In the morning Eowyn woke first, her eyes drifting open slowly. She had never woken like this before, so pleasantly warm and full of lassitude. Nor indeed had she awoken in the arms of another. Though Faramir shared her bed, they occupied different sides, and from their wedding night to this day, that was how it had stayed. Looking down, she tensed a little bit. It was not Faramir she embraced but Arwen. The other woman's head, shared the same pillow, her rounded arm thrown over Eowyn, tear stains still on her cheek. Eowyn tamed the instinct to rise immediately, instead looking on the other woman curiously. Arwen breathed deeply and regularly, but it was obviously a mortal sleep, not the trance into which she had once seen Prince Legolas fall. Dark lashes, still slightly thickened from tears, lay on the porcelain cheek, and half despairing Eowyn gazed at her. She could not compete with this.
Slowly, gently she eased herself away from Arwen. From the looks of things it was still early morning- the castle was quiet, not even the maid-servants up and bustling, preparing the bread to be baked. Arwen did not awaken, merely curled tighter in on herself, conserving the warmth Eowyn had left behind. Eowyn gazed at her for a moment, bewildered, then let herself out softly. After sleeping in her dress it was rumpled and she felt unclean. Walking softly into her room, she had a sponge-bath in cold water, and changed into a fresh clean dress of dark blue cloth. Sitting in her room, she soon heard stirrings, and walked down to the kitchens to join in the task of baking the household bread, and to set everything in order for the day. Though few people inhabited the castle main, apart from those nobles who had sent younger sons to do their duty, and of course Eowyn, Faramir and their retinue, there was still an entire garrison of soldiers to cook and clean for, and that required a large amount of servants- who also needed to be fed. Eowyn brought up in the rough and ready court of Rohan, had never been a stranger to working, when there was work to be done, and as such she took an active part in the castle's running,
Arwen rose some little time later, and Eowyn turned to her, ready to explain everything. But Arwen made no mention of anything untoward, and Eowyn realised the other woman had no memory of the incident. She didn't know if she was grateful or annoyed for that, but finally settled on grateful. It would be too difficult to explain things to Arwen. The other woman had matter of factedly started to help in the kitchens, and around the castle, once it had become plain to her, that this was how Eowyn spent her day. She seemed determined not to fall short of whatever standards Eowyn set, and Eowyn had to scold her, when she found Arwen attempting to scrub clothes. Eowyn pointed out that she certainly didn't wash clothes, and that it definitely was not Arwen's task to do so such a thing. Yet no matter how she tried, Eowyn could not restrict the other woman to things that befitted a queen. Arwen's acquiescence was only skin-deep, her most powerful weapon her mute implacability, the strength that lay under her fragile appearance. She appeared determined to befriend Eowyn, either by sharing her duties, or teaching her the more gentle arts.
There had been no news for the last two weeks, though Eowyn viewed this with no surprise, it was natural they would be forgotten after all. They were but women, and could not compare to the delectable intoxication of warfare. She should know. She had always been happier dressed as a man, doing brave deeds, feeling the thrill of war, and if she was honest of killing. Nothing quite compared to that rush of blood, the surging of it in her veins, so loud she could hear nothing else, so fast it almost filmed her vision, tainting her perceptions. The heavy weight of a weapon in one hand, the swift muscle of a horse beneath her, the taste in the air of mist, cool and thin on one's tongue, the scent that belonged so exclusively to men and war, the rich smell of leather, horse, wine and sweat, hanging thick in the air. The rough rasp of her helmet, the exhilaration of being borne along by a thousand comrades to death and glory.
She realised she was standing in a reverie in front of a blank stone wall, and sighing she looked away. Those days were gone forever, much though she might wish to reclaim them. Shaking her head, she tried to block out the memories of those she had scandalized in Rohan with her conduct. As a child, they had tolerated her learning weapon skills, excusing it on account of her having no mother. When she got older, the whispers began, mostly women, just loud enough to hear, but not loud enough to confront. Whispers about her masculinity, from those jealous of her freedom to be herself. Spiteful rumours, that she had done her best to ignore, and yet could not.
