when the worm is slain
May. 25th, 2024 02:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shieldofrohanEdoras has no dungeons to speak of. The justice of the Mark is not one which calls for long imprisonment; it is, in the main, swift and permanent. But there are rooms strong enough to hold a prisoner for a time, and it is to one of these rooms - one of the few stone buildings in the city, near the walls - that she goes. There is blood still on her gown, drying to black, but she holds herself as tall and as proud as ever, and her bearing does not permit anyone to comment on her dishevelment or the fact that her eyes are red with weeping.
The tears that she has shed were not, of course, for the man who lies bloody and dead in the high hall: for that, she rejoices. But no joy, no freedom, comes without cost. It is no small thing, after all, to kill an advisor trusted of the King; it is a graver crime still to do so in the King's own hall. There is no question of the penalty.
There is also no question that she cannot allow it. A part of her is certain that it is her doing that the visitor killed Gríma at all, that it is at her urging, whether she had calculated on it or no; that she has brought him to this pass, and now must either save him or perish with him as a co-conspirator.
But a greater drive still is the simpler, more certain one: whether it was by her behest or not, he has done her and her people a great service. She cannot claim, with any honesty, that she has not considered it herself. She cannot lie to herself, say that she has not felt her hands itch for a blade, that at times she has not withdrawn from Gríma's presence for the simple reason that she did not trust herself to keep her hands from his throat. His death is a blessing - to her, to the Mark, to Théoden King, though he may not yet fully understand it. She is indebted to his killer, and she will not shirk it. She cannot let him die.
Her defence was impulsive, and ill-considered. She does not think, not for a moment, that Théoden believed her - if he had, would he have pleaded so for her to change her story, pleaded and wept and shouted? But she has her own advantages, and chief among them is that her uncle, too, is sensible of his debts; and that he loves her, and will not call her a liar before all the court. No matter whether she is one.
It is for that which she has wept, knowing how she has hurt him at the last - that the very thing which she has so long sought to avoid, the very fear that kept her from killing Gríma herself, has come to pass. He is King, and no matter how he may have been enfeebled in body or in mind, he knows his duty. He cannot be seen to spare justice against his kinsmen. He cannot be seen to waive the law - but neither, in the end, can he waive kin-right. And as she would not budge, will not budge, cannot budge...
None of them have a choice, now. There is only one way forward, and it is the way that leads to the room where the prisoner is kept. She does not have the keys to the door; she has none of the keys which, until lately, were always at her belt. She must wait, her face a mask, for one of the four spearmen at the door to open it. She steps inside, and the door is closed behind her, and the darkness - lit only by the small slits of windows - falls. As her eyes adjust, she can see Aleifr only as a darker shadow among the shadows, cannot find his eyes when she searches for them - but she searches for them, all the same.
"Are you hurt?" It is easier to think of such simple, ordinary things than the enormity of what has happened.
The tears that she has shed were not, of course, for the man who lies bloody and dead in the high hall: for that, she rejoices. But no joy, no freedom, comes without cost. It is no small thing, after all, to kill an advisor trusted of the King; it is a graver crime still to do so in the King's own hall. There is no question of the penalty.
There is also no question that she cannot allow it. A part of her is certain that it is her doing that the visitor killed Gríma at all, that it is at her urging, whether she had calculated on it or no; that she has brought him to this pass, and now must either save him or perish with him as a co-conspirator.
But a greater drive still is the simpler, more certain one: whether it was by her behest or not, he has done her and her people a great service. She cannot claim, with any honesty, that she has not considered it herself. She cannot lie to herself, say that she has not felt her hands itch for a blade, that at times she has not withdrawn from Gríma's presence for the simple reason that she did not trust herself to keep her hands from his throat. His death is a blessing - to her, to the Mark, to Théoden King, though he may not yet fully understand it. She is indebted to his killer, and she will not shirk it. She cannot let him die.
