Tolkien Fan Fiction
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| Chapter One |
| It had been only a fleeting encounter, in a place of pain and death. The battle of Minas Tirith was over, there had been so many casualties there was no more room in the main House of Healing and the city was doing its best to cope with the wounded. Many were simply left on the ground until the ones most likely to survive were assessed and brought to makeshift ‘Houses of Healing’, the numerous tents which had been hastily erected outside the city walls on the Pelennor Fields. The morning after the battle, Éomer, the new King of Rohan, walked through the tents seeking out the Riders of Rohan who had fought so valiantly for him, to give succour to the injured and dying where he could. Over the tortured murmur of men in pain, he heard a woman’s voice, speaking the language of Rohan to one of his Riders. Éomer noted the emptiness on the bed where the man’s legs should have been and his face contorted into pity. The man was writhing in agony and anguish, but pity was not what he needed from his King and Éomer was swift to control himself as he approached his stricken Rider. With her back turned towards him he could not see the woman’s face; she was holding the dying man’s hand and caressing his forehead like a mother would do to her sick child. Curious that a woman of Gondor would speak the Rohirric tongue, and wishing to give comfort to the man as death overtook him, he came to kneel opposite her at the man’s side, taking the man’s other hand. Only then did Éomer look into the woman’s face. With that one glance, he felt his world change. He saw the compassion in her piercing blue green eyes, the questioning intelligence and curiosity, and a strong current of emotion coursed through him, yet intense as it was, the woman’s attention soon returned to her charge. The man had quietened. Death had seemed inevitable, yet Éomer saw hope return to the woman as she called out for assistance. Reluctantly he relinquished his place opposite the beautiful dark-haired woman, forced from the man’s side by the arrival of another healer. Helplessly he watched the two women battle to save the King’s Rider, in awe of her peerless competence. At that moment a messenger came from Prince Imrahil, chief adviser to the new Steward of Gondor, requesting his immediate presence. Unwilling to interrupt her efforts, he had no option but to leave without speaking to the lady who had so encaptivated him. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Preparations were underway to march out once more, a march from which Éomer doubted any would return. Unbidden the memory of the dark-haired healer would enter his thoughts and his waking dreams like a beacon of hope and desire through these darkest of times. He felt sad that he would never know her name, and it was with this one regret that he set out with Aragorn, his great ally, the new King-elect of the re-united Kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, and the Western Alliance of Elves, Dwarves and Men for the final confrontation against Sauron’s far greater forces in front of the Gates of Morannon, the northern gateway into Mordor. |