Disclaimer: Everything, hopefully, belongs to Tolkien. I honestly hope that I've created nothing that wasn't there in the first place.

A/N: I've reposted this, corrected a few errors, and want to take this moment to say that this is written as a one-shot. I was rather sick of the fanfictions on this site that completely disregard anything even faintly resembling canon, so I wrote this as a response. I like canon very, very much, and I take an odd kind of pride in sticking as close to it as I can. ;) On that note, thank you very much for reading, and I'm completely open to constructive criticism.

Summer Rain

A tall girl with fair hair and an old silver ring on her right hand rubbed her uncle's shoulder gently, absently, and with a dull stare in her eyes. Her eyes wandered off to her right, towards the heavy wooden doors, and she blinked once at the glare of the sun against one of the guards' unsheathed swords. Methodically, the clink-clink of the blade being sharpened reached her ears, and she took the sound in and unconsciously transferred its rhythm to the hand on the king's listless frame. Life, she reflected, was like that these days—methodical and slow, like a clock.

Feeling her head droop with unreasonable weariness, Éowyn let her hand fall from Théoden's shoulder, patted him in an informal farewell, and stepped down from the dais on which her uncle's throne sat. Picking up her skirts, she left the hall, only vaguely aware of the keenly hovering black eyes that followed her. Grima Wormtongue, her father's advisor—a small man, compared to her brother, though a very influential one—watched everyone restlessly. It seemed so long ago that her brother had been banished for treason—since he left Edoras, the same spell of listless summer days had fallen over the life that she knew.

Summer—the sun that shone unwaveringly, bringing restless heat and spellbinding dust motes with it. Éowyn had been an easy target for the sun since the last rainfall; an almost-dreary young woman, swallowing tears for the death of her cousin and wandering the halls in a gown the color of dry and brittle stalks of wheat. Late summer was an easy thing to lose herself in; her only pastime was to silently join the watchers on the roof of the palace and stare out to the yellowish-brown grasslands of Rohan.

There was nothing for her to do. Her one last love, her brother, had left her, likely never to return, and Théoden was old, frail, and constantly slipping in and out of consciousness. She knew no women friends in Edoras, never having needed them, and the few people she did know well had left alongside Éomer. All that was left to her were the searching eyes of Grima and the heat of the summer sun, neither of which stirred anything behind her eyes or in her heart.

It was hot under her skirts, and, as she sat down on the edge of the roof, she shook them out in an uninterested effort to allow a breeze to cool her legs. It was quite useless, for, as soon as she let the material drop, the heat began to brood underneath it once more, like a caged dragon.

Éowyn closed her eyes, placed her palms flat on the roof behind her, and leaned back slightly, catching the afternoon sun full on her face. Her skin would probably be burnt the next morning, something she reflected on without moving. Below her, the same rough sound of stone against metal cleft the dusty air every so often, sounding slightly like the old, rusty clapper of a bell.

She shook her hair back from her neck, opened her eyes, and gazed out at the horizon to her left. Slowly, ever so slowly, a tall, thin, yellowed birch swayed in a warm breeze that licked its frail, drying leaves almost tantalizingly, and then, before she had a chance to halfheartedly wonder if the breeze would reach the rooftop, it died away, leaving the stifling air to layer itself like winter overgarments.

An indeterminate and dry sound escaping from the back of her throat, Éowyn sat up, clutching the wooden flagpole beside her, and strained her eyes towards the sky, hoping to find a cloud to see shapes in, but there were none to be seen. The chink of stone and steel paused for a few seconds, the soldier below blew carefully on the blade, and then resumed his task.

Behind her, one of the lookout men stood up with a heavy, grunting groan and the clanking and creaking of his armor. The noise of a water-flask being opened reached her ears, and then came the sounds of greedy slurping, a faint "Ahh", and the brush of linen against a bearded chin as the soldier wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"Have some, my lady," he invited, taking a short stride to stand beside her. "It'll do you good in this heat."

She blinked again, looked up at him, and nodded slowly. Obligingly, he squatted down next to her, handed her the flask, and watched curiously as she tipped it up to drink from it.

The water felt good, running down her throat. It was not as cold as it had been earlier that morning, but it was wet, and chased away the colony of powdery dust mites nestling inside her throat.

"Thank you," she murmured, recorking the flask and handing it back to the man. He nodded in recognition and stood back up, loudly expelling a breath.

