how to live when all is lost | for sent_to_try_us

[shieldofrohan]

She had been prepared for the end. She had been ready to die with sword in hand, to watch Edoras burn and bring her down with it, while the Shadow covered the land and all that they clung to was swept away. She had done all that she could, and even doing it, she had known it would not be enough. She had been ready.

She had not been ready to survive it. Every day since, she has wished with all her heart that she did not.

He had tried to woo her, at first. If it had not been so terrible to see, it would almost have been funny: the sheer clumsy stupidity of it, to think that power was enough, that a grief-stricken captive would flee to the architect of her misery. He had brought her flowers, and tried to make himself a confidant. She had spat in his face, and bidden him to kill her too, or else she would kill him.

Even Gríma's foolishness had its limits, but his covetousness did not. He would have her, he told her, and she would be his wife and kneel for him, and she would know her place. At the time, she had laughed openly, certain that nothing he could do would break her will, knowing that she had resigned herself to pain and death, believing that there was nothing left for him to turn against her. Éomer was dead. Théodred was dead. The only leverage he had over her was Théoden, who lingered half-conscious and no longer himself; and he needed the King more than he needed his desires met.

She had been so innocent, back then. Even in what had seemed to her the darkest possible hour, with everything lost and all that she loved ripped from her, she had still been so naïve.

The first time he had tried to bed her, she had clawed her nails across his face, snarling and spitting like a wildcat; and Gríma would not have overcome her alone, being both smaller and weaker than his unwilling bride, but he was not alone. She had been held down by his new guard, muscular men of Dunlending stock, and her maidenhead was lost to her most loathed enemy beneath the eyes and hands of three uncaring strangers, and she had wept as bitterly as ever a woman wept - not for her lost virginity, nor even for its circumstances, but because that was the moment at which she understood fully how utterly helpless she had become.

She tried to rally. She tried to find some strength, some pride to carry her forward. At every turn, it was ripped from her.

She had not given way easily. She had made him fight for every inch: made him drag her by her hair sooner than go where she was told; met his demands with stony, proud silence; watched for any weakness. She had left her mark on him more than once, biting and scratching and kicking and punching, and in time, it seemed, he had changed his aim. If he had once seemed to hope that she would love him, he soon sought only to see her broken, like a horse to the bridle; if he had once intended to make her his wife, now he was content to make her his whore. Anything, it seemed, to make her crawl.

She tried to escape, more than once. She knew the King's hall better than anyone still living, and they could not guard her all the time. Her second attempt, in hindsight, had come close to success - would have been successful, in all likelihood, if she had simply fled. But she could not bear to flee and leave him living, and she had managed to come so close, had had the knife almost to his throat, when the men he hired had heard his screams and dragged her off. That she had been soundly beaten did nothing to dissuade her; that thereafter she was locked away for over a week without light or food only hardened her resolve. But then there had been the prisoners.

Gríma needed the King alive. He needed Éowyn alive. The other Men of Rohan, those who had survived his takeover... he needed them far less. He had brought her out of her captivity, weak with hunger and grief, to see the ends of the men who had tried to help her. Háma, Ceolfrith, Harbeorn, and the rest, all men she had known since her childhood, bloodied and beaten and trying to remain strong; he had made her stand there as they were hanged, and their bodies thrown onto the dungheap, and all she could do for them was to give them the honour of not looking away.

And then he had turned to her, and said in a tone low enough for her, Their wives, their children. And when the guards released her arms, and Gríma told her to kneel, she had knelt.

That was a year ago. She has rebelled since, in smaller ways; twice more she attempted escape, alone in her planning, but that made no difference to the deaths that came from it. The second time she came close to killing him, wrapping her hands around his throat so that he could not call for help, was the last time he was alone with her. He was still alive, and she was still a slave, and all that she had accomplished was that her humiliations were more public.

Little by little, he broke her down. She rarely spoke, rarely moved without being ordered to. For a time, she tried to kill herself: refused food and water, until they forced it down her throat anyway; sought any weapon to end things, without success; tried to break her skull against the walls of her room, until they bound her helpless to a bed. In the end, with even that escape blocked to her, she surrendered. She hated herself for surrendering. She hated Théoden, in his sickness and his weakness, for surrendering them. She hated everything, with a ferocity that was the only thing she could still feel, and she had no recourse.

When he told her to kneel, now, she knelt. When he told her to stand, she stood. When he told her to open her legs, or her mouth, or any other part of her, she did. She stood behind his seat, beside the empty throne, and she was a shell: she said not one word, nor shed one tear, nor moved a muscle unless she was told. She had spoken against him perhaps a dozen times since the winter, never for her own sake: to denounce some political cruelty, to refuse him some right that was not his to claim, to say aloud You are not King. Each time, she had been made to pay. Each time, her people had been made to pay. She would never allow herself to close her eyes, as the bodies were brought before her. She would never give their lives lightly, and so she surrendered, over and over again, and hated herself more every moment.

