#and also: why do you think he called upon Lothiriel to come and be Eowyn's companion? 😉

[essenceofarda]

OF BLESSED THYME & THISTLE | Chapter 1 | Page 7

Masterlist of Pages

Faramir’s cousin, Lothiriel, comes to Minas Tirith to become a companion of his new bride, Eowyn, something that he hopes will ease Eowyn’s rough transition into Gondorian Society. Eowyn, for her part, decides her new companion would in turn make the perfect bride for her brother, Eomer King of Rohan. Matchmaking shenanigans ensue 😏

lol Be prepared to be VERY peeved by some of the main antagonists in this fancomic over the span of the next few pages,,, Faramir's Auntie Terenis (Denethor's sister) and her late husband's niece Lady I’Rhetha (whom Terenis had been plotting for years for Faramir to marry, so imagine her bitterness when he married one of those "uncouth northerners" instead of HER prized niece) are kinda the worst kinda people 😬

Also I tried something new (simple) way of drawing Eowyn's headdress but i kinda hate it so rip my hand i gotta go back to painstakingly drawing every embellishment. That or next scene making her headdress less complicated 😅

[dalleyan]

Resilience (LoTR story, ch 10 posted, 7-3-21)

An unexpected event and a chance encounter bring Lothiriel of Dol Amroth and the King of Rohan together. Now, neither of their lives will ever be the same as they were.  [Complete in 24 chapters]

 Chapter 10

As Lothiriel came down the terrace steps, she saw the small party gathered at the bottom.  In their midst was a woman she recognized as serving in Meduseld, though she did not know her name or why she would be joining them.

Ceorl noticed her approach and came to meet her.  “Lady Lothiriel,” he said with a nod.

“Good morning, Ceorl. I appreciate your willingness to indulge me for the day.”

“I did not mind at all, I assure you.  Come, there is someone I would like you to meet.”  He guided her over to where the woman was adjusting the saddle on a horse. She turned to them when Ceorl called her name.

“Seftehad, I would have you meet Lady Lothiriel.  This is Seftehad...”  He paused, then said, “My betrothed.”  He flushed slightly with embarrassment.

“Indeed!  An honor then,” Lothiriel said, smiling at the both of them.  “You are joining us for this adventure?”

Seftehad had bobbed a hasty curtsy, and now nodded shyly.  “Yes. Ceorl anticipated you might like to have another woman along, and Durucwen was kind enough to let me out of my duties for the day.”

“Excellent!  But do not think you must spend the entire day amusing me.  By all means, enjoy the outing with Ceorl as well.  Aside from requiring a guide and someone to answer my questions, I do not need waiting upon.”

For a moment, all just stood smiling at one another, until Ceorl said, “If we are ready, let us depart.” He gestured to his right where a horse stood waiting for Lothiriel.  To her relief, it was not the horse taken from the bandits.  It was not the horse’s fault, but she did not think she could ever look at it without remembering.  She idly wondered what they had done with the animal.

Ceorl helped her to mount and get her stirrups adjusted.  When he finished, everyone else had mounted.  Ceorl did also and took his place at the head of the column for the departure.  Lothiriel and Seftehad rode just behind him. 

For the few minutes it took to get down the hill and through the gate, little was spoken in their party, all content to enjoy the early morning silence.  Lothiriel used the silence to muse on the unusual couple of Ceorl and Seftehad.  In appearance, they were completely different.  She was a round, stout girl who probably was only a smidge over five feet tall, with bright red hair and freckles that massed her face and neck. Lothiriel could even see them on her arms where they weren’t covered by the woman’s dress.  Conversely, Ceorl was tall and lean, with almost white-blond hair, eyebrows and beard.  Still, she had seen the glint in their eyes as they looked at one another.  Love it was, regardless of differences in outward form.

Seftehad turned out to be a chatterbox.  Once her initial shyness slipped away, she rambled on about anything and everything. Lothiriel could not decide if it was a sign of nerves or just her nature, but certainly she passed along morsels of information of the sort Lothiriel would never have gleaned from Eomer or Eothain, or from Eowyn, either.  None of the household gossip was off limits.  Certainly it would be tiresome to listen to this on a constant basis, but Lothiriel found it an amusing diversion for the ride.  The men were never very inclined to converse with her, even if they felt comfortable speaking Westron.  Other than Eothain her ride to Edoras had been mostly silent for her part.

When they reached the path that turned up the mountain, Ceorl glanced back and Lothiriel caught a look passing between him and Seftehad.  Apparently it was prompting her to curtail her chattering for after that she eased up. She was still willing to talk, though, so when they could ride side by side on the path Lothiriel asked about her life, what she did at Meduseld, and her pending marriage to Ceorl.

