Galadriel's course had been charted from the moment she first tasted fear.
It was the first time she saw death. Watched the light fade from someone's eyes and the life drain from their body. Felt blood thick and warm, gushing over her hands as she frantically tried to stem its flow.
Witnessed the aftermath.
A once vibrant, living body reduced to an empty husk. So far removed from what it once was, it was hard to believe it had ever been alive, to begin with.
They look like they're sleeping.
She heard the phrase that day and every day after and scoffed each time because death looked nothing like sleep. Death was an emptiness, a void that turned warmth into cold, soft into stone, and a living being into a broken doll.
She had scoffed until the very moment her brother died, and then she'd understood.
The words weren't spoken from a position of blindness or ignorance.
They were spoken out of love and despair.
That person isn't dead. They aren't hurt, in pain, suffering, gone.
They aren't gone.
They'll wake up soon.
Just be patient.
They're only sleeping.
But they weren't, and Finrod wasn't, and the pain that bloomed from that knowledge was like nothing Galadriel had ever felt because it was intangible and it was permanent. It didn't fade with time the way a cut or broken bone did, and the edges did not dull but remained ever sharp and ready to cut at the most unexpected moment.
She did not know how to deal with such pain, and there was no one there to tell her, for Finrod was gone, and Celeborn had left so long ago that she often feared he'd been more a dream than a memory.
And so, she did what she could.
What she thought best to deal with a wound that she knew would never heal.
She buried it in the fire of her anger.
She took her pain, and she fed it to her rage, kindling for a bonfire that would carry her through centuries.
Once, time had meant nothing to her, but after her brother…her husband…it became a furious sea, swallowing those she loved and ever nipping at her heels as she fled before it.
And so she fed it her fury.
Used her wrath as a bulwark, and her hatred as a cover, hiding everything but the way forward.
She told herself that it was not vengeance.
That one could not quench their thirst by drinking seawater.
She told herself it was duty.
Her brother's mission was now hers, and what she did was for the safety and peace of all her kin.
Of all Middle Earth.
And perhaps it was at the start.
Or perhaps it wasn't.
She no longer remembered, just as she no longer could pinpoint exactly when she lost herself to the tempest swirling within her and allowed it to swallow her whole.
She could pinpoint the eddy, though.
The oasis when the storm clouds broke and, for the briefest of moments, she remembered who she once was.
The girl she'd left behind, building paper boats at the riverside.
It was the day she met Elrond.
Elrond, who'd been through pain and suffering of his own and yet had come out the other side happy, eternally kind, and still carrying a sense of wonder, and optimism.
Hope.
He was so full of hope. That the sun would rise, the darkness would end, and the pain would pass.
It was a light Galadriel hadn't seen, hadn't felt in longer than she could possibly remember.
And she wanted to protect it.
He was alone then, searching for a kind face.
He'd found her instead.
He needed someone, but that someone wasn't her, so she stood back and watched as others more capable than she took charge of his care.
But that did not stop her from seeking him out again and again and again. He was a light, a bright beacon after days spent in muck and mire. Weeks of seeking out the dark, lying awake at night in fear of whatever lay just beyond the boundaries of their campfire. She knew, deep down, that she should leave him alone. That the stench of evil upon her might corrupt the bright aura upon him, but she could not seem to stop.
And Elrond was ever happy to see her, forever excited as if his day were brighter simply for having her in it. He never judged her, never looked down upon the dirt of the road or the blood of whatever evil thing she'd been fighting.
He simply loved her, and she loved him in return.
And so, she felt no anger toward him when he betrayed her.
Where light abounds, darkness cannot abide, and so she could not stand in his presence. Not forever. Not because she was dark, she thought, but because she brought it with her every time she visited, no matter how much she dressed up or tried to pretend she was no different than the rest of them.
When Elrond and Gil-Galad moved against her, gifting her, as they said, with a one-way voyage to Valinor…she felt anger toward her king. Anger that he would do such a thing to her and bind her best friend to his cause.
But she felt no anger to Elrond.
Only pain and resignation.
That the day she'd long known was coming had finally arrived, and she'd been as unprepared as one who hadn't expected it at all.
She told herself that she jumped into the ocean out of duty and because she knew she did not deserve it so long as her duty lay undone, but perhaps the truth lay somewhere else entirely. Somewhere she would never admit to another living soul and would barely ever admit to herself.
That, deep down, she knew the real reason they had sent her away. They felt they could no longer distinguish her from the evil she was fighting, and, in the end, that knowledge was the one thing she could not bear.
