"My forge," Sauron presented with a swish of his cloak and a sweep of his arm. He looked at the furnace and tools with childlike glee. Wide smile and eager step, he ran his hand over tongs and hammers as he passed them. Leading her ever towards that large anvil in the center of the cavernous room. Hall after hall had led to this, form how the very air seared her skin, she judged it underground, fueled by the lava flows.

His hand stopped on a blade black as night. Looked like the lava stones of the land, sharpened into a small but hideous blade. He hesitated to proffer it, careful to stand far enough away she could not grab it lest she got a running start. One blade to his throat was enough. He could sense the chill of her stare without meeting it. The magic of the blade sending the same warning stabs against her magic as his own. "You must become acquainted with your role in our blood rite tomorrow night."

Midsummer. She should be celebrating with lanterns and feasts, gifts and songs. But instead she would be binding herself to the Dark Lord of Mordor.

"Tell me, Commander. Are you as good at making blades as killing with them?" He teased, his hand setting the blade down gently on his anvil, gesturing for her to draw next to him. She did as she was told, wary of the waves of caution that came from the metal anvil and blade before them. The sting of dark sorcery. She glanced at him, peering back at her from the corner of her eye, a smirk twisting back at her as well.

"It seems you've already made one," she breathed, forcing air to pass from her lungs. "What help could I avail you?"

He extended his palm, waiting for her to fill it with her own. Her lithe fingers fairly trembled in his touch. Desire and fear, he observed. Her muscles grew taught, her eyes brightening as he stroked the tender inside of her wrist. Good.

Body pressed against body as he yanked her tight. "You will help me more than you could know, Galadriel," he murmured softly, his thumb still brushing a tantalizing rhythm against her left wrist and palm. A subtle growth of warmth sparking beneath his touch, almost beneath her skin. Her very blood began to simmer at that touch, a bubbling sensation as he held her tightly against his body, his eyes verdant green and softened by his desire as he met her gaze at last. Sapphire eyes glowed with the distance dancing flames, lashes batting shut as she turned her parted and beckoning lips towards his. Her breath came rapidly as he stoked her into molten need.

A flick of his wrist and a flash of stinging smoke, an apron wrapped his body in cool leather. Blackest smoke swirled over the anvil, revealing a cast of liquid iron swirling deep within the cloud.

Sauron clutched the blade in his hand, bringing it closer to her open and trembling palm as he placed a kiss on those waiting lips again. She hungered for him, tasting, sucking and biting like one famished. He smiled at her wanton need, as she wandered her free hand over his neck and into the scoring scratch of his beard. Engrossed and obsessed. Even better. As her grip laced into the strands of his hair, he pulled her hand flat, twisting away from her and clutching that shining obsidian blade with resolve. He sliced her palm, holding her steady with all his force as she wrestled against him.

Bright red elven blood dripped into the white-hot iron, the molten metal sizzling sharply at contact. Her fist punched and pounded against his head, his back, but the blows bounced off, barely registering as his sorcery grew and surrounded them, the steam of the forge and smoke of his magic filling the air. Pain flooded his back, but not in his body. In his magic. A blade of her light, pointed and narrow, silver and gold, stabbed and thrust into his cloud of his spell. To his minds eye, she brandished her brother's dagger again, readying to put an end to the pain he inflicted.

No matter. It had to be done. Sauron squeezed her bleeding hand, forcing more blood to ooze into the liquid metal, his eyes closing as he concentrated on parrying the attack. Snuffing out her magic in darkness, he took a deep breath. Releasing her hand and shoving her body away from him, he turned sharply.

Her predatory eyes glared, her bosom heaving in purest rage as she cradled her bloodied palm in her other hand. "Don't you ever wound me again," she spat out every word in time to her rasping breath.

"I'm sorry, Galadriel," he soothed, his hands held out in a gesture of repentance. "But I knew you would not sacrifice your own blood willingly," his left brow arched in an attempt at humor. "Not yet anyway."

"I don't want to know what you mean by that," snapping again, she began reaching for the hem of her skirt to tear for a bandage.

