shieldmaiden_rohan | A Bow for Bran

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bran

A Bow for Bran

Finding an active young one was not simple, but Eowyn was determined. Kili had completed the bow and presented it to Eowyn a few days earlier. It was well-made, as she had known it would be, with a good draw and carefully carved Cirth on the nocks. She had asked Kili what the symbols meant somewhat hesitantly, for she knew well how dwarrows guarded their language, but he had told her willingly. It was, apparently, a traditional phrase for swift arrows and good aim. Since Bran was a child, it also had a few words for growing up strong and brave.

She had wrapped the bow in cloth together with its arrows and quiver and gone to Summerfell first. If Bran was not there, someone might be able to tell her in which direction he had gone.

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"It is really for you," Eowyn replied seriously. She would not laugh at him for feeling so, not when she had felt similarly when presented with her first sword and her first horse.

"Kili sends it with his best wishes that it will serve you well."

"It's beautiful." He picked it up carefully and turned it back and forth to study the carving. It had a familiar well-crafted feel that reminded him of home where skilled craftsmen created things to be proud of. "I'll have to thank him." He smiled at Eowyn and looked like a proper boy of ten instead of the overly serious young man he seemed sometimes. "And thank you too. It's wonderful."

"I wish you good luck in finding him," Eowyn said conspiratorially. "Dwarrows do not wish to be found by most, and if they do not wish to be found, there are none who can do so. They are children of the earth, and the earth shelters them."

"Unless they've carved in ramps, I think I'll have to wait until they emerge above ground," Bran said, still grinning. He knew them primarily as being particularly good at braiding hair, but he'd heard about how they live deep in the caves. "Will you practice with me? I haven't done it since before I fell."

"Ramps or no, nearly all must wait until they emerge above ground," Eowyn admitted. "Even I could not find their home until Kili showed me where it was."

As for his eager question, she smiled and nodded.

"I would be pleased to practice with you. You must forgive me, though. I have never been a particularly good archer."

She had taken lessons and knew the value of a bow in the hands of a skilled archer such as Lord Legolas, but she had always found the sword and spear more suited to her temperament.

"We have dwarves at home, but they're just men who are born very small from people of normal size." Bran thought it was probably better to be a dwarf when you had your own kin and traditions than living in a world too big for you. "Tyrion Lannister is a dwarf, and his family are terrible but he designed my saddle for me."

Bran grinned and shrugged. "I'm not either. Arya was better than me, but now I have time to catch up with her."

"Men are sometimes born shorter than usual, but they are still not dwarrows. They are short men," Eowyn noted. "Dwarrows and hobbits are their own peoples, with their own gods and languages. See, Kili has carved some of his language into your bow."

"Is that what they are?" Bran re-examined the carvings in the bow with a new appreciation, for now he could see them as individual characters instead of simply fine decoration. "I'm glad there are dwarrows and hobbits here from your world. A long time ago, the children of the forest had lived amidst men in Westeros, but not any more."

"They are," she confirmed, "though not all would know that. Dwarrows guard their language as much as they guard their homes. I know only what I have been told, and I have been honored to know what I do. Kili tells me that the words wish you good aim, a strong arm and that you will grow up strong and brave."

Good aim, a strong arm, and growing up strong and brave. Bran wanted all those things as well, especially to be strong and brave. "If I get to be good, then if there's another attack on Summerfell I'll be able to help. Go up somewhere high and shoot them before they get close."

Bran was desperate to prove himself useful instead of a burden that needed protecting.

"You will," Eowyn agreed. "You will be like the Eorlingas on the Deeping Wall of the Hornburg. No one has ever breached the Deeping Wall nor entered the Keep."

She only hoped that would remain true, since she was not present to see the battle nor fight with her people against the orcs and Uruks.

"Really? We have a Wall too that keeps the Others and the endless winter out. The Night Watch guard it." He remembered what it had looked like looming over them gleaming in the morning light and somehow even more massive than he imagined. "Is the Hornburg part of your kingdom?"

The Deeping Wall did not keep endless winter out, but she knew that Westeros was very different from Rohan. The Others seemed to be similar to wights, and she would like to encounter neither.

"It is a fortress in Rohan, one built by one of our strongest kings and warriors. It is a place of refuge and of strength, built in front of a deep cave system that can house our people if needed."

The caves of Glæmscrafu were beautiful, but none wished to see them in times of need.

