Authors' Notes: I began this story January '03, and finished it that December, and while it may not be the great fic ever written, the readers I had on the diary site it was posted on very much enjoyed it, and I made some great friends through it! I believe my writing has improved greatly since then, but I still love this "child" of mine, spelling, grammar, slight canon issues and all, lol. Because it marks one of the first times when I let myself be totally lost in a story, lost in words and characters and just writing like there was no tomorrow...
This stoy is almost entirely book based, regarding any scenes from the canon. For 12 months, a copy of ROTK rested by my computer, obsessively thumbed through late into the night...ahem, anyway.
I own nothing from the canon, if I did, this would be between to covers regardless of whether or not it was awful, hehehe, I'd have the money for such self indulgence....but I don't....so I don't =P.
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Wildflowers
By May
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"You belong somewhere you feel free..."
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"In the last year of the Third Age, Eomer wedded Lothiriel, daughter of Imrahil..."
The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King
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3011 of the Third Age
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The wind was strong that day. A little colder then usual as well, but the girl-child of ten years old didn't mind. She just stubbornly pushed her dark hair out of her face, scampering about in the melting snow, trying to find what flowers had bravely pushed forth their petals. On any other day, Lothiriel wouldn't have bothered the flowers, content to let them grow and multiply. But today was different. Today was her mother's birthday, and today she wanted to bring her flowers.
After a while, she eyed the bunch in her hands. They weren't much, but her mother would like them. After the winter they'd had, she was lucky to have found so many. Expertly, for she had been at it since she could walk, Lothiriel hurried down the rocky path she had come up by. The farm she had grown up on was a small one, tucked into the high mountains that bordered Rohan, and she had known no other home before it. It was her whole world...for the time being.
Hurrying into the well-kept farmyard, she stopped to pet the nose of a little white pony that was sniffing about for new spring grass. "Not long, little one." She smiled, "Not long, and it will be green again." Then she made her way around to the back of the small stone cottage, where it seemed somehow warmer, somehow sweeter.
She dropped to her knees before a small headstone; a thistle flower carved upon it the only markings. "Happy Birthday mother." Lothiriel said quite naturally, setting the flowers down. "It is a beautiful day. Best we've had this year in fact!" She brushed at her messy hair, as though her mother's blue eyes were upon her. "Edemer is growing quickly. He's nearly taller then Da! He looks a lot like Da..."
Lothiriel's eyes grew misty. "Da...Mama, I'm worried about Da. He is so pale lately. He can't move as quickly as he once could...but don't worry Mama, I'll take good care of him. I promise." She looked up when she heard hooves in the front yard. "I must go make dinner for Da and Edemer now Mama." Lothiriel kissed her fingers, and pressed them to the thistle flower. Then she rose, brushing her cotton skirts and running through the back door to make dinner....
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Lothiriel did not have many memories of her mother, most of what she knew was told to her by her elder brother, Edemer, who'd been nine the six years before, when Lethemine died. She had not looked much like their father, short, wispy and dark-haired, he tall and strong with flowing golden locks, which were now starting to be touched with grey. Yes, Eodier was much older then Lethemine had been, 18 years in fact. It had been a sad surprise when she had passed first, while carrying a third little child who also did not live.
What Lothiriel had found in the memory of her mother was that they had both cared for her father and brother; they had both been the women of this farm. It made them close, even if she barely remembered her.
Now the dark was beginning to come along when her father and Edemer came in from tending the evening work. Lothiriel was just dishing hot stew into their bowls, and Eodier rested a work-worn hand on her dark head before moving to wash his hands, Edemer following his lead. Lothiriel set a loaf of bread on the table, and waited for her father and brother to take their seats.
Eodier took his time washing his hands; it seemed to his daughter that he had been so slow to doing things as of late. She met the eyes of her brother. She could tell he worried as well. But neither spoke of it. Eodier took his place at the head of the table, and they sat.
"The bread tastes well, Lothiriel." He said after they had blessed the meal, dunking a slice in his stew. He knew what that meant to her, as the loaf had most likely been made with the last scrapings from the wheat sack. Lothiriel smiled. "Soon we will have more wheat, right father?"
