This can be taken as a companion piece to What the Forest Holds; the different side of the coin, per say. I own nothing.
There was a faint white gleam in the gloom of Nan Elmoth, shimmering like a mirage in the dim lands. A tall Elf, a nís, clad in white dress and green cloak, wandered the silent, empty forests, a creature of the sunlit lands drawn into the twilight woods, for what purpose it could not be said. Perhaps need drove her. Perhaps she had escaped here from some threat outside. Perhaps she was merely curious, and wished to lay eyes on a land she had never traveled to.
Whatever her reasons for coming here, the Lord of these lands did not care. Long had Eöl dwelled in Nan Elmoth, alone with his servants and the Naugrim traders who would pass through the forest, for he controlled much of the trade in the region. Never in all the time he had dwelled here as the lord of these gloomy lands had there come a stranger into the woods, alone and unbidden. Fair she seemed, though Eöl kept to the shadows, strange but fair, and he followed after her, silent and out of sight, as she wandered ever further down into the dark, away from the sunlit lands.
-0-0-0-
Hours or days he followed her, Eöl remembered not afterwards—he felt neither hunger nor thirst. She cried out in the darkness, and heard only the echo of her own voice in response; bright and sweet her voice seemed in the silence, and never did he notice how her voice grew cracked with desperation, and thirst. Her step began to totter slightly, as she in her rambling steps was drawn slowly deeper into the dark, ever closer to his halls. She might have sought the Sun, the wind ripping across the plains, the way out of the forest, but no longer did any of that matter when Eöl looked upon her face.
She drew herself to her full height, tossing her head like a horse unwilling to be reined, her eyes, formerly so dull with hunger, now holding a spark. "My name is Aredhel, daughter of Fingolfin, of Gondolin," she said sharply.
It suddenly became very difficult for him to breathe. "I am Eöl, of Nan Elmoth."
He had heard of her. Even if none Eöl had spoken to had ever laid eyes on the Hidden City of Gondolin, Eöl had heard tales of it. The Noldorin Kingdom was ruled by Turgon, son of Fingolfin, and there he dwelled with Idril his daughter and Aredhel his sister. That would make this lady Noldorin, granddaughter of Finwë who had abandoned his friend Elwë, later called Elu, on this side of the sea. She would be cousin and sister and daughter of Kinslayers, possibly a Kinslayer herself, bringer of strife into Eöl's once-peaceful world.
And absolutely none of that mattered, when he looked at her face.
They say that when Elu looked upon Melian in these woods, he was completely and utterly lost, bewitched was he, standing hand in hand with her under the wheeling stars for untold numbers of years. They say that he saw the light of the Two Trees of Valinor in her eyes, that he saw the future and utter light in her luminous face.
Aredhel was as pale and luminous as Melian must have been, too pure of face and form to have truly come from the Kinslaying Noldor, and Eöl felt as utterly lost and heart-broken over her as Elu must have been over Melian. Beneath her thick dark hair there was the light of the stars shining in her pale, silver-blue eyes, the stars as they were in radiance before the rising of the Sun and the Moon, shining brighter than any earthly jewels out of her white face.
Quiet she was, as he led her back to his halls, speaking little. After eating, she brightened, speaking more freely, dropping her wariness behind her. The sharp edges of her tongue smoothed out. Her face grew white as salt and her eyes glowed in the faint green torchlight of his halls; her skin was cool to the touch. Her smile was sweet and vague, as pure and innocent as that of a child who had never known a world of strife and bloodshed, and she desired no longer to return to the lands of her brother.
Long did they walk in the dark under the tall trees together once the weather had warmed, Eöl neglecting his forge for love of Aredhel. After a short time had passed, they were wed, Lord and Lady of Nan Elmoth, bound together in shadows and dusk. It was as though she had always been there, bright and beautiful in the darkness, and would always be there. Yes, she would always be there, as rooted to the ground as the trees and the stone. She will always be here, for I will not let her go.
-0-0-0-
"There was somewhere I was supposed to go."
"No, there is not, my love. Do you not recall? There is nowhere. It was a dream you had."
She hesitated, standing with one hand against a tree trunk, her breathing hitched and her normally placid eyes wide and wild. Aredhel shook her head, staring at him as though she did not know him, and that was likely the most hurtful aspect of her odd moments, the times when she would look at Nan Elmoth and not know where she was, when she would look at him, her husband, and not know who he was. "But I was so sure…" Her voice trailed off, tired and cracked and small. Long hours had she aimlessly wandered the woods, before returning to Nan Elmoth as she inevitably would, and Eöl looked at Aredhel and knew she needed rest.
"Come, Aredhel," he said soothingly. "Come home. All will be well. You just need to rest."
Aredhel stared at for a moment longer, before her glazed eyes finally grew clear again (or perhaps the eyes that had finally grown clear again grew dim and hazed once more), and she nodded. Head drooping, silent and docile in her exhaustion, she allowed him to slip his arm about her shoulders and lead her back to their home in the heart of Nan Elmoth.
Well did Eöl of Nan Elmoth love Aredhel his wife. He loved her smile, her voice, her starlit eyes. He loved her bright curiosity of the world around her, and loved every soft, pale inch of her skin. And he loved her all the more for the times when she showed herself to have a mind and will of her own, though it might have profited Eöl more if he did not. But Aredhel grew confused easily, and sometimes she forgot that she had not always been there.
Nís—woman (plural: nissi)
Naugrim—Dwarves