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#eomer preference
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LOTR/ The Hobbit Preference: How You Met (3/4)
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Aragorn
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Aragorn and you met when you were a guest in Rivendell. You were reading in the library and once he spotted you he couldn’t help but introduce himself.
Getting lost in the tale of the large book in your lap, you didn’t notice someone approaching your comfortable spot on the fancy elvish lounge.
“Hello.” You heard a gentle voice announce.
Startled, your legs jumped down from the couch and were quickly placed on the ground below, book thrown beside you.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to startle you. My names Aragorn.”
“It’s alright, in a world of my own. My names y/n, it’s lovely to meet you.” You smile up at the handsome man before you.
Bard
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Bard and you met one evening at a lavish elvish ball in Mirkwood. Bard felt very out of place at such a fancy party, but you managed to remedy his anxieties.
“Are you alright?” Bard heard from beside him. Turning he notice a lovely elf standing beside him.
“I’m sorry?” He asked, not fully catching what you had said.
You can’t help but giggle at the handsome mortal man’s confusion.
“I was just asking if you were alright, you seem a little nervous.”
“Oh, hah, yeh. I’m just not used to such lavish parties.” He responded nervously.
“I understand, they can be a little intimidating sometimes. Would you care for some company, we don’t have to dance but it might help to have a friend. I’m y/n, it’s lovely to meet you.”
“A friend sounds nice. I’m Bard, nice to meet you.”
Boromir
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Boromir found you one afternoon on a snowy day in Gondor, taking your horse for a walk. Being new to Gondor you’d decided to get to know the land and become familiar with your new home.
Petting the dark brown mane of your horse, you turn as you heard the crunching of the snow.
“Oh, hello.” You turn to see the handsome man before you.
“Hello, my lady. Are you alright out here?” He asked, concern lacing his voice.
“Im alright, just going for a walk. I thought I’d get to know the town. I’m y/n, I just moved here last week.” You introduced.
“I’m glad you’re alright, my lady. Such a cold and snowy day, I didn’t want you getting harmed. I’m Boromir, a pleasure to meet you.” He smiles sweetly, talking your hand and giving it a light kiss.
Eomer
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Eomer and you first met at the battle of helms deep. He knew immediately that you were a witch when he laid eyes on you and immediately was filled with distrust. It wasn’t until you healed his sister that he let his guard down.
“Aragorn, let me assist.” You announced as you walked over to the two men and the young woman on the cot.
“You leave us be, witch, we don’t need your kind of help.” Eomer sneered.
“Eomer, let her help. I know how magic has affected you and your family but y/n is a very powerful healer and I give you my word that she means you no harm.” Aragorn defended you.
His attitude was changed as he saw his sister awaken, life returning to her eyes. Walking away, you let the siblings have their moment together.
“Y/n!” You heard Eomer shout.
Turning you see him standing before you.
“I apologise for how I’ve behaved toward you and I thank you for helping my sister and fighting beside us.” He spoke softly.
Faramir
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Faramir met you the first time he came to The Shire after the war. You had been sitting in a field making daisy chains and flower crowns with the young hobbits.
Your laugh filled his ears like sweet bells. Turning he saw you sitting in the lush field, surrounded by flowers and smiling little hobbits.
“You should go and talk to her.” Aragorn smiled at the blushing man.
“Her names y/n. Shes a friend of Rosie’s, comes into town every now and then to help with the children and sell her jam.” Samwise smirked at Faramir at his other side.
“Y/n.” He smiled with wonder in his eyes
Walking over his smile grew the closer he got.
“Hello, my lady. I heard you were the one to go to if I wanted to become an expert flower crown maker.” He smirks down at your seated position in the grass.
“Well you heard right. I’m y/n.” You beamed up at the handsome man.
“Faramir.” He politely bowed.
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essenceofarda · 17 days
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OF BLESSED THYME & THISTLE | Chapter 1 | Page 5
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 😏
When the aunties pull no punches 😳😖 Poor Eowyn lol
I'm actually kinda super proud of how this page turned out LOL
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lillianofliterature · 2 years
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Hi Lillian! If your preferences are still open, could I please request a preference for what the LOTR Fellowship think of a modern woman appearing in Middle Earth and developing feelings for her? Thank you!
LOTR PREFERENCES || 3/?
a/n: hi, love! thank you for your request! I’m delighted to do it! 💚 Sorry it took so long to get back to you, I’ve been working on this on and off since it was sent in to be sure I wrote a good amount for every character (although my favoritism is palpable, oops). I would get through 1-2 characters and then my brain would shut off for a while. Very convenient of it. ¯\_( ◉ 3 ◉ )_/¯
DO NOT REPOST MY WORK.
if gifs are not sourced, they were found ages ago on Google and have sat dormant in my gallery since. if they’re yours, lmk and I will credit or remove them!
some of my preferences are written like imagines, some are written like headcanons. this particular request fits the headcanon format best!
each character varies in length (I mean, some of them have A LOT and I hope you don’t mind, I just like to include everything I think of for headcanons!) and some ideas or descriptors may have been repeated a few times due to there being so many of them! On this particular request, it was so hard to make everyone’s unique because they’re all so kind and good? I feel like everyone would just dote on you and take care of you in their own way? I hope they’re unique enough!
I do my best to keep them gender-neutral for everyone! <3
warnings: repetitive ideas I’M SORRY I TRIED I PROMISE, some injuries and light gore mentioned, mental health issues implied (depression, anxiety, etc.)
(preferences below the cut-off)
| how they would react to developing feelings for someone from the modern world
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aragorn | word count: 1.3k+
Aragorn was no stranger to forces of magic and otherworldly power he didn't quite understand, as he was exposed to such truths all of his life, so he wasn't as untrusting or suspicious of you as some of the other folks of Middle-Earth might be to someone claiming to be from another realm of a far advanced make and age. 
He wouldn't develop feelings for you right away, he's the slow and steady sort who must get to know and become familiar with someone before even entertaining fonder, sweeter thoughts, much less full-fledged feelings. But you did have that mysterious air about you, being a stranger to his world, the era and its customs, and he always wished to understand you from the moment Elrond had introduced you to each other. You were intriguing, to say the least.
To be fair, you were slow in trusting people completely, just as he was, so your path in developing feelings for each other was equally stubborn and forgiving. He believed your story, of course, about how you'd come from another land that was quite different from his own, about the strange humming you'd heard one night and the stinging you felt in your toes and fingertips, about how you'd ended up in a forest somehow and had followed the Ford of Bruinen into Rivendell. 
He was the first person to truly believe you and not just try to assuage your questions and anxieties passively. He made a point to validate that you weren't crazy or dreaming it up; he did everything he could to help you feel grounded and understood. Aragorn was humble enough to admit he didn't understand everything—and that he especially didn't have to understand something in order for it to be true. 
At Elrond's request (and largely due to his own curiosity), he'd agreed to help you learn about this strange new world and its history and customs. Why he'd been tasked above any other elf of intelligence in Rivendell to be your guide and tutor, he hadn't the faintest idea, except for the fact that perhaps since he traveled more than those who dwelled comfortably in the elven lord's domain, his experiences might be of more value than knowledge gleaned solely from literature and speeches.
He was quizzical about the strange things you would do, the habits you admitted were hard to break. Such as how you would rub your knuckles against the wall by every door frame when you entered a dark room, presumably looking for "light switches''—and the way you searched for "buttons and knobs" when you entered a kitchen and asked if there was such a thing resembling a "refrigerator" or an "icebox" in this world. Whatever phantom switches and objects you were after, he found it amusing to see you chastise yourself for looking for things that weren't there in Middle-Earth. (But he also realized it must be difficult to enter a realm where nothing is the same and everything is new to you, even down to the most basic aspects of daily living.)
There was also the way you were afraid to drink from rivers and skeptical of sleeping on the ground and accepting food from people you hardly knew and constantly asking what it was you were eating or if it was cooked all the way through. He knew there was some wisdom to caution, but your caution seemed extreme, which made him wonder what sort of world you hailed from that food and drink could not be trusted and one would not be accustomed to natural resources and living off the earth.
He never once made you feel silly or cowardly, though, for whatever you discovered or worried about that made you feel squeamish. He merely taught you his own ways with generous patience; he taught you to hunt and forage, how to protect yourself from insects and parasites with herbs and salves, to trim your hair with shears, and use a specific type of tree branch to clean your teeth (you couldn't just pick up any stick on the forest floor, you know), and how eucalyptus was especially soothing for the scalp when washing your hair (so long as the water wasn't too cold when you rinsed, which you learned the hard way after bathing in the river after he concocted something resembling shampoo for you).
He'd been the one to hold you that night on your travels across lands (an idea Elrond had had to get you used to the world you'd been brought into, teaching you with firsthand exposure or something of the sort) that you'd finally broken down into tears after weeks of trying to make sense of your predicament. He'd sang to you in his elvish tongue until you'd fallen asleep in his arms under the warmth of his furs and winter coat. You missed your family, your friends, and some of the beauties and conveniences of your own land. People and things he couldn't replace. He did his best to calm your aching spirit. He knew what it was to miss people, to ache for them, to reach out and not find them reaching back, to not feel your mother's warmth any longer–no matter how much you longed for it.
It was that kind of sweetness, how in touch he was with his emotions and how readily he extended his compassion, that made you realize how special of a man he was. 
And after months of helping you along in Middle-Earth and watching you blossom and grow with the changing seasons, essentially becoming part of his world, Aragorn began to feel deeply towards you. Not just his protective instinct that he'd developed for you since he'd been your confidante and ally since your arrival (he once compared you to a fawn just learning to walk in the afterbirth or a little bunny hidden away in a burrow that he had been tasked with - and obliged - to help grow and adapt) (all until you asked him to stop comparing you to wild animals), but also these funny little bouts of fluttering in his stomach and an innate need to be near you. The reprieve your mere presence gave him. The pure happiness your eagerness to learn and understand him and his world offered him. 
It would be difficult for him to act on those feelings at first because the last thing he would want to do is add more pressure or discomfort to your already convoluted burdens. But when he did, after weeks of pining for you and feeling himself smile (momentarily free of any heavy thoughts or worries of his own that often tugged that smile flat) after your many failed attempts to mimic or poke fun at him for his quiet, mysterious "Strider" persona.
Luckily, Aragorn was not alone in his feelings, and his only regret was not telling you sooner.
Neither of you knew if your returning home was a possibility or not, nor especially how such a thing could even be done, but he hoped that the day would never come when you would disappear from his life. It wasn't that he wished you never to return home to your loved ones and your comforts, but that he needed closure of his own. He needed warning in order to prepare himself to lose you if he was fated to–not that any amount of preparation can teach someone how to nobly lose their soulmate. Or perhaps he needed at least enough preparation to follow you into that world if he was ever given the chance. 
And if you were to stay in Middle-Earth until the end of your days, he vowed to help you in whatever endeavors you faced, as long as he could be by your side for every one of them. He would gladly go on teaching, guiding, and needing you.
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boromir | word count: 1.8k+
Boromir was definitely skeptical of you, not only because of your sudden appearance in his father's city, but also because of your explanations to their inquiries of who you were, where you were from, and how you had come to enter the steward's palace without having alerted any guards or centremen were never quite believable. It seemed as though your answers just brought on more questions, which only made his father's temperament even more fragile than normal.
For his father's sake, Boromir would take over the situation, reprieving him of any responsibility of having to deal with the "nuisance of a wench" that Denethor, Steward of Gondor, had so politely referred to you when you didn't admit to his accusations of your being a spy from Edoras or some sort of conspiring assassin having come to usurp his throne (because you weren't one and in light of your very sudden and confusing teleportation into an entirely different realm, couldn't care less about some rickety old man on some throne you didn't even know about, much less want)
(which you told Boromir to his face once he'd come to visit you in your holding cell to interrogate you further).
Your relationship was a rocky start, to say the least. There wasn't torture involved or anything, you were kept fed and hydrated from within your cell, and the cell itself was much more quaint living space than the stuff of dungeons. The door even had a lock on the inside to ensure your privacy as an individual, although there were guards placed outside the door and the windows were too narrow and too high to even see out of, much less clamber out of to escape further out into a world you didn't understand. In all actuality, as the hours wore on and no one came to remove your fingernails or dunk you in a barrel of icy water until you spoke, you began to realize that the steward's son–Boromir, you think it was–had most likely placed you in the guest or servant's quarters. There was no way that this room, furnished with a single bed, a vanity, a well-stocked bookshelf, a wardrobe, and even a small washroom was in any way dungeon quality. Where was the hay all over the floor? The rusty cell bars? Mice scurrying over your feet? Mushrooms and mold growing in damp corners?
So, had he lied to his father? Gone against his orders to let you rot in a cell for your lying impotence and instead given you room and board?
As the next day dawned and Borormir came to speak with you privately, he was an entirely different person than what you'd expected from your brief encounter in the throne room. Out from his father's scrutinous and demanding gaze, Borormir was much more agreeable and even somewhat patient. He wasn't quick to condemn you as a liar or some manipulative traitor, although he obviously still did suspect it. He was commanding, but he wasn't dominating.
In short, romance wasn't even on the map for either of you due to the circumstances of your meeting. No one falls in love with the man interrogating them for days on end about losing everything they ever had in an instant, about walking into an old alleyway back home to escape the rain, only to find yourself walking into the halls of some grouchy old steward who accuses you of treason and attempted murder. And no one falls in love with the person skulking through their father's halls unannounced and dishing out insults to that said father and kingdom at first glance, wounding their pride and dignity in one fell swoop.
In fact, he'd even chastised you for speaking ill of his father.
"You mean the man who just called me a nuisance? And a wench?"
Your pension for being very...communicative despite speaking to the son of the steward shocked him to say the least. Boromir wasn't used to being spoken to with such reignless freedom—especially not from strangers under lock and key.
He apologized for Denethor's crass and demeaning insults. You wouldn't have accepted his apology if it hadn't been for the forlorn sincerity in the man's eyes when he explained that his father was a changed man–and not for the better. Regardless, he asked that you respect the steward and his position of power, but even more so, respect that he is his father and he couldn't tolerate ill words being spoken about him.
You agreed to speak no such insults in his presence out of respect for Boromir in return for the patience and hospitality he'd shown you, but you made no vow to be tolerable of Denethor himself. He found that agreeable.
As the questions wore on and your answers remained much the same, Boromir realized that this story you kept explaining, about the alleyway and the rain, the smell of the bakery across the street, the soggy socks in your shoes, it was obviously what you believed–even if he wasn't sure if he could believe it yet. It was hard for Boromir to believe without seeing for himself. It's ye old "I believe that you believe it happened," two hairs shy of calling you crazy sort of response.
That is, until his brother gets word of the new visitor a few days after your arrival. Faramir was his name. He remembered how strange that passageway deep in the stone walls of the palace near the eastern wing had always made him feel when he passed through it. And when he heard of your predicament, he actually seemed rather aware of some sort of power or legend that once spoke of beings traveling between realms in some rare instances. Apparently, Boromir was much more trusting of his little brother. He took Faramir at his word, especially once shown several tomes and scrolls from across the ages of rare but unexplainable instances such as yours.
With Faramir's help (whom you found much more agreeable than his suspicious and impossible older brother), Boromir actually believed in what had happened to you. Not just that you thought it was true, but that such strange things do happen, things even the bravest warriors from great kingdoms cannot explain away.
When it was revealed that it did make factual sense, given your odd apparel that day you'd arrived and the baggy "sweatshirt" you'd refused to let them confiscate, the difference in your accent and dialect, the contrast to your world and Middle-Earth, how very little you understood about his kingdom and the way of basic living, you were then given a proper room in the guest housing just outside the palace courts, a few blocks from the courtyard and stories above the inner city.
You were viewed as an intellectual advantage (or at least that was how he explained it to his father in order for it to make sense to the paranoid steward to keep you nearby), given access to the libraries and studies under Boromir's supervision, and were assigned servants to help you learn to bathe without running water, how to brush your teeth without paste and a brush, how to lather your hair with only water and sweet-smelling oils and rinse within a basin, and a myriad of other daily changes you needed to adapt to. When you refused assistance beyond being taught how to live and function in his world, Boromir found it almost insulting–but it made him curious.
He'd never gone a day without servants, almost like shadows ushering about him, unseen and avoided beyond what they were needed for. He appreciated his people and had great pride for them, but your point of view (from someone of the working class) helped humble the entitled nobility woven into his countenance.
As time passed, Boromir found that it was he who took you for walks throughout the palace courtyard rather than silent guards or obedient servants under order; it was he who excitedly showed you his prized steeds and explained each of their individual personalities, who insisted that you venture into every reach of Gondor until you are as familiar with its villages and rivers as you are with the backs of your hands.
It was his idea, then, to show you parts of Gondor you'd never seen. Forests, plains, meadows, farms, and mountain passes, even the distant horizon of a vast beach shore toward the south. All of it grand, all of it foreign, all of it breathtaking. It was there, on horseback and walking through his father's kingdom, that you really saw who Boromir was. Free of armor and duties, he was just a man desperately in love with his country and his people.
He was flawed, yes. Greatly so. But then again, everyone bears flaws as much as any other person. Some are just skilled at hiding them from the world. Others use them to their advantage. But Boromir–Boromir just seemed like a boy some days when he was beyond the walls of Minas Tirith. The tours he gave you of his beloved land, free of expectation and any sense of obligation, were what allowed you to see everything differently, everything way back to the beginning, to months ago when you'd stumbled through those passageways between royal chambers.
And evidently, Boromir had started to realize much the same for himself. He wasn't one to take ladies for strolls about courtyards and offer them wildflowers that he nearly trampled under his boot; it wasn't like him to look forward to the days when he could spend his time riding into the villages and forests with company rather than being alone; it wasn't like Boromir, son of Denethor, heir to the stewardship of Gondor, to find himself lost in laughter as he tried to teach you how to start a fire without a "lighter" contraption that you were used to and watching you fail miserably into the evening hours and cursing under your breath with risqué words he'd never heard. It wasn't like him to feel such relief, to feel so light and free of his father's burdens.
But love comes when you aren't looking for it, and it often brings people together who would never have noticed one another in any other circumstance.
So maybe that's why you were brought to Middle-Earth, to Gondor, to the halls of his very home, out of all the places and realms you might've ended up in. Whatever might've happened, it must have been fate, or some destiny tied to love. For Boromir, the greatest warrior of his father's vast army, to find himself believing in miracles and accepting the truth of the unknown and uncertain–it could be little else but love. For the first time in his life, not knowing was enough, as long as it meant having you.
