Mooflat

𝐴𝑅𝐴𝐺𝑂𝑅𝑁

・You were cheered out of the banquet hall and he led you to your new rooms, which were his.

・They were the King's Chambers.

・And you had waited for this for a long time.

・He walked with you, arm in arm, into the room.

・Aragorn looked down at you, tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and kissed your hand.

"Well, wife..." he knelt down and took off your shoes. Kissing each foot in the process.

・"Well, husband..." you undid his shirt and placed it over the chair.

・He was bare and you were eager to have him

"Aragorn..." you groaned, feeling his skin; warm, freckled, and broad. Both hands roamed, until they reached his britches and you looked at him.

"Go ahead," he nodded at you and gave you a particular smile you had only seen a few times.

・You tugged down his pants and freed his cock.

・It was girthy and long, and it made you salivate.

・You tugged it a few times and Aragorn moaned.

"Is that okay, husband?"

・He nodded and leaned back.

・You pushed him on the bed and you both laughed.

・You climbed the foot of the bed and focused on Aragorn's cock.

・Your hand wrapped around him and pulled gently. Over and over again, until he was completely hard.

・Then you opened your mouth and placed his cock inside.

𝐿𝐸𝐺𝑂𝐿𝐴𝑆

"You are the other half of me, my light, my hope."

・You two were naked in bed, both recovering, from the first round of love making.

・His cock was still hard inside you.

・Everytime you moved, he groaned. It made you shiver with anticipation for the next round.

・He brought his lips to yours. His mouth was so soft, his kiss controlled.

・But you wanted to break his composure.

・You whimpered softly and it made Legolas grunt in satisfaction

・He ground his hips, over and over again, and you met him with each movement.

・He hovered close, so close that you could count his dark eyelashes. And you felt so full, so satisfied that you felt yourself tear up.

・Legolas kissed you then, and wiped away the forming tears.

・A giddy feeling arose inside you, of how much you loved this elf.

𝐸𝐿𝑅𝑂𝐻𝐼𝑅

・You were both on the floor of the chamber, hands and legs entwined, talking about your future.

"How many children should we have?" You blurted out, a blush forming on your face.

"As many as you want, my love." Elrohir replied, kissing the knuckles on your hand.

・You leaned over and kissed him. The kiss was sweet, love pouring through it from you to your husband.

・Something in the kiss changed. It went from sweet to desperate.

・He was on top of you before you knew it, a knee between your legs, spreading them for easy access.

・Elrohir undressed you, slow and deliberate.

・You groaned as he kissed down your neck, your cleavage and stomach.

・He opened your legs, slowly and gently. Kissing the inside of your thighs, he groaned at your wet core.

・He licked his lips, and slid two finger inside of you. And you moaned from the stretch.

"More, I want more," you whimpered.

𝐸𝐿𝐿𝐴𝐷𝐴𝑁

・It happened so quickly, first you were celebrating in the hall with your closest friends and family, then you were alone in bed with Elladan.

・Maybe it was nerves or the excitement. But you were suddenly aching to have your husband's cock inside you.

・And he felt that same heat

・Elladan brushed your cheek, it was a slow movement, gentle, loving.

・It made tears form in your eyes, because reflected in his own was love; pure devotion.

・He didn't say a word but you knew how he felt. Because you felt the same. Love.

・A hand slid down between your forms, underneath your nightgown and up between your thighs.

・You let out a moan, breathy and desperate.

"I need more," you whimpered, clutching your husbands arm, kissing his lips.

"Legs apart," he growled, and you did as you were told.

・His fingers toyed with you, massaging your clit, then sinking inside you. Pumping in and out.

・Elladan listened to your noises, and cooed down at you, "you're doing so well, my love."

𝐵𝑂𝑅𝑂𝑀𝐼𝑅

・Boromir held you close to him. Your back to his chest. Arms wrapped around you; golden and muscled.

"How does it feel?" He asked you, kissing your shoulder.

"How does what feel?" You giggled.

"To be my wife?" You smiled then, and looked behind you.

"It feels ... pretty good," you said teasingly.

・He laughed then. Hearty and true.

・You smiled, and leaned back against his chest. You could feel his heartbeat against your back. It was fast. A thump thump thump and you realised yours was going just as quick.

