Eowyn is on watch when she sees them.
At first she thinks her eyes have grown weary; three dark riders in the grey of the rushing Snowbourn. Not the horses of Rohan would keep their feet in such a crossing.
They climb the bank and come swiftly, and Eowyn calls the alert.
The moon is hidden by the great roof of shadow, but Eowyn thinks she sees the white of palms held up in token of peace. She grips her sword anyways.
"Halt," the marshal calls. "Who rides in Rohan?"
"Rohan," the middle rider says, "That is a glad word," and Eowyn startles, for it is a woman's voice, low and vibrant and strangely accented.
"We seek that land from long afar," the woman says.
"You have found it," the marshal replies. "But none ride here save by the leave of Theoden King. Who are you?"
"Elrohir," says the rider on the left, a man's voice, "And this my brother Elladan, come from Imladris in search of Aragorn son of Arathorn."
"Alas," the marshal cries, "Then you come too late, for he has taken the Paths of the Dead."
The woman makes a wordless moan, and all at once Eowyn thinks she knows who she must be.
***
Eowyn has never believed in her.
Maybe before she asked, maybe when she was the vague image of a Mundburg lady in haircombs and many skirts.
But not since she asked. "Passing to the West", Aragorn had said, and the Mundburg lady had blown away like a tattered cloth. She had at once seen the stone for an Elven jewel, and at once seen Aragorn's lady for an Elf.
But Eowyn, then, had seen only one Elf, and when she tried to picture Aragorn's lady she had seen only keen eyes, firm jaw, long slim legs, and it had seemed that it must be so.
When she saw Aragorn's bloody hands close around the long white fingers of the Elf, she had been sure: the shock of Aragorn alive itself had chased the recognition that this was, surely must be, the reunion of lovers. "He lives," she had thought, and had seen at once how fragile was her tremulous relief next to the casual, simple certainty of the Elf, and how hopeless her long stare when a deeper look held Aragorn's eyes. Aragorn had taken the jewel from the Elf's hands and if he had declaimed his love in song she would not have thought it a stronger pledge. She had turned away, then.
So Eowyn has never believed in her. She does not believe as the brothers reach out to the woman between them, though she still sits tall in her saddle. She does not believe as the woman murmurs in a foreign tongue.
But when she raises white hands to her hood and pushes it back, then Eowyn has to believe, for she is like a new star risen in the twilight. Her skin shines white in the moonless dark. Otherwise she is nothing like the Elf Legolas; her hair is dark, her jaw soft, her eyes clouded with tears.
"Like silver jewels," Eowyn thinks, and wishes for the dawn that does not come.
***
The marshal has invited the Elven riders to where Theoden holds council, and Eowyn slips through the willow-thicket to the ring of torches, melts into a stand of young men. She has stayed away from the first eored; she knows she is recognized, but only the men of the king's house would dare betray her to the king. The old men who taught her swordplay look at her sadly; the young men who praised her beauty do not look at her at all.
"He rode for the Paths of the Dead three days ago," Eomer is telling the Elves.
"Alone?" one of the brothers asks.
"Nay, with a company of your kin - those that remained of a company from Lorien that came to our aid against the host of Isengard."
"Then he was with Haldir?" the lady asks.
When the lady speaks, Eowyn can see, Eomer falls still and silent, as if afraid to break the spell that has brought her here within his ring of torches. Her voice, still low, turns up with hope, and Eowyn sees the smile break helplessly across Eomer's face before her words hit him.
"Alas, lady," he says, "Haldir fell on the Deeping Wall."
The lady bows her head, and Eowyn cannot read her smooth white forehead.
"But before the battle," Theoden says, in fatherly tones, "He spoke much with Aragorn in a high chamber of the Hornburg, with word brought from your father, Aragorn said."
The brothers look at each other, and at the lady.
