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Chapter Text

Above Eregion,

He was knocking her blows back, occasionally making a forward jab. Matching her moves, only striking when she struck, kicking when she had, as if he had learned everything he needed to know of her technique in their short time alongside one another. 

Though, it was the detached air about him, his unwavering gaze, that was perhaps more frustrating to her. Galadriel was breathing heavily, sweating under her gambeson, and wearied after her captivity so that her hands were less sure than they should be on the hilt of her sword. His own hands were still infuriatingly clean and unmarred, where she was becoming increasingly caked in dirt with every knock, every fall.

It is only after she lands a decent blow and makes him bleed, that he becomes enraged enough to injure her properly. But the cut she had carved across Sauron's high cheekbone is healed before she can take another breath, and for a moment, Galadriel lets the dread that had been threatening to take her since she saw this new fair form of his, seep into her heart.

And she is caught, with rock at her back, and him at her blade. The crown that once sat atop the head of The Great Enemy the only thing separating them.

He takes his advantage and thrusts the spiked crown forwards.

She can see it happen a moment before it does, can see the decision in his dead-eyed stare, but still finds herself shocked at just how much it hurts when the dark crown pierces her chest. 

It is with a sickening lurch that she realises she knew this was going to happen, had known since she had put Nenya upon her finger. Her ring had enhanced her powers of foresight and with it there had been a pull in her chest, a ghost of a pain. And here it was, bloomed in full.

"I would have placed a crown upon your head." He panders to her. 

And yet, it is within her, through her very heart. She feels its influence flooding her veins, his influence moving within her. All her energy is focussed on the feeling, focussed on not falling under. 

"I would never have rested until all Middle-earth had been brought to its knees, to worship the light of its queen." 

She blinks away tears, trying to breathe.

This is not the reaction he would have from her. Sauron twists the stake, never releasing pressure on it. 

She cannot help her more pained response, and he smiles— terrible and cold. He likes this, likes what he has done here.

She cannot cower from him in this moment, will not give him any more of her pain as a reward. She tells him the Free Peoples of Middle-earth will always resist him, as she had.

He sneers and steps closer, dragging her across the rock with minimal effort, almost as if to prove he could. He was in control of her body, moving her with the crown, like he would have if she had accepted his first proposal.

It is pain almost beyond measure. Still, she does what she can, she raises her chin and meets him eye to eye.

In one swift movement, Sauron retracts the crown and Galadriel collapses to the ground, unable to stop herself.

He kicks her fallen sword away and collects his rings from where they have landed.

Defeat closing in around her, around all of Eregion, all of Middle-earth, and yet, a distraction from below. Galadriel takes her chance, and slower than she would like rises up from the dirt.

He is inside her head now as well, demanding her ring. Galadriel can feel the pull of his will so clearly, can see how so many others had fallen to its lure. 

She removes her ring without hesitation, allows him think he has succeeded, and gains another smile for it— this one coddling and satisfied.

Standing as tall as she can, she looks at him one last time. Musters the last of her power, the spirit of all her fallen kin, to throw one last dig at him. Then, tips her foot off the ledge behind her and falls.

He reaches out too late, panicked, for her— for her ring, she is sure. But then he is gone.

Galadriel can feel the wind rushing past, knows she brushes the tops of the trees which slow her descent, but she does not feel the impact of the fall.

Cannot feel anything beyond the pain in her chest.

It burns with a deadly cold, both burning and freezing, like her torso has been cleaved in two all the way. Panic settles over her when it does not abate, that it might never abate. Her poisoned heart pumping faster, pushing the infection through her.

Is this what Finrod felt at the end? What countless of her kin had felt before passing through the Halls of Mandos? Darkness and despair clawing their way inside her, choking her, blinding her. Rotting her flesh, all the way down to fester away at her soul.

For one horrifying moment, she wishes the fall had killed her.

Then, the Elven Rings are there, a last healing gift from dear Celebrimbor, and the darkness is pushed out— for good.

She awakes in light in the valley, surrounded by friends.

And that was all there was.

This is what she will tell the others afterwards, the version that Elrond and the High King will hear. 

She has vowed to keep it a secret to all but herself, and the Judge Who Sees All Things, just how deep the Dark Lord's reach had extended within her. What they shared in the darkness.

Chapter Text

Somewhere in Eriador,

The wind blows around the camp, jostling the canvas walls of his tent, bringing with it the sounds of Orc chatter from the distance. Mairon considers halting it, giving himself a moment of true silence, but he is interrupted before the thought can go any further.

There is a shift of the air inside the tent, something beyond the wind, and a brief flash of white against his closed eyelids. With an unearthly speed, he is up and staring, sword in hand, at the form that has appeared on the other side of the space.

She is facing the other direction, her unbound golden hair trailing down the back of her white gown. She was looking around slowly, taking in the location, like she hadn't sensed him yet.

He twists his hand and shifts their surroundings, just to see if he still can. The patterns on the walls of the tent change colours from burgundy to a deep green. She does not notice. 

This was no witchcraft of hers.

Mairon drags the tip of his sword across the carpeted floor, and Galadriel gasps at the sound, spinning to meet his gaze, a hand raised to her chest.

Her eyes flash quickly past fear, settling on the angry defiance he had last seen on her. 

"What have you done?" She accuses.

"I have not done anything," he replies, but the traitorous smirk pulling at the edge of his mouth and sword in his hand say otherwise. 

She takes a step sidewards, trying to see around him. He follows suit and they begin to slowly circle one another.

He takes in her form now; almost glowing in her radiance, despite her state. No ring on her finger— she is truly unarmed, dressed in sleep-clothes, barefoot. There is something else though, a haze around her edges. Something that cannot be accounted to the flickering candle-light. It looked like the Unseen Realm seeping out in all the places she touched this world, where her steps tread across the rugs. 

"What can you see?" He asks, stepping across the circle, closer to her. Perhaps she is an illusion; he could send thoughts across leagues, appear as waking dreams, this was only a stretch further.

"Stay away from me!" She picks up a dagger that was on a table beside his bed, raising it towards him. 

Not just an illusion, then.

But the wind has stopped outside, and it was not of his making. They are both here and— somewhere else. A shared dream, shared realm, populated by his mind, for now.

He was about to take another step towards her— dagger be damned, if she made contact with him that would be another question answered— when he sees her other hand still has not left her chest. There is a bandage poking out from under it, she is still injured.

"And stay out of my head, Shadow."

Mairon sighs. "It seems I could not now, even if I wanted to."

He senses the crown, Melkor's crown, across the tent, out of sight, but knows her dried blood stains it still. He had not put it on yet, was not sure he would. His feelings had somewhat cooled since the cliff-top.

Galadriel senses a change in his demeanour, confusion marking her features, and she finally drops her hand. He stares at her chest, at the bandages.

Melkor had placed the Silmarils on his crown. Mairon had put her on it— that very same crown.

There is colour creeping across her face and chest at his unabashed attention, unclothed as she was. Nothing he had not seen before, had in fact seen much more on the raft. Still, she is unsettled.

She grips the dagger, her fist tightening around its gilded hilt.

Something growls at the core of him, he tosses his sword aside. "Look around, Galadriel. It is not I who is in your head." 

And he had felt the pull of her, the connection, had mistaken it for his own feelings.

He had felt the ground slip out from underneath her, his stomach turning as if it had been he himself who jumped from the cliff. Watched her even as she fell, was still with her when she landed. And if he had cushioned her fall somewhat, that was his own secret to keep.

Then, the Elven Rings had healed her and there was distance again.

But evidently, there was some blood magic at play here. His blood and hers joined on Melkor's crown, opening up a rift in their minds, or hearts, or both— he was stabbed in the head, she in the chest.

And even after she healed from the worst of it, they were both immortal, those wounds would be with them forever.

She had better foresight now since the Rings, how could she not have seen this? And those were her thoughts, clear as day, he didn't even have to delve for them.

That the Rings had enhanced her abilities was interesting. A part of him was secretly pleased they worked so well, another larger part was less pleased that they were not his, but that will not matter soon.

"Yes, I see much more now," she replies quiet and dark, as though he had spoken aloud.

His face drops knowing she can hear some of him too. He could still use this to his advantage, would just have to be more careful.

"Let us test the depths of this sorcery," he says, taking one final step. 

He is within her reach now, and extends a hand, palm up. For a second, she thinks he means for her to take his hand, then understands.

Galadriel lifts the dagger to slowly drag the curved blade across his flesh. The metal is cool to the touch. He does not flinch, but the pain is there, she is there in physical form, holding his knife, inflicting this pain upon him. 

His blood blooms around the cut, dark and thick, and it's almost a relief. Her eyes are just as dark as they watch, seemingly unable to look away. He liked that look on her.

He closes his fist around the blade, no thought to the pain, and wrenches it from her grasp, tossing the dagger to the side with his sword. In the same movement, he reaches back in with his bloodied hand, grips her forearm and pulls her up against him. 

Galadriel inhales sharply, and blinks out of existence. The table coming in to focus where she was just stood.

She is gone, leaving only a lingering perfume of the trees that grow to the west of the Misty Mountains.

And the wall hanging's patterns are still dark green, he releases them back to their natural state, the burgundy flapping once more with a particularly strong gust.

Mairon smiles to himself knowing that somewhere Galadriel had reemerged in her own space, the black of his blood dripping down her wrist.

In Imladris,

Sauron's newly acquired army marches south through Eriador. They move unbidden, making war across the land. The High King is gathering forces once more and planning the Elves' next move. She was still a commander but Galadriel had elected to stay for now with Elrond in his valley, helping the building efforts as best she can. Quietly embarrassed that she still tired so quickly since her injury.

She is alone, resting in a shaded glade when he appears to her; the thing wearing Halbrand's face. 

"Galadriel." And just like on the mountain-top near Eregion he says it with a small smile, with a familiarity that kindles something within her.

She does not stand to meet him, does not reply, can do nothing for a moment but sit and watch him. He is seemingly unarmed, dressed in his dark robes, his long fair hair pulled back from his face. 

He makes a few idle steps around the wooded area, hands behind his back, observing. She knows he can see the same as she did the other day: her, the world around her, and nothing beyond that. The forest beyond the glade fading away, not ghostly like the Unseen World, it was simply not there, like it had not been sung into creation yet.

"Fascinating," he says, still smiling at the trees around them. "That there is still something to be learned of this world, even for me."

Galadriel found it unnerving. 

"Though I must say, you are not the thrilling conversationalist here, that I am used to." He peers back at her, an eyebrow raised.

"I do not wish to speak to you," Galadriel says, voice clipped, "You are abhorrent, you taint the very earth you walk on with your lies."

He waits a beat. 

"Yes, that's it." He grins. "Though, I have never lied to you. And do not intend to start."

"You had yourself declared King of the Southlands!" She cannot help the jump in her voice.

"As I intend to be!" He returns, just as loud, raising an arm, gesturing around them. "Lord of Mordor, King of Men." He jabs a finger at her. "And you helped."

He was king of an army of rabble and that was it.

He hears that thought, and drops his hands back to his side, disappointment written plain on his face.

The separation between their minds was much thinner here, and he was more practised at listening for it. She would have to try harder if she wanted to hear his thoughts too. The idea sends a sudden chill down her spine. His thoughts; they did not bear to think about. He was ancient and corrupted, and had been so for many an age. 

The form he took on now only enhanced that. He was nothing more than a pale imitation of the Eldar.

Sauron looks down at his body, acknowledging this. "It was not for you."

No, it had begun for the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, for Celebrimbor specifically. Then, darkened as he embraced his true nature, showed his true purpose for being in Eregion. She supposes he keeps it up now for his Orcs, easier for them to respect the regal nature of him like this. It was a fearsome visage, only— having seen Halbrand stand tall in his battle regalia, she felt the nobility of this Dark Lord looked only a nightmarish mockery. 

His eyes narrow in question.

"Do I frighten you now, Elf?"

He was shadow, and flame, and darkness incarnate.

Galadriel sets her jaw. "No."

He raises both arms slightly, an open invitation. "Show me."

She takes it. Standing, she approaches him slowly, unarmed as she was. "I have nothing to prove to you, and nothing to hide from you, Shadow."

He lowers his chin to meet her eyes without looking down his nose at her, it should be non-threatening but reminds Galadriel of a wolf hunting its prey.

"Then why aren't you wearing your ring?" He asks, low and menacing. "You prolong your convalesce by not wearing it because you are scared I will find it and take it."

She tries to keep the shock off her face but it does not matter, he sees all here.

"And how are your wounds, dear one?" He asks, biting. He didn't have to ask, he knew. 

The disparity between 'Elf' and 'dear one' shifts the ground beneath her for a moment, but it was true, she had played into his hand. Had not worn her ring since she learned of this connection, and was deeply afraid to put it on now.

"Why do you do this?" She whispers harshly at his chest, unwilling to meet his gaze.

"I still want something from you," he replies, his words heavy with intention.

Galadriel looks back up, he stands a full head taller than she, his face giving nothing away but there was something in his tone.

"I told you, that door is shut," she says, but cannot seem to muster the malice with which she said it last time.

He rocks his head back and considers her. She watches his eyes flicker down her body before coming back up to land on hers.

And that was something she could latch onto, a glimmer of his thoughts— the door clearly not as shut as she would hope. He was contemplating telling her something, meant it when he said he did not intend to lie to her.

Someone approaches, she can hear their light footsteps upon leaves getting closer.

She deflates a little, she would not get answers to his thoughts here, but the time had come to see if anyone could intrude on this waking nightmare realm of theirs.

An Elf steps into the glade, in full view of Sauron's eye-line. The Elf seems to search for a moment longer than he should until he finally spots her, like he could not see her, standing well within his sight. He addresses her, "Lady Galadriel." His voice is far-off even to her.

Sauron has not reacted but is watching her face even more intensely. She breaks his eye contact and looks over at the messenger Elf. He does not appear to see anyone other than her. He tells her that Lord Elrond wishes to speak with her. She has to concentrate, and feels her mind partially fragment in an effort to reply, but she manages. 

She nods and tells the Elf she will rejoin them promptly. He nods back and departs.

She looks back at Sauron. His eyes have widened, realising what has happened. He looks between her and the spot she had just spoken to, and Galadriel can feel his anger swell up inside before it reaches his expression. He thought he'd understood this connection between them, was enraged to learn he didn't, that he had managed to break through to her and still couldn't control it.

Seems they were stuck with each other's form and immediate surrounds. No-one else could fully populate their realm, not even their voices.

"I am going now, do not find me again," she says evenly to him, and summons nearly the full force of her will to turn her back on him and walk away.

At the edge of the glade she looks back, cannot help herself. He is still there, a tall streak of darkness against the dappled green of the woods, rooted to the spot, his mouth a hard line. She waits there for a beat. He takes a deep breath before flickering out of sight.

Galadriel lets all the air out of her lungs and walks back to Elrond without looking back again.

Chapter Text

South of the Gwathló,

It is another accident when Galadriel appears to him the second time. Again, she is simply there, shock playing upon her delicate features. 

Except now, he knows it is not an accident, it cannot be.

In the intervening time between her first appearing in his tent and him emerging in the forest to her, Mairon had spent every waking hour not consumed with his war party, figuring out how to cross the pathway between them. What he had finally landed on was a clearness of mind, and a concise sharpness of thought focussing in wholly on her. He had thought of her hair, the deep lilt of her voice, the feel of her arm under his hand, the light like the Two Trees that burned behind her eyes. He put his will behind that feeling, and had successfully shifted through space to her reality. It was not an easy task, and would perhaps not have been achievable to lesser beings than them, who did not know what to look for, had not existed in both worlds before.

That meant at the very least, she had been thinking about him to get here again.

"I do so love when you pop in, Galadriel." 

She turns a glare on him and opens her mouth to retort, but catches sight of him and falters.

He was sat on the edge of the low bed, elbows resting on his knees in front of him, reassessing after a few long days and nights of battle waged against them by her High King. He did not relish being on the battlefield himself, much preferred to direct from above but the Elves had been ferocious and their king was wearing one of the Three. And so he had been drawn out to deal in death himself. 

He had not bothered with his appearance yet and was still spattered with dirt, and mud, and other viscera. He follows her eye-line to the blood of Orcs and Elves alike that stains his clothes. 

"Don't worry, none of it's mine." He jokes without mirth, and stands removing his chest plate and outer-robe in one fell swoop of his hand.

"Wait—"  

Beneath, he wore a dark undershirt of a fine spun material, and breeches that matched his robe. He ignores Galadriel and moves over to a basin of water at the side of the tent. He scrubs his hands, splashes his face, murmurs something only for him under his breath, and is clean and dry when he looks back at her. 

She looked no different than the last he had seen her, had not yet seen the war he waged. She was dressed in a gown of deep emerald, its gilded edges trailing against his carpets. A matching circlet of gold upon her head. The Elves loved to cover themselves in jewels from head to toe, even now. It was a fashion he had affected in his earlier ages, rings adorning nearly every finger, gems hanging upon his chest. Truthfully, Mairon had found they only got in his way.

There was only one jewel he was concerned with anymore.

She was pointedly avoiding looking at him, he follows her gaze once more to his sword leaning against the bed.

"Attack me if you must, Galadriel," he says on an exhale. "Do your best to kill me. I am tired, you may have more luck."

She scoffs.

"But know," he continues, "I have no intention of taking your life, of even harming you anymore."

Her eyes flash to his.

He does not mention she is much more useful to him here, does not think anyone in Middle-earth would benefit from her returning to Aman— in fact, does not wish to think of her returning there at all.

Her brows knit together, uncertain. "You cannot help yourself, you are driven by anger and spite."

She was somewhat withdrawn today, he noted. He did not feel the animosity from her words he should. She was however rooted to the spot, he seized that and approached, needing to be closer, even if she did decide to attack.

"Now, who does that remind you of?" He goads.

Her mouth twists.

They both remembered her admission. They could no longer distinguish me from the evil I was fighting.

"It is immaterial. You have already harmed me." And her voice is so wrought with anguish, he feels his own chest tighten in response.

She was not in a place to respond to his knocks. He would need to take a truthful tack again.

"You are an asset, Galadriel, to me, to Middle-earth." He has stopped in front of her now. "I wanted to keep you, and you would not share your light with me." An answer, an excuse for his actions, though he was not in the business of making them.

He watches her response closely. His gaze running over her hair where it brushed her neck, her eyes that dart to his and away quickly. An instinctual hand comes up to claw at her chest lightly, at her hurt.

She is breathing heavily despite their speaking so softly. "So you filled me with your darkness instead." 

She was remembering something Adar, of all beings, had said to her, 'His eye bores a hole while the rest of him slithers in'.

He clears his throat, an affectation. The implication of the words not lost on him.

Mairon lets his annoyance at her thoughts of the dead Uruk be driven out by the fact they had found nothing more interesting to discuss than him.

"You think too much of me still. I did not plan this connection between us, it is fated, it has been from the beginning."

His answer had not changed her disposition. Galadriel was very close to panicking.

"You will still use it— use me," she demurs, voice strained.

Her thoughts were even more of a whirl. Shame she had not fought him here, had not even tried. Shame she had not told the other Elves about this. That she was stubborn, prideful, and trying to sort it out on her own, and that did sound like him. They were too similar, she was falling, could not ignore the thoughts of him ensnaring her mind.

Mairon hums. "I take it you have a better understanding of how you arrived here this time."

She nods once, solemn. She is saddened, ashamed of this thing they share. She should be angry, he thinks, he would prefer that. She would have been once.

"I am adrift, I am lost," Galadriel says, choked.

He bends his head down to see her face better. She will not look up.

"Or perhaps this was the way all along," he replies, slow and deliberate. "It was given to us. We should use it."

She shakes her head, there are tears in her eyes. "You did this."

He is very close now, only had to raise his voice just above a whisper. "It was not intentional," he says, like an apology.

She was despondent still, her eyes finding a middle distance, unfocussed.

She says she is adrift and he longed to right that, she was not, she was here with him. He had shied away from physical touch with the Elves in Eregion, but it had served him with her in the past. Galadriel never seemed to mind a closeness with him— certainly not as Halbrand. He could do this for her. 

He moves slowly, lifting his hands. She does not pull away, even as they come to land on her upper arms. She finally lowers the hand from her chest, dropping it to her side. He feels her tense slightly under his palms.

"Please, let me." He reassures her.

He slides his hands up the backs of her arms, coming up to hold her head. "We are an alloy," he breathes. "Stronger together, stronger than you can imagine." His fingers are at the base of her skull, cradling her jaw, his thumbs sliding across her cheekbones. He has tilted her head back, found her gaze, fixed it on him.

"No, I am weakened." She sounds so far away.

He had slipped inside her mind before, even taken the form of her kin, and still she had not broken like this. She was being consumed by this, by their connection and had nowhere to put it.

Mairon leans down and brings their lips together. He feels her soften under his kiss, and a tear finally falls across her cheek.

Her hands come up to his middle, slide up to his chest, but she shows no indication of doing anything else. There was nothing between them, no knife in her hands or his.

He pulls her closer, and opens her mouth with his. She exhales against him, a small sound within the breath that he is certain he will remember forever. He follows his instinct and does it again, changes his angle, slots his nose against the other side of hers.

She needed to see the path, their path. He uses his proximity— their physical touch, to drive his point home, to show her he was deadly serious. He shows her the same dream from on the raft but this time a vision in full. Glorious and bright as he can muster.

It is glory that wraps around them both, filling them with a familiar sense of warmth. And a light, not like the sun or the Two Trees, but like starlight, like moonlight, brighter for the midnight that surrounds it, seeping in to all the places they do not touch.

An unprecedented reforging of Middle-earth in order and light. And at the centre of it, a kingdom of peace, their kingdom. No sign of Man, or Orc, or Elf, or— 

Galadriel gasps sharply into his mouth, and suddenly, like she has woken from a dream, she shoves him hard in the chest, pushing him back a few steps.

They separate and her face is flushed a deep red, the shock morphing into pure rage on her features. It would be a look to rival the one she had given after vowing to kill him on the raft, except for the fact that her lips were an even deeper shade than the rest of her face.

He is about to tell her so when she disappears with a snarl and a flash of light.

She was not sad anymore, at the very least.

The urge to chase after her is overwhelming, to catch her and hold her in his grip so that she might never break free again. But he tamps it down.

He had been so close to getting exactly what he wanted. He could wait, he had already waited eons. She was within his grasp now.

He would wait for her.

Along the North-South Road,

Galadriel could wait no longer.

Since their last meeting, he had not lied, he had not attempted to harm her— had not come through to her at all.

And yet he was there, a ghost of her own making. She was jumping at shadows, seeing him around every corner, his eyes glowing across every room in expectation. Except she knew it wasn't him.

She had felt him press against their pathway a handful of times. Lean on it gently, almost as if he was testing the bounds of it, as if reminding her it was still there, whilst never breaching the door himself.

Happily, she had been busy working with Elrond and it seemed the pathway was less clear when her mind was otherwise occupied. Much to her annoyance it seemed one had to let the other in, in at least some fashion. Even so, she was expecting him. Expecting him to come and take what he wanted from her again. But he didn't, he was denying her. Denying her the chance at retaliation, and she grew ever frustrated.

She would confront him, in person. Meet him on as even-footing as they could ever have. No foul spike through her chest this time.

She follows Gil-galad into battle that day, into the remnants of the ongoing war from Eregion. Sauron had been on the battlefield many times it had been reported, out for blood, bringing death and destruction with him wherever he went. She had even seen the evidence upon him. And so, she searched all day, cutting through Orc armour and flesh with reckless abandon. All to no avail.

Still he denied her, even here, in his savage domain.

The High King praises her work at the end of their siege. It was something he was not naturally predisposed to do; she must have been quite ferocious. She had not been of full awareness, some part of her mind elsewhere. And how could she explain to him what was happening to her, when she could hardly explain it to herself? Galadriel's chest burns, her recent nearness to Sauron, to his all powerful will was changing her, making her act nonsensically. Like running headlong into war, like letting him kiss her, like kissing him back— 

And it was all according to his design, whether he admitted it or not.

She would have her challenge. Galadriel had never turned from a fight before.

She waits until nightfall, until the darkest part of the night. When both their minds were clearer.

Thinks of how he had filled her vision, his breath on her face. His large hands cupping the back of her skull as though she were precious to him, his eyes that had looked different when she had pushed him away; smokier, hazier, like a storm had rolled across them.

And crosses the threshold.

He is 'asleep' on the bed when she enters. The light is low in the tent, just barely highlighting the sharp planes of his face, his hair unbound across the pillow, the light tunic undershirt he wears rising and falling with slow breaths.

"Pick up your sword," she snaps.

He grins, eyes still closed. 

"Round two, I take it?" He asks, and looks over to see she is in her armour; strong and shining, hair bound up for battle, pointing her own sword at him, confirming.

"Oh good," he says, voice full of cheer.

"Pick up your sword, Shadow," she repeats. 

He swings his thinly clothed legs around and sits up on the edge of the bed, he is barefoot, genuinely ready for rest. All another pretension, he did not need sleep like other beings.

"I believe I have demonstrated before that I do not need a sword to defend myself," he replies calmly. Now level with the tip of her sword, he is unworried. Looking up at her, his eyes have crinkled in the corners, baring a hint of what she can only read as affection. 

"You will," she returns, and swings large towards his figure.

He dodges, impossibly fast. Standing and crossing the room to his sword in the same movement. He picks it up, but keeps the blade pointed at the ground.

"Have you not had your fill of violence for the day?" He questions, unperturbed by her attack.

And it was as she expected; he knew she had been on the battlefield today, had avoided it, avoided her specifically. Confident in the fact he would see her, regardless.

She did not care, she had come for her revenge. Galadriel charges at him once more, their swords clashing loudly in the enclosed space. He pushes her back with his blade before dropping it once more.

"Revenge?" He hums, listening to her mind. "I'm glad to see you are back to your usual self."

"I was despairing," she spits, justifying her moment of weakness. "And I could see your mind more clearly. It was— " 

She halts. Sauron raises his brow at her expectantly. Abhorrent? Any number of things she might call him, she should call him.

"Not what I was expecting," she finishes.

His eyes gleam in the low candlelight, intrigued by that, the corner of his mouth turning up in a smirk.

She hates it, hates him. She strikes at him with another blow.

Again, his tactic was purely defensive, blocking her and giving nothing in return. Reluctance showing in his every move, like fighting her with a blade was beneath him. She needed to provoke him once more, needed him to fight back.

"I have seen what you have done out there. Another pointless battle in a long line of horrors for the Shadow of Morgoth."

He does not take her bait, only makes a questioning face. "I hear you made quite the dent in our forces. Did you not?" 

She has advanced and he holds their blades in lock for a beat before swinging and disengaging with a sharp metallic scrape.

"A commander with no appetite for war is no commander at all, Elf."

The irony is not lost on them, given he would not even land a blow on her currently.

"And you have such an appetite," she snaps, "You play at repenting in here, at wanting your kingdom of peace. You deserve an eternity besieged at war for what you have done."

His head cocks to the side, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Repenting?" He asks, a small scoff in his voice. "I have repented before," he says quietly, remembering.

Sauron finally lifts his sword unbidden, raising it and running the blade up and down the sharp edge of Galadriel's. A slow caress of metal on metal. "This war is naught in comparison to that age," he finishes, shaking his head, his voice a deep rumble.

She did not like the note of prescience in his voice, a promise, an unspoken 'yet' hanging in the air. She had heard tales of such a thing from others. He had repented after the War of Wrath, was to go in front of the Valar but would not, would not stand and receive judgement. She never imagined it to be true. Still, she was almost convinced by his words, by the unearthly fire reflecting in his gaze.

Galadriel knocks his sword away. "You didn't truly repent. You could not."

"Of course," he agrees easily. "I thought of the fate of Middle-earth." 

"You thought only of the fate of yourself— of your shame!"

This does have the intended effect, sending up a flare of rage within him. It was the same as every other encounter they had. Her own anger not far from his, entwined, building in conjunction.

Sauron brings his sword up against hers once, hard. She is caught off guard by the force of the strike, and it undoes her grip. He had learned from their last fight, and so uses his power now. He strikes again from the opposing angle, faster than the light can carry him, faster than she can readjust, and he knocks the entire blade from her grip. Her long, silver sword careening to land a few feet away.

Still holding his own sword, he moves closer and carries on, unconcerned. "What could they prescribe to me for my perceived transgressions— thousands of years of servitude? A millennia of penance?"

Much like she had just willed upon him. Galadriel was surprised at this turn, he was defending his choices from an age ago as if they still haunted him. 

"Or I could remain." He continues his advance towards her, his voice level, but his eyes fierce. Galadriel takes a matching step backwards for every one he does, ready to reach for her other weapons when needed. "I could remain and heal Middle-earth of Morgoth's blight, put right my own part in it."

Was that an admission of Morgoth as a mistake, or was it just what he thought she wanted to hear? Were those not her own words to Gil-galad? I will not stop until he is destroyed, and I have put this right.

Galadriel's back hits something solid behind her, and her hand reaches out to steady herself. Sauron stops his approach, looking down at the sword in his own hand. He drops it with a sound of frustration, as if only just realising he was still armed and she was not.

Now, without the threatening tip of his sword pointed toward her, Galadriel's mind solidifies around a choice, she strikes with her words.

"Even now as the One bends His will against you through this connection, you still speak of healing?"

Sauron stops, his head falling back slightly, as if appraising her in a new light, and time seems to slow to a halt. 

He drops his arms to his side and straightens up, drawing up and up to an impossible height, filling more of their realm. For a flash he is blindingly bright, like pure energy, like he is made of flames, a primordial thing. A vision of maybe not his true form, but a truer one, then he is shadow again.

Her heart thrums in her chest, her kind did not invoke the One's name often, if ever. 

"You know the mind of the Allfather?" He asks. His words are slow and considered, another voice wrapping around his own— dark and otherworldly. Like one who has seen Him themselves, who knows the face of creation, had gazed into the Secret Fire. "You speak for Him?" Sauron seems to stare through her, right through to her very essence.

Galadriel falters. She had hoped to provoke him by speaking to something greater than himself, but all she had done was expose his own timeless nature up close. And in the suffocating, close-quarters of the tent, it comes as close to frightening her as it ever will. She reaches behind and holds herself upright with the solid wooden tent-pole at her back.

Sauron blinks hard, and returns somewhat. His shadows that had lengthened around him, falling back into place. Though there is an emotion in his voice that was not there before when he speaks again. 

"This was fated upon us— yes, but you cannot say why." His voice is hard, and clipped. "And when Eru Ilúvatar wishes to pluck me from Arda, He will." 

He sneers out the Quenyan title, fortified in his confidence that it could happen, and that it hadn't.

"Until then, there are many courses, many paths that we may take. Mine did not put me to plead and abjure myself before them. "

"Them?" She finds her voice again. "The Valar. You know them and you will not even speak their names," Galadriel scratches out, incredulous.

"I am He!" He yells. "I seek to rehabilitate a Middle-earth neglected— abandoned by them! The very emissaries you esteem."

Galadriel is almost relieved that he was angry, at least this she understood.

"And tell me you do not understand something of what you speak, Galadriel." He has resumed his slow advance towards her. His voice dripping with malice. "How was I able to re-enter Eregion so easily? Celebrimbor had not been told what you knew. Whose shame was that? Whose fault?"

"I did confess!" She is scrambling. He knows too much.

But he is in the thrall of it now and cannot help but to push. "Oh, I saw." He motions to her head. "And if the Herald hadn't found your scroll, hadn't discovered our little secret— "

"Do not— " She did wish to hear him talk about Elrond. Or perhaps it was her own guilt gnawing, she did not wish to think of Elrond, not here in this place.

"Would you have 'confessed' then?" He carries on. He is close enough now she can see his eyes are more black than anything else, no light reflecting in them. "And what of now, Galadriel? Have you confessed this time?"

She will not give him the benefit of answering. Could not even if she wanted to, choked by her own anger as she was. She was doing exactly what she had told Elrond she could not. She had let her pride bring her here, for exactly this. She was letting him in again, letting him forge his cruelty around her.

All she needed was one deep breath and she could leave, put an end to this madness, but the air seemed too thin, her lungs too weak.

"And your punishment, your lot for saving the Enemy's life?" It is not a question meant for her to answer. He looms over her, still large at his natural height. "Nothing." He answers for her, nodding sharply once. "I have been made and unmade many times before, Elf. I do not seek it out."

"You do not have to." Galadriel hears herself reply before she has had the thought.

Something had snapped and changed inside her at his words. She feels her mind reel suddenly, across the ages, across creation. "It will find you regardless." Her voice deeper than she has ever heard it.

A shard of power crashes through her, and she holds on to it. Feels as if her feet leave the ground for a moment.

"What?" He questions as if he didn't hear her, but his eyes are narrowed to slits, his mouth twisted up in contempt.

"You repented in fear the first time and avoided your punishment out of the same fear. You cannot avoid it forever, Gorthaur." She uses an old name, one that comes to her from out of the night itself, one she did not know she remembered.

He does say something here, she sees his mouth move, though cannot hear it, the rushing in her ears too loud.

"You desire the light…" She takes her hands off the pole behind her, sure they would shake with the amount of power flooding through her, but they are steady as she turns her palms towards him, moving instinctually.

Galadriel, he says it directly into her head now, she cannot sense his tone, his meaning, cannot sense anything beyond the blinding vision in her head.

"You will meet lightness," she says, so full of confidence, so certain, she is surprised it does not happen right here at her will. "The brightest of white flames will be your undoing." Her answer comes from the very depths of time.

She cannot see the tent around him, the world has gone dark. She holds on to Sauron's gaze, the only thing she can do. There is something reflecting off him, off his light hair, even off the blackened pits his eyes have become.

The air crackles around them both like they were in the eye of a storm.

"And you will never be whole again."

There is an absence of wind, of air completely inside their tent. Maybe in the whole world. His face is fuming, his eyes like a flint, an ember with no fuel to burn. Nothing for a second, and then—

They light. Sauron yells, and it is in her mind, and she is sure she answers but cannot hear it over him.

He seizes her with his power and with his arms. A blink, and the shadows of his eyes have darkened everything. And she is falling, and also not. There is a moment that she is certain she has returned to her own room but she is ensnared, her arms pinned at her sides, and she is slammed back into their realm.

He throws them both to the ground, hurtling her back into her physical form, back to earth. She is suddenly face to face with his richly patterned carpets, her arms have instinctively come out to stop her fall, and the armour of her forearms clangs against the floor. The weight of him heavy at her back, as he lands atop her. 

Galadriel is still within the circle of his arms and they fight as she struggles against his hold.

She tosses her head back and makes contact with him, enough that she can wrench free an elbow and throw the sharp armoured joint of it into him hard. He grunts and she uses the distraction to push off the ground, spinning herself around.

He does not let up, does not give up his position atop her, but also does not use his power to hold her, merely keeps her there by pressing his body into hers.

Face to face now, Galadriel knows she has another weapon on her somewhere, but she is exhausted suddenly, nearly all of her own power spent. Sauron grabs her wrists, pinning them to the ground beside her head. She is reminded of the mountaintop, conquered, held immobile by him, held immobile by his gaze. Though, strangely, there is no fear in her this time.

"So this is what is in your heart," he rasps, leaning close, his hair falling over his shoulders. 

Galadriel's mind was a whirl with what had happened to her. She was almost grateful for the tethers at her wrists, holding her to the earth. She was expecting the feeling to pass, that there would be a disconnect now afterwards, but it was like the bolt that had struck her had opened up a new avenue in her mind. Something that hooked in her gut, that she could still feel the remnants of even now. She thought of Nenya suddenly, far away in Imladris. A fortifying feeling, even in her weakened state.

"I told you I can see your light. I see your darkness too," he sneers but there is a storm of emotions about his face. Something she had never seen this close, an anger tinged with greed? "And your heart's desires."

He shows her. She sees herself as he just had, a vision from his mind. The darkness spreading out in veins around her eyes as she emparted her prophecy. An eerie glow starting to emanate about her, her hair shining silver-white instead of golden. She flinches away from it, he did not have to make her dark and terrible, she already was.

His mind was still curled around hers, and in the depths of it she could sense a taste of his true feelings. He feels something deep and possessive for her in that light, something she is hesitant to put a word to. He did see her darkness now in true, and wanted to possess her even more, if that were possible. The yearning stretching out inside him, like a deep chasm.

Sauron tightens his grip on her wrists, forcing her out of his mind and back under his gaze. His blond hair, untied, falls forward framing them in. He is everywhere, surrounding her, inside her.

And if she gave in? She thinks. If she let him get even closer— would it ever be possible to ignore all the horrors?

You do not have to ignore them, he returns right into her mind. They are there regardless, none of us can change that.

He gets closer anyway, moving up and forcing her legs to open around his body, the leather of her trousers stretching around his bulk.

And her horrors were nothing compared to his, nothing against the centuries he had stacked up behind him, but he was right. They were still there.

"And if I gave in?" She repeats, out loud. "If I had given in to you back at the banks of the Glanduin, and become your queen?" She sees it again, herself a radiant and powerful ruler, drowned in his shadow.

His eyes warm at her question.

"There would be no game in that for you," Galadriel continues, "And you would have lost interest immediately."

"I do not desire to play games." His voice is soft now, despite their positions.

"No, you desire control, and you saw something in me you could not bend to your will. Something you itched to assert your power over." She flexes her arms under his grip to emphasise her point.

He takes in her words, eyes flickering over their positions. His face does not lose any of its warmth, does not appear anything other than completely pleased at what he sees. He rubs a thumb over each of her wrists, caressing for a beat, and then releases his grasp on her altogether. He does however stay leant over her, and caged in as she was, there was not much she could do with her freed hands.

She had tried to keep Halbrand at arms length, but he had always found an excuse to touch her. Interesting to see how he acted now without pretense, how he acted when he did not have to abide her distance. 

He makes a low hum, one she almost cannot hear. "I cannot deny there is a quest about you. You are challenging as ever, Galadriel, but I would not change you." There was a note approaching desperation in his tone, like he needed her to know unequivocally. "Your dark cannot exist without your light, and I would not have you without the darkness that hides within you."

She watches his gaze run over her, bright and intent. No longer completely trapped, she elbows up off the floor, pushes his shoulder and flips them. Sauron goes over on to his back without resistance.

She is on top of him now. His words, his actions, it is all a contradiction, an absurdity. "You would not want me if I submitted to you," she nearly laughs.

He does not miss a beat. "You do not have to submit to me for me to have you," he says like an agreement, like a promise.

His gaze has turned hot and covetous as he peers up at her form settled neatly on top of his, but his words land with a serious edge to them. The deep realisation that he wanted her was terrifying, a shameful thrill settles alongside her thumping heart. And an even deeper, quieter realisation, that the change he had sown in her was beyond returning from.

It was another deception. It would never be enough for him, to have her, and not her allegiance.

Slowly enough that he has ample opportunity to stop her, Galadriel reaches back and unsheathes the hidden dagger from her boot. He watches it happen, doesn't move, just raises his chin as she brings it round and holds it up against his throat.

Not the first knife she had held at his neck, he thinks.

Not the last, she thinks.

Sauron swallows as the blade presses against his skin. "You see the future, Elf," he says. It is not a question. "Tell me, what of us?" He asks, faintly. "Why have you appeared here— why couldn't you stay away?"

She could not see. Another shocking realisation of late; she could not divorce their futures in her mind, entwined as they were. And was that not answer enough? He would meet the light in a way that would unmake him, but it would not be his end, nor hers.

"Ah, I see," he murmurs, a smirk playing at his lips. He runs his treacherous hands over the metal of her armour, up her thighs. "For even the very wise cannot see all ends." They stop where her chain mail tunic ends and there is only leather between his touch and her. "We are fated." 

He digs his thumbs into the muscle of her hipbones. Galadriel does not gasp, but it is close. The muscles of her legs twitching in response. She presses the blade in harder. His smirk unfolds to a full grin. 

He keeps his tight hold on her hips. "And you are exactly where you should be."

He had enmeshed them, of body, of mind, and muddied her future because his was so uncertain. It unsettled her greatly.

He senses her moment of distraction and takes advantage, flipping them back over with lightning speed. Galadriel keeps the knife at his neck through the movement and he does not seem to mind. In the same motion, he moves one hand from her hip, slipping it under her head before she can make contact with the hard floor.

A false pretence. He had stabbed her, why should he care if she knocks her head? She says so, "I don't recall you caring that I fell in Eregion."

"I dove down to save you once, Galadriel," he breathes out, much closer now. "You had made your choice in Eregion."

A memory of Halbrand diving down into the dark water to cut her free, the strong pull of his hands as he carried her back to the surface. 

She opens her legs a little wider at the weight of him.

He groans, and it hits her in the gut. 

"And I told you, I’m not going to do anything to hurt you.” The anymore remained unspoken this time. He keeps his hand under her head, a warm, grounding presence there.

His care, his warmth, did not matter, his crown had sowed this inside her. He already had hurt her, in countless ways, and he would again, and she would let it happen.

Just like she is about to let this happen.

Then he kisses her mouth, and her whole being lights up.

Their lips connect above her knife, she keeps it there. It is possibly the only way she can let this happen, with some semblance of power in her grasp still as he steals her breath, pulling back before going in for another, and another, and—

He had held something of himself back last time he had kissed her. He is demanding in his victory of her here, devoted to his task of opening her mouth with his.

Her chest plate presses back into her as he pulls her closer, seemingly cannot get close enough. And she can admit she had perhaps worn her full armour with the knowledge this might happen again. She could have removed it before coming but told herself it was for the pretence of battle. 

This was a battle of a different kind. 

She can feel the heat emanating off him with her unoccupied hand, currently wound into the fabric of the front of his tunic, and is thankful her armour stops it from coming through everywhere. Her own skin felt uncomfortably hot underneath the metal, rising to a fever pitch at every place he touched her.

"My lady," he exhales, kissing across her face to her jaw. His hand on her head, tilting her to the side allowing him to bite and suck, never straying far enough that he could not return to her lips in quick succession. His mouth on her, taking and taking.

Galadriel moans weakly in the back of her throat. Wrapping her legs around him, holding on, holding on to the slow grind of him against her. She was very quickly becoming overwhelmed. Her head filling with him, his taste, his will.

It is only when she feels him smile against her lips that she can finally shake herself free of it. She pulls her head back with a noise of frustration and he smiles like a conquerer above her. The sharp edge of the blade has pierced his flesh, and a thin black droplet of blood runs across the silver as he looks down at her, his pupils blown wide, glowing with an animalistic hunger.

He is still smiling devilishly, and she is sure her lips have been bruised against his onslaught.

Galadriel cannot stay a second longer, or she will end up doing something she regrets, something else she cannot come back from.

He must hear the choice in her head, or read it on her face. His smile drops and he can see she is about to leave again.

She had not attained the revenge she had come here for, but she did have something over him now.

He sighs and leans over her with his own prophecy.

"You will be back," he murmurs against her lips.

Chapter Text

Calenardhon,

He had not meant to speak it into being, but had nonetheless.

Mairon had received word that Galadriel was in the last battle party brought against them and was conflicted in the moment. He had not deemed it necessary to go onto the field himself but a chance to see her in the flesh was almost too hard resist. All the things he might say to her, use against her in front of her kin, springing to mind. But it should be avoided. They were so close to their destination now, and he was otherwise occupied. Then, she had come to him in the dark of night anyway, shining and ready for battle. Mairon nearly laughed at the memory, his dark queen. How would she appear to him again? As he knew she would.

It was a few nights past, and the camp was quiet, no war waged that day other than what the Orcs squabble about amongst themselves. He plots their next course; one more settlement of Men stood in their way, a simple task, they would be easy enough to turn, even with the Elves snapping at their heels. 

It was dark in the tent, save one candle lit on the desk in front of him. He did not need the light to see, but the presence of the flame was a boon to him still. 

He feels her mind before she comes through, feels the movement of it, like she's sailing down a river, pulling him along with her. 

She steps out of the night wearing a large, dark travelling cloak despite the fact her feet were bare. Her hair tied in a neat, simple braid down her back.

Before he can say anything, she makes her way over to where he is seated at the desk. She stops a few feet away. Immediately, there is something different about her tonight. He probes lightly— what was it? A decision solidified in her head. Her expression matches that conclusion, a stern and determined set to her mouth.

He turns in the seat to face her a little more, head tilted up slightly.

She is an ethereal blue in the dim tent, like he is looking at her through deep water, but there was a heat emanating from within her. A heat that tells him something unlikely, something he recognises.

And suddenly, he knows what she is intending, and it is a thrill almost too much to bear. Mairon remains completely still and waits for her to put a piece on the board.

Galadriel takes a deep breath and brings her hands up to her cloak. She unfastens the clasp at the top and lets the whole thing fall to the floor, unveiling the sheer night-dress she wore underneath, glowing in the pale light.

Her robe has not even fully settled upon the floor before Mairon, with a wave of his fingers, lights multiple candles around the room— to see her better, in the warm golden light she deserved. Her form backlit through the material showing the dip of her waist, the curves of her thighs, a shadowy outline of her chest.

She narrows her eyes at him, but merely shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She is uncomfortable under his gaze, cannot allow herself to want this but is here regardless.

