I left for Rohan as soon as my bags could be packed and Amrothos could be persuaded, or rather persisted upon, to accompany me.

To my surprise and discomfort this took less than a week. Normally I would have suspected his unresisting demeanor of concealing some treachery, but now it was the fact that I didn't which troubled me. He had been so mild, so willing to be led since the night in the library. It was difficult to watch a man, once so proud and cruel, so shattered. Perhaps it was a blessing that his will to scheme and betray had gone. But at what cost? Despite my role (or perhaps because of it) as the architect of his undoing, I missed the passionate, devious, monstrous brother I knew. This passive, malleable man in his place was an unwelcome stranger.

"Lothi," he said wearily. "Rohan was your cure. It isn't a panacea. I won't find the same peace there that you did." He was right, too. Amrothos' cure would come years later.

So we left for Rohan. But despite all that I had done and endured for the sake of my right to return, I found myself too cowardly to go to Edoras. Instead, I took the Paths of the Dead. It gave me an excuse not to even stop over a night with my brother in the capital, traveling straight to Gænwyn's seat in Dunharrow. The journey was something of a catastrophe. Amrothos had never ridden so far in his life and my own hard-won comfort in the saddle had atrophied to a degree I wouldn't have imagined possible during the months spent in the city. The mounts we had borrowed from my father, gentle though uninspired animals, plodded along at a pace that I found excruciating, necessary as it was with two such pathetic riders.

I had told my father that I'd written to Gænwyn to ask permission for the two of us to visit, but in fact I hadn't bothered. It would take a month for a letter to go and return and I didn't dare risk staying in the city that long. Amrothos and I both needed to get away long enough for the chaos I had caused to die down, and the wounds inflicted to cauterize. My father and I agreed that we would meet in Edoras in two month's time when Erchirion would wed Lithoer, and we parted with a careful, delicate tenderness. He, like the rest of the court, knew what part I had played in Winweld's surprising marriage and though he'd never mentioned it, the way he kissed my brow as we embraced in the yard spoke more clearly than he could ever articulate.

I wasn't even sure that we would find Gænwyn in residence, though I couldn't imagine she would be anywhere else with the harvest beginning to come in and so much work to do. But even if she was home, would she be pleased to see me? At night I tossed and turned on my bedroll, worrying pointlessly, tirelessly. She'd told me once that I would always be welcome in her home but hers was not an imagination that could have dreamed up what I had done.

I remembered a conversation we'd had at the conclusion of one of the more tedious, irritating afternoon of our rangeings together. The horses pulling one of the grain wagons had seen a snake in the path and spooked, pulling the laden cart off the road. We'd had to unload almost all the sacks of flour before the men could push it back out of the ditch. The two of us helped as well, wishing to make it to the next village before dark so we wouldn't have to sleep on our bedrolls. Though it had been a chilly, bright autumn day by the time we were done, we had all taken off our shawls and winter clothes before the work was finished.

As we'd crawled up the embankment ourselves, once the cart had been set to rights, I'd tried fruitlessly to shake off the mud that had caked onto the bottom of my gown. In the end I'd given up with a sigh and a haughty toss of my hair. With her usual insight Gænwyn must have guessed that I had been thinking about how I would have reacted when first coming to Rohan, if I'd found myself in such a disgraceful state.

"You can have it washed at the next village we pass," she said.

"I doubt you'll find a washerwoman in Middle-earth who could save it once the mud's set in," I shot back but without any malice.

"A Rohirric lady shouldn't be afraid to get her hem dirty anyway," she agreed approvingly.

"You think me a Rohirric lady?" To my surprise, I was flattered.

She'd been joking before but suddenly her expression turned serious, if not somber. "This is your home now, Lothíriel. Surely you see that."

I grinned. "Perhaps a Rohirrim then, but not a lady. A lady would have a seat but I only have a cottage in the city."

I turned to swing onto my horse but she caught my hands in hers and peered into my eyes with something which can only be expressed in language as 'ferocity.' "Your seat is my seat then. My door will always be open to you, Lothíriel of Dol Amroth and I would be proud to call you my family."

At the time I had brushed it off. The Rohirrim in general, and Gænwyn in particular, take hospitality to every extent logic will support. She had always regarded me as something of a mix between her protégé and a beloved, long-lost and favorite niece. The fact that we had no blood in common meant nothing.

