Chapter Text
No one expects it of her, and Aerin thinks that this is why she survives. No one expects her to be able to. But people have always underestimated her: her intelligence, her strength, her will. She was Aerin the sweet-tempered, Aerin the fragile, Aerin the fearful. No one sees the steel beneath pale skin and soft smile.
She is not Rían. She does not go mad with grief and flee into the wilderness. She is not Morwen. She does not lock herself away and dare their enemies to attack. People expect her to wilt, to wither, to crumble apart when Brodda takes her as his unwilling wife. She does not, she will not. She bends, she does not break, though the bruises sink deeper than flesh, and never will she deny that she is frightened.
***
They had been expecting it. Not quite like this, but they all knew that the battle had gone badly, that Morgoth had come the victor. She is a young woman now, and her mother has been dead for years. She is not surprised to learn her father, too, has been killed, though no one knows how, or if they do they will not tell her. She imagines it anyway, and it makes her stomach turn sour, but she presses her lips together and goes to see Morwen and little Túrin. Rían is already gone, she finds, wandered mad with grief into the wild. Her chest feels hollowed out, sunken. She knows Morwen better, much better, but Rían … She takes a breath, lays a hand on Morwen's arm, because she knows an embrace will not be welcomed, yet it is in her nature to offer what comfort she can.
'What will you do?' she asks, as the sun is sinking dull and red behind the hills, and solemn, dry-eyed Túrin is sent to bed.
'I will stay.' She gestures to her stomach, just beginning to round with child. Aerin feels a pang and swallows. 'And Húrin may yet return. Though perhaps it is only a fool's hope.'
Aerin can think of nothing to say to this. 'He might.' She tries to inject some of her usual lightness into her voice, but it is impossible. She sounds raw instead.
'I am sorry about your father,' Morwen tells her suddenly, and her eyes are keen, glinting grey even in the gloom. 'Indor was a good man.'
Aerin nods and for several long moments she cannot speak. She wishes, suddenly, desperately, for a sister, a sibling with whom she might share her grief, who might hold her when the tears begin to sting. She is startled when she feels her fingers gripped in Morwen's strong, sure hand, but she returns the press, and breathes deep.
'You are strong, Aerin. You will survive what is to come.'
Long years later, others believe in her will too, in the strength hidden within her. But she never forgets that Morwen was the first to see it. She never finds the words to thank her, but she hopes she knows, for in those early days when all the world seemed turned to evil and she powerless against it, Morwen's surety helped carry her, and she held it close.
When Aerin leaves it is with a heart beating hard in her chest, for the sun has sunk low and all is murky grey. She fears what might hide in the shadows, but that night she returns to her home unmolested, and when those of her kin who remain (distant relations mostly, or those who have proved loyal to the House of Hador) she ignores the worried chastisements and sleeps with her hand curled up, remembering the reassuring press of Morwen's fingers. She is not at peace, but for the first time since the news of the Nirnaeth arrived she sleeps through the night.
***
Good things do not last. This is something Aerin learns, and learns early. Scant days after her visit to Morwen the Easterlings come, looting whatever the wish for and often burning the rest.
She sees her people, the men and women she knows and loves, who have surrounded her since her childhood, thrown from their homes and slain, or else enslaved. When the men come to her house she is pale and she trembles, but she does not weep, and though she flinches she does not cower, though every inch of her quails inside. She wishes she were a child once more, and that this were a nightmare, to be driven away by her father's voice or else the warmth of blankets drawn over her head.
But she is a woman grown now, and it is this that Brodda sees. She does not know this is his name, but even innocent as she is she knows the look in his eyes, the covetous curve of his cruel smile, and it fills her with dread.
'Your name, my lady?'
For a moment she does not think she can answer. The whole world seems silent but for her own breath, quick little gasping pants. Then, somehow, her mouth forms words, and though her voice is little more than a whisper he must be able to her when she says, 'Aerin.'
'Aerin, my lord,' he tells her, and she swallows, nodding quickly, though inside she bites her tongue. She has seen already how ill-treated thralls are and the thought of it frightens her. She wishes for nothing more than everything, everyone, to disappear – or else to give voice to the thought in her head, that he is not her lord, that he can never be. She says nothing. 'You have a noble look to you – not like these.' The gesture he directs to the others of her house is negligent. 'No, you are fair indeed.' He moves close, puts a hand to her face, inspecting her, then draws a hand down her throat, over her breasts and stomach, like she is a horse for sale and he is testing her conformation. For a moment she thinks she will be sick. She cannot think of anything at all but the smell of sweat and the cruelty of his face.
