A/N: Sorry about the delay. I have a plot planned for this and don't want it to turn into a repetitive cycle of Lothiriel puking and crying! It's getting to the plot that's the problem, and my muse has deserted me, so I'll struggle on without it.

- - -

Lothiriel tried to take deep breaths through her nose to quell her nausea, but unfortunately the attempt only made her more aware of the various odors around her. Normally she didn't mind them; tonight the scents of food, smoke and unwashed people made her gag, and she struggled to conceal her reaction.

She could leave, but she did not want to cause talk. Exiting the great hall before the meal was over would induce curiosity as to her reason; the only polite excuse, one which happened to be true, was that she was not feeling well. Given that she was a new bride, most people would jump to one conclusion. And she did not want them to know she was pregnant.

She couldn't say precisely why she wanted to keep the knowledge to herself, but it was an instinctive desire for privacy, and, perhaps, a subconscious desire to deny that she was pregnant at all. She knew that it was ridiculous to think she could conceal her condition until she gave birth, and she didn't intend to. Just a little more time, she thought. Just a little more. Please.

"Dol Amroth is said to be quite beautiful, Your Highness."

Lothiriel started at the words, slightly slurred, which came from her right; the king was on her left. She turned to see her neighbor regarding her with cerulean eyes that were sharp despite their owner's obvious slight intoxication. "I'm sorry, Lord Elfhelm," she said. "I'm afraid I wasn't quite attending."

He sat a little straighter in his seat. "I said Dol Amroth is said to be quite beautiful. Is it true?"

"Dol Amroth is very beautiful," she managed to say, despite her breath threatening to catch in her throat, and not just from nausea.

"What is it like, Your Highness?"

Lothiriel considered carefully, pushing her emotions to a safe distance. Crying in the relative privacy of the bedchamber she shared with the king was one thing; breaking down in public was quite another, and something she had managed to avoid. But then, no one had asked her about Dol Amroth.

"Lots of stone," she said finally. "A grey city. Even the shops and residences of the townfolk are made of stone."

"A monotonous city, then?"

She shook her head quickly, regretting it immediately as the sudden motion elevated her nausea. "Oh no," she said. "There are flags everywhere, colorful flags and banners, and many plants. And of course behind everything is the sea." She paused for a moment. "And that is never the same color from one day to the next."

"You miss it, Your Highness?"

"I think anyone who left their homeland would miss it," Lothiriel replied, wondering at this strange conversation. Never before had any of her supper neighbors addressed her with other than trivial topics of conversation, such as the weather or the prospective harvest. The beauty of a city this man had never seen, and probably never would see, could be regarded as such; but somehow she knew it was not.

Elfhelm nodded, then drank deeply from his goblet. Lothiriel stifled a grimace and swallowed hard as the fumes from his ale wafted across her nose, and she snuck a glance at the king to see if he looked to be near leaving. His head was turned away from her as he talked intently with his other neighbor, a diplomat from Gondor.

"Forgive me, Lord Elfhelm, but I cannot recall. Are you from Edoras?"

The battle-scarred soldier shook his head as he put his goblet down. "No, Your Highness. I was born in Aldburg."

"Is it much like Edoras?"

He considered before he answered. "Yes and no," he said, and then proceeded to explain. Listening carefully to his discourse, which was remarkably coherent considering the amount of ale he had consumed, took her mind partially off of her nausea.

Elfhelm shifted from talking about Aldburg to describing the herds of horses raised near there, and Lothiriel kept listening with genuine, if slightly bewildered, interest. She was thankful that he did not seem to expect her to talk, though his ale-laden breath did nothing to help her stomach. It did not occur to her that though he was the one talking, he was learning more than what she had told him about Dol Amroth.

-

Eomer looked over at his wife. She appeared to be listening to Elfhelm, though he could not tell if her interest was real or politely feigned. But she was pale, and her face was drawn, and every so often she would wince slightly, or inhale sharply. Glancing past her to Elfhelm, he did not think that his marshal had noticed the queen's discomfiture, though his eyes were studying her with a perceptiveness that belied his apparent drunkenness.

"My lady?" He gently touched his queen's arm, and she jumped a little before turning to face him. "Would you like to retire?"

He sensed her confusion, but she nodded quickly and took his arm as he stood. "Leaving so soon, Your Majesty?" Elgir, the Gondorian, asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid I'm not feeling well," Eomer said apologetically. "Perhaps we could continue our discussion in the morning?"

The man indicated his assent with a nod, and Eomer led Lothiriel from the hall. When they were outside, she looked up at him with a questioning expression. "You left early, my lord."

"I had no wish to linger at the expense of your comfort," he said, watching her with concern. She looked truly ill, but gave him a weak smile.

"Thank you, my lord," she murmured. Eomer once again wondered why she had not left on her own, but did not ask.

