Hello guys, gals and non-binary pals!

I'm back!

Unfortunately, I'll have to barge in with some bad news - all hell is currently breaking loose at my school and I'm working my ass off at the moment to cover for some collegues that are absent, so I'm not sure I'll be able to hit that friday-deadline for the next chapter. I'll try, of course, but it might be that I won't make it in time.

Just don't be too disappointed, please? Here have this chapter at least!

Enjoy and spread a little love by leaving a comment!

8. Nightmares and Dreamcatchers

At first there were only those sounds to keep her company, to cut through the silence, and yet it was not a shrill sound; it was dull and hollow and muffled, all the edges washed off and muddled down into something soft, and yet it was not a pleasant sound, for it was dissonant and heavy, like a little pebble under your soles cutting into the flesh despite its seemingly rounded shape. It was the sound of laughter, loud and howling and off-key, infused with too much alcohol and too little heart, and she knew it well, for she had heard it before, or at least her mind had imagined it before, many, many times before in fact.

The laughter seemed to be coming from somewhere far off, as though trying to pierce through a heavy cloud of fog and all the ringing sharpness of its sound was blunted by it, leaving the sound to be nothing but a distorted reminder of what it truly was. There was menace behind it, behind that laugh; there was cruelty behind it, and there was pleasure, but not one made of sweetness or joy or ease but one made of pain – yes, a pleasure made of pain, of watching pain, of inflicting it, feeling it, tasting it …

Lothíriel shivered in the king-size bed, goosebumps pricking her skin and yet fine drops of sweat pearled on her forehead etched in frowns; she whimpered as she twitched again, as though, in her sleep, in her dreams, she tried to look away but found that she could not. Whatever it was that she saw in her mind's eye, it would not let her go, it hadn't let go of her in the past, and it wouldn't do so now either, as it never truly would. Her hands grasped the sheets all around her again, pulling at the cloth, nails sinking in deep as she whimpered again, fighting in vain against the undertow of her dreaming pulling her down with it once more, down into the deep.

Sounds became vibrations, tuning in on a key of familiar terror, making her blood sing with dread, as the whole of her body tensed in fearful anticipation of what was surely to follow. Vibrations turned to flashes, visions jumping before her eyes, eyes squeezed shut in a last pitiful attempt to hide from the images she wished not to see, but it was all in vain, for she had already seen those images many times before, or at least, her mind had conjured up those images many times before. Perhaps, if she had actually seen these things, she might have learned to forget them, but the pictures your mind created, you could never unsee.

Out of flashes colours sprang, that formed into shapes, and first it was blurry, muddled, hard to see but soon enough she recognised what images her mind came up with. Smiles came into focus, but not the smiles of jolly boys and sweet kindness; it were smiles made of rows and rows of perfectly white sharpened teeth, flashed with a cruel malice that rejoiced in the terror it elicited from others. It were the smiles of men with wicked intentions, and as so often, when she saw those smiles, she was reminded of those exotic beasts from exotic lands that she had seen as a child as part of a travelling exhibition – beasts with golden furs and reflecting eyes and jaws full of rows of perfectly white, perfectly sharp and perfectly deadly teeth. She remembered thinking, as a child, that she had never before seen a more menacing smile and never would again – but she had been wrong, because as the images of these men with their perfect smiles stared back at her, with teeth as glistening and sharp and deadly as any dagger, she knew that man was the greatest beast of all …

Lothíriel whimpered, sucking in desperate gulps of air through clenched teeth, a scream stuck in her throat, a scream heard only in her head, a scream amidst a thousand screams. With her head whipping from side to side she tried to shield herself from the sounds and images her mind forced her to confront. Menacing laughter howling from alcohol-infused grins. Her breathing became erratic. Voices that pleaded for mercy but would find none. Her legs started to tread and kick the covers from her. Hands that gripped like a knife, gripping the flesh of its victim. Tears watered her cheeks as silent witnesses to her nightmares. Eyes staring back at her, eyes that did not see, that would never see again …

With a drawn-out sob, somewhere between pain and panic, Lothíriel rolled to the side, pulling up her legs, tightening into a ball of human flesh, making herself small. But no matter how small she made herself, no matter how hard she fought to hide, from her mind and fears she could never hide. Hissing in disgust and fear, she started to flinch. She knew what would follow, and she didn't want to see.

