when the worm is slain

[shieldofrohan]

Edoras has no dungeons to speak of. The justice of the Mark is not one which calls for long imprisonment; it is, in the main, swift and permanent. But there are rooms strong enough to hold a prisoner for a time, and it is to one of these rooms - one of the few stone buildings in the city, near the walls - that she goes. There is blood still on her gown, drying to black, but she holds herself as tall and as proud as ever, and her bearing does not permit anyone to comment on her dishevelment or the fact that her eyes are red with weeping.

The tears that she has shed were not, of course, for the man who lies bloody and dead in the high hall: for that, she rejoices. But no joy, no freedom, comes without cost. It is no small thing, after all, to kill an advisor trusted of the King; it is a graver crime still to do so in the King's own hall. There is no question of the penalty.

There is also no question that she cannot allow it. A part of her is certain that it is her doing that the visitor killed Gríma at all, that it is at her urging, whether she had calculated on it or no; that she has brought him to this pass, and now must either save him or perish with him as a co-conspirator.

But a greater drive still is the simpler, more certain one: whether it was by her behest or not, he has done her and her people a great service. She cannot claim, with any honesty, that she has not considered it herself. She cannot lie to herself, say that she has not felt her hands itch for a blade, that at times she has not withdrawn from Gríma's presence for the simple reason that she did not trust herself to keep her hands from his throat. His death is a blessing - to her, to the Mark, to Théoden King, though he may not yet fully understand it. She is indebted to his killer, and she will not shirk it. She cannot let him die.

Her defence was impulsive, and ill-considered. She does not think, not for a moment, that Théoden believed her - if he had, would he have pleaded so for her to change her story, pleaded and wept and shouted? But she has her own advantages, and chief among them is that her uncle, too, is sensible of his debts; and that he loves her, and will not call her a liar before all the court. No matter whether she is one.

It is for that which she has wept, knowing how she has hurt him at the last - that the very thing which she has so long sought to avoid, the very fear that kept her from killing Gríma herself, has come to pass. He is King, and no matter how he may have been enfeebled in body or in mind, he knows his duty. He cannot be seen to spare justice against his kinsmen. He cannot be seen to waive the law - but neither, in the end, can he waive kin-right. And as she would not budge, will not budge, cannot budge...

None of them have a choice, now. There is only one way forward, and it is the way that leads to the room where the prisoner is kept. She does not have the keys to the door; she has none of the keys which, until lately, were always at her belt. She must wait, her face a mask, for one of the four spearmen at the door to open it. She steps inside, and the door is closed behind her, and the darkness - lit only by the small slits of windows - falls. As her eyes adjust, she can see Aleifr only as a darker shadow among the shadows, cannot find his eyes when she searches for them - but she searches for them, all the same.

"Are you hurt?" It is easier to think of such simple, ordinary things than the enormity of what has happened.

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[shieldofrohan]

His arms are strong and firm, drawing her in; and they could so easily be a prison, but there is nothing confining in this. The warmth of his embrace and the solidity of his body against hers is the greatest comfort she can imagine in inconsolable times. She feels herself anchored by it, grounded, held in place in the knowledge that she is, despite it all, protected. Held. Wanted.

And she feels herself awaken; finds the knowledge, despite it all, she can still want.

She is awkwardly arrayed against him, but she moves soon enough to settle properly in his lap, straddling him with her knees on the ground, pressing her body closer still against his. With her eyes closed, she can forget where they are; she can forget all that has happened, for a moment, and be no more or less than a woman in a man's arms. Her tongue tangles with his, her chest pressed to his, one hand trailing up the nape of his neck to cup the base of his skull. She forgets time and place and grief, forgets to doubt, forgets even to breathe, for a long time: all that there is, is the warm strength of him and the fervour and need behind their kisses, and those arms around her, holding her fast.

When at last she does break from kissing, she is panting, her colour high. She presses her brow to his, opening her eyes at last. This is not love, she thinks, with one part of herself: this is desperation and grief and the need to feel something other than pain, this is a distraction and an unfair one at that, this is a desperate gambit to amend a desperate gambit; this is not love. And another part of her says: you left all that you had for him; he would have died for his service to you. What is that, if not love?

(And a third part, settled between her thighs, murmurs: Who cares if it is love?)

She does not trust herself to speak. That brittle desperation is still lurking just barely out of sight, covered by baser things, and if she speaks, she will remember it. Instead, after a moment that feels interminable but cannot be more than a second or two, she reaches back to find his hand around her waist; grasps his wrist and pushes it down to her thigh, where her skirts are rumpled up to the knee. She is wearing trousers underneath (it promises to be a long ride, and she is not fool enough to make it with skin bare against the saddle) but she hopes the intent is clear, all the same.

[aleifr]

It is, and he does not hesitate to follow it, digging beneath her skirt and running his hand over her thighs -- eager to explore even if the trousers are still a barrier between his flesh and hers.

Perhaps it is not love that pulls her fast to him, or that stokes the desperate fire in each kiss, but it does not need to be. Let them leave uncomfortable truths and desperate hopes beyond notice. The day has been hard enough, and it would be better to look at them under the light of a new one.

