Man-maiden / Learning by Adlanth

Man-maiden

She’s the one her mother called Nerwen - man-maiden - but it could just as well have been Irissë, she thinks. Her cousin isn’t like most of the girls she knows. Not like Nerwen’s cousins in Alqualondë. Not like Nerwen’s mother, or her aunt Anairë. She’s something different, and a bit like Nerwen herself. She wears her hair in one long, tight black braid - with no gold thread, except for that time, years ago, when she stole Findekáno’s, and he tried to make her give them back, and couldn’t, which made Nerwen laugh a lot. She wears dresses sometimes, long white gowns, but more often than not she’s in her riding clothes: white trousers, tall leather boots, short white coats.

Nerwen finds herself glancing at her narrow waist, her small breasts bending the leather of a sleeveless riding jacket, her long legs. It’s admiration, she tells herself; she’d like to be the same. Irissë calls her ‘little cousin,’ though Nerwen is likely to outgrow her, and Nerwen chafes at the name. Irissë sits with her knees apart and her elbows on her knees, shoulders squared, and for months Nerwen imitates her without even being aware of it. It’s not until Turukáno and Findaráto notice and tell her that she stops, and then she’s angry at Irissë, even though it’s not her fault. Sometimes she dislikes Irissë intensely, and sometimes she wants to be her best friend, wants to go riding with her and maker swear that she’s her favourite cousin, better even than any of Irissë’s cousins on her mother’s side, better than Nerwen’s brothers, better than the sons of Fëanor. “Maybe,” Irissë says.

***

“Come,” Irissë says one day. “We’ll race Tyelkormo and Curufinwë. We two - we can beat them easily.”

As far as Nerwen is concerned, it’s another silly quarrel between Irissë and their cousins, and she can’t stand them - but when Irissë asks her to be on her side she never disobeys.

As they ride across the woods, leaves glistening in gold and silver Tree-light, Nerwen keeps stealing glances at her. Irissë’s braid is coming undone, dark tendrils spilling from their ties. Her thighs clasp her stallion’s flanks, and she is always steady, always secure. When her horse moves beneath her, struggling as they ride up a slope, she urges it on with a touch of her legs and of her hands, and the animal, huge and powerful as it is, obeys. Nerwen can hear their cousins behind them, shouting and urging their horses onwards, but she does not care.

Suddenly Irissë rides straight off the path, turns to her. A flicker of her white hands tells Nerwen that she should do the same, and though she does not understand, she does as she is bidden and rides down a gentle slope towards Irissë. When she turns back to look at the path, she realises that they are low enough now not to be noticed, and she holds her breath. In a flurry of movement her cousins ride along the path, never noticing the two girls and their horses. When they are gone, Irissë lets out a deep bark of a laugh.

“Let them look for us,” she says. “It’ll be a long race for them.”

“And what are we going to do?” Nerwen asks.

Irissë shrugs.

“Wait.”

She dismounts, and ties her horse to a tree, so Nerwen does the same. It is Telperion’s time now, and Irissë, in white and grey and black, is like silver in the dark. When she casts herself down in the grass, Nerwen comes to lie by her. She watches her as Irissë unravels the last of her braid, and when Irissë lifts her arms to tie her hair again, she looks at the curve of her back and of her breasts. It is easier, somehow, in the dark, and when Irissë catches her looking she refuses to blush, and says instead, sullenly:

“How long are we going to wait?”

Irissë finishes tying her hair, flicks her braid back, and shrugs. Nerwen, without thinking, grasps at her hair, and gives it a tug, as if they were still children. She does not know if she is angry at Irissë, or if she simply wants to touch that black hair, or if she is angry because she wants… Not that it matters to Irissë, who shoves her back, half playfully - and then Nerwen is pushing back and they are wrestling,

She does not know exactly how it changes; when she becomes aware of the feel of Irissë’s warm flesh under her own, Irissë’s chest against her own breasts. She notices, though, when their legs entwine, and Nerwen finds herself straddling Irissë’s slender, muscular thigh - grinding against it almost. When she looks down at Irissë, she can see that her cousin is grinning now, and that although she is lying flat on her back she has the smile of someone who has just won.

