Maybe after another year has passed she will feel brave enough to broach the subject herself; for now, she just lets herself cling to his shoulders and muffles her cries with a bit lip. Not that there's any need to try and silence herself, since none would be brave enough to venture into her chambers unless the emergency was dire indeed, and it's not like it's a secret that Eskel is her lover. Still. Some things are meant to be relatively private.
Muffled to some ears but not to his. He bows his head so he can enjoy her little whimpers and cries, kissing blindly over neck and shoulder, eyes squeezed shut to focus on them. Absorbed in chasing his own pleasure but not heedless of her pleasure or discomfort.
One day she will sit him down and have him explain his enhanced senses to her; right now, she just lets herself enjoy the intimacy of having his cock pressed so deep inside her as he nuzzles at her neck and shoulders, his mouth as hot as a brand against her skin as they rock together.
The sound of her name falling from his lips sends a shiver down her spine, and she clutches at him tighter, crossing her ankles around his back so she can drag him deeper into her with each thrust.
He curses, rough hands white knuckled clutching at her blankets. Encouraged by the way she clings to him, he drives into her again and again and again. Until the royal bed creaks in protest and even the witcher's breathing turns ragged.
His hips jerk forward, buried to the hilt when he finally comes. Pressing his face into the crook of her neck to fill every one of those senses with her and her alone.
It would be funny if her lover managed to break the royal bed his first visit to Meduseld. The carpenters who made the thing might not find it so humorous, but Éomer undoubtedly would. For now, the creaking is a detail easily ignored in favor of other, more important things, things like the tension she can feel mounting in Eskel's body between her thighs, tension that winds tighter and tighter until it breaks and he slams his hips against hers.
She strokes her hand down his spine in a gentle pet, the other arm wrapped securely around his shoulders as he shudders against her, keeping him close so she can press gentle, almost absent kisses to the side of his face as she lets him ride out his pleasure in the cradle of her hips.
He's only vaguely aware of the press of her kisses, warm at the peripheries of ragged scarring that runs from his mouth to his hairline. His instinct is to turn his head to dissuade her, but there's little hope for that entwined this close.
He groans and gently rolls away from her, panting.
A little bit disappointed at the loss of his warm bulk against her, Éomer hums quietly when Eskel rolls off of her to catch his breath, his clothes in complete disarray.
"You look thoroughly debauched," she tells him, laughing as she reaches out and cards her fingers through his mussed-up hair to rake it into some semblance of order.
He laughs, shimmying out of his open small clothes and dropping them over the side of the bed, feeling ridiculous with his spent cock slumped out of the fly.
"So do you. Your chambermaids will learn to despise me for the way I fuck up your hair every night." He says, nuzzling into her palm.
The way he presses his face into her hand is so charming, she forgets for a moment her desire to clean herself up. Instead, she rolls towards him instead of away, sliding one strong arm over his barrel chest so she can press herself up against his side.
"They will have to learn to tolerate the annoyance," she decides, shrugging. "I think it worth it."
In so many ways, he's like a big dog. One of those enormous things from the mountains, half hound and half-wolf, torn between their dual instincts. Eskel wants to curl up in her arms, wants her affection, wants her warmth and presence even as he's skittish of the implications and for all his bravery in the face of death, he's afraid of this new world in which he finds her, far from the freedom of their respective occupations when they had met.
He attempts to run his hand through her hair, only to find it about as hopeless as he should have expected.
"At least it's only now and again." He assures her. "Lest your head housekeeper exile me from the palace for the trouble it causes your maids."
She's afraid of this new world of hers too; she was never supposed to sit on the throne, to wear this heavy gold around her neck. Théodred had not taken a wife yet, it is true, but there was still time for him to find a bride and sire a son. He was still young enough to leave behind a legacy, and he was certainly healthy enough to take over from his father. To lose her cousin first meant more than just a personal tragedy for her, it put her directly in line for the throne.
And now, here she is. Trapped in a position she never wanted, knowing that she has no choice but to step up and don the mantle of Queen, to keep her family and her people as safe as she can.
Eskel is one small holdover from her life before, a man outside of her sphere of influence, who teases her about her title but does not view her any differently because of it. Is it a surprise she wishes he would stay in her orbit a little bit longer?
"Merwenna might rap your knuckles with a wooden spoon should you misbehave, but anyone who makes me happy is welcome in Meduseld for as long as they wish to remain," she replies, resting her cheek on his shoulder and tracing absent patterns across his chest with her fingertips. "I can write a royal decree saying just that, if you like."