Her defence was impulsive, and ill-considered. She does not think, not for a moment, that Théoden believed her - if he had, would he have pleaded so for her to change her story, pleaded and wept and shouted? But she has her own advantages, and chief among them is that her uncle, too, is sensible of his debts; and that he loves her, and will not call her a liar before all the court. No matter whether she is one.
It is for that which she has wept, knowing how she has hurt him at the last - that the very thing which she has so long sought to avoid, the very fear that kept her from killing Gríma herself, has come to pass. He is King, and no matter how he may have been enfeebled in body or in mind, he knows his duty. He cannot be seen to spare justice against his kinsmen. He cannot be seen to waive the law - but neither, in the end, can he waive kin-right. And as she would not budge, will not budge, cannot budge...
None of them have a choice, now. There is only one way forward, and it is the way that leads to the room where the prisoner is kept. She does not have the keys to the door; she has none of the keys which, until lately, were always at her belt. She must wait, her face a mask, for one of the four spearmen at the door to open it. She steps inside, and the door is closed behind her, and the darkness - lit only by the small slits of windows - falls. As her eyes adjust, she can see Aleifr only as a darker shadow among the shadows, cannot find his eyes when she searches for them - but she searches for them, all the same.
"Are you hurt?" It is easier to think of such simple, ordinary things than the enormity of what has happened.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-03 07:54 pm (UTC)"I'm fine."
It's difficult to tell how truthful that is. Little light spills in through the windows, and even less penetrates the gloom of the cell. It's hard to make out anything besides the suggestion of his shape, and now the glint of his frosty blue eyes, watching her from the shadows that hang thickly about him.
"Are you?"
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Date: 2024-07-03 09:23 pm (UTC)She glances back towards the door, as though to check it is still closed, and bites down on the inside of her cheek. She does not know how he will take this, and it is difficult to face that uncertainty, when she herself does not know how to feel. Still, she does not have the luxury of small talk. Her voice lowers, steady but more urgent, speaking with a pace that brooks no interruption.
"It was a noble thing that you did, and I am grateful for it; but the law leaves little space for gratitude. To spill blood in the King's hall is death. Listen to me: I have pleaded with the King on your behalf, petitioned him for mercy. He will exile you, instead; and if we are away by dawn, no-one will follow. I will ready horses, gather provisions." Wondering whether he has picked up on that we. Knowing, as she wonders it, that she cannot try to avoid the point.
She sighs, and some of the steel goes out of her, some of the straightness leaving her spine. She is no longer looking at him. "It is not mercy that leads him to this; it is kin-right to his sister-daughter. I have told him that I took you for husband a month ago. So long as we are within the borders of the Mark, that must be true; and I follow my lord to exile, as a wife is bound to do; and you will live, and be spared."
There is a pause, then, and an almost apologetic tone enters her voice. It is easier to doubt his reaction than to feel her own. "It was the only way."
no subject
Date: 2024-07-05 11:41 pm (UTC)"You didn't need to do that."
When he finally speaks, his voice is thin. Squeezed through a tightness in his throat that resists his urges to will it away.
"When I decided to cut his thread, I knew what I put at risk."
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Date: 2024-07-06 12:17 am (UTC)"I will not see you die for what I was too weak to do myself." There is still a thickness in her voice, but there is a firmness, too: a note of command that says, clearer than words, that she will not hear argument. "And this is my hall yet, for a few hours more: I will not suffer any man here to tell me what I need not have done."
Not even the King, who had pleaded with her to recant what she had said, weeping until she felt her own heart shatter in her chest at the sight. If that did not dissuade her, then nothing Aleifr can say will - and there is something freeing in that realisation, even in her despair. She is certain, at least.
"If you divorce me as soon as you may, turn and find your own path once we are beyond the Mark, I will count it no fault; but you have saved my life and all it values, taking his. I will not see you die for it. We come before the King in two hours, to hear his judgement made law, and then we ride." Her own throat is tight, her eyes stinging. She blinks the tears away. She knew what she put at risk, too.
