Talking Hurts by Lipstick

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Chapter 2

Warning: This chapter contains discussion on rape, unpleasant imagery, and is AU

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Chapter Two

I close my eyes. That makes beginning easier. It is hard to remember so far back, hard to remember anything before the mountain. It is like someone has put a wire up my nose and severed connections in my brain. They did that in the mines too. I saw them. It was a punishment for incurable elvenesse.

Something moves across my shoulder. I reach up to touch it. Maglor pulls my hand back, holds it on the bed in front of me with his own over it. His skin is pale, shining almost silvery. Mine is dusty, lack-lustre, grey.

The first night, we were still outside. There were stars above me, grass beneath me. I was stripped, marked on my arm, the orcs even tore Mahtan's little copper earrings out of my ears. I was changing ownership.

I was still bleeding a little from the battle. The eyes of the orcs glittered in the firelight. The world was black and red and smelt of smoke. I could not understand their harsh voices then, as I can now, and ...

I pause.

...that frightened me. Being watched, being in the middle of the circle, being the night's entertainment. The orc chieftain stood before me, holding a bloodied curved blade before my face. He grabbed the back of my hair and forced my head downwards. Then, roughly, he started cutting. One by one my plaits fell down. The company jeered. They laughed even harder when he was done and I lifted my shorn head to the crowd.

I wanted to keep a braid as a memory of what I once was. So even in if in years to come I could not remember why or how things were ever different, I would at least have something to hold in my hands to prove they were. My fingers inched towards them. I forced them still. Even then, I knew it was not wise to show signs of wanting anything.

Then someone threw me a coarse shift and the company broke up. I lay with my face on the grass and wished tomorrow would not come.

Later, in Angband, I was told this was done because of resourceful Avari using their braids to hang themselves. I am still not sure I believe that. I think they did to make you feel bad in yourself. To make you feel ugly and humiliated.

I stop. I'm out of breath from talking.

It is not the worst they do to that end. But this was only the beginning.

Maglor squeezes my hand.

It does not register.

 

***

I'm lying on my front. My face is resting in the crook of my elbow. Maglor's fingers are on the nape of my neck. The tension there is making my head hurt. He is running his fingers up, down, under my hair and along my shoulders. I am facing the mattress, talking into my headache.

I am telling Maglor about the floor, the one with insects on it. I am lying in the filth waiting for the next session of torture. A respite. There is no fixed length of time to these breaks. Sometimes they are less than an hour. Sometimes I can almost cheat myself into believing they have forgotten me. There is no system, no order. Then again I have no way of measuring time so they may be of a fixed length after all. It may just be the altering states of my body and mind. What am I feeling? I hurt. What am I thinking? I am trying not to. Thinking disturbs my rest, and I need all the strength these pauses give me. To think means to accept it will start all over again.

At least, I know what to expect. That is both a blessing, and a curse.

I know what is happening has not broken me yet. If I can squeeze what peace I can from these breaks, I know there is a chance. The punishment may yet kill my body before my mind becomes corrupted. That is my one hope. I dare not think of how long that will take. If I despair, I play into their hands.

I stop.

For a very long time there is silence. Maglor's fingers continue their soothing journey across my back.

Finally, he says:

"What then?"

I shake my head.

"Can you really not say?"

"The inevitable."

"What do you mean?"

"Someone, I do not know who, although they felt, smelt and sounded like an orc held me against the floor and had sex with me."

That is not what happened. To describe that as sex is wrong. It had nothing to do with love or creation. It was something completely different. Something there is no word for.

Telling the story is no use at all.

"He forced you?"

"I do not know."

"What do you mean?"

"He just came and lay on top of me. I really did not know what he was intending to do until he did it. And when he was, I know I did not scream. I did not think to. All I thought at the time was this is hurting, make it stop."

That too is only partways truth...

What I was thinking was please, please do not let this kill me.

I know it should have done. I have read the law books. My soul should have fled my body. "To take another's wife by force" is how they quaintly describe it. At the time, I thought it meant some kind of stealing. It conjured images of Avari in masks on horseback, throwing maidens over their shoulders and riding away into the woods.

I did not think it meant that.

But I also wonder, how many of our lore-master's have lain beneath yurch, felt their stinking breath panting against their faces, felt that dry scraping ache, inside them. None, I suspect. So how can they claim knowledge in the matter? If someone had told me before that forced sex could happen I would probably have said quite confidently that I should die were someone to do it to me.

