A/N: Thank you so much for giving this story of mine a chance, dear reader. It's a slightly different take on the Éomer/Lothíriel romance, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless. One admission to get out of the way - I have never read the LotR books, I've only ever seen the movies, but I try to do as much research as I can and hope to include details that match with the canon. This is, however, a romance-centric story, so I may take some liberties with things happening in the background of that, but nothing major, I promise.

As always, I welcome any kind of feedback. This story is drafted in my head but not yet on paper, so I'd be delighted to have you help me shape it into something great.

ooOOoo

LOST IN LOTHÍRIEL

CHAPTER 1

Saruman was standing on top of the tower of Orthanc, his eyes closed in concentration, one hand outstretched into the distance. It had been nigh on three days, one unsuccessful attempt after the other, and he was growing weary. Yet he was convinced that if he strained his mind hard enough, if he found the right spell, the future would open up before his mind's eye like a curtain revealing the bright rays of the sun, and show him things that are yet to come. Things he could use to serve his Master, and ultimately, to serve himself.

A sudden flash of burning white light almost overwhelmed him, his knees buckling under his weight. He was so close; he could feel the power that the knowledge of the future held tickling his fingertips, teasing him as it was avoiding his desperate attempts to capture it in his hand. Saruman could swear he felt a shift in the tangible world, as if he had indeed accomplished some great feat to reach his objective, but the feeling started to fade into obscurity and soon disappeared altogether.

He grunted angrily and punched the cold floor of the Orthanc with his fist. Then he forced himself to stand up again, lifted his hand, and put his mind back to work. The future was elusive, but now he knew he could grasp it if he focused hard enough.

ooOOoo

It was the fierce rays of the sun that woke her up suddenly, hitting her heavy eyelids when the curtains at the window were pulled back. Lydia forced herself to crack one eye open to see what was going on, but had to close it again immediately; her pupils weren't ready to bear the strong sunlight yet. She groaned, turned around and buried her face in the pillows. There was a dull throbbing pain inside her head, and she felt her stomach churn at the mere motion. A hangover? She didn't remember any heavy drinking the night before.

"It is time to wake up, my lady," a soft female voice interrupted her mind which began to slowly slip into unconsciousness again. For a moment, she thought she had imagined it, but the sound of footsteps and someone opening a creaking door and rummaging through something, which followed soon after, made her finally snap from her half-slumber. She quickly opened her eyes and turned her head to see who it was, suddenly overcome by a feeling of dread. She lived alone; how did this woman get inside her apartment?

"Is everything alright, my lady?"

It was a young girl that turned to face her, a questioning look on her face. For a while, Lydia was left speechless, unable to comprehend what was happening. The throbbing pain had turned into a splitting headache as soon as she lifted herself up on her elbows. She had never felt this strange before; as if she had a horrible hangover, but was also simultaneously still drunk or high, her mind sluggish and eyesight unfocused. She was about to ask the girl what she was doing in her place, but she soon realized this wasn't her place at all. Her eyes trailed along the stone walls with unfamiliar portraits hung on them, over the myriad of old-fashioned furniture, all the way up towards the large fresco on the ceiling. A fresco? On my ceiling?

Lydia had to squint her eyes to see through the intense sunlight pouring into the room. Her vision was blurry at times, and her mind was so slow it was hard for her to comprehend exactly what it was she was seeing around her. Have I taken some meds after my shift? She had only done it once or twice before after a particularly stressful day at work, but the way she was feeling now, it was as if she had overdone it with the dosage or washed them down with a hefty amount of vodka. Maybe this is a hallucination side-effect?

"Let me help you out of your bed, my lady," the girl spoke again right next to her, but her voice had a strange echo, as if they were inside a cave. Lydia's senses were so overwhelmed that she barely had time to react before the girl grabbed her under her arms like a ragdoll and helped her get up, seating her on the edge of the bed opposite a large mirror on the wall. "You don't look so good, my lady. Let me go fetch you a cup of tea," she proclaimed with furrowed eyebrows and left the room so quickly Lydia barely managed to catch sight of her skirt disappearing beyond the large wooden door.

It took a good ten minutes of her just sitting on the bed, unable to move, before her senses finally started to crystallize and the splitting headache turned back into soft throbbing inside her skull, still uncomfortable but not preventing her brain from doing its job anymore. She stood up carefully, unsure whether her knees wouldn't give out under her, but once she found her legs were stable enough, she made her way to the window the strange girl had left ajar. The sea? She looked at the unending expanse of blue far below, and almost got a heart attack when a seagull suddenly darted past the window with a loud shriek. Where the hell am I?

