A Huntress Among Fools by Isilme_among_the_stars  

Fingon had been insufferable of late. He was so relentlessly positive. The relative warmth and safety of Hithlum (though still not overly endowed with either) had loosened the previously frozen tongues of the people, it seemed. The calf-eyed looks Fingon attracted as they stumbled over one another to express their gratitude was going to his head. Aredhel swore she could see his chest swell when an admiring subject began waxing poetic.

Fingon the Valiant. Fingon the brave. Thank you so much for hauling me out of the frozen waters, Fingon. Thanks to you, my prince, I made it all the way to Lake Mithrim, with only the small loss of a few fingertips and toes to frostbite.

If Aredhel had to listen to one more person heap praise on her brother while she stood right beside him, completely disregarded, she might scream. The praises were well deserved, she must admit. But was it only Fingon who scouted ahead over the treacherous shifting ice of the Helcaraxë? Didn’t Aredhel also take her fair share of that hazardous duty? Was it only Fingon who dove into those frigid waters to save the hapless among them from drowning? Aredhel had lost count of the souls she had dragged, dripping and shuddering out of the freezing depths. And what of sustenance? It certainly was not Fingon who brought them the lion share of food during those lean years. Aredhel was the one with a knack for catching seals. It was Aredhel who had brought down not one, but three of the great white bears that roamed the ice. She had always been a better huntress than her brothers, having learned a thing or two from her Fëanorion cousin. Fingon was brave and bold, but Aredhel was observant and fierce.

Aredhel recalled how it had so often galled Fingon to be teased by Celegorm when he returned from shared hunting trips empty handed. Their cousin’s timing didn’t much help matters. Celegorm frequently let loose his coarse, stinging barbs, as he helped Aredhel drag a healthy sized stag back to camp or surveyed a brace of rabbits she had caught with approval. Then he’d ice the cake later by suggesting Fingon make himself useful playing cook as he handed him a slab of freshly butchered meat. Her brother would have done better if he’d chosen a hunting partner other than head-in-the-clouds Finrod, of course, who frequently wandered off before the prey was even in sight. Aredhel smirked to herself thinking of Celegorm’s remarks on that particular matter.

“Something amusing sister?” Fingon asked mildly.

“Nothing that you’d find funny.”

“Alright, then.”

Turgon would have been suspicious. He would not have let the matter drop until he’d found a way to make her tell. Fingon just took her at her word. It wasn’t that he lacked insight, only he had no desire for an argument, so he didn’t pursue the matter. That was the most infuriating thing about all the attention her brother was getting. He genuinely deserved it. Fingon was so damned nice, one could not begrudge anyone loving him. It was no act either, he really was that guileless and sincere. He genuinely cared about their people. There were no hidden motivations, no political stratagems at play. All he had to do was wave his sword around a bit for their benefit (he wielded his sword so handsomely), and people loved him for it.

Aredhel lacked Fingon’s natural charm. People only admired her from a distance, and mostly for her looks, she thought. Increasingly frequently, she was called upon to fulfil duties she hated and got little thanks for it. Meanwhile her brother seemed to relish every task their father set him. How she wished her frustration with Fingon for this disparity were justifiable! Then guilt would not heap upon her irritation, transforming it into rage worthy of her late uncle Fëanor.

Fingon frowned as if he had just remembered something, “you had best go find father. He has new duties for you.”

“If it is more of the same mundane and safe drudgery inside this camp, then I am in a mind to refuse.”

Fingon fixed her with a questioning look.

Aredhel sighed, “Of course I shall do as father asks. But I would be of far more use to him if he would allow me to leave this encampment and join one of the hunting or scouting parties.”

“Take that up with him,” Fingon encouraged, “only allow him to ensure where-ever it is he sends you is safe enough.”

“I can hold my own in the wilds just as well as you.”

“I know that!” Fingon gave her a good-natured shove. Laughing gaily, he shooed her toward father’s command tent, striding towards it himself, no doubt to be told in which direction to explore next. Lucky sod, Aredhel thought.

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Aredhel was sent to the healing houses, a place she detested. And why? To provide sorely needed assistance to the healers and lighten their load? Well, yes, but anyone could do that. No, Fingolfin’s true motivation was for her to encourage those recovering there with her mere presence, thus magically speeding their recovery. Biting the inside of her cheek had been the only way to keep her eyes from rolling.

