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[hlaefdige]

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[hlaefdige]

Rising from her chair — her uncle's chair, a heavy wooden thing carved with intricate designs she remembers being fascinated by as a child — Éomer settles her skirts around her legs and adjusts the torque at her neck, glad in some corner of her mind for a lifetime's training bearing heavy armor on her back: the weight of the gold around her neck is a paltry thing compared to a full set of plate armor in the midst of battle, though the emotional weight of it feels much harder to bear.

Still. She has entertained envoys from other lands while still reeling with grief and mildly concussed, she can handle one late-night visitor even if she doesn't know who it might be.

Yanking the door open, she peers out into the dimly-lit hallway to see just who has imposed themselves upon her, her attention drawn first to Éothain standing in front of the door, his sandy beard doing a very poor job of concealing the twitching grin that's making itself known on his face.

"Sir witcher," he says, his amusement all the more obvious when he speaks, even with his heavily-accented speech. "May I present to you Éomer Queen, last of the House of Eorl. My lady, your...friend has returned."

Fighting the urge to sigh, she cuts her Marshal a quelling glance. "That's enough, Éothain, thank you." It's a little hard to properly chastise a man who helped train her to ride a horse without using her hands, but she does her best. It helps that she is taller than him now that she's grown. "You may go."

She waits until he does so, ignoring him until the sound of his boots on the cobblestones fades down the corridor, and only then does she turn to the only witcher that could possibly have come so far to see her, feeling a little bit like she has been punched at the sight of him.

"Eskel."

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Éomer..." He says, carefully as he takes her in. She looks so like herself and very much not. She looks...beautiful, proud and strong and brave, but almost comically out of place in a dress, in a palace. "I uh...I came to bring you the coin for the horse. Sorry it took a while, there was...uh. The war and whatnot." He removes a heavy purse from his belt and sets it on her desk. "And here I find you..." He gestures up and down. "I had no idea you were..."

[hlaefdige]

Of course, the horse.

She had almost forgotten the barley-colored mare she had given him all those long months ago. Forgotten as well was his promise to return to her, to give her fair payment for such a gift.

"Oh." She stares at the purse he places on the desk, thrown by seeing Eskel in this place that seemed so divorced from him more than by the fact that he came to fulfill his obligation to her. She didn't doubt he would at least try, when he did not return the following spring, or even that summer, she had thought perhaps he could not, not that he did not want to.

She glances down at her gown, a beautiful thing made of lush green velvet, cut for her body and sewn so cleverly it makes her look like a beautiful paragon of womanhood and not just a soldier in a dress. At the edge of her vision, the horse head finials of the torque around her neck glimmer golden in the torchlight, their emerald eyes winking at her.

"Everyone else is dead," she says in the end, sounding very tired. "I am all that is left."

[wolfdogwitcher]

"I'm sorry." He says, quietly. He approaches her with caution. He's not sure of the protocol. He's not sure he would comfort any woman, nevermind a queen. And yet he feels... compelled to, somehow. His rough hand reaches to touch her arm. "When I was coming south, I had heard that the old king was dead. I did not think that you were..." He gestures to her regal personage.

[hlaefdige]

"I wasn't," she says quickly, not wanting him to think she had deceived him somehow. Not only was she only technically in line for the throne when they first met, but she had also been banished by Gríma Wormtongue, and therefore would not have been allowed to inherit even if she had wanted to.

"Théoden King is — was my uncle. His son died at the beginning of Spring, before the War. He had no other heirs. And so..."

And so here she is, trapped by duty to her family and to her lineage in a position that she's never wanted, one she's sure many people think they want but only because they don't know the realities of the station.

She sighs, closing her eyes, seeming to deflate a little. "Please don't... don't be so cautious with me, Eskel, I cannot bear it." Everyone else is afraid to look her in the eye, now. She can't take it from him, too.

[wolfdogwitcher]

Emboldened by her words, he steps closer to her and shifts his touch from her arm to her hip as he looms over her.