So she could say it was duty, or the belief that her task was not yet done, or the fear that Valinor itself would reject a being such as her the moment she set foot on its shores, or the fear of what would happen to Elrond without her there to protect him, or a million other things but in the end…
In the end…
If Elrond, who saw all people the same, who was eternally kind and accepting, he looked at her and saw not his friend, but a thing so corrupted that it needed to be removed from Middle Earth for all time…
If that was what he truly saw, truly believed, then what hope could she possibly have?
The thought cut deep, enough to touch the outer edges of the tempest she had carried inside her for so long, enough to brush what lay within that raging storm. And, when she leaped from that ship into the sea and first pushed her head above the waves to the sight of endless water and heavy silence, it simply served to press home a reality she had struggled to ignore.
Her brother was dead, stolen from her by the servants of darkness.
Her soldiers were gone, passed beyond her sight onto the shores of Valinor.
Her husband was lost, swallowed by the ravages of time and shadow.
And Elrond…
Elrond, the only one she felt, still saw her past the blood and sweat and trauma…had sent her away.
She couldn't leave it like that.
She wanted them…him…her best friend, to understand, and that couldn't happen if he was in Middle Earth and she was in Valinor. And if centuries passed before they met again…he might not even recognize her any longer.
She might not recognize him.
And so she had leaped and found herself in the uncaring sea, surrounded by the sound of her own thundering heart.
"A sea that you were on because the elves had cast you out."
No, because they did not understand, but she would change that. She would flee from Valinor, where there was no place for her, and toward Middle Earth, where no one wanted her, and she would show them.
She would prove she'd been right all along, and then Gil-Galad would understand, and Elrond would realize that darkness might be around her, but it was not in her.
And they would understand.
She did not expect to be found floating alone on that vast sea.
And certainly not by someone who seemed able to see into her very soul.
But, then, perhaps that was it all along. She wore her emotions on her sleeve, and wouldn't that make it easy then for a chameleon to read them and mold himself to be her perfect match?
"Identify what it is that your opponent most fears and give them a means of mastering it so that you can master them."
That was it. That was what had happened. He'd manipulated her. That's all it had been. Anything he'd…claimed to feel for her had been false, a way to control her, and anything she might have…might have felt or thought she felt…it was just a lie.
Everything had been a lie.
"Thank you for pulling me back."
What a fool she'd been.
"Was you, pulled me back first.
False. False, false, false, false, because it had all been a lie. Everything, from the very start. He'd been playing her like a fiddle, and she'd been foolish enough to let him.
"Whatever it was you did, be free of it."
How could she have said that? How could she tell him to be free of it when she never would?
"I never believed I could be. Until today. Fighting at your side, I felt if I could just hold onto that feeling, keep it with me always, bind it to my very being, then I—"
LIES.
"I felt it too."
no.
She hadn't said that. She hadn't meant that. She'd been manipulated. He'd transformed himself into everything she'd ever wanted, taken advantage of her when she was vulnerable, lied and charmed his way into being what she wanted, what she thought she wanted, and then…and then…
And what did that say about her?
Not that the Dark Lord had looked into her eyes and claimed to have found a soulmate.
But that she'd looked back and found the same?
What did that say?
"I told you that I had done evil, and you did not care."
Because…because she'd thought he'd done it to survive.
Because he had no choice.
Because she thought it didn't personally affect her.
It was easy, wasn't it?
Offering forgiveness for someone else's pain.
Justifying her deeds and those of others so long as it served the greater good. What she deemed the greater good. And, in the end, it was fine, was it not? After all, she knew what she was doing. It was Elrond and Gil-Galad and her men who did not, could not see, would see the truth.
Never her.
Never her.
Was that what Mairon had told himself all those years ago? When he'd looked upon the imperfection of man, the pain and suffering, and thought to himself, how wasteful. How imperfect and lacking in order.
I can do better.
Mairon, Sauron, been good once. Faithful and true. One of the mightiest of the Maia. A loyal and faithful servant who studied daily at the feet of Aule. Who'd loved his creator and all that he had created.
It was quite possible she'd meant him, a little, in the form of Hallbrand. Loose pieces, barely remembered fragments drawn together to create a shell, a grotesque caricature of the being he'd once been. Like using a corpse as a puppet, dancing about her on gossamer strings, even as he yanked on her strings in turn.
