Some quick background. Fëatho is an OC I pulled from another fic I'm working on, because he's the only OC I currently have who could realistically have congress with an Eldritch-Goddess-Abomination from the Void. Don't worry, I don't write hanky-panky...and just so it's clear Fëatho is Sauron's son. It's implied within the fic, but this was going to be added to a series of dabbles, until I decided I wanted to represent Shelob, and since it's now standing on its own I thought it good mention that here.
As an aside I don't write pairing fics often...and for obvious reasons. *Points below* So you know, constructive criticism would be nice here. And that's not a joke. I really am not good at writing romance. And you come across any typos or grammar errors, please point them out. Thank you!
Disclaimer: I don't own.
A Dark Lord's Wife
Great wealth, power, and luxury had once been Fëatho's. He'd once been a prince, a lord, a figure of authority, but now he was nothing more than a lowly refugee in his own home. Molten rock steamed, and noxious fumes puffed from vents. The world had been broken, shattered, and he had yet seen what ruin remained in its wake.
He saw naught but the sky, nauseating swirling grey, as the world spun in pain. Every movement was an agony, every voice disorienting, and his head swam sickly amid stone, upside down mountains, and whirling clouds.
The walls were black, made only of black stone, devoid of darkness so familiar and haunting. The bowed and bent over head, and even the black the world spun.
"Master…" Hands swept across his brow. "Fëatho?"
He heard. Amid the roiling tumultuous black he heard, and he fumbled for words to respond. He opened his mouth, and he thought something came out. The hand withdrew and he assumed that his will was understood.
"Call one the healers back," a voice snapped. "If only I'd disobeyed…." The same voice trailed into oblivion as fingers grazed his cheek.
Time crawled passed, and moments of pain crackled like lightning across grey skies. Voices and touches, were like horns blaring too loudly, fading, blurring, and he thought that his father was there, voice saying it was alright. After everything and the ending of the world, it was alright. But then his lord stood over him, and viciously he laughed.
The earth no long trembled, the ocean Fëatho perpetually swam in grew placid, and the black walls, were simply black, devoid of darkness, and strange.
Fatigue claimed him. Guilt hollowed him out, and the bed made him its prisoner. His leg was a constant pain, the metal rods and screws bolted into flesh and bone were a terrible agony, he woke to and slept to, but couldn't escape. He could scarcely recall a time there wasn't pain.
People came and went, his opinion was asked for on a myriad of things-why they were coming to him he had no idea, but he tried to help. Thinking through other people's troubles kept him from wallowing in his own, and then he slept.
Long and hard he slept, always to find himself in the same bed, with the same dark walls, vaguely aware of the notion that something was wrong with his surroundings. But it was beyond him to guess at it, and so he turned his mind to other matters.
Mordor was in peril, men said. The voices swum like fish through his mind thick with clouds. At last they'd given something for his leg, but whatever it was it had numbed his mind as well. Mordor was peril. When was Mordor not in peril? He mulled it over, but the only answer for several minutes of listening and thinking was fog.
Muted frustration burned, and he wished now that he hadn't been so numb. At least when he hurt he could think, though things were terribly wrong.
But from the grey strata of malaise an idea rose, like a bad egg to the surface of the water.
"I need a wife."
Silence as thick as treacle filled the space, and in their chairs a trio of men exchanged glances, none quite sure what to say. A wife might stabilize one alliance potentially, but that's not the direction they'd meant to direct the conversation.
Likely it was whatever scarily high dosage they'd given him, as their lord was frowning contemplatively, but only semi-lucid. He was liable to fall asleep on them as he was to offer sound advice, but he wanted a wife. Fine. That was…one way to fix the problem
"How shall we acquire you one?"
"Cows."
"Cows? Lord Fëatho, what are-?"
"Spiders keep eating the cows. Don't you see?"
Glances were exchanged.