・You felt something hard pressed against your lower back and it made you feel aroused.

・You had to do something about it, because Boromir wouldn't make the first move. Not when this was your first time. So you did.

"Touch me," you whispered.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," you moved one of his hands and pressed it against your breast. He squeezed, and groaned, and you sighed.

・His other hand went down your skirt and hiked it up around your waist. He grabbed at your thighs, feeling the soft skin. You sighed from how good it felt.

・You opened your legs even further and moved his hand down to your core.

"I need you inside me, husband."

"Whatever you desire, wife."

・His large hand felt the wetness from your cunt, and licked it from his fingers.

・You watched as he did so, and you became insatiable.

"I need your cock."

𝐸𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑅

・After the horesing ceremony, the two of you ended up in his chambers, now it was yours as well

・You were heightened from the excitement of the day, of riding the horse and your hair whipping in the wind.

・Eomer couldn't stop smiling, you were officially his. And everyone knew it.

・The candles flickered and warmed the room, dancing across the ceiling and making you feel a certain way.

"What would my bride like to do next?" Eomer stepped towards you and reached for your hand.

・You give it to him, and guided it around your side, down towards your ass.

"I can think of something-"

・His eyes darkened, and he stepped closer.

"Well, you'll have to earn it-"

"How?"

"Run..."

・You grew warm and did as he said.

・The room was big enough, and you ran around the bed.

"If you catch me, then what?"

"You'll just have to wait and see."

・He was a lot quicker than you thought. You leapt over the bed and aorund the dining table.

・But he caught you eventually, and when he did, he got you over his shoulder and threw you onto the bed.

・He lifted your skirts and pulled down your undergarments

"Wife," he muttered, kissing your thighs.

𝐺𝐿𝑂𝑅𝐹𝐼𝑁𝐷𝐸𝐿

・In your new shared room, the tension was tight.

・You loved watching your husband. And he loved watching you.

・In mere seconds Glorfindel had discarded his top; his skin warm and tanned. Golden hair long and braided, as well as adorned with flowers.

・You had both had been drinking the special mead made by the elves. Well, as was everyone at the wedding reception.

・It was part of the reason why you were both ... wanting, now. And you saw how wanting he was. Because you saw where he strained against his britches.

・You looked at him and then you lay on your back, exposed and wanting. You were utterly at his mercy.

・He strode towards you, palming himself

"Do you want this?" he uttered, and you nodded, verbally agreeing also.

・As he laid down behind you, he took your face in his hands and admired you.

・His eyes blazed with heat

"Do you want me to take care of you?"

・You nodded and that's all it took before he took out his cock and lifted one of your legs.

𝐹𝐴𝑅𝐴𝑀𝐼𝑅

・You had been waiting for this day for months

・All you wanted was to call him husband, and now you are finally able

・When you get back to your shared chambers, there's flowers everyhere, along with flower petals on the floor and on the bed

・It makes you smile.

"Did you do this?" You ask, clasping his arm.

"Well, I had help-" he grinned down at you, and lifted you into his arms. He spun you around and laughed.

・You felt like marriage with Faramir would be a happy thing.

・With night underway, you and Faramir sat on the bed and spoke about the day. Well, that was until you felt a heat in your core.

・You felt warm, slightly wet, and you wanted your husband in a way that you hadn't had him before.

・You moved closer, and the eyes you gave him made Faramir understand. He still smiled at you, reaching out and cupping your cheek.

"I love you," he said, and leant forward. When he kissed your lips, he was slow, sensual. He climbed ontop of you and got inbetween your legs.

・Hiking up your skirts, Faramir felt your thighs, then up, up, up, to your core. Slick and silky, he played with you.

"Don't tease me, I need you," you groaned and widened your legs for him.

・He slipped his fingers in his mouth and licked your juices off.

So firstly I’ve realised this guy is actually the most useful character across the entire legendarium in terms of deciphering Westerly racial attitudes towards the Haradrim (yeah the First Age Elves were kind of racist about Ulfang and the other men from the East but also First Age Elves would have been racist about a bumblebee with one extra stripe so ngl their opinions on this front mean very little to me ☠️). 

