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shieldofrohanMarriage has been far from her mind for a long time. What time has there been for such things, such planning for the future, when there is no future to plan against? There is only the endless drudgery of the now; of stolid duty, of the daily running of the city and the tending to her uncle's ailing health, of bitter shadows and dark dreams as the stormclouds gather. How is she to think of marriage, then? How could she even think of wedding someone, of being a bride in some foreign city, when all her duty and all her life is here? No, marriage has not been on her mind; but only the quiet grind of life when all that she would live for is fading around her.
This changed all at once, when it changed. Two matters precipitated the change: the first, the death of her cousin, so dear to her heart. All of a sudden, she and her exiled brother are all that remains of the dwindling line of Eorl; all of a sudden, that abstracted future is shorter than ever. It is her uncle, her King, who speaks of marriage then; who clasps her hands where he lies in his sickbed, and tells her through tears that he would see her wed, that ere he dies he must see her happy.
And this might not have changed things so deeply - for she will not rush to wed, when there is no man she would call worthy of turning her from duty - were it not for the second matter. Word that comes in dribs and drabs, tangled by distance; letters that capture her, that she returns in kind. They are, to begin with, a distraction; a fantasy, to sustain her through dark days. A lost prince, wrongfully kept from his throne; an ancient line, a terrible wrong, the promise of a right reclaimed. She has visions of her place in this tale, of the glory that has eluded her in these shadowed halls: how there will come a day when, at full strength, the Eorlingas ride to the aid of another kingdom, as once they rode to Gondor's aid so long ago; and she will be at their head, and she will be Queen, and who then will overlook her in the shadows? Who then will turn away, ashamed, from her pain and sorrow? Then will all be restored, and she will linger no more in hollow darkness, but smile again, and be loved.
It is a fantasy. In her heart, she knows this; in her truest mind, she knows that she can promise nothing but an already-embattled army that will not leave its posts, and a king without a throne can promise nothing but more war. But there is glory in war, too, and there is romance in what she has been told; and she is young, for all her hardness, and her blood has ever run too hot. It is a fantasy, but one she sorely needs; and she has come to love the king whose face she has never seen, whose tragedy is the stuff of songs.
And still it might not have changed anything. It is the confluence of the two, the quirk of timing - that the offer of marriage comes so near on the heels of Théodred's loss and Éomer's exile - that turns the tide. How can she do otherwise? She writes in answer, and seals it with her uncle's ring. Come. To wed, to stay, to await the turning of the tide. And what she does not write: Come, and marry me, and make of my life a song. Come: I have waited too long in dreary duty.
And the days pass, and there is a future to await; there is something to hope for, at last, and even her uncle's continued ill-health will not deter her from the strange blossoming of hope in her breast. The war drags on, and the darkness lingers, and all is not well in Edoras; and yet, there is change on the horizon, and she will not always be alone. She will not always be a ghost in her own halls, the White Lady whose beauty and sorrow are all that are known of her. She will be a queen, even if she is a queen in exile; and she will not be alone.
The king, she has heard, has a sister too. This is another spark that brightens her darkness while she waits; for she has never had a sister of her own, and for all the love she bears towards her brother and her departed cousin, for all her fierce devotion to her kinsmen, how fine a thing it seems to have another woman in her life! She has written again to Magister Illyrio; assured him that the Lady Daenerys will be most welcome, and as dear to her as a true sister; and every word of it she has meant. Excited as she is to be wed, to be loved, to be Queen, she is almost as excited again to have some woman in her life who is neither maid nor servant. She imagines a woman like herself, lonely and chafing against the weight of grief; a woman who will understand, as no man ever has, the burden of womanhood. They will sit together, she imagines, and comb and braid one another's hair, and weave and sew and work, and they will laugh, and they will find a companionship that Éowyn, who for so long has been the sole lady of the hall, has craved since her childhood.
She will have a sister. She will have a husband. She will have a purpose, one more glorious than simple house-stewardry. She will be a queen.
It is a heady thought. It fuels her, and her already industrious days are fuller than ever; she still nurses Théoden through his illness, still oversees the business of the city and the kingdom as she must, but her mind is more thoroughly on the preparations for Viserys' arrival: the feasts to be thrown, and the guests to be called, and how she must be her most regal and her most beautiful, ready for the war to come.
