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This question confuses me.
I do not concern myself with coin. That matter is the concern of my Lord Husband, for our personal affairs, or of my Lord King for our kingdom. Coin is a small thing. It means so much to men. Women know better. Coin is worth less than what may be bartered. Gold can't feed cattle. Gold can't regrow limbs. Gold can't nurse orphans. Men think it can. Women know kindness serves better. Kindness or cunning. Threats, when things are at their worst.
Money just adds an extra step between having and not having.
I haven't time for that, nor do my people.
There is too much work to be done. |
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Oct. 21st, 2004 @ 11:13 pm
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I do not find the word drunk to well define a state I have ever been, save perhaps being drunk with joy or exhilaration, but I have become overtaken by spirits and ale. Intoxicated by them. Drunk is too common a word for the fluidity of the state. Colors and light ran together. Voices.
A few voices were particularly displeased, my brother's among them, but my uncle's laughter I do well recall.
We had been outlawed from the midsummer festivities.
Or I had been.
My brother, my cousin, they had been allowed to partake.
I had been deemed too young. I was eleven summers. Far old enough as far as I was concerned.
I tied my hair back. Dressed as a boy. Danced with the girls. Drank with the men.
It was beautiful.
My stomach the next day was not.
I took to bed for three days after.
That was not pleasant, but the drinking itself was glorious.
Unlike when the men as they partook. They did not dance joyously. No. They just shouted, showing arms and making fools of themselves.
I suppose they can't help their basic natures. |
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Sep. 24th, 2004 @ 01:49 pm
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Do you consider yourself adventurous?
I do.
I refuse to content myself to the safe and known endeavors of the day. I do my duties, no matter how droll, but I attempt to find time explore that which is not routine.
I have no qualms risking bodily harm or wagging tongues.
The tongues just sweeten the chase.
How they dislike me riding without guard. How they scoff at steel in my hand. How they would wear themselves thin and bloody were they to know the adventures I indulge in with my Lord Husband.
We women of Rohan find freedom on our steeds, riding hard and fast.
We sit proud on our mount, grip tight and thighs strong.
We are not the sort to lie flat on our backs. To wait with embroidery in hand. To watch the windows darken, waiting. I am not that sort. I never was and I never will be.
Does that make me adventurous?
I think so. |
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Sep. 11th, 2004 @ 04:20 pm
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Do you confront your problems head on, or ignore them until you have to do something?
I face my problems.
This is something that may require confrontation, but challenges can be best served through something gentler than steel. Pretty words, kind eyes and smiles. These are the skills women learn. These are the skills women employ, though I am partial to a sword in my hand and a steed between my legs.
I am not tolerant of waiting.
I do not tolerate it at all and I do not need to in my current station.
Things that must be done, must be done.
Waiting is for fools and cowards.
That is not to belittle the importance of timing, but ignore a problem or wait for a solution is ludicrous. Solutions must be made, conceived, brought into the world through pained labor, brow sweaty and muscles aching. They are not windfalls waiting to be found.
I am a hunter, not a gatherer.
I ride, and face what may come. |
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A woman's place is to follow, yet I have never been one content within the place allotted to me by Men or tradition. Certain traditions, at least. There is another tradition of my people that had a woman's place not at the hearth but on the battle field.
But even in battle, there is the choice: to lead or follow.
There is no doubt in my mind, nor I think the minds of those that know me, that I have an independent spirit and might be what some call headstrong, yet the moments I acted with the most autonomy have been to choose to follow when I have been commanded to wait and lead.
I can be an obedient daughter, sister, niece and wife.
This does not mean I act each time in such a capacity.
The same is true of the question: to lead or follow?
My heart leads me, and my spirit, and the two command whom I shall follow.
I have been blessed and honored to have Men worthy to follow: Theoden, king, Eomer, my brother, Faramir, my husband, Aragorn, my King. These are Men I am proud to follow, would follow to death and beyond, even if they order me otherwise.
I follow, but I am selective in the details of which commands I follow.
I would not have it any other way. |
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Is there any truth to the saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Do you have enemies? Do you have more friends than enemies?
For too many years, an enemy dwelt in the Golden Hall of Meduseld.
