Notes:
This story makes a few minor alterations; it is presumed that The Battle Under Trees took place around the same time Galadriel destroyed Sauron's fortress, and that it took place somewhat further north. This is primarily because I made the mistake of not checking that they were separate occurrences first and the story was already written that way by the time I did, but also because I happen to think it makes somewhat more sense regardless.
Galadriel's oath to Fingon is borrowed from 'The Nolde, or There and Back Again,' chapter five, by BarbaraKaterina. It is the only line borrowed from another fanwork, and full credit to the author. That story was the inspiration for this story, and it didn't feel right to leave that particular piece out when it quickly became the basic premise here. All other characterization here can be inferred from canonical sources.
I use both Quenya and Sindar names depending on where it felt appropriate; Galadriel speaks both fluently and her culture is heavily multilingual, so she switches fairly often depending on what she's speaking at a given moment, and which she's thinking in.
The shriek of Sauron's downfall could be heard all the way from Barad Dûr, and were it not enough to hear the Enemy dealt a blow so grievous to know that the Quest was indeed fulfilled, Galadriel would have known by the sudden fading of her influence from the forests around Lothlórien, and Nenya's abrupt silence.
In her heart, Galadriel knew that the last of the joy she had found on these shores was swift-departing, and with long practice she gave herself leave for a moment to grieve its passing, and the sorrow that would surely follow.
There was an intake of breath around her – her arandurë and Celeborn's vanguard, the latter in the midst of their return from the latest sortie against Dol Guldur's assaults. Those elves – Sindar and Sylvan, for few indeed of the Noldor remained in Middle Earth, and fewer with any taste for battle – were swiftly taken up by a fey energy. Their whispered voices of astonishment passed like the songs of insects and birds under leaves, filling the forest with their life and excitement.
She withheld her smile, for she knew hers would be too touched by irony and grim humor for them; they were so alike to those remaining at the coming of the Host of Wrath, not knowing what the next day might portend, and not wise enough to do more than guess.
Elves were, after all, seldom accustomed to true surprise, and even less accustomed to good news.
Celeborn, for his part, stared at her hard, seeing through the façade she put up for their people without even needing to touch her mind. His hands came up to cover her own, still and pale against the shining silver of his breastplate where she had been in the middle of refastening an errant strap.
"It is done?" he asked lowly, wary and afraid. He was Wise.
The forest would die, now. Something else would replace it. Many would depart for Aman. The age of Men would come. The world would no longer be welcome to their kind.
Their home. The community. The mallorn, and the dream they had built for themselves these long centuries amidst the fading of their people.
Lórien no longer. The Long Defeat was completed in both victory and sorrow. Her time was ended.
She didn't know how to count all these things beside the unnumbered other tears she had shed all these years. She didn't know how to answer.
"Yes," she whispered, finally, and bowed her head, overcome.
Celeborn pulled her close and touched his forehead to hers, his grief intermingling with her own in a new verse to the long lament of their lifetimes, and they listened to their people celebrate around them.
X_0_X
When he left, two days later, to join with Thranduil against the remainder of Dol Guldur's armies, Galadriel gave her own orders to her arandurë.
Iriel, the bravest of them in speaking up first, stared at her wide-eyed. "My Lady? You have never— the host has already departed!"
Galadriel smiled softly. "Armor, beloved. I have none of my own, but I am certain we have some that will serve."
"For what? My Lord will surely not, I mean," she swallowed nervously. "You do not mean to join him!"
Galadriel had never personally marched to war – never once in any age. Always prohibited, or else held back by her own better judgement. Old habits were difficult to break for some, and clearly her ladies struggled to imagine her armed and dangerous.
Galadriel continued working a brush through her hair – she would need assistance putting her long tresses into the necessary war-braids. "I do not, but I shall require protection all the same. If you could fetch my blade as well, Hwinirien? And Landis, make ready my mare. I shall have need of her."
Her ladies glanced between themselves, unsure, but loyalty quickly won out and they darted off to accomplish her tasks.
Iriel remained, small and silver-haired and perhaps the youngest of the lot – it was sometimes difficult for Galadriel to tell. Everyone was young compared to her.
"You are too tall for the reserve armor," her arandurë protested weakly. "You are absurd even for a Nolde."
Galadriel smiled. "I know, dear. Go and see what you can find." She fingered one of her tresses. "I will handle these."
"You'll let us help you when we return." The elleth's eyes shone a moment, before she covered them with her wrist. "If you must go, we'll array you as is proper."
Galadriel inclined her head, and she departed, leaving the Lady to her thoughts as she ran the comb up and down, again and again, perhaps for the last time twining her hair into the same braids she'd affixed on others – brothers, cousins, uncle; then nephews and grandchildren and the various children of her heart.
All to war, and death.
Celeborn had not needed them – his hair he kept loose and shining, though she chided him for it.
Her thoughts did not stray to him overmuch; he was more than equal to the orc host before him. He and Thranduil would make peace, and they would cleanse the forest of the filth that had infested it for too long. A dream shared between them, those last rulers who remembered Doriath unstained.
Her own battle lay ahead.
X_0_X
Long ago, even by the reckoning of elves, she made a promise to Findekáno, who had been to her the closest of friends, on a steep hillside in wind-swept Hithlum-that-was.
'I promise you,' she'd said. 'That unless all my wisdom tells me no one else can do the task, I will not put my life to unnecessary risks.'
In the wake of their victory, even as the news spread like wildfire among those who all knew what the death-cry of their Enemy betokened, she had felt on the periphery of her senses an aberration – at once familiar, and utterly strange.
Familiar, because she could never forget one she had hated with such perfect purity for so long.
Strange, because she had never countenanced such weakness in him, not even in the throes of his previous ruin.
My wisdom may no longer sway me, my friend, she thought regretfully. Should I not do this thing, I could never allow myself to leave these shores, even were my ban lifted, and I would fade.
She would fade regardless, but that would come later.
