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Misadventures (LOTR hobbitfic, Original Characters, rated R)
I haven't posted much fic lately, because of various things happening in my life, but here's a story about life in the Shire during and after what ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
danachan has called the Sunless Year. Please heed the warnings when deciding whether or not to read this; it's ultimately a happy story, but not a fluffy one.
Title: Misadventures
Characters: OC hobbits, OC Ruffians discussed. Brief mentions of canon characters.
Rating: hard R
Summary: Gilly and Lindy trade tales of misadventure.
Warnings: Consensual sex; non-con, rape, and violence. Het, slash. Original characters.
Disclaimer: Hobbits and the Middle-Earth they inhabit belong to the Professor, not to me, though I did make up Lindy and Gilly and their families (but not Gilly's name, that she inherited from a Family Tree.)
From his first morning in Overhill to each and every after, Lindinas Goldworthy awoke glad. Glad to work with Mr. Burrows of Overhill, a chandler and soap-maker, glad to live with Marroc and his lovely wife Daisy and their sweet twin babes. His first waking, in a borrowed bed in the Brockhouse lads' smial, had found him filled with relief at having come alive through the Battle of Bywater, joy in the hobbits' victory, and not such great pain as all that from the slashes across his left arm. Those slashes healed to brave scars, just right to strip his sleeve to display; a year had passed now since the battle and all Overhill still gave him a hero's greetings, and more and more of the hobbits of the town gave him the smiles of a friend.
Now Lindy lay dozing beside the most gladdening aspect of all Overhill, pretty Gillyflower Brownlock. Listening to her peaceful breathing, he lay with eyes closed, snugged with her head on his shoulder and his arm round her soft waist, the warm air lightened with her scent. Gilly was sweet from her tea-brown eyes to her shining dark curls, her soft lilting voice to her tender fingers, so gentle she winced to pluck chickens yet so sensible she tended wounds without flinching. After the Brockhouses bore him home with them, victorious and near-fainting, the folk of Overhill came by to see them and him, the town's heroes from the battle; out of all of the younger folk she'd shone in his memory, and that was but the first meeting of many.
And yet, there was a sometimes shadow in her clear dark eyes; at Lithe, amidst dancing hobbit lasses and laughing hobbit lads the one Lindy wished for was nowhere to be seen, and when he found Gilly some days later and asked her to come gathering bracken for ash-making, she ducked her head till her curls hid her face as she gently demurred. Lindy almost thought it was his company she'd avoid, till she glanced up again, smiled, and brushed her lips over his. Their first kiss, but surely not their last; Gilly's parents and Mar and Daisy all turned naught but smiles on Lindy and Gilly's friendship, and he had no words fit for the gladness of that.
So when Lindy Goldworthy had woken this morning to crisp air and warm sunlight through the window, he'd breathed, and breathed again, till his dark dream of memory faded, and turned his face to the bright window and smiled. Marroc had a half-day of work for them, cutting set soap into bars and setting tallow to clear, and afterwards he took Daisy and the babes to Hobbiton, and Lindy took Gilly walking.
They walked round the paths of Overhill, hands warmly clasped, their breath curling whiteness on the air and the last leaves rattling on the trees. They waved to hobbits hanging greens and holly on their doors and traded snatches of carols with their friends along the way. The woods beckoned from the edge of town, brown-floored but frost-sparkled in the colder corners, but when Lindy tried to turn their path that way Gilly shook her head again, her shining curls swinging in the winter sunlight. Lindy looked at her, and she looked back at him, a warm light glimmering in her eyes, and said, "take me by the Burrows'?"
And so he did, finding the smial empty, and so they had their first tumble together, Lindy's first in over a year. His heart pounded in his chest as he sat on his bed watching Gilly take down her hair and unlace her bodice. When he saw her fingers trembling on the ties he reached up to fold his hands around hers, and she looked up through her curls with depthless eyes, and he smiled helplessly, wishing her not to be nervous, not for him. She smiled then in return, and then she leaned down into his arms, and even though he got himself tangled in her bodice laces and they didn't properly get his breeches off till afterwards, what mattered all went wonderfully.
Wonderfully, and all the better for its little faults. Her hand low on his back made him startle, but he made himself feel its small soft gentleness till he eased and could kiss her questioning look away. When she stiffened beneath his touch he softly called her, and she turned to him saying, "Lindy" with relief more than desire, so he kissed her gently, then again and more, till her desire flared again and there was nothing left to bar the way between them.
And now he lay with the gentle ripple of her breath in his ear, snug and warm and idly thinking on if he might ask her hand by Spring, when she drew a deeper breath, and another, and then a sob. Lindy turned to Gilly, and when she looked up through her wet eyelashes he knew why, even as he wished it not to be true. "Gilly?"
"Lindy, Lindy. I---" Gilly caught his shoulder in her hand and pressed her cheek to his chest. "Lindy. Oh, thank you. I'd thought, I'd feared..." Her tears took her, and Lindy held her as close as he might, stroking her shining curls, his own eyes wet in sympathy. He closed them tight, tears running down his face, and held his Gilly as she wept.
