I. AM. BACK.

Sorry it took me so long but I wanted to have at least 2 chapters more down before I post this one, and now that I have, I won't hold out on you any longer.

Also, I got a bit distracted.

39. And the Light of Hope flickers before it dies

It was already late when her lord and husband came to their chambers, to go to bed at last; a habit he had developed ever since the two of them had returned from the South. In their first year of their marriage there had been a time, a short but sweet moment, when her king had been hardly able to wait till nightfall to come to their chambers, to take her to bed, and she, the queen, had been just as eager to follow him to bed and into his arms.

Now, however, her king would oft not be seen until the moon was already high up in the night sky, to slink in between the sheets next to her, quiet as the darkness around them – if he came to bed at all, that is. Less kinder souls would call him a coward for trying to avoid her by coming late to their bed, and even though she did not possess quite such an exaggerated opinion of herself so as to call herself a kind soul in any way, she still would not name him coward for avoiding her – as she did not behave much more bravely in this regard, as she herself acted the coward by hiding from him in their chambers … until she could hide no longer.

Tonight, however, despite the lateness of the hour, as her king arrived, he did not find his wife already in bed, pretending to sleep; instead, he found his queen still sitting at her dressing table, staring at her own reflection in the mirror, lost in her own thoughts. However, even if her king thought that strange, or perhaps suspicious even, he did not let it show. Rather from what she could hear of the rustling sounds behind her back, she assumed her king would act as he had done all the nights before (safe the one they'd had their disastrous talk).

Taking off his clothes without so much as a word, he would slide into bed, facing the other end of the wall, himself pretending to sleep, going along with their game, as it was a game they had learned to play well. Or worse even, he would pull out his great sword Gúthwinë, sharpening it for hours on end, or at least, pretending to – they both knew it was just an excuse on his part to discourage her from striking up yet another disastrous conversation, waiting for her to give in and to go to bed herself.

A sudden, wild thought sneaked into her head in that moment, and the manic rush of madness tickled her. If neither she nor he would relinquish their resistance and go to bed, would they be sitting here the whole night, saying nothing to each other, until the cock crowed and the first rays of sunlight announced the beginning of a new day? Or would either of them fall down in exhaustion before that? What a curious sight it would be for their subjects, if their maids were to find them like that: a king and queen frozen in stubborn silence.

But, of course, they would not let that happen, she mused dryly, as they were both too diligent in their duties to let protocol slide, and thus the wild thought vanished as quickly as it had come. However, just when the queen had been ready to give in with a sigh, to get up and go over to their bed to share it for yet another night spent in lonely company, a hand on her shoulder held her back.

Instantly, Lothíriel froze, and her thoughts that had been as wild and tangled just moments before came to an immediate halt. Shocked surprise made way to confusion, and then apprehension. For a dreadful second she feared that his hand on her shoulder was meant as an unmistakable sign, signalling to her what he as a husband craved and demanded from her as a wife. The thought filled her with anxiety as much as with pity; because even though these little moments of intimacy were the last few bits that still connected them to each other and the life they could have had, she also despised the hollow nature these moments had succumbed to.

Already too exhausted from the last few days (who had inexplicably seen her drained of her energy, and left her pale and sick), but, especially tonight, after the confrontational conversation she'd had with her handmaidens, she knew she did not have the heart nor the strength to endure yet another lifeless and loveless encounter. Still, she knew if he were to persist in his advances, it would only be a matter of time until she would ultimately cave in.

However, the queen didn't need to fear her king's advances, as what she feared was the furthest thing from his mind; but even though he seemed thoroughly unaware of her fears, her king did seem to notice the tension in her clenched up body. Slowly, his hand went down from her shoulder to her shoulder blade, and there, one hand became two, joined for a moment, resting on her skin, before moving to massage her upper back. Starting from her shoulder blades, his thumbs and the palms of his hands would work inwards towards that part of the neck that always seemed so much in dire need of releasing the tension that made it stiff and hurting; there his hands would meet for a moment, only to separate again and to start their journey towards the top of her spine once more.