Smiles turned to flames, fog became smoke, and the stench of it, burned into her memory, made her gag, but even that wouldn't save her. The heat of the fire seemed all around her and though her whole body jerked back, she could not escape the inferno, because the flames blazed only in her mind, and from your own mind you could not run.

The sounds were the first thing that hit her; the wild neighing of a desperate horse, hooves scraping aimlessly across the stone floor, creating the backdrop of thunderous rain, drumming loudly inside her dream. But the sounds were only the beginning, and she knew what was to follow. And yet even if she wanted to fight against turning around, she knew she would not have been able to, because it had all happened before, and she could change the past as little as she could change her nightmares or the eternal tides of the sea.

As she turned around at last, the sobs she had fought to keep in finally broke loose, and she was now no longer only crying in her dreams but in the real world, too, as her hands gripped the cushion beneath her, nails tearing at the fabric. But all her wailing, all her tears and all her resistance wouldn't save her now; the time had come, and it was too late, all too late.

Before her a white stallion stood, tall and gleaming and proud, with a mane black as the night and hooves shining like silver in the moonlight, but the beauty was broken and the fair animal had turned into a foul beast. Fire blazed out of its nostrils, quenched only by the drops of blood it spat; the black mane sizzled with bright flames, whipping monstrously in the heat and smoke all around her; and its eyes smouldered with embers of blood and death and fire and foreboding.

She didn't run. She wouldn't have been able to. She had not been able to.

With a scream stuck in her throat Lothíriel sat up, awake in a flash.

With eyes wide in terror – eyes that did not see anything yet beyond the horrors in her dreams – and fingers clutching the sheets to her breast so tightly her knuckles appeared like frozen spikes, she gasped for air. Trembling, she let out a silent sob, and with it the silent tears flowed, and it the night, in the dark, she at last allowed herself to break down, if only for a moment. There was something so deeply cathartic about crying, about allowing yourself to be weak; like crying out in pain when you're hurt – it wouldn't make the pain go away, but it felt better, even if it still didn't feel good.

Lothíriel didn't know how long she wept or how much time passed till she could breathe again, but after some time the tears on her cheeks had dried and she was calm again, or if not calm, then at least composed enough to push the fears back behind that mask of control. Breathing deep, she could feel the weariness already tugging at her consciousness again, and she so wished to simply give in. She was tired, so unbearably tired – tired of projecting that image of regal poise, tired of being on her guard all the time, tired of never feeling safe – not even in her dreams – so tired of being afraid. She was exhausted and weary, like a swimmer heading towards a shore ever out of reach, and the turmoil of the tides and wrath of the waves washed away more and more of her strength, of herself, until she was little more than a polished stone at the bottom of the sea.

She was so weary of pretending to be strong.

A sudden sound on her left pulled her out of her depressing thoughts then and for a frightful second she actually feared that her nightly terrors had come to life again, but no, there was something else – and as her eyes adjusted to the faint light of the moon that fell through the window into the bedroom, she understood what it was. Perhaps it was her own weariness that had prevented her from feeling the slight tremors vibrating through the bed, perhaps it was the panicked beating of her own heart that had kept her from hearing the frantic breathing next to her, perhaps it even were the very horrors in her own mind that had kept her from sensing the horrors in others.

Next to her in the great king-size bed, thrashing about like a drowning man, her husband lay, and with his forehead wrinkled in fear, his teeth gritted together and the sweat upon his brow, it was not hard to say what was ailing him.

He was having a nightmare.

For a moment she was almost frozen, as if in shock; and yet it was not shock, but rather shame and embarrassment. She felt mortified for witnessing this, because not only did it make her uncomfortable, her with her Southern upbringing and their discomfort with displaying feelings deemed undesirable, but she also doubted that her lord and husband would want her to be a witness to this intimate moment of his weakness. And so, though she didn't feel particularly good about it, she actually considered to just ignore it and to try and go back to sleep – after all, that's how she'd been raised and socialised, and surely that's what her husband would appreciate most in his manly pride. But unfortunately she found that she could not.

She simply could not bring herself to just pretend that this wasn't happening or that it would solve anything of the real problem that lay underneath it. Of course, this went against everything she had been taught, from respectful distance to societal taboos to royal conduct, and naturally, it shattered all the boundaries of this political union that they had – because this would be too raw, too intense and too intimate for two people only connected by politics – and yet she found that she could not simply leave another tormented soul to wrestle with his own demons alone in his sleep. And so she reached out at last.

