Galadriel Part 7
"Galadriel!" A voice hissed through her wretched dreams of blood and fire, slapping her into wakefulness.
The last time she'd closed her eyes, fighting back tears at the terrible death of the boy Elladen, the torches down the prison corridor had been lit. Now, there were no flames, all heat and friendliness that had existed here had vanished with the flame.
Brydda was glimmering in the cell across from hers. Galadriel gasped. The light of the Eldar!
Groaning, she pulled herself up to her trembling legs and wove her fingers through any space the bars would allow. "Brydda!" She whispered. The total darkness was dizzying. This half-darkness, however, was sickening. The only sounds were the far off screams of other prisoners waiting for death and the air shivering inside of Galadriel.
"No, Brydda, no!"
"Do not weep, my dear Galadriel." Brydda whispered, his voice catching in his throat. But it was too late. Tears loved Galadriel, and they always came easy. They always had.
Calmly, the dying elf fit his hand through one of the bigger gaps between bone and root, and pushed his arm all the way through. Brydda's face was pressed against the thing that held him tight. His glowing hand reached out for her.
"No, please no. No no no no no no." Galadriel cried as she fought to stretch her hand out to meet him. To touch him that one last time.
His fingers were cold, near ice. Pain flickered in Galadriel's chest at the total coldness that was becoming Brydda. "Please." She whispered, sobs coming quick and not at all sparingly. "Brydda."
One moment, their hands were intertwined in the glowing light of the Eldar fading, warm and cold, bitterness the sharpest flavor, like blood on the tounge.
The next, total darkness swept in. The light of the Eldar was gone.
Galadriel couldn't tell if she was standing or sitting. Sleeping and waking were the same. She'd forgotten how long they'd been here, but now everything blended into one. The sharp walls of the square prison became blurred lines.
There was no joy, not any more.
In what could have been a thousand years or a million, Leader came and the goblin threw the burning sticks into the torched, and blazing light filled her world for the last time. Brydda stood, his arm through the gap where he'd reached out to touch her. That last time. The last time she'd ever be touched again.
Galadriel screamed. She didn't hold it back. Her hold world was wrenched from her by a vengeful orc. She opened up and just screamed.
She howled until her voice cracked, then even past, until her mouth filled with blood and her eyes filled with a red haze. Her scream faded into a coughing fit.
When she pulled her hand back from her mouth, in the dim light of fading torched were fire was about to give out, blood was spattered across her taut pale skin covering her thin, spindly fingers.
She stopped screaming then. When Galadriel tried to speak, her voice was but a crackle, and the words turned into coughing and hacking, and when she pulled her hand away she could feel the wetness of her blood sprawling over it.
"Shhh. Do not try to speak." A gentle voice whispered, and a light blinked on in her black world. Only it couldn't have been a real light because she wasn't illuminated herself. It was like the light was a phantom, because her darkness was still hers, still undisturbed.
Slowly, in the time that felt like an eternity, the blurry glowing mass took a shape. It was of modest height, not tall but not short either. Its silver robe billowed, as if a breeze was drifting, though nothing was disturbing the air. Silver hair formed up around its head, and a pale face with bright, soulful blue eyes peered out towards her. It became him. His hands were tangles together, resting over his stomach, his slightly-round cheeks squished in a sad smile, his perfect lips thin with worry.
"Celeborn?" Galadriel asked, though the name she hadn't spoken in so long made her lungs gasp and blood seep from between her lips.
"Shhh." Celeborn said again, and he untangled his hands. "Do not speak, Galadriel. Please, do not speak. I cannot bare to see you hurt." Tears that seemed so real glistened on his eyes.
Galadriel reached a trembling hand out to meet his. Gently, Celeborn's thick hand encased her thin one, as in death just as in life.
The glowing apparition was cold, the light of the Eldar surrounding him like a thick-woven blanket surrounds you. The distance between them shortened, though it took forever for Celeborn to be close enough to scoot her over. He sat against the wall and pulled Galadriel close. He smoothed the bloody and sweaty hair from her brow and whispered, his lips making Galadriel's skin crawl.
"I am not strong." Galadriel whispered. "I am dying, yet all I can think about it you."
Memories flashed back, of joy and love and passion, of Galadriel kissing him until his taste stopped blooming like a flower in her own mouth and instead turned into safety. Memories of falling asleep against him, and waking against him, his arms holding her close, his body keeping her warm, his love keeping her content and blissful.
"I missed you."
"Missed. As if you do not anymore." Galadriel pointed out, resting gently against him. She kept trying to convince her lungs to calm down and stop coughing, her blood to stop coming. Her body didn't obey, not this time.
"How can I miss you, if you came home to me, my darling?"
"What do you mean, home? I am nowhere near home."
"The home I speak of is not the home you think of." Celeborn replied simply. "It was the home we had before, before Middle Earth, before even that place across the seas. Home is truly that place before living, before existing. And you are coming home."
"What?" Galadriel couldn't make her brain see these things. She was hungry and thirsty and tired, oh so tired. "I am not close to home. I am so far away."
"Far from the forests where we loved last, yes." Celeborn nodded. "But you are closer to the end of living than you can possibly imagine."
"I'm…. going to die?" Galadriel asked, the last word ending with a sprout of blood, scarlet in the darkness.
"Yes. All men die, even elves." Celeborn replied, his voice gentle.
"I can't die, not here!"
"I died far from Lothlorien, where we loved, and yet I found my way home. Home to my lover and soon to our first child."
"Elrond!" Galadriel gasped. "He is an elven lord of the last of the third rings he will come next. My baby!" She wailed.
Her cry couldn't last long, because blood was always one step ahead, blossoming in her mouth, and Galadriel spat to get it out.
"Do not fret, my lover. Home is safer than you can imagine. It is warm there, and lovely, and there we feast every evening, and love every night, and awake in lover's arms each morning, and break out fast on the best berries and honeys. And there, everyone is friendly."
"Indeed." Another phantom became a glowing reality to Galadriel. Haldir's gentle features made Galadriel sigh for the friend she lost.
"My old friend." Galadriel spat the lake of blood near the wall, on the other side, where Celeborn wasn't sitting.
"Yes, home is all that Celeborn said and more. My lady, true friend, will be happy there, where all things are beautiful." Haldir smiled his easy smile, and stepped forward. He sat where she'd spit the blood, but he didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he just didn't care.
Galadriel suppressed a scream of fear when she saw her skin slowly beginning to glow. Celeborn held her tighter, Haldir placed a reassuring hand on her knee and scooted in closer, so their shoulders were touching.
"Do not fear, lover." Celeborn said.
"Yes." Haldir chimed in. "You shouldn't fear what comes next."
"Death is just another adventure." Brydda said, his ghost appearing in front of her and sitting, face to face, his hand whipping away the tears.
"One we must all take." Elladen's ghost looked terrified, but he took a place next to Celeborn, resting a hand on her head.
"The last, grand adventure." Thranduil said, sadly. He took the spot next to Haldir, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Galadriel closed her eyes, fading into the embrace of her family.
And she journeyed home.