Soon, she sniffled, and gave a little crushed laugh. "I must look---"
"Lovely as ever," Lindy said, knowing enough of lasses to say this at least. She smiled through her tears, and laughed a little better as he lifted the edge of the sheet to her hand; she wiped her eyes and tucked her head back beneath his chin, soft curls feathery on his cheeks. And, as he knew she would, she began to speak.
"I hadn't known if I might find pleasure in a tumble again," she murmured low over his skin, so he felt the words nearly as much as heard them. "After the Men." He'd known it, from her first sob. He'd known it, and he hated them all over again as his arms tightened round her. "After... oh, Lindy, your heart's pounding. You..."
She trailed off uncertainly, and he'd never have her fear him. "Gilly," he said, curving his hand to her soft cheek. "Sweet Gillyflower. I'd slay them all over again, for having dared lay hands on you."
Gilly breathed a sad laugh into his shoulder. "I... it was my own misadventure that put me in their power. You... you should know, but will you hate me?"
"Never, never beneath the Sun, never." Lindy said it, and again, till she drew breath, till she gathered her courage, till she smiled over his skin.
Then she returned to setting the tale to words. "My Mam had warned me, time and again, not to go from the house alone, not to go without a need, but it was June and warm and bright, I'd done all my chores, and the birds chirped and the breeze whispered between the leaves. I hadn't walked in the woods in such a time, I thought I'd just take a turn in the shade, pick a blossom or two, return home by the noon meal." She shook her head, her laugh half a sob. "I knew the path like the main street of town, so I went with eyes half-closed to better feel the sunshine, and so I took myself right into the hands of two Men." She shook, and swallowed hard, and Lindy stroked her soft shoulder. "They were... you fought at Bywater, you saw them close. You know what they were."
Lindy had known before, all too well, but he held his tongue, and Gilly kept telling. "And they laughed at me, and they bound my hands to the stems of a bush, and I struggled and I begged and they squeezed me and laughed... I dreamt long after of the snaggletoothed glint of their laughing in the green dimness, the glint of the first one's knife as he cut at my clothes. The glint of their eyes as they pawed me and mouthed me and had me, one after the other and the first again, till I was blinded by weeping."
"Oh, Gilly," Lindy murmured, for he knew that hard-eyed glint, knew the fear and the ache of being taken from oneself. Gilly nodded, her face wet against his skin, and took three shaking breaths before she could continue. "When they were done with me they set themselves to rights, still laughing, saying they should leave me bound for the next Ruffians passing by, and made to walk away as I pulled and screamed. But they turned back, one cut my wrist free and squeezed me all over till I broke out weeping anew; he kissed me hard, and they both laughed, and then at last they left for true."
Gilly lay silent for a little while, breathing under his hands, and Lindy was drawing breath and gathering wit to answer, when she spoke again, voice almost shocky in its calm. "When I could see through my tears the Sun was high in the sky, rising to noon, and there was distant birdsong and calm woods around as if I'd never loosed a scream, and I lay amidst all the fresh greenness weeping and aching and cursing my own foolish fancy." She paused to breathe again, but now he knew she wasn't done, and he stroked her hair and waited quietly. "At length I picked the knotted rope from my other wrist and gathered myself up, and when I could walk I clutched the shreds of my clothes on around myself and made my way home. My Mam blanched to see me so, and I knew she'd question me, so I said before she might, 'I had a misadventure', and she didn't ask. She cut the rope off my wrist and burned my ruined clothes and drew me a bath, and when she brought me tea she stroked my hair and kissed my brow. And I didn't go from sight of the house again till the day after the Battle, when I went to visit the Brockhouses, the day I met you. And she has never asked."
"Those brutes," Lindy murmured uselessly, his mind full of the horror of them abusing any lass so, let alone his gentle sweet Gilly.
Gilly kissed his chin and sighed. "I wasn't... I'm not a little lass, I'll be of age next May. And it's fading in time, all ills do. But still, I ought to have told you before, Lindy."
"Before? Why?" Lindy wriggled back a little, enough to see her face.
She looked up at him with eyes dark and warm and old as Night. "Because... because if you'd rather not have come to bed with me, knowing this, I should have---"
But he was already shaking his head, already saying "No, no, Gilly, no." She stopped, brow furrowing over her eyes, and he swallowed hard, and smiled, for it surely was his turn to tell. "Regardless of this, I should want you, I always should want you." She closed her eyes in relief, but he breathed, just at the start. "And I... I know what you bore, Gilly. I bear it too. I was forced by the Ruffians myself."
At that, her eyes flew open, round as her shocked plump mouth. Before he lost his nerve, Lindy went on. "The Men, when they set their watch on the Tookland, they set up their base in Pincup; by March we had two score or so settled amongst us, all but drinking our blood, we bore them so heavy. My brother's farm was stripped bare but for what they could hide, my eldest sister's husband spent three months in the Lockholes. And for us at home with my Mam... we had a bare larder, but Clary, my twin sister, things bloom in her hands. So we lived by her garden and my hunting and our trading, and thought ourselves the lucky ones."
"Oh," Gilly breathed, warm on his throat, her whole body warm and soft by his. Lindy held her, held to her, and told her his tale. "One day during Harvest, I was helping my sister Callie, and I had my niece Lucerne with me. Lucie, we call her, a little sprite of a lass not ten years old, and she ran ahead of me and I saw her about to smack straight into a Man. And they held back from nothing, they'd never allow for a chit. I ran after and caught her back, but not so soon that he didn't see us. So he stopped, to have a word with me."
