Disclamer: I do not own the characters nor the plot.

Note: This is my first story, and I would really like to know if I did something wrong and whether or not I should continue it.

Chapter 1: The King

It was not a happy place, but a country nearly destroyed by war. With the king in no condition to rule the kingdom of Rohan and his advisor feeding him orders from Saruman without the king realizing it.

The kings niece, Eowyn, knew that he had much too quickly of late, but there was something else. Beneath all the unkempt, unruly, hair and overly large fur coats, there was something that just wasn't right.

She was sitting next to her uncle, too many thoughts for one person chasing each other around and around her head. None pleasant. The most dominate thought on this particular day was about his appearance. She never could see what the thing nagging at her mind was until she didn't try to see it. You see, when she strained her mind in the late hours of the night, it always seemed as though his curious aging was the only thing really different, but not this day. No, this time as her thoughts fought with one another, she glanced up at the man sitting there in the king's throne.

In her mind he wasn't entirely the king anymore.' A king is he who can hold his own, or else his title is vain.' Before, before when exactly I'm not sure, but before, he was his own man. Not a slave to artificial age and sly whispers spoken by Grima Wormtongue. His title was indeed vain.

But as she looked at his face, looked into his eyes, looked at his eyes! Those were definitely not his eyes! They couldn't be! Aging so fast was one thing, but she distinctly remembered her uncle having light eyes, not ones that looked almost black. And his nose, it was…. Thinner. He was thinner!

As she sat in bewilderment Grima slid into the hall, and noticing him, Eowyn got up and left.

They had traveled long with Gandalf, but it still came as a surprise to them when he raised his now white staff and everything went dark save Gandalf himself. Not nearly as surprising as it would have been if he had done so before being dead for nearly a month and then being sent back, but Gandalf surely didn't mention that this would be included in restoring Rohan.

Grima went about his hissing into the king's ear until there was a flash of something at least equal to lightning and then Grima was sprawled on his face. Then, as he spoke, Gandalf pointed his staff towards high window where a distant seeming patch of sunlight appeared.

Eowyn rushed to his side as the light returned to the hall. The age seemed to melt away, and those eyes, those eyes hidden by aged-sagging-flesh and hair that had fallen in his face, became clear and not much hidden other than the small amount of hair still left fallen over his face. Not just the eyes, but the hair, other than a small section near the middle of his hair line that was seemingly discoloured, were dark. The nose too had changed surely from the king known and revered throughout Rohan. It was thin and snide. And his pallor was far too pale. More so than Legolas. It could have been dismissed easily because he had not been in the sun for so long, if it were not for the rest of his appearance.

He may have aged a lot in a short amount of time, but before his unnatural aging, he wasn't exactly young. Neither was this man, but he was far younger looking than Theoden.

All expecting something much different or not knowing what to expect at all, the hall was silent. Not even Gandalf could do anything, but try to keep his footing. Legolas and Gimli had never seen the king of the Riddermark before, but they knew that this man wasn't right. The people of Rohan were known to generally have light hair have eyes.

The man on the chair moved forward a bit as he slowly stood as though he wasn't sure he remembered how. His eyes were looking just above straight ahead of him and not really focusing, but quite wide. Just as he was reaching his full height, he spoke, "Where is Lucy? Where is my wife?"