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Hérincë
Let me in, little one. Open to me.
Galadriel gasps against her sleeve and jerks upright from the table. There is a stain on the hem from where her mouth was.
Beyond her tent, she can hear foot soldiers cleaning up the mess of supper. Tin cups and dull knives scrape against each other, the slosh of plates in water buckets, laughter and gentle taunting stretched thin by the evening chill. Fireside crackle, moaning forests, a land of battle. She tries to ground herself in these things, this moment, the earth underfoot. Wills her mind not to stray…
Enough.
Come, my love. You will let me in.
You will open to me.
****
“—Terrain poses a problem considering the parched forests and their hold on high ground…” Elrond frowns. “Galadriel.”
Her eyes snap open.
“Sorry. Yes, terrain.” She clears the rasp in her throat. “I propose we take a formation across the river—”
Elrond closes his hand over hers where she traces a vein painted on a map of the Southlands. “Friend, you need to sleep.”
Galadriel grimaces.
“You have been at the frontlines for nearly a fortnight without so much as a few hours’ rest,” he presses on. “I have given up on inviting you to the dining tables, but this I cannot ignore.”
“I’m fine, Elrond.”
“You were snoring.”
She looks away and hopes he takes her glare as disdain. But Elrond is still holding her hand. She knows he can feel it tremble.
A dark forest of dense green, dripping vines, the scent of oak moss and wilting blooms past the point of sweetness. She walks with bare feet and a hot, sticky ball of panic choked in her throat. She can feel him watching, taunting her with a strike that never comes—
A small room with stone floors that scrape her knees as she crawls to the bed because he threatened to take her on the floor if she didn’t—
Gauntlets on a table, black and gleaming in the candlelight. She stares at them to keep from looking in his eyes when he clamps his calloused hands around her throat—
Phantom kisses, phantom lover, the ghost who muscles his way between her legs, pins her down, makes her cry for it. He holds her when it’s done, singing a song that is older than the first life, a lullaby for his beautiful girl, his little warrior.
“Is this what you want, darling? Will you not come to me any other way? Will you only let yourself enjoy it if I make you?”
She never answers, only buries her face in his chest, gnashing her teeth against his stolen heartbeat—
Galadriel shakes herself. Lifts her chin. Pulls her hand from Elrond’s and points to the map. “What about this ridge, have your scouts delivered a report?”
****
The ring is heavy today.
She takes care not to look at it. Elrond rides beside her, his attention ever present – on the tree line, on the soldiers marching ahead, on the starlit gem glinting against her finger. Galadriel knows he does not trust it. She knows he hardly trusts her. She resents his suspicions for how well they are placed. If he only knew what darkness plagued her dreams.
“The villagers claim a platoon of orcs marched through here just two days ago.”
Galadriel frowns. “I cannot make out a single track, be it orc or animal. There are no signs of caravan nor wagon that has crossed these woods. Perhaps they were mistaken?”
“It is suspicious…I propose—”
The arrows come from the east, where the tree line slopes upward and the orcs climb high in the canopy. The skirmish does not last long – elven arrows fly farther and truer. But in the brief burst of violence, her mind weary from another restless night and the burden of the ring, Galadriel lets the veil drop.
Look at you. My precious little commander. Such a broad sword for such a small thing.
She lashes out with a startled cry, cutting a snarling head free of its body. There are others closing in. Elrond shouts her name from afar.
You are a wild creature, to be sure. Wild, but not untamable.
More swords, more rolling heads. Her eyes water and her mind goes gray with fog.
I can make you more. Unrivaled potential exists between us. Submit to me. Let me forge you.
The forest runs black with orc blood. Galadriel stands in a ring of broken bodies, chest heaving as the fog clears from her mind.
****
Hard hands. Hard breaths. The smell of amber and musk, skin wet with salted tears. His fingers in her mouth, pressing down on her tongue until she opens wide. He holds her fast to him, careless if she can breathe. He likes when she chokes and sputters. He revels in her nails digging into his hips, scraping, little fists that beat on him. There is too much for her to swallow, and when he finally pulls off, the light in his eyes as he brushes the dregs from her bottom lip is brighter than what shines at the heart of Nenya.