Gilly's breath caught, and Lindy turned his face into her shining hair, away from the memory of staring up at the Ruffian Snath as he grinned and crouched down, his greasy threadlike hair fallen from its tie, his shoulders broad and his hands wide on Lindy's arms. "Best watch your way," he'd said, squeezing Lindy hard, Lucie shaking behind where Lindy'd pushed her. Lindy had stood and said nothing, and Snath had let them go, and that had seemed the end of it.
Till the next time Lindy saw Snath, and by the broad grin knew himself recognized. Breathing in the present sweetness of Gilly's hair, strengthened by her soft arms wound around him, he went on. "It was just a word, and I put it from my mind, but I saw him again several times, and each he grinned at me. It was disquieting, but hardly the worst thing to befall. Especially not after our Mam starved herself to illness, especially not after September turned to October and the Men grew more frustrated with the Tooks and more vicious with us."
Gilly nodded. "They did so here too, that last month. They'd beat a hobbit or bear them off for trifles before, but in October, they needed not even a trifle, they sometimes laid about soon as look at us. They dug several families from their holes, and burned our Town Hall."
"Just so in Pincup. And they... they began coming into houses and smials at night." Lindy felt his flesh crawl, and Gilly gripped him more bracingly. "The Man who'd seen me, his name was Snath, and I learned it the night he came to our smial, the night I put my sisters behind me and told him I'd answer for our family." Lindy knew Gilly was warm in his arms, those dark days a year and more gone, but behind his eyes he saw the memory, felt again Snath's hard hands round his shoulders dragging him up, how Snath'd shaken him and kissed him hard enough to feel teeth. How Snath had sprawled in their front parlor, warming himself by the fire, and hauled Lindy's head down, huge fingers tangled in his hair. How he'd asked for ale after, and growled and shook Lindy on hearing they had none, but had finally, finally left. "He shook me about, and made me suck him, and was cross to hear we had no further refreshment for him. But he left, and I washed my mouth and scrubbed myself and let my Mam weep over me, and tried to believe that was the last of it."
"But it wasn't," Gilly whispered, tears of sympathy overflowing her eyes.
"So it wasn't," Lindy murmured. "Eight days later, Snath returned, with three others. My sisters had hid. Clary hadn't wanted to leave me, but I shouted at her, I made her. Snath and his fellows filled our sitting room till it seemingly bulged, and they told me to call my sisters, but I shook my head. They shook me and slapped me, but I set my teeth. But I heard a door creak, and I tried to say, 'Sister, stay hidden,' but all I said was, 'Sister.' Hearing me, Clary stepped out, and they seized her, and... and they forced us both, they..."
Lindy's voice broke there, and he sobbed, and Gilly wriggled up and wound her arms round his neck, kissing his brow, stroking his hair. He remembered, how Snath had laughed and pulled her forth and pushed her down, how the others had held Lindy as he shouted and swore, had struck him till his head throbbed and he lolled half-senseless, had put him over the seat of a chair and torn his clothes away and rutted him fore and aft. And all the while, through the aching and choking and his blood pounding in his ears, Lindy heard Clary's protesting voice shrill with pain, heard her dress tear in Snath's hands and her words fall away to cries as he forced her on the sitting-room rug. Lindy'd struggled till they bound him to the chair with his own torn breeches, fought till they'd bloodied his nose, strained against his bindings till his wrists were scraped raw; Snath took hold of Lindy's hair and dragged his head up, forcing him to watch as the other three took turns on Clary, as Lindy struggled beneath Snath, pummelled past sore, and wept to see her tormented, to hear her screams.
Then they'd straightened themselves and laughed, and Snath had smacked Lindy's rump and said he and his sister gave grand sport for which they'd surely return, and they'd left the door ajar so the chill air flowed through the room. Lindy wept all the more then, hearing his sister's broken weeping, bound and battered and unable to aid her. And he wept now, in Gilly's arms, till his sobs quieted to hitching breaths. She kissed his brow, and he tilted his face up to hers, and she kissed his mouth and blotted his cheeks with the damp sheet. "That must have been terrible," she murmured, shaking her head at the lack of the words. "If I know you, it was worse for you that your sister was hurt before you."
"It was worse." Lindy nodded, pressing his cheek to Gilly's soft breast. "It was worse to fail her."
"Oh, Lindy," Gilly said. "Oh, my lad. You tried. You surely tried."
"But I failed." Lindy saw again, behind his closed eyes, Clover's pale set face as she untied him, as she half-carried Clary staggering from the room and then returned for Lindy, wrapped her arm round him and heaved him to his feet. She'd gasped beneath Lindy's weight, but he couldn't walk on his own, no matter how his heart bled to lean on his littlest sister. "I failed my sisters both, for little Clover was left alone to care for us all, and Clary was abed over a week, and our Mam wept over us till it made her so ill we feared we'd lose her."
"How long were you abed?" Gilly asked, her hand gentle through his hair.
"Four days," he said, "though I hardly knew it till later; I hardly knew up from down for a day and more. I tried to rise the next, but my legs wouldn't bear me. And I could hear Clary weeping, late in the night. When I could rise I went to her, and she let me take her hands but she wouldn't look at me. I expect the sight of me brought back that night."
