Work Text:
February 1872
Galadriel from New York City writes: “I am a young woman, of great intelligence and refinement, with no fortune save my good looks and warm heart. Any gentleman who could appreciate these few qualities will find me an affectionate and docile wife.” See the editor for inquiries.
It had all been meticulously arranged via extensively detailed correspondence. Upon receipt of his funds for the agreed upon amount, Galadriel Noldor promptly bid goodbye to what was left of her family and began the long, arduous journey to California.
To meet her new husband.
However, when she arrived at the camp, after two weeks of travel by coach, then train, and then coach again, she was met with a most unwelcome sight.
Mud, as far as she could see. The landscape was harshened even further by tall, wiry pines and stark, rocky cliffs. She’d heard California was full of sunshine and gold. And all she wanted was to be warm and dry, and clean again, but it seemed fate had other plans. For there was only cold and damp to greet her.
From the first step out of the coach, she nearly sank to her knees in filth. Her finest dress, that she saved for the day of her arrival, now bore the stain of three inches worth of dirt. Clouds darkened ominously overhead, threatening to rain down another torrent.
Surely, her bridegroom did not expect her to arrive pristine, but it stung all the same. She wanted to be perfect. To make a good impression. He confessed to having read Richard III and Dante’s Inferno. He studied at one of the finest universities in the country and spoke of bringing enlightenment to the great Wild West.
Galadriel had envisioned they’d be throwing grand dinner parties and hosting businessmen and politicians who traveled on their way to the neighboring San Francisco.
There’d been almost 200 responses to her advertisement in the paper. She’d been most scrupulous in her dissection of each. Many wrote of superficial things, like acreage and good breeding.
Her Halbrand spoke of connection. He quoted poetry and claimed to be in a position of high esteem among the settlers at the bustling fort of Ostirith. He desired a companion by his side. Someone to share in his love and his good fortune.
And of course, he’d offered the most in funds. His check cashed for half of the agreed upon amount without issue with the backing of the prestigious Wells Fargo Stagecoach Line, and her poor mother was to be well taken care of in her grief. The second half of the money would be wired back east after the marriage certificate was signed.
Galadriel had dutifully done her part.
But in person, without the trappings and promises of her suitor’s beautifully written words, her ankles nearly shook in her boots. Perhaps she had made a grave mistake.
Ostirith wasn’t an established city, as she’d been made to believe, but a simple mining camp. There were no buildings or avenues of commerce. Just a hastily assembled collection of meager tents, a shabby mercantile and a saloon. It stood half-charred like it had been licked by the flames of hell itself.
“Sir, could you please direct me to the clerk’s office?” Galadriel asked of a man who hobbled past with a slight limp.
“Clerk’s office?” He looked at her as if she was speaking in tongues.
“Yes, is this not Ostirith?” Her letters had been addressed there. It was a known stop on the coach line. Surely it existed and she wasn’t deposited in the wrong location.
“We call this place Mordor, miss. You’d best be on your way.”
“No, I’m looking for the esteemed Mr. Halbrand? Perhaps he’s the law around these parts? The mayor or the sheriff?”
He turned to her then, revealing a grizzled and pocked face behind his stringy grey hair, and only cackled toothlessly at her distress.
“Ain’t no law around here.”
As if to prove his point, the door to the nearby saloon swung off its hinges, and a pair of bodies splashed forth into the soggy street. A blur of fists and blood landing mere steps away from where she stood.
“Don’t you know who I am?” One of the men had the other by the front of his shirt, and was pummeling a fist into the side of his head with a sickening crack. “Think you can steal from me!”
He was poised to deal a final blow until he looked up, straight to Galadriel. Hand raised mid-strike.
“You,” she thought she heard him whisper, his brows drawn in confusion. Or perhaps guilt.
The moment didn’t last long enough to be sure, as the man beneath him sprang to steal the advantage with an elbow to his face. It knocked him back enough for the other to break free and run towards her direction.
“Help me! Please!” he begged, just before a shot rang out and a mist of crimson spattered across her face and chest. The bullet exited the man’s skull and landed somewhere behind her. His features contorted in horror as he passed from life to death.