-

Lothiriel closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply, her body trembling. She was still holding the king's arm, and he took her by the elbow, steadying her. Thankfully, the corridors were nearly deserted, and though they encountered some servants, no one questioned the royal couple.

They reached the antechamber and passed through it and the solar to the bedchamber. Lothiriel seated herself in a chair, missing the concerned look Eomer gave her, and tried to focus on the stack of papers in front of her; they were plans for the orphanage. Almost immediately, though, she stood and rushed into the privy, where she vomited everything she had just eaten.

She leaned over the stone basin, supporting herself on it as her body was wracked with heaves. She did not hear the king come up behind her, but as he had done a month before, he gathered her hair behind her head and held her forehead, his callused hands unexpectedly gentle.

-

Eomer felt a surge of compassion for his wife and a wave of disgust for himself as he looked down at her. Oh, my lady, he thought. Is this all I can do for you? Hold your head?

Finally she stopped heaving and slumped against the stone wall. She looked as if she wanted to stay there forever, but forced herself to her feet; Eomer took a clean cloth and handed it to her so she could wipe her face, along with a mug of water. "Thank you, my lord," she murmured; he saw that her eyes were shiny with tears. His own eyes watered in sympathy; he vividly remembered vomiting long after his stomach was empty after his first battle, and how much his muscles had hurt afterwards.

On impulse, he said, "There is no need to be formal if you do not wish it," he said. "We are married, after all."

It was the wrong thing to say; she looked up at him, startled, and the look in her eyes reminded him very much of a young colt trapped in the training pen for the first time. Then she looked down quickly and stared at her hands as if they could give her something to say.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked as if he had not spoken previously.

"Yes," she said, looking up at him. "I just-- the smells bothered me."

Eomer nodded, remembering Eowyn complaining of the same thing. "Do you want Brinweld?"

Lothiriel shook her head. "No, thank you." She coughed, and moved away from the strong smell of the lye in the privy to the bedchamber.

-

She'd just picked up a pile of papers when the king, leaning against the doorframe, said, "May I ask why you stayed if you were not comfortable?" His voice was hesitant, and she realized he was trying not to offend her. At least he is kind, she thought, and then felt a flash of anger that she had to thank the fates that she had happened to get a kind husband. It could have easily been otherwise.

"I did not want people to talk, my lord." His suggestion that they give over formalities had caused her to panic, for reasons she did not understand, and so she continued using them even at the risk of displeasing him. "I do not want them to know I am pregnant."

"Are you going to inform the Court?"

She was surprised at the question; it was his child just as much as hers, and furthermore, he was King and it was his heir. He had as much right, if not more, to tell his people of the impending birth. "When it becomes obvious," she finally said, wondering if he would dislike her reticence and decide to announce the news himself sooner. But he merely nodded.

"They would not talk if you said you had a headache," the king offered, crossing the room to sit down. "Your weaving would explain that."

"Then I shall remember that," she murmured.

"How are your plans for the orphanage coming, my lady?" he asked after a few quiet minutes.

Lothiriel, who had been working on those very plans, looked up, not sure how much of an explanation he wanted. Her ideas and proposals covered nearly fifteen pages now, large pages written in a small, neat hand. So she started with the general, and as the king showed no signs of boredom or disinterest, gradually progressed to the specific points of her planning.

"You said you were planning to use an empty warehouse for the building?" he asked thoughtfully when she had finished.

She nodded.

"May I ask why?"

"Size, mostly," she replied. "There aren't any other buildings that are large enough and also uninhabited." Wondering if perhaps somehow he had misunderstood the intended scope of her project, Lothiriel added, "I was anticipating at least two hundred children."

The king didn't seem disconcerted, but only contemplative. He said, "It would probably be better if we built you a new building. The warehouses are drafty."

Lothiriel was startled into saying, "There's so much else that needs to be done! No one could spare time to build an orphanage." Then she bit her tongue, regretting her heedlessness.

"It would not take that long," the king said. "Let me speak to my council, and see if we can find a suitable piece of land.

Lothiriel nodded her agreement. "But with children arriving in a week or more for the harvest festival, my lord, we will still need to use the warehouse."

"It would be best to get the children out of it before winter comes," the king said. "Rohan winters are cold, my lady."

"Yes, so my family told me," she agreed with a slight smile, remembering. Elphir had sworn he would never be warm again, and every night for a fortnight afterwards his bed had been piled high with blankets.

She did not tell the king that she had already arranged to use one of the empty warehouses. In fact, she'd been surprised at the ease with which the man in charge of them, the quartermaster of the Riders stationed in Rohan, had agreed; the guards could have explained it to her. She did not want to go back on her agreement and appear vacillating, but she wished even less to house children in a cold, drafty building through the bitter winter. Lothiriel resolved to inspect the walls and roof more closely on her next visit to assess if the gaps might be patched.

