#trsb2020

Aredhel quietens them with a sharp command and draws her blade. Maeglin has already drawn his. There is no way to hide, not on this grass plain, so they stand and look around and listen and wait. 'We are in the land of my cousins', she reminds her son. 'And they keep it under tight guard. It is unlikely to be orcs.' And indeed, in a moment they hear noises, and they are those of dogs, not wolves or orcs. Aredhel cocks her head and listens closely to the deepest bark. 'Huan', she says, smiling widely. 'Lómion, it is my cousins. Or Celegorm, at least.' She whistles, long and loud, the signal that she and Celegorm long ago used on their hunts to summon the other. At once there is the sound of galloping hooves. Soon another pack of dogs led by Huan rushes to greet Aredhel's, and Celegorm and Curufin and a group of scouts in leather armour rides to surround Aredhel and Maeglin. It is very loud again, all of the dogs greeting and sniffing each other. 'Sheathe your sword', Aredhel tells Maeglin. 'These are my cousins.' 'Írissë! You look well. Pale, though.' With a wide grin, Celegorm brings his horse to a stop right next to her and swings down from the saddle, bending down to scratch the ears of every dog that crowds around him and Huan. 'What brings you to this part of our land?' he asks Aredhel. 'Running back to your brothers, are you, without even coming to say greet us along the way?' It is said more amiably than she'd have expected; as if hundreds of years have not passed since they last saw each other. He was not home when she did try to visit him. 'Írissë.' Here is Curufin too, with his calculating eyes on Maeglin. 'Who is this? Your son?' 'He is.' Aredhel takes Maeglin's arm and speaks proudly. 'Maeglin Lómion is his name, and he is coming with me. Lómion, these are my cousins, Celegorm whom I used to call Tyelko and Curufin who was Curvo, lords of Himlad.' Celegorm and Curufin nod at Maeglin, and all three look at each other warily. Aredhel could hardly have expected more at the first meeting, she supposes. She stifles a sigh of impatience. 'Why did you stop here?' Celegorm asks. 'Though it is good that you did, I must say. I think we'd have ridden past each other without ever knowing it if you hadn't.' Aredhel explains how her horse tripped and became lame, and says, 'We were downwind of you and my dogs smelled yours on the wind, I think. Maeglin and I certainly didn't hear you.' 'And we you', Curufin agrees. 'We were too far.' 'Good thing that it is a windy day.' Aredhel raises her eyes to Celegorm's. He is the one she was always closer to, and the one who she feels she has more to explain to. 'We find ourselves in need of assistance. A fresh horse, or time at your house to let mine recover.' 'It is always windy in Himlad', Celegorm says, a spark of something in his pale eyes. 'Come to the Pass with us, stay while your horse recovers', Curufin invites. 'Our master of horses will have her well soon again.' 'Or stay longer', says Celegorm. Aredhel turns to pat her horse. 'Thank you.' 'Is she well enough to ride?' Celegorm approaches her and her horse. Aredhel swats away his hand when he reaches down to examine the mare's leg. 'No need for that. I can tell that she shouldn't if it can be avoided.' 'That is easy enough. Ride with me.' Easy as anything, Celegorm turns back to his own horse. 'You can ride with me, mother.' Maeglin barely covers his scowling at Celegorm. 'My horse is larger', says Celegorm, and it is, another in a line of massive stallions that Aredhel used to teasingly call brutes even though any horse Celegorm chose and trained was always smarter and better-trained than most horses in Valinor or Beleriand. 