Obviously Tolkien’s own deeply conservative views on race are prevalent across the legendarium but it’s exactly that which makes it difficult to pick out, in a Watsonian sense, the individual racial opinions of the Westerly peoples of Middle Earth aside from what the Hobbits swiftly develop from saplings in Scouring of the Shire. And so it is in the section of The Two Towers beginning with Frodo and Sam running into Faramir and his men where we get the majority of any actual dialogue about the Haradrim, as opposed to omniscient narration. Where due to the amount of interiority and political speech afforded to Faramir on this matter, we actually get to see the ideology rather than just its consequences. 

“...they (the Stewards) made a truce with the proud peoples of the North, who often had assailed us, men of fierce valour, but our kin from afar off, unlike the wild Easterlings or the cruel Haradrim." (Book 2 Ch V, THE TWO TOWERS)

And it’s actually in the above quote from Faramir that we see it implied that the Gondorians consider the men of Rhûn and Harad as inferior/separate even beyond the military sense, because obviously Gondor wasn’t exactly friendly with the men of the North either (which he straight up says) and yet they count as kin. And yes, I also wondered whether he might just be referring to the Edain/Blessed Men, but that wouldn’t make too much sense since he obviously married Eowyn, whose lineage is not Edain/exiled Numenorean but Atanatári, ie ‘middle men’ (more on this later). 

And this isn’t just a single moment. I also noticed another quote by Faramir when I was reading ‘The Wretched of Middle Earth’ by Charles E Mills (brilliant essay, go read, etc), where Faramir states: “…the enemy increases and we decrease. We are a failing people, a springless autumn… childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry.” And again, this language of once-great races decaying as the barbarians bay at the gates is prevalent in a racial ideology that was present in Tolkien’s time, but also absolutely present in contemporary racial discourse, and especially so in Western, Central and Northern Europe, where I can point to you multiple cases of this exact language being used in present-day Germany regarding immigration even by seemingly liberal-minded sources.

Now this isn’t a personal judgement of Faramir’s character by any means, and I’m not at all saying he’s an individually terrible character or what not: quite the contrary. It’s clearly just a product of circumstance, in being tasked with defending what was essentially the border at the time, he and his men pretty much have the viewpoint of any border guard now or then, ie a tendency to demonify/dehumanise those outside it in order to keep the artificial border artificially sealed. And considering that border was also a border with orcs, by whose hand so many Gondorian men have died, who are (in-universe) absolutely seen to be inhuman/subhuman/‘created’... it perfectly gels with him being the one who narratively establishes the racial hierarchy, in which ‘men of darkness’ are seen as adjacent to the subhuman. 

[Sam] was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was, and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace… [Book 2 Ch IV, THE TWO TOWERS]

This was actually something that irritated me about the Jackson films: the scene above where Sam in the book looks at the corpse of a Haradrim soldier, wonders if he ever wanted to leave home, what lies and threats must have brought him so far. And it’s quite literally the only moment in the books where a single shred of empathy is shown towards the ‘swarthy men’ on the other side of the war, yet in the films that scene and dialogue was given to Faramir who says it about a very young Haradrim soldier. I assume it was to establish him as kind/soft-hearted from the moment he appears on screen, an impulse I understand (even though his character establishes it multiple times with his other actions), but I just think it’s pretty unrealistic for a military commander whose men actually did the killing to say such a thing. Whereas it’s perfectly characteristic coming from Sam, a figure who just really fucking wants to go home, who knows very little about the men from the South, and in terms of his class position as well, is well placed to understand people being forced to do things they would not normally wish to do. 

Like I said in my first paragraph, the argument for empire is always most dangerous in the mouth of its kindest defender, and Faramir is Gondor's most thoughtful defender: a man who explicitly rejects the crude form of imperial ambition, who tells Frodo in that he would not have Minas Tirith be a “mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves”, and who makes this declaration in the same conversation in which he describes a taxonomy of Men that places the Haradrim categorically outside the circle of kinship of Men. 

He disavows the slave-mistress model of empire while maintaining the ideology that produces it, and so very clearly demonstrating the cognitive structure of the liberal imperialist: the rejection of empire's worst expression alongside the preservation of the framework of racial and civilisational hierarchy, the language which makes empire's gentler expressions feel less like violence and more like stewardship, the natural responsibility of the high toward the lesser. 

