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When Imrahil saw his niece return to the City, helping to bear the body of Eowyn, he gasped.
"Have the women of Rohan come to our aid as well?" He cried, but Lothiriel shook her head.
"Nay, only one." She smiled wistfully, sadly, "She is The Lady Eowyn, sister to Eomer King, they knew not of her riding."
"So beautiful, she is..." He sighed sadly, bending to look on her...and then his face changed, he frowned, touching her face. He suddenly looked alarmed. "Lothiriel, she is not dead!" He looked to the other bearers, "Her breath lingers still! Hasten to bring her to the healers!"
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Lothiriel felt hope surge within her, and she hurried to do so...then realized her Uncle was making for the Gate.
"The rest of the army rides, Lothy!" He called, and she nodded. Then she turned, hurrying to bring Eowyn to the Houses of Healing, as rain began to fall around her, and the fires of the City were at last quelled ...
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Upon lying Eowyn on her bed in the Houses of Healing, Lothiriel realized, with a glad cry, that her cousin Faramir still lived also. She hurried to kneel at his side on the other bed in the room, and though he was fevered and warm, he drew breath still.

"We are skilled in healing..." A tired female voice said, and the princess looked up to see an elderly woman looking down at him, her arms filled with bloodied rags from tending the wounded. Ioreth she was, Lothiriel remembered. "But this fever is beyond us." Ioreth then looked upon Lothiriel. "By the Valar child, were you not wearing a helmet out there?!"

Lothiriel touched her temple, and winced. "It's nothing..."
"I'll say when it is nothing." Ioreth said firmly, but Lothiriel shook her head.
"Tend my cousin and the Lady Eowyn, they are far worse then I."
"Princess Lothiriel, I have seen more men then I could count die today, it would be a welcome chance to mend a scratch." Ioreth maintained, "And if you ignore that black-rimmed tear, you may just come to the same fate as your cousin has."

Lothiriel gulped, then nodded. Ioreth dropped her basket of herbs and rags on the floor, and sat on the edge of Faramir's bed before Lothiriel. Dipping a clean rag into the basin beside the bed, the healer cleaned the small wound, and with a hiss Lothiriel realized how painfully it stung, almost burned. "Black Poison." Ioreth nodded, "You're lucky this is just a small cut, Lady Lothiriel. It has only barely entered your blood." She took out a small knife, and Lothiriel winced as she cut away the tiny black edges around the wound. "There." Ioreth sighed, pressing a new clean rag to the wound. "Keep that there for a few moments, and the bleeding will be stopped."

"Thank you." Lothiriel whispered, looking back at her cousin, and then, to the Lady Eowyn. Ioreth dipped her head.

"You are a brave woman." The healer told her, "It would be good for you to take some rest now, for I know you have not slept for some time."

"No." she shook her head, "No I do want to leave them yet..."

Ioreth nodded. "Well, at least clean yourself up a little, I promise that you'll feel refreshed." And then the healer was looking up, as the doors in the lower level of the Healing House opened to let in more wounded and dying. "I must go..."
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Lothiriel did do as the healer suggested, removing her armor and washing her face and hands and hair. She found a clean, simple pale blue healer's gown to replace her own battle stained men's clothes, though she kept her boots on under it. Through the morning, she went between Faramir and Eowyn, bathing her cousin's burning face or holding the Lady's hand, wishing for any sign of life other then the faint breath that stirred within her. It was Lothiriel who, under Ioreth's eye, wrapped Eowyn's broken arm, the Princess wanting to make herself of use even if she was not on the Battlefield. She would care for Eowyn, as was Eomer's request of her...

Eventually Eowyn's Hobbit companion...Merry...was brought in by the Wizard and Pippin, and he too came into Lothiriel's care, as Ioreth's other women were tending the wounded of Gondor and Rohan below.

Despite herself, Lothiriel did fall asleep once...she was holding vigil by Eowyn at the midmorning hour, when weariness overcame her and her eyes shut to rest...
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"Lothy..."

Lothiriel looked about, to see herself on the battlefield...but it felt as if it were a million miles away, and none were aware of her.

"Lothy." She looked up, to see...her mother. Standing on the walls of Minas Tirith, looking down toward the River Anduin, Lethemine spoke to her daughter with a soft smile on her face. "Look at your brother, Lothy."

Lothiriel looked. The Rohirrim were all but being thrown, but at the King's side Edemer stood fast. While Eomer let out madness upon the foe, Edemer was calm, watching the King of Rohan's back and smoothly taking out whoever came his way.
"So like his father." Lethemine sighed, still smiling.

"Mother..." Lothiriel breathed, "Look at the enemy...he will fall, for certain."
Lethemine looked back to her daughter, blinking kind, wise grey eyes. "Oh Lothy...your father told you to give them up...both of them." She reminded her, "He told you to have faith."

Both of them? At that moment, Lothiriel was aware of shouts in the distance. She looked to the river, in time to see black sails...
"Don't be afraid..." Lethemine said, "Aid comes...this battle will soon be won, Lothiriel."
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She woke up with a sharp gasp, at the commotion and shouting outside of the Houses. "The Corsairs of Umbar!" Those outside shouted, "The Corsairs are upon us! It is the last stroke of doom!"

Lothiriel jumped up, running from the room, down the stairs and out into the terrible sunshine of the fourth level. All before her the battlefield lay out, red and black and green. The Anduin was a foam of blood, and the Armies of Mordor had divided her Uncle's Men from those of Eomer, and seemed ready to take all.