'Írissë?' Celegorm prompts. 'Let me run up my stirrups', she says, and to Maeglin, 'It is alright. I am used to riding with him.' Stirrups safely pulled up and fastened in place on her mare's saddle, Aredhel takes Celegorm's hand and swings herself up on his big horse. Behind him – though she found herself in need of 'saving', she is no maiden in distress and does not need to be held by him. Still. She never rode like this with Eöl, chest to his back, trusting him to guide the horse. Oh, Valar, she thinks as they begin their slow journey north to the fortress in the Pass while Curvo and the scouts continue on their planned route. She'd missed Celegorm much more than she has realised. * The two of them sit before the fire in Celegorm's hall late into the night, long after Maeglin and Celebrimbor have gone to bed, Aredhel's dogs dozing at her feet and Huan at Celegorm's. They talk of many things without quite touching on the most hurtful ones, their tongues more careful than perhaps ever before. Aredhel tells Celegorm of her marriage in sparse words that conceal as much as they reveal, though by the look on Celegorm's face he hears many things she does not say. He bites his lip and says little. It must be nearing midnight when Celegorm rises, as abrupt in his moves as he always was, saying only, 'I'll be back soon.' 'I'll be here', Aredhel says. The Quenya words are still a delight on her tongue. She had to keep Quenya buried deep within herself for so long. Here there is no need for it, and indeed Celegorm had told her to speak the language of their shared youth. She settles back in her chair to wait, petting the ears of her most watchful dog who awoke and stood up as soon as Celegorm did. He is a faithful friend. He does come back soon, with a sword in its scabbard in his hand. He drops it in her lap unceremoniously. 'Curvo was experimenting on making more resilient blades – damn, it must be well over two centuries ago now. We hadn't given up hope on seeing you again yet so he made a sword for you too.' Aredhel draws the sword from its scabbard, careful of her curious dog's sniffing nose. The blade glitters even in the low light, reflecting the dying flames in the hearth, as she examines it. 'My weight and length', she remarks. 'A fine weapon, and the size of sword I always liked.' 'In all ways, the sword you always liked. Only the technique by which the blade was forged is different.' Aredhel raises her eyes to meet Celegorm's. He seems uncharacteristically serious, with a hint of that cold fury that took over him when he found out why she and her son were riding their horses ragged as they headed away from Nan Elmoth. 'You kept this for a long time', she says. 'Though you did not know if you could ever give it to me.' 'Things here, with me and Curvo, are the same as ever; you are welcome here with us', he says, echoing his words from when they were riding together on his horse. 'And with you and me?' Aredhel asks, still running her finger down the smooth, sharp blade. 'Am I still your friend? Still welcome in your bed?' He shouldn't be surprised at her forthrightness, but he seems to be. 'Yes, and yes', he says as soon as he recovers, as if both of those things are as simple as that. And they aren't to her, not really though she asked so baldly. Their old friendship that occasionally included falling into bed together feels changed now, however much she wishes it were the same. She stares at the fire, feeling herself slipping from flippant to as serious as he is.

Dear, dear Tyelko.

She says, 'You are…. a constant friend me, Tyelko, when you are not burning ships to keep me from following.' That is an old hurt and an old insult whose edge time and previous confrontations and their enduring mutual affection have worn dull, and without dwelling on it more Aredhel continues, 'Perhaps one day I will knock on your door again, if you are serious; I married, and had a son, and left my husband. And still you say that things are the same between us.' 'Your child has nothing to do with me and is a man grown anyway, and you left your husband, and you are the same as you ever were, Írissë. Your hair windswept and your white hems mud-splattered, running from one thing to another with your howling pack of dogs at your heels. Beautiful and free-hearted and strong-armed.' She can barely look at him when he talks like that. He has always had these moments when he strips himself bare for her: short, fleeting moments when his sincerity is more disarming than his flirting ever could be. 'I have felt a stranger to myself sometimes, this last century', she says. 'Or longer.' 'Perhaps you can rediscover yourself here. Stay and do that', he coaxes. 'Your son will be happy to stay, I know. He seemed to have an infinite number of things to talk about with Tyelpë. I'm sure he and Tyelpë and Curvo will enjoy showing and teaching each other things. They have the same kind of curious, crafty souls.' Aredhel cannot help but smile. 'Lómion does have that. His father claimed it to be all his doing but I always knew he inherited much from the Noldor. We will stay. For a time, at least. Until the spring, perhaps.' They are safe here, both she and her son. 'I am glad', Celegorm replies. 'You are free here, Írissë. Unlike your brother and husband, I know that you are not the kind of bird that can be caged. You will either escape or beat yourself to death against the bars of your prison trying to. Here you are free to come and go as you please, as far afield as you want. I only hope that you eventually come back here. To me.' His sincerity is not yet over for the night, then. Aredhel swallows hard and says, 'I always have so far, have I not?' He smiles with all his teeth but without bite, unless perhaps the kind she always enjoyed receiving and giving. 'Indeed you have', he says, and changes the subject, nodding at the sword still in her lap. 'Since you have no husband to warm your bed here and until you perhaps invite me to there, that will keep you company.' Aredhel snorts. 'No matter where I am, my husband will never again be welcome in my bed, and my dogs make for warmer company than a blade.' 'All the more reason to keep that close, then, though steel makes for a cold bedpartner. More seriously, Írissë, do you want me to deal with him if he comes here?' Celegorm watches her face closely. She shifts in her chair, uncomfortable with the subject though she has been joking about Eöl. 'I don't need you to fight my battles for me, Tyelko, in words or by blade.' 'I know.' His pale eyes are intent on her as he lounges in his chair. 'I asked me whether you want me to. We all have… weaker spots where doing things is more painful or difficult for us than it would be for someone else. I do not mind talking to your husband.' 'By talking, you mean driving him away from Himlad, do you not?' He nods. 'Telling him to leave, and leave you and your son in peace, and never again cross the border to my realm unless he wants to find an arrow in his throat. Every good bird and beast in Himlad knows me and reports to me, not to mention Curvo's scouts and my hunters that are always roaming the land.' He sits there, leaning back in his chair in that indolent, insolent manner that he always had that might mask just about any mood, but she knows that he means what he says and that he could do it: he could shoot her husband without an ounce of remorse. He is already a kinslayer, already Doomed, and always was flint-hearted with those that he did not count as his to protect and yet more so with those he saw as a threat to those he does count as his. He still counts her as his. Aredhel minds it less than she should. She says, 'I know what you mean about weak spots.' Sighing, she allows, 'You may threaten him on my behalf if I do not happen to be with you. If I am, let us do it together.' 'Curvo will be more than happy to lend his support, too, and Tyelpë if you say the least word to him about how Eöl treated you.' Celegorm stands up and stretches, then picks up the poker and pokes at the dying fire. 'It is very late indeed.' He sounds almost surprised. Aredhel is weighed down with exhaustion. From the ride and from the relief of stress and from tearing up both old wounds and new, barely-scabbed ones. She rouses her dogs and stands up. 'I had best go to bed. Let us talk more tomorrow.' Celegorm says, 'Of less serious things, I hope. For example, we have a wolf hunt to plan – you can help with that and come along, and your son, too. I think we covered everything tonight that needed to be cleared between the two of us.' Aredhel hesitates, rubbing the ears of Huan who is again patiently enduring some enthusiastic attention from Aredhel's much smaller hounds. She says, 'Tyelko, I – I asked you very flippantly whether I am welcome to your bed, but the truth of it is that I have slept alone for years now, and I think it will be some time before I want that to change.' 'You were right when you said that I am constant to you.' He scratches Huan's neck, and fleetingly touches her hand. It is the first time he has touched her since they dismounted from his horse. 'And I never wanted anyone half as much as you', he adds. 'I can wait. Any time you want, knock on my door. Leave your hounds in your room, though.' His smile to her feels as much like freedom as the sunlight on her face and the wind in her hair on her way here. Perhaps here in the windswept plain of Himlad she will not need to run away like she did from white-walled Gondolin and tree-shadowed Nan Elmoth. 'I will', she promises. 'Not yet. But someday perhaps.' He walks her to the guest room she's been given, pointing out his own room along the way. It is not far, and neither is Lómion's room. At the door of her room, Aredhel says to Celegorm quietly, 'In another world, a happier one perhaps, you and I would have realised how well we fit together long, long ago. But then I would not have my Lómion; and he is dearer to me than the air I breathe, so perhaps things went as they should.' 'There is no 'should'', Celegorm argues. 'Only our choices. You know', he tilts his head and smiles at her with his eyes only, 'I used not to believe in second marriages. I disapproved of them quite firmly, you know that.' She is very curious about the implications of that sudden statement. 'When did you change your mind?' she asks. His smile grows crooked. 'Today.'

*

A/N: Who knows how things will go from here – how much this changes how things go in Beleriand? I don't really know, but at least in this moment Aredhel and Celegorm are happier than they would have been had they not met again.