And then, the King died.

She did not weep, finding Théoden cold and stiff in his bed when she came to bring his breakfast. She felt no sorrow, only a dull ache where her feelings had once been. She thought, without the horror she should feel: I would that you had died two years sooner, and spared us all this end. She closed his eyes, and settled his withered hands upon his counterpane, and, despite it all, she kissed his brow.

If he was dead, then Gríma was King. He was King by her hand, by her claim. He was King because he had married the Queen, and so long as she surrendered to him, who was to dispute it? And in time, she knew, his attempts would bear fruit, and she would fall pregnant with his son, and then the line of Eorl would be reduced to a whore's get, and what remained of Rohan would mean less than the dirt.

They had ceased to watch her so closely, now. It had been months since she had made any attempt at escape or rebellion. She had no contact with her own people, those who were loyal to the line of Eorl; she had no weapon and no horse. She had only one thing to aid her: the last scraps of Éowyn, Éomund's daughter, who had once sworn that she would never bend.

She would die, she swore, there in the dead man's room. She would die, before she lived a day as King Wormtongue's queen.

And she hurled herself at the guardsman, and as he stumbled back, taken by surprise, she scrabbled the eating-knife from his belt, and drove it into his eye, and then his throat, and she ran. There were few windows in the living-quarters of the hall, and fewer still large enough to climb through; she ran for the nearest door, a headlong and desperate dash which had no chance of success, no hope of escape...

And out into the summer sunlight, so dazzlingly bright after months almost entirely spend inside. She staggered at the heat of it like a hammer-blow, and tried to catch herself, looking back into the shadows of the hall and out into a city that was no longer hers, and wondered why they were not yet upon her; but there was no virtue in wondering, or in pause. She held the knife white-knuckled, turning toward the stables. It would do nothing to defend her, if armoured men came to reclaim her. It would not save her from capture - but it could save her from once again surviving it.

They did not come.

She did not discover why until she was outside the city. She had taken, of all among them, the King's own horse: Snowmane knew her well, and he had almost smashed down the door of his stall when she called to him. He charged through the street and down the Barrow-Road, and she clung bareback to his mane, almost flat against his back, the bloody knife still in her hand; and as the gates were closed to bar her leaving, the guards at last moving to prevent her, she dug her heels into the stallion's flanks and urged him on, with all the swiftness that only Rohan's horses could claim, and the guards were Men of Rohan, and they hesitated a split second to recognise the King's horse, and then he was upon them, and bursting out onto the open hillside, and he did not stop until the strength left him, and then he settled from a gallop to a trot, his white flanks heaving and dark with sweat.

And it was then, and only then, that she found she was not alone.

That was two weeks ago. Now, she and her strange rescuers are far from Edoras, outside the borders of the Mark, farther than she has ever been. She has spoken to them, by now: enough to know that they were sent to retrieve her, that their rulers seek an alliance, and that they will see her returned to the throne. It should be a hopeful thing, but it fills her with a terrible dread to think of it. Will she be Queen, who has already betrayed her people a thousand times, and surrendered them and herself to the man who would destroy them? Will she take up their cause, only to fail them anew?

She should have died, she thinks. She should have died in the escape. She should have died in the imprisonment. She should have died a year and a half ago, when she saw her people fall. But she is alive, and she cannot pretend that she has no duty to them, and even in the direst moments of her imprisonment, she has never been so afraid.

They brought clothing and supplies, and at last she is permitted some of the things she has been denied: she is given a knife to eat with, and a belt, and riding-gear. She looks, as they ride into the courtyard, almost the woman she was before the war: she is tall and fair and she sits upright in the saddle of a milk-white warhorse, her chin raised and her long golden hair fluttering in the August breeze. But there is an emptiness behind the grey eyes that fix themselves on some imagined point, and her hand clutches tightly to the horn of her saddle, the mark of a shackle half-visible on her wrist, and, inside, she is nothing the same.

She does not dismount when they draw to a halt. She barely seems to have realised that they have stopped at all. It is with the slowness of one moving through a dream that at last she turns her head, looking uncomprehendingly at the small party who have left the palace to meet them.

"They will follow me here, as like as not." Her voice feels rusty, alien on her tongue. It is the voice of the old Éowyn, who had never knelt with her head bowed and called herself whore and slave. It is the voice of a woman who expects to be taken seriously, coming from the mouth of one who has grown to expect mocking laughter. It is the voice of a Queen, and she is not Queen; she is not sure she is even human any more.

She wants to scream. She wants to say: Kill me or leave me to the wolves, but do not ask me to be Éomund's daughter now. She is dead, the Lady Éowyn is dead, and all is lost. Do not look at me as though I carry hope; I have none even for myself. She wants to say: I cannot offer you alliance, I cannot offer you help, I can offer you nothing at all. But there is no other Lady Éowyn, and she is needed, all the same.

