Chapter Text
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Celegorm dismounted his horse and tried to recover from the sudden whiplash of the two opposing pieces of news he’d been greeted with.
Aredhel… Their dearest friend, Aredhel was there and now she was not.
“Where has she gone, then?” Curufin came to stand beside him and looked from one servant to the next as they tried to talk over each other. It was difficult to discern any common vein for they all had… thoughts.
“Like the wind, that one.”
“Always was wild.”
“A lady of the Noldor shouldn’t ride like she does.. at least not in that direction.”
“I’ve always said she’ll get herself into real trouble one day! Have I not?”
“You’d think she’d have had her fill after coming up through Nan Dungortheb.”
“Nan Dungortheb!?” Curufin cut in with real surprise. “What drove her through such a place of shadow and death?”
“Shadow? Death?” One of them laughed, “I tell you the lady passed through no place such as that, from what I saw.”
Another confirmed the impression. “You should have seen her when she rode in as she does. Face flushed and smile as bright and white as a star. No trace of any shadow in the light of her brow.”
“But..”
Celegorm was positively affronted at being left behind in such a fashion. Especially after all that!
Curufin was comically close to pouting.
“Shall we go after her?” one asked.
“I certainly would like to.” The other answered, already moving back towards his horse.
One of the older in their company came to the two of them then, these returning sons of Fëanor, and smiled into the face of their great offense.
“You lot dragged your feet and took too long and she grew weary of waiting.” the old one said kindly and with great amusement. She’d weathered many a young lightning strike of an elf in her day and she’d weather many more. Her graceful hand lifted slowly and gave Celegorm’s cheek a hard pat that was full of affection.
“Don’t worry, melda. The wind will change again, it always does. It will blow her back this way.”
“But…” he started to whine and got another hard pat against his face.
“She’ll be back soon.”
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The white lady kept very still in the glade she had found. She had never before stood in a place so settled and she basked in it’s silence. She did not need to close her eyes for the darkness swallowed her gaze no matter how far she strained it in any direction.
The trees here were so thick, she’d had to leave her horse behind to find his own way.
Poor lobor… she smiled to herself in the quiet. How he had stamped and champed at her going. As if even he had wanted to keep her from such a dark, delicious adventure… to lead her away from the shadow and bind her to the light she was tempted to run from at last, even if that light was her own.
Her brothers shining city… she closed her eyes even to the thought of it. Too bright by half and too long spent there rotting away within it’s white walls.
And she.. their beloved ‘white lady’. They wished her near and yet they didn’t… Any time she found herself growing in comfort and shining more brightly, they would shield their eyes, unable to bear the strength of it.
But it was her strength and she was so weary of hiding it.
Turgon, darling brother that he was, offered her what comfort he could. But he was king and could never be enough for her alone.
‘Give them time.’ He often said to her when he found her retreating yet again into her chambers.
She had done her best. Time she had given as she tempered herself- making herself smaller, dimmer, more… digestible for those around her. Two hundred years was quite too long a time to be called ‘too much’. And that was quite enough of that.
Especially after Doriath.
In her elation to be so far, far away from the confines of her deep loneliness, she let loose the tendrils of light that shone from her fingertips and her eyes, from every lock of hair, and they saw her coming from miles away. She and her company were denied passage and her loneliness was compounded in humiliation. It was the first time she and the other Noldor had been turned away thusly, even Glorfindel had bristled at the insult which was no easy feat to get under that particularly thick skin.
It was curious to remember then, how their separation in the dangerous country they were driven to had the audacity to be a good thing.
A being of light such as she had never before been touched by shadow. Surely that would be less than desirable. She had expected to recoil from it, to feel the stinging pain of a snuffed flame in the dark but no… The shadows reached for her with grasping fingers, tearing her from her companions and throwing her into the sweet, dangerous unknown and it made her blood sing.
Unbidden and unbridled, she began to shine and the shadow reached for her still more ardently.
It was even more curious to her now that she didn’t feel half as lonely here, standing by herself in the dark and the quiet, as she did in the bustling city of her brother, or even in the golden company of her friends. Her friends that never truly had a thought outside of themselves, good company though they often were.
Maybe it was because things were so close here. There was no room between branches and leaves for more than a single footstep forward and a single, meager ray of light had more than a bit of trouble filtering down to reach the ground. The leaves were so dark they looked almost purple and the branches from which they grew were black as pitch. It all seemed to reach for her radiance as the flowers turn toward the sun.
It was a welcome change from the averted gazes of her brothers people.
Aredhel…
She could have sworn the darkness whispered her name and the sound was soaked in want. Her ears drank it in with an eagerness that surprised her.
She wasn’t used to being wanted, at least not in a way so simple.
The want she was used to was nothing more than the want for her to want someone else… Anyone that saw her and knew her connections wanted her only to desire the sons of Feanor as nothing more than a good match.
Curufin had tried once but it wasn’t her that he wanted. Like them, he only wanted that which others wanted for him but that would never be her. She could never bring herself to do what they wanted for her.
Aredhel, White Lady of the Noldor, was so much more than that… she would make sure she was so much more than that.
She dared a step with a dainty white foot and let the passing leaves brush against her veil. The sound sparkled through the deep shadows and they called to her for more.
Aredhel… they breathed.
Irisse… they sighed.
Another step forward and the blades of grass bent beneath her weight.
The shadows stayed close to shelter her path and the closeness was pleasing to her, weary as she was at being kept at arms length. So often she felt like nothing more than a bauble. Nothing more than a mathom to claim with pride but never touch.
Another step, and another, silent as she could make them. Shaking off the dust she had gathered in her waiting.
Then she felt a tug on her skirts as if she’d caught on a branch and she stopped.
The lady wasn’t sure what made her turn instead of simply reaching around to disentangle herself but when her eyes lighted on the spot she froze for it was no bramble caught onto the fabric.
It was a hand. A dark hand cloaked in shadow that held her fast. The fingers were buried in it with a fierce grip and it squeezed tighter still under her wide eyes.
She blinked and it was gone.
————————————————————————————
He had never wanted anything more.
Not the mastery of his craft nor any treasure he might smith. Not even the secrets of the dwarves he so coveted and had won from their fierce and jealous hearts…
There was only her and her glorious light.
Of course, he knew who she was. From the first imperceptible footfall over the borders of Nan Elmoth, he knew who’s foot had fallen. Aredhel… daughter of Fingolfin and one of the Noldor. A being of pure light that came willingly into his darkness and reached for his shadows with both hands.
Her veil was dusted with tinkling, twinkling starlight but it was the brightness beneath the veil that put it to shame.
He watched her for hours as she stood as still as the trees and let her brilliance set fire to the very air around her. It was only natural when his heart caught with it and it burned through him until he could see nothing else. The brighter she shone, the less still he could see and he found himself staring, daring her to blind him, to bind him to that awesome blaze.
Eöl knew he was… less than desirable. It was a fact that he readily accepted for he preferred to be alone, married to his craft and happy to live alone in the forest with his work. He’d never once thought to take a wife but suddenly he found he could think of nothing else.
Her name fell from his lips before he even realized he’d said it and he watched in awe as her glow gentled and her face lifted. She sighed out contentedly.
To think a mere whisper could gentle such untold wildness…
The feeling was intoxicating.
She did not appear in any hurry to leave which is just as well for he was not about to let her go.
Not for anything in all the world.
—————————————————————————————
The face that welcomed her was quite unlike any that she was used to and all the better for it.
His features were angular, his eyes slanted upward and his hair was as dark as the forest itself. It fell over his face and shoulders in tempting waves, hiding eyes so dark they seemed as a void, though they were far from empty. He was drawn and pale and yet he smiled at her and it’s sincerity gentled his harsh features.
She had not meant to stay so long in the comfort of the dark wood… but she had lost her way and wandered forth into this warm welcome that seemed to be waiting for her. Wanting her.
“My name is Eöl.” he told her with as much warmth in his voice as there was in his welcome. He bowed low and when he drew up, held out his hand to beckon her closer. His fingers, while graceful and long, were covered with scars and black with soot. They looked familiar somehow.
“Are you a smith?” she asked. She did not offer her name for something told her it was already known.
“I am.” he nodded, his soft smile tilted up with pride. Then his long fingers reached out for her and she couldn’t resist taking his hand.
When had she stepped forward?
“Come, Aredhel.” he bade her with a low, pleasant rumble.
She followed without question, filled with a burning desire to know this strange creature. She crossed the threshold into a darkness more complete even than the forest itself. Her heart began to pound when he turned to her with wide eyes that shone not with their own light, but with hers.
Excitement made her even more radiant and, finally remembering herself, she stepped back so as not to offend or… overwhelm this person. Only he wasn’t. He didn’t flinch, he hadn’t even blinked. He did not step away.
He came closer.
She shone brighter.
He took the hand he still held and brought it up to his lips, pressing a kiss into her palm and she gasped at the jolt that ran through her at his touch. His eyes were like deep, reflective pools as if trying to take in as much of her as they possibly could.
“Irisse…” he whispered against her hand, “You are luminous.”
This time it was she that stepped toward him until she had to crane her neck to look up into his face.
He gazed adoringly at her and pressed her hand into his heart as if her light had pierced it through.
“You are perfect.” he told her.
Unwilling to move her hand from the beating of his heart, she grasped the other and brought it beneath her veil to press against her cheek. It smelled of ash and metal.
Then her sparkling veil of starlight was tipped back and fell to the floor and his mouth closed over hers.
They grasped at each other with equal urgency and she relished the feeling of her inhibitions disappearing in the shadow of such ardent desire. She knew it was not proper and she did not care. As his hands wandered over her face and her neck, tangling in her hair and then the fabric of her shirt, she found herself begging for more.
A wanton sound left her mouth at the first scrape of teeth on her collarbone and it spurred both of them further.
She felt herself on a great precipice, dangling above the gaping jaws of tomorrows unknowable things.
Then, amid the haze of pleasure and the gasping breaths growing between them, Aredhel was suddenly accosted by a vision. Eol’s pleasing touch fell away and she looked into her own eyes, staring at her from the surface of a rippling pond that echoed the wetness trailing down her cheeks. An aching regret gnawed mercilessly at her heart and there was no light anywhere that she could see… only his shadow in the door behind her that would not let her pass.
A nip to her ear brought her out of such a troubling vision.
“Aredhel?” he asked breathlessly.
Pulling back, she looked up into his face. in it, she saw earnestness and fire. She saw herself and his desire for her. She saw everything she ever wanted entwined with all the unknown swirling in the depths of his dark eyes.
And yet she was not unsure.
In spite of… or perhaps because of the warning she’d been given, she flung herself headlong into the touch his fingers and welcomed whatever future they would bring.
“Eöl….” she grasped his face with both hands and sighed into his mouth. “Eöl….”
He clutched and grasped and held her fast. He kissed her deeply and with renewed fervor.
All sense of time was soon lost in the darkness of his home. Or was it theirs now?
His hands were black, whether from soot or from shadow she couldn’t tell but they left ever more of that delicious darkness in their wake. There was little light left beneath them and less with every passing moment, every lingering touch of those skilled, black fingers. He was a smith after all, and she wanted nothing more than for the lonely ‘White Lady of the Noldor’ and everything else she had ever been to melt away and be remade in the shadow of a being so very different from all she had ever known.
It felt as if those fingers were laying claim to her very spirit, starving for every morsel she had to give him. Not dimming her light in the slightest but calling it forth to blaze and swallowing it whole.
And she wanted him to.
Chapter Text
Friends were scarce but they could still be found in the far corners of this shadowy place that had become her home, if she looked hard enough.
There were the leaves that brushed so tenderly against her cheeks and her shoulders and her trailing hands. They rustled quietly in the darkness in the same way they had with her first steps into Nan Elmoth and the sound spoke to her of their gentle love for her. Then there were the little creatures with large eyes that scuttled across the forest floor with paws and claws and quiet feet. They would come upon her in the stillness and wiggle their little noses, twitch their little whiskers to bid her good morning and then be on their way. Though their company was brief, she was always glad of it.
Today, Aredhel whispered all her secrets into the ear of the small, black beetle that skittered over the window pane in her room and looked up at her with round, shining eyes. They beckoned her with such sweet depths of darkness, now as familiar to her as her own reflection.
These dim halls where she now dwelled sometimes held more life than the forest around them and today she sat by the window to peer out into the dark from beside the light of a meager fire.
“He loves me, you know.” she told the beetle with a small, secret smile. “More than any other.”
And it was true. It was a love as jealous and fierce as any dwarf, as bright as any of the Noldor, and it’s strength sustained her as the restlessness she fought so hard began to close in around her. And she would keep fighting it for it went against the one rule that she must follow above all else in these dim halls of Eöl, the keeper of her heart.
From the first day she wandered so willingly into the shadows, Eöl told her clearly in that low, rumbling voice of his- all the love she could ever want would always be hers… so long as she stayed.
"Stay..." he had bade her with a pleading note barely hidden in his voice. "Stay with me."
She had looked up into his earnest face from where she lay, contentedly encircled in his long arms.
"Stay here?"
He had tucked her head back under his chin and nodded against it. "Here... With me... Always."
It was a plea too sweet to refuse and so she had burrowed deeper into his chest with a hum and let her arms tighten around him in return.
"I will stay." she had whispered to the great shadow that loved her.
It wasn't until the third year of their living in such sweet togetherness, hidden away as they were, that she was made aware of something that could no longer be avoided- that anything worth having comes at a price and the one she had paid was high indeed.
"You said you would stay."
"But my home..."
"This is your home." His dark eyes bore into hers. His fingers stroked her cheek. "I am your home."
"My family..."
"I am your family...." he breathed into her open mouth as he tilted her face back and kissed away any further protests, any further thought of leaving the borders of the darkness that held them. "We are safe here, you and I. There is no need to leave. You promised me..."
"Eöl..." she sighed as his tongue, as skilled as his fingers, played with a spot on her ear that she particularly loved.
And that was how it went any time she posed the question.
The little beetle that was her friend lifted it's small arm and rested it on Aredhel's pale hand. It could have been an actual gesture of comfort with how deliberate it seemed and it broadened the slight smile hovering over her face.
"I'll see them again." she reassured the insect for all his compassion as they sat together by the window. "I'm sure I will."
In truth, she had relatively few complaints. She did not dislike her home. There were also servants in their home to speak and nod to as she strolled through the halls. They were kind enough, if a little grim. Things had a long way to go before they got as lonely as they had been in her brother's city for she had her great love to keep her warm at night and while her days no longer held much light, they were full of his comforts.
She only wished she could speak to her brother, even if it meant doing so in that garishly bright city of his. She'd give anything to take his hand and tell him of her new life. To tell him of her love... To sit beside her niece and talk of needlepoint for just a moment. To go out riding with her friends, those precious, foolish sons of Fëanor... She'd love to yell at to Celegorm again... when he overtook her horse and galloped too far ahead over the hills. To throw a nod at Curufin as he rode behind them across the open plains of Himlad with their hounds and their horses and their hair unbound and whipping across their faces in the high wind.
Oh, how she missed her horse!
Her restless spirit longed for him. Some days she felt she could ride on and on and not look back for weeks, if only to chase down the sun that she hadn't seen in so very long.
There were no horses in in the close darkness of Nan Elmoth and what had become of hers, she did not know. It had been long enough that she could barely remember what her dear friend looked like. And it wasn't just that...
Aredhel sighed.
As if hearing her, the beetle climbed onto her hand and crawled over the back of it. She lifted it and brought it to her face, her eyes crossing slightly before the tiny creature. This close to its little shell, she could see all the shades of green and violet and their metallic sheen in the firelight. It reminded her of the precious gems she often saw in her husbands smithy. They were all streaked with rivers of color that danced in the light of his forge. He would smile at her as she admired them, holding them up and drawing closer to the warmth he worked in.
The fire in his forge and the miniscule one in her room were her only source of light and she was growing increasingly troubled. It was something she had noticed for years now but couldn't bring herself to speak of. She refused to acknowledge it at all for to do so felt like some sort of injury to the being she loved so very dearly.
Unfortunately, not speaking it did nothing stop it happening.
Her light was dimming.
Not only that, all memory of light was slipping and had been for a while. Anything she could recall of the open air and the light flowing through it as freely as it ever did… it was all slipping away and her own light with it. All of her memories from before floated away as motes of dust that catch the sun for a moment and disappear back into the shadows, leaving you to wonder if the brief, bright glint of light was even real… if you’d even seen it at all.
Who had she been before? Aredhel wasn't sure if she could remember.
"He loves me." she whispered again to the beetle, as if it needed some convincing. "And I love him."
It waved its antennae to let her know it believed her. Her arm tickled under its feet as it made it's way up and over her wrist, trailing friendly touches all along the way. When Aredhel rested her arm over her belly, it continued on it's way and lighted onto the fabric of her dress. The dress was new, a fine dwarvish fashion from her husbands friends. He had ordered it specially, just to make her smile. It had the color and shine of silver and wearing it made her feel beautiful and bright again.
She adored the sight of his ashen hands lost in it and when it lay on the floor in rippling folds, it looked just like water.
Those were the times she felt like a little like herself again, when she was drowning in him and those hands that trailed shadows in their wake. Now that shadow was only growing and it was still swallowing every bit of light she had left.
But for every time she felt a little more like herself, there was another where she didn't.
When he was gone and the shadows still reached for her as ardently as they did from the first only... there was no longer much comfort in their touch. The deep desire of the darkness alone no longer held the solace it once did. It’s reach beyond his touch was possessive. Cloying. The black fingers that once held her fast now only held her down. Pinned and wriggling on the wall, she would weep if she felt her tears would sway them but there was little chance they’d let her go now, at least not before the child was born.
Aredhel stretched her fingers out across the fabric stretching over her belly, careful not to disturb her little beetle where it rested on the top of it's swell. It wouldn't be long now.
"I think Eöl wishes for a boy." she confided with a silly grin and a conspiratorial whisper. "A little apprentice to share all his secrets with."
It was nothing if not a pleasing thought and one that coaxed a truer smile from her whenever it passed through her mind. She could see it now, two sets of hands at the forge, both black with soot and leaving handprints over every Valar-blessed thing. One pair sure and long-fingered, the other eager but impossibly small. A little shadow of his own... A treasure the likes of which had never been seen before in the smithy of Eöl, indeed in all the forest of Nan Elmoth.
In all her wild wanderings, the White Lady of the Noldor had never given much thought to children. Then again, she'd never thought herself one to fall in love and now here she was falling headlong into a life of both.
Eöl had reacted with true joy at the news, with a light reflected in his eyes that she hadn't seen since she'd wandered over their threshold for the first time and after he kept her even closer. These last months he seemed happiest when she was closeby, so she kept to her chambers and amused herself however she could.
At last the beetle that had been her friend lifted it's head in a farewell of sorts. Aredhel would swear it said good luck, and then it lifted the shell over it's delicate wings and fluttered away into the shadows they had whispered of together.
Her hand remained on her swollen belly and she ran it up and down with the lightest of touches. The affection trailing in its wake did not go unanswered.
A nudge against the palm of her hand brought another gentle smile to her face. It filled her with a joy reminiscent of her old light in moments like these, to find the change that she sought, quite literally, within herself. Things did not seem so troubling, she did not feel pinned so firmly to the wall, when this precious little creature still forming decided to speak to her and did so with such warmth.
Aredhel could hardly wait.
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The birth was hard.
The light within her that had been so dimmed now blazed forth brighter than it ever had before. It burned through her in her power, her rage and her strength of will. Her screams echoed down the halls and she begged not for food, not for water, but for light.
In the end, they brought her into the forge and lit it and kept it burning while she labored.
Eöl followed her as a shadow, giving her water and wiping the sweat from her brow.
He held her up when she could no longer hold herself.
The fire burned and she labored on while the sweat poured from her body. Her dark hair was soaked and dripping onto the floor beneath where she stood, leaning her entire weight into her husband with her arms thrown limply over his shoulders. How she wished this could be one of those times where she lost herself in those arms, in those hands... But this was not any kind of feeling you could run from.
She dared a glance up at him as the pain subsided briefly once again and saw a smile of pure awe on his face. His fingers came up to stroke her damp, dripping cheek as he always loved to do when he was admiring her.
It gave her courage and she felt she could go on for just a little longer.
Then in one last burst of glorious brilliance, their son was born. His cry pierced the darkness of the late hour and the sound was strong.
Aredhel watched the servant bind his waving arms and legs in swaddling clothes and brought him to his father.
Eöl took his infant child in his arms and placed a gentle hand on the downy hair that was darker than his mothers, as dark as his own. She took in the sight and hid it away in her heart, to remember it always.
Then at last, at long, long last, the child was placed in his mothers arms.
Every little limb seemed to go limp at her touch and a sigh left his parted lips. She lifted her own hand to the hair his father had just stroked so tenderly and saw how alike they were. There was Eöl's sharp brow... his nose... his high, harsh cheekbones over the rounded curve of his baby cheeks and there... there on the smallest hands she had ever seen were her husbands long fingers, made for smithing weapons and treasures deep in the forest of Nan Elmoth.
She looked at his peaceful face in wonder.
it shone like a star in the twilight and with a delightful jolt, she realized it's brilliance was by his own light, one just like hers.
"My darling..." she whispered with reverent awe. "Oh, my darling boy."
Later, when she soothed his cries in the early hours of the morning, so new and so hungry for the life he had been born into, she was glad to be alone.
"Hush, little one. Be at peace, for I am your mother and I know your name." she whispered to her newborn son where they stood alone in her chambers. "You will be called Lomíon."
And the infant opened his eyes and squinted at his mother. When she kissed his head, he yawned and turned his face into the warmth of her breast.
The babe called Lomíon sighed and fell into the first deep and restful sleep of his long life in his mothers covetous grasp.
Notes:
This epilogue is one that I hope comes across as less... herky jerky and more conflicted. It is a fine line to see her try and compartmentalize the good and stretch it farther than it really can go.
Because she does love him and he does love her but that does not make the situation a healthy one.
If anyone is confused at the name of the baby, it is Maeglin that she has given birth to. Lomíon, or twilight star, is the name she gives him in the forbidden language of Quenya and in secret. Maeglin is the name given to him by Eöl when he is twelve.
ArcticNorthMilady on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Sep 2025 05:21PM UTC
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ArcticNorthMilady on Chapter 2 Sun 07 Sep 2025 05:30PM UTC
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