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One of Aredhel’s earliest memories was of watching her parents ride together through the central square of Tirion.

There was a parade; but Aredhel was too young to be in it with the rest of her family. She and her nurse waited on the sidelines, listening to the trumpets and straining to see past the fluttering banners, each sewn with the crests of Finwë, his first and second wives, and his five children.

When her parents arrived at last, Aredhel could not take her eyes off her mother. Anairë rode sidesaddle, on a pure white horse. Her gown was the deepest blue, and the precious stones on her dress and her horse’s headstall glimmered in the bright morning light of Laurelin.

Aredhel’s nurse could not hold her back. She dashed out to greet her mother, heedless of the nurse shouting behind her, and ran right up to Anairë’s prancing horse. The horse reared, bells jangling, and Anairë’s face went white with alarm. Someone screamed.

Afterwards, Aredhel could not understand why her parents were so upset. Her mother’s horse had kicked her, but she was all right now. The healer gave her something delicious and syrupy for the pain, and told her the names of the bones she was setting in Aredhel’s right arm. It was very exciting.

The syrup was starting to wear off, which was bad, but the healer had promised Aredhel that she would heal fast. Her parents put her to bed, but her legs were both fine, so she would be able to get up as soon as they left.

Her parents were still wearing their fine clothes from the parade. Her mother’s face was still pale as milk, but her eyes were puffy and red. Her father’s face was perfectly blank.

“What were you thinking?” Anairë demanded, her voice raw with anger. “Even in Valinor, accidents happen. You could have died, Írissë.”

“I would have come back,” Aredhel reassured her.

For some reason that made her parents glance at each other. Her father looked worried; her mother looked furious.

“Don’t say such things,” said Anairë, frowning terribly. “And if you ever do something so stupid again, I swear I—”

“We are both so glad you are all right,” interrupted Fingolfin, in a calm voice.

He touched his daughter’s hair.

“And of course you would have come back,” he continued. “But we would have missed you so much while you were gone.”

The healer came in to give her more syrup. Her parents sat by her bedside until she fell asleep.

~

Aredhel found her cousin in the woods, surrounded by his hounds.

“What are you wearing?” asked Celegorm. “Have you lost your mind?”

Aredhel had come as she was, straight from court. She hated having to watch her grandfather’s council, but Turgon had wanted to go; and it made their parents happy to see her showing an interest in politics.

After such a dull morning, Aredhel could not be bothered to change out of her white gown, which was stiff with embroidery but otherwise comfortable enough. She was too eager to breathe fresh air again.

“What do you care what I wear?”

Celegorm rolled his eyes at her.

“Maybe that dress will help blind the deer,” he said. “But I hope you’re not planning to go hunting side-saddle. You’ll fall off the horse.”

Aredhel had not thought of that—but there was no way she could say so now, not after seeing the smirk on her cousin’s face.

"If anyone falls, it will be you," she said, urging her horse forward.

The dress did get a little more mud-spattered than she had hoped, but Aredhel had no difficulty keeping her seat. The real trouble came at the end of the hunt, when they had to gut the deer. As he took out his knife, Celegorm eyed Aredhel—and Aredhel’s dress—with snide triumph.

She couldn’t let such a challenge go unanswered. With an unconcerned toss of her head, Aredhel knelt down in the mud, and helped him.

Aredhel walked home from the stables with a smile on her face and the best cuts of venison in her saddle-bag. There was blood down the front of her dress, and her hemline was ripped and stained, but she didn’t mind.

She should have known her mother would feel differently.

“How could you?” said Anairë, her voice dripping with disappointment. “The cloth alone was worth a fortune, and the needlework—”

Aredhel wished she could describe the way the light filtered through the forest, or the way her heart had pounded with excitement as she and Celegorm raced through the trees, hounds baying ahead of them.

Was that not also worth a fortune?

But Aredhel was no poet, and neither was her mother. She was grounded; and Anairë locked herself in her chemical laboratory for a week.

Aredhel was starting to think she might never see her mother again, which seemed a little extreme; but when Anairë emerged, a week later, she went straight to her daughter’s bedroom door.

Aredhel’s spotless white dress was tucked under one of her arms; and in her hand, she held a small vial of clear liquid.

“Look what I made for you,” said Aredhel’s mother, excitedly. She suddenly looked centuries younger.

“I still need to refine it,” said Anairë. “Right now it only works on white clothing, and destroys everything else, so please be careful when you use it—actually, on second thought, maybe you should get someone else to do it for you.”

She glanced worriedly at her daughter, as if she were afraid such frankness might have wounded her feelings. But Aredhel didn’t care.

She pulled her mother into a hug.

“I should have taken better care of the dress in the first place,” she admitted. “Sometimes I don’t think things through.”

Her mother laughed.

“You aren’t alone in that, daughter. It’s a good thing your father thought to marry someone sensible. Otherwise all of you would be doomed.”

~

Aredhel left the door of her bedroom open as she packed, so that she could call out to her family for advice.

“How many changes of clothing should I bring?”

Elenwë poked her head around the door frame. She and Turgon had stopped by to help, but soon they would have to go home and pack their own things. Aredhel would join them both again later.

“You heard Feanáro.” Elenwë pitched her voice lower to sound like Aredhel’s uncle. “‘Say farewell to your treasures!’”

Aredhel snickered. “I guess he doesn’t listen to his own speeches.”

“We’re not going for him,” said Elenwë seriously. “But it’s good advice. Anything you know how to make again, or can have someone else make for you, you should leave.”

Turgon called, and Elenwë went out of the room.

Aredhel’s sister-in-law was right: she should bring information, not finery. She stood in front of her bookshelf, scanning the titles. She pulled down some of her old medical scrolls. She had memorized their contents long ago, but they might be useful if she wanted to teach someone else.

On an impulse, she opened one of them up, and wrote her mother’s formula for bleach in the margin.

The scroll went in the box, but it was the last thing she packed. How was she supposed to distill her entire life into a few boxes that could be loaded onto a wagon?

Her mother knocked on the door frame, breaking into her reverie.

“Not gone, yet?”

Aredhel turned to her.

“I’m not good at making plans,” she said, despairingly. “I don’t know what to bring.”

Anairë looked in the first box. Her eyebrows rose.

“For a start, you don’t need five pairs of shoes,” she said. “The books are a good idea, but they’re heavy.”

She took everything out of the boxes, and rearranged the things she thought Aredhel should keep.

Aredhel watched her.

She wanted to say, “Please don’t leave,” but that was absurd. Anairë wasn’t going anywhere.

“I will miss you,” she said instead.

“Help me with this,” said Anairë. “If you’re going, you might as well do it right.”