Translation of Elvish: Melethen - my love. Nín anoriel - my sun-maiden.

Chapter 9 - Destiny

Haldir could not believe his ears. Only a few moments ago Éowyn had been lying in his arms and now she told him to leave. What had caused this sudden change in her? "Éowyn," he tried. "Just go," he could hear tears in her voice. It could have nothing to do with what he had said. Finally he had been able to voice his feelings, and here she stood, rejecting him. His pride was shaken, but worse than that, his heart was about to burst with hurt.

She heard him move behind her, soon he would be gone 'Pray that you can forget me. Oh please, you can't have meant these words, you can't'. She couldn't bear the thought of him dying because of her. Why had she given in to her feelings, why hadn't she listened to the warning inside her head? She knew it would be her undoing to lose him, but rather her than him. In him she had found the love she had thought to see in Aragorn. How stupid she had been. When he was gone she would be able to cry, cry until no tears remained. But now she had to be strong, wait until she heard the door close behind him.

No, he could not give her up just like this. And if this would mean the end of him, if it would break his pride, he had to ask her this one question that burned in his soul 'Why?' Slowly he closed in on her, he could hear her sobs and it broke his heart to see her this lost. "Éowyn," he put one hand on her cheek and turned her head around. She struggled, but he was stronger. Her eyes were closed, and he could see that it almost broke her when she said yet again, "Leave me, please."

He put his hand under her chin, forcing her face upward. "I will. But only if you repeat that, looking me in the eye. Open your eyes and say it again and you will never have to bear my presence from this day forward." She couldn't bring herself to do that it would destroy her. "Don't make me, I ... I can't." The room was starting to spin around her and she almost fainted. "Haldir, I can't be with you, not when I know that in the end I will cause your death." He looked at her in puzzlement. Cause his death? Why? How?

With a voice that was almost failing her she continued, "I know of the ways of your people. Elves choose a companion for life. They only love this once. This one person makes them complete, makes their hearts whole. If their loved one dies, this completeness is utterly unmade. Before they loved they might not have felt it, but now they do. And it becomes their end. They are ... fading away. Their soul yearns for the embrace of death. And so they die." Haldir could not believe what he had just heard. "How, how do you know all these things?" he said while taking Éowyn into his arms, steadying her.

She smiled weakly. "Gandalf, he told us many things. After Éomer had met an elf for the first time ever, he kept asking Gandalf all these questions about your people. Finally Gandalf took both of us and taught us. He lectured us about your history, about your ancient realms. I found it so boring, I wanted to run out of the room and ride out on the planes. But then he started to talk about other things, and I was unable to even move a finger. He told us of Beren and Lúthien, how she gave up her immortality to be with him. And then..." her voice broke as her grief consumed her.

Finally Haldir understood. "You are sending me away to spare me a fate like Lúthien's? Oh Éowyn, it is too late for that already. You cannot fight you destiny, no matter how terrible it may seem to you. It was not by chance that you came to find me, came to care for me. You were meant to." He kissed her cheeks, her head now resting in both his palms. "There is no turning back, not if you feel the same way as I do." It was hard for him to say these words, his pride was screaming in pain. But how much harder would it be to lose her. No, he could not even think of it.

"Éowyn, my life was in your hands before, now it is again. You are everything to me. If you do not wish for me to share your life than be it this way. But that too, would be my end." Her eyes were filled with sadness when she looked at him, shaking her head. "I'm mortal, you would always live with the knowledge that I will die sooner or later. How can you? I'm not worthy of this, no one is."

"You are my life, my light, my love. Sun of my life ... nín anoriel, melethen." He took her into his arms, holding her as tightly as possible. "I cannot live if you are not in my life. You are the one, the only one who makes my heart complete. Mithrandir was right with what he told you, only now do I see that all the time I was missing something ... I was missing you."

She couldn't fight him any longer. Her strength was failing her and she clung on to him as if he were the only rock in a storm. How could he love her, her, who had been so foolish to run after Aragorn. Her, who had been so beastly. Why couldn't she be one of his kind? Why had she been born as Éowyn? "I love you," she whispered in his ear, feeling his embrace tighten around her. "Now I know that this was also the reason why I told my brother not to give you the horses you had asked for."

He eased his hold of her a little, looking down into her eyes questioning. "I couldn't bear the thought of you being wounded again, of you being killed. And I also thought that I had gone mad, these feelings for you ... I thought seeing you would make me go insane in the end. I longed for you, so much..." His warm lips were upon hers all of a sudden. A soft and gentle kiss, without the mad passion they both had felt a few hours ago. Now they both knew that they had found each other, that they would be together no matter what the future held.

"We will go into battle together, I cannot let you go alone. If you do not grant me horses, I will walk all the way to Gondor." He was not even trying to talk her out of her plan; it would be useless anyway. Her hand reached up to caress his cheek. "I will tell Éomer that I was mistaken, it will console my heart to know that you shall be with me." She pulled his head down to share yet another kiss with him. When their lips parted she looked at him in doubt. "What did you say just now? I mean, you said something in Elvish didn't you?"

He chuckled, all the fear he had felt, all the pain was gone. "I said 'my love' that's melethen. And my sun-maiden ... nín anoriel. Though right now you are more of a rain cloud that a sun..." Her fist hit his stomach. "A cloud am I?" Before she could hit again he caught her sweet hand in his, pulling it up to his lips, kissing it. Carefully she voiced the same words he had just used, "Melethen..." Her eyes were still clouded with a veil of tears.

Never before had anyone called him thus. And he knew deep in his heart that no one else could have said it the way Éowyn did. She only spoke aloud what her heart felt. "Let me stay with you, my love. Do not send me away." She drew away a bit, taking in all of his elvish beauty. His skin gleaming, the only source of light in the dark room. His silver hair falling over his shoulders, he was like the moon, familiar and yet mysterious. "My Lord of Night and Silver. I love you." Slowly she turned around and pulled him back to the bed.