Éowyn Drabble Set; The Mansion.
So many sad and bad things going on in the world that sometimes I find the only answer is to escape for a while. Which is why I am posting these drabbles, written for a set of prompts at tolkien_weekly based on the places in Cleudo.
The Mansion
600 words.
Rated G
Middle Earth - Éowyn
Her mind, she thought, was like a large mansion. Just at the moment she stood in the hallway, deciding which way to turn, which door to open. Sometimes she opened one only to find it wasn’t the room she expected, or it led on to other rooms that she had forgotten.
The sun on her face determined her.
‘This door today,’ she thought and almost immediately she was in the garden that first season, Legolas beside her, deciding which plants should go where.
“Grandmamma…”
Éowyn dragged herself back, from the garden of sixty years ago to her bed, and smiled.
The soft voices were talking too quietly for Éowyn to make out the words. No point in trying to understand, she thought, and retreated into the mansion of her memories.
But the barely heard voices helped her choose the door today; the library.
Inside it was dark but for a pool of light. In the middle of the light was a large, worn, leather chair and in the middle of the chair was Faramir. On the arms perched their two first born, Boromir and Théodwyn, listening raptly as he read, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…”
The aroma of something savoury drifted to Éowyn and she found herself remembering a kitchen.
As a child, she loved the warmth and the bustle of the kitchen at Aldburg.
When she arrived in Edoras, a shocked and silent orphan, she would creep into the kitchen and sit under the table to cry, because it felt more like home than anywhere else. The women tried, unsuccessfully, to comfort her but eventually they played along and pretended the quietly weeping child wasn’t there.
No wonder really that, in adulthood, she had been very glad to leave the kitchen to the cooks.
Outside it was dark. Beside her Faramir slept. Éowyn was restless and decided to walk the corridors of her mansion of memories.
A nursery of babies she thought, sung to sleep, might help. But, as if he had leapt forth from a secret passage, suddenly looming over her was the Witch King threatening to destroy all that was dear to her.
She drew herself up straight and looked him in the eyeless void. “I beat you once and for all,” she said. “You do not scare me now, for I have lived the life you would have taken.”
He crumpled.
They had carried her out to the walled garden* where the air was heavily scented with flowers and herbs, and settled her comfortably in the thatched shelter in the corner; once so new it was, like her, showing signs of age, she thought.
It had been Éowyn’s study, in the first years, where she had sat with her notebook, trying to remember what Legolas had told her and laying the groundwork for the garden it had since become.
And now, as then, her husband sought her out and sat beside her as they remembered, together, so many summers of peace.
Éowyn was happy to walk through her mansion of memories when her body could no longer walk easily through the rooms of her home.
She would allow her mental feet to wander, opening ‘doors’ to find a bedroom full of energetic pleasures, or a cellar of memories as sweet as the wine stored in the real one.
One day, she thought, she would open a door and her parents would be waiting behind it to greet her and take her onwards.
But someone spoke and brought her back to the present; it would seem that today was not that day.
...........................
* there is more about the walled garden, with pictures, here.
Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien.
Hmm - I wonder if I should move drabble 5 up to the number 2 slot?
The Mansion
600 words.
Rated G
Middle Earth - Éowyn
Her mind, she thought, was like a large mansion. Just at the moment she stood in the hallway, deciding which way to turn, which door to open. Sometimes she opened one only to find it wasn’t the room she expected, or it led on to other rooms that she had forgotten.
The sun on her face determined her.
‘This door today,’ she thought and almost immediately she was in the garden that first season, Legolas beside her, deciding which plants should go where.
“Grandmamma…”
Éowyn dragged herself back, from the garden of sixty years ago to her bed, and smiled.
The soft voices were talking too quietly for Éowyn to make out the words. No point in trying to understand, she thought, and retreated into the mansion of her memories.
But the barely heard voices helped her choose the door today; the library.
Inside it was dark but for a pool of light. In the middle of the light was a large, worn, leather chair and in the middle of the chair was Faramir. On the arms perched their two first born, Boromir and Théodwyn, listening raptly as he read, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…”
The aroma of something savoury drifted to Éowyn and she found herself remembering a kitchen.
As a child, she loved the warmth and the bustle of the kitchen at Aldburg.
When she arrived in Edoras, a shocked and silent orphan, she would creep into the kitchen and sit under the table to cry, because it felt more like home than anywhere else. The women tried, unsuccessfully, to comfort her but eventually they played along and pretended the quietly weeping child wasn’t there.
No wonder really that, in adulthood, she had been very glad to leave the kitchen to the cooks.
Outside it was dark. Beside her Faramir slept. Éowyn was restless and decided to walk the corridors of her mansion of memories.
A nursery of babies she thought, sung to sleep, might help. But, as if he had leapt forth from a secret passage, suddenly looming over her was the Witch King threatening to destroy all that was dear to her.
She drew herself up straight and looked him in the eyeless void. “I beat you once and for all,” she said. “You do not scare me now, for I have lived the life you would have taken.”
He crumpled.
They had carried her out to the walled garden* where the air was heavily scented with flowers and herbs, and settled her comfortably in the thatched shelter in the corner; once so new it was, like her, showing signs of age, she thought.
It had been Éowyn’s study, in the first years, where she had sat with her notebook, trying to remember what Legolas had told her and laying the groundwork for the garden it had since become.
And now, as then, her husband sought her out and sat beside her as they remembered, together, so many summers of peace.
Éowyn was happy to walk through her mansion of memories when her body could no longer walk easily through the rooms of her home.
She would allow her mental feet to wander, opening ‘doors’ to find a bedroom full of energetic pleasures, or a cellar of memories as sweet as the wine stored in the real one.
One day, she thought, she would open a door and her parents would be waiting behind it to greet her and take her onwards.
But someone spoke and brought her back to the present; it would seem that today was not that day.
...........................
* there is more about the walled garden, with pictures, here.
Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien.
Hmm - I wonder if I should move drabble 5 up to the number 2 slot?