Arda, Middle-Earth, The Golden Wood: T.A. 3019, January 15h

The Golden wood was…beautiful in Sam's opinion. Maybe not as beautiful as the Shire at the height of summer, or Rosie Cotton practicing her magic, but still quite beautiful none the less. Being blindfolded through half of it though hadn't exactly endeared the gardener to the wood's inhabitants. Maybe he would have been more forgiving if it were just him, this was the Elves home after all and these weren't exactly the most trusting times. But to blindfold Mister Frodo after everything he'd gone through, well that was just a profanity against fairness. Hadn't they all lost enough already, now they had to lose their eyes as well?

Still, when they finally did take the blindfolds off, the place was, as he'd said before, quite beautiful. Almost enough to forgive the Elves for their treatment of the Fellowship, yet one glance at the worn-down look in Mister Frodo's eyes, or the deeply hurt and angry one in Mister Gimli's, and Sam decided it would take more than that.

Middle-Earth, Lothlorien: T.A. 3019, January 15th

Despite the look of things, Galadriel had been expecting the fellowship – she just hadn't been expecting them so soon, nor so few of them. Gandalf was not among them, and her feelings told her he was not among anyone anymore. He had fallen into darkness, and out of her sight. This troubled her a great deal more than she cared to reveal to her husband, nor to any confidant who would care to listen.

So much so in fact that if she let her thoughts dwell on it for too long, then her despair would overpower her hope, and she would begin to fade. So, she did the only thing in her power to stop that, she turned her mind to other things.

When they had first come before her Galadriel had investigated the minds of the Fellowship and seen… many things there: pain, grief, distant and strange lands, where the language of the elves was profaned by…by creatures of the other world. And yet, despite all of that it was the guilt that came strongest from them all. They all blamed themselves in some way for losing the wizard: Gimli son of Gloin, because it had been his idea to go to halls of his kin, Frodo Baggins because he had sanctioned it, and the others simply because they had not been fast enough, not been strong or quick enough, not been smart enough to stop the wizard's fall.

She also sensed disapproval directed at her and her people from one of the hobbits. It was such a tonal-shift among the walls of grief that clouded each of their minds that it almost caused the great Galadriel, Lady of the Golden Wood, to break into a smile.

She remained in control only by her own sheer force of will, and she made a small decision then to speak deeper with the hobbit who seemed so disapproving of her people's actions. But for now, she had more important things on her mind, she must test the Fellowship's loyalty to the quest and to the Ringbearer himself.

Middle-Earth, Lórien: T.A. 3019, that night

Boromir sat with his head clutched between his hands, trying to drown out the memory of her voice. So soft, so gentle that it almost fooled him into trusting her, almost fooled him…into giving in, letting her inside to twist his mind to her own whims. But he was a son of Gondor…and no matter what the temptation, he would not give in. Be it a beautiful woman with a soft, melodic voice or…or a ring, that shone even when the light did not hit it.

He knew someone was behind him, he didn't need a snap of a twig to tell him that. Spinning round, Boromir had unsheathed his sword and pointed at the boy's throat quicker than the brat could breath. Or so he'd thought, but the hard clang of metal on metal robbed him of that notion – the silver horse, a strange horn perched on its forehead, emblazoned on the shield of Calgacus Aon-adharcach, shimmered in the pale moonlight of this Elvish Land.

'Ah'm nay disturbing ye, am ah?'*

The boy's voice was lilting, possessing a quality of laughter within its crooked depths which the man of Gondor had never noticed before. If anything, it made the round youth all the more grating for it.

'You are, but I highly doubt admitting that will get you to leave.'

The boy laughed again, deep and grating like the Wild men of the Woods of Rohan. How could one person embody all the disagreeable traits of all the enemies of Gondor? It must have been deliberate, not even the wild Dunlanders could produce a child so vile.

'Nae, if anything ah think it'll prompt me tae sit doon.' **

And so, he did, right beside Boromir, who couldn't truly find it in him to fight anymore. Well, other than to half beg in desperation for the boy to please…

'Leave me alone, I have not the mind to fend off your jibes tonight, Dunland.'

'Then neen shall leave me mouth, Gondor. Bit ah'll open ma lugs if ye've a care tae clype me yer worries.'***

'And why would I do that?'