This night, they need not be bound by the laws of Edoras, nor the weight of expectation. This night belongs to none besides them, and in the darkness, they are hidden from all beyond the circle of the fire's light.

"I see questions in your eyes." He murmurs, forehead still resting against hers as his questing hand glides up the inside of her thigh. "What would you know?"

[shieldofrohan]

There are more questions than she has words to ask, and she cannot name them. Everything, she wants to say, show me everything, tell me everything, now that I am someone else. I would know everything, all at once, and still I would not be satisfied.

But she has enough of herself left to know how useless that would be to say; and she bites her lip, still feeling his mouth there, and her hand slides down between them, looking for hardness and desire. She finds the bulge in his trousers, pressing her open palm to it, her breath catching at the heat she can feel through the cloth.

"I would know what you look like naked." There is no art or artifice in her flirtation, if it can be called flirtation at all. It is a simple thing: they are past anything else. Still, she blushes as she says it, as though it is not the most obvious desire. "And I would know how you look at me naked. And I think... other questions may answer themselves, from there."

[aleifr]

Here and now, what need do they have for art? What purpose does artifice serve? The truth of the matter is laid bare before them. It is in the way that they look at each other, in the intoxicating warmth of each other's bodies, and in the way that the bulge in his trousers responds to her touch, even through the barrier of its material.

There's no need to disguise, or play coy. All that needs be done is voice the desires that stir them.

When Éowyn does, Aleifr's eyes stay fixed on hers for a long moment - unblinking and dark with want.

Then he moves beneath her.

His hands peel away from her body. He loosens laces with deft fingers and, in a moment, he is pulling his shirt off over his head and casting it to the side. With it gone, she can see the lines of him free of obstruction ... the thick muscle, the fair skin, the maze of tattoos etched in gently-faded ink, and the lingering scars that intercepted them.

Then he begins to undo the laces a the front of his trousers.

[shieldofrohan]

The firelight dances on his skin, casting it in shifting gold, and with every movement of light and shadow, something new seems to present itself: the rill and cleft of old scars, the contour of muscle and sinew, the fair hair and faded tattoos. It seems a very long moment that she simply looks at him, drinking in the shape of something that feels altogether new.

It can only be a few seconds, because he does not hesitate in reaching for his trouser-fastenings, and it is at that point that the spell lifts a little - that she regains just enough presence of mind to move off his lap and sit back on her heels, and not much more. Her mouth is dry with an anticipation that thrills just on the edge of fear. Here, again, is that sense of a cliff-edge: a moment which, once passed, can never be returned from. Here, again, is the certainty that she has already leapt.

Her tongue darts out, wetting parted lips. It comes to her, with the clarity of a dream, that there is an order to this: that it is in some way wrong that he should be naked and she still clothed. Her eyes do not leave him, even for a moment, as she loosens her own shirt; she looks away only for the split second it takes to pull the tunic over her head and send it after his. Look at me, she wills him, and yet does not know whether he does, because her own eyes are not at that moment lingering as high as his face. Look at me as I look at you.

The fire, behind her, is almost uncomfortably hot against bare skin. All the same, her nipples are pulled taut and hard, as if it were cold; her skin prickles with gooseflesh, a pink flush rising at the hollow of her throat. She is conscious of how her skin lacks the stories his tells: how it is white as unused parchment, without the rough terrain of a life lived meaningfully.

She pushes back her hair, to more fully bare herself to him, and watches him with that same hungry, intent look, as though she could consume all of him and know something deeper by it. After a moment, she moves towards him again, crawling like a beast on all fours now, one hand outstretched to trace her fingertips along the arch of his collarbone and down the valley of his sternum; and at last her eyes move upwards to his face again, her gaze finding his.

"One day," she murmurs, "I should like to hear the story of these marks."

[aleifr]

With the fire at her back, Aleifr cannot enjoy the view of her with the same clarity. The dancing light of the fire casts her in a stark silhouette, the lines of her body visible, but little else beyond what was illuminated by the light that wrapped around her form.

Meager as it was, it was more than enough. He looked at her as though she was something to eat -- a look that lost none of its intensity as she crawled towards him on her hands and knees, looking at him as though every desire she'd ever had were mapped onto him in this moment.

He loved it. He basked in it like the warmth of the fire as he felt her hands ghost down the centre line of his torso.

"You can." He replies, lifting a hand to caress her cheek. "Along with whatever other stories you'd want to know."

[shieldofrohan]

"All of them." She says it with grave certainty, without hesitation; and as she says it, she is almost in his lap again, her fingers gliding along the raised flesh of a scar, her head tilting into his touch. "Later."

Now, her mouth finds his again, with more confidence than before, her tongue darting out to press against his lips. The cool night air prickles at her skin, and yet she is not cold, with the fire at her back and the heat of him before her. She presses into him, small breasts giving only a little against the firm muscle of his chest. It is nothing that a noble lady should do, she thinks, to hunger so deeply and chase pleasure so wantonly, when matters are so dire.

She feels mad. She feels free.