Work Text:
She was usually good at packing.
Ruthless, Laurewen used to say; brutally willing to do without even the most basic comforts. But she knew how to pack light when necessary, how to get by with the absolute minimum, and to work up from there depending on capacity.
If she were going on foot alone, it would be easy. The clothes on her back, her cloak for warmth during the day and bedding at night, her sword, a bow and knife to hunt, flint for a fire. But she would not be alone, and she would have a horse each for both herself and her brother, and more pack animals if she wished.
So what to bring? The point of the expedition was supposed to be to observe the land, so she should bring the sort of equipment that would validate the story. It wasn’t a story; she really did intend to see how the spring was progressing, what vegetation was flourishing and what was struggling, taste and map the water quality of the many streams and springs. So, parchment and ink, packs and bottles for samples, and a copy of Findarato’s old treatise on the Flora of Sirion.
Two tents. It was obnoxious, almost intolerable, to waste so much space on the second tent when they were not going to use it, and when she could *almost* imagine justifying sharing a tent to anyone who might ask. It was practical, he was already going to be in and out of her tent to help her when one hand wasn’t enough, and he was her guard, and anyway he was only her brother after all. It was this last line—the most obvious excuse—where her nerve failed her when she imagined the conversation. He was her brother, after all. Her brother.
She imagined, sometimes, late at night, what would happen if their father were still alive to find out. The thought of him and what he would say, what he would demand, was never far from her mind, and in this matter there was no exception. Would he be furious? His rage had been terrible, especially near the end when there seemed no limits anymore to what it might drive him to. She hadn’t ever feared it, not quite, because she could not afford to flinch from his anger when it fell to her to shield her younger siblings from it. But she had dreaded it, dreaded where it would lead, what it would demand of her. What would he demand of her now, if he were alive to know what she planned? Would he burn hot, yell and rage and accuse, try to intimidate her with his anger? Or would his anger be cold, hard, grimly demanding that she change course and obey his will, as he had demanded they reaffirm the Oath in his final moments?
What would *she* do, if he tried to turn his rage against her to force her into a different choice? Sometimes the specter of his anger shamed her, but sometimes when she imagined his face and his words late at night, she found an anger rising in herself to meet him. How *dare* he judge, how dare he demand *more* sacrifice from her, after everything he had led her into? If he didn’t like what she had become, he had only himself to blame for this, the fruit of his anger. Let him rage, let him regret his own choices. She would not regret hers, not this time.
She had thought of marriage often in Aman, though mostly as a political matter. Her father’s insistence on making an heir of his daughter had been deeply controversial, and meant that her position in society had been both highly regarded and highly fraught. Even then, before the feuding and the banishment, her father’s demands had been heavy. How could she protest, when he fought against custom and tradition for her sake? But it had rarely felt like he truly fought for *her* sake; with him it was always the principle of the thing, and people got lost in the details. Perhaps she might have been happier marrying some mild-mannered, second-rung lord and fading into obscurity, to mother children in a peaceful and unimportant house untouched by greatness or doom. She would never know. Even in Aman, she had known that such an option would be anathema to her father, and had spurned all admirers who she knew would be beneath his consideration. It would have to be an impressive match, she had thought then, someone who could add to the prestige of her family line and bear up under her father’s scrutiny.
She had thought of her wedding sometimes, too, mostly as an elaborate political event that would be exhausting to plan and manage and keep civil. How to satisfy her father’s pride, her grandfather’s family, Tirion’s customs, the Valar’s will, and still have a marriage worth waking up to the next morning. But much of the pomp and grandeur had already been planned since her early childhood; the jewelry and dress, the music, the dowry and gifts. Her father had always had a certain preoccupation about his only daughter, granddaughter of Miriel who bore her clear likeness in the shape of her jaw and brow and hands.
Most of that preparation was now long gone, left behind on the other side of the sea or lost in the Nirnaeth, and would be of little use now with no court left to present herself to. But the dowry chest with her grandmother’s own bridal dress had survived the blood and fire, somehow, traveled all the long distance from Tirion to Formenos to Mithrim to Himring and now to Amon Ereb to sit in her bedchamber, dusty and forlorn, under armor and riding leathers and maps of recent orc movements. She had endeavored to hold onto it because she knew her father would want her to guard and protect these last few memories of his mother, and because his love for his mother was one of the few tender things about him she had ever been privy to. When she came of age he had given the chest to her, with soft wet eyes had placed Miriel’s veil over her head, cupped her face in both hands and kissed her forehead and told her how precious she was to him.
It had been a painful memory, in Angband, but never wholly ruined.
Most of the rest of the clothes in the chest didn’t fit, had been too short even when she received them and were now too narrow across the shoulders as well. But a veil could fit anyone, and this was a stunning piece of work, made by Miriel herself who’s skill with a needle had never been matched by any other before or since. Delicate as spider’s silk, nearly transparent, an astonishing web of stars and flowers, water and leaves, wind and light, wrought in lace so fine you could pass it through a ring. She had not taken it out since bringing it to Aman except to perfunctorily check that it was undamaged, but she held it in her hands now as she tried to plan what to pack, admiring and grieving and conflicted.
