They walked together in Ithilien, hand in hand and fingers clasped tight together, and the flowers bloomed around them.
"Do you ever miss the fields of Rohan?" he asked her, when they stopped beside the statue of the king recrowned. "I know it is different here."
But she smiled at him, and said: "I do love Rohan, and my brother who is king there, and my uncle who was king before. But I was a shieldmaid, trained in the art of war and not allowed to do battle, and I was discontent. It was my home, but I did ever dream to leave it."
"Does Ithilien suit you?" he asked then. "When the King Elessar gave me here my place to dwell, I was glad, for I do love these paths. And when you did consent to wed with me, Éowyn, I was yet gladder still, for you make this fair land more so with your presence. But I do wonder if you do like it here, or if you stay because I am here. There are no battles here, shieldmaiden of the North."
She paused a moment, and when she answered, said: "I have been in battle, and I do not regret it. But I have told you in the Houses of Healing that never shall I need battle again, for there I did find myself. For ever did I watch Éomer and long to do the things he did, because he was given honour and freedom, and I thought battle the only way to achieve those things, or else marriage with someone, like the Lord Aragorn, who could lift me above my discontent. Then I came to Gondor and did fight with the Witch-King, and honour I had in plenty. But when I dwelled with you in the Houses of Healing, I did discover that fighting was not the only way to gain honour and freedom, and that it would not gain me peace."
Then she laughed, and her golden hair glinted in the sunlight. "I stay because you are here," she said, "but it is a fair land, and already I do come to love it. I find that, with you and in this place, I do not need to fight to be happy."
He kissed her beneath the boughs of the trees and flowers all around them, and when he pulled back she smiled and said: "Do not worry over me, Faramir. For perhaps the first time in my life, I am happy."