Chapter Text
Spirited and fast-footed as Nessa’s dear she once chased through the meadows of Valinor, dangerous and unpredictable as a lightning strike in mid-summer, Aredhel Ar-Feiniel holds no fear of death. She rather plays with death, smirking at it, flashing an eyebrow in enticement.
Death is not immune to her charms; as many pining lovers, she too desires the White Lady of the Noldor. Alluring in her own right, Death is a seductress with many tools. And so, they are evenly matched in this, trading foot for foot in this dance of mutual temptation.
They meet for the first time upon the Helcaraxë. Resplendent in white, a smile full of sharp teeth, Death calls for Aredhel, luring her into an icy embrace. Aredhel is willing. Ever has she favored whiteness, and the cold is a welcome novelty that stirs her body. Hold me, wrap your pale arms about me, Aredhel whispers as she marches on, too swift and too light of foot to collapse the sheets of ice beneath her. She survives what many do not.
The second time, Death sends an invitation, carefully packaged between the words of a brother and king.
“Go then, if you will,” Turgon relents, “though it is against my wisdom, and I forebode that ill will come of it both to you and to me.”
What should be a deterrent, sounds to Aredhel’s ears as a titillating promise after two hundred years of the dreadful routines of Gondolin. She is eager to run until her heart wishes to leap beyond her chest. And run she does in the shadows of Nan Dungortheb, spurred on by fright and thrill. Blessed still by Nessa’s grace, she outpaces Death once more, laughing as one mad when she emerges in the open fields of Himlad.
The third time, Death changes her strategy. She comes to Aredhel in the form of longing, of melancholy, tugging at the strings of her motherly love, murmuring in her ears with Nan Elmoth’s velvety voice. If you leave now, never again will your bare feet walk upon my grasses, nor your hands brush against my ferns. Heart split between her own body and the ribs of her son, Aredhel still summons the courage to ignore Death’s carefully woven trap. She takes Lómion's hand and mounts her horse, escaping, yet again.
Thrice she outplays Death, thrice she challenges her doom. It is only just then, that Aredhel pays her debt thrice: with her own life, the life of her husband, and the life of her son, at last.