Maybe that was why, she admitted to herself, that she was so jealous of Arwen. Arwen possessed everything a man could want, everything a man did not have of her his own, at least not if he didn't want to be mocked. Beauty, grace, softness, fragility, perfection. Innocence. While Eowyn was more man than woman, her beauty was a man's beauty, hard and harsh as the winter sea, her grace a warrior's grace, not a dancers, her fragility merely a facade over strong muscles and a stronger mind. And innocence. Innocence had fled a long time ago. Not technically of course, the niece of the King of Rohan, would never be propositioned by anyone, but living with men, and amongst men had inured her to even the most blatant suggestion.
And Eowyn wondered, really wondered for the first time in her life, if it was worth it. Would she have been happier, clad in maid's clothing, with a babe or two at her knee, and an adoring husband, rather than fighting in a battle, which had beaten the last bit of softness from her character? She had to concede no. She a woman, had been the turning point of that battle. She had slain a Nazgul, and faced down the Witch King of Angmar. She turned impatiently. That was past, her future lay here. It was time to stop thinking of old memories, reminiscing of old times. The pain was too great to bear, if she was honest. Raw weeping anguish, just barely healed, when even a sudden movement could break the scab of the wound. She would not look at it. That way madness lay.
Arwen was currently replenishing the candles in the dining room, where they usually conducted their lessons, and Eowyn nodded to her, as she began to polish the holders. Bent for a minute in this companionable task, Arwen summoned up the courage to quietly ask Eowyn, if there had been any news. Eowyn shook her head briefly, and Arwen nodded, her face fallen. Eowyn did not know why, but she hated people crying, or even looking sad. It opened unwanted reservoirs of pity within her, reserves she wanted to keep hidden, for fear of appearing weak. Uncomfortably she looked away, but Arwen was too strong, to give into tears at such small provocation, and certainly not in front of Eowyn. Eowyn wanted to see if last night was remembered at all, so she started a new conversation. "Do you ever dream Arwen?" she asked casually.
She could not be certain, but she though she saw the other woman's posture tense, as in dismay. No hint of it appeared in Arwen's smooth voice. "Before, I dreamed, though you would not recognise it as dreaming. Now however, I have no memory of any dreams at all. The night is a blank. Do you dream Eowyn?" At some point without either of them noticing, they had become on first name terms, the excessive formality of titles laid aside.
Eowyn paused to think about it. "Sometimes. My uncle always said I didn't have enough imagination to dream." That sounded a little bitter, and she sought to remedy it. "He meant I did not read enough for my mind to be influenced. But I do dream." She fell silent, remembering those dreams. Always the same one recently. She was lying in the dark, and she was dying. She knew this in the dream, though how she knew she could not say. Then a miraculous feeling would come over her. A feeling of being loved and cared for, warm and wanted, and she was brought back to the light, into the embrace of ...someone. She did not know who. The feeling was entirely platonic, as though the mother she did not remember was looking after her. It reminded her, of what being healed by Aragorn had felt like. That certainty that she was precious, the warm pressure of his hand and the gradual coming back to her surroundings. "Yes, I dream," she said softly.
Arwen continued to polish the candlestick she held, with one of Eowyn's cloths. "I don't understand," she said quietly.
"Don't understand what?" Eowyn asked, her mind still on her dream.
"How humans love." Arwen's voice was calm and placid, but beneath the surface was confusion and perhaps even despair. She turned to Eowyn fiercely, skirts rustling, her smooth hair tucked in a net behind her ears, every inch the respectable woman, except for those eyes. Arwen's eyes were her most beautiful feature, not even the heavy mass of hair, the slender frame, or the symmetrical perfection of her face could rival them. Now they burned brightly in her face, with shame and bemusement. "I don't understand, she said, her voice tightly reined in. "How can you, we," she corrected herself savagely, "love more than one person?"
Eowyn stilled, a cat's instinctive movement. Arwen had broached the one forbidden topic. Love. And yet somehow Eowyn felt the torment in Arwen's eyes was not caused by Eowyn's love for Aragorn, that she wasn't even thinking of that, but of something entirely different, something alien to her understanding. "Of course we can," she replied puzzled as to what Arwen meant. "We love our families, our husbands, in different ways perhaps, but we still love them."
"That's not what I meant," said Arwen, with the first hint of impatience Eowyn had ever heard from her. "Wait for a moment," she vanished from the room, then returned holding a thick heavy leather book taken from Faramir's study. Eowyn never read any of the books contained within, having no interest in what so fascinated him. She flicked through it, and read out the title contained within. Aeyn and Hirold, and looked at Eowyn in expectation.
