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Chapter Text

Litost. /LEE' toast/ noun. Czech. a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.

“Litost is like a two-stroke engine. Torment is followed by the desire for revenge. The goal of revenge is to make one’s partner look as miserable as oneself. It makes them feel equal and keeps their love going. If our counterpart is the weaker, we find an excuse to hurt him . . . if our counterpart is the stronger, all we can do is choose circuitous revenge—the indirect blow, a murder by means of suicide.”

— Milan Kundera, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”

* * *

The cell was cold and damp, even for an Elf, lit only with the soft glow of dying torches lined across the walls beyond the bars that trapped her within a familiar place of confinement she had found herself in a very long time ago, so long ago it seemed almost a life age had past since then. Her cell block was empty, leaving Galadriel with no one else to question in order to gain more information about her predicament. She had been captured in battle, taken as a prisoner on a ship, and brought back to Númenor at the behest of their new leader, their new king, Ar-Pharazôn.

Queen Míriel was no more, but what had happened to her was a mystery still to Galadriel, and Ar-Pharazôn it seemed did not have kind memories of Galadriel’s time upon their island. It had looked vastly different from the last time she was here the moment she stepped off the ship. In its capital of Armenelos, a vast new structure had been built upon a hill in the center. A grand temple, round and five hundred feet across, rose into the sky like an omen, catching Galadriel’s attention. Its silver dome reflected the sunlight and blinded her, so that she had to turn her gaze away. Black smoke curled out of the dome through a louver in the center, obscuring the bright sky with a plume of darkness. Blue and black banners flew in the wind, a twisted emblem of the star on them that looked more like spikes than a star.

No one answered her questions as she was led to her dungeon, and no one spoke to her as she was chained and thrown in a cell. Silence pervaded the damp air, bringing a chill to her bones, and Galadriel sat down upon the only furnishing in her new prison, a stone bench with no cushion, blanket, or back. There was no bed. Sometime later, which might have been only hours or could have possibly been days, a guard came by to bring her bread, stew, and water.

Galadriel stood up from the bench, her chains clacking together, and walked over to receive the substance offered to her, however little it was. “Why am I being held as a prisoner here?” she inquired, but the guard merely looked at her solemnly, said nothing, and then turned around to walk away. “I wish to speak with the king!” Galadriel called out to him, but he kept walking.

She was alone once more.

Galadriel sat down on the bench and ate her food. The stew was cold, the bread was stale, but the water was fresh and quenched her parched throat. No one else was brought to the dungeon to her cell block, leaving Galadriel to agonize over her thoughts as she tried to piece together a way out of here. There had to be a way. If only someone would talk to her, she could figure out her situation more clearly and devise a plan going forward. This was not permanent. There was a way out.

Eventually, her eyelids became too heavy and she could no longer fight sleep. As best as she could with chains linking her wrists and her ankles, she curled up on the stone bench and closed her eyes. Sleep came swiftly, but was light and easily disturbed.

The sound of footsteps awoke her—perhaps more food and water, but perhaps someone coming to speak with her at last. They drew closer, growing ever deeper, the heavy sound of boots echoing through the cell block. She sat up on the bench and then stood, chains rattling, and found her heart was beating faster in what almost felt like fear. The figure approaching was cloaked in subterranean blue, which reached all the way down to black leather boots that shone with silver chains. The hood was vast, shrouding his face from view. The cloak was pinned together with more silver, a pattern of chains lining it with an elegance that belied a darker visage beneath.

The figure came to a stop before her cell door and turned to face her. Galadriel swallowed past a catch in her throat.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Slowly, he reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing at first what appeared to be a circlet of black-tipped spikes like a crown upon his head, and then his face. Galadriel drew in a sharp breath, a well of hatred boiling inside of her at the sight of him after all these years. His eyes shone an odd silver in the torchlight, and he smiled at her.

“You,” she seethed.

His smile never wavered. The Enemy, whose form was as malleable and changeable as the seas, standing before her in the visage of her old friend, Halbrand. There was something different about him this time. His face was sharper, his hair was darker, and the gleam in his eyes was not a friendly one.

“Galadriel,” he greeted her. A wind blew in from the open bars above, catching against the stone walls and chilling her back. The torchlight faltered and, for a moment, grew dim.

“Why am I here?” Galadriel finally asked him.

“You are a prisoner, of course,” he told her.

“On what grounds?”

He smiled at that. “War.”

Galadriel found herself rushing towards the bars of her cell, her chains clacking loudly each step of the way. She slammed her hands against them close to his face, clasping the bars tightly with a death grip. “A war you started,” she hissed at him.

He seemed to be contemplating that with a thoughtful look on his face before humming in response. “As I recall, I proposed that we should be allies and fight together. Stand side by side as king and queen.” He looked at her then, eyes darkening. “It was you who denied it.”

“You,” Galadriel hissed. “You are a beast. A monster. A vile servant of Morgoth—”

“—Morgoth is gone,” Halbrand said, cutting her off. “Not only is Morgoth gone, but things are now in motion that cannot be undone. Not by you or anyone else. I am no longer his servant, but my own master. I make my own rules. I follow my own destiny.” His brow furrowed as he gazed at her face, eyes falling to her chin. “Can you say the same for yourself, Galadriel?”

“Do not speak sly words to me, serpent—”

“—Then, perhaps, this will chill your wrath,” he told her quietly, the drop in his voice causing her to cease and listen. “They wish to sacrifice you in honor of Melkor in the great temple of the High Priest. When, I can’t say. There is much deliberation on the matter as we speak.”

It was as if he had punched her in the gut himself, all the breath in her lungs shuddering out at once in a searing pain. Galadriel released the bars and looked down. Sacrifice. Those words had not been uttered in over a thousand years. They had ended when Morgoth had ended. How, and why, Men would take up such cruel punishments of the Enemy in absence of him . . .

She stilled, glancing back up at him. “You . . . ” Her eyes took note of his appearance again. The richness of his cloak, velvet of a navy blue with silver chains and buttons laced throughout its design. A spiked silver star clasped his cloak together at the neck. His circlet, simple but both beautiful and cruel, was made of many silver bands twisting together to make a uniform shape overall, crowned with matching silver spikes with tips of black iron. “ . . . What have you done to the people of Númenor?”

He grinned at that, a full-fledged smile of wolf’s teeth. “Nothing they haven’t already done to themselves.”

“ . . . But why?” Galadriel could not understand it, could not wrap her mind around such malice. She wrung her hands together, beginning to shake. “These proud people once stood with the Elves against Morgoth. Once accepted us as friends and allies, and now you have driven them to human sacrifice?” She could not meet his eyes. She was shaking all over, her whole body in tremors. This was a sort of darkness she had not experienced herself, nor ever witnessed, and it wrought her with anguish down to her very core.

He was silent for a moment. She heard his cloak rustle, the sound of his hand grasp one of the bars. The gentle tap of his rings against the metal filled her ears, and she shut her eyes.

“When you denied an alliance with me, I found other means of quenching my thirst.”

“For violence and depravity?” she shot back.

“For vengeance,” he hissed. “Just as you sought yours. Keep your righteousness to yourself. I care not for it. These Men, these Númenóreans, fought against me in the Great War. Slew countless lives. With their pride and their arrogance in their mighty goodness. They thought they were better than the rest of us as you yourself believed you were better than me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I wanted to see them suffer. I have achieved so much more than that. They sacrifice their own in Melkor’s name now, believing it will give them eternal life as you yourself have. They envy you. They hate you. Why should Elves have immortality and not them as well? What makes you so special—”

“Silence your tongue—”

“Listen to me!” he growled, causing Galadriel to lift her head and look him in the eyes. The wrath on his face was clear, but it was not aimed at her. “They will sacrifice you, Galadriel, unless I can convince them otherwise.”

Her bottom lip trembled. “What are you saying? Speak plainly, you vile creature.”

Halbrand released the bar, his hand returning to his side beneath his cloak. “Do you wish to live, or do you wish that I walk away now and let them do with you as they please?”

Galadriel felt tears welling up in her eyes. It was not much of a choice, what he was offering her. “Another proposal of alignment, I assume?”

“No,” Halbrand said plainly. “I’ll have to negotiate with them. It will take time. In the meantime you will have to keep that tongue of yours to yourself lest you change their mind.” He backed away from the bars, but paused a few feet away. “I will visit you again,” he told her, turning away at last and disappearing into the darkness of the hallway beyond her sight.

Galadriel stared at the floor of her cell. She was at his mercy.

It was not a place she wanted to be.

Slowly, she walked back to the stone bench. She lied down, facing the wall, casting her gaze up to the high window. It was nighttime. Wisps of white clouds half-shielded the moon from her sight, but it still glowed brightly above, a small beacon of hope to her heart. Closing her eyes, she willed herself into a restless sleep.

* * *

The next time he visited her, he brought her food and water. Galadriel accepted them hesitantly, returning to the bench in order to eat. The stew was hot this time, the bread was fresh, and the water was ice cold. She cast her gaze at him with uncertainty, watching Halbrand as he grabbed a nearby stool and placed it in front of her cell. He sat down on it. Silence stretched out between them at first, and she watched him out of the corner of her eyes while she ate.

He was dressed less richly this time; his cloak was a dull brown made to fit in with the crowd, and his circlet was missing from his head. His boots were beaten and mud-stained, which made her wonder where he had come from before visiting her. He watched her in unnerving silence, waiting for her to finish eating.

Galadriel swallowed the last bite. “What are you to them?”

Her question broke his reverie. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I am the High Priest of Melkor.”

A knot formed in her stomach. It churned suddenly. She felt she might vomit all that she had eaten. “Are you the one who sacrifices them?”

He looked thoughtful at that. “It’s hardly important who does it. As long as it’s done.”

Galadriel placed her bowl down on the bench. The metal clanged loudly with the spoon. She placed her hand on her stomach, feeling sicker by the moment. This is what he became. What he always was, she reminded herself. Quickly, she rushed to the bucket at her bench side, heaving the contents of her stomach into it.

She closed her eyes. How had he fooled her? All of the good things he had done, none of it made sense. And yet it did. It had all served his purpose. All brought him closer to his own goals, his own desires. Until they had found themselves embroiled in another war. Was there no end in sight to any of it?

The loud creak of her cell door opening caused Galadriel to rise to her feet. He was approaching her. Quickly, she thought about running past him, escaping, but if he caught her and she failed, she feared what might happen next. Galadriel stood still, her eyes gazing over his shoulder at the open door.

He stopped in front of her. “I would catch you,” he said, as if he could read her thoughts. It was plain on her face, she knew. She looked at him. He held his hand out to her, and she glanced down. In it he held a plain kerchief, offering it to her. Galadriel accepted the small kindness with reluctance, bringing it to her mouth to clean herself. Halbrand pulled a leather flask from his cloak to give to her as well. She opened it with care, smelling the liquid before trying to drink it. “It’s water,” Halbrand said, finally drawing away from her. Desperately, she gulped it down.

He withdrew to the other side of her cell. “You still think of me as the enemy,” came an offhand comment from him.

“You are.” With the kerchief and flask in her hands, it was becoming harder to understand the truth of it at times, though she knew in her heart what it was. His actions often made her question even herself.

Halbrand turned around, circling his way back to her. His gaze was on her hands. “Does that hurt?”

Galadriel glanced down. She was not sure what he meant until he was standing in front of her again, and he reached out for her wrists, taking each in a firm grasp before she could pull away. He turned her hands palm up, releasing one of them to touch the sore marks left behind on her tender flesh from the bite of her chains.

“This,” he reaffirmed, tracing a finger along one of the sores. “Does this hurt?”

She did not know how to answer him, but she found herself speaking the truth. “ . . . Yes.”

Halbrand reached beneath his cloak to grab a set of keys from his waist belt. Deftly, he unlocked the chains about her wrists and removed them. The relief from the loss of weight caused Galadriel to rub her wrists in the aftermath. She watched as he returned to the door of her cell and threw the chains outside of it on the floor. He came back to her, and Galadriel found herself stepping back until the back of her knees hit the bench, which stopped her.

Halbrand dropped to his knees and unchained her ankles as well. He rose, throwing those outside of the door, too. Galadriel remained wary of his intentions, but Halbrand simply left the cell after that, locking the door behind him once more. “I will bring you supplies for your wounds,” he called out to her. “And something else for you to eat.”

True to his word, he returned hours later with bandages, salve, and more stew and water. He was still dressed in his dull brown cloak and muddy boots. He unlocked her cell, grabbed a stool, and brought it in with him. Shutting the door behind him this time, he locked it back and made his way over to her. He placed the stool in front of where she sat on the stone bench, sat down, and laid her bowl of stew and another water flask on the bench next to her. He held out his hand first.

“Give me your wrist,” he commanded.

Hesitantly, she lifted her right arm. Halbrand took it, inspecting the sores. He worked in silence, adding salve to the irritation before securely wrapping it with a clean bandage. He tucked the end of it under and reached for her other hand. Galadriel watched as he did the same thing to her left wrist, tucking the end of the bandage under itself to fasten it in place once he was done.

“Make sure you eat,” Halbrand told her. “I won’t stay for that.”

He gave her no time to ask any questions, nor posed any himself. He just retrieved the stool and left, the cell door locking behind him with a loud clang that resonated deeply in the silence.

Slowly, Galadriel drew in sharp breath. Her chest shook from it. She closed her eyes.

Her entire body began to shake.

* * *

His reasoning for helping her never became clear, nor was it ever spoken out loud. His third visit proved to only unnerve her even further. He arrived in his deep blue velvet cloak this time with its silver trusses, his black boots with gleaming chains, and the silver circlet with black-tipped spikes. Seeing it this time and knowing what he was here to these people in Númenor, it made Galadriel realize he looked every bit the part that he played for them. A High Priest who decorated himself with riches, corrupt from the inside out. Even his fingers held aloft bright rings with gems of white, blue, and black.

“Are they treating you well?” he asked her, still looking very much like her old friend, Halbrand, and yet not at the same time. Galadriel feared the more time that passed, the more she would forget. Perhaps that was the plan.

“No,” she admitted. She was dressed in rags. She had not bathed in so long. She had not a cot or a blanket to cushion her and keep her warm.

“What do you need?”

“Why do you ask what I need?” Galadriel shot back, feeling anger surge in her once more. “You do not care that I am kept here in squalor as a prisoner. Do not ask me what I need if you intend to keep me here.”

A small smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “You still think of me as the enemy,” he repeated. A line he had spoken to her before.

“You will always be the Enemy,” she seethed.

“If it’s comforts you are lacking, I can have those brought to you.”

“To what end?”

“Does it matter?”

Galadriel rose from the bench. He might have removed her chains and given her bandages, but it did not change his nature or the fact that he was evil. “All of it matters. Why would you spare me? To what end of your own desires? I want no part of it!”

His smile was gone. His face was solemn, and despite the warm glow of the torchlight, his eyes still held an unnatural silver gleam. “In time, Galadriel. In time.”

She stalked towards the bars, nearly hissing in his face. “What did you tell them in order to spare me? Am I to be some . . . gift to you? I would rather drive a dagger into my own heart.”

Halbrand backed away from her, away from the bars, watching her with each slow step backwards.

“You misunderstand me,” he said at last.

“I misunderstand nothing—”

“You misunderstand all,” he shot back. “Even your own calloused and aggrieved vehemence, dripping from every word you speak like a poison. You swallow it whole, and it chokes you. It chokes you, and you blame me as if it were my hand around your throat and not your own hate suffocating you.”

Galadriel drew back, feeling the strength in her knees wanting to give out. She would never admit he was right; she would never admit it out loud at least, but in that he had struck a cord. All of her resolve of spirit, he had managed to dwindle it down to an unsure question in the base of her soul. She had continued on for so long, wanting vengeance for the death of her brother and the beast responsible was standing before her. But instead of fighting her or easily offering her to the pyre, he spoke to her in riddles, in soft whispers, and offered her the opportunity for him to spare her life as he had not done with Finrod.

To what end? What was his purpose? What was his goal?

“My hate is mine to keep,” she finally said to him, though her voice wavered from the uncertainty of it.

He watched her with eyes that held some small piece of concern, which belied any darker purpose she might have assumed of him. “I know hate far better than you ever will, Galadriel. Let me impart some wisdom to you.” He stepped closer to the bars until his face almost touched them. “Hate is what guides us to become monsters. In time it becomes your mother’s milk. It becomes all that feeds you. There is no love, no kindness, left in the ashes of its wake. Keep your hate, if you want it. If there are not other things that you desire more.” He shook his head. “I kept mine because it was all I had.”

He turned away from her then, the steady sound of his boots fading away until it left her in complete silence. Galadriel closed her eyes, a single tear falling from her lashes to tickle her cheek. She wiped it away, looking up at the window of her cell behind her.

The sky outside was filled with ash and smoke from the pyre of the temple. The smell of it filled her nostrils, its stench choking her. The remnants of his hate, floating on the wind.

Chapter Text

* * *

Dreams are the eraser dust I blow off my page.
They fade into the emptiness, another dark gray day.
Dreams are only memories of the plans I had back then.
Dreams are eraser dust, and now I use a pen.

— Edgar Allan Poe

* * *

A group of people came to Galadriel one evening, bringing a whole array of comforts with them. They gave her a cot, three blankets, and a feather pillow. At the corner of her cell, they placed a simple wooden end table with a large bronze basin, which was filled with fresh water. A bronze pitcher, which was also full, was set beside it along with a stack of cloths for washing. She was given a true meal this time of sautéed lamb with vegetables and freshly baked bread. Two flasks of water were left as well. Surprising most of all, perhaps, was the change of clothes left on the stone bench: a white and silver dress, far too luxurious for a prisoner of war, and a pair of leather shoes to protect and keep warm her feet.

Galadriel waited until all of them departed before inspecting the items left behind. She searched them, perhaps hoping to find some hidden threat to prove to her the nature of the gifts. Maybe, even, a hidden message from someone aware of what was going on beyond this cell. She found nothing. Nothing but clean supplies, untainted, and even the water was crisp and cool. She opened the flasks, finding water in one of them and wine in the other. The wine surprised her, and she took a sip. She drained the whole flask and turned her attention toward the basin.

She glanced about her surroundings, half expecting him to show up, but no one was there. It was blissful silence.

Her skin was dirty and itchy, so she took one of the clean cloths and dipped it into the water, submerging her whole hand in it. Galadriel cleansed her face first, then her neck, and wrung the cloth dry. Her bandages were wet, so she removed them. The skin beneath was healing. She removed her battered clothes and discarded them on the floor. When her whole body was washed and refreshed, she slipped on the dress over her head. It fit her loosely, but it was almost perfect. She fastened its strings in the front, tying them delicately together when a voice called out to her from across the hall.

“It looks beautiful on you.”

Galadriel whirled around at the sound of his familiar voice, seeing Halbrand only as he stepped out of the shadows from an alcove. Her heart beated fast within its ribcage.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked him.

He ignored her question as he walked towards her cell. “I trust it fits?”

“How long have you been standing there, watching me?” Galadriel repeated, clasping her hands nervously together. It did not cross her mind until right then that she might have tied one of the blankets to the bars, fastening up a shield for herself while she bathed, but she had thought no one was here with her. He had hidden himself in a corner, hoping she would not notice, and in her rush to accept all of his gifts which she had been deprived of since her arrival here, she hadn’t.

He appeared as though he might choose a lie over the truth, but thought better of it. “The whole time.”

Galadriel released the breath she had been holding. She turned away from him and walked to the back of her cell, laying the palms of her hands and her forehead against the freezing stone. In her head she prayed for herself, for her safety, for the tales of the torments by the Enemy were often but whispers too terrible to say out loud lest one bring it upon oneself merely by thinking of it. It felt as if a great fist were tightening around her heart, clenching the life out of her very being.

The sound of her cell door opening pulled her from her prayers, and Galadriel turned to see him stepping into her comfort zone, bringing a stool with him. The cell door clanged shut behind him, locking back in place, and Galadriel looked frantically for something she could use as a weapon against him.

Halbrand dropped the wooden stool, making a loud noise that caught her attention, and sat down on it.

“As I said to you before,” Halbrand told her, “you misunderstand me.”

She attempted to calm her breathing; it was not easy. She did not move from her place against the wall. “Why were you watching me?”

He seemed more intrigued and thoughtful than anything else. She read on his face no ill will or lecherous inclinations. He leaned forward on his elbows, clasping his hands together, his eyes straying to the bronze water basin. “It was soothing,” he said at last, twisting his own fingers together. “You looked so peaceful.”

Galadriel could not believe her ears. It was hard to wrap her thought around the idea. “You watched me bathe,” she asked slowly, “because it was soothing? And peaceful?”

Halbrand wrinkled his brow in deep thought as if he had to make sure that was the truth of it. He seemed as though he was unsure what it was himself. Finally, he nodded his head and looked up to meet her eyes. “Yes.” His expression was unnervingly sincere.

“Why are you in my cell?”

He lowered his gaze from hers, releasing a small sigh. “Sit down, Galadriel.”

“Answer my question first.”

“Sit down, Galadriel.”

There was no room for argument in his voice. Still shaking, she grasped for purchase around the stone until she made her way to the bench, which was draped in the blankets he had given her. She sat down on them, folding her hands in her lap.

“I wish to have a conversation with you,” he said simply. His face looked warmer, more innocent it seemed, than she had ever seen it before. Was this part of his treachery?

“You wish to have a conversation with me,” Galadriel repeated, reframing his statement with the absurd reality of all of this. “After your flagrant violation—”

Halbrand looked confused again. “Violation?” he asked, cutting her off.

“Your violation of me while I was—”

Halbrand stood up suddenly, the stool screeching backwards. Galadriel jumped, planting her hands on the bench to either side of her. Desperately, she wished for a weapon. His wrath was palpable in the air, emanating off of him in droves, and he closed the distance between them, leaning down to look her directly in the eyes. “Violation,” he whispered. “Do you even know what that means? Have you ever seen it, Galadriel, with your own eyes?” He paused then, as if waiting for an answer from her. His head tilted to the side; his eyes gleamed with hatred, his lip curling in fury. “Have you ever seen it, Galadriel, with your own eyes?”

“No,” she whispered back, her voice unsteady. Her breath shuddered afterwards.

As if soothed by her response, he swept his cloak out of the way and sat beside her on the bench, so close their hips were touching. There was no space between them. He meant to invade her comfort in this at least. Halbrand placed his hand on her shoulder. “Do you know what I witnessed in the deep pits of Utumno?” he murmured near her ear.

Galadriel trembled all over. Her entire body was shaking. “I have heard stories.”

Halbrand shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “No, stories are not the same as seeing it with your own eyes. The Elves Melkor captured, he would string them upside down, often by only one leg, naked as the day they were born. He would flay their flesh, defile their bodies, until they were all but blood and bone and ruin. The screams would go on for days and nights endlessly, sometimes converging together like a song. And when he tired of those games, and he desired for the reach of his army to spread, he would cut them down from their perches and force them on one another. Most of them, they begged and pleaded. For mercy. For any stop to the torment.” His hand fell from her shoulder, and he took one of her hands into his, his fingers tracing a soft pattern across the healed wounds on her skin. “Melkor did not care, no matter how much they begged. No matter how much they pleaded. He flayed them further until he forced them upon one another to violate each other. To breed more slaves for his army. They would lie there afterwards, almost lifeless, beaten and bloody, half of the skin gone from their bodies. Their faces . . . you could tell they had given up. I stood there, shaking myself, as you are now. Trembling all the way down to my core.” He paused then, swallowing, covering one of her hands with his and clasping it. “I had thought once that he had some greater wisdom to impart on me, so I betrayed everyone for him and fled when they found out I had been spying on them for him. But his pit, when I got there, was little more than a vile and twisted nightmare, far beyond the promises of wisdom he had spoken of to me.” He let out a shaky breath too close to her ear. “So, when you speak of violation to me, remember that.”

There were tears in her eyes. She blinked, feeling them course down her cheeks with a heat that burned her skin. Her hand, reflexively, clenched his back even tighter. She felt her chest might collapse from the knowledge of it. Her free hand came up to wipe away her tears, and she finally looked at him. “Why did you not stop him?”

“How could I have?” he asked her, shaking his head. “He was far, far more powerful than me. He would have done the same to me.” In a motion that was incongruous with his nature, he reached out and tenderly brushed a thumb across her cheek to catch the rest of her tears. “As he would have done the same to you. My place was to follow him by then, no matter the cost to my spirit, and it was too late to turn back and go home. I had been cast out from it, chased every step of the way, for crimes I had not yet committed. I had no choice. So, I stood there, in silence, and watched it happen. I told you once the truth of it. The sort of man I am. The sort that knows how to survive.”

Some small part of her began to understand at last. The evils that Morgoth had wrought had never been spoken in such plain terms out loud to her before, and to hear him say it like that, it cast a dark shadow over her own spirit. Galadriel swallowed past a catch in her throat, finding her mouth dry and the words hard to speak. She lowered her head, her eyes staring at the way their hands were entwined together in her lap. Fingers so tight, their flesh had turned bone-white with the grip of it. Not too long ago, the sight of it would have repulsed her, but right now, her heart grieved for him.

“I am sorry for your torment,” she responded shakily. “For your pain and suffering—for theirs as well. For all that his cruelty has unleashed upon this world.”

He drew in a deep sigh at that, and then took her chin into his free hand, gently turning her to look at him. Her eyes met his, at what appeared to be vulnerability in his gaze—or was it just another trick? He had so many of them, but he drew her closer towards him and tilted up his head—to lay nothing more than a tender kiss upon her forehead. Halbrand—or was he the Enemy? her thoughts questioned in rapid succession—pulled back, and then rested his forehead against hers. His fingers were on her cheek.

“You told me that once,” he whispered, “a long time ago. To hear you say it again . . . ”

He never finished what he was going to say to her. Instead, his hand withdrew from her with a quickness she was not expecting, and his other hand released hers and tugged itself free of her grasp. He left her cell in a hurry without retrieving the stool he had brought in with him, the cell door clanging louder than it ever had before as he slammed it shut behind himself.

Galadriel kept her eyes on him as he stalked away, disappearing into the darkness of the corridor beyond her vision. She swallowed again, half-fearful of whatever hollow their conversation had dug up from the pits of the past, a part of her deeply terrified of what might happen in the future because of it.

What had she unleashed upon Númenor?

* * *

For three days and three nights, the skies were clear in the window above her cell. No soot or ash clouded the bright sun from her eyes or gave way to stench to cloud her sense of smell. If she closed her eyes and listened long enough, Galadriel could hear the sweet sound of waves crashing upon the shores in the distance. She could hear the way they sloshed over the rocks, only to draw back out to sea. The foam bubbled and crackled away, and the birds squawked overhead as they glided soundlessly through the air. Her mind painted a picture for her to watch as she could not be there herself to see it, but in her mind it was as wondrous as it would have been if she had stood there herself upon the shore to witness it in all its glory.

More clothes were brought to her in the following days. Good meals were brought to nourish her appetite, and wine as well as water were brought to her to nurture her thirst. Her bathing water was exchanged each day for a fresh batch. The soiled cloths were taken away, and in their place she was given clean ones. Her cot was exchanged for a single bed. Nothing too extravagant, but enough for one person to sleep upon in comfort and peace. They even brought her a room divider for privacy to change and bathe behind, which astounded her perhaps most of all.

In this cell she was locked up as a prisoner, and yet given riches as though she were a queen.

Days passed, however, and he did not come back to visit her for some time. In a way that was hard to admit, she began to miss his conversation and his company. None of the guards or servants talked to her; they looked down on her, even as they served her, and left her in silence with nary a soul for companionship. Galadriel found herself pouring over his words, of everything he had spoken to her, and trying to understand from his perspective the course of his life actions so far. For Elves, however, sorrow could be fatal. Too much, and it could kill. And the pain she felt, when she acknowledged these small truths, was far too much to bear in the emptiness alone.

She would close her eyes and will it all away. In the mornings when she awoke, she would think of him all over again. The cycle would continue, day in and day out, drawing her almost to madness at times. Could there have been another way, something that could have changed his course? Could there have been something, anything, someone could have done to have stopped this violence from happening? Was it truly necessary for him to go down this path? Was it, honestly, his only choice?

All Men, all Elves, all Dwarves, and all beings had a choice to make when they came to the fork in the road.

What choice had she, Galadriel of the Noldor, given him in a moment of desperation all those years ago?

It was not her fault, of course, that much she knew for certain. He had made his choice as she had made her own, but that did not stop her from asking these questions. It did not stop her from feeling sorrow. It did not stop her grieving for him—for what he was, for what he could have been, and for what he had become now. These questions plagued her day and night as the sun rose up from the depths of the sea and set below them once more. As the moon tunneled overhead, and the skies remained clear of the smoke of sacrifice.

There were few things that could cause such confusion of spirit, but this was one of them.

When he came back to visit her after so long of being gone, Galadriel found herself standing up at the sound of his footsteps down the corridor. She had grown accustomed to learning the way his feet fell upon the stone whenever he had come to her, the steady assurance of each step holding the conviction of his path in them.

He still had the look of Halbrand about him, though as always, he appeared slightly different than he had in the past. He still wore his fine garments: his blue velvet cloak with its spiked star as a broach, the pointed and foreboding circlet made of twisted silver and topped with black-tipped spikes, and the black leather boots decorated in silver chains that made soft music with each step he took. He paused in front of her cell, looking at her, his expression giving nothing away.

“How have you been, Galadriel?”

The way he said her name sent a chill down her spine, and she found herself approaching the bars to stand closer to him. “Well enough,” she answered. “Thank you.”

“You have every comfort you need, I trust?”

“Yes,” Galadriel replied, but something bothered her about the meaning of all this. She wanted to ask him, but she was also afraid of what she might say and if it would drive him away again. She could not bear the silence of this cell without company. “May I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead,” he said, stepping away long enough to grab a forgotten stool and place it in front of her cell. He sat himself upon it, watching her with intent eyes. Galadriel did the same as him, taking the stool he had left behind in her cell last time and placing it across from his, sitting down as well. They faced each other with nothing but the bars of her cell between them.

“Why do you care for my comfort?” Galadriel managed to ask him, fearing the answer she might receive. “As long as we have been enemies, I have felt you wanted nothing more than my suffering added to your own.”

Halbrand watched her carefully, staring forward into her eyes without blinking. There was an assurance to his gaze which never faltered, and he seemed to be considering her question with great deliberation. Finally, he broke the silence with an answer. “As I have said before, you misunderstand me,” he told her. “You have always misunderstood me, Galadriel.”

“In what way?” she inquired, her heart beating faster at her boldness.

He leaned forward, that strange silver gleam present in his eyes as always. Despite the warmth of the torchlight and flickering colors of fire across the walls, his eyes always remained cool and bright. “We are more alike than we are different, Galadriel. More alike than you care to admit. Perhaps that is what scares you the most, when you lie down at night and contemplate these things, you try to reason away my own ability for the things that you are capable of. Tell me, am I wrong?”

Galadriel drew in a sharp breath. So, he had been visiting her, even though he had not shown his face or made his presence known. He still had come to these quarters to check on her, to see how she was doing, to watch her from afar even, though he had made no other moves to interfere with her privacy. She twisted her hands together in her lap, feeling the uncertainty grip her from afar. It was becoming more personal each time he came to speak with her, and she was running out of reasons to say he was wrong.

“I do not know,” she responded at last. “I do not know the truth of it yet.”

“I have just told you.”

“I do not know your purpose,” Galadriel insisted.

“And yet,” he replied slowly, watching her with enrapt concentration, “you sit here with me and listen to me. You take in all my words, knowing at first the truth of them. It is only when I leave you that you go back to questioning them, to questioning me, to disbelieving that I am being honest with you.”

“You deceived me all those years ago—”

“I told you the truth. I told you I had found the necklace on a dead man. I told you my kingdom was ashes. I told you to be careful—that that man had sworn a blood oath to Morgoth and was bound to him hereafter, but did you care? No, you did not. You told me that man could redeem his bloodline. That I could redeem myself. Did you not? I told you, begged you, to leave me be. Did I not?”

“Yes, but—”

“It was you who insisted I take up arms against the Enemy. It was you who insisted I be a king. It was you who led me across the sea to the Southlands. It was you who put a crown on my head once more. Was it not?”

Galadriel let out a shuddered breath. It was painful to face it all with such clarity, the way he laid it out for her, but it was the truth, was it not? She felt her shoulders quake with it, felt her hands tremble, and began to question further her own understanding of all of this. The truth of it was that he was being honest with her in that moment, as he had been honest with her so many times before, and the few lies she might have ascribed to him in regards to her felt but as dust upon the page of history.

“I am sorry,” she whispered, “for whatever wrongs I may have committed against you.”

He leaned closer to the bars of her cell, his eyes holding an unnatural pain within them. “And do you remember what I had said to you about your brother? All those years ago?”

Her heart seized up in her chest. “Remind me,” Galadriel commanded him.

“I am sorry,” he told her, and for a moment, she saw the depth of the pain that was within him. Caught a gleam in his eyes that was not the shine of the torchlight, nor the glimmer of cold ice in his bones. “For your brother. For all of it.”

He rose from his stool then, leaving it there before her cell, and withdrawing back into the darkness. His footsteps, steady and assured as ever, faded into the corridor until they disappeared entirely.

Galadriel sat there, shaking all over, twisting her hands within her lap yet again. There was some truths that were too hard to bear when ill feelings were involved, and no matter how much he apologized or how much he might have meant it, there was a part of her that did not want to forgive him. There was a part of her that wanted to betray him back, to chase him to the ends of the earth and inflict upon him the same pain and sorrow he had inflicted upon her. That dark part of her, which was a mirror of his own spirit, wanted to grasp him by his neck and throw him into the deepest chasms of the earth below until it swallowed him whole.

It was not honor. It was not goodness. What she felt in the despair of that moment was not purity of spirit, nor was it any other measure of benevolent deeds. It was the taste of vengeance, a taste of darkness, like a bitterness on the back of her tongue that could not be washed away with the cleansing power of any water or wine.

And there, in the utter silence of her confinement within that cell, Galadriel began to understand what had changed him into a beast in the first place.

For deep within the abyss he had created within her soul, she began to feel it, too.

Chapter Text

* * *

But you, had you chosen, had you stretched hand, 
Had you seen good such a thing were done, 
I too might have stood with the souls that stand 
In the sun's sight, clothed with the light of the sun; 
But who now on earth need care how I live? 
Have the high gods anything left to give, 
Save dust and laurels and gold and sand? 
Which gifts are goodly; but I will none. 

Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten, 
The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by, 
The misconceived and the misbegotten, 
I would find a sin to do ere I die, 
Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through, 
That would set you higher in heaven, serve you 
And leave you happy, when clean forgotten, 
As a dead man out of mind, am I.

— Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Triumph of Time”

* * *

A gentle succession of taps, of metal against metal in a soft tune much like a song, woke Galadriel from her sleep. She opened her eyes, pushing upright in her bed. The blankets fell off of her. In the blur of darkness with most of the torches extinguished, she could barely make out the figure hovering around the bars of her cell. It took little time for her mind to catch up with the waking world to realize who it was without having to ask. She clasped one of the blankets, draping it over her shoulders and wrapping herself in it to protect her against the cold. There was a chill in the air without the warmth of the fires that usually lined the walls, and she felt it more at night in particular.

“It is late,” Galadriel found herself saying. “Why do you wake me?” she then asked, almost as an afterthought.

He had stilled at the door of her cell. His cloak, which was the deep blue velvet one, nearly made him seem part of the night itself, blending in well with his surroundings. There was no circlet upon his head. He stared at her, fingers curled around one of the bars. It took her a moment to realize that he had used his rings to tap against the metal in order to wake her. They shone bright on his fingers, catching the light of the moon from the high window behind her.

He did not speak at first. Words, perhaps, eluded whatever it was he wanted to say. His hand slipped away from the bars.

“Have you noticed the sky lately?” Halbrand asked her at last, and Galadriel felt the confusion grip her deeper. She looked over her shoulder to the window high up in the wall. It was a crystal clear night, bright with the moon and stars above, but she did not understand the importance of it. Except that it was beautiful, of course. With all of the horrors and grief her time here on this island in this cell had exposed her to, it was one of the few truly good things she had to be grateful for in her darkest of moments. Her gaze lingered on it now that she was looking toward it. It mesmerized her. There had not been smoke clouding it in so long.

“May I sit with you?”

The question caught her off guard. Galadriel turned back toward him, noticing how he hadn’t attempted to open her door yet or force his way into her cell as he normally did without consideration. He stood there at the bars, asking her if it was allowed for him to come in—giving her the choice for once. Galadriel felt a temptation to say no to spite him, but she felt he might come in regardless of her answer, so she tested the waters as best as she could with what little power she had in her confinement.

“What happens if I say no?” she posed to him, her voice firm and unwavering.

If she expected hurt, she was disappointed in that. His face showed no emotion, and he began to back away from her cell with slow steps. Turning away from her at last, he walked off towards that same corridor that always took him away from her.

“Wait,” Galadriel heard herself calling out before she could stop herself, one of her feet reaching over the edge of her bed and touching the ice cold stone of the floor. She used it to prop herself up, bracing her palms against the mattress to push herself upright even further. Her own response terrified her as soon as it had set in, causing her to slip back down onto the bed with the lightness of her Elven nature. What had come over her?

It stopped him in his tracks.

He stood there as frozen as her, and she wondered if he was as astonished by her answer as she had been by it. He looked over his shoulder halfway, debating it. He was as still as a statue.

Galadriel realized she was shaking, and her fingers desperately clutched onto the sheets of her bed, twisting them in her grasp. What was she inviting in by asking him to stay? Why did it frighten her so very much? Why was she shaking when nothing had even happened yet? What was going to happen? Galadriel closed her eyes and slowly released the breath she had been holding in her chest. She was mad. Her time in captivity had made her mad, starved for any sort of consideration or friendship, even if it was his—the Enemy, she reminded herself. The Enemy.

Was she forgetting so soon?

His footsteps echoed again, and she opened her eyes. He was coming back to her cell with a slow and steady pace. He paused at her door, keeping eye contact with her as he reached for the keys on his belt and removed them. He unlocked the door, sliding in while just barely opening it, and quietly shut it behind him himself once more. It clicked shut in the silence, which was deafening to her ears. He—he, who looked so much like Halbrand in this moment more than any other before, never took his eyes off of her.

He grabbed the forgotten stool in the middle of the cell, bringing it over to her bedside with him. He placed it by the edge of her bed closest to the footboard, and sat down on it. His eyes were no longer meeting hers. Instead, they were captured by something off to the side in the middle of the room. Nothing in particular. Galadriel took the inclination to look as well, but it was nothing more than the grooves between the large blocks of stone that made up the floor. He was simply not looking at her, staring off at something perhaps safer to watch in the intimate setting of nightfall, with her in her nightgown sitting upon her bed and no lights around them.

“You noticed it, then?” he asked her, and it took Galadriel a moment to realize he was talking about the sky again.

She swallowed, finding herself more tense than before. “Yes, I did.”

Halbrand nodded, leaning forward on his elbows. His gaze fell to his hands, which he clasped together in front of him. “Have you been sleeping well?”

Galadriel furrowed her brow. He was confusing her again. “Yes,” she answered, “I have. Aside from tonight, of course.” He looked up at that, still leaning over himself. He was not angry, and he was not upset. He was not smiling either; his expression remained as murky as deep water. Whatever it was, his face was still and content. “Why did you wake me in the middle of the night?” she finally asked him.

He cast his gaze away again. Whatever it was, there were no words that came to mind to help him explain it. He sat there in unnerving silence, refusing to answer her. Perhaps it was not refusal. Maybe he simply did not know.

Galadriel did not count the uncomfortable time in between wherein they sat in that silence together without addressing it. She knew that when he was ready he may or may not answer her. He might even divert the subject completely in another direction as was his will at times. Time, it seemed, meant nothing or at least very little to him.

“I used to think—” Halbrand began to speak at last, taking his time with each word as he chose them, making sure they were perfect and that they flowed together in just the right sequence, “—that music, that sound Men make when entertaining themselves or holding their celebrations, was not a prescribed tune for instruments or voices, but the vibrations of progress in all things—Seen and Unseen—as they came to life, working together in perfect union, in perfect accord, with the order of The One. His will simply being that all exists, and it all exists together at once; all things, all times, bowing away from each other, only to resonate against the farthest walls of the outermost portal, reverberating back to come together once more, converging as One.” Halbrand paused, staring at the darkness ahead of him. “I have reached those walls—shattered against them, over and over—but no matter the cost or the will, the resonation of the music never reaches back the initial way from where it came. It continues to beat against the outermost wall, the echoes never rebounding back to their beginning. The music breaks. It halts. It dies off. It remains lost somewhere on the edge of things in the darkness furthest from the light.”

Galadriel knew the tales. The Breaking of the First Silence. The music, the song, as it was often called, that brought forth all creation with it. In some way she thought she understood what he was saying. She had never given him time to explain it before, nor ever truly listened the first time when he told her. If she was honest with herself, Galadriel had not thought it possible before. For all that he had done, for all that he had wrought, she did not believe it was possible. The idea of it had never aligned with her own beliefs or her own nature, which stood in stark contrast to his darker proclivities.

Her feelings were slowly beginning to change on the matter.

“This is not the way,” Galadriel said, speaking in the softest tones she could muster. “What you are doing to Númenor, this is not the way.”

Halbrand looked at her, then. He truly looked at her in that moment, and Galadriel did not see Halbrand’s face, but the one below it. Not in truth, not in reality—but she could see it as plain as sunlight across the fair sea when the glint of it blinds one’s eye and makes one turn away. It startled Galadriel, and she pulled further away from him. Her back bumped into the headboard, pressing hard against it. She clenched her blanket tighter across her body.

He glanced down at how she pulled back, his fist clenching at the sight. He met her eyes once more. He tried to smile, but it was twisted and incensed with ire. “I have no other way. Even you would not deign to it. No one will. How,” he leaned forward more, placing one of his hands onto the bed, “how is there a way back when all roads are closed? When all paths are blocked? When all, if freely given, would hold a blade to my throat?”

Galadriel felt the hot well of tears fill her eyes. She covered them as they began to fall, staining her face. She was not afraid, no, but she felt such great sorrow fill her spirit. It overwhelmed her, and she was shaking once more as she had shook so many times before.

“I would comfort you,” he whispered, such sorrow in his own voice. “But it would only repulse you.”

Galadriel lowered her hands, staring down at them covered in her own tears. They shone in the dark. She cast her gaze up at him. He was not looking at her, instead choosing some forlorn spot past her to stare at in place of her. She did not know from where the notion sprouted into life, but she found herself asking him the strangest question that ever passed her lips in all of her lifetime. “Your name,” Galadriel began, her voice tremulous. “Your true name. What is it?”

Her question caught him off guard. He looked at her. There was something uncertain in him. It seemed as though he had his reasons to distrust her, too, then. “It doesn’t matter.”

Galadriel swallowed past the lump in her throat, and she did something then that she did not intend or expect of herself. She held her hand out to him, though it shook before her in the darkness like a pale, grasping limb, and repeated the question. “Your true name. What is it?”

He stared at her hand. He stared at it for the longest time without moving. She was not sure how much time had passed between that moment and the next. Her arm felt heavy, weighted down, and began to fall, and still he made no move forward, nor did he answer her. He stayed where he was, as solid and unchanging as the marble statue in the center of the hall. Galadriel let her hand fall down to the bed and come to rest there.

“Your true name,” she insisted once more.

His eyes remained fixated on her hand. “I am not he,” he told her, then. His eyes never wavered from her hand. “Any more than you are Artanis.”

Galadriel gasped. Of course he knew her first name. Names were curious things. They changed over time if you lived long enough, and new names took their place as it had done for both of them.

“I would still know it,” Galadriel told him with care, “so that I may greet you as him again.”

He could not remove his eyes from her fallen hand, the one she had attempted to extend to him. He wrestled with it; he did not like the idea, or maybe somehow it frightened him, too. She could not imagine him frightened, but he was rigid and unyielding in many ways—and the few moments he had reached out only to meet a vast wall before him, he lashed out. Then, finally, he spoke.

“Mairon,” he breathed out, the name barely a whisper on the wind.

Something in Galadriel felt as though it were lifted, lightened, and her arm raised itself from the sheets again to hold outward to him. It came from some deep part of her; not a conscious thought, but much closer to intuition than anything else that made sense to her. “Mairon,” she whispered back. It was a beautiful name, soft to say, yielding unlike his nature.

He never looked at her eyes. Tentatively, his arm reached out for hers. In the cover of shadows, they wound together, hands clasping with unsure fingers around forearms. It was not a feeling unfamiliar to either of them; they had done this many times before, in fact, though it had been so, so many years ago. Hands reaching out for something, anything, to hold onto instead of being swept away out to sea and drowned there, alone, in the dark.

Galadriel was not sure who pulled first. Looking back on the moment in the future, she would have never been able to tell the two of them apart that night. They were in each other’s arms, nothing more than a warm embrace, and her hand came up to rest upon his hair. She brushed it soothingly, saying nothing. He let out a breath near her ear, and then he shuddered and shook, and his hand clasped her hair against the nape of her neck.

He did not say anything. She did not either. He made no move to be improper with her, and a small part of her began to understand some more. What he sought from her was not carnal, base in its desire, or corporeal nature, but something that words were too small to explain or bring to light. She swallowed past a building lump in her throat and caressed his hair, wondering what she was doing and if this could lead anywhere good at all. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever done.

Halbrand—or was his name Mairon, Galadriel thought suddenly, her breath hitching in response—lay his head in the crook between her collarbone and chin, his cheek against her skin. She felt his breath tickle her, but his hands did not stray.

They might have sat like that for minutes or hours. Galadriel could not be certain, but what she was certain of was how her eyelids began to flutter to a close as weariness threatened to overcome her again, and she found herself being laid gently back down onto her bed. Warm arms enclosed around her again, encasing her in a comforting embrace, which allowed her to fall back into a peaceful reverie.

* * *

When she awoke in the morning, he was gone. Half of her believed she had dreamt it as she rose from her bed, glancing about her cell. There was no sign he had even been here, and the door was shut and locked in place. It confused her further; if she had dreamt it, it was a very vivid dream.

Galadriel tended to her morning routine. It gave her something to focus on to keep her wits about her, and as she washed and dressed for the day, it dawned on her that she was going to need those wits more than ever now. Whatever had happened last night was too close for comfort now, and she was still in a subordinate position to his position of power. She might have been kind, and she might have offered him a truce of sorts for a suspended moment, but that did not mean she should not be wary. Glancing up at the high window, she noticed that the sky was also clean today. No smoke of sacrifice clouded the clear blue, but that did not absolve him of the evil he had already wrought upon Númenor, and Galadriel feared he may take it as a sign of absolvement—if that was what he truly sought from her.

For now, she still did not know what he sought of her. It was best to remain wary.

He came to visit her again that very afternoon, and his rich wardrobe had been discarded for the dull brown cloak once more. He seemed as unassuming as his clothes, and his hair was scraggly and unkempt. His usual assured footfalls had been replaced with one of hurry. If Galadriel was not mistaken, he had nearly run all the way here to her cell block in this dungeon, half-winded and thrumming with excitement that was blatant on his face. His appearance mystified her this time, more than it had any other time before because it was so out of his usual character now; wherever he had come from, he was out of breath and in a rush, and the gleam in his eye was manic.

Inwardly, it caused Galadriel to draw herself away from him in the opposite direction toward the back of her cell.

For all his control and certainty, she did not trust this feral look on him.

He halted at her cell door, his fingers grasping the bars tightly as he caught himself, and he grinned at her. His grin was all teeth. He unpinned his cloak, letting it fall to the floor. It was an odd choice. She did not understand it. His eyes roved over her body, landing lastly on her ankles. “How are you wounds faring?” he asked her, most certainly winded from whatever had caused him to come here in such a rush.

The inquiry made no sense. Her wounds had been healed for some time now. Galadriel cast her eyes down to her ankles. Her dress obscured them from view, her garments and shoes hiding the rest. “They have healed well. Thank you, but—”

The door of her cell creaked loudly, startling her and causing her to look up at the sound. By the time her eyes were upright, he had slammed it shut behind himself, the motion locking it back in place. Galadriel realized right then she did not want him in this cell with her, especially as he closed the distance between them. He was quick; he grasped her arm, although lightly, with both of his hands. One was on her elbow, the other taking her hand in his, and he led her to the bed to guide her to sit down. Galadriel followed his lead and did so because she had no other choice, but her heart pounded frantically inside her chest.

Instead of sitting on the bed with her, he released her arm and kneeled in front of her legs. His hands fell upon her dress, roaming over the fabric along the width of her thigh with intimate touches; then, down over her knee, running along the length of her dress to her ankle. The touch both thrilled and frightened her, and he took her foot into his hand, diligently removing her shoe and stocking to inspect the wounds he had never added salve and bandages to—his fingers traced light patterns across the healed marks left in her flesh by the chains that had bound her. He seemed enthralled by the sight as if it excited him.

“They look better . . . ” he said, almost breathing out the words instead of speaking them, unable to tear his eyes away from her scars before him. Galadriel found both her hands grasping the sheets of the bed into tightly wound fists.

“What is the meaning of this?” she managed to ask out loud, her voice shaking with uncertainty.

The sound of her voice broke him from his frantic reverie, and he glanced up at her with open eyes and an even further open expression. It was as if he had been in a dream, and she had called him back to the waking world.

Gently, he lowered her foot and released his hold on it. He pulled his hands back to himself.

“Have I offended you?” he asked carefully.

“You have frightened me, yes,” she admitted in all honesty, finding there was no point in lying to him about this. He would only puzzle out the truth a moment later if she had done so.

He looked down at the floor, but he did not look ashamed in the slightest. “It was not my intention.”

Galadriel tried her best to quell the unsafe feelings in her heart. “What is the meaning of this?” she asked. Perhaps subtlety would win him over best. “Please, Mairon, tell me.”

The sound of his true name from her lips caused him to glance up again, his expression opening further to her. His eyes were practically glowing, and the small curl of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He reached up to touch her face, his fingers barely grazing her cheek. “I fixed it,” he said, the tug of a smile turning into a full grin. It was terrifying on him. “Everything that was wrong, I fixed it. In a few days I’ll show you. Everything will be as it should be.”

Galadriel’s heart sank within her chest. “I don’t understand—”

His hand cupped her face. “When it’s time, I’ll show you,” he assured her, as if the words should comfort her.

They did not.

When he leaned in to capture her lips with a kiss, she did not turn away from him as she should have done. Despite the unsafe feelings in her heart, and all the warning signs that told her not to, the fear also thrilled her as his touch just a moment ago had thrilled her, and she let him kiss her. Her arm came up to wind around his head and shoulders, and she parted her lips against his, feeling the reverberation of his moan in the back of his throat as she did so; she found him pushing her down against the bed, heard the clunk of his boots as he kicked them off, each kiss from his mouth growing more eager than the last, and his hands touching her everywhere they could touch her, roaming wildly over her body to feel every inch of her.

He tugged up her dress as he kneeled on top of her, his lips distracting her as he sought to free them both of their garments. Galadriel knew some part of her should be pushing him away, but there was an unmistakable pull in the energy between them, and despite all of her misgivings and fears, or maybe even because of them, she only kissed him back more eagerly as well, and let it happen.

He let out a soft sound of anguish against her mouth as he buried himself in her, his arms coming up to encircle either side of her head and shoulders and then fall to hold the sides of her jaw gently with his hands. She felt the same anguish, too, both pleasure and pain, her arms, hands, and fingers all clutching onto him for dear purchase. He moved inside of her, soft and slow at first, taking his time with her, until the pressure and desire built up too high to bear any longer between them. All she could do then was gasp and grasp onto him as he ravaged her body, one of his hands flying to the headboard to grip it tightly and steady him. He devastated her with each savage thrust of his hips.

She shuddered hard in the aftermath like an unseemly thing born out of chaos, but the sense of peace that filled her was worth all the turmoil of the moment, and he fell over her shortly after that, collapsing in a heap, unable to breathe, gasping; he turned his face into the crook of her neck, burying it there, and his hand cupped her face, thumb idly caressing her cheek.

He tried to steady his breathing there, in the crook of her neck, but each breath shook and shuddered, and his hand cupped her cheek fully as his lips kissed her throat.

Galadriel closed her eyes; she could imagine him as some Great Wolf, biting down on her throat and ripping it out.

She opened her eyes again, shaking with each light touch he grazed across her skin, knowing, deep in her heart, she shouldn’t trust him.

Chapter Text

* * *

This I ever held worse than all certitude,
To know not what the worst ahead might be.

— Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Marino Faliero”

* * *

Unexpectedly, he had fallen asleep with her after that and remained in her cell, curled around her and half-draped over her body in a different kind of embrace than the one they had experienced together the night before. This one felt all but serene and peaceful and vulnerable; it felt overwhelming and possessive, his limbs and body all entwined with hers, as if he feared if he let go of her she might flee from him, never to return. Galadriel glanced down at the arm thrown over her torso, her eyes wandering to the sight of his loosed belt. She did not see the keys hanging there, nor felt them in any of his pockets between his body and hers. Her mind flitted wildly with the thought. If she could find the keys, she could escape from this place and leave him locked in this cell. Would it be worth it? Was that what she wanted? She shut her eyes after that, willing the thought away.

He had not hurt her, and what had happened between them was not anything that she did not allow to happen. Briefly, she thought of her ring, Nenya, which had been taken from her ever since her capture along with her armor, and wondered if he knew where it had been hidden from her. He likely knew its location. Why wouldn’t he? If she left him here and tried to escape, she would never see it again. Galadriel found her heart at war with itself. She wanted her freedom, but she felt that this was not yet done, whatever it was, and that it was not yet time to leave. Whatever fate had in store for her, fleeing at this moment was not a part of it. She calmed her tumultuous thoughts, and then found herself encasing her arms around his head, holding it to her chest and lowering the tip of her nose to his hair.

He stirred in his sleep, tightening his loose arm around her, and Galadriel took note of the plain golden band around his finger that shone under the glint of light from the high window in the wall of her cell. It glimmered, mesmerizing her. She found herself, unconsciously, reaching out for it, only the tip of her finger grazing the cool metal and drawing over it. The touch excited her, drew her in, and frightened her with its magnetizing pull. Quickly, she pulled her finger away.

What foul sorcery was this?

A hum reverberated against her chest, and he shifted in her arms, moving his head, half on the cusp of waking. He drew in a deep breath, sighing it out with as much exquisite ache as the first motion, the hand with the golden ring grasping onto her through her dress. He turned his face toward her skin, his open lips drawing slowly across her collarbone. They closed again on her neck in a kiss, his hand slipping all the way up to her ear and her hair, and she forgot for a moment why she wanted to escape. He was on top of her again, and it was hard to tell the two of them apart. Galadriel realized she was not afraid of him, however unreasonable the notion, and did not protest the kisses and touches that followed, only returning them in kind.

It was a slow, tenuous sort of torture wherein he kissed her and touched her all over her body until they found themselves entangled in the same sort of embrace as they had been in hours ago, but there was something she needed to know without a doubt, so she grasped his wrist and flipped them over, pinning him against the bed below her. The arm that held his wrist restrained it above his head, and she took the moment to really look at him and observe him.

His mouth was open just slightly; surprise or something close to it. He made no move to flip them back or attempt to dominate her again. He lay there with acceptance in his gaze, perhaps sensing the challenge in hers, and allowed it. He tilted his head back slightly, which bared his throat to her under the little light available to them. Galadriel’s eyes fell to it; it was not a motion borne out of surrender, but was it one of trust?

“My ring,” she asked him, her eyes returning to his, “do you have it?”

The look on his face fell. Was it disappointment at the question she had asked? Halbrand’s expression briefly clouded, and for a moment, Galadriel thought she saw injury in him. Just as quickly, the emotion was gone. “I know where it is, yes,” he answered her.

She let out a little sigh. “So, you meant to return it to me?”

His expression shifted further, lips tightening briefly as his jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed at her. “Yes.”

Galadriel released his arm, sliding off of him and sitting herself upon the edge of the bed. Both of her hands clasped the edge. “You do mean to release me, then.”

Slowly, he sat up, too. He shifted until he was sitting on the edge of the bed with her. He was quiet for the longest time. “I told you earlier that when it was time, I would show you. Did you not believe me?”

I would show you. Galadriel drew in a deep breath. “Take me out of this cell to show me?”

He turned toward her. She felt his hand on her chin, gently guiding her to look at him. His expression was soft this time, full of what looked like concern. His thumb barely grazed her cheek. “When you leave this cell, you will not go back in it. It has been safer for you in here rather than anywhere out there. You have no friends in Númenor, Galadriel. They despise your kind here. I would not expose you to that risk. If any harm befell you . . . ” His thumb fell from her cheek to her lip. He shook his head. “I would not forgive myself.”

Galadriel felt herself trembling again, even though she did not feel afraid. Still, she was a prisoner. “I do not wish to be in this cell any longer.”

He released a deep sigh, and Galadriel felt him take her head into both of his hands with the softest grasp, catching the locks of her hair between his fingers and her ears. Slowly, he pulled her to him and kissed her forehead. Everything that he did was uncommonly gentle and only served to confuse her further. She did not know how she felt, nor could she puzzle out her feelings while in captivity when she had no true power. She wondered what she would do once he released her, and she wondered if he feared what she might do when he released her. Galadriel understood why they took her ring away; it was a source of power, and she was sure he had informed them in advance to remove any jewelry they found on their prisoners as a safety precaution. She would not have been much of a prisoner with it still in her possession.

Did he fear what she would do with it once he returned it to her?

He lay his forehead against hers, sighing once more. “I wish you would believe me.”

Galadriel swallowed past a catch in her throat, remembering he could read her thoughts when he wanted to, when he took the energy to do so. She found herself reaching up to wrap both of her hands around his wrists. If she was honest with herself, there was a part of her that wanted to trust him. She did not, of course, but a small part of her, deep down, wanted to—if only because it would quell the conflict inside her heart.

Halbrand kissed her forehead once more, his hands falling from her face. He withdrew his arms from her clasp and rose from the bed. Galadriel felt the hot flush in her cheeks, glancing away from him as he fixed his clothes. It was too late to take back what they had done. They had already gone too far with their actions, but admitting it to herself when she was still warring with it only served to vex her further, and it was best to put it out of her mind for now.

He caught her off guard. Grasping her face between his hands, he kissed her one last time. It lingered, nothing more than a press of his lips to hers, and then suddenly, he was gone—a cold gap in front of her where he was just moments ago.

Galadriel heard the cell door open and clang shut, heard him scoop up his cloak. There was pause, but she did not look. She was afraid of what she might see.

She heard his footsteps leaving down the corridor, and she closed her eyes.

What had she done?

* * *

That following evening, the guards brought her meal and water. He did not come to visit her. She paced in her cell, casting her gaze back to the window, wondering how long it would be before she could breathe the fresh air clear from this prison again and what it might feel like to once more be free. She feared her own actions that might come about because of it. Would she do something rash without thinking? What was his plan once he released her? If it wasn’t safe for her to stay here, then there was no point in either of them lingering in Númenor. Did he plan to abscond her away? How? By ship? On what day? Her mind did nothing but race; her feet would not let her sit still, and she had no appetite with which to eat.

It was a restless night wherein she slept little, tossing and turning on the hour. Her dreams were full of water—water rushing, waves crashing, a storm tearing all asunder and submerging her in its darkened depths.

Galadriel shot up in bed, gasping, unable to breathe. Her hands clasped for purchase for something solid and grasped the wood of her bedframe; it comforted her mind to realize she was not under water, but still in her cell. The dream had been so vivid. It had terrified her.

She rose from her bed, and paced the rest of the night until her feet were almost bloody. Drawing in a hiss and pausing once she finally felt the pain through the array of thoughts flitting through her head, Galadriel realized she had forgot to put her shoes back on, but now it was too late. The damage was done. Her feet were sore, torn, and red.

By morning, she was sitting on the bed and tending to them with one of the cloths dampened with water when she heard his footfalls coming quickly down the corridor. Galadriel looked up to see Halbrand in his dull brown, muddied cloak again. His boots looked worse than before; they were caked in mud. In one of his hands, he held a leather bag. He pulled back his hood and unlocked her cell door, leaving it wide open. This time he did not shut it back.

He noticed her feet first, his mouth falling open. Swiftly, he hurried over to her and dropped the bag to the floor before falling in front of her and grasping one of her feet. “What happened?” Halbrand asked pointedly, his eyes wide and displaying what looked like shock to Galadriel. She slipped her foot out of his hands and finished wrapping it before pulling on a stocking and slipping on her shoe. She hastily did the same with the other.

“I was pacing,” she admitted, feeling uncomfortable about the way his eyes often lingered on her scars and wounds. It bothered her, but she was not willing to pry any further than what she saw on the surface of the matter. “I injured them myself.”

It took a moment for the dazed look on his face to fade, and then he remembered what he came here to do. He opened the leather bag and pulled out a deep blue dress, plain and made of linen, for her to wear. Next, he passed her a dark cloak to match it. “Put these on,” he said, getting up from his kneeling position on the floor to pace her cell. “We don’t have much time. Hurry,” he urged her.

Galadriel disappeared behind the room divider to change her dress and slipped the cloak on, fastening it in place. She came back out on the other side, and he was right there beside the divider, which startled her. His hood was already up, shielding most of his face from view, and he pulled her hood over her head as well. Halbrand grasped one of her hands in his without speaking; immediately, he led the way with a pace that was almost impossible to keep up with, especially given how painful her feet were from the sores on them.

Once they were outside of the dungeon, the waft of salty sea air filled Galadriel’s lungs and the immense, oppressive sky above felt like a worse omen than the prison cell. The streets were crowded with a flurry of activity, which overloaded and overwhelmed all of her senses at once after the solitude of her imprisonment. Halbrand kept a solid grip on her hand, pulling her close to him. She half feared the crowd itself could separate them, and then she would not know where she was or what was going on or where to go.

Ducking into an alleyway, they escaped the flurry of activity long enough for Galadriel to ask a question.

“What is going on?” she demanded. It was hard to get the question out. Her lungs were burning. “What are all these people preparing for?”

“No time,” Halbrand breathed out, winded himself, and he tugged her along once more. They made their way through another alley and came out on the other side to a set of stables. He brought her inside with him, untying one of the horses, and practically lifted her onto the double saddle. Galadriel steadied herself as he hoisted himself up in front of her. This horse had been prepared for two people. So, he didn’t trust her with her own horse. He might think she would make a run for it. Galadriel did not know what was going on, and she feared the idea of running away from him right now—not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of what was happening out there. “Hold on tight,” he said, and then he snapped the reins.

They tore off through the crowds at high speed, causing the people to scatter before them, and Galadriel tried take note of her surroundings as they flew by. There were soldiers everywhere, and most of the activity was aimed towards the docks. Halbrand rode in the opposite direction, though, so she glanced back—to see the bay filled with ships of war. Soldiers were boarding the ships, and people were carrying supplies behind them: barrels, crates, and weapons.

Galadriel looked forward again. Unconsciously, her arms tightened around his middle as she held onto him. They broke free of the people eventually and left the city, taking a beaten path off the main way. It was close to an hour of riding, but Galadriel could see the hills and land and grass give way to a clear and open horizon, though a darkened plume of clouds sat overhead, obscuring the sun. Nine ships sat off the coast here, a few small rowboats lining the sand. Most of the rowboats were already ferrying passengers to the ships. These were not war ships, though. These were civilians.

They reached the rowboats, and Halbrand brought the horse to a sudden halt. He dismounted first and helped her down, grasping her hand once more and leading her to one of the boats off to the left with a gentleman standing beside it.

The sand was soft and muddy. Suddenly, Galadriel realized where the mud on his boots and cloak had come from every time he had visited her—this beach. He had been making passages here since the beginning of her capture, a plan set in place since day one. The revelation startled her, though she knew not who these people were yet and what their purpose was—or where they were going.

The man that was standing by the rowboat was dressed in Númenórean seafaring gear. He had no helmet on, and Galadriel recognized him by his black curls right away, though the face was different. Her own expression brightened, and she grinned at him—the first grin that had passed her face since she had been here. He was much older, but there was no mistaking that face. It was Valandil, the once young man who had made lieutenant all those years ago by marking her dress with a cut during a training session in front of a crowd of onlookers, including Halbrand.

“Valandil,” Galadriel greeted him with joy, but Halbrand’s hand tightened around hers in a vice grip, and she glanced back at him. There was a warning in the look Halbrand gave her, which confused her. When she looked back at Valandil, he was just as confused as she felt—and he did not seem to recognize her.

“Do I know you?” Valandil asked, his voice quick and taut. Her face had not changed; how could he not recognize her?

“Yes, we—”

“—We’ve planned passage on the ships,” Halbrand intervened, cutting her off. “May we board? I fear it’s best not to dally. Time is running away from us.”

Valandil looked at Halbrand and nodded in affirmation. “Come with me. I’ll bring you to the ship.”

Together, Valandil and Halbrand pushed the small boat into the water. Galadriel followed close behind. They boarded, though Halbrand had to help her; her dress was soaked and clinging to her legs from the ice cold sea water. They rowed the rest of the way, the waves growing with more agitation each minute and sloshing them about.

“You came here just in time,” Valandil hollered over the roar of the wind as he rowed them toward the ship in the middle; it was the largest one. Its sails tore in the raging wind. “I think we have all the people we can fit on board already with each ship! Nobody has come within the past hour but yourselves!”

“But people came?” Halbrand hollered back.

“Yes, many did! Those who fear the sea and the gods, anyway! But I think it’s time we leave before this wind tears us asunder!”

Galadriel wanted to ask questions, but prudence told her to wait. If Valandil was here, there was a chance she might see Elendil as well. He would be the one to ask. She cast her gaze back to the coast. The last of the men waiting for passengers to arrive had already departed in the other rowboats as well, making their way to the other ships.

They reached the ship. Valandil ushered Galadriel up first. Halbrand helped Valandil tie the boat in place before he ascended the climb with Galadriel. Valandil followed behind them last. Men on the sides of the ship drew the boat up. There was a flurry of bodies moving as voices shouted orders over the wind. They raised the anchors. Galadriel looked to and fro for another familiar face aside from Valandil, feeling a hand grasp hers once more.

“Come with me,” Halbrand said close to her ear, but loud enough that the wind didn’t drown it out. He pulled her off to a side of the ship where it was empty of others and tugged her in front of him. They were only inches away from each other. His grasp was fixed firmly on her arm. The wind whipped through their cloaks as the ship began to move off into the sea.

“Why does he not recognize me?” Galadriel asked him pointedly. “Where is my ring? You said you would return it.”

“I have it,” Halbrand said. “I had to make sure we got to safety first.”

“Safety from what?”

The wind roared around them. Galadriel tore her eyes away from him and looked at the waters. They were swelling and rushing with the threat of an oncoming storm. She looked back at him.

“What have you done?” she demanded.

Halbrand’s jaw tightened, his eyes darkening like the sky above and the tumultuous ocean below. “I have cleansed the stain of Númenor from the map,” he countered her in fierce tones, an unwavering sense of stability to his voice. “The only ones worth saving are here.”

The wind, along with his words, froze Galadriel to the core. The waves crashed against the ship. Men hollered about them. One of the cords snapped, flying through the air. All of the sounds overloaded her, causing everything to fall quiet in her mind. Galadriel squeezed her eyes shut, willing all of it away. When she opened them again to see Halbrand’s face in front of her, an unreadable mask in place, she realized something in that moment that had not crossed her mind until this forked pathway appeared before her amidst the storm. This man standing before her was not Halbrand; he was not Mairon either. No, this man had another name altogether.

His name was Sauron.

With an unexpected surge of force as she screamed into his face, Galadriel ran into him with her entire body—sending him flying backwards against the railing. With a vicious shove, she threw him clean over the edge despite the look of surprise in his expression before he fell. She grasped the railing, leaning over to look into the sea. His body had been swallowed up by the waves before she even saw it hit them, carried under by the foam.

When Galadriel opened her eyes, in fact opened them instead of only imagining that she had, Halbrand was still standing in front of her.

“Is that truly what you want to do?” he asked her over the roar of the wind, both of her arms now tight within his vice grip.

“Give me my ring,” Galadriel demanded.

“Is that truly what you want to do?” Halbrand repeated, raising his voice to a level of anger.

“Yes,” she hissed back.

“Then, do it!”

Either she did not have the strength of spirit or the resolve to do so because Galadriel just stood there like a statue amidst the growing chaos around them, but another voice hollered out to them, interrupting the moment.

“Get below now!” the man shouted at them, snatching Halbrand by the shoulder. Halbrand released one of Galadriel’s arms to knock the man’s hand off of him. “It’s too dangerous up here! Get below deck now!”

Galadriel turned in the chaos to see the man’s face. It was Elendil. Her heart lifted once more. “Elendil—”

Elendil did not have time to recognize his name being called, or perhaps did not recognize her any more than Valandil, which made no sense to Galadriel at all—but the moment was interrupted yet again. The grasp on her other arm slackened, and she turned to see the skin of Halbrand’s face paling until it was as white as a pristine sheet and sunken, full of shadows.

He collapsed, landing with a hardened thud against the floorboards.

Chapter Text

* * *

What’s madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?

— Theodore Roethke, “In A Dark Time”

* * *

Elendil called for help to lift Halbrand’s body and carry him below deck as the storm raged all around them. Rain slashed down from the sky like a thousand needles, stinging her skin through her cloak with a searing pain, and Galadriel followed them into the shelter below as quickly as her feet could allow. In the rush of all the turmoil, it took Elendil nearly bumping into Galadriel on his way back out before he halted in front of her, placing his hand gently upon her upper arm, the shock plain on his face as recognition set in his eyes.

“Galadriel,” Elendil greeted her, looking at her as if he was seeing a ghost. “How did you get here? I did not know you were even in Númenor . . . ”

The joy that filled her to have someone else other than Halbrand to talk to again lifted her heart from its gloom, and Galadriel smiled at him, placing her hand upon his arm as well. “I was a prisoner. I am afraid I do not know what is going on, and I wish to—”

The hollers from above their heads, as well as the crack of thunder and lightning, drew Elendil’s attention away from her. He gripped her arm, looking back at her briefly. “If we get past this storm alive, I will tell you all I know. For now, be safe and see to your friend.” Elendil nodded over Galadriel’s shoulder to Halbrand. Quickly, he withdrew his hand from her. He ascended the ladder back to topside of the ship, closing it behind him when the other men had followed suit.

Galadriel found herself slowly turning to look at Halbrand as those with the best medicinal skills on the ship huddled around him, trying to figure out what was wrong and how to help. Slowly, Galadriel felt her feet walking her towards his bedside where they had laid him. His eyes had rolled back into his skull; occasionally, his body convulsed involuntarily. He looked on the brink of death itself with ashen skin, his veins such a dark blue that they were almost black beneath it, his face and hands emaciated in appearance.

What was happening to him?

“Stop,” Galadriel ordered all of them. Those who were trying to help him seized suddenly, glancing up at her. Galadriel ushered them out of the way, and then she sat down near his bedside.

Tepidly, her hand reached out for his forehead, her palm laying against it. She leaned down close to his face, looking for a sign of life. It was barely there beneath the surface.

“My ring,” she whispered to him. “Where is it?”

His head lolled toward her, one of his hands coming to his cloak pocket, falling weak against it. The pocket was buttoned shut, so Galadriel took the time to remove his hand and open it. Within it, there was a cloth wrap, tied neatly with ribbon in both directions. She unraveled it, gasping softly as the silver gleam of Nenya reached her eyes once more. She almost went to put it on right away, but halted halfway to her finger, wondering if he had done anything to her ring—if he had altered it in any fashion whatsoever, wrought it with unspeakable magic unbeknownst to her while it had been in his possession all that time.

Perhaps it was a risk she would have to take.

Slipping on her ring, the coolness of it immediately calmed her inner turmoil. It felt the same as it had always felt before. She took his hand in hers, the one that wore her ring, threading her fingers with his and grasping them tightly, and closed her eyes, focusing all of her energy into him. Galadriel bent her head forward, touching it to their hands. The easier thing would be to let him die; to rid herself and the world of him once and for all. Of all the things she was capable of, though, it seemed that was not one of them. She could not go through with the thought of standing idly by, watching someone suffer—even if it was him.

The cabin swayed with the force of the storm outside, but Galadriel remained by his bedside, focusing her strength and power towards healing him as best as she could with what command she had within her. Whatever was happening, it was happening for a reason. She did not know the reason, but she discovered an important part of herself in that moment. She could not be like him. She could not murder. She could not kill. She could not let someone die in front of her. Her power was one of preservation and protection—because it was who she was deep inside.

Hours passed, but the storm did not. It only grew worse, but they were still alive. The ship had not capsized, so Galadriel tried her best to put the tempest out of her mind for now.

Eventually, he stirred, and his hand gripped hers back, though it was weak.

Galadriel pulled her head away from their hands and glanced down at his face. He still looked like Halbrand, but his skin remained pale. The worst of it was gone, the veins returning to normal beneath the surface. There were dark shadows under his eyes, which fluttered as he tried to open them. It took much effort, but he succeeded at last. When he saw her face above him, he appeared bewildered, then disoriented, and finally, coughed hard, turning his head away from her.

He cast his wary gaze about the cabin, taking note of all his surroundings, and then stared up at the ceiling. Halbrand breathed weakly through his mouth. He closed his eyes, tightening his hand on hers, and focused all of his energy into something unknown—what energy he had left, anyway. His grip on her hand slackened, and he almost let go, though she held onto it for now. He let out a huff of air, and before she knew it, he was chuckling. It was a feeble chuckle, which sputtered into another cough, and then turned to quiet laughter once more. His head fell to the side toward her face until he was trembling all over from the hilarity of whatever had gripped him in this sudden madness.

“What is it?” Galadriel asked him, feeling at an utter loss of whatever it was that so funny about any of this.

“It seems,” he said, barely able to choke out the words past a raw throat, “there are limits, after all . . . ”

“What do you mean?”

Halbrand drew in a deep breath, and then he opened his eyes, looking at her. If she was not mistaken, there was grief in them. “It means,” he managed, trying to explain it to her the best way he knew how, “that I have, at last, angered those above me.” He closed his eyes. “I thought they had forgot about me, in all honesty. So many years have gone by. Nothing’s ever happened. Thought I was—” He coughed, pausing briefly. “—Thought I was an insect, a pest. Easily ignored. Easily forgotten.” He coughed again, turning his head up to the ceiling. He drew in another deep breath; it rattled his whole chest. “They’ve remembered me at last . . . ”

Galadriel felt her hand, the one grasping his, begin to shake. Her grip, unconsciously, tightened. “What did you do to Númenor?” she asked, the question nothing more than a whisper.

Halbrand stared at the ceiling in silence for a moment before he answered her. “I convinced Pharazôn to launch an assault on them.” Another deep cough wracked his chest. “To attack Valinórë. Wage war against the Undying Lands across the Sundering Seas . . . ”

As he said it, the whole ship shuddered from the wrath of the storm around them.

Her bottom lip was trembling. Galadriel swallowed past the uncertainty she felt in that moment. Would any of them make it out of this alive? “Pharazôn is leading an attack against Valinor?”

Halbrand chuckled again, finding the idea amusing. The motion, however, hurt him deeply. He clutched his chest with his free hand, gasping for breath afterwards. “ . . . If they can make it past this storm.”

“They would never allow it. They would—”

“—Sink the whole island beneath the sea,” Halbrand finished for her, turning to face Galadriel once more. He was smiling softly, that cool gleam back in his eyes. He blinked, and it faded, and the look on his face grew sick. He suddenly released her hand, pulling away from her and turning himself toward the opposite side of the bed. He heaved the contents of his stomach onto the floor for lack of a bucket. His arms gave out beneath him as he clutched the edge of the bed, and before Galadriel knew it, he had tumbled onto the floor. She rose quickly, hurrying around the bed to reach him. Halbrand was on all fours when she got to the other side, breathing deeply, fists balled up against the wooden planks beneath him.

Out of nowhere, he abruptly growled, punching the floor in a fit of fury.

Galadriel found herself placing a hand on his back, trying to offer him help to rise. “What are you doing—”

“—I can’t shift,” he hissed, enraged by the idea. Galadriel found herself gasping—his many forms. His ability to shape shift and take on different appearances at will—the reason why he had been such a formidable foe for so long. Because no one could tell who it was standing before them, looking out from under a different face at them each time throughout the years. “I can’t shift!” Halbrand growled again, throwing another weak punch into the floorboards.