Such a change of heart, he wonders, what had changed for her since their last meeting?

He holds on to the vestiges of his will, of his resolve, and waits for her to say it. Needs her to say it.

"You wish me to be your queen, do you not?" Her voice does not waver. 

A frisson of pleasure runs through him. "I do." 

"And you my king," she continues.

He nods, all he can do.

"We have shared much together." She falters almost imperceptibly, but regains herself.

He cannot keep the smile off his face.

"There is one thing, they may do, that we have not…" She trails off, allowing him to fill in the rest.

Heat burns at the core of him, at her words, so hot and bright he is sure she can see it. 

"Exchanged rings?" He asks, raising an eyebrow up at her. It is a joke. He would forge her a thousand rings if he thought it would help.

Galadriel does not find it funny, anger whipping across her features, as she fists her hands in the fabric of her shift. "Nenya will never be yours," she snarls, "You will never even see it again!"

A chill passes over him.

"Nenya?" He mouths. It would never be his, but she had given him its name and therefore some of its power. 'Ring of Water' suited her to a degree, slipping through his fingers as she had time and time again.

Something glimmers about her at his question. All the anger drops out of her face, and he watches a chill pass over her just the same, as she realises her misstep.

But he liked where this conversation was going, and had not meant to redirect it.

"I wonder," he says, almost a whisper, "If you shiver like that all over." He eyes down her form and back up again.

Galadriel holds his gaze for a moment then huffs and turns, walking the few steps over to the bed. She shifts, lifting her hem slightly to sit on the edge. She perches there, hardly the image of comfort. Sitting so she is less tempted to bolt, so she has no choice but to stay. 

Mairon does not bother to hide his contemplation, he rests his chin on the knuckles of one hand and watches her silently. She knew what he wanted, and he would have it one way or another. 

Though he's not sure he believes her, Galadriel would never make it so easy for him. She was not so skilled in manipulation as him, but she was here, and so undressed he's sure if he took a deep enough breath he could— 

He would lose something of himself to do this, knows it. Also knows he is going to barrel on regardless. He cannot deny himself her, could not pass up this chance. He remembers her hand tight in the front of his shirt, her legs holding on to his waist as he kissed her. 

She was here for a reason, but he searches and finds he does not care about her ulterior motives. He could use it anyway, make her see. He would show her again what was truly in her heart, and what they could be, together. Would show her until the end of Arda if he had to. 

There was only one thing for it, one way to know for certain.

He stands, slowly, and approaches her. 

"What is this, Artanis?" It was an older name, her father-name, meant to invoke nobility, not the maidenhood of her chosen name. "Appeasement?"

She jolts at his use of it. She wondered how he knew it. How could he not? He tells her.

"There are some things you have not shown me," she replies quietly after a moment of consideration.

There were many things, he thinks.

She hears that thought, sighing lightly before carrying on, "Some things that I believe are also on offer."

"Ah," he makes a sardonic noise of understanding. "You wish to sample the wares before you agree to the sale." 

"I am not a thing to be bought and sold, and nor is the fate of Middle-earth!" She barks. He could see her hands have fisted to hold on to the fabric of the bed, again she was holding something of her rage back.

He was glad there was still some fight there. He wanted the noble-woman, just as much as the blushing maiden she was pretending to be. 

Mairon smiles and moves to stand over her on the bed. "You are an Elf of the Noldor, born on Aman, nearly five thousand years old by my estimation," he hums, letting her know he saw her ruse. "I doubt there is much that you have not seen." 

She is still frowning and does not look up. Unnerved by his knowledge of her, she did not wish to think about her past now.

"You want to," she croaks, her voice low. It is not quite a question, not quite a statement. She was almost certain, a hint of doubt beginning to creep in to her thoughts. He had not accepted quite as readily as she thought he would— as she hoped he would.

He brings a hand to her chin. It is a light touch, but she gasps all the same as he tilts her head up and tries to read her eyes, her thoughts.

There is still determination there in the deep blue depths. He bends over her, and her mouth parts slightly in anticipation, but he does not bring them together. He stays close and straightens up, pulling her up with him at the same time. He moves his hand around to hold the side of her jaw, and Galadriel's eyes flutter closed.

Now standing, he slides his nose against hers. She chases the movement of his head, but does not lean forward, simply waits for him to move in and kiss her again.

He does not. Just breathes once against her lips, and turns. He circles her quickly, coming to stop behind her. She gasps, bereft at the sudden loss, her eyes flying open.

She was wrong. Apparently, there was still a game to be had, even if she gave herself willingly.

Her hair tied back as it was, gave him unprecedented access to her neck. He leans in, and this close she still smells like clear forest air, but interlaced with something warmer and sweeter, like amber. He breathes it in and presses a light kiss there.

Mairon trails the back of his hand down her spine, coming to a stop at the small of her back. She does shiver, the whole way down.

He is caught between looking at her reddening face, and down the low neckline of her nightgown.

"It is okay that you wanted what I offered you, Galadriel, that you still do." Of course she did, how could she not? He had seen her own designs. His dark queen. He runs both hands up over her sides, and breathes at the side of her neck, "My Queen of Light."

"Wait— please," she starts suddenly, her voice never reaching more than a whisper.

He does. He stops his hands over her hips and holds them there in a solid grip.

"It's not real," she pleas. It was just their realm, it wasn't actually happening, she tells herself.

He kisses her neck, the tendon under his lips solid, her heartbeat right there under the surface beating strong. "It's not real," he echoes into her soft warm skin. 

He lavishes a bite there in confirmation, and Galadriel inhales sharply, bending her head further to the side for him. "You can be what you are here," he agrees. She does not know whether he means with him or here in their place.

He pulls her against him, letting her feel the heat of him all along her back. Her body relaxes against his— into his, and Mairon relishes in the heat of her in turn. He had not partaken in the latent desires of a physical form in an age, but they were not so buried as to be unreachable.

They breathe together a moment, and it does not feel new and strange, feels oddly comfortable, familiar. He senses something similar coming off her. Like the next natural step in an evolution of form. Mairon marvels at the depths of their bond, a sameness he had not felt in even longer of an age. Like calling to like. A spark somewhere between them, building in intensity, threatening to explode or otherwise extinguish itself. 

Slowly, so slowly, giving her every chance to pull away, he pulls her gown up. Gathering the fabric at her hips, until her lower half is completely exposed. He holds the fabric with one hand, and explores with the other. At the touch of his hand on the bare skin of her hip, Galadriel's hand falls over his holding her dress. 

His hand runs from her hip, across the soft skin of her lower stomach, down through light curls until he comes to her center. Wetness coats his fingers, and she makes a small choked sound.

He bites down on the muscle of her shoulder and moves his fingers down, exploring the length of her to her opening. Collecting some of the arousal there, before settling two fingers at the top of her and moving them slowly over the bundle of nerves.

She pants, a sound from deep within like she has let all the air out of her lungs. He feels it in his own chest, her every breath, every movement, wrapped around her as he was.

"On the raft," he murmurs, "When I found you on the Belegaer, I couldn't believe my luck." He does not let up in his movements, fingers applying pressure, following the slight roll of her hips. "I thought the Valar had redeemed me, the way they put you directly in my path," He says into her ear, a rumble right up against it.

Galadriel throws her head back over his shoulder, and he takes advantage of the expanse of skin on display, biting and sucking his way up her neck. Feeling every swallow, every tiny sound against his lips.

That it was a sign, that this was the right path, he says into her mind instead this time, his mouth otherwise occupied.

He runs his fingers back down to her opening, plunging one in, easy it was so wet. Then another, a tighter fit.

"Ah— " she moans, a clipped sound, like she was going to say a name but decided not to.

Which name? He wonders.

He takes them fully out of her heat, goes back to the sensitive spot at the top of her before diving back down and fucking her with his fingers again.

Galadriel opens her mouth in a cry but the only thing that comes out is a whimper.

He does it again, forming a frustrating pattern, giving her too much and then not enough at once.

And standing as she was, with nothing in front of her, she needed something to grab onto. The only thing is him at her back. Her hands roam up his arms, his head over her shoulder. Her fingers gripping his hair, digging into the base of his skull.

She scrambles for something to ground her. She had no knife at his throat. He ceded no control.

He holds her chest with his free hand. They have both dropped her dress but it did not matter, his hand buried between her legs had free range. Mairon plays her delicately, two-handed, like a harp.

"Please," she breathes.

"Perhaps I wish to take my time," he replies. Gently squeezing one breast, running fingers over the nub, feeling it harden through the thin material.

She grips onto him, violent, digging her nails into the flesh of his arm where his shirtsleeve has been pushed up. Making marks that would never scar.

"Did you wish me to be cruel?" He asks on a whisper, "Rougher? Toss you around?" His hand moves to the other breast, which he gives the same treatment.

Maybe it would be easier— if he weren't so sincere, she thinks, if he just took what he wanted.

"That is your true nature, is it not?" She says instead. It was not an answer to her feelings.

He thinks a moment, then says into her cheek, "I can be whatever you need me to be." 

And at her core she desired power, like him. What was this if not him giving her some of what she wanted?

Something flashes over her face before she shuts her eyes and turns away. He does not want her to shut him out, not now. Mairon brings his free hand up to hold the base of her throat, just resting over her clavicle, a light grip.

She lets out a breathy groan. "You cannot deny, you'd enjoy breaking me." She can barely get the words out.

He nearly smiles, this was not untrue. Maybe once upon a time he would have liked breaking her in, like a wild horse. Knew he could undo her completely if given the time, given the will. He had been given an avenue directly to that.

And for the moment, he did want to break her— not her will, but her body.

He plunges his fingers in deeper, picking up a continuous rhythm now. Never taking them completely out, rubbing them at the sensitive spot just inside her. Using his palm and thumb to cup and put pressure on her bud. Showing her how he would use her, how he was going press her open and fuck her later. 

She is making a sound on each pass of him now, a low involuntary whine, as her wetness drips down the back of his hand.

And even with both arms wrapped around her like a dark cloak of shadow, he would not become the villain she wanted. Would not take from her what was not on offer, would give her something instead. 

He slides his hand up from her throat to her face, where he turns her head and finally kisses her mouth. It is not a soft kiss, but scorching as he demands her pleasure, biting against her lips. Then he feels her clench around his fingers in answer, velveteen and yet almost painfully tight. 

Galadriel sobs into his mouth, as he feels her pleasure flash through her body like lightning, white hot. He groans as he feels it inside himself too, inside his own mind. He struggles to remember a time when he was so close to something so— bright. And was simultaneously too far removed from it as well. He still wanted to be closer, needed to be closer to her.

He holds her up through it. Keeping a palm against her face, he kisses her a few more times before he pulls back. His other hand still inside her, remaining through her aftershocks. As slowly as he can, he removes his fingers, giving one last shuddering pass through her wetness on his way up to her hip.

But he was not done, and nor was she.

He moves around to the front of her, keeping steadying hands at her waist. Galadriel still panting, eyes closed. There were a million things he wanted to do to her in that moment— in that light. He could start a fire with what he felt for her.

He could give her the power she needed from him, could give her something he could not anyone else. He drops to one knee in front of her. Humbles himself before her, before her pleasure, before her own power. And maybe it was a performance, but maybe it wasn't, he found it hard to bow to anyone these days after Forodwaith.

"Oh," she makes a small sound of surprise and rocks back on her heels, when she realises what he has done, but does not step away.

He had bowed before Melkor and Adar for different reasons, and yet had faced ruin both times. He looks up at Galadriel bathed in golden candlelight, lips parted, cheeks still flushed, the very face of perfection, of salvation.

Mairon lets his head fall forward, resting his forehead against her hipbone. Cannot help his own groan, the smell of her almost too much this close.

She does not know what to do with her own hands anymore. He is certain he feels the ghost of a hand against the back of his head, but it is gone in an instant.

He pulls her gown back up her legs where it had fallen, and for all his false affectation, this was not very Elf-like of him— what he was about to do.

He gets a glimpse of the inside of her thighs blushed pink and glistening, and hears the horns of warning, clattering like bells inside his own head.

Mairon freezes, his head turned to listen better. His hands still fisted in the skirt at her thighs.

He can definitely hear horns, both Orc and non-Orc. And the sound of war at a distance fades in afterwards. How long had that been happening? A sneak attack, come just before the dawn. Something he should have heard well before now.

Except for Galadriel; a winning distraction.

He looks back up at her, a different light cast upon the Elf now. She cannot hear the horns, but can tell he has. She had seen him go completely, unearthly still then level a glare up at her. She knows well enough she has been caught, and so exposed, shrinks away from his gaze.

Mairon looks up at his queen, playing the common tavern whore, sent to entertain the enemy commander. He laughs once almost a bark.

Then laughs again at her choice of deception. At the fact that she had been able to keep this from him, when usually everything played so honestly upon her face.

"Perhaps they should call you the deceiver," he snaps, his voice a low growl.

She had not been able to pass the message to her body, which had come undone for him so nicely.

"I will do what I must," she intones.

And there was the rage that he knew would follow. Billowing up from the earth, a fire with a direct path to him, already burnt out many a time. Rage that he had allowed himself to be so distracted, at such a crucial moment. That she could tell herself she was not even here for him.

It had to be a big contingent, that was the only reason she would try and take him off the battlefield. And it was now that he could hear it properly, the structured march of Elves, the stamp of horse hooves, bodies piling up, all thudding against the earth.

And Galadriel, had perhaps taken the biggest hit of all. All unto herself. She had removed them both from the battle. For a time at least.

It did not matter, they would not win, but there would be losses, more than would have been if he had not been otherwise occupied.

And he was still on his knees. He was certain he would be able to smell the blood and grime of battle by now if not for her, the smell of her on his hands, everywhere.

"Go ahead, lie to yourself if you must," he snarls at her. 

There was rage that this was not even all of her, but underneath it a small glimmer of delight too. Pleased that there was more to extract.

He drops her hem finally, emotions swelling, he was beginning to choke on them. Anger and pride in equal measure that she had done this to him. 

"Can I presume I will not see you out there?"

She shakes her head. Good. He did not want her to be there when he finally let loose what was tethered inside.

"Leave."

He stands, backing away from her. He opens a palm, and his armour begins to move on the other side of the room, rising.

"Leave! Before I —"

She does not have to be told a third time.

Just north of Eregion,

Galadriel could not afford to follow Gil-galad into battle again only to disappear on the eve of their strike. It would have aroused too many suspicions. So, upon hearing plans of their attack, she had formulated her own scheme and left. She cited a distaste for this war now, after her last foray, and had made for Imladris again. The High King was still suspicious of course, but he had let her go. He had relayed to her in private that he had been surprised she showed up at all. Her recent injury and relationship to the Enemy reason enough for her aversion in his mind.

And so here she was— in her own tent, halted after more than a full day of riding, halfway back to Imladris. Truth be told, she could have continued riding and made it back to Elrond's new city before the dawn, but the High King's words had done nothing to improve her mood, and she decided to stop. To take a moment's peace, a night's peace in the forest, and collect her thoughts. 

Perhaps there was a part of her that was hesitant to see her friend who knew her so well again, after…

The small fire Galadriel lit outside was slowly going out, she considers stoking it, adding more wood, but decides against it. Did not want to draw more attention to her being here than she already had. Her tent was small and basically bare except for a low bed roll and blanket, so unlike his grand war tent: furnished, full of carpets and regalia. Still, it was more than she would usually travel with, would not have bothered with the covering at all if not for the remnants of Orcs roaming about. 

Now that she had removed her riding pants and coat, and without the fire, there was a slight chill in the air. She stood in her shift in the open door flap, looking to the forest outside and listening to the low embers crack and cool. There was hardly any breeze, the blue-green sheet of night through the trees almost completely still. A peaceful calm she was thankful for, as she knew the ruins from Eregion smouldered still. And there had been enough smoke and ash in her nose and lungs recently to last a lifetime.

As yet, the calm had not been able to puncture her mood. She was stewing in anger, and resentment, and something else. Something sown deep inside, nameless.

She had let him in, surrounding her, inside her mind, inside her body. And now her thoughts were consumed, every thought she had seemed to circle back around to him, putting her spirit to the test. This inescapable closeness to him, would it actually consume her as she felt it was? Would she let it?

She tries not to let the guilt and anger fester. Tells herself he was already in both of those places, through his own might, through his own violence. What did it matter if she used that to her own purposes now?

What was a moment of gratification weighed against her immortal soul?

She had weighed it up, had known that taking him off the field for a short while would not amount to much, but she also had her own reasons for acquiescing to him on that night.

Galadriel looks down at the silver ring adorning her finger.

Nenya.

She had put the ring back on after he bested her when she made her prophecy. Had felt it call to her, like the rush of the sea in the distance. She was confident in his inability to control it, but she had also learned Nenya's true power now after wearing it for a while.

It was concealment. She had tried some small tests against the other Elves before she left, but there would only be one true test of its power.

And that was him.

And there, in his tent, in his arms, he had not seen it, not even as a thought in her head. Even against his onslaught she had held its secret, held on to her power. She let Nenya's power prevail, and even in the depths of her pleasure, he had not known.

If she dug deep enough, she was almost excited at the prospect.

Galadriel had let some of her thoughts come through to him so as not to arouse his suspicion entirely, but she suspected she could shut him out altogether if needed. He would know, but it was at least now an option, something she could keep in her arsenal.

Unsure if it was something Celebrimbor had forged into its making, or the presence of Finrod's melted dagger that she had sworn her oath on. Or perhaps a power that had come directly from her, made from her own will.

She would never know, but she felt fortunate to have it. 

Less exciting was the prospect of hiding what had happened from the other Ring-bearers. All their powers had heightened, not just hers, and that included their thought-opening, Ósanwe. And what a sobering thought, that she was unafraid to face Sauron but was against her own kind.

Though she had faith in Nenya, in the level of concealment she had discovered so far, a fear plagued her. That she had turned more towards him than she realised, towards his allegiance without even intending to. His gentleness lulling her into a false sense of power.

Especially when he had dropped to his knees in front of her. That deception was harder to see through, so unexpected that it felt honest.

She had almost hoped for cruelty from him when she imagined giving herself to him. That he might simply bend her over and take her. It would have made more sense than the caring he had shown her, the comfort and pleasure he had given her. 

It would mean less reckoning in her mind. The soft touch of his hands reckoned against the cruelty they had inflicted. The sheer power within them and the refusal to use it against her. But of course he would never make this easy for her.

She is not surprised when he comes through to her. Not after having had such an in depth apprenticeship at sensing him nearby. She had become a master at it, even before her ring. Knew he was coming through before he did, like she had heard it in his head. Had sensed his mind settle on the thought of her, an accompanying heat that he follows, and goes to her.

His presence now brings with it an immediate tension, a knot in her stomach that hasn't been there before. She feels something similar coming off him from behind her in the tent.

She takes a final deep breath of the outside air, closes the flap, and turns. He appears out of the shadows on the other side of her small tent, from out of his dominion. 

They studied each other for as long as they could bear it, a quiet, fragile spell working between them. Galadriel breaks it first, thinks he would have held it until their eyes grew sore.

"Have you come here to gloat?"

It did not work, her little plan. The High King had sent word to her afterwards of the battle. Sauron had arrived at the end, rallying enough fear from his presence alone to bolster his army and send the last of the Elves into retreat.

His army was now beyond the reach of the Elves alone. Drawn south to Mordor, but pressing on every outpost and growing steadily in numbers. He had declared himself the victor.

If it were anyone else she might have said they had gloated enough for one victory, but she would not put it past him. He was nothing if not proud.

"No," he says without guile.

"Or to exact your revenge upon me?" She queries, lightly.

He raised an eyebrow, displeased she thought him so petty.

"No." Again without guile. "I have come unarmed, and without motive." He keeps his voice light like hers. 

'Unarmed' was true enough. He was dressed as a Man, still long-haired and Elven-eared but no robe, no armour. He wore a simple dark tunic, trousers, and boots. Had decided he did not need to uphold his facade around her anymore it seemed.

This did not pacify her. He himself was weapon enough, had shown that in the previous days of battle— in the last few thousands of years of battle.

'Without motive' she was less certain of.

There was something about him today that gave her pause. She had watched his eyes in this form change from light blue to black and back again. He could smile and emote as any Elf would, but it had never quite reached his eyes before. There was usually a blankness there belying his true nature. They were light now, and even through the coldness of the rest of Annatar's features, she could see a genuine warmth in his gaze as he watched her.

Her body warmed up in answer, without her assent.

Of course he was not angry with her, not anymore, he had gotten what he wanted from her in more ways than one. He said he thought the Valar had redeemed him through her. A deeply conceited theory, despite the fact that the words had sent their own rumble of satisfaction through her.

He was remembering their last meeting too. How he had strode into battle afterwards against her kin with the smell of her still upon him, upon his hands, rising everywhere inside his armour. Galadriel feels heat rise on her cheeks.

He can hear her reading those thoughts and smiles, looking away. He looks around the small space, not even large enough for him to wander. She did not think he would be able to influence her at all now, but does not want him to pry and realise so soon.

She distracts him. "Why have you come here, then?"

He regards her again, bemused. "You called me," he replies, softly.

Galadriel's mouth opens then closes.

She may have thought of him, the Dark Lord, on his knees in front of her; equal parts exciting and terrifying. Just that dash too perfect to be real, the perfect imperious slope of his brow down his profile, the dismissive turn to his lips. How it had all softened when his head met her middle. What would have inevitably come next.

A guilty tendril curls through her. She swallows it down, and finds her voice. "I have done no such thing."

"Well." He smiles broadly now and knocks his head to the side. "Not with your words."

And for a second it is so reminiscent of Halbrand that she has to look away.

She found the more she thought about it, the more she wished in that moment that the figure kneeling before her had been someone rougher, manlier, stubbled— 

Something else floods her.

"You said you could be whatever I needed you to be?" She asks slowly, purposely thoughtful. She waits a beat. "Could you be something else?"

She chances a glance up at him, he is closer now— they had drifted toward one another as they spoke. He is frowning at her, questioning, and an emotion she couldn’t quite place flitted across his face.

No, he could not change his nature. He had spent too long honing it into the finely sharpened blade it was. But he does not reply, just watches her.

She knew she could not keep the distaste she felt for this little play on Elven kings of old from being writ plain on her face. Galadriel turns completely, putting her back to him. She did not want to see it, did not want to see him— like this.

Giving her back to him is either a show of bravery or stupidity, she's not sure. Either way her heart thrums with the potent reminder of the positions they were in the last time they met.

He is thinking the same as he steps up behind her again, something she feels more than hears.

And if she chose to believe what he said about not harming her, about worshipping her— perhaps there were other requests he would grant now.

"Someone else?" she asks, more honestly.

And between his next breath in and out he is different. As simple as that. He breathes out and he is changed, she knows immediately. Thinks she could tell in the dark, in the void itself, whether he was her old friend or not.

A scent that she had only been tangentially aware of; one of charcoal and iron and ash, morphs slowly with an earthier woody one. Grounding the two, and bringing to mind a forest fire in the distance on a clear day.

A hand lands gently on her lower back, large and possessive, curling around the curve of her hip.

"Turn around, Galadriel." 

A ripple of something that was not fear passed across her skin when he said her name. But the demand is soft, and so she does, she cannot deny him. His low Southlands accent confirming that he could not deny her either.

And even though she knew it was coming, it was still the same kick to the gut to see him again, to see a friendly face on this being. Just like on the mountain it is a lure, blatantly cast— except this time, it is a lure she had asked for.

But it is Halbrand. 

He was towering over her, no taller than Annatar had been but still seemingly bigger in every way, seemed to take up more space. His hair had darkened, curling around his ears and jaw. Though she knew all the ways it glowed in the sunlight, reflecting off his more golden complexion. The sharp jawline of Annatar had been enhanced with the first hint of a beard, a smattering of stubbled facial hair across where a small beguiling smile was pulling at the corner of his mouth.

She feels her own smile tug in answer before she can stop it. But she meets his eyes and an ache opens in her chest.

Green eyes, green flecked with blue and yellow. Like the leaves of the Great Tree of Lindon resting on the surface of the sea. Beautiful but with hidden depths to drown in, brighter for the darkness hidden there.

She thinks she understands something of his affection for her.

Sauron for his part simply holds her gaze, lets her inspect and look her fill. Something she had not been able to do unperturbed before. He did not quite preen under her gaze, but it is a close thing, he liked this proper examination of himself.

His shoulders were broad, his neck strong. The notch of his throat bobs as her gaze falls down to the open neck of his navy tunic, to the shadow of dark chest hair that she isn't sure was there before. She is struck with the overwhelming urge to rest her head there, tired as she was— tired of war, tired of resisting, of everything.

He was masculine, and handsome, and Galadriel was ruined.

Her body was being pulled closer to his. His hand had remained on her waist, but it was not him pulling, rather her own body answering an unspoken call. Arching toward the curve of his form, without thought. Unaware or uncaring of her inner turmoil, he keeps his hand there, running it slowly up and down her hip to the top of her thigh. Almost reticent to be parted from her.

Through the slow the pull of her body to his, she keeps inspecting. Keeping him at a distance with little touches like smoke signals, delaying the fire that will come afterwards.

Her hands run up his arms, covered in fabric but she knew they were well toned. Those she had seen up close, muscled like from years of hard labour. She digs into the muscle of his shoulder as she travels up to his face.

She runs her hand over the stubble, and his eyes flutter slightly. And when she presses at the hinge of his jaw, she would almost say it was a flinch if she didn't know better.

His other hand winds its way to her side, sliding up in tandem. His hands felt different encircling her waist. Not stronger but rougher, courser to the touch even through the soft material of her dress, in a way she wanted to feel everywhere. This was all it was going to take to bridge the final gap between them. 

Again, Galadriel steps up to the edge, and lets herself fall off. 

She grips the back of his neck and pulls his face down to hers, holding him there a breadth away.

The corner of his mouth turns up in a flash of a grin before he leans down the final inch and takes her mouth with his. And she lets him, lets him follow her down this time.

He pulls them together swiftly, pulling Galadriel up onto the tips of her toes, arching her backwards. And pressed completely against the front of him, his stubble upon her face, it felt inevitable. Like pulling away was never going to be an option, to not end up here was never an option for her.

She threatens to drown in it, the weight of him infused in this kiss. His will, his desire, burning up through her body. But she had Nenya; another raft, and so she takes it. Sinks into his pleasure, gives some of her own back. She wraps both her hands around the back of his neck, and licks into his mouth.

Even his mouth tasted different now, hotter, teeth sharper. A desperation bleeding into the kiss, though she is not sure which of them it has come from.

He pulls her shift up, not quite the whole way, grabbing her rear and pulling her into him. One of his legs finding its place between hers. She pants into his mouth. They were reaching feverish heights.

And this was what she had asked for, was it not? This is what she had meant— had wanted, when she asked him to change form. 

He bites at her lower lip with a soft noise in the back of his throat, then drops his head down to her neck. "Ah," her mouth falls open on a moan. The coarse hair now scraping across her sensitive skin as he sucks a mark there, sending a shockwave down her spine.

Galadriel's mind was reeling. Their bodies pressed tight against one another, igniting everywhere they touched. Their edges slipping and merging. No, the other Elves would not know about this. She would have to devote a good portion of her power to it but they could never find out. This was theirs and theirs alone. 

She runs her hands over his shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and twist as he holds her. His mouth finds a particularly sensitive spot just below her ear, and her hand jumps to his hair, scratching at the nape of his neck, holding him there. She knew he was not wholly in her head, so how did it feel like he was? Like everything he did in this form was designed specifically for her.

Her world felt off-kilter. She had wanted it to feel unreal last time in his tent, had made sure of that, but now it all felt a step too far, too real, too perfect. How was she ever going to go back to her kind— plagued by this in her head?

"Is there another form?" She asks, the words passing between her lips before she can stop them.

He stops his movements abruptly, pulling back to look at her deliberately. His expression serious and concerned. A look she remembered seeing on Halbrand's face before, like she was more than a little unstable. He does not step back but pulls out of her grip, dropping his hands from her, so there was nothing but eye contact connecting them. 

She continues on, unable to avoid it now that she has started. 

"One that would feel more…" She cannot get it out, doesn't know what she's asking for, she had asked for this form. Is perhaps waiting for it to feel less perfect. The loss of his body was somehow leaving her just as charged as the touch of it.

"I do not want to feel like this is all just for me," she finishes, languidly. She wanted to break away from his gaze desperately, but could not.

He was confused, she heard it in his head. He would do almost anything she asked.  

She knows it is a contradiction in itself, asking his deceit to be true somehow. She did not want to look up and see the facade had slipped, that Annatar had returned with his perfectly measured reactions and alien gaze.

His expression does not change, there was a stern set to his jaw, and a furrow on his brow. Resting just on the edge of anger, of offence. He looks down at the small space separating them, and sighs lightly.

"This is the first form I ever took in this body," he says, his voice a low rumble. "This is me." And something in his tone made her believe him, dark and reserved, like he was letting her in on a secret.

"As much as this…" He reaches across the gap between them, and runs the back of his knuckles lightly down her chest, between her breasts, "... is you." 

Galadriel feels the trail of heat follow his hand and bloom across her ribcage in response.

She understood; it was the other way around. Annatar was the facade and all he had to do was drop it. 'In this body' was possibly more concerning— how many had he inhabited?

He drops his forehead against hers, their noses nudging. "And it is all for you."

She wanted to laugh suddenly, as if he himself got no satisfaction from this. 

Sauron continues, smirking now himself, "The fact that you find Halbrand's physical form so appealing is a happy accident."

Galadriel pulls back to meet his eyes defiantly. "I do not find it so ap—"  

The being above her has the nerve to roll his eyes, before he reaches down to her thighs and picks her up, forcing her to wrap herself around him. It was brash and overly familiar in a way that Halbrand would have hesitated to do once upon a time, but he was unleashed here. 

She holds onto him, her mouth parted in shock, while he gives a sardonic little nod, and hums a mocking, "Okay."

Their mouths meet again, and she will claim it was at her decision, to shut him up, but in reality she cannot be sure whose choice it was. 

He turns them and her back makes contact with a solid wooden chest, pressing her into it and stealing her breath again. 

Except that chest was not in her tent— it was in his. It was the armoire she knew he kept his battle armour in. He had brought some of his landscape in with him, a breach of the preordained limits of their realm, just so he could pin her to its hard surface.

His hands are strong beneath her, keeping her in place as his beard scratches across her face, his mouth burning on hers. It was painfully manly, in a way she was not used to. But he was not a Man.

He buffets her into the piece of furniture with her hips, like he had heard 'not a Man'. His hips pressing into hers as if to draw attention to one part she could feel he was undeniably. He ground them together, pressing himself against her core, sending an unbridled wave of heat through her. She did not spend much thought on such things, but the prominent hardness she can feel there startles a gasp out of her.

And the fact that he lowered himself to these manly urges still gave her pause. It was all in opposition to what she knew he really was. He had spent all his time in existence honing the craft of manipulation and this was how he chose to exert his skill.

"Galadriel, stop," he murmurs against her lips. "You are here with me, and you will not deny it." He shakes her in his grasp, thudding her lightly against the wooden chest. "I will not have you think your way around it." 

"You have been 'awake since before the breaking of the first silence'," she breathes against his face, recalling his own words. "And this is how you choose to spend your time? How you choose to spend all your considerable power?" It is an honest question, but one that she can sense will provoke him.

He makes a sound of frustration, looking away a moment. Another look that was very reminiscent of early Halbrand, annoyed that she was trying to get him to leave Númenor all over again. Except now his hands tighten, digging into her thighs and rear in a way that makes her want to grunt.

"Can not one thing just be for me?" He snarls, face close to hers.

But it was all for him. He was a selfish thing first and foremost— always selfish, and yet every movement of every being in Middle-earth somehow revolved around his action or inaction, or had for the past few thousand years, at least.

She raises her chin, combative. "I thought it was for me?" 

He changes the tilt of his head to match hers, to meet her eyes. "It is," he says, his accent muddling the words. His eyes run over her face, and down to where their bodies met.

"Now let me finish what I started, my Queen." He turns them again, and drops her onto the bed. It was both her bed and his, both his realm and hers. It was hard to see— hard to see anything beyond him, his gaze, beyond the way he has dropped to his knees and pulled her to the edge, situating himself between her legs. 

He lifts her dress up again, running his hands up her bare legs and pressing them open. He breaks their eye contact and looks down at her, brazen and indecent. The air against her wetness should be cool but it is warmed by his eyes. 

A groan catches low in his throat, like he is almost pained by the sight of her. The rumble as good as a touch against Galadriel's skin. 

He lowers his head reflexively, moving purely on instinct, and kisses the tops of her thighs, the crook of her legs. A gentle kiss that, were it upon her cheek, would have seemed chaste. His mouth was soft even as he left a trail of heat up the insides of her thighs, his stubble scratching the even more sensitive and untouched skin there. 

"Look at you," he says quietly reverent, almost to himself. He rubs the fingers of one hand side to side over her, before moving it down to spread her open for him. "So ready for me."

He drops his head down, pressing a deep, open-mouthed kiss to her center. He stays there, kissing and sucking, drinking her in. Wrenching forth short, little, choked off gasps from her with his every movement.

His shoulders hold her legs open and he throws a forearm across her lower stomach, keeping her from writhing too much and allowing him to focus completely on his task. His obscene mouth sounds and her own pants and broken-off cries fill her ears as he takes and takes.

She makes the dire mistake of listening in to his thoughts instead. Knew she'd be perfect— taste perfect, knew she'd taste like drinking naked starlight.  

And unable to move her hips anymore, she grabs onto his hair causing him to grunt into her, his own eyes closing in pleasure. She threads her fingers through before she can stop herself, it was course and curled and messy, unlike the silken locks of Annatar's that she had attempted to grab.

He purrs against her and Galadriel knows, if he could grin right now, he would.

Spurred on by her reaction, he pushes her dress further up exposing her breasts so he can get a hand to them, massaging there. She drops a hand over his as he does, feeling over his roughened knuckles as he toys a nipple between his fingers.

She follows the path of his hands, down his arms and up over his shoulders, digging into his shirt back. She wanted the touch of bare skin under her hands as well. He stops, lifts his head and reaches back, ripping the tunic over his head. He had heard her unspoken request, unflinchingly giving her full access to the bunched muscles now on display there.

He looks back down at her once, predatory, satisfied, before diving back in. Bare shoulders now under her thighs, his mouth wet and hot against her, nose pressed into the soft curls of her mound. She moans against the unassailable heat, throwing her head back, digging her nails into his neck and shoulders, unsure if she's trying to push or pull him— maybe both at the same time.

As much as she tries to swallow her own noises she cannot stop them, his lips and tongue drawing her out of her body. Galadriel feels like she is coming undone, and then she does. Her body breaking apart and flooding with a searing flush.

He does not stop his movements, pressing his mouth against her a few more lingering times, trying to swallow everything as she shuddered below him. She releases her grip on his hair and finally, he sits up, wiping a hand slowly over his beard and chin. His eyes were wilder now, as they beheld her. His hair mussed in such a way that had no business being so delightful to her. 

They had moved and she hadn't noticed; she was now fully laid back upon the bedding. He climbed up after her and was kneeling, between her legs. His boots long since kicked off.

His chest was right there, broad, heaving, the smattering of dark hair trailing down his middle. Her hand naturally falls there, following the trail down his lower stomach, spreading between the sharp indentations on either side of his hips. She watches transfixed as goosebumps appear at her touch.

He was watching her hand as well, while making quick work of his already loosened pants. He slides them off, allowing her to get a longer look. He was bigger than she had seen before on Elven men— bigger around, and he wanted her, shamelessly so.

He follows her further up the bed, leaning over to lift her shift entirely off. She does not think twice about it, is somewhere outside her body still. She raises up slightly to help him get it over her head, to pull her hair through. 

She was looking at his manhood still. It was thick and full, fluid had welled at the tip, and her hand that was once again on the muscles of his front is about to lower to it when she glances at his face. His attention was elsewhere, his stare affixed at the newly exposed skin of her chest.

Oh, Galadriel thinks.

The fresh scar on her breastbone was now right in front of him. It was dark but he could see well enough that the skin was a different shade there. A diamond shaped mark with spikes around it where the flesh had torn then sewn back together, almost like a star. Almost like an eye.

It was healing faster, but would still be with her for the foreseeable future.

Soon it will fade from view entirely, he thinks.

His eyes are deep dark pools as he slides a hand up to it. Though the second his roughened palm presses against the new skin, a phantom pain hits her. It was reduced due to Nenya, but Galadriel cannot help her sharp inhale-exhale at the jolt that runs through her chest.

He retracts his hand like it has been scalded, turning it slowly as if to check whether he actually did burn. It would be the smallest of retributions if it had. There is a light frown upon his brow as he looks up at her.

Then, slowly, while still watching her, he leans down and presses his mouth there instead. And most shocking of all, it does soothe the pain. Like if he could make it, he could take it away.

His thoughts are not regretful or chastened, not quite— they were sad almost. If she'd felt the emotion in anyone else's head she would have said it was mourning. But sad that he had done it, or sad that the mark would fade eventually from her physical being? She does not get to find out.

He keeps his mouth there, kissing across her chest. Moving lower, nipping and sucking the delicate skin of her breasts into his mouth. He finds the second smaller scar the crown had left to the side of her ribs, lavishing it with the same tender kiss before moving back up. 

"Ah," she exclaims— cannot contribute any more than that, as she twines her hands in his hair. It was impossible, trying to think past the feel of his mouth on her chest. The scratch of his stubble on her soft skin was commandeering her brain. Felt like it might leave another mark, felt like she might want it to.

He hoists one of her thighs to open her up to him. Every touch of him now more demanding than the last. He gets a hand quickly to her, running it up the inside of her thighs, through to her wetness. And she was still reeling from her first climax, when he sinks his fingers into her, fast and deep, two at once.

His hand and fingers were undeniably rougher than Annatar's had been, but she cannot find it in herself to mind, as they plunge in and out, readying her for him. 

He moves from one breast to the other and back again, then abandons them up to her mouth. Keeping her mouth open with his kisses, and her entrance open with his fingers.

She cannot respond to his kiss, wrenched from her higher thought as she was. Galadriel shuts her eyes and lets her head fall back, so he retreats across her face. His nose pressing into her cheek as he bites at her jaw and watches her reactions closely. She could still feel his gaze on her, it was burned onto her now, she would feel it forever.

Too wrapped up in the pleasure, it takes her a moment to realise he was saying something. And he had always been so good with words, at talking his way into what he wanted, why should that not be true here?

"You can go again, can't you, my Queen?" He rumbled against her ear. His crassness at odds with his tenderness, with the title he continued to give her. But it worked, like it was easy for him, like he had learned her already. 

How many fingers he had in her now, she did not know. He was spreading her, his thumb rubbing over the outside of her, back and forth, back and forth, unrelenting.

"Give me one more." He was brasher, dirtier as Halbrand. Had slipped back into the role of a Man so swiftly, so effortlessly, and it was something that she never knew she wanted so much. "One more," he repeats. "Before I make you come on my cock." She can feel it, pressing into her hip, heat-hot.

She does, her back arching, her vision clouding, and he never stops talking the whole time. 

"That's it," he breathes. "Let me, let me give you what you need."

Before she has had a chance to recover, he drops his head and closes the gap between their lips, kissing her languidly. His kiss is deep and probing, claiming her mouth the way his hands had her body. Galadriel presses into it, her body still thrumming.

He pulls back slightly, moaning against her mouth, then looks down. Taking his hand that was inside her to himself and slicking it with a stroke. He notches himself against her, up and down through a beat of pleasure, then he stops against her opening.

They were on the brink, again. On the brink of everything, of something that had been sewn before they ever even met. To be fortified here in their realm, but also in the forests outside Imladris; her and the enemy.

And somewhere between her open legs, her bare chest, his own nakedness, the lack of proper bedding surrounding them, the highs she had just climbed, then descended so suddenly, twice— Galadriel feels exposed. Cut open and laid bare, like an open nerve-ending, like a sacrificial offering, an offering of her own making in the cool night air. 

Her heartbeat turns erratic and her breathing changes, hastening.

He pauses for a moment, his eyes trailing over her. He sees it, her not-quite panic. He misses almost nothing when it comes to her.

He makes a small contemplative noise in the back of his throat then half turns, lifting one arm and reaching up towards the canvas of the tent. His hand clasps firmly around nothing, around the air itself, his eyes dim for a flash, and he pulls forth a shroud of darkness. Pulling it like a blanket around them, over both their heads. It is darkness like midnight, like the stars and sky have been pulled in closer, shielding them from all the prying eyes of this world— so that they were each a star amongst the heavens themselves.

It leaves her breathless.

A potent and still somewhat disquieting reminder that the person she was with was no real person at all. That the being over her was closer to deity than Man.

But he follows his shroud of darkness forward to rest his arms either side of her. His very real and warm arms and chest caging her in. She watches his throat swallow, she feels the skin of his thighs under hers.

The dichotomy of those things; he was both, just like they were in both places.

He kisses the curve of her jaw. "I've got you," he presses into her skin. Then moves over to kiss the other side of her jaw. "I've got you," he repeats there.

Galadriel hears both meanings. One like a caress on her cheek, one like a shackle around her wrist.

She rolls her hips against him, sliding him against her and producing a low noise in his chest that she can only describe as a pleased rumble. They were so close now, and still she wanted him closer, she could not help it. Had to see this through now, to its end.

He brings his hand down to hold himself again and slowly pushes forwards. He was slowly coaxing her open onto him, entering her with a deep exhale. 

His control was masterful, he watches her face the whole time. His eyes bright, almost feverish with lust. Galadriel is clutched onto his arms, torn between his eyes and watching where they were joined.

He was stretching her more than she thought she could, steadily filling her with his cock. All she could do was breathe heavily as he plied her with words of encouragement: she felt so good around him, she was doing so well.

Then he was completely seated inside her. His pelvis ground against hers, his lightly haired lower abdomen meeting her own smoother one. And she moans, tears forming in her eyes. His hips stutter forward again even with nowhere to go, fully sheathed, and he groans.

They were perfection, joined, whole— finally.

"Galadriel." He makes her name a caress in his mouth.

Her eyes flash up to his and they are shining like there might be tears in his eyes too. She slides a hand up around his jaw, behind his ear, and drags his mouth back down to hers, hard and hot.

Forming an unbroken line of energy, an unbroken loop, pouring back and forth between them. Her heart racing even faster with the pulsing force of his power running alongside hers truly, for the first time.

He begins to thrust, and she whines into his mouth at the loss inside her. 

"I'm here," he rasps against her lips. I've got you, again, into her mind.

Then he is pushing back in, blotting out all else. Galadriel's mouth drops open, no air entering it.

His thrusts are aimed at the perfect angle to hit exactly where she needed inside and out, rolling and languid. The rhythm drawing out sounds she had never imagined could come from her. She had devolved into shameful sobs and moans with an alarming and unaccustomed speed. She would curse him, if she could.

"So good for me." He nudges her jaw with his nose, playful almost, pushing her head back so he can whisper in her ear. "—perfect, perfect for me. Like you were made for me, made to take my—"

She could not reply, could not find the words, could not even respond within her head. Each press of him pushing her somewhere else, onto some other plane of existence.

And it really was not going to take much, she thinks, working up to this as they had been for so long.

His large hands push her thighs, imperiously pushing her legs into whatever position he wanted. Hooking one around his hip, the other wrapped lower, urging him back in every time.

He did not need the urging. He was singular and focussed, had proven that he enjoyed hard work, enjoyed being put to a task. Yet, he was truly greedy, she could hear it in his every word, taste it in every kiss. He wanted to wring every drop of pleasure out of her, out of this, to both their detriment. Like there was no greater pleasure to him than taking control of her, of her pleasure. His power was leaking into her veins everywhere they touched, and it left her lightheaded.

"Let go," he mouths at her ear, a rough drawl. I will catch you.

Her cognition was leaving her. Galadriel knew her hands were on him, feeling for the movement of him— but on his front, his back, she can't tell. Thinks she might have said something to him, does not know what. The stretch of him inside her, the weight of his body against her, was turning her insides molten. She comes again, helpless to stop it.

Her body clenching and contracting violently around him seemed to be the end for his resolve too. She feels him twitch inside in answer, curling forward with a deep groan. He holds her completely still under his hands as he comes, heat unfurling into her, forehead pressed against hers. A moment that can only be minutes— seconds, seems to unfurl into eons.

He rolls to the side slowly, careful not to crush her given his greater size, but he is barely off her body. Their shoulders pressed tight, his legs still tangled between hers.

They lay like that for another moment, breathing shallow under the cover of night, under his curtain of Menel, where the air has grown close. A new quiet intimacy.

He turns his head, she does not need to look to know. She can feel his gaze on her, still dark and dangerous. He bites at her shoulder and pushes a single word into her mind: Again.

Galadriel's eyes fly over to his, but he was already worming a hand under her ribcage. How can he be ready again? She might die this time, she thinks fatally. But as he pulls her atop himself, where she settles with a soft thump, she sees that he has not softened at all. And already recognises that the hunger within her had not abated either.

