Chapter Text
Winter 3020 T.A., Ithilien
“Pass me that package there, would you?”
Bemused, Éomer turned to where his sister was pointing, and obligingly lifted the heavy parcel to give to her. Éowyn was sitting elegantly in a curved wooden chair, looking like a great queen of legend dispensing judgment upon her subjects. But in this case, her reckoning was merely given to wedding gifts. Her elegant dress, pale blue with a bodice of embroidered silver (which had cost more than Éomer found reasonable), was also fit for a queen—but again, it was only for a soon-to-be bride.
“I still do not understand why I must be helping you catalog wedding gifts, rather than Faramir,” Éomer said.
“Because Faramir is seeing that the guest chambers for Imrahil’s family are in readiness for their arrival today,” Éowyn said, a touch of testiness entering her voice as she used an ebony-handled knife to slit open the package. “ You , on the other hand, have nothing else of importance to attend to.”
To any outside observers, the tension between brother and sister might appear tetchy. But Éomer knew his sister well enough and himself better to understand that their sniping was how they expressed that they were each dreading their permanent separation, which would occur in a weeks’ time. Éowyn at least had a new spouse to look forward to, but Éomer was facing returning to an empty Meduseld by himself. He had the poorer fate, he felt.
“Oh, these are lovely!” Éowyn lifted a set of silver candelabras from the package, admiring them thoroughly. They glinted in the late afternoon sun, and even Éomer had to admit they were finely made.
“But there are only two,” he pointed out as she packed them back neatly. “Only for private suppers, I suspect.”
A delicate flush of pink suffused his sister’s cheeks. “It is from Lord Turin of Pelargir,” Éowyn said loudly, refusing to respond to her brother’s bait. And returning the package to Éomer, she turned in her seat to the desk, picking up a quill and writing upon the list she was preparing.
“Which is next?” Éomer asked when she had finished.
“How about—there.”
This was a much smaller package, and he tossed it to Éowyn despite her cry of alarm.
“Béma, Éomer!” she snapped, catching it just in time. “It could be breakable, you dolt!”
“It could be,” Éomer responded cheerily. “But think, you would have one fewer gifts to keep and remember to use when you are to be seen by the giver.”
Éowyn paused, glancing up at him with, for the first time, anxiety shadowing her eyes. “Will I really?” she asked. “That seems a terrible hassle!”
“Oh, it will be, I assure you.” Enjoying himself, he laced his fingers behind his head, leaning his back into the wall where he sat. She was biting her lip, and then shrugged as she opened the package.
“ Ooooh !”
It was a set of spectacular earrings, gilded silver with an inlay of pearls. Éowyn held them up to her ears, and Éomer nodded in approval as he was clearly meant to give.
“Very nice,” he deadpanned. “I am sure they will look just as striking on Faramir.”
“Not all gifts are meant for bride and bridegroom,” Éowyn said crossly, flipping open the contained note to read. Her brows lifted slightly as if in bemusement, and without explaining she began to write again on her list. “Éomer,” she said after a moment, slowly rewrapping the earrings. “Whatever happened between you and Torvith?”
“Nothing,” Éomer said flatly.
“ Nothing ? Surely not.”
He placed the earrings in the stack of gifts already opened and cataloged, and without waiting for further instruction he chose an unopened package to give next to Éowyn, if only to cease her questioning.
“Nothing,” he repeated.
“I do not believe it,” Éowyn said. “Everyone was so sure you would ask her to be your bride! There were—” She flushed, then steeled herself to continue, “There were wagers on it! The odds were very good, too.”
“Did you bet on me and lose?” Éomer asked lazily. “Is that why you are so interested?”
“No,” his sister said with a frown. “But I was assuming I would have a sister by the end of the year. I anticipated it with pleasure, too.”
“Then clearly you did not make enough effort to know Torvith well. She would have bored you to death. She bored me , and I am far more charitable about character defects than you .”
Éowyn waved away this comment, still holding the package in her lap with seemingly no intention of opening it. “Torvith was hardly boring,” she insisted. “I met her several times, and I found her perfectly—perfectly—”
“Dull?” Éomer supplied.
“No! Quiet, to be sure, but that is no bad thing.”
“With the right temperament, perhaps,” he allowed. “But her silence only hid an empty mind. She had no opinions of her own, only repeating her father’s or mother’s or—worst of all, mine .”
Éowyn’s brows arched. “Do you mean to say that you do not wish your wife to merely parrot your ideas? I would have expected that would appeal to you greatly.”
“Ha,” Éomer said dryly. “Perhaps you are not wrong. But I do not merely need a wife, as you know. Rohan needs a queen, and she cannot be empty-headed. I would have been forced to keep constant watch on Torvith, for fear of her being manipulated by outside influences.”