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faramir | word count: 1k+
Your meeting would definitely be in a forest somewhere, perhaps in Gondor or somewhere you can't even pronounce when he tells you. He's with his rangers, scouting and securing the borders of his country–but truly, his purpose for being all the way out there was to be far away from his father to drown out his disdain and favoritism.
The way you would meet would provide him with comical relief somehow, I just think that's something that would give your relationship such a different beginning than all the other people in his life. Not bound by blood or duty, just victims of circumstance, although he wouldn't want to say he was any sort of victim in having the privilege of meeting you.
He would be knelt by the river, scooping crisp water with his hands and sipping it as his men are some ways down the bank, offering him a moment of silence and reprieve from his own duties. His men, the rangers he lead as their captain, were more than just his "Inferiors" (as his father put it), they were his friends and most trusted advisors. They weren't sworn to serve Faramir, son of Denethor, younger brother to the great warrior Boromir, only because duty and station required it of them. They were both fond and loyal to him, to his humility and wisdom, to his feeling nature. His strength was different but no less honorable. So when their captain wandered off alone, they knew him well enough to give him space.
Although, that's not exactly what he would get.
One moment, you were on the hiking trail you'd taken near your local park for the scenic terrain and perfect reading spots when suddenly the trail had twisted in a way it hadn't before until it had completely disappeared from beneath you in the rapidly appearing overgrowth. Now in a forest you didn't recognize, with panic and anxiety pulsing through your body, running back the way you'd come from in desperate search of the trail you'd been vigilant not to wander from.
That's when Faramir hears the rustling in the forest behind him, he stands as he shakes the water from his hands and poises his bow, knowing his men would never rush him unexpectedly while in the wild (and they weren't even in that direction as far as he knew from where he left them). Before the poor man can react, your bodies collide as you appear out of the thicket and slam into him. I mean, you absolutely take this man out.
You'd both crash in a heap by the river, sliding down the bank and into the shallow edges of the freezing water. Your comfy tennis shoes? Sopping wet. His cloak? Might as well hang it on the laundry line next to the linens.
You'd scramble to your feet, still rushing from adrenaline, while he'd take his time getting up as he rubbed the sore spots you'd brandished him with. With one look in your direction, he'd do a once over and a double-take, completely befuddled by your apparel and whatever reflective material your tight leggings were made of. Not to mention the strange device in your hand with a long cord dangling from its end and the sack of books that had tumbled into the damp dirt at the river's edge.
Once he regained his footing with an adjustment of his jaw and posture, he'd be bombarded with your frantic questions of where you were, where the trailhead was, if his "phone" device had any cell power (whatever that meant, he hadn't a clue) or if he was a "LARPer" based on his apparel (which, mind you, he had several questions about your very strange clothing of choice as well). Simply put, you were quite confused by one another.
Much akin to how he would be of aid in Boromir's version, Faramir would be adamant in his studies and knowledge of many mysteries and forces in his world, from long ages past. He was quite the scholar, given his neglected childhood. He would at first be skeptical of your explanation, but it wouldn't take him as long as his brother to believe you. Faramir could sense things about people, he had that sort of discernment that helped him know whether people were honest or insincere. And you were honest.
He would be very empathetic to your situation. He would offer himself as a guide and a protector, teaching you gradually how to arm yourself in the wild during the long trek back to his home of Minas Tirith. Once there, you would be kept out of his father's reach and safely somewhere you could be comfortable and adjust to the changes of his world.
Apart from being a very mature aide to you in your time of crisis, Faramir would be as excited as a kid in a sweet shop. Your presence in Middle-Earth, the circumstances which brought you to him, were absolutely incredible. It was as if his whole life sort of made sense—all the hours spent with his head in the clouds and books upon books flitting through his hands as a young boy and into adulthood, it had all prepared him for you. This fantastical miracle that came hurling at him by some stream in the eastern forests and defied any and every law of science and physics he'd ever been tutored about.
Over time, once his feelings matured into something more than honorable duty (and giddy curiosity), he'd be absolutely devoted to you. He would spend his life trying to find the answers you needed, even if it meant finding a way for you to get home, despite how much he wanted you to remain in his life. He would cross seas and brave mountains to seek out others who knew of anything like your situation, he would risk himself to keep you safe. 
Faramir would do absolutely anything for you, at all times, with the utmost sincerity and adoration from the deepest parts of himself. He would vow himself to you and leave you no room for doubt or insecurity.
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eomer | word count: 800+
Eomer, Lord of the Mark and future King of Rohan, would definitely place duty above curiosity and emotion when first meeting a stranger claiming to hail from another much different world completely unrelated to Middle-Earth in its entirety. Albeit a respectful and honorable man, he would have his suspicions about whether or not your predicament was at all possible. And if possible—that was a big if—he would doubt your sincerity (if it had really happened or not). He's the type to need proof and evidence so he can work out how to respond and execute a plan of action. He wasn't one to meddle with ancient powers and mysterious magic—he was a man of law and combat.
What you don't know for the first few weeks, though, is that there's a reason behind his doubt and scrutiny of you, his blatant distrust and sheer callousness. He'd seen what the dark powers of wizards and warlords had done to his uncle Theoden. He'd witnessed firsthand how it had torn his family apart, stricken with grief and remorse. His sister had been plagued and stalked by one such man who was an ally to such dark arts. Magic and powerful entities had never brought Eomer or his people anything good.
Eventually, when you learn about all of this, you're more compassionate to his point of view and not so frustrated with him for being so darn suspicious all of the time.
However, despite his reservations about your situation, that would not affect his efforts in helping you (after you've been ruled out as a threat). You would never be treated like a prisoner or an enemy, nor as any sort of asset or property. You were simply a traveler, a person in need, and eventually a friend to Rohan and the people that dwelled within Edoras.
Something you noticed early on was his absolute devotion to his family. Not just his lineage or his people, not solely to the crown that still sat upon his uncle's head. His sister was his closest friend (and she soon became yours as well) and there was a bond between them you had never born witness to in your disconnected world. The loyalty and affection he showed freely were quickly one of the traits of his character that attracted you to him, as well as his consistent sincerity—there was never a word uttered from his lips that he did not mean or a promise that he failed to keep. He spoke with bluntness plainly, you never had to solve any riddles or secrets. There were never any tiresome games. He just was. The "once loyal, always loyal" sort of person.
And as someone used to a world full of people more concerned with themselves rather than those they claim to love, it's refreshing.
Because of Eomer's need for proof and evidence to be able to believe and understand things that were presented to him, your relationship was also rocky at the start. Yes, you knew he was trustworthy and you felt safe under his care as his sister showed you the ways of their people and clothed you in their garments. You knew no harm would ever come to you as long as Eomer kept watch over your wellbeing. But there was the disconnect between you where emotions and souls come into play–a need for him to have faith in your story, a need to be trusted above reason and common sense.
That would be the great battle throughout your developing feelings for each other; to understand and accept each other and your very different origins. It would be that discourse and the eventual change of heart that would convince Eomer he was in love with the one person who had appeared wandering aimlessly across the Riddermark. And when he was able to accept the heavy truth that you spoke—that not only were the myriad of powers and mystics of his world very real and prevalent, but there was another realm far beyond his own—it would not only prepare him for the throne he would one day succeed, but open his heart to the reality of love itself. That there is more beyond honor and duty, beyond loyalty; there is love, devotion of the heart, and the binding of one soul to another.
Truly, your crossing into Middle-Earth was more than mere chance. It was the dealings of fate, the weaving of a tapestry that spans beyond lands and stars, that brings union and contentedness to those it touches.
To Eomer, you would become more than a dangerous risk or a misunderstanding or a wearied traveler between lands. You would be his life source in a more intimate way than even what he had always known with his family–the love of one's life is one incomparable to all else. His fierce loyalty that you'd observed since your first meeting had become an unsplintering shield. You were now bonded by that same sort of unwavering devotion.
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eowyn | word count: 800+
Eowyn, Lady of the Mark, would react much like her brother at first. Suspicious and protective of her people, she would do all she could to ensure that those around you were taking all precautions necessary when you are first brought before the throne. She wouldn't take as long to come around to you as Eomer would, however. She was more prone to trust people and offer them a chance to prove themselves.
You see, Eowyn has a sense about people. She could always read them like an open book, whether they meant to be read or not. And you? Well, she had a feeling you were a good book. Shrouded in mystery and understandably met with fear at first by most of her kin, Eowyn would be the first person of her people to reach out to you as an individual after the initial shock of your sudden arrival and concerning origins.
She'd be the one to bring your meals and stuff extra pastries under the napkin for you (she'd conceited her brother and his men to allow you a room with humble furnishings rather than a cell until they were sure you would not pose a threat) and offer up small talk as best she could. Eventually, though, that small talk turned into stories and memories shared between two fast-growing friends. You told her all about your world, about your home, about the technology and amenities you missed, about the pretty lights of the city at night and the twinkling strings of lights decorating your bedroom walls.
"They're like little bursts of fire within tiny shards of glass, led along a wired string of sorts", you'd tried to explain. You loved the way she listened to your every word, her smiles growing bigger and her eyes reflecting the warmth of the hearth.
You told her about your family and friends and some of your most memorable moments with them. Several of which derived a very contagious laugh from the fair Lady of the Mark. "Tell me more about your homeland!" She would exclaim, offering an encouraging nudge to your knee.
She would spend hours helping you adjust in whatever way you needed. Didn't know how to brush your teeth the medieval way? No problem; Eowyn walked you through the steps. Kept burning your fingertips while trying to light the lanterns and oil-glazed candles? She'd show you how she got around that herself as a child. Wonder what it would be like to fight like the soldiers training in the yard? Eowyn would teach you better than any man could.
You'd always wondered what it was like to experience that best friends to lovers sort of romance—and that's exactly what you found in Eowyn. Although her protective loyalty had set a boundary between you for the first week or so of your unexpected arrival, that loyalty was soon extended to you. She'd be the first person you would really trust, the one you would call for when your dreams turned sour or your loneliness weighed too heavily in the night. She'd be the one who would lead you around Edoras, showing you the beauty of her home and people. She would teach you to bond with your own horse and train you well to become a proficient rider yourself.
The horses (and Eowyn, of course) were really what made you hesitant to ever leave this realm called Middle-Earth if you could. Rohan, their whole culture, was surrounded by the rich history and generous communion with horses. Everything here was tied to legend or powers beyond humanity's limited understanding—but everything was beautiful and enchanting. Their ancestors resided in great halls of kings in the stars. Everything about these people was so rooted in family and kinship. You'd never known anything like it back home.
People in Edoras were kind to each other, save the occasional drunkard. And Eowyn—Eowyn was the brightest star among them all. Compassionate, loyal, and brave. Those were the words you thought of when she came to mind (which was more often than not).
It wouldn't be long after becoming best friends, perhaps a few months, that you would feel things slightly shift between you, and she, you. You wanted more of Eowyn. More hours spent riding together across plains of tall grass and wildflowers. More evenings unraveling the debris of the wind from her unkempt golden hair. Eowyn wanted to share with you her greatest secrets and desires, her darkest fears. She wanted to sleep alongside you, her hands entwined with yours, to ward off the nightmares she often suffered. Eowyn found herself always in want of you; your voice, your presence, your scent. You become her comfort.
No matter how harrowing your appearance had been and the implications of other worlds beyond hers—Eowyn would never once wish that the fates or ancestors hadn't brought you to her across realms. You were everything she'd needed and yearned for in a friend and a partner her whole life, just for someone to see her and hear her.
You'd become everything to each other.
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elrond | word count: 1.1k+
The Lord of Rivendell would be no stranger to mysterious visitors happening upon his halls unannounced. In fact, he'd begun to think it almost routine at the rate hobbits, dwarves, and all manner of beings showed up on his doorstep. But there was definitely something different about you, the visitor who claimed to hail from another land—no, you clarified, not just another village or region; another world.
Where cars and trains and buses rattled the bones of the earth and ushered time and society forward at a harrowing speed. Where kingdoms and governments warred endlessly and stars were a rarity to see above the lights of growing cities.
He would be interested in this "advanced" world of yours and desired greatly to learn more about its vast variety of life—but not as much as he was interested in making sure you were acclimating to such a drastic alteration of life itself.
He would be wary of you, due to his wealth of knowledge on all manner of strange magic and ill-boding omens (do you know how many peddling sorcerers and distasteful necromancers this man has had to turn away at his doorstep?). However, Elrond would be much more hospitable from the very beginning than any of his kin. He wouldn't be as off-standish or suspicious of you—at least, not to your face.
You would be given lodging and hearty food almost immediately rather than a cell and modest portions, as well as a servant-guided tour of Rivendell and access to most of the beautiful city (save for the sacred archives and private chambers). He would not only meet with you in the hours he could spare each day to decipher your journey into Middle-Earth, but he would recommend several pieces of history and literature to get you acquainted with the customs and cultures around you. He would let you into the library at any hour you needed, even in the wee morning hours when you couldn't sleep.
A gentleman through and through, your experience with him would be much different than with any other host you might have stumbled across.
He would be undeniably patient as you're thrust into an entirely different way of living in every possible aspect, down to the very brass tacks of human nature. It feels like you're having to be raised again, like how children are taught to take care of themselves and understand the way things and people around them work and operate. There is never a grievance expressed or muttered from him as you excelled with some aspects and struggled through others.
His graciousness and soft-spoken wisdom were just the cusps of how intelligent and tender-hearted the kind elf truly was—all of which you would come to know well when he had had plenty of time to adjust to you. His introvertedness would definitely be a bit of a stunt in the development of your relationship from acquaintances to romantic partners.
He wasn't one to speak just to engage in conversation and keep busy; he only spoke if he truly had something worth saying. That of course makes it difficult for you to try to communicate beyond discussions about your unprecedented situation. But if you asked a question or politely pressed for conversation, he wouldn't deny you his attention either. While this leaves you being the one to strike a majority of the conversations between you (outside of his devoted interest in learning about your situation), you don't mind all that much. You could push through your own social anxieties as long as the person was receptive and open to engagement, and Elrond certainly made extensive efforts to be as much and more.
You liked his quietness, though. It was attractive in a way that made you hang onto every word he did decide to share. It gives you a sense of comfort. It's startling at first, the way you're able to trust him so fast, especially given the absolute madness of your traveling between realms themselves. Surely it was wiser to have your guard up at all times when in a strange new world with such stark contrasts to your own, right?
But you just couldn't bring yourself to doubt someone so compassionate and sincere.
All the while you're slipping fast into fonder feelings with every day that dawns over Rivendell's many waterfalls and etched forests, Elrond is slowly dissecting every thought pertaining to you as it surfaces in his mind. He had already had one great love in his life, the mother of his sons and daughter, a loving lady who had led their kin alongside him. He would feel such a heavy burden of guilt when he realizes the same patterns of infatuation and fondness start to swell over him. The same fluttering, freeing feelings that he had felt with his wife in their early years together. The same wandering of thought, despite his very disciplined nature. The instinct to return to your side when he wasn't busy, as if that was suddenly where he belonged more than in his study or his chambers.
Within a mere few months, it was Lord Elrond who was escorting you to peer at moonlit waterfalls and forests set ablaze with fireflies and starlight. It was he, rather than a servant or guard, who taught you how to mount a steed more than half your height and ride with all the elegance of an elleth. It was he who felt his zeal for excitement return to him when you dared to race him beyond the forest and across the rushing ford. It was Elrond who sat with a smile on his face as he listened eagerly to the cultures that thrived in your world, specifically the details of your own home and heritage.
Although it took time to trust his own heart enough to feel more than politeness for someone, Elrond was no stranger to love or what it felt like. That's probably what would scare him so much when he first starts to feel himself becoming attached to you—the realization that somewhere along the discussions about your homeworld and the hours poured over tomes and memories...he was falling in love again.
Another facet of your growing relationship that would shock him would be the fact that he'd fallen in love with a human? Of course, he was the most tolerant of the race of men across all of his elven kin, but even that tolerance hadn't prepared him for the day he would face the same risk of love that his daughter had faced (you know, the courtship with a human that he'd told her to leave behind for immortality? Well, now he's facing the same question, darn it). He would absolutely need the approval of his children before even making a single stride in pursuing something beyond friendship with you, something permanent (spoiler alert, they would absolutely bless your courtship).
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arwen | word count: 500+
Arwen Undómiel would be very open and intrigued by your arrival, especially when she notices how out of place you seemed to be, not only among her people but with the way of life itself in Middle-Earth. It isn't until she inquires about your odd behavior (the asking about cellphones and electricity and other foreign amenities) to her father that she realizes you had hailed from another world entirely—not just another region or from somewhere beyond the mountains. Learning this, her intrigue only grows.
She was a lady who adored her people and the comforts of her home, but was not a stranger to adventure and the restlessness that accompanies a free spirit. Because of her love for exploring and learning, you're like a perfect mixture of mysterious and confusing. She might not have understood how travel between realms was at all possible, but she didn't mind not knowing. After all, many of her kin were gradually departing to the Undying Lands beyond the sea—a place that, in its simplest explanation, was a sanctuary divided from the common world of Middle-Earth. If such a place as that could exist just beyond the western horizon, then surely it was not so outlandish to think that there were even broader realms beyond that.
Arwen, as stated before, is a very open individual when it comes to expressing her feelings and saying exactly what she means. There is no loitering about wondering about this or that—when Arwen desires to become your friend rather soon after your arrival in her father's halls, she does just that.
She would help you adjust to things with an abundance of patience and sincere interest. She would be excited to teach you about her people and her world—about its histories and legends. But even more so, Arwen would be of even more aid when it came to helping you work through your sporadic emotions as the shock and remorse of your situation became clearer with each day. Of course it was exciting to suddenly find yourself in a world as illustrious and peaceful as this one—but there was a home, a family, and a slew of friends and interests that had been left behind without warning. She doesn't belittle or rush your grieving process, and instead becomes your confidante and place of refuge.
She would speak on your behalf to her father, about what you might need or what you were struggling to understand. She would be your voice until you were able to get your bearings and become more and more comfortable while so far from everything you once knew to be true.
In short, she isn't one to be afraid of her feelings or have any reservations of expressing them the moment she becomes aware of them for herself. Because of that kind of communication and the way she would devote herself to helping you from the very first day, it doesn't take long before she confesses that she harbors a fondness for you, like how the moon has a fondness for the sea; how her father harbored a fondness for her mother, and still does.
