the fic, pt 1
Jan. 18th, 2004 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseHere it is, as promised - the first chunk of my current fic. As I said before, it's LotR, it's post-War, it's trying very hard to be canon-accurate where possible. It's also sort of pre-het, so if that annoys/bothers/offends you, don't bother. However, it is also totally G rated, and essentially, at this point, conversation and the like. And un-betaed or edited, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes or typos.
So... whee. Be gentle, I beg - this is just a fluffy little bit of work that sprang out of my love for the books and characters, and the first piece of fic I've posted anywhere, for anything, in a very long time.
Dol Amroth was decorated with blue and silver banners that day, each one surmounted by the silver crown and seven stars of the king’s heraldry above the swan-ship that was the crest of the city. The whole of the court had been up and about since long before dawn, making preparations, and Lothiriel, along with the other women of the ruling family, had been quite busy.
Finally, near noon, the gatekeepers announced the arrival of the king and his entourage. Abandoning her work mending one of the banners, Lothiriel ran to the ramparts, to look down upon the soldiers and noblemen beneath. Silver and black in one contingent – those she knew were the soldiers of the king, led by his tall, proud figure and that of his queen beside him at the front of the troop, and with them soldiers whose banners were green and white, with some sort of beast – whether horse or hound she could not quite tell – running across the field.
“Who are those other men with the king? The ones who do not bear his crest?”
The old man beside Lothiriel peered down, squinting against the bright sunlight reflected in the men’s shining armour. “Those would be the men of Rohan, my lady; the horse-lords of the North.”
Lothiriel bent again, examining their entourage, and particularly admiring the proud way they sat upon their steeds. These were great men of arms, she thought, men whose stories she had heard from her father when he returned from the war with the Eastern darkness. And one of them rode at his left hand, just as Imrahil had described when he told the story of the battles – that would be King Eomer, then, King Elessar’s closest friend and most well-loved comrade-at-arms.
“Lothriel! Come and quickly finish your sewing, before his lordship arrives within the city and wonders that one of his banners has been allowed to lay torn!”
Sighing, Lothiriel took one last look down at the entering host, and obeyed her mother’s summons.
* * *
The feast was by far the richest in Lothriel’s memory – within the memory of anyone in the city, if reactions could be a true judge. Everywhere there was fish of every variety, and game dressed in brilliant sauces, and venison, tender and sweet, as well as inumerable loaves of bread and sweet cakes and bowls of fruit. Sweet honeyed wine flowed freely, and one could barely take a draught without a servant appearing to refill the goblet.
At the high table, her mother and father sat with King Elessar and his wife on the right, and King Eomer sat on their left, just to the right hand of Lothiriel herself. She had been shocked and quite worried when this seating arrangement had been made clear to her but, as her mother had whispered, it would be deemed rude if she, the host’s daughter, ate elsewhere while a noble guest supped alone. At her other side sat two of Eomer’s nobles, and on the other side of the table, by the High King’s side, the ones who had been introduced as the Prince of Ithilien and his wife.
A servant with a heavily laden tray stepped up between them. “Will you take more of this venison, milord?”
King Eomer put up his hand, laughing a little. “No more, I beg you – even the appetite worked up by a long day of riding will not take endless supplies of food, no matter how good. If the food in your hall is always this good, I cannot see how the people of Dol Amroth are not twice the girth I see!”
“We do not always eat so,” Lothiriel put in, smiling. “This is a feast in honor of yourself and King Elessar, of course.”
“Of course.” He nodded. “And normally?”
“Fish. We are a port city, so the fish of the river and ocean are our most common fare. Game is more rare here, and venison quite hard to find.”
“Ah.” Eomer smiled. “The opposite of the Eotheode – we are used to fowl and rabbits and the like, and the occasional deer, but fish is nearly unheard of in our lands, except occasionally from the rivers. This is quite a treat for my men.”
“The Eotheode?” Lothiriel’s brow furrowed a bit. “Forgive me, my lord – perhaps I misunderstood my father. I thought he called your people the Rohirrim.”
“That is the Elvish name for my folk,” Eomer agreed. “In our own tongue we are called the Eotheode, though – the Horse Nation, in your language.
“Eomer, are you boring that poor girl with talk of our history?”
