By: Dana
Summary: With green cleared to the river, they go riding, Merry and Lady Eowyn and her husband, Prince Faramir, too.
Characters: Merry, Eowyn, Faramir
Pairings: Faramir/Eowyn/Merry
Rating: PG
Warnings: Cheerful nonmonogamy, interspecies
Author's Notes: For Puella, for my birthday.
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema. Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

With green cleared to the river, they go riding, Merry and Lady Eowyn and her husband, Prince Faramir, too. He suffered his pride when Eowyn asked him to join her once again in her saddle, and that only with a joking laugh and a half-honest grin. He'd honored her request.

Pippin has spoke of Faramir, as much or perhaps more than Merry himself had told Pippin of Eowyn. And Faramir, he looks so much like Boromir, Merry thinks, though this is hardly the first time that such a thought had come to him, when spring is late and clear and in bloom all about them, and the scent of Ithilien comes to them on the river breeze. Faramir is tall and noble and with eyes of shining grey, and when Merry looks at him he cannot stop the upwelling of hurt. He had loved Boromir, and Boromir had been dear and his friend, but now Boromir was gone - and here, his brother, almost his own image. So very similar, but nothing the same.

And they went beyond the river, until even the great white walls of Minas Tirith had faded from sight, and the flowers of Ithilien were more than just a distant, river-born scent. There they went down from their horses, and let them graze free in the tall grass. Closer to the river, they sat, with the sun spilling yellow through the green of leafing trees, and river-water laughing at their feet.

"I should have brought Pippin along," Merry said, feeling that he was out of his proper sort. And Eowyn had smiled, and looked to Faramir, and the shape of her face had softened, when Faramir had smiled in return.

Before, she'd been hard and cold and brittle, but Merry had loved her and he loved her still. He did not think that loving Faramir had softened her, but had made her strong in a way that she had not before been.

And Merry can't help but smile at the Man who had won his lady's smile, and when they later spoke of losses and regrets, Merry had kissed them both, one and then the other, as the sun had sunk into the western sky. This was not something that he'd want to regret.

He laughed, and spoke of being bold. And Faramir's hand twined with his, though it was Eowyn who next reached for his kiss.