A/N: hooray! nawat revived! erynlann (my muse for tmmdts) is very glad, because that means he gets a much-deserved vacation. speaking of which, thankies muchly everyone who reviewed tmmdts. this is a companion story to it, but i don't think it will really matter if you haven't read it yet...but if you haven't read tmmdts, please do, and let me know what you think!
disclaimer i own nothing of tolkien's stuff. everything belongs to him except theodwyn, harrana, riordan, and kedar and my interepretation of harad.
Prologue
F.A. 0069
"Nani! Nani!" cried the little girl.
"What is it, Aela, darling?" asked the grey-haired lady as she came into the room.
"I cannae sleep. Tell me a story?" the child pleaded.
"Which one?"
"The Windchasers!"
"Again? But, Aela, I told it to you just the other night."
"I know, Nani, but it's my favorite!"
The lady sighed and sat down on the bed. "Alright, but then you must go to sleep. Now, where do I begin?"
"Once upon a time," the girl instructed as she nestled into the familiar warmth of her grandmother's arms.
"Ah, yes," said the lady, "now I remember. Once upon a time...."
Once upon a time (said the grey-haired lady) in the far away land of Rohan, there lived a princess named Theodwyn. She was a pretty lass. She looked like her mother, Queen Lothiriel, with the exception of her hair, which was a dark golden-brown. She had a twin brother named Elfwine, who also looked like their Amrothian ancestors, but his hair was bright as the sun. They had no other siblings, but had many cousins, all of which were several years older than they were, for the queen lost three children in childbirth before being blessed by the twins.
Theodwyn grew up among her ten cousins (for the four children of King Elessar and Queen Arwen were also counted amongst the extended family of the Amrothian nobility), but she was not always happy. Elfwine was able to play alongside the elder boys, especially Aldor, the son of Eowyn and Faramir, who was only two years older, but Theodwyn was left out more often than not, because the other girls were all four years older than she.
And so Theodwyn oft played alone, or with the children of the commoners rather than the nobility, which resulted in her knowing much more of the ways of the world than the others. Had they taken the time to find out, they would have learned that Theodwyn knew how to curse fluently in four languages (Common, Rohirric, Sindarin, and Haradic), could throw daggers blindfolded and still hit the target, and had kissed not just one, but several boys all by the time she turned fourteen. The only person in her family that knew all of this was, of course, her aunt, Lady Eowyn of Ithilien. They were close, nearly kindred spirits, though their ages were quite far apart. Which is perhaps why Theodwyn was asked to visit Harad on her aunt's yearly trip when the princess turned seventeen.
Theodwyn had never been outside of the Free Kingdoms, as Rohan and Gondor were now called, so she jumped at the chance to go traveling. She had always wanted to visit Harad, for she had heard the story of the Lady Harrana many times. She knew that Lady Harrana and Lord Riordan now ruled the great kingdom and that they had two sons, Kedar and Fellide, but she had never met any of them.
And so she packed her bags, eagerly awaiting the adventures she was sure to have in the Land of the South. She hoped for new friends among the desert people, perhaps nobility closer to her own age that she could bring back to Rohan someday. She doubted she would have much chance to meet the common people: the social system of Harad was far more strict than that of the relaxed familiarity of Rohan, though Eowyn had told her that it, too, had relaxed some with the recent integration of a few Riders that had followed Lord Riordan.
Theodwyn smiled; this would be a tale to tell her grandchildren.
A/N (again): it's starting off a bit slow, but hopefully it'll pick up speed as i go along. next up, braving the heat of harad, and we are introduced to people both old and new. please tell me what you think! you know you want to push that little button in the corner!