It's her openness and her lack of fear in expression herself that draws you both together from the first moments you share. From then, your friendship developed naturally into something of romantic permanence. As your place in her world became cemented, your place in her heart flourished with unabashed sincerity.
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legolas | word count: 500+
Legolas would be very suspicious and observant of you for quite some time before even engaging with you, much like his friendship with Gimli. Already being someone of very few words, Legolas would take his time in getting to know you before having even said a word to you. He was raised to be suspicious and discerning of "outsiders"; woodland elves, specifically those native to Mirkwood, were known for their suspicion and distrust of others, even their own kin.
So getting acquainted and close to someone who's not only not an elf or from Mirkwood, but also not even from Middle-Earth itself? That's gonna be a big barrier for him to get around and it's going to take time to achieve that familiarity and comfortability around you.
But when he does—it comes from seeing how you are with his friends, such as Aragorn and Gimli. His gradual trust builds up not from interacting with you for himself, but from observing how you communicated with others and treated his friends and allies. When he's more or less sure of your character, he would then venture into becoming friends. What he doesn't expect, however, is how quickly that friendship became something so much more to him.
Perhaps because he'd been getting to know you from afar and seeing how kind and generous you were with his loved ones despite the sheer confusion and fear you must be feeling every day in his strange world. It was one thing to venture away from home in search of adventure, even among unfamiliar faces, like he had. It was another entirely to be ripped from your world and everyone you knew, away from your kin and your people, away from your family, without any sort of warning or choice. He comes to admire you and the bravery you displayed every day just by choosing to exist in his world and trying your best to become a part of it.
Then he would notice how you'd been taught to fish with just a shaft and some thin twine by Aragorn's hand. How you kept absorbing skills as though you were a sponge, desperate to cling to any sort of help. This is when he would reach out and offer you archery lessons because "everyone should learn to have some skill with either a blade or a bow. It is better if you know both—but in your case, I think we should start with one." And you chose the bow, telling him how you admired how beautiful of a weapon it was, how graceful. You'd seen it in movies and read about great archers—you'd always wanted to be one. And so Legolas, though he had no idea what a movie was, vows to make you proficient with a bow.
It's really your devotion to learning about his world, about his friends, and eventually about him that really snares him in the end. The way you refused to wither and panic within the shelter of one of many great cities in Middle Earth, but instead wanted to see the world and get your bearings, despite how obviously unsteady it often made you feel. For you, you'd not only been brought to another world, but a world that was supposedly far behind in its technology. Everything had completely changed for you and yet you still worked hard to make something good out of your predicament. It's that bravery that pulls him to you.
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galadriel | word count: 300+
Someone as wise and clairvoyant as the Lady of Lothlorien would not be surprised at your unprecedented arrival across realms. She had probably (listerally) seen you coming long before your arrival (remember that magic basin of psychic water she traumatized Frodo with?). Her ability to read the minds of others offered her an immediate leeway into your intentions and sincerity. This meant that while she was still careful with you, she was well aware that you posed no threat or harm to her people.
You, on the other hand, were more than wary of her upon your first meeting. It wasn't just the shock of entering a new world that made your heart uneasy to trust—but something about the ethereal, untouchable power about the Lady Galadriel herself that left you teetering into doubt and discomfort. While her beauty and gentleness made her alluring and with time to develop that trust, your doubts faded. Her goodness and generosity proved time and time again that her power wasn't something to fear.
Something that made her so wonderful once you grew trusting of her was how much she believed you—largely due to her ability to read minds and people themselves—and never doubted your character or motives.
Hailing from a world hewn with distrust and malice, the calm pace and sincerity in which Middle-Earth (and Lothlorien especially) was governed made you hopeful for what sort of life could be made there.
With the help and generosity of your hostess, you soon considered Lothlorien your home. Not just for its beauty and its sort of magnificence that you'd never seen in your world before—but also for the lady who watched diligently over her forest and her people. In time, you came to consider her your closest friend, someone you could wholeheartedly trust with your life.
Galadriel would find your naivety of her realm intriguing and would be more than happy to offer herself as your guide. She would find your tendency for loud bursts of laughter and curt outspokenness refreshing in a culture of hushed voices and gracious tones.
All in all, you're both quite a mystery for each other to solve. Luckily, neither of you mind the adventure of getting to know one another.
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haldir | word count: 600+
To say that your first meeting had also been a bit of a rough start was the understatement of the century. I mean, who would react well to having a dozen arrows poised inches from their face while trying to find their way out of an unfamiliar forest? Your fear had quickly turned to frustration and anger, despite the threat of being pierced with the polished shafts of their arrows. Your quick turn to anger stunned the very poised marchwarden—it wasn't often that intruders grew hostile when threatened at the neck. Typically, people would stare back in silence like a doe stunned by fear.
A mixture of terror, exhaustion, hunger and dehydration had driven your more cooperative senses from your caliber of responses, evidently.
After you'd recovered well enough to be questioned over a generous meal, it was very obvious you were simply lost. Very, very lost. Of no threat to his people or the sacred forest they dwelled in, Haldir would have no issue in setting his pride aside to apologize for frightening you.
Soft-spoken and introverted, Haldir would have that wall of kind politeness that was at first almost polarizing to someone who'd just had the shock of their life by entering an entirely new realm in a split second. It would be many awkward attempts at sifting through your explanations and anxious emotions before Haldir was able to gauge how you would feel more inclined to trust him. And in order to achieve your trust, he would need to let you (a stranger, mind you) break through those carefully learned guards to see the real him behind the graceful countenance and elegant sentences.
It was your desperation to find answers, to understand if you had gone mad or if something so radical could have truly taken place, that sparked in Haldir the great need to console you. Generally, elves were calm and uninvolved beings—to those not understanding of their ways, they might even appear void of emotion. But that couldn't be any further from the truth. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
As your time in his homeland spanned from weeks to months, Haldir grew more and more attached to your side. Devoted to your wellbeing, he became more of a confidant and friend than the simple guide he had volunteered to be for you at the start. The softhearted nature that flourished within him bloomed around you, finding a home to take root in.
Your knowledge and straightforwardness about what you needed at any given time, whether it was a hot bath or an audience with the Lady Galadriel herself, struck a chord of admiration with Haldir. He didn't like having to piece together the riddles that strangers often gave when they were prejudiced or distrusting. Your sincerity in such matters, no matter how embarrassing or seemingly insignificant, quite honestly inspired the skilled marchwarden. With such honesty, he didn't have to work so hard to get the answers he needed to best help you.
In return, it's his diligence in his help that draws you to him. The absolution he promised with every request he listened to—there was never a question or a need he left unresolved for you. If you'd asked for your favorite meal from your world, he'd find some way to have it made for you. If you'd gone to him in a fit of tears and in need of comfort, his arms would be the first to be open to you.
It wasn't that you were a basket case, mind you (and if you were, he'd never let you or anyone around you use such insensitive terminology for your very validated expressions of distress). It was simply that you'd never been so vulnerable and in need of someone before. And Haldir, well...Haldir had never felt so inclined to a soul before, so effortlessly devoted and tethered as if some string was being pulled taught between you.
Haldir relished in being able to be of service to you.
And you held fast to the curious needing you felt for him.
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gimli | word count: 400+
From the moment he met you, Gimli knew something wasn't quite right. Sure, you weren't waving the tips of pointy weapons or spitting out slews of evil curses at people—but you were like a shard of sea glass among grey stones. Everything about your stature, the way you spoke and carried yourself, the way you interpreted the world and its people around you...it was all so different from anyone he'd ever met before.
For starters, you're much more outspoken than anyone he'd come to know. You weren't afraid to speak your mind (and even include the occasional profanity to get your point across) in any given occasion or setting, even among elven nobility. The time you practically cursed his fair-haired elven friend Legolas out was an afternoon he'd not soon forget. Especially since the whole ordeal, which he conveniently didn't recall the details of, had most definitely been Gimli's fault rather than the prince's.
He wasn't too keen on trying to understand all the details about your predicament or how you came to be in this realm of all places. Gimli never asked for more of an explanation than you were willing to give, which was something you found quite refreshing amidst a slew of people who had been asking questions upon questions since your peculiar arrival to Middle-Earth. You knew you didn't have to explain yourself to him or try to make sense of it all in order to be believed—the red-haired dwarf simply nodded through his pipe smoke and moved on.
In all honesty, Gimli hadn't thought much of you at first, the same way he didn't think much about anyone until it was apparent their paths would cross more than once. He didn't give much effort into friendships that weren't of substance, despite the loss of much of his kin. If anything, it was harder for him to attach himself to friends now than it ever had been before due to the great losses he had suffered.
But when he does get accustomed to you, it's all over for him. Once Gimli gets attached to a friend or partner, his dwarven passion for loyalty and honor kicks in. He understands you're not familiar with this place, whether that meant Gondor or Edoras or any other region beyond Middle-Earth, and that's enough for him to believe you and offer some sympathies to your situation. He was kind of the same, you know. Far from home without any of his kin left to visit or send word to.
All in all, Gimli likes your modern gumption, your fighting spirit, and that occasionally sour tongue of yours. And although it's obvious he didn't have to protect you when you were very efficient in doing so for yourself, he would gladly spend an age or two by your side offering his services as a companion—and someday, perhaps as much more, if you'd allow it.
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frodo | word count: 400+
Somewhat of an expert in the joys and terrors of adventuring, Frodo Baggins would be a most empathetic and compassionate companion to have upon crossing into his realm from your own homeworld. More than anyone, he would understand the pressures of having to keep it all together in the presence of unfamiliar faces. When he had been the ring bearer, shouldering an object with the very sentience of darkness within it, the fear and desperation had nearly overtaken him as he traveled into forests and mountains he'd never ventured to before. He couldn't imagine traveling between worlds—realms of existence entirely. 
He would value the trust that you placed in him, handling it with the utmost care. His skill for listening is unparalleled, as is the wisdom he offers in return for your woes. 
Frodo would find your situation extraordinary and fantastic. He wouldn't be able to resist asking all of his questions and brimming with excitement about this realm of yours beyond his reach. He would, however, do his best to temper his ecstatic humoring in favor of handling your delicate situation with attention and care. He found himself reminded of the years he spent as a young boy listening to Bilbo's stories of his grand adventures with goblin kings and dwarf lords and fire drakes from the north. 
Imagine hours of pouring over books and scribbled notes his uncle had left behind for him, huddled near each other by a warm fire in his home. Papers and stacks of sifted lore and myth, anything pertaining to what had brought you to Middle-Earth, littering the floor around your folded legs and shared quilt. He would dedicate himself to helping you find the answers you were looking for, even in his small corner of the world (don't worry, he has this friend who's a king somewhere out on the southern plains who would be more than happy to lend some scrolls and tomes).
To Frodo, your mere existence is illuminating. Just having you pop up in his favorite glen while he was spending his usual afternoon reading was enough for him to strike an interest in you. You were yet another adventure, living and breathing, waltzing into his life. Sure enough, you become an answer to the hobbit's dwindling hopes for normalcy, thinking perhaps he was destined to the fate of bachelorhood and haunted memories, the same as his uncle. 
You show him that it is possible for Frodo to have another adventure—one that won't cost him his soul or his life. (Just maybe his heart.)
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samwise | word count: 500+
Samwise Gamgee knows a fool when he sees one—after all, he'd grown up with Merry and Pippin in his circle of friends. So when he's the first to believe you out of the tale-spinners and prank-weavers of the Shire, it's a relief to say the least.
He'd invite you into his home, seeing as you were so far away from yours and had no way of going back. He would offer you his pantry, his sunroom, his best linens and finest silk nightgown. There would be afternoons of gardening and learning a trade for yourself that would both provide food on the table and a bit of coin in the markets. Sam would be more than delighted to have a houseguest to cook for, seeing as his Old Gaffer wasn't one to spice up the recipes very often. But for you, Sam would cook a feast. He'd even sit down with you and help you write out recipes that reminded you of home, meals that wrapped around you like a warm blanket on a cold day. He'd grow flowers you remembered seeing in your mother's garden.
Somehow, even so far away from your world and your home and your friends and family, Samwise Gamgee would give you a sense of home you'd never encountered before.
It was so exceedingly rare to find people so willing to lend such a selfless hand to others in need. Helping a strange person he'd never met find their way through Hobbiton was one thing—but inviting them into his home and giving them a place to stay and warm meals to eat without anything in return? Quite literally offering the (night) shirt off his back? You'd never been extended such kindness before.
When Sam realizes how much of a stranger you are to such hospitality, he would go all out with everything he possibly could. Finding it rather sad that you'd come from such a dismal world that was void of such simple acts of kindness, Sam can't help but want to display every possible act of kindness he can think of.
And Samwise found in you the purpose he'd yearned for all his life—the chance to be something for someone that no one else could, the chance to make a difference simply by being himself and doing what it is he does best. Although it was difficult for you to navigate through the differences and the culture shock of his world and his land—there was really very little to complain about when you find yourself in the Shire (except maybe those pesky neighbors who have nothing better to do than to stick their noses in your business between meals).
Eager to be at ease and belong, you are more than willing to learn all that Sam can teach you and his way of life. Your acceptance and sense of humor, joking about things he didn't quite understand (What was that you'd said about looking "at all those chickens"? Those had definitely been ducks swimming in the pond that day), worked together to win Sam's heart in no time.
It really didn't take long before Sam was fonder of seeing you disheveled in the mornings and in his borrowed nightgown than fixed up for the day ahead; for him to cherish those small domestic moments you'd both begun to share as time wore on. Before long, Sam found himself daydreaming of dances and the music of flutes and fiddles to set the pace.
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merry | word count: 500+
This rascal would absolutely not believe a word that comes out of your mouth about whatever peculiar land it is you keep droning on about. Automobiles? Airplanes? Lanterns that work without fire? Portion control and food pyramids dictated by the government? What the bloody hell was all that nonsense? (Dark magic or the result of some soured Old Toby, he was sure of it.)
He'd volunteer himself to be your official tour guide to Middle-Earth, claiming he'd been as far as Mordor once (wherever that was, you had no idea) and was, therefore, the best guide anyone could ask for this side of Brandywine River.
For the longest time, Merry really thinks you're spinning tall tales about this world you came from with all these fancy doohickeys he hadn't a clue about. As someone proficient in telling exaggerated memoirs and pulling indulgent pranks, he would for the longest time assume that your explanation of origin was one and the same. Listen, he'd seen the weird stuff out there, probably as much of it as there was to see, and there definitely wasn't any Europes or Americas or Indias or anyplace else you kept mentioning.
When he's taking you on a stroll along his favorite trade route all the way to the Breelands and back home, any mention of your predicament (beyond being a lost traveler far from home) was met with a mischievous scoff and a twisted grin. Once, with a mouthful of fresh summer berry bread, he'd made such an expression of dubious skepticism that he hadn't needed to even utter the "uh-huh, sure" along with it.
He meant no harm in his teasing disbelief, of course, but sometimes the gradual accumulation of it got on your nerves. While Merry was fun, kind, and a very joyful and admirable hobbit to be around...sometimes it felt as though you were trying to convince a toadstool that its colors were indeed brown and not blue.
He's fond of you already, of course, nearly upon the moment he met you—who else was he taking on his little adventures across the many borders within the region of Eriador apart from Pippin and a batch of Old Toby?
As weeks pass and one day, his distrust in your explanations pricks a little too far beneath your skin, your bout of aggravated and fearful tears came as a shock to the hobbit. It's in that moment sat across from each other with a small campfire between you that his carefree persona faltered with guilt.
Oh, he thinks. You're telling the truth about all that.
From that moment on, he would be the most expressive and compassionate person you had ever met. He'd be sure you were getting your daily dose of sunlight and ale for the day, as well as whatever desserts or hearty meals you felt inclined to indulge. You'd become attached at the hip and wherever Merry (and usually Pippin) went, you were there with him (them). He'd already been welcoming and friendly to you, but now he had this sort of tenderness in his gaze that you thought might melt you through like a chocolate drop in the oven. And if anyone were to express the same sort of doubts or contribute to the rumor mill around Hobbiton about you, he'd put an end to it before it had gone beyond the hedges of Bagshot Row.
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pippin | word count: 400+
Much like his rapscallion counterpart, Pippin's first impression would be that your whole story about arriving from another realm was a fabrication of your very active imagination. He and Merry had spun their fair share of tall tales and mischief as far and wide as the town of Bree and the little villages along the Brandywine river.
Unlike Merry, though, Pippin's reason for skepticism wasn't even so much skepticism as it was ignorance. He'd never knowingly poke fun at what you were going through, whether he thought it exaggerated or not. Pippin just truly didn't think it was at all possible for other places to exist. He really thinks you're joking or unsure of what you're even saying for the longest time.
But when Pippin figures it out after you become a sordid mess of blubbering tears over a pint of ale outside the Green Dragon Inn, he realizes everything you'd been trying to explain hadn't been a "really wonderful story" you'd been working on. It was how you'd come to be in the Shire, in Eriador, in Middle-Earth at all.
"There's no use cryin' ov'r a pint, (Y/n)! Ded someone let the barrel sour?"
You sniffled, trying to dry your eyes with the back of your hand before they were too heavy to extinguish. "It's not—it's not soured, Pip."
"Oh. Then what—?" He took a moment to understand. You'd been talking about a dog with two mismatching socks on its paws. A bedroom with fairies for lights and walls made of printed paintings. The way you'd been describing everything was almost too detailed to be off the top of your head...and then he realizes.
Pippin would buy you another pint, one untainted by salty tears. He'd do his best to listen more, although he still misinterpreted much of what you tried to explain. But it was better now, knowing that he was trying to comprehend this world of yours, rather than committing it to his memory as a tavern story.
He'd be excited to learn about what sort of drinks and food and pipeweed you had in your world and what sort of music your village danced to at seasonal festivities.
While Pippin may not be able to really grasp the extent of what you're explaining, that perhaps entire realms exist beyond the very vast one he had traveled across himself, you are reassured that he does at least believe you and understands the jest of it. And somehow, that's all you really needed—someone to just listen to what you were trying to say, to take your truth for what it was.
(Of course, this confirmation that you're really an "other-worlder" as he coined it means that he's designated himself to acclimate you to the life of a hobbit to its full extremities. This includes seven meals a day, which you're more than happy to oblige.)
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TAGS:  @moony-artnstuff @wellfuckmyexistence @tessaem @izbelross @bloodblossom73
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basically in holiday mode now - time to spend lunch break drinking a spiked coffee and writing Grima/Eomer nonsense
got the Misty Forest Ambience & Music going for background noise.
it's gonna happen.
