[ In the weeks that passed since Éowyn and Daario had returned to Edoras - both injured but whole; and both irrevocably changed by the full events of that night and following morning; he's spent the majority of his time burying his focus into the various tasks required of him to prove that he would be worthy of joining the ranks of the other riders of the Mark. Granted, his successful rescue of Éowyn did about half of the work for him, considering their gratitude; but that didn't mean he did not also have to prove his worth as a fighter and a skilled rider.
It was a task swiftly accomplished, given his lifetime of experience when it came to fighting and survival. And soon the days passed by with him being given different duties; joining the rest of the soldiers on their patrols, slaying parties of Orcs that wandered too close to their territories.
It was good, exhausting work; enough to occupy his mind and his restless body during the hours when the sun was in the sky; after nightfall however, was another story entirely. Plagued by dreams of their stolen moment together, Daario sometimes got very little sleep - if any at all. At night, there was nothing to distract himself from the memory of her - her body, the intensity of her kiss, the sounds she made when he'd managed to coax out her pleasure; and her lips against his skin - her touch invaded his thoughts as if she'd placed a spell on him. Though he knew he hadn't.
He was just a man who wanted what he couldn't have. And even as the ache for her seemed to grow in intensity every day that passed; he could never bring himself to consider leaving. It wasn't in his nature - stubborn as he was.
The few interactions they did have were polite, civil; and completely lacking in anything of substance. His gaze followed her when he knew no one else would see him looking; but as far as he could tell, she'd been successful in shutting him out.
After a day spent helping train a new horse for the rigors of battle, Daario leads the mare back toward the stables; feeling the ache in his muscles and focusing on that - it was far more preferable than the ever present ache in his heart; one for which he had no solution, and there could be no comfort to be given. He stops somewhat abruptly at the entrance of the stables, catching sight of Éowyn tending to one of the horses. ]
I didn't expect you'd be here at this hour.
[ It's all he can manage, though the words feel like they hold a far greater weight; just based on the tone he speaks with - surprise, softness, and the yearning that is echoed in his gaze. He leads his his into it's stable and closes the gate; taking a few steps toward Éowyn. He leaves a bit of a distance between them initially; unaware of how welcome she will find his presence at the moment. ]
[There is always work to be done. That is the saving grace of being the lady of a high court: there is always more to be done, always servants to be overseen and tasks to be managed, wounds to bind and strategies to consider, whispers in the King's ears to be addressed and avoided, and if at any point that work should run dry, well, it has become all the more clear since her attack that she must train, that she must keep the blades sharpened and recover the strength lost to her own injuries. There is always work to be done, and she retreats into it, as she has done before: distracts herself with duty, and tries to exhaust herself, to shorten the dark watches of the night.]
[But the nights do come, and all that she had feared with them: for as lonely as she had been before, it is nothing to how she feels now, and she has wept more than once. She wept when she scrubbed the stain out of her skirt the day after their tryst, for one; and, weeping, determined that she would bear it the only way she could, with the cold armour of noble dignity.]
[So that is what she has done. She has avoided him, wherever she can: has made herself scarce or busied herself with other work when she sees him, has built up her armour into a fortress, not meeting his eyes lest she should remember the longing she saw in them, and answer it with her own. She does not trust herself in his presence, remembering all too well the warmth of his arms around her and the temptation to seek that embrace out again - and so she does not allow herself the chance for a second weakness, does not ever allow herself to forget that they are watched. She ensures that they are watched. It hurts, an ache which breaks through the numbness she had constructed for herself, but it is better to be safe than to risk the kingdom to the foolishness of her heart.]
[But the memory has not faded, and nor has the temptation, and when she hears his voice behind her, she stiffens, her hands stilling where they work the brush against her mount's sweat-dark flank.]
[It is several seconds before she turns, slowly, biting down on the inside of her cheek. The urge to step towards him, to touch him, is almost unbearable. The urge to bolt is almost as strong. She does neither, but nor does she withdraw: clearing her throat, she manages to find her voice.]
I went for a ride to clear my head.
[Her eyes are drawn to his, which already feels dangerous, somehow. There is too much of a connection even in that. And they are alone here, as far as she can tell, with only the horses to see what passes between them, and there are so many things that could pass between them, if only...]
[ This is the first time they've been alone together in weeks. And it's felt like much longer than that. Daario has never been a man of great or noble restraint; and that is evidenced by the way he takes a few steps closer to her almost the moment her eyes meet his. But he stops himself, one hand making a fist, blunt fingernails curling into his palm sharply enough to distract him - to remind him to stay where he is. To not take her into his arms. That minor bit of pain is nothing compared to the pain he feels in having to keep this distance from her.
It's a physical pain, like his nerves are frayed from the effort of it - of holding back all these weeks; all the things he's wanted to say to her; the times he's nearly gone to seek her out, the thoughts of slipping quietly into her chambers after night has fallen - he knows how to do so without being seen. But he won't. After the way things had ended between them the last time they were alone together; he doesn't think she'd want that. And there was always the risk involved, yes, but Daario's entire life had been filled with risk - he'd learned to navigate it with relative adeptness; and it was because of that that he wasn't deterred when he should be, by the risk being with her presented.
There are a variety of responses he could give when she speaks. Ultimately, he goes with the one that might keep her here a moment more - prevent her from immediately fleeing his presence. ]
Why didn't it work?
[ He asks softly. If riding could clear his head, that's all he would be doing; from sun up to sun down. That's what he did most days and still it did little to keep this thoughts from constantly straying to her. It would be easier, he knows; if he didn't see her each day at a distance. But the thought of leaving and never seeing her again was more unbearable. Either way, he couldn't have her. At least if he remained, he could see that she was alright. Protect her at a distance, should the need ever arise.
He saw the way Wormtongue looked at her. Knew the King's health was failing rapidly each day. There were many problems which needed solving and they should not all fall to her. If she would let him help, he would in a heart beat.
But perhaps after their tryst, she would not allow herself to even confide in him; to consider him a friend - someone who had her back, at the very least; who would support her with the burdens she carried. Perhaps he'd ruined all of that the moment he'd kissed her, pulled her into his lap; gave into the desire to be with her in whatever way he could. ]
[She is quiet for a long moment, trying to find an answer. There is nothing that feels both truthful and safe to say: it would be unfair to them both to say that her loneliness is keener for his presence, that she can find no solace in solitude any more, that when riding she found her mind too easily turning to escape. At length, she sighs, and elects for truth over safety.]
Because I have returned to find my troubles waiting, and my longing has come to stand before me.
[Already, the armour is cracked: there is no distance in her tone, and there is an honesty in the emotion of it, in the way her eyes linger on him. It would be wisest to send him away, or to leave herself; to spare them both this dangerous closeness, and the cutting ache of self-restraint. It would be easiest to give in, to close the few paces still between them, fling her arms around him and give up all care for wisdom. She can bear to do neither, and so she stays where she is, the brush in her hand, her chest tight and her breathing a little too shallow, until her horse snorts and sticks his head against her ear, making her jump.]
[Her cheeks flushed, she clears her throat, grabbing the stallion's bridle and turning his head away.]
Some things are not so readily dispelled, I suppose.
[ When she speaks of longing he nearly heaves a great sigh, both relief and frustration combined. He doesn't, however; but he does drop his gaze for a moment with a breath; as if he was about to say something but decided against it. At least she's looking at him now similar to how she did that night - without the solid steel walls up, her gaze more open than he's seen in weeks. The sight of which doesn't help to strengthen his resolve to remain where he is, of course.
When her horse causes her to start, it jolts him out of that as well; at least a little. But then the flush of her cheek draws his gaze; and that gaze wanders the contours of her face - remembering how it had felt beneath his touch. And then, more dangerously; his eyes are inevitably drawn to her mouth - and with that comes the memory of her lips, warm and bruising against his during that first kiss.
He doesn't like to think about their last kiss, the one that had felt final; a goodbye he still refused to accept. ]
I suffer that same longing.
[ He admits without guarding the way his gaze takes her in, the raw emotion visible across his features as he takes a step closer to her. ]
You have avoided me successfully these past few weeks. You are much better at this than I am.
[ The words are absent of the teasing humor his tone usually takes on. There are dark circles beneath his eyes; and instead of the easy smile he typically wears; he looks tired, worn. ]
Would it do any good to tell you how often I think of you? How much I want to take you in my arms right now; the pain it causes me to refrain from doing so?
Would it do any good? To know that you suffer for my sake, that you feel it as keenly as I do, that if I allowed it, you would have me in a moment, and all that it would cost would be everything?
[Her laugh is low and bitter, and she shakes her head, but her eyes return to his and she cannot turn her gaze away. He looks so worn and weary, and it aches in her chest, a feeling that is guilt as much as sorrow. It is bad enough to think of how this pains her, but her pain is her own to bear: to know for certain that it wounds him, too, is a far deeper cut.]
No. No, it would do no good.
[Her eyes dart past him, to the door, and then to and fro, as though to check one more time that they are alone. Then, with a speed that aims to outpace doubt, she reaches out to grab his sleeve, drawing him towards her mount's stall. It will not make their conversation entirely private, but it may go some way towards it. (And that thought, predictably, comes with a thrill of both excitement and dread at what privacy could portend - but she does it anyway, because in the moment, she cannot help herself)]
[Pulling the stable door closed behind them, she lets go of his wrist and turns to face him, her expression no longer guarded, mirroring his own. Her voice is low and serious, but comes in a rush nonetheless, the words falling over one another in their haste to be spoken.]
I am not better at this than you. I only know more keenly what might be lost, by failing. And yet I have thought of you endlessly, and each time your name has been raised, it has struck me to the core, and each time I have seen you, I have wanted you nearer, and I have wept for it, and I have not slept for want of you, and it is driving me mad. I have never felt loneliness so keenly, and I had resigned myself to loneliness before you came, I have borne it since my brother rode out to fight, but I cannot bear this.
I cannot bear this, Daario. [Her eyes search his face. She has stepped away from him, her hand no longer at his arm, and yet she cannot seem to draw back more than a little way, as though there is something still binding her, drawing her in. There is a lump in her throat, treasonous and unwanted.] To have you is to risk your life, and my lord's safety, and all the kingdom, and all that I love. To turn from you should be so simple a thing, and yet...
[She lets out a long, shuddering breath and lets her hands fall to her sides.]
Do not tell me of the pain it causes you. I am no less wounded. It serves no end to dwell on pain, unless we can answer it.
[ The words rush out on a slightly shaky breath. It's the most honest thing he'd said in weeks. To everyone else he's interacted with, he's been a shell of himself; performing, essentially, the role of the man he was before all of this began - lively, charming, bold, capable. He's kept up enough of the facade for others not to catch on, and he does so out of necessity. It would do no good for anyone to notice his pining, his ache.
Certainly not under the ever watchful gaze of Wormtongue; who, although Daario has spent no further time interacting with Éowyn since that night after their ride; still scrutinizes his every step, listening in to his conversations when he thinks Daario is unaware. But he's always aware; because he has to be.
And she's right, to be with him is to risk everything she has. The risk to himself, his own life; means less because of how familiar risk is to someone like Daario. He can navigate it well enough, as evidenced by the past few weeks; agonizing as they have been. He knows that what he wants from her is not something she can give; and yet he wants it still.
It brings him some comfort in the knowledge that she is no less affected by this than he. That she aches as he does. Though it doesn't solve anything. ]
I don't know. [ He answers truthfully, uselessly; alone in the stall with her he's far too distracted by her proximity to come up with any logical solutions; if any actually even exist. All he knows is that when her hand drops from his arm, he wants it back; wants her touch so desperately that he acts purely from that desire - disregarding every risk and every warning and every reason why he should not do so, he steps closer to her and lifts his hand to frame her face. He swallows against the thickness building in his throat, his gaze raw and pleading. ]
I don't know how to be near you without touching you. [ His fingertips brush down along her cheekbones to her jaw, an unsteady sigh leaving his chest; his voice coming out in a quiet sort of rasp. ] I'm not strong enough. [ His gaze darkens as he shifts closer to her. ] It isn't fair of me to ask it of you, but you have to leave. You have to leave me here, or I will not be able to stop.