"Just surprised is all, darlin'." He rumbles. There's a little puff of breathless laughter. "Just...struck by the difference. Kinda dashed all the plans I'd had, keeping me warm all the way down from the mountains."

[hlaefdige]

Turning into him, some of the deep lines grief and exhaustion both have carved into her face lessening in the face of the distraction he presents, she manages to quirk a small smile at him, her hands lifting to settle on the front of his red gambeson as he settles his hand at her hip.

"Oh?" She's a little creaky with her flirting, like she's forgotten how, but she seems more than happy enough to give it another go. "What plans were those?"

[wolfdogwitcher]

He's doing his best to try to steer them into familiar waters.

"I was kinda hoping we could pick up where we left off." He says, with a mischievous smile. Thinking fondly of the morning he had ridden out with the taste and smell of her desire still clinging to his skin. Knowing that somewhere she was riding out still aching from his rigorous send-off.

It feels crass to mention it now, but he does give her hip a playful squeeze.

[hlaefdige]

She had ached from their morning — well, fucking is the proper term for what they did, wasn't it, but somehow in the memory of that rosy pre-dawn glow of morning, fucking simply feels too harsh a word — from when Eskel had settled himself between her thighs and they rocked together still half-asleep and then later, just before she took her leave of him properly, when he had bent her over the table in his cottage and left bruises in the shape of his hands on her hips that lingered for nearly a week after.

The memory of that little cottage had been a bright spot in an otherwise bleak year. It's hard for her to remember that it was only autumn when they parted. It feels like a lifetime ago.

"I see," she drawls, curling her fingers under the buckles and straps that stretch across his chest, settling herself with the familiar shape of him under her hands. "So you thought you'd come riding down from your mountain and saunter into my path because...you couldn't stop thinking about fucking me?"

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Would you think less of me if I said yes?" He laughs. "Ostensibly I'm here to pay you for the horse, but I won't lie if I thought I might pass a night or two with you if I found you." He rests his other hand on her other hip and butts his had against hers like a large animal and rumbles contentedly.

She's looked so pretty bent over the rough-hewn table, half dressed, her shirt shoved up around her waist so he could rail her properly, taking her hard simply because he knew she could handle it, and wanted him to do so.

[hlaefdige]

"It would be rather hypocritical of me if I did," she replies. The head-butting is so bizarrely charming that she laughs a little, letting go of the straps on his chest so she can reach up and loop her arms around his shoulders, laughing again when she's thwarted by everything he's got on. "What is... why are your shoulders so spiky?" She can slide her arms around his neck if she's careful about it, and so she does, doing her best to avoid jostling his swords while she's at it. "Honestly, are the spikes really necessary?"

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Gotta keep the monsters from getting too handsy." He snorts. "But if you object, I'd be happy to take it off for you." He slides his hands down her hips before he stops himself.

"I'll get you in trouble, carrying on like this." He sighs.

[hlaefdige]

"How could they possibly resist the attempt?" Gods know she never has.

Pulling back slightly so that she can see his face, she frowns lightly up at him, her eyebrows quirking. "With whom?" Did he miss the part where she is the queen of this country, and can more or less do whatever she likes with whomever she pleases?

[wolfdogwitcher]

"I dunno. I mean...a queen probably shouldn't get caught fucking a random man, a witcher no less." Not that he wants to pull away or take his hands from those velvet-draped hips.

[hlaefdige]

"Eskel, I say this with all the affection in my heart: stop thinking so much and just kiss me already."

Nobody is going to catch them right now, not after Éothain led the witcher to her study knowing full well what will probably happen behind closed doors. He was there, after all, when Éomer gingerly swung herself up into the saddle after leaving Eskel and his cottage behind. He knows.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Yes, ma'am." He says jokingly, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her, letting his hands roam wherever they wish. She feels so good under his hands; even under the finely tailored garments of her station, he can feel that her body is still as strong as when he had left her last. The strong muscles with curves that fit perfectly into his large hands. It's only the velvet that's a novelty.

