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Eowyn still doesn't understand Arwen. The woman is perched in a window seat doing embroidery. Even if Eowyn's sight were good enough now for such fine things, she wouldn't. There are too many other things she'd do if winter weren't so heavy in her bones; spend her days on horseback, and ride out to hunt with the bow her fingers now refuse to draw rather than with a falcon on her wrist like a lady of Gondor. Tangle all night in a heated embrace and bathe naked in the cold stream in the morning as they did the first days here, before they had a fine hall and decorum and hot baths.
Of course, she's glad of the hot baths now, for her aching hands, and of curling under heavy furs in a well-built room with Faramir at night, his mouth moving sleepily over her shoulder. It still wakes a warm hunger when his lips brush her breast, and though she knows no more children will come of it, still she rolls over onto him eagerly when he wants her, letting her hair fall over his shoulders as she always has, only a few strands now gold among the gray.
There will be time enough in Arwen's long days for riding, Eowyn supposes, and for love too. Time enough to feel no urgency, to patiently coax delicate needlework to blossom under her hands slowly as a real flower unfolding. She'll have long years still with Aragorn when Eowyn and Faramir are dust. Eowyn hopes she takes much joy in those years, and raises a glass of spiced wine in a toast to her queen that tastes only a little of rue.
Faramir lifts the cup from her hand from behind, and Eowyn turns with a smile. He smiles in return, bending a little stiffly over her hand, and then lifting it to kiss. She cups her palm against his cheek, feeling the evening stubble against her hand, a shadow of gray against his cheek. Age has turned his face from bronze to steel.
She takes back her cup from his hand and turns to see Arwen watching Aragorn where he sits by the fire, the firelight glinting silver in his hair. There are shadows in her eyes as she watches, and her hands are still.
"Joy," Eowyn whispers, raising her cup again, but she doesn't think that Arwen understands.