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iishmael · 4 months
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Me when I read the lotr appendices for the first time and suddenly all my questions are answered: 👁️👄👁️
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emilybeemartin · 6 months
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Just to tie in my two themes this month----
Additional notes, because poll options apparently limit their characters:
Frodo finds great peace in watching the tides rise and fall throughout each day. He attends all the ranger programs on birds and seashells and fills pages with sketches and poetry.
Sam meticulously selects postcards in the gift shop for each of his friends and spends a whole morning writing and addressing them. He also buys Junior Ranger hats for his kids and a variety of Appalachian jams for Rosie.
Park rangers launch a Missing Person search for Aragorn when they realize his car's been parked at Avalanche Creek for three days. The search runs for almost a week before he comes strolling out the opposite side of the park, supporting one of the SAR techs who twisted an ankle during the search.
Legolas is first drawn to Olympic for the towering, mossy temperate rainforests, but the ground goes out from under him when he steps onto Second Beach for the first time. He spends an entire day watching the light and tides shift on the sea stacks, and he leaves feeling both full and hollow, like a bell that's just been rung.
Mammoth is only Gimli's first stop on a cavern tour, followed by Jewel and Wind Caves and Carlsbad Caverns. Wind Cave is his favorite for the unusual formations. He makes an obnoxious tween boy cry in Carlsbad for breaking off a speleothem.
Boromir is on a tour of military parks. He asks so many questions to the intern working the info station at Fort Sumter the kid has to go find the park historian. His favorite site is Vicksburg because that place was buckwild, though he silently judges one of the reenactors for his clumsy handling of a black powder rifle.
Merry also makes stops in Jurassic and Dinosaur National Monuments. He watches every park video, takes selfies in front of all the fossil exhibits, and earns his Junior Ranger badge at each one. He buys a keychain for Pippin.
Pippin actually gets four citations, mostly for trying to stick his hands in mud pots. He doesn't mean anything by it---he's just so delighted and curious about the bizarre landscape. He winds up with several thermal burns and dumps a king's ransom in the donation box on his last day.
Gandalf gets dinged by rangers for not paying the $5 fee for Trunk Bay, but he acts senile until they eventually decide to drop it. He gets postcards from everyone and responds to none of them.
Faramir and Eowyn are traveling together and do many of the same hikes and rides, but they do have some different preferences off-trail. Eowyn drags Faramir to a rodeo and the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson Hole, and he goads her into Ranger Shelton Johnson's living history programs on the Buffalo Soldiers in Yosemite.
Eomer is bike-packing on his sport cruiser motorcycle. He goes to Roosevelt south unit for the wild horse herds but ends up spending half a day watching a prairie dog town. He takes 400 photos of them, mostly blurry, and texts them to Eowyn.
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shirefantasies · 5 months
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Can I please request a preference thing with how the fellowship (maybe plus eomer, Arwen, eowyn and Haldir if you also write for them) react to a person they have a crush on who is physically affectionate with their friends.
The person holds their hand, puts their head on their shoulder, plays with their hair, cuddles etc.
Oh heck yessss! I do plan on writing for them too so here’s a good start 🥰 hope you enjoy this! Also, cut because loooong post 😉
LoTR Characters When You’re Naturally Physically Affectionate
Aragorn
✧ Is kind of surprised but also plays it off??? Like he doesn’t want to get his hopes up and assume anything wrong at least at first.
✧ Initiates back but in really soft ways, like tugging your blankets up higher about you when he sees you’ve fallen asleep at night.
✧ Smiles privately to himself on a later evening when you fall asleep at his side, head snug against his shoulder. The fact that you trust him so well is something he truly hopes to be worthy of, just like the glowing feeling in his heart.
✧ One day you straight-up just slide the ring of Barahir off his hand to try it on yourself, not fully aware of its significance. You mean it no harm and do even less, and something about the gesture touches Aragorn so all he does is smile and shake his head, asking if it fits.
✧ You soften him so much, so much you can see it in his eyes and his actions. When you brush some of his hair back out of his face, he kisses your hands lightly, eyes searching yours.
Legolas
✧ Kind of in a state of perpetual surprised pikachu around you tbh
✧ Like sure, his best friends don’t come from the same culture so he sees enough of that, but they aren’t usually very affectionate with him in that way so you casually sliding a hand over his shoulders to get something behind him has him flustered in a way he hasn’t felt before.
✧ Finds himself mirroring your actions a bit in his own way; he pulls you back from harm by your waist or elbow, holding on just a bit longer than he absolutely needs to.
✧ His eyes widen when you tell him his hair is beautiful and ask to braid it, but he accepts because what harm can it do? You tell him you’re doing a French braid and he’s relishing your touch, asking you to explain what that is.
✧ Smooth prince pulls the ‘your hands are cold’ on you to flip the script and let you know the affection is reciprocated, cradling your hands so gently in his own.
Boromir
✧ Is surprised by your forwardness, but in the most pleasant way. He loves someone who comes across so warm and hearty!
✧ The first time you clap a hand to his shoulder after a good fight, he mirrors the gesture immediately with a great warrior’s camaraderie without realizing anything.
✧ Goes from surprised to grinning when you offer to braid some hair out of his face for him. Milks the crap out of it, tilting so he can feel your touch as much as possible!
✧ Has no qualms about holding your arm or hand to walk together since you don’t, always offering it like a gentleman.
✧ Holds you back from danger firmly, keeping his grip as he whispers to you to stay back, care for you burning fiercely in his eyes. When you’re safe from harm, he finally voices how much you mean to him.
Gimli
✧ His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline when you first get comfortable enough to act that way, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love it!
✧ Dwarves are arguably the most physical race, so the fact that you express yourself this way is only the most pleasant of shocks.
✧ You find yourself playing with his hair one day and he stiffens, reminding himself over and over again as you begin twisting it into braids that unfortunately the significance is not the same for you as it is him. Maybe one day…
✧ Loves that you grab his arm when you laugh and elbow him playfully; begins doing the same right back and telling more jokes as an excuse for you both to do it more!
✧ Because you tend to lean on him in conversation or when you’re tired, Gimli sort of develops this habit of affectionate mini-headbutts like a cat. Your forehead? Softly bonked often by your favorite dwarf but only when his helmet is off of course 😌
Frodo
✧ It’s not a culture shock for him, so it’s not a source of confusion but it does have him overthinking because are you just doing it as intimate friends or…?
✧ Basically short-circuits for a second the first time you take his hand, sliding his palm against yours to compare the sizes of them; his eyes widen, but a smile gradually forms upon his face at the warm contact.
✧ Adores the way you sit close to him to read together or tell stories, your arms flush together as you share warmth- it’s like a little piece of home.
✧ Doubly so when you see the toll the ring takes on him and run a soothing hand up and down his back- he could practically tear up from gratitude and the way his heart explodes for you.
✧ You kissed him on the cheek once when he gifted you a sketch he knew you’d like and that feeling joins the imaginations and memories swirling through his head before sleep or when he loses sight of all the world’s blessings beneath the ring’s voice. He wonders if you know what a treasure you are- perhaps he’ll tell you tomorrow.
Sam
✧ What are you trying to do, kill him? JK mostly but man will be blushing constantly around someone like you!
✧ Leans into your touch so hard when you play with his hair, softly brushing leaves and tangled alike from the curls unabashedly like a sweet puppy.
✧ But also? Sam isn’t afraid to gently ask for what he wants from time to time? “Oh, um, I was wondering…got a real bad knot here and I just wanted to see if you were up to one of your famous massages?”
✧ You took his hand once to lead him off to look at some gorgeous flowers he could identify, so Sam finds himself plucking up the courage to take yours after a fight once, swearing he means to his best to protect you.
✧ Wraps his extra blanket around you so gently, smiling as your hands brush his to accept the new warmth about your shoulders, lingering over them for a moment.
Merry
✧ He’s a bit of a physical person too and teasing to boot so you two quickly become two peas in a pod!
✧ Both of you will teasingly sling arms around the other’s shoulders as you joke around or have mock conferences.
✧ Footsie at campfire time. Gimli complains about it a little because something about thinking you’re going to make him spill his soup or whatever, but you two barely pay attention when all your focus is on your childish little nudging game!
✧ Every now and again he just gets the widest smile at your antics, though, grinning as you sit with your arm in his or a hand resting upon his back.
✧ Will straight-up tell you you’re being adorable, then skip off smirking when he’s finally gotten you to be a bit flustered! You can’t even come up with a comeback to that for once…but maybe a confession? Big brain Merry wbk 👀
Pippin
✧ He’s in heaven, actually. Physical affection is his favorite and the one thing that ever stops him is being unsure if the other party will be uncomfortable. But you clearly aren’t, so game on 😎
✧ You got something out of his hair then ended up playing with his curls for a bit, brushing them back into place and arranging them, so he ups that by brushing some out of your face the next chance he gets, eyes never leaving yours.
✧ Since Pippin loves to sing and dance, he’s always pulling you to your feet to join him. But it doesn’t stop there of course as he holds your hand or waist depending on how open of a twirl the song entails!
✧ You two never sit up straight- someone’s head is always on the other’s shoulder or if you’re both feeling the lean, your heads are resting gently against each other, holding each other up.
✧ When he worries, you lay your hand over his and that’s it for him. He knows he’s lost, not even caring if you see how much love is in his eyes as he looks at you, especially when you gently squeeze it.
Eomer
✧ Unlearning his toxic masculinity a bit, so he is hesitant to initiate back at first, but as time goes on he can’t help questioning if there truly is more to your intentions…
✧ You tease him a lot, trying to get him to drop the serious facade, so putting your hands on his shoulders and making eye contact for mocking pep talks just has him chuckling and shaking his head at you.
✧ But when you wordlessly begin massaging his shoulders after a long day of training, hands kneading out tension in the most wondrous of ways, that has him flushing and trying to glance back at your expression without you noticing, hoping he can read something, anything.
✧ Eomer loves the way you push him when you laugh, hands against his chest or arm as you fall upon him in mirth. And if his arm ends up around you during that process? Oh well 😏
✧ Gets highkey jealous if he sees you being affectionate with anyone else, pouting because he thought he was special 🥺…but only for a moment before he’s marching over there to tell you how he feels once and for all, confessing his desire to be the one receiving most of your affection!
Haldir
✧ It definitely takes him some getting used to because he is a more reserved person and physical affection is a bit less common in elf culture…we’ve seen how surprised he is about hugs after all 😉
✧ Makes it his personal mission not to jump whenever your habit of tapping his shoulder to get attention comes into play, trying to stay stock-still and cool as a cucumber, but he can’t help feeling the corners of his mouth tug up at your giggle when he fails.
✧ Loses his absolute mind the day you gently run your fingers up his arm to get your attention, like it can’t escape your notice how he tenses, can it?
✧ Haldir expresses himself more with his words than with physical action. Every time you go out he makes sure you’re properly armed or dressed for the weather, and he always sharpens your sword himself, no one else is allowed to do it.
✧ Your actions are definitely a prompt to confess for him, like he would have sat on his feelings for quite some time but in the end he can’t help coming up to you to question your behavior and if it has any of the intent he dearly hopes it does!
Eowyn
✧ She isn’t used to this given her upbringing, but in all honesty it’s refreshing and she enjoys the feeling of love and comfort it brings.
✧ You see her looking worried and squeeze her shoulder, pulling her into your arms when she turns around. You can just feel her exhale, tension melting from her body.
✧ It quickly becomes you two’s ‘thing’ to link arms and you almost always walk together like that, screw whatever Grima has to say about it he won’t be around for long anyway 😏
✧ She thinks her heart is about to burst the day you two make home of the hills for an afternoon and you sit her down to weave flowers in her beautiful golden hair. Your hands are so gentle, never causing a single pull or tangle.
✧ She is forward with her words even if it takes some time, so one day Eowyn pulls you aside and with her hand in yours tells you how much she appreciates the glow of your presence in her life, the smiles you bring her.
Arwen
✧ Most people aren’t very playful with her, so she finds it very refreshing how relaxed, affectionate, and fun you are.
✧ You grab her hand and swing your joined hands between the two of you and all she can do is laugh merrily!
✧ One day, she wants to try the new sweets you’ve made, but imagine her surprise when you hand-feed it to her. Being an elf of such poise and grace, she doesn’t make a mess at all somehow despite her eyes firmly being on yours and nowhere near your creation 👀
✧ Arwen’s favorite habit of yours is the way you’ll take her hand and spontaneously twirl her around like you’re showing her off or having an impromptu dance. It lightens the weight of all other things for a moment and makes her feel like a queen!
✧ Repaying the favor, she makes sure you’re her first dance at every party. You open her up, giving her complete comfort to approach you and interlock your fingers, asking you if you won’t please her with your company for a bit. Of course you always say yes- you would even if she didn’t given you that teasing smile.
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spinningalbinoturtle · 6 months
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Lotr characters and their dogs (and other pets)
Frodo
Canonically not a dog person but also just has cat person vibes
He has two cats one of them is a chubby gray kitty named Luthien and she is incredibly spoiled. A birthday present from Bilbo
His other cat is a stray who hates everyone but Frodo- its super scrangly and Sam calls it Gollum and it stuck
After the Quest Frodo gets a little beagle service dog that helps him with PTSD and other medical stuff
Sam
Pre Quest had an old basset hound named Fingon. His dad said they didn’t have room for it but Sam insisted on feeding it and when he moved in with Frodo it came along.
Post quest he has a border collie named Ellie (short for Galadriel) who helps him replant the shire
He also keeps chickens at Bag End and spoils them a bit. They are just for eggs
Also has a little dairy cow for fresh milk. Her name is Bell after his mom
Merry
The Brandybucks have a pack of mastiffs and they love Merry. Frodo is terrified of them
They also have several feral maine coones that lounge around their manor and also love Merry but hate everyone else
Has a full size horse post quest which he is very proud of and scares the other hobbits. Its name is Theoden
Pippin
Lets be honest with ourselves Pippin has a lab who has the exact same personality as him and they go everywhere together. Its name is something really basic like Buddy
He also keeps turtles and has a whole menagerie for them. They’re all named after different foods
Aragorn
Aragorn has a husky/malamute that he found on his travels north. He howls back and forth with it and is convinced he can understand it. When he becomes king it sits at the foot of his throne and occasionally will randomly howl in the middle of a meeting.
Horse girl all the way. Brego is his bestie. Man takes excellent care of his horse and buys all kinds of extraneous shit for it.
Boromir
Denethor has a pack of vicious looking dogs but Boromir has a Dalmatian that loves him so much
Faramir adopts it for a while after Boromir dies but Faramir is much more of a cat person, so ultimately its adopted by Aragorn and becomes mates with his husky. The puppies go to his and Arwens kids
Legolas
This could go one of two ways-either he has a super graceful hunting dog like a greyhound or whippet or he has a little pomeranian he dresses up and treats like a baby
He has tried to domesticate the spiders with little success maybe because he’s also killed a lot of them
Gimli
Gimli is a terrier person. He has a little Scottish terrier who sits on his lap all the time when he’s working. Gimli made it a little sweater and it hates Legolas (its jealous of Legolas stealing Gimli’s attention).
He also keeps canaries and they are very well cared for and all have names and he’s the only one who can tell them apart
Eowyn
Has a massive Rottweiler who is super intimidating to everyone except Eowyn. It has bitten Grima multiple times. Around Eowyn it acts like a little puppy.
She also loves her horse as all Rohirrim do.
I could also see her as raising ferrets or chinchilas as well
Faramir
Firmly a cat person
Doesn’t mind dogs but vastly prefers cats
Has six of them and they’re all rescues. Their names are : Mithrandir, Radagast, Varda, Melian, Beren, and Pippin.
Eowyn indulges her crazy cat husband even when their house is overrun with kittens
Arwen
Also firmly a cat person
She’s fine Aragorn’s dog but that’s just cause its well trained
Usually just has one or two cats at a time. They’re a special breed from Lothlorien and they’re really beautiful. They like to sit on her lap and purr. They’re also vicious mousers.
Eomer
Has a big great dane who hangs out in Edoras. Its super sweet and dorky. Everyone loves it.
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sotwk · 2 months
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Taken (Eomer x Reader) - Part 3 of 3
Part 1 / Part 2
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Summary: After having his proposals and professions rejected by the woman he loves, Éomer still refuses to be dissuaded. He vows to continue fighting for a future with her--even if that means having to let go for the time being.
Word count: 6.7k
Dedicated to anyone who has ever known the pain of loving someone you could not have. <3
Content: Boromir lives (!), angsty romance, declarations of love, jealousy, mutual pining, class division, shield-maiden, Éomer King, Rohirrim OCs, post-RotK, non-canon pairing
Rating: T (Teens and up)
Warnings: Sensuality gets steamy, but nothing explicit. Mentions of old battle injuries.
To Read on AO3: Link
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Taken 
PART THREE
Third Age 3019 May 6
Minas Tirith, Gondor
“If you would allow me to propose something your Grace, I--”
“Éomer.” The King of Rohan growled the ungentle correction with an irritated shake of his head. “If I have leave from your king to continue calling him Elessar, then I will not abide frivolous formalities from you…Captain. And speak freely! It is your candor that I came here for, as much as your counsel."
Boromir chuckled faintly. “Very well.” He downed the last of the wine in his goblet before picking up the jug to refill it, then reaching across the table to serve his guest as well. 
While Éomer took a hearty swig, Boromir used the extra seconds of silence to weigh his next words. The noble horse-lord had done most of the talking since his arrival at the house not an hour ago, rambling on with barely contained agitation that would have frightened or offended anyone unfamiliar with his character. But Boromir had known Théodred’s cousin since he was a child, and while he was not nearly as close to Éomer as he had been with the late Prince of Rohan, their friendship had deepened enough--especially over the past few months--to familiarize Boromir with the trigger points of his temper. 
And Boromir had never before seen him more sensitive about a topic than the matter they had at hand. 
Love certainly wields such terrible power over a man, the Captain-General of Gondor mused, before clearing his throat. 
“I will gladly fulfill your request of watching over her in your absence, making sure she is well-treated and wants for nothing,” he began. “But a soldier can quickly grow restless without sufficient martial exercise.” 
“I agree.” Éomer leaned forward to fold his arms across the table. “Has she not been here long enough for your men to grow accustomed to seeing her at the training grounds? None of them need spar against her or even alongside her if they do not wish to. She would be content to practice drills on her own. In fact, she may even prefer it.”  
