7. Before the blood wets the earth

"The kiss itself is immortal. It travels from lip to lip, century to century, from age to age. Men and women garner these kisses, offer them to others and then die in turn."

- Guy de Maupassant -

Eomer had been in the study with Faramir and Aragorn when the Princess came in, but when voices started to come through, he excused himself. And perhaps it was destiny that he should do so, because somewhat later, when she stormed out into the secluded gardens behind the palace, he was not too far away and he saw her. Even though the light of the palace barely reached this isolated spot, he did not need it to recognize the Princess of Dol Amroth. She was a shade of the night, a vision as dark as a moonless sky twinkled with of her black garb; her face, her throat, her hands shone pale and bloodless in the darkness of the gardens and she looked fierce and treacherous, like some heathen queen of old, something barely human. Etched on her face there was in turns such anguish that it could break even a stone heart, and anger so bright and hot that it could put the pits of Mount Doom to shame.

He kept his place wrapped in shadows and in silence and watched as she walked back and forth in the same isle of small stones, hands going into her hair so frequently that they became even messier, wilder. She seemed to be struggling to keep herself from crying: every moment that he thought she would break into tears, the raging anger came back distorting her face and distracting from pain.

It was then that, unexpectedly enough to make him jump a little, she took one of the decorative statues that looked so frail one dared not brush a finger against them, and hurled it against the closest wall with a shout. The stone broke in pieces that scattered as if afraid of her anger coming back for them. She took another, broke it against the pillar holding it, took those pieces and threw them across the courtyard with as much strength as she could. She grabbed another shard, with full intention of making it follow the previous, but then she yelped and let go of the jagged stone. Red blood stained her white hand and Eomer saw it accumulate in her palm and fall down her fingers in fat drops. He saw her face blank out of emotion for a moment and then watched on half in wonder half in fear as her knees gave out and she fell… just as two tears fell on her cheeks, sliding heavily to her chin and dripping down as more joined their fall. She cried so silently it was soundless, holding her hand in the other one, watching herself bleed. She did not try to cover the wound, tie it. She did not…

Eomer sucked a harsh breath. No, she had no intention of bandaging that cut. In fact, face pale and drawn into an expression that was hard as stone, the Princess passed her thumb over the cut, and there was no mistaking her action – she pushed down on the wound, making it bleed harder, hurt sharper. A tiny whimper found its way out of her lips.

He was kneeling by her, firmly (perhaps a little more than needed) grasping both her wrists and prying them apart before he had realized he was moving, or that he'd decided to go to her. He felt her startle in the way she trembled, retracted instinctively even though she was not capable of breaking his hold. Wide eyes found his and then she let go of the breath she'd been holding when recognition came as well. She did not object to his wrapping her palm in his handkerchief to stop the bleeding, did not even move as he did so, just looked at him, as he looked at her hand. He could feel her eyes on him, feel the weight of her frown.

"You're going too, aren't you?"

He did not need to reply – hers wasn't really a question. The answer was already there in the resignation of her tone. So was her opinion of it, in the soft scoff she gave afterwards.

"… Of course you are."

He looked at her then only to find dull eyes staring back at him, a smile so humourless curving her lips that looked like a grimace because it did not brush her eyes that were left flat, dark and wide.

"May the gods be so kind as to protect the rest of us from honourable men." The Princess deadpanned, that hollow expression as if carved on her face. How ill it suited her. She looked like a skull into which life had been breathed if only for a moment. She looked as if... as if all life had abandoned her. Her eyes were staring somewhere far away, somewhere he could not see.

"What point is there to life, if I feel already dead?" her words were whispers so soft he barely caught them, even standing so close. It did not seem as if she was asking him, as if she needed answers. Indeed she did not seem to want them for she seemed as if was as not even there with him anymore… But he was there. He felt her frail wrists in his hands and he could keep his peace no longer. Eomer tugged her wrists forward, the motion bringing her eyes back to him and back into focus, on him.