And truly, I believe I am the only one left who is capable. My work, at least, shall not be unfinished.
She bade her arandurë farewell at the edge of the forest, feeling already the chill stealing into what had previously been a place of tranquility. Lothlórien would always retain some of its beauty, but already, mere days deprived of Nenya's protection, some of that timeless serenity had begun to fade.
It was another open wound on her mangled soul, and it was only the fierce devotion of her handmaids as they bade her farewell that kept her from openly weeping as she left its shadowed boughs perhaps for the last time.
She had seen too many homes fall to time and ruin.
Now she rode her mare hard toward what had once been Amon Lanc – one of the few cities of the elves she had never had the privilege to see at its height before its corruption and downfall.
Even in the space of the scant years since she had last trod its defiled grounds with the others of the White Council, it had become more decrepit; orcs did not have masons, and years of their uncareful management had left the mixed Sindar-Silvan architecture to rot and crumble and sag at the foundations.
Shot through with a pockmark of orc-holes and burrows, each further undermining much of the fortress, it was a wonder the edifice had not collapsed under its own weight by now. There was more than enough weight to do it – rising high above the shaded eaves of Mirkwood, its towers and great, watchful spire loomed tall and fell.
It was wholly unnatural. The touch of Sauron was rank upon the land around it, like a festering rot not yet expunged by time and fire.
These things ran through Galadriel's thoughts as she rode under the trees, her mare swift and sure-footed among the tangled roots.
Amon Lanc had once been a city – capital of the Elven Realm of Greenwood. She remembered the trade of fine woods and sweet wines that they gave for jewels and metalwork from Hollin in its heyday. Though she and the rest of the Noldor had the enmity of its King Oropher, he had not been so suspicious that he would turn his nose up at outsiders for mere spite, and his city had been proud to match its ruler.
Many ruins of that pride were to be found around the fortress proper, but they were pitiful things now, remainders raided for building material to shore up and prop and burn and clear.
A vast camp encircled the hill's base, nearly deserted. The inhabitants fled to safer holes perhaps, with the death of their master, or else dying with the host in the north.
The few remaining guards fled at the sight of her.
A mind touched hers, and though she felt further wearied by further evidence of elven ruin, she smiled.
You came.
You called, it responded.
Galadriel dismounted at the foot of the fortress and rubbed the nose of her mount, whispering comforting words into her ears; the poor beast was uncomfortable here – the trees were hostile, and corruption hung rank in the air, such that even the meanest kelvar could have felt it.
"Return to the open sky," Galadriel told her. "I will find you when I am finished here."
The mare whickered and nodded her great, dove-grey head and turned to canter off, leaving Galadriel in enemy territory.
X_0_X
She found him at the foot of a great, warped oak tree, loitering beneath one of its sagging bowers in the evening light. His eyes found hers with the clear sight of the Firstborn, glinting with hallowed light rare indeed in later days.
"Makalaurë."
"Nerwen."
Galadriel smiled tiredly at the son of Fëanor.
If she had not known him from the start, she might have mistaken him for a simple Man, if a tall one. Shrouded by a grey, travel-worn cloak, he looked like any number of the straggling wanderers one could find on the road. Only his armor would betray him on a closer inspection; salt-stained and cobbled together piecemeal from mannish sources, it was still of excellent quality and well-fitted to his slender form.
At his waist rested a sword, sheathed with neither ornamentation or insignia to mark its wielder as anything but an itinerant traveler. In his unburnt hand, he carried a harp, and at his feet lay a well-tended case for keeping it from the elements.
His dark hair was shot through with grey, and there were lines on his face Galadriel did not recognize from the last time they'd spoken, so many years ago.
He gestured to her gear. "I don't think I've ever seen you girt for battle. I believe our family would weep to know their last daughter walks with Sindarin armament."
"Nobody alive has, save Celeborn," Galadriel replied wryly. The Quenya was familiar on her lips. "He had armor commissioned for me while Hollin stood, just in case. Proper Noldor craftsmanship. I left it when we fled the city, and it was lost in the fall."
She tried, and likely failed, to hide the faintest note of bitterness, for Maglor's answering smile was bleak and understanding.
"You must have been terrible to behold indeed. Tyelpë's reputation in many ways outpaces my father's in these days. Shame you never commissioned a new set. I'd have liked to see it."
"My city and your nephew fell to Annatar," she said, and she brandished Nenya; his eyes lit on it with familiarity and sorrow. "And with it took most of our remaining craft. None remain who can recall their skill."
His thumb ran along the embossed metal of his harp. "Sounds familiar. I am minded to give him the gift of death this day. Too many has he wronged."
"Ingoldo." The names came to her lips, dredged from too-old memories, tainted by poorly healed pain. "Maitimo. Lúthien… too many more. All those of my people I could not save. All those who perished by his actions as Moringotto's servant."
Maglor nodded grimly. "Morgoth is beyond our reach. I will take his servant's tattered shade as acceptable leavings."
He gestured to the ruin. "He is here? You're sure?"
His presence stained the world around them. "Yes."
"He will run when we confront him."
Galadriel shook her head. "He is shattered by the destruction of his ring, and too much of his remaining strength is invested in this last fortress."
He had spent an age convalescing here, a bare day's ride from her, gathering his strength under her nose. It was an insult to her pride, and the shame of permitting him that time to recuperate would haunt her until the end of days.
"It is tied to him," she continued. "And he to it. If he abandons this place, then he will never recover, for I will throw down this place in ruin and leave him with but the barest tatters of power. His only hope is to defend and kill us both before we may do him worse harm. We are the only two remaining who have a chance of purifying the land of his corruption once the Istari depart."
"You place a lot of stock in my strength," Maglor said with a wry, ironic smile. He held up the hand not holding his harp – under several careful wrappings, she could see the edges of skin still blackened and oozing discolored fluid. "I am afraid that time has not been so kind to me. I'm hardly pure myself."