His face is slack but his eyes that watch her are fervent, warming her more than the shroud, or tent, or fire could. Burning like he was trying to take her in, consume her with his eyes alone. And yet full of dark challenge, as if daring her to protest, to say something in opposition.

They rake down the front of her. She was exposed again, but not vulnerable anymore. Her body had risen in heat to match his, had risen in power, and thrummed under the attention from him now. She drops her shoulders, pushing them back and straightening up, rolling her hips experimentally into him.

His gaze drops to between her legs, where they were spread across him. A sizeable hand spans her leg as his thumb trails up her inner thigh to spread through the mixture of both of them there. 

"Beautiful," he hums. And he could mean her, their joining, the world they had created. Could mean anything, could mean it all.

He stops the pad of his thumb at the top of her, rubbing small circles while he takes himself in his other hand, lining back up with her entrance. He presses in, she can feel his last spend leaking out of her back onto him as he lowers her down slowly, onto the full length of him. Galadriel's breath hitches. She was still sensitive from the first time and he felt bigger from this angle, nearly too big, and hotter to the touch, the heat adding to her sensitivity, heightening everything.

He keeps his thumb there, and she rubs against it on instinct, grinding, forming a rhythm. And it is not going to take anything, she is right there, immediately on the edge again.

His body curves around hers as he leans up to mouth at her chest, whilst keeping her in his lap, hands gripping at her front and back. It was too many sensations, being full of him while he was all teeth and tongue, hands and skin, wanton and filthy, inside and around her. Like he could not help himself, like he needed all of her under his grasp.

The only thing that mattered to him was possessing her again. That he could exhaust this form in ways that might kill any other being was another reminder that he could inhabit a human form, but was decidedly not. She was barely aware that he had begun to move, to move her up and down on him, pulling her body down onto his with ease. The demand of him was undeniable, he did not feel like a Man anymore, he felt like a god inside her now.

She was stuck in a loop, tumbling over precipice after precipice. Drowning in it, no sign of land. Her every nerve-ending firing in seemingly unending pleasure with every movement of him inside her, on her bundle of nerves. Every flex of her legs was another climb, another contraction of her muscles that should be the end of it— but wasn't.

Her entire world had narrowed down to the place where they were joined, nothing else in Middle-earth existed. It felt like witchcraft. It should end. It had to end, sometime. She was in a battle of wills, of might, against him, against her own body.

She was pleading with him, knew she was, his force making her voice waver, but she was no longer in control of what she said. It had to have been obscene, she could not care, especially since his own voice had grown gravelly against her skin.

His energy poured into her now, she was being unmade, her mind melted. And he was right there encouraging it all. Pressing her along, pushing her right to the edge of her sanity, his voice ruined.

He was ruinous, truly, in all ways.

She had enough of a grasp to sense that his pace was becoming more erratic, his kiss sloppier, less power over himself, over his actions. His own release close, like she was undoing him as well. She found that she wanted it, wanted him to thrust into her hard and impatient. He does, like a necessity, like the animal of his body was telling him to.

And that she had reduced such a titan of control to this with her body, with her own mind, was enough for her.

One last time, they go hurtling over the edge together. Galadriel digs her nails into his skin as he holds her through the blind freefall. 

Her vision whites out completely as new stars are born behind her eyes, galaxies thundered and were formed in the Secret Fire. And he is there too, calling out her oldest name, at the heart of the world.

As her vision fades in, she falls back into her body and it feel like years have passed in the intervening time. Galadriel finds he has slipped himself from her to lay them both down. Her face was resting against the very part of his chest she had thought of earlier, drowsily pressed against his clavicle. Halbrand's chest a small moment of refuge against Sauron's might. 

He smelled of sweat and the earth, but there was still a scent of woodsmoke in the air— and the sound of fire crackling.

Galadriel turns her head to face the other way. She does not remember when he let it dissipate but the shroud of darkness is gone, and with her head to the side like this, she could see the fire outside her tent was roaring again. The orange-white of the flame glowing through the thin canvas material. Thrummed back to life with the force of them, of him.

The firelight painting them both in a deep gold.

She lay there, on thin bedding, on the forest floor. With the Dark Lord himself as the warm body beneath her, around her, rising and falling with his breaths. His roughened hands still on her, holding her close. Massaging over her back, caressing up and down the sides of her satisfyingly sore body. She was tired, and content.

And about one thing she was certain.

He said it was divine, that their meeting on the Belegaer was not chance. The Valar had put her there for him as a sign. But how could it be when she had defied the very same Valar to be there? When she had defied her kin?

It was not divine intervention— they had willed it, both of them.

She knit their thread of connection herself, intentionally. She had been looking for him. It had been her only mission for centuries now.

He had sewn them together, with his violence, with his manipulation.

And now, they had finished it.

This, the final stitch in their adornment, in their embellishment of one another. A tapestry of connection, from the flesh right down to their spirit, now tied off— completed.

Chapter Text

East of the Harad Road,

She sits up on the edge of his bed, swinging her legs over. He hears in her thoughts that she needed a moment, a moment of clarity without him touching her.

Mairon obeys, staying laid just behind her, sweat cooling on his skin. His fingers twitch to get back to her, his very skin itching at the distance between them.

She was not leaving though, so he waited.

What to call you? She wonders inside her head after a moment.

"You have many names, what else is there?" She asks, quietly, half-turning to look upon him.

Thousands of epithets cast from across the ages flit through his head. But there is something else, a whisper on the wind.

Mairon, he thinks.

"Mairon," she says in the same instant.

He had not necessarily meant for her to hear it, however between the veil of their minds being thinned, and the physical connection they had been forging— she does.  

It was golden on her tongue. Crystalline and clear. Sublime. Her perfect trill over the '-ro' sound sent a shiver right through him.

Admirable.

And still calls to mind the shadow of a great hand around his throat.

"No." He would not have her use the same name his master had used— the same name he still calls himself. "You can use Halbrand or…Sauron, if you need to."

Abhorrent. It was as good as any, a name given to him by the Elves, and she was an Elf. It was at least more familiar to him these days.

"Or 'my Lord'?" He continues, smiling up at her.

She does not respond to his quip. "Sauron?" She asks, slowly, uncertain. The name meant to evoke fear and terror. A name for a being that had created a feeling in the Elves they had never known before. A cosmic aberration that should never have been. 

He sighs, pushing up onto his palms.

"There are others, if you so desire. One some of the Smiths had given me, maybe." He waits, baiting her. "Though, I doubt you will like that one either." He lets his gaze wander down the skin of her back, the pin straight posture hidden partly by her golden tresses. "In fact, I think you will dislike that one much more." 

She gives him a serious look as if to say, 'What could be worse than Sauron?'

"Artano," he intones.

The gasp that Galadriel nearly chokes on was worth giving something of himself away. "No," she whispers harshly, her eyes wide.

He has to throttle his laughter but allows himself a satisfied grin. "No, I did not think so."

Sauron it would be, then. It sounded different coming from her, after all. 

Mairon was surprised it had taken her this long to ask for a name at all. She had been begrudgingly calling him Sauron in her head since the first time in her tiny travelling tent.

He had wrought her pleasure from her that night, in the forest like beasts, like the primordial spirits they were. Waiting until she had finally drifted pleasantly off to a dreamlike state, until the first light of the dawn was threatening to creep over the horizon, before disappearing himself back to his own realm.

Leaving her to, what was undoubtedly, a rather sore ride on her horse the short distance north to the half-constructed Elven city. And opening his eyes amidst his own new construction, he had a satisfying, sneaking suspicion that she had dismounted to half-limp alongside the beast.

And if she had taken his leaving as a rudeness, or any of his treatment as an unkindness, she had not shown it. She had been coming through to him consistently since.

He could smell her now like an encroaching storm, an infinitesimal shift in the air as her mind settled on the thought of him. 

He had declared himself the victor of the war, but had not really let it play out as it should have, had drawn into the defences of the South and halted the Elven progress without much fanfare. He had other plans, and wanted to see more than anything where Galadriel could lead him, where this connection between them led.

He had overseen the start of construction in Mordor and then set out. He travelled with a small party of Orcs and Eastern Men now. They were loyal, certainly afraid of him, but competent and that was his most favoured quality of all. Someone who could enact his plans expediently, who could submit to his will without incident. Found he almost did not mind them being in his company.

Especially now as his plans were being exacted, his rings finding their bearers. Men were so easy to corrupt, were so quick to accept that their status should be higher, to believe they deserved more than they did. 

Moving around as he was, she could surely smell the difference between the smoke-filled aroma of Mordor, and the hot, dry, sun-scorched heat of the East. But she never asked, never even mentioned it. And he had a growing sense things were becoming less straightforward for his Elf now.

She turns away from him again, looking back out at the rest of his room. It was cool despite the unrelenting sun that bore down upon the Harad kingdom during the day. The castle around them was hewn straight out of the rock. The room itself furnished appropriately for a guest of high standing, but it would be nothing in comparison to what he had planned for his tower in Gorgoroth, where the stones were being laid even as they spoke.

Galadriel seemed to relish in the cooler air, taking deep steadying breaths away from the heat of him. Mairon waits. He knew the truth of it, of her acquiescing to his pull; she did not want him to see where she was. He knew anyway, knew of the new Elven outpost being raised up. He was unconcerned by it, for the mean time. 

What was most evident though was that she did not want him there, could not bear to have him take her the way she wanted in her friend's 'Homely House'. 

He grins wolfishly, remembering how she had just come apart under him, skin shimmering, lips red and gasping.

Meetings between them did not always devolve into such carnal things immediately— sometimes they would argue first. His queen often came through with something acerbic and biting on her tongue before he unwound her.

She liked order, he had observed. Something he only made note of because it was the same within him. Everything in her head occupied its own neat, little space, to be pushed down or pulled to the forefront as needed. Her desires, her people, her past, her husband. Everything except him. He had marred it somewhat. He occupied far more of her mind than she was comfortable with, could feel it in her touch, in the way her eyes seemed to have trouble pulling away from his. 

And he only intended to push their barrier further.

He swings around, putting a leg on either side of hers, bracketing her in. Her hair between them, pressed soft against his bare front. He kisses the side of her cheek, her neck, and as she usually did, she angles her head to give him more access.

And here as well, they had found something they agreed upon, and were bound to see through to its end. He was emboldened by her attention, felt something new harbouring itself within him, he shone dimly with a light he did not know.

He slides a hand up her soft thigh, feeling the light tremor of the muscle underneath his palm.

She was still thinking about his name, his identity, all tangled up in her mind. "Why don't you take it— what you want?" She asks on a breath.

He knew what she meant. He had been kind and gentle, and she was giving him some of what he wanted, why should he not be?

"I will not be your monster, Artanis. We are the same you and I." 

No matter what she said of his true nature, it was not cruelty. He had cultivated a taste for it because he had to, because it had served him. But it was no more than she herself had done, was no more his nature than it was hers.

He drops a hand to her other thigh, trailing up them in tandem. 

"In the manner you want, then," she sighs, a frustrated sound even as she leans back into his embrace.

"I thought I just did," he hums against her jaw, alluding to their previous actions. Wrapping his large palms around her legs and slowly pulling them apart. "Here, I'll show you."

His hand immediately seeks out the lingering wetness at her core, pressing his fingers back to her. Stopping the entrance to make sure nothing leaked out, pushing back in anything that had dripped out.

Her torso vibrates with a guttural sound, but he hears the query in her head.

"I like to think about it inside of you," he tells her, biting at the joint of her neck and watching over her shoulder. Of me still inside of you, even once you leave, he tells her inwardly.

"Like a trophy," she huffs a short laugh. Of your conquering of me, she thinks.

He does not reply, does not refute it, merely sinks two fingers into her. It was too hard to resist when she reacted like that. He curls his hand and he is right on her spot inside, the one that sends a wash of power over her with every pass that even he could feel. The pads of his fingers rubbing and pushing there, then just the barest touch on the outside with his palm, with the ball of his hand.

Galadriel's hands are clutched into the bedclothes, pulling the material up on either side of them. "You are torturous," she pants.

Mairon lets his smile grow large and bright. "If I was going to torture you, I would do this."

He pulls his fingers out, swiftly enough that it has Galadriel gasping at loss. Mairon drags his fingers slowly through her centre, up to her bundle of nerves. He presses hard, and she twitches under his touch. Pinching and dragging the bud between his two fingers, he makes sure he moves with the exact right amount of pressure though much too slowly.

"Do you think you could come like this?" He murmurs into her skin. He knew she could. It was going to happen, but it was too much, too raw. Her head drops back onto his shoulder, body growing taut.

"Then," he continues, making his voice a lilting drawl, "When you are just about to finish…"

He drops his hand back to her entrance, wet with need, just teasing and circling around the outside. He draws his movements out, putting pressure on her already sensitive opening. One finger back in slowly, then two, stretching her, digging in where she needed it, then back out again to press around her. Repeating the process, toying with her, in caress. Moving too slowly to give her release, only enough to heighten her, keep her on edge.

His other hand was digging into the strong muscle of her thigh as it flexed against him, holding her legs open.

"Did you want to come, Galadriel?" He is nipping at the outer shell of her ear, knew it undid her. Quickly wraps his other arm around her hips, keeping her still just as she was about to roll out of his grasp, then back to her thigh when she gave in. He had her so thoroughly memorised at this point, could not have played her better if it was her own hand. "Do you want another— another to add to your numerous tonight, at my hands?" He goads her, taunting.

She reaches for him in a plea, a hand on his thigh, a hand on his forearm. He braces for the jolt like lightning across his skin, whenever she touched him unbidden, like she could set his skin alight with her touch. It was not unpleasant, but it was something that he was adjusting to, something he wanted to get used to. The fresh burn of it now almost too much when coupled with the intensity of her pleasure pulsing through his mind.

She was incandescent when she was like this; soft and warm and gasping under him. He had recognised the Noldo in her immediately. Had followed her around Númenor that first time, both barefoot, both drastically under-dressed. And where he had collected dirt and grime and sea water, in his guise of Man— she shimmered. Seemed to glow more and more with each passing minute he beheld her. Her form was not of Middle-earth and would not be marred by its filth. She was shimmering now.

"Do not tease me, Shadow," she grits out. He laughs at the use of the moniker again, so soon after discussing what name she should use.

"Be good, Galadriel." 

She writhes but does not say anything else.

He holds out— not perhaps as long as he could have, but for as long as he wanted to. Too greedy himself for her moans, for the feel of her, he loved to watch her tip over. Her hands grip at him, at his arm, around the back of his neck as desperate cut-off sounds creep up her throat.

"Okay, my Queen," he lets out as a low breath and goes back to cupping her. Perfect pressure this time on both the inside and outside, like she was moulded to fit the shape of his hand. Her hips roll back against him as her legs try to slam closed on his hand at her core, and it is almost instantaneous.

He does not stop when she comes this time, keeps a hand at her, his other lifting her back into his lap. Sliding in behind her, into her tight, wet heat. She gives way to him, again, with a resounding, "Oh." 

He could be gentle, no matter what she thought. Still, it was with a sweetly burning fervour that he noted, Galadriel seemed to respond well when he was a little harder, a little rougher. Just took her in any fashion he deemed fit. He could do that for her too, their spirits were one and so too would their flesh be; in whatever manner she wanted.

Before she was fully settled, he turns, flipping them both without parting, to take her from behind. His pace was hard but not rushed, using most of his hip strength to press her into the bedclothes so that she lay almost flat, her hands clutched into the sheets beneath her. His hands keep a solid grip on her pinched waist, as he works the full length of him in and out, in a steady, unbroken rhythm. In her head, she was hoping they would bruise, a devious thought that nearly undoes him.

"Sauron—" It is wrapped around a moan, muffled into the bed, and yet undeniable. He truly never thought she would say it and he throbs inside her in response.

Now that he'd had her a few times, Mairon thought he was better equipped at handling it, but being with her was only proving to inflame his need. She had thrown her apprehension to the wind. He had chipped away at her resolve, and she at his, another notch in each other's armour. And he has to halt his movements for a moment to keep from ending it all there.

"That's it," he growls, leaning over and resuming his pace. Now definitely holding her tight enough to bruise. "You're mine."

Galadriel buries a sob into the mattress beneath her, pushing her face in, hiding— embarrassed it had actually come out.

No, he hears in her head, softly like she hadn't meant him to hear that either.

Yes, he pushes back into its place.

He hitches one of her legs up with his knee, pushing it out so he can half-turn her upper body towards him. So he can see her face, so he can look her in the eyes while he keeps entering her from behind, the perfect slide of her against him. She was more of a snug fit, twisted like this, his hips snap into her, fucking her into the bedding, and Galadriel shudders around him.

"Say it again," he demands, surprised at his own reaction. They were joined everywhere, in every way except by her allegiance, by her choice. He would have that too.

"Sau— ah." 

She was reduced to barely audible whimpers that he decided were not loud enough. He pushed into her a little further, a little harder than necessary just to hear her voice keening and catching.

Mairon could feel pressure building low around his spine, coming to a boiling point. He brings his hand around to the side of her head, thumbing over her jaw, tilting and holding it up.

"Look at me," he breathes, and she does. Say it again, booming across the inside of her head.

She comes with his name on her lips and his cock buried deep. Her eyes sparkle and he thinks he might have to live inside her forever. He pulses against her inner walls, the feeling awash throughout his abdomen, up all his extremities, his true form trying to get out of his skin. 

She shines on him and he falls on her like night.

Mairon, moving slower than the setting sun, gradually extricates himself, focussing in on the rhythmic echo of her breathing as he drops down onto his side next to her, careful to avoid landing on her hair. He pulls her with him, taking her into his arms.

She leans back and some of her golden hair falls blissfully upon his cheek, caressing. He buries his face in her hair, inhaling. She was the scent of sweet vanilla cut with a sharper resinous amber, bled from pine. For a brief perfect moment all his senses were filled with her glowing light. 

He had lived for so long, with so little; to lay there in reception of her warmth, of her full brightness, was almost too much.

Galadriel's breathing changes as she makes to move and roll off. But he holds her tight, his heavy limbs draped over her form, unmoving.

No.

She tenses a moment then relaxes, sighing and falling completely back against his chest. The world at his back, Galadriel at his front. He presses his mouth to the top of her head.

She dozes and he basks in it, thoughts at ease, drifting along the stream of her mind. It is a peaceful moment, and the soft pull of her reminds him of a time before all this, before Arda. He does not bother listening in to her dreams, it was her waking mind that concerned him more. 

She does awaken, a while later. Both on their sides, still pressed tight. She is quiet, but not asleep. She curls slightly in on herself, as if she were cold, though he can feel the warmth radiating off her soft skin.

He steps quietly down into her mind, did not want her to know he was there.

She was thinking of her brother— of Finrod, standing in a familiar golden light, embodying every facet of the 'Golden House of Finarfin'. Guilt colouring her thoughts, when it should be colouring his own. It did not.

He remembered the young Elf quite well, all the long years considered. But not like this, he only existed like this in Galadriel's mind, in her memories. He was a brave snappy thing even in that place of darkness. He had a song in him, ordered and true, but how could he know Mairon was there at the beginning, to sing the very world into existence? He had meant it when he said he regretted the Elf's death, was sorry for what happened to him, like he regretted many things that happened there. 

He remembered Finrod's companions just as well. Wryly he thinks, Galadriel was not the first time a She-Elf had tried to best him. And their plan was quite good, he could admit that now. He was younger then, the world was. And his authority had made him blind, had made him reckless. He had not known how quickly it could all be stripped away.

Mairon would almost smile remembering, if not for what had come after at the hands of his master. He buries his face in her hair again. It did not do to dwell on now, for either of them.

He holds her tighter around her ribs, just a shade too tight, and she makes a small sound against him. Mairon lifts his head and grazes his teeth over her neck, lightly biting, wrenching another low sound from her. The beat of her pulse right against his lips makes it difficult in that moment not to think of her as small vulnerable prey, of himself as predator, teeth bared. He kisses softly over the mark his teeth had just left, soothing its sting.

His queen would leave, as she was wont to do, as she always did.

Another exercise in her will, in her restraint— proven. A power she utilised against him; that she could be near him, beg and plead for her release from him. Then could gather herself, her thoughts, and leave still Galadriel— unmarred.

But it would not last forever.

Her cup would never fill up. Now that they had changed each other, she would never have had enough. And she would always have to come back to him. A curse, and a balm in equal measure. It was why he had never sought to hold her form here, imprisoned within their realm.

She was made to shine and glow. He would not take that piece of her only for himself, would not have her dim it. It was a light the world deserved to bask in and he wanted it that way.

He would keep a different part of her for himself. The part deep-down that she hid, that even the other Elves did not get to see. A part of himself, he recognised in her. That was there when he looked past what everyone else was blinded by. A secret burning thread that didn't belong to the world, to Middle-earth, parts that would be his alone.

She had rejected his offer of power, and yet accepted this likeness. Had accepted it through this closeness they brooked at night, under cover of darkness. And Mairon knew the dark, he had known it for perhaps longer than any other being— save one. 

He shows her a vision, with his hands lightly dancing over her skin.

Something simple and dreamlike to lull her back to sleep with; the two of them, walking through a forest. They walk side by side, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes not. Simply clothed and barefoot. Wordless, stealing glances as they wander under-branch, over-root.

Dusk gives way to twilight, until the moon and stars light the sky with an old light like that which the Elves had first awoken under. It is a warm comfortable night, as the forest around them softly hums with the wind through the leaves, with night-birds and insects. 

In places the trees grow thick and shaded, and when the path becomes too narrow to walk alongside one another, he falls into step behind her. Shadowing her footsteps, smiling when she turns to check he is still there.

"Light the way, Galadriel," he spurs her on, a hand at her lower back.

Back in his arms, her breathing deepens and evens out, and this time he follows her down into slumber.

By the Sea,

Elrond could not see through Galadriel's deception. But her old friend knew her well, and he watched her with a keen eye these days. He knew she was avoiding him, especially being alone with him. 

She was worried if he looked too hard he might see that Sauron had already taken hold within his house. There was a Dark Lord in her head, in her bed. 

She had become withdrawn, the toll of concealing her mind from everyone she knew catching up with her. Galadriel could hardly hold a conversation anymore. Guilt had crawled inside and lodged itself in her gut, and she was certain any moment it would come pouring out her mouth and all would know. 

And then she would have no choice but to go crawling into his embrace, shunned by her kin.

Elrond finds her one day, down the slopes of the valley, by the banks of the Bruinen. Much like he had many moons ago, when he pulled her out of the Glanduin in Eregion. Except this river they had also named the Loudwater, as it raged and frothed, quieting all other noise in the landscape— in her mind.

Elrond appeared to look straight through her, and she held her breath. But he pulls her hands to his, and over the sound of the waters reminds her of the Unquiet of Ulmo. He had watched her draw further and further from her people and diagnosed her with Sea-longing.

Galadriel could not find it in herself to be relieved.

If she thought about it, perhaps he was right. She spent too long around a being of fire and ash, her soul now longed for the opposite. Amplified by Nenya; the Valar were calling her home, calling her away. Perhaps she was not meant to be here anymore, look at what had become of her.

Not sure if she could stop what had rolled to motion with the Enemy, not sure if she wanted to. She followed Elrond's advice and moved to the sea-side.

She rode west through Lindon, past the Grey Havens and Harlond, and further on, closer to the mouth of the Gulf. There was a small, mostly unpopulated village there; Elves who kept to themselves and worked on the water in the shadow of the Blue Mountain range. The village was cold until the sun broke past the peaks of the mountains, then basked in warmth until she set west over the ocean in the evening.

Between the cold coming down from the mountains and the breeze coming off the vast ocean, the wind felt like the tide itself pushing her out, pulling her in. Holding her in place, holding her upright. 

And there she had stayed, for many weeks now.

She did not know where he would be whenever she came through to him. Often somewhere in Mordor, but then not. And his moving around gnawed at her, gnawed at the comfort she was finding by the sea, like a rot. It felt accusatory, felt like he was saying with every move he made on the board, 'You did this to me, you put me on this path.'

That she could turn and direct him or his influence was something she was considering more and more with every meeting between them. He was so pliable under her touch, under her body. It was a dangerous thought.

Galadriel tells herself she is gathering information on him, on a mission of reconnaissance. And she had picked up certain elements from his whereabouts. Had seen something of his plan for the Nine, knew it involved beguiling soldiers and Kings of Men, sorcerers from the east, and always in the back of his mind a lingering thought of Númenor.

But it was a useless, decayed line of thinking, and always made her feel worse in the end. Who would she report her findings to? How could she report it— how could she explain her knowledge, without explaining everything, without coming clean about it all?

It would be impossible. And even if she found a way, the potential for loss of Elven life was too great if the High King chose to re-enter the war with him. She was shameful, and selfish, and everything she had ever accused him of being.

Even as Halbrand now he smelled of fire and wood and smoke. Every time he visited, he filled the hut with a scent like she had just snuffed out a fire, the scent of Mordor clinging to his clothes and skin. It lingered on her in a stark contrast to the salty ocean air she was becoming used to.

If he had an idea of her whereabouts, he appeared to have no quarrel with it, like she with his. She took small comfort that he had no real way of knowing where she was— stuck as they were within the confines of her room, within the confines of each other.

They were there now; together on her bed, in her hut, by the sea. 

Merging into one another again and again. Everything a blur, a haze in her mind. Hard to tell who was who, hard to tell whose mind was saying what, feeling what. The only thing she was sure of was the heat burning at the heart of them, at the heart of the earth.

A strand of her long hair falls over her shoulder as she rocks above him, as he moved her rhythmically down onto him. Her hands were anchored either side of his head, and she knew with a casual certainty that the body that was touching her, pressed bruisingly close against her own, the hands that had undressed her, would not tuck the lock of hair back behind her ear. 

He would not touch her hair, would never even ask. He had been close of course, had held her head, her face, had pressed his face into it. But he never picked it up, certainly never pulled it, never even ran his hands through the ends. Almost like he held it in too high a regard— knew how high she held it in regard, to marr it with his touch. Or perhaps he was waiting for her cue, though the way he moved and used the rest of her body made that seem unlikely.

She could encourage him inside her body, he could force his way inside her very soul, but the golden light of her hair was too sacred, that was too great a leap. 

It was nonsensical in a way that made a laugh bubble up in her throat.

Instead now he rolls them, putting her underneath him so her hair splayed out everywhere. And she does grin up at him, cannot help it.

His face crumples a little and he drops it into her neck and shoulder. His forearms slip under her body, pulling her closer, and she can feel the tension in the muscles. His arms bulging around her like he was holding something of himself back still.

She focuses her mind as much as she can and listens. In his head, he wanted to ask her to stay with him, to beg her to stay, to make her beg to leave, rolling and repeating. 

And Galadriel knew, like a great prophecy, that if he did beg, if the pleas passed through his lips— she would have said yes. Her resolve was so thin here, so bendable now, had never been moreso. Especially now as he placed her balancing right on the edge of pleasure, of ruin, any entreating from him might have had her yielding. She might have locked them both in this room forever.

But they never did, they were just thoughts in his head, and there they stayed hidden, and so she did not have to concede herself. Only her pleasure.

He had discovered she liked it from behind, especially on the rare occasion they were standing, the position putting him at an angle that would have her almost sobbing. But he would always turn her around, or at least turn her head, her gaze, towards him at the end. He liked to watch her face as she came, liked to breathe against her mouth through his own release. And despite her ring, his will was much easier to obey here.

Galadriel feels herself climbing higher and higher towards a precipice that he is going to push her off with all the authority of a Dark Lord. And what was the harm in falling? When she knew she would land safely, pulled into his gravity. Her every move swaying her towards him even more. It was a building, blinding pleasure hooked deep in her, running through every muscle, shaking and real.

She preempts him now for the press of lips that was to come. Lifting her jaw and opening her mouth for a kiss that he turns and gives without question, without missing a beat. 

He had proclaimed denying her pleasure was torture, but this was his real torment of her. A real torture like she had never known in all her years. His pleasure, her pleasure, intertwined, gently cajoling her into madness.

And underneath it all, a thrumming undercurrent.

His, his, his.

It had to be coming from him, but she cannot be certain. It is everywhere.

He watched her as she sobbed through it, his eyes dark as inkwells. He coveted her and her pleasure with such an immodesty, like his own was a happy by-product, though she enjoyed it with a hidden fervour of her own.

Slowly now, like he had all the time in the world. He pushes into her with deep shallow thrusts that heat her all the way through, and with a broken groan that hums through both their forms, he spills himself inside her. The face of a being that was obsessed with control, losing it pressed against her own. 

He takes his time withdrawing from her body, as though it pains him to do so. His mouth is soft as he kisses across her face and neck a few more times, teeth flashing as he grins down at her— a flash in the darkness. She had not lit any lamps inside and the sun had set in the time that they had been together.

Silence is the thing that joins them in her small hut after, as it usually did. It was always harder to hear the world beyond this unholy chasm they had carved and claimed as their own. If she strained she could hear the sea but that was always there. The tides pushing and pulling at her mind constantly these days. The being of fire pulling at the parts that weren't succumbing to the ocean. The soft caw of a lone gull in the distance helps ground her, helps break the silence.

Halbrand— Sauron had carefully laid atop her. His head nuzzled into the curve of her breast and then dropped directly between them, the sharp angle of his jaw pushing up against her sternum. His broad shoulders, spanning her hips, strong arms around her. Galadriel peers down at the top of his head, surprised to find her hands in his hair, one wound around a brown lock, the other lightly holding the nape of his neck. They often moved of their own accord around him.

He did not smell of smoke and ash anymore, it had diluted and dissipated. The rich, verdant smell of the earth had returned and filled her head, and something deep within her chest thumped painfully. Some days it felt as if every single part of him was designed to attract her, had been honed with purpose toward her. Or that she had shaped herself around him so long ago she had forgotten, so that he was everywhere— all encompassing like the sky above them. And she wanted it, to be immersed in it.

He sleeps there. It appears to be a choice as he sets his will to it, almost dragging her down too in the process. She can feel it dragging through her body, from the earth beneath. His power humming and strong even spent as he was.

But she resists. If it were not her home she would have left, if she were not caged in by his prone body so. And Galadriel thinks he knows that, of course he had slunk into the lull of sleep. She would have to throw off his bulk to move even a little bit, and frankly, she did not feel like it.

His tethering, sleeping form had awoken something in her and she finds herself transfixed.

That he might brook her company for personal gratification felt understandable. That he would relish in the physical labour of it, that he would make her a reliquary of his conquest— that all parsed.

But the idea that he might be in need of companionship, of closeness, made her want to laugh. A cruel instinct she is sure she didn't pick up from him. He could not, he had never in perhaps tens of thousands of years sought it out.

And yet here he was, the scratch of his stubble and warm breath competing for pleasant dominance against her skin. His face twitches, brow furrowing, and Galadriel finds herself wondering about the being on top of her. What did he dream about? Nightmares surely, or would that bely some regret or conscience? 

She debates with herself a long while. She could see into his mind easily enough, their connection so entwined. But it was what she would see there that gave her pause. 

In truth, she was hoping for nightmares.

Galadriel harnesses the power of her will, shuts her eyes, and follows the pull of him, slipping through the veil of his mind.

She listens in to his thoughts, and opens her eyes into his mind.

And he was dreaming of Celebrimbor.

Bile rises quickly up Galadriel's throat and she has to fight the urge to jump immediately back out of his head, out of her very bed. 

The rest of the dream fades in around her; the air was thick in the forge-room, blood and rubble staining the stone floor. A hazy recreation of what had happened, what he had done to Celebrimbor at the end. 

Except their positions have been swapped. 

Annatar is the one held in place by the Elven spear, hand slipping over the obstruction where it emerged from his torso, coating it with his blackened blood as Celebrimbor stands below him. 

"One alone shall bring about your ruin," the Smith prophesizes, over and over.

It was truly a sickening scene to even hear tale of, but to now see a version of it first-hand Galadriel does not know what she feels— is perhaps numb. There is a strange quality to his own emotions, they are all around but impossible to land on or decipher a specific one. Similar to when he gazed at the scar he had given her; both sad and regretful but also not. Grief wrapped around rage and pride.

Annatar's face that looked down upon Celebrimbor told her this was a penance, a punishment, to be haunted like this. Even if it was only in dreams that were few and far between. The dreams of a being who did not need to sleep, who had acquiesced to this willingly.

Celebrimbor's ghostly form flickered, morphing and changing. He thinks of her, and Galadriel is deeply disturbed to see herself appear again. Did he know she was here, watching? Had he felt her? 

The same tricks he had used on her, begat in his own mind.

She was wicked here, an expression she had never seen upon her own face, gleeful and contemptuous. A version of herself he had conjured up, clad in her full armour but with her hair unbound, whipping about her face. 

"The brightest of white flames will be your undoing," her dream-form rasps and repeats.

And the sickly feeling of the dream eases, the haze disappearing even as he let her twist the spear lodged in his gut. His gaze was content as he looked down at her, the hint of a smile curling somewhere around his cheek. The muscle in her chest kicked and spasmed again.

Only to be replaced by a growing, gnawing, impossible sense of dread. And Sauron knows what is coming before it does. His eyes widening as he scrambles against the spear, trying to shift form, escape the impalement, escape the stone at his back.

And Galadriel knows it can be only one thing.

A darkness creeps into all the gaps in the room, filling it, choking out the very air. Not darkness like he, not darkness so much as the absence of anything, a lacking of form and creation; a void replacing the fire at the heart of all things.

An impossibly tall figure materialises out of the void holding the spear, breaking the constraints of the high-ceilinged forge-room.

Galadriel suddenly wished desperately to be anywhere but here.

Morgoth jolts the weapon and laughs, a hollow humourless sound that does not reverberate in the large space, just falls on deafened air, echoing only as a rumble through the floor, through her bones.

The pain blooms sharp and full through Sauron's abdomen and much to Galadriel's horror mirrors through her own. This is the thing that finally jerks him awake and happily pushes her out of his mind entirely. 

He doesn't quite jump or startle as anyone else would when waking from such a thing, but he is wide awake, immediately. Thankfully, still Halbrand here. 

He takes a deep breath that seems to go on and on, the exhale of which tickles against her skin. His mind tinged not with thoughts of Morgoth, but with a renewed vigor for Middle-earth— grasping for control and how to wield it.

She should do something, anything; curse him, tell him to get off her and leave and never return. 

Instead, she scratches her nails through the hair at the base of his skull. And this time he does startle. Sauron looks down at her chest, then up at her face quickly, like he had forgotten she was there, forgotten where he was. 

His mind was somewhere else still, but his face does soften, just a hint.

He turns, pressing a kiss to her palm, and lays his head back down. Slowly rising and falling with the beat of her breathing.

And perhaps the thought that she could turn and direct him was not so absurd. It was still a dangerous idea but it had been his, it had been part of his offer after all.

There was a reason Morgoth had chosen him, a reason he had fallen to Morgoth's ploys. Had he been promised something no other being had even considered he might need? A path to domination, to a way out. 

Only it had not been real, had only ever been a nightmare wrapped up in an enticing form. 

A tactic he had then perfected and used on countless others— used on her.

Should she not try at least? She had the influence of Nenya, he was the one who had exalted the powers of the Rings. He was beyond saving. But could this gift from Celebrimbor be the thing to redirect him, turn him from the grasp of his horrific master after all this time?

Chapter Text

Upper floors of Barad-dûr,

There was an army of Orcs and Men now fully ensconced within the surrounding mountain range of Mordor, setting up the stronghold, building and demolishing in near equal measure. The industrialisation and the mountain leaving the air constantly thick with smoke and ash.

The Elves could not get close, even if they attempted to— bar one.

He had built the spire of his tower tall enough that it sat above the cloud of smoke, and inside it he watched and ordered the construction. And under his watchful eye, the rabble below could almost create something that passed as innovation.

His rings were taking hold, slowly. Impatient as he was, he found he almost did not mind. Mairon was not so blind to his feelings as to think his time with Galadriel had not buoyed him, buoyed his spirit. He was uplifted by his time with her, and much as she claimed the opposite, she had been helping him in his plan.

Almost like they were ruling together from distant kingdoms. From both east and west, him by the fire and her by the sea.

He made sure, when they were together, he was clad to reflect that. He was kingly now in dress, in demeanor, but still Halbrand for her. And it was for her. A body he had not made entirely for her, but that he had refined for her. He had grown the beard thicker, knew how she liked the scratch of the stubble, grown his hair slightly longer so it curled about the tops of his shoulders, more for her to grab on to.

The Eastern Kings were more receptive to the look of a Man as well. But in Mordor, in the dark tower Barad-dûr, that which the Orcs called Lugbúrz, he was the Dark Lord. And that form was still Annatar, for now. 

Though with every encounter between them, he found it harder and more uncomfortable to return to the Eldar illusion. Like putting on an ill-fitting suit of armour, it chafed against his spirit.

She had seen him in that guise again as she came through, before he could change back for her.

"Does it work still? The illusion of Annatar?" She asked only because it did not work on her. Her voice was light, but he had seen the judgement on her face as he sloughed off said illusion.

"Yes." It did. 

She pretended to be captivated by the objects on his writing desk, running her fingers along the hard surface. "The people of Middle-earth will never accept some unearthly, malevolent Elf as their ruler, as their leader." 

And was this his queen advising him? Mairon thinks, with a smile. He lets her look, moving to sit at one of the chairs beside the desk; Halbrand again.

"Will they not?" He asks, settling. He does not keep his voice light like hers, instead letting a rogue derision drip into his words. "Have they not already accepted Elves as their effective leaders, because they have no other choice?" 

Galadriel whips around to glare at him. He merely smiles at her. She does not reply beyond a small huff.

"Or who might they accept, then?" He continues, raising an eyebrow at her. "A benevolent Lady of Light?"

She turns away with a roll of her eyes, and he lets his smile unfurl into a grin. That was not her— yet.

She moves away to examine the stately room. Its walls and ceiling were clad in polished black stone formed around curving arch details, adorned with matching arched windows set high up into the wall. The floor was draped in intricate rugs and furs, much like his war tent. A large fireplace sat unlit along one wall, and opposite upon a raised dais sat a large four-poster bed with thick blue-black curtains around it. Up close the curtains were embroidered with intricate star and moon designs. He would point them out to her later.

The tower was finished to a usable extent, enough for him to happily let her look around but not completely, not up to his standard. There were still things to be done here. Immeasurable pits and great courts to be dealt with below their feet. But she could not hear the violent, hammering cacophony from this far away, and so neither did he.

Nothing in it spoke too loudly of the realm of Men, or of Elves, but was all made with intention for himself. She did not know exactly where they were yet, but Galadriel would be able to see the room and whole structure was tinged with a dark glow that felt like him, was obvious it was made of him, of his will.

She looked at the bed, then back at him, an intriguing set to her mouth, but quickly turned away again. And he knew her thoughts; he would always have need of personal quarters, but he did not have much need for a bedroom, not beyond her.

She kept stealing glances at him, over her shoulder, checking he was still there. Quick flashes of blue, making sure he was still watching her. Her eyes like lightning over the sea everytime she did.

He remained sat. It was not a throne, but was large and he leans back, luxuriating in it as if it were. There was a real throne on a floor just below them, he was not ready to rest there yet. He bends one leg over another comfortably and lets Galadriel explore, a hunger growing low in his gut. This was, after all, part of his vision; her, here. 

She was wearing green again, as she often did. Her gown was loose-fitting and regal, woven with threads of gold that glittered all the way down to the floor where it flowed and billowed around her ankles. He was certain she wore it with intention, to remind him exactly what she was, who she was— as if he could forget. To remind him of where she came from, where they both came from. Green like Yavanna, green like her true loves: the trees, the earth, the ocean.

And certainly, it was a colour in stark, verdant contrast to the world he had built around them both. Against the backdrop of his fortress of black, and gold, and rich metals.

The room was high-ceilinged, so much so that she could perhaps not even see the top— the edges of their realm fading out before the true ceiling. But its many sconces and chandeliers reflected warmly on her. Fire and light dancing over her form.

He was sure she felt his gaze on her, just as warm, as she not-quite danced away from it, moving about the room. And she was not the type of Elf to dance, not anymore at least. But she was light on her feet, lithe, knew how to move in a way that was distracting.

Mairon was trying hard to be unmoved by her harkening to Lúthien before Melkor. Did she mean to cast her own spell upon him? 

"I wish to try something," she says, her voice like music.

He was nothing if not a willing participant with her. He makes to stand up.

"No, don't." She stops him.

He halts his action and leans back into the seat. Never let it be said that he could not follow orders when given them.

Galadriel moves with an exacting slowness towards him, moving into the open space between his knees. He looked up at her, her chest almost level with his face. She was wearing a chain of gold upon her neck and the small bejewelled pendant that hung from it had gone astray in her movements. 

He reaches across and moves the gem, aligning it back to the centre of its chain, so it pointed directly down her sternum again. His hand barely grazing the skin of her chest.

Casually possessive, is the sly thought that flits across her head.

It was.

He had toyed in certain moments with the idea of making her something, some jewellery to wear— since she would not wear her ring. But knew, with a pang in his chest, she would never take anything he had made, would never put it anywhere near her. As it was, she stilled against him even deigning to touch this small trinket.

Her voice was deep, as she looked down at him. "A token of my father's house."

Still, they thought the jewels of the earth were there to enhance their Elf-dom, their natural state.

"It is beautiful," he tells her, drawing his hand down the centre of her torso. "You do not need it, my Queen." 

She hoists her dress slightly and climbs atop his form, resting against his thighs.

"This feels familiar enough," he hums around a smile, bringing his hands up to her thighs and rear as she settled her weight onto him. 

Galadriel tilts her head, and drops a hand to his middle to steady herself, content for a moment to just sit in his lap. But up close now, he can see her breathing was slightly uneven, and her gaze preoccupied with the touch of her hand on his stomach.

She runs the hand down his clothed abdomen and stops at the fastenings of his trousers. Undoing them with swift, steady pulls of the ties, she reaches her hand in before he can say another word. 

Mairon exhales heavily through his nose. Her soft, sure hand on him was everything, her touch working him to complete hardness. He spread his legs more, moving her slightly, and as he tore his gaze away from her movements, he looked up and found a shrewd gleam in her luminous eyes.

He lifts his hand to pull her face down to his, unable to keep away, but she slips off his lap and out of his grasp. Falling to her knees before him, she hits the floor with a soft swish of fabric. His head rocks backwards hitting the upright of the chair, warmth immediately swooping low down his spine.

He had studied her like his master had the Silmarils, was mesmerised by her every move, and still she could surprise him.

And despite their swapped positions, it felt the same as him kneeling before her, he had the same feeling of being laid bare before her, before her power. Had imagined he might feel wholly in control here in his tower, and yet had to swallow down the same vulnerability like an antidote.

Her hand was still moving upon him, and she seemed to like the look of surprise on him, delight flashing across her own face. It felt like something had shifted inside him. He was on his knees for her in all ways but one.

And Mairon knew how to kneel, was well practiced at it. Galadriel was less accustomed to it, and if not for the way it made his own mouth water, he would say it was almost an ill-fitting look on her.

But ambition was something they both knew well, and he recognised the steely look she gave him, the edge of determination. It made him want to bare his teeth. And so, he pushed past it, past it all, and widened his stance to allow her better access, allowing her promisingly poised mouth to work.

She does not ask, does not give warning, doesn't even hum a 'Let me,' like he had, she simply does. She pins him with a look like light shining right through his body, like the sun through water. And she brushes her mouth over the head of him, chaste but bold and hungry in her motions.

His surprise morphs into something needful, something primal deep inside himself as blood pounds through his veins, through his head. His own mouth suddenly full of the taste of smoke, of ash behind his teeth, of flames curling up his throat.

Her tongue presses into the underside of his length, rubbing over him in a way that made him want to plunge in deeper. He feels the muscles of his legs bunch, anticipating the thrust. But he had control.

She maintains their eye contact and takes him in further, swallowing down around him. And that she should be so exacting and good at this, was little surprise really despite what she said about wanting to 'try'. She had knowledge of his pleasure trussed up inside her now, as he did hers, they were in harmony in their place in the universe.

He dare not touch her hair, would not thread his fingers through, not even now. It was too precious— he held her face, at the hinge of her jaw, the pad of his thumb running over her cheek. Under her chin, the side of her neck, not leading but following the movement of her head, revelling in the feel. Not quiet in his pleasure now, never was.

But a lock of gold has fallen in front of her face again, and he wanted to see her, with the full attention she deserved. Presented with the potential loss of the arresting visual, he harnesses his will and brushes her hair over her ear with the backs of his fingers. Mairon was sure he felt his hand grow hotter in turn.

And driven on by the heat of her inviting mouth and his hand by her hair, it was very quickly becoming too much. His control frays.

Mairon pulls her up, back into his lap. Her dress tangling and his fingers twisting in the fabric as he wrenches it up her thighs, pulling her legs around him. 

He kissed her with a hunger, with a desperation, open-mouthed, tongue pressing into hers. Her soft, needy noises, telling him she was as affected by this as he was. 

He snakes his hand between them, up underneath her dress. His fingers slide over her, and she was wet, was ready from just this. She sighs into his mouth and melts into his chest. She was molten gold under his hands, and so he does not restrain himself anymore.