Lothíriel didn't know for how long her king had been slowly but surely, steadily, kneading away the tension that had been gnawing away at her over the past few hours, days and weeks, but she found that she didn't really care to know. Other questions were also sporadically running through her mind – like, why her king would choose to extend such kindness towards her after so long a time of distance? – but she chose to ignore them too. Her king's hands on her skin were warm and tender, as tender as they hadn't been in a while, and they passed this intimate moment between them in mutually comforting silence, words an unnecessary intruder – and for a moment, it almost seemed as though the old close connection between them had been restored … but only for a moment.

'I know there is truth in what you say, Lothíriel, but some things cannot be forgiven, and some things shall never forgotten.', her king's voice sounded far and distant as he spoke, barely more than a whisper, and yet, even as his hands had stilled on her skin, she could feel him still, as close and open to her as he hadn't been in a long time. As the queen opened her eyes – closed in comforting pleasure before – and she stared at her own reflection, she no longer saw only herself but him, standing behind her, and the man in the mirror certainly did not shy away from meeting her gaze as he continued to speak.

'Last night you accused me of using my honour and pride as an excuse for my hatred, and perhaps, you're right. Perhaps this is about honour. But to the Rohirrim honour isn't the vainglorious, bloated concept you Southerners believe it to be. It is a way of life, our way of life. Our words say, we ride with honour. We do not abandon our principles, not even in the face of pressure or the easy way out. We do not change with the tides as others perhaps have learned to do.'

Lothíriel didn't respond immediately after he had finished, instead she contemplated his words. A part of her understood very well what he was getting at here, after all, it didn't take much thinking to understand that he was referring to the words of her house – Rise with the tides – and even though she knew that there was more to the motto than meets the eye, she also understood that fleeting nature of change that was hailed within might appear strange and even downright abhorrent to someone as steadfast as him.

However, she also understood that he was alluding to more than just the entirely practicality-driven nature of honour that was inherent to her own family; instead he was alluding to the overall lack of honour and loyalty of Southerners that the Northerners so often criticised and mocked them for. Still fresh in everybody's mind was the memory of that Southern betrayal, when all oaths of honour had been forgotten, when in their greatest hour of need at Helm's Deep, it had not been their Southern friends that had come to their aid – and even though the Rohirrim had ridden out nonetheless to fight for their Southern brethren, this moment of betrayal still stung. And just like this act of betrayal still hung heavily between two peoples allied by an oath made of honour, so did another act of betrayal, though this one was of a more intimate nature, between two persons only, and thus, perhaps, hurt all the more because of it.

Of course, one could understand and explain away the reasoning for when the South had abandoned the North once, as they had their own battles to fight at the time, but it was a lot harder to justify why one person would choose to cut out another so completely, leaving that person grappling in the dark, forced to face new revelations on their own, only to turn back around and – as her king undoubtedly chose to see it – to betray that person all over again.

Lothíriel, naturally, could understand the trepidations and reluctance of her king, and thus she wished to engage with him in a calm manner, but, try as she might, she couldn't quite bite back the bitterness that crept into her voice. Nobody's pride, after all, had ever taken kindly to being wounded.

'Your have your words, my lord, I have my own.', she spoke curtly then, choosing her words carefully, not wanting to appear too antagonistic so as not to provoke him into bolting and retreating into that shell of simple explanations and dutiful reasoning that he had cultivated for himself. Perhaps, if she wanted to change his mind, she had to offer up some things of herself too, and if he could take a step towards her by admitting to a fault of his own, then surely so could she?

'But perhaps I, too, have been wrong to deny your criticisms before. Perhaps you were right when you said that my desire for revenge is not so different from your reluctance to make peace. Perhaps, we were both wrong and right in all the same ways.', she added then, and as she spoke those words, she found that she could not meet his gaze in the reflection of the mirror; the memory of the conversation with her two maidservants was still too fresh in her mind and too great was the fear in her that he would see right through her and would know the bitter truth she had been forced to swallow today.

No, she chided herself, looking back in self-pity and regret won't change the future, only looking forward will do that – and so, she looked forward.