"They will follow me," she repeats, and her hand winds tighter in the reins, her nails digging into her palm. They are longer nails than she would choose. It has been a long time since she has been trusted with either work to keep them short for, or with scissors. "Are you ready, if they come?"

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[shieldofrohan]

That doubt is trying to steal in again - that sense that she is overreaching, that she is wronging Glinda by drawing her into this, that her lust is no nobler than Gríma's - but it is difficult to feel that she is overreaching when her reach is being guided farther. For the moment, she can forget all that is behind her, and all that is before them; and she leans in and gladly meets Glinda's soft lips, slowly drawing the light linen up over Glinda's thighs.

She could kiss her forever, she thinks, rather dazedly. It is like water to the thirsty, like air to the buried. Her teeth graze lightly against Glinda's lip, her tongue following after, and she pulls away only long enough and far enough to draw Glinda's nightgown off over her head.

Or that is her intent, at least. In the moment, she is so caught by the sight that she freezes, the nightgown still in her hands, her eyes tracing the soft curves and gentle lines of Glinda's naked body. She is exactly as Éowyn had pictured her, fair and soft and beautiful, and yet it seems a shock to actually see her fully, to find her unmarked and unmarred and delicate, as beautiful as in dreams. Éowyn's breath catches a little, and if Glinda's look was worshipful, hers is no less so, wondering at the woman before her as one might wonder at a sunrise after an endless night.

[sent_to_try_us]

It should not be this that makes her blush - but it is; Éowyn's gaze is so intense, the expression on her face so sweet, that Glinda feels heat rise through her body and burn in her cheeks. She looks away, trying not to smile too much - steps in to kiss Éowyn again, as if that somehow will make her less conscious of the way her lover looks at her.

Two thin layers of linen ought not to make the difference that they do. Éowyn's body is so warm against hers, and Glinda's breath catches as she presses closer to the other woman, her arms coming up to wind around Éowyn's neck. The sensations are overwhelming - the softness of Éowyn's breasts against her own, the strength of her shoulders where Glinda's arms rest on them, the sharp jut of her hip. It is impossible to hold back a soft, pleased sound; impossible too to stop herself from mimicking Éowyn and biting lightly at the other woman's lip.

[shieldofrohan]

Glinda is soft where Éowyn is sharp: her skin smooth and unmarred, her breasts full and high, her curves far more pronounced and the angles of her form less harsh. She is warm and gentle and clinging, and there is nothing in her that threatens violence, and Éowyn exhales so shakily it is almost a sob as they come together. Even the graze of teeth is gentle, an affectionate intimacy rather than an attack.

She wraps her arms around Glinda, holding her close, feeling the warmth of skin on skin. Her hands do not seem able to stay still, roaming up and down Glinda's back as if of their own volition: now tracing the angle of Glinda's shoulderblade, now the curve of her backside.

"You," she murmurs, between kisses, "are a wonder." And she means it wholly: she can hardly imagine such a woman exists, in a world that has fallen so deeply into evil and cold shadow. Someone who is kind, who is gentle, who - against all odds - is innocent. Her mouth trails along Glinda's cheek, down her neck, as she steps backwards and draws Glinda with her towards the bed.

[sent_to_try_us]

It must be Éowyn who steps away, for Glinda cannot - not when Éowyn's hands are on her body, making her shiver with pleasure and desire; not when Éowyn's mouth is on her neck, and Glinda's head tips back, wanting more. She needs no prompting to follow the other woman's lead, so eager to keep touching that her hands cannot quite seem to move away from her lover's arms, her shoulders, her back, and in the end it is Glinda who is first to climb onto the bed and reach out for Éowyn to join her.

She has no idea what to do, and it matters terribly while at the same time not mattering at all. The world has become nothing more than the two of them, and the firelight, and the bed, the darkness outside the windows and the quiet of the sleeping city wrapping them close. Éowyn is golden in the firelight, and there is a long moment when Glinda can do nothing but gaze at her, drinking her in.

She ought to be afraid. Those of her ladies who are married do not tend to speak fondly of the bedchamber; at first there is pain, and then merely a chore to be tolerated at best. But none of them have ever said anything about how the touch of someone's hand might send sparks flying, or how it seems impossible to stop kissing once started.

"Kiss me again?" But she is already reaching out to wind her arms around Éowyn's neck, already tilting her head up, overbalancing slightly on the mattress as she leans into the other woman, and not even trying to hide her desire.

