You were driving the getaway car
We were flying, but we'd never get far
Don't pretend it's such a mystery
Think about the place where you first met me

(Getaway Car – Taylor Swift)

Princess Lothíriel was perfect.

Éomer had watched her, diligently, obsessively, for hours, to come to that conclusion finally. At first, he thought he was being too obvious in his staring until he noticed that everyone watched her. Smiled at her. Talked to her. Laughed with her. And she, in a carelessly charming way, smiled and talked and laughed with everyone around her, except him. Oh, she knew he was watching her; her back muscles had not relaxed since they had entered the hall for the wedding, and he had sensed her eyes on him during the ceremony, flicking away every time he chanced to look back. But she did not approach him, simply refusing to acknowledge his existence as if they had never met.

Éomer found himself irritated with her distance. Imrahil was too preoccupied to make the formal introduction, and Éomer stuck to the edges of the hall, eager to stay out of his friend's line of sight. There had been a part of him that, after hearing Idis confess what he had already suspected to be true, had wanted her to be like he remembered. Bold. Brash. Slightly rude. Proud. It was difficult to reconcile the woman he had met with the one he observed now. The Princess was too refined, too delicate, and too proper. Not a hair out of place. Not a word misspoken. Not a single action that raised eyebrows. The only similarities he found were her beauty, which was unmatched, even with the number of Elves in attendance, and the curious tilt of her head, indicating that she had indeed tried to act the subservient handmaiden when they had first met; this woman, however, bowed to no one.

It was the only part of her he liked, which was maddening.

Because he almost wanted to tell Imrahil he no longer had any objections. His council would be happy, her dowry would be sufficient to keep his country from collapsing, and he had actually liked her. But this version of her – Princess Lothíriel, not the girl from the forest – was too perfect. With a tiara that probably cost as much as his sister's dowry and a dress that looked like it was spun from material more expensive than silk itself, she looked ethereal. And the feelings of inadequacy that surged through his frame as he watched her smile, laugh, and talk effortlessly would not be silenced. This woman, marry him?

Imrahil was insane.

Éomer assumed he hid his brooding well until he sat beside his sister and felt her squeeze his arm under the table. "I am sorry," Éowyn whispered to him, during a gap between the fourth and fifth – or perhaps sixth, Éomer had lost count – courses. In her own way, his sister tried her best to make him feel less out of place, but her concerned look told him she did not think she was succeeding. He only hoped no one else had noticed just how uncomfortable the spectacle of the wedding was making him. He enjoyed a celebration as much as the next man. Still, it was difficult to rejoice every time he remembered his sister was now someone's wife, set to live at least a four-day journey away from him, and the woman who had been haunting his dreams for six months was seated four places down, sipping wine without seemingly a care in the world.

All in all, Éomer did not feel like celebrating. But he squeezed Éowyn's hand nonetheless and smiled at her expression of concern. "You have nothing to apologise for, sister. Today is your day. Be happy."

"It is not like the weddings at home," she said, almost apologetically. "I know you would have liked to celebrate there."

"It is better this way," said Éomer, and for once, he meant it. Rohan did not have the money for the lavish wedding that befitted Éowyn's station, and it had been a relief when Elessar had offered to host the ceremony. But his sister did not know that, and Éomer had ensured she never would. He hated that she felt as though she needed to make excuses for the man – the family – she had decided to marry. He despised the lavish expense and thought eight courses were a waste of rations, but it made her happy. Unlike Princess Lothíriel, his sister had been denied finery and luxuries for too long. So, he gave her a grin that hurt his cheeks, swallowed another glass of diluted whiskey and pretended there was nowhere else he would rather be than in Minas Tirith.

Éowyn smiled back, probably grateful he had stayed at the feast as long as he had, and returned to her conversation with whoever was seated on her other side; he had not even thought to check. He wondered when his personality had changed so drastically that sitting in a hall full of good food, beautiful women, and an endless flow of drink had become more of a chore than an enjoyable way to spend an evening. Perhaps around the time he had been named his uncle's heir. Or perhaps when, at eleven years old, he had come to the bitter realisation that no one, not his family or his friends, would ever be able to prioritise his happiness over their own.

Éomer blinked at the sudden – vicious – thought, and his grip on his glass tightened. This would not do. It was too public, too loud for him to indulge in a rare trip through the vague memories of his childhood. This was Éowyn's day, not his, and she deserved better than a brother who could barely muster up the strength to sit through a single feast without feeling the urge to escape the suffocating confines of a ballroom.

