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Sons of Fellowship  by Conquistadora

Excusing herself to her brother and her betrothed, Lady Éowyn negotiated her way to the door, taking up a pale green shall as she went and pulling it over her shoulders.  She left the bright hall of Meduseld, the glad crowds and music within, passing out into the clear summer night.  There she glanced about for a moment, searching either side of front stair, giving no regard to the taciturn guards.  There was no sign Legolas.  Even if she were skilled in woodcraft, to track the light footsteps of an Elf in this dark would be in vain, but she had instinct to guide her.


Like a white faerie-maid in the starlight, she descended the grand stairway, the only sound the light tap of her slippers upon the age-worn stone.  There were still lights to be seen within the homes of the peasantry as they celebrated as they might, but by this hour many had retired to their beds, safe now from hurt and harm if but for a little while.


Silently she passed along the village road, a lady alone and without escort.  But none would dare to lay hand upon the Lady Éowyn, and she walked without fear.  The stars were indeed captivating things, she thought, timeless as the Elves themselves perhaps, and in that she could see how they would revere them.  If the old and nigh forgotten tales be true, there had walked Elves upon earth before even the sun or moon was made.  But such high thoughts defied her practical mind.  War and honor she understood, but the ancient and inexplicable were beyond her grasp, at least thus far.  Her horizons were broadening.


She descended through the entire city, approaching again that place hallowed of Edoras.  Her search was not in vain; even as she drew near and left the protection of the city walls she heard a soft chanting upon the wind in a language she did not know.


She approached him slowly, keeping to the road between the barrows.  He stood motionless before the mound of Théoden, brighter himself than the flickering torch marking the new grave.  The wind playing through his pale hair and dark raiment made him seem almost the wraith of some prince of the dead paying his respects to the fallen in the way of his own kind.  Now she regretted to disturb him there, but she felt strangely drawn to him, even more so than before, as one cannot help but stare enthralled upon the sight of a ghost.  The world in which they walked was not her own, and it was rare and wonderful when such paths should cross, beyond space and time.


She drew nearer, almost afraid that he should evanesce before her eyes as spirits would, for the cold starlight had robbed him of all living color. 


His singing faded then as she stopped mere paces from him, though it was plain he had long been aware of her presence.


“Why have you sought me, my lady?” he asked, his voice soft but humorless and otherworldly, his inquiry almost a demand.  “Have you tired of your betrothed so quickly?”


“Do not stop, Legolas,” she protested.  “That was charming.”


Now a sad shade of a smile passed his lips.  “Is that not indeed the best time to stop, when others still think you charming?” he returned.  “If I dare go on, you may change your mind."



It suddenly seemed to Éowyn horribly wrong that such as he would be subjected to war and its ravages.  They were made for higher things, and wounds and bloodshed did not become them, the same the lords of her family had said of their White Lady.  “What brought you to our war, my lord?” she asked, seeking perhaps a kindred answer.  “Did you also seek death and glory?”


“No,” Legolas dismissed the idea firmly.  “Of glory I have no need or want, and only a coward willfully seeks death.  Sacrifice is admirable, but not the desire to escape life and its trials.”


She felt his words carried an edge meant for her, and indeed they stung.  Had she not unlawfully abandoned her people to seek a warrior’s death?  But her wounded pride flared in spite of her.


“But what of you?” she asked sharply.  “You left your own people in time of war!  You, an Elf of the North, had no call to wander so far from home seeking battle, except perhaps love of the Lord Aragorn.”


The look he leveled upon her then was enough to quiet her.  “Had I not?” he returned bitterly, evoking the more daunting legends of his kind, fell creatures whom it was best to leave well alone, a proud and perilous race.  But then his mood softened again, as though he found his sudden flash of anger distasteful.  “Had I not?” he asked again, seemingly of himself as much as of her.


Gradually it seemed that all semblance of youth had fallen from him, and she glimpsed for the first the long count of years behind his eyes, years that were still to her unfathomable.  


“Why did you so desire to ride to war, my lady?” he asked then, a touch of regret in his voice.  “Does the bloodlust call you so strongly as that?”


