Archive of Our Own

“I am flattered—” He pauses, lips flattening into a line as he struggles to remember her name. Something flowery, something distinctly Cotton. Rosie’s sister, perhaps? He hadn’t cared enough to inquire. “— dear friend. But I cannot accept such a gift.”

The girl’s face crumples, sad and heartbroken in a way that makes him want to curl inwards on himself with guilt, as she takes hold of the well-worn rope and tugs the large pig back toward the garden gate of Brandy Hall. The prized pig of her family, she’d said. He hoped the pig wouldn’t wind up on a dinner plate by sundown.

“Such peculiar customs,” Éowyn laughs from beside him, sword in her hands while she sharpens it. She has carefully pinned her hair up, off of her shoulders where he’d learned her hair was heaviest.

Merry sighs and watches the girl go, her skirts swishing indignantly, the pig snorting in confusion as if it too had misunderstood the nature of the offering.

“She meant well,” he mutters, more to himself than to Éowyn.

“Of course she did,” Éowyn says, not looking up from the sword. The whetstone sings as it moves. “But the next one will try to outdo her. Brace yourself for goats. Or worse— poetry.”

He groans. “The poetry’s already begun. I found a scroll under my tea tray yesterday. Rhymed ‘Brandybuck’ with ‘my heart is stuck.’”

Éowyn snorts, then feigns solemnity. “A bold declaration.”

“An alarming one.” He casts her a sideways look. “Don’t you have a kingdom to return to? A garden to tend, or a niece to spoil?”

“I have none of those,” she replies coolly, turning the blade to inspect its edge. “But if I did, I might still linger. Brandy Hall is... diverting.”

“That’s one word for it,” he says, folding his arms.

Éowyn smiles, a little too smug. “You’re enjoying this, admit it.”

He opens his mouth to argue— and stops. Because no, he isn’t enjoying the proposals, nor the livestock, nor the poetry (least of all the poetry). But he is enjoying this: Éowyn on the bench beside him, her sword balanced delicately across her knees, the scent of honeysuckle and sharp steel in the air. She doesn’t fit here, not really. She’s taller than most of the doorways and twice as quick to laugh at things that make the other hobbits uncomfortable. But somehow she belongs, more than he’d ever expected.

“Stay as long as you like,” he hears himself say. “Just— if you see any more pigs headed this way, tell them I’ve already been won.”

Éowyn raises a brow. “By whom?”

He doesn’t answer. Just leans back on the bench, listening to the spring wind rattle the high windows of the nearby Brandy Hall and thinking, not for the first time, that his home is a little too full of people these days, and not quite full enough of the one he wants most to talk to.

They lapse into silence, save for the steady shhhk, shhhk of her whetstone. The sun drapes itself over the lawn, warm and golden, and the kitchen has just flung open the back doors to let out the steam. Scents of butter and garlic trail on the breeze.

“Are you hungry?” Merry asks suddenly.

Éowyn pauses. “Am I?” She glances down at the sword, then at him. “Are you asking me to eat with you as a distraction or as a form of recovery?”

“Bit of both.”

She sheaths the sword, lips quirking. “Then yes. I could eat.”

They settle in the shade just beyond the kitchen, where someone’s laid out a low table and left behind a haphazard feast of half-cleared platters. Merry, familiar with the kitchen staff’s rhythms, raids the leftovers with cheerful precision, piling up Éowyn’s plate with practiced hands: roast carrots, mustard greens, honeyed turnips, two kinds of bread, and something eggy with chives that he can never remember the name of.

She eyes it all as if bracing for battle.

“These portions are very small,” she says, carving into a hand-pie with uncharacteristic daintiness. “Do hobbits eat in courses, or do they expect you to graze like deer?”

“We eat often,” Merry says. “You’re not meant to get full. Just... pleasantly surprised.”

Éowyn pops a bite in her mouth and closes her eyes.

“Well?” he asks.

She swallows. “I am pleasantly devastated.”

Merry grins. “There’s more.”

“There had better be.”

She makes quick work of her plate, and then some. He slides another hand-pie her way without comment, and she accepts it without shame. Somewhere behind them, someone drops a pot in the kitchen and curses in apology. Around the far corner of Brandy Hall, a pair of children shriek with laughter.

“This is good,” she says after a moment. Quiet. Unexpected. “Not just the food. The sitting. The not-being-needed-for-anything.”

“You are very needed,” he says automatically.

“Not in the urgent sense.” She glances at him, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “I’ve never known quiet to be this... full.”

Merry doesn’t answer. Just hands her another roll.

Éowyn tears the roll in half with a soldier’s efficiency and a woman’s practiced grace, steam curling up from the center. She doesn’t butter it—just eats it warm, eyes half-lidded in a way that makes Merry absurdly pleased with himself, though he’s done nothing more heroic than requisition a breadbasket.

The sun leans lower. A bee hums past. Somewhere, a bell rings out the hour, but neither of them moves.

“Back in Edoras,” Éowyn says eventually, brushing crumbs from her lap, “I used to slip away to the kitchen garden when I was meant to be reading court documents. There was a cook who never told on me. He kept a stool for me by the cabbages.”

Merry smiles, tucking his legs up beneath him. “You, hiding from duty. Shocking.”

She chuckles— quiet, genuine. Then she leans back on her elbows, gaze drifting toward the leaves overhead. “He used to bring me food, that cook. Nothing fancy. Just slices of apple, still cool from the cellars, or little hard biscuits with bits of fennel seed.” Her eyes soften, voice dipping. “I don’t think anyone else ever thought to feed me simply because I looked hungry.”

Merry is quiet.

“I didn’t even know I was hungry most of the time,” she adds, not quite looking at him. “Until someone gave me something and didn’t expect anything back.”

There it is again— that undertow, the weight of what she never says unless the afternoon is soft enough to bear it. He doesn't answer right away. Just reaches forward and takes a bit of the roll she’s left behind, splitting it in two, pressing one half into her palm like an unspoken vow.

Éowyn looks down at it, then up at him, and for a moment they sit there suspended— her hand full of warm bread and something steadier than surprise, something approaching home.

“You don’t have to feed me,” she says, soft. “You know that.”

“I know.” Merry looks at her, full and quiet. “But I want to.”

And that, he thinks, is the most dangerous kind of want there is.

They walk through Buckland like a storm cloud on a sunny day.

Or rather, Éowyn does. Merry trails beside her, hands clasped behind his back like a tutor caught in the act of escorting a wild creature through the schoolroom. She doesn’t look dangerous— her sword is peace-tied, her dress is pale blue and drapes nicely— but there is something about the way she moves that makes old hobbits straighten up on their porches and young ones forget what they were doing mid-sentence.