That was disgusting. Galadriel glared at him. "Why have you not at least cleaned that in all this time?"
"Why would I?" he flexed his fingers and some of the black split and wept anew. "An entire age, and still it's never gotten infected. I only keep it wrapped so I don't scare the locals."
Galadriel felt her gorge threaten to rise – she would do her best to see that wound healed if they survived this, the pain must have been terrible – but for now, she put it aside.
"You have seen the light of Aman." She reminded him harshly. "And you have fought plenty evils on these shores. His strength is broken already. It will be enough here."
Maglor laughed.
"I hurled that hallowed light into the sea – good riddance! – and there have been fewer more fell evils to contend with than my own poor decisions," he said, wiping his face with irony. "But I take your meaning. I have retained my voice, and my ability to swing a blade is not in question. That is what matters here in the end, and that much, you shall have of me."
Galadriel hesitated, and then nodded. It would do. "Then you are ready?"
"After you, Lady."
They encountered few enough orcs on their way into the ruined fortress. Those that did not flee at the sight of them were easily dispatched – Maglor had not lied, he remained a formidable fighter indeed, and though she was untried in true battle, she'd never permitted herself to slack in the training ring, lest the day finally come that she was forced to defend her own life with steel in hand.
She took the lead, her bright presence unfurling to fill the ruin around her, searing away some of the clinging murk that seeped up through the ruined cobblestones, the light and fire within her clear and white in the clinging shadow.
Maglor kept his blade at rest and instead plucked the wire strings of his harp, humming a counter-melody that put her mind to the waves on western shores, brine, and sea-gulls on the breeze. All things furthest thing from this place.
All the while, she kept her mind open, hunting for her prey.
She knew his mind. She had felt it for so many centuries in this place, so near to her home it was its own kind of affront. He was here, now, and she could feel his malice, his weakness, and the fear he tried ever so hard to conceal from her.
Where are you, Gorthaur? You know that I will tear this wretched place down if you do not stand in my way. Are you so much of a coward that you will finally flee when I stand before you?
Maglor idly kicked a loose stone, and its clatter interrupted his melody while his eyes roamed the ruin, a step behind her.
Look here! She projected her thoughts outward. Two who have seen the Light which you forsook, wearied by time, as weak as you could hope to see us this side of the sea!
"I do not believe he will take such a bait, cousin," Maglor commented drily.
She wasn't so sure. She felt Sauron's vexation; he was too mobile, the greatest cloud of him in her mind constantly moving from one part of the fortress to the next.
"I have other means," she said. "This way, there will be space up ahead."
"That you have somewhere in mind, I hope, means you also have a plan in mind."
"When have I ever lacked a plan?"
Galadriel led them to what had been the fortress' outer courtyard, feeling the eyes of the Enemy on her.
Once, high walls had protected Dol Guldur and its inner sanctums, making it impregnable to any but the most determined siege. Elven troops would have trained here in this wide yard – either drilling for the infantry, or a range set up for the archers to practice their marksmanship. To their left loomed doors to the keep, and the fortress' pinnacle where keen eyes could see beyond the forest's edge for any intrusion in the realm.
She remembered when fire lit the top of that great tower, a beacon for communicating across distance, marking one of elvenkind's final bastions against the Shadow.
No army had broken this place though; only the creep of time and slow depopulation.
One side of the yard slumped at an angle. The lamps flickered weakly with rank, orange flame where they were lit at all; orcish occupation left its mark in clinging mud and slime and scattered weaponry of crude pig-iron.
It was open space, though, and near enough to the center of the fortress for her purpose.
Galadriel allowed her senses to expand as far as she could manage, encompassing beyond to the forest's edge.
She searched, prying into every nook, every crevice.
Under every rock, each root.
Where…
Galadriel inhaled sharply.
There.
His cruel voice sneered into her mind. Who are you, to sneak like a thief in another's home without leave from its Master?
X_0_X
"Sauron," Galadriel said aloud, warning coloring her voice for Maglor's benefit.
Wretched Elf-Witch, the shade said coldly. Do you not know when you are not welcome? Has not three ages and the antipathy of the Valar taught you how unwelcome your presence is, how loathsome your counsel, how clouded your sight? Begone from my home! Leave me be!
Galadriel was unimpressed.
I come not as thief but vanquisher, she declared. Face us or I will tear your home down to its foundations and leave you smothering beneath the ruins.
The shade snarled. Lessened is the courtesy of elves, and especially of their Lady! Vagrancy has left ye reduced, Artanis. Does the scion and pride of Finarfin stand in my home, or a wretch, grubbing for one last trace of reputation and power? I demand again, begone from my home!
Galadriel drew her blade from its sheathe and began gathering her strength to her. Beside her, Maglor made ready and put some distance between himself and her, feeling the bright flame that was the birthright of the Noldor beginning to blaze beyond her skin, expanding to fill the yard with white light.
Your courtesy is worthless, she said. Come!
And she put forth her power, and it sprung out from her as a bright flame and a flood alike, and instantly began to eat away at the corruption afflicting that fell place.
She felt Sauron's rage. A howl split the silent air – a foul wolf-sound – setting it a-trembling. She and Maglor winced as one as the sound settled deep in their bones, telling them to run, to flee, to shelter in holes and hope they had escaped.
She threw off the effect first, and pressed her power further. As a white flame it began to engulf the walls of the fortress, and soon enough cracks began to thread their way through stone and the first bricks began to fall.
COME, SAURON! She roared, the command nearly audible as it rang through the skein and soul of Arda. COME, DECEIVER! COME AND FACE YOUR DEMISE!
The world held its breath, and then the black shade of Sauron appeared before them.
The fallen Maiar chose the form of a giant, tall yet bent, reeking, and dripping miasmic shadow. In one hand he dragged a defiled steel mace, in the other a blacksmith's hammer, though only awkwardly, for he was missing several fingers from that hand, and they bled black-bright blood that sizzled on the cobblestones. His eyes burned like a brand, like molten metal in the crucible, a lone flame of uttermost hatred in a face marred.