'Neen sae fair tae hear yer secrets, as the ear o the enemy.'****

'I assume that's some ridiculous saying from your homeland.'

'Well Aye, but I feel it fits the situation, what where ye thinking of that brought ye so low as te weep louder that a hobbit's snoring?'

Should he say? The boy was a fool, and yet they already disliked each other …how much lower could he fall in the eyes of this young felon. And more importantly, would Boromir really care if he did?

'Do you ever hear it?'

'Fit?'

'The Voice in your head.'

'Wouldna that be the Lady's voice, or something darker? Something golder perhaps?'

'Both, neither, yes…yes that.'

Calgacus sighed beside him, his own shoulders slumping as his mighty shield slid to the ground before the two men.

'Aye, it fair go take a greater spirit than ah tae block it oot entirely. Ah hear it sometimes, whispering tae me…spikkin o a better life ah could mak wi it, a land far ma wife an child dinna hiv tae bide an breath the same air as the deid. It's how ah ken it's lying, son of Denethor.'*****

Boromir felt his breath catch in his throat, memories of the ring's own whispered promises of a better life, a life where Gondor would grow proud and strong once more, ringing in his ear.

'It's a thing of evil, its canna put a stop to evil.'

Middle-earth, Lórien: T.A. 3019, January 17th

It was Mister Frodo who woke Sam up in the middle of the night not, as they would joke later, the singing of the elves. The other hobbit didn't mean to or nothing, but during the course of their journey Sam had become acutely aware of Mister Frodo's movements. So, when the gardener had heard the tell-tale sound of his master trying to sneak away, well, he took a great deal of notice.

He knew he shouldn't be such a worry-wart, not in this place at least. The Lady Galadriel kept her home well-guarded –the fellowship could attest to that right enough – and she seemed to be the friendly sort. She reminded him of Rosie a bit, just as beautiful and just as terribly powerful when you provoked their wrath. So yes, Sam was fully aware that he was being ridiculous when he got up and followed Mister Frodo, but he couldn't stop himself. This journey had been too fraught with death as it was, they couldn't lose another – certainly not Mister Frodo.

It didn't take long to catch up with his master - a lack of proper hobbit food had done none of them a great deal of good – and the other hobbit seemed neither surprised or disturbed by the sound of his servant's clumsy footsteps behind him. That was most likely because his mind was far too preoccupied by the Elven Lady to give much thought to Sam.

Tall and fair as the golden waves of wheat on the Cotton Farm in harvest season, she walked between the shadows of the trees. She didn't speak but beckoned them forward with nothing but a crook of her long elegant finger. Or perhaps just his master, but Sam followed on behind nevertheless. Mister Frodo walked almost in a trance in the Lady's wake, but Sam kept his mind on where they were being led. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, it was just that if he had learned anything from the old tales he'd been told as a child, it was to be wary of where you were being led if you didn't know your guide.

Still this wood was a safe place – almost felt like a little holiday, being here – and he would just have to trust that she wouldn't lead them astray. She hadn't as yet, but she had led them on a merry trail: up a hill, through a high green hedge and into an enclosed garden, where no trees grew, and it was open to the sky. An old fear from childhood gripped him then as he looked up into that open sky, the evening star shone down on them with as much white fire in its gaze as it had ever had in his dreams. He swore he could hear that strange voice in his head again, the one that spoke in a language that was older than him, older in fact than all hobbits, older than the Ancestors themselves.

This fear gripped him so tightly that he didn't even notice when Mister Frodo and the Lady had left him behind. And not until they were away down the stairs did he break free of it. But by that time, they were almost out of his sight and it was only by practically throwing himself down that long flight of stairs that he even came close to catching up with them. He very nearly tripped into that green hollow the Lady had led his master into, and it was only by sheer force of will that he stopped his feet before they could tumble him into the stream.

Mister Frodo and the Lady didn't even seem to notice his presence, too taken by the strange basin she'd filled with water from the stream.

'Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,' said the Lady. 'I have brought you here so that you may look in to it, if you will.' Everything was very still, thick and cloying, just like it always was when there was magic in the air.

'What shall we look for, and what shall we see?' Asked Mister Frodo, filled with as much awe as Sam had been the first time he'd seen real magic.

'Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,' she answered, 'and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things that we wish to behold. You may yet see many things Frodo Baggins… things that were, things that are, and things that yet may be. Do you still wish to look?'