'I know that honour is … honour. I know that it is a part of who you are, of what this country is, and I know that I understand precious little about it. After all, in my life I have seldom been afforded the luxury of it. But I have learned that change need not always be a bad thing, and that a compromise need not always be a loss of integrity. You and I have both seen that change can be good and bring about – '

'Is that what you want us to do: change? To give up the old ties that bound us? To let go of the past in favour of a future?', the king asked, and as his hands fell from her shoulders, forming to fists at his side, there was a sense of caution and hesitation in his voice, but there was a challenge there as well, and she should have seen that one sooner, 'So, you would give up your plans for revenge, if I were to give up my opposition to this offer of peace?'

Lothíriel became hopeful all of the sudden, her heart racing with the promise that she might have actually got through to him this time, and even though a voice inside her howled in defiance at the loss of familiar bitterness and vengeance she so desperately had clung to all those months after the war, to the point that it had almost become her sole reason for surviving, even if not for living, she still knew in her heart that if this was what it would take to be the queen duty bound her to be, for the sake of the people she had come to see as her own to protect, then, by Ulmo!, she would be willing to sacrifice even that.

Ruling is in the sacrifices one makes, and the willingness to make them.

'I would, and I would gladly give it up, if that's what it takes for you to take that step forward with me towards a joint future.', she spoke then with a hard-earned resolution as she jumped up and turned to him, taking his hand in hers to emphasise her honest determination. And she did speak truthfully here; because even though her heart bled at the thought of leaving her desire for vengeful justice behind (and a part of her surely thought of it as nothing short of a betrayal of her butchered friends), she knew she would do it in the end. Because she was queen; and because her duty to the living should no longer be shadowed by her duty to the dead.

Upon her words, her king remained silent, thoughtful even; and he seemed to consider her proposal as much as he seemed to consider his hand in hers – her comforting hands that enfolded his calloused hand (as she saw it), his huge paw trapped in her silken feather-wings (as he saw it). But while she had mustered the courage and strength to offer up her greatest sacrifice, perhaps blinded by it even, she should have watched her lord and king instead. If she had, perhaps she would have realised sooner that whatever light of hope was shining for her, her husband saw only the shadows it might throw.

'And what else?', Éomer spoke then with no small amount of bitter amusement, and as his hand slipped from hers, she understood at last that she had foolishly walked into a trap of her own making, 'What other promises will you make to convince me? Only to break them once it suits you … or your father?'

'No, Éomer, this is not – my father has nothing to do with this!', she started desperately, words tripping over each other in their attempt to convince him of her honest intentions, because, of course, that's what he would conclude from her efforts to try and make peace – that she was nothing more than an agent of her father's interests, fulfilling the task set for her. And what could she really say to make him believe that her father's words and orders were the furthest thing from her mind? That this wish for peace, and all she was doing, was for the good of the Mark?

Her mind was a blank piece of paper and her ink dried up; panic, and nothing else, could explain that the way she begged for his ear was nothing short of grovelling, 'Éomer, please, trust me, I – '

'No. No.', he cut her off viciously, head shaking slowly as he backed away, the distance between them turning into a gulf, and with his gaze on her as unyielding as his will, her king continued to drive his sword into her heart, and every word became a slash, 'I can't. I can't trust you. Not anymore. Not in this. You made sure of that.'

Too shocked to speak, Lothíriel took a step back. In her head about a thousand questions were shouting at her simultaneously, and almost all of them singled down to her inability to grasp just how her husband, a Northerner with no aptitude for deception, had managed to outsmart her like that, or why she, a lady of the Southern courts, reared in the arts of reading people, had allowed herself to become trapped like that? He has spent too much time with me, she concluded bitterly, and while this thought should have made her proud to think that he had managed to broaden his Northern mind with Southern wiles, it also made her sad to think that he should have been forced to learn such wiles, as it went against everything that made him honourable and good and who he was as a man of the North. Yes, she thought with bitter realisation, all this time he has learned too much from me, and I … I have not learned a thing from him …

And it was frustration above all things that rendered her speechless in that situation; her frustration with his stubborn refusal to look beyond the hurt he had received at her hands, her frustration with the mistakes she had made that had caused his hurt in the first place. But it was also frustration that compelled her to speak again; her frustration with the narrow-mindedness he demonstrated, her frustration with herself for underestimating him again and again … only to be confronted with the consequences of her misjudgement.

