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He could recall the first time he saw her like the day it was yesterday. And it had seemed that their meeting would follow the same storyline as had been the case for so many others.
A young man meets a young woman, they talk and maybe argue a bit, but eventually they become friends, then more than friends, and then they choose to be a family together.
And vainly Éothain had thought that he too would have this predictable but blessed fortune with her.
Granted, he had not expected it to start with the tip of her sword nicking the skin of his throat, but he was a simple man.
He saw her and he knew that he could love her.
She, on the other hand, did not seem to feel in kind.
Her dark straight hair was tied back in a severe knot. Her skin was different. It was not dark like the Dúnedain or pink like most of the Rohirrim, nor were her features anything like had seen before, but the world was great and so too could someone like her exist.
“Who are you? These are the private quarters of Lady Ermendys,” she had spoken harshly, “you have no business here.”
“If you do not know who I am, then how do you know whether or not I have any business with her Ladyship?”
Apparently she had deemed him harmless, for in the next moment she had dropped her sword and had pushed him out through the door.
He had been about to say something when she had slammed the door shut in his face.
And she had shut the door on him and his advances ever since.
He would have given up, but every time their paths did cross, his heart would leap and she would often stumble through her otherwise rough words or looking away with flushed cheeks.
He would have called himself delusional, but she somehow managed to appear near him whenever they were in the same area of Rohan.
He would have found someone else to admire, but he had been permitted to touch her in unguarded and quiet mornings in Aldburg.
And so he did not marry.
And neither did she.
He stayed by Éomer’s side to serve him and she remained just behind her mother to follow in her footsteps.