Eowyn: The Cage - Ch. 10

Looking up at him in supplication and increasing desperation, she asked the crucial question. "Lord Aragorn, do you love me?"

His eyebrows shot up, but his eyes glazed over, as if the question itself weakened him. Yet again, a mystifying haze threatened to overcome his will. For a moment his lips moved without sound...and then, with a sharp intake of breath, as if abruptly wakened from deepest sleep by the roar of a thunderbolt, he regained full control of himself. "If that is knowledge you truly seek, why would you approach me in this fashion? For, Lady Éowyn, you are here against my will. And though I cannot explain how, for no enemy has ever managed it, you are also here without my knowledge. Perhaps you can enlighten me on this matter?" His dismay was palpable, but it was heavily colored by a mounting rage.

Éowyn was even more confused than before. How can he avoid answering? He should be compelled to tell me the truth, yea or nay. Breaking free of his restraining hands, she grabbed his cock. It was still hard, warm, and wet with her juices. "You do desire me. There's no lie here."

He darted away, and she collapsed to the floor, glancing up in helpless doubt as he scrabbled for a cloth to cover himself. Forcing as much calm into his voice as he could manage under the circumstances, he responded, "it is not a question of want, Lady Éowyn. But what you desire cannot be, and given what has transpired it can never be."

Eyes welling with tears, she stared up at him from her crumpled and defeated position on the floor. "I don't understand. How can you not want me? Does my body repel you? It belongs to you, in any and every way you could possibly desire. Every inch of it, inside and out. My mouth, my breasts, my sex, my...."

"STOP!" he thundered, and she reeled backward as if struck, careening into the bed, panting like a cornered animal. "I say thee again: this cannot be. I beg you to stay both your touch and your words."

Crying piteously, she hauled herself into a standing position, letting her tears flow freely down her cheeks as she petulantly retorted, "ever am I reprimanded and restrained thus: 'stay,' 'you cannot.' Words no more welcome from your lips than from any others'!"

"Yet oft are such words the obligations of duty, and one cannot...."

"Duty!" she scoffed. "You dare speak to me of duty! You, who is neither to be gainsaid nor waylaid from the most foolhardy, suicidal choices. But what manner of duty is endlessly enforced inaction? Where is honor or satisfaction to be found in a cage imposed from without? Is it my duty to be forever left behind, forever abandoned, forever rejected? For here I am, rejected once more." She looked down at her naked body, and her pleading veered towards self-pity. "This is all I have left to offer, yet even this isn't enough for you."

Struggling to thread this confounding conversational needle without appearing to embrace her advances, he began, "your...body...is most praiseworthy, as you surely already know, Lady Éowyn. But it is not mine, and should not be offered to me."

"Am I not the master of my own flesh? May I not offer it to whom I choose?"

"Does the other body have no say in the matter?"

Wounded pride suffused her response. "I am young, maybe, in these matters, but even so I'm not accustomed to my chosen partners rejecting me. And you shouldn't be able to!" The very moment the words passed her lips she bitterly regretted giving them voice, for they revealed the full extent of her shameful behavior.

For Aragorn, realization finally dawned as he studied the riot of guilt, frustration, and misery playing across her face. "I knew I felt this! The dampening of my will and the dulling of my senses were your doing! I could not understand this lethargy of body and spirit, and even now I struggle with full clarity. But this! This is a terrible revelation. How could you do such an evil thing? Lady Éowyn, what dark path do you walk?"

She looked down, then away. Her answer, when it finally came, was small and almost childlike, full of regret and sadness in the irreconcilable aftermath of error. "I've done nothing other than ask for the truth. And to my immense regret, I finally have it."

The evasion in her words was plain. Shaking his head in dismay, he nonetheless gentled his remonstrance, hoping to discover the truth of what she'd done, for he was filled with suspicion regarding its source. "I do not know what sort of enchantment or filtre you have attempted, but ere you try again, know this: the blood of Númenor is not easily corrupted by such tricks. Alas, if we are corrupted, it is usually from within. Even then, despite the strength of my lineage, I was nearly overcome. Yet I fear less for myself than for you, Lady Éowyn. You must abandon this black chicanery. If you continue it will bring misery to many, and it will eventually destroy you. Whence cometh this devilish meddling?"

I can't answer. It's a litany of shame I can never reveal, especially to him. "It was only...." She hesitated, lacking a sensible alternative to the truth, beset by the sting of loss and the hollow pain of loneliness.

"Only what? There is no 'only' in forcing others' wills to bend to your own. Among the many failures of Saruman it was the first, and from it arose all the others. By now you must have learned to what pitiable straits he has succumbed."

The involuntary twitch of her hands as he named the Wizard told him what he needed to know, but left him with another crucial question. How can she have met Saruman? Was she another of his secret tools, one that we...? Suddenly, the obvious answer revealed itself. Wormtongue! This reeks of one of his foul devices, and might even be the method by which he manipulated the King and other counselors. But then how did she come by it? One by one the pieces fell into place. I fear to know the answer, for I deem it will explain her chosen form of argument. His heart swelled with pity. Oh, the tragedy of it all. If I guess aright then my sorrow is great, but even greater for what it portends for her future. Yet now more than ever I must firmly reject any advance, even though it may require hard words and even harder farewells. Moreover, it is essential that she never know how close I actually came to succumbing. He allowed himself one last fleeting assessment of her body, which remained fully revealed, flushed with lingering arousal. How very, very close...for she is indeed magnificent.