[shieldofrohan]

She cannot think of this as sex; she cannot bear to think of this in the same terms as what was done to her, only a few rooms from here. If she does, her nerve will break. But it is helped by how different it feels, how readily her body moves to meet Glinda's and how pleasant it is to find her heart racing. For so long now, whenever she has been touched, she has let herself leave herself, withdraw to some inner holdfast and watch at a distance. Now, to her wonder and her terror, she finds she wants more than anything to feel every touch and kiss, to linger in every warm moment.

She does not need to be asked twice. She climbs onto the bed after Glinda, made clumsy by desire, and her arm winds around Glinda's waist as their lips meet again. She climbs onto Glinda, too, straddling her lap and pressing her gently back against the bed, ready to withdraw at the slightest hint of discomfort. Her tongue twines with Glinda's, their breath finding a natural harmony, and she feels all of it: the warmth and softness of skin on skin, the thunder of both their hearts, the pleading closeness of Glinda's embrace. Her free hand cups Glinda's cheek, then trails down the side of her neck, down to her breast and belly, mapping the contours of a body that is not her own, and that has never been hurt.

[sent_to_try_us]

For all her thinness, all her edges, Éowyn is strong. She makes each step seem so easy, so obvious: her arm around Glinda's waist; the smooth, gentle pressure that tips Glinda onto her back; her legs on each side of Glinda's thighs - and Glinda can do nothing but wind her fingers into Éowyn's hair, dishevelling her careful braid even more, and arch her body as if she can somehow find a way to get closer still.

Without thinking about it, she draws one knee up until there is the soft rub of delicate curls against her skin, and then slickness and a sudden heat. Her breath catches then, stuttering in her chest, as Glinda makes sense of it - realizes, as she does, that the same slickness is between her own thighs, and that even the slightest movements of their bodies feel remarkably intense if they make her legs press together.

It is then that Éowyn's hand makes its way down her body, thumb brushing over her nipple, fingers caressing her side, and Glinda says oh as her lover's hand seems to send little jolts of pleasure through her that ground themselves between her thighs. The sound is swallowed in their kiss - which is lucky, for she has forgotten that she ought to be silent - and Glinda's hips rock up towards Éowyn's, trying to find a way to ask for more.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn is wet. She realises how wet only at the friction of Glinda's skin against her cunt; only then does she fully recognise the cool brush of air on slick, aching flesh; only then does she realise that she is not only enjoying this but truly moved by it.

How long has it been since she was so readily aroused, before even being touched? She knows there was a time, when sex was a vague fantasy and lust a private thing, that she found it overtaking her, that she touched herself for no sake but her own; but it was another woman who experienced that, a long time ago. This feels like a first, like something has been made new. Like everything has been made new.

"I want to touch you." Some of that wonder is in her voice, low and throaty from where she trails her mouth down Glinda's throat, laying small kisses along the soft line of Glinda's shoulder. There is a hint of fear in her voice, too, incongruous among their mutual desire. It is fear that drives her, more than desire: the fear that she is mistaken, that she may destroy what she touches, that all this is only another way to break. That she will break Glinda, as she herself has been broken.

But Glinda moves against her, an urging movement that cannot be ignored, and Éowyn's body yearns towards that yearning, and she has never been able to altogether flee what she fears.

"I want to touch you," she says again, barely a whisper, and her fingers still at the edge of Glinda's mound, her heart pounding in her ears. She pulls herself up enough to meet Glinda's eyes, the look in her own eyes a curious mixture of hunger and doubt. "I... May I?"

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn's mouth is on her neck, sending shivers through Glinda's body, and for a moment she thinks to hold the other woman there - reaches up, even, before she hears the slightest quiver in Éowyn's voice, and then her hand comes instead to rest on her lover's back. It is almost impossible to think when her body is sending such insistent messages of desire, but Glinda does her best, takes a deep breath in and looks down into Éowyn's eyes just as the other woman looks up.

And oh, the expression on her face - how clearly she is torn, how obvious the war of emotions. Glinda's fingers tighten against Éowyn's back, as if by holding her just a little closer she might shield her lover from fear. The warrior queen vulnerable melts her heart just as she did crying in the bath all those months (those few short weeks) ago, and Glinda's hand slides up into Éowyn's hair to pull her head down and kiss her.

She does not hold back. Clumsy, yes, she is still clumsy, and Éowyn's teeth bump against her lip before Glinda tilts her head properly again - but she pours her desire into the kiss, all the aching hours reading and rereading Éowyn's letters, wanting to be able to kiss her again and again until they are both sated. Without quite realizing it, she has pushed herself up on one elbow, her entire body inclining towards her lover's.

"Yes," she manages eventually, between kisses. "Yes, Éowyn, please - anything - only do not stop."

[shieldofrohan]

There is something she cannot quite name in the tightening of Glinda's fingers against her back, the way Glinda draws her down and kisses her as though that kiss were the only thing in the world that mattered. It is acceptance, it is desire, it is the answer to a thousand questions at once; it is the overwhelming sense that - even with Gríma still alive - it is over. Here, at last, is the thing she had hoped to feel when they retook the city, the sense of a victory not over her enemy but herself. She feels loved, and it is all that she can do not to weep at it.

