Dear Éomer,

Today I'm angry with you.

As much as I have pondered over our last conversation in the intervening weeks it has taken me until today to realize that you are completely at fault for the way we left things. You must be!

Until I met you I was proud of my ability with words. For any thought that crossed my mind I could find just the right way of expressing it. More than that, in my prime, I could reduce a lady to tears in two sharp sentences and a lord to silence with a look. How did you steal that from me? With what spell did you bind me? I have never in my life been silent when I wanted to speak.

And I wanted to tell you so many things that morning:

I hate that you're so brave. If I could make you too timid to ride into battle, I would. I don't care what you think. Anything that would have you here with me, safe, and not somewhere on some battlefield maybe with your head bashed in or an arrow in your chest, I would do.

The way I want you is gloriously undignified and I resent you for it. If you claim to be a gentleman how can you awake such animal want in me? How can you, with a look or, worse still, a hand on my waist or the simplest caress, make me feel that all sensation before was a shadow and a shade? How can you do that to me?

I don't think I will ever understand your goodness. I admit that it is like tonic to my own bitter meanness and that I long to drink it in by the flagon, the jug and barrelful but I'm afraid it will always remain foreign to me. What is it in you that makes you…

The words of that last letter were still in my mind, but Éomer would never read what I had to say for I had crumpled it up and thrown it into the fire. There it had joined countless others of its kind, destroyed as quickly as they were written over the past two weeks. Trying to decide if I should I try one more missive, I jumped as a voice broke into my deliberations.

"Sorry what was that?" I hastily gave Gænwyn my attention.

We sat, Lithoer, Gænwyn, some of their friends from Edoras, and I, around a neat pile of clothes. Two weeks ago it had been little more than a heap of fine cloth. But in the intervening time we had sown, embroidered and embellished it into Lithoer's troth. There were maybe twenty of us in the room. Most of the women were laughing and chattering on as they worked but I sat off to the side slightly, in a window seat that offered a clear view of the Eastern road to the city.

I was taking a break from struggling to festoon the hem of one of Lithoer's new gowns with a string of small pearls from Dol Amroth as part of my gift to my new sister. Gænwyn smiled. "I was simply remarking that you look rather distracted."

It had taken Gænwyn only three days of watching me unable to focus, stumbling through my work and squirming through meals to realize that I would never be comfortable until we were in Edoras. There was no reason to expect that Éomer and my brother would return before the planned wedding day and most likely it would have to be postponed, but even the remote possibility that they could have been there while I waited in Dunharrow had been torturous. She had kindly suggested that perhaps we relocate as Lithoer might appreciate our help arranging the wedding.

"Not distracted, only frustrated. And I'm afraid I'm letting it get the better of me."

She nodded and came to join me on the low seat. "Lithoer is lucky. She doesn't have time to worry about your brother she has so much to do before the wedding. We peripheral creatures however suffer for our freedom."

"I do worry about him."

"Just your brother? Or anyone else?"

Much as I might wish to avoid it Gænwyn had been making increasingly direct attempts to herd me into this conversation for days. I had to smile slightly at that. "I worry about all the men in that battle."

I picked up the half-finished hem again with a sigh and began to carefully pull out a row of stitches. Never very good at needlework in any circumstance in my present state I had somehow managed a string of ten awkward stitches two rows back without even noticing them. The thread quickly became tangled and I swore loudly in Westron.

Gænwyn sighed and put down her work. "That's it. Come on, let's go for a ride. You aren't helping anyone here anyway."

I temporized for a moment and then nodded. "I'll finish this evening."

"Or tomorrow. What's the rush? The wedding isn't for another three days."

"Well I had meant to finish two more gowns before then."

She cocked an eyebrow at me. I had been making painfully slow progress.

"Well, at least one more then."

We slipped out with a minimum of fuss. We both felt a little guilty leaving. With the wedding so close Lithoer and her friends had more than enough work to do and our help would be sorely missed. But we hadn't been riding in almost a week either and it was beginning to take its toll on Gænwyn. A ride would relax her, make her more efficient. I somehow thought it would do me less good, though exhausting myself could do no harm.

Down at the stables I saddled Wind Chaser. Gænwyn had been kind enough to lend me him again and I had been surprised at how happy I'd been to see him. I had recently even been thinking I might offer to buy him from her when I left again but I was worried she might just give him to me as a gift, which I didn't want. I was already so far in her debt.

