Title: A Well-Set Snare
Fandom: Silmarillion
Challenge: It's a Trap
Rating: G
Length: 1050
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Morgynleri for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Summary: Aredhel and Argon unintentionally team up to get Fingon out of himself and out of the house.




"It's a trap, you know." Fingon's voice was light, and he was smiling, but there was just enough seriousness underlying his words to convey that he wasn't exactly joking.

Aredhel paused in pulling on her riding gloves, scanning his face, noting the almost painfully neat braids with their careful gold threads, the way his smile reached his eyes but did not light them. It really wasn't fair, she thought, that the only Feanarion not yet Returned (not counting Maglor, who was a separate case entirely) was the one who mattered most to Fingon. Not when she had both her son and Celegorm. "I do know," she said, walking over to where he sat in the sunlight, not-reading the book in his lap, and leaned over to kiss the top of his head. "But it's a friendly one, and I go willingly." She was rewarded with a glimmer of brightness in his eyes as she straightened and finished getting ready.

At the door she turned, "You could come with me," she offered, with the same lightness he had used. "Aunt Nerdanel will happily feed you too, and," her voice found the playful note she wanted, "we can rescue each other, should it prove needful."

"Dig yourselves deeper, you mean," Argon said, as he appeared in the open doorway. "No, really, Finno, you should go."

Argon had no investment in the issue except to see his siblings happy.

Aredhel put her bow case and quiver back down on the table, keeping her own expression still. Fingon could be persuaded, but not pushed (a lesson it had taken her a ridiculously long time to learn, but then he was her elder by … quite a lot, no matter how you counted time out of time in Mandos), and he had as yet neither retreated into his book, nor lost the glimmer her earlier comment had sparked in his eyes. She was tempted to hold her breath, but that wouldn't help.

She watched as Fingon glanced down at the book, out at the sunlit sward of lawn dotted with tiny blue and white and gold flowers, around the gracious, elegant, — even comfortable, but undeniably formal and public — room, up at the unlit Feanorian lamp pendant from the painted ceiling, and finally brought his gaze to his youngest sibling's faces.

He was actually, truly, thinking about it. Now Aredhel did hold her breath. He wasn't smiling, but the light in his eyes had not dimmed, and the line of his mouth was thoughtful, not grim, nor tight as against pain. (She'd seen that line far too often, here in what were supposed to be the Blessed Lands, but then, he'd no doubt seen the same on hers.)

Argon leaned against the doorframe, impervious to breathless atmosphere, and remarked, "If nothing else you should give your horse a gallop, lest she start to think the stable paddock an entirely different kind of trap. She misses you."

Aredhel thought that she probably missed her herd-companions at least as much as her rider, but that was of a piece with the underlying issue, since she had originally been bred on the plains of Lothlann, a gift, not from the Lord of Himring to the Prince and Heir to the High Kingship of the Noldor, though it had been framed that way, but personally from Maedhros to Fingon.

Fingon's eyebrows rose, and he gave their brother a unmistakable 'I see what you are doing there' look. Argon just grinned wider.

""Well, we certainly can't be having Celegant unhappy." Deliberately, Fingon marked his place and closed the book. "A well-set snare." Now he was smiling a proper smile as he stood. "Did you pack for me as well?"

It was Aredhel's turn to look innocent. "Maybe? Just your hunting gear though. And it's not really packed, just set out ready." Which she had been doing every time she'd gone out herself, hoping. It might look like a well-set snare, but it hadn't been planned at all. "I expect you'll want riding-clothes, though, and boots. Those slippers are very fetching, but not practical." They were embroidered, and had distinctly curled toes.

Fingon glanced down at them and laughed, "Yes, indeed. Thank you." He included both Aredhel and Argon in that, and they both knew he meant more than his clothes. "I'll not keep you waiting long."

Then he was out the door, and Aredhel heard his footsteps light and quick on the stairs — going at least two at a time. It was a sound she hadn't heard in longer than she cared to count.

"Don't let him get in too much trouble," Argon teased, still grinning. "And don't either of you come back too quickly either. You know Aunt Nerdanel will be very happy to have you as long as you would like to stay." Then he too vanished, but not before popping his head back around the doorframe to say, sincerely, "Well done. Thank you. I won't tell you to have fun, because I know you will."

"I think it took both of us, so thank you too. And we certainly will."

"Any time. Give Aunt Nerdanel and the rest of them my love when you get there."

"Of course," Aredhel said, but she doubted Argon heard, his boot heels tapping down the hall back to whatever he'd been on his way to. He trusted her without needing reassurance. It was still refreshing to have that affirmed. Fingon and Argon always had. (Turgon mostly trusted her, but that was Turgon, and that carefulness applied to most people.)

She looked around the quiet room, aware for the moment of the entire house around her, overhead, under foot. Not a small house, nor unchanged since they had left all those years (Tree-, star-, Sun-) and certainly they were not the same as the people who had left. A room, a house, a place could be both shelter and a trap: she knew that very well. The trick was to perceive the shift, and do something about it.

So she had, and so she would. As Fingon had done for her, and no doubt would do again. Setting snares and springing them, teasing and serious, for playful reasons, for earnest ones, sometimes both at once. Looking out for each other.

She was quite looking forward to it.