Orc in Ithilien

Before we launch into the latest update, please allow me to direct you to some thanks and comments for the people who have so kindly reviewed the story so far. These can be found at the end of this chapter.

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The Orc glowered into darkness. Shagrat’s ability to suppress his emotions was impressive – indeed, he would never have lived for as long as he already had without it - and since leaving Ithilien there were a number of subjects that he had very deliberately been putting out of his mind. The recent conversation with the Hobbit had brought these back to him though, and now he felt as if he’d been tricked – if not by Ludlow exactly, then even more depressingly, by himself. He missed Goldilocks dreadfully, that was the root of it, and with that great wave of sorrow and longing for the Prince washed over him. The decision to distance himself from Faramir that he’d made soon after their reunion had, predictably, failed. All that Shagrat could say in his own favour about this (and it wasn’t much) was that he hadn’t succumbed to the Prince’s charms overnight. Even then, he had begun falling for him again almost immediately and although he’d seen the trap, and recognised the danger posed him by Goldilocks he had rashly ignored all the warnings he knew he should have heeded from past experience. In no time at all he was as head-over-heels for Faramir as he ever had been, and thinking about his recent conduct, the Orc was dismayed to realise how very easy it had been for him to forget.

Years ago in Mordor, Shagrat had allowed his then prisoner Faramir to escape and he had been sorely punished for it, his fond recollections of the young man being instrumental in the torments that were devised for him.

At the time Shagrat was no stranger to bodily hurts and had frankly, a high tolerance for physical pain. Mentally robust – admittedly within a rather narrow remit of Orcish experience – the disgraced Captain was also well-equipped to deal with a certain type of psychological challenge: though the horrors he’d seen, been party to and experienced first-hand were of a kind that would have been likely to unbalance the sanest of normal people they were grist to an average Uruk’s mill, and Shagrat accordingly had taken them all in his stride.

The Orc’s problem was that the tender feelings of warmth and companionship that Faramir had engendered in him were unlike anything he had previously experienced and he was completely at a loss to know how to deal with these troubling, worrisome new sentiments. His jailers, recognising this weakness exploited it ruthlessly, and used it to hurt him over and again until at last under extreme duress, his emotional responses had simply closed themselves down.

Considering the circumstances Shagrat was facing at the time, this was a highly efficient survival mechanism – as it had to be – and it worked so well that for a long while there were certain portions of the Uruk’s previous experiences that were blocked out of his reach, as inaccessible to Shagrat as they were to anybody else, his inquisitors included. Much later, isolated fragments of the missing periods – all of them involving Faramir - eventually came back to him, but each returning memory worked only to fuel the Uruk’s overriding fear: of discovery, and that because of it he would be sent back for further torment. He had suppressed all thoughts of Faramir vigorously as a result.

Given the lot in life of an Orc, Shagrat had never had much chance to feel or express caring sentiments, but any potential he might have possessed should have been utterly crushed by these experiences. A few acts of kindness from Faramir had however achieved what even the best efforts of his torturers could not: within three days of their reunion, the carefully-constructed wall of Shagrat’s defences had suffered a major breach.

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Bed-rest. That was that was the best solution Faramir could come up with for the most pressing of the many problems presented him by his newly-acquired Uruk Shagrat. Simple bed-rest and lots of it, since it had become clear earlier that morning that he couldn’t travel any further. And as to spending any more time riding on horseback, the Orc was obviously not equal to it. Their journey to Faramir’s home in Ithilien would just have to wait.

The Prince and the Uruk had spent the previous night together in Shagrat’s stable-stall, secretly keeping watch on one another by turns. Faramir as he fell asleep was vaguely aware that the Uruk, bundled up against the wall in his travelling-cape, was watching him intently, and each time he woke during the night, his first thought was to check on the welfare of the Orc. The early signs had not been good.

“I can’t stand up,” Shagrat admitted, a short while after daybreak. His voice and the look on his face were devoid of all expression and Faramir had asked him what he meant.