Eodier was quite for a moment. "It must be fine and warm in the plains right about now. The grass good and green...you children have never been far off the mountains have you? No, no you have not..." He seemed to be thinking aloud, swallowing his meal while his children did the same, listening silently and wondering what he was thinking of with his words. "The sea...the sea is a place I have not seen in years. It would do you children well to see the sea." He smiled at them. "Maybe, this summer we shall go there."
"Could we really spare to leave the farm, father?" Edemer asked then, taking a gulp of water. Eodier was silent again. "We may yet Edemer, that we may." He smiled then. "Ah you poor children, trapped with a rambling old man for a father. I trust you wished your mother a happy birthday Lothiriel?" She nodded. "Aye good. She would have been 34 today." His eyes seemed cloudy for a moment. "My Lethemine." His smile returned. "I thing you're growing to look like her, Lothy. Sure enough you can cook like her!"
This brought a giggle to Lothiriel. The rest of the meal was cozy and warm, like it was most any other night.
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Then came the cleaning up and dressing for bed. Lothiriel, from her bed that was quickly getting too short for her, watched her father sit by the fire, smoking his pipe. He did not gaze at the flames in his usual, relaxing manner. He seemed troubled by something. Suddenly he looked up, to see her watching him.
"Can't sleep Lothy?" He asked, smiling. She just blinked from under her quilts. "Father, are you all right?" Eodier's smile turned sad, and he came to his daughter's bed and lay a kiss on her forehead.
"I haven't been feeling my best, my girl." He admitted in a whisper. "But I meant what I said, we will go to see the sea, very soon." Lothy's eyes were suddenly bright.
"Really?!" She breathed. Eodier nodded. "Very soon, I promise. Now sleep, another day of work awaits us."
Lothiriel hugged her father, smelling tobacco and leathers and the outside, a comforting smell, a smell that meant her father. That meant home. That meant Love. Then she turned to her pillows, and Eodier slowly made his way to his bed, wincing as he did so. Yes, they must make for the sea very soon. Or it might be too late...
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At the rising of the sun, Lothiriel was up and getting breakfast to her men, and then Eodier and Edemer were out to the plow the few fields. Up in the mountain where they lived, there were few places to grow things, but then they did not need much for their little family. Despite the rocks and wind Eodier kept their farm growing every year.
Lothiriel began her daily work of making the beds and sweeping the hard packed dirt floor. Today she would also wash their clothes, and mend as needed. The sun was climbing in the sky, melting the snow in all but the most shadowy places. Lothiriel hauled out the wash water, not an easy task for someone her size. But she was hardy for her age, and rarely complained over something she'd grown so used to doing as laundry.
Only one tree grew in the uneven yard, and from it she hung the wash line to the house and began hanging wet tunics and shirts and skirts to dry. When that was done, she settled on the tree's exposed roots to mend some of Edemer's leathers, which really would need replacing soon. As she mended she thought about things, many of which most girls her age didn't bother to think on yet. She wondered how to get Edemer new riding leathers, how to make the wheat last a few weeks more, and what was ailing her father.
It had been a few
years since Lothiriel had thought on things such as play and idle
hands. As soon as she was strong enough, Eodier really had had no
choice but to teach her housework. They needed to eat, he needed to be
in the fields, and Lothiriel had not complained when Edemer had left
her alone to help their father work. She had been 7 years old then. 7
years old, and baking bread and sweeping floors, Eodier checking in on
her now and then. Now she was as capable as any housewife in Rohan, and
she was proud of that.
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The lunch hour was coming on, and she hurried inside to get bread on the table. As an after thought, she set out butter as well for a treat. They saved it these days; the cow was slowly going dry. But today was so warm and bright; it seemed a good day for a treat.
Eodier and Edemer came in and Lothy nodded to the table, juggling the basket of mended clothes on her small hip. "There, and it's been keeping nice and fresh too!" She set the basket in the corner. "Edemer, you'll be needed a new set of riding leathers soon...I'm not sure I can keep them mended."
"We'll get a new pair in Dol Amroth." Eodier smiled,
eating his lunch, though he winced and absently rubbed at his arm,
"When we go there next week." Lothiriel clapped her hands. "Oh will we
really?! Oh my, Edemer, we're going to the sea!" Edemer looked a bit
bewildered, but Eodier just rose from the table, wiping his mouth. "Yes
children, yes, but we must keep at our work now. We'll talk of this
later." Edemer finished his lunch and hurried out the door after his
father.