They stood in silence for a moment, enemies assessing each other. They, seeing his weakness and broken form, and he their tattered, weary souls.
A flicker of disquiet entered her heart. Once, this confrontation would have been little more than an execution, but she was brought low from the days of her power's height. Though the fires of her spirit still burned fierce and bright, they were undoubtedly diminished.
Galadriel thought of Finrod, then, and the tale of how he stood before the lieutenant of Morgoth in his own fortress in an orcish disguise, and remained unswayed by his attention, unbowed by his malice.
She thought of what her brother might think if he saw her now, repeating his doom, and in the depths of her mind murmured a soft apology for taking so many years to avenge him.
Then, the storm.
Sauron withdrew the hammer into his cloak of shadow and freed his hand to take up his great mace, and that cloak hardened into thick plates of armor in an instant.
He then roared, the sound a physical blast that sent them reeling for a moment. Wretched elves, meddlers, usurpers – DIE!
And he charged.
Galadriel tensed – little had she expected that the first foe she would meet in open combat would be as such – and then forced her body into motion.
She did not meet him in a clash of weapons, for even diminished, his power would break her if she stood to meet it. Instead, she danced beside the strike and with a blinding flash of sparks drove the edge of her blade against the black plate and followed the momentum through when it turned aside.
Maglor, backing steadily away from the confrontation, raised his voice and began to sing.
Feeling the hair on her neck prickle, Galadriel hurled herself forward to avoid the complete arc of Sauron's swing, the fallen Maiar rotating to meet her with the steady momentum of mountains.
The yard shuddered and imploded where he slammed his weapon into the ground where she'd stood moments before, chips of stone flying and clinking against his armor.
She rolled back to her feet and twisted to meet Sauron's advance, but then he drew on more of his sorcery to summon orbs of hungry flame. Almost lazily, and yet with patient cruelty, he used them to herd her further backwards against one of the high walls of the yard.
Though she burned to take the offensive, she was forced to retreat, lest she be struck and set ablaze.
Maglor, ignored by their enemy thus far, continued to sing, and as he sang his song began to gain shape and power, such that would inspire the valor of Noldor legions in the Wars of Beleriand of old, and it rose above the clamor and din of Sauron's advance and Galadriel's wary prodding jabs.
And as soon as she paid it heed and allowed the song to penetrate and feed the flame of her spirit, she recognized if for the opening themes of the Noldolantë.
Her retreat ceased, and for a moment it seemed that Sauron hesitated as her spine straightened, and her eyes glinted, and she seemed to become altogether more.
Sung by elves who had born witness to some of its length, the Fall of the Noldor was enough to drive many who heard it to tears; sung by those who had seen the light of Aman and knew the depth of their loss, its sorrow was crippling.
Sung by Maglor its author, to Galadriel, who had seen all of it in its every note, from its beginning to its end, it recalled days of glory and grief, power and perversion – it plucked at the strings of her soul and set a wildfire in her blood, fury unending to avenge her people brought so low.
He sang of Aman,
Of Tirion on Tuna,
And the light of the Eldar
And the Trees in their beauty,
And the works of their fathers
And the children begot there,
The bliss everlasting
In the lands where undying
The Valar reigned justly
And Melkor was chained.
Galadriel felt the flame of her spirit respond, brightening and scattering the fume and shadow cast off by Sauron, spreading renewed to the edges of the courtyard where it began to gnaw at the shadows twining stone to stone, and then further.
She felt blinked and saw the memories playing before her eyes – a warm light of gold and silver that soothed and promised and sang, as though itself was the will of the One imbued in the stuff of Eä.
She saw the light. Tasted the blood and ash and ice. Heard the shouts of victory and loss. Felt her tears hot under her fingers where she wiped them away.
She remembered, and her soul responded.
Sauron raised his weapon and Galadriel grinned, feral and slightly mad, and launched herself at her enemy, a fey recklessness taking her.
Sauron laughed and warded her strikes away with his mace.
Run! Run, you pathetic children! Your songs and swordplay are nothing to one who has heard the theme of the True King!
He was slower, as the recollection of his master's imprisonment – recounted in the Days of Bliss in Maglor's song – beat down upon him, but as Galadriel rolled out of the way of another bolt, a piercing whine of utter discord burst from Sauron like the sound of something tortured – warped and echoing through the crude iron of his helm.
It cut through Maglor's themes like true steel through cheesecloth, and the stones trembled as Sauron put forth his might and Power,
Singing of twilight and bliss that was stained,
Of Manwë, fool-king who unchained
His Enemy, and let him go free,
To Marr that which the Valar had made,
And lead the Firstborn astray
To death and mortality and pain,
To Endorë, and Shadow
Maglor staggered as though Sauron had smote him, and his voice cracked mid-verse – scars of salt rejecting the verse he could sing unending, his soul rebelling at the memory of his family's fall. His power hung in the air still, smothered but not extinguished by the discord.
Galadriel touched his mind with hers and brushed away the despair clouding his thoughts.
This fight we must fight! Stand, Fëanorion. Sing, Makalaurë!
Sauron, uncaring, stalked closer and continued singing,
Of Fëanor and his cunning,
Of his pride and of his smithing,
Born of Finwë, equally wanting
As king and as a father,
Who damned his children to strife,
At the cost of his own life
And birthed the Noldor's Bane:
Fëanorion
Silmarillion.
Maglor quailed, memories assaulting him, and Galadriel was hard-pressed to keep his strength from deserting him wholly as shame ran as wildfire through him. His spirit longed desperately to abandon the body that had carried it so long, from hardship to hardship, and return to the Halls where sleep was true rest and he could let go these mortal cares.
Not yet, she whispered, her own voice straining as she fled before Sauron's wrath. Not yet!
