Chapter 1 

A week later, we were all packed and ready to leave.  Actually, we had been ready to leave a few days earlier, and would have, had it not been for Mother's desperate attempts to stall Father.  However, that morning he had caught Aredhel and that stablehand doing something (he refused to tell us what, and only went very red in the face when we asked).  He declared that she proved city life was not fit for raising a young lady, and that living in a rural area would do much more for her character.  I asked what it would do for me, seeing as I was not a young lady and there was no way I could train to be a knight, which would definitely improve my character.  He told me to keep my mouth shut, and to concentrate on my studies, lest I grow up to be a complete idiot.

        So, without further delay, we set out that dreary April morning, amid tearful farewells as the women and my father piled into a carriage and I rode behind.

        Anyone who did not know what was going on would have thought we were going off to our deaths, preferably an honorable martyrdom.  In some ways I had begun to see it as that.

        Now, anyone who knows the geography of Middle Earth would have thought we would head northwest toward the Gap of Rohan, but on the second evening, I noticed the sun was still setting right in front of us.  I questioned my father, and he confessed that one of the only reasons Mother agreed to go was that he promised her they could stop at Edoras so she could see her "dear childhood friend," Lothiriel, who had wedded Èomer, King of Rohan.  I had thought Mother gave in too quickly to Father, and I told him so.  He cuffed me on the side of the head, and I heard a cry of "Don't hit the children, Orodreth!" come from the inside of the carriage.  Mother was not a believer in corporal punishment.

        A few days later, Edoras came in sight.  Aredhel sniffed, saying it only made sense that such a primitive nation such as Rohan was would have a village for a capital.  Father scolded her and began to give her the glorious history of the House of Eorl the Young.  Mother said nothing.  It was well known in my house that she had never wholly approved of Lothiriel's choice for a husband, but loved her all the same. 

Two royal guards on horses soon approached our caravan, but we were allowed to enter Edoras without a long interrogation.  It seems that after the "no foreigners" policy before the War of the Ring, the Rohirrim are making up for the lack of hospitality.

We entered the Golden Hall of Meduseld to the warm greetings of Lothiriel and Èomer.  My mother embraced her friend, and they immediately went over to a table and started chatting about the newest gossip as if they had never been parted.  Aredhel sat with them, gossiping being her favorite past time.  Lalaith clambered up onto Mother's lap. 

I found Nim staring at another woman with long golden hair.  She was talking with our father and Èomer with two young boys in tow. 

"It's the Lady Èowyn," Nim breathed.  The White Lady had long been her idol.  She saw her as the Ultimate Tomboy, I suppose.  My father soon caught sight of us, and waved us over.  He introduced us, and Èowyn asked me if I was training to be a knight.

"Y-yes, milady," I stammered, embarrassed to be asked this by one of the greatest warriors of my time.  She caught sight of little Nim peeking out from behind me, and immediately started going on about how adorable she was, and wasn't she just the little lady.  I got the feeling that she wished that she had a daughter of her own.

"Begging your pardon, milady, but I want to be a knight like my big brother D'yor when I get older," she told her shyly.  The Lady paused in wonder for a moment, and then laughed out loud.  She turned to my father.

"Well, my Lord, I wish you the best of luck with this one, if she is as much of a handful as I was." With that she herded Nim and her own sons, Barahir and Elboron, outside to play.  I stayed with the adults and learned that Èowyn was in Edoras visiting with her boys (she said because she wanted them to keep in touch with their Rohirrim blood) while her husband, Faramir Prince of Ithilien, remained home to take care of affairs.   

I had been listening to them talk leisurely for ten minutes when I heard yells from outside.  Everyone rushed out to find that at the bottom of the main stairs, my little sister had pinned Barahir facedown in the dirt with his arm twisted behind his back.  Elboron was staring at her in shock.

"Take it back!  Take it back, scum!" she was shouting at him.

"Gerroff me!  GERROFF MEE!!" he cried.  Hastily I hurried down and untangled them, Nim's arms windmilling as she tried to get back at him.

"Why on earth did you do this?" my father roared as he grabbed Nim and held her by her shoulders.  Now that I got a good look at her, her face was smudged with dirt, and her dress as well, with a few tears in it.  She met his eyes and began to speak very calmly.

"Barahir called you a fat loon, father.  I must defend the honor of the family," she stated.  Father was flabbergasted.

"But—but where did you learn to fight?!"

"D'yor taught me."

I most desperately wanted to crawl into a hole right then.

Mother came rushing up, nearly in tears.  "Go apologize to him right now, young lady!"

Without hesitation she walked up to Barahir and Èowyn, who was wiping his face off.  "I'm sorry, Barahir.  I lost my temper.  Let's be friends." She extended her grubby hand and he tentatively took it.  She smiled at him.  Mother and Lady Èowyn escorted their children inside, scolding both of them as they went.  Father turned to me, and I knew I was in for a long lecture the moment he found time for it.  Then he turned to the King and apologized for his daughter's overzealous sense of family honor.  He said not to worry.  I thought he must be used to that sort of behavior in girls, seeing as his own sister slew the Witch King.

It was all forgotten that night, save by my mother who kept Nim by her side all through supper, and Aredhel, who seemed permanently mortified.  Secretly I was proud of Nim, and I think Father was too.  However, I did not get a chance to ask him, for Mother shooed the girls and I to bed after Father, under the influence of many mugs of beer, decided to switch from reciting the relatively safe "Tale of Tùrin" to rowdy alehouse songs he had learned in his younger days.  Thank goodness Mother never noticed we could hear him from our beds, or we would have had to sleep in the stable.

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