[Her heart skips in its rhythm, stutters a moment before setting up a faster tattoo. His hand is hot and rough against her cheek, and it feels to her that it burns like a brand, that its heat passes over into her and sets her cheek aflame. Her eyes meet his, and she could not help it if she wanted to - no more than she can help the answering desire in her own look.]
[It seems to her that she has forgotten how to breathe. Standing so close, he seems to take on a strange power, an intensity of presence, as though he is somehow the only real thing in the world. This is exactly what she has been striving to avoid, what she should not allow. At the same time, it is all she has wanted for weeks: his touch, his closeness, the look in his eyes that says she need not be alone.]
[Her hand comes up to cover his, and it trembles a little. Her voice is barely a whisper when she echoes his words.]
I am not strong enough.
[And she gives in to that pull, unable to prevent herself: she moves closer, almost without knowing it, until they are nearly chest-to-chest, until she can feel his breath unsteady against her cheek. Shame washes over her, but it is not nearly as strong as that magnetic draw of his touch.]
Who knows you are here?
aphro thread for perforo - CW: dubcon/noncon, sexual assault and harassment
If the tides were fairer, she would have left King's Landing - left Westeros - by now. It is clear, after all, that all the renown her deeds have won mean nothing in the eyes of these men; it is clear that they will heed no political discussion that comes from the mouth of a maid, even the King's sister; it is clear that, while her duty is by no means discharged, it is a futile errand that she has come here on.
Futile, and dangerous. Not in the way that she had expected and half-hoped for: the distance, the threats of the crossing, the knives in the dark. All these things, she was prepared for, and knew herself capable of facing.
She was not prepared for a nobleman of the court - a Kingsguard, no less - to throw propriety and politics to the wind, and accost her in the stairwell, to pin her against the wall with his full bulk and do his level best to take her with or without her consent. Even Gríma Wormtongue was never a fraction so outrageous in his advances.
Ser Jaime, it seems, was not prepared for a woman who, weak shield-arm or no, has trained herself rigorously in combat as long as she has been able, and who has stared evil in the eye without flinching. A woman who was prepared, in the breach, to knee him in the exposed crotch, almost break his nose, and tell him with a knife to his throat and steel in her eyes, that if he laid hands on her again, she would castrate him before she killed him, and face the consequences if she must. He was not prepared for a daughter of Eorl, and she escaped that night with her honour and her maidenhead intact - but the experience has shaken her to her core, and she has slept every night since with her door locked and barred, two of her own men at watch outside. Not that she has told them why, of course. She is too proud to admit to such a thing, much less to how it has awakened her to a depth of fear and anger she did not know she could still feel.
No; she will not remain in this place a moment longer than she must. As soon as the tides are favourable, and the summer storms passed, she will do what she has never done in her life before: she will admit defeat, and turn away, and set sail for home.
But for now, she is here, and what can she do but play her role? She wears her sword openly, now, hanging at the hip of her fine embroidered gowns: it is clear that they will not respect her regardless, so she may as well be disrespected with a weapon close to hand. Beyond that, she is a model of restraint and cold dignity, speaking softly and holding herself tall, maintaining at all times the etiquette that her position demands. She does not even look at Ser Jaime on the unfortunate occasions when she must be in a room with him - although she keeps him in her periphery, the way a horse that has been bitten may watch a rabid dog, ready to kick or bite at a threatening move. She will not give him the satisfaction of her attention, and she will not let him know that he has hurt her. She is ice and steel and stone, as she learned to be in those dark times when Gríma held sway. There is no warmth in her - but there is nothing to be impeached in her behaviour, either.
And so she makes her way, and will not give ground to the feelings that threaten to make themselves known, the anger and fear and grief, to have come through so much and still find herself back where she began, a maiden adrift in a world of men, biting her tongue and holding her peace and suffering the indignities of an inescapable situation. At least this one, she thinks, has an end. The tides will change, and she will be gone.
The tides have not changed yet.
She is sitting at the high table, a polite smile carved onto her marble countenance, listening to the revelry without being any part of it, when she feels something else change. At first, she thinks it is only the wine (of which, it must be said, she has drunk more than she is accustomed to, in the days since the encounter in the stairwell): that she has begun to grow drunk already. There is a strange light-headedness that seems to have come upon her, and a heat in her belly and all through her, as though the hall is suddenly much warmer than it was a few moments ago. Something prickles at the back of her neck, where her hair is swept up into a Westerosi style; a shiver, like unseen fingers caressing her spine. It is not unpleasant.
Éowyn shifts a little in her seat, clearing her throat, and resolves to drink no more tonight, unless it is soundly watered. She has overindulged, that is all: but it will pass soon enough.
It does not. Not the heat - which she now realises is not centred in her belly at all, but somewhat lower - and not the sense of drunkenness, and not the growing feeling that her dress is too tight and restricting all of a sudden, and not the breathlessness that seems to have overtaken her. Her skin prickles, absurdly sensitive; she is unpleasantly aware of the colour that must have come to her cheeks.
It is drink, she reasserts to herself; it is stronger wine than Rohan's, and she is drunk, but she is still herself, and she can carry herself through this. It is, if she is entirely honest, not the first time she has felt this kind of inappropriate desire - even if it is by far the strongest. She managed, did she not, to keep herself from throwing herself wholesale at Aragorn, even when she might have done. She wonders, with aching clarity, whether he would have held true to his elf-maiden if, instead of begging him to let her fight and die with him, Éowyn had instead dropped to her knees and shown him what else a shieldmaiden could offer to her lord. Or climbed into his lap, mounted him, and ridden him to an ecstasy that...
"My lady?"
There is a hand on her arm, and the touch is almost unbearable. She realises, then, that she is holding her goblet so tightly that it shakes; that she has spilt her wine; and that people are staring at her - the cold, unapproachable maiden, flushed and fidgeting, so tense now that she has begun to tremble.
She looks up at the man whose hand is on her arm - a man of Rohan, a minor lord, married and well thirty years her senior - and is suddenly gripped with the question of what his cock looks like, and whether that hand on her arm might not be put to better use. It is at that moment, finding herself giving real thought to the question of whether he fucks his wife gently or with the boldness of a warrior, that Éowyn realises that she cannot stay here.
She stammers out something - she scarcely knows what, or even whether she is speaking to him in Westron or Rohirric - about how she has been struck with a megrim. No, no, she does not need a healer. She does not need an escort. She needs to go to her room, and rest. Alone, she tells him, and then again: alone.
Under the circumstances, not that it is much comfort, she is holding herself together admirably. She is largely steady as she rises, despite the aching awareness of every movement of her thighs. She keeps her back straight and her hands at her sides, and she settles her goblet down on the table, and reassures her retinue that she has no need of them, and with all the dignity that her considerable willpower can summon, she flees.
It is a little better in the corridors, though not much. The air is cooler, and there is less noise, and, most of all, there are fewer people. Fewer women with their breasts heaving beneath their gowns, begging to be cupped and kissed and sucked. Fewer men laughing with mouths ripe for the kissing, and cocks that she cannot help but imagine hardening for her. Fewer eyes, watching her shame, making her wonder whether their enjoyment of it would be solely political.
...She is lying to herself. It is no better. She lets out a low, stifled moan, and lengthens her pace, almost running now. She cannot think far ahead, but far enough to know that there is only one clear route forwards through whatever madness, whatever enchantment, whatever curse has gripped her. She must be alone, yes, but not to rest: she must exorcise this desire the way she has exorcised lesser shadows of it in the past. Alone.
When she at last reaches her room, she is beyond thought. The ache in her loins is maddening, a hunger so great it has become pain. Her heart hammers in her chest, against her ruined ribs. The fine linen of her shift feels like coarse sandpaper against nipples that have grown hard and swollen, aching to be touched. Desire is a beast, coiling in her gut, clawing at her until she can hardly breathe.
There is no question of finding her keys. It is all she can do to close the door behind her, slamming it shut and at last releasing the tension that has kept her somewhat straight-backed and dignified. Panting, she stumbles towards the bed, her hand already moving between her legs, grinding clumsily through the layers of skirts and shift. The sharp, aching pleasure of that touch makes her stagger, crying out, catching herself against the bedpost; and then she is tearing at her skirts as well as her weak left hand will allow, yanking at the too-thick fabric in frenzied desperation, trying clumsily to pull her gown up high enough to get her hand properly underneath; and, falling forward again until she is almost doubled over against the support of the bedframe, she thrusts her hand up against the wet, clinging linen of her ruined shift, letting out an obscene moan that she no longer has it in her to stifle, and begins to rut against the unnatural, unbearable need that has her straining her damaged arm, rocking between the hand between her thighs and the steadying grip she has on the bedframe, and--
And she hears the door click shut behind her.
She is not, it seems, entirely lost. She has strength enough, pride enough, even now to stop her vain, frantic ministrations; to stagger upright and turn, face aflame and eyes gleaming with tears of sheer frustration and want, to face the man who, she realises with a sick lurch when she sees the gleam of gold, is the architect of all her suffering.
Her hand is damp with her own arousal. Her skirts are no longer pulled up to her waist, but neither are they in any kind of array. She is panting, her grey eyes almost black with wild lust, the reek of sex thoroughly clear in the air. Still, unsteady as she is, she manages to get her hand to her sword, manages to face him down - even as she must lean against the bedpost to keep her knees from buckling.
"You." She spits it: lust, it seems, does not preclude venom. At the same time, unwelcome thoughts crowd her mind. His is the first man's cock she has seen, actually seen, harden for her; his mouth the first that has found hers in passion, outside of dreams. She wonders what he would have done, if she had not been stronger than he expected: for the first time, there is more to the thought than horror. She wonders what he tastes like. She feels the urge to vomit, hating herself for the thoughts that assail her, hating herself more for their allure. Her hand, unsteady as it is, tightens on the hilt of her sword. Her voice, unsteady as it is, is not an invitation. "What have you done to me?"
She will be well beyond love, the old man had laughed. She will forswear love for the rest of her days if she can spend one hour with you. The potion glittered like a jewel when held up to the light - a lovely, pretty poison. A temptation; a confection. A killer of love, indeed. Still, Jaime had hesitated.
One hour? he'd pressed, setting the concoction aside, his interest and his gold both fading before the potion-maker's eyes. And who's to say she won't throw herself at the first lucky guard she encounters? Some thankless fool enjoys the benefits of my gold before I have a chance to catch her. A worry he does not feel, truthfully - certainly he would not allow a hapless guard to intervene with his designs. It is only that he wants very much to hear what comes next, and the old man does not hesitate to reassure him.
Oh, no, my lord. It is you she must have. There can be no words to describe it. These, of course, were words belonging to a talentless salesman, for who would make no effort to describe the merits of his product? But the assurance came with a randy grin, and the potion had in fact been brewed with one of Jaime's own golden hairs, though whether that was only a bit of dramatic flair, he couldn't say. Perhaps he enjoyed the fact that no words could convey the power of what his gold had bought. Perhaps there was no greater selling point than that truth he already knew, and had known all his life: it could only be him. In this discreet undertaking, as in all things, he was peerless. He left with the potion in hand, caring not at all what it had cost him.
