Yours to Command

Sunlight

Good. It looked like the situation was well under control. Éomer picked up his spoon and gave the bowl of gruel an unenthusiastic stir. "Do you think you could get me something decent to eat?"

"Poor brother," his sister said with entirely false sympathy. "I'm afraid the only way to convince the healers that you're better is to eat up. Then maybe for the evening meal you might aspire to something edible."

He groaned but followed her advice. Truth to tell, he was still hungry and any nourishment would help to get his strength back. "I do not intend to lie in bed all day whether the healers want it or not," he warned her. "And I'm getting tired of being treated as if I were at death's door."

Suddenly serious, Éowyn leaned forward. "Éomer, only a little while ago you were at death's door! Don't overdo it. Think of what Lothíriel would say if you suffered a relapse."

"I'll take it easy," he promised grudgingly. After all he did not want to cause Lothíriel any more anxiety than she had suffered already. He hesitated. "I don't remember anything of what happened. Tell me, was it very bad?"

"From what I've heard the first night was the worst. We did not arrive until the next day when Aragorn felt your condition had stabilized, but even then..." She looked down and in the bright noon light Éomer saw dark shadows under her eyes.

He took her hand. "I'm sorry to have worried you so much!"

"Just don't do it again," she said, squeezing his fingers. "I only have the one brother."

"I'll try not to." Bemused, Éomer pulled up the sheets to have a look at his left leg. The scratch Muzgâsh's dagger had left on his shin was barely perceptible. "It seems incredible that such a small wound nearly killed me." In a way he still could not quite believe it, even though his weakness bore witness to his body's struggle to stay alive.

His sister bent down to have a closer look. "Aragorn said that if the dagger had penetrated any deeper he would have been too late with the anti-venom. The poison had spread throughout your body, which is why it took such a long time to purge." She looked up at him. "Don't you remember any of it?"

"Nothing in between feeling faint after the fight and waking up here last night."

"Nothing?" Suddenly, Éowyn's eyes seemed to glitter with something that looked suspiciously like laughter.

"No, nothing."

"Ah well," his sister pursed her lips in amusement. "In that case you missed the best part of it."

She was definitely laughing at him! But what did she mean? "Out with it!" he commanded. "What happened?"

"Well, from what I heard you started to feel cold and sleepy."

Éomer nodded impatiently. He knew that already. "And then?"

"Aragorn guessed the Harad Prince would have an antidote to the poison on him somewhere and went to search the body. But it took a while to find because it was hidden so cunningly and in the meantime Lothíriel had to keep you awake somehow..." Éowyn paused for a moment. "...my sources told me her method was unorthodox but very successful."

At the expression on her face, Éomer got a hollow feeling in his stomach. "Unorthodox? What did she do?"

"She started to kiss you. So...thoroughly... that you insisted on slipping your hand inside her clothing and asked for more."

Éomer stared at his sister with dawning horror. "I didn't! Éowyn, are you serious? And right in front of Imrahil?"

Éowyn could not suppress her laughter anymore. "It must have been quite a sight! Both her brothers were there as well."