Hey there! As ever, sorry for any typos, and sorry for the delay. I had a really long day at work on Friday and didn't want to have a subpar chapter as a result. I'm fairly happy with this one though.
Chapter Forty: The Mirror of Galadriel
When the elves of Lórien began their lament for Gandalf, Legolas had to walk away. Aragorn and the hobbits were able to understand, but Boromir and the dwarves looked to him for translation. It was not a task that his heart felt capable of. Not yet. The grief was too near, too strong. If it were up to Legolas, no songs would be sung for Gandalf, not yet. It was a time for tears, and not for song. So he wandered among the trees, and by the little streams in the quiet city, and kept to his own thought. He met a couple of other elves, but he found that speaking to them made him miss his own home more dearly.
He missed his friends, and his kin, and he missed his father. But the more he thought of the Woodland Realm, the more convinced he was that he could not return. Not, at least, until he had done all that he could to help Frodo. Not now, not after what had happened to Gandalf.
He could not turn back now.
But despite his grief, he enjoyed exploring Lothlórien. It eased his heart to see the lands where his people had come from, to see the beauty that he had only heard of in song. Running his hands over the bark of the trees and trailing his fingers through the clean river water, Legolas felt almost as though he was home. He wondered when his own people had grown to feel threatened by Celeborn and Galadriel, and when their songs of awe had grown tainted by fear.
It saddened him, and for the first time since adolescence, he found himself yearning to talk to his father's father. Oropher had died in the pits of Mordor, long before Legolas was born, but when Thranduil spoke of his father it was with reverence and adoration. Legolas wanted to know what his grandfather would have thought of how isolated the Woodland Realm had become, or if it had been Oropher who began to pull their people away from their extended kin.
It was when he was lost in the midst of these thoughts, on the day after they arrived, that Legolas came upon something that surprised him.
Gimli was standing by a one of the great mallorn trees, completely alone, and his fingers roamed over the smooth, silver bark. There was a frown on his brow and on his lips, and his eyes were unfocused, as if misted by some thought or dream. Legolas made to walk away and leave the dwarf to his thoughts, but curiosity won out, and he walked over instead.
"It appears that living with hobbits has rubbed off on you," he said.
Gimli jumped, spinning around and glaring at Legolas. Then, he looked back at the tree, and spoke gruffly. "I'll have you know that I was plenty curious before a dozen hobbits waltzed into my family."
"Curious about trees?"
Gimli did not reply. His hand fell away from the tree.
"Why are you not with the others?" asked Legolas.
"Why aren't you?" Gimli replied, a little sharply.
Legolas gave a sad smile. "I wish to explore. It helps to ease my grief. And I would not impose on your family, should you need to be alone."
Gimli looked up. "Really?" His tone was laced with disbelief, and Legolas' heart sank. For the two decades he had known Gimli, their friendship had been littered with taunts and jests, and they rarely spoke without some form of insult-based humour. It did not surprise him that Gimli doubted his intentions. Yet now, the barbs were beginning to sting.
"Yes," he said softly. "I did not mean to pry. I will leave you now."
He turned to walk away, but Gimli spoke, his neck craning back to stare at the golden canopy. "I did not know trees could climb so high, or have bark so soft. I did not know that trees could be so beautiful. Is it because of her, do you think?"
Legolas paused, and though he had an idea of whom Gimli spoke, he could not imagine where this train of conversation had come from. "Because of who?"
"The Lady of the Light," sighed Gimli, his voice soft with awe. "Legolas, I did not know that such beauty could exist in a living soul – a wonder greater than even the Arkenstone. I have not the words for the beauty I have seen. If this quest is to take my life, I can rest in the knowledge that I have seen that which is fairest. Do you know what she said to me?"
A thrill ran through Legolas as he remembered the lady's voice in his own head, and her assurances to him. He could not imagine telling another soul what she had said, not yet. "What did she say?"
"She spoke of Moria," murmured Gimli, "of Kheled-zâram, and Kibil-nâla, and Khazad-dûm, and she spoke of the beauty of the days of old and the greatness of our kings. She spoke of them in my own tongue, in the language we guard as close as our kin. And she looked at me with understanding, with care, without prejudice. No elf has ever looked at me in such a way before."
