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Éowyn’s footsteps echoed over the cobblestone street. There was so much still to discover here, and – while Faramir held council with a few elders of the city – she was drawn to see what she could uncover. The midsummer’s day was warm, and the sun’s heat reflected off cobblestone, but intermittent breeze was relieving.
And the city was so alive – with green growth, with music, with vibrant color, with the smells of bakers’ wares. The hush and stagnancy of the city before victory, when (for a time) she sought to escape the confines of the Houses of Healing: that felt fully dormant in comparison.
The maiden turned a corner and saw her – the Lady Arwen, who she had seen become Queen of this land just the day before, sitting by a gurgling fountain.
She seemed both young and old: appearing in the blossoming of womanhood, her dark hair shining with sunlight but not the frost of age, yet with a weight to her bearing that Éowyn sensed could only come from time lived. Her dress was a rich lavender, her circlet of glinting silver. Her face, smooth and fair, spoke to being held in deep thought.
And to think, just the night before – after she wedded the King – Éowyn had asked Faramir many questions about their story. Faramir had spoken at length with the King just nights before and had learned that story himself. He shared with Éowyn what he felt it was his place to share.
Arwen looked at the young woman and caught her gaze. Her grey eyes held a timeless depth, the sparkle of stars having watched the world for countless years. Part of Éowyn felt bashful, perhaps even exposed – but a stronger part was awed, amazed, and plain curious. She held the gaze.
Arwen smiled gently, and Éowyn felt her own lips curve upwards in response. The Queen’s weighted bearing dropped, lightening with her smile.
“Come, sit, and tell me your name,” Arwen greeted. A gleaming floated on her voice, a bright enchantment to the tone of her speech.
“É-Éowyn, Milady,” she answered, the part of her feeling shy – and perhaps even embarrassed – rising again. She felt her heart racing and her breath shortening; was that also fear?
From the bosom, Éowyn heard frightened whispers about the people who lived to see ages of this world. Yet something in the woman before her – the quality of starry light in her eyes, that shimmering timber in her voice – had her wondering if such fear was only folly.
“Ah, the lady for whose hand the young Steward has asked,” Arwen noted, one side of her lips rising to a smirk. Éowyn felt her cheeks hot and her knees give just slightly…this woman, the Queen, knew of her and what had happened with Faramir.
“Yes, I am now the Queen of this city, but has not the Queen ears too?” Arwen continued, still smirking.
“...and will you stand there all this day? Come sit!” Arwen added, patting the stone of the bench beside her.
Éowyn smiled in spite of herself and moved forward to sit. Yes, there was something good and kind and welcoming about this woman, and she wanted to sit a while.
“The wedding was beautiful,” Éowyn noted once seated – hearing the awe and wonder in her own voice. “I am glad I did not miss it. I had planned to only return once the man I loved as a father was buried, and the ravages of war upon our land begun to be addressed, but…” she felt her cheeks warm again and her chin dropping.
“...but you needed to see him” – Arwen finished her sentence for her. Astounding. Éowyn could only nod. She continued once her awe settled enough for her to speak again.
“And the Crowning…magical. As Faramir described it, we suddenly King Elessar before us, resonating with the majesty of the Kings of Old.”
Arwen smiled wider, the light in her eyes now of joy and love – and simply nodded. Perhaps she was still processing it all herself, Éowyn thought.
“…once I wanted to be a queen,” she continued. “But my Faramir is something humbler, and now humbler suits me well. I couldn't go another day without seeing him again, it is true."
Arwen’s smile once again shifted shape into a smirk. Éowyn tried not to be mortified that the Queen might also know of the feelings she once held for the King. Yet the glittering melody of Arwen’s voice caught her attention before her mind traveled too far down the path of those thoughts.
“I missed much too, through the long years…sometimes we must set mirth aside. Sometimes our hearts are pulled in many directions. Yet love will always call us back to where we must be,” Arwen noted, almost in a whisper – as if suddenly pensive again.
It occurred to Éowyn that she herself had experienced exactly that, in just short months of her life that she never would have predicted. The wisdom of this woman before her…the weight of it all threatened to submerge her.
Yet what called her focus, before going down those mind paths, was Arwen’s countenance – once again contemplative, even withdrawn compared to her resonating energy of just moments before.
“...Milady Arwen, Your Majesty?” she intoned, before she even knew she was speaking – her concern overpowering any conception of privacy or propriety.
Arwen lifted her chin and found Éowyn’s gaze again. A light smile returned to her fine face.
“Just passing fancies, Éowyn, they will float away on that lovely breeze,” she answered.
Once again Éowyn felt her smile matching the Queen’s, her powerful energy a flame to her moth. They both closed their eyes for a moment and savored the feeling of wind cooling skin. The fountain trickled and bubbled, the constancy of that sound soothing.