It is, then, a grander hall than ever that greets the Pentosi travellers. She is glad to know that it is a sunny day when they arrive: that they will see from afar how the roof of Meduseld gleams like gold in the autumn light, that the wind that stirs the long grass of the plains and sets the green banners fluttering is not too cold or too harsh. The city bustles with activity; there is music for the first time since the prince's body was borne homewards, and an air of (still muted) festivity; and through the green and white of Rohan's colours, she has contrived to work patches of red and black, a reminder of the union to come.
She awaits them outside the hall itself, and even the presence of Gríma Wormtongue beside her, glowering, will not sink her spirits. Soon, she thinks, you will be nothing to me. Soon, I will see you driven out. When I am queen.
She looks, in truth, like a queen already. She has made sure of it. Her waist-length golden hair is bound back by a silver circlet, her white gown embroidered richly in green and gold, her head held high and her smile both sweet and noble. There is a sorrow in her still, but it is for the moment held at bay, a dim shadow in clear grey eyes. She steps forwards to greet her betrothed, and for a moment, the fantasy seems to hold. He is, perhaps, shorter than she had dreamed, gaunt with hardship, sharp-edged and pinched; but there is a fire in his violet eyes, and he holds himself well enough, and he is handsome in his way. She is not displeased, she decides; he is no Eorl nor Isildur, but he is king enough in his heart, she will not doubt that. She smiles and welcomes him inside, where the firelight plays on carved wood and ancient tapestries, where the tables are set and the lamps are lit, and where her uncle sits (not so tall as once he did; not so kingly now the light has left his eyes) upon the high throne.
It is enough. She will not allow it to be otherwise. Rohan gains by this marriage; there is a bride-price to exchange for her dowry of fine horses and good armour, and there is the promise, too, of renown to come. She gains by this marriage most of all. It is a joy; she will not allow it to be otherwise. Even with her brother gone, it is a joy.
And perhaps, in all of this, she blinds herself to the things that will not fit the tale she wishes to tell. Perhaps there are things she excuses, which she might not otherwise: he is not the most polite, but he is a stranger in a foreign land, and he does not know the customs; he is not the tallest or strongest man she has known, but he is a king; he is a trifle vain, but is she not also too much aware of her looks in this moment? It will be easier, she tells herself, after the wedding. When he comes to know her and her people more fully, to see all the beauty that Rohan has to offer, then it will be easier; and songs are not often sung of these strange early days, when things are between this and that.
His sister is not so impolite. In truth, his sister feels barely present, to Éowyn's admitted grief: a quiet, shy thing, delicate as a bird, too often hastened away. But this, too, will pass - must pass. Daenerys' furtiveness, no doubt a result of that same alien land which brings out her brother's scorn, will pass in time. This will be a home to them, until their own home - her new home - is restored. She will see to it, she determines, with a stubbornness that has seen her through so many trials before; she will not relent, and when the wedding is done, they will know that they are kin here.
The wedding comes soon enough, only a few days later; and she stands before her uncle, dressed again in his robes of state, and she thinks she almost sees him smile through his grief as he blesses their union; thinks, for a moment, that she sees the old spirit return to him. Any doubt is gone. She can only smile, and look at her new husband from beneath modestly-lowered lashes, and think with a thrill of excitement: Queen. I am queen. And they will sing songs of how we reclaimed the throne.
This changed all at once, when it changed. Two matters precipitated the change: the first, the death of her cousin, so dear to her heart. All of a sudden, she and her exiled brother are all that remains of the dwindling line of Eorl; all of a sudden, that abstracted future is shorter than ever. It is her uncle, her King, who speaks of marriage then; who clasps her hands where he lies in his sickbed, and tells her through tears that he would see her wed, that ere he dies he must see her happy.