“My men will tolerate her presence just fine. The valor she showed on Pelennor was well-witnessed, and stories of it have circulated around our garrison,” Boromir said. “I admit she may inevitably overhear crass remarks from some passing boor among the citizenry. A woman warrior still remains an oddity in these parts. But I am sure she did not come to her status without learning how to weather such criticisms.” 
“Yes.” Éomer stared at the empty goblet he rotated slowly between his hands. “She has had to bear with a lot of ignorant talk over the years.”
“Which is why I propose taking her as a member of my company while you are away. Just temporarily,” Boromir added quickly, noting the immediate change in the horse-lord's demeanor. “It will help her feel more at ease while here, separated from you and her countrymen, if she had a group to belong to.”
“She has already taken a strong liking to your Aerdis. Which, I must confess, took me by surprise.”
Boromir smiled at this, his fool heart ready to burst with joy at every casual mention of his betrothed. “My lady is an easy one to love,” he said simply. “And indeed, the two seem to enjoy each other's company. I am certain Aerdis would be happy to continue acquainting her with all of her treasured haunts within the city and even beyond its walls. But…” 
He rubbed his jaw slowly, ever the unconscious tell of his discomfort with the situation at hand. But it was no use dancing around the real counsel he wished to present to Éomer King. “When it comes to daily labors, a shield-maiden will likely be happier with work better suited to her talents.”
Éomer cocked an eyebrow, clearly undeceived by Boromir’s attempts at off-handedness. “What sort of work? I sense you have something specific in mind.”
“I do,” Boromir admitted. “And I shall explain it to you plainly, although I will first say that it is both a suggestion and a request for a favor.” At this point he considered offering Éomer another refill of his drink, but the deepening scowl on the man’s face made him think better of it. “As you may have heard, I have been charged by King Elessar to lead the delegation that will treat with the Southrons. Sadhar has already come forward with an offer to parley, as soon as next month.”
Éomer’s eyes widened; he caught on even faster than Boromir had expected him to. “And you wish to include her in your delegation?”
“With your approval, yes.”
“You do not have it!” Éomer exclaimed. “And how could you propose such a thing?! Have you forgotten how she was so nearly dragged off by those animals to be taken who knows where for purposes I dare not even think of?”
“Are you really asking that of the man who came to her aid?”
It was a risky move to prod at that wound, but Éomer looked properly chastised by it. “You rescued her,” he conceded. “And for that I shall eternally be in your debt. But I cannot pretend to understand why you wish to involve her in any dealings with Harad.”
“You must see why I thought of her,” Boromir insisted. “You, who can personally attest to what she is capable of.” But Éomer continued to look too distraught to think, so he laid the rest out. “I can count on the fingers of one hand every person I know who can speak a Haradric dialect with reliable accuracy. Half of them died in the war.”
Éomer rose abruptly, nearly knocking over his chair in his state. Muttering indistinctly, he turned his back to Boromir to glare out the nearest window and brood at the rain lashing against the glass panes. 
“When Théodred used to boast to me about her, I dismissed it as a mentor's pride in his fanciful protégé,” Boromir continued. “I suppose I too allowed myself to be distracted by her sex. But she really is a hidden gem in your Éored, is she not? Your cousin invested in her training with great thoughtfulness, and it has borne fruit marvelously. He really believed--”
Éomer slammed the heel of his hand on the window frame. “Théodred was not the one hopelessly in love with her for so many years! There lies the difference!” he snapped. “So when you ask for my consent to take her to meet with our enemies, consider that you are asking me to risk the life of the woman I absolutely refuse to live my own life without!”
And while Boromir reacted with silence, he stood there, breathing hard, one fist on his hip and the other hand pressed over his forehead. “Forgive me,” he mumbled. “The wine, I…and I have scarcely slept since--”
Boromir waved off the apology. “I understand your agony well. It was not long ago that I lived through the same, and just mercifully survived to a happy end. I am on your side, Éomer. I know politics and duty might make the lines difficult to discern, but I hope you can believe that.”
“I believe it.” Éomer made another weary swipe of his hand across his face. “At least I think I do. Too many things are changing too quickly, and I fear a failure to keep in step shall result in my simply being dragged along behind everyone else like an unhorsed sot.”
“Then maybe there is wisdom in her request to stay behind and out of your way. The time apart may provide you the focus you need to regain your footing.”
The tired lines on Éomer’s face tightened again. “And why must time apart involve setting her on a perilous road?”
“The mission carries little chance of peril. Peace talks, even with Harad, are nothing compared to everything she has survived to get this far. You know this.” Éomer brushed past Boromir to return to the table, but the captain’s frank reproach pursued him. “Separation from her is what you dread, not the Southrons.”
So furiously did Éomer scowl at the table surface that for a moment Boromir thought he might turn the heavy shelf over in a fit of rage. Instead he seized the wine jug, poured himself a gobletful, and drank it in two forceful gulps. 
“I had hoped you could give me counsel on how I might change her mind, and convince her to simply come home,” he finally said. “Perhaps even quell her doubts in the future she can have with me.”
Underneath the anger and frustration, Éomer’s raw misery lay bare to Boromir, and suddenly he felt a swell of compassion for the young king. Would that he could offer a swift resolution to his predicament, instead of mere commiseration for the challenges that still lay ahead. 
“However hard it is to hear, separation is the soundest advice I can give you today,” Boromir said. “Time and distance are most effective at calming the storm in one's mind, so that the heart may have its chance to be properly heard. Many have learned this from experience, myself included. I believe it shall be the same for your lady.”
Éomer's shoulders heaved in a ponderous sigh. “If only it did not feel like such a gamble.”
Boromir could not help a chuckle. “Then I regret I must tell his majesty, that you cast your first of many dice the moment you let her take your heart. But in the end, you shall be the one to decide how much you are willing to risk, and you alone decide when you are done.”
The anguish that resurged on Éomer's face was almost a relief to Boromir. The King of Rohan was wise enough to already know the graver half of the truth: that his new throne was in many ways a cage, and there was very little a good ruler could afford to risk in pursuit of his own desires. 
* * *
“Take the names of any fools who might give you trouble,” Léodor said, unhooking the reins of his horse to start leading it across the muddy yard. “I can sort them all out on our return.”
You laughed as you followed him to the edge of the farmland property, marked by the scorched ruins of what had once been a granary. “Do you really think I could wait that long without sorting such fools out myself?” 
“Anyone with the gall to harass a rider of the king’s Éored deserves a second dose of thrashing, or a third or fourth.” Your friend turned to grasp your forearm and give it a firm squeeze. “Although I sincerely hope these men of Gondor would know better, for their own sakes.”
“They are our allies, now more than ever before,” you reminded him. “And I have every confidence in their courtesy and hospitality.”
“Perhaps if you were less of a recluse and better at making friends, I would not worry so.”
Your knuckles barely grazed his sleeve as he darted away and promptly swung up to the safety of his saddle, chortling and calling, “You are only proving my point, sister!” 
“Waste not a thought or care on me, and focus them all on your family!” you retorted, and stepped back as he spurred his horse forward. “Westu Léodor hál!”
You watched him gallop off across the plains of Pelennor, back to the distant towers of the White City. Tomorrow, he and the rest of the Éored would finalize preparations for the greatly anticipated journey home. But as soon as he heard that you had been tasked with staying behind, to remain with the body of Théoden King, Léodor alone took the time to come looking for you. 
Whatever his suspicions regarding Éomer's selection of you as the one to leave in Gondor, Léodor spoke nothing of them. He was content to spend his entire visit sharing the cask of ale he brought, and talking your ears off about all the things he planned to do with his wife and son and infant daughter upon their reunion.
How far your relationship had come, you mused, as you watched the shrinking speck finally melt  into the shadows of the deepening twilight. With him and with the rest of the men in your company, when you had once sworn, in tears hidden, that they would never accept you. Now their departure would sting as though you had been orphaned for the third time. 
It is only for several weeks, you told yourself, to ease the weight of doubt that sat upon your chest. As you turned to walk back toward the cottage, a fierce wind rose and ripped off the cloak that was loosely draped over your shoulders. With a startled cry you grabbed for it, but not quickly enough to save it from landing in a large puddle.
You retrieved the soaked fabric from the mud with a sigh. A fat raindrop landed squarely on the top of your uncovered head, and was immediately followed by another and another. Spontaneous rain had been pouring on and off over Gondor since the King’s coronation, and you heard the locals welcome and praise this tumultuous weather as a blessing, a sign of war’s filth being washed away to cleanse the lands for rebirth. 
Shielding your eyes from the sudden deluge, you looked up at the roiling clouds overhead, further entranced by the sight of jagged lightning flashing over the White Mountains.  But when your gaze dropped back down to the horizon, you were alarmed to notice a horsed figure crossing the fields through the storm, approaching fast, in your direction. 
It was him. Without proof of his face or voice, or even the support of logic, you just knew. It was him. 
The very thought of that froze you, mind and body, in place. Pale and immobile and increasingly drenched, you stood like a deeply rooted tree while the rider drew closer and closer, on a horse powerful enough to sustain its determined gait over the sodden ground and lashing winds. Dumbfounded and dazed, you remained, until at last he came to a stop just several yards away. He dismounted Firefoot, his heavy boots squelching in the muck, and that sound snapped you to your senses. 
“My lord,” you rushed forward with the soiled cloak twisted uselessly between your hands. “The stables are around the back. Let me take Firefoot there while you get out of this rain.”
“I shall stable him,” Éomer said sternly, but not unkindly, to warn you against arguing. “Go and wait for me inside the house.” 
Without speaking another word or sparing a backward glance, you obeyed your king. You shut the cottage door behind you to keep out the ill weather, hung your wet cloak on a peg, and crouched by the warmth of the fireplace to dry off as best as you could. You kept your jittery hands busy feeding the flames with more wood, but your mind refused to be calmed as easily. 
What is he doing here?! The agreement had been for you to report to him the following day, to receive in full detail your last set of orders before the entire Rohan contingent departed. Éomer had granted your request to stay behind quickly enough, and with so little argument that you had hoped perhaps the issue between you was settled, at least for the time being.
If he was not prepared to completely abandon his fatuous notion of asking you to marry him, then time apart would surely set his mind back to good sense. The Éomer you knew could always be trusted to do the right thing. You clung firmly to this thought while you waited the agonizing minutes for him to return from the stables. 
As soon as he entered, you offered him the last clean towel you could find to dry himself with. He raised his eyebrows at your attempt to give him royal treatment, but graciously swiped the cloth several times over his face, neck, and hair, before tossing it over the back of a chair. 
“So this is the place.” He peeled off his riding cloak to reveal clothing underneath that was just as soaked as yours; he may as well not have bothered with the outer garment at all. “You said it belonged to Lady Aerdis’s late…uncle?”
“A relative of sorts,” you said. When you confided in your new friend your wistful desire to be housed outside the city, where you could have more quiet and solitude, she had been quick to offer the empty cottage in near Pelennor that was recently willed to her by deceased relations. “There are things I can work on to help restore it while I am here. Even my meager skills will serve a farm better than sitting on my hands in the city barracks watching everyone else in their labors. I wish to remain useful, and do my part in the rebuilding.”
“I understand. You have explained all that, and well,” Éomer said slowly. “But regretfully, I must rescind the permission I granted for you to live outside Minas Tirith. You can stay here for the remainder of this week, to rest and do as you please. But afterward, I would like for you to go back to the city and remain there until my return.”
You bit back a protest, determined, now more than ever, to reaffirm your position as his servant. “May I ask what I am to do there, then?”
“Lord Boromir petitioned me to loan you to his company, and I granted it. He shall assign your duties, and you will take your orders from him while I am gone.” 
Although it surprised you to hear this, it was a welcome prospect. Of all the men in Gondor you liked and trusted Lord Boromir the most, having known him since you were just a girl, albeit not intimately. This would provide an opportunity to improve on the connection. “Lord Boromir honors me with his request. And as always, it shall please me to do as my king commands.”
Éomer responded to your formal pledge with a weary sigh. He braced his hands on the back of the chair in front of him, and the way his knuckles whitened in the tightness of his grip, while he searched for his next words, did not escape your notice. 
“Make no mistake, this command does not align with what I desire,” he said thickly. “Leaving without you violates every instinct in my body, but if that is what must be done to make you see reason, then I shall bear it.”
“Reason?” you repeated stiffly. “What conclusion are you hoping I might come to?”
Éomer raised his eyes from the floor to meet yours across the room. “I know you believe that putting distance between us may somehow alter how I feel about you. But I in turn believe the time apart will help you accept how deeply in love you are with me.”
The heat that flooded your face burned through your mask of composure. “I am not--”
“Enough.” The sadness that bled into that single word made it a plea instead of an order. “I did not come to reopen discussions on the matter. Especially not if denials are all you have left to say to me.”
“Then pray tell, what has my lord come for?” you challenged him behind your icy courtesy. “How else may I serve you, Éomer King?”
The hurt that crossed his face came on so suddenly, looked so profound and real, it was as though you had physically struck him. He stared at you in a dead silence, and you forced yourself to hold his gaze while you held your breath, guilt sinking into your gut from the knowledge that you were the wretch who had gone too far. 
“Nothing,” he said quietly. “Clearly there is nothing more to say, other than farewell.”
He picked up his cloak, turned, and left, leaving you utterly dumbfounded, staring at the door that slammed shut behind him.
The longest seconds of your life passed before your shock and indecision were overcome by a wild hysteria that made your entire body grow cold.
You leapt for the door and wrenched it open, and stepped into the downpour in time to see him vanish around the corner of the house, heading back to the stables. 
The loss of him from your sight smashed through your bravado, and you cried out into the storm. 
“Éomer!!”
Before you could grasp your reasoning for why you did it, or what you planned to do next, he reappeared, every footstep leaving puddles as his approach backed you up into the cottage. His eyes bore down at you, his expression now guarded and inscrutable and expectant. Gusting wind drove in sprinkles of rain through the door left open and ignored. 
I am sorry. The whisper sitting on the tip of your tongue was smothered by a hostile inner voice. 
Let him go. It is your duty. It is what’s right.
But your stolid face collapsed under the weight of your anguish. A grimace squeezed out the tears that blinded your eyes, finally betraying your shameful truth. I do love you, Éomer. 
Gentle fingers settled lightly over your lips, stilling their feeble quivering. A voice even warmer and more tender than this touch eased your struggle.
“I do not need words. This is enough.”
As the hardened pads of those fingers brushed across the plane of your cheek, you closed your eyes and at once forgot all else that existed. Such was the power of his touch that for years you so vigilantly avoided, until that fateful moment of weakness after the coronation exposed your secret. That moment could never be undone, no matter how hard you tried to bury the truth now.
Éomer murmured your name, his breath warm on your temple, and then his hands stilled where they lightly cupped your face. In that pause lay a question, and the last time you answered it, you had hurt him. Foolish liar that you were.
“Yes.” The whisper passed from your lips to his as his mouth wasted no time seeking yours. You clasped your hands around the back of his neck, urging him closer as your own hunger surged. You felt the tremor that ran through his shoulders when you slipped your tongue against his. How could you have ever chosen to cause him pain, when you could have given him this instead?
He broke the kiss to let you catch your breath, but nuzzled your chin upward to gain access to your neck, so his lips could continue their quest to the hollow of your throat. You gasped at the scrape of his teeth on your collarbone, then moaned when he remedied his offense with reverent strokes of his tongue. His arms wrapped fully around your waist, pulling you greedily against him, fingers threading and tugging at your hair as he moved his worship to your shoulders.
But it was your touch, the scrabble of your hands over his hips and stomach as you held on to him for balance, that elicited a low growl. In just a few hurried steps, he backed you to the furthest corner of the cottage, until the side of the bed hit the back of your legs.
Your name was still the only thing he could utter, muffled in between the kisses he could not stop lavishing on every bit of your skin he could reach. Your hands found their way to his hips again, this time  sneaking underneath the wet fabric that clung to his torso, then brazenly gliding upward, past his belly to the taut muscles of his chest, high enough for your thumb to circle his nipple.
An ungentlemanly word suddenly rumbled from Éomer King's throat, so startled was he by the sensual touch. Within moments his shirt lay discarded on the floor, your back made contact with the mattress, and there he was, leaning over you, bare from the waist up to your hungry eyes. You gave yourself an extra second to appreciate the sight before hooking a hand over his nape to yank him back into a kiss. The fervor in his response left you writhing and whimpering and completely vulnerable in your weakness. 
A deep haze settled over you as you began to lose yourself to the pleasure of his ministrations. With every inch of you, you wanted this, and the way your body reacted to his every action, shaking in desperation for more, would surely tell him that. And yet… yet as you felt his fingers grope for the fastenings of your dress, felt his palm brush the back of your knee to your thigh, felt his hardness press against your hip… something inside of you jerked in reawakened panic.
“Éomer. W-wait.”
So soft was the protest, you were not even sure you had said the words aloud. But almost immediately, Éomer stopped and pulled back. He took one look at you, your disheveled state, and whatever expression lay on your face, and he sat up fully, turning away, dragging your heart out of your chest with him.
“Éomer, please. I am… I just…”
“No, I understand and I agree. To carry on would be unwise.”
He rubbed both hands roughly over his face, shaking away the stupor induced by his desire.
“All these years I have ordered the men to give you the respect you are due. I cannot risk your virtue or reputation now, however long I have wanted this. Wanted you.”
You moved to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. “You are my King, and it is my duty to protect you and your reputation. We must behave prudently.”
He nodded, but still looked so pained you could not help but lift your hand to try to soothe the scowl from his face. He angled his head to kiss the inside of your wrist.
“I will have you,” he muttered, his diverted gaze making it seem more a promise to himself than to you. But when he turned his eyes back on you, the wanton lust pooling in them stirred the heat in your belly. “I will wait for the right circumstances, however long it may take, but I will have you.”
He rose and walked a few steps across the room, perhaps in need of distance from you. As he stood closer to the fireplace, the light illuminated a view so rarely seen by anyone, many people in Rohan had come to believe that Éomer was simply hale and hard of body beyond the limits of mortal men. 
The numerous scars that decorated his body testified to both his fragility and his strength. Many of his wounds had been tended to by you on the battlefield, carrying terrible memories that were now also moments of pride and achievement that you shared with him. 
Éomer seemed to feel your intent gaze upon him, and he stretched out a hand to you, beckoning you to rejoin him. As soon as you were within reach, he wrapped his arms around you again, drawing you against him, sighing contently as your touch drifted over the bare skin of his chest and shoulders.