An even easier task it was to secure a servant to deliver the prepared drink to the fair lady of Rohan on the night of the feast. She would not know that it had come not from the kitchens, but from the golden lion's own hand. Having evaded him once before, she must be arrogant enough to believe that she need not worry about evading him again. She had pressed her blade to his throat, had driven her knee into his groin, and no doubt heralded her escape as a victory. He would not be daft enough to accost her again, knowing she would open his throat should they meet a second time in darkness. A grim and haughty woman, certain that her dignity and her station would protect her. Or her guards, if nothing else. Her gods, perhaps, if she held any.
Their encounter had left no such impression upon him. He had felt the cold bite of her blade, yes, and her abrupt knee had lent him a lasting bruise, but he had not retreated in fear or shame. He had not retreated at all, by his own estimation: he had not landed his first strike, but he would land his second. She had managed a perry, however unexpected, but the battle was not done.
Almost as startling as the confrontation itself was the unbecoming fact that there had been a misunderstanding at all. What reason had she to refuse him? She knew his name, his rank, and his reputation. It did not stand to reason that she might prefer another, or would rather lead her life with no attentions at all. And even if she did - one or the other, the finer points of her refusal did not interest him - she would not say no. She could not. He had not asked, and did not mean to. Never in the histories did a lion ask. They would not start now.
Yes, it is true: he had stood dumb and blinking, hot blood thrumming blind and lost through him as she fled, but he had not retreated. He had simply designed a new approach.
And he had been impatient in its making, for it was not in his nature to wait. Not for the honing of his steel, not for the readying of his horse, not for the slaking of his thirst or the satisfying of his hunger. The world as he had always known it bent to his whim. It bent willingly for the most part, and what did not bend was broken. A path could always be hacked through unyielding bramble. A coward could always be intimidated. Pleasure could always be bought.
He does not arrive at the feast gloating that his victory has been paid for, however. There is little glory in a fistful of gold. Blood is sweeter, and has always promised a more thrilling rush. He might have chosen to toss his gold at two eager grunts to hold the unflinching lady down, if he did not care to hunt. He could have had what he wanted days ago, and at a much cheaper price, and been done with it. One need only glance at the golden knight's predatory green eyes, however, to know that it is the hunt he craves. So he had put his gold to better use, so that he would not be denied the satisfaction of watching his prey stagger before him, of watching the shadow of defeat - his own looming shadow - fall across her. Only now, thanks to what had been poured into her dark wine, she would meet his eyes with an unspeakable plea in her own.
It seems at first that the evening is unfurling according to his personal fantasy: the obedient servant delivers the proud goblet, and the lady drinks. He watches with hawkish focus for a moment, aware that maybe the her woman's sensibilities will alert her to something strange about the drink. When the wine touches her lips, Jaime's careless trust in the codger who brewed his potion is revoked, and it seems likely that their guest will taste his foul intentions in the wine. It is a fleeting hesitation, and he is braced by it only for a moment, maybe two - and she sets the goblet down. She does not grimace or cry out that she has been poisoned. She takes another polite sip. The thrill rises once more.
Do hours pass before that sweet elixir overtakes her? It seems so, but so too does the sun seem to take days to arc across the sky when he is impatient for the next day to come. But it takes her after all, at last - she rises, she is trembling, she is unsteady. She is frightened, though she disguises it well. She is anxious to depart this warm, bustling, raucous place. She senses now that something is wrong, and finds herself in the same moment unprepared to face it. The sight of the serene, collected woman so near to shambles makes Jaime's blood run hot and hard. He falls into step behind her, prowling, dappled by shadows that reach for and fall from him like asking hands.
To her borrowed rooms she goes, as she must, and the golden kingsguard is wearing an easy smile as he arrives behind her. He pauses just outside the door, relishing how fiercely she has slammed it, and savors the first taste of his victory: a helpless cry from within. She is hoping for some swift, sad release, surely; no, she will be praying for it by this point, if she has the gods to listen. He waits a second longer, a rare instance of self-imposed restraint, allowing her the briefest of privacies, and then he invites himself in.
Ducking after her, softly closing the door behind him, he is greeted first by the shameless slap of sex. It is a scent, as rich to him as the scent of any meat to a hungry hound, and it is the electric vibration of the air. It is the tension he breaks when he steps into the room, and it is the laughable sight of his prim and noble guest with her skirts hiked up as if he'd stumbled upon an artless tryst, as if he'd scared away her fumbling lover. But there is, as he delights in knowing, no lover - it is only the proud lady and her hand, and her tearful eyes, and that ineffectual hand nobly finding her sword. He does laugh at the sight of her, a sound that is cheerful and light above her humiliation.
You, she says, and that word is finer than a hand upon the skin, because now she knows it, too. Now she knows that it can only be him - that it could only ever be him. Is she looking upon him, as the old man said she would, with a dawning, keening horror? She knows what must be done - or, at the very least, her sodden cunt knows it - and if that pretty potion has done its work, there is nothing she will not give to see it done. What have you done to me? He turns the words over in his head, tasting the pearls of desperation in her voice, leisurely advancing into the room, not needing to spend any more than he already has. And it is the alchemist's promise that answers her, though it need not be spoken: There can be no words to describe it.
He laughs again, charmed, blithely ignoring the sword she means to grasp. Instead, he lifts his own hand to her cheek, brushing aside a wayward lock of hair, fingers fanning like a lover's over her bright cheek. His kindly bearing is betrayed by the venom he murmurs back in turn, bringing his face close, smoothing over her threats and her hate.
"It's rather unseemly to leave your host's feast so early in the evening, my lady."
His touch is unbearable, a brand against her skin, his rough fingers gliding against the softness of her cheek. Her breath shudders, sobbing out of her, hatred and disgust warring with the unbearable compulsion to close the remaining space between them - to kiss him, to have his tongue thrust down her throat and his teeth bruising her lips, his hands roaming and carrying that heat with them, over throat and breast and belly and aching, hungry cunt.
It takes a conscious effort to rip her gaze away from his mouth, and more effort still to meet his eyes. Her sword is half-drawn, now, steel bared and shining in the candlelight; she grips it so tightly that her knuckles are white, as though it might serve as some talisman against him.
"I should have killed you when you first laid hands on me," she spits, her lip drawn back from her teeth. It is an animal look, a wild look; there is no dignity left in it, with tears in her eyes and sweat slicking her brow. But if she cannot fall back on dignity, then at least anger is something she knows. "Whatever enchantment you have put on me, whatever curse, you will pay for it, you cur. Now..."
Now leave. Take your hands off me and leave, ere I strike you down; I will not hesitate again. Except that she will hesitate, does hesitate. It is a wild, brutal thing, this need that twists and claws inside her. She can fight it only so far. She can fight it enough to summon indignation, to hurl invective at him, even to draw her blade. But to be left alone now, untouched, with the cold comfort of her own body... it would be more than she can bear.
Had she thought she was lonely, all those long nights in the shadows of Meduseld, weeping for any warmth and comfort? Had she thought that she wanted Aragorn, when she saw him, when she retreated into privacy after their meeting and dreamed of him pinning her down against the grass? Had she thought that she knew what desire was? None of it is even a shadow of what she feels now, battering against her like a mace-blow, and she can no more stand against it than against such an assault. To even be this close to someone is to be overtaken by the need; to feel the slightest brush of warmth is to imagine pouncing upon it, dragging out every ounce of pleasure until she is satiated; to look at Jaime's face is to imagine it contorting with effort and pleasure as he fucks her against every surface in this room.
A low, needy whimper escapes her, and she pulls back from him until the bedframe makes farther retreat impossible. The sword in her hand trembles noticeably, coming up between them (like his cock would, if you freed it, and would that not be a sight to see?) but not quite moving to drive him back. Her lips are parted, her chest heaving against the painfully heavy cloth that covers achingly hard nipples.
"Not you." To her disgust, it comes out nakedly pleading; and she knows, saying it, that it will delight him all the more; and she is filled with a hot, surging hate that does nothing but fuel that other, all-consuming heat. "Do not do this. Do not do this to me." Do everything to me. Take me every way, and turn me over and take me again, and do not hesitate. Another whimper, shuddering and low, at the thought. She cannot help her eyes from drifting downward, to see whether he is hard, to see what the shape of him is. She hates herself for her weakness, even more than she hates him. It takes all of her will not to drop her sword, spread her legs, and leap into his arms.
No surprises there. After the hammering she took at the melee, the real wonder is that she is still able to get up at all. She had been prepared for some injury - it is the nature of fighting, after all, even the toothless playfighting they practice here in King's Landing, and while she may be proud of her own prowess, she has enough sense to know that she is hardly the only warrior with any skill. Besides, it was the first taste of battle she has had since the Pelennor Field, and it is not as though her arm or her shoulder have ever fully healed. She was prepared to take some injury, particularly on her shield side, and to risk pain and embarrassment for the sake of feeling, for a moment, that she could act. Being in King's Landing, even with Elia's company, has begun to feel as stifling as Meduseld in the darkest days of the war; except that at least in Meduseld, people heard her when she spoke. She is weary to the bone of biting her tongue, trying to respond with grace and gentle politic to the indignities heaped on her. If it were not for the princess, she would have left with the last fair wind, and never looked back.
But she remains, and will remain a while yet; and so, yes, she had been prepared to risk Elia's displeasure and greater scorn from the people of King's Landing, as well as bruises and blood, for the sake of even a momentary catharsis.
She had not been prepared to fight a giant.
She held her own as long as she could, and far longer than many of the other competitors; and by the end, she had no longer been on the tourney field. The pain, the sinking hopelessness of defeat, was too familiar; for a time, she had lost all sense of where and when she was, found herself again standing before a nameless shadow, the last defence of a fallen King; she had not been playing any sort of game then, but fighting in deadly earnest, all other foes forgotten, staggering and swaying, and refusing to fall.
Except that she fell on the field before Minas Tirith, and she fell on the tourney field, too. There is only so much even the strongest-willed warrior can take, especially when her weakened shoulder was driven - far too easily - out of joint, her shield falling. At least she did not fully lose consciousness, was still helmed when she was carried from the field.
Now it is two days later, and she can remain out of sight no more. Her arm is once again in a sling, as it was following the battle; to her surprise and disgust, she has faced remarkably little questioning of the idea that she somehow fell hard enough to account for both that and the bruises littering her face and arms. (The rest of her body, too, of course - but only Elia has seen those. A blessing of keeping her own manner of dress, even if it is too warm for the weather, is that high collars and long sleeves cover a multitude of sins.)
She suspects that the lords of Westeros know better, and that they are well aware that she was beaten: further suspects that they are glad of it, for none of them have been all that subtle in their belief that she is too proud and too cold. But none of them even seem to have thought to question where she was beaten. It makes her wonder what would have happened, in the end, if she had unmasked herself at the tourney. It makes her angry.
At least anger is a feeling. These days, while Elia has thawed some of the ice in her, Éowyn so often feels numb. Pain is better; anger is better; even frustration is better than nothing at all. Perhaps that was part of it, too. Why she fought, and why she kept getting back up.
These are the thoughts that follow her out into the gardens, where the uncomfortably warm air is at least cooler and fresher than inside. Not for the first time, she wonders why she stays; she could leave with the next tide, back to her own home and her own people, away from stifling silences and warm air and cold stone. She could leave, and all she would leave behind would be...
She is not alone.
He is hard to miss, tall as he is; hard to forget, too, particularly with her arm still aching to remind her. Briefly, Éowyn considers turning and walking as fast as she can (which is not all that fast; she is quite stiff still) in the opposite direction, but her pride balks at that. Instead, she turns, and while the bruises on her face make it a little less convincing, offers him a coolly polite smile, as demure as a lady can be while sporting a black eye.
He stands at the garden's edge, shadowed from the harsh sun of King's Landing by one of the archways that cloisters the patch of greenery.
"You do."
The reply is flat and sure, underpinned by a blunt decisiveness that seems completely undented by the attempt to deflect. It's a simple statement of fact ... one that does carry a certain air of menace, but it's difficult to tell whether that aura is born of an attempt to sound threatening, or if it's a side-effect of the low, bassy growl of his voice and the impassive scowl he wears on his face.