The fallen Maiar sang on, his discord taking its own, clamoring shape, wrenched in order by a tongue that had forgotten song and beauty:
Sang of brother turned on brother,
Of bliss turned to disorder,
Of blades in forges smithied,
Hoarded, sharpened, readied,
Their edges keen and seeming,
In the light of Trees a-gleaming,
Like firelight a-glowing,
And as hatred ever growing.
I can't, Nerwen, Maglor sobbed. I can't!
Sang of fell Oaths that were taken,
By sons, their pride unvaliant,
To foul deeds them awaken,
Against those who stood defiant.
Their quest would be unbending,
Their hatred e'er burning,
And it turned them from the light,
For it was kin first that they'd fight;
The quest now led by fools,
And the blood that ran in pools,
On the docks of Valimar
Where the Noldor were come to war
And then Fëanor, he razed, condemned
His sons to a bitter end
And was taken by the Dark.
And Maglor cried out, a sharp, broken sound, and fell on his harp and did not rise.
Galadriel felt the sharp bite of his grief in her mind before she withdrew; overwhelming in its intensity, she could not stand it.
She had her own bitterness, it was true, but she had never joined in the kinslayings. She knew not that evil and did not fall before the verse.
Sauron laughed horribly and smote the ground again, she just barely ahead of him. You withered things; it is so easy to break you. What will it take for you, Artanis? What darkness blights your tattered spirit? Will your fair face blacken as well as his hand? Will you cry your pretty tears? Beg? Plead? I will catch you soon enough, and then we shall discover the answers together.
Galadriel ignored him and rammed her blade into a crevice in his armor. It closed before true damage could be done, and she leapt away, fast as Nessa's hinds, before her foe could capitalize.
She felt her breath come fast and sharp, perspiration building on her brow as heat built beneath her armor.
This wasn't working, she reflected, backing away steadily. She could not count on fury alone to sustain her, not in close quarters. The expanding ring of her fire still seared and gnawed at Sauron's essence, scattered as it was, but that would not be enough to defeat him.
No, it had to be more.
She took up the song.
Her voice rang through the ruins like the bells of Tirion, fair and loud and clear and swift, yet more fell, more proud, laden with the Doom that was her inheritance:
She sang of journeys near,
And journeys far,
Over ice, and over plain,
Over ocean, in the rains,
To Endorë! where they would war;
Of family split, fellows torn,
In mortal lands, their spirits worn,
Of many who did not survive,
Eldalië! A hornet's hive,
Rose in wrath against their foe,
To Endorë! To lay him low.
Do you think you will break me with your voice, Artanis? Sauron sneered. You are less than the Fëanorion. Your tricks and spells shall not avail you against one such as me.
Sauron's form flickered suddenly; rippled, then shifted into a form that was familiar, and yet a stranger.
"Artanis," the face of Ingoldo, her brother, whispered soft and sorrowful.
The pain that lanced through her breast was keen and terrible; had Sauron struck her with that mace she would not have staggered more, for she had not seen the face of her brother for an age and longer… not since the days of the War and the heights of the Noldor… not since before he left to fulfill his oath, and was made captive and killed in his own tower…
…Ah! It hurt, the old wound never healed, always weeping like poor Maglor's hand!
She wavered a long moment, bright tears filling her eyes, and yet…
Galadriel inhaled, and blinked hard. Shook her head, and saw clearly through the illusion of grief and nostalgia.
Ingoldo smiled crookedly, his fair face made twisted and ugly by blackened pustules of rime and rot and weeping burns. His teeth were shattered, yellow and ill-fit in a warped mouth, his eyes piercing and hellish.
He drew his sword on her, and Galadriel raised hers.
My brother resides in bliss in Valimar, Shade, she hissed, and took up her song anew as they threw themselves at each other, singing proudly:
Of battles and of shining mail,
The orcish hordes, their strength yet frail,
Beneath the sun – anew she rose! –
'Neath Arien! The Shadow knows
His fears take shape, his servants rail,
And yet always their efforts fail;
By elvish steel his armies break
And flee before the angry quake
Of Noldor boots upon the shores
Of Endorë! They heard the horns!
Makalaurë, she whispered frantic between the clatter of blade on blade. Makalaurë, I need you. Take up your harp!
She and Sauron clashed together, the flame of her power beating against his cloak of shadow, and where they met there was fume and ember, flame and light.
Unlike before, where she was too fast to hit, and he too strong to harm, they were matched now. Each strike carried the potential to determine the remainder of the fight.
It was a familiar dance, the kind she had practiced longer than mortal lifetimes. And yet Sauron was equally strong, equally skilled. And neither touched the other even as they wove a net of steel around them.
That was, until beneath the pounding notes of her song, Sauron faltered briefly, and Galadriel felt a burst of renewed fury and recklessness. She pressed him harder, feeling the creak of their blades against each other, and laughed gaily into his mind.
Why did you never kindle into a Balrog, Gorthaur? I can see the hate in your eyes; the Flame which never took root. She mocked him. Did you think you might be able to build a realm of your own in the ruins and ashes of your master? Was that your dream? Were you so naïve?
Ingolfin's stolen face twisted in loathing.
Galadriel smiled cruelly and twisted her blade. Or did he think you would be too worthless a warrior to spend as a captain – Lieutenant! Master of Angband! Ha! Regent and supply rat are you! Last to battle and first to flee!
Sauron's eyes flared and the black cleft of his mouth split wide in a shout.
WRETCH!
The blast of power threw Galadriel from her feet and broke her from her singing.
She landed on cobblestones that shook and trembled beneath her and rolled to her knees in time to raise her guard in defense as Sauron's blade came down in a murderous overhead.
She looked up to meet him and reeled – he wore the guise of Findekáno now, grinning and terrible in death, skull smashed and sloughing where an orc foot had smashed it into the mud, the golden wire in his hair askew and tarnished, his armor tattered and skin flayed, seared black and red where the whips of balrogs kept him restrained.
Her blade creaked as Findekáno's two-hander came down upon it. Dents and nicks in the edge that should never have fouled elvish steel marred it, though, and it failed to cleave through and slay her where she stood.