Éowyn also felt the shock and overwhelm of happening upon this majestic woman now passed – and further questions, curiosities which her talk with Faramir had not satiated, cracked and danced like embers in corners of her mind. She exhaled and decided upon one it felt appropriate enough to ask.
“I…I heard of the standard you sewed. How it danced in the winds and fortified the forces of the West…and quenched the courage of the enemy’s,” Éowyn ventured.
“Ah yes, some time it took me…yet that settled my mind through uncertain and fearful circumstances,” she answered. “It was one way that I could be part of our victory, of this world finding a time of peace again.”
And with that, a new understanding dawned on Éowyn: what is known as feminine can be service as well as strength, and it is not inherently more or less than feats of valiant fighting. Mere months ago, she never would have seen herself thinking such thoughts – yet, as something else she was beginning to understand, one could never know what lay around time’s bends.
Another curiosity occurred to her, which she followed.
“Milady Arwen, I also heard of the sapling of the White Tree found…a wonder,” Éowyn noted, again hearing such wonder and awe in her own voice.
“Indeed, it is. A mystery which we may, we may not someday understand,” the Queen answered. “My heart believes that it will blossom evermore. Yet I…I will not…” she trailed off, her bearing once again becoming reflective and weightier.
And then, her mouth moving faster than her mind, Éowyn shared with Arwen a secret tucked in deep corners of her heart – one few others knew.
“Once I wanted to die in honor…I saw no other way out of the darkness before me, behind me, around me. But now, I…I only want to nurture life.”
Arwen’s gaze met hers again – somehow simultaneously holding compassion and joy. The Queen took her hand as she held that gaze. Éowyn sensed, with Arwen saying not a word, that the Queen felt both sadness for the darkness the young woman had walked through and joy for the light now illuminating her soul.
After a moment of that light in her eyes, holding both light and shadow, Arwen broke the gaze and set Éowyn’s hand aside.
“Just before you found me here, I surrendered to Frodo, the final Ringbearer, my place on a ship to the Undying Lands. I will remain here, and surrender my body to the earth, as one of you,” Arwen shared – speaking just above a whisper, the timber of her voice now carrying even more richness, the richness of layered, tangled feeling.
That sat in the air for a moment – with Éowyn having no words that felt right in response – before Arwen spoke again.
“Please forgive me…I chose this path long ago. Yet when I offered that to Frodo, it felt real and irreversible in a way it hadn’t before.”
Now Éowyn took Arwen’s hand and locked into her gaze – ancient, enchanting, in a way chilling, but which she now felt equipped to meet without any fear or hesitation.
“There is nothing to forgive, my Queen,” Éowyn assured her.
She realized that they had just met, and nevertheless bared their souls to each other – and that almost had a wave of overwhelm threatening to engulf her again. Yet a levy of joy and care held it back, one holding unbroken in the feeling that she may have even made a new friend – perhaps presumptuous, perhaps very true.
Arwen spoke again, maintaining a wistful, if lighter, air about her.
“I also gave Frodo a white gem shaped as a star, held upon a necklace. Holding the blessing of the Eldar, my people, I hope it can help ease the troubles I do believe he will now carry with him.”
“I think it just might, Milady Arwen,” Éowyn affirmed. Thoughts were coming to her, again coming out of her mouth before her mind had even fully processed them. She spoke on.
“Yes, our hearts may be pulled in many different directions…but perhaps the best we can do is ease the way of those we might encounter as we navigate new paths for ourselves.”
“Exactly true, Éowyn, exactly true,” the Queen agreed, meeting her gaze again.
Indeed, perhaps presumptuous, but Éowyn hoped it was true: that as the bonds of her people and Gondor’s fortified – through the bond of herself to Faramir, of the connection of King Elessar and her own brother become King of the Mark – a friendship had here bloomed.
She hoped that this woman before her – with an enchantment in every word she spoke, movement she made, every inch of her now-mortal flesh – was now a chosen sister to help her walk through life, whichever directions her heart might be tugged, whatever arrows it might suffer, whatever bliss with which it might dance.
She had heard that the bond between two close women could be a uniquely special thing, but sadly had never experienced such a thing for herself. She now wished for that to change, and believed it might.
“Éowyn? Something now troubling you?,” Arwen asked, just as Éowyn had asked her mere moments before. “I am here to listen, if you wish to share, dear lady.”
“Just passing fancies, away on that breeze,” Éowyn answered through a wide grin.
Another cool breeze blew, again soothing sultry skin. The two women’s sudden laughter carried with it, up and away from the harmony of the fountain’s gurgling. A trumpet’s song from a nearby parapet, and the song of a bird high in a tree above, mingled with the floating laughter instead.
Mirth need not be set aside any longer.