"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."
"You do. You make the long trek to look for work worth it." He might even look for some work while he's here. It would give him cause to stick around for a while longer. "It's a very pleasant perk, especially now that I get to fuck you in a big soft bed." He gives her backside a pinch.
The pinch to her backside makes her chuckle and she nips at his chin in retaliation. "Well. You are welcome to pass through our lands as often as you please, especially if that means you will come to Edoras to see me." Her reticence to take a man to her bed has increased tenfold now that she is no longer just in charge of a single éored, but instead is in charge of all of them, and all the rest of her people as well.
Them snapping at each other like dogs makes her laugh again, and this time when she goes in for his chin it's with a kiss instead, shifting herself so that she can brace her weight on her elbows on either side of his ears, her arms crossing on the pillows above his head.
"I am terribly glad I ran into you when I did," she tells him from a bare inch away from his lips, her tangled mass of braids falling down around them in a messy curtain.
"Hey, me too!" He says, tracing his hands over her hips and skimming what he can reach of her thighs. He marvels at how tall she is, a creature of long limbs and lean muscle. Looking a bit wild in her state of disarray. He can feel the cold, tense feeling of those vulnerable moments slowly bleeding out of him.
Pressed as close to him as she is, it's all too easy to feel the way he relaxes beneath her touch, and it makes her wild grin soften a little as she kisses the corner of his mouth. "Aren't we both lucky, then?"
His kisses are certainly proper enough for her, thank you. She smiles as she pulls away, brushing her nose against his sweetly even though she always found the gesture cloyingly twee when she has observed others doing it. It just feels nice. "I certainly hope so."
It would probably feel embarrassing if they were to exchange such a gesture in public but here in the privacy of her bed, he doesn't dissuade her. He sighs and rests his forehead against hers.
"You probably wanna get some sleep, huh? Unless you have other work to do." He doesn't want to steal too much of her time.
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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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"I am terribly glad I ran into you when I did," she tells him from a bare inch away from his lips, her tangled mass of braids falling down around them in a messy curtain.
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"Yeah. I'll be thanking my lucky stars for a long time yet, I think."
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"You probably wanna get some sleep, huh? Unless you have other work to do." He doesn't want to steal too much of her time.