A bloodied tongue emerged to slake Sauron's foul lips,
And who are you to speak of cowardice? You, who fled every field; ducked every responsibility; abandoned every realm.
And he took up his song:
Pride there dealt them blows so just:
Ground their kings into the dust!
Fëanaro Cruel! We laid him low!
Nolofinwë Bright! A debt he owes
To followers and all those who vowed
To all be loyal, to stay uncowed
'Gainst enemy and Shadow fell
In mountain, plain, and darkened dell!
He left them here, on mortal shores
To fruitless quests! To harsh labors!
Curse those kings! Their crowns are torn
From bloodied hands, their price to mourn!
Galadriel slowly pushed back against her enemy, pushed her aching knees until she no longer knelt before him.
She sang, pressing her power back against his:
There realms arose in memory,
Of Tirion and Elvenhome,
On mortal shores do we tarry,
Who were condemned and Doomed to roam!
We fought the Shadow, brought the Light,
Of hope to all who were bound to fight:
To Sindar and to Dwarvish lands
And Men to come: their hearts and hands
Were turned to good, and from them came
Descendants like the falling rain,
As was foretold, before the Light
Of stars was kindled and Ainur bright
Were come to Arda yet unmarred –
As Eru spoke! The fight was hard!
Yet fought we did and took the gates,
A watch was set, the foe was late
To stop us from making our home
In Endorë, where we did roam!
And she pressed her power further, drawing on hate and pain and memory and defiance in the face of evil, and the fortress began to crumble beneath their feet, Power pitted against Power too much for them as Sauron poured more and more of himself into the fight and she fought tooth and nail to match him.
Of a sudden, Sauron drew too deeply, and it was too much, and there was a sound of a thousand things breaking at once.
The watchtower pinnacle trembled, split and fell. The tall walls crumbled. The hill itself wept and groaned as, in one sharp snap, the back half of the fortress crumbled away in a landslide that took hundreds of trees with it on the forest floor, raising a cloying cloud of dust in its wake.
Galadriel never ceased whispering to the fallen Fëanorion, even as she strove with her voice to match Sauron.
She reminded him of the good that he wrought in the world while it lasted; of the songs of valor and wisdom he had composed of yore. Of spirits lifted and smiles bidden. Of his nephew and his adopted sons, one of whom even now remained on this shore.
Rise, Makalaure! Rise, Kanafinwë! If you would defend this land for your son, if you would see it safe for your grandchildren and the people of Arda you have wronged, rise!
Maglor groaned and lifted his head, and she saw the devastation writ on his features, the despair in his eyes.
It is too late! He whispered, shattered spirit flayed and sputtering. I failed, and he will sail. Flight is our only defense against the shadow! All else is folly!
Galadriel deflected a strike from Sauron and, growling in fury, leapt forward and drew a long scratch across his ribcage, splitting brigandine and mail alike.
Sauron attempted to revenge himself, but her power flared and she threw him back.
She turned to the fallen elf and raised her blade with a shaking arm, bright with the blood of the Maiar.
"Makalaurë Fëanorion!" She commanded, her voice the toll of bells and heavy with the weight of Doom. "Arise! Remember Aman! Remember hope! Arise! Arise, and avenge your family!"
She felt memories bright burn through the cloying dark of Sauron's spell, and Maglor's lungs suck in sharp.
A good thing, for Sauron was back on her a moment later.
As Maglor recollected himself, Sauron pressed his advantage against Galadriel – at one moment he was Findekáno with his two-hander and swift blows, then he was Nolofinwë with his trampled, torn banner in one hand and an orc's wicked cleaver in the other.
Then Turukano, his spear bent and a dirge on his lips.
Then Itarillë, who Galadriel had never known to touch a weapon, her smiling face cruel and wretched, eyes dark and abhorrent, her hands closed tight around a pair of bloodstained knives.
Faces and voices of people she had once known, all of whom were gone – fallen to shadow or away into the Shining West beyond the sea. Gone where she could not follow.
As Maglor rejoined the battle, Sauron whirled and accepted a deep cut across his shoulders to face the Fëanorion in the guise of Maitimo.
You should have joined me, Brother, Sauron wailed, inhuman and shrill. Threw yourself into the sea with the jewel! I am alone! Alone in Mandos without you! Selfish! Coward! Faithless!
It seemed for a moment that Maglor would shatter – that the voice of his eldest brother, the last of his family to stand by him and the last, too, to desert him to death and darkness, would splinter his spirit, and he would flee mortal pain and woe for the Halls.
A moment, but a moment only, for then rage kindled in his eyes and his visage twisted, and Maglor son of Fëanor howled and leapt on Sauron with the stored fury of the last and meanest of the Noldor.
Sauron gave ground and was forced to turn to fight both Noldor at once, Maglor having abandoned his harp for his blade, Galadriel with her own stained with his blood.
Before their flames combined the darkness trembled and bled, and Dol Guldur continued to disintegrate.
"How dare you defile the face of my family with your filth, Sauron?" Maglor snarled as their foe continued to test new mockeries of their loved ones.
Sauron sneered with the face of one of the Ambarussar, too warped to distinguish which he intended. You've fixed your tongue, I see. I wonder if your pathetic kin still mangle my name in the Void, clinging to the past as is their wont. 'Father! Father! Thauron is come! Thauron is in my dreams! Thauron killed Tyelpë! He thtole hith ringth!'
He grinned horribly, and it was Fëanor's face.
'Father! Father! Grandmother didn't love you enough to thtay faithful!'
"Shut the fuck up, you—"
Sing, Makalaurë! Galadriel snapped.
And he did, though this time, despite Sauron's retreat in the face of their combined assault, he retained the mastery of the verse, intoning loud and cruel as the Noldolantë began to find its depths:
The gasping plain, the earthen parch
And orcish trench, their hosts did march
Before the doors, yet pride! It cost
Them victory, the field they lost
And tears unnumbered there they shed
And friends abandoned, for there they fled!