Fortunately, a distraction came in the form of the loud scraping of Éothain's chair from his other side. Éomer turned to engage his friend in conversation, wracking his brain for a subject that would be mindless enough to divert his thoughts. However, it was not Éothain seated next to him – where had he gone? – but Idis, sipping from a glass of wine she had probably brought with her and acting as though she had been there the whole time.

Éomer blinked. "Good evening?" The greeting came out as a question.

Idis turned to him and smiled, placing her glass on the table and picking up a napkin to dab at her mouth. To his surprise, she threw him a subtle wink instead of responding to his greeting. The napkin was put down, too close to his hand for its placement to have been an accident, and Idis' meaningful look towards it as she picked up her glass again was even more deliberate. Before Éomer could ask her exactly what she was doing, she had stood up and left as wordlessly as she had arrived. The chair was left vacant momentarily before Éothain returned from wherever he had disappeared and retook his seat.

"What?" he asked, noting Éomer's look of confusion.

Éomer shook his head and, after a moment's hesitation, picked up the napkin. He had a sneaking suspicion it was no coincidence that Idis had left it behind. Sure enough, when he flipped it over, the scrap of fabric was covered in inky scribbles. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust and make out the shapes in the flickering candlelight, and then his lips quirked up into a reluctant smile.

It was a map. Crudely drawn and just accurate enough for him to trace the origin point, which was the ballroom he now sat in, to the destination. But it was not the rough drawing that made him smile. No, what made him chuckle under his breath was the short message scrawled at the bottom of the napkin in startlingly clear handwriting, considering they were merely six words etched onto a piece of cloth meant to wipe mouths after an eight-course feast.

I was never good at cartography.

Éothain peered over his shoulder. He whistled quietly as he read the message. "Arranging a rendezvous?"

The suggestiveness in his tone was not lost on Éomer, but he ignored it. "If anyone asks, say I have been called away," he responded. Slipping the napkin into his pocket, he stood up just as another course began to be served, using the sudden influx of servants around the high table to slip through a side door unnoticed. A glance at the map once again reassured him that his suspicions about his destination were correct, and he quickly navigated the seemingly endless corridors. After all, there was only one place in the palace he could get to so easily without stopping and asking for directions, and the Princess knew it.

Even the stableboys and groomsmen had been given the night off, and the barn nearby echoed with raucous laughter, punctuated now and then with the sound of horses whinnying. But the barn was not Éomer's destination, even though for a moment he wondered if that celebration would have been more to his tastes than the refined feast he had been forced to attend. Imrahil, however, would not have approved, and Éomer's lips twitched at the thought of what the immaculate Prince of Dol Amroth would say now, if he found out his daughter had invited the King of Rohan to meet her in the stables of Minas Tirith in the middle of the most long-awaited wedding in recent history.

The door to the stables was open when Éomer approached, and the soft light coming from inside told him someone had lit the torches as well; so, she was already waiting for him. His hesitation surprised even himself, and he realised he was dreading seeing her, knowing it was unlikely they would be interrupted. Éomer knew what he had to say; there was no getting around it. But he had no idea how to say it or what she would say to him in response. Fortunately, he had had enough to drink that overthinking was not high on his list of priorities, and he stepped through the open doorway confidently, only to pause when inside because the stables appeared to be empty except for the horses occupying their stalls on either side.

His eyes zeroed in on the only foreign object in the building, a fur cloak thrown over the open door of the largest stall at the very back where, if he remembered correctly, Lightfoot was being kept. His horse was too temperamental to be left close to other animals and too large for the regular stalls that Minas Tirith's horses occupied easily. Éomer halted a few feet away, peering through the open door curiously. The sight inside the stall made his lips twitch.

Lothíriel was standing in front of his horse, stroking his mane cautiously. He wondered what her maids would say at the state of the Princess' dress when she returned since its train was currently sweeping the floor casually as if she made late-night journeys to the stables regularly. She barely noticed it, it seemed. Her sleeves had been rolled up, and the gloves Idis had made her wear earlier were tucked into the belt at her waist; her bare hands were now covered in dirt and what looked like ink stains, and she seemed in no hurry to clean them. He recalled Éothain's information, describing her in the words of her people: She likes fine things. Silks, jewels, expensive sweets and wines.

The Princess in the ballroom had fit that description. However, the woman in front of him seemed as far removed from it as possible. This was a woman who could survive in Rohan, Éomer realised. Where had she been all night?

Suddenly, Lightfoot stomped his foot and edged away from the newcomer, flaring his nostrils. Lothíriel, to her credit, did not appear as perturbed as he had assumed she would be. Instead, she reached into her dress pocket and grinned at the horse. "Hush, you," she said, and pulled out an apple. "I always knew you'd get me in trouble one day."

