Chapter 1: Quartet

[ Setting the scene: the events of this chapter take place in Gondor’s Houses of Healing, immediately after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, as Aragorn attempts to heal Éowyn in body, mind, and spirit. Evenstar and Undómiel are other names for Arwen, while Estel was Aragorn’s secret name during his youth in Rivendell. Caution: this chapter contains semi-consensual sex and rough semi-consensual BDSM.]

15 March 3019 (Third Age), Minas Tirith

Aragorn was troubled. No, not troubled, exactly. I’m... The room was heady with the fragrance of athelas, and everyone breathed more easily as the herb did its healing work, but he was...

Afraid. I’m afraid. I’ve survived the terror of Paths of the Dead, I’ve faced the Nine, I’ve battled Saruman’s multitudes, the Haradrim, and the mighty armies of Mordor, and I know that an even greater Darkness — perhaps the Enemy himself — lies ahead. Despite all that, I’m still afraid to touch this woman.

It was more than what transpired during their last meeting. Her brazen attempt at seduction — and it had taken a powerful act of will to resist her, though she could never know it — dominated his thoughts, yet it wasn’t the source of his current anxiety.

There was darkness within her. It was palpable, simultaneously immaterial and physical, and oppressive. It was something beyond the terrible aftereffects of proximity to the Witch-king, something beyond the wasting Black Shadow under which so many had fallen. Worse, it was growing. He could sense it as a tangible, living thing, though he doubted any of the others (save perhaps Gandalf) could do the same. Whatever its nature she was the source of it, or at least it was emanating from her. He feared that it would soon consume her ... but should he manage to wake her the darkness might spread to all she encountered if he couldn’t find and conquer it at its root. And he knew had to act quickly, despite his anxiety and exhaustion, for he had little time to spare in this pursuit.

He took a deep breath, opening his mind to hers in the way that Elrond and Arwen taught him, calling up the healing arts that were native to his own Númenórean lineage. Facing his fear head-on, he spoke to her at last.

“Awake, Éowyn, Lady of Rohan!” It was said with a confidence he didn’t truly feel, but it had the desired effect. He took her right hand in his, and lo! it was warm where before it had been cold; life was returning to her limbs. But it was a poisoned life, and having recognized an enemy it now sought to stake a claim on his own. He could protect himself by abandoning his effort, but to turn away and let it grow unchecked would abandon her — and perhaps others — to the horror within. He closed his eyes and reached out...

“Lord Aragorn. You called me. Let me serve you.”

She fell to her knees, reaching for his breeches and undoing the stays.

“But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?”

Gandalf’s question rolled through his mind, for now he knew at least part of the answer.

When he first met her he easily perceived her frustration at forever being left behind, at being reduced to servitude, of being denied the right of battle because she was a woman. But now he saw the rest: the shackles of propriety, the myriad societal prohibitions of her gender, her desperation as the King fell into premature dotage, her frustration at a cage that grew narrower with each new humiliation. Sex became a representation of all she was disallowed, a physical freedom that (for a time) cast aside the fears that were her true imprisonment. While he could sense influences both evil and good upon her, and knew that she hadn’t come to this solution entirely of her own volition, it was clear that she became a willing participant in, and eventually an eager instigator of, sexual exploration as a form of rebellion against those trammels.

This is, at least in part, why she so wantonly threw herself at me that night in Dunharrow. But whence the accompanying chicanery? Whence the determination to use Wormtongue’s manipulative trickery to force my consent? Is it the same as the source of her current agonies? If I can discern the reason, perhaps I can heal her. Perhaps ... perhaps ... but how?

If there was a solution, he couldn’t see it. Nor did he seem capable of immediate action, for his feet remained rooted to the ground as she greedily scrabbled for his organ. Unaccountably incapable of arresting her progress, his protest was a mere whisper. “No. Éowyn, you mustn’t. I beg you to stop.”

To his relief, she stopped immediately. Tears welled. “I’ve displeased you. Now you will have to punish me for my failure.”