Galadriel burned, soul aflame, and they pressed Sauron out of the yard.
Burned, for that battle had broken them – broken their spirits, broken their pride, broke their numbers and so many of their realms… it taught them the folly of their ambitions, and taught them fear, and true grief, after the Ice… and she lost her closest friend besides in Findekáno.
It had been in that battle that her friend reminded her for the last time of her oath, and her duty to survive and carry her wisdom to those who would follow him. She was chained to life, condemned to live and watch all around her wither away…
The song took her sorrow and magnified it. It fed her flame, made it fierce and hot.
Dol Guldur shuddered, and more of the ancient stone crumbled as more power was ripped from it to feed Sauron's guttering shadow.
As the Noldolantë began to near its climax, their foe attempted to head them off.
Will you call on your pretty lights? Your shining queen? He laughed, rocking them back with a wide sweep of a lance. She has forsaken you, for all your pride. All Valar have, for they fear pain, and stain, and Arda is a world of pain and stains. They will not bestir themselves from their tall mountain hideaways and their white beaches! Not for you! Not anymore!
They came for us before, Galadriel countered.
Once and once only! You squandered your chance in your pride and folly, and Numenorë only sealed it. A face… not unlike Elros's, but this one seemed made for cruelty. Think you that they knew not what I was doing? I could have spit and hit Tol Eressëa.
Then Celebrian's face, stained and ruined, grinned at her with eyes bright and feverish. They did not save your daughter, she croaked. Can you look at your gods and see ought but those who abandoned your innocent children to your Doom?
Galadriel faltered and Sauron's blade opened a gash in her arm which bled freely, staining the silver-white of her armor in crimson.
They took your best. Your warriors. Your scholars. They left this world. They knew that I remained. How could they not? I was His chief servant. Party to all His plans. Highest in His regard. It was by their leave that I gained supremacy over this blighted earth. It was by their leave that your realms were allowed to fall.
He forced Maglor back.
Eregion.
Slammed his blade against hers, knocked it wide.
Hollin.
Cut across her face; shining locks of hair went tumbling, and her war-braids loosened, hanging free and lank.
Lindon.
Forced her back when she rallied.
Numenorë.
Forced her to give ground.
Arnor.
Galadriel held.
I took them all, Sauron grinned, and it was her face she stared at now – a face beautiful and terrible, the face of a Queen unopposed. They don't care. They do not care, Nerwen Arafinwiel. What is your freedom worth, when they knew you would die? When they allowed me to roam? When my power is so much greater?
Maglor rallied and slammed into Sauron's side, striking at armor that appeared from smoke, yet still drawing blood and hobbling the Maiar at the knee.
Sauron's eyes remained hungry, demanding something she would not, could not give. I was unaccounted for, and they are not fools. Will you not see? Why do you not turn away from them? Why?!
She pushed him away and took a moment to breathe hard through her nose. Fatigue was beginning to weigh on her, though not nearly as much as his words weighed on her soul.
Why indeed? She knew not the answers to such questions; the Valar kept their own counsel, and she was far from their grace. Why did they not think to hunt down the last of Morgoth's servants, or at least the greatest of them? Why did they allow such suffering to exist for so long, within their sight? Why condemn the innocent to the mistakes of their forbears?
Did they care? Or had her people truly alienated themselves in their eyes?
She didn't know. She didn't know, and not knowing was another wound on her soul, another chain binding her to this place.
Nevertheless. She breathed. She rallied. She raised her blade once more.
I believe… because I remember the days of bliss, and I remember who marred them… and it was not the Valar… and not truly us, she said, and then sang:
From Sirion, from Havens rent
By treachery, the message went
Carried half by elf and half by man
and crossed the sea, and there began
Reprisal by the warrior's path:
The Valar and their kindled wrath
Came down upon the shadow great,
And broke its might, though they were late
To save the realms and elven-lost
And lands and waters that we crossed,
And though we mourn them to this day
We still remember, ever staid,
that still they came with blade and spear
And host of light, fair without peer;
And 'fore them did all evil cleave,
The ocean frothed, the earth did heave
And darkness fell and dawn still came
Eldalië! Endorë they saved!
And her voice rose over Sauron's discord, and for a brief moment wherein greatest triumph mingled with the bitterest defeat she and her people had ever known, their themes were suddenly united as Galadriel took his discord and wove it into her song.
The Fall was no simple tragedy, nor an unstained lay of valor. It had both joy and sorrow, beauty and ruin, and without both it was incomplete.
Their pride and their fall were theirs, not his, and she took his verse and the pain of her heart and wove it back into the story of her people and it was beautiful and terrible and tangible like the touch of Eru the One manifest in Arda.
Sauron reeled and lost his voice beneath hers.
Maglor wondered at first, but quickly caught on and raised his voice to join hers, and his voice was gold and silver and light, and the fires of his spirit were in it.
She touched his mind, and felt there the grief and pain, and how he endeavored not to be crippled by it, but rather to turn it back against Sauron.
We are damned, he said.
Though the path to Aman be closed, I would save this land and slay this monster regardless, she declared.
Aye. And then, aloud, he cried, "Utúlie'n aurë! Auta i lómë!"
And they charged one last time.
They boxed Sauron in between them with their renewed assault. Galadriel felt around herself a towering white flame, guttering like her tattered spirit, yet still fierce and bright and proud as she withdrew the fires run rampant on the fortress and focused them upon the form of the Enemy.
Sauron screamed as they burned him, and drew more power from his sanctuary, and it was too much for the fortress to take.
Finally, the foundations began to shudder and break beneath their feet; orc-hole and delving riddling the rock and stone like cheese providing ample space for all to crumble deep into the earth, leaving the surface to collapse indiscriminately.
They laughed as the Maiar gave ground, together fey and furious and finally finding the rhythm that had been denied them from the first. They laughed though the ground shook beneath them and sure footing became impossible. They laughed though the air quaked, and their ears rang, and their eyes smarted against the dust.