For a moment, Legolas had no words of his own. Even with his fondness for a select number of the dwarves of Erebor, Legolas had never imagined that they could be so openminded, so respectful…
Dwarves were coarse, and their perception of beauty went only as far as stone, and their priorities lay in the gems they mined before the lives of their people. They were unrefined and lusted for violence, and they were merciless to the point of cruelty. They had no respect for authority. Even the most honourable would stab an ally to protect his hoard, and they saw little value in the lives of other folk. That was what Legolas had known his whole life. But it was wrong.
When he first met Kíli Baggins, and saw the ease with which he spoke Sindarin, he had wondered if dwarves' xenophobia was learned, or innate. The following year, when he saw how Gimli, barely into his adolescence, had protected little Pippin, and refused to entrust his lives to strangers, Legolas had paused again. It was a matter of trust, Gimli had said. And he had held the value of Pippin's life above his own, before he even reached adulthood. Then, Legolas had learnt that dwarves could be selfless. The more time that he spent around Gimli and Bróin, the less Legolas believed in his father's opinions. The way that the two young dwarves protected and interacted with the hobbits of Erebor, and even with the men in their company, disproved Thranduil's every point.
Dwarves were not always coarse. To their kith and kin they were gentle, and kind, and they held the lives of their family high above their own. Their lack of table manners did not necessarily equate to lack of refinement, for their culture was rich with tradition, and the readiness with which they drew their weapons came not from bloodlust but from courage and selflessness. They were merciless only to such folk as orcs or trolls, and never dolled out death without justice. They had no respect for tyrants, and believed that authority was earnt. They were not driven by gold-lust, but by duty and loyalty and love, and he could not imagine Gimli stabbing any innocent soul over gold, be they a friend or stranger.
And dwarves saw the beauty in far more than gems of the earth.
Yet Gimli had never seen an elf gaze at him without judgement before. Shame curled Legolas' stomach. Even after twenty years of amicability, had he ever truly looked at Gimli, at any of the dwarves, without the veil of his misconceptions? His father's misconceptions.
Well, he was looking now.
He smiled. "Would you like to explore with me, my friend?"
Gimli's eyebrows flew so high up his forehead that they met his hairline. "What?"
"Do you wish to explore with me?" repeated Legolas, nodding at the land around them. "We may meet more of the Galadhrim, and you can tell me of Kheled-zâram, and of Khazad-dûm."
For a moment, Gimli simply stared at him, his face hard with shock, but then his expression melted into a smile. "Aye. I would like that."
Looking back, Frodo could never quite say just how long they had stayed in Lothlórien. Perhaps it had been a few days, or maybe a few weeks. But one evening, not long before they left, he and Sam went for a walk alone. They spoke of many things, and spoke not a word about the quest. Instead, they talked about their childhoods, and shared memories beneath the golden leaves.
"Do you remember when Bolin was born, and we tried to make him a rocking horse?" Frodo asked as the sun finally sank, and Sam laughed.
"Aye, I remember. I remember how it felt when that hammer hit my foot too. My toe swelled up twice the size!" He screwed his face up and twisted his accent, doing a rather uncanny impression of Bofur. "Sam, my boy, if you wanted to start making toys I could've taught you before you took out your toes! And if you start small, one day you'll be able to make a rocking horse that doesn't look like a dead worm."
Frodo laughed. "Yes, it wasn't the most handsome of beasts, was it?"
"Hey, don't be cruel now, Frodo," said Sam, his eyebrows lowering into a look of feigned annoyance. "He interrupted us before we had a chance to add the ears. That would've made a whole world of difference."
"Perhaps. But it's probably a good thing you nearly chopped your toes off – Bofur's rocking horse was fantastic."
"Is fantastic," corrected Sam.
"I thought it broke?"
"Oh no, that's just what Bolin told everybody," Sam said, a grin spreading across his face. "He was tired of the rest of us playing with it all the time, so he hid it in the back of Bofur's workshop. Only Bofur, Bifur and I ever really go back there."
"And you didn't tell me?" cried Frodo, though his own look of outrage was diluted by his grin. "I loved that thing!"
"Exactly! Bolin was sick of not getting a look in. Besides, I'm not sure that it'd be possible to break that thing. I'm sure it's magic." Sam paused, and then sighed. "Boy, I'd love to see some real magic. You can feel it here, all over the place. In the trees, in the air – but you can't see it. But the Lady, Frodo, I'm sure she could do some wonderful things, if she wanted to."