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Date: 2024-07-25 11:37 pm (UTC)Perhaps that ponderous, lumbering slowness is due to the bruises that bloom into view as he walks towards the front of the cell, revealed by the shadows that peel back with each closing step ... but, no. Aleifr has seen worse abuse than this and bore it with greater ease.
More telling is the expression that he wears. The soft, mournful cast to his features couldn't be further from the stoic, impassive scowl that usually resided there.
He comes to a stop on the other side of the cell door.
"I wouldn't turn my back on someone who would do this for me."
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Date: 2024-07-26 12:41 am (UTC)She cannot allow herself to come undone. She cannot take it back now. It is too late; the path is set. The horrible certainty that it has somehow been a mistake settles, corpse-heavy, in her gut - but what other road was there? What other way? To let him die was unthinkable. To break him loose against the King's word would end in the same doom. Even in Théoden's rheumy eyes, she thought she had seen the tearful glimmer of that understanding.
She swallows, hard, and her back is still straight, her face still stony and set; but she crosses the remaining space between them, reaching up to touch his face, just below where a bruise purples his cheek. His captors have not been unduly cruel - it is not their habit - but she imagines they did not dare hold back, either, given his size and strength. She wonders how badly they were hurt in turn. She should know, but she does not. Her eyes find his in the darkness, and there is something gentler in her tone.
"And I could do no less, for someone who has done this for me. You owe me nothing; there is no debt between us, when this is done. That is all I mean." She lets her hand fall back to her side. It is not all she means; but the rest of it is wordless and formless and almost a scream, and she does not think it would help to say If you are all I have left myself, then I cannot have you suffering my presence against your will, or I am afraid, I am so afraid, let me pretend that I am not afraid. Or, for that matter, I am sorry.
"I should go. Two hours is a short time, to set in order all that must be done; and it is late, too, and all the city is in chaos." Of course it is - and she wonders, guiltily, how long it will take for word to leave the city and spread farther afield; how long before Éomer hears of it, and what story he will hear. She bites down on the inside of her cheek, smoothing her bloodstained skirts. "I will come back before we are summoned, and we will go together. Only remember that we are man and wife, and have been so for some days, and if it is asked of you-" She is blushing, despite herself, but she cannot turn back now, cannot risk missing anything. Understanding she had seen in Théoden's eyes, yes, and no desire to hurt her further; but that will not prevent him from trying to undo what she has done. She speaks rapidly, as though trying to outpace her own words. "If proof is asked of you, then there is a small scar on my knee, where I fell hard as a child; and a smaller mole low enough on my hip that you certainly could not see it unless I allowed it. And we were wedded in secret, and we will not say by whom, for fear that he suffer for it; but it has been a week and a day since it was done, and it was done outside the city, among the barrows, so that my forefathers might bear witness; and it was all at my demand, not yours, and you had not so much as kissed me until that night, though I had kissed you. And there were no rings, but I gave you my father's sword, which they will have found by now among your things." Another deception; one far less justified. But she could not ride to exile without a sword to carry, could she? Not when she has said, in so many words, that he has every right to leave her.
The words finally seem to have stopped their restless tumble from her tongue. She takes a long, shaky breath, and - "Whatever else you say to make it more real, whatever you must say, it will be both our truths, at least until the night is done. Hold fast. I will return in two hours."
thread necromancy as my tag drive slowly returns
Date: 2025-01-06 01:17 am (UTC)He does not believe that. There is no ledger to be balanced, no promise unfulfilled, but there is a debt between them ... one he suspects neither of them will ever see as paid in full, if she feels as he does.
Deeds have weight. Acts done freely and without expectation carry meaning still -- often all the more.
He knows that she has done him good, and suffered for it in turn. He knows what she has given him, what he has been spared, and what she has paid for that. She had done nothing to deserve the cruelty of being cast from her home -- especially now, when the shadow that had poisoned it's warmth had been banished from the halls of Meduseld. That she is denied it now, for what she has done on his account, only makes the knowledge more bitter.
Even if she believes she is owed anything for that, he feels the weight.