But that was before I had refused and humiliated her King. And I found myself playing over and over the expressions of endearment and welcome she had heaped on me as we drew closer to what she had once declared 'my seat as well as hers.'

The journey through the Dimholt was relatively uneventful. Once I might have once been afraid to make the journey, but after all that had happened, the thought of riding in the dark was unappealing but not terrifying for me. What could the earth or ghosts of warriors long dead do to me that I hadn't already done to myself, or those I loved most?

We passed into darkness, and then out of it, and the sun was only just beginning to go down when we arrived in Dunharrow. As we rode through the village Amrothos looked around him with his usual weary detachment, and I shifted nervously wondering what he would think of this country that had won such a high place in my heart.

"Why do they stare so?" he mused as we rode up through the gate of her hold.

"It's the black hair. Even with the handful of Gondorians working at the Dimholt, they rarely see the like."

"I suppose not."

We were greeted at the gate by a stable hand who held our bridles while we dismounted. "Is the lady of the house in?" I asked in Rohirric when I had my feet on the ground.

But he didn't have time to answer. There was a shout from the door of the main hall and Gænwyn came running down the small slope towards us. All my doubts, magnified during the long ride, evaporated when I saw her face. There was no reserve in the joy of her smile, no alteration of her demeanor towards me in the slightest. She grasped my hands as we met before I could even manage a curtsey, spewing out questions and answering most of them herself: why hadn't I written to tell her I was coming? Her table wasn't nearly fine enough for guests tonight. Who was my handsome companion? My brother surely, we looked so similar. Where was Erchirion? Hadn't I told him I was coming? Why had I stayed so long in Minas Tirith? Surely I had missed Rohan terribly. I looked so fine in my new clothes she would hardly recognize me but for my awkward seat in the saddle. She kissed my cheek with vigor and then began pulling me bodily towards her hall. I stumbled, relief making my knees a little weak.

"Come, come!" she commanded in Westron. "You both come now to Dunharrow. You are resting now from long journey."

Amrothos followed the pair of us up to the hall. I shot him a glance that said: this is my closest friend, how do you find her?

His return expression said: just as I expected.

But what that would mean, only time would tell.

The dinner that night was nourishment to me that had nothing to do with the simple fare Gænwyn served us. After so many days on the road with little to tempt us both Amrothos and I ate extravagantly and drank our wine with even more abandon. Gænwyn and I stopped talking only long enough to fill our mouths — chattering away in debauched Westron for Amrothos' benefit although he seemed to pay us little mind.

To my great relief, she didn't ask me any of the questions that I might have feared about why I hadn't returned to Edoras when I'd said I would, or what had happened between me and Éomer. I didn't think he would have told her, or anyone else, but the fact that she didn't question me was enough to tell me that she had guessed at least half the truth – that we had fought badly. Otherwise she wouldn't have bothered not to scold and berate me. As I might have expected, she addressed the new situation not with tact but with a directness that was far kinder.

The first night she showed me to my quarters herself and then, not turning to leave, but rather standing with her back to the door said, "When Éomer came back from Minas Tirith after Beltane he looked as you do now: utterly shattered."

I said nothing.

"I know you are a proud woman and that intimacy does not come easily to you. If you ever want to talk about anything, I would be honored to keep your council."

I forced myself to meet her eyes, though I couldn't keep a strangled tension out of my voice. "Do you blame me?"

She smiled a little sadly. "No child, of course not. As much as you try to hide it, I've seen your heart. Whatever happened, I'm sure you didn't plan to hurt him."

I dropped my gaze from hers, swallowing hard. I did plan it though, I thought, I lay awake all that interminable night thinking about what I would do in the morning.

She nodded. "When you're ready then. For now, sleep well."

Amrothos and I spent the next three days in one of our rooms or the other. We lay on the bed and talked or read silently in separate corners and did not trouble much to come out except at mealtimes and for the occasional ride with Gænwyn. As when I had first come to Rohan, I found myself strangely reticent to leave the confines of my chambers and venture out in the world. Then it had been fear of the unknown that had kept me penned in, but now it was the painful familiarity. I hadn't anticipated the way that every blond head of hair on tall, broad shouldered men would make my heart lurch painfully, or the way that bitter-sweetness had crept into my love for the country and people. Even if they didn't know what I had done, I did. And walking among his people, accepting their kindness and hospitality, made me feel like the worst kind of villain.