She was already turning over, pressing her forehead to the floor and raising her ass high in the air. A long, cruel whip appeared in his trembling hand; summoned whole from the ether, yet feeling no less real for it.

What is happening here?

“Beat me, Lord Aragorn. Make me suffer for the many wrongs I’ve done you.”

He stared at her cheeks, already patterned with welts and bruises, and realized that similar marks extended up and down her body. Of even greater concern was that it wasn’t her flesh that evidenced the worst abuse.

“Please, Master. Whip me!”

As if controlled by some outside force his arm rose, flexing the long coil. He’d never before wielded a whip, yet a cold passion seeped into his mind; not lust, nor anger, but something darker and more insidious. Something that desired to destroy, and thus to control that which had been destroyed. With a growl, he brought the whip down...

“You’re no Elf-princess. You’re the misbegotten spawn of some wicked creature of the night!”

Arwen laughed as she always did: a gentle shower of mirth and light, washing away cares and every part of the world not already contained within their embrace. “Such crude words from your otherwise respectful lips! Watch your tongue, lest I return to the house and tell Elrond you question my parentage. Good luck explaining that to your future father-in-law.”

“Someday, Undómiel, I am going to make you pay for your endless insouciance.” Even as he said it, he couldn’t help but smile.

Her eyes twinkled, then flashed with inspiration. “Why not now?”

“What?”

She rolled over, hiking her light dress up her thighs and exposing her soft buttocks to his wondering stare. She’d been teasing him mercilessly, playfully denying his persistent amorous approaches, but he’d not realized she was naked underneath her simple raiment. For if he had...

“I agree that I’ve been terribly naughty. Should there not, as you say, be a price for such behavior?”

He could hear the excitement in her voice, but couldn’t wrest his attention from the beautiful curves of her ass. “I ... what do ... I don’t...”

“Oh dear. What happened to the strong, decisive, masterful Ranger? I guess I’ll have to find someone else to deal with me. Someone who knows what I want, and isn’t afraid to give it to me.”

Aragorn sputtered. “I know what it is you want, minx. I just can’t believe you want it.”

“Talk, talk, talk. All talk. So like a Man.”

With a grimace, Aragorn raised his hand. “You’re sure?”

Arwen wiggled her rear end, giggling in an uncharacteristically undignified way. “Punish me, you brute!”

The sharp crack of leather cutting into flesh jolted Aragorn from his reverie. With a cry of dismay he let the whip fall slack. Below him Éowyn was shuddering, her own screech having preceded his own. He was confused. Did I strike her once, or many times? Some marks looked to be fresher than others, but there were so very many...

Nor were scars the only result of his actions. Liquid flowed from Éowyn’s engorged sex, running down her thighs and pooling on the floor beneath her. Is she actually enjoying this? Play, like I’ve engaged in with Arwen, is one thing, but the cruelty of the whip ... how could it be possible?

Whatever her response, he couldn’t be an active participant in this horror. The terrifying emotions radiating from her were stronger than ever, and he’d been unprepared for their intensity. He willed himself to fight the darkness that threatened to overcome them both, and as a bowstring suddenly stretched too far, the evil compulsion within him snapped and the whip abruptly disappeared from his hand. Yet he was no closer to an answer than before.

What is happening here?

Éowyn remained on her knees, sobbing openly. Whether they were his marks or another’s, marks she clearly bore. With regret and infinite tenderness he bent down to comfort her, unsure where to put his hands lest he aggravate her seemingly endless wounds or caress her where he deemed he shouldn’t. The moment he touched her, she began trembling. Her skin burned like fire ... not just the heat of sexual arousal, but an actual searing flame that beggared understanding ... yet he steeled himself and endured the pain.

“Aragorn,” she gasped, “fuck me! Please. I need it. I need you. Please, please, please fuck me. I can be your whore. Use me any way you want. Anywhere. Pound my mouth, my cunt, my ass. Ream my slutty holes. Make me scream in pain, but don’t stop fucking me. Choke me with your cock until I pass out. Drown me in your cum. But please ... please ... please...” Her litany dissolved into desperate, wracking sobs.

