Éowyn, Book 1: The Cage
Chapter 1: Chair

Copyright© 2017 by Barahir

Fan Fiction Story: Chapter 1: Chair - Bound by tradition, trapped by duty to a failing king, pursued by a craven counselor, grasping for any chance at freedom no matter how unreachable…can Éowyn escape her fate? Will she forever be defined by the demands of others, or will she forge her own path into the future? And what will that future cost? Her life? Or just her body? Will she ever find the key to unlock her cage? 3rd place, 2018 Clitorides, Best BDSM Story. 5th place, 2018 Clitorides, Best Erotic Fantasy Story.

Caution: This Fan Fiction Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Fa/Fa   Mult   Blackmail   Coercion   Consensual   Drunk/Drugged   Hypnosis   Magic   NonConsensual   Reluctant   Heterosexual   Fiction   Fan Fiction   High Fantasy   BDSM   Humiliation   Light Bond   Rough   Spanking   Gang Bang   Group Sex   Anal Sex   Analingus   Double Penetration   Exhibitionism   First   Masturbation   Oral Sex   Sex Toys   Squirting   Voyeurism   Public Sex   Royalty  

[ Setting the scene: the events of this chapter take place before the arrival of Gandalf, Aragorn, and Gimli. Reference is made to Boromir’s passage through Rohan on his way to Rivendell. ]

20 February 3019 (Third Age), Edoras

The door slammed closed with a heavy thud, catching a corner of the fabric that flowed in her furious wake. The wearer didn’t even notice the sharp tug as she departed, wreathed as she was in righteous fury, and a richly embroidered but dust-sullied piece of fabric was clutched, stretched, then released with a sharp, quick tear. Over her angry footsteps she heard no sound. In her thundercloud mood she felt nothing. A few torn silver and white threads waved in the departing swirl of air, the rest pressed tightly between door and frame. Cornered. Trapped.

Naught broke her stride until her hands slammed into the heavy shutters that darkened the only window in her private chambers. Knocking them outward with a furious heave, a latch splintering under the impact, she was finally arrested in her forward motion by the carved sill, tightly grasped by her slender hands, their knuckles white and tense. She leaned forward into the cold morning wind, long blonde hair lashing her face, and looked down, hissing in unchecked anger. She felt as if she might be sick.

Gradually, the nausea subsided, leaving her trembling with frustrated, pointless rage. It was very nearly all she felt these days. Between duty, honor, and expectation she could see no escape. She was caught. Cornered. Trapped.

She’d tried. Oh, how she’d tried. Tried to shake the King loose from his incomprehensible self-imposed shackles. Tried to set him... anyone ... in motion. To no avail. He was so distant, living as one who meekly clocks the surrendering hours until death. On the rare occasions he was emotionally present enough to respond to her directly, all her suggestions were casually dismissed. At other times they were ignored, or perhaps not even heard. Today he’d abruptly sent her away with a cold word, right in the middle of her most passionate entreaty yet. Stunned, she’d had no choice but to turn and stalk angrily away to anywhere. She couldn’t rage against the King, nor would she cry in front of him or anyone else. She had far too much strength and pride for that.

Her brother, so often afield fighting the ever-escalating skirmishes of these dark days, sympathized with her frustration. And he had his own difficulties, given that his battles were increasingly conducted to the active displeasure of the King. At least he’s not ignored, she thought, bitterly. But despite his sympathy, he offered neither help nor more than token comfort. “I share your frustration, my beloved sister, but while the King remains irresolute, your place is at his side.”

Ah, yes. My place. Involuntarily she cackled, her brittle laughter shattering like ice. The sharpness of it startled a passing stablehand, who stumbled, paused, and glanced up in the direction of her window.

My place. No, she corrected herself, therein lies the root of it, for the emphasis is on the wrong word. It isn’t the place that’s the problem, it’s me. Or rather, what doesn’t dangle between my legs. That’s what they really mean. It was rarely said with as much honesty as she’d received from her sibling, but rather laid upon her by euphemism and dismissal. Her uncle the King, all his counselors and coterie, even her own brother, otherwise so often of one mind with her; none could quite see her as anything other than a woman. Of royal lineage she was, and moreover every sinew a warrior to match or surpass any other in the Mark. (She’d tested it often enough, but always in private sparring, as no man would submit to the potential for public humiliation at the blade of a woman ... which fact only added to her surety. For though her prowess was no secret, it was often treated as if its mere acknowledgment was somehow shameful or emasculating.)

But with a weapon at least I can control my immediate destiny. Lest I momentarily forget the limitations imposed upon me by my gender, all it takes is the temerity to raise my voice at a Council meeting...

She slammed the sill with a closed fist, sending her still-gaping onlooker scampering away, and turned away from the window.

It’s not as if I can forget I’m a woman, and one full-grown. Though few were so bold as to openly stare — except him, she thought with a shudder — she could both see and feel the furtive glances and, when it was thought she wasn’t paying attention, yearning, even lustful gazes. “Ripe,” she’d overheard one half-drunken guard murmur as she’d dismounted a horse, glowing with sweat from a late-evening ride over the grasslands. His humiliation at the flat of her sword had been vehement and quite public, though once again she’d been met with subtle but clear disapproval from the King, and others, with much patronizing nonsense about “the dignity of her position.” On that occasion, at least, her brother had forcefully taken her side. Though she was grateful, she was annoyed at the paternalism that informed his support, for his words indicated that he viewed her virtue as a precious commodity in need of external ... and masculine ... defense.