She turned and walked back to the mirror on the wall. She could finally see herself clearly now, her eyesight no longer unfocused and blurry, and to her unending relief, she found a familiar face looking back at her. It was Lydia Bennett, sure enough, although the long nightdress she was wearing didn't belong to her, and somehow, her disheveled hair ran all the way down to her waist. This confused her further; she used to have hair like this, a couple of years ago, before she made the worst decision of her life and cut it short, just below her chin. Her thick wavy hair continuously refused to be tamed at that length, though, and so she had battled with it every single day since then, dreaming of the day it would grow much, much longer again.

Maybe that's it, she had a sudden realization. Yes, of course - this is a dream. Just a dream. It has to be.

What else could it be? A castle by the sea, her hair mysteriously grown to the length she desperately wished it was, and a servant of some sort; it made perfect sense. Lydia felt her heartbeat instantly calm down and relaxed the muscles she didn't even realize were subconsciously stiffened so hard they almost hurt. Her brain had found a way to make sense of everything, and it almost made her feel high again; a sluggish, content, dream-like high.

The girl came back inside the room and put a steaming hot mug on a desk by the window. "You look much better already, my lady," she said when she looked her up and down, pulled a hairbrush from her apron and motioned Lydia to sit on a stool facing the mirror. "Let's get you ready for today, shall we?"

"Who are you?" The words came out of Lydia's mouth at barely a whisper.

The girl chuckled and ignored her at first, but then reluctantly replied when she saw her confused expression: "Ehm… Nolwenn, my lady. Your handmaiden."

"Handmaiden? Like a… servant?"

"Yes, a servant," she nodded, her expression turning into one of concern again. "Are you not feeling well, my lady?"

My lady. Lydia couldn't help but chuckle under her breath. She hadn't dreamed of princesses and castles since she was a kid, probably. "This is such a weird dream."

The girl didn't seem amused and gave her an uncertain smile as she started gently running the brush through her thick tangled hair. "I am sure you will feel better once you have eaten something, my lady."

Lydia watched her detangle every last bit, hypnotized by the motion repeated what felt like a thousand times, and the gentle stroke of the hairbrush on her scalp. The sensations all felt so real - she flinched every time a hair was plucked out of her head; the sunlight felt warm on her face, despite the cold air pouring in from the window; her stomach rumbled hungrily and her lips were dry, suddenly eager to drink the hot tea that had been waiting for her on the desk. Nope. None of this is real. It was her brain that dismissed the notion immediately, ignoring the perception of its own senses, in an attempt to maintain Lydia's newly-found content with the situation at hand, and above all, her sanity. This must be one of those lucid dreams, she thought. She had never experienced them, but surely this is what it must feel like?

Since this was most certainly a dream, Lydia submitted herself to whatever was going to happen, and let the girl braid her hair, dress her in a long, heavy gown, and lead her down some unfamiliar corridors to - as the girl put it - break her fast. The sluggish high she had been feeling, along with the throbbing in her head, slowly started to disappear as they passed by many windows all overlooking the wide sea, and some sort of city down below. At last, they reached a large wooden door and were let inside a sunny room - a dining room by the looks of it - with the food already waiting on the table, along with three men.

They all stood up and bowed when they saw her enter. "Good morning," the oldest one of them greeted her, a man she guessed to be in his sixties. The other two were much younger, but strikingly similar to him.

Normally, Lydia never remembered the faces of people she had encountered in her dreams. They were always a blur, with some vague characteristics she could probably pinpoint if she strained her mind hard enough, but never as clear as these three were. She could make out every last detail of their faces and their clothing. In fact, everything in that room seemed so vivid, so real, Lydia found it hard to ignore a sinking sensation in her stomach that told her this was like no dream she had ever had. Maybe this is what it feels like while you're still dreaming, and the details only escape you after you've woken up, she tried to rationalize it, but her inner voice sounded less convincing than before.

"Have you slept well, Lothíriel?" the older man asked after she sat down in the chair he had pulled out for her.