And this might not have changed things so deeply - for she will not rush to wed, when there is no man she would call worthy of turning her from duty - were it not for the second matter. Word that comes in dribs and drabs, tangled by distance; letters that capture her, that she returns in kind. They are, to begin with, a distraction; a fantasy, to sustain her through dark days. A lost prince, wrongfully kept from his throne; an ancient line, a terrible wrong, the promise of a right reclaimed. She has visions of her place in this tale, of the glory that has eluded her in these shadowed halls: how there will come a day when, at full strength, the Eorlingas ride to the aid of another kingdom, as once they rode to Gondor's aid so long ago; and she will be at their head, and she will be Queen, and who then will overlook her in the shadows? Who then will turn away, ashamed, from her pain and sorrow? Then will all be restored, and she will linger no more in hollow darkness, but smile again, and be loved.
It is a fantasy. In her heart, she knows this; in her truest mind, she knows that she can promise nothing but an already-embattled army that will not leave its posts, and a king without a throne can promise nothing but more war. But there is glory in war, too, and there is romance in what she has been told; and she is young, for all her hardness, and her blood has ever run too hot. It is a fantasy, but one she sorely needs; and she has come to love the king whose face she has never seen, whose tragedy is the stuff of songs.
And still it might not have changed anything. It is the confluence of the two, the quirk of timing - that the offer of marriage comes so near on the heels of Théodred's loss and Éomer's exile - that turns the tide. How can she do otherwise? She writes in answer, and seals it with her uncle's ring. Come. To wed, to stay, to await the turning of the tide. And what she does not write: Come, and marry me, and make of my life a song. Come: I have waited too long in dreary duty.
And the days pass, and there is a future to await; there is something to hope for, at last, and even her uncle's continued ill-health will not deter her from the strange blossoming of hope in her breast. The war drags on, and the darkness lingers, and all is not well in Edoras; and yet, there is change on the horizon, and she will not always be alone. She will not always be a ghost in her own halls, the White Lady whose beauty and sorrow are all that are known of her. She will be a queen, even if she is a queen in exile; and she will not be alone.
The king, she has heard, has a sister too. This is another spark that brightens her darkness while she waits; for she has never had a sister of her own, and for all the love she bears towards her brother and her departed cousin, for all her fierce devotion to her kinsmen, how fine a thing it seems to have another woman in her life! She has written again to Magister Illyrio; assured him that the Lady Daenerys will be most welcome, and as dear to her as a true sister; and every word of it she has meant. Excited as she is to be wed, to be loved, to be Queen, she is almost as excited again to have some woman in her life who is neither maid nor servant. She imagines a woman like herself, lonely and chafing against the weight of grief; a woman who will understand, as no man ever has, the burden of womanhood. They will sit together, she imagines, and comb and braid one another's hair, and weave and sew and work, and they will laugh, and they will find a companionship that Éowyn, who for so long has been the sole lady of the hall, has craved since her childhood.
She will have a sister. She will have a husband. She will have a purpose, one more glorious than simple house-stewardry. She will be a queen.
It is a heady thought. It fuels her, and her already industrious days are fuller than ever; she still nurses Théoden through his illness, still oversees the business of the city and the kingdom as she must, but her mind is more thoroughly on the preparations for Viserys' arrival: the feasts to be thrown, and the guests to be called, and how she must be her most regal and her most beautiful, ready for the war to come.
It is, then, a grander hall than ever that greets the Pentosi travellers. She is glad to know that it is a sunny day when they arrive: that they will see from afar how the roof of Meduseld gleams like gold in the autumn light, that the wind that stirs the long grass of the plains and sets the green banners fluttering is not too cold or too harsh. The city bustles with activity; there is music for the first time since the prince's body was borne homewards, and an air of (still muted) festivity; and through the green and white of Rohan's colours, she has contrived to work patches of red and black, a reminder of the union to come.
She awaits them outside the hall itself, and even the presence of Gríma Wormtongue beside her, glowering, will not sink her spirits. Soon, she thinks, you will be nothing to me. Soon, I will see you driven out. When I am queen.