Éomer almost intervened, conscious that Lightfoot despised strangers, but his horse seemed to remember Lothíriel's touch and took the apple from her fingers without so much as nipping them. She giggled and patted his mane again, acting like the stallion in front of her was a mere pony. It was oddly… endearing.

And then she turned her head slightly, and he spotted the silver tiara tucked into her hair glinting furiously even in the dull light of the torches, and the illusion was broken.

Did you know she has hardly ever worn the same crown twice? She has hundreds, studded with jewels, made of the finest gold and silver.

Rohan did not have the money to buy her more jewels. He did not even think their vaults were big enough to hold the rumoured finery that came with a Princess of Dol Amroth's dowry. Éomer cleared his throat, deciding it was time to announce his presence. "Tell me, Princess, do all servants in Dol Amroth wear crowns?"

Lothíriel's hand, still tangled in Lightfoot's mane, froze. As she turned around, the fire from the torches caught her scar through the dirt on her hand, highlighting every curve and twist in her skin. It was jarring, and Éomer was not surprised she chose to hide it. Even as she looked at him, her fingers automatically went to tug at her sleeve, as if to hide it from him as well.

Princesses are vain. To be seen as anything other than perfect would ruin the illusion.

"They do not, my lord," she said, interrupting the memory of his own words, words he felt he had said in a different life to a different woman. Even her voice seemed different now. Harder, but not cold. Rougher too, perhaps, although not aged. But not afraid. She met his gaze head-on, and the green of her eyes was exactly how he remembered it. Defiant, determined, and proud. "But I am no servant. And you are no mere Marshal."

She did not waste time. And she seemed to have no trouble looking into his eyes either. That, at least, he could respect.

"So we both lied," said Éomer. "I accept my part in it. But I never gave you a false name."

"A lie of omission is still a lie."

"Forgive me. My guard was convinced you were an assassin."

The corner of her mouth quirked up in a curious half-smile. "I will take that as a compliment, considering I could barely swing a sword when you saw me last."

"Can you, now?" He could not help but ask. This was ridiculous. They were meant to address the elephant in the room, but he found himself leaning against the wall of the stable, arms crossed and conversing with a Princess about her skills on a battlefield when he should have been discussing marrying her.

Another reason it could not work. He was meant to find a Queen, a wife, maybe a companion; not an obsession. One look into those green irises, and he had almost forgotten that his duty was to Rohan and the country's prosperity, not to her.

"Barely," scoffed Lothíriel. "It is considered unbecoming for a lady of Gondor to know too much about weapons. Might give her unseemly ideas for when her husband tries to hit her after a drunken night at the tavern."

She was not joking.

Éomer decided that was a conversation for another time. "I see," he said. It seemed inadequate, but what else was there to say? He cleared his throat again. "But I must say, your cartography skills are really quite poor."

She wanted to smile now, he could tell. Or possibly the shadows from the light of the torches were playing tricks on his eyes. "Perhaps Éofor will give me lessons."

"When he learns who you are, he might collapse."

She had been smiling, and he saw it vanish as soon as he spoke. "So you have not told anyone?"

Éomer did not have to ask her what she meant. "Considering I only found out a few hours ago, Princess, I have not had the time to inform anyone else. Except for Éothain, of course."

He had thought the memory of Éothain's screech – he made a mental note to tease his friend about that later – would have made her smile again, but Lothíriel bit her lip instead. And then, suddenly, she was speaking so fast he had to concentrate on understanding her as she tripped over her own words, wringing her hands anxiously. "I did not know," she blurted out. "Please, you must believe me. I had no idea I was deceiving a king all those months ago. My people were dying, and I wanted them looked after. I knew they would be helped on the road if they were to say they travelled with an injured princess."

"I do not blame you," said Éomer, because he did not. Idis' scars flashed across his mind's eye. "Your family does not know, I take it?" She bit her lip and shook her head. "Then it is not my place to tell them."

She gave him a startled look. "You – you won't tell my father?"

Éomer shrugged. "I am your father's ally on the battlefield and, I would hope, his friend off it. If he were to ask, I would say what I know. But I do not owe him this information."

She nodded, but continued to fidget. Éomer tried not to look at her hands, not wanting to make her more conscious than she already seemed to be. He remembered sitting with her on the floor by the distant light of the campfire, watching as she wrung her hands in the same way as they discussed the siege at Dol Amroth.

Only then, her hand had been covered in bandages, and he had thought he was speaking to a maid.

"My brothers know," she said, drawing him from his thoughts again. "Well, they know what I did. Elessar had to tell them because my hand was too deeply scarred for him to repair completely. They do not know it was a – well, they do not know it was you who saved us." She huffed out a sound between an exasperated sigh and an exhausted laugh. "Oh, Amrothos is simply going to love this."

