Title & Chapter Number: Brother/Sister 2/11
Author(s): - Author's Index
Website:
Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters I just make them do rude things.
Warnings: Het, Incest
Betas: Nope
Cast: Éomer/Éowyn
Timeline: TTT/RotK
Spoilers: Maybe TTT & RotK
Summary: Éomer and a carafe of Gondor's best red contemplate the wreck of his life since he managed to fall in love with his sister; chance meeting of the two in the palace hallway at midnight suggests to Éowyn that her attempts at memory eradication haven't been quite so successful as she has assumed
Notes: Shameless use of our beautiful Legolas for fleeting light comedy purposes only - what a waste!!
Éomer had retired early to his chamber, an earthen jug of wine his one companion. He just couldn’t bear the smiling faces and the good cheer of the royal table anymore.
So here we all are, he thought bitterly, basking in the breaking dawn of a new era. They had all been heroes and won through to better days. What miracles had been wrought upon the fields of Middle-earth to release it from the thrall of Sauron. The ring was cast into Mount Doom, the cities of men were saved, the line of Gondor’s kings was restored by the rightful heir, with a brave and noble new Steward to support him. Why, even Rohan had a young and vigorous new king - himself! - as Theoden went with grace to rest with his ancestors, Rohan’s lands now forever bound in friendship to the might of Gondor through the shared experience of battle. And through, as Éomer tried daily to accept, the marriage of his sister to Faramir.
The wine is good thought Éomer, taking a long draught. Let it do its work. He took it with him to the window and stared out over the gracious palace gardens, studded with tiny burning braziers, a fairies’ playground. He tried to concentrate on its present beauty, but inexorably memory, traitor to his will, started its nightly dance through his troubled mind.
How his life had been buffeted from despair to hope and back again, from triumph to honours unlooked for that yet felt like ashes in his mouth, in the days that followed the Muster of Rohan. Images passed before his eyes blotting out the lush green night before him… the clash and fury of battle on the fields of the Pelennor… finding Éowyn there cold and fallen, to all eyes dead and gone with Theoden to walk the halls of their forebears… learning later that she lived but in the very shadow of death’s embrace… sitting beside Aragorn to witness her return to the waking world but not to joy or hope, and then to be forced by the call of battle to leave her and ride to the uncertain fate of every warrior, King of Rohan though he now was. These things he had endured as if in a dream, certain that his own death was ever but a sword-thrust away.
When against all hope and prediction the forces that had taken the last stand against the Dark Lord stood victorious on the field of Cormallen, all Éomer wanted was for his sister to come to him so that he might behold her alive. But although she sent word of her return to health, she did not come. Instead what came at last instead was the news of her betrothal.
Éomer had sunk to the grass before his tent like a man stunned, her note fluttering from his hand.
What had passed between them at Edoras had, in the heat and fury of battle and in the struggle for Éowyn’s life, been pushed to the back of Éomer’s mind. All that mattered was that he command his forces and fight valorously, his death of no consequence. All that mattered was that Éowyn live.
Now with this strangest of news he both burned with and sort to quell the wild hope that this marriage might simply be a way for Éowyn to distance herself from the night they had begun to share themselves as lovers, and had been saved - or damned, it was all the same to him now - by the merest sliver of fabric between them.
But he knew his sister, and knew it could not be so. Deep inside he was sure that Éowyn, made of the steel that had slain a Nazgul, would never cleave to one man simply to escape another. And whilst he journeyed inside himself to arrive at this truth, he found a further one that had been locked away these last dark days: that he loved Éowyn still, desired her above any woman living, and surely must until the end of his days.
This knowledge he forced from his mind when at last they were reunited as brother and sister in the very gardens he looked upon now. All that mattered was that death had not claimed her, and she walked free and beautiful upon the earth still.
Dressed in a golden gown with her golden hair streaming free behind her as they walked together, she made him feel he was arm in arm with an errant ray of spring sunshine as she softly told him all that had befallen her since he had ridden away to the last stand against Sauron.
She told him how she had been granted a miracle, this man Faramir who saw her spirit past all her pain and bitterness, who did not replace Aragorn, but had helped set her free from her proud hopeless love, so that she might love whom she chose - and yet in the end she could not help but choose him, for in their days together in the Houses of Healing his quietness and strength had gentled her heart, that wild bird always fearing a cage, yet left it free to fly where it would.
