Chapter 18: Ice

[ Setting the scene: the events of this chapter take place after Aragorn and company depart for the Paths of the Dead. Éowyn has once more declared her love for Aragorn and her desire to ride with him, but has again been rejected. King Théoden arrives mid-chapter and prepares to lead Rohan’s army to Gondor, ordering Éowyn to remain and rule in his absence. Elfhelm is the Marshal of the East-mark and a leader of Rohan’s forces. Caution: some of the sex in this chapter is nonconsensual.]

8-9 March 3019 (Third Age), Dunharrow

“Nay, lady.”

Hours later, the words still rolled through her mind. She’d been holed up in her quarters for most of those hours, trying to gather strength.

Hiding, you mean, admonished her internal scold.

Yes, and what of it? demanded her wounded heart.

More crying seemed not only pointless, but physically impossible. At the moment of his final rejection, tears welled just long enough to blind her sight during her stumbling escape to the safety of her bedroom. But once she arrived they stopped as if her heart abruptly atrophied, to be replaced by a dulling numbness and a throbbing headache. She sat on the bed, staring at the wall. Staring into nothingness. Staring into her future.

“Nay, lady.”

As she wondered how long she’d been unable to cry, even in the privacy of her room where there were none to see, she suddenly burst into renewed tears, pounding her clenched fist into the coverlet.

Oh, you simpering, weak-willed fool!

But recrimination didn’t help. Nor, for that matter, did the resumption of weeping. The truth was at last laid bare: Aragorn did not, would not, return her love. He, in whom her wounded heart had blindly invested so much, no matter how ephemeral that foundation. And now he was on a hopeless quest from which there would be no returning. For his future happiness she couldn’t even nobly wish, because a future was something he no longer possessed. None of us do. Yet his was a needlessly wasted life ... and now the waste of mine will, perforce, follow. Wasting away here, babysitting the frightened, the infirm, and the useless ... though none more useless than the hollow imposter who pretends to lead them.

“Nay, lady.”

She steeled herself. Am I not still of the House of Eorl? I must go and be seen by my people. Even if I have no hope left for myself, I owe them that much. Wreathing herself in an illusion of authority, she straightened, attempting to don a visage of resolution.

Has a full hour passed? More? Why can’t I remember? Despite her resolve she’d yet to set foot outside her bedchamber. One hand still gripped the armor she’d intended to wear but hadn’t yet donned. It dangled, limp and pointless, from her hand.

Everything’s a metaphor today, isn’t it?

Her mind aimlessly wandered her past, searching for insight that proved frustratingly elusive. Hopelessness had long been her closest companion, yet she remained bewildered at how she’d arrived at this particular present despite the changes and disruptions all around her. She’d made mistakes, certainly, but were they all so unforgivable as to bring her to this desperate pass?

I was foolish to believe that my only enemy was Wormtongue. The true danger was much closer to hand.

The temptation to blame the traitorous snake for everything that had happened was difficult to resist, and upon his manipulations much fault could reasonably be laid. Indeed, his guilt was even more plain since the Wizard’s extremely public declaration that he’d been Saruman’s agent all along. The poison of his voice sullied many, and even now — despite the King’s restoration, despite the victory at Helm’s Deep — the people weren’t entirely healed of its damage. Hesitation, doubt, even treasonous murmurings ... all lingered like a penetrating stain, and it would be long before the realm finally rid itself of his corrosive influence.

I had ample opportunity to reject his most insidious words and deeds, though. Not at the beginning, but thereafter. Instead, I responded to, and even willingly participated in, his foulest degradations. He bewitched me, and then he restrained me, but to the rest I eventually acquiesced and then walked into with eyes as open as my legs. Though the memories were as horrid and unwelcome as ever, from them she’d gradually started to sift essential truths about herself, her explosive sexuality, and the dangerous power it afforded.

How I long for simpler days: romantic foolishness, unfulfilled curiosity, furtive self-pleasure imagining over-idealized warriors. The last thought lingered with a particularly bitter aftertaste. “Over-idealized warriors,” indeed! How has that turned out?

Wormtongue was right: sex is my power. What I failed to understand until it was too late is how perilous that power is. How easily it’s corrupted, but also how easily it corrupts. For what may have been the hundredth time she wondered what might have happened had she approached Aragorn not with her body, but with her fragility. She’d treated him as a man like any other ... greater in so many ways, to be sure, yet still a man to be aroused and enticed by the mere prospect of sex ... and it had cost her not only him, but a majority of her dwindling self-respect. If I’d only appealed to his nobility. To his kindness. And without that thrice-damned vial!