Gænwyn choose a ride that would take us on a long circle back around the city and up into the foothills of the White Mountains behind. I was surprised at her choice. Even if we rode hard we would return only just before dusk. But the horses seemed as eager as we were for fresh air, gamely trotting, even at times galloping, across the wide plain between the city and the first slope. For an hour we rode in silence together, simply content to be out of the city and away from the chatter and wedding plans we had been immersed in for days.

As we drew towards the mountains and began to climb however we slowed to a walk and Gænwyn dropped back next to me so we could talk. "When Éomer was a child my sons were just about his age," she said without preamble. "And, though I lived mostly in my own seat, I came into Edoras often. Théodwyn also came many times to see her brother and I knew her quite well, she brought Éomer and his sister and they used to play with my boys."

"Oh?"

"They never got into more trouble than when Éomer was around as their ringleader! But he also had this way of getting them right back out of it as well. I remember once I had just bought a new prize stallion in the city. An enormous beast of a horse, seventeen and a half hands, and much too wild for anything but to be trained as a warhorse for my husband. But he was a beautiful thing to behold: black as midnight except for one white sock and with lines as handsome as you please. I knew the children would want to ride him so I very carefully locked the paddock gate and kept the key in my pocket at all times.

"So you can imagine my surprise one day when, coming back from a ride myself, up the path came Éomer and my two boys, all three of them cuddled up on the back of that stallion just as snug as kittens in a basket. I was furious and just as soon as I had dragged them off the back of the horse by their ears I demanded an explanation.

"'Éomer son of Éomund what exactly do you think you're doing on the back of that horse! I locked the paddock myself!'

"It was my son Hereward who answered, 'He jumped him over the paddock fence, Mother!'

"'You jumped him over the fence after I locked the gate?' I shouted at Éomer.

"And then just as cheeky and unrepentant as you please he looked up at me with a wicked, charming grin and said, 'Why yes, Lady Gænwyn. After all, you never said we shouldn't take him out for a ride!'

She roared with laughter. "Can you even imagine the nerve? I laughed so hard I couldn't bring myself to punish them for it."

In spite of myself, I grinned. I could imagine it only too well.

"Of course he changed a lot after his mother passed away, peace be with her, and the troubles in the court started. He changed so much that I'd almost forgotten about who he was before. Most of the time he is so serious and grim, which is only proper for a king in such troubled times, but when he's with you he sometimes reminds me of that mischievous little boy who used to cause me such trouble."

I grimaced. "Perhaps I remind him of how wickedness can seem like such fun."

"Perhaps you remind him of how it feels not to have the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders."

For a long moment neither of us said anything. We wound higher up the path in the late afternoon sun. Finally Gænwyn said, "Why don't you wear his mother's bracelet anymore?"

I toyed with my reins uncomfortably. "I left it in Minas Tirith."

"You never took it off for a day when you were in Edoras."

"I remember."

"Did you know that when he put it on your wrist he intended to ask you to marry him?"

My head jerked up and I met her gaze for the first time since the conversation had begun. "He said only a horse could mean an offer of marriage in the Mark!"

She grinned. "They were horses!"

I let out a little spluttering whoop of laughter. How very like Éomer to trick me into putting it on without knowing what it was. It reminded me of the flower snatched from my hair, the presumptuous way he assumed responsibility for me and asked me to dance, and the half-indulgent way he laughed at the wriggling, bantering way I talked in circles when I was uncomfortable. "But why would he do that? Give me a marriage proposal that I didn't understand?"

Her smile grew fractionally larger. "In truth, I don't think it was a message for you. You're beautiful, intelligent and your father is extremely influential in Gondor. Haven't you ever wondered why none of the young lords here ever tried to court you?"

I gaped at her. In Minas Tirith my reputation (to say nothing of my sharp tongue) had scared most potential suitors off. It hadn't occurred to me that in a foreign court I might be considered more favorably. "I had always assumed that was due to my... spirited nature."

She laughed. "Rohirrim men like a little spirit in their women. But even before he gave you the bracelet, Éomer had made his preference for you so clear I doubt that any of them would have dared try to kiss you, much less offer for your hand."

My brows drew together. "Made his preference clear?"

"Before Yule I don't think he knew what his feelings for you were. He enjoyed spending time with you but you are not an easy woman to get to know and he is also one to keep his own counsel. But still... he had never come riding with the ladies in the mornings before you arrived."

