(no subject)
The cold air might have accounted for the pale, porcelain cast of Eowyn's skin had she not already looked so before her arrival, before years and years of worry and doubt settled onto her like a second skin.
She was clad in thick clothes meant for riders and scouts during the colder months on the plains of Rohan, and it was a freedom in itself to do so. She was clad in thick clothes and not much else; her coat of furs had fallen to the snow silently a few feet away and now she stood, no longer paying mind to the cold that prickled at her skin, that stung her face, that near froze silent tears on her cheeks.
Theoden's sword was before her, blade sheated in the snow and the icy ground as if it had been there forever, as if Eowyn had walked these paths day after day and never noticed it. The dull gold of the hilt and pommel, the red leather of the handle, the glint of sunlight upon a hint of steel called to her, a song sad and bewitching. There would be no Gandalf to call upon her King to grasp his strength again. There would be no Eomer for Theoden to pass his kingdom onto. There was only Eowyn, dead to the world she left behind, yet the last of the Riddermark; it was a King's sword, passed down in ways deemed inscrutable to a Queen of a kingdom of herself.
It was her father's sword, her uncle's sword, her brother's sword.
It was hers now.
Eowyn grasped the handle, and it was as if she had always held it in her grip as she pulled it free. There would be no sudden thawing, no sudden happiness flowing from a spring within her; there was only surety, another bar of icy steel locking into place with her grip, the belief that she was a shieldmaiden, that she belonged to this and it belonged to her.
She stood for a long moment, drawing in a deep breath of icy air, then began an easy series of movements that grew bolder and stronger with every slice the blade made into nothing but opponents of her imagination.
She was clad in thick clothes meant for riders and scouts during the colder months on the plains of Rohan, and it was a freedom in itself to do so. She was clad in thick clothes and not much else; her coat of furs had fallen to the snow silently a few feet away and now she stood, no longer paying mind to the cold that prickled at her skin, that stung her face, that near froze silent tears on her cheeks.
Theoden's sword was before her, blade sheated in the snow and the icy ground as if it had been there forever, as if Eowyn had walked these paths day after day and never noticed it. The dull gold of the hilt and pommel, the red leather of the handle, the glint of sunlight upon a hint of steel called to her, a song sad and bewitching. There would be no Gandalf to call upon her King to grasp his strength again. There would be no Eomer for Theoden to pass his kingdom onto. There was only Eowyn, dead to the world she left behind, yet the last of the Riddermark; it was a King's sword, passed down in ways deemed inscrutable to a Queen of a kingdom of herself.
It was her father's sword, her uncle's sword, her brother's sword.
It was hers now.
Eowyn grasped the handle, and it was as if she had always held it in her grip as she pulled it free. There would be no sudden thawing, no sudden happiness flowing from a spring within her; there was only surety, another bar of icy steel locking into place with her grip, the belief that she was a shieldmaiden, that she belonged to this and it belonged to her.
She stood for a long moment, drawing in a deep breath of icy air, then began an easy series of movements that grew bolder and stronger with every slice the blade made into nothing but opponents of her imagination.