'So, is that it then? Is this what's it going to be like?! You expect me to stand idly by and watch as you lead us to ruin? Is this what it will take for you to trust me again? To convince you that I am loyal to you and you alone? That I am on your side?', she hurled at him when she had found her voice again at last (and trusted it not to fail her again), and even though she knew her words were cruel and unjust, she could not have stopped them, even if she had wanted to. In that moment, anger was all she seemed to have left, and it made her feel powerful and in control, where before she had felt powerless, 'Well, I won't do it! Do you hear me? I won't. Not even if you hate me for it!'

In the silence that followed, the queen was too riled up by her own rage that had made her blood boil and her tongue loose to process the words she had just said, but once the initial flush of anger had subsided and her mind was cleared to think, she realised at once the mistake she had made. She had spoken in anger, the words out of her mouth before she could have stopped herself; the words of an angry princess trying to be a queen, pouting and sulking in her own frustration, pretending as though she didn't care very much what he thought about her or felt for her or would do. Because, clearly, she did care, or else why would she bother to butcher their already crumbling relationship with further strain put on by this endlessly circling discussion?

The king, for his part, seemed to have had enough of it, but rather than to explode in anger, as he surely would have done in the beginning of their marriage, he simply turned away in silence, depriving her of knowing whether her worst fear would actually become reality. Walking over to their bed, he started taking off his clothes, fully intent on ignoring her, but the clenching of his jaws was telling enough that under the mask of cool indifference there smouldered a fire only waiting to be reignited.

Lothíriel, once she had come down from the high of her anger, and the rush of adrenaline had left her, felt the cold air of realisation like a draught in winter, and panic started to set in. As quickly as her passions had risen in fury, so they fell into depression and despair just as quickly, and from one moment to the next, the queen could be seen hurrying over to her lord husband, scrambling to mend the bond her words had broken.

'Éomer, please, I-I know you're angry with me, a-and you have every right to be. You were right, I … I did betray your trust, and I am sorry for that. I … I wish I could change it all, I wish I could have made a different choice, I wish I had never hurt you … but I did, and I … I feel more sorry for that than you could ever imagine… ', the queen began to stammer in apology, but in this she was no queen, and with the tears blurring her words, she was but a fall away from begging on her knees. Yes, begging on her knees for a forgiveness that was not for her king to give – and yet, one could see that Éomer was slipping, his determination slowly crumbling, his will all but faltering. Because even though the king would not dare to turn towards the woman clinging to his side (lest he would cave in at the sight of her tears), he could not shield his ears from catching the pitiful way she humbled herself before him, and not even a heart made of stone could have withstood such pleading for long, and the king's heart surely was not made of stone.

But even while the king was wrestling with the reasoning of his mind and the longing of his heart, Lothíriel, tear-stained as she might have been, broken by the fear that she might have lost herself the trust and love of her husband, became all the more desperate to try and make a last attempt at swaying her king to her side and to make him see the situation from her point of view.

'But, Éomer, believe me … in this matter I'm not speaking to you as your wife, I'm speaking to you as your queen, because it is my duty to do so, and because I care about your … my … our people!', the queen pleaded with her king, determined hands wiping away the tears as she continued to speak, 'And the truth is this country cannot suffer more war. Our people have seen more than enough of it, and they are wearied by it. Pride might blind them to it, but they do not have it in themselves to go on fighting. What they need is a chance to heal, to rest, to build a better future, for themselves, for their children – a future unburdened by the shadows of the past.'

