Sunshine by chrissystriped

Sunshine

To his surprise, when Éomer asked about the whereabouts of his sister, he was directed to the Houses of Healing. He’d have thought she would be out of this place as soon as she was allowed to and she had looked well at the feast yesterday — more well than he’d seen her in a long while, as he realised now.

He was led into the garden, where she sat on the wall. She was looking out over the river, a book lying open in her lap, the wind was in her hair and she was glowing.

“Éowyn.”

She looked up and smiled at him. “It is so good to see you, brother.” She jumped up and embraced him. “I’m so happy you are well.”

Éomer hugged her back, feeling tears well up in his eyes. “You look fine, sister, and I’m glad. You had me worried.”

When he’d found her on the field, thinking he’d lost his uncle and his sister at the same time, his heard had cracked open. They’d been close as children — two orphans, loved by their uncle, but missing their parents — but had grown apart as they grew older, Éowyn chafing at the bonds that were laid on her as a woman. She’d always had the heart of a man, his little sister, and he had not seen how much it had taken from her to tend to their ailing uncle — much as she loved him — while Éomer was riding under the wide sky. Old Gandalf had made him realise that.

“You are a hero now, Éowyn. Slayer of the Witch King. Is it all you always wanted?”

She laughed and took his hand to draw him to a bench under the boughs of a tree.

“Once, it was. Now…” She looked down at the book she had tucked into her belt when she rose to greet him, her broken arm was still in a sling and would be for many weeks, yet. “I wished to choose my way like all men can. I still wish that. But there is honour beyond the battlefield, I have come to realise, and much to be done now that the Shadow is gone forever.”

She looked into the distance again, east across the river.

“He wants to make a garden,” she whispered to herself.

“Who?” Éomer asked, wondering for the first time if the glow on her face was due to another man.

Éowyn blushed. “You’ve met him. Faramir, the Steward. Éomer… would you mind it, if I were to marry a man of Gondor?” And leave him.

Éomer kissed her cheek. “I would see you happy, Éowyn. Do you love him? He is not…”

He had seen her look at Aragorn and grow pale when he did not look back at her. He wondered if his friend had been right, when he said she’d only fancied herself in love with him because of the glory and great deeds being near to him promised.

“I love him.” Éowyn smiled at him. “He is not a man of war. He knows how to fight, but he does not love it as I thought I did. He is kind, and warm and he loves his people and this land. And they love him back.” She showed him the book. “He gave it to me. It shows all the plants that grow in Ithilien — his princedom.”

Éomer looked at the paintings of flowers and herbs, flowing elvish script beside it. He could not read it and neither could Éowyn. There were no books in the Mark, their history was held in the minds of minstrels. Éowyn and he had spent hours and hours learning to recite the Line of the Kings.

“He’s reading to me”, she said. “But I also like to just look at the pictures. And I tell him the parts of our lays that I remember.”

Éomer laughed and kissed his cheek. “One of our bards shall come with you to Ithilien, so you and your children will always have the stories of the Mark.”

“So you won’t forbid me to marry him?”

Éomer chuckled. “Forbid you? Dearest sister, if I have learned anything, it is that you will not be denied if you have set yourself on a path. I will miss you. But if he makes you happy, you have my best wishes and my consent.”

She smiled at him then and Éomer was glad because the pain, he’d seen there during the days of war, was gone. He would not darken her happiness by questioning her love of a man she'd only just met. These things happened. He did not begrudge her her love.