Instead of weeping, she puts all of that intensity of feeling into the kisses they share, her eyes closing tightly as she leans into their kiss, as if they could absorb one another, come together and disappear forever into desire and care.

All the same, she does stop, for a moment: her lips still against Glinda's, her eyes closed and her brow furrowed, as if trying to gather herself. It is not too late, she thinks, to retreat. It is not too late to spare her honour.

It is too late, and she is too weak, and Glinda's body yearns against her, and Éowyn's heart yearns back. She lets out a long-held breath, warm air shuddering into Glinda's mouth, and it feels like a greater journey to move her hand down an inch than it was to ride all the length and breadth of Rohan.

Her eyes open, wanting to see Glinda's face, to gauge her reaction as slender, calloused fingers slide lightly over the contours of her sex.

[sent_to_try_us]

It seems to her as though time stops, just for a moment, as Éowyn sighs - as if some momentous decision has been made, something that could change the course of her life. Glinda's puzzlement lasts barely a second; Éowyn's hand moves, ever so slightly, and then there is nothing but the way her fingers trace a path over Glinda's skin, the intensity in her gaze, the heat of their bodies pressed together.

She has never done anything like this before - never even come close, barely even thought of it - but her body responds to Éowyn's touch without any coherent direction from her, almost instinctive, and for once Glinda does not even try to overcome her instincts and do what she ought to. Her legs part a little further; her hips lift towards her lover's hand, her back arching.

It is wanton, undoubtedly it is wanton, and Glinda does not care. Not with Éowyn. Her gaze is focused on the other woman's clear grey eyes, her lips slightly parted and breath coming ragged. She ought to be afraid, and is not; she ought to be ashamed, and is not that either. Nothing seems to matter, at least not for right now, except the two of them so close together they might almost be one.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn's touch is more inexpert now, far less certain. Here, she is entering uncharted territory; she has never sincerely tried to pleasure any woman but herself, and that not in some time. But that unfamiliarity is a blessing: something untouched by any moment but this, something real.

She keeps her eyes on Glinda, watching every shift and twitch of her features, the flush in her cheeks and the haze in her blue eyes. Éowyn's own breath comes quicker, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, and she has forgotten doubt for the moment in the face of that look on Glinda's face. Beautiful, is almost the only word she can think, over and over again: o! was anything ever so beautiful?

Her fingers find a place that seems to make Glinda twitch and moan, and she settles there, pressing harder, working her fingers against the slick, wet skin, rubbing slowly at first, and then faster.

"I dreamed of you," she whispers, lowering herself down over her lover to brush her lips to Glinda's cheek, jaw, ear. Soft kisses, but heated. "I dreamed of you, and I awoke wet and wanting, when I did not know I could want at all."

[sent_to_try_us]

At first there is not much to feel, and Glinda has just begun to worry that she is somehow incomplete - up until the moment that Éowyn's fingers stroke against her and a shock of pleasure goes through her body. Her breath catches, eyes closing, and when Éowyn does it again and again Glinda cannot quite hold back a moan. Her hips rock up against the other woman's hand, finding the rhythm of her lover's movements and quite accidentally sending more sparks flying inside her body.

And then Éowyn starts murmuring against her skin, soft words that make Glinda shiver and her breathing go ragged. She bites at her own lip, her hand sliding down to the other woman's back, fingers tightening against the muscle of Éowyn's shoulders. Somehow the very idea that her lover had imagined this, imagined the two of them together, is a new spur to the heat and desire coiling deep within her, and she makes a soft, needy sound.

She cannot seem to put together words - until now, Glinda has always been able to find words, but words seem so small and meaningless besides the way Éowyn is making her feel. Instead she tries to push herself up again, tugging her lover down as best she can for another slow, hungry kiss.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn does not need much coaxing to be drawn down. She meets Glinda's mouth gladly, her free hand coming up to card through Glinda's soft hair. She can smell arousal on the air, thick and heavy, and between Glinda's thighs, her fingers are slick with it.

And the sounds. That low, throaty moan, the pleading moue that follows... it is blessedly impossible to think of anything else, to want anything other than to pull that sound out of Glinda again and again. She twines her tongue with Glinda's, her eyes closing, revelling in the taste and smell and feel of her lover beneath her. It is like water in a desert, like sunrise after a long night, to drink in her lover's pleasure; it washes over her and seems to wash her clean, until it is all that remains in the world, and all that she wants in the world.

Her hand shifts lower between Glinda's legs, fingertips dipping shallowly into the pool of Glinda's cunt, her thumb still working at the sensitive nub where she began.