“I mean I can’t get up,” snapped Shagrat, with substantially more emotion. “I can’t stand up, pull myself up, or get over there.” He gestured to the entrance to the stable. “I can’t do any of that ‘cause nothing’s working, and I –“

He broke off and when he continued he was absolutely humiliated -

“The thing is I - I really need a slash.”

“My goodness, is that all it is!” Faramir said, feigning exasperation to cover Shagrat’s discomfiture, as well as the quick stab of anxiety he felt himself on the Uruk’s behalf. “I would never have thought you’d be bothered about something like that!” Faramir hefted him to his feet, noting as he had the previous day that his weight was a lot less than it should have been. He helped him outside and propped him up by the side of the stable block, standing by discretely while the Orc relieved himself, ready to catch him if he showed any signs of keeling over.

The early sunshine hadn’t yet taken the chill off the morning air, and it was cold outside. As he waited Faramir was suddenly, acutely aware that although Shagrat was holding his borrowed cape close around his shoulders he was stark naked under it, quite inadequately dressed for the season. He also remembered then how Shagrat had pitched forwards off the horse that he and Faramir had been sharing the instant they’d stopped the previous night, and how he’d lain on the ground where he’d fallen for such a long time, apparently unable to move.

Faramir looked away abruptly, cursing himself for not having been more attentive.

“It’s no wonder you can’t keep to your feet,” he told Shagrat, in a voice harsh with self-recrimination. “You’re injured. You’ve no business being on horseback in that state.”

Shagrat immediately began shaking his head. “Just give me a minute,” he protested, saying he was feeling much better already. “I know I’ll be all right in a bit.”

He didn’t look it. He was clinging to the side of the building, apparently staying upright by force of will alone. Peremptorily detaching him from it, Faramir steered him back into the stable and deposited him carefully back down in the straw. He set off to find one of his assistants, his mind intent on making alternative arrangements when the Orc called after him.

“Goldilocks,” he said. “Will I be seeing you again?”

Stopping short Fararmir exclaimed: “Shagrat! Do you think I’m going to leave you here?”

“I don’t know,” Shagrat replied cautiously. “Are you?”

It hadn’t occurred to Faramir that although his own attitude to Shagrat had so recently experienced an 180 degree about-turn, the Orc’s feelings towards him might not yet have had time to adjust. This was worrying certainly, but there was not a great deal he could do to reassure him just then. He would have to make it up to him later, that was all.

“I’ll be returning in due course,” he said. “In the meantime, I’d advise you to try and get some rest. You look like you’re badly in need of it.”

Shagrat nodded briefly. He did not look at all convinced.

After making a few careful enquiries, Faramir was able to locate a second hostelry far on the outskirts of town, one that was much less discriminating in regard of its clientele than the local tavern. It was clear that the place he’d found was basically a bordello, but as its proprietors seemed to be much more interested in the Prince’s ability to pay for the room he wished to rent than they were about the specifics of who would be occupying it, this looked to him to be an ideal arrangement. That the bed-linen was, for obvious reasons, conspicuously clean, and that the management were incurious about his motivations to a degree surpassing all normal discretion, were only advantages to Faramir at this point.

And so he set off to retrieve his Uruk, but as Faramir was finding out, nothing concerning Shagrat was ever simple. There was definitely trouble ahead, and as he approached the stable block where he’d left the Orc, he became aware of a commotion going on just outside it.

A number of people were surrounding something that was pulling itself laboriously along the ground. It was Shagrat, and they were jeering and heckling at him cruelly.

As he began breaking into a run towards them, Faramir heard Shagrat give out a single high-pitched scream. That spurred him on to run faster.

“What d’you think you’re doing!” he shouted, and snagged the nearest of the onlookers by the collar of his coat. Faramir swung him round and grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. “Unhand that Orc this instant!”

