Title: The End Has Come.
Author: B-witched83uk )
Rating: R
Warning: This chapter is rated R for pretty minor references to sex. Please do not read if you feel you would be offended by it.
Summary: Gondor's royal family have their final adventure together.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings. The whole of Middle-earth belongs to Tolkien.
Dedication: Adam, because last night he was my hero.
Beta: The Last Evenstar. A great friend and a great editor.
Archive: , Any others please ask.
Feedback: I would absolutely love some because yes I am a praise junky.
A/N: As I hit you with a pretty sad chapter last time, I figured I would be nice to you and post this one just two days later, and it's a nice long one. Plus, Estelai/Gwydion fans, you are gunna love this.
A/N2: In your reviews can you please tell me if you find anything wrong with the grammar, because it was edited and my editor is now telling me it doesn't look like the version she edited, but I'm pretty sure it is. For the life of us, neither of us can figure out what happened, so if this chapter has mucho mistakes please let me know.
I'm sorry for making people cry with the last chapter, I promise there is nothing to cry about for a while now.
Chapter eleven
Desperate seduction
The passing of Ithiliwen did not come as a shock to Estelai. She knew that her mother was old, nearing the end of her life, but it did not make the pain any less real, or any easier to deal with. She had died in her sleep, which left Estelai with the knowledge that her mother wasn't in any pain.
She sat alone at the very top of the tower, watching the day turn to night. Tears ran unashamedly down her checks. The stars were bright that night, the moon was hidden, and the sky was turning black, like her heart had now become. It had been almost a week since her mother's death, and she wondered if the tears would ever stop, if this was her life now, only tears and pain.
Estelai was unselfish. She had always been, even in childhood. Even at a time like this she, was thinking of others. Her mind had been plagued with worry for her father and younger sister, both of whom she had seen very little of. Eldarion had changed, as was to be expected, a period of grief that would, in time, heal. In her heart, Estelai knew this was somehow different. She knew that her father would never be the same, that he was eternally changed.
Now more then ever, she needed the friendship of Gwydion, she needed him to love her as he used to, before everything got so complicated. Her heart hurt from her mother's passing, but it was already broken; it broke the day she lost her best friend, and now that her mother had died, she knew it would never mend.
"Would you mind some company?"
She turned with a start as she heard her grandfather's voice behind her. She gently shook her head and returned to staring at the sky.
"It is a beautiful night." Aragorn sat beside her and placed an arm around her waist. She instantly tucked her head into his neck, needing to smell his familiar scent.
Together the two sat in utter silence for more then an hour. Estelai had finally stopped crying, from exhaustion more then anything.
"I know your pain, Estelai, I have felt your pain."
Estelai looked up at him, remembering him telling her all about his own mother. She suddenly felt guilty. At least she had one parent left, Aragorn had none.
"One day, Estelai, you will be High Queen of Gondor."
Her eyes met his, not really wanting to hear about the future and her destiny.
"Every hurt you endure through life will strengthen who you are. You will never forget the pain of your mother's passing, you will only learn from it." He placed a kiss upon her nose, making her smile weakly.
Cupping her face in his hands, he forced her to lock eyes with him. "I will never get to see that day, and for that I am deeply saddened. But I want you to know that a part of me will always be with you, as will your mother." He took his hands away from her face and reached up behind his neck. Unclasping the Evenstar pendant and ignoring the gasp of his granddaughter, Aragorn smiled warmly. He took her hand in his and placed the Evenstar in her own hand, curling her fingers around the cold silver. "Now a part of me will always be with you, and a part of your grandmother, too." He tried to stroke the look of shock from her face.
"You cannot give me this." Her voice sounded so like Arwen's that his memories took him back to a time and place so long ago.
"Let it guide you." He stood up, stooping to kiss the top of her head, and left her alone with the Evenstar.
Estelai didn't dare move all night, she simply looked down at the pendant in her hand, shinning brighter then the night stars above her.
The months that followed Ithiliwen's passing were hard on the entire family. Estelai had taken it particularly hard. She had spent almost all of her time away from Minas Tirith, she would wake early and ride her horse as far as she could, not returning until darkness had fallen. The empty ache that she felt inside burned her like fire, a constant feeling of numbness, followed by knives.
A tear fell silently down her cold cheek as she stood alone at the old oak door. She was wearing a silk gown, simple in design, pale blue trimmed with silver. She was no longer a girl, she was a woman. She knew that out of all her dresses, this one was the most hugging. She had purposely picked this dress above all others, and she had left her hair to hang freely in a golden wave.