Éomer smiled with her, until her words registered in his mind. Amrothos.

His friend. His ambassador.

The betrothal.

Éomer took a deep breath. Focus. This woman, with her green eyes and her glittering tiara and her breathless laugh, was entirely too distracting.

"I am glad you sent for me, Princess," he said, fighting to make his tone more formal. Less familiar. "I had already asked your father for a private audience, but perhaps it is better this way."

"I know," she said. "I asked him as well. I wanted to speak to you."

That was news to him. "What did you want to know?"

"You," she laughed. The sound was light and airy and just as he remembered, and for a moment, he forgot what he had been about to say and found himself hanging on to her every word. "I had never even met you, but my father…" she trailed off, the laughter dying on her lips, and the air became heavy with the tension of the issue that, Éomer suspected, she was also unhappy about. She cleared her throat and turned around, busying herself with stroking Lightfoot's mane again. "I know of the proposal," she said without turning around.

Éomer wished she would, because it was impossible to read her expressions and know what she really felt unless she faced him. And, she had pulled her hair to the front again, giving him an entirely too enticing view of her back. In this new light, the freckles against her skin seemed darker, and he was already too distracted by the column of her throat, watching the muscles work as she swallowed thickly every time she spoke.

Rohan needs money, and heirs. What does anything else matter?

Éothain was not wrong. His council was not wrong either. But it did matter. She mattered, and Rohan mattered more than anything else. Éomer ignored the pang in his chest at the thought of what he would have to say next. This was good, he told himself. If she was unhappy, what he would say would help her. There was no way she was pleased about it; nothing in her body language indicated she was willing to throw herself at him. Reassured, Éomer dragged his eyes away from her figure and stared at his horse instead. Lightfoot stared back, and if horses could talk, Éomer was sure the stallion in front of him would ask him why he was about to spectacularly put his foot in his mouth with his following sentence, but it was too late to stop himself now.

He took a deep breath and said the words he knew, in his bones, were utterly untrue.

"I think the proposal is a mistake."

Lothíriel did not turn around immediately. She smoothed Lightfoot's mane, running her fingers through it as if to remove any tangles. Then, she calmly wiped her hands on her dress, seemingly uncaring of the streaks of dirt she left in their wake. When she turned around to face him finally, her face was devoid of all expression.

"I see," she said. "Have you told the Prince that?"

Her tone was as formal as his, which should not have affected Éomer as much as it did. After all, this was what he had wanted: a way out of an engagement to a woman that was far more beguiling than he wanted in a wife.

"No," said Éomer, in response to her question. He tried to sound kinder now, willing to admit that the indifferent, slightly cold way she looked at him was putting him on edge. "But you could."

Lothíriel's eyes widened in apparent disbelief. "Excuse me?"

"You can say no," he said firmly. "Your father has a great deal of affection for you. If you were to refuse to marry me, he would not force you, and we can be done with this whole thing."

He knew he had said something wrong when the words left his mouth. Lothíriel had barely reacted to him calling the proposal a mistake. At his next words, however, she flinched, and a flush crept up her neck. She was angry, he realised, even though the volume of her voice never rose. As if she were determined to speak to him evenly. Professionally. It was… odd. His sister would have threatened to stab him by now.

"And if I do not do as you say?" she asked. "Or if my father refuses to end this thing?"

She said the word with more bitterness than he had anticipated, and for a moment, Éomer hesitated. Had he been wrong? Did she want to marry him? The idea was just as nonsensical as it had been hours ago when he had watched her across the ballroom. No, it was impossible.

"Being Queen of Rohan…" Éomer began slowly. "It is not a glamorous role, Princess. You are used to certain comforts, as you should be. But my people are not like yours, for better or for worse. Even at our most prosperous, there is little time for the activities you would find enjoyable. It would simply not be a good fit for all involved."

Lothíriel cocked her head to the side, surveying him in a way that made him uncomfortable. He did not know what she saw, but whatever it was made her ask, "What exactly do you know about me that makes you think it would not be a good fit?"

That was not what he had expected her to say.

"I know very little about you," he admitted. "But it is enough."

"Please, do tell."

She sounded sarcastic; he decided to ignore it. "Your brothers have told me of all your admirable qualities, but I do not foresee any use for your skills in Rohan. We do not host celebrations like this for you to show off your finery; everything about us is different, from our food and drink to how we dress. I do not deny that, for diplomacy, the match would be an ideal one. However, you would be unhappy in Rohan, making diplomacy harder, not easier."

