Release from Bondage by heget

"I could be your wife. ...You could be my man."

And here's the final scene, the short epilogue that pushes the rating, but not enough I judge to change it.

I like to keep to the spirit of LaCE, if not the letter.

As promised - this is a romance.

Faelindis’s skin was soft and smooth, the muscle under her pale flesh yielding to his touch. When he reached hip bones Faron found hardness to press against, but the rest of her was soft. Skin and flesh both. His thumbs could find the edge where her ribcage started if he slid them upwards, if he pressed. Further and his fingers could feel the outward swell of her breasts. He dared not. His new fingers could not feel a difference compared to his old - Faelindis was no softer under the third finger of his right hand than his left. But the knowledge that his hands had been restored, that both his scars and those that had marred Faelindis had been removed and their flesh returned to peak pristine health, heightened the sensation of touch. He could not stop marveling over the smoothness. He forgot that he had touched her body before this moment. Perhaps the lack of clothing, even those threadbare rags that they had worn in Angband, and that their bodies were clean of its grime and terror, made the difference. That he could touch her like this. The knowledge that they were safe and would not be interrupted by anyone, especially not any orcish master, added to the sensuousness of this moment. No fear, no rushing. The ability to just linger at her waist, to stay there until she alone moved him, intensified the intimacy. 
The scent and flavor of apricot on his tongue overwhelmed Faron, even as he strained against that fruity taste to detect the unique scent of the woman in his arms. The songs that Faron had listened to as a young man stressed that lovers could recognize the perfume of their lovers. He worried that he was failing at that requirement. The singers demanded that he should, but he could not conjure any poetic language to describe Faelindis in this moment. She was warm and soft and allowing him to touch her. She was encouraging him to touch her. 
Until she stopped him, Faron would hold and caress her.

Her own fingers were slender and bony, pressing quite firmly against his arms and digging into his biceps and shoulders. Then Faelindis’s hands moved further up to his neck, reaching into the still short hair at the nape of his neck, curling against his scalp and pulling down. It was not as hard as it could be, but the persistence eventually convinced Faron to lift his chin up and open his eyes. Faelindis’s eyes, darker than normal, met his, and from this distance of only finger-breadths he could see that she had been biting down on her lower lip. There were lines of poetry about the long lashes of a lover’s eyes, something about roses and red lips, and Faron could not even give her that. She deserved beautiful words. She should rip every perfect line of song to describe herself from his willing lips, drink them from his parched mouth.

His hands were drifting down again, seeking those divots at the bottom of her backside right before the soft muscle began to curve out again. He could not allow his hands to roam further than that point, but the curling and downward tugging of fingers against his hair was attacking that restraint. 
“Say my name again,” Faelindis said, and Faron obliged. Under his hands he could feel her flesh shiver as he said her name aloud. 
“Faelindis,” Faron said, watching her close her eyes. He repeated her name and closed his eyes as she leaned forward and began to kiss his lips. He expected them to be soft, and her lips were for a moment, but she was pressing hard, and he could feel her teeth behind her lips. All of her was pressing against him. Heat low in his body was becoming uncomfortable, his head felt thrice as big as it should, and his mind drifting lost inside it. Hardness instead of softness. Unbearable hardness.

She wanted to hear her name. Faron -barely- focused on that. Her name, with each stroke of his hands against her soft flesh, against the tip of a tongue that parted his lips and silenced him. “Faelindis. Faelindis.” Hands running down his neck, short fingernails digging along the wings of his shoulder blades, tickling his sides as she moved her hands down to his waist, reaching down to cup his ass, her stomach pressed flat against his, her thighs touching his, leaning against him and shifting her weight to straddle his lap. “-indis,” he murmured as Faelindis stilled above his lap, her knees squeezing his thighs, her hands pressing hard against his body to hold herself up.

Faron’s nakedness hid nothing about his body’s reaction.

Dark brown eyes looked at Faron’s restored body. Flushed red lips parted as she pulled back, a gasp and then a smile. Faelindis evaluated him and the reaction she caused, the soft and mindless look to his sea-green eyes, his slack jaw and panting, the slight shake as he struggled to hold his legs and hips still. Smug, she arched her back, reveling in the pull of Faron’s hands as he was unwilling to allow her to move away. Her dark hair fell like a queen’s cape down her back. Emboldened by his evident desire and the mantra that he had made of her name, Faelindis offered, “Your bride.”

Faron forgave himself the delayed and muzzy-headed reaction to her words, but he hated the spike of fear that shot at an angle from his lower back into his stomach and through his diaphragm, stuttering his breath. He ached for her, for the feeling of Faelindis, for confident smiles on her face, the sound of her voice lightened with laughter and joy. That she knew him when he was Osp and never recoiled in disgust. That her brown eyes saw her savior when she beheld him. But the wise part of Faron’s soul, not the foolish young man that died at the gates of Angband or the terrified creature grasping for preservation that survived Angband but the man who could look back upon them with pity, warned him. Faelindis thought herself in love with him, and he knew that he was in love with her - but how much of that was the centuries in Angband? His was the only kind face that she had known in a long period of  torment. Soft, incredible Faelindis could choose another than him, now that she had freedom. And Faron knew the boy that he had been in Nargothrond. Unlike his companions, his affections faded swiftly, his courtships like candles, bright but consumed in a matter of days or weeks. He feared that his traitorous heart, free to return to old ways, would tire of her. His body screamed that was an impossibility, one region in particular. But could he promise her a forever?