Lothíriel? Lydia looked up to see if he was talking to her, and sure enough, he was regarding her questioningly, chewing a bite from the breakfast he had already started to munch on. Is that even a name? This was starting to feel really weird; too weird. The content dreamy haze from before was definitely gone now, and her brain made only very feeble attempts to convince her she was still asleep. Her heart started thumping loudly in her ears. She ignored the man's question and quickly grabbed an apple slice from the plate nearest to her, sinking her teeth into it carefully. Surely she would not be able to taste anything in a dream, right?

But the taste was there - tart and juicy, with the familiar crunch between her teeth as she chewed on it. She swallowed it with a considerable effort of her dry throat, her stomach rumbling in response.

"Do you feel well, Lothíriel? You seem a little… strange," one of the younger men asked with a concerned look in his eyes.

"I don't think this is a dream," she mumbled, more to herself than anyone else. Her heartbeat and her breathing were competing to see who was the quickest now, and Lydia was overcome by a sudden urge to get up and do something, anything. She stood up so fast she knocked over her chair, gripping the edge of the long table for support.

"If I may, my lord - my lady has woken up not quite herself today," the young servant who had been busy preparing some food on several plates until then spoke up. "I was worried it might be some sort of fever, but…"

"Are you ill, Lothíriel?" the older man interrupted her. "Maybe you should go see a healer."

What the hell is going on? Lydia barely managed to think to herself through the deafening sound of her racing heart, her eyes darting across the room, desperately trying to find any trace that this was all just in her head. But it all seems so real. Too real. This can't be a dream. Her breathing had become laboured and shallow, her throat contracted uncomfortably to the point she felt compelled to clutch it with her hand, but it produced no soothing effect. Her palms had grown sweaty and her body was radiating so much heat she felt the overwhelming urge to rip off that big heavy dress right then and there; it felt so tight all of a sudden, as if it was laced up too much and didn't allow her lungs to stretch to their desired capacity.

Lydia finally let go of the table and started pacing up and down the large room to try and release some of the pent-up - what exactly? Fear? Frustration? Madness? All three men stood up when they saw her agitated state, ready to intervene. The oldest one approached her and grabbed her by the shoulders to stop her frantic movement, shaking her a little to make her snap back to her senses. "Lothíriel, what is happening with you?"

"Stop calling me that!" she barked at him, eyes wide. "That's not my name!"

He looked at her dumbfounded, before he shook his head in disbelief and said: "Of course it is. What are you talking about? You are Lothíriel of Dol Amroth."

"No, I'm Lydia Bennett. And I don't know what the hell is happening, or where I am, or who you all are," she blurted out, pointing her finger around her. His steady hands on her arms and the light shaking seemed to have snapped her from the oncoming panic attack somehow, and she could finally take a deep breath and talk, even though her heart still refused to stop pounding.

"This must be a fever, father. She is not making any sense," one of the younger men said from behind the long table. "Come, Lothi, you need to see a healer at once."

A fever? Maybe I'm just hallucinating all of this? Lydia clung onto his words, desperately trying to find a reason for this whole mess, but another, more skeptical inner voice immediately dismissed the thought. A hallucination is the same as a dream. This feels too real, you know that by now.

As the younger man approached her with an outreached hand, Lydia suddenly had an idea, a last-ditch attempt to prove to herself that this was all just a product of her imagination. She couldn't tell for sure whether it was really impossible for a dream to be this vivid, to see and taste the things one's mind had come up with, but she was convinced of one thing - you never feel pain in a dream. She ran up to the table and grabbed a knife sticking out from a large piece of ham in the middle, held her breath, and before any of the men had a chance to react, she slid the blade firmly over her thumb.

"Lothíriel!" the younger man shouted and snatched the knife from her hand, his face mortified and mouth agape.

It took a split second for Lydia's nerve endings to register what had happened, and then the pain came - excruciating, stinging pain that made her hiss and croak an involuntary "Ouch. Fuck!" The warm red blood welled up inside the wound and spilled over her finger, droplets streaming down onto the carpet below. Real blood, real pain. This is all actually happening. Her brain had no more leeway to maneuver, and had to start coming to terms with reality. Not a hallucination, or a dream; actual reality. Lydia felt strangely numb all of a sudden, once the panic had left her and the throbbing from her bleeding thumb had lulled her into a disassociated trance. The men were all saying something, but she barely heard them. She saw one of them wrap a cloth napkin around her hand and start pulling her towards the door by her arm, but she only managed a few steps before her legs gave out and her mind shut down, enveloping her in a sweet, black, dreamless void.