"Lindy, you did all you could," Gilly murmured. "Oh, my poor, brave lad." Lindy would have shaken his head, but Gilly kissed his brow again, enfolding him in her warmth.
So he breathed in her warmth, and remembered what they'd just been about, how it hadn't hurt either of them, how lovely it had been. And he remembered his tale wasn't done. "That was the end of it, though. Snath didn't return. And... it took me a fortnight, and seeing Clover leaving the house to fetch and gather till I couldn't stand the worrying after her, but I left the house again. I didn't even try to hunt, though. My nerve was utterly sprung. But I fished, and tended the last of the garden; the pumpkins were good to us, and we lived on that through to November. Clary stayed in, though, and hardly had a word for any of us, and least of all for me." Lindy heard his words, and could have struck himself. "Not that I blame her a whit."
"No," said Gilly gently. "I know you do not."
Lindy smiled, if wanly. "Good, then. Good. At any rate, the night of the Second, my friend Allie came to my window, whispering to me that there was a rising in Bywater and they'd need our aid on the morrow. I squeezed his hand and said I needed to think on it, but... I still didn't know if Snath might return, and with who in his company, and... plainly put, my arse had only just stopped aching." Lindy laughed at that, a dark self-mocking laugh, and it hurt that Gilly had suffered enough to know his meaning and laugh sadly with him. She tightened her arms round him, and he held her gratefully in return. "So I went with Allie, creeping along wooded pathways before dawn, and found Bywater buzzing in the morning; the Tooks had raised the siege, bright-faced Master Pippin Took had returned who'd been thought dead all the last year, and he and Master Merry Brandybuck were leading our battle. My heart felt light as it hadn't the whole year, and I thought with those two at our head we couldn't but win. And so we did."
"And so you did!" Gilly kissed him again, and her eyes shone, so Lindy kissed her back, her mouth tender and sweet on his. And so they had won, and the Men were dead or driven from the Shire, the dark days were past and gone.
When the kiss broke, Gilly turned in his arms, tucking herself to him like spoons in a silverware chest. "How fare your family now?" she asked.
Lindy sank his face in her hair, gathering himself for the answer. "After the Battle, Allie told them I'd lived and was healing here. Remember, just before last Yule, the lass and matron who came to see me? Those were Callie and Clover bringing me a few things. Ever since, Clover's written me week by week. Clary's mending, and so are Callie's husband and our Mam, but though Mam and Callie and Lanny all add notes to Clover's letters, well, Clary has not. Once she was my closest sib, but now... the Men are gone from the Shire, but still they stand between us."
"Is that why you've settled in Overhill?" Gilly looked back over her shoulder. "Do you mean to go back to Pincup?"
"I expect it is," said Lindy slowly. "I expect I don't. Marroc and Daisy like my company and can use my hands, and my Mam sent me a few coins, enough for my own little hole. I don't think... they no longer need me, and I have a new start here."
"Good, then," Gilly said, and laughed softly. "I mean... I would not rob them of you, but I'm glad you're here, Lindy. I'm ever so glad you're here."
"I'm glad to be here, Gilly," Lindy murmured, tightening his arm round her soft waist. "I'm glad to be here with you."
Gilly smiled, but then she sighed, and turned again to face him. "You must go back, though. To visit." She spoke so gently there was no argument. "You need to see your sister Clary again, and I... I think I might help in that."
"You'd come with me?" Lindy folded his hands around Gilly's. "Your parents like me well enough, but I think they'd only let you travel with me if..."
Gilly ducked her head, but her eyes still shone up from amidst her curls. "I hope you don't think me forward."
"Gilly!" Lindy laughed, and all the aching places in him were balmed with joy. "Oh, Gilly, I think you the sweetest, loveliest, best lass in all the Shire, and, oh, will you be my lass, then? Will you lay your hands in mine, shall we think together towards a wedding?"
Gilly tipped her head back, and smiled, and kissed him. "Yes, Lindy. Yes, I will, we surely will."
Lindy wrapped his arms round her and pulled her to him, and she was warm and sweet and soft and perhaps he would be proddy again very soon. But first, as a thought came to him. "Gilly, I... Pincup is full of woods, it's set into the woods. Will you walk in them with me? Can you bear to?"
Gilly tensed beneath his chin, and then sighed, and eased again. "With you with me, yes, Lindy, I could walk in the woods again."
"Then all is settled," Lindy said, but Gilly made a soft little contrary sound.
So he looked down, and she was smiling up. "All but one thing."
"And that is?" he asked, as she breathed against his chest, drew his arm tighter round her waist.
"I should like..." Her gaze turned inwards. "Since I can, since we may..." And then her eyes opened out to his again, shining beautifully. "Since we fit so happily together, I think we should tumble again."
"I think you're right, my sweet Gilly," Lindy said, smiling, and this kiss led straight into another and another, all of which found him and made him nothing but glad.
danachan has called the Sunless Year. Please heed the warnings when deciding whether or not to read this; it's ultimately a happy story, but not a fluffy one.Title: Misadventures
Characters: OC hobbits, OC Ruffians discussed. Brief mentions of canon characters.