[sent_to_try_us]

Éowyn kisses her as though there is nothing but the two of them, and it is all Glinda has ever wanted. Her hand tightens on Éowyn's shoulder, holding her just where she is; her hips lift up again, shifting so that her leg presses a little harder between the other woman's thighs. And when Éowyn's hand moves down that little bit further, Glinda cannot quite stop a sound that's awfully close to a whine.

Every movement of her lover's hand feels so good it is almost unbearable; whenever Éowyn's thumb presses down just as Glinda's hips rock up, the world seems to vanish beneath a rush of pleasure. It does not take long before she has to break their kiss, trying to catch her breath in between gasps - but she doesn't move far, her lips still brushing against her lover's every time she tries to speak.

And she is trying to speak, albeit incoherently; the words might be Éowyn, and please, and yes, although more than a few turn into oh as her breath stutters with another stroke of Éowyn's clever fingers. Her nails are starting to dig into the other woman's back now, her entire body tensing a little more with every movement, every wave of pleasure. Something is building inside her that Glinda does not recognise; she would be afraid, were it not that Éowyn is the one touching her, holding her, urging her on.

[shieldofrohan]

This is new. This is all wonderfully, terrifyingly, beautifully new. Éowyn is strikingly aware of her own power in this: that she has robbed Glinda of speech and made her writhe and buck and twist, that with nothing but her touch she has turned a graceful lady into a whimpering beast, held close and holding tight.

The fear lingers at the back of her mind, that she is becoming all she has feared. But when she looks at Glinda again - when she hears those whines and whimpers, the pleading edge to Glinda's voice; when she sees the pleasure on Glinda's face and feels how she rocks against Éowyn's hand - even fear cannot convince her that she is doing harm, or that Glinda does not want her. No: perhaps this is not wise, perhaps they will regret it, but it is not the same. This is a lover's power, and she slowly relaxes into it, revelling in it, a comfort she did not find even on the battlefield. Nobody is hurt. Nobody is damaged. Nobody grieves.

She ducks her head, kissing along the tops of Glinda's breasts, her tongue lapping at the salt of her lover's sweat. She wants to see Glinda reach a peak, climax and be overwhelmed by pleasure: at the same time, she wants to linger, wants this moment to last forever, so that she can live as long as possible in the moment where she is no longer a victim, no longer broken, but able to give pleasure at her own will.

[sent_to_try_us]

It is getting harder and harder to bite back the sounds she wants to make; when Éowyn's kisses move downwards, Glinda claps her own hand over her mouth in an effort to at least muffle a moan. It is not as effective as she would like, but she is running out of coherent thought and the idea of being heard is no longer enough to make her want to stop.

Tension is rising within her, tension and that aching need that Éowyn's hand both stokes and eases, and Glinda closes her eyes and lets her head tip back as she allows the pleasure to begin taking over entirely. Her body seems almost to be moving by itself: back arching as if to offer her breasts to Éowyn's mouth, hips rolling against Éowyn's fingers, leg drawing up until she can feel the slick heat between her lover's legs sliding along her own thigh with each movement.

And then it becomes too much, far too much: Glinda gives up on silencing herself, curls her fingers into Éowyn's hair to pull her head back up and kiss her - or try to kiss her, anyway, between shuddering breaths, as her body goes tense and waves of pleasure flood through her until she almost feels that she is drowning in pure bliss.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn is not, in that moment, easy to kiss. She cannot bring herself to be pulled down; cannot seem to do anything but watch, spellbound, how Glinda tenses and shudders and moans.

She has never seen anything like it. She has never felt anything like it. She can see, in Glinda's expression, an abandon that she has never felt: a bliss and a lightness that belies the tension underneath, which seems to stand fast against the shadows of the world. It seems to her that she can see the world fall away from Glinda, or Glinda away from the world, and there is a beauty in Glinda's contorted expression which makes everything seem to stop dead.

"Glinda..." she whispers, hoarsely and breathlessly, and her hand trembles as she brings it up to the other woman's cheek, tracing the softness of skin. Her other hand still moves between Glinda's legs, slowly and absently, wondering at what she finds there. Her eyes remain fastened on Glinda's face, wondering at what she finds there, too. "Oh, love..."

[sent_to_try_us]

Love.

The word is potent enough to break through Glinda's dreamy, blissful haze: for a moment her eyes widen and her breath catches, although she can hope (and does hope, very swiftly) that Éowyn will not notice anything different. She is, after all, already breathing as though she has been running, and no doubt blushing a deep pink, and if she swallows hard and looks up at the other woman surely it is understandable. Under the circumstances.

She has imagined it, of course, in the dreamy, wistful way of thinking of a future romance - and has pushed it away from her mind quickly, because whatever she feels about Éowyn matters very little when they will both have to marry, and bear sons and heirs, and rule separate kingdoms. Kings and queens very rarely leave their realms; once she is married, she will never see Éowyn again. And so she has come to the conclusion that the best thing to do - for both of them - is to simply never think about it.