Seftehad sighed.  “I have been trying to sew a new dress for it, but I am not sure I will finish before he rides to Gondor.  I am not very good at needlework,” she confessed.  “I was hoping to surprise Ceorl with it,” she said softly to keep Ceorl from hearing.

“Perhaps you would allow me to assist you,” Lothiriel offered conspiratorially.  “Ladies of Gondor are expected to know needlework, and are given much practice at it.”  She made a face to indicate that it was not her most favorite pursuit.

Seftehad laughed, but when Lothiriel eyed her questioningly, she said, “You are serious?  You would help me?”

“Of course.  I do not have enough to do here, and I welcome the opportunity to give something back for all that I have received.  Ceorl has been quite willing to answer my questions when I had no one else to do it, and was even willing to take me on this excursion. I should indeed like to help, if it would please you.”

For once, Seftehad was at a loss for words, but finally she gave a small gulp and nodded.  “Thank you.  I would like that.”

 continue reading on AO3:

              https://archiveofourown.org/works/31701830/chapters/80181010

[theemightypen]

I wish you would write a fic where... modern!Eomer fosters a bunch of kittens with his tiny wife Lothiriel

This got a bit long, per usual, and has a slight angsty bit towards the end, but I hope y’all enjoy it regardless!

“Pippin,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off the migraine he feel swiftly approaching, “explain to me again, why there are five kittens in my house.”

Pippin offers him what Eomer supposes is supposed to be a winning smile, but all it serves is to make his head throb in response. “Well, me and Merry’s place doesn’t allow cats, Arwen is allergic so she and Aragorn are out, Gimli and Legolas are off gallivanting around the country again, Sam and Rosie have the baby–there’s nowhere else for them to go! The closest shelter is nearly full, and isn’t no-kill– ”

“And Lothiriel said they’d be welcome,” Merry pipes in, unhelpfully.

I love my wife, Eomer reminds himself. I love my wife, I love my wife, I love my wife–

“Lothiriel isn’t here, now,” he reminds them. “And I am much, much less fond of cats than she is–”

“Oh, come on, Eomer,” Merry wheedles. “She’ll be back from Faramir and Eowyn’s in a day or two–what’s the worst that can happen?”

The ‘worst that can happen’, as it turns out, is one leg of their vintage leather couch being scratched to smithereens, two of the kittens outright refusing to use the litter box–they prefer the floor of Eomer’s closet, instead–and Eomer nearly having a heart attack upon waking up to find all five kittens perched on his chest, watching him sleep.

“I love my wife,” he mutters, cleaning up yet another bowl of spilled milk, “I love my wife, I love my wife–”

“Your wife is glad to hear it,” comes Lothiriel’s voice, startling him out of his scrubbing. She must have come in while he was busy cursing the cats in Rohirric, and now she stands in front of him, grinning widely. “What have I done to deserve such adoration?”

“Given Merry and Pippin the idea that we’re running some kind of cat sanctuary out of our house,” he grumbles, but still rises to his knees to accept her kiss in greeting.

“What?” She asks, clearly confused.

As if on cue, a round of high pitched meowing starts in the other room. Lothiriel’s face splits into an enormous smile and she all but knocks him over in her hurry to move into the living room. He groans at the sound of her happy squeal, followed directly after by cooing at the demons that happen to be conveniently kitten-shaped. “Eomer, come here! I need to know what we’re calling them!”

Grumbling, he hefts himself to his feet. The sight that greets him is, admittedly, adorable: his tiny, beautiful wife, all but covered in kittens, happily stroking her hands over each one in turn. Or, it would be adorable, had the kittens not made themselves the bane of his existence over the course of the previous 48 hours.

“I haven’t named them,” he admits, begrudgingly settling down beside her on the floor, his back pressed against the ruined couch-leg.

“Oh, bad form, husband mine,” she chides, scratching the solitary orange cat between its ears, “no wonder they’ve done a number on you. They don’t feel welcome!”

“They’re cats, Lothiriel,” Eomer grouses.

“Kittens,” she corrects, bumping his shoulder with hers. “And they need names.”

The orange cat is quickly named ‘Tigger’, his three grey sisters deemed ‘Smoke’, ‘Cinderella’, and ‘Twilight’, until only the last, tawny colored kitten remains. He’s been a particular thorn in Eomer’s side, responsible for both the couch leg and the majority of the accidents in his closet.

“Trouble,” he suggests.

Lothiriel smiles, crooking a finger under the kitten’s chin. “What do you say to that, little one?”

The answering purr decides it.

(“Lothiriel,” he murmurs, the following night when he finds her curled up in bed, the kittens arranged in the space where she’s curved herself around them, “we’re not keeping them.”

She shoots him a look that he knows all too well–it’s one of the first things he’d ever fallen in love with about her, that look. “We’ll see about that.”)