A gaggle of Took cousins pause in their berry-picking, mouths open, baskets dangling forgotten at their sides. One whispers something behind her hand. Another giggles, clearly trying to decide if the tall, golden-haired woman is Merry’s cousin from over the River or a very poorly dressed elf.

“She’s not an elf,” someone hisses behind a hedge. “Elves don’t wear boots.”

“She’s big,” says someone else, not unadmiringly.

Merry keeps walking. He’s learned it’s best not to acknowledge Buckland when it’s in one of its observing moods. And it is observing from windows, from hedgerows, from behind apple trees where half-eaten fruit swings forgotten in small hands.

Éowyn leans closer. “I believe your people are afraid of me.”

“No,” Merry says. “Not afraid. Just... overwhelmed.”

“That sounds worse.”

He glances at her, squinting against the sun. “They’ve never seen a shieldmaiden before. Or anyone who once took down a Nazgûl and can still name every chicken in my coop.”

Éowyn grins. “Ah, so you do appreciate my versatility.”

“Terrifies me daily,” he says, though there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

They pass the old bridge where the Withywindle curls lazily under low beams, and a cluster of young boys watch them like Merry’s courting a dragon. One of them nudges the others and stage-whispers, “That’s her, the one who broke a training dummy clean in half with a broom handle.”

Éowyn raises a regal brow but says nothing. The boys scatter like pigeons.

“You know,” she says after a moment. “I think we give them something real to talk about.”

He gives her a wary look. “Please don’t.”

“Just a little sparring, perhaps? Public spectacle? I could let you win—”

“Oh no. I saw what you did to that haybale yesterday.”

She laughs, and it’s the kind of laugh that makes a few older hobbits glance out the windows with the expressions of those wondering if it’s too late to draw up a petition.

They stop at the market square, where the baker’s wife eyes them with a gaze like a meat cleaver. “Master Brandybuck,” she says sweetly, loud enough for the stalls to go quiet. “Will you be bringing your guest to the harvest dance?”

Merry blinks. “Ah...”

Éowyn steps forward, radiant and wicked. “Only if he asks me nicely.”

The baker’s wife goes silent, as if someone’s slapped a pie out of her hands.

The silence left in the wake of Éowyn’s comment stretches just a little too long, full of scandalized whispers and hastily rearranged produce.

Merry clears his throat. “Well, we should—”

“Ah, Master Brandybuck!” A voice cuts through the moment like a dinner bell. “So glad to catch you!”

He turns, already tensing. It’s one of the Diggles— a tidy, middle-aged hobbit with a smile that could slice parchment, and his daughter in tow. She’s just on the edge of womanhood, all nervous smiles and posture her mother probably corrected twice on the way here. She holds a small bouquet in her hands. It wilts slightly in the heat.

Merry manages a polite smile, though it feels somewhat like bracing for weather. “Good afternoon, Mister Diggle.”

The man chuckles and claps him on the shoulder. “Afternoon, indeed! Lovely weather for walking with friends. Speaking of—” he gestures proudly, “this is my Juniper.”

The girl curtsies. Her hair— light gold, fine, gathered neatly in a ribbon— catches the sun in a way that makes Merry’s breath hitch, just for a moment. It isn’t quite the same shade as Éowyn’s. Less wheat and more honey. But there’s a similarity in it and, in that sudden flicker of association, Merry stares a smidge longer than he usually does at a potential suitor.

Primrose smiles up at him. “It’s an honor, Master Brandybuck.”

Éowyn, standing just a step behind, is very quiet.

“I was just telling Junie that Brandy Hall could use a fresh face now and then,” Diggle goes on, nudging his daughter forward with a hand far too proud to be subtle. “Someone with a good head for books and butter-churning, eh? She’s a quick study and quite the cook already. Won second place in the berry tart competition last spring.”

“Oh, I... see,” Merry says, and does not.

Juniper holds out the flowers.

They’re not roses. Not anything grand. Just a few bright cornflowers and something white and trailing— baby’s breath, maybe. Merry takes them before he can think not to, fingers brushing hers. Her hands are warm.

Éowyn doesn’t move, but something in the air shifts around her. It’s not visible. Just a sensation, like a sword being drawn a fraction of an inch in a room full of farmers.

“Thank you,” Merry says gently, and wishes she weren’t looking at him like that. Like he might say something that could change her life. “That’s very kind.”

Diggle beams. “We thought you might join us for tea sometime this week. No obligations, of course. Just good company.”

“Of course.”

They take their leave soon after, Juniper casting one last glance over her shoulder as her father steers her back into the crowd. Merry stands still a moment too long, flowers in hand like they’ve rooted him to the path.

Éowyn shifts beside him.

“She was sweet,” she says, not quite looking at him.

“She was.”

She doesn’t press. But she doesn’t step away, either.

After a beat, she plucks one of the cornflowers from the bouquet and tucks it behind his ear.

“There,” she murmurs. “Now you look eligible.”

And she walks on, leaving him standing in the center of Buckland with a handful of flowers and the weight of everything unspoken pressing warm and unsteady against his ribs.

He’s about to follow— flowers still in hand, the cornflower still tucked absurdly behind his ear— when the baker’s wife leans ever-so-slightly over her stall.

“Master Brandybuck,” she says, not unkindly, but with the tone of someone delivering an unwelcome truth as if it were a casserole. “You’ll confuse the poor lasses if you keep the tall one under your roof much longer.”

He blinks, turning slightly. “Pardon?”

She gestures vaguely after Éowyn, who is now halfway down the lane, a pale blue streak against the afternoon green. “It’s not proper, is all. A young master like yourself keeping an unwed woman— a Big Folk woman— in your home. It sends... messages. People are starting to talk.”

“They always talk,” Merry says, more tightly than he means to.

She presses on, undeterred. “You have your pick of good hobbit lasses. Sweet-tempered, sharp-minded, kitchen-trained. But if you keep gallivanting around with her, well—” She gives a little cluck of her tongue. “You’ll have no one left who’ll risk their daughter’s reputation on you. Or yours.”

He stares at her for a beat too long.

Then he exhales, a low sound, as if letting out more than breath. “Thank you for your concern,” he says coolly.

And turns.

And walks away.

He doesn’t run— he won’t give Buckland, his own home and people, the pleasure— but his steps are quick, purposeful. The flowers are crushed slightly in his fist. He doesn't notice.

Éowyn is waiting just past the edge of the square, one booted foot propped against a stone planter, pretending not to have heard a word of it.

She looks at him sidelong as he draws near.