Frodo did not, or could not, answer.

'And you?' she said, turning to Sam. 'For this is what your people would call magic or,' she scrounged her brows together, 'the rustic arts. A strange thing to call such a power, or so it seems to my mind.' Sam bit his lip and shuffled his feet in the damp grass beneath his toes.

'Aye, so it might seem so to one who is strange to our lands and our ways your Ladyship. But that's just what it is to the likes of me and my kind, only folk who are of the rustic sort can do this sort of thing. You know, have the gift of it, or rather want to learn of it; didn't think it was the sort of thing high folk turned their minds to.'

'Do many of your kind have this gift, young hobbit?' She seemed quite startled at the revelation of rustic folk having magic, or maybe it was just hobbits in general. They weren't particularly a magic looking folk after all. Yet, even then, her surprise seemed a little too great to be believable to Sam's eye – after all she seemed quite well versed in the rustic arts herself, if her Mirror was anything to judge by; so surely it couldn't be that unfathomable that there were others in the world with such power. Maybe it was an Elf thing, maybe magic was treated differently with their kind. But whatever the reason Sam had better give an answer to her question, because she was still looking at him with that penetrating gaze of hers.

'A few, your Ladyship.'

'And yourself?'

Sam shook his head, 'no, your Ladyship. I've never had the talent for it, I'm just a plain old gardener, not like our Marigold.'

Shit, shit, he shouldn't have said that…Marigold didn't have Magic like this, not living magic, she was a Ganyman. Her magic was that of the dead not the living…and there was good reason you didn't talk about that out loud. Not least was, well…Proudfoot and his laws.

Galadriel looked at the small gardener then like he was something quite strange indeed, and like she would have liked nothing more than to interrogate him on every aspect of hobbit life…or at least, Hobbit Magic. But she was brought back to the present again by Mister Frodo stepping up to the Mirror and reaching for it.

'Do not touch the water!' Sam's master yanked his hand away like he'd been burned and seemed – still in his trance like state – not to want to make another move towards the object of his fascination. Galadriel took note of this as well, because when she spoke next her voice was of a far kinder note.

'Do you now wish to look Frodo?'

Mister Frodo looked up at the great Elven Lady, his blue eyes still holding that same glazed expression that many of the elves seemed to sport around here.

'Do you advise me to look?' he asked then, an almost dreamy quality to his voice.

'No,' the Lady replied in the same tone. 'I do not counsel you one way or the other. I am not a counsellor. Seeing is both good and perilous. Yet I think, Frodo, that you have courage and wisdom enough for the venture, or I would not have brought you here.'

His master stepped up to the basin, this time keeping his hands firmly planted on either side of the water. For a long while he simply stood there, that same blank expression over his fine features, staring into the water. What the gentlehobbit saw Sam could only guess at. As for himself and the Lady, time seemed to pass slower than before. Galadriel made no more attempts to quiz Sam about his people or their ways, which Sam was not quite sure how he felt about. On the one hand he had never particularly enjoyed talking about the rustic arts with those that didn't quite understand them. Mainly because most of those questions had come from Master Pippin, who while being a fine lad in all regards, and clearly meaning well, was also a Took; which meant you were never quite sure whether he was really interested or just making fun of you. Sometimes it seemed even he wasn't really sure.

On the other hand, it had been so long since he'd talked to anyone about that part of hobbit culture, – even his sister who'd taken her Gany-vows as soon as she'd turned thirty-three (though Blarney help them if anyone ever found out) – that he was beginning to feel quite isolated in his beliefs. It wasn't that others didn't believe or in fact practice the rustic arts – the Cottons were some of the most powerful magicians ever to be born in the Shire – but ever since Proudfoot had raised that ban against speaking of such 'barbaric' practices in public places, conversations hadn't exactly been easy to start.

It hardly mattered no more anyway when Mister Frodo began to cry in terror, Sam tried to reach for his master but was stopped when the Lady Galadriel snagged his wrist and held him back like he was some form of misbehaving young'un. Sam struggled under her grip and cried out to his master.

'Mister Frodo! Mister Frodo!'