She looks, in truth, like a queen already. She has made sure of it. Her waist-length golden hair is bound back by a silver circlet, her white gown embroidered richly in green and gold, her head held high and her smile both sweet and noble. There is a sorrow in her still, but it is for the moment held at bay, a dim shadow in clear grey eyes. She steps forwards to greet her betrothed, and for a moment, the fantasy seems to hold. He is, perhaps, shorter than she had dreamed, gaunt with hardship, sharp-edged and pinched; but there is a fire in his violet eyes, and he holds himself well enough, and he is handsome in his way. She is not displeased, she decides; he is no Eorl nor Isildur, but he is king enough in his heart, she will not doubt that. She smiles and welcomes him inside, where the firelight plays on carved wood and ancient tapestries, where the tables are set and the lamps are lit, and where her uncle sits (not so tall as once he did; not so kingly now the light has left his eyes) upon the high throne.
It is enough. She will not allow it to be otherwise. Rohan gains by this marriage; there is a bride-price to exchange for her dowry of fine horses and good armour, and there is the promise, too, of renown to come. She gains by this marriage most of all. It is a joy; she will not allow it to be otherwise. Even with her brother gone, it is a joy.
And perhaps, in all of this, she blinds herself to the things that will not fit the tale she wishes to tell. Perhaps there are things she excuses, which she might not otherwise: he is not the most polite, but he is a stranger in a foreign land, and he does not know the customs; he is not the tallest or strongest man she has known, but he is a king; he is a trifle vain, but is she not also too much aware of her looks in this moment? It will be easier, she tells herself, after the wedding. When he comes to know her and her people more fully, to see all the beauty that Rohan has to offer, then it will be easier; and songs are not often sung of these strange early days, when things are between this and that.
His sister is not so impolite. In truth, his sister feels barely present, to Éowyn's admitted grief: a quiet, shy thing, delicate as a bird, too often hastened away. But this, too, will pass - must pass. Daenerys' furtiveness, no doubt a result of that same alien land which brings out her brother's scorn, will pass in time. This will be a home to them, until their own home - her new home - is restored. She will see to it, she determines, with a stubbornness that has seen her through so many trials before; she will not relent, and when the wedding is done, they will know that they are kin here.
The wedding comes soon enough, only a few days later; and she stands before her uncle, dressed again in his robes of state, and she thinks she almost sees him smile through his grief as he blesses their union; thinks, for a moment, that she sees the old spirit return to him. Any doubt is gone. She can only smile, and look at her new husband from beneath modestly-lowered lashes, and think with a thrill of excitement: Queen. I am queen. And they will sing songs of how we reclaimed the throne.
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Date: 2022-02-03 01:51 am (UTC)She sees, through the blurring of tears, the way he looks upon her; the way she had thought he would look on her so many times before now. She sees, with sick horror, that he is handsome when he smiles that way; that in this moment, he looks closer to the lordly warrior she had hoped for. He is sharper and stronger than she had given him credit for, and he is a king, and he smiles, and he praises her beauty; and is this not all what she asked for, in the darkness of her long nights? Is this not the measure of her hopes?
In the back of her throat, beneath the metallic tang, is a sharper bite of bile. Her stomach heaves vainly. She lets her aching head fall back against the tabletop, feeling from a distance how her scalp still stings where he has torn at her hair. The torn remains of her gown are hardly a cushion against the cold press of the wood. She can smell blood, and she wonders, when the sun rises on this familiar chamber, how much there will be to show for it. Will the ladies weaving wonder at the scratches on the wood, at new and unfamiliar stains? Will they know?
"And now?" It is all she can think to ask, and her voice is a rasping hiss, her throat too sore to force anything louder.
Now, she supposes, he must find the bed he did not have the patience to seek, for the night still passes, and the morning must come. And she must, at some point, return to this place to clean what he has done; to hide what he has made of her, and bury what he has slain. And now she must rise, and face towards the future that she has wrought for herself; and now she must wash the blood and sweat and sticky seed from her skin, and crawl into bed herself, and lie in those sleepless shadows between the hours wondering whether she can kill him as he sleeps. There is still work to do. There is always work to do.
She does not move, not even to close her legs. She cannot find it in herself. And now, now grinds onwards into another now, and the darkness deepens, and why should she move, when there is no escaping it?
