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Rohan had always been famed for its ale — strong, thick, and bitter, a far cry from the lighter, refined drinks of Gondor. The wines and tinctures served in the valleys of the Anduin were gentler by comparison, flowing sweetly like mead and masking their strength with deceptive smoothness. And only later — far too late — did they hit, sharp and sudden, even a seasoned warrior unaccustomed to their treacherous charm.
Boromir never returned from his homeland empty-handed. Of course, the caravans brought wine to Rohan, but he insisted on choosing each bottle himself — only then could he be sure of its quality. After all, who would dare offer the Steward’s son anything less than worthy?
He was a constant presence at the great feasts of Edoras. There, beneath the vaulted beams of Meduseld, amidst clinking cups and roaring voices, he was no outsider. He was kin — a trusted friend and now a son of Rohan by marriage. His wife, as if standing between two worlds, never left his side, her hand gently looped through his arm. In every touch, every glance, there was quiet pride: This is my Gondorian, who came to love Rohan — and especially the Rohan he sees in me.
That memorable evening, the hall pulsed with life — the Golden Hall shook with songs, laughter, and overflowing mugs of mead and ale. Near one of the carved pillars, Éomer sat slumped against the cool stone, clearly past the point of saving face.
“H-hey, Éo…” he muttered, waving a hand vaguely and missing a passing girl by a good stretch. His tongue was thick, his limbs loose — it was obvious to everyone in the hall that the young lord of the feast had met his match in the cup.
The girl, seeing his state, settled beside him with a motherly sigh. She brushed a damp strand of golden hair from his flushed brow — the same one he’d been fumbling with for several minutes.
“You’re quite the mess tonight,” she said with a fond shake of her head.
“Y-yeah…” Éomer hiccuped, exhaled heavily, and tried to pull himself together. “I just don’t get it. We drank the same amount — your husband and I — and yet I’m here like a sack of hay, and he’s still on his feet like nothing happened!”
Sure enough, Boromir was still standing where she’d left him, engaged in animated conversation with the other warriors. He laughed, spoke clearly, and somehow still held his composure — despite everything they’d consumed.
“Well,” she smirked, “consider this your lesson: never try to match a Gondorian in drinking his own tinctures.”
“But they’re weaker than our ale!” Éomer protested, attempting to sit up straight and nearly collapsing into her shoulder. “It’s that cursed trick of theirs… drinking in one gulp…”
“That’s the trick indeed,” came Boromir’s voice from behind, all too pleased with himself.
Getting Éomer off the floor was only the beginning — keeping him there was far harder. Every time she turned her back, the drunken marshal wandered off on some mysterious mission. Thankfully, he was easy to find: just follow the singing. Éomer, in his cups, had launched into a rousing (and entirely improvised) rendition of a dwarvish ballad Gimli had once taught him. The lyrics bore little resemblance to anything spoken in Khuzdul, and the melody was… unique. Not that anyone sober could sing Khuzdul properly, let alone in such a state.
As for Boromir — by then, he too had tipped into true intoxication. He looked steady — an ingrained habit of Gondor’s heir — but closer inspection betrayed him: the world tilted like a boat on waves, and his steps, once firm, now wavered.
On the way home, a sudden, undeniable pressure in his belly made him stop in his tracks. There was no dignified way to delay what was coming. Flushed and mortified, he turned to his wife and muttered:
“Wait for me, please,” before darting into the nearest patch of bushes.
“Everyone does it,” he mumbled, as if apologizing — though by now, she knew that well enough.
“Makes sense,” she smirked. “We’re in the plains, not the White City; chamber pots only exist in royal quarters.”
To him, though, the idea still felt terribly undignified. The wine blurred his thoughts, and pride kept nudging him to explain. Luckily, no one seemed to notice his oh-so-“unworthy” maneuver. And really, he wouldn’t have cared what others thought — if not for her opinion, which remained the one that mattered most.
She, of course, was used to scenes like this. In Rohan, they celebrated victories and mourned losses with equal fervor. But what always struck her heart was the sight of this stately Gondorian — his noble Númenórean heritage betrayed by the smooth, untouched skin of his cheeks, where any Rohirrim his age would have long since sprouted stubble. And so, the wine-born flush across that pale face stood out all the more.
Yet below the jaw and along his neck, a thick, dark beard grew — dense like a horse-grooming brush — and his mustache framed that bashful smile with a touch of something less ancient in his blood.
“Sorry…” he whispered, touching her elbow. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” she replied gently.
Everything about him in that moment warmed her — the way he turned his head away, insisting he smelled of wine and didn’t want to burden her; the way, moments later, he leaned into her arm anyway, like an oversized, trusting cat. He did his best to walk straight, but with each step, he tilted just a little more toward her shoulder — not out of need, but from that soft helplessness that made him all the dearer.