Your hand moved with intention, skimming down to his lower abdomen, probing carefully for the large scar you knew sat just below his ribcage. That injury was less than two years old. It still amazed you how it had managed to heal with little issue, under the constant strain of the many violent battles Éomer fought in since. 
So close. A chill ran through you as the memory rose unbidden: you pressing down hard to staunch the bleeding, screaming for someone to help carry the barely conscious Marshal to the nearest shelter, where you could safely attempt to clean and suture the wound. If the orc blade had sunk in only a fraction of an inch deeper, it would have been beyond anyone's power to save him. You came too close to losing him that day.
Eomer's lips brushed against the shell of your ear as he interrupted your reminiscence with a whisper. “How can you still doubt that we belong together, when already you are part of me?” 
Your fingers passed over several other scars from injuries you had tended to over the years, and came to rest over the tattoo on his upper right arm. The black dragon curled around the edge of his shoulder was identical in design and location to the mark borne by every rider in your Éored. Your possession of that dragon mark bound you to Éomer intimately, but also defined your role in his life. Sharing his bed, or even being with him just once, was not your place.
“None of these give me any right to claim you,” you said softly. “You must still marry. And it is your duty to marry well.”
He caught your elbow as you started to move your hand away, and guided it back to slide over his waist, to rest over the scar once more, willing you to hold fast to the memory it carried, and hold fast to him.
“What does it mean to marry? Is it not just the giving of one's entire self--mind and body, heart and soul--to another?”
He hooked a finger underneath your chin, urging your downcast gaze to rise and meet his.
“How am I to dispose of things that are no longer in my possession? I have long been taken, solely and utterly, by you.”
And with that gaze he set upon you, you wondered: how many glances must have he given you in secret all these years, with eyes that burned with something more than the devotion of one comrade-in-arms to another? What willful blindness had you clung to for years, for you not to have noticed it?
“I must fulfill my duties to Rohan, this is true. But not even a king can be asked to do the impossible.”
“But to wed a great king to a lowly servant--” You shook your head. “Many would argue that is the real impossibility.”
A new expression akin to anger flashed across Éomer’s face. Before you could wonder what you might have done wrong, he dropped to his knees before you, both knees, his hands wrapped tightly around yours.
“My lord!” you cried, aghast that he would debase himself, even in private. You tried to force him back up, but he would not budge.
“Never speak of yourself as lowly again,” he admonished. “King or peasant, there is nothing more lowly or humbled than a man so wretchedly in love, as I am with you.”
“Éomer…” You sank to the floor with him. “If only things were so simple. I wish it could all happen as you say, but I just do not see how. I do not know what can be done.”
“Let me hold your love for a while longer, and wait for me,” he said gently. “That is all I ask. The rest is mine to accomplish. As long as your heart is mine, and I know you have given it to me freely, I will fight for my right to keep it.”
You felt his grip around your fingers grow tense in the long seconds of silence that followed. At last, you brought his knuckles to your lips, kissing the hands you adored with such devotion.
“When you leave, you shall take my heart with you,” you whispered into his palm. “But I fear it will be a greater challenge than you believe, to keep others from wresting such an unsuitable offering from your hands.” 
“They may certainly try, if they wish to test me.” The ice in his tone unsettled you, even though that veiled threat was certainly not for you, while the warm caress on your cheek was. “Not for a moment will I appear unclear or undecided when it comes to my intentions towards you. I will never make that mistake again.”
“B-but the Council of Eorl. The lords…”
“They answer to the King,” Éomer interrupted. “Do not privileges, as well as duties, come with this crown? Trust me. Please.” He bowed to rest his forehead against yours. “While we are parted, I will prove to you that it can be done, that I will do whatever I must to marry you, and to honor and protect you thereafter.”
“Marry?” you murmured. The idea still seemed no more than a ludicrous fantasy. But then Éomer kissed you again, deeply, as though determined to memorize the taste of your lips, urging you to focus on the present moment. 
Because he was yours, even if just for that night. Even if by dawn, it could all crumble under the pressures of the world outside these walls. Éomer loved you, and held you in such high regard to want you as his wife and queen. You would swear to anyone that this knowledge alone was already a dream fulfilled. 
And yet. If you were brave enough to hope, maybe…just maybe, this would not be the last impossibility to come true for you. 
* * *
They do not know. Hundreds of Gondor’s citizens bearing streamers and flowers lined the streets of Minas Tirith that morning to join King Elessar in sending off the departing Eorlingas. But it occurred to Éomer how strange it felt that none of them had any awareness of a matter that was not only monumental for him personally, but carried significant consequences for all of Rohan.
Soon that will change, the young king vowed to himself. Soon his Council will hear the truth, and afterward all of Rohan, and then the rest of their allies. But for the moment, discretion--no matter how bitter the pretense tasted. 
No one except for Lord Boromir and his betrothed, the lovely Lady Aerdis, who both stood next to her, understood what truly lay underneath the courteous gestures exchanged between the King of Rohan and his shield-maiden. A simple bow, an exchange of a few words, and a locking of gazes that was all too brief. Had they not spent that one evening together, Éomer would have remained trapped in the false belief of her indifference towards him. The memory of her kisses would have to suffice for a while, and he could only hope he had given her enough to remember him by, as well. 
He brushed the edge of his hand over his lips just as he turned away, and forced his feet to carry him down the line of assembled well-wishers. 
A noticeable hush descended on the crowd of onlookers as Éomer came to the end of the road where, closest to the ruins of the Great Gate, the King of Gondor himself met him, flanked by none other than Imrahil, the Prince of Dol Amroth, and his only daughter.
“Lady Lothíriel.” As Éomer took the hand she courteously offered him and brushed a kiss on her fingers, he became aware of the wan smiles that surrounded them, and the unsubtle tittering of a few ladies watching. “Your presence this morning is an unexpected and most delightful gift.”
Lothíriel was astonishingly beautiful indeed, with such radiant grace and sweet smiles, that it would not have surprised Éomer if many citizens of the White City came out just to catch a glimpse of her. “I wish you, Lady Éowyn, and all your men a safe journey, your Grace,” she said. “And may you have great success in your labors, so that we can soon celebrate your speedy return.”
“You are kind, my lady. I certainly hope for the same,” replied Éomer. “We leave behind treasure beyond price here and shall be eager to return for our own.”
Two Rohan lords had already swooped in to engage Imrahil in quiet conversation, and only stepped aside when Éomer himself approached to exchange farewells. Éomer’s admiration for the Prince only grew the more he learned about him and spent time with him, but the unabashed thirst of his counselors for Dol Amroth’s friendship irritated him. Yet another issue he intended to settle in the ordering of his House’s affairs. 
Finally, Éomer came before Elessar, who embraced him tightly and honored him with a bow, from one king to another. “Worry not, my brother,” the man once called Aragorn said quietly to him. “I shall see to it that they are cared for, these ones whom you so dearly love.”
He smiled at the look of mixed wonder and apprehension on Éomer’s face, and dipped his head in another show of reassurance and of farewell.
With that, the Rohirrim set off on the North-way in a procession over a mile long, accompanied by the fanfare from the people that continued to line the road stretching across Pelennor. Countless flags in a multitude of colors and sigils from the different regions of Gondor fluttered in the air, and from every direction, enthusiastic cheering and waving followed the Riders across the fields.
At the head of the procession, behind his standard bearer and with Éowyn at his side, Éomer quickly fell into a brooding silence that did not escape his sister’s notice. 
“I truly did not think I would ever see the day when the two of you would be willingly separated,” she said lightly. When Éomer looked at her with raised eyebrows, she shrugged. “I am sure you have good reasons for choosing her to stay behind with our uncle.” 
“Many reasons,” Éomer grunted. 
Éowyn regarded him thoughtfully. “Has the time finally come when you would allow yourself to be open with me about these reasons? And the other concerns weighing on your mind and heart? It is just you and I now, Éomer,” she said softly, stretching out her hand to him.  “I may not have uncle’s experience or Théodred’s cunning, but I love you beyond words, and would do anything to see you happy. Let me help you.”
Éomer smiled at this, and reached over to take her hand and squeeze it. “Perhaps I can aspire to the happiness you have found with Lord Faramir.”
“Having my affections stolen by a High Man was not what I aspired to,” said Éowyn, trying to look annoyed but unable to hide the blush on her cheeks. “But love, it seems, is the wildest beast of all. It will not be tamed, or bridled, or even reasoned with. It goes where it wills. Éomer…” Éowyn’s sweet face turned stern. “You have suffered enough, and have been forced to carry so many burdens, not least of all our uncle’s crown, which I know you never wanted.”
“It is my honor to take the throne in Uncle and Théodred’s stead,” Éomer said firmly. “And why do you make assumptions about the things I want?”
“I know who it is you have wanted, for a long time now,” Éowyn said with a stout confidence that took Éomer aback. “You are discreet, brother. But I have watched you and looked out for you, more closely than you realize.”
Éomer shook his head. “I am still learning the many ways I have been underestimating you, Éowyn. Soon I shall believe myself unworthy of your care or help.”
“Someone has to care for you, during the frequent times you would not.” Éowyn glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were still out of hearing range of the rest of his Éored. “Especially now that you have left her behind.” 
Éomer pressed his lips in a tight line and returned his gaze to the road ahead. “I will be back,” he said. “There is much to do in Rohan before then, but with Uncle waiting in the Hallows, I can hardly afford to dawdle or delay.” 
And she is waiting. Éomer caught a glimpse of his sister’s suppressed smile that told him she had already thought the same thing. Another person with strong opinions to contend with.
Éomer spurred Firefoot forward to signal the standard bearer, who promptly blew one quick blast on his horn. As the King took off in a steady gallop, the thunder of hooves rose behind him as nearly a thousand other Rohirrim picked up their pace to match his, drowning out the excited shouts of the Gondorians that started them off at last to their journey home.
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epilogue-and-prologue · 8 months
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Blue Moon
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Fandom: The Lord of the Rings (movies) Ship/Pairing: Eomer x Reader (one mention of reader wearing a dress) Trope: Noble x Humble worker Note: IT’S SOTWK’s FAULT. We talked about Eomer’s hands and here we are. The title « Blue Moon » is a reference to the song « Blue Moon », my favourite rendition being sung by Ella Fitzgerald. Warnings: Horses? Word count: 1 595 Tag-list: @heilith @asgardianhobbit98 @middleearthpixie @glassgulls @evenstaredits @fizzyxcustard @sotwk
There was something hypnotising about his hands.
The way his palm moved along the planes of the horse’s back. They were delicate. Deliberate in their care for the animal. Several times today, you had caught your gaze lingering a little too long on his slender fingers and their dexterity. Several times you had wondered what they’d feel like against your skin, in your hair weaving braids during a quiet evening. Those were fairy tales. You did not dwell on them, even when it kept you up at night; heat clinging to your skin, the chilly wind doing nothing to help your wandering mind.
It seemed to appease his uneasy nature to come here. He would go in the early hours of the day, only to come back in the middle of the morning. To the outside world, he was a leader. Someone they could trust and follow into depths unknown. Here, he was only Eomer. You considered yourself lucky to have witnessed both.
Others were concerned by his willingness to spend so much more time with you instead of them. You had dismissed them easily enough, but the thought had lingered. Why was he only asking you to help him? A bucket, water, hay, a brush for the horse’s mane. You were not willing to fathom an answer, especially if it was the wrong one. Seeing him like this it made you happy enough. You were content with this, whatever this was.
From time to time, he would ask about your day and you would always answer the same things. Fine and good. Excellent, perfect or grand. Never would you have said what you wanted to say. That it was him who made those days fine, and good and excellent and perfect and grand. Until meeting him, working with horses had been your life’s dream, and you were fulfilled by it. When he was there, you weren’t so sure anymore. It felt as if all of him was completing what you had and did not know you were missing.
“What are you thinking about?”
Barely above a whisper, his question lingered in the air between the two of you, almost as if he had not meant to ask it aloud. He was still working his fingers through the hair, looking beyond the horse’s back, away from you. If he had looked at you, you could have traced a lingering hint of a pinkish hue on his cheeks.
A chilly breeze rose, and you had to tighten the cloth around your shoulder, crossing your arms close to your chest.
“Nothing important, Sire.”
A laugh echoed through the wooden box around you.
“Then why are you boring a hole in my skull with your staring?”
Your cheek felt warmer than they had been moments ago.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you, sire. If you need me to go, I… — No. Stay.”
Eomer had not meant for his voice to grow this loud. Nor to turn around so abruptly. The nerves in him, electrified by your eyes, led him to act so.
It had grown almost suddenly, this affection he had for you. First, you were something to behold. Once he discovered your face, your features, the way you moved and talked, he only ever wanted you to be near him when the mask fell off. When he could be himself and not who he was supposed to be. Second, you never pressured him into talking, going silent for hours on end, just being there with him and Lia. She was not his usual horse. He preferred not to overexert Firefoot, especially after the events he had seen on the battlefields. You were the one to care for her when he could not, even before he started mounting her. The mare had a gentler temper, dark robe and larger body. She adored you and if instincts served him right, animals were always the true tellers of someone’s nature. Thirdly, and lastly, your presence calmed him like no one else could. Except when you were threatening to leave. Or when you were looking at him, behind his back. He never wanted you to stop looking at him like that. When your eyes were observing and kind on him, his weary body and his weary mind, he felt that he could take on another thousand wars just to find you here again, safe and sound, watching him. He only hoped you could say the same about him.
“As you wish, Sire.”
The goosebumps on your arms and the way you protected yourself from the cold struck him then. With the winds of winter approaching, the weather had gone incredibly cold, and you were only wearing a thin linen above your usual dress and robes. He stepped out of the box, coming closer to you as he’d ever been. He grabbed for a cover lying around. Those were used for the horses but they’d have to do. He wrapped it around you, as tight as he could. It smelled of the stables and hay. A hint of pink shattered across his cheekbones in the morning lights. Your breaths were leaving your lips in hot clouds between you. The way he settled his palms on your shoulders, securing the cloth around you, drove a whole different kind of shiver down your spine. You could feel his fingers over the fabric, his overexerted hands catching some threads, before he took them off you, gently. You could not help the sharp inhale you took when he did.
“Would not want you freezing to death on my account.”
His smile did not reach his eyes, but you felt the warmth it procured you down to your toes. At a loss for words, you smiled in return, trying to hide your face. Your arms were still secured against your chest but your heart was not as protected as you had hoped it would be.
In a thoughtless step, Eomer leaned down and brought his lips to your cheek. He could feel the burn of them under his skin. The way you looked up at him, bewildered and hopeful, brows knitted together in confusion, only made his mouth ache for more. Still, he would not do it unless you said so. He had already overstepped and behaved un-gallantly enough. Hence his surprise when he found your hands gripping at his lapel, obviously not willing to let him go. A soft curve graced his mouth, a pleasant feeling growing in him.
“Can I…?”
Your vigorous nodding let him know exactly what he wanted. Only then did he pull you closer, his hands drawing you in, the warmth you felt from his lips and the tenderness with which his fingers nestled against your jaw below your ears, enough to make you forget about the world around. Delicately, his mouth danced with yours, eager to please and swift to do so. Soon, his wide hand drew you in, pulling you at the waist. Your fingers met his heart through cloth and flesh and bones, beating in a rhythm only known to you both.
“I…”
You bit your lip while you could see him observing you through hooded eyes, his fingertips sending shivers down your arms. He was tracing the hollow of your cheek with his knuckles, leaving you breathless once more. He looked as if he had seen the most marvellous creature in the entire world. You could not believe it was you on the other end of that fantasy.
“I… do not know what to say… I… — Then you don’t need to say anything.”
His fingers found their way down the length of your throat. He looked positively charmed, yet you pulled back, hesitant. What if this had been… just a fling? Just something he could do, just because he wanted to. No other reason. No feelings involved. What if he was playing with you?
“I will. — What?”
He chuckled at your incredulous expression.
“I will say something. — Oh.”
He brought you back to him again, kissing your cheek.
“I…” He kissed your nose. “…will never…” your other cheek. “…ever…” Your fingertips now. “…let you…” This was getting on your nerves and he knew it, smirking behind your hand. “…be seen by anyone else but me, in this state.”
The last words murmured against your cheek, to the shell of your ear, elicited a burning anticipation deep in your bones.
“My King, I would never ever let anyone but me see you in this state. — I don’t think anyone had ever really seen me before you.”
His candid answer surprised you. In a tender caress, he stroked your back through the fabrics of your clothes, not thick enough to keep his touch at bay. A thumb ventured below your breast, too close to be accidental. You inhaled sharply.
“And I will never let anyone else see me like this. If you’ll have me, of course.”
His declaration hit your heart at an arrow’s speed.
“You really mean that? I’m not just a… — You’re not just anything. You are the world and beyond. You are everything. I hope to be everything to…”
Before he could finish, you pulled him down for another kiss. This one arousing and passionate; desires trapped, finally meeting in the middle.
“I will. I absolutely will.”
A heartbeat passed in his arms, trying to keep your hands to yourselves.
“You were asking me to… — … court and eventually marry you? Yes. And you said yes, you cannot take it back now.”
Your laughter rang through him as it rang through the stables, enlightening the new day ahead.
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philtstone · 3 months
Note
if you’re still taking prompts from that list, I’d love to see your take on the nemesis one for any of your modern AUs!
sorry it's not an EXISTING modern au but it is. a modern au. partially inspired by many many many things most significantly a post i literally cannot find again no matter how hard i look... also by anne from anne of green gables. anyway, this is mostly just vibes. and my own salad shirazi opinions. in that order.
In Arwen's house growing up family dinner was always a shared time of day, so it makes her glad that the small apartment her father moved into last year honours the same principle.
“It’s not that he irritates me,” eighteen year old Eowyn, fresh out of her first term of university and with her long gold hair in a tangled braid down her back, is explaining from the dinner table. “I hardly get irritated easily — it’s just that he’s so sweet and friendly all the time, I am sure he’s up to something.”
“Eowyn dear,” says her uncle. His attention is mostly absorbed by the newspaper in front of him. “If you might repeat that first part aloud, and reflect on it a bit.”
Eomer snorts from the sink. Gandalf had tasked him with washing the dishes — he had more or less nothing to contribute to meal making. Eowyn makes a face at him.
“I am good tempered. It’s just no one who’s normal is that nice. Certainly not a man.”