Motionless with horror at the depravity of her pleas, Aragorn was nonetheless overcome by anguish. None of this makes sense. Violence I expected to find. But sex? And this form of sex? What could have happened on the Pelennor? She’d slain the Witch-king, an unprecedentedly mighty if fearsome deed, but aside from her broken arm her body was — at least according to the Warden — undamaged. Yet her self-image was that of someone relentlessly battered, her mind bent and twisted beyond repair. Meanwhile, her hips were oscillating back and forth as if she were being rhythmically impaled, and she moaned through her sobs. “Yes... yes, Khamûl, fuck my ass. Ruin me. Break me. My ass belongs to you. Only you.”

His eyes widened in shock and dismay. Khamûl? The black Easterling, the most fell of the remaining Nazgûl? But how could she possibly know him by that name? Or even know him at all? For there’s no chance that she’s encountered him, in battle or anywhere else.

Éowyn was shrieking her way into an orgasm. He couldn’t help but be erect, given the lurid sights and sounds before him, but his alarm at what he was witnessing was even greater. How he could possibly bring clarity and healing to this wretched miasma he couldn’t imagine.

She was convulsing now. “Deeper! Harder! Hurt me!” Shaking all over, Éowyn climaxed. Immediately, she rolled to her back and spread her legs, her sex pulsing and gushing fluid. Her desperate need for penetration turned to equally intense pleas for punishment. “Whip me! Now! Hard. Beat your whore’s cunt. Please! Make me come from the pain. Force your cock down my throat so I can’t scream. Khamûl! Aragorn! Anyone!“

Aragorn could take no more. Reaching down and grabbing her head, ignoring his erection as it pressed into her side, he sternly and forcefully urged her to stop. “No! No more! Come back to me, fair Éowyn. Let this darkness trouble you no more!”

With surprising strength and speed she leapt at him, wrapping her legs around his waist and undulating against his hardness. “Yes, yes, take me Aragorn ... I need your cock instead. Fuck me until I cry. I want your huge shaft stretching my holes. Make me beg and plead to come, but don’t let me. Beat me instead. Rip my pussy apart with your cock and tear it to shreds with the whip. And then, when I can’t take any more...”

He tried to push her away, stunned at the violence of her language, but she clung to him like a spider. Distracted by the effort to restrain her, a repellent desire to inflict brutality seeped back into his mind. His desperate battle was now being fought on two fronts: Éowyn rubbed her fattened labia up and down his barely covered tumescence while he resisted a growing urge to strike her and end this unwanted union. Crying out in orgasm, she gripped him as tightly as his struggles would allow, riding out her climax, smearing his breeches with her ejaculations.

“Spank me.” It was a barely audible whisper a hair’s breadth from his ear. But her tone was unlike that which had begged for violence only moments earlier. The desperation remained, but it was muted by an open-hearted innocence.

“No,” he growled. “Stay this madness!”

“Aragorn, please listen and believe. You have to.”

“I cannot. Let me help you.”

Her hips ground against his, but she continued to whisper entreaties. “No, you don’t understand. This is me. The Éowyn you knew. Not the enslaved and broken husk writhing against you, but what little remains of who I was. You have to. I’m trapped. Not here, at least as you perceive ‘here.’ Somewhere else. Somewhere I can’t escape, and that I won’t want to escape unless forced. It’s taking every bit of my failing strength to speak to you right now. Only you can lead me out of this nightmare, but you have to get my attention first. This is the only way. You must reach me as they do. You must be stronger.”

“They?”

“It’s better you don’t know.” The misery in her voice was infinite, but still she rutted against his stiff rod, quivering with pleasure he was helpless to ignore.

“Lady Éowyn, I...”

“What I ask of you ... it’s all I know, where I am. It’s all there is, and all that will ever be. It’s the only way. You must take control of my body if you want to rescue the rest of me. Sex and pain. It has to be both. Please!”

Aragorn was silent. How can I trust these tortured words? And yet...