“Faron?” Faelindis quivered.

Without thought, Faron pressed his thumbs firmly into her flesh, gripping her tight. He could not allow her to pull away from him. There was fear in her dark eyes, and he could not allow that. Could not be the reason for that. “Your man,” he whispered, feeling the shape of that promise on his tongue. It tasted of apricots and salt. It tasted right and true. “Yours. To Eru I swear.”

Faelindis smiled. “I would have my family present to hear our vows. Yours as well. Your sister, at least, and parents, and any uncles you wish. You spoke fondly of some of them. And our friends!” she added, animated excitement overpowering her shyness. “I would have Lady Finduilas see me on my wedding day, and Gwenniel, and Lady Aereth, Dondwen, Gelril. Oh, and you must have them, Aglar and Craban and Galuven and Captain Heledir. Even - no, I cannot ask for the king, for either of them. But you could.” Her voice grew soft again. “Son of the Mithmeren lord, you are a prince among the Falathrim, and I am but a seneschal's daughter. Only a counterfeit princess.”

“Noble, M’lady,” Faron countered, daring to run his fingers across her collarbones and dip down to the small swells of her breasts, wondering if there was any part of her as soft as what he now felt. “You are noble.”

Faelindis shivered, and Faron felt the difference in its violent intensity. She whisper-pleaded, “No. My name. Your Faelindis. Just her.”

Faron leaned forward to give into the impulse to kiss the part of her that he craved to yet had refrained from, outlining the small circle of her nipple with his tongue. Once he satisfied himself with the taste of her breast, slowly licking the sweat that had gathered down her sternum and mouthing more gentle kisses at the divot of her collarbones, he spoke into the hollow of her neck, his eyelashes fluttering against her neck. “My Faelindis.” He repeated her name, tangling fingers into her dark hair.

Her small hands shifted around to touch him, shy at first, gauging his reaction, then guiding his hands to where she wanted his fingers. Tentative touches, promises for a day they would not yet claim.

“We flew,” Faron murmured, thinking back to another time that he held Faelindis in his arms. “We are free now, can go wherever we wish.”

“And where do you wish?” Faelindis asked, cupping his face with her slender hands, drinking the sea once more from his eyes, the tips of her fingers as wet as the shine across her bitten lips.

“Here is most pleasant,” Faron teased, drawing her body closer with his arms, pressing so there was no emptiness between them from knees to chin, close enough that their breaths passed from lip to lip. Close enough that he saw only the maiden’s eyes, dark and deep and full of love.

Chapter End Notes

And also as long promised, the notes on character fusions. Readers of the rest of the series should already know these, and all of this is nothing more than Easter Eggs for people familiar with A Song of Ice and Fire.

Faron is obviously Theon Greyjoy, with the Falathrim as a whole substituting for the Ironborn. Iessel is Asha, as are his two older dead brothers Rodrik and Marion as Duinethor and Cófon, his parents Ringon and Hithaereth for Balon and Alannys (no driftwood crown for Balon), and while Aearon “Ninlaws” is the Damphair, you can decide which remaining nuncle is the one who left to Aman and died in the Kin-slaying. (Tentatively Urrigon fits Tolon best for parallels.) Rodrick the Reader is an elf, Duinenir, living with Círdan and very happy with his books, I’ll have you know. Nargothrond becomes Winterfell, except for when Angband is covering for it under the Boltons (and for Faelindis’s backstory, Tol Sirion as well). Therefore Finrod is roughly analogous to Ned Stark for some plot points. Faelindis with her brown eyes and position of steward's daughter forced to pretend to be higher-born is Jeyne Poole (Finduilas Faelivrin takes the place plot-wise for both Arya and Sansa Stark - and not in the way that the tv show did). The orc overseer with the ruby earring is Ramsay Snow, and never a more fitting assignment. Fat Walda also sneaks in a cameo. Aglar was another easy choice; here the irony is that Robb Stark is killed by a werewolf. Bran Stark is the younger brother, Craban. (Mornaew is black bird, Craban crow, Bran the Three-Eyed Crow has a name that literally means Raven.) While not named in this fic, there is the paternal cousin of Aglar raised side-by-side more like a brother who patrols in the far north with a name that means snow, and Aglar has two sisters and a baby brother who cameos towards the end. His father died trying to stop the First Kinslaying instead of being beheaded at King’s Landing, and his mother’s red hair means Catelyn Tully is now a niece of Nerdanel. The direwolves are now Hounds of Oromë and thus had to stay with the older sister and other family in Aman. Faelineth the healer is the other Jeyne, and her brother Raynald Westerling becomes one of the other ten to die in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. The rough characterization and backstories for Edrahil and the Captain of the Guard, Heledir, are shamelessly stolen from The Leithian Script, though on the family trees Edrahil’s father corresponds to Edmure Tully. As for some of the other soldiers of Nargothrond, their inspirations come from some very different places. Bân and Fân have more than a passing resemblance to the protagonists of one Final Fantasy series and its spin-off, and the brothers Gadwar and Galuven were loosely inspired by Gawyn Trakand and Galahad Demandred, making Arodreth Gareth Bryne and Finduilas’s other lady-in-waiting Egwene al’Vere. Gelril is Elayne Trakand.

And thus this entire fic was an excuse to give Theon and Jeyne the happy ending that I knew GRRM wouldn’t, complete with restorative magics. And dead dragons.