"Honestly?" He laughs. "It hasn't been so bad. The maids are still scared of me, and I hear people gossiping when I pass but..." He traces his fingertips down to her navel and back up in long, lazy loops. "It could be far worse. Not... welcoming, exactly. But this is the only welcome I need." He teases, smoothing a hand over her thigh.
"Give them time," she assures him, smiling. "If you keep coming back to me, they will come to welcome you almost as eagerly as I do."
Technically she can't stop him from bedding anyone else, and she wouldn't really want to. That's not what they are to each other. It would still be a bit strange to deal with the knowledge that he might come visit to warm her bed and then leave it to go warm another in Edoras in the same visit.
"As many times as I can manage." He says, rolling so that she's stretched out on top of him. "I intend to have lots of pleasant memories to take back with me, for the winter."
Now seems as good a time as any to ask that question she discarded earlier, so she does.
"Do you always go home for the winter?" she asks, settling herself on his chest, her legs settling on either side of him as she folds her hands on his sternum and props her chin up on them so she can see him.
"Yeah." He shrugs. "Everyone does. In my guild, anyway. Not all witchers have a home to go back to. And sure, the keep where I grew up might be in shit condition but...it's home. So I gotta go back, rest for the winter, restock on the things I need, repair my equipment, try to repair the keep. Make sure my old man hasn't died. See my brothers." His words and his expressions are unguarded, and oddly soft. He trusts her, as much as he could ever hope to trust anybody.
It's far more detail than he's ever given before, and she listens raptly to each word said, keeping her eyes on him the whole time so he knows he has her undivided attention.
He's quiet for a long moment, and his fingers find their way to the trough of her spine.
"Just two." He says. "When you were trying to sew me up, when I told you that you were trying to save an endangered species..." His gaze flicks to her face and then away.
"Oh darling," she murmurs, pressing her palm flat against his ribs, turning her face in to his chest so she can kiss his skin gently. "I'm so sorry."
Maybe he always only had the two brothers, but she has a feeling that's not true. Witchers used to be more numerous than they are now, everyone knows that.
"I've one brother, about my age. We went through it all together, though he almost died, even then. My younger brother is the last generation before we...before we couldn't make any more of us. The man who raised us is over 400 years old, one of our fencing instructors who survived a massacre that left only a handful alive, but left us with neither mages nor alchemists. So now there are four of us, soon there will be three. Every year I ride home wondering if this is the year I return to an empty keep." He shrugs, even though there's hurt and fear in his eyes that shouldn't be there because everyone knows witchers can't feel those things.
At its core, his story isn't that unusual. Of course, most people don't have mentors who are centuries old — unless their mentor is an elf, of course, but that's an entirely different topic of conversation — and most people didn't have almost their entire family massacred, but these days, being one of the few surviving members of your family is a relatively common occurrence.
She knows that grief intimately.
"I have one sister," she offers quietly, her eyes downcast. "She was supposed to remain safe in Meduseld during the war, to guard the throne in our uncle's absence, to keep the peace and give our people hope that the line of Eorl would not be extinguished should our desperate attack against Mordor fail. But she disguised herself as a common rider and joined the march to Gondor despite my pleas for her to remain. I did not notice her in the throng, not expecting to see her amongst the rest of the men. I'm afraid my sanitized tales of the éored's exploits have instilled in her an obsession with honor and glory and she will not be dissuaded from it. She now lies in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, at the mercy of the acolytes attempting to salvage her broken body and restore her spirit."
That Éowyn fulfilled her wish, slaying with Witch-king of Angmar and saving their uncle from the ignoble death of being eaten by a Nazgûl's fellbeast while Éomer was distracted elsewhere, is cold comfort now. Being forced to leave her in Gondor so that she could guide her people home and bring her uncle's body back to be laid to rest properly was a pain Éomer did not expect to bear on top of all the others she's endured in the last year.
"I know it is not quite the same thing, but I understand your pain."
"Everything you lost was on war." He says, quietly. "It was not your fault and it was service to the greater good. I know that your family's probably proud of you, or would be. I know that you, strong and brave and good Éomer, did the best you could. And do your best now, even though maybe you didn't want..." He jingles the torque around her neck. He kisses the top of her head. "What happened to us...was because we spent years making sure people were scared of witchers even though they needed us. We traded on being cold, unnatural, ruthless hunters. Couldn't let them see what it's like when my brothers and I get drunk and tell stories and get up to dumb shit. Couldn't let them see the look in my brothers eyes when he talks about the woman he loves like they've been married forever. Or the way his daughter wrapped our old master around her little finger like nothing I've ever seen. Nope, they see us like my younger brother does: they hate us, and we traded on that hate instead of fixing it. And now they'll get what they want, because we'll be gone before too long."
