She was warm and safe in her bed. In a familiar room, surrounded by books of all sizes, colors, ages and types of bindings. She knew that she'd already read them all many times, because they felt like old friends to her. The morning sun bathed the floor through her window with a light breeze ghosting through the thin curtains, and she felt languid, relaxed and rested under her cozy covers. A good, yawning stretch made her body even more relaxed. Then the rustle next to her alerted her to the fact that she wasn't alone.
A large hand snuck around her waist and pulled her into the warm body next to her where a deep rumble of a voice vibrated through her, in what was likely a 'good morning'. Her face was halfway enveloped in a large, dark mane of wavy hair as the strong, tanned arm wrapped around her. Gentle lips found a sensitive spot behind her jaw. She had no qualms giving into the nearness and the caresses. She had done so hundreds of times before. This was her home.
A thick leg slid between her own and the weight on her thigh reminded her of just how physically powerful the man in her bed really was. She trusted him completely and knew that this power would never be turned against her, but be put to devastating effect against any enemy she would ever had. There would indeed be blood demanded and collected from anyone who ever threatened anything held dear by her lover. But for now, the beast in her bed demanded other kinds of satisfaction.
The kissing of her neck turned to suckling and she arched her head back to grant better access to his exploring mouth. When teeth scraped her skin, a breathy moan escaped her and was echoed by a resonant purr from him, almost too low to hear.
She slid her hand down the ridges of muscled arm and grabbed the wrist, guiding palm over hip to thigh. The fingertips followed hers slowly across the soft pillow of her sex, up her stomach and ending on her breast, where she encouraged him to knead the lush flesh. The offer was readily accepted and at the same time he captured her mouth to drink from her as if from a fine wine.
Lori felt him bulge against her hips and the mere thought that she had been the one to excite such a reaction from him sent shivers down her spine. It made her feel wanted, sexual and empowered that she could affect such a magnificent man in this way. She boldly slid up her leg and squeezed his thigh between hers. The sensation was exquisite and spread from her core to her diaphragm, warming and eliciting deep tension to tighten inside her.
He pressed closer to her and finally, when only their skin held them apart, he lifted himself smoothly and hovered above her for a minute while he communicated his absolute want and desire for her through silent pleading. Her dazed, purple eyes met his stormy blue ones and even as he longed for her, burned and breathed for her, he held off to soak in the sight of her for just a moment, waiting for the inevitable plunge.
His lips moved without a sound, and yet she heard him loud and clear in her mind. I love you. Finally, he collapsed into a desperate surrender and plundered her mouth as his body crushed her in an agonizingly slow rhythm, his hard, blunt member creating glorious friction with her sex. She thought she might go mad with want and felt her readiness trickle from her, her lips slicked and swelled with excitement. She needed something... Something more… To consume him and be consumed in return. To engulf and cherish and be ripped apart, all at the same time.
He sensed her need and moved into alignment, and once more, his eyes caught hers. She noticed the beads of sweat on his brow from the exertion of holding back. She gave him a small smile as she caressed his cheek and whispered, let go…
Just as he thrust into her, the world disappeared and a freezing, harsh reality greeted her.
She bolted up from her covers as the deep night surrounded her with malevolent voices of multiple creatures, hiding in the dark. Their stench assaulted her senses and made her eyes water, so potent and sharp that she wondered how living creatures could ever reek so violently whilst still being alive.
A blinding pain erupted in her head and the darkness swallowed even the light of her campfire. For a while she floated in weightlessness, but gradually the voices returned and she was able to make out what they were discussing.
"Oohh, but this one's a pretty one! We'll get rewards for sure!" So she was captured. Better to listen in and play dead then.
"Is it an elf?" And not by any elves, though the smell had already convinced her of that. No elf would be caught dead stinking like a warthog that had been bathing in excrement for a week.
"Too small." You don't say? Shows what you know. A pang of sorrow hit her again when she remembered the heartbreaking consequences of her elf blood.
"Can we use it?" For what, I wonder?
"Can we eat it?" WHAT? No no no. This can't be happening.
"Not yet. You heard the King."
"We could not tell him."
"You forgot the mangler? The Bone Breaker?"
"Oh. Right…"
"What's the King need her for anyway?"
"Don't know."
"I heard he wanted to expand."
"Expand what?"
"Goblin Town." Goblins? Oh, great!
"Why?"
"To chase away dwarves."
"But the dwarves are all gone, right?"
"For now, yes."
"Okay… But how does the female help?" Yes, do tell.
"By being Mother." Excuse me?
"Ooohh, such a pretty broodmother she would make!" A what!?
"I hope she's a good breeder." This is not happening!
"She'll last." That's it, they're mad. I'm getting out of here!
"I wanna go first!"
"Pack it in! First we bring her to the King."
"I still wanna go first."
"Fine. But I'm next."
"Fine." In. Your. Dreams!
Lori felt herself being hauled off by her bound feet, and her hands tied to them by coarse, scratching rope. She refused to even think of the horror they were speaking of: Raping her until she either died or carried goblin spawn in her belly. She would rather be dead that suffer either of those fates, and if necessity begged it she would facilitate it. Of course that wasn't exactly plan A. Looking around quickly she counted five goblins, one more mangled and deformed than the next, though all of them bore some resemblance of the other races of Middle-Earth.
Was this how they had come to be? By infecting some diseased malignity upon the other races of the realm? Lori had once heard that orcs were the twisted, tortured form of elves, captured and corrupted by Sauron himself. But had other races suffered the same fate as well? Either way, she had to escape before their abominable plans could be set in motion. To have her body defiled in such a manner would extinguish her soul as surely as the next sun would rise.
