Fear makes a beast out of the gentlest lady. It is a good thing Aredhel was never such—the huntress within her has been idle for too long, it hungers tenfold for the feel of flesh giving out beneath its teeth. For the sweet darkness that licks at the prey’s eyes.
The woods of Nan Elmoth are fell, dark, with birches pale as maggots and rivers that run like trails of spit. Aredhel loathes it, she loathes that she cannot find her way out, she loathes Eöl more for his presence and his part in her enchantment.
Like a plump fruit, swollen and rolled between his fingertips—that is how Aredhel had felt when she discovered her condition. Motherhood seems so distant in these lands, her only recent memory of it being the bear’s defense. Its teeth and claws and roar.
Lómion—so she has named him—sits softly in her womb, only a slight swell under the laces of her skirts. Eöl will never know him, Aredhel will make sure of that. He won’t poison his fëa any longer. Her son will grow under sunbeams and the cool wind of fresh air. He will know goodness, and he will be wild and reckless like her. Aredhel will pave the way for his sweet, gentle life. She will bite the head off the serpent wrapped tight around her throat, carve open the belly of the beast—she will make her son’s life easier and kinder than hers ever was.
For this to happen, Eöl must die.
O Huntress — Continue reading on AO3