"We'll have rain soon, I'll wager. Rohan has never stayed this dry for long."

"Yes," she agreed, without really thinking about what she was agreeing to. Her neck was growing sticky, and she reached for her hair, intending to twist it flat against her skull. As she swept her hair upwards, the movement blew a fresh breath of air against her back, and she licked her bottom lip absently.

No—no, wait; it wasn't just her own arm movement. The small breeze kept on blowing, vague but determined, and it tried to force its way through her dress and underneath her skin. Behind her eyes, something lifelike began to stir.

Suddenly, she leapt up. The wind! The wind was blowing! And—there, yes, almost out of sight, a beautifully little puff of white cloud drifted towards the palace.

Almost afraid it would vanish if she looked away, Éowyn kept her eyes on the small cloud, staring fanatically until her eyes began to water from the glare. Hardly daring to blink, she stood there, stone-still, her gown swaying slightly with the push of the infant breeze.

A sharp cry of "Strangers!" from the lookout drew her attention to the ground. It was true—a few black shapes, jumbled together, raced towards Edoras from the same direction that the cloud had come from. Nearer and nearer they rode, until she could discern three separate horses, one of them a magnificent white stallion.

"I have not heard of visitors," the puzzled voice beside her muttered. "And I recognize the white horse. Has Théoden said something to you, my lady?"

"No," she said clearly. "No. I do not know them."

"Boy!" the lookout ordered sharply. A small waif with short, pale hair and sunbrowned skin sprang to attention.

"Sir?"

"Warn the men at the doors. Strangers."

"Yes, sir," the boy said obediently. Immediately, he vanished into the cool stairwell, obviously grateful to be out of the heat.

For her part, Éowyn stood where she had leapt up, her fingers clutched around her overskirt and her eyes following the progress of the riders. As they drew closer, her overstrained ears pretended to hear the heaving of the horses and the jingling of scabbards against armor. As they raced towards the city, the white horse pulled ahead, and the blindingly white robes of the rider flapped threateningly in the now-existent wind, the wind that tore her hair into the middle of a wild tarantella.

The riders carried onwards until they reached the city, clattering up the paved streets until they reached the palace. The hint of life in Éowyn's eyes stirred again, stretching itself and resolving to exist. She watched the men gain entrance into the palace before whirling around, catching up her skirts, and dashing down the stairs in the wake of the lookout's boy.

When she pushed aside the heavily patched wooden door that led to the roof, another short breath of air curled itself inside her mouth and made her gasp for breath—real breath, not the hot, heavy intake of dust that she had been practicing for what seemed like years. Her leather shoes made little to no noise as she pattered through stone-paved, high-ceilinged rooms and slipped across the sunlight let in by tall, arched windows. A whirl of anticipation, curiosity, and refreshing, alive air was whisking around in her brain.

Reaching the door to the throne room, she paused, and finally inched it open a few notches. She caught her breath. Inside, her uncle, formerly an infirm and almost senile creature, was standing without Grima's aid—standing tall, strong, and surely.

"Théoden," she whispered. "Théoden?"

She could not catch his words, but he spoke to the rider in white, the one that, upon closer examination, proved to have nearly white hair, a lined face, and a powerful expression. She knew him—Mithrandir, the wizard that had begged for aid and taken the most prized horse in the kingdom of Rohan. Her uncle had been furious, but now—

And then, a new figure caught her eye, one that made her heart give one rising, slow thump and then a quick beat that overlapped with the first one and twisted her breath into an almost-painful knot. A figure, a man—a dark grey tunic, a dangerously slung sheath, an unshaven chin, and a quietly confident stance. A trickle of tears sprang up into Éowyn's nose, and she stared and stared, and could not stop staring.

She was introduced later, and learned his name—Aragorn. His eyes were grey, too—grey as thunderclouds and as his tunic; the grey of new armor and of the old ring on her finger.

That night, the four strangers—for there were four; two had shared a horse—stayed to supper. Calmly, Éowyn held bowls of food steady for the men to serve themselves from, and nearly dropped a platter of roasted fowl when Aragorn met her gaze for half a moment.

She kept to herself for the rest of the evening, occasionally smoothing out the wrinkles in her newer, grey dress, and quietly listening to the light hammering of the revitalizing raindrops outside.

Inside, her heartbeat pattered with the same irregularity as the pattering of the rain.

Read? Review!