The fellow he’d accosted was a big man, shaved-head bald, and he caught Faramir unawares, head-butting him viciously on the forehead. Faramir staggered back a step, streaming blood, wondering if his nose had been broken, and the man followed through, hitting him with a good right-hook about the jaw. The force of it almost raised the Prince of Ithilien off his feet and he fell back, stunned.

“What’s it to you, eh?” the man demanded, shouting into Faramir’s face. He leaned over the Prince, menacing intent written in every line of his body, picked him up by his shirtfront, and punched him hard in the side of his head. “Running in here, shouting the odds….you some kind of Orc-fancier, is that it?” he demanded. “Think they’ve got rights like normal people, do you?” This was such an outlandish idea that it provoked a round of sniggering from the other townsmen, and encouraged by this, Faramir’s attacker drew his fist back, preparing to hit him again.

Suddenly the man yelped out, swearing, and straightened up. Shagrat had dragged himself over to him and had driven the point of a small clasp-knife he was carrying into the back of the man’s leg. The townsman stood very still for a moment as Shagrat’s voice snarled up from somewhere around knee-level. “Touch him again and see what happens,” he said. “It’d be my bloody pleasure to hamstring you.”

“Don’t go jumping around too much,” Shagrat advised, grimly hanging on to the man’s trouserleg despite the fellow’s panicky efforts to shake him off. He twisted the little blade viciously, for emphasis. “The big blood vessel in your leg runs just in here. I don’t think you want to find out what happens if my hand slips.”

The man froze immediately, and stayed absolutely stock-still, but his hands were still twisted in the front of Faramir’s shirt, which meant that they all had been brought to something of an impasse. This was finally broken by the arrival of the Prince’s other travelling companions, who alerted by the ruckus going on outside, came streaming out of the tavern with weapons drawn in their hands. At that the local rowdies who were in the vicinity began discreetly falling back.

“Your Highness!” cried one of the royal aides, aghast to see his master brawling, bleeding and lying in the mud. “What –“

Faramir shook his head quickly, wanting them to keep his title out of it. “Clear these people away, will you,” he said, getting to his feet.

“We should alert the local constabulary,” another of Faramir’s assistants began, officiously. “This counts as heinous assault against your royal person, Sir –“

That won’t be necessary, Faramir told him. “Just move everyone along. I’m quite sure they all have business of their own to attend to.”

There began a quick, whispered and one-sided conversation in which Faramir’s advisors tried yet again to convince him that the most prudent move he could make at this point would be to get rid of the troublesome Uruk for once and all. To their combined dismay however, Faramir persisted in not listening to reason and waved them all away, after which they seemed only too glad to keep their distance.

Faramir staggered over to where Shagrat was lying, still half-slumped on his side, and helped him to sit up properly. Then he sank down beside him.

Where did you get the knife? he asked the Orc.

Palmed it out of your britches this morning, Shagrat replied, cleaning it off and handing it back to him. “You want to take better care of your stuff, you do. Some people’ll nick anything.”

“So I see,” remarked Faramir dryly. He looked the Uruk up and down, surveying the fresh damage. “Shagrat, are you all right?”

Never better, the Orc replied.

Faramir asked him if that was true, why he’d cried out like that before.

“Oh - well,” Shagrat said cheerfully. “Sorry – couldn’t help it. That big bugger got me one right in the kidneys when I wasn’t expecting it. It’s nothing to worry about. There’ll be blood in my water for a bit, that’s all. It’ll soon sort itself out.”

Appalled, Faramir asked him in that case, what he was finding to be so happy about.

Shagrat grinned lopsidedly at him. “Well, Goldilocks. I suppose that’s on account of you coming back for me, isn’t it?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Faramir replied tetchily. It had been a long time since he’d been engaged in a fist-fight. “Whatever did you think I was going to do?”

“I – I just thought you were getting fed up of me again,” muttered Shagrat.

Faramir had no answer for that. Given recent events, he supposed from Shagrat’s point of view it might have been a natural enough assumption. He was beginning to question his own motivations, wondering if he could ever regain the Uruk’s confidence when Shagrat broke in on his introspection.

