StarShadeEmily

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It was a rare opportunity that Túrin found himself indulging in. They came few now, as he was busied with his duties as a captain of Nargothrond. Orodreth requested his counsel most often, and Gwindor suffered him now to retreat in his bold plans, and Túrin grew weary quickly.

After one such counsel with the king, Orodreth had eyed his captain with a solemn gaze. The council table stretched long as a desert between them, but Túrin felt still the worry of the king’s eyes.

“You speak slower than I have known you to before, Agarwaen, my captain. Your mind is troubled.”

Túrin only glanced away as if in shame, and he felt a bit warm. “Perhaps so, my lord. A captain’s duties come heavy upon me.”

At this, Orodreth had seemed to soften, and he tilted his head in consideration.

“Then I would grant you leave for a short time to rest as you wish. A Man, after all, does not have all of time to spend hunched over a map of warmaking.”

Túrin’s eyes again met the king’s.

“I thank you, my lord. The wood is quite alive this time of year, I believe.”

A dreadful fog pressed thick upon the Man, drenched through to his very bones with the storm. He huffed with each swing of Gurthang in front of him, clearing the sodden, tangled brush from their path.

He had grown quite unused to weather during his days encased in Elven strongholds. He sputtered, bringing his cloak about himself with one hand, though the effort was far too late and would have done little anyhow.

Suddenly Túrin thrashed about as a vine fell down into his face with a pathetic, wet sound.

“Fool,” cried Gurthang, and Túrin snarled, picking away the plant from his eyes with a prim finger. He could hardly hear the sword above the rain, but still it felt the need to insult.

“I would not hear the lashing of your tongue, Gurthang!” said Túrin. The sword only laughed, and the sound was like to thunder. Fitting, considering the circumstances, Túrin supposed.

Ahead, the Man spotted a dark shape through the weeds, and he rejoiced to find the entrance of a cave as he slashed at the brush.

“Ah…” he sighed, darting swiftly beneath the stony overhang and relishing the brief shelter. Feeling generous, he relinquished his cloak and threw it first upon Gurthang.

“What grace, captain,” said the sword, though a disingenuous tone dripped from its harsh voice, “that you would spare your sodden raiment for me.”

“Quarrel not with me,” replied Túrin, moving to wipe away at least a fraction of the rainwater from his sword. But at this he stopped, for the pale glow of Gurthang captured his senses.

In the dimness of the cave, Gurthang shone with splendor. This normally would not be of Túrin’s attention. After all, he’d seen the sword shine many times since its reforging at the hands of the Elves in Nargothrond. Yet now, glittering with hundreds of raindrops upon its black iron, he was quite transfixed. He watched them stream slowly across the surface before he shook himself of his wonder and wiped the blade down.

“A shelter such as this…” the sword mused lowly. Lightning briefly overtook the darkness of the cave. “I believe I have found better lodgings in the dusty holds of Menegroth.”

“It is something at least,” Túrin impatiently countered through his teeth. He scrubbed at the iron roughly before taking up his cloak again. “You would do better, I think, to hush up.”

The Man wiped his plastered hair from his forehead, watching rain drip down from its tips onto the stone floor. Nothing about it was particularly interesting to look at, and again he wondered what had him so intrigued by the same drops of rain on his sword. He shivered suddenly.

“‘Tis cold,” he muttered under his breath. Gurthang made an irritated noise.

“Chilled, you are? You ought to be grateful for your flesh and your blood; iron is no match to their warmth, is it?”

Túrin sighed loudly. “What would you have me do? Part the clouds myself? I am not Manwë, nor am I Ulmo. I cannot stifle this rain!”

“Nay… You are not,” Gurthang agreed, and it laughed again. “So pitiful a creature! I would sooner have a sturdier wielder.”

Túrin blinked, and were it not for another sudden flash of lightning to stir him, he would have lashed out. He took the sword’s bait every time. “Then you should find one, if you wish it so terribly,” he said, mustering his resolve. “Rust would find you sooner than a cold would find me!”

“Rust?” Gurthang rasped, and its light flickered. It dimmed suddenly, and the cave was quite dark. “Yet perhaps this is indeed a crueler fate to be bound to you, beast.”

Then Túrin grasped the sword and held it up, glaring fiercely into its blade as if in challenge.

“I should toss you into the ferns,” he snarled quietly.

“And I should rend your throat, son of Húrin!”

The air became dense, and it stifled Túrin. The reminder of his buried past prickled his skin, but for once since being caught in this storm he did not feel cold. The threat almost enflamed him, but for reasons he could not surmise, he did not feel the usual rage.

Gurthang went on, seeing his silence. It latched onto every hesitation it saw in the Man. “I know it would not take long,” it chuckled, “to see you crawl back for my edge in your flesh.”

That last ‘threat’ gave Túrin pause. Any sense of anger he had felt slowly died, replaced by heat unmatched. The image took root in his mind, and he was rendered unable to form an argument.

“You—“ he stuttered. “That is unbecoming!”

The sword laughed coldly. “You know you cannot be without me, Túrin. I know your excuses… a bow in your hands would have been weapon enough to fend away Orcs. But nay… despite my jabs you could not leave me to the racks of Nargothrond’s armory, nor to the solitude of my sheath in your little chamber.”

Túrin had taken his gaze by now, his chill forgotten. He risked a glance and regretted it quickly, for the dread beauty of his sword cast all thought from his mind. A drop of rain rolled slowly down its length, shimmering in the light of Gurthang’s pale, flaming edge.

“I… Nay, you are too… too…”

“Too what, little swordsman?” Gurthang taunted, and its voice was lower. Túrin shuddered and wished his hair was not so soaked. He wanted suddenly to hide his reddened face.

“Damn you,” said he, and he shook away his embarrassment. Boldness came again to him, and he grasped the sword’s handle so that his hands shook. “The storm cages us yet…”

“Ah,” replied Gurthang, slowly. “And not a soul is around. Nay, no one would hear you above the rain should I find your temper deserving of punishment.”

The iron clattered to the cold ground. Túrin held himself above it, braced on his hands.

“Then I will not deny you such pleasure as you find it.”

Gurthang was silent then, and its flame flared. Túrin panted softly. He shivered and leaned down, rainwater dripping onto the sword.

“I will not deny you, Gurthang,” the Man repeated, slower. The tips of his fingers brushed the blade, and his breaths came heavier.

“How perverse…” said the sword proudly, “…that you would relinquish the flighty arms of maidens to collapse into mine.”

“Silence your lip,” Túrin sighed before pressing his mouth to the iron, rough with his desire.

The sound of rainfall and Túrin’s breathing dominated for a long moment. He felt the sword shudder beneath his gentle hands, gentler than he had ever allowed, as he lost himself in his kisses. His lips burned as flame against that star iron, but no hotter were they than the heat of his body.

Beneath him, Gurthang hummed, and was quiet. Túrin trailed his kisses slowly down its lengthy blade, and the sword sighed as the Man’s lips met its carven crossguard. His eyes blinked open briefly as Gurthang brightened, before returning to his work.

He kissed the guard again, gently, as his damp fingertips stroked slowly across the blade. His other hand slipped down to the handle, squeezing the wrapped leather as his tongue brushed Gurthang’s guard.

At this, Gurthang moaned breathily.

“How base…”

Túrin’s courage was restored, and he traced the wrought contours in the iron with his tongue. A hand remained clasped about Gurthang’s blade, while the other sought his own breeches.

“I would stop that hand had I the means…” Gurthang muttered. “Perhaps I am just as perverse as you.”

Túrin huffed, softly, as his mouth found its way up Gurthang’s blade. As if in punishment, the sword shifted as much as it could beneath him and dragged its edge suddenly against the Man’s lip. He gasped and allowed a soft sound to leave him. His fingers came up to press the tender wound, but its sting only encouraged him.

“Perhaps,” he sighed, blindly tugging at the ties to his breeches, “since you reward me so…”

Túrin finally freed himself from the tight restraint, a sigh half of relief, half of frustration leaving him as the cool, humid air hit his skin. He leaned down again and embraced the sword against the floor of the cave, grasping his cock and the sword’s handle in the same hand.

The sparse rainwater did naught to provide lubrication, so Túrin opted to spit upon his palm. A quiet groan escaped him as he thrust into his own hand, Gurthang’s dampened haft pressed coolly against the underside of his cock.

The sword seemed quite perplexed by the action of spitting. “Disgraceful!” it cried, jeering. “I would see it again.”

Túrin bit his lip and turned his face up to the blade, still stroking himself and Gurthang as he spat—this time, directly onto the surface of the black blade.

The sword tasted of it eagerly and laughed, strainedly, its voice wavering with every thrust from its wielder.

“Again,” it commanded. The Man did as he was told, letting the rivulets of his saliva glisten against his blade. Retribution, he figured, for every harsh word thrown at him.

“You debase me, son of Húrin,” groaned Gurthang.

“You would do me worse hurt had you the chance,” Túrin panted, thrusting into his palm while his other hand, grasping the sword’s blade, braced it against the ground and held it still. He quickened, his pace easy now that his cock was slick with spittle and pre-ejaculate.

“Yes,” hissed Gurthang. The sword’s iron was hot against Túrin, and once more he spat onto the pristine weapon.

“…Finish this.”

Túrin moaned roughly, and hastened. His breaths and the wetness of his thrusts echoed quietly against the walls of the dark cave.

“Finish.”

A sharp gasp left Túrin. He found the pace he needed, and released the haft of his sword just as his body stilled.

Gurthang’s edges brightened again as the Man’s seed coated its guard and blade, and both of them made a sort of breathy noise. Túrin caught his breath and looked again upon Gurthang, pleased greatly by the sight of several fluids against the black iron.

He finally let go of the blade and found his palm open and bleeding, but he minded not. He groped the stony ground for his discarded cloak to clean his sword of the aftermath. Gurthang was silent, as if spent itself.

Túrin rested beside the blade, uncaring of the hard ground. He peeled away the layers of his damp clothing, flushed and sweaty beneath. The rain had slowed outside.

He probed his cut lip with the fingers of his bleeding hand.

“I will not expect anything more from you once we return to Nargothrond,” said Gurthang. Its tone was softer. Túrin shook his head gently, his eyes closing. He felt more rested than he had in weeks.

“Nay. I would seek it, Gurthang. I believe I have found a remedy for my weariness.”

“…Then rest, Agarwaen.”

But Aracano was like his father, like him in face and in speech, like him in his virtues and in his vices. He was more impulsive than his father, prone to acting out of passion more than discernment, but he deferred to Nolofinwë’s judgement more often than not—and how often was he not to be found at his father’s side? Her mind was closed forever to the elder Aracano, but she knew that whatever she told her son would go to his father. She could not forget him. If only she could forget him, for it was well that he was gone. But she could not, not when the son called to her in his thought.

Aracano wished for her to know that he was alive, that they were all alive. He would spare her from details of the evils of their passage, the torments of cold and hunger and pain, but now and then his control over his mind slipped as he bethought the suffering which he endured, and his weary mind opened to reveal those things, and she saw frightful images of what he had seen: her granddaughter’s feet blackened by the frost, Irissë and Findecano eating raw flesh that she knew came from no beast of the earth, Nolofinwë, his mouth firm in a stone scowl of anger and defiance, Lalwendë at his side, both of them wearing an expression of such fell animal wildness as she had only seen once and that in the eyes of Fëanaro. She had shuddered and tried to cast it all from her mind, but those fragments of memory haunted her into her dreams, and she would wake beside Eärwen in a cold sweat.

Aracano rejoiced when he saw the Moon, bright and silver in the West, and she rejoiced with him, for it spelled an end to the long darkness, a new symbol of hope for the Eldar, a sign that mayhap the Valar would in truth not abandon the dear ones who had abandoned her.

But next she heard from Aracano he was in pain. His mind was red with fear and anguish and he reached for her, for Mama. She knew his father held him too, she knew his siblings were there, but she could not hold him in her arms, she could not hold her baby as he lay dying. She cradled the part of his mind that touched hers, she cradled it and she wept.

“Mandos calleth to me, Ammë, and I must go. Come to me Ammë, take me home if the Doomsman ever seeth fit to release me. I love thee, Ammë.”

A slipping, a fading, a satin ribbon falling limp through her fingers, and Aracano faded like smoke. The wind bore away the filiform strand of his thought, and Anairë heard from him no more.