Shocked, she could only blink as he hit the ground with a thud.
“Welcome to Mordor,” said the one who’d done the shooting, as he replaced his pistol in his holster, and his hat on his head. Tipping it in her direction politely, he added, “Wife.”
“No, it can’t be,” she stammered and backed away.
Towards what, she had no idea. There was no place to run, and her coach had already departed.
He was too tall. His hair too wild and his shoulders too broad. Dressed in black from his hat to his boots, broken only by varying stages of dried mud and a shirt discolored to a dull grey. He was built for violence and cruelty, and she could see no outward evidence of tenderness or compassion in his disregard for the life he’d just taken.
She had a photograph of her intended, and it could not be him. But when she saw his eyes, as pinched as they were from the fray, she knew. With stark clarity.
“Halbrand Smith, a pleasure to meet you.” All of the pleasantries of a greeting were there, but none of the tone. He took her roughly by the arm and led her away as the fallen body was set upon not by vultures, but other men who picked his pockets and dragged him from the street.
“How’s the claim been paying out, Lord Sauron?” The toothless ogre she first spoke with inquired as he unclipped the dead man’s watch from his vest.
“Slowly, as always,” the man in black responded, without a backwards glance.
“You just shot him in the back!”
She staunched down the bile that rose at the sight burned into her eyes like a brand. Of another place and time. Blank blue eyes looking up at her from a dusty street. Blood pooling between the cobblestones like a river of red through a miniature city.
“You don’t know what he did,” was the only answer he could give her.
“You deceived me,” Galadriel accused, once he guided her gruffly into a corner chair in the smoke-filled hovel. A game of cards still strewn about the table. Overturned cups of whiskey dripped off the side.
“No, I simply told you what you wanted to hear.” He passed her a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe her face. He even moved as if to help her before she swatted his hand away.
“Yes. That’s called lies,” she sounded out slowly, as if he were addle-brained. He must’ve been, by how smugly he was regarding her.
Everything was ruined. Her dress, her boots. Her life. He was a killer. A murderer. An outlaw, likely. Lord Sauron had to have been his nickname. Like Wild Bill or Black Beard.
“Not one untruth. Fair as the sun and the sea, you remember? And my money was good. If you made assumptions about how I make my living, then that’s on you.”
Assumptions? She retraced her mind for any indication of the circumstances in his letters. Had they really been vague enough for her to imagine something so different? He wasn’t the sheriff or the mayor. Not even a lawyer. Just another prospector, as listless as the wind.
“What happened here?” she asked, finally.
“The tides of fate. They go in and out. Rise and fall. Fort Ostirith was burned to the ground by a marauding band of cowboys a few months ago. A feud over some horses. Most people left and moved on to Pelargir. Closer to the coast.”
“But not you?”
“That’s not where the gold is. I have my claim, and no one’s going to run me off my mountain.”
“And the man you killed. Was he trying to overrun?” Condemnation thickened her tone.
“You don’t approve of the way things are done here? You wrong someone, there’s no room for mercy. Or else they’ll just come back. You got to put them in the ground.” If he felt any regret, or wavered in his conviction that he believed that to be true, it didn’t show on his face.
“How could I ever marry a man like you?”
“I’ll just take my money back, then. And you can fend for yourself. No harm done.” He must’ve noticed the color drain from her face as the full weight of her situation bore down on her, because he flashed the most patronizing grin she’d ever seen. “Don’t have it, do you? Gave it your mother to help pay for your brother’s funeral.”
“I poured out my heart to you in confidence.” Her father’s death had put a large crack in her family. Her brother’s had shattered it completely. A ceramic pot scattered to pieces, too many to glue back together.
“As I did mine.”
“All those sugared words about capturing feelings and holding onto them, about finding peace with your soulmate, did you even write them yourself?”
“Every word.” He reached into his pocket and set down a tied bundle of bills onto the table. “Balance due upon delivery, as agreed. I’ll not be having you think I don’t keep my promises.”
Halbrand, if that was even his real name, offered her his hand to seal the agreement, but Galadriel did not take it. Instead, she secured the payment in her own purse and stood without his assistance.
“Let us get on with it then,” she grumbled.