***
The morning is as gloomy as the night; gloomier for the wish for dawn. The riders, though, speak eagerly, and her name cascades through the companies. "Arwen," they say. "Arwen. Arwen. An Elf princess, from the North. The great lady Arwen. She's going to ride at Theoden's right, I heard. Arwen, a sorceress, Arwen, rode from Rivendell in one night, Arwen, looking for Aragorn, he's the father of her child, that's ridiculous, she's bringing Elf magics to our aid, Arwen, Arwen. How sweet this constant twilight now seems in the light of the Evenstar. Oh, take no note of him; he heard that off Eomer, he did. Did not. You did, trying to pass that off as your own. Sweet twilight, really, this stifling dark? Well, she is rather... Prettiest girl you ever saw, right? No, she's more... she's... Arwen. Arwen. Arwen."
"Arwen's here?" Merry says, "Here, from Rivendell? Why, I've got to talk with her, see if she brings news! If," he answers himself, "I was supposed to be here," and falls silent again.
Eowyn speaks to no one, but silently, she lets her lips curl around the name.
***
They ride through the Folde, and on into the Fenmarch. Six thousand horse make a long column, and a wide. Eowyn pays little heed to her place within it; if she loses her eored, the marshal, on her return, will nod at her and say nothing, whether she returns in an hour or three days hence. So it is without willing it that she drifts forward in line, and to the right, until she is startled to look up and find herself at the very edge of the mass of riders.
The ground rises to the right, to the South, the first foothills of the White Mountains. Woods climb the hills, grey in the dim light. The Rohirrim keep a wide space between themselves and the trees, too far for even an Elven arrow, but further to the right, almost in the shadow of the oaks, a white horse and a grey rider ride alone.
And yet not alone, Eowyn realizes; the Elf brothers hang back some distance, but are still watchful, guarding. From time to time, Eowyn sees as she watches, some rider will detach from his company, helplessly drawn like debris caught in an eddy of wind. The brothers, she notes, intercept these hopeful swains and send them back to their places, shame-faced, before they ever draw close to Arwen. (To Arwen, her mind whispers.)
Eowyn pulls her gaze away from the rider and looks out to the left. From the high ground, she can see across the column of riders down to the marshes of the Entwash. The mists are featureless and grey.
Eowyn sighs and looks back to Arwen. She watches the graceful gait of the white horse, takes the measure of shoulder and hock, for she is, after all, a daughter of Rohan. The slender leg astride the horse she tries to ignore, and the precise, effortless carriage of the rider as well. The Elven-horse is shorter than the horses of Rohan, lighter of bone; it would suit Legolas, she thinks, but cannot picture the Elf riding without Gimli behind. (Or Aragorn in front, she thinks, and pictures long slim thighs pressed behind his, long fingers spanning his hips, cool lips on his sunburned neck.)
Merry, in a sudden burst of heroics, leaps from the back of Eowyn's horse onto a passing supply cart smelling of field kitchen.
Not having a reason not to, she kicks Windfola into a trot and heads for Arwen.
The brothers look hard at her but let her by.
"I hear you rode from Rivendell in one night," she calls out, when she gets close enough. Arwen looks up, startled, and Eowyn falls for a dizzy moment until she realizes she is still in her saddle, and those are just eyes. Just Arwen's eyes.
"No," Arwen says musically. There is a pause. "It is but a tale," she says, nodding solemnly, encouraging Eowyn to understand.
Eowyn, who had not been serious, nods back. So this is her, she thinks. The Elf princess. His love.
Up close, she is even more beautiful than Eowyn's previous sight of her could suggest. But perhaps not, Eowyn thinks a little guiltily, renowned for her wit.
"You ride a fine horse," she says carefully.
"Yes," Arwen says, and she seems to be choosing her words carefully as well. Maybe, Eowyn thinks, she's trying to find something she can say that I can understand, maybe the Elves all speak poetry to each other all the time. "Isilnamand; he is... a great companion, and matchless even among his kin."
Eowyn's eyes narrow, as Arwen leans forward to pat the horse's neck; she is, after all, a daughter of Rohan. "Matchless among his kin, perhaps," she says, "But Windfola is of the Mearas, the kings of horses, and no Elf-horse is a match."
Arwen looks at her swiftly, leans forward, and they're off.