Dignity! Virtue! She snorted. My life is nothing but dignity. A dignity that had, to her mind, become unendurable indignity. She who yearned to ride and fight, who craved any opportunity for action, wasted her days as a passive white-clad statue behind the decaying, useless relic that had once been King Théoden, watching her fearless, as yet-untamed people fall into sloth, paranoia, and fear. She, as bold as any warrior but shamed and silenced, was admonished to remain within her gilded and increasingly narrow cage.

She was even denied the cold humiliation of being offered up as some sort of ambassadorial gift, as she’d more than occasionally feared she might. Not that such was an oft-exercised tradition among the Rohirrim. But with the King lacking a daughter and both his son and her brother perpetually absent for battles that promised no end, it seemed only a matter of time before some craven counselor broached the subject. Yet not even in that degrading fashion was she considered worthy of notice.

In any case, to whom might I be offered? With Gondor there’s already the most steadfast possible alliance, and there’s no need to invite some stranger betwixt my legs to solidify that relationship. She recalled Boromir, the Steward’s eldest son, with a frisson of excitement. He was so handsome, so bold, so strong and forceful. There was a man who would take what he desired, though the world stood in his way. To this trait she was (she acknowledged within the private confines of her own heart) profoundly attracted, though she was self-aware enough to realize that this might be no more than a reaction to her own King’s agonizing indecision. Well, it hardly matters. No such “alliance” is on offer, or even available.

So if not Gondor, then who else? None of the truculent savages of Dunland, surely. No other kingdom of Men lay near enough, or rose to sufficient importance, to be worthy of consideration. There were Princes and Lords in the subsidiary realms of Gondor, she knew, but of them no more than rumor came to Edoras. And what use would they have for a wild warrior-woman of Rohan, anyway? Less, even, than their use for Rohan itself ... to my thinking, the most frustratingly useless of realms.

The truth, however, was that she would have refused any such match, no matter how appealing the proposal or the partner. I’m no trinket to be bartered at the whim of a patriarch, beloved or otherwise. Sometimes, in her blacker moods, she desired the cold amusement of toying with an overmatched potential mate, one to be led to his own conclusion — by word, deed, and (if necessary) sword-point — that further pursuit of union was both unwise and unwelcome.

The consequences of that amusement would, she was sure, be severe. Still, in a desperate hour it might be necessary. A voluntary union, though...

She sighed in frustration.

By Eorl the Young, I would welcome the least dalliance, or the most insignificant assignation! For she was, despite everything imposed upon her, woman indeed. Neither position nor duty deprived her of entirely natural interests, desires, needs, and cravings.

Yet those she was denied as well. On this subject there was, from others, much unwelcome talk of virtue (again), dignity (again!), and her “position.” Once, angered by this smothering by a respected but hopelessly conservative matron of the house, emboldened by a tankard or two, she’d snapped, “at this point, I would be satisfied by just about any position!” The King had been patient in his remonstrance, but no less firm for it, while her brother had looked upon her with dismay for days thereafter. But they were just voices from outside. It was, she admitted, her own head and heart that were her true restraint on her behavior. Her head ... because she knew that her trammels would never be shed should she embarrass the King or her family with some form of tawdriness. And her heart ... because, though it pained her to admit it, she felt no man worthy. Save, perhaps, her brother.

Ah, Éomer. For an moment she lost herself in indulgent reverie...

It had been no more than the innocent play of children. “Horse and Rider” the young of the Mark called the game (in whispers, of course), and though few avoided its temptations, even fewer admitted to it. They’d been young, curious, and fumbling, and inevitably nothing of actual consequence had happened. It started with some bewildered-then-fascinated staring at their undeveloped bodies. A few kisses, more confused and uncomfortable than exciting. Much later, there had been some furtive, guilty, and thoroughly incompetent touching. Then Éomer began to mature, she followed quickly thereafter, and the play ended and was never spoken of again. Nor was she tempted to do so. For though she occasionally heard of others for whom something more involved was the case, her only attraction to her brother was unbridled familial admiration. She loved him more than anyone — save, at times, the King himself — but she didn’t love him in that way.

Nonetheless, Éomer remained her ideal; the standard to which other men must aspire, and no less so despite her lack of familiarity with the alternatives. Though he might not be, she sighed, not for the first time, were the King the man he once was. As a girl, she’d had an entirely typical crush on her uncle. This had flown from her head long ago, but the man he’d been was her real benchmark for masculinity, and almost all others were found wanting and insufficient. To her landscape of frustration was added a private self-loathing, for she couldn’t decide whether the root of her difficulty was the men themselves or her own unwillingness to compromise. Though she also couldn’t decide if she cared.

There had been suitors. Easily rejected, in most cases. Intriguing but quickly shunted aside, in others. In less serious (and less sober) moments there’d even been cautious flirting with an especially virile and confident Rider newly returned from battle. It was, she acknowledged, most likely her lust for the latter that drew her to the former, in taverns and allegedly secretive celebrations in lofts and stables far from the Golden Hall. That lust — plus a healthy measure of ale — had, on occasion, led to cautious declarations of interest. In even rarer moments of abandon, she allowed someone to steal the briefest of kisses or above-the-clothing caresses in a private corner. But never, ever more than that. Certainly not since the night Háma caught her...