By the time they’d sealed the deed and exited the preacher’s tent, the rain had begun to fall in a gentle, drizzling mist. Just enough to chill the tip of her nose and send the loose hairs from her braid curling around her face.
She felt soiled beyond just the environment and the effects of travel. It all felt wrong and unholy, despite the presence of a man of God. He may have had a collar, and a bible, but he reeked of decay, the same as everything else in the forsaken place.
Even her vows had felt hurried and empty, and in the haste, there hadn’t even been a kiss. Though, she took it as a blessing. His beard looked like it would scratch, and his lips were chapped and split.
No, he only held her hand too tightly, as if she’d flee, and she averted her eyes to the ceiling as he slipped a simple gold band around her finger. She’d brought her father’s ring as a gift to the man she thought she was marrying. A token of hope and trust. A bridge between her past and their future together.
She hated that something so fine was now in the possession of this stranger. Whose hands were still bloodied from the fight.
“Which of these illustrious tents are we to call home?” She couldn’t help but twist the knife of her indignation deeper, hoping to land a blow to his pride in the way he had sunk all of her dreams.
“My place is further up the trail a ways. Half a day’s ride in this weather,” he answered evenly. Impervious to her disdain.
Another leg to her journey, and it was well after midday already. Her disappointments appeared to be unending, and she groaned inwardly.
He paused at a hitching post in the middle of camp and untied the reins of a giant black gelding.
“Get on.” He held the mount steady as he offered her its left side stirrup.
“Wait, we’re leaving now?” The panicked shrill to her voice rose unbidden. She’d berate herself for the petulance another time.
“There’s been talk of a pack of wolves making their way through the foothills. Taking advantage of the early thaw. Don’t want to run into them at night.”
His explanation made sense, but she needed a minute to catch her bearings. Maybe to get something warm in her stomach. She felt like she was drowning, and he had her hog-tied to the bottom.
But she was a Noldor, and she steeled her spine rather than shrink from hardship.
“My trunk. Shall I resign to parting with it indefinitely?” They’d left it with the saloon keeper. Given what she’d seen of the clientele so far, it wouldn’t last long.
“It’ll be safe ‘til I can come back for it. And I got everything you’ll need before then.”
She doubted he had any idea what she needed, or how to give it to her, but she only nodded. And stood expectantly next to the horse, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next.
“You ever ridden before?”
“A pony once, at a traveling carnival show.” It was much smaller than his beast of flesh, and even then, she’d needed a mounting block.
He waited patiently, with his eyebrow arched high beneath the brim of his hat. The devil was going to make her say it.
“Can you assist me?” And when he only shifted his arms across his chest, she added an eternally reluctant, “Please.”
When she thought he would offer his hand, or his knee, he rudely circled her waist and tossed her onto the saddle like she was a sack of apples.
She fell into the seat with a bruising thud and a shocked squeak, barely adjusting before he positioned himself effortlessly at her back. The pummel of the saddle pressed uncomfortably at her mons and she shied from it, only to meet the wall behind her.
Trapped.
As they left the paltry civilization behind them, the ride was eerily silent, but for the squelching of the horse’s hooves in the mud and the occasional death wail of an animal somewhere off in the distance. Or at least she hoped it was far.
And when she began to weep, in slow, fat tears that mixed with rain on her cheeks, he wrapped his coat around her shoulders and tucked her head gently under his chin.
No doubt mistaking her sorrow for the cold.
Galadriel made every attempt to fall asleep, in the hopes of waking to find it was all just a nightmare, but it never found her.
Fate declared instead that she would feel every bump along the trail and every change in the growing storm. As they passed through winding creek beds and scaled higher into the hills, the rain gave way to a gentle, foggy snow.
When they slowed to a stop, she was relieved to find that the far-off forest he felt so compelled to rush her into before nightfall included a log cabin. Though, she would have slept on a thicket of thorns if it got her off his damn horse.
She imagined that she could enjoy riding given the chance. It was merely the closeness of her companion that chaffed more than the ache between her legs.
If she could only get the blood to flow back into them, she was sure she could get down without his help, but he secured her with a hand to her hip before she could move. He dismounted quickly and swept her off the horse, and her feet, in one graceful motion.