After all day in the crowd of Riders, it is bliss to be running. Eowyn feels their speed as sudden wind in the airless day, and breathes deeply as she moves with her horse. The trees blur into a brown wall and fall away; the only thing that matters is the white horse and rider just ahead. Just ahead.
Arwen, she can't help but observe, is carrying almost nothing; a few bags and one long scabbard. She has her gear, her armor... she looks down at Windfola's grey mane. Then smiles and looks ahead, eyes hard. Arwen is only just ahead.
They pound down upon her, but she is still just ahead. She stays just ahead. Windfola surges between Eowyn's thighs, wind whips at her, she is a throb, an endless spasm of running legs... they hurtle forward and draw alongside the lady Arwen.
Eowyn cannot turn to look, but she sees the press of Arwen's lips, and knows she cannot pull ahead. Knows she cannot turn to look either, knows that Arwen is as locked as she into their relentless forward movement.
The wind seems to smooth out, suddenly. If Eowyn were not wearing her helmet, she thinks, it would catch her hair like a banner. As it is it blows away the noise and dust of their race, and they soar forward, side by side.
Eowyn has no sense Windfola is touching the ground; no slight jolts of impact murmur in her spine. It is as if each footfall is pure forward movement. She has seen Shadowfax run like this.
The grass beneath them thickens, and they slow, still perfectly neck-and-neck. They almost glide to a halt, and Eowyn looks back behind them. They have far outstripped the front of the host of Rohan; the brothers follow doggedly but they have come half again as far.
"Indeed," Arwen says, "Windfola does honor to his kin."
Eowyn turns to look at her. Her hood has fallen back, and every strand of her dark hair is perfectly in place.
***
They camp that night by Halifirien, the first of the beacon hills. Eowyn stares into the fire and lets her thoughts turn to Aragorn.
First, because she must, she pictures him as he rode away, stern and inviolate in his choice. And because she will not flinch from her own weakness, she remembers herself, crying and begging as if, in truth, she belonged cowering in the caves.
But acknowledged, these thoughts can be set aside, as she sets aside the certainty of her death in thoughts of renown and victory, and the thought of Aragorn's indifference in the certainty of her death. And staring into the fire, she lets herself turn to happier thoughts of Aragorn in Meduseld, and in the sunlight on the march to Helm's Deep.
She is not sure which she misses more, Aragorn or the sun; she cannot separate them in her mind to know. The sun has been swallowed by the great shadow out of Mordor, but Aragorn, she thinks, is lost into a greater shadow, never to be met again under the sun even should the sun return.
Or maybe not, she thinks. Maybe, as he passed into the shadow of Dwimorberg, and came to the dark Door, he had looked upon his companions. Legolas would follow him into death bravely, of course. He would look on the terror of the Door without terror, for the strength of his love for whom he followed. Maybe a little terror, she thought, to make his heart beat faster and breath quicken, just enough to give his devotion something to shine through. And Aragorn would look at him and see the blue of the sky mirrored in his keen Elven eyes and be moved as he had not been by her pleas, and realize that he could not forsake the world when he might yet ride to battle, great deeds, and love. And he would turn away from the Door and they would ride for Gondor.
They would camp, Eowyn thinks, around a fire like this one. Aragorn's dark eyes would blaze as he watched Legolas comb out his long, fair tresses in the firelight. Finally, unable to contain himself, he would seize the slender shoulders of the Elf and crush him to him for a bruising kiss. Legolas would draw back, eyes wide, startled. "Surely," Aragorn would say, "My passion cannot surprise you. For though I told the others we turned back to ride to the field of war, it is truly my love for you that has drawn me back from the Paths of the Dead, and as your captain and your king, I will not be denied," and he would kiss her - Legolas, rather - with such surpassing sweetness that the Elf would soon be trembling in his arms.
She is not entirely sure what happens next. She had caught Grima, once, trousers around his ankles, stroking himself in her bedchamber. She had kicked him out with a blow that left his lip fattened for a week, but had thought of it thereafter - did all men do such? Might a man desire someone else to touch him so? Whether he, Grima, had in fact been thinking such a thing of her was a disquieting thought, though not one easily set aside. But she had found the thought more pleasing when imagination lit on others, such as Theodred, whom she had long admired, or the young marshal Brytta.