"Look what you've done to me." He takes himself in hand, letting his thoughts run unfiltered into hers. What she was doing to him, what she had reduced the great Dark Lord to. Galadriel swallows a groan, whining as he slips inside her.

She was warm and parted perfectly to let him in. Her light and goodness dripping down onto him like sustenance. He never wanted it to stop, never wanted it to end. He wanted her greedily, desperately, even right in the middle of having her. Could see nothing else, no other way forward.

"Be one with me," he whispers, gazing up at her. Let me be one with you, the cry in the back of his head. She does not answer, but clenches down around him, hard, and he rocks into her, working her up and down on his length.

When she was his, everything else was forfeited, was beyond thought. But that did not stop him asking, did not stop him from using every opportunity to bridge the final hollow between them.

"Be one with me," he repeats, voice dropping deeper, aching. Her graceful hands were on his face, in his hair, at the back of his neck, holding on for her quickly slipping control. Take me, take me as I am, take all of me. It was hers anyway.

Yes, yes, she wants to say. It was chanting through her head. She wanted more, more of him, more of everything. Because how could it be a bad thing, when this was so good? How could it be worse when this was already so ruinous? She was so close.

"Let it out."

"Yes, oh— " She gasps, a light, soft sound. Mairon thinks he might go blind watching her body in the throes of it. It nearly overpowers him as she shivers, resting her full weight against him, against his arms, searing his skin everywhere.

Her release careens through his mind, pulling his along in the moment after. He grips her like a lifeline, rasping her name over and over. And the last thought before his vision nearly blacks out was that she was here in his tower, exactly where she should be. 

And she was going to leave again. 

He was still inside her, still wrapped around her— a hand at the base of her skull, an arm around her lower back, panting. If he could keep her, if he could wrap her up in this very moment, she might never need to know she had lost her freedom. 

But then perhaps no, not like that.

He had discovered Galadriel was held captive by Adar whilst he was in Eregion years earlier; this was why she had not come until it was too late. And the thought of her with a bolt of iron chained around her throat did not fill him with the satisfaction he thought it might. Found himself wishing instead that he had laid a hand upon the Uruk in his death.

Mairon picks up his queen and takes her to the bed, his bed— their bed. And made a home between her legs, right where he belonged. He returns the favour of her mouth, the taste of both of them mixing on his tongue. He had been unsurprised to find she was the nicest thing he had ever tasted. 

Later, she slept and he found himself watching, enamoured of her. She was not drifting in the Elven living night but soundly asleep. He often found himself lost somewhere between her eyes and the stars, and here was no exception; taking in her sprawled form amongst the grandeur of his bed. It was the most comfort and luxury they had experienced yet— rich, deep bedding, numerous soft blankets and pillows strewn about, all as he had intended.

The wall sconces were dimmed, casting a low glow over the room, and the thick curtain that surrounded the bed posts was half drawn. And still there was a light, a glow about her, like something bleeding forth from the Unseen World. Made more obvious by the contrast of Barad-dûr surrounding them.

Galadriel had always lit up their space, he often thought it was only his own perception, ruined by it as he was. He looks harder now, and it was actually there. It had been there since they were reunited in their realm. It wasn't her Unseen form, it was not that bright, but more subtle like the moon through the forest treetops at night.

He inspects, holding her, moving her without jostling the bed too much. Her eyes remain shut so there are no lights shining there, and that she would sleep so soundly in his presence at all bolstered him with an emotion he would not put a name to. 

Her loosened hair was spread out on his pillow, complimenting her namesake, like a crown about her head. The gold stark against the bedding, but amongst it was something shining white with the glint of a star. 

Her hand was resting on the pillow next to her head, on her hair, he picks it up carefully and she does not wake. Not a star in her hair, but in her hand. He gently moves it around, turning it this way and that. And all the time, in between her fingers now that he was looking, was a light.

She was wearing her ring.

Mairon quickly stamps out the anger that had billowed and risen through him, like smoke up the column of his throat. She would sense it, she would wake.

Instead he chokes on it, and goes back to his study.

It was there. It was right there and he could not see it— him! Her skin looked wafer thin, like he should be able to see straight through to her soul, and yet she had deceived him, again.

He had not known to look for it and so hadn't.

Had she been wearing it the whole time? How long had she been keeping something of herself back from him? 

He runs his own fingers over hers, caressing, pressing, trying to find— something, anything. Celebrimbor had truly worked some magic here. That she had been able to hide it from him, told him more of its power than she would ever have disclosed.

It was inspiring.

Her hand wraps around his, holding it suddenly. She sighs, looking down the bed at him. No hint that she knew she had been discovered. A small smile playing at her mouth. 

The road to the mountain had been completed the previous month. He had not made use of it yet. Mairon shutters his mind with the full force of his ancient will.

He brings her hand up to his mouth and presses a kiss to her knuckles. A stately gesture, one might do to their queen. Right to where he knows Nenya must sit, feels nothing but her warm skin and bone under his lips.

They must each keep their secrets.

The Last Homely House,

Initially, Galadriel had been unsettled by the Enemy's movement, by his holding dominion over Middle-earth. And so, it was with something like jealousy that she tried leaving the sea finally. Deciding to leave for Imladris again, at least to visit. To make sure her people had not been besieged or waylaid in her leave.

She had spent a considerable amount of time hidden where she was; pushed up against the sea, the mountains defending her back. And she had been feeling better, lighter. Had felt something turn in him too, the last time they were together.

She had not missed the way his hand shook slightly as it brushed her hair over her ear.

And that small shift left her confident enough to visit Elrond, she wanted to— missed him, missed her friend. Her mood lifted even further at the thought.

She made the journey to Mithlond in half the time it should have taken and immediately joins a company of the High King's, travelling along the East-West Road to check progress on the new outpost. And even Gil-galad's stern manner had not been able to temper her change in mood.

Rivendell had only grown in beauty and grandeur in her absence. She bursts with pride to see Elrond's home, and still a hidden jealousy pulls at the back of her mind in small nagging tugs. Galadriel ignores it, forcing herself to focus on the joy of being in the company of friends once more, of being in such beautiful surrounds. 

The gorge and the rushing river below felt familiar, felt like the Blue Mountains and sea that kept and nourished her these days. There was no Great Tree but when the wind billowed through the pine and beech and oak she was reminded of the best of Lindon. All around the buildings gently curved in arches and elegant gables. And the house was stately but no structure was given prominence over the gardens, over nature, both worked in cooperation.

All painted with the brush of Elrond, of sanctuary, of unification.

She had been there for a small handful of days, still diffusing her bitter desire, when she had made the decision to go through to him again. In truth, she had been waiting for him to come to her and that he had not pulled worryingly at her mind as well. 

She pushes through their bond and if there was slightly more resistance than she was used to Galadriel does not notice it until much later.

Sauron was sat on the edge of the four-poster bed he had placed just for them. He was slightly hunched, looking at his hands. Galadriel approaches.

It was almost the same look he had worn when she had appeared to him during the war, after days of battle. But no war had been waged that day, not that she knew of, and yet he looked exhausted.

"You are wearied?" She asks. She genuinely did not think something could over-exert him like this, even the physical labours they had tried did not seem to.

He does not stand as she gets closer, does not say anything.

Galadriel makes a low noise of understanding. "I suppose it must be exhausting trying to build an empire." Her voice full of mocking.

Sauron looks up at her through a drawn brow that did nothing to assuage her thoughts. His eyes were slightly reddened but he showed no other outward sign of distress.

She steps further forward, in between his knees again. "Surely the Dark Lord does not tire so easily," she murmurs.

He does not rise to her jabs, just reaches the short distance between them and runs the fabric of her dress between his fingers, feeling it distractedly.

"Alas," he says finally. "I am at your behest, my lady," he says, pragmatic.

Such a title considering she was so underdressed to see him. Galadriel had not worn anything more than the silken underdress she usually slept in.

"You are not too tired to see me, then?" She prompts. She wanted him to say it.

She slants her eyes down at him. His mind was curiously blank, and she was about to delve deeper when his nimble hands pull at the ties on her sides. Deftly loosening her dress from the top and letting it fall open, down her arms, exposing her chest right at his head height.

Yes, I will see you.

Sauron looks back at her once, a sharp flash from under his brows before dropping his head forwards. His mouth connecting with her breasts, kissing across the sensitive skin, biting lightly.

At his behest, she thinks with a laugh. He could not help himself.

Galadriel pulls her arms out of the dropped sleeves and holds on to him with a hand scratching in the back of his hair, the other lower, gripping a shoulder muscle.

He seems content to stay down there even as Galadriel is quickly becoming more and more overstimulated, her ribs heaving under his hands as he moves from one peak to the other and back. Almost like he was clearing his head through focusing on this instead.

His mouth moves closer to her scars and she inhales sharply, her hands tightening on him. He pulls away with a rough sound, his hands coming up to replace his mouth.

"What would you like, Galadriel? How would you have me?" He breathes hotly onto her chest.

She did not know why he was being so compliant, so docile, it was unnerving even with his hands massaging and running his fingers over her chest. The slightly rougher skin of his hands runs over her ribs, his thumbs flicking over her nipples slowly, drawing her from her own mind. So distracting that she cannot answer in anything more than a moan sighing from between her lips.

However you want, she thinks.

No.

"On the bed," she tries, pushing his shoulders backwards now.

There is a huff that might be a laugh. "Illuminating. Tell me—" Tell me you want me. "Tell me where you want me."

And all she can think to answer is, "Everywhere."

"As you wish."

He pulls her into him, turning them so he lands atop her on the bed, slipping her dress from around her waist in the same movement. His own clothes are gone in a motion faster than she can observe. Along with any sign of his exhaustion too.

The curtains of the bed have been drawn shut behind them and in the darkness he is the only thing she can see.

She cannot decide if it is his temerity returning in a more dominating side, or a radical subservience, an acceptance of her demand of him everywhere. But behind their curtains, he takes her apart with a deliberate precision, as if proving he still could no matter what state he was in.

He uses his hands, both of them, from his position wrapped around her hip. He bites at her side and watches his handiwork as she writhes underneath him. So deep and perfect inside her, her spine arching off the bed with every pass, with every drag of his teeth across her thigh.

She cries out and his grip tightens on her, almost painfully until she knows his own need has splintered his control.

He hefts her by her thighs, manhandling her, pushing and holding them open before slotting himself between them. Sliding himself hot and needy against her entrance. Galadriel tries to move herself against him, but he runs his hands up the back of her thighs and holds her still. Forcing her to watch as he enters her, slowly, and the sight nearly undoes her on the spot. His own confident hips surging against hers, forcing her to take what he gave. 

He starts to move, snapping in and out of her with a fury, something in his movement, in his face, making her breathless immediately. Face to face, his eyes swirl in front of hers bright and deep. A malevolent rapture fighting to see which will land in control.

Galadriel reaches up to pull his face to hers, feeling her pleasure cresting and flooding through her, building in her like a rising river. So easily, his body moving like he was entirely at her will, was a thing that moved purely for her pleasure.

He does not miss a beat and pulls her hands away, holding them above her head, a shackle around each wrist. 'I've got you,' she remembers. 

"And I'll never let you go." The words erupt from his lips like they burn on the way out, almost angry. He slots their noses together instead, breathing, panting, rolling through her. And she gets her wish, under him, held down, he is everywhere. Chasing his own release, pushing her into another one.

Galadriel loses what little control she had in coming here, his will and her pleasure mixed, lighting her up, running down every nerve ending in her body. 

He holds her in place, face scratching against her shoulder and chest for a long time afterwards as they both catch their breath. But Sauron was not done. He turns her over and brings her hands down to hold as an anchor at the small of her back. And exacts his control over her body again.

In the end, she crawls on top, pressing into him lightly to kiss him goodbye. A warm grazing of their lips. He lets her, reciprocating only with a small smirk at the corner of his lips and a slow blink.

Galadriel had gathered her dress and left under the burning touch of his gaze.

Since then, it had been a small while since their bond had been crossed, by either her or Sauron. 

That he should really be so busy was a fact she was uncertain how to characterise. She had left him in Mordor, and he had not so much as pressed on their connection in the time since. Perhaps his silence was the sign she had been waiting for, that his desire was changing, turning to her and her alone. And it left him unsettled, uncertain where to put himself. She squashes the thought, could not allow herself to leap ahead. Whatever it was it had meant her mind was much clearer around the other Elves.

She remained at ease in Imladris, soaking in their small amount of peace with her friends, her kin. Whiling the days away with Elrond in his gardens. He notes with delight the change in her. 

The High King was taking counsel with Círdan and Elrond that morn. Círdan was overseeing the building works. She had not been invited to join, something that did not bother her as much as it might have not so long ago, and so she had taken her leave.

Galadriel was resting in the beautiful quarters Elrond had prepared for her return, when she hears it. 

Hears him. 

His presence suffuses across the veil between them, and she sighs with something like relief.

Her ears ready for a familiar call of her name, said with a smile.

One Ring,

It is close— so close like he has whispered directly in her ear. Galadriel is immediately awake, sitting up. He is not there. Her right hand feels very warm like she had held it up to a fire. 

To rule them all,

The voice is not in the Common Speech, not Quenya, or Sindarin, but his foul Black Speech that he had never dared to utter in her presence before. And it was his voice, but also others, like a thousand layers of his will overlapping. 

One Ring to find them,

It is a spell on the wind, unnatural and growing in intensity, growing in volume. Echoing out to the corners of the universe, of her mind, her spirit, all in unison.

One Ring to bring them all,

Galadriel very nearly has to clasp her hands to her ears. It would not help. His voice is loud enough that it is reverberating inside her own head. 

And in the darkness,

At the word she knows, she cannot see, but she knows his eye has turned upon her. Black rimmed and glowing in the firelight. She is frozen in his perception. A flash of a wheel of fire.

Bind them.

And those were her words. 'Bind yourself to me,' she had said. He had taken her words and used them to some gain, to consolidate some unearthly power for himself. Had taken them and wound them up in darkness, in malice.

There is darkness enveloping her, it is different from the shroud of night he had pulled over them. Blind and naked in the dark, this is the choking shadow of the blade that had pierced her. Billowing around like smoke in a firestorm, holding her tightly everywhere, holding her up.

And then it is gone.

The burning in her hand abates. And somehow the absence of him is almost stronger than his presence.

Back in her room, back in Rivendell, she has fallen to her knees. Left reeling, stranded. She checks her ring is still there. Nenya sits upon her left hand, shining and silver, and untouched. She twists it, toying with the band.

What had he done?

There are footsteps, coming quickly up the hall.

"Galadriel!" It is Elrond, knocking at her door, nearly banging it down.

On shaky legs, she opens it.

"Are you alright?" He is flustered.

"Yes, I— "

He pulls her into a hug.

She adores him. Takes the moment of peace his embrace brings. Needs it after— that. But how could he know? He should not know what had just happened.

"Come, Círdan and the High King have heard— "

"They heard that?"

They had all been together when the spell was cast, and Círdan and the High King had nearly been felled by the power of it. Elrond, realising it was the rings, had come for her immediately. 

Galadriel needed to check, needed to go to him, before he came through to her— here. Instead, she spends the next considerable amount of time keeping her true thoughts from the others. Using her ring and her power to conceal her thoughts. It is hard work, and it feels like evil, sticking to her skin like a foul rot. It felt especially treacherous in the face of Elrond's concern.

"I must be honest, I feel his influence upon me already," Gil-galad says. At this he looks pointedly at Galadriel, and was it an accusation in his eyes or an apology? That he now felt some of what she had.

It is Círdan who nods. 

A shiver runs down Galadriel's spine, and she is sure her face gives it away. They could feel his presence. She was too ashamed to admit it, but she always felt Sauron's presence. The only difference now was its volume, it was still reverberating inside her mind. Already too difficult to place what was new and what was already there. He lived inside her now; she lived in a place where he was.

She felt with a hollow certainty, that he must know this meeting was happening. His eye was upon them, like he was here too, another seat at the table.

"We must take them off," Círdan says. Círdan who had the most foresight of them all, even before his ring. "Until we know what evil this is, what new devilry has been devised."

"Hide them," she agrees with him. He must never get the Three.

She had watched something form behind his eyes, the last few times they were together. Had not known what it was, but hoped. She was lulled by his actions, by his apparent infatuation, his kindness. As he always wanted, as he made it be.

And when they were together, it was the closest he had ever been to begging. Her only thought at the time, was she had liked to see him that way, would like to see him on his knees humbled before her again.

She could not even say it was deception. She was merely blind, as Elrond told her long ago in Lindon.

"It was most fortunate that we were all together," he says to her now.

"Yes, most," is all she says in answer, and shakes off Elrond's stare. She takes her leave of them, proclaiming rest and time to think. But she does not take off her ring— will not until she has seen for herself.

Back in her room, Galadriel takes her leave of Rivendell, too.

The air is ash and smoke. Filled with the low roar of a buffeting wind, as fire spurts and erupts around her in the dark cavern.

Sauron stands alone at the end of a walkway.

It is a bluff, carved and hewn from the cliffside, somewhat removed from the fires beside them, encased by rock on one side. He is turned away from her, half-hidden in smoke, in shadow. His form stills for a moment, his back straightening in an acknowledgement of her presence, then goes back to toying with something in front of himself.

She approaches hesitantly. There is a table beside him, and on it sat parts of what looked like armour, amongst various tools and metal-working instruments. 

An anomalous chill settles deep in her bones as she realises; they were standing in a great forge. Built inside the fires of the same mountain that had erupted on top of them many moons ago.

"What have you done?" She asks. An echoing question.

He turns and peers over his shoulder, the smoke parting around where he stood.

There was sweat upon his brow, his face tight. He runs a hand through his hair, which has fallen and curled in front of his face. His arm was filthy, ash mixing with a stain of something dark and wet drying there.

He was wearing no armour to protect him from the forge beyond a leather smithing apron belted over his tunic. It gave the impression, that whatever he had done he needed freedom of movement.

He was unafraid to get dirty when it came to work, she had seen that in the forge on Númenor, had seen that in all his machinations if she was being honest with herself. It seemed at first, incongruous with his being but he was ancient, had been born in fire and knew what it took to create. He was unafraid of labour— liked it even. And Galadriel knows, beholding him now, that something truly awful has happened here.

He looked tired and drawn, spread a little too thin. But whatever ailed him seemed to diminish with every passing minute. And all the while, there was a glow upon his eyes, more than the reflections of the fire around them.

That glow flickers down to her hand, to where she was still wearing her ring. He saw it now. The corner of his mouth turns up in a mirthless smirk.

It was perhaps a foolish leap of faith to wear it here.

She holds her distance and waits for him to answer.

He does not. 

Sauron turns to face her fully, his eyes raking over her form, down then up again. As he beholds her, she watches a decision form behind those eyes.

With a slight movement of his hand, she is propelled forward, pulled towards him. If Galadriel had not moved her feet in time, she would have tripped. Her shoes scrape against the rock and she comes to a stop just in front of him. A breadth away, but he does not touch her.

Her terror does not make its way out of her throat, but it is a close thing. Nenya's power betraying her, body not her own anymore. The earth forever shifted beneath her feet.

"How?" Galadriel manages to choke out. 

"With this," he answers simply, his voice giving nothing away as he looks down pointedly.

Up close now, she could see both his hands were blackened all the way up his forearms with soot. He wore no vambraces, no protection from the fires. The right one was littered with red patches of singed skin and still burned with a low, residual heat.

There was a ring upon it.

She can feel him inside her mind, scouring through it, no barricade, no protection from Nenya in place. She looks into his, in turn. And it does not work. There is a barrier. Then, like he has thought about it a moment, he drops it, and lets her in.

She watches his memory. How he had stood at the billowing forge, how he had cut deep across his palm with an uncommonly sharp dagger. A cut much like she had given him when they first discovered their connection. Then, without lifting it, he turned the blade, bringing it down towards his wrist. A maiming wound, slicing through muscle and tendon. Certainly a fatal wound on a mortal.

He holds his palm flat, drops the dagger, and pulls a crucible out of the fire tipping its contents onto his wound. Liquid metal runs out, and he holds it, letting the molten-hot pure gold mix with the blood on his hand.

Galadriel can feel the pain now in his memory, and it is excruciating, but his eyes merely narrow, his jaw set.

He seemed inherently to know exactly what to do— had he tried before? Was this what he had been exerting so much time and effort into? 

He holds it a moment, then turns his palm over and tips the liquid out into a mould, into a ring form. And begins to recite his spell. The Black Speech echoing up through the fissures above his head. His blood pours out after the metal and he holds his hand there for a long time, more and more black dripping into the mould.

It should overflow the form, as it grows to an amount that would kill any other being, but just keeps getting absorbed into the liquid metal as it slowly hardens. Galadriel begins to feel sick as she watches.

There was something else happening that she could not quite grasp, something deep and otherworldly. A power she had never encountered, and could not give a name to, something not for her, not of the earth. The hum of a song on the wind, looping around, too low to grasp any words. 

She lifts her head, no longer in the memory, and is met by the light in his eyes. No longer green, their colour reflecting the fire of his ring. But they are large, his pupils blown wide in excitement, with the sheer power he felt. 

He holds his hand out, palm-down between them, nodding down, inviting her to look. There is a slight tremor in the muscle of his arm so it shakes ever so slightly, like he was over powered, like he was somewhat diminished still.

It was a simple gold band and yet she was mesmerised by it. She could not look at it for too long— like it was the sun, like it was still glowing red-hot.

Nenya felt heavy and cold upon her finger.

"You had no part in the Elven Rings," she whispers, "You have no power over them." Galadriel looks up at him through her lashes.

There is a barely restrained joy upon his face. 

"With this," his voice is quiet and confident. "And this." He turns his wrist to show her the already healed cut. "I have power over all."

His power over the flesh.

It had been a great delusion to think she could ever move his mind, turn it away from his true purpose, that his silence towards her had been anything other than nefarious.

"This is a betrayal," she says slowly. Of her. "Of life, of nature, of the will of—"  

"It was you betrayed me first!" He snaps, leaning closer, all joy gone from his face in a flash.

She tries to step back, and finds she cannot. It is all encompassing, like his fist is clasped around her very spirit.

And instead of panicking her, it enrages her. 

He was holding her here and trying to do what he always did; spin a grain of truth until it was unrecognisable, until it took on the meaning he wanted it to and the blame was planted elsewhere. That she had managed to trick him, had pulled the wool over his eyes so thoroughly was a treachery beyond reason in his mind.

"You did not see, you did not want to," she retorts, bringing Nenya up to her chest.

"I see all now." His voice a condescending snarl, his eyes bore into hers. 

She shakes her head. "You were blind, so enthralled, so filled with pride that I had finally given in to you."

That she finally wanted him, the thought finishes inside her head, she will not give it voice. 

"You thought that you had won already," she says instead.

He had opened his mouth to reply but stops, halted in his rage suddenly. 

"I have won, Galadriel," he says after a moment, his voice dropping into a low lilt. He drops his shoulders and straightens up again, growing before her. 

"You did want me, and you still do," he continues, quieter now. "You want power, an army, a land to rule. And yet you do not take it. This will give you that without even having to ask." He brandishes the Ring between them.

He was right, she had not taken any of those things. She had Nenya's power but had not used it beyond concealing her mind from others, had relinquished her command, taken respite by the sea. She was afraid of exactly what he said, was afraid that they were more similar than she thought. That she might take this offered power and use it and use it and use— 

She covers Nenya with her other hand, holding her fingers tightly, clutching it closer to her body.

He had made himself a ring to match hers, like they were betrothed. 

Had bound her to him bodily, with a small gold band. Just as he always intended. Except he had done it in malice, had done it without her light. Had done it in the very absence of light, creating this masterwork in the literal earth where it could not reach. Where the only light was from the fires sewn by the hand of Morgoth.

And in doing so had corrupted the metal, just like he would do with her. He was now bound eternally higher than her; in control of her, of everyone. As he always intended.

She is shaking her head before she can get the words out. "No, not like this."

She tries to take her ring off, pulling at the silver but it will not budge. Galadriel's heart rate quickens, thumping distractingly in her chest.

He watches her struggle. "It is too late."

He makes his voice a whisper in the back of her mind. 

You have given yourself to me. We are wound together, like two links in a chain that cannot be unwound. Like a Ring that cannot be unmade.

"Anything can be unmade," she threatens.

And yet, by her very being here she knew they were still bound; by fate, by blood, by flesh. But not by his will, not in power, she would not let him take that from her. Galadriel tries to focus, to use Nenya's own power to lift it from her finger.

He lifts his other hand, stroking his fingertips along her jaw. It snaps her out of her focus. It is a desperately soft touch.

And his face matches it. "Please," he tries. 

Galadriel's eyes flutter in a shiver, but she does not cede. "In another life, Mairon."

"In this one." It is a demand, wrecked in the choke of his voice. He knows he will not be afforded another.

"I will not sit through another age of this world, of this life, alone." His mouth was twisting around the words, but in his eyes was a plea— the same one there had always been.

She opens her mouth to reply, but he cuts her off.

"We have endured enough, Galadriel," he says, more resolute, and before the words have fully left his lips, she is hit with a vision embedding itself in the back of her eyes.

A full-body show of what their rings could do together, what their power could bring forth. She is in a forest made of sunlight, feels his presence in the earth beneath her feet, pushing the very growth of everything around her. Everything in its right place. An impressive taste of power, of influence, of how they might rule.

And it might just work, if not for the way he had already shown he could overpower hers at any moment.

"This is for both of us." He draws her out of the vision and back to him, back to the mountain. "None can stand against the might of this ring."

She looks at the Ring now. It was brighter than before, a glowing script engraved on its surface of pure gold. An Elven script. A gift for her? A mockery of her kin? She did not know, but it only enhanced the Ring's beauty. It was perfect— physically perfect. No sign of the hammer or makers mark. Beautiful and terrible, because he had made it.

Her kin, as a general rule, preferred silver over gold, tended to hold it in higher regard. But not him, not this student of Aulë. He had looked at her and poured everything he had of himself into a small gold ring.

He takes her hand with his— or had she moved her hand to his? She cannot tell. And she gasps, his palm was coal-hot, but the small touch of the Ring she got was cool and metallic.

Nenya's stone glimmers at his touch, at the proximity to his ring, and the power that surrounds them.

His eyes shine, wet with tears. And she hears a thought, it was in his head but she was uncertain. It was loud and concentrated as if it had come from her.

I have made a space for you, Galadriel, and I will not abandon you.

And was there not something in that? He could hold the worst things she had ever done up to the light, and wouldn't even flinch at them because he had done worse.

The countless, faceless masses she had brought death upon in her pursuit, uncaring. Had abandoned the search for her husband. Her daughter. The lies, the deceptions. Her desire— of him, of ruling, dominions of her own. A bloody-mindedness that only ever reminded her of him, of Morgoth, of Fëanor.

All of it, out in the open.

It was something Galadriel had only hoped for in her deepest, darkest moments. He was the main architect of her sorrow, he made her grief. He could take it away too, ease her mind, pour understanding over it. Give purpose to all.

Give her all the things she has ever wanted.

They could achieve it all with the One.

The One. Three, Seven, Nine, One.

She sees herself giving in, saying yes to him, so easily it is right there.

But there was an alien quality to the thought. Something tickles in the back of her mind, it had started out as a low hum, a droning buzz, but was growing, blaring now as if horns of war on the wind. 

Those were not her thoughts. They were coming from him. 

All of it was. There was no line to him, to his games, to the things he might tell her to get what he wanted. He could not help it now. He had looked inside her, further than anyone ever had before, and was still using it against her.

Then, like her eyes are intentionally drawn to it, they drop to the work table behind him, where an ornate silver and gold hammer laid. Celebrimbor's hammer. It was a spoil, taken as a war prize and then used to create evil. She would not let herself become the same. 

The gems on the hammer glint in the firelight, and she remembers it was not just Celebrimbor's hammer; it was his grandfather's. 

Sauron had looked at her, just like Fëanor did before forging the Silmarils, and had wrought this One Ring forth. The closest he would ever get to holding her in his grasp.

"We would rule, as equals?" She questions, like a knife, quiet and sharp.

He blinks, just a fraction too slow.

"Together," he intones, and it sounds like an agreement.

And it was really something to watch him work up-close, to watch him lie so prettily.

Galadriel feels a wave wash over her, throwing her stomach in a tumble. It was the raft all over again, it was always the raft over and over. Except now they were surrounded by a glowing ocean of fire. One that neither of them could survive the plunge into.

Her anger finally swells up and over from the rolling boil it had been sitting at. It explodes around her in a flash of brightness and pushes them both several feet apart.

"As you would have ruled under Morgoth!" She makes her words a weapon. "A servant and nothing more." 

Her arrow hits its mark, and like she had struck a flint, he does not flinch from her light, but retaliates with his own. Dazzling light bursts from the lava, the fires around them rising with a thundering roar.

She knew the Maiar were created as servants. It was their only intended purpose to assist those above and below them. And yet, she knew of his desire for dominion, for control, already at odds with everything he knew to be true. She remembered his words to her many moons ago now, 'Can not one thing just be for me?'. It had been a question buried in a gasping, frantic defiance.

This was his first true chance, since Morgoth, to rule. He had to strike while the iron was hot. And if he wanted to rule, he would have to do it over a kingdom of ash. She would never let this happen— not with her help.

She could not fight him, not now, not with that thing upon him. But there was one thing she could do to loosen his grasp.

She pushes all of her power towards removing Nenya. Her rage was helping, lingering like the consistent beat of a drum thumping inside her head, keeping her focussed. She takes her eyes off him to grapple with the ring and finally it moves, sliding up her finger slightly.

He fights back, his voice resounding in her head again. She glances up in a flash, he has reached out, and while he might be unflinching from her light, he cannot appear to get as close as before.

The fire beside them has bubbled up and is now inching closer across the rocks.

The building heat, and unrelenting noise, and power trying to escape her body is driving her towards madness. "You think I would let you rule over me, let you lord over me!" She yells at him above it all. It needs to end soon or she is going to go somewhere she cannot come back from— and perhaps this was his goal. "You really think so little of me, even now!" She was a pulsing, pale, radiant light.

It might take seconds, it might take hours, she does not know.

Galadriel swallows down her rage, her loss, her desire, sinking into the feeling, into the depths of it all. Puts everything of herself into the action, and finally Nenya separates from her finger. 

The force of it crackles and claps around her, causing her to stagger backwards. And almost immediately, she is spent. Feels hollow without her ring, like a shell, no longer inhabited. She had managed to keep the ring in her other hand and clutches it close to her body. Stooped over and gasping for air that only comes with lungfuls of smoke, she curls around her ring protectively.

The thumping in her head stops, the glowing lava still creeping closer. She chances a look up at him.

Sauron's face was an image of wrath. His eyes, still lit by fire, were surrounded by dark veins. He lets out a sound of pure frustration, mouth contorting, his own surge of rage pulsing through him.

"You are an Elf, Galadriel!" He yells. There was a good physical distance between them now but it still sounded like he was right inside her head. 

"Why should you be equal to me? How could you ever be?!" 

She flinches a little in the face of his scorn. She was an Elf who had just defied his will, right in front of him, inside his own head. It was the most power she had ever used. She was not sure how she was even still on her feet. Had the feeling it might have something to do with him, that if he were not holding her up she would have crumpled to the floor.

"I could unmake you in a way that would have you wishing you had never been born." 

He would not. It was an empty threat, even now. He might hurt her, or injure her, but he did not kill indiscriminately— not personally at least. And she had already angered him well enough to act out of impulse. Though if he chose to, there was nothing she could do about it, she did not have her ring.

This is how it always was in the end, she thinks. Galadriel lets her head rock back, and breathes out her thoughts, no reason not to anymore. 

"This is how it was for Celebrimbor too, was it not?"

His eyes narrow at the mention of her kin, mouth contorting— she knew of his dreams, was this a sore spot for the Dark Lord?

The words spill forth from her. "You had him. You were giving him everything he wanted, right up until he defied you. He dared to defy your will. And then…"

His eyes rake over her, mutinous. She held Nenya tight in her fist. He does not ask for her ring anymore, does not need it now.

"He brought that upon himself. Do not think yourself above the same fate, Elf." His voice cuts through the smoke, cuts right through to her middle. It was the same thing he had done to her above Eregion. She guessed she was fortunate he did not have a spear or a crown in his hand today. 

He does not let her reply, continuing on his rampage. "Even if I elevated you, raised you in power to equal me. It would all still have come from me. Like the Seven and the Nine, like the One!"

And there was the truth of it. The new power running freely through him, raw and untapped. Flowing straight from the earth, from its core. From a crack inwards, to the Secret Fire that Morgoth had marred when creating the very mountain they were inside. The unbridled malice he had used to wrench forth this horror from the depths, from the fiery chasm below, pushing things— thoughts that were simmering under the surface, up to the top.

Things he had always thought, but that had never served him to voice before now. He still will not lie to her, even if it left him at a disadvantage.

"It is a stolen power," she breathes, trying to summon back her own scorn. "Stolen and defiled from its original source."

A flash, a light that she does have to shield herself against now. When it abates and she looks back, Annatar stands before her.

All the imperious glamour of his first appearance marred and in turn made more intimidating by the charcoal and blood he had not cared to erase. His eyes glowing almost the same colour as his long hair as it billows behind him, the same colour as the Ring.

He was pitiless and lethal and gold.

This, above all, seemed to be the final death knell.

He regards her weakened form with disdain. "You know I thought once…" His voice was dangerously even. "That you might be my weapon, this bond between us might be the power over flesh that I had been searching for— for centuries."

"But it was this." He raises his ringed hand, and the fire behind him follows, growing in intensity.

"And you were just my pathfinder to it. You lit the way, Galadriel."

Again, he spins the blame, and Galadriel's head spins in the same instant. She readjusts her feet on the ground, to distract from the queasiness that has taken her, just to make sure she still could.

"Thanks I guess are in order." He beholds his ring, a look falling upon his face that she had seen before. He was enamoured with it— had he ever really looked at her the same way? The Black Speech inscription illuminates his face, corrupting the Elven script it was written in.

"I might never have done it without you," he finishes, short and sharp, almost a smile but it was not for her.

This is all she would have been to him. Something shiny and golden, a jewel to collect. To reflect light back onto him and raise his own power.

"I abhor you," she gets out through gritted teeth.

He was the fire around them. He would eventually envelop everything in his path, even to his own detriment, he had no other option, no other path. There would be no order to it, just mass destruction.

His gaze hits her with a tangible force and the hand laden with his ring curls into a tight fist. Something crumbles behind her. He didn't need a spear, he had the ultimate weapon in his hand already. A cloud of ash and rocks rains down from above onto her.

She is gone. Pulled out, pushed out, she cannot say for sure. 

Dust and ash cover her clothes and she changes out of them immediately, ridding herself of the fire and smoke. The scent of Mordor lingering in the room even after she does. Her eyes water and she tells herself it is only the last stinging bits of ash escaping.

She returns to the other Ring-bearers, to listen to their planning, their sharing of Ringlore, for as long as she could. In the end, she does not even last the night. Elrond could see she was not at peace here. Saw in her reddened eyes how much it had taken out of her to remove Nenya, even if he did not know the full circumstances.

He tells her to go home, and she could almost cry at his care, at how he always knew just what to do. They will call upon her when the time comes. They all knew something was coming. Sauron was unlikely to bring forth this power into the world and not use it. The tide was turning, and not in their favour.

She retires back to the sea. It was as much of a home as she had these days. Riding through the night, the dawn, and into the afternoon of the next day. The speed of the air whipping past causes her eyes to water again, and this time she allows herself to weep— for herself, for all of Middle-earth. She ignores how much the wind snapping at her heels feels like a fire chasing her.

Galadriel dismounts her horse and walks directly into the ocean.

She did not want to swim, did not want to drown, did not even want to return to the lands of her people. Merely wanted to be held. Pushed and pulled, but welcomed.

And in the cool water it felt like she was still wearing her ring.

Chapter Text

At the Cracks of Doom,

Mairon follows her through. To what end, he has not yet decided. He had waited for the feeling to abate, to come under his control as it always did. But as it became clear it would not, suddenly it seemed impossible to stop. Impossible to let her leave. Impossible to do anything other than follow her back through to her side. He was not finished with her.

He can feel she is moving at pace, running— running from him. She was harder to latch on to. His perception of time and the natural world was different now, was more finely attuned.

The second she stops, he is there, crossing the veil.

It is high tide, and just a handful of steps off the bank, Galadriel stands more than waist deep in the ocean. She was still in her riding gear, her cloak shrugged off on the beach, and just after it her gambeson, rocking in the wet sand of the shallows. The hem of her tunic was wet and moved with her body in the waves as she held her arms out to steady herself. 

The sun has just set over the west, and she still glowed with a residual light. The sea darkening around her.

He stays up on the embankment and watches a moment.

She does not know he is there, his ring concealing him, or rather, he was everywhere and so she could not differentiate between the feel of him behind her, and the feel of him in her head.

It was not the all encompassing noise of when she had been wearing her ring, her every thought, every muscle twitch, at his mercy; stronger than when they were joined physically even, like he had been inside her, wearing her very skin. The remnants of that power were slipping and falling away, like a grazing touch of fingertips. Settling steadily back into their normal connection— stronger for him, but something they both knew well by now.

She was trying to melt away the heat of him, of his presence in her mind. Nenya still clasped in her fist.

He refocuses his eyes and parts the universe around her, beholding her form in the Unseen World.

The sun was a mockery of her. It was a dazzling incandescent power. A light that could not be melted away or diffused. Beautiful and unattainable in equal measure. He lets it merge with her form by the sea and shine brighter against the twilight backdrop.

She was the only bright thing in the vista, in the world.

He had regained much of his strength; his ring had taken, and now gave in extra measure, but he was still dirt-riddled, bloodied and strained and spent. His hand pained and his eyes burned. And somewhere in the back of his throat, he could smell the stench of rust and death upon himself.

He turned on heel, without looking back, and stepped across into the fire.

She wanted peace, she wanted to push him to this, then push him out and have her peace. Let her have it. Let her have whatever peace she could muster for now. It would not last.

And he would draw her back into the fold in time enough.

Mairon picks up the large piece of metal armour with the forge tongs and returns it to the fire. He was going to need new armour, imbued with his new power. 

He lets his fingers run through the fire while he waits. He envisions the flames licking at his skin as golden cascading hair. The script on his ring glows bright. He imagines somewhere she has a shared reaction, that she can feel the heat too.

The influence of the Ring is strong, stronger than he ever could have hoped. Almost strong enough to distract from the loss of her. The smoke and steam burns out the last of the lingering aroma of saltwater in the air. He would not allow himself to feel it— not wholly, he could not.

If she was going to push him out, reject him again after everything he had done. He could do the same. Mairon was not about to allow this Noldo to think she had the upper hand on him.

She would not wear her ring, did not have full access to her strength, but he did. He centres his mind on the thought of her, and with a clench of his fist, shuts the door she had always insisted was real.

He moves to solidify the foundations of Barad-dûr. The earth moves at his will and the Orcs and Men humble themselves before his feet, before his power. He never returns to the upper floor of the tower, no longer has any reason to go beyond the throne room.

He consolidates every inch of power he can during this time. The One amplifying everything within. And it was an appetite, untethered and hungry. A hole inside him that grew with every morsel he fed it.

They start to push on all settlements, north, south, east, and west alike. All manner of Men and supposed nobility coming to join him in Mordor.

He was King of Men— King of Kings. 

His strength and terror growing, they besiege the Númenórean outposts. Which yield surprisingly quickly, under-manned as they were. Pushing those that escaped to return back to the sea.

Mairon moves the army into Elven territory, and the war resumes in full. He had let it slip as a consequence of her presence. And her people had taken it as a chance to regroup. Now with his ring, he would not have them drag their feet in returning to battle. He wanted them to at least try. To see the futility of it up-close now.

He had the One, none alone could stop him. None could stop him from imparting his order upon Middle-earth. It was so close now. 

His army was burning and rampaging their way north, when the King of the Sea made landfall, setting ambitious foot upon the shore.

On Númenor,

The High King, Gil-galad, had sought to draw the Enemy's army away from Rivendell towards the much greater defences of Lindon. Rivendell was well defended by the mountains and the valley and that was all for now. So smaller parties were sent out to make war against Sauron's troops, ever retreating when needed, back towards Lindon. Hoping the larger, more well-established target would find his aim if he was so hell-bent on death and destruction across Eriador.

The Elves had won some of their frays, but lost more. He, and so his forces, had never been stronger. And yet, holed up behind their battlements in Lindon, Gil-galad seemed cautiously optimistic about their chances. Galadriel knew much of his life had arisen in battle. It had made him the sort of king that prospered in wartime, and was made uncertain by peace. He was the kind of leader their people needed now.

There was no army upon their doorstep, but they were ready for siege. 

Galadriel had made the short trip and returned to the city to help defend it. To face him on the battlefield if it came to it. His every order, every movement was now a provocation, to the Elves, to her. They were in outright war, and worse still he had managed to shut her out completely. He had placed an impenetrable barrier between them and shut off their connection with such completeness, it was as if it were never there.

And Galadriel knew she should be relieved, but all it felt like was that she had stumbled onto the battlefield without her sword. 

Word comes that they were little more than a day away. Preparing for the onslaught, the look on the faces of the soldiers of Lindon did not echo that of their High King. They had heard and seen too much of this Dark Lord with his dark ring. She schools her own expression into one of calm, of a quiet confidence that she does not feel.

Another messenger arrives not long after the first. Word of the great Númenórean fleet landing and marching upon Middle-earth in one of the largest contingents ever seen from the isle. Gil-galad questions her; if they might be coming to reinforce the Elven army, and more importantly, why they might do such a thing. It is an unlikely thought for the Men of the sea, and she has other suspicions.

Then, the day of Sauron's arrival comes and goes with nothing, no sign of Orc or banner or herald.

The great forces of Númenor had not come for the Elves.

A scout was sent out, tempted to go herself, Galadriel was stopped by only a look from Gil-galad. The scout returns unharmed, reporting only a small host of Númenóreans left behind, boasting of their win and chasing a leaderless, listless mob of Orcs back from whence they came.

Days pass— weeks, and Galadriel waits. Expecting some trap, a plan, anything. But none had come. He had disappeared. Still, not even coming through to her in their realm.

She presses on the veiled passage of her mind one day, and finds it gives for the first time in months. 

She thinks of Nenya, Nenya's will and power, a remnant inside her own, and treads down a dark set of steps.

"Galadriel," a voice says from the darkness, and it sounds like, 'I've missed you'.

And the smell of the sea on the air, not coming from her location for once, tells her exactly where he is.

She had seen cells like this before, had been in one. Though, this one was somewhat different. It sat alone, no adjoining cells. Presumably, a few levels deeper, as there was no natural light coming from the ceiling, no windows. The only light glowed from a sconce on the far wall. 

He comes into view as she steps towards the bars. His eyes the first thing she sees, the first thing the lamplight catches.

He was sitting comfortably upon a small cot, more bed than hard bench— people usually had longer stays in this part of the prison. His legs stretched out in front of him, back resting on the stone wall of the cell. He wore the simple clothing of a Man, finer than the tattered rags he had arrived in last time, but still a humble dressing-down.

His hands were in his lap, unchained which seemed a mistake, and Ringless. She knew it was upon him still. She could sense its presence just as much as she could his.

And despite it all, Galadriel almost laughs. 

The Númenóreans had been bragging at their new Middle-earth outposts that they had Sauron, the Great, the Terrible— the Dark Lord himself, in their captivity. And they did.

Much like they had, many years beforehand, and had not known it.

"I fear," she begins, "You would fare much better in your deceptions if you could keep your pride in check."

He raises his eyebrows.

"If you could keep your wrath and malice from spewing out every time the opportunity presented itself."

Sauron lets his head fall back against the stone, his eyes half-lidded and soft. "A pleasure, as always, to see you too," he says, quiet.

"You gloated of being King of Men," she continues, voice dripping with disdain. He had brought this upon himself. She had told him, the Free Peoples of Middle-earth would not simply let him take what was not his to claim. She believed in the Edain, in Númenor, or at least she had. 

"Perhaps," he says, finally.

Perhaps, if you were truly by my side, you could have reined that impulse in. A thought for her, inside his head. One of the many ways you would have been useful to me, his inner voice was a low whisper.

"Then again, the Númenóreans are not the only ones who have fallen hard to my deceptions," he continues aloud, holding her gaze, unblinking.

"Again, you cannot keep your barbs behind your teeth!" 

His head lolls to the side, and he shows her a flash of said teeth in a quick grin, but does not say anything. He was a little softer here than the last time she had seen him. Still plainly upset to be where he was, but a little more human around the eyes.

"Playing as Halbrand again I see," she says, keeping her voice unaffected. Deceits, deceits. And he was; back in the shoulder-length hair and light beard he had adopted around her. Manly, kingly, despite her earlier words, she could so clearly see him on a throne like this.

He looks away finally, looking down at himself. "The Lords of the Isle have seen this person before. I am in appeasement to them and to the Great King of Númenor."

Never had words rung less true.

The look on Pharazôn's face when he called for Sauron to come out and Halbrand did, was almost worth it.