"So," she said calmly. "Your answer is that you do not know anything about me. Which is fine, actually," she added, when he made to interrupt. "I know very little about you. I thought I knew more, but I was wrong. No matter, I have been wrong before." She gave him a brilliant smile, the same smile he had seen her give people all day at the wedding. But compared to the memory of the softer smiles she had given him before he had brought up the subject of their engagement, this one felt fake.

"I have offended you," said Éomer. He took a step forward, almost automatically. "Princess, I did not mean to –"

"I am really not sure what you have meant throughout this entire conversation, but then again, I am not sure what possessed me to ask you to come out here in the first place," said Lothíriel. The sharp change in her tone almost made him step back in surprise. Gone was the smiling woman from earlier, and the charming one he had been watching all night. In their place stood a woman who not only seemed angry, but determined to punish him for his words.

Words that, as he heard her speak, he realised more and more had been a mistake.

"If you had rejected me for any reason other than whatever you have mistakenly decided about my character, I would have forgiven you and understood," she continued. "My consent has been the furthest priority in any and every negotiation that has taken place so far. I invited you here to talk because I thought we could be mature adults about this and because of what I have heard of your commitment to honour and goodness, but I see you are just like them. After all, you ask, nay, demand that I speak to my father for you. It is a clever way to make me refuse his commands rather than rejecting the match yourself, Éomer King. A clever way but an unkind one. Not only have you taken the coward's way out with your friend, but you have made assumptions about me, my character, and my role without asking me once what I think about it."

That stung. Éomer narrowed his eyes. "I do not need to ask you," he said tersely. "Would you marry a stranger, move to a strange land, pledge loyalty to a strange people? Could you?"

The venom that dripped from her words next should not have surprised him, not after all she had said before, but it did. "It does not matter what I want, Your Majesty." He had never heard his title uttered with this much sarcasm. Had their conversation been different, it would have been amusing. "I refuse to handle your diplomatic missions for you. If you have such fears about my suitability, take them up with the man who suggested me in the first place."

"Your father is a friend and an ally," said Éomer, trying to rein in his temper. "I do not want to risk offence by refusing his daughter's hand. If you refuse, however –"

"You are naïve if you think there is any room for refusal in this match," she snapped. "Besides, what makes you think I am the only unsuitable one? Did you think I wanted this, when my father told me I had to leave my home and marry a man I had never met because his country needed my money? Did you think I wanted to be treated like a commodity between you, your council members, and my family without anyone asking me what I think?"

"Very well," he snapped, finally losing his grip on his anger. "What do you want, since you are so insistent on telling me I am wrong?"

Lothíriel scoffed. "Why ask me now? It did not matter to my father, it has never mattered to my brothers, and it certainly does not seem to matter to you. You want what you want, damn all the consequences, isn't that right?"

"That," Éomer said, and his voice was dangerously low. "Is not true."

"Oh, I am sorry," she widened her eyes in mock innocence. "Have I made a grossly incorrect assumption about your character? Have I offended you?"

She was baiting him, he could tell, and he refused to rise to it. There were many things about his behaviour they could both find fault with, but he would not have a screaming match with her in the stables in the middle of his sister's wedding. Especially not when he knew she was right.

No one had asked her what she wanted.

Neither had he.

"I will not take you to wife, my lady, without your consent," he said finally, stiffly. "Rest assured, that is one thing I will never do. I will speak to your father tomorrow and put an end to this business. Our kingdoms can find an alliance some other way."

She did not look relieved at his words. If anything, she seemed irritated. "I see," she said through gritted teeth. "And what if the men Dol Amroth needs to help patrol our borders? Or the money your people need from my dowry to survive the next winter? I am not an idiot," she added because he could not hide his surprise that she knew the terms of the proposal. "Just because my family and you did not tell me anything does not mean I do not know it. My people need help. Your people need help. Had there been any other possible way to do it, my father would have taken that route. There is no other way. This marriage is about duty, and your desires to the contrary do not matter."

He almost laughed; she had no idea what his duty was or how firmly he was resisting his desires by refusing her hand. "It is not a question of desire," he said. "A king does his duty. But this is no honourable duty."

Lothíriel stared at him in shock. "You think it is dishonourable to agree to an arranged marriage?"

She had misunderstood him, and in the time it took Éomer to hesitate, attempting to decide how and what he could say to explain to her the predicament he found himself in, it was too late. From behind her, Lightfoot suddenly jerked his head and moved, and Lothíriel automatically raised a hand to quiet him. Her sleeve pulled up, and his eyes were drawn to her scar again, the curiosity insatiable as he saw it in another light. Perhaps his gaze had lingered too long; perhaps the gloves she wore were for her own protection, not an order from her maid, or perhaps she had taken Éomer's silence to indicate assent. Either way, she jerked her hand away from his horse and hid it behind her back, her eyes flicking to stare at the ground between them. Her shoulders, which had been tense since the first moment they had locked eyes earlier in the day, finally slumped. Suddenly, she looked tired and she looked… upset. Defeated.