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Date: 2022-02-03 03:50 am (UTC)"Now?" It is mused aloud, almost amiably, as if this were one of many quiet evenings shared, a routine of peace to be played out however they like. "Now I expect you will wash yourself, and I, having suffered a day of so few gifts and blessings, will take pleasure at least in a restful sleep, if I can find pleasure nowhere else." At this the appraisal he gives her takes on a flippant edge, discards her from ankle to throat as he takes in the sight of her spent body, and he lifts both hands to perfect the lay of the collar at his throat, as if he has taken from her no pleasure at all.
She does have much to scour from herself - blood, seed, tears, sweat. He would not tolerate lying beside her in this state, if she'd been of a bedraggled mind to stumble into bed beside him. His perusing gaze is honed into a blade once more as he tallies every blemish she has acquired since being introduced to the table.
There is an enveloping heaviness in the muscles of his arms, and in the stretch of his back; this is what it feels like, he decides with a twinge of pride, to have exerted oneself. Having ridden into no true battle as of yet, he cannot say what the burning and subsequent drunken relief of a rigorous victory feels like. But this has been a victory, and his body basks in its savoring, and once he has had his fill of surveying her ruin, he turns on his heel, striding for the door.
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Date: 2022-02-03 07:50 pm (UTC)Then it is that the tears come; then the dam breaks, and she weeps openly, her whole body wracked with the force of sobs, her hands pressing down over her mouth to muffle the howls that want to escape. At some point, she slides from the sullied surface of the weaving table, finds herself kneeling on the cold stone floor, curled in on herself and shaking from head to toe. There is blood on the flagstones. There is a sticky, clinging filth on her belly and breast. Pain claws like a starving beast inside her, scrabbles over her skin. In the feasting hall, muffled through wooden walls, people are laughing.
At some point, too, she stands. She is still weeping then, but it has ebbed a little, and although she still trembles, her legs will hold her. She stands, and with unsteady hands she pulls her ruined dress back around herself, wincing as it presses against welts and rising bruises; and she fastens it as best she can, and pushes her tangled and sweat-dark hair back from her face, and heaves a deep, shuddering breath.
And now?
She must ask it again, if not aloud. The world will not stop for her. It never has before, and it never will, no matter how she might dream of such power. There is blood on the flagstones, and sweat smeared on the waxed wood of the table, and her bruises ache, and the world still turns. And no matter what he may say or think, she is still the lady of this hall; she is still Théoden's sister-daughter, and the people of the Mark will look to her still when the sun rises on another day. Maiden or not, she is a shield still to her people; and it must be all the more so now, against an enemy she herself brought into the fold.
There is, as always, a tinderbox on the hearth of this room; there are lanterns for the women who weave into the night. She has never struggled so much to steady her hands, to spark a flame. The dress will serve for a cleaning rag, for all its finery; there is no saving it. She cannot go to the well for water, not when she will surely be seen; but in the shuttered window casement is a vase of wildflowers, set there to cheer the room: emptying the flowers into the hearth, she heaves another raw and shaking breath, pours out a little of the water onto the table, and sets about undoing what mess can still be undone.
The world will not stop for her. The sun, dim and dark as it is, will rise. The thought fills her with a cold and familiar horror, sharper now than it has ever been. She cleans mechanically, by candlelight. Blood drips thick and cloying down the inside of her bruised thigh. Her breath still rasps in her aching throat. It is hard to move, around that burning knot of pain. She moves anyway, because there is no choice.
There are, she reflects, some small blessings. That the floor is stone, and the blood on it is only a little. That she is alone. That, with the feasting in full swing, there are ways that she can go where she will not be seen.
The place that she goes, the high point on the eastern ramparts of the hill-fort, is one such way. She limps out into the courtyard: a white and ghostly figure in the growing darkness, moving awkwardly in her torn, dark-stained gown. Across by the stables, where the horses whicker and snort in their sleep. Up onto the walls, where she has so often come before. The mountains rise like jagged teeth on the horizon, and a cold wind catches her tangled hair, brushes against the aching skin of her face. She looks out to the east. Somewhere in that direction, she thinks with a pang of grief, her brother rides; he does not know what she has done. Behind her, the hall glows with torchlight; and therein is her uncle, and he does not yet know, either, that she has betrayed them all in her naiveté. And if they know? When they know?