"Listen to me, and listen well. You're not dead, you're alive and warm and strong and you live of a life that is your own. You need nobody's permission to live and nobody else should decide how you die. You should give no one that kind of power over you!"

But it was as if only some of his words filtered through to him, and in her mind they created patterns of their own. she was not even looking at him – it felt as if her eyes were staring straight through him.

"Everyone says that to me: that I'm strong. Not righteous, or fair, or loved. Strength seems to be my worth… perhaps they're just too afraid to call me cruel."

She was trying so hard it seemed not to cry, and yet more tears came down her face and it was strange how she could weep that way, her face so unchanging, unflinching. It was like watching a marble statue weep.

"I hate the whole world sometimes – that is how strong I am. The whole world and myself in it… But I grow so tired of being strong."

Her tears fell in silence and stillness and Eomer felt as if something inside him was tearing at the sight of her so raw and defenceless. It was as if the curtain had rolled back and that hidden secret she seemed to have, the very thing that had seemed to him so alluring and seducing in the firelight, was now discovered. And this was it: behind all that she chose to show, all her charm and flirt and wit, there was her every fear and insecurity. And darkness. Yes, there was darkness in her... he had seen that, sensed it perhaps from the very first moment he met her. It gave her every look a shaper edge, a burning flare. It was eating her from the inside this very moment and Eomer felt as if the helplessness that was biting at him would drive him to madness within moments if he did not do something. The sight of her so suffering was making him want to scream when in truth, all he wanted, all he ached for was to gather her close until the heat of his bones could seep into her and make her stop hurting. The desire was so acute his arms were practically aching with the effort it took to keep from wrapping them around her.

It was then that in one ruthlessly concentrated instant, the most acute swell of emotions he had ever felt took him, so strongly and swiftly that he thought the anguish of it would cut his heart asunder.

The feeling pressed down on him, submerging him into the darkest depths of his being and at the same time pulling so clearly at the very centre of his soul, with a power he had no strength (or will) to resist. The pain he felt was one he had never felt before, a bittersweet sting that took his breath away, that ached in the centre of his heart - burning, consuming, violently unmaking him and putting him pack together. The fast whirlwind of so acute a feeling shook him like nothing else, cut through him like a thunderstorm and at once it cleared out the smoke of uncertainty and he felt the cold shivers of realization racing down his spine. Everything was clear. It all made sense and suddenly the terrible anguish that had just now twisted his heart took a name and a meaning, and once he realized it, it was impossible not to succumb to it, not to speak it, breathlessly, as if he had not the courage to speak louder.

"Lothiriel..."

But this time, his softly saying her name shook her more than when he'd pulled at her wrists sharply to get her attention. She looked at him, cleanly putting him into focus for the first time it seemed, those eyes of hers setting on him and the frown pulling at her brows. What she saw in his face didn't please her. She pulled her hands away from his grip and he let her. Watched as her breathing sped up as she searched his features with unsettling insistence.

"Do you think me a fool?" She hissed in the night, pain forgotten, anger starting to sip through. Eomer could only shake his head at her, not understanding what she meant. But that only made her frown harder. Or perhaps it was the look in his face as he did so. He hid nothing from her, he knew she could read his emotions in his eyes as if he had spoken them aloud.

He wanted her to know. But apparently he had misjudged her reaction. The princess got on her feel in a graceless scramble and took a step away from him.

"Do you think me mad enough to waste pieces of my heart on dead men? That I would be as suicidal as you?"

He gave her no answer, even though the sting of rejection was sharp and bitter in him. And yet it was so strange that she said one thing while her eyes told him another.

Yes, he though, you are just mad enough...

But she caught that thought of his just as if flashed by his eyes and she hated him for his presumption, for his arrogance. She hated him, period. She would have slapped him too, her hand tinkled with the desire to do so. She would have, had he not been king. But since he was, she simply threw him a scathing look and turned to leave... without anticipating that he would not simply just let her go that way. Perhaps she was too used to always having her own way.