“Come on Goldilocks, let’s go and get some breakfast,” the Orc suggested gamely. “I could really do with something to eat.”

After they’d eaten Faramir ferried him to their new accommodation. The Orc, once installed in a stale-perfume-smelling feather bed slept for a clear 48 hours, reviving only to drink copious amounts of water, and to clutch Faramir’s hand against his chest as he fell back to sleep.

Late in the evening of the third day Shagrat woke up properly. Faramir had been ordering regular meals for him on the off-chance that he might want something, and he watched approvingly while the Orc ate every scrap that was put in front of him. After he’d finished, he kept on gazing at him, as if he was trying to memorise all the details of his face.

“Not much too look at, am I?” Shagrat said, challenging him after a minute or two of this.

“You never were, if we’re being honest,” Faramir replied, noting the look of hurt annoyance that flickered over Shagrat’s features when he said it. When he’d known him before, many of the Orc’s most basic emotions had been fuelled by feelings of self-righteous indignation on some level and under the circumstances Faramir was delighted, seeing this as an encouraging sign that Shagrat was beginning to return to form. He pushed his luck, saying: “Good looks were never your strong suit.”

“Oh. Right. Well I know I - I don’t have a lot to offer, either.”

“You’ve more than you think,” Faramir muttered under his breath, but the Uruk continued as if he hadn’t spoken, whether he’d heard him or not.

“So what’s it like being a Prince then. I expect you could have your pick of anyone you wanted now, could you?”

I have done quite a few times now actually, Faramir boasted. “When I became Steward -before I was married, that is - people were constantly throwing themselves at me.”

“What, you got to be a bit of a ladies’ man, then?” Shagrat exclaimed incredulously. “You never. Did you?”

My admirers were not restricted in their ranks to those members of the fairer sex, Faramir retorted. “They included legions of beautiful women, to be sure. But there were also men, and elves –“

“You’re having me on,” scoffed Shagrat. “What, no dwarves or Hobbits lining up to cut notches on you bed-post either? I don’t believe it. You’ve never got your nose out of a book long enough to have any truck with stuff like that. Go on, when did you ever take time to go on the pull?”

I didn’t have to, Faramir said blandly. “For a while there I was being propositioned both day and night. Often - it simply seemed impolite to refuse.”

“That explains a lot,” said Shagrat. “Since I’ve been wondering all evening how long it’s going to take you to make your move.”

Faramir sat very still. “Such a – move, then, would not be unwelcome to you?”

Not seeing as I’ve been waiting all this time for you to finally get round to it, the Orc replied.

“Those others,” Faramir said suddenly, in a rush, “it pains and shames me to say it, but in all of my – my carnal experience – which is probably much more limited than I was just exaggerating about - there’s only been one person who’s ever meant the slightest thing to me. That person has meant a very great deal - much more than I usually care to think about, in fact.”

“It’s your wife, the horse-fancier from Rohan,” nodded Shagrat, “you told me about her before.” He added that Faramir didn’t have to worry, as he understood what he saying to him.

“No, you don’t,” Faramir insisted, urgently. “There’s only been one person in all of my – not spectacularly extensive – experience that I’ve ever cared about. Only one. And as I said there have been women, and men, and even Elves, but – only ever one Orc.”

The Orc in question stared back at him, and there was a long silence.

Of course Shagrat couldn’t for a moment believe what Faramir had told him, but he still appreciated the effort made on his behalf, and thought that would definitely do for starters. He ran the tip of his claw up Faramir’s neck, until he was tilting his head back by the point of the chin. “So. Better than Elves, you say?” he growled.

Faramir, caught off-guard by this felt as foolish and giddy as he’d done when he was a lad of nineteen, back in the days when he’d first met Shagrat.

“That is assuredly not the point I was trying to make,” he stammered. “It would be akin to – well, it would be something like comparing apples and oranges, wouldn’t it? But yes, damn you, I think so. From my point of view, definitely yes.”

