Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the master, J. R. R. Tolkien- (Lord of the Rings books/movies). I only express my thoughts on the characters and landscape therein; and thus only own my own uniqueness. This drabble was inspired in part by the song “Reflecting Light” by Sam Phillips.
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Eowyn, daughter of Eomund, dreamed.
She dreamed of him leaving… traveling on far, distant paths she had never seen. Despair and destiny entwined deep in his heart…
Hills and faces passed beneath her closed eyelids. Then she blinked and her eyelashes glittered with- light.
Awakening… was a chillingly cold reality of truth. She rose; for her dreams had passed far into the shadow-lands…
Eowyn’s heart thudded throughout her chest, into her ears. Pulsating with warmth…
She felt the sudden compulsion to walk out into the darkness, into the sleeping world of the encampment. Pulling on a white robe for warmth, she quietly slipped from the recesses of her tent.
Her eyes were dry of tears as she walked mostly unseen through the silence. Far off the moonlight found her, radiating deep into the silvery threads of her hair. But her throat was tight, her eyes stinging… with the studied blankness of her gaze. It was her one shield…
For why… had she told him of her love…? But she did care… had cared… and love, loss… was sometimes an inexplicable thing.
Then before she knew it, she paused there- in the night, glancing at the swaying folds of Aragorn’s tent in the breeze.
Why did she stand here in the dark… looking? Eowyn knew not why.
Then she saw the light.
***
Aragorn son of Arathorn awakened suddenly from the drifting worlds of his sleep. His dreams intrinsically haunted to him, filled with the choices of death or life…
He thought of how he must ride a difficult path tomorrow for the very fate of the White City and Middle-earth; he thought of the White Lady asking him why, her words filling his mind.
A worn, weary pain…
He took an intake of air, the darkness of his tent seeming to swallow him in its expanse. It seemed as if all the earth was fast asleep… he touched the gem at his breast.
He thought of the fair, exquisite woman he loved; the elleth who awaited him in the north with the eyes silvered-blue like the swirling waves of the undying sea.
Arwen…
He remembered the way his fingers had traced the patterns of her handiwork, the banner of the tree and stars that she’d wrought and sent to him from Imladris. “Look often to the stars, my love…”
Uncomfortable in the darkness, Aragorn lit the candlewick within a nearby lantern. It guttered, flickering across the woven walls.
He watched the play of light deep within it, and then he rose… holding it in his hand… and walked to the entrance of his tent. Pushing the flap aside, he gazed out at the night. And then he saw her…
In all white, eyes aflame in this dim light of the night. Her hair burnished dark gold…
Their gazes met once, kind knowing…
Prescience…
She turned quickly and vanished into the darkness, as shy as a deer and so suddenly, he may have not seen her. Dreamed her… If not for the vivid memory of this moment she had left with him.
Aragorn stood there, the cold air blowing, the light swinging in his hand. Somehow he didn’t feel so alone. But what he had seen and felt still made him sad. He blinked, swallowed… words emerging…
“Somehow- I care too…”
“Eowyn…”
***
Eowyn had looked up and seen the light dancing within the walls of his tent. It seemed to beckon her, and freeze her in place, all at once. Myriad dark fascinations and mysteries… Aragorn… was awake. It flared in her eyes and in her thought… and she now watched it eagerly, a sign of life.
Then he had emerged, and shyness and apprehension had taken over. She shivered, fleeing on the wings of the night-air, lighted-eyes still reflecting upon her.
It was as if she had been given access to the open window of his heart, and something had been reflected between them…
Light… light.
Upon reaching her own tent, Eowyn sank to her knees… to the ground, tears flooding her face. She tried to hold them back as well as she could, but a single droplet escaped… a glistening piece of rain that fell straight to the earth.
Her mind and heart drifted far…
To the farthest reaches of the careening earth…
Far beyond what they knew.