If Hallbrand was the remnant of Mairon, then she'd probably have liked him had they ever had the chance to meet. Perhaps that was where her grief came from. Not that she'd actually come to care for him, but that she'd cared for the puppet. And knowing that puppet was dead, and had been for centuries, brought a grief as fresh as if the loss had barely happened.
Perhaps.
What was it, all those years ago, she wondered, that had drawn Morgoth to him? That had the Great Foe look at so pure and uncorrupted a soul and think to himself, "here, I have found an ally?"
What had made the Dark Lord look at her and think the same?
Nothing is evil in the beginning. There first must be a step, and then another, and still another after that.
A wrong choice here, a justification there, and a denial to cover it all. An evil action taken for the greater good, which led to more and more until the greater good simply became an excuse for evil actions.
Until one became so mired in the dark they mistook it for the light.
Was that what she had done?
"It darkens the heart to call dark deeds good. It gives place for evil to thrive inside us."
"Perhaps we should bring our prisoners into the sunlight."
"It would seem I'm not the only Elf alive who has been transformed by darkness. Perhaps your search for Morgoth's successor should have ended in your own mirror."
How quick she was to spout wisdom and how slow to follow it.
It was pride.
Arrogance.
Was that what had drawn him to her?
Was that what had drawn her to him?
And was it why…even now, she felt such shame at his betrayal?
Not that she had fallen for it.
Not that he had seen in her that which she had never shown to another living soul.
Including herself.
Not that she'd bared her heart and her innermost thoughts in a way that made her sick to think about.
No, her deepest shame came from none of that but from the fact that, for the briefest of moments, the barest of seconds, she had wavered.
In that brief moment of time that had felt like an eternity, the lies had felt like truth.
For a second, his words had seemed reasonable. To think of what she could do if only people weren't forever trying to stop her. Send her away. Tell her that she was wrong. If she simply had the power and the authority to accomplish what she knew was right. Rebuild the world in her own image, stop the pain and suffering, prevent anyone else from going through what she had gone through. She was stronger than Mairon had been. She would not be corrupted. She would be a queen, wise and beautiful, and stronger than the foundations of the earth.
No one would stop her.
No one would stand in her way.
She would be…
"Put up your sword."
"Without it, what am I to be?"
"What you have always been. My friend."
She would be lost.
She would be no better than Sauron. Confident that she was controlling the darkness when it was, instead, controlling her. It would consume her, and the person she would become would be unrecognizable to anyone she had once known.
And Elrond would no longer call her friend.
And so she rejected the dark but not the shame of having been tempted, and as the waves in her own mind pushed her down, she did the one thing she had not done in thousands of years.
She stopped fighting.
She had fought the dark, but she had not won. It had consumed, not entirely, but more than she should have allowed. She had ignored countless warnings, rejected the counsel of her betters, and pushed onward without regard to those left injured in her wake. She'd followed the path of Sauron without considering that she was perhaps walking in his footsteps.
And he had warned her.
Perhaps it had been Mairon, some small, still living fragment, desperately pushing out from the slime of his own evil to try and move her from the path he had once trod. To point her a different way.
To drop her into an ocean, where she might drown, but at least it would be as herself and not some thing.
Would Mairon have made the same choice?
If…somehow, all those years ago…the good and beloved soul of Mairon had been able to look forward down the centuries…of pain and madness and grief…might he not have stopped it? Thrown…himself…into…the sea to…avoid it?
Might he not have…..
"Galadriel!"
She did not deserve to be saved, and yet she was.
And, of course, it was by Elrond. And even, to her shame, as reacted with panic…fell seamlessly back into the skin she'd worn for centuries… he'd reacted with compassion. Gentle words and a light touch, comforting and wishing her peace in her darkest moment.
And not a single word of blame.
And she knew there would not be, even later, as she saw the scroll clutched in his hand. The look in his eyes was hard and disappointed, but there was no judgment. And there would be none. He would speak to her later, Galadriel knew, in private, for her loved her too much to accuse her publicly…and too much to not accuse her at all.
He loved her.
And as much as she still felt the darkness clawing at her heart, tempting her with all she thought she ever wanted, she knew she could resist. Would resist.
She knew she had the one thing Mairon never did and never would.
Someone willing to pull her from the waves, even as they threatened to drag her under.
She had Elrond.
She had wavered for a brief second. Given up on the brilliance that was her friend in turn for a pale shadow, but she would not do so again.
She had once mistakenly thought the lights all looked the same but now saw how truly blind she had been. There was no comparison, for she had touched the night and all it had done was open her eyes to the brilliance of the day.
She had found the light and so the shadow would not find her.