“You can put me down now,” she commanded, as he walked them both towards the door. But it lacked any bite, as her voice was breathless and hoarse from disuse and surprise.
“Nonsense. It’s only tradition to carry one’s wife across the threshold. A last act of kindness before robbing you of your maidenhead.” The sarcasm with which he said it implied that he’d had doubts about her virtue.
“You’re disgusting,” she replied, with renewed fervor. The shiver to her core surely came from blood reentering the region after the ride, and not any sort of morbid curiosity as to how their night would end.
“And you think mighty highly of yourself.”
“You smell like...” She wished to say something scathing. Like pig shit or pruned feet too long set in tight, damp boots.
But words failed her as he stared down at her expectantly. Soft eyes framed by rain and sweat-darkened lashes. Her nose so close to his chest, she could feel it rise and fall. It inched closer and retreated again with each lungful.
The silence lingered for a moment too long, and his breath slowed to a faint whisper. And then gone completely. So still, it was as if the moment stopped in time.
“You’re shaking,” he stated plainly, breaking the spell, as he set her down and ran the back of his soot-darkened fingers down her cheek. It was likely to leave a trail of grime in its place, no matter how soft his touch. A black stain on her pale skin.
“It’s cold,” she lied. The tiny cabin was the warmest she’d been in weeks, from the coals still smoldering in the iron stove and the heat of his attention. It was just too much, and she’d had such a long day—a long life, come to think of it—she worried that she’d finally give in to the darkness and faint. “I’ve heard that the act can be done quickly, so I bid you show me some mercy for the inconvenience of this...union and get on with it.”
“Oh, Galadriel. Galloping blindly across the country into the arms of a stranger. Was it really mercy you expected to find?”
“And you? Buying a wife, and at such a high price at that. Surely, if you were lonely enough, you could’ve just gotten a dog.”
“But how could I have resisted you, when none could be as affectionate and docile as you professed to be in your letters. You’ve made yourself the liar, wife. Perhaps I will be merciful and not toss you aside once I’ve tired of your foul mood.”
It was an empty threat, judging by the amusement dancing in his eyes, and one that certainly didn’t scare her.
“It seems we will be forced to bear each other for the duration of this wretched life, husband. Let us pray it be not overly long.”
While she had not intended it to be funny at all, merely a matching threat that she could dispatch him in his sleep and no one would find the body, he laughed at her then. A charming sound that lacked the mockery she would have expected.
“You’ve got guts. I didn’t see that one coming.”
“You’ll come to regret it, I promise you.” She found herself grinning back, and her gaze fell upon the photograph he kept by his bedside. Next to a copy Paradise Lost.
It was the only one she had of herself, taken five years before, and she’d sent it to him during their correspondence. The gentle smile on her face and the hopeful luster in her eyes seemed so different from the reflection that greeted her in the mirror as of late.
Halbrand had called her untruthful, but he was wrong. She’d been affectionate and kind-hearted once and felt that with this new start, she could be again. And docile had been something she’d always aspired to be. At peace.
She reached into her purse and retrieved the photograph that he had sent her. His fine suit and polished haircut. His smooth cheeks and chin. Eyes proud and shoulders held high.
“When was this taken?”
“Before the war. When I’d finished at Aule’s College.” He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. It fell back again in chin length curls. Unkept and neglected like the hair on his face.
The darkness had begun to fall through the windows, and he lit an oil lamp for light.
“What should we call him? He’s not Halbrand. Or Lord Sauron.” The match illuminated his hands, and her attention fixed on the dirt in his nail beds that would never come clean.
“Mairon. That’s the name I used then. And what about this one here?” He motioned to her photo. It was cleaner around the edges than his faded portrait, but no less deceitful she supposed.
“Artanis. It’s what my father called me, when he wasn’t cross over my behavior. It meant something in his native tongue, but he never shared it with me.”
“Do you think they would’ve gotten along, had they met back then?”
“Perhaps. Saved each other maybe. Or torn each other to pieces. Who’s to say.” She placed his photo next to hers on the table. For better or for worse, they were together now.