Flinging her armor across the room, she fumed at her self-pitying foolishness. I’ve no time for this. There’s no purpose to it, either. All my hopes rode into the mountains without me, and the paths left to me are no less dark. There’s only...

“Lady Éowyn? You have a visitor.”

Weakness obscured the focus of her glistening cloud-grey eyes. She wanted to shut them, to deny him a window to the painful revelations within. But she couldn’t. He gave me everything I asked and so much more. He deserves to see me as I truly am. I owe him that much.

“Lady, I... we ... wished to know how it fared with you.”

Bitter responses careened through her mind like debris in an storm-roiled river. She drew a shuddering breath, opened her mouth, and...

No words came. Neither truth, nor lie, nor polite diversion. Only silence.

Pity filled his eyes. Against this she began to harden in anger ... until he took three long strides and enveloped her within his arms.

For a moment she struggled. Not hard, not long, and not even physically. Her resistance was entirely within the guarded but heavily damaged fences of her mind, yet even that single moment spent the last of her will. Her form softened and she collapsed against his chest, quiet sobs wracking her frame.

“Théo, I ... I...”

“Lady Éowyn, you needn’t say anything if you don’t wish. If you do, I’ll listen. I’ll even help if I can, though I’m no wise man. But you’ve borne witness to my greatest vulnerability with neither judgment nor recrimination, and I promise to repay that debt whether it be in silence or converse.”

He’s so young. So honest. And in some ways, so much stronger than me.

She pulled away just enough to look him in the eyes. Though she was no longer able to hide her tears, her voice returned.

“Théo ... as you can clearly see, I’m both bereft and bereaved. But I’m not eager to discuss the reason.”

He looked at her with grave sadness. “It’s the Ranger, isn’t it?”

Her eyes widened. How could he know? Have others borne witness to my secret shame and sorrow? But then why should I be surprised? One observer is enough to seed many tales. And I’ve erected fewer barriers against Théo and Elfi than anyone, so even an incomplete tale might gain flesh and form from their insight. Gréor would probably understand as well ... but I arranged it so he wouldn’t remember anything, didn’t I?

“You demonstrate keen wisdom for a man” (she deliberately emphasized the word) “who doesn’t deem himself wise.”

“Nay, Lady, I...”

“Théo.” She caressed his cheek with fondness and tenderness. “We’re alone, and given everything we’ve done ... call me Éowyn.”

He nodded. “Éowyn, it’s no secret to those who would see. Though you didn’t notice, I was awake and afield before dawn. I couldn’t hear what transpired, but your expression was all too clear, and as I didn’t wish to intrude I rather hastily departed. If my opinion matters, you chose admirably.”

Her head slumped. “I chose foolishly. And pointlessly, for he’s already lost to me ... and will be lost to all before the day is over.”

Théo put a finger under her chin and lifted it, holding her eyes with his. “No he won’t. If you’ll forgive my boldness, Éowyn, I fear you see through the eyes of one who yearns for the unreachable yet cannot see beyond that singular horizon. This is a yearning I understand to my core, as you know. But you’re not seeing him. He will survive the Dead. I don’t know if there’s any ultimate triumph against the Shadow, nor do I know if there’s hope for our most cherished dreams, but I do know that he won’t die in vain, nor in remote and unheralded darkness. His destiny is greater. Surely you see that?”

Éowyn pondered his challenge through the lens of her grief and frustration. His words feel like truth, but I can’t see it. Or maybe the problem is that I won’t.

Her silence lingered.

Théo watched the procession of emotions across her face, heart aching at her despair and uncertainty. Lacking any sense of what words might heal either would, he instead took her face between his hands, leaned forward, and kissed her.

Éowyn’s body responded as if energized by lightning. Her mouth opened and their tongues dueled. She pressed her breasts into his chest, grinding her loins against his growing tumescence, pleading without words or restraint for the pleasure and forgetfulness she knew their coupling could provide.

Théo’s hands slid down her back to the firm curve of her buttocks, caressing, squeezing, and gripping. Whimpering with arousal as their tongues explored each other’s mouths, writhing in escalating passion, she reached between them and deftly unfastened his breeches, slipping a hand inside and extracting his scaldingly hot shaft, almost frantically caressing its length. He growled at the sensation and tugged her shirt upward to reveal her breasts.

Suddenly, with a strangled cry, she released her grip on his cock and staggered backward.