At her side he appeared, out of nowhere despite her theoretical concealment in a dark corner, and she steeled herself for harsh words regarding her behavior. Her companion, suddenly fearful of both the Doorward and what it would mean for a man of his station to be seen with a woman of hers, quickly disappeared into the shadows. (His cowardice immediately obliterated any passing attraction she felt for him.) But Háma hadn’t come to argue, but to warn: her brother was on his way to join the revelry. She stiffened in alarm, and watched Háma’s glance fall, involuntarily or otherwise, to her partially opened bodice. Did those few buttons come undone by themselves, or did I slip them open at some point during my reckless experimentation? It was unlikely that she’d let her companion take such liberties, but it bothered her that she couldn’t remember for sure. There was nothing revealed, aside from a small expanse of pristine skin glistening with the faint glow of perspiration, but at his look she felt a sudden flush of shame ... and, then, a flash of something else. Something unfamiliar. Something that urged her towards unexpected boldness. Háma snapped his gaze back to her face, turned red, and fled without further word. She escaped through an upstairs window and hurried back to Meduseld, tingling with the fear of discovery. And, perhaps, something more...

Not since that night had she possessed the courage to be seen in taverns or lofts. Nor had she been kissed. Or touched.

With a wry grimace, she realized that she’d just told herself a falsehood. She had been touched. She was being touched right now.

Touching myself doesn’t count. Or, at the least, it shouldn’t.

When had she dropped her dress to the floor? For there it lay, in a decorative but unkempt pile just to the side of the open window. When had she undone the buttons of her corset? When had she slipped her hand into the tightly constrained space between the material and her skin? When had she begun this slow, contemplative stroking of her breast? When had she started caressing her hip with her other hand? Had she started at the side and drifted slowly inward, or moved boldly toward her center from the first? And what was the trigger? The memory of her childish games with Éomer? Her secretive, but neither dangerous nor particularly passionate, encounters with anonymous Riders? The memory of a quickly masked lustful glance from Háma?

No, she whispered to herself, I couldn’t have gotten this far that quickly. I started doing this a while ago. She stopped her motions in surprise. Was it the young stablehand?

He wasn’t really that young, she rationalized. She didn’t know who he was, or remember whether or not he was attractive. In her rage, she’d barely registered more than his simple existence. The realm’s apprentice Riders work the upper stables, so despite his appearance he’s certainly already passed into the early stages of manhood. At least my imagination wasn’t committing an offense against nature, though decency may be a different matter. But why should the brief sight of him cause me to start flinging my clothes around like a common harlot, to begin the preliminaries for what I know will end in...

Another empty laugh arrived alongside the answer. It was my childhood. Or rather, the childhood I didn’t have. It wasn’t actual youth that she’d been denied, despite her parents’ early death. But she’d been forced to grow up all too quickly, and as a consequence she’d never enjoyed the freedom that childhood was supposed to entail: to act unencumbered by fear of consequence, to learn by action and failure rather than by admonishment and control. Instead she’d been a Lady — and the King’s niece — from birth. For her, such wayward paths to learning had been constrained, discouraged, or eliminated. Amidst all her fetters, external and internal, she often yearned for an innocence she’d never been granted. A freedom that, as she came into her maturity, she’d unfortunately grown accustomed to refusing herself.

And now, she laughed, efficiently tugging with both hands at her remaining buttons and ties, I’m horny.

Could a warrior give in to lust? That answer, at least, she knew. She’d overheard enough talk in stables, taverns, and in the aftermath of battle. Whether as a reunion between longterm partners or slaking one’s needs with whoever might be available and willing, sex was an inevitable companion to the warrior’s life. No, not just sex; a warrior’s version of sex. Taking. Conquering. Never yielding. Or never just yielding, unless the more fully to later conquer. To be a warrior was, whether on the fields of war or while coupled, akin to masterfully wielding the point of a spear atop a swiftly galloping steed.

But I won’t allow myself a steed. And I don’t have a spear. Her corset — the last of her upper defenses — had edged down her body, but caught before it cleared the gentle upper swell of her breasts. I have a shield. She grasped the fabric and pulled until it too collapsed to the floor.

The Shieldmaiden of Rohan, they call me. A name spoken both in admiration and in mockery, or so it sounded to her ears. Well, at least they have the “maiden” part right.

It was true that she was no “maiden” in the strictest physical sense. A childhood filled with aggressive play, endless sparring, and many years of hard riding had taken care of that, and whatever man was fortunate enough to be the first to lay with her would find no barrier to his entry. But she remained pure, or at least inviolate; scarcely touched (by others) anywhere other than her face, except in courtesy, since she’d become a woman. Her melancholy quickly turned to annoyance. If I cannot be heard nor even respected in the King’s Council, if I’m not allowed to go to war, if I can’t act as I would — neither man nor woman entire — can’t I at least unburden myself of my desperately unwanted virginity? Will my only companion ever be she who stares back from the mirror?

