Summary: A long conversation in starlight.

Chapter II – Éomer

When after his sister and her husband's departure Éomer mentioned to Imrahil that he was going out to get some air, Imrahil asked him to keep an eye for Lothíriel whom he hadn't seen for a while. Éomer promised, wondering whether this was another of Imrahil's unsubtle yet not unwelcome attempts at making the two of them spend time together.

He happens on her on the lower terrace, alone but for her guard. She is a fair shadow of silver in her dress and cloak and appears to be staring into the distance, deep enough in thought that he startles her.

'Your father told me he'd not seen you for some time. Long enough for him to worry, it seemed', Éomer says to her.

'The hour was growing late for me, my lord', Lothíriel says. 'I will retire soon, but I wanted to have some fresh air and look at the stars first.'

'That is elf-like talk.'

She lets out a surprised small laugh. 'My intentions were not elf-like. The ladies of your court arranged so much to do inside the hall for us visiting women today that I have not stepped outside until now', she explains.

He notices that she shivers a little in her silk clothes, and without a word he unfastens his own woollen cloak and settles it on her shoulders.

Lothíriel's overeager young guard close by shuffles on his feet at that, and in his slightly drunken state Éomer almost snaps at him.

He decides to disregard him, though, instead giving Lothíriel a look long enough to border on staring. 'You look good in gold and green', he tells her. The cloak is a little too long on her, brushing the ground.

She looks him in the eye for the first time since she arrived in Edoras, emboldened by the dim light perhaps. 'It is a fine cloak, my lord', she says. 'Thank you.'

He looks at her for a long time again, thinking. 'Will you stay and talk with me a while, lady?'

'Of course, my lord. Is there something in particular that you wish to talk about?

There is. He hadn't meant to talk of it tonight, but here under the stars in as much privacy as they could hope for seems like a good place.

'I know that the negotiations are far from done, as is only right – they should not have been made complete before my sister was wedded. And I understand you father is hesitant to hurry because of your age', he says. 'But I want you to know that I will put a crown of gold on you, if I have my will. I think that the queen's coronet that has long lain unused in the treasury of the Mark would suit you well though it is a simple creation compared to the ancient, elf-like finery of Gondorians.'

Lothíriel seems taken aback at his straightforwardness but recovers quickly. 'Do you think I could suit the land of Rohan?' She makes a small gesture with her hand, indicating the Hall behind them, the city around them, and the spots of light in the valley that mark small villages and single homesteads.

'I think you would learn', Éomer says, finding himself more thoughtful than a man should be on a night of celebration like this. 'My lady, we do not know each other well yet, but you seem to me someone who knows their duty and works diligently to fulfil it, and knows how to. If you choose me and my land, I think that you will fulfil your duty to it and me admirably.'

The daughter of Imrahil smiles and bows her head. 'Thank you. It is a fine compliment from one who has taken on well whatever responsibility has come his way, expected or not. What an unconventional conversation this is!' She gives a little laugh though it seems she tries not to. 'I never expected to speak with you like this, my lord.'

'If we will be married, I would have it at least be with a good understanding of each other, though ours would be a marriage for practical reasons rather than a great love story worthy of song', he tells her.

Lothíriel bows her head again, and nods. 'That is wise. Do you believe, lord, that you and I might suit each other, too, as wife and husband and not only as queen and king?'

He cannot help smiling back at her rather jubilantly. He is a little in his cups, and he likes the way she dares to speak frankly here at the edge of darkness. She looks fairer than fair in the low light in her light dress and his cloak, the pearls in her hair like stars amid the black waves of it. Her eyes are dark and serious.

'I think we might', he replies. 'Very well.'

It occurs to Éomer for the first time to wonder whether Lothíriel is one of the many women who was promised to a man who fell in battle.

It is a strange kind of night, this wedding night of his sister's, and he is in a strange mood, and he and Lothíriel are already speaking frankly so he decides to simply ask.

'My father was putting together a list of options for me', Lothíriel replies. 'He was not in a hurry because I was – still am – young in the reckoning of my people, and because he could see the war gathering in the east and did not wish to see me widowed soon after marrying, he told me.'

'The war changed the fates of many even before it broke out fully.' Éomer looks to where a little way away a shield-brother's house lies empty and dark, ownerless since the battle at the Fords of Isen.

'I might be married but for it', he muses. 'I had thought for little other than the enemies slowly encroaching on our lands ever since I was a boy whose parents they slew – I have been fighting the fights of my people as long as I have been permitted to ride to battle. In spite of that, had my uncle been himself, he might have urged me to marry and suggested matches. But for five too-long years before Gandalf healed him, Théoden King was under Saruman's spell and had little thought that was not of fear and despair.'

