The sea waves are my evening gown

And the sun on my head is my crown

I made this queendom on my own

And all the mountains are my throne

- Queendom, Aurora

The white tree was blooming day by day. She stood tall beneath its bows, her eyes tracing those seemingly fragile branches, dotted with white flowers like stars and reached a hand up to touch the ancient wood, letting the pads of her fingertips linger. Half the city was rebuilding from the attack on its walls, crumbling stone removed and resculpted, but the tree had gone untouched through the war that had ravaged them. She was glad for it, glad to see the flowers that had been foretold long before she was born. In years passed she'd not thought much of flowers and fields, of growth and roots so deeply buried in the ground. Yet with Sauron's tower crumbled, the ring destroyed and her fellowship once more within the same city - even with Boromir entombed - she thought the delicacy of growing things might hold some sway over her heart.

She heard the gentle scuff of boots behind her and did not need to look to recognise them, letting her hand drop to her side as she turned to see the ranger king a few paces away. His grey eyes were upon the tree as well but only for a moment before they moved to meet her eye.

"Seems a strange magic you have, Aragorn, to make a tree bloom," she said, perhaps she'd meant it as a joke, but honesty beat away any chance of that. He moved closer to stand by her side, the two of them facing the tree as he answered.

"The tree bloomed before my coming, you know that, as half the city knows it," he returned, a wry smile on his lips at her jape that she was glad for. The tree had held her interest just moments before, but with him beside her, she found old wood and delicate flowers difficult to compare to him, wrapped in finery more comfortable than a king should rightly wear, his dark hair clean and bound back from his face. His own eyes were not on the tree, tracing the clothing she'd grown accustomed to in Rohan - the hardy velvet, the soft leathers of her uniform. He likely did not miss the Drutdeor's mark, intertwined with the stars on Gondor picked in silver at her wrists, two marks she rarely went without in the weeks since Sauron's tower fell.

"Either way, it will be in full bloom by your coronation, at least Gandalf says so when he can be prised away from his hobbits," she shrugged off his words but they didn't bother her in truth. She'd not forgotten the day whispers of the white flowers started, she knew in her heart that the first blossom had begun a blaze in the people before the Beacons had lit and called their king. She straightened her shoulders to think of it, the gentle smile not falling from her lips as she looked beyond the white branches - out beyond to the shadowy land that had haunted the white city too long.

"Shaka means to stay in the city with the healers, seems they're pleased with her work and wants to settle a while, I invited her as my guest to the ceremony," she stated when he didn't answer. He seemed lost in thought, as he often was when talk turned to that of the coming day. His armour was being forged, his crown cast and grand, and though he was ready and beloved, a heaviness still sat upon him when it was spoken of. It was as if he was running out of time.

"And the rest of your drutdeor?" He asked, his voice less weighted to think of her motley band, scattered to the four winds as they were. Though they might have broken with no war to fight, the sigil was still scattered amongst their shields and clothes, a thing not to be easily forgotten.

"Most are returning to the inns and taverns they liked before the war - I would ask little else of them. Kottr means to stay though - I put her in touch with the spy masters in the city and they seem enamoured with her. Seems she'll talk when secrets are what she can steal. But I think a coronation would be asking a little much of her," she chuckled to herself, feeling Aragorn shake with amusement beside her. He was quiet a long moment

"Hedda," he said, voice as gentle as the breeze around them and she turned back to him again, head tilted and heart light. She followed his movement as he reached up, his left hand with that gleaming braid still knotted at his wrist as he reached up to graze the branches of the white tree and pluck a bloom from it's branches. He rolled the thin stem between his bruised fingertips a moment, looking at the small spray of petals and that looked so small, so simple between them. He seemed to be lost in thought, struggling to speak and she wrapped her fingertips around his wrist, taking his attention once more.

"Before the last battle you said you would stay beside me," he said suddenly, his voice a rolling timbre that made her melt closer yet against him, her thumb tracing the delicate tendons of his inner wrist as he spoke. "I would have nothing else, but I would not do as Denathor and your father once did," he said, but she could hear how far away his voice sounded as he spoke, how saddened but strong he was as he offered his words. "This is a life I have accepted, a crown I must hold and one I'd give to you, but this is not the life you wanted." She swallowed, a gentle exhale on her lips as she laid her forehead against his own. She could feel the metal ring that yet sat upon her thumb, the snake with it's emerald eyes surely winking in the afternoon sun. Once she'd had care not to imagine what it could mean, but since his return, she had been certain. The whispers that surrounded them in the days since Frodo awoke, the mutters as she left his quarters or merely moved her own belongings to that room, the touches they couldn't deny one another in halls not as private as they wished. He folded the delicate bloom into her hand and she held it with a touch more gentle than her calloused hands were used to - but she was growing better at being gentle when she must.

"I've had a great many things I have wanted in my life," she mused, her words as quiet as his. "To master the sword and see the world, to defy my kings," she said, a smile on her lips that showed her teeth and he met it, looking at her like the idea amused him. "None brought me the same happiness you did," she looked up at him, her expression clearer and steadier than she was quite used to. "When I said I would stand beside you, I would do it in life, in battle and in this." Her voice was as gentle as his. This was not an agreement made, a trade or an arrangement. Their's was a promise and a connection more binding than horsehair or metal, and it did not feel like a chain or a pen.

His smile was radiant, so wide it made her cheeks gently flush and her own cheeks lift. His hands went to her waist, pulling her closer so desperately it brought a laugh to her lips. It felt simple, as natural as breathing or as inevitable as the blooming of a tree to wrap her arms around him and kiss his lips, the vow made before the white tree as binding as any wedding ceremony she had ever seen.

So obviously they get married, they have four children and live very happily. Hedda still fights, training an elite queens guard that's the envy of the kingdom, as Aragorn takes the name Elessar upon his coronation Hedda obviously takes Thandris. Her sword was broken in the battle when Eowyn stabbed the witch king in the face, but she has a new one forged and a great many other swords revive the old 'woman' symbol of Rohan.

This epilogue has taken so long because honestly I just wanted to get the ending perfect and I kept writing it in different places from different perspectives, at different times but anyway - here it is. So glad to have this finished and up for you guys, please let me know what you think this fit's taken about ten months to complete lol (at the very beginning can you seriously believe I thought I'd be done in two because I sure did).