And he felt responsible.

A beat later, she straightened up and cleared her throat, as if the sudden slump in her posture had never happened. "I have grown up knowing that my marriage was going to be political, and my father knows I would never disrespect him by refusing now, when you are right in front of me. I harbour no notions of love and romance, but what I do want is respect. However, clearly I will not get that from you, not when you have decided all I seem to care about are flowers for my hair and what wine I will have with my dinner."

"Princess, I did not mean to –" he tried to interrupt her, to tell her how wrong she was, but she was not listening.

"What? Offend me? You may not have meant to, but you did." She wiped her hands on her dress again and pulled her gloves back on, ignoring how his eyes bore into her skull. Lothíriel marched past him and snatched her cloak off the stable door. He did not move from his position against the wall, and she paused on her way out. He could tell that she needed to have the last word, and he let her, because there was nothing more to say, not that night anyway.

"If I may," said Lothíriel suddenly, and he straightened up. "A word of advice, as a lingering sign of gratitude from when you saved my friend's life." He gestured for her to continue, his curiosity getting the better of him. "You lack the tact and skill a king should have, particularly when negotiating favourable terms. You may deem me too fragile to be your queen, but I have spent years at my father's side, watching him get exactly what he wants from men who are more powerful and have more money than him or you. Either hire a negotiator on your behalf or develop the necessary skills yourself because if all Rohan has to rely upon is your way with words, your land is doomed."

Without waiting for an answer, Lothíriel swept from the stables.

Éomer did not follow her.

"He is infuriating!"

Idis sighed. "I know, dear."

"And so rude!"

"You said he was rude, yes."

"And he dared to insinuate I was some… some… imbecile!" exploded Lothíriel, tossing the last hairpin onto her dressing table hard enough that it bounced off the polished wood onto the floor. She barely noticed, continuing to glare at Idis through the mirror. "As if I had masterminded the whole thing! Did he think I have spent the last six months plotting ways to get him to marry me without even knowing his name?"

Idis sighed. "I do not understand why you wanted to speak to him in the first place. Perhaps if your father had been there –"

"I would have never learned how he truly felt, and by all accounts, I would have been stuck with a man who finds me utterly reprehensible."

"I do not think your meeting was for diplomacy," said Idis. "You can just say it, you know. You wanted to talk to him. You like him."

"I liked a fantasy," snapped Lothíriel. "He is nothing like I – like I told myself he was. I was wrong. I can admit that."

Lothíriel did not say what she was truly thinking, that Éomer was nothing like she remembered. Despite herself, and despite what she told Idis, she was sure the man she had met was in there somewhere. But he was buried under duty and obligation, and a strange obsession with her suitability, and it irritated the life out of her because she had only wanted to meet him to help him. Help them both find a way to navigate the engagementthat was about more than just two people. In its fragility, the union compromised the fate of entire nations, and she knew it was unavoidable, but he had refused her help.

Just like every other man had.

Idis's sigh interrupted her thoughts. "I just never imagined he was the man you met," she said. "Even when you said you had seen him from the balcony, I merely thought he was a guard or perhaps a councilman."

Despite herself, Lothíriel snorted. In one conversation with Éomer, she realised he had all the tact and diplomacy skills of a wild horse. "I cannot imagine him as a councilman."

"You should have shown me your sketches," said Idis, and Lothíriel appreciated her attempt to inject humour into a moment that, by all accounts, was too distressing for words. "Perhaps then I would have also given him a fake name."

"It is pointless to worry about that now," said Lothíriel. "We simply must accept that he was a means to an end, all those months ago, nothing more. He saved your life, and for that, I will try not to kill him the next time I see him."

Idis smiled. "He saved your life too, Princess."

Lothíriel ignored her. "The real problem, of course, is that my father will want an answer from both of us soon. If Éomer does not want the match, I do not intend to force the issue. But I do not plan to orchestrate a favourable ending for him; if he wants to refuse, he must do it himself. Am I not right?"

"Of course you are," said Idis, who did not have a disloyal bone in her body. Lothíriel smiled at her, until she added, "However, you could have handled it better."

"Me?" asked Lothíriel incredulously. "Did you not hear a word I just said?"

"I heard you, Princess."

"Then how is any of this my fault?"

"If you had begun by saying you did not wish to marry either, perhaps he would not have said any of those things to you," said Idis.

"Those things he said were ridiculous! I do not even like wine, or the tiaras they make me wear!"