"Oh, that was clever of them." He liked the sound of Eowyn's world, which seemed much more familiar than many of the worlds others called home. "Another Bran Stark built our Wall back home, thousands of years ago. Bran the Builder. They say he used giants and magic."

Helm Hammerhand had not used giants nor magic, but had used the hard work of his people for many years. A determined people could almost work magic and it was far less confusing for all. She respected Gandalf Grayhame, but had little trust in magic after the foul things it had done to her uncle.

"There were no giants nor magic in the building of the Hornburg, but it stands well. It is called the Hornburg because of the large horn that Helm Hammerhand would blow before he rode out with the eored," she explained.

"Wow," Bran breathed out softly, very taken with Eowyn's words and the images they conjured in his mind. It seemed more like the scenes and battles of bravery and knights than had proved real in his own world. "Have you ever blown the horn?"

"I have not," Eowyn replied, "For there has been no need. The Riddermark is in danger from all sides, but we have not needed to flee to the Hornburg for many years. That has changed, though, and the people were on their way to the Hornburg when I was pulled here. Someone will likely sound the horn in the battle I did not see."

In her darkest hours, she prayed to the god she barely believed in that the fight would be a success, that the Deeping Wall would indeed hold. She refused to read anything that might show her future, no matter how many histories of Gondor the shelf presented. Gondor would likely not have told the story correctly at any rate.

He frowned. Bran knew a little about having to flee your enemies, and it didn't agree with him at all. "So you don't know what will happen to them." He thought of the mouth of the cave leading to the three-eyed-crow and how close they'd got before the wights attacked. All that journeying and then he was taken here without ever knowing what lay inside. "Was it the orcs?"

"I do not," she confirmed, and did not hide her disquiet at that. Bran was a child, yes, but he was wise beyond his years in some ways. The world of Westeros had forced him to grow up too quickly, but it meant she did not deem it necessary to hide all unpleasant things from him as she might from another world.

"It was Orcs as well as Uruk-hai - orcs bred with men to make them larger and more powerful."

Bran made a face. The only thing worse than a monster was when the monsters were somehow men too. He knew, too, that awful way uncertainty would sit in your stomach like a stone when something from home was left unfinished. "Do they want anything? Besides just...evil for the sake of it?"

That was something she had not considered, but it was an excellent question. Most did not think of the orcs and Uruk-hai as wanting anything or even being capable of wanting anything.

"They wish to please their master," she finally said. "Beyond that, they want death, destruction, and cruelty. They are cruel to all, even their own kind, but they are doubly cruel to any that are not their kind."

He was full of questions, but Eowyn didn't seem to mind and so Bran kept asking. It was different hearing of monsters who were real than ones just out of a story. "Who's their master?"

Eowyn was quite content to tell Bran about her world, though she did choose to sit down as she did so, since she otherwise felt that she was towering over Bran and might be causing some discomfort in his neck.

"The Uruk-Hai were created by Saruman and consider him their master, but the orcs were created by Sauron, Saruman's master," she explained. She was certain Saruman would object to anything being described as his master, but it was still true.

"The orcs' kings?" Bran guessed, though he didn't know if monsters would have kings. There had been the Night King, a long time ago, but he didn't know if the White Walkers served any master beside ice and cold.

"The orcs have no kings that I am aware of, though they may. It is difficult to speak to them and you would not wish to even if you could," Eowyn replied. "Saruman is a wizard, a powerful man who can do great but terrible things. Sauron is somewhat else. Some believe he is a god, but none truly know. He serves Morgoth, who has created many demons and foul things. Perhaps Morgoth created orcs."

"A real wizard." Bran had only known the traveling hedge wizards who dispensed advice and suspicious cure-alls, and Maester Luwin's many scathing remarks about their potency. Having to fight off a god is something else entirely, not even the bravest heroes in Westeros' stories had managed that. "Those are formidable foes."

"They are," she agreed gravely, "And it will be quite a battle before they are defeated, but many are allied against them. All free folk will fight, from the holbytla to the dwarrows to the Ents. The shadow will not prevail."

This she was convinced of. This she firmly believed, though her dreams were dark and she could not see to the other side of them.

"I'm sure they will," Bran said just as solemnly, even if sounded like more of a story than something that could truly happen. He knew more than most how the impossible had a way of coming true. "If everyone works together then they'll be able to beat them."

"That is what we must hope and work towards," Eowyn agreed, and then deliberately spoke in a lighter tone.

"And now you have a bow that would be worthy of such a battle. Come, let us try it out."

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A Bow for Bran

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