Is it possible for one person to age a decade or more in the span of a single year?
Surely it must be, because Éomer feels like an old crone now, bent over beneath the weight of her new responsibilities, burdened with grief and a selfish desire to scream about how unfair her life has become.
Her cousin, slaughtered. Her beloved uncle, the man who raised her as one of his own daughters, crushed beneath his horse in battle. Her sister, the single reason she was able to survive the death of their parents, lying in a sickbed in a foreign kingdom, wasting away from a sickness Éomer could do nothing to prevent. All of her skills are physical ones, and they were of no help to Théodred, or Théoden, both of whom died without her there to protect them despite the fact that she was sworn to do so.
Sitting on her uncle's throne, the heavy gold torque of the House of Eorl encircling her neck, Éomer feels a little like she is in a dream. The very same men who had clapped her on the back and challenged her to a drinking game not six months ago now bow to her and hesitate to meet her eyes, children who used to run screaming through her legs are shushed by their parents whenever she is near, and even the servants who have been in residence since she was brought to Edoras at age eleven show her the kind of deference she has never, not once in her life, expected.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, indeed.
Heavier still when burdened with sums and ledgers, when she is trying to figure out how to feed her people through the upcoming winter now that the planting and the growing season both have been lost, now that the majority of their grazing lands have been razed, now that their fields have been salted. Rohan emerged victorious from the war that ravaged it, but she does not know if it will survive the aftermath. There is not enough grain stored to feed her people, let alone their livestock. They will be reduced to eating horseflesh before the year is out.
A knock on her study door pulls her from the fog of numbers she has lost herself in, and if her responding "what?" is sharper than it should be, well. She is Queen, now. Nobody will say anything to her about it.
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what an honor. what an injustice.
Date: 2020-09-12 01:06 am (UTC)Surely it must be, because Éomer feels like an old crone now, bent over beneath the weight of her new responsibilities, burdened with grief and a selfish desire to scream about how unfair her life has become.
Her cousin, slaughtered. Her beloved uncle, the man who raised her as one of his own daughters, crushed beneath his horse in battle. Her sister, the single reason she was able to survive the death of their parents, lying in a sickbed in a foreign kingdom, wasting away from a sickness Éomer could do nothing to prevent. All of her skills are physical ones, and they were of no help to Théodred, or Théoden, both of whom died without her there to protect them despite the fact that she was sworn to do so.
Sitting on her uncle's throne, the heavy gold torque of the House of Eorl encircling her neck, Éomer feels a little like she is in a dream. The very same men who had clapped her on the back and challenged her to a drinking game not six months ago now bow to her and hesitate to meet her eyes, children who used to run screaming through her legs are shushed by their parents whenever she is near, and even the servants who have been in residence since she was brought to Edoras at age eleven show her the kind of deference she has never, not once in her life, expected.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, indeed.
Heavier still when burdened with sums and ledgers, when she is trying to figure out how to feed her people through the upcoming winter now that the planting and the growing season both have been lost, now that the majority of their grazing lands have been razed, now that their fields have been salted. Rohan emerged victorious from the war that ravaged it, but she does not know if it will survive the aftermath. There is not enough grain stored to feed her people, let alone their livestock. They will be reduced to eating horseflesh before the year is out.
A knock on her study door pulls her from the fog of numbers she has lost herself in, and if her responding "what?" is sharper than it should be, well. She is Queen, now. Nobody will say anything to her about it.