the ice in the paragon by queerofthedagger  

Aredhel

The White Lady of the Noldor, they call her. It should be no surprise, then, that she is among the first to set foot onto colourless Ice.

The cold wraps around her like a friend, and oh, she is not fool enough to trust it, knows what recompense it will demand. Knows what scriptures it will corrode. The freedom of it, Tirion’s constraints abandoned, at last.

It is not as simple as that, of course. But Írissë knows how to mark prey; how to follow it to its collapse.

To wait for her chance, and then to take it, too.

Betrayal is no such different thing to hunger; each begs for retribution. Each will see you commit unspeakable things.

Each will swallow you whole if you let it. Never, Oromë used to say, let your heart aim your spear.

She kneels beside her brother as they strip the meat of those who turned to prey. The White Lady of the Noldor they call her, but she flinches not from the red, as Findekáno does.

We do what we must, she says once, her voice curt. He looks at her; looks East; understands better than most, and still not at all.

It is not that she mourns the Ice. She does not, the horror of it impossible to wash off.

It is just—she knows what awaits; a fight for survival, exchanged for another cage. One she would not leave with the door open, because what is freedom, if it means abandonment?

And oh, how Írissë knows of abandonment; of smoke in the back of her throat, of knowing, knowing that there had been no hesitation.

So, she cannot leave. And yet, a cage is still a cage, even if of your own making. Even as it is warm once more.