With a wretched sob, she at last accepted defeat. "I wished only for the truth. I could have demanded more. I wanted to make you love me. But I couldn't, because...because...." She fell to her knees, numb with sorrow, head bowed and hands folded in her lap.

His dismay gave way to a slender thread of hope. She is not irretrievably lost. But I have so little time, and there is more here than I can mend in the few hours remaining to me. Also, I need sleep! I do not think mere words will suffice, but I must try.

"Surely even you know that by seeking an answer in this way, you have done a wrong to both me and to yourself. One must honor truth, but some truths are so difficult that they should only be shared in an extremity of need. There are so many hurts in this world; we should not require our friends to add to them."

A bitter laugh shattered the air. "Friends!" The very word was sullied by her tone.

"Perhaps we cannot be more, Lady Éowyn, but that is a thing we can be."

Shaking her head, she whispered, "I only thought I could...I could...."

"You thought you could make me love you as you believe you love me. Your body would make your plea, and then this devilry would reveal the answer you desired. But if what you truly seek is love, do you not see how you have acted even more irresponsibly? Even without this outside aid, thine own attempt at seduction was not born of love, but of a desire for secret mastery. Had you managed to conquer me with your body, you would not have achieved your goal, for I would still abhor the method. And my rejection of its author would be even harsher than it now is."

"So I could have seduced you?" She lifted her face to his, seeking a last, sad chance.

"The rutting of bodies is not love, Lady Éowyn."

Then the answer was yes, yet I've somehow managed to ruin even that chance. "Alas: I know this all too well." She unfolded, eyes full of dying fire. "You will not love me. So be it. Let us set that aside and turn to more basic matters of the flesh. Will you not still have my sex? For my body burns for you, Lord Aragorn. Desire for you consumes me. If you will not love me, will you not at least take this gift that I offer...a gift which has already been given? We need not speak of it on the morrow, if you choose, but I would lie with you tonight."

Aragorn shook his head, taking a step back and holding up his hands. The small cloth with which he'd been covering himself was of no further use, and his half-erect phallus was revealed to her gaze once more. "Éowyn, even had this evening passed otherwise, even had you come to me in forthright appeal, I cannot. I will not. Nor should you."

"Why not? Am I not desirable?" She ran her fingers across her breasts, sensuously teasing her nipples. It brought him renewed discomfort, and her stare was a challenge as she intuited both his conflict and the unmistakable sign of his physical arousal: blood flowing back into his enormous rod.

He paused to gather himself. "I have already spoken all words regarding your desirability that I deem wise. For again I say to thee: some truths are better unspoken."

Tears of frustration seeped back into her eyes. "Yet will you not even consider my need? I am unfulfilled." Almost involuntarily, one hand crept between her thighs, stroking her wet sex. She ached, all over, from desire arrested.

"Lady Éowyn, I must ask you to leave."

She rubbed harder, eyeing his cock. "Please? Will you not, at least, let me...?"

"No!" Hard determination crept back into his tone, though it sounded like cruelty to her ears. "Lady Éowyn, it is not just for myself that I reject your offer. I condemn what has led you to this darkness, and powerful is my regret that I cannot remain to help lead you away from it, but you must stop what you are doing. And then you must go."

Tears once again welled from her reddened eyes, but she accelerated her increasingly furious masturbation. Her words came punctuated by gasps. "I can't. Always am I told 'no,' 'not now.' Forever am I admonished to mind my place, to submit to my role as a woman...and only a woman." She plunged four hard fingers into her overstretched sex, breathlessly pushing herself towards orgasm. "Yet even as a woman, it's my birthright to take sword in hand, to forge my own destiny though I spend to the death the lifeblood of my body. Right now, that blood burns for release. And I can wield any sword."

Panting with lust for his colossal spear, which was now fully erect and throbbing in rhythm with his heartbeat, she abruptly flung herself at his stunned form, locking her legs around his waist and clinging to his body with all her strength. The unyielding pillar of his manhood slotted itself between her swollen folds, and she frantically ground her hips against it, seeking release. It arrived only moments later, and she burst into wracking sobs as the power of her orgasm washed over and through her. Her weeping soaked his chest even as her convulsing sex coated his rod in nectar.

Shocked by her action and betrayed by his own surprisingly insistent need to climax in turn, he let her trembling subside, then gently but firmly ended their contact and lowered her to the ground. On his face was written a mixture of lust, anger, sadness, and pity, and she stared at him with an increasingly sickened expression, as if confronting an unpleasant truth for the first time. She reeled backward, confronted by the full horror of what she'd done and the greater wickedness of what she'd attempted to do.

"What have I...? Aragorn, I...I can't...I'm sorry! You'll never...I'm so, so sorry!" She turned, numbed by trauma but still naked, and fled into the cold darkness. Though he was shocked and desperately concerned for her fate, he dared not follow, for he knew that by the time he was properly attired she would be far from his grasp.

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Blindly she rushed towards nowhere, in headlong flight from herself and in search of a destination without hope or purpose. All the while dwelling on a singularly terrible thought.

What have I done?