Éomer likes the way Lothíriel looks at him then, with her calm grey eyes filled with much understanding but little open pity. She resembles her father as much as her oldest brother, the most serious one of Imrahil's three sons.

'I have attended a great many betrothals and weddings this last year', Éomer says. 'It seems that all around me people are becoming betrothed and married – my liegemen, my guards, my shield-brothers. My sister, too.' He smiles at Lothíriel wryly. 'My people seem as determined to increase themselves as we are to increase our horse herds.'

Lothíriel appears to fight a smile, saying, 'It is the same in Gondor. Those that were spared death are filled with a great desire to live.'

'And the lords of Rohan and Gondor have a great need for heirs.' Éomer finds himself frowning. 'Éowyn's sons will be Gondorians, heirs for the prince of Ithilien. My own heir is a son of a cousin, the son of the daughter of my mother and Théoden's sister. No king of the Mark has been so distant a heir, and my council keep telling me that I must not die before I have a son.'

Lothíriel casts her eyes at the sky at that, and says in a voice as cool as the light of distant stars, 'I can see why you would be impatient with my father's pace of preparing for marriage between me and yourself, my lord. Fortunately there are many other ladies who have no such impediment for a swift union with you.'

'No – Lothíriel.' He turns to her, grasping her arm under the two cloaks that she wears. 'It is not that – not only that, what I said so coarsely. It is for the chief part that once I have decided and begun something, I prefer to see it to its end as soon as possible. Your father calls it my 'regrettable rashness' and would lecture me out of it if he could.'

Lothíriel grants him a small smile at that. Apparently she bears no easy grudges. 'And do you allow him to lecture at you?'

'Often, though I do not always listen. He has many decades of experience in being a leader in both peace and war that I admire. I have learned much from him, and there is more yet he could teach me, I'm sure.'

With a small feeling of regret that he must, he lets go of her arm. Despite his hasty words she doesn't appear to be thinking of leaving.

'I am his only daughter, and his youngest child', Lothíriel says. 'He is protective of me. He doesn't want to hurry my marriage, not even to a king.'

'And that is another reason to hold him in high esteem.' Éomer sighs. 'Yet it remains true that in this matter we are of different minds, he and I, and have different interests.'

'There could be a compromise', Lothíriel suggests. 'A decision made soon, but an engagement of some length. A year or more.'

'A year is common for the betrothals of nobleborn folk', Éomer agrees. 'Yet we speak only of my desires, and those of your father's. I have learned, through bitter and shameful experience, that women's needs and desires can be ignored only at one's peril. What do you want, lady?'

Lothíriel takes long enough to answer that Éomer's impatience raises its head, exacerbated by all the mead he has steadily if slowly drunk over the course of the evening. But he restrains himself and waits, and at length she replies, 'You are a king of great valour and honour and I hold you in high esteem, my lord, and so does all of my family. I will be your queen if you so wish and if my lord father agrees.

'As for the time: my father keeps telling me that I am young, but I believe that all who were young when the darkness of Mordor waged war on us are not so young anymore. Not even us who awaited news in the safer western citadels of Gondor that faced less fierce siege and battle than Minas Tirith. We were the lucky ones, yet the shadow threatened all that we hold dear, too.'

'I often wonder at the wise poetry that the people of Dol Amroth speak', Éomer says. 'But I am glad for your words, my lady, and hope that you will soon take as yours all that is mine.

'It would, I must suppose, be better for a king to be able to speak to his future queen of a flourishing, prosperous land. This country was that once, though it was so long ago that I do not remember it. And now.' He gathers his words. 'My people are strong of heart and hand, and proud in their own manner that may be different from Gondor's.

'But this land was rent deep by the war, and is not healed yet though we have all been hard at work. There are villages that still lay burned and empty, and horse-herds that have not recovered and will take years to build up again. Not only were our crops burned but many granaries as well, leaving us with little to resow our fields with. There are many widows struggling to get by without a husband, many orphans in the care of their overburdened relatives.

'There is much work to do in Rohan, much scarcity and need, and its leaders must keep hope and give it to the people. For a maiden of Gondor to take on that duty – there must be lighter ones on offer for Imrahil's daughter, I am sure.'

'You already told me that you believe I would do well, my lord', Lothíriel answers, a little infuriatingly.

'It is still your choice to take on that commitment.'

'And my father's. My lord, the ladies of Rohan have more power in the choosing of their husbands than do the ladies of Gondor, and the princes of Dol Amroth are known for being particularly careful in making marriages for their daughters', Lothíriel reminds him in turn.

