A/N: This story is a sequel to "First Impressions" and "None of the Usual Inducements". I am trying to make it as accessible as possible on its own, but I think going back and reading the other parts of the series first will give you a better experience. However, if you are stubborn, start here, with which was once upon a time intended to be the prologue of the first installment "First Impressions" :-)

Prologue

In 2986 Prince Imrahil wedded Mírdis of Galibur near her home in the cloud forests high up in the Hills of Tarnost. Mírdis was neither as wealthy nor as nobly born as she should have been: the eldest daughter of a man who had come into an estate and title that but for the crooked paths of fate should never have been his. However, as Ivriniel observed wryly at the ceremony, beauty like that - black hair, olive skin dusted with freckles and black eyes that shone like jewels – seemed to render all such considerations banal, and at the time no one had raised either questions or objections. Her new sister-in-law turned out to be of a dreamy disposition, quiet and sweet-tempered, content with pottering about in the gardens and always drawn to the seashore. She loved Imrahil with almost childlike sincerity, and he in his turn was besotted and could deny her nothing.

Mírdis's parents, young and unschooled themselves, had taken only a lacklustre interest in their daughter's education, and the duties that now fell on her as a Princess of Dol Amroth puzzled her exceedingly. Ivriniel, who had been running her father's household for almost a decade, attempted to instruct her with limited success. Although Mírdis was not without a certain pensive intelligence and as compliant and thoughtful a student as one could wish for, she was easily distracted and had no head for business. She fulfilled her duties to the best of her ability when asked, was polite to visitors when she remembered to be present, but too often wandered off and withdrew into herself, forgetting all around her.

Ivriniel went through phases of despair, anger, bafflement and suspicion at her sister-in-law's air-headed nature, until at last grudging affection overcame every other feeling and she simply continued in her role as mistress of the castle in Mírdis's stead. She saw much of her gentle sister Finduilas in Imrahil's bride: Finduilas, who had faded under the burdens of the wife of the Steward and the shadow growing in the east, while Ivriniel stood powerless and railed against the world. Not this time. Mírdis accepted the arrangement without question and focused on her garden and other inscrutable pursuits.

Her most important duty Mírdis did not shirk, for an heir was born but a year after the wedding, and then another, and a third. Mírdis's sons brought her joy, earnest and tender Erchirion especially, but they drifted away from her as they grew older and she longed for a daughter that would be hers to raise. At last a girl came in the autumn of 2099. Imrahil was away when the child was born, but Ivriniel held her sister's hand through the night while Mírdis screamed and storm winds battered the castle of Dol Amroth. The babe came in the midnight hours, spent one restless day and night in the darkening world and died before her father could even name her. Afterwards, a melancholy seemed to settle on Mírdis that she could never fully shake. Even though outwardly she was much the same as before, there was an edge to her movements and she no longer shared her strange thoughts even with her family.

By the end of the year 3000 she was with child again. Lothíriel's birth was difficult, for the girl refused to come for more than a day and then near managed to strangle herself with the umbilical cord (Ivriniel later suspected she had been doing backflips even in the womb). By the grace of the Valar, Lothíriel survived and afterwards was never ill a day in her life, a loud and boisterous child, early to walk and early to talk. Yet from the first time she was placed in Mírdis's arms her mother withdrew from her, looking at the child as if on a stranger and then passing her to the nursemaid without further thought.

At first Ivriniel expected that Mírdis would take more of an interest as Lothíriel got older – it was well known that a difficult birthing bed could plague the connection between mother and newborn - but Mírdis's spells of abstraction only grew worse over time, and her daughter's enthusiastic exuberance was so foreign to her nature that she seemed always glad when she could hand over the responsibility of her to another. Lothi, she called her, as if even the child's name was too tiring to say.

To Ivriniel, Lothíriel was as much a source of joy as sorrow. She found the girl enchanting and affectionate, and loved her as if she were her own, but the staff pitied her, her grandfather was ailing, her father was often away and her mother simply did not care, so rules were seldom enforced and indeed rarely lain down at all. By the end of her second year, the girl already ran wild and unchecked. Inevitably, Ivriniel became her disciplinarian, while for attention Lothíriel turned to Amrothos, then but a boy himself, and more intelligent and charming than was good for anyone. They grew close, and Lothíriel had no trouble proving her worth as a co-conspirator, even though she was more than seven years his junior, for she never backed away from a challenge and got willingly involved in the most daring schemes.