She has stood here before, on the high rampart above the scree of steep hillside, and thought of how it would be to jump. She has wondered whether it might not be best to see an end to all her restless grief. This is the first time, in all these years, that she has climbed up onto the stones of the wall itself, where there is nothing between her and the void. It is a clumsy movement, with none of her usual grace. Her legs will not obey her; the pain squatting ugly between her hips claws afresh with every step and strain. She sways a little as she stands, and the wind chills the hot tears as they run down her face.
They will find her, she thinks, in the morning; and they will weep, and then they will wonder; they will see in her broken body the marks of hands at her throat and the torn state of her gown; and though Viserys cannot rightly be slain, still he may be cast out. If the king's nephew can be banished, then her widower can be likewise driven away in shame. And he will have no armies of Rohan, and he will take no throne, and in her absence, the whole dire mistake may be forgotten. They will sing no songs of her. Very well; they will sing no songs of him, either. There is only so long left, in any case, for songs that are not dirges; she looks to the East, and sees the teeth of Mordor's jaws, and it is not as though there is so very much to save.
They will find her in the morning, at the bottom of the hill, and the barrows of her forefathers will not hold her broken corpse; and Théoden will weep, who loves her as his daughter. Théoden, who ails still under her care; and whose son is so lately lost; and who without her will be alone and left to only the poisonous words of his advisor. Grief sits on him like a cloak, these days; and for a moment, as she swore herself away, she thought she saw him smile. Will he survive her death, she wonders, sick as he is? And if Éomer, hearing of it, rides back in a fury, will his banishment be broken, or will it doom him, too? In her absence, who will speak sense to the King's ear, so poisoned by Gríma? Will she leave Edoras to two serpents, to let them battle for the poison that will kill the Mark?
She does not know how long she has been standing here, on legs that shake, at the edge of a choice. The wind is cold. Her fingers, still marked with his blood beneath the nails, are numb. She did not think she would die this way.
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Date: 2022-02-03 08:58 pm (UTC)And they make, as do horses wherever she has happened to pass, for kind company. The men of this foreign hall have been gentle, she had been relieved to find: there seemed to be in them no undue bawdiness or carousing. They are a valiant people, so far as she can tell by a relatively slight introduction. That is her brother's preference, as she had known it would be: there is little practical place for her here, where it is his wedding that it is to be celebrated, and the calling to war, the rallying of his new armies, which will follow. Sometimes it is best to be sent from his side, for he can be difficult to read, a sea tossed by a dark storm: either he is rankled by how she lingers, or he is affronted by how she does not often enough praise him, or he sneers at how decidedly unsuited she is to their family name.
His general disappoint in her is ever preferable to his furious efforts to correct her, however, and so she is not terribly subdued by shame when they come. He is occupied by his blustering appraisal of his new allies, of course, and so she has enjoyed a relative freedom in partaking of this storybook kingdom. It is beautiful, though her brother seems to have missed it: its rolling plains, and its strange golden hall which feasts upon the light, and its gentle and open-handed people. Their fare is unlike what she is accustomed to, although in the years spent fleeing one city for the next, before the magister's generous endorsement of her brother, there were a number of dinners made of queer foods. This table, however, was clearly arranged with careful intent, and by a talented hand. The banners flown, the tapestries displayed, the well-kept rooms they borrow; all has been tended, she thinks, with a certain joy.
A wedding ought to be heralded with the people's joy, and indeed the lady her brother weds is one of high breeding, a treasure of this place. It is warming to see, how her people look upon her: with pride and with certainty, the trust of a people for their queen. It crosses her mind, though she would never dream of saying so aloud, that this woman does not need her brother to call herself a queen. She is already queen of this hall; one needs only glance at the faces of the men within it to know that is true. Even the ailing king, for whom she feels a particular sorrow, for it is clear to her too how the White Lady loves her uncle. Surely Viserys can appreciate the lasting loyalty of his new wife's kin, but as she stands in witness at the ceremony, she knows better. There is a humiliated heat atop her own cheeks to know how he looks upon that proud king and sees only a man dying, to know that he looks upon the bounty at the board and sees a peasant's feast, and to know that he looks upon his wife as a woman underserving of his esteem.