But in truth Eomer did not care that she was a Princess and that if she wanted to walk from him it was her right to do so. In that moment, she was nothing short of her own self and she was right in her rebellion, he was not about to let her slip through his fingers, he could not. A gaping wound of the flesh did not even hold a candle to the pain he felt seeing her walk away from him in such anger and hurt.

He caught her by the forearm, keeping hold of her as he would hold a small bird in his hands: gently for fear of breaking her - because Lothiriel's flesh and bone under his fingers felt just as frail as a small bird, and just as restless - but firmly, with no intention of allowing escape. He was prepared for her resistance: she turned blazing eyes to him and demanded in a tone that could only belong to a Princess, that he 'unhand her at once'. When he didn't, she kicked at him with vehemence, meaning to hurt him, wishing she could. But her tiny fist, her sharp elbows and the feet stumping his boots were nothing in comparison to what he was accustomed to. The ease with which he trapped both her arms and pulled her, still flailing, against himself until her back met his chest, made Eomer realized how much strength he really held over her, how easily he could hurt her, put bruises on her skin, just by holding on a little too tightly. She felt so small to him then, so frail, not even a third of his size... and he knew that he would give anything for her, anything at all. He would give his life gladly, just so that she could live. He felt it with a perfect clarity that lent him a calm he had never felt before - calm that was in stark contrast with the way she kept resisting his hold, even thought her strength was waning.

"Let me go, you brute! I swear I'll scream this place down!"

But instead he released one of her wrists and put a hand to the side of her face gently, so at odds with her writhing, scorching anger.

"I'm so sorry Lothiriel. I'm so very sorry, for everything that cannot be." He whispered close to her ear, because he had folded himself around her without really meaning to, without even realizing that he had moved to hold her and not restrain her anymore, until she was wrapped in his arms and his forehead was almost resting on her shoulder.

At his words Lothiriel stilled so instantly that she could have been a marble statue. She was so quiet that Eomer felt the coldness of rejection starting to gnaw at his heart, but then he felt a shudder go through him, and realized he was feeling her shaking, the sobs she was hiding... until she dropped her head back against this shoulder as if she could not hold it up anymore.

She let go then – he felt the resistance leave her... and broke open, right there in his arms. If he'd thought she had been crying before, that was because he had not known any better. Now – it was now that she was truly crying.

Eomer had never heard anyone cry that way, as if the word was ending, as if all hope was gone and all that was good in the world forgotten... and his heart broke for her in such tiny pieces that he thought he would never feel whole again.

She wept in great sobs that shook her whole frame and if it hadn't been for the arms he still held around her, Eomer knew she would have fallen to her knees. He turned her around and wrapped her in his chest, held on tightly, letting her cry and soothing a hand up and down her spine. He felt her fingers fist at his sides, pulling at his shirt so hard it might rip. Felt her tears wet his shoulder, warm and heavy. She cried for so long it felt like forever, and the night grew darker and the torchlight faded. Eomer held her through it, held her as he felt her sobs soften and grown faint, and as her shaking stopped to the occasional shiver. He waited until her breathing went back to normal and her fingers remembered how to untangle themselves from fabric... and even then he did not let go.

It was the long fingers that curled on his arm that made him loosen his grip on her. Lothiriel did not move away, she only angled her head just enough to look at him. She looked a mess, the dark kohl of her eyes smudged all around her lids, tracing messy patterns down her cheeks. In the darkness of the night her face looked as pale as the moon, her eyes as dark as infinite pools of midnight. She kept blinking, as if she could not quite focus on him. And still, she searched his face, as if the answer to her every question could be found in his features.

Eomer held no answers for her. He was, like every man, bound to his fate and his duty. He could not give her any relief from the pain she felt, any more than he could ease his own hurt. But that did not stop his hands from finding her face, just as hers found purchase on his chest, gripping, as if she expected to fall over at any moment. He pushed away the hair that had stuck to her face, smoothing the silky curls back, wiped her tears with his fingers, ran his thumb under her eyes, over her lips, tracing every feature as if he was engraving her likeness into his memory by touch. Her lower lip trembled and she bit it to stop it, just as fresh tears shone in her eyes without falling.