“Why did you pick me? You must’ve gotten many responses after overselling your virtues so masterfully.” The mockery returned as if he had two faces.
“I didn’t pick you at all. I chose him.” She held up his letters that had accompanied the weathered photograph in her purse.
Maybe he was still somewhere within the monster who’d spilled blood so casually and without remorse back at the camp. Or maybe he was gone forever.
Or just maybe, Mairon was what Lord Sauron aspired to be again, when he found his peace.
“Hard-headed.”
“What?” His declaration pulled her back from her own thoughts.
“Artanis. It means hard-headed.” He looked over his shoulder from where he was making a fire in the hearth.
“It does not!”
“It’s up for interpretation, I suppose. Lofty, highfaluting—”
“Those are not even remotely the same thing.” How could she have thought he was well-educated? He was clearly a fraud.
“Says you, who doesn’t even know Quenya.” He unfolded from his crouch and returned to towering over her again.
“I know plenty. And it sounds more like you’re just teasing me.” She could see it in the way the light caught in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
“Fine, princess then. I guess that would be the closest interpretation.”
“You’re still teasing me.”
“No, I wouldn’t dare. Not when you’re finally here. I’ve been dreaming of this day since your first letter.” He reached down and cleared a stray hair that had fallen in front of her face.
Another gentle touch. Another stain.
She had been so focused on her own situation that she hadn’t considered whether he was similarly disappointed. Her foul mood notwithstanding.
“And how do you find me? Do I meet your lofty standards?” She intentionally tossed his own word back to him.
She didn’t dare look down to be reminded of the state of her dress and boots. Had the rain been kind enough to wash the blood spatter from her hair? Were her cheeks as flushed as she felt on the inside? His scrutiny, as outwardly calm as he appeared, scorched like fiery ropes of hunger lashing at her from within.
He was going to kiss her. Those full, foul lips hovered just above hers before he paused, shifting his gaze up to her eyes instead. He blinked quickly, as if realizing something for the first time.
“Was that the first dead body you’ve seen since Finrod?”
It was the last thing she expected him to say. To remind her of her brother when they were poised to be so intimate. He was about to demand his husbandly reward, wasn’t he?
But she had never felt so perceived. It had been the source of her unease all day. The root of her suffering. Her fears. So much death. So much despair. It was the reason she left the Five Points of New York behind and took off on her own into some great unknown.
With him as her only tether. And there he was, standing in front of her. Knowing her mind.
She could only nod, her breath caught behind her tongue. As it seemed to do when he was regarding her so intensely.
“I’m sorry. For that to be how we were acquainted.” His hand fell from her face, and he stood up straighter. It gave her sudden space in the crowded room, for he took up most of it. “You should get some sleep.”
Sleep. It felt like years since she’d last closed her eyes, not hours. The bed sat cozily in the corner opposite the cook stove. It beckoned her to slip beneath the covers and rest. It wasn’t at all what she’d envisioned, but it would have to do.
“Will you be joining me?” It was a silly question, but she asked it anyway once she found her voice again.
There was only one, and the two chairs that faced the hearth were suited more for rocking and reading than sleeping.
He seemed surprised that she’d asked, judging by the brief calculation in his expression. Only to be quickly replaced by a devilish slant to his eyebrows and a wolfish grin.
“Keep it warm for me. I stay up late.” And then he disappeared, out into the darkness. Leaving her behind in the light.
Although the bed was blessedly soft, and the pillows smelled like wild roses, Galadriel tossed and turned in his absence. There was a scratching at the walls, like tree branches scraping against the wood. It scurried around the roof and back down again. Not maliciously, like something supernatural or some kind of predator.
Her stagecoach driver had warned her that grizzly bears and mountain lions were common to the area, but this was much smaller. And somehow, she could tell it was friendlier as well. She didn’t dare poke her head outside to investigate, so she set her curiosity on the inside of the cabin instead.
Lamp in hand, she perused the titles on his bookshelf and the pantry cupboard he’d stocked with tinned beans and dried spices. She found the end of a loaf of bread that was free of mold, and the grumble in her stomach reminded her that she had basic needs to fill. Even when her mind was otherwise occupied.