I know differently now.

"I lay there and I prayed to Eru or Morgoth or anyone to let me live. Not to let that beast be an end of me."

"Because of the oath?"

"No. Because of me."

That is true. I know I could salvage some heroism from this. If I had thought of Atar, or Finwë as I lay there and said no, I will bear this because I am honour-bound to avenge those I have loved, I could escape with some honour. But I did not.

"Do you think that makes me unnatural?"

"I think it makes you a Son of Fëanor."

I smile into the dark. I can still do that. Despite myself, it gives me a shiver of excitement, to know I can still smile. If Morgoth had had his wish, I should never be able to smile again. My smile is proof that he can be defeated.

I keep the smile secret for now. It would not do to have Maglor see me grin after what I have just told him. One day I shall show him my smile, and he shall see for himself the hope in it, and the hate. He shall know all this endless talking has not been in vain. Together we have won a victory, a tiny one, but a victory no less.

 

***

Luinianth is sitting beside me when I come round. It hurts to be awake. I hiss a little at the pain, despite myself. For a long time, she is silent and motionless. This makes me angry. I know it is within her power to give me medicine to take this pain away, but she does not. She sits, I suffer, it continues.

Finally, she bends forward and looks into my face. I thought for a moment she was checking to see I was awake. She is not. She is looking hard into my eyes, reading what is within them as if it were a treatise on the uses of herbs. If I were stronger, I would shove her away.

"You do not remember how many." She said.

"No." I need not ask how many of what.

"That much is written in your eyes."

I nod.

"It is nothing to be ashamed of. In Angband, the power of Morgoth holds elven spirits captive within their hroa. You could not escape." She pauses.

I sigh. Not the power of Morgoth alone, I think to myself.

"Here you are free. You no longer need to suffer."

"If you do not wish for me to suffer, perhaps you would kindly give me another of those sleeping draughts."

"You are damaged and your injuries require a greater healer than I. Only Námo Mandos can cure the hurts done to your fea. In his Halls, you may yet find peace."

"But I am not in Mandos. I am in the lands of Middle-earth and I came here seeking war, not peace."

"You have the strong will of your father."

I do not know if this is true. If I have a fire within me, it is beyond my control.

Luinianth continues,

"I can help you return. It will not hurt. It will be just like falling asleep."

"How do you know?"

She does not, that much is clear from the fact she ignores me.

"How well do you think you will be able to lead elves to war, damaged as you are? Your hurt will corrupt you. It is your duty under the laws of the Eldar to return and seek healing."

"It was my duty under the Laws of the Eldar not to slay my own kind."

"Let it rest my lord, your place is now in the Halls of Waiting. It shall be a hard fight for vengeance; we shall need all who continue to be strong in body and mind. "

"At least, I know the worst that our oath can demand of us. Could that not make me more prepared to fight than any?"

"The unspeakable has been done to you Maedhros and that fact is plain to see for any elf who cares to look into your eyes. Can you live with that?"

I pause.

I should like to die.

I cannot.

"Yes, I shall live with that." I say.

She continues talking, like a canary, chirping some by-rote opinion or other. Eventually I can stand it no longer.

"Luinianth," I say softly "Be quiet."

She looks shocked.

"I would like you to bring me something to help the pain."

She looks at me. I think there is a faint hint of fear or disgust in her eyes.

"It is your place to heal, not to judge." I remind her.

"I know my own calling." She replies, bitterly.

"Then I, Maedhros Nelyafinwë, High King of the Noldor command you, as a servant of my household and a subject under my rule. Hold your tongue and bring me something to stop this agony."

The liquid is too hot, it burns my lips. I suspect Luinianth has done this on purpose. As she gives me little sips of the bitter draught, I relax. I huddle down somewhere warm, somewhere beneath all the dirt that is ingrained into every inch of my body. I have to fight myself to keep from weeping at the relief.

I feel as if I have walked a very long way in these last few minutes.

There is now no escape. I know I must learn to stand again, I must learn to concentrate when my brothers talk of politics. I must face the terror of being out in the open, of returning to battle once more. I must swallow food again and remember how to hold a sword. Maglor will help me. He is left handed by the will of Iluvatar.

I must do all these things, because I have crossed the border. I have chosen to live. But first, I must rest.