'My lord.', she tried, cautiously, keeping her voice low so as not to spook him, addressing him again and again, louder and louder each time, but still she didn't dare inch closer to him nor did she dare touch him for fear of being hit by one of his fists, because by now the thrashing had increased and he had started to kick and punch the air, mumbling curses and pleas to the figments of his dream imagination.

'My lord.', she tried again, even louder this time and now she started to gently shake him, but even though his head bobbed from side to side and his face twisted, he still didn't wake up, and for a moment she feared she would actually have to leave their bedchamber to alert his sister Éowyn and to enlist the help of the shieldmaiden to wake him from his nightmares. But then she took heart and tried it once more but this time she leaned down to him, close enough to whisper into his ear, and, smoothing out the frowns of panic on his forehead, she spoke one last time, breathing the word almost, 'Éomer … '

The king awoke with a scream that echoed in the bedchamber and pierced her very marrow and bone, and she didn't know what had got through to him in the end – her touch or his name whispered on her tongue? But Lothíriel had little time to contemplate the answers to that question, because while the king might have woken from his nightmare, the terrors of his dreaming seemed to cling to him still.

He looked about as though trying to get his bearings, as though not fully recognising where he was, and he seemed to grow increasingly panicked at the things he might still be seeing. And so it should not have surprised her that, when she tried to put her hand on his shoulder to anchor him back in the here and now, he would instead jerk away from her touch in an almost violent motion – but it did catch her by surprise. As the king jumped up in his frantic momentum, he shoved her away from him with such force that it almost had her do a full somersault, and only once she had regained her proper visual perception of what was up and down did she notice the bizarre scene that was unfolding before her.

Standing in the middle of the bedchamber, somewhere between hearth and bed, the king of the Riddermark stood, and in the silver moonlight, looking deathly pale, clad in nothing but his breeches, he almost looked more like a young and frightened boy – were it not for the sharp and long sword in his hand. It was a terrifying image, seeing him standing there and Lothíriel considered for a panicked moment to cry out for help, but that would mean that not only his sister but servants and guards would come running, and then the whole world would be witness to the greatest shame of this young king. No, she thought bitterly, foolishly, bravely, no, there was no one she could call – she was his queen and it was upon her to rein in her king.

Climbing gingerly out of the king-size bed, she tried to make as little sound as possible, so as not to spook him and have him run her through with his sword by accident. Approaching him step by step, cautious to always keep the end of the bed between herself and the king, she stopped short of leaving the bed, her shield, behind. But when she had reached the end of the bed at last, she paused, for a moment unsure of how to proceed. Watching him move his head frantically when he believed to hear a sound that was only in his mind, all the while slashing that sharp sword against whatever foe he imagined himself to be fighting – well, she couldn't pretend that it didn't frighten her. She knew quite well what nightmares could do to a man traumatised by war.

After the war, and the victory, and the celebrations, when she had resumed her work in the Houses of Healing, if only for a short while, before her lord father had commanded her to return home, she had seen her fair share of men with wounded souls. Screams and tossing throughout the night, young men in the prime of their life desperately trying to use hands and feet that were no longer there, brave men that wetted the bed like babes still at their mothers' breast, soldiers that, in their mind, still fought their enemies at every waking moment, and even non-waking moments. She had seen a man strangled by a life-long friend because tricks of the mind had painted him as the enemy; and another time, a knight had hacked a healer's hand clean off because he believed she was holding a blade – it was a butter knife – and it was safe to say that the afternoon tea had been quite ruined by the bloodbath. So, in that moment, it was more than just respect and decorum that compelled her to keep her distance and to remain wary of his every movement.

And yet, all her manners, all her fears and all her unwillingness could not compete with the sheer feeling of compassion that gripped her heart as she watched that mighty warrior reduced to a frightened boy trying to ward off memories of evil with a simple sword – granted, a very sharp and very long sword, but even that was no match for the sneaky, slithering might of nightmares. She was sure if she were in his place she would want someone to pull her out of her bad dreams and nightly terrors, back into the here and now, back into reality, even if that reality held little comfort either. True, the cruelty of bright shadows and wicked grins was only a pale memory in the waking hours that held no threat, but only because that precise threat had already come true in the hours of war. But, she mused, better the bitter burden of a total awareness of painful memories than the horrifying images of the restless mind at night.