“The Eorlingas have long been harried by the Enemy and his minions.  If that was to be the final battle, I would have lent it my sword, not cower here in vain hope of your victory.”


“Vain hope?  You would then leave those less able than you to the fate you scorned?  You would leave them leaderless?  Did not Théoden King bid you rule in his stead?”


Éowyn looked away and did not answer, feeling as a recalcitrant child called to task by one older than her father’s fathers.  “I was sent by a greater doom than I knew,” she said at last, in excuse.  “It was my place to slay the Witch-king, for by the hand of no other would he have fallen.”


“The foresight of Glorfindel said merely that he would fall by the hand of no man,” Legolas insisted.  “You are no man, I grant you.  But neither is Mithrandir a Man.  Nor am I a Man.  The part was given to you, perhaps, and also the hurts you suffered, to atone for the wrongs you willfully wrought.  Devotion is admirable, my lady,” he went on, now gentle and earnest.  “But without discipline, how can you be trusted?”


Again she was silent, for what could she say?


“Soon you will take up the duties of a ruling Princess, a wife, and a mother,” he continued.  “You must lay your sword aside, put off the shield-maiden for a time and take up a prouder role.  Why insist upon destroying life when you are given the grace to create it?”


Again her pride was shamed in the face of one so august, and she dare not gainsay the wisdom of centuries.  “It will be no simple task.”


He smiled.  “Simple enough; but ‘simple’ and ‘easy’ mean not the same thing.  You have stricken your valiant blow, and you shall be ever renowned for it.  Be satisfied in that.”


“Perhaps,” she said.  “Perhaps I have done such justice as I could for my kinsmen who now lie here.”  She surveyed the silent barrows that surrounded them.  “For Théoden my King, for Théodred my kinsman, and for my father Éomund, who lie elsewhere, and for my grandfather Thengel, whose reign was at the last darkened by Saruman.”  She sighed.  “He, too, wed outside the Mark.  I would that I could have spoken with him, but never did I know my grandfather.”


There was no sound for a time but that of the wind whisking through the grass, pale grass turned blue in the starlight.  She did not look back, but she could feel his eyes upon her, a solemn presence that could not be ignored.


“Nor I mine.”


The soft-spoken profession came as a surprise, and she turned to see that he had indeed changed as his voice had.  Gone was Legolas the Elven-prince, and in his place stood Legolas the friend, all the lingering indifference cleared from his eyes as though she had at last fully won his confidence.  Besides that, in realizing his true age she had nigh forgotten that he also had forebears.


“My grandfather was slain before my birth,” he said, “by orcs, on the plains of Mordor.”  He paused a moment, his countenance darkening.  “The Dark Lord has ever been the one great bane of my life.  But for him, Lasgalen should have been among the fairest of green woodlands in this Middle-earth, many a slain Elf who lies now in a shallow grave should have lived still happily beneath its boughs.”


“Was your king touched by the Shadow as well?” Éowyn asked in a hushed voice.


“No,” Legolas assured her with a touch of pride, his eyes glinting.  “My father would carve out his own tongue before he would allow Sauron to possess it.”


“Truly I am glad to hear it,” Éowyn said.  She could imagine Legolas’ father as nothing but a proud, noble elvenlord, and would not have wished upon him the humiliations brought to Théoden.  “You return to him now, before you join us in Ithilien?”


“I do.  So long as he abides there, the greatest portion of my heart is given to Lasgalen, wherever the twisting road of life should take me. But the hour draws late,” he said, “and you will be missed.  Valar forbid Faramir should harbor doubts on the very night of your betrothal.”


“Very well,” she sighed.  “But what of you?”


“Those who would look for my company are elsewhere than here.  This night is for the glory of Gondor and Rohan; I would not trouble them with thought of me.”


“Good night, my lord,” she said as she withdrew, “if I see you not again before the morn.”


“Good night, my lady,” he returned courteously, his voice borne upon the soft night air almost as though one with it. 


And so she left him as she had found him.







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