But what moved her most was what came later, when they finally reached their chambers after winding their way through the stone corridors of the keep. As usual on such nights, she began the slow task of untying the many ribbons of her gown — a meditative process she preferred to do alone, without the help of a maid.
The room was quiet. She barely heard a thing from Boromir — just the faint rustle of clothes and the soft murmur of someone speaking to himself. From the sounds of it, he was trying to settle in, wrestling with both his garments and the bed. Given his condition, she had no expectations — even removing boots and tunic must have felt like scaling a mountain.
When she finally turned around, the sight that met her was both surprising and deeply endearing. Boromir, swaying slightly, was carefully folding his undershirt — smoothing each crease with a diligence that defied his drunken state. His tunic lay beside it, just as neatly arranged. Even now, he clung to his innate precision, that quiet attention to detail.
But what truly caught her breath was the bed: only one pillow lay on the wide mattress. The second had been gently placed on the floor, a little to the side, as if someone had thoughtfully prepared a space to sleep — away from her.
“Why did you…?” she asked, brow furrowing.
“I smell,” Boromir muttered, already lying down, tucking the pillow under his head.
She couldn’t help but smile and shake her head. Truth be told, she didn’t smell any alcohol on him — not now, not ever. Why that was, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps she’d built up an immunity over the years: in her world, warriors and farmers celebrated fiercely and mourned even harder. Her nose had long since stopped noticing.
“Come here, you fool,” she said, sitting at the edge of the bed. “Believe me — you don’t smell any worse than any Rohirrim after a feast.”
Boromir lifted his head and looked at her with that peculiar seriousness reserved for the very drunk — the kind who are trying, with all their might, to appear sober.
“I don’t want to…” he began, but she was already leaning toward him, hand outstretched.
“Either you come to bed,” she said calmly, “or I lie down here on the cold floor with you — and we’ll both wake up sore in the morning.”
At last, he relented, letting her guide him up and over to the bed. He still tried to keep some distance, but she pulled him close without another word, ignoring his half-hearted protests. It didn’t take long before he melted against her, nuzzled into her shoulder, murmured something incomprehensible — possibly yet another apology — and drifted into deep sleep.
The idyll, of course, did not last.
By midnight, the storm truly hit. The full wrath of the evening’s wine came back with a vengeance. Come morning, he would remember none of it — not how, unlike many husbands who would shamelessly collapse on the hall’s stone floor without a care for propriety (and some, in their fervor, even attempted to ravish their wives right there before passing out), he always disappeared behind a screen with a stubborn dignity, unwilling to let Eodred witness what he considered his “unworthy weakness.” Every time he stumbled back out on unsteady legs, he’d mutter apologies, as if it were shameful to be humanly vulnerable to strong drink.
By the predawn hours, the worst had passed — the nausea no longer twisted him in knots, though his head still throbbed mercilessly and his stomach churned with resentment. He lay there, cheek burning against a cool pillow, slipping in and out of shallow, uneasy sleep — shuddering now and then, letting out the occasional ragged sigh. Eodred sat by his side, gently stroking his arm from shoulder to elbow in slow, soothing motions, watching the way his tired muscles twitched beneath her hand.
She knew it was just the inevitable aftermath of revelry — but still, she continued her quiet ritual, hoping her touch might ease his suffering, even a little.
When a servant stepped silently into the chamber, Boromir barely found the strength to lift his head. One might expect him to ask for water, for herbal remedies — but not him. Even with a hoarse voice and evident misery, his first concern was:
“How’s Éomer?”
The servant suppressed a smile and gave a respectful nod.
“He’s well, my lord. Still sleeping. Took some effort to get him settled last night,” he added, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Lost his bracers — kept trying to go back for them.”
Eodred chuckled under her breath. Éomer, who had received a gift bearing the White Tree of Gondor, had put it on in his chambers and promptly forgotten about it in conversation with Boromir. Thus, one man left the tower wearing the crest of another kingdom — while the other left behind an entire cask of precious tincture, brought all the way from Minas Tirith.
Just as they reached the great hall’s doors, both men realized their mistake. But turning back through the entire keep felt unseemly — the guests were waiting, the horns were sounding, and each step of delay would echo across Edoras.
“I know what to do,” Éomer had said cheerfully, nudging him with an elbow and adjusting his borrowed bracers. “We’ll fetch something similar from our cellars — and save the real one for later.”
And so the “Gondorian” liquor became the hastily chosen brew from the depths of Meduseld, crafted by Rohirric hands. In flavor and strength, it was nearly identical. But in consequence…
Well — no one could speak to that better than Boromir himself.
Assuming he regained full consciousness before noon.