Disclaimer: Tolkien created Middle-earth, I didn't.
Timeframe: S.A. 3433
Rating: Rated PG-13 for implied rape.
Chapter II: Annatar
Footsteps echoed in the passageway. At the sound, Galadriel raised her head and listened, her heart chilled with a sudden inexplicable dread. She could not name this fear, could not explain it. After a month in the dungeons of Mordor, what could alarm her so? Immediately, her mind jumped to the disconcertion of waking upon a coal black steed, a Nazgûl walking at her side, but it was not that. The Nazgûl that had brought her thence had cast a vague, desolate shadow upon everything around it. This was more focused, more daunting. Who was the owner of these footsteps, then? As far as she knew, only Orcs roamed the dank, poorly lit passages of the dungeons. Yet as she listened to the heavy footfalls coming towards her, she wondered...
Abruptly, they stopped. She saw a dark shadow at the door, heard the clattering of keys. The grotesque figure that subsequently entered the room confirmed her worst fears. Tall he was, and hideous to look upon, red eyes smoldering amidst a cruel, deformed face. She felt her heartbeat quicken, but she did not look away.
"And so we meet again, Lord Annatar," she said, sarcasm heavy in her voice.
At this Sauron grinned, revealing rows of dark, jagged teeth. "Ah, this is why I always loved you, Galadriel," he said, attempting a smooth, jesting tone that his raucous voice could not support. "So proud, and yet so dignified." He lifted up her chin with a scaly, claw-like finger that she longed to push away, but could not, for her hands were bound to the wall with chains. "Your beauty has not faded, I see?"
"Have you only come to scoff at me, or is there a point to your visit?"
Sauron shook his head at her, but removed his hand. "If you think I am here to patronize you, you mistake me. But I can see that my form alarms you. I will do my best to amend this."
There was a pause, during which it seemed that Sauron was gathering all the strength he could muster. The dark form vanished and a new one took its place—that of a man, equally as tall but uncommonly handsome. So had he appeared so many years ago in Eregion, when even Celebrimbor had fallen under his sway.
And only now did Galadriel turn away. "Such an exterior does not conceal a blemished heart," she said.
"No," Sauron replied. "No, it does not." He caught her gaze then, and held it, until she felt as if his eyes were delving inside of her, exposing the darkest caverns of her soul, and then gloating over the discovery. It was a skill that she herself possessed, but where she used it in order to understand others, Sauron used it to destroy them.
"I know what you want," he said in a low, charismatic voice, and Galadriel listened, though guardedly. "You are of the Noldor. Your people went through many hardships, and for what? So that you might dwindle as a people, living among the uncouth and forgetting all that you came for? It need not end that way."
"You speak as though you pity us," said Galadriel. "Do not forget that it was your master, Morgoth, that brought so many sorrows upon us, even if in our folly we worsened our lot."
"Morgoth was a fool!" Sauron exclaimed. "He sought only to destroy without regard. In the end, he destroyed himself as well. What I speak of is mastery. It is an interest we have in common, I think?" He grew closer to her, so that she could feel his shadow looming over her, blocking the little light that shone from torches in the passageway.
"Do not think we are alike, Sauron," she said. "If I have coveted power, it was never with such cruel intent."
Sauron smiled slightly. "I was like you once. I know it seems unthinkable, for I do not deny that you are right. We are not the same, not anymore. But once—" He paused, and the next words, though detached from emotion, seemed to rise up from a deep well of memory. "I was a student of Aulë, like your people. I had great reverence for Ilúvatar and for the earth. It was more... constant than other things. While the fruits of the earth, the trees and plants, had been destroyed in the war with Morgoth, and the forms of the mountains were overthrown, the earth itself, the metals and stone, continued on." He saw Galadriel's surprise. "No, I was not under Morgoth in the Beginning. Only later, when, like you, I began to lose faith..."
Galadriel suddenly perceived what he was doing. "Stop this!" she exclaimed, and, gratifyingly, Sauron was silent. "Do not think that you can fool me with this story. Though I do not doubt it is true, it is but the last whispers of a dead man."
"Enough of the past," Sauron agreed, although he did not indicate if Galadriel's words were correct. "Let us return to the topic at hand. Mastery, I think it was."