It is less any menace in his voice that makes her hackles rise, and more the offhandedness with which he brushes past her comment - much as he brushed off her attacks, in fact. Menace would be preferable. She has always preferred hatred to disregard.
She tilts her chin up, drawing herself to her full height (or as near as the sling will allow, since she can hardly put her shoulders back as she would like), and fixes him with the full force of her stare.
"Yours is a loose view of knowing," she remarks, after a moment, her words very carefully clipped. She is not about to deny what he is implying: she will dissemble, where it is needed, but she will not outright lie about this. Least of all when to do so would be thoroughly futile. "We have not been introduced, then, let me say."
All the while, her eyes remain on him, challenging, scrutinising. Trying to read that stony, scornful look, and coming up short.
Perhaps she will be pleased when he concedes the point to her by way of a nod. Then again, perhaps not -- neither the venom in her retort nor the withering glare she's fixed him with provokes much of a response.
He takes a step forward, out of the shade and into the light.
"Aleifr," He puts a hand to his chest, offering a slight incline of his head, "son of Lord Mors Umber."
'Umber'. Perhaps she's heard the name, perhaps she hasn't. His House is prominent enough in the North, though little that occurs above the Neck is worth discussing by the views of the southron lords.
She has heard it, in passing - enough to know that he is far from home, if not quite so far as she is. Not enough to have much stronger association with the name than that.
He steps out of the shadow, and she looks up at him - farther up, in truth, than she is used to looking at anyone; this is the kind of craning she associates exclusively with dealing with men on horseback - with that same assessing, hostile stare. After a moment, though, she inclines her head a little in turn.
"Éowyn. Daughter of Éomund, who was Chief Marshal of the Mark." The use of surnames in these realms is another thing she still has difficulty adapting to; there are no such Houses in Rohan, after all. The nearest thing they have is kennings, and while she might have introduced herself as the Lady of the Shield-Arm once or twice when she first arrived, she has quickly decided that it isn't worth it. Unfortunately, that puts her in the position of having to decide, with each introduction, how much of her lineage to say aloud, when it is entirely unrecognised here.
This does not improve her mood.
She shakes her hair back from her face, wincing only a little at how it disturbs her swollen shoulder, and lets out a low sigh. She approached him, she reminds herself. Despite the impulse to bridle at his seeming scorn, it does her no good to be less than polite.
"...You fought well. Far better than I would have expected, in such an empty game."
She'll see a shift in his expression at last -- two, no less.
First, as she winces, his eyes flick down to her shoulder. There's a flicker of something there -- concern, he leaves unvoiced. Perhaps he wishes not to condescend, perhaps he suspects that it would not be warmly received. When she mentions the tourney itself ... his brow creases slightly, the growl in his voice deepens, the corner of his mouth curls in disdain.
"Empty contest or not, you don't fight by half."
Looks like he shares her contempt for tourneys and all their nonsensical pageantry and pointless bluster, though the outward show of that distaste smooths over quickly and his expression reverts to the stony countenance that seems to be his default.
"Though you clearly know that better than most of these southron knights."
His distaste, at least when it is directed at something other than her, has the unexpected effect of making her less ill-disposed to him - not only because she agrees with it, but because, for a moment, she sees emotion register on his face, and with that begins to realise that it is not scorn that was written on his features before, but nothing at all.
The realisation, along with his comment - compliment? - surprises a small huff of laughter out of her, dry and subdued.
"I was told that there were warriors in this realm. It is a welcome surprise to finally meet one."
[ The most mortifying thing of all is that, really and truthfully, he should have known better.
Chris was supposed to beam down, take a look around, and then beam back up again. The whole endeavor was really just a way to sate his curiosity instead of an actual data-gathering mission; if it were, more people than just him would have come. He had to argue against them coming, actually, had to convince Una and Spock both that no, he didn't need a security detail, and no, he didn't need anything more than a simple tricorder to pick up whatever information he could.
This world is pre-warp. He was only going to look around, it wasn't like he was going to make contact.
Except, obviously, he did. And while he was doing so, a growing cloud on the horizon started to creep across the sky, one he had more or less dismissed as unimportant, one that now blankets the heavens above him and, he assumes, is making it impossible for his hails to be heard by Enterprise.
Chris is, for all intents and purposes, stuck here.
A voice in the back of his head that sounds irritatingly like Una starts chiding him for breaking regs — he adores her, she's his best friend in the whole world, she's single-handedly saved his life more times than he could count and he'd gladly lay down both his life and his professional reputation for her, but she's so fucking annoying about the rules sometimes — that he does his best to ignore as he tries to figure out what the hell to do. Five attempts in a row to be heard do nothing, which means there's no point in trying any more. When this happened on Hetemit IX, he and Spock had to seek shelter so that they could survive the oncoming ion storm. The clouds above don't look that dangerous, but seeking shelter isn't a bad idea.
He could probably return to the village that Éowyn originally found him approaching, the one he bought their wine from, but something has him turning the other direction, facing down the plains where an outcrop stands proud, tiny little buildings dotting it and the land surrounding. He doesn't know, but he'd bet dollars to donuts that that's Edoras.
His new friend is the Lady of Edoras. She said so herself. Blithely walking into the lion's den isn't one of his better ideas, but it's the one place he knows he'll find at least some modicum of welcome.
Lacking any other ideas, he starts to walk. Maybe while he's en route, the clouds will part and he'll get beamed up. Until then, he might as well see what he can see. ]
[There is a storm coming. The sky is dark overhead, blotting out the sun, and the Golden Hall does not shine as it might, its thatch made dull in the overcast grey light. Even this close to the mountains, the weather does not usually change quite so fast. Something has changed, to bring this on.]
[Perhaps because of that, she cannot find it in herself to be altogether surprised when she is told there is a stranger approaching. Edoras is well-guarded, and she is well-informed; Háma trusts her more than he trusts most people, these days, and when he has doubts, he comes to the king's ward before the king. If she thinks about it, that is horrific. She tries not to think about it.]
[All of which to say, when Chris is met outside the city walls by an armoured spearman on horseback, it is not as hostile as it sounds. He is asked for his name and his business, but it is only his name that is needed for the soldier to nod satisfaction and lead him up through the back streets to the King's hall.]
[Éowyn is waiting for him outside, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, a bowl in her hand. Without further introduction, she holds it out to him: a hunk of bread, a handful of salt.]
Break the bread, dip it in the salt, and eat. And come inside, before the rain starts.
This is Háma, who keeps the doors. If you have any weapons, now would be the time to give them to him.
[It is very brisk, matter-of-fact, and it brooks no argument. If Chris is here, in the city, she is keen to seal his guest-right there as soon as possible; it is the best protection she has to offer.]
[ Having met both Éowyn and her horse, the rider with a spear in hand isn't altogether alarming; certainly Chris wouldn't want to instigate anything with him in particular, but he's not half-convinced he's going to get gored any second. (He might be about five percent convinced, but those are odds he's comfortable working with.)
Walking through the great wooden gates of the city, he can't help but look around curiously. It's astounding, the details he sees everywhere. Chris has visited dozens of new planets, made contact with just as many civilizations, each one unique and wondrous because of it. He can't help but feel that same effervescent excitement now, even with all the wary faces looking at him as he trudges along behind the rider who greeted him down below.
All in all, it doesn't take that long to get up to the main attraction, the building on the top of the hill that must be where the king lives and therefore, by extension, where Éowyn lives as well.
In fact, she's waiting for him at the top of a long flight of stairs. Chris is dimly grateful for the physical fitness requirements of serving in Starfleet and his almost religious dedication to keeping his bone and muscle density as stable as possible. It would be the height of embarrassment if he was huffing and puffing by the time he stood in front of her. As it is, he barely has a chance to say a word before she's speaking to him, holding out a bowl in which sits a piece of bread and some flaky salt.
He's doing as he's told before she even finishes speaking, though he can't help the way he watches her instead of the bread. She looks the same, which makes sense, considering he saw her just a few hours ago. But she also looks different. She's still as pretty as ever, but there's something harder about her face now, something distant and grim. It feels like some of the color has been leeched out of her, like he's looking at her through a pane of glass.
The bread is pretty good, actually, if quite a bit coarser than he's used to, and the salt has an almost herbaceous taste that has the chef in him perking up, wondering just where it's harvested and how that might affect the flavor. Obviously, that's a concern he immediately brushes away, because there's much more important things to focus on, things like Éowyn ordering he gives away his weapons.
He's not an idiot. He's well aware this is a ritual of some kind, probably one to establish that he's friend and not foe, that he'll be afforded some level of protection while he's here. He doubts the princess offers bread to just anyone that washes up on these rocky shores, so this is significant. As is the eye contact he makes after her instruction, Chris searching her face for a long moment before slowly reaching his hand towards his pocket. He has a phaser with him, tucked away because he had assumed he didn't need it. Chances are these people wouldn't recognize it as a weapon, probably wouldn't even know how to discharge it, but he can't forget that little girl in New Eden who, in her curiosity, had set off the detonate function when his back was turned talking to her village elders. He'd only barely had enough time to shove her away from the literal bomb in her hands and throw himself on top of it to stop the blast. He'd earned himself one hell of a dressing-down from Kahn and Burnham, and 24 hours in the med bay with Doctor Proctor and the osteo-regenerator for his trouble.
It's highly unlikely they have one of those here.
Thankfully, Starfleet actually learned a lesson from that whole fiasco — he conveniently left out the part where he broke General Order One in that village too in his subsequent mission report — and now the phasers have a setting where they can be keyed to their user's DNA sequence. He flicks that setting on, feeling it hum under his touch, and only when it has fully powered down and looks like nothing more than a strange hunk of metal does he pull it out and hand it over to Háma who has been watching him with the same grim expression seen on Éowyn's face.
He turns back to the woman he knows, his eyebrow quirking slightly. ] Well. Hi to you too.
[Háma, of course, does not have even the little grounding in such things that Éowyn does. He looks at the object he is handed with clear confusion and not a little mistrust, and only when Éowyn gives him a small, almost imperceptible nod does he take it.]
[Once that is managed, Éowyn seems to relax a little. Not much - she is still sharp-edged and wary, still far too conscious of being in view - but a little. She takes the bowl back, and her tone has softened a little, too.]
I did not think to see you again so soon.
[The question is clear enough, lurking half-visible under the politeness. What are you doing here? Nothing he had said suggested he intended to travel here. She is not exactly unhappy to see him, but neither is she uncomplicatedly glad of it. It is one thing to talk of friendship and support when one is miles from home, and unwitnessed. It is another thing to find herself responsible for a friend's safety in her own home, when she has felt so unequal to the task of protecting those already under her care.]
[She glances at Háma, and then back to Chris, her brow furrowing just a little.]
The King is sleeping. But he will not be pleased if there are guests in his hall without his knowing; when he wakes, if you are here still, you must be introduced to him. [There is something between the words there, too: a warning and a choice. If he wishes to be subtle about his visit, he must also be brief.] Until then, come: walk with me a little pace, and tell me what has changed your plans so.
[ Háma's reaction lends credence to the thought that he could have lied and claimed to have no weaponry on him, but he's heard enough about the climate here in Edoras and he's lived a long enough life to know better than to tempt fate. It would be just his luck to claim to be unarmed and then have someone go through his things behind his back, to blow off their own hand or shoot down a servant by accident, and then he'd have caused a huge incident that nobody would be able to save him from.
Not with those clouds lingering overhead. ]
Yeah, I had a, uh, change of plans. [ He jerks his chin towards the darkening sky, hoping she can at least deduce that maybe the Enterprise wouldn't be able to reach him through it.