-

The next evening, when her stomach started to protest violently, it only took a little thought to convince Lothiriel to take Eomer's advice and absent herself from dinner, claiming a headache.

When she thought that most people would be in the Great Hall, she let some of the rainwater from the large copper reservoir in the corner of the privy room into the smaller basin to which it was connected, then lit a fire under the latter. It really was an ingenious system, she thought as the water heated. Not quite as advanced as the hypocausts that ran through Dol Amroth, heating the air and water, but then the apparatus in Meduseld had been created by a Gondorian artisan many years before, under the influence of Morwen of Gondor; the hypocaust was a recent invention.

After the water reached a temperature she liked, she opened the spigot and let it run into the copper washtub, then submerged herself and soaked with something like a contented smile. The warm water soothed her stomach, which had started cramping, as well as her feet, which ached from her trips through Edoras.

She didn't know it, but her peregrinations had been observed by more than the guards and the people she visited. Her hair was conspicuous, and by now nearly all of Edoras knew of the queen's expeditions through the city. They noted that she did not ride; some concluded that she did not know how, while others had heard of or seen her arrival, or her ride with Eomer. They also noted that she did not visit only nobles; for some mysterious reason she chose to tour the poor parts of the city. And the wisest, and kindest, of them noticed that she came with only a guard or two, and concluded that she wished to be inconspicuous. So no one hailed her when they saw her in the streets, and gossip did not reach the palace.

When the water cooled, she washed, running a hand thoughtfully over her stomach. It was odd, in a word, to think that she had another life inside her that was probably no larger than her hand, if that size. She'd attended births before, and held and cared for her brothers' children... but this was entirely different.

I don't want this child, she thought. Does that make me a bad person, a bad mother? Will I poison it-- him-- her-- with my thoughts? Lothiriel knew the idea was nonsense, but also knew that children needed parents that loved them. What happens if I don't love it when it's born? What will I do then to an innocent child, that never harmed me, whose only misfortune was being sired at the wrong time and by the wrong man?

Then she thought, A child needs two parents. But the king and I-- we're not... we're not anything that can provide that. We're strangers. Can strangers raise a child? For a moment she pitied her unborn son or daughter, who would be in an even more intractable position than she was. Maybe things will be better by then.

She unpinned and unbraided her hair and washed it, then stepped out of the basin and dried herself quickly. Night was settling over Meduseld, and the stone building was chilly. Lothiriel shivered at the thought of the fast-approaching winter, and hastily found her robe. Then she sat down to write some letters about the orphanage.

-

Eomer opened the door quietly in case Lothiriel was sleeping, with the result that she did not hear him, though she was awake.

As he stood in the doorway, his breath caught in his throat. Never had he thought of her as anything other than pretty, but now she was beautiful. Her long, dark hair tumbling past her shoulders to hang damply to her waist gave her a girlish look; the color of her robe, which was a dark sea green rather than the forest green of Rohan, emphasized the light tone of her skin and made it seem clear and luminous. Long dark lashes were lowered over eyes that he knew were large and grey, and attractive even when they were not lit with a rare, happy light. Paper and pen were held loosely and unheeded in her slender hands. His gaze traversed her slender figure, silhouetted by the last rays of the setting sun, resting for a moment on her still-flat stomach. She looked very young.

She looked up and saw him. "Good evening, my lord."

"Good evening, my lady," he said, stepping inside and striking flint and tinder to light the candles in the room. "How are you?"

"Well, thank you." She watched him for a moment. "Was my absence... remarked upon?"

"Only for people to wish you better health soon," he assured her. Lothiriel watched him for another moment, then returned to her task, fetching a candle to light the ledge.

Eomer picked up his own papers, but they seemed endless, and he could not focus on them or the tasks they represented. So he was staring into the fire when Lothiriel's voice broke into his thoughts, and he looked up to see her standing near him, holding a pile of folded and sealed parchment.

"Might these go to Gondor when you next send a messenger, my lord?" she asked. "They are letters to my family. I know... it might be weeks," she added softly.

"Aragorn and I exchange couriers every two weeks," Eomer said. "The next one arrives, and consequently leaves, in three days."

"Two weeks?" she repeated.

"Yes, my lady." The happy light in her eyes did not escape him as he took the pile of letters from her.

- - -

Author's note: It's definitely not my intention to offend any single parents here with Lothiriel's remark about a child needing two parents; I'm planning to be a single parent myself. This is just her opinion, reflective of the social mores of the time and place. And of course in this case, where there are two loving parents available, it's probably best if they're both involved.

Second author's note: Some of this turned out how I wanted it; some did not. You'll notice two weeks has passed since the last chapter. Time will be compressed like this, because the story continues through and after the birth of her child.