Both Eomer and Lothiriel looked up sharply to meet the dancing green eyes of the woman across the table from them. The Prince of Ithilien glanced toward his wife, then across the table at them for a moment with a smile, but then returned to conversation with his king and Imrahil.
“I don’t think I’m boring her – am I, milady?”
“Not at all, my lord,” Lothiriel answered quickly, beginning to catch a strange dynamic between these two visitors. There was something similar about them…
“You see, Eowyn?” Eomer laughed. “Forgive her, milady – my sister only wanted to be sure that she wasn’t missing any stories of our ancestors, I’m sure. Although she already knows all of those that I know, and probably better though I am the elder!”
His sister! Of course – now that Lothiriel looked, she could clearly see the family resemblance between them – here was nearly the same hair, there a similar shape to the eyes, a similar determined set to the jaw…
“You great fool!” Eowyn laughed. “Of course you know the stories better than I do – why else was I forever begging you to retell them when we were children?”
“Because you had already exhausted Uncle with the constant retelling, and were not satisfied to hear them whispered in your own voice!” Eomer, too, laughed, a rich and rolling sound that seemed to conjure images of rolling hillsides and endless horizon in Lothiriel’s mind.
Eowyn crowed with delight, causing her husband to turn and laugh for a moment with them, and up at Imrahil’s side King Elessar’s serious expression broke into a wide grin as he watched.
“My lady,” he called, “I am glad to see you recovered. But I am not so sure that our good host’s hall is quite ready for the full brunt of the good cheer of the Eorlingas!”
Eowyn bowed her head to her host and sat back, still laughing, as a servant filled her goblet yet again.
“I have not seen her in such good humor in many years,” Eomer commented, his voice low. “Her marriage to Faramir has meant everything in her happiness, and he is a worthy man. Still, it pains me that in seeing her returned to joy, I must also bear the loss of her.”
“Because she is far removed from you?” Lothiriel asked without thinking.
Eomer jumped as though surprised that she had heard his musings, and, for a moment, Lothiriel regretted her words. Then his expression softened slightly and he gave a curt nod. “Yes. Ithilien is not so far that I must never see her, and my business takes me occasionally to Gondor, but it is a hard thing to be separated from her, still. We were rarely apart as children.”
“You seem to be great friends,” Lothiriel agreed.
Nodding, Eomer turned slightly to regard her. “Have you any siblings, my lady?”
“None living,” Lothiriel answered, shaking her head.
“Then it would be hard to explain our situation to you fully.” Eomer drank from his goblet, and Lothiriel bowed her head, disappointed, expecting that to be the end of their conversation. But that was apparently not what her companion had intended. He set down his goblet and explained how their parents had died when Eowyn was very young, and they had both been taken in by their mother’s brother, the former king of their realm, and raised with his own son.
“My uncle’s wife was long dead as well, and Eowyn grew up with little influence from other women or girls, preferring the rough company of myself and Theodred, and the other noble boys our age. She may not look it, now, content at the side of her husband, but my sister is as skilled with a blade as any man, and as steady in battle. Unknown to our uncle and myself, she stole into battle when we rode to war in Gondor, and made quite a name for herself there.”
Surprised, Lothiriel turned to give the woman across the table a closer examination. Eyes bright and cheeks pink, Eowyn leaned on her husband’s shoulder to listen to King Elessar as he told some story. This was hardly the pale, solemn woman that her father had described, brought back from battle so wounded that all had presumed her dead. “I had no idea,” she whispered. “My father has told me the tale, but I did not expect to meet her, nor recognize her from his description. Those tales seemed as legend to me – it is hard to connect even yourself and King Elessar with those tales, now that I have met you both.”
“Aragorn, yes, is a man of legend. I have always seen him as one who walks on this earth but is not exactly of it.”
“Aragorn?”
Eomer smiled a bit. “Aragorn, King Elessar, the Elfstone, and more names than I can recount beyond that. Even those who would count themselves his friends have not the honour of knowing all his names, although his lady might.” Eomer nodded slowly at this, looking thoughtfully at the handsome pair, the queen smiling with some secret amusement as Elessar told a tale, gesturing broadly. “That is as it should be – no secrets should stand between husband and wife. And despite her sacrifices, it is easy enough to see the love she bears for him, and he for her.”
Lothiriel nodded, but she was not looking at Elessar and his queen, nor across the way at the Prince of Ithilien and his cheerful, laughing wife. She looked at King Eomer of Rohan, and felt as though her fate had come upon her.