Thanking Háma, he lets himself be ushered away by Éowyn, waiting until they're a little more out of the way to try speaking again. He's sure the doorwarden is a perfectly nice man and undoubtedly loyal to the king — he wouldn't have the job he does if he wasn't — but he doesn't need to know all the details of Chris' situation. Not right now, at least. ]
I would have tried to message you, but something's blocking communications. I couldn't hail my ship. I'm hoping when the clouds blow off I'll have better luck, but until then... [ He doesn't say that he wasn't sure he could find shelter from the brewing storm out on the plains, that was pretty obvious. And if those clouds aren't just a natural weather phenomena, if there's something more sinister happening here like she said there was, well. Then it would surely be a better idea to be around others. There's safety in numbers, after all. ] Hopefully I won't have to bother your uncle at all.
[ It would probably be easier for her if he didn't. ]
[She nods at his explanation, agreement without surprise.]
This storm came on too swiftly. And from the north-east, against the wind.
[From Isengard, she means. She does not note the provenance of every wind and cloud, but she knows enough to note when they are wrong. Perhaps it is not so surprising that the Wise would know to watch the skies; that Saruman will not suffer interference at this late a juncture. She does not wish to worry Chris further, so she does not voice the thought that follows that one: that, if it is the ship that has caught the White Wizard's notice, there is no guarantee that it will still be there when the storm clears. However it sails, surely a ship among the stars must be every bit as vulnerable to mishap as one on the sea - and while Saruman's power may not be infinite, it is more than enough to nudge wind and weather.]
[She clears her throat, tossing her hair back, and leads him inside the Golden Hall, through a side entrance that will take them towards quieter parts of the building.]
I should think we have until morning, now. He sleeps... far too much, these days.
Though I fear your arrival will already have been marked. Little is secret, within these walls.
[ Being affected by beings with powers outside the scope of human understanding is, unfortunately, not entirely outside the norm in Chris' experience. More than once he's found himself captaining a ship that was being held fast by an unknown entity, or bombarded by space rays, or overrun by mischievous trickster godlings who threw tantrums when they didn't get their way. If she voiced her concern that Saruman was interfering with the Enterprise, he'd probably agree with her.
As it stands, he just thinks about it, his expression also turning a touch contemplative, though he still seems to believe that this is all temporary.
He's choosing to believe it's temporary. His crew have gotten him out of tough scrapes before. He has every faith they'll do it again this time. ]
Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess. [ He doesn't comment on her uncle's health; she already shared her concerns with him earlier, and leaning on that right now feels both in bad taste but also like a very bad idea. He's well aware that these walls could have ears, like she said, and more than just the plain fact of his presence could be passed along. He'd never forgive himself if he was careless with his words and got her in trouble. Him just being here is trouble enough. ] Did you get back okay? Nothing happened in your absence?
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shieldofrohan) wrote2030-05-04 01:56 am
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It was a task swiftly accomplished, given his lifetime of experience when it came to fighting and survival. And soon the days passed by with him being given different duties; joining the rest of the soldiers on their patrols, slaying parties of Orcs that wandered too close to their territories.
It was good, exhausting work; enough to occupy his mind and his restless body during the hours when the sun was in the sky; after nightfall however, was another story entirely. Plagued by dreams of their stolen moment together, Daario sometimes got very little sleep - if any at all. At night, there was nothing to distract himself from the memory of her - her body, the intensity of her kiss, the sounds she made when he'd managed to coax out her pleasure; and her lips against his skin - her touch invaded his thoughts as if she'd placed a spell on him. Though he knew he hadn't.
He was just a man who wanted what he couldn't have. And even as the ache for her seemed to grow in intensity every day that passed; he could never bring himself to consider leaving. It wasn't in his nature - stubborn as he was.
The few interactions they did have were polite, civil; and completely lacking in anything of substance. His gaze followed her when he knew no one else would see him looking; but as far as he could tell, she'd been successful in shutting him out.
After a day spent helping train a new horse for the rigors of battle, Daario leads the mare back toward the stables; feeling the ache in his muscles and focusing on that - it was far more preferable than the ever present ache in his heart; one for which he had no solution, and there could be no comfort to be given. He stops somewhat abruptly at the entrance of the stables, catching sight of Éowyn tending to one of the horses. ]
I didn't expect you'd be here at this hour.
[ It's all he can manage, though the words feel like they hold a far greater weight; just based on the tone he speaks with - surprise, softness, and the yearning that is echoed in his gaze. He leads his his into it's stable and closes the gate; taking a few steps toward Éowyn. He leaves a bit of a distance between them initially; unaware of how welcome she will find his presence at the moment. ]
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[But the nights do come, and all that she had feared with them: for as lonely as she had been before, it is nothing to how she feels now, and she has wept more than once. She wept when she scrubbed the stain out of her skirt the day after their tryst, for one; and, weeping, determined that she would bear it the only way she could, with the cold armour of noble dignity.]
[So that is what she has done. She has avoided him, wherever she can: has made herself scarce or busied herself with other work when she sees him, has built up her armour into a fortress, not meeting his eyes lest she should remember the longing she saw in them, and answer it with her own. She does not trust herself in his presence, remembering all too well the warmth of his arms around her and the temptation to seek that embrace out again - and so she does not allow herself the chance for a second weakness, does not ever allow herself to forget that they are watched. She ensures that they are watched. It hurts, an ache which breaks through the numbness she had constructed for herself, but it is better to be safe than to risk the kingdom to the foolishness of her heart.]
[But the memory has not faded, and nor has the temptation, and when she hears his voice behind her, she stiffens, her hands stilling where they work the brush against her mount's sweat-dark flank.]
[It is several seconds before she turns, slowly, biting down on the inside of her cheek. The urge to step towards him, to touch him, is almost unbearable. The urge to bolt is almost as strong. She does neither, but nor does she withdraw: clearing her throat, she manages to find her voice.]
I went for a ride to clear my head.
[Her eyes are drawn to his, which already feels dangerous, somehow. There is too much of a connection even in that. And they are alone here, as far as she can tell, with only the horses to see what passes between them, and there are so many things that could pass between them, if only...]
I am... not entirely certain it worked.
no subject
It's a physical pain, like his nerves are frayed from the effort of it - of holding back all these weeks; all the things he's wanted to say to her; the times he's nearly gone to seek her out, the thoughts of slipping quietly into her chambers after night has fallen - he knows how to do so without being seen. But he won't. After the way things had ended between them the last time they were alone together; he doesn't think she'd want that. And there was always the risk involved, yes, but Daario's entire life had been filled with risk - he'd learned to navigate it with relative adeptness; and it was because of that that he wasn't deterred when he should be, by the risk being with her presented.
There are a variety of responses he could give when she speaks. Ultimately, he goes with the one that might keep her here a moment more - prevent her from immediately fleeing his presence. ]
Why didn't it work?
[ He asks softly. If riding could clear his head, that's all he would be doing; from sun up to sun down. That's what he did most days and still it did little to keep this thoughts from constantly straying to her. It would be easier, he knows; if he didn't see her each day at a distance. But the thought of leaving and never seeing her again was more unbearable. Either way, he couldn't have her. At least if he remained, he could see that she was alright. Protect her at a distance, should the need ever arise.
He saw the way Wormtongue looked at her. Knew the King's health was failing rapidly each day. There were many problems which needed solving and they should not all fall to her. If she would let him help, he would in a heart beat.
But perhaps after their tryst, she would not allow herself to even confide in him; to consider him a friend - someone who had her back, at the very least; who would support her with the burdens she carried. Perhaps he'd ruined all of that the moment he'd kissed her, pulled her into his lap; gave into the desire to be with her in whatever way he could. ]
no subject
Because I have returned to find my troubles waiting, and my longing has come to stand before me.
[Already, the armour is cracked: there is no distance in her tone, and there is an honesty in the emotion of it, in the way her eyes linger on him. It would be wisest to send him away, or to leave herself; to spare them both this dangerous closeness, and the cutting ache of self-restraint. It would be easiest to give in, to close the few paces still between them, fling her arms around him and give up all care for wisdom. She can bear to do neither, and so she stays where she is, the brush in her hand, her chest tight and her breathing a little too shallow, until her horse snorts and sticks his head against her ear, making her jump.]
[Her cheeks flushed, she clears her throat, grabbing the stallion's bridle and turning his head away.]
Some things are not so readily dispelled, I suppose.
no subject
When her horse causes her to start, it jolts him out of that as well; at least a little. But then the flush of her cheek draws his gaze; and that gaze wanders the contours of her face - remembering how it had felt beneath his touch. And then, more dangerously; his eyes are inevitably drawn to her mouth - and with that comes the memory of her lips, warm and bruising against his during that first kiss.
He doesn't like to think about their last kiss, the one that had felt final; a goodbye he still refused to accept. ]
I suffer that same longing.
[ He admits without guarding the way his gaze takes her in, the raw emotion visible across his features as he takes a step closer to her. ]
You have avoided me successfully these past few weeks. You are much better at this than I am.
[ The words are absent of the teasing humor his tone usually takes on. There are dark circles beneath his eyes; and instead of the easy smile he typically wears; he looks tired, worn. ]
Would it do any good to tell you how often I think of you? How much I want to take you in my arms right now; the pain it causes me to refrain from doing so?
no subject
[Her laugh is low and bitter, and she shakes her head, but her eyes return to his and she cannot turn her gaze away. He looks so worn and weary, and it aches in her chest, a feeling that is guilt as much as sorrow. It is bad enough to think of how this pains her, but her pain is her own to bear: to know for certain that it wounds him, too, is a far deeper cut.]
No. No, it would do no good.
[Her eyes dart past him, to the door, and then to and fro, as though to check one more time that they are alone. Then, with a speed that aims to outpace doubt, she reaches out to grab his sleeve, drawing him towards her mount's stall. It will not make their conversation entirely private, but it may go some way towards it. (And that thought, predictably, comes with a thrill of both excitement and dread at what privacy could portend - but she does it anyway, because in the moment, she cannot help herself)]
[Pulling the stable door closed behind them, she lets go of his wrist and turns to face him, her expression no longer guarded, mirroring his own. Her voice is low and serious, but comes in a rush nonetheless, the words falling over one another in their haste to be spoken.]
I am not better at this than you. I only know more keenly what might be lost, by failing. And yet I have thought of you endlessly, and each time your name has been raised, it has struck me to the core, and each time I have seen you, I have wanted you nearer, and I have wept for it, and I have not slept for want of you, and it is driving me mad. I have never felt loneliness so keenly, and I had resigned myself to loneliness before you came, I have borne it since my brother rode out to fight, but I cannot bear this.
I cannot bear this, Daario. [Her eyes search his face. She has stepped away from him, her hand no longer at his arm, and yet she cannot seem to draw back more than a little way, as though there is something still binding her, drawing her in. There is a lump in her throat, treasonous and unwanted.] To have you is to risk your life, and my lord's safety, and all the kingdom, and all that I love. To turn from you should be so simple a thing, and yet...
[She lets out a long, shuddering breath and lets her hands fall to her sides.]
Do not tell me of the pain it causes you. I am no less wounded. It serves no end to dwell on pain, unless we can answer it.
What are we to do?
no subject
[ The words rush out on a slightly shaky breath. It's the most honest thing he'd said in weeks. To everyone else he's interacted with, he's been a shell of himself; performing, essentially, the role of the man he was before all of this began - lively, charming, bold, capable. He's kept up enough of the facade for others not to catch on, and he does so out of necessity. It would do no good for anyone to notice his pining, his ache.
Certainly not under the ever watchful gaze of Wormtongue; who, although Daario has spent no further time interacting with Éowyn since that night after their ride; still scrutinizes his every step, listening in to his conversations when he thinks Daario is unaware. But he's always aware; because he has to be.