“Send Fingon if you want to raise morale, he’s far better at that than I,” Aredhel retorted when father explained her new duty.

“Fingon is engaged in other important work already,” he explained, his patience thin.

“Scouting out the land around us, you mean. Exactly what I would be best at!”

Fingolfin ignored her and went on, “Your caring hands are what is needed. I rather think that the injured and sick will prefer you to Fingon. You will see. You can do much good.”

Aredhel’s teeth lacerated the other cheek to stop the ironic laugh bubbling up her throat from escaping.

Like hell it’s about my caring hands! We both know I’m a terrible nurse. I’m better to gawp at than Fingon is what you really mean, she thought. The White Lady of the Noldor, still fair and beautiful, even after the harsh winds of the Helcaraxë. Soft on the eye for the wounded to gaze upon. Would you be asking if the cold had robbed me of my porcelain skin? If the icy winds had blackened the tip of my nose or an ice bear had taken an ear, would you let me go forth into Hithlum instead?

Aredhel held her anger as one would a spitting, scratching cat: firmly, and at arm’s length. Winning the battle against it for the time being, she took a steading breath and answered.

“I will do it because you ask, father, but with little willingness. I hope you will remember how useful I was during the crossing and think better of keeping me shut inside the camp. I am equal to Hithlum’s challenges and would do far more good out there than stuck here.”

“Your objection is noted.” Fingolfin’s tone left no question that the conversation was over.

Aredhel hated tending the infirm. It was the smell. It made her want to wretch and run as far away as possible, not stopping until her legs shook, just to get it out of her nose. Blood and gore she could have wallowed in without even blinking. She was a huntress after all. Dressing her own kills and dealing with the aftermath was second nature, but tending the injured was different. Aredhel found it difficult to explain, but if pressed, she would say that butchering was cleaner. There was no festering, no stale, sour miasma of sick, unwashed bodies. The hot, iron tang of the animals’ blood was pure, and their sacrifice life-giving. Inside the healing tents there was corruption and death.

In defiance, Aredhel spent little time with the sick, instead throwing her energies into practical tasks: preparing and organizing medicines and rolling bandages. The overwrought healers were quite grateful for this, it must be said. Whether it was because there was now less work for them to do or that she kept her foul temper away from the patients, she could not say. By the week’s end there was a veritable mountain of bandage rolls in the storage room and the entire stock of medicines had been re-organised and re-labelled. Very few useful tasks remained with which to continue her quest to avoid the horror of interacting with actual patients. Aredhel did not return the next morning.

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Fingon was spinning and feinting his way through a sword drill when Aredhel arrived at the practice field. That was not unusual. What was noteworthy, is that he did so shirtless. The early morning sun coaxed mist from chill grass under his feet, rising in silvery wisps around him. She rolled her eyes. Thank goodness there were no adoring womenfolk here to witness the spectacle. They might have swooned.

“Aren’t you cold?” Aredhel called out.

Fingon only shrugged, “after the grinding ice? Nothing else will feel cold again.”

“Care for a sparring partner?”

“Shouldn’t you be at the healing tents at this time of day?”

It was Aredhel’s turn to shrug, “they have run out of bandages for me to roll.”

Fingon chuckled as he tossed her a sword, “go on then.”

A series of lazy swings came her way, as her brother gave her the chance to warm up and get a feel for the weight of the blade. She met every blow with a determined smile. The steel in her hand, the bunching of her muscles and the flow of her body felt so, so good. This was what it was to feel truly alive.

After I dispatch my brother with the sword, I shall challenge him to an archery match and outshoot him too, Aredhel resolved. Her fingers itched for the feel of smooth wood, sleek feathers and the thrum of the string between them. Fingon picked up his pace. Aredhel doubled the force of her blows.

“You always were better at causing wounds than healing them,” Fingon teased affectionately, a joyous smile on his open, amiable face. There were no barbs behind his words, so it caught her off guard when the spitting cat inside her dug in its claws. Aredhel snarled and hissed. From the shocked look on Fingon’s face she would not have been surprised if her eyes flashed and she had grown whiskers and a tail to match. They sparred in earnest now, as Aredhel whirled in fury and Fingon took step after step backward.

“Á pusta, Aredhel! Stop!”