My feeble desire to leave the room could hardly overcome Amrothos' less mixed opinion that there was nothing of possible interest outside of it.

I scarcely knew whose opinion I had feared more when I had decided on the plan to bring Amrothos to meet Gænwyn but, though they would never be friends, none of my grossest imaginings came true. Just as she had met my own rudeness and reticence when I'd first arrived in Rohan, she met Amrothos' removed formality with a dogged friendliness. And Amrothos—perhaps because she was our host or perhaps because he had no audience who would appreciate it—treated her with a great deal more respect and restraint than his former views of her countrymen would have indicated. Even when she teased him about not being able to remember the most basic phrases in Rohirric and not being able to sit a horse in anything like the proper way, he only gave a strained smiled and looked into the distance.

I had only slightly better luck trying to draw him out. I was able to convince him to join us on our daily rides but he plodded along silently, listening to us chatter on in a language he didn't understand and staring around at a country that held no interest for him. He accepted it all as I had accepted my life in the months after I had returned to Minas Tirith. The trappings of the outside world make so little difference when the pain within your own body is so keening.

"Do you miss Minas Tirith?" I finally got up the courage to ask on the evening of the third day, unable to bring myself to say her name.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "I understand that I can't go back."

"That isn't an answer."

"No more than I would miss the air if I were drowning."

On the fourth day Gænwyn came early to my chambers as I was dressing. She was already wearing her riding tunic and breaches and her hair was up in a neat, tight braid. She sat on my bed as I washed my face. "I'm riding out this morning after breakfast and I've come to ask you to accompany me."

"Oh?" I turned to look at her.

"The stores left over from the winter are admittedly pitiful but they haven't been inventoried. In addition I haven't yet been able to find the time to survey the grain barns to see what damage has been done by the snow. I want to take stock of these and all the cellars and larders as well and I could use your talents as a bookkeeper. Your brother could help as well if he is so inclined, though I won't insist on it."

This was not a small favor; it would take days of work at least, even if there were few stores left as she said. My brow wrinkled. "Gænwyn, I'm not really feeling up to...that is I just want to rest for a few more days. And Amrothos won't want to either... I'm sure of it. Maybe in a few weeks..."

She shook her head. "You've rested long enough, Lothíriel. Now it's time for you to go back to work."

Contrary as always, being told what I should do – that I had rested long enough – when all I really wanted to do was crawl back under my covers and sob my eyes out, made my anger flare up. Didn't she understand that I was suffering? Didn't she understand how badly I had been hurt? I said through clenched teeth, "Don't you think I will know better when I am ready?"

To my fury, she laughed. "Not a bit. You have to force a child whose been thrown from a horse back into the saddle the first time or they'll never go of their own accord. I imagine that if I allowed it, you might never leave this room. And while that would be happy news for me, since my table is much improved by your company, it would be a sad waste of your life. It's time to get back into the saddle."

I bit my lips, trying to think of a retort.

"We leave directly after breakfast and as we'll take only a cold repast with us, I've had a large meal laid out this morning. Today I need to ride north for a spell to see some of my more distant tenants so I've tasked one of the stable boys to show you where you'll be riding today."

I wanted to refuse, but somehow the words didn't come quick enough. She'd already shut the door before I managed to bite out, "I don't want to!" It sounded ridiculously childish even to my own ears.

The stable boy was a young lad, only thirteen-years-old, though he seemed quite clever. His name was Eadric and he was terribly shy of me at first, almost too timid to bite out two words though he was, I found out later, naturally quite an irrepressible youth. That first morning I was sullen and angry and I had to force out my thanks though clenched teeth when he brought my horse around from the stables.

It was only the two of us. When I'd asked—begged— Amrothos to join me he'd only laughed.

"It was you who raised expectations for yourself by making those maps. You might regret that decision till the end of your days, but I don't intend to find out exactly how much by accompanying you through misery."

But he was wrong about the misery. Even before we stopped to eat the noon meal, Eadric and I had made fast friends.