If he is all that she has, he will try to be enough, and to help her find what he cannot be himself.
He owes her, but what he does, he will do so because he wants to. Because fair Éowyn had endured enough long before they ever met, and because he had no hardness in his heart for her even before she cast aside her life to save his, and because he could not stand the thought of leaving a light such as her to gutter in the dark.
He does her best to commit the details she hurriedly lays out before him to memory.
Where and when they were wed.
The scar.
The mole.
The sword surprises him. Not a ruse he expected, though given their present circumstances, perhaps he should have. In any case, he sees the practicality of it, and accepts it along with the rest.
"Before you go," He says once she has finished, raising a hand and tracing a line across the right side of his torso with a finger, "the scar here, beneath my ribs, is from a skirmish last year, when my people drove a band of goblins from the lands near our aett.."
He indicates a scar on his forearm with the opposite hand. This one is faded, partially obscured by a word written in runic script, one of several inked into the skin between his elbow and wrist. "This one, I got as a child. From my sister, Helka, as I learned to use an axe. That's her name written across it."
He points to another tattoo, up at the top of the column, nearest his elbow. His finger moves to each in turn, working its way down his forearm. "This is my mother, Fjalla. My father, Bjorn. My other older sister, Freja."
He switches now, to the other arm. "My older brother, Arvid, who died three years past, fighting the same troll that scarred my left side. My younger brother, Einar. And my youngest sister, Tyra."
It was best to be prepared. If they'd lain together, she'd have seen his scars, too. If they had wedded, he'd have told her of his family.
same hat!!
Date: 2025-01-06 02:38 am (UTC)It matters, all the same. It is parts of himself offered up, if only for expediency. She does not want to spurn them - now least of all.
"I will remember," she tells him, but still hesitates a moment. Before she can doubt the impulse, before she can let pride overwhelm emotion, she reaches out to grip his arm, and kisses him on the cheek. Her tears are threatening to overflow, and they are not for him, not over him, but she cannot hold them back any more. "Whatever comes of this, if we have no chance to speak till it is over... know that I am grateful. Even for all this, I am grateful. You do not know what you have done for me."
And then she does turn, and flees with less grace than she had hoped, wiping her eyes as soon as her back is turned (as though he cannot see quite clearly that she is doing so; as though she does not know he sees. Some things need at least a pretence of privacy.) and hurrying to knock on the door, to be let out.
When the door opens again, it is almost dark, and she is lit on either side by the torches of the men beside her. She has washed her face, and changed her bloodied dress for another, and she looks more herself: pale still, and drawn, and with dark circles under her eyes, but no longer weeping. Her hair is pulled back from her face, and her hands are clasped in front of her.
"We are called to the King's judgement," she says, and nothing more. She has gained her composure back again, and she holds herself as straight and tall as ever, and she does not speak again as they are escorted through the city, the crowds hanging back as though ashamed to watch, to the King's hall.
There is a kind of mummery to the scene, although it is deadly serious. It is clear that all three of them, at least, know the nature of things, and how it will end; but it must be done, and the script is carried through. There are questions, asked more of Éowyn than of Aleifr, and even when Théoden addresses the foreigner directly, his eyes remain on her. There is a chance to recant, and another, and another, and all met with implacable stone; and it is only at the last, when the truth of things cannot be denied even in this play-act, that Théoden's mask falls, and he begins to weep. He raises her from her knees, and clasps her shoulders, and kissed her cheeks, and then she is crying too, Aleifr all but forgotten - but love is no impediment to law, and when the King steps away, it is to pronounce his judgement.
There are horses in the courtyard, saddled and ready, with bags packed. The moon is bright overhead. They ride through the city in silence, and Éowyn's back is ramrod-straight, and she does not look at Aleifr or at anything else; her eyes, unblinking and blank, stare straight ahead. Her jaw is clenched tight, her knuckles white on the reins. It is done. She rides ahead of him, out of the city walls, never to return.