And so she tried to make a sound only as quietly as possible, so as not to spook him too much; first, she cleared her throat, and when that didn't seem enough, she spoke his name again – his name, not his title – and that did the trick, though the result was not nearly as peaceful or smooth as she would have liked. Whipping around at the sound of her voice, the king slashed the sword in the direction of her voice, very nearly taking her head off, and she only avoided the sharp kiss of the blade by ducking behind the bedpost in time. But she had little time to count herself blessed to be still among the living, because as soon as she dared to peak out from behind the bedpost and her lord and king saw her, he started to lunge at – not with a blade this time, but with words, and not quiet, whispered ones either: he was shouting.

'What devilry is this?! How come you here?'

Lothíriel blinked rapidly, taken aback by the sudden loudness of his voice set against the stark contrasting silence of the night from before, just as she was stunned by the unusual harshness of his voice but she retained enough poise to not show her very obvious shock. She wondered for a brief moment who he thought she was, or who he thought he was talking to and if he really meant her as he spoke but then she shook off those thoughts – they were questions for another time.

'Éo – my lord, you had a nightmare.'

At that clarification his reaction was as sudden as it was expected. Realising her words, processing their meaning, his eyes first squinted in confusion, then widened in shock and then squeezed shut in an almost violently physical reaction of shame. As he tried to wrench his hands to his head to try and bury his face in them, he became aware of the sword, and as he let it slip from his grip with a motion made of disgust as much as of horror it came crashing down upon the stony floor with a clanging sound, and that at last made her flinch. Of course, she tried to hide it, tried to cover her slip, but he saw it all the same, he was a king.

'I'm not going to hurt you, Lothíriel.'

'Never thought you would.'

And there it was. A lie; small and sweet and innocent but a lie nonetheless, and they both knew it, and a least one heart was breaking because of it.

Of course, she knew he had only meant to reassure her, knowing full well that he would never consciously, intentionally harm her in any way. But she also knew him to be a warrior through and through, capable of deeds of great violence, and she had already seen bits and pieces of that violence flash and flare up in between the control and self-discipline with which he sought to master that temper. And he was a man wounded by war, in more that just one way, and who knew what things he could be capable of – unconsciously, unintentionally? Violence was no less violent, she knew, even if no violent thoughts set it in motion.

Of course, he knew she had only meant to reassure him, to shield him from the repercussions of his own behaviour, to keep him from taking the blame for things – unfortunately – far beyond his control, to keep him from pouring even more disgust upon himself. It would have worked, if she had only truly meant what she had said, but a lie was a lie, no matter the intention; and perhaps it was even the good intention behind it that made the blow of the lie even harder to bear. To have her lie about her fear, to deny the panic that had so very obviously gripped the whole of her, if only for a moment – it was hard enough to see her scared of him, but even harder to realise that she was even more afraid to show her fear to him, wary of what his reaction would be. Not for the first time did he wonder what had happened to her that had made her so fearful of him and of men in general, and the very thought it, and the kind, albeit misguided, attempt at hiding her fears from him, made his heart warm and break at the same time, and his eyes softened.

In that moment there were a thousand words and one he wanted to say and yet none of them actually made it past his lips. As he watched her lower her eyes in glum demureness, as he watched her approach him with cautious steps, as he watched her gingerly pick up the sword to put it away safely – far away from unsteady hands and unsteady minds – he felt his heart ache with a strange emotion, somewhere between pain and affection. And as he looked at her then he thought that he had never before seen anything so sad or so beautiful in all his life.

A flash of light pulled him out of his sombre thoughts and as he looked up, blinking, he realised it must have been the reflection of the moonlight bouncing off the sword in her hand, and as he saw her standing there, so small and so alone, blade in hand, the moon mirrored a white cut across her delicate neck and it filled him with a dreadful realisation. He could have hurt her – Béma! – he could have killed her! That thought made him shiver, with shame and fear and with a passionate impulse to protect her, even if he had no idea how or from what.

'I'm sorry you had to see that – but I'm guessing it's not the first time you've seen me having a nightmare.', he started, meaning to apologise for his frightful behaviour but once he had started talking, there was no stopping the words, and he had never been good with words, and so it wasn't that surprising that even with only a handful of words he already managed to put his foot in his mouth again, 'But – running the risk of sounding rude – if I'm the one with the nightmares here, why are you up at this hour, my lady?'