I suppose it was a bit of good luck, though it didn't seem like it at the time. The first grain barn we went to was almost completely empty. I pushed open the doors and stormed in, muttering curses and complaints under my breath in Westron but also in an unmistakable tone of frustration. He trailed behind me, eyes wide and nervous as I stomped around through the empty pallets and mostly rotted bags. Perhaps I should have known better. I trod on one bag and a rat – black, filthy, mangy and the size of a nearly-grown cat – shot out, squeaking his dismay. I screamed, lost my footing, stumbled as I jumped back in surprise and toppled to the ground. Scrambling up to my feet I jumped up onto the nearest pallet, brushing manically at my clothes even though the thing had run in completely the opposite direction.

Eadric, being thirteen and male, let out a whoop of joy and charged after the rat, snatching up a splintered piece of wood from the ground as he went, and smashing it down on the fleeing vermin over and over. His fear of me forgotten he grabbed the carcass by the long, naked tail and came trotting back to me with it as proudly as any dog. I screamed in renewed disgust and danced away from him as far as I could without leaving the elevated grounds of the pallet, still instinctively unwilling to let my feet touch the ground where more rats might be lurking. "Stop! Stop! Take it outside at once!" I commanded, but already I was laughing so hard I was close to tears even as I tried to squirm away from the prize he brandished at me.

He grinned, and for a second I saw as clear as day that it had crossed his wicked little mind to toss the thing at me. But he recovered himself quickly and took it outside as I had commanded, laughing as well as he went. "Don't worry, lady," he said when he returned, changing as quick as thinking from devious little boy into solemn, adolescent protector. "Stay where you are and I'll see if there are any more."

I giggled at his exaggeratedly manly demeanor. "I shall stay here until you think it is safe for me to venture out again."

After that first morning I borrowed a ratting dog from the keep but Eadric still insisted that he walk around all the cellars and barns before I entered, double checking the mutt's work. As I said he was quite bright and I taught him how to tally up the various things we needed to keep track of using a stick to scratch marks in the dirt, a trick he was obnoxiously proud of mastering and I suspect made him quite insufferably lordly with the other stable boys. Being of that special age when respect and a sense of propriety are just as incomprehensible as things like rank and nobility, he reciprocated by trying to teach me a surprisingly effective method for spitting quite a distance and how to extinguish a candle by licking my thumb and forefinger and then pinching the wick quick as lightening, plus a variety of other surprising talents. I deigned to learn the candle trick but couldn't be persuaded to spit, even when only he was watching.

Gænwyn had been right of course. After the first day I'd spent riding and running about with Eadric, I found to my surprise that I felt somehow more rested than I had after the days of inactivity. Well, perhaps not rested but certainly revitalized. I came to the table that night full of the chatter of what I had seen and done that day and she was good enough to refrain, even with a smug expression, from reminding me that I had tried to refuse.

And so two weeks passed quite happily. Once I had found how well activity worked as a medicine for melancholy I threw myself into it. I oversaw the reconstruction of the roofs of the barns that needed repair. I consolidated the few remaining stores and tallied up the sum total of every scrap of food in every cellar in the keep. Amrothos rode out with me once or twice but he took no joy in it and mostly he spent his days rereading the few books we had brought with us and trying to seduce the maids, a more difficult challenge than usual considering not a word could be exchanged between them.

However, I intended to keep busy and started to plan the repair of a small road that led to one of the barns. Lying on my bed one afternoon, going over the sums I had worked out, I heard riders coming through the gate. Thinking it Gænwyn I swung my feet to the floor, slipped on a pair of shoes and ran down to meet her. I had found some forgotten bottles of wine in an abandoned cellar that day and I wanted to tell her right away. As a guest I couldn't openly ask her to open one that night so that I could try what the steward had told me was a very good vintage, thought to be gone ten years passed, but I fully intended to hint to the absolute limit of courtesy.

I was running full speed when I reached the steps leading down from the main door, a grin spreading over my face at the thought of how happy she would be at my discovery, but my feet and expression froze when I saw the man at the head of the group of riders.

I could close my eyes and see his face perfectly in my mind's eye, every detail mapped out and etched indelibly, and yet somehow the physical reality was enough to strike me still. His skin was much darker than I remembered — an unfashionable, glorious bronze – and his hair was exactly the color of the sun that had lightened it from its usual darker hue. He must have been riding often and working hard. Surely he had muscles in places I didn't remember them! But it was the glory of his movement that made my memory such a pale comparison. He was grinning, looking almost over his shoulders at something one of his rider's had said, and my heart beat so hard against my chest it was physically painful. If I could have managed it I would have run back into the keep. But coherent thought, much less physical movement, was beyond me. I stood, frozen in place, immovable as a troll in the dawn light.