“Feel my heart, Aragorn.” She leaned back, grabbing his hand and placing it over her breast, her hard nipple boring into his palm. “I’m telling you the truth. Either do this or abandon me to eternal torment in my world and wasting death in yours.” With a shudder she reached another quiet climax, and still she continued thrusting her sodden center against his manhood. His pants were drenched. “Though maybe that would be for the best.”

He was in an agony of indecision, and found himself unable to answer.

“Please help me. Please. I feel ... Aragorn, I’m losing myself again. Please, hurry!“ Hot tears fell upon his neck, even as the greater wetness below soaked through his breeches. Her whispers fell to silence.

“You cannot!”

“I must.”

“You just got here. It has been far too long — even as I would measure it — since we’ve seen each other, and you’re going to leave without even spending the entire night?” Her lithe, naked form closed in upon itself. Just moments ago he’d been buried deep inside her, enveloped in bliss, but now it was if they’d never touched.

“Undómiel...”

“Do not bandy terms of endearment with me, Estel.” The diminutive of his youth was, from her tongue in this moment, offered in mockery rather than love. “You thought you would pass through Lorien, efficiently bed your Elven trollop under a conveniently romantic canopy of mallorn boughs, and then blithely traipse back into the wild, having satisfied your carnal urges for ... well, for how long? The next year? The next five? And what am I to do while you are gone? Pleasure myself in the darkness, as I have done far too often? Should I take a lover while I await your return?”

He winced. “Arwen, my dearest...”

“Can you not at least embrace the timeless comfort of Lorien, if you would otherwise reject mine? Doesn’t my unexpected presence compel you to stay, at least for a little while? We so rarely see each other. What are a few more hours?”

“We have a few more hours, and I would not waste them like this. You know I would stay longer if I could. You know better than anyone how much I yearn to. But Mithrandir urgently summoned me — you were with me when your grandmother delivered the message — and if he is in such haste it is for a reason. You also know that a single night amongst the Galadhrim may pass as many in the outer world, for one cannot trust to the count of time in the Golden Wood. It was a joy and a great surprise to find you here, my love, and I would not trade the happiness of this chance meeting for anything, but I must be gone before dawn; Mithrandir warned me to be especially wary of watchful eyes.”

“Spare me your empty promises then, and go now.”

“Arwen, you’re being unreasonable.” He reached for her. “Let us spend these scarce moments together in love.”

“I’m most certainly complaining, I may even be pouting, but I’m definitely not being unreasonable,” she retorted, squirming away.

Aragorn grimaced, but tried to lighten the mood. “I wonder if there’s an appropriate punishment for Elven princesses who behave thus.”

“Not funny. Nor am I in the mood for you to touch me.”

He lunged at her, easily rolling her to her belly and pressing her fast to the ground. “I am.”

“Stop it! Aragorn, stop it!“ She struggled, though it was clear that it was not with her fullest strength. With a sharp slap, his hand met her unblemished ass.

“OW! Aragorn! Stop!”

Faster and harder he spanked her, play slowly turning to purpose, all the while ignoring her writhing and her increasingly vituperative protests. In the midst of one particularly heated objection, in which she elaborately demeaned his parentage and hissed ancient Quenyan curses even he couldn’t translate, her shouts were abruptly cut off by a long, drawn-out shriek. Worried that he’d gone too far — that he’d struck her too hard, or that he’d misread her mood after all — he stopped, releasing the pressure on her back.

Arwen’s thighs twitched, and her reddened buttocks rhythmically clenched and unclenched. With a gasp of recognition he realized that she was coming.

Éowyn’s grip on him weakened, and before he could catch her she slipped down his body and collapsed to the floor, curling into a pile of shaking limbs. He breathed long, calming breaths, trying to focus on the task at hand despite his personal war between reason and desire.