That was something I had never considered before. Of course I had known that Éomer favored me – he'd offered for my hand — but I had never considered how his feelings for me might have come to be. His love for me had always felt unearthly, miraculous— as if I had turned over a stone and found a fully formed crown beneath, where it had no right to be. I had never considered why Éomer might love me because it hadn't occurred to me that there could be any reason. I felt wicked but lucky and questioning my luck hadn't seemed wise in the least.

"But how could he? How could he love me, Gænwyn?" My next words didn't come tumbling out. I had to force them haltingly through clenched teeth. "I have done things that would make you sick. I've hurt people who never deserved it because I was bored. I've ruined people's lives because they offered me a small offense or because it was convenient. I'm petty and jealous and I think awful, awful things about people. I'm... I'm not a gentle or forgiving person. He should have better than I can offer."

For a moment she said nothing. Then, "I have known many great men in my life but Éomer is one of the noblest. I could not be prouder to call him my King and my friend. And yet he is not without his own darkness. He is proud to a fault, arrogant at times. He has killed many men and longs for battle still. You yourself have seen his anger—how it can consume him. It is true that there are sharp and deadly things in you. But he too has seen the side of himself that is comfortable with violence, the side that longs for an enemy under his sword. Do you imagine that a gentle lamb of a woman would be more suited to him?"

"Perhaps not a lamb but someone more...deserving."

She shook her head. "He has chosen you. He wants you. He isn't playing one of your courtly games where punishment and reward are meted out for past actions. Love isn't about what you deserve but what you desire."

"But how can he desire me?"

"That is impossible for me to know. It's impossible even for the two of you to know. We come into this world alone and in the end we leave it in the same way. In between we look for something in other people that relieves that loneliness but it's nothing that can be pointed to directly. You make him laugh and you're intelligent and beautiful. But in some way you must also make him feel like he's home, like he isn't alone and the why of that is something no human has ever really understood."

As she spoke the strange feeling of a phantom hand on my waist, guiding me through a dance, on my arm, pulling me towards the surface of black water, on my cheek, brushing back an errant lock of hair, tingled across my skin.

She was right of course. I had known countless handsome men, perhaps a dozen intelligent and interesting men, perhaps as many as six or seven brave and noble men but never had a single one made me want to be taken in their arms. There was something in me, clawing tooth and nail to get out, that simply wanted to lie in Éomer's arms, and to enfold and envelop him in myself—to shelter and be sheltered—but to name the origin of it was beyond me. Éomer hadn't caused me to love him. The parts of myself that were resonant with him had been there all along, just waiting to be sounded and heard.

Gænwyn laughed. "Or perhaps it is because you have so many teeth."

I scowled. "What does that mean anyway? You told me that when we didn't understand each other and then you never bothered to explain it once we did! I asked Éomer and he said that it wasn't suitable for him to explain."

Her laugh turned into a roar. "You told him that I said it about you?"
I blushed furiously. "Who else was I supposed to?" I snapped. "He was the only one who spoke good enough Westron that could explain it to me!"

"Well a mare with many teeth is said to have no trouble conceiving because she enjoys... the act of being covered."

At that I turned purple. "I asked Éomer..."

She waved me off. "Oh please, Lothíriel, there's no shame in it! A woman should enjoy the act of physical love."

I shook my head and sighed. There was no use trying to explain to Gænwyn that the decent maids of Gondor were not meant to even really known the mechanics of being 'covered,' much less speculate on the amount of pleasure which could be derived from it. And there was no use getting mad at her for accidentally sending me to Éomer with such an embarrassing question.

We walked on for a few minutes in silence before I finally said. "I don't know if I would be a good Queen of the Mark."

"You would find a way. Perhaps you don't have all the experience you could wish but you would beat your own path, I'm sure of it. I would be proud to call you my Queen."

I grimaced. Her unwavering confidence in me made me writhe a little in the saddle with discomfort. You don't deserve it, you don't deserve it, you don't deserve it my inner voice chanted in time with the beat of my horse's hooves. "Gænwyn I wish you wouldn't say things like that. I don't know if I'm the person... if I really..."

"I always wonder where you learned your twisted modesty. I know your flaws, Lothi. You're the only woman I've ever met who wears them so openly on her sleeves while her virtues she hides like any blemish."

I gritted my teeth, suddenly blinking back tears. "And I always wonder where you learned such oblivious faith in me. I gave away the bracelet. I gave it away to the biggest monster in the Minas Tirith court because she wanted it as a trophy."

For a long moment Gænwyn simply looked at me. Then, she shrugged. "It was just a piece of jewelry, Lothi."