She closed her eyes once more and tried to conjure a flame that would eat the ties on her hands and feet, but every time she was close to finding her energy source she got bumped, kicked or yanked along, and was interrupted from weaving any spell. Soon they were so far into the mountain tunnels that she knew she would have no chance of finding her way out, even if she somehow got loose and stole a torch from the goblins. AND outran them on her damned sprained ankle.
Hmm, maybe just a few more days in Rivendell would have been the wiser choice after all. Bugger it all.
A bone chilling fear grabbed her as hope slowly bled away by the exclusion of her options.
After more bumping over rocky ground, tearing her cloak and leathers in shreds, and gaining an indecent amount of cuts and bruises while still trying to feign unconsciousness, the tunnels opened up to an enormous cavern filled with haphazardly put together platforms, rails and walkways. The void was lit by a multitude of torches like the ones her capturers were carrying, and everywhere it was possible, ornamentations of skulls, limbs and rotting corpses were displayed. It was truly a place of nightmares.
After too long a drag over splinters and sharp rocks, the procession suddenly stopped.
"Well well well! Who do we have here?" A grandiose voice asked, sounding as if a good hard cough might clear some of the slime lodged in the throat of the owner.
"A female, sire." The hissing goblin to her right replied.
"My, such a pretty little one, isn't she?" A lukewarm breath of rot and sick wafted over her and she gad to force herself from gagging.
"Yes, your malevolence." There were sporadic, lecherous howls and grinning from the crowd that had accumulated around them.
"But what is she, I wonder? Short, but no beard… Round ears and small feet… Neither elf, dwarf nor hobbit…" Her head was being moved from side to side by pudgy, smelly fingers none too gently. She could feel jagged nail tips digging into her cheeks where the Goblin King squeezed her face.
"Hobbit, your rancidess?" A gurgling voice asked.
"Shire folk who live off of the land far to the west of here," he answered. So, some intelligence exists here? I wonder if that's a good or a bad thing…
"And what is your name, girl?" The putrid breath was now aimed directly at her face, infecting her very pores and making her eyes water under their lids.
"Come come now, no need for pretenses around here. Surely we can all be friends, hmmm?"
I doubt that very much.
A resounding slap whipped across her face and snapped her head to the side, making her gasp loudly in shock. After a few pants she turned a hateful glare at the pustulous, oozing pile of blubber in front of her.
"OW!"
"Oh ho ho! Look boys; It has spirit as well!" The goblin king rejoiced. "So, what is your name, little sprite?"
Lori only saw fit to spit a glob of bloody saliva to the side, which, considering her pig tied position, was a bit of a feat.
"Not feeling talkative, I gather?" He rubbed his hands together in excited expectation. "Then we'll have to convince you otherwise, won't we?"
For an eternity he stared at her with an almost goofy looking smile, had it not been for the malice in his liquid, mismatched eyes.
"BRING OUT THE MANGLER!" The bellow echoed through the cavernous gut of the mountain and there was a roar of approving shrieks responding from every direction.
Oh… Shit.
..o00Ô00o..
Time.
Time was a strange entity, and not always a benevolent one, Lori had come to realize. After the first cut down her thigh with an unsanitary looking knife followed by her arms and legs being twisted into physically impossible angles by the Mangler, it had slowed down and allowed her to savor every agonizing second of her torture.
She remembered sitting by her mother's death-bed and hoping that time would do just that to prolong her life, but instead it had sped up and snatched her mother away, too quickly to prepare her for the shock of sorrow that had left her crippled for months afterwards. If not for Gandalf, she would have starved to death in an alley in Minas Tirith, and at the time she wouldn't even have cared.
If only such a death would be granted to her now. To slip into oblivion unnoticed and undisturbed would be a blessing. It had been hours, perhaps days, since she had last seen sunlight and time was her ever cruel master. Speeding up when respite was granted to her, and slowing as her flesh was sliced and her joints were popped. Every time they hit her she begged for the darkness to embrace her, and every time it did she was yanked from the sweet numbness by more pain. It had no end.
At one such point she woke to a new kind of sting in the wounds already afflicted upon her. Liquid spilled over her body and the back of her head and seeped into every open gash in her flesh. The sting helped stop the bleeding a bit, but when she realized that her torturer had pissed on her she turned livid with humiliation, rage and despair. She tossed and twisted in her restraints and screamed like a banshee, tearing the skin from her wrists and dislocating both her shoulders.
Why couldn't they just leave her to bleed in peace? Why this humiliation? None of them asked anything of her, they simply enjoyed watching her suffer. A violent twist opened several deep cuts along her abdomen, hip and thigh, and as the renewed blood flow trickled down her legs, the pain dug into her flesh with rekindled vigor.
It finally ripped through her madness and a deep, sorrowful howl was the last thing the amassed audience to her sessions heard from her. The tears finally broke through her emotional dam and poured over her blood painted face. The salt stung her split lips and swollen eyes, but it felt like an old warm friend in this hostile place. The tears cleansed her, she knew, body as well as soul. It was a natural and good thing, even if it was entirely too small to make a difference in this hell. More friends came to keep her company, as she waited for her sapping blood to leave her body.
Vaguely she noticed the crowd moving quickly towards the plateau above them, and that the Goblin King's voice was once more giving a grand speech, but she couldn't bring herself to care. A final tear caressed her cheek, and she smiled at it as she slipped into the darkness.
..o00Ô00o..