This short vignette is a challange based on some fanart of Aragorn and Eowyn walking ina wood. I can't seem to post the url to share with you what the image looks like so I hope this fic can stand alone.

Silence

His fingers grazed the gnarled rough bark of the trees. His eyes closed for a moment, absorbing the sounds around him. The crickets, the birds, the rocks and blades of grass singing with rain water. Lost in the coils of nature, lost with her, never wanting to be found.

He looked at her now under the dying sun, her delicate hands fending off the stray wild flowers in front of her. Her soft golden hair was eddying in the wind, left long and loose to fall at the waist. He noticed she had stopped ahead. Her grey eyes looking up towards the treetops.

A rose gold dusk had poured itself into the bowl of the sky.

Soon he thought: the stars would come.

"We have been walking for many hours now Eowyn." He said.

"No, we cannot delay." She said plunging ahead of him.

"We will not reach there by nightfall." He said motioning her back, "We can resume our journey in the morning now is the time to rest."

She relented and walked back towards him. Quietly Aragorn began to build a small shelter for them from branches he had found nearby whilst Eowyn created the fire.

There had been a time when being in his company would have been a terrible thing. For her young mind would toy about what could have been. But then like hurricanes in her dream she would awake and remember that she was a married woman, wanting a married man.

Over the years she grew to be more accepting of their situation for their blood was noble and they were people who held their words. And what use is a promise made if it is to be broken? She would remind herself.

"It hold up for the night," said Aragorn, inspecting his makeshift shelter of branches and fern leaves. He shook the foundations a little to see if it would hold its position. It seemed sturdy enough. Satisfied, he sat himself down on the other side of the fire.

"Let's us hope it doesn't rain," said Eowyn gazing at the pieces of wood crackling under the flames. His keen grey eyes dashed up along the tree trunks and up into the sky. He could feel his answer in the heated air. But he didn't reply for at that moment her eyes had found his.

His heart understood that she lived for these moments just as he did and yet not another word was spoken between them that night.

Not a single word at all.

For they knew that this was how they would live the rest of their lives….

Loving each other only in silence.