"I'm sure she could, Sam," agreed Frodo, but the thought of magic brought back memories of playing with fireworks, and a pair of bright blue eyes beneath bushy, grey eyebrows. He sighed. "But I do not think it can help us now. Without Gandalf…"
Sam's face crumpled into grief, so quickly that Frodo regretted saying anything. Nodding slowly, Sam sighed sadly. "Aye… We'll be missing him more when we leave here, I bet. I-"
Sam cut off, and Frodo followed his gaze. His breath caught in his throat and he and Sam bowed low. The Lady Galadriel was walking towards them, a gentle smile on her face. Her hair shone bright as the stars, and her dress was white as snow. Her feet were as bare as theirs, but they were clean, and unspoiled by the dirt and grass-stains that ever covered hobbit feet. She said nothing, but beckoned to them, and without a second thought, they followed.
She led them down towards the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon, taking a path that, somehow, Frodo could not be remember seeing before. They passed through a high, green hedge into a small enclosed garden. In the centre of it, there stood a small basin atop a pedestal, and beside it there was a silver ewer. It looked remarkably like a bird bath. A small smile tugged at Galadriel's lips, and Frodo's cheeks burnt as he remembered that she could hear his thoughts.
She took the ewer and began to fill the basin from the stream that ran down the side of the garden. "This," she said, "is the Mirror of Galadriel. I have brought you here that you may look in it, if you will."
"What will we see?" Frodo asked, somewhat hesitantly. If this mirror showed him something like he had seen at Tom Bombadil's, he did not want to know.
"I can command the Mirror to show many things. Things that are. Things that were. And things that may yet come to pass. But the Mirror can also show things unbidden, and even the wisest cannot always tell what he sees."
The word 'no' formed on Frodo's lips, but somehow, he could not bring himself to utter it.
"What of you, Master Gamgee?" asked Galadriel. "Did you not say that you wished to see some magic?"
"I, I did, my Lady," stammered Sam, as his cheeks flamed red. "I wouldn't mind a peep, if I may. Just to know what's a-going on at home, if you will."
"Then look," said the Lady, holding out her hand. "But take care not to touch the water."
Sam stepped up to the pedestal, and peered down into the basin. At first, he saw nothing but the stars. They were beautiful and bright, and then they began to fly, shooting stars streaming across the surface of the water, before they went out altogether. Sam gasped as the Shire appeared before his eyes, and he saw his own, old house, and his Gaffer sitting by the kitchen fireplace. There was no fire, but there was a letter crumpled in his hand, and he was staring at the empty grate.
Then the image changed, as seamless and senseless as a dream, and he saw the house of Adalgrim Took, and he saw Orla, Ola, and Bodin asleep in one bed. It must be a squash and a squeeze, Sam was sure, to fit the three dwarflings, Esme, Saradoc, Paladin, Ellie, and Pearl into Daisy and Adalgrim's small house. But the adults were nowhere to be seen, and a figure far too big to be a hobbit loomed over the bed. Sam clutched the stone basin as the stranger lunged, and ripped the dwarflings from their bed.
"No," gasped Sam, but already the scene had changed, and he saw the Shire alight with flame. Folk were running from ruffians and orcs, and as he watched his Gaffer was bound in chains. "No!" he cried, staggering back, away from the Mirror. "No, no, no, I've got to go home!"
"What did you see?" asked Frodo, taking Sam's arm. "What's wrong?"
"I, I saw the Shire! And ruffians breaking into Mister Adalgrim's house and snatching the little ones, and fires in the night and, hobbits in chains, and oh, it was awful, I've got to go!"
"You did not wish to go home before," said the Lady gently. "Though you knew that evil may be befalling the Shire. You must remember that not all you see has come to pass, and perhaps it never will."
Pale as death, Sam stared at her for a long moment, and then he looked at Frodo. Tears filled his eyes, and he hung his head.
"There I go again, not thinking before I speak," he muttered. "I didn't mean it, Frodo. I'll follow you to the end, you know I will. But I wish that there was something more I could do – oh, I wish we'd just stayed in Erebor."
And with that, he sat down on the grass, and put his head in his hands.
Frodo swallowed, and looked up at Galadriel. "Do you advise me to look?"
"I do not advise either way," she said. "For there are both rewards and dangers in seeing. But I would not have brought you here, had I not thought you to have the wisdom and courage to proceed."
Taking a deep breath, Frodo raised his head. "I will look."
She stepped back, and Frodo walked slowly towards the Mirror. There was a small, smooth step before it, and he had to climb it to peer down. Excitement fluttered in his gut, as fragile as a moth's wings, and he took a deep breath.