Rating: hard R
Summary: Gilly and Lindy trade tales of misadventure.
Warnings: Consensual sex; non-con, rape, and violence. Het, slash. Original characters.
Disclaimer: Hobbits and the Middle-Earth they inhabit belong to the Professor, not to me, though I did make up Lindy and Gilly and their families (but not Gilly's name, that she inherited from a Family Tree.)
From his first morning in Overhill to each and every after, Lindinas Goldworthy awoke glad. Glad to work with Mr. Burrows of Overhill, a chandler and soap-maker, glad to live with Marroc and his lovely wife Daisy and their sweet twin babes. His first waking, in a borrowed bed in the Brockhouse lads' smial, had found him filled with relief at having come alive through the Battle of Bywater, joy in the hobbits' victory, and not such great pain as all that from the slashes across his left arm. Those slashes healed to brave scars, just right to strip his sleeve to display; a year had passed now since the battle and all Overhill still gave him a hero's greetings, and more and more of the hobbits of the town gave him the smiles of a friend.
Now Lindy lay dozing beside the most gladdening aspect of all Overhill, pretty Gillyflower Brownlock. Listening to her peaceful breathing, he lay with eyes closed, snugged with her head on his shoulder and his arm round her soft waist, the warm air lightened with her scent. Gilly was sweet from her tea-brown eyes to her shining dark curls, her soft lilting voice to her tender fingers, so gentle she winced to pluck chickens yet so sensible she tended wounds without flinching. After the Brockhouses bore him home with them, victorious and near-fainting, the folk of Overhill came by to see them and him, the town's heroes from the battle; out of all of the younger folk she'd shone in his memory, and that was but the first meeting of many.
And yet, there was a sometimes shadow in her clear dark eyes; at Lithe, amidst dancing hobbit lasses and laughing hobbit lads the one Lindy wished for was nowhere to be seen, and when he found Gilly some days later and asked her to come gathering bracken for ash-making, she ducked her head till her curls hid her face as she gently demurred. Lindy almost thought it was his company she'd avoid, till she glanced up again, smiled, and brushed her lips over his. Their first kiss, but surely not their last; Gilly's parents and Mar and Daisy all turned naught but smiles on Lindy and Gilly's friendship, and he had no words fit for the gladness of that.
So when Lindy Goldworthy had woken this morning to crisp air and warm sunlight through the window, he'd breathed, and breathed again, till his dark dream of memory faded, and turned his face to the bright window and smiled. Marroc had a half-day of work for them, cutting set soap into bars and setting tallow to clear, and afterwards he took Daisy and the babes to Hobbiton, and Lindy took Gilly walking.
They walked round the paths of Overhill, hands warmly clasped, their breath curling whiteness on the air and the last leaves rattling on the trees. They waved to hobbits hanging greens and holly on their doors and traded snatches of carols with their friends along the way. The woods beckoned from the edge of town, brown-floored but frost-sparkled in the colder corners, but when Lindy tried to turn their path that way Gilly shook her head again, her shining curls swinging in the winter sunlight. Lindy looked at her, and she looked back at him, a warm light glimmering in her eyes, and said, "take me by the Burrows'?"
And so he did, finding the smial empty, and so they had their first tumble together, Lindy's first in over a year. His heart pounded in his chest as he sat on his bed watching Gilly take down her hair and unlace her bodice. When he saw her fingers trembling on the ties he reached up to fold his hands around hers, and she looked up through her curls with depthless eyes, and he smiled helplessly, wishing her not to be nervous, not for him. She smiled then in return, and then she leaned down into his arms, and even though he got himself tangled in her bodice laces and they didn't properly get his breeches off till afterwards, what mattered all went wonderfully.
Wonderfully, and all the better for its little faults. Her hand low on his back made him startle, but he made himself feel its small soft gentleness till he eased and could kiss her questioning look away. When she stiffened beneath his touch he softly called her, and she turned to him saying, "Lindy" with relief more than desire, so he kissed her gently, then again and more, till her desire flared again and there was nothing left to bar the way between them.
And now he lay with the gentle ripple of her breath in his ear, snug and warm and idly thinking on if he might ask her hand by Spring, when she drew a deeper breath, and another, and then a sob. Lindy turned to Gilly, and when she looked up through her wet eyelashes he knew why, even as he wished it not to be true. "Gilly?"
"Lindy, Lindy. I---" Gilly caught his shoulder in her hand and pressed her cheek to his chest. "Lindy. Oh, thank you. I'd thought, I'd feared..." Her tears took her, and Lindy held her as close as he might, stroking her shining curls, his own eyes wet in sympathy. He closed them tight, tears running down his face, and held his Gilly as she wept.
Soon, she sniffled, and gave a little crushed laugh. "I must look---"
"Lovely as ever," Lindy said, knowing enough of lasses to say this at least. She smiled through her tears, and laughed a little better as he lifted the edge of the sheet to her hand; she wiped her eyes and tucked her head back beneath his chin, soft curls feathery on his cheeks. And, as he knew she would, she began to speak.
"I hadn't known if I might find pleasure in a tumble again," she murmured low over his skin, so he felt the words nearly as much as heard them. "After the Men." He'd known it, from her first sob. He'd known it, and he hated them all over again as his arms tightened round her. "After... oh, Lindy, your heart's pounding. You..."