She didn’t stop. She didn’t want to. Now that the fury-cat had gotten loose she probably could not have halted its rampage even had she wished it. It demanded blood. It got it too.

A thin crimson line appeared, crossing Fingon’s ribs. Blood swept down his side in a thin sheet. Aredhel gasped. The hurt in Fingon’s eyes pierced her. The cat retracted its claws, and Aredhel froze in horror.

“Horro! What was that about?”

“That blade you gave me was sharp?” Aredhel asked, incredulous, “you idiot!”

“I… I didn’t realise. I didn’t think you would actually strike me with it.”

Fingon’s eyes were very wide. A beat passed before Aredhel had enough wits about her to find Fingon’s discarded shirt and staunch the wound.

“Don’t tell father,” she begged.

“I think,” Fingon said through gritted teeth, “whether or not he finds out is likely to depend on whether this requires stitches or not.”

“I’ll stitch it for you, just please don’t say anything.”

Her brother’s burst of terse laughter caught her by surprise. She fixed him with the most unimpressed look she could muster.

“You, suturing? Now that is a good joke. What is the matter, ráva nésenya?”

“I hate this.”

“Hate what?”

“This encampment. These stuffy tents and lean-tos. There’s a whole world out there to discover, and father finds every excuse to keep me from discovering any of it.”

“He finds reasons to keep you near to him, after what happened to Argon,” Fingon corrected quietly, “He is holding more tightly to Turgon and I too, only in different ways.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you know how far away he was from Argon when the orcs sprang upon us at Lammoth?”

“No, I was too far back to see.”

“In father’s own words: Too far to stay his impetuous onslaught, yet close enough to see him fall.”

Aredhel pressed a hand to eyes that suddenly prickled with tears. Fingon’s solid, warm hand wrapped comfortingly over her shoulder.

“I miss him very much.”

“We all do. Which is why father finds excuses to call Turgon and I to his command tent twice as often as is really warranted. It is also why Turgon, for his part, spends twice as much time as is actually required planning out permanent fortifications we will soon build. And you, sister, if you had been even half as cut up over something back in Aman, would have been in the forest. You’d have gone with our cousins, tracking a deer, breathing the fecund air and reminding yourself that it is good to be alive.”

She fought the prickling tears. They leaked out all the same and Fingon wiped them away with a calloused thumb.

“I miss Celegorm,” she admitted, “and Amrod and Amras. I know I am supposed to be angry with them like Turgon is, because they left us behind and caused us to suffer over the ice. But I’m not. They’re so close, yet they may as well be half an ocean away while Maglor and father are at odds. I thought the feuding was done. It seems cruel that we should lose them again to it, though they still live.”

“I can’t say I miss Celegorm all that much…” Fingon paused for a beat and Aredhel knew he had said it just to make her smile, “but I understand. Better than you realise. I’ll speak to our father. But first…”

Fingon shifted her hand from his side and gingerly lifted the shirt-come-bandage, sucking air through his teeth against the sting as he did so.

“Has it stopped bleeding?” Aredhel craned her neck to try and get a look.

“No,” he admitted ruefully, “the cut is only shallow, but it’ll open again every time I bend or twist. How confident are you feeling with a needle? Think you can patch me up?”

Aredhel could feel the colour drain from her face. She guessed her expression must have been one of sheer terror, because the teasing laughter in Fingon’s eyes turned quickly to worry.

“Father is going to be so angry with me.”

“Perhaps father still need not find out,” he suggested, voiced tinged with compassion she didn’t think she deserved just then, “I think I can manage it myself if you help. Go pilfer a needle and some silk thread for us, will you?”

Aredhel paused, unconvinced. This seemed ridiculous, even by more-courage-than-sense Fingon standards.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, you’ll make a mess of it, but thanks to Caranthir’s tutelage, I can at least keep my stitches in a straight line. I’d like a nice neat, heroic scar, not a lumpy ugly one, thank you very much.”

“Vain peacock of a man,” she muttered, “Fine, I’m going. Try to stay inconspicuous.”

Brothers! Insufferable, all.

“And Aredhel,” he called after her, “bring me a shirt and a tunic too, would you? I’m freezing.”

Aredhel smirked.