“I was beginning to think you’d been taken hostage by a very short matchmaker.”

“No,” he mutters. “Just someone who thinks I ought to be.”

Éowyn’s brow lifts, curious, but she doesn’t press.

Instead, she falls into step beside him, quiet, letting the square fall away behind them like a skin being shed. The wind picks up. Somewhere far off, a child laughs, and the flowers in Merry’s hand begin to wilt under the heat of his palm.

Merry walks with purpose— chin up, pace clipped, shoes tapping a rhythm of stubborn escape down the gravel path. The sun filters through the spring leaves, dappling the flagstones in soft greens and golds. Birdsong trills somewhere overhead. It would all be lovely, really— if not for the determined footsteps scurrying after him.

“Master Brandybuck!”

He freezes mid-step, shoulders tightening. The voice is familiar. Too familiar. He turns slowly, as if hoping the sheer force of his reluctance might turn the girl around for him.

Miss Ivy Brockhouse nearly crashes into him, clutching a somewhat lopsided posy of orchard wildflowers. She’s panting slightly from her pursuit, curls escaping their braid, cheeks pink with exertion and— he suspects— hope.

“I picked these for you,” she says, thrusting the flowers toward him. “From the orchard side. The bees were everywhere. I thought... maybe it was a sign.”

Merry stares at the posy. The wildflowers are a cheerful chaos of color— violets and daisies, a few startled buttercups, one large dandelion. The stems are uneven, some still trailing with damp grass. His gut sinks.

He draws a slow breath through his nose, willing himself to be tactful.

“Miss Ivy,” he begins, voice gentle but firm, “your affection is... wasted.”

She blinks. The hopeful light in her eyes flickers.

“I don’t mean to offend,” he adds quickly, raising a hand, “it’s not you. It’s— it’s not you,” he repeats, helplessly gesturing toward the sky as if divine intervention might help extract him. “I just... I have no intention of being wed this year.”

Miss Ivy’s expression falters, twisting from surprise to heartbreak to something prickled and prideful all at once.

“This year?” she asks quietly.

He grimaces. “Yes?”

“So you’re saying... next year—”

“No,” he says, a bit louder now. “Miss Ivy, I’m saying no.”

Her lips part. She looks at the flowers as if betrayed by them. Then she closes her fist around the stems with a sudden, strangled sound and turns on her heel. The posy bobs as she walks, the dandelion losing a few wisps in the breeze like a tiny white flag of surrender.

Merry exhales and mutters to himself, “That went well.”

A voice cuts through the hedge to his right.

“You’re improving.”

He turns. Éowyn is standing on the other side of the hedge, framed by curling vines and late-blooming honeysuckle, swinging her practice sword in measured, elegant arcs. She’s dressed in a simple linen tunic, sleeves rolled up, hair pinned up with alarming efficiency. Her boots are planted squarely on the earth and the air shivers faintly with each pass of the blade.

“At rejection?” Merry asks wearily.

Éowyn smirks without looking up. “At surviving it.”

He lets out a laugh— small and tired— and sinks down onto the low stone wall that edges the path, burying his face briefly in his hands.

“Is this what my life is now?” he mumbles through his palms. “A string of sudden proposals and floral hostage situations? Tell me again why I agreed to spend the season in Buckland?”

“Because you missed your family,” Éowyn says, stepping around the hedge to stand over him, “and your mother wrote you three letters in one week. One included a pie.”

He sighs. “The pie was persuasive.”

“I thought so.” She lowers herself to sit beside him, tucking her sword neatly across her knees. “Besides, you like being fussed over.”

He rolls his head to squint at her. “I like food. I do not like being gifted livestock and questioned about my fertility schedule before elevenses.”

“You exaggerate.”

“I do not. Last week, a lass from Overhill asked what sort of cradle I preferred. I choked on my tea.”

Éowyn laughs, sharp and unrepentant. “That explains the stains on your waistcoat.”

They sit there for a while, the silence between them companionable. A bee drifts by. Merry closes his eyes against the sun and listens to the rhythm of his breath beside hers.

Eventually, she says, “You’ll be proposed to with something truly absurd before the week is out. Mark my words.”

He cracks one eye open. “Like what?”

She lifts a brow. “A sheep. Or a statue. Or a poem.”

Merry snorts. “It’s already happened. Found a scroll under my tea tray two days ago. Rhymed ‘Brandybuck’ with ‘my heart is stuck.’”

Éowyn is silent for a beat. Then: “A bold declaration.”

“An alarming one.”

She chuckles again, softer this time. Then she leans back on her elbows, letting the sword rest beside her, golden hair catching the light as it escapes from its pins. The hedge rustles behind them, and the scent of cut grass and honeysuckle threads into the warmth of the day.

He watches her out of the corner of his eye— calm, sunlit, strangely at ease.

“You’re enjoying this,” he says eventually.

“I am,” she replies, eyes closed and smile faint. “Immensely.”

“It could be worse,” Merry says. “I once saw Daisy Proudfoot try to court Sam with a goat. Sam’s too nice and couldn’t turn her down, so it went on for weeks.”

Éowyn grins. “Did it work?”

“Obviously not,” he laughs. “You’ve seen the way Sam and Frodo look at each other. And the goat liked Frodo better.”

They’ve settled in under the great willow by the pond, where the sun dapples gently through the curtain of drooping branches and the air hums with lazy insects. Merry lies flat on his back in the grass, a small book of riddles resting open on his chest. Éowyn sits nearby with her boots off, ankles crossed, a long-stemmed pipe in one hand and a plum in the other. She’s not smoking the pipe— just holding it like a scepter for Merry, as if it grants her dominion over the moment.

“‘I have a face, but no eyes, hands but no arms, a seat but no legs,’” Merry recites lazily. “What am I?”

“A clock,” Éowyn replies without hesitation, popping a bit of plum into her mouth. “Everyone knows that one.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m devastating fun. Just not easily impressed.”

Before he can protest, the willow parts.

A rustle of skirts. A flurry of perfume. A sigh that carries the weight of practiced innocence.

“Master Brandybuck?”

Merry sits up fast enough to dislodge the book. Éowyn raises an eyebrow and doesn’t bother to hide her exhale.

The girl is unfamiliar— tall for a hobbit, with butter-yellow ribbons in her hair and a basket looped over her arm. She looks like she stepped out of a pastoral painting and is entirely too pleased about it.

“Oh— hello,” Merry says, clearly ransacking his memory for a name and coming up short. “Er. Miss…”

“Primula,” she supplies, sweetly. “Primula Banks. My cousin’s married to your cousin, twice removed.”

