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Vairë Was a Weaver, or, Real Men Wear Corsets  by Celeritas

The procession that morning had not been nearly as flashy.  The same wildly colored silks brightened the somber streets of Gondor, but the men walking alongside looked straight ahead, bearing covered tents on their shoulders.  Each of them bore a sword at his side, and looked as if he knew how to use it.  Behind, followed the wagons—enough that some doughty men bristled at the insult to Gondor’s hospitality—and then, nothing.  If the Khandis had indeed come to parley, why did the people of Khand take so little pride in their own king?

Now, ten minutes past ten o’clock by the hobbits’ reckoning, the whole court of Gondor was assembled, and the Khandis had not yet appeared.  Arwen had gently reminded her husband that different cultures reckoned time differently; Aragorn replied that he equally could be using this as an opportunity to display power.

The speculation was cut short by the entrance of a solitary figure: a woman, richly clothed in purple and veiled in gold.  Rather than making the obeisance of the ambassador, she walked directly to the dais.  Guards hurried to block her.

Arwen whispered a word to the king, and he waved them aside, though both he and Arwen sat guarded on their thrones.  Faramir, too, shifted closer to them.   The woman ascended the steps until she was eye-level with the queen, and then slowly unwound the veil from her face.

“Only equals may behold me thus,” she said in a low, musical voice.  It was heavily accented, but not unpleasantly so.  “You have extended that honor to your people, for allowing them to behold me at all.”

Arwen rose, descended to the woman’s level and took her hands in hers.  “Then I thank you for that honor,” she said.  “May I ask you, Khandis, why you deem me worthy of it?”

A murmur rose amid the court.

The Khandis paid it no mind, and though she spoke only to Arwen, her voice carried enough that the Queen knew she meant for all to hear.  “I was pleased at the reports I had received two days ago, of a single word from you calling your consort from his business.  That was naught compared to the pleasure I felt from the reports from yesterday.  The two most powerful men in your land, garbing themselves as your women, because you told them to, the king of your ally brought to disgrace on a woman’s word, your consort forced to flee upon the loss of a pin, even your great hero laid low, by a woman, because he offended her sensibilities…  It seems that the notion that men rule your country was another of the Deceiver’s lies.”

At Arwen’s querying look, she continued, “Sometimes alliances are made of prudence rather than love.  We sent him the least valuable people to fight for him, and he never knew.  I am gratified to know that your supposed lordship of men is merely a show, though I had suspected it, for men have not the capacity to govern.  When shall we discuss the terms of peace?”

“Give me until after the noon-meal,” said Arwen, “for me to gather my ladies, so that all parties in Gondor may be well-served.”

“We shall meet then,” said the Khandis, “and I shall bring my advisors.  I look forward to a long, and fruitful, peace for us both.”

“As do I,” said Arwen.

The Khandis wound the veil back around her head, and departed.  Immediately thereafter the court exploded into conversation, which was only quieted with much effort.  Arwen had returned to the throne to see that her husband looked utterly gobsmacked.  She patted him on the hand.  “Did you truly not know?”

“What?” said Aragorn.  “That Khand is ruled by a woman?  You could not have known that till now!”

“Nay, not Khand,” she said.  “Gondor.”





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