Glinda is very good at not thinking about difficult things.

Even so, there is an aching sweetness in the way Éowyn says it, and she wants to hear it again - and again, and again, for as long as Éowyn is willing to continue. Instead she smiles up at her lover, turns her head towards the other woman's hand, and catches one of Éowyn's fingers in her mouth. It feels oddly right to suck lightly, to roll her tongue around her lover's finger, the same slow and steady rhythm Éowyn is still stroking her with. Glinda shivers at another little wave of pleasure, and reaches up to see if she can tug Éowyn down to rest against her.

[shieldofrohan]

It feels oddly right, and so bizarrely intimate that it makes Éowyn shiver, feeling a clenching heat deep inside her. That heat joins the insistent ache in the pit of her belly, the pleading wetness of her cunt, and she wonders what she will do with it. It is one thing to touch a woman whose whole body invites it, who meets every kiss and brush of skin with blushing delight. It is another thing altogether to be touched. It is too familiar.

But it is another thing again to be embraced, and she readily lets herself be drawn down, shifting until her head rests on Glinda's shoulder, her lips brushing the soft arc of Glinda's jaw. At last, the hand between her lover's thighs slows and then stops, trailing up to cup one full breast instead, with thoughtless indolence. There is a restlessness deep in the core of her, that hunger itching to be sated, but it is for the moment offset by the comfort of skin on skin, the deep sense of wellbeing that comes with hearing the heavy rise and fall of a lover's breathing.

Safe. She feels it, almost hears it, in the warmth of Glinda's form against her and the way it shifts to welcome her. It is a fanciful thought, which has no right to be as sure as it is, but it is sure, just the same: Glinda must know, in this moment, that she is safe.

"Are you all right?"

[sent_to_try_us]

There is a new delight in the weight of Éowyn's body against her, in her lover's warmth and strength, and Glinda basks in it. Her hand comes up to cradle Éowyn's head against her shoulder, and she lets Éowyn's finger go only so that she might kiss the other woman's forehead.

"Mmm," she says, and then, "yes, dearest." Her voice has become soft and husky, unlike anything she has heard before, and it almost makes her laugh. "No one ever said it might feel good," Glinda adds - which seems to her to be quite an important consideration to have left out; almost every woman she knows has gone to her wedding night somewhere between stoic and terrified, not knowing that she might find pleasure in it instead. Unless the difference is in the way a man does it, in which case they ought perhaps to take notes from the women in their lives and learn how to be better.

Her free hand finds Éowyn's shoulder, trails down her arm. There is still an ache in her, but not the same one as she had felt before: this one is a longing to touch Éowyn, to see her lover find the overwhelming bliss that she has so recently discovered. The only difficulty is that she is not entirely sure what to do, or how to do it - but Glinda prides herself on being a quick learner, and surely it cannot be too hard.

"May I touch you?" she asks, very softly. "I should like you to feel good, too."

[shieldofrohan]

She believes it. That is what frightens her, more than anything. She believes that is all Glinda wants, as Glinda's pleasure is all she wants. She believes, even, that it can feel good. She cannot believe anything else in this moment, when all her senses tell her the truth.

And yet...

She tries to keep it from her face, but it shows, all the same: she stiffens a little, her face losing its softness again and becoming a blank mask. She wants, very badly, to say yes. She wants to know for herself that it can feel good, to have touch be a delight and to taste some of the bliss that still lingers in Glinda's expression. She wants to feel those warm, soft, loving hands all over her body, meeting the hunger that still coils and throbs in the pit of her belly. She wants.

She shakes her head.

It feels unfair to refuse Glinda this; she wants to refuse her nothing. It feels cruel, a rebuff where none could reasonably be expected. Not explaining herself feels cold and brutal. Explaining herself feels worse, dragging this back - as all things are dragged back - to the ugly past.

"I feel good," she says at last, and it is true, even if her voice is a little thicker and her expression a little tighter than a moment ago. She tries to soften the blow with a kiss, slow and lingering and - unavoidably - hungry. "I feel better than I have in years, here with you. But... no. Not yet." Clearing her throat, she shifts closer against Glinda's side, wrapping her arms around the smaller woman. "We should both rest."

[sent_to_try_us]

The moment that Éowyn's face goes blank is a terrible one; Glinda is not fast enough to put up her own courtier's mask, and her lips compress for a moment before she too mirrors her lover's expression. They have both learned it through long practice, she thinks: looking calm and serene, regal and in control, even if the world should be falling apart around them. The only difference is that Glinda has been taught always to smile, while Éowyn - a queen - has no need to appease.