Now she marvels that she ever thought of anyone before Aragorn. She pictures Aragorn peeling off his mail, shrugging out of his clothes, glowing strong and muscular in the firelight, guiding the Elf's long fingers around his hardness, closing his eyes so that his dark eyelashes cast long shadows across his perfect cheekbones. He would tip his head forward so that his hair fell about his face and look deeply into the adoring eyes of the Elf, proud in his arousal, not furtive and cringing like Grima had been. Legolas would press the strong, callused fingers to his lips and kiss them tenderly as Aragorn moaned and thrust in his hand, and they would kiss again after, gently.
She wonders if they let Gimli watch.
***
In the morning that is no morning, as they ride towards the next beacon Calenhad, she remembers that Aragorn's lady rides with them, and thinking of the dark hair on the white brow, wonders that she can still entertain idle fancies of Aragorn with another.
She tries to think of Arwen in the scene she had imagined, kissed by Aragorn in firelight, but she can't do it. She can't wrap her mind around Arwen that way and set her will-she nill-she in a scene of her devising; she simply won't go. It is like, she thinks, it is exactly like trying to turn Aragorn to a different path. They are immovable, absolute. She cannot bring them together in her mind.
Arwen, though, she can picture where she must be in truth, riding near the head of the column. Indeed, once imagined, she cannot shake the image of that unearthly beauty so nearby, and when at last they make camp and Merry wanders off in the direction of the quartermasters, she goes in search of her.
She finds Arwen sitting at the base of the Minrimmon tower, talking to herself.
"But why," she is saying, as Eowyn slips closer, "Why did you take the Paths of the Dead? So soon would you have slept, so brief a time would we have had; why seek out that which would have claimed you in but another-" She stops, looks up to where Eowyn is standing, hidden, she thought, in bushes.
Eowyn, caught, steps out.
"I grieve as well," she says to Arwen's silence. "But while we live we might yet ride to honour."
Arwen looks at her for a long moment. "Few women seek battle," she says slowly.
"Few women wield blade," Eowyn says. There is another silence. "I see you carry a sword as well," she says, if only to hear Arwen answer.
"Two swords I carry," Arwen says, "But one sword I wield."
Eowyn looks at her. She could be twenty years in age, or tenscore, or, Eowyn thinks suddenly, older than the oldest mounds in the Barrowfield, and long skilled beyond mortal perfection in any art to which she had chosen to put her hand. Eowyn feels a sudden mad urge steal over her. She grins at Arwen recklessly.
"Want to spar?"
Arwen blinks at her. "You would... try your hand against me?"
"In practice only," Eowyn says. She feels her lip drawn back, teeth bared, and hopes it approximates a smile.
Arwen rises to her feet in one smooth motion. She looks at Eowyn, expressionless, and draws the sword at her hip.
Eowyn's sword is in her hand before she needs to reach for it, palm against the flat of the blade, ready.
There is a moment of stillness, watchfulness, and then both slice in. The swords meet, clang, rebound.
Arwen is a flurry of swift stabs, a torrent of fluid cuts. Eowyn swings, curves, parries. Tries to catch her breath against the onslaught of blows, strikes out again and again. Arwen blocks her with a force that brings tears to her eyes. Eowyn is amazed the ringing of the swords isn't bringing people running up the hill; it's as loud in her ears as a whole battlefield. That and her breathing and the pounding of the blood in her ears as she twists, dodges, arcs, thrusts. Finally the blades meet, cross, and hold; they are almost body-to-body, the crossed swords almost at each other's throats.
Eowyn is held by clear grey eyes for a long moment, then they both nod, slightly, and lower their swords. Eowyn pants; her hair has fallen across her face in tangled, sweat-soaked locks, and she pushes it back, out of her eyes. She steps back and rolls her neck, trying to loosen muscles drawn tight by tension.
Arwen, she sees, stands motionless; Eowyn cannot hear her breathe, and no flush stains the white cheeks.
Eowyn turns her back on her and flees, the image of that untouched tranquillity dancing before her.