She does not talk to Aleifr as they ride. Once they are past the barrows, she puts her heels to Windfola's sides, and hunches low in the saddle, and rides as fast as she can, assuming he will follow. In truth, in the moment she hardly cares. She just needs to move, to lose herself in the thunder of hooves and the rush of wind, and not to think.
It is much later, when the fire is lit and they have set up camp, that she finally brings herself to look at him. She looks at him for a long time, and then says, quietly, in a voice that threatens tears but does not contain them: "May I have my father's sword back, please?"
no subject
Date: 2025-02-02 11:26 pm (UTC)They're the first words he has spoken since they left Théoden's hall, though even there he had said little. He had answered the questions put to him, of course, but it was clear from the moment they entered what the purpose of the audience was, and it was not to bring him before the King of Rohan.
It was not his place to speak. It would have been an intrusion. And cruel, too. All men must part, eventually, but they would not have been forced to part at this time, in this way, were it not for him.
His silence had persisted after they rode through the gates of Edoras. With them, it traveled across the gentle slopes of Rohan's plains, broken only by the beat of hooves and the cries of distant, wheeling birds. There was nothing to say. What words, if any, had the substance to stand against what Éowyn had faced on this day and not be swallowed by its shadow are lost to him ... though he doubted she had any interest in speaking, anyway.
There are times when you are faced with something so vast that you cannot be anything but overwhelmed by it. You're shocked numb; whatever that moment or idea rouses within you is formless, and so distant as to feel like it belongs to someone else. Only when you've stared at it for a time, when it's washed over and through you long enough that you begin to understand the shape of it, can you recognize those feelings and take account of your own emotions.
He felt it when his father died. He suspets she feels it now.
And so hours move past them without a sound, until the sun began to dip low and the shadows stretched in anticipation of the coming night. A chill wind from the North, from home, sawed through the peaks of the distant mountains and unfurled across the Eastemnet as they made camp. By the time it was dark, they had the warmth and light of a fire, but the air had some bite still as he rose to his feet and undid the leather thongs securing the scabbard of Éowyn's heirloom blade to his belt.
"It's a fine sword." He says, laying it across both his palms and offering it to her with respectful care. "You've cared for it well."
no subject
Date: 2025-02-03 03:39 am (UTC)It would be so much easier, if she could resent him for it. If that boiling, burning pain had some direction, if there were someone to blame. But the only person that she can blame for any of this is dead, and no matter how she tries to salve her grief with the pleasant thought of him rotting on a dungheap with his power broken, there is no catharsis in hating the dead. In freeing them all of the Wormtongue, Aleifr has also put her enemy beyond her reach; and she is grateful, and she cannot hate him for freeing her, and it is agony.
Without direction, pain struggles to become anger, and lingers as a vast, dark, unbearable nothing, a weight that cannot be moved. She takes the sword from his hands, and as she takes back the last piece of her family, her knees buckle.
She does not fight the exhaustion that drives her to the ground. She is aware of her pride, of shame at the weakness; she is aware that she should not give in. But the pain is more than she is, and if Aleifr thinks less of her... well. What more can she lose, now?
She expects tears, but they do not come. She gives no wail or howl, only ragged, aching gasps of air that burn at her throat as she kneels, gripping the sword white-knuckled against her chest, her head bowed and her shoulders shaking. When she speaks, without raising her head, her voice is clearer than she expects.
"I have done what I could." For the sword, for Éomund's memory, for Edoras and the Mark. For Aleifr, and for Théoden, and none of it enough. She swallows hard, her jaw so tight it trembles. "But well? No. Not I."
no subject
Date: 2025-02-16 08:08 pm (UTC)"Do not allow your grief to make a liar of you." He says, as softly as his gruff and rumbling voice will allow. "You could not have given them more."