She had not, then, despite her habit of lingering quietly, kept herself long at the edges of the feast. The merriment is a sort of salve for these people, she thinks, when they have been long at war, with eyes aching for the beauty of a wedding and throats empty of laughter. Now they shall have at least one night of it, to celebrate their lady's ascension to the dragon's side. Maybe they will, for one night, drink and indulge their cheer and forget that this, too, is only a bridge to the next war.
The true reason she cannot bear to partake any longer is because she sees how unkindly her brother takes his new bride by the elbow when they go, and she knows, with bruises long faded on her own arms, what that unkindness means. He is no master of his temper, and he will not bow to what he perceives as a great indignity. But whereas he would not squander his sister's virtue in his madness, there is no such shield for his bride to flinch behind. She takes no comfort in the certainty that that woman would not flinch, either. This dread only hastens her from the hall all the faster.
To keep with the horses for a while, to steady herself with their warm, whuffling company, and to remind herself that it is no concern of hers. She need not think of it, because there is never anything she can say of it. That this proud lady will be her sister, and her blooming delight at that prospect - it does not matter. Éowyn will always be a wife first. If there is any respite to be found in that, she does not find it. But she is broken from the pang of wondering when a glimpse of motion beyond the stables catches her eye.
A figure walking, though absent the grace and purpose which seems to mark most bodies here. A figure strangely garbed, too, in what looks like ribboning rags more than a proper dress. The golden hair is already familiar to her, and she follows in as careful a silence as she can manage. Up onto the walls they go, and the figure - this figure who is, she is stung to see, the White Lady - looks one direction and then the other, searching. For what? But she cannot pretend not to know this, either. This is the way a person looks upon the horizon when they have begun to accept that no one is going to come riding across it. It is the look of someone who has turned their gaze down and understood that the rocks below are a more faithful answer.
"My lady?" It is tentative, lilting with uncertainty at its end, though there is no mistaking now the stranger before her. There is no mistaking, either, how she came to be this way.
The height of the wall is not so alarming - she has climbed upon high stone walls before, rather thrilled by the fantasy of soaring, however briefly - and it seems a grave injustice that her own gown, hushed blues and whites, is finer now than the bride's own. The wind has teeth here in a way that it does not in the Free Cities, and it chases a chill up her spine when it lifts her hair off her shoulders, cutting where the breezes off the sea only kissed.
"You're hurt. This is no place for you."
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Date: 2022-02-03 10:05 pm (UTC)If anyone is to see her this way, she supposes, this may be the best she could have hoped for. Daenerys, at least, is still a stranger here; is not a subject of the Mark, does not need so sorely to see the house of Eorl stand strong. She is also, so Éowyn hopes, unlikely to gossip, having nobody of the city to gossip to. If anyone is to see how the Lady of Edoras has fallen into shame, then at least it is not one of her people.
Still, the shame is sharper than the pain, a twisting, writhing thing that coils around her heart and crushes her lungs. She is all too aware of how pathetic she must seem. Her cheeks are tearstained, her eyes swollen with crying; her knees shake beneath her weight, under the stained skirt, and her hair was a bird's-nest even before the wind dragged at it. Does she smell? She supposes that she must: that the dried seed on her skin must leave its musky proof, that the sweat and the blood must hang on the wind. Never, in all her life, has she looked so little like a lady. Never has she looked - or felt - so weak.
"What other place is there?" Her voice does not sound like her own. It is hoarse and strained, both from crying and from the ache in her throat, and her tongue catches against a split and swollen lip. But for all her bleak question implies, she cannot believe it; and that is no comfort. There is no other place, no bed to crawl into where she can weep unseen, no infirmary where she will not have to face the pity and the grief of her people, nowhere that is better; but Daenerys is right, too. This is no place for her. Duty, that heavy chain, will not allow it.
Slowly, painfully, she turns; looks at her sister-in-law for the first time since this new life began; steps back, just a half-pace, from the edge. What other place is there? It does not matter; it is not this one.