But she continues, 'I saw some of how what this land had suffered and what it endured when I came here first a year ago, and now the second time by the same route. I saw how much was already rebuilt and resown despite the meagre resources you speak of: green fields that were burned and black the year before, and new buildings being raised up. Valour in battle is indeed not the only strength that lives in your people. I have no doubt that Riddermark will endure and prosper again.'

The Rohirric name of Éomer's country on Lothíriel's tongue sounds lovely: a little clumsy but no less charming for it.

'You will miss your home, so far away, on the other side of the impassable White Mountains', he finds himself saying.

'My lord, are you trying to make me regret my decision?' Éomer thinks he sees Lothíriel's eyes sparkle with amusement, though it may be a trick of the light. She has relaxed as their conversation has gone on, he thinks.

'By no means would I do that', he denies. 'I am only thinking of how my sister has in recent months visited all the places that have been dear to her, before she soon leaves to her new home in Ithilien.'

'I will miss my home, I'm sure. My family and friends and the sea that has always been the view out of my windows – my constant friend, for all her tides and moodiness – and, as you say of lady Éowyn, all the places that have been dear to me.' Lothíriel smiles a rather sad little smile. 'But it is the fate of most noblewomen – the price for the comfort and luxury we live in, perhaps – to leave their home of birth and join their husband's household far away.'

Éomer frowns. 'I have never thought of it thus.'

'There are many ways to see it, I am sure. For me, it is a loss that I have been preparing for all my life, and one that I hope and trust will bring new good things with it to take the place of what I must give up.'

'That trust must be what makes it bearable, giving up your old life in exchange for something that bears little resemblance to the great romances that some have – Aragorn and his Evenstar, my sister and Faramir.'

Her voice trembling a little, she replies, 'It is.'

He does not know what to say to that, for all that he was the one who raised the subject, and there is a moment of silence between them.

'Lothíriel.' As he speaks her name she raises her eyes to his, still bright and calm though she appears tired, he notices. 'After all that has been said this night, will you speak to your father for me tomorrow so that the negotiations and arrangements for our union may truly begin?'

'Tomorrow? I must agree with my father's assessment of you as a hasty one, my lord. He would have approached you about them soon anyway.' But she does not need more than a second to give him her answer, raising her chin ever so slightly. 'But I like your forthrightness, king of the Mark, and I will speak to him in the morning.'

Éomer likes that she dared to make gentle fun of him, and likes the rest of her answer even better. Relaxing in triumph that spreads warm in his veins like the best mead, he replies, 'I am happy to hear that.'

He gazes up at the sky, taking it in for the first time. The moon has risen high: the hour grows truly late and he believes that it is time he delivered the lady to her father. She has already indulged him longer than he thought she might.

'Let me escort you inside, my lady. I know that you have your own keen guardian –' Éomer amuses himself by glancing at the bristling young man in his swan-helmet '– but after so long spent in private conversation, I think it best that I take you back to your father and you can assure him that nothing untoward happened before you retire for the night.'

Lothíriel blushes. 'He would not suspect that of you', she says.

Éomer grins, that warmth in his veins making him wilder than he should be. 'In that, wise prince Imrahil might be wrong', he says. But before Lothíriel can become too startled, he very properly offers her his arm. 'Let us go inside, Lothíriel.'

To his surprise she doesn't take his arm. 'Your cloak –' she says instead, beginning to shrug the forgotten cloak off her shoulders.

'Let me.' Éomer indulges his rapidly awakening desires by taking it off her, revealing her silver glory again. The rich fabric of her clothes glimmers even in this light.

They go up the stairs and inside Éomer's golden hall, his personal guard and hers behind them, people parting before them to make way for the king and the lady on his arm. It feels like a good omen of the future, or a moment stolen before its time.

But if it is a stolen moment it Éomer receives no punishment for it, for Imrahil's face shows little surprise when Éomer brings his daughter back to him – for now – and more good humour than anything else.

Éomer bids them both goodnight, and leaves to find some old friends to share a cup or two more mead. No more, because he needs to have his wits about him in the morning.

He knows that he will still feel Éowyn's absence keenly – how could he not? – but the future seems lighter to him.

The next afternoon, their wedding day is set on next year's Midyear's day, one day short of a year away. It is, after all, an auspicious day to marry.

A/N: Lothíriel and Éomer both spend a lot of time explaining to themselves and other people that they will marry purely because of practical, sensible reasons, in the service of their countries and so on – but it is not quite the whole truth.

I'm going to write sequels showing their relationship developing. NOTE that I might not post all sequels on this website because of ffnet's ratings policy, so as always, Archive of Our Own is the best place to read my fics and subscribe to my username. I'm Elesianne there too.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed/reviews!