She lifted her hand to her cheek, wiping away the solitary tear. She just wanted the pain to go, she wanted the empty dull ache to leave, to be replaced with something else. She didn't care what it was replaced with. She just wanted to be able to feel again, to temporarily erase the hurt.
She lifted her shaking hand to the door and knocked three times. She waited nervously, holding her breath, until the door creaked open.
"Estelai!" Gwydion's shocked voice flooded her burning ears. He opened the door wide and was about to take a step outside to talk to her, when her hand motioned for him to stop.
She took a deep breath and walked straight past him, into his room. Gwydion could do nothing but watch in shock as his cousin glided over to the fireplace, her sinfully tight dress crushing her breasts.
He reluctantly shut the door, deciding that if she had come to shout at him, to tell him how disgusted she was with him, then he would prefer it if the entire Kingdom did not hear. "Why have you come here?" he asked her after what seemed like an eternity of silence.
"I came to see you." He noticed that her voice was cooler then usual; unfeeling, uncaring.
"If you have come to tell me that you hate me, you really needn't have bothered. I had figured that out for myself." His eyes were lowered, not wanting her to see the effects that her dress had upon him.
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. How could he ever think that she could hate him? She loved him dearer then any other. She realised that she could have handled his declaration of feelings a little better then she did, but his words had utterly thrown her. Then her mother had died, and she had stopped thinking, she had stopped caring. "Oh, Gwydion."
Her soft voice brought his eyes up to meet hers. The affection he saw shinning from them made his heart leap. He didn't know what was better, to have her hate him or pity him.
"I could never hate you, meldir. There is nothing you could do to make me hate you."
He walked a little closer to her, careful not to get too close. "Then why have you kept your distance from me these past months? I longed to go to you, to comfort you after your mother's passing." He noticed how she visibly stiffened at the mention of her mother.
"I could not cope with your feelings for me, not on top of my mother…I did not come here to bring up the past, Gwydion. I came because I missed my dearest friend. I missed you."
Gwydion sighed softly. "I have missed you also, Estelai, but how can we remain friends after you know what you now do?"
Estelai was silent for a moment. She thought back to this morning. She had spent yet another morning staring at the sky. She was sick of the routine she had fallen into, sick of the pain, the agony. She just wanted to feel again, even if those feelings were shame, desire, and self-loathing.
It was then, before then sun had fully woken, that she decided to come to him that night, to ask him to dull the scream that was her breaking heart.
Locking her eyes with his, she slowly brought her hand up her side, skimming her fingers over the clothed flesh. She watched as his eyes followed her hand, now resting at the base of her neck. Slowly, so slowly, she began to tickle the tips of her fingers over the sensitive hollow.
Her breath hitched as she saw the hunger already burning in his eyes. She felt a shudder run through her at being looked at like that. He looked like he had been shown his favourite meal and told he could not devour it.
Her other hand came to run gently over the delicate tip of her ear, causing her to breath faster, before slightly grazing over the top of her breasts.
Gwydion swallowed hard. What was she doing? Was she trying to torture him? He watched, mesmerised, as her fingertips danced over the top of her breasts, causing the soft, creamy flesh to flush deliciously.
The strain on his face was a direct result of the strain in his leggings.
Estelai saw the muscle in his jaw tighten. So he really did desire her, he wanted her. She had expected the revelation to utterly repulse her, yet it didn't. It made her smile. Well, if he wanted her so badly, then he could have her. So long as he quenched the pain inside of her heart, he could do whatever he wanted with her. She no longer cared.
Gwydion didn't know what to do, he simply stood there, not trusting himself to move. When Estelai realised that he would not come to her, she removed her hands and moved closer to him, coming to stand right in front of him.
"What are you doing? Are you trying to kill me?" His voice was even deeper then usual, deep with arousal.
"I do not want to kill you, Gwydion, Isimply want to give you what you want." She pressed herself shamelessly against him, making him growl deep in his throat. She reached up her hands to stroke down his smooth face, pulling his head down slightly.
A fleeting thought of how wrong her actions were passed through her mind, but the feeling in her lower body that being pressed up against him had created soon dominated everything.
When his lips touched hers, softly, unhurried, he unconsciously wrapped his arms around her slender body, crushing her against him.
Estelai gasped as she felt his full-grown arousal pressing against her. Another thought, screaming at her to stop, was silenced when she flung her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.
Gwydion was somewhat surprised when he felt the tiny flicker of a tongue on his lips, asking for entry, but then everything that had happened so far this night had surprised him.
