The Eastern Woman

Off to Esgaroth

As she rode across the Dark Lands, north of Rohan, Goneril reasoned about the only certainty of her life at that point: she needed a change.

She had decided to take a break from herself. All the recent events had led her to a serious analysis of the existence she had lived.

An existence that until that day had been far from being happy. In the long week before her escape from Edoras, something in her had suddenly awakened: the soft voice of her conscience had become a scream that even a deaf man would have heard. A cry that kept echoing in her mind: you have lost yourself.

That blond Elf had spat the truth into her face without too much compliment and Goneril kept thinking about it.

You are dead inside.

How to deny it, after all.
What was the true value of years spent fighting and killing, of days spent in hatred and obstinate isolation from everything and everyone?

Did she have friends? No.
Did she have affections? Not at all.
Did she have dreams? No, if with the word dream was meant something very different from taking refuge in an indefinite and desolate place, where to try to build a new nation. She had clung to that fantasy so that she had a reason to get out of bed every morning, but to say that she really believed in it would be a colossal lie.

She had met Éowyn.
Whether the blonde girl was seriously her relative or not, it didn't matter. What had been important, was that for the first time Goneril had met a young woman whose existence in that world was very similar to the idea she had had of life.

Théoden's niece had lived difficult situations, too, but she had survived. She hadn't lost the desire to smile, to be good to others, to fall in love and try to become a better person and ... to dream.

Goneril wanted part of Éowyn's life, as Éowyn wanted part of hers.

Despite all the boldness shown over the years and the pride of having succeeded where no woman on that earth had ever been able - to command an army - a thought had been buzzing in her head for a few days, exactly since the two girls had discovered one the existence of the other.

I could have lived like her. Nice clothes, a comfortable room in a rich palace, singing lessons, banquets, a young, handsome man to get engaged with, a marriage, a couple of children and a peaceful old age.

The horse she had stolen from Rohan's stables shook his big head as he proceeded on the path, as if he had guessed her thoughts.

Returning to the present, the woman was worried.
She would have had to cross the territory south of the Wooden Realm, before arriving at Esgaroth. She had calculated to spend in the wood at least three days, hoping that those Sylvan sprites did not notice her. All she needed was to be imprisoned by Thranduil's soldiers. The dungeons of Greenwood weren't exactly the most comfortable place in the East.

To enter Eryn Galen without permission was a crime in the eyes of its inhabitants, and it would have been useless to say that she had known Prince Legolas and fought by his side.

She would leave the horse at the entrance to the forest, and walk through that hell of brambles and bushes.  Silently, trying to make herself invisible.

She thought that Hammon must have been stunned at the news of her disappearance.  She didn't care about Degarre, and not even about the others.  But Hammon had always been loyal to her in his heart, and eventually she would find a way to reward him.

She also regretted leaving Éowyn: there was still a lot she had to teach her.  She had such a big desire to fight that she would have absorbed her suggestions like a sponge.  Goneril hoped that she found the strength to go on in that petty, patriarchal world.