“Of course,” Merry lies. He starts to rise, but Éowyn casually extends one bare foot across his shin, a silent don’t you dare.

“I was hoping,” Primula continues, eyes batting, “that you might sample my jam tarts. I made them myself. Gooseberry and elderflower.”

She lifts the basket, uncovering neat rows of golden pastries wrapped in linen. The smell is lovely. Éowyn scowls at it as though it’s personally insulted her.

“That’s very kind,” Merry says, already trying to conjure a diplomatic refusal.

“I made rather a lot,” Primula says, glancing— just briefly— at Éowyn. “More than I can eat alone.”

Éowyn takes a slow bite of plum. “How tragic.”

Primula’s smile twitches.

Merry stands, brushing grass from his trousers, caught in the crossfire. “Truly, they look wonderful, Miss Banks, but I couldn’t possibly accept such a gift without—”

“They’re a gift of appreciation,” she says quickly. “No obligations. Just a treat.”

Éowyn sets down the plum pit in her palm and flicks it with quiet precision into the pond. Plunk.

“I must say,” she murmurs, “it’s remarkable how often Merry inspires these little... culinary tributes. One would think he’s personally responsible for the harvest.”

Primula’s eyes narrow— barely.

“I simply thought he might be hungry.”

“Oh, he’s well-fed,” Éowyn says smoothly, inspecting her nails. “He eats often. Endlessly, in fact. Like a vole.”

Merry coughs. “Thank you?”

Primula seems to wrestle with whether to persist. She holds the basket out one last time. “You’re quite certain?”

Merry hesitates. Then: “Very. But thank you all the same.”

Primula’s face falls. “Well. Perhaps another time.”

She curtsies— far too low for comfort— and turns back through the willow curtain, the scent of jam and crushed blossoms trailing in her wake.

Silence.

Then Merry drops back onto the grass with a groan. “I feel like a villain in a romance ballad.”

“You are,” Éowyn says, resettling beside him. “But a charming one.”

He glances sideways. “You were a little sharp.”

“She was interrupting,” Éowyn replies evenly. “We were doing riddles. Important work.”

Merry squints at her. “Were you jealous?”

She arches one brow with practiced calm. “Of jam? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Merry is cornered again.

He hasn’t even made it three steps from the breakfast room. One moment he’s licking crumbs from his thumb, the next he’s ambushed beside the old grandfather clock, which ticks on unsympathetically as if to say, Yes, boy. It is time. Good luck.

His plate is still warm on the sideboard, scone half-eaten, tea going cold. None of that matters now, because there is a girl in front of him— Lily Clayhanger, if memory serves— beaming at him with all the nervous determination of a hobbit-lass about to propose a joint herb garden.

She’s small, round-cheeked, flushed from some inner exertion, and clutching a watercolor painting in both hands. Her fingers tremble slightly on the frame.

“It’s meant to symbolize devotion,” she says, smiling so hard it seems to hurt. “Geese mate for life.”

Merry peers at the painting. The goose is… well, it’s a goose. White, vaguely lopsided, with one wing slightly longer than the other. But the eyes. The artist, in a burst of fervor or artistic rebellion, has given it the expression of a disapproving aunt. The effect is not unlike being judged by poultry.

“Do they?” Merry manages, voice gentle. He’s trying— sincerely trying— not to deflate her like a poorly stuffed pillow. But the painting is still damp around the edges, like it was rushed… or possibly cried on.

“I thought it might speak to… to our connection,” Lily continues, twisting a ribbon at the hem of her sleeve until the thread begins to fray. “You see, I’ve always admired you. Since the Battle of Bywater. You were so brave. And noble. And your speeches— well, not that you gave many speeches— but your silences were very… stirring.”

Merry nods, face politely frozen.

“I’m flattered,” he begins, with the weary dread of a hobbit who has said this too many times in too few days. He opens his mouth to follow it up with something kind but clear.

“Miss Lily,” comes a voice from above, cool and cutting, like the shimmer of light off a blade unsheathed.

Éowyn has joined them.

She descends the too-short staircase with the unhurried poise of a commander surveying a battlefield. Her boots strike the flagstones softly but with purpose. Her braid is tied back in a severe knot, and her riding coat is slung over one shoulder, worn not for fashion but function— like she might take a horse and leave in three minutes flat, should the conversation sour.

Lily startles like she’s been caught mislabeling jam jars.

“Lady Éowyn?” she squeaks, uncertain whether this is a blessing or a warning.

“You were in the garden yesterday,” Éowyn says with smooth authority, as if this is a continuation of a longer, ongoing interrogation. “Digging up dandelions?”

Lily blinks. “I— yes?”

“You missed one,” Éowyn says, voice grave and low, as though delivering news of an incoming storm. “A large one. With stubborn taproots. Looked in danger of taking over the whole bed.”

Lily looks out the nearest window, as though she might catch a glimpse of the offending weed.

“I’d hurry,” Éowyn adds, just slightly sharper now. “Before it sends up seed.”

A beat.

Lily dithers, caught in a terrible tug-of-war between romantic yearning and horticultural obligation. At last, with a flustered curtsy and a mumbled something about geese, she flees, clutching her painting like a fallen soldier on the retreat.

Merry watches her go.

The foyer is silent again, save for the ticking of the clock and the distant clatter of someone setting down a teacup in another room.

He turns to Éowyn. “You invented that weed.”

Éowyn shrugs, unapologetic. “It’s a very plausible weed.”

“She had a goose,” he says, deadpan. “A goose of love.”

Éowyn raises one brow. “You don’t need geese.”

He stares at her, just long enough to catch the flicker of something unspoken beneath her usual coolness.

“You have me,” she finishes.

A pause. The silence holds, just a shade too long.

He looks at her. Her posture is composed, arms folded, chin slightly raised— as if daring him to laugh. But her eyes, normally fierce and bright, seem suddenly unreadable. Too still.

“For protection,” she clarifies, just a little too quickly.

“Right,” Merry says, scratching the back of his neck.

They stand there in the foyer for a moment, both too aware of the warmth in the air, the still-ticking clock, and the way neither of them is looking directly at the other.

Then Merry clears his throat, steps aside, and gestures toward the breakfast room.

“Come on. I left half a scone back there.”

They don’t return to the breakfast room after all.

Instead, they end up outside, wandering the shaded footpath along the Brandywine. The morning has ripened into something bright and soft-edged, sun glinting off the river and dappling through the young summer leaves. A breeze flirts with Éowyn’s coat hem and stirs Merry’s curls.

They walk in companionable silence for a while, the kind that’s only earned between old friends— or new friends who’ve been through too much together to call it anything but old.