“Halbrand, stop,” Galadriel demanded, trying to grasp his arm to help lift him up and get him back onto the bed. At this rate, he was going to wear himself out. He didn’t have the strength for this. He swatted her arm away, though, and then held a finger up at her, looking furious.

“—I’m not Halbrand, remember?” he shot back at her.

Galadriel glared at him. He glared back, and then he lost what little energy he had left in him. The single arm that held him up from the floor gave way underneath him, and he fell over.

“Do you need help, mistress?” a sudden voice asked her, and Galadriel glanced over to see a woman with dark brown hair standing beside them, concern on her face. Though the years had changed her, too, Galadriel still recognized her.

“Eärien,” she greeted the woman. When Eärien looked up from staring at Halbrand’s fallen form, she noticed Galadriel as well and gasped softly.

“Galadriel!”

“Could you please help me with him?” Galadriel asked her, and Eärien nodded. While the younger woman wasn’t as strong as her, they were still able to get him upright long enough to lay him back onto the bed. Halbrand was barely conscious again, and Galadriel unpinned his cloak from his body, which was soaked through from the rain earlier, and pulled it out from underneath him, having to roll him on his side long enough to do so. Eärien helped her, and then took the wet cloak from her.

“I will get you fresh blankets for him,” she said, hurrying away with the cloak.

Galadriel felt weakened herself. She had poured so much of her power into him to help him, and here he was, squandering it all out again like a petulant child. She lowered herself back into the chair by his bedside again, grasping his pale, clammy hand in hers with a taut grip once more—in the hand that bore her ring, Nenya. She closed her eyes as before, willing the flow of energy to help heal his body and restore him as much as was within her power to do.

Eärien returned with the blankets, but did not interrupt Galadriel. She unfolded them herself, laying them over Halbrand’s body and tucking them under at the edges. She stood there for a moment in silence, and then grabbed a stool herself and sat down with Galadriel by his bedside. Still, Eärien said nothing for the longest time.

“ . . . Is he going to be all right?”

The timid question broke Galadriel from her concentration, and she paused long enough to open her eyes and cast her gaze over Halbrand’s weakened body. His eyes were shut, his head fallen to the side upon the pillow. He was not moving, except for the slow and steady fall of his chest while he breathed in and out. While there was still life in him, he was considerably drained and it was clear that his both his strength and his powers had been affected by whatever it was inflicted upon him. If he kept this up, there was no guarantee that she alone could help him.

“I don’t know,” Galadriel answered in all honesty. She half feared what she was doing in the first place, especially if there were powers higher at work here. What might they do to her for intervening?

“Would you like me to stay with you?” Eärien asked.

Galadriel shook her head. “It is not necessary,” she said. “Get some rest. I will stay here.”

“Are you sure?”

Galadriel nodded in response. Eärien placed her hand upon Galadriel’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. She was kind-hearted woman and good through and through. She rose from the chair, leaving it there just in case it was needed by someone else later, and left them alone. Galadriel found herself staring down at their hands twined together, thinking once more of that time in the prison cell when he had sat beside her and their hands clung fiercely together, so tight the flesh had turned as white as his face on the portside of the ship.

What was she doing, helping him?

Her reverie was broken by Eärien returning with more blankets and a pillow, which she placed on the edge of the bed beside Halbrand’s body. “For you, Galadriel, when you have need to take rest,” Eärien said sweetly, clasping Galadriel’s shoulder once again. Then, she was gone.

Galadriel glanced down at the blankets and pillow, her own mind heavy with the weight of everything—the knowledge of what he had done, the turbulent rage of the sea around them, the wrath of the Valar, the will of The One—and how the only thing standing between them and Halbrand was her. Galadriel closed her eyes, willing more of her power and strength into the need to feed his life force, feeling the energy sap from her veins and her bones and sink into him through their entwined fingers. Nenya glowed softly, and she caught the blaze through her eyelids, opening them.

Halbrand’s eyes were halfway open again, too, and he was staring at her.

“What are you doing?” he asked her weakly, his voice barely above a whisper.

Galadriel swallowed past the dryness in her throat. Her mouth was parched; she needed water. “Saving your life,” she answered in a soft murmur. If she was not mistaken, his expression was full of sorrow at her response.

“I thought you wanted me dead,” he countered back, coughing again and closing his eyes against the pain it caused him. “Well, here’s your chance. Just let go of my hand. Let them take me.”

Galadriel felt her whole body begin to shake for reasons she could not explain. It wasn’t that simple. She couldn’t just let go of him. She couldn’t just let them take him away. She couldn’t just let him die. For all the sense it made in the world, she could not do it. Tightening their fingers together in a renewed clasp, she placed her other hand on top of his and held his hand in an unwavering grip.

“It’s not that simple,” she said.

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not,” she argued.

Halbrand turned his head upward, coughing again, harder than before. There was blood on the corner of his mouth from it. He tried to chuckle, but it just came out like a pained cry. There were tears in his eyes despite the anguished smile on his face. “You’re fighting with powers you don’t understand—”

“Let them fight,” Galadriel declared with renewed vigor. “I will find out how strong I am.”

He drew in a shaky breath at that, the tears falling from the corner of his eyes. He did not look at her. He kept his gaze firmly fixed on the ceiling above. His hand clasped hers back tighter, though the grip was still weak from his drained state. His skin was also still cold and clammy, and they sat in silence for a little while. Then, finally, he asked a question.

“ . . . Why?”

It caught her off guard because she was not sure why. She only knew what her spirit would and would not allow, and when the moment came down to it, she discovered her mettle was different than what she had believed it to be. “I don’t know,” Galadriel answered truthfully. “I cannot do it. That is all I can tell you right now. I have no answers. I just know the will is not in my spirit.”

Halbrand stared at the ceiling for the longest time without speaking. Then, slowly, he tilted his head to the side to look at her again. His eyes were normal for once. No gleam in them, no magic. They almost looked next to human. His face was dismal at best, the shadows deep under his eyes. As odd as the thought was, he looked sad. “We’re not so alike, after all,” he told her, his voice fading at the very end, eyes closing again as weariness overtook him.

His words stuck with her through the night, especially as the storm raged on and on, beating against the ship as if desperate to sink it deep into the depths below and rid the world of what was within in forever.

He had just brought down utter destruction upon the mightiest kingdom of Men, sending all the fury, hate, and judgment of higher powers down upon it and most of its people to sink it into the depths of the very same sea that, at this same moment, threatened to swallow them whole as well—and here she was, attempting to save his life. The dichotomy was not lost on Galadriel. The two things were complete contradictions of one another, the polarity threatening her very understanding of her own values and morals in the process. But if she gave in, allowing darkness to shape her hand, and let him die while being a willing bystander, then all of the values and morals and goodness in the world that she stood for meant nothing.

They would mean absolutely nothing. She might as well have joined him all those years ago if that was the path she took now—because that is what she would have been, complicit in evil. When she was younger, she might have had it in her to end his life, but right now, with the space and span of time and knowledge learned in between, Galadriel was not capable of such an act any longer.

It was not an easy decision. She felt the tears sting her eyes as she contemplated all of this, warred with it, and tried to understand it further. She felt the energy leave her, sapped from her body through her fingertips like the pull of blood to a wound, swelling to the surface. Her head was light, and she slipped against the edge of the bed, nearly falling forward.

Galadriel realized she could not stay upright all night. She glanced about the cabin, noticing most of the people around her were asleep already or at least attempting to sleep. She looked down at the extra blankets and pillow that Eärien had brought for her, and briefly released Halbrand’s hand, laying it upon his chest with an uncommon gentleness. Galadriel rose from her chair, unpinned her cloak, and hung it from one of the hooks high on a post behind her to let it dry. Carefully, she removed both of her shoes and looked at Halbrand again.

His muddy boots were still on his feet. With care, Galadriel unlaced the boots and removed them, placing those at the foot of the bed. She unfolded the blankets, laying each of them over Halbrand, and set the pillow next to the one beside him.

It was a small bed, but she could make due.

She folded the blankets over at the corner, lifting them and slipping gracefully beneath them, to join him in the bed. It would keep both of them warm and allow her to still keep their hands wound together easily for the power of her ring to work its preservation magic as she slept beside him. She pulled the blankets over her shoulders, lay her head in the crook between his chest and arm. It was warmer this way already, especially with the weight of all the blankets above them, and Galadriel slipped her hand beneath his, turning them over in order to make it more comfortable and easier for her to grasp his hand. She entwined their fingers together like she had done before, closing her eyes and focusing her energy to flow into him once more.

It was a peculiar thing. Certainly, it was not one she had ever thought possible in the past. A younger version of herself would have recoiled even at the slightest hint of such an idea, especially one initiated by her, but time was an immense cosmos of possibilities, twisting and turning in all sorts of directions and paths. Sometimes, when one lived long enough, anything was possible. Sometimes in just the right circumstances it could come about, have life breathed into it, and simply be.

This was one of those moments.

It was also possible that the might of the storm, and the will of those behind it, might prevail before the night was through, sometime tomorrow, or even many days from now, undoing everything that she was attempting to accomplish by standing between their will and his fate. If she knew the outcome, and if the outcome was death for both of them, would it have swayed her decision? Some part of her thought that was unlikely. If her fate was to perish, she was already amidst the tempest. Whether she helped him or not was of little consequence if their target was him and she was right beside him on the very same ship. She would sink, too, into the sea.

It was an oddly comforting thought to know that helping him had no effect on her fate either way. The crystal clear gem set within her ring glowed ever so slightly with a soft white light from the pulse of magic as it passed through her to him, seeping both power and life force from one being to another and staving off the decay. Galadriel felt the pull of it in her veins once more, and then it seeped deeper into her bones, and before she knew it, she was lightheaded and her vision gave out before her.

Her dreams were restless, filled with the deep blue ocean—it stretched before her, immense and yet small, and as she walked forward, she sunk deeper and deeper into dark, still waters. Ripples flowed away from her like time. Eventually, she sank neck deep within the water. There was no fear, though. She swam to the other side—there was a raft there, and a figure on it. It was waiting for her.

She pushed up from the water, placing hands onto the raft, and looked up. A shadow encased the figure completely. There was no face at first; it was terrifying, but then it leaned forward out of the shadow and—ah, her mind thought. She smiled up at him. She knew that face. His hand reached out, touching her hair, and rested atop her head.

Slowly, and without warning, he pushed her back beneath the murky depths.

Chapter Text

* * *

They make a desert, and they call it peace.

— Tacitus, “Agricola”

* * *

Galadriel jolted awake from the depths of her dream to find herself still in the lower cabin of the ship, jostling about with less fury than she remembered before the darkness took her. Her mind was thick with fog that did not seem to want to lift, and she found herself trying to sit upright, unclenching the hand in her grasp to steady herself on the bed. When she looked down at it, she noticed Halbrand’s resting form next to her, the color back in his cheeks, his face appearing more healthy, though he was fast asleep and did not seem to notice her movement at all. Considering his ordeal, it was likely he was still regaining his strength and that it would take some time for it to come back—and there was also a chance it would not come back the way it was before.

A good thing, Galadriel thought to herself, as she slipped from the bed and located her shoes. She scooped up her cloak and fastened it around her shoulders. The air was still chilly, and she could hear the rain above, but the storm sounded as if it were on the verge of passing. She wished to speak with Elendil. He had promised to talk to her if they had made it out of this storm alive, and it looked as if that might be a possibility now with the calmness that had descended upon them.

She emerged topside with caution, noticing the sky was deep blue and fully overcast. Rain fell in heavy droves, but it was no longer piercing through the comfort of her cloak. Galadriel’s eyes searched the ship for Elendil, but she saw no sign of him at first, and then her feet took her towards the main cabin up ahead of her. None of the Men on the ship seemed to take notice of her as she passed them by, all of them so focused on their tasks, and she slipped past each and every one of them to the cabin door to grasp the handle and twist it. It was not locked from the inside. Galadriel turned the handle, pushed the door open, and glanced around the topside of the ship before disappearing within the cabin.

Light poured in from the open windows behind the ship captain’s desk at the far side of the room. As Galadriel closed the door behind herself, Elendil looked up from his seat at his desk. There was surprise on his face at first, and then he smiled at her. Quickly, he rose from his chair. “Galadriel,” he greeted her, but Galadriel held up her hand as if to insist it was not necessary for him to stand at the arrival of her presence.

“Elendil,” she greeted him back, pausing long enough to bow her head in his direction. She resumed her steps toward his desk, glancing around the cabin to take everything in. She did not notice anyone else in the room, which meant they would have some privacy as they spoke together. “Are we safe out of the storm?”

Elendil gestured toward one of the open chairs in front of his desk, indicating for her to sit down and join him. “Yes,” he answered her, grasping the armrests of his chair and seating himself back down into it. He scooted it closer to the desk and glanced up to meet her eyes. Galadriel looked down at the chair to the right and chose that one, but first, she unclasped her cloak and draped it across the back of the seat. She sat down next, raising her eyes to meet Elendil’s gaze again. “Yes, we have made it past the worst of the storm. We will survive this, no doubt, thanks to my courageous men. I feel there are no measure of thanks I can give them to show the full measure of my gratitude.” He paused for a moment, a thoughtful look passing over his face. “How is King Halbrand?”

The question took Galadriel off guard. She tilted her head to the side, feeling her eyes grow wide at his inquiry. The look of surprise on her face was evident, for Elendil commented on it.

“Is he all right?” Elendil inquired further, appearing worried for Halbrand. “Will he make it?”

Galadriel felt her mouth fall open. “I . . . ” she began, but the words failed her. “I am not sure, but I think so. The color has returned to his face, and he is resting right now.”

“I will see to it that our best healers go to check on him soon,” Elendil offered to her, looking down at his captain log and picking up a quill once more. He resumed scribbling notes down in it upon the open pages. “My deepest apologies, for I know he is your friend as well. I have been concerned for his safety ever since he collapsed like that. Do you know what caused it?”

“I do not,” Galadriel offered, realizing further how strange this whole conversation was for her until a thought suddenly struck her. “Has Halbrand—” Elendil looked up at that, a curious expression on his face, until she realized her slip of tongue. “—King Halbrand,” Galadriel corrected herself, noticing Elendil’s comfort at her correction. He was certainly one for tradition if his reaction was anything to go by. “Has he been in Númenor with you for very long?”

“Yes,” Elendil replied with assurance, laying down his quill once more. “He arrived here in Númenor in secret when he learned of our hardships here, offering his help and his assistance to my men. He came to me first, and we worked for a long time in secret behind Ar-Pharazôn’s back—” Elendil’s expression fell at this. Despite his goodwill behind the decision, he was not happy of his part in the deception. “—And the High Priest.” There was a drip of sarcasm to his tone as he spoke Halbrand’s title out loud, and it dawned on Galadriel in that moment.

Elendil did not know they were one in the same person.

“The High Priest?” she inquired, urging him to continue. “Elendil, forgive me, but you promised you would tell me of what was going on within Númenor if we made it out of this storm alive.”

The corners of Elendil’s eyes creased as he smiled at Galadriel. “Yes, I did,” he agreed, “but it is a dark tale. A promise is a promise, though.” He took a deep breath and sighed it out before leaning back in his chair. His fingers tapped in succession upon the armrest, and then finally, Elendil spoke again. “You know who the High Priest is, I assume?”

“No,” Galadriel replied, though it was not entirely true. Of course, she knew it was Halbrand, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Elendil meant something else by the comment.

His eyes darkened, his face growing taut with disgust and anger. “Sauron,” he offered, raising his chin as he looked at her. “After Ar-Pharazôn sent our ships and our men to Mordor in order to lead an assault against Sauron himself, he managed somehow to capture him and bring him back to Númenor. I believe it was no accident. Sauron meant to be captured. No wicked creature of such sorcery and power would come so willingly as a prisoner as Sauron did, and without a fight? He laid down all upon the arrival of Ar-Pharazôn’s army at his doorstep, and he surrendered himself. A ploy, I’d wager until my dying day. Ar-Pharazôn, too happy and gleeful of this surrender, took him as a prisoner and brought him to Númenor. For some time, Sauron remained a prisoner, but then, Ar-Pharazôn would not stop visiting him and speaking to him—hoping, perhaps, to gleam some hidden knowledge or wisdom from the sorcerer, but talking to beasts is folly. You learn nothing but their own deceit, and soon, Sauron had turned Ar-Pharazôn toward his own favor. He was released from his prison cell, given a title mightier than most of Ar-Pharazôn’s men, and then they began building that wretched temple—”

Elendil’s face twisted at the memory of it, pain clouding his features. Galadriel could tell the very memory of it scoured his insides with anguish. He paused, drawing in another deep breath before speaking again.

“It took many months to build the temple, but so much effort and so many men were put behind it. They preached of Melkor, condemning all of the Valar, and the word spread like wildfire throughout Númenor. The Valar, they said, had given the Elves the gift of eternal life, while condemning Men to a shortened lifespan and an uncertain fate upon death. Why were we not allowed access to the Undying Lands beyond the Sundering Seas? What had Men done to deserve such a fate declared upon them? All embraced this wretched tale until it was spoken of from one corner of the island to the other. There was no escape from the word.” Elendil took a deep breath, meeting Galadriel’s eyes as he took a break. “Are you thirsty, by chance? Could I offer you any refreshments?”

“Yes, please,” Galadriel said, and Elendil poured her some wine from a decanter into a goblet before passing the goblet to her across the desk. She accepted it with a nod of her head in thanks, and then Elendil poured some for himself into another cup. He placed the decanter back down, drinking some of the wine before continuing on with his tale.

“When the temple was completed, things took a turn for the worse. What was once only words spoken in contempt for the Valar became foul deeds enacted in the name of Melkor. The Faithful who spoke out against the teachings of Melkor were captured, often dragged screaming into the temple. I never once stepped foot in there myself, though I heard tales of a black chair seated like a throne within, wherein the High Priest sat as they sacrificed our Men in Melkor’s name. It is said he would only watch, never participate, but that it gladdened him greatly each time he watched them spill the blood of our brothers. I knew from the moment that temple was erected that no good would come from it. Black smoke poisoned the air each day. They would burn the bodies afterward in an offering to Melkor. Many good men were lost. Those with any sense learned not to speak up, but to pretend in a long game of lies in order to survive and protect their families. Myself among them.”

Galadriel swallowed past a building lump in her throat. “These sacrifices,” she whispered. “Were there any women or children?” Her heart began to pound fiercely at the question. It terrified her to learn of the answer, but she had to know. What if there was? Would she ever be able to forgive him for it?

No, there would be no way.

Elendil’s brow furrowed at this, his face darkening, but he shook his head. A motion that gave her much relief, albeit it was hard to admit. “No, not that I can remember from any tales I ever heard spoken of it. As I said, I never stepped foot inside that wretched temple, so I cannot say for certain, but to my knowledge there were no children, and I do not believe there were any women sacrificed—not that that makes it any better. Innocent people were murdered,” Elendil finished, obvious wrath upon his face, “and in the name of Melkor. A foul thing that should have never been, and the wrath of the Valar has fallen upon us for it. The waves—” Elendil choked up at this. The tears in his eyes were plain to see. “—How tall they were.” His eyes flitted to Galadriel, and he was shaking his head. “You did not see how tall they were. There is no way the island still stands. It is gone—swallowed by the sea and the might of the Valar forever.”

Elendil had to pause again, taking another deep breath.

Galadriel broke the silence with another question. “The High Priest,” she began, finding it plagued her deeply to learn the answer to this as well. “—Sauron. What did he look like?”

Elendil’s face crinkled in thought as he recalled it, a frown creasing his face further. “Tall,” he said. “Taller than any man I’ve ever met. Broad shouldered. Black hair like a raven. A square face with sharp bones. His eyes were like ice. Grey or blue, perhaps, I cannot recall. I did not often look at him for very long.”

Galadriel said nothing about Halbrand to Elendil. If she revealed they were one in the same person, she feared what Elendil might do next, though why she cared she could not say. “Was he on the island when we left?”

Elendil nodded his head. “I’m sure of it,” he replied. “Probably sitting on his black throne, laughing the whole time.” He picked up his quill again, dipping it in ink, and jotted down more notes in his captain log. The quill scratched across the paper. “Would you like me to see about those healers for King Halbrand?”

“Of course,” Galadriel agreed, and then she found herself asking another question on her mind. “Where are going, Elendil? What is our heading from here?”

He paused at that, sighing and dropping down his quill again. “Somewhere in the Southlands closer to the shoreline, perhaps,” Elendil offered to her, “that way we are not so close to Mordor. We have nowhere else to go unless King Halbrand takes us in, which he had sworn to do. Without him, we are headless and homeless, a lost race of Men. His mercy has been all that has driven me this far.” Elendil tipped his head back, sighing again. He rose from his chair. “I will see about the healers immediately. We need to ensure his safety, or our footing when we land remains on unstable ground.”

Galadriel found herself rising, too. “I will go see to him at once and wait for them.”

Elendil nodded that, and then finally, he offered a small smile in Galadriel’s direction. “I am happy to see you again, Galadriel. Please do not mistake my hastiness for dissatisfaction. We must look after King Halbrand, for he has looked out for us.” Elendil bowed his head at this, and Galadriel nodded, too, before returning the bow. After that, she turned around and walked toward the door of the cabin.

When her hand was on the door handle, Elendil called out to her.

“Galadriel,” he said, and she stopped, looking back at him over her shoulder. Elendil smiled once more, though it was weakened by his grief. “Tell King Halbrand I said thank you.”

The words sent a pang into her heart, but Galadriel nodded her head. “I will,” she agreed, and then she twisted the handle and exited the main cabin to emerge back onto the deck outside.

She shut the door behind herself, finding many eyes on her now, and it unnerved her. The rain had begun to settle into a fine mist, and then she realized she had left her cloak inside Elendil’s cabin, but she decided she would get it later. Lowering her head to avoid the gazes upon her, Galadriel made her way back to the entrance to the lower hold, only something stopped her in her tracks as it came into her line of vision.

Halbrand stood there, topside, clutching his cloak around himself. His face was pale and ashen, though it held more color than it had before. Still, he looked sickly. He was staring at her. He took a step forward toward her, and then he stumbled a little in the process. Galadriel closed the distance between them, catching his shoulder and steadying him.

“You should be in bed,” she admonished, and he glared at her.

“What did you say to him?” Halbrand asked her, his voice noticeably weak.

Galadriel felt confusion grip her at that, and she looked over her shoulder at Elendil’s cabin before returning her eyes to Halbrand. “Nothing,” she admitted. “Why? Do you fear he will throw you overboard?”

Halbrand’s glare seemed to deepen, but then his expression turned to one of pain. “No, he would do worse than that.”

“Would he?” Galadriel challenged him, but Halbrand did not like this back and forth. It did not matter much. His strength was nonexistent, and he tumbled forward on his own two feet. She caught him with both hands to prevent him from falling. “Back to bed now,” she demanded, and Halbrand did not argue with her. He allowed her to lead him back to the entrance of the lower hold. She let him descend first, and he lost his footing at the bottom. A man helped him below, and Galadriel descended the ladder after him.

She thanked the gentleman for his help but dismissed him, guiding Halbrand the rest of the way back to the bed he had left to go find her—it was a strange thought, that he had gotten up from his much needed rest in order to discover where she had gone off to, but she pushed it from her mind and urged him back onto the bed with a push downward onto his shoulders. Halbrand grunted, but he followed the push of her hands, allowing himself to collapse back onto the bed upon his side. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply in the aftermath.

“That was senseless,” Galadriel chided him. “You need to remain in bed if you are to regain your strength.”

“I don’t know that I’m going to regain my strength,” Halbrand shot back. “It is entirely possible I will be dead by tomorrow.”

“You do not know that.”

He opened his eyes again, glaring at her. “Yes, I do,” he responded, heaving out another deep breath. “I have gone too far, and they will ensure I do not go any further.”

Galadriel sat down in the stool beside his bed. “We are well past their wrath,” she countered him. “I think, for the sake of the rest of the men and women and children on this ship, that they will leave be us be for now. Can you hold your tongue long enough to not anger them further, or shall I knock you upside your head until you are out cold and silent?” Galadriel matched his glare ounce for ounce, and Halbrand finally backed down.

He let his head fall loose upon the pillow, shrugging the unfastened cloak off of himself, but he was still lying on top of it. “Why did you not tell Elendil anything?”

“What purpose would it serve?” she asked him. She genuinely meant the question. “He believes you are the key to these Men finding a new home. Am I to dash that hope for him and cause further bloodshed with a few words? To what purpose? To what end?”

Halbrand sighed, closing his eyes once more. “Stop speaking sense.”

“I will not,” Galadriel said venomously. “Since you are so incapable of it, someone must be and I suppose that is me.”

Halbrand sighed again. He rolled his head over and opened his eyes to stare at her for a moment. His lips were pale, and it bothered Galadriel. She feared she might need to feed more of her power into him soon, but it was leaving her feeling weak still. She was not sure if she had enough in her to continue it again so soon.

“Rest, please,” she urged him. “I am running out of strength, and I need to recuperate my own if I am to give you any more of it.”

His expression turned to one of pain, and he shook his head. “Then, stop,” Halbrand told her.

She stared back at him, exhaling a heavy breath. “I cannot,” she found herself whispering back. “It is not that easy. I have told you this already, so you must bear it whether you want to or not and so must I. This is our fate now. Thanks to you.”

His lip seemed to tremble at that, and soon enough, he was shivering all over. Galadriel rose from the stool and grasped one of his shoulders, urging him to roll over so that she could pull the slightly damp cloak out from underneath him. She shucked it free, and then she hung it up on the hooks behind her. Turning back around, she grabbed for the edge of the blankets, which Halbrand had pushed over to the side and almost onto the floor whenever he had risen from the bed, and she pulled those over him to shield him in their comforting warmth once more.

When she touched the back of her hand to his cheek to test his warmth, his skin was clammy and cold again. Sighing deeply, she tugged back the blankets and crawled beneath them to join him as she had done before, sidling up to him in order to offer the warmth of her body to aid in his recovery. Halbrand made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, but he was shaking and trembling, so he gave no outward words of discouragement. Galadriel ignored it, wrapping her arm around his middle and cradling herself against him beneath the covers. It was not long before his trembling finally ceased, and then he was still again, but his eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.

There was nothing any of the healers could do for him. That much was certain, and Galadriel knew it. While she was not sure if she was strong enough to continue the flow of power between them, she reached out for his hand under the blankets and clasped it within her own again, anyway, because it was all she had to offer so far, and it would have to be enough. She twined their fingers together just like before, their hands resting down low beneath the covers but above their bodies, closer to their hips, and then she closed her eyes and focused hard on the current of energy between them, pouring little by little of her own power back into him once more.

Halbrand stirred against her, his shallow breaths returning almost somewhat back to normal. In his movements toward her, he accidentally brought the lower half of his face toward her forehead, and Galadriel felt him breath out a little shaky breath against her flesh.

“You shouldn’t be doing this for me,” he managed to breathe out, a ragged inhalation following it.

“I already have,” Galadriel whispered in response, “and I already am.”

There was no argument he could give that would cause her to cease. It was in her nature to preserve and protect, and even with him, she felt that pull within her to do so—to help preserve his life until she could figure out what the next step was ahead of them. If Elendil’s words were anything to go by, they might be at sea for some time, sailing around the south end of shoreline along Middle-earth until they reached the cusp of the Southlands at the other side. She wondered if they would stop in port somewhere in a city along the way in order to stock up on food and supplies, but that would require an ally, and Galadriel did not know what other allies they might have in the wings. It seemed, based on Elendil’s information and due to Ar-Pharazôn’s war, that there were none awaiting them across any shore that rested ahead on their journey toward the Southlands. At least, whatever was left of the Southlands now that Mordor rested at the edge of them, having swallowed up half of its lands in ash and darkness.

If that was the case, then they were on their own—and Halbrand was their only ally.

Preserving his life, therefore, was their only hope.

Chapter Text

* * *

Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.

— André Gide

* * *

When the rolling hills beyond the verdant, flourishing coastlines of the Bay of Belfalas came into view within Galadriel’s line of sight past the ship’s railing, a sense of peace settled into her heart that had not been there since her journey first began. The lands were teeming with life and movement, both upon the grass and within the air, and she cast her gaze upward to catch the path of a flock of birds carrying themselves southwards many miles ahead. The depth of the landscape sang to her of its age, the deep curves cut into the soil and rock by the flowing waters of the Anduin showing her the flow of time throughout the region. It was a lush land with more soil than rock, and the cut of the cliffs revealed the richness beneath the vibrant grass. Galadriel closed her eyes, and she could smell the freshness of the soil, earthy and sharp, tinged with a touch of decay. It was growing, but it was also dying at the same time.

The captains of each ship signaled to each other to follow a similar path through the delta of the Anduin as they drew nearer to it, the ships converging as one to pass through the sharp angles of the land made by the river’s mouth. The delta sat low to the flow of the water, but as they passed through the ragged edges and made a path into the main river itself, the land began to slowly rise around them until the edges of the cliffs soared above the ships. It was a perfect place for an ambush if these lands were not a part of the new Southlands that Halbrand resided over as their king, and it occurred to Galadriel—not for the first time since the revelation with Elendil—that she wondered at how Halbrand had managed such a feat. To be both tyrant over Mordor and king over the Southlands, it was a feat that deserved some measure of praise, if only due to the complicated nature of it.

A complication that seemed to suit his nature rather than oppose it. Glancing over her shoulder, Galadriel caught sight of Halbrand swathed in a cloak like a blanket, his pale face not lost on her. Despite all of her efforts to aid in his recovery, there was a point past which they could not achieve with the power of her ring, Nenya, alone. However, he was not dead. Whether this was a beneficial consequence or a detrimental one to these people, Galadriel had not yet decided on that. Only time could reveal that to her, and she prayed, however futile the deed was, that there was more benefit than detriment for them in what she had done.

Halbrand paid little mind to her at the moment. After signaling to the other ships to form a line, Elendil left his post to talk with Halbrand. They were discussing something in depth. Galadriel watched their exchange with rapt interest, hearing small bits of their conversation, and Elendil placed his hand on Halbrand’s shoulder in the end. When Elendil left his side, Halbrand looked over at her. His eyes caught hers, and Galadriel glanced away from him, turning her attention back to the deep clefts in the landscape as they passed directly through them.

It was not long before Halbrand stood beside her next to the ship’s railing. He made little sound with his movements, almost catching her off guard, but his little bit of clumsiness alerted her sooner rather than later.

“Are you looking for something?” inquired Halbrand, a note of amusement in his tone that was not lost on Galadriel. She frowned at his question, but also found herself glad that it was his inquiry this time instead of hers. She had so many questions in her head, and she found herself asking them out loud often, and she wondered to what avail. She knew it was either trust him or not at this point, and the more questions she asked, she feared the more ambivalent he might become. Perhaps that was a notion that existed solely in her head, but it was better to err on the side of caution.

“No,” Galadriel admitted to him, letting out a small sigh. She kept her gaze on their surroundings, though, choosing not to look at him. “How much of this land is yours?”

“All of it,” Halbrand replied easily, knowing her meaning.

“How much of it do you plan on giving to Elendil and his men upon our landing?”

“However much they need,” he answered without hesitation. “Why do you ask so callously?”

“I do not ask callously,” Galadriel argued back, though she kept her tone soft yet firm. “They will need to rebuild, and they will need much of your land to do it. You are not known for your generosity if your past actions are anything to go by, and yet I believe you mean to honor your word to them.”

“I do,” Halbrand said in a low voice, a slight growl to the words. “Is there a meaning behind this questionnaire?”

Galadriel turned to look at him at last, feeling the cool breeze touch her cheek as she turned to face him. It was not easy to meet his face, and yet it was, and her heart ached at the deep ravine that he had created inside of her. It was a feeling she would have to get used to if she planned on staying with them, and the course in her mind so far thought that to be the best outcome for her to take. She wanted to ensure the safety of Elendil and his men, and the only way she could do that was if she stayed with them as they settled and began to rebuild, but that meant something else as well.

She would have to stay with Halbrand, too.

“I wish for nothing more than their safety and prosperity,” Galadriel answered him. “I hope you understand that is the only reason why I ask.”

Halbrand’s brow furrowed as he looked at her, but his face was unreadable, and she could not sense his emotions. He shifted on one leg, stumbled, and caught himself on the railing. Instinctively, Galadriel reached out as well, her hands touching his arm to steady him. Halbrand glanced down at her hands on him, at the way they gently clasped his arm through his cloak, and his voice was a grated whisper when it came out next. “Is that what you want? Their safety and prosperity?”

“Yes,” Galadriel said, meaning it. Halbrand shifted under the touch of her hands, but he did not pull away. He, too, glanced out at the deep fissure into which they had sailed, the cliffs rising high around them and casting them in shadow.

“Then, you shall have it,” he said, his voice a little gruff but somehow still kind in measure.

Galadriel was not sure what to say, so she said nothing. Halbrand turned his head back toward her, his eyes meeting hers. Still, his expression gave nothing away. Back below deck, he had been so vulnerable in his pain, but now, he was trying his best to conceal himself once more. She recalled, as she looked at him, one of their former conversations in her cell. Their very first one. His words came back to now like an echo as he watched her face. I know hate far better than you ever will, Galadriel, Halbrand had said to her. Let me impart some wisdom to you. Hate is what guides us to become monsters. In time it becomes your mother’s milk. It becomes all that feeds you. There is no love, no kindness, left in the ashes of its wake. Keep your hate, if you want it. If there are not other things that you desire more. The echo of his voice sounded so close, as if he were saying it right now, even though he wasn’t saying a thing at all. I kept mine because it was all I had.

The words came out of her before she could stop them.

“I do not hate you,” Galadriel told him, her eye contact with him never breaking.

In that moment she swore she saw a crack in his façade, a fracture beneath the surface that allowed a small apparition of his true self to come through, a part of himself that even he hid from out of habit. Out of time and time again of malformed practice. He knew of nothing else but of how to hide, how to pretend, how to play a role, and Galadriel could see past the façade how tiring it was for him. Halbrand wanted to be free of it, even if he would not admit to it out loud.

“Do not say things you do not mean,” Halbrand said back, low and hushed so that no one passing by them would hear it. The few sailors there were passing by seemed not to mind them at all, ignoring their presence on the ship’s deck as they tended to their duties.

Galadriel gave him a piercing look, tilting her head just a fraction to the side. “Do not assume I do not mean what I say,” she replied with the utmost assurance. “I have no purpose to admit falsehoods to you.”

He seemed to step closer to her, though Galadriel wondered if it was not all a part of her imagination. “Have you let go of your hate, then?”

His question was but a whisper, and Galadriel felt it unnerved her more than she liked to admit to herself.

“Perhaps,” she whispered back. His stare was a little uncomfortable, though it did not feel malicious in any way. “I wish to stay,” she then added, “to help Elendil and his people rebuild their new home. Would you be opposed to that route of action?”

Slowly, Halbrand shook his head. “No, I would not.”

“Do you mean to help them, too?” Galadriel inquired, feeling her curiosity overbear her to ask the question. “Rather than give them the land, and then just leave them to their own devices?”

“If you intend to stay, I should like to stay,” Halbrand added in a quiet voice. “Would you be opposed to that possibility?”

Galadriel found it was her turn to shake her head. “No,” she admitted softly, “I would not.”

His expression faltered for a brief moment, and if for the shortest imaginable glimpse of time, Galadriel saw a deep well of sentiment beneath the surface of his cool exterior. Halbrand blinked, and then it was gone, and he shifted on his feet, looking down at her hands. Releasing the ship’s railing, he extended one of them outward to her with careful trepidation, palm open to accept hers. Galadriel cast her gaze downward, knowing what he was offering. A truce. A peace of sorts for a suspended moment between them, despite all of the war they had both seen from their first moment of meeting to this one.

Drawing in a deep breath, Galadriel accepted his hand. She clasped onto his forearm, her fingers curling into place, and Halbrand did the same, his weakened hand still maintaining a firm grip on her, too. Galadriel felt something change between them in that moment, though she couldn’t place exactly what it was or how it would affect her going forward, but she knew, much like how she knew in that cell when she sat alone in the dark with him, that the fabric of their time together was changing them both. For better or for worse, she could not say.

Hopefully, for the better—for a better future for all involved. Galadriel wished for nothing more than an end to this endless war after all of these years. Vengeance seemed but a bitter word whispered to the wind, meaning nothing as it was given away, dissipating into the fog of nightfall as the sunlight touched upon the world once more and woke everything up.

In the aftermath of what he had done to Númenor, all sensibility told Galadriel that Halbrand was past saving. Past changing. Too far gone for anyone to intervene on his behalf, but maybe that was the cynicism of her long years murmuring back to her. Keep your hate, if you want it, he had whispered in that cell. If there are not other things that you desire more. I kept mine because it was all I had. Maybe he had been trying to tell her something, then. He had reached out to her in the darkness, in the blackness, grasping for something—for anything. Anything but the hate he was drowning himself in because he had nothing else left to live for but the utter destruction of those who fueled his hate.

Could he be given something else to live for, to strive for? To be a part of?

In truth she expected him to want to return to Mordor, to the seat of his kingdom, but if she could keep him here with the men of Númenor, then perhaps she could sway his mind in another direction than the well-trodden path of his former footsteps. Halbrand had become accustomed to deceit, destroying those in his path for whom he held no love, but maybe a large part of that was due to the lack of any other choice for him to choose.

When she met his eyes, it was not unlike that time they had clasped hands on the ship as they sailed away from Númenor’s port in this very direction so many, many years ago.

It was history repeating itself.

A realization that hit Galadriel like a strike in the gut, causing her to tremble all over from the knowledge of it. Halbrand noticed the change in her demeanor, but he did not speak on it, nor did Galadriel give anything away with words. She did not immediately disentangle their hands from each other’s grasp, though, and that seemed to give Halbrand a bit of resolve he did not possess before. He held his chin a little higher, and despite his weary appearance and drained health, it reminded Galadriel of the hint of nobility he was capable of exhibiting when the moment called for it.

“Are we to be allies now?” Halbrand asked her, an edge to his voice that teetered on the brink of being fearful.

Galadriel raised her chin as well, picking up on his insecurity and his doubts. She did not mock him for them, though a younger her might have done just that. “Yes,” she answered, matching his previous resolve, “we are to be allies if you concede to such a unification between us.”

“I suggested it once before,” he murmured, his expression growing poignant. “If you remember.”

“How could I forget?” inquired Galadriel, though it was, in fact, a rhetorical question.

Halbrand stared at her face for the longest time, their forearms still clasped together. The look in his eyes was an aggrieved one, full of regrets and half-thought things he might have said to her once if he had been but given the chance, and Galadriel read it all with a newfound clarity because, in that moment, he could not hide how he felt beneath the surface. Eventually, however, he grew weakened and faltered in his step, and Galadriel had to catch him to prevent him from colliding with the ship’s deck.

“It might be best,” she suggested, “if you return to bed in order to rest.”

“I am all right,” Halbrand attempted to argue, refusing to be laid down like a child, even though it was what was best for him.

“We are almost to land,” Galadriel insisted. “If you would but sit, I would find you a chair. Please,” she found herself pleading, though it was not overdone by any means, “do this at my request in return for what I have done for you.”

Halbrand glanced at her, sickness in his face, and a bitter resolve to argue further, but the illness washed the argument from his face, and he closed his eyes with a flutter, nodding halfheartedly. Galadriel nodded to show she noticed his response, and then she guided his arm around her shoulders and walked him carefully to the nearest seat available, a bench close to the captain’s quarters, for there were no other places to sit upon the deck without sitting directly on the floorboards themselves. The floor would have been an unseemly place for a king to sit, so she helped Halbrand onto the bench. Resting herself beside him, she glanced about the men busying to their tasks and wondered how much longer until they reached landfall.

“Do you have a homestead?” Galadriel heard herself say out loud, turning to look at Halbrand. It panged her heart to see him this way. His face had lost all of its color again, and he seemed to sway back and forth with uncertainty.

“Yes,” Halbrand answered her, closing his eyes and swallowing against a bout of sickness. He tipped his head back, laying it against the wall behind him. “There is a settlement we built into a city. I have a home there, though I have not occupied it for some time.”

“Did you leave the city in the care of a steward while you were gone?”

“Of course,” Halbrand replied, and his eyebrows shot up, “though what state it is in now, I cannot say. I was in Númenor for some time, and before that . . . ” He coughed, and Galadriel rested the palm of her hand against his arm.

“No more questions,” Galadriel said, though it was mostly for herself than for him. “You need to relax and rest. I am wearing you out.”

Halbrand seemed to chuckle at that, low and deep within his chest, and a soft, unfettered sigh followed it. “I should not be worn out so easily.”

“You are, though,” Galadriel countered, “and it is a truth you will have to face for now until we can sort out exactly how affected you are by all of this.”

His chuckle died away, his face falling. “Too much,” he replied, his voice falling, too. It was followed by another sigh. “Too much.”

“There is a price for everything,” Galadriel told him solemnly, and he did not argue with her because she was right in that respect. He seemed to accept her words, for he had said them to her first, after all. Everything had a price, and his actions were not to go without punishment. It was just for there to be some infraction leveled against him for the downfall of the Númenor, even if he did take it upon himself to help the Faithful flee while he sacrificed others in the name of Melkor. It made Galadriel’s heart pound to think of it, made her gut churn to remember it. She blinked once, and then she felt the warmth and sting of tears in her eyes to recall Elendil’s own words spoken to her in the captain’s quarters. The waves, Elendil had choked out. How tall they were. You did not see how tall they were. There is no way the island still stands. It is gone—swallowed by the sea and the might of the Valar forever.

Though she was helping Halbrand, it did not mean she had agreed with what he had done, nor supported it. What he had done to the Númenóreans had been heinous and without excuse, but it could not be erased from the pages of history now that it was done. Halbrand had made his choices, his decisions, and in the end he would pay for them in whatever ways the Valar saw fit. Furtively, Galadriel felt her thumb reach out for the adamant ring upon her finger, Nenya, and its ever flowing a stream of vigor into her from beyond the veil between the seen and Unseen world. Remembering Halbrand’s own ring, her eyes flitted to his hands to catch the gleam of the golden band that rested on his left ring finger. His hand laid upon his thigh, close to hers, and Galadriel felt her gaze drawn to the ring with a power that seemed to lock her eyes in place once they fell upon the brushed gold surface that curved under the light of the sun. The ring was most beautiful. Most intriguing. Most precious, it seemed, even to her.

Instead of her hand reaching out for his, this time his hand reached out for hers—the one that bore his golden ring—clasping onto her hand in a loose but fretful grasp. “Thank you,” Halbrand said, though his eyes were still closed when Galadriel looked up at them. Galadriel did not ask what for he thanked her. To hear him say the words to her at all so many years apart from the first time, it stilled the beat of her heart just once as the sunlight was cut off from them by the cliff face towering above as the ship passed it by.

The past could not be changed, no matter how much one might hope otherwise.

All they had left was the present and the future, and an attempt to make them better than what came before.

Chapter Text

* * *

A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

— William Shedd

* * *

When they arrived at the bustling port city of Pelargir, Galadriel recognized at once that Halbrand had not been as forthcoming about the grandeur of the kingdom he had left behind himself. The port itself was packed with ships and activity and people, while the coastline from the Anduin to the Sirith were overrun with low-lying buildings and various structures of white stone and terracotta roofs. Walls had been built to outline the city in a protective border, and the tallest tower in the center was a sentinel watchtower, while the tallest near the shore was a lighthouse. Further towers were set up along the length of the border walls, encasing Pelargir with watchful eyes on every corner. There was no castle that Galadriel could see. All of the buildings held a similar height that only the warehouses by the coast stood out from the rest with their second and third stories to house grain, supplies, and whatever else the city might need.

The port itself even had a barrier wall built into the river itself, effectively blocking any attempt to overrun the harbor with enemy ships. Their presence drew the eyes and attention of many. Before they had even reached the docks, guards with spears and shields and swords at their sides marched out to form a line and greet them. Elendil’s ship sailed into the harbor first with the other ships of Númenor following close behind them, and Galadriel looked over her shoulder to watch the sun as it lowered itself slowly to the horizon. It was the setting of one era—and the dawn of another in a new land.

Halbrand himself stood in full view against the ship’s railing for those men and women on the docks, who began to gasp in wonder as they recognized his face and countenance, hollers and cheers filling the air before spears and swords were raised, too.

“King Halbrand has returned to us!” came the first cries. “King Halbrand is returned!”

The ship was docked, and where they might have been received with hostility without Halbrand’s presence, it quickly turned to joyous cries and a drove of men coming to help the ships unload their people and cargo. Galadriel almost found herself lost in the sudden bustle of sailors and men going to and fro, the rise in many conversations at once in various attempts to begin explaining the story of their arrival as Númenóreans departed from the ship and mingled with the people of Pelargir. Galadriel glanced left and right to the other open ports in the harbor, seeing Anárion’s and Isildur’s ships docking as well.

A familiar voice called out to her, and Galadriel broke free of her trance to turn toward it.

It was Bronwyn, smiling at her like a long lost friend, and Galadriel could not help the smile that overtook her own face at the sight of her. It had been many years, and now Bronwyn’s dark hair was streaked with grey, but she was no less beautiful than Galadriel had remembered her. The other woman embraced her, and Galadriel returned the hug with her eyes closed as the bodies of men rushed past them.

“It is so good to see you,” Bronwyn said into her ear, and then she pulled away from the hug. “You freed King Halbrand with your soldiers?”

Galadriel was struck silent by Bronwyn’s choice of words. When she looked downward, she also noticed the rich garb in which Bronwyn had been dressed: a gown of gold-trimmed ivory with lace detail. At first, she found it hard to speak, and the words, when they came, were a lie. “Yes, we heard of his plight and came to his aid as quickly as possible.”

Bronwyn’s smile turned into a grin. “You are a gift from the gods themselves,” Bronwyn announced, grasping Galadriel by both of her shoulders. “When he had been taken in battle as a prisoner by the enemy’s forces, we believed we would never see him again.” Her voice fell, sadness tingeing the words. “No one comes back from that, as you well know . . . ”

“He did this time,” Galadriel offered, placing one of her hands on Bronwyn’s shoulder as well.

“By your grace,” Bronwyn corrected, her eyes gleaming with fresh tears.

Galadriel wanted to ask more questions to better prepare herself, but there was one thing at the forefront of her mind the most as she witnessed Halbrand finally disembarking the ship. “King Halbrand,” Galadriel heard her voice say as if it was detached from her, “he has suffered many ills, and it is best he finds rest first in the infirmary before he engages in anything. His condition is still unstable, and he needs rest.”

“Say no more,” Bronwyn agreed, and she took Galadriel by the arm. Together, they left the ship. Bronwyn left her side and spoke softly to a few soldiers before they all nodded, and then the men made a formation around Halbrand.

“King Halbrand!” they each cried, drawing cheers from the crowd, before they began a march into the city, which Halbrand, Galadriel, and Bronwyn all followed, though Galadriel and Bronwyn were trailing behind the march of soldiers as Halbrand remained encased within their blockade of bodies.

The soldiers took them to the wing of a building, which was part of a larger infirmary, and left them there as Halbrand was only beginning to realize the plan made behind his back. He turned on the two of them, noticing Bronwyn by Galadriel’s side, and cut his eyes to Galadriel next.

“What is the meaning of this?” Halbrand asked Galadriel, even as he could not keep his feet steady, a small stumble alerting Bronwyn that something was indeed wrong.

Bronwyn stepped away from Galadriel to Halbrand’s side first, extending her arms to help him. “You ought to lie down,” she said to him. “Galadriel informed me of your hardships, and it is best you rest—”

“—I don’t need to rest,” Halbrand cut her off, sounding more annoyed than before, and he yanked his arm away from Bronwyn’s hold. His eyes cut toward the other woman. “Where is Theo?”

Bronwyn seemed perplexed by the sudden inquiry of her son. “He is attending to his duties—”

“Tell him to come here at once.”

Bronwyn pulled her hands back from Halbrand, grasping the edges of her dress instead between her fingers. She appeared to be uncertain, but in acquiescence of his demands. In a sudden bow toward Halbrand, Bronwyn offered only four words in response. “Of course, my king,” she answered softly. She turned away from them both to leave the infirmary, her gown billowing behind her.

“That was unkind,” Galadriel ventured to say as soon as Bronwyn was gone, and despite his protests to rest, Halbrand was moving to occupy the nearest empty bed. He sat down on the edge of it, grunting as he fell, and worked first on unlacing his boots.

“Working against me behind my back was also unkind,” he shot back, removing the first boot. It collided with the floor in a loud clop. “Is there anything else you are plotting behind my back?”

Galadriel bristled at his allegation, turning on him at once. “After everything I have done for you and all of your secrets I have kept, you dare to level such an accusation at me?”

Halbrand paused in the middle of removing his other boot, dropping the task and allowing some semblance of affinity to return to his face as all of the anger and annoyance fled from it. “No,” he finally said, “you are right.” Quietly, he looked down and returned to unlacing his second boot. He yanked it off, dropping it with a thud against the stone floor. He stared at the floor ahead, his eyes glazing over with haze as memories returned to him. “Theo has done well in my absence,” he said aloud to no one in particular, even though Galadriel was the only one in the wide, empty room.

“You left the city in Theo’s charge during your absence?” Galadriel inquired, piecing the puzzle together slowly in her mind.

“Yes, he was given the position to be my steward,” Halbrand answered her, “should anything happen to me.”

“How long have you been gone?”

Halbrand was silent at first, staring forward at the wall. “Many years,” he replied, his voice sounding faraway.

He chose not to lie down but to lean back against the headboard, resting in silence with his eyes closed. Galadriel sat down on the edge of the empty bed next to his own. His sudden silence affected her, influencing her to remain silent as well. The two of them remained like that for some time until the pound of footsteps drawing nearer caused Galadriel to look up and spot a much older Theo marching towards them—his gait, much like his appearance, had drastically changed from the young man she had once known. His hair was longer and braided, crowned beneath a simple round-banded circlet, and his russet garb was rich and luxurious, though he wore uncomplicated chest armor and bracers above it. His grin, too, was unmistakable.

Despite his much older appearance, the sudden grin on his face transformed Theo into a boy again before Galadriel’s eyes. He laughed as he approached them, arms outstretched toward Halbrand. She watched as Halbrand’s serious face dissolved into a grin as well, and he rose from the bed to greet Theo. Theo grasped Halbrand in a hearty embrace, clapping him on the back, and both of them were laughing—a sight Galadriel had not expected to see, and it only caused more questions to arise.

“It is so good to see you,” Theo blurted out, and Halbrand stumbled in the younger man’s embrace, causing Theo to withdraw with concern on his face. He clapped Halbrand on the shoulder. “You should rest. I will tell no one. You are well, and you are back. We must have a celebration soon for the people to announce your return more formally. Indeed, these are happy days . . . ” Theo turned his head and noticed Galadriel, his eyes growing wide. “Galadriel!”

Theo waited for Halbrand to seat himself before he left him and held his hand out to Galadriel. Her eyes fell downward, catching the gleam of a splendid ring upon his finger. When she hesitated in taking his hand, Theo dropped it back to his side, looking unsure of himself all of a sudden. “Is it good to see you, too, Galadriel. I have not forgotten you,” Theo told her. “Thank you—for bringing him back to us.”

Galadriel nodded her head, finding her smile at last. She was a stranger here, and she began to wonder how long until she had outstayed her welcome.

“Of course,” she said, not knowing what else to say, before Theo clasped Halbrand’s hand one last time before wishing him well and taking his leave of them, disappearing from the infirmary. Her eyes fell back onto Halbrand, who had resumed sitting back against the headboard again, his eyes closed once more. “Should I leave you now?” Galadriel asked him, wanting to explore the city a little, but not wanting Halbrand to wander from his bed. “Will you stay put and rest if I am not here watching over you?”

He snorted at that, never opening his eyes. “Yes, I will stay here and rest,” Halbrand agreed, “since you so insist.”

“I do.”

Halbrand heaved out a sigh. “Then, yes, I will.”

Galadriel rose from the bed, hearing Halbrand shift upon his own. She raised her eyes to look at him, and their gazes locked for a brief moment that unnerved her further.

“Don’t be gone too long,” he said, but his eyes gave nothing more away than his words had already given her. Galadriel did not answer him. She turned away from him to leave.

He did not call out to her to stop her.

The path outside of the infirmary was not too far from the docks themselves, and Galadriel could see the rest of the men, women, and children leaving the ships to mingle with the crowds of the people in Pelargir’s streets. Elendil and his two sons, Isildur and Anárion, were discussing matters with Theo and Bronwyn. Galadriel turned her eyes away from them all. None of this was her business at the end of the day, and her presence was not needed here.

She did not intend to leave so soon until things were safely settled for Elendil and his people, but her suggestions were unlikely to be asked for in the midst of their talks. After all, she was but an Elf—and this was the world of Men.

Her feet took her down a path in the streets that led towards the outermost wall of the settlement. There, at the edge of the city, she found a large cover of grassy plain sequestered off to form grazing grounds as well as stables for the horses of the city. It was one of many, Galadriel was sure, for this large city was in need of many horses for its soldiers, but this one was close to the infirmary and the docks, so she would not be too far from Halbrand, Elendil, Theo, or Bronwyn in case she was needed again.

Here, the grassy plains were yellow, and many of the horses were already grazing in freedom. It was a beautiful sight that calmed her spirit from the turmoil it had been through with her journey, and to have stable ground beneath her feet again was a blessing in and of itself. With care in her steps, she approached one of the horses with her hand outstretched toward it. At first, the horse drew away from her, huffing, but then she whispered to it softly in her mother tongue, and the soothing sounds calmed the creature down and allowed her to step closer to it.

Eventually, she had reached the horse’s side, and her hand caressed it softly over its mane. Galadriel continued whispering to the animal to ensure its calmness, finding it was not too long before the horse paid hardly any mind to her at all, grazing and shaking his head, but allowing her to touch him and talk to him. She glanced over her shoulder from time to time at the docks, but the bustle of activity there never seemed to settle down. It was possible it might take all night. Looking back at the horse, she smiled at it and brushed its mane one last time before turning away and walking off toward the stables.

The horses within it were all strong and sturdy breeds with beautiful coats and majestic auras. Each one of them was well tended to and taken care of, and this also brought a smile to Galadriel’s face. She made it to the other end before she heard a voice call out to her from the opening of the stables, and when she looked up, she saw a tall, long shadow fall inside and cover everything—but the voice itself was clear.

“So, this is where you have been hiding?” Halbrand called out to her, his shadow growing smaller and smaller until he appeared from beyond the opening, standing beside the fence there at the end. He placed his hand on it to steady himself.

Galadriel raised her eyebrows, tilting her head toward him. “Should you be out of bed so soon?”

“I was wondering where you had gone off to,” he began, his line of sight falling lower.

It was not lost on Galadriel. She turned away from him, focusing instead on the horse in front of her. She reached out to pet it, brushing her hand soothingly along its nose. “I was merely exploring the city while you rested,” she replied, though that was not entirely the truth.

Halbrand stepped further into the stables. “You’ve been here the whole time,” he countered her, his voice practically daring her to prove him wrong.

She cut her eyes at him, but he was only a few feet away now and drawing ever closer. Halbrand stopped beside her at last, looking up at the horse she was petting. His hand stretched out as well, joining her in lavishing attention on the creature. It huffed happily at the addition of another hand. Galadriel let hers fall from the horse. She felt a sigh bubble up in her chest, and she turned to face him.

“If I have,” she threw back at him, “what does it matter?”

“It doesn’t,” Halbrand offered, still petting the horse, “but there’s no need to lie to me.”

Galadriel was taken aback by his sudden accusation. “I have not lied to you.”

It was Halbrand’s turn to cut his eyes at Galadriel. “You were withholding the truth from me,” he murmured, and though his face still looked hollow and sickly, his eyes held all of his former power in them. “Hiding in the stables and exploring the city are two very different things.”

“Do you distrust me now?” Galadriel asked him, feeling her ire grow with each passing moment.

“Of course not,” Halbrand said.

“Then, please,” Galadriel demanded, “explain the meaning behind this.”

It was Halbrand’s turn to sigh. He lowered his hand from the horse, letting it fall back to his side. “Nothing,” he told her aloud, though that was not the full truth from his end. It stoked Galadriel’s fire further to hear him withhold from her when he seemed to demand in full the honest truth from her. “I was simply wondering where you had gone off to in my absence.”

“Were you worried of what I might do?” Galadriel inquired. “Is that it? Am I a threat to you now?”

Halbrand closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was looking straight at her. “No,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I simply missed your presence. Is that so hard to believe?”

Galadriel was not so sure she believed him just yet, but she glanced away from the piercing gaze he leveled at her. She had not forgotten their time together in Númenor within her cell, and it seemed he had not forgotten it either. Out here in the wide world, things were different between them. They kept each other at arm’s length, and it seemed every word spoken was received with a healthy amount of suspicion rather than trust—and Galadriel understood the reasoning behind it all. Out here, there were no binding formalities to keep them within each other’s sphere of influence, and they withdrew from each other, perhaps fearing the pull of whatever it was between them.

A terrible thought reached her mind, then—if she could go back to that cell and reach out for him to touch him again, Galadriel would do so in a heartbeat. She could revoke any blame that might be directed towards her for it. It was easy to give in there in that cell because the power had been outside of her hands in that situation. She could not be blamed for whatever had occurred between them under those circumstances. She had been blameless. Innocent. Closing her eyes, Galadriel turned away from him and moved to walk away.

His hand caught her arm, stopping her with a firm grasp.

“Please,” Halbrand whispered to her, his voice hoarse. “Don’t walk away.”

Galadriel kept her eyes closed, unable to look at him. “I should,” she told him, her voice also a whisper. “This is not . . . ”

“Don’t say that,” he interrupted her, tugging lightly on her arm. “Please, Galadriel. Don’t say that.”

His hand remained firm on her arm. Slowly, Galadriel allowed her eyes to open, staring forward at the hay strewn across the floor of the stables. His hand loosened on her, and when she did not leave, he let go of his hold on her arm, though his hand stayed there, touching her in a soft manner, his thumb stroking circles into the curve of her elbow.

Galadriel swallowed against the well of the emotions that arose within her simply from the reminder of it all. The journey across the sea had been filled with so much fear that there had been no time to consider any of her feelings or their time spent together in Númenor; their conversations in her cell, the intimacy that had abounded from a simple touch between them. It was frightening to consider all of it again now, and to have nothing in the way of denying it or subduing it, that was worse. She could not run from it without completely turning away from him, and that was dangerous. She could not leave so soon. What would happen to Pelargir, to Elendil and his people, if she left now?

Too much hung in the balance, and too many people depended on the stability of one man—on Halbrand.

Sauron, whispered the voice in the back of her mind, and Galadriel felt her body tense up at the reminder. His hand on her arm felt like a brand now, burning through her clothes with a heat she was so certain was real—but it was not real. It was all in her head. He was not using any magic on her. Right now, he was just a man—or at least just pretending to be one.

Galadriel swallowed past a building lump in her throat at all of the reminders at once, wondering if she would crumble beneath them. A sudden question arose in her mind as well, though it was not one born out of jealousy, but curiosity out of their interactions together since the arrival here in Pelargir. It was entirely possible she was wrong about it, though. “You and Bronwyn,” Galadriel began, unsure of how to word the inquiry now that it was out in the open. “Did the two of you wed?”

A sudden huff filled the air, but it was not the horse. It was Halbrand. His huff quickly became a chuckle, and she felt his hand rise along her arm, gripping her momentarily. “You think I wed her while I was king here?” he asked.

“She seemed . . . close with you,” Galadriel reasoned, thinking it strange now. It could have easily been the respect Bronwyn would have offered to her king rather than that of a husband, but then there was her regal garb to take into consideration, too. “Theo is fond of you as well. It is not out of the realm of possibility—”

“No,” Halbrand offered in a curt manner, “I did not wed her. She is merely the mother of the man I appointed as my steward should anything have happened to me. If she looks like a queen, that is because Theo thinks of her as such.”

There was a small flutter of hope in Galadriel’s heart at the words, but she wanted to smother them as soon as they arose within her.

“Is that it?” Halbrand asked her in the sudden silence, his voice falling to a perilous sort of quiet as he drew closer to her side. Galadriel sensed him more than felt him, the way he towered beside her. His hand pulled on her arm, drawing her toward him the rest of the way until they were almost flush side by side. “Are you afraid I was already promised?”

The hopeful tone in his voice was not lost on her, but this was not possible. Galadriel could not sort out all of the impending consequences, but she could see them all in the distance with a newfound clarity in her mind’s eye.

She could keep him close, but she could not let him in.

“No,” Galadriel said in a soft voice, looking up at his face at once. His eyes stared down into hers, and though they appeared as though they were open and hopeful and inviting, Galadriel realized she could not do this with him—not with him. “But I am,” she answered him with a final whisper.

She pulled away from his grasp and walked away from him, wondering if it was not the first of many mistakes.

Chapter Text

* * *

The ties that bind us to life are tougher than you imagine, or than any one can who has not felt how roughly they may be pulled without breaking.

— Anne Brontë, “Agnes Grey”

* * *

The council meeting was at Theo’s request. It was held in the city’s main stronghold at the center of Pelargir, lying adjacent to the towering sentinel watchtower she had spied upon her arrival here. Galadriel’s attendance at this meeting had been called for by the announcement of the heralds who arrived at the door of her quarters to inform her of the decision to include her. She had little knowledge of how her presence would help further along the council meeting, for this was not her realm or even a realm of Elves of which they would be speaking of, though she assumed with Elendil and his sons in presence as well that it had something to do with her time in Númenor. Until the meeting started, she could not be certain.

Either way, she followed the heralds to the citadel. Her appearance in the city’s streets garnered much attention, for the shape of her ears drew many unwanted eyes and remarks upon her person. Even here in a new realm where they had no reason to hate the Elves, the memory and past tales of old held fast. Men never held much love for the Elves, and she was a castaway here, washed to shore by Númenórean ships.

However, some of the people along her journey to the main bastion tipped their heads in silent gratitude towards her for whatever part she might have played in returning their long lost king back to them. They had all been passengers upon the same ships, and at least that was not lost on the people of Pelargir. Men and women and even some of the children, too, bowed their heads and bodies in recognition of her plight and sacrifice. As she passed them by, some of them even whispered, “Bless you, my lady. Bless you. May the gods always bless you.”

Galadriel glanced forward to the bastion ahead of her, her eyes raised high, but a feeling of deepening sorrow growing within her at the praise they leveled at her.

What had she done but bring their enemy back to them in a shrouded mask?

While the main stronghold was not the tallest building in the city, its interior was the most intricate of all that Galadriel had seen thus far. The heralds led her through the door and down the hallways to the appointed council room. The walls along the way were painted in golden portraits of successful exploits and tales against the Enemy’s forces. Galadriel briefly wondered how that made Halbrand feel as he walked through these halls to see them. Did he feel anything at all towards it, or was it just another painting to him? The bitterness that encompassed her at the thought tasted like bile on the back of her tongue, which she had to swallow down before she made it to the council room lest it show unmistakably upon her face.

The heralds led her into the room, flanking either side of her, and stood at the doors as she made her way inside.

Elendil stood in front of the windows at the far side of the council room, steady and still, but not far from the table. His sons, Isildur and Anárion, were on the right side of the table in a state of agitation, both of them pacing back and forth. On the left side of the table was Theo, standing tall as well, leaning onto his knuckles upon the wooden surface. Sitting down past him in a state of recline was Halbrand with a pallid look upon his sunken face still, his head tilted back slightly and an arm curved around his middle. At her entrance, he slowly turned his gaze toward her before any of the rest of them had recognized her presence in the room.

“Glad of you to join us, Galadriel,” Halbrand said as curtly as possible, earning him a concise tilt of her head in response along with her raised eyebrows.

“I have yet to determine the cause of my inclusion,” she spoke aloud, glancing upon all of their faces in kind. Elendil had a reclusive but thoughtful look upon his face, while both of his sons remained agitated despite her arrival. Theo looked hopeful.

“We need a tie-breaker,” Theo replied swiftly. “There are matters at strife with one another, and we seek another opinion to weigh in on the decision. Elendil,” Theo cast his arm toward Elendil at the end of the table, “has yet to make a decision and bear the brunt of anyone’s distaste should he be at fault for the final outcome, which we call you—” Theo cast that same arm toward Galadriel. “—To break.”

Galadriel cocked her head to the side. “I fail to see how I may break this tie. All it would take is Elendil’s vote to overrun my own and set us three against three, putting the council back where it last left off.” She let her gaze drift across the room upon everyone’s faces before glancing back at Theo. “What is the matter at hand, Lord Theo, that I am to help decide upon?”

“I wish to host a celebration for the return of our king,” Theo gestured past himself at Halbrand. “King Halbrand has had a wearisome journey these past many years, trying to find his way back home to us, and now, thanks to all of you, he has found his way here at last. The people are in high spirits. This has given them hope again. We should organize a festival to celebrate his safe return,” Theo swept his hand across the room at everyone, “at your hands. The people need this.”

“What is the other matter?” Galadriel inquired, gazing over at Isildur and Anárion.

Anárion halted in his pacing, speaking before his brother. “We understand the king deserves a celebration at his safe return, but we are only a burden amongst this city the longer we stay put within its walls. Isildur and I wish to know which lands we may have, so that we may strike out at once and build new homesteads for our people. We are, going forward, allies against a common foe, but we are stronger with many points at which to fight with than with only one point. The longer we stay in Pelargir, the weaker we are as a whole. Let us strike out on new land, construct new points of protection against the forces of Mordor, and the Kingdom of Men will be better for it. When we have our feet firmly planted in new ground, we may return later for celebration in honor of King Halbrand.” With his last sentence, Anárion held his hand out toward Halbrand. Briefly, he also bowed his head.

Isildur, too, had stopped pacing. He appeared calmer than his brother. “I agree with my brother,” Isildur announced. “I believe we will fare better if we strike out now than if we wait. We hold the advantage at the moment, but the resolve of our men is low. We have lost our homeland overnight, and we have come here as refugees, seeking aid from a kingdom who has only recently regained their own king and has been fraught with peril and attacks of the Enemy for many years now. The pride of our ancestry will not allow us to bear that scorn for long. Our numbers are a burden on you, and while we still have supplies, we ought to return to our ships and sail further inland to wherever our new homes may be.”

“I, of course,” Theo cut in, aiming a blazing glare at both of the brothers, “caution against setting out too soon. While we are planning for the celebration of our king’s safe return, we may send out scouts of Pelargir and Númenórean stock alike to seek out the safest lands for our Númenórean brothers to inhabit now that their homeland is gone. As of the current state of affairs, we are unaware of what lands they may claim for their own and cannot make that decision just yet. Until we send out scouts to survey the land and come back with those results, you will not have a decision.”

“I take it King Halbrand agrees with this,” Galadriel conferred as she glanced at Halbrand. His eyes were already on her. He turned away to look at the others.

“I agree with Theo,” Halbrand announced. “We need to wait until scouts can survey the lands. In the meantime while we are waiting on their return, we may discuss possible points of territory on the maps. I promised you I would give you land upon our arrival, and I mean to keep my word. Do not doubt me so soon.”

“I do not doubt you—” Anárion began, but it was his father who cut him off.

“Anárion, hold your tongue,” Elendil snapped, and Anárion swiftly turned to glare at his father with an agitated gleam in his eyes. “Galadriel,” Elendil then said next, “what are your thoughts on this matter?”

Galadriel knew her answer would only flare the fire within the two brothers, who seemed anything but eager to stay in Pelargir and suffer the celebrations while still grieving the loss of their homeland. It was a sentiment she understood well, though their desire to leave thus soon seemed a perilous plight to undertake without knowing the lay of the land ahead of them. She knew where the wisdom stood in all of this.

“I agree with King Halbrand and Lord Theo,” Galadriel revealed to them. Isildur glared at her, flaring his nostrils, while Anárion shot a foul look her way and began pacing again. “It is wisest to send out scouts first to review the land before making such a decision in haste—”

“—And why are we listening to an Elf on this matter?” spat Anárion, pointing his finger at her.

Four things happened at once.

“Anárion,” Elendil hissed aloud, stalking toward his son, while Isildur grabbed his brother’s arm in an attempt to seize him. Theo immediately laid his hand upon his sword hilt at his waist, gripping it as if he expected a fight.

Halbrand stood at once, though he nearly stumbled in the process. “Remove yourself from this chamber,” he ordered Anárion.

Anárion tore his arm free from his brother. “Gladly,” he spat back in retort—and then he spat onto the table. “That is what I think of your Elf—”

Halbrand’s eyes seemed to blaze with their fury. The sharp echo of steel pulled from a scabbard rung through the air as Theo drew his sword and swung it in an easy arc with his wrist to hold it upright as if beckoned by an invisible force. The motion appeared to be in retaliation for the words that poured from Anárion’s mouth.

“Anárion, you will hold your tongue!” Elendil hollered, storming up to his son and snatching Anárion’s arm to wrest him to his side. “We are guests here!”

“We have lost everything, Father!” Anárion yelled back. “Everything! Our homes, our heritage, our friends! Our neighbors! We are expected to put on a mask and a smile for this celebration? A celebration that is not for us! Not for our people! I will not parade around and pretend to be joyous while there is such grievance in my heart! I will not!” Anárion yanked his arm away from his father, aiming a final glare at Halbrand. “I will remove myself since it is clear my sorrow matters not to these people.”

With that, Anárion stalked away from the chambers. His boots echoed heavily on the stone in the hallway until they faded away at last, leaving the room in an uncomfortable silence.

“You must forgive my son,” Elendil asked, his voice pained with the request, as he turned his gaze upon Halbrand. “He is . . . overwrought with his grief, and he is not in his right state of mind. He needs time. I will speak with him, but I agree that it is best to wait until scouts may assess the land, so that we may come to a decision together on where is best for us to plant our roots. This is your land, after all, and I will remind Anárion of that.”

“Father,” Isildur said, “I mean no disrespect to King Halbrand, but Anárion is right in that this celebration is not for us. I do not have the heart to take part in it either.” Isildur glanced over at Halbrand. “I mean no offense to you or anyone else in this room when I speak my heart, but our wounds are still fresh. They have not had time to heal.” He turned to look at last at Galadriel. “My apologies, my lady,” Isildur said, bowing his head at her, “for my brother’s disrespect towards you.”

Galadriel accepted his apology with a bow of her own. “I understand,” she replied calmly. “Your brother’s anger is not for me. His heart still grieves his losses. He has not had time to put them to rest.”

“Thank you for understanding,” Isildur told her. “I will take my leave as well if all is well between us.”

“All is well between us, Isildur,” Galadriel confirmed with a soft smile. “Take your leave and rest your heart. I grieve with you all for the losses and the pain you bear. Much has been lost, and it is up to us to carry the torch of remembrance in honor of it. I will carry it with you and your brother. Remember that when you leave this room.”

“I will, my lady,” Isildur replied, bowing his head deeply in her direction. “Your grace is immeasurable, and it is well-received within my heart. Forgive us our ills and our anger.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” she insisted, though Isildur could not meet her eyes as she said it. He turned away from her and walked out of the council room, leaving Galadriel now amongst only Theo, Halbrand, and Elendil. At some point during the confrontation, Theo had sheathed his sword back into its scabbard, though when that had occurred, Galadriel could not say. His sudden ferocity to defend her had surprised Galadriel, for she had not seen Theo in decades. He had no reason to be loyal to her, expect by proxy to his king, Halbrand.

His hand still rested on the hilt of his sword, though, the majestic ring upon his finger sparkling against a beam of light as he shifted in place upon his feet. Galadriel’s gaze rested upon the ring for a moment, sensing something unnatural about it. Before she could think too long on it, Elendil’s voice interrupted her train of thought.

“I apologize for my son’s behavior as well,” Elendil said to Halbrand, drawing Galadriel’s eyes back to his face. “He is still grieving. We have lost much.”

“I understand,” Halbrand managed to say, and it was a wonder to Galadriel that he was still standing at all with the way he swayed on his feet.

“I will be willing to look over maps with you, King Halbrand, at your leisure,” Elendil added. “Until then, I will see to my sons and ensure no rash actions are taken up in my absence.”

“That would be wise, Elendil,” Halbrand agreed, clearing his throat afterwards.

Elendil bowed in his direction before walking off toward the doors. “My lady,” he said as he passed Galadriel, tipping his head in a small bow as he walked past her and exited the chambers. She returned his bow before turning back to Theo and Halbrand.

“I will take my leave as well now that everything is settled,” Galadriel announced with a small tilt of her head toward them both, her eyes flitting between Theo and Halbrand.

Before they could say anything else to stop her, she turned around and walked out of the chambers into the hallway.

The closeness between Halbrand and Theo stirred a deep sense of foreboding in her heart, though Galadriel could not say why. There was something about it that lingered on the cusp of the inexplicable, and while it should have soothed her to see Theo’s zealous support for his king, it troubled her instead. Their bond was strong for one that had been separated for decades on end, and while Galadriel could reason with Theo’s contentment at a return to the natural order of things, she could not reason Theo’s sudden desire to defend her own honor, an Elf whom he had not seen since he was but a boy. His memory of her could not be so fond as all that. He was a man now with too much time between them for the short span of a mortal’s life, though it seemed but a blink of an eye to Galadriel.

Surely, it had not been a blink of eye for Theo.

“Galadriel,” called out a voice suddenly from behind her, and Galadriel halted in the hallway, closing her eyes at the sound of his voice. Halbrand. Of course, it was Halbrand and not Theo. Theo would not seek her out. Halbrand, on the other hand, could not seem to let her rest in peace.

Galadriel opened her eyes, turning to face him.

In the golden bend of evening rays that shot down from the long row of windows, Halbrand carefully made his way toward her. When he reached her, it worried her how weakened he still appeared to be despite everything she had done for him. He did not stand at his full height, instead hunching over like a sickened man. The gaunt lines of his face were more pronounced up close, and Galadriel wondered if he should even be walking around on his own.

Unexpectedly, she reached out for his arm to help hold him at the first sign of his unsteadiness.

“Should you be up and about like this?” she inquired, sounding more worried than she wanted to sound in his presence. Galadriel also wondered if she should help him again, too. Pour more of her light and energy into his being to help stave off the insistent decay that did not seem to want to leave his body.

“I am their king,” Halbrand replied. “I must appear strong—”

“—Not at the cost of weakening yourself,” Galadriel shot back, giving him a sharp look along with the words.

Halbrand’s lips curled into a partial smile at her words as he glanced down at her, a strange look filling his eyes. “Do you still worry for my well-being?”

Galadriel looked down to escape his gaze. “Of course—”

He reached out for her face to cup her chin. With an assurance and unusually steady hand, he tilted her head upright once more for her eyes to meet his own. “What we shared,” he whispered to her, “in Númenor. Together. Why do you turn away from it now?”

“Why do you care now?” Galadriel asked him softly, wondering where this was going. She had told him she was promised to another. Why was that not enough explanation for him?

“Did I not care then?” he threw back, both insulted and hurt by the supposed accusation.

“That is not what I meant—”

“I don’t care what you meant by it,” Halbrand said, shaking his head as his voice fell to a whisper again. “You’re avoiding the question with more questions. If I am dying—”

“—You are not dying,” she cut him off.

“If I am dying,” Halbrand repeated in a firm voice, and the pallor of his flesh became clearer with the change in his tone. The sunken quality of his cheeks, more noticeable to Galadriel. His jaw was tight, quivering with the question that threatened to come out. “I want to know. Did it mean nothing?”

Galadriel stared into his eyes, feeling her mouth fall open but no words come out of her lips. Her eyes flitted back and forth, seeing the pain in his expression, and knowing this was a dangerous path to traverse between them. At the same time, she could not bring herself to lie in such flagrance of the obvious truth.

“No, of course not,” she whispered, shaking her head.

Halbrand tugged her closer, his grip on her arm tightening. When had he grasped her arm? Galadriel could not recall the moment, though she remembered grasping onto him. “Then, why?” he murmured, an undercurrent of urgency beneath the word. That one word, so fraught with anguish. “Why turn away from me now? After everything you have done for me? After saving my life? You would cast me away again? A second time?”

“I told you,” Galadriel said, feeling more uncomfortable each instant that passed between them. “I am promised to another—”

“No, you’re not,” Halbrand denied with ease. Slowly, he shook his head at her. “You would not have done what you did with me if you were promised to another, Galadriel.” Halbrand shook his head again, his eyes gleaming beneath the evening glow. “I do not understand why you would lie to me so—”

“I am not lying,” Galadriel told him, wanting to wrench her arm away, but not wanting to upset his balance. “He is my husband, and though he may be dead, he is still waiting for me on the shores of Valinórë—”

“—Husband?” Halbrand repeated, his eyes darkening at the word. His anger soon turned to something else, withering away as quickly as it grew. He kept shaking his head as if in disbelief at what he was hearing. “If you loved him, you would not have taken me into your bed as you did—”

That was enough.

“Stop,” Galadriel commanded him, pressing her free hand to his chest as she pulled at the one in his grip. “I will hear no more of this—”

Halbrand let her go, which startled her. She did not move to leave straight away. Instead, Galadriel stared at him, wondering at his meaning behind all of this. His face looked pitiful, sickly and anguished, and he fought to hide it, but he did not hide it well.

“You said it meant something,” he whispered back to her, watching her face carefully. “What did it mean, then? Will you grant me that small comfort if you will grant me nothing else?”

Galadriel stared back in bewilderment, not knowing what to say. For the longest time, she only stared at him. Her breath came more raggedly, the tension rising within her as she contemplated how to answer such a deeply personal question. She did not know what he would do in response once he had the answer, and she was not sure if she trusted it. A part of her was still not sure if she even trusted him.

At last, Galadriel shook her head. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes, threatening to fall. “I cannot do this—”

“I am not asking you to do anything,” Halbrand said softly, crossing the little space between them until he stood before her once more, “save perhaps whisper a small kindness in my ear at your leisure.” He reached out for her hand, hesitating before encircling her palm with his fingers. His thumb brushed over her hand in the most tender of caresses. “You saved my life. More than once. Arguably, at the expense of your own in many ways,” he whispered. “You cannot tell me that meant nothing.” Halbrand reached out for her face with his free hand, and the touch of his knuckles against the back of her cheek was cold and clammy. She closed her eyes against it. “You cannot tell me that meant nothing,” he repeated, his voice fading away at the end.

His kiss, when it came to rest upon her lips, was as soft as a summer’s breeze and just as warm despite the chill of his fingers. She marveled at the difference, but she did not turn away from him—not until he pressed against her with more vigor, and her senses came back to her. Galadriel pulled away from him stepped backwards, withdrawing her hand from his grasp.

Halbrand let her go without a fight.

“It did not,” Galadriel agreed in the quietest murmur, “but I cannot do this.”

He stood there, unmoving as his eyes shimmered, though no tears ever fell from them to stain his cheeks. “You already did,” Halbrand offered in response.

Galadriel turned her back to him and walked away. She kept on walking, no matter how true the words were. No matter how right he was and how wrong she was. None of that mattered, for he was right. She had already done it, and she could not take it back—an act of nature that could not be undone no more than the memory of him inside of her could be erased. It was not that which was most intimate, though, but the grip he seemed to have on her soul—her fëa. It felt bound tight like a wire wrapping around her innards, cinching its grip ever deeper into her being—

—and he knew it.

Galadriel opened the doors of the citadel and pushed past them into the bright radiance of the setting sun. She halted, glancing up at it, and wondered if she would ever be free of him now.

Chapter Text

* * *

There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.

— Bram Stoker, “Dracula”

* * *

The parchment of the maps before them crinkled with every touch and move of Elendil’s hand as his eyes scoured over the intricate details inked into its surface of the Southlands from the Bays of Belfalas to Pelargir, his finger tracing a path ever upward along the Anduin River.

“We should send the scouts North along the Anduin,” Elendil suggested. “The Anduin is our strength. It will combine our kingdoms and give us easy passage to the sea. Our Men are seafaring Men, and the Sea is always right. We should keep close to it.”

Galadriel placed a dainty finger upon the parchment—against the mountains of Mordor in the East. “It puts you in direct path of the Enemy,” she cautioned, sparing a glance at Elendil. “Is that wise?”

She cut her eyes upward, catching Halbrand’s curious stare in her direction. His eyes lingered still, even when she glanced at him.

Elendil tapped his finger on the pass in between the mountain range in the East and the mountains of the West. “This is a strong point,” he argued. “We could use the mountains on the opposite side of Mordor as a shield and build the city into them. It would give us control of the pass in the North and the Anduin River in the South. Two important entry points as well as trade routes. We would be close to the Enemy, but that would give us a fair advantage of knowledge when it comes to their comings and goings. There is an opening in the Enemy mountains here,” Elendil added, his finger tapping on the parchment twice. “We should settle, if possible, here at the edge of the mountain range in the West. The mountains themselves will be our watchtowers. From the top of it, we would be able to see the Enemy’s gates from afar and take note of their movements, their comings and goings. It is an offensive move to be so close to them, but a defensive one as well if we claim the pass, the river, and the mountains in the process. We would hold the North, and King Halbrand would hold the South.”

“A decisive plan,” Galadriel agreed with him, withdrawing her hand from the map. “We should send scouts in that direction upriver.”

“Our best scouts,” Halbrand chimed in from behind them. He sat off in a chair away from Elendil and Galadriel, leaning back and resting as they poured over the map. “There may be Orcs set up along the river or the mountainside, awaiting to ambush anyone who comes through unawares.”

“Is Arondir still here?” Galadriel inquired, looking over at Theo, who also stood separate from her and Elendil at the end of the table. Theo was stroking his chin, staring down at the map before him.

“He set out some years ago on a scouting expedition,” Theo replied, “but we never heard back from him or saw him again. He may still be out there, but we do not know. We’ve sent further expeditions to help find him, but we’ve had no luck. They always come back empty-handed.”

“Elf eyes would see farther,” Galadriel said. She was quiet for a moment, and then added, “I could go myself.”

“No,” Halbrand cut in immediately. Galadriel glanced over at him, narrowing her eyes. “It is out of the question,” Halbrand told her, looking her in directly in the eye as he said it. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Pardon my language, my lady,” Elendil also offered, “but we don’t need Elf eyes to see far. We have good scouts, trained Men. They know what they’re doing.”

“It would help if I went,” Galadriel insisted.

“It is not necessary,” Halbrand reiterated. “You should stay here.”

Her frustration grew at Halbrand’s perseverance against her participation in the scouting mission. It was not his decision in the end, but at the same time, he was the king here—openly defying him set a precedent for disobedience, one that Galadriel did not want others to follow in lieu of her own choices.

“Very well,” she agreed, rising from the table. She cast her gaze to Theo. “Lord Theo, would you mind accompanying me to find Bronwyn and Eärien? As I understand, Bronwyn is leading the preparations for the celebration at hand. I may be of more use in her company than here.”

Theo gave her a curious look, and then briefly looked over at Halbrand. Halbrand ignored him, staring pointedly at Galadriel instead, so Theo turned his attention back to her and nodded his head.

“I can show you where they are,” Theo consented, and he led the way as Galadriel turned to follow him. She could feel the eyes on the back of her head as she left the room and heard the echo of Elendil and Halbrand’s voices as they continued discussing the matter at hand regarding the scouts.

At first, there was no talking between her and Theo, just the footfalls of her steps and Theo’s boots along the path he took to escort her outside of the building and into the streets.

“That was awkward,” Theo commented idly. He sent a glance down at Galadriel. She looked up at him, too, and tried to smile. He was much taller now than he had been when he was a child. Of course, the years tended to do that faster to Men than to Elves. Galadriel glanced forward again at the crowd ahead of them. The streets were bustling with activity from the citizens today. Much of it must have been in preparation for the festivities on the horizon.

“I am not certain King Halbrand is inclined to permit my partaking in the scouting efforts,” she said in response, not knowing what else to say. It was unlikely that Theo would understand any of it.

“He worries about you,” Theo replied easily, his eyes also ahead on the crowd. “Don’t take it personal. It’s a dangerous mission, and he doesn’t want to see you thrown into the middle of a skirmish. Can you blame him?”

Galadriel had not expected to hear so much from Theo. “Are you aware of something that I am perhaps not?” she inquired with a tilt of her head.

“Could be,” Theo said with an air of obscurity. He leaned closer to her side and lowered his voice. “But it’s not my place to say, my lady.”

Galadriel accepted his silence. She knew what he meant, and she did not need to pressure him further to find out more. She was aware of it, too, and now it was becoming more common knowledge. It created an air of discomfort within her to contemplate how many people suspected as much as Theo might have already known about the matter between her and Halbrand. She wondered, too, how he knew about it. He might have simply noticed based on a careful observation, but what if Halbrand had said something to him?

She glanced down at Theo’s side, taking note of the sword swaying there.

“You kept it,” she said, “after all these years.”

Theo’s hand laid upon the hilt, gripping it as he walked with her. “Of course,” he told her. “It was a valuable gift.” He turned to look at her, aiming a smile in her direction as well. “And a meaningful one.”

Galadriel smiled in kind, though it was halfhearted as her eyes darted back to his hand—to assess the ring upon his finger. It bore a rough cut cobalt stone, more mineral than jewel, set into a warm silver-toned base. “Your ring,” she ventured, “where did it come from?”

“A gift from King Halbrand many years past,” Theo answered her as they drew closer to the market by the dockside. Galadriel looked forward and spotted Bronwyn and Eärien by one of the stalls. “He bestowed it to me long ago before he was waylaid and captured by enemy forces upriver. I think,” he added, his voice softening, “that is part of the reason why he fears your addition to the party, my lady. His own memories of war, and his fondness for you.”

“Fondness?”

Bronwyn glanced up in time to see them approaching, waving and grinning at Galadriel and drawing Eärien’s attention as well. Eärien, too, grinned and waved as well. Galadriel smiled as they drew nearer, stepping onto the docks. The fresh salt of the sea tinged the scent of the air here, cleansing her palate as she breathed it in deeply. Theo escorted her to his mother and Eärien beside the market stall, placing a gentle touch of his hand against Galadriel’s back.

“I have said too much,” Theo murmured, a subtle smirk upon his lips. He bowed his head toward Galadriel, and then cast his grin toward his mother and Eärien. “Have fun, ladies!” he then replied in a cheerful manner, and with that, he turned away to leave the women to their more lighthearted matters.

“Galadriel,” Bronwyn greeted her, still grinning. “How nice of you to join us!”

“It grew quite stifling,” Galadriel admitted, “in the council room.”

“Fresh air is always better,” Eärien agreed, folding up a rich red cloth in her arms and placing it back down onto the counter of the market stall. “However, I do have a preference for wide open spaces and the smell of the sea. There is nothing quite like it.”

“I must agree,” Bronwyn added. “I have lived here for so long, I can hardly remember life before relocating here to the coast. It is refreshing here.” She cast a knowing gaze at Galadriel, tilting her head as she spoke. “Less stifling, one might say.”

Galadriel drew in a deep breath, the salt coating her insides. “It is,” she said, releasing all of the stress within her with a heavy exhale from her chest. The tension lessened in her body a little, and she ventured to smile. “Tell me,” Galadriel insisted, “what are the preparation plans so far?”

“Well,” Bronwyn began, an expressive grin overtaking her face, “Eärien and I have been plotting much so far, but we could use the extra help. Of course, there will be a parade. We have a group working on the banners, and we are collecting many large bushels of flower petals—”

“—Flower petals?” Galadriel inquired.

“For the parade,” Eärien clarified for her. “There will be music, of course.”

“A feast,” Bronwyn added next. “The cooks are working on the list of courses and gathering ingredients already, so that leaves us with . . . ”

“—Dancing!” Eärien announced gleefully, clasping her hands together.

“Dancing?” Galadriel asked, glancing between the two women. “Well, I fail to see where I am needed in all of this. It sounds as if everything is going according to plan.”

Bronwyn laid her hand upon Galadriel’s arm. “Don’t be silly,” she said, smiling at Galadriel. “Talking to cooks, sewers, musicians, and children is much more entertaining than stuffy, old council rooms.”

Galadriel felt the beginnings of a laugh bubble up in her chest, and she smiled at the other woman’s words. “True, but where do the children come in?”

“They are the ones picking the flowers,” Eärien informed her with a pointed tone, “though they are doing so with their mothers in tow carrying the bushels.”

“What is this for, then?” Galadriel ran her hand over the luxurious, smooth fabric in its neatly folded stack.

“The banners,” Bronwyn replied. “We are going to use all of the regular standards in the procession, but I thought some fresh ones wouldn’t be remiss. I wanted to sew them out of new, clean material. The same colors, but something bright and eye-catching for the crowd.”

“You have it all figured out,” Galadriel murmured, staring at the fabric in the market stall and feeling her mind wander away from her. She should be happy along with the rest of the colony, but the grief of the Númenóreans remained ever persistent in her thoughts. Her trials at sea with them had not been forgotten, and it weighed heavy on her heart—even now, in this time of merriment and prosperity. Though they had lost Númenor, they would soon be gaining new lands. Though they had lost their neighbors, they would soon gain new ones in their friends here, in Pelargir.

However, there remained one constant obstacle in their path.

Halbrand.

Galadriel felt another hand rest on her arm, drawing her attention back to the present. It was Eärien this time.

“Are you all right, Galadriel?” the younger woman asked, and Galadriel did not want to lie to her. She had lied to them about too much so far. How many more lies did she have left in her before she ran out and ran them all into ruin?

“I will be fine, thank you,” Galadriel said, giving Eärien a soft nod of her head. “These are trying times, for they are both joyous and yet sorrowful. They are ever at war in my heart.”

“They are in mine, too,” Eärien agreed in a whisper, “but I find that the joy we can derive after much sorrow has the chance to heal those wounds and let us start anew.”

“Wise words, Eärien,” Galadriel told her.

“Before farmers plant new seeds,” Bronwyn suggested carefully, “they first raze the ground. Burn it. It seems destructive at first. What good can fire bring in such large quantities, after all? But,” she added, raising her eyebrows, “the ash and soot from the charred remains nourish the soil and help new things to grow within it.” Bronwyn paused, leaving them all in silence for a brief moment. “Sometimes I think for new life to take root, we must first lose much in the process.”

“You are right, Bronwyn,” Galadriel said, her voice trailing off. “I myself have lost much in my time. A husband, and three brothers.”

“I lost my husband, too,” Eärien whispered, “though it was a long time ago by now.”

“It has been a long time for me as well,” Galadriel admitted, but it was Bronwyn who spoke next.

“Both of you are still young,” Bronwyn said pointedly, glancing between the two of them. “It would not be out of the realm of possibility for either of you to remarry.” Her eyes flicked up at Galadriel. “Forgive me if I speak out of line, but I have seen the way the king looks at you.”

Galadriel forced a small smile. “It is not possible,” she said.

“Why not?” Eärien inquired, and it was one thing to have Bronwyn say it, but to have both women commenting on it was too much for Galadriel.

“Elves marry for life, even when their spouses pass away,” Galadriel explained to them. It felt so strange to say it out loud after going so long without voicing it, but it was the truth. “One day we will still see them again on distant shores. If I remarried, I would not be able to face him again.”

Eärien, more than Bronwyn, understood the tales, so it was she who spoke next. “Forgive me if I speak out of line as well, my lady, but,” Eärien paused, biting down onto her bottom lip in her uncertainty to voice her opinion before continuing, “if you still love him and he is waiting for you on those distant shores, why do you not go to him?”

It was silence that filled the space between them in the moments after Eärien spoke. The silence pervaded her heart as well, for her heart had no sensible answer to the question posed to her, only the willful disobedience to conjure Halbrand’s face into her mind’s eye, showing her again of how she had broken her bond to her husband by laying with him. Galadriel saw the bed as it was in Númenor, felt the kiss again as he surged into her, the softness of the cot as he pushed her down into it—and never, at any point, did she ever stop him or want him to stop.

He had held her, so sweetly, in aftermath—clung to her like a babe to a mother’s bosom—and the fear in her mind, the one that he could rip out her throat at any moment, when all he did was press his lips softly against the flesh of her neck had overruled all else then, but what about now?

“I must go,” Galadriel heard herself whisper. She grasped the fabric of her dress into her hands and clutched it tight, turning away from the stall and the busy dockside, the concerned call from Eärien and Bronwyn’s almost imperceptible let her go heavy in her ears like a ringing bell, drowning out the vivacious world around her in the streets of Pelargir.

She rushed back to her quarters, which were adjacent to a lower hallway in the city’s main citadel.

It took all of her willpower not to cry. I will not, Galadriel thought to herself, shutting the door and pacing about the room like a wild animal trapped in a cage. It was one thing to question herself. It was another thing altogether to have others question her, too, and it was not done out of harm, but it was a bitter truth she was not ready to face. Certainly, not ready to acknowledge. Neither lady meant injury with their inquiries into her personal matters, but they had caused it in a way she could not explain. It dredged up every doubt in her heart and every second guess she could not deny was as real and palpable as the breath within her body—and just as torturous. Her chest heaved with it.

She was crying. She had not realized it. When the knock came at her door, Galadriel covered her mouth with her arm and heaved in another deep sigh, glancing back at the door.

“My lady?” It was Theo’s voice on the other side. “Come quick, please. There is an emergency with the king, and we need your help!”

After she had calmed herself, she cleansed her cheeks on her sleeve and called back to him. “A moment, please,” Galadriel said.

“My lady, it is dire—”

Galadriel swiped her fingers across her cheek and walked over to the door. She opened it, coming face to face with Theo. He panted as if he had run all the way here. Theo’s brow furrowed as he noticed the redness in her eyes.

“Are you well, Galadriel?”

Distraught as she was, the slip of his tongue was lost on her.

“Yes, I am well,” Galadriel told him quickly—another lie. She was making a bed of them.

Theo’s expression turned pensive. He shifted anxiously upon his feet. “He is not well. Will you come with me?”

Galadriel nodded. “Of course,” she replied, shutting the door behind her and joining him in the hall. He led the way to the king, and she fell in step beside his long strides. “How did you know I was back in my rooms?”

Theo was silent at first, and then, “I saw you come in.”

It was a lie.

Galadriel did not question him, though. She followed his footsteps as they ascended a few flights of stairs and stepped off into a long hallway more ornately designed than all the rest. He walked her straight to a set of double doors in particular. They were made of heavy oak, stained dark, and carved with elaborate pictures in the form of symbols that Galadriel had no time to discern as Theo opened the doors for her and ushered her inside.

There, lying in a bed too large for one man that he looked sunken within its breadth, was Halbrand. His face was thinner than she remembered it being earlier, and his skin held a pallor that set a terrible thrumming to life within her heart. The covers had been pulled over his body up to his chest, and his hands were resting there at the top of them, clutching the material with weak fingers.

Her whole being ached at the sight.

Slowly, he turned his head upon the pillow to look at her. “Galadriel,” he managed to say, though it was just barely spoken words in a raspy voice, and Galadriel rushed to his bedside.

“What happened?” she asked him.

Halbrand’s eyebrows raised little by little as if he were unperturbed by it. “It got worse,” he said. “I told you. I’m dying.”

“This is not possible,” Galadriel argued. “Not after everything I have done. You haven’t needed help in weeks. Why now?”

“You doubt them even more than I do,” Halbrand whispered knowingly to her.

“He fell in the council room,” Theo chimed in. “We brought him here straight away and sent someone off to fetch a healer, but he said no one could help him. I thought with you being an Elf, maybe . . . maybe you could, my lady, if no one else can.”

Galadriel did not know what to say, but she knew what to do.

“You may leave, Theo,” she finally said without looking at him, and she heard the silent bow of his head as his hair slid across his shoulders. It was followed by the soft click of the door as it closed behind him while he left them in privacy.

“Galadriel, this is not necessary—”

“Do not tell me what is necessary,” she shot back, pulling the corner of the covers down and climbing into the bed with him. Galadriel slipped easily between the silky sheets, and then drew them up over her waist as she sidled up next to him, her hand bearing her ring, Nenya, reaching out and grasping his clammy fingers with her own slender, warm ones. She entwined them in a tight grasp, even as he seemed to fight her by pulling back on it.

“Why are you doing this—”

“—Because I cannot let you die,” Galadriel insisted, though he grimaced at her words.

“Let me die,” Halbrand rasped calmly, “and give Theo the kingdom. He knows what to do. He has done it long enough—”

“I will not,” she countered him. “Was it Theo who decided to come for me? Did you not send him, then?”

Halbrand pressed his lip into a thin line, making them whiter than before as a deep, irritated hum rumbled in the back of his throat. “Yes, it was Theo. It was not me—”

“I do not believe you,” Galadriel cut in, causing Halbrand to turn his face toward her once more as a glare overcame his ailing features. His nose wrinkled from the effort of it.

“Willful as ever,” Halbrand fired back. “You do not want to be here.”

Galadriel returned his glare. “Do not tell me where I want to be.”

They stared at each other for the longest time. One livid glare leveled against another. His expression kept twisting until his whole face was taut with the anguish of everything he was feeling.

“You keep turning away from me,” he whispered, an edge to his raspy voice. “Whenever you think I am well enough, you walk away and leave me be to my own devices. You don’t care. You pretend to care. Maybe the guilt eats you alive if you don’t. I’ve stopped trying to figure it out.” His face twisted further, a grotesque scowl upon the hollow features of his gaunt face. “You only care when it serves you. When it makes you the hero to come to someone’s rescue, even if it’s mine.” Halbrand grimaced at her, baring his teeth. “How wounded your pride must be when you don’t get to be the hero,” he hissed at last, and he meant it. He meant every word of it. “Only when I’m dying do you care. You’ll save me just to discard me—well, do me this kindness instead, Galadriel—and let me die.” His eyes bored into hers. “Let me die.”

Her eyes searched his, flitting back and forth and trying to read him, but she found nothing there in his gaze that spoke the opposite of what he had said to her. She could not do it, though, no matter how much he asked for it. No matter how much he begged. Galadriel linked their fingers together more securely and gripped his hand firm, staring into his eyes as she focused on the flow of power between them as she had done back on the ship from Númenor to Pelargir, sensing the steady sap of energy from her body as it poured into his being from hers. She felt his golden ring, cold between her fingers, as she clutched his hand.

In a move that was unexpected, even to her, Galadriel raised her other hand and brushed the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, watching as his eyelids fluttered from the contact. Finally, she rested her palm against his cheek, which felt just as cold and clammy as his hand in hers.

“I cannot,” she whispered, hoping against hope that he would understand.

He had to understand.

Halbrand kept his eyes closed, grimacing again as he fought to turn away from the hand she had laid against his cheek. “You torture me,” he whispered back, his other hand—wound tightly with hers—grasping her back with more strength than before.

“I do not mean to,” Galadriel revealed softly, feeling his words strike her deep.

His eyes opened again to look at her. Truly look at her. “It is what you do,” he murmured, “whether you mean to do it or not.”

It hurt to hear him say it. It hurt more than she wanted it to.

“I am sorry,” she whispered, swallowing past the lump in her throat as it swelled within her.

“Do not apologize,” Halbrand said quietly, a sad quality to his gaze, “if you’re going to do it anyway.”

Galadriel shifted next to him, readjusting her hand within his grasp. He now clung back to her, regardless of what he said. “It feels unnatural not to,” she told him, her voice still as quiet as ever. Quieter, in fact, than it had been only moments ago. His stare was unnerving as his expression settled into something calmer before her.

“Tell me something,” Halbrand urged her, his voice barely a murmur. “Back on the ship, as we were leaving Númenor . . . ” His voice trailed off before he found it again. “Was it Sauron you saved,” he asked, “or was it Halbrand?”

Galadriel parted her lips, drawing in a breath—feeling the words die on her tongue before they were born. She did not know what to say to that. It was such a heavy-handed question to consider. One that tormented her many nights as she contemplated it over and over again ever since she had done it. Who had she saved back on that ship—in the same sea she had met in him so many years long past?

Her mind kept whispering Sauron to her, but her heart held fast to another name. His other name . . .

. . . and it was not Sauron.

“I do not know yet,” Galadriel whispered back to him, “though I am certain, in time, I will.”

“I can tell you,” he murmured, his expression softening as a knowing look overcame his pale, sickly face. “If you saved Sauron, then let go of my hand. Walk away, and leave me be. Pick a direction. Any direction. As long as it’s not here. Go far, far away from this place. Stop tormenting me, and I will be all that you believe me to be—who I was always destined to be—or I will die here in this bed, and the world will be better for it.” He then smiled at her, the smallest, most fragile of smiles, but a smile nonetheless. “But if you saved Halbrand,” he added softly, a twinge of pain beneath his frail voice, “then stay with me, please. Stay with me.”

Galadriel did not yet know her answer—and yet as soon as she thought it, it came to her.

Her fingers brushed against his face, her thumb passing over his cheekbone. It was sharp underneath the clutches of death still wound so tightly, so powerfully, around his being. She said nothing to him, but she scooted closer to him beneath the sheets until her body was flush with his and his breathing was ragged and the little hiss he sucked in between his teeth—she ignored it. She ignored all of it, and she rested her forehead against his own as his chest began to shake quietly against hers. He did not make a sound but to breathe—deep, gulping breaths as if there was not enough air in the sky to satisfy his body. Not enough air in the whole wide world.

His other hand reached out for her, grasped the one she had laid against his cheek, and his fingers wound around it to grip it tight before releasing it and holding it there—afraid she might pull it away. He leaned into her, his nose brushing the tip of hers, and a strangled sound became caught up in his throat on the back of his tongue, dying there, half-spoken.

Galadriel felt the pull of the power as it seeped between their entwined fingers, leaving her body, entering his in calm, steady pour of light—like cool, crystal waters, scooped up from a sparkling stream, and poured from a silver pitcher into a new vessel. Her eyelids fluttered to a close as a great heaviness threatened to overwhelm them, darkness swimming over her vision and into her mind, encompassing her within its shadowy embrace.

There were no words needed to be spoken to explain anything further. It was the sheer act of it, older than time itself, as old as the Music when it had first rang out, resonating within the blackness of creation and willing life into being.

As the blackness overcame her, the hand on his cheek slipped to the back of his head. Her fingers curled into his hair, grasping it, as the light left her and went into him.

He might have felt abandoned by his creator, but he had not yet been abandoned by her.

Chapter Text

* * *

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

— Stendhal, “Five Short Novels of Stendhal”

* * *

When Galadriel finally awoke after many hours of a tumultuous sleep filled with restless, ever-shifting dreams, she noticed at first the darkness of the room as her eyelids fluttered open. The candles had all died out in the night, melting down to puddles of hardened wax after the flames withered away. It was quiet. All was quiet, and a hot breath tickled the nape of her neck. Next, she felt the light brush from the tip of a nose grazing her skin where the fine hairs rested, sending goose bumps alight down both of her arms, and then a set of lips closed on her neck, kissing her there in the most intimate of ways.

She stiffened, remembering who it was behind her—who was holding her close, pulling her into him, and gripping her tight to the curves of his frame as he clung to her. His kiss grew more ardent, even if it was only her neck and not her mouth. Firm fingers cinched into the material of her dress over the plane of her stomach, winding it tightly within his grasp. Galadriel said nothing, remaining quiet, but then, Halbrand whispered against her nape, “I know you’re awake.” His hot breath washed over her flesh, and it sent a shudder down her spine. Unconsciously, her hips—with the memory and expectation of what sharing a bed often meant between a man and a woman—rolled backwards against him, and came in firm contact with something else.

He was hard between the press of their bodies. Her bottom stilled, settling neatly against his lap as they laid curled together. Well, his vigor had returned to him. That much was clear. It both excited her as well as dealt a blow of worry in turn, a strange feeling of hesitation concocting itself within the fire of her chest.

Galadriel turned in his arms onto her back, glancing at his face to see he looked well again. His gaunt features had filled out, and the color had returned once more to his face. She twisted the rest of the way to face him, her hand rising up to his cheek and grazing it with her fingertips.

“You look well,” she murmured, a faint smile on her lips.

“I feel well,” Halbrand replied, his eyes falling to her mouth. He leaned in again, closer in an attempt to bridge the gap, and kiss her.

Galadriel pulled back, and he stopped, his eyes rising to her face.

“Is something wrong?” he asked her, his voice a breathless whisper.

“I cannot,” she whispered, but every time she said it, it sounded less and less sincere.

“Why?”

It was such an innocent question, and yet it was not.

“I just cannot,” Galadriel told him, pressing her hand against his chest. “Please.”

His face fell as if her words had wounded him. “Not even one?”

Galadriel searched her mind for a way out of it now that she was here, lying in his arms—in his bed—and found none. She was here because of her own doing, not his, and she kept pulling away from him. She kept doing it—just like he said.

“Just one,” she breathed out, and there seemed a warmth blooming in his eyes before her as, at last, she acquiesced to something—even if it was just a kiss. Kisses, though, had a way of spiraling out of control.

They had learned that once already.

When he caught her lips with his own, the softness of the touch disarmed her. At once, she melded into the slow and sure pace of his mouth against hers, soft lips slipping to catch each other, only to release and repeat at leisure. When she returned the sly brushes, each inhibited graze of flesh, it did not take long to feel the heat of his palm grasping the side of her face as the gentle movements became more fervent, as his lips parted and so did hers, and so the kiss deepened between them equally. Galadriel welcomed the comforting embrace of him, welcomed the warmth of his mouth, and moved in tune with him, the tips of her fingers catching the edge of his cheek.

He rolled Galadriel onto her back beneath him, the twine of the sheets pulling tight as it was caught beneath her body. The weight of his body, the newly burning heat of it, and the press of his hardness between them awakened all her senses back to life, and Galadriel pushed upward at him, breaking the kiss and stilling him.

Halbrand stared at her, pupils blown wide and hair mussed, panting through his parted lips. The color had returned to his face; his cheeks and lips were flushed with it.

“That was one,” Galadriel reminded him, and the spark in his eye—he was not wounded this time. Amused, perhaps. Most definitely amused as he slipped off of her and onto the bed, lying on his back beside her.

“Of course,” he agreed.

A quietness fell over the room as they both attempted to catch their breaths. It was just a kiss. Why were either of them breathing so hard?

It was Galadriel who spoke next.

“What are we doing?”

He did not reply to her right away. He remained silent at first, mulling over her words and considering the right way to answer her.

“You keep saving my life,” Halbrand said flatly, “after everything I have done.” He paused, and she glanced over at him, seeing the tightness in his jaw. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s not what I’m doing any longer. It’s what you’re doing. Pulling me in. Roping me in. Forcing me to stay, whether I want to or not. You did it before, and you’re doing it again.” His jaw clenched further, and he looked at her now. “How many times must we replay this? In how many ways? Over how many years? They gave you your lifelong wish as we set sail from Númenor—my life for your vengeance. It was within your grasp, and you reversed it.” His face twisted all of a sudden, aching and overflowing with every emotion inside of him. “Have we been fighting all these long years over nothing?”

Galadriel shook her head. The vision of his face before her blurred, growing unfocused, as her eyes welled with tears. “I couldn’t—”

“—You couldn’t let me die?” Halbrand asked, his voice barely a murmur.

“No, I could not.”

The tension slid out of his expression, softening it until he was just staring back at her and nothing more. “You don’t need to ask me what we’re doing. You need to ask yourself.”

“In time I may forgive you,” Galadriel admitted quietly, finding the words hard to say, “but I cannot forget what you have done or the lies and the part I play to help you spread them.”

“I do not ask you to spread any lies for me—”

“No, you do not,” she agreed, “but I turn a blind eye and pretend, and it is no better.”

“I do not ask you to,” he whispered.

“But I do it for them,” Galadriel said with finality. “For peace.”

Halbrand shifted onto his side, looking at her with an indiscernible appeal on his face. “Why?”

“They deserve peace, do they not? After everything they have been through?” Galadriel did not say because of you, but it was clear between the lines. He had to have heard it beneath her sharp tone. A part of her desired to say it so plainly, though, to put it out in the air between them, so Halbrand could not deny it.

It took all of her willpower, then, to muster the words against him during a moment of peace such as this. She should maintain it, but she could not bear the ongoing lies. There were too many.

“You have taken from them their homes, their lands, their livelihoods, their friends and families and neighbors. You have brought utter destruction upon them, and for what? For the wrongs their ancestors have committed against you, is that it? My family fought on the opposite side of the war with them. Why do you not seek my utter destruction alongside theirs?”

“I saved you—” he whispered, a frail attempt to fight back.

“Why?” Galadriel pushed, unable to stop. “You want me to admit some deeper meaning behind my choices, but will you answer for your own? Why save me?” Her voice grew quieter. “Was it for yourself to try and lay some sordid claim upon me that you assumed I could not deny because I owed you?”

“No—”

“—Then, why?”

Halbrand surged at her, his nostrils flaring. “I did not want you to die any more than you did not want me to die,” he hissed. “Will you deny me that?”

“If that is your truth, I will not,” Galadriel admitted softly, “but you wanted them to die, did you not?”

“Yes,” Halbrand shot back. “I wanted them to die. I have admitted that already. For every knife in the dark and every hand at my throat, I wanted them to suffer for it. Do you know what it feels like,” he added, his voice dropping to a low whisper, “to have to lie about who you are everywhere you go? To fit in nowhere because no one will accept you for who you are? Because no one, not one soul, will forgive you for your crimes? I have no option but to commit crime after crime after crime, starting with the lies. It begins small, you see, until you realize you’re already lying to them. What’s one more lie? What’s one more deception? Before you can reason yourself out of it, it’s too late, and there a hundred of them, a thousand. You explain away one, so you explain away many. The path of corruption runs thus—I have excused this, so I will excuse that. One after another until you no longer recognize yourself or the face in the mirror staring back at you.” His eyes searched her face, looking for anything to give him peace. “I cannot erase my past. I cannot erase what I have done. I cannot erase who I am, but out of all the lies . . . I don’t have to lie to you.”

His hand reached up to touch her face, but he was careful in how he cupped her chin and the tenderness with which he held it between his fingers.

“I live a life of lies,” Halbrand admitted, “but with you, I can be honest. You know everything.”

“I do not know everything,” Galadriel whispered back.

“—Yes, you do,” he murmured, his sharp gaze fixed on her face. “That inkling you are thinking in the back of your mind? It’s true. It’s all true. Do not deny it. Embrace it. Be honest with yourself.”

“Why did you save them, the Faithful?”

“I owed them.”

“You owed them?” Galadriel asked, hearing her own disbelief laced in the words.

“I owed Elendil,” Halbrand whispered, his voice solid and sincere. “A life for a life. He saved mine a long time ago on the battlefield in the Southlands. It was a debt I was destined to repay.”

Galadriel felt her lip begin to tremble. “You saved more than just Elendil—”

“Yes, I know,” he said softly. “I helped him save everyone that mattered to him, too, in repayment for a life debt.”

“Why help him now?”

“I made a promise,” Halbrand told her, “and I gave him my word.”

“You do not have to keep it—”

Halbrand leaned closer to her face, so close their noses brushed together. Galadriel could feel his warm breath run across her lips. “I will, though,” he murmured. “I will keep it. Because I want to. Because I can.”

“You could break it.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked. “For me to break it?”

“No—”

Halbrand was silent for a moment. His hand fell away from her chin. “You believe that is all I am capable of. Breaking things. Destroying them.”

Galadriel did not answer him.

“I break them, and you fix them,” Halbrand mused aloud. “What a pair we would be, annulling each other.”

“Are we to be a pair now?” she breathed out, and Halbrand grasped the opportunity as he grasped her, his hand sliding along her throat to the back of her neck as he pulled her into him.

“I want us to be,” he admitted. “I speak to you the truth. Let me have this one pure thing in my life, where I may be honest from the beginning and escape the web of my own lies.” His fingers grasped tightly in her hair, holding her in place. “I am drowning in them, Galadriel. I cannot breathe under the weight of them. How can I ever be good if I can’t even be honest? I—” Halbrand pressed his forehead to hers, and Galadriel felt the tension in his brow as he grimaced under the effort of speaking the truth so openly, so plainly. “I’m not a good man, I know that. I know. You don’t have to tell me. I am a vile, wicked, twisted creature, but I owed Elendil a debt, and you—” His other hand found her face, and he was holding her more fully now in his arms beneath the covers. “You are the kindest touch I have ever felt in my darkness.”

The weight of his confession tugged at her insides like an anchor sinking her deeper into the sea, pulling her down with it. Galadriel was not certain how much of it she could believe, and yet—he had not lied to her yet, had he? In all of his lies, he had maintained a brutal honesty with her. She could not deny him that, even if she desired it.

“If I do this,” Galadriel said aloud, “I risk losing myself to the darkness.”

Halbrand shook his head, his forehead gently rolling against hers. “It is not possible,” he whispered against her lips. “You will not lose yourself. I do not ask you commit terrible deeds with me. I only ask you to stay.”

“But if you ask me to—”

He kissed her, a gentle press of his lips to hers, but only to silence her. Just as soon as he had done it, he pulled away, though his hands remained firm on her body. “I would ask you to love your people. To laugh and dance and sing with them. To do whatever it requires to make your heart light with joy. To stay with me. To tell me no lies as I tell none to you.”

“That is a high order,” Galadriel whispered. “I do not know if I can abide it.”

“Think on it, then,” Halbrand murmured to her, his fingers brushing her cheek ever so delicately. “Take all the time you need to think on it. Watch me, judge me if you must, but stay.”

“Halbrand, you understand I am still married, and even if I wanted to break my vows to—”

He silenced her with a real kiss this time, his mouth capturing hers swiftly and his lips parting to press for entry—and Galadriel collapsed and answered it, and let him in—his tongue was soft, but his passion was firm. When he pulled away from her, he spoke only eight steadfast words.

“Do not say his name in my bed.”

The possession with which he uttered the words struck her, ceasing all thought and common sensibilities within her mind—and had a knock not rapped upon the door at that very moment, Galadriel might have made a rash decision she would have deeply regretted afterwards.

“My lord?” It was Theo’s voice on the other side of the door.

“Come in,” Halbrand called out—before Galadriel could pull away or hide herself, and Theo opened the door as she scrambled in Halbrand’s arms. She turned around just in time to see Theo’s shocked expression, and he quickly looked away from them.

“Apologies, my lord—”

“No apology needed,” Halbrand said with assurance. “What is it?”

“I was hoping you were well,” Theo announced, stumbling over his words, as he pointedly refused to look at them again. The covers were pulled up to Galadriel’s neck, and her cheeks flamed at the suggestions that must have been running rampant within Theo’s mind. “Well, I—I can see that, um, you are,” Theo coughed. “Feeling better.” Theo cleared his throat. “We have a problem, though. Isildur and Anárion.”

“What is it?” Halbrand asked, and the edge in his voice was clear.

“They gathered supplies last night, and fled very early this morning,” Theo confirmed. “They can’t be too far upriver if you wish to pursue them.”

“Have they stolen anything?”

“Nothing that we can confirm so far, but their father wishes to speak with both of you as soon as possible. He is downstairs in the main hall.”

“Tell him we will be down as soon as we are dressed.”

Theo cleared his throat again and bowed his head. “My lord,” he said, and then he was gone, shutting the door behind himself.

Galadriel quickly whirled in his arms to face him again, pushing at Halbrand’s chest. “How dare you put such thoughts into his head—”

“I will put them into every man’s head if I have to,” Halbrand murmured steadily, his eyes ever fixed on hers.

Her anger rose with his fiery incentive. “You are—”

“—Mmm, say it.”

Galadriel did not say it. She shoved at his chest again, and rose from the bed, already fully dressed and ready to go down to see Elendil. Halbrand’s desire to spread such crude thoughts amongst his people soured the promise of the growing tension between them, but it also wound an even more intricate, binding pattern. He would have all talking of their supposed union before long if Theo opened his mouth to the wrong person—to his friends or to his mother, Bronwyn.

Galadriel considered Bronwyn a friend, but if Bronwyn whispered it to one person, and that one person whispered it to two, it would not take long for everyone in the city to know about it and cast their gazes in her direction. Her mind positively boiled from it.

She stormed from the room, not caring how her hair looked or how her messy her appearance might have been, though she should have been worried about it. It would only make the rumors worse if her appearance gave them any credit at all, but her wrath was stronger, and as she stalked through the halls and down each flight of stairs, every eye turned in her direction and recalled her presence and path that day in the citadel.

When she came upon Elendil in the main hall, Theo stood next to him, and they were deep in conversation with each other, speaking in hushed tones with their heads drawn close together. As Elendil glanced toward Galadriel at her arrival, even his eyes grew alight with shock upon seeing her disheveled looks. Theo, turning around and spotting her as well, aimed a knowing look back at Elendil.

Galadriel ignored it.

“What is going on?” she demanded, walking up to them both.

Elendil cast his gaze between Galadriel and Theo. “We should wait for the king,” Elendil suggested.

“He is on his way,” Galadriel snapped, drawing the gazes of both men directly onto her. Neither of them said anything. “I demand you tell me at once,” she commanded them next, but they both looked uncomfortable and shared a tenuous gaze between themselves without answering her.

“Forgive me,” Elendil told her, “but the king must hear this as well. I would much prefer if we waited for him to join us.”

Galadriel wanted to respond strongly, but cautioned herself to remain calm. She was infuriated, but it was not toward either of them.

Her hands clenched at her sides as she paced and waited with them. Halbrand emerged atop the final flight of stairs not too long after, making his way down them with slow, steady steps. Galadriel ceased her pacing, returning to Elendil’s side.

When Halbrand joined them, he walked straight up to Galadriel and paused beside her, drawing the eyes of Theo and Elendil to the space between their bodies.

Theo had already spoken of it.

“What has happened with your sons, Elendil?” Halbrand inquired, and Elendil cast his head downward for a brief moment before answering him.

“Isildur and Anárion gathered men and supplies without my knowledge sometime during the night, and they left the docks before first light. I believe they are heading North up the Anduin to the mountain pass we discussed prior in regards to the scouts.” Elendil looked at Galadriel next. “We brought seven palantíri with us when we set sail from Númenor,” he added, his voice dropping low. “My sons took four of them with them. I tried reaching out to them with one of the palantír still in my possession, but all is black. They do not answer me.” Elendil looked back at Halbrand. “We need to send out scouts immediately to follow them. Ensure their safety and report back to us. If the stones fall into the wrong hands . . . ”

Halbrand cocked his head, and Galadriel took note of it. He knew what the palantíri were, but Elendil had never shared this information with him before—and therefore, he had to pretend otherwise. Galadriel herself saw the shift within Halbrand as he began to lie. “Palantíri,” Halbrand began, his face taking on a curious quality with feigned confusion. “What are these?”

Elendil knew no better. “They are seeing stones. They were made by the Elves a long time ago. It is said perhaps Fëanor himself made them, though I cannot verify the claims. However,” Elendil added, “they allow for communication between people across far distances without one needing to travel or send a messenger. They are powerful tools—and deadly, in the wrong hands.” Elendil sighed, his chest deflating and the worry of a father hard upon his brow. “We cannot let anything happen to them. I beg you. We must send scouts now.”

“It is done,” Halbrand said without thought or question against it. “That leaves three in your possession still?”

“Yes,” Elendil clarified. “I still have three. They are covered for now to protect our location and secrecy in case anything happens to either of my sons.”

“How many ships did they take?”

“A few of them,” Elendil replied sadly, “with a fair share of men as well.”

“Young ones, I bet,” Halbrand commented. “Ready to strike out and make a name for themselves.”

“No doubt,” Elendil concurred, and then his face took on a new quality. He narrowed his eyes a little and surveyed Halbrand’s features with care. “King Halbrand, I must say,” he began with a tone of wonder in his voice. “Since you have healed, you look much more youthful yourself. It is as if decades have been erased from your face. I have never seen such a thing before . . . ”

Halbrand drew in a deep breath, feigning his confusion once more. “Really?” he asked, glancing about as if in search for a mirror, before he turned his head to glance down at Galadriel. His eyes met hers, and a soft smile splayed across his face. “It must be the magic of Lady Galadriel,” Halbrand murmured with a sort of reverence. His eyes remained locked with hers, never straying as he spoke, and the intensity of his gaze unnerved her as always. “She has poured much of her light into me to help heal me,” he explained. “Much more than a pitiful mortal such as myself deserves, and I feel different from it. I am sure I look different, too. When I fell yesterday, she came to my rescue once more and did it again. I swear,” Halbrand added, his voice drifting off with a lilt and an undercurrent of desire. His eyelids even drooped halfway as he stared at her. “When I awoke this morning, I never felt so . . . invigorated.”

Galadriel sensed the change in the air. She cast a wary look at Theo and Elendil, seeing the astonishment in their expressions at the implications of Halbrand’s word choice spoken so publicly.

“That is,” Elendil began, clearing his throat, “joyous news, King Halbrand. I am happy to hear of your swift recovery. You had us all quite worried about you.”

“No need to worry any further,” Halbrand said, that soft smile still present on his face. When she cast her eyes back to him, she noticed the subtle curl to the corner of his lips. A smirk. “The Lady Galadriel possesses many healing properties to her touch, and I am blessed to be a recipient of them.”

Her whole face burned as hot as a brand newly wrested from the fire. Galadriel could only imagine how flushed her cheeks must be, and when Halbrand reached out for her chin, catching it between his fingers in front of the other men, Galadriel yearned for nothing more than to pull away from him—but it would only stoke the fire worse than her silence. It was best to pretend she did not take his words to mean anything uncouth, and the men grew silent, too.

“Thank you, Lady Galadriel,” Halbrand murmured lovingly to her, and she somehow managed to hold her chin up higher despite the embarrassment he bestowed upon her.

“You are welcome, my lord,” she responded—and though she willed her voice to be steady, it still shook.

Halbrand smiled at her, released her chin, and glided the back of his finger along her cheek—another brazen public display of affection.

Theo coughed aloud. “I will see to the departure of the scouts straight away,” he announced, breaking the uncomfortable stretch of silence. “Elendil, will you come with me?”

“Of course,” Elendil agreed.

As soon as the two men were out of earshot, Galadriel smacked Halbrand’s hand away from her face.

“How dare you?” she hissed. “Do you mean to make a mockery out of me?”

Halbrand narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your crude remarks and insinuations,” Galadriel pointed out. “All of Pelargir will be talking about me in your bed—”

Halbrand stepped closer to her, lowering his voice. “Good,” he said. “Let them talk.”

“Do you care nothing for me,” Galadriel accused him, “that you would debase me in such a vulgar manner?”

“I am not debasing you,” he whispered. “You are my light. I meant every word of it—”

“—You are humiliating me.”

“Galadriel,” he murmured, reaching out for her, but Galadriel backed away from his grasp, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden from the quick movement she made in response. Her usual steady feet were off balance, and she felt herself swaying as if in a daze. “Galadriel?” Halbrand’s voice sounded so far away. Her vision seemed to blur altogether until the room was nothing more than a murky haze before her, and she felt weak—incredibly weak. He reached out for her again, and though she swatted at his hand, he caught her arm.

All of it then darkened into blackness, and she fell.

“Galadriel—!”

Chapter Text

* * *

Go then—there are other worlds than these.

— Stephen King, “The Gunslinger”

* * *

Finding herself bedridden instead of tending to someone else in a bed was an uncomfortable change of pace for Galadriel, and even more so the face that awaited her when she awoke from her loss of consciousness.

It had been Halbrand there at her beside. Of course, she should have known it would be him. He had been watching her from the chair right next to her bed, and he bolted upright as soon as she turned toward him. The expression in his eyes was relieved to see her stirring at last, and his hand—when he reached out for her—gave a comforting and reassuringly firm grip as his fingers curled around her palm and clung to her. A small smile fought its way onto his face, and he grinned at her, then, a natural reaction unbidden and naked in its childlike brilliance.

It was not a look, she thought, she would ever see on him again.

“You’re awake,” he said breathlessly, and Galadriel heard the longing and desperation in his voice as he addressed her condition.

She knew, without having to think too hard on it, that the reason for her loss of consciousness was due to feeding too much of her own energy into him. She had poured so much of her power into his being, giving him so much of her own life force, that it had weakened her in the end. It was bound to have come back at her in such a way eventually, though she had not anticipated it in that moment, but her power had been sapped away from her through the night between their clasped hands. Galadriel did not feel the effects until he had pushed her too far in the main hall, taunting her with his insinuating remarks until her blood was simmering from them and her wrath, exacerbated by the slyness within his nature. He had pushed her to a point, and she had tipped over the edge.

Galadriel closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath to calm herself before she spoke. She could feel her resentment returning to her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him, her throat parched and raspy from disuse. How long had she been out?

“Keeping an eye on you,” Halbrand commented idly, only it was not idle. He had more reason than that to watch her. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Anyone could have done that for you . . . ”

“No,” he disagreed, and it was swift. “I didn’t know how serious it was. I wanted to be here if and when you woke up.”

“ . . . Reported . . . back to you . . . ”

“Shhh,” Halbrand murmured, and she felt him place a warm hand upon her brow. “Rest, Galadriel. You have used much of your strength to help me. I wish for nothing more than your recovery, so please—rest.”

One of his words did not sit right with her, so she found herself repeating it aloud, confusion filling her.

“ . . . If?” she inquired, rolling her head to face him again. “What do you mean ‘if?’”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he murmured. “You’re awake. Please, Galadriel, rest. I will send Eärien up to sit with you soon after I leave. She has been worried about you. You’ve made an impression on her. Would you like that? Some company while you recover?”

“Yes, of course,” she whispered back, inhaling deeply and feeling so immensely exhausted from the simple act itself. “Why do I feel so weak?”

She heard Halbrand shifting in the chair, heard him reach for something, and then he released her hand and slipped it behind her head to lift her from the bed. He brought a cup to her lips, gently pressing the rim of it against her bottom lip. “Here, drink this,” he said. “It’s water.”

Galadriel drank it, feeling the cool water course down her throat and soothe her in the process. Halbrand waited until she was finished before lowering her back down to the pillow, placing the cup back onto the surface he had retrieved it from as well.

“You should go,” she whispered. “Tend to your people.”

The backs of his fingers returned to her forehead, brushing stray hairs off of her skin and grazing her with more soothing contact. “You are my people,” he whispered back, the words barely a breath.

“No, I’m not . . . ”

“Denial will only get you so far, Galadriel.”

She reached out for his hand in her dreary haze—one of them, either of them—catching the one laying across her forehead and coiling her fingers around his wrist, dragging it down the side of her face. She brought it close to her mouth, and kissed him there on the underside of his wrist on top of the pulse point, her lips barely brushing against his skin. Galadriel could not say why she did it. Mad at him as she was, she was also still deeply attached to him, and that part did not seem as though it was going to change.  She was bound to it—as he was bound to her.

It was more than just feelings, more than just sensations or thoughts, imaginative or real, hanging in the balance between them. There was an invisible thread of immense strength tying them tightly to each other, and Galadriel could feel it sinking further into the depths between them—as the weight had pulled her into the those waters so very, very long ago and done the same.

His hand clenched in response to the touch of her lips. If she had not felt the way his muscles tightened beneath the grasp of her hand, she would not have known he had done it.

“You worry yourself too much for me,” Galadriel heard herself say, not even realizing the irony behind her words after everything she had risked for his sake. “Go,” she then said, tipping her chin downward in a motion toward the door, indicating for him to leave. “I will recover my strength as I rest.”

“N’i lû tôl,” Halbrand murmured beneath his breath, raising her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckle. He placed it back onto her chest in a reverent motion, and then he rose from the chair. “I will send for Eärien,” he told her. “She is nearby.”

Galadriel could only nod her head, though she closed her eyes to not see him as he left the room. She heard him linger by the door after his footfalls had ceased, but then he opened it and walked out, leaving her in peace.

Eärien arrived shortly afterwards, taking the same seat Halbrand had occupied, and her cheerfulness was not lost on Galadriel.

“Oh, Galadriel, I am so glad you are awake,” Eärien announced happily. “Many of us were worried about you. Bronwyn has been back and forth to check on you, and the king especially has been . . . ” Her voice trailed off, and Galadriel glanced over at her. Eärien gave her a sheepish smile. “ . . . Also quite worried about you. Bronwyn insisted on watching you, but King Halbrand made it his prerogative to be here over all others, so she has occupied herself elsewhere—though she has been by to see how you were doing a few times.”

“King Halbrand,” Galadriel began, pushing herself upright in the bed and resting against the headboard and pillows, “he has been the main one with me?”

“Why, yes, of course,” Eärien told her. A small blush colored her cheeks. “I think he has . . . deep affection for you, my lady.”

Galadriel closed her eyes, shaking her head. “No, it is not that . . . ”

Eärien sighed. It was a soft sigh, but a knowing one all the same. “Maybe not on your end, my lady,” Eärien proposed, “though I hesitate to speculate on your own feelings—but on his end, I believe it is genuine for you. You did not see how he reacted when you fell.” Eärien’s voice grew quiet, a whisper on the wind. “ . . . We all thought something much more terrible had happened to you.”

Galadriel was silent, staring forward at the crumpled blankets in her lap. She did not want to ask Eärien the details of what was said or what had happened, so she remained quiet on the matter. “How comes the preparations for the festival?” she inquired next, wanting to take her mind of the events leading up to her fall.

“That is what you worry about?” Eärien asked, her brow creasing in a sad manner as she tilted her head to the side. “At a time like this? My lady, do not worry about the festival.” Eärien reached out and grasped Galadriel’s hand with hers. “Focus on yourself, and your own strength—regain it, and then you may rejoin us with renewed vigor.”

Vigor. Galadriel closed her eyes again, sighing at the word. She was still upset at Halbrand for his vulgar language toward her, and in front of the other men. That had been purposeful—and dare she say it, calculated.

“There is too much going on for that,” Galadriel said, shaking her head.

“Do you mean my brothers?” Eärien inquired with a curious look on her face. “My lady, the king and my father have that well in hand. They have already sent out the scouts upriver behind Isildur and Anárion. Everything is going to plan as it should be,” she assured her, though Galadriel was not soothed by those words. “Do you miss your home? Is that it?”

“I do not know that I have a home, Eärien.”

“Nonsense,” Eärien replied, laughing softly. “Everyone has a home, and when you recover your strength, you can go back. Homesickness has a way of changing a person. Perhaps that is what you miss.”

Galadriel only shook her head, glancing over at the younger woman. “I cannot do that,” she said. “I cannot go home now, wherever home may even be. My work here is not done.”

“What work is that?”

Galadriel drew in a deep sigh. “I do not have the will to talk about that, Eärien,” she answered. “It is private.”

Eärien seemed to sense that something was amiss, though, and her inquisitive nature won over her silence. “ . . . Is it about the king?”

The tension within Galadriel returned stronger, and Eärien released her hand.

“I am sorry, my lady, for prying,” Eärien apologized, offering a small smile in return. She then shook her head, still smiling. “Never mind me and my questions. I only care for you and your happiness and well-being.”

Galadriel returned her smile and tipped her head in a bow. “Thank you, Eärien,” she murmured. A sudden thought came to her. She dearly wished to speak with Bronwyn. “Is Bronwyn nearby?”

“Would you like me to bring her here?”

“I would like to rise from this bed.”

“I do not think that is a good idea,” Eärien said softly, reaching out with her hand to lay it upon the blanket not far from Galadriel’s side. “I will get her for you. You should remain in bed for now to ensure you regain all your strength.”

Galadriel nodded in agreement, though she felt cumbersome to lie within a bed and be nothing more than a nuisance to those around her. If there was one thing she was not good at, it was relying on other people to do things for her. Galadriel’s pride was mighty, and it always had been so; therefore, it did not sit well with her to lie here as others sent messages for her or brought her things. It chaffed at her, but she allowed it because it seemed as though she had little choice.

Eärien’s offer was grounded in goodwill, though, and she left in order to retrieve Bronwyn.

When Bronwyn returned to the room, she was alone. Eärien did not come back with her. She grinned at Galadriel, happy to see her recovering from what had exhausted her of all her vitality, and immediately, went to fretting about her. Her hand pressed against Galadriel’s forehead to check her temperature, and she seemed to be surveying the coloring of Galadriel’s face and observing her eyes and pupils.

“How do you feel?” Bronwyn asked in a gentle voice. “I am glad to see you awake, but please, do not exhaust yourself any further. You scared us all.”

“I was helping King Halbrand,” Galadriel told her.

Bronwyn shook her head, but her eyebrows also shot up. “So I have heard,” she chimed in a cryptic manner, “but we have healers who can tend to him. Myself among them. You, my lady, are above that, so please—no more.”

Galadriel did not like the sound of that. “What have you heard?”

Bronwyn stilled, her hand falling away from Galadriel’s brow. Slowly, she folded her hands in front of herself, looking down at Galadriel with an empathetic expression in her eyes. “Just that King Halbrand collapsed, and you came to his rescue. You used Elven magic to help him, I know, and we thank you for it—for all you have done, but I urge you not to overdo yourself.” Bronwyn heaved out a sigh, her expression shifting to one of sadness. “We are but mortals, my lady. You are an Elf blessed with immortal life. Do not waste that on the likes of us. You are destined for greater things.”

“What else was said?” Galadriel asked her, meeting her gaze. “And how many people have heard it?”

Bronwyn seemed to understand her meaning at last. “Nothing untoward,” Bronwyn admitted. “It was Elendil and my son, and they both think very highly of you, Lady Galadriel. It had been implied that there is . . . deep affection . . . between the two of you, but nothing vulgar was said.” She gave Galadriel a knowing look, though. “Theo only told me of what he saw,” she murmured, “and I told him not to breathe a word of it to anyone else. However, many people have been talking about your closeness with the king since your arrival. I believe it has been a common rumor for some time now.”

“It is no one’s business—”

“Please,” Bronwyn pleaded, taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside her. “Do not let this trouble you. The people are happy. Their king has returned to them, and a festival is being held in his honor very soon. He is unwed, without an heir, and rumor is you are the one who rescued him from Ar-Pharazôn’s dungeon.” Bronwyn drew in a deep breath, letting it escape in a sigh. “Is it such a bad thing,” she suggested quietly, “if the people find comfort in a love story as well? One that even hearkens back to the bold tales of Beren and Lúthien? For Lúthien also rescued her lover, a mortal man, from the dungeons of Sauron—”

“Please, no more,” Galadriel begged her, closing her eyes against the very mention of the name—if only Bronwyn knew, but she did not. It twisted Galadriel’s stomach into knots, cinching tighter and tighter until she felt she might be sick. “They still speak of such tales here?”

“They do from to time to time.”

“Who started that tale?” Galadriel inquired, her eyes flying open and meeting Bronwyn’s once more. “Of me, rescuing him from the dungeon? Do you know where it originated?”

Bronwyn shook her head. “No, I don’t know, but Theo might know. He is the one I heard it from.” Her brow furrowed all of a sudden. “Why does it matter?”

Galadriel could not rest in this bed any longer, but she had to find a way to convince Bronwyn it was safe for her to leave it. “Will you take me to the king? I need to speak with him.”

“My lady—”

“It is urgent,” Galadriel insisted. “Please believe me. You may walk with me if it pleases you and soothes you. I will have you next to me to steady my feet, but I must speak with him.”

Bronwyn looked liked she wanted to argue further, but Galadriel kept her gaze firm, and Bronwyn gave in to it at last. “All right,” she agreed, “but you must stay close to me. The king was very strict about you remaining in bed—”

“It is not up to him whether I stand or lie down,” Galadriel said, rising from the bed. She extended her hand to Bronwyn, who grasped it and ensured her balance as she returned to her feet. Bronwyn insisted on brushing her hair before they left the room, and Galadriel acquiesced to the demand. Despite being bedridden, she still wore the same dress as before, so changing was not necessary. When she appeared presentable again, Bronwyn took Galadriel’s arm and led her out of the confines of her chambers.

Bronwyn brought her to the council room, where they found Halbrand, Elendil, and Theo in a deep conversation at the head of the table. At their arrival, all the men looked up. They rose from their seats as well. While Elendil and Theo seemed happy to observe Galadriel up and about again, Halbrand was the exact opposite.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he asked Galadriel with an edge to his tone, stepping toward her and Bronwyn.

“I am well enough,” Galadriel said. “I needed to speak with you in private.”

“It couldn’t wait?”

“No, it cannot wait,” she insisted firmly, and instead of being insulted by her own tone—which Galadriel half expected—Halbrand turned to the others.

“You may all leave,” he informed them.

An uncomfortable silence followed as Elendil grabbed his things from the table and made for the doors with Theo next to him, the latter of which had come to the council room with no more than his sword at his hip as usual—the sword Galadriel had given to him so many years ago when he was just a boy. In his arms, though, Elendil carried books and rolls of parchment. Scrolls, perhaps. Galadriel wondered what was on them, and what they had been discussing before her arrival.

Theo extended his arm to his mother, which Bronwyn took before giving Galadriel a reassuring smile in reply—and just like that, they were all gone. Galadriel was left in the council room with no more than Halbrand as company.

“Why are you out of bed?” came Halbrand’s soft voice, drawing her attention away from the door and back to him. It was a far cry from his commanding tone just moments prior. Below the surface of his words, Galadriel heard the pang of worry in them.

“Why are you spreading rumors of us?” she demanded, and the light in his eyes was a curious one. He was not put off by her accusation.

“I am not,” Halbrand countered her calmly.

“I am to believe that?”

“You are angry about all the wrong things,” he told Galadriel, stepping closer to her. “I am not sure what you expect me to say.”

“The truth.”

“I am telling you the truth,” Halbrand admitted, his voice growing quieter and quieter with every word he spoke. “I told you. You are the one person I don’t have to lie to. Why start now?”

“After your display in the hall—”

“My affection,” Halbrand corrected her, “and my gratefulness? Am I to abstain from all positive acclamations of you?”

“You are leading the people to believe—”

Halbrand shook his head, stepping even closer to Galadriel until he was in her sphere—too close, too personal—and she refused to back away first and increase the distance between them once more. Instead, she raised her chin, her gaze ever as fiery as his own as he crowded her space. “I am leading them to believe nothing,” he said. “If the people believe in something, it is because it brings them hope. Maybe even a bit of happiness as well, but I am spreading no lies or rumors about you.”

“They believe there is something between us,” Galadriel shot back at him.

Halbrand’s halfhearted laugh was almost sad, and he looked down at the floor between them. “Would they be wrong in their assumptions?” he then asked, his eyes rising back to hers.

Galadriel could not believe him. “You will make a statement,” she said, affecting as calm a voice as possible. “You will gather the people together before the festival begins, and you will make a statement before them, denouncing these claims of deep affection between us. It will stop the rumors in their tracks. You will announce that we are nothing more than friends and allies, and all of this will be forgotten—”

“—I will do no such thing.”

Galadriel inhaled sharply, nearly hissing at his brazen response. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are asking me to lie,” Halbrand stated flatly. “After everything I have told you. I refuse. I will not gather the whole of Pelargir together to speak falsehoods to an entire city—”

“It is what you have already done—” Galadriel hissed back.

“—And I will do it no more!” Halbrand shot back, walking up to her until Galadriel had to step back to avoid him colliding with her. “I will not lie to them,” he then whispered, a heady sense of desperation in his plea. “My affection for you is no mere rumor or falsehood, and I will not denounce it.” Galadriel could not recall the moment her breaths came to her in short, unsteady bursts, but his hand was near her hair beside her ear, toying with the loose tresses between his fingers. His finger grazed the shell of her ear, sending an unsolicited ember alight beneath her skin. “I would wager,” Halbrand whispered, lowering his voice until even she could barely hear it, “that neither is yours.”

Galadriel said nothing. All she could do was shake her head, trembling from head to toe.

He smiled at her, the glimmer reaching his eyes once more. Galadriel felt the warmth of his palm flatten against her cheek. “Shake your head all you like,” he murmured. “You cannot deny it with words because you know it is a lie, and you don’t want to speak it any more than I do. That’s why you ask me to speak it on your behalf.” His thumb stroked along her cheek, catching against a loose lock of her hair. “No more lies, hmm?”

Galadriel opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out—because he was right. No more lies. She could not bear to speak them any more than she could bear the truth of what she was feeling for him. It was all too much.

Halbrand kissed her. The truth was she should have pulled away, and a part of her wanted to, but the larger part of her refused to deny it. She kissed him back eagerly, her hand rising to cup his face and pull him down to her. His lips were sweet with the taste of wine, though his tongue was bitter from it, and she only parted her mouth further for him and let him in until he had pushed back into her and anchored her against the wall, cold stone at her back and his hot mouth engulfing her as both her hands clung to his face while he deepened the kiss with a fury she had not felt from him since his desperation in Númenor. His lips were a brand everywhere they touched, from her mouth to her jaw to her neck—where he buried his face to suck on the flesh beneath the curtain of her silver-laden golden waves, hiding his misdeeds from view.

Galadriel never noticed the eyes watching them from the shadows beyond the council room—or the confusion with which Elendil turned away from the scene to leave them in privacy, his unsure steps echoing down the corridor.

Chapter Text

* * *

What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger.

— Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters”

* * *

Galadriel desired to dress down for the beginning of the festivities, her preferred color being that of white, but Bronwyn and Eärien both insisted it was too simple for the day of the festival and suggested that Galadriel wear something to match the brightness of the cheer that radiated from the people. They had picked a flowing and richly woven dress the striking color of daffodils in full summer bloom with slits cut into the arms. Its layers had different lengths, mimicking the tiers of flower petals, and its design reminded Galadriel of the dresses she had seen in Númenor with braided ropes of fabric creating the divide between the waist and bosom. It was one of Eärien’s dresses, though she said she no longer wore it—and she gifted it to Galadriel for the occasion, though told her she may keep it afterwards.

Bronwyn styled her hair, creating a loose, flowing plaited braid down her back, pulling free an individual curly lock on either side of her temple to let them fall gently beside her cheeks and about her shoulders to frame her face. She tied the bottom of the braid together with various ribbons made of different colors: pink, peach, and sunshine yellow. Eärien insisted on cosmetics, adding a cream rouge to Galadriel’s cheeks and lips in a peachy tone to match the chosen dress. Galadriel wore no jewelry aside from her ring, Nenya, and two braided floral bracelets made by Eärien to match her dress. Eärien, too, wore floral bracelets to match the rusty rouge of her own dress, and she had made blue floral bracelets to match the deep indigo of Bronwyn’s gown. Each lady also wore a simple pair of sandals, which were the usual choice for footwear here in Pelargir and had been in Númenor as well—unless one chose to wear boots, which was more common for trade and military than everyday life.

However, many of the men would be in boots today for the parade and the subsequent competition.

Since it was the day of the festival, they were holding a parade first in honor of King Halbrand’s return to Pelargir. Galadriel was not part of the parade, but she would be in attendance with the crowd, watching as the soldiers and musicians marched with banners on the outskirts of the procession and horses in the center. Halbrand was to be near the head of the parade itself, and Galadriel wondered how much he hated the attention or if he adored every moment of it. It was a mystery even to her.

She stared forward at her reflection in the mirror from where she sat before the vanity, feeling Bronwyn’s hand come to rest upon her shoulder.

“Are you ready?” Bronwyn inquired in a gentle voice. Galadriel could see Bronwyn’s expression through the mirror, the soft smile that accompanied the words, and nodded her head.

“Yes, I am ready,” Galadriel told her, rising from the chair.

They left Galadriel’s chambers and the grounds of the main citadel to merge with the growing throng in the streets of Pelargir. The procession was to start here at the citadel, exiting from the large gate on the opposite side of the building away from Galadriel’s personal quarters, and march through the city all the way to the docks before it circled inward to an open air building with many seats and a sanded center on the other side of the settlement. According to Bronwyn, it was used for combatant events between the men to show off their prowess, but also on occasion for plays to entertain the people.

“We should stay here,” Eärien suggested. “We will see them before everyone else as they come out!”

“It will be a long walk to the competition afterwards if we do,” Galadriel cautioned over her shoulder at Eärien, but her eyes were fixated on the large arch of the building that shielded the inner courtyard from view. There, behind it, the procession was waiting to exit into the outer courtyard.

“Let us start the walk in that direction, then,” Bronwyn said aloud, and Galadriel agreed with her, so together, all three of them turned away from the gates of the courtyard and walked through the crowd to the other side of the streets. “I know a shortcut through the city,” Bronwyn offered to them, “to get us to the final destination faster.”

“The king!” a voice suddenly shouted from the crowd, and then many rose up in unison behind it. “The king! Look, it’s the king!”

Galadriel whirled her head to look, catching sight of the procession filing into the outer courtyard as well-dressed men walked ahead of it to open the gates and allow it to pass into the streets of the city. At the front of the line, there were banner men carrying the standards of Pelargir. Galadriel could see the difference between the new ones Bronwyn had helped make and the older banners. The new ones were woven of satin material, and they shone with each ripple of movement under the light of the sun. It was a navy blue base with red trimming, the center of each banner depicting the sigil of a bird, crowned, downward in flight. It was the sigil of the Southlands.

Behind the bannermen, Halbrand was seated on a horse in full armor with a crown upon his head. The crown itself seemed to depict the feathers of a wing over the usual spikes of a crown. Riding behind him on horses as well, a regime of men in armor in service to the king. Theo was among them, and yet so was Valandil, the Númenórean captain. Had he joined the ranks of Pelargir over his own people, and would Elendil allow him to stay? Galadriel supposed it was up to Valandil, and given that Elendil was no king, perhaps he would be supportive of Valandil’s choice to serve with King Halbrand instead of moving northward with the Númenóreans whenever they chose to depart from the city. The scouts would have to return with good news first, and then it would be ever more likely that the rest of the Númenóreans who wished to leave Pelargir would follow.

As they marched past the gates, Halbrand’s eyes shifted over the adoring crowd calling his name, but his gaze landed on Galadriel and stayed there when he found her—and it was not until then that he smiled at last, tipping his head slightly in her direction. There were drums and instruments played further down the line of the procession, and children ran about the streets and threw flower petals everywhere at will. Their laughter rang into the air along with the beat of the drums, and the procession continued onward through the streets. Galadriel watched as Halbrand seemed to lead them, and the merriment of the people grew ever louder with each passing moment. More soldiers made up the back of the line. The banners swayed in the wind, catching the light.

“Let’s go,” Bronwyn whispered into Galadriel’s ear, and she took her and Eärien by the hands and led them away from the parade.

They took a back path through the city away from the crowds to make it to the competition grounds before everyone else and find good seats with which to watch the men’s displays of skill and dexterity. The grounds themselves were still being prepared when the three women arrived, though they were almost complete. There were refreshments set up between the different levels of seating, and some of the seats had been given cushions in advance with more decor than others. Two canopies hung over the center seats on the left and right of the open grounds, and Galadriel found herself drawn to those in particular.

“Good choice!” Eärien complimented her. “Shade and cushions. We will be most comfortable here.”

“I rather agree,” Bronwyn chimed in as the first flood of the voices filled the air outside of the competition grounds. “Oh, here they come. We arrived just in time for good seats!”

“Is Theo competing today?” Galadriel asked Bronwyn, glancing past Eärien who was seated between them to look at Bronwyn. Galadriel imagined Theo would join in at the chance to show off, though she had a feeling Halbrand was going to participate as well—even if she was not supportive of it. She had spoken nothing of it to him, though. If Halbrand wanted to do it, he would do it, regardless of her opinion on the matter. At least his health had remained stable this past week, and his youthful appearance gave way to much speculation that her powers had something to do with it. The whispers followed Galadriel everywhere she went in Pelargir, so she had begun to limit her excursions into the city for the eyes that followed her.

“Yes, he is,” Bronwyn replied pointedly, “though I think he is going to let King Halbrand win if he fights him.” A small smile curled her lips upward at the corner in a sign of amusement. “Valandil is competing, too. From what I heard, many of the young Númenóreans are competing.”

Eärien sighed. “They have to get their aggression out somehow,” she said.

“A healthy way for them to do so,” Galadriel agreed, glancing back at the entrance of the grounds as people began to file inside and find their own seats. “Where is Elendil? I did not see him with the procession . . . ”

“I am right here,” came Elendil’s chipper voice from the left. Galadriel turned swiftly to see him taking the empty seat next to her, finding herself surprised that he had managed to sneak up on her like that.

“Not many people startle me, Elendil,” Galadriel told him, and he offered her a small smile in response.

“I am not many people,” he said cryptically, and Galadriel found herself laughing in return. She did not laugh much these days, so any reprieve from her tumultuous thoughts was a welcome one. She placed her hand on top of Elendil’s and gripped it with a gentle strength.

“You are good people, though,” she commented, but Elendil had a comeback for that as well.

“I do not know about that either,” he said, sending all three of the women into erupted fits of laughter.

“Oh, please, Father,” Eärien announced with a chipper zeal. “You are the best man I know.”

“Better even than both of your brothers?” Elendil asked with a smirk, earning more fits of amusement from Galadriel and Bronwyn.

“Yes,” Eärien said, “and that’s even if you put them together!”

Elendil joined in on the mirth and laughed as well, and the seats all around them looked to be about a third full. Galadriel did not see Halbrand enter the grounds, so she turned her attention back to Elendil.

“Have you heard from either of your sons through the palantír?” she asked, knowing that Elendil had been trying to reach them since their departure.

Sadly, he shook his head. “I have not, and it worries me.”

Her hand gripped his back tighter. “I am sure they will be all right,” she said, hoping the words would soothe him. She knew he was worried about Isildur and Anárion, especially since they were sailing through enemy territory. “The scouts will reach them in time and ensure their safe passage.”

“Hopefully, you are right, my lady,” Elendil echoed back in response.

“I feel it,” Galadriel told him. “I cannot explain it, but I feel it to be true.”

Elendil gripped her hand back. “I believe you,” he said.

The seats were about halfway full now, and cheers erupted into the air as Halbrand entered the grounds with Theo and Valandil flanking either side of him. More soldiers, mostly men of Pelargir, followed behind them. They had not entered with their horses, so Galadriel wondered if sword fighting would be the first stage of the contest for today’s events. Theo walked off to the other side of the seats, raising his sword—the sword she had given him—into the air. The crowd cheered louder at his display, and Theo grinned at their raucous appetite. Valandil approached the seats on the side with Bronwyn, Eärien, Galadriel, and Elendil, lifting his sword into the air as well to mimic Theo’s silent boast.

As Valandil’s arm raised into the air, Galadriel caught the sudden gleam of a ring on his finger. Valandil, too, grinned at the crowd as they applauded again, roaring louder than before.

Halbrand, however, remained more subtle between the other two men. He did not lift his sword to make a display of himself. Instead, as the rest of the soldiers filed into the grounds, he spotted Galadriel in the stands, and then he made his way toward her. He was still crowned and in his armor, though she imagined he would take off the crown before competing. Halbrand approached the divide between the seats and the sand, his eyes falling to Galadriel’s hand where it rested in Elendil’s clasp. Galadriel saw the restrained twitch in Halbrand’s neck, bulging outward briefly as his jaw clenched, and his eyes met hers with a forceful glimmer.

Slowly, she removed her hand from Elendil’s grasp and returned it to her lap. He was not jealous of Elendil, was he?

“Lady Galadriel,” Halbrand announced loudly, drawing the attention of many eyes their way as the cheering around them fell silent. “Would you be so kind as to allow me to wear your favors today?”

Her heart raced at the implication as well as all of the eyes on them. It would be embarrassing if she turned him down, so she chose the opposite to maintain the peace—even though she did not like the additional attention being given in such a public manner from him. In private it was another matter, but perhaps, with every inch she gave him in private, he pushed for a little more each time that followed until another boundary was broken. They had not gone past kisses yet, but that was a choice made by Galadriel, and he respected it. It was other boundaries he broke, and all of them public ones—attention, flattery, errant touches while standing too close in company to one another.

He wanted to put it and cement it into the minds of others that there was something between them. With every denial Galadriel gave, another person would smile pitifully in response. Poor Elf, someone had whispered once, she loves him and can’t admit it.

Galadriel stood from her seat and held her head high, earning a proud smile from Halbrand in return.

She had no favors to give except perhaps one of her bracelets or a ribbon from her hair. Galadriel pulled her braid forward over her shoulder and, with the tips of her delicate fingers, untied one of the ribbons from her hair. Slipping off the floral bracelet from her left wrist, she stepped forward as Halbrand unsheathed his sword, holding it out for her.

Gently, she grasped the tip of the blade and slid the bracelet down the sharp steel. She moved closer, close enough to reach the hilt of his sword, and used the loose ribbon pulled from her hair to tie the bracelet in place and hold it there at the base of the blade. Her eyes glanced up to catch his gaze when she was done, seeing the ardent blaze with which he regarded her so openly.

When she released her ribbon and his sword, Galadriel stepped back and noticed all of the eyes on them. The quiet that had befallen the grounds was deafening. Everyone was watching them, even Theo and Valandil. Halbrand stared back in silence, his gaze ever upon her, until she moved to sit back down in her chair, and then he turned to the crowd at last and raised his sword in the air. Cheers erupted behind it, followed by boisterous applause, and Halbrand called out to them, “I wear the Lady Galadriel’s favors today! No man can touch me!”

The cheers grew louder, and Galadriel’s cheeks burned with a tinge of flame licking her from within. Halbrand turned to face her once more, bowing in her direction. A few gasps echoed throughout the crowd at his gesture. It spoke volumes; he was a king, and though she was an Elf, none of them were aware of her ladyship in any capacity aside from it being an honorable title. Though she had settled in Lothlórien, the ongoing war had kept her away from the new homeland. She had spent too few days there to yet call it home.

“We’ll see about that!” Valandil hollered out, raising his sword again and shaking it in the air. Further cheers and whistles were cast through the air, and Halbrand answered him with a laugh. Galadriel watched as Halbrand clapped Valandil on the back, and the men walked to the far end of the grounds to the tents near the back to ready themselves for the competition. Various soldiers who wanted to compete joined them at the tents.

“My lady,” Elendil suddenly spoke, breaking through the silence, “you seem unsettled? I hope all is well.”

“All is well,” Galadriel replied. “I am not myself today.”

“The king seems mighty taken up with you,” Elendil probed in a gentle voice. “Are we to believe the feelings may be mutual, or is that just the hopeful populace talking?”

Galadriel was not sure how to answer him, but she felt very comfortable with Elendil. Outside of him, Bronwyn, and Eärien, she had not spoken with anyone else about private matters.

“May I ask why you inquire?”

“Forgive me,” Elendil said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I witnessed something a week ago between you and King Halbrand in the council room. I had forgotten one of my scrolls, and I went back to fetch it—only I stumbled upon a private moment between the two of you, and I felt ashamed for witnessing it. I wished to apologize. Though you were not aware, it was still improper for me to see, so I apologize, my lady.”

Her heart pounded hard within her chest. Galadriel recalled that day with vivid description as well as her conversation with Halbrand that had taken place. “Thank you, Elendil. May I ask also what you heard?”

“Not much, I admit, and what I did hear was confusing, but,” Elendil added quickly, “it was also none of my business, and it seemed to regard the two of you more than anything else. Though I hope nothing worrisome has happened?”

“No, not at all,” Galadriel breathed out, feeling more and more at loss. “I cannot speak for King Halbrand, but no, nothing worrisome has happened.”

“That is good,” Elendil acclaimed. “I am happy to hear that.”

As soon as he was done talking, the men emerged from the tents in no armor aside from simple leathers to clothe them, swords in hand, and the petty soldiers were separated from the group that rode at the front of the procession with Halbrand. Galadriel wondered if they were considered the more skilled warriors. They must have been regarded as such. They stood near the back with Halbrand to watch as those removed from them were paired up for duels and lined across the center of the grounds.

A flag was raised, whipped downward quickly and a voice hollered out for them to begin. Swords clashed in an ongoing rush, and cheers exploded from the stands.

“Might I be so bold to make a suggestion, Lady Galadriel?” Elendil said, catching her attention once more. The sound of steel ringing through the air filled the background, and she turned away from it to look at him.

“Go on,” Galadriel ushered him, curiosity getting the better of her.

Elendil met her gaze with a curious look in his own eyes. He appeared vaguely amused, and yet also serious at the same time. “Perhaps,” he began, “it would not be such a bad idea if you and King Halbrand were wed?”

A clash of steel filled her receptive ears. Galadriel was caught off guard. She did not know what to say. She felt frozen in place, staring at Elendil. Her mouth fell open at last, a sudden intake of breath arresting her. Galadriel glanced back at the fighting. Three duels had already been won, while the others remained ongoing. The one in front of their stands raged on brutally, the two young men slashing at each other and dipping away quickly to avoid a blow.

“Why they are fighting with no armor?” Galadriel asked, changing the subject.

“They are wearing leathers, and the swords are dull,” Elendil replied. That did not sound right, though, as Galadriel recalled the sharpness of Halbrand’s blade beneath her fingertips. She saw Elendil glance back at her out of the corner of her eyes. “Have I embarrassed you, my lady?”

“A little,” Galadriel admitted, a deep sigh wracking her chest and making it more obvious that it was more than a little. “I have . . . affection . . . for the king,” she heard herself say, though her voice sounded faraway compared to the clash of swords across the arena, “as you may have well guessed from what you saw. I may admit that to you, Elendil, with a sound mind, but . . . I do not know if a marriage is possible.”

“Why not?”

Galadriel swallowed past a nervous lump forming in the base of her throat. “Need the obvious be said out loud?” she asked him, and Elendil understood her meaning without her needing to say anything else.

He sighed softly as the duel before them came to a draw. “I understand,” he said. “He is but a mortal man, and you have the grace of eternal life. Such a decision would be . . . foolish not to be considered at depth and with proper guidance.”

“Of course,” Galadriel agreed.

“But,” Elendil continued, “if I may also say so, my lady, as a man who has been wed once and loved twice and lost both, it is an even rarer thing still to find mutual affection and love in this world, and I would caution against steering away from it and rather advocate to go toward it. We do not get many chances for happiness in this life. When the gods send it our way, I believe we should honor their blessings and take comfort in them where we can find them.”

Galadriel remained silent as she watched the winners bow at the crowd and the defeated take their leave from the sand pit. New opponents were placed before the winners, and the duels started anew with fresh fire. “Those are wise words, Elendil, but I must take caution here.”

“If you take caution here, you should take it in all ways, my lady,” Elendil spoke below his breath. “Forgive my brazenness, but do not take things too far with the king.”

“I have not,” she whispered, feeling her chest constrict with a tight discomfort at the direction of the conversation. Though he was younger than her in truth, Elendil was still a man of the world with grey in his hair, and he looked old enough to be her father. At times, Galadriel could almost forget his age in comparison to her own.

“He might not think the same,” Elendil said as the duel before them came to a draw. “He is quite smitten with you, and many men—forgive my language—tend to believe a lady is theirs when her affections become physical.”

Another duel came to an end further down the line. “I am not his,” Galadriel stated firmly, hoping it sounded as resolute as she meant it when saying it.

“That is not how it looks, Lady Galadriel, even to eyes less keen than mine.”

The last duel was won, and finally, the succeeding petty soldiers got to be placed against more formidable opponents. Galadriel saw as Halbrand joined in on one of the duels, and so did Theo and Valandil. The flag was raised, and quickly, it was flung downward again.

Steel clashed in a bevy of arcs through the air, and Galadriel witnessed Theo and Halbrand achieve a similar movement at the same time, drawing her confusion.

“I do not care how it looks,” she finally said aloud, wondering at the movements between Halbrand and Theo. They matched each other in a graceful tune while fighting two separate battles.

“You should, my lady,” Elendil cautioned. “Rumors are pesky things to crush once they get started. Often, they spread like wildfire with an unquenchable thirst, and after today, with the king wearing your favors, many people will believe an engagement is on the way.”

“He is a man,” Galadriel announced, watching as Halbrand defeated his opponent to the raucous cries of the crowd’s pleasure. He rose his sword into the air with her favors tied to the base of the blade, still intact—little yellow flowers tied in place with a pink ribbon. More cries followed as he turned to face Galadriel from where he stood, grinning at her as he lowered his sword. The crowd noticed, and the cheers and applause grew louder.

The other battles raged on around them, though Halbrand’s gaze remained locked with hers.

“A man who is adamant in his affections for you,” Elendil stated with assurance. “He will ask you to sit with him at the feast. I am sure of it. Afterwards, he will ask you to dance with him. Will you deny him these things, or will you grant them?”

Galadriel tried to reason with herself how any of this was Elendil’s business, but she understood his worry and his desire to help as well as his inclination to offer advice. Halbrand was the king here, and this public appeal would become a tangled web before long. He was right in that. He was right about all of it.

“I do not know,” Galadriel admitted softly, her breath catching in her throat as she shook her head. “I do not know what to do, Elendil.”

The duels all came to an end with the winners partnering with other winners. Halbrand united with Valandil. The two men grinned at each other, sure fingers holding aloft their swords. The flag rose again, and it came down once more.

Valandil swung an arc of his blade against Halbrand, slinging his sword away, but Halbrand spun in retaliation and came around to clang his blade against Valandil’s again. Valandil dipped out of the way, flipped his sword for show with a twirl of his wrist, and charged at Halbrand with it. They clashed back and forth for a striking moment, neither quite getting the upper hand in the struggle of steel. Valandil crashed his blade down into Halbrand’s sword, and it seemed at first Valandil had gained the advantage by knocking Halbrand off his feet and onto his back into the sand at their feet—but Halbrand rolled with the motion and snatched Valandil’s wrist, swinging the other man over his head and using the leverage of his grip and the press of his boots into Valandil’s stomach to the flip himself as well. Valandil crashed onto his back with a heavy blow into the sand.

The crowd cheered, and they scrambled upward, creating a cloud of dust about them from their fall and ensuing rise back to their feet.

Galadriel watched as Valandil charged hard at Halbrand, gritting his teeth and putting all of his effort into it, swing after swing with as much force as possible, nearly wearing himself out in the process. He was breathing too heavily and losing focus. Halbrand let Valandil wear himself out, and then he dodged the next swing from the younger man’s sword, spinning around and catching Valandil’s blade with an effective undercut. Steel slid against steel, ringing harshly through the air, until Halbrand flung Valandil away from him.

Valandil, upset at being thrown off but also welcoming the challenge with a grin of gritted teeth, charged once more. All the other fights had been won, but Halbrand and Valandil were still fighting, and all the attention of the crowd was upon them. Galadriel felt her own breath catch in her chest again as Valandil nearly drew a hit on Halbrand, but Halbrand managed to dodge it, and clash after clash resonated in the air. They spun, dodged, and danced their way through a multitude of maneuvers—until, finally, Halbrand caught Valandil’s blade with his own and swirled it counterclockwise, twisting Valandil’s wrist and causing the other man to drop his sword to the sand.

Within just moments, Halbrand had his sword against Valandil’s throat.

The crowd burst into cries of excitement, shouting and applauding. Whistles rose in the air along with it. Valandil grinned despite his arms raised in surrender, and when Halbrand lowered his sword, they both clasped hands and laughed before turning to the crowd to accept the praise lavished upon them. Theo jumped into the midst, clapping Halbrand on the back before grasping Valandil in a hug and patting him on the back as well. Galadriel rose with the rest of the crowd to clap. Bronwyn and Eärien stood up to clap, too.

Elendil, also applauding the show of prowess, rose to stand next to Galadriel.

Halbrand turned to face them, spearing his sword into the sand and walking over to the stands. He held out his hand to Galadriel, palm up and fingers aloft. Galadriel glanced down at it.

Elendil was right. He was right on all accounts. This was just the beginning of it. Halbrand was asking for her hand in front of the crowd, knowing all of the allusions that lied underneath the surface of the simple gesture.

Carefully, she extended out her hand to him.

Halbrand grasped it lightly, the twinkle of amusement reaching his eyes if not his lips, and he bent down to place those lips atop her knuckles in a tender kiss. He closed his eyes, letting it linger as everyone watched, and the cheers rose into the crowd again, the applause drowning out all thought within Galadriel’s mind. When he pulled back from her, his face was more serious than before.

“Will you join me for the feast tonight,” Halbrand asked her, still holding her hand, “and sit with me?”

Galadriel felt her eyes rove over the throng of eyes behind him. All of them watching. All wondering. What she would say? What she would do? Her gaze fell back on Halbrand.

Raising her chin, she nodded her head in agreement.

Halbrand’s own confliction was clear. He looked, at first, uncertain, and then pained by the very smile that threatened to overtake his face. He fought it back, and bowed his head at her, releasing her hand and walking away.

Galadriel could still feel his fingers sliding away from hers, slipping away, even as he joined the other men again.

A part of her wished she had grasped on a little harder.

“Do you see what I mean, Lady Galadriel?” came Elendil’s voice beside her, and she turned to look at him, shocked at the sound of his voice breaking her from her reverie. Elendil gently placed his hand on her shoulder. His expression held more than he said out loud. “Be careful what you do with that lad’s heart.”

Elendil’s hand fell away from her shoulder, and Galadriel turned away from him, closing her eyes.

When she opened them again, she saw Halbrand smiling back at her.

Chapter Text

* * *

We choose those we like; with those we love, we have no say in the matter.

— Mignon McLaughlin, “The Neurotic’s Notebook”

* * *

Galadriel stared at her reflection in the floor length mirror in front of her.

She had untied the ribbons from her hair and used her fingers to carefully pull free the loose braid, letting each curled lock fall freely about her shoulders in a waterfall of waves. Her vibrant dress had been traded for a grey and white gown accented with silver embellishments, long sleeves that belled out, and two layers woven together. The inner layer one of the purest white from collarbone to feet in the center, blooming outward in white across the bottom of the dress, while the outer layer that consisted of the sleeves and the back train was a light, shimmering grey that seemed to sparkle with every movement in the light. The metal accents and trim were silver, and atop her hair sat a delicate silver circlet, which rested across her forehead in a design of entwined stems growing backward into a bloom of many flowers. Encased within each flower bud was a clear adamant stone, the same type of stone in her ring, Nenya.

It was a gift left in her chambers. She found it waiting for her when she returned from the competition grounds, sitting atop her vanity in a silver box wrapped with white ribbons. It did not take much thought to guess who the gift had been from, of course. There were not many here in Pelargir who would bestow her with such jewels.

A knock came at her door.

The knock startled Galadriel from her thoughts, and she glanced over her shoulder. “Come in,” she called out.

His reflection in the mirror was visible, so she did not have to turn around to face him in order to see how he was dressed for this evening. She almost did, but the visage that met her eyes upon his entrance stilled her in her tracks. Halbrand wore a warm ivory tunic with golden embellishments, though his trousers were a darker grey. While the two of them were not a exact match, it was close enough to draw out some internal discomfort over his choice of dress, for it echoed of her own.

His eyes, in the mirror, were not on hers. They trailed down the length of her dress with a steady quality in the passing of his gaze—as if he were doing it slowly in order to take in all of her appearance and commit it to his memory. Galadriel watched as his eyes lifted back up the length of her body and landed at the back of her hair.

He approached her with quiet footfalls against the floor, his arm extending out to her and his fingertips brushing her elbow. “You look beautiful tonight,” Halbrand whispered to her, and she gazed straight at his face through the mirror. His eyes lifted, catching hers and staring back. He sidled close behind her without pressing against her, but close enough she could feel his warmth, and he leaned down so that his face cradled beside hers and his cheek pressed against the soft waves of her hair. “You’re wearing my gift.”

“Yes, thank you,” Galadriel said aloud, though she felt out of her element—on edge, nervous, and sensing all the intent beneath the surface that he did not ever say. “It is beautiful.”

Halbrand closed his eyes, nestling further into her hair. “I would drape you in jewels and gold and all the silver in the world,” he murmured, his hand slipping from her elbow to lay against her waist—a firm hold, a handle on her, as he nuzzled deeper into her hair. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest.

“I do not need such worldly gifts,” Galadriel countered him.

“Oh, but I would give them to you,” Halbrand whispered, “to enhance such beauty, so that all the world could see your splendor as I do.”

“I am not that—”

“You are to me,” he murmured, dropping his face to her shoulder. Gently, he placed a kiss against her dress. “How do I convince you?”

“I do not need convincing—”

His hand slid across her stomach, his arm snaking around her waist to pull her close. “You do.” Her breath was coming to her in short, quick pants, and he had to have felt it through her back. He hummed behind her, pulling her closer against his body, his nose reaching her ear through her curtain of hair. “I will convince you,” he whispered, “if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Do not make such promises, Halbrand.”

“I will,” he breathed out against her ear, causing her to shiver. “I can, and I will.”

“It is not necessary—”

“You keep saying that,” Halbrand murmured into her ear, “but until you believe me, truly believe me, I will not stop. I will never stop. Not until you know how much you mean to me.”

Galadriel stared into the mirror—at the way in which they stood together entwined in such an embrace that appeared more romantic than anything lewd, and her stillness incited Halbrand to pull back from her at last and look at her as well. His arm fell from her waist, his hand held palm up in front of her, a silent gesture for her to take his hand.

“The feast is waiting,” Halbrand said, affecting a calm and placid voice. “Will you accompany me as you said you would?”

Galadriel had to take a deep breath to calm herself. One that Halbrand noticed, though he said nothing about it. “Of course,” she agreed, placing her hand on top of his palm. His fingers closed around it, and together, they turned away from their reflection in the mirror.

They walked in tune with each other’s steps as he led her from the room through the halls of the citadel to the feast that awaited them. Galadriel could feel the coolness of the circlet against her forehead, its touch causing her mind to roil with too many thoughts at once with each step that she took in stride beside Halbrand. When they reached the great hall where the feast was being hosted, Galadriel found herself immediately overwhelmed by the sight.

The great hall, full to the brim from wall to wall with the people of Pelargir and the Númenóreans alike, had endless rows of tables pushed together to host seats for everyone possible. However, the center of the hall remained clear and open—a dance floor, where some couples were already dancing in tune with the music being played by the band close to the forefront of the hall near the corner, not far from the king’s table.

The tables themselves overflowed with fresh food, plentiful wine, and boisterous people. Cups were raised into the air with laughter, clinking together in a round of merriment and cheer, wine spilling onto the floors as it sloshed over golden rims.

At the sound and sight of their arrival at the archway, where Halbrand purposefully paused with her hand still in his, the eyes of the room began to find their way to them, and a silence fell over the great hall. As the laughter and chatting died down, more heads turned to their direction until the entirety of the great hall was staring at them in a deafening quiet.

“To the King!” someone hollered out, raising his tankard of ale, and more followed suit, raising their cups as well. “To the king!” a multitude of voices cried out.

“Many blessings to the Lady Galadriel!” another, much louder, voice cried out above them. “To the Lady Galadriel!” cries followed in unison, and Galadriel watched in both gratefulness and trepidation as the people drank to her as well as Halbrand.

“See?” Halbrand murmured, and she could see from the corner of her eyes his smile toward the crowd. “The people love you.”

“They love you,” she corrected him. “They are grateful to me for returning you to them.”

“Same difference,” Halbrand replied, and he led her into the great hall and past the tables up the steps to the dais at the forefront of the hall, which held the most ornate table meant for the king and those closest to him. Theo, Bronwyn, Elendil, and Valandil were seated at the table with others. In the center, though, near the chair reserved for the king, the one to the left was still empty. To the right of it, sat Theo well into his cups. His cheeks were already flushed from too much wine.

“Are we late?” Galadriel asked in quiet tones, noticing how the crowd had delved into the food and imbibed enough wine to well be on their way to inebriation.

“You were late, yes,” Halbrand informed her. “That’s why I came to look for you. Bronwyn was asking about you, and she almost left to go find you, but I told her I would see to it.”

Galadriel blushed to be reminded of it. She had been late because the gift he had left for her on her vanity had stolen both her attention and her sense, and she had spent too much time mulling over the dainty silver circlet with adamant stones embedded into the buds of its small flowers, too much time wondering why it was given and what it all meant. Its design matched her ring, Nenya, in more ways than one—in craftsmanship, materials, and its motif. Her ring bore the bud of a flower, while the circlet appeared to be stems growing backward, blooming into many. In many ways, too, it looked like a crown—and that emblem was not lost on the people of Pelargir as their eyes followed her across the great hall to the table with the king.

Halbrand led her to her seat beside him, pulling back her chair with his free hand. He did not let go of her hand until she let go of his, and Galadriel smoothed down her dress before sitting, feeling his hands grasp the back of her chair and push it under for her.

When she glanced up, more than half of the eyes in the room seemed to be upon her—admiring, watching, and judging.

Halbrand sat down next to her, grasping a goblet of wine and handing it to her. Galadriel accepted it, but her eyes darted back out to the crowd, even as her fingers coiled around the cool stem of the metal goblet. “Relax,” he said. “You’re tense.”

“Everyone is watching—”

“Galadriel,” Halbrand murmured, “look at me.”

She glanced at him, turning her head just so and aiming a curt look at him. Halbrand smiled, though.

“There she is,” he said below his breath, his smile curling into a grin. “Be yourself. Be happy. They are happy. They are happy for you, for me.” Halbrand grasped his own goblet, raising it into the air. “These are happy days.”

It was not that simple, and yet she would have to concede to it for now. Galadriel raised her goblet to his, metal softly clinking, and watched as he brought it back to his lips to take a sip, gazing out at her over the rim with twinkling eyes. She glanced down at the wine in her cup, brought it to her lips, and drank a heady gulp. It did not take her long to down the entire cup, lowering the empty goblet back to the table.

“My, my, my!” Theo exclaimed from the other side of Halbrand, leaning over the table to get a better look at Galadriel. “Do you plan on joining the rest of us in our cups tonight, Lady Galadriel?”

Halbrand’s eyes took on an interesting curiosity as Galadriel smiled back at Theo. “It is harder for Elves to become inebriated, but with enough wine and the right kind, it is possible.”

“Ohhh,” Theo cried out, pounding a fist onto the table and rattling everything in close quarters to him. “Give her the good stuff, King Halbrand!”

Halbrand fought off a grin as he leaned forward and reached for one of the decanters, indicating for Galadriel to hold her goblet out to him. She did so, and he filled her cup to the brim, placing the decanter back onto the tabletop.

Galadriel raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you attempting to help along my inebriation, King Halbrand?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he added in a cryptic manner, reaching for his own goblet again, “but it would be an amusing sight to see, would it not?”

“I see,” Galadriel responded, glancing down at her goblet. The wine was dark, more black than red. “I suppose I should drink as much as possible for your amusement?” She cut her eyes at him to catch his expression, and Halbrand grinned before drinking more of his own wine.

“I might attempt to join you, so don’t rule that out just yet,” he said, downing the rest of his cup.

It was also possible for him to get inebriated, though it took more than the fair share that worked on mortals. Galadriel found that thought amusing, and decided there was nothing for this evening to hold her back, so she quickly gulped down her second goblet, placing the empty cup back onto the table. Theo roared with laughter, beating his fist in a sudden tune against the tabletop until more and more joined in, a multitude of fists pounding in unison.

“We shall have a merry evening!” Theo announced across the room, holding up his own goblet and sloshing wine down onto his sleeve as his other fist continued to beat against the tabletop. “All in favor, drink!”

Galadriel took note of all that drank. Even Elendil and Bronwyn raised their cups and took a sip of their wine, though neither of them gulped it down. Galadriel reached for the decanter to refill her goblet, but Halbrand stopped her with his hand and grabbed it for her, filling her cup a third time—to the brim. Her eyes watched as the last drop fell from the mouth of the decanter into her goblet. Halbrand carefully placed it down afterwards, and she glanced over at him.

“Do you have some motive for this evening?” she inquired, and Halbrand cocked his head at her, regarding her with another one of his curious expressions.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“You are,” Galadriel pointed out, tipping her head toward her cup, “obviously plying me with wine. To what purpose?”

Halbrand stared at her for a moment in silence, heaving out a small sigh. He leaned toward her after that, resting one of his forearms on the table. “No purpose,” he murmured, to keep the conversation private between them alone, “other than to see you enjoy your evening. Will you hold that against me, too?”

“Wine addles the senses.”

“Then,” Halbrand said, a small smile curling at the base of his lips, “don’t addle your senses. Just drink enough to relax and stop. Is that so hard?”

Galadriel bit down on her bottom lip. “I do not like your teasing.”

Halbrand leaned over until he was almost in her ear. “Liar,” he whispered, and she could hear the smirk upon his lips. He tipped his head toward the food on her plate. “Eat. It will fill your stomach and prevent the wine from doing too much damage, and then you cannot say anything against me.”

“I am not saying—”

“Stop lying, Galadriel,” Halbrand whispered, and she pressed her lips together hard into a thin, white line. “Eat your food. Enjoy your evening. Have fun.”

As he pulled back from her and returned his focus back to his own plate and goblet, Galadriel did the same as she cast her eyes over the crowd of merrymaking. The people were dancing, laughing, eating, and drinking. Turning her attention toward her food, she ate what she could for the nerves in her belly and drank an imprudent portion of wine to counter her uneasiness. She engaged herself in conversation with Bronwyn and Elendil, and it was not long before a pleasant cloud had settled over her mind and blotted out every care and worry that she had carried with her this evening.

Galadriel rose from the table before anyone could stop her—Halbrand in particular, of course—and made her way down the steps of the dais, though she nearly slipped and fell in the process. She must have had more wine than she thought, for it surprised even her to have herself nearly trip in such a manner. A hand reached out for hers, caught her, and steadied her, and Galadriel grasped tight with her second hand to ensure herself time to gather her balance again before looking up at her savior.

It was Valandil, the not-so-young anymore Númenórean captain, and his gaze was full of concern. “Are you all right, my lady?” he asked, bowing his head to observe her appearance.

“Yes, thank you,” Galadriel said. “I am quite all right. I seem to have had more wine than I thought.” His expression was so innocent. All of a sudden, Galadriel beamed at him. “Would you care to dance, captain?”

Valandil grinned at her, his dark eyes alight with happiness. “I am no captain anymore,” he informed her. “I’ve joined the king’s guard to serve King Halbrand. I plan to stay here in Pelargir instead of traveling North to settle elsewhere.” His face softened as he seemed to recall something dear to him. “I like it here,” Valandil added, “and I would be most obliged to dance with you, Lady Galadriel.”

Galadriel smiled at him, bowing her head, and followed Valandil’s footsteps to the dance floor. She did not notice all of the eyes on them, instead focusing on conversation with the young man as they drew their hands up together in the proper stance and began to follow the sway of the music around them.

“What brought you to the conclusion to stay?” she inquired as they spun around in a graceful circle, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“The people,” Valandil answered her, bowing outward in tune with the music, before dipping close again, “and the coastline. It feels more like home here than I think it would feel further inland. Don’t you agree, my lady? Especially with the ocean so close by.”

“I can understand the pull of it,” Galadriel concurred, dipping low as her arms spread outward, before they reunited in another twirl. “My people also feel the call of the sea. It is in our blood as it is in yours.”

“You will stay, too, then, Lady Galadriel?” Valandil asked, their hands meeting upright once more, and this time, they spun in the opposite direction. All of the spinning brought about a sense of dizziness as the room swirled together around her, and Galadriel clasped his shoulder to steady herself.

“Yes,” she suddenly answered him, stilling herself to look him in the eyes, “I think I will stay.”

Valandil’s smile was warm and kind. “That is good news, my lady.”

Galadriel smiled back, but then her brow furrowed as another thought came to her. “Did King Halbrand have anything to do with convincing you to stay?”

Valandil appeared confused for a moment as their feet fell in step with the music once more, and they moved back and forth in tune with each other. “No, he did not. Well, he offered me a position, but it was my choice to take it and stay. I had been thinking about it for some time already.”

“Excuse me, Valandil,” a voice cut in, brusque in its manner, and Galadriel felt another hand slide between hers and Valandil’s palm, separating them as it pressed against her own. “I’ve got it from here.”

She saw the look on Valandil’s face as his eyes widened, and he nodded and stepped back. Galadriel tightened her lips together, turning to catch Halbrand’s heated gaze on her next. She waited until Valandil was away from them before speaking, narrowing her eyes at Halbrand. “We were enjoying ourselves.”

“A little too much,” Halbrand added, his free hand sliding around her waist to hold her close as he spun them around in a circle. The room swam with it until he caught her and stilled the motion, their feet moving in line with the music as their raised hands pressed together.

“It was just a dance,” Galadriel informed him, feeling the quickness with which he moved in an attempt to challenge her and catch her off guard. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”

“Hmm,” he hummed, “if you’re brave enough to tease me, you’re brave enough to admit dancing is often a precursor to something more between a man and a woman.”

“You are bold tonight, Halbrand,” Galadriel shot back, even as he slid closer to her than was proper for the dance at hand, and Galadriel could see through the corner of her eyes how many of the people around them were steadily watching them. “And that is, of course, a vulgar assumption to make. Dancing is also a form of expression and happiness.”

“Maybe amongst your people,” Halbrand countered, meaning the Elves, “but amongst mortal men, it is much more simple than that. It’s part of their courting rituals.”

“Are you implying a courtship, then?”

Halbrand leaned into her as they swayed together, resting his head against the side of hers. “Certainly not between you and Valandil,” he murmured just below his breath. His hair smelled clean and crisp with the faint tinge of soap as Galadriel found herself accidentally breathing it in, her eyes fluttering to a close at the proximity of him, his scent and his warmth.

When she slowly opened them again, Galadriel noticed past the curtain of his hair that the crowd had moved away from them to let them dance in peace together in the center of the floor. All eyes were upon them, watching with rapt attention and devouring the scene at hand like ravenous wolves. She felt her free hand reach out for his shoulder as his hand in hers clutched her back, his long fingers interlacing with her own as his thumb curled around her hand.

“Don’t pay attention to them,” Halbrand assured her in a softer voice, the hand around her waist slipping further around her to draw her so close to him their bodies were flush with one another as they twirled around in another circle, the rest of the room blurring with the movement of their spin. “Nothing else matters, except for this. Just focus on me and no one else.”

Their motions continued until the song drew to a close and their movements came to a standstill, and Galadriel found herself looking up at him to see the adoring expression with which he regarded her in his kindly haze. His hand fell from her waist to rise to her face, his thumb brushing ever so gently across the plane of her cheek—and she wanted to fall into the touch, but she drew back from it, their entwined hands falling apart as she stepped away from him.

Galadriel bowed toward Halbrand, so as to not draw attention to herself—to assuage any negative thoughts that she was upset with him or running away from him, as the people were wont to think—and raised herself with a smile on her face.

“Thank you for the dance, my lord,” she said loud enough for those in proximity to hear, and then she turned away from him and exited the great hall through the hallway in which they had entered it.

Her skin felt flushed with heat and sweat, likely a side effect of too much wine during dinner, and she felt every intensive heave of her chest as she stalked down the corridor to cut around the corner at the end—the goal to get away from the feast and sequester herself in her chambers for the rest of the evening away from all of the eyes and the overbearing sensation of Halbrand’s presence around her. She could not think straight anymore, and the longer she was around him, the worse it became until she found herself questioning all of her thoughts and feelings in quick succession. She could trust none of them.

Galadriel managed to get far enough to cut the corner, but on the other side, Halbrand awaited her. He sidestepped her, catching her by the arm. Though his grip was gentle enough to not alarm her, it still startled her.

“Halbrand,” she exhaled, her bewilderment clear. He must have exited the great hall via another passage on the other side of the room, knowing the grounds of the citadel better than her.

“Why are you running away from me, Galadriel?” he asked quietly, a note of desperation in his voice.

“I am not running away from you,” she insisted. “I just need to be alone—”

“I fail to see the difference,” Halbrand told her. “You need to be alone away from me. Why? I have done nothing wrong—”

“That remains to be seen.”

Halbrand’s eyes cut sharply at her, his expression shifting from one of distress to open offense. “Are you accusing me of something?”

Galadriel stared back at him with enough force to match his ire. “What do you want from the people of Pelargir, Halbrand? What is in it for you?”

Halbrand stared at her as if he could not believe what he was hearing come out of her mouth. His lips parted in surprise, and then shut all of a sudden as he bit into them. Galadriel did not know when he released her arm, but he crowded into her space and leaned into her, both of his hands coming up to cup her cheeks and draw her closer to him as he did so. “Nothing,” he said with finality. “I want nothing from them. I did not even want to be here. I am only here because of you. If you cannot see that or admit that by now, you are blind. Beautiful and wise and resilient, but blind.”

She inhaled harshly, inciting a hiss through her teeth that made her feel like half an animal instead of a person, until his lips surged into hers with a feverish intensity that drove her forward into his arms to match his kiss with the same sharpness. Her arms wound around his neck to pull him down to her in an action unbidden by her, but fueled by some deeper force within her spirit. Her hand grasped the side of his face, rough stubble scratching her fingers and palm, as she parted her lips and deepened the kiss between them. He groaned against her mouth, one of his hands slipping around the back of her neck to hold her as the other fell from her face to catch her waist and grip her—blunt nails digging into her gown and piercing her through the fabric.

Her mind snapped back into itself before things went too far, and she tugged herself free of his grasp.

Quickly, Galadriel turned away from him and hurried down the corridor. She passed by Elendil near one of the archways on the left, and despite his look of confusion, she said nothing and kept walking.

She did not hear Halbrand’s footsteps following her. She made it all the way back to her chambers and shut the door, falling into it and breathing heavily through her mouth.

In the reflection of the mirror across the room, Galadriel could see her disheveled hair, her reddened cheeks, her bruised lips. She stood there, laying helpless against the door, watching herself heave in every breath and shake from head to toe like a trembling doe. Galadriel of the Noldor, the once great Commander of the Northern Armies under High King Gil-Galad, reduced to this—a blushing maiden who did not know what to do with herself around a man.

Only he was not just any man. He was so much more than that, and underneath it all, that was the terrifying part of the revelation. He was a monster capable of such terrible things, and yet . . .

. . . Was that all he was? A monster? She had seen more to him than that. A part her even hoped he was capable of it again—what he had been before he was a monster. Before he was Sauron, he had been Mairon—and he had been Mairon for much longer than the former, hadn’t he?

Could he be that again?

Galadriel sat down at her vanity, half numb to her own thoughts, as she stared into its mirror and barely recognized her own face. Belatedly, she reached for a brush and combed it through her hair to straighten the unruly locks. When she was done, she placed the brushed onto the vanity so softly it did not make a sound. She was not sure how much time had passed between that moment and the next as she stared at herself until a knock came at her door and broke her from her reverie—a soft rap of knuckles barely there, which she almost did not hear.

A soft gasp escaped her lips, and she turned toward it. She knew who it was on the other side.

Galadriel did not bother to invite him into her quarters. She rose from her seat, approaching the door. The handle felt cold between her fingertips, but she closed them around it and opened it.

Halbrand stood there. His usual tallness seemed shrunken by comparison to what she was used to seeing from him, especially with his slouched shoulders and the way he leaned into her doorway. It was silent for a long moment between them where neither of them spoke. Given her quietness, Halbrand chose to be the first.

“Will you please return to the feast with me, Lady Galadriel?” he inquired in the softest tone possible, extending his hand out to her and holding it there over the threshold between them. “We only had the chance to dance together one time. If it pleases you, I was hoping there might be more.”

Galadriel glanced down at his hand. “You could dance with any of the women there,” she replied. It was meant to be an offhand comment, but even saying the words herself stung her heart.

Halbrand’s return smile was amicable, but cheerless. “I can’t,” he said. “They’ve all refused. I think they’re afraid you’ll place a curse on them if they do.”

Galadriel met his eyes. “I could continue to dance with other men and lay their concerns to rest,” she suggested.

Halbrand hummed in response, his eyes sparking alive at her words. “Hmm, I thought we were avoiding bloodshed for the evening. Isn’t this a happy day?”

“Bloodshed?” Galadriel inquired, feeling her heart beat quicken again. “Over my dancing with other men?”

Halbrand lowered his hand and stepped over the threshold of her door. His presence suddenly seemed taller now and all-encompassing as he stood there before her at full height. Galadriel held his gaze and did not step back. “You don’t really want me to dance with other women,” he said, “and I don’t really want you to dance with other men, so why not us be honest with each other about it and quit playing these silly games?”

A part of Galadriel did not like being called out in such a manner, but at the same time, he was right.

Words, she was beginning to find, were becoming useless against him.

She glanced down at the space between them to see his hand outstretched once more, waiting for her to take it. Galadriel considered all of the possible outcomes, but foremost in her mind was this—perhaps if she kept him close, she could mold him, temper him, as he tempered those materials in the fires of his forge. A spirit could be just as malleable as material in one’s hands with the right handiwork and the right state of mind, and if she had saved Halbrand’s life only to abandon him now, what would happen next? What would happen to him? To the people of Pelargir? To Elendil and his sons and his men?

Galadriel could hear the words Halbrand had spoken to her in the bed that day as she had lain there, pouring her life force into his body to prevent the fate, it seemed, the Valar had wanted to bestow upon him—and, potentially, still might have sought. If you saved Sauron, then let go of my hand, he had whispered to her. Walk away, and leave me be. Pick a direction. Any direction. As long as it’s not here. Go far, far away from this place. Stop tormenting me, and I will be all that you believe me to be—who I was always destined to be. Galadriel closed her eyes. But if you saved Halbrand, then stay with me, please. Stay with me.

His hand was still there between them when she opened her eyes again to look. Still outstretched, still waiting for her, and so Galadriel took a deep breath as she reached out and slid her fingers into the grooves of his hand, her palm against his palm.

Hand in hand, Galadriel returned to the feast with Halbrand.

It was the beginning of something else altogether.

Chapter Text

* * *

No thorns go as deep as a rose’s, and love is more cruel than lust.

— Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs”

* * *

It was a curious position to be in, and in such company no less, but Galadriel was warm from the wine, draped over the corner of a chaise with a soft throw blanket pulled over her lap as she leaned back into the cushions. There, on the floor, was Halbrand, lying sprawled out. His head halfway laid on a pillow he had taken from one of the lounge chairs and brought down to the floor with him. A blanket rested beside him as well, but he was not using it. Right now, his eyes were closed, but Galadriel knew he was not asleep. Half of the citadel were either deep in their cups or fast asleep from too many of them, and they had left the feast and found themselves in each other’s company still.

There were many questions still lingering in the back of her mind as she appraised him from her seat on the chaise, drawing the blanket a little further up her body. Halbrand sensed it, smiling from his position on the floor, though he never opened his eyes.

“Is something on your mind?” he asked her, and Galadriel tilted her head to the side as she watched him.

“Yes,” she admitted, “there is something troubling me.”

“Go on.”

Galadriel’s eyes fell to his chest, watching as it rose and fell with each breath he took. “You said you wanted nothing from the people of Pelargir, but you promised land and a fresh start for Elendil and his people when they got here. What were you planning on doing after you had fulfilled your end of the bargain?”

Still, Halbrand did not open his eyes. He was quiet at first. “Does it matter now?”

“Yes,” she said softly, “it matters to me.”

Halbrand sighed deep in his chest, his eyes fluttering open and focusing on a point on top of the ceiling above him. “Why does it matter now?”

Galadriel pressed onward, the wine making her braver. “Was your plan to give them the land and disappear afterwards?”

“You’re going to make me think about this now?” Halbrand posed back at her. “Whatever I was going to do, I’m not going to do it now. Things have changed. I’m on a different path.” He fell silent for a beat, staring upward at the ceiling still. “Is that enough for you?”

“What path are you on now?”

Halbrand chuckled deep in his chest, the sound rumbling him all over as he shifted, craning his neck, to look at her. “The one you put me on,” he said knowingly, an uncomfortable gleam in his eyes, “for a second time. You want me to be their king, and so I am their king. This path requires me to stay here.” He stared at her for a long moment, shifting further onto his side. “With you.”

Galadriel knew the answer he would not say out loud. “You would have gone back to Mordor—”

“Don’t say it, Galadriel,” he admonished her. “You’ll ruin a perfectly good moment.”

He was right, but that did not stop her. “It is true, though, is it not?”

Halbrand rolled over onto his side, mussing up his hair in the process. He did not seem to have a care in the world how it fell over his forehead into his eyes. He stared up at her from his prone position across the floor. “Yes, it’s true,” he admitted. “I would’ve gone back to Mordor. Where else would I have gone?”

Galadriel knew these were dangerous waters, but it did not stop her from traversing them. “I wanted to hear you say it.”

He cut his eyes at her. “Why? Another mark you can hold against me? Why do we keep coming back here, Galadriel? What’s the point of it all?”

“You did more than just sink Númenor,” Galadriel whispered back at him. “You killed many of my kinsmen, and Celebrimbor—”

Halbrand rolled onto his back again, his gaze returning to the ceiling. “—Was in my way. Same as all the rest.”

“For rings?” she hissed. “For power?”

“You misunderstand me,” Halbrand murmured, his eyes focused above his head with an unsettling precision. Those same words he had whispered to her in her cell in Númenor. “You have always misunderstood me, Galadriel. You know, I never really wanted all three of the rings. I just wanted one of them.”

“What do you mean?”

He huffed in amusement, chuckling afterwards. “I wanted your ring, Galadriel. All along, all I wanted was yours.”

Her heart seized in her chest as she drew in a soft gasp, her fingers clutching hard into the blanket she held in her grip. She had never expected for him to admit to it, to say it out loud so plainly to her—and here she was, within his grasp, her ring as well, and he was doing nothing about it. Back in Númenor, he had taken possession of her ring, but she had noticed nothing out of the ordinary about it since it was returned to her—nor anything out of the ordinary when it came to her own mind. She felt no outer influence pushing its way in, but then she had to wonder—if he had, if he had succeeded, would she ever even know?

Her voice, when she spoke, trembled on every word. “You wanted to control me?”

“Yes,” he admitted with ease. “I wanted to control you. I wanted to own you. I wanted you under my thumb, unable to move unless I said so.” Halbrand sighed, closing his eyes. “I was bitter. Angry. Maybe even something much worse than that, and darker. For many years, it plagued my mind. I could think of nothing else. My thoughts went to places I am not proud of, but when I saw you in that cell in Númenor, I thought . . . ” His voice trailed off, eyes reopening to stare upward. “I thought I could talk to you. I thought I could make sense of it all. I thought you might even listen to me.”

Galadriel looked down at her ring into the hazy, cool sparkle of the stone in the center of Nenya. Nervously, she twisted it upon her finger. “You tortured and murdered Celebrimbor to get to me?”

“A perfectly good evening,” Halbrand shot back, “like I said.” He sat up, turning around to glare at her. “Is that what you want to do tonight? Dredge up the past and scream about it until our throats are raw?”

“You killed him,” Galadriel repeated with force behind every word, “to get to me.”

His eyes were cold. “Yes,” Halbrand said, “I did.” He pushed himself up onto one of his knees, palm flat against it, and rose to his feet. It took no time at all for him to close the little amount of space between them as he crossed the floor and knelt in front of her, his hands pressing into the cushions on either side of Galadriel’s body. Halbrand was tall enough that his eyes were level with hers, twinkling with some unseen mischief and a spark of something more. “I tortured him,” he whispered, staring directly into her eyes as he said it, “and I killed him, and I did it all to find you and your ring. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that enough to quench your curiosity, or do you want more?”

“Did you do something to my ring in Númenor?”

Halbrand laughed, his eyes glittering with mirth as they crinkled at the corners. “No,” he said, “I realized a long time ago it was pointless trying to find a way to control you, so I gave up. It’s part of the reason why I went to Númenor. I had nothing else holding me back anymore. It was a death wish, in truth, though I knew it might not hold. I knew I was going to go down, though, and I designed to take all of Númenor down with me.” A serene quality entered his gaze, glazing over his irises as he stared at her. “I imagined myself drowning in the sea with them,” he divulged. “The dreams plagued me every night.” Halbrand paused, raising a hand between them and pointing a single finger at her face. “When you showed up, everything changed.”

“You had my ring, though,” Galadriel reminded him. “You kept it from me.”

“Precautionary measure, I must admit.”

“Did you do something to my ring?”

Halbrand’s deep chuckle resonated through his chest, and he tipped forward by accident, seeming to lose a little of his balance—but he caught himself on the chaise and straightened his back as he stared at her, none of the amusement gone from his face. “Kiss me,” he murmured all of a sudden.

Galadriel was taken aback. “What?”

He laughed this time, a full throaty rumble. “I command you,” he teased, “to kiss me.”

“No,” she shot back.

His laugh was near hysterical now as he fell into her, clearly drunker than she thought he was earlier. “If I had done something to your ring,” he reasoned between laughs, “couldn’t I just control you? Make you do whatever I wanted you to do?”

“Well, yes—”

“Well, then do it,” he said, his voice breaking. He fell forward into her lap, his head lolling to rest there as his hands clutched into the blanket around her, bunching up bits of fabric into his fists. “Love me.”

Galadriel did not know what to say. She was frozen in place, his head in her lap and his hands reaching for her through the blanket. He found her thighs—though it felt as if miles and miles of fabric laid between them, separating his touch from fully feeling her body—and he gripped them tight with both hands, burying himself further into the ruched material around her body until he was practically laying on top of her. She was still, so still, her hand hovering over his shoulder as if to push him away.

Her hand faltered, though, and never made contact. It hung there in the air, unsure of what to do.

“I am,” Halbrand muttered, his voice smothered by the blanket against his lips, “one of the foulest creatures, and I have done unspeakable things. I see them always in my mind’s eye, staring back at me. A thousand faces in judgment.” He turned his head against her lap, facing downward, and drew in a deep breath. “What’s one more, Galadriel? Tell me, what’s one more against a thousand? What’s one more . . . ”

His voice trailed off. Tentatively, her hand hovered just above his hair. He did not deserve it. He did not deserve an ounce of her kindness—but her hand betrayed her heart, and it laid itself against the messy crown of his burnished locks. Halbrand sucked in a noisy breath through his teeth at the touch, rolling his head into her palm. Galadriel combed her fingers through his hair, and a soft sigh slipped out from between his lips.

He pressed into the touch of her hand, a small sound escaping his throat, and she felt his fists tugging at the blanket in her lap. He managed to remove it, pushing it off to the corner of the chaise, before his hands returned to her dress and dragged it up her legs, hot palms running up the smooth skin of her calves and up her knees and over her thighs. While she was sober again by now, he was still drunk from an overindulgence in the wine. “Halbrand—”

His lips pressed first against the inner corner of her knee, silencing all thought. His sharp stubble grazed her naked flesh as he dragged himself upward, laying kisses along the way and leading himself further up her thigh, his tongue snaking out to sweep at the salt of her skin. Another kiss was laid upon her, higher up her thigh, too close for comfort to be anything suitable between them—he was drunk, and they were not married. This was not proper. It was not appropriate.

“Halbrand—” she tried again, but to no avail.

His tongue laid full against her thigh, swiping upwards, and she shuddered hard—her hands shot out, both of them, and her fingers carded through his hair—grasping him by it and pushing backwards on his head.

Galadriel held him like that, both hands clutching in his hair and forcing his head to tip back away from her, and Halbrand only stared back at her with his mouth half open and his eyes clouded with lust.

“You are drunk,” she reiterated, “and this is not appropriate.”

His eyelids seemed to grow heavier as he stared back at her. “Would you let me,” he asked, his words slurring together only slightly, “if I was not drunk?”

Her mouth fell open as she tried to reason with it, but that was a damning question. “Maybe—” No, she thought. Galadriel shut her eyes. “I do not know—”

When she dared to open them again, the look on Halbrand’s face had not changed, except that his expression had softened some. His mouth still hung open, his eyes glazed over from a mixture of the wine and the yearning that he felt. Despite her fingers still gripping fast against his scalp, he pressed his palms down against the cushions below her body and climbed onto the chaise with her—clunky, arduous movements punctuated only by the careful way in which he straddled her lap with a knee on either side instead of trying to sidle his way between her legs and the bunched up material of her dress. His boots, thankfully, had been discarded by the door hours ago. He was heavy above her, and the weight of him only just started to settle into the corners of her mind as well as against her slight frame.

“Halbrand, what are you—”

He chuckled low in his throat, falling down upon her suddenly. The weight of him was both a comforting and a terrifying thing, and Galadriel released his hair, her hands falling to his shoulders and gripping him there. She wanted to push at him, to push him away, but then Halbrand nestled his head into the crook of her neck and collarbone, his stubble scratching the bare skin above the hem of her dress. He hummed against her, long and slow, and nuzzled himself deeper until his nose and mouth were pressed at the pulse point in her throat.

His body slid off to the side against the back of the chaise, though he was still halfway draped over her. He kept her close to him with an arm around her waist, his forearm running up the side of her body and his hand grasping her torso beneath her arm but beside her bosom. “I have you,” he whispered against her flesh, sending a chill down her spine. “I have you in my grasp, and I can rip every piece of clothing from your body and ravage you like a wild beast and taste every drop of your sweet honey—that’s what your afraid of, isn’t it? Is that why you tremble, Galadriel? That if I wanted to, I could, and you couldn’t stop me? You wouldn’t stop me, would you? Oh, with your words, yes, but you wouldn’t really stop me. You would let me sink every inch of myself into you and defile you and devour you whole—”

Galadriel gasped toward the ceiling, feeling his mouth close around her throat, and then his teeth bit down on her—not breaking the flesh, but biting hard enough to mark her and leave a bruise in the morning.

And then, all of a sudden, his teeth released her.

“But I won’t,” Halbrand whispered under his breath, his voice shattering like a hundred shards of glass. He shook his head. “I won’t do it. It’s not what I want—” He drew in a painful hiss, and Galadriel heard a mewling sound leave him, and he tried to suppress the whimper as best as he could. “I don’t want you broken and sobbing, begging for any recourse other than me—anything other than me.” He inhaled sharply, and Galadriel felt the hot, wet tears land on her collarbone. “I want your love. Your adoration, and I don’t know how to earn it. I don’t know what to do other than everything you tell me to do.”

He cupped her face, burying his own into her neck. Her hand slid over his knuckles, and she grasped his fingers, holding them tightly. He held her fast, refusing to let go.

“You keep questioning me,” Halbrand breathed out against her skin, “when you have all the control. Don’t you see that, Galadriel? You have all the control.”

She stilled in his arms, letting his words wash over her as his hot breath washed over her skin, and lost herself in the moment. She wound her arms around his head and neck, encircling them both in a sweeping embrace, to hold him to her, a sharp pang cutting through her chest at the gasp he exhaled across her flesh. He kissed her, the softest touch of fragile lips to the base of her clavicle, before nestling his face against her throat once more. She trembled at it, of course, and she wanted to ask him to touch her, to graze his fingers against the damp gusset of the cloth between her legs and slide them beneath it and touch her, rub her, dip his fingers inside of her and kiss her until she could not breathe.

Instead, she stared at the ceiling, heaving out each unruly breath through her mouth until her chest might collapse from it. He was right. She would not stop him. She might say no, but she would never stop him.

“I will do all that you ask me to do,” he murmured there in the quiet space between them, his voice muffled by the way in which he smothered himself with her. “You need only say the word, Galadriel. I will do it for you—” His lips closed around her throat again, a broken groan arresting him as he rolled his hips into hers for the friction of it. There was so much clothing between them, it was maddening.

Was he reading her mind? Galadriel’s thoughts flitted with it, wondering if he was peering into them now and entreating her to act upon them. Her fingers raked through his hair, and he moaned softly this time, pressing into the touch.

“Don’t you see, Galadriel,” he whispered. “I am yours to command. Don’t you see? Tell me you see . . . ”

“I see,” she whispered back, and suddenly, he lifted his head from the crook of her neck.

Halbrand stared at her, his eyes glassy and his hair mussed in disarray, even with her fingers still in it. Perhaps because of them. He regarded her with a hint of disbelief until she combed her fingers backwards through his hair to smooth it down and nodded her head up at him as he hovered above her.

“I see,” Galadriel repeated softly, her voice nearly lost to her. “I . . . ”

His gaze fell from her eyes to her mouth, and he shifted his weight onto one of his arms to reach up with the hand on her side and trace her chin with his fingertip. “What would you command of me?”

Galadriel sought the answer in her mind, knowing it was still too soon. All of it was still too soon. She needed more time. She—

“Hold me,” she uttered before she could think against it. She drew in a sharp gasp at her own brash behavior, noting how his gaze lifted back up her face to meet her eyes. His expression softened, though, holding none of the mockery she half expected from him. He smiled down at her in his haze instead, an open look of adoration written across every feature of his face.

He lowered himself back in the corner between her body and the back of the chaise, remaining half draped over her slight frame, his arm coiling around her middle and shifting her until they were a comfortable pair side by side. His head rested down against the plane of her chest, settling in the space right above her heart.

“Of course,” he whispered against her, and she never thought of his name because he did not feel like his name anymore. He felt like a being much greater than any name she could bestow upon him, and even though it had taken her power to heal him, she knew he was still not at the full capability of all his facilities he once held before the wrath of those greater than him had struck him down in the Sundering Seas.

However, he was still much more than a name, even as he deigned to be commanded by the likes of her—a Noldorin Elf, but an Elf all the same, much lesser in stature than him, one of the primordial spirits whose hands helped shape the very world they now occupied here on this little chaise in Pelargir. His will and might was greater than hers, and it would always be so, but for a moment, she could forget all of that and close her eyes and just pretend he was Halbrand, King of the Southlands and King of Pelargir, a mortal man in love in with an Elven woman.

“I have seen much in my long existence,” he murmured there above her chest, his fingers toying with the fabric of her dress, and the dream was cut short. Galadriel opened her eyes, and just like that, the dream was gone. “Most of it is black deeds committed in the darkness, and I, too, have my fair share of them. But your light—” He sighed, his fingers ceasing their agitated movements with her dress and his hand grasping onto her in full. “—I would chase it to the ends of this world, even to bask in your warmth from afar.”

It frightened Galadriel to hear him express himself in such a manner. Maybe it was the wine, and maybe he had had too much of it, but wine had a way of drawing out the truth from those who drank too much of it. She had no reason to doubt the veracity of his claims, nor his ardency behind them—not in a moment like this one. Perhaps in Númenor, back in her cell, she could look upon him with doubt about the nature of his motives, but here on this chaise with his heart on his sleeve in a way she had not seen it displayed to her before, she found doubt within her doubts, and her grip clutched with a biting force into the shoulders of his tunic.

“Will you promise,” Galadriel found herself whispering, the words spilling from her unbidden, “to be good to the people of Pelargir? To treat them well and take care of them? To be a good king?”

“I will be whatever you command me to be,” he murmured, “if it allows me to stay close with you.”

The admission sent a chill down her spine, causing her to shudder all the way through to her toes. The fine hairs on the back of her neck seemed to stand up as if a wash of cold air had been blown upon her. She did not know whether the words should flatter her or frighten her. It was entirely possible that it was both she was feeling.

“Is that enough for you?”

His voice startled her from her thoughts, and she glanced down at his face gazing up at her from her chest. The intimate way in which he held her coupled with the way in which he looked at her burned her from the inside out like an unquenchable fire. She opened her mouth to speak, stuttering on her own breath.

“Yes,” she breathed out—a final agreement spoken aloud—and his eyes lit up like a flame.

He lifted himself until his face reached hers and his lips caught her own in a brush that was barely there. Not a true kiss, in fact, and barely even a caress. The graze was so soft she barely even felt it in comparison to the weight of his body above hers.

He pulled back from her, and he did not quite smile, but it was there in his eyes, and he laid himself back down against her body and held her tight, his arm encompassing her in a firm embrace.

He laid there with her, holding her, and he never said another word.

Chapter Text

* * *

With thee conversing I forget all time:
All seasons and their change, all please alike.

— John Milton, Eve to Adam in “Paradise Lost”

* * *

The smell of sea air was crisp and sharp up at the top of the cliff face overseeing the city of Pelargir below. The winds from the shorelines came in strong and whipped through the tall grass, creating an undulating flourish of vibrant green across her vision, but her eyes were set on the sea and white foam rushing in with the waves.

Three years had passed since that night on the chaise with Halbrand in which she had agreed to stay here in Pelargir with him. For an Elf such as Galadriel, the time that had passed since then was a blink of an eye. She had closed her eyes and opened them to find all that time, which would have been crucial to a mortal’s life, had brought her here to this moment to contemplate her own life and the path she had set herself upon all those years ago.

Halbrand had remained true to his word. He had been a good king to his people. Pelargir prospered under his reign, growing stronger every day, and their alliances with Elendil’s sons in the North made all three of the kingdoms a unified front against any invaders or enemies. In the time since their departure from Pelargir, Isildur and Anárion had safely traversed the Anduin River to the mountain pass between the Ered Nimrais, the White Mountains in the West, and the Ephel Dúath, the Ash Mountains in the East, which bordered the land of Mordor.

Anárion established the city of Minas Anor in the Ered Nimrais on Mount Mindolluin, while Isildur built the city of Minas Ithil on the slopes of the Ephel Dúath as a purposeful threat against Mordor. Together, the brothers guarded the mountain pass and held control over all passage through them. Elendil had spoken many times of traveling further North eventually, but so far, he had not left Pelargir. He had decided to stay along with many other Númenóreans who chose not to depart and join Isildur or Anárion in the North. Even Eärien had made the choice to stay behind with her father, just as Valandil had chosen to stay behind with the king’s guard in Pelargir as well.

Elendil had used the palantíri to speak with his sons across the far distances between them. He had also gifted one of the palantír to Halbrand to keep here in Pelargir, a move that Galadriel had not liked at first—but her worries proved, so far, unfounded in the grand scheme of things. Despite her misgivings towards Halbrand’s possession of such a powerful item, Galadriel had not seen him abusing it. Nor had anything come of the rings Theo and Valandil wore, the ones given to them as gifts by Halbrand. The men went on with their lives as if everything was normal. They ate, they drank, they laughed, and they slept. They helped the people of Pelargir, the same as Halbrand had done. Theo often stood up for the younger men who were picked on when they were entreated to join the ranks of the guards or the soldiers, and Valandil proved to have a heart that extended to just deeds and kind words.

The Kingdom of Men flourished, and Halbrand was one third of the crux behind it.

Galadriel had served for these three years as an advisor to Halbrand with a position within the court and amongst the people that brought her much respectability, but sidelong looks often told her things were more complicated than that, and in all truth things were quite complicated between them still. She had yet to marry Halbrand, but he had also never asked for her hand.

Instead, he would follow her down empty corridors when no one was looking. He would push her against walls and kiss her until neither of them could breathe and had to pull away, gasping for air. He would bite and suck at her neck and leave bruises she would have to try and cover in the morning. He would grasp at her dress and try to lift it, slip his hand underneath the layers and layers—but always, always, Galadriel would grasp his wrist and stop him, and he would deflate—all of the air expending from him at once and leaving his chest, his shoulders slumping and his height going along with it as he fell into her, whispering and begging for forgiveness as he kissed away the bruises.

He had never once, though, asked for her hand.

He would slip into her room at night sometimes, too. His soft knock would come, alerting her to his presence, and she would say come in. She would always ask him if anyone saw him, and he would always say no. He would join her in her bed, sidle up next to her, and talk to her. Sometimes they would talk for hours before they fell asleep nestled safely in each other’s arms. Sometimes they would kiss, but they never went further. Galadriel would not allow it. In her mind it was because they were not wed, and in her heart she did not want to commit such a lapse in judgment again. She would be wed, and only then would the man she was wed to have her.

Still, he did not ask for her hand.

Three years was nothing to an Elf. It was a small glimpse of time barely acknowledgeable, and it had to have been the same for Halbrand as well—for he was not King Halbrand, the mortal man, but something much older. No mortal man would have put up with this for as long as Halbrand had, but his patience had proved to be one of his most admirable virtues. He was satisfied enough to hold her, to kiss her, to be near to her—and each year that had passed without him demanding Galadriel to sacrifice her virtue for his pleasure, the more Galadriel came to realize, with a startling clarity, that this was no game for him.

He had been lonely, and her presence and her company and her willingness to be his friend, if also something a little more as well, was enough to slake his loneliness and temper his worst urges. Halbrand did all that she commanded of him, and he did it with such a precision that he was most successful at it. Every challenge she had placed before him, he had smiled—and he had done it.

Still, he had not asked for her hand.

Galadriel cut her gaze away from the sea to look inland again down at the city of Pelargir with its rusty terracotta roofs and sun-stained white walls. A gasp seized her chest as she spotted the two ships docking into the harbor.

Isildur and Anárion, she thought, hurrying over to her horse and hoisting herself upon his back. Galadriel grasped the reins and snapped them, sending her horse galloping at high speed across the tall grass of the summit back toward the slopes behind her.

The race back to Pelargir took enough time that when she reached the gates, Galadriel knew that Isildur and Anárion had disembarked from their ships and traveled to the citadel by now, so she cut through the streets directly to its doors.

She dismounted her horse there, and then rushed inside with her lungs burning from the excitement of the moment. They had, of course, had visits from Isildur and Anárion before, but this visit was different. The brothers were bringing with them their families—their children and wives—to visit Elendil and let him see his two new grandchildren.

Galadriel hurried through the citadel before she caught wind of the voices and the laughter echoing down from one of the hallways, and quickly, she turned toward it and hastened her way in that direction.

As she came around the corner of the open doors to the chambers, the sight within arrested her.

Halbrand stood there, in full view of the sun pouring in through the clear glass of the wide archways of the windows facing the West, the angle landing him half in shadow and half in light. There, in his arms, he held a small babe wrapped in a bundle of ivory with blue trim. There was a grin on his face, too, as he looked down at the little child in his arms and, gently, bounced the babe in a comforting gesture.

He noticed her and looked up from the little life in his hands and smiled at her—a genuine smile, his teeth showing behind the curve of his lips. “Galadriel,” he announced, “there you are. I was wondering when you would join us.”

There were many others in the room as well. They all looked in her direction, too—Isildur, Anárion, Eärien, Elendil, Valandil, Theo, and Bronwyn just to name the faces that she knew at first glance. Isildur and Anárion’s wives were also there, and so were their eldest children—a boy and girl, both no more than maybe two years in mortal time. Elendil himself held the other little babe—another girl, if the pink trim on her ivory bundle meant anything, which meant the one that Halbrand held must have been a boy for the blue.

“Apologies for my tardiness,” Galadriel told them. “I was out riding in the fields.”

“None necessary,” Isildur said with a smile. “It is good to see you again, Lady Galadriel. Allow me to introduce my sons.” He nodded his head at the toddler. “That is Elendur, my eldest, and that one—” Isildur tipped his head toward Halbrand. “—Is Aratan, our newest blessing.”

Anárion laughed in response. “No sons for me yet,” he announced. “Two strapping girls, and my eldest—” Anárion pointed at the little girl chasing Elendur around in circles, the two of them laughing and squealing. “—She is a handful, a devil if I may say so myself!”

“She gets that from you,” Isildur jested, and Anárion shot him a look.

“No, she doesn’t,” Anárion argued, but Elendil cut in next.

“Yes, she does,” Elendil said knowingly—like a father who has dealt with it his whole life.

Anárion had the decency to look mildly ashamed and not to argue with his father, and Elendil passed the little girl in his arms back to her mother. Halbrand spoke next—to Galadriel, though he was not looking at her. His eyes remained fixed on the little bundle in his arms. “Would you like to hold him, Galadriel?”

Galadriel found herself struck by the words. In silence she approached his side and nodded her head when he raised his eyes to her at last. Slowly, without words, Halbrand passed the little babe into her awaiting arms with a care that Galadriel had not ever seen from him before in any of the years she had lived with him here in Pelargir. Holding the small child caused a strange feeling to grow in her chest, traveling upwards like an ache in her throat, and she swallowed it down as she gazed at the babe’s sleepy face, his eyes closed once more.

“So, when is the wedding?” Anárion called out, a grin in his voice, his question breaking the sanctity of the moment. Galadriel glanced up, feeling at once a heat rising into her cheeks at the implication of what he meant by it. Her gaze flitted to Halbrand beside her, who was staring at Anárion with a curious expression on his face—a silent challenge, half of it incensed with an indescribable emotion.

Isildur quickly slapped his brother in the chest. “Anárion jests,” he said louder than his brother, laughing afterwards, to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen upon the room.

“No, I don’t—” Anárion countered him, but Elendil cut in to salvage the moment.

“King Halbrand must choose a wife carefully, Anárion,” Elendil explained. “Kings have much more to consider in a match when it comes to their kingdoms than lords and nobles and common folk combined.”

“I thought one married for love,” Anárion fought back. “My wife and I married for that.” Anárion tipped his head toward Halbrand and Galadriel. “It is no secret these two are—”

“Anárion.”

“Oh, scoff at me for speaking the truth everyone is thinking!” Anárion shot at his father. “King Halbrand needs heirs as much as me and Isildur, if not more—”

“Let us not ruin such a happy moment,” Isildur cut in, interrupting his brother. “We are here to celebrate life and family and alliances, are we not? Let us not focus on debates and meager squabbles.”

Galadriel was not sure she could handle any more of this conversation. Quickly, she approached Isildur’s wife and handed the babe back to her.

“If you will excuse me,” Galadriel told them with a fraught smile, turning away from the crowd of people in the room and the eyes upon her.

She left the chambers and heard the sound of footsteps behind her, half fearing it was Halbrand who followed her.

It was not.

“Lady Galadriel,” Elendil called out, and she halted in her steps, closing her eyes.

“Yes, Elendil?” she responded, opening her eyes again.

“Please forgive my son,” Elendil entreated, reaching her side and walking around to stand in front of her. His expression was true. “He means well. He only speaks what many people have been wondering about for some time now.”

“Pray tell,” Galadriel inquired with a bite to her voice, “what is that?”

Elendil’s expression softened, his voice lowering in turn. “It is no secret amongst the people of your closeness with the king and the affection between the two of you. The people wonder why the two of you have not wed, and questions have been abound for some time about why he has not made an effort to secure his kingdom with an heir—”

“—I fail to see what this has to do with me.”

Elendil’s face fell. “You love him, do you not?”

Galadriel’s jaw tightened, a tremble beginning in her bottom lip. Why here? Why now? Were the fates laughing at her for the predicament she had found herself in?

When she answered him at last, her voice was terse. “He has not asked for my hand, Elendil. It is as simple as that.”

A light of recognition went off behind Elendil’s eyes. “Is that it?”

Her terseness disappeared, replaced with a quiet resignation. “Yes, that is it.”

“Oh, what a fool . . . ”

Galadriel felt the hot sting of tears fill her eyes until Elendil’s face was a blur before her.

“I could talk to him,” Elendil suggested softly. “If that would please you, Lady Galadriel.”

She said nothing. Only closed her eyes, the tears cascading silently down her cheeks.

“There is much love between you and the king,” Elendil assured her. “I have seen it with my own eyes. I know it’s true. I know it’s there. A marriage would bring peace and stability to the kingdom and put the minds of the citizens to rest. The threat of Mordor is gone, leaderless. These lands are ours now, and we should—we should protect them. Ensure our future.”

“I do not know that is my future, Elendil.”

Elendil stepped closer to her, and Galadriel opened her eyes. “You love each other,” he said quietly. “It is your future if you want it to be.” He reached out for her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I will talk to him.”

“Not today, please,” Galadriel said, carefully wiping the tears from her cheeks. “This is a day for you and your sons, Elendil. Do not make it about anything else.”

With that, Elendil nodded his head before bowing it at her, and then he stepped back from Galadriel to make his way around her and return to his sons and his grandchildren.

Their laughter echoed throughout the hall behind her, and Galadriel closed her eyes once more before turning from the sound and walking away from it at last.

* * *

A knock came at her door that evening while she was tucked in bed and staring at the ceiling, and Galadriel knew what it meant as she turned on her side toward it—it meant the same thing every time, so she called out across her chambers, “Come in.”

The door clicked open and creaked softly as Halbrand’s face became visible beyond the darkness of the threshold. He looked at her directly before he crept into the room and shut the door behind himself with another click.

After the talk from earlier in the day and the dinner that superseded it, the sight of his face in the darkness stirred a sort of discomfort inside of her. Halbrand seemed not to notice it, though, as he crossed the room and reached her bed, his hand grasping for the covers like they were his own. He pulled them back and climbed into the bed with her, wasting no time at all to slide his arm along her middle and pull her close. His forearm passed over her chest, hand reaching her shoulder and clasping it.

His body molded easily against her own, a fluid fit with his chest pressed against her back and his legs slotted against the fold of her own. She felt his knees press just so into the backs of hers, causing her to bend them further in response, and he nestled closer to her until Galadriel realized that was his goal—to have her pressed into him like she was sitting in his lap as they laid there together wrapped up in a warm, comforting but slightly compromising embrace.

Her face flushed hot in the darkness, though he could not see it. She was grateful for that small reprieve.

Thankfully, her nightgown was thick and long and so was his tunic, and he wore simple cloth pants comfortable enough for sleeping as well as his robe, which he did not take off before lying down with her. It mitigated the compromising position, if only a little, and then she felt his other hand—pressed against her upper back along with his forearm—reach up between them. His fingers soothingly curled her hair out of the way of her neck, pulling it aside and baring it, to give him access to place his mouth there, his nose tickling her nape with the barest of touches. He breathed through his lips against her flesh, sending a ripple down the center of her back and up into her scalp.

Galadriel felt his lips press softly against the nape of her neck, and she wondered at this change in him. Usually, they talked first. Sometimes, they would just fall asleep—but they never started with this. They never started with this sort of intimacy. When his lips finally grazed her skin in the tender close of a kiss, Galadriel exhaled a small, little gasp, feeling the arm around her chest tighten and his fingers clutch into her shoulder, nails biting deep through her gown.

“What is on your mind?” she whispered to the dark in front of her, and Halbrand hummed, long and slow, against her neck—drawing out a shudder from her.

“It’s quite simple,” he murmured as soon as his lips broke contact with her skin. She felt his body withdraw from hers, and the sudden loss of warmth caused an ache deep within her, for his warmth she was now accustomed to—but then Halbrand’s arm pulled her onto her back, and he climbed on top of her under the sheets. His disheveled hair was framed only slightly with a halo of bare illumination from the open windows across the room. It was so dark without a single candle lit, but Galadriel preferred no curtains to let in the diffused, cool gleam of night into her chambers. It reminded her of home.

“This is hardly simple,” Galadriel whispered back to him, referring to what was between them. They had been playing at this for years, never quite crossing that line, for she knew the moment they did, there would be no going back. Of course, sometimes during their kisses, their hips met in unbecoming ways, undulating into each other like the tall grass on the cliff face in the striking wind of the coast—chasing friction with miles of cloth between them.

“I know,” Halbrand agreed softly, a hint of sympathy in his tone. He dipped down close to her, his lips hovering above her own. “Let me touch you,” he murmured, a wash of his breath gusting over her parted mouth, and her traitorous body rolled upward to chase it as the heat faded from her lips. Above her, he seemed to smile. “Let me show you,” he whispered next, and then before she could respond, his lips captured hers, a firm but steady kiss that melted away the last of the reservation inside of her.

Her answer was her hand, clasping the side of his face, the other burying itself in his hair, and the gentle parting of her legs between his own. He deepened the kiss, tongue snaking past of the opening of her lips, as he lifted one knee and gently urged her leg out from underneath him—and then he shifted off of his second knee, encouraging her other leg to spread further as well until he was a settled weight between them, his tongue a smooth, sweeping stroke along her own.

Galadriel weakened from it. As long as he remained like this, soft and yielding, she might find it hard in her to say no.

Her fingers tightened harder in his hair as his tongue swept deeper into her mouth, and she felt his hand between their bodies, sliding down the smooth outer material of her gown. He ran his hand down her thigh, cinching the fabric in his grip, as he continued to kiss her. It rose along her body with his hand until he had exposed her between them, his hand sliding down almost tentatively again to settle his fingertips upon the inner curve of her thigh. When his fingertips met with the downy curls between her legs, his mouth drew back from her, a hiss escaping him.

His eyes simmered with disbelief, glimmering in the dark with a cool spark behind them. “Why aren’t you wearing—”

“I—” Her mouth hung open. She did not know what to say. Galadriel never thought of it like that. She simply did not wear them at night. “I do not wear them to bed,” she replied, a little too breathlessly.

His eyes widened further. “Never?”

Galadriel shook her head. “Never,” she whispered back.

Halbrand’s gaze darkened, a deep hum resonating from the depths of his throat and reverberating through his chest, and his lips were upon her again—in a more arduous, zealous kiss, deeper than the one before, until both her arms were curled around his head to hold him in place above her as he smothered her with his mouth against hers, his lips bruising in their demands. His hand, by contrast, was feather light between their bodies, dropping low to cup her in the most intimate way. Another weaker moan filled him as his fingertips grazed her with the lightest touch imaginable. She shivered at the touch until his fingers dipped lower, and her whole body shook. He groaned into her mouth before breaking away, pressing his forehead against hers and breathing unevenly above her.

“Oh, you’re so soft,” he whispered in the air between them, adding a little more pressure and dipping further, creating a fine movement of his fingertips back and forth—still never breaking past the surface, encouraging a maddening desire in her for more touch, more movement, for this was not enough. Galadriel breathed erratically through her parted lips, still holding onto his head. “Oh, how I’ve missed this,” he murmured against her lips. “I still remember how you feel—every inch of you, surrounding me—to be one with you again—”

“We cannot—”

“No, no, we can’t,” he agreed breathlessly, not because it was his choice, but because he knew it was hers. “But I can touch you, yes? I can feel you? I can pleasure you—”

“Oh, yes—”

Halbrand made a feral sound deep in his throat, pushing his fingers at last between her, dipping them into the dampness past her soft skin. “Ah, a rare treasure,” he whispered. “All mine—”

Galadriel found herself enacting the unthinkable, hooking her legs around his body, and Halbrand groaned, slipping those fingers into her wetness to gather it on the tips before spreading it over that spot, and—

Oh.

He kissed her, slipping his tongue along her own and encircling that little bud between her legs with his fingertips, softly at first, and then adding pressure. He went between the two different motions until she rocked her hips in tune with his hand. It was a maddening dance filled with deep, penetrating kisses that smothered her, though his hand retained all the restraint in the world by comparison. When he broke apart from her, he sounded as though he could barely breathe with each panting gasp that escaped his lips.

“I’ve only had you the one time, Galadriel,” Halbrand whispered, “but I cannot get it out of my head. I cannot—I cannot escape it. I remember it as if it were yesterday, the way you feel. When you held me in that bed, I—” He dipped his finger inside of her, deep into her slickness, and it was only one, but she had abstained from this act for so long, and even his fingers were of a fair girth. Galadriel gasped, pushing down onto his hand, accepting the intrusion—welcoming it. “—I can give you this. I can give you more.” He thrust the finger into her the same time as his tongue pushed into her mouth, and Galadriel felt utterly assaulted by it, widening her legs further for him almost by instinct than anything else.

He whispered things against her lips with each slip and twist of his finger within her body. Sweet and foul alike, but none too crass as to break her from her blinding delight. So soft, he had whispered, so tight, you swallow me whole. Do you feel that? The pull? The little grip? The little drag? You don’t want to let me go. You want me inside of you. Do you want another? I can fill you. I can pleasure you. Just say the word, Galadriel. Just say it.

Yes, she had whispered, yes, please, another. I want another—

His moan was broken when he slipped a second finger inside of her—slowly, at first, to let her accommodate to it. Her gasp was immediate, and he swallowed it whole with his mouth over hers.

When he began moving them again, Galadriel felt her eyelids flutter and her vision give out briefly to a shutter of light as the feeling blossomed throughout her body. Her hips rolled in tune with his hand, their kisses growing more desperate and hungry. Unbidden to any train of rational thought, her arms left the clutch around his head to glide down his body and part his robe, slip beneath his tunic, and grasp the waistband of his pants.

Halbrand’s movements stuttered against her as he felt her hands pull back the fabric, one of them slipping inside and seeking him out. With her cool, slender fingers, she found him—coiling them around the heat of his length. The sensation felt foreign to her, for she could not remember the last time she held a man in her hand like this. Halbrand moaned deeply in response, rolling his hips into her hand, hot skin as smooth as velvet in her touch but as hard as steel.

They were rocking into each other, all hands and lips and a mess of limbs coiled too tight, his fingers working in and out of her heat.

He withdrew his fingers from within her, but not his tongue, and braced himself against the bed with his free hand as he reached between them inside his pants to gently nudge her hand out of the way. Galadriel released him, feeling him grasp himself and stroke his own manhood—and then he took her hand again, and placed it back upon his length. Galadriel hissed inward through her teeth all of a sudden, feeling the slickness of her own juices coating his shaft.

When she resumed the pump of her hand, the glide of her palm was made easy with the addition of her own desire, he shuddered all over from it.

Their lips broke apart long enough for her to gasp when his fingers pushed inside of her again, filling her once more, and the rock of their bodies continued in a sinuous movement, ever seeking the pinnacle of their release if their hands could get them there.

Galadriel was not sure how long she writhed beneath him like an unseemly creature, the tangle of the mouths no less greater than the tangle of their limbs, but when the light bloomed behind her eyes in a veil of blindness, her entire being wracked with sensation and overstimulation, even as she fell numb from it—the turbulent stirrings of her hips stilled beneath him, growing limp from a sudden weariness that seemed to creep up on her from nowhere. All but her hand, of course, which she still passed with vigor over his length, hoping to draw forth his own release.

He had to help her, reaching down between their bodies and guiding her hand until it encapsulated the head alone. He guided her thumb over the center at the tip, his hips jutting fiercely at the sensation as she first touched him there. Galadriel watched in wonder as his eyes seemed to roll back, the irises all gone—leaving nothing but white—and the ensuing thrust of his hips reminded her of how they had made love so many years ago.

She stroked him like that, teasing the tip with her thumb as he had shown her, until he was spilling himself into a mess of ropes across her fingers and into her palm—hot, sticky spurts of seed that filled her hand.

They were still in the aftermath. His kisses, when they returned, were tender, barely there brushes above her own lips.

He shifted off of her instead of attempting to seek anything further from her that night, falling into the space beside her on the bed and drawing her into his arms until her face was buried beneath his chin and his arm was around her body, holding her in place. Galadriel wiped her hand on the sheets and settled comfortably into his embrace, forgetting for a moment who he was—which was not to say she forgot his name, but at least, if only, one of them.

She closed her eyes, and fell asleep to the steady sound of his breathing.

Chapter Text

* * *

Who can give lovers laws?

— Boethius, “The Consolation of Philosophy”

* * *

The meeting they held with Isildur and Anárion in the following days was little more than a border and trade treatise to go over the division of the lands and how it would affect the settlements that rested in between the three cities they governed along the Anduin. Many of those who had been afflicted by attacks from the disbanded Orc forces out of Mordor had fled to seek shelter under the safety and comfort of the three banners in between the Kingdoms of Men. There were pockets of settlements everywhere across the map. Isildur pointed out the ones he had helped on the western side of the river, and Anárion pointed out the ones he helped on the eastern side. They marked all of the settlements on the map, and then they drew out routes from there.

Pelargir itself had taken over its own share of scattered settlements, which Halbrand showed them on the map and marked as well. Elendil, though no governor of his own city, offered advice as the seemingly eldest man in the room, and the others did not object to his input. Galadriel only half listened to what was being spoken of around her, and she offered her advice where it seemed most helpful, but in truth her mind was elsewhere.

Isildur and Anárion did not notice her mental absence, though Elendil cast his gaze in her direction a few times during the proceedings. He appeared to have noticed it before the rest of them, and Halbrand, in turn, noticed Elendil looking at Galadriel, which caused him to finally look at her as well.

“What do you think of that, Lady Galadriel?” Elendil asked out loud, and Galadriel could not recall the last few things that had been said between the men before her, which incited a small blush in her cheeks for having her mind so far away from what was at hand.

Galadriel opened her mouth to respond, her breath hitching on the loss of words in her throat, and Halbrand salvaged the moment to save her the inevitable embarrassment.

“I think that’s enough for the day,” Halbrand mused aloud, much louder than normal to get all of their attention back onto him, and it worked, of course. Isildur nodded in agreement, and so did Anárion, and before anything else could be said against his call, Isildur began to close the ledger on the table in front of him. Elendil looked uncomfortable, but his expression softened into a small smile, and he turned his attention to the papers in front of him to gather them together in a neat stack. Anárion helped with cleaning up the table to get everything orderly, but Halbrand stopped them before they could remove anything from the room. “Let’s leave all the paperwork and books here, so that we can reconvene on this tomorrow,” Halbrand suggested, and all of the men agreed either with nods or short words of approval, before gathering their personal things and making for the doors.

Galadriel, too, took it as a sign to rise from the table and leave the room, though she waited for the other men to be on their way first before standing from her chair. Before she could make it two steps toward the doors, Halbrand caught her arm with a gentle grasp, effectively halting her.

“Stay for a moment,” he asked her, his voice no more than a whisper between them, so the departing backs of Elendil, Isildur, and Anárion heard nothing behind them.

Galadriel glanced up at his face, meeting his eyes. After what had occurred between them a few nights ago and every night since, she was a little afraid of how he might react in public toward her now—though, it seemed, largely an unfounded fear. He had done nothing out of the ordinary since their intimacy, and she hoped he did not seek to embarrass her. Though, after the way he saved her a moment ago from such embarrassment, perhaps she ought to give him more credit. Galadriel found, more often than not, she gave him very little—and he always seemed to exceed her expectations in the aftermath. She was unfair to him in many ways. With each day, week, month, and year that passed between them, she came to see that more and more.

She answered him with a small nod of agreement, and his smile was soft and kind. His hand slackened on her elbow, though his fingers remained there in the crook of it, guiding Galadriel back to the table. She followed him, letting him guide her against all better judgment, until she felt his warm palm slide against her cheek. Her eyelids fluttering, Galadriel leaned into the touch, and his lips were upon hers in an instant, his other hand cupping her face as well. He moved against her, parting his lips in an attempt to deepen the kiss, hot fingers holding her cheeks and the warmth of his tongue inciting her to open her lips in response. The moment she did, he devoured her—pushing her against the table until her knees buckled out beneath her, his tongue delving into her mouth. Halbrand’s hands left her face to grasp her waist, hoisting her onto the surface of the table.

Instinctively, Galadriel parted her legs as she rose into the air and felt her bottom touch the solid surface, and Halbrand moved in between them to settled himself into the natural opening of her body—as if it was for him, and maybe, on some intuitive level, it was, though she would never admit it out loud. Maybe not even to herself either.

Galadriel clasped his neck and kissed him back, rushing against him like a tidal wave—and he pushed back at her with the same amount of force behind his own movements, wrapping his arms around her slight frame to hold her in place as he leaned over her and tipped them back. His grasp on her held her aloft and upright, but in a way, at his mercy. It was not a hold she could escape easily, though escape was the furthest thing from her mind.

With the comforting and all-encompassing way he held her and the heat of his mouth against her own, she could think of nothing else, nor did any part of her want to—she loved the way she melded into him, the way it felt natural to kiss him like this and dissolve at the slightest touch of him. The power he held over her was not of the mind, but one of the heart—and the longer she stayed with him, the stronger it grew within her until it was inescapable and consuming throughout her being. A single flame bursting into a conflagration that swept her away with it, and whenever it stopped burning, the warmth of the bed it left behind was one she would sleep upon in absolute peace—sated, content, and complete.

At home.

The sweep of his tongue filled her mouth, and she pulled him into her with a hard grip of nails into the nape of his neck, which he groaned deeply at in reply. Here, in public, on a table for anyone to walk in on and see, but Galadriel could not bring herself to care more than she desired to pull him into her—every kiss that followed more demanding than the one before it until her lips and his lips were swollen from it, their breathing ragged and uneven, their hands grasping for such purchase against it each other that at times it hurt, but it hurt with such a pleasure that they only gripped harder until nails bit through the skin or fingertips began to bruise.

At last, Halbrand broke away from her, half gasping, even as he descended on her neck with a ravenous appetite and his hands dragged lower across her body. Galadriel felt them tugging at her dress, pulling it upward, and she could not find the words in her to protest. She had allowed his fingers inside her more than once already—allowed them to breach her body and give her pleasure that only a husband should give in such an intimate manner, but it was already done. What was another time, or another after that? It hardly mattered now, not now that it was done, but by all logic, she had already let him inside her in other ways, too—the most intimate of all. She had allowed him to become one with her, the most unifying and binding of all acts between two lovers, even though it had been years since it had happened between them. It had still happened. She had still let him inside of her, and worst of all, she had allowed him to spend himself inside of her, too, though no child had ever come of that first union.

Why was she stopping him now?

All of these hit her at once, even as his fingers curled around the fabric of the thin garment separating them, pulling it back and slipping beneath it—they came to rest against her most intimately, light fingertips gliding along the sensitive flesh until she shuddered and shook against his touch. He closed his lips on her throat to kiss her before dragging his tongue along her skin with a maddening slowness. Galadriel gripped his neck tighter, nails digging deeper, until a volatile grunt answered her in return, reverberating against her throat.

His fingers swept along the dampness between her legs in little circles before dipping between it, and Galadriel opened her mouth to say something—maybe something about propriety and decency and how they were still in public, let us find somewhere else to go, but then his fingers dipped inside of her, two at the same time, hardly giving her a moment to breathe in response to the intrusion before the assault took all of her breath away at once.

Her legs parted further, an instinct to give him better access, and Halbrand groaned like some animal, quickening the pace of his fingers before they even made themselves at home, the invasion causing both an ache and a throb of pleasure to lance through her.

“Halbrand, please—”

He lifted his head from the crook of her neck, where his mouth had left trails of wetness behind, now cooling off and tickling her. “Please what?” he whispered, capturing her lips in a lurid kiss before she could even answer him, his tongue sweeping deeply into her mouth. Sometimes, Galadriel thought, he desired to drive her to madness rather than sensibility. She pulled back from the catch of his lips, lowering her hand to the hand he had between their bodies. She found his thumb, and raised it to touch her where he had touched her in the nights before—that little sensitive numb right above the spot where his fingers plunged into her.

Halbrand understood, then, and he moaned acutely at the way in which she had taken the time to show him. He moved his thumb against her, his other fingers twisting and curling within her with each movement they made in and out, causing a strange, but pleasant sensation deep inside of her. She rolled her hips into it, lashing her tongue against his own. When her hips continued with the rocking motion, Halbrand broke away from her, his eyes glazed over from desire beneath heavy lashes. “I want to be inside of you,” he murmured, his lips a gentle press against hers, his fingers slowing down as they pumped in and out.

“You are,” Galadriel whispered back in response, leaning forward to kiss him—to dive her tongue into his mouth and rock her hips onto his hand. It was a most vicarious and licentious thing, the sinuous way in which her body responded to his by rolling into every pump of his fingers and letting him fill her in this way. The way they did it out here in the open, too, and how he did not seem to mind—and how she, she was beginning to care less and less.

Halbrand pulled back from the kiss to flick his tongue at her lips, never pulling too far back from her to make any new space between them. “No,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “no, I’m not, not in the way I want to be. You don’t understand, Galadriel. The way I want you. The way I want to be inside of you—”

He kissed her. His lips caught hers with a fullness that stilled her, and it turned soft and true—a kiss with emotion behind it, not just barren lust. Galadriel answered it, a slow graze of her mouth against his own, her hand slipping from the back of his neck to his chest.

Halbrand deepened it between them, his tongue delving further until their mouths were a tangle again, and Galadriel felt his hand withdraw from her suddenly with an ache—a desire to be full again overwhelming every sense she had—and her hands clasped him close once more, holding his face as she kissed him.

She felt the sudden movements of his body. Heard the rustle of his clothes before anything else. His hands were between them, wrestling with his belt buckle until it fell to the floor, clacking upon the stone. She heard him raising his tunic, reaching for the button on his trousers—

Galadriel wrenched back from him, breaking the kiss. “Halbrand, stop—”

He froze, all of the color, it seemed, draining from his face. As many times as he had heard the word from her, she had expected by now that he had grown immune to it, but he looked wounded—hurt—torn. His eyes shone bright, lips swollen and red, cheeks flushed to indecency, but he was clearly hurt beneath all of it.

“Galadriel, please,” he pleaded with her, his voice falling lower as he tipped his forehead against her own. He rolled it against her as he shook his head. “What do I have to do?” he asked, practically begging. “I have done all that you have asked of me and more, and I have done it diligently for years. What else do I have to do, hmm? To prove myself to you? What else do I have to do? Tell me—”

“It is not like that, Halbrand. It—” The words caught in her throat, though, because what he was asking of her was intimate. It was special. It was private, and it was not as simple as completing tasks or proving himself in order to earn it. It was . . .

. . . It was quite simple, was it not?

He tipped his chin toward her, placing another soft kiss upon her lips. “What do I have to do, Galadriel? Tell me. Tell me, and I will do it. I will do all that you ask of me and more—”

“Halbrand—”

“Please, tell me—”

“—We are not wed,” Galadriel blurted out, unable to stop the words once they had started to fall from her lips.

Halbrand froze. Slowly, he pulled back from her.

The look, which rested in both his eyes and on his expression, startled Galadriel, so much so that his face seemed changed beyond all recognition. Genuine shock seemed to fill every corner of it from the twitch beside his lips to the furrow of his brow, to the widening of his eyes and how they stared at her, almost unseeing. His mouth hung open, and at first, no words escaped it. His shock, which seemed to take all of the years off of him and make him appear almost like a lost child seeking guidance before her, gave him the appearance—however short—of one broken too many times to count, staring up at what he thought might have been the only thing in the world that could put him back together again.

“You want to be married,” Halbrand said, as if he had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea. His voice sounded so very far away. “ . . . To me?”

His look of disbelief shattered her beyond anything else. Galadriel had not, in all these years, ever considered—for a single moment—that Halbrand might not believe marriage between them was possible or, quite simply, something that she would ever agree to or even want. When she did not answer him right away, he closed his lips and swallowed, his throat bobbing with the motion.

“I did not think that was something you wanted,” he continued, and Galadriel shook her head.

“It is the natural order of things,” she said hurriedly, as if to absolve herself of the desire for it. “A man and woman should be—”

“—Do not say that,” Halbrand admonished her, his eyes taking on a dangerous quality, burning before her. Slowly, he shook his head. “Do not patronize me. I do not care what other men and women do.” He reached for her hand, grasping it, and Galadriel felt her slickness still on his fingers. It was most intimate, most foul. “You would bind yourself to me?” he asked, just a whisper. “In such a manner? To me?” he emphasized—as if he could barely believe it himself.

For him, it was not about just marriage.

It was the fact that it was to him.

Galadriel felt her lip tremble, her nerves shake. She had not considered it like that before, though she had told herself over and over it would not happen again unless they were wed, but now, to be faced with such an obstacle—marriage to him. What could she say to that? Would she deny it, or would she agree?

Could she do it? Could she allow herself to take such a leap of faith? Bind herself, not only in body and spirit but in deed and name as well, before the sight of Eru Ilúvatar himself? Such a contract would be an inexorable fate, a binding thread between them—not only in this life, but in the next as well.

Galadriel felt herself shaking her head. Her voice, when she spoke, came out small. “I am already wed. I cannot—”

Halbrand reached out for her with his other hand, his free one not holding her, and brushed his fingertips against her cheek, combing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Nor would you exist,” he reminded her softly, “if Finwë had not married a second time, would you?”

The tears flooded her eyes, and Galadriel bit her lip, shaking her head. “No, I would not,” she agreed, however hard it was to say.

“If I asked you,” Halbrand said softly, “would you say yes?”

Galadriel opened her mouth, the words dying on her breath. She stared at him, not knowing what to say. “I do not know,” she whispered.

Halbrand nodded his head, his hand falling against her cheek to cup it in full. “Is that what you want? To be married? To me?” he asked, and when her breath shuddered a second time, he kissed her—a soft pressed of his lips to hers. He drew back from her, giving her a moment to answer him.

“I want to be wed,” Galadriel said, avoiding the question, and Halbrand released her hand to grasp her cheeks with both of his palms, his fingers laying close to the cusp of her ears.

“To me?” he repeated, his voice barely a whisper.

Galadriel could not stop the fall of the well of tears in her eyes when she tried to blink them back. Halbrand simply used his thumbs to brush them away from the planes of her cheeks.

“Just say it, Galadriel,” he whispered. “Just say it.”

Galadriel shook her head, admitting her unwillingness, and Halbrand pressed his forehead to hers. Gently, he kissed her again, nothing more than his lips upon hers.

“Marry me,” he murmured, pushing the final boundary between them—the very last one that was left. Galadriel did not answer him, blinking away another wash of tears from her vision. Halbrand kissed them away from her cheeks, one at a time, before returning to her lips. When he kissed her mouth, she tasted the salt upon him. “Marry me,” he repeated, his hot breath washing over her lips. Still, there was no answer. He kissed her again. “Marry me.” No answer, so he kissed her one more time. “Marry me—” He did not kiss her that final time, instead hovering above her lips and awaiting her answer—some answer, any answer, that she would give him. “Galadriel—”

“Yes,” she whispered at last, her voice so dreadfully small that it did not sound like her own, but someone else’s and so very far away. He stilled against her at first—in shock, maybe, that she had responded to him at all, but more than that, it had to have been her answer.

He pulled away from her to look her in the eyes as if they might tell him something her yes did not.

“Are you sure?” came his unsteady response, and it seized the very breath in her chest.

“Yes,” Galadriel breathed out, nodding her head. “Yes, I will marry you.”

One of his hands fell from her face, the other drooping to cup her chin. “You will?”

“Yes—”

“You will marry me?”

“Yes,” Galadriel hissed, wondering why he was asking her so many times in a row. Halbrand leaned close to her face, his mouth hovering just over her lips.

“You will marry me,” he said one final time, though it did not sound like a question, but a statement now.

“Yes—”

When his mouth collided with hers, it still surprised her. He parted his lips, and she parted hers, and the world melted together with every fierce shift of lips and tongue between them until he was smothering her again. It felt as though every swipe of his tongue stole the air from her lungs, and then she could feel both of his hands press hard into her back, flat against the plane of it, his fingers splayed out to grip her in place.

He left her mouth to kiss a trail down her neck, and Galadriel felt the weight of him push into her until he had her flat against the table, breaking their lips apart at last as he stood above her, glancing down at her prostrate form before him.

“If you will marry me, let me show you something else,” he murmured as he stared down at her with an intensity in his gaze that could not be denied, “before our wedding night.”

Galadriel opened her mouth to ask him what was that, but he had already pulled back from her, his hands tugging up her dress until they slipped beneath it and found the rim of the small piece of cotton protecting her from exposure. She stared at his eyes, which took on a daring gaze back at her, as he dragged them downward off of her legs, bringing them together briefly again. He knelt in front of her, and Galadriel felt the fabric being tugged past her feet until they were removed completely from her body one foot at a time.

His hands were on her knees, pressing against them to open her legs once more, and he dipped into the space between. Galadriel tried to watch him from her sprawled out position on the table, her mind wondering at what he was doing.

When his mouth made contact with her, Galadriel felt her head tip back and hit its surface with a quiet thud.

Oh.

Halbrand pressed one of his hands down on her abdomen beneath her dress, his tongue snaking out to graze her, his other arm encouraging her leg to wrap around his shoulders and grip him. Galadriel followed his insistence, hooking both legs around him, and he brought his mouth to that little sensitive nub his thumb had rubbed earlier, covering it with his mouth and suckling it, his tongue swiping it even as he did so.

Galadriel closed her eyes, gasping at the sensation. Her hands sought out his hair, grasping it tightly between her fingers, as she rolled her hips instinctively toward his face. He hummed in response, his whole mouth still surrounding her, and it sent such a lance of pleasure through her that her whole body shook at it. She gripped his hair harder, all manner of improper sounds leaving her throat and escaping her.

She tried to draw him closer to her, but all it did was increase the pressure, and he loved it—being suffocated by her. His mouth opened in full, tongue swiping into her heat to taste her more, and he groaned at what he had found there.

He tasted her like a man starving, delving ever deeper each time his tongue swept into her, and every sound he made against her sent such pleasant shocks throughout her body that it blinded her beyond all else. All she could think about was how good this felt and how she wanted more—and she pulled at his hair, tugging him closer, and curled her legs about his shoulders to lock him in place against her. He voiced no complaint in response, refusing to pull his mouth away from the offering he had discovered down below her dress, awaiting him. Instead, he only made agreeable sounds against her, each hum and moan resonating into her with tendrils of piercing delight.

Her hips rocked further against him, into him, and she felt his lips close on that little spot at the top of her again—he suckled against it until she was writhing and twisting, both attempting to push into him and pull away from him at the same time, but he kept at it, never stopping, until she felt the immense pleasure tear through her whole being in wave after wave that made her body undulate against him as it reached a crescendo within her, her eyelids fluttering and a light filling all of her failing vision.

She slumped there, on the table, in the aftermath, convulsing as he let go of her little nub to dip lower again, his tongue sweeping against her to taste her release and lick it clean from her body. He delved it deeply one last time to taste the last of her, humming softly in response.

He kissed her, then, an intimate brush of his lips against the lower region of her body, the gentle sensation causing her to tremble.

For what felt like the longest time, she stared upward at the ceiling until he rose from the place between her legs to join her, climbing over her just slightly, so that his face hovered above her instead, blocking out the ceiling from her view.

Halbrand leaned down to kiss her tenderly upon the lips. Galadriel closed her eyes, parting her own for him, inhaling sharply at the taste of herself on his tongue when it slipped into her mouth.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” he whispered against her lips when he pulled back, and Galadriel found it hard in her to muster the words and speak them.

Only one came out, a whisper between them.

“Yes,” she breathed out, and Halbrand smiled above her. Galadriel did not see it, for he was still too close to her, but she felt it—felt the curl of his lips against her.

“Good,” he whispered. He kissed her again, soft and slow, until she returned the movement with her own, her hands reaching up to cup his face and hold him above her.

When he withdrew from her, his smile was still there. It reached all the way to his eyes in a way that seemed to soften every feature into the most gentle gaze she had ever seen on him.

It was not unnerving, though, but in a strange way, quite comforting.

Halbrand extended his hand to her to help her from the table. Galadriel took it, rising to her feet, her dress falling back to her ankles and shielding her once more. She glanced down at the floor, noticing her underclothes there, and Halbrand saw her gaze. His eyes followed it, spotting the disregarded piece of clothing, and then they cut back to her again.

A wicked grin splayed upon his face, and his hand released hers. He dipped down and scooped them up into his hand, and Galadriel’s eyes shot back up to his.

“I think,” he said carefully, “I will hold onto these.”

“Halbrand—” Galadriel began, a warning tone in her voice.

“—Until our wedding night,” he breathed out, closing the space between them again, that wicked grin still upon his lips. “Do you object to that?”

She could find no reason in her to object to it, except that it was inappropriate.

However, at this point, inappropriateness seemed a moot point.

Halbrand leaned closer to her lips, parting his own in another grin. “I thought so,” he whispered, “so I will keep them.”

He kissed her one final time, slipping her underclothes into his pocket as he did so, and Galadriel found herself in a mild state of shock when he drew away from her for the last time.

“May I come to your room tonight?” he asked her, his voice laced with desire.

Galadriel wanted to say yes, but she did not trust herself after that. “No,” she whispered back, shaking her head. “No, you may not. Not tonight.”

“Suit yourself,” Halbrand murmured, his lips curling into another smile, this one softer than the one before it, “wife.”

Galadriel glanced up at his eyes, catching the twinkle in them. Halbrand pulled back from her, smiling all the while, until he turned away from her at last and walked off, leaving the council room behind him and her alone in it.

Galadriel did not follow him, heaving out a tremulous breath from her chest instead once he was gone from sight, her entire body shuddering from it. Despite all of the resistance she had against him in the beginning, she did not want to fight it anymore. Was this to be her life now? Here, in Pelargir, with him? She turned toward the windows, staring out at the wide world beyond and the golden sunset over the bay, filling the entire field of her vision. It was beautiful to behold, and the world was at peace.

Her heart stuttered in her chest, the only thing left that was not at rest.

Chapter Text

* * *

There is no love that does not pierce the hands and feet.

— Jeanette Winterson, “The Powerbook”

* * *

The docks were full with bystanders today to see off the ships belonging to the sons of Elendil, wishing them safe passage up the Anduin back to their homes in Minas Anor and Minas Ithil. Galadriel joined with them, waving her farewells, too, with a smile on her face as they departed from the harbor from the cheering crowds. Bronwyn was with her, standing at her side with their arms linked together, and Halbrand kept his distance from her. He stood with Elendil at some distance off, though almost every time Galadriel glanced at him, she caught Halbrand looking back at her. The moment he saw her eyes on him, though, he would smile softly and turn away.

Galadriel did not know what to think of it, so she tried not to think of it at all. They had not yet discussed the possibility of announcing their engagement to the masses, but Galadriel knew it would become an issue they would have to make a decision on sooner rather than later. For her to be their queen, there would have to be a coronation first—before the wedding. There was no escaping that. How long would their engagement be? She doubted, by the sound of it, that Halbrand wanted to wait on such a matter, so a long, drawn out engagement was out of the question.

Truth be told, his natural excitement made her all the more nervous. Galadriel reached for Bronwyn’s arm, grasping it with her free hand, causing Bronwyn to glance over at her with a curious but concerned expression.

“Is everything all right, Lady Galadriel?”

Galadriel met her gaze, smiling softly. “Yes, everything is all right, Bronwyn,” she replied, looking forward once more at the ships. “I am just uneasy.”

“Why are you uneasy?” Bronwyn inquired, her brow furrowing as a genuine sound of worry crept into her voice.

Galadriel looked back at her. She hesitated telling Bronwyn, but she also needed someone to talk to about it, and sooner or later, everyone would find out about the proposal. “If I tell you, will you promise not to breathe a word of it yet to anyone else?”

“Of course,” Bronwyn agreed.

Galadriel lifted her chin, trying to hold her head up high as she said it. “The king has,” she began thoughtfully, pausing only for a moment, “proposed to me.”

Bronwyn almost gasped; it sounded more like a sharp inhale, her voice lowering with her reply. She leaned in closer to Galadriel and tipped her head forward as if to keep it a secret between them. “What did you say to him?”

Galadriel returned her gaze to the crowd surrounding them, watching the people as they waved goodbye to the ships setting sail. She glanced up, still seeing Isildur grinning as he waved back wildly in response, a look of pure joy upon his face. Anárion hollered at the crowd from the second ship, the same amount of delight in his laughter that was also present upon his brother’s face. For mortals, so much time has passed. For her, it was so little.

“I said yes,” she breathed out quietly to Bronwyn.

Bronwyn clutched back at her arm. “You did?”

“Yes.”

Galadriel could hear Bronwyn’s smile without looking at her to see it. “My lady, that is wonderful news. Have you yet set a date?”

Galadriel shook her head, glancing over at Bronwyn. “No, we have not set a date yet. We only just agreed to it—”

“Of course,” Bronwyn said, grinning as she leaned in conspiratorially. “You must be all nerves.” She rubbed Galadriel’s arm in a soothing manner. “I have been there before. It is not easy, but it is a joyous time for a man and his wife to share.” Bronwyn’s eyes lit up as a memory came back to her. “You were married once before, you said?”

“Yes, I was,” Galadriel admitted with a small nod, wondering where this conversation was going with such a question.

“ . . . Well, then, you know what to expect.”

Galadriel’s cheeks grew hot at the suggestion. “Yes, I know what to expect.”

Bronwyn leaned in closer to Galadriel again. “He is,” she whispered, “a handsome man.” She rubbed Galadriel’s forearm. “Surely, it will an eventful night for you both—for you are a beautiful woman as well, Lady Galadriel.”

“Thank you, Bronwyn,” Galadriel answered her, raising her chin up, though she felt a little smaller as the heat crept into her cheeks. That was not her fear, of course. That had never been her fear with him. “It is not what worries me, though.”

“What worries you, my lady?”

Galadriel cast her eyes over the crowd again to find him. Halbrand was walking away from the docks with Elendil at his side. Galadriel, still arm in arm with Bronwyn, guided the other woman to follow her as she turned away from the departing ships, her feet falling in step behind Halbrand and Elendil as they walked ahead, their heads leaning close together as they talked with one another.

“Do not trouble yourself over it, Bronwyn,” Galadriel assured her. “I will figure it out in time.”

In time, Galadriel, he had said to her once. In time.

She kept up with his footsteps as Halbrand and Elendil set a path back towards the citadel, her and Bronwyn some distance behind them. Her mind had been set on the rings as of late. Galadriel could not stop thinking about them. Halbrand’s ring, as well as Theo’s ring and Valandil’s ring, were all heavy on her mind. She could not, in good conscience, marry him without knowing the full truth behind them. Too many questions were on her mind, and he would give her honest answers. She would demand them.

Before they reached the citadel, Halbrand seemed to notice someone on his heels, though he never looked back at her and Bronwyn. Instead, he pretended not to notice them, continuing in his conversation with Elendil until they arrived at the citadel’s gates. It was not until that moment in which Halbrand looked back and acknowledged her with a smile on his face.

“Ah, Galadriel,” he called out. “You’ve come to join us?”

Galadriel waited until she and Bronwyn drew near before speaking. “I have need to speak with you in private,” she said. “Do you have a moment?”

“Of course,” Halbrand agreed, a curious look on his face.

“I have some things to tend to,” Bronwyn informed them, giving Galadriel a look of encouragement before smiling and turning away from them. Galadriel watched as she departed, and then she heard Elendil speak as well.

“I think I will take the rest of the day for myself,” Elendil told them both, offering Halbrand and Galadriel a weary smile. “I have some things to think about concerning my present and my future. The two of you enjoy your evening together.” He tipped his head toward them in a soft nod before stepping away, ambling off down the cobblestones of the road.

Galadriel found herself alone in Halbrand’s company before they even made it into the citadel. He opened the gate for her, though, as well as the door, and she felt herself pause in order to wait for him to lead the way. Halbrand seemed to notice this, and he took the leave to guide her into a private chamber on the first floor of the main hall.

The door shut with a soft click behind her as he closed it, and Galadriel felt her heart leap into her throat, half choking her. To be alone in a room with him now held so many connotations, and if she was honest with herself, Galadriel feared it more than anything else. She had welcomed this with him. She had accepted this. She had agreed to this.

Halbrand kept his distance, though, and walked off to the other side of the room, his eyes, very clearly, on her every step of the way.

“I need to know something before we are wed,” Galadriel announced, her throat unnaturally parched. She held her chin up high despite the way in which he regarded her with his gaze—curious but closed off.

“What’s that?” he inquired easily.

Halbrand stopped, leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the room and crossing his arms over his chest. He kept his distance, and Galadriel did not know what to make of it.

“Theo’s and Valandil’s rings,” she said, and Halbrand’s eyes sparked with renewed interest. There was only one way to say it. “Are you controlling them?”

Halbrand tipped his chin downward, his usually warm eyes cool and bright. “Now?” he asked. “You want to have this conversation now? Three years later?”

“Answer the question,” Galadriel told him, her firmness unwavering. “Do you control them?”

He stared at her. “No,” he finally said, simple and resolute.

“Are they magical?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you make them?” she asked. “For what purpose did you hand them out?”

The curve of Halbrand’s lips was more of a twitch than anything else, and he pursed his lips before answering her. “Theo received his ring long before Valandil,” he clarified, shaking his head, “when my intentions were not good. He’s had that ring for nigh on two decades—since before my first return to Mordor. However, I have not used it against him. When I gave it to him, he was fully aware of its capabilities and power. Valandil, on the other hand, was given his within the last few years. My intentions had changed by then.”

“What were your intentions by then?”

“To help the people,” Halbrand replied easily. “To unify Pelargir. Do you still not believe me capable of good?”

“How do I know you are not using them?”

Halbrand pushed himself off of the wall and crossed the room to stand before her. He towered above her, all dark shadows but softened features. His hands reached out for her arms, gently grasping her elbows. “You either have to trust me or not,” he said. “I do not know what else to say. I have not lied to you yet. As I have said to you many times before, why start now?”

“Their rings are connected,” Galadriel whispered, her eyes falling down to the golden band on his finger, “to yours.”

“They are,” Halbrand murmured in agreement, his voice falling softly at the end.

“I have seen it,” Galadriel continued, her eyes ever fixed on his golden band. “At the festival, during the competition, I saw the way you and Theo fought together. The two of you were in tune with each other in a way I had never seen before.”

Halbrand nodded his head. She could only see it through the corner of her vision. A shadow fell onto his hand as she stared at it, but that shadow was only Halbrand himself, blocking out the light. “The rings are connected,” he explained to her, “so they come together in union sometimes, whether my will is behind it or not. Small things, nothing drastic. Whether it is a light, swift movement or a bit of knowledge one did not have before, but they do not influence their emotions or their state of mind. Only knowledge. Only power. They were created with a unifying purpose in mind. They serve their purpose. Even in situations where I exert no control, no force, it still will not stop that from happening.”

His level of honesty with her was a little terrifying. Galadriel lifted her gaze to look him in the eyes. “Does Theo know?”

“That it is magical?” Halbrand countered her. “Yes, I have already said that—”

“Does he know who you are?” Galadriel clarified, and every corner of Halbrand’s face seemed to tighten in response.

He debated it very clearly in his eyes, how much he wanted to say to her—how much he wanted to reveal—but he had told her once no more lies, and she had expected him to live up to it as well. It did not seem to be a debate behind his eyes between honesty and half truths, however, but he was wary of her reaction. They had never talked about this before. It had always lingered on the cusp of things, though, just outside of her knowledge.

“Yes,” Halbrand admitted at last, his voice barely a whisper, “he knows who I am. He has known for a long time.”

Galadriel gasped softly, a sharp inhale of air that hissed in the silence of the room. This changed so much. Theo always seemed to know where to find Galadriel when she was not around, and he always seemed to be aware of things that most other people around them either did not notice or did not care to catch in passing, but Theo was shrewd. His eyes were sharp. Valandil, too, over these last few years had become more astute as well. It had not passed by Galadriel’s notice.

“His loyalty to you,” Galadriel began, careful of how she worded this, “is not due to the ring he wears?”

“No,” Halbrand whispered. “I made a bargain with him a long time ago. A truce for peace. An end to the life of warfare he was used to living. He hated me at first, mind you, but he gave it thought for a long time, and then he agreed. I promised him Pelargir. One day, I would have to leave, and I would leave the kingdom to him. Name him my successor. Peace and power. For a boy who came from nothing, it was a hard opportunity to pass up.”

“All along, he has known,” Galadriel whispered back, her eyes falling back to his golden ring. “He has known who you truly are.”

“Yes,” came Halbrand’s soft voice from above, and Galadriel felt his fingers catch lightly upon her chin to hold it, “but so have you.”

In a strange way it was comforting to know she was not the only one with the knowledge of Halbrand’s identity. In many ways she felt less alone. It also changed so much of what she knew of Theo, though. She thought back on all of her interactions with him with this new awareness in mind as her eyes remained fixed upon that golden ring on Halbrand’s finger. It shone despite the cast of his shadow over it, gleaming as if flame was caught in the reflection of its curved band. The longer Galadriel stared at it, the more she saw it come to life before her.

“There is one thing I do not understand,” Galadriel said, breaking the silence that had fallen upon them. “If we are to be wed and—” Her voice caught in her throat. The words were hard to say. Galadriel knew it was a possibility as well as a likelihood of marriage, but she had never given it much thought before now. If she wed Halbrand and shared his bed enough, a child could come of the union. An heir. “If we—”

“—Have a child?” Halbrand inquired gently, his fingers upon her chin becoming firm as he lifted her gaze upward to meet his own. “Is that what you mean to say?”

Her breath faltered as she stared back at him. “Yes,” she whispered. Her eyelids seemed to flutter as she broached the topic, feeling out of her element discussing such intimate matters. “If our union . . . brings about a child, it would affect Theo’s succession. Would he not, then, be against our marriage?”

Slowly, Halbrand shook his head. “No, he would not be against it. He is for it.”

“I do not understand . . . ”

A little sigh escaped Halbrand’s lips. “I have thought about this,” he said, a little amusement in his voice, “far more than you, it seems. Theo would not be against it because, no matter what, I cannot stay here. One day, it will be too obvious that I am not aging. Questions will be raised. The people will notice. I cannot—” His breath caught on the word, and Halbrand swallowed past the lump in his throat. It was a painful remembrance for him. “I cannot change my form anymore. It is gone. They have seen to that. I do not have many options I can pursue, but I cannot stay here in the long term. I must prepare one day to leave. Fake my own death, if I have to. I will name Theo as my successor, and he will take over Pelargir when I am gone.”

“—But if we have a child,” Galadriel cut in, “our child would be your successor.”

“Different problem,” Halbrand offered, though not without an ounce of kindness behind the words. “Any child we have would be Elven like you. It would go against all laws of nature of what happens in a union between an Elf and a mortal. Lúthien and Beren’s son, Dior, was a man. A mortal. Mortal blood wins out. They would see the ears and the slow development of the child, and they would know the truth—that I was not a man. We would not be able to pretend or fool the people. Questions would be raised from that alone, and they would rise up against me.” Again, Halbrand shook his head. “Our child would not be able to claim kingship here under any grounds once the truth got out. Theo wins, in the end. If you grow with child, we would have to leave sooner than expected in order to safeguard the life inside of you.”

“We would have to leave?” Galadriel breathed out, feeling the world spinning around her vision to consider so much in such a short time. It was overwhelming, and it scared her. “Why marry me, then? Why not marry a mortal? Bear a mortal son? Have a true heir—”

“I made a pact with Theo,” Halbrand said, interrupting her. “I will honor it. The kingdom is his. Besides, I do not want a mortal heir.”

Galadriel released a tremulous breath through her parted lips. “Why marry me at all, then, and chance having to leave from here sooner than you had planned? Where will you go after this?”

His thumb pressed at the center of her chin, his eyes falling to the curve of her mouth. “Don’t you mean where will we go, Galadriel?” Halbrand corrected her, though his voice was not unkind. “I thought we had been over this before many times,” he murmured, and the space between them vanished as he drew closer to her. “I am not here because of them. I am here because of you. How many times must you forget that before you remember it?”

“Marrying me disrupts all your plans—”

“I have not planned that far,” Halbrand told her softly, and his thumb began to gently caress her chin. “I thought we would plan for that together. I do not imagine you would take kindly to me making all of the decisions for you. I thought we would talk about it. Discuss it. Together. Do you object to that, Galadriel?”

He wanted her to talk about it. Make plans with him. Galadriel could not explain why it twisted her stomach into a thousand knots, to plot out a future with him. Where would they go? No Elven kingdom would take them in for what they were, for who he was, and no mortal kingdom could keep them for long. They would be vagabonds on the outskirts of society, alone in the wilderness together.

Is that what she wanted for herself?

Is that what he wanted?

“We have nowhere else we could go,” Galadriel reminded him. “We would be cast out from all kingdoms.”

“We could make our own,” came his soft whisper, and Galadriel could not explain it, but it sent an icy chill throughout her bones.

“I will not subject the people to—”

“—Stop assuming the worst of me,” Halbrand cut in, and his hand came to lay against her cheek in full. “With you at my side, I can remember what it is was like back when the light of the Two Trees shone upon my face in Valinor, a time that was once long forgotten to me.” His hand reached back to her hair to tuck it behind her ear with the lightest of motions behind his fingers. “I need you to remember that every time you doubt me.”

“Your ring,” Galadriel said. “I need to know what it does, so that I may trust you.”

“You do not trust me yet?”

It was an odd feeling, but no, she did not trust him yet. How she could agree to marry a man she did not trust was beyond even her understanding, but they had made no formal announcement yet, and it was still within her power to decline him and walk away. However, her mind remained fixed on the idea. If she walked away, what would become of him? What would he do? How many people would he hurt if he fell back into his old ways? If she gave herself to him, though, and stood by his side, and it tempered all of his worst urges, would it be worth it?

If she came to love him, would it be worth it?

“Give me your hand,” came his voice through the fog of each thought that raced through her head. Galadriel glanced down between their bodies to see she was holding onto him, her fingers clutching into the fabric of his tunic with an exacting grip. She loosened them and pulled one of them away slowly, wondering why he asked for it. “The one with your ring,” he corrected as she lifted the wrong hand for him, and Galadriel cut her eyes upward to his face, her judgment and confusion plain.

“Why do you ask for it?” she inquired softly, though her fingers curled into her palm—an almost protective gesture.

Halbrand smiled down at her. His smile was barely there, but it was clear upon his face. “Take off your ring,” he instructed, “so that I can show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Take off your ring, Galadriel.”

Her eyes fell back to her hand, to the shining silver of Nenya and the sparkle of its adamant stone. She knew not for what reason yet he asked, but her curiosity won out in the end. Galadriel reached for her ring and slipped it off of her finger, laying bare the digit. In the free palm of her other hand, she grasped Nenya tight in an enclosed fist.

Galadriel observed him lift both hands between them, gently twisting the golden band off of his own finger. When he grasped her hand between light fingers, she began to understand what he was about to do. She pulled back on her hand, fear gripping her around all corners of her mind.

When her gaze lifted back to his to search his face, Halbrand stared down at her with an open hurt written across his expression.

“You will never trust me,” Halbrand said, “unless I show you what it can do. Do you want to know, Galadriel?”

In between his fingers of the hand not holding hers, he bore aloft the golden ring in the air between them. Still, how brightly it shone. How much it gleamed. How beautiful it was. How precious it seemed.

“Yes,” Galadriel breathed out.

Halbrand renewed his grip on her hand, separating her fingers to find one in particular. Once he had it still, he slowly slipped the golden band along the length of her finger until it came to rest at the base—his fingers never leaving the band itself.

It appeared to Galadriel as though her whole her vision had failed before it altered before her into a world of mist and shadows. The wind howled about her like a raging beast, and everything appeared as but smoke, bleeding tendrils with every movement—and yet, the world seemed much larger than it had before. Her vision could travel further beyond the confines of its usual limitations, and so she sought out the pull calling her in one direction. She followed it, finding at the end of that pull was Theo—he was still out beside the docks, having a drink with his friends and laughing about something. A joke someone said, perhaps.

Quickly, he turned his head toward her.

He noticed her, the laugh dying off on his lips.

Galadriel pulled her mind back from the docks, feeling herself following another thread grown taut in between her and the world of smoke and shadows. With a quickness, it snapped her toward the back of a walking man, heading toward the citadel. His dark curls were unmistakable, even in the new light of this strange world, and Galadriel felt him sense her as well. He halted there on the cobblestones, and quickly, he turned to face her. Despite the change in his appearance, she recognized Valandil immediately, and he—he recognized her, too. His mouth, half in shock, fell open as he stared back at her.

“. . . Galadriel?” Valandil asked, more curiosity in him than in Theo. “Is that you?”

Before she could answer him, Galadriel felt the pull once more. Her mind snapped like a bouncing cord, and she was wrenched back—too far, too fast, back into the present as the cool ring was slipped off of her finger, breaking off all contact with the shadow world beyond it.

Galadriel gasped for air as if drawn up from water, feeling a tightness in her chest that was not there before. She did not know if it was because of the ring or if it was her own apprehension at what she had witnessed on the other side of it. Her eyes were drawn to the gleam of the golden band as Halbrand pulled it away from her, her mind calling to it—wanting it back with a sudden possessiveness that was not like her. It was not like her at all.

It terrified her.

Halbrand slipped his ring back on, snapping Galadriel’s mind back to her own. Raising up her palm, she uncurled her fingers. Nenya shone bright. She grasped it and slipped it onto her finger again to make up for the loss of the one, and her eyes fell shut as a soothing calmness pervaded all of her mind, chasing the odd sense of possession away from her. She drew in a deep breath, opening her eyes to look at Halbrand. The newfound knowledge hit her hard.

“You can see them?” Galadriel asked. “No matter where they are, you can find them and speak to them—and they, they can find you and speak to you as well.” She stared up at him, heaving out each breath. “They can see you.”

“Yes,” Halbrand agreed. “All of that is true.”

Galadriel sensed no ability to influence their minds, though. There was no deeper connection beyond that. It allowed her to see them, but nothing more.

Of all the thoughts she could have regarding his ring, there was one at the forefront of her mind now more disquieting than all the rest. He had worn his ring at all times, even during their intimate moments together—and down every hallway he had chased her before pinning her solidly against the walls.

“On our wedding night when we are alone, you must take off your ring.”

Halbrand chuckled, a soft sound deep in his chest. His whole body soon rumbled with it as his hand slipped behind the nape of her neck to pull her close. “That is what you worry about, wife?” He tilted down to her, his face but inches from hers. “That someone is watching us?”

“They have been watching us,” Galadriel corrected him, feeling a heat flush her cheeks.

Halbrand nodded his head. “We will see,” he said. His other hand came up to press against the side of her face, holding her there. “We will see,” he repeated, his voice fading off.

Before Galadriel could ask him what he meant by that, he silenced her inevitable protests with his lips over hers.

Chapter Text

* * *

Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time.

— Publilius Syrus

* * *

Galadriel tugged at the thick folds of her elaborate dress in front of the floor length mirror, adjusting the low shoulders for a more comfortable fit as Bronwyn laced up the back with skilled hands and Eärien fixed Galadriel’s hair in place atop her head using gold pins topped with pearls. Beneath the red velvet, there was a stiff material sewn between it much like the texture of felt in order to help the dress retain its unique shape. Although she did not feel the heat as easily as Men, the fabric of the dress itself was stifling, too tight to breathe, too thick for comfort—an ornate piece made of rich velvet above stiff felt with an elaborate beaded design and golden embellishments across the bodice and waist.

It was, simply put, a dress fit for a queen.

The low cut of the dress was offset with a large necklace of a gold base with gems the color of soft embers and pearls accenting the stones. Galadriel was not used to such refinement. Elves were simple in their raiment, whether it was for everyday attire or that of ascent into an official position, but comfort was held higher for Elves than for Men. Men, it seemed, with their shorter lifespans, wanted to make the most out of the defining moments in their lives. Therefore, everything—from the clothes to the ceremony to the large celebration afterwards—was expansive and intricate.

“You look beautiful, Lady Galadriel,” Eärien said with bright smile on her face as she slipped the last hair pin into place, securing the detailed updo she had made out of Galadriel’s long locks. The younger woman stepped back to admire the finishing touches. “A proper queen.”

“Thank you, Eärien,” Galadriel told her, a soft smile curving her lips, but her mind was elsewhere.

She had refused his offer of queenship once before back in a dream on the banks of the Glanduin. He had offered her a crown, and with it, an alignment through marriage to him, and she had struck it down and told him she would end his life instead, and what resulted after that was years and years of warfare. In a span of time that was decades for a Mortal, they had found themselves back where they had started—in a series of events mirroring the past they had once lived. Galadriel had sat in a cell in Númenor across from him as she had once before. They had fled together on ships back to the Southlands, just like they had before. And here he was, offering her another queenship, just as he had before—another crown to place upon her head.

It was history repeating itself.

It was as if it was always meant to happen this way, and in her youthful obstinance, she had refused it. She had denied it. She had spited the will of the Valar and of Eru Ilúvatar himself, and in her shame, this was her penance—to be faced with it all a second time with no escape. He was a dangerous being, and she had never forgotten it. It felt as if his goodness was entirely dependent upon her, and it was—he had said as much to her in his honesty on his perceived deathbed. He did this only for her.

Galadriel could feel the hands at her back—Bronwyn, lacing up the last of her dress, but it felt as if a hundred hands were pushing her towards this moment, and there was no reprieve that could rescue her from it. Each tug and twist tightened the noose, and Galadriel held her chin high as she stared back at her reflection in the mirror.

“There,” Bronwyn said, cinching the laces at the end in a final tug and tying them into a neat bow. Her palms rested flat against Galadriel’s back when she was done. Her eyes flicked up, meeting Galadriel’s gaze in the mirror. A soft smile splayed across Bronwyn’s face. “You’re ready.”

Galadriel was not ready, but she was also too far into it to back out now.

Eärien and Bronwyn each took one of her hands, guiding her to the door. Outside of it, Theo and Valandil were waiting for them with a guard of five other men. All of them were dressed in ceremonial attire, swords at their sides, to guide her to the throne room for the ceremony. The two women positioned themselves behind Galadriel, while Theo stood to her left and Valandil to her right. Two king’s guards walked behind each of them in file, while the seventh one stood at the back of the train.

“Follow us, my lady,” Theo instructed Galadriel, hand on his sword pommel as his steps marched forward—Valandil followed suit, and so did all the rest. Galadriel walked with them, a slow and steady march down the hallways and corridors.

Most of the people were not inside of the citadel, but outside in the middle of a celebration. Their echoes reached through the stone. Vast cries of cheers, reaching up the high walls and vaulted domes to the heavens in unison. A cacophony of joy with a thousand voices in harmony, but it did not feel like joy to Galadriel. With each step forward they marched, it felt as though she were marching to her doom.

Theo and Valandil halted before the opening of the chamber, and she halted with them. Galadriel could see all of the eyes within, necks craning to get a view, and more than ever, the sense of apprehension drew fast around her neck like fingers gripping tight, so she tilted up her chin and faced it with as much courage as she could muster up within her.

Galadriel could not see the sign that Theo was sent in order to step forward—until she realized that it might have been in his head and not out loud or visible around the corner of the wall from where they now stood in procession.

Theo leaned only a fraction of an inch toward her from the side. “Step forward, my lady, and follow us,” he murmured to her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Galadriel saw Valandil nod as well.

When both men moved in tandem with each other as they stepped forward to lead the group, Galadriel fell in step with them. They turned the corner to face the open archway of the throne room—a grand hall with high-vaulted ceilings and pillars and tall windows that reached far, far above the height of the tallest man. They faced the West and the East, so that the room was never left in darkness, except at night.

Large throngs of people stood to the left and the right of the pathway that led to the thrones at the forefront of the hall. A long rug of deep, rich red, so dark it was almost the color of a bruise, laid from the entrance of the hall all the way to the dais at the forefront of it, ending no more than a foot from the upward steps onto the raised platform, which held both of the thrones. At the moment, neither of them was occupied—both of them empty.

Halbrand stood on the dais in front of the thrones, just a little to the side of the one at the right—the king’s throne. It stood taller than the queen’s throne, but that was not what gripped her so.

Halbrand was tall for a man, but he looked even taller as he stood there on the dais, the platform raising him as well as those standing with him above that of the crowd. His attire was the most ornate she had ever seen him wear, and the color of it struck her the most—white and gold to her red and gold, as if this event could elevate and cleanse him, while staining her with the blood of it. Red was a color reserved usually for the monarchy, but it was also a color for excitement and love—and sometimes, it was also seen as indicative of war. In these circumstances, however, the latter did not apply. It was to show her new status to the people with a vibrancy they would not soon forget.

He gazed straight at her from across the distance, a soft smile curving the corner of his mouth. Atop his head, he wore the crown of Pelargir. On his shoulders, his robes with white fur trim. His belt was fastened at his waist, his sword hanging aloft beneath his open robes.

Behind him, sitting on the seat of her throne, was the crown meant for her—the one which he would place upon her head once the vows had been spoken and her promises all made.

A new tightness seized Galadriel’s throat at the realization that she was doing this—that she was going forward with it, despite the warning in her heart. She could not place it, nor explain it, but it was there, ever burning. She was allowing him to crown her. She was allowing him to wed her.

She would allow him to bed her, too.

All of the eyes belonging to the crowd were on her, though, watching with rapt attention as her procession slowly walked down the length of the great hall across the rug, leading her ever closer to her throne.

They halted before the dais, but those at her side did not leave her. They remained with her, standing side by side and behind, encasing Galadriel in her own throng at all angles. In a way which was not lost upon her, their presence trapped her in place before the throne, ensuring there was no escape. It was a position assumed by the others for the needs of tradition, not for any sordid reason, but the sense of suffocation bore down on her chest all the same.

A weight she would have to carry, if she meant to go through with this—and she did mean to go through with it.

Galadriel had been briefed on the process of the ceremony for Mortals. It required the public taking of a vow, the crowning itself, which Halbrand would do, sitting upon the throne to stake her claim, and then they would join the crowds outside in the streets in order to show them their new queen. They had seen her so many times before, but this one was different. She would be their queen now, not an outsider amongst them.

The officiator stood before her now, a man with whom she was little acquainted, and the words he said were little more than a gentle hum just below her level of hearing, though his voice echoed throughout the entire hall. When he asked her to repeat after him, she followed his command.

“I solemnly promise and swear,” Galadriel began, “to govern the Peoples of Pelargir, Lebennin, North Ithilien, South Ithilien, Belfalas, and Lamedon, and of my possessions and the other territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs. I will to my power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all my judgments. I will to the utmost of my power maintain the laws of the people. I will maintain and preserve, inviolably, the settlement of the People of Pelargir, and the doctrine, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in Lebennin. I will preserve all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them. The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep in my oath.”

“Come forth, then,” came Halbrand’s voice instead of the officiator, “and be crowned as my queen.”

Galadriel could not recall the moment he had retrieved the crown from the seat of her throne, but in his hands he held it—a gold, jewel encrusted beauty, more extravagant than anything Galadriel had ever worn in her long, long life.

Her eyes rose to his gaze, feeling at once laid naked and bare before him and all those watching them.

She rose up the steps of the dais, leaving the procession group behind her, until she stood before him. Halbrand seemed to smile, though it was mostly in his eyes than in his face—and there seemed to Galadriel, a desire in them, one which spoke of how long he had waited for this moment.

Galadriel hesitated at it.

His expression quickly softened, and when he spoke to her, his voice was kind and barely a whisper. “You must bow and kneel,” Halbrand murmured—but he never said to me.

Another moment passed with nothing happening as Galadriel fought with herself over what to do next, but she was already here. She had already spoken the vows.

She had already made the oath. She was bound to it.

Bowing her head, Galadriel resigned herself to kneeling before his feet.

“I hereby crown you, Queen Galadriel, and grant you the land of Dor-en-Ernil,” Halbrand announced loud enough for the whole hall to hear. Land of the Prince, it meant. It was a Sindarin name—an Elvish one. “West of the Gilrain River between the fiefs of Belfalas and Lebennin. I name it that in honor of our future son.”

His hands, when they placed the heavy crown upon her head, were gentle with the motion. I would make you a queen, his words echoed throughout time, and Galadriel closed her eyes against them. It was fate, and she had been fighting it for far too long. When she opened her eyes, his hand was extended before her, offering her help to stand.

She took it and rose from her kneeling position until she was standing beside him as he maneuvered them to face the crowd, her hand still clasped inside of his own.

“Your queen,” Halbrand announced to them, and an eruption of applause drowned out the immense silence that came before it in reverence to what they had been watching only moments before. Now, they were happy. They were excited, too. They had a king, and now they had a queen, and she knew, one day, they expected an heir out of it—to solidify their kingdom.

The procession, which had brought Galadriel here, was led by Theo and Valandil up onto the dais as well to take positions to the left and right of them. Bronwyn and Eärien stood next to Galadriel, while Theo and Valandil stood beside Halbrand.

At Halbrand’s urging, Galadriel followed him to the thrones. He released her hand, taking a seat in his, and glanced at her, waiting for her to do the same.

Slowly, Galadriel lowered herself onto the seat, looking back out at the crowd.

She heard Valandil’s voice, only a whisper, but her Elven ears were keen. She picked up on it. “Why wasn’t there a marriage first?” Valandil inquired, his question aimed at Theo. It was clear he was musing his thoughts out loud. “Tradition calls for marriage before a coronation. Why are we doing this out of order?”

Theo nudged Valandil in return, almost snorting in response, but it was not Theo who answered him, though. It was Halbrand.

“Because,” Halbrand replied coolly, his gaze turning away from the crowd to catch Galadriel looking at him now that he spoke. His lips curved into a fine smile, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I will marry a queen.”

The amusement from Valandil and Theo faded into solemn silence, and they resumed their more serious expressions and stature.

“What is next?” Galadriel found herself asking, keeping her eyes on Halbrand. She knew what was next, but she could not sit here for long.

Halbrand glanced forward, tipping his head toward the wide archway of the great hall. “We go out to greet the people and show you to them,” he said.

“They have seen me many times before,” she intervened, wondering if she could talk her way out of a public spectacle.

“Not as their queen, they haven’t,” Halbrand reasoned easily without looking at her. “We must show them.”

Nervously, she glanced back at the crowd of faces. Halbrand stood before her, and she rose from her throne to follow him. Theo and Valandil fell in step beside them, and so did Bronwyn and Eärien. The rest of the guard followed suit, and Halbrand held out his hand to Galadriel. She looked down, accepting it, and he led the way off the dais. Her feet, silent as falling leaves, followed him down every step.

They reached the archway, and Galadriel heard the crowd leaving their positions in the great hall to file in behind their procession. One by one, they all fell in step, and the sound of the shuffling filled her ears as it echoed off every corner of stone.

Still, through each hallway they passed through, he held her hand.

“Is something on your mind?” Halbrand suddenly inquired as they walked ahead towards the main doors, the procession and crowd following close behind them. “You’re trembling like a leaf.”

“I am not,” Galadriel countered him, but he only chuckled low in his throat, his thumb grazing over her knuckles in comforting little circles.

“Yes, you are, I can feel it. What is the matter?”

Her tremble was but a slightly unsteady breath. That he could feel it at all spoke volumes of his perception. “I am,” Galadriel began, though she paused, unsure of the word to even use. “Uneasy,” she finished, her fingers tightening around his hand.

“About being my queen?”

A moment of silence passed between them before she answered him.

“Being your wife,” Galadriel corrected, noticing how his hand shifted to hold hers more effortlessly in his clasp.

“You are not my wife yet,” Halbrand said, almost as if to reassure her.

“But I will be soon.”

“Yes, you will,” Halbrand agreed softly, “but you are making me think we ought to schedule it sooner rather than later—before you change your mind on me and invade my kingdom with an army to usurp me.” The smirk in his tone was clear, and Galadriel cut her eyes at him to see the twitch at the corner of his lips before he glanced at her. His eyes twinkled with merriment despite his claim.

“Is that a jest?” she shot back at him.

“Of course,” Halbrand assured her, “but there is some truth to it. I did just crown you. You’re a queen now. We shouldn’t wait too long. What if you declared war against me now that I’ve crowned you?”

“This is not amusing,” Galadriel hissed back. “I would do no such thing.”

“Hmm,” Halbrand hummed in reply, “I don’t know. I think it is better to be safe than sorry. We shall move the wedding up from a fortnight to four days hence.”

“Excuse me?”

Halbrand’s smile was all teeth, a full-fledged wolf’s grin. His eyes glittered darkly from his own amusement, and his eyebrows shot up. “I gave you a crown,” he reasoned. “I gave you lands. It’s only a matter of time—”

Galadriel halted before the double doors of the main hall, glaring at him with all the energy she could muster behind the look. She could hear the cheering of the crowd outside of the citadel, but her mind was far away from them at the moment—stuck on the present with Halbrand beside her. She turned to face him. Her eyes were livid, and her face burned from it. “You only want me in your bed,” she accused him.

Halbrand’s amusement slid away from his face, leaving him with only a solemn expression. He regarded her carefully before stepping closer to her, his throat bobbing with the motion as he swallowed past a catch in it. His eyes fell low, landing somewhere between her lips and her chin rather than her eyes.

“I’ve already had you in my bed once,” he whispered to her. “It is only a matter of time before it happens again, is it not?” Galadriel trembled in truth this time. The undercurrent of his tone scared her. “Tell me you do not feel it. That you have not felt it all this time as I have. I know of the spiritual union which occurs between their fëar when Elves partake in such matters of the flesh. I did know if it would affect me in the same way, but it has—there is no other explanation for it. I feel it like a rope tied taut around my fëa, binding me to you—pulling every day, tighter and tighter.”

He stepped closer to her until there was no space between them, despite the crowd of people watching. He did not care. The people were not close enough to hear them, but they could see the heated conversation between her and Halbrand.

“Tell me you do not feel it, too,” he continued softly, “a taut thread inside of you—” His hand rose between their bodies, the tip of a single finger pressing against the side of her stomach, where the crowd could not see. “—Pulling you ever closer to me every day.”

Galadriel did not how to answer him, for it was true, and he had to have known it. She had known ever since the first moment he had overwhelmed her and climbed atop her on that bed in Númenor, his mouth smothering her with kisses as his hands roamed over her body—the agonizing push of him filling her whole with only minimal preparation. Her body had not been ready, but she had accepted it, anyway, until their slow movements together resulted in more pleasure than ache, and she felt the slip of him inside of her, slick with her juices—and the more she enjoyed it, the harder his thrusts came, as well as his own moans of pleasure, until it was almost a violent act between them.

Galadriel never thought about it back then—how quickly he had overwhelmed her in that cell. It had broken her bond with Celeborn, slicing through the thread forged between her fëa and her husband’s fëa. It had shattered the connection she once had with her husband, her love for him fading away like autumn leaves giving way to winter’s kiss. It had ruined their union in full light of the truth, forging a new link on a different chain—one chaining her to the man standing in front of her.

“You knew,” Galadriel whispered, finding no other words that would come to her in the moment.

“No,” Halbrand corrected her, shaking his head. “I guessed. I thought, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“—Until you had me,” Galadriel breathed out, fighting off the sense of betrayal.

His brow furrowed at her accusation, his eyes darkening as he shook his head again. “Galadriel,” he murmured, his hand rising to cup her cheek. “Of course not. How could you say that?”

Before she knew it, both of his palms were cupping her cheeks, holding her face between his hands.

“I . . . ” He froze on the words, nearly choking on them. “I only wanted to not feel so alone anymore in the grand scheme of the music, and I thought—I felt—from you the night before, our connection. When you asked me for my true name and held my hand—and held me, did you not mean it? Did it not matter? I . . . I never felt . . . loved—like that before.” Slowly, Halbrand shook his head. His eyes looked empty and sad. “I’ve never felt that before at all,” he admitted softly. “Until you.”

Galadriel wanted to believe him over the simmering doubt in her heart and her mind, pervading every corner of her thought like a sickness spreading through her. She wanted to believe in his goodness, in his goodwill, and that he could do such a thing as love another. Maybe his idea was different than hers. Elven customs were, after all, much more strict that that of Men or Maia, but if it was true, and he felt it, too, then he would be affected by their bond as much as her.

His hand fell away from her cheek to hold her chin between his fingers, lifting her gaze to line it up with his own. She had no choice but to look him in the eyes.

“I am sorry,” he whispered, “if you look back on that memory now with doubt. I do not want that. I was . . . rash and lonely, and I wanted to feel closer to you. I wanted to be one with you. I wanted the music to converge together again as one, I wanted—” He paused, his breath catching, as he tried to slow it down. “I was not trying to hurt you in any way. You must believe that. I have always felt it. Through every year that separated us and every war that raged on, I never stopped feeling it—the bond we once forged in Númenor, we made it whole the second time, did we not? I know you felt it, then, too,” he added tenderly, “and I know you feel it now.”

Galadriel reasoned she would never know for certain what the truth was of the matter, for she was not him, but in all these years, he had not betrayed her yet. She could try to read his mind, but it would open her mind to him as well—unlocking a link between their minds she might never be able to close. Worse yet, she feared it would not work either because, despite the loss of some of his powers, he was still stronger than her in many ways, and challenging that was a high risk with little reward.

Their bond would not cause her to act against her will, so in the end it had no bearing on the matter—and despite all of her fears, she did care for him. She cared greatly for him. Her feelings were genuine, and to doubt this much over a teasing jest . . .

“I am sorry,” Halbrand repeated when she did not speak, one of his hands falling to search for her hand. When he found it, he clasped them together once more. “I was crass. I should not have said what I said to you. I have been around Men for too long. I forget Elves are more delicate in nature. I will hold my tongue in the future, if you so wish.” He raised her hand to his lips, maintaining eye contact with Galadriel as he placed a kiss upon her knuckles. When he pulled back from it, she had no reason to doubt the sincere expression across his softened features. “Do not let my little jest ruin what we have built together, Galadriel.”

“If you mean it,” Galadriel told him somberly, “then I will not.”

“I mean it,” he murmured back, nodding his head with the words. “I mean every word of it.”

Galadriel nodded, too. It would have to be enough to quell her fears. “Then,” she said, “let us greet them.”

Halbrand smiled at her, though it did not quite reach his eyes as it did before. He remained troubled over their discussion, but it would have to wait until later. They had a crowd of people behind them and a crowd of people ahead, all of them waiting on them.

He looked behind them at Theo and Valandil, nodding his head at both of the men. They tipped their heads back, recognizing the silent command, and walked forward to open the doors. A wash of golden light flooded Galadriel’s vision and blinded her, and briefly, she was back on the ship before Valinor’s veil of light as it parted open before her, granting her access to the Undying Lands, where her husband had awaited her.

When she opened them again, there was no Valinor. No Celeborn. A vast wave of people cheered, hollered, and waved at her. They threw flower petals into the air like they had done for the festival nigh on three years past for the return of their king, and now, they did it for her, too.

Galadriel had jumped from that ship. She had launched over the side of it with her brother’s dagger in hand, diving into the sea. She had refused the call of the Undying Lands. She had refused her husband in that, too. She had chosen a different path, and this was where it had led her—to him. To a shattered raft in the middle of the Sundering Seas, where he had awaited her. An inescapable fate that had followed her everywhere since their initial meeting. She had dreamt of it before during the escape from Númenor. She had dreamt of that raft, of a faceless shadow, waiting for her. It had been him. It was his face she had seen beneath the shadow.

Always, it was history repeating itself. Every time, it led her to him. Every time, she fought him, and every time, it led her to him again—asking her to make a different choice than before.

Throughout countless years, their paths continued to cross, a never-ending chain of binding links, forging ever longer in a fate whose end was not yet certain—but one thing was certain. She could not escape him.

She would never escape him, no matter how much she fought and no matter how much she ran from him.

She would never escape him.

Halbrand lifted her hand as he held it, and Galadriel turned to look at him. He met her gaze, tilting his head toward her in a gentle motion of supplication meant to encourage her, before he guided her forward past the archway into the light and out of the shadow. Galadriel followed the pull of his hand, stepping out of the citadel into the open air and the warm caress of golden light.

She looked to the people, and she smiled.

Chapter Text

* * *

I never thought of it like that. I always thought of you as a part of me, like my own eyes or my own hands. You don’t go around thinking ‘I love my eyes, I love my hands’, do you? But think what it would be like to live without your eyes or your hands. To be mad, or to be blind. I can’t talk about it. It’s how I feel.

— Elizabeth Pope, “The Perilous Gard”

* * *

Galadriel paced back and forth across the middle of the waiting room, wherein she had been sequestered out of sight for some time after preparing herself for the wedding—her wedding—to Halbrand. Her dress, despite the occasion, was a simple garb of white silk, which shone as bright as the glimmer of a faceted pearl on the edge of moonlight. The long sleeves, which belled out at the ends, had slits in them as if to bare her arms, but beneath that, she wore an ivory satin shift to give her an additional layer of coverage. Where the silk fell away, the satin remained to cover her all the way down the wrists. The sleeves of her shift below had an arch on the end, like the shape of an arrow, pointing outward from the top of her hand. She had felt naked beneath the silk alone, opting for a second shift in the middle of her dressing to feel less exposed during the ceremony itself.

Typically, the silk alone would not have bothered her, but for some reason with the knowledge of his hungry eyes on her, it did today.

They had also insisted she remain out of sight. It was some Mortal tradition, which was bad luck to break—so Galadriel paced across the wide room with no windows, the lack of them making her feel more encased inside a trap than ever before. She was accompanied in the waiting room by Bronwyn, Eärien, and Theo, all of whom were staring at her swift strides to and fro with much concern in their gazes, though at first, they said nothing about it.

It was Bronwyn, who had spent so much time settling each star pin into Galadriel’s hair, who broke the silence.

“Maybe,” Bronwyn tried to suggest softly, “you should sit down, my queen?”

Theo nodded his head at the decanter on the table off to the side of the room. “Maybe you should give her some wine, Mother.”

Galadriel whirled on Theo, eyeing him with a new fortitude. “Wine?” she inquired with a bite in her tone.

Theo answered her with a grin of all teeth. “Something stronger?” he shot back, grabbing a flask at his side and unscrewing the lid. He extended it outwards toward Galadriel, tipping his chin as if in an offering for her to take it.

“What is it?” Galadriel asked, her eyes cutting down to the flask.

“Something stronger,” Theo replied, and it was all he said. He lifted the flask higher, and Galadriel crossed the distance in a few short strides, snatching the glimmering silver metal from his hand and startling him.

Galadriel downed the entire flask in two gulps, feeling a heady sense of dizziness wash over her. She steadied herself by grasping Theo’s shoulder, her eyes focusing on the wallpaper across from her field of vision. Galadriel felt Theo remove the flask from her hand with gentle fingers in an attempt not to startle her any further.

“What was in that?” she asked him, her fingers curling hard into his tunic.

“Like I said,” Theo repeated, “something stronger than wine. You look like you need it. Are you really this nervous about marriage?”

Her fingers cinched harder into the linen of his tunic at the shoulder. “To him? Yes.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

Galadriel glanced up at his eyes. Theo had warm brown eyes with a hint of amber at the center. He was older, much older, and yet somehow still young in his appearance. His hair was long, and he rarely wore it back. It fell about his shoulders in waves, tickling her hand. His dark hair was touched with fine highlights from the grace of the sun. When he smiled, it always reached his eyes.

He was smiling at her in that moment.

“You know who he is,” Galadriel murmured back, her hand slipping from his shoulder to his collarbone beneath the stiff neck of his ceremonial tunic. “I know, and you know—”

“—And Valandil knows, but please keep your voice down,” Theo urged, his eyes roving over to his mother and Eärien across the room.

“Valandil knows?”

Theo cut his eyes back to Galadriel. “Yes, he knows, too.”

Galadriel found herself shaking her head back and forth, a flustered motion to match the pacing of her feet only moments prior. “Why have you never said anything to me?”

Theo warred with it, biting into his bottom lip. “I did not think it mattered,” he admitted, “because I thought you already knew.”

“I did,” Galadriel agreed, “but still—”

“You have felt alone in your knowledge?” he inquired, though it seemed to her more of a statement than a question.

Galadriel drew in a deep inhalation into her chest, exhaling it on a ragged breath. “Yes, I have felt alone.”

Theo grasped her hand on his chest, slipping fingers beneath her palm and pulling it away from his tunic. He kept her hand in his grip, but lowered it between them. His eyes sought out hers, locking her gaze with his own. “You have not been alone, my queen. I have known, and so has Valandil. We have known right along with you. I sensed it for the longest time, but I hesitated to breach your comfort of the topic. You seemed at war with it yourself. Not many people would understand us for our choices,” Theo cut himself off, tilting his head to the side. There was a glimmer of sadness in his eyes. “Even fewer still believe in second chances,” he offered.

“He meant to deceive you in the beginning,” Galadriel admitted, and Theo’s expression softened with a smile.

“I know,” he simply said.

Galadriel trembled at the realization of sharing such an intimate piece of knowledge out loud. “Is he watching us right now?” she asked, shaking anew with the terror that he might believe her to be sowing seeds of discord between them.

Theo shook his head, his brow furrowing in a sudden crinkle. “No, he is not watching us right now,” he replied.

“Show me,” Galadriel demanded, but Theo’s furrow only deepened in response.

“He would know it,” Theo said, “if I gave you my ring.” His hand clasped hers tighter, knuckles going white beneath his grip. His eyes suddenly narrowed at her. “Do you not trust him?”

Galadriel glanced down at his ring with its roughly hewn cobalt stone. Lifting her gaze, she met Theo’s eyes. She attempted to discern if Theo was being honest with her, and it seemed a most foul thing to deny him this. No one else would understand her in her hesitation. No one else but him. “I want to trust him,” Galadriel reasoned below her breath, keeping her voice low, so the others would not hear her, “but I fear the final outcome.”

His furrowed brow only deepened even further, the confusion in his eyes growing—and that was when Galadriel realized he was telling her the truth. Halbrand was not in his mind at this moment. “When you say ‘the final outcome,’ what do you mean?” Theo inquired with care.

“The future,” she admitted. “I fear for the future.”

Theo’s eyes seemed to glitter before her. “The future?” he asked, and a semblance of who he used to be crept through—a boy, scared of the future, too. “What’s that to an Elf? Ten years? Twenty? A hundred? If I’m lucky, I’ll still be here in a hundred, but I doubt it,” Theo continued on, his eyes never leaving hers. “You wouldn’t be here ready to walk down that aisle if some part of you didn’t believe there was a good enough reason for it. You’ve come this far. What’s stopping you now?”

Galadriel thought about it. She genuinely gave herself a moment to think it all over. “What he is capable of,” she told him.

A soft sigh escaped Theo’s parted lips, and though he never let go of her hand, she felt him readjust it until they were both more comfortable. He held her hand between both of his own. “Do you know what I think he is capable of?”

She met his gaze, saying nothing, though silently urging him to go on.

Theo drew in a deep breath, a half-worn smile on his face. “I know,” he began, “that King Halbrand has kept every word he has made in promise, or has sworn in oath, better these past decades than any man who came before him managed to do for my entire people. He gave us a safe home here in Pelargir, kept the threat of Mordor off our steps—even while being the Lord of Mordor himself. A sticky oath, some might say, that I have sworn myself to him, but in return for all he has granted?” Theo paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink in for her. “I would do it again in a heartbeat. He has kept the peace here,” he added, slowly shaking his head as a cool glimmer appeared in his eyes, “that he did not have to—that has served him no purpose other than our upraising and the steady strengthening of our people. To use us, others might argue, but he has not done that yet—and should he ever ask? For the years of peace and prosperity he has brought us, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. You say what he is capable of scares you,” Theo finished, his voice a solemn whisper, “but what he is capable of has shown me that good deeds still exist even in those who have been forsaken.”

A sudden calm overcame her as if a storm has passed and she was laid bare at the center. Galadriel stared up at Theo’s face, marveling at his resolve. In many ways it was much stronger than hers. “Númenor,” she reminded him, a breathless whisper in reply. “He sunk all of Númenor into the sea—”

Theo’s eyes narrowed further, and his resolve still did not waver from the path. “Númenor,” he said, “had long been on the path to destruction before he came along. Ar-Pharazôn had been preaching against the gods for years in the ears of all who would listen to his heresy, and his warmongering led itself all the way to your doorstep to find you, Queen Galadriel, and drag you home with him as a special sacrifice to the gods. Who stood in their way?”

Galadriel faltered in the face of a boy—a boy who was once her friend, even though he was a boy no longer, but now a man. “Theo—”

“Who stood in their way?” Theo repeated for her, waiting on her answer.

Galadriel opened her mouth to answer him, but her breath caught in her throat—along with the words—and it was clear their quiet but urgent conversation made the others in the room uncomfortable, his mother among them. In fact, it was Bronwyn who spoke first in their direction. “Is everything all right?” she inquired softly, but loud enough for both of them to hear.

“Yes,” Galadriel announced steadily, though she never looked at Bronwyn as she said it. Her gaze was still upon Theo, and a bright smile seemed to work itself out of the confliction that had arrested her only moments prior. “Everything is all right.”

Theo smiled at her, tipping his head in acknowledgement. “Is it?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” Galadriel told him, turning away from him and letting go of his hand at last. She faced Bronwyn and Eärien, who both stood at the other side of the room with curious but worrisome expressions on their faces. “All is well,” Galadriel announced to them with another smile, and Eärien accepted it without question. It was Bronwyn who doubted her, remaining uncertain in her thoughts.

“Who is walking you down the aisle?” came Eärien’s sudden cheerful question, and Galadriel froze in her steps halfway to them.

“ . . . Walking me down the aisle?” Galadriel repeated, finding her voice had almost left her once again.

Bronwyn and Eärien shared a look. “It is customary,” Eärien explained, “that the bride’s father walk her down the aisle to give her away to the groom—her new protector.” Her expression grew thoughtful, and then it veered sympathetic. “Do they not do that in Elven custom?”

A sudden lump appeared in her throat like a weight, and Galadriel tried to swallow past it. “My father is not here,” she offered.

“Well, that will not do!” Eärien exclaimed with a manic energy, grasping a hold of Bronwyn’s wrist. She turned her attention Bronwyn, addressing the other woman next. “Stay here with her,” Eärien insisted. “I will be right back.”

Before Eärien could explain herself, the younger woman disappeared from the waiting room and closed the door behind her. Galadriel turned to Theo, looking for any exit outside of this room. “Is it time yet?”

Theo, too, was sympathetic as he shook his head. “Not yet,” he said.

“What are we waiting on?” Galadriel asked him before feeling Bronwyn’s hands on her shoulders.

“Relax, my queen,” Bronwyn murmured, and she guided Galadriel to sit down as they waited for Eärien to return. “Let me fix your hair. It is a bit disheveled from all your pacing.”

Galadriel closed her eyes as she felt Bronwyn’s hands in her hair, delicately rearranging each pin back in place within her locks. Half of her hair had been left down for the occasion in loose curls, while the top half had been lifted to the back and braided in place to hold it with brilliant silver hair pins topped with adamant stars slipped into the wefts that drew together in a braid. Starlight, though this version of it was not real, was still an important fixture in Elven culture, and the pins, Bronwyn had said, were made by Halbrand for her. A Elbereth Gilthoniel, silivren penna míriel o menel aglar elenath, Galadriel recalled the hymn, singing it to herself now in the silence of her mind. Na-chaered palan-díriel o galadhremmin ennorath, Fanuilos, le linnathon nef aear, sí nef aearon. A Elbereth Gilthoniel, o menel palan-diriel, le nallon sí di’nguruthos. A tiro nin, Fanuilos.

By the time she was done reciting it in her head, Galadriel opened her eyes and sensed Bronwyn’s hands had fallen away from her hair. The door to the waiting room suddenly opened, and Galadriel lifted her gaze upward. There, in the doorway, stood Elendil followed shortly by his daughter, Eärien, and his smile turned into a grin at the sight of Galadriel in her wedding dress.

“Aren’t you a sight to see!” Elendil greeted her, and Galadriel stood up to meet him, feeling herself smile back despite the doubts that had been in her mind only moments before. Galadriel reached out for his hand, and Elendil took it, holding fast as he laid his other palm atop her knuckles.

“Father,” Eärien began curiously, her eyes upward on Elendil as she stood beside him, “we have a predicament. Galadriel has no one to give her away at her wedding. Will you do the honors?”

Elendil’s shock was clear, but he looked to Galadriel first for approval. “Is this what you want, my queen?” he inquired, feeling astonished to be asked to perform such a task for her. “I would be most honored, of course.”

“I hear it is customary in Mortal weddings,” Galadriel revealed to him, but her voice softened on the edge of sadness, “and I do not wish to walk alone.”

Elendil’s answer was a tender smile that reached the bright blue of his eyes. He released her hand and raised his arm between them, bent at the elbow for her to grab a hold of it. “It would be my honor, my queen.”

Galadriel stared at his arm. Slowly, she curled her arm around Elendil’s, finding comfort in the warmth of a shared embrace. Galadriel glanced over her shoulder at Theo, who simply smirked in reply.

“I think we can go now,” Theo announced, stepping over to join the group, “even if they aren’t ready yet. Besides, if we wait any longer, we may not have a bride to give away!”

“Theo, hush!” Eärien exclaimed. “It is normal for a bride to be nervous on her wedding! You ought to encourage her, not tease her!”

Theo laughed in response, walking up to Eärien and extending his arm to her. “Well, come now, take my arm. Let’s get behind them and get this bride where she’s going.”

Galadriel heard the pop of Eärien’s light smack on Theo’s arm without seeing it, while Bronwyn smiled kindly at her and opened the door for her and Elendil to step out of the room at last.

The first step Galadriel made over the threshold felt like the beginning of a new life.

Elendil paused suddenly, allowing Theo and Eärien to walk ahead of them, arm in arm, and Bronwyn followed behind her son and Elendil’s daughter, glancing back over her shoulder to offer another encouraging smile Galadriel’s way, her dark eyes beckoning for them to follow. Elendil did most of the walking, while Galadriel felt as though she floated along beside him, and when they reached the archway—the same archway from her coronation day—they paused around the corner of it, waiting as Theo and Eärien headed into the great hall first with Bronwyn not far behind them.

“Just walk with me,” Elendil murmured softly, laying his hand atop her forearm, and he took the first step forward.

“Thank you for this,” Galadriel whispered to him.

“Of course, my queen,” came his soft reply, and then the world opened up to a sea of faces before her.

Elendil led the way, and Galadriel could barely remember it for the way her nerves shuddered and shook as he guided her down the aisle. She saw the faces, but they were all blurred together despite her acute vision, and when she glanced forward at the altar, Halbrand’s look of awe seemed to give him a childlike wonder—at once making him appear as small as Galadriel now felt with each step she took towards him.

Elendil walked her all the way until she stood before Halbrand, and she felt Elendil’s arm uncurl from hers and leave her.

The ceremony itself remained a daze for Galadriel. They had agreed on no rings, for their current rings would be their only rings—and there was something fitting in that, too. Only barely, did Galadriel hear the vows being spoken aloud, and Halbrand reciting them. The sound of his voice caused her to look up at last, and Galadriel met the warmth of his gaze as he spoke them across from her, to her, while holding her gaze for as long as he could until she heard the officiator speak to her and draw her attention away. Galadriel recited her own vows, her eyes wandering back to Halbrand, though her voice was not as steady as she hoped, but it was as steady as could be hoped for, all things considered—and he still managed to smile at her, or was it a look of surprise? Galadriel had trouble discerning between the two, and even more so, the moment he took her hand into his, and she felt the gossamer silk wrapping around their clasped hands, winding them tighter and tighter together. It curled up her wrist on one end, and up his wrist on the other.

Handfasting, they called it. Galadriel was not familiar with it until now. Elven wedding ceremonies were much different from Mortal ones, and this was new to her—as were even the vows. The silk wrapped about their hands and wrists was to signify their new union together, in which they were now bound, and Galadriel felt the softest caress of his fingertips against her cheek, causing her to look up from the knotted silk around their hands.

He looked her in the eyes before he ever kissed her. Let his gaze linger, a soft touch of souls deeper than any word spoken and few acts that could be done. She felt naked and bare before it, before him, but the kindness in his eyes was not possessive in its nature, and she did not feel lost before it. When he leaned toward her, he paused a hair’s breadth away. His hot breath washed over her lips, and Galadriel felt her eyelids flutter to a close until all the world was dark.

His lips caught hers with barely a touch, and he did not move further until she gasped softly against him, parting her lips against his for more touch than a fine graze. It was not until then that his hand passed to the back of her neck and grasped her there, pulling her into him—a deeper kiss with a sense of fullness to the way they pressed into one another, and how he captured her in that moment—one hand on her neck, and his teeth on her lip. She allowed him entrance into her mouth in front of everyone, his tongue sweeping deep past the opening she had granted him, the bluntness of his nails driving into her skin. Cheers rose up around them, bursting through the droning silence of her mind as if she had arisen up from the silence beneath the drowning waves into a cacophony of madness above—a lashing storm, a bolt of lightning, and thunder on every corner. Her eyes flew open, and he pulled back from her.

There was no storm. No bolt of lightning. No thunder. Just the roar of applause as everyone clapped around them, and they stared at each other in wonder, hearing the same things. There was no doubt in Galadriel’s mind. His eyes, though so green and full of warmth in the center, were alight with the stormy thunder of the seas.

She was in a daze as he raised their hands, and she heard not what he said—if he said anything at all—and found herself following his footsteps down the dais to lower themselves to the level of the crowd. Their hands remained clasped, tied together with the gossamer silk, and each step she took felt as light as a feather.

There was laughter, of course, and the sound of hands clasping Halbrand on the back. A congratulations of sorts, though no one touched her in the same way. Galadriel made note of it while they passed through the crowd, still clapping, still cheering. They were enthusiastic for him, but demure for her. Their gazes were soft in her direction, half smiles with tilted chins and knowing eyes. Averting her gaze from them, Galadriel clenched his hand tighter between the grip of her fingers.

It drew Halbrand’s eyes to her, his laughter fading off at the edge.

“Is everything all right?” he asked her.

Galadriel’s breathing came quickly through her mouth, one breath after another, until her whole chest was heaving with the motion in a hectic rise and fall. “I need,” she began, each word catching on her breath, “I need space—”

Halbrand sensed her predicament and guided her out of the great hall into the corridor, drawing her to him with a swift movement of his arm. “Is that better?” he inquired, still walking and leading the way away from the mob behind them, which, inevitably, would follow in their footsteps—and did. Galadriel could hear their laughter and clapping still rising up behind them.

“Yes,” she replied, “thank you.”

“Too many faces?” he asked. “Too much noise?”

Galadriel laughed, then, an easy laugh filled with mirth. “Quite so,” she answered him.

“Careful,” Halbrand warned, an edge of teasing to his tone, “being too at ease from escaping the crowd. I might think you wish to leave the feast early with me.”

Galadriel froze midstep, turning to face him with shock plain on her face. “No,” she blurted out. “No, not so soon—”

Halbrand’s laugh was jovial in response, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m teasing,” he said, pausing with her. There was a softness in his eyes. “My love.”

Her breath caught in her throat, which spurred him to draw closer to her, his hand catching her chin as he stared down at her through his lashes.

“I can call you that?” he asked, his words barely a whisper. “‘My love?’”

Her breath came more ragged and faster than before, and he only grinned in response—a wolfish grin, all serrated at the edges. The torchlight from the sconces behind her made his eyes glimmer with the flickering of each flame. “Yes,” she managed to say, and his lips came together at last as he hummed softly in reply.

“Good,” he whispered, and it was not until he kissed her that the roar of the crowd surged up around them again, bodies filling five at a time to pass through the hallway into the feast chambers beyond. Galadriel pulled back from the kiss as people bumped ungraciously into her, and Halbrand tugged her close against his chest to keep her from the crowd, his free arm wrapping around her waist and holding her there—his hand pressing into the small of her back.

The thumb of his other hand, the one still wrapped beneath the gossamer silk of their handfasting ceremony, caressed the edge of hers. The light touch raised the hairs on the nape of her neck, one by one, a prickling sensation running through each nerve beneath her clothes, tickling Galadriel all over her body in intimate ways.

“What shall we do,” Halbrand inquired softly, though she heard every word from his lips despite the roar of the crowd brushing past them to reach the tables of fresh food and blood red wine, “as our first act of husband and wife?”

Music began to play from somewhere, resonating through the air with a poignant litany between each note, and it mattered not from where the sound came from as she heard herself answering him. “We should dance,” Galadriel suggested, her voice sounding softer than she meant for it.

His hand slid up carefully along the flat of her back and around her body until it reached the front. He caught her chin as he had only moments ago in the hallway, urging her to tilt gaze back to his eyes.

They appeared almost black in the faltering torchlight of the windowless hallway, his back to the arch of the entrance, the looming stone shielding him from most of the light.

“What a splendid idea, my wife,” whispered Halbrand, though he hardly looked like Halbrand as he stood there, towering over her. For a brief glimpse of time, each feature of his face sharpened as if a knife had carved him deeper and chiseled out a harsher, striking countenance beneath the black, hungry eyes, so black but reflecting all of the light in a torrid glimmer. It set her soul on fire.

Galadriel blinked, and it was gone—and he was Halbrand again.

He smiled at her as if it never happened, and then he led her to the dance floor by their entwined hands. Galadriel never noticed all of the commotion around her, for she was struck by what she had seen—wondering, too, if it had been real. Was it all in her head, or were these things happening before her very eyes like tricks of the light, begging her to question her own truth?

Halbrand tugged at the silk binding their hands until it all ran loose and fell to the floor with one end still in his grip. He slid it around the back of her neck underneath her hair, causing Galadriel to shiver as he pulled on the silk from the other side and it swept across the back of her neck. A wicked grin set itself upon his lips, and he licked them until they glistened, leaning in closer and catching her parted mouth in a sudden kiss, his tongue snaking through the opening. It caught Galadriel by surprise, and she gasped, but that only gave him better entrance, and he deepened the kiss, tugging her to him by the neck with both ends of the gossamer silk tight in the grip of his hand. Her hand rose between them, centering herself against his chest—but she did not push him away.

When he pulled back, his face was lit with lust. “You like that,” Halbrand murmured, grinning when Galadriel’s answer was her flustered expression and shortened breath. “Maybe I should tie you up tonight,” he added softly, and Galadriel’s cheeks burned as she attempted to glance away from him. He caught her chin, though, forcing her to look back at him, much to her chagrin.

“You have never talked to me this way before,” Galadriel admonished him, and he only grinned harder—brighter, even.

“You were never my wife before,” Halbrand reminded her in a whisper.

Galadriel was frozen in place, staring up at him. Easily, she was caught up in something she had not fully taken the time to understand. Halbrand’s hand, large and strong, ran up the side of her face and held her. Despite the gentle touch, there was something sinister beneath it.

Theo fell into them, laughing loudly, passing a goblet of wine to each of them. During his stumbling steps, wine had sloshed over the side of each goblet, creating a sticky surface when she accepted it from his hand.

“Drink!” insisted Theo, and Halbrand downed the goblet in two gulps, his wolfish grin only amplified by the red wine, like blood, dripping down the corner of his lips.

Galadriel closed her eyes, and she drank the entirety of her goblet before she felt Halbrand slipping it out of her hand.

Halbrand passed them back to Theo. He nodded his head once, and just like that, Theo smiled at them and turned to walk away.

Halbrand grasped her hard, his hands on either side of her face, pulling Galadriel into him as he kissed her just as hard, an eruption of cheers rising up around them, but Galadriel could focus on nothing but the wine—how he tasted of it as their tongues tangled and grazed, sweet and bitter, and how his fingers passed through her hair to the back of her head to cradle her firmly in place as he swept every crevice of her mouth for any drop of juice left between them.

You wouldn’t stop me, would you? his words echoed back at her. Oh, with your words, yes, but you wouldn’t really stop me. You would let me sink every inch of myself into you and defile you and devour you whole—

Her eyes flew open as Halbrand pulled away from her, his mouth still open and his hair mussed, eyes dark and empty. With his hand still on the back of her head, his fingers clutched in her hair and gripped it tight. Gently, despite his hold, he urged her to lay her cheek against his chest. His other arm came around her body to hold her close, the room converging in a sway of bodies and colors blurring before her vision.

Both of his arms encased her in the warmth of his firm embrace, holding her as they swayed together. It was hardly a formal dance, but no one around them seemed to mind or care, and Galadriel watched for a brief moment as the other people danced more formally around the two of them until she closed her eyes and buried her face against the spicy sweetness embedded in his tunic. His hand softened in her hair, his fingers grazing over some of the hair pins shaped like stars—the ones he had made her.

“Thank you for them,” Galadriel found herself saying into his tunic, and he hummed against it—the reverberation in chest resonating against her cheek.

“You would look like a goddess,” came Halbrand’s voice above her, “naked and draped in nothing but starlight.”

Galadriel paused, and she pulled back from him to look him in the eyes. His expression had not changed from earlier; it was still all dark edges cast in the firelight like a mold in which to shape something greater than itself.

His words reminded her, though, of the only time he had ever seen her nude with not a scrap of cloth on her body—back in sunken Númenor, in her cell, when he had watched her from darkened corners without making his presence known. It had troubled her then, but nearly four years later, here she was—married to him.

“Is this a game to you?” Galadriel challenged him.

The corner of his mouth twitched into half a smile as the music changed, a quick, upbeat tune taking the place of the slow song just before it. Halbrand took her hands into his, the slow graze of skin alighting her with desire as much as his heady look aimed in her direction. He lost none of his footing, transitioning gracefully into the new beat.

“Of course not,” Halbrand replied, slowly shaking his head. “This was never a game, Galadriel.”

She tried to keep up with his movements, finding the swift change in pace dizzying. “It is starting to feel that way,” Galadriel reasoned against him.

Halbrand leaned in close against her ear. “Is it?” he whispered. “Or are you just finally giving in?”

“I want you to stop teasing me—”

“I fully intend,” Halbrand murmured deeply, his voice taking on a dangerous quality as his tongue snuck out to graze along the lobe of her ear, “to do that all night long, my love.”

Galadriel quavered at the assault, feeling one of his hands release hers to slip down into the small of her back again. He dared to go lower, gripping the curve of her bottom in public. “Halbrand—”

He chuckled in her ear, pushing her into him with that hand in one swift motion, and Galadriel froze. Hard as a rock and pressed against her belly, he rolled his hips into her in a most unseemly manner despite the tangle of their limbs that hid most of it from view. “I can’t wait to spear you on it,” he whispered heatedly, “and see how far down you can go—”

Galadriel rose her hand to smack him or slap him—one or the other, but he snatched her wrist and halted her.

“In public?” Halbrand teased, clicking his tongue three times at her in disapproval. “Galadriel,” he addressed her in lilted tones, “how scandalous.”

“What is wrong with you?” Galadriel demanded. “You started it—”

His mouth was only inches away from hers, his breath hot and inciting as his words. “And I will finish it. Many times. I guarantee it, my wife.”

Galadriel tried to wrest away from his grip. “Stop—”

“You don’t mean it—”

“Stop—”

A flash entered her mind like a vision, stilling her completely with a gasp—a mass of naked limbs, his strong arms wrapped around her. Every thrust accentuated with their breaths as he pierced through the thinning veil between their minds. Stop—

You don’t mean it—

Galadriel tore away from him with another gasp wrenched from her lungs, backing away from Halbrand—away from the concerned expression on his face as he watched her go, though he did not try to stop her. He let her go.

She needed her space. He had to understand that. This was too much. He knew how to rile her up. He always knew how to rile her up. He knew the right things to say, the right things to do, and before this night was through, Galadriel would have no defenses left standing against him.

He would own her, body and soul, whether he meant to treasure it or use it against her. Galadriel was not sure where the thought came from that he would hold it over her, but he was more lascivious this evening than ever—though, in truth, it was their wedding day. Tonight, their wedding night.

Did he covet it that much?

Galadriel escaped to the other side of the room, bumping into Valandil on her search for Bronwyn or Eärien, but any friendly face was a kind distraction from her mind. He caught her much in the same way he had caught her at the feast so many years prior, his hands gentle and warm.

“Are you all right, my queen?” Valandil asked her, an inquisitive expression upon his face as he gazed back at her with concern.

“Yes, Valandil,” Galadriel answered him. “I am fine. Thank you.”

“You look flushed,” Valandil pointed out, a hint of doubt in his tone.

“I am,” Galadriel admitted, “but please, I need not worry. I wish to dance. Will you dance with me?”

Valandil smiled back at her. “Of course,” he said, holding out his hand to her. Galadriel took it, feeling eyes on the back of her head. She glanced around, but saw nothing. Valandil led her out onto the floor, back amongst the midst of bodies swaying, and with steady and assured movements, found his pacing alongside her with ease.

Valandil was a skilled dance partner, laughing alongside Galadriel as they mirrored each other’s steps through a quick dance, but eventually, the music stooped low and slowed down—and Valandil drew her closer, the look upon his face changing in its quality to one reminiscent of the hunger through which Halbrand had viewed her earlier. His intense gaze pierced her with discomfort, and his hands grew far too acquainted with her body.

“Valandil,” she tried to say, but he pulled her closer, holding fast, his lips curling into a small smile beneath the fallen lashes of his eyes. “Valandil—”

“—Do you need rescuing, my queen?” came Theo’s easy voice, interrupting Valandil and scooping Galadriel’s hand away from him—effectively, snapping the haze away from Valandil’s mind. Galadriel watched with confusion as Valandil blinked through a fog, coming out no further to understanding whatever had just happened than that he had apparently just danced with her. He tried to smile through his bewilderment, looking from Theo to Galadriel and back to Theo. Finally, he bowed his head and walked off away from them, still half in a daze.

Galadriel glanced up at Theo. He was tall, almost as tall as Halbrand, but darker, warmer, and younger. He smiled down at her, eyes half-lidded, and tipped his chin in her direction. “You seemed flustered with Valandil, my queen,” Theo pointed out, guiding her directly into another dance without inquiring if it was her desire.

“A little, yes,” Galadriel admitted, falling in step with him, and Theo grinned in reply.

“I am a better dance partner than him,” Theo told her.

“Are you?” Galadriel asked, beginning to question the nature of his interruption.

“Yes,” Theo said. “Much better. Let me show you—”

“I think I—”

“Let me show you.”

“Theo, I—”

He swept her easily into the crowd of bodies, his hands an iron grip on Galadriel’s. Her heart raced inside her chest, and while she was not inebriated from the wine, the swift motions made her dizzy again. When he dipped her amidst the swell of the music, Theo’s gaze was hungry above her—centered on Galadriel with a heady desire most present at the forefront of his eyes.

It disturbed her.

Quickly, Galadriel straightened herself and pulled herself free from his grasp. “Theo, I must insist—”

“—Galadriel?”

In that moment more than any other, Galadriel whirled around and spotted Halbrand, her heart swelling with relief. Never had she felt it so acutely before, but seeing him there like a shield and a shelter in such an uncomfortable moment brought her into his arms immediately. Galadriel wrapped her arms around his middle, her arms sliding beneath his—and her cheek pressing to his chest. She closed her eyes and breathed in his relaxing scent with a deep inhalation—his crisp, clean spice with a hint of woodland underneath it.

Halbrand seemed surprised, especially given her reluctance earlier and her desire to escape him. Slowly, his arms rose to encase her, careful hands laying themselves upon her back.

“Theo,” warned Halbrand, though there was a hint of teasing beneath his tone, “what have you done to my wife?”

Theo laughed nervously. “I haven’t done anything,” he said. “We were only dancing. Right, Galadriel?”

“I want to leave,” Galadriel whispered against Halbrand’s chest. “Please, may we leave?”

“Halbrand, I haven’t—” It was Theo speaking, but Galadriel felt one of Halbrand’s hands leave her back as he held up it at Theo to silence him. No other words were spoken, a silent agreement between them. Halbrand then returned his hand to her back, and he ran them both up and down the smooth silk of her gown. Galadriel thought she heard Theo walking off, but she was not sure without looking, and she did not wish to pull her face away from Halbrand’s chest. Not yet, anyway.

“So soon?” Halbrand asked her, though he was no longer teasing her this time. He was sincere. He meant it.

“I am going mad,” Galadriel whispered, her voice breaking. “Please—”

“Not possible,” Halbrand offered gently, “but say no more. If you wish to go, we will go. Where would you like to go, my wife?”

“Anywhere but here,” she murmured. “Anywhere but here, please.”

“All right,” he agreed softly. “All right. Say no more. It’s a lot. A day of nerves, and I haven’t helped. I’m sorry.”

Galadriel closed her eyes, feeling the warm swell of tears behind them. She did not want to say it. She did not, but she felt it—and what was the start of a marriage with a lie?

“I love you,” Galadriel whispered to him, her voice catching on the words. “I have loved you.”

His hands stilled on her back. For a long moment, it was nothing but silence between them.

Without a word, Halbrand bent himself and slid his arms lower, keeping one on her back while the other scooped beneath her knees and raised her into his arms. A sudden silence fell across the hall as Galadriel clasped one arm around his neck and held onto him, feeling all of the eyes on them, and it was followed quickly by the dissonance of cheers rising up behind it—hoots and hollers, calls and whistles, and the loud mixture of clapping.

“Don’t mind them,” Halbrand whispered to Galadriel, and she closed her eyes and buried her face against his tunic—and ignored it to the best of her ability, for he was warm and strong and kind.

His desire for her was tempered also with his love, and it was easy to remember that when he had come to her rescue.

He took her away from the great hall in his arms, the jeering madness fading away into the sure and steady sound of his footfalls filling the empty corridors with each step of his boots.

Chapter Text

* * *

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

— William Shakespeare, “Timon of Athens”

* * *

The caress of his fingers through her hair held an unnatural softness to the gesture, something Galadriel would never have prescribed to Halbrand of all people. He glided them effortlessly through the few tangles he discovered, combing them out with gentle motions that never tugged against her scalp or caused her any discomfort or pain. He was diligent with the task as he sat next to her on the bed; when they had arrived to his chambers where he had taken her, much to her immediate fear at first, Halbrand had disproved her quickly about his intentions by allowing Galadriel her silence and her space, walking about the wide room to light the candles aflame one by one and chase away the shadows to each darkened corner. He had not lit many of them, but he had lit a few—just enough to give the room some light, though each blazing flame danced and flickered like the bodies below at the feast, sending a host of shadows across the walls with each bend and twist of movement.

Outside, it was already nearing the early cusp of nightfall. The glimmer of starlight was visible through the billowing draperies, disturbed by the wind beyond them; they had been parted earlier to allow in fresh air through the open doors, and past those draperies, there was a balcony connected to Halbrand’s chambers. All of the stone from the marble floor to the white banisters shone bright under the night sky, an azure aura of light blurring the lines between objects as they seemed to reach out to each other with an inner presence that was nothing more than a reflection of the world outside of it. It was beautiful to Galadriel, a most calming sight. Her heart came to rest, and so did her mind as she gazed forward at it, and still, she did not speak.

Halbrand had rejoined her on the bed shortly after lighting the candles, his hand wandering to touch her hair. Galadriel had felt the bed sink beneath his weight beside her, felt the brush of his hip to hers, and still, she had not spoken a single word to him. Halbrand, too, remained silent as well. He had focused on her hair, gently combing his fingers through her tresses with a touch that was barely there; removing tangles and friction and tension with each stroke, and then, he focused on the star pins Bronwyn had set into her hair for the ceremony—the hair pins he had made for her. Carefully, with the slowest movements imaginable, Halbrand took a hold of them one at a time, slipping the cool metal from her hair as if they were never even there. Galadriel heard him collecting them in his hands, their delicate surfaces clinking together in his palm where he laid them. With each pin he removed from her hair, Galadriel felt more naked than before—but her calmness, her centered peace, was not disturbed.

It was a quiet undressing, one of which Galadriel imagined would take all night to perform properly—but he knew what he was doing, and he knew it well.

When he pulled the last pin from her hair, Halbrand tipped the edge of it, allowing the forks to graze her scalp as he lifted it from her braid.

Galadriel closed her eyes, shivering at the contact.

Halbrand made no crass jokes as she expected of him. Still, he was as silent as her as if this was a test, a game between them, of who would cave first.

Slowly, he rose from the bed to place the pins on the nightstand with little clatters and clinks. Galadriel opened her eyes at last, and then cast her curious gaze toward them; they glittered in the starlight, too, reflecting it back to her with a bright blue sheen in their crystal clear gems.

Halbrand returned to the bed, the weight of it sinking down beside her again, and the warmth of his thigh present against hers; this time both of his hands were in her hair instead of just one, his fingers tenderly combing out her braid until its locks laid loose and haphazard with the rest of her tresses along her back. He combed his fingers through that as well, relishing quietly in the way she shivered beneath his touch.

Finally, he paused in his ministrations, his hands settling lightly along her shoulders—the tips of his fingers only, no palms. Through the thin fabric of silk and satin between his skin and hers, Galadriel felt all his warmth, and she trembled at it.

The more vulgar he was with her, she fought him—tooth and nail, if need be—but when he was soft like this, when he was giving and gentle, she forgot all her reasoning and sensibilities. She accepted him.

She gave in to him.

“Will you not speak to me, dear wife?”

Halbrand’s voice cut through the fog of her mind like a searing blade, and Galadriel looked up from her lap, not realizing her gaze had fallen there. Her eyes were not on him, though. They were fixed on the balcony ablaze in light—sacred starlight, revered amongst her kind, a blessing from Elbereth Gilthoniel herself.

Was it a sign their union was blessed?

His hands laid flat against her shoulders, the fullness of his palms cupping her in his clutch.

“Galadriel,” he whispered near her ear, “please—speak to me.”

“Are you not going to force yourself on me?” Galadriel knew not where the question came from, but it was not asked with any anger. A genuine curiosity, perhaps. She had expected him to overwhelm her the moment they were alone and take what was his, what he had waited years and years and years for—engulf her now as he had engulfed her in Númenor and taken what he had wanted from her then—

“That is not fair,” Halbrand argued with her, and Galadriel turned to him in a rage, finally looking at him.

“Are you reading my mind?” she shot back.

“Yes, I am reading your mind,” he hissed back. Halbrand rose from the bed, his warmth dissipating from her side, disappearing into the cool night air and leaving her bathed in a sudden chill. “Is that all you’re going to think of me, even now? A usurper? A tyrant? To take everything I have by force and earn none of it?”

Galadriel rose from the bed to stand before him, matching him ire for ire. “I did not give you permission to read my mind—”

“What else am I supposed to do, Galadriel!” Halbrand hollered at her. “You speak not to me at all! I know nothing of your mind! You share little with me but fair-weather claims all Men say to each other day in and day out!” His voice cracked along with his face under the soft flicker of flames with no one around to judge him for his loss of self-control but her. For all her self-righteous rage, it stunned her to see him lose his temper in such a manner. His shoulders slumped shortly after, his expression falling into that same emptiness she had seen on it before—during the dance when he had kissed her, the way he had lost himself in the moment.

It was not emptiness she had seen in his eyes, not then or even now. He went to a place deep inside of himself, one she could not reach.

Had she ever even tried to, though?

“You want that,” Galadriel heard herself saying, though her voice sounded very far away, “from me?”

There was little else to be said, except for how everything left his face—all expression and light and love—until he looked as if he were nothing more than a shell to be filled with and used and wrought for the purposes of another’s hands other than his own. With the smallest movement imaginable, he shook his head back and forth, and then his face twisted into a semblance of pain.

“I told you what I wanted from you,” he whispered across the distance, a distance that he now maintained and kept between them. “I told you back in Númenor when I revealed truths to you I have not told another living soul for longer than a millennia. I told you on the Sundering Seas as the winds threatened to rip our ship to shreds and drown us with the rest of the pour souls I sent to their deaths. I told you as we sailed clear into the Bay of Belfalas, my strength utterly dependent upon your mercy—and I have told you every day since with unfailing loyalty to you in every way, and yet no matter what I have done, you still do not believe me.” His voice wavered then, his bottom lip trembling with every effort to speak. “You will never believe me, will you?”

Galadriel opened her mouth to answer him, halting on her own breath, realizing she never knew what to say because she was terrified of being vulnerable with him—a fear reflected back at her from his eyes and his words, aching with every attempt he made to reach her.

Two powerful beings, absolutely terrified of the power the other could wield over them.

Galadriel went for denial. “That is not what it is—”

“Stop lying to me, Galadriel,” Halbrand said, shaking his head, and his conviction returned to him. He crossed the distance in quick strides until he was standing in front of her. “Why did you marry me?” he insisted, his ire back and stronger than before. “Tell me why you married me if you do not trust me.”

She was shocked by his bluntness. “I care for you—”

“—It’s more than that,” he interrupted, seizing her by the arm. His grip was as hard as iron shackles, blunt nails biting deep enough to hurt. “You sought to control me—to wield me like an instrument—as if you could lay back on that bed and spread your legs, and I’d be your lap dog for life in my gratefulness.”

His words stung harder than any dagger could.

Without warning, Halbrand shoved her onto the bed—nearly threw her on top of it, and she bounced against the feather bed and silken sheets, a new wave of terror spreading through her, but he never crawled on top of her. He just stood there still, glowering down at her, his face twisted and cruel.

“That’s what you thought of me,” he accused her quietly, his eyes narrowing in on her. “What you still think of me,” came his softer reply, a bite in every word. “You said you love me, but what you have concocted is a loveless marriage I want no part of.” Slowly, Halbrand shook his head. “I want no part of it if all you seek is to do your duty through a desire to control me with it.”

Galadriel pushed herself up onto her elbows, straightening herself into a sitting position as she stared up at him. He had startled her with his revelation. She had not expected this of him. Of all the outcomes she could have predicted, this had not been one of them.

“You would turn away from me?” Galadriel threw back at him, feeling a deep hurt hollowing out her stomach with an emptiness most profound. Not only was she hurt, though, but insulted—dishonored—after everything he had done in order to secure this marriage to her throughout the years, he would deny her now? He would turn away from her now—on her wedding night of all nights? An Elf did not give in to marriage easily, and he had begged her—begged her—into it. “You have wanted nothing more—”

His eyes darkened to a black husk, the corners of his mouth twitching. He drew closer to her, and Galadriel, in her ire, did not turn away from his glare. She gave him one as good as he gave her.

“Do you know what it feels like,” Halbrand hissed as he leaned over her, “to have you reduce me to a man who seeks the basest of pleasure? As if your body alone could satisfy my hunger? My thirst? Do you think the water from between your legs could slake the burning need in me?” He reached out for her, his hand sliding along her neck. It rose upward to her jaw to cup her there. His eyes bored into hers, never looking away. “Do you think,” he insisted, eyes widening as he softly shook his head, “there is any earthly rite capable of ending the turmoil in me? The appetite a thousand years have stoked into existence—and a thousand more could not quench?”

His other hand slipped intimately between the space of her legs, his fingers rising to press at her center against the silk of her gown and the satin underneath it, and Galadriel did not pull away from him. It was the barest of touches, only a graze of fingertips to fabric.

“Do you think I seek only the pleasures of your body?” Halbrand whispered, his face so close to hers. “Three years, I have lain in your bed. Held you close. Slept with you at your most vulnerable. Listened to you talk. Listened to you breathe. Long after you had fallen asleep, sometimes I would still be awake with you.” His hand fell away from the intimate space between her legs. “Have I ever, in all those years, forced myself on you?”

“No,” Galadriel breathed out in all honesty, her voice nothing more than a shattered tremor. He had never.

“How, then, could it not hurt,” he whispered, cupping her face in full, “to hear you ask me that now?” He exhaled a tremulous breath against her lips, faltering on an almost broken laugh. “On our wedding night, Galadriel?”

She reached up to grasp his tunic by the shoulders, clutching tight fingers into the stiff fabric until it bunched up beneath her grip. She grasped it so hard it tugged his collar against his neck. “I cannot—” Galadriel hissed, feeling hot tears burn in the back of her eyes. “If I trust you, and you turn yourself against me, I—”

I will be broken, she could have said, but the truth was an even sadder one still.

Too much sorrow could kill an Elf.

It was fatal—a flaw built into them by Eru Ilúvatar himself to combat their immortality and their immense power to ensure their goodness, their goodwill, and their good nature. Too much sorrow in their spirit, and their body would either away—and like a Man wrought with sickness, they would die from it.

“This will poison us,” he murmured softly, and the light touch of his fingers beginning to caress her cheek back and forth lulled her into a sense of comfort despite the storm. “It will poison me. If you cannot bring yourself to trust me and you continue to doubt everything I say or do, I will become that man again, Galadriel. I will become him because, in your eyes, it is all I will see.”

Her hand lifted to touch his cheek as well, mirroring the way he held her. Her thumb, too, mimicked his tender brushes in turn, catching against his stubble. “I want to believe you can be good,” she admitted, finding the words so hard to say out loud. He was right in that she did not talk to him about her emotions or anything much at all about the inner world within her. She shut them all off from him. Put up a wall in every way between their minds, save for in her moments of weakness when he dared to breach the veil to seek out her thought. “I want to believe it with every fiber of my being—”

“Then, believe it,” he whispered against her lips, and Galadriel drew a sharp inhale in response—the rings, the power, and every other questionable moment in between flashed through her mind in quick succession. “Believe it,” he whispered urgently, “and I can be it. Believe in me, please. Have I not done all that you have asked? Have I not?”

“Yes, you have, but—”

“—But what, Galadriel? What?”

Her mind flew back through time, recalling them, just like this, there in the darkness of her cell in Númenor. Númenor, which was no more—deep beneath the sea, a sunken graveyard of their past. This is not the way, Galadriel had said, an inkling of belief—the very first stirrings of it—coming alive in her then, regarding him. What you are doing to Númenor, this is not the way.

I have no other way, he had said in return. Even you would not deign to it. No one will. How—how is there a way back when all roads are closed? When all paths are blocked? When all, if freely given, would hold a blade to my throat?

Galadriel’s hand fell to his throat, her fingertips gently grazing the spot along Halbrand’s neck where her brother’s blade had once kissed it so close.

“I never gave you a chance,” she whispered back, admitting it at last.

“No one ever has,” he said sadly. “But you,” he then added, softer than before, “and one other—and I turned away from the chance he offered me out of my shame, my fear, and my great pride.”

“Eönwë,” Galadriel replied underneath her breath. “I heard the tales. You ran and went into hiding.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Running, hiding, and surviving. Three things I am very good at.”

Her eyes dropped low to the soft gleam of his golden ring. Her hand, too, drew close to it, her fingertip brushing along the smooth, clean band. It was cool to the touch. “Is that what this is?” she asked him, her voice barely there. “Surviving?”

Halbrand’s chin lowered along with his eyes to look upon her finger tracing his golden ring. He stared at it for the longest time without speaking, a stark silence punctuated only with their breaths and heartbeats. “Yes,” he answered at last, “it was surviving. It doesn’t make me more powerful, you know.” With careful movements, he raised his thumb to twist the band upon his finger as Galadriel traced the curve of its gold. “I put a little bit of my soul into it to withstand against death—to be truly deathless, so that no Man may kill me again as long as I wear it.”

Galadriel wondered long at the powers his ring possessed. Admittedly, it was on her mind more often than not, and even in her short stint of wearing it, she could not be certain of the full breadth of its power, for she was not its master. He was its master, and its full, true power was known only to him. It did make him more powerful, regardless of what he had just said to her, but Galadriel also understood the difference. The power of his ring did not increase his strength or the extent of his magic. It worked in more subtle ways, extending his reach to others—creating allies amongst others who wore rings binding them to him.

However, this new piece of knowledge, that his ring possessed a part of his soul beneath the golden curve of its band—Galadriel stared at it, sensing the pull beneath the surface and wondering what it meant. It called to her, sang to her in a most familiar song, and she longed to answer the call. She longed to listen to it, to sing back—and join it.

Loneliness, a part of her own soul whispered back. It was the call of loneliness, reaching out into the darkness between worlds and seeking others to end the emptiness it dwelt in alone.

Galadriel recalled the words Adar had spoken to her so long ago in that farmhouse in the Southlands—in what was now Mordor, covered in ash and soot and sorrow. For my part, he had said, I sacrificed enough of my children for his aspirations. I split him open.

“You made this,” Galadriel said, her fingertip still tracing his ring, “because of what Adar did to you?” She glanced up at him, and Halbrand’s nod in response was soft and barely there.

“I trusted him,” he admitted there in the dark, “and that is where my trust got me in the end. A sword in my back.”

“It was not all him, though,” Galadriel continued, her hand sliding to cover his knuckles with the warmth of her palm. “You made the ring after I turned on you,” she reminded him in the softest of whispers.

“I did,” Halbrand agreed, the words hardly more than a breath. “You said I would die because of you. I expected nothing less.”

“I wanted it,” she whispered back. “For the longest time, I wanted nothing more.”

“And then, it was in your grasp by the grace of the Valar. Within your power to let it happen, and you denied me my clean death.”

“I did.”

“You are cruel,” Halbrand whispered to her, laying his forehead against hers. “Cold and cruel.”

Galadriel felt her lips tremble at their new closeness. Already, he stood in front of her, leaning over her, and she still sat on the edge of the bed. She did not like being in such a vulnerable position with him. No matter how many times they laid in bed together or how many times their hands wandered across each other’s bodies, Galadriel never truly felt at ease with him. He was a force to be reckoned with, a force beyond her own—sustained and supported even by her own power at one time, enriched by it back into his own state of livelihood.

His hands reached out for her, but he barely touched her. He laid them gently against the top of her thighs above the smooth silk of her dress. His fingertips grazed from the top of her thighs all the way to her knees, setting her alight with all manner of unseemly sensations and thoughts.

“Would you love me,” Galadriel ventured to ask him, “if I was anything less?”

His fingertips stilled upon her knees, and he pulled back from her to look her in the eyes. His gaze seemed to hold a number of questions and answers in them—none of which he spoke to her, keeping them all to himself—and he raised his hands between them. Halbrand held them before her, palm upright, a silent beckoning of her to take hold of them. Galadriel glanced down at his hands, and with little thought accompanying the motion, she slipped her palms against his and wound her fingers around his wrists.

With ease, Halbrand lifted her from the bed, and Galadriel followed the pull of his arms, even as he continued to step backwards through the room—toward the balcony on the far side of it. He never needed to look and see where he was going; he knew the way, as he knew the long forgotten, now nameless roads across the landscape and where they still led and the curves of her back in the moonlight as his mouth traced along them with every kiss, his hand pleasuring her from behind as she bit down on the pillow to smother her screams into it.

The draperies graced her arm with a tickle as they passed through them, a strong breeze whipping against the thick folds of fabric; it, too, caught against her skin with a cool brush beneath her hair and chilled her, blowing the curled tresses back from her shoulders and baring her collarbone to its gentle kiss. Galadriel glanced up, standing there beneath the moonlight and starlight with him, seeing the wide expanse of the world about them in every angle, every curve of her sight—the tall trees, the steady mountains, the billowing clouds, and everything else above.

The sight arrested her breath in her lungs and stilled her completely. The great wide world all around her was a most calming sight to aid in the comfort of her shaking nerves, and he knew that—Galadriel glanced down at his face in the soft glow that shone in the all the facets of the world around them, and it shone in his face as well. He looked different to her, then, covered in the grace of Elbereth Gilthoniel’s light; a different being altogether, one capable of beauty in immense measure if he so desired it and willed it. Together, they could wrought all manner of works into the world—works most beautiful and most profound.

He smiled at her, a smile that was hardly a curve to the corner of his mouth, and his eyes, too, glimmered beneath the stars—a light in which she could drown herself if she stared too long.

“You did not answer my question,” Galadriel reminded him, and his smile seemed to open up to her until it was real upon his lips. Halbrand pulled her closer to him, his hands holding hers fast.

“Was it a question?” he asked, a less than fair gleam in his eyes.

“Yes, it was,” she answered him, thinking of how she had bared her soul to him—and while, yes, he had bared his as well, he had never said he loved her. He called her my love, of course, but was it the same thing?

“Hmm,” he teased her, returning to his playful banter, “I did not hear it. Perhaps you should say it again.”

“Do you love me?”

He froze, hearing her state it so plainly this time without a shake in her bones or a shudder in her breath. Galadriel stared back at him, steadier than she could ever remember feeling in a very long time. Halbrand was surprised by her sudden resilience, and he let go of one of her hands to raise his own back to her face and cup her cheek so sweetly in a motion that was very much him and yet should not have been.

“You could hardly be ‘my love’ if I did not love you, could you?” he inquired back, dancing around the question with another question—also very much like him in many ways that could not be denied, so she did not hold it against him. It was a small portion of truth given to her in his own way, and Galadriel accepted it for what it was—for what he meant it as, and for what she took it as.

“You play games,” she accused aloud, though, and his smile only increased in size.

Slowly, Halbrand shook his head. “I play no games.”

“Then, speak plainly.”

“I do not speak plainly,” Halbrand told her, leaning into her arms along the curve of her body and bowing his head down close to her ear. “You have known that for a long time about me, Galadriel. It is part of who I am. Would you deny me that now?”

“I want you to say it to me,” she demanded in his embrace, feeling his loose hair tickle the side of her face, “or I will not go through with tonight.”

Her words seized him into stillness along the bend of their bodies together, though they did not touch except by hand—both their hands still clasped together and the palm and fingers of his other along her cheek. The material of their clothes brushed close, fabric grazing fabric, and hair tickled each other’s faces as well, but there was no touch outside of that.

The wind blew past them, chilling her to the bone with its icy kiss.

Halbrand pulled back from her, a clear look of disbelief in his eyes. “You would withhold that over a word?”

“It is more than one word,” Galadriel reasoned with him.

“But a word?” he pushed further. “Are my actions not enough? Do they not mean more?”

“I do not understand what you mean,” she threw back at him, and the beautiful moment between them that had finally come to a calm at the center was quickly spiraling into something else.

“Have I not explained myself to you already?” he inquired, and there was a little force in the form of a push from his body as he moved toward her, their hands still clasped together. Galadriel walked backward with the motion to prevent him from overpowering her. Halbrand dropped his hand from the comfort of her cheek and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close despite the way in which she leaned back from him. “I have told you what I seek from you tonight,” he whispered urgently, shaking his head in an unruly motion, “and it is not your body or any earthly pleasure it can give me. That is not what I want, Galadriel. You still misunderstand me. All you have done is misunderstand me—”

“—That is what you want from me,” Galadriel fought back. “It is what we are expected to do as husband and wife. It is the natural order of marriage—”

His kiss was searing and hot—forceful, even. He overpowered her with his mouth atop of hers, his hand pressing hard into the lower curve of her back, locking her in place whether she wanted to leave it or not. When she did not part her lips, he nipped at them until he bit down hard enough to make her gasp, and with the new opening of her mouth, he smothered her, his tongue delving deep. Galadriel tried to pull away, but she felt his other hand suddenly on the back of her neck, locking her in place, and she panicked, writhing in his grasp.

He stopped, pulling his mouth away from hers and laying his forehead against her own, breathing harsh and deep to steady himself.

She stilled in his arms.

“This is how it will go all night, isn’t it?” he whispered close to her mouth, lolling his forehead along hers. “You will fight me because you think all I want is your body? Is that it, my love? An endless war between us?”

Galadriel breathed harshly in and out of her mouth herself. Her chest rose and fell against his own as he still held her pressed so close to him, no space between them in which to differentiate where one was supposed to end and the other began. She briefly closed her eyes, her mind flashing to her cell in Númenor—and a memory came to her which she had forgot. His arm above her, cast in the warm rays of sunlight from the bars of her cell window, all of his muscles taut as he had gripped the headboard hard with a clenched fist—the way he had rocked into her, filling her body all the way with each thrust, his throat filled with groan after groan as his breathing fought to catch up. How it had ached, how good it had felt, the pain melting to pleasure and his hot breath returning to her lips as he had hovered above her. He had captured her mouth in another kiss, his tongue sliding along hers as he moaned, sinking deep into her again.

Galadriel had lost herself, then—lost herself in another world as he had entered her, as he had ravaged her body, as he had come inside of her with a gasp from his lips atop hers, warmth blossoming throughout her body as she trembled all the way down from her own high, shaking in a fine sheen of sweat all over every inch of her skin.

The link had been set, then, too—the first link in the chain forged between them, the one that grew stronger with every day that had passed since that moment. Would she fight him forever, and never let him inside her again?

His lips, so close to her ear, made her shiver when he spoke again. “I can find earthly pleasures downstairs by leaving this room,” Halbrand whispered to her, and the words froze her heart with a sudden fear. “Is that all you think I want from you still? I can leave you be, then, my love, and let you sleep. I will find another to warm my bed tonight in your absence until you are ready.”

Galadriel tried to shove at him despite their close embrace, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks and burn her face with anger and shame. “How dare you—”

“How dare I?” he shot back, his grip on her tightening. He still held her fast to him. “I do dare. I dare that and more. There are many beautiful women downstairs who have desired the chance for some time now. I need not bother you with my ungainly pursuits—”

“Stop it—”

“I will not stop it,” he hissed, his voice taking on a darker quality as his fingers cinched into her dress with an iron grip. “Tell me, Galadriel, is it not possible to walk the street corners, too, and find it? With the right smile—or the right coin?”

Finally, she wrested herself away from him by shoving him hard enough to separate them. Halbrand had the grace not to stumble, but he was caught off guard with her level of force behind the shove. His fists clenched at his sides, but he did not look angry. He did not even look upset with her, but he was alight with something. It shone in his eyes.

For her part, there were hot tears brimming in her eyes—unwanted tears, revealing too many truths of the inner nature of her heart to him without words to give her away. The pain in her face was enough to tell him all that he needed to know.

“Elves do not live in such a way,” Galadriel threw back at him, her voice cracking and the tears cascading freely down her cheeks. “We do not freely share our bodies with others. If you dishonor me in such a manner, I will never be yours.”

Halbrand remained calm. Slowly, his fists unfurled at his sides, and he walked up to her despite every step back she took from him. Before Galadriel knew where they were going, she was back inside the warmth of his chambers in the dancing candlelight. She stopped, and he, too, stopped before her, extending both of his hands to her once more.

“I do not intend to hurt you, my love,” he murmured softly, every harsh feature erased from his face, leaving it smooth and unblemished before her. “I am only trying to explain to you what you seem to think I want from you is not what I truly want from you.” Halbrand shook his head. “Your body is not what I seek. There is no form in all the world that could warm the chill I feel in my bones.” His hand, when he reached up to caress her face, felt cool to the touch from its exposure to the frosty wind out on the balcony. “Do you understand what I am saying to you, Galadriel? Tell me you understand.”

Galadriel wracked her mind for the explanation, and there was only one that made sense. She fought through the pain that she felt from his unkind words, the way they had stabbed her without any blade or knife. She could never have dreamed of speaking such words to one she loved, but it had worked—and she realized what he meant now when he said that was not what he sought from her.

“I think—” She hated how unsteady her voice was, how much her chest shook again. How utterly naked he could make her feel with just a glance or a small touch of his hand. “I think I—” Galadriel closed her eyes, letting the last of the tears fall freely from beneath her lashes. “I think I understand,” she whispered, and Halbrand sighed softly there in the dark, his hand moving to cup her face more fully again, his palm to her cheek.

“I hear the music when I am with you,” he whispered to her, warm palm against her skin. “I can see it, resonating off of your form in the dead of silence. I can hear it, echoing off every curve of your body—resounding into the night. You were sung into existence just like the rest of us. I heard it. I promise you, Galadriel, I was there.” His thumb brushed against her cheekbone, and Galadriel could not dare to open her eyes and see him looking at her, that lost, glowing gleam in his eyes. “I remember it,” he said, “and when I recall the tones I heard there in the emptiness, in the darkness, before the world was made, I can hear the moment you were sung into creation—a being of light.” His hand touched her hair, the softest of caresses that ended with his fingers combing it behind her ear. “Of love, of kindness, but stronger than the foundations of the earth.” Halbrand sighed again, exhaling it quietly from his chest. “Such tenderness encased in so much power. I have sought that note through every eon of my existence, listening for it again, trying to find it—and I did not hear it again until I was sitting on that raft in the middle of the ocean—and I turned and looked, and there you were.”

She opened her eyes, seeing his face before her—the look she expected to see there on his face was still there, staring back at her and mirroring her own. They were two lost souls, always finding each other on the edge of things around the existence of all the other people in the world. They were both seen as outcasts from their own kind, seeking shelter under the dome of something new and unseen—never knowing what awaited them on the other side.

Her lips were parted with every breath she took, never knowing what to believe or where to look, but his words calmed her spirit. They soothed her troubled soul.

“I know you want me willing,” Galadriel whispered to him, and she felt him raise his other hand to her face as well. “I have known it,” she admitted. “All this time.” Her doubts spoken aloud—it was only her, pushing him away. She kept pushing him away. After every step closer that he got to her, her fear would come alight again, and she would say or do whatever it took to stop the thinning veil between them.

Halbrand held her with both of his hands, his thumbs equally taking the time to brush away the tears from her cheeks, and then he leaned in close. Galadriel closed her eyes. He kissed her there at the corner of one beneath her lashes, his lips making contact with the salty residue left behind from her pain.

When he pulled back from her, no more than an inch, he whispered, “I would have you no other way, my love. I have told you that for years.”

Galadriel tilted up her chin, feeling her breath come to her quicker than before, her chest rising and falling with the motion in swift succession. As she lifted her chin, he pulled back from her, his face once more before her field of vision, all his fiery hair caught in a warm halo of light. She leaned upward into him as if seeking him out, and all of Halbrand’s softer features were cast into a darker shadow as he realized where the moment between them was going—and he closed the little distance between them and captured her lips so softly, his mouth moving against hers with a newfound urgency behind it.

Their kiss quickly spiraled into something heated between them, his fingers sliding upward into her hair until he caught her there with a firm grip. Halbrand bit into her lip until she moaned gently, and he took the access she granted—smothering her again and pressing so hard into her, his tongue easily slipping past her lips and catching along her own. Galadriel moaned into his mouth, and he groaned back in kind, his hands dropping from her hair and her cheek to seek out the laces at the back of her dress.

He slowed down, then, his kisses becoming soft and loose little captures of her lips as his fingers pulled at the laces, unraveling them with each tug. He slipped his fingers beneath the neckline of her silk gown, slowly spreading it open until he had it over her shoulders—and purposefully, his hands slid over them with a gentle slowness down every inch of her arms until he let go of her dress, and it cascaded down her body, pooling at her feet. It left her in nothing but her satin shift.

“I want to be one with you, Galadriel,” he whispered to her, one of his hands once more catching in her hair—and there was a wild quality to him, which seemed to come out of nowhere. “I want nothing more. An equal, a partner, someone I can trust—” He breathed against her mouth, all semblance of sanity leaving him as he caught her chin suddenly with his other hand, holding her firm. Galadriel felt his thumb catch on her bottom lip, pulling it downward. “Do you trust me, too?”

It was hard to tell amidst all of the emotions she was now feeling and had felt over the course of the day and night, but she wanted to—oh, she wanted to—so very much. Galadriel desired it with a gnawing necessity in herself as well, one she could not recall feeling before with such intensity as it surged up within her, demanding to be listened to. “I want to,” she breathed out against his lips. “I want to trust you—”

“Then, trust me,” he hissed back. “Stop believing the worst in me—”

“Halbrand—”

“Don’t call me that,” he whispered back to her, kissing her all of a sudden in a rush, and she bowed back against the assault, not knowing what she was meant to call him if not that. A little moan caught in her throat, and he groaned in kind, deepening the kiss with a hungry ferocity unlike anything she had felt from him thus far. Both of his hands were in her hair again, gripping her tight and holding her in place as he nipped at her lips and slid his tongue past her lips, twining it with hers.

What was she to call him? Her mind wandered with the possibilities as he kissed her, as he smothered her, as he stole the breath right out of her lungs and took it into his own. In between each heady kiss he gave her, Galadriel tried to breathe, tried to pull back from him, and it took a small struggle for her to achieve it. She pressed her palm flat against his chest and pushed at him, breaking their lips apart at last.

Your true name, she had insisted to him once before. I would still know it, so that I may greet you as him again.

When she looked at him, his eyes shone bright with the heat behind his stare, his lips swollen and red from their kisses. She could only imagine how her own face looked as well. Judging by his unscrupulous gaze and the way he bit his lip as his hand caressed her cheek and his fingers slid down to her jaw, she could only imagine.

“Mairon,” Galadriel breathed out, thinking of no other name she would give to him in such an intimate moment.

Halbrand’s lips parted—in shock, at first—his eyes going glassy for a moment, and then spreading wide with a well of emotion swelling up behind them.

He drew in a sharp inhalation, and then Galadriel felt his hands leave her. He grasped the end of his tunic and tugged it over his head, mussing up his hair. He threw it down, discarding it on the floor. Galadriel felt her breath quicken again, and he walked into her, grasping her arms, and backed her further into his room.

Without warning, he took her and threw her, too, hard onto the bed with an intentional force behind the shove.

She bounced against the bed as before, finding herself in shock at what had just occurred in so calm a moment, and there he was—at the edge of the bed above her, all strong muscles across his bare chest and broad shoulders. Slowly, he bent over her, climbing onto the bed over her legs and looking at her the whole time, his eyes watching her face with a rapturous hunger.

He did not look like Halbrand anymore in the candlelight as it flickered and waned, a few of the candles having been blown out by the breeze through the open doors of the balcony. Once he had crawled all the way up her body, he steadied himself there above her, straddling her hips as he crouched over her. His face hovered over hers, a lustful, sordid expression passing over it in the midst of shadows between them. His eyes looked black to her—or maybe it was just the lack of light.

His hands ran up her stomach and over her breasts, grasping each one through the satin—and he smiled, then, his teeth shining as his lips parted above her. His hands released her, and he gripped her satin shift at the collar, wrenching it open in a solid rip—splitting the fabric all the way down to her navel and laying her bare.

His mouth was on her in an instant, covering her breast and suckling on her nipple with a hard force behind the motion—and Galadriel arched into his mouth, gasping upward at the ceiling above her. If she meant to stop him, she did no such thing. She buried her hands into his hair, her fingers grasping tight, and guided him along her in the way she liked from him; a stifled groan resonated deep in his throat and through her chest with a reverberation to make her shiver, and she pushed him harder against her.

His teeth sunk down, dragging against her skin, and her eyelids fluttered into darkness and flame as he engulfed her.

Chapter Text

* * *

You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point that unhinges my soul.

— Jean-Jeanne-Eleonore de Lespinasse

* * *

As he dragged his teeth along her flesh, they caught upon her nipple. Galadriel seized up at the jolting touch against her sensitive skin, and his lips curved upward into a smile above her, enjoying the way she had reacted to him. His speed was slow, and maddeningly so, but his intensity was strong, and he covered her with his mouth again, his tongue slowly encircling the receptive bud he had just violated with the sharp edges of his teeth. Her fingers curled within his hair, nails grazing through each lock across his scalp with a measure of strength to match the way he had used his teeth on her. He shuddered in response, the thick muscles in his shoulders leaping from the sudden assault, and the groan he made through his mouth resonated against her breast, causing Galadriel to gasp again. A low chuckle filled his throat, and then his mouth left her.

Galadriel glanced down to see him shift to the center of her chest, and then she felt his tongue swipe across the center of her right along the dip between her breasts. At least in this, he had the grace to be slow with her instead of overwhelming her with his passion and his needs; it was in stark contrast to their first union in Númenor so long ago. Galadriel had not known what to expect of him, except for much of the same of what he had given to her before, and yet this was different. He hovered above her bare chest without looking upward at her face yet, his eyes gazing upon her naked skin as if he were in a trance. His tongue swept out again, catching her other nipple with a warm, wet slide across the flesh as the trail of saliva across the first one cooled to a chill without his mouth there to warm her. She closed her eyes again, feeling his whole mouth engulf her, cover her, suckle on her—and then she felt his tongue return to her, encircling her beneath the close of his lips.

If she could prescribe another word to his intensity, it was also tender in its nature. Every touch of his lips and his tongue incited a burn within her, her body responding to him in ways it did when they were alone and he had taken his time to show her how a man could please his wife without taking the final step to dishonor her before marriage. Halbrand pulled back from her chest, kissing her softly after the onslaught of his mouth upon her. His lips trailed a fine line up the center of her chest until he was above her, hovering above her face and smiling softly down at her, and then he captured her lips with the lightest touch imaginable at first.

Confusion filled her, though her hand fell from his hair to the nape of his neck to hold him and return the slow, languorous brush of his lips. He had begun this with a sudden ferocity that had quickly dissipated into something much more gentle than what it had started between them. Galadriel anticipated that he enjoyed riling her up, exciting her, causing her heart beat to spike—certainly, throwing her onto the bed and ripping open her shift had done just that, but now his movements were tortuously slow; his mouth, so warm above hers, and the sensation of his bare flesh to hers, so hot to the touch—the heat of him was inescapable.

Galadriel arched her back to press into him, to feel him more closely. They had never been naked like this with one another before, and she pulled him closer, threading long fingers through the soft strands of his hair and gripping with her other hand onto the back of his neck. Her lips caught his with a building intensity behind them—a smoldering touch, a kindling fire, that stole the breath from her lungs, and he noticed it, too. Halbrand slowed above her in the moment, breaking apart their kiss to give her time to adjust to the wavering feelings inside of her chest, and never before had she ever felt so thankful for such a small gesture of consideration in return.

Her eyes locked on his own above her, his kind and warm gaze, a tentative hand falling from his hair to graze his cheek, and he watched her, leaning into the touch of her palm. He could have just ravaged her as it seemed he was wont to do in the beginning, but this—this gentle reprieve from the rushing madness between her ears only made her want him more.

Halbrand almost looked as if he was about to say something, but no, Galadriel did not want words to interrupt the moment.

She only wanted to feel.

She grasped his face with both hands, dragging him down to her and catching his lips in a harsh kiss, parting hers and seeking entrance to his mouth. Her hips rose with the motion, desiring closeness with him, but he straddled her and prevented her from wrapping her legs around his waist as she wanted to do. Halbrand parted his lips against hers, though, allowing her tongue to slip in and graze with his, the heat of them mingling together in a kiss that quickly turned desperate as she rose to meet him, and his lips curled against hers as he chuckled in response, a low rumble in the depths of his chest.

Maybe he was taunting her with his amusement, but she did not have it in her to care.

“Please,” Galadriel murmured heatedly between each catch of their lips, “I need—”

Halbrand captured her lips again, ceasing the words from her mouth, and delved his tongue deep into her warmth. Blankness entered her vision, her mind, rendering all a pleasant buzz of emptiness. When he pulled back from her, his hot breath washing over her mouth, he hovered purposefully above her lips. His burning fingers slid into that small place between her ear and her jaw, and her whole body erupted in shudders as he traced them along her flesh to the tip of her chin.

“What do you need,” Halbrand murmured, “my wife?”

A little gasp fluttered from her lips as her chest shook from it, and she felt his thumb press down on the center of her bottom lip, catching on it.

“More,” Galadriel managed to say, and Halbrand’s eyes seemed to darken above her with a mutable quality as his tongue passed over his lips, glistening during its movement. His teeth soon replaced it, though only momentarily.

“More?” Halbrand asked, a haunting whisper, as his hand slid from her jaw down to her neck, his fingers purposefully grazing her flesh in a light enough touch to make her tremble all the while as it passed lower, lower, and lower. Down over her collarbone and between her breasts, his fingers slid down the bare flesh of her body between the ripped satin shift. He dipped his head with the trail of his hand, his tongue flicking out over her nipple, causing her to arch against his mouth again. He closed his lips around it, suckling, as he lowered himself just a little along her body.

Pulling back from her nipple, he flicked it again with his tongue, and Galadriel felt his hand pressing full against her inner thigh. Halbrand drew back from her enough to look her in the eyes again, his large hand gripping her thigh and easing it outwards as he lifted his leg and settled it between hers. His hand curved under her knee, pulling it around him, encouraging her to wrap it across his waist. Galadriel dipped her head back into the softness of the bed and hooked her ankle across his back.

His chest rumbled with a pleasurable groan, and he released her leg to place his hand down against the bed and shift himself onto it. His other hand flattened along her opposite thigh, this time cupping her underneath it before gripping her tight and urging the same outward motion with his arm as he moved his other leg in between hers. Galadriel felt more exposed this way with him in the center of her, and it brought her mind a little back into focus. Both of her legs clutched around his waist in a sudden, unanticipated grip, her breath coming in short pants the more real this became.

Her hand shot out to his chest, catching him there, though she did not push him away.

Halbrand looked down at her hand and lowered himself to her, bending her elbow the whole way down until he hovered above her face again. His dark eyes bored into hers with an intensity that made her heart skip. “You gasp like a blushing maiden,” Halbrand whispered against her lips, his tongue flicking out to taste them, “when I know you are not—”

“—Please do not mock me,” Galadriel breathed out.

Halbrand slowly shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. “I do not mock you,” he murmured back, and his palm pressed warm against her cheek once more. “Your vulnerability is beautiful to me, and only I get to see it. I would not share it with all the world, not a soul. All mine, all mine,” he breathed out, and all thought fled her when his lips touched hers. Her hands grasped his head to hold onto him, and their lips parted together as if they were waves in an undulating sea, crashing to meet one another in a tumultuous but exquisite storm, a heated embrace of hot tongues and warm breath in between.

Her hips rolled to meet him as her mouth strove to be one with him, and Halbrand responded to her urgency by gently pushing Galadriel down into the bed with his fingers pressed in the center of her chest. The motion broke their lips apart, and Galadriel stared up at him in confusion at first until he smiled down at her, half of a smirk embedded into the curl of his lips.

His hand slid onto her shoulder and down her arm, his thumb catching underneath the fabric of her torn gown. Slowly, he pulled it down, trailing with it along her body as his other thumb caught beneath the fabric on the other side. Halbrand pulled it down her arms, backing up along the bed and forcing Galadriel to uncurl her legs from his waist as he pulled her free of it—first, it slipped off her wrists, and she drew in a deep breath, holding it, when he reached her waist.

Halbrand paused, glancing up at her. Their eyes locked as he smoothed his palms along the naked flesh of her waist and slid them lower, pushing her torn shift out of the way and baring her body to him. She wore a small cloth between her legs tonight, but it was the last piece of material left to shelter her from his gaze, his touch. Halbrand’s eyes broke from hers, a hungry depth to the way his mouth fell open as he pulled the rest of her torn shift down her hips and moved with it down the length of her legs. He freed her of it and bundled it up into his hands, dropping it over the edge of the bed onto the floor.

He crawled back up the bed along the side of her body, scooping his arm underneath both of her legs and lifting them, startling Galadriel, as he settled behind them, holding them up.

Galadriel reached out for him, her fingers barely grazing the thick material of his trousers along his thighs. “What are you doing?” she blurted out, and he glanced around the side of her leg at her, a little gleam deep within his eyes.

“This,” he said softly, and he rested her legs against the length of his chest, over his shoulder, as his hands slid down to her hips, fingers curling underneath the edges of the flimsy fabric meant to cover her in her most intimate of places. He pulled them over the curve of her bottom, making her gasp aloud, and he smiled at her again, almost grinning, as he slid them up her legs as slowly as possible.

The motion stopped at her knees, where Halbrand lifted her legs from his body again and slipped the small cloth off all of the way. He dropped it onto the bed, but his eyes were downward, his teeth biting into his bottom lip as he stared at her intimately from behind. A nervousness crept up Galadriel’s spine, and she pulled back from him to lower her legs—but in the first motion that truly shocked her, Halbrand caught them both and prevented her from doing so.

He cut his eyes briefly towards her face.

“I’m not done looking,” he said, a little warning low in his voice.

Galadriel swallowed, causing a ripple to pass from her throat down her chest and abdomen, which his eyes followed with a hungry path down her naked skin.

“Is that necessary?” she asked him, though her voice faltered despite her attempt to keep it steady.

Halbrand opened his mouth to speak, though at first he only breathed through his lips as his eyes trailed eagerly along her legs back to the view behind them that she could not see. “There is much pleasure one can derive from sight as well as touch and sound and taste,” he offered softly, one of his hands moving to the back of her leg. His knuckles grazed the underside of her knee, and Galadriel jolted at the light touch. He swept those knuckles downward from knee to thigh, sending little shocks through her flesh to her center, where she quivered, her knees clenching together.

His next touch came in the sensation of his fingers splayed against the back of her thighs where they clenched together—her last refuge of modesty, though he could see almost all from his angle behind her—and then his thumb, pressing downward into the wetness between her folds.

Galadriel gasped and jolted backward, trying to escape his touch—though it was more of an instinctual motion. She did not want him to stop. Halbrand caught her legs with his other arm around them, pinning them to his chest.

“Are you trying to run away so soon?” Halbrand murmured, turning to place a kiss against the bare flesh of her leg. Galadriel slackened at the kiss, relaxing back down into the bed as she shook her head against it.

“No,” she whispered back, feeling so exposed and vulnerable and conflicted about what she wanted from him. Yes, she wanted this, but . . .

“You pulled back,” he pointed out, clearly wanting some clarity from her.

“I—” The words caught in her throat. “I am—”

“Do you want me to touch you, Galadriel?”

The way he spoke her name, the way it rolled off his tongue into the air and incited the little hairs to stand up on the back of her arms, the back of her neck. She shivered all over from it, and it was obvious what she wanted from him. Slowly, she nodded her head—feeling young and vulnerable despite her age, and it was not a feeling she was accustomed to. This sort of intimacy was a rare breed, and to allow him—him—

Halbrand pushed his thumb deeper at her nod, and Galadriel hit her head hard on the bed, pushing down into it with a renewed force as she arched her back. A deep hum sounded through him in approval, the echo of it reverberating through his chest and down her legs and back into her body in such a way that it made her quiver with anticipation at what might come next. She tried to part her legs to give him better access, but Halbrand tightened his arm around them, keeping them cinched together, as he rubbed the pad of his thumb back and forth into the slickness of her center.

“Mmm,” came that delicious hum from his chest again, “so wet for me—” He drew his thumb back, gently passing her slick over the surface of her folds and her nub, inciting her to buck into his hand with the way he had her to pinned to his chest. Halbrand chuckled at that, dipping his thumb back into her center again until her lips parted and she gasped at the ceiling.

“Must you—speak—” Galadriel ground out between gasps, “—in such a—way—to me?”

“Do you not like it?” he teased lightly, his thumb never quite breaching her. Idly, he taunted her with the notion of it, but he never went all the way through with it.

“It is—vulgar—”

“There can be pleasure in a little bit of vulgarity,” Halbrand suggested in a low voice, one that gripped on the edges of her mind as Galadriel stared at the ceiling instead of him. “Does it not,” he inquired with a pause, “excite you?”

“It’s—I—oh—”

His thumb had pushed a little further, almost breaching her.

“Ah, there she is,” he breathed out, and Galadriel could hear the smirk on his face, even though she did not immediately see it for the ceiling in her view. She cut her gaze down at him with a small glare, observing it, then, in plain view. “Surely, if you will let me—sully you,” he added, his eyebrows rising with the final two words, “with other parts of me, my words are hardly the least of your concern?”

Galadriel did not know what to say to that. Her mouth fell open, but no words came out.

“Mmm,” came his reply, resonating through her legs against his chest, “I think that’s all the answer I need.”

He pushed his thumb into her, his eyes never breaking contact with hers, as his lips parted while he watched her face contract with shock of it—how good it felt to have something inside of her at last—and now, no, she could not deny it, she could only feel it. Galadriel threw her head back, arching into his touch as hard as she could with what little angle he allowed her. She gasped aloud at the feel of him moving in and out of her, the fingers of his hand pressed hard to her body, adding extra weight above his thumb that made a familiar pressure build up inside of her. With her legs upward at this angle and closed tight, he had the advantage over her body.

His thumb curved upward—and her hands flew out, grasping the sheets and clutching them, dragging them closer to her as she maintained her arch and rolled her hips into his thumb. By now, he knew exactly what to do with her body to get the reactions he wanted out of her. Briefly, a thought flitted through her mind—how had she ever entered into marriage in the past without learning her partner first? It was unthinkable to her now—

Halbrand withdrew from her, yanking her legs apart, causing Galadriel to gasp and glance down at him in sudden shock as he lowered himself between her legs and hovered over her, a feral, covetous gleam in his gaze as he bared his teeth down at her.

His hand encircled her throat, but he did not squeeze it. It did not hurt.

“Not in my bed,” he warned her, almost hissing it through his teeth, and Galadriel furrowed her brow in confusion.

“What—”

He captured her mouth in a ravenous kiss, his earlier softness replaced with a rough possessiveness as his lips sought to engulf her, to swallow her, and she curled her arm around the back of his neck—at a loss in the moment for what his reaction even meant. It slipped from the back of her mind like a long forgotten thought as his tongue swept into her mouth, and the heat of him returned to her was a glorious thing. Galadriel pulled him closer to her, wanting to feel his warmth all over every inch of her bare flesh, and the pass of his lips along hers drew to a languorous pull above her own as the rage in him calmed at the eagerness behind her touch.

Halbrand broke free from her, his face a blur above her vision for how close he was, and she reached up to touch his cheek, her soft palm to his rough stubble. “I want this,” he breathed out against her lips, “to be for us—and only us.”

“It is,” Galadriel whispered back, her fingernails catching along the stubble of his chin as she stared back at him. The hazy curve of his smile in return resulted in another kiss, this one more gentle than the one before it.

“I want to taste you,” he murmured, and Galadriel remembered how his mouth and tongue had pleasured her on the table in the council room, her face flushing hot from the knowledge of what they had done in such a public place, where anyone could have walked in and seen it. A little gasp escaped her lips as he kissed the corner of her mouth, and then, also, when he kissed her chin.

He positioned his head in the curve of her neck, his tongue flicking out to lick a strip upward from the bottom of her chin, and Galadriel exhaled a shaky breath as she arched up into the touch.

Downward he crawled along her body, leaving little kisses in his wake, the rough pad of his tongue catching along her flesh to taste the salt of her. Halfway down her chest, Galadriel slipped her hands into his hair, threading her fingers through it to grip it tight in her clutch as he kissed his way down her abdomen, where sensitive muscles jumped from every lick and kiss of him. He made it all the way to her belly button, swiping his tongue over that as well, and Galadriel dug her fingers deeper, her nails scraping along his scalp. His chuckle cut low through her stomach as he pressed his lips to her flesh there, causing her to jolt and gasp in response. In retaliation she clutched him closer, pressing him into her, but he only liked that more—and he answered it by covering her fully with his mouth, his tongue dragging along her skin.

The lower he went, the harder the tremors cut through her. Everything below her waist was so sensitive to the slightest touch that his mouth became a torment, making her squirm and wriggle—and when he kissed the little bend of her thigh so close to her center, Galadriel thought she might shrivel and wither away right there on the bed.

She felt his nose drag through the fine dust of hair down there, and it drew her gaze down to him finally.

He settled there easily between her legs, his tongue lazily flicking out to graze her at first. Galadriel trembled at it, her head flinging back to hit the bed again—but he did not laugh this time at her. He made a sound deep in his throat, guttural and exhilarating, and then covered her with his lips, lapping at her in such a way that relaxed her fully beneath him, limp with the utter bliss of it. When he closed his lips and suckled at her, she tightened her hold on him and wrapped each leg around his back, her fingers grinding down into his hair to encourage him harder faster more.

Halbrand complied without words, moaning into her as he pleasured her, and that, too, sent unbridled tidal waves of shock throughout her body as she rolled into him to meet the motions of his mouth and his tongue. When something teased at her entrance, Galadriel thought at first through her haze that it was just his tongue delving too deep—but then it reached deeper than a tongue could reach, and a gasp wracked her lungs as she realized it was his fingers pushing their way into her. A sudden pull, back and forth, and his lips closed over that little nub and suckled, his fingers pumping in and out of her, until a burst of light flooded and flashed through all her vision—a burst of light that was not truly there, no, not real at all—and a throb, so pleasurable it was almost painful, pulsed from her center and outward throughout her whole body, rendering her senseless with shakes and tremors.

His fingers withdrew from her, and his tongue replaced them as deeply as possible—and Galadriel jerked away from the overwhelming sensation, for her body felt so tender now. Halbrand only grasped her hips hard and pulled her back to him, continuing in his relentless pursuit of her pleasure until she had to turn her face to one of her arms, biting down on her own flesh and shutting her eyes against the onslaught—but a blinding flash of light ripped through her vision, a sudden sense of peaceful utter emptiness settling itself deep into her soul, and another throbbing wave coursed through her center, pulsing outward like little tendrils to make her shiver as if a chill had set itself within her bones.

When he had left her at last, her body still trembling and shaking, Galadriel dared to pull her face away from the shelter of her arm to face him. She looked up at him, catching his smoldering gaze pinned on her and her alone.

Halbrand knelt between her legs, his broad chest heaving deep breaths in and out as his hands fell to his trousers. Galadriel’s eyes fell with them, following their path. He slowly popped open the buttons with his thumb and pushed them downward, and it should have not made Galadriel gasp like a maiden to see the length of him spring free from the confines of his clothing, but it did, and she was embarrassed by it. Her face burned so hot, it hurt. She could not tear her eyes away from him, though. Even as he stepped out of the trousers carefully on the bed, one knee at a time, until they were cast aside and he was as naked as her. Even as he scooted closer to her again, his thighs hitting the backs of her legs as his hot palms slid along the top of them and drew her closer to him with a subtle pull.

He leaned over her, knuckles bearing down into the bed. When she felt the tip of his manhood, already slick with a pearl of his arousal, graze along her belly as he lowered down on top of her, Galadriel jolted in response.

Halbrand had the gall to tease her.

“You’re not scared of it, are you?” he murmured, that little curl returning to his lips.

Her eyes shot up to meet his gaze, a searing quality within them at first. No, she was not scared of his body or any part of it, but . . .

“No,” Galadriel answered him out loud, her voice softer. Her flare of anger, gone. She had already accepted this, had she not? She made the vow. She knew what came afterwards. Honesty came next. “I do not want it to hurt,” she admitted, her eyes flitting across his face. “In Númenor, our first union, there was . . . pain at first.”

His face fell, the look in his eyes softening. Halbrand adjusted above her, resting on his elbow, so he could reach up and touch her face, glide his thumb over her cheekbone and cup her in the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, “for hurting you, in any way, however small. I acted rashly, consumed by my thoughts of you, and my desire was . . . ” The look on his face faltered, then, and Galadriel wondered at it. “ . . . To be one with you, Galadriel. When you held my hand the night before, all I could think of was how Eru had granted us this one thing, one way to achieve that, and I wanted it—with you.”

Her sight blurred with hot tears, his face a distorted vision above her, and that worried him. His hand cupped her face fully, his thumb stroking her.

“No, I’m sorry,” Halbrand said quickly. “What did I say wrong—”

Galadriel shook her head, the tears coursing downward. “No, you have not—” She shook her head again, pressing her lips together as more tears fell. “You have not said anything wrong.” She looked up at him, realizing her gaze had fallen. His face was clearer now without all of the tears. “You want this with me?”

“Yes,” he answered, no hesitation. “Yes.”

It came rushing out of her like tidal wave at sea, even though he had never said it back yet. “I love you,” she said. “I love you—”

“I love you, too—”

She gasped aloud at his confession, and his kiss upon her lips was more searing than any kiss before it. His tongue delved deep, tasting of her heady essence, and Galadriel reached down between to grasp his manhood, wrap her fingers around it, and squeeze. Halbrand hissed against her mouth, wavering at the touch. He broke free from the kiss, breathing through his lips, as he looked down at her.

“Guide me,” he murmured.

Galadriel stared back at him, also breathing through her lips, the scorching heat of him pulsing in her hand.

“Guide me,” insisted Halbrand.

Staring up at him and swallowing past the building lump in her throat, Galadriel lifted him and guided him with her hand. He adjusted above her, following the gentle pull, until she felt the tip of him graze her. She inhaled sharply, freezing, her eyes flinging downward to look between them.

“It won’t hurt this time, my love,” Halbrand whispered, causing her to glance up again and meet his gaze—his tender, reassuring gaze. “I promise.”

A nod overtook her, a hectic, quick, and little thing, and her resolve came back to her. Galadriel ran her curled fingers down the length of him and lined him up until he was there, at her entrance, and he held her gaze, bearing his hips down just enough to push the tip of him past the slickness of her folds.

Her eyes rolled back, her head hitting the bed, as she gasped up at the ceiling again. It seemed it was all she could do—gasp and beg for air. Halbrand braced himself against the bed, and slowly, he rolled hips only a little, just enough to nudge at her but not breach, and the moan that came out past her lips was a feeble thing—only he did not stop. He kept up the gentle roll of his hips as her hand still held him in a firm grasp.

Every sound from her throat was breathless, her mind a blank haze basked in light.

“Ah—” she breathed out. “Ah—ah—oh—”

Her hips rocked to meet him, suddenly inviting him a little deeper inside. It was bliss. Utter bliss, warm and tunneling. All her thoughts turned to this, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as she rolled her hips to his and pulled him into her. “More—”

“More?” he asked, the word barely as breath against her lips as well.

“More,” she demanded, and he obliged with a push, sinking deeper until it felt as if her jaw was no longer connected to her body. He breached her; she felt it, like a small pinch, a little ache, and her hand flew to his back to clasp him hard, nails digging into flesh. Her other hand released the base of his manhood and found new home on the back of the neck, holding him there with an intensity that said don’t leave, please don’t leave.

Words she thought, but never said aloud.

With her ankles positioned against his back, she pulled him into her, encouraging the rest of him to find home within her body.

His promise held fast. It did not hurt. Him filling her felt like a hunger being satiated, a thirst being slaked, a need being fulfilled—there was no space, but her body made space, and he fit within it perfectly. What ache she felt brought her awareness to a sense of completion, a pull on both her body and mind, until she settled somewhere between the worlds anchored on him.

The sound that left her body was no word, but deep and guttural—it was barely civilized at all.

One hand buried its fingers into his hair, the other clasping him on the back of his neck, and when he moved within her, their breaths mingled between their bodies, suspended in the air.

There was no defining moment of who kissed who first. All she knew was that their lips were upon each other, diving impatiently for more touch, more taste, more something—and the roll of his hips, each time he filled her, curled her toes inward and drew her mind blank—a clean slate, an empty field, no sight or sound but blinding sunlight and blossoming dandelions amongst the green and gold, and a single bee buzzing through the bloom.

He broke apart their kiss, breaking through the illusion in her thoughts, and Galadriel collided back with the present in shock.

“I love you, Galadriel,” Halbrand whispered to her, staring down at her and keeping his gaze locked with hers, and his thrusts never ceased or stammered, even as he panted with her. He reached up, sliding his hand along her arm and creating cool goose bumps in its wake, until he caught her wrist and brought it down to the bed with a gentleness behind the motion. Halbrand pinned it there—above her head. “I love you,” he repeated until it was a mantra. “I love you. I’ve always loved you—”

He said it swiftly as if he needed her to hear it, needed her to believe it. It was the most important thing in the world, and she must not forget. Galadriel found herself nodding, and then surging upwards to meet him, to kiss him—but Halbrand pushed her back down to the bed with his other hand splayed firmly against her clavicle.

The sudden hit to the mattress made her gasp, soft and small, and he dove down to swallow it whole as his lips captured hers. His thrusts drove a little deeper, a little harder, making an ungodly sound arise in her throat like some beseeching whine. Halbrand swallowed that, too. His tongue lapped at hers, curling with it in her mouth, and Galadriel felt invaded at all angles—body, heart, mouth, and mind. There was nowhere she could escape from him.

Pushing himself up from her using the hand still pressed to her clavicle, he balanced himself on the wrist of hers he had pinned to the bed. He reached up her other arm to catch it in his grip as well, their limbs curling together with a sweetness until Galadriel realized he was bringing that one to the bed, too. It joined the other one above her head, and he passed both of her wrists to one hand, his grip somehow encompassing each of them at once.

“I love you, to—”

As soon as she said it, his thrust rolled into her stronger than the one before it, and her vision flashed white before growing dim, fading on the edges. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she registered the press of his knuckles into the bed, heard the reckless slap of his pace quickening against her body—and she wanted to grip onto him, but he was holding her down, and she couldn’t—but she wanted to—

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?” Halbrand threw back at her, and his sudden change in tone surprised her. It seemed as if he had asked the question in direct relation to her thoughts. Their gentle lovemaking grew fiercer by the moment, his hips pounding into her and her body ablaze all over from the heat of him scorching her straight through. “Certainly, longer than you—”

“Wha—” she tried to say, but he blinded her with another deep roll of his hips, striking some deep part of her that made her quake from the inside out as her sight went fuzzy. “Oh—ah—oh, I—”

“Ah, that’s it,” he coaxed her, his voice so lilting and soft. His lips dropped close to her ear, whispering the words to her. “Are you almost there, my love? Tell me you’re almost there—”

“I—ah—I don—mmph—” Halbrand struck her hard, and all her muscles tensed up, growing rigid as she tried to lift her hips to meet him. “Yes,” she suddenly hissed out, “yes, I—yes, please—”

“I’ve always wanted you, Galadriel,” he whispered, and his breath floated in her ear, tickling her. “I’ve always wanted you—as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted you—”

“—Yes—please, Halbran—”

“—And now, you’re almost mine,” he told her, breathless. “You’re almost mine—”

“Please—”

He stopped playing games with her. His thrusts shook her whole body, dragging her back and forth across the sheets, until they were both panting and sweat-soaked in a haze of delirium so sweet she could taste it on the tip of her tongue. This was what losing one’s soul looked like, being pounded into oblivion until she was hammered into the fashion of something brand new on the other side—this was what it felt like, burgeoning pressure coming to a head inside of her and coming to life—to light, love, happiness, and despair.

It all culminated into a fractured landscape in her head—a burst of golden rays casting themselves across that same blank countryside as before, and a white robe at the edge of her vision, faceless, its hand reaching out for her—and the present, her head bent forward, chin down, as she curled into herself, willing the pressure inside of her to burst while the taut curves of his chest became her only point of focus. Her eyes bounced lower with each thrust that displaced her, catching a sudden view of their bodies joining, and it sent her over the edge.

Everything in her tightened, firm as a rope pulled end to end, and then it snapped—her climax spiraled out of her and rendered her loose and pliant at last, wave after wave pulsing out of her. All of her muscles reacted unconsciously out of reflex, a warm wetness becoming more obvious between her legs, making the thrusts of him slip and slide inside of her easily.

“Yes—yes—that’s it, Galadriel—yes—”

It was not her speaking, but him. Her own voice caught in the depths of her throat, replaced with some cry of joyful agony, as she lost full control over herself. He did not seem to care about the embarrassing sounds she made or the way she thrashed below him—if anything, it excited him, and he lost himself, too, growling as he took advantage of the moment and ravished her until his own breath caught there in the space hanging between them, and suddenly, his hips stuttered in a standstill.

The pulse of him filled her, blossomed inside of her like the warmth of the sun, the bloom of the flower in a hot summer field—and peace, utter peace, settled over her mind like a gentle cloud of reverie.

He let go of her wrists, steadying himself on the bed. Through the daze hanging over her, Galadriel recognized her newfound freedom—and reached out for him immediately, clasping his face with both hands and dragging him down to her, capturing his lips in a kiss. Halbrand returned it—gentle again, as he had been before, so gentle and kind as their tongues caught together and their lips moved in tandem with one another.

Her lips broke from his, though they hung in the air so close, and Galadriel rose up again to brush them along his, a little gasp arresting her.

“I love you,” Galadriel whispered in the silence, and he hummed back, the sound reverberating through his chest above her—a happy sound, a pleasant approval.

“I love you, too,” Halbrand whispered back, and her fingers coasted along his cheek, down his stubble, as she smiled up at him. Halbrand smiled hazily back at her. He kissed her again, a soft catch of her lips, before pulling back from her—and Galadriel felt it as he pulled out of her, leaving her, because the void it left behind made her inexplicably sad. It made her yearn for him again.

Halbrand sat up, heaving breaths in and out, and Galadriel’s gaze fell to watch the rise and fall of his muscular chest. The strong planes of his torso enraptured her. She attempted to rise onto her elbows to join him, for she missed his warmth encapsulating her—

His hands grasped her hips, and he flipped her.

Galadriel hit the bed, stomach down, her chin bumping the mattress. Shock flooded her, and then a strange feeling, curdling in her stomach—excitement tinged with hesitation. Halbrand’s hands rubbed gently up and down her hips on either side of her, coaxing her to relax.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered behind her, and then, his hands stopped gliding along her flesh, and his fingers gripped tight. The feeling in her stomach dipped. “Now,” Halbrand murmured, “we do things my way—”

Galadriel’s eyes went wide, and she glanced over her shoulder. “What—”

Halbrand yanked her upright onto her knees, flinging her gaze forward again with the sudden movement, and her eyes went wider. She had seen animals in this position before, but—

His tongue swept across the dip in the lower crevice of her back, licking up the sweat that had pooled there. Galadriel shuddered below him, knowing she trusted him, but still—

His hand glided over the globe of her bottom, clutching her briefly. She felt his teeth bite down on her next, and she looked over her shoulder again as she jolted forward as if to pull away from him. He grasped her hips, drawing her back.

“What are you doing?”

It was an innocent enough question, but Galadriel trembled all over from it. “Halbrand—I’m—I’m not—”

“—You’re not what?” Halbrand asked, stilling her in her tracks. “Not ready? Because you’re plenty ready now—” His two fingers dipped into her center without warning, making Galadriel gasp aloud from it. Unconsciously, her legs spread further for him. “Mmm, you’re plenty ready. Look at you. Can’t wait for it, can you?”

A warmth bloomed across her cheeks at his words.

Unbidden, she bucked into his hand, sending his fingers deeper. Her head fell to the sheets, forehead pressing down as her knees tightened up. “Please—sta—” She almost said stop, but halted herself, laying palms against the sheets on either side of her head.

She did not really want him to stop. It felt good, even his coarse words. They sent little shockwaves through her body, and as much as it embarrassed her, she liked it.

“ . . . Please what?” he inquired. When she hesitated to answer, his thumbs began to knead down into her lower back, relaxing her again. Something told her he caught her wave of hesitation. “It’s all right to like it, Galadriel. There is no shame in that. Not between us. Not between lovers. Not between husband and wife . . . ”

It was exactly what she needed to hear from him. Galadriel lifted her head, glancing over her shoulder and barely catching the edge of him on her periphery. “Please,” she heard herself say, her voice sounding so far away, “I want more.”

A groan shuddered out of him, primal and low. His fingers curled downward within her, causing her jerk back and then buck toward him again. “Mmm, that’s more like it, my wife . . . ”

Halbrand withdrew his fingers, placing his hand down on her back. Galadriel felt the push from his hand guiding her to the bed.

“Lay your head back down,” he suggested softly, and she complied to the request, pressing her cheek to the sheets. She knew nothing about this position, but a part of her hoped he did—and then, the pang of jealousy that erupted within her overflowed almost painfully, landing a leaden weight in her gut. His gentle kiss against her back soothed her, though. “It’s all right, my sweet wife,” Halbrand whispered as a comfort. “It was a long time ago, but I remember.”

Galadriel did not ask questions, taking a deep breath and exhaling it, relaxing herself as much as possible—and she felt him there—pressing at her opening, pushing into her—somehow fitting perfectly into the snug sheath of her body. He took his time easing his way in, a deep hum rumbling through his chest somewhere behind her. Once his hips touched her skin, she realized how deep he was inside of her. Her body pulsed in welcome, though, and her mind, once again, lost all semblance of thought, place, and time.

His hands gripped the curve indented into her hips, fingers digging inward hard, and he almost withdrew from her entirely—until he drove back in with a sudden force, splitting through her center like a bolt—striking her all the way through and hitting some place deep inside of her she did not know was there. All of her muscles grew taut and seized up as she gasped for the breath he hammered out of her, and then she released it all and collapsed in a pool of slack limbs, sliding against the bed with every harsh thrust he sent deep into her.

Her head ended up at a curved angle, halfway looking back at him, as her mouth hung open and her eyes rolled back every time he entered her, every time he filled her. Her body slid along the bed each time, curling a little bit more in on itself with every pound of his hips. Whether it was meant as punishment or pleasure, the lines blurred and it became hard to tell. Her fingers curled in on themselves, too, digging so deep they cut her flesh—and then they splayed out against the bed and grasped the sheets, winding the fabric into tightly bound fists. It was the only thing aside from his hands holding her in place as she bounced across them. His wicked words came back as well, taunting her again.

“Do you know—how long—I’ve waited for this?” Halbrand bit out, a harsh breath following it as he buried himself inside her softness and grunted like an animal at the feel of her surrounding him. “Too long—” His hands began to move her by pulling her to him, helping to drive her down onto his length. The motion speared her on his girth, splitting her each time.

Her mind went black—blank of all thought. Empty of all presence. Everything fled from it, everything but her bliss.

“Oh, how you’ve made me wait—”

He pounded into her again, one hand releasing her hip and pushing down into her back, leveling her out. The next thrust struck something deeper, and Galadriel quaked, her knees shaking as the pressure rose within her again so soon—too soon—too much, too fast, too much—

“How you’ve made me wait—” he growled—and again, he sent himself deep inside her. And again. And again. “Oh, how you’ve made me wait—”

Her mind was a blank slate, waiting to be filled—as her body waited to be filled by him, too. Galadriel did not argue with him. She was too far gone in the moment, a puddle of drool accumulating on the sheets below her face. A sudden dampness came to her attention on the outskirts of her mind, but she barely acknowledged it. Instinctively, she spread her legs further—and when a little sound, a broken moan, finally escaped her, Galadriel pressed her lips together and bit down on her bottom lip at last. Still, the sheet was wet and cool against her cheek.

“Oh, no,” Halbrand suddenly said, “I won’t have your silence. I will have every sound out of those lips. I will have the whole castle hear what I can do to my wife—do you hear me?”

Galadriel did hear him, though only slightly on the very edges of her awareness, but her defiance was still stronger than her desire to give in to his demands—and she bit down harder on her lip, suppressing each pitiful mewl in her throat in an attempt to thwart the punishing pound of his hips.

It was the wrong response.

Halbrand grasped her hair, winding it around his wrist, and tugged Galadriel up from the bed with it. She gasped, catching herself on her palms to steady herself, and he pulled taut on her hair, baring her throat and arching her back.

“—Do you hear me?” he insisted, hissing the words out.

Galadriel kept her mouth closed and did not answer him. It was a challenge, but also, a part of her secretly liked it. She had never done such things before. It unlocked a part of her she did not know was within her. Certainly, her former husband had never been so daring with her as this—

His next growl was violent, ripping through the air as he tugged her into him. “You will not—” Halbrand demanded fiercely, “think of him—” His brutal thrust inside of her at this angle hit unlike no other. He seated himself all the way to the hilt. Her knees almost gave out beneath her body. Her vision flashed white like a blanket of pure snow, and every part of her throbbed from the exquisite pang it shot through the center of her, root to tip.

Galadriel could not stop it.

She cried out—and she could not stop crying out with each new, deep thrust he sent into her with the slant of her body in the perfection position for receiving it all.

It was everything she wanted, and she did not even know it.

“Ah—!” he growled again, a deep, guttural sound, clearly pleased with what he could do to her. “That’s it, my wife. That’s it. Tell them all what I can do—tell them all what I can do to you—”

Halbrand liked that, obviously—mastering her, steering her, choosing the course for Galadriel, whether she knew or knew not if it was a course she wanted to take—but she took it, anyway, and she loved it, and there was no changing it now. There was no changing it once he was deep inside of her, wringing from her all sorts of sordid sounds and cries, making the whites of her eyes visible as they rolled back and her mouth hung open in shock, in surprise, that this was something that husbands and wives could experience with one another.

Her thighs were sore and sticky from her own juices mingling with his as they trickled down her legs by the time he found his own release again, long after she had found hers over and over and over—was there no end to them?—and he loved that, too. The way she collapsed to the bed when he unwound her hair and released her from his grip, he chuckled at it. She plummeted downwards, breathless, sated, sweat-stricken, and boneless.

Galadriel stared at the bed, her eyes fixed on a certain spot of fabric of no importance, her exhales broken and shaky at best.

Halbrand’s hands were on her again, flipping her over onto her back against the sheets.

He mounted her between her legs, his hands grasping the backs of Galadriel’s knees and bracketing her legs close to her chest, before her mind could even catch up with the moment and realize what was going on now. It was so muddled. Everything was so confusing. Couldn’t it just slow down—

Her hand flew outward, pushing at his chest, causing him to pause.

Their gazes locked on one another, and his eyes turned warm, softening their hard edges as they stared back at her.

She glanced down between their bodies, inhaling sharply in shock. He was still hard.

Her eyes flitted back up to his face.

“Halbrand—” she started, but she did not know what to say. This sort of invigoration was not like Elves, and she did not know what to make of it. Galadriel was not sure she could hold up much longer with such attentions. How long did he plan to do this tonight? Her brow furrowed, her confusion plain. “Already—?”

“Yes, already,” he murmured back, biting his bottom lip and sidling closer to her. “I want my wife to have a wedding night she will never forget—”

“I already will never for—”

“No,” Halbrand whispered, “not yet.”

He leaned down to capture her lips in a soothing kiss, their mouths passing together in slow unison as the sweat on her skin began to cool. It tickled her as a breeze wafted in from the balcony.

The balcony.

It was open this whole time.

Galadriel’s eyes grew wide with fear, pulling away from the kiss as her head flung to the side on the sheets to glance at the open doors on the other side of the room, the billowing draperies as they caught in the breeze. Horror passed over her features as she wondered who might have heard them—

Halbrand chuckled low in his throat, clearly amused by her trail of thoughts. “It’s a bit late for that,” he said. “Most of the castle have probably heard us by now. We might as well make the most out of it—”

She swung back to look at him, to glare at him—but the way he looked at her stopped Galadriel in her tracks. His gentle smile lit up his face, brightened his eyes all the way out to the corners, and he drew in a small breath as he gazed at her, exhaling it softly.

“You get too worked up,” Halbrand murmured, “at the smallest of things . . . ”

“This is not a small thing—” Galadriel tried to argue, but he cut her off.

“We are married,” he said—with finality. “It is inconsequential.”

Galadriel blinked at him, staring.

He was right.

Halbrand sighed as he watched her, his tongue passing over his lips to wet them. His eyes flitting across her face. “No more sneaking around,” he told her. “No more secrets. No more late night visits where I have to watch my back on the way to your room—” He leaned over her. “Take me in your hand and tell me you don’t want more.”

Galadriel swallowed, feeling her body stir at the words alone.

He had a power over her.

A part of her did not like it, but she also felt the urge to do as she was bid to do by the pulse of the ache he had left inside of her—and her hand sought the space between them and settled low to find his manhood, still covered in the slick of all her pleasure when she wrapped her fingers around it.

It was true. She wanted it now.

Galadriel guided him to her opening, gasped as he pushed into her again, and wrapped her arms around his neck as he eased his way in her body. This time he was slow with her once more, finding a steady pace and rhythm to encourage her to rock her hips to meet him, bearing down on her from yet another angle that seemed to rip all sorts of unimaginable sounds out of her throat that resembled a choral of pitiful mewls mingled with the press of agony meeting pleasure as she wordlessly begged for climax—for comfort—for release.

The harder his thrusts became, she did not shy away from them—but rose to meet them—and his wicked entreaties to her, they did not stop either. Halbrand pressed his forehead to hers, sticky with sweat, breathing harshly through his mouth with each one he delivered to her, a repetition of some he had said to Galadriel before. Ah, a rare treasure, and only for me. Only for me. You’re mine now, do you understand? You’re mine now. Oh, how you’ve made me wait. How you’ve made me wait—how could you ever think I only wanted your body, Galadriel? No, no, that’s not enough for me. I want your soul, nîn meleth, I want your soul.

When she came, delirious and half mad and feverish with a sweat, none of his words had truly settled into her, not the way his seed had settled deep within her womb and his hot breath had skittered past her lips, washing over her tongue to back of her throat. There were no more thoughts inside of her head, just the pleasant stillness of being satiated and filled to the brim over and over by him, and even when he pulled out of her, she barely felt it at all. Her eyelids fluttered to a close all their own.

Halbrand settled down onto the bed beside her, wrapping an arm around Galadriel’s waist and pulling her close to him, so he could hold her. He dragged a pillow over to them and placed it under their heads, took the edge of the sheets in his hand and tugged them over their naked forms as well to cover her from the cold breeze that might creep in during the night. He held her close to his body to help keep her warm as well, positioned her so that her head lay against his chest and his arm curled around her back, his hand landing in her hair to toy with it, even as she began to fall asleep in his arms.

As she drifted off in his arms, Halbrand curled a single lock of her silver-laden golden hair around his finger, marveling at the duality of color within it and how it shone in the faint traces of moonlight and starlight as the last of the candles melted away and died off. Her lock of hair spun easily around his finger, winding around the golden band upon his finger. It melded with it, almost appearing to be one with it, but for the faint traces of silver laced within the gold.

He stopped twirling it, staring at it for a moment, before unwinding the lock of her hair from his finger and watching as it fell away to join back the rest of her curls sprawled across the bed down below.

Halbrand’s hand came down to brush softly along the length of her hair, blending each of the locks back together. The palm of his hand caressed the curve of her head in the process with a delicacy that seemed incongruent with his previous actions toward her. She stirred in his arms, but she never opened her eyes again for the rest of the night.

Galadriel drifted off, never noticing the golden ring still left upon his finger that he never took off.

Chapter Text

* * *

There can be no peace of mind in love, since what one has obtained is never anything but a starting point for further desires.

— Marcel Proust

* * *

Before Galadriel even opened her eyes to the soft golden morning light as it poured in from the balcony and through her eyelids, she could feel the warmth of Halbrand’s skin against her own as she awoke to the new dawn. Her body had nestled itself comfortably into the crook of his arm, her nose and mouth pressed gently against his chest. They were propped up against many pillows now instead of just the one. Sometime during the night, they had migrated to the head of the bed, though Galadriel wondered if it had not been Halbrand who brought them to it.

She breathed in deeply, catching the scent of him with the motion—clean and crisp with a touch of cedar and cinnamon. Her hand, laying against his chest, rose to brush along the firmness of it beneath her palm. He felt strong—and protecting. Halbrand’s arm rested along her back, bent at the elbow, his hand brushing over her hair in soft, gentle strokes. Galadriel closed her eyes against the sensation.

She had not been held like this for centuries.

Her body, unconsciously, scooted closer to him—to his warmth, and as naked as they were beneath the smooth sheets, it no longer felt inappropriate or wrong. They were wed, and they were in love. Galadriel sighed softly, her breath pouring over his chest, and wrapped her arm around his middle as she clung to him.

Halbrand’s fingertips began to comb through her hair along her scalp, and he leaned over her, pressing his lips softly to the top of her hair.

“Good morning, my wife,” he whispered against it, and the flutter in her chest that answered his call felt like it would steal her breath away.

“Good morning, husband,” Galadriel said back, her breath tickling his chest. His nerves jumped at it, and he smiled against her hair. She could feel it, even if she could not see it.

His fingers resumed their languorous strokes through her hair. His mouth also never left it. Halbrand drew in a deep breath, and Galadriel thought maybe he, too, could not get enough of her scent overwhelming him through and through. “Did you sleep well?” he asked her, his voice barely a whisper atop the crown of her head.

“I did,” Galadriel answered honestly. “Thank you.”

“Of course, my wife.” His voice remained gentle, at peace. It was a far cry from his passion the night before. His fingers never ceased carding through her hair, a delicate touch also very different from last night. “How are you feeling?”

Galadriel felt the tug of a small smile at the corner of her lips, and she turned to nestle her face against him. “I am feeling well,” she replied in a little murmur, kissing his bare flesh. The taste of him excited her again, though she tried to push it out her mind right now. She had only just awoken from her slumber. It was so soon, it felt almost uncouth.

“Good,” he murmured, kissing the crown of her head again. Galadriel could not explain it, the amount of love she felt in so small an action from him. It warmed her heart from the center all the way through, and then it set itself deep within her bones, latching onto the marrow there within her. Her hand, inexplicably, clutched onto the side of his chest to grip him tight. She did not want to let him go. As they laid there in his bed together, it was the only thought running through her head—do not let him go, it whispered, and Galadriel slid closer to him, pulled tighter. It was like an invisible cord pulled taut between them, linking her to him.

As her hands tightened on him, his own hold softened in response.

“This is your day, my love,” Halbrand told her, resting his chin upon her hair at last. “Whatever you want today, it is yours. You need only ask.” When his fingers passed over her hair after he spoke, Galadriel thought about everything that had occurred between them last night. The events flitted through her mind, one after another in quick succession.

Wedding nights, it was often said, were most desired by men. Had he gotten all of his lust, all of his hunger out of him at last with her through the debauchery of the evening? A small part of her was a little sore, but it was more of a dull ache from how deeply he had entrenched himself within her body—and right now, all she wanted was to be held instead of ravaged, her mind turning inwards to the delicate encasement of his arms around her, the gentle warmth of their naked bodies pressed together.

Was today meant to be her day because last night was his night?

It felt like a tradeoff, but Galadriel was not opposed to the notion. It felt fair, and in many ways as well, it also felt considerate to both of their needs.

“May we hold each other?” she suggested, gently tilting her head back to see the view of his face above her. Halbrand’s gaze had been upon her already, kind and warm as he stared down at her. “It is that I want most.”

The answering smile upon his lips reached his eyes, shining all the way through each multi-colored hue of his irises. “I would like nothing more either, my beautiful wife.”

His answering call sang to her, reaching down into the very depths of her soul—and Galadriel surged upward to kiss him, capturing his lips with a sudden sense of rapture that was not like her. She rose, sliding over him to straddle his hips as her arm sidled behind his head, winding a sinuous path around his neck to lock him in place against her, her lips parting as a wanton breath escaped her. Halbrand moaned into her mouth, parting his lips and accepting the kiss, his warm palm sidling against her cheek as his other hand slid into her hair.

“I thought,” he whispered between heady kisses, “that you—” Her tongue curled with his, silencing him briefly. “Just—” Her lips pressed gently to his own, chaste all of a sudden. “Wanted,” Halbrand managed to say, “to hold—” Her kiss came again, her mouth slotting easily along the part of his lips, her tongue a languid graze against his own. When she pulled back, they both drew in a soft breath of air. “—Each other,” he finished, breathless.

“This is holding,” Galadriel answered him, the words barely a whisper as she gazed into his eyes and settled both arms comfortably around his neck. She found herself lost in them, wanting to stay like this forever.

It had felt much the same to her when she had shared her first night with Celeborn—the bond, the link between their minds, hearts, and souls had felt just like this one between her and Halbrand now. It was a truer union compared to the one they had shared all those years ago in Númenor, which she had fought back against with all of her being to deny throughout the years. Still, the pull was always there—it had never gone away—but she had never given in to it, except for last night, in full.

Her thoughts of Celeborn this time also did not stir a negative reaction from Halbrand. Either he had ceased his reading of her thoughts or he had finally accepted that Celeborn would always be a part of her in a different way. Halbrand’s expression, as he gazed back at her, remained soft and loving, and his hands settled themselves gently upon her waist to hold her in return. None of his possessiveness that he had displayed last night surged up again out of nowhere, and the love within his eyes did not falter one bit. A warmth bloomed throughout her chest to look upon it, and she smiled back at him, one of her hands pulling back from his neck to rise up and cup his cheek.

Halbrand smiled, too. One of his hands left her waist, and shortly afterwards, she felt his thumb graze her cheek.

“I never imagined I’d see this day,” he whispered, and Galadriel bit down onto her lip, her brow furrowing with uncertainty.

“You did not?” she inquired, also a whisper.

Slowly, Halbrand shook his head. “I did not,” he admitted. He swallowed past a catch in his throat. “I have never been worthy of you, Galadriel. I never expected this day to come.” Still, his head shook. His eyes, they seemed so far away now. “I do not deserve you.”

A shuddering breath fluttered out of her lungs, and her other hand rose to cup his face as well, holding it between both of her palms. “I am yours now,” Galadriel whispered to him. “You have earned me.”

His lips seemed to tremble, and he bit into them to make it stop. His eyes, too, shimmered with a faint sheen under the golden glaze of morning’s bright touch.

Again, Halbrand shook his head.

“I have not earned you,” he murmured, and before Galadriel knew it, he had taken her into his strong arms and drew her close to his chest. His chin rested upon her shoulder, his face bent almost into the tiny crook of her neck, and his hand placed itself upon the back of her head, cradling her hair in his grasp. His embrace was a hug, full and encompassing—and despite his words, denying her, his touch felt true. “I love you,” Halbrand murmured, “but I will never deserve you.”

“That is not true,” Galadriel countered him, her arms, too, coming up to hold him in a tender embrace back. “You have done so much good. It is possible. I believe it. I never thought—” The words caught in her throat. I never thought you could, was the haunting whisper she never spoke aloud, but it was insolent to say it now. “I never thought it was possible, but you have done all and more, Halbrand. Is that not a comfort for both our spirits?”

He was quiet in her arms. His breath stuttering out of him unevenly, tickling her neck. “A comfort to you, perhaps, but—” He sighed against her. “I am putting a damper on our beautiful day. Forgive me, Galadriel. This is enough for me. This is enough.”

Her fingers gripped his shoulders, clutching tight. Is it? her mind whispered, hoping against hope. Praying against the dark that always came after the dawn. The dark parts of the world always had a way of unleashing themselves when least expected, and it made Galadriel fear for the future. Could all the love in the world between them be enough to fasten them, bind them together hereafter, marrow to bone, root to heart—essence to essence like the fine feather touch of fëa to fëa?

As they sat there, holding one another, she felt touch of his fëa to hers like a wash of warmth, a glimpse of light, crossing with one another like cool, supple roots beneath the soil, entwining in a sinuous dance of life.

“I am yours,” she breathed out, feeling the words as truly as she felt their spirits intertwine in the moment—the way everything flickered and mingled between them, blurring the lines of the real and unreal, the seen and the Unseen, until she could no longer tell the two of them apart anymore.

It was all the same now.

Her spirit was now bound to his in full with their second coupling, and there was no power in all the world that could break it.

It was as if the first breach in Númenor created a fine thread between them—subtle, but breakable. It had dissolved her bond with Celeborn and broken the link she had with him—but this second coupling had unified her bond with Halbrand, solidified it, made it real. It was like an unraveling rope threading backwards through time, growing onto itself and becoming full. A turning point from which Galadriel could not back away from any longer with her equal indulgence into the madness of last night. She was now his, and he was now hers, and the tides of fate forced them to flow together instead of apart.

Gently, her hand slid from his cheek up into his hair to hold him closer to her, fingers carding through his locks as she turned to place a kiss upon his temple. The clean scent of him was also strong within his hair, mingling with the natural musk below that.

Instead of denying or even agreeing with Galadriel, Halbrand questioned her further.

“Are you mine?” came his tender inquiry, enough to throw Galadriel off of her guard as she thought about his possessive streak the night before, the way he had intrinsically wanted to claim her like an animal, marking her with every ache and pang inside of her body, every harsh grip and tug. It had seemed there was no end to his passion, and she had been swept up by it and carried away with its tide to distant shores.

“Yes,” Galadriel then admitted in a whisper, “I am yours.”

Halbrand, too, sighed softly, his hands tracing feather light patterns across the planes of her back as he tipped his head in the crook of her neck to kiss her shoulder instead of rest upon it. “I do not deserve you,” he said again, the words below his breath, “but I would have you. Please forgive me, Galadriel—”

“—For what?” she asked, confused by this sudden turn of events.

“For everything,” Halbrand continued on, his voice becoming more strained with each syllable he managed to speak aloud. “For all that I have done, and I have done much. Please forgive me. Please forgive me, my love—”

“Halbrand—”

Galadriel had pulled back to address him, but his lips surged upwards to meet hers, and upon their touch, Galadriel’s mind went as blank as a freshly clean slate. She parted her lips and accepted the rush of him past them, the lustful dance of warmth and dampness, and her hips rolled over his to seek friction with him, the motion stirring his manhood to erectness below her with each slide of her hips. A soft moan arose from the depths of her throat, and his kiss strove to swallow it eagerly as she gave it to him.

The roll of her hips turned into a wave within her back, and Halbrand’s hands fell downward to grasp her sides and squeeze them gently before releasing his hold on her. They slipped upwards along the smooth skin from waist to shoulder blade, finger pads and palms feeling every inch of her possible as if they were committing every slope of her to memory. He did not want to ever forget this moment, and if his hands could take the time to map it out, he never would—she would live forever under the gentle touch of his hands, the trace of his fingers, and the memory of her would never die.

Galadriel did not think about these things as they were happening, but in hindsight, it was something she would think on much later.

His lips broke away from hers, lingering in the air not far from her mouth—the heat of his breath washing through her, most intoxicating. It fractured the delicate spell of the moment, and awoke Galadriel into a sharper mindset separate from her baser urges. She was overcome with lust after last night, desiring nothing more than seeking further union with him.

It was natural, she told herself. The yearning for procreation was written into her bones—even if it was not written into his—and it had overcome her much in the same way as it had with her marriage to Celeborn, though their unions had never resulted in a child together.

As her thoughts drifted once more to Celeborn, Galadriel closed her eyes and sighed softly, pushing her former husband out of her mind as she rested her forehead against Halbrand’s temple. He did not matter anymore. All that mattered now was Halbrand. He was her husband now, and all that mattered was the warmth of him against her, the tenderness in the touch of his hands, and the kindness he showed her despite her thoughts drifting as they did last night. There was no harsh tug to answer her, no violent pull to withdraw her from the moment.

He was soft, patient, and kind.

Her hands found their way to his cheeks, the tips of her fingers brushing gently against his skin at first. A second sigh escaped from her lips, and Halbrand’s hands stilled in their journey downwards along her back to settle into the dip below her rib cage.

“Galadriel,” came Halbrand’s gentle voice, and it was such a dichotomy from the night before. He, too, sighed. “I thought you just wanted to hold each other. We can do that—just hold each other. We don’t have to—”

Galadriel kissed him to silence him, rocking her hips down harder to seek the friction of their bodies as they rolled together. Halbrand inhaled sharply in reply and kissed her back, losing himself in the taste of her mouth as his tongue sought to curl with hers. His hips, too, rocked upward to rise and meet her. He gripped the top of her thigh, pushing her down on to him, as his other hand slipped behind her neck to pull her closer to him, to smother Galadriel in the demanding catch of his lips. Each time his tongue slid into the warm trenches of her mouth, it flooded Galadriel with a heady, overwhelming desire more potent than any medicine or wine could impart into her blood.

She was overcome with it, and she rocked harder onto him until the motion of it drove the slickness between her legs over the length of his hardening manhood over and over until he was a firm rod beneath her—coated in the juices of her body, her innate hunger for him. Somewhere in the fog and the haze of her mind despite the blinding clarity of morning’s first rays, Galadriel broke free of their kiss long enough to rise up on her knees and lift herself from his lap, her arm snaking down between them to grasp the heat of his shaft into her hand. Her fingers coiled around it, languishing in the feel of him—so soft to the touch and yet so firm—as she stroked him up and down, hearing him utter out such deep, lascivious groans in response to each ministration of her hand.

“Galadriel—” he bit out, an unabashed weakness underlying his tone.

She paused, her body still propped up above his lap, and gazed at him through half-lidded eyes.

If he had a power over her, then she, too, had a power over him. He looked but half a man at her mercy, begging for more without saying it. Without demanding it of her. Halbrand tilted his head back, raising his chin until they were almost eye to eye—and for a brief moment, Galadriel saw everything within him that he had endeavored to hide from her, keep from her, and never tell her.

Amongst her visions were deep, dark pits full of screams of anguish and sharp, jagged crevices of cobalt and slate—whips and chains and bloody, ruined backs and limbs—the slice of each slash through the air, a loud crack, and a quiet, whimpering sob in a heaving chest—the growing horde, like a flocking crescent of insects closing in, roaring and beating their shields and howling—the strike, the smash of mace, never sword, and the flowing rivers of blood, blood, blood—the growing sea, churning in wild, wrecking waves, and a hand stretched out from beneath a dark cloak amidst the watery sea, swaying in the mighty wind, the glimmer of a ring in hand—the cry of a beast, loud and shrieking madness through the air, and the screams, oh, the screams—and the face beneath the hood of the cloak upon the sea, how it sank into a ghastly face of shadows, gaunt and drawn thin over too much bone, the eyes bright and smiling back, though the blackened mouth riddled with little blue veins outward made no such gesture in return. It was in the eyes. It was clear in the eyes.

All of it was clear—as clear as a bright summer’s day in a childhood memory—and Galadriel drew back from him, gasping, as Halbrand’s pupils grew wider and darker from the fear of it, his hand reaching out for her, a gentle brush of fingers against the side of her face.

“Galadriel, please—” Halbrand began, clearly unraveled by whatever had occurred between them just now. It was not of his doing. “I shouldn’t have—I don’t—I don’t know how that happened—”

A weakened breath shuddered past her lips. “The veil,” she replied softly, her eyes closing on the second word. “The veil between us, it’s growing thin.”

“—What?”

Galadriel opened her eyes and looked at him—truly looked at him.

The fear in him was real. Halbrand was scared. He did not know what was going on, nor had he caused its occurrence. It had been outside of his well of power. It came in bits and pieces because of his long life, much longer than hers, but Galadriel had experienced such a thing before—with Celeborn.

Part of the union between Elves was also of the mind, not just of body and spirit. Shared memories and details from before were a part of it, ensuring the bond between husband and wife. It enriched the connection between them, guaranteeing a happy and fulfilled life together. Galadriel’s breath hitched all of a sudden as she realized Halbrand might now have some sort of access to her memories with Celeborn or at least glimpses of them. How would that make him feel, she wondered, and how would he react?

“We are,” Galadriel breathed out, trying to think of the easiest way to word it for him, “growing closer to one another in mind as well as body and spirit.” Her free hand came to rest ever so soft upon the back of his neck, her fingers toying lightly with his hair. “We will have glimpses into each other’s memories.”

A obvious lump bobbed in his throat. “Is there,” he started, pausing, “no way to stop it?”

Her iron stare hardened upon him. “Is there something you wish to hide from me?”

“No, you—” Halbrand faltered before her. He had no way to answer that question to his satisfaction. “You don’t need to see all that—”

Gently, Galadriel shook her head. “There is no way to stop it, Halbrand.”

“I have done evil—”

“I know—”

“No, you don’t—” Halbrand pulled back from her, but it was not far, his back hitting the headboard and halting him. Galadriel reached out for him with both hands, catching Halbrand’s shoulders and pulling him in close to her, even as he weakly attempted to fight her off to no avail. His struggle within her grasp was a meek thing, hardly meant because he did not want to hurt her, and so she enclosed her arms around his shoulders in a firm grip. Galadriel held fast to Halbrand and kept him close. “You don’t know what I’ve done,” he hissed out, his breath catching on each desperate word. “You will hate me, Galadriel. You will hate me—”

“I love you,” Galadriel murmured close to his ear, one of her hands coming to rest on the back of his head against his hair, “and I accept you for who you are—”

“—You don’t know who I am,” Halbrand countered her, his following gulp so loud in her ears. “You don’t know who I was.”

“I know you had done evil,” Galadriel reminded him in the softest whisper, “and I did not care—”

“—When you thought I was a Man,” Halbrand reminded her in turn. “This is different, Galadriel.”

“It is all the same,” she whispered, her voice failing at the end. In the grand scheme of things, it was. It was all the same. If she had not cared then, why should she care now? The depths of his evil, yes, it meant it was deeper, darker than anything a Man might dream—but Evil was Evil, and she had thrown herself into the furnace with him when she had spoken the vows to be his wife and had lain in bed with him afterwards, letting him ravish her.

What evil could she possibly see that would change her mind now?

“It is not—” Halbrand tried to say.

“—Yes, it is,” Galadriel countered again. Unwinding her arms from around his shoulders, she pulled back far enough to grasp his face and force him to look at her. It was nothing he had not done to her many times over. “It is inconsequential,” she threw back at him. “We are husband and wife now.”

Halbrand could barely meet her eyes, tearing them away after only just a moment. “I—I don’t want you to see—”

“—See what?”

He would not answer her. His lips trembled again, and he drew in a shaky breath, his eyes still refusing to meet her gaze. “I don’t want you to see.”

Galadriel, too, drew in a deep breath before resting her forehead against his once more, exhaling it softly not far from his lips. “I love you.” She bent her head forward to place a tender kiss upon those lips, and the subtle shake of him stilled under the touch of them. “I love you,” Galadriel repeated, her lips trailing from his mouth to the corner of his ear, where she placed another light press of lips against his skin. Halbrand shivered at the contact, and when her fingers passed across his neck in a ghostly trace of his flesh, falling ever downward along his chest in little strokes, he jumped at each one of them until her hand snuck down between the crevice of their bodies once more.

She dipped her head into the crook of his neck, laying it there upon his shoulder, as she took him in her hand again, fingers and palm gliding along him effortlessly to bring back the stiff, hardened trace of steel beneath the soft, velvet touch of his flesh. Her lips caught upon his throat where it was warm and inviting. The spice of him hit sharper here, and she breathed it into her lungs in between each tantalizing brush of lips after another. As her mouth traced a fine line upward along his jaw, she flicked her tongue out to taste him and test the waters as he had done with her. His skin was salty but sweet, and she kissed her way to his ear, catching the lobe between her teeth.

His mouth had ceased all protest by then, and his hands resumed their roam across the curves of her body, gripping her thighs and hips and tracing their way up her sides, tickling her and distracting her. Galadriel grew braver by the moment, endeavoring to drag her tongue up along the shell of his ear from bottom to top. He lost his grip on her, faltering under the assault, and the deep, ragged groan she dredged up from the depths of his throat caused her to throb with the need of it.

When she rose from his lap and adjusted her position over him, he had perhaps least expected it to be so quick—he gasped aloud as she lowered herself close to him, grazing the tip of his manhood along her slickness and teasing herself with it. Her body, flooded with new arousal and still sticky from their lovemaking the night before, felt as if it would easily accommodate him, and she wanted to try.

Positioning herself in the right spot above him with her hand guiding him, Galadriel sank down just enough to feel the tip of him push into her. She, too, gasped as he did, her other hand tightening upon his shoulder to steady herself, her arm wound about his neck again. It was an exquisite sensation of pleasure, and she wanted to feel more—

She sank down further, the ache of him opening her a little more. By now, his hands had anchored themselves upon her, clutching blunt nails into her flesh, but he never tried to take over her position of control. He fell back against the headboard and let her have it, and Galadriel gladly took the reins.

Her body sank down more and more, a little more each time, with a breathless, tiny gasp on each sliver downwards she achieved—until the back of her thighs were flush with the tops of his, and the sensation of fullness, of completeness, was one with her as she was one with him.

She cupped the back of his head, cradling it tenderly within her palm, and drew him close to her—this was not animalistic, but loving. Her mouth caught his in a smoldering kiss, and both arms wrapped around his neck—and she angled herself until she was leaning forward into his chest, and she used the new position for leverage to lift herself up along his length and sink back down again.

Her body accepted him easily like a sleeve, though she still felt the ache in each stretch as she sank downwards onto him. Every time she left him, she wanted to meet him again—and she brought her hips down, down, down. Each ache was glorious, though, in what it achieved; a tightness coiled in her belly as it had the night before, spiraling down her legs and into her toes with each stretch of him filling her with a perfect wholeness.

Her lips captured his mouth in kiss after kiss, unable pull back from him, her tongue sliding along his between the softness of their lips. She wanted to feel the warmth of his mouth, of his tongue, and feel the heat of him spear itself inside of her—but his mouth pulled back from hers, and interrupted the moment with words.

“Galadriel—”

She did not want to hear it. “Shh—”

His fingers clenched into the bend of her hips. “Galadriel,” he growled, “harder.”

Obliging meant releasing his shoulders and reaching out for the headboard, grasping that in his stead. It also tilted her body toward him at an angle and added a delicious, newfound friction against the sensitive little bud above her entrance.

His hands slipped beneath her thighs, spreading her wider as she rode him with more vigor, the coil of pressure within her rising higher and higher. Her grasp on the headboard tightened until her knuckles were bone white, and she used it to bounce along him until he was filling her over and over—and she blanked out with a roll of her eyes and a blinding white light blooming across her failing field of vision.

He pushed her upwards with his hands against her thighs, and he held her there with a punishing bite of his nails—and before she knew it, he was guiding the way instead of her. Her hands suddenly lost their grip on the headboard with the first solid thrust of him into her, grabbing onto him for dear purchase, as she gasped out loud. He speared her with each long, undulating thrust—and one of her hands shot out to push against the headboard as if it might lessen the onslaught and steady her above him. The result, however, was the headboard slamming against the wall to make such a racket, but she could not think enough to care.

The coiling pressure burst outward from her core, inducing such a shudder throughout her whole body that she was still shaking and trembling long past the aftermath of it. Some unearthly sound escaped her throat, a cry or a howl or something in between the two—and he, too, growled harshly deep in his throat like some beast amidst a feral heat, his hips coming to a sudden standstill and faltering as a hot sensation blossomed throughout her being.

Galadriel fell into him, curling her arm around his neck, feeling the pulse of his manhood as the last of his seed flooded inside of her.

A child. She wanted a child. It was a strange thought to have out of nowhere, and yet it was not strange at all. What they were doing was the act that could bring a child into the world, and it was no longer a scary thought to entertain anymore if she was his wife.

It was something she welcomed now. Something she accepted as part of their fate intertwined together. Perhaps a child was their destiny.

A child.

“What are you thinking of, Galadriel?” came the deep hum of his voice beside her ear, breaking her from her reverie. Slowly, the corner of her mouth curled upwards into a soft smile. She rested her head against his shoulder, realizing his arms were now wrapped around her body to hold her in a gentle embrace. He traced his fingers up her back, tickling her again and making her squirm.

“Are you not reading my thoughts?” Galadriel inquired, teasing him—but a part of her meant it, too.

His hold on her slackened, and she felt the sigh escape his lungs because his whole chest heaved with it, but it was also quite loud not far from her ear. Halbrand did nothing to hide it, and he loosened up his arms until they barely held her, his knuckles now tracing a soft pattern across her spine. “I want you to tell me,” he murmured, and a thought struck her out of nowhere.

He had not been reading her thoughts all morning.

It had to have been true. His possessive streak would not disappear in such an abrupt manner. The only explanation which seemed to make any sense was that he had closed himself off from the temptation to do it any longer. Did he now trust her? Believe her?

His fingers glided through her hair, combing it out across her back.

“Will you tell me, my sweet wife?”

Whatever tension there was in her muscles, in her bones, in her spine—trickled out in little ticklish tendrils with the graze of his fingers across her back through her hair.

“I want a child—” Galadriel admitted, her voice hitching in a broken syllable on the final word—and it was hard to admit because she had tried and tried and tried with Celeborn, but fate had not seen it fit to grace her with a child, then. Motherhood eluded her, and so a war-beaten path she had taken across muddy, black soil and frozen wastes and blessed silence in the far reaches of the world, chasing him.

The paradox it brought upon her spirit was not lost on her.

Halbrand’s hands had stilled upon her at some point, his hands flattening against the smooth planes of her back. His silence scared her at first, but then when he spoke, the melody of peacefulness within his tone washed over her like a song, bestowing such calm into her bones.

“Is that what you want, my love?” Halbrand finally asked her, as if he was not sure if he should, or could, believe it. “You want a child? With me?”

“Yes,” Galadriel whispered back, coiling her arms around him in a protective embrace. Unconsciously, her fingernails dug into the base of his neck. “I want a child. With you.” Her mouth opened again, but her breath caught in her throat with trepidation. It took a moment for her to overcome it. “I have always wanted a child, Mairon.”

Galadriel was not sure what had possessed her to call him Mairon in that moment when she thought of him as Halbrand. In a motion she had not expected, he curled a secure arm around her waist and lifted her with himself. Halbrand rolled them over until she was below him on her back upon the bed, and his hair was splayed around his face in a halo against the golden morning light. He did not smile; he grinned down at her, and the warmth of it matched the blaze of copper in each burnished lock.

“You have always wanted a child, my love?”

“Yes,” Galadriel admitted again, a breathless little hitch following it once more.

“There is only one way to do that, my love . . . ” Halbrand murmured, openly teasing her now, as he swooped down closer to her face and brushed their noses together. The curve to his lips bent in a wicked manner compared to the warmth of before.

Her cheeks flushed hot at his statement.

“I kno—”

His lips caught upon hers, soft and tender, but the promise of more was still to come.

Chapter Text

* * *

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

— Winston Churchill

* * *

A long, bright golden stretch of hallway lay before her, and Galadriel walked forward, each step drawing her further into the mantle of warmth cast under its dazzling illumination. Even for her Elven eyes, the glow burned too bright, too fierce, that it forced her head to turn away from the beams, her eyes shutting against the light. The heat of the stone below reached through the sandals on her dainty feet, for the sun had been shining here for quite some hours, its intensity burned into the rock, scorching her surroundings all the way through.

While the light was nearly unbearable, her skin desired to bask in the warmth of it.

A hand reached out for her while her eyes were closed, her head turned away in the avoidance of the glow—and she recognized his hand instantly from the intimate way in which he touched her, a soft glance of his fingers atop her knuckles, brushing against her flesh before curling under the palm of her hand and clasping them together—her hand in his, held gentle but fast.

“My wife,” came his whisper next, so close to her ear, so very close that she grew weak from its call, intuitively seeking out the sound of his voice and leaning toward it without thought or question in her mind. The enchantment his voice, his touch seemed to induce in Galadriel flowed through her body with the fleetness of a river, a summoning force that could pull her under and swiftly out to the deep, dark depths of the sea—if he so willed it.

“My husband,” she whispered back, feeling her temple brush against his as he moved closer to her. His fingers reached out for her chin and caught it in a delicate hold, tilting her face towards his own. Galadriel opened her eyes and saw him there, a faint, hazy curl to his lips as he gazed down at her with a loving expression in those eyes caught by the sun and ensnared with a golden glow—one such expression she never thought she would trust so implicitly, but trust him now, she did, with all of her being, all of her soul, and all of her fëa. A dangerous requisition she had signed herself into, though not without careful thought behind it before undertaking the measure, and his smile in return for her sacrifice was laden with a lover’s care as he regarded her, two fingers splayed beneath her chin.

Halbrand waited for her to smile back at him—as if he wanted nothing more than her approval, her love, her adoration—and when at last she gave it, a soft curve to her lips, his own grin rose in response and his eyes darkened with a newly growing lust behind them, deepening the colors of his irises until they were all a swirl of brightened green and rich, warm gold. He closed the space between them, even though they were out here in the hallway, out in the open for all to see, but it was clear he did not care what anyone thought of his actions. She was his wife, and he would shower her with his love and affection wherever he willed it—thoughts of the common people be condemned in the process.

His lips caught hers in a soft kiss, nothing too untoward or lewd, but even as the air rushed out of her ears and left the hallway all around her, Galadriel could still hear the soft, almost silent gasps of the occupants around them to see such a public display of affection between their king and queen. Galadriel herself did not think it untoward until his tongue slipped out from between his lips and grazed against her own, seeking entrance to her mouth in front of everybody.

She might have protested it, but Galadriel was not one to think it unbecoming for a husband and wife to love one another, or to love openly, and if the people had whispers to say at the end of the day, it was only to praise the love and passion that existed between their rulers and to gossip about the ardor and devotion they wish they, too, had in their relationships—and so, her lips parted for him like a flower blossoming upward to the sun, desiring nothing more than its warmth and vitality.

The gasps from those around them grew louder as Halbrand’s tongue sought entrance to her mouth, and he clasped Galadriel’s face between both of his hands to hold her as he deepened the kiss for all to see. He did not care, and she did not either. Galadriel surged upward into him like a tumultuous wave out at sea, rising from the depths to cover all the land under the tempest that lay between them, and all the sounds of the world left her but the tender hum in his throat as she basked in the light of the sun pouring in through the windows and the light of his love pouring into her.

When they stilled against each other, realizing their very public position, both of them gently pulled back at the same time to look each other in the eyes. There was an undeniable connection, fraught between the two of them like the very rope that had once pulled her under out at sea, ever since the union of their wedding night. Galadriel had no answer for why their union in Númenor had not the same effect on her being as the one on their wedding night had upon her, except perhaps because she did not love him at the time it had occurred. Pity perhaps had moved her the most, then, and possibly a modicum of understanding with it, but it was not love—and while it had the power to dissolve the last fraying thread of her connection to Celeborn and forge the beginnings of a new one with Halbrand, it had not the power to ensnare her fëa with his own, wholly and inexplicably, as the union on their wedding night.

With the golden radiance of the sun reflected in his eyes, Galadriel could recall the once lost colors of Laurelin alive in them. The realization moved her to tears, blurring her vision, and pained her more than she could say, for she had not thought of Valinor in so many, many years. It was a life age ago. A place almost a myth, even to her. They did not fall from her lashes until she closed her eyes against them, and they cascaded in little streams down her face.

Halbrand’s thumb caressed her cheek, tenderly brushing away each fallen tear from the softness of her flesh. “My love,” he whispered, and there was nothing, nothing at all, in the compassion of his voice that made her doubt him, “what troubles you so?”

Galadriel shook her head only slightly against the question, so as to not lose the touch of his hand upon her. She did not wish to disturb it. “I am not troubled,” she admitted softly to him. Reopening her eyes, she gazed up into his loving expression—and then she wondered how long he had loved her. She wondered how long he had desired her. She wondered how long he had sought her, and she recalled what he had said about the music when he had spoken to her about it on their wedding night.

You were sung into existence just like the rest of us, he had said. I heard it. I promise you, Galadriel, I was there. I remember it, and when I recall the tones I heard there in the emptiness, in the darkness, before the world was made, I can hear the moment you were sung into creation—a being of light. Of love, of kindness, but stronger than the foundations of the earth . . .

Galadriel closed her eyes, feeling the words loosen something deep inside of her.

I have sought that note through every eon of my existence, listening for it again, trying to find it—and I did not hear it again until I was sitting on that raft in the middle of the ocean—and I turned and looked, and there you were.

Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open once more. Had he truly been seeking her for that long?

For that many years?

Halbrand caressed his thumb once more across her cheek, swiping away the warm streaks as they dried there. “What, then, brought about these tears, my sweet wife?”

The words called her spirit back to the present. His thumb fell to the center of her chin, resting there as his fingers curled beneath it. Galadriel’s eyes lowered to his mouth, her gaze settling there. “It was an old memory,” she revealed to him. “Valinor,” Galadriel whispered back.

“A beautiful place,” Halbrand murmured to her. “Do you miss it?”

“I—” Her breath caught in her throat as she realized it was not that she missed it, but that she forgot it had even existed—not in truth, not in reality. She had given up the Undying Lands a long time ago, forsaking them with her brother across the Helcaraxë for Middle-earth—and then again when she had leapt from that fated ship into the Sundering Seas, the waves lapping her all the way to him and that little makeshift raft floating across Belegaer. “I forgot it,” Galadriel confessed in another whisper, her gaze lifting once more to his, “but I see it—in your eyes.”

Her confession stunned Halbrand. He stared at her, seemingly in disbelief, until he gently took her face into both of his hands again. “Do you mean that, my love?”

Slowly, Galadriel nodded up at him, even caught in his grasp as she was in that moment. “Yes, my love, I do—” she returned to him, though her voice was a shaky, unstable thing that cracked beneath the pressure of the declaration—and yet the way his face softened before her to hear it, a tender curve of a smile etching itself across his mouth as his eyes once more glowed with the warmth and adoration he held for her, shook her to her core.

“It would not be there,” Halbrand murmured, his thumb stroking her chin, “if not for you.”

Galadriel raised her chin, staring up to his eyes to read the depths before her. She found no lie in them, and it was terrifying to entertain the thought that it was only she who held him back from the precipice and no other—no other person or idea, no moral, no duty, no ideology—only her.

It was a heavy weight to bear upon her shoulders, upon the crown he had placed onto the halo of her hair, and now, more than ever, Galadriel sensed the weight of it, pulling her under, tugging her further downwards. Much like that fateful rope she had tied around her waist out at sea, which dragged her down into the depths of the blackness within the warm current.

It had been his hand which had cut the rope.

It had been his hand which had raised her up.

“You should not place so much on me,” Galadriel whispered to him, then, a plea lost on deaf ears.

“There is no other,” Halbrand whispered back, his hand raising to her cheek, his knuckles grazing her cheekbone, “who has granted me the mercy you have granted me, Galadriel.” Slowly, he shook his head. “There is nowhere else I can place it.”

Galadriel drew in a deep breath, her lungs trembling from the effort. “It is heavy burden,” she told him.

“But it is a burden well worth the weight, is it not?” he inquired softly, his curious eyes gazing at her as his head tilted to the side while he observed her expression.

The answer to that question eluded Galadriel, even now in the comfort of their marriage. While she did not question his love for her or his devotion, she questioned the nature from which it derived. That part of her doubt had never been severed wholly from her mind. His goodness hinged on her ability to return that love to him—and yet no, that was not true. For years, she had not returned his love, and he had remained true to his word, benevolent in his deeds, and a figurehead of prosperity for the Kingdom of Men.

The only thing she had done was stay by his side.

Halbrand’s own expression faltered when she did not answer him, the curl of his finger brushing along her jaw.

“My love?” he asked once more. “Is it not?”

“I fear,” Galadriel admitted in a mere whisper as she looked up into his eyes, “what may happen should I not be there to pull you back from the edge should you ever find it again.”

“I shall never find it again,” Halbrand stated plainly, shaking his head as he gazed down at her. The assurance in his eyes disarmed her, causing her to forget all of her worry. A soft smile curved the edge of his lips. “Not with you at my side.”

No, not dark, he had once whispered to her, his fingers laying so softly on her chin just like this. Not with you at my side.

As they stood there in the hallway together, a beacon of light shining upon them from the West through the long array of windows set into the wall on the left, Galadriel swore but for a moment that it was the light of Valinor itself shining upon them and granting them its peace, its protection, and its love. She had more reason to question him back then, but she did not have such reasons now that held up against the barrage of proof set against it. Her time with him had shown her all that he was capable of, and that included his ability for kindness, his capability of goodwill, and his genuine love.

“What if I cannot stop myself,” Galadriel began, unable to cease the questions that arose from the smallest pit of doubt within her, “from being parted from you one day?”

“Galadriel,” Halbrand admonished her, whispering her name with its Elvish enunciation, “do your doubts never cease, my love? May we not talk of brighter things instead of this?” He caught her chin between his fingers, holding it aloft, firm and steady. “We have not yet even talked of our future together,” he reminded her, a pang of sadness within his tone. “Where shall we go should we need to make plans to leave here? What names shall we give to our children? What are your thoughts on our future, my dear wife? I want nothing more than to hear them.”

Galadriel felt her lips tremble as she allowed herself to consider now a future with him. Had she not considered it already when she had agreed to marry him? It seemed strange to her at the present, but it was true. She had not even allowed herself a moment to possess a single thought on the matter, not before their wedding or even during it, but as the consideration filled her to think of it now, Galadriel saw it was ripe with possibility and fruition.

“We have not talked of such things yet, have we?” she inquired softly in return. A rhetorical question, one she certainly did not expect him to answer with a serious reply.

Halbrand chuckled at her, a deep, throaty laugh as his hand came to cup her cheek in full—and the warmth of his palm stilled her, lulled her eyes to a close, and calmed the small tremble the initial thought had incited within her.

“I have been waiting on you, my love,” he murmured.

“May we walk somewhere more private to discuss such matters?” Galadriel suggested to Halbrand, hoping he would not protest her desire for privacy around something so personal between them. Her eyebrows cocked up in a slightly teasing expression towards him, but it remained gentle beneath that. “Away from all of these prying eyes and ears?”

His amused smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as it was wont to do, telling her he did not mind her suggestion at all. “Of course not,” Halbrand assured her. “We may go wherever you wish. You need only lead the way, my love.”

He said the term of endearment often to her. As often as possible throughout each day, it seemed, as if he needed to assure her every step of the way how much it was true—or perhaps he just reveled in saying it to her. Perhaps it ignited something in him the way it did in her, and Galadriel wondered if he felt it, too. If somehow through the bonds between their fëa they had created throughout their unions—which had been many, she recalled, with the heated creep of a blush into her cheeks—they could feel each other’s sentiments within their own hearts. Galadriel swore sometimes she could feel it—that taut rope, hanging between them, binding them together, and the tug on it from afar when his emotions sang out to her and he was nowhere around her to be found. Those feelings flowed through a passage existing only between the two of them and no others, granting them access to each other through a tunnel in the Unseen world.

It was a feeling more intense than the one she had ever shared with Celeborn, and Galadriel wondered if Halbrand’s stature as a being above her own status had anything to do with it.

Perhaps so. Perhaps not.

There were many things about unions between Elves and Maiar which Galadriel did not understand—or know anything about, for that matter.

Holding his hand in hers, she guided Halbrand through the golden passages of the sunlit hallways in the citadel until they reached an archway to an outside courtyard.

A garden grew here, vibrant with the hues of many flowers and all of them in full bloom beneath the glare of the sun. A haze settled upon it all, giving the garden a dreamlike glow as its leaves and petals rippled in the breeze. Stone benches outlined the walkways on each side, and on the opposite side across from them, a couple sat on one of them together. A few people strolled about the garden, arm in arm, and Galadriel found her eyes drawn to one of the empty benches not far from them. She stepped towards it, leading the way, and he followed without a word. After she sat down on it, Halbrand swept his cloak out of the way and sat down with her, joining her at her side.

A memory crept up from the recesses of her mind of the two of them in Númenor, sitting together on the bench in her cell—how he had sat next to her with no space between them, their thighs pressed flush against one another. He did not invade her space now as he did back then, but he sat close enough to her that their thighs grazed one another and the heat of him was palpable.

After all of the other things they had shared together, though, space should hardly matter any longer once he had been inside of her.

Her cheeks burned yet again at the flood of memories that came back to her with the thought. Each and every night, Halbrand desired their marriage bed. Even in places where no bed existed, he still sought to lay his claim on her—and allow him to lay his claim on her, she did. Without qualm or protest. She wanted his hands on her, grasping her tightly in place as he thrust into her, filling her want and need and a bevy of unscrupulous desires beyond recall come the next day. Galadriel had fallen asleep many times in his arms, stricken with exhaustion and lost from all form of thought—overtaken in mind, body, and soul.

Beyond it, she could feel or think of nothing but the warmth of his arms, encasing her in a comforting embrace afterwards.

He always held her, each and every time, afterwards.

Galadriel closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet, honey nectar of the daffodils in bloom not far away. She felt his hand fall away from hers and come to rest against her thigh above the cloth of her dress. Even in public, he surely did not care who saw what lay between them.

“Do you desire to have a child with me?” Galadriel heard herself say aloud, a partial shock freezing her at speaking such a thing in an open place as this. It once had seemed unthinkable to her, but now she was capable of it.

What else was she capable of?

Halbrand remained quiet for a beat, staring off at the garden ahead of them. “I would not be opposed to it,” he revealed, but it made her heart sink.

It was not a declaration of intent for fatherhood.

“If you do not wish to be a father,” Galadriel began carefully, “there are methods to prevent it—”

“—No,” Halbrand replied, a little too quickly, his hand clutching down around her thigh. “They are too dangerous. I will not risk harm to you.”

Galadriel’s mind raced with possibilities. She did not know what he meant by it. “But,” she insisted, “if you do not want it—”

“I never said that,” Halbrand interjected, dismissing her worries. “If you want it and the One wills it, then it shall happen.”

“But do you not desire it?”

Halbrand was quiet. Galadriel looked at him. He did not look back. “I have never thought of a child,” he admitted, “in all my existence.” He paused, a curious expression overtaking his face. His brow furrowed, deepening the wrinkles there. “Progeny,” Halbrand mused aloud in a quiet voice, sounding less and less like Halbrand to her as he continued to speak. “An extension of you, but not you. They are their own people. They will grow into their own being, their own life. Their wills will override your own in the end. They will not care what you want, only what they want.”

His words chilled her. “You do not sound very supportive of the idea of progeny.”

Halbrand drew in a deep sigh, exhaling it into the garden air. “I have seen progeny wreak unspeakable disaster across each millennia of this world. It’s a risk. Each and every time.”

“Is that why you have never thought of it?”

Halbrand nodded his head. “Exactly,” he admitted. “I’ve never had need for it.”

“Need?” Galadriel countered him. “Or desire?”

“Neither.”

Her heart raced within its rib cage, pounding in its confinement. “What if we have one together?” Galadriel inquired, and when she added his title to the end of it, there was a small bite within it. “My husband?”

Halbrand glanced at her at last, a little gleam inside his eyes as he gazed back at her. “I will welcome it with open arms,” he finally told her, and the steady assurance in his voice soothed her despite all of the doubts he had voiced prior. “As I said, if you want it and the One wills it, it will be.”

A heavy lump lodged itself in her throat. Most parents discussed names with each other of what to call their future children—but if he had never thought of having progeny, then he had never thought of names to give them.

“Have you never thought of names, then?” Galadriel ventured to ask him, and gently, he shook his head, though the soft smile never slid out of place as he did so.

“I have not,” Halbrand admitted. He inhaled noticeably at her inquiry, and his hand tightened down on her thigh, clasping her with his fingers. “I hardly think it fair for a man to pick the names when, as the woman, you do all of the work of bringing the life into the world.”

She could not help the amused smile that overtook her face.

“How gallant of you,” Galadriel chided him in return, but the conversation took a more solemn turn as the smile faded from her face. She opened her mouth to speak, and her breath halted as she realized that she had not thought of names yet either, neither for a boy or a girl.

“There is no rush,” Halbrand spoke softly beside her, his hand seeking out hers once more and his fingers interlacing in a comfortable clasp with her own. “We have all the time in the world, Galadriel. We need not concern ourselves with deciding on names just yet. May we not—” Halbrand paused, and Galadriel glanced up at him. He returned her gaze with a tender look in his eyes towards her. “May we not wait until the day comes that you are with child first?” he suggested, his eyebrows raising with the inquiry. “Should that day ever come?”

Her heart fell.

“You speak of it like it will not,” Galadriel lamented, but Halbrand only shook his head at her.

“No, not that,” he replied in gentle murmur, and it was not unkind in how he said it. “I do not know what our fate is in the hands of the One, and neither do you. What I do know is that couplings such as ours are rare, and children from those couplings, rarer still. It may be some time before it happens—if it happens at all. But I do not say that for lack of desire towards you, my sweet wife.”

His free hand reached out for her, cradling her jaw within the warmth of his palm. His eyes shone pure gold over the green in the cast of the sunlight, their gaze drawing her inward to him. Unbidden, she drew closer into his embrace. His eyes, they were pools in which she could drown—happily, at that, if it was her fate.

“You know how much I cherish our wedding bed,” Halbrand then whispered, his tone taking a darker turn as he closed the little bit of space left between them until his lips caught upon hers with a soft catch, a little brush—and her heart leapt into her throat at the power he had over her.

It both thrilled her and terrified her.

When their lips parted from the catch of the softest kiss, Galadriel felt her eyelids flutter open once more until she was staring at him—a warm and welcoming haze in front of her vision. For a moment in time, they were frozen together, just staring into each other’s eyes. It was such a small moment, such a little thing, but this moment she would remember for the rest of her life. The rest of her existence, it would stay with her. The way each beam of sunlight caught on the tiny particles floating in the air all around them. The way the hum of buzzing bees filled her ears as they shifted from one flower to another, seeking sweet pollen. The scent of each flower in bloom, catching on the gentle breeze and wafting across the garden. The couples walking around them, arm in arm, enjoying their daily dalliance—Mortals who would never walk this earth again as they did now, whether in a hundred years time or two.

“Where we will go,” Galadriel asked him, her voice barely a whisper, “when we have to leave here at last one day?”

In truth, she did not want to leave this place. There was a part of her bound to Pelargir, familiar to the winding twists and turns in its roads and the way the sun set upon the bay in hues of violet, rose, and gold during the evening tides. Each bright sunrise over the water was imprinted in her memory through the glossy windows of the citadel. Its white washed walls and the terracotta roofs had become the symbol of her home now, and Galadriel knew no matter where she went next, she would always remember her time in this place—unbroken, unending, in a ravenous circle of time.

His answer began as a soft smile, curving the corners of his mouth upright as he gazed back at her. “There are many places we could go,” Halbrand suggested. “Many kingdoms we could set foot in—or, should you so desire, we may go somewhere far, far away beyond the lands of Mortal or Elf. There are many unexplored crevices Arda has to offer, and we could take any path we see fit.”

“That is a perilous suggestion,” Galadriel admonished him, feeling at once a sense a danger—a lack of safety—from him. “For us to wander in the unknown to find our place elsewhere,” she pointed out, “after I am with child? Are we to meander around the wilderness while I carry a babe in my arms like some beggar?”

Halbrand’s eyes grew wide. Quickly, he shook his head. The hand he had on her cheek fell to clasp the one he held in his grasp, where their fingers were intertwined between their laps.

“No, of course not,” Halbrand told her straight away. “I . . . I have not thought this through, Galadriel.” His eyes glimmered, uncommonly large and bright with a soft sheen across the surface, as he shook his head once more at her. A dejected look hung behind them. “I . . . I did not want to make plans without you. I have not thought this through yet. Please, do not think so cruelly of me—”

He clasped her hand tighter, holding it between both of his own.

“Tell me,” Halbrand begged, the first true quaver in his voice she had ever heard shake as it did now—like the fragile bough of a willow tree in a temperate breeze, “tell me you do not think so cruelly of me still. Not after everything I have shown you. Tell me you do not doubt me still.”

His eyes glimmered with a faint sheen to reflect all of the light in the world around them. Perhaps it was not doubt which had gripped her so, but something else unknown, unseen.

“No, I—” She caught on the words, even as his fingers left her hand to return to her face. With a delicate caress using only the points of his knuckles, he passed them over her cheek. He touched her often in such a manner with these little strokes across her skin as if her flesh were the surface of a smooth, polished jewel—that he himself had chiseled, sanded, and refined to perfection to elicit such a shine from within her lucent flesh, illuminating it with the natural glow ensconced deep beneath each layer of grime the eras had placed upon her.

His hands, no one else’s, had crafted this in her.

“Of course not,” Galadriel murmured back, shaking her head as her tears gathered anew in her eyes. They glimmered there like fresh dew drops in the early morning before the first sun ray struck the grass and evaporated all of it away. They never fell from her eyes. She blinked them back, expunging them at once. “I—”

How did she explain it? It was not doubt towards him, but it was a poor plan to wait until she grew heavy with child before fleeing into the night on horseback, searching for a new home. He had to have known that. They did not have time to wait to make a decision on a matter as significant as this.

It was something they had to discuss now before it was too late.

“It is folly to wait until I am with child before leaving,” Galadriel admitted at last in a voice so sad and small. How very unlike her, it was. “We will have to make plans on where we go before that happens. We must have somewhere safe to end up before we have to leave from here, from—”

“—Pelargir,” Halbrand finished quietly for her.

Galadriel nodded in a motion that was barely there as she lifted her gaze to his eyes. “We cannot wait until then.”

Halbrand understood without another outward motion to show it. Galadriel felt it. Beneath the look in his eyes, he agreed with her.

“We may look over the maps together, my love,” he murmured, his thumb grazing over her chin before it found its way to the center of her bottom lip, pulling down on it to expose her teeth. “We may pour over them, however many hours or days that it takes, until we find a place for us to go. One that you prefer. One that makes you happy. Does that not please you, my sweet wife?”

Her nod came quick, a shaky, uneven thing. “Yes, of course,” Galadriel whispered back, tipping forward into the touch of his hand. “We must go before I—”

Am with child, she was going to say, but he caught her lips between his own before parting them against her, rushing into her and smothering her with the curl of his tongue into her mouth until she could not breathe from it. There, on the bench in the garden, no one seemed to care what they were up to with their kisses, no matter how heated it became between them—until Galadriel felt him take her by the hand and clasp it, and Halbrand pulled back from her to speak wordlessly to her through only the look in his eyes.

Galadriel felt it as the look in them lifted her from the bench. She felt it as Halbrand’s arm curled around her waist, and he stepped beside her to walk her back inside the citadel. Wordlessly, she walked ahead of him with his hands on her body, guiding her the whole way, and she followed the gentle, insistent push of his hands until they reached a deserted alcove in an empty corner of the castle.

The alcove bore a bay window and a high bench built into the wall itself beneath it. Halbrand turned her around with the hands upon her waist, and he grasped Galadriel firm around the center of her body, hoisting her up onto the bench.

Galadriel knew what he wanted. She knew what he sought. He needed not to speak any words to explain it or ask for it. His mouth dove for hers in a cool, crashing wave of lips upon lips, his chilled tongue clashing against hers, heating up upon contact as he captured her lip in between the catch of his own. Her hands slipped across his neck and clasped him there to anchor herself to him, indulging in kiss after kiss, even as she felt the rush of his hands making quick work of her gown below, hoisting it up and out of the way. Hot palms grasped her thighs, pushing them apart as he slid his body into the open space they gave as he parted them for himself. He settled his hips between her sprawled thighs, hands leaving her flesh to move to his belt, unfastening it and freeing himself from his trousers.

The sudden slide of his tongue against hers in the stillness that followed robbed her of all sense, drove every thought from her mind, until she wrapped her bare legs around his hips and hooked her ankles behind the curve of his back. His fingers curled underneath the thin cloth between her thighs, pulling it aside, and before she knew it, he teased her with each and every one of them in small, gentle strokes, almost tickling her, before he slipped them deeper and sought out that little pearl of hers in hiding that he knew so well.

His fingers were sopping wet with her slick when he pulled them out of her, her mouth a red ruin from his lips and the bite of his teeth. Briefly, in the back of her mind, Galadriel recalled the arc of light above her cell in Númenor. It looked just like the arc of light coming in through the window at present, the dust particles floating aimlessly in front of her eyes—and then, he pushed inside of her, and she gasped aloud, her breath hitching, as the girth of his manhood made space in her body where there was previously no space, no accommodation for him, and yet he fit into her so perfectly, sliding all the way inside of her until a slight sting pulled her mind back from the brink.

Galadriel reached up, clutching onto his shoulders with a newfound grip as she hissed at the sensation. Too deep, came the thought in her head, and he stilled against her, his forehead lolling back and forth across her own, smudging a fine sheen of sweat as it had begun to build up there for both of them.

When Halbrand tipped his chin up to capture her lips once more with his own, he withdrew from her with a roll of his hips and came back to her with a shallow thrust, stretching her open with a glorious sense of fullness, of completion, of utter reliance on the pleasure he could offer her.

Astonishment staggered through her when she felt him pull away from her lips, breaking the kiss and invading her mouth with his fingers, the ones slick with the sweet nectar of her arousal. Her eyes widened—because she did not know what to do, but he stared back at her through a lustful haze in his eyes, his teeth catching on his bottom lip.

“Taste yourself on me,” Halbrand commanded below his breath, the demand spoken so gently that Galadriel did not know what to do but follow it. Closing her lips around his fingers, she commenced with a soft sucking as he plunged them back and forth past her lips, and he groaned—a broken, needy sound at the sight of it and the feel of it.

Suddenly, he withdrew his hand from her mouth. Both of his hands grasped her hips, pining them downward onto the bench to prevent her movement. She sat on the edge, nearly teetering off of it if not for the clutch of his hands upon her.

“Be still,” he hissed, and she complied—and with each shallow thrust into her at this angle of how she sat, leaning forward onto his chest as he sank into her, the length of him dragged against the little pink pearl at the top of her opening. One of his hands released her hip, falling between them, his thumb catching that pearl and pushing down into it in hard, circular motions—pinching it between the rough pad of his thumb and hard heat of his manhood.

At this angle, the intensity ruptured behind her eyes like a tiny million stars all bursting alive at once, fluttering through her with a cascade of ripples that did not cease because he did not stop. He rode her to ecstasy at the edge of the bench, and then he pinned her between himself and the window behind her, pushing her into the heat of the glass and binding her there, and still, he did not stop. He thrust into her with a brutish pace until her body contracted and clutched around him, attempting to draw him further inward, and still, he did not stop. Not until they were a sweat-soaked mess in half open heaps of clothes, and a pitiful sound escaped his lips as they laid on top of hers—a suppressed choke, halfway between a sob and a sigh. His hips stuttered to a standstill, and Galadriel felt the heat of him as it blossomed inside of her below, even as the sun burned down upon her back from above.

They lied in a heap against each other, arms holding onto one another, barely breathing and yet utterly content with the moment.

“You say,” Galadriel breathed out, “that you have not considered—having a child with me, and yet—”

“—And yet,” Halbrand finished for her, just as breathless as her as he cupped the slickness of her cheek under the sheen of sweat upon her flesh, “I cannot stop myself from uniting with you every day now that I have you—” His finger caught on her chin, lifting it to raise her eyes until they were leveled with his gaze, and the smile upon his lips was barely there—but it was clear. In the eyes, it was clear.

He kissed her until she moaned, until she parted her lips, until their tongues danced in another intimate form of union between them. When his lips broke from hers, he whispered across them into her mouth, the heat of his breath filling her as desperately as the air she breathed.

“—Or giving you my seed,” Halbrand murmured, the tip of his tongue flicking out to graze her lips and causing her to shiver at the soft warmth of the contact.

Her arms slid down from the way they were wound up around his shoulders, her hands clasping his neck on either side once more to hold him close to her—to prevent him from pulling away from her and leaving her in a barren chill without him near.

“Perhaps we will have a child,” Galadriel whispered into his mouth, and as close as he was to her, she could feel the curl of his lips as he smiled against her own.

“Perhaps,” Halbrand whispered back. “It cannot hurt me any more than it already has.”

His words confused her. Galadriel had no idea what they meant, and she poured over them in her mind, searching for an answer—for an explanation. Her fingers curled into his neck, clutching fast to his bare skin—the warmth of him. She never wanted to forget it. She never wanted to lose it. “What do you mean?” she asked him softly, hoping he would explain.

Halbrand shook his head, though. “Do not worry, my sweet wife,” he murmured. “It no longer matters.”

“Of course it matters,” she said, shaking her head in return. “Whatever it is, it matters, and you can tell me—”

“—Do not trouble yourself,” Halbrand said just below his breath, his hand cupping the curve of her cheek and his fingers curling her hair behind her ear. “I would have you happy, my love. You need not worry of such things. I will take care of them. Is that not what husbands do? Take care of their wives, of their marriages, of their homes?” He thinned his lips together, and then he shook his head once more in a definitive stance. “I will take care of us,” he said softly, his words a whispered litany, lulling her into another trance of comfort as she laid her temple against his own. “As long as I have you, I have all the reason in the world to ensure our safety, I promise you.”

Galadriel believed him as she rested her head against his shoulder, and she held him close between the clutch of her arms as she wound them around his shoulders once more. The motion pulled him into her, and she felt herself clutching desperate fingers into his tunic, a memory ingrained in her mind for years and years to come—the heat of the sun beating at her back, the warmth of him embedded in her arms, and the trickle of his seed running down her thigh.

I fixed it, he had once said. Everything that was wrong, I fixed it. In a few days I’ll show you. Everything will be as it should be.

Galadriel had not known then, but she knew now that his idea of fixing things was convincing Ar-Pharazôn to launch his war fleet towards the Undying Lands, towards Valinor, giving them an easy escape off the island with the rest of Elendil’s men who had prepared for the worst. They could have left without it, without the additional sacrifice of the men, the women, and the children— the whole island itself beneath the crashing waves of the tumultuous sea bubbling upwards from the unseen depths far below—but maybe, just maybe, in the hustle and bustle of the craze within the city as the soldiers boarded their ships and the people ran to and fro, Halbrand had thought Galadriel would question him less. Maybe he had thought she would trust him more. Maybe he had even thought she would stay by his side instead of try to run.

He had made many risks with his decisions, but in the end they had paid off. She had stayed by his side. She had questioned him less, and she had trusted him more. She had feared the insanity in the streets, the soldiers boarding the war ships, and after he had hoisted her onto the horse before mounting it himself, she had clung to his back with a fearful clutch of her hands, fingers digging into his cloak. At the time, there had been no one else she would have trusted to take her to those ships—no one at all, but her longtime Enemy who had somehow become her only hope.

He had hoisted her onto the horse before mounting it himself, and they had torn off through the city to the outskirts of nowhere until the sand ran beneath the horse’s hooves and the beach lay nearly barren before them under the dark, brewing clouds of an oncoming storm as the winds raged around them. Galadriel closed her eyes, and she could remember the soft mud of the sand beneath her shoes, mere slippers barely enough to cover her feet. Though the beach was almost barren, it was not completely empty. Elendil’s ships of the Faithful, their means of escape from the island together, rocked amongst the churning waves of the sea as it crashed into the shore. Their only escape from the wrath of the Valar brought down upon them for his decision.

When it’s time, I’ll show you, he had assured her, as if the words should have comforted her.

His love, it was a terrifying thing.

Chapter Text

* * *

‘Utopia’ can be read as Greek for ‘no place,’ though I prefer the rendering ‘no [such] place,’ just for clarity. For there is no such place, nor can there be.

— Robert McHenry

* * *

The old parchment of many maps covered the surface of the council room table, strewn out from one corner to another, with every Kingdom of Elves, Dwarves, and Men visible as far the eye could see in each direction. Lindon, the capital of the High Elves, remained out of the question. It would invoke a war to even consider it. Imladris, further towards the Misty Mountains in the East, was also out of the realm of possibility. Elrond knew more than most, for Galadriel had confided in him once, and he would look upon Halbrand as an Enemy before all else and refuse, likely calling upon High King Gil-galad for reinforcements—another potential port of war.

The Kingdoms of Men would ask the least amount of questions, but their stay would be limited upon the condition of Halbrand’s inability to alter his appearance. His agelessness would be remarked upon, sorcery called forth from the mouths of the citizens—and in those circumstances, too, they might be driven out of the borders at sword point to flee into the wilderness.

Halbrand also insisted upon an announcement of his death in order to pass the throne onto Theo, his successor, which led to even more complications. Should they go through with that plan, which Halbrand insisted he would, they could not seek refuge within the borders of Minas Anor or Minas Ithil, the two cities established by Elendil’s sons, Anárion and Isildur. Upon Halbrand’s supposed death, no word could reach back to Elendil of Halbrand’s survival afterwards. It was another path to war.

In terms of kingdoms, it left them one option to pursue. The Dwarven realms, which Galadriel retained a fondness for—though they, too, might find it strange when a Man did not age as properly as they were wont to do. Dwarves were also a secretive lot, and they did not often grant their tables for an outsider to even sit at, let alone give them a home within their own borders. While it was unlikely that path would lead to war, it would still be nearly impossible to find themselves welcome within Dwarven borders as neighbors, and even if they could find such refuge there, it would undoubtedly lead to more questions, distrust, and doubts amongst the Dwarves.

It seemed almost every known option of kingdoms was closed to them.

Galadriel poured over the maps, attempting to find a single port on any shore that might be open to receiving them. The one that caught her eyes the most was the Ered Luin itself, the Blue Mountains, sequestered against the rocks of Middle-earth and the crashing waves of Belegaer, the Great Sea. It was the closest touch of land to what was once Beleriand, but was no more. There was no song, no tune, and no earthly magic rite that had the power to return it from the ocean depths into which it had sunk during the war with Morgoth. It was long buried, something that no longer was, only a memory tucked away into the deep recesses of her mind, and at times, Galadriel could close her eyes and remember the whispering breeze caught in the leaves as the birds chirped somewhere high above during the nearly endless spring of the forests in Doriath.

The Ered Luin called to her, for it was close to the sea in which Beleriand had sunk, and its blue mountains against the shoreline were wondrous to behold. There were many places of refuge there, where they could live on the edge of society and not a part of it, where perhaps less questions would be asked of their union—or any children they bore together. Galadriel knew for certain less questions would be raised over the strange circumstances of Halbrand’s age, or lack of it as the years passed by, and therefore, it might be safer in the end than anywhere else in the world—unless they wished to be cut off from society altogether.

It was not something Galadriel thought she could do, and in truth, and when she thought about it, she did not think him capable of such a sacrifice either.

The illuminated script of the maps shone, glimmering brighter in some places over others in particular, and Galadriel believed it was on purpose—for a reason. The mountains into which Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon, had been built captured the light of the sun and burned gold over the silver intention of its name. By contrast, no glimmer sparked upon the mountains into which Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun, had been built by Anárion and his people.

“Isildur resides in Minas Ithil,” Galadriel said aloud, trying to piece together the meaning behind why it shone out so brightly to her eyes in this moment. There must have been a reason for it, though she could not be sure what had caused it.

Halbrand, noticing her mention of Minas Ithil when they were supposed to be looking for other places to call home once they fled from this place, walked across the other side of the table to circle around towards her. His tall stature passed in front of the windows, casting a darkened shade over the entire map, erasing all sparks of light upon the golden scripts.

“He does,” Halbrand agreed. Once he passed by the windows, the rays of sunlight returned to the maps. He stepped around the edge of the table until he reached her side, and he stopped beside her. “But we cannot go there. He is Elendil’s son. That route is closed off to us.”

Galadriel closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath as she shook her head softly. “I know that,” she concurred, opening them once more. “What about the Ered Luin?” she asked him, moving closer to the table and placing a single finger upon the parchment, tracing the pad of it along the mountains. “The Blue Mountains by the sea.”

Halbrand seemed to hesitate at her suggestion. “Many Elves live there,” he reminded her. “That is High King Gil-galad’s realm, Galadriel.”

“We could live in the mountains themselves,” she told him, her voice trailing off as she imagined such a life for them. Away from the hustle and bustle of courtly life, secluded in the mountains by themselves—raising their children together like a pair of Mortals without a care in the world.

It seemed almost a fantasy.

Impossible, even.

Halbrand shifted closer to her, and Galadriel felt his arm reach around her body and towards the map on the table, his hand coming to rest upon her own. His palm covered her knuckles, warm and soft, his fingers lining up with hers just above them.

“It sounds lovely,” he murmured to her, “but if the wrong person came knocking . . . ”

“Where should we go, then?” Galadriel posed to him, glancing over her shoulder. He stood behind her, not quite touching but hovering beside her. His warmth radiated palpable like the sun itself in such close quarters, and instinctively, Galadriel leaned into him to feel it against herself. His other arm came around to hold her, his hand falling gently upon her waist.

“We could go north,” Halbrand suggested, the hand laying on top of hers straying off of it and upward across the map, his finger tracing a path to the Icebay of Forochel, Angmar—the Forodwaith.

“A barren wasteland of nothing but ice?” Galadriel threw back at him, unhappy with the proposal. “Old lands of the Enemy?”

Halbrand leaned over her shoulder, his breath hot against her ear. “I thought I was the Enemy?”

Galadriel faltered, then. “You know what I mean . . . ”

“I know those lands,” he told her. “I know them well. I can find my way around every corner of them—”

“I want to go somewhere with life,” Galadriel admitted, “not somewhere devoid of it—”

“It was only a suggestion,” Halbrand soothed her, “and one of our safest ones.”

“No,” Galadriel said with finality, holding her chin up high. “I will not go there.”

“All right, my love, all right,” Halbrand coaxed her. “We need not go there. It was only a suggestion,” he repeated, and her eyes fell upon the map, remembering the blistering winds of the Forodwaith upon her face and wondering how he could even consider to bring it up as a suggestion as a place to live. It was unthinkable to her. She would not go there if it was the only place left to her in all of Middle-earth. She would sail West before she would condemn herself to such a fate in the cold, bitter wilderness of the frostbitten North.

“Perhaps we could travel,” Galadriel considered aloud, “to get a better lay of the land—”

“—That far?” Halbrand interrupted, glancing down at her from above her shoulder. “In advance? It would draw attention with our status. We are king and queen of these lands. We would be expected to leave with a sizable entourage. Banners, tents—”

“Yes, but—”

“—We also know the lay of the land already,” he added knowingly. “Both of us.” The hand on her waist tightened a little, his fingers pinching down into her dress. “We have been familiar with it for a long time. Certainly, longer than anyone else who lives here.”

No protest came to her that stood up against what he said. She glanced back down at the map, her eyes straying West to the Ered Luin on the coast.

“We could,” Halbrand added next in a careful measure of his tone, “also travel somewhere where each of us is unknown. There are more lands than just Middle-earth awaiting us.”

“Strange lands,” Galadriel pointed out, looking back over her shoulder to meet his gaze. “There could be any number of dangers awaiting us as well.”

Halbrand’s gaze in return held a sharpness around the corners as his eyelids drifted just slightly more narrow.

“I know Rhûn,” he told her. “There are no dangers awaiting us there.”

Rhûn, echoed the name within her head, but all Galadriel could see behind her mind’s eye was a foreign wasteland of dangers once—and likely, still—inhabited by darker forces at play.

What would stop him from falling back into his old ways if they went to one of his older haunts?

“No,” Galadriel said immediately, halfway turning around in Halbrand’s arms to face him. Her hand came up to lay upon the center of his chest above his heart, and her chin lifted upward to meet his eyes across from hers. “We ought to go somewhere free of all sense of danger. Rhûn is not that.”

The look in his eyes at once dropped into a sea of melancholy as a realization came to him at her words, one that seemed to escape all notice with her.

“There is no such place,” Halbrand murmured below his breath. Slowly, he shook his head down at her. “No such place like that for us in all of Arda.”

His revelation astounded her in a way it should not have, but it was true. There was no denying it. No matter where they fled or where they moved, was anywhere truly safe for them? Would they not be hunted if they were found out? Would his old followers not seek him out? Would his old enemies not smoke him out? Every route was a risk, even the ones they assumed were safer routes for them.

There was no corner in all of Arda in which they could hide for long.

Would they always be on the move? Ever wandering, ever searching for a home they would never find?

It was the fate of vagabonds.

Halbrand turned away from her gaze and stepped forward to the table around her side. He lifted his hand from hers to wave it over the whole map laid out before them, encompassing all territories and lands listed out upon the parchment in gold filigree.

“Every choice has its own risk,” he reminded her. “The Ered Luin puts us close to High King Gil-galad, making our discovery a high probability. They are a part of his lands. He will have many loyal Elves willing to inform him of any irregularities. Rhûn has many cults, I won’t deny that. Forodwaith is not the most comfortable place with its blistering icy winds and constant snow. Minas Ithil and Minas Anor are both governed by Elendil’s sons, which would give away the lie of my death upon our leaving.” Halbrand sighed deeply, his hand falling back to his side. “The Dwarves will not have us, the Elves will not accept us, and the Mortal kingdoms, well, we would not be able to stay for long.”

He glanced back at her, and perhaps he noticed the forlorn look in her eyes, for he stepped back from the table and towards her again, the shift of his clothes loud in the quiet air. Halbrand took her face into both of his hands, cradling her cheeks in the warmth of his palms and holding her as tenderly as possible. He raised her chin, so that he might look her in the eyes.

“Maybe we have gone over this for far too long today,” he proposed, and Galadriel nodded softly in agreement as she felt his thumbs graze along her cheekbones. His touches were always gentle with her when they were outside of the heat of the moment between them. Always tender, soft caresses of an uncommonly loving gesture. Galadriel found herself leaning into his arms, laying her cheek against his chest as he adjusted his hands upon her. They slipped down from her face to rest upon her shoulders, his fingertips grazing their way slowly down her back until they came to rest at the dip near the bottom.

“I think I have seen enough of maps for now,” she agreed in a whisper.

Halbrand’s fingers toyed with the ends of her hair down her back, curling into them. “I think I have, too,” he said, and the following silence stilled the air with a newfound peace despite all of her previous worry. Galadriel held onto him, feeling his fingers twist and twine gently through the tips of her hair. “I have another suggestion,” Halbrand suddenly announced, and she could hear the way his eyebrows rose upward with the tone of his voice without having to see it. “We could take a holiday. Let’s gather the horses,” he said, and his voice took on a humorous quality, “and the entourage and the banners and the tents, and we could visit Dor-en-Ernil. Your fiefdom.” One of his hands rose along her back, resting upon the top of her hair before stroking downwards in a soothing gesture. “You’ve yet to see it. I think you should see it,” Halbrand whispered above her head.

It was a lovely suggestion, and Galadriel felt her heart rise out of its despair with the mention of it. She smiled against his chest, her arms coming around his waist to hold him more firmly to her as she pressed her palms flat against his back.

“I would love that,” she admitted, feeling the light fleetness of her heart return to her once more. Perhaps some time away from Pelargir would give them some perspective on the lands beyond its borders as well, and maybe it would also give them time to consider their options more clearly away from home. It felt harder sometimes to think with the weight of their duties upon their shoulders.

Perhaps in the sunshine by the shores of Belfalas, all of that could be forgotten for a time.

“It is beautiful there,” Halbrand told her, recalling the scenery to her. “Its forests are green and lively and light—easy to navigate, not so thick they smother you with dread. And the shores are a deep blue, darker than any blue I have ever seen, but they catch the twilight in a way like no other. You can see Tolfalas from the shoreline, standing tall across the water.”

Galadriel could imagine it, but she wanted to see it.

“We should go,” she concurred. “I would love nothing more.”

“Would you like me to make preparations at once?” Halbrand inquired, and Galadriel smiled again, nodding her head against his chest.

“Of course,” came her agreement to such a proposal, and Halbrand pulled away from her to place his hands on either side of her face again and hold her as he, too, smiled down at her. He leaned forward, pressing his lips tenderly to her forehead, his kiss lingering as her eyes drifted to a close. She could feel it, how his did, too, even if she could not see it. It was something in the way of the bond between them. She knew it was happening, even if it was not visible to her in the moment.

When he pulled back from her, they both gradually opened their eyes again to look at one another. His thumb grazed over her left cheek, just below her eye. “I will make plans right away,” Halbrand told her. “Rest your mind, my sweet wife. Do not worry yourself over what is and what is not possible. There is much we can achieve together. You must always remember that.”

He smiled at her one last time before pulling back, his hands slipping away from her face. It felt cold without him near. It always felt cold. Galadriel nodded at him, and Halbrand took his leave from the room to set himself upon his task straight away. She listened until his footsteps faded down the corridor out of her earshot, and then she cast her gaze again to the many maps strewn across the table’s surface.

Galadriel did not bother to put them away. Right now, it hardly mattered that they lay out, and she left the room herself to seek temporary comfort elsewhere. Perhaps in the company of Bronwyn and Eärien, wherever they might be. Galadriel doubted they were in the citadel, so she found herself walking down each corridor until she reached doors to the outside, the blinding light striking her at once and causing her to close her eyes against it.

She could never recall ever seeing a light as bright as the light in Pelargir, save maybe the golden beams she had witnessed before she had jumped from that fateful ship into the cold waters of the Sundering Seas. Gathering herself against the light as her eyes adjusted to it, Galadriel set down the path of the walkways into the city. People stared at her as she passed, and it took her a moment to realize it was because she was without an entourage surrounding her. She was the queen, walking freely without a guard or servant at her side.

How strange she was to them, Galadriel thought, to not need such things despite her status.

She ignored their looks, making her way through the winding streets down to the docks, where she believed without a doubt to find either Eärien or Bronwyn spending their time. Eärien often sat in the harbor with her pencils, paint, and paper, making sketches and artwork by the bayside, while Bronwyn joined her on occasion if she was not needed elsewhere. Since her marriage, Galadriel realized she had spent little time with them. Though, to be fair, before it, she had often spent more time with them than with Halbrand. She supposed it was only the newness of it, causing her to seek out her husband above her friends, even though they meant just as much to her as he did.

There were things a husband could offer that her friends could not.

Her cheeks blossomed with heat to think of such things out here in public with everyone staring at her as she walked past them, but Galadriel pushed those thoughts from her mind, held her chin high, and kept walking until the wet, creaking boards of the docks were beneath her feet.

She found Eärien first in a chair on the docks, facing the sunset with an easel in front of her. Ever since the loss of her husband, Kemen, Eärien spent her time focusing on her craft rather than seeking out another husband to fulfill the loss in his stead. At the moment, she gazed forward across the bay, in the middle of painting all the colors of the sunset. Her hair sat in a braided bun on the back of her head, some of it freely cascading down her back. There was not a chair next to her, but Galadriel did not need to sit down.

Eärien heard her approach, looking over her shoulder, and grinned at Galadriel. “There you are!” she called out, putting down her paintbrush into a wooden cup on the rest of the easel. “I have not seen you around for a while, Galadriel.”

“Apologies,” Galadriel offered, feeling more meek than she ought to feel. “I have been quite tied up.”

Eärien’s eyes glimmered with mischief. “Not literally, I hope.”

Galadriel nearly choked, clearing her throat. “Excuse me?”

“Well,” Eärien threw carelessly to the wind, casting her eyes back to the waters of the bay, “some husbands have strange inclinations that they wish to indulge in with their wives—and if not with their wives, they will indulge in it elsewhere.”

“That is quite . . . ” Galadriel did not know what to say. “Illuminating,” she finished.

Eärien laughed, loud and clear, amused by Galadriel’s reaction. “So,” she said, “your husband is a tender man, I take it?”

“It is very . . . ” Again, she was at a loss for words. “It is very personal, Eärien.”

“I mean no offense by it,” Eärien replied in a gentler tone. “Us ladies sometimes used to talk with our other married friends about life in the marriage bed. Usually, to offer advice to each other or better understand our husbands if we did not understand them much before. Men are not always as freely spoken with their wives as they are with their friends. It was not a source of gossip for me, but a sense of . . . community and friendship with my lady friends.” She glanced back at Galadriel, offering her a little smile. “You need not say anything that makes you uncomfortable, my queen.”

“I will remember that,” Galadriel replied with a smile in return. “Thank you, Eärien.”

Eärien gestured around her with a swoop of her arm. “I would offer you a seat, but I lack a second chair,” she mused in jest, and Galadriel found herself laughing freely.

“I need no chair,” she admitted, but her eyes also passed over the docks, looking for another familiar face and not seeing it anywhere near. “Do you know where Bronwyn is, by any chance?”

Eärien shook her head. “I do not,” she revealed. “I have not seen her for a few days, but I am sure she has been busy.”

“What do you mean?” Galadriel inquired, feeling her brow furrow with worry again.

Eärien turned serious as the topic shifted to other matters. “We had some scouts return to us,” she said. “A few days ago, I think. They were wounded. Orc attack, I believe, but Bronwyn has been in the infirmary with them ever since their arrival.”

“Has she?” Galadriel asked next, flummoxed by the news. “Why have I not heard of this?”

Eärien seemed perturbed by that. “I do not know,” she admitted, looking back at Galadriel with concern in her expression. “I thought you knew. Has King Halbrand not told you of it?”

Galadriel wracked her mind for a moment where he might have mentioned it and maybe she simply forgot about it, but she could not recall him ever bringing it up with her. She poured over her memories, finding none at all where he ever mentioned such an event to her. Galadriel did not believe he would hide such things from her on purpose, but it stirred an unpleasant feeling deep in her stomach. She turned to Eärien, bowing her head suddenly.

“I hate to abandon you so soon,” she said, “but I must go see about this at once.”

“Of course,” Eärien replied, but the look on her face displayed her own worry, and Galadriel tried not to think about it as she turned away from her friend and picked out the path through the streets to the infirmary building. Her feet raced quicker in that direction than they had walked before, catching the interest of more eyes upon her than she hoped for, noticing her rush and no doubt wondering what had caused it.

When she reached the infirmary, its many doors were open to let in as much air as possible from outside. Fresh air was capable of curing many ills that were not due to sword or lance or bow, and Galadriel hurried past one of the openings to the hall within, finding a few of the beds occupied by Men.

Some of them were wrapped in cloth across wounds where the sutures bled through the white, and all of them looked malnourished and far too thin—wasted away as if they had not eaten in ages. A few of them were lying in bed resting, but one of them was up and standing next to Bronwyn as they talked in quiet tones and she checked his vitals. At Galadriel’s arrival, they both looked up in her direction.

“My queen,” Bronwyn greeted her in surprise, and she looked back at the man with a smile, placing her hand upon his forearm and nodding her head as if gently dismissing him back to bed. He cast his gaze once more at Galadriel in confusion, noticing her Elven ears, and narrowed his eyes before heading back to his bed with a cup of water in hand.

He sat down on the edge of it and kept watching them.

“Bronwyn,” Galadriel returned in greeting, crossing the infirmary until she stood in front of her friend. “What has happened?” she asked next, keeping her voice as quietly as possible. “Why have I not heard of scouts coming back to us?”

Bronwyn, too, seemed as confused as Eärien had been to hear that. “I thought you already knew,” she simply said. “I assumed you were busy with other things, though. It’s nothing serious. They are all alive with no limbs missing, though they have been gone from us for some years now.”

“Years?” Galadriel repeated, shocked to hear so much time had passed between their leaving and their return. “What happened to them?”

“Captured,” the man sitting on the edge of the bed replied before Bronwyn could answer her. “Orcs, a couple years back. Thought we would never see home again. Been in a dungeon all this time, living off scraps and dirty water.”

Galadriel turned to face him. “Where?” she asked.

The man narrowed his eyes. “Where do you think, Elf?” he shot back. “Mordor. Where else?”

“She is your queen,” Bronwyn snapped at him. “You will apologize and show her proper respect.”

The man cut his eyes from Galadriel to Bronwyn, a searing look within them. He glanced back to Galadriel.

“Apologies,” he said tersely, bowing his head with just a slight tilt forward of his chin. “I did not expect to come back and find not only our long lost king returned to us, but an Elven queen as well? Strange times we live in now, indeed.”

“Mordor?” Galadriel threw back, her mind caught on that one word. “I thought it was no longer active?”

“Of course it’s still active,” the man shot back. “Orcs don’t just disappear overnight. They’ve been populating the place like rats, overflowing each and every crevice, and they have a leader, too—”

“—A leader?” Galadriel interrupted, her heart racing with each and every implication in his words. “Who? What does he look like? What is his name?”

The man narrowed his eyes again, staring at Galadriel as if he was trying to figure out if he should trust her with the information. In the end he decided it was worth it. “Don’t know his name. Don’t think he has one. All black, he wears. Never saw his face. Never heard him talk—but the Orcs do whatever he says, or else.”

“You never heard a name? Not even once?”

The man shook his head, pursing his lips. “Never heard it once, if he even has one.”

Galadriel turned to Bronwyn in alarm. “We should send out a party at once—”

“—For what?” cut Halbrand’s voice across the infirmary, and Galadriel spun around to see him as he stood there in the arch of a doorway, the last of the sunlight catching behind his tall frame and setting alight his hair in a burnished glow. He walked towards them with slow and steady steps, his cloak swaying about his boots.

For what? It echoed in her head as she stared back at him.

At last, Halbrand stopped in front of her. Galadriel felt the twist in her stomach, the churning sensation return anew. She opened her mouth to speak, and found it hard to do so.

“To discover who this man in Mordor is,” she told him, but Halbrand cut his eyes at her.

“These men have been through enough,” he said, his voice firm. It left no room for argument. “They deserve time to rest before they tell us all that has happened to them, and then, we will have a better idea of the picture we are dealing with before rushing headlong in the furnace without any knowledge. Does that seem wise to you, my queen? To jump back into the furnace without knowing what awaits us there?”

He had never talked this way to her before. Galadriel stared at him, the knots in her stomach growing.

“No,” she finally agreed. “Of course. You are right, my husband.”

His look towards her softened, and he stepped closer, holding his hand out to Galadriel. “Come,” he said gently. “Let them rest.”

Galadriel glanced down at his hand between them, held out to her with his palm upward. She debated it for a moment, but then she raised her hand and slid it along his palm, clasping him back.

His fingers closing around hers maintained a gentle hold on her, and Halbrand guided Galadriel outside of the infirmary and away from Bronwyn and the injured men. At first, their walk together was riddled with an uncomfortable silence until Halbrand broke it.

“I am sorry,” he said at last, “if I sounded harsh in there. These men are new to both me and you, and they are not used to Elves. It is best I maintain a certain air around them.”

Galadriel could not stop herself. “Of superiority?” she asked, the question coming out crueler than she meant for it to sound.

Halbrand halted in their walk, his hand clasping hers a little tighter in response. He turned to face her, and his expression seemed to her truly apologetic. “I am sorry,” he repeated again, his voice quieter this time, and it pulled at Galadriel’s heart. She reconsidered herself. Perhaps it was she who was too harsh. “Am I not wrong, though, am I?” Halbrand posed to her. “Do these men not deserve rest before we hound them with questions? And is it not best to know their full story before making a rash decision and risking more lives? Next time, they may not be as lucky to find themselves in only a dungeon. Am I not wrong in that, am I?”

He was not wrong in that. He did not say they would never investigate the matter. Halbrand simply advocated for their rest and recovery until they were ready to tell their full story. It was the wisest decision. She could not fault him for that, and suspicion served nothing but to poison the heart.

They did not come this far for her to doubt him now.

“No,” Galadriel admitted, raising her chin to look Halbrand in the eyes, “you are not wrong in that.”

His eyes swam with the same melancholic look they held earlier, and Halbrand lifted her hand between them. He brought it to his lips to kiss the top of her knuckles. His eyes closed as he did so, his head tipping forward. His loose hair fell into his eyes, some of it falling forward to tickle her hand as well. When he drew back from her, he lowered her hand, too, and returned his eyes back to her gaze.

They were soft and full of love.

“You need not trouble yourself with such things to weigh your spirit down, my love,” Halbrand informed her. “I will take care of them as I will take care of you as well. We have a trip to plan for now,” he reminded her, his free hand rising to catch her below the chin with a single finger, nudging it upwards as he smiled back at her. “A holiday away from our courtly duties. Will that not make you happy? Will it not make you glad?”

“Of course,” Galadriel told him, feeling her eyes sting with an oncoming rush of hot tears. How could she have doubted him, if even for a moment? How could she have assumed, even in the smallest way that her mind never put forth in words but felt deep within, that he’d had anything to do with their capture?

Halbrand’s brow furrowed, his expression falling before her. “My love, why are you sad? What have I done to make you sad?”

Galadriel shook her head, inhaling deeply as if the motion would rid her of the tears. “Nothing,” she said, continuing to shake her head. “You have done nothing to make me sad, my love. I am sorry for—” Galadriel cut herself off before she finished the sentence. It was not something she wanted to admit out loud to him.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Halbrand cock his head to the side. “For what, my wife?”

“For doubting you,” she blurted out, feeling the heat of shame creep up the sides of her neck onto her cheeks.

“ . . . You doubted me?”

Galadriel lifted her eyes to his face. She was not proud of it. “I am sorry—” she blurted out again, feeling the hot wash of tears fill her eyes again, and she turned away from the finger he had placed beneath her chin to look away from him, but Halbrand grasped her chin with his hand.

Gently, he urged her back to face him. His face was a blur through her tears, and she blinked, letting them course down her cheeks onto his hand.

“Everything I do,” Halbrand said slowly, “I do to protect you, not to harm you. If I do not tell you something, I wish to keep you away from harm and keep you happy in spirit.” His head swayed to the left, and then to the right. “I am not plotting to hurt you—or anyone else.”

“I do not believe—”

“Yes, you do,” Halbrand interrupted. “Briefly, but you did. That was your doubt, was it not? That I was behind what happened to them in Mordor?”

Galadriel pursed her lips together, not wanting to admit it to him. Not wanting to say it out loud, but it was true. She doubted him, if even for only a moment in time. “Yes—” Galadriel bit back on her lips, feeling the tears pour freely, hot streaks of salt across her skin.

Halbrand’s grip on her chin tightened briefly, pinching her, shocking Galadriel. Her eyes cut up to his face, and he let her go immediately.

He was hurt. It was clear. He did not try to hold it back from his face, but he fought back whatever ill feelings it awoke in him, and he reached out for her face with both hands to carefully take her in between them. Galadriel fought back a sudden desire to pull away from him after the pinch he had given her, but his hands this time were soft and careful. His thumbs brushed over her cheeks to catch her tears and wipe them away, and then he surprised her.

Halbrand pulled her into his arms, guiding her head towards his chest with his hands to place her against him. He curled one arm around her head, and Galadriel realized how large his hand felt grasping the side of her face as he pulled her into him, her cheek to his chest, and held her there.

“I forgive you,” Halbrand whispered above her, and Galadriel stared off at the stones of the walkway, his hand large and encompassing against her head. His heart pounded hard beneath her ear. “We will have our holiday,” he repeated. “It will give these men time to recuperate, and it will give us much needed time together, my sweet wife.”

All they had done was spend time together, but Galadriel did not argue with him.

She wrapped her arms around his broad middle, holding him back as he held her, and tried to ignore the building sense of dread inside of her.

Chapter Text

* * *

People hide their truest nature. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers—revealed themselves?

— Alice Hoffman, “The Ice Queen”

* * *

The carriage ride west through the coastal plains of Lebennin from the city of Pelargir to the fiefdom of Dor-en-Ernil carried them across the lush, verdant valleys and lowlands in between three major rivers—the Sirith, the Serni, and the Gilrain. As close as they were to the shoreline, there were few trees to shield the landscape from Galadriel’s view through the white sheer lace curtains hanging from the carriage windows. She pulled them back with a delicate motion of her hand to observe the rolling plains across each stone bridge they crossed over the rivers, the tall grass dancing in the wind, and the birds in flight high above their heads. Their songs echoed through the valleys as such sweet music to Galadriel’s ears. She closed her eyes to listen to them, hearing their cries far above the hoof beats of the all the horses in their entourage both ahead and behind the carriage—as well as the steady, rocky spin of the wooden wheels below.

A broad hand laid itself upon her thigh, a gentle touch with no grip that still startled her from her peaceful reverie. Galadriel lowered her head before opening her eyes to the sight of his hand laying upon her thigh, and at last, she turned her head to look at Halbrand on the carriage seat beside her.

His face was warm and welcoming, youthful even in its appearance as he gazed in her direction with so much love in his eyes, his thumb brushing her through the thick material of her gown to caress her thigh. The sight of his face like so was almost enough to help Galadriel forget the tense dealings in Pelargir, her newfound knowledge of the stirrings in Mordor, before they had left it to go on this healing journey—for no face as kind as this could have been behind it. Old doubts resurged with new currents under the promise of an oncoming storm, a bonfire at seaside blazing anew, and no amount of love in his eyes could temper the swelling waves rushing to shore.

Galadriel cast her eyes downward to look upon his hand, and then turned her head to look out the window of the carriage again without saying a word to him, not even gifting him with a smile in return. His fingers tightened on her thigh in response, clenching down through the fabric, instantly drawing her eyes back to his face as a surge of defiance swelled within her. He was met with a scowl upon her lips and ire in her eyes, her back as straight as a board to indicate the thrumming tension beneath her surface, threatening to roil over—and suddenly, his hand released her, and he pulled it away to return it to his lap.

Halbrand looked in the opposite direction, turning his head towards the carriage window on the other side to gaze out of it, his jaw drawn in a tight line.

“Is this to be our holiday?” he asked her, his eyes fixed on the sunlit scenery outside of the window, and where Galadriel might have expected more anger, she heard none—only a silent resignation that this was to be their path now. Tense. Parted. A separation while together.

The words did not come easily to her as she pondered on what to say to him, faltering when she did not encounter anger at her defiance, only sullen resignation for the choice of her path. She felt things too deeply, and she held onto bonds too strong, even if those bonds be bitter in their nature—and she had not yet even accepted the possibility of his innocence. Every thought was a turn in another direction to figure out how to outsmart him without giving away her intent or her dignity, and Halbrand sensed something was amiss, though he did little but try to be a husband to her—a gesture which repulsed her beyond all measure, and she could not reconcile it with her heart.

Restoring her heart back to what it was before the knowledge of the black-cloaked figure felt beyond all recall. Her mind now raced with abhorrent possibilities of what to do next in order to defeat him. Were it even possible at this stage of things between them, she wondered, as birds chirped outside of the carriage and flowers swayed under the hand of a gentle breeze, the sweetness of their nectar blooming throughout the warmth of the temperate air so close to shore. Could she raise a blade against him if needed?

Beside her, Halbrand sighed softly as he still gazed out of the window.

“I think I will go for a swim when we reach the shore,” he said, a seemingly idle comment, but Galadriel could not place the undercurrent beneath it tinged with something else entirely.

“A swim?” she inquired, turning to look at him once more.

His expression appeared blank as he stared out of the window.

“Yes,” Halbrand echoed, “a swim.”

Galadriel swallowed, feeling a heavy lump forming in her throat as a blockage against speaking. Still, she weathered words beyond it. “It is nice weather for a swim,” she concurred, trying to appear amiable.

Halbrand was silent at first. “Yes,” he finally said. “It is.”

He spoke no other words.

The tension grew thick and stifling inside of the carriage, so much so that Galadriel desired to leap out of it and breathe the fresh air beyond the confines of the too small space with him.

Halbrand did not speak for the rest of the journey. Eventually, the waters of the bay shone deep cobalt on the horizon, tall shoreline grass swinging in the carrying wind, and white sands, tinted darker with the dampness of the waves crashing into the shore from the rising tide. The wind grew strong around them, though the skies were clear blue and bright, and high tide indicated strong currents beneath the waves.

It was not wise waters to swim in, despite Halbrand’s suggestion.

The party halted in the grassland before the beach, and Galadriel could not wait to escape the confines of the carriage. She grasped the door handle, and flung it open, emerging into bright, blinding sunshine. Shutting her eyes, she turned her head away from it and raised her arm to help shield her. The sounds of movement and bustling were all around her as the party dismounted their horses, beginning their work of setting up an encampment on the grass. Tents, furniture, blankets, and pillows were all packed and carried with the entourage. In her stillness beneath the heat of the sun, Galadriel wondered briefly why she had agreed to this getaway, secluded away from so many people she both knew and trusted to be alone, surrounded at all four points by him.

A tall presence blocked out the light in front of her, casting her in cool shadow.

“Give me your hand,” Halbrand murmured, awakening Galadriel back to the present, to now. She opened her eyes, turning toward to the alluring sound of his voice, and lowered her arm from above her head.

Halbrand stood before her, a single hand outstretched to her, fingers open and palm upright. An inviting gesture, and full of calm.

Galadriel knew not what to make of it—or what to make of him, for that matter—but out here in front of everyone, she would not instigate a scene, and so she proffered her hand to Halbrand, extending it outward and hovering it above his own.

She did not take his hand. She made him take that leap.

Halbrand’s gaze remained steady upon her face as he clasped her hand, coiling his fingers firm around the dainty size of her own, so small in comparison to his much larger one. The contrast was not lost on her. Embroiled in his firm grip, he tugged her forward, issuing her from the carriage in full until her feet stepped down from the steps onto the crunch of grass below.

“Will you come swimming with me?” Halbrand asked her, seemingly out of nowhere, and Galadriel glanced up at him. Was he serious? Did he truly intend to swim in such dangerous conditions? Even for who he was, it was still madness. The sea was no kind mistress.

“It is high tide,” Galadriel pointed out, “and the wind is picking up. Swimming is not—”

“Come,” he urged her softly, taking a step backwards. “It will take them time to set the encampment up. By the time we return, it shall be ready. Come swim with me, and maybe we shall cast our troubles into the sea and they will trouble us no more.”

Galadriel knew not what possessed her, but she glanced down at the ground beneath her feet, tipping her head forward in a small bow of acquiescence, and followed his lead step by step with her hand clasped securely within the grip of his own hand. He held her fast—as if he intended not to let her go, and as much as her heart warred with it, each step forward she took with him felt like a smaller part on a grander scale of destiny. Threads of fate yet unknown, lining a path for her straight to sea.

Their walk was a quiet one for the most part, and Halbrand did not speak again until they reached the inlet of damp white sands that made up a smaller carving of the shoreline, which was a part of the greater bay, the Bay of Belfalas. Tolfalas stood tall and rocky in the distance, its shoreline drowned by the high tide. Waves crashed in sprays of white foam, roiling towards them off of the island. Galadriel glanced down at the sands. They were damp all the way to the grass. Her heart hammered as the wind grew, beating along with the hurtle of waves.

“It’s lovely here,” came Halbrand’s voice from beside her, rising above the churning wind.

“Halbrand,” Galadriel warned him, attempting to reason with him. Though what reason she hoped to achieve, she was not sure. “This is treacherous—”

“—I thought you wanted treachery,” he interrupted, turning to look at her. He squinted through the wind as it whipped his hair into his face. The sky was darkening behind him, turning into a blanket of deep blue-grey clouds. “You thought about it,” he then said. “in the carriage.”

The beat of wind against her chest stole the very breath from her lungs, made it harder to breathe—or was it his words that managed that all by themselves?

“You were reading my thoughts?” Her affront at such a notion was real, for her thoughts had been dark, dangerous things against him. Surely, he had not read them—and remained this calm in the aftermath.

Halbrand glanced out to sea. “We always come back to this, Galadriel,” he said, a trace of deep sadness in his voice. “You close yourself off to me, and reading your thoughts becomes the only answer I receive. Your silence is deafening.”

“I have told you not to read my thoughts without permission—”

“—And I have asked you,” Halbrand countered calmly against the raging wind, “to be honest with me, to be honest with yourself, as I have been honest with you. What other dark thoughts do you conceal from me? Would you not say them now, and be done with it?”

Galadriel knew not when their hands fell apart, but she glanced down and they were torn asunder, her fingers clenching tight into her palm as her nails cut in deep.

“If you are behind it—” she heard herself say, but he cut her off.

“—I have told you I am not,” Halbrand reasoned with her, “but you do not believe me. My word is meaningless to you. Despite all my endeavors. All my honesty. Worthless, would you say, in the end?”

Words failed her, and none would come in answer to him. Her eyes stayed fixed upon his hand hanging by his side, his own fingers coiling and digging into his flesh as well, a mirror of her own.

“So be it,” Halbrand whispered, the words nearly swallowed by the tearing wind. He reached up to his collar with one hand, unfastening his cloak. It fell to the damp sand, the heavy weight of it the only thing keeping the winds from ripping it away. Stooping down, he unlaced his boots and removed them, one by one, and raised himself back up to grasp the hem of his tunic with both hands and pull it over his head. Halbrand threw it down, and by nearly pure instinct alone, Galadriel bent over to swoop up his tunic before the wind could steal it away.

“What are you doing?” Galadriel threw back at him, loud enough it could not be drowned out by the wind. She expected an immediate answer, but he was silent at first, his eyes fixated on the churning white foam of the turbulent waves before him.

“Going for a swim,” he idly replied, and finally, he stepped forward, walking in a straight line for the waves as they crashed wildly to shore.

“Halbrand,” Galadriel called, but he ignored her. He kept walking. “Halbrand!” His bare feet reached the white foam, and he walked into the waves, sinking quickly into the rushing waters. “Halbrand!”

What she cried out for, Galadriel could not name, but the terror which gripped her at what might happen to him—insanity, had she not just been thinking in the carriage of raising a blade against him? What had she hoped to accomplish with that if she had no intention of bringing the blade down upon him? Raise it above his head in hopes that the silver gleam of the metal catching in the light might sway him off his course?

And what course was that, exactly? Did she even know for certain—at all?

“Halbrand,” she hollered above the wind, but he kept his back to her, the white foam rising to his shoulders. He looked so small caught there in the churning waves, his arms rising to steady him above the pull of the current below the surface, and the current gripped at his feet at once, tugging him downward as high as his chin. 

The sudden, inescapable sense of fear stole her breath, stopped her heart—if only for a moment. Galadriel lurched forward, one foot in front of the other, hand outstretched as if to reach for him, but Halbrand turned around amidst the powerful slosh of waves against his body to face her across the distance.

Galadriel thought she saw an embittered smile on the corner of his mouth, but it was gone before it was ever truly there.

“You can’t fix it,” he hollered back, an echo of old words he had once spoken to her decades ago. “No matter how strong your will,” he went on, his voice failing at the very end, “or your pride.”

“What are you talking about, Halbrand?” Galadriel shouted over the wind and waves.

“I can,” he shouted. “I can fix it. I can end your suffering—and mine.”

An unnameable fear gripped at every corner of her mind, cinching tight upon her insides like a clawed fist. “Halbrand—”

He glanced down at the foam, the sloshing waters about his neck, as if focusing on some task beneath the surface he was committed to following through with care. Suddenly, one hand emerged from the waves, holding aloft a band of gleaming gold between his forefinger and thumb—gleaming so bright despite the lack of sun, the lack of light. It absorbed all, and reflected it back to them.

“Without it,” Halbrand called out, “I’ll die. Like any mortal man. My power is not what it used to be. I hang by a thread now, and this ring is that thread, Galadriel. They saw to that with Númenor. You were there. You remember.” His fist enclosed around the ring, drowning out what little light it gave off into the churning tidal wave of darkness across the skies of the shoreline. “I can cast it into the sea,” he told her, an edge of assurance beneath the claim, telling her he was not afraid of the consequences, “and let myself drown in these waves, and what should have happened in Númenor will be fulfilled, and you may move on with your life—and I shall move on from this one. What say you to that?”

Madness. It was pure madness, what he spoke of, and she could not—would not—accept such flagrant disregard for life, even his. “You cannot—”

“—No?” he called back, and if she was not mistaken, he raised a single eyebrow in defiance of her claim. “You want to hold a dagger to my throat, but you do not want me to do it myself?”

“I—” There were no words, no excuses. No way to talk herself out of it the incorrigible truth of it. Was it anger? Personal vengeance, which drove her so? Did she feel so betrayed by the mere possibility of his actions that she felt the need to enact her rage against him for them? Were they even real, though, or was it all in her head?

Mad. She was going mad.

—Or was she just as mad as him? Was it new, or had she always been so?

“No—” Galadriel called out suddenly, her fingers unfastening her own cloak, which fell to the damp sands, forgotten in her haste. She pulled off each shoe and discarded them haphazardly. Cold fingers grasped at the hem of her loose dress, tugging it over her head and throwing it down onto the beach until she was left in nothing more than a baring ivory shift.

She raced headlong, barefoot, into the ice cold bite of the crashing white foam, chilled down to the bone, her teeth instantly chattering against the bitter cold of the bay. How he managed to withstand it, she was not sure, but her mind roiled as turbulent as the waves colliding into her body as she swam out to meet him.

“Galadriel,” he warned, “go back. Go back, Galadriel!”

“No—!” The waves took her under, crashing over her head, and the sour taste of salt filled her mouth and stung her eyes, her arms flailing to regain control over the current—tugging, pulling, rolling—the ferocity of it, drowning her.

Strong, firm arms laced around her, dragging her upward until she broke to the surface, gasping for air. Her chest ached with a heavy pang at each sharp intake of breath, and Galadriel felt his hand grab her chin, turning her face upward to the sky to hold her there.

“What is wrong with you—” he hissed, and were she not still coughing up sea water, she would have answered him immediately, but salt water sputtered out of her lungs with every heaving breath, and it was his hand that ensured she did not go under again. “Foolish—”

“—Your ring,” Galadriel gasped, the one thought most present and forefront in her mind, and her hands clenched onto him, gripping him fast between each crash of the waves around them, slinging them about like rag dolls. “—Where is your ring?”

Her hand grasped for his arm, trailing down the length of it to search for his hand, to seek out the little band of gold, to find it, to ensure he still had it. She grappled to feel for it, her hand laying upon his hand at last and clasping tight, feeling the warmth of the golden band seeping through the icy cold waters. Somehow despite the chill, the ring remained warm to the touch. Hot even, though Galadriel wondered if it was all in her mind. She looked up at him, his hair soaked from the sea water, droplets running down his face, his mouth agape.

Her relief to find it still there on his hand overwhelmed her, and it was as if it had frozen her mind and caused her body to fall limp in his embrace, and she slid against him, downward and out. Halbrand tightened his arm on her, preventing her from slipping under the waves. Despite his hold on her preserving her from the ire of the ocean, fury arose in her anew.

“How could you—” Galadriel threw at him, and his own face twisted in reply.

“How could I?” he growled back. “How could you—”

“You have used me—”

“—I have done no such thing!” Halbrand hollered, not caring how close their faces were from their tight embrace. Spittle flew off his lip and hit her on her cheek below her eye, causing her flinch before scowling in indignation.

“Our marriage,” Galadriel hissed. “All a sham, and for what?”

His face was pure vehemence, and his eyes glowed with it. He snatched her chin hard, pinching enough to hurt.

“How dare you—” Halbrand snapped, and his grip was one to say he would not be trifled with—not by her or anyone, for that matter.

“You liar,” Galadriel snarled, unfettered by the hold he had on her jaw. He could snap her in two, and she did not care—that, or she did not fear it. “You beast—”

“—Is that what you want?” he growled back, and amidst the sickening swirl of the waves crashing about all around them, Galadriel swore she could see his face morphing before her—as it had once before, so many years ago, turning from friend to foe, eyes slitting as dark veins popped to the surface and skin paled before her. Monstrous, he seemed—but was it all in her head simply because he was angry? “You want a liar? A beast? Will that make it easier for you?”

Halbrand leaned close enough he was less than an inch away from her face.

“I hate you,” he hissed through his teeth, clenched tight. They never moved, though his lips did. “I hate you with every—”

He was not able to finish whatever it was he meant to say, for Galadriel, in her ire, surged into him and crashed into his lips as the waves crashed into them, sloshing them about like forgotten pieces of driftwood. She clung to him, despite all recourse that spoke of the opposite—that he was not her comfort, but the source of her pain, and yet she could not, in good conscience, let him go.

His lips were bruising when they responded to her, his hand clasped so tightly upon the back of her neck that she swore in the morning, her delicate flesh would be splotched with purple marks from it. She strove to kiss him deeper, though, to part her lips and taste his mouth one last time before the world crashed down all around them—and changed forever.

He matched her passion with equal force, the rough kiss giving way to desperation as if he could kiss her hard enough to make her remember why she married him in the first place. Hurriedly, their mouths moved together, and they became an ungraceful tangle of limbs in the tumultuous waves of the wide bay. Galadriel wound her arms about his broad shoulders to hold onto him, and her legs coiled around the middle of his waist. She clung to him like that, and he held onto her—and it was his strength alone, she thought, that kept them from going under the white foam, drowning at the bottom of the bay.

He carried her to the shore. Galadriel knew not when or how, but she felt his arm around her until they drew close enough for him to stand, and he scooped her up into both of his arms, toting her like a babe to safety with one beneath her knees and the other behind her back. Her arms remained firm around his neck and shoulders, clinging to him despite her words. Despite her protests. Despite his claim.

It was not true. She did not believe it. There was no way he hated her, not for the way he kissed her—or carried her in his arms.

He bent down far enough to place her bottom upon his knee while he scooped up their discarded clothes and cloaks without putting her down on her own two feet, and slung the clothing over his arm. That arm curled back under her knees, providing unexpected comfort and cushion, and he carried her all the way back to camp on bare feet, leaving his boots and her shoes by the shore—to be carried away by the waves, if need be. He did not seem to care.

Their tent was ready when they arrived half naked and soaked to the bone, drawing the eyes of everyone in their entourage upon them. No one asked questions, for Halbrand issued no statement. In utter silence towards their stares, he turned straight for the opening flaps of their tent and carried her inside.

He placed her down upon her feet at last, and her bare feet touched cloth, not soil or grass, though she could feel the grass beneath it. Her eyes swept over everything that awaited her inside of the tent in awe.

For such a modest set up, it was grand on the scale of amenities. In the center of the tent, there was no cloth upon the floor, only dirt, where a dug out had been made for a brazier to fight against the cold wind outside. Already, a fire roared within it on fresh cut logs soaked in wine. On the left side of the tent, a cot big enough for two with plush blankets and feather pillows. At the head of the bed, there rested four trunks full of clothes and shoes to choose from for each day of their holiday. On the right there was a table with two chairs, food prepared for the evening meal awaiting them on its surface with goblets of wine to drink on the side. At the head of the tent, in a far corner, there was a smaller table with a stool, a pitcher of bathing water, and a large bowl with wash cloths laid beside it.

Shivering in her ivory shift, Galadriel stared at the wash bowl and pitcher. Slowly, she walked towards it, her right hand reaching up to peel back the wet fabric of her shift from her shoulder until it was bare. She reached for the laces in the front with her other hand, loosening them low enough it nearly exposed her breasts if not for the brassiere she swore beneath it, and then she pushed the other shoulder down as well. It took some shimmying to remove the fabric from her body, clinging as it was to her skin, but eventually, it fell away.

She stepped out of it, one graceful footfall after another, and unlaced the back of her brassiere to slip out of it as well. It left her in little but a modest cloth between her legs, which she curled her thumbs beneath on either side and pushed it down, bending over to help aid her in its removal.

It was not until she was upright again that she remembered Halbrand was in the tent with her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see him sitting in one of the chairs at the table, wine goblet in hand, his brazen eyes watching her.

Galadriel froze in shock, hand flying to her breasts to cover her nipples from palm to elbow, but Halbrand answered her by lowering his eyes along her backside, his tongue darting between his parted lips before his teeth caught on his bottom lip. His head tilted to the side to follow his eyes, his gaze appraising the roundness of her bottom.

Quickly, she looked away from him, turning her head forward once more. Her breathing came out ragged as she recalled all the tension lying taut between them now—from the revelation of Mordor to this very moment. Fears, she realized, she might unfairly be ascribing to him. It explained his ire in return, his blatant anger towards her, his upset, and his rash decisions and words. Would he not be calmer, if he were behind such machinations, in an attempt to sway her back to him? Why was he, too, so shaken from her accusations if they were not unjustly given in the first place?

Galadriel glanced down at the pitcher, at the clear water within it, and remembered her cell in Númenor. He had watched her, then, too, shameless eyes gazing at her naked form in the dark while she bathed, unbeknownst, on display for him.

“Does this excite you?” she heard herself ask aloud, unable to stop the curiosity which bade the question.

Silence met Galadriel at first as he carefully considered his answer for her.

“Yes, it does,” Halbrand finally admitted out loud, his voice much calmer than it had been out at sea. Though now it was still laced with a certain gruffness, a raspy intonation that sent a tingling shiver down her spine.

A braver question came to her. “Did it excite you, then?”

Halbrand was quiet for much longer this time.

Galadriel glanced over her shoulder again to catch a glimpse of him, staring at the nude curves of her body under the flickering fire light of the brazier, his wine goblet so near his mouth. Either he just drank from it, or he was about to drink it.

Suddenly, Halbrand took a deep gulp of wine, tipping his whole head back to drain the cup dry. His throat bobbed with the motion, and Galadriel swallowed, too, though for a different reason.

The base of the goblet clattered back onto the table as he put it down with more force than necessary. “Yes,” he admitted further, “it did.”

“You had said—”

“—I know what I said,” Halbrand interrupted, though it was not unkind in its nature. “I didn’t want to frighten you,” he went on to explain carefully, recalling the delicate situation that was their time in Númenor. “What would have been the point of that? You were imprisoned. You were scared.”

“—And you watched me bathe,” Galadriel spoke softly, more to herself than to him, “unbeknownst to me.”

“It was soothing,” he murmured back, his voice softening. “You did look so peaceful. I was glad to see that. To see you happy at your new gifts—and when you started to undress, I could not look away.”

Galadriel did not know where her own brazenness came from to speak what she spoke next.

“Like now?” she inquired softly, reaching out for one of the cloths and grasping it between her fingers. She dipped it into the lukewarm water of the bowl to soak it up, raising the drenched cloth upward and squeezing the excess water from it. It poured back down into the bowl, fading off into a steady drip at the end.

“Like now,” his low voice echoed in return, and Galadriel angled herself partially towards him, giving him an ample view of her body from the side with a fair amount of front form as well as the back to gaze upon with hungry eyes—and how hungry they were to watch her, to see her, to view her in all her glory on display for his and only his eyes to see.

He had poured himself more wine, his goblet refilled, sitting back in the chair in a loose and languid position, his legs outstretched before him. His wet trousers were still on his body, but she figured it was deliberate to keep her comfortable for now until she acclimated to the idea of him observing her nudity, enjoying the view.

Slowly, Galadriel brought the cloth to her neck, gently swiping it across her skin in languorous strokes, water droplets falling down her chest. Her eyes never left his. He watched like a wolf starving for his next meal, shifting uncomfortably in the seat as she brought the cloth down to her breasts and gently washed them in smooth, soft strokes. Halbrand reached for his trousers with his free hand, grasping at the fabric close to his crotch as if to alleviate himself somehow. Galadriel’s eyes darted downward, looking openly at his hand between his legs, and he growled low in his throat akin to an animal.

Her eyes darted back to his to see the dark depths of his expression, the lust evident in his ardent gaze—but he kept his seat, downing more wine and discarding the goblet carelessly. It toppled over with the force he exerted, rolling off of the table onto the cloth floor of the tent.

Halbrand did not pay it any mind, his eyes never leaving hers.

She continued washing her body, looking away from him as she did so, closing her eyes and focusing on the feel of the cloth and the droplets of water over her skin. Her hand took its time over every curve, progressing slowly along each plane of skin until she pulled the cloth away to dip it back into the water, soaking it all the way through.

Galadriel did not wring it out this time. Instead, she pulled it from the bowl, water dripping over her hand and onto the table, and bent forward as a flush crept into her cheeks. It gave him a compromising view of her backside—and Galadriel heard it, clear as day, the strangled noise he made behind her as he watched her reach between her legs with the cloth. Even if it was to clean herself, the gesture itself was still lewd.

Halbrand rose from the seat, the chair scooting noisily backwards. Galadriel heard it, and looked up as she stood straight, trepidation trickling down her spine. Across the tent, Halbrand tugged at the laces of his trousers, unfastening them, and stared Galadriel directly in the eyes as he pushed them down, freeing his burgeoning manhood as he stepped out of them.

Her gaze fell down to where he was hard. Her eyes could not look away once they were there. She felt the cloth fall from her hand, heard it hit the floor of the tent with a soft splatter.

He approached her, walking right up into her personal space to stand too close, and reached up for her damp hair, settling his hand along the back of her head.

“Cleanse me,” he asked of her, though underneath the surface, it sounded like a command.

Galadriel’s hand shook as she reached for a new cloth without looking, finding the stack and grasping one of them between her fingers. She shook as she dipped it in bowl, submerging the cloth within the water, and brought her hand out of the bowl, trembling.

Her eyes fixated on his chest, the heat of him emanating off of his flesh towards her, warming the little space of air between them. She reached up for his chest, placing the wet cloth against him, shivering as she felt a deep rumble of satisfaction reverberate through his throat to his chest into her hand and up her arm. Galadriel glanced up to meet his eyes, the look in them intoxicating and dark as he regarded her with blown pupils, his hand straying from her damp hair to graze her cheek, her jaw, and her collarbone with delicate traces of his fingertips.

They stared at each other as she carefully bathed him, running the cloth along the broadness of his shoulders and his chest. Galadriel slipped her hand lower to the muscles of his abdomen, feeling the taut strength of them beneath her smaller, more delicate hand. Halbrand hummed in gratification, tipping his forehead closer to her until their temples touched and his breath sounded heady, loud against the crackle of the fire in the brazier. Galadriel feared for all of her sensibilities. They all felt as if they were slipping away from her, falling away like forgotten tendrils of a protest she might have given in place of her docile deference to him—succumbing to a weighty cloud over her mind.

Compulsion gripped her, and her hands grasped the sides of his body, gripping the firm flesh and sliding down the length of him as she fell to her knees at his feet.

His hand was in her hair again, gathering it together between clasped fingers and holding fast. Galadriel could hear the moan he released from his throat past his lips, his throbbing manhood inches from her face, from her lips.

“Be still,” Halbrand whispered above her, and Galadriel listened, clenching her fingernails into the curve of his hips on either side of him, the wash cloth hanging between the press of her palm and his hot flesh.

He reached for the pitcher on the table with his free hand.

His fingers unfurled from her hair, and he placed his hand beneath her chin, urging her to look upward at him. Galadriel followed the press of his fingers, raising her chin in tandem with his gentle insistence. His smile above her shone with a cross between adoration and desire, and he brought the spout of the pitcher close to her scalp before pouring the water over her hair to cleanse it of the salt from the sea. He used his other hand to help guide the water gently through her wet locks, gliding his fingers in long, smooth strokes along her scalp. The clean water coursed down her back and over the curve of her backside in little rivulets, and her eyelids fluttered to a close as she leaned into his touch.

The pour of it halted from above, though it continued to drip down her back into the indentation at the end, slipping further down to tickle her.

“Cleanse me, Galadriel,” Halbrand murmured above her a second time, and Galadriel heard the sound of the pitcher being set upon the table once more. She opened her eyes to the sight of his manhood again, understanding his meaning.

She reached out tentatively with her free hand, curling her fingers along the heat of his shaft, and then she brought the soaked cloth with her other hand to his erection, wrapping it around him with care and gently cleansing him with tender ministrations. Above her, he groaned at every soft stroke of the cloth, of her hands, on him.

Between her legs, she throbbed with want—with desire, yearning, and a thirst for more.

She let the cloth fall to the floor and took him into her mouth.

Halbrand gasped above her—uncertain, perhaps, or surprised that she would go so far as this after her display on the beach and her accusations towards him, but he did not deter her or protest. Instead, his hands cinched in her hair and gripped it tight, helping to carefully guide the warmth of her mouth along his shaft.

“Ah, yes, Galadriel,” he moaned in satisfaction above her. “That’s my wife. My beautiful wife—” His positive encouragement spurred her forward to take more of him into her mouth, enthusiasm laced in the motions of her lips and her tongue upon him. She was not well-skilled in this area, but it did not seem as if he thought she ought to be. Galadriel recalled the ways in which he used his tongue, his mouth, on her, and she mimicked the trace of them on the head of his shaft until his hips were thrusting shallowly into her mouth, chasing the sensations her tongue and lips offered for him. Every grunt and groan told her what he liked, and which ones he liked more, and she followed the sounds he made as her guidance—and that made him release a feral growl above her.

He gathered all of her hair into his hands, gripping it fast into one fist. “Oh,” he bit out, “why do you do this, Galadriel? Why do you fight me, only to give me everything I want?”

Those words brought her back to reality.

Quickly, she withdrew him from her mouth and twisted away from his grip in her hair. Halbrand let her go rather than hurt her, and Galadriel turned away from him as she rose to her feet, heading for the trunks at the head of the bed and popping the latches on one of the trunks that was clearly hers.

“ . . . What are you doing?”

Galadriel ignored his question, grasping a pair of clean undergarments and slipping them on—before she felt Halbrand grab her arm, and when she tried to sling his hand off of her, Halbrand snatched her hard.

He flung her onto the cot with a force that made Galadriel gasp as she hit the blankets face first. She scrabbled upright, but Halbrand climbed onto her legs from behind, pinning her to the bed with his weight as he crawled on top of her. She struggled with him, but he grasped her arms and subdued her, pinning her with his whole body hot at her back, his erection pressing between her cheeks.

“I asked you what you were doing,” he ground out from between his teeth.

Galadriel calmed her breathing, hearing her heart pounding in her ears as she gasped against the blankets. “What does it look like?” she shot back. “Getting dressed—”

“—Did I say you could get dressed?”

She could not believe her ears. “I do not need your permission—”

“Hmm,” Halbrand hummed in disbelief, “it seems to me you believe me quite capable of many a dark and devious deed, and maybe I ought to live up to such expectations you have of me—”

“I am not scared of you—” Galadriel bit out from between her teeth.

“Good,” Halbrand murmured into her ear, his head resting against the side of her own. “I don’t want you to be scared of me, Galadriel, I want you to be my wife . . . ”

The way he spoke such words in a broken, quiet voice took on a whole new meaning despite the hold he had on her. Galadriel relaxed beneath him, closing her eyes as her head fell limp against the cot. “Will you let go of me, then?” she whispered, hoping he would listen to her plea.

A moment of silence passed with his breathing heavy in her ear, but his hold on her eventually loosened, and true to her request, he let her go. Halbrand lifted himself from her back, and suddenly, the weight of him was gone.

Galadriel opened her eyes, staring at the tent wall, a thick, sturdy material rippling from the raging wind outside.

She raised herself upright on the bed with a push from her elbows.

When she dared to look, Halbrand sat on the cot beside her, his head bowed as he remained silent. Galadriel wrapped her arms in a secure hold around her chest, covering her small breasts from sight and sudden chill.

She glanced further up to look at his face. Halbrand noticed it out of the corner of his eyes, and he turned his head to meet her gaze, too, his face expressionless and withdrawn.

“I hate you,” Galadriel whispered to him, so calm despite her honesty, though she spoke the words without not knowing if it was truly him that she hated or just how he made her feel—how he turned her whole world upside down, and made her doubt herself and her reality. Perhaps it was that she hated most, more than him, but once the words were spoken, they could not be taken back.

If she ever doubted him, it was not in that moment.

His eyes grew wide as a tremble set itself upon his lips, a well of moisture making them appear larger than usual as an expression flitted across them—lost. He was lost. His nose twitched and wrinkled, and he looked away from her, staring ahead, as the first tear managed to trickle freely down his cheek to the tip of his chin.

“It is the only feeling,” Halbrand said softly, “that I am capable of inspiring in anyone.” He swallowed, closing his eyes as more tears fell down his cheeks. “Why did you stop me, then?” he choked out. “Why do you always stop me?”

“—Because I love you, too,” Galadriel admitted, almost choking on the words herself, her hands grasping onto herself tightly for anything, something to hold onto.

Halbrand quickly shook his head. “You don’t get to say that—”

“Yes, I do,” Galadriel countered him. “I love you, and I will say it—”

“You hate me—”

“—You said you hate me, too,” she threw back at him, raising her voice as she grew angry and upset.

“I hate what you do to us,” Halbrand told her, rising from the cot at last. “I hate how you have already decided a long time ago who I was and what I was capable of, and you have never changed your mind since—not in truth. For you still doubt, and you will always doubt me. Even when I have done nothing wrong. Even when I have partaken in no evil, as you call it. You will never believe me. My word will never be enough. Will it?” He stared back at her, his eyes searching hers for an answer she was unlikely to give. “Will it?” he insisted.

Galadriel stared up at him, the words spilling out of her before she could stop them. “I hate how you make me doubt everything I understand,” she said calmly, looking him directly back in the eyes. “I hate how you make me doubt myself and what I know, and I can never stop thinking it, no matter how hard I try—and I do try. I try very hard.” Her throat became dry, and it was harder to speak. She swallowed, glancing downward, staring at a blank spot on the cot upon the blanket—instead of him.

Halbrand stood before her, his shadow looming tall. Though when he approached her, Galadriel could not remember. His hand slipped so delicately beneath her chin. He urged Galadriel to look up, his fingers nudging her chin upward without words.

When she raised her eyes to his own, his thumb brushed the tip of her chin in a gesture barely there.

“Is it me making you doubt these things,” Halbrand inquired in a soft whisper, “or is it yourself?”

“This,” Galadriel insisted, feeling the pinprick of tears in her eyes. “This is what I mean. You make me doubt my reality—”

“—I make you doubt nothing,” Halbrand told her, shaking his head.

Galadriel stood quickly against him. “But doubt it, I do!” she hollered, not caring if it was right in his face. Halbrand’s own expression grew livid.

“It is not my doing!” he yelled back.

“—It is your fault!” Galadriel hissed at him, and she wanted to shove him. She wanted to push him. She wanted to hit him.

His hand suddenly seized her chin, stilling her.

“Quit blaming me,” he grit out from between his teeth.

“It’s your fault,” she said, her voice so small, so tiny.

“Stop it—”

“—It’s your fault,” Galadriel cried, the tears coming back to her. “It’s your fault. It’s all your fault—”

“Stop it!”

Suddenly, all of the wind was knocked out of her.

Halbrand had thrown her to the bed by his hand, the impact stealing the breath away from her lungs. Galadriel blinked as she stared up at the top of the tent in shock. He was on her in an instant, climbing over her as his face hovered above her own. Instinct kicked in before all else. Galadriel struggled with him at first, the impulse to fight strong within her, but he tried to subdue her—and she fought that, too.

“Galadriel,” Halbrand attempted to reason with her in between their struggling arms. “Galadriel—Galadriel, stop—Galadriel—look at me—”

She froze out of nowhere in the middle of her struggle, looking up at him and realizing the absurdity of it all as she stared up into his eyes. This was pointless. Fighting him was pointless.

Her soul was his—and her turmoil was because of that.

“There is no changing this,” Galadriel murmured more to herself than to him, slowly shaking her head back and forth across the bed. “I cannot change this—”

Her words struck Halbrand’s face above her with pain and confusion. His face twisted with them. “What are you trying to change, Galadriel?”

“To not be yours,” she whispered up to him.

The color left his face, and the confusion in it grew. Dumbstruck, he was, as his eyes glossed over her face, his mouth falling open, and he let go of her. His shadow disappeared from above as he fell to the cot beside her, and Galadriel could hear his breathing, loud and harsh, as he tried to calm it.

“Have I,” Halbrand started, pausing only to breathe, “have I truly been that repulsive as a husband?”

Not as a husband, Galadriel thought, unable to answer his question out loud. She carefully turned over onto her side to face him, to look at him, as she propped up on her elbow. “In Númenor,” Galadriel asked, “why did you come to me?”

Halbrand stared up at the top of the tent. “Which time?”

“You know which time,” she whispered.

He looked at her, then, turned his head toward her and looked at her. The sadness in his expression felt real. “I could not stop thinking of how it felt to have you hold me. You never let me go that night. I laid you down as you fell asleep, and you clung to me. So, I stayed. I stayed with you all night,” Halbrand revealed, his voice trailing off as he turned his head away from her to look upward again. “In your arms. In the morning when I left, I could not stop thinking about it. Everywhere I went, I could feel your arms on me still, your breath on my neck, the way your legs curled with mine—and I thought of how I could have that forever instead of just one night.”

“You intended it.”

Slowly, Halbrand rolled his head toward her again. “Yes,” he admitted softly, “I intended it.”

Galadriel remembered the way his eyes had roved over her body, the way he had unpinned his cloak, letting it fall to the floor before he had ever opened her cell door. “You took advantage of me,” she told him, her fierceness returning to her.

“No, I—”

“Yes, you did,” Galadriel exclaimed, mounting him in one swift motion as she swung her leg over his body. “I was in a prison cell. The door was locked behind you—”

Below her, Halbrand shook his head. “You did not push me away. You did not stop me—”

“I was in a prison cell—”

“I would’ve stopped,” he assured her, his eyes growing wide as he pleaded with her, shaking his head once more, “but you never stopped me—”

“I was in a prison cell—”

“You never stopped me!” Halbrand hollered back, raising himself from the cot—a cot much like the bed in Númenor, and Galadriel shoved him back down to it with a firm hand upon his chest.

Halbrand snatched her wrists and rolled them over, pinning her to the bed below him. Galadriel surged up towards him, an urge in her to fight, but what came out of her was something entirely different.

She captured his lips with her own, pushing up into him, kissing him eagerly. At first, it startled Halbrand, but he let her wrists go to brace his hands against the cot, and Galadriel reached up to hold both sides of his face with her hands, grasping him hard between her fingers, holding onto him as she sought to deepen the kiss with parted lips and a zealous tongue prodding at his lips for entrance into his mouth. Halbrand returned the kiss quickly, just as eager, opening his mouth for her and matching Galadriel’s fanatical movements with his own until they were an undulating bundle of limbs seeking limbs, lips catching lips, and tongues curling with one another.

Halbrand pulled off of her, tugging her with him until they were side by side on the cot. He pushed against her, turning Galadriel onto her side, and pressed up flush against her, his chest to her back, as his hand ran down the length of her body and caught the measly fabric at her hip to tug it off of her.

“Bend your legs,” he ordered, and Galadriel complied, pulling them up against her body in a fetal position to allow him to pull the undergarment down her thighs to her knees in front of her, and then down to her feet near her bottom. Once he freed her of the garment, Halbrand hooked his arm under her top leg and hoisted her higher against him, aligning their bodies together.

Galadriel felt his hardness against her bottom, and he had pulled her higher to where it fell between her legs. Her breathing deepened, her heart raced against it, but she spread her legs further instead of pushing him away. He curled his other arm beneath her body on the cot, circling it around to her neck. The weight of his hand heavy on her throat, gripping her, ushered an unbidden moan out of her lips as she arched her back into the grip, pressing her bottom further into his lap and her throat further into his hand. Halbrand growled at it, pulling Galadriel halfway onto his body to make the position more comfortable for both of them.

“Stop me,” he demanded, fervent with the request. “Tell me to stop, Galadriel. Tell me you don’t want this. Call me a beast or a liar or whatever else you want to say, but tell me to stop.”

“—No,” Galadriel breathed out, despite the hand squeezing lightly on her throat. “Please, Halbrand, I—”

He swore, a dark and ugly word in another language, before Galadriel felt the tip of him rubbing against her entrance, gathering slick upon it. Halbrand swore again, only this time it sounded more reverent as he tipped his head back, away from her—and then, the brutal thrust of him bottoming out inside of her in one swooping motion, so hard her vision blackened out and her belly felt so full, and a loud cry left her lips as his hand gripped her throat hard and his other arm curled underneath her leg and pulled it taut upward to keep her open for him.

Galadriel felt the foreign sensation of fabric being pushed into her mouth, and it took her a moment to realize it was her undergarment and Halbrand’s fingers stuffing it into her mouth. “I need you to be quiet, my love, unless you want the whole camp to hear us,” he whispered into her ear. “With this in your mouth, you can scream as loud as you want—”

He returned his hand to her leg, gripping her hard with both of them, for the other one had never left her throat—and demonstrated for her.

Halbrand used both grips on her to hold Galadriel in place while he drew back his hips and bottomed out inside of her again. She screamed, but it came out muffled—though it was not pain which drove her, but pleasure beyond anything she had expected of the position. With him on his side next to her and her on her back, her leg captured upward by his arm, it opened her to him in a such way she had not been able to previously envision. Her body arched itself in such a manner that they met in perfect union with each vicious thrust of him into her, shaking the entire cot. Somehow, he stroked a perfect part inside of her, and his hand fell to press into her hard right above where he sunk into her, over and over, all four fingers working to help her find release as his palm pushed down above them, adding so much pressure, too.

An overwhelming flood drowned all her senses with release after release, over and over in a vicious cycle, until her nerves were a trembling bundle of pleasure-soaked numbness—her mind, a peaceful, blank slate of pure white.

Galadriel fell limp in his arms, and she felt his hand liberate her neck long enough to tug the fabric out of her mouth and discard it, but the ruthless slap of his hips did not stop. He had not yet found his own release, and he sought it desperately, turning her head toward him and kissing her hard.

In a violent, churning swirl like the stormy waters of the Bay of Belfalas, the world around her melted away.

* * *

The high vaulted walls of Númenor’s throne room were but a distant memory to Galadriel, but she recognized the warmth of their colors, the gold and yellow aligned with teal blue, banners emblazoned across the hall. Candles burned high up in the circular chandelier above the throne itself, while braziers along the walls fed more fires for light.

However, the vast hall was empty, save for two beings walking along together. The first one ahead of the other, agitated steps marking his stroll. His peppered grey hair was instantly recognizable to Galadriel. Ar-Pharazôn in the flesh, alive again—and he halted in his steps, whirling around to face her.

It took Galadriel a moment to realize she was the second person—as if she was viewing a memory through their eyes.

“I want her head on a pike!” Ar-Pharazôn boomed out, his voice echoing throughout the great throne room.

“That will not get you want you want, Ar-Pharazôn,” an unfamiliar voice tried to reason with him. A deep voice, one Galadriel had never heard before. “I have been telling you—”

“—For weeks,” Ar-Pharazôn hissed. “I am sick of hearing it from you. You weren’t here! She’s the reason for all of this!” Ar-Pharazôn stormed up to her, getting in Galadriel’s face. She was taller than him—in the memory, but still, Ar-Pharazôn seemed to hold no fear for the person in front of him. “I want her dead—sacrificed, like the rest of them. You said their sacrifice would grant them immortality in the land where there is no death. Her sacrifice will show the people that even Elves are bound to the chains of this mortality. It should be a public display for all to see, not in your temple. That way there is no question of it. Afterwards, we will cut off her head and place it on a pedestal—for the whole city to see.”

Silence met him at first until the other person spoke up. “Respectfully speaking, Ar-Pharazôn, sacrificing the Elf will earn you and your people nothing. The gods care little for the Elves or their deaths here in this world. This is not the course of action you wish to—”

“—You dare to presume you know my course of action?” Ar-Pharazôn shot back coldly, narrowing his eyes.