They did not speak as they walked through the quiet halls. All the doors were smashed, and guards lifted weapons in brief salute as they passed. The upper ramparts of the tower were clear of the stains of battle, and the worst of the rubble had been rolled out of the way. The pair of guards patrolling these reaches moved to the far side from where Aragorn led Eowyn. He helped her seat herself on a stable section of wall.
She only winced a little at the aches from being on her feet for hours. She raised her face to the breeze, letting the moving air clear her mind.
Aragorn watched her, trying not to think. The starlight played on her face and in the hair that floated in the breeze. But there was blood at the tips of her hair, dried into hard points. He caught one of the locks and gently separated the strands. "The fair should not be touched by such ugliness."
She looked at him gravely. "Blood is an honorable badge of battle."
He shook his head. "It's not right ..."
Eowyn put her hand over his, which still worried at the bloody ends of her hair. "I was not raised to languish in a bower. My place is fighting for my people."
He waved a hand over the dark battlefield. "This is war, my lady. This is battle. Bodies piled because there are not graves enough for all of them. Friends dead, companions separated, the sun setting on one battlefield only to rise on another."
"We are no strangers to battles in Rohan. This is not my first. I doubt it will be my last."
He sat down next to her. "Eowyn, if things turn out ill, war will find you soon enough. You musn't go searching for danger."
She sat up straight and took her hand from his. "Mustn't, my lord? My king may use that word with me, but none other has that right."
So proud, so strong, so fair, so fragile. "It would break my heart, my lady, were I to hear of you coming to harm."
Eowyn went still, giving away nothing with her eyes except a small light of hope. "I would grieve as well, my lord, were I to hear the same of you."
Aragorn took her hand again, looking at the scratches and scrapes, the broken nails and grime. Hands which dug without hesitation into the work that was given them. He remembered long, graceful fingers, pale hands that floated as gracefully as leaves on the wind as they underlined a scrap of poetry or an oft-told tale. These were human hands, made for a human world. They held their own grace, a grace Aragorn could answer without feeling young and clumsy and tolerated.
He looked up and met Eowyn's eyes. "I am not free," he said softly. "There are battles yet that call me and a fate that I must answer. But were I free--"
She put a finger over his lips, then slowly dropped her hand to briefly touch the silvery jewel he wore at his throat. "There's another face in your mind," she whispered.
"She has left Middle Earth."
"But not your heart."
Aragorn dropped his eyes, unable to deny it. Arwen's voice whispered in his ear, her perfume drifted through his dreams. When he touched Eowyn's skin, he was always faintly surprised at the human roughness when his fingers expected elven silk. "I am not toying with you, Eowyn."
"I know." Her voice was quiet, as if she was sure that no one lived who would trifle with Eowyn of Rohan. "You said you'd be leaving soon. Do you know when?"
He sighed. "Tomorrow. Gandalf has heard rumors of Orthanc, we must go see."
She nodded, once again the remote shieldmaiden. "You should get some sleep, then, before you continue your journey. Good night, my lord." She rose and walked to the doorway.
He hesitated, then followed, catching her just inside the shadows. "Wait, please."
"For what?" she asked, calmly, hopelessly.
His Ranger's eyes could see enough in the dark. His fingertips found her cheek, and then his lips found hers. Choices made, hopes lost, human hungers in a world where darkness could be routed by the dawn but never completely destroyed.
She pressed against him, her fingers tangled in his shirt, but she pulled away before the stolen moment went on too long. He let her hair drag through his fingers as he let her go. The dried blood caught on his fingers briefly, but she gave no sign of noticing the tug.
Tears threatened in Eowyn's eyes but did not fall. "Good-bye, Aragorn," she whispered, then she slipped away