And she's right, to be with him is to risk everything she has. The risk to himself, his own life; means less because of how familiar risk is to someone like Daario. He can navigate it well enough, as evidenced by the past few weeks; agonizing as they have been. He knows that what he wants from her is not something she can give; and yet he wants it still.
It brings him some comfort in the knowledge that she is no less affected by this than he. That she aches as he does. Though it doesn't solve anything. ]
I don't know. [ He answers truthfully, uselessly; alone in the stall with her he's far too distracted by her proximity to come up with any logical solutions; if any actually even exist. All he knows is that when her hand drops from his arm, he wants it back; wants her touch so desperately that he acts purely from that desire - disregarding every risk and every warning and every reason why he should not do so, he steps closer to her and lifts his hand to frame her face. He swallows against the thickness building in his throat, his gaze raw and pleading. ]
I don't know how to be near you without touching you. [ His fingertips brush down along her cheekbones to her jaw, an unsteady sigh leaving his chest; his voice coming out in a quiet sort of rasp. ] I'm not strong enough. [ His gaze darkens as he shifts closer to her. ] It isn't fair of me to ask it of you, but you have to leave. You have to leave me here, or I will not be able to stop.
no subject
[It seems to her that she has forgotten how to breathe. Standing so close, he seems to take on a strange power, an intensity of presence, as though he is somehow the only real thing in the world. This is exactly what she has been striving to avoid, what she should not allow. At the same time, it is all she has wanted for weeks: his touch, his closeness, the look in his eyes that says she need not be alone.]
[Her hand comes up to cover his, and it trembles a little. Her voice is barely a whisper when she echoes his words.]
I am not strong enough.
[And she gives in to that pull, unable to prevent herself: she moves closer, almost without knowing it, until they are nearly chest-to-chest, until she can feel his breath unsteady against her cheek. Shame washes over her, but it is not nearly as strong as that magnetic draw of his touch.]
Who knows you are here?
aphro thread for perforo - CW: dubcon/noncon, sexual assault and harassment
Futile, and dangerous. Not in the way that she had expected and half-hoped for: the distance, the threats of the crossing, the knives in the dark. All these things, she was prepared for, and knew herself capable of facing.
She was not prepared for a nobleman of the court - a Kingsguard, no less - to throw propriety and politics to the wind, and accost her in the stairwell, to pin her against the wall with his full bulk and do his level best to take her with or without her consent. Even Gríma Wormtongue was never a fraction so outrageous in his advances.
Ser Jaime, it seems, was not prepared for a woman who, weak shield-arm or no, has trained herself rigorously in combat as long as she has been able, and who has stared evil in the eye without flinching. A woman who was prepared, in the breach, to knee him in the exposed crotch, almost break his nose, and tell him with a knife to his throat and steel in her eyes, that if he laid hands on her again, she would castrate him before she killed him, and face the consequences if she must. He was not prepared for a daughter of Eorl, and she escaped that night with her honour and her maidenhead intact - but the experience has shaken her to her core, and she has slept every night since with her door locked and barred, two of her own men at watch outside. Not that she has told them why, of course. She is too proud to admit to such a thing, much less to how it has awakened her to a depth of fear and anger she did not know she could still feel.
No; she will not remain in this place a moment longer than she must. As soon as the tides are favourable, and the summer storms passed, she will do what she has never done in her life before: she will admit defeat, and turn away, and set sail for home.
But for now, she is here, and what can she do but play her role? She wears her sword openly, now, hanging at the hip of her fine embroidered gowns: it is clear that they will not respect her regardless, so she may as well be disrespected with a weapon close to hand. Beyond that, she is a model of restraint and cold dignity, speaking softly and holding herself tall, maintaining at all times the etiquette that her position demands. She does not even look at Ser Jaime on the unfortunate occasions when she must be in a room with him - although she keeps him in her periphery, the way a horse that has been bitten may watch a rabid dog, ready to kick or bite at a threatening move. She will not give him the satisfaction of her attention, and she will not let him know that he has hurt her. She is ice and steel and stone, as she learned to be in those dark times when Gríma held sway. There is no warmth in her - but there is nothing to be impeached in her behaviour, either.
And so she makes her way, and will not give ground to the feelings that threaten to make themselves known, the anger and fear and grief, to have come through so much and still find herself back where she began, a maiden adrift in a world of men, biting her tongue and holding her peace and suffering the indignities of an inescapable situation. At least this one, she thinks, has an end. The tides will change, and she will be gone.
The tides have not changed yet.
She is sitting at the high table, a polite smile carved onto her marble countenance, listening to the revelry without being any part of it, when she feels something else change. At first, she thinks it is only the wine (of which, it must be said, she has drunk more than she is accustomed to, in the days since the encounter in the stairwell): that she has begun to grow drunk already. There is a strange light-headedness that seems to have come upon her, and a heat in her belly and all through her, as though the hall is suddenly much warmer than it was a few moments ago. Something prickles at the back of her neck, where her hair is swept up into a Westerosi style; a shiver, like unseen fingers caressing her spine. It is not unpleasant.
Éowyn shifts a little in her seat, clearing her throat, and resolves to drink no more tonight, unless it is soundly watered. She has overindulged, that is all: but it will pass soon enough.
It does not. Not the heat - which she now realises is not centred in her belly at all, but somewhat lower - and not the sense of drunkenness, and not the growing feeling that her dress is too tight and restricting all of a sudden, and not the breathlessness that seems to have overtaken her. Her skin prickles, absurdly sensitive; she is unpleasantly aware of the colour that must have come to her cheeks.
It is drink, she reasserts to herself; it is stronger wine than Rohan's, and she is drunk, but she is still herself, and she can carry herself through this. It is, if she is entirely honest, not the first time she has felt this kind of inappropriate desire - even if it is by far the strongest. She managed, did she not, to keep herself from throwing herself wholesale at Aragorn, even when she might have done. She wonders, with aching clarity, whether he would have held true to his elf-maiden if, instead of begging him to let her fight and die with him, Éowyn had instead dropped to her knees and shown him what else a shieldmaiden could offer to her lord. Or climbed into his lap, mounted him, and ridden him to an ecstasy that...
"My lady?"
There is a hand on her arm, and the touch is almost unbearable. She realises, then, that she is holding her goblet so tightly that it shakes; that she has spilt her wine; and that people are staring at her - the cold, unapproachable maiden, flushed and fidgeting, so tense now that she has begun to tremble.
She looks up at the man whose hand is on her arm - a man of Rohan, a minor lord, married and well thirty years her senior - and is suddenly gripped with the question of what his cock looks like, and whether that hand on her arm might not be put to better use. It is at that moment, finding herself giving real thought to the question of whether he fucks his wife gently or with the boldness of a warrior, that Éowyn realises that she cannot stay here.
She stammers out something - she scarcely knows what, or even whether she is speaking to him in Westron or Rohirric - about how she has been struck with a megrim. No, no, she does not need a healer. She does not need an escort. She needs to go to her room, and rest. Alone, she tells him, and then again: alone.
Under the circumstances, not that it is much comfort, she is holding herself together admirably. She is largely steady as she rises, despite the aching awareness of every movement of her thighs. She keeps her back straight and her hands at her sides, and she settles her goblet down on the table, and reassures her retinue that she has no need of them, and with all the dignity that her considerable willpower can summon, she flees.
It is a little better in the corridors, though not much. The air is cooler, and there is less noise, and, most of all, there are fewer people. Fewer women with their breasts heaving beneath their gowns, begging to be cupped and kissed and sucked. Fewer men laughing with mouths ripe for the kissing, and cocks that she cannot help but imagine hardening for her. Fewer eyes, watching her shame, making her wonder whether their enjoyment of it would be solely political.
...She is lying to herself. It is no better. She lets out a low, stifled moan, and lengthens her pace, almost running now. She cannot think far ahead, but far enough to know that there is only one clear route forwards through whatever madness, whatever enchantment, whatever curse has gripped her. She must be alone, yes, but not to rest: she must exorcise this desire the way she has exorcised lesser shadows of it in the past. Alone.
When she at last reaches her room, she is beyond thought. The ache in her loins is maddening, a hunger so great it has become pain. Her heart hammers in her chest, against her ruined ribs. The fine linen of her shift feels like coarse sandpaper against nipples that have grown hard and swollen, aching to be touched. Desire is a beast, coiling in her gut, clawing at her until she can hardly breathe.
There is no question of finding her keys. It is all she can do to close the door behind her, slamming it shut and at last releasing the tension that has kept her somewhat straight-backed and dignified. Panting, she stumbles towards the bed, her hand already moving between her legs, grinding clumsily through the layers of skirts and shift. The sharp, aching pleasure of that touch makes her stagger, crying out, catching herself against the bedpost; and then she is tearing at her skirts as well as her weak left hand will allow, yanking at the too-thick fabric in frenzied desperation, trying clumsily to pull her gown up high enough to get her hand properly underneath; and, falling forward again until she is almost doubled over against the support of the bedframe, she thrusts her hand up against the wet, clinging linen of her ruined shift, letting out an obscene moan that she no longer has it in her to stifle, and begins to rut against the unnatural, unbearable need that has her straining her damaged arm, rocking between the hand between her thighs and the steadying grip she has on the bedframe, and--
And she hears the door click shut behind her.
She is not, it seems, entirely lost. She has strength enough, pride enough, even now to stop her vain, frantic ministrations; to stagger upright and turn, face aflame and eyes gleaming with tears of sheer frustration and want, to face the man who, she realises with a sick lurch when she sees the gleam of gold, is the architect of all her suffering.
Her hand is damp with her own arousal. Her skirts are no longer pulled up to her waist, but neither are they in any kind of array. She is panting, her grey eyes almost black with wild lust, the reek of sex thoroughly clear in the air. Still, unsteady as she is, she manages to get her hand to her sword, manages to face him down - even as she must lean against the bedpost to keep her knees from buckling.
"You." She spits it: lust, it seems, does not preclude venom. At the same time, unwelcome thoughts crowd her mind. His is the first man's cock she has seen, actually seen, harden for her; his mouth the first that has found hers in passion, outside of dreams. She wonders what he would have done, if she had not been stronger than he expected: for the first time, there is more to the thought than horror. She wonders what he tastes like. She feels the urge to vomit, hating herself for the thoughts that assail her, hating herself more for their allure. Her hand, unsteady as it is, tightens on the hilt of her sword. Her voice, unsteady as it is, is not an invitation. "What have you done to me?"
no subject
One hour? he'd pressed, setting the concoction aside, his interest and his gold both fading before the potion-maker's eyes. And who's to say she won't throw herself at the first lucky guard she encounters? Some thankless fool enjoys the benefits of my gold before I have a chance to catch her. A worry he does not feel, truthfully - certainly he would not allow a hapless guard to intervene with his designs. It is only that he wants very much to hear what comes next, and the old man does not hesitate to reassure him.
Oh, no, my lord. It is you she must have. There can be no words to describe it. These, of course, were words belonging to a talentless salesman, for who would make no effort to describe the merits of his product? But the assurance came with a randy grin, and the potion had in fact been brewed with one of Jaime's own golden hairs, though whether that was only a bit of dramatic flair, he couldn't say. Perhaps he enjoyed the fact that no words could convey the power of what his gold had bought. Perhaps there was no greater selling point than that truth he already knew, and had known all his life: it could only be him. In this discreet undertaking, as in all things, he was peerless. He left with the potion in hand, caring not at all what it had cost him.
An even easier task it was to secure a servant to deliver the prepared drink to the fair lady of Rohan on the night of the feast. She would not know that it had come not from the kitchens, but from the golden lion's own hand. Having evaded him once before, she must be arrogant enough to believe that she need not worry about evading him again. She had pressed her blade to his throat, had driven her knee into his groin, and no doubt heralded her escape as a victory. He would not be daft enough to accost her again, knowing she would open his throat should they meet a second time in darkness. A grim and haughty woman, certain that her dignity and her station would protect her. Or her guards, if nothing else. Her gods, perhaps, if she held any.