He turns from her suddenly, but even the release from his hand is violent, ripping it away from her and leaving red marks on the skin of her arm. 'Send the rest to join the other thralls. This one will be my wife.'
If Aerin could breathe she would be choking. Instead it feels as if all the air has been sucked from her lungs. She sways.
***
They are not married by the village wisewoman, but by one of Brodda's people, an old man, bearded and sour-faced, though his voice is clear and low when speaks unfamiliar words over their joined hands. Aerin is struck by the sudden, desperate urge to twist her hand free of the vice-tight grip, to claw across Brodda's face and run, run until she reaches the safety of Morwen's home (though she knows that is no longer safe either). Perhaps Brodda sees it in her face; his grip tightens further and she winces, stifles a whimper of pain.
She tells herself that because it is not one of her own marrying them it does not count. This is not marriage.
She never held much interest in the young men about her, but she also knew that there was marriage in her future. When she had imagined it, she had thought it would be to a young warrior, someone making a name for himself, but who would be kind to her. She had imagined he would be a good man.
She had not imagined this.
***
There is a feast after the vows are said (she can only say them because she tells herself that this does not count, that it isn't really marriage at all), but she can only pick at her food. It tastes different than she is used to, the chicken, not like any herbs she recognizes. She might like it, if other circumstances, might question how it has been cooked. Instead she feels queasy, sick with nerves and dread, and the knowledge that others go hungry sits like a stone upon her shoulders. Her head is bowed as it never has been before.
Eventually she has eaten something, if only because of the black looks Brodda sends her way. The food is dry and difficult to swallow, and it tastes of nothing at all. The men are raucous and make crude jokes, and it is only the very worst that Brodda quells. She thinks that this is happening because he desires some veneer of respectability, and wonders what his standing is amongst his own people. But it is an idle thought. She does not care what has brought him to this place, only that he is here, and that for some reason he has seen fit to take her as his own. It does not seem there are so many differences between her own position and that of the thralls.
***
He does not take her in her own room. Distantly, she thinks she will be glad for that, in the future. Now there is no space for gladness or gratitude. Her face is pressed down so that it is difficult to breathe, and it hurts, it burns. She will have bruises on her hips. She thinks her face should be wet with tears, but it isn't, just the drying remains of his saliva from when he kissed her, forcing his tongue into her mouth. She wishes now that she had bitten it off.
He grunts something, and stills, his weight heavy against her. Finally he pulls out, away. She thinks perhaps she can escape now, return to her room and wash everything away, succumb to the oblivion of sleep. Instead he keeps a hand on her arm. 'You stay here.' He grins, sudden and smug. 'Perhaps I will have a son from this.'
Then he rolls over and goes to sleep and she is left pressed against the edge of the bed, her muscles coiled tight as a bowstring, staring out into the darkness. She does not sleep that night.
***
For all that their marriage is an unwilling one, and she has little power, she is still the wife of the lord, and the thralls are loyal to her, not her husband, insomuch as they can be. She has more autonomy than most. For those first weeks she is too frightened to exercise it. But she sees the gaunt faces of those around her (her friends), and she begins to pass them food, secretly, silently, as much as she can.
Morwen and Túrin are not forgotten. Sometimes she yearns for them so strongly it is a physical ache. After that first night her eyes had not remained dry, tears welling, until she realized that sometimes Brodda liked it. Then she forced herself to stop. She still cries, but only in the privacy of her room. She cannot let others see, but sometimes the thought of Morwen's steady, implacable strength, the warmth of her hand, makes her eyes sting.
She thinks of them starving. She thinks of them cold, and alone, and though she knows Brodda fears them and does not attack their home openly, she fears that one day that might change.
Now, perhaps two months in, Brodda does not take her every night, and when he does he often allows her to return to her own room. She is not so lucky to be free from him this night, and she thinks about waiting for a time when she has not had to endure his touch, but she cannot guess when that might be, and now that she has decided to visit them, she is loath to wait.
So she cleans herself in her room and dresses again, hiding the bruises as best she can, and she waits for the sounds of the household to quiet, until all is still. Then she leaves, slipping away with a dark cloak to hide her golden hair.
She knows the way well, even now, even in the dark and the cold, with leaves upon the ground. She is not so hardy as others of her House, nor as Morwen or the House of Bëor. But this she can do, and with a light tread she slips between the trees upon familiar paths (though changed now, with the coming of the Easterlings; homesteads she recognizes are burned, the little plots of land ruined, or else taken). They have always lived close by. It takes her only an hour, and the moon is rising pale and silver in the sky when she reaches the dark shape of Húrin 's house. She can see the flicker of firelight through the windows, and a wash of something crashes over her, strong enough that she trembles and has to press a hand to her mouth.