Lothiriel brought her own hand up to keep his in place at her cheek and then turned her head to the side to kiss the centre of his palm.

Behind the tender feeling that in that moment gave life to her eyes once more, there was also anger, aimless and strong - Eomer felt it when helplessly, her fingers twisted his shirt, her nails scratching his skin through the material. She was raging from within, and yet the only sign was a whisper of nails against his sides, a tiny frown on her face…

Lothiriel drew a deep breath and then exhaled, and just as simply as that, she was again the woman she had always been before him. She stepped away from his arms and he let her go, feeling his palms tingle and his heart ache at having lost her. It was as if his arms had always belonged to her and she between them, and Eomer had only learned it now. Once she stepped away, his arms dropped to his sides as if they had forgotten their purpose. When Lothiriel looked at him, she seemed to have gathered the pieces of herself but was having trouble at putting them together again: it was as if she could not seem to remember what went where, and the mess showed in a clash of conflicting feelings in her eyes. The Princess took another deep breath and the resolute set of her countenance made her appear strong. It felt as if she had made up her mind about something that was as important to her as life itself.

"I am going to say goodbye to you now." She said, and her voice was firm though deeper and rougher than usual thanks to her tears. "I'm going to say goodbye to you in my way, because this is all I will ever have of you, or you of me."

Eomer felt the weight of his frown on his face and the crumble of his heart in his chest. He had known this had to happen. Even the most bittersweet moments do not last forever. But then, when he thought he would rather rip his heart from his chest than have it hurt so much, again she surprised him. In a moment, her arms were around his neck and her breath on his face and her lips, oh her lips, on his, a press so warm she felt feverish and so alive, that he almost gasped at the so immediate feel of her.

The shock disappeared slowly - his mind just kept falling into deeper mist of dizziness and thick floods of passion, but his body knew its own desires. He tasted passion. He tasted emotion. He tasted a world he'd never imagined, one he could never enter. It was right there in front of him, suddenly open to him. Unexpected and exciting. His arms wrapped around her shape in an instant, almost lifting her off her feet as his hand went to the back of her neck, filling with her hair and pulling her face closer. She kissed him with a determination that was unstoppable, with a fire that could not be resisted, arrested. He could only surrender, open himself up to her and let her take everything she wanted. But he was unprepared for the feelings that shook him… or how it became so easy to imagine he had been kissing her lips his whole life; that hers was a face he had known for years, that they had a life and she was his and he was hers and it was all it mattered. It was easy to pretend because that was the way she kissed: as if she knew him and they had something between them no two people had ever shared before. it was a fiction born from true passion. It was, in its own way, the spark of love between them, ever brighter because it would never be more than this.

There was a strange sort of violence in his reaction the very first moment he felt the warm slide of her tongue in his mouth. It clashed with the feelings pulling at his chest, so warm and all-consuming. His head swam and he lost all purchase with the world, but his arms tightened around her, pulling her body so close there was not room even for air between them. He could not keep himself from wanting to take control of her mouth, her kiss. Everything he had within him urged him to devour... and yet he held her head delicately, despite the strength in his arms or their tight hold over her. He held her carefully even then because the lean neck beneath his palm, her tiny waist, the very feel of her against him was of something easily breakable. He felt the power in his own limbs as clearly as he felt the frailty in hers in comparison. Sensation was all he knew, Lothiriel, it was all he ever wanted to know. And the urgency of a kiss that was everything, love and passion, the tenderness of a lifetime within the searing urgency of a moment. They came apart and came together too many times, and each time felt long as an age and so short that the fierceness enclosed in it burned them both.

