Nan Harn – Northwest of Dol Amroth
Lothíriel had warned the party of the inevitability of a hurricane, and indeed it came on the eighth day of their travels.
Calahdra rode ahead in the gale while the others sheltered as best as they could with the ornery horses along a roadside berm. She had little faith she could find an inn or tavern sufficient in size to house them all, but at least she could get Lothíriel and her King out of the torrent and any threat of mortal ailments.
Calahdra realizes she could use a warm hearth and a wash tub herself. She is not so deep into the transition to imperturbable elfishness that she cannot appreciate the trappings of home. She finds she misses her own small apartment in Edoras now, with its worn quilts and assortment of dried lavender and other herbs along the windowsill. Her small collection of maps and glossaries, too, some of which she rescued from Fenmarch when she deposited her brother Lenwe there as Lord.
'How was Lenwe?' she wondered. When the party had first left Rohan, and passed into Southern Gondor, she found that her mental connection with her brother had held. However, as the distance grew, the mental link grew frail as a frayed rope. It was the same with Legolas.
With Lenwe, however, she had a sixth sense beyond her own capacity to mindspeak – the sixth sense of siblings.
Calahdra felt confident that Lenwe was well, and continuing to settle into the role of Marshal and Lord. He'd also replenished their father's stock of breeding horses, and in no time had a considerable quantity of foals with plenty of demand in Rohan, Gondor and beyond. Calahdra patted Ellerocco's neck – her typically placid steed had found a few mares of his own to pester during their most recent stopover in Halistowe. It was likely that a few of the purebred Rohirric mares now carried Gondorion bastards. Perhaps she should do right by her brother and purchase one – Éomer had offered her a small tract of land in the Folde, near the roots of the Fangorn, for a summer cottage and a stable. "A down payment on your retirement," he had offered, moments before requesting that she accompany him on the expedition to Belfalas for "however long it takes to see the deed done," She remembered she had tried to smile ruefully at him, but the look must have manifested itself more vitriolically than she had intended, because Éomer had winced and recoiled.
A small hamlet is appearing beyond the sheets of rain now, and Calahdra is pleased to see chimney smoke comparable to the lodgings she yearns for. Sure enough, it is a well-kept tavern with three empty guest rooms. She purchases them all, and sets her own waterlogged packs down in the second-nearest to the kitchens – warm and cozy, and furnished with only one slender bed fortunately. She swears to herself that she will not permit Eldric to weasel his way up from stables tonight.
After contriving to have the barkeep set several kettles on as well as an early supper, Calahdra sets back out on Ellerocco bareback. Though he is quicker unencumbered, she finds that the road has a good six inches of water on it now and this slows her horse's pace. A proper flood seems imminent, and she is wary. She has heard tell of the slimy, slithering things that emerge in the floodwaters in these southern parts, and she has no desire to meet them.
When Calahdra finds the party at last, it is clear who is from Rohan and who is from Belfalas purely by the looks on their faces. The Belfalians are unphased – this is a moderate but undaunting typhoon. The Rohirrim, however – they have grown no fonder of hurricanes in their nearly three months in this land.
The sodden troupe does indeed make it to the tavern just before the nearby river overflows its banks. Fortunately, the tavern and stable are raised in the typical coastal manner, and there is no threat of a damp night so long as the party keeps to the confines of the tavern grounds.
When the horses are wiped down and bedded in warm hay, and each and every person has stripped out of their soggy things and into merely damp ones, the party gathers in the great room and picks at a spread of bass and pickled vegetables that have been laid out for them. There are a good dozen other travelers in the great room, and the hearths are roaring – though exhausted, spirits improve immediately.
Lothíriel, though exhausted and stiff, is smiling radiantly and not because of the humble, country fair or warm woolen gown she has changed into. Calahdra realizes that Lothíriel thinks she will be able to escape their nightly ritual in this novel abode, and for a moment, Calahdra considers granting the princess a boon. The young woman is seated on a bench and nestled up as closely to Éomer as modesty will allow; how long had it been since they had been able to share in conversation from somewhere other than the saddle, or to find any modicum of privacy, since their betrothal?
But Lothíriel is still so soft, and unpredictable with a blade. She often totters and hesitates, clearly perturbed by the thought of doing violence. Calahdra has thoroughly inspected the strangers in the inn tonight – none look malicious, nor do they seem to have recognized the princess, not in her plain homespun dress and matronly headscarf. Perhaps Lothíriel will not need certainty with her weapon in the acute period, but Calahdra feels certain the time will come.
Besides, Calahdra is enjoying her own comforts. She has pulled the blanket from her rented room around her shoulders and is sipping on something warm and full of mulling spices. A bard has started playing a lute softly in the corner of the room, and Eldric is retelling one of the bawdy tales that once had drawn her to him. She is tuning out the details of his speech, but the guffaws and laughs of the men around her – particularly the genuine snorts of bemusement from the Belfalians – gives her satisfaction. It is quite nearly like being at The Thatched Mule after a hard day in the archery range.