For long moments she simply stands, looking, breathing, and then she moves forward and her feet crunch in the frost-crisp leaves, but she has eyes only for the house. Then she is at the door, and the rap of her knuckles sounds loud in the woods.
She hears the scrape of a chair on stone, movement she cannot identify, footsteps, a bar being raised, and then door creaks open, only a tiny bit, but enough to see Morwen's arm, the blade she holds in a white-knuckled hand.
Aerin steps back. 'It is only me, Aerin.' She keeps her voice soft. She knows that fear breeds reactions that cannot be controlled. She has flinched more than once at an innocently raised hand, the closeness of a man who she knows means her no harm.
The blade withdraws, the door opens further, and then she is being pulled inside. In the dim, strange mix of firelight and moonlight she can see the gauntness of Morwen's face, the sharpness of her cheekbones.
'Morwen,' she breathes, and then she finds herself being pulled into a tight embrace. It jostles her bruises and she hisses, but the noise is more in response to the thinness she can now feel, the bones stark beneath her arms, all turned to skeleton and sinew but for the swell of her stomach. She presses her face into Morwen's shoulder and holds her. For the first time in months the touch of another is not a threat, nor a prelude to horror. It does not frighten her.
And then to her dismay, she finds she is crying. Not the silent tears that she weeps in the darkness and solitude of her room. No, these are great heaving sobs that fight their way up from the bottom of her chest, from her stomach, clawing their way through her throat and out of her mouth. They are ugly sounds, ugly tears choking her, her whole face burning and her mouth working hopelessly to form words that won't come. The more she tries to stop the harder they come, wracking her. Morwen, never soft or gentle, strokes her hair and holds her. She thinks that Túrin comes in and is sent away, and when she comes to herself once more and the tears slow and finally stop, she is alone with Morwen, in a chair beside the fire.
'I'm sorry,' she croaks, her voice hoarse.
'Don't be. You needed this. But you should not have come here, it must put you in danger.' She hesitates, and it startles Aerin, the action so utterly unlike the Morwen she knows. 'They say you are … wedded to an Easterling. To Brodda.'
'Yes.' Now that her tears are spent she feels hollow, cold. Her voice sounds the same. 'The first night. He … but it is not marriage. It was done by one of their own. He is not my husband, not really.'
'No,' Morwen agrees, and there is nothing in her voice to show it, but her expression is pained.
'Is … is everything well? As well as can be?' She nods to Morwen's stomach.
'As well as can be, yes. I have months left still. I am sending Túrin away soon.'
'Where will he go?'
'To Doriath. He will be safe there.' There is a twist to her lips.
'But you will not go yourself.'
'I cannot. And I dare not wait until such a time as I may. The wild would be no place for a babe in arms anyway. No, I shall remain here. We will survive.'
But Aerin can hear the doubt in her words, and she can see the meanness of their lives in everything about them. 'I will help. I have brought food. I will continue to do so.'
She knows that it is not in Morwen's nature to accept aid, but they are kin, though not by blood, and have known each other since Morwen first came to Dor-lómin.
'You cannot. He will discover it. You cannot pretend he would not harm you if he found out.
'I already help my people where I may. And he already hurts me. I will accept a little more hurt if it will aid you, or anyone.' She pauses. The words that follow do not come easily. 'I am the lady of his house regardless of all else. If I must endure it, then I would use that to help you. I would not have you starve. There are so few left now…'
'Thank you, Aerin. But do not risk yourself beyond reason.'
'I will not. But now, I have brought you what I can.' She withdraws what little she had managed to gather together: a loaf of bread, some old dried fish and a half a dozen apples. 'It's not much, I know, but I hope it will help. There will be times when I cannot come, but there are those still loyal to me and the House of Hador; I will send them in my stead if I am unable to.'
There are eight years between them – not so much, though she has always felt her youth next to Morwen, wedded, a mother, so very certain of herself. Now, the years are nothing at all.
'I have to go. I cannot be discovered.'
Morwen nods, her face grave once more. 'Go. And thank you.'
Standing at the door, Aerin lingers, desperate not to leave. Her fingers remain latched to the doorframe until Morwen gently uncurls them.
'You have to go. Stay safe, Aerin.'
The smile Aerin grants her is bitter, as it has never been before. 'As safe as I can. And you too. I'll be back when I may.'
And then she turns and leaves because if she does not now she does not think she will ever be able to draw herself away.