As it turns out, they don’t keep all of the kittens. Eothain and his wife could use a mouse-hunter for their stables, and Cinderella has been training by pouncing on Eomer’s feet for the better part of two months. Elphir wants a calm, gentle first pet for his little daughter, and Smoke, with her wide-green eyes and sweet disposition, is the perfect fit. Tigger and Twilight are adopted by Gimli and Legolas, not only for their personalities but also for the high likelihood of their presence in the men’s apartment to guarantee the absence of irritating in-laws–on both sides.

Trouble, however, stays. Much to Eomer’s chagrin, the cat has been Lothiriel’s special darling from the very first, curling himself around her feet at every opportunity, being pampered with tuna packs and chin scratches.

He also has the particularly annoying habit of hissing at Eomer any time he shows Lothiriel the barest semblance of physical affection. Takes her hand while watching a movie? Hissing. Dare to kiss her temple while they’re making dinner? More hissing. And Bema forbid he attempt to coax his wife into the bedroom with the damned cat watching–Eomer’s got three, claw-shaped scars on his ankle for daring to want to make love to his wife.

“He’s just protective,” Lothiriel reasons, plastered pleasantly to his side, lips swollen from kissing and her hair a rumpled mess from his hands. Trouble is yowling his displeasure from outside the door, but thankfully, Eomer is proving to be a better distraction to his softly smiling wife.

“He’s a damned nuisance,” Eomer grumbles, but he kisses her responding frown away before she can truly get upset. “But he has his uses.”

“Such as?” She asks, with an arched eyebrow.

“Well, for starters, he helps keep those ice-blocks you call feet warm–”

Eomer receives a pillow to the face for his comment, but a kiss follows quickly after, before he can bemoan abuse.

The day he decides Trouble is worth, well, the trouble, is when he comes home to find all of the lights turned off. It’s a dreary day, anyways, with rain pattering against the windows, but something feels…off.

“Lothiriel?” He calls.

There’s no response. The kitchen is empty, as is the living room, the dining room…Concern mounting, he opens the door to their bedroom. Lothiriel is there, curled beneath the covers, with Trouble perched by her head. The cat offers him a steady look, for once not on the verge of attack at his appearance.

“Lothiriel,” Eomer says again, worry turning swiftly to panic when her response is a slightly muffled sob. He kicks off his shoes, gingerly settling onto the bed behind her. Usually, if he gets this close, Trouble is waiting with his teeth bared and claws at the ready, but instead the cat has scooted closer to the object of their shared concern, his tail twitching nervously as she continues to cry.

Eomer tucks himself behind her, relaxing slightly when one of her hands drifts up to pull his arm around her. “Sweetheart, please,” he says, trying to keep his voice even, “talk to me.”

It takes a few more minutes for her to calm down to where she’s not shaking in his arms anymore, and even then, it’s not until Trouble gently nudges his face against her own before she speaks, saying in a tiny voice, “I’m not pregnant.”

Oh, Bema, he thinks, even as he pulls her closer, pressing a kiss to the back of her head. They’ve been married nearly three years now, and they hadn’t been in any hurry to have children, but with Aragorn and Arwen pregnant with their second, and Elboron born a few months back, it’s understandable that Lothiriel has had babies on the brain, and apparently, in her heart. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

She sniffles, but threads her fingers through his all the same. “It’s so stupid–I was only a week late, but I thought–I hoped–” He can hear her swallow, and sees Trouble nuzzle her again. “What if something is wrong with me?” Lothiriel asks, voice as small as he’s ever heard it.

“Then we’ll go to a doctor,” he says, firmly, “it could easily be on my end, Loth, and it isn’t if we’ve really been trying.”

“I know, I know,” she says. “It’s stupid.”

“Not stupid,” he assures her, giving her a gentle tug until she’s rolled over in his arms, facing him, “never stupid. And if something is wrong, well…we’ve got Trouble, haven’t we?”

That startles a watery laugh out of her and she tucks her head under his chin. “You don’t even like Trouble.”

“No, but you do,” Eomer concedes. “I will insist we draw the line at calling him our ‘fur-baby’, or anything else nausea inducing–”

She pinches him. They’re both quiet for a moment, Eomer absent-mindedly running a hand through her hair. Her murmured, “I love you”, is almost lost under the sound of Trouble’s purring, but Eomer hears it all the same.

(A year later, when Elfwine is born, Eomer can only laugh at Faramir’s disgruntled expression when he’s preventing from holding his nephew by a hissing ten-pound ball of yellow fur.

“I see why he’s earned his name,” Eowyn laughs, balancing Elboron on her hip. “What I can’t fathom is how you’ve put up with him for two years, Eomer.”

“We’ve reached an understanding,” Eomer says, attempting to sound regal.

“Or they both realized how much it upset me that they didn’t get along,” Lothiriel adds with a grin. “Neither man nor cat enjoys being made to sleep on the couch.”)