She stood irresolute, her posture martial, fists clenched at her sides. Then, with renewed anger, she began unwinding the belted and woven ties of her underskirt. There’s one cage from which I may yet escape. They can hold me back, stay my sword, ignore my counsel, but they cannot keep me from the desires that are a woman’s own, I am both warrior and Lady born, and it is my right and privilege to take that which I crave, subject to the will of no one. I shall have who and what I want. A man who ... who ... who... damn this troll-woven imprisonment of a skirt! Flailing and tearing at an impossible knot, she grasped the edge of the cloth and, in one violent motion, ripped the recalcitrant fabric from her body. She was, suddenly, repelled by the performative purity of its whiteness. Not that I own anything that’s not white. I am the White Lady, after all. And, she sighed, I suppose I do look particularly appealing in white.

She breathed heavily, regretting her momentary and now-spent fury. Tiny droplets of sweat glistened in the hollows of her body. As she straightened, the most exposed of them shifted and joined, forming thin rivulets in search of deeper indentations. One flowed from the nape of her neck, bridging along a bone before gathering companions and turning downward. It reached the first gentle upslope of her breast, paused, then changed direction towards the dense liquid constellation between her swells. And there, stifled in its downward motion by a knotted impasse of tightly coiled muscle, it rested.

There was no need to glance down, nor to seek a glass for reconfirmation of what she looked like. She knew her body. Alas that no one else does. Long golden hair that, since her teens, seemed to glisten with mysterious silver and white highlights, adorned her head. At times it was tied, at others set in waves or gentle curls, depending on the occasion, but at the moment it was as it usually was: straight, the better to quickly restrain with an efficiency befitting a warrior. Little good that’s done, either. Her face was slightly elongated; her features narrow and with a tendency toward stony reserve in public, but softening to elegance in her infrequent moments of relaxation; her eyes a piercing, sky-toned grey that could, in the right light, glint icy blue. She was beautiful, and (had she known it) none the lesser when counted among all that walked upon Middle-earth, but she carried herself like a sculpture: beyond flaw, but also cold beyond reach. So often were her emotions deliberately and harshly restrained that the chill of her visage became a nearly permanent mask, falling away only in the privacy of her quarters or on the exceedingly rare occasion she was with someone she trusted without reservation. Which means only Éomer, these days, and perhaps not even him. Not always...

Her form was refined and, at casual glance, womanly. But hers was a tall, slender, and (at points) hard arabesque, and attention to detail — not that any but she ever had the opportunity — soon revealed much that differed from expectation. Her breasts were restrained in size but prominent, resting firm atop her chest. Firm, but not high, with a subtle inward parabola at the top and a tight curve in the opposite direction below. Her nipples were pink and, as a rule, shy of public notice, surrounded by delicate-to-the-point-of-invisibility areolæ. But it was as the gaze drifted in any direction away from her breasts that the power in her otherwise feminine frame was revealed: well-muscled arms, slightly broad shoulders, a firm abdomen neither smooth nor overtly muscular when she stood still, but with definition that grew rippling and prominent in tension or struggle. Below, her hips widened — not too much — to beautifully sculpted thighs, themselves capable of smoothness or striation depending on her activity. Her legs narrowed, then widened again to calves that seemed soft enough until flexed, at which point a tangle of muscular vines showed through. Her back was a flawless arc, the muscles of her shoulders a statuesque crown of strength, and the tight curve of her rear bore no flaw. It was her favorite feature, save perhaps her eyes, and when circumstances allowed she chose clothing to modestly accentuate it.

Between her thighs lay a trim, narrow scattering of pale hair. Once, after a long ride through a rainstorm caused what eventually became an intolerable chafing, she sequestered herself with a sharp blade and, recalling the earnest instruction of a more experienced companion, sculpted herself into efficiency and vastly greater comfort ... a comfort she was careful to maintain. What remained was nearly transparent, and served only as accent to tightly closed lips that, at the moment, bore a faint sheen of arousal.

Éowyn was neither unaware of nor immune to her beauty, but she saw little value in it. It was of no relevance to a warrior, and often more of a distraction than a help, which was why she did much to conceal it while practicing swordcraft. Moreover, it led to little except pointless frustration otherwise. She’d never knowingly used it to entice — despite the incident in the tavern, which remained mysterious to her memory — and as a rule only admired her body by the standards of a warrior’s grace. Not that she had much opportunity for anything else. Still, there were times...

She didn’t remember when she’d first touched herself with the intent to seek pleasure. It certainly wasn’t during her games with Éomer; she wasn’t sure they’d ever really connected their fumbling with sexual arousal, only with curiosity. It wasn’t until years later that she realized what they’d have been able to do, had they been less ignorant (or frightened). But she knew now what simple touch could do. And she knew why, as well. Not just to bring herself to ecstasy, but to — for a few blissful moments — flee her cage. She couldn’t be with a man, wasn’t even sure she wanted to be with any she’d yet encountered, but she could at least peel away the protective layers of her need and expose something that was truly her own.

Of accessories that might help salve her loneliness she had little knowledge, though again due to the whispers of others she was vaguely aware of them. Still, my own fingers are the only things I’ve ever allowed to penetrate my sex. Is that not appropriate, given my preferred identity as a warrior? As an expert wielder of the pointed blade, master of the hard spear, even somewhat adept at the piercing arrow, should I not also be skilled at the delicate art of self-pleasure?

