A Huntress Among Fools by Isilme_among_the_stars  

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What have we become in this dangerous new world?

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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