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Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Word Count: 618
Pairing: implied Eowyn/Faramir
Rating: G
Summary: She fights against those that would devalue her for her sex, fights for the ideals of old, but it isn't until she meets Faramir that she learns to stop fighting.
She is a woman, and she hears that refrain day in and day out. She is a shieldmaiden, defender of the home, overseer of the smooth day-to-day operations of the castle. She knows how many duties her late mother had had, knows this awaits her in her future.
She is a woman, and she listens in the stairwell to the tutor telling her cousin and brother stories of their history. Horsemasters, noblemen, fierce warriors with fiercer skills still, an ancient people governing a harsh land, making peace with the untamable wilds.
She is a woman, and she has no head for figures. The numbers swim uselessly about and frustrate her to tears. She hears the maids tsk their tongues, talk in low whispers behind hands about how she would never be a good bride, not when she cannot supervise the treasury.
She is a woman, and as a child she watches from the window as her brother and cousin practice sword-work in the practice yards below. She takes pieces of wood from the fire and copies their movements.
She is a woman, and she will be betrothed one day. Her ladies in waiting gossip about the eligible males at court, titter about far-away princes who may come for her hand. Uncle Theoden needs more and more help as he ails, and she worries that one day he will die without providing her a way out of her circumstances. Then she cries herself to sleep because of the wickedness in her heart that made her think of herself before her cousin’s pain at watching his father grow weaker by the hour.
She grew up nursed by tales of Rohan greatness. Her brother, as a young boy and she a young girl, would take her out riding, and her parents – both important nobles – aided Uncle Theoden and Cousin Theodred after Aunt Aelwyn passed giving birth to a girl-child, who died within weeks of her mother. She and her brother had months of time alone, and she took to horses like a bird to flight, feeling freedom brush across her face as she sent her steed barreling through the rolling hills.
She attained adulthood tethered to a castle, locked away from fresh air as her uncle grew cruel, her cousin and brother distant, a trusted councilmember become darker and more dangerous. She planted her roots deep, as all Rohirrim did, and gritted her teeth. She would ride this steed out, break it to her bridle. Her time would come.
When it came, it came because she clawed it out of rock and bone, clawed it out in disguises and tight bindings to make flat armor fit her body. It came because she took it, because she was, is, will always be a fighter, a dreamer, an eagle winging over rolling hills.
Now, now she worries she will never get the stench of death out of her nose. That her hands stain the reins of her steed red with the blood she has spilled. That her brother dies and she is not in time to stop it. Now, she has waking nightmares, but she pushes ever on, body tense and taut, a sword shaped and wielded by those who called her girl and then whispered horsemasters. When she finds Faramir, she finds a soft soul, a reminder of her late cousin, someone who can fight but not happily, someone who can lead but not eagerly, and she finds that with Faramir…
With Faramir, she is neither fighting against expectations nor striving to become an ancient perfection. With Faramir, she just is, and nothing, not the crown of a kingdom, not the fastest steed, not the jewels from the earth, will ever compare.
Word Count: 618
Pairing: implied Eowyn/Faramir
Rating: G
Summary: She fights against those that would devalue her for her sex, fights for the ideals of old, but it isn't until she meets Faramir that she learns to stop fighting.
She is a woman, and she hears that refrain day in and day out. She is a shieldmaiden, defender of the home, overseer of the smooth day-to-day operations of the castle. She knows how many duties her late mother had had, knows this awaits her in her future.
She is a woman, and she listens in the stairwell to the tutor telling her cousin and brother stories of their history. Horsemasters, noblemen, fierce warriors with fiercer skills still, an ancient people governing a harsh land, making peace with the untamable wilds.
She is a woman, and she has no head for figures. The numbers swim uselessly about and frustrate her to tears. She hears the maids tsk their tongues, talk in low whispers behind hands about how she would never be a good bride, not when she cannot supervise the treasury.
She is a woman, and as a child she watches from the window as her brother and cousin practice sword-work in the practice yards below. She takes pieces of wood from the fire and copies their movements.
She is a woman, and she will be betrothed one day. Her ladies in waiting gossip about the eligible males at court, titter about far-away princes who may come for her hand. Uncle Theoden needs more and more help as he ails, and she worries that one day he will die without providing her a way out of her circumstances. Then she cries herself to sleep because of the wickedness in her heart that made her think of herself before her cousin’s pain at watching his father grow weaker by the hour.
She grew up nursed by tales of Rohan greatness. Her brother, as a young boy and she a young girl, would take her out riding, and her parents – both important nobles – aided Uncle Theoden and Cousin Theodred after Aunt Aelwyn passed giving birth to a girl-child, who died within weeks of her mother. She and her brother had months of time alone, and she took to horses like a bird to flight, feeling freedom brush across her face as she sent her steed barreling through the rolling hills.
She attained adulthood tethered to a castle, locked away from fresh air as her uncle grew cruel, her cousin and brother distant, a trusted councilmember become darker and more dangerous. She planted her roots deep, as all Rohirrim did, and gritted her teeth. She would ride this steed out, break it to her bridle. Her time would come.
When it came, it came because she clawed it out of rock and bone, clawed it out in disguises and tight bindings to make flat armor fit her body. It came because she took it, because she was, is, will always be a fighter, a dreamer, an eagle winging over rolling hills.
Now, now she worries she will never get the stench of death out of her nose. That her hands stain the reins of her steed red with the blood she has spilled. That her brother dies and she is not in time to stop it. Now, she has waking nightmares, but she pushes ever on, body tense and taut, a sword shaped and wielded by those who called her girl and then whispered horsemasters. When she finds Faramir, she finds a soft soul, a reminder of her late cousin, someone who can fight but not happily, someone who can lead but not eagerly, and she finds that with Faramir…
With Faramir, she is neither fighting against expectations nor striving to become an ancient perfection. With Faramir, she just is, and nothing, not the crown of a kingdom, not the fastest steed, not the jewels from the earth, will ever compare.
