[
Setting the scene:
Éowyn commands the Rohirrim who've retreated to the refuge of Dunharrow.]
5 March 3019 (Third Age), Dunharrow
Inaction.
She was deathly tired of it.
Month after month of the King's seemingly unbreakable malaise had — against all odds and thanks to timely intervention of the Wizard — finally been broken. Frenetic activity followed, as if to make up for so much lost time: Théoden and company off to Helm's Deep, everyone else evacuated to the refuge of Dunharrow. Unless the battle of the Hornburg was a complete disaster (and though, according to reports, the numerical odds were poor, she had complete faith in the will and strength of their warriors and the impenetrability of that legendary fortress), there would certainly be a mustering at its end. And then a ride. To Isengard, perhaps. Or maybe even Gondor, to join the greater war.
But if it went ill....
It was too horrible to contemplate. Though, at the moment, she had nothing
but
time for contemplation, for once again Éowyn found herself sitting and waiting, as she'd been bidden (and was now forced) to do far too often. With all the realm in foment, with so many crucial deeds to do and far too few hale hands to do them, she remained inert, dangling her heels like a child on an overly large throne. Such was her utterly pointless so-called "rule."
I'm not a Shieldmaiden, I'm a Nursemaiden.
She was
deathly
tired of it.
Shelters had been built. Food and essentials distributed. Defensive plans sketched...desperate and unrealistic though they seemed, given that her charges were mostly too old, too young, or too infirm. (Though she did briefly consider it, there was no point in trying to organize the women into a fighting force...capable though many of them likely were...for the usual tiresome objections against attempting such a radical disruption to the traditional order might destabilize her authority.) The hopeless had, to the best of her abilities, been consoled. Everything that could be done,
had
been done.
Everything except me.
Éowyn wondered when her internal narrative had grown quite so bawdy.
I fear I know
exactly
when, but I prefer not to think about it. And it's not true, anyway; I was "done" less than twenty-four hours ago.
Her intensely pleasurable, surprisingly emotional encounter with the siblings had been a most welcome event. But in the afterglow she felt uneasy, and the empty breadth of unoccupied time for reconsideration was only making it worse.
For her, their joining had been about much more than sexual exploration and pleasure. To finally have sex surrounded by kindness and love, rather than avarice and coercion, was a form of healing for which she'd yearned. That night, returning to her own bed, she wept tears of joy rather than her usual sorrow and shame. One day, she hoped to view the night's events as her first
true
sexual experiences. Though she'd had little success thus far, she was determined to keep trying.
But there was guilt, too. She didn't regret how events had progressed to a most satisfying conclusion, nor the choices she'd made along the way...at least when considered in isolation.
Ah, but they ended up with you getting fucked by a handsome young man and his breathtaking sister, so you
would
think that, wouldn't you?
What unsettled her was how she'd inserted herself between the lovers without sufficient regard for what might come next. For lovers they indeed were, in mind and heart if not yet in deed.
Though that day won't be long put off, I fear, no matter how determined their resistance.
She worried that she'd made it even harder on them by escalating a sexual tension already certain to be omnipresent in such close quarters.
Mostly, she wondered at her own motivations.
I spoke to them of kindness, of comfort, of sharing...but didn't all my choices ultimately devolve to my own benefit? I got everything I wanted, but left them just as unable to have what
they
want. Was that selfish of me? Was I taking advantage of their vulnerability to service my sexual needs?
The answer remained elusive.
Mulling over her unexpected threesome while beset by her constant and
extremely
distracting need for sexual entertainment meant that she'd been horny all day. Busying herself with other tasks allowed her to suppress it for a time, but now that all was done she had no choice but to sit and brood upon it her urges. And to consider potential solutions. With every moment that passed she lost herself in ever more improbable possibilities, and her desire to return to Elfi and Théo's tent for another night of dangerous ecstasy grew.
If I hadn't seen them earlier I'd probably be with them right now, entwined in naked decadence.
But she
had
seen them, albeit from a cautious distance. They'd been wandering the camp hand in hand, enveloped by the same sadness and fear she felt when she met them. Most would judge those emotions a normal reaction to their displacement and the danger that that precipitated it, but she knew better. That their father lived was not, she knew, the unmitigatedly joyful news it should have been, for their promise to at least delay, or perhaps forever stay, their love was still in effect. They were offered only uncertainty and painful choices. They were trapped.
And I certainly understand feeling trapped.
She sighed, frustrated for them and for herself.
If I go to them now, I'll be as much a distraction for them as they'll be for me. A trio of bodies with which to, for a short time, submerge our problems in an ocean of pleasure. But I worry that inciting another bacchanalian dalliance might accidentally — or deliberately — push them into the very behaviors they're trying to avoid. I know quite well how easily arousal turns to abandon, causing people to do things they were otherwise determined to resist.
She shuddered at the memory.
I want to return to them because I'm feeling frisky, not because I believe they expect my return. I don't doubt I'll be welcomed — especially by Elfi, who seems to experience sexual pleasure with far less internal conflict than her brother — but it still feels selfish. Would they wonder if I'm only there so they can attend to my lusts? And if I'm honest, isn't that far too close to the truth of it? In all my imagined and fantastical ideas for an encore, is a single one of them actually based on
their
desires? Moreover, how is it fair for me to have sex with Théo in front of Elfi...making her wait her turn with me, making her watch me doing all the things she desperately wishes to do with the one person she loves more than any other, but isn't even allowed to touch?
She shook her head.
Horny or not, that's no way for a Lady of the House of Eorl to act. In fact, it's the sort of thing Wormtongue might have done.
Another shudder.
No, I can't go to them right now. A beautiful, treasured memory it will remain, unless some chance of fortune should bring us together in a place and time where we can be free from caution. And so,
she sighed in resignation,
I guess it's another solo effort. I've certainly mastered the art of self-pleasure these last few weeks. Unfortunately, its appeal is growing as threadbare as Elfi's clothes.
As her sexual experiences accumulated — even those she'd rather forget — they rendered all but her most time-sensitive masturbatory sessions repetitive and unimaginative by comparison. She didn't intend to stop — she doubted, at this point, whether her body would let her — but she perpetually craved more than her fingers alone could provide.
Unfortunately, "more" wasn't immediately or easily available. All the usual reasons she couldn't just have her way with any random person applied even more forcefully now. For no matter how bleak or frustrating the circumstances, she did "rule" this motley band, and ruling necessitated self-discipline and restraint.
Last night, she snapped awake at the end of an utterly debased dream in which she had a series of potential partners brought to her bedchamber to audition for the privilege of servicing her sexual needs. While the waking orgasms that resulted were among the best she'd been able to give herself of late, she found the fantasy itself repellent and disgraceful.