"And who knows that truth, save for you and I?" asked Idis, and Lothíriel closed her mouth because there was no argument to be had there. Of course, no one knew that the Princess of Dol Amroth was far from perfect. No one could know. And it seemed the king had… wanted her to be imperfect.

Ridiculous.

"Then I do not know what to do," said Lothíriel. "I cannot refuse my father, no matter how much I want to. And Éomer clearly does not have a way out either. So am I doomed to marry a man who thinks I am weak and fragile, and not even worth even getting to know?"

"Oh, Lothíriel," Idis sighed. It was so rare now that she did not call her by her title that Lothíriel was immediately silent. "You are so strong and so independent." Despite the compliments, Idis sounded unbearably sad. "But sometimes, you are still such a child."

Lothíriel did not miss the way Idis's eyes lingered on her scar, and only her affection for her friend made her resist the urge to cover it up again. "I stopped being a child months ago, Idis. And he could not even look at it," said Lothíriel. "I will not spend the rest of my life in servitude to a man who would baulk at a scar when he is one of the few people alive who knows how I got it."

In response, Idis offered her no words of comfort. She abandoned her post by Lothíriel's dresser and came to stand in front of her, hands folded behind her back. Lothíriel looked up at her, hating how her eyes were stinging with unshed tears. But there was no pity in Idis' gaze; there never had been. Instead, she looked thoughtful.

"I am going to show you something," Idis said slowly. Instead of speaking, she dropped something onto Lothíriel's lap and stepped back as if to give her privacy.

Lothíriel's gaze flickered down, and she found herself staring at her pendant, the circlet of pearls around the silver swan glittering fiercely in the candlelight against the dull white of her nightdress. She had not seen it in months. Even its chain, forever cool to the touch thanks to the metal it was made of, lay pooled around it, looking as perfect as the day she had slipped it over Éomer's head.

When he had saved her life.

She looked up at Idis slowly. "Where did you find this?"

"On the King of Rohan's person. He asked me to return it to you. And then he asked to see you, alone, for a chance to explain himself."

He kept it.

Lothíriel sniffled, refusing to look down at the necklace again. Refusing to show how affected she was by its presence. Refusing to admit that, even while Éomer had said so many unkind things to her, she had spent most of the time trying to catch a glimpse of the necklace around his neck, her curiosity as to whether he had kept it almost insatiable. "Well, he had his chance to explain himself."

"You blind-sided him, Lothíriel, and you know it," said Idis. "I know how your brothers make you feel and how you speak to men you think will not take you seriously. But we do not know the king. We do not know what troubles him. What of the man you met all those months ago? If you were more yourself with him then, do you not think he was the same with you? If you had kept your temper, you would have known the answer."

Lothíriel bit her lip. Unbidden, the single conversation from six months ago that she had still not been able to forget flashed through her mind's eye.

"Who did you lose?"

"Everyone."

She still had no idea what he had meant. His sister was alive. He was a king. And yet, she had never seen anyone look so… lost.

"I always keep my temper," she said finally, but her voice had lost its bite. She picked up the pendant and ran her thumb over the face. "Did he just… was it in his pocket?"

"No." There was a smile in Idis' voice now. "He was wearing it."

He kept it.

Lothíriel's heart clenched, and Idis returned to putting her things away in her cupboards, wisely giving her time to think.

If she was honest, Éomer had hurt her pride more than anything else, in a way she had not experienced before. The rejections that had come before had been strictly business; after her injury, and the way no one wanted to talk about it – not to mention Imrahil's single-minded obsession of erasing all mark of it from her body – she had expected the offers to withdraw. It had not bothered her. Spinsterhood for a Princess of Dol Amroth was a powerful position, and her Aunt Ivriniel had taught her well enough for her to grow to prefer it rather than aspire towards a purely transactional marriage.

But she knew Éomer. Not well, but she had thought there had been… something, in the woods, all those months ago. He had been kind and courteous, and he had seemed to like her. It was the first time she had acted just as she pleased, said what she wanted, even taken very little care with her appearance, and he had still smiled at her, laughed at her poor jokes, held her hand when the memories threatened to overpower her. And then Éowyn had sung her brother's praises, her genuine love and affection for him reassuring Lothíriel that he must truly be good, for his sister to be so devoted. She had not expected the romantic fairy tale she had allowed herself to fantasise about, but she had allowed herself a glimmer of hope. For friendship. Companionship. Partnership.

Her hopes, of course, had been brutally crushed as soon as he had started speaking about the proposal.