It weighed nothing, would take up no space at all, but it was a silly thing to bring on a scouting expedition. If she had other plans in addition to observing the land, it was her business and it wouldn’t interfere with the practical purpose. She was always practical. Even what she planned to do with her brother was practical, in its way. She knew what she wanted, she had made her choice and she wasn’t sorry, but she wasn’t a dreamy-eyed poet who spoke in euphemism. She was going to fuck her brother in the woods; it would be a wedding by only the most tortured technicality of language.
But it was the only wedding she would ever have, unless one counted the atrocity of Angband. And she might not be a poet, but her intended was, and he wouldn’t mock her for a bit of silly impracticality. He would probably love it, maybe even incorporate it into the next improvised serenade he crooned into her neck while he fingered her cunt. The thought ran hot through her mind and down her spine, straight between her legs, and she pressed her face into the veil as if to hide her blush from herself.
He would love it. He would think it was beautiful, because it was, and that she was beautiful in it, because he was a ridiculous half-blind romantic who refused to see anything but beauty. Everything was roses and glory and Arien’s light with him. It had been off-putting at first, when she hadn’t been sure how seriously to take him, whether he was really talking to her or just performing to an audience of one. But the longer their affair went on the less she doubted, and after their conversation the morning after the rain, all lingering uncertainty was put to rest.
She could feel it now when his eyes were on her, she could feel how beautiful she was to him. It trailed teasingly over her skin as gentle and pleasing as his hands, made her feel like it was true. She would never tell him, the idea of how he’d react to the revived prospect of ‘healing’ was too exhausting to contemplate, but she felt almost healed sometimes under his generous gaze. It was a feeling she had grown to want.
How strange it was, to want to be seen. She had endured being looked at with the same steely resolve that carried her through everything after Angband, but she had hated it even from poor Findekano. All she felt with him, as with everyone for hundreds of years, was how diminished she was from what she had been, how fallen, how damaged. She had buried herself away behind layers of linen and leather and armor so that no one could see her, so she would be nothing but a seamless mask. And now she wanted to take the mask off, take everything off and bask in his warm attention like a flower in the sun.
She shut her eyes and rubbed her face gently against the delicate fabric, and let herself imagine it. She could send him off on some errand and withdraw into their tent to get ready, and when he returned and asked for entry he would find her waiting for him wearing nothing but transparent lace. He’d look at her like she was beautiful, and then spin some lovely bit of poetic nonsense, maybe about frost on roses. Maybe it would edge from aimlessly romantic into something a little dirtier and more actionable, something about removing the frost by melting it away with heat. He’d be hesitant about touching her because he was careful like that, until she pulled him in and directed his mouth and hands. She’d have to guide him in undressing her, but he’d be less cautious about it now that she’d been naked with him before. He liked the sight of her, he’d want to get her bare once he was sure he had her leave. Then it would be kissing and teasing for a while, to warm her up so she wouldn’t panic when his hands wandered down. Would they wander on their own, or would she still need to direct him? Probably the latter, her reaction on the night before the battle would weigh on him for some time, she supposed. But he’d do what she asked, when she moved his hands to her tits, her ass, her cunt. He always did what she asked, with only the single painful exception of his recent behavior on the battlefield, and he was going to be trying doubly hard to make up for that for some time.
But this wouldn’t just be play, this was to be a real marriage, however unspeakable and taboo. She wanted to bonded by the time they returned, and forever after to come. She wanted to be bonded when she failed in her Oath and died, wanted a bond to carry with her and hold on to in the Void, though she knew not what to expect from such a fate. She wanted to be bonded if she were recaptured and brought back to Angband, a fate she knew all too well. She wanted to be entirely sure, whatever came, of who she truly belonged to and who was merely a trespasser or vandal. She wouldn’t tell him that either, not in so many words; it did upset him so when she spoke of Angband that way—or any way. But she thought he had understood her mind about this, when they spoke after the rain, and he seemed to approve. ‘To bind you to love for eternity,’ he had said. Yes, that was what she wanted. If it was taboo, the Valar could hardly condemn them more than they already had; they had already abandoned her to far worse depravity and shown no interest in what became of her. If her father found them in the Void and thought it his place to disapprove, well. She would have much to say to him as well.
But if it was to be a real marriage, then she should expect to do more than play games. His hands were lovely, and familiar, and well-trusted, but the Vanyar would never acknowledge a marriage consummated with hands alone. According to their philosophy, there was only one act that truly consummated a marriage. There were other philosophies, and plenty of Eldar who hand bonded in other ways, but she did not want to leave any ambiguity, any doubt, any cracks that could widen under the strain that would surely come. And it was not as though she was unfamiliar with that act—but here her mind cowered and refused to continue. She was all too familiar with that act.
Her brother’s hands were wholly unlike orcs’ hands, for they bore the mark and shape of how they had been used throughout his life—the calluses from harp strings alongside calluses from a sword, the skilled certainty of how to be both precise and gentle, how to coax music and beauty out of an instrument, how to soothe pain away from sore muscles and twisted joints. She knew the stories behind every scar, knew his hands as well as she knew his face, trusted them as she trusted him. But one cock was much like another, however much men liked to pretend otherwise, and all served the same function.
It could be endured, she thought; she had endured so much worse. What difference did it make, to be taken one more time? And this time for a purpose, for a much desired end. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face into the lace of the veil, and did not cry. It could be endured, it would be worth it. She wanted this.