Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Isildur/Elrond; Elrond/Gil-galad
Summary: Companion piece to POSSESSION to be found at the above sites)- Elrond makes choices.
Notes: I had some very thought-provoking feedback for POSSESSION (for which, many thanks) and my musings on that led to this tale.
Thank you to Lyle for beta-reading.
Warnings: this contains non-consensual sex. Caveat emptor.
Men are weak.
Their minds are easily tainted, and with shocking suddenness they erupt into violence and treachery unforeseen.
Alone in the sanctuary of my tent, I let fall my cloak, take up a pitcher of water and use its contents to scour off every last, stinking trace of Isildur. There is no need to treat the injuries he inflicted; already the blood has ceased to flow and the bruising taken on a dark yellow stain that by sunrise will fade altogether. Such is the healing gift of Elves. By morning, only Isildur and I will bear witness to what took place - and by then he will have rewritten it to appease what remains of his conscience.
When Isildur requested that I meet with him alone, I could not refuse, even though the terrible losses of that last battle, together with the final damning blow of his refusal to destroy the One Ring, had all but shattered my strength and spirit. Desperation drove me still to counsel him and, at last, it seemed to me that he listened and marked well what I said, for he watched me most intently. But his interest in me was not what I assumed.
Why Isildur imagined that I would regard his desire favourably at a time of such sorrow, I could not at first begin to fathom. But when I glimpsed the cold gleam of the One Ring as it hung about his neck, I was certain that the Ring was twisting whatever natural impulse he felt for its own foul purpose. Even as I saw this truth, Isildur's face transformed as he looked on me. There was no fairness and reason in it now, only heated lust and fury that I would dare to reject him, and the change in him was so sudden, so terrible that I had no chance to defend myself against it.
He struck me, knocking me to the floor as if I were his enemy. He bound, gagged and stripped me, all the while speaking of his desire, affection and tenderness, seeming utterly unaware of how his violent actions made a travesty of his loving words. Then he raped me. And every single time he plunged his sweating, panting body inside me, I felt the One Ring flail against my back, felt it not as the light touch it was in reality, but as a mailed fist that struck deep within my soul, mirroring each sharp thrust of his flesh.
His lust spent, Isildur finally released me, and the gentleness of his hands felt like a mockery of the brutality he had subjected me to. He thought me broken and shamed by his violation, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Yes, I hurt both body and soul from his abuse, for there can be few things fouler than to be used in such a way by a trusted comrade, yet through the pain there burnt a rage so fierce that when he freed me, when I saw him standing there, with the One Ring a bright glitter against his naked chest and that little smile of smug superiority on his face, I could willingly have struck him down where he stood.
It was then that the One Ring called me.
In that dark moment when I could have killed Isildur, I heard it quite clearly. A soft, subtle voice whispering coldly in my heart and calling upon me to strike the Man down, to take justice for the assault he had perpetrated on me. I could not look at Isildur then or trust myself with words, for my fate balanced on a knife-edge and I knew one false step would see me fall.
It was so very seductive! And cunning, too, to call at the instant of my greatest weakness when Isildur was careless, arrogantly certain that he had humbled me. I could so easily have shown him otherwise. I could have thrown him down, slain him out of hand, or paid him back in kind. And there would have been a wild justice to it that was hard to deny.
Hard to deny, but not impossible. Weak, I called Isildur. Not because he lost the battle for true independence of thought, but because he never even perceived that there was a battle to be fought. He took up the Ring, he kept the Ring and he was blind to his own corruption. In him, I could see the twisted, vicious creature the Ring would make of me: if I chose now to exact vengeance on Isildur, the One Ring would gain mastery of me. The end would see Isildur lying dead at my feet and the Ring clutched in my hand, still dripping its poison into my mind.
Only when at last I was certain of my strength of will did I dare to meet Isildur's eyes, and I watched in revulsion how his fingers curled possessively around the One Ring as if he feared I should snatch the vile thing from his grasp. Then I knew at last that he had gone beyond my reaching. His fate, and that of Middle-earth, would unfold as it must.
Now, naked and shivering with a chill owing nothing to the coolness of the early morning air, I kneel beside the chest of clothing. But I do not seek the soft folds of clean garments, for my only desire is to hold and look upon your last gift to me, Gil-galad.
Isildur knows it not, but I also hold a Ring. Mine, I hid before my meeting with him, loath to bear it in the presence of the One Ring intended by Sauron to master all the rest. Vilya, the Ring of the Firmament, hangs on a fine golden chain much like the one Isildur now uses to bear the Ruling Ring, but there the resemblance ends: Sauron has never laid his foul hand on this slender gold band set with a single brilliant sapphire. The three Elven-rings were hidden from him, and never have they been worn whilst Sauron wielded the One Ring. Now that Sauron is thrown down, maybe the Three can some day be used as their maker intended, to heal and preserve this land that we love.
You first placed Vilya into my hand many years ago when we lay close wrapped together in sweet lassitude after our lovemaking, and I can recall that time in every detail: the memory of an Elf is far brighter than the selective, fading recollections of a Man. It takes me but a moment to bring that day back to mind: the taste of your warm mouth as you kissed me, the scent of your skin against mine, and the texture of your hair as I slowly combed my fingers through its dark waves. I would have been content to lie forever in your arms, yet you warned me then that what we had could not last, that it would change, as did all things in Middle-earth. And you commanded that I hold Vilya for you; in readiness for what you would not say, and I was unwilling at that time to ask.
Only one short day ago, you gave Vilya completely into my keeping, and I knew in that moment that you had foreseen your own death.
Grief took me then, and I was driven into a frenzy from it, needing to love and be loved by you one last time, and one time more until exhaustion drove us to desist; the memory of that last night is too bittersweet, I fear, for it to ever bring me comfort. For you are lost to me, Gil-galad, and though I knew it would be so, I ache inside, as if some part of what makes me whole has been ripped untimely away and left me bleeding, incomplete.
On the palm of my hand, I hold your last gift to me, the greatest of the three Elven-rings, and I see it now for what it truly is: a mark of unfaltering trust as much as it is of love. By gifting me with Vilya, it is as if you passed to me the stewardship of Middle-earth, making it my task to preserve what could be preserved against the onslaught of evil. Did you also foresee that the Enemy would not be wholly defeated in spite of all our best efforts? If so, then you saw clearer and further than I did.
My foresight and learning deserted me this night, but I cannot let my grief and anger at what has happened lead me to fail you, Gil-galad. I must turn my mind instead to doing all I can to be worthy of the task you bequeathed me. I must be strong, the calm refuge amidst whatever darkness may be unleashed upon us.
In love and honour of all you were to me, I can be nothing less.
The End
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