The thing. He had called it a thing, this duty they were both being told to perform, that she was willing to perform if he only listened to her and saw that she was eager to find a way to give them time, to understand each other and their expectations and gauge their suitability. Hers, and his, because Lothíriel did not care if her husband did not love her; that was for people whose fate was for bigger things than hers. But she would not tolerate a husband who did not respect her.

Éomer barely seemed to want to look at her.

And then he had flinched, when he saw her scar. It had been imperceptible, but she had seen it. And it had burned, because he knew how she had gotten it, knew what she had done, and had even kept her secret, although he had no reason to be loyal to her. But men, fickle as they were, only valued a woman's bravery if it did not make them look like cowards. Éomer, when he had thought he would never see her again, had thought her brave; now, with the prospect of her mark being in his face every day, he had clearly changed his mind.

It was another blow to her pride she refused to take.

But the necklace…

Lothíriel still could not say for sure why she had done it. Every noblewoman in and around Dol Amroth knew the significance of giving a man such a pendant, and Lothíriel was no stranger to the custom. Perhaps it had been the way he had looked at her, as if he understood her; or perhaps she had merely wanted to live as a nameless maid a few moments longer and fantasise about a romance with a man she would never see again. No, that was not it; he had never touched her or indicated that he felt anything for her beyond pity and perhaps curiosity. Was that why she had done it? She had been convinced he would not know what the pendant stood for, and she had been right. But he had never taken it off; that was a piece of information she was not sure what to do with, and the sketch – the first of many – that she had drawn late one night while sitting in the cramped chair in the Houses of Healing seemed to call to her from where it was still safely enclosed in her sketchbook at the thought that, perhaps, he had thought of her too.

Even if he had a truly awful way of showing it.

But Lothíriel had never let a man's rejection stop her. After all, it would have been hard to grow up in Dol Amroth's court, surrounded by her brothers, if she had. When she turned twelve, Elphir had turned twenty-four and finished his education after receiving the finest tutors his whole life. Lothíriel, outgrowing the governesses hired for her, had requested the same masters be given to her, but her father had told her that her education needed no more advancement. She had accepted it as a limitation of her title and stolen Elphir's old books out of his room to read herself.

When she had turned fifteen, Erchirion had been given a ship for his twenty-fourth birthday. Lothíriel had pointed out that she was a better sailor than most of the men he had employed and asked to accompany him on his travels. He had laughed at her, told her to join him once she had a husband to grant her permission, and considered the matter resolved. In response, Lothíriel had sweet-talked the galley's cook and his entire staff to give up their commission and settle in the palace kitchens instead, causing Erchirion to delay his journey by three weeks in order to hire a new crew.

And when she had turned twenty-one and returned to Dol Amroth after five years of living with her aunt, Amrothos was twenty-six and sitting in on council meetings with their brothers and father. When she had asked why she could not do the same, he had told her there was no reason for her to and promised to tell her everything that happened, as if she were a child whining about missing out on an afternoon picnic. And that was when Lothíriel had discovered the secret room off her father's study, allowing her access to the knowledge she knew the men in her life would never willingly grant her.

Was Éomer just another man in a long line of those who refused to listen to her? The question would haunt her, as would the necklace that Idis had deliberately left in her possession to mull over, closing her bedroom door behind her with a soft click. He did not find her unattractive; she was not blind, and he certainly had not tried to pretend he was not staring at her all night. He had judged her, but that was hardly enough reason to give up a match as lucrative as theirs. She had already read the proposal papers, snuck into her father's office before they travelled and scoured his desk for information on what made this marriage so desirable. And she had seen the numbers. Rohan needed money, her money. And Dol Amroth, a tiny principality with too much money and not enough men to defend it, needed the warriors from Rohan that her marriage would ensure to protect their borders.

And he wanted to end it all.

For what?

Perhaps he did truly find her unsuitable. After all, he had echoed Elphir's words without even realising it, questioning her decisions and demanding why she would agree to a match to a man she had never met. Lothíriel had not been able to contain her anger at his words. Anger at his presumption, of course, but more than that at his sheer audacity. Because, of course, she would have to fight for this as well. Here, once again, was a man demanding that she prove herself without outright saying that that was what he wanted her to do. She ignored the part of her that had thought, only for a moment, that perhaps with the king – Éomer – things could be different. That perhaps her life could be different.

But her life, she was quickly learning, was never going to be allowed to be different.

Unless…

Lothíriel slipped the necklace back over her head and tucked it under her nightgown. She told herself she was imagining that it was warmer now, as if the very structure of the metal had been altered by the months it had spent around the neck of a man who was maddeningly, frustratingly difficult to decipher. Who looked at her with eyes that burned but spoke to her so coldly, so dismissively, that it made her veins turn to ice.

No, her life would never be different; she knew that.

Unless, of course, she did something about it.