She huffs at him, though the kiss to her hair is welcome.
"What happened to you may have been set in motion by your ancestors, but it doesn't make it your fault, either."
She sighs, shifting herself so she can have a better view of his face, scarred and weather-beaten as it is. That he so readily confessed to his brother loving a woman is interesting; she'd been told so many times that witchers were incapable of such an emotion. She supposes that plays into the stereotypes he talks about. "But I am glad that you can find some small measure of happiness, sometimes. I hope that I can help provide some of that for you."
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He moans her name.
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The sound of her name falling from his lips sends a shiver down her spine, and she clutches at him tighter, crossing her ankles around his back so she can drag him deeper into her with each thrust.
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His hips jerk forward, buried to the hilt when he finally comes. Pressing his face into the crook of her neck to fill every one of those senses with her and her alone.
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She strokes her hand down his spine in a gentle pet, the other arm wrapped securely around his shoulders as he shudders against her, keeping him close so she can press gentle, almost absent kisses to the side of his face as she lets him ride out his pleasure in the cradle of her hips.
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He groans and gently rolls away from her, panting.
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"You look thoroughly debauched," she tells him, laughing as she reaches out and cards her fingers through his mussed-up hair to rake it into some semblance of order.
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"So do you. Your chambermaids will learn to despise me for the way I fuck up your hair every night." He says, nuzzling into her palm.
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"They will have to learn to tolerate the annoyance," she decides, shrugging. "I think it worth it."
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He attempts to run his hand through her hair, only to find it about as hopeless as he should have expected.
"At least it's only now and again." He assures her. "Lest your head housekeeper exile me from the palace for the trouble it causes your maids."
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And now, here she is. Trapped in a position she never wanted, knowing that she has no choice but to step up and don the mantle of Queen, to keep her family and her people as safe as she can.
Eskel is one small holdover from her life before, a man outside of her sphere of influence, who teases her about her title but does not view her any differently because of it. Is it a surprise she wishes he would stay in her orbit a little bit longer?
"Merwenna might rap your knuckles with a wooden spoon should you misbehave, but anyone who makes me happy is welcome in Meduseld for as long as they wish to remain," she replies, resting her cheek on his shoulder and tracing absent patterns across his chest with her fingertips. "I can write a royal decree saying just that, if you like."
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Technically she can't stop him from bedding anyone else, and she wouldn't really want to. That's not what they are to each other. It would still be a bit strange to deal with the knowledge that he might come visit to warm her bed and then leave it to go warm another in Edoras in the same visit.
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"You're all the woman I can handle, Éomer." He says, kissing the top of her head.
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"You can handle me anytime you like." She lifts her head just enough to wink at him.
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"Do you always go home for the winter?" she asks, settling herself on his chest, her legs settling on either side of him as she folds her hands on his sternum and props her chin up on them so she can see him.
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"How many brothers do you have?"
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"Just two." He says. "When you were trying to sew me up, when I told you that you were trying to save an endangered species..." His gaze flicks to her face and then away.
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Maybe he always only had the two brothers, but she has a feeling that's not true. Witchers used to be more numerous than they are now, everyone knows that.
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She knows that grief intimately.
"I have one sister," she offers quietly, her eyes downcast. "She was supposed to remain safe in Meduseld during the war, to guard the throne in our uncle's absence, to keep the peace and give our people hope that the line of Eorl would not be extinguished should our desperate attack against Mordor fail. But she disguised herself as a common rider and joined the march to Gondor despite my pleas for her to remain. I did not notice her in the throng, not expecting to see her amongst the rest of the men. I'm afraid my sanitized tales of the éored's exploits have instilled in her an obsession with honor and glory and she will not be dissuaded from it. She now lies in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, at the mercy of the acolytes attempting to salvage her broken body and restore her spirit."
That Éowyn fulfilled her wish, slaying with Witch-king of Angmar and saving their uncle from the ignoble death of being eaten by a Nazgûl's fellbeast while Éomer was distracted elsewhere, is cold comfort now. Being forced to leave her in Gondor so that she could guide her people home and bring her uncle's body back to be laid to rest properly was a pain Éomer did not expect to bear on top of all the others she's endured in the last year.
"I know it is not quite the same thing, but I understand your pain."
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"What happened to you may have been set in motion by your ancestors, but it doesn't make it your fault, either."
She sighs, shifting herself so she can have a better view of his face, scarred and weather-beaten as it is. That he so readily confessed to his brother loving a woman is interesting; she'd been told so many times that witchers were incapable of such an emotion. She supposes that plays into the stereotypes he talks about. "But I am glad that you can find some small measure of happiness, sometimes. I hope that I can help provide some of that for you."
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