Needing no further encouragement, Shagrat enthusiastically began stripping Faramir’s breeches and underwear off him. He was good with his hands and certainly knew how to please, but it was not his technique or even his skill – although it was considerable - that made the difference to Faramir. The Prince had shared his bed with a variety of partners over the years, quite a few of whom had been just as able lovers as Shagrat, and there were even one or two of them who should, given a level playing-field, have easily surpassed him. But Faramir was biased: he hadn’t lied about his feelings for Shagrat, and believing as he had for so long that he’d lost the Uruk – and under rather tragic circumstances to boot - it was almost inevitable that anyone who’d come after him would seem to Faramir like a feeble replacement. Given the high level of expectation that the Orc unknowingly had to live up to it wouldn’t have been surprising for Faramir to have found himself disappointed with him, and yet he wasn’t, because Shagrat was everything he’d remembered and more. Faramir’s last rational thought before the pleasure Shagrat had brought him to reached its peak was a fervent wish that he would never again have to do without him.

The Uruk had been watching him during the throes of his orgasm with rapt attention. The pupil of his good eye was fully dilated and he was breathing heavily, unevenly and through his nose; he was wearing a hungry look of helpless arousal that Faramir recognised very well. Seeing it, he felt his own cock, well-serviced and spent though it had been through Shagrat’s efforts twitch painfully with renewed desire. He’d not really taken the time to find out what the Uruk liked before, but was intent on finding out. Having a fairly good idea where to start he leaned in, and pressed his mouth close against the Orc’s.

As he kissed him, Shagrat’s eye fluttered shut and for an instant he pushed his erection against Faramir’s thigh, nudging tentatively, but the movement was so brief and fleeting there was every chance he hadn’t meant to do it. Faramir recalled then that the Uruk Captain had always behaved in a way that had been quite unfathomable to him when they were together in the past: he had been so overwhelmingly cagy and unapproachable that the young Faramir hadn’t often had a chance to reciprocate during their sexual unions, most of which had been distressingly one-sided affairs because of this. It was clear that Shagrat was not expecting him to do so now either, but Faramir was no longer the inexperienced youth of those far-off days. Determined that they would not be starting any more nonsense of that sort, he reached down and began a slow caressing of the Orc’s cock, adding his free hand after a moment because Shagrat, erect, was quite a bit larger than he’d recollected. After a while longer, he rubbed some of his ejaculate between his palms, and massaged some of it into the Uruk’s bollocks, at the same time smoothing the rest over the head of his swollen member. That was enough to finish Shagrat, who had apparently been forgetting to breathe until this point, and all at once he gasped into Faramir’s mouth, caught his breath again, and climaxed.

To say that Shagrat was shaken by this wouldn’t have been overstating the point because afterwards he was trembling from head to foot, much too agitated to speak. He seemed miserable, thoroughly ashamed of himself until with a well-chosen word or two Faramir supplied him with a little careful reassurance. Then he only looked pathetically grateful, and feeling exceedingly sorry for him Faramir wondered, as he had before, what on earth the poor creature’s previous experiences must have been like to cause him to react like this.

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TBC

On the subject of feedback I have two things to do: firstly I must submit my sincere thanks to everyone who's written a review of the story so far. Your comments have been so encouraging, and have really meant a lot. I'm so glad that the story seems to be catching some peoples' attention (and that you're OK with the odd pairing so far, and the gratuitous inclusion of a Hobbit). The story looks set to be rambling on for a bit yet, for the person who was hoping there was more (!) to come.


I must also write a note to AntiDolorifico, whose comments on the last section of the story are largely responsible for what's included in this chapter. The material here was mostly already sort of done but I was in two minds about including it, since I wondered whether a big long digression into the past would be the right thing to dwell on at this point in the story, for reasons of...what I suppose for want of a better term we have to be calling 'the plot'. But, since you said you wanted more Faramir and Shagrat, what the heck. I guess I was looking for an excuse, which you very kindly have given me, to put it in.