Ivriniel – with regret and determination both – tried her best to imprint upon Lothíriel the limitations and expectations that came with her sex, but Lothíriel heard her without much interest. And why would she? Society was coming apart at the seams, and many expected Lothíriel might never leave Dol Amroth. Her mother's approval was permanently out of reach, and there was a war brewing that the people whispered they could not win. Of course, Ivriniel tried whatever she could regardless: it would neither do to give up hope nor to let Lothíriel get away with indolence. The girl's impertinent ways would have driven anyone to frustration; still, Ivriniel often rued those early years, when she tried every tactic of coercion and manipulation to get Lothíriel to sit down and attend to her lessons.

"Your mother will read to you as soon as you finish your letters, dear," said Ivriniel, crossing her fingers that she could prevail upon her sister to sit with her daughter at least for a little while later. And: "You will see her at dinner, Lothíriel. She'll be very proud of you for solving these sums." It worked for a while.

But Mírdis never remembered to read to her daughter and on most days did not bother to show up for dinner, and so after a while, her niece had just raised one precocious eyebrow at the false promises, pushed away the slate and ran off to play.

Ivriniel supposed her brother tried his best. These were dark times, and Imrahil was often needed in the field or at one of the coastal estates. He still managed to be closely involved in his sons' education, but was glad to leave Lothíriel's in her mother's hands (and thus effectively hers). He loved his daughter; there was no doubt about that, perhaps all the more for what she represented to him. Lothíriel, so hale, so whole, scaling the cliffs in pursuit of her brother, rushing through the palace in pursuit of a cat, seemed as unlike his melancholy wife and his lost melancholy sister as could be, the living promise of a new age. He did not see the frustration behind her wild ways, the brittleness of her bravura. He knew she could be contrary and disobedient, but to him they were signs of her strong spirit, a spirit that just needed harnessing so it could be put to good use. He listened to her complaints about her curriculum, about etiquette and ceremony with indulgence, often preferring to reason rather than lay down the law (Ivriniel always knew he would regret that down the line).

Mírdis, meanwhile, was fading further, in her own way. She was older now, but no less lovely, and to some men, the combination of her beauty and her pensive demeanour was magnetic. She had had admirers in the past – Dol Amroth as the site for the academy of the Swan Knights was overflowing with eager and concupiscent boys and there were always some who struggled with the discipline and sobriety of their education – and in her mildness she had at times been less discouraging than would have been wise. But this time it was different. His name was Camau, an ambassador and merchant from Umbar. He was young, handsome, bold, and he was there while Imrahil, by then the ruling Prince of Dol Amroth in all but name, was not. He would come for some imagined or inconsequential business with her, and would then spend hours in the Prince's garden whispering to Mírdis, telling her tales, laughing with her, flattering her… Mírdis insisted it was friendship all the while, but the servants talked, and then the esquires, and the people in the town. It had gone too far at this point and no good options were left to Imrahil: if he did nothing, he would seem weak; if he interfered, he would give credence to the gossip. In the end, he decided all trade business would be conducted from Bar Dúven instead, and Dol Amroth grew quieter and more isolated still. Mírdis never protested. She just sat on the shore, staring into the sun, the waves lapping at her feet.

In the summer of 3008, Imrahil and Mírdis travelled south for a council, a final attempt to negotiate a truce with Umbar, so the coastal lords could focus on the threat from the east. She had begged him to come; she often begged now. Camau was there, and after a day of covert glances and intense stares, the situation escalated. He came to Mírdis in the gardens and tried to force himself on her, but a guard had been watching. Camau was judged and condemned, and any chance of a truce was lost. In Umbar a different version of the story soon gained traction, and the rumours reached Gondor in due course. Despite her gentle nature, Mírdis was not popular: she was too solitary and too inattentive to have made many friends, and after that wagging tongues would not stay silent: they called her romantic, wanton and worse. She never left Dol Amroth again.