Her heat increased at the thought. Not by accident were the metaphors of the warrior’s craft so easily sexualized. Unfortunately, her anger had also resurrected itself, and was now shredding the last of her inhibitions with increasingly aggressive mental talons. Should I not release my caution to the cold breeze? What shield does my modesty provide, other than yet another prison? She turned and strode with purpose and brazen resolve back to the window, resting her hands — trembling not with anger, but with barely repressed excitement and the thrill of imminent danger — on the sill. She looked over the vast grasslands and distant mountains of her wide country, took deep lung of the bracing air, then leaned forward until her breasts were revealed to any who would see. Steeling herself, she looked down.

The street was empty. The people were taking their midday meal, and her moment of crazed exhibitionism had been for naught.

With a sigh, she retreated back to the safety of her room and leaned against a cabinet, suddenly aghast at her attempted exposure. What was I thinking?

Freedom, she reminded herself. I was seeking the unbound.

She sighed again, resigned, but her immediate need was far from resolved. Perhaps I can, at least, play with the notion of abandon, the better to fuel my fantasies. Grasping the backless chair she typically used for dressing and other utilitarian activities, she set it near (and facing) the still-open window and sat. Her nipples crinkled and stabbed in the chill air, as prominent and firm as steel. There would be no one to join nor even witness her pleasure, but mayhap someone might hear and wonder. That much indulgence, and its concomitant thrill, would she allow herself.

The uncharacteristic naughtiness of the situation filled her with excitement, for such insignificant rebellions were all that she could manage. She raised a long finger to her lips, wet it with her tongue, and trailed it down her neck while another replaced it in her mouth. Closer both came to her nipples, which quivered with anticipation. Or cold. Perhaps both. Her fingers retreated, circled, and approached once again. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, feeling the onset of quickening breath, anticipating even more pleasant sensations yet to come.

“Lady Éowyn, your presence at table has been requested. Though one might reasonably question whether or not you can be expected immediately.”

Lost in foolishness, she’d heard nothing of his approach. Some warrior, she chastised herself in brutal remonstrance. Meanwhile, with lighting-fast reaction long honed, her hand lunged for her sword. It was a futile gesture, given that she was naked and the nearest weapon was resting on a table far across the room. Well, the chair itself can serve as a weapon, if necessary. She spread her legs and braced her feet against the floor, readying herself for sudden action. As her right hand grasped in vain for a blade, her left arm tightly barred her breasts, firm nipples boring into her forearm. All of this took only a moment of furious instinct, and then her head whirled, long hair whipping about her face as she stabbed him with livid eyes.

“What are you doing here? How dare you?!? I will have your...”

“Reserve your threats for those who cower before them, Lady Éowyn. I’m here under orders from the King, and his words are in my mouth. But should your sense of duty to your liege fail to suffice, know that you will find the King’s ear less willing to your interpretation of your disobedience than to mine. Unless you intend to tell him the truth...”

His voice, as it always did, flowed like oil. She hated it. She knew it to be hostile, as did her brother — it was, in part, this knowledge that so often drove him to dangerous deeds in the field rather than remaining in Meduseld to be tempted by reactionary violence in Council — but the basis of this knowledge was an intangible thing. He was never found to be wrong, and both his counsels and his predictions came to unremitting fruition ... which was, by itself, suspicious. No one can be right all the time, can they?

She loathed Gríma. She’d loathed him since he’d come from nowhere — certainly not from one of the nobler families — to dominate the King’s Council. Worse, she feared him. She, who feared no human foe. It wasn’t the active fear of the sharp sword or the savage bite, but a deeper unease that the actual source of her fear remained elusive. There was a power in him not to be understood given his unimpressive and wizened frame. His bearing seemed to be craven and, at times, almost slovenly, yet he bore himself with quiet confidence and remained strangely unchallenged in all that he did. Little in Rohan proceeded save by his imprimatur. Some he had cajoled into open support, most others he had not, but among nearly all there was grudging respect for, or at least acknowledgment of, his seemingly effortless mastery of the Council. And, of late, his mastery over the King.

But though she lacked any clear reason, she knew that he bore only danger ... to the realm, and especially to her person ... and to any request of his she would never willingly submit. “I don’t mean to threaten you with empty words, Gríma. I intend my arguments to be more pointed.”

His only response was a patient smile.

How can he smile? He presents less of a physical threat than the frightened animals our folk hunt for sustenance. Even if he knows how to use a blade — he’s been seen armed, but the weapon never leaves its sheath — he’s certainly aware that I could dispatch him with ease should our conflict ever escalate to blows.

As if he’d read her mind, he sighed and offered his hands: empty, open, and with palms turned upward. “Lady Éowyn, while we both know you could best me in a duel of steel, have you in all this time managed to solve even one of your problems by stabbing, poking, or probing with pointy things? Even when,” he added with a casual leer and a downward glance, “what you’re stabbing, poking, and probing is yourself?”

She started to rise from the chair, realized that this would reveal her naked form, concluded that this was in fact the desired result of his jibe, and sat back down. But amidst her rage she struggled to find a proper riposte. The leer he now wore had been a near-permanent fixture since the day they’d met. While no other in Rohan dared openly declare their lust for her, Gríma had worn that desire with neither shame nor restraint. There had, at times, been less than casual innuendo dropped into the middle of seemingly unrelated conversations, or during Council meetings. Never was there something so clear that she could call him out before others, but his intent was obvious. And then there were the penetrating, eager stares that followed her everywhere. At times she felt as if her clothing, and even her flesh, were being stripped away by the sheer intensity of his gaze.

