The Eastern Woman

The lonely Elf

Éowyn put the bowl with the stew on the ground and sat down next to her. "Where did you learn to fight like that?" she asked.

Goneril sighed and began to tell: "I ran away from home when I was thirteen, as I told you. I brought a sword with me. It wasn't that much: the blade was crooked and a little rusty. But it could cut ... and kill. I practiced alone, at first, against the trunks of trees ... " She said, half lying on the withered grass. "... one fine day, I met my future teacher."

"That Elf you were talking about?" the girl asked.

"Yes. Amon. He had passed in front of me with his horse, while I was walking along a path in the woods that would take me south, near the Hobbits Shire. He realized immediately that I was sick." explained Goneril. "Those abrasions left by my stepfather's lashes had not healed, despite the fact that some months had passed. Also, there was an infection going on. Obviously I couldn't have known ... until I got a fever."

Éowyn listened, totally absorbed in Goneril's stories. A hundred lashes on her back. She would have fainted after just one. "Did he cure you?"

"He did more than healing me." Goneril smiled. "He removed every scar with his magic. And he offered to teach me how to use the sword."

"He did it without wanting anything in return? Generous of him." Éowyn observed.

"Not really, dear. He wanted something from me: that I spread the word." revealed Goneril.

"What ... what word?" the young princess asked, curious.

The warrior looked towards Legolas. The rumor that a half-blood Elf lives in Greenwood.

"Nothing of your concern. Go and offer that soup to these people ... maybe some hungry madman will dare eat it." said Goneril.
Éowyn stood up angrily and went to the spot where Aragorn was sitting.

"Ha! If that guy eats her stew, Isildur's blood will die today, on this plain." She said to herself, then laughed. It was also probable that Théoden's niece had a huge crush on Aragorn.

I'm sorry for you if you plan to compete with an elven princess, she thought.
Yes, the soldier of Gondor was in love with Elrond's daughter and this removed any glimmer of hope from Éowyn.

Regarding Amon, she hadn't really told everything. She had not told Éowyn that the Healer had offered her an accommodation in his house, a cave hidden by a thick bush.

Amon had initially sought protection by Lord Elrond, who had rejected him after learning of his expulsion from Greenwood and then also from Lord Celeborn, in Lórien, who had liquidated him, too.
He had suddenly become an Elf disowned by his own people, a renegade.

Amon had therefore accepted to live alone, and had chosen a sufficiently spacious cave.  With patience, he had cleaned and arranged it over time, and made a house worthy of an Eldar.  He had had forty-three years to do it, so many had passed since the day Thranduil had ignominiously kicked him out.  The same day the little bastard was born, as Amon called him, that was, Legolas' half-breed brother.  The only existing Elf with round ears, like those of humans.

Amon was determined to go to Valinor, to the Undying Lands, but something held him back.  A resentment towards the royal family of Eryn Galen, or Greenwood, who needed to vent.

He had not digested the treatment suffered by the King. Not after centuries spent caring for King Oropher, Queen Hellebeth, then Thranduil and his wife Calenduin.  And for Legolas.  He had been the most devoted subject of that ungrateful Sindar family.  Banished forever because of a shabby ignoble mortal woman.  He always called her that, referring to Thranduil's mistress.
Goneril had asked him her name, but Amon didn't even want to pronounce it.