She trailed off uncertainly, and he'd never have her fear him. "Gilly," he said, curving his hand to her soft cheek. "Sweet Gillyflower. I'd slay them all over again, for having dared lay hands on you."
Gilly breathed a sad laugh into his shoulder. "I... it was my own misadventure that put me in their power. You... you should know, but will you hate me?"
"Never, never beneath the Sun, never." Lindy said it, and again, till she drew breath, till she gathered her courage, till she smiled over his skin.
Then she returned to setting the tale to words. "My Mam had warned me, time and again, not to go from the house alone, not to go without a need, but it was June and warm and bright, I'd done all my chores, and the birds chirped and the breeze whispered between the leaves. I hadn't walked in the woods in such a time, I thought I'd just take a turn in the shade, pick a blossom or two, return home by the noon meal." She shook her head, her laugh half a sob. "I knew the path like the main street of town, so I went with eyes half-closed to better feel the sunshine, and so I took myself right into the hands of two Men." She shook, and swallowed hard, and Lindy stroked her soft shoulder. "They were... you fought at Bywater, you saw them close. You know what they were."
Lindy had known before, all too well, but he held his tongue, and Gilly kept telling. "And they laughed at me, and they bound my hands to the stems of a bush, and I struggled and I begged and they squeezed me and laughed... I dreamt long after of the snaggletoothed glint of their laughing in the green dimness, the glint of the first one's knife as he cut at my clothes. The glint of their eyes as they pawed me and mouthed me and had me, one after the other and the first again, till I was blinded by weeping."
"Oh, Gilly," Lindy murmured, for he knew that hard-eyed glint, knew the fear and the ache of being taken from oneself. Gilly nodded, her face wet against his skin, and took three shaking breaths before she could continue. "When they were done with me they set themselves to rights, still laughing, saying they should leave me bound for the next Ruffians passing by, and made to walk away as I pulled and screamed. But they turned back, one cut my wrist free and squeezed me all over till I broke out weeping anew; he kissed me hard, and they both laughed, and then at last they left for true."
Gilly lay silent for a little while, breathing under his hands, and Lindy was drawing breath and gathering wit to answer, when she spoke again, voice almost shocky in its calm. "When I could see through my tears the Sun was high in the sky, rising to noon, and there was distant birdsong and calm woods around as if I'd never loosed a scream, and I lay amidst all the fresh greenness weeping and aching and cursing my own foolish fancy." She paused to breathe again, but now he knew she wasn't done, and he stroked her hair and waited quietly. "At length I picked the knotted rope from my other wrist and gathered myself up, and when I could walk I clutched the shreds of my clothes on around myself and made my way home. My Mam blanched to see me so, and I knew she'd question me, so I said before she might, 'I had a misadventure', and she didn't ask. She cut the rope off my wrist and burned my ruined clothes and drew me a bath, and when she brought me tea she stroked my hair and kissed my brow. And I didn't go from sight of the house again till the day after the Battle, when I went to visit the Brockhouses, the day I met you. And she has never asked."
"Those brutes," Lindy murmured uselessly, his mind full of the horror of them abusing any lass so, let alone his gentle sweet Gilly.
Gilly kissed his chin and sighed. "I wasn't... I'm not a little lass, I'll be of age next May. And it's fading in time, all ills do. But still, I ought to have told you before, Lindy."
"Before? Why?" Lindy wriggled back a little, enough to see her face.
She looked up at him with eyes dark and warm and old as Night. "Because... because if you'd rather not have come to bed with me, knowing this, I should have---"
But he was already shaking his head, already saying "No, no, Gilly, no." She stopped, brow furrowing over her eyes, and he swallowed hard, and smiled, for it surely was his turn to tell. "Regardless of this, I should want you, I always should want you." She closed her eyes in relief, but he breathed, just at the start. "And I... I know what you bore, Gilly. I bear it too. I was forced by the Ruffians myself."
At that, her eyes flew open, round as her shocked plump mouth. Before he lost his nerve, Lindy went on. "The Men, when they set their watch on the Tookland, they set up their base in Pincup; by March we had two score or so settled amongst us, all but drinking our blood, we bore them so heavy. My brother's farm was stripped bare but for what they could hide, my eldest sister's husband spent three months in the Lockholes. And for us at home with my Mam... we had a bare larder, but Clary, my twin sister, things bloom in her hands. So we lived by her garden and my hunting and our trading, and thought ourselves the lucky ones."
"Oh," Gilly breathed, warm on his throat, her whole body warm and soft by his. Lindy held her, held to her, and told her his tale. "One day during Harvest, I was helping my sister Callie, and I had my niece Lucerne with me. Lucie, we call her, a little sprite of a lass not ten years old, and she ran ahead of me and I saw her about to smack straight into a Man. And they held back from nothing, they'd never allow for a chit. I ran after and caught her back, but not so soon that he didn't see us. So he stopped, to have a word with me."
Gilly's breath caught, and Lindy turned his face into her shining hair, away from the memory of staring up at the Ruffian Snath as he grinned and crouched down, his greasy threadlike hair fallen from its tie, his shoulders broad and his hands wide on Lindy's arms. "Best watch your way," he'd said, squeezing Lindy hard, Lucie shaking behind where Lindy'd pushed her. Lindy had stood and said nothing, and Snath had let them go, and that had seemed the end of it.