Then Nerwen is flipped on her back, and it is Irissë who is looking down at her - and then pressing a hand against her legs. Nerwen blushes, truly blushes, this time, feels heat spreading across her cheeks, her neck, her chest. Irissë laughs, and her hand moves just a little.

“So you do like this, after all?” she says, her laugh low and deep. “I thought you might.”

“Like what?” Nerwen asks, though she knows, and she bucks, coltishly, against Irissë - whether to escape Irissë’s touch or press into it she does not know. But then Irissë’s hand just brushes against her, and as a shudder runs through her, all her doubts leave her. Oh, she’d never tolerate it if it was a boy - she’d not want to lie back like that - but when Irissë does it, with that grin… Her left hand moves to cup Nerwen’s cheek, and Nerwen turns clumsily to kiss it, thinking of the palm of Irissë’s other hand against her sex; then Irissë runs it down her neck, and her flank, sliding low along Nerwen’s ribs, then up again until it reaches her breast, and the tight bud of her nipple. When Irissë presses it, sensations spark across Nerwen's body, and she gives a slight moan, in spite of herself.

Irissë moves close to her, and her lips trail across Nerwen’s cheek, then lips. Nerwen thinks she might kiss her, but then Irissë merely speaks.

“Are you sure you want this?” she asks.

Nerwen nods, fiercely.

“Say it,” Irissë says.

And Nerwen, who has never begged in her life, says: “Please.” And she says it again, and again.

Then Irissë’s other hand, still between Nerwen’s legs, starts to move against her again - Irissë pushing the heel of her hand, even through layers of cloth, against that small nub of flesh that causes Nerwen to quiver, and clasp her thighs tight around her hand. At that Irissë laughs - another deep, low laugh that makes Nerwen tingle all the more, even though Irissë’s hand stills between her legs - and dips her head to kiss Nerwen’s cheek, then, very lightly, her lips.

And then her hand moves again - first the palm pressing hard against her, then the fingers, lighter, at her lips; again and again, again and again. Pleasure ripples through Nerwen, and the fabric of her trousers slides wetly against her now. When she moans, Irissë grins roguishly, and moves to cover her; her left hand leaves Nerwen’s breast, and Nerwen whimpers, but Irissë merely braces herself against the ground with her left arm, and the hand between Nerwen’s legs starts pressing harder, more urgently now, pausing only briefly to tease her with her thumb, before she moves again.

She too is flushed now, but her hand and her gaze are steady. Nerwen remembers the horse, how it bucked under Irissë, and how she controlled it with her touch. She too is strong, she thinks, stronger than Irissë, perhaps, in the end - but she is content to lie there, to let herself be rocked by Irissë’s strokes. And then she stops thinking, and feels only the hand that touches her again and again. When another shudder slides across her skin, she raises her arms to clasp Irissë’s body closer, and her thighs close almost convulsively around Irissë’s wrist. One, two, three strokes and she is coming, gasping, pleasure spreading from between her legs and through her body.

***

They don’t talk about it. Their cousins come back too soon, for one (and Nerwen blushes to think that they might have come even earlier, and caught them). And besides Irissë does not seem inclined. Still, whenever they meet now, at her uncle’s house or at their grandfather’s palace, there is a certain glint in Irissë’s eye; a peculiar curve to her smile. Sometimes she winks at Nerwen, for no particular reason. Nerwen’s blood boils at that, and she imagines herself marching over to Irissë, toppling her till she lies down under Nerwen, and then until that grin is quite gone, and she moans, and cries out, just as Nerwen did - nay, louder. Show her who is the man-maid.

How sweetly Artanis smiles, other people say, murmuring approvingly. Nerwen does not hear, but keeps looking at Irissë, imagining her undone and spread beneath her, back arching, fingers clenching. Yes, she thinks, and smiles softly, one of those days I shall do exactly that.