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Éomer honestly intended to "just step out for a minute."
For a minute, just one tiny minute... That very same minute that, for youths and children, somehow always stretches into an eternity whenever an icy precipice, mountains of fresh snow, and three other equally possessed souls ready to fly into the abyss with triumphant howls are discovered nearby.
"Lost your nerve, princeling?" one of the boys threw out, nodding downward.
The slide bit deep into the steep slope of the hill, where a vicious wind had licked the snowdrifts into a ringing, mirror-like crust. But the true terror waited below. The Snowbourn had not frozen over this winter—the current was too furious. The river was merely rimmed with ice at the banks, leaving a black strip of open water in the middle, steaming with vapor. A mistake in braking threatened not merely a snowbank, but an icy baptism from which, in a heavy sheepskin coat, one might not resurface.
Éomer, bundled into the thick sheepskin, felt simultaneously ridiculous and absolutely invincible in his gear. The leather belt squeezed his waist tight, prickly fur kept getting into his mouth, hindering his breath, and the wide sleeves felt alien and clumsy, like the wings of a great bird. An eagle. He would have very much liked it to be an eagle. Well... or any other proud, high-flying bird.
"You're the one who lost his nerve," he snapped back, feeling that dangerous thrill that dries out the mouth.
Truth be told, falling in such garb wasn't scary at all—the snow received him like a soft embrace. Pain was nothing; it simply didn't exist. What truly stung and pricked was the resentment when someone else, luckier and lighter, overtook you by half a length, kicking up snow dust right under your nose. And there was the fear no one admitted to. The fear of not stopping in time... And it was sharp, real, and at the same time, so delicious.
He sat right on the hem of his coat, tucked his legs—of course, no one had taught him this, simply because no one teaches it; this knowledge comes on its own, along with the first bruise on the tailbone. And he went.
At first—quietly, as if the snow was debating whether to let go. Then... the world abruptly became fast; the cold struck his cheeks, his ears, his eyes. Snow hit his face like jagged crumbs, the sheepskin slid as if on oil, and Éomer, forgetting himself, squealed—not thinly, not like a girl, but the way only those squeal who later claim it was a battle cry.
The bank with the black water approached with frightening inevitability. At the last moment, when mere inches remained to the edge of the brittle coastal ice, Éomer threw himself sharply onto his side, thrusting out his boots and digging his heels into the crust. Snow dust flew into the air in a fan, blinding him.
He stopped. Beneath him, just a cubit from his boot, the ice crunched treacherously, and dark water splashed onto the rim, licking his sole. Éomer lay with arms spread wide, staring at the sky, greedily gulping the freezing air. His heart hammered somewhere in his throat. Alive. And dry. Mostly.
Snow was packed into his fur—whole handfuls of it. He shook it from his sleeves, from behind his collar, from under his belt—uselessly: it seemed the coat now belonged to winter more than to him.
"Again!" he demanded, and this "again" flew out automatically, like a breath.
They slid again and again, playing these mad shell games with the river. Braking later and later, riskier and riskier, until their legs turned to cotton, and laughter began to turn into wheezing, until their throats were raw from the cold air. Sometimes they collided, fell in a heap, cursed, immediately made peace, shoved each other with elbows—and all of this was the most right thing in the world, because in it there were no thoughts, no duties, no eternal "you must."
Éomer had just climbed up again and turned to sit and push off when he heard it—not shouts, not laughter—but a different sound. Dull, dense—the strike of a hoof against the earth. Many hoofs. And nearby—voices that did not argue or laugh, but gave short commands, as if words, too, were part of a formation.
He raised his head.
First, his gaze caught not the people, but the banners. Tall, unusually neat cloths fluttered above the ranks of men, and again birds came to his mind, for the fabric rippled like the wings of strange, exotic birds. They swam through the crowd slowly and majestically, and the sharp wind of Edoras unfurled the heavy fabric now and then, forcing the embroidered signs to stand out clearly and sharply even from afar.
Éomer understood almost instantly: these were not their banners. Squinting against the blinding winter sun and trying to hold his gaze on the wavering patch of color, he finally managed to match what he saw with what he had been taught. On a deep, dark blue field, exposing its sides to the icy air, the White Tree spread its branches—the symbol of the mighty neighboring kingdom, whose arrival heralded the end of fairground solitude.
And with this knowledge came a feeling as if a lock had clicked shut inside him.
How long he had been acting like a child.
He is fifteen. Fifteen is no longer "small." It is "youth." It is "half-man." It is the age when they look at you a little more closely, when they expect from you not laughter, but a straight spine. When you must... must be somewhere. Be someone.
But where is this "somewhere"? And who is this "someone"?
There were no specific orders. Everyone was celebrating. The court lived by Treewinter, the people by the fair, the guards by the flow of the crowd, the merchants by their coin. Watch over his sister? She was there with the nursemaids and... Éomer grimaced.
It wasn't that he was angry at his new kinswoman. He even tried—honestly tried. Inside there was something stubborn, boyish: "I must hate," because it’s simpler that way. Because then you don’t have to sort yourself out. But she, for some reason, didn’t make him angry. She was neither arrogant, nor nasty, nor capricious—and that made him even angrier, because she broke his convenient anger like one breaks a stick over a knee.
