The warm summer night lay gently on the golden eaves of Meduseld. The hall was filled with guests. Chief among the guests was the Lord of Dol Amroth, who had brought his only daughter to marry King Eomer, the Lord of the Riddermark. The Lord of the Mark, however, did not rest under the golden roof of his ancestral hall. He had retreated to the relative privacy of a secluded yard below Meduseld.

His sister Eowyn found him there, but was unable to lighten his glum mood or find out its cause. After surveying him with her arms folded for a few minutes, she went back to her chamber and sent her husband to him with the direction, “Find out what’s wrong with him!”

Faramir took in her scowl, sighed, and went to find help. First he gathered a few bottles of wine and his own King, then sought out his host. They found him just as Eowyn had described him, huddled on a bench staring out north across the rolling plains of the mark. He didn’t respond to their greetings, but Eomer noted their arrival with a guttural murmur and waved them to sit beside him. King Elessar hunkered down on the rough bench in the comfortable slouch of a ranger on a long watch. He pried the cork out of a bottle of wine and passed it to Eomer wordlessly. Faramir looked from one to the other. Neither man spoke. After a long moment, he took a seat on Eomer’s other side.

When they had gotten half way through the second bottle of wine, Faramir judged that Eomer’s silence had grown less guarded. The next time he drank, he held on to the bottle rather than passing it back. At that, Eomer crooked his blond brows quizzically, meeting Faramir’s eyes for the first time.

“So what brings you out here, troth brother, besides the company?” He kept his eyes fixed on Eomer, knowing that the Lord of the Mark would be hard pressed to break the gaze, but he could see Elessar watching the exchange over Eomer’s shoulder. Under the cool judgment in the king’s eyes, he softened his tone and asked again, “What troubles you, Eomer?”

“It’s her – she is so lovely – what shall I do when all these ceremonies are done, all the company is gone, and she and I are left alone?” Eomer choked out. Faramir took pity on him and gave him back the bottle.

“I take it that you mean the Lady Lothiriel. I had thought that you were eager for this marriage; would you rather that it were delayed a little longer?”

Eomer shook his head as he drank. The ring of Barahir glinted as Elessar quickly opened another bottle. He passed it around Eomer, and Faramir took a swig from it before tackling the subject again.

“So you do wish the marriage to proceed? Certainly, many men would envy you such a bride,” he prompted.

Eomer nodded again. “She is lovely indeed. Her hair is like night, and her skin is like the first blush of a white rose. She has all the graces of a princess, and she will be the fairest queen the Mark has yet had. Yet… I find it hard to approach her.”

“She has agreed to marry you, Eomer. You may take that as a sign that she is not unwilling to be approached,” Elessar pointed out.

“That I know, but we are to be married this week and I have not even kissed her yet. We speak when we meet, and she smiles at me, but a strange distance lies always between us.”

“Well, then,” Faramir counseled, “Why not greet her tomorrow morning with a kiss? You will have done it, and the lady will no doubt be pleased.”

“In the hall? Do you think the Lady Lothiriel wishes me to kiss her for the first time in front of half the people of Edoras?” Eomer glanced at each of them, then took another hasty gulp from the bottle.

King Elessar offered support. “She comes from a very noble line, but she is not made of stone. Even a lady of Dol Amroth likes to be kissed by the man she has chosen – and between every couple there must be a first kiss.”

Again, Eomer looked from one of them to the other. Faramir offered confirmation. “It’s true. The first kiss Eowyn allowed wasn’t easy, but it was the sweeter for it.”

“Nothing with Eowyn ever was easy,” her brother chuckled. “She came into the world hard-headed. She even wanted to go from her first pony to a trained war horse – I don’t know how my uncle managed to bribe her to try a gentler mount first.”

“How could she have made it difficult?” King Elessar asked. “The Lady Eowyn loves you dearly: I could see that as soon as I saw you together.”

Faramir smiled ruefully. “You would not have said so if you saw her in those days. I all but laid my heart at her feet within a week of our first meeting. She received it as would one of the Haradrim’s stone idols, when they pour out blood and rich wines across its stone skirts.

“You had sent for her, if you remember, so I expected daily that she would leave and take no care to tell me. At last I sought her out and asked her plainly if she would have me. She said yes – and then tried immediately to begin a quarrel. The only way I could stop it was to kiss her.”

Eomer laughed again at that, then turned to King Elessar. “Was your first kiss with your elven lady as memorable, Aragorn?”

Elessar’s answering grin made him look suddenly young. “Oh, yes.”

“Tell us,” Faramir urged. “When was it?”

“It was yesterday, when we reached Edoras,” the King responded, “and under the leaves of Lorien, years ago. Then again, I first kissed her last week, under the white tree in Minas Tirith.” He smiled. “When I kiss Arwen Evenstar, it is always the first time.”