Until now, the king had remained resolutely silent, turned away from the woman by his side, eyes staring ahead into the nothingness lying before him, determined to let her words simply wash over him without stooping so low as to acknowledge it, but at her last words, his resolution was broken. At first it was only a grim smile and eyes that turned to slits, but then that grimace became a chuckle, so low and dark it came from deep within, a cynical bitterness finally given voice to. The queen, however, not understanding the nature of his apparent amusement, felt not only appalled by it but infuriated, and, consequently, she forgot to mind how it spurred her into action or rather how it made her words flow without restraint, 'I have been out there, Éomer. I have seen the desolation of your kingdom, far away from the pretty picture the royal tour has painted. I have seen the destroyed homesteads and empty grain stores, the families that have been torn apart by loss. I have seen what the war of men has done to – '

'What have you seen, my lady?', Éomer snapped back then as he turned to her at last; it was clear that the king had finally had enough of her words of criticism, because even though he sounded eerily calm (albeit cold as steel), she knew that under the calm surface a thunderstorm was rolling in, 'So, you've left these halls a few times and now you think you understand it all? You come here from your Southern palace with your Southern ideas of diplomacy, and after a mere year spent here – a year ?! – you think you know everything and all there is to know and how things are supposed to be done?!'

And here the king made a pause, but not to give her reprieve from the onslaught of the surprisingly vicious words that left his mouth, but rather to catch his breath and then to jump right back into it – with no quarter given.

'I have lived here my entire life, I was born here, and I am as much part of my people as they are a part of me. You want to tell me about my people's suffering?! Their pain?! I have lived their pain, been a part of it, shared their losses … because they were my own. And I tell you now that our hearts will never heal unless justice is served and each and every one of those wild fuckers has paid with their lives for the lives they have taken – and if we have to give our own lives for that to happen, then so be it.', the warrior hissed, his eyes turned to hard stones, his nostrils flaring at the challenge she had given him before, and it was clear that he was a man not easily challenged, nor a forgiving one when pushed to the edge.

'That is what's at the heart of our honour: our love for our people and our country, our absolute devotion to one another, that we would die for one another, to protect and avenge one another.', the king pointed out with bitter coldness, and it became clear that he had all but reached the end of his rant, with the energy mostly drained from him, and the adrenaline slowly wearing off – but he had some viciousness left in him, and, apparently, he was not done until he had given voice to that too, 'If you were truly our queen, then surely you would understand this by now.'

And then there was silence.

The king turned away from his queen once more, turning to loosening the drawstrings at the front of his shirt, apparently fully intent on putting this discussion behind him, or perhaps his own mind was too overloaded by the angry words that had been exchanged between the two of them to be able to focus on anything over than meagre task of taking off his clothes. Yes, perhaps, he was simply too riled up still to face the consequences of his own words that he had unleashed, and instead needed this gesture of routine to process what had just happened?

The queen, for her part, remained silent as well, momentarily shocked into speechlessness. Indeed, Lothíriel was shaken by his words, as she had not been prepared for this veritable onslaught of raw emotion, and the episode had left her grappling with her own tumultuous feelings in this regard. Because even though a part of her understood his reasoning so well – as viciousness was not an emotion unknown to her – and even though a part of her knew that she shouldn't push him any further than she had already done, she could not help it. In the end, she knew she had to be honest with him, and she knew she had to show him exactly what lay at the end of the path he intended to take, as she saw it – even if it hurt her to hurt him. But perhaps, the urge she felt to push on could not be explained away by the lofty ideals of a naive queen; perhaps, she merely sought to push on to draw blood herself after the wounds he had inflicted on her with his angry words.

'I do wonder if future widows and orphaned children would be comforted by this warmongering sentiment of yours.', she hissed back then, the words out of her mouth before caution could have stopped her, and although she had expected her challenge to be answered with his usual quick temper, she could not have foreseen the way he literally exploded at her distinct choice of word. The term warmongering that awakened old and bitter memories of a darker time inhabited by darker figures – but how could she have known that?

'It is those women and children – my own people – who would not forgive and forget the slight of me failing to avenge fathers and husbands, sons and friends.', he pressed out through clenched teeth as he whirled around to stare her down, forcing her to face him and the anger in his eyes. But as she made herself hold his gaze, she saw that there was actually above all else anguish in them, and she came to understand that as furious as he felt, he felt helpless most of all – a mighty warrior caught in the traps of vengeful expectations.

In that moment, she felt for him and for the choice he felt compelled to make. And as she watched him sigh in frustration, his eyes closing for a moment to calm himself down, she felt her own anger melt away along with it. And what was left behind was only pity – pity for the warrior that sought to be so more than what the world saw him as, pity for the king that strained against his crown, pity for the man that wanted to be hers and yet could not be.

