Lothíriel opened her eyes. The dawn was just rising in the east, though it was unusual for her to be awake early enough to see it. What was stranger still was that she was watching it from the plains of Rohan. The city of Edoras stood on its hill before her and further off, to its side lingered the silver and blue tents of Dol Amroth. 'How odd.' She considered as she looked around herself. She had been laying not on a pallet, but the bare ground. It was hard underneath her. She stood. It took longer than usual. She was very stiff. 'Perhaps that was why it is a bad idea to sleep on the bare ground.' She thought to herself. The real question she had was how she had gotten out there to begin with. Her memories of the night were hazy. She had never been prone to sleep walking, though her Aunt Ivriniel had often cautioned her on the dangers of it. But even if she had taken a midnight walk, wouldn't one of the guards have seen her and stopped her.

'It doesn't matter.' She took a deep – and rather noisy – breath. 'I'm sure that everything will be sorted out once I speak to Father. Perhaps it's my nerves. I'll make sure to instruct my maid to ensure something like this does not happen again.' She halted her inner monologue as she glanced to the ground. Had the ground always been so far away. Surely she had not suddenly grown over the course of a single night? Shanking her head, she took another breath. Spotting a small, clear pond close to Edoras, she walked over to it. Before going back to the tents, she would ensure that she did not look as if she had spent the night sleeping on the grass like some peasant.

As she took a few steps forward, she felt heavier that normal. 'What is wrong with me today?' She wondered absently, as she continued forward gracefully. It wasn't until she reached the pond that she understood. The face that looked back at her was not that of a princess who had descended from the Princes of Numenor. It was the face of a horse! With the realization, she remembered how she had gotten out to the field. She had purposefully gone out and drank the liquid from that fortune telling woman.

Her noisy breath bellowed in and out from her enlarged nostrils as she tried to reign in her panic. 'Perhaps this is a dream. Perhaps the drink I took gives one wild dreams, or hallucinations.' She began to take a few deeper breaths as she continued to study her new image. She was covered in a blue-black horsehair, the same color as her hair had been in her human form. Her eyes were still the blue-green they had been as well. Everything else was different.

She let out a soft whiny as her breath finally evened out. 'Think, Lothíriel! There has to be a way out of this predicament. Perhaps I should still try to find Father. He may know what to do.' She thought desperately. She turned away from the pond and began to make her way towards the tents. 'But what can he do?' Her steps began to halt. She looked to her side and saw the gate of Edoras looming above her. In front of it, two Rohirrim guards stared at her, their expressions calm. She stared back at them. One of them smiled at her and nodded, respectfully.

'Does he know that I'm me inside?' Lothíriel wondered. 'Perhaps I really am only hallucinating!' She opened her mouth to speak, but instead of words, a long neigh sounded. She was taken aback by the sound. She felt her ears flatten atop her head. A very strange feeling it was too. Behind her, she was aware of her long, black tail swishing back and forth rapidly. The smile on the guard disappeared and the expression was replaced by a wariness.

Before anything else could happen, there was a clambering of hooves against the road behind them. Her ears switched forward, her attention diverted from her predicament momentarily. Within a few seconds, she saw a procession moving through the gateway. At the head of the party was a man who sat tall atop a dapple gray stallion. He had long blond hair and atop his head was a dark golden crown. Without another thought, all the lessons that had been taught to her as a princess kicked in and she bowed her head respectfully.

"What do we have here?" His deep voice called out in Rohirric, the question brought the party around him to a stop. Lothíriel was glad she had always had a knack for languages and as such had elected to learn every one she had access to. At his side was a tall maiden who had her long blond hair flowing freely behind her.

"What a beauty!" The woman sighed.

"Where did she come from? Is she from the Amrothian camp?" the king asked the guards who shrugged. "Perhaps not. I doubt they would allow their horses to roam freely."

"There seems to be greater intelligence in this one's eyes than even our normal horses, brother." The woman spoke. "Perhaps it is one of the Mearas?"

'Brother? That must be the Lady Éowyn!'

"Perhaps, though that is unlikely. This one looks to be about five or six years of age, and I remember going to see the yearlings nearly each year prior and during the war." He dismounted and began to approach her slowly. Another man also dismounted from his horse and followed the king's footsteps. Lothíriel stared at the king intently. As he approached her, the second man handed the king some nubs of…something. Lothíriel looked from the hand of the king to the nubs and back for a few moments. As his hand grew ever closer to her mouth, she breathed in the smell and determined that they were carrots.

At the smell of the vegetable, she realized how hungry she was. She tried to take them from his hand carefully. In her concentration, she hardly registered the hand gently placed on her backside. Until the second man spoke. "Well it's a mare, Sire." Realizing what the man had been doing – or rather what he had been looking at, Lothíriel snorted and flicked her tail, nearly hitting the man in the face.

The king laughed, "Careful, Éothain. It seems you're having just as much luck with the ladies as ever." Lothíriel looked at him with irritation. She let out a sharp blow. 'You should be glad that's all you get. If I was not so out of sorts I would…' Her thought was interrupted as a gentle hand stroked her neck. She faced him once again, her ears moved forward, though they were much more relaxed.

"And it seems you have as much luck with them as ever." Éothian laughed as he came back to his king's side. "Perhaps you should consult the breeding records in Edoras. They have all the recorded Mearas there.

"And even if not," Éowyn stated, "I doubt anyone would not record the birth of such a lovely mare."

Éomer nodded. "I will do that, but until then, let's take her with us to the Amrothian tents. Perhaps she belongs there and happened to get away from the camp."

Without a word, Éowyn came up beside her, and Éomer remounted and came to her other side. As the two of them walked forward, some instinct kicked and and Lothíriel followed suit. She was glad that despite her size and other changes that had somehow taken place within her, she could still move with the grace that bespoke her lineage – however unlikely anyone would be to recognize it.

A/N: Well, hope you've enjoyed so far. I'm intending to make this story relatively short, and the chapters will probably be pretty short as well since I've decided against jumping perspectives like I did in Currents of Time.

Please feel free to leave a review and any fun little suggestions on what you think would be an interesting/funny situation for our favorite princess to deal with!

See you next chapter!