Eventually, Merry says, too casually, “So. You’ve extended your stay again.”

Éowyn glances at him, then out toward the water. “I suppose I have.”

“You know you’re welcome,” he adds quickly. “I mean, Brandy Hall is always loud and nosy and full of jam, but you seem to thrive here. Terrifyingly.”

She smiles. “Thank you.”

He nudges a stone with the toe of his boot. “I just wonder sometimes… if you’re staying for something. Or staying away from something.”

A pause.

Éowyn doesn’t answer right away. She slows her pace slightly, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed on the shimmering water like it might deliver her an excuse.

“I’m expected to marry,” she says at last, voice light and flat as the river surface. “Now that I’m no longer useful with a sword.”

Merry’s brow furrows. “You’re still useful with a sword.”

“Try telling that to the court.” She breathes out through her nose. “Or every distant noble family sending hopeful sons with polished armor and conversational battle wounds.”

“Ah,” Merry says, wincing in sympathy. “We’re both under siege, then.”

“It’s different for me.” Her mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “You’re being pursued for your charm. I’m being pursued for my name. And my hips.”

Merry splutters. “Well. That’s an image I didn’t need this early in the morning.”

Éowyn huffs a laugh, but it fades quickly.

“They all assume I’ll want a man,” she says, softer now, and more to herself than to him. “That I’ll come back to my senses. That I’ll realize war is over and it’s time to move on. And that what I truly desire is a well-fed husband who praises my embroidery and lets me host banquets twice a year.”

She meets Merry’s eyes.

“And I don’t want any of them.”

There’s a weight to it. Not just irritation, or even melancholy, but a quiet, long-held certainty that hums just under her words. Merry hears it, feels it, lets it settle between them like something fragile and honest.

“Then don’t,” he says gently.

She turns her head toward him, half-surprised.

“You don’t owe anyone your happiness,” he continues. “Or your discomfort, come to that. And you certainly don’t owe them your hips.”

That earns a real laugh. She shakes her head, but the tension in her shoulders loosens a notch.

“Staying here,” she admits after a moment, “feels like… a kind of breathing. I think I needed to remember that I could.”

Merry nods. “Well. As long as you know you’re safe here.”

A beat. Her gaze lingers on him a moment too long.

“I do.”

They walk on, side by side, neither of them saying what they’re thinking.

That sometimes the safest places are the hardest to leave.

And sometimes the most dangerous things aren’t the suitors chasing you, but the one friend who never does.

Merry steps in without thinking— it’s his habit now, to check on Éowyn before breakfast, to make sure she hasn’t ridden off on one of the ponies or challenged the stablehands to archery practice again. He’s halfway through a greeting when he stops short.

Éowyn is awake, upright in bed, tousled and golden in the late morning light. The guest chambers— hers now, for all anyone says otherwise— are spacious, but the bed is three hobbit mattresses pushed together with a brave quilt flung over the whole affair. One leg is half out from under the covers. Her shift is wrinkled and slipping from one shoulder. She hasn’t braided her hair yet.

She looks, in a word, human.

And that is the problem.

Merry blinks hard and turns swiftly, like he’s been struck. “You should— ah. You should get dressed.”

Behind him, a beat of silence. Then Éowyn’s voice, amused and not the least bit hurried: “I am dressed.”

“You’re in bedclothes.”

“Which are clothes one wears in bed, yes.”

He hears the rustle of fabric as she shifts, stretching, utterly unconcerned. “Merry. We’ve bled together in chainmail. You’ve seen me covered in orc guts and saddle sores. Are you truly scandalized by a bare shoulder?”

“It’s not about shoulders,” he says, still facing the door like a sentry.

“What then?”

Merry’s jaw tightens. He hears the baker’s wife in his head again— “You’ll confuse the poor lasses if you keep the tall one under your roof.” As if Éowyn is some wildfire he’s left unguarded. As if letting her stay, letting her be seen with him, means he’s already promised things with his silence.

He swallows. “People are talking.”

“People always talk.”

“This is different.”

There’s a pause behind him, long enough to shift the air.

When she speaks again, her voice is lower. “Do you care what they have to say?”

“Yes,” he says before he can stop himself. Then, quieter: “Because I’m not sure what message I’m sending anymore.”

She shifts again— he can hear her rising now, the creak of the floorboards beneath her bare feet. “And what message is that, exactly?”

Merry turns.

And instantly regrets it.

She’s standing barefoot at the side of the bed, the quilt dragged half over one shoulder like a cloak, her shift still a touch scandalous by hobbit standards but honestly no more revealing than what she’d wear to the riverbank. Her hair is a mess of sun-gold tangles, and her eyes— light, sharp, knowing— are fixed on him with something curious and unguarded.

She’s beautiful, yes, in the way storms are beautiful— dangerous, brilliant, uncontainable— but that’s not what undoes him.

It’s that she’s here. In his house. In the morning light. Looking at him not like a war hero or a novelty or a way to pass time before returning to Rohan, but like a person she knows. Like a man.

His throat feels too dry.

“Éowyn,” he says, and the name almost cracks in the middle.

She steps closer, tilting her head. “What is it you’re so afraid of?”

He could say everything. That the rumors might hurt her. That he might start believing them. That he might wake up one morning and forget how to want anything else.

But what comes out is only: “You.”

And then, because it’s too late to take any of it back, he adds—softly, helplessly: “You terrify me.”

Her expression shifts. Not mocking. Not even smug. Just quiet. Open.

As if maybe— just maybe— she’s been waiting for that.

“I didn’t know my presence troubled you so deeply,” she says lightly, pulling the quilt tighter over one shoulder. Her voice is smooth, composed, a little too smooth.

Merry blinks. “No, that’s not—”

“Shall I move to the East guest room?” she continues, already turning away, gathering her scattered hair with one hand. “I believe it gets better light in the morning. Less draft, too. And it’s closer to the stables, if you’re worried about propriety.”

“You’re not— Éowyn, you’re twisting this.”

She smiles over her shoulder, but it’s all steel and no warmth. “I thought I was only being pragmatic. You did just say I terrify you.”

He takes a step forward, flowers still limp in his hand, words floundering in his mouth like fish.

“I didn’t mean—” He stops. “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

“No,” she says, with a falsely bright nod. “Of course not. I’ll be gone soon enough anyway.”

That hits him harder than he expects. It always does, whenever she says something like that. Soon enough. As if her presence is temporary by nature. As if she’s always just a breath away from vanishing.

“I meant it as a compliment,” he says lamely, trying to find some footing on ground that’s suddenly turned slick. “You’re... overwhelming.”

