Chapter Text
Éowyn blinked awake as the light hit her eyes, and saw that it must be late morning. Her hair was stuck to the side of her face, and her mouth was half open. She scraped away the sticky strands of hair, wondering when last it was she slept so deep that her mouth had fallen open, and nothing less than the sun itself had been able to wake her.
She rolled onto her back and looked at the ceiling, playing a game she’d long learned best avoided.
Before she realised that the trick was to get up while mind and senses were still fogged by sleep, Éowyn would spend her waking moments probing the sides of her mood. Was she waking to anger, frustration, fear, dread or despair? Was she simply numb? How much so? Was this day going to be tolerable, or intolerable? Oh, she would tolerate it either way, on that she had no choice.
In the earlier days, when the hutch was only just starting to close in around her, Éowyn would wake to anger more often than not. A desperate restlessness that made her yearn to jump on her horse and gallop miles away, and to retreat in a sulk under her bed clothes all at once. In later days, emptiness was the prevailing mood, and she found it best to get up and get working before she had a chance to talk herself into something sharper.
Emptiness she could endure. Emptiness was a woman’s lot. If she had anything worth having within her; any hope or joy or comfort, she owed it to her brave menfolk, the proud warriors to whom she was so obliged, to pour it all into them, right down to the dregs, to lift their burdens and ease their sorrows.
Her resentments, her bitter fears and petty hatreds, her unfulfilled hopes, were no good to them, and were not to be shared. They, she would have to spill in private, in some discreet corner where none could see, or else let them curdle inside her.
Either way, best to be empty.
Emptiness was hard to achieve in the Houses of Healing, and consigned to rest as she was, there was little for her to do but play that same old game.
Battle and all that led up to it had awoken her senses. She grieved, she feared, she loathed, she loved, she hoped, she despaired once more.
She felt confused too. Confusion had haunted her for days on end, along with joy at her brother’s survival, their people’s triumph, and her fear and frustration of what awaited her when she returned to Meduseld.
The cause of her confusion was best not lingered on, and yet Éowyn found herself doing so more and more.
But this morning, this morning, confusion lasted only a moment, and stemmed from a different source. This mood she had awoken to, this strange sensation that started in her stomach and went down to her toes and feet, making them twitch and kick beneath her sheets, was one she hadn’t felt in a long, long time, and she needed a moment to name it.
She was excited.
Éowyn wanted to be up. She wanted to go greet the day and walk in a changed world, a changed woman. She wanted to stay in bed and luxuriate in the deep cushions and soft sheets. She wanted to be idle and laze in the garden, watching the breeze rustle through the early spring leaves. She wanted to get working, charge down all the new tasks that stood before her, bold and brazen and just daring her to take them on.
All of those, all of those sounded so good. And she could take her pick. None was to tell her which she would do, no duties or allegiances bent her either way. This was her day.
The door scraped open, and Éowyn sat up, surprised to see Ioreth entering, the healer’s arms laden with a breakfast tray.
Éowyn got up and went to take the tray, but Ioreth shook her head and nodded for Éowyn to sit back down.
‘Mistress Ioreth, I’m no longer a patient here, merely a lodger,’ Éowyn said. ‘I told the Warden I have no need to be waited on, least of all by you. I’m happy to break my fast in the mess hall.’
Ioreth clucked her teeth. ‘What, you think after yesterday I’d let you out to the mercies of the hoi polloi, before getting a moment with you to myself? Come now child, you know I love a gossip. After all the care I gave you, allow me this small gift and share with me something worth waggling my tongue over.’
Éowyn smiled slightly, glancing down and playing with the hem of her blankets.
‘I would have thought that I’ve provided enough gossip to be had, for a day or two.’
‘Oh, if you mean the kiss, cert there’s been more than enough talk. But if you think the Steward of Gondor and the White Lady of Rohan kissing on the city walls, for all of Minas Tirith to see, is going to satisfy anyone’s curiosity, you’re deluded, if you don’t mind my saying so my lady. So, you eat your breakfast, and tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’ Éowyn asked innocently.