They laughed because in their song and in their hearts, they sensed the end, and they were like children who knew not fear or sorrow, only the bright flash of intuitive lightning and focus.
Not content with blood, their blades began to seek deeper wounds, satisfied only with the eradication of their foe, and though he flickered from face to form to face – each unmistakably marred and foul – Sauron could find no weakness.
The dust clung to her damp skin, turning her rank and dun as any orc, and she felt her hair tangling, fraying, sticking to the sweat and blood running down her throat, catching on her armor, strands caught by the end of her blade to fall ineffectually to the ground.
Her enemy's blood stained her white armor.
Finally, Sauron staggered, already shrinking away from their next strikes, a shadow before an open flame, and an opening was made.
Galadriel plunged the full length of her sword between the rent plates of iron that protected him, driving forward for his black heart, and the force of her fire plunging into the wound caused the fortress to tumble down as the darkness was yanked out from below it.
Sauron screamed.
She could barely stand, could barely think through the pulse and pound of blood, but she didn't need to for much longer. She twisted the blade, and meeting Sauron's eyes, met hatred with hatred, and waited for him to die.
The Dark Lord howled as Maglor rammed his own blade to the hilt in his exposed collar.
Galadriel yanked hers free and blinded him with a slash across the eyes.
Maglor stabbed again.
And she.
And he.
Again.
And again.
It was mine, Sauron wailed. He promised! It was supposed to be mine!
It was never yours, and it was never ours, she said coldly. Die now and await the end.
And with finality, the last notes of their song passing her lips, she brought her blade up and struck Sauron's head from his body.
X_0_X
"He cut your hair," Maglor observed wearily later, as the two of them lay with their backs to the trunk of an old oak, giving their bodies a chance to rest. "Once upon a time, anyone who'd have dared would have your brothers and their armies after them."
Galadriel chuckled hoarsely and took a swig of water from her canteen.
"Hair grows back," she sighed, palming one of the frayed locks errantly. Her arandurë would likely scold her for the mess she'd made of it, and cry when they realized how much they would have to cut off to correct the destruction Sauron wrought on it.
Her companion seemed to guess the direction of her thoughts and snorted, turning his face back to the fortress.
Dol Guldur was little more than a pile of rubble now. With the fortress in the throes of its ruin, they'd been hard pressed to escape their own demise in the crush of broken earth when the Maiar finally breathed his last.
His body was there, somewhere. An evil corpse the last seed of primordial evil to darken the land. She could only hope the fires of her wrath had been enough to sear what remained of his influence away.
Galadriel sighed and tilted her head upwards, facing Eärendil. It was enough. It had to be. Never would this place serve as a bastion of evil again.
Sauron was dead.
"What will you do now?" Maglor asked, quietly.
"Return to my husband." Galadriel shrugged, tired. "Wait for death. My ban remains. And you?"
"Don't have a husband, but probably something similar besides."
She smiled faintly. "Will you come to Lothlórien? I will tend your wounds. Nobody will accost you."
"…"
"Makalaurë."
He turned to her, eyes narrowed angrily. "Perhaps, Nerwen, I do not wish to see others of our kin, more than they wish to not see me."
She scowled back at him, more irritated by his tone than his meaning, but before she could open her mouth to retort, she felt a stirring, and an urge to look west.
By the confusion on his face, she took it that Maglor felt it too – and together they did.
Ëarendil's star blazed on the horizon, more brightly than ever she had felt it do so…
And strangely… part of her seemed to ease at the sight.
Galadriel blinked.
Maglor inhaled softly beside her. "Nerwen…"
Longing rose up in her. "You don't think…?"
He turned to her, his eyes confused but shining. "I… hear the call."
Gulls on the wing… brine… and crashing waves… and beyond…
She felt speechless. "I don't… I passed the test, but the ban was not lifted. I thought perhaps that it meant my stay in Mandos would not be so long that I would not be trapped there forever… Why now?"
"I don't know." Maglor exhaled and shifted over, so that he could lie down on the scrubby, dry grass. "Perhaps… perhaps though we did not seek it… by our actions today we have earned a stay from our Doom."
Could the Valar be so kind? They… they had not been, when she spoke to them on the eve of Wrath, when her ban was issued. She had thought…
She didn't know how to feel about that – too many emotions warred with exhaustion in her mind.
She knew enough, though, to know that she needed to speak with Celeborn.
She needed to hold him, and be held. She needed to be told she was loved and wanted, that she had done good… and…
Galadriel breathed. "…Will you come to Lothlórien now? I… If it is true, then there will be a ship, and I will find you a place on it, if you desire. I did not think…"
Maglor stopped her. "I will come."
"…Thank you."
"Thank you, Nerwen. I did not look for this, but…" His eyes were brighter than she recalled them being for a long time.
She pulled herself to her feet and held out her hand. "Let us away."
He took it. "Homeward bound at last."
Quenya:
Arandurë - handmaids
Elleth - female elf
Noldolantë - 'The Fall of the Noldor'
Endorë - Middle Earth
Utúlie'n aurë! Auta i lómë! - 'The Day is Come! The Night is Passing!'
I hope you enjoyed this piece! Inspiration primarily derived from 'The Nolde' - this was the scene I ultimately envisioned as the emotional culmination of Galadriel finally fulfilling her oath to Fingon, and in that story the destruction of Dol Guldur only really got a sentence or two. It's also somewhat predicated on the question of why Sauron fully 'died' when the Ring was destroyed - everything he'd done up to that point over the course of LoTR was done sans-Ring, and he wasn't exactly *lacking* power then. This ties up that loose end fairly neatly in my mind - he was basically done for, and wouldn't be a real threat to Middle Earth, but there was still enough of him to be an issue should anyone happen to encounter him.
And Galadriel gets some emotional catharsis and a chance to let loose. Two birds. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!