Over the course of the year, Tolwyn learned all that was taught to her. Besides learning about music and sewing and the healing arts by day, she would learn riding and fighting at night. She grew almost as tall as her brother, and was still slender, although she started to get a little muscular from her nightly lessons. Instead of a girl, she grew into a woman- or almost a woman. The boys she had known and played in the streets with when she escaped lessons long ago had become Riders in training. The dresses she would wear were graceful, flowing silk, and they had lower necklines and a tighter fit. She looked almost like her mother, some would say. The Royal Guard, the Riders of Rohan, even common men would sometimes give her looks that made her uncomfortable. She would stroll the streets sometimes for lessons, to buy fabric or find herbs or choose something to draw. When she passed, people would bow and call her "Lady Tolwyn".
By the middle of autumn, Tolwyn could block and parry with a sword, trot on a saddled horse, and shoot at a stationary target. By the beginning of winter, she could swordfight clumsily, like a young boy, ride full gallop like a Rider, and shoot quickly at moving targets. By winter she had drawn a picture of her brother, sewn a banner for the throne room, learned how to heal common ailments, and sang the ancient song of Eorl perfectly. When Elfwine turned 18 years old and was given his Meara, he had Tolwyn try to mount it. She was unsuccessful and covered with bruises the next day. But a week later she had mounted, and even rode for a few minutes bareback.
Tolwyn was much happier than she had been. She didn't have to sit in a dark room- she was outside whenever her lessons allowed it. Her hair began to get golden from the sun. Her eyes, which had become completely grey, gradually got specks of bright green that showed through when she smiled. She would sometimes talk to the merchants or washerwomen or even the children in the street. She came to know her people, the Eorlingas. But still, she knew there was more to life than the city of Edoras. She had studied Middle-Earth in her earlier lessons. There were great thick forests, and dark lands and white cities, and the ocean. Her mother came from Dol Amroth, the city by the sea. She often wanted to go visit there, and wondered about her relatives that lived there.
Outside the city walls she had never left, there were many great glorious peoples. There were the heroic Hobbits to the northwest, the Dwarves to the northeast, and the Elves. Tolwyn had always wanted to see an Elf. Her father and brother told her about them, solemn and wise and nearly perfect. She had never seen the King of Gondor's Elven wife and his children, though she had heard plenty about them. Even though she was outside and walking about nearly every day, she still wanted to explore the world that wasn't Rohan, the places that she had only heard about.