Acephalous

Eowyn's narrative asks a question.

We first meet her as someone reaching for something her society has told her is the highest ideal, and not for her. She defies her uncle and her King to fight in his name and win glory on the battlefield; and she performs one of the greatest feats of arms we see on the page in slaying the Witch-King, but in so doing, we see her lose the man who was like a father to her and face the pain and loss that is the true face of war.

She's earned glory as much as any child of Rohan, but it's hard to want it in the same way when you've seen what it costs; so what does that victory mean, if it's going to be too painful to treat it as a trophy?

An entire book ago, someone answered that question - someone articulated a reason to honour a warrior without glorifying war.

The Daeron in question:

i think a fun little detail in a fic would be if baelors war horse was a mare instead of a stallion. haters would sort of titter about it, like it implies something about his masculinity/sexuality, like oh baelor only prefers mares on the tourney field or whatever. (I have more on this but I'll talk about that later)

anyways, baelors not a horse girl like dunk, just because I feel like really loving your animals would be seen as sort of common (again I can say more about this if anyone is interested), but he definitely has a favorite and it's this mare.

the mare is like low key rank tho, like a fearsome war horse and all, but is just evil to deal with. like the squires and grooms live in fear of this animal, and nobody can ride it except baelor. but baelor won't hear anything bad about his girl, he's like this thing has carried me in a hundred battles she can bite the grooms if she wants, stay mad about it.

and where I think this could be fun in a fic is like imagine the whole gang getting ready for a battle (or a tourney), and dunks like saddling up thunder and he hears people being like "oh someone has to go get the wench for baelor" and they are talking like mad shit on his horse like she's willful and a pig, and nothing with a cunt should have that many opinions.

but Dunk doesn't know about the horse, so he thinks they're talking about a woman. and he's like first of all since when does baelor have a lover (he's definitely not jealous), and second I can't believe they talk about the princes girl like that, like that surely is not chill. but then baelor rocks up and he's like alright where's the bitch and Dunk is like I've never heard the prince talk about a woman that way and is like a little disappointed in baelor bc that's not chivalrous.

anyway, dunk would figure it out eventually and he would absolutely fall in love with the horse (and also baelor), and I just imagine later down the line there's another battle and baelor gets tossed, and is maybe like gravely injured and dunk is like trying to get to him to rescue him, but he's already fallen of thunder and he took off so he's gotta just hop on some rando horse, and what do you know it's baelors mare, and usually nobody else can ride her but she's like I'll allow it just this once for a good cause.

and I think it all ends with the horse basically playing matchmaker between dunk and baelor because they're the only two people in the world the horse tolerates