As she watched him sit down on the bed and start to take off his boots in what felt like an atmosphere of defeat – because even winning an argument against the woman he loved could not feel like a victory to him – she briefly wondered if in another life, where he was no king and she was no queen, things would have been simpler and they could have been simply happy. But, of course, it was futile to imagine things that would never be, she reminded herself, and the hopelessness she felt over it all made her words sound hollow and tired, a faint echo of the fire she had hoped would sway him to her side – now the embers were all but dying down.

'So, you kill a father for a father, a brother for a brother, a son for a son – and after every friend is avenged and blood drowns the earth, when will it end?'

'It will never end.', her king sighed in tired defeat, or rather in tired determination; a warrior resigned to do the thing expected of him, the one thing he thought himself capable of, 'Peace is nothing but a dream, Lothíriel, and people don't change. It's time to wake up.'

The queen shuddered at his words, and, closing her eyes for just a moment, she remembered the fearful, almost spiteful words she had spoken to her lord father the day she had learned of her betrothal to the man she now called husband: I'm sure that man is a great warrior, and that is all he'll ever be. Since that day she had been forced to revise her initial, hasty judgement, and with every day that had passed, she had come to learn that there was more to her husband than just the warrior he had been made to be. She had seen the potential of what and who he could be, she had seen the king long before he would have believed it himself. So now, to see all that personal growth and potential go to waste and be for nothing, well, it broke her, and rather than feeling smug at the thought of having been proved right, she felt the hopelessness from before swell up like a wave coming to drown her.

Rise with the tides, she thought, but the words sounded hollow and empty in her head; against the pull of this current even the Lady of the Seas was powerless … and so she simply gave in. What else could she do but to let the current pull her along? She had been a fool to believe she could withstand the tides or swim against the current that was pushing against her.

'Then do it, Éomer, and be done with all of this. Refuse. And see where that will lead us.', she whispered with eyes fluttering shut, almost as if to herself, but no, she was sure he had heard her all the same – perhaps, he had even longed to hear this tired plea from her tired lips. To her, it mattered no longer. She was too drained of energy at this point to feel much at all besides exhaustion; at this point all she wanted was for it to be over, and she was about ready to cave in.

She had to face the reality that she had failed in her duty as queen, and she saw now that the battle she had fought with him was truly and utterly lost, as there seemed truly nothing she could do or say at this point that would ever sway him to her side. The hardest part of it all, however, was never knowing whether things would have played out differently, if she had only not been made to betray him before? Would he have listened to her then? Would he have cared what she had to say? Would he have loved her still?

'Woman, what would you have me do?', the king spat out angrily then, throwing away the boots he had just taken off, but she could tell, by the wavering of his voice, that it was more frustration than anger that compelled him to go on and to vent all those emotions he had kept bottled up for far too long, 'Do you want me to tuck tail and bare all our throats to the teeth of our enemies? Because that's what this treaty is. Would you really have me whore away my honour and my country's honour for that?'

And then he was hunched over, face hiding in the palms of his hands, a frustrated sigh wrought from his angry throat (although in retrospective she should have realised sooner what that sound really was, or why he was shielding his face from her sight), but when he spoke this time there was nothing of that furious fire left in his voice, instead there was water in it, and it sounded broken and small and desperate – desperate in a way that chilled her to the bones, 'Or – would you have me cling to what little honour you have left me with, refuse this deal and watch you suffer for it? Tell me, Lothíriel, what would you have me do?'

And when he looked up to her then, and she saw the tears in his eyes, she realised, too late, that she had been an utter fool, and as she watched the conflicting sides in him warring with each other, she understood at long last. The warrior in him that wanted nothing more than to take up arms and fight back against the perceived threats against his honour and his people. The king in him that wanted nothing more than to end this diplomatic choke-hold on his crown. The heart-broken man in him that wanted nothing more that to protect the woman he loved from his own people and the world at large that had already wounded her before.