Fleets of ships were sailing to Gondor, black-sailed and imposing. Lothiriel looked about in confusion, as men of The City frantically ran to ring the bells and sound their horns for the armies to return to the walls, for this was surely the end. Their warnings were useless though, for wind granted the ships speed.

"Aid comes..." The Princess heard herself murmur, and gasped. "No!" She cried out, "No, they are no foe!"

And at that very moment, the Ship's standard was unfurled, and it bore the White Tree upon it. Wreathed in the Seven Stars of Elendil. And it was that a great army of men poured forth from the ships, and she could see the Swan-Knights and the Rohirrim once again regroup and ride back into the fray. A cheer went up from the City, and Lothiriel felt her heart soar....

"Well, get thee back inside Lothiriel!" Ioreth's voice reached her then, "If this be our great hour, we'll need all the help we can find within these Houses!"
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Indeed, the wounded were many, but all of them brought stories of great hope. They told of the dark-haired Dunedain captain who had come from the river, from whom all enemies fled. He who fought at the side of The King of Rohan and the Prince of Dol Amroth.

Though no healer, The Princess Lothiriel of Dol Amroth became errand girl, bringing water, herbs, and washing the wounds of those who had not been hurt gravely but were still too injured to fight. From midmorning into the afternoon she worked, but did not tire for the excitement and promise of victory lightened her steps.
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Nearing sunset, she ran back upstairs to see to her cousin, the Lady and the Hobbit. Faramir's pale and fevered face pained her still, and she bathed it in cool water once more, for it was all any were able to do. Eowyn was much the same as she had been; while Merry was much more lucid, able to eat a little even. He asked for news of the battle, and she told him what she had heard.

Upon returning downstairs, Ioreth directed her to care for an aging soldier of Gondor. Lothiriel knelt beside where he had been lain against the stone walls, and saw that he'd suffered a blow to the head. There was little bleeding however, so she simply took a cool wet rag to the wound, cleaning it carefully. The soldier looked at her for a while as she did, his eyes glazed slightly under white brows. He looked like one who had seen many a battle, who's face had been hardened by it all...but as he looked at her, that hardness seemed far away under the haze of his wound.

"Finduilas?" He spoke, in a voice that was rasping due to all the foul smoke he had inhaled in battle. Lothiriel started, paused, and looked at him fully. "Lady Finduilas, you needn't bother with me..." The soldier said distantly, his eyes shutting. Lothiriel nodded slowly, going back to her task of washing his wound.

"It is an honor, soldier." She replied, and he chuckled in his state.

"Ah, Denethor needs you far more then I." He sighed, "You should have heard his grumbling on the road from Ithilien! 'No, I'll have no healer but my Finduilas!' I advised him, Orc poison was nothing to wait on! But no, not until he could have you tend his wounds..." Lothiriel gulped, wondering how to respond...but then the soldier shut his eyes to sleep. She smirked slightly. Then she was being called on to bring one of Ioreth's healers fresh water, and she hurried to do so with a sigh, as more wounded were brought in.

Lothiriel chanced a glance out the doors, to the battlefield below, the sun hanging low above it. She felt the breath within her dance, for she could see grass. Bloodstained, trampled, raped by the fires of war, but still...grass it was, not a black sea of hatred. Indeed, the sea was receding, drawing back, and the shore of spring grass could be seen again.
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"Tiro! El eria e mor..."

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She was standing before the Houses of Healing, as the last pink rays of sunset grasped at the sky above her, stars just barely glancing down at her, and at the nearly still battlefield. To Edemer she was as a star herself, a beacon, the little girl who had pulled his boyhood self from the freezing river so long ago. As he rode with Eomer, Aragorn, Imrahil and Imrahir through the battered Gate, he cried out at seeing her tall form standing above. Dressed all in pale blue, she seemed to glow as the moon newly risen, though in daylight he surely would have seen the toil of the day upon her. But for that moment, for the returning Commanders, she was an angel of light beaconing them back from the horrors of the Pelennor Fields.

As the company rode passed the level, Lothiriel smiled fully, and Edemer jumped from his steed to run and embrace her. "Oh Lothy!" He cried, "Oh you're all right! We've been the victor this day! We've..." He trailed off with a gasp, clutching his chest for a moment.
"Are you well, Edemer?" Lothiriel's smile faded a bit, as she inspected her tall, strong brother. But no blood of his own was upon him.
"Yes, very well." He laughed, "I caught a spear earlier in the chest..." He touched a slight dent in his armor, "No wound, just a bruise, but it knocked the breath from me." He smirked, "You know how I am."

"Yes," Lothiriel smiled again, "but you are still well! Come inside, take some water, and tell me of the battle...."
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The rest of the company moved to go on, Imrahil raising a hand to greet Lothiriel, who waved back with a smile. Aragorn watched all with a thoughtful glance, a very old memory coming up to the surface...

"Tell me, Lord Imrahil, is she your daughter?" He asked, as they went forth. Imrahil smiled, shaking his head.
"You have made known to me your true name, and so I give you hers." He replied, "Nay she is not my child, rather my niece. She is Lothiriel, daughter of Eodier and Lethemine, and I am most proud to have her as one of my kin."

Eomer, who had not seemed able to take his eyes from the one who had held his sister on the Pelennor Fields, now felt a wave of understanding as she turned to glance at him once more, grey-blue eyes calm and understanding. She did indeed have the build of the Rohirrim, but her face...he'd never seen a face quite so fair, not among any people he'd known. And it seemed to Eomer that she knew something he did not...
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