***
Later, she recalls the sword strapped among Arwen's saddlebags, and wonders whether, perhaps, Arwen hadn't even bothered with the good blade.
***
Eowyn ignores her for a full day of riding, past Erelas, past Nardol, as the miles drag on and Merry frets behind her and the darkness falls ever further. She tries to think of Aragorn, of Legolas, but they are as absent as the sun and moon. There is only one light in the perpetual evening and Eowyn is not sure an entirely starless night wouldn't be easier.
Finally, as they camp in the Druadan Forest, Eowyn seeks her out again. Everything is a dark, somber grey, the air, the trees, the faces of the men. Eowyn walks through a shadowed world looking for a glimmer of white. She thinks she must have walked all night; she thinks she must have circled the whole camp twice over, or wandered halfway from Eilenach to Amon Din. Finally she sees her, walking under the pines. Alone.
"Well met," Eowyn says inanely, and wishes for skill with words.
"Hail," Arwen says quietly.
Eowyn joins her and they walk in an uncomfortable silence.
"Do you think this cloud will ever lift?" Eowyn asks, and that's the conversation of the Riders, "do you think it's ever going to dawn," "stew's pretty thin tonight." But Arwen appears to be considering the question seriously.
"Many things may yet pass," she finally says.
"Really," Eowyn says.
"In truth," Arwen says, "For I have spoken long with Galadriel of the Noldor who learned wisdom from Melian herself who sang in the first music."
Okay, Eowyn thinks, that's nice, but it's not really an opinion on the matter.
They continue to walk, slowly. Eowyn tries desperately to think of something else to say. She thinks of Aragorn, speaking of hope and triumph, of Legolas and his quick wit, even Gimli, telling stories of his people. The words falter before they ever reach her tongue. Arwen looks at her, eyes like stars, and Eowyn gives up and kisses her.
She presses her chapped lips against the flawless mouth, brings her sweating hands up to cup the smooth white face. Arwen is still against her and she presses forward until their chins grind.
The skin under Arwen's jaw is impossibly soft and she strokes it with one hand, grabs and holds Arwen fast as she sucks at her lower lip, prises her lips apart, strokes the inner part of her upper lip with her tongue. She tastes of cool water, of melon and starshine.
Eowyn wonders if this is what all Elves taste like, if this is what Aragorn tastes on Legolas' lips. She imagines Aragorn invading the Elf's mouth with his tongue and slips hers beyond Arwen's teeth, licking as deeply as she can reach. Aragorn, she thinks, has been here, has kissed these very lips, and she sucks hard at Arwen's mouth, greedily. He would hold her like this, she thinks, and moves her hands to Arwen's hips, draws her close.
Arwen is unresisting in her hands. They are closely of a height and Eowyn feels her loins burn where her hips thrust forward against Arwen's body. If she were Aragorn, she thinks, Arwen would be able to feel her through her clothes, hard against her leg, and she would be able to feel Legolas the same way. She pulls back, runs her hand down the slender body to where she could feel the straining erection, and is startled by the swell of Arwen's breasts under her tunic.
Arwen says something in Elvish, almost a whisper, and steps slightly back, but Eowyn is there, advancing on her. She kisses her again, nipping at her mouth, before grabbing her shoulders and pulling her down to the ground.
They sit down hard in the fallen needles, and Arwen looks at Eowyn with her unfathomable gaze and Eowyn kisses her again. She is not sure if she is Aragorn kissing Legolas or Aragorn kissing Arwen or, perhaps, herself; she only sees the inhumanly smooth skin and inhumanly knowing gaze and knows that this is what she must do. Her mouth leaves Arwen's mouth and glides across her cheek to the delicate point of her ear as her hands find the neck of Arwen's tunic, and rip.
She doesn't have nipples.
Eowyn stares at her, momentarily thrown off.
"How -" Eowyn tries. "How do you feed your babies?"
Arwen tilts her head and blinks, and once again it amazes Eowyn that elder wisdom looks so much like simple-mindedness.
"I have no babies," she says.
Eowyn pauses; she could laugh, clear her head. Die without this memory.