"It's only the first time days, he's been awake for longer than five minutes-"
"But cows? If he'd said I want to buy a wife with cattle I would have understand. We can't afford such a thing, but at least that would make sense."
"You Haradrim are strange. Who buys a bride with cows?"
"Because wearing useless shiny rocks soldered to metal too flimsy to use for weaponry on one's finger, is oh so sensible."
"At least they look nice-"
"Until you pay an arm and a leg for them, and what rocks are they? Nothing more than the most common, nondescript shiny pieces of broken carbon anyone can find. Go ahead spend a fortune, send your family spiralling into poverty for the sake of a few carbon lumps, and useless metal, while we survive the next famine, and become successful ranchers because we exchanged cows rather than rings-"
"Rings won't save the cows," Fëatho shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the grey sludge that slaked his thoughts. It was important, but everything was swimming again, and his mind was snail trails and cotton.
"We need to save the livestock. Rings will be useless."
That was well and good to the men, but they weren't sure how a wife figured into the equation.
"I'm not sure we should be bringing this to him. Perhaps we can build fences?"
"The spiders still climb over them, and we don't have the weaponry to properly fend them off-"
"Maybe he wants a wife who has cows? Import perhaps? A little bit of quid for the pro quo as it were?"
"I guess I'll make a compendium of rich heiresses, and high born ladies. Perhaps one among them will catch his eye."
They left, and without voices to tug on his senses, Fëatho slipped back into the grey ether, suffocating in cotton, until darkness crept across the world.
Women were named, presented, their accolades recounted, and Fëatho stared blankly at the sheet. Metal and bone ground together, reverberating through his leg, and the sickening grate of metal against stone had made his ears buzz, the world blur, and his head exceptionally light. Sweating and panting, he'd listed, sensed blotted out by every painful beat of pain.
It was good for him. It was supposed to help. It was going to fix him. But it hurt, and his father had not been to see him in a while, to speak so low and gently that all would be well in the end.
Papers detailing the lives of women were put before him. On a dimly cognizant level he knew it would be wrong to say yes, and he was unsure why he wanted to see any of them in the first place. His father wouldn't approve of this. And in the back of his sick mind he supposed it was a test.
But all the while he felt an itch, a gentle niggle that something was terribly wrong.
"A child was taken in the night."
Fëatho's chest constricted. Pain was sickening drum beat in his leg, but if he so much as shifted drums turned to lightening and phosphorescent white and reds flickered across his darkening vision. But at least now he could think.
Slaked in sweat, and exhausted he gazed into torch light from the bed he had been trapped in for days.
"The spiders are encroaching, coming down from the mountains, since the incident in Cirith Ungol." A great elf lord had come and massacred many orcs, never to have been found afterward.
They grey haze faded away, and with its passing Fëatho stirred. Boredom cramped in his insides, and at last he had a plan. He would save the cows and little children. He shifted.
Metal juddered against bone, and it caught on the fabric of his blanket. He shrieked.
Eyes stinging he hauled his leg over the bed, gasping and groaning as heling bones ground against each other, and then he fell back, chest heaving.
He had a plan.
The road was long and difficult, made more so by the fact that he couldn't walk. The metal encircled his leg entirely, its many bolts and screws puckering welts into his skin, and sore flesh oozed and dribbled.
His leg was under a constant barrage of gnats and stinging flies, and they were enough to wear his morale dangerously thin.
But as he was, there was no escaping them. A horse was out of question, and he was forced to walk, making use of a cane while he traversed Mordor's difficult terrain.
It was surreal, it was insane, and he tried not think of anything beyond the motion of his two his feet. Guards followed him, slow, and desperately bored, forced to go at his pace, because he could not walk at there's, and it was possible he never would.
With them was a healer. A small orc, he'd chosen because he had keen eyes, a good nose, and knew how to clean a wound. Orcish medicine was crude, bitter, and more often than not painful, but it was effective. Infection would be one thing he wouldn't have to fear dying of while on the road.