But what could she do? He was, to her dismay and despair, King Théoden’s most trusted adviser. Against him her word would never stand. Warrior or not, she could not best him with speech.

I’ll need to be devious, then, and appear to yield. She doubted she could convince anyone (least of all Gríma) that she’d stopped loathing him, but she could probably manage a feigned truce. Eventually, he’d reveal a moment of weakness — the warrior in her knew he must have one — and in that moment she would strike. She required only sufficient patience to endure until then.

With a deep breath, she calmed her anger. Her hand no longer scrabbled for her blade, her arm no longer squeezed quite so forcefully into her chest (though it didn’t move away, either). She narrowed the space between her legs, relaxed the tension in her back, and eased the pressure between foot and floor. Her voice she attempted to soften, though she lacked his effortless skill in this regard.

“You know that’s never been, and never will be, your business. But whatever the plausibility of your counsels, I suggest that you’d find it impossible to defend entering my room without permission.”

Gríma’s smile broadened, and somehow it seemed even more dangerous than his earlier leer. “Good. Good! So you do understand that a warrior can’t always rely on the proximity of a weapon. Sometimes, one does more efficient and more incisive damage with words, which are never beyond reach. You are correct, and I have no defense. Should you choose to accuse me before the King and the Council, I shall be entirely at your mercy...”

He paused, watching her muscles tense and release. She’s wondering if it would really be that easy. She fears a trap, and it’s a well-founded fear. But a pointless one, for I shall win either way.

She’s so very exquisite. And she will be mine. She has no idea, of course, and would deny and fight to her last if she did, but she will. Though I might need to betray an entire kingdom, even allow my own people to be enslaved or eradicated, I will have her.

Left to his own devices, this might have been no more than a distant hope around which coalesced lonely plotting ... as it had been so many years ago, when he’d first gazed upon her blossoming form and decided that she must someday open her legs to him. But he was not left to his own devices. Not anymore. Powerful promises had been made. And in service of his aims, other powers were at his disposal. Real powers.

“ ... but I don’t think you will.”

Her jaw hardened, and she turned to look directly at his face. She couldn’t twist that far without consequence, however; a thin sliver of her breast and a long expanse of one pure white thigh rotated into view. She crossed her legs, but while this prevented accidental revelation of her sex, it revealed a fair portion of the taut crescent of her ass. His cock began to rise at the sight, though it was well-hidden beneath layers of ceremonial robes and wouldn’t visibly interfere with his plan.

“You may soon learn how wrong you are.”

Gríma began to pace to his left. She turned her body away from him, wary, her eyes following every motion. He then reversed course, and her rotation followed in suit. It was an absurd dance. Though quite erotic, he thought to himself, wondering how long he should make her follow his lead. Deciding that he’d already had enough and that it was time to change the tune, he stopped pacing and took an abrupt step towards her. She gripped the seat of the chair with hand and thigh, every muscle tense and prepared for immediate action. But she didn’t uncross her legs, nor uncover her breasts.

“Am I?” He moved no closer. “You’ll say I entered without leave, and I’ll admit to this rudeness, excusing myself by recalling the urgency of the King’s request and how enthusiastically I follow his orders, pointing out that my endless preoccupation with weighty matters of State led me to enter with understandable haste. Feigning embarrassment, I’ll then reveal that if I’d known what you were doing, I never would have entered without permission. This, of course, will lead everyone within earshot to wonder what you were doing, and someone will certainly ask. At that point, you’ll have three choices. You can fail to answer, leaving everyone to their imagination while you turn a most exquisite shade of crimson and thus confirm their worst guesses; you can answer truthfully, though we both know you won’t; or you can remain silent and let me answer as I wish. With distress upon my face at the unseemliness of the subject, I’ll begin a public debate over the urgent need to see you properly mated before you embarrass your family with some impulsive act, and I think you can guess who I’ll offer as the most logical candidate.”

As she glared at him, all her loathing, disgust, and tension coalesced. It was a merging that felt somehow counter to her will, for she wished every possible distance between them, yet her mind was forcing him into ever-greater focus. She was, for the first time, seeing him as more than an looming but impersonal enemy; he had, in these last few moments, been elevated to the status of a personal adversary. Which made their current parrying a duel, of sorts, and they would do battle until someone submitted or was destroyed. There could be no other outcome. That she’d unwittingly raised him to an importance she would’ve scorned just moments earlier no longer gave her pause. On this her mind was clear, though about all else it remained troubled.

At the moment, though, I lack an effective weapon ... while his is his voice, which he’s never without. Worse, I’m naked. Naked and unarmed, while he’s neither; this is a fight it’ll be hard to win.

Despite her halfhearted attempts at covering herself, in truth her nudity was of no real consequence. She was usually forced to be proper, but she’d never been demure. If revealing some part of myself to his loathsome gaze is the necessary price of victory, then I’ll gladly pay it. Any warrior would, at need. But he won’t win that skirmish so easily.

