheen."
Éowyn did not move, yet she heard it. Her face did not change, but her thoughts turned over the words like a coin in her palm.
Later, when the guests had departed and the embers burned low, she found her uncle—who had become as true as a father—seated by the hearth in the King's chamber. He was polishing a sword with slow, absent strokes.
"They called me Steelsheen," she said.
The King looked up. "Did they so?"
"Yes. Why?"
He set the blade aside. "I suppose it is because you put them in mind of your grandmother—my mother, Morwen of Lossarnach. Proud she was, and sparing of laughter. Her gaze could still a quarrel, and once her calm words alone stilled the whole court."
"Was she cold?"
The King shook his head. "She had fire—but she kept it hidden, like a blade beneath fine silk."
He rose and went to a carved chest that seemed long unopened and untouched. From its depths, he drew forth a silver comb, shaped like the wings of a bird.
"She gave this to your mother once. I deem it yours now."
Éowyn took it gently. It was cool in her hands, and gleamed like starlight on steel.
"She never fought, did she?"
"No. Yet she had strength enough to make kings sit straighter in their chairs," he said, his smile touched with remembrance.
She hesitated, then asked, "I remember her not. She passed soon after Grandfather, did she not?"
The King did not answer at once. He turned to close the chest with care, and when he spoke, his voice was strangely distant.
"Aye. You would not have known her. She was gone. When my father died, she was but fifty-eight—and yet…" His voice trailed into silence.
He did not speak again for a long while. Éowyn had seldom seen her uncle thus—only when the memory of his wife, who had died in childbirth in the days before he bore the crown, was stirred.
That night, Éowyn placed the comb beside her training leathers and stood before her mirror.
Her reflection showed a girl with pale golden braids, sun-touched cheeks, and eyes that had known misfortune and grown hard against it. A girl who did not weep, nor plead, nor ask again when she was told no.
She was not cold—but she did not warm easily.
And if they saw steel in her, then perhaps they saw true.
Steelsheen, she repeated in silence, and the name no longer seemed distant. It felt familiar—an echo from a past not yet wholly lost.
Perhaps it was but her imagining, yet in the mirror, behind her, the image of a lady seemed to gather—tall and straight, with dark hair like the shadow before dawn, and grey eyes bright as stars, though her fair face was softly blurred, veiled in mist.
My grandmother, she thought. I would learn more of her.