End Part One.
So... whee. Be gentle, I beg - this is just a fluffy little bit of work that sprang out of my love for the books and characters, and the first piece of fic I've posted anywhere, for anything, in a very long time.
Dol Amroth was decorated with blue and silver banners that day, each one surmounted by the silver crown and seven stars of the king’s heraldry above the swan-ship that was the crest of the city. The whole of the court had been up and about since long before dawn, making preparations, and Lothiriel, along with the other women of the ruling family, had been quite busy.
Finally, near noon, the gatekeepers announced the arrival of the king and his entourage. Abandoning her work mending one of the banners, Lothiriel ran to the ramparts, to look down upon the soldiers and noblemen beneath. Silver and black in one contingent – those she knew were the soldiers of the king, led by his tall, proud figure and that of his queen beside him at the front of the troop, and with them soldiers whose banners were green and white, with some sort of beast – whether horse or hound she could not quite tell – running across the field.
“Who are those other men with the king? The ones who do not bear his crest?”
The old man beside Lothiriel peered down, squinting against the bright sunlight reflected in the men’s shining armour. “Those would be the men of Rohan, my lady; the horse-lords of the North.”
Lothiriel bent again, examining their entourage, and particularly admiring the proud way they sat upon their steeds. These were great men of arms, she thought, men whose stories she had heard from her father when he returned from the war with the Eastern darkness. And one of them rode at his left hand, just as Imrahil had described when he told the story of the battles – that would be King Eomer, then, King Elessar’s closest friend and most well-loved comrade-at-arms.
“Lothriel! Come and quickly finish your sewing, before his lordship arrives within the city and wonders that one of his banners has been allowed to lay torn!”
Sighing, Lothiriel took one last look down at the entering host, and obeyed her mother’s summons.
* * *
The feast was by far the richest in Lothriel’s memory – within the memory of anyone in the city, if reactions could be a true judge. Everywhere there was fish of every variety, and game dressed in brilliant sauces, and venison, tender and sweet, as well as inumerable loaves of bread and sweet cakes and bowls of fruit. Sweet honeyed wine flowed freely, and one could barely take a draught without a servant appearing to refill the goblet.
At the high table, her mother and father sat with King Elessar and his wife on the right, and King Eomer sat on their left, just to the right hand of Lothiriel herself. She had been shocked and quite worried when this seating arrangement had been made clear to her but, as her mother had whispered, it would be deemed rude if she, the host’s daughter, ate elsewhere while a noble guest supped alone. At her other side sat two of Eomer’s nobles, and on the other side of the table, by the High King’s side, the ones who had been introduced as the Prince of Ithilien and his wife.
A servant with a heavily laden tray stepped up between them. “Will you take more of this venison, milord?”
King Eomer put up his hand, laughing a little. “No more, I beg you – even the appetite worked up by a long day of riding will not take endless supplies of food, no matter how good. If the food in your hall is always this good, I cannot see how the people of Dol Amroth are not twice the girth I see!”
“We do not always eat so,” Lothiriel put in, smiling. “This is a feast in honor of yourself and King Elessar, of course.”
“Of course.” He nodded. “And normally?”
“Fish. We are a port city, so the fish of the river and ocean are our most common fare. Game is more rare here, and venison quite hard to find.”
“Ah.” Eomer smiled. “The opposite of the Eotheode – we are used to fowl and rabbits and the like, and the occasional deer, but fish is nearly unheard of in our lands, except occasionally from the rivers. This is quite a treat for my men.”
“The Eotheode?” Lothiriel’s brow furrowed a bit. “Forgive me, my lord – perhaps I misunderstood my father. I thought he called your people the Rohirrim.”
“That is the Elvish name for my folk,” Eomer agreed. “In our own tongue we are called the Eotheode, though – the Horse Nation, in your language.
“Eomer, are you boring that poor girl with talk of our history?”
Both Eomer and Lothiriel looked up sharply to meet the dancing green eyes of the woman across the table from them. The Prince of Ithilien glanced toward his wife, then across the table at them for a moment with a smile, but then returned to conversation with his king and Imrahil.
“I don’t think I’m boring her – am I, milady?”