In slow motion it seemed to me, he turned his head and, just as I had somehow found his face instantly in the crowd of riders, his gaze was drawn to me as surely as if I had screamed out his name. For a moment his expression of easy, companionable joy rested on his features— the light, playful smile grew fractionally bigger—but then recognition turned into remembrance and he too seemed to turn to stone. His face grew grim and a paleness crept under his tan, jaw line becoming rigid and fixed. Firefoot, sensing his riders discomfort, stopped dead so quickly that the horses behind him had to move to either side to avoid crashing into him. Éomer looked down and quieted his mount with a quick soothing motion of hand over neck.

I was so mesmerized by the sight of him that Erchirion seemed to come out of the clear blue sky. I hadn't even noticed my brother until he bounded up the steps with a shout of, "Lothi!" and swept me up into a crushing embrace.

I was glad to let the breath I'd been holding be forced out of me in a rush. It was a mercy as well that he swung me joyously around a few times before setting me back on the ground. I wasn't fool enough to believe it myself but perhaps someone else might mistake my dizziness as being caused by his enthusiastic greeting.

"Lothi! What in the name of Valar are you doing here? I thought you were back in Minas Tirith you wicked girl. You never said you were coming to Rohan again! And you didn't even pass by Edoras to say hello!"

"It was something of a last minute decision to call on Gænwyn. I was poor-mannered enough to call on her without even bothering to forewarn her that I was bringing Amrothos too. She hasn't complained once though, so don't think you have any claim to chastise me when she has not. I was planning to write and I wouldn't have left without saying goodbye." I heard myself say all this above a roaring noise in my ears.

"Amrothos? Is he here as well?" He frowned.

I nodded.

I kept my eyes locked on my brother but I knew, as I would have known if some unattached piece of my own body approached, that Éomer was coming up the steps after Erchirion. I was suddenly acutely aware that I hadn't bathed or changed for dinner. I was dressed in a simple, short-sleeved, cotton gown dyed a pale blue and still smelling of musty cellars and horses and year-old wheat chaff. I had on no jewelry, no perfume, no womanly protection of any kind that might have prepared me for this moment. Numbly I smoothed down the wrinkled dress and curtseyed to him, forcing myself to meet his impassive gaze.

I held out one hand and he bowed, kissing it. The shock of contact of his soft lips and rough beard on the back of my hand made my jaw clench painfully. "Well met, my lady."

"Hail, my lord."

For a long, uncomfortable moment, nothing was said. Finally, Erchirion said, rather too loudly, "Is Lady Gænwyn in?"

"No. She's gone out to survey some of the fields but she should be back fairly soon. I thought you were she when I heard you ride in."

"I hope we won't put her out too much. We meant to stay the night at Underharrow but the inns didn't have room for all of us so we thought the few of us who were extra would push on and impose on her hospitality for the night."

How very like Éomer to consent to the extra leg of the journey instead of taking one of the rooms himself.

"As I said, I arrived without word either and she seemed glad enough to see me. I'm sure she will be happy to accommodate you. I'll just go and forewarn the cooks of the extra seats to set at the table, shall I?"

Never was a more obvious retreat beaten. I almost fled up the stairs and when I reached the solitude of the hall I threw myself against the wall, heart beating wildly, chest heaving. You've seen him now and it hasn't unmade you, I thought desperately, the worst is surely over. If you can bear the sight of him with no preparation, with no defenses carefully prepared, surely nothing can be worse than that.

TBC

The return! Both of Lothiriel to Rohan and Éomer to the story. What did you think of it? Leave me a review to let me know. The next chapter will be Éomer heavy I promise and it will only come faster if you drop me a review (if that's not to shameless to say).

As usual a huge thanks to all you readers (especially you reviewers! You guys are pretty much the reason I keep writing, or at least posting this story). And once again Lady Bluejay has done a spectacular job of editing this chapter. She deserves praise rained down on her every day for her own writing, which is excellent, and for the help she gives others with theirs.