"Nonsense!" The mare echoed her rider's sentiments by neighing loudly, almost threateningly. The redhaired soldier stepped away from the horse.
Angry, restless, and disturbed in equal and turbulent measure, Elrond shushed the horse with more exasperation than reassurance. "Galadriel has never needed anyone to shape her thoughts for her. She has always been too blasted reluctant to take counsel from anyone." She had always been a nis of strong convictions. He alternately admired and feared her for it.
"She took your counsel to sail for Valinor, did she not?" Rima persisted. "Against her will and sense of duty, she listened. No, she did not continue on, but I doubt that was her plan. I imagine that once the light of Valinor shone upon her face, she came upon a revelation."
"Oh? And only her alone of the rest of those who sailed with her?"
"Perhaps she was the only one judged by the Valar as yet unwelcome. Did you consider that?"
Elrond bit back a disdainful laugh. Rima must have had to come up with such outlandish defenses during her convalescence. These warrior nissi don't do well in idleness. "You are now fabricating tales to justify your -"
"You're the wordsmith, Elrond, not I." A breeze picked up once more, and both elves rounded their shoulders against its chill. "You know as well as I do that an ember, no matter how fiery, dies faster when it is cast out from the pile. Galadriel has the fires of the Noldor in her veins, but even she needed the support of her people.
"How long could you have borne yourself up against so much doubt from kith and kin? Alone. With no one to listen, no one who believes. How long could you have lasted?"
Elrond's pounding heart now felt as though a cold, scaly claw wrapped itself around it. Now the very beating brought pain as it struggled against the grip.
Only moments before Rima's arrival, he had felt so alone. And the crushing weight of it had been unbearable.
Not long. I would not have lasted as long as she.
Galadriel had always been proud. The trait was as much a part of her as her golden hair and her unwavering courage. It was neither vice nor virtue, it simply was.
When she had been their champion, that fierce, willful pride of hers had been theirs as well. But when they decided she was of no use to them anymore, they scorned her for it. Proud became prideful. Loyal became obsessed. Driven became vindictive. Knowledgeable became blind.
Suddenly, their surroundings became a watery blur. Elrond blinked, and his vision steadied once more.
Tears, once they have fallen, tended to make the sight clearer.
Rima watched him quietly for a moment. But if his tears moved her to pity, it was only shown in the softening of her voice, not in the kindness of her words. "We lied to ourselves, Elrond. And we abandoned the one elf who refused to."
"It was wrong of her still to have forced our hands." And yet she would have willingly continued the hunt alone. She dragged no one off the ship with her.
"As we have forced hers. After the incessant doubt and neglect of her own people, even she must have wondered if her convictions were not much more than madness. How many of us have pointed out her likeness to Feanor? How she must have feared herself then. Even mountains can give way to a raging tide."
Rima frowned slightly. "We all point to our present reality and circumstances as evidence that the evil is gone. But Galadriel had her proof also that she had seen with her own eyes, touched with her own hands, and ridden with into war – a man among other men, fighting to reclaim their freedom from darkness. Is it any wonder, then, that she clung to Halbrand, the first person who proved to her that she had not lost her mind and fea to her anger?"
Halbrand. Sauron.