She lunges forward and devours Arwen's mouth. She sucks furiously at the long white neck, pushes the tunic off her shoulders and bears her down until they lie flat on the ground. Eowyn slithers down, grabbing at the smooth curves of white breast, wriggling her knee between Arwen's thighs.
She pictures Legolas, spread under Aragorn, hairless, nipple-less chest arching up towards his strong hands. Imagines Aragorn leaning down and wrapping long legs around his waist, picking up slim Elven hips in his big hands. She shoves her hand down the front of Arwen's trousers; she is hairless, but her parts seem otherwise much as Eowyn's own.
She imagines Legolas sitting up in Aragorn's lap, straddling his thighs, imagines them rocking together, Aragorn's eyes shut in intense concentration. Legolas' fine, soft hair would work free of its braids and fall around Aragorn's shoulders. She lays herself on top of Arwen and rubs blindly, grinding herself against Arwen's hip. Legolas and Aragorn would throw their heads back at the same moment, crying out, and then lean forward into a long kiss. She kisses at Arwen, half missing her mouth. She bucks wildly against Arwen's hip and comes in an incomplete spasm. Arwen sighs gently and stills her kneading fingers.
Eowyn lies on Arwen's slender form, pine needles pricking at her arms and knees. She feels raw and unsatisfied. She pictures Legolas and Aragorn, sweaty, flushed, and sleepy, curled together, the long fair hair mingling with the dark. She opens her eyes and leans up on her elbow. Her hair is a tangled cloud around her face and back, but it has not fallen into Arwen's. Arwen's hair is still in dark, neat waves; it has repelled Eowyn's like the oily feathers of the swans shake off the water. Eowyn can feel her lips are red and swollen; Arwen looks as flawless and untouched as Mundburg porcelain.
Eowyn looks at Arwen, pale and impassive beneath her, and then around at the forest, suddenly expecting the poisoned arrows of the Woses to pierce her chest, or the swords of the Elven brothers at her throat.
The forest is airless, motionless, and grey.
Eowyn pushes herself to her feet, straightens her clothes, and walks away. She finds Merry asleep and spends the rest of the night sharpening her sword, thinking of nothing.
***
***"Corsairs," the cries come, as the black fleet sails down, and Eomer speaks of ruin, but Arwen looks across the fields of Pelennor and smiles.
"My Lord is come," she says, and turning in her saddle pulls free the long scabbard she has ever carried behind her.
"My Lord," she calls, and her voice rings out and carries across the fields for miles, all the way to the River, "I bring you Anduril, the Flame of the West, the Blade that was Broken made again."
She draws the long sword and it blazes in dazzling pure white flame. The Haradrim and Variags quail before it. In the foremost ship a white fire shines in answer at Aragorn's throat.
They drive across the field and meet in the midst of the battle, and Arwen kneels to give Aragorn his sword but he raises her up and kisses her.
And Eowyn lies cold as frost and hard as stone, while the hands of the king claim his bride.
***
Author's Note: Twenty LOTR-geek points to anyone who caught that I conflated Halbarad and Haldir; Aragorn's embrace of Haldir in TT(movie) is awfully similar to his embrace of Halbarad in ROTK(book), and sending him off with the elves is a handy way to get him on the Paths of the Dead... especially if you want Elladan and Elrohir to show up separately just a few days later and miss him entirely. Yes, I am very proud of that piece of plotting, and of my "solution" to the Anduril Problem (I'm especially amused by the idea that he might not get it until all of his big battles are over).
Acknowledgments-wise, in addition to the obvious use of plot and characters there is more subtle massive ripping off of Tolkien's dialogue, word choice, and descriptions, especially towards the beginning of the fic. Arwen's nipple-less breasts are the entire fault of Cecilia, who couldn't find Liv Tyler's. And I don't think I had ever really contemplated this particular pairing until a very offhand mailing-list comment by Irilyth that Arwen would be more interesting if Eowyn thought she was hot... further proof that one should never be off one's guard against plot bunnies. ::grin:: (Character demands took the plot rather far astray from flirting at a party, however.)