Like Sam, the first he saw was the stars, but almost at once they vanished, and the next thing Frodo saw was his parents. His breath caught in his throat as their faces appeared before him – crisp and real and truer than any reflection or memory. For the first time in twenty years he saw their faces, unchanged by memory and unhindered by the stroke of paintbrush or mark of charcoal. His mother's face was flushed and sweaty, and his father was pale, but they were both beaming ear from ear, and there was a blue-eyed baby in Primula's arms.
Frodo was in her arms.
He saw himself learning to walk, tottering from his father's arms into Kíli's, and being caught by Bilbo when he fell. Bilbo had hardly aged a day since then, but Frodo had not realised how heavy his uncle's eyes had become. In the mirror, they were light and bright as stars, and there was no sign of even laughter lines on his face. And Kíli was yet to grow any sign of a beard, and his hair was back in a high ponytail, and he looked younger than Pippin did now.
Then the scene changed again, and Frodo's stomach gave swoop like that it made when he road on the boats and barges of Lake-town. He saw Thorin in his armchair in the Company Room, with Frodo asleep in his lap. Thorin took Frodo's shield necklace in his fingers and then smiled, kissing the hobbit's curly hair. And then Frodo disappeared from the picture, and the grey outnumbered the black in Thorin's beard, and the king was the one asleep. A pained frown was carved into his face, and in his hand was his old oak shield.
The shield slipped.
Fell to the floor.
And Thorin did not stir.
Then, Frodo saw what lay outside of the kingdom: New Dale was ablaze as if Smaug had come again, and an enormous army filled the plains before the mountain. The fields cultivated in and around the mountain were either smouldering or still in flames, and the hobbits' gardens were trampled by orc boots. On the horizon, dark clouds were rolling in.
And then darkness overcame the entirety of the mirror, and Frodo looked closer. An eye appeared, lidless, wreathed in flame, and he gasped. It swelled until it filled the whole mirror, and roved this way and that, searching.
Searching for him. Fear wrapped around his heart, and the ring grew heavier and heavier, and dragged his head down, towards the water. Curls of steam were rising from the Mirror, and the ring slipped out from beneath his shirt, dangling but an inch from the surface of the water.
"Do not touch the water," Galadriel said softly, and at once the eye vanished, and all he could see in the basin was the twinkling light of the stars.
Gasping, Frodo stepped backwards, and found that he was shaking all over.
"I know what it is that you last saw," said the Lady, "for it is also in my mind. Do not be afraid – ever the Dark Lord seeks to find his ring, and ever he gropes to find me, and my thought, but here he cannot reach us. The door is closed."
Frodo frowned slightly, and his eyes caught sight of the starlight glittering on her finger – of a ring. It seemed almost like it was an illusion, but the closer he looked, the more certain he was that he knew. This was one of the three elven rings.
"Yes," she said aloud. "This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper. The Dark Lord does not know this, though he suspects. It is by the power of this ring, untouched by Sauron, that we can endure his forces, unless he comes upon our gates himself."
A fire glinted in the Lady's eyes, a strength that Frodo was sure he would never come close to gaining himself.
"If you ask it of me, I will give you the One Ring," said Frodo, his heart hammering somewhere up in his throat. "For you are wise and fearless and fair beyond any hope of mine."
Galadriel's eyes widened, and Frodo drew out the ring. He laid it on his palm, held out his hand, and she stepped forward. "I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this," she murmured. "Long have I wondered what I should do, should the Great Ring come into my power, and you offer it to me freely." Frodo swallowed as the Lady seemed to grow taller, throwing out her arms and emitting such a light that it hurt to look at her. "In place of the Dark Lord you shall have a Queen, and I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Fair as the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountains, and as deadly as the sea, and the storm, and the lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!"
Frodo curled away, unable to tear his eyes away from a figure so beautiful and worshipful and dreadful, but before his very eyes she let her arms fall to her sides, and the light faded, and she looked just as she had before. She laughed, softly. Sadly.
"I pass the test," she said, her eyes lingering on Frodo. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."
They stood in silence, as the moon climbed higher into the sky, and the two hobbits tried to process what they had seen, and heard, and felt. Finally, when midnight fell, the Lady spoke.
"Let us return to your companions," she said, and her voice was gentle again. "In the morning, you must depart, for we each have chosen our paths, and lingering longer would not be wise. The tides of fate are flowing."
I hope that you enjoyed that chapter, and that my sleepiness did not result in any awful typos! Please do let me know, and I should be back with you on Monday Take care, and thanks for reading :D