Now, my friends, we take a step away from the first person narrative and into my native tongue of (drum roll, please) third person! Yay. It's about time things thickened up here! Now, in third person, I present to you…
~Chapter Ten
You have eternity. I have only now.
-God Emperor of Dune
By Frank Herbert
The night was restless. The trees swayed in the gentle breeze that passed through the open windows and over the bed that Galadriel and her husband Celeborn shared. Golden locks of hair flitted lightly over the thin bed sheet that covered the wise elf's body. She could hear Celeborn's regular breathing and again tried to still her thoughts so that the sleep would come, but it was no use. Defeated, Galadriel slid out from under the sheets and walked silently out of the room, making her way through the trees of her forest to the clearing she knew so well. She could hear the bubbling of the spring as she drew nearer, and she could see the softly glowing white of the stone of the Mirror. She waved her hand to dismiss the guard that stood ten meters away, poised with a hand on his bow and the other on the arrow that loaded it. The guard walked to a post farther away, hiding himself from the Lady's gaze by stationing himself behind a tree. He kept his senses tuned to the Lady's position, though- you could never tell exactly who walked in the forests.
Galadriel wrapped her long fingers around the silver pitcher, her clean fingernails tapping against the mirrored surface. The rim of the pitcher slid into the enchanted waters as silently as an elf walked across the leaves. She waited until water bubbled over the edge, and then she lifted the pitcher out of the spring and walked over to the basin that formed the Mirror's shell. Deftly she poured the water into the basin, raising it at an angle so that the water swished around the sides of the basin and foamed at the edges. When the pitcher was empty she returned it to the small stone enclosing that covered it from the rain and the dew, and returned to her Mirror.
The water calmed in the bowl, and the surface was as smooth as glass. Starlight and moonlight reflected off the surface and bounced off the nearby trees, forming ethereal patterns on the shimmering leaves. Galadriel leaned over the edge of the basin. "Tirn," she whispered. "I see." The bottom of the basin dropped out, leaving nothing but a black infinity below her. She quietly quelled the falling feeling that was induced by this first part of Seeing and waited for the images to come. For a few moments, nothing did come, and the mirror was still.
Then, Niphredil's graceful curving face graced the surface of the mirror. Galadriel's first reaction was, O, my lovely daughter, how you have grown! She saw her daughter standing next to her husband, kissing him in bed, and wrapped in the joy of young love and happiness. She is happy, as I knew she would be, Galadriel thought, reaching out as if to touch the image, but then she stopped herself. The hand dropped back at her side. The images continued flickering across the crystalline surface of the mirror as if on a film. She saw her daughter eating, sleeping, crying, and loving, and then the picture settled on a face that she recognized from long ago- Legolas. His features came into focus, and Galadriel saw that he wept. It was not a bawl, or a single tear, but a simple, quiet, resigned kind of weeping. His long blonde hair framed his sculptured features as his lips moved quietly. Galadriel could not catch the words that he said, but as he spoke his eyes filled again with tears, and he stared mournfully out the window.
Abruptly, pictures of death and violence interrupted the serene, sad image. Bodies fell from fortress walls and landed with sickening splats on the hard ground. Blood spilled from open wounds and leaked onto white floors. Distraught women hurried around, tearing their skirts to shreds in an effort to bandage the wounded. Screams echoed in Galadriel's ears, bloodcurdling screams laced with the twap! of flying arrows. Swords clashed with armor as the battle raged, and the Lady watched in horror at the scene.
Slowly the images of violence stopped coming, and settled on one- a cloth saturated with blood scrubbing a floor that was covered with a rain of blood. The hands holding the piece were chapped and swollen with lye and blood. Galadriel recognized Niphredil's wedding ring on the ring finger of the left hand. She watched as her daughter cleaned the nauseating mess without ever seeing her face.
A scream grew in the background of the image and was wiped away by a sudden flash of a fire-filled red eye- the eye of Sauron. Galadriel pulled back in fear against the image, and with an echo of evil the eye pulled back into the mirror.
The wind once more disturbed the surface of the mirror as the visions came to an end. Galadriel shook slightly as she made her way back across the forest floor, reminded of the evils that gathered on the edges of her mind. The ring she bore seemed to grow in weight as she climbed back into bed beside Celeborn. His steady breathing calmed her a bit, but she remained awake for quite a time after that before she finally drifted off into a restless sleep.
~
She was focused on her work, unusually focused. Sunlight played through the strands of hair that had fallen out of the ribbon at the nape of her neck. Oh, how he wished to reach over and to be able to tuck the hairs behind her gracefully curving ears, and then to kiss her until everything was all right and the puddles of blood on the floor forgotten.
But he could not. She was a married woman now, even though he still held her heart next to his. His bosom ached with tears unshed as he watched her crouch down to the ground, scrubbing at the floor with all of her might. She had been that way for hours now, and he had watched her. He had seen the way her eyes never left the floor, how she didn't even look up to plunge her cleaning pad back into the bucket that sat beside her. She didn't wring the cloth out, but left it soaked through with the cleaning solutions, spilling droplets of fluid onto the floor as she cleaned. How he wanted to love her. In his heart he still did, and he wanted to be able to forgive her as much as he wanted to be able to hold her. But every time he saw her with him, every time he fought next to him on the battlefield, it was hard not to feel a bit of resentment.
Even though Théodred was a mortal, even though death loomed on his horizon closer with every day gone by, it was hard to forget how Niphredil played along. Legolas found it hard to believe that Niphredil had felt the kind of love for Théodred that Legolas felt for her, but it was a possibility that grew more likely every time he saw the two of them together. Whenever he saw their approach, though, he had to turn and walk away. It was too hard a sight to bear.
Pain and anger and love laced his dreams at night as he thought of the beautiful elf that should have been his. These feelings were alien to him, not because he usually got whatever he wanted or was unused to being denied, he simply felt that volume of pain because the feelings that he felt for Niphredil were truer than anything he had ever felt in any of the thousands of years that he had lived- and it was unlikely that he would ever feel like this again for the millennia to come.
She'll be there for those millennia, Legolas thought. Eternity is ours for the asking…
