Promises

A/N: This is a oneshot set many years after the events of 'On the Wings of the Storm'. 

WARNING: character death

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Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?

Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

(The Two Towers)

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Edoras, October Fourth Age 63

The sun was my enemy. Uncaring, implacable, pitiless. Racing up to take from me what was dearest in the world. If I could have stopped it from rising, I would have, even at the price of casting the whole world into darkness. But I did not have that kind of power. I was only a queen after all.

"Curse you," I whispered.

"Mother?"

I turned away from the window, where the first rosy fingers of the dawn touched the snow shrouded peaks of the Ered Nimrais. Winter had come early this year. As it would now come to my heart.

"I think he's waking up," Elfwine said.

"I know."

Of course he would wake up, with the sun rising over the mountains. After all, he always kept his promises. A promise first made on a winter morning, so many years ago, and then renewed every time we had to part. How well I remembered that day, a few months after our wedding, when he had ridden out with his men. Only to rid the West Mark of a band of marauding orcs, but you could die as easily a spear throw from home as you could in front of the Black Gates.

"Every morning I will watch the rising sun and my thoughts will wing their way across the empty leagues to you," he had said, tightening Firefoot's girth. "I promise."

The stallion's breath hung in the cold air like mist and all around us the last hurried preparations were made. Tack jingled and impatient hooves struck the cobbles, as the horses picked up their riders' mood.

Éomer took my chin in his hand. "Lothíriel, do not worry. I will come home to you safely," he said, his teeth flashing in a confident grin. His other hand settled on my rounded belly possessively. "After all, I wouldn't want to miss the birth of my heir."

I leant into him, as much as my condition would allow. "You had better not!" Briefly I considered pleading with him to stay, to leave this dangerous business of hunting down cornered creatures to his Marshals. But then how could I tie him to my apron strings in such a manner? His need to protect those under his care ran deep – nobody knew that better than myself.

Éomer kissed me with his usual thoroughness and taking his time about it. Still, his men could hardly leave without him. Finally, he gently disengaged my arms from around his neck. "You have to let go now, Lothíriel."

I blushed, though most of his men had discretely turned their backs on us, and beckoned to Aescwyn, one of my ladies-in-waiting. With the other women of the household, she stood in the shadow of the gate to Edoras, holding a tray of drinking horns in her hands. I took one of them and held it out to a serving girl to fill it with mead. While the other women dispersed through the crowd, offering the stirrup cup to the riders, I turned back to my husband. He had mounted Firefoot and the stallion chewed on his bit, eager for a run, but Éomer curbed him effortlessly.

"Ferthu Éomer hál," I said, reaching up to hand him the horn. "Health be with you at your going and your coming." Our fingers touched briefly as he lifted the horn to his lips. I stroked the stallion's grey coat, rough with his winter growth. "Bear your lord safely back to me." Firefoot snorted as if to reproach me for my doubts. Of course he would.