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Faramir stood before the mirror in his wife’s dressing room, the warm-blue velour draped over his chest and shoulders. It fell all the way to the floor and lapped his feet like waves.
He often did this when Éowyn was away, and the shame and fear were less consuming now. He stepped into the dress and the longer he stood there, the more those feelings turned to smoke that he could bat away.
The way he felt at the sight overshadowed everything.
When he was a man, people looked at him like they knew what he would do. When he came into a room, everyone looked up, their postures growing stiffer, their voices falling quiet. Men of tall stature, great strength, or high rank locked gazes with him, eyebrows hardening. Women made themselves smaller, eyes descending and shoulders growing round. Everyone gazed at him with quiet expectation: as if he had come to draw a sword, or to speak wisdom, or resolve whatever quarrel occupied their minds.
It was an unhandy burden—especially how people jumped to attention, the way that other men sized him up. The competition between men felt wretched—and yet no man was allowed to lament it.
Éowyn had no such effect on others, not did his cousin, nor had his mother. No burden so awkward as to be combat-ready among men, and casually indifferent around women and children. Surely, they carried weights he could not see, so it was vain to dream of switching places. And yet, if he could only learn to manipulate the air, to give those near him the gift of peace...
As a man, it was not easy. He had to make his voice extra gentle, had to resist the other men’s attempts to spar, to make his hands easily seen, to demonstrate that he had no weapon. He had to speak every kindness he could think of, and even then, he could not be sure that people deferred to him for the right reasons.
Wearing this dress, even alone, felt like shedding all that. There was little chest to fill it, but a soft, freshly shaved chin and long, smooth-brushed hair imparted a whole new feeling. A feminine one. Turning to the right and then the left, shoulders moving jauntily, an arm extended—all of it made shivers bloom up his spine. Under the iridescent velvet, the lines could have belonged to a woman: lithe, graceful, pleasing—words he never applied to himself before. Doing so sent sparks all over his body, and it felt like being caressed down his arms and chest.
He took a step, and it felt like a leap…
“Faramir?”
He froze.
He could not move—his limbs wanted to run, but he felt hopelessly bound. One way or another, his body turned, and there she was.
Éowyn stood at the threshold, still in her sparring-garb: tunic, leather arm-guards, pants. She wore them when she taught the ladies to handle arms.
“I knew it was you wearing my clothes,” she said quietly. Her voice was flat, no insinuation in it—which made it all the more terrible.
Faramir’s arms sank, and he rocked on his feet until the walls and the clothing moved upward. He fell into a nearby chair.
Éowyn crossed the room, her sword clicking in her scabbard.
“That is alright, I am not angry.” A note of brightness lifted her voice. And indeed, she did not look angry. Her eyes were as cloudless as ever. “Though you must know, you did stretch them out a bit.”
She came to his side, squatting on her haunches.
Faramir could barely look at her, and wished for the earth to swallow them up. It was the only way to solve every problem—the problems she now shared.
“That is all well, though,” she said, extending a hand. A smooth, white hand, floating with the wrist plain to see. Faramir often did the same, to make others feels at ease. “My clothes can suffer a bit, it is no matter. But will you not tell me why you do it? It is not something I ever heard tell of. Perhaps as a disguise, or as a part in a play. But here, it’s plain to say, this is no part in a play—nor any need for disguises.”
She glanced at Faramir’s reflection in the mirror.
Faramir drew a tremulous breath and at last mustered some words.
To speak felt like pulling tar from a barrel. But if nothing else, this was Éowyn, whom he had loved more than he thought possible, and who loved him back without condition.
“I—I do not know myself,” he whispered. “To tell you true… it is simply… that I feel myself… unburdened.”
Éowyn nodded slowly.
“Both men and women have their burdens, that much I know.” Her mouth, flattened until then, made a thoughtful pout. “What I don’t know is whether those burdens can easily be shifted, or if we may shift beneath those burdens. But perhaps if we came to know this lady in blue, she might give us some answers?”
Faramir did not know what to say, but his head bobbed up and down. The hand nearest Éowyn floated up, and she clasped it in both of hers.