A Huntress Among Fools by Isilme_among_the_stars  

The landscape changes, and I with it

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