That dratted Ring that hung around his master's neck slipped out of the gentlehobbit's shirt and began dragging him down, closer to the water. Once again, the lady cried out for his master not to touch the water and once again his master seemed to hear her. He jerked his head back and half stumbled, half fell, away from the basin. The Lady released Sam and he was able to catch his master in his arms before he hit the ground. Mister Frodo shook all over, but his eyes never left the visage of the Lady, still as tall and graceful as ever, looking down on them with blank serenity.

'I know what it was that you saw,' she said; 'for that is also in my mind. Do not be afraid. I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. Yet we cannot let him in, Frodo, not even if we wished it so.'

She lifted up her white arms and spread out her hands towards the East like a white tree, with its leaves all stripped away for winter. The Star with the light from Sam's dreams shone clear above, but Sam kept his eyes focused on the Lady and did not look at it. But the thing was so bright, and so loud in his head that the Lady was like a shadow on the wall next to it. Well, except for the ring on her finger of course. It glittered like a fire, like the first and only fire that had ever burned in the world. And Sam had to shade his eyes even from her. His master on the other hand could not tear his eye away from the Blarney cursed thing and the Lady smiled at that. Blarney well smiled.

'Yes,' she said a twinkle of mischief in her voice. 'This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper. He suspects, but he does not know – not yet. Do you not see now wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlorien will fade, and the tides of time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.'

That was a bit of a cheek to the likes of real rustic folk, Sam thought exhaustion bubbling close to the surface of his rage. But no one took his thoughts much mind. Mister Frodo pushed him aside as he stood up, his voice still the toneless sound it had been throughout all of this midnight madness.

'And what do you wish?'

'That what should be shall be,' she answered, an oddly intense note to her beautiful voice. 'Yet I could wish, were it of any avail, that the One Ring had never been wrought, or had remained for ever lost.'

Around the three the air began to feel hot and itchy on the two hobbits' skin, almost suffocating in its intensity. Frodo raised his hand, palm flat and up turned, where the Ring lay waiting for someone to grab it and take it for their own. The air grew cooler again, and the Lady in front of them grew still, and Frodo and Sam could begin to breathe at last. That was until the Blarney cursed Lady began to speak.

'And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth; all shall love me and despair!'

The light from the young hobbit's darkest nightmares grew and surrounded Galadriel as if she and it where of one being. She stood before Sam and his master seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful like a star up on high. A terrible thing, like the elves of old must have seemed to the Ancestors. As if yanked out of a dream Frodo closed his hand around the ring and shoved it back into his shirt. The terrible light around the Elven-Lady began to fade then and she blinked as if startled by this occurrence. Any illusion that Frodo might have been under while being led to this place was dropped instantly. He turned and ran out of the garden and all the way up the stairs that had led to it, before Galadriel could say another word; leaving her and his gardener staring after him in confusion.

'Well' said the mighty lady of Lothlorien, 'that did not go as I expected, but I do appear to have passed the test, haven't I?' Sam did not know how to answer that, so kept his silence. 'I shall diminish, return west across the sea to the land I was born in and remain Galadriel.' She sounded disappointed by that somehow. 'I don't suppose you wish now to look into the mirror of Galadriel, do you?'

He should say no to that. He should back away and run after Mister Frodo. The poor dear hadn't been getting near enough to eat lately, no thanks to that greedy Took and Brandybuck scoffing down the best of the sausages. Not to mention the torment of the ring. And yet…and yet something called to him, something old and from a dream he hadn't had in years. Not since his father's death, after that he had real things in his life to have nightmares about.

He hadn't realised his feet were moving towards the basin, not that it mattered – he couldn't have stopped them even if he'd known. Now he was standing at it, his hands gripping the sides of the Blarney Cursed thing so hard that his knuckles had turned white. White as the snow on that blasted mountain with the name he couldn't pronounce. But now that he was looking, down, down into the water none of that mattered. Because now he could see, he could see it all.

The Shire, he could see the Shire.

And there was Rosie Cotton, and she was pregnant. She was pregnant with his baby; he knew it without having to ask. This had to be the future the Elf Lady had been talking about, because him and Rosie had never…they'd never done what you were supposed to, to make a baby.