"Allow me," he set the knife down carefully, closing the distance to encircle her hand again. Whispering some inaudible but harsh words again of black speech, he ran a single finger through the bloodied cut. The skin turned red with agonizing, blazing heat as the wound closed with the pass of his touch. Cauterizing with his very touch.

Galadriel hissed in pain, testing her hand, opening and closing it as she took a step away. Suspicion tweaked at her expression. It would be awhile before she gave him her kiss willingly again, he sneered in humor, watching the thoughts and feelings of betrayal dance across her face.

"A little gratitude to your king would do you good," he smirked, once again stepping back to the anvil, eyeing the metal as it began to cool too quickly. He gripped the black knife, holding it up towards Galadriel. "It's your turn," he bid her urgently.

Before he could send another pithy, flirtatious comment her way, she grabbed the blade. Heavy in her hand. Unbalanced and primitive. But sharp. One second in her hand was enough to assess its lethal nature. Part of her memory awakened, it longed to leap at him, to swipe a slash across the right side of his neck. She could do it, just a cut barely a scratch, without severing an artery. But she dared not risk his wrath. One time, she would have craved nothing better than slit Sauron's throat, but she found herself hesitating. She knew now the scent of his skin, the tickle of his beard, the rhythm of the pulse that beat in that neck.

"Of all beings on this Earth, I did not expect you to falter at the chance to slice me open," he chuckled, his laughter low and hushed. Then he dared to step closer, offering his matching palm to her own scared one, his other hand wrapping around her grip on the blade. He grinned widely as he placed a kiss on her forehead. "Together?" He whispered against her alabaster skin.

"I can manage," she defended, arresting her hand from his hold. The golden pink of his palm was all she could see, watching it as if at a distance as she ran the black stone through his flesh. Her throat drying out as crimson blood pooled in the gap. Perhaps she thought it would have been black. From the corner of her eye, she barely noticed him nodding his assent, his lips whispering another incantation. The first drop of his blood hit the molten iron with a deafening hiss, the liquid burning brighter and brighter, as if flaming in the hottest of furnaces. But in the open air before them.

She remembered the searing burn of Celebrimbor's workshop, this scorched her very flesh from her, she suspected if it were not for the icy cooling blast from her ring of power, her very flesh would have melted like the metal before her.

Their blood mingled, the liquid in the hot mold almost glowing a hot white, then suddenly it went dark. Cold. And all was still. Only then Galadriel realized she had held her breath. Releasing it with a sigh, she turned for an explanation.

Pride, arrogance, accomplishment. They all etched the lines of his swarthy face. His hand still dripped splatters of blood at his feet, not even registering the wound as he stared into the metal. He reached down, picking the black bar up with his bare hand. "It's quite cool now," he murmured, hushed and reverent for what they had just accomplished.

"A blood rite," she said, equally hushed. "I thought you said it was to be accomplished on Midsummer."

"Oh this," he smirked, tightening the laces to the leather smock and reaching for leather braces for his arms that rested on the work table spread with his tools. "This was but one step to accomplish the magic we need, now to forge the knife for the rite itself." Before slipping the braces over his hands, he absent-mindedly sealed up his own wound, something he must have done a thousand times this Age, so familiar was the action.

Galadriel dared one step closer, observing his fluid movements as he prepared for smithing: braces on, apron laced, hammers and tongs adjusted within reach. A ritual of its own merit she had watched him do several times in Numenór, and yet this time, that metallic sting and smoke of his magic crashed in waves over her. No holding back his abilities here in the Dark Lord's own forge.

When at last he turned to pull the bellow chains behind him and stoke the fires even hotter, she turned to find her own way out, the suffocation of his magic growing intolerable.

As if remembering she was there at all, he glanced up, quickly fanning a sort of space through the smoke in her direction. "Stay, Galadriel," he commanded, though his voice gentled the order.

"I have given you enough sacrifice for your creation," she replied haughtily, that jaunty tilt to her chin.

He only threw her a calculating half- smile. His eyes remained softest green, but pupils decidedly narrowing again into those serpentine slits. He looked away, busying himself with plying a pair of tongs to retrieve the new-created blood ore. "I may yet have need of you," he commented, a heat to his words casting a meaning more than for just for smithing.

"Very well," she muttered, her voice nearly drowned out by the growing roar of fire.

