Early Summer in Emyn Arnen
A little Farawyn drabble 🌼✨🌙
pairing: Faramir/Éowyn words: 559
pure fluff, no warnings! AO3 link or read below
The sun is shining and Éowyn plunges her hands into wet earth, into mats of weeds, into thickets of rosebushes. She digs and scrapes and prunes, coaxing the nascent gardens of Emyn Arnen into existence. She gives the flowers room to breathe, pulls back those weeds which encroach too closely upon the raspberry canes. She spends hours in the sun. It is midday, and her skin flushes beneath the glaring heat, but she cares not. She wades through the grasses and the thornbushes, ignoring the barbs that claw at her skin. There is much to do.
Faramir comes to the garden at some point, bearing a tray of custard-filled pastries. He tucks a flower in her hat and wordlessly leaves the tray. The pastries remain uneaten on the tray; Éowyn is engrossed in untangling a wilting clematis vine from the foliage that surrounds it. Her ungentle hands make slow work of it, and more than once she snaps off a healthy stem by accident. Frustration roils in her, at herself, at the plant. There is much to do, and yet she cannot let go of this vine. She must free it; she must give it the space to heal and grow one more towards the light. Faramir returns after a while, and he sees the pastries left uneaten. He asks Éowyn why she has not eaten, and when she offers no convincing excuse, he thrusts one of the custard buns playfully towards her. "Eat," he commands, though not ungently. She protests. "There is no time. I am already behind."
"Behind what? There is no schedule. It is summer, the days are long."
"Look around, there is much here that is disheveled, dying. There is growth that can still be salvaged, but to heal it I must find it and free it., and yet I fear I am not up to the task." She gestures to the still-entangled clematis, as if to make her point. "There are some wilted plants, yes. But most of this growth is yet green. Leave it."
"But should I not put this garden in order? Is that not what one does to make a garden?" "This garden is ours and we can make it as we will. Have you not told me before that you prefer wild lands? Did you not find the gardens of Minas Tirith sterile?" "I did but..."
"Then leave it. Prune the dead stems to encourage new growth, but leave the rest. This garden need not be gentle or orderly; it will be more beautiful for its wildness." She looks around. Faramir is right, she did find the gardens of the White City to be too bare for her liking. She looks at the grasses, long and waving lazily in the wind. She sees the mats of vines, with their bright orange flowers, that wind their way along the ground. She considers the wild rose bushes, bright-leaved and thorny. A butterfly alights on one of the orange flowers, a ruby-throated bird noses through the rosebushes, an unseen lizard rustles through the grass. The garden indeed teems with life. It is unruly, ungentle, disorderly, yes. But so is she. Far be it for her to tame this place. She grabs the custard bun, still in Faramir's hand, and sits in the grass to eat it, and turns her face to the sun.