A tear spilled over at that and I wiped it away quickly. "How can you say that? How can you not care?"

"It's only a token you gave away. You can't give away the things that really matter."

We didn't speak again until we came to the summit of our climb, the crest of the ridge where we stopped to take in the view. In the distance there was the shadow of a small group of riders coming up the Great Western Road. Among them would be King Elessar, my father and Elphir, arriving for the wedding. My heart throbbed dully. Far from making me feel better my conversation with Gænwyn had made me wretched. The city seemed very far away and the ride back a long, undesirable trek.

Gænwyn too seemed tired as she sighed. "We should ride back. As it is I think we will barely have time to bathe and change before supper. Besides, we should help as much as we can to arrange the welcome feast."

I nodded my assent and we turned our horses back to the path, urging them into a trot.

The day before the wedding dawned clear and warm. It felt more like the last day of a perfect summer than the first day of autumn. They sky was a cloudless blue and there was a light breeze to offset the warmth of the unfettered sun. Even I was in a tentative good mood as Lithoer, Gænwyn and I broke our fast together in the morning and then helped each other dress and braid our hair. I felt the strain of Éomer absence, the weight of not knowing if he was safe, if he would forgive me, but Lithoer was in such an effulgent state of joy, sure that Erchirion would return by the morrow, that it was impossible for me to stew on my own problems.

In honor of the harvest and to celebrate it we dressed in tones to mimic the earth. My gown was cut from a light brown linen, with short-sleeves and a tight bust but loose below my breasts and falling unfettered to my plain leather sandals. In my hair I had woven a simple stalk of wheat where a brooch usually rested and no other decoration. In honor of our imminent sisterhood Lithoer and I had dressed in the same fabric, though she had cut her dress with longer sleeves and a more fitted bodice and wore in her hair a single yellow leaf. Gænwyn wore a moss green dress in a stylish cut from Gondor which I had picked out for her: a fitted bodice, a high waistline and a petticoat beneath it. It gave me distinct pleasure to see her fidget uncomfortably with the petticoat every time she sat down after all the times she had teased me for how long it had taken me to adjust to the styles and customs of the Rohirrim.

Though I carefully resisted saying anything she seemed to know my thoughts. "Oh no need to look so secretly pleased! If you can learn to ride properly I can learn to master sitting in this silly contraption soon enough," she said with a wink as she tried to wrestle her skirt into submission. "Until then you're welcome to take all the pleasure you can from my... struggles."

We were lingering over breakfast. There was good, dark bread and some fresh butter with jam as well as eggs cooked with mushrooms and onions. I had brought some coffee with me from the south as a present for Erchirion but was indulging myself in a little this morning. Lithoer and Gænwyn were chatting away merrily about the festival and the wedding but I was simply letting the sounds wash over me without bothering much to understand them fully. The mellow taste and aroma of the coffee and the sound of familiar voices were a complete pleasure and I let myself float in them both without much thought or direction.

The sound of the horn was like a sudden, shuddering drop of awareness in the floating, languorous drift of my consciousness. I was out of my chair, pushing my mug off onto the table, and at the window before anyone else had even become aware of what they had heard. I threw open the casement and stuck my head out into the warm, brilliant air.

There! Coming from the direction of the Westfold was a small band of riders, but too far off to indentify. My heart was instantly in my throat and a confused brew of emotions welled up in my chest. I was anxious and excited and utterly overjoyed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and were just as quickly flattened as Gænwyn and Lithoer, trying to see out the window too crowded in around me, Lithoer practically laying on top of me as she strained to see. The horn sounded again.

"That's the call of the return from battle!" Gænwyn exclaimed.

"Who is among them?" Lithoer shouted.

Of course it was a silly question. There was no way for us to know until they drew closer but I knew how she felt. It seemed unfair, ridiculous even, that I didn't know if Éomer was in the band. How could I not feel him among the riders? How could I not know instinctively? "We should go down to meet them at the gate!" Gænwyn suggested.

This suggestion was instantly met with overwhelming agreement. Though they were still a way off and it would be some time before the party reached the gates, we practically dashed out of the room, breakfast forgotten on the table.

Lithoer was practically skipping as we walked down through the city streets. She and Gænwyn were speculating on what it meant that they were back early and on whether or not it looked as though the riders were carrying anyone in a sling or had brought any seriously wounded back with them. I walked in silence, barely hearing them over the sound of my own heart beating.