He kissed her face, followed the line of her jaw to her soft throat, to every inch of her chest that those two unfastened buttons of her shirt allowed, while his hands took in all of her hungrily, greedily, all sense forgotten… he hid his moans against the crook of her neck, drunk on her warm scent, seared his lips on the delicate skin under her ear until she writhed in his arms and dug her nails on his shoulders, his name leaving her lips in a breathless plea right against this ear, that made every inch of him tighten and condense with the need for more, for everything and with every kiss, every touch, he needed her more.

How long did they stand there? The night seemed to have stretched for them, grown long and deep, just to give them this.

Slowly, so very slowly, their frenzy died down and their kisses lingered, slowed until their lips were barely brushing anymore and they were breathing off each other. His lids felt so very heavy that Eomer could only be bothered to open them enough to see her face so very close to his. He had wrapped both his arms around her waist now and held her, one hand tracing the curve of her spine up to her shoulder, her throat, the delicate collarbones just beneath the lapels of her shirt and the small hollow between them. He touched her and every sensation, every feeling was burned in his memory forever: the feel of her body, the taste of her mouth, of the heady scent of her skin…

But mostly he kept still and curved over her a little, as her hands kept tracing his arms, his shoulders, and then up his neck, to his face and his hair, filling her hand with them, occasionally scratching her nails lightly against this scalp. So gently her fingers traced his features, his wide forehead, his lids and cheekbones, his lips, a gentle caress that burned. And everywhere her fingers went, her soft lips followed, and Eomer bend his face closer, so that she could reach all of him, so that she could do whatever she wanted. It was tenderness so deep, that it hurt. A touch of what life could have been for both, something that neither would ever have… and perhaps that was why it hurt most, even now.

At last, she left a kiss on his chin, and moved up to his lips, so gently and softly she placed another kiss there, as if it was her place of worship, and when Eomer reached out to kiss her back, drunk on her and needing more, her fingers came against his mouth to stop him... so he kissed those instead. Lothiriel sighed and her hands went to take his, untangling them from her waist. She laced her fingers with his, just as their eyes met and foreheads rested against each other. She looked at him in such a way that it made him feel as if he was looking directly into her very soul and what he saw there seared his heart as if it had been touched by fire. The very air in his lungs felt aflame in that moment.

Lothiriel brought both his hands up and, in a gesture that was becoming familiar, kissed the back of his fingers. Did so deliberately, slowly, her breath whispering on his skin as she took a inhaled and released the air from her lungs. It had been their first greeting, she thought it fitting that it should be their last.

Or perhaps she just wanted to kiss him...

She did not say anything, did not even look at him… only let go abruptly and was half across the courtyard before Eomer had even realized that she had gone from him. She moved silently, one with the shadows the night. She went away, disappearing through a side door into the great hall of Munduburg as if she could not run away fast enough… and he still stood there, leaning against that wall and feeling too much.

He let her go because there was no other way. Where his heart had been, now there was something else, both more and less than before. She had taken from him more than he had ever thought he could possibly give, and she had given back something precious. He could feel the weight of it in his breast, just beneath his heart, pulsing there with warm raw life. If this was the last taste of life he would ever have, it was the best memory he could have hoped for, and that too was alright. It was more than he would have had if

But what Eomer could not possibly imagine, was that she had left her heart in his hands with that kiss. For what good was a heart, if turning it to stone was the only way to survive? Lothiriel knew what she was going to go back to in Dol Amroth, who awaited her there: she would not be needing her heart for that… or him. So Lothiriel had renounced it with that kiss: the last gesture she would do with any feeling. And what better keeper than the King of the Mark? Eomer… she repeated his name in her head. Yes, Eomer. He would keep her heart safe. It would be a comfort to think that she would not lose that piece of herself, that she had simply given it away before it could be mangled.

And if Eomer had to die, let him take her heart with him, so at least he wouldn't go alone. Yes, she could trust him with her heart… she felt she could trust him with her very soul, even if he did not know he was its keeper. And it was better this way, that he did not know.

Because in the end, what difference did it make?

o

"O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!"

- William Shakespeare -

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TBC:::