Metal clacking as the furnace mouth opened, not unlike a dragon's maw in design Galadriel decided. Opening of its own magical accord, the furnace flashed searing heat into the darkened room. Sauron spun the metal into the flames, still silent. Biding his time. And always watching.

Finally, he turned back towards his anvil, the furnace maw shutting slowly. Hammer beat the metal over and over again, the sparking, red liquid hardening and flattening with every stroke.

Only the deafening hiss of the quenching bucket drew her out of the mesmerizing rhythm of his work. He was turned towards her, the metal black and steaming in his tongs. His hair dark with sweat and his face spotted with smoke; this was Halbrand's face and form caressed by flicking light.

And his smile all but said he knew her thoughts as if they were his own.

Sauron licked his lips, then set the metal down on the anvil. "Smithing always draws up a thirst. Care for a glass?" he threw over his shoulder, two mugs of ale and a pitcher suddenly appearing on the work table between them. "Free of charge. Not even a kiss demanded in exchange," he taunted as he grabbed one mug and raised it up in a toast.

She stepped around the table drawing up next to him, brushing his arm as she reached for the other mug awaiting her. At their contact, she shuddered, the intensity of fire between them somehow heightened even at the merest brush of clothes or skin. What did that blood magic do to them, she wondered as a lump formed in her throat.

He responded with a swirl of his magic in her mind. "Blood rites are no dark sorcery, as you are worried, though they are far more potent than most spells. They connect one another, heart to heart and soul to soul," he pushed the knowledge into her mind with ease. And with barely any counter reaction from her ring's magic. As if her light was muted.

He swallowed down the dregs of his ale loudly. Even before she had allowed herself one sip. Both mugs came to rest back on the table. His empty, hers untouched. "Perhaps I should have asked more questions," she commented, catching him before he returned to his work.

He paused, muscles bulging from their hammering as he crossed his arms across his chest.

"Perhaps you should have," he rejoined, a calculating glint to his eyes. "I've said before, you can always ask of me."

"Once we are bound, then I will share your powers?"

He nodded once.

"And you will share the light again? My light?"

A nod again.

"What else will we share?" she swallowed the anxiety of unknown troubles down and away from her voice.

"If you are asking if it will make you Queen, then in a way yes. Once we are bound I will place a crown of starlight on your head, brighter than the trees of Valinor themselves." He did not move, but the name of her home on his lips sent a pain to her very soul.

She breathed again. "What about my thoughts, my feelings?"

He sniffed harshly, "That intimacy is the effect of my own powers, the more you share in that, the more you will grow in the skill to not only speak and enter my mind, but the minds of anyone who comes before you."

"So my magic will remain my own?" she asked, a pointed question, but hesitant in her voice.

"Unwilling to share?" he purred. "That ice cold, water magic of your ring too precious to allow your lord and master to use from time to time?"

Galadriel paused, biting the tip of her tongue. He will crave it more than you. Crave the ring more than I crave it? Or long to possess it as his own more than he desires me? She had to tread cautiously until she knew which meaning Mithrandir had intended. "If it would please you, so long as I am not harmed by the process."

"I would never wish you harm, Galadriel." He looked away, grabbing the metal again in the pincer of his tool. "Care to help me… elongate the blade?" his voice dripped with innuendo. That salacious smirk he threw over his shoulder sent her heart into her throat and her core molten like the furnace behind them both. He reached his arm for her to approach, and her body was more than willing to obey. His arms, damp already with sweat of exertion, enfolded around her as she stood before his anvil too. His body pressed, heated and hard, along every point of her back. He felt truly massive, or she felt suddenly elfishly small, his arms easily reaching for tools around her frame, his head clearing above her own, with no effort at all.

His breath whispered through her hair, his arm brushing past her as he reached for the tongs and iron to be forged. "Turn away, melin," he murmured warmly into the crest of her ear.

Beloved.

The term of endearment in her tongue, in Quenya, heating her more than the opening maw of the furnace. Burying herself against the soft leather of his apron, the protective planes of his chest as Sauron continued his labor in the fiery opening. She quivered at every flex of his muscles as he turned his tongs into the flames that caressed her back. Every pant from his mouth at the weight and the heat of the fire rustled against her face.