Not all the pain that she feels is familiar to him, but he knows the ache of feeling as though you've disappointed those that you would honor.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-16 09:05 pm (UTC)"I could have killed him myself." What difference would it have made, in the end? Dishonour, yes - but what, really, is dishonour to the dead? She would have been slain, or she would have been exiled, and her uncle and her brother would have wept just as they will weep now, and perhaps Théodred would live, perhaps there would have been time to move against their enemies before it grew so dire. What would it have lost, in the end? "I could have driven this sword through his skull when first he came to Edoras, torn the worming tongue from his head, choked the life from him months before you ever came to the Mark; and his poison would never have worked so deep, or his web grown so tangled, and you would not have suffered, and none of this would have come to pass. I could have fought. I should have fought."
no subject
Date: 2025-02-17 09:45 pm (UTC)"Maybe." His voice is cool and even. "But you would have disobeyed the word of your uncle, and your king, doing it. You would have still spilled his guest's blood in his hall even if you knew Gríma for a snake the moment you laid eyes upon him. And you still don't know for certain what would have come from that choice."
Something comes over him then. A distant look that briefly clouds his eyes before they refocus on her.
"If you made a mistake, it wasn't because of cowardice." He says firmly. "A coward wouldn't cast aside what they hold dear for another's sake. And if you made a mistake, then everyone in Théoden's court shares in it."
Éowyn was not alone, after all, in despising Wormtongue for the pestilence that he poured into their king's ear. His days beneath Théoden's roof would have offered them chances - many chances - to rid themselves of him, and yet his shadow still darkened their hearth with each new day.
"What happened didn't come to pass because of your choices alone, so do not try to claim all the guilt as yours."
no subject
Date: 2025-02-20 01:13 am (UTC)But it is neither pity nor curtness that he offers her. It is only sense, and she has no defence against it. She clutches the sword tighter against herself, but her hand has found the hilt again, the worn grip where her father's hand once found its place. She heaves a long, shaking sob, and then, with trembling hands, moves to buckle the blade to her hip.
"I wished to meet the end squarely." Her voice is still quiet, but no longer angry - only sad. "If they would not let me in the van, then to hold the rear; if not the rear, then to keep the walls. I wished to die with spear in hand, shield raised beside my brothers, as he did. When the end comes, I will not see it." She sniffs, pushing her hair back from her face. "Where do we head, come morning?"
no subject
Date: 2025-02-24 06:42 am (UTC)He squeezes her shoulder in a gesture of silent reassurance before rising to his feet. Their fire had begun to dwindle and so he went to tend it, stirring it with a stick that he'd lift by the side of the crude stone pit they'd built, rousing a brief flurry of embers. Pockets of sap in the young wood on the pyre popped and hissed.
"We keep to the north when the sun rises. The summer hasn't passed yet, but if the snowfalls have begun in the Grey Mountains, my tribe will be moving towards our winter aett, near the Carrock."
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Date: 2025-03-10 08:09 pm (UTC)"I do not know it." There is a hint of shame in it, and beneath it, unacknowledged, a hint of trepidation too. She knows the Mark, even those parts she has not seen, but beyond its borders she has never really travelled - a fact that is only coming to her in full now. "But north, then. North is good." Better, at least, than west - though she does wonder about the mountains, and the Wild Men who dwell there.
And about other things, too. "What do you suppose they will think, if - when - we find them?"
no subject
Date: 2025-03-19 09:37 pm (UTC)"They will be curious." He says. "They will know you as a woman of Rohan from the way that you dress, the way that you carry yourself, and they'll wonder what you are to me and why you've come here at my side."
The men of the Riddermark may not hold the tribes of Fenris in the same fierce contempt as they do the Dunlendings, but blood has been spilt between them oft enough. More than once in the fell depths of the darkest winters - the helwinters, where forage and hunting are poor, and stores are not enough to sustain hungry mouths - Fenrisian raids have bitten at the flanks of the Mark. In some stretches of Rohan, those scars have healed, and the Rohirrim have found accord with the northmen -- though the warmth of that peace varies. In other places, the wounds have festered and hostilities flare upon contact.