Chapter End Notes

A note of the Elvish words used in this chapter:

• Á pusta = stop/cease!
• Horro = ouch!
  Ráva nésenya = my wild/untamed sister

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A day later Fingon disappeared. No word had he spoken to another soul. None seemed to know where he had gone. Aredhel’s tenuous hope that her brother was quietly fulfilling a sensitive task for father was dashed when Fingolfin frantically demanded of her to know where he was.

“I am not my brother’s keeper,” she began obstinately. Her tone softened when she realised how genuinely scared her father was, “I do not know. He has said nothing to me.”

Unfortunately, Aredhel thought she might have some inkling of Fingon’s intentions. She was quite certain that their mishap at swordplay and clandestine foray into the healing arts had inspired in him some deeper thought. If she knew her brother at all, and he was nothing if not predictable, he would have linked a few pertinent, situational facts. The first: Maedhros languished in captivity. The second: their cousins’ disheveled and angry attempts at leadership betrayed how sorely they grieved his absence. Thirdly: Morgoth cowered underground for fear of the new sun’s light. Fourth, and most crucial: tension in relations between the two Noldorin factions grew steadily and was close to rupture. Even the vast barrier of Lake Mithrim was not enough distance between them it seemed. Lastly, the final straw: his sister had cried. Ever since they were children, Fingon could never stand her tears. He’d always sought to amend them, a desire made even more potent for the rarity with which she wept these days.

No doubt he had added up these things and come to his own courageous yet singularly stupid conclusion: I could do something surpassingly brave and maybe that would fix all the problems. She could think of only two options he would have considered. A stroll over to the Fëanorian camp to cajole and threaten Maglor into making nice was not the move she thought he’d make. Which left only one destination: Angband.

Please come home in one piece, brother, she prayed.

The next few weeks were fraught. Everyone handled Fingolfin as if he was made of glass. It galled him no end. Turgon, seeing this, resolved to relieve him of some of the fraught interactions. He quietly took upon himself more responsibility than anyone had a right to expect from a bereaved, single father, and he fulfilled it exceedingly well.

“Who among us is not grieving?” he had reasoned when Aredhel had gone to him with her concern that he stretched himself too far.

Her father, who passed the additional time fretting over his idiotically brave eldest son, neglected entirely to find more mind-numbingly mundane duties for Aredhel to fulfil. It was not the satisfying victory that she had imagined it would be. She’d have traded it in an instant to have Fingon appear before them, safe and whole.

If only he were as much of a shrewd, priggish, dickhead as Turgon, we wouldn’t be in this mess, Aredhel thought, wishing for the hundredth time she could go back and not inspire her brother into an almost certainly suicidal endeavour. Turgon would not have gambled so much to mend things with a people who had betrayed them. He would have calculated the risks and realised the odds were not in his favour. Aredhel watched her remaining brother cradle his golden-haired daughter on his lap, too big to be held in this fashion comfortably by now, but still young enough to need the comfort. Pressing in closer, she nestled her head on his breast next to Idril’s and was rewarded with a rare smile.

You really think I’m a dickhead? his mind-picture seemed to ask her, amused, as his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Her thoughts had been louder than she had realised.

No, but I’m angry with Fingon and I can’t very well take it out on him right now, she tried to explain.

You’re scared for him, not angry, he showed her. Images of her own expressions and bearing clothed in the meaning Turgon gave to them flashed into her mind. The air was suddenly too thick to breathe. Turgon gave her a squeeze. 

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The great eagle banked and turned a lazy downward spiral, circling Lake Mithrim twice before coming to an ungainly landing on a nearby grassy hillock. Aredhel had never seen one so large or magnificent, nor as apparently indifferent to its proximity to Quendi. What marvellous strength it possessed to hold such great wings aloft! Her practiced eye tracked the path it rode on the winds. The great bird meandered and listed to one side, as if it held a burden in one taloned claw. Judging from the altered trajectory, whatever it carried was heavy. Narrowing eyes in concentration, she tried to make it out.

A livid flash of red, a fan of black and a glint of gold hung for a moment weightless in the air, as the great bird neared the ground and pulled up. Divested of its burden, the eagle flew on a short way before folding its wings. Whatever it had been carrying hit the grass like a sack of grain. Then, unexpectedly, it moved.

With what appeared to be some considerable effort, the thing hauled itself upright. As it stood, there was that flash of gold again among dishevelled tangles of black. Aredhel would recognise that ostentatious ribbon-braided hair anywhere. Fingon!