Behind his guards was an entourage of such people that he needed. And each of them was leading a cow, a goat, a pig, or carrying a chicken.
But the greatest of gifts Fëatho carried himself, and spoke to none of. Heavily it sat in his pocket, and every so often he slipped his hand inside to touch it, to make sure it was there, and he always sighed as he felt the tiny fluttering beat of his own power tickled the tips of his fingers.
The journey was arduous, and difficult, and much of it was painful, and lost within a haze of grey when his leg became unbearable, and he was forced to journey in a litter, leg carefully suspended so that tender bones and broken flesh could recuperate. They continued on, as they had planned in the event of his relapse.
And mountains rose like gnashing teeth to devour him and his ragtag band.
They halted far from them, and their fires burned high, to ward off the darkest hours of the night. He rested, and when he was strong, he, the animals, and all who lead them, continued on. The pass between the mountains grey narrow, and Cirith Ungol rose dark and cold, to glower down with its vacant accusatory windows. Once a strong and powerful fort it was reduced to a haunt of ghosts and distant memories.
It was too near, too close, too much all at once. He heard Cadrian's voice in his mind, a curious mix of condescension and wisdom. He stood looking up at the mountains jagged and dark above, deliberating. The staircase was not so far on, but he knew he was strong enough to climb it.
Sighing, he demanded the tower's gates thrown open, and he stood grimacing when they were met with naught but old corpses. And scattered bones. The horror was unreal, and enough he almost turned back, but he didn't. He grit his teeth and led the people and animals through.
They would not stay here. At least no more than necessary.
The animals were given water from a well, and permitted to wander a courtyard, while the men and women were instructed to wait, within one of the towers, behind locked doors, and shuttered windows.
They were to take nothing, and touch nothing. This had been a wraith's abode, and he had no idea what Cadrian may or may not have done to his possessions or his city.
Alone with naught but his cane he climbed, following the narrow path leading from the city into the mountains.
Fëatho chewed his lip, unnerved by the sheer mountains, and their dark foreboding faces leering down at him. Eyes were watching him, he was sure, and more than once he froze, thinking he'd heard something, or felt something, but up, and all around he saw naught.
The very air against his skin was sinister, and with every step he felt the ever growing threat of danger.
Slow and careful he moved down the path, one hand in his pocket, the other clutching the top of his cane, and puissance crackled around both.
The tunnel opened, a yawning pit of darkness. It was blackness made solid, tangible touchable, a darkness that not marked the mere absence of light, but imprisoned it, and devoured it. A darkness so thick and pure naught could escape it. None could claim it, none could subdue it, nor tame it.
It was a realm of its own spate from the song of Arda, and yet insinuated into the music all the same: a singular sour note, plucked up a lone taught string over and over. He could hear it, and it made his teeth grind.
Like all realms, this darkness, so absolute, had its ruler as well, and before it he knelt, biting down on a hiss of pain.
Fëatho gazed into the dark, and he spoke.
"For ages passed, lords have been, and some among them in their arrogance, pride, and shame have claimed the title Dar Lord, but they never were, nor could they ever be, for the true darkness in its purity, unadulterated, was beyond their ken, and ruled by one. One powerful enough to do so, a queen of queens, and a lady among ladies. She is and has always the Dark Lady; darkness' one true mistress."
In the tunnel the darkness shifted, and from its depths eyes glinted coldly, shiny and wet but utterly devoid of light. They swallowed him, devoured the world, and Fëatho felt his throat close as he fell into them, doors of night into the Void, between the stars, and his fingers curled desperate around the treasure nestled in his pocket, as he suffered and sought to surface from the abyss.
"I ask-no I beg thy help. I implore thee for a truce. I ask that you and yours leave Mordor's other denizens be, that we live side by side unmolested as we once did-"
"Ah, sweet little fly, you are heir to a kingdom of lies. Your little Maia father lied. His little Vala master lied. There is no promise you can make that I can trust." Shelob spoke from the black.