Of course, it was a foolish thing to ask, and he doubted not that she must think him foolish in that moment – after all, what woman could sleep peacefully next to a man thrashing about like a crazed stallion in one moment and very nearly butchering her with a broadsword in the next? But still, somehow he could not quite shake the feeling that it was more than that and that her true reason for being awake at this hour of night had less to do with his fears than with hers. At his questioning she had stilled in her movements for a moment, and he could almost see her mind overheating with thoughts, debating whether to open up or crawl back into that tiny shell she still clung to. But as she put away the sword and turned back to him, looking up with those wary, pleading eyes, he got his answer at last, 'You're not the only one with nightmares.'

The silence that followed was deafening, and even if he had wanted to fill it with words and meaning, he would have found himself unable to do so, and so, the silence stretched on. Of course, there was an understanding between them at least, even if it was one only found in silence – in the night, in the dark, hidden from the eyes of the world, two lost souls wounded by the past may connect and perhaps even find comfort in knowing that they were not alone in their suffering. In that moment he wished for nothing more than to be able to take her hand, to take her into his arms, to find solace in her embrace and to offer the same in return, and yet he could not bring himself to do so. He had lived with his own demons for far too long to allow them to taint another by sharing them, and as it seemed she had enough shadows of her own to fight, so how could he bear to burden her already burdened soul with his own darkness? No, he thought bitterly, resigned to cling to the hollow code of strength, he would be man enough to battle his own demons (and perhaps hers as well, if she would let him?) – there was simply no need to burden her with this.

His queen, however, seemed to disagree.

A touch pulled him out of his brooding thoughts and as he looked down he was met with the deep, dark eyes of his wife, standing right before him, her hand holding on to his, and he could not remember when she had approached him, but there she was. Her hand was cold but he held on to it all the same, his fingers greedily intertwining with hers, soaking up what little warmth her touch could offer – and he so wished he could see her face but as her back was against the window and the moon, her face was in the shadows and hidden from his view. He wondered what expression her face would show if he could see it now but by the look in her eyes he could tell that this was as new to her as it was to him. This closeness, the way they stood, the way their hands held on to each other, the way she held his gaze – all of it was wholly new and it felt … intimate.

A tingling sensation slithered up his spine and he felt himself holding his breath as his eyes looked down and for the briefest of moments his gaze settled on the spot where her mouth should be, and when his eyes flitted back up to hers, he could see in her gaze that she had noticed it too, and perhaps had realised his thought before he had even managed to form it inside his head. In that moment his mind went blank and he could think no longer, or if he did, it were no thoughts but rather a maelstrom of consciousness, pulling him down, ever down.

Perhaps he should kiss her. Perhaps he should press his lips onto her cold lips. Perhaps he should press his mouth onto hers and breathe some warmth into her. Perhaps he should pull her into his arms and never let her go. Perhaps in his arms she would never be afraid or hurt ever again. Perhaps he should do none of these things. Perhaps this was all wrong. Perhaps …

A tugging motion around his fingers tore him out of his increasingly erratic thoughts and put him back to reality. Blinking, he became aware that he was moving and that his feet were carrying him and that his wife was leading him back to bed. For a crazy moment he wondered whether she had read his mind, or was it not said that Elvish blood bore Elvish gifts? But no, he found that she was a woman like any other, or perhaps not quite.

As she gently put him to bed, she didn't come to him with open arms and open lips, but instead she softly pushed him down, to have him lie on the bed and then put the blanket around, tucking him, as any mother would do for her boy – but she wasn't a mother and he was no longer a boy. Honestly, the situation was so unexpected, so strange, and at any other time he would have laughed, but found that he could not. He could tell that this here didn't come natural to her, and her attempts at care-giving were wobbly and well-intentioned at best, like a young foal trying out its first steps; to be kind and warm and caring, loving even – she had known to be like that once, but it almost seemed as though she had been made to unlearn it, and now she had to learn it all over again. So no, he would not laugh at her for this, not when he felt so strangely comforted by it.

'Since I was a boy I haven't been tucked into bed like this … '

Lothíriel looked up from her hands to see him smiling at her, and even though he didn't grin from ear to ear she knew he was only teasing her. She sat back to watch her work and as she saw him lying there, buried in the bed, wrapped in his blanket, she couldn't find it in her heart to scold him for his teasing. After all, she knew he was only trying to cover his slip-up, because she doubted not that she was probably the first person ever to have seen him in such state and to have witnessed him at his lowest and most vulnerable moment, and she understood his need to try and appear above such weakness. He was a man, after all, and a king at that, and, unfortunately, for men like that everything that wasn't strong was considered weak.