Riding through the air in the grasp of an eagle? This is madness, even for you brother.

Her feet could not carry her fast enough. Aredhel sprinted, tore her way across the distance between them, eating it up, hungry for the embrace she already prepared to wrestle Fingon into. Already she prepared to berate him for what he’d put them all through. But as she drew near and he turned, she saw the shape of him was all wrong. The words died on her lips. Aredhel pulled up short, arms dropping to her sides in shock. For in Fingon’s arms was a terrible figure, starved and marred almost beyond recognition, but still their cousin. And the red was not only his hair, but also the bright haemorrhage of blood that covered them both. Aredhel froze with horror.

“Nésenya,” Fingon was wild-eyed and desperate, “help me. Please!”

The smell was worse than all the patients Aredhel had determinedly avoided combined. Cloyed air, thick with a foul, sickly reek of decay mingling with the acrid, eye-stinging stench of volcanic fumes surrounded Maedhros. Death clung so near that, but for the weak rise and fall of his chest, she would have believed it had already claimed him. Fear, instinct and affection warred within her, threatening to tear her in two. Aredhel wanted to run, towards them, from them, both at the same time. She steeled herself, stepped forward and placed a steading hand on Fingon’s shoulder. The feral light in his eyes softened a fraction. Aredhel took some of the weight (their cousin was far too light) and they stumbled down the hill as fast as Fingon, still light-headed and shaky from flight, could manage.

It was the grinding ice all over again, forging forward against fear not knowing if the next step would betray them. It was pulling a hypothermic body from the water not knowing if it yet lived, nor if the person could be warmed enough to survive. Her and Fingon had become all too familiar with both before they reached Middle Earth. This was a very different kind of unknown, one that Aredhel did not know how to approach. With her brother dancing with panic beside her, and their cousin near to bleeding out between them, she did not feel fierce.

Maedhros awoke suddenly as his ruined wrist was examined, jerking violently. Aredhel’s intake of breath was almost as sharp as his own. Poor Fingon, who still cradled him, as such was the haste employed, was forced to hold him still until he again swooned. The pained look on his face, eyes creased and lips white from being pressed so tight, did not escape her attention.

Eventually, when assured that Maedhros was sufficiently out of danger, Fingon slipped into an exhausted torpor. Only after Aredhel had untangled him laid him down in a corner out of the way did anyone notice the swollen, unnatural bend to his arm, and realise he too had been injured.

“Why did you say nothing?” she admonished him.

“I didn’t realise. There was not much pain, though it aches now I am thinking about it.”

“Not even when you were holding Maedhros in a death grip so he wouldn’t accidentally brain one of the healers?”

“No,” he confessed, “not even then. Only a sharp flash of it when I landed awkwardly after Thorondor dropped us, so I suppose it happened then.”

Adrenaline was good for something then, Aredhel supposed. The mountains of bandages that she had rolled were coming in handy too. It turned out Aredhel was quite as good at binding splints with the fabric lengths as she had been at rolling them. She even received a nod of approval from the healer she was assisting. Barely a grimace came from Fingon when his arm was set and splinted, and sleep had taken him when Aredhel tied the bandage off. Exhaustion had claimed too many good people on the Helcaraxë, too tired to go on, too tired to keep their own bodies warm. Aredhel could not help it. She worried. She would have worried even more had she known then it would be a full day before either he or Maedhros would do anything more than stir fitfully. Aredhel watched him silently now, the harsh lines that fear had written on his face all but gone, softened to peacefulness in sleep.

“You can leave him, you know,” Turgon remarked quietly, “he won’t disappear again.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“The chief reason for all that rash bravado is satisfied I believe. Suffice it to say when our cousins hear of what he has achieved, I imagine the rift between us shall be mended.”

Aredhel frowned. He’d misread where her fear lay, but Turgon was trying to be empathetic and comforting without her approaching him first. She wasn’t going to discourage that by correcting him. Oh, he was caring enough in his own way, but rarely like this.

“Has anyone been sent to tell them yet?”

“No, not yet. I think father is too giddy with relief for it to have passed his mind.”

“It should have. I doubt Manwë himself could help us if they thought we’d kept him from them for a moment more than necessary.”

“I will remind him to make the necessary arrangements.”