And I’m not pulling this out of my ass, because this is again seen in Gondor’s history with the Haradrim. There’s a tribute system that Tolkien mentions almost in passing: Haradrim chieftains were compelled to pay tribute to Gondor as well as send their sons to be raised in Gondor's courts following Hyarmendacil I's conquests in the early Third Age. Which reads, against the backdrop of the racial taxonomy Faramir establishes here, as darker than standard militaristic tribute systems. The practice of taking the sons of conquered rulers and raising them at the conquering court is obviously ancient and widespread: the Ottomans did it with the devshirme, Rome did it with the children of client kings, the British did versions of it across the nineteenth century in India and Africa etc etc… in each case the stated rationale was acculturation, which essentially produced a leadership class that would govern their people in a way acceptable to the imperial centre.

And similarly, with what is said by Faramir read alongside that moment of Gondor’s history, it’s clear that the Gondorian court doing the acculturating held an explicitly articulated position that the people being acculturated were not kin, were not of the circles of higher men, were inherently ‘cruel’ ‘men of darkness’. And so these boys would have learned Westron, Gondorian law and custom, the history of their own people through the chronicle of their conquerors, essentially learned to see themselves through the eyes of a civilisation that considered them subhuman. 

That this policy resoundingly failed, ie that the Haradrim returned to Sauron's service repeatedly across the Third Age and that by the War of the Ring they were marching in force toward Mordor is, from within Gondor's own framework as well as that of the Oxford-educated early 20th century conservative, inexplicable, because the framework has no mechanism for understanding violent resistance as a rational response to the ‘kindness’ done to the ‘lesser races’. From Gondor and the cultural centres of the ‘irl’ imperial core (see again: Oxford), the trajectory makes perfect sense: that people who were conquered, tributarised, had their sons taken, categorised as inherently lesser by the culture doing all of the above, would ultimately turn once more to Sauron.

And this choice is of course intended to be incomprehensible to both the assumed reader and the Gondorians themselves, because to us it’s narratively clear that Sauron’s deeds were monstrous and his service was destructive both physically and environmentally. Which is why the trajectory makes perfect sense to both audiences: the Haradrim, the Oriental stand-ins, make such a choice because they are ontologically irrational. They will always choose evil, because that is their inherent nature, because they are subhuman, only a few steps removed from beings created for the purpose of evil. Where the tragedy is that everyone had reasons to choose what they did, and frankly I’m not a big Sauron guy at all but I’ll be honest, if all my sons and fathers and everyone was sent to the Gondorian courts to be taught that they suck ass and that I’m bad at Westron class because I’m adjacent to an orc, I might just reconsider and be like okay then fuck it if you bitches say I’m an orc then you know what, I’m an orc. 

Anyway, that taxonomy passage and the childless lords one are some of if not the most explicit statements of Gondorian racial thinking anywhere in the books, and I found it so fascinating how it comes from Gondor’s most morally admirable character. Faramir divides Men into the High (Númenóreans and their kin), the Middle Peoples (those who have had contact with Elvish influence and the Edain tradition and are simply not Edain due to geographical reasons or choices made in the Beleriand days), and the men of darkness (the Haradrim and the Easterlings explicitly, those who repeatedly served the Enemy of their own free will).

And it’s such an interesting statement because it converts a geopolitical and historical situation, where peoples born within Sauron's sphere of influence across many generations, conscripted into his service by the full apparatus of a dark lord's coercive and violent power (do we believe he wouldn’t use orcs to quell rebellion within the Haradrim?), into a statement about moral character/will, something essential instead of contingent. And that’s imperial ideology in a nutshell, where the historical is turned into the ontological, so that the people on the ‘wrong’ side of a military power relationship appear to occupy said ‘wrong’ position because of what they are instead of where, or who, or why they are there.