Fëatho's head bowed, and tightly he clasped his gift.
"I make no untenable promises. I know nought what my father offered you, and I can't and have spoken for Morgoth. I offer my protection ever after, the animals I have brought with me, and a pledge of regular tribute. And this." He held out a stone.
It could have been glass, and indeed it was. Obsidian from Orodruin, and within a fire molten and copper burned, and pulsed.
"It is no tree, nor is it a Silmaril. It's not even a ring. It is of my own making, an echo of the light thy mother craved, was promised, and then denied. It is yours, if you wish it, and all that I have as proof of my intent."
He held it aloft, and it burned bright and glorious in his hand, and Shelob was utterly still.
"A generous offer, for something so small. What treacheries make safe harbour at your knees? What more have you come here for?"
"All I have said, I have meant. But I have learned, as the fly I am, that one can never trust a spider." His lips quirked humorously. "I ask thee to be my wife…and to refrain from eating me afterward. Ever you've been here, as have many your children, and I would not force them from their homes, but I as the guardian of Mordor's other inhabitants, and I cannot and will not tolerate predations as they are. Things cannot remain as they are. To that end I have come here, in the hopes that we can come an understanding that is mutually beneficial. I make no further schemes than this. What say you?"
The Dark Queen laughed, her voice shallow, soft, and susurrated like fine silt over rock; cruel, uncomfortable, and abrasive. But the promise of at last being granted what had long been owed, even in part had ensnared her, and hungrily the spider stared gluttonously at the light. It wouldn't be enough to heal her. It wouldn't be enough to undo what a cruel sword of the Westernesse had wrought, but it would reinvigorate, and voraciously she approached.
So easily this little fly could be her next meal, but already he'd wisely asked not be eaten. She did wonder at the notion at getting a bipedal mate out of the deal, but injured and hungry her mind was already made.
"I accept."
Fëatho, bit his lip as the tip of a formidable claw scraped abrasive and cold against his face. Like a mountain she towered far above him, and the same claw the size of his whole body, daintily plucked the brilliant little jewel from his hand.
There before his upturned gaze she ate it, glutting herself upon it, freezing as liquid fire pulsed through her body, electrifying, powerful, radiant, and it filled every voracious hollow and empty fissure. Power returned, and power she'd never known was suddenly hers. Wounds that had festered were cleansed, and olds pains were made dim. The burning hole in her gut was sealed and cauterized by fire.
And with new energy came new and greater hunger. She looked to her little, prize, mate kneeling so pitifully in the dust. He looked grey and sickly. More so than he had, and for the first time in a long time, feeling satiated she hardly cared for such a measly dainty. All of Arda was hers to suckle from, until she was fat, happy, and could satisfy her desires no more.
Dizzying horrifying sickness rose up and threatened to pull Fëatho down. He was empty, a hole carved jagged into his fëa. His own power he'd poured into that little gem, and devoured it was utterly and irrevocably lost to him. Panic unfurled as a claw settled next to him, until he realized she was lending him a hand, such as it was.
Shakily he reached out, touching cold strange carapace. He was hauled to his feet, and he sagged leaning against her formidable claw for support.
His fingers curled around a terrifying sharp spine, and he slowly found his feet.
"Go home, my Firefly Sweet." Her voice was mocking and he frowned.
He wasn't devoid of power, merely weak, and a promise was still a promise.
Before her eyes he took for himself a new form, powerful potent, terrible to behold, and when he was satisfied by what he'd fashioned, he stood before her, a spider, and her abyssal eyes appraised him.
"I made a promise," he said lamely, trying not to let his terror show.
In the manner of spiders Shelob smirked, finding this new form, of her little firefly pleasantly surprising and... fetching. With a look of blatant and unabashed intent, that took Fëatho by surprise, Shelob turned away in raucous laughter at his flabbergasted silence.
With seven legs that made up for an injured eighth, and Fëatho followed her into the dark.