Galadriel's blood chills. They knew who he was, and still he was trying to deceive them. He truly was a prideful thing. But the Southland's accent was already lessened upon his voice, he was already transitioning away from the low-man image.

The accent I stole off the same man as the heraldry.

Her eyes narrow. That particular deception left a bitter taste in her mouth.

He sighs. "This is what you have never understood, Galadriel. I have many names, have had many shapes. It cannot all be deception, they all come from me, they are all me."

"And they are all cowards, liars— " 

"Perhaps you wouldn't have helped keep my pride in check." He interrupts her diatribe.

For it has been years, Deceiver. He throws his own title back at her. And still no-one knows.

Galadriel flinches, and worse, knows he has seen it. Because he was right. She had not told anyone about this.

He offers her a small smile. Always a jab followed by a balm.

He was nearly impossible to be around like this— with his ring. The combined interior and exterior voices were overwhelming. If Galadriel had not already had a taste of it, had not already seen some of what it was like to have access to another's thoughts, she might have left, simply to protect her mind. She saw how it could be terrifying, how it might be used to horrify the unsuspecting.

She takes a deep breath and looks around, gathering her thoughts, mostly unimpeded. 

There was no guard post in sight. The room was little more than a dungeon with an arch door made of bars, separating it from the prisoner's cell. She could make out a sea-themed motif etched into the stone surrounding him. The smell of the salty air persisted, perhaps they were below the waterline, but it was not damp. His confines were not restrictively small, and were clean enough. Clean more from good craftsmanship and lack of use than on purpose, she guessed. The common rabble did not get thrown down here often.

They had to remove the guards, on ominous confession she does not want more context on.

"It is too nice for you," she murmurs, but he hears all.

And it was. Much nicer than the last few times either of them had been held captive. Why did the Númenóreans still think he was deserving of such small luxuries? Or were they merely showing off? That they had him, and they could keep him.

He shrugs. "I am kidnapped, defeated— held hostage here." His voice was nearly a laugh.

An embarrassment she is sure someone was going to pay for.

"Please, I doubt there is much that happens to you, now that you have your ring, that is not your will."

He spreads his arms, gesturing around cell. "And yet," he says with a finality. But the smile has not budged from his face.

You've missed the chains I have already talked my way out of.

Galadriel steps forward so she is right on the other side of his bars. "You have wanted to be on Númenor since before we arrived here together. Why?" She pressed him.

He thinks for a beat. "And if I said peace? Prosperity?"

He had mentioned his peace back then too. And then berated her for seeking revenge in the same breath. 

She shakes her head. That was not a plan, not on his level. And if he was so intent on his act of prisoner, Galadriel would use it. She presses him again.

"What are your plans, Shadow? What are you thinking?" For she could not even see a glimmer of them now, not even a sense. That he would be here of his own free will was already much worse than anything she could conceive of.

I am thinking only of your perfect cunt, he hums in thought.

Galadriel is felled. An immediate heat spreading through her gut like she had been struck there by an arrow.

His face does not flicker, does not give anything away, but his legs shift slightly, widening the spread of his thighs in invitation.

"I wanted you back when we were in these cells the first time you know, wanted to make you mine even then." He spoke now like his lungs were full of hot embers.

He was different now, even more forthright. More power from the Ring, more used to getting what he wanted all the time. As it was in Mordor, she presumed.

It stirred an even greater flood of annoyance through her.

"And that is what you have never understood," she snaps. I am married, she thinks, there can be no other. It was not something she ever invoked around him, for obvious reasons. But he knew, he had to. "I will never be yours," she says. Not completely— almost passes her lips but she catches it. 

He makes a short noise of understanding and stands. 

"Ah yes, the Teleri," he mutters, his tone unconcerned as he approaches. "I have seen." He gestures to her head.

That he had seen Celeborn, knew of her memories, and had not used it against her was too kind of a thought for him. It had just never benefited him to bring it up before. Sauron could truly have tortured her over this one thing, given everything that had passed between them. And had not— yet.

He comes to a stop, propping a forearm against the bars, mere inches away. "I am here. Where is he again?" Sauron asks, in what must be as light a jeer as he can manage.

Galadriel holds her ground and glares up at him.

"I seem to recall," he continues, as she has not replied, "You devoted your life to looking for someone else instead. Someone you found." His gaze flickers downwards.

The words burn a hole through her chest, though he says them at nothing louder than a murmur.

It was true. A hard truth she had tried to bury, but was now faced with everyday. Everyday that she looked upon the sea, she was confronted with her choice aboard the ship. Had to live with the knowledge she had chosen him over Celeborn, had chose him over Valinor, had chosen vengeance over peace, and had only found— whatever this was between them.

She does not say anything, is not sure she ever would again. Not sure she would ever recover from this halted reaction and find her voice.

Sauron notices this.

"Then again," he starts, close and nasty, "I could always take his form, if you'd like?" There is a smirk upon his face, but his eyes are dark with challenge, daring her to agree to this.

She is frozen.

"I have never asked you that before," he continues, more thoughtfully. "Would you like to see your husband again, Alatáriel? " He draws out her Teleri name and it does not sound like his voice anymore.

And it could be her imagination in the low light, but his eyes seem to have taken on a familiar silver sheen.

"No!" She cries.

"Oh?" He asks quietly, satisfied that she wanted him instead.

He reaches through and pulls at her middle, tugging at the front of her dress. He caresses her arm, sliding down her forearms. And she is going to let him, content that the bars of his cell should at least stop him from getting too close.

His eyes have been replaced by their soothing green again, replaced by a predatory gleam.

Galadriel is so distracted by their transformation that she does not immediately notice, he has not simply reached through the gaps in the bars, but through the very bars themselves. Passing through them like they were not even really there, when a minute ago he had been resting against them. A flaring beacon that he was not truly imprisoned, that this was all to his liking, just as everything was.

He pulls her towards the bars and she passes through them just as he had. He simply unmakes the metal for a moment. It was a horrific indication of his power with the Ring. More than the level of a Maiar, the laws and constraints of the universe no longer applied to him, no matter what form he was in.

"You do not wish to see him." Unbothered by her revelation, he is still talking about Celeborn.

No, she did not want him to turn into her lost husband— it would only be a falsehood, made from her memories anyway.

"Not like this," she breathes.

She is right in front of him now, nothing separating them. He runs his hand up to her jaw. Anticipation coils in her chest, raw and tight. His skin is soft and warm as he holds her chin still, then he bows and tilts his head to bring their lips together. 

He kisses her and it is a thunderous jolt to her senses— still after all this time. One that he must feel as well, because he exhales hotly into her mouth. The hand on her chin trails down her neck, and she shivers around a moan that he swallows.

One hand loosely holds her throat, the other around her waist, pulling her into him. Galadriel pulls his tunic up and flattens her own hands upon the skin of his abdomen, scratching lightly.

"Show me," he lets out a harsh whisper against her lips. She chases it, enjoying Halbrand's beard upon her face.

He walks them backwards to the simple cot.

"Show me how." His voice was heavy and laden with such intention that her body immediately warms in answer.

She undoes her cloak's clasp, he pushes it off her shoulders and sits back down. Dropping her cloak to the floor, she climbs into his lap. His hands immediately move to trail up her thighs, bunching the fabric of her dress, so he could grip her flesh and grind himself against her core. Imperious and delightful.

It was one of his favourite positions, one that felt like she was in control when in reality— 

Galadriel spreads her hand out on his chest, halting suddenly. He meets her eyes, but does not drop his hands. "Tell me this is not the Ring," she poses, making her tone as serious as she could in her breathless state. Uncertain if he could even determine that for himself. 

It is an insulting question, implying that he would coerce her into something she was not consenting to. But she had said worse to him before, knew she would say worse again. And his eyes narrow, sharpening slightly, but his face has not lost any of its amusement.

He knocks his head to the side. "Was it the Ring any of the other countless times?" He lets her sit with that a moment, before moving in. "The many, many times, I have had you," he emphasises, right up against her ear.

He had a point. She huffs, still keeping her hand on him, a barrier.

"I did not bring you here, Galadriel." There is a controlled laughter in his voice. He pulls back from her a small distance. "You are free to go at any time," said with all the confidence that she would not.

Unlike me, he adds as an afterthought.

They hold each others gaze for a moment. She looks through the green right into his spirit, there is a flame burning hot at the centre of him, gently kindled towards her. No room for anything else. 

Then, she lifts her hands, unlaces the ties and pulls her thicker outer-dress off to drop it behind her. There is victory in his touch as he brings her mouth back to his with a strong hand gripped around the back of her neck, biting at her lips with a triumphant smile.

"You are vile, abhorrent, and ancient, and no one else would have you." She gets out in between ragged bursts of air and deep possessive kisses.

But he did have her still, had to admit it to herself now. He still could.

Sauron does not reply with more than an understanding hum, but counters by kissing across the low neckline of her undergarment. And the hand that had been under her shift, slowly palming up her inner thigh, getting higher and higher with each pass, finally makes exquisite contact with her core.

"You're a mess," he groans into her throat, "Is this all for me?" He wanted her to say it.

Of course it is, her treacherous mind replies, her hands gripping his hard shoulders. Somehow he still smelled of coal and hot steel and the earth and him. 

His fingers slide inside her in a long smooth motion, deft and accurate. He was an apt study, knew exactly how to touch her to just as she liked and wastes no time now.

"Right there," is all she can manage. Her eyes keep trying to flutter shut, but they are drawn back open to his every time. 

"Tell me, tell me it's for me, tell me it's mine," he responds insistent. Tell me you're mine, in her head.

Her hand has slipped up to wind tight around the hair at the base of his head, tilting his head back. She rolls against his hand, chasing the pleasure building inside her.

"More," she pants into his jaw.

He did not need to be asked twice, had opened his pants to a usable extent, and lifted her up in a matter of seconds. He enters her in a single fluid movement, both drenched and burning hot. Shame and pleasure spread through her in equal measure. A song humming through both of them too low to be anything but a pleasant vibration.

It is perfect, until she settles more fully around him, the stretch stealing her breath. She pauses in something approaching panic, as the air catches in her lungs stopping a full inhale. Her hand drops to fist in the front of his tunic. It was too much. It had been so long, and she was never really sure it was going to fit, no matter how many times it had been.

"It'll fit," his voice a warm croon. A placation, a demand that it would. She would take all of him. His expression was laid open, desire and satisfaction writ plain for her to see. 

"Don't get shy on me now, Galadriel," he moans, nipping at her jaw as he brings his hand back to the front of her. "Show me how well you take it, show me how much you can take." He spurs her on with his thighs and the rough fingers pressing insistently at her core. 

And she does. 

Sensation spreading out unevenly through her, a ringing call his body makes and hers answers, too much and just barely enough. It was both familiar and different, and neither surprised her anymore.

It was never an even footing when she felt his power run alongside hers in their joining, but it was always a manageable thrill in the past. Already lightheaded with want, this was something else. Everything has taken on a bright, feverish glow, and she has to hold on to him tighter, very nearly made dizzy by it. He was everywhere, wrapped around her body and her mind. Over her, around her like it was inescapable.

What was inside him the whole time, now brought roaring to the surface by the One.

Strangely, she remembers the mountain above Eregion. When the crown was removed from her chest it had drawn her spirit out of her body with it, before being delicately pulled back in by the Elven Rings. This was the opposite, power pouring into her, like a dam bursting, submerged but weightless. She was elevated by it, by him, and full in every sense.

He rips her under-dress off over her head, and when she looks back his own clothes have disappeared in the same instant. He wanted to see, wanted to feel more. 

Galadriel does not care what he wants right now. She leans back slightly, putting her hands on his knees behind her. Letting his gaze and power flood over her, through her, as they moved.

If she had to name it she could not, but the flame in his eyes as he looked at her was something beyond lust. And he had his ring, had his power over the flesh, and still he could not abandon her. She felt it in every touch that made her shiver, in the ache he ignited deep inside her. It was a weakness, a glaring mark in his otherwise impenetrable armour. A weakness that only made him more lethal as he turned it in her direction.

He uses his other hand to pinch one of her nipples, kneading the flesh around it, wrenching an exhausted cry from her lips. His own face lights up, like his greatest joy was pleasing her and every shiver, every moan was its own reward. He was going to destroy her. Bit by bit. He was going to take her apart, unmake her.

And it was exactly what he wanted.

"You are cruel," she says, breathless. 

You are a cruelty, she thinks. She rose in her cruelty in tandem, right alongside him, as he always intended.

"Yes," he agrees. Yes.

A torment. The tormenter of Middle-earth now turning his force completely towards her.

He gathers her up and turns, pressing her into the wall without unseating himself. He holds her up, her back now against the smooth stone, folded in half, legs high around his sides. Helpless, with him on his knees at her front, controlling their pace, controlling his thrusts now, forcing her to take him deeper.

"And if I am," he counters, his own breathing shallow. "What does that make you?"

She was bruised right the way through, she thinks, morbidly. 

He presses his face against her throat and laughs, something Galadriel feels more than hears. Then he sucks a mark there, strong enough to bruise, and does it again and again.

Her exhausted words ramble out, "Please, please, pl—" 

Unsure what she was even asking for anymore, but Sauron seemed to know. He was cruel but he took and gave in equal measure. Their thoughts were truly melded now, he could sense the full shape of her mind, her spirit, for the first time ever. And he uses it to both their advantages.

He fucks her like a beast upon its prey, strong and beautiful and dangerous. As his thoughts echo across hers, a swirling murmur she is uncertain he means for her to hear. Yes, yes, yes. That he had missed her, had missed the heat of her. He was going to keep her, use her, make her his queen, use her perfect cunt, make her take him as deep as she could, keep her, keep her, keep— 

Everywhere he touched her skin left her hot, scalded like with the heat of a brand. And he was pressing everywhere she needed it. Kissing her, exhaling into her mouth, groaning her name, swallowing his own name in her mouth.

It sets her aflame, and the shiver of fear his thoughts incite only served to heighten her pleasure, deepen the sensations. Starting inside, spreading from within all the way up and out of her skin. Every inch of her brought to attention, and set alight, nerves sparking.

He pumps into her, marking her from the inside out, and follows her down.

The second time, Galadriel rolls on top and the god beneath her allows it. They are slower, more languid in their movements. Both slick and sweaty. And if she thought of him as guarded, as stoic the last time they met in a Númenórean prison, that had all been driven from her mind looking at him now. His breathing was shallow, his mouth dropping open, eyes made of fire watching her every move. He kisses her all over, face scratching and mouth soft. Soothing and possessive presses of his lips, turning and moving her making sure not to miss any spots. He presses one to her palm, as she rides him to her end— to their end.

Galadriel slowly descends back into her body, unsure exactly where she had gone, to find he has still not abandoned her. His fingertips trail up and down her back, leaving pleasant shocks everywhere they graze. His ring had enhanced everything about him, his greed, his need. The drive for power and control, the drive for her.

She was still clutched onto him, and as she gradually loosens her grip, he relaxes, leaning back on his palms. His chest and stomach muscles shine with sweat as they rise and fall around lungfuls of air, his legs spread beneath her. He smiles up at her, and it is a genuine thing, no hint of spite, of his usual malice. And for a moment, it is the single most enticing thing she has ever seen. Even in this dark, secret place. 

How could such a being be so transformed by something as small as a smile? He was purified, if only for a moment. She sees a glimpse of what might have been, what might be. How long had it been since he had seen the Light of Valinor? In the warm afterglow that was still thrumming through her it seemed anything was possible.

She falls to the side, resting her back against the wall, much like he was when she first entered. Her legs propped sideways over his. He lies back down, with a soft grunt, stretching out like a cat, satisfied. The stone at her back is cool, and he idly runs a hand up her shin as it dangles over the other side of him. She tries to let the combined effect calm her.

Galadriel opens her eyes after a few minutes and catches him gazing at her, intent like he was memorising. He does not look away after being caught out. She remembers, 'I have been searching for my peace for longer than you know.' Had he found it here— with her? Had she let that happen?

Her heart rate quickens again. "I need to leave," she mumbles to herself. 

But he nods distractedly anyway. "The king will be down here soon enough."

She pushes any thought of peace out of her head, he was not on Númenor for peace. And if he wanted it with her, he would never have made his abomination.

Galadriel lifts herself to climb back over him. She needed to stand and dress, needed to leave. She gets her feet underneath her, stands, and nearly falls.

He puts out a hand to steady her and she takes it without thinking.

She hadn't thought she felt this diminished, but apparently so. Her legs were weak as if nearly all their strength had been used. And she had climbed entire mountains without need for a rest. She had crossed the Helcaraxë! How had one night done this to her? How had he done this to her? The heat of his power— of him, somehow more draining than the frigid cold.

Though Sauron is watching her, looking plenty tired himself. His eyes half-lidded and satisfied, like his thirst was finally slaked.

And it did always feel like a push-pull of power when they coupled. Had she taken something of him too? Absorbed some energy that was unintended?

She lets go of his hand and moves to pick up her clothes strewn across the floor. He helps, standing and handing them to her before grabbing his own. She dresses by feel, still a little dazed, shift over head, feet into soft shoes, and re-braids her hair quickly.

His propensity for caring was odd enough, but that he cared for her still felt like a mistake, felt like a great claw clasped around her chest.

Once they were both redressed, he pulled her back in. Again pulling her by her dress, and she was almost certain she had been out of his reach this time. But he leans down and kisses her, hot and close.

She wished she could say it was all him, but they were both drawing it out. Pulling apart, but never for too long. Lingering in his kiss, in the press of his lips, of his face and breath against hers. Lingering in a place where none of it mattered, where there was nothing except the two of them. His hands were large and comforting around her middle. Hers latched onto his arms.

Eventually, they separate and he smiles warmly down at her.

"You should consider your oath fulfilled," he says. "I am found and successfully ruined," he finishes contentedly, almost around a yawn.

 And he always had to push it, always pushed too far.

Galadriel feels her eyes go wide as she shoves him away from her. "That is not funny," she snarls. How dare he bring up the oath she had sworn on her brother's life? The oath she had sworn on the dagger she no longer had because of his rings. His desire for power had separated her from Nenya, and the last piece of Finrod she had.

He blinks, face too still. "I was being sincere."

"You do not know how," Galadriel snaps. 

He sighs, a long-suffering exasperated sound. "Must it always end like this, Galadriel?"

"Yes, because it must end." She puts a few more steps between them, reaching out to the bars of his cell, though she knows she will find them solid once more.

She was furious at him, at herself. That it was so right, always felt so true when they were together, and then was so easily unmade, could all come crashing down with a few misplaced words. That he could never hold her in the way she wanted, but would never let her go.

"Fine," he says, and she can hear the roll in his eyes. "Go then. Back to your hiding place. Back to hiding from your own kind, from yourself."

You know where I will be, a thought as he steps away too, stepping back into the shadow of his cell.

She scoffs, glancing sidelong at him. "I cannot even call you heartless, Shadow. That would be too generous an offering for you. Your heart is an instrument of violence, just like the rest of you."

He nods, his lip curling. "Well, if mine is a weapon, yours is a shield— hardened against intrusion."

She whips her head around to look at him. "That has never stopped you before."

This shocks a laugh out of him. The bright sound chasing her through their bond, all the way back to the mainland.

Chapter Text

South of the Gulf of Lhûn,

Mairon knew how to curry favour, had started with Aulë, had done it to his master, had spent the better part of an eternal lifetime cajoling others into doing his will. Melkor would not have kept him around if he could not make himself useful.

There seemed to be only one who could disobey his will now.

She had come through to him once more since the jail, enough to see that he was no longer in said jail. Had his own personal quarters, high above the city, a brand new wardrobe, and a new name to go along with it all. 

But Galadriel had not been interested in any of the particulars, had merely looked around with a small cynical smile, and sighed, "This did not take you long."

He barely refrains from reminding her that he had achieved everything the first time they were on Númenor barefoot and in rags. That they were not necessary but these things seemed to come to him much easier now that he had the One. But it already felt a little too much like she was a spy sent into his midst, so he does not.

Men were much easier to turn than Elves, and the One had given him the clearest path he had ever seen so far. He knew every step to what he wanted before he had even decided to act. Still, the work he was doing with Pharazôn was busy and all consuming, and he found it hard to leave it, to drop out of the personality he had carved here. It left him not feeling particularly sociable.

He did not have the time for their inevitable argument. And if she was not going to bite, was not willing to get involved on the island in the way he wanted, then he was sorely tempted to tell her to leave and come back once she had found her will to hold dominion again.

Then, she had untied her loose shift and let it fall to the floor as she approached. Coming to stand before him completely naked except for her unbound hair falling like a mantle over her shoulders, strategically covering her chest from his view. It was visceral, like bells were ringing in his ears. 

She looked up, a breadth away from his own body and waited patiently. Her eyes luminous and full of promise— blinding, so that he did not even care it was not the promise he actually wanted. 

Her gaze ran over his face unimpeded, so he was certain she saw the twitch just before his resolve crumbled and he hauled her to the bed. "Temptress," he chides her, burying his face in her neck. Unable to resist the pull of her, even as she harboured a resistance to him. 

She moves a little at this time but always comes back to the sea.

He had a greater sense of her movements now through their connection, and knew there was something in Galadriel that had stunted her actions, something that haunted her.

Ever in the back of her mind were thoughts to her own lands, own dominion, but those thoughts now made her think of him, were made of something too similar to his own since the Ring. A likeness in them that troubled her, that she pushed down. 

And so she never strayed far from the sea, could not. It was a balm, a comfort. If he wanted to draw her out of hiding, he might have to change that— they had met on the sea after all.

As time marches on, he amasses power. Everything about him had grown in darkness, which was the point, he thinks, exulting. The people mirrored him, growing darker in turn, in his image. Their appetites threatening to swallow them whole. 

The extremism has set in, the fervour already in full swing by the time he next found occasion to pay her a visit.

It was not just Galadriel he was taunting after all, he wanted all the Elves in Númenor.

And Mairon could see his path, recognised he was at the precipice of something, something deep and unfathomable. Something he may not be able to come back from in her eyes.

His rule would have to change after this.

The Númenóreans do not understand it, the depths of what he has done here, not yet. Galadriel would. This is what he tells himself, not that the temple and near constant invocation of Melkor had buried him in ash, under a cloud he did not know how to clear. He does not admire his master anymore, but Melkor's taste for destruction was so strong, so intertwined with his being that the mere mention of his name was enough to encite violence and destruction on its own.

He steps over the void to see her, stepping across their threshold like it is a simple step forward through a doorway, so easy since the One. 

Only slightly surprised to hear his boots land on hard sand with a crunch.

Now that he was paying attention to more than just her, he realised he could see clearly for the first time since discovering their realm. He could see her whole landscape, not just confined to the immediate surrounds. His ring had broken the constraints and he could see out over the horizon, both ways up the beach, the other small Elven huts placed further back from hers— all seemingly uninhabited.

Mairon turns away from the views and back to Galadriel. She was the only thing that mattered here anyway. She was wearing a simple gown, the same colour blue as the sea. Where her feet were hidden under the water, it made her look like she was growing right out of the waves. The shallow tide pulling at her hem as it washed in and out.

She was facing away from him again, her hair blowing in the breeze as it picked up lightly.

He approaches, stopping next to her, just out of the water's reach. She had already sensed him, a disruption in the natural rhythm around her. He breathes in the salt-soaked air.

"Reminiscing on our meeting?" He asks. The tides of fate are flowing, he sends into her thoughts. And her tide had led her right to him. "I do, more than you could know," he continues.

The Númenórean ship that brought him to the island had been attacked on the open water again. He had been in chains underneath and so could not confirm if it was the same beast, but he had heard enough to sense it was the only ship in the fleet that was targeted.

But the Númenóreans had fought back, and the sea-beast had relented.

He always knew in some regard that Ulmo and his servants had found it hardest to desert Middle-earth, though now he had more than enough confirmation. And between the multiple attacks and the storm, it became increasingly obvious the Vala did not want Mairon on Númenor— nor upon his domain at all.

His master had hated and feared the sea in equal measure, and Mairon felt unseated by it, even to be so close to it here. Felt his own power further away.

Galadriel was quiet, clearing her head. He looks inside, almost harder not to now.

She was calming her mind. Picturing herself walking straight into the sea, laughing as she did it— joyful.

He frowns remembering the last instance he had seen of her on the shore.

For the first time, Mairon felt the Sea-longing of the Elves. The way she knew she would be happier and carefree across the ocean, and still could not go. Her people had left Aman of their own volition, the longing was not of their making, was something that was placed upon them, in punishment. He spares a curse for the Valar again, for how truly insidious their work was, for what they had wrought and what he must heal. 

He keeps listening though, there was an undercurrent pulling below the vision. She had been dreaming. Deep unwanted dreams that pulled her under and were hard to lose even in the morning light. This was what needed calming. She was plagued with dreams of a child— her child, but changed. A Half-Elven creature, with the features of the being beside her, of him.

It is an impossibility, she thought, with a bitter tinge, He cannot sire a child without intention, and it would require more than he would ever willingly give.

She felt her mind was betraying her. These visions were not of him, she knew that much, but they had a strange colour to them that showed they were also not wholly of Galadriel's own making. Interesting, he thinks.

And she was right on both accounts, he could if he sought to, but he had no interest in heirs. Desperate, clawing, power-hungry things that they always turned out to be. Immortal as he was, it would take too much of him to do it, would force him wholly into that form. More than anything else they had done.

Mairon ignores the nudging insistent thought creeping into the back of his mind that he might do it for her. He might do it if she asks. He had the One now after all— what could it really cost him? Did she want him to?

She turns and pushes every thought out of his head with a look.

Her eyes drag down his body, taking in his new attire. He was finely robed, as finely as any King of Men or Elves. With an under-robe of dark red, and an outer-robe that was black, shorter and wider in the sleeve, beaded and trimmed in gold. Both cut wider across the neckline, exposing more of his upper chest and shoulders.

His jaw was back to being stubbled. His hair slightly longer, still in the style of Man— though, he had taken to tying half of it back. Standing in the light here, he knew he glowed. Tanned as if he had caught more of the sun on the island nation.

Galadriel's expression does not change, and her thoughts give little away, but the eyes that trail up and meet his again show more than a hint of appreciation.

"A new deceit for the King?" She asks, quietly.

This was to be a more gradual change than the sudden appearance of Annatar, slowly growing like a rumour in the mind of the King. A pious sorcerer-cleric consumed by his work; something he had witnessed in the East.

Mairon spreads his arms to show off more clearly. 

"Zigûr, they have declared me." Wizard, in old Adûnaic.

An invitation if ever he had made one. A dare. Saying come, do something about it. Everyday he grew further in power, everyday he wreaked more havoc. 

She turns completely towards him, turning her back on the sea— on the west, with a ripple of the water. Her eyes catch the One glinting in the reflective light.

"You said the power you were looking for over the flesh was not me, but this." It all comes out in a single breath. She gestures to his ring.

It was.

"And yet you torture me so," she finishes. An unspoken question hovering in the air between them.

It was not like she didn't know he was on Númenor. But she was buried in the sand here, she did not want to know how far his power had reached, how far his will extended within the people. For what could she relay to her High King about it? How could she, without giving away her position?

He holds his hand up and disappears the Ring off his finger, still there just not visible. He was used to it, had been doing it in front of Ar-Pharazôn anyway. Mairon drops his hands to his sides and stands there before her, simply as himself.

He did not want to be so obvious as to tell her he was goading her. Or the truth. That he didn't know what he was now without her, without her voice in his head. They were so interconnected he couldn't remember what life might look like without her in it.

She knew it anyway, he did not have to speak it.

Galadriel's eyes narrow at his lack of answer, and she sets off, brushing past him on her way back up to her hut. He turns and follows her, as he always did. He would always follow her wherever she went, a step behind.

Inside, she moves about her hut, uncaring of him. Unhurried and unworried that he is there. She sits at a small desk with a polished mirror on it, and begins brushing through her long hair. The wind and sea had whipped it into a light tangle.

He looks around to keep from watching her too closely.

He had been here many times and knew enough of the simple cottage hut to know there was really not much to see. His eyes eventually fall upon the only other shining thing in the room. There was a dagger sitting on her window ledge.

Except, it wasn't her dagger, it was his. Or at the very least had been for a while.

It was the same one she had first picked up in his war tent long ago. When had she found occasion to take it? He mused. He hovers his hand over it and can feel it has not been picked up in a long while.

It was an old blade, one that the Orcs had taken from some of the first settlements of Men they encountered after Eregion. Mairon had been perusing the spoils afterwards, taking stock of who and what had been captured when it had caught his eye amongst the pile of blades. 

Silver, with a curved leaf-shaped blade, and a rounded gold hilt adorned with embellishments. Though it had been found amongst Men, it was almost definitely Elvish made. An inscription in Sindarin ran in a vein along the centre of the blade. Imbued with at least some ancient power, it glowed faintly if seen from the right angle.

Perhaps it had been unwise to leave a weapon that could injure him out in the open, but a part of him back then had wanted to know what she would do with it, what she would do in the face of blatant temptation. And she had simply removed it— without him even seeing. 

That she had stolen it from his quarters amused him greatly. He didn't come through to her much anymore, would perhaps never have noticed that it was missing. 

What else had she spirited away whilst he was otherwise occupied? 

He nudged it slightly across the surface.

"A trophy of your own?"

She colours lightly but does not respond. He lets it lie. He knew why she took it. For the same reason he had. The inscription down the centre read, 'Foe of Morgoth'.

"In that case," he says, lifting his own cloak back to pull a folded blue cloth from under it, which he places beside her.

She picks it up, slowly examining its intricately woven Elven designs. "This is mine," she says, brow furrowing.

"You left it in the prison." He confirms. "Such a rush as you were in to leave."

"And you kept it all this time?" 

"Well, you live a relatively simple existence here, so few material possessions. I did not think you could bear to be parted from it." He gestures around her room in judgement. 

Galadriel rolls her eyes and goes back to her hair.

"That and I did not need the Númenóreans to find it and think I was an Elf in disguise, or in league with them, or some such— "

"No, just that you had one in your bed," she interjects.

Mairon sighs and moves to sit on the bed behind her. He does watch her now.

She separates her hair into sections. His fingers twitch, with a restless energy. He might be jealous of her own hands, if it were not almost as satisfying to watch her. She loops it together mesmerisingly, into a braid to be bundled up, out of the way.

She was not moving quickly, was taking her time making slow considered movements.

She was making him wait. Nobody had the gall to make him wait for anything these days.

"Have you come just to return it or for another reason?" She asks, watching him just as intently in the mirror.

Mairon could be obedient, he could show her patience.

"Nay, simply to bask in your presence, my lady." Some of the deference he had been displaying on Númenor.

She scoffs. "I do not believe that— "

"Bed me, then," he interjects, making his voice as honest as possible. Leaving no room for misinterpretation. Almost a plea, settling in all the spaces of the room with them. Almost a demand, one any other would have had trouble defying.

She does not even turn fully away from the mirror, just wets her bottom lip lightly.

"Remove your clothes, then," she says in the same tone as he, deep and serious.

They both knew he could blink and have them all removed. But this is not what she was asking for.

Mairon puts on the obsequiousness of his kin, that he had rejected so long ago, like a cloak, and slowly begins to undress. He stands and removes each article of his clothing individually, for her, for his queen. And watches her gaze in the mirror go from soft and curious to hard and heated with each lost garment.

When he was done she stood and beheld him. Coming up to stand tall, but diminutive in front of him. Her erratic heartbeat thumping in his ears giving away what her placid face would not.

After a moment, she turns around and holds her braid out of the way. "Now mine."

He swallows the urge to rip, to destroy the fabric beyond repair, and trails his fingers down the nape of her neck. Running them down her back to unhook the hidden fastenings of her outer-dress, untying all the way down to her rear. She shrugs out of the sleeves and lets the garment fall to the floor. In her shift now, Mairon reaches for her hips, to lift the material there.

"No," she says softly, stepping out of his reach and turning back around. The power to disappear the flimsy garment from existence crackles at his fingertips. "On the bed," she continues trying to be stern but her voice was breathy.

He stands still, thinks his face might have twitched. The One burns ice cold and heavy against his finger. Galadriel raises her eyebrows. Her shift is wide necked and he can see just the hint of the top of her scar poking out from below.

"Lie down." Her voice is like water over smooth river stones. She shoves him lightly in the chest. It does not move him in the slightest.

But, at her touch, he cannot deny. So he does, laying atop the bedding, watching her every move.

She looks at him a moment, appraising, as he stretches out, flexing his muscles before relaxing under her gaze. She does not remove her shift, but slowly climbs onto the bed after him. Climbs on top of him, a knee at either side of his hips, bunching her hem to expose herself. Before lowering herself slowly, carefully, considered, to press her core unimpeded against the underside of his cock where it rested against his lower abdomen.

Soft, warm, wet already and he had not even touched her.

Mairon takes a shaking breath and drags his palms up her thighs, but does nothing else. Eager to see where she was taking this.

She slides her centre against the length of him, not entering but dragging her hips forward and back, her arousal coating them both. Her nails scratch at the muscles of his chest and stomach as she holds herself up and uses him for her own purposes. No thought to anything other than her own pleasure. It coils heat and need inside him faster and with more fervour than he ever could have imagined.

He digs his fingers into her thighs hard and watches her perfect, flushed face. Her eyes shut, brow furrowing and pulling together. Her mouth falls open on a moan, then snaps closed rhythmically, sinking her teeth into her lip to bury another noise. Her movements have tilted her forwards and her hand sneaks up to hold just at the base of his throat.

There was a through line that he had not caught before; she was angry. Angry that he was here, that this was still happening to her. Suddenly, he needed to open that up, her avenue to anger, to her rage. Wanted to feel it alongside his own. He could show her the truth of those feelings.

Her palm was firmly around his throat now, igniting a fire in the back of his mind. He knew exactly what it reminded him of. Mairon waits until she is shaking, her thigh muscles quivering in anticipation of her release. And flips them both over without missing a beat. Galadriel is caught off guard and lets out a helpless cry.

He stays in position against her, but does not give her a release. Wrenches her hand from his neck and locks both her wrists above her head in his palms. In the same movement, he dematerialises her shift, pressing himself completely against her naked form.

She pants in frustration, realising what he has done, but he kisses her before she can complain.

He kissed her and kissed her, again and again, clearing his mind, clearing his lungs, no temple, no Melkor. Rubbing his lips over hers, like he was still rubbing the head of his cock over her most sensitive spot. Rocking together, her wrists straining against his grip as he dangles her over the edge of a release.

Her moans come quick and unimpeded into his mouth, and he does not let up. Kissing her soft and slow, until her mouth burned against his, still slipping over the heat of her, incessantly. He feels her twitch underneath him with the smallest of releases.

Then, in the same beat, he shifts his hips and is pressing into her eager core; gripping, molten heat. Galadriel cries out gasping and desperate, but it does not get far. He finally lets go of her hands, dragging his palms down her arms to hold her breasts, thumbing over her nipples as he begins moving inside her.

He had mounted her and now moved with the rhythm of a long stride. Fucking into her deliberately slowly, nose rubbing against hers, as she bucks underneath him. He does not speed up, sliding unhurriedly in and out of her, watching her reaction the whole time.

"Be good and take it slowly, Galadriel," he rasps against the corner of her mouth.

She was trying to speed him up, rolling her hips into his, dragging her nails across his lower back.

"Let me— "

"No." 

There was no moving him, and pinned as she was, no moving his temperance. He was taking his time, luxuriating in the tempo, in her. Would pull almost all the way out, then push all the way back in, spearing her open, feeling every curve, every notch of her body slipping over him.

He already had her maddeningly thrumming with need. He would not have her finish them off so quickly— so she could send him on his way again. Mairon had enjoyed letting her ride him in the jail cell, but they both knew this is what she wanted, this is what they both wanted most of all. Him above her, like a tether. Like she was his already, his to do with whatever he wanted.

He moves in time with their breaths. Making her wait for it, like she had him. Like they had all night, and they did. They had as long as he willed it to be so. Time was no obstacle here. 

Galadriel's defiant streak might be though.

She makes a low, angry sound. He wanted to kiss the look off her face, but when he tries to she holds her head back, chin up, glaring down her nose at him. Her mind was a rolling commentary of curses. Though the way her face was flushed, the uneven tempo of her breathing, and the twitch of her legs around him, told him much more than she wanted. Told him everything he needed to know, and made the heat of her anger all the more inviting.

Mairon smiles down at her, wide and amused. Breathless himself, he lets his mouth fall to her neck instead. And feeling victorious already, lets his thoughts flood into hers, loud and feverish.

How she felt around him, the walls of her cunt he had learned so well, how he wanted her, again and again, would crave to be inside her, until the end of days, how her voice sounded in his head, begging for more, how he was going to give her more, and more, and more, until she begged for the opposite.

And takes her apart. She does come, fluttering around him, with a barely caught yell. Her hands on his ribs, holding on for life.

Only then does he speed up.

He's going to lift a little higher onto his knees to get the leverage, but she wraps her legs around his waist, locking them behind his back. So he makes the closeness work, rolling his hips and biting at her jaw. Every push in drawing another low, cry from her throat, in time, in rhythm with his faster thrusts. And it is perfect, she is, they are— together.

He can tell she has been pushed onto some other plane, the lucency of her eyes gone hazy, burnt too bright. In the thrall of it, they were primal and ancient, running into each other. A fiery need arcing upon itself, creating an endless resonance. Serving something beyond lust, beyond pleasure, beyond the flesh. All anger, all other thoughts driven from both their minds.

She was already cresting again, in the loop of another. And she does not push him away, but lifts her head and moves forward. Kissing him with an urgency entirely her own, her hands threaded behind his head, holding him there as he surely bruised the insides of her thighs.

Every modicum of her need, of her satisfaction was wrenched forth with a spark, with a final violent contraction around him that seems to go on and on. And then the absolute pinnacle of treasures, the greatest of joys she could ever give him. The exhausted cry of his own great and terrible name passes her lips and lands upon his cheek, "Sauron."

The tension built in his muscles becomes fire broiling, coiled at his core, like his own light trying to seep out, but with nowhere to go. He is tethered to the earth, to its molten core, and so the feeling chokes out his throat in a deep groan. But she is there. She is there.

She washes him away like ocean waves over the shoreline.

After, they were on their sides, him behind her, pressed against the curve of her back. His hand rests on the irresistibly soft skin of her middle, running back and forth over the sweep of her hip. She could not see the One, but he could. Gold against her flushed skin, they were a matching pair in perfection. He had left his mark on both. He was tethering much of its influence, of his own, large and gnawing as it was now. 

She was internally in pieces. No longer angry, all her anger drowned out by him. But he knew she would be again, knew with a certainty it would come back as sure as his own. Her thoughts are fleeting, flitting and never landing on one thing for too long, never a whole thought. Trying to rearrange so that she might make some sense of this, of the feeling that rolled in her still; a familiarity that served them in nothing but desire.

Mairon thinks she may want to sleep, ease her mind. He is about to send her down himself. When she makes a small noise of protest, and her hand falls to his at her side.

"What?" He asks into the back of her shoulder.

"Don't put me to sleep."

He doesn't. Doesn't mention he could give her a dreamless sleep, a full rest, no haunting visions. He does not think she would appreciate him having seen that at all.

After a small amount of time, he can feel her pushing back against him. She could feel he was still hard behind her. He had been instinctively letting the movements of their heavy breathing rock him against her rear, and now begins to idly thrust against her. 

Galadriel angles a leg slightly so he slips between her thighs, through the wetness left there from both of them. She sighs and Mairon grunts, moving his arms under her to wrap across her chest.

Some part of him wants to say something, make a joke about how she was insatiable. But he can't, can't think of anything. They were both so torn open by what they shared, torn open in each others presence that it had become hard to be glib and lighthearted about it. Not when it felt like he was inside the sun and the world was ending all around them, that the earth had swallowed him up and spat him back out into the universe.

She reaches down and angles him so that the next thrust pushes him slowly back inside her, and they both shudder.

They fall into a steady, savouring pace, not the torturous slow or needful speed, but consistent and rhythmic, like a heartbeat. Perfect, in an unforgiving precision inside her. Her swaying back, him pressing forward. His other hand drops down her front to where they were joined, holding, rubbing. She shivers with every movement, every thrust. 

Galadriel turns her head and with both arms wrapped around her, her hands over his, he swallows her moans, swallows every last thought in each of their heads.

Mairon feels her release again, holds her through the pleasure gripping her. He watches her twitch and flicker to her Unseen form in his perception. As her head falls back, a genuine light seeps out of her body and he thinks of the stars. Of the death of a star at the centre of their universe. Blindingly bright and then engulfed in darkness as he topples over the edge with her, in a perfect embrace, as it always should have been.

He must leave; back to the temple, back to the work. 

He pushes up onto one elbow, mouth pressed to her shoulder, still wrapped around her. He keeps his hand pressed low across her abdomen, and spreads his fingers, focussing his power on her, on her muscles. He could use it to relax them, produce a slow cooling effect. It was something he had done subtly once or twice before diving right back in, or after a particularly long night, and something he had done simply to give her some comfort afterwards. She was an Elf, she could withstand more than any mere mortal, but that still did not mean he wished to leave her with any lingering ache or pain, not if he could help it.

She always seemed to appreciate it, but this time her hand drops to his again and pulls it up.

"No, don't," she murmurs. 

He frowns down at her. She looks up at him and shakes her head.

She wanted to feel it, wanted him to leave her with the ache of him.

His palm finds the warmth of her face, thumb just barely brushing over her cheek. Mairon leans down and brings their lips together again, and feels her smile against his hand, against his face. Does not think he could have pulled away if he tried, if he had used the full force of his ring, if his life depended on it. He cannot even think why she might be smiling, but he does not probe to find out, knows his own face has reciprocated without even thinking about it.

Again he does what she says. Was unsure when exactly he had vowed to serve Galadriel, but it did not chafe against him as much as it did with others, so he does not bother himself too much about it.

He knew he would see her again before the inevitable, but not when that might be. He kisses her cheek, her temple, like a lingering goodbye, and that will have to be enough.

"Goodbye," she whispers, catching him off guard.

"Goodbye, Galadriel."

He is gone, his raiment gone with him.

He had vowed to serve Ar-Pharazôn early on as a trusted advisor. It was by no means the first vow of allegiance he had made. He was ever reminded of his vow to Adar here. Making his deception true, making it a false mockery. There was only ever one vow that had been true before Galadriel, only one that had been real.

The Númenórean was not even the first king he had seduced to his will. He would be the last, though. The One burned ice cold on his finger everytime the so-called ruler over stepped his reach.

Later, he steps down through the familiar streets of Armenelos, his robes billowing behind him. Down his path to the dark and domed Temple to Melkor. And all the way through the City of the Kings, the people stepped out of his way, bowed their heads, averted their eyes. As they should. 

He climbs the dais inside the large temple to the height of his power. 

Thunder claps overhead, trailing away with a long rumble.

His plans were being enacted so swiftly, were coming together even faster than he could have hoped. Even with the Valar sending their warning storms. He could turn that to his advantage too, as he could all things.

The Allfather had abandoned these lands and his disciples were chained to his will, were cowed by indecision, had proven for centuries they were unwilling to act. Mere storms and sea-monsters he could handle.

While he toiled behind the scenes, it was Ar-Pharazôn who took the credit. The King addresses the crowd that has gathered outside.

"The Lords of the West have plotted against us. They strike first. The next blow shall be ours!"

Tar-Mairon speaks the words and they fall out of the King's mouth.

The Temple of Melkor,

Galadriel is taken out of her thoughts by a sudden loud clap of thunder. It had been a rare cloudy day by the sea, but had not looked like rain, and something about the distinct lone sound draws her outside.

The wind has picked up rampantly and she is buffeted by it all the way down the slight bank to stand above the sand. Her hair blows outwards into her face, flying towards the sea rather than away from it. 

Galadriel had been watching the sea, near constantly, every day. An ominous thought had ensnared her, that something would happen if she turned her back. And it had. 

The water was a churning grey. The tide coming in and out, a little higher, a little faster than it should be. There were dark clouds in the distance over the horizon. Darker than she had ever seen, a black-grey, a menacing green glow in places.

A great tempest in the west, over Númenor. And she remembers Tar-Míriel's vision viscerally, the vision from the Seeing Stone.

It had come.

And it was his doing all along. The same Man she had first arrived on the island nation with.

Their last time together, he had kissed her with the barest hint of a smile, a soft tender goodbye. A warning in retrospect, an invitation.

Revelation sits heavy and hard on her shoulders. Perhaps this is why she was drawn here, not Sea-longing after all.

She could have killed him, the thought crashes through Galadriel's head. She could have killed him at any interval in the past few years. He let his guard down frequently. He slept around her often enough, she had seen him twitch in the sleep that he did not need. And still, had not slit his throat.

He thought she wouldn't, and she hadn't. And she knows it will be the hubris that haunts her, the hubris that sets a fire in her gut and moves her to action now.

She turns and hurries back up to her hut for the final piece of the puzzle. 

Galadriel spares herself a kinder thought, that she could not really kill him, not in any lasting way.

She knew what happened to Adar had happened to Sauron in turn. It was the only answer that made sense of the theatrics involved there. Had happened to him, had happened to her, a rolling, cosmic repetition of mutiny, betrayal, and death.