****
The battlefield sprawls for miles, slopes littered with the dead, the high moon turning blood to rivers of ink. She staggers, her head screaming, the ring throbbing on her hand. Someone is calling her name – Elrond, where are you? I can’t…
“Galadriel! Lady Galadriel!”
Not Elrond but Camnir, the mapmaker, driving his horse towards her. She tries to lift her sword towards him, but it’s too late. The world grows dark around the edges, unconsciousness threatening. He is still paces away when claw-tipped fingers reach out from the void and pull her under.
****
I know the power of desire. I was there at the birth of all feelings.
His voice is deeper in her mind, as if the filter of his borrowed body cannot follow him to this place. What she hears is what he is – impenetrable darkness, something grave and inescapable. She presses her hands to her skull in a vain attempt to pull herself out of the dream.
Galadriel—
She snarls and kicks at the door.
She cannot say how long she has been trapped in this room. Time does not move the same here. There is no bed. Only a small table in the center of the circular space, its ceilings high and vaulted. Something like a tower, cold and windowless, lit only by a candle burning on the table.
Galadriel continues pounding at the door.
Stop that. Your antics are tiresome.
“Let me out!” She screams, and this time it is her head she bangs. A bright stripe of pain cuts across her vision, followed by a long ache. She sobs and slides down to the floor.
“There, there.” Footsteps sound at her back. Galadriel whimpers when the thumb of a gauntlet brushes the tears from her cheek. “No more tears, hérincë. I’ll make you feel better.”
“Why are you doing this?” She turns to look up at pitiless eyes, black as obsidian. Sauron takes her chin in his grasp. “Why do you plague me so?”
His smile is almost sad.
“Oh, darling. Don’t you know? It was you who called me.”
****
“Take her to the bed! You, there. A pitcher of water. Quick! Call the healer!”
Gil-Galad storms into the tent moments after.
“What is it? What has happened to her?”
Elrond gives his king a look that only a fool would dare. His gaze falls to Gil-Galad’s hand.
“It’s that damnable ring. That’s what’s happened.”
****
“What fickle things, these worldly bodies – the mortal and the endless. Enduring in time, bound by sensation. Fit to hurt, to hunger, to feel deeply. Mastering them is not about disciplining ourselves out of wanting. No. There is little dominion in perpetually denying yourself that which you most crave. Needs cannot simply be ignored into oblivion, hérincë. If you want power, you learn to feed those needs. Cultivate them. Make an art out of hedonism…” He twists a lock of gold around his finger. “I can give that to you. I can satisfy whatever it is you’re so desperate to refuse yourself.”
Galadriel weeps against his thigh. Her hands twitch in their bindings at the small of her back. She screws her eyes shut at the next pass of his fingers through her hair, trying to ignore the warmth that spreads down her neck. His palm closes gently around her nape.
“Shh.” He leans down and kisses her brow bone. “It is late. I cannot stay much longer.”
She doesn’t fight him when he lifts her off the stone floor and sets her on the table. Her knees are pink and raw, and her throat hurts where he held it. The Dark Lord brushes the hair from her sticky cheeks and tilts her face upward.
“Poor little Artanis,” he hums, real concern in his voice. “You fight what you are with tooth and dagger, don’t you?”
She hiccups but says nothing.
“Do not worry. I will fix this.”
Her legs spread under his touch. Cold, dry air hits her slick center. The first press of his fingers against that soft skin makes her gasp. Her head shakes on her shoulders with the next touch.
The Dark Lord smiles. “Do you like that, lovely?”
Galadriel’s brows pucker.
Another pass. A deeper slide. “You blush, Lady Galadriel.”
She is panting now, struggling against her bindings. Her hips roll atop the table in jerking, frustrated movements. He adds another finger, touching against and inside of her at the same time. He does not often do this. He rarely seems concerned with her pleasure at all. It mortifies her. It leaves her breathless and aching.
“Tell me this is enough.”
“P-please…”
A third finger. He pushes deep, then twists them.
“Tell me.”
“No,” she sobs, face crumpling. “It’s not enough.”