Gríma Wormtongue skulked our shadowed halls and knelt before our king casting enchantments over him, trying to bring ruin to the kingdom of Rohan and power to his true lord Saruman. The king kept him close, blinded by his powers. Theoden, king, one of the mightiest of all to ever lead the Rohirrim, a true and noble man, and yet....
It was an enemy he kept close that almost spelled his ruin.
An enemy he called friend and counselor.
This is a conundrum.
This is a matter of trust.
I can name those I keep close, they are those I call friend and kin.
My brother, my husband, my King and Queen.
Above all else, I keep counsel with my own spirit. I trust in myself. In the wisdom taught to me by our forefathers. The wisdom whispered to me by my heart. I trust in this.
There are enemies yet. The orcs still live as do the goblins in the hills, the Dunlendings, and as always men that lack honor. Once our enemies outnumbered us. Once we looked at certain defeat. But then, the smallest of creatures triumphed over our greatest enemy and the ring was destroyed. Our world was saved. And now, it is our enemies that are outnumbered and shall fall to ruin.
Eowyn,
LotR
Aug. 12th, 2004 @ 06:29 am
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| » Jealousy |
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She wasn't jealous of anything.
She had the perfect spouse, loving and attentive. He gave her freedoms unheard of, particularly for a woman of station, who had so many rules of propriety she should follow. But he let her ride without escort, practice her sword with the men on their battlements, speak her mind before their people.
He loved her, she had no doubt of that. She loved him.
There were days he would stand before a portrait of his brother. There were days he would hold the broken horn of Gondor in his hands. There were days when he looked at nor held nothing, but his eyes were the same lost blue as when he did. Days he grieved in silence and rode long and hard alone in the forests. Days he went through the motions of his sword with no one but a memory. Days when there was room for no one but his brother's ghost.
But Eowyn wasn't jealous.
Not at all.
Eowyn
LotR
165
Jul. 23rd, 2004 @ 03:46 pm
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| » Would you choose to live forever if you had the choice? |
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The choice to live forever was taken from me and mine.
My uncle, Theoden King, was the seventeenth King of Rohan. Into his house he took his orphaned niece and nephew. Into his court he took Grima son of Gálmód as a counselor. Into his mind went the vile magics of Saruman, magics that would have destroyed our people were they not banished by the great wizard, Gandalf. With this wizard game a Ranger from the North, an elf and a dwarf, and with Theoden and his people they fought a mighty battle at Helm's Deep. Dark forces were rising. When the call came from Gondor for aid, Theoden rode with his people to battle. On the plains of Pellenor before Minas Tirith Theoden, King, fell. He was last of the Second Line of the Rohirrim.
My brother, Éomer Éadig, was the eighteenth king of Rohan. He, as our father before him, rode as Marshal of the Riddermark. He rode for king and country. He fought valiantly against orcs. He rode into battle with honor, surviving the battles for Middle Earth against Sauron. He was the first in the Third Line of Kings of Rohan.
My husband, Faramir, son of Steward Denethor II of Gondor, and brother to Boromir of the Fellowship of the Ring, who was slain by the Uruk-hai in protection of the Fellowship. He long fought the dark forces, falling woulded at Osgiliath to be healed by the hands of the man who would be our King, who made him prince of Ithilien.
The Ranger who had come to us with Gandalf, who ride besides my Uncle and Brother, who healed my husband and myself, was Aragorn, 39th descendent of Isildur, his heir, who became King of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor.
It is to him we owe our allegiance.
It is he who will live forever in the history of our world, and besides him other names such as Faramir, Prince of Ithilien, Eomer Eadig, King of Rohan, and Theoden, King of Rohan.
With those name is another, Eowyn, White Lady of Rohan, slayer of Lord of the Nazgûl at Battle of the Pelennor.
Our bodies may fall, our souls travel to reside forever in the halls of our ancestors, but our names are already immortal. Our actions decided that. Our actions and those whom have chosen to honor them.
Eowyn.
LotR
Words: 396
Jul. 4th, 2004 @ 03:40 pm
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| » (Belated) Prompt |
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Commitment is honoring your duty.
There is duty to family, to country, to doing what is right and true.