Breaking off a piece, she spied something about knee high tucked into the corner, concealed by a stack of furs. As she peeled away the layers, she found it to be a baby’s cradle. Freshly made, the wood was still bright and fragrant. It was such a simple thing, but it sent a pang straight to her heart.
“Are you trying to find my gold? Planning to run off in the night?” The door opened and he was standing there, icy rain dripping from his coat before she even had time to be startled.
“No, just some food.” She held up the bread she’d found. “I haven’t eaten since the coach. An odd, scratching sound woke me up. Do you know what it could’ve been?”
“A raccoon. Been snooping around all week. Trying to get in.”
“A raccoon?” she sounded it out and found it fun to say.
“You don’t have them in New York?”
“We have rats in New York. Are they cute?” It sounded cute.
“They make nice hats,” he shrugged absently and opened the cupboard. “I suppose you’ll have to add being a terrible host to my long list of hangable offenses.” He produced a cloth-wrapped block of cheese and a jar of preserves. “This is your home now, too. What’s mine is yours. Don’t be afraid to help yourself.”
“Did you build it?” she asked, around a mouthful of the sticky, sweetened slice of bread.
“I made everything in here. As fine a craftsman as you’ll ever see.” He cut off pieces of the cheese with the dagger at his hip and set them out on a wooden plate.
She thought of him sewing the rose petals into his pillows. Threading a dainty needle with the same hands that forged the iron pots and pans. That carved the two rocking chairs in front of the fire. One for him, and one for her.
“And the cradle, too?”
He flexed his jaw, a muscle tightening in his cheek as he finished chewing, long and slow.
“If it’s to be, it could be useful. Not fair for you to be alone all the time when I’m gone.”
“Do you spend most of your day at the mines?”
“No, my own creek. It’s got a nice bit of color that ain’t run dry yet. I don’t work for no one but myself anymore.”
“And at night? What were you doing out there?”
“Watching and listening. For lamp lights and pick axes. If people knew what I have, they’d come looking for it.”
“It’s richer isn’t it, than what you told the man at camp?” He didn’t so much as nod than briefly incline his head in assent. “You’re more than you appear to be, Halbrand Smith. In many ways, I think.”
“Got it all planned out, is all.”
“And me? Was a wife always part of your plan?” She was amazed at how her mood improved when she was warm, dry, and fed. The clean part could be solved easily enough as soon as she found a basin and a chip of soap.
“Not at first, but I saw your ad. You sounded so...sad. A little lonely even, but brave too.”
“You got all that from two lines in the paper?” She scoffed at him, knowing full well how he had perceived her yet again.
She’d been so good at keeping her true feelings hidden behind her own mask. A deep inner life that she’d never been able to share. Except to her brother sometimes, and in her letters to him.
When she licked the last of the jelly from her fingers, he was staring at her again. In that way that set her stomach fluttering. There was no hiding his true feelings, as his lashes fell to the opening at the neck of her chemise. Where it dipped low along her bosom.
There was no use in delaying the inevitable. Best to get it over with, like digging out a splinter or untangling a knot from her hair. She made her decision as she turned away from him, reached down, and pulled it up over her head by the hem. She felt her nakedness in the way her hair tickled down her spine and stopped just above her bottom.
“I don’t have to look at you, do it?” she asked, when it appeared that he wasn’t taking any sort of hint. All she could hear behind her was the clinking of his gun belt on the table and the thud of his boots.
“Have you done this before?” he asked from behind her, near enough that she felt the words against her bare shoulder.
“You know I haven’t.” If he was going to keep teasing her, she was going to lose her nerve. And she so wanted to get it right. Not because she cared what he thought, of course. It was only for the sake of her own pride.
She felt his hand slip into hers as he spun her around to face him.
“Keep your eyes closed, if it pleases you. But know that I am going to look my fill.”
He spoke the last against her lips as they parted with surprise. A sharp intake of air that opened the door to let him inside. His tongue wasted no time slipping in, salty and sweet. She couldn’t have recoiled if she wished to. His hand cupped behind her head, and he swept her from her feet for the second time that day.