Gríma looked into her eyes and knew that it was working. It always did. “It” was the manipulative, irresistible power of voice that Saruman had given him. Taught to me, I might reveal to someone sufficiently trustworthy. But there’s also wizardry involved, and that I wouldn’t so readily admit. He knew was a mere novice compared to his master, but even as a beginner he could utilize rhetoric with a skill that impressed the terrifying old Wizard. Here, in Rohan, he was the master ... including over a few matters about which even Saruman didn’t know. He’d been patiently laying the groundwork for this moment from the very beginning; words, hints, and suggestions patiently lodged in her subconscious despite all her resistance, slowly constructing a web of instinct and response that would remain invisible until, like a spider, he tugged on the threads and captured his prey. He summoned up the entirety of his technique and pressed his advantage.

“Éowyn, you don’t really wish to confront me. For I can help free you from this prison.” Her eyelid twitched, and her body grew measurably more tense. “Your cage is illusory. You close and lock its door yourself. You have a power with which you can escape both, yet you either don’t see it or choose not to use it. But you are not trapped.”

Though she didn’t honor him with a gasp of surprise, she couldn’t hide the quick dilation of her pupils and the simultaneous narrowing of suspicious eyes. How could he so easily voice her darkest fears, her deepest wishes, when they were secrets she told to no one? In her most desperate moments, or on the edge of sleep, her mind dallied with fantastical notions of breaking her shackles and abandoning even her most beloved for a life of unlimited freedom. She’d never developed this thought even partway to fruition, much less action. And yet, she realized with quiet shock, didn’t I almost do so a few minutes ago, when I strode to the window naked? Was my purpose no more than private rebellion, or did I intend to seduce — even to exert power over — whoever might see? When did I start to associate seduction with power? She couldn’t recall ever having done so before, and her turmoil accelerated.

“I know your innermost thoughts, Éowyn. You try to mask them, believing them unworthy of your position and your breeding, but I can see them. I know them. I know you.” He was toying with her like a cat with a wounded mouse, composing the prelude to a long, slow, satisfying kill.

She felt their dangerous imbalance already. It was a form of capitulation, though she would never call it that, and it started when she elevated him from indistinct danger to sworn blood foe. Why did I do that? She tried to clear her thoughts, to shake them free from their churning confusion, but the reason remained stubbornly obscure. All she knew for sure was that she had given him that measure of personal importance. It was against her will, against everything she knew to be right, and yet she’d done so anyway. Why? Do I not still hate and fear him? I do ... more than ever. But then why?

She was also keenly aware of the roiling tension in her loins at his no-doubt deliberate emphasis of the words “position” and “breeding.” Against this she struggled, but her body had other ideas. The very notion of growing aroused in his presence was unthinkable, and yet...

Concentrate. You have to concentrate!

She felt unable to speak.

“You are beset by convention, and chafe against it every hour of every day. You wish to be like any other Rider, though you are of noble blood and bearing and you know your abilities surpass those of a simple horsemaster. You fear becoming someone’s property, though you possess strength capable of dominating any companion. You rage at being ignored and dismissed because you’re a woman, but it’s your very womanhood that lights the path to your escape and eventual victory. Éowyn, the greatest warriors of history utilize their skills to conquer that which they desire. And yet...” He paused, gauging whether his moment had arrived. I think so. “And yet you hold your desires at bay, or release them alone in secrecy and shame.” Her face is flushed. I’m so very close. “You must certainly understand that, should you ever wish to act on those desires, there’s no man in the Mark or elsewhere who could resist.”

Twinned points of hardness pressed into her sheltering arm. Her nipples were erect, extended far beyond their earlier rigidity. From her sex flowed a trickle of satiny excitement, and she could feel it pooling on the chair between her legs. Her breath quickened, and her body was aglow with perspiration. What’s he doing to me? How can I possibly be reacting this way? He disgusts me. He’s repellent. He cannot convince me of anything. He shouldn’t be able to, nor should I even let him try. And yet...

“There is a key to your cage. You hold it in your hand ... and elsewhere ... though you may not realize that you do. But you don’t yet know how to use it.”

He paused again. Her protective arm slipped slightly downward, revealing just a bit more of the elegant curve of her breasts. He couldn’t remember ever being harder. She was clearly boiling with desire she didn’t understand, and every instinct demanded that he simply stride forward and take her. But it was too soon, and if he did he’d ruin everything. It wasn’t enough to overwhelm her senses in a moment of weakness. He needed her to submit to him ... not just physically, but emotionally. And then to teach her to crave that submission so much that she’d ignore her hatred and come to him of her own volition.

“I can help you to find and use that key. As I know the King’s will, sometimes even before he does, I know the secret paths of many minds, and I know what lies hidden inside all hearts. Just as I know yours, Éowyn. Do I not? Have I not spoken of all that you desire, even that which you will not admit to yourself?”

She’s almost there. Her arm dropped to her side, her hand clutching and clawing at a thigh as it gently rotated against the other. He knew what she was doing, even if she didn’t yet realize it. The beautiful outline of her breast was very nearly in full view. If I move just the tiniest bit to my left, her nipple...

No. I dare not move. This is a delicate moment. If I force her now, too quickly, I’ll retain no more than a shallow advance. I need to stake a deeper claim.