‘That very thing all who’ve been watching you and Lord Faramir have been hoping to hear.’
Éowyn found herself pulling her knees to her chin, wrapping her arms around her legs. The girlish gesture bemused even herself, but she supposed on this day it could be allowed. She said nothing, but could not help the smile spreading over her face, and that smile, along with the nod of her head, was enough for Ioreth to exclaim in pleasure.
‘Oh, dearest, sweetest lady! Of course, we all knew it. That is, we all knew it was for the best, and what Lord Faramir was wishing to do, but then these things can so often go wrong. Duties getting in the way, opportunities lost to fear or doubt. And you, my lady, well, none can accuse you of making it easy for the gentleman. Warm as summer one moment, cold as ice the next. Now I never doubted, but seeing as you seemed to not even know your own heart, a great few many feared it would all come to nothing. And I thank the stars for it, for they gave me good odds on all being settled before the coronation. Now I can collect, and have a little something extra for my nest egg.’
Éowyn’s eyes widened. ‘People…people have been laying wagers?’
Ioreth chuckled. ‘Of course they have, dear lady. All the healers have stakes in the wager, and half the patients too.’
Éowyn shook her head, and laughed. ‘I wonder that they’ve nothing better to do or concern themselves with.’
‘Such as?’
‘Our great victory over Mordor? The approaching arrival of a new king? The dawn of a new age?’
Ioreth waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, we natter about all that too, of course. But my lady, this city has known and loved Lord Faramir since he was a boy, and long has he served it. And all are indebted to you for the great deeds you did on the Pelennor. With the two of you so fair and good, with a match of this sort so perfect a way to bring in a newer, happier time, how can we not indulge in a bit of wishing and hoping? And quite frankly, back when we were all stuck in waiting, watching the two of you together was the one bit of pleasure any of us had.’
‘But not everyone was so sure of it all coming to good.’
‘Oh no, there were a few fools who thought we were making castles out of clouds,’ Ioreth said. ‘Little minded sorts who thought your moods were all your head’s doings, who thought you’d never find cheer and all bets were off. But I’ve been having none of it. Even those poor souls who do go sad from the inside out can be helped through it with some care, but you were never one of those. I’ve seen your sort all too many times, lady. Even without war and all that misery piling on top of you, I’ve seen your sort. Clever, high spirited girls and women, with so much to them and so much they need to be, getting shut away and made small. I’ve had them coming to me, looking for potions and remedies, thinking it must be some sort of illness that makes them feel so sick in the spirits. Colleagues of mine even, who leave after becoming wives and mothers and thinking they can be nothing else. I can give them a little something to pep them up, but I tell them it will only do so much good. They need to make changes to what’s going on around them, or they’ll never fill that emptiness. Sometimes they listen. Others are too scared and insist their lives are fine, it’s just them that are wrong. Now for some, home and hearth is all they need, that’s where their heart is and happily so, but you and I were never that make. I know I wouldn’t be happy giving up my work here to go be some man’s glorified housekeeper, and some did ask, you believe me. And not that long ago. But Lord Faramir, Lord Faramir’s not that type. No, he’s too just. Too fair. Has too much respect for the capabilities of others to ask you to be less than you are. You and I are blessed among women. We’re right where we belong. Me here, and you, at Lord Faramir’s side.’
Éowyn had sensibly started eating as Ioreth talked, (how had she forgotten how sweet strawberry jam was?), but she swallowed quickly to get a word in.
‘Lord Faramir wishes us to live in Ithilien, in Emyn Arnen,’ Éowyn said.
Ioreth beamed. ‘Oh yes, that’s just the place for you! Now I love the sound of stone beneath my heels, but you, you need to be out there, in the wildness. You’ll be a maiden of the trees, a right forest lass, just like in that old song, with your hair bound up in grass. Yes, you and his lordship will see off all those nasties still dwelling there, and make it as beautiful as it ever was. That’s just the task for you, my lady. A new House and a new land for a new time, with the mightiest lady of our age to found it.’
Éowyn blushed, even though when she had gone dreaming off to sleep the night before, the exact same words had been whirling around her head.