Just as the Lady Morwen, Forlong's sister, had gone to Rohan and vanished, they did not speak of Lothíriel in Rohan. Morwen became Steelsheen, and Lothíriel became Athelflaed.
Even Éomer fell into the same habit as his people. Lothíriel assured him that she did not mind.
They had loved Steelsheen, the graceful strength in her that seemed to combine all that was good of both peoples. They were proud of Athelflaed, of her high noble beauty that was so peculiarly foreign to them.
Gondor! Gondor, between the mountains and the sea!
She stood very still sometimes, when the great rich plains brought half-forgotten dreams of Númenor to her mind, and the harsh Rohirren wind pulled at her skirts and tugged at her coils of dark hair and brought the scent of the river to her nose. She longed sometimes to instead smell the sharp salty tang of the sea, to feel the strength of stone instead of the warmth of wood - to read. They did not make books in Rohan, they sang their histories in their own rich language, which her tongue so mangled that she never spoke it aloud, although she delighted in the sound of it.
She learnt it when she heard, but did not understand, her own child's first words.
On one such day, the woman who still thought of herself as Lothíriel went to the river, feeling the old yearning as she dipped her feet in the cold crisp water. She had found that sometimes she thought in the Common Speech, for she scarcely ever heard Sindarin. And when she had tried to remember the Quenya for horse, she found she had forgotten it.
Scalding tears fell down her cheeks, and she could only be grateful that there was no one to see. Nobody would ever see proud Queen Athelflaed weeping bitterly by the river as the memories swept over her of Belfalas and Anórien and even the lovely flowers of Lossarnach, which she used to plait in her hair, because, after all, that was perfectly sensible for a girl named Lothíriel.
There was much she could not change; but her thoughts were her own. Lothíriel allowed her eyes to close, and lifted her voice and sang, for she was in Rohan and that was how memories were kept alive here.
'Man cenuva lumbor ahosta
Menel acúna
ruxal' ambonnar,
ëar amortala,
undumë hácala,
enwina lúmë
elenillor pella
talta-taltala
atalantië mindonnar?'
And she did not sing any more, for a familiar voice said, 'Suilad, gwanur!'
Lothíriel whirled. 'Faramir?'
It was indeed Faramir, smiling in his gravely affectionate way at her, and Lothíriel did not know whether she was happier to see him because he was her dear cousin Faramir, or because he was black-haired and smooth-skinned and had addressed her in her own tongue.
(1) Lothíriel: flower-garlanded maiden (Sindarin).
(2) Man cenuva etc:
Who shall see the clouds gather,
the heavens bending
upon crumbling hills,
the sea heaving,
the abyss yawning,
the old darkness
beyond the stars
falling
upon fallen towers?
(Quenya)
(3) Suilad, gwanur: greetings, cousin (Sindarin)