Several hours after sunset, the men's heads are beginning to nod into their tankards, and Calahdra starts ordering them off to their beds in the stables. Lothíriel and Éomer have found their moment of near-privacy in two armchairs at the hearthside, and Éomer has a book in his lap – their heads are bent together, and if the Shieldmaiden strains her ears just a little, she finds that Lothíriel is providing additional narrative to the Númenorean legend he is reading aloud.
Calahdra gathers herself and decides to walk the covered porch and promenade to the stable one last time before bed. She catches a drunken Eldric cast her a pleading gaze, but she ignores it. There was something about that last night in the woods that soured her stomach – how he had sought her out, and not feigned a polite request. The action had been expected and route for him, and Calahdra cannot bear the thought of both parties seeking comfort from one another mindlessly.
It has stopped raining outside – now there is only an occasional spurt of mist – but the water-level remains high. Gentle undulating waves of floodwater lap at the raised porch, and all manner of small creatures have sought refuge under the eaves of the tavern – toads, a chipmunk, a particularly large slug. But no snakes or eels or lizards.
Through the dark and down the main road, she spies a small collection of shops and a market square, but no humans. They are likely all abed, cuddled up themselves in front of warm fires.
The horses and early sleepers are dozing too, and only a chicken startles when she creeps into the stable's side door. She pads silently to Ellerocco, who is swaying gently on his hooves in sleep. Calahdra gently prods his mind with hers, and because he is quite used to both her physical and metaphysical touch, he is not disturbed. Calahdra sees green grass and a long, winding river in Ellerocco's dream, and the flashing tales of wild mares running from him in the distance. The last of the men arrive behind her and settle into the hay beside their comrades with exaggerated yawns.
"All my chicks are well," she thinks, and she returns to the tavern. When she does, she finds that the two armchairs are empty, and one book is draped over an arm. When she ascends the stairs to the guest chambers, the door to Éomer's room is closed. Lothíriel's door is slightly ajar, and Calahdra can tell from the silence within that no one is home.
She is not concerned – she knows those chicks are safe in bed too.
Lothíriel unwraps her headscarf a bit timidly, despite the fact that Éomer had never seen her in one before – it is not as though she is revealing some secret part of herself to her betrothed.
Éomer knows her shyness merely stems from the fact that they are alone, and in a bedroom together, for the first time since he broke into her dressing room to apologize for his rude introduction so many weeks ago.
He is also confident that she – they – will honor their commitment to her father and her people during their very public betrothal. Their coupling will be reserved for their wedding day, and oh how glad he will be when that day arrives.
Because even in dove grey wool, and still somewhat muddy from their travels, Lothíriel is a precious and brilliant thing to him. Her appearance and manner are riddled with fascinating contradictions – her skin is intensely fair, like his own sister's, yet her hair is nearly black and her eyes are dark cerulean. Her gestures are gentle and methodical, and yet when she speaks freely, she has the tendency to say just a little too much: Some line she has read in a book, or a piece of wisdom shared with her by one of Ulmo's priests will come unbidden, and if she catches herself, she will flush with the faintest embarrassment. When Calahdra is schooling her in knife play, Lothíriel scarcely has the resolve to land a blow, for fear of harming her tutor – but when she is sitting tall upon a horse, or holding court with her citizens, there is a well of ferocity and courage within her that shines unbridled.
Now Lothíriel stands before him, where he is seated on the low double-bed, hands folded politely in his lap – and well placed so as to hide any improper gestures on his body's part. She is playing with a strand of her hair and looking coy – she swallows a bit anxiously and this jolts Éomer to attention. He pats the lumpy mattress beside him and Lothíriel sits, at once crossing her stockinged feet at the ankles.
"We need not do this, Loth'," he says. "There is no need to test the limits of your comfort,"
Lothíriel shakes her head a little. The story he had read – it had inspired her. Before she'd reached the landing, Éomer had likely thought they would part with a chaste kiss and separate to their corners. But she had clutched at his sleeve and bowed her head, and at once he had understood.
"Well," Éomer continues, and takes Lothíriel's newly calloused hand into his lap. "Then there's no need to rush, accept to unrun our own tiredness,"
The princess looks up at him through dark lashes – is there purple in her eyes? – and nods once.
"How do you stand it?" she asks, and his mind goes at once to the prospect of how he will manage not to conspire to bed her before their wedding. But he suspects this is not what his modest fiancée means.
"Stand what?"
"The utter ruin that riding does on one's legs,"
Éomer frowns. Stiffness - yes, they all felt that by now. But he could have been certain that after a week, she would have grown a little stronger.
"Show me," he says, and to his surprise, Lothíriel stands and proceeds to lift her skirt. Her stockings are long – and there is a particularly enticing black ribbon cinching them in place at mid-thigh – but then he sees that the cream skin above the stocking is marred with purple and red streaks, and crusted scabs the length of his hand.