"I think that you'll win no small measure of respect with what you were willing to do to save my life. The tribes of Fenris place no small weight upon the bonds of oaths."
no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 11:55 pm (UTC)It is less reassuring to be reminded that she must be alien among them, if indeed she ends up among them at all. And there, too, is something that has been bubbling beneath the surface since all this began.
What you are to me.
What is she to him, now? Not his wife, and yet his wife for now. At once his saviour, and someone he must care for. Not a comrade, for she has not fought beside him; not a friend, for their conversation earlier made her sharply aware of how little she knows him; and yet, something more intimate than either, and more tightly entangled. And he may be all she has in the world now, exile that she has made herself, and she has no illusion that his world is so bounded. So what is she?
"I am afraid." Whatever she is to him, he is enough to her now that she can admit it. She draws her knees against her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. "I do not know who I shall be, now. Not to you, not to them, not at all. And I curse myself for a coward, but I am afraid."
no subject
Date: 2025-04-04 12:38 am (UTC)"You would be my wife if that's what you want." His voice is soft, his eyes still fixed gently upon her. "If it's not ..."
His face turns back towards the fire, but his eyes look to the inky black of the night past it.
" ... you would still be welcome in my tent as frylla, or family by bond. If you wished to live on your own, that is open to you, too. Women have that right among my people -- to live on their own once they're of age."
no subject
Date: 2025-04-04 01:48 am (UTC)Edoras had not been the dread and doubt it had seemed to promise when she was a child. Perhaps, strange as it may be to think, exile may lose some of its dread too.
And she could be his wife in truth. Or she could be her own woman, alone, bound to no-one and trapped by no weak and wearied responsibility. Or his...
"Frylla?" The word sounds strange on her tongue - not nearly as alien as the Sindarin she has sometimes picked up from southern travellers, but strange all the same. It is not a word she has heard before, nor can she guess at its meaning from context.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-04 02:16 am (UTC)"I don't know the word for it in the Common Speech, or if there is one." He says, finally, after a few quiet seconds of thought. "'Lover,' maybe, but that isn't right. It's ... like a wife, but neither are bound to each other by oath. Either can leave at any time without shame, and children born to them are treated as children born between a husband and wife."
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Date: 2025-04-04 02:58 am (UTC)It is the last part that softens her, at least once a moment has passed and she has had time to digest it. It speaks to a different kind of arrangement, if the children of it are not bastards - and the tone of how he says it is not dismissive, if she considers it. And yet, what does that even mean? Like a wife, but neither bound by oath? What is that, if not a whore or a lover? It is temporary, must be temporary - but there, again, he has spoken of children.
"I cannot think of another word than lover," she says, at last, and her tone is muted and quiet, as though from a distance. Her expression is still guarded, but she has begun to twist her fingers together, as though trying to pull together the tapestry of her thoughts. She looks at him from the corner of her eye, biting the inside of her cheek. There are so many questions before her, all of a sudden, and perhaps she should be grateful for the distraction - but mostly, she is just aware of her own uncertainty, how out of her depth she finds herself in all of this. She wants, with sudden sinking desperation, to ask whether he already has such a frylla or anything like it, or what it means to be such a woman, or even how she is meant to live among his people when they hold to such savage customs. She wants to find a way to balance her instinctive distaste for the idea with the strange hope of it. She wants to ask what makes a frylla, if there are no oaths to shape the arrangement, how it does differ from a mere tryst. She wants to ask so many things.
The one that comes out, when she opens her mouth, is the one that has been waiting longest, lurking since this whole mad scheme began, half-mentioned but not fully spoken.
"Is that what you would wish for? That I should be your wife, or your frylla, or your lover? For I would not have you as a husband, or whatever else it might be called, for the sake of obligation; I will not spend my life wondering if I am loved only as far as gratitude drives. So let me ask rather: what would you have me be to you?"
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Date: 2025-04-04 05:46 am (UTC)Of course someone born of Rohan - raised in their ways, with their expectations - would be revolted by the very idea. Even if someone chafed under those same expectations, that didn't mean that something so alien to what they viewed as decency would be received well. He had meant no insult, but in attempt to lay out the paths before her, he may have offered one anyway -- he had, judging by the guarded stare she regarded him with now.