[hlaefdige]

What a relief it is to be held in the arms of a man who respected her even before she was a queen, a man who wanted her before she wore a rope of gold around her neck, a man who looked at her with awe before she was given a throne to sit upon.

His hands on her body feel just as large as she remembers, and his torn lip against hers feels just as odd as it did before, but it's a familiar sensation, and so very welcome that she throws herself into returning his kiss with wild enthusiasm, clinging to his shoulders spikes and all and threading her fingers through his hair.

[wolfdogwitcher]

It's nice, to not have to think too much about his face. She's already kissed his torn mouth, touched the angry red lines ploughed through his skin, seen how his face looks in unguarded moments. He thinks only about her, nudging her towards the edge of her desk as he quickly sheds that dangerous jacket in a clattering of buckles.

[hlaefdige]

His face doesn't bother her at all any longer. The scars are as much a part of him as his golden eyes, or the way his hair insists on falling across his forehead messily, or the low rumble of his voice.

His weapons and the padded and spiked jacket discarded, Eskel is left in a far more approachable chemise, and Éomer lets herself slide her hands over as much of him as she can reach, reminding herself of how his powerful body feels beneath her palms as she lets him back her up against her desk.

[wolfdogwitcher]

He lets her hands move over him as he lifts her bodily up onto the desk, fighting with the layers of velvet so he can stand between her knees. It's hard not to rush, this moment feels stolen somehow-- prying her away from the duties of a new queen-- and he's afraid to waste it.

[hlaefdige]

She should definitely not be doing this here, even if they will not be discovered. For one thing, there is a settee not that far away, and for another, a set of doors leads through an adjoining corridor into her new bedchamber.

She doesn't want to fuck him in her uncle's bed. It feels... She doesn't even like to sleep there. Bringing a man to bed where she doesn't even like to lie herself does not feel right.

Letting Eskel hoist her up onto the desk so he can step between her spread knees feels a lot better.

"I thought perhaps you had died," she confesses between kisses, fully aware now is probably not the time for discussing this but being unable to help herself. "When I did not hear of you. It saddened me."

[wolfdogwitcher]

He's not so out of practice that he can't talk and paw at her at the same time, one hand toying with a breast through the fabric of her dress, the other pulling her hips close enough to feel the way he's half-hard beneath the leather flies of his trousers.

"I'm sorry." He sounds like he means it. For her to think she had lost her sometimes-lover as well as her family must have been piled on another sorrow she didn't need. He doesn't tell her that it may happen one day, that he had warned her about that very thing. It's not the right time. Right now is for simply reacquainting themselves with each other's bodies.

[hlaefdige]

Just because something is expected doesn't make it any easier to bear in the moment. There were many long nights in the aftermath of the Ring War, when she was sitting vigil at her sister's bedside, when she was lying in her bedroll on the march back to Edoras, when she was sitting awake at her window and listening to the newly-made widows wailing their grief, that she had wished for someone to turn to, someone who could hold her even for a little while, even though they could not fix what was wrong.

It had been hard to allow herself to need anything or anyone when she was in charge of a third of her uncle's army. Now that she's in charge of the entire country...

"It's alright." Her voice is steady, at least, even if she does sound somewhat subdued as she reaches for the laces of his shirt. "I just thought you should know." That someone was thinking of him, that someone might miss him when he dies.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Hey." He catches her chin between thumb and forefinger. "I'm glad I made it back here to see you. And I'm glad you're alive." He kisses her again, his free hand creeping up her thigh. Slowly, an unspoken question.

[hlaefdige]

She lets herself be caught and held, her green eyes searching his golden ones fearlessly.

"As am I," she agrees after a moment, a sigh seeping past her lips as he leans in to kiss her, and when his hand finds itself on her thigh, she hums into his kiss and spreads her legs a little more, an unspoken answer.