And still he returned. She could only slow him down, add fuel to his rage. 

She is about to pass the veil and takes a moment to wonder whether she should do this, whether she should be more afraid, but she had never let that hold her back before. She was not so sure of herself to think her prophecies were set in stone.

She would do what she must.

Galadriel opens her eyes into a large space. Thick walls of stone surround her, intricately designed and strong, sparing most of the noise of the rain and storm outside. Clearly made by the skilled of Númenor, yet were dirtied and covered with ash. 

At the centre of the circular room was a forge, no— an altar. An altar of fire. The tiled floor around it was blackened too, like even that far away had been scorched by flames. 

They were in a temple. 

There was no fire in the altar now, though it had been alight recently. The coals had built up and were being lightly scattered across the tiles by the wind, coming from somewhere, an open window or door somewhere she could not see. The cloud cover outside and lack of firelight made it dark and unsettling inside the temple. 

Galaldriel takes her first breath and the smell hits her immediately, flooding her lungs. The air made her eyes water. She knew immediately, could smell, could sense, that evil had happened here.

Not at his hands, which looked clean— too clean, but at his urging, his will.

Never was it more apparent that he did not desire peace, not here on Númenor. That his master's desire for destruction was sown just as deeply in his most loyal servant. An unfortunate byproduct of domination that did not even muster a second thought.

She would have been able to tell, even without the stench of death that filled the temple, merely from the way he sat. He was alone at the head of the large room, on a stepped dais, upon what was undeniably a throne. He looked comfortable against the rigid structure, the fingers of each hand lightly intertwined in front of him.

It was a throne fit for a king, but this was not the King of Númenor.

This was Zigûr.

His hair was long and dark, almost black here with nothing to reflect light onto it, pushed away from his face so it cascaded down his back. All the hard square shapes of Halbrand's face were still there, but he was un-stubbled now— clean shaven in contrast to Ar-Pharazôn's long beard?

The dark hair of the Noldor Elves and a Man's strong face did quite a bit of the heavy lifting to convince he was something else, something other. Someone to be listened to.

His robes were in the same wide-necked style as before, the split meeting low on his muscled chest. They were dark but subtly gilded; embedded with streaks and swirls of gold and silver, that glowed like embers in the flickering light of the storm.

He wore no crown, no jewels, no adornment at all— except for a single gold band upon his right forefinger. The Ring glows as she beholds it.

A horror, an incurable darkness, made wholly in the image of Morgoth.

And she truly was Lúthien Tinúviel before the throne now, but with no spellcraft, no song or dance, no great love to save— all had already been taken from her.

His gaze was lofty and cold as she approached, much like Annatar's had been, but there is a turn to his mouth; a flicker that spoke of mockery, of a joke.

It was farcical what he had done here, in a way that no one else really understood— but her. Galadriel could see he was wearing his darkness on the outside, had made it so explicit in his look and actions that it was obvious. An obvious joke that the Númenóreans were not in on.

She could not begrudge the people of the island their worship, their following of this ill-begotten deity. That she was still here at all meant she could not. 

She knew he had been using his power, his influence, blatantly, comfortably. So much so that he had tried to use it on her multiple times without even thinking.

And in answer to this thought, he gifts her an inclination of his head and a small proper smile.

"Tell me, my lady," he begins, loud in the cavernous space. "Should I expect an armada of Elves at my doorstep? The docks are empty, there is more than enough room." He gestures vaguely in the direction of what she assumes is the port.

His language had already changed the last time they had met, his accent rounding out into a more formal cadence, and now it was completely changed. He was not Halbrand, the Southlander was completely gone. He sounded like her ancestors, ancient and solemn.

'His doorstep'. Galadriel grits her teeth, where was the Númenórean fleet if not in their docks?

"No," she replies, breathy.

"Ha," he barks, a humourless and twisted grin lighting his face. "It is a small bittersweet victory to be proven right, even now." His grin becomes more a baring of teeth. "That you would not risk loss of Elven life to save even a handful of Men."

She could feel the simmering fury coming off him. He had expected more of a fight.

She had been going back and forth to Lindon for weeks, trying to plead with the High King. She told him the Enemy was wreaking havoc on the island, that Nenya had shown her without even wearing it. Knew she had not really been believed. He needed to know Sauron had been set free upon Númenor, needed to act. He would not. 

And here was all the proof she needed, it had come, too late. 

Still, she had persisted to the point that Galadriel was expressly forbidden from travelling to the isle herself. They even doubled the watch on the ship-yards just for her.

Even when Elendil and his sons had clawed their way back to Middle-earth, bringing tales of horror and destruction, Gil-galad would not act. 

The worst part was she could understand, could see the reason in his position. The Elves were already not welcome in Númenor before Sauron had poisoned their minds. How would the Men react to a fleet of Elven ships approaching? 

They could not risk outright war. Not on home soil, when the island's forces were so great, and the Elven armies were still recovering from the last war against Sauron. Could not risk Men's covetous nature finding out about the Elven Rings. Could not risk all that just to tell the proud king that he had been embarrassingly deceived.

They needed an alliance with Men, not a war with them.

And this was exactly what Sauron had wanted. Had wanted the Elves to show up at the island of Men who hated them, wanted an outright war. Had bet on it.

An alliance forever frayed.

"Your warmongering has failed you," she replies, voice lost in a loud crash in the distance.

He hears her anyway. "Has it?" He asks, mock serious. "I think the Faithful would disagree."

The rigidity of his beliefs was set in stone as strong as the walls around them.

Sauron leans forward in his throne. "This island is mine. Númenor is no longer."

And it did look like his, had become the thing of darkness and ash that Mordor was. The temple was large and yet he filled the room, like a horizon. He had changed and made Númenor change in his image. He looked at home. His throne, his temple. His, his, his, she remembers.

He had already shown he would do anything to win, to be proven right.

"I would have done anything for you, Galadriel, I still would." He responds to her thoughts, his voice low and level.

A promise, neither true nor untrue. 

"Lay down your weapon." There was only one she could be talking about. "End it. Cease this senseless conquest," she says, keeping her tone the same as his.

She had nothing to offer him, nothing but his prophesied ruin. There is a rumble beneath her feet.

And she was already in such a position below him. Figuratively, literally, before him, looking up at the throne. Like a feudal lord come to ask their conquering king for pardon. She would not beg.

His eyes narrow at her asking— that she would still ask.

A strong gust of wind blusters into the temple, pushing through what sounds like heavy doors, making empty lamps and other decorations fall and clatter against the floor. Her hair is picked up and blown into her face, she pushes it behind her ears.

His face tightens and his fingers twitch, like that was a loss too.

Two scenarios play out in front of her like prophecies.

Before the Ring, he would have asked her to join him. Pledge yourself to me, and I will. A lie. 

Now, after the Ring, he would tell her there was no way to do so. It is too late. The truth. He could not lay it down, it would be the end of him.

"No." Is all he says, reverberating and final.

She had defied his will again, lost his favour, and was now going to pay for it.

The sky darkens further outside, almost like night, and screams break into the temple, into their realm. She was not meant to be able to hear others on his side, she never had before. The confines of their realm were slipping and failing. Cracks appearing in the firmament around them, like the city outside. Time was running out.

"Mairon," she says his name, and he hears, 'my lord.'

He blinks and his face softens, becoming instantly more familiar. Sauron stands and steps down to meet her. More and more revealed with each step down from the dais. His hair shortening, lightening, until he is at the bottom and it is him. Her Halbrand, from the very start. Back in his armour that he had originally left Númenor in, with her— for her.

He steps across the tiled floor, considered and certain, stopping right in front of her. And despite it all, despite the temple and the rain, it is the smell of him this close that makes her chest ache. Warmed skin, a mellow leafy scent, and a faint hint of cinders.

Galadriel seeks out his familiar gaze. Seeking the sanctuary of her lost friend, of her lost king, of the mirror to her soul. And it is there, a tempered version but there nonetheless. The twitch of a sly smile pulls across his cheek, and tears burn her eyes.

He runs his hands up the backs of her arms, pulling her in. His palms are warming, then hot as he cradles her head. His fingers meet at the base of her skull, tilting her face up to look into the green depths of his eyes.

A tear falls, streaking down her face, and he wipes it with his thumb, then leans down and kisses her. The cold metal of his ring right up against her cheek.

It is a perfect reprise to their first kiss.

Galadriel opens her mouth and kisses him in return. It is soft and warm and familiar as the setting sun to her now. She lets her thoughts run unfiltered to the front of their connection. That it was perfect and right when they were together, and it always had been, and she would always feel that way.

A perfect swan song.

She unsheathes the dagger hidden in the folds of her dress at her hip. Why had she taken it if she did not mean to use it? Without breaking their kiss, she runs her hands around his back, reaching up towards his shoulder blade. 

And with both hands, plunges her knife— his knife, directly into his back. Right in the gap between the plates of armour.

The blade enters up at an angle and lands with a wet thunk, all the way through to the guard protecting the hilt.

Galadriel will never forget the sound he makes against her lips.

He pulls back from her face, his hands still on her jaw. His mouth was hanging open slightly, and his eyes were wide as his head drops down to look at his chest. To the source of the hurt. 

It was a longer dagger, Elven made, imbued with enough power to pierce one such as he. The blade curved, made mostly to cut and slice— not stab, and had therefore torn a much deeper wound through him than another weapon might have.

The tip was coming through the front of his chest grotesquely. Had pierced through rib, lung, muscle, and skin— through elemental spirit. Protruding almost exactly where he had plunged Morgoth's crown into her.

Sauron takes one hand from her face and delicately touches the end of it. His own blackened blood staining his fingers.

"Ah," he makes a quiet noise of understanding. Of course he recognised it. "Oh, Galadriel." His voice was small and tender. His eyes slipping closed.

He looks, for a moment, eternally calm, like he would not mind dying this way.

Galadriel stood horrified, rooted to the spot, unable to look away. Her hands still on the hilt.

And the hot metallic taste of blood fills her own mouth in symmetry.

She had done it. Something she should have done since the raft of her mind, since he placed Finrod's dagger into her hand with both of his. Why had she taken it if not for this? Why did this particular act make her feel so sick?

But she had to try— to prevent this, to prevent him.

He rubs his thumb across her cheek once more then moves back, out of her grip, knife still lodged deep. He staggers a bit when stepping away from her, and Galadriel has to resist the urge to put a hand out to steady him, but he regains himself.

There is water blowing across the floor of the temple now, and he drips blood into it as he crosses the room. With his back turned, his form shudders as he climbs the dais to his throne, jaggedly, footing uncertain.

He turns and drops indelicately into the seat, and it is only then she realises he was laughing.

Galadriel's voice is stolen, as he throws his head back and cackles.

His laughter was loud through the temple, harsh and maniacal. It was deranged, and does more to terrify her than the storm outside ever could.

She had expected anger, the fiery rage from under the mountain. And yet, he was truly delighted at this turn of events. 

The ground below her feet is now shaking so much, she thinks she might fall. And a growing rushing sound of something getting closer fills her ears. He does not seem to notice in his mirth.

Peals of laughter compete with peals of thunder for dominance.

In the end, it does not last long. All sounds are drowned out by the thundering crash of sea water through the building.

A great wave plunging everyone and everything into darkness. As his temple falls into the abyss, dragging the rest of the island with it.

Galadriel opens her eyes back in her sea-side cottage. The rushing deafening roar of water replaced by immediate quiet, by her own ragged gasps. Her hair and dress were dripping all over the floor. His laughter still ringing in her ears, intermingled with the screams of Men, of man, woman, and child.

Everything is dulled, deadened, deafened. Her thoughts, the colours of Númenor, the whole world.

She passes her empty window ledge. She had kept one weapon here, and she had left it with him, left it on an island that no longer existed.

Outside, the sea is a dull grey. Black clouds linger over the horizon.

She sits out there and watches them until night crawls forth, and flashes of lightning sporadically illuminate the waves. The world was remade, darker and worse for it. Eventually, Númenor would fade into legend, and the people of Middle-earth will forget there ever was an island over the sea.

But the waves would settle over this new world. 

And almost as if to prove a point, morning still comes in. The light of the sun on her shoulder, demanding and bright over a new day.

Chapter Text

The dreams of one who does not need sleep,

The majority of the time, if Sauron dreamed, he dreamed of death.

Not those he had killed, or seen die, or lost, but his own. He always dreamed of his own death.

Those that were, those that were close, those which may yet come to pass. 

At the hands of Orcs, of Men, of Adar. Blades, spears, crowns. The crushing damp of Huan's jaws. Of Melkor, Melkor, Melkor— again and again. All felt the same, whether they had happened or not.

It was no surprise given how much it had ghosted over of his life, much more than made sense for an immortal being.

He was ancient, old beyond the count of Men, old beyond time and form and sound. He could not be killed, not in any real way.

But sometimes, in kinder ones, he dreamed she did it. He believed she could, and he would let her. That she would be the one to do it seemed right.

His queen, like a divine being above him, transformed in the act, transformed by the act forever after.

These were not nightmares, were barely even dreams.

And finally, she had. She had tried at least— at last. Sauron would never forget it.

He would languish there, in the thought, in her embrace. Her claimed blade through his chest. The blood pooling around them as he went cold, her warm figure atop him.

Triumphant golden hair surrounding them both. His hands caressing over her face as her tears fall onto his chest to mingle with his blood.

If only he could get the taste of sea-water out of his throat, of salt from behind his teeth. If only he could stop coughing up mouthfuls of water and blood and ash. If the burning pain of it entering his lungs would go away, the crushing helplessness of the waves, of the stone falling from above. Crashing over his head like she had done. Water with the power of Galadriel—

West of the Misty Mountains,

Galadriel has to leave the sea-side.

She could not look at the waves anymore, could not look out on the west anymore. She has the opposite of Sea-longing now, was cured of it. Drowning will do that, she thinks bitterly.

And the sea had not settled as she thought it would. With every tide after the flood, it seemed to rise and rise, and the small village of Elves that had lived there near Harlond had been forced out, forced to relocate to avoid being washed away with the high tide. The consequence of his act of evil had followed her even here.

The same thing would have happened further up the bay in Mithlond and Lindon— she does not return to her kin yet. She assuages her guilt and takes the long way around. Passing time in the world, alone, it would pass regardless of where she was.

She goes south, inspecting the changed world, forest and river alike. Eventually, making her way to the newly established Countries of Men. She passes over the outskirts of their boundaries, does not enter. Does not think she would be able to face Elendil, the new High King of the Dúnedain. Not now. He had never looked favourably upon her to begin with.

And the great walled city they were building at the base of the Anduin, seemed too far east, too close to Mordor for her comfort. Which was the point, she guessed.

Some days the guilt was too great, and she would pass over hill and under shadow of mountain in a sallow lonely state. Thinking of all her kin who had simply wandered and wandered and never returned. 

She had a power over him, the whole time before he made his ring. She had the power to deceive him, to get inside his head. Who in the vast history of the world could say similar? And she had used it to get inside his bed instead. In the hopes that she might turn his will, his eye towards her and away from his true goal. In service of her own need for power.

She wanted to say it felt ridiculous, but in truth could not say she would not do the same again, if given the choice.

After the Ring, he had been at his peak power, she'd felt it, seen it. Knew it would boil over eventually. And still, could not say she would not have helped him on his path to total annihilation.

Galadriel had seen Miriel's vision— knew the consequences where even he did not.

She will make up for it. She will have to, there is no other option. This was fated to them. This was a task appointed to her.

He comes to her, somewhere on the road north to Imladris; a spirit tearing itself through the veil between them.

Galadriel is stopped in her tracks. She did not know what she expected, when he returned, but it was not this.

He was the same, was Halbrand but also not. He was changing, still reforming, remaking himself. He was tied to this form, tied to his ring.

He was darkness, a chasm ripping itself in two and repairing in the same moment. His fiery Unseen form bleeding out from all the tears in his spirit. The rest of him half hidden in a growing shadow, like it was slowly enveloping him.

He was violently out of place within the cool shaded green of her surrounds.

Clothed in fire and shadow, his fine clothes were torn from him in a way that makes her think of Halbrand on the raft. She could see his chest, there was no scar. She could not even leave a mark on him the same as he could her.

He was prideful, Galadriel knew he would not look like this unless he had to. It was as if he could not wait any longer, could not wait to be remade to lay the blame upon her.

"You are a traitor," he coughs and chokes on the words.

She was not caught, like on the raft or under the mountain, she was walking beside her horse on a path trod many times by countless others. Galadriel keeps walking, and his visage follows. Tied to her, bound to her, too.

She tried to tell him. "I cannot be a traitor to you. I was never aligned with you," she keeps her voice steady, her tone short.

He was leaving dark splotches like mud, like blood, against the small rocks of the path. 

"You are a traitor to yourself," comes his rasping reply, "To your true nature." 

She wanted to tell him he could never comprehend her true nature, not if he had lived a million years— but to lie at all now felt too much like evoking him. She does not respond and so he continues.

"You are as cold and calculating as the worst of your kin."

A familiar chill settles over her. She had tried to kill him, in a most intimate way, perhaps he was right.

"You spent all that time with me on Númenor and still let it happen— let all those people die. Men, women, children."

Yes, she thinks, she could still hear them echoing from outside the temple.

"It was your doing. I could not have prevented it," Galadriel replies, sharp and deadly. She nearly snaps, but will not give him the satisfaction. "I will not be manipulated by you. I bear no blame for your actions." 

But she did.

Deceiver. Liar. Traitor.

"You will bear it." 

The words are so course and rough she is sure they scrape his throat on the way out. She glances across, and there are tears in his eyes somehow, reddened, burned, drowned, as they were.

His vengeance was made physical, was taking over his form. Vengeful against the Valar, and the Elves, and everyone in between. But they both knew there was only one being who could break and remake His creation as had happened on Númenor.

And that might be the worst torment of all.

Galadriel turns her full gaze upon him. "I am sorry for what happened to you."

His eyes widen and he disappears with a wretched sound.

She had carried him and his blade inside her chest ever since he lodged it there. And just when she felt it finally ease, he had forced her to stop wearing Nenya and she had opened back up. Like a wound, dripping with blood, for all to see— just like he. Certain someone else would notice.

That he should have to deal with at least some of that, unlocked a vengeful petty part of Galadriel and she was almost glad. 

If only she could have prevented it all, avoided this whole thing by putting a stop to it earlier. But how far back would she have had to go? To the Belegaer? To Finrod? Further than possible for her to conceive of. Back to the beginning of it all.

She moves on, as she had time and time again.

She had changed, had split apart and been sewn back together. Searched and searched and could only find this new version of herself. The events sliced in two; a before and an after. Like Arda, marred and then remade.

Galadriel steps across the protection of the Bruinen into the foothills of the Misty Mountains. Embraced by her old friend's lands and arms, she feels slightly less fractured.

Elrond tells her he has a surprise for her. Someone who had arrived in Mithlond just after the flood, had gone to Lindon in search of her, and Gil-galad had sent to Elrond hoping he would know where she was. 

And then, he is there. Celeborn is there. 

And the world parts around him and is remade.

She cannot move. If Sauron had regained his ability to shapeshift, there was nothing she could ask Celeborn to prove it was him. Nothing the Dark Lord could not have delved and plucked from her own mind to deceive her. It would have been so easy for him to do so. 

He steps forward, and there is so much behind his silver eyes. Hurt and pain, but not betrayal, not blame. And the shocked smile that unfurls upon his face tells her everything she needs to know. His eyes shine and it is like looking across the clear moonlit ocean.

Her husband stops right in front of her, his eyes drinking her in. He was silver-haired and so unchanged physically. His slender face, pointed nose, his strong jaw. A constant, her constant. 

She tears the focus of her mind and beholds him in his Unseen form. Wholly, completely, he knows she is doing it and does not shy away from it. The urge was so strong she almost could not help it, she was more accustomed to the Unseen World now. And he is not a thing of fire but of light; pale, pewter, pearlescent, and shining.

Tears prick her eyes and she collapses forward into him. Lets herself be held up, up lifted, taken care of, even just for a moment.

The initial uncertainty she felt stacks on top of her grief, her guilt. That even in his absence, Sauron could take something from her— could take the joy of this long-awaited reunion from her, makes her weep. Furious tears spill across her face, that he still haunted her every waking thought.

Celeborn soothes her, running his hands over the back of her, caressing her hair, the crown of her head. It had been so long.

And better yet, better above all, he holds her face and tells her through her tears, that he knows where their daughter is— where Celebrían is.

They set out, travelling together. Moving through the forest with a quiet ease, stopping more often than they need to. He tells her there is no rush. Galadriel has felt rushed, like something was chasing her, for as long as she could remember, for as long as she had held her vow.

And he's strong and beautiful and quick to anger sometimes in a way he wasn't before, but she doesn't mind. It reminds her of herself, it reminds her of—

She was falling out of her rage these days, it would do for one of them to hold on to theirs.

And he doesn't perhaps see her as well as he once had, but it is not for looking, she has simply changed. They have time, they will rediscover each other, and create in the ruin of the world, just like they had always done.

He sees her scars. She tells him what she can and it is enough for him. He does not ask her for the sun and moon, for her light. Does not ask for everything she had, for all of her, to swallow her whole. He only asks for what she is willing to give. And nothing more.

He knew her in the way that she wanted, and that was all that mattered.

Celeborn puts a strong, slender hand over the enduring mark on her upper chest, rubbing softly. And it does not sting, does not set her aflame. His touch soothes like ice melting over a burn, like the first fall of snow.

Later, she looks upon it and it has faded slightly.

The guilt that she had not looked for him lives on longer. She had presumed him dead and had not searched beyond that. Sauron's taunt was right— she had looked for the Enemy instead.

She had not even really allowed herself to think of him, had only done so once, after the mountain exploded, after she thought she had lost someone else.

Celeborn does not mind, tells her that her cause was a noble one, and it would have been impossible anyway. It is a kind thought, more kind than she would spare herself.

He would sing to her, and it made her heart swell. Made her want to dance again, for the first time in centuries.

She was gentler around him, a more tender version of herself. Was showing her every day that this tender-hearted version of her might be possible again, even in a world shared with the Dark Lord. That if she was Laurelin, then he was Telperion, and she exalted in his light, luxuriating in its cool breath. If she was the sun, he was the moon; separated for a time but always in unison, even when one could not see the other.

Together they outshone the fires of the earth, of Him— 

They draw closer to their location. And Galadriel tries and tries but she still cannot remember her daughter's face. She had pushed it down too deep. It had been too long and she was too plagued by visions of her child as His child.

But then she was there.

Celebrían.

It has been an age and yet no time has passed at all when she holds her daughter.

Celebrían who was like the light of the Two Trees combined— brighter! Celebrían who did not have Halbrand's green eyes, who had her father's silver eyes and hair. Whose face she had first known in their glade, within Celeborn's gaze. 

She was perfect. 

Unmarred by Him, unmarred by her.

And her daughter and husband do not begrudge her absence, they are accepting and happy.

They pull Celebrían out of hiding, and move back to Imladris as a family. The homely nature of the outpost amongst its natural surroundings calls to her as it always had. And it does not take long to see that Celebrían is made happier than ever in Elrond's house.

Her darker moments never abandon her, and there are many times even amongst her family's happiness that she considers going through to their realm. Even just out of a morbid curiosity, to look upon him, to see what he had become. She knew he would be different again.

And yet, to marr her new life with her old one was a step too far. She resists.

He does not come through to her either. Would still have been regaining his strength, and was perhaps not capable enough yet. Galadriel's heart was glad. Her world was so full now, some days she can almost let herself forget that was ever her life.

She does not intend to ever step through their pathway again. But her surety does not quell her thoughts, and they stray ever towards the darkened footsteps trailing behind her.

Chapter Text

Under the shadow of Orodruin,

Sauron watches. Galadriel felt his presence always, but he does not make himself known to her. He watches without going through their pathway. Watches her reunited with the Teleri, with only a mild interest. He was more intrigued to find he felt no pang of jealousy, no bitterness over her time with another. 

Her Elven husband had always been there, boxed up in her mind. And it becomes increasingly obvious watching them together, that what Galadriel and himself shared was different. Could not be touched by any other being, certainly no Teleri prince masquerading as a warrior.

Then the daughter is there too. It was no surprise Galadriel had hidden her amongst their folk. Sweet silver lamb she was, a sweet princessly thing. But her smile was as much like her mother's, as a cool stream was like the raging waves of the ocean. She had none of the harsh edges, none of the darkness, and so none of the answering sunshine. Had taken on some of the father and the silver had left her dimmed.

He can only see what Galadriel does, can only hear what she does, in a disjointed way. So even he does not know where they've been hiding. 

Sauron has the foreboding thought, that the husband has been brought forth because of him. Another torment from above designed specifically for him. And together they had pulled the girl out of hiding. Even her own mother had not known where she was, had hidden that knowledge so deeply from herself. Her own mission of him was too great.

The young Elf had been calling to her mother, he realised, sending her thoughts out as best she could. She wanted to be found. He regarded her too highly to mention it at the time, but he remembered Galadriel's dreams. Constantly haunted by her vision of a child: half of her, half of him. 

He knew now, with a burning certainty, if he had been a weaker being, he would have done it. 

He would have done anything she asked.

They live in Imladris. And it is not quite wartime, he was not there yet, so it is the young princess who brings a child into the world. It is an odd choice to bring life into this world, into what he would make his world, but their will makes it so. The comfort and peace of their hidden lands making it possible. 

The very last thing he needed was more Elves.

Galadriel and Celeborn leave. They go south, before turning east and settling at the base of the Misty Mountains. Their tender peace begins to disturb him.

He stops watching, he does not care. More time and power was needed to devote to himself— to his healing.

Years pass and the time slips away from Sauron like the slow creep of molten fire, catching more and more in its grasp, devouring and gaining mass. 

Until, he is remade, completely.

He could still sense her thoughts, even more so when they strayed to him— which was often. Even in the face of her husband and kin, he took up too much space in her mind. 

He sews himself together in her absence and every part of him is coloured by her wake. Her absence was its own presence in his mind. He felt it with all his soul, with every fibre of his ancient being. He always would, perhaps always had. 

It went through him like a blade, straight down the middle. He uses it, drawing on the marks left there. Like drawing from a deep well, drawing fire from the earth. 

And the conquest resumes.

He made sure Mordor was covered in cloud and plume permanently. Embracing the gloom as only he could. He would not have the light of morning or the Evenstar seeping through his stained windows to mock him, to mock his lonesome. 

She has made no attempt to come through to him since Númenor, but the door is not shut.

He does not know how long it has been. He had stopped counting. 

It was immaterial.

When the day finally comes, and she does slip through the open passage of their minds, she's angry— furious. He can feel it radiating off her before he's even turned.

Instinctually, Sauron leans back as the sharp edge of an Elven sword slices through the air a breadth away from his face.

She spins around and swipes for him again. He dodges with a slight side-step. She does not wait for him to be ready, does not ask him to raise his sword anymore.

They had not fought in years, and she was almost feral in her fury here. He would almost think he had strayed into a dream. Galadriel does not say anything, she thrusts her sword again and again, grunting and baring her teeth. He had not seen her this angry since the mountaintop, since after Celebrimbor.

And he knows why immediately. He had sensed something like this might happen. He was not always made aware of the goings on of Orcs, of his lands. But he had not imagined the loss would be someone close to her. Sauron turns his head to the side and watches her, trying to see into her head.

Galadriel takes a beat under his new gaze. Uncertainty colouring her features for a split second, before it lands on the One upon his finger, and she resumes her attack, her frown deepening.

He did not look as she expected. He could not change his appearance now, not as freely as before, even with his ring. That had been lost from his spirit. Another gift from the Allfather.

It was still the same form he had been in when the island flooded. The same facial structure she should recognise, but now with the shadow taking hold, it made him unrecognisable. He was darkness taking form. Pallid and stark, except for his hair and eyes, those had kept the burning power of the Ring. Glowing red-hot and gold with the fire of the One, of his first form.

She turns and changes tack, using every method and tactic she knew upon him. The bronze of his hair whips into his vision as he moves away from her blade with ease. She had not been able to land a blow on him. But still, she tried.

She looked somewhat absurd in her nice dress. The shining, pearlescent gown was made of a thin delicate material that tangled around her legs as she moved at pace. It was incredibly impractical, and Galadriel would once not have dreamed of wearing this into a fight, of wearing anything less than her full regalia.

And he found he missed her armour. It was certainly not what he would have had her wear if she was his queen.

Was that it— was Celeborn the one injured? He reaches out, and it doesn't feel quite right. No, that he would have heard word of.

Galadriel can see him guessing, and makes a noise of pure frustration. 

"Celebrían!" She yells.

He stops suddenly, becoming completely still. 

She swings the blade through the air with her full might. It stops at the side of his neck with a loud clang, but he does not feel it, it cannot pierce the exterior of his armour. Not if he did not will it.

She never mentioned her daughter in front of him, never even thought about her if she could. Still, he knew more of the young Elf than Galadriel could ever guess. Had seen enough of her in Galadriel's mind.

Sauron had learned over and over in his many years, that wanting something meant you were at the mercy of it. Had seen it in others and subsequently used it against them, had seen it in his own ambitions, his own follies. Galadriel had lost enough over her lifetime that she must know the same. And foolishly, she loved anyway.

He reaches out to her, mentally, physically. His splayed hand prying open her mind so that he might read it more accurately.

"She lives," he says. Not a question, he knew.

"She has been wounded," she spits, "Fatally wounded, if not for—" 

"By whom?" He asks.

"My daughter! My only daughter!" Her words are punctuated with strikes. She tries again and again to cut him, hitting his arm, his chest, his middle, she cannot break through. "Tormented and stabbed by one of your Orcs, by one of your poisoned blades!"

Ah, he understands. This was why Galadriel was so upset. Like mother, like daughter.

He halts her physically with a twist of his wrist; he could hold her form, at least for a time.

He had already been reaching out to the Elves, the Ring-bearers, but he reaches out for Celebrían now. She was not passing into the Unseen, or here in their realm, but she was somewhere within his reach. And now that he knew it was her, he might be able to latch on in some way.

The One and his connection with Galadriel had deepened his understanding of the Unseen, and therefore all realms of life; seen and unseen.

Galadriel snaps out of his hold and pulls away from him reflexively, seeing what he was doing.

"You beast! You abhorrent monster—" 

He didn't mind the monikers these days, was rather used to them. Most days he even liked the fear they evoked.

"It is beyond my doing now," he tells her, curt and offhanded. "What is it you want, Elf?"

She glares up at him. "Blood," she sneers.

Had he not bled enough for her liking? For her? He feels his lip curl and his ire begin to rise.

It is not possible, he tells her without speaking.

It is, she thinks, I have done it before. The unsuspecting knife through his back that didn't hurt half as much as the circumstances surrounding it.

"A poisoned blade, you say?" He asks, sardonic. "Why have you come to me? Heal her." Sauron points at Galadriel's chest, unprotected, unarmoured. "You have the means. Use your rings."

He finishes and turns away from her, ostensibly uninterested.

She will not give up her secret, she was deceptive and furtive almost in equal to him. But she had come through, something she had managed to avoid doing for so long. And he could use that. He could play the fool.

She does not reply, as he guessed she would not. Sauron half-turns to look back over his shoulder, a secretive smile pulling just the right amount across his face. "Oh, I see," he intones.

Galadriel is straight lipped, her expression fierce but a line of worry pulls between her brows, concern creasing her otherwise unblemished face.

"Use your rings, my lady," he continues, turning fully upon her. "You will find no quarrel with me." He lets his smile unfurl wider.

This is what she had been afraid of. It had been early on in his power when they first removed the Three, and it had been difficult even then. She did not think they could do it again— not unless he let them.

"I will let you." He confirms her thoughts with a nod. "Just this once, I will let you heal her."

Galadriel does not reply, does not know what to say, is perhaps waiting for the other boot to drop. Which he may as well give her. 

"And then," he says and drops his head to the side slightly, still smirking. "You will you give me something."

Her chin falls, head dropping from its position of surety. She knew it, knew he would ask for something in return. Yet to his constant surprise, she opens her fist and drops the sword from her hand, letting it clatter against the floor.

She looks up at him, takes a deep breath and steps closer.

He stays where he is and allows her to walk right up to him. Her eyes are dark stormy seas, but she keeps her face willfully placid. She comes to a hesitant stop just in front of him, close— closer than he let anyone get these days. 

He looms over her slight form, simply looking for a minute. Then, he lifts a hand slowly to her middle. She does not cower. His hands were unarmoured, and he relishes in the soft sleek material draped over her warm skin. The muscles of her abdomen flex under his touch.

He runs the hand up her centre, dropping his touch to a single finger in between her breasts, the backs of his fingers over her clavicle, then back to his full hand up the column of her throat. He holds her jaw in place, tilting her chin up. He was taller now than he had been as Halbrand, had grown in might.

Her body rises forward, answering an unseen pull. She was so pliant, so different to her sword-wielding self. He had changed but she was still so tender and warm, so constant. He brings his face to within a breadth of hers, breathing in her familiar amber scent. It was closer than they had been in years. 

The last time he had been this close to her, she had driven his own knife through his heart.

"I know we have had our many differences, Galadriel," he purrs over her name. Rubbing his thumb over her soft skin, up to her bottom lip, ghosting over it. 

"But I did not think," he continues, keeping his voice soft as possible, "After all this time."

He takes a deliberate breath, pausing, looking over her whole face. Before plunging deep into her eyes.

"That you really thought me a fool." He finishes, tightening his grip on her chin. Her heartbeat under his fingertips immediately doubles in pace, her face going slack.

"They are using them now, even as we speak."

Galadriel's eyes widen, panicked.

He makes his voice low and menacing. "You thought I could be deceived? With the One, I see all." She tries to pull out of his grasp, pull even her eyes away but she cannot. He holds her chin, forcing his eyes upon her.

"Please, let them," she begs.

Galadriel begging in his arms— 

"And what would you give me in return?" 

Nothing, her mind screams.

She opens her mouth but does not answer, choking.

"Quickly now," he urges her. "She does not have much time."

"Anything," she says, her voice broken.

— just not in the way he wanted.

Sauron sighs against her face. Again she had thrown herself on the altar of false distraction.

He could feel the Ring-bearer struggling, pulling against invisible bonds he was placing in their mind.

"I could stop it you know, wait for her to fade entirely, keep her between life and death. Keep you both."

Her jaw flexes again, but no words find her.

"What kind of war might the Lord of Rivendell wage then, from out of his homely valley?" He cannot stop the note of excitement from entering his voice. Her hand comes up to his middle, he cannot feel its heat, but he senses its presence, its pleading, all the same.

He had not known initially whose mind he had been given access to, just that they were healing something— someone, strongly, intently, in a way that almost did not allow for distraction. 

Now he knew. 

He had a fuller sense of the story: Celebrían was passing over the Misty Mountains to visit her mother, when she was waylaid by Orcs who slaughtered her companions, then captured and held her there.

The Herald's mind was sharp and clear, despite his pain, his worry. He wanted peace, a land of sanctuary for his family, and because he had suffered greatly already— Sauron could use that. He had suffered loss after loss, and this would be yet another.

And he was a warrior, had a strong lineage well worth defending. He could use that too.

He had been— for the last few hours, since he had felt one of the Elven Rings awaken. Sauron had only been mildly upset to find it was not her; that ring and mind he knew the shape of intimately.

The tears that had been threatening in her wide blue depths, finally fall across Galadriel's face. And he is reminded of the mountaintop above Eregion, where this all truly began.

He does not wipe them away, does not kiss her, lets them fall undisturbed.

In her sadness, she probes his face. She had to look harder to see anything resembling Halbrand, but it was still there. He saw himself in her mind's eye. His eyes were yellowed, but still human. 

She looks deeper into his spirit, and he allows it. A familiar, probing depth. The fire at the heart of him had moved outward and was replaced by a darkness, black as moonless night. She could see the animosity rolling off him. It was not entirely for her, it simply was. He was too overpowered now for a physical form, and his spirit would leak through where it could. Not a choice he made, but rather something that happened to him. 

She should be terrified, but all Galadriel feels is grief. "Númenor is fallen," she breathes, "And with it, something of you."

"It was worth it," he spits. 

"Even so, you have not lost your rage," she says, quietly, almost a hum.

He had remade this form in the literal wake of Númenor— wrapped in hate, he was his own rage made physical. 

"And yours no longer suits you— certainly not dressed as you are," he retorts. She was calmer, softened, made more obvious by her attire. 

He still thinks he would like to see this version of her come undone, as she had done for him in the past.

"It is a show of strength to need no armour, to be powerful without it," she bites. 

"It is certainly a show." Sauron runs his thumb right under her chin, pressing into the base of her jaw. 

She recalls suddenly that he had called her beautiful once, had called her perfect.

"I have laid down my armour," she says, "As you should."

Her eyes flicker away from his, down his form. His armour covered him from the neck down to his wrists. He was clad in it most of the time now, did not want to feel like an Elf, like a Man, did not want to feel like anything other than what he was, the Dark Lord.

He walks her backwards quickly, pressing her against a wall. Drops his hand back to her throat, not squeezing, just holding her there as he inches into her space. He crowds further in front of her, blocking her vision and drawing it back to his face, so the only thing she could see was him. She shifts around his bulk and he slots a thigh between hers, pinning her.

Sauron knew exactly where he had learnt this particular stance.

She was right, he had called her beautiful, perfect— but she was more than that, more than she could ever have known. She was the golden raiment he could have wrapped himself in. He would have worn her light like a divine shawl, would have pressed tight up against her skin like her armour. He imagines himself the hardened metal, moulded to her form. And together they would have been unstoppable.

He was too far gone for that anymore, too wrapped in darkness now. And he had been wrong, she was also changed.

"I think not, Elf." He disputes her claim of strength. "You have surrendered your power."

The hands she pressed into his armoured abdomen, no longer bore Nenya, she was no longer the warrior. Had betrayed herself and him. Had dulled her light for her husband, for the other Elves. 

She would not have had to for him.

She chafes against the hold he has put her in, can see the fight in her eyes that she was reining in. She wanted to swing upon him again. And he wanted her to. He missed her presence with him on the battlefield. But she does not. She proves him right.

"You thought you could come here with your sword." His lips are almost upon her cheek. "When I have the One, when you know I could keep you here, keep you from your husband forever."

She struggles a little under his palm, and he rubs his thumb up and down the side of her throat slowly. Calming her, upsetting her more.

"Keep you from ever seeing your daughter again," he threatens.

Galadriel gasps, swallowing under his grip. "You would take everything I love, everything I have, and crush it in your hand so easily, because it is not you."

"You think this is easy for me?" He questions, his voice a deep and resonating rumble. He makes himself tower over her, so that she has to tilt her head all the way back with a soft grunt to see him, to keep their eyes in lock.

He feels the thought of leaving weave through her mind, but she knows she cannot. She is clasped in his grip, and does not panic now, just swallows around a slightly deeper breath. Her nerves finally fraught enough to prepare herself for what was to come.

He peruses her form brazenly. His anger and intention heats his gaze and he knows she can feel it. Her body is taut, back bowed, skin soft under his fingertips, knew what it reminded him of. He lets some of his own thoughts and memories bleed into hers. How it had felt to be with her, to be inside her, to bask in her light and warmth, feel the force of their power running alongside one anothers, interweaving. He had been protected and brought to life. 

She makes the smallest noise in the back of her throat, her breath stuttering across his face.

And the years stack up against his soul, against how long it has been. The power of the One flushes through him and his physical form responds. He was completely covered besides his head and his hands, a hardened outer shell. She was not. Clothed only in her thin dress.

He pulls her in, shifting his stance and pushing his knee forward, further between her legs. Pressing into and rubbing the tender flesh of her most sensitive area against the smooth, hard metal of his thigh.

Sauron feels a pulse go through her, and her mouth drops open though this time it is not in fear, not in shock. He can see the outline of her thighs now, dress pushed between them, can see the familiar twitch in the muscles there.

He twists his hand, bringing it up to her jaw, spanning the side of it. Thumb digging lightly into the hollow of her cheek. Another twitch. He drops his other hand to her hip, and she struggles again, twisting, writhing against him. But all she manages to do is make the press of his thigh shift pleasurably against her core.

He can almost smell it on her, a familiar warming of the blood mixed with the sharp edge of her fear.

She was pretending otherwise, but she was still a being made of hot blood and nerve endings. Still a thing of pleasure, of desire. Her skin was alight with it. He brings his hand back down to the column of her throat, swallowing the urge to sink his teeth in there instead.

She opens her mouth, wets her bottom lip; one last question before she lets him have his way, before she goes somewhere she cannot come back from, she thinks.

"Are you going to let them heal her?"

The deal, unbrokered. He makes a show of thinking about it, then a low contemplative noise. "They have been finished for quite some time now," he says, quiet and low against her face.

Galadriel's brow creases, her eyes flashing in outrage.

"The husband had little trouble removing his ring, he did not have to wear it for long, and was strong in his resolve already." Sauron lets the words flow out, a meandering, bored delivery. "But, without the continued protection of its power, she will not heal fully."

He looks down at her chest here, pointed and lewd and yet softened over the scars he knows she still hides under her dress.

"You should go," he whispers the suggestion. "Spend what little time you have left to you with her." He does not remove himself from her space. 

Her chest rises and falls out of rhythm, unsure. "That is all you're going to say?"

"Even I cannot negotiate for something that is not on offer, my lady." 

He could hear all her thoughts, feel all her emotions anyway. She had come here— to him. Was prepared to beg and plead. Had already steeled herself against the retribution, against what she thought he would ask of her in response, and had accepted it. 

She would not beg for her own life, but for the life of her child? Anything.

And she had managed to get a few hits and jabs of her sword in as well. He almost smiles, relishing for a moment in the repetitive thud of her heartbeat under his hand.

"You would go to war with us, for these rings for centuries and still you would let this happen." Her words come out as a long, low breath.

"She is one Elf, Galadriel, not even a warrior." 

Her face tightens, eyes narrowing. This is what she wanted, but she was still unsure.

"As for the war." He straightens up slightly, moving his face back from hers. "You know what I must do."

"Yes, uniting Middle-earth under a single banner, to rule over it all with an iron fist and bring peace," she says, monotone and mocking.

At the words 'iron fist' she brings her hand tentatively up to his own fist, still around her throat. "Sounds exhausting," Galadriel says dismissive, her voice cutting, recalling something she had said to him many years ago.

He drops his hand from her neck, ghosting it back down her chest, to her ribs, spanning her side, further down to her hip. Her skin jumping under his touch. Both hands now on her hipbones, he grasps them, digging his fingers in and pulling her forward into him, a familiar, possessive touch he knows she remembers.

Another flush of memory, times he had been merciless and intense.

Galadriel shudders. "If you've imagined I would ever come here for— "

"Not for a minute," he cuts her off. 

A lie. To herself, to him, to regain some of herself, some of her control, even if it was false. He watches her body twitch and thrum under his hold, under his gaze. He said she could leave, and she was still here.

All despite the fact that she had come to him for just that— many times, had come to this very tower before. His fingers twist and he pulls at her dress just a little, just lifting the hem.

She continues, but her voice is breathy, "After you have slaughtered so many of my kin? My child— "

He resists the urge to roll his eyes, keeps them on her, cutting her off again. "How many Eastern Men have the Elves killed? Do they not have kin, families?"

She opens her mouth to say something, but he does not let her.

"And how many Orcs have you slaughtered?" He queries, a mocking tilt to his head. "They may not call me Adar, but they are of me, they move at my will, are created at my behest." 

Galadriel's face twists, lip curling in disgust. "It is different," she croaks, "Even you know that."

Her contempt goes through him like ice. 

He was done with her. 

"Stay or go, Galadriel, I am busy." 

So far from the grand offers of partnership he had made her over and over.

She seems stunted, cannot decide if it is a trick.

He decides for her. Sauron pushes her back into the wall by her hips. She grunts softly, but he moves away, taking a step back and straightening up to his full height.

Galadriel's eyes flash bright against the darkness around her.

His ring glows as he lifts his palm to her chest and with a burning surge forces her out. Taking only a modicum of joy from her shocked expression before she disappears.

The Orcs who live in the Misty Mountains are numerous and had served Sauron for many years— almost since the beginning of his ascent to power. In the years after the attack, they are violently besieged by Elven forces on both sides; from Lórien in the east and Imladris in the west. 

Sauron does not send reinforcements, does not send any help for them.

The years pass, and the battle outside continues on and ever on, relentlessly.

The Men of the West go scurrying to the Elves after their first loss and form an alliance, bound in the name of the Allfather if the rumours are to be believed. 

Sauron doubles the forces he sends.

He moves his forces through will alone and only ever speaks in his Black Speech. With only his Nazgûl permitted to speak it back, and only a select few of his closest servants permitted to speak to him at all. He needed silence and concentration to complete this next part.

Besieged and cut off from the world he looks further inward. Pulling power from his ring, from the earth, right from the Secret Fire itself. The earth constantly shuddering and groaning below Mordor.

Until he has amassed complete control, a staggering wealth of strength with which to build his armies, his lands. A source he could tap into afterwards as well, when the deed was done, and he was remaking, healing.

He grows even taller in might, in power, another allusion to the mountain that was Melkor.