Eowyn shrugged, not comprehending Arwen's point. "Everyone knows the tale," she said. "Aeyn is in love with her husband Hirold, who passionately loves her, but she also loves a man names Oliral, who just as passionately loves her. Yet she loves them equally, and unable to choose between them, remains forever poised unable to decide." She could not prevent a slight sneer from crossing her face. Romantic nonsense.
"Precisely," Arwen exclaimed. "Even if the tale itself is not true, you still have the concept of loving more than one person." She searched Eowyn's face for understanding. "Elves only love once," she said quietly. "Once, and more deeply than is thought possible by any other race. The act of intimacy, usually seals this love. Not always, sometimes, very rarely it is not a lover to whom this love is fastened, my twin brothers for example, could never marry, joined as they are in the soul. I did not understand this," she said with quiet dignity. "Just as my race can not imagine marriage without love. But now I am human as well now. Does this mean I too possess the capacity for love, love that embraces more than one?" She dropped her eyes absently to the candlestick in her hand. "I never understood humans," she said quietly again. "The act of intimacy does not have to be tied to love for you. Love can be felt without it, and it can be performed with no love. It was not like that for me, and yet now my heart is changing, and I cannot fathom how or why. I realised for the first time, that all humans bear this capacity of love for more than one. Including my husband."
For a moment, Eowyn's heart stopped beating it seemed to her. Arwen meant Aragorn loved her, Eowyn, she thought wildly, and unreasoning joy swept through her, before she noticed Arwen's face. It was anguished, but the anguish was not aimed at Eowyn. And the flames in her breast died down. Arwen did not mean her at all, or why would she be even talking about it to her. For that reason why was she telling Eowyn any of this, most intensely private thoughts and feelings, when Eowyn had brushed her off so coldly, had hated her so intensely?
The answer was very simple. Arwen was so lonely for any companionship, that even the little bits of kindness and attention, that Eowyn had dropped unthinkingly, had become lifelines to her. And Eowyn was suddenly ashamed of herself. She had treated the other woman badly, unkindly, taking out her frustration and spite, on someone utterly alien to her culture, someone thrust into her company. And with sudden intuition, she knew that Arwen was the sort of person who would forgive her without a moment's thought on the matter, because Arwen was just naturally good and decent. Qualities which Eowyn had to cultivate, were fully blossomed in Arwen's person.
Motivated for possibly the first time in her life, by tenderness, she held out her arms to the other woman. It hurt, the hesitation she saw in Arwen's eyes, as though Eowyn might suddenly hurt her, push her away, but the other woman crept timidly into the embrace. Though Arwen was taller than Eowyn, her frame was so slender, that Eowyn could easily embrace her, press the dark head into her shoulder, stroke the soft hair, and murmur words of comfort. "He loves you," she whispered, thrusting away her own hopes and dreams with that sentence. "He loves you so much. It shines in his eyes, and in yours. You were made for each other, even a blind man could see that," or a woman in love with your husband, she thought silently, but did not add. "I don't know where you could have got that foolish idea, that he loves another as well." The sound of gentle sobbing was her only answer, then Arwen spoke.
"I lied," she whispered, her head cast low. "I do remember dreaming. I dream every night, the same dream. I am so cold, it is as though being mortal means loosing all warmth, and I shiver unceasingly. In my dream, I am walking through snow, barefoot. I'm searching for something, something I have lost. Then I see my mother, my beautiful mother Celebrian. I embrace her, and for a moment she is warm, then I realise in my dream that I am hugging an ice covered tree, whose stooped trunk looks like a woman. I walk onwards, until I come to the sea, and it is frozen over. I begin to walk as far as I can across the ice, until I am faraway from land. Then I see my father walking towards me, and his eyes are so happy to see me, his hands stretched out in greeting, and I run to meet him. He walks straight past me, and at that moment I fall through melted ice, into water as cold as death. He does not notice, but then a hand grips mine firmly and lifts me out. Legolas hauls me out of the water, and wraps me in a cloak of steel links. Taking my hand he puts it in Aragorn's, then follows Elrond, where they both vanish. Aragorn is made of stone, but my hand is trapped in his, and as I try to pull away, it will not let go. Then I awaken, usually in the corner of the room, and bitterly cold."
"Did you last night?" Eowyn can not resist asking.