A piece of him - the cold, blunt pragmatic part - thought that this might be for the best, even how it happened was unfortunate. Better to learn now how different life amongst the tribes of Fenris would be, rather than let the wave crash over her all at once when she was already in the middle of it.
But it should have happened under better circumstances, and that mistake was his without doubt.
And that is why he stays quiet as Éowyn tries to sort through all the thoughts wheeling madly through her head. He waits, patiently, for what question she might ask him or what rebuke she might lash him with, as he owes her the former and has earned the latter. When that question finally does come ...
He favors directness in almost all matters, but he hadn't expected her to carve past the issue at hand and dive directly to the heart of the matter before stopping to ask about the world she was entering regardless of what he wanted. Seeing her do just that surprises him, and the way his eyes widen betrays that.
He is not, however, waylaid by it for long.
"Any man who finds a wife or frylla as fair you should thank the gods."
Aleifr doesn't hesitate in saying it, nor does he halt or stumble. That is the truth, and rarely does he find speaking the truth as he sees it difficult.
He struggles more with feelings. Not in speaking them, but in finding the words to convey them whole. That's why what he says next carries all the plainfaced honesty that she would expect from him, but less of the easy, stone-sure certainty ...
"You're kind. And true. And you've a braver heart than you let yourself believe. You deserve better than you've been allowed to have."
... at least at first. The more words slip past his lips, the easier he finds the next one.
"I've seen you smile. It's something I'd see more, if it were my choice. And whether it was with that sword in your hand or a babe in your arms, it would be sweeter still to know you smiled because of me, even in part. I meant it when I said that I would never abandon someone who'd done for me what you have ... but that is why I'd have you as a wife if you'd have me as your husband. That is why I'd have you as my frylla, if that suited you better."
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Date: 2025-04-04 12:36 pm (UTC)Until today.
It is comforting. It is more comforting coming from him: a man she has never perceived to be false or lent to flattery. She cannot doubt that he means it, and it brings a little of the old surety back to her, as well. She pushes her hair back from her face, clearing her throat.
"I have already taken you as my husband. O! it is not how it would be sung by bards, it is a strange marriage - but I have sworn to it before all, and so whatever else happens, we are married now, within the Mark." Her cheeks are flushed a little, still visibly tearstained. "If I were not prepared to be your wife, as well as to be divorced... I do not know. Perhaps I would have thought of something different."
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Date: 2025-04-04 01:54 pm (UTC)One eye done, he moves to dry the other.
"I'm glad, though, that it wasn't all for the sake of obligation." He says, after a few moments lull in the conversation had passed. "I would carry it beyond the bounds of the Mark, if you would."
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Date: 2025-04-04 04:32 pm (UTC)When she opens her eyes, they are clear again, and she lifts her chin a little.
"Kiss me, then." It is a command, not a request. It is easier that way. "I cannot swear to what I do not know. So kiss me, and we can know if we enjoy it."
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Date: 2025-05-29 09:24 pm (UTC)He drifts closer. His lips brush against hers, gently at first, before finding firmer contact. For a moment, he is still ... giving her a chance to take it in, or to pull back, if that is her wont.
If she does not, he leans in further. His lips part and explore hers in soft, languid kisses. The hand on her cheek glides back along the line of her jaw until his fingers entangle themselves in her hair.
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Date: 2025-05-29 10:52 pm (UTC)She does not pull back, and she does not press forward. Not, at least, until his lips part against hers; and then, with a low and unconsidered groan, she flings her arms around his shoulder and herself into the moment. There is a desperate abandon in the way she kisses him, clumsy and inexpert open-mouthed kisses that are delivered with near-bruising force, as she pulls herself closer until she is almost in his lap.
"Hold me," she manages, between kisses. Her voice is less commanding, and there is a tremble in it again, though not quite of the same kind as before. If I have lost everything else, let me have this. For now, at least, let me have this. "Please."