And the reason I called this ‘ominous’ with reference to the Fourth Age instead of just interesting is because of Faramir’s institutional position after the Ring War. He’s the Prince of Ithilien, ie recovered border territory that would become a frontier zone due to its adjacency to the near south, as well as Steward of Gondor under Aragorn. And due to this position, where Aragorn is obviously now in charge of multiple administrative zones and aside from his Thorongil ship-burning adventures in Umbar, had little prolonged contact with the Haradrim unlike Faramir whose adult life was spent maintaining that border, would make it very likely that Faramir would be made one of the primary architects of the relationship between the Reunited Kingdom and the peoples it is expanding into, ie the enforced surrender of the Haradrim and the retaking of Umbar.

Where the man who builds the policy toward Harad holds a considered view that the Haradrim freely chose ‘darkness’ over and over and are not kin, who is a good man who would not be cruel about it but thoughtful and just and entirely convinced of the justice of what he’s doing, genuinely in love not with the violence but with the White City that must be protected. And I find that chilling because cruelty in a text that abhors wanton cruelty can be identified and condemned and ultimately is meant to produce shame and repentance. But the version of imperial ideology as seen in the Faramirs of the world only engenders more Faramirs, each one more and more considerate, humane, and better able to articulate justifications for the same outcome. 

And like I gestured to earlier, his relationship with Éowyn, the hopeful and triumphant nature of that relationship budding in war like no other has (with A&A’s relationship obviously having started decades prior) just makes this even more interesting. Faramir's taxonomy places the Rohirrim in the middle tier, so not the High Men of Númenórean blood, but the Middle Peoples who came under Elvish influence and are adjacent to but not fully within the circle of the Edain, though they are not fully kin in the way the Dúnedain are kin. The implication of the Gondorian racial categories, ie that intermarriage between Dúnedain and Haradrim would represent a crossing of a civilisational and biological boundary, obviously sits in kind of, er, uncomfortable proximity to his marriage to a woman who is not of Númenórean blood either and is one of those Middle Peoples distinguished from the High.

And yet the racial framework doesn’t collapse under this: partly because of course, the Middle Peoples are viewed as slightly ‘lesser’ but not of darkness, where they are absolutely still human and viewed as almost-equals, where a liaison represents hope and progress… and partly because the racial categorisation just accommodates Éowyn through the mechanism that such frameworks always use to accommodate their exceptions, which is to accept the individual while maintaining the category, extending to a specific person the humanity that their designation withholds. 

Which is something that happens in the book itself… think again about that single poignant moment of empathy extended to the Haradrim youth through the character of Samwise, in a book that so adamantly maintains the impermeability of racial boundaries… or how ‘race mixing’ is seen as hopeful when it comes to Sindar/Noldor or beautiful but tragic when it comes to specific cases of Elf/Mortal romances, yet the racial boundaries are never broken with the ‘unpalatable’ races. Faramir looks at Éowyn and sees Éowyn, looks at the Haradrim and sees the men of darkness, and the distance between those two operations is where the Fourth Age begins.

The tragedy is that Faramir is, by every measure, the best Gondor has to offer, and just makes me think if this guy cannot see it, the structural likelihood of anyone else seeing it is not high. Tolkien leaves him at the end of the primary narrative as Prince of Ithilien, rebuilding the border territory, married to Éowyn, presiding over what is presented as a kind of grace note of hope after catastrophe. And there absolutely is real hope in him because he is not Denethor, not someone driven to madness, the decaying custodian of a city turned inward on its own glory, and his rejection of the slave-mistress model of empire is not nothing, and is imo the slender thread on which the Fourth Age's better possibilities hang. Because he is a person who repeatedly chooses goodness, always reaches for the less cruel option. 

She wants to tell you in person when they are home.

The next day, you will walk across the street in the baking July heat holding a stuffed octopus your kids won out of the claw machine at the grocery store that morning.

Your friend’s son will open the door. His head is partially shaved, and the staples holding it together look brutal, but he is energetic and happy and he loves the octopus you hand him. Orange-haired and freckled. Grinning. Six years old.

Your heart will pound as you smile back at him and think you have to be wrong. You have to be wrong.

Then his mom, your friend, steps onto the front porch and closes the door behind her.

Sweat is dripping down the back of your knee when she tells you.

You hold her tight. She is sweating too. She is very clear with you: there is no cure.

Your anger could consume worlds. You are angry she has to say these words. Angry this is happening. Angry that the perfect little boy you love will die.

You will go back home, and look at your own six-year-old, who asks if his friend is home from the hospital.

“Yes,” you say, as inside you realize you will have to tell him his friend will die. That this will be one of the core memories of his childhood.

Your son runs across the street while you watch from the front step. Your friend’s son opens the door. They scream each other’s names.

Neither of them know yet. But you know. You cannot unknow.

You had no idea things were so perfect last week.

—

The next thing happens as you sit on your friend’s floor drinking a glass of wine with her. The couch is close by, but this is as far as you made it.

Nine months to two years, the doctors told your friend.

She asks if you believe in God.

You don’t.

She doesn’t either. But she wishes she did now. She wishes she thought he would be somewhere. With the parents she lost too young, maybe.

But she doesn’t really think anything will happen or that he will be anywhere. He will be gone.

You cry on the floor with her.

When you leave at the hottest point of the day to walk back across the street, there is, inexplicably, a gray fox in your driveway.

You stare at it, frozen.

What does it mean? Is it a sign?

The fox is staring sideways, off into the trees. It doesn’t see you.

Then, in a blur of motion, it runs forward, and catches a squirrel in its jaws.

The squirrel screams. And then dies.

And it’s not a sign of anything.

—

The next few things happen in a blur. Your friend’s son turns 7, starts second grade, goes trick-or-treating - so normal it feels unfair because all the time you and your friend are so aware this may be The Last. The Last birthday. The Last Halloween.

But they aren’t. He lives to turn eight, and you don’t even have time to take a picture of your son and your friend’s son in their costumes the next Halloween before they have sprinted away to the house that makes cotton candy in the driveway.

The doctors will look at how well your friend’s son is doing and tell your friend that there are some very rare cases where patients live up to five years.

You will start to hope.

—

Next, your friend will call you sobbing as she sits in her car in the driveway. You will get in the car, too. You are worried something happened, but nothing happened, really. A fender bender without any damage. But it was the last thing your friend could tolerate before she snapped.

After a couple hours, you get her out of the car, and bring her inside her house. You take the claw clip out of her hair and the sandals off her feet and the glasses off her face, and you tuck her into bed, and kiss her forehead.

You think, furious at every part of existence, that her mom should be here. No one should be as unlucky as she has been. Another drop in the vast pit of your rage.

—

Then, suddenly, it all starts to unravel.

It will not be five years.

It will not even be two years.

Your friend’s son stops going to school. Starts coming over to your house with emergency seizure medicine you get trained to use. The timeline, your friend says, can be measured in months now.

—

The next thing that happens is the thing you have been dreading the most.

Your son says he can’t wait till your friend’s son is better. He wants his friend to come back to school and to start staying over for dinner and movies again.

You will use your gentlest voice as you tell your son his friend isn’t going to get better.

Your son panics in a way you never dreamed of. Never imagined.

You hold him and answer all his questions. You get him a therapist and get extra support set up for him at school. But he is different now.

—

Time will start going too fast.

You will go over to your friend’s house in the evenings, and your son will crawl into the hospital bed that is in their living room now and snuggle up with your friend’s son.

Within a couple of weeks, your friend’s son will stop being able to walk. Then, one day, he can’t talk anymore.

You will keep going over the in the evenings, even when your friend’s son can no longer open his eyes.

Your own son is afraid now to go near the hospital bed, but he will creep closer as the night wears on, and eventually reach out and hold your friend’s son’s hand. Sometimes, his friend will squeeze it.

—

Then the last thing happens.

It will be raining when your friend calls you and asks if you can pick up her other children from school and bring them home. Now. Right now.

You will walk her children into the living room with the hospital bed where your friend’s son lies breathing heavily, fluid rattling in his lungs. Your friend is curled around him, pale and distant.

You will hold them both. You will tell them you love them.

You will leave, trying not to think about the last glimpse you ever had of him.

You will stare out at the rain. You will think back to when your friend first told you he would die. You will wish, desperately, to go back to that day and get to live this year and a half again.

You have spent long, terrible days learning to watch your friend’s son die while keeping life going on around that fact. You have hated every part of it.

And now you think you were foolish for dreading everything that was to come. These were days of plenty.