“You think you can’t fight that which is imposed upon you. By the King, by your lineage, by tradition, and by your sex.” The word seemed to roll through the air between them and then pass straight through her body, echoing from her head down to the center of her arousal. “But you can break free of your own cage. You can be everything you wish. You can take what you want. What you need. Who you need. To do this, all you must do is need yourself, Éowyn. Accept your desires. That’s where your key lies. Submission to your desires is the key to unlocking your power.”

She was panting now. Her eyes, though still fierce, were glazed and unfocused by the battle raging inside her. A battle that was nearly lost.

“Take hold of that power. Reach out and claim your desire. Give in to what you need. What you must have, right now. Touch it, Éowyn. You are the key. Touch it. Grasp it. Take it. Take it now!”

With a helpless cry, she bent nearly double, turning back to face the window. Her beauty was again obscured to his eyes, save the golden-white hair now sweat-matted against the arch of her back, but it didn’t matter. He’d won this round. Now all that remained was to watch her lose.

Éowyn was wracked with uncontrollable lust. She was beyond caring if he saw her, beyond caring if he watched what she was about to do. She had to come. She had no other goal in the world, no other need. Her pussy was an ocean of arousal, her clit was on fire. With one hand she grasped her breast, squeezing it beyond her usual threshold of pleasure. Spreading her legs wide, she moved to plunge a finger into her wet depths. But even before she could, she quivered, gasped, and then crashed into a wrenching climax. It was the sharpest she’d ever experienced, so violent that she nearly slipped from the increasingly frictionless chair. Her body jerked and shuddered as liquid pumped from her undulating tunnel. She shrieked, wailed in a moment of ecstasy and agony melded, then trailed off into a soft moan.

She’d never even touched her sex.

Suddenly, she remembered his presence, and her eyes snapped open. Gríma was standing before her, silhouetted by bright light streaming through the open window. He wasn’t close enough to touch her, yet she could feel him all the same. He no longer leered, nor even smiled. His expression was intense, radiating hunger and an unexpected vulnerability.

She couldn’t move her limbs to cover herself. She knew she should, knew she in fact had to, but she lacked both the coordination and the will. Her body still trembled with aftershocks, and she panted, covered in sweat. He could, she was sure, see most of her revealed flesh, though the hand with which she’d intended to touch herself sheltered the swollen volcano between her legs. However, her snowy breasts were completely bared to his sight, stiff nipples and wrinkled areolæ darkened by the onrush of post-orgasmic blood. He greatly desired to reach out and see just how wet she actually was, though he could most certainly smell her musky scent and see that which, in her writhing, had dripped to the floor. In her eyes was the fear of a once-proud predator, cornered and trapped by a superior adversary, knowing that it had already lost the fight and wondering how, or when, the end would come.

If this is the path to my power, I don’t feel it. Instead, she felt overwhelmed, humiliated, and more bewildered than ever, whence was born escalating shame. Everything is so much worse than it was. Where before he had only words, now he truly knows secrets I’ve revealed to no other. The weapons at his disposal only increase, while my dissolve away.

Gríma, for his part, no longer doubted his power. He felt it coursing through mind and tongue, driving the throbbing need in his cock. Éowyn looked spent, delirious, and frightened.

But now there was something else: resentment. The self-will he’d spent so much energy breaking down was slowly reasserting itself. I could attempt to arrest it, but I can’t control her like a puppet. Not directly. Not yet. I don’t have enough power in reserve, not when the majority of my efforts are, of necessity, directed at the King’s ear. He knew the triumph of this moment was already passing away. No matter. There will be others.

“Éowyn, my love, never forget your key. And don’t forget who first taught you how to use it.”

Her breath slowed as she straightened by stages, adjusting her limbs to deny him further access to her flushed charms. His words retained power in their unwanted yet persistent correctness, but she was once again able to perceive the slithering coercion in them. Her disgust — with him, and most of all with herself — grew apace, but she pushed that aside. For now.

Never call me that again, Gríma. You know nothing about me. You are no counselor. You are a trickster and a defiler of words. I don’t know by what devilry you claim to see hearts and minds, but I see all too well how you manipulate both. From your mouth, thoughts emerge twisted and irreparably bent, finding their targets but accomplishing only evil. I hate them, though not as much as I hate you. ‘Gríma’ you are no longer. I’ve chosen a different name.”

His eyebrows lifted with amusement, and a low red fire glowed within his inquisitive stare. “My dear Lady Éowyn, I’m flattered that you should wish to grant me a secret name for our time together. By what term of endearment shall I henceforth be known?”

Her eyes flashed and her fists gripped and clenched, in anger at him and his audacity, but in greater fury at herself for her inexplicable weakness. “Endearment? Nay! You are vile and far beneath me, you and your words naught but loathsome serpents writhing in the foulest mud. And so I dub thee Wormtongue.”

His mouth twisted, but for only a moment, stretching into a leer as dangerous as she’d ever seen. Suddenly, she felt even more disturbed than in the immediate aftermath of her crushing orgasm.

“Éowyn ... of that, I promise, you will soon be assured.” With this he bowed, turned, and strode from the chamber, closing the heavy wooden door behind him with a quiet thump, abandoning her to sputtering indignation.

A tiny wisp of cloth, freed of the doorframe’s clutches and finally at the whim of the currents, swirled in his wake, then settled to the floor. Sullied. Torn. Forgotten.

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