That makes her laugh again, but it’s short and humorless. “Yes, I’ve been told.”

She turns her back fully this time, reaching for the hairbrush on the bedside table. The shift slips lower on one shoulder. He looks away.

Silence stretches between them like pulled thread.

He can feel it— how she’s pulled inward now, smaller somehow, though she still takes up more space in the room than anyone else ever could. And the thing that needles at him isn’t that she’s angry, but that she’s hurt. Genuinely hurt. And he doesn’t understand why.

She’s Éowyn of Rohan. A shieldmaiden. She’s could lift him bodily out of a barrel. She’s beautiful in a way that makes windows fog and children forget their chores. And he’s...

He’s Merry Brandybuck. The Master of Buckland. Decent with a sword, good with numbers, occasionally useful at dinner parties. A hobbit.

There’s no world where she would even entertain the notion of being interested in him romantically.

So why does she sound like that?

Why does she sound like someone who’s just been rejected?

He stands there too long, the silence thick around them.

“Breakfast’s in the hall,” he says finally. “If you want it.”

She doesn’t turn. “I’ll be along shortly.”

Merry nods. Even though she can’t see him. Even though the room feels colder now than it did when he walked in.

He leaves, the door clicking shut behind him, his heart heavy.

The hall is warm with the smell of bread and roasted apples, the sun slanting through the high windows in soft golden beams. The table is already crowded with platters: honeycomb, wedges of sharp cheese, fresh scones with clotted cream, stewed tomatoes, and something that may have once been a ham hock but is now unrecognizably glorious.

Éowyn sits at the head of the table as if she’s done so her whole life, one leg slung lazily over the other, hair now braided back but still slightly damp from washing. She’s in a fresh tunic— borrowed, and visibly too short in the sleeves— but wears it like regalia. She’s slicing a cheese wheel with her belt knife and eyeing the edge like it’s a sparring partner.

Merry enters with what he hopes is casual nonchalance and not the haunted, sleep-starved shuffle he suspects it actually is.

Éowyn glances up, perfectly composed. “You missed first breakfast.”

“I was busy,” he replies, sitting beside her with rigid dignity. “Reflecting.”

She hums—noncommittal, skeptical—and cuts the cheese with just a little too much force. The rind cracks under the blade like splintering ice.

Before he can say more, the door swings wide.

“Good morning!” Pippin announces, breezing in like he owns the place. “Oh, good. I was worried the rumors were exaggerated.”

Merry resists the urge to bang his head against the table.

“Pippin,” he mutters. “You don’t live here.”

“Which makes my timing all the more impressive,” Pippin beams. “I was passing through and imagine my surprise when I hear the Master of Buckland is playing house with a shieldmaiden of Rohan.”

Éowyn, seemingly unfazed, slices a thick wedge of cheese and deposits it onto Merry’s plate with the kind of regal flair that makes it feel like a coronation.

“Quite the domestic scene,” Pippin muses aloud, tearing a scone in half. “All that’s missing is a knitted shawl and an argument about how to store pickles.”

Merry opens his mouth, but Éowyn gets there first.

“Please,” she says with mock offense, “I haven’t even received a dowry yet.”

Pippin nearly chokes on a roll.

Merry glares at his cousin and mutters, “He’s insufferable.”

“I like him,” Éowyn says with a grin.

She stabs a blackberry off the platter with the point of her knife, lifts it, and offers it to Merry with casual grace. No flourish. Just a simple, wordless gesture.

And, like a fool, he leans in and eats it off the blade.

The blackberry bursts between his teeth, sweet and dark and sun-warm. He forgets to breathe.

Across the table, Pippin is watching with the glee of someone who’s just discovered a secret stash of fireworks.

“Well,” he says brightly, “if that’s how you feed each other at breakfast, I dread to think what supper looks like.”

Merry groans and drops his face into one hand.

Éowyn doesn’t stop smiling.

Merry grabs Pippin by the elbow the moment he starts reaching for the honey pot.

“All right,” he says briskly. “You’ve seen the table, you’ve seen the guest, you’ve made your observations. Now, off you go.”

“But I haven’t even had a second plate!”

“I’ll send you a parcel,” Merry mutters, already steering him toward the door.

Pippin digs in his heels like a mule. “Merry, really. I’m just happy for you. It’s not every day the Master of Buckland gets himself—”

“Out.”

Éowyn watches them with growing amusement. “It is fun to tease family,” she offers mildly.

Pippin twists in Merry’s grasp. “See? She already considers herself part of the family!”

Merry makes a strangled noise as he finally gets Pippin through the door.

“Just don’t forget my seat at the wedding!” Pippin calls back. “I look excellent in formalwear!”

The door shuts firmly behind him.

Silence settles.

Merry turns, breath short, and finds Éowyn watching him with one brow raised, her face unreadable and calm as a snow-laced lake. She selects another blackberry, pops it into her mouth, and chews with slow satisfaction, as though nothing at all has happened.

Merry stares at her, cheeks pink, heart drumming somewhere beneath his breakfast.

It’s late afternoon when Pippin finds him again. Brandy Hall has gone quiet in the way large houses only do when something deeply suspicious is happening elsewhere. The corridors are empty, but not comfortably so— the kind of silence that buzzes with held breath and distant giggles.

Merry is in the library, halfway through pretending to reorganize the herbals. It’s a good place to hide. No one ever comes in here unless they’re lost or being punished.

Except Pippin, of course.

“Right,” Pippin says as he bursts in, hands on his hips and hair askew like he’s just fought a goose and lost. “Enough’s enough.”

Merry doesn’t look up. “Good afternoon to you too.”

“Oh, don’t start with pleasantries. You know why I’m here.”

“Because you’re incapable of knocking?”

Pippin ignores that. “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on with you and Éowyn.”

At that, Merry finally lifts his head, eyebrow arched. “Going on?”

“Oh, don’t play the innocent. You’ve been walking around Buckland like you’re giving her a royal tour. Holding her arm. Laughing at her jokes. Letting her threaten the baker’s wife.”

“She didn’t threaten anyone,” scoffs Merry, offended on Éowyn’s behalf. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

“You don’t believe a great many things when you’re smitten,” Pippin mutters.

There’s a long silence.

Merry shuts the book he hasn’t been reading. “I’m not smitten.”

Pippin folds his arms. “You let her feed you blackberries off her knife, Merry.”

“She offered. It would’ve been rude to decline.”

“It was dramatic. She made eye contact the whole time.”

Merry rubs his temples. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Pippin sits heavily on the edge of the desk. “I want to know if I should start planning a wedding feast or a dramatic farewell.”