Till the next time Lindy saw Snath, and by the broad grin knew himself recognized. Breathing in the present sweetness of Gilly's hair, strengthened by her soft arms wound around him, he went on. "It was just a word, and I put it from my mind, but I saw him again several times, and each he grinned at me. It was disquieting, but hardly the worst thing to befall. Especially not after our Mam starved herself to illness, especially not after September turned to October and the Men grew more frustrated with the Tooks and more vicious with us."
Gilly nodded. "They did so here too, that last month. They'd beat a hobbit or bear them off for trifles before, but in October, they needed not even a trifle, they sometimes laid about soon as look at us. They dug several families from their holes, and burned our Town Hall."
"Just so in Pincup. And they... they began coming into houses and smials at night." Lindy felt his flesh crawl, and Gilly gripped him more bracingly. "The Man who'd seen me, his name was Snath, and I learned it the night he came to our smial, the night I put my sisters behind me and told him I'd answer for our family." Lindy knew Gilly was warm in his arms, those dark days a year and more gone, but behind his eyes he saw the memory, felt again Snath's hard hands round his shoulders dragging him up, how Snath'd shaken him and kissed him hard enough to feel teeth. How Snath had sprawled in their front parlor, warming himself by the fire, and hauled Lindy's head down, huge fingers tangled in his hair. How he'd asked for ale after, and growled and shook Lindy on hearing they had none, but had finally, finally left. "He shook me about, and made me suck him, and was cross to hear we had no further refreshment for him. But he left, and I washed my mouth and scrubbed myself and let my Mam weep over me, and tried to believe that was the last of it."
"But it wasn't," Gilly whispered, tears of sympathy overflowing her eyes.
"So it wasn't," Lindy murmured. "Eight days later, Snath returned, with three others. My sisters had hid. Clary hadn't wanted to leave me, but I shouted at her, I made her. Snath and his fellows filled our sitting room till it seemingly bulged, and they told me to call my sisters, but I shook my head. They shook me and slapped me, but I set my teeth. But I heard a door creak, and I tried to say, 'Sister, stay hidden,' but all I said was, 'Sister.' Hearing me, Clary stepped out, and they seized her, and... and they forced us both, they..."
Lindy's voice broke there, and he sobbed, and Gilly wriggled up and wound her arms round his neck, kissing his brow, stroking his hair. He remembered, how Snath had laughed and pulled her forth and pushed her down, how the others had held Lindy as he shouted and swore, had struck him till his head throbbed and he lolled half-senseless, had put him over the seat of a chair and torn his clothes away and rutted him fore and aft. And all the while, through the aching and choking and his blood pounding in his ears, Lindy heard Clary's protesting voice shrill with pain, heard her dress tear in Snath's hands and her words fall away to cries as he forced her on the sitting-room rug. Lindy'd struggled till they bound him to the chair with his own torn breeches, fought till they'd bloodied his nose, strained against his bindings till his wrists were scraped raw; Snath took hold of Lindy's hair and dragged his head up, forcing him to watch as the other three took turns on Clary, as Lindy struggled beneath Snath, pummelled past sore, and wept to see her tormented, to hear her screams.
Then they'd straightened themselves and laughed, and Snath had smacked Lindy's rump and said he and his sister gave grand sport for which they'd surely return, and they'd left the door ajar so the chill air flowed through the room. Lindy wept all the more then, hearing his sister's broken weeping, bound and battered and unable to aid her. And he wept now, in Gilly's arms, till his sobs quieted to hitching breaths. She kissed his brow, and he tilted his face up to hers, and she kissed his mouth and blotted his cheeks with the damp sheet. "That must have been terrible," she murmured, shaking her head at the lack of the words. "If I know you, it was worse for you that your sister was hurt before you."
"It was worse." Lindy nodded, pressing his cheek to Gilly's soft breast. "It was worse to fail her."
"Oh, Lindy," Gilly said. "Oh, my lad. You tried. You surely tried."
"But I failed." Lindy saw again, behind his closed eyes, Clover's pale set face as she untied him, as she half-carried Clary staggering from the room and then returned for Lindy, wrapped her arm round him and heaved him to his feet. She'd gasped beneath Lindy's weight, but he couldn't walk on his own, no matter how his heart bled to lean on his littlest sister. "I failed my sisters both, for little Clover was left alone to care for us all, and Clary was abed over a week, and our Mam wept over us till it made her so ill we feared we'd lose her."
"How long were you abed?" Gilly asked, her hand gentle through his hair.
"Four days," he said, "though I hardly knew it till later; I hardly knew up from down for a day and more. I tried to rise the next, but my legs wouldn't bear me. And I could hear Clary weeping, late in the night. When I could rise I went to her, and she let me take her hands but she wouldn't look at me. I expect the sight of me brought back that night."
"Lindy, you did all you could," Gilly murmured. "Oh, my poor, brave lad." Lindy would have shaken his head, but Gilly kissed his brow again, enfolding him in her warmth.