No, not desire. I must not desire this. While I can almost see the horrible necessity of what she asks, I can’t want it for myself. To accept or express my lust for her — an expression I’ve successfully repressed since the moment we first met — would bring ruin upon us both. Still: while I know none of this is real, whether I succeed or fail I’ll remember whatever happens ... and so will she. Should either of us survive, can we live with that burden? Though he recalled Arwen’s explicit permission for chance liaisons along the road, he was all too certain that this would be no idle union. And what she demands right now is so much more than mere sex.

At length, he decided. I must do this for her, for the cost of doing otherwise is her destruction. But I must also find some way to remain aloof. Even so: no matter how much I hold back, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell the full tale to my beloved. Can I accept this minor betrayal in exchange for Éowyn’s life? Can she? Would Arwen?

Gently, Aragorn reached for her hand. She didn’t respond.

I’ll have to be firm.

“Éowyn!“ he called, roughly shaking her arm.

Her quivering stopped and he paused, steeling his mind for the task ahead.

“Get on your hands and knees.”

Lightning might not have moved more swiftly. She resumed her former position and held it, absolutely still and sepulchrally quiet. Waiting.

He sighed at his reluctance. You’ve done this before. She’s an unfamiliar target, but the action’s familiar enough. Raising his palm, he delivered a tepid slap to her right buttock. Then another. And another. There was no appreciable effect, nor any change in her demeanor.

“Harder,” she whispered.

Jaw tensed, breath ragged, he complied. Soon her cheeks were quivering under the impacts, every blow met with a low grunt and a small gush of fluid from her pussy. Her arousal was obvious, and it was clear that his actions were the cause, for the evidence grew with each strike. Despite his initial reluctance he was strangely captivated by the spectacle, and gradually increased the speed and force of his blows. Several dozen swings of his hand later she convulsed in orgasm, hissing his name through clenched teeth.

That excited her much more than it ever did Arwen.

Before he could react she was kneeling before him, tugging open the last few buttons of his breeches. It was no easy task given how his hardness stretched the leather, but she soon bared his enormous cock, staring at it with a look that could only be described as worshipful as her hands moved to encircle its base.

With a vehemence that surprised even him, he pushed her away. Though he was incredibly aroused and his lust rallied in protest, Aragorn realized that despite his determination to help he didn’t see how he could go through with this. If I don’t I might not be able to save her, but...

Éowyn sprawled on the floor, panting. While she made no further move to recapture his organ, she spread her legs in invitation, her gushing sex practically begging to be breached. Meanwhile, she remained mesmerized by his erection. It took all his strength to resist plunging his spear into her drenched hole.

“Help me find another way,” he pleaded. “Give me another choice.”

She neither responded nor moved, but an unfamiliar object materialized between his fingers. Looking down, he saw that he held a cruel black-tailed flail. From half-remembered books of lore he recalled it as akin to those the jailers of Morgoth used on their miserable thralls. Long, evil-looking leather threads teased the floor, their rough blood-stained edges making him wince in empathy for their victims.

Éowyn’s eyes left his tumescence to fixate on the lash, glimmering not with fear but with eager anticipation. Slowly, she rolled over, presenting her bruised ass as his first target. Aragorn watched, horrified, as fresh welts crisscrossed her curves, appearing and disappearing at random. I’m not touching her and there’s no one else here. Where are they coming from?

“Start soon,” she hissed. “Be as harsh as you can.”

Aragorn started to object. “I cannot...”

“Rough. Brutal. You have to make it hurt ... and after what I’ve been through, it takes a lot to hurt me.”

“Éowyn...”

“You have to. You need to dominate me with your cock or with... that. And listen: you’ll have to whip me everywhere. Do you understand? Everywhere. I’ll do my best to guide your aim, but eventually you must strike my tenderest flesh. My breasts ... and then my sex. It’s there that you’ll have to concentrate your final efforts. When I come — and I will — that’s the moment you’ll be able to take control of my mind. I think I can sense what you’ll need to do to save me. But I must reach climax from the punishment and I must be looking into your eyes when I do. Only then will my attention be here, on you, rather than...” She tailed off, rhythmically wincing and gasping in pain from some sort of ongoing brutality he couldn’t see, but which she could quite obviously feel.