Merry looks at him then— really looks. There’s a flicker of something tired behind his eyes, something warm and complicated and unspoken.

“I don’t know what it is,” he admits. “She came to visit and then she stayed. And she fits, somehow, even though she shouldn’t. She keeps her sword next to the fireplace and drinks tea like it’s a battle strategy. She sleeps with her boots beside the bed in case she needs to run. But she listens. And laughs. And stays.”

Pippin softens. “That sounds suspiciously like being smitten.”

Merry shrugs. “Maybe. But what do I do with that? She’s Éowyn of Rohan. I’m a Master of Buckland who once got stuck in a grain silo.”

Pippin considers that. “True. But you’ve also fought by her side in battle and you’re the one she stayed for. You think she’d be staying in a place where everything she needs is four times too small otherwise?”

Merry is quiet a moment. Then: “Do you think I should ask her to the dance? The one at the harvest festival?”

“I think if you don’t, she’ll ask you, and we’ll all die of shock or excitement.”

That gets a laugh. A real one, soft and surprised.

“All right,” Merry says, biting back a smile as he reaches for the next book in the stack. “I’ll ask her. Somehow.”

Pippin grins, already halfway to the door. “And I want the second dance!”

“With me?” Merry lifts a confused eyebrow.

“No, you dolt,” spits Pippin. “The shieldmaiden!”

They’re out in Bucklebury proper, the two of them— well, three, if you counted Éowyn, which one absolutely must, as she drew more attention than a firework in a root cellar. The day is bright, market stalls humming with chatter and the scent of lavender, pipe smoke, and late summer plums. Merry is attempting, very valiantly, to show Éowyn the finer points of hobbit lacework— truly fascinating, the amount of floral motifs involved— when the first one approaches.

“Master Brandybuck,” says a lass in a rose-pink frock, twisting her ribboned handkerchief between her fingers. “My mother says you ought to come by the orchard this week. For the pears. And the pie. But mostly the pears.”

“Oh,” Merry says, polite and cornered. “Pears, yes. I do love pears.”

Éowyn, examining a bolt of green muslin, does not look over. But there is something about the angle of her head— listening, very definitely listening.

Before the lass can say more, Merry seizes his chance.

“But you know who adores pears?” he says, clapping a hand on Pippin’s shoulder like he’s awarding a prize pig. “Pippin here. Absolutely devours them. Can’t be trusted around an orchard.”

Pippin blinks. “I— what—”

“Go on,” Merry says with a little too much cheer. “Tell her about your fondness for Bartletts.”

The girl turns to Pippin with interest.

Pippin smiles faintly, betraying only the slightest hint of betrayal. “Ah. Yes. Bartletts. Can’t get enough.”

Merry maneuvers away before she can latch onto him again, slipping back beside Éowyn, who is very obviously pretending not to smirk.

“You are ruthless,” she murmurs.

“Self-defense,” he mutters back.

They make it another half-stall before a second one appears. And then a third. It’s like some kind of coordinated attack: lacy parasols, hopeful eyes, picnic baskets wielded like siege weapons.

Merry shoulders through a cluster of them and gestures grandly to his cousin.

“Have you met Peregrin Took? Excellent singer. House-trained.”

Pippin glares at him. “Merry,” he hisses under his breath, “I don’t ever plan on getting married.”

Merry grins at him with desperate, glittering eyes. “Neither do I, if I can’t finish a sentence without being offered preserves and a dowry.”

That’s when she steps forward. The last of the afternoon suitors. Graceful. Tallish, for a hobbit. Wearing a sprig of mint at her collar.

Diamond of Long-Cleeve.

She walks up to them with confidence that suggests she knows her name and intends for others to know it too.

“I was wondering,” she says, glancing between the two of them with thoughtful precision, “which of you plays the fiddle? My cousin says she heard one at last month’s fair and swooned clean into the rhubarb.”

Neither of them plays the fiddle. But Merry, once again, gestures to Pippin like a merchant offloading a suspicious goat.

“That would be Pippin.”

Diamond raises an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.

Pippin, ever the gentleman and slowly dying inside, performs a shallow bow. “Only under very specific circumstances,” he says solemnly. “Full moon, particular humidity, and usually after three ales.”

Diamond grins, sharp as a tack. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Merry is already backing away— back to Éowyn, who is now very pointedly comparing handkerchiefs and definitely not watching everything unfold like a queen reviewing her court.

When he rejoins her, she looks down with a smile she hasn’t quite disguised.

“Is matchmaking a common pastime in Buckland?” she asks.

“You have no idea,” Merry mutters.

“And does your cousin know he’s being offered as tribute?”

“He’s learning.”

Éowyn hums, folding a handkerchief with far more elegance than necessary. “And here I thought I was the one drawing the crowds.”

“You are,” Merry says. Then, before he can think better of it, “But you’re not offering pie and promises.”

Éowyn blinks at him— just once— and then turns back to the handkerchiefs, lips twitching.

From behind them, Pippin groans audibly.

Diamond, it seems, has not left.

The sun tilts lower in the sky, gilding the edges of Buckland in soft amber. Éowyn tucks her newly acquired handkerchiefs under one arm with a kind of satisfaction usually reserved for fresh battle plans. Merry walks beside her, trying very hard not to wring his hands like a nervous youth, which he isn’t. Technically.

They pass the baker’s stall— thankfully devoid of the baker’s wife— and turn down the lane toward the green, where the harvest festival bunting already flutters from trellises and lampposts. Somewhere nearby, a fiddler tunes up in fits and starts, sounding like he’s preparing either for a dance or a duel.

Merry clears his throat.

Éowyn glances at him, one eyebrow arched, expectant and amused.

“I was thinking,” he begins too loudly. “That you might want to— I mean, if you aren’t already engaged with other— activities— or not fond of— dancing, which is perfectly respectable, of course—”

She slows a step, clearly fighting back a smile. “Yes?”

He stares straight ahead. “That you might want to come with me to the harvest festival. Just for the food. And the music. And, well. The dancing. There’s dancing. Not that you have to dance, if you don’t want to.”

Éowyn tilts her head, expression unreadable. “You’re inviting me to a dance.”

“Yes.” He feels about as composed as a half-deflated bellows. “It’s just a dance. Nothing formal. There’ll be cider. Frodo and Sam will be there. And their— our other friends. So it’ll be nice. You’ll know people.”

Something flickers across her face, so brief he almost misses it. But the smile that follows is thin, almost practiced.

“Oh,” she says. “So you want to go to the dance... as friends.”

He blinks. “Yes. I mean— yes, of course. As friends. Just friendly.” A pause. “Why?”

