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The violet-eyed warrior rides in from the West on the wings of the storm. She rallies the Rohirrim, wakes her uncle from Wormtongue’s evil spell. She walks into the Paths of the Dead and is gone, her dragon (a tame dragon) disappearing over mountains.
(“I fear a cage,” Éowyn had confessed, privately.
The woman smiled at her, her young face wise beyond her years. “You will not be trapped in any cage. We are warriors, you and I. Freedom is in our blood.”
Éowyn holds those words close as she sheathes her sword and dons armour meant for a man.)
—
She walks through grey paths, aimless and wandering, cobwebs and fog obscuring any sense of purpose or direction.
“Éowyn!”
A voice, almost familiar but not quite. She turns her head, and out of the mist a cloaked figure emerges, flashes of white hair peeking from beneath the hood, a single glimpse of violet eyes.
“Take my hand.”
Éowyn hesitates. The paths tug at her, calls her onward.
“Take my hand.” The woman is insistent now, and there is a note in her voice, desperation, a plea, that is almost familiar. Something in Éowyn leaps up in almost-joy.
She reaches out.
—
Éowyn is the White Lady of Rohan, and not a subject of Gondor. Still, she makes an obeisance, bows to Queen Daenerys. “Your Majesty.”
The Queen reaches out, places a gentle finger under Éowyn’s chin. “You need not ever bow to me, Lady Éowyn.”
“I am in your debt,” Éowyn demurs. “You saved my life.”
The Queen’s eyes flash, a smile curving the corner of her mouth. “If there is any debt to be repayed, I would rather it come in the form of friendship.”
Éowyn feels herself flush, unbidden and unwanted. She holds onto her court training. “Of course.”
—
The Queen is beautiful, and smart, and a powerful warrior.
She is also painfully, achingly young. Éowyn had thought Éomer young to be thrust into Kingship, and yet the Queen—Daenerys—is younger still, for all the power she holds in the palm of her hand. Barely grown into full adulthood and yet so much responsibility a weight resting on her shoulders.
And yet, when she smiles and stretches her hand out to Éowyn, her head thrown back in laughter as they gallop across the wide fields ringing the city, she seems completely, utterly free in a way Éowyn envies.
—
The wide ramparts and the stone walls of the city make Éowyn ache for home, for the wide grass plains of her childhood and the golden halls of Meduseld. But she loves, too, that the city is flourishing under the rule of Queen Daenerys, with the cloud of the Dark One drawn back.
She tells Daenerys this; the other woman sighs. “It is more the latter than the former, I fear.”
When Éowyn protests, Daenerys shakes her head. “I am too fond of my freedom to ever truly be a good queen.”
The look their share is of mutual understanding.
—
“It is just like riding a horse,“ Daenerys had said.
Éowyn begs to differ. She grew up with horses, and riding Windfola is as easy as breathing. The dragon moving beneath her is an entirely different beast. It lurches and moves with sharp turns, and Éowyn cannot forget the sheer drop off his back, the slightest shift in position liable to send her tumbling to her death.
She draws her arms around Daenerys’ waist. Her chest is pressed to Daenerys’ back; she holds on perhaps a little too tightly.
Daenerys, however, does not protest, leaning back instead into Éowyn’s arms.
—
The garden had fallen to ruin under the old Steward’s regime, when the realm bent all its energies to the fight against the Dark One, but now it blooms again. Many-coloured flowers have burst into life, sending their fragrance wafting through the stone-paved paths, and trees hang heavy with fresh green leaves and tender fruit.
They sit at one of the benches, side-by-side, and Daenerys’ face glitters in the moonlight, her hair tumbling down in silvery locks that frame the flash of cleavage displayed by her evening-gown, her smile radiantly joyful.
Almost without thought, Éowyn leans in and kisses her.