Éomer gritted his teeth and, without noticing it himself, bolted from his spot. This time the descent was clumsy and painful: he flew down almost tumbling, blindly, striking sparks from the icy crust with his sheepskin and shoveling heavy snow with his sleeves. The cold, however, acted soberingly, knocking the remnants of the drunken childish thrill out of his head. Flopping onto his back in a snowbank at the bottom, he froze for only a moment, only to jump to his feet immediately. Wasting no time shaking off the clinging white crust, the boy sprinted up the slope—no longer for the sake of the game, but striving at all costs to reach the city before the gates met the guests.
Éomer burst into Edoras so abruptly, as if a pack of wargs were chasing him, but immediately ran into a new obstacle. A crowd stood before him like a wall—dense, buzzing, and immovable.
However, having barely caught his breath, he allowed himself a fleeting smile, remembering his main advantage. By fifteen, Éomer had stretched out noticeably: height had come to him much earlier than true masculine strength. His shoulders had not yet managed to "catch up" with his rapidly growing bones, and his arms seemed too long and as yet devoid of warrior's weight.
Yet, it was this angular leanness that played into his hands now. Squeezing through the rows of gaping onlookers and stout merchants proved to be a simple matter. Twisting his whole body and deftly diving into the smallest gaps between other people's backs, he stubbornly forged a path to the center of the fair.
Here the world was different: wet wool, steam from horses, smoke of bonfires, sweet sbiten, bread, smoked meat—the smells were thick, warm, mixed, and they went to his head almost as much as the speed on the slide. He squeezed through sideways, apologizing through his teeth, snagging his sheepskin on other people's sleeves, on belts, on baskets. Somewhere above his ear, someone shouted:
"Watch where you're going!"—and Éomer would have answered, had he not understood that answering now would be boyish again.
Still, with grief and effort, he made his way closer to the center of the square—to where, if not for the heads and shoulders of the gawkers, the stairs to the Golden Hall should have been visible. He stopped, inhaled air—slowly, as his brother had taught him when one needed to stop being a bundle of nerves and become a human being.
Brother taught him to assess the situation. And now was perhaps the best time to do so.
Cavalry moves faster than a man on foot—even if that man is already a "half-man" and knows how to accelerate like a wolf hunting a hare. This meant the guests could already be in the castle. But they would have to dismount. And pass through the crowd. And—if the fair caught their eye, if they wanted a sip of something hot, if they lingered by the stalls with leather, scabbards, belts, mead... then he had a chance.
Éomer reckoned Theodred would definitely be meeting the delegation. Theodred always meets them. He knows how to stand correctly, speak correctly, smile as if a smile is also part of a weapon. That means he needs to find him. And—most importantly—not look like a boy who had just been sledding in a sheepskin coat.
He looked himself over and understood immediately: the task was nearly impossible.
Snow was everywhere. It shone white on his shoulders, lay in a thick hem on the bottom of his coat, was packed into the fur, and hid in the deep folds of his sleeves. His belt was skewed as if the sheepskin had suddenly decided to live its own, very free life. His face burned from the cold and recent laughter, and his hair, surely, stood on end like that of a ruffled foal. And all this—the "King's Nephew," of course. Very dignified. Very impressive.
Éomer angrily, as if wrestling an enemy, shook the snow from his shoulders. He adjusted his belt, yanked his collar, and straightened up, trying to give his gait the measured pace his tutors had taught him. He strode forward, peering into the sea of people, trying to catch the familiar figure of his brother with his eye.
And then someone stopped him.
A hand landed on the scruff of his neck confidently and firmly, the way one catches a puppy that is about to jump under hooves. Éomer didn't even have time to be indignant: he was immediately being dusted off. The movements were quick and practiced: a strange palm expertly beat the snow dust out of his fur collar and back—the very places he couldn't reach himself, even if he wanted to.
For a moment, he truly thought it was Theodred. Who else would—without wasted words or ceremony—make him look presentable in the middle of a noisy fair?
"Oh, ancestors..." he muttered.
He had completely forgotten that after sledding, the sheepskin always treacherously flattens on the softest spot. This matted fur and the crust of ice clinging to his rear gave him away completely, louder than any laughter or shouts, announcing to all of Edoras that the King's nephew had just plowed snowdrifts with his nose.
"You'll catch a cold, lad," a strange, low, and slightly mocking voice sounded above his ear. "Judging by the snowbank on your lower back, Rohan greeted me not only with wind but with a very determined young warrior who decided to test the hardness of every hill in the district."
Éomer froze, realizing that the hand brushing the snow off him so possessively did not belong to his brother at all.
"Now run along."
As soon as the strange palm released his scruff, Éomer, like a guard dog off the leash, bolted forward. His legs carried him away from the shame on their own, past the dumbfounded merchants, straight to the wide stairs leading to the golden doors of Meduseld.
He never dared to look back. Perhaps curiosity would have overcome fear, had not a roar of laughter rolled out behind him at that very moment—ringing, familiar, and too sincere not to understand exactly who was being laughed at. Color flooded his cheeks so hotly that even the biting frost retreated for a moment, admitting defeat.
In a single second, all his plans, all the feigned dignity and thoughts of how to "carry himself honorably" before the Gondorians crumbled to dust, like the very snow that had just flown from his fur. Éomer drew in the icy air with a sharp whistle and, finally forgetting the honor of a warrior and the manners of a prince, sprinted for the Hall. He ran at full speed, trying not to think about how boyishly ridiculous his figure must look right now, flashing through the crowd.