“But it is as you said Éomer,” she told him. “In truth we cannot really choose whom we love.”
She did not flinch from this reference to the evening when those brief moments of madness and passion had flared between them, but neither did she seek to discuss it further. He could not blame her. She had made her choice and left him that night, not even knowing her path was leading her to the Steward of Gondor. And he had not followed her, accepting her unspoken judgement that they had erred into territory that was wild and desperate and doomed.
“If I could have chosen,” Éowyn continued, her face grave with reflection,” I would not have loved again for a long, long time. Until I was strong, until I was sure - until my mind was clear.”
“And is your mind clear now, sister?”
She looked at him steadily. “Yes brother.”
It was as he had known it to be. If she was to wed Faramir it would not be to build a wall between herself and the desperate loving she and Éomer had so fleetingly shared - it would be her heart’s deepest desire. And as Éomer got to know Faramir during those days between Aragorn’s coronation and Éomer’s departure to take up his kingship in the Rohan, he could not help but see that this was so. Subtly but perceptibly to one who knew her as well as Éomer, Éowyn became somehow more alive, more herself if that was possible, around the tall, grave nobleman of Gondor and her brother sensed that they were like two instruments vibrating to each other’s pitch. He saw them matched in scope of mind, in laughter, and desire, saw that this man cherished and revered his sister to her full deserving and that in his arms she would be forever beloved.
It would have been a balm to his wounded soul if they could have spoken of that night in Edoras freely and honestly just once. Just to say to each other, this happened between us, and we survived, and we leave it in the past where it belongs. But she had walked away, and with the pride of their house running as strong as the lifeblood in his veins, he would not stoop to drag her back. And he loved her too much: if she had found her happiness, he would live in silence.
Returned at last to the present, Éomer took another brooding swig of wine and reflected wryly on his current circumstances.
So once more all former comrades-in-arms gathered in Minas Tirith, now reunited in joy for the wedding celebrations. Oh yes, it was all terribly satisfactory. So what if he wasn’t one of the happy intended, at least he had courtesans sent to his bedroom every night whose offers he could accept or decline as the mood took him. He didn’t know quite from whence this supply was coming until a few nights into his stay when Gimli asked if he was finding his sleeping quarters satisfactory, and Legolas agreed that as a new monarch his needs should be provided for in every way, then the pair of them fell about laughing. Yes, the two of them were as thick as thieves these days, and seemed to delight in providing entertainment for others with the fruits of their incongruous friendship. But Éomer had the grace to realise that in his case their mischievousness belied concern for someone they embraced as their true friend - they were trying to provide him with a distraction, sensing that all was not well with their former battle comrade but too polite to pry.
It was true, everywhere the bonds of friendship and love surrounded him, and he did his best to let their strength uphold him and return the love in kind: but in the torment of his soul he felt he was merely playing a part, his smiles smudged and his laughter hollow.
In the good cheer that enveloped Gondor’s royal palace at this time, it was only Frodo the halfling who seemed still to bear the shadow of their darkest days, and while Arwen looked on Éomer with love and pity, it was Frodo who looked at him with a truer understanding of a struggle long over yet never won. And it was only when Frodo spoke to him of Faramir’s brother Boromir, how he had yearned and yearned and struggled not to yearn for the One Ring, the one thing he must not want, that he felt the two of them were not entirely alone in experiencing such bondage.
One thing at least he could take comfort in, and that was that there was no shadow between Éowyn and Aragorn. There would always be a look or a glance here and there, a slight thought of the road not taken. Like lovers who have parted, even lovers who never were have a bond between them, and maybe sometimes in the depths of the night even Arwen Evenstar clasped her mate a little tighter, thankful that she had suffered no lasting challenge to her steadfast love. But there was a comfortable tenor to Éowyn’s dealings with Aragorn now, a true growth of friendship that gave Éomer heart’s ease for his sister’s sake.
Strange that that love should be now at peace, yet in its death-throes it had called into being his own impossible, unbearable desire. Éomer clenched the window-sill as he stared into the night. Mate with one’s own sister, what madness. Kingdom of Rohan, I bring you my bride, my sister Éowyn. Of course we must never bear children, for they will be as weak and misshapen as poor foals born when an accident occurs in the breeding pens of our beloved horses. But this is no matter, let the line of Eorl the Young utterly die out, as long as I have her by my side, as long as I am at last at peace.