Arwen shook her head. "No," she said puzzled. "I awoke warm in my bed, wrapped in blanket, with a light burning in the corner. But you see now, why I cannot let Aragorn go, or understand the love he can give to many. I have given up everything for him. I will not even meet my family after death, so how can I give up the man for whom I gave it up?"
"You can't," Eowyn said fiercely. Then softening a little, she asked the question. "Who is it, whom you think he loves?"
Arwen's eyes were tormented still. "I cannot tell you," she answered. "I know it is not in the same way he loves me, in the same depth, or even the same manner. There is nothing physical about it, yet I am jealous of his regard and his love. The love he bears this other person, is platonic, yet still it causes me to ache. Covetous almost, I wish for him to care for only me. And yet I could not even mention it to him. There is such a large portion of his life from which I am excluded, all matters of war. He treats me with gentleness, as though I were incapable of understanding such matters, though he will talk with me on all else." She cast herself free of Eowyn for a moment in agony. "I cannot understand," she said through muffling fingers. "He loves me, yet..."
Eowyn pulled a chair out from the table, and carefully sat Arwen in it, sitting herself, across the table from her. Arwen clung to her hand, as though needing the reassurance that Eowyn was there. "He loves you," she said again, with conviction in her voice. "More than anyone else. I have never seen a man worship the ground on which a woman walks, as he does with you. Men are strange though, they can separate things as most women cannot. I can," she added a trifle bitterly, "and look where it got me."
Arwen did not appear to have heard. She held Eowyn's cold hand to her cheek as though to warm it. Eowyn could feel the wetness of tears, and with a moment's hesitation she wiped them with her sleeve, as though Arwen were a child. "Thank you," Arwen said softly. "For everything," and kissed Eowyn's hand, as though in obeisance. There was nothing forced about the gesture, merely one of gratitude, and Eowyn leaned her head forward, until it met their joined hands. There, across half polished candlesticks, they reached an understanding, that neither of them had imagined possible. One of peace and hope, and perhaps shared experience.
That night, as they did their lesson, Eowyn could suddenly see as she had the night before, the beauty and the passion of the words, and though she still needed to check vocabulary, and stumbled over words, she could now comprehend the beautiful whole. Arwen smiled, a wonderful, joyous smile, one of delight, that Eowyn could now understand how Arwen lived her life. Then as though the thought had just occurred to her, she mentioned that she planned to visit her father, when Aragorn returned. "Would you like to come with me?" she asked. "The Last Homely House brings peace of mind to those who wish it." Whimsically, she laughed. "Lord Glorfindel would love to meet you."
Eowyn raised her eyebrows. "Lord Glorfindel?" she enquired.
"He is an elven lord, very great amongst his kind." If Arwen noticed she said 'his' rather than 'our,' she made no mention of it. "A warrior above all others, and very skilled in many arts. You remind me of him," she said thoughtfully.
Eowyn laughed. "I doubt that," she said. "From what little I have seen of male elves, they are beautiful and remote."
"You are beautiful," Arwen said quietly. "You cannot see your beauty, just as he can not, or if he does, he takes no heed of it, and remote as well. Sometimes I thought I would never understand how you thought."
"Just the opposite," admitted Eowyn. "I felt you saw too clearly, and it frightened me. What does Lord Glorfindel look like?"
Arwen pondered for a moment. "It is as though he glows," she said softly. "He has golden hair, and eyes the colour of the sea, and his face looks as though it is carved from rock, an immutable stony facade. He is great, and terrible, even amongst a race different from men. A remnant from another age, along with my father, and a scattering of others."
She shook off her thoughts. "If you come with me, you shall see him soon enough."
"Is such a man not attached?" asked Eowyn curiously. He must be thousands of years old, surely in all that time he could have found a mate.
Arwen nodded sadly. "Yes," she said. "He is, but I can not tell you anymore. It must be his story, if he chooses to tell it. Or if the one he loves chooses to tell it. Now," she said shutting the book. "I am going to go to bed." Eowyn pondered for a moment, then smiled.
"If you awake afeared," she said, "you are more than welcome to wake me. You can sleep in my bed if you wish, or we shall sit and talk through the night. There is no use in suffering in silence."
Arwen looked as though the sun had come out of the clouds. She nodded, "thank you," she whispered, and disappeared through the door, leaving Eowyn leaning on her elbows, staring into the fire. And for the first time in many weeks, the face she saw was not that of Aragorn or Faramir, taunting her with worries and doubts, but a softer one, with a smile that lingered like spring.
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