This time, he looped an arm under her ass and her legs parted around his hips. When her sensitive skin brushed against him, she realized it wasn’t his trousers but that separated them. As he broke away long enough to set her onto the bed, she peeked an eye open to find that he was naked too. Long, thick arms tanned below the elbow and lighter to the shoulders. A chest dappled with dark hair that descended lower still.
She quickly squeezed them both shut again as she reached the end of the trail, and he resumed his fervent kisses along her collarbone. Down the valley between her breasts.
“I don’t think this is how you make a...child,” Galadriel stuttered and shook beneath the hands that trapped her to the bed.
She’d witnessed dogs in the act of mating before. Heard the feral cats from her window as she read by candlelight against her mother’s wishes. It was always crude and quick, and sounded like it hurt.
Instead, Halbrand’s head found its way between her thighs. His slow kisses from scratchy lips softened by her slick. She had never felt so warm, or...wet. Her pulse beat against her ears so wildly, she hoped she wasn’t getting sick. That this wasn’t how she was meant to die.
“We’re not making anything if we don’t do something about this tight little pussy, hmmm?”
She would’ve thought him drunk with the way he slurred and hummed the words headily around her flesh. Making hungry, vulgar noises as he lapped and sucked.
She would’ve squirmed away from the sensation of it if he didn’t have her anchored with a firm arm across her middle. A big, rough palm pressed just above the mound of her sex.
She would’ve fought him off if he didn’t surprise her with a quick bite to the bud of her arousal, one that made her yelp and howl. A pass of his tongue that sent her seeing new colors and melting into the bedding with a fresh wave that had her crying out and clutching the blankets.
Yes, she was most certainly dying. God himself would be on the other side of whatever this feeling was.
“Now, breathe,” he ordered, against the skin of her stomach as he shifted position. “And look at me.”
When a sudden pressure replaced the ebbing current, her eyes fluttered open. But it wasn’t God like she feared. All she saw was him.
Galadriel slipped from the bed unnoticed and shrugged on Halbrand’s discarded shirt. It hung down to her knees as she padded barefoot to the outhouse just behind the cabin. As the first of the light began to bloody the sky, she was stunned to find that she’d been bloodied too. It crusted pink between her thighs.
It hadn’t been especially painful. At least not as much as the cats and dogs had made it seem. She’d gladly take it over combing through a particularly nasty tangle at the base of her neck.
She’d go so far as to say it was rather...nice, and she caught herself smiling fondly at the way he’d fallen asleep so peacefully beside her. Crowding the bed and giving her no choice but to lay half atop him. A leg hooked over his.
Would anything about her life ever be as she expected?
Just as she was about to finish her business, she heard a familiar scratching at the door. It seemed her nocturnal visitor was still up and about.
“I’ll be done it a minute, then you can have your turn,” she assured it, with a giggle.
But her moment of fun was cut short by the sound of a gunshot.
“No, Halbrand! You wouldn’t!” she cried, as she opened the door to stop him from making a hat out of her harmless friend.
Except, it wasn’t Halbrand. Another man snuck up behind her and clamped a grimy hand around her mouth, cutting off her scream. The blade of a knife pressed against her throat.
“I knew you’d be around here somewhere.” It was the man from the camp. With greasy grey hair and the toothless grin. He staggered to his right side, just as she remembered. There was a slight hitch in his gait as he dragged her back to the house.
Her house, she repeated inwardly as his words played over in her mind. If people knew what I have, they’d come looking for it.
“You’re going to regret this,” she promised aloud.
“Galadriel!” Halbrand called out for her, desperately as she rounded the corner by the woodpile.
He stood on the front porch, shotgun aimed at the three men who’d take position in the front. Their pistols weren’t drawn, but they had their hands poised at the ready on their holsters.
They must’ve have awoken him from bed, because he was still naked. Though he seemed unbothered considering the circumstances.
“You fucking touch her, and I’ll gut you, Waldreg,” he threatened.
“Put the shotgun down, Halbrand. Or he’ll open your pretty new wife’s throat.” It was the preacher who spoke up as if he had a position of power among the others. “We’d much rather leave her in one piece. Take her as well as your claim.”
He was the one who married them the day before. Morgoth. Yes, that was his name. Gone was the collar around his neck, and the bible in his hand.