Her chamber was just a few rooms away from where he sat drinking himself into oblivion. Faramir was probably there with her right now. She loved him, she was going to marry him.
You are a fool, King of the Mark.
As Éomer took another long draught if wine there came a soft knock at his chamber door. Ah, his nightly entertainment. He came away from the window, returned his jug to the nightstand by his bed, and stretched out upon his sleeping furs. After all, he thought, why not?
“Enter,” he commanded sternly. There, I sound like more of a king than a fool. That’s not so bad.
A lithe young creature dressed all in shimmering, tight-waisted ebony, with glossy black hair and sharp dark eyes, slipped in through his door and over to his bed in one liquid movement. She kissed him full on the lips and pressed a note into his hand.
“Hail Éomer King. I bring a message from - well, they did not give their names, but a rather ravishing Elf Prince and an extremely amusing dwarf.”
He read the note, signed with an elvish character and the outline of an axe, out loud. “Go to it, stallion of the Rohirrim. She comes highly recommended.”
The girl smiled sultrily. “Trust me lord, that I do.”
He took in her lush curves and pert beauty. “I’ve no doubt of that, minx, no doubt at all.”
She laughed, confident in her ability to please, slid further up the bed towards him, and boldly started to caress the hard muscles of his belly and chest.
Eyes half-closed, he watched her go about beginning her practiced routine. His head felt hazy from the wine and her teasing, knowing hands felt good against his skin. She had a pretty face, and her lips were full and pouting, ripe for his mouth, ripe to wrap around him and bring him mindless pleasure, blessed moments of forgetting. Everything else about her was black. Black, like his mood.
She would do as well as any other.
He leaned into her waiting embrace.
~*~*~*~
Faramir slumbered peacefully at her side, but Éowyn was wakeful after their lovemaking. Every encounter seemed only to serve to deepen their explorations of each other, their shared sensuality and joy, so why was she so fretful tonight even as her body was sweetly satisfied? She felt hot, heavy-limbed, restless. She sipped a little water from a crystal tumbler by their bed, and decided to take some air in the palace gardens in the hope of refreshing her strangely troubled mind.
She slipped quietly out of the chamber door so as not to wake her beloved, and was met with tinkling laughter drifting down the hallway from a few doors away. Some little courtesan who graced the midnight hours of the single men of the household was taking leave of her owner for the night, and without really meaning to Éowyn turned her head to see.
Her heart caught in her mouth. Some brazen dark creature stood pressed against her half-clad brother’s broad chest, her hands wrapped in his blond mane, and was giving his full lips a resounding kiss goodnight.
“Is my lord sure he would not like me to stay a little longer?”
“Be on your way, wench. I’m sure my friends paid you well.”
“Yes handsome King, that they did.”
She was obviously somewhat reluctant to leave. And who wouldn’t be, Éowyn thought involuntarily. Her brother presented the same heart-stopping sight that had almost driven her from her senses all those months ago. But Éomer was having none of it, giving the girl a gentle push down the hallway to send her on her way. He turned back to return to his chamber and at the sight of Éowyn standing there he was caught, equally transfixed.
She looked at him. Utterly beautiful, a golden stallion in his prime, he was wearing the very same silken sleeping tunic she had wrested from his body on that night of madness now buried deep at the bottom of her heart, pulled open to the navel in that slut’s attempt to woo him a little further. It was almost as if no time had passed. She felt as though her breath had stopped in her body.
He looked at her. For her part she was dressed in some artful gossamer white gown as befitted even the resting hours of a Gondor noblewoman which clung to each sweet curve of her body, the slash to the waist accentuating her small, high breasts, and her cornfield tresses tumbled and streamed about her shoulders like a river of beauty.
She was the goddess of all his dreams and he, a drunkard and a whoremaster, was shamed in front of her.
“Éowyn…”
That he loathed himself at this moment was plain in his wounded eyes and she wanted only to banish his pain. She stepped towards him, laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“Éomer, brother,” she began, “it is good, healthy, to take pleasure…”
He flinched from her in his self-disgust
“No matter that there is no love?” he asked her bitterly.
