In My End Is My Beginning by Lilith

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Desire, A Doused Fire

Isildur breaks into the chambers of the King’s prisoner and is caught.

Written in response to this prompt: He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. (*The Fellowship of the Ring,* Book I, Chapter 8).

There is non-consensual touching and a few threats issued in this chapter.

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“Whore,” the impetuous fool, Amandil’s elder grandson, hisses. 

The guards have caught him trying to sneak into her private chambers. They have him pinned against the wall and have asked her if they should send for Pharazôn.

“Release him,” she commands.

“My lady,” they stammer in response but let him go.

“There is no need to involve the king for something this minor. I will address it and ensure that his grandfather disciplines him.”

When the captain voices an objection, she replies that Amandil had been beloved of the king and that this would unnecessarily grieve both the king and the Lord of Andúnië. “Young men are restless and rebellious. They so often do foolish deeds in order to prove their bravery,” she continues. “It’s best to handle these things quietly, at least the first time.”

The captain of the guard appears almost ready to question the wisdom of her order a third time. But he meets her eyes and thinks better of it. 

“We shall wait outside, my lady.”

“Of course. I am glad of it,” she replies.

They leave quietly, closing the door behind them. She is glad the wood is heavy and thick. She has no desire for them to hear what she intends to say.

“Sit,” she commands.

“I will not.”

“Listen closely, young one. This is your first lesson. Choose your battles more carefully. You can’t win all of them and some don’t matter at all.”

He stays on his feet, staring defiantly back at her.

“Don’t be difficult,” she continues. “Not about something so inconsequential. Now sit. How old are you now?”

“Five and sixty.”

“Young for the Dúnedain. Or so it used to be. Perhaps not now.”

Isildur tries to remain on his feet, but finds himself slowly and irresistibly forced into the chair. The hatred in his eyes has, if possible, become more plain.

“Good,” she continues softly. “Good.” 

He manages a half-choked sound of pain and fury, and she smiles in satisfaction. 

“Quiet, young one. Quiet.”

She moves to stand next to him, sliding her hand along his shoulder and delighting in the trembling of fear and fury moving through his body.

“Here is your second lesson. Know your enemy. Do not allow hate or anger to cloud your judgment. Allow no strong emotion to enter into your assessment of the situation. It’s natural to feel them but learn to control them. Otherwise, you’ll make a potentially lethal mistake, as you did tonight. I could have had you garroted and later claimed I did not know who the intruder was.”

She rests her hand on his shoulder, slides her fingers under his tunic and digs her nails in sharply. She feels more than she hears him suppress a yelp.

“Hatred and anger lead you to misjudge your enemy. Those miscalculations will cost you. For example, you believe I am a whore. I assume you mean that I trade some aspect of myself, most likely my body, for power from the king. Am I correct? You do not believe I might acquire power any other way.”

She grips his shoulder harder still, feels the blood run under her fingers. 

“You haven’t answered.”

“You’re a whore. A bitch and a whore.”

“And a traitor and a liar and a deceiver and a torturer and a murderer,” she continues, rich laughter winding its way through her voice. “All correct but the first. You misjudge the situation. First, the king has no desire for any but his queen. It’s a pity she doesn’t reciprocate his passion. Second, that demonstrates a lack of understanding of me. Given that you see me as your enemy, you should try to know me better.”

He turns his head, teeth clenched, and refuses to look at her. 

She smiles, “Listen closely, I’ll tell you more about myself than any person living in Arda knows. I’m no whore. I was young and so was the world when I discovered how little control women are allowed over themselves. Their labor — their very bodies — offered over to serve their lords. Even women of the Ainur, though not embodied in the same fashion, lack full control over themselves; they lack autonomy and the ability to choose for themselves. I swore then and there I would have control over myself, to give of myself to whomever I wished and to no one else; I would allow no one to decide to whom my labor, my self, my being would be given. I have worked very hard to become powerful enough to ensure this is so. I have served only where I have chosen. I have offered myself only where I willed. I have taken no lovers but those I desired. I have not traded my form for the other things I desire. Seduction, little one, need not only take that form. Men — or any other living creature — desire certain things: peace, riches, power, security, love, life everlasting and revenge to name only a few. I needn’t sell myself out to secure those. In fact, it’s better if I don’t.”

“Whore,” he forces out through clenched teeth.

“Ah, but you’re so young. You don’t see that. You think a woman’s power comes only from that which is between her legs. That is powerful, to be sure, or men’s desire to take and to have possession of women in that way is. But it isn’t our only power. Not at all,” she watches him closely. “But you are so young; perhaps it is one to which you are particularly vulnerable.”

She releases her grip on his shoulder and slides her hands down his chest. She leans forward, taking one earlobe in her teeth and biting gently. She carefully bends lower, touching his throat with her lips and lightly with her teeth. She can feel his body become rigid under her hands and hears his shuddering breath. She braces one hand against his throat and runs the other down to the space between his legs and cups his sex lightly through his clothes. She strokes once, firmly, and laughs when he shudders. Then she does it a second and a third time and a fourth. She feels him stifle a cry, smells the iron tang of blood where he’s bit his lip, and notices the touch of a tear as it falls onto her hand. She continues caressing him until he’s shuddering with desire and revulsion, trying both to push into her hand and pull himself away from her. Then she releases him. She turns to stand in front of him.

“Third lesson. Know your own desires.”

She watches as he shakes in shame and in hate and in fear.

“Never fear, young one. I wouldn’t use it against you. There is only one I have wanted this age and you are not he. That part of you is quite safe from me, though not, perhaps, from yourself.”

She touches one hand to his shoulder, feeling the cuts her fingernails made heal and watching the blood staining his tunic disappear.

“Break into my rooms again and I will have you killed. Most unpleasantly.”