She sighed at his persistence. "I wish none of it. Now let us end this meaningless speech."
Sauron went on as if she had not spoken. "Do not deny that you have desired it, Galadriel, for all your noble words and thoughts. Do not pretend that it is not what you have sought all your life."
Galadriel said nothing, but again sensed the weak spot in her heart that Sauron had uncovered. She turned her eyes away from him. A thought emerged in her mind, and she clung to it. She began to chant; though her lips did not move, the words rang out in her mind. A Elbereth Gilthoniel, silivren penna míriel, o menel aglar elenath! Her thoughts drifted into Quenya, her native tongue, and the words gradually changed: O Varda, Star-kindler, give me strength! All light that proceeds from me is yours; alone, I am wreathed in shadows. But Sauron's voice was more present, more commanding, and gradually her prayer dissipated as she returned her attention to his words.
"You are strong, so powerful," he was saying. "Imagine what you might do, if only you had the means. You know this." And he looked into her eyes, but this time she did not feel the uncomfortable wrenching of her heart.
She saw instead a vision of herself, beautiful and powerful beyond compare. A scepter in her hand, she would rule a kingdom greater than any other: surpassing Valinor itself. Queen of the earth and the heavens, all would bow down to her. "All shall love me and despair!"
She spoke the last words aloud, though softly and with voice trembling, echoes of what seemed a distant forgotten memory. And Annatar touched her cheek with his smooth, warm hand and said, "Nerwende, if you should be my bride! We would have a child more beautiful and terrible than the world yet has seen!" (1)
Galadriel looked up at him, saw his eyes shining in expectation.
"By the memory of Finrod, get away from me!" she cried. She was half-sick with shame. True, he had spoken fairly, using all his powers of persuasiveness, but now she saw plainly his motives. How had he lulled her thus far?
Sauron removed his hand—and slapped her across the face. The blow smarted, but she forced herself to keep her head high, as if unmoved.
"You are a fool, I see," he finally said, voice suddenly hideous—or had it always been thus? "I have offered you what others would take eagerly, and you refuse it! Still, I will give you time to rethink—"
"I need no such time!" she exclaimed. "You ask me to reject all I hold dear, and think I will submit easily? I tell you, you might wait ten thousand years, and I still would not give myself to you willingly."
Sauron sighed. "Ah, well," he said, shaking his head in mock pity. "I see this will be more difficult than I foresaw. Just remember that I did not lie, and I get no pleasure from your agony. Well," he amended, "not much. The sight of watching you suffer may yield some joy."
If her heart had been weak before, it now stopped cold. "If you dare to touch me—" But as she spoke, she was reminded of the chains that bound her to the wall. Though she was strong, she could hardly break steel.
Sauron clutched her shoulders with a painful grip and shoved her against the rough stone wall so forcefully that she nearly cried out. But she bit her tongue. She would not cry out. Although it was a hopeless task, she began to strain at her chains. Meanwhile, Sauron inclined towards her ear.
"It will only be a moment," he whispered, his voice hissing, demonic. And then he smiled, a crooked, sadistic smile that would torment her mind long after the pain ended.
1. Nerwende - One of Galadriel's names in Valinor, before the name "Galadriel" was given to her by Celeborn as a sort of nickname. Nerwende is spelled "Nerwen" in Unfinished Tales, but it's Nerwende in HoME. "-wende" is definitely more Quenya-looking than "-wen". Everything about Galadriel is confusing.
A few liberties with canon are taken in this chapter, as part of the premise of this story. They can primarily be attributed to my ignorance at the time of writing. Whether Sauron could manage to take on a fair form at the end of the Second Age, however briefly, is decidedly dubious. Galadriel's survival of her rape is somewhat more defendable. For one thing, the passage revealing that death is the inevitable fate of a raped elf is only retained in the first draft of Laws and Customs of the Eldar. Tolkien quite possibly left it out of the final draft for purposes of style and organization, not because he changed his mind, but this is not certain. At any rate, if any Elf were to survive a rape, Galadriel would be a likely candidate; her strength of will might be just enough to counteract the spiritual pain of the experience.
