Category: Tolkien-Universe

Rating: M

Couples: -

Warnings: AU, blood, mentions of torture, character death, Loss of bodily autonomy (no Non-con)

Chapter: 51

Copyright: Characters & places © By Tolkien Estate, Plot & OC´s © by me

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If there was one thing he had not expected, it was his marriage-bond opening up.

Resting in a cave, he nearly wept at feeling his wife again.

'Why... how...?' He was barely coherent, having to focus almost all his strength on not making it obvious he was two seconds from a breakdown.

'The Valar send Ciryatan south, about three weeks ago. Eönwë delivered me to the ship a few days ago.' Eärwen's mental voice was faint, just barely in range. 'I suppose when you were freed.'

He didn't know how to react to that, muscles tensing to keep from shivering on the blanket keeping him and his nephews from the rocks. 'You...' She was coming here? For him?

Some remnant of that thought must have filtered through, or perhaps she just knew him that well. 'Ingo...' She was the only one that called him by any form of his mother-name, even his actual mother calling him Arafinwë. 'Ingo, you are my husband.'

And there-in lay the problem, didn't it? Was he her husband still? Did he deserve to be her husband still? 'You don't want me.' He pointed out, staring up at the cave-ceiling. 'I am not someone you'd want, not after...'

'Ingoldo.' She cut him off sharply, only to pull back when feeling him flinch. 'Regardless of this being a thing we'd better in talk in person about, I choose you.'

Yes, and then his kin had killed hers, he'd gotten himself taken to Angband - with all the messes therein - and then sold himself to a Dark Lord... all without even taking the time to talk to her.

'I have done things you should not sully yourself with.' He sank into memories, and from the backlash he'd felt from her, he was utterly failing at stopping them from pouring down their marriage-bond. The son had not been the last he'd been ordered to 'seduce', and he more than once had been ordered to kill those he'd drawn close... often enough that he had not doubt his presence was as much as threat as it was a treat to the Secondborn under Mairon. He'd done it to keep the two boys from having to do it, and coerced consent was hardly consent, but he had done it.

His body and fëa were no longer ones she should have to associate with. Who knew, perhaps Nerdanel had laid the groundwork for some marriage-breaking at this point they could use.

'No.' That thought had filtered too, apparently. After all these years apart, he'd grown untrained in shielding his mind down bond-avenues. 'Arafinwë Ingoldo, husband-mine. Do not think that again.'

'I am stained, with blood and filth.' And the lack of worse was only by sheer luck and magnanimity of Mairon. 'No longer worthy of a Princess and Queen of Elves.' He still didn't understand why his brothers had gone through the trouble of saving him. There was hardly anything worth saving left.

'That, I think, is my decision.' She countered. 'Besides, I had a barely better showing, these last few centuries. I left you, Ingo, when you perhaps needed me the most. Sure, I played at queen, but I hardly did anything worth of the title, while you were trying to rebuild a civilization.'

'Eärwen...' He couldn't stop the tears, not any longer and certainly not if he wanted to keep anyone else from noticing. She did not answer in words, merely send a pulse of her own emotions down their connection.

He answered back with his own, his self-hate, disgust and grief at what he had become. Only to notice that Maitimo had noticed his state, burying his face in the black hair nearest.

'We'll talk about this, Ingo, at length. For years, if need be.'

He hated himself perhaps more for his greedy sliver of hope. 'Yes.'