After a grunt, he turned around her, the furnaces shutting once more, the iron's heat glowing in the flickering darkness around them.

"Here," he grunted, retrieving a heavy hammer and turning to place it in her hands. "I will hold the metal still, and you strike it," his instructions came between huffs. His face glowed bright, dripping in sweat and ruddy from the warmth around them. The hammer took all her might to lift, both her hands turning white at the knuckles just holding in place. Sauron stepped aside, a wicked grin on his face as he enjoyed watching her struggle. "It will take all your strength to wield my hammer, maybe even all that power you keep for yourself in that ring of yours," his chuckle rumbled.

She tried, barely able to lift it to her shoulder's height, let alone over head.

"Here," he tutted his tongue. "Allow me. You hold this as still as you can, Elf," he taunted her.

Reluctantly, and not without an irritated huff, they switched positions. Sauron took his hammer in one hand, and breathing deep, it struck the metal with resounding force, the clang of his strike shaking to her very bones. Sparks flew to the stone floor in all directions, the red iron turning to black as he beat it flatter once more.

"Again," he ordered, offering the handle of his hammer again. She accepted with a swallowed groan, both hands encircling the metal shaft. Metal on the anvil flipped perfectly and effortlessly with his confident expertise. He even held it stead in one hand. "If you would like me to assist you…"

"I can do it myself," she snipped, stepping back as if to get a running start.

Sauron shook his head slowly and with wicked pleasure. He sighed loud enough for her to look in his direction. "If you ever clutched my cock that hard I would punish you so severely," he rasped. Her throat went dry as his magic invaded her mind, something she was also beginning to crave. He threw her an image of prison bars, twisted and jagged, horrifying in shape and cloaked in the darkness. And Galadriel's body stretched wide and naked against them. Suspended just high enough for him to access every inch of her skin.

Her true body's hands clutched the hammer as swirls of embers and smoke descended to the tips of her fingers.

In her mind, he pounced upon her flesh, his nails scoring down her body with painful pleasure, his teeth sinking into the tender flesh of her neck. Sharp teeth like those of a wolf. The moment he filled her, her true hands raised above her head, crashing on the anvil and hardening iron with a deafening clang. Her mind's lover looked into her eyes, his face sending her trembling, that terrifying look to his eyes, all red and slitted as he nodded and smiled with pointed teeth. "Good," he hissed. "But perhaps I will keep you here a while longer."

She strained against the power of his magic, pulling at the vision's restraints. Her eyes darted around the smoke filled dungeon of her dream. Black and nearly formless. But faintly in the distance she saw other shapes. More cells. More prisoners. They moved of their own accord in the shadows. Slow and nearly formless. Barely more than skeletons themselves.

Dungeons.

Maybe even the dungeons below her real feet.

The thought overwhelmed her, and something burst open within. A tidal wave of luminescence. Brighter than the darkness around her vision, it poured over both their bodies, washing away all but their true forms where they stood in the forge.

They panted. Both arms shaking as they came to, still holding the tools of hammer and tongs. The metal on the anvil a perfect blade, black and cooled already. The edge of the weapon only needed sharpening on a whetstone.

Sauron grabbed the hammer from her hands, setting both tools down loudly on the table beside them. A growl rumbled in his throat. He would not look at her.

"Hal…" she began. But his narrowed eyes flickered up at her. There they were straight from her vision. Slitted and glowing red like the flames that roared behind them.

She swallowed the words in her throat.

"I could give you countless lies about what I am again," he rasped, "but you and I vowed not to deceive." He inhaled slowly, his head slowly shaking back and forth. "You were the first to uncover me again in this Age; are you so willing to bind yourself to me now?"

Breaths burned her lungs.

"If I give you this new blade meant mingle ourselves blood to blood again, would you still deny yourself the chance to slit my throat?" his voice growing fuller as he dared a step closer. "Do you understand now why I need your light, your own magic?" He closed the distance between them in all but two strides.

"To order and to save Middle Earth," she replied, staring with all her courage back at those glowing serpent eyes. "To rule."

He breathed again, opening his mouth in a grin, a grin filled with those pointed teeth of her vision.

"To save me."