“No. I will go to them,” Aredhel asserted then added with less confidence, “if father will let me.”

“It’s quite a distance. After the part you have already played today, none would expect more of you.”

“Who better to go than I? They should hear it from family. Father can’t be spared at present. Neither could you, truthfully. Fingon quite obviously cannot. We are all coping with more than could reasonably be expected.”

“Who better, indeed,” Turgon grinned, “I’ll arrange an escort and tell father that you’ll be departing shortly.”

Aredhel went at last into the wilderness around the shores of lake Mithrim, and with her father’s blessing in the end too. There was not much joy, as she had hoped her first adventure might bring, but purpose gave her a focussed determination that was as satisfying. Among the trees, with crushed pine needles scenting the air, senses still sharpened from the ordeal of the day, Aredhel once again felt alive.

Chapter End Notes

A note on the Elvish words used in this chapter:
Nésenya = my sister

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Leaves shivered on their branches as a great baying rang through the still air of the forest. Aredhel thought she recognised the timbre of that particular bark.

Huan?

“What fool is out in the forest this late? Go carefully, Huan, like as not they are not friendly.”

Huan and Celegorm.

“Careful who you call unfriendly,” Aredhel called out, running ahead, “I can still out-shoot you. You might just end up with an arrow in your arse.”

“Aredhel?” he asked incredulously.

“Well met, Celegorm,” she greeted, as he came into view.

“What in hell are you doing out here? It’s hazardous to be a Nolofinwëan in these woods. Father’s words did a number on plenty of the men here. Valar, are you alone?”

“No. Do you take me for an idiot? My companions are not far behind. What are you doing out this far out?

“Escaping from Caranthir.”

Aredhel laughed. In close quarters, Caranthir was probably driving them all up the wall.

“I need to talk to Maglor.”

“Why? What happened?”

“We have Maedhros.”

“Alive?”

“Alive,” she confirmed, “I thought you’d all want to know as soon as possible.”

“How?”

“Fingon is possessed of more courage than sense.”

“For once I may be grateful for that. Dare I ask?”

“It wouldn’t help much. They dropped out of the sky in the clutches of a great eagle this morning, but beyond that I do not know. No one thought to extract the tale from them before they both passed out.

Celegorm snorted, “You’re having me on.”

“I’m not.” Aredhel stared, forcing him to look her in the eye. The exact moment that he stopped doubting her sincerity and began to have hope was plain from the slight widening of his eyes, and miniscule change in the set of his mouth. She passed him her proof, repeating emphatically, “I need to talk to Maglor.”

Celegorm looked down at the lock of hair held together with a small twist of string. There were only five people they knew with red hair. Two of them had remained in Aman, and Aredhel knew Celegorm could easily distinguish the slight difference in shade between the remaining three.

“Shit, Finno really did it.” Celegorm slid to his knees, shuddering. Laughter and tears shook themselves free, both at once.

“Yes,” she breathed, still not sure she believed it though she’d witnessed the result with her own eyes, “he did.”

Aredhel returned the following day with an unsettlingly anxious Maglor and subdued Celegorm in tow. What is more, she managed to convey them to Fingolfin without an outbreak of violence from their own people, though many looked on with hatred in their eyes as they passed. The icy expression Fingolfin turned upon the first person to voice their objection to him as he led the group to the place Maedhros lay, shut down any further stirrings of dissent.

Fingon, bleary-eyed, lifted his head as they entered. He still lay on the ground in the corner that Aredhel had left him in.

At least someone got him a cushion, Aredhel thought, and a blanket, though they could have moved him to a more comfortable place by now surely? He’s going to be so stiff. It felt like such an incongruously normal thought to have in such a situation.

Fingon blinked rapidly and promptly hit himself in the face with the splint as he tried to rub the lingering weariness away. It was testament to the gravity of the situation that there was not even a hint of amusement at this, though ordinarilyy Aredhel and Celegorm would have snorted with laughter.

“What time is it?” Fingon asked.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Fingolfin answered softly, relief exuding from every inch of him.

“Why did you let me sleep so long?” Fingon’s eyes were suddenly wide with remembered concern as he stood and quickly crossed the distance to where Maedhros lay still unconscious.