[theemightypen]

18) Things You Said When You Were Scared

as requested by @tuliptx

To say he’s less than surprised when the door slams open not two minutes after he’d pushed it closed is an understatement. He knows his wife of just over a year better than most, and knows even better about that temper of hers that lies hidden under layers of well-taught Gondorian propriety and an iron will.

“Lothiriel, this is not up for discussion,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Clearly,” she bites back, dark eyes flashing with anger. “Considering how you decreed what I was to do, in full view of the entire hall.”

Eomer winces; it had not been one of his smartest moves, nor one of his most considerate. But, Bema, what was he to do? He had renewed the Oath of Eorl when Aragorn had become king. There was nothing to do but answer his friend and ally’s call for aid. It matters very little that the thought of seeing any Mûmakil again makes his stomach turn, that the thought of marching past Morannon only brings back the smell of death and terror and blood--

“--I do not understand it, it is not as if I have not gone with you before--”

Lothiriel’s voice pulls him from his musings. She is right, of course, as she so often is. In previous skirmishes within their own borders, it would not be odd for her to accompany him. While no warrior herself, Lothiriel was an accomplished healer in her own right, and had enough sense around battle to not put herself in harm’s way.

But this was different. The ride alone would be arduous for even the most experienced Eorlingas, and the well-trained armies of the Haradrim made even the most organized Dunlending band look like unruly children. The thought of Lothiriel being even remotely nearby...it feels like ice sliding into his stomach. Nearly terror enough to match what he’d felt upon finding Eowyn on the Pelennor Fields.

“It is different,” he says, tone sharp. “These are no starving Dunlendings, nor mindless Orcs--”

“I know that,” Lothiriel snaps. “I am not a fool! But if I can help our men, help Aragorn’s soldiers, surely it is worse for me to remain here--”

“Worse?” Eomer asks, turning to face her. “Worse to remain in Edoras, safe and well-guarded, miles from any who would wish you harm?”

Lothiriel scowls at him. “I am not a trinket, to be placed in a tower and kept well protected, Eomer!”

“You are deliberately misunderstanding me,” he fires back. “All the more reason why you should not go--”

“You have not given me a reason!” She cries, stepping closer to stick a finger under his nose. “You have not given me a single, valid reason as to why you are acting like this--”

“It is dangerous--”

“Life is dangerous--”

“You are needed here--”

“The council can run things in our absence--”

There is something like panic burning in his veins. All he can think of is the day they’d brought his father home, the horrible sound of his mother’s grief over his body. Finding Theodred, nearly face down in the water of the Fords. Theoden King, broken and bloody, under the body of the once magnificent Snowmane. Eowyn, still and pale, in armor beside the wreckage of the Nazgul’s mount.

“You cannot come, and you will not come,” he says, voice sounding distorted even to his own ears.

Lothiriel’s face is nearly red, likely matching his in her anger, her confusion. “I will go where I please, Eomer King--”

The panic bubbles over again--had Eowyn not also ignored a king’s orders? Was it to be his wife’s body he finds next, would it be Lothiriel that he would fail to protect?

“I cannot risk you!” He finally yells, hands gripping her shoulders. “I cannot---the thought of something happening to you…”

Her eyes are wide as realization dawns. “Eomer,” she murmurs in a much softer tone.

Suddenly, he finds that he cannot face her. The had not married for love, it’s true, and yet he has come to love her all the same. He has not found the strength to tell her, yet, and it would feel like a bribe now, a trick to get her to agree to remain behind.

“I have lost all of my family save Eowyn to violence,” he says instead, hiding his eyes behind his hand. “I...please do not ask me to do it again.”

They are both silent for a moment. He nearly startles at the sudden feeling of Lothiriel stepping up to wrap her arms around his waist. She presses her face into his chest, and they both give a sigh when he runs a hand through her hair.

“I did not think,” she murmurs, the sound slightly muffled. “I am sorry, Eomer.”

“I should have explained,” Eomer argues, not willing to let her take the blame on his inability to communicate properly--something Eowyn has always berated him for, come to think of it. “You are my wife and my Queen, and deserved a proper explanation.”

“Yes,” Lothiriel agrees, a touch of her usual humor back in her voice, “but I should not have pushed so.”

The longer she stands there, arms wrapped around him, the quicker the lingering sense of panic--fear, if he’s honest with himself--recedes. Feeling more settled, he moves to unwind himself from her--he will have to meet with the council soon, to detail their plans in his absence, but her hands on either side of his face stop him.

“Since I am not to come with you, you must promise me something instead,” Lothiriel says.

“Anything.”

“Come back to me,” she says. “For I do not think I could stand losing more of my family to violence, either.”

What else can he do, but kiss her? He should not promise her such a thing, for life is uncertain, even with Sauron defeated. But he does, all the same.

As it turns out, it was a very easy promise to keep.