notbecauseofvictories:

• Éowyn, Lady of Rohan,

  goes to her knees in the mud of Pelennor Fields, and rises up a Queen—split lip and still reeling, blinking up at

  Eldwyn

  as though it will somehow change what she has become. 

• He touches the crown of her head with his hands, and says, “I am sorry. I pray it is enough.”
• It is. It isn’t. It is both. Théoden is dead and Éomer lost, never to wake from the feverish sleep of a Black blade, there is only her. She is all Rohan has left, and Éowyn wonders if they are glad of it, her decision to ride for Minas Tirith instead of throwing in her lot with the other women.
• (At the very least, it makes the coronation easier. She is there, in the mud, already. No need to send for a man, her hair falls over her shoulders in a cascade of Rohirric

  gold.)

• Still—Aragorn looks at her oddly when she strides into the Merethrond wearing the shield and helm of

  Eorl, the Horse-lords’ sigil painted in flaking gold on her breast. 

• “You called,” she says, taking her place at the Council-table without so much as a by-your-leave. “And the Oath of Eorl is fulfilled in me.”
• In Gondor, they call her names after some creature of their mythological past—Health, or something like. They have a tendency to do that, she’s learned, Gondor is so in love with its own stories.
• In Rohan she is only Éowyn, Queen,

  daughter of Éomund.

• (It also keeps her from becoming too proud, the knowledge that most of Edoras remembers her running shiftless through the Meduseld, shrieking at Éomer to give her back her poppet.)
• She becomes close with Faramir, son of Denethor, in wake of Pelennor—they are both thrust, an ill-prepared, into a role they had not expected to play. After all, she was three persons removed from Rohan’s crown, and he was the younger brother of the immortal, burning Warden of the White Tower; neither of them had ever imagined being here.
• “I will miss you most,” she says stiffly, once it all has calmed, and the Men of Rohan are free to return to their plains and stables. Faramir, son of Denethor, smiles in a way that makes the light of him shine through. Her chest aches. 
  “I as well,” he says, and she is grateful for the pace Winfrith sets as they ride for the border after, the wind dashing her tears away.
• They greet her with—only slightly less joy than they might have greeted her uncle, and Éowyn rides through the streets she knows well, touching hands and murmuring thanks and thinking, you are Rohan’s now, you are King of the Mark, earn it. Deserve it.
• Being King is slightly less tedious than being the King’s niece, if only because they must listen to her now. She holds counsel, so when they mutter to one another and complain about her unwomanliness, she is already there. She may glare at them, pointedly, until they stop.
• The news from Minas Tirith comes late, and piecemeal—she doesn’t hear about Aragorn riding for the North until they are on her doorstep. 
• “King Dernhelm,” Aragorn says, embracing her like a king instead of bowing to a queen. Éowyn laughs and kisses his hands, calling him Royal Elf-fucker in Rohirric. (She’s not sure he understands, but more than one of her men suddenly erupt into coughing fits, so that’s enough.)
• “Why are you riding north, Aragorn?” she asks. The welcome feast is burning itself out, and Meduseld is almost dark; only

  Éowyn and Aragorn remain. Two kings—alike in dignity, and equally conflicted about who they are to be now. (Aragorn is a Ranger-king, and she is a Shieldmaiden-queen, they understand one another, this way.)

• “My people have suffered,” he said, sounding morose—she could have guessed he’d be graven, once the drink got to him. “The darkness in the East is only one enemy, there is—old darkness, that lingers still in the North. I must protect my people.”
  “All of Gondor are your people now,”

  Éowyn said quietly, murmuring mostly to the mug of beer she lifted to lips. (Aragorn is High King, but in a way she understands him—Rohan is her people, still, no matter how longingly she thinks of the warfront, of Minas Tirith where the news comes from.)

• Afterwards, she foists him onto one of his second-lieutenants, or—something like it, a Gondorian soldier with soft grey eyes, who assures her he will get the High King back to his bed. “Take care,” Éowyn says, “he is my friend.” 
• (She is surprised—lying in bed, staring up at the plaster ceiling, chewing on her lower lip—to find it is true.)
• “Do you ever regret it?” Aragorn asked as they departed, his head tipping forward heavily—it might have been the leftover of his drinking, if there hadn’t been so much shame in his eyes. 
• Regret, that was a better word. So much regret.
• And Éowyn thought of Faramir, son of Denethor, who was dark and fair both, and she thought of Eomer, her brother, who might have been king in her place, and she thought of Aragorn, King to Come, who was more a story than anything else. More than a person.
• Except where he cared for Northmen above all else, despite himself. That was real, she suspected, if only because it was so inconvenient to his overall political goals. 
• “No,”

  Éowyn, daughter of

  Éomund said finally. “No. I don’t regret it.”