She made a small sound between a laugh and a sigh. “Love follows its own capricious ways, that much I know. So don’t let it’s lack shame you brother.”
He looked down at her, wondering at her calm, thoughtful words, and suddenly they were teenagers again, an older brother amazed as his little sister’s latest leap of maturity. “And when did you get so wise?”
She smiled, and reached up to ruffle his hair with that same little sister’s affection “Dear Éomer.”
But when their eyes met they were adults again, and in the warm closeness of their bodies something like the ghost of a memory flared. Éomer, sure he was the only one of them to feel it, took a sharp breath.
“I should go, it’s late. You are… very kind, Éowyn.”
He turned towards the open doorway of his chamber, but Éowyn laid a hand on his arm to stop him. That flaring memory had swept through her too, somewhere at the core of her being awakening sensations she knew she would do ill to acknowledge, and with her shield-maiden’s will she pushed them away from her. But her desire to free Éomer from his pointless shame made her speak.
“Éomer, do not reproach yourself where there is nothing to reproach. You taught me we cannot choose whom we love” - they both trembled slightly as the only reference ever made to that night in Edoras was made once more - “and I have learned since then that neither can we chose when. In the meantime, pleasure has its own kind of honour.”
He could not bear it. “I’m glad my sister condones my taking solace in whores.”
He might as well as slapped her. She gaped at him, lost for words, then spun back towards her chamber in a whirl of white lace and it was his turn to stop her. Desperately he grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, tears already in his eyes as he whispered urgently against her hair.
“Éowyn, Éowyn! I’m so sorry, forgive me. You must forgive me. I’m drunk, and ashamed and miserable. You know I didn’t mean to be so cruel. Tell me you do love.”
She trembled in his arms, and whispered. “Of course I do, of course. I didn’t mean… I only wanted…”
He held her tighter. “I know sister, I know. I’m sorry, I’m a fool.”
She looked up at him and his heart was caught. It was the same tear-stained face she had shown him at Edoras, with its lines etched only into further fineness by the woman she had since become.
“Éomer, I am sorry that I have found my heart’s happiness when you have not. I wish, you can’t know how much, that we were bearing our bad fortune and our good in sweet time with one another as we did when we were children. But you must endure, and you must not hate yourself. And please don’t love me the less no matter what befalls us.”
He took her face gently between his hands, and spoke the truth of his heart. “Éowyn, that could never be. And neither could I love you more. You are my sister.”
She gave a shuddering gulp of relief, and broke his hold to wipe her tears away. Her hair was mussed into a cloud, and when she smiled shyly at him they were young again, making up after a childhood fight, and they were here, and adult, and she would leave him and return to her lover and he would return to his bed alone.
Éomer took her hand, kissed it, pressed it to his face. When he released it she pressed to his heart, and in a kind of daze he realised they were returning to the steps of dance they had made up that terrifying night in his room to let themselves walk away into the rest of their lives. They breathed the words together without conscious thought.
“We are strong and proud...”
Without another word Éomer re-entered his chamber and closed the door. Nothing had changed. A flame already full-burning could not be expected to burn any more brightly. He longed only for it to char his bones and give him death.
Éowyn took her intended quiet walk of the gardens and on her returned curled herself against the warm cocoon of security Faramir had come to mean to her.
Everything had changed. She thought she had left that one night of wild, willful desire for her brother with the rest of her old life on the field of the Pelennor. Horrifying battle, death’s too-near embrace, miraculous recovery and the sweet, slow dawning of her love for Faramir, surely these things had carried her far, far away from that madness, left it a small strange, memory to be excused if never quite understood.
Now she knew that memory still carried a potency that could not be trusted to lie dormant. These brief moments alone with Éomer this night, gilded and beloved in his pride, his beauty, and his pain, had shaken something loose within her she had thought tightly bound, and the quiet confidence she had worn like a mantle since the day she realised Faramir loved her and she him was shaken like a fragile barque in a sudden storm at sea.
At long last, long after Éomer, used to the dimensions of his torment like a prisoner his cell, had fallen asleep, Éowyn slept also, but the following morning, for the first time in the months since they had left the Houses of Healing together, Faramir awoke to see winter clouds in the grey-blue eyes of his beloved.
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