Even as her eager fingers moved along his rod her memories loomed like ominous shadows; memories of their passion, but also of her guilt in the aftermath. Of the evil she’d wrought on the practice floor, and redoubled while attempting to seduce Aragorn. Of the clear lesson of her dream: decadence followed by a terrible warning about consequence. The dangers of yet another failure were too troubling to contemplate, and though she was panting with need she forced herself to step away from Théo.

I have to have him begged a raw, animalistic hunger within, but she steeled herself against the urge. No. I can’t. In this, I have to be stronger than him.

For his part, Théo was confused. Breathing heavily, his rod straining for contact, he searched for an answer in her eyes. Finding none, he again moved closer, stroking the knuckles of one hand across her engorged nipple and seeking the heat between her legs with the other. She shuddered with pleasure as his fingers pressed into her mound, but she knew that she couldn’t continue down this all too enticing road. Taking a deep breath even as her sex pleaded for friction, she pushed him away again and held him at an arm’s length, readjusting her clothing as she did so.

“Théo ... please believe that I do want you. As a man, as a lover, but even more importantly as a friend. But that’s why we can’t.”

His confusion remained. “I don’t understand.”

“I treated you selfishly, using you for my pleasure. I was about to do it again.”

“I never felt used. I still don’t”

She sighed, glancing downward. Distractingly, his erect cock pointed straight at her face, and she nearly drooled with hunger at the thought of swallowing it whole. Violently putting down the craving she lifted her eyes to his. “I’m relieved to hear it. Yet it’s true all the same.” Gritting her teeth, she continued. “I beg your forgiveness for what I’m about to admit, but Théo ... when I asked if I could be your first, it wasn’t entirely out of respect for your choice. Nor was it just to be a surrogate for the sister you can’t touch in that way. Both reasons were unquestionably on my mind, both were true, and both helped justify my decision. But what I most wanted was for you to be my first. To give me what I so desperately, even greedily, desired. To slake my lusts without worrying about exposure or the consequence of bedding someone I see every day.”

His brow furrowed. “I have no regrets, Éowyn, no matter your reasons. For me, it was beautiful in every way. I can’t be with the one I love most, but my feelings for you are genuine and I honor what you and I shared. If you grant me the opportunity I would gladly return to you as often as you would allow. As long as Elfi and I can’t be together, I couldn’t hope for a more beautiful, desirable, or exciting partner, even were all the women of Middle-earth to throw themselves at my feet.” He blinked, choking back an upsurge of love for his sister ... but Éowyn winced, hearing in his words all the reasons for her caution. “I hoped to help you forget your cares, but I obviously erred in my chosen method. I suppose the truth is that you’ve no wish to repeat the experience with me.”

“Haven’t I just told you that I want to?” Frustrated, she briefly plunged her hand into her breeches and then removed it, presented her glistening fingertips to his wide-eyed stare. “Does this look like reluctance to you?”

His spear throbbed as the scent of her arousal drifted between them, but his confusion lingered. “But then I don’t understand why you’d feel guilt about your motivations. No matter the reasons, in the end we shared something that will be ours forever, and along the way you helped us navigate our most vulnerable moment yet. That you gave primary thought to your own pleasure is only natural. I didn’t judge myself an overly attentive lover either, for I was rather overwhelmed by eagerness and the beauty of my partner. Why would you criticize yourself for doing the same?”

Blushing at his praise, she laid a gentle hand on his forearm. “I don’t. It was beautiful for me as well. I can’t imagine a better partner for my first time either, and I...” She hesitated, struggling against the instinct to mask her feelings. “I think I will always love you, both for what we did and for who you are. You and your sister. But the fact remains that I was selfish, and that selfishness endangered all of us. On more than one occasion I risked letting you and Elfi go too far while in pursuit of my own aims. I almost failed your trust because I was thinking mostly of myself.”

“But in the end we held to our promise, and it remains unbroken. How can seeking the fulfillment of your own desires with a willing partner be wrong?”

The denouement of her dream hung over her like a cloud. “Pleasure is rarely without consequence.”

“I understand that, but...”

“Do you?” She searched his eyes. “Théo, why are you here?”

“I’ve already told you. We were concerned...”

“Why are you here? Why not Elfi?”

The smile that tightened his lips was equal parts sly and pained. “If you leave through that door and keep walking until you see the dark green tent on your left, press your ear against its side and you may hear the answer for yourself. I fear that at least one newly arrived Rider will have less time to prepare for departure than his companions.”

“What do you... oh! Théo, I’m ... I’m sorry. Should I be sorry?”