He bares his teeth and tears away. Galadriel whines, blinking her glassy eyes, then yelps as she is yanked bodily off the table. Her feet tangle and scrape the stone; her bare chest slams against the wood hard enough for the candle flame to gutter.
“Good,” he snarls at her ear, fumbling with his robes. “You are so good when you are honest.”
He is clumsy in his haste, gripping too hard, sure to leave bruises only she can see. Galadriel moans and tries to wiggle away but there is no use. Where is there to go? How can she fight him? She was caught long before this night. Her struggle is but another part of a skit they’ve rehearsed tenfold.
“That’s it,” he rasps as he sinks in, smoothing a hand down her rigid spine. “Relax. Breathe. You can take it.”
She can, of course. She always does. But that doesn’t stop her from shaking and arching sharply against every deep inch. Her cheeks run with tears. Her throat burns on a smothered cry. This is torture from the depths of the shadows were no light dwells. This is thick, hot pleasure she never imagined possible.
“There,” he leans forward when he is fully seated, his arms bracketing her shoulders, his lips skimming the pointed shell of her ear. “Hérincë, my glorious little Lady. Your tears taste of heaven.”
He licks a track from her cheek with a satisfied rumble. His hips roll and the sound that claws out of her throat is animal.
“You don’t have to hold back. Not anymore, not with me. Let down your shield, Artanis. Show me what you need.”
He fucks into her with long, steady strokes. Pumping soft sounds from her, choking gasps that thin and grow higher, sweeter, sounds she did not know she could make. Her forehead lolls against the woodgrain, drool pooling beneath her chin. He grabs her wrists, still bound at her back, and pulls until her shoulders pinch.
“I could do this for you every day. I would give you all that you asked for. As long as you liked, as many times as you needed. I could keep you in my bed, I’d tie you to it so you couldn’t run away again. All you have to do is ask.”
Her next moan cracks with a sob. How does he know these things? How can he see these wants? Is she so weak of mind for him to unspool her most wicked fantasies from the deep corners in which she has buried them?
“Let me keep you,” his pace picks up, spurred by the desperate edge to his voice. “Let me have what others would not.”
I know you, he whispers in her mind, I know the darkness of your heart. I see what you try to keep from the rest. They do not love you as you are. They do not want your jagged edges. But I do.
She splinters under the weight of his body surging inside of her, his whispered thoughts following her over. White-hot, devastating, a relief so sharp there is nothing to do but bow to it. Garbled thanks spill from her lips, cut up by her chattering teeth. Her hands unclench between them, fingertips grazing the soft curls of his groin. The Dark Lord grunts, hips faltering, but he does not let go until he coaxes another sharp flare from her body, the orgasm stealing through her so suddenly her scream breaks into nothing.
“Beautiful. You are – a marvel—”
It should feel foul when he empties inside of her. Evil planted in her womb, slithering, snuffing out her light. But there is only heat, a balm soothing her fraying nerves, something enduring and certain that sets her to rights. It’s like a return to a place she did not mean to stray from, communion she has gone too long without.
Sauron, disciple of Morgoth – the Enemy, the Deceiver. Galadriel turns her cheek and watches as he straightens, still hard inside of her, and begins to carefully unbind her wrists. She does not move once she is free, lets him take flesh and bone between his fingers; sighing as he digs into the tender muscles, working feeling back into her skin.
“I hate you,” she whispers, voice soft. “I hate what you have done to me.”
He presses a gentle kiss to both wrists, then guides her arms back to her sides. “Up, my love.”
Galadriel lets him pull his cloak over her shoulders. He conjures a chair with little more than a blink and settles into it, pulling her onto his lap with her head tucked under his chin.
“You are young. I can hardly remember what it was like to be your age. You may cling to this fight if it entertains you, but time will show how pointless it is to play at benevolence.”
Galadriel picks at the hem of his cloak. A single thread comes loose.
“If you think I will join you,” she croaks, “In this age or the next – you are as foolish as you are evil.”
The Dark Lord chuckles above her. The sound settles at the base of her skull.
“My sweet, stupid girl.” He gives her crown a smacking kiss. “I have waited far longer for far less.”