But he had learned from his master. He would not become spread too thin like he. Sauron was focussed entirely here.

He watches. Watches the Alliance break through onto the Plateau of Gorgoroth.

They are beaten back and cannot penetrate the tower. A stalemate. There is nowhere else for them to go, why do they not just give in? Why do they keep fighting him?

He could not make them see anymore, could not turn their favour in the way he wanted.

But he could another way. He could end this now, himself. It would not even take that much.

Sauron wraps his full armour around himself like a cool steely mantle. His gauntlets are strong and articulated, and the One shines bright and perfect against the black metal. His helm is tall and crowned, and weighed faultless and heavy upon his head.

He had watched the battlefield for long enough, knew the weak points, the vantages. He steps down from his tower and out into the theatre of war. He feels the earth crunch beneath his boots, over bodies and uprooted earth, towering above all.

The field is sparse, emptied by the continuous years and years of war. And even those that are left seem to shrink away from him, make to run away, as he clears a path with his mace through the rout and rabble.

He is looking for leadership, it was the quickest way to end this. 

And almost in answer, at the lowest slopes of Orodruin, two tall figures step out to meet him.

High King of the Noldor Elves, Gil-galad, and his spear Aeglos. The impossibly sharp blade of it reflecting the gold of his armour and the jeweled circlet upon his crown. 

And one he was more familiar with, Elendil, the lost Númenórean masquerading as a king. The Man's sword he had heard tale of, but did not know its name. It was ancient and forged with power. Shining a vibrant orange under the gaps in cloud cover that allowed the sun's rays to come through, but as the clouds and shadows that followed Sauron cover the sky and day turns dark as night, its light flashes to white. 

Their faces are both stern and strong, jaws set, eyes fierce, unafraid to face him. But his armour is thick, and they are muddied, already tired, already half-spent. They should be afraid. They would be before the end.

Sauron raises his arms, mace aloft in one, ring upon the other.

Elendil approaches first, the fury for his homeland writ in his eyes, propelling him forward.

They begin to parry in tandem, both fighting him, neither landing blows. Sauron uses the Ring to slip inside their heads, as he blocks and pushes them back physically. Trying to tire them completely before he will unmake them.

He shows the Man images of the Númenor he had lost, the Númenor he had abandoned. Death after death upon the altar of fire before the flood came to wash it away. His own daughter. Elendil's face crumples under the weight of that knowledge, his step becomes less sure, but he does not falter in his blows. 

He shows Gil-galad the same. The deaths of his kin, the deaths of every Elf he had seen, the death and destruction of his lands as had been foretold. He had observed the High King fighting before and though his expression does not change, Sauron knows he has unseated his power. 

It goes on and on. He knocks them down and yet they keep coming.

The Man's weapon gives off a flash like a white flame and in the moment of distraction, Aeglos pierces the armour at Sauron's waist. And suddenly, fighting both of them and getting inside their heads seems too much work. Through the sharp graze of pain, Sauron gives it up, focussing his efforts entirely on the physical. This has gone on too long as it was.

They hack away at him, but are tiring quickly. 

Elendil was tall and fast for a man of his size and age. He strikes at Sauron's arms and legs, and his sword burns like poison inside where it struck. He turns his gaze upon the Man in earnest, and takes a small amount of joy from seeing the determination in his face waver slightly.

With a swift downward slice of his mace he cleaves the false King's shield in two, knocking him down.

Gil-galad jabs at his centre mass with his spear, as sharp as it looks— sharper. He uses the weapon skillfully, never coming within reach of a retaliatory blow, never getting close enough to Sauron. The Elf is quick and strong.

It does not matter.

He will heal. His ring would heal him, and none of this will matter.

Elendil stands back up, now shieldless and dazed. And in a lucky turn on his next swipe, his sword hits its mark between two of Sauron's lower ribs. He feels it go right through, slicing in and out.

He looks up at Sauron, eyes wide in fear that his blade had struck so true, and despite the fact Elendil could only see a burning orange behind his helmet, he knows they are both reminded of when he saved the Man's life in the Battle of the Southlands. 

He had saved it for this.

Sauron takes a step back, faster than someone who has been injured as he had should have been able to, and swings around towards the Númenórean with the full force of his momentum. He lands a devastating blow directly to Elendil's unshielded torso, feeling the armour buckle and crush under his mace as he knocks the Man off his feet. Throwing him against the rock-face of the side of the mountain with a gruesome crack.

His body is limp before it hits the ground.

When the blade Elendil still holds in his hand breaks under its master's fall, the glow is extinguished. And Sauron takes a moment to think of her, about her prophecy from so long ago.

And like a blinding beam of sunlight from above, the thought of Galadriel steals his concentration for a second.

He turns back and Gil-galad is there, teeth-bared, thrusting his spear right through the centre of Sauron's upper chest. 

Again, he has strayed into one of his dreams.

He is shocked fire does not pour from around the weapon, his anger was so close— pushing at the surface of him.

Gil-galad does not let go of the grip, the Elf's face fierce, and Sauron does the only thing he can think to. He steps forward onto the spear, pushing it through himself with a visceral grind, until he is close enough to reach the Elf. 

Gil-galad does not have time to register his mistake before Sauron reaches out and picks the High King up by his throat. He lifts him off his feet, so he was level with Sauron's gaze. The Elf's hands come up to pull him away, but he could not.

There was fear in his eyes now, fear across his usually stern, regal face.

Sauron's hand burns hot, and the Ring with it, so close to the source of its power, so close to the fires he had forged it in. It glows, and he watches the skin of Gil-galad's throat turn red, then black, and blister off. He stops struggling as much.

Sauron takes one final look at the High King of the Noldor. He had no heir, there would not be another. And tightens his grip, crushing the column of flesh and bone under his hand.

The light goes out of the Elf's eyes. Thus passes Ereinion Gil-galad, Last Scion of Kings. And he drops him, his body crumpling to the ground in a lifeless heap. 

Sauron stands for a moment, wavering, his eyes open but unseeing. He breathes in the smell of the battlefield, the dirt and ash and fire and blood. Blood, blood, blood. The hot metallic tang of it lit the air, the rust of it coloured everything.

His own was dripping down around him, had wet the front and back of him inside his armour as it fell in rivulets down his body. Blackening the earth around him. He should be able to stop it, but it was too far gone. Injuries wrought with weapons that were too powerfully made.

He staggers a bit, no others have approached him, very few there were now though. The battlefield almost completely emptied.

The deed done. He drops to his knees and reaches back, feeling for the round pole. He finds it and rips the rest of Aeglos out through his back, out through his spine with a wet, gasping sound.

He can't feel anything beyond the pain. Doesn't know when he dropped his weapon, doesn't know when he hit the earth. His back was against the dirt, turning it to mud with the sheer amount of blood he was losing. So much blood that it might swallow him whole.

He is contemplating leaving this body, making a whole new one, it might be easier, quicker— would certainly be less painful than this. He needed to make a choice quickly. He couldn't breathe, didn't need to but his chest caved all the same, trying to draw in the smoke that filled the air around him. His soul bleeding out with every exhale.

His eyes were not open, but he feels someone approaching. Hears their hesitant steps across the rocks. 

Perhaps it was an Orc— come to check on their master, shamefully drag him back up to the tower.

No, not an Orc. Even losing consciousness, he could still feel the anger pouring from this person. A rage Sauron almost mistakes for his own.

"Isildur!" A voice calls out from further afar.

The Gardens of Rivendell,

Galadriel hears the full story from Elrond afterwards. She had travelled over the mountains to see him, had to see him in person. And though he insists he is fine, when she holds her old friend she feels his body tremble in her embrace.

He had been gone so long. So long since she farewelled the Galadhrim she had sent to fight alongside him. She is so pleased he was here— he was alive. Not many of them had returned. 

Just another thing the Dark Lord had tried to take from her.

They sit on a bench in a high garden, vines hang overhead, and the steep bank of the river Bruinen flows below them. Night has fallen like a shadow in the valley, but there was still a glow of sunlight on the tops of the mountains above.

It takes a great strength of will from him, but Herald he was still, and spurred on by the blood of war, by the loss of Celebrían to Valinor, he tells her. Elrond recounts what he had seen, the full gory thing.

He and Círdan had watched the two kings take on the towering figure of the Enemy.

She could see it, his helm dark and carved like a skull. Would make himself even taller, more foul, more malice. Darkness and shadow spread around him.

And opposing him, the last High King of the Noldor and the first High King of the Dúnedain, in alliance to the end.

They watched Gil-galad land a deadly blow. Elrond's voice chokes here, for the first time. It was a strike that should have killed— would have killed any other being. Then the High King had fallen, burnt and battered, not a minute later.

He toys with Gil-galad's gold and blue jeweled ring, Vilya, rolling it in his hands. A nervous twitch. 

Galadriel puts a hand out, clutching it over his. Elrond's gaze drops to the silver glint of Nenya firmly back on her finger.

She and Círdan had already come to the unanimous decision that it should be quite safe to put their rings back on. And despite her own slight misgivings, they had all washed away in her ring's clasp. Nenya's power flowing through her like a homecoming she had long been deprived of.

Elrond would come around to the idea again, she knew it. He could make his lands safe and beautiful for his children again. She did not want to belabour the point, so she places her other hand over his too, holding his hands tightly in hers. Reassuring them both.

He takes a deep breath and continues.

The younger Númenórean had been distraught over the body of his dead father, killed by a single blow of Sauron's great war mace, and spurred on by the loss of his homeland. Had seen the Enemy weakened, falling, injured. And grasped the first weapon he had found.

Elrond thinks a moment. "Or perhaps it was a choice. That this victory should have been his father's. I do not know."

Isildur had pulled his father's broken hilt from under his body, and approached.

"I called out," Elrond says quietly. "Knowing the Enemy still had strength, no matter what it appeared."

Even though Sauron was bleeding out, Elrond was cautious. Knew he would not just fall down and die. But the Númenórean could see only the Ring, and the chance to take it for himself. Could see only revenge.

"He put a boot on the Enemy's injured chest, and like he was rising from the dead, his armoured hand came up to stop Isildur."

Galadriel recalls an image suddenly of Halbrand in the same position over Adar, holding him down with a boot on his chest, blade at his throat, before she had stopped him. 

"But he had already lifted his father's sword above his head. He grabbed the arm that came up, and with all his strength cut the finger right at the knuckle."

She can imagine Isildur's feelings, his rage, his grief, as they were hers as well. But Galadriel also remembered the force it took to part herself from Nenya, and does not want to imagine this trauma— dying, maimed, robbed of his power. 

The thought is halted by a vision of Gil-galad's stern face, his mocking, brown eyes.

And Sauron's Ring had no protections upon it, nothing to stop someone from doing this because it was inconceivable to him. That someone would want his ring, that they might be able to take it, that he might be in a position where they could take it. All impossibilities.

Galadriel wonders for the first time, what his ring might do in another's hands— what it might do in her hands.

"And Sauron…" Elrond trails off unsure how to continue. It was the first time he had said the name. "Too weakened— his spirit left its mortal body."

As he had done many times before, as he would do again.

Elrond drops his head, brow resting on his hand, massaging lightly. "It was a blinding burst of power, an unearthly light. And a great shadow followed."

He shakes his head, like that is all there is to say. Galadriel does not speak.

"He will be back." He does not make it a question, but there is a questioning look in his eyes as he peers up at her sitting beside him.

And that she should be the arbiter of this knowledge, of this wretched piece of information, seemed an assumption she should rail against. But he was right. Sauron would be back, and he will be made worse for his loss here.

She tilts her head at him, a twisted pull to her mouth, does not want to tell him he was right.

"But perhaps not without his ring," Elrond continues, hopefully. "We urged Isildur to destroy it, to throw it into the fires spreading, but… he would not."

Galadriel could see it. Already under the power of the Ring, under the will of Sauron, and just a Man. A Man who had seen his father lost right in front of him, who had his own kingdom to look after. Being urged to destroy what seemed his only chance for himself, for his people, by two Elves. Two Elves who had borne Rings of Power themselves.

They would never have had a chance at swaying him, at getting him to part with it, even before the will of the Dark Lord took him. Not without force. And Isildur still had most of an army at his back.

And their alliance between Men and Elves remained so fragile.

"The blast triggered the mountain and we had to leave." Elrond's voice takes on a pragmatic, distant edge. "Isildur took the last of his Men— his father's Men. They march across the South to retake their lands. He said he will return here with the Ring but…"

He does not voice his concerns, cannot.

"We returned." The end.

Galadriel exhales finally, a deep resonating breath from within, exhaling everything that was inside of her.

She knows he is not gone. She is the one burdened with that knowledge a second time. But even the thought of his temporary destruction does not evoke any great feeling in her. Not joy, not grief, she cannot feel anything. Nothing seemed appropriate for the situation.

He had taken so much from her. Her brother, Celebrimbor, had forced her daughter to leave Middle-earth much too early, now Gil-galad. And all that even as he toyed with Galadriel. His mind was many faceted, and unfathomable. And lived on inside her own. Not gone, not really. 

Sauron had laid his own doom with his ring, and now without it, she did not know when he would be back. But she had Nenya, and she would never have to see him again, not if she could help it.

"Do you know the name," she begins suddenly, "Of the sword— of the blade that cut the Ring?" 

She knew. She already knew, but she asks anyway.

Elrond looks up at her, a confused furrow to his brow, but intrigued by her question nonetheless. 

He stands, walking to the nearest arched doorway. Galadriel follows wordless. There is a bundle of fabric sitting on a desk just inside.

"It arrived here the day after we did with a messenger from Isildur."

He unwraps the cloth carefully, peeling it back to reveal the parts of a silver longsword. The hilt section was in tact. The rest in pieces, scattered in jagged shards across the material.

"Narsil," he tells her. 

The white flame.

A familiar jolt of power thunders through her then settles around her centre.

The edge of the blade attached to the hilt catches the low light. It was broken but still sharp. Made sharper by its broken, cracked state. But it was not shiny, not the shining white flame she had envisioned. In fact, it was still covered in the dirt and grime of battle. 

There is a smudge of black along its edge.

Galadriel stops breathing for a moment.

Whomever Isildur had given the artefact to had not even wiped the blade. This was, at least partly, dried black blood, his blood, Sauron's blood.

"We should clean it," she announces without warning, much to Elrond's shock.

He looks down at it, then back up at her and nods, agreeing.

Galadriel does not want to wait— cannot wait.

She reaches down, does not touch the metal. She would not. She hovers the hand with her ring over the broken end, and lets Nenya's power wash over it. Letting the water wash away the blood. 

And Galadriel scrubs clean one of the last physical traces of him from Middle-earth.

Chapter Text

Lothlórien,

And that was the truth of it, for many hundreds of years. The time passed and increasingly only Galadriel and a scant few were left to remember.

He was gone and a third age of Middle-earth begun.

Galadriel and the other Ring-bearers had been free to put their rings back on without concern. The healing power they wrought upon the scorched earth enough to quell Elrond's slight apprehension.

She and Celeborn make their home in Lindórinand, building the great city of Caras Galadhon. They were Lord and Lady of the Wood— of the Galadhrim, and all around deferred to their will, their tutelage. 

She was glad to be a beacon of hope and courage in this world.

The Rings he had planted the idea of so long ago in Celebrimbor's head, had allowed herself and the Elves to amass nearly everything they had ever wanted. Homes of beauty and order and grace. He had made her a queen— just not his.

Through Galadriel, Nenya keeps the land alive and pure, and filled with fair light. 

She thinks of Gil-galad when she plants the seeds of the Mallorn trees, that he had given her from the Great Tree in Lindon. Their silver trunks and golden foliage recalling the light of Two Trees. When she listens closely, she can hear the trees growing. They whisper softly to each other. Celeborn says they are singing.

The pale gold of their leaves carpets and canopies the city, cradling all who entered, and inspiring the name Lothlórien. The Golden Wood, a bright lamp amongst the deep green of the surrounding forests. 

The Rivers Nimrodel and Celebrant wash down through the mountains, joining together where their cool and constant streams can flow through her mind as they do Lothlórien. Even as a child, when she had spoken to Finrod of light and darkness she knew there was something else to be learned there. Sometimes the lights shine just as brightly reflected in the water as they do in the sky…

And it is in these healing blue waters that she learns the truth of many things, of protection, of foretelling. Where she learns as much of an answer to her question as she ever would know.

And from her home amongst the treetops, Galadriel watches her lands prosper, and her people grow.

She had dominion over herself, over her lands, over everywhere she trod in Middle-earth. 

In quiet moments, when the moon was low on the horizon and all the lights of the earth seemed to dim, she would think about what he had offered her, all those years ago. An army, power, lands of her own, all things she had now.

Here she had an empire of her own, and was subservient to none. Celeborn by her side, brave and true. In her flourishing forest of light, no shadow could descend.

And yet.

In her dreams, she looks into her mirror and pulls the neckline of her gown down. The scar that he had left her with has grown and transformed into the brand that was carved into Finrod's chest. The eye of Sauron leaving its mark in the exact same spot on both siblings. A figure with burning eyes watches and steps out of the darkness behind her.

She dreams they are on the raft, and she says yes to his proposal. And he smiles, crooked and brilliant, then knocks her overboard. He reaches out to grab her and instead of pulling her back on, he holds her head under the water until she wakes, gasping.

She dreams they are on the side of the mountain above Eregion, and she says yes again— to him, to his proposal. He smiles again, and still splits her chest open with his crown. Dragging it down her chest in an impossible wound, truly cleaved in two this time. His own black blood pouring from her. He holds her there, watching her cry with the same cold smile on his face. She never goes over the edge and dies at the top in his embrace.

Dreams they were in her hut by the sea, and he begs, begs her to stay with him. And she says yes, and his teeth upon her neck become the great yawning jaws of a beast, all sharp fangs and a mouth full of blood—  

Each time she is awoken by a phantom pain, one that Nenya quickly eases and soothes. But the cruel twist inside her chest leaves her breathless, and that takes slightly longer to abate. 

She never dreamed about the deaths of others anymore, those true horrors were hidden from her by her ring. This was how she knew her dreams were not sent by him, but rather came from a place of his own making inside her, his own obsession with death creeping in.

Galadriel found it odd that she ever even thought about accepting. However, something still pulled inside her to think of it. A part of herself lost since he was. A part that still felt the pull of him like a thread of connection.

And what would happen if she did pull at that thread, would she unravel, would it all unravel?

She is reminded of being pulled under the ocean all those years ago. She was tangled in a rope, something so small and meagre, dragging her into the depths.

—

And then, the young ranger appears. A Man of the Dúnedain, a lost king— returned. Reluctant to power, and so all the better suited to it, if all the stories were to be believed.

And just like when Celeborn returned to her; she is doubtful of his appearance, of his timing. It is too similar. She had not gone looking for him this time, he had not been heard in an age— except for in her dreams, and still the shadow of Sauron haunted her.

She stares at this Man, flaying him open with her tree-lit eyes, right through to his bones. She cannot help it. 

He was already older than his visage gave away, though that was not so strange given his Númenórean blood. Sauron would know that, too. He had been a Man once, had been one in every way, yet was still unable to age in the natural manner of Men.

He was so familiar it hurt, like the long forgotten ghost of something twisting in her chest. So familiar she almost lets fear take her.

The tousled dark hair, stubbled chin, golden skin. He looks back at her, unafraid but cautious; he had been amongst the Elves for a long while now. If Galadriel could let herself blush anymore, she might have. He was stern faced and bright-eyed, keen grey eyes— no flecks of green, no sparks of the fire hidden within. There was flash of sorrow there, a burden of the past. 

Handsome and heavy-hearted. 

Unaware that one had traversed Arda for centuries with a face so similar to his. He was tall for a Man, his gait and bearing already well tuned to capturing the respect of others, to gaining their trust and therefore their lives. It was as if Sauron had known, had prophesied the coming of this Númenórean descendant himself and had tried everything in his power to prevent it.

But Elrond vouches for him, and never could he have a more convincing ally in her eyes. 

His lineage was not murky. It was much easier to trace, no hidden scrolls, no broken line. A mother, a father, a direct line back to Isildur, back to Elendil.

She does not quite feel like she wears the blood of all of Númenor anymore, though the shame and guilt were still there. But something like hope flickers in Galadriel's chest, too. 

She ignores how much it feels like the last time she had felt hope for the race of Men. Another lost king, standing under the sun, shining and golden in his armour aboard a Númenórean ship.

Galadriel watches him with Arwen in Lórien, both out from under the thumb of Elrond. They sit amongst the flowers, under dappled light, talking, singing, smiling, and it is pure and true. Their faces, their expressions as they gaze at one another wrap around her heart and lodge themselves there beneath her ribs. 

She remembers with amusement, before his engagement, it had been obvious to all but her old friend how he felt about Celebrían. She was Elrond's worst kept secret.

And here was history repeating itself. Again and again.

—

Then, like she had thought the Shadow back into form, whispers make their way over the Greenwood. 

Celeborn had been to see on a routine check. She had advised against it, not without further preparations, not without her. But he could not always be stopped, and she did not want to prematurely alarm anyone. 

She kisses him upon his return, he is unscathed and with little new information beyond an unsettling amongst the animals and trees of the Greenwood. His company had not entered the old abandoned fortress there.

Galadriel cannot let it lie, not now, not after so long.

She would see for herself.

She had not been able to go through their pathway since the last war. She had tried afterwards, just to be certain, but could not. She stands at the top of one of their tallest flets under a moonless night and tries again. It was murky, like looking through deep water, but she persists and eventually to her horror, finds it. She finds the through line, takes a deep breath and crosses.

He is not there.

Everything is hazy, in the disconnected way of a dream. He was both nowhere and everywhere, blanketing her vision of this place. And it was a corporeal place but all black, shrouded in darkness. Stone probably, beneath her feet.

Out the corner of her eye was a figure, but one she can never land her waking eyes on. A wind whips around her, warm for the unearthly chill of this place, it feels like a hand running up her spine, and she shivers regardless. 

It moves again and tugs a lock of her hair out from behind her ear, pulling it like he was twirling it between ghostly fingers. A line he had drawn and never crossed before. His self control ran strong and deep in life, a mirror to his rage, and now it was frayed.

Galadriel snaps her head away, and focuses, concentrating her power so Nenya could unshroud the landscape.

A fortress, turreted, dank. Something at work beneath the ground, rumbles and vibrations in the foundations below her feet. And a foul stench of death on the air. The Greenwood fortress, not so abandoned. 

The low rasp of what can only be Black Speech comes from behind her, from above. He ghosts around her like a spirit, she feels him everywhere. He would not step into form, was not yet fully ready to corporealise.

A shadow falls over the light Nenya is emitting on her finger, and her ring moves slightly as if touched. Galadriel whips her hand out of his reach. Then, more familiar like he has realised who she is, has remembered, a whisper in the common tongue.

My lady, directly against her ear.

The next day, she orders the construction of the lookout on top of Cerin Amroth, onto their tallest tree, to watch in that direction.

Galadriel finds herself up there more than she is willing to admit. Finds herself up there often without even making the choice to go much of the time. It becomes a routine, so that Celeborn knows if she is nowhere to be found, he will find her up there. He is good and does not bring it up beyond a kind knowing smile.

She stares out at the wood, a clear line of sight. Knows in her gut that he chose that spot because of her. And if she had chosen Lothlórien because of its proximity to Mordor, that was purely strategic. His reappearance right on her doorstep felt personal.

Far and yet all too near. The River Anduin, the only thing separating them now. 

—

The whispers do not abate. In fact, they only seem to grow in strength. Like an ember catching on the wind, falling, and taking hold; the fire inside her mind grows.

Mithrandir talks of a Necromancer, hiding somewhere in the Greenwood, the locals of the area have taken to calling it Mirkwood. Orcs on the move. Common folk whispers of a sorcerer. Whether it could be He. It is all beginning to feel unsettlingly familiar to Galadriel. 

He had a physical form now, Mithrandir had seen it himself.

The White Council debates whether it is one of the Nine.

"It is He."

"You seem quite certain of this, my lady."

"Sauron is in the fortress of Dol Guldur," she tells Curunír and Mithrandir.

She does not miss Elrond's too-hard stare.

She humours their doubts, not to seem too certain. "What did he say to you, this Necromancer?" She asks Mithrandir.

"There is no light that can defeat darkness," he tells her, his voice low and certain.

She almost smiles, settling back into her chair. "It is He," she repeats.

They make arrangements to breach the fortress, and Eru himself would have to hold her back. Mithrandir needs it to coincide with his work north of the forest, and so they have to wait longer than Galadriel is comfortable with, but finally the day arrives.

On their ascent she has to forcibly slow her betraying heart, keep her breathing steady. If he was here, as they thought he was, this would be their first physical encounter in an age. The first time they had been in the same place— without crossing their connection, since he had stabbed her with Morgoth's crown and let her fall in Eregion, where he had solidified their bond a lifetime ago.

She tells herself that what feels like excitement is only adrenaline, the rush of potential battle.

She wears her finest gown regardless, just to show.

Galadriel could not dissuade the other members of the council from coming with her, but as they step up the long dark entrance to Dol Guldur she convinces them to split up. They could cover more ground, flush out the Enemy faster. And would find one another if there was danger.

Mithrandir, Curunír, and Elrond each take a wing of the fortress. Galadriel follows her nose. She knew she would be the one to find him. 

If he did not find her first. For he certainly knew they were there.

Dark clouds now constantly covered the hill the castle sat upon, bringing a chill to the air. What was he now? She wondered as she trod carefully through the dank stone surrounds. He had remade his form after Númenor, but still had his ring then. How much could he remake without it? 

Knew in her heart now after so long, that she would recognise him in any form.

She does not have to wonder long.

There were no rumblings beneath her feet this time, but the tinge of the air told her this was an illusion, a neat facade placed just for them. The smell of death was everywhere on the air, but she was following something else, a lingering perfume of smoke, of fire. 

Her senses draw her high up in the stronghold. Out onto a large hall, roofless, the walls and columns falling in ruins at the sides leaving it open to the elements. She could see the forest stretching out below the far ledge, and beyond it the dark impression of Mordor to the south. The fortress was the perfect spot with which to watch his lands in the east and south, the Dwarves in the north, and her to the west.

The wind buffets her, up on the summit of the hill now, and a low rasp swims through the air. "Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky."

The Black Speech of Mordor, of Him. The voice was coming from no discernable spot, Galadriel holds her ground.

"Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone…"

She swallows, and finishes the next line of the poem, "Nine for mortal Men doomed to die."

There is a scrape of metal against stone and Galadriel turns towards the sound. A figure stands in an adjoining archway, hidden almost entirely in the dark. She can see only a shadowy outline and two fiery orange eyes.

One for the Dark Lord.

He steps out of the shadow, his form almost did not fit inside the large archway. Tall and armoured head to toe, Sauron stood before her. 

He takes another step, his feet solid and heavy against the stone floor.

This was the scent of fire and death upon the air. His armour was wrapped around him like it was a part of him now, moulded to his large, muscled form. She could not see his face, could see nothing under there except the two fires glowing behind the slits in the helmet.

He was taking in her form as well. She expects a quip, a jab, something, but none comes. He knocks his head to the side slightly, angling it down at her, then takes a metallic step to his right.

She follows, and they begin to circle one another.

"You have not brought your sword." His voice held less of a rasp now, but hummed with an echoing, metallic quality from inside his helm.

"I have brought another weapon with me," she responds, voice steady.

And here they were again, Galadriel with her ring, Sauron without one. Atop another mountain, inside another ruined structure, facing off. A battle being waged somewhere further afield, death following him wherever he went.

"So I see." Her ringed hand heats under his attention.

He speaks to her only in the Black Speech. As if he had given up on anything else. It is a menacing language, made of hate, made of fire, like its creator. Galadriel is mildly shocked to find she that she understands it so well. She is less shocked to find his voice flows through her mind as well, helping her translate.

"Do you not remember the fairer tongues?" She questions him.

Something that could almost be a laugh rumbles from him. 

"Would you rather that I did?" He stops circling, turning his full gaze on her, not-quite pinning her under its force. He does switch to the Common Speech. "Would you rather the Common tongue— the sweet whispers in your ear, you always seemed to respond so well to in the past?"

Her face does not heat, but it is a close thing, and he is watching her so carefully. She would never have described his words or what they shared as sweet. No matter what he said.

He hears that thought.

No, perhaps not.

"An innate clawing need that you still feel inside yourself, even now. Would that be more accurate?" 

And for all his words annoy her, she wants to hear what he has to say. There was something incongruous about a Man's voice, a voice so similar to one she knew well, coming from this monster's mask.

"Perhaps there are those here who would be interested by that. Interested in how many ways I've had you, how many ways the Dark Lord has truly seen you."

His eyes bore into hers now. Even from many feet apart, the heat alone makes her want to close hers in response, blink away the sting of them.

He threatens to tell everyone their secret. He would not. She knows that with a certainty she cannot place. She had Nenya, he had nothing, only himself. She sends a thought to Elrond, to the others.

Galadriel swallows her cutting retort, and holds out her hand, trying to move him with her power, remove him from this place, from so close to her. She cannot. She has a vivid unwelcome memory of shoving him in the chest once as he stood unmoving, before laying down in her bed by the sea. He was naked then. He was clad in heavy armour now. 

She tries for his mind, fragmented and covered though it is. 

"You cannot win, Galadriel. Even now, in my presence you fade." Usually his fiery rage pushed right at the surface, and it is there, but what she feels most is a cold absence. Something that was inside him, no longer there. It was a way, a rope with which to pull. "You are a single light alone in the darkness."

"I am not alone," Galadriel tells him. Unlike he.

She hears the soft swish of a sword being unsheathed behind her. The others heard her call and arrived. They watch her back, weapons drawn, staffs, swords, but none move to intervene. She hears Elrond's hesitation. He did not want to lash out and put Galadriel at risk. He had seen up-close too much destruction wrought at the Enemy's hands. He watches vigilantly, poised to strike. Mithrandir is shaken by the fact that she had decided to take him on, on her own at all. Curunír thought her rash.

Sauron's anger unfurls all around them with a groaning roar of bending air. Her companion's unwelcome presence pushing him into its fiery pits. That she had invited others to their meeting, especially two of his kin who had been brought to Middle-earth specifically to combat him.

He explodes, making a wreath of fire around himself. The others shrink back from him, Galadriel is unmoved.

"It has begun." He steps out of it, toward her, toward all of them. No longer interested in toying with her. "The time of the Elves is over. The Age of the Orc has come."

His words were a lie, even to himself. She knew he did not care for the Orcs, did not want them as part of his world. He spoke now only to cause her pain, a pure and personal venom dripping from him just for her. Galadriel rises up to her full height, becoming taller in power herself. Her body thrums with the power of Nenya, of her rage. She would use it. She would not allow him to amuse himself with her for years, then threaten her with the extermination of all her people.

"You have no power here, Shadow of Morgoth." Galadriel can hear her own voice coming out deep and otherworldly. 

Sauron responds, the Black Speech rebounding in the space, but she cannot make out the words.

She focuses her rolling wave of power and makes herself a light, a pale flame on a stormy sea. He turns his head, as if blinded, and his fire extinguishes momentarily in her brightness.

"You are nameless." She advances upon him. Her dress billows around her slowly, ethereal, like she was underwater.

She was light and dark together in one, the very thing he had been asking her for. He side-steps her path, almost taking a backwards step. His speech continues but her words, like a spell of their own, cannot be overpowered. 

"Formless," she rasps.

Sauron retaliates, remaking his ring of fire. It is an eye, wide and glowing around him, his tall form the dark streak of the centre.

"Faceless." 

And though she cannot see his face, did not know if he had enough of one to do so, she knew he was smiling. A cracked spiteful smile.

His thoughts were muddied. He was fighting her, but she senses something coming off him, something inside her head that felt like triumph. He was overpowered and angry about it, but deeper down, he was pleased to see her so powerful, relished in it. She had seen the same emotion cross his face when she made her first prophecy to him.

She resents the condescension and glows brighter under his praise in turn.

"Turn back to the shadow you once were." Galadriel knew the words had come from her, knew the hoarse resonance on the air was her, but she could not recognise it. It had been so long since she had evoked power like this.

She was so bright now, her skin crackling in the air. The light coming off Nenya so bright she senses even her allies have cowered from it. She could not see. All the world was dark except for he and her.

Sauron stands, still. His backwards steps have placed himself at the edge of the parapet. It thunders through her and she fills him with her light and pushes.

He resists, weak, wavering, but long enough that she has a moment of concern, then he lifts a foot and tips it off the ledge behind him and falls.

With a grunt, he goes over the edge of the cliff and does not return. Her hand outstretched towards his retreating form. 

A great shadow rises up over all of Dol Guldur, hovering over them, ripping the air out of the very sky, suffocating.

She can summon nothing for a beat, a pregnant pause, the heart of a storm. 

Her power flashes through her like lightning, and Galadriel explodes in a shaft of light, her tether to it snapped and broken. Nenya blinding even her.

The shadow dissipates.

And all her power leaves her.

Storm clouds roll and thunder over towards the east.

She staggers backwards, her shaking hand finally dropping to her side.

Elrond jumps up, rushing out to catch her before she completely hits the floor. He lowers her to a sitting position, keeping a comforting hand on her back, while Galadriel tries to hold on to her consciousness.

There is somewhat of an argument afterwards. Elrond and Curunír were disagreeing on what to do next. Elrond wanted to warn Gondor, ever the statesman and advocate for the other races. 

"The spirit of Sauron has been banished," Curunír was saying.

She puts out her hand, letting her face fall against the side of Elrond's knee. This was not the place for discussion.

"He will flee into the East," she croaks out. "Then return to Mordor."

Nobody argues with her. Even from her place on the floor.

Mithrandir and Elrond help her out of the fortress. Elrond will take her back to Lothlórien, the Istari had their own jobs. They will all have to watch for further sign of Sauron for the foreseeable future.

Back outside, Mithrandir helps her up onto her horse.

"He ran from you, my lady," he says, gazing up at her, his voice quietly awed.

"He jumped," she mumbles in reply.

She could not even spare a thought for their victory. She had used most of her strength, and he had retreated anyway. Revenge for her same slight against him long ago.

Half-slumped on her horse, she cannot help from looking over her shoulder for most of the ride back to Lothlórien. The forest jumping out at her like an enemy.

The great river Anduin approaches and its fast flowing water sounds like her name being called out, being whispered right against her ear.

Galadriel.

They cross the river, the echoing sound only stopping once she is on the other side.

That night she dreams of fire, a dark fire that does not burn but warms her skin like an embrace. Flames brushing over her cheek, familiar and gentle.

—

Sauron returns to Mordor, as she knew he would, and declares himself openly.

The years that come after are an onslaught.

She had pushed him out of hiding and invited his wrath again. Now, in addition to the physical attacks on Lothlórien from Mordor, Galadriel faced his constant attempts to enter her mind.

The night is long, and peace seems so far.

But Nenya meant preservation and protection. Concealing her lands and mind from his influence.

And with it, she could consider him a dream. A ghost over the day if she chose to dwell on it, but forgettable, intangible in the face of her Golden Woods.

She had done her part to block their path. His presence was only there when she focused on it. He was closer when she shut her eyes, pushing up against the backs of them.  

He would talk and talk, even getting nothing in return, uncertain she was listening. He never stopped attempting contact. She listens. Wrapped in hubris once she had stopped listening in to the part of his mind that concerned her, and he had been able to forge his ring right under her nose. She would listen now to whatever he had to say.

Galadriel does not respond, only in thoughts that he was no longer privy to.

You keep a part of yourself locked up inside, my lady. A part that has always been there, and is now hidden.

It was not hidden. She was changed.

I have left an imprint on you, on your heart.

Yes, a scar.

That was almost pleasant for him these days, usually he led with his anger, with his spite. And still his malice would not win out, not against his need for domination, against his need for her.

He would attempt to torture her with visions of them together. As they had been many times. And it was always a manipulation of the act, but they were not falsehoods, nothing fabricated; all memories plucked from his eternal mind.

The memories were all hands, teeth, eyes, skin, eyes, mouth, eyes, eyes— 

Reminding her of a time they were both more human, both more removed from their power. Her, more grounded in her body, in her form. He, less of an ancient spirit, more of a beast, hot-blooded, flesh and bone.

And yet, she had never been more connected to her power than when she was with him, than when his ran right alongside hers. Not even now, with Nenya.

Perhaps what he thought would unsettle her most was that she was always enjoying herself, was always a willing participant in these memories. Just to show her he'd owned her pleasure so completely, had it tightly coiled around him and had known it well.

Annoyingly, she does have a reaction to it. Thinks she would have to be dead not to. They were deeply passionate evocations, almost like he had slowed time down to analyse the details.

Times she had raked her nails down through the hair of his chest, unable to keep away, had wrapped her hands around his thickness, had opened herself up for him and led the way.

Times he had stopped fucking her mid-way to drop down, pleasure her torturously with his mouth, before moving to slide back in once she was uncontrollable.

These morph into a memory of them on their sides, her knee hitched over his waist, his strong solid thigh under hers. Just gently rocking them into each other, whilst he pierced her mind with wide, hopeful, green eyes.

One specific instance early on, where he had bent her over a desk in one of his rooms, truly taking her like an animal, and made her climax hit her so hard she had shattered. She had cried out and he had not relented, using his hand to guide her through wave after wave of coursing pleasure. Every few thrusts he would bring his fingers up to his mouth, desperate to taste her again before dropping his hand back down to her core. And it would make her groan to watch every time.

She had been so thoroughly felled after that she had taken, what seemed at the time, the only next logical step. And seeing his curved-leaf blade again sitting on a side-table, had taken it, trussing it up in the folds of her cloak as she was leaving. A way to take something back, to leave with some semblance of power in her grasp, even if it was literal. The same knife that sat now somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

The image morphs into another particularly rousing one. 

He was behind her again, pushing her into the mattress— even after all this time he remembered the effect it had on her. He dropped forward, pressing his front completely against her back, laid on top of her, still moving, but pressed so close.

He tucks his chin over her shoulder, stubble scratching as he kissed her cheek, her jaw, behind her ear. He was a comfortable presence all around her as she luxuriated in the soft bed below her, the solid weight behind her, and the slow deep pressure building within her. His hands under her making it an embrace from behind, almost a hug. 

Tethering her to the earth just as she was floating away, centering her here with him, in that moment. Pressed into the curve of each other, filling a cavity. Covering her, coveting her. 

He rasps, whispering against the pointed tip of her ear. And a large hand comes up to softly hold at the base of her throat, sending her convulsing, gasping, over the edge into oblivion.

It nearly falters her step now, blinded by the acute recollection of her pleasure. A strong, constant, full-bodied warmth blooming all throughout her body, filling her, making her very skin ache.

He had rolled them both over afterwards without rearranging, pulling her to lie atop him, between his open legs, her head resting back against his chest. Splayed open to the world, his forearm thrown casually across her chest. Him at her back, the world at her front.

Galadriel can almost feel his breathing form under hers now.

And she realises, the visions, the memories, had erased his own need almost entirely. They focused on her and not all the ways he had needed her, begged her, had lost control holding her body and using it for his own pleasure, looking at her with an all-consuming, awe-filled watery gaze. 

He did not want to think about his own wants and desires, placing the onus completely on her. A power he had hoped for that had now become a weakness in his eyes.

All the memories featured him plying her with loving whispers of her name— which had happened, but also erased the craven lust-fueled things he used to say to her, used to press into her skin, groan into her ear.

Ever the soft lulling, "Galadriel, Galadriel."

And despite its quiet repetition, the sound always evoked a strong feeling within her. True memories of her feelings and his mixed together. That they had felt this so strongly in each other's presence for so long, for so many years, seemed strange and fanciful.

She had not imagined the loss of it would be so big. Had not imagined the loss of him would affect her so. 

Galadriel had seen enough of these now that she could accept them, would sometimes endure them just to embrace that side of herself. She did not need to hide from herself anymore, did not need to forget anymore, had acknowledged within herself that she was still that Elf. 

Still the Elf that had kissed him, lain with him, sought him out. This was the only way to endure, to go on. And simply making him the villain of her life would not make that go away.

Every day was a lesson in cradling the knife even as it carved you open.

Still, she does not respond.

She was constantly reconciling that all this was coming from someone who was actively moving armies, fighting across multiple fronts, was drowning in the search for his ring, in the need for it. And yet, he still had the faculty to devote this attention to her.

His mind was terrifying.

He would feel it when she was ignoring his attempts, was not rising to his bait. And on particularly bad days he would double his efforts. It is often in the depths of night, she feels him push up against her barrier more easily in the still evening air. Somewhere they both walked the night alone. 

She is out in the far reaches of the Golden Wood, trying to hear something of the rest of the world, the quiet, the Ósanwe, when he calls it 'love'.

None of them can love you like I did, because none of them have ever known you like I did.

Galadriel almost jumps out of her skin. Completely faltered in her ability to think, to breathe, for a moment. It was the first time he had dared use the word.

She cannot help but to respond, has dropped the barrier to his mind without even a second thought. 

"That was not love!"

He had felt something for her, she could not deny feeling it, but it was as something to keep, something shiny to collect and control.

"It was thirst, if you must call it something— but nothing more. You cannot love."

He is quiet. Shocked she had responded, or simply satisfied now that he had finally earned a response.

I assure you I can. Comes the lowly reply. I am… far from it here.

"That is of your making." He had chosen this path, chosen it over and over again. "You are the very absence of love. You hold a yawning chasm inside you like it is something— it is nothing. It is not a life."

It could never have been her life.

A cold wind bustles through the trees, blowing leaves off their branches, waking sleeping birds up from their perches. But nothing else comes. 

Galadriel puts a hand out and feels the warmth of the days sun still lingering against the Mallorn tree's trunk.

No, it was not love. Whatever they had, it was born of sorrow. He was the snake that twisted inside her. He was that same old blade twisting. It was a mistake to keep it inside her this long, but it was hers now too. What might she be without it? How might she have ruled without its lesson? Without the lesson of his stake through her chest— without his voice in her head.

It was love, my lady. A whisper through her mind, through her chest.

And out of everything, her mind trips over the use of 'was'. 

We are two mirroring calls in the night. We were made for each other.

"That does not mean we were good for each other," she tells him. "The axe was made for the tree."

She knew it did not escape his notice that she had built her City of Light in the forest, amongst the trees. And in opposition to her, to her rejection, he had consistently pulled down and burnt the woodlands of Middle-earth. 

Collateral of his war aimed directly at her, at her heart.

She does not allow him to respond again, shutting her mind. Treading over the soft grasses and leaves back through the forest to Caras Galadhon— alone. 

—

Galadriel felt as if she were grieving constantly. Grieving what could have been, what was, what could never have been.

This was the burden of the Wise, the greatest burden of the Elves. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. The peace and protection of their lands is her only salve. And even that would not last, not if Elrond's council failed.

The Fellowship arrive in Lothlórien, their last great hope against the Shadow.

And they are deeply grieved themselves. The loss of Mithrandir is a great tragedy, the kind of loss that all understood instinctually. The kind of loss that should draw them together, but instead they are pulling apart— in all directions.

Galadriel reaches out and through the grey mist of fire and ice, she can sense Mithrandir's time was not over, his work was not done. None of theirs was.

They stood upon the edge of a knife.

She assesses them all, and indeed it is the work of Him, of the Eye. Unavoidable in the presence of his ring. Never was his work more clearly shown than in the estrangement of those who opposed him. That their prejudices were held true, so close to their chests, so close beneath the surface, ready to boil over at any moment.

Her testing offers of power tempt even the fairest of their hearts. Her voice in their heads— she knew exactly where she had learned that particular trick.

She focuses on Frodo. She feels for the Halfling. He carries something of her former lover, she had felt it getting closer and closer these past few weeks. A whisper of the real thing, of the true shadow following his footsteps.

He had seen the Eye. It was upon him, as it was upon her. 

More than that, he was also touched by a Morgul blade. Right through his chest, nearly through his heart.

He was not Elven kind, could not heal as well as she. She could see traces of her old friend's power inside Frodo, Elven healing wound around his skin where it scarred. Elrond's prowess and possession of Vilya had helped all that they could. And she wondered if he had been thinking of Celebrían as he did it, thinking how it still may not even work.

There was something about the young one that only she could see. A darkness that was already creeping around his soft edges, blooming from within.

But there was something she had learned in all her years alongside the Dark Lord, all her years of torment from him. Perfection was not righteous. Sauron's pursuit of perfection, of healing, was all just control and fear of the loss of it. The universe was not so polarising, not so black and white. All was the work of Eru.

She was not now terrified of falling into the dark, did not hold the light in such high regard as He. Her lands held both light and dark inside them, as she did. The light of the trees, of Nenya; the dark of the forest, of the night sky.

She watches him from afar, letting their troop rest and recover, until she feels he is ready. 

The night she feels Frodo's mind turn to her, she appears to them. Leading he and Samwise down the southern slopes of the city into an enclosed garden. Trees encircle them, but the silver basin in the centre lay open to the sky. A brightly lit night-sky twinkles and glows above.

She shows them her Mirror. She pours the water into the basin, some of her own power of foresight exhaled forth onto the flowing water from the stream, made still in the dark night air, held under the light of Eärendil.