'Would it help if I sang to you? Or shall I tell you a story first?'

Her king didn't grace her with an answer but she hadn't expected him to – what kind of king would like to be teased? All the same, she saw him smile and that was all the encouragement she needed, and so, sitting next to him on the edge of their bed, she began to tell him the same story her mother had always told her when she had had a nightmare as a little girl, and after her mother had died, she had told that same story to herself when the nightmares had started. As her king's face was shadowed by the moonlight behind the bed, she couldn't quite tell if he actually enjoyed her bedtime story but he listened to her retelling the tale of the Watermaiden all the same. And after, after the bitter ending to the tragic tale, the bitter parting of the two lovers, lovers who were as different as the land and the sea, after the recounting of the painful longing for the sea, she started to sing, and she remembered that song from her mother, too; and perhaps it even was the bittersweet memory of her mother that fuelled her heart-felt rendition of the ballad.

'Come into my boat, a storm is coming, and night is falling.

Where will you go? All alone, you drift away.

Who's holding your hand, when it pulls you down, into the deep?

Where will you go? So shoreless is the cold, dark sea.

Come into my boat, the autumn wind tautens the sails.

Come into my boat, our longing is our helmsman.

Come into my boat, the best mariner was I.'

When the last verse had left her lips and the last note had been sung, she became quiet, gripped by a sudden, almost unbearable melancholy; she hadn't actually managed to sing all of the song, too great had been the pain of the memory of her mother, and so she had rather chosen to end the song before the tears already pricking in the corners of her eyes had any chance of falling. Looking over to her king, she eyed him cautiously and when she found his breathing slow and steady and his eyes closed, she know he was asleep, and she exhaled the breath she didn't knew she had been holding and all the strange tension fell off of her at last. But when she moved to get up, ready to go over to her side of the bed and to go back to sleep as well, his hand reached out all of the sudden, holding on to her wrist, and she heard him whisper to her in the silent darkness of the night, 'It would help us both if we held each other.'

For a moment Lothíriel was too shocked to react, to even move or think. She was exhausted, tired, and all she wanted was to go back to sleep in the hopes of escaping her nightmares long enough to get some actual rest. But his hand was holding on to her, and though his grip was not very firm, she did feel the need behind it, and though she doubted not that he would let her go if she so desired it, she also knew how much effort it took for him to admit to such a need and to show such vulnerability in front of her. He wanted her to stay with him, and she could feel, just feel, how much he needed her in that moment – and perhaps, she needed him, too.

And so she nodded slowly, softly, almost imperceptibly so, and when he held up the blanket for her, she quietly crawled into bed next to him. Surprisingly enough, they fit shamefully well together. With his left arm under the cushions, she could rest her head on them without having to bend her neck out of shape, and as she was smaller and thinner than him, the blanket proved big enough for two people. Of course, he got comfortable much quicker than she did; while she folded her hands before her bosom, almost as if to shield herself from too much contact, his right arm snaking around her waist and his hand on the small of her back gently pulled her closer until it was hard to tell where she ended and he began.

It was strange, she thought, to be so close to him in such a vulnerable moment, or to be so close to him at all, and the thought of the other times she was this close to him, made her blush furiously, and she was glad for the darkness of the night then. Only once before in her life had she lain in bed like this with a man; her brother Amrothos had held her like this once, coincidentally enough, after a nightmare had woken her – but that had been different, Amrothos was her brother. And Éomer … he was her king and he was her husband, no more – and with a sigh she relaxed at last and eased into his embrace – no less. And for the first time in a long, long while no nightmares would disturb their sleep for the rest of the night.

FUN FACT #1: I once experienced a nightmare episode of sleep paralysis, with hallucinations and immobility and all - didn't go to sleep after that for the rest of the night. So yeah, my inspirations for chapters always so fun ... *facepalms sleepwalking*

FUN FACT #2: I always tuck my boyfriend in when we go to sleep - he told me to put that in the story somewhere because it feels "like a comfy woolly coccoon of warmth". *Mission accomplished*

FUN FACT #3: The song is actually a rough translation of a song by the German band Rammstein. Check out the cover by Apocalyptica and Nina Hagen, "Seemann". It's amazing!

FUN FACT #4: Ok, question time - who or what was Éomer dreaming about? I left clues!