Their encounter had left no such impression upon him. He had felt the cold bite of her blade, yes, and her abrupt knee had lent him a lasting bruise, but he had not retreated in fear or shame. He had not retreated at all, by his own estimation: he had not landed his first strike, but he would land his second. She had managed a perry, however unexpected, but the battle was not done.
Almost as startling as the confrontation itself was the unbecoming fact that there had been a misunderstanding at all. What reason had she to refuse him? She knew his name, his rank, and his reputation. It did not stand to reason that she might prefer another, or would rather lead her life with no attentions at all. And even if she did - one or the other, the finer points of her refusal did not interest him - she would not say no. She could not. He had not asked, and did not mean to. Never in the histories did a lion ask. They would not start now.
Yes, it is true: he had stood dumb and blinking, hot blood thrumming blind and lost through him as she fled, but he had not retreated. He had simply designed a new approach.
And he had been impatient in its making, for it was not in his nature to wait. Not for the honing of his steel, not for the readying of his horse, not for the slaking of his thirst or the satisfying of his hunger. The world as he had always known it bent to his whim. It bent willingly for the most part, and what did not bend was broken. A path could always be hacked through unyielding bramble. A coward could always be intimidated. Pleasure could always be bought.
He does not arrive at the feast gloating that his victory has been paid for, however. There is little glory in a fistful of gold. Blood is sweeter, and has always promised a more thrilling rush. He might have chosen to toss his gold at two eager grunts to hold the unflinching lady down, if he did not care to hunt. He could have had what he wanted days ago, and at a much cheaper price, and been done with it. One need only glance at the golden knight's predatory green eyes, however, to know that it is the hunt he craves. So he had put his gold to better use, so that he would not be denied the satisfaction of watching his prey stagger before him, of watching the shadow of defeat - his own looming shadow - fall across her. Only now, thanks to what had been poured into her dark wine, she would meet his eyes with an unspeakable plea in her own.
It seems at first that the evening is unfurling according to his personal fantasy: the obedient servant delivers the proud goblet, and the lady drinks. He watches with hawkish focus for a moment, aware that maybe the her woman's sensibilities will alert her to something strange about the drink. When the wine touches her lips, Jaime's careless trust in the codger who brewed his potion is revoked, and it seems likely that their guest will taste his foul intentions in the wine. It is a fleeting hesitation, and he is braced by it only for a moment, maybe two - and she sets the goblet down. She does not grimace or cry out that she has been poisoned. She takes another polite sip. The thrill rises once more.
Do hours pass before that sweet elixir overtakes her? It seems so, but so too does the sun seem to take days to arc across the sky when he is impatient for the next day to come. But it takes her after all, at last - she rises, she is trembling, she is unsteady. She is frightened, though she disguises it well. She is anxious to depart this warm, bustling, raucous place. She senses now that something is wrong, and finds herself in the same moment unprepared to face it. The sight of the serene, collected woman so near to shambles makes Jaime's blood run hot and hard. He falls into step behind her, prowling, dappled by shadows that reach for and fall from him like asking hands.
To her borrowed rooms she goes, as she must, and the golden kingsguard is wearing an easy smile as he arrives behind her. He pauses just outside the door, relishing how fiercely she has slammed it, and savors the first taste of his victory: a helpless cry from within. She is hoping for some swift, sad release, surely; no, she will be praying for it by this point, if she has the gods to listen. He waits a second longer, a rare instance of self-imposed restraint, allowing her the briefest of privacies, and then he invites himself in.
Ducking after her, softly closing the door behind him, he is greeted first by the shameless slap of sex. It is a scent, as rich to him as the scent of any meat to a hungry hound, and it is the electric vibration of the air. It is the tension he breaks when he steps into the room, and it is the laughable sight of his prim and noble guest with her skirts hiked up as if he'd stumbled upon an artless tryst, as if he'd scared away her fumbling lover. But there is, as he delights in knowing, no lover - it is only the proud lady and her hand, and her tearful eyes, and that ineffectual hand nobly finding her sword. He does laugh at the sight of her, a sound that is cheerful and light above her humiliation.
You, she says, and that word is finer than a hand upon the skin, because now she knows it, too. Now she knows that it can only be him - that it could only ever be him. Is she looking upon him, as the old man said she would, with a dawning, keening horror? She knows what must be done - or, at the very least, her sodden cunt knows it - and if that pretty potion has done its work, there is nothing she will not give to see it done. What have you done to me? He turns the words over in his head, tasting the pearls of desperation in her voice, leisurely advancing into the room, not needing to spend any more than he already has. And it is the alchemist's promise that answers her, though it need not be spoken: There can be no words to describe it.
He laughs again, charmed, blithely ignoring the sword she means to grasp. Instead, he lifts his own hand to her cheek, brushing aside a wayward lock of hair, fingers fanning like a lover's over her bright cheek. His kindly bearing is betrayed by the venom he murmurs back in turn, bringing his face close, smoothing over her threats and her hate.
"It's rather unseemly to leave your host's feast so early in the evening, my lady."
no subject
It takes a conscious effort to rip her gaze away from his mouth, and more effort still to meet his eyes. Her sword is half-drawn, now, steel bared and shining in the candlelight; she grips it so tightly that her knuckles are white, as though it might serve as some talisman against him.
"I should have killed you when you first laid hands on me," she spits, her lip drawn back from her teeth. It is an animal look, a wild look; there is no dignity left in it, with tears in her eyes and sweat slicking her brow. But if she cannot fall back on dignity, then at least anger is something she knows. "Whatever enchantment you have put on me, whatever curse, you will pay for it, you cur. Now..."
Now leave. Take your hands off me and leave, ere I strike you down; I will not hesitate again. Except that she will hesitate, does hesitate. It is a wild, brutal thing, this need that twists and claws inside her. She can fight it only so far. She can fight it enough to summon indignation, to hurl invective at him, even to draw her blade. But to be left alone now, untouched, with the cold comfort of her own body... it would be more than she can bear.
Had she thought she was lonely, all those long nights in the shadows of Meduseld, weeping for any warmth and comfort? Had she thought that she wanted Aragorn, when she saw him, when she retreated into privacy after their meeting and dreamed of him pinning her down against the grass? Had she thought that she knew what desire was? None of it is even a shadow of what she feels now, battering against her like a mace-blow, and she can no more stand against it than against such an assault. To even be this close to someone is to be overtaken by the need; to feel the slightest brush of warmth is to imagine pouncing upon it, dragging out every ounce of pleasure until she is satiated; to look at Jaime's face is to imagine it contorting with effort and pleasure as he fucks her against every surface in this room.
A low, needy whimper escapes her, and she pulls back from him until the bedframe makes farther retreat impossible. The sword in her hand trembles noticeably, coming up between them (like his cock would, if you freed it, and would that not be a sight to see?) but not quite moving to drive him back. Her lips are parted, her chest heaving against the painfully heavy cloth that covers achingly hard nipples.
"Not you." To her disgust, it comes out nakedly pleading; and she knows, saying it, that it will delight him all the more; and she is filled with a hot, surging hate that does nothing but fuel that other, all-consuming heat. "Do not do this. Do not do this to me." Do everything to me. Take me every way, and turn me over and take me again, and do not hesitate. Another whimper, shuddering and low, at the thought. She cannot help her eyes from drifting downward, to see whether he is hard, to see what the shape of him is. She hates herself for her weakness, even more than she hates him. It takes all of her will not to drop her sword, spread her legs, and leap into his arms.
for aleifr
No surprises there. After the hammering she took at the melee, the real wonder is that she is still able to get up at all. She had been prepared for some injury - it is the nature of fighting, after all, even the toothless playfighting they practice here in King's Landing, and while she may be proud of her own prowess, she has enough sense to know that she is hardly the only warrior with any skill. Besides, it was the first taste of battle she has had since the Pelennor Field, and it is not as though her arm or her shoulder have ever fully healed. She was prepared to take some injury, particularly on her shield side, and to risk pain and embarrassment for the sake of feeling, for a moment, that she could act. Being in King's Landing, even with Elia's company, has begun to feel as stifling as Meduseld in the darkest days of the war; except that at least in Meduseld, people heard her when she spoke. She is weary to the bone of biting her tongue, trying to respond with grace and gentle politic to the indignities heaped on her. If it were not for the princess, she would have left with the last fair wind, and never looked back.
But she remains, and will remain a while yet; and so, yes, she had been prepared to risk Elia's displeasure and greater scorn from the people of King's Landing, as well as bruises and blood, for the sake of even a momentary catharsis.
She had not been prepared to fight a giant.
She held her own as long as she could, and far longer than many of the other competitors; and by the end, she had no longer been on the tourney field. The pain, the sinking hopelessness of defeat, was too familiar; for a time, she had lost all sense of where and when she was, found herself again standing before a nameless shadow, the last defence of a fallen King; she had not been playing any sort of game then, but fighting in deadly earnest, all other foes forgotten, staggering and swaying, and refusing to fall.
Except that she fell on the field before Minas Tirith, and she fell on the tourney field, too. There is only so much even the strongest-willed warrior can take, especially when her weakened shoulder was driven - far too easily - out of joint, her shield falling. At least she did not fully lose consciousness, was still helmed when she was carried from the field.
Now it is two days later, and she can remain out of sight no more. Her arm is once again in a sling, as it was following the battle; to her surprise and disgust, she has faced remarkably little questioning of the idea that she somehow fell hard enough to account for both that and the bruises littering her face and arms. (The rest of her body, too, of course - but only Elia has seen those. A blessing of keeping her own manner of dress, even if it is too warm for the weather, is that high collars and long sleeves cover a multitude of sins.)
She suspects that the lords of Westeros know better, and that they are well aware that she was beaten: further suspects that they are glad of it, for none of them have been all that subtle in their belief that she is too proud and too cold. But none of them even seem to have thought to question where she was beaten. It makes her wonder what would have happened, in the end, if she had unmasked herself at the tourney. It makes her angry.
At least anger is a feeling. These days, while Elia has thawed some of the ice in her, Éowyn so often feels numb. Pain is better; anger is better; even frustration is better than nothing at all. Perhaps that was part of it, too. Why she fought, and why she kept getting back up.
These are the thoughts that follow her out into the gardens, where the uncomfortably warm air is at least cooler and fresher than inside. Not for the first time, she wonders why she stays; she could leave with the next tide, back to her own home and her own people, away from stifling silences and warm air and cold stone. She could leave, and all she would leave behind would be...
She is not alone.
He is hard to miss, tall as he is; hard to forget, too, particularly with her arm still aching to remind her. Briefly, Éowyn considers turning and walking as fast as she can (which is not all that fast; she is quite stiff still) in the opposite direction, but her pride balks at that. Instead, she turns, and while the bruises on her face make it a little less convincing, offers him a coolly polite smile, as demure as a lady can be while sporting a black eye.
"I do not know you, do I, my lord?"
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"You do."
The reply is flat and sure, underpinned by a blunt decisiveness that seems completely undented by the attempt to deflect. It's a simple statement of fact ... one that does carry a certain air of menace, but it's difficult to tell whether that aura is born of an attempt to sound threatening, or if it's a side-effect of the low, bassy growl of his voice and the impassive scowl he wears on his face.
"And I know you."
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She tilts her chin up, drawing herself to her full height (or as near as the sling will allow, since she can hardly put her shoulders back as she would like), and fixes him with the full force of her stare.
"Yours is a loose view of knowing," she remarks, after a moment, her words very carefully clipped. She is not about to deny what he is implying: she will dissemble, where it is needed, but she will not outright lie about this. Least of all when to do so would be thoroughly futile. "We have not been introduced, then, let me say."