And, coincidentally, it was that fear underlying it all, that fear not for himself or his people or his legacy, but for her, that complicated it all. After all, if it hadn't been for her involvement in all of this, then she wouldn't face such antagonism now from her own subjects, an antagonism that had the potential to be dangerous for her; plus, there was also the veiled threat of a certain Southern knighted nobleman still hanging in the air above her like a black cloud.

Of course, she had known of his fears for her, had seen glimpses of it even, every now and again; but knowing was not seeing, and now, now she saw it all. And Lothíriel understood that in this there was no right or wrong decision he could make, and that's what was killing him; whatever he chose, there would be opposition, whatever he chose, there would be danger, whatever he chose, there would be consequences. She had chided him before that he had never been forced to make a difficult decision in his life, that his choices had always been clear-cut and simple, and she had chided him before for calling her selfish when she had made the only choices she had felt she could have made – but now, now things looked very different. Now he understood the bitter burden of having to make tough choices – but rather than rejoicing at this personal victory (as the Southern lady in her might have done), she felt saddened by it, because she knew that it pained him and it pained her to see his pain.

In this moment, he was lost, just as lost as she had been all her life. She had wanted him to be more than just the good man she had come to know him as; she had wanted him to become the great king she already knew he could be, but she had realised too late that all he could ever be was the king his people wanted him to be. And as she beheld him there, cowering on the edge of the bed, looking up at her with tears in his eyes, the broken shell of a man, asking her for help in all but the name, she felt her heart break at the sight of him – because she knew that there was no help she could offer to him, no simple solution she could present for his dilemma, no easy way out she could show him that he could actually take without taking all of them down him.

You miscalculated, Lothíriel thought in that moment, the cold words of her father a cruel echo in the back of her mind, and it will cost you dearly.

'I – I'm sorry.', was all she said in response, as there was simply nothing else she could say or do that would alleviate any of the pain he felt. She had helped put him in this situation, with the choices she had made, with the choices that she had allowed others to make for her. In the end, they had been the best and worst for each other. Lothíriel closed her eyes and turned away, unable to bear looking at the mess they had made of things, and yet, she could still feel his gaze on her, that silent plea for a help it was not hers to give. It made her heart break at the truth of things.

'Perhaps you should have just left me to the waters.', she whispered then into the silence between them, and she wasn't sure if she meant it towards him, alluding to that tragic day on the ice, or if she meant that he should have left her well alone in her palace-by-the-sea, with her grief and her anger and her hollowness. Or perhaps, her words had not even been meant for him, her king and husband, at all, but rather for her god whose watery grasps she had so proudly escaped from not so long ago, but whose cold and wet embrace she now longed for more than anything in that moment.

It was all too much: too much to process, too much to bear, too much she couldn't change at all; and so she simply turned away and walked over to the bed, to crawl in between the sheets, onto her side of the bed, as far away from him as possible, wanting to give him as much space as she could, wanting to be as alone as she could. Out of the corner of her eye (for she kept her gaze desperately fixed upon the candle that stood lit on the bedside table) she could feel that he was looking at her still but she knew not what expression his eyes held, as she did not have the strength to turn towards him and find out for herself. Therefore, she also sensed rather than witnessed the violent but tired motion with which he wiped away the tears from his cheeks before moving to stand in front of the fire place like a man truly and utterly lost. And even though she wished for nothing more than to take him into her arms and to wipe away the tears herself, her body just simply wouldn't move.

Instead she felt her own tears pricking in her eyes as she stared at the flickering light of the candle next to her for a moment too long to name, and it was only when a gust of wind blew it out with a hissing sound (telling her that her husband and king had left), that she would allow the tears to fall at long last.

FUN FACT #1: So, there needed to be at least one more discussion between them about the peace treaty. Lothíriel wouldn't give up before at least trying one more time. Now, however, things are looking pretty forlorn. Strap in, we'll get through this, it'll be just a few chapters more. Promise.

FUN FACT #2: Lothíriel isn't doing so well. All that stress does take a toll on her body, amirite? *hella suspicious*

FUN FACT #3: So, uh, listen ... the Rings of Power show. Ya'll, me shipping Galadriel and Sauron wasn't really on my 2022 agenda, but I guess, here we are.