Galadriel had picked her bones clean, not a spare morsel of food remained on her dish. Her stomach ached from such rich food, all butter and meat and roots. This meal sank inside her, or perhaps that was the effects of Sauron's sharpening gaze, a look he would throw at her with increasing frequency. It too made her stomach drop, and set her heartbeat at a gallop.

Mug of mead in his hand, he leaned back, a glint of curiosity sparking in his eyes, the fine laugh lines were crinkled at their corners. "You haven't inquired after my day, my lady," he noted before swallowing a final swig.

"It is hard to tell what I am allowed or forbidden quite yet," Galadriel replied, settling herself even taller in neck and squaring her shoulders. Almost to spite his lounging posture.

"You are allowed to ask anything," he rejoined, setting his mug down, snapping his fingers to clear the table to nothing but a whisper of smoke. "It is what you are allowed to hear in reply that may still be yet forbidden."

Galadriel's brow lifted ever so slightly, unimpressed in air at his reply or at his display of magic. Inwardly, she sifted carefully through his words, his implications. She would need freedom to leave this room if she were to accomplish anything. "I can ask anything?" Her query was soft and timid, casting her eyes to the table before her, where her hands lay folded before her.

"You may ask, as I said," he encouraged, leaning eagerly forward, crossing his arms as well. He seemed defensive, braced for a volley of defiance he suspected had been building against him all day.

She gasped a steadying breath, focusing on the soft green of his eyes. The eyes that had remained unchanged from her memory. Halbrand's eyes. "Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we had remained in Numenór?"

Sauron shook head once, a toss of his burnished hair, drawing back in surprise. "I used to," came his candid reply.

She smiled inwardly as she set him off balance, as she had hoped she would. "You would have the most resented but most successful smithy in the land. The men of your guild would have hated you," Galadriel gave a real half-smile, her gaze distant, past his face before her. "You would outwit them of course, but I would have to come and argue on your behalf every time you would get into another tavern brawl," she teased.

Pleasantly surprised, he smiled as well. "And you would be training guards and soldiers, probably caring for the horses your temperament so much resembles," he taunted back. "Always at a breakneck gallop," he gave one bark of a laugh.

She shook her head once, a peeved but humored twist of a smile on her lips.

With a sighing laugh, he extended his hand, reaching across the empty table for her. Without a hesitation, she filled it with her own. A warmth reignited in her at the feeling of his rough touch against her finger tips. His thumb traced over the back of her hand, ghosting over her skin, brushing against the cool metal of her ring once.

He looked down at their joined fingers. A deep breath escaped from him. "I know why you're here, Galadriel, daughter of the golden house of Finarfin," his words suddenly colder, sending a chill around her heart as his thumb toyed with the silver jewel on her finger.

No words, not even air could pass through her throat. Suffocating again.

He continued, eyes still averted as he clutched those slim fingers harder. "No one is meant to exist alone," he assessed firmly. "You are not like your elven brethren. You are too strong, too fearless. And you love battle too much for their peaceful ways." His eyes flashed up to meet hers where she sat barely eking out breath after breath. The pale skin of her neckline rising with a shake each time. "Your people used you until you were spent, forcing you to fight alone, exiling you not once, but twice, and all while making you bear the burden of a ring of unknown power to sustain them." His thumb crested over the cold silver metal again. "This ring will only push you further into isolation," his voice washed over her heart like a balm. Perhaps he knew just how his words had echoed her own thoughts and aches she had endured this past year. "You were right to come back to me," he soothed. "You and I were meant to meet on that raft and again now, to end each other's isolation. To bear each other's burdens so neither of us is alone in the dark."