But she is not upset, only uncertain, and when Éowyn kisses her again her response is more than willing. She watches the other woman's eyes, turning her head as Éowyn settles against her, and does not take her hand off her lover's arm. If the desire they have kindled burns as bright inside Éowyn as it had inside Glinda, she has no idea how Éowyn thinks she can simply tamp it down and ignore it. The aching need had not been something that could so easily be put aside.

"Are you certain?" she asks, gently, almost a whisper. "I would not leave you wanting, my sweet." Her hand smooths over Éowyn's shoulder, her back, and Glinda tilts her head to press a soft kiss against the other woman's forehead.

[shieldofrohan]

"I am..."

She is not. She is not certain at all, and that is almost the worst of all: to be robbed of certainty, too. But Glinda's hand is warm and comforting, and her kiss even more so, and as much as she feels vulnerable and afraid, Éowyn feels safe and secure. Both are intense and undeniable: the yearning towards, and the recoiling against. Glinda does not seem, to her, like she could ever do harm. Being touched feels like it is only harm, even after seeing how it has transported her lover.

She lets out a long, shaky sigh, and her hand grasps the back of Glinda's head, pulling her in until their foreheads are pressed together and their noses touch. Éowyn's breathing is ragged, her eyes closing for a moment as if in pain, as if she is gathering herself somehow and needs an anchor to cling to as she does.

At last, her grip slackens, and she draws away a little.

"No," she says quietly. "No, but... but hold my hand, and I will do the thing myself." And keep my eyes on you, and know that you are here, and no-one else.

[sent_to_try_us]

It seems forever that Éowyn is silent, thinking, and Glinda has to make an effort not to hold her breath. The intimacy of gazing into her lover's eyes, feeling her breath shake and hitch, is more intense than she could ever have anticipated from something that seems so close to ordinary. But then, really, nothing about this is ordinary - nothing has been ordinary at all since Éowyn's throne was usurped.

When Éowyn finally answers, Glinda knows herself to be blushing from the sudden heat in her cheeks and ears. She bites at her own lip, manages to nod, tries to keep her eyes on Éowyn's. Even the idea of it is - scandalous, unthinkable, not something a maiden should ever know about - and yet desire is coiling low in her belly again.

"May I - watch?"

The words are out before she can bite them back, and Glinda is certain she has gone crimson. It is without question not something one should do, not something one should even consider doing, and yet - she wants to. Wants to see Éowyn experience her own pleasure; wants to know how Éowyn might wish to be touched; wants to admire her, undistracted by Éowyn's clever fingers and sweet kisses. She swallows hard, and manages to keep looking at her lover, and tries to pretend she has not just said something no young woman should ever think of.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn does smile then: weary and aching, but a smile nonetheless, and one which is heartfelt.

"I had hoped you would," she murmurs, and kisses her.

She has been watched before, and it has been a horrible, ugly thing - one of the worst of all the torments he put her through, because it robbed her even of the ability to remove herself when she must be her own attacker. But it has the advantage over being touched that, so long as she remembers she is being watched, she can remember who is watching her. She will not close her eyes and forget whose hand is between her thighs, whose breathing is hot and ragged against her ear. Looking at Glinda's fair face flushed crimson at the very thought, it is hard to imagine that she will urge things past the point of safety, or slaver uncontrollably at the sight, or take it as an invitation to greater depravity. Indeed, looking at the depth of that blush, Éowyn finds herself wondering a little uneasily whether Glinda has even thought of it before.

She guides one of Glinda's hands to her cheek; reaches down to lace her fingers together with the other; settles back against the covers, her head turned to the side so that she can keep her eyes fixed on her lover's face. She wants that face to be all she sees, all the world: it seems to her that is the only way this will work.

"Do not let go," she whispers, and there is that vulnerability again, the fear that she cannot bear to admit too much, now cresting above the surface. But it is not only fear that rules her, now. Slowly, she lets her hand creep down, over her belly and the arching hollows of her hips, to where despite it all she does cry out for touch.

She does not open her legs at once. It is a small defence, to try to make this for her own sake and not an audience - even a beloved one. She curls her fingertips between thighs pressed close together, and the gasp shudders out of her at the press of skin against wet, aching need. Her eyes, still fixed on Glinda's, widen a little, her lips parting before her legs do.

He did not teach her this. Long before the end came, she had learned how to rein her body into obedience, how to most effectively silence the ache and loneliness that had reared into unmanageability in the solitude of darkness. She knew, before it was ruined, how to saddle desire and ride it as swiftly as possible to resolution. She knows, in short, where to touch: her fingers at once find the hood of her clit, and start to rub it roughly and mercilessly. Her other hand tightens on Glinda's, her breath catching and then releasing in a low, undeniable moan, and she twists where she lies, her thighs spreading and her hips bucking in small, restrained movements; but all the while she keeps her eyes open, even as the focus blurs, and her lips move a little, repeating Glinda's name.