He opened his mouth and let Estelai's tongue push against his in a desperate need of sensations. When the screaming pain began to surface once more she shut her eyes tight and moved her hand down to the front of his leggings, a silent plea for him to take away the agony she was living.
"Estelai." He moaned, huskily, before stepping out of her arms. "What are you doing?"
Her flushed cheeks and swollen lips made her look deliciously wanton. "I came here to give myself to you, as you have wanted." Her bold statement caused his arousal to throb painfully against the restraints of his leggings.
"What are you asking me for? Are you asking me to love you? Because I can give you that, I can give you everything that I am." He looked deep into her eyes and saw only desire and hurt, but not love. Her body desired his, but her heart rejected his. He could not let her do something she would regret, could not let her resent him even more then she did. "If you are asking me to take you this night, to do with you as I will, use you, hurt you, then I will not. I will not posses you and let you replace your pain with hate. I will not be the one you use to chase away the ghost of your dead mother."
Estelai's hand came slapping across Gwydion's face. She instantly brought her hand up to her mouth, shocked and sorry for her actions.
Gwydion simply smiled at her, as though he had proved his point, and moved away from where she was standing. "I would kill for you, I would hunt down and kill every being in Middle-earth if I thought it would ease your pain. But I will not let you hurt yourself to lessen the torture you feel. If I were to take you now, as my body is screaming for me to do, you would be left with a feeling of bitterness, a feeling of disgust, not just for me, that I could handle, but for yourself. Estelai, you will end up hating yourself."
Estelai felt the stinging of tears threaten to fall, but she refused to let them. She was shaking silently, whether from desire, furry, or hurt she knew not. "I just wanted to feel again. I just wanted to feel anything but the hurt." Her voice sounded small, like a frightened child, and Gwydion's already broken heart wept for her.
"Estelai." He walked back over to her, careful not to touch her. "I love you, cugu tithin, more then you could ever know. But you do not love me, not as I love you. I think you should go back to your own room."
Estelai's eyes shot up to look at him, half relieved to have been given a way out of the mess she had made for them both, half saddened at the rejection she now felt.
She walked silently towards the door, opening it without looking back once.
"Estelai." His voice caused her to turn slightly, not sure she wanted to hear any more of his words.
Her eyes met with his, waiting for him to speak. He desperately thought of something to say, anything to ease her hurt, even just a little. However, words where not needed as their eyes locked. Every feeling he had for her, every yearning, desire, love, passion, need and affection, came pouring out of his eyes and in to hers. His look went right down to her soul and began to sooth it gently. She smiled slightly, grateful to know she wasn't being rejected, and turned out of the door.
Once alone in his room, Gwydion let out a deep groan. He clenched his fists, looking down at the obvious, large bulge in his leggings.
"Curse my chivalry," he all but moaned. "Curse my chivalry to hell!"
TBC
Spchiq: I'm sorry for making you cry, I hope you didn't get to many funny looks from your work colleagues. I'm glad you are enjoying this fic.
DreaminofLorien: I'm not going tot ell you who is next, you people keep trying to trick me in to giving you spoilers. I promise you though that Ithiliwen's death is the only one in the first half of the story.
Viviana: I know, poor Eldarion. I do feel kind of bad for killing Ithiliwen, but it had to be done.
Cerridwen-Evereven: I know it was sad. I'm cruel aren't I? But I made up for it with this chapter right? It wasn't at all sad, and it had Gwydion/Estelai in it.
Lariren-Shadow: I love My Immortal, its one of the songs I listen to when writing. People keep quoting my lines, maybe I should go through my fics and find the best ones. I'm like a modern day philosopher, only I mostly talk a load of crap.
The Last Evenstar: Don't worry Petal, together we will solve the case of The Unedited Fic.
The Converted: I'm quite poetic really aren't I? Emotions aren't toys, and they aren't just for Christmas either. I really HATE you and Jenny for making me write this bloody fic. Your both sneaky little wenches. I haven't a clue how to do it. Do you want them all together? Or can I out them in to pairs? Tell me how you want it so I at least have a chance. You two most have thought about how it would work, so let me know.
Yeah I guess I do have a lot of reviews, go me. It nice to know that people appreciate all the hard work I did. I know I shouldn't have ended this series with so much talk of doom and gloom but remember 'death is just another path, one that we all must take.'
EbonyBeach: Cry it out love, its good for you. I will give due warning before Aragorn/Arwen's demise I promise.