Gandalf, who’s in the midst of a very complex chess game with Arwen’s father, chuckles a bit. 
“Indeed?” Ada asks, with a wry smile. Eowyn blushes.
“Do not tease her, you men,” Arwen says, sweeping in to add hot water to the tea cups. The pale green flats of the fragrant tea leaves sent in express overseas mail by her maternal grandparents swirl in the kettle’s pour. Authentic green tea has a potency Arwen has not found in anything purchased around here. “You know she isn’t talking about you, and anyway, she’s right.” 
While Gandalf says, “Do tell us more, then,” charitably, Arwen returns to the small kitchen island. The rice is coming into its own in the cooker. Rice is always a comfort; it unites across cultures and races. Admittedly to this day Ada will prefer jasmine to basmati, no matter Arwen's own fascination with the latter. She sets about peeling two thick skinned cucumbers and dicing them, along with tomatoes from Mr Bilbo's garden, into a bowl. Then comes the shallot, and its lilac purple skin. Arwen has always loved the colour lilac. She has a nightgown a shade lighter than this onion, which her fiance sighs over dreamily every time it’s taken out.
Behind her Aragorn chops tarragon for the lentils, which are bubbling. He has embraced jasmine rice since childhood. His hair is tied out of his face and just barely escaping the doom of a man bun (Aragorn is too sincere about everything to accidentally look like the smarmiest versions of his countrymen) and he smells of fried onion and rose oil, like he often does when in this place. In matter of fact he smells like this kitchen is decorated: the multiple little knick knacks lining the sil, the old silver, the warm reds of the woven rug in the floor (one of an innumerable number kept in Iverworn’s house), and the cracked old laminate tiling – brown. There is some comfort in the idea that Gilraen's old apartment is still in the family. Only now, Ada has his little shrine in the den which doubles as his study, and a few more photographs have been added to the baby pictures lining the front hallway.
On the other end of the table Gimli and Legolas sort through Bilbo's rock collection while the old man gives running commentary on where he found each one. Arwen’s cousin is being educated on geology in the process. Frodo and Sam and the rest are still at school; Aragorn has volunteered to go pick them up in a half hour.
“This ought to go in the sedimentaries pile, Legolas. You see the distinctive layering – to really know we’d check for carbonate, but I’d say this is a solid limestone.”
“I don’t understand. Many of them have layers. That one with the crystal –”
“Running in parallel. Look, they’ve sedimented. It’s in the name, for Mahal’s sake. The geode, a sedimentary rock? Preposterous.”
“I found that one in Dale you know. It was, oh, twenty years ago or so now — I’d just had a pint with your dad, Gimli – you remember what he was like twenty years ago, wearing those garish red turbans (though they suited him well) – and when we came out on the street there it was by the lamp post, a little lump of a thing. I thought to myself, why, that looks just like Lobelia’s terrible laddoo – you haven’t tried them, but they’re glorified pebbles, with how dry and small she makes them – and then I turned it over and thought, where might a pretty piece of rock like this come from in the middle of such a town? But then, Dale is very metropolitan …“
Absently, Arwen begins humming to herself.
“Won’t someone put on some decent music?”
“Don’t look at us old men, Eomer. Haven’t the youth got a stereo system?”
“Oh, it's all Bluetooth now. Ah — I have your rook there, Elrond.”
“No he hasn’t; that’ll put his queen in jeopardy.”
“Keep your eyes on your lentils, Estel, my own function perfectly well. He’s been doing this since he was a boy.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” says Gandalf, with the wise knowing of someone who was there to witness such behaviour in person.
Between it all, everyone is somehow still managing to listen attentively to Eowyn as she expounds her theories and suspicions.
“He’s asked four times if we could study together after class. Four times. The next major exam we have is worth sixty perfect of the grade and I’m sure he saw me speaking with the professor last week because I was so determined to pass it. No one passes that exam, according to the third years –”
Arwen stirs the lentils and wonders if they ought to take a little bowl to the shrine.
“Perhaps he’s looking for a friend,” says Gandalf philosophically.
“Maybe he’s a creep, like Wormtongue was,” suggests Eomer darkly.
“He’s only starstruck by a girl in the engineering course,” says Bilbo, with a bit of (not unkind) humour in his voice. Then he reaches into his large duffel, which he lugged indoors with Aragorn and Eomer’s help, and extracts a box of fresh sweets for the table. These, Arwen hopes, are better than Lobelia’s – though she is sure they will be much too sweet for her own taste.  
“There are girls in engineering these days, old friend,” Gandalf interjects with a raised eyebrow, but Eowyn is not really paying attention to either of them.
“Last week at lab he gave me a book about zoological diseases I mentioned off hand almost a month ago,” she says with that earnest way she has. “That doesn’t have anything to do with engineering. Do you think he was trying to throw me off my game before our lab quiz?” 
It is very hard to keep a straight face at this inquiry, but Arwen – and many others present – manage it. “Have you considered that he might have just thought you’d like it?” asks Arwen.
“But that’s none of his business,” Eowyn says, as though this was obvious. 
“How did he know you liked it then?” asks her brother, baffled.
“We’ll — I told him,” says Eowyn. She flushes a bit. “But he initiated the conversation. We should have been talking about closed circuits.”
“Or nothing at all, apparently,” says Ada gravely.
“You don’t know him. He’s got a look in his eye. I can just tell.”
“Oh look, I’ve found him on Facebook.” 
And so Legolas has, and they all converge around his smartphone while Eowyn glares defiantly. 
“Faramir, is it? You know, he kind of looks like you, Estel.”
“Yeah – if you were much scrawnier and looked like a dweeby engineering student.”
“They look nothing alike,” says Eowyn hotly, crossing her arms – Arwen cannot help but catch Aragorn’s eye (he looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh, not helped at all by Gandalf, who is looking right at him, and skillfully masking his own merriment besides) “and Aragorn would never be such a — a — a snake, anyway.”
Arwen agrees with this hypothetical assessment, at least. She rummages through the fridge and retrieves the fresh clutch of herbs she needs for her salad.
“But what has he done, Eowyn. The poor boy. There is a bit of dweebishness there, isn’t there … indeed …”
“Look at the last name; isn’t that Denethor’s boy?”
“Oh yes, that would explain it. Engineering? Of all things? I always thought he had a poet's soul when he was a kid.”
“I wonder how they’re doing – haven’t spoken to the man in an age, you know.”
“Denethor you mean?”
“Well, not since the incident with that poor tree in the synagogue’s front yard,” says Gandalf sadly. “You were there Aragorn, you remember –”
“Hmmm,” says Aragorn grimly.
“Well I told you,” interrupts Eowyn. “I haven’t got proof, just suspicions! He’s trying to psych me out of this program. But I tell you – I won’t let him!” 
Arwen wonders if perhaps Eowyn had grown up around sisters, she wouldn’t insist so very hard on sticking it out through a degree she is not really interested in. These ruminations are interrupted by a soft touch at Arwen's waist. “Hm?” she says.
“I’m off to pick up the kids,” Aragorn begins in a low voice (the assembly continues to chatter behind them). She smiles at him, then stops: for reasons unexplained he is suddenly offering her a horrified expression he usually only reserves for conservative Tik Tok mommy vloggers and occasions where Pippin is about to grievously injure himself on the park playset.  “... What are you doing?” he asks.
“Adding the mint,” she says serenely. 
“Fresh?” Like she must be mad.
“Doesn’t it have mint?” 
It is his grandmother's recipe, after all; silly man.
“Dried.”
“Your mother always said it had to be fresh.”
“Fresh dried mint,” he clarifies, gravely.
“Really Estel.”
“Take over the lentils.”
“That was your job — and you’ve got to pick up Frodo and his friends.”
“In ten minutes.”
“You’re going to ruin it. Mr I Can Subsist On A Can Of Beans.”
“I can subsist. That doesn't mean you can add fresh spearmint to a perfectly good salad. It tastes completely wrong.”
“Estel …” But Aragorn has already ducked beneath the counter to reach deep into the recesses of their spice cabinet and retrieve an extremely dusty repurposed jar of dried mint, now cradled in his brown hands. The half-peeled label is for sour cherry preserves, which Arwen is sure no one in this family has bought from a store since they discovered the tree in Ada’s backyard.
“This is hardly fresh,” Arwen says archly.
“I dried it last week,” he says, all innocence. His t-shirt is worn and ratty enough that its low collar shows off her old necklace. She can see the jade flower and her own name etched in the characters of her mothers language at the center.
She sighs. Kisses his cheek; takes the mint. “Go fetch Mr. Bilbo’s wards.”
“They’re going to make a mess of my car,” he says, as if he did not happily volunteer for this task.
“Your car is already a mess, my love.”
So he goes, grinning. Arwen adds the mint to the salad and renters the fray.
“Eowyn,” she says. “Perhaps the next time he asks to study, you might take him up on it. That way you can get close enough to catch him at his awful scheme.”
Eowyn's mouth widens in a ponderous oh, as if she had never thought of this. Arwen pats her shoulder comfortingly.
“Food will be ready in ten minutes,” she says. Ada is smiling at her — a true smile, not without its own edges of memory, but no longer the bittersweet thing of three years ago. Arwen smiles back.
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Text
LOTR and Hobbit NSFW headcanons
(I’m in my lotr horny era and this list could probably be added to 😂)
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Boromir:
- His favourite position is missionary with your ankles on his shoulders so he can see your body, especially your tits
- Sex during sparring sessions
- Isn’t very rough in the bedroom but when you fuck during sparring he loves to grab you, force your head down and grab your hips hard
- Can be a little subby
- Loves to be put in his place
- Doesn’t like being or giving spanking but isn’t opposed to getting a couple face slaps
- Likes being bossed around but not degraded
- Wants you to call him ‘captain’ in the bedroom
- “Who own your cock, captain? Who fucks you this good?”
- Is a big ol tiddy boy
- Hand over the shoulder and lightly touching your boob
- “Boromir not in public”
- Not super sexual but after a long day he falls to his knees in front of you for you to hold him
- Will say “oh fuck” as he slides into you
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Eomer:
- Very typical but loves when you ride him, loves being able to see and grab all of you
- Lots of riding dirty talk
- “Ride my cock hard, darling. Come on and fuck me hard. Use those gorgeous fucking hips of yours”
- Will guide your hips as you ride him
- Seeing you ride an actual horse turns him on too
- Loooovveesss having his hair pulled
- Especially when hes between your legs or against a wall
- Bending you over his desk and taking you by flipping your dress up and fucking you hard
- When you get a bit drunk you grab his ass and biceps and he loves it
- Loves when you tell him how strong he is, like almost over the top flirting gets him for some reason
- “Oh Eomer, you have such big arms” you tell him all breathy and grabby
- Is so sweet and gentle with you
- But
- When he returns from a battle he will fuck you hard and make you scream
- Very possessive
- “Scream my name, baby, let everyone know who fucks you this good”
- Constantly grabbing you to sit on his lap, especially at parties
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Legolas:
- Sensitive ear kiinnnkkk!
- He definitely whimpers during sex
- No matter who’s on top or if he’s being submissive or dominant he always says ‘thank you’ when his cock slides inside you
- Loves to run his fingertips over you so gently and sweet
- Could gently play with your pussy for hours
- Straddling him while he’s on his knees is easily one of his favourite positions
- Being able to hold you so close to him
- Loves listening to your heart beat after sex
- Holding you and pressing his head to your chest
- Loves after sex head scratches too
- When he is a sub he loves edging
- Begging little baby
- “Please, ma’am, please let me cum. Please I’ve been such a good boy”
- Is a good boy
- When he’s dominant he’s very gentle
- Doesn’t really fuck you fast but more hard and bruising thrusts
- Mutters things in Sindarin when he’s lost in pleasure
- Whispering dirty talk in Sindarin in your ear, whether you understand it or not
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Aragorn:
- Isnt opposed to tying you up but prefers to bond you by manhandling you
- Says such sweet things to you while fucking you hard
- “Oh princess, you take my cock so good”
- Having to put his hand over your mouth while he finger fucks you
- Forced quiet sex
- “Be nice and quiet for me, sweetheart. Don’t want these people to hear you do you?”
- For some reason it turns him on when you smoke his pipe
- Doesn’t like to fuck when he’s been drinking but loves to watch how you dance when you’ve been drinking
- It usually ends with heavy makeout session and touching each other but he doesn’t like full on sex when one of you is drunk
- He loves to watch it from afar too, sit in the corner and watch how your body moves
- Even when you dance with Merry and Pippin on top of tables he thinks it’s so hot
- Will just start saying full sentences and dirty talk in Sindarin while he takes you from behind
- He gets so lost that he can’t help himself
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Haldir:
- Outdoor sex
- Pulling your hair while he takes you from behind up against a tree
- The good old sensual archery lessons while he whispers in your ear
- Loves teasing you, especially by standing behind you and whispering in your ear
- “Yes marchwarden!” “Thank you, sir!”
- Slight degradation kink but nothing that actually hurts you
- “Oh look at how you blush just from my words, darling”
- Height kink
- Corners you and standing close and above you just to look you down and make you blush
- Fucks you stupid
- Like your head lulls and your eyes go all misty
- Chasing you down in the forest and fucking you when he catches you
- One of the few lotr fellas I can see being into violent fucking
- He’s rough with how he fucks but he’s just as if not more gentle and caring with aftercare
- Degradation to raise real quick
- “Take my cock just like the whore you are” “Oh my darling, you did such a good job, Meleth. Such a good girl for me”
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Thorin:
- This man has the biggest breeding kink
- “Give me an heir, my queen. Let me fill your womb”
- Staring you right in the eyes while he finger fuck you
- Obviously throne sex
- Almost cums in his pants when he sees you in your crown for the first time
- Isn’t usually submissive but you can make him do anything when you wear that crown
- Holds you down by your hips while I fucks you from behind
- Will whisper Khuzdul into your ear while he fucks you
- Fucks you rough but doesn’t want to actually ever hurt or scare you
- The second you’re uncomfortable he will stop and hold you, he’ll even sing to you
- Loves to know he can take care of you
- Such sweet dirty talk
- You’re either his queen or his good girl, no in between
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Thranduil:
- Is dominant 99% of the time
- Doesn’t always like when you’re on top but when you are he likes to force your hips to move while he fucks into you
- Wants you to say ‘thank you’ when you cum
- Does want to fuck you hard and rough but will wait and double, triple check before even trying
- Face fucking you stupid
- Is so gentle and soothing with aftercare
- Treats you like a sweet princess during aftercare
- Cockwarming while he does work
- Size kink, loves how much taller he is and how his cock barely fits in you
- “Look how your tiny pussy takes my big cock” “oh, darling, I don’t think it will fit”
- If you’re a human he also has a massive age kink
- “You’re such a sweet little girl for me”
- Staring down at you with your face covered in cum
- Not opposed to some good old pet play
- Is both cruel and loving
- Degrades his dirty little slut pet while he uses them just for his pleasure
- Loves having you sit in his lap and have you curl up to him and hold his sweet little darling
- Holds you and kisses you while you ride his thigh
- Strokes your hair while you hump his boot and look up to him with big desperate eyes
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Kili:
- Biggest turn on for him is seeing you dance and jump around
- The way your face flushes and your tits bounce makes him crazy
- Loves being both babied and degraded
- If he could live between your tits he would
- Sitting in your lap, panting and whimpering as he thrusts his hips into your hand
- Mutual masturbation
- Doesn’t like to be hurt too badly but does love spanking and overstimulation
- Shows off whenever you watch him train
- Even if he’s shorter than you he still loves showing his strength by carrying you
- Carry’s you to the bath after sex and takes his time washing your body and your hair
- Just wants to be your good boy
- No thoughts, just be good boy and love boobs
- Does not have mommy issues but does have mommy style kinks
- Loves sucking on your nipples
- (honestly that gif does things to me 🥵🥵)
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Fili:
- Knife kink!
- He’d never use his knife on you in a dangerous way but does love to cut your clothes off you
- His beard braids feel amazing and ticklish between your legs
- Hand on your thigh always, during sexual times or not
- Polar opposite things will turn him on
- While you’re fighting he gets hard and wants you to grab his hair and use his cock
- When he sees you taking care of babies his breeding kink comes out hard
- “I’m going to fuck a baby into your womb. We’re not leaving until you’re full of my cum”
- Loves to fuck you in the woods especially when it’s risky
- While on the journey to reclaim his home he liked to take you into the woods and fuck you
- He loved that you had to be so quiet but still he could hear your little whimpers
- He is a prince and next in line to the throne so he has to keep PDA to a minimum
- That doesn’t stop him from grabbing at your thigh under the table and whispering dirty things in your ear in the middle of a party
- Playfully slaps your ass while you’re changing
- Skinny dipping 👌🏻👌🏻
- He has no problem keeping you warm 😏😏
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Bard:
- Loves to cum all over your face
- Lots of pet names during
- “Oh darling you feel amazing” “cum for me sweetheart”
- Forced quiet sex
- Packing your wet underwear in his bag while he’s away, he does smell it while he touches himself
- Such a dirty man but great at hiding it
- Loves the noises you make when his beard scratches your neck
- Bit of a caretaking kink
- Gets really horny when you massage him, cook for him, bandage him up, wash him in the bath
- Takes you fishing so he can finger you on his boat
2K notes · View notes
ofstardustanddreaming · 2 months
Text
well loved
preference summary: what they do to remind you you're loved.
content warnings: none
fandom: the lord of the rings
characters: frodo, sam, pippin, merry, boromir, faramir, aragorn, legolas, arwen, eowyn, eomer, galadriel, elrond (if other characters are wanted for future preferences, let me know!)
gender neutral reader
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Frodo: He always checks in on you, always wanting to make sure you were doing okay. He's one of those who is more in tune with emotions, and wanting to check in on emotional wellbeing. He wants you to know you'll always have someone to lean on, and he shows you love through his active listening of your problems.
Sam: He's the type to do small tasks around the house for you, wanting to make sure you don't have to worry about anything. He sets up a routine that's nice and homey. He wouldn't have you lifting a finger if he could, wanting to make sure you can be relaxed. You would have to step in at some points, saying you'd want to split the work.
Pippin: He makes you very well included on any inside jokes, wanting to you to know what it's like. He showed his love through humorous jokes, saying he always wanted to see your smile. His love may have been shown through jokes, but he made you feel truly seen, which was a wonderful way to be reminded you're loved by him.
