Archive of Our Own ^beta

The deal with Aredhel is, she wants to be percieved as a threat.

She is ambitious, of course she is who of that family isn't? She wants to be somebody Important, somebody who doesn't have to be afraid, she is constantly afraid, because she is the only girl in a family of boys and people coo over her for the wrong reasons and she doesn't want to marry she wants to be free.

She is a threat, she always was a threat, she is one of the most capable Hunters of Orome ever, but it's not enough for the Tirion Court. She is not a threat to them - they are too far from the animalistic side of things. It's Galadriel that scans as a threat to them.

And it's the court that scares Aredhel the most because people stare and whisper and ask why is she not trying to court anybody? Why is she trying to speak like her brothers do?

So in the Hunt, Aredhel has respect. In the Hunt, she is aknowledged as a master of her craft. If there is a hunt with her, and she is the most skilled hunter, everybody listens to her. She is safe. She is in the lead of the pack. She can protect and attack and she is free and nobody gives a fuck about what she wears and if she wants to marry.

In the Court, she is laughed off (with a nervous edge. the hindbrain does scream threat at them.) Nobody ever listens. She knows her ideas are sound. Galadriel, if she pitches the same idea, is applauded for it, and Aredhel gets just ghosted (its better not to poke the sleeping wolf, after all). (She is danger, danger from the woods, danger of the dark, danger they had left behind in Beleriand, and it scares them.)

And she is not... girly. Not womanly enough. She is disinterested in that, what does that matter? She can kill a deer with bare hands, why would her being a woman be relevant? Sure, boobs aren't the most convenient while running, but what are you gonna do? So most social circles in Tirion, where people chatter over tea in peace, just. Aren't her turf. She doesn't like them. Because they are just a constant circle of oh this boy is pretty have you seen him oh those jewels are nice where did you buy them? And Aredhel, Hunter of Orome, knows with a visceral knowledge she is in a den of vipers, and the vipers are in her house, and no matter how much she roars they are still going to get the upper hand, and she is terrified. And she learns, how to make nice with the court, how to dance, how to smile, how to act the part of the princess, but she is a wild tiger in a den of vipers and she knows that. She doesn't know how to gain their respect. How to be an equal, listened to. How to make herself safe in that place that wants to eat her alive.

She is scared.

She is a threat.

She is terrified.

She is the lead hunter.

How do you kill something that has no beating heart and no blood? Aredhel doesn't know. And she desperately wants somebody to just, keep her safe for a bit. Just so that she doesn't need to constantly growl and act like a threat.

That's Celegorm to her. Or, that what she desperately would like him to be, because to him, she is A Threat, A Fellow Master Hunter, and she doesn't need his protection, she doesn't have to prove anything to him, he is going to respect her, and let her have her territory. She doesn’t need it, yes. But she wants.

And she can't ask him, she can't because already the court is gossiping that he might want to marry her and she doesn't know why she is so terrified of that but she is, and if she asks it will be taken wrong, because nobody understands what she feels, why everybody is hers but she is of nobody.

And then Beleriand happens, and the Gondolin court is all right. They are all as scared stiff as she is. They all see her as a leader in her own right. They don't ask who she is going to marry and when. (They saw her butcher an ellon like it was easy, they saw her kill a polar bear with a knife, she is terryfying.) And she is not afraid there. Not as much.

And then her wanderlust gets the better of her, because Gondolin is small, and while it is lovely she came to those lands to see the beauty of Beleriand entire, and she misses Celegorm.

And then she wanders into Nan Elmoth, and unafraid, without the whisper of Orome's blessing in her ear (because Eol is a viper, a viper with long, long fangs, and a tiger can't do anything againist a cobra), knowing herself to Be A Threat, she doesn't think much about accepting an invitation for tea. She knows how to play nice with nobles, and it seems relevant.

And then she wakes up in her worst nightmare.