where the water makes no sound by queerofthedagger

Celegorm has been back in Himlad for three days when his steward finally thinks to tell him, "Oh, and I almost forgot; the Lady Aredhel has been here while you were hunting with your brothers. She left a week ago—growing tired of waiting, she said."

Celegorm stares at Hrávo for too long, struggling to process the news, the implications.

He grits his teeth, and forcibly keeps his voice level when he asks, "And you are telling me about this only now why, exactly?"

Hrávo tilts his head as if baffled by the mere question. "I did not think it important, Lord, considering she left before you returned."  

"Get out," Celegorm growls—all he can do not to throttle him right then and there.

Hrávo seems to sense it, too, sketching a perfunctory bow before he slips out of the council chambers without another word.

Celegorm tries to put it from his mind. Keeps thinking, instead, about the way they had parted on the shores of Lake Mithrim. Her cold eyes, her vicious, Do not bother ever coming back on my account.

I was not planning to, he had spat in response, and then told himself that he did not regret doing so when she had disappeared together with her overly righteous brother.

She would have waited for his return to Himlad, he tells himself, if she had truly wanted to see him. She would not have come after all these years, he thinks, if it did not matter.

He turns it over and over, makes it three turns of the moon before Curufin loses patience with him. Which, in all fairness, is longer than Celegorm would have expected.

“Either go after her or cease your fretting; you act like a Teleri maiden waiting for her husband to return from the sea, and it looks considerably less good on you,” Curufin finally says once winter begins to crawl across the land, not looking up from the letters he is reading.

Celegorm stalks from the room, lest he say more things that cannot be taken back.

Unfortunately, he finds no more solace among the horses than he does inside the fortress.

He thinks of Maedhros. Of Fingon going after him, despite everything that should have stood between them.

He knows it is far from the same thing.

And yet.

He leaves on a bristling cold day of early winter, the light barely battling back against the low-hanging mist of Himlad’s mountains. Curufin refuses to see him off, but for the first time in a long time, Celegorm feels like he is making a choice that means something, weighs something.

Aredhel’s tracks are long since lost to his indecision, but Huan seems more than confident, and so they ride south from the Pass, until they reach the Fords of Arossiach, then turn south-east.

It takes only a day until Celegorm’s growing suspicion about their destination turns into cold certainty. They rest for the night on the banks of the Celon, and then, leaving his horse, enter the twisting shadows of Nan Elmoth together with the early tendrils of dawn on the second day.

Celegorm is prepared for the twisting sense of vertigo, the disorientation. Still, he is so used to knowing any forest as if it were his homeland that even expecting it, his instincts are screaming at him as soon as the shadows close behind him.

“Are you sure we are right here?” he murmurs in Huan’s direction, ducking beneath a branch that, he is sure, had not been there mere moments ago.

Huan tosses his head and keeps going, steps unfaltering. Celegorm knows better than to question the hound, and so he buries a hand in the soft fur of his neck and makes sure that his own steps do not falter.

He has no idea how long they walk like this, ever deeper into the dark forest. Just at the edge of hearing, distorted noise trails alongside them; the high-pitched howl of wolves edged with madness. The hiss of creatures not usually found in these regions.

Celegorm’s thoughts keep drifting from his grasp, and he has no doubt that without Huan, he would have lost his way long ago. Has no doubt that, if Aredhel had strayed into this forsaken forest, she will be lucky if they find her at all.

Time stretches and warps, and Huan keeps going, unerring and certain. Celegorm follows, nerves stretching thin but his grip unfaltering upon the hilt of his sword.

When they finally reach a large clearing, the fog receding to the outer edges of Celegorm’s mind, he feels ready to sink his teeth into something. To tear something apart, to have something real and solid break beneath the practised strength of his hands.

Instead of a target, he finds a well-kept house, a garden, a neat stack of firewood against one wall of it. Smoke rises from what must be a forge, the scent of burning wood and heated metal making the space smell almost like home.

A trick of its own, Celegorm thinks, baring his teeth. As if on cue, the quietness of the space is broken when the door opens and Aredhel steps out, not noticing him for longer than it should take her.

When she does, her eyes go wide. It has been centuries since they have seen each other, and yet, Celegorm finds, there is the same surge of emotion within his chest at the sight of her. The same itch in his fingers to reach out, trace the wild, laughing shape of her mouth, to see her outpace him—the only one who ever could.

“Írissë,” he says, and wants to snarl at the way she winces at the name. “I have been looking for you.”

She takes a moment. Catches herself, spine straightening, her chin tilting up.

He has always loved her most at her proudest; it is how he recognises the shakiness underneath, how he catches the way her hands curl into fists. The slightest tremor in her voice when she says, “Celegorm. You should not have.”

Beside him, Huan growls. Celegorm ignores him, ignores the gleam in her eyes that is terribly close to pleading, and takes a few steps closer, looking her up and down.

She seems unharmed, well-dressed. Her garments are whole and clean, her skin deep brown in the dim light of the forest.

“You were in Himlad. You could have waited, Hrávo said—“

“Celegorm,” she says again, and there is an edge to her voice now. It sounds closer to fear than he can ever remember hearing, and it freezes him where he stands, his hand dropping back to the hilt of his sword.

Huan growls, louder this time. Around them, the forest is unnaturally still.

“You should leave,” Aredhel says, regaining control of her voice. Still, there is something to the dark blankness of her eyes that—even if he were inclined to leave her here—keeps Celegorm pinned to the spot.

“Írissë,” he says, again. Something is off here, but he fails to put his finger on it. He wants to shake himself, shake off the effect that the accursed forest still has on his thoughts, and cannot quite grasp onto the thoughts he needs for that.

“Are you all right?” he finally asks, the one question that matters. “If you want me to leave, I will; just tell me—“

He cuts himself off. It should be the confession that does it, but it is not. After centuries, he finds, he cannot quite bring himself to dredge up the pride and arrogance to spit into her face once more.

No, for once, it is not his pride. It is the shifting of air around them, the shiver that runs down his spine, the honed instincts trained by an abandoned God that are making him stop.

He whirls around, sword drawing, steel clashing. It shatters the stillness, shatters the lingering numbness of Celegorm’s thoughts.

In its wake, he finds fury that finally burns the fog from his mind. Finds, across from him, an Elf not as tall as him, with dark hair and dark eyes, and disdain written all over his features.

“You should listen to the Lady,” the Elf sneers. “I have heard it is impolite to ignore their requests, even among your kind.”

It is in his eyes that Celegorm recognises what he had failed to see in Aredhel’s, the light of a marital bond unmistakable.

It is in his words that Celegorm hears what he had failed to parse from Aredhel’s apprehension, the threat as clearly meant for Celegorm as it is for her.

There is a common misconception among their people that a marriage bond can only ever be formed by those who are willing. Anyone who knows how to read in an animal’s eyes the fact that it has been hunted for days would know better.

The forest, its maddening confusion; the darkness, its draining weight. Aredhel’s presence behind him, familiar and scraped raw with peculiar dread. Celegorm’s first strike lands with enough force that he is surprised Eöl’s sword withstands it at all.

It is a brutal, merciless fight from the start. Celegorm attacks and Eöl parries, their swords tearing the thick air to shreds around them.

Huan barks, awakening the forest. Aredhel’s gaze is a tangible weight, and perhaps the worst thing, Celegorm thinks as he twists out of the way of one of Eöl’s blows, is that he is not entirely sure that she wants him to win.

It lends him an edge, the idea that even in the face of one that forced her into shadow, she might still loathe Celegorm more. That she would have every right to, no matter how firmly he shuts such thoughts away, under the light of day.

His sword is caught at the last moment by Eöl, and he uses his left to punch him in the soft part beneath his ribs.

Eöl wheezes, stumbles back. Celegorm sends a short prayer of gratitude to a Vala who no longer listens, for insisting he learn how to fight with both hands.

Tension settles back across the clearing. Eöl spits before Celegorm’s feet and re-balances his sword without any flourish. “Leave it to one of the Noldor to invade my home and attack me in the same breath.”

Celegorm flashes his teeth, circles him. “Did you think you could force one of ours to take you as husband and receive no answer for it? Just because she has not slit your throat in your sleep yet—”

“Celegorm—“

“Tell me you want me to leave,” he snaps, eyes flicking towards her. “Tell me you love him, that you are content here. That this is what you want.”

She does not. Neither does she say anything else, and it is not relief that he feels, is not anything but a deluge of memories of brighter days, of her heated skin against his in forest glades flooded with Laurelin’s light, but it is enough to make him inattentive, even as he rains another volley of blows upon Eöl, barely bothering to dodge.

It is all attack now, is all years upon years of regret and fury. Of the knowledge that they once had something good, something that mattered; that it had all died between burning ships and grinding ice and that, at least if he were honest, Celegorm knows that he has no one but himself to blame for where they ended up.

But at least—well, at least he had known her safe. Out of reach, hidden behind wherever Turgon had taken her, but safe.

Now, here, she is anything but. Eöl’s eyes blaze with malice, with determination to kill, and there is no way that Celegorm will lose, no way that Oromë’s most-priced hunter would ever be defeated by a Wood Elf.

Except.

Celegorm parries, falls back. Expects the forest to yield to him, to catch his feet, and finds tangling roots where there should be solid ground.

It is only a moment, less than a blink. It throws his balance off, all the same, and between one breath and the next, Eöl’s blade slips past Celegorm’s guard.

It burns hot like iron across his shoulder, slicing through his leathers like it is nothing. He hisses through his teeth, feels the blood hot beneath his clothes, and he must make a picture with how Eöl almost, almost falters.

He prepares to stop toying, to stop fighting for the sake of a fight. Prepares to end this, no matter the accusations and judgement, the condemnation and blame that Aredhel will cast at his feet. Prepares—

Celegorm prepares for a lot of things, right then. Prepares to win, to make pay who dared to lay his hands on her. Prepares for the forest to turn against him once more, to lose, to condemn her yet again. He prepares to die, if he must, and thinks there could be worse things to give his life for, in this godforsaken land.

He is not prepared for Aredhel’s scream of rage, rattling and savage. For the familiar blur of black and white that flies past him and buries a knife in Eöl’s neck.

Neither, clearly, is Eöl. His eyes are wide and white with shock, his hand trembling where he presses it to his neck. His sword drops. Blood keeps pulsing, staining the front of his clothes, Aredhel’s dress, her hands.

Eöl falls to his knees, gurgling something incomprehensible that Celegorm strongly suspects to be curses. Aredhel turns away, turns around, and meets Celegorm’s eyes.

Her expression is as carved from stone, the knife in her hand still dripping blood. After a moment or an eternity later, her eyes flick down to it, and she drops it as if in disgust.

“I think it was poisoned,” she says. “I stole it a few days ago because—no matter.”

Because he would not let her keep any weapons, most likely. Celegorm looks at where Eöl lies, unmoving now, and thinks that it is lucky that he is dead already.

“Come on, before his servants return. We can look at your wound later—considering you are still upright, it cannot be that bad,” Aredhel says, straightening her shoulders.

It is all she says, her voice cold and hollow. Celegorm thinks that he should say something, offer something—should do anything but watch her, waiting, unsure of where to go from here.

He finds none of the words, the shock of it, the lingering rush of the fight and the lack of a kill still rooting him to where he stands.

Aredhel picks up Eöl’s sword; lingers briefly, staring down at him. Then she steps up beside Huan, buries a bloodied hand into his white fur, and walks out of the clearing without a backward glance.

By the time they finally make it out of the accursed forest, dusk is streaking purple and red across the western sky.

Celegorm’s horse is where he had left it, and they make camp beside the river once more.

They have not spoken since they left Eöl’s body behind. Huan kept them on track, and where Celegorm was focused on keeping pressure on his wound, on setting one foot in front of the other, Aredhel—

Truth be told, he has no idea what Aredhel is thinking. It is as disconcerting as it is reminiscent of those last few years in Aman.

“Sit,” she says now, nodding at a tree stump close to the fire she had built. “Let’s see how bad it is.”

He wants to insist that he is fine. Wants to play it up and earn her pity, too, and knows that neither would work. So instead, he sits and lets her peel away his leathers and the tunic, gritting his teeth as it sticks to the serrated edges of the wound.

They have learnt how to dress injuries for as long as they have learnt to kill. It is reassuring, in a strange sense, that she does not hesitate to use this skill, at least, even if it is not for her own sake either.

She gets water from the river and cleans away the blood. She is methodical about it, but her fingers are cool relief against his heated skin, and he has not been this close to her in ages.

“You will live,” she says, finally breaking the silence. He cannot quite tell whether she is relieved or disappointed about that. “Here, tear your tunic so that I can dress it.”

As he does, stripping out of the tunic and tearing a few stripes of fabric from it, she disappears back toward the forest. Huan goes after her with a glance at Celegorm, and while it does not exactly make him happier about it, no matter how dead Eöl had been, it does calm the worry that wants to rise like bile in his throat.

She returns with Athelas, her eyes roaming over him briefly.

He shivers, and tells himself that it is the cold that does it. Does not believe it even himself, and then grits his teeth when she sits beside him once more, close enough now that he can smell the scent of her hair oil.

“Do you think,” she starts, her tone idle as she wraps the last strip of fabric around his shoulder and ties it tight, “that killing your husband weighs lighter or heavier than slaying your kin?”

He freezes, his throat going dry. She does not move away, her dark eyes unforgiving upon him.

“That depends,” he finally says, catching her wrist before she can snatch her hand away. “Did you love him?”

She pulls her hand out of his grasp and rises, turning her back to him. “It would figure, I think, that it has been one of yours that finally made a butcher out of me. Ever does your lot seem great at it.”

That, Celegorm thinks, is not entirely fair. He does not tell her that he had the fight, though, does not point out that it had been Eöl who attacked him first. That Celegorm had not asked her, had not expected her to do what she did.

If it helps her to cast the blame at his feet, well.

He will bear it, if it means that she is alive and well enough to do so in the first place.

They sleep close together out of necessity, the cold overriding the awkward tension between them.

When Celegorm wakes in the hours of early morning, he finds her sitting beside him, looking East.

“I have not seen the sun rise in months,” she says, noticing him watching.

He sits beside her and dares to press their shoulders together. It pulls at his wound, but it is worth it for the few moments that she leans back.

“I think that killing someone who keeps you caged is a lesser evil than killing kin,” he says, not looking at her. “In all seriousness, the one thing I fail to understand is why you have not done so months ago.”

She tenses but does not move away. Does not explain herself either, simply says, voice low and cold, “You would not. It is what I both love and hate about you, Tyelkormo, and I cannot seem to decide whether I am grateful or furious that you came after me.”

He thinks of—and swallows—a hundred possible replies to that. “You told me that you never wanted to see me again, and then you came to see me regardless. I kept you waiting; I merely wanted you to know that I was waiting, too. That I would keep waiting, if you wanted me to, no matter what I said all those years ago. Everything else, everything after—I did not plan it. I cannot say that I am sorry for it, or that I would do any of it differently in hindsight, but I did not plan it. If you want to return to one of your brothers, I will send a guard with you, of course, but surely—surely, you must know that I would never mean to keep you. Not like that.”

She exhales harshly and closes her eyes. Tilts her head back, her face into where the sunlight is finally rising above the treeline. 

“I know,” she says, quiet. “I will think about it.”

It is not a concession.

She still does not look at him, but she reaches out, then, takes his hand. Holds onto it almost to the point of pain, and does not let either of them move until the sun stands high in the sky, their bones aching from the long night.

It is not a concession, but on the third day, what is left of Laurelin washes her golden once more and so, perhaps—

Perhaps, it can be a start.

Celegorm looks at their hands, the stark contrast of them, and almost, almost, almost dares to hope.

Chapter End Notes

Celegorm: I would never keep you against your will 🥺
Luthien, one million yard stare from the future: 🤨🤨🤨 

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