Ivriniel never knew how much Lothíriel heard of these events. She had been such a child then, so young to understand such grave matters. No one discussed it with her, and Lothíriel never asked any questions herself. Yet Ivriniel suspected Lothíriel knew much more than she let on, all locked away in that odd mind of hers. She was seven now, and expected to begin to learn how to manage a household, to acquaint herself with domestic tasks and the basics of etiquette. It was as uphill a battle as arithmetic and writing had been.

"I don't know why I need to learn all this," said Lothíriel, seething because Amrothos had just pronounced himself unsatisfied with the way she had mended his shirts and told her she had better fix it before she came out to play with them. (The boy was going through a hard time – too young to ride to war as his brothers did even though he could best both of them at swordplay - and his taunting of his little sister had taken on a crueler edge because of it. Still, Ivriniel was tired of Lothíriel's sloppy work and had decided to put force behind her nephew's gleeful edict.) "When I grow up, I'll just be beautiful, like mother, and no one will make me do anything at all."

The pronouncement had enraged Ivriniel. The thought of her niece in the sort of unequal marriage her brother and sister had got themselves tangled up in was unbearable: Imrahil loved his wife, but he could not respect her and it had cost them both. "You won't be," she had answered coolly. "With your features and figure you may hope to tolerable at best. Now sit down and do your work." (She had rather a lot to feel guilty about).

Another year passed, then two. Imrahil was needed ever more to defend Gondor against Umbar and Harad. The castle was often empty, and Mírdis got into a habit of taking long walks on the beach, until one day she did not return. Ivriniel, well-acquainted with her sister's habits, did not suspect anything was amiss until Mírdis failed to show for the evening meal. She asked around but none of the servants knew her whereabouts or had seen her since the day before. Greatly worried now, Ivriniel sent out search parties, but Mírdis was never found. Most believed the Princess had been caught in one of the treacherous riptides, as the summer had been warm and she was known to indulge in early morning swims, but there were other, darker rumours that seemed to gather strength from the rising Shadow in the east. It was the year 3010, mere months after Imrahil had succeeded his father as Prince of Dol Amroth, and Lothíriel had been nine years old, nimble as a reed, with her mother's small build, her father's dry humour and a fire that was all her own.

When Ivriniel had at last sat her niece down and told her with a heavy heart that now the traditional hundred days of waiting had gone by, there would be rites of mourning for her mother, Lothíriel had shrugged, said "very well" without interest and ran off to play with her friends; stable lads and scullions and young apprentices. Ivriniel had observed her at the memorial, certain that the grief would hit her sooner or later and determined to be there for her, no matter how recalcitrant she could be, but it had not happened then, nor in any of the years thereafter. Although her high spirits and tomfoolery frequently got her into trouble, Lothíriel grew up without major incidents, and as she aged managed to acquire a smattering of graces and courtly manners in spite of herself. She liked to laugh and sing and play, excelled in her dancing and riding lessons, scamped everything else and never shed a tear for her mother.

A/N When I wrote a first version of this prologue in 2015, back when I was still building the major strands of the narrative, I quickly realised it would be out of place and out of tone at the beginning of the story. I briefly considered it for the start of "None of the Usual Inducements", but then decided that it rightfully belonged to "Lothíriel". So here we are at last. :-)

For those who have been waiting: I am sorry this took a while and I am sorry I have not yet responded to everyone's reviews on "None of the Usual Inducements". You all made me very happy. It seemed that many of you were in favour of seeing the first two chapters of "Lothíriel" sooner rather than later. I promise chapter one will follow very soon, in the next few days.

At the start of "First Impressions" I signalled that this story would be a little AU, because this Lothíriel is two years younger than her birth year in the appendices would suggest. My in-story explanation for this has always been that a scribe at some point mistakenly recorded the birth year of Imrahil and Mírdis's first unnamed daughter in the annals, and that is how 2099 crept into the genealogies of the House of Dol Amroth. Of course I could not mention that before without giving away this plot point.

Babies in fact cannot strangle themselves with the umbilical cord, but in the past, when infants often died or struggled during childbirth without us able to understand it, people believed that they could. It is still a common misconception.