Galadriel invites them to look upon it, but what it will show, even she cannot tell.

Sam's heart was true, of that Galadriel had little doubt. Home, peace, friendship, growth, and the will to defend it all. Something all should aspire to.

She was more curious as to what Frodo would see. The only thing Galadriel ever saw in it now was Him. He was her mirror.

The water darkens, reflecting nothing, not even the stars above, as if it had opened into a void. Then, his eye falls upon them.

It fills the Mirror, pinning Frodo in its terrible gaze. Yellow, beast-like, and made of fire. The water begins to heat, steam rising into the air of the garden. The Enemy's sharp pupil begins to move around, searching for the Ring, searching for the Ring-bearer. It pulls Frodo forwards, his mind already within its reach. She fears what might happen if he were to actually fall into Sauron's grasp. What dark path the Dark Lord might be able to forge.

The water boils just below the Hobbit's form. "Do not touch the water," she reminds him quietly. Sauron's eye widens and her voice appears to break the spell over the night.

The vision already beginning to dissipate as Frodo straightens up, the water fading back to darkness, becoming still once more. And finally the lights of the Menel reflect back onto them from above.

It was, by now, a familiar visage to her, Frodo however was shaking all over, filled with horror at what he had seen— that he had been seen.

He stood alone in the garden. His small face turned up towards hers, seeking answers, seeking refuge. All things she had sought herself.

"You are a Ring-bearer, Frodo. To bear a Ring of Power is to be alone," Galadriel tells him, making her voice as soft as possible. 

Even Sauron knew that.

But perhaps he need not be entirely alone. She holds out her hand and shows him Nenya. She could not hide it from another Ring-bearer, tied as they all were. Her ring glitters with a bright silver light. He gazes at it in awe and she knows he understands.

"I know what it is you saw," she says. Frodo's hand clasps the chain around his neck. "For I perceive the heart of darkness." Galadriel takes a steadying breath before continuing. "I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, and he gropes ever to see me and my thought."

It was the first time she had ever come close to speaking the truth to anyone.

He looks back at her, wide-eyed, understanding.

"And what do you wish?" Frodo asks after a moment of silence.

"I wish the Ring had never been made," she tells him gently, truthfully.

And perhaps because she has not asked for it, has shown almost no interest in it, he offers her something she never expected. "You are wise and fearless, Lady Galadriel."

He lifts the chain from his neck, placing the Ring in the palm of his little hand.

"If you ask it of me, I will give you the One Ring." Frodo presents her with the temptation— the great temptation, the same one she had been building a resistance to for centuries now.

He holds his hand out, palm up. The Ring, unguarded, within her grasp.

And she had seen it before, up close— but it was different away from him, different when not worn by its master. Here, it was a solid thing, in the real waking world, could not be disappeared away in an instant.

She hovers her hand over it. She could not even touch it, should not— he would know immediately. He would know that it was her who had it and therefore where it was, and he would have Lothlórien torn down before morning.

But she would still have it, and if she put it on, she would have the power to resist him for all.

"Instead of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen," her voice rumbles.

A familiar thundering crash of power burns through her, scorching her veins.

She feels the power of Sauron directly, in a way she hadn't since they were more connected. Since his power had thrummed intimately alongside hers, flowing inside her own.

She hears his ring whispering directly into her head. It was his voice and also not. Had none of the subtleties of his own deception, was simply the promise of unimpeded power. And a vision she had seen again and again. His vision for her, thrumming in her blood, turning it to black fire. It was a chant over and over. 

His words ringing against her mind, echoing through her voice. "Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun!"

Stronger than the foundations of the earth.

The power he once hoped she would want, was lessened here. Lessened by the years, by her own ring. The offer of that cryptic power holding less sway over her now that she had a taste of it. Nenya sits solid and real on her finger. It was enough.

She lifts her own hand, Nenya's weight grounds her and its light illuminates her form, leaving all else dark.

It radiates for a moment while Galadriel makes her final choice, the only choice, closing her mind around the thought.

She drops her hand. Frodo closes Sauron's Ring in his fist and drops his own hand, stepping back a few paces, finally released from the pull of her power.

She rejects the Ring, as she had rejected the Dark Lord. Her mind quiets, the loss leaving her slightly saddened. But as the rush of her power completely dissipates she is filled with a lightness, an airy freedom, and she laughs suddenly. Unburdened by the weight of it any longer.

She manages to reign in her laughter in the wake of their scared little faces and ushers them back to their party, leaving the garden and the stream and the stars behind.

As they walk back, Sam says she should have taken the Ring, that she would know how to use it on their enemies.

"I would," she agrees with him. A shiver of the previous power, still lingering, tingles through her. "But it would not end there."

That would not be the end of it. And she saw now that was not her path, had never been. She owed herself an apology for all those years of inner torment. She was not what he had always said. It was a part of her, but not the whole.

The waters of the Celebrant again flow through her, flowing through her mind, comforting and taming. And she feels anew, enlivened. Galadriel awaits her next meeting with the Enemy eagerly. For she felt certain there would be one more before the inevitable end.

As she bids the doomed Fellowship farewell, she tells the future king that he has a choice to make: to rise above the height of his forefathers, or fall. And if she is including Halbrand in those forefathers, it is for her own sake.

It was the same choice she had been given. She knew he would make the right one.

He bows his head to her. Galadriel reaches out and lifts it, keeping her hand lightly on his strong stubbled chin. It is the closest she will ever come to being close to that face again.

He loves Arwen and it is real. She can see it shining in his grey eyes. Arwen was all the best parts of her parents. Strong-willed, smart, resilient, as kind and beautiful as the best of their kind.

And she had chosen him, even to her own detriment. A choice Galadriel had not been brave enough to make.

"We shall not meet again, Elessar." A final push towards his fate. A promise, a quiet threat.

She watches the Fellowship sail away down the Anduin, towards their destinies. The dark power of the Ring floating away with them, only a lingering memory in her mind. For they had all made their choices and the tides of fate were flowing once again.

Chapter Text

In the land of Mordor,

Elrond is uncertain, was possibly losing hope now after so much, after Celebrían, after Arwen, after it all. He knew Aragorn well— better than Galadriel, and still he saw him as Isildur, was haunted by what felt like his own failure there. He could not see the white light of Elendil in the Man's gaze as she did.

Her friend comes to her with questions— unanswerable, and worries not completely voiced. She cannot assure him. They both knew their time was drawing to a close. 

"Do we leave Middle-earth to its fate? Do we let them stand alone?"

She had all but given up on foretelling, but she knew in the depths of her soul that there would be a final crossing of the barrier between her and Sauron, one final meeting. And she was not afraid of him, no matter what he was now, so she decides to make it happen.

Galadriel opens the pathway and suffuses across. There is no resistance. She was only a little surprised. He had been trying to see into her world, into her mind, for so long and had left himself undefended in the process.

They were in the Dark Tower's throne room.

The tower itself was different. The Men of the South had laid siege to it after Isildur claimed the Ring, and so it had been rebuilt from the fortified foundations. It was much more stark now. Less warm and well lit than the last time she had been there. No fireplace— Orodruin spewed so much ash and fire these days, no comforts, all was covered in black stone and metal.

And the great Window of the Eye.

She wondered if the upper floors even existed anymore, if there was any trace a bedroom had ever lain there.

Galadriel almost overlooks his form at first. He was not sitting in the throne on the far wall but standing with his back to her, directly in the centre of the window. His large figure a tall streak of black against the orange glow of the stained glass and the burnt air outside.

His head jerks in a twitch that tells her he has sensed her presence, but something is off. The realm feels clouded in a way she has never felt before and it takes Galadriel a moment to figure it out.

He was with someone. The muffled sound she could hear was another being speaking on his side.

It had never happened before and surprise fills her, he was so often alone— as was she.

Galadriel focuses her mind, allowing Nenya to both conceal her and uncover the stranger in their midst. She readjusts her vision and sees the horrible visage of a Man standing just to the side behind Sauron. He was robed in dark royal dress, head bowed deferentially, not one of the Nine but just as foul.

This must be the Mouth of Sauron, an unenviable position. He was unrecognisable, though she had a sense they had met before.

What she can see of the Mouth's face looks confused, a concerned pull across his grim features. 

She knew her presence had dragged Sauron somewhere else for an instant, or at least a part of him. Had he flickered unsettlingly in his servants perception for a blink? Or was it the ringing silence, had his master simply stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence?

Sauron inhales sharply. "Leave," he barks the order and Galadriel knew it was not one that could be physically disobeyed. She also knew it was not for her.

The Mouth shrinks from his anger, bowing low, and removes himself quickly from the room.

Then, they were alone. Her, the Enemy, and his anger— ever present. It pushed at all his edges, almost blurring the air around him.

He had not felt her coming through until it was too late, was not used to her anymore. Stretched too thin now, she thinks. Now it was she who was messing up the order of his interior world. They had not spoken in years, not since he called it 'love'. All his other messages were answered with silence. It had allowed her to all but sneak up on him.

She pads silently across the stone floor, one step at a time, like he was a wild animal she was hesitant to approach too fast.

He was not fully armoured— another surprise. He was unhelmed as he had been after Celebrían's attack, the last time they had truly seen each other. It was a look favoured in private, she guessed, and to grasp for his helmet now would be a weakness. So Galadriel is allowed to see he had the same light, fiery hair as he'd had then too.

The armour that he did wear was different, still a dark metal raiment, but clearly more ceremonial. Finely made and detailed, these plates had never seen battle. They held him up straight, his shoulders heavy and broad, and did not look like they allowed for a wide range of movement. A far cry from the haphazard scraps of metal his Orc army wore.

He hums a low terse sound without turning. "You came to me once before as a distraction," says the Dark Lord, letting her get closer.

And his voice, not muffled by his helmet or coming through her mind, was intriguing. Both the Man she had known and not. It was clear, but there was a lilt to the speech that she was unprepared for; a rasp of his vocal chords on the ends of some words that had never been there before, but was nonetheless familiar to her.

The Common Speech from one who had spoken only Black Speech for years. Galadriel wonders what had made him adopt the change.

She was not a distraction this time, had not come to plead for anything or anyone, had simply come to see. To face the thing that had haunted her for centuries now. Though, she is not surprised he would evoke that memory here. She had listened to him enough over the years to know he was truly foul tongued now. He was different, a broken beastly thing.

She would not be surprised if he had fangs or a forked tongue inside his mouth.

She could evoke the same. "I recall you had a different reaction then," she says lightly, as she finally sidles up alongside him. He was taller, longer limbed, though she feels no fear to be within his reach.

He still does not look at her, but at the sound of her voice he jolts, his spine straightening. 

She rounds the side of him, wanted to look, needed to see suddenly just what the Dark Lord in his Dark Tower really looked like. Galadriel faces his side, craning her head to get a good look.

He had a deathly pallor, made more apparent by the bronze of his hair and the dark surrounds. And to her quiet shock, there was still something familiar in his profile. A slant to the brow, the sharp angle of his nose.

She is hit with a flash of orange as his eyes flicker over to hers before returning back to his window; a warning.

She does not stop her inspection.

An inky blackness crept up his neck in veins, above the high collar of his armour. The same blackness that covered his hands from what she could see of them crossed across his broad chest. They were armoured but he wore no gloves underneath, and the skin there looked like it had been burnt, had turned to charcoal. 

And on his right hand, one missing finger.

A grim revenant, back from the dead.

She cannot imagine having to reinhabit a body that was not whole, that was injured. Knew it would feel especially strange to one such as him, who had been so adept at shifting and changing his form on a whim. Must have been a great fuel for his rage, for his contempt of all.

He interrupts her thoughts with his own. Do not mistake my inaction for acceptance of this, Elf.

"You bear no threat to me anymore," Galadriel intones.

He does not move but his spirit bristles at her words, she can feel it against her mind. On the eve of my victory? 

She continues, "You have nothing to offer me. Nothing to hold over my head anymore."

He cannot help himself. I have a deep unceded knowledge of who you are down to your very soul. 

His tone scrapes through Galadriel's mind, hissing like water over hot coals. She lets the shiver run through her body openly and continues watching his profile. 

"You act as if I have not seen that of you too," she returns.

You could not, even if you tried.

"I have seen your ring," Galadriel says, making herself stand taller to prepare for whatever will come next.

He remains unmoving as a wave of heat spreads throughout the room, the air crackling with it.

"Freely, where I may have taken it," she hums, unmoved.

He blinks, it is a twitch. She thinks she sees his four-fingered hand tighten a fraction where it sat against his bicep, and something that sounds like rock crumbles in the near distance. Something big enough that even she can hear it through the distance of their realm.

"And still, I am here." She smiles again at the thought, a small tempered one now.

Hundreds and hundreds of years of his needling, his clawing away at her, of anxiety that he was right to do it— all done away with. She speaks to him now free of his influence.

Sauron's chest moves in what looks like a deep breath, before he speaks again. "I would not have needed the One if you had been by my side."

A lie. A bending of the reality again, as he always did. That all this should somehow be her fault, be at her doing. 

And she had been by his side, she had been under him in the bedroom that now sat vacant above their very heads— wholly, exuberantly. Not quite the being in front of her now, but one not so completely different, she had to admit.

And still, he had forged it.

"But you would have wanted it anyway."

Sauron does not reply. He watches his window. His control was iron, malleable under heat and unbreakable otherwise.

She continues, her voice light. "I saw your vision for me, as clear as day, clearer than you have ever been able to make it known to me yourself. And still, I am here."

His head tilts slightly, a stilted movement as if he were considering something. 

"Freely?" He repeats, questioning her earlier words. Another flash of his eyes. "You say more than you intend to, Elf." His voice drops an octave.

Galadriel can feel him pushing up against her barrier now, harder, blocked by one of the very rings he had sought to devise. He cannot see her mind unless she wills it, cannot see what she has seen. Nenya's barrier was forever fortified under her refusal of the One Ring.

She has given nothing away, he already knew the Ring had been located. Aragorn had claimed his throne, he was the logical choice. She steers him in that direction.

"The new King of Gondor will—" 

"Gondor," he scoffs. It is the first unchecked reaction she has drawn from him. Kings of rubble, Kings of ash, a quieter, menacing thought.

"The line of Gondor and the Heir of Isildur stand strong—" 

He cuts her off again. "I do not wish to talk of usurpers," he says, voice strained against the hard clench of his jaw.

They had taken something from him. Something that they should not have been able to take.

"Nevertheless, he approaches," she returns, pragmatic. Back towards the same ground his ancestor had felled this Dark Lord and taken his ring.

"Tell me you have not come to me to plead for the lives of Men, my lady," he spits, adding on the epithet as a cruel afterthought.

He had been a Man when she had come her closest to ever giving in to him, when her resolve had been thinnest.

"I have come for the lives of all beings in Middle-earth, even you."

His chin tilts back, another aborted movement that would have perhaps been a snort or a cackle in the past. All things he had lost from himself, from his spirit. His fiery hair jostles further down his back in the movement. The colour matches the Ring, matches what she had seen of his eyes. He must have looked like this since sometime after Númenor. It was strange to think of him under there, this whole time.

He was a visage made in black and grey, in red and orange. The scent of decay and a burnt out landscape. Was it a more ancient version of himself that had crept forward? Something of his look from long ago?

He does draw in a deep rasp of breath now. "I have my boot on his throat," he says returning to the subject of Aragorn. The implied 'Why should I lift it?' hanging unsaid in the air between them. 

"Yes," she agrees quietly. "And you will strike his throat, and he will strike your heel."

A sound grumbles out of Sauron's throat. Something like this had happened to him before. He was haunted by it, haunted by war, by death, as he always had been. Was Mairon really a spirit of fire, or a spirit of death?

'Usurpers,' he had said. He had remade a whole body for himself and still had not been able to remake that which was taken from him. Had not been able to advance upon the body he had after Númenor. Stuck, frozen now.

And a thought strikes Galadriel, that perhaps even if he were able to get back to an equivalent level of power, he would not be able to make another ring— physically. His hands were maimed, hands that he had worked and forged the One Ring with. Was this trauma a retribution, a justice for Celebrimbor's cut hand all those years ago?

For him to be remade in darkness, again and again. No, it was not justice, was only a tragedy really, a tragedy for all involved.

Again he does not respond, was made strangely quiet here. She sits in the silence, looking at him, unwavering. Some revenge for all his years as the ever watchful eye upon her.

He was a large imposing figure in his stillness. She could feel the low heat coming off him, even from this far away. A heat shimmer bends the air around his hands and she knew he could ramp it up if needed. He had made himself the literal thing of fire that his soul had succumbed to. 

He had asked for her light for years and she had not given it. He could not harness it, not even with his ring, he could not harness the Light of the Trees. And so he had set himself on fire just to feel some of it, just to feel the light of the sun.

Galadriel shuffles her feet on the stone but says nothing, waits for him to speak. And in the silence afterwards, it becomes clear to him that she was not here in any rush, was not leaving in any great hurry, and he does speak.

"The halfing carries something of you," he says, shocking her out of her reverie. "I could smell it, even before you arrived." He interprets her silence for the surprise it is. "Yes, I know of the spy sent into my midst," he drawls.

It was light, the light of Eärendil, of a Silmaril, in her phial that Frodo carried. She was not surprised that he had felt it, it was what he had been asking her for— for centuries now. 

Galadriel does not answer, neither confirming nor denying. Letting the statement linger between them, a whisper of smoke to either catch fire or fade away.

He was shockingly dismissive now, considering he had been trying to get her attention for nearly a hundred years past. Had been gazing at her, trying to see into her lands, into her head. This is how it would have been if she had accepted. This cool arrogance to be held over her was the best she could have hoped for. For he could not share power, not really.

She does not do anything to disguise her thoughts and lets him hear this.

An exhale, almost a sigh from him. "I would fight one war at a time, Elf."

Another ridiculous and scathing statement. He was already fighting on multiple fronts, even as they spoke. What was one more?

"The Great Eye sees all," Galadriel says sharply, "And still he will not look in my direction."

Was he only used to looking at people now when he wanted something from them— to intimidate them? Or was it shame? Perhaps he did not want her to see him like this— did not want to be seen himself.

Either way, a change comes over him, diffusing through the air of the room with a rolling wave that nearly pushes her to step back.

He gives another slow blink, then finally turns his head. It is a fast swivel at first, that then slows as he rounds fully upon her. His body follows, the broadness of this form's chest opening up before her. 

And then he is looking upon her.

The first glimpse of his eyes is an inhuman orange scalding. He had made his symbol one eye, and to suddenly behold two again, right where the deep green ones she had known so well were, makes her throat tighten, the air almost choking out of her lungs suddenly. There was darkness spreading out around them in veins.

And as Galadriel holds his gaze, she looks into the beast-like, snake-like pupil, and it is as if nothing gazes back at her from out of them. They were terrible as all who had beheld them before said, as she had seen in her Mirror. If there was something there behind them, it was only hate.

It was what she had asked for, but to be under his full gaze, held at full attention, sends a flush through her. A flush of heat, like he was trying to set her skin alight. A flush of fear, in the back of her mind, no matter how she quelled that thought. He was truly something else. The malevolent demonic thing he had always been Unseen, made manifest.

Sauron's head tilts to one side, then the other. A wolf in Maia's clothing.

"You are changed also, Elf."

She was.

"I am," she says, keeping her voice impassive.

He moves as if he wanted to take a step towards her, but it would place them so close, right in each others space, breathing the same air. And so he rearranges his footing instead. Looming large, peering down at her, his mouth a harsh line pulled ever so slightly into a sneer at one end.

"Darker…colder." He does not say it like it is a good or bad thing. "Silver."

"I am," she repeats. "But it was not your doing." 

Sauron's head lifts minutely, half a nod. "I did not make you dark," he confirms.

Her path to darkness had never begun with him. She had always had it inside her.

It was something she had harboured since she was young, since before Fëanor, and the Flight of the Noldor. Something she had tried and failed to muzzle. It was the reason she had been able to recognise it in others so well. And he had unknowingly taught her to control it, to use it, and work alongside it. Sauron's presence in her mind had evened her out, given a more even keel to her ship.

"But I could have made you great," he continues, undeterred. "Greater in light than any Elf that had ever come before." His eyes glow as he speaks, the fire inside them growing, making her want to hide her own from the sting again.

"You are dimmed and humbled now, Lady of Light."

Lady, not Queen, he thinks.

He had not said her name yet, she notes. Had not named her anything other than epithets. She had called him nameless, and he held a grudge like no other, so nameless he had made her too.

"It is a farce of humility that does not suit you," Sauron finishes on a low murmur.

"And you, the Dark Lord." Not dark, not with you by my side, his words from the raft come flooding back to her. Galadriel inhales quickly and continues. "I see you have not taken the title of king for yourself again."

It is the closest he comes to a smile, a shuttering of his lashes and a bunching of the muscles around his eyes. "Perhaps after my victory. It will be undeniable then."

He could not understand humility, not this god. He was so far from his beginnings as a Maia, so far from the teachings of the Valar— as he wanted it.

"You are so sure of it? So sure of the end?" Galadriel asks. Her own vision clouded by shadow.

"I have foreseen it." He makes his voice repeat in her mind at the same time. I have foreseen it. An ominous echo. His eyes still upon her, unblinking.

She tries to unseat his surety. "I think you are nostalgic, for peace, for times past. I think you tire of this age of blood and ash and fire." She gestures to his window, to the war outside.

His head turns slightly back to the stained glass, his brow furrowing, as if he was shocked he had taken his eye off it to begin with. "It shall all soon be remade," he says slowly.

"It shall."

On this they agree.

"It has been so long, Mairon," she says, not bothering to hide her meaning now. 

His head snaps back to her with a jolt, like he had forgotten the name. His fiery eyes blink a few times in succession, and his face becomes less sharp around the cutting angles of his pupils. 

Her hand tingles with an anticipation. She wanted to reach out to him, to feel he was still real, still there even if it was just the feel of cold armour beneath her fingers. It would be halfway to something, not a reconciliation, but an even ground on which to work.

She does not.

He knocks his head back peering down his nose at her. "My hope has not deserted me, as you have."

"I am here," Galadriel replies, earning a twitch from him.

This was somehow a different beast from the one who had sent her the memories, the years and his choices pushing him ever somewhere she could not go, somewhere he could not easily come back from.

"Do you even remember what it was between us— what it was like?" She continues, turning her eye on his own mind now. He was a monster, how could he?

Even now she felt him thinking of how to use her presence, how to spin her in a web of his own desires. He was a roiling cascade of everything and nothing. Like a chasm, fathomless and yet full of strategy, of armies, of war and revenge, and underneath it all the Ring. The One, the One Ring, His ring—

No feeling, nothing but hate and his abomination.

She did not know what she felt for him, but it was not hate, not even now at the end of all things.

"I remember all, young one," he rasps low, his eyes narrowing. He leans forward fractionally and the temperature of the air between them rises. "Did you think your absence could make me forget you?" The question comes out a threat.

Every name except her actual one and a bitter rebuttal. She had left him, and that was all he could hold on to, was an insult too great to bear. In his mind, she had left him to die over and over. That he had abandoned her first was inconsequential, was never going to align with his inner thoughts.

"You may be here," he sneers, voice slow and languorous, "But you have nothing I need anymore." His eyes skim her face, unimpressed with what they find.

Perhaps if she had fought him again, had used her power, he would again see her in a favourable light. 'Need', she thinks bitterly. Did he need her once? Want, maybe. Desire, certainly. But need?

"And after?" She asks quietly, just a breath.

He inhales sharply, his eyes wild and frenzied in a flash. "After?" He repeats, clarifying, as if he does not believe what he is hearing. "When all this is ended?"

Galadriel does not reply, letting him think she was negotiating for a possible future.

His gaze travels down her whole form, his eyes almost closing in careful consideration. He blinks once, vision clouding as he looks right through her, then turns back to his window with a finality. His body is deathly still, his face hard.

"You would not bandy about 'afters' so carelessly," he says in the end, his voice without emotion. "Leave, Galadriel." 

Finally her name, though somehow made worse than the epithets, more intimate as it passes through his lips.

And it is not a request, she is simply gone, shoved out. Her waking eyes on Lórien again.

He was steadily growing in power. They were nearly too late.

After,

There is, it seems to her, very little time between the things that happen next.

She finds Frodo somewhere in a realm alone again. Heart-broken, physically broken, the Ring telling him to give up, about to abandon all hope.

She pulls him up, pulls him out with a delicate hand in his. She reminds him of his purpose, of his home.

"This task was appointed to you, Frodo of the Shire. If you do not find a way, no-one will."

She knew. She had tried.

He could do it, he was stronger than she.

Then one evening, she is up on the flet on Cerin Amroth. She had thought to enjoy the late light; the days were getting longer, it was coming on spring, and amongst the trees the world could appear less dire. But her gaze was ever pulled to the south. 

It was always darker in that direction and the sky was especially muddy today. His dark domain lay marginally out of her long range of vision. It does not stop her from trying.

Galadriel strains her eyes, focusing on Mordor. She thinks she can make out smoke, dark and billowing, a glint of fire possibly. There is an accompanying sound suddenly, a deep resonant bang, muffled by the distance, but the vibrations in the earth linger much longer.

And a great shadow rises, identifiable even to her, much like had appeared over them on Dol Guldur, though this one was larger, made of more hate. A shiver passes through her, through all the forest.

Nenya burns brilliantly hot against her skin for a horrifying second then— nothing.

Celeborn comes to find her shortly after. He calls her name from below, he thinks he has felt something, has heard something in the woods all around them.

She smiles over at him as he climbs the steps to the platform. Concern clouds his features when he sees her. "You are crying, Galadriel."

She was. She puts a hand out to him, tears in her eyes, and he takes it, standing to her side. She nods. "It is done." 

The Shadow had disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

They did not know the full cost yet, but she knows it will cost them everything. The power of Nenya gone, tied to the One, the power protecting Lothlórien gone with it. If it meant the joy of the Free Peoples and the survival of her kin, of all dear to her, then she would be able to endure it. It would be enough to buoy her for a short while.

The golden haze over Lothlórien begins to lift even before her eyes.

There is no clear pathway to him in her mind, nothing with which to latch on to.

A part of her had expected to feel lighter, free. She searches her heart and just feels adrift again. Untethered, like a strong breeze could blow her away any minute.

Deeper, she encounters something else; a long hidden desire, a longing to go over the sea, in a way she had not in centuries. It was time. 

Aragorn stands atop the White City, regal, broad-chested, and crowned, and Arwen stands with him. He is king and can finally marry his queen. 

And together they will rule, and all Middle-earth will benefit. A reforging, long foretold. A kingdom of peace.

Mordor is destroyed in the eruption. The Black Tower Sauron had built, becoming his final physical resting place. 

She and Celeborn make their way over to Dol Guldur. She had to do something, something for Celebrían, for Frodo, for herself. And with what was left of her power, her thought, her will, whatever malice still lived inside her, she raises her arms and opens the pits under the fortress. 

Destroying one of the last places on Middle-earth that he had touched and left his mark upon. She could not completely rid it of his influence, not until she herself left.

She lets the forest back in to reclaim the dank pits used for necromancy, for dark sorcery by his disciples. The woodlands would creep over rock and stone, and left unimpeded would take over until nothing identifiable as Dol Guldur remained. As if it had never been there. It would have to be enough.

The fresh, green, earthy scent of trees and grass and moss covers the residual tang of ash and coal and smoke. Galadriel lingers for a moment, inhaling deeply, knowing what it reminded her of— who it reminded her of.

Once there is nothing more to be done, she sets out for the Grey Havens. It is a long journey over the mountains, across Middle-earth, back to the sea, one she had not made in an exceedingly long amount of time. Her party expands along the way, picking up Elrond, Mithrandir, and finally Frodo and company.

She is so glad they are there with her, thinks she might split apart with happiness. Their presence making up for the lack of Celeborn, who had decided to stay a while longer. She had said a heartfelt goodbye to Lothlórien, the land that had held her, and all Middle-earth that had kept her. Another to Celeborn, knowing they would meet again. Her sadness covered by an excitement, for this was just the next path in her course.

She steps onto the ship, feeling the water jostle it beneath her. She puts her hand out and steadies their mooring for the others, a quiet final act using the last of Nenya's drained strength.

They all step aboard. All the remaining Ring-bearers aboard one ship. Ones who understood her, who understood the separate weights they had all been carrying more than any other could.

And as they sail out of the Gulf of Lhûn into the setting sun, Galadriel spares a thought for him. A final brief moment of solidarity with his soul, for the one who had unknowingly brought them all together, the one who had begat this entire thing with the idea of the Rings from the start. To bear a Ring of Power was to be alone, she had learned that from him and yet here they all were, together at the end.

Then, their ship passes through the veil of this world.

Chapter Text

The Halls of Mandos,

Galadriel had never given much thought to the Halls that all pass through before entering the Blessed Realm. And although she is unsurprised to find herself walking its corridors, she had always imagined she would be alone. 

Only there is someone else already there when she arrives.

She does not know who he thinks he is or what he calls himself here. He will not talk to her.

She does not question the will of Mandos or any of the Valar. It was possible he was not even really here, perhaps she had brought him forth herself as a figment of her memory. They were both changed from the last forms they had inhabited. Both remade and finely robed, her in a pearlescent white, him in darker earth tones. 

He does not tower over her now, was not even the head taller he had been as Halbrand. He stood just slightly taller than she, they were almost an even height. She had grown, or he had shrunk, or both. A beginning to an even-footing.

He was perhaps a Mairon unmarred by Morgoth's spirit.

"They are the same. I chose him. I chose him for his spirit." 

It is the first thing he says to her. She does not know how to respond.

Mairon can still hear some of her thoughts, and as such he initially finds it difficult to tell where he was. Whether he was actually here in the Doomsman's Halls, or merely back in their realm.

He figures it out.

He recoils from her at first. Did not know how long he had spent imagining dying by her hand and not his own, not his own folly, over and over again. But it was a dream, he realises that now.

He recalls his ghost self. He had endured as a shadow, a spirit on the wind, impossible to rest, impossible to live. No real connection to life or death. He simply was. And then he was here.

—

They wander, sometimes together, sometimes not, it does not seem to matter. There is no great rush within her to leave or find an exit. She had an all-consuming feeling that she would be able to pass through when it was time. 

There was a loneliness to this place, and yet neither of them were. And as Galadriel perceives her own thoughts, she finds a quietly simmering resentment that he is here too. She bites down upon it.

They find themselves one day in a large high-vaulted room, the walls were neither light nor dark, there were windows set in them but they looked out onto nothing discernible. It was a wide smoky void. There was nothing in the room except for them. It reminds her of the Temple on Númenor. It reminds him of the Tower on Tol Sirion.

"We were fated for something," he hums, looking up to the ceiling. "Perhaps this is our punishment." His voice is low and thoughtful, speaking almost to himself.

He had barely spoken a handful of words to her, was still keeping his distance.

"Punishment?" Galadriel asks incredulous, her mouth twisting bitterly. "And why should I not be with my family— with the rest of my kin?" 

Why should I be punished? 

"You tell me, Alatáriel," he snaps back, his words echoing in the cavernous space. He uses the Telerin name her husband had given her, a last barb he could not resist throwing.

You know why.

"You are the one who deserves this," she bites out. "Deserves to live this half-life existence." Galadriel regrets the words as soon as they have exited her mouth.

"And I have been! Have I not endured my death with enough grace for you, my lady?" He yells, harsh and mocking but halts as he finishes, dropping his gaze and turning away from her abruptly. 

She had no answers for him. It was hard to get to anger now— here, even harder to sustain it, and so the rage bubbling inside him fizzles out. Inside both of them.

She turns from him as well, but neither of them leave the space, cannot make themselves walk away.

And maybe she was stuck here because Celeborn had stayed behind. They were tied too, and she was being made to wait. Stuck between two people, two places. Or maybe she was being punished. For all she had done, for not doing enough. Her doom for being a Noldor.

Had they both not already given their lives? 

Neither speak. It was how many of their meetings had ended. A slow quiet tapering out, a few barbs lobbed, a back against stone, a sword at the others chest. An impasse— unpassable.

—

Mairon was sitting at the top of a tall grand staircase that sat at one end of a great hall. He was relaxed, his forearms resting on his thighs. This hall was long and well lit. It had a luminous foggy glow, as if its ceiling was so high it opened onto the sky. It was a strange sensation to be somewhere so light and airy yet undeniably in the earth.

He is looking out over nothing in particular when Galadriel approaches from behind. A cautious gait to her step. 

She was confident now that they were both physically here. That the Maia first known as Mairon inhabited these halls with her. They had both been there long enough, and he had disappeared off to do his own exploring often enough that she knew they weren't physically tethered. Yet she had no trouble finding him, and he seemed always to be drawn back to her.

And despite it all, he did still look like the Man who had pulled her back onto the raft centuries ago. She rounds his side and sits on the top step beside him with a soft swish of fabric, not close but not far. 

'This is the first form I ever took in this body,' he had said once. The same visage he had worn when losing his ability to change in Númenor. Had this form really been somewhere in there the whole time— under the skull-like helm, behind the glowing orange eyes? The thought tugged at her heart.

They were together and both corporeal once again. Something they had not been since Dol Guldur, since Eregion before that. And they had been physically fighting both of those times, she thinks with a light flush. She was not feeling particularly combative— how were they to act now in the real world and not their buried one, where one was always waiting for the other?

The Halls of Mandos might have been a glade in a warm summer dusk for all this was a meeting between two who had not truly beheld each other for an age.

"How long have you been here?" She asks him lightly.

He hums, "About as long as you have, I believe." 

Now that she is listening, she notes his accent is something closer to Halbrand's than it was to hers, than any of the more formal pronunciations he had affected.

"Oh," is all Galadriel can muster in response. His eyes were far away, his gaze unfocussed. She had brought him here then, in a sense. She looks out onto the cloudy hall in front of them too, contemplating.

In truth, it was hard for Mairon to tell. He felt like he was in both places, still tied to both. Something deep in his spirit was pulled taut, was pulled away from him.

There was something missing in him. Was it his ring, the part of him tied to it? It ran through him with a cold clarity, with a fear that it might stay that way— he might stay broken apart forever now. 

"I feel a new, kind of, strange in-between thing, neither at home with the living or the dead," he tries to explain.

She did not feel the same, she was wholly here.

The casual nature of their conversation was somehow the least shocking thing about this whole situation. He held no grudge towards her and the ease to open up to her had returned to him. It was that forever unnamed familiarity, and Mairon knew she felt it too.

"It will not last forever." She promises him, tenderly.

When did a war end? When everyone was dead and its memory forgotten? They were immortal, that would never happen. When they could look into each others eyes and see only the other being standing there? No hurt, no betrayal, no names tied to the corpses they were carrying around. Even less likely. 

—

There was a constant sense in Mandos of other spirits moving around, moving through this place. But they never saw anyone else.

They walk together now, without separating. 

It was a strange place of hand-crafted designs like columns and stairways, jutting up against rocky outcrops and deep cave-like tunnels. Both cool and warm, light and dark, and endless.

It should be unsettling but Galadriel feels oddly comforted. Perhaps it is knowing she was on the continent of her people, her homeland, or perhaps she felt safe because she was not alone.

She jumps coming to one room. They were on their way past but what she sees inside stops her and pulls her in. Mairon follows not quite sure what he was looking at either.

It was a long narrow hallway filled with statues. Incredible life-like statues of Elves, of Ainur, of beasts, all placed up on pedestals. They were expertly carved. She recognises a small number of the faces but the majority remain nameless to her. Who had made them? Where could they have come from?

Galadriel weaves herself through them, in and out of the pedestals, as he watches out the corner of his eye with a small smile.

Thinking now that they had seen some others, Galadriel voices something that had been bothering her. "There are others here," she begins. It was something that had remained unsaid so far. Many thousands of her kin were here in this place, dwelt here, permanently entombed. "Fëanor is here somewhere," she finishes. She knew it to be true.

"Someone you hate more than me?" Mairon asks, still smiling, appearing around the other side of a statue of a tall Elf holding aloft a bow and arrow.

She thinks for a moment. "I have never liked Fëanor," Galadriel says peering back at him, a humorous lilt to her mouth, letting the implication that she had liked Mairon hang between them.

He hides his quiet laugh behind another statue. 

"He is your kin," he replies, for something to say.

"He is a kinslayer," she returns, quick and sharp.

And Mairon himself had killed the last of Fëanor's line.

He finds her looking intently up at the statue of an Elf with small shells and pearls beaded into the front of their hair.

The Noldor in her was still strong, even after all this time. It awakens something in him with a rush in his chest, spreading through his body.

"He will not rear his head," Mairon says, moving over to stand beside her. "Prideful things Elves. Too prideful to be seen still here after all this time." 

Galadriel glares over at him, but sees he is doing a bad job at reining in his sly grin, and bumps him playfully with her shoulder once, before continuing to walk.

There were usually sounds in Mandos. The soft rustle of the wind, sometimes growing to a howl blowing through oddly shaped rooms and halls, the drip or rush of water somewhere nearby, occasionally something that sounded like voices far away, voices from another time, another land.

And for all the statue hallway is full of figures, it is silent, no wind, nothing. Even their own footsteps seem to have dulled.

In the silence, Mairon hears a delicate thought in Galadriel's head. She was thinking of Melian, of her old friend who she had lived with for a time. And it strikes him, having just spoken of her own kin, how she now regarded one of his.

She thinks specifically about Melian coupling with an Elf, the only time that was known to have happened to the Elves.

Mairon sighs around a light chuckle and she looks over, curious.

He did not want to make what they had feel ordinary, or any less special, but she deserved to know the truth even now. 

"Believe me," he intones, "It has happened many times in the past. We Maiar are plentiful, and many more unrecognisable than Melian. She was just the only one who made herself known to the Eldar."

They come to the end of the statue hallway as he finishes speaking. There is an archway with steps leading up from there. Galadriel steps through first and turns, looking back at him.

"Not like this though," she says, uncertain, almost a question. Like she was hesitant to bring up the depths of their connection.

Mairon looks up at her form, his eyes wide and sure, they stare at each other for what seems an eternity. Then, he breathes in and she feels the air like it enters her own lungs. "No, not like this," he says, agreeing, and steps through after her.

The stairs have put them somewhere new. They sit side-by-side, closer than before, at the edge of a mezzanine level that looks out upon another cavernous domed hall. This one has what appears to be many thousands of stalactites clinging from the ceiling. They hang their legs over the unprotected edge, both confident that they could not fall, not here.

He said they were the same, Mairon marred and unmarred, but Galadriel gets the distinct feeling again that she was sitting with a different version of him. One she had never truly met before. That the shadow he had become was only a small passing thing and this was the real entity, this was what was underneath.

She looks over, taking in the sharp cut of his jaw, the ridged slope of his nose. She was just as drawn to him like this.

"Why me, Mairon?" She asks softly. 

She doesn't know what answer she expects, it is perhaps not him lifting his head in a peal of laughter though.

Mairon quiets, looking back at her, incredulous. Galadriel has angled her body towards his, her pale face holding a slight flush, an uncertain tilt to her brows. 

"Galadriel, I have been trying to tell you for thousands of years," he says, smile still creeping across his now sheepish face. "Do not tell me all my efforts have been in vain."

She stares.

He does not need time to think, the answer right on his tongue. "Because you were good, you were the embodiment of lightness. And yet, you did not need to exist wholly in the light to be so."

"But I was not the only Elf to be so," she demurs.

"You were the only Elf to be so to me." He pauses, letting her absorb that, swallowing his emotion. "On the raft, the first time. You said you grieved for me, that you knew something of my pain."

She remembered, of course she did. It was said under false circumstances, but it was nonetheless true. It remained true.

"No one in the history of Middle-earth, in my entire history, had ever even come close to a sentiment like that." Mairon looks away, back out over the hall, the deep pull of her blue eyes suddenly too much.

She had pitied his grief, but she was also part of that grief.

"You were driven," he continues, quieter now. "Strong, like a leader should be. You pushed things out of people they didn't know they had. Showed me the path you were on, a path I did not even know existed. A path only you could have carved out."

It seemed odd to talk about her in the past tense, she was still here, she was still right here beside him. She was going to continue to live.

There were other things he could say: kind, wise, beautiful, made the sun and all the stars in the sky look pale in comparison, a credit to all Elves, to all Middle-earth, to Eru Himself. He thinks them and she hears them anyway, and is a little amused that he cannot say them.

Galadriel tries to hide her smile but cannot, and when he looks over at her again, the warmth in his eyes and the way he drinks in every feature of her face, tells her everything. The way his gaze lingers ever so slightly on her lips, her jaw, her neck, tells her more than enough about how he felt about her physically. She had never been uncertain of his affections in that regard.

She does not hide from his appraisal now, she sits up taller and luxuriates in it, feeling her skin prickle everywhere his eyes drop.

"And when you did rule your lands," he says after taking a deep breath. "They were beautiful. Well made and well ordered. And well defended," he adds on as a sly joke with a raise of his eyebrows. She only slants her eyes at him.

It was a double-edged sword of attraction for Mairon. He respected her even more because she could resist him, because she did not need him— never had. That this version of him could never deserve her, and would want her all the same. It was a torture that seemed exquisitely designed for him.

He cannot say enough, could never, would never have enough time to truly exalt all of her virtues.

"You would have made a formidable Queen of Middle-earth," is what he says in the end.

Galadriel lets the thought sit a moment, untouched. But it was not to be. "I never wanted it," she tells him. "What I had was enough."

"Enough…" Mairon repeats under his breath, looking away again. A strange concept for him. This was the road where their sameness diverged. Why have one small city when she could have had all of Middle-earth? When would it have ever been enough for him, he wondered?

—

There are many bodies of water in the Halls. They find a large lake in one of the lower floors. The space is low-ceilinged and wide enough that the walls disappear into shadows, and Mairon cannot see where the water spreads away to. 

But the water they can see is well lit from where they had entered and clear enough to see deep into the rock beneath. Its surface glowed almost like it was lit from somewhere below.

Galadriel is a luminous blue as she steps closer to the water's edge and crouches down to run her hand through the crystalline liquid. Her hair hangs over her shoulder and nearly skims the surface.

It is neither hot nor cold, and she smiles as she splashes it slightly through her fingers, the low light reflecting off the jewel of her ring. She couldn't quite recall but thought that her dress had changed upon entering Mandos, though her ring had remained unmoved.

She often caught him staring at it— she often caught him staring at her, but at Nenya too. Galadriel stands and peers back at him in the cool blue light. He was looking at it now.

"Might I?" The question falls from his lips quickly, like he had not been able to stop it, almost looks shocked himself that he had asked.

She hesitates.

She knew a part of him still wished for his ring. That was a part of his spirit now, did not think it would ever abate. And for all the thousands of years that she'd had Nenya, he had never really seen it up close, had never looked his fill. 

They are standing close enough that she can see the unsure pull of his mouth, the slight flush across his cheekbones visible even in the pale glow. 

The same ring that had earned her a spike through the chest the first time he had asked for it. Here she was, about to hold it straight out for him to see.

Galadriel holds out her hand, palm down to show him the ring on her finger. His eyes fill with relief and then fall between them. Slowly, he brings his own hand up under hers, barely touching as he holds her steady and dips his head to look. Reverent and intent.

It is beautiful. Almost an equal in beauty to the hand it was on.

With his other hand he touches the silver ring band delicately, feeling over the jewel and its setting. It sends a soft vibration though his finger, like he could still feel the barest hint of residual power.

He wished he could have properly seen it at its full power— alas its full power was designed to conceal it from him. But he had seen Galadriel with it at full power and that was something to behold. She had shimmered atop him, in his arms, had drawn its strength from the sea and cast him bodily out of Dol Guldur.

He cannot separate the thought of the Elven Rings from the thought of Celebrimbor in his mind, and the High Smith's mastery here was truly astounding. Similarly, Mairon cannot separate the thought of Celebrimbor from the thrust of a spear jolting in his hand, like a muscle memory, made especially vivid now that he knew how that particular wound felt. 

Nenya's lack of light and diminished power was his doing too. He had tied it to the One and wrought all their downfalls.

He feels an apology well up inside him, for what exactly, it is hard to say, for everything possibly. It is almost on his tongue when she interjects.

"It is alright," Galadriel says, shaking her head. She hears it anyway.

Mairon looks up at her through his lashes, shock pulling across his face.

"It's not." His mouth twists in disgust.

He straightens up, moving to separate their hands, but she holds onto his, not letting him pull away. His skin is soft and warm under hers, and she gives him a small smile that he cannot quite reciprocate.

He was right. It was decidedly not alright, but it was pointless now. He would have the rest of time to think on it. Let it not be in her presence, let it not be at her heeding. 

And in spiteful moments, she had fantasised about him coming to her, grovelling, begging for a forgiveness that she would not give. Fantasised that the being he had become could even feel sorry. And here it was.

The truth was, no apology could ever be enough, and she would like to spend time with him without the saying or not saying of it hanging over their heads. 

He had said it to her in the past and she had forgiven him, had absolved him once before. She had been stronger then, was not sure she had the strength to do it again.

— 

This small touch of hers is the breaking of new ground. They had breached a gap and from here on they touched idly, casually, without thinking about it.

She holