Shields

By Tyellas

Summary: A mild BDSM vignette with Maeglin in a good mood after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, showing the rare tendernesss alluded to in The Thrall of Gondolin.

Disclaimer: These characters and Middle-Earth are the copyright of the Tolkien estate and this fan fiction is not meant to infringe on that copyright in any way.

Story Warnings and Notes: Slash, rough graphic sex, mild BDSM, rating NC-17.

Thanks to beta reader Suzana.

"That was absolutely magnificent," purred Maeglin, in the privacy of his chambers. "Was I the lord of Gondolin, we should do that much more often."

Aranwë stared at him, incredulous. "They already call that battle the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Unnumbered Tears! How can you bear no terror from it?"

Maeglin shrugged his young shoulders. "My mind is stronger than others', I suppose. And you knew many of the elf-men in other companies; I did not." Maeglin's dark eyes gleamed, and a smile danced along his lips as he began to shed his armour, for they were newly returned to Gondolin after the battle. "And to think that King Turgon asked me, as prince of the city, to remain behind as his regent! Very seemly, of course. But what glory I would have missed!"

"Your own esquire was slain!" Nobody, least of all Maeglin, had blinked an eye when Aranwë stepped into that role after the hapless servant fell.

"Probably 'tis best." Maeglin sighed. "My black clothes have never been so faded as under his care; I shall send them back to the dyers."

"It is well that you mourn," said Aranwë.

"Mourn? I rejoice! I was made for battle, and my black sword to drink the blood of orcs and men!" Maeglin tossed his shield, solid black without any device, aside with a clang.

For the first time ever, Aranwë snapped at Maeglin. "Respect your shield! It saved your life more than once upon the battle-ground!"

Maeglin stopped, astounded, and turned to look at the elf-smith who was something between a servile vassal and an occasional lover to him. Aranwë's great height was bent almost double in grief as he sat, and his face was harrowed. Even loveless Maeglin was moved to a shadow of respect and regret. Silently, he walked over and righted the shield, hanging it in its place upon the wall.

"There now; I have dealt to it better." He went over to Aranwë, freeing himself from the last pieces of armour so that he wore only the black leather shirt and leggings that padded him against the metal gear. With a lascivious smile, Maeglin straddled the older elf as he sat. When roused by kill after kill in the bloody mire of the battlefield, Maeglin had been half-mad to take someone, anyone. Earlier his thought had been that he might vent his blood-lust on infatuated Aranwë, rather than on one of his other admirers, because Aranwë was strong enough to bear his unbridled sadism. But he decided that to do so with Aranwë in this mood might forever break his willingness for enduring Maeglin's cruelty. He thought of a proverb of Nan Elmoth; the hunter must watch for his hounds.

"Warrior of old, I would not have you bowed with sadness. Forget the field and the fallen, the sword and the shield." Aranwë rested his head against Maeglin's chest, and Maeglin embraced him, stroking his dark hair, cropped relatively short after the fashion of the smiths of Gondolin. "I know what you need. Come and let me take you. You know I am harsh; it is not craven to weep in my arms." Maeglin said, cloaking his own lust behind the honeyed words.

Aranwë could not speak for gratitude, and cast aside his hunter-green clothes. He was hungry for Maeglin's use, longing for the familiar release brought by that deep, internal pleasure. After the despairing battle, he was ashamed to feel that hunger so strongly when he ought to grieve, to be as willing as a woman. As was his wont, Maeglin picked up on that thought.

The two were entangled on one of Maeglin's blood-coloured couches. Balanced above him, Maeglin did something he condescended to rarely, stroking Aranwë's cock at length, even giving him a glance of admiring rue. "Curse your luck in this, Aranwë. I wager that this pained your lost wife!"

Aranwë looked keenly at Maeglin, and was presumptuous enough to say, "You have some very strange ideas about women, my lord. You ought to lie with a woman yourself, one of these days, even in the bounds of courtship."

Maeglin knelt back with a superior look. "With women I am continent. I save myself for the woman I truly desire. In the meantime, I shall practice warriors' arts, as is fitting." He dragged the leather cord from the lacing of his own shirt's neckline, and bound it about the virile root of Aranwë, wrapping it several times tightly, so that the member was inflamed with blood, yet could not spend.

Maeglin leaned in and bit Aranwë across the shoulders several times, hard enough to leave marks, leaving off to draw his tongue across Aranwë's sweat-salted skin. Maeglin's victim still bore the reek of battle-blood and smoke trapped in his hair, and a fine web of dried gore splayed over one side of his chest. The dark, clinging odors reminded Maeglin of the fury of the field again, and he felt himself lift into hardness. Sweetly, he said, "I have wanted you, Aranwë. Look how roused I am for you." Rising, he stripped off his leather clothes, then straddled Aranwë as he lay.

Hesitant at first, Aranwë reached up with both hands and caressed Maeglin, whose beauty was undimmed by even a bruise across his white skin. Maeglin suffered himself to be admired in touch along the lines of his muscles, and even leaned into it as Aranwë's hands slid up his back. But when Aranwë's hands returned too far down his back, Maeglin grabbed his adorer's wrists and sank his nails into them in warning. Maeglin bent Aranwë's arms back, crushing his wrists and leaning into him until their faces were close enough to feel each other's breath. The elf on top smiled to see in Aranwë what he wished to see; raw lust, heart-yearning, and a thread of terror linking the horrors of battle and remembered torments from Maeglin. "Turn over," Maeglin commanded, sliding aside.

Aranwë watched as Maeglin partly unsheathed his prized sword, Anguirel, and ran his hand over the length of the cleaned, recently greased blade. Aranwë knelt up and arched back, trembling at the touch of Maeglin's grease-bearing fingers entering him. Through tension and weariness, he was tight as the seals on the Seven Gates, but Maeglin's cunning hands could unlock him utterly. And this was well, for Maeglin soon forced his hard cock inside Aranwë and took him with as much fury as he had used in battle-slaughter, hammering and clawing his back.

Such hard use would have made any other cry out in pain and anger, but Aranwë bore it, joyfully even. The welcome violation stripped him down to the core, burning away thought and plunging him into lust and deep elven-grief. As Maeglin had foretold, he did not hold back from tears when Maeglin's hands tore at him. Close to his peak, Maeglin yelled the battle-cry of Gondolin, and then silence seized him as he bucked and came. Had Aranwë managed to come through the cruel bindings, it would have wounded him sorely, but he was slowed by the tears that, once begun, could not stop.

Once he recovered himself (and this took longer than usual after his battle-fired release), Maeglin would usually have strode away and waited for Aranwë to plead. However, he was feeling kindly after the marvelous battle. Maeglin dragged Aranwë over onto his back and undid the cock-bindings, stroking and kneading where the cord had marked the hot flesh. Aranwë gasped in relief. "See, one of your comrades lives, and fills you with life and heat. You live yourself. Feel the pain and pleasure of it burn you!" As he spoke, Maeglin used one hand to work Aranwë's cock. The manipulated elf-man cried out in shameful surrender, turning his face away as he came.

Maeglin was divided between desire and revulsion to watch another elf-man come. Altogether untidy, he thought, to have it all revealed instead of decently buried in flesh, as was Maeglin's own privilege. Maeglin decided he would humiliate Aranwë for it next time he reeled the fellow in. Aranwë was weak enough to please him for now, spent and still weeping. Then Maeglin, having turned his thoughts so much to cruelty that he could in no way accuse himself of weakness after battle, laid himself close beside the taller, broader elf-man. And he let himself be embraced for a time.

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