"He will never be king. You must know that." She does not know what she will say until she has said it; but it is true, and it is said with truth behind it, for all its hoarseness. And she should guard her words more closely, here with the woman most likely to share them with her enemy, but she cannot guard herself. Not now. "Not if his blood were ten times more noble; not if he were a greater warrior than Beren or Fram. He will never have what he desires. And he knows it."
no subject
Date: 2022-02-05 10:04 pm (UTC)And is it so different now? As she steps forward, a hand extended to offset the balance her unannounced arrival might have cost, she looks over her brother's newest work. He would claim that this is the nature of dragons: to leave nothing standing in his wake. The bride's silks are razed, moonlight catches on fair skin and the dark blossoms of bruises, and golden hair has been torn to glimmering rags. She should have written.
But what words would she have found? What would not read as cowardice and dishonor? And had she not hoped, in the cellar of her heart, that she would arrive at this place in her brother's shadow and see his eyes brighten with a new light? Hadn't she hoped against hope that he would behold this hall and these people and his resplendent bride and think, this is nobility? Wouldn't he feel in his own heart a warmth to devour the cold rot? Wouldn't he be, as heroes always were in the songs, overtaken by such love that not even madness could prevail?
Tears gather in her eyes now to witness what such whimsy has cost her, and she comes another step forward, reaching to brush a steadying hand at Éowyn's elbow, trying not to see all the ways she has been so crudely spurned.
For a moment she can only shake her head; there is nowhere to go, and her brother will never be king. He will be killed or he will be consumed by the same madness which laid siege to their father. But her father had once been a good and just king, hadn't he? A man of ambition and laughter? The soil of his mind had been rich and fruitful, generous and beautiful, before the worms had come. Yet it is not the same; her brother has never been anything but worms.
She knows this, and so does he. His blood was never once noble, and he is less a warrior than any stableboy provoked to defend himself with a rusty blade. He will never sit a throne or wear a crown or command an army or be worthy of this woman on the wall. Contrition comes suddenly and too late, her heart a bird with an arrow buried in its breast.
"I am so sorry, my lady. I had prayed that he would see you and forget all the rest. I should have - I should have written, I should have prayed for the gods to stop his heart instead of save it."
no subject
Date: 2022-02-06 03:33 am (UTC)"He is your brother still." She moves another step, to safer ground. Red pain aches in the pit of her belly, clawing at her thighs. She wonders what she would do, if she thought Éomer capable of such brutality: if his fury on the battlefield were turned against those in the corridors of peace, what would she do, and would he not be her brother still? Would she turn against him, if he turned against honour? She wants to believe that she would, that the needs of her people would outweigh those of her heart; but does she not still keep her loyalty to Théoden, even as his honour falters? Would she not always remember her mother's tears, her father's blood and split-wide skull, the pain that binds them as sister and brother? Would she have written?
"He is your brother," she says again, and her hand comes up to touch the other woman's, and her smile is pained, her eyes tearing up afresh; and she makes of the thought something else, which is less sharp against the bone; "and so you are my sister, and I am not your lady. Please. I am so tired of the White Lady, and all her ways; I am so tired of a lady's duty. If there is one kindness you would do for me, then let me be Éowyn, and nothing more."
She will bear herself as the White Lady, she thinks with bitter understanding, against all the travails this wedding has doomed her to. She must. She will be noble and forbearing, and she will hide her pain and stifle her pride where she must, and she will keep her people always in mind, and she will be in all things a lady. It is what her blood demands; it is what her people need. She must, then, step down from the parapet this night and every night thereafter. She must hide the bruises, and wash away the blood and stains, and swallow the pain of memory; she must be his wife, as long as it is demanded, and where she can, as she has done with Gríma all this time, she must move in small and womanly ways to counter the harm he will do. The White Lady will be married to the beggar king, and she will be stone in the face of his fury, and she will do what a lady must.
But not here, and not now. She does not have the strength. She cannot find the courage. Slowly, painfully, wincing at each movement, she sinks down to sit uncomfortably at the edge of the stone, her head in her hands.
"It was not your duty to warn me," she says, after a moment longer. Her voice has thickened again, tears building in her throat. "It was not your duty to kill hope. It was my duty that I failed, to need no such warning; to temper my own hope with sense. I built my own road here."