Had Halbrand known? Had he laid this trap so that his enemies would come looking?
“I knew you cowards couldn’t face me by yourselves. You’d wait until I had something to lose.” He did look regretful then. His eyes met hers as he pointed the barrel of the gun to the ground. “You weren’t supposed to leave the cabin.”
And he wasn’t supposed to fall asleep.
It was all clearer then. His plans. Fate’s intervention. They were the cowboys that burned Ostirith to the ground. And he’d been one of them. This was how he was to be free of it.
“I’m sorry,” she smiled back to him, tearfully, as she sunk back against her captor. Helplessly limp against the point of his knife.
She put all her weight on his weakened leg and reached for the axe that lay against the chopping block, praying it was within reach. While he careened off balance, her palm met the handle, and she swung it with all of her might.
The blunt end made contact with his skull in a crushing, satisfying thump.
The distraction was enough, and Halbrand was the quickest to react. He fired two shots before the gun jammed, just as he leveled it at the preacher. Who only smiled, a revolting flash of teeth.
“Me and you, boy. Just as it was always meant to be.” Instead of drawing his gun on Halbrand, he turned it to Galadriel.
Just as he cocked back the hammer, Halbrand charged at him, spearing him to the ground. But not before he fired off a shot.
They wrestled the revolver viciously between them, trading punishing blows, until Halbrand was finally able to knock it away. He had the older man pinned, and he pulled a knife from Morgoth’s boot.
“I’m not your son,” Halbrand snarled, drawing the blade across his throat.
As soon as he was sure the man was defeated, he turned to her with dread.
“Galadriel?”
“I wasn’t entirely truthful about where I came from, dearest husband,” she panted as she let the ax drop from her hands. “I am no stranger to violence. When the situation requires—”
He was upon her before she could finish speaking, holding her so tightly, as if to ensure that she was still whole. His lips searched hers, to prove that she was still breathing. Galadriel did a reconnaissance of her own, grateful to inhale the breath from his lungs and taste life on his tongue.
No words needed to be exchanged, as he pulled her to the dank, dark ground. His shirt still around her shoulders, it shielded her back from the cold. With no pleasantry, and no preparation, he sunk deep inside her. Filled her up with the entirety him, to take back—and give back—anything that was lost in the short time they were apart.
As if he’d never left.
He fisted her hair in his hands as he held her head out of the dirt and her knees up around her ears, quickening his pace and striking an otherworldly chord over and over again.
It was the primal desire, the beastly abandon that she’d expected from him from the beginning. The feral sounds of skin and slick. Of wanting and need. They rung out like the death wails that greeted them along the trail.
But she never anticipated that it would come from herself, as she surged and rose to meet him. Breath for breath, she matched his assault. Tooth and claw, she bit into his chest and scratched at his backside to bring him even closer. To bind him to her very being.
The death and darkness and despair. She had run from it, but it found her again. Perhaps it always would. Perhaps she had no choice but to embrace it, wrap it up tightly and store it away. Bury it deep in the ground, so it couldn’t come back.
And as he bore down for one final barrage, he lengthened his stride. Drew out slowly, and struck again, like the tamping of iron into steel. She felt it in her bones, hard enough to strengthen rather than bruise. As the forge burned molten blue within her and he took his final release, Galadriel was finally able to see the light.
The rain came down in buckets and they barely left the shelter of cabin for nearly a week, aside from the outhouse and to fetch water from the rain barrel. And to leave a few treats outside for her raccoon friend.
Staying mostly abed, they were lost to anyone but each other. They kept the fire lit in the hearth, and in the closeness of their entwined bodies.
When the sun eventually decided to show its beautiful face, he would bring her down to the creek in the early morning light, and they’d pan the beds for the precious treasure the earth deigned to set free. In the evenings, he’d teach her to hunt for game, and they’d clean their spoils and cook their feasts.
Once they rode back into Mordor for supplies and retrieved her trunk, she’d share the books she brought from home. A bit of Jane Austen to brighten his collection.
But until then, there in the cabin he’d built with his own hands, they had everything they needed. Just the two of them, forever long as their lives should be. Unless the tides of fate had any other surprises left in store.