And then the picture of Rosie was gone, and in its place, Sam saw sand. A whole land made up of Sand. Sand mountains, sand hills, even sand cities. And in this land of Sand something was wrong, something – the way the people he saw moved, it weren't how people were supposed to move. It was all wrong, stiff and forced, like they were rotten right from the inside out. He saw people sitting up from their grave sides, mass graves all wriggling with bodies that had forgotten they were supposed to be dead. It made him feel ill and sick, and he wanted to look away he really did but something, something kept him pinned there. Kept him watching, and from that moment to the day he died, he never knew what it was.

And that's when he saw him.

At first, he thought it was one of the races of men, in fact for one very strange second Sam even thought it was young Calgacus. But as the person walked closer, he saw that it was nothing of that sort. It was a wizard; he'd have bet his feet on it. And yet, looking at him, walking in that dark, sunless land, with rags wrapped around his arms there was something in his step, in the way his legs moved that was very elf like. Lost, and not quite there anymore. He was laughing wild and manic and there was a woman, a woman in front of him with her arms out stretched as if…as if shielding Sam with her body. She was small for one of the races of men, and her hair was dyed blue.

And he knew her name, even though he couldn't hear what they were saying. He tried to cry it out, to cry out for Mab who would never see her grandchild grow. But she turned then, and she screamed and right there he was certain his ears bled from the sound. Because as he looked on her face, it changed and suddenly it weren't a face of a woman no more, but a young hobbit lass with curls of bright red hair.

The one they found in the river, killed by old Halffoot.

She was screaming, but she weren't being killed by Halffoot at all. The thing crouching over her, ripping into her with its own teeth were…Proudfoot.

Proudfoot with a blood-soaked chin.

Proudfoot with a look of a creature unnatural and unbelonging in his eyes.

Proudfoot with the voice of an elf on his lips.

In the old tales, the ones his Da would tell him and Marigold on those rare nights when Mam was fast enough asleep not to be minded, there was only one creature so foul as to sink their teeth into the likes of their own kind. And they called them the Mewlips, simply because to call them by a scream would have brought them forth from the darkness. In the stories they always looked like hobbits, but that was only because it was only hobbits that remembered to keep telling their stories. They weren't really hobbits, or men, or dwarves or even those high elves – they were bodies, bodies that had been brought back wrong. With a different creature steering the reins.

The spirit – every time they made a deal with a Ganyman gone bad – always thought they were getting a new chance at living again. They'd run to find their spouse, or their children and parents, to hug them, to tell them all the things they'd never gotten to say the first time. But then the hunger would start, the hunger for flesh that was never supposed to be eaten, and…well, Mewlip stories never had happy endings.

Da had told the stories of the Mewlips, but Sam didn't think even he believed them. After all, Ganymen understood death, why would any of them treat it like that. But then, Samwise supposed that was a bit of a hobbit presumption that a Ganyman had to be involved at all.

Suddenly Sam's feet gave way under him with a scream, and he found himself falling flat on his back. His heart was beating so fast that he couldn't even hear what the Lady was trying to say to him. But his sister Daisy had raised him with manners, and he knew it was rude not to give an answer – even if he didn't understand the question.

'Sorry, your Ladyship – I think I've had enough rustic magic for tonight.'

Boom, boom, in his ear. But she didn't seem to mind that he couldn't hear her proper like, because she smiled at him as if they shared a secret only they two would ever know. Though what that could be Sam had no idea, but better not to ask where fine folks were concerned really.

He had to get away from here, while he could still breath

'I should go and see to Mister Frodo, now. He got quite a scare there and he hasn't been sleeping as well as he should anyway.' Galadriel nodded absent-mindedly, already turning away from him.

'Yes, that is how it should be, go see to your master, I shall stay here and ponder on what has occurred this night.'

Understanding when he'd been dismissed Sam made a quick retreat up the stairs, hoping he hadn't fallen too far behind.

Behind him Galadriel stared into her mirror and frowned.

Doric Translation

*'I'm not disturbing you, am I?'

**'No, if anything I think it'll prompt me to sit down.'

***'Then none shall leave my mouth, Gondor. But I'll open my ears if you've a care to tell me your worries.'

****'None so fair to hear your secrets as the ear of the enemy.'

*****'Yes, it would take a greater spirit than I to be able to block it out entirely. I hear it sometimes, whispering to me…speaking of a better life I could make with it, a land where my wife and child don't have to live and breathe the same air as the dead. It's how I know it's lying, son of Denethor.'