It was too late to start the journey home. Since the Eored had already made camp for the night before their unexpected guest had arrived, they decided to stick to the original plan and ride to Aldburg the next morning. This meant that Emma would spend the night sleeping on the floor surrounded by men she did not trust. Ordinarily, Emma was not the type to complain about roughing it. She preferred to be inside her apartment with her soft pillows, warm baths, and wifi; but she understood that sometimes you couldn't have everything your way. While she wasn't a camper she could suck it up and just let things fly, usually. But expecting her to be unaffected in this situation was entirely too much. She was in a fictional story; a very dangerous fictional story. Why couldn't she have been dropped into Pride and Prejudice or one of the fluffy romance novels she read? She was cold, dirty, and injured. She was worried about her family: did they think she was dead, or missing, or murdered? Oh god, my mom must be a mess right now. And she was surrounded by brutish men who were as likely to assault her as not, she didn't believe for a second that they wouldn't take advantage of her current vulnerability. While she knew Eomer from the movies was on Frodo's side, that didn't mean he didn't share the medieval values that saw woman as property to be used for sex and procreation. The fact that he would "protect" her by keeping her alive didn't mean he would stop his men from taking advantage of her- or that he wouldn't do so himself. This was not going to a restful night.

As she stood in the middle of the clearing, trying to figure out what to do with herself, the man named Declan approached her.

"Excuse me my lady," Emma tried to get used to being addressed as such, "unfortunately we do not have accommodations fit for a woman; we are riders and soldiers and are used to living roughly while on patrol. But there is a spot near the fire that is warm and you can have my bedroll and blanket, hopefully it will be better than nothing.

Emma remembered this man, he seemed to be kinder than the other men she had met so far, she gave him a small smile and nodded, "I wouldn't want to put you out, you'll have nowhere to sleep then."

"Not a problem, my lady, we take turns keeping watch through the night, I will share with whoever is set to take watch after me," he replied.

"Well then, thank you very much. I really appreciate it." Declan smiled and gestured in the direction of the bedroll, he offered her food and water but she was in no state to eat anything at the moment. She tried her best to believe that this man, at least, would keep her safe for the night. Despite her unease she quickly fell asleep, her head was pounding and even her anxiety wasn't enough to overcome the tiredness she felt after an altogether too eventful night.

After an estimated three hours of sleep, the camp began to move again. The sun hadn't even risen yet but Emma could hear the sounds of the men moving around, rolling up bedrolls, saddling horses, and cooking breakfast. She sat up, might as well stop pretending to get any sort of rest, and was approached once again by Declan. The other men seemed to have made a pact to give her a wide berth, maybe on some other occasion she would have been offended but instead she was grateful. Declan handed her a bowl of mush, "I'm sorry it isn't much, my Lady, but it's all we've got left of our rations."

"No, this is fine Declan, thank you very much," Emma said with as much cheer as she could muster. She took a bite of the mush and found it tasted about as appetizing as it looked. It was overall bland and flavorless, but she ate it in silence, thinking about what the hell she was supposed to do here.

"We're about to leave," Eomer spoke this time, "since you do not have appropriate clothing you can wear my cloak, once we arrive at the hall you can borrow one of my sister's dresses until we can have some made for you, they will probably be too long," he said as he eyed her short frame, "but they'll be better than this," he gestured to her jeans and ratty hoody. All of this was said in an uncaring and condescending manner. Emma suspected that Eomer saw her as a burden that had been thrust upon him by fate and had no regard for how she might be feeling.

"Alright," she said.

Eomer frowned, "you said last night you do not ride," Emma noticed the condescension was back, from what she remembered the people of Rohan were particular about their horses and her inability to ride must make her look like a complete fool in his eyes.

"No, I've never ridden a horse," Eomer lifted his eyebrow.

"Very well, you'll have to ride with me," he sighed.

"With you? Can't I ride with Declan?" At least he was nice to her.

Eomer once again frowned at her, "I'm not here to indulge your crushes, Declan has better things to do than try to keep you from falling off his horse."

"And you don't?" She retorted, there was only so much patronizing she could take.

He glared at her, "I have many more important things to do, but I have sworn to protect you and I will keep my word. You will ride with me," it was not a request. Emma rolled her eyes, but she was too tired and achy to continue to fight.

When camp was all packed up and the riders were ready to head home, Emma approached Eomer and the incredibly oversized horse he stood next to. She eyed the horse warily.

"This is Firefoot. He is temperamental, he doesn't like strangers."

"It's a good thing I'm going to be riding him then," she replied sarcastically.

"Do as I say and he won't hurt you," Eomer bit out. "You can mount first."

Emma eyed the tall horse warily, she didn't think she could even reach high enough to get her foot in the stirrup. Eomer sighed, he grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her on the horse like a bag of potatoes. She sat clumsily on the saddle, she couldn't have looked more uncomfortable on the horse if she tried. She saw some of the other riders trying to hold back chuckles.

"I cannot believe you have never been on a horse," Eomer said as he mounted behind her.

"Yeah well, I'm from Los Angeles, we don't travel by horse."

"What do you use to travel then?" He said with mild contempt. Emma tried not to react when he reached around her to grab the reigns.

"We drive cars," at his silence she continued, "oh god it's difficult to explain I guess, I think Gandalf described it as a magical carriage, it's like a cart that is powered by technology, it doesn't need to be pulled by horses or people or anything."

"You're right, it is difficult to explain," Eomer said, clearly not picturing what her words were describing.

"Well, what's important I guess is that I've never really been near a horse. I mean, people have them I guess but not where I live, it's too large a city."

"Like Edoras, I suppose," Eomer questioned.

"Bigger, I think. Millions of people live in LA." Eomer let out a chuckle, clearly he thought she was exaggerating. "I'm not kidding," Emma continued, "literally millions of people."

Eomer was appalled, "that's completely unbelievable," he responded.

"Yeah well, when I said I came from a different world I meant it, it is very different."

Eomer was silent, it seemed like the small talk portion of the ride was over. The Eored began to pick up its pace. Soon they were galloping over the wide expanse of flat land. It was very Little House on the Prairie. Emma was bouncing on the seat uncomfortably, her ass, which was already hurting from her fall last night, felt like it was being hit with a paddle over and over. She would be feeling this ride for a very, very long time, and not in a good way.

"God, I never expected to agree with the song Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy so much," she mumbled.

"What was that?" Eomer questioned behind her.

"Nothing, this is just not a pleasant way to travel."

"You're too rigid, you need to relax," Eomer tried to give her some other riding tips but they had hit a particularly bumpy part of the land and all she could focus on was the way his grip tightened around her. One thing was for sure, he was determined not to drop her and she couldn't help but melt just a little at the feeling of his arms wrapped around her. It's been a while, okay? Sue her.

Many, many, hours later, Emma could finally see signs of civilization in the distance. They'd stopped a couple times to rest the horses and Emma had to experience the joys of peeing in the woods with no TP, but finally she saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Eomer reminded her to make sure her cloak covered all of her clothing as they approached the gates of Aldburg. She did as he said, too tired to start a fight with him.

The riders passed through the gates and towards a large building at the top of a hill which Emma guessed must be the great hall. Emma imagined that in other circumstances she might have admired the stonework, carvings, or tapestries of the castle-like structure, but she was in no mood to care for architecture at the moment. She let Eomer lift her off Firefoot and followed after him as he handed off the reigns to another rider. They arrived at the front door where a middle-aged woman stood, ready to greet her master.

"We are overjoyed to see you safely returned my lord," she said.

"Sinead, you practically raised me, you know better than to call me my lord," he said with fondness.

"Yes well, it seems we are before a guest," she looked in Emma's direction, "it's only proper." There was a clear question in her manner.

"Ah yes, Sinead this is Lady Emma," Eomer proceeded to recite the fabricated story they had come up with last night... "If you could please prepare a guest chamber for her and find her one of Eowyn's dresses to borrow. I'm afraid all of her belongings were lost in the Orc raid."

"Of course, Eomer, she'll be well taken care of here," she turned to Emma, "follow me, my lady," and she began to walk into the hall.

"Oh, miss...Sinead...you can just call me Emma," she responded as she followed behind.

"It is just Sinead, my lady." Emma noted that Sinead did not respond to her request to be called Emma, and she didn't repeat herself for fear of offending the woman who seemed to be in charge of the hall.

"Oh, alright. Thank you for everything Sinead."

"I am just following orders, my lady." That seemed a bit pointed, and Emma got the same feeling she had with Eadgar, that perhaps this woman didn't like her very much at all. They arrived at a door, Sinead unlocked it and stepped into a bedroom. It was plain, with sturdy but sensible furniture and comfortable looking linens. Emma noted that there was a section portioned off in the corner.

"I will go get you a few of Lady Eowyn's gowns for you to wear while we make up some more appropriate clothing for you," Sinead said, Emma wondered if she'd caught a glimpse of her jeans under her cloak.

"Right, thank you so much Sinead," she tried to give the woman her most genuine smile. She got a short nod of Sinead's head for her efforts. While she was gone she took the opportunity to investigate the sectioned-off corner of the room. In the corner, there was a large metal tub that must be meant for bathing, it wasn't large enough to lay in though. There was a pitcher as well, Emma deduced that she would stand in the tub and use the water in the pitcher to wash. There was also a chamber pot, which Emma was displeased to find. What was the etiquette of using a chamber pot? She felt uncomfortable at the thought of a maid handling her...business...but what was she supposed to do otherwise? She wished she had someone to ask, or that Jane Austen had given a bit more details of the more intimate side of life before flushable toilets.

Sinead returned with a couple of well-made but plain gowns, one in an olive green and the other in the ugliest shade of brown Emma had ever seen. These would look awful on her, and Emma imagined that Sinead had brought her the worst garments in Eowyn's closet. She also had some underthings and a nightgown.

"I can have one of the maids prepare some water if you wish to wash yourself," Sinead looked pointedly at Emma's dirty face and hands.

"That would be lovely, thank you so much," Emma smiled. Sinead gave her another expressionless nod of her head and left.

Emma spent the evening washing herself exactly the way she imagined and ate a meal Sinead had brought up for her. Then she changed into her nightgown and fell into bed. It wasn't exactly memory foam but it beat the hard ground by a mile, and she was dead to the world within a few minutes.