She shakes her head, chuckling softly, though the sound doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “No, it’s fine. Friends, then.”

Merry nods like a man who’s just defused a powder firework, completely unaware he’s lit another one behind him. “Brilliant. Grand. That’s settled.”

And then she smiles for real— small, crooked, and not entirely resigned.

“Alright, Meriadoc,” she says. “I’ll go to your little hobbit dance. For the food, the music, and the cider. And possibly the dancing. We’ll see.”

He grins, pleased as anything, chest warm with something dangerously close to triumph.

It doesn’t even occur to him that the way she says “friends” might’ve had an edge to it.

Doesn’t register that she hasn’t looked him in the eye for the last few steps.

All he hears is that Éowyn of Rohan is going to the dance with him, and he’s already wondering what color waistcoat he ought to wear.

The Harvest Festival is in full swing— lanterns strung between trees like constellations brought to earth, fiddles and flutes tumbling over one another in joyful clamor, and the air thick with the scent of baked apples, pipeweed, and trampled grass.

Merry is, to put it mildly, under siege.

He’s dressed carefully, of course— brushed coat, a new green waistcoat with brass buttons, boots buffed to a shine. He thought he looked reasonably respectable. Apparently, he looks like marriage material.

“Have you met my daughter?” asks Mrs. Goodbarrel, dragging said daughter— red-faced and visibly mortified— into Merry’s line of sight.

“We make excellent preserves,” says another hopeful young hobbit lass, for some reason.

“I do embroidery,” says a third, thrusting a handkerchief at him embroidered with what might be a duck. Or possibly a cart.

Merry is halfway through inventing a convincing excuse about checking on the cider barrels when he spots Pippin across the field, grinning and deep in conversation with Diamond of Long-Cleeve.

“Pippin!” Merry calls, desperate. “Help!”

Pippin looks up, catches sight of him, and has the gall to shrug helplessly. Then he turns back to Diamond, who laughs at something he says, and Merry realizes— horrified— that Pippin is lost to him.

He’s on his own.

And then—

She arrives.

No trumpet. No grand entrance. Just a hush that spreads in ripples from one side of the square to the other, like a stone dropped into a still pond.

Éowyn.

She steps into the light like a storybook walked off the page, golden hair braided and coiled with green ribbons, her gown— borrowed, refitted, and clearly worked on in secret by half the seamstresses of Buckland— an elegant sweep of soft white and sage that clings to her shoulders and moves like water around her boots.

Boots. She’s refused to wear anything else.

She looks like spring and thunder, swordless but not unarmed.

Merry stares.

And forgets how to speak.

Forgets the duck handkerchief in his hand.

Forgets his own name, probably.

Éowyn catches his eye across the square, tilts her head, and smiles. A small smile. Just for him.

The suitors vanish. Or maybe they don’t, but Merry doesn’t see them anymore. Doesn’t hear a word.

Because she’s walking toward him, all lantern-light and Rohan pride, and Merry Brandybuck feels the earth tilt.

He’s not sure if he’s more terrified or thrilled.

And then she stops in front of him and says, very softly, “You clean up nicely.”

Merry clears his throat. “You look... devastating.”

She laughs. “Is that a hobbit compliment?”

“It is now.”

And somewhere in the background, Pippin whispers something to Diamond, both of them watching with bright, delighted eyes.

Merry doesn’t notice.

He’s too busy wondering how anyone is supposed to just be friends with Éowyn of Rohan.

Éowyn glances down at his waistcoat, then at the ribbons in her hair, and says with a faint, amused lilt, “We match.”

Merry, already several leagues deep in smitten, replies far too quickly, “I hadn’t noticed.”

One of the nearby girls, still lingering under the hopeful illusion that he might offer her a dance, arches a brow and says, “Really? I’m surprised, with how long you’ve been staring at her.”

Merry goes scarlet. A full bloom of it, from collar to curls.

Éowyn blinks, then lets out a laugh, warm and bright and just a little flustered. Color rises in her cheeks, too, but she doesn’t look away.

They wander the festival together, shoulder to shoulder, caught in the easy rhythm of shared amusement. Éowyn insists on trying every sample of cider— even the spiced one that makes her wince— and declares a firm opinion on the superiority of Buckland’s apple tarts over Edoras’s honey cakes. Merry challenges her to a pumpkin toss and loses spectacularly; Éowyn gloats with the graciousness of a shieldmaiden who has also just dunked a hobbit in hay.

They cheer on pie-eating contests, judge scarecrows with absurdly serious expressions, and collect tiny paper ribbons from children who insist they’re handing them out “only to couples.”

Merry doesn’t correct them.

By the time the music shifts— fiddles taking on a sprightly lilt, flutes piping in a reel that turns every head toward the green— the lanterns have begun to glow with evening’s deeper gold.

The dancing begins in a clatter of feet and laughter. Circles form, hands are caught, and the joy of it all is as heady as the cider.

Merry hesitates for only a moment before turning to her.

“Would you…” he starts, then clears his throat. “Would you like to dance?”

Éowyn meets his eyes.

She doesn’t tease. Doesn’t ask if he means as friends.

She smiles.

“Yes,” she says and takes his hand.

The fireworks leave the sky painted in echoes. Smudges of smoke and color lingering like dreams just out of reach. The laughter and music drift away behind them as Merry walks Éowyn back through the quiet corridors of Brandy Hall, the warm hush of night settling between them.

Neither says much. They don’t need to. Their steps fall in an easy rhythm, her hand brushing his arm now and then like it belongs there. Merry’s still a little dazed from the dancing, from the cider, from her.

They stop at her door. The hall is dim and still, save for the distant crackle of the last firework being launched into the stars.

“Well,” Merry says, and clears his throat because suddenly he’s forgotten what words are supposed to do. “Thank you. For coming with me. To the festival.”

Éowyn nods, soft-eyed. “Thank you for inviting me.”

There’s a pause. He thinks she might say goodnight.

But instead, she leans down and kisses him.

Just a brief, warm press of her lips against his— gentle, certain, with the faintest smile still tucked inside it. She pulls back before he can do anything more foolish than stand there and melt into the floor.

“Goodnight, Meriadoc,” she says, her voice quiet but sure.

Then she steps into her room and closes the door with a soft click.

Merry stands frozen outside it, blinking like he’s just taken a firework to the chest.

And then, slowly, one hand comes up to touch his mouth.

He thinks of Mrs. Goodbarrel. The duck handkerchief. The endless parade of hopeful glances and overly informative introductions.

Right.

He’s going to need a sign. A banner. Possibly a town crier.

Because whether Éowyn knows it or not— he’s absolutely, irrevocably taken.