Théo shrugged. “Her needs surpass mine — they always have — and since I can’t fulfill them myself...” His eyes closed while he collected his emotions. “But a solo visit was her idea. She said...” He trailed off, troubled, as he recalled her words.

Éowyn nodded, her guess confirmed. “She encouraged you to come alone because she hoped that we’d have sex, as the two of you may not. No ... that we’d make love, which is even more strictly denied you than sex. That you would, for a time, lose yourself in my body and forget the pain that keeps the two of you apart. And whether you realize it or not, Théo, you came here wishing for the same thing.”

He reddened, began to offer an objection, then stopped himself, knowing she spoke truth.

“You need not answer, either. I knew why you were here from the start, for I understand the desire better than you know. When you first walked in I was elated, because I knew that we would soon be naked and entwined. I was ready for it. I wanted it. Oh, Théo, how I want to open myself to you, to kneel before you, to have your hands and lips on my flesh, to feel you moving inside me...” She had to turn away for a moment, for a pearl of thick white cream collected at the tip of his throbbing manhood in response to her words. A tribute that would, if she allowed it, find a more than willing counterpart in the liquid heat welling from her drenched sex.

“But I don’t ... if you and I both ... then why...”

She glanced back at him, her expression full of regret despite the flame of her arousal. “How do you feel about me, Théo?”

“I ... I love you, Éowyn.” That came far too easily, she thought, and not because he seeks for the right words to seduce me. Despite all logic, it’s as true for him as it is for me. I could love him as I’ve loved no other within my grasp. But I can’t. He’s not mine to love in that way.

“And I love you, as I’ve already admitted. But do you really know me? These are the first words we’ve spoken to each other that didn’t involve preparing for or having sex. You feel that tension as keenly as I, and it would be difficult to claim that the possibility of sex doesn’t currently underlie all we say. Yet you and I already feel the first stirrings of love despite having done little other than repeatedly exchange fluids. Admittedly, each time was glorious,” she added with a lilt, trying to soften the rejection to come, “but still: what other basis for our feelings is there? Were we having this conversation in the aftermath of yet another blissful coupling, what would you say then? How would you feel? How deeply can you lose yourself before there’s no returning whence you came?”

Waves of conflict spread across his visage. He turned, paced, stopped to think, then turned again to face her. His mouth opened, moved silently, and closed again. No words came.

“I can tell you, because it would be the same for me. Your love for me would grow, and mine for you. If we left it there ... if we went our separate ways after a joyous romp or two ... it might be survivable. A cherished memory of a beautiful but chance encounter during a time of crisis. But if events demand that we remain here, in close quarters and with few alternatives among the too old, too young, or too infirm with which to slake our lusts, we wouldn’t leave it there, would we? I’d want you again and again, and I don’t think you’d resist. My appetites are more ravenous than you know. Out of the generosity of her love for you — and for me — Elfi would encourage us until it was too late. Our relationship would blossom into something else. And then what of you, Théo? What of Elfi? What of your love? Lacking what I desire with any other source, I might find it and take it from you, all the while knowing that doing so would destroy any hope for what, or who, you really want.”

“For I’m desperate, Théo. I crave sex, perhaps more than is typical or even healthy, but it doesn’t assuage the pain within. That pain is selfish, greedy, and all-consuming. Elfi’s heart has a limitless capacity to give and share love because it’s filled with the infinite surety of love, and maybe yours does too. Mine does not, for it’s a black void of emptiness that knows only rejection and loneliness. It would devour your love and all who share it to feed its raging hunger, and that I cannot do ... to you or Elfi. If I’m ever healed, perhaps things would be different and we could come together without consequence. But not now. I’m too broken ... and though you may not realize it, you’re too fragile. Too vulnerable.”

Now it was his turn to well with tears, for despite the impossibility of their union a future with Elfi was one he would never be able to accept. “I... Éowyn, I...”

Embracing him as lovingly as possible, she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, then an even softer one on his lips. “Do you understand, now?”

He nodded, but Éowyn was distracted in her attempt to comfort; his rigid shaft prodded her stomach, showing no sign of flagging despite her weighty words and the heavy emotions of the moment. Théo reddened, muttering, “I should go,” though he didn’t break their embrace.

She looked deep into his eyes, her sadness lightened by a growing bemusement. He’s been incredibly patient and understanding, and deserves some sort of reward for what he’s given up. And I really shouldn’t let him leave like this, for unlike me he can’t easily retreat somewhere private and take care of his problem.

“Before you do...”

“Now I really don’t understand.”