It is an unfortunate occurrence when such duties and commitments come in contradiction to one another. There is a choice that must be made then. It is a difficult choice.
The choice is not always dramatic, though I have faced more than my share of choices that have had played a role within the shaping of our world. I say this without pride and with modesty for when I took up a sword, choosing to honor what I felt was right, I did forgo my duty to king and country in doing so.
I put my own desires before my commitments to my people.
I can not say I regret that.
I made a choice.
I will not regret.
But there are other choices that are not so grand as standing, sword held, facing death and glory on the battlefield. There are choices that must be made to honor your duty. Choices that must be made to keep your commitments. I have spoken of these. Kneeling before Theoden, no longer my king but still my kin. Watching my brother exiled. Holding my cousin's hand as he died. These are still choices that are obvious, in their moment of being as well as in retrospection.
Commitment is honoring your duty through the little things, not merely those of which history commands be written. Commitment is picking up a needed to embroider as much as a sword when your uncle indulges you during you brother and prince's lessons. Commitment is the quiet moments of emptiness. Commitment is waiting.
Commitment is trust. Trust in yourself and others.
That is what commitment is.
Eowyn,
LotR
Words: 288
Jul. 4th, 2004 @ 02:34 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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What have I most regretted losing?
Theoden, King.
I do not regret losing him in death, for while I mourn him, I know that he has found his place in the halls of our kin, reunited with his fathers, his fallen son, and my own mother, his beloved sister. I grieve him, but I have not lost him.
He waits.
What I regret is losing those days in shadow, when it was not my uncle upon the throne but a shadow of his face that hid the white wizard. I regret those weeks and months cowering before him, begging him to see what his eyes could not.
Our lands became barren. Orcs ran rampant. The Dunlendings crossed our borders. Our people suffered.
Blood was spilled. My cousin killed. Eomer banished.
There is much in those days that I regret losing, but most of all I regret losing my faith and trust in Theoden, King. I betrayed him in my heart, even if I did not leave his side.
His was still my blood. My kin. But he was not my king.
Even with his enchantment ended, even though he took again his crown and sword, even though those dark days ended, it does not change that once they were.
Once, I lost my King.
That I regret.
Jun. 24th, 2004 @ 10:50 pm
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| » Prompt: Were the world to end tomorrow. |
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Three times the world was to end on the morrow.
...
The first time, we abandoned the Golden Hall of Meduseld, fled the city of Edoras, for the safety of Helm's Deep as did our fathers and forefathers in times of darkness.
Our darkness was no war party of Dunlendings or grip of Orcs as had been their own. Our darkness was not one of which our ancestors could have foreseen. It was one even the fortifications of Helm's Deep and the caverns below could not protect us from.
My task was to stay with the women and children. To wait as the world trembled above us. To whisper words of false comfort. To stand steady and steadfast, my hands clutching the fabric of my skirts not sheath or steel.
Above us, others fought. Others died.
Others fell.
But the world did not end.
...
The second time, I did not bide by my waiting but rode under a helmet and name that was not my own.
I rode with my sword sharpened. I rode with my cloak tight around myself and my small companion. I rode knowing that on the morrow death was certain for us both.
My task was to stay behind and rule. To wait as the men rode to their ruin. To gather to me the survivors to face the end of Man and the eclipse of the Third Age. To die within the Golden Hall of Meduseld with the last of our people.
My hands clutched the reins before me, the sword I pulled from my sheath.
I would not wait. I rode. I fought.
I fell.
But the world did not end.
...
The third time, I was too weak to defy the commands given to me.
Others rode to the Black Gates of the Morannon. Others called down the wrath of Sauron so that his eye was drawn. Others stood against the darkness.
My task was to stay and heal. To wait in my bed clothes and under linens. To convalesce. To rest.
My hands clutched the wood of the head board as I rose, before my hand found another's to help me to the door.
We escaped our sick beds, to die standing if the battle came. Together.
We waited to fall.
But the world did not end.
....
So you ask what I would do, were the world to end on the morrow?
I would see the women and children safe.
I would ride, with steel in my hand, to the battle that would come.
I would stand beside my husband and we would see that morrow dawned.
...
We would fight it, until in death we fell.
...
Jun. 21st, 2004 @ 12:52 am
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