In You Everything Sank by Agelast

Chapter 2

As soon as Aerin entered Morwen’s house, she knew something had changed. Nienor gave her a hurried greeting and rushed away, her arms full of blankets. Aerin left her basket of food on the table in the kitchen and made her way carefully to Morwen's bedchamber. Aerin called her name softly and waited for Morwen to call her in.

She did. The room was in complete disarray, clothes scattered around the bed and on floor. The contents of Morwen's jewelry box were spilled across the bed. Only few pieces remained, the others having been sold or bartered away in the twenty-two long years since the battle had ended. Aerin twisted the ring on her finger, which had once been Morwen's, a princely gift from the mysterious benefactor that had given the young Húrin and his brother succor in the wilderness.

Brodda had shoved it on her finger at the end of their maimed wedding ceremony. For what came after, it was better to look at the ring, memorize the patterns in the silver, the sheen of it. How she hated those milky white stones at the end!

Morwen came to her, and without a word, enveloped her in a tight embrace. For a moment, Aerin could breathe fully, and she struggled not to weep. "You are going then, to Doriath. I thought you might -- the rumor goes that the way is safer now than it has been since the fall."

"Yes," Morwen said, and looked uncertain for a moment. It was an odd thing to see on Morwen's face, which had not even had even moved when the news of the battle had come to them. "Aerin..."

"No, do not ask," Aerin said, her voice a whisper. "I will endeavor to be a true Lady of Dor-lomin in your absence. Those who cannot flee have need of me."

"I know it," Morwen said. And, with unexpected passion, "I wish I could have kept my promise to you. My dear, all of it." She rested her forehead against Aerin's own, and sighed deeply. "I will miss you."

"Hush," Aerin said, pulling away, with a sniff. "You will have fine Elven ladies to be your companions now. You have no need for me."

"I have always needed you," Morwen said.

"Don't, please," Aerin said in a whisper, but she leaned in anyway, moved by the inevitability of it all. She kissed Morwen now, as she had always wanted to. Morwen kissed her back, touching Aerin's cheek, softly. Aerin moaned at the touch, so gentle. She had not felt such a thing before, not with Brodda, nor with the youthful fumblings she had, with young men long since dead.

"You have no time," Aerin said, because one of them had be practical, and for once, it would not be Morwen.

"It will not take time," Morwen said briskly, with more of her old manner. "Go lock the door. Take care you do not frighten Nienor."

"That one does not scare easily," Aerin said, closing the door and pulling the latch. "Why are you doing this? Is it because you think I want it, and it is a reward for my loyalty?"

"If it was, would you reject it?" Morwen said, shrugging off her clothes. Instinctively, Aerin stepped forward, to help her, before she sternly reminded herself to keep her hands at her side. She had seen Morwen naked many times, but not like this. There were fine wrinkles on the sides of her mouth and eyes, and deeper grooves on her forehead. Her skin was sallow and pockmarked, her breasts sagged, and her ribs showed clearly.

"You are silent, Aerin. This is not what you wished for, these many years, is it?" Morwen laughed, but it was a dark sound, filled with sharp edges. Aerin wanted to shout, to scream. So much time, wasted. So much she had to say, but she couldn't find the tongue.

Finally, she began, saying: "Eledhwen they called you, but you are no Elf-woman, it is true. Time would not mark you so, if you were. But I have loved you since the day I set eyes on you, a bride, and in my eyes you have only become more beautiful. Morwen, tell me I am not wrong to love you."

"No, no, you are not wrong," Morwen said, but her voice was faint, it trembled.

Aerin thought, she does not know what she is saying.

"I loved him -- Húrin, I mean. My whole life was full of him, even when he went away."

"I know, I would not ask anything from you --"

"But you were my friend, you were with me for so long, and I wished so much that I could give you want you wanted from me."

"I wished nothing from you but what you gave me," Aerin said, her voice almost breaking.

"Before I leave you, Aerin, my friend, my love, let me --" Morwen kissed her again, less gentle now.

"Yes," Aerin said, like a prayer. "Yes. O, Lady help us. Yes."

Aerin's clothes were finer than Morwen's were now, the hems threaded with gold, the embroidery, Elf-made, from before the fall of Barad Eithel. There was a great market for it, little baubles of the Noldor, now that their makers were all dead or fled. Brodda, despite appearances, wielded more power with trade than he did with his sword. He knew the value of a good bargain, and of taking care of his possessions. But this did not make him careful. Or kind.

Aerin had not been a virgin on her wedding day, and for that she had always been grateful. But now, she wished almost that she was -- unspoiled, untouched by Brodda, untouched by anyone, save Morwen herself. It was a foolish thought, hypocrital in the light of her comments to Morwen herself. Aerin did not voice them now.

Instead, she carefully swept aside the clothes from the bed, letting the trinkets fall to the ground. Then she brought Morwen to lay with her, skin against skin. She took a moment to savor it, before she began to do her work, to give as much pleasure as as she could to Morwen.

But she did not expect to have so much pleasure come to her, from Morwen's clever fingers skimming down, from her throat, to her breasts and belly, and down to her sex. Her fingers quickened, slicked. Aerin closed her eyes and bit her tongue, but it didn't stop her from crying out when she came. Morwen clamped her hand over Aerin's mouth.

"Not so loud," Morwen hissed and Aerin nodded, sighed, her tongue brushing against Morwen's fingers, eager to taste herself. For the longest time, Aerin felt complete and secure, and though she knew both of these feelings to be illusions, she felt no sorrow.

*

She embraced Morwen for the last time, in the wee hours before dawn. Morwen, somber now, hugged back with a sigh. Nienor, already saddled, waved to her and shouted for Aerin to remember to care for Sador.

"Take care of yourself!" Aerin called back, but they were swallowed up in the gloom. The Easterlings believed that Morwen was a witch gifted with a certain amount of power. Aerin, having served under her for so long, was thought to be quite suspect herself.

Aerin wished now that she had some glimmer of Sight, some reassurance that, at least, from the wreckage of Dor-Lómin, Morwen and her children would survive. Túrin still lived, after all. He was their Lord, would he not come for them?

Aerin bent her head down. She hoped. She could only hope -- and survive, and help her people do the same.

It was as Morwen would have wished.