His sister blinked at him, and her eyes narrowed into shrewd slits. “Éomer, you are too full of excuses,” she said blandly. “Methinks you are simply too particular in your desires for a wife. You shall never find a paragon of perfection, I assure you.”
“I gave up looking for perfection long ago,” he admitted. “Now I require only ‘suitable.’”
“No doubt ‘suitable’ in your mind requires near perfection. You shan’t find it,” Éowyn prophesied with a flick of her hair, returning her attention to the gift in her lap. “Béma, Éomer! What with your unattainable requirements I wonder if you shouldn’t make a match of it with Faramir’s cousin.”
“Who?” Éomer was momentarily distracted by the reveal of several yards of white silk, embroidered with gold.
“Oh my ,” Éowyn breathed, the folds of the slippery cloth falling across her lap. “Good heavens! Whatever shall I do with this ?”
“Wear it,” he suggested. He was rewarded a disapproving glance for his wit, and shaking her head, Éowyn wrote the giver’s name upon her parchment after reading it from the enclosed note. The silk was carefully folded and put away.
“Lothíriel. We were talking of Lothíriel!” Éowyn gave Éomer the silk, and he passed her another package. It took him a moment to remember who exactly this Lothíriel was, and upon recollection merely shrugged.
“Were we?”
“Yes, I was telling you how you and she ought to marry.”
“Oh?” Éomer lifted his brows. “And you’ve decided that after about a minute of consideration? How kind of you to go to such lengths for my future, truly.”
“Well, you are not taking it seriously enough yourself!” Éowyn’s writing upon the list was more violent this time, and her rewrapping of a pair of books was haphazard at best.
“Perhaps I might take it seriously if you would explain why I would match well with—whom did you say? Faramir’s cousin?” Éomer could just recall meeting her once or twice before, likely in Minas Tirith after the war. But in his mind’s eye he only saw a plain woman, dark-haired like the rest of her people, and unremarkable in every other way.
“Well,” Éowyn said, straightening her shoulders. “By all accounts, she is as picky as you. I should not gossip, but —”
Éomer guessed that she was about to gossip.
“Lothíriel broke off her third betrothal not a fortnight ago! Her third !” Éowyn’s astonishment was clear as day, and she shook her head as if in pity. “The people of Gondor have been referring to her as ‘The Jilting Princess,’ which to me seems terribly unkind.”
“How do you know this?” he asked, his interest now piqued.
“Faramir explained it in his last letter before we left Rohan. He wanted me to be aware of the, ah, delicate situation, and to give Lothíriel my friendship.”
Éomer could not fathom how such a plain woman had secured three betrothals in the first place—but that was hardly his concern. Éowyn might gossip occasionally, but he did not, for all his other faults. What truly niggled at him was that a child of Imrahil—one of the wisest, most honest men he knew—could be such an indecisive and scandalous character.
He did not realize he was woolgathering until his sister threw a wadded-up piece of parchment towards his head, and it smacked him between the eyes.
“Hello again,” Éowyn said sweetly as he blinked. “Pass another gift, will you? I would like to finish before tonight.”
Éomer gave his sister a feral grin, and chose another small package to hurl in her direction, finding utter pleasure in her shriek of outrage.
“Father— please —”
But it took only one glance into Imrahil’s determined albeit sympathetic eyes for Lothíriel to know her pleading was in vain. Agony twisted her heart, but her father was quick to take her hands in his.
“I am sorry, Lothíriel,” he said gently. “You really must attend tonight. I understand your reasons, truly I do—but I cannot excuse you. It is not enough to risk offending Faramir and his bride. There will be more talk then, I assure you.”
“Faramir will understand!” she tried. “Father, there were guests openly laughing at me when we entered the hall this afternoon!”
Imrahil frowned at this, and a scant hope filled Lothíriel’s breast. “Daughter,” he said, and his voice was stern. “You know better than to let the petty words and opinions of others distress you so.”
The hope died.
“It is not what people say about a person that determines their quality,” he continued with a wry smile. “Therefore, you must not heed them. Your internal integrity is far more important, even if you are constantly misunderstood; and yes, even laughed at.”
Grudgingly, Lothíriel could not refute this. Imrahil was entirely correct. But it did not ease her trepidation of facing the coming evening. “I know,” she sighed. “My conscience is clear, I suppose.”
“Good!” Her father bent to kiss the top of her head. “And anyways, it would hardly be fair to your maid for dressing you so well tonight, only to stay abed and sulk.”
Lothíriel laughed, shaking her head. “That is laying it rather thick, Father,” she teased. “You are trying to make me blush.”
Imrahil made a study of her face, causing her to lapse into giggles once more. “Is it working?” he asked earnestly.
“No, Father!”
“Alas,” he said with a woeful exhale. “I shall exert myself more, next time…”
Lothíriel’s spirits lifted with their usual banter, and she left for the supper upon her father’s arm feeling a tad calmer about her trials.