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Lothiriel went to the wash line, happy to find the laundry dry and fluttering in the mountain wind. Taking each thing down and folding it neatly in her basket took time, but she valued having things nice and crisp for her father and brother. It was mid afternoon when she finished, and as she carried her basket in, the sun slipped behind gathering clouds. A sudden gust of cold wind surprised her, tossing her hair in her face. She turned away from it, looking to the path that led into the hills. She heard a horse cry, a familiar one at that. She squinted, looking up the rocky hills toward the field. Barely she could make out a rider coming swiftly toward the farm, and before long she realized that it was Edemer, and something before him. The basket of clean laundry hit the dirt.
"DA!" Her scream echoed on the rocky hills...
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The great brown workhorse was foaming and spent when Edemer finally got to the farmyard, and Lothiriel was white as a sheet. Though 15 years old, Edemer shouldered the weight of their big strong father, who was now looking as if death had taken him. His breathing assured them otherwise.
"He...he just fell over in the field, grasping at his chest." Edemer breathed, pulling Eodier into the house and to his bed. "He couldn't breathe, I...I didn't know what to do." He wiped the sweat from his brow as he lay his father down, and Lothiriel nearly slapped herself for the tears that were coming.
"I'll boil water...and get out the herbs..." She did the only thing she knew to do, and then hurried to her father's side. He felt fevered, his breathing was shallow, and it smelled as if he had lost his noon meal in the field. "I do not know what is wrong...he seemed fine at lunch!"
"Maybe
it is as he said Grandfather di..." He stopped himself, "Maybe his
heart went out, as with his father." Lothiriel trembled, but went back
to the hot water and made up a cup of strong smelling tea from roots
and herbs. Her father had often given them such when they became ill,
perhaps it would work here. She drew the bed table close to his side
and set the tea by his face, letting the vapors reach him. His
breathing became steadier, the vapor clearing his lungs and settling
his stomach. But he did not awake.
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For hours, Edemer and Lothiriel sat at their father's bedside, watching for any sign of awakening. Night came on, and, exhausted, Edemer fell asleep. Lothiriel numbly remembered the horse then, and went outside to see him. She put the poor beast back in their tiny barn, though he looked as if he'd rather just die at that point. The old workhorse hadn't run like that in years, and then never with both her father and brother.
She went back to the house, and at her closing of the door Eodier stirred. She was at his side in a moment, as his eyes blearily fluttered open. "Lothy?"
"Yes, da, I'm here." She said, her voice quivering. He reached up weakly, almost painfully, to touch her hair.
"You got this from her you know...you go there, they'll know you right away. Might not know Edemer, looks too much like me...but you..." He sighed, slowing his breathing.
"Da, what do you...?" Her voice seemed so small to her. Eodier opened his eyes again, as if forcing himself to stay lucid.
"Lothy...you must go to Dol Amroth with your brother. Do you understand?"
She shook her head. "But, you're sick, we can't..."
"You MUST go, Lothy!" He coughed, settled back in his pillows, again steadying his breath. "I don't want to scare you Lothy, but, you have to be stronger then you've ever been before. Can you do that?" A tear slipped down her little face, but she nodded. "All right now...Lothy, your mother...your mother was a princess." At her wide eyes, Eodier nodded slightly. "Yes my child, she was, a beautiful princess from the sea. Do you know how she came here?" Another pause for labored breath, "She loved me, Lothy. She loved me enough to come into these mountains and never see the sea again." Lothiriel gulped, and he went on. "When you are in Dol Amroth Lothy, speak her name, and you will be welcomed. You will be a princess Lothy!" Another cough, and Lothiriel put her hands on his chest.
"I don't want to leave you..." But he stopped her. "Lothy you won't be leaving me." He looked right into her grey-blue eyes, wet with unshed tears. "And I will never leave you." Slowly, she understood. She nodded, but the tears came. They came unchecked, and she wept at her father's bedside. He rested his hands in her hair, tears in his own eyes.
"I love you Lothy..."
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