I knew I wouldn't get to speak with Éomer right away. If he were among the riders and if he were not seriously hurt, and even if he wanted to speak with me, the second he crossed the threshold he would be instantly overwhelmed by a litany of inescapable duties. It was the first day of the festival and he was a king returning to a city after weeks of being away. There would be no chance for him to say whatever he was going to say to me that morning. Not with the opening festivities in the afternoon. Still, even a glimpse of him hale and healthy would end a large part of my agony.

Though we were among the first to make it to the gates, the three of us were far from the only people in the city to come down to meet the party. As the riders approached most of the nobility in the city filtered down to stand on the wall and watch them approach. Amrothos came down and stood with us as well but he said little, instead preferring to stare out over the sea of the grass and shift his weight uncomfortably.

He reminded me of a horse when it smells a storm coming. I suddenly remembered that flash of intuition and dread the morning that Éomer rode out when I'd wondered where he'd been when I'd been fetching my handkerchief. My stomach began, slowly, to sink. By the time he took me by the arm and walked with me away from the group, down along the exterior wall until we were out of the hearing of the gathered party, I felt nothing but a resigned nausea.

He leaned over the wall and looked out at the riders. "I did something that you aren't going to like, Lothi," he said without preamble.

My heart thudded so hard against my ribs I worried that it would burst. I said nothing.

"The morning that Éomer rode out to the Westfold I gave him all of the letters you sent me from Rohan."

"Why...?"

The word came out in a rasp. I felt as though a burning hot knife had slit me from navel to breastbone, letting everything inside of me that had been so happy and hopeful just a moment before spill out.

"I did it for you!" His jaw clenched and he looked ready to strike the stone before him. But then he relaxed slightly. "I don't want you to marry a man who can't appreciate you for who you are. You saved me from Harra twice—I realize that's what you were doing now—and I will do the same for you."

I stared at his profile for a long moment as he refused to meet my eyes. To my horror, I realized that he was telling the truth. He wasn't trying to revenge what I'd done to him; he was trying to repay me for it. Had he meant to punish me, furtive and apologetic shame would have been the last emotion to cross his mind. Foul deeds repaid were Amrothos' specialty and in vengeance he was glorious: exactly as smug and unrepentant as was fitting.

"He has to know the truth about who you are. You can't share your life with a man who doesn't understand the first thing about you. If he loves you, he should love all of you," he mumbled.

I closed my eyes trying to keep my stomach from emptying. Telling Amrothos that I had been lying, that the contents of those letters had been the things I thought he wanted to hear instead of what I genuinely felt about Rohan would have been useless. In his mind Éomer had taken me away from who I truly was, conquered me in some way. His own experience with love had been so destructive that he wouldn't understand how nurturing mine had been. He saw only that I had changed when Éomer entered my life. What he didn't see was that what had changed was that I no longer felt that I was drowning in misery. Éomer might as well have literally pulled me from the sea.

"He doesn't deserve you, Lothi! He doesn't even understand you!"

My eyes flew open. It was true that Éomer wouldn't understand those letters. He would never have allowed himself to be manipulated into writing something that didn't reflect his true feelings. "Maybe he doesn't understand me," I said quietly. "And he certainly doesn't deserve me—the things I've done to him and the havoc I've wrought on him. But you don't understand me anymore either, Brother, though someday I hope you do."

As I turned to leave he tried to catch my hand in his. "Lothi please..."

I pulled it away. "I can't be with you right now. I can't...I can't..."

I went back to stand with Lithoer and Gænwyn but there was none of the usual pleasure of companionship. I was standing on a parapet, waiting for the man I loved to return from battle and the harvest festival to commence. The war was won and prosperity was returning but I felt only a numb terror. The bright summer sunshine felt colder and emptier than any winter night.

TBC

Okay first and foremost I would like to apologize profoundly for the delay. I really did not intend to delay this long and frankly have no legitimate excuse for doing so. What cliff did I fall off of? The usual ones. Life, writers block and some other factors in my life conspired to keep me almost from glancing at my computer screen, much less getting on the internet. Thanks to all the reviewers who left sweet messages. Sorry to all the reviewers who left unheeded demands/pleas for a new chapter. That being said, here's the new chapter! As usual, LBJ did a truly stunning job. She deserves a round of applause, a pat on the back and a mini vacation to France for all her hard work.

Also as usual, I am dying to know what you think of it! Drop me a line and let me know! The next chapter should contain a lot of Éomer and (Valar willing and the creek don't rise) come much quicker.