He hears a small gasp fall from his lips, and he reaches out to run a fingertip along the chafing. Lothíriel recoils instinctively, hissing a little, but then drops her chin in shame. Éomer stands and moves to his saddle bag, where he has a bottle of jasmine oil and some beeswax stored.
"Your breaches – Calahdra took good care to check that they were of proper quality. But this is common. You need a good salve – and she wouldn't have thought to get it for you because her own skin has recently been rendered impervious," he says this last bit with a touch of wry disdain.
"Will it stop happening with time?"
Éomer thinks of something he should not say – that he wouldn't ever want the plush curves of her body to change such that she'd not be at risk of this. "Your skin will toughen yes, like callouses on hands and feet, but you'll always want to carry something for long rides. There's a reason even a King has these packed," and he winks and holds up the two small bottles.
Lothíriel blinks and sits herself on his bed, and Éomer kneels before her silently but probing her wide eyes for permission. She nods again, resolute, and pulls up her skirts just far enough that he can see the marks.
Éomer unties her left stocking with the appropriate balance of tenderness and propriety, and then proceeds to spread the jasmine oil on his fingers. When he presses them to the first lesion, Lothíriel winces out of pain and not unease and this helps to settle some of the butterflies in his heart – but certainly not all. Her unmarred skin is as smooth and warm as he had imagined, and when she tosses her head back just a little and closes her eyes – this stirs something within him he had not felt since long before the decision to journey south and pursue her hand. And then, when his fingers drift higher – to nearly the widest part of her thigh – her lips pop open audibly and a mewling noise drifts out.
"Ticklish," she states simply, and this nearly undoes him.
He proceeds to the other leg and the process repeats, only this time, she unconsciously points her toes in response to the sensation and her foot brushes against his side. Éomer is nearly overwhelmed by the urge to pick up her leg in both hands and press his lips to it.
The beeswax comes last, and because it is perhaps significantly less of an aphrodisiac than the jasmine oil, the ritual feels less trying. Until Éomer considers what it might be like to put other types of wax on her upper thigh.
He cannot help it that when he is through with this task, he shoots up off of his knees and to her like a thread through the eye of a needle, and takes her head in his hands with resolute passion. She stares up at him – so trusting, so intent.
"Let me kiss you so thoroughly, you forget you have ever felt pain,"
Lothíriel nods one last time that night.
Calahdra is laying utterly still, staring up and out into the clouded night sky – the last remnants of the hurricane are being carried by a quick wind. She has moved her bed beneath the window so that she might lie in the starlight even if she cannot sleep.
She is imagining Legolas – of course she is. Will this storm sweep rain up to Ithilien, or Eryn Lasgalen, or wherever he is? Will there be thunder, and will he still jump at the first roll of it?
Will they ever gaze at the stars together again?
Calahdra is disturbed by a shuffle of feet in the hall, and then the click of a latched door and turned lock. Calahdra smiles.
So Éomer, ever the honorable King, had mastered the art of extraordinary judgment. And Lothíriel, tender princess, had resisted the urge to cast her maidenhood away despite the luxury of finding the only properly sized bed they'd likely find in weeks.
"Foolish humans," she chuckles softly to herself, but Legolas' kind voice comes to her.
'Do not make fun, Calahdra. They are mortal and they treasure their virtues more dearly for it,'
Calahdra chortles at the ghost Legolas. "But their lives are so short – how can they bear to waste it with these waiting games?"
'Waste?' ghost Legolas chides. 'Aren't you waiting for me now? Do you think this is wasted time, or a small sacrifice that will make our reunion – or their union – even sweeter?'
Calahdra gulps. This Legolas does not know of her shortcomings. "You told me our betrothal was severed,"
'But I never told you to move on,'
She shivers. This experience is far too similar to another time, before Sauron's fall, when her powers grew unwieldy and she was visited by pernicious phantoms far too often.
"I must try, Legolas. I cannot spend immortality in this torment. I would not have chosen it if I had known this was my fate,"
'You knew this was your fate,'
"I knew it could be,"
The ghost is silent for a time, and a moonbeam shudders behind a wispy stratus cloud.
"What should I do, Legolas? Who can I be without you?"
This is not her Legolas, she knows this. This is a trick of her mind. But it still wounds her when he says, so simply. 'Nothing,'
In the room beside Calahdra's, a bedframe creaks. Calahdra knows it is wrong to intrude, but she desperately wants to distract herself from the demons rattling in the forgotten places of her brain, and so she listens carefully for Lothíriel. The princess is very quiet, and for a moment, she wonders if she is already asleep. But then a soft sigh issues into the night, followed by a name.
"Éomer,"
Calahdra redoubles her focus on the ghost Legolas and frowns. "No," she whispers allowed. "Not nothing. A protector to this woman – a Shieldmaiden to a Queen,"