When supper was concluded, Faramir called on her for a walk.  She strolled beside him in the fading light of dusk, and reveled in the beauty of Emyn Arnen.  In the green walks of their well-tended garden, amidst the flourishing flowers and herbs and young saplings, she knew contentment.  She wondered what the view would be tonight from Henneth Annun, the Window to the West, and linked her hand with his.  As she walked, she breathed the scent of honeysuckle and lilies, of fresh grass and evergreens, of mint and athelas. 

 It was then that he came to a halt and looked into her face, and told her they were going to war. 

She snapped out of her dream-like musings as if woken by the kiss of a whip, and stared at him openmouthed like some beached fish. 

It wouldn’t really be war, he explained, looking with some anxiety and concern into her tense face, familiar grey eyes searching hers for some sign.  Orcs that survived the Raid of Fire following the victory at the Morannon were regrouped; they now attacked small holdings on the eastern shores of the Anduin. 

“King Elessar believes that to be a small part of some larger alliance still existing among the last of the orcs in Middle-earth.  They are bitter and desperate, and though leaderless, their swords are no less sharp.  Mablung, Damrod, and I would lead teams of Rangers to scour the border between Ithilien and Epthel Duath for their hideout….”

But having discerned no real response from her since the beginning of his speech a minute earlier, he took her face in his hands in some desperation of reassurance and said in clipped tones,

“What think you, Eowyn?”

She looked at him, putting her hand to his, her thoughts racing. 

There was much to say, all to no avail.  She did not want war, did not want death and pain and suffering.  She did not want her short year of peace thus disturbed.  She wanted life and love and her craft and her garden.  But what did her peace mean, when others are dying?  She was at once bitter and resigned.  She did not want peace to go, but it would go, even if she did not accept it; it would slip through her fingers like water even as she grasped for its solidity.  She let out a silent sigh, pained.

She looked at him, at those steady grey eyes, at the night-black hair, threaded now with the rare silver.  She looked at his nose, too large to be called handsome even by Gondor’s standards, and his mouth, prone more to laughter and pleasantries than to battle cries.  She loved him, she thought, as he loved her.  It would turn out right in the end.  It must. 

In the end, there was naught but one thing to say.

“I’m coming with you.”