All the while, her eyes remain on him, challenging, scrutinising. Trying to read that stony, scornful look, and coming up short.
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He takes a step forward, out of the shade and into the light.
"Aleifr," He puts a hand to his chest, offering a slight incline of his head, "son of Lord Mors Umber."
'Umber'. Perhaps she's heard the name, perhaps she hasn't. His House is prominent enough in the North, though little that occurs above the Neck is worth discussing by the views of the southron lords.
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He steps out of the shadow, and she looks up at him - farther up, in truth, than she is used to looking at anyone; this is the kind of craning she associates exclusively with dealing with men on horseback - with that same assessing, hostile stare. After a moment, though, she inclines her head a little in turn.
"Éowyn. Daughter of Éomund, who was Chief Marshal of the Mark." The use of surnames in these realms is another thing she still has difficulty adapting to; there are no such Houses in Rohan, after all. The nearest thing they have is kennings, and while she might have introduced herself as the Lady of the Shield-Arm once or twice when she first arrived, she has quickly decided that it isn't worth it. Unfortunately, that puts her in the position of having to decide, with each introduction, how much of her lineage to say aloud, when it is entirely unrecognised here.
This does not improve her mood.
She shakes her hair back from her face, wincing only a little at how it disturbs her swollen shoulder, and lets out a low sigh. She approached him, she reminds herself. Despite the impulse to bridle at his seeming scorn, it does her no good to be less than polite.
"...You fought well. Far better than I would have expected, in such an empty game."
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First, as she winces, his eyes flick down to her shoulder. There's a flicker of something there -- concern, he leaves unvoiced. Perhaps he wishes not to condescend, perhaps he suspects that it would not be warmly received. When she mentions the tourney itself ... his brow creases slightly, the growl in his voice deepens, the corner of his mouth curls in disdain.
"Empty contest or not, you don't fight by half."
Looks like he shares her contempt for tourneys and all their nonsensical pageantry and pointless bluster, though the outward show of that distaste smooths over quickly and his expression reverts to the stony countenance that seems to be his default.
"Though you clearly know that better than most of these southron knights."
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The realisation, along with his comment - compliment? - surprises a small huff of laughter out of her, dry and subdued.
"I was told that there were warriors in this realm. It is a welcome surprise to finally meet one."
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Chris was supposed to beam down, take a look around, and then beam back up again. The whole endeavor was really just a way to sate his curiosity instead of an actual data-gathering mission; if it were, more people than just him would have come. He had to argue against them coming, actually, had to convince Una and Spock both that no, he didn't need a security detail, and no, he didn't need anything more than a simple tricorder to pick up whatever information he could.
This world is pre-warp. He was only going to look around, it wasn't like he was going to make contact.
Except, obviously, he did. And while he was doing so, a growing cloud on the horizon started to creep across the sky, one he had more or less dismissed as unimportant, one that now blankets the heavens above him and, he assumes, is making it impossible for his hails to be heard by Enterprise.
Chris is, for all intents and purposes, stuck here.
A voice in the back of his head that sounds irritatingly like Una starts chiding him for breaking regs — he adores her, she's his best friend in the whole world, she's single-handedly saved his life more times than he could count and he'd gladly lay down both his life and his professional reputation for her, but she's so fucking annoying about the rules sometimes — that he does his best to ignore as he tries to figure out what the hell to do. Five attempts in a row to be heard do nothing, which means there's no point in trying any more. When this happened on Hetemit IX, he and Spock had to seek shelter so that they could survive the oncoming ion storm. The clouds above don't look that dangerous, but seeking shelter isn't a bad idea.
He could probably return to the village that Éowyn originally found him approaching, the one he bought their wine from, but something has him turning the other direction, facing down the plains where an outcrop stands proud, tiny little buildings dotting it and the land surrounding. He doesn't know, but he'd bet dollars to donuts that that's Edoras.
His new friend is the Lady of Edoras. She said so herself. Blithely walking into the lion's den isn't one of his better ideas, but it's the one place he knows he'll find at least some modicum of welcome.
Lacking any other ideas, he starts to walk. Maybe while he's en route, the clouds will part and he'll get beamed up. Until then, he might as well see what he can see. ]
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[Perhaps because of that, she cannot find it in herself to be altogether surprised when she is told there is a stranger approaching. Edoras is well-guarded, and she is well-informed; Háma trusts her more than he trusts most people, these days, and when he has doubts, he comes to the king's ward before the king. If she thinks about it, that is horrific. She tries not to think about it.]
[All of which to say, when Chris is met outside the city walls by an armoured spearman on horseback, it is not as hostile as it sounds. He is asked for his name and his business, but it is only his name that is needed for the soldier to nod satisfaction and lead him up through the back streets to the King's hall.]
[Éowyn is waiting for him outside, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, a bowl in her hand. Without further introduction, she holds it out to him: a hunk of bread, a handful of salt.]
Break the bread, dip it in the salt, and eat. And come inside, before the rain starts.
This is Háma, who keeps the doors. If you have any weapons, now would be the time to give them to him.
[It is very brisk, matter-of-fact, and it brooks no argument. If Chris is here, in the city, she is keen to seal his guest-right there as soon as possible; it is the best protection she has to offer.]
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Walking through the great wooden gates of the city, he can't help but look around curiously. It's astounding, the details he sees everywhere. Chris has visited dozens of new planets, made contact with just as many civilizations, each one unique and wondrous because of it. He can't help but feel that same effervescent excitement now, even with all the wary faces looking at him as he trudges along behind the rider who greeted him down below.
All in all, it doesn't take that long to get up to the main attraction, the building on the top of the hill that must be where the king lives and therefore, by extension, where Éowyn lives as well.
In fact, she's waiting for him at the top of a long flight of stairs. Chris is dimly grateful for the physical fitness requirements of serving in Starfleet and his almost religious dedication to keeping his bone and muscle density as stable as possible. It would be the height of embarrassment if he was huffing and puffing by the time he stood in front of her. As it is, he barely has a chance to say a word before she's speaking to him, holding out a bowl in which sits a piece of bread and some flaky salt.
He's doing as he's told before she even finishes speaking, though he can't help the way he watches her instead of the bread. She looks the same, which makes sense, considering he saw her just a few hours ago. But she also looks different. She's still as pretty as ever, but there's something harder about her face now, something distant and grim. It feels like some of the color has been leeched out of her, like he's looking at her through a pane of glass.
The bread is pretty good, actually, if quite a bit coarser than he's used to, and the salt has an almost herbaceous taste that has the chef in him perking up, wondering just where it's harvested and how that might affect the flavor. Obviously, that's a concern he immediately brushes away, because there's much more important things to focus on, things like Éowyn ordering he gives away his weapons.
He's not an idiot. He's well aware this is a ritual of some kind, probably one to establish that he's friend and not foe, that he'll be afforded some level of protection while he's here. He doubts the princess offers bread to just anyone that washes up on these rocky shores, so this is significant. As is the eye contact he makes after her instruction, Chris searching her face for a long moment before slowly reaching his hand towards his pocket. He has a phaser with him, tucked away because he had assumed he didn't need it. Chances are these people wouldn't recognize it as a weapon, probably wouldn't even know how to discharge it, but he can't forget that little girl in New Eden who, in her curiosity, had set off the detonate function when his back was turned talking to her village elders. He'd only barely had enough time to shove her away from the literal bomb in her hands and throw himself on top of it to stop the blast. He'd earned himself one hell of a dressing-down from Kahn and Burnham, and 24 hours in the med bay with Doctor Proctor and the osteo-regenerator for his trouble.
It's highly unlikely they have one of those here.
Thankfully, Starfleet actually learned a lesson from that whole fiasco — he conveniently left out the part where he broke General Order One in that village too in his subsequent mission report — and now the phasers have a setting where they can be keyed to their user's DNA sequence. He flicks that setting on, feeling it hum under his touch, and only when it has fully powered down and looks like nothing more than a strange hunk of metal does he pull it out and hand it over to Háma who has been watching him with the same grim expression seen on Éowyn's face.
He turns back to the woman he knows, his eyebrow quirking slightly. ] Well. Hi to you too.
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[Once that is managed, Éowyn seems to relax a little. Not much - she is still sharp-edged and wary, still far too conscious of being in view - but a little. She takes the bowl back, and her tone has softened a little, too.]
I did not think to see you again so soon.
[The question is clear enough, lurking half-visible under the politeness. What are you doing here? Nothing he had said suggested he intended to travel here. She is not exactly unhappy to see him, but neither is she uncomplicatedly glad of it. It is one thing to talk of friendship and support when one is miles from home, and unwitnessed. It is another thing to find herself responsible for a friend's safety in her own home, when she has felt so unequal to the task of protecting those already under her care.]
[She glances at Háma, and then back to Chris, her brow furrowing just a little.]
The King is sleeping. But he will not be pleased if there are guests in his hall without his knowing; when he wakes, if you are here still, you must be introduced to him. [There is something between the words there, too: a warning and a choice. If he wishes to be subtle about his visit, he must also be brief.] Until then, come: walk with me a little pace, and tell me what has changed your plans so.
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Not with those clouds lingering overhead. ]
Yeah, I had a, uh, change of plans. [ He jerks his chin towards the darkening sky, hoping she can at least deduce that maybe the Enterprise wouldn't be able to reach him through it.
Thanking Háma, he lets himself be ushered away by Éowyn, waiting until they're a little more out of the way to try speaking again. He's sure the doorwarden is a perfectly nice man and undoubtedly loyal to the king — he wouldn't have the job he does if he wasn't — but he doesn't need to know all the details of Chris' situation. Not right now, at least. ]
I would have tried to message you, but something's blocking communications. I couldn't hail my ship. I'm hoping when the clouds blow off I'll have better luck, but until then... [ He doesn't say that he wasn't sure he could find shelter from the brewing storm out on the plains, that was pretty obvious. And if those clouds aren't just a natural weather phenomena, if there's something more sinister happening here like she said there was, well. Then it would surely be a better idea to be around others. There's safety in numbers, after all. ] Hopefully I won't have to bother your uncle at all.
[ It would probably be easier for her if he didn't. ]
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This storm came on too swiftly. And from the north-east, against the wind.
[From Isengard, she means. She does not note the provenance of every wind and cloud, but she knows enough to note when they are wrong. Perhaps it is not so surprising that the Wise would know to watch the skies; that Saruman will not suffer interference at this late a juncture. She does not wish to worry Chris further, so she does not voice the thought that follows that one: that, if it is the ship that has caught the White Wizard's notice, there is no guarantee that it will still be there when the storm clears. However it sails, surely a ship among the stars must be every bit as vulnerable to mishap as one on the sea - and while Saruman's power may not be infinite, it is more than enough to nudge wind and weather.]
[She clears her throat, tossing her hair back, and leads him inside the Golden Hall, through a side entrance that will take them towards quieter parts of the building.]
I should think we have until morning, now. He sleeps... far too much, these days.
Though I fear your arrival will already have been marked. Little is secret, within these walls.
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As it stands, he just thinks about it, his expression also turning a touch contemplative, though he still seems to believe that this is all temporary.
He's choosing to believe it's temporary. His crew have gotten him out of tough scrapes before. He has every faith they'll do it again this time. ]
Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess. [ He doesn't comment on her uncle's health; she already shared her concerns with him earlier, and leaning on that right now feels both in bad taste but also like a very bad idea. He's well aware that these walls could have ears, like she said, and more than just the plain fact of his presence could be passed along. He'd never forgive himself if he was careless with his words and got her in trouble. Him just being here is trouble enough. ] Did you get back okay? Nothing happened in your absence?
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WHAT'S THAT AN EXCUSE TO EXTEMPORISE ON MIDDLE-EARTH RELIGION? IT'S NOT EVEN MY BIRTHDAY!
HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY
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