So he breathed in her warmth, and remembered what they'd just been about, how it hadn't hurt either of them, how lovely it had been. And he remembered his tale wasn't done. "That was the end of it, though. Snath didn't return. And... it took me a fortnight, and seeing Clover leaving the house to fetch and gather till I couldn't stand the worrying after her, but I left the house again. I didn't even try to hunt, though. My nerve was utterly sprung. But I fished, and tended the last of the garden; the pumpkins were good to us, and we lived on that through to November. Clary stayed in, though, and hardly had a word for any of us, and least of all for me." Lindy heard his words, and could have struck himself. "Not that I blame her a whit."
"No," said Gilly gently. "I know you do not."
Lindy smiled, if wanly. "Good, then. Good. At any rate, the night of the Second, my friend Allie came to my window, whispering to me that there was a rising in Bywater and they'd need our aid on the morrow. I squeezed his hand and said I needed to think on it, but... I still didn't know if Snath might return, and with who in his company, and... plainly put, my arse had only just stopped aching." Lindy laughed at that, a dark self-mocking laugh, and it hurt that Gilly had suffered enough to know his meaning and laugh sadly with him. She tightened her arms round him, and he held her gratefully in return. "So I went with Allie, creeping along wooded pathways before dawn, and found Bywater buzzing in the morning; the Tooks had raised the siege, bright-faced Master Pippin Took had returned who'd been thought dead all the last year, and he and Master Merry Brandybuck were leading our battle. My heart felt light as it hadn't the whole year, and I thought with those two at our head we couldn't but win. And so we did."
"And so you did!" Gilly kissed him again, and her eyes shone, so Lindy kissed her back, her mouth tender and sweet on his. And so they had won, and the Men were dead or driven from the Shire, the dark days were past and gone.
When the kiss broke, Gilly turned in his arms, tucking herself to him like spoons in a silverware chest. "How fare your family now?" she asked.
Lindy sank his face in her hair, gathering himself for the answer. "After the Battle, Allie told them I'd lived and was healing here. Remember, just before last Yule, the lass and matron who came to see me? Those were Callie and Clover bringing me a few things. Ever since, Clover's written me week by week. Clary's mending, and so are Callie's husband and our Mam, but though Mam and Callie and Lanny all add notes to Clover's letters, well, Clary has not. Once she was my closest sib, but now... the Men are gone from the Shire, but still they stand between us."
"Is that why you've settled in Overhill?" Gilly looked back over her shoulder. "Do you mean to go back to Pincup?"
"I expect it is," said Lindy slowly. "I expect I don't. Marroc and Daisy like my company and can use my hands, and my Mam sent me a few coins, enough for my own little hole. I don't think... they no longer need me, and I have a new start here."
"Good, then," Gilly said, and laughed softly. "I mean... I would not rob them of you, but I'm glad you're here, Lindy. I'm ever so glad you're here."
"I'm glad to be here, Gilly," Lindy murmured, tightening his arm round her soft waist. "I'm glad to be here with you."
Gilly smiled, but then she sighed, and turned again to face him. "You must go back, though. To visit." She spoke so gently there was no argument. "You need to see your sister Clary again, and I... I think I might help in that."
"You'd come with me?" Lindy folded his hands around Gilly's. "Your parents like me well enough, but I think they'd only let you travel with me if..."
Gilly ducked her head, but her eyes still shone up from amidst her curls. "I hope you don't think me forward."
"Gilly!" Lindy laughed, and all the aching places in him were balmed with joy. "Oh, Gilly, I think you the sweetest, loveliest, best lass in all the Shire, and, oh, will you be my lass, then? Will you lay your hands in mine, shall we think together towards a wedding?"
Gilly tipped her head back, and smiled, and kissed him. "Yes, Lindy. Yes, I will, we surely will."
Lindy wrapped his arms round her and pulled her to him, and she was warm and sweet and soft and perhaps he would be proddy again very soon. But first, as a thought came to him. "Gilly, I... Pincup is full of woods, it's set into the woods. Will you walk in them with me? Can you bear to?"
Gilly tensed beneath his chin, and then sighed, and eased again. "With you with me, yes, Lindy, I could walk in the woods again."
"Then all is settled," Lindy said, but Gilly made a soft little contrary sound.
So he looked down, and she was smiling up. "All but one thing."
"And that is?" he asked, as she breathed against his chest, drew his arm tighter round her waist.
"I should like..." Her gaze turned inwards. "Since I can, since we may..." And then her eyes opened out to his again, shining beautifully. "Since we fit so happily together, I think we should tumble again."
"I think you're right, my sweet Gilly," Lindy said, smiling, and this kiss led straight into another and another, all of which found him and made him nothing but glad.
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Amazing story.
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I know why you'll always be one of the most awesome hobbit-writers in this beloved fandom.
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I'm now going to say that I loved this the first time round, and I love it here as well. And have I mentioned that my heart is in pieces? I feel like I need to cry.
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*beam* This is such a wonderful comment! Thank you so much, brighteyes!
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That is sweet and wonderful and full of hope.
I'm glad they've got each other. I suspect it'll help to know that they've been through the same thing. I agree with Solvent90 about the optimism and the complexity.
It made me sniffle and smile at the same time.
This is very nicely done. :-)
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*beam* Then I've done what I wanted to do with this. :D Thank you for telling me so.