I own nothing.
She moves through the trees, a dart of white flickering like a lick of flame wandering in the darkness. Except that flame is cooling, and she has been here long enough that Eöl knows her for Elf and not flame or wraith, for Aredhel his wife, and not a stranger. No threat at all.
For one who has dwelled in the dark woods of Nan Elmoth long enough to recognize every tree, to know where every well-trod and less well-trod path lies, Aredhel's unabated curiosity regarding the forest is something of a novelty. She wanders out here by herself as often as she does with him ("Oh, come with me," she says, eyes glowing feverishly in the gloom, tugging on his hand), and given how often Aredhel grows lost in the gloom of Nan Elmoth, wandering aimlessly about the trees, as if trying to find something that does not exist, Eöl supposes it to be more prudent to make sure she does not lose her way again. It certainly is bemusing, the way she feels the need to wander the entire forest and lay eyes on every tree, know where every tree is, where ever rock resides, where every pool and spring glimmers deep-black in the darkness. A Noldorin trait, perhaps, but endearing because it is hers.
Ahead of him, Aredhel cranes her neck to look at something out of view, then crouches down by a tree stump, reaching down into the earth. "Come look."
It is a large stone she's found, carved sharp and hard and rectangular. Aredhel brushes it clean with her hand, careless of the soil gathering beneath her fingernails. She looks up, a faint pinkish tinge in her white cheeks, running her pale fingers over the surface of the stone. "Was there a city here, once?"
Eöl knows what she implies by that, even without asking, and his mood darkens immediately as though a storm cloud has passed over his heart. "No. The Green-Elves build dwellings of wood, and the Sindar do the same or hew their cities into caves. The Naugrim live in caves alone. The Edain have never dwelled here. Only the Noldor build cities of stone, open to the sky like wounds upon the earth, and you will not find them here," he snaps harshly.
The cowl of her coarse dark hair obscures her face as Aredhel sets the stone back down upon the ground, silent, her shoulders tense. Eöl grimaces, regretting his sharp words.
Dear, beloved wife, lovely and precious, his and his alone, whom he will not suffer losing, not for all the jewels and precious metals on the earth, not for any length of time. Aredhel is a part of this world, a fixture of the forest and his halls—in a world where the passage of time is lost to ever-dusk, she has always been here and the time in which she wasn't is meaningless. Her hair and skin still smells of wind and high places, of the light of the Sun and Moon, a heady, intoxicating scent, but all it serves to remind Eöl of now is that she is not one of his own people, that she was not always here and that she was not always his, that there will always be a part of her that belongs to her Kinslaying kin, that…
As if reflecting the pounding thoughts inside his head, a crack of thunder booms overhead. "We should go, Aredhel," Eöl says shortly, drawing her to her feet. "Before it begins to rain."
She nods, still not looking at him, uneasy and restless as a warhorse in a narrow stall, as uneasy and restless as he was when she first came to him. Aredhel calms soon enough, but she casts her eyes towards the canopy of trees above, looking for a hint of a sky that Eöl never wishes to see again, and he draws her back towards the halls of Nan Elmoth, where it is dry and safe.