Merry: He loves to give you parts of his food, wanting to make sure you were well fed. He feels wellbeing is tied to being well fed, so he wants to make sure you get a fair share. And I think that Merry himself likes to try cooking once in a while, and likes to give some cooking to you.
Boromir: He always carves out time in his schedule to spend quality time with you. He always loves to have meals together with you, wanting to make it romantic, with something as simple as bringing flowers for the vase in the middle. He shows his love through any amount of time spent with you, wanting to shower you with his compliments.
Faramir: He has subconscious movements to make sure you're okay and safe. Such as holding out a hand during hikes in an area that's heavily rooted, wanting to make sure of your safety to help you balance and find your way. He also loves to place a hand on your back in crowded areas. He always has a special look of love, reserved just for you.
Aragorn: He always likes to recite poetry or songs he comes across that reminds him of you. He always gives you the softest of looks during those moments, and these moments are usually done by the fires in your room. He usually has your back against him, as he whispers them into your ear.
Legolas: He finds a variety of plants that reminds him of you, always bringing them back for you to look at or put somewhere that you deem cool. It's gotten to the point where there's almost too many flowers in your living space, but you also don't have the heart to tell him to stop. It's really sweet to see the variety of flowers he hand picked for you.
Arwen: She loves to sneak kisses from you throughout the day. She's playful, so her showing her love is through playful ways. She loves to take you off guard of when she'll kiss you, and she always loves hearing your laugh afterwards. She loves to watch you get flustered, laughing as she rushes away.
Eowyn: She loves quality time to, wanting to spend time with you. Her favorite ways to showing you love is teaching you some of her favorite moves in training. She shows you what she has learned, and also wants to learn what you know. She wants to make sure the both of you are prepared for anything, and it's a nice way to spend time with each other.
Eomer: He loves to go horseback riding with you. It provides a time where the two of you can talk in peace, where he doesn't feel the pressure of the kingdom. He loves talking with you here, where the two of you don't feel watched. It's a sense of freedom to speak your minds, but the act of horseback riding allows you to go anywhere. He loves to explore with you that way.
Galadriel: She loves turning to you for advice. She may not always agree, but she loves to hear what you have to say. She finds that hearing a variety of perspectives helps her, and she feels that it helps her get closer to you. She always likes to hear what you have to say about some decisions in how she runs her kingdom.
Elrond: He likes to spoil you, simple as that. It doesn't even have to be buying you many things, although he loves doing that as well. It can be just as well showering you with praise, or giving you his full attention, even if it means ignoring his work for a little bit. He loves at his fullest, spoiling you with many things you love.
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pastanest · 1 year
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if you’re wondering why I’m having to repost this, or why you were perhaps previously following me but no longer are, please refer to this post. I was able to retrieve this thanks to the very lovely friends who have relentlessly sifted through tumblr archives to recover them, thank you all so much!! ♡
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Courting Eomer Would Include
- with regards to chivalry? Eomer invented it
- he’s treated you like royalty from the moment he first laid eyes on you, regardless of what your status may have been
- he has always treated you as a new blessing upon his life, even after being together for years, and that will never change
- despite acquiring a high status because of your relationship with Eomer, the two of you decided to live in a small cottage, rather than staying in the castle
- you prefer the more homely sense of life, and the separation from political matters that Eomer has to deal with on a daily basis
- cooking together consists of you cooking while Eomer hugs you from behind and watches you while showering you with compliments on your cooking skills
- Eomer is a family man, so obviously he’s going to be curious about whether you want children or not
- he’s very keen to know what your future holds, but because he wants to spend forever with you, he’s in no rush, and he is incredibly patient with all obstacles that the two of you face
- you and Éowyn are very good friends, you spend a lot of time together, and whenever Eomer is unsure of your whereabouts, the most likely place to find you, is wherever Éowyn is
- Eomer is fiercely protective, and has been known to get a little jealous of other men flirting with you, but he is never angry towards you, he only ever shows you love and kindness
- he’s always finding new and wonderful nicknames for you that he will refer to you as, no matter who’s around
“Good evening my starlit angel, how has your day been?”
“Well hello radiant sunflower, what a surprise to see you here!”
“Have any of you seen my ray of moonlight?“
- big fan of PDA, loves swinging an arm around your shoulders and kissing your temple whenever he sees you
- also has a habit of winking at you from across the room, as though he’s trying to woo you even when you’ve been in a relationship for years
- loves giving you piggybacks from one building in Rohan to another, even if they’re only a few paces apart
- when he gives you piggybacks, he makes horse sounds and only responds to being called your “trusty steed”
- honestly who needs to think about kids when your boyfriend acts like one anyway
- when the two of you go on walks around Rohan together, he’ll hold your hand and swing your hands in between you as you walk, smiling proudly at anyone you see because he’s just so proud to be yours
- when you have to leave the room for any reason, you’ll stand on your tiptoes to kiss Eomer’s cheek before you go, and no matter how many times you or anyone else sees it, he will never admit that he blushes
- you often accompany him to the bar in the evenings, to socialise with your friends
- people have often made the mistake of challenging you to their drinking games, and while most men of the time would never even think to let their woman participate in such “manly” activities, Eomer simply laughs at the poor souls that challenge you and watches with pride as you completely destroy them at their drinking games
- he brags about you to his friends 24/7, but he will never tell them that he lets you braid his hair in the evenings
- cuddles while at home are a near constant thing for the two of you, and Eomer will use any excuse he can think of in order to gain affection from you
“Sweetheart, my lips are rather cold, do you think you could warm them with yours?”
“Oh dear lord! I think I just saw a very small and partially invisible orc! The only way to protect you from this very specific orc breed is to have you sat on my lap, Im afraid this is the only solution!”
- Eomer loves you more than he has ever loved anything else in existence, and he will continue to do so for the rest of your forever
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fictionadventurer · 1 year
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I'm noticing that a lot of Tolkien's helper characters in The Lord of the Rings parallel each other--and I'm beginning to suspect that he puts similar characters in similar positions in their books, which gives parallel structures to The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers.
Treebeard shows up in The Two Towers around the same place where Tom Bombadil does in The Fellowship of the Ring. They're both among the oldest living beings in Middle Earth, both help the hobbits by commanding dangerous trees, and both prefer not to get involved in the larger war but will watch over their forest.
Aragorn shows up to help the hobbits in The Fellowship of the Ring at around the same place in the narrative where Gandalf returns to help Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas in The Two Towers.
Eomer's a bit of an outlier here, because he shows up before Treebeard, which puts him closer to Farmer Maggot's place in the story, but he's a better parallel to Glorfindel, as someone who serves a local lord and provides fast horses to the group when they need them.
Theoden then kind of parallels Elrond as a leader who has to consult with Gandalf about who to send on the next mission of the war. (Though if we're going by when they show up in page count, Elrond is probably closer to Saruman's position in the story, and there's an argument to be made about how they serve as contrasting foils to each other.)
Faramir comes into the story around the same time as Galadriel does. Frodo and Sam are blindfolded before being allowed into both of their realms. Both Faramir and Galadriel are offered excellent chances to take the ring and have to refuse it. Both want to preserve the glory of history and are troubled by the decay of their societies. Both wake Frodo up to look into a pool and offer him advice about how to proceed on his quest. Both give him provisions that will help him on his journey.
I don't have time to do a more detailed analysis to back up my point, but I think there might be something there.
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minaturefics · 2 years
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Fleeting Moments
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Request: Hello! Can I request a Legolas x reader where, Legolas develops feelings for Reader during the first part of the Fellowship travels. After losing Gandalf and Boromir, Legolas decides to confess his feelings to Reader as he wants her to know before more tragedy comes but something or someone unknowingly gets in the way of that. One of these things getting in the way is someone else who wishes to court Legolas during their stay in Rohan- during all of this, Reader gets more uncertain of Legolas returning her feelings and even gets jealous of seeing someone courting Legolas. Seeing all of this, Aragorn decides to help Legolas.
A/N: Hello! Thanks so much for waiting. This was my first piece back from being ill. I tried my best to make it flow well, I hope you enjoy it 😊
Legolas x Reader
Fem reader
No content warnings
2.3k words
---
Meduseld Hall was silent save for the crackle of the large fire and the intermittent murmurs from the clusters of people around the tables. The air held the lingering scent of roast meat and herbed vegetables from the dinner that had just been cleared away. Your eyes drifted across the hall, moving from Eowyn grinning at Eomer in the corner, to Gimli arguing with one of the Rohirrim about his axe, to Legolas leaning casually against one of the pillars by the fire. His fair skin was bathed in a soft orange, and a smile played about his lips. 
You forced your eyes elsewhere — to the crooked sconce on the wall, the discoloured patch on the tapestry — anywhere but him. His soft laughter rang out, melodic and light, like a bell in a spring breeze, and your grip tightened around your mug. You knew there was someone else, just hidden behind the pillar, bringing a smile to his face. 
You thought of all the times that you had done the same. It seemed a lifetime ago, the memories growing cold and distant with each moment spent in Rohan. Were those tender moments with him, stolen and secreted away in your heart, nothing more than gestures of a deep friendship?
His gentle smile when he first met you in Rivendell, the way he bowed and ghosted his lips against the back of your hand. The extra bits of meat and bread he would give you, his knee pressed against yours by the campfire. The subtle glances and secret smiles when you teased Aragorn or Gimli. How he held you in his arms, warm and safe, as you crumbled to the snowy ground outside Moria. His hand reaching out for you in the darkness when you woke, trembling, from nightmares of cloven horns and arrow pierced bodies. 
A different peal of laughter filled the air, joining in with Legolas, and you looked down at your half empty mug of ale. You could already imagine what she looked like. Radiant and glowing in the candlelight of the hall, her smooth hair pulled back in an elegant braid, her velvet gown uncreased and unmuddied. You picked at the frayed hem of your shirtsleeve. Was that the sort of person he preferred? Polished and refined, perfumed and powdered.
Someone who could match the elves’ natural grace and beauty.
You had seen them walking together in Edoras, close enough that their shoulders brushed. You had heard the whispers and rumours around the Golden Hall, of the special arrows she had gifted him and the flowers he had given her in return. You had caught the look in her eyes when she looked at him, the adoration, the want.
He wasn’t yours, was never yours. What right did you have to feel the sourness churning in your stomach and the bitterness burning in your heart? 
You felt a warm hand on your shoulder and you turned. Aragorn offered you a smile and slid onto the bench next to you. “What is on your mind, my friend? You have been staring at your ale as though it had wronged you.”
“It is not the ale I feel wronged by,” you muttered.
“Perhaps it is something else, or…” He lowered his voice. “Someone.”
Heat rushed to your cheeks and your fingers curled into a fist on the table. 
“Peace, my friend,” he said, and patted your hand. “I mean not to tease. It is just I have noticed your mood grow worse with each passing day, and I am concerned.”
“Forgive me. I am indeed greatly troubled.” You sighed and rubbed your creased forehead. “It seems you already know what is in my heart. I beg you not ask me to speak it aloud.”
“My only wish is that you would speak to Legolas. Perhaps it would soothe the trouble in your heart.”
“Or simply add to it. Aragorn, perhaps I have simply mistaken his feelings towards me thus far.”
“No, I have observed you both closely. I believe his heart is true to you. I am certain this is simply some misunderstanding. Would you wish I speak to him in your stead?”
You shook your head. “Such things are too delicate to be spoken for in another’s stead. Allow me a few days to gather my strength and think, and I will speak to him if I decide to.”
“Alright, my friend.” He brought his arm around you and tugged you closer. “But perhaps no more wallowing on your own. Let us share a drink together and then we can take in some of the night air to take your mind off things.”
--
Legolas looked out over the plains of Rohan from one of Meduseld’s balconies. Rohan was truly a beautiful land with its gentle rolling hills and endless fields. He looked in the direction of Minas Tirith and sighed. He hoped that they would leave for the White City as soon as they could; it seemed as though he could never get a moment alone with you in Edoras. 
He thought of you from the night before, sitting in some dark corner of the hall, brooding over your mug of ale. Where had the smile he loved so much gone? He had been at the other end of the room, watching you, willing you to come over to him. He had stolen a few glances at you, but it seemed as though you were doing your best to ignore him. His grip tightened on the bannister. 
Did he wait for too long to speak to you? Has your heart already grown cold?
From the moment he had laid eyes on you he was lost. He remembered the first glimpse he had caught of you when you were talking to Aragorn in some glade in Rivendell. You glowed in the dappled light of the trees, your laughter sweeter than anything he had heard before. From then on it seemed as though every little thing only increased his feelings for you. 
The grin you shared with him when you squirrelled extra food to the Hobbits to keep them happy, like only he, and he alone shared your little secret. The way the moonlight caught your hair, casting its silver glow over your head. How you always found your way beside him during the long walks, how you would tug on his arm or sleeve to show him some small wonder you saw in the forest. The warmth of your body in his arms amidst the unforgiving snow. The softness of your hand in his, the strength of your grip.
He let out another sigh and let his eyes drift from the plains to the houses and streets of Edoras. He had hoped that with the brief respite in Rohan he would be able to finally speak the tender words constantly pressing up against his lips, but it seemed fate had other plans. 
Lady Éadhild had hardly left his side since they arrived. She was pleasant and lovely, but each time he had wandered off in search of you, she would appear out of nowhere and waylay him with some invitation for dinner or a walk. It felt too rude to turn her down, especially when everyone was being so accommodating to them. 
He heard footsteps behind him and he turned to find Aragorn approaching.
“Mellon nin,” Legolas greeted. “How good of you to join me here.”
Aragorn’s lips curled up in a smile and he came to stand beside Legolas. “As much as I enjoy your company in leisure, I come with a purpose.” Legolas arched his eyebrow. “I must ask, are you aware of Lady Éadhild’s intentions towards you?”
“Intentions? I do not know what you are implying. She is simply being welcoming, is she not?”
Aragorn chuckled and patted Legolas’s arm. “I suspect that she may have selfish reasons for her… attention towards you.”
“But she is not the one who I —” He snapped his mouth shut. “I am afraid I do not return her… affections. I hope I have not misled her with my friendly reciprocations. I must speak to her at once.”
Aragorn held up his hand. “I will speak to her on your behalf. There is something more important I need you to attend to for me.”
Legolas frowned and lowered his voice. “Something secret? Do you suspect that the Enemy has eyes among us?”
“Nothing of that sort, but it is important all the same. There is a small garden of sorts behind Meduseld. Go there at once, and there will be someone who will let you know what is to be done.”
Legolas nodded gravely. “I will not fail with your task. Let us meet again this evening and we can discuss our respective missions.”
“Go now, and good luck mellon nin.”
--
You paced the small paved path, circling the gnarled and twisted tree that grew in the middle of the sparse garden. The scent of old straw and aged leather filled the air. Horses brayed in the distance, and the faint bustle of town filtered through the thin trees into the garden. When was Aragorn going to arrive? He had rushed you out of your rooms, citing some vague important task in hushed tones, and left you in the garden.
You heard a startled inhale behind you and you turned. 
Legolas stood in a stray sunbeam, his hair gleaming gold and his brown eyes turning a warm amber. He was beautiful, as he always was, like a perfected statue come to life. You blinked at him, your jaw slack. What was he doing here? Was Lady Éadhild close behind? Your eyes darted away from him as unease began to curl in your stomach. Your feet shifted, boots scraping on the rough stone. 
“My friend,” he called and took a step closer. “Please wait.”
“I’m afraid I cannot. Aragorn has tasked me with something.”
“He has said the same to me as well.” His brown eyes were wide and imploring as he extended a hand out to you. “I do not believe it is a mere coincidence.”
Aragorn had said the same to Legolas? What was that man attempting to do? You turned back to face Legolas and fought the urge to fist your tunic in your hands. You forced yourself to meet his gaze. “Then what do you believe it is?”
A smile flitted across his face and you caught the tips of his pointed ears turning pink. “I must confess I have been trying to find some time with you alone here in Edoras, but it seemed the moment never came. Aragorn must have noticed and contrived our meeting.”
“It appears you have enjoyed the other ways you have spent your moments.”
“Not as much as I would if they had been with you.”
Your shoulders sagged at his admission. Could his words be trusted? Would you dare trust them? He walked closer, and came to stand before you. You traced the hollow of his throat up the sharp angle of his jaw to his soft eyes. His scent of fresh grass and moss filled your nose. It would be easy to cross the distance, to lean forward and give in to the warmth emanating from him. To let yourself be enfolded in his steady arms, to feel his breath against your hair. 
“You have avoided me since we arrived in Edoras. I have upset you, mellon nin, though I am unsure why.”
Unsure? Has he truly been oblivious to the attentions of Lady Éadhild all this while? You looked down, fixing your eyes on the soft green fabric of his tunic. “You seemed happy with Lady Éadhild. I did not want to intrude.”
He chuckled and tentatively reached for your hand. His slender fingers curled around yours, his skin warm and soft. “I was unaware of her intentions towards me. Aragron has just gone to dissuade her in my stead.”
“You truly do not wish to be by her side?”
He lifted your chin with a gentle touch of his fingers. “How can I wish for another, when you are already here? There is no one else I would rather have.” His brows drew together and his eyes grew uncertain. “Though I fear I am too late in telling you. Do you —”
“Yes,” you breathed. A smile ghosted his lips and he brought his forehead to yours. Your eyes fluttered shut, and your heart thumped against your chest. He was close, so close. He cupped your cheek, running his thumb over your cheekbone. You gave in to the pull of your heart and brought your hand to rest on his chest. He tugged you closer, his hand resting in the curve of your waist.
“I have been wanting to tell you since we escaped from Moria, but it seemed as though there was never a right time.”
“That long?” You murmured. He had loved you since then?
“Though I have loved you for much longer.”
You drew back and searched his eyes. “When?”
“I am not certain, but perhaps the first time I saw you. Though I did not know I loved you then until later.” He pressed a kiss to your temple, and you felt him smile against your skin. “I cannot believe you feel the same. I have hoped, and dreamed…”
“I cannot believe that you feel the same. I watched you over the past week, and I thought…”
“Banish those thoughts, meleth nin. There is only you in my heart, and there is nothing that could sway my feelings for you.”
You grinned at him and nudged your nose against his. “Should we find Aragorn and let him know the outcome of the task he had set us?”
Legolas laughed and shook his head. “We can tell him later. Let us have this moment a while longer.”
You nodded and he pulled you closer. You rested your head against his shoulder and sighed into his embrace. He was yours, truly yours. You could reach for his hand when you wanted, could kiss him when you desired. You could have him, from now until the end of Arda. 
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