Aredhel sensed, rather than saw the sudden tension in Celegorm beside her. Following his gaze Aredhel marked that his shrewd eyes observed not his brother, but the extensive blood staining on Fingon’s clothes. They were both capable of calculating the implications; they knew from the way that blood spilled that this was only a part of the loss, knew how much it took for a large animal to bleed out, knew how dangerously near this came to it.

“It was a close thing, wasn’t it?” he asked her quietly.

“I believe so, yes,” Aredhel confirmed.

In front of her, close enough to have overheard, Maglor’s hands began to shake. “Thank you,” he said simply. It was the quietest Aredhel had ever heard him speak. Fingolfin took both of his nephews into his arms, and in that moment they were Lords no longer, only distraught boys, accepting the solace of an older relative. Of course, the histories would later speak of crowns and transferred kingships and dispossessions that healed the rift between their peoples, but this was truly the moment of turning. They were not warring factions any more, but family pulling together to overcome pain and misery. 

Aredhel’s admirable comportment earned her father’s trust (she and Fingon shared a laugh over his snobbish choice of words) and the new duties he bestowed upon her frequently took her to Lake Mithrim’s southern shores. Relations with the Fëanorian camp were on the mend and cooperation of all kinds blossomed between them. Not least of this was trade, the Fëanorians having the lion’s share of the best craftsmen after all.

Fingolfin often sent her when he could really have gone himself. Aredhel caught the glint in his eye and the slight upturned curve of his mouth as he once more asked if she would go in his stead if it did not put her out too much.

“You can drop the pretence, father. I know you could be spared to go if you so chose.”

“And let you miss out on the opportunity to go hunting with your cousins? I’m well aware that you hold your discussions in the forest. Frequently while your diplomatic gathering chases a quarry down, no doubt.”

Aredhel smiled, “and what of it, my Lord?”

“Nothing, my dear. I’m glad you’ve found something that brings you happiness.”

On this occasion, however, they did not go to the forest but to the forge.

“Curufin has been working on something that will be of interest,” Celegorm told her.

Aredhel didn’t see anything particularly special about the pointed lumps of metal on Curufin’s workbench until Celegorm fitted one to the tip of an arrow. Then she began to understand.

“They’re made for piercing an enemy, not prey,” Curufin explained, “They’ve a chance at going through armour, do more damage and are much harder to remove.”

“You realise with this, the bow becomes no longer a tool but a weapon?” she asked.

“It already was a weapon,” Celegorm countered, “Curufin’s just made it more efficient.”

More deadly to things that walk on two legs, was the phrase she would have used.

“These arrowheads will be a boon to us against orcs. With better distance weapons, we should no longer see the kind of losses that both of our peoples suffered during our first battles. Of course, this necessitates considering our armour as well. I’ve several sketches of improved designs for you to take back to uncle,” Curufin shared with some excitement. He always came alive when talking about his creations.

If it can be used against the orcs, it can be used against us, Aredhel reasoned, and thinking of Alqualondë added, and who knows who else this technology might be turned against.

“I don’t like the implications of the direction Curufin’s work is taking,” Aredhel expressed to Celegorm later.

“Why not?”

“It stinks of destruction and devastation. Can you not smell it?”

“We came to make war, Aredhel, what did you expect?”

“I don’t know. Not this investment in finding ever more efficient ways to kill things, and others to prevent ourselves from being slain.”

“This investment is sending orcs to their grave to keep us alive. We’re survivors, us.”

“But what will we become to remain survivors? Soldiers, warriors, or worse? We’re hunters, you and me, and there’s honour in that. Killing an animal, feels pure still. We’re taking only what we need, and not in a cruel way. You can say no such thing of war. It is a corrupt thing. Is this really the path we want to go down? The thing we want to be good at?”

“It is Morgoth’s corruption, not ours. We only play him at his own game.”

“I know. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Celegorm shrugged. His indifference to the danger of their position bothered her. Most of her male relatives were infected with some form of it. This survivalist displacement of guilt, like the righteous conviction of her father, was just another way of turning a blind eye to the terrible acts they would commit with their own hands. Both, she feared, would lead to disagreeable ends. It unsettled her in ways she could not put in words. 

Aredhel sighed, picked up her bow, and turned toward the forest. 

Chapter End Notes

You made it to the end! I award you a gold Fëanorian star. Seriously, though, thank you for reading my words, I hope they have given you some small measure of joy. 

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