A/N: Galadriel's thoughts in this may seem OOC, but she's been affected by the Ring - even in the books she showed a rather extreme reaction to it, so this is my extrapolation of what could have been.
She knows the whispers better than anyone else.
"The woods are cursed," they mutter. "Do not go into the Golden Woods, for they are inhabited by an elven witch of old," they say.
It is only the oldest and the wisest of mortals who try to quiet the stories. They know her well, know her benevolence well. The Rohirrim might pride themselves on their ability to survive anything, but the old ones know that many of their villages – the small ones, ones so often forgotten about – would never have survived their first drought had it not been for the aid of the famed elf-witch.
She has been their silent protector for eons longer than humans could conceive of. Of the elves that still remained on Middle-Earth, she is perhaps the only one who had been born under the light of the Two Trees. And yet, they find it necessary to curse her name every time they thought of her, to try and warn people – so often her own people, for the Númenóreans she considers to be more elvish than man – away from the woods of Lothlórien that would welcome and nurture them in a way that no other ever could.
The Ring dangles in front of her. The Ringbearer is weary – he does not have the energy to care for the world that needs him so desperately. All he has is enough to want to be free of its influence.
But neither does he have a cause for worry. The Halflings are a peaceful species who rarely care about the world outside the boundaries of their Shire and the town of Bree.
No, her wrath is limited to the humans and orcs.
She will have the Ring, and she will remake the world into a perfect one. She is, after all, the greatest of the elves who still remain in the mortal lands – Sauron is no match for her. Even as Annatar, he was never able to deceive her – she is now stronger than she ever was before, and it will be Sauron who will bow to her. The Lord of Mordor holds no power over her. She will be the mistress of it all, not him. It will be she who will rule from a throne made of nature's most verdant bounty.
All she needs to do is take one- more- step-
The Ring dangles, and waits. Soon the witch will come to it on her own, desperate for it even without the influence it had always needed to induce. All it needs to do is wait; just a little bit more.
She rises. She is Galadriel of Lothlórien, the greatest of the elves still in the mortal realm.
There will be none that can separate her from the Ring; that she knows as she wraps her fingers around it. Perhaps it would have worried her before – but now, now she is no longer simply Galadriel, but instead the witch she has been accused of being for so long.
Now, she is Galadriel. But this Galadriel is different – she is dazzling and mesmerizing, and greater than she ever was before. She is no longer Lady, but Queen.
Soon, she will become Queen in a way that even Sauron would not have understood. Soon, she will rule Middle-Earth.
If the Ring had a face, it would have smirked. The beginning of his plan has succeeded – it will not take it long before it returns to Mordor.
Galadriel's fingers close around the Ring. The Ringbearer's face clears of worry, and the world trembles.
A/N: I seem to have made the Ring into something like a Horcrux in this...
Anyhow. I hope you guys liked it! Please don't forget to drop a review on your way out - this is my first time writing for this fandom, and I'd love to know what you think! :)