“Not at all, my lord,” Lothiriel answered quickly, beginning to catch a strange dynamic between these two visitors. There was something similar about them…
“You see, Eowyn?” Eomer laughed. “Forgive her, milady – my sister only wanted to be sure that she wasn’t missing any stories of our ancestors, I’m sure. Although she already knows all of those that I know, and probably better though I am the elder!”
His sister! Of course – now that Lothiriel looked, she could clearly see the family resemblance between them – here was nearly the same hair, there a similar shape to the eyes, a similar determined set to the jaw…
“You great fool!” Eowyn laughed. “Of course you know the stories better than I do – why else was I forever begging you to retell them when we were children?”
“Because you had already exhausted Uncle with the constant retelling, and were not satisfied to hear them whispered in your own voice!” Eomer, too, laughed, a rich and rolling sound that seemed to conjure images of rolling hillsides and endless horizon in Lothiriel’s mind.
Eowyn crowed with delight, causing her husband to turn and laugh for a moment with them, and up at Imrahil’s side King Elessar’s serious expression broke into a wide grin as he watched.
“My lady,” he called, “I am glad to see you recovered. But I am not so sure that our good host’s hall is quite ready for the full brunt of the good cheer of the Eorlingas!”
Eowyn bowed her head to her host and sat back, still laughing, as a servant filled her goblet yet again.
“I have not seen her in such good humor in many years,” Eomer commented, his voice low. “Her marriage to Faramir has meant everything in her happiness, and he is a worthy man. Still, it pains me that in seeing her returned to joy, I must also bear the loss of her.”
“Because she is far removed from you?” Lothiriel asked without thinking.
Eomer jumped as though surprised that she had heard his musings, and, for a moment, Lothiriel regretted her words. Then his expression softened slightly and he gave a curt nod. “Yes. Ithilien is not so far that I must never see her, and my business takes me occasionally to Gondor, but it is a hard thing to be separated from her, still. We were rarely apart as children.”
“You seem to be great friends,” Lothiriel agreed.
Nodding, Eomer turned slightly to regard her. “Have you any siblings, my lady?”
“None living,” Lothiriel answered, shaking her head.
“Then it would be hard to explain our situation to you fully.” Eomer drank from his goblet, and Lothiriel bowed her head, disappointed, expecting that to be the end of their conversation. But that was apparently not what her companion had intended. He set down his goblet and explained how their parents had died when Eowyn was very young, and they had both been taken in by their mother’s brother, the former king of their realm, and raised with his own son.
“My uncle’s wife was long dead as well, and Eowyn grew up with little influence from other women or girls, preferring the rough company of myself and Theodred, and the other noble boys our age. She may not look it, now, content at the side of her husband, but my sister is as skilled with a blade as any man, and as steady in battle. Unknown to our uncle and myself, she stole into battle when we rode to war in Gondor, and made quite a name for herself there.”
Surprised, Lothiriel turned to give the woman across the table a closer examination. Eyes bright and cheeks pink, Eowyn leaned on her husband’s shoulder to listen to King Elessar as he told some story. This was hardly the pale, solemn woman that her father had described, brought back from battle so wounded that all had presumed her dead. “I had no idea,” she whispered. “My father has told me the tale, but I did not expect to meet her, nor recognize her from his description. Those tales seemed as legend to me – it is hard to connect even yourself and King Elessar with those tales, now that I have met you both.”
“Aragorn, yes, is a man of legend. I have always seen him as one who walks on this earth but is not exactly of it.”
“Aragorn?”
Eomer smiled a bit. “Aragorn, King Elessar, the Elfstone, and more names than I can recount beyond that. Even those who would count themselves his friends have not the honour of knowing all his names, although his lady might.” Eomer nodded slowly at this, looking thoughtfully at the handsome pair, the queen smiling with some secret amusement as Elessar told a tale, gesturing broadly. “That is as it should be – no secrets should stand between husband and wife. And despite her sacrifices, it is easy enough to see the love she bears for him, and he for her.”
Lothiriel nodded, but she was not looking at Elessar and his queen, nor across the way at the Prince of Ithilien and his cheerful, laughing wife. She looked at King Eomer of Rohan, and felt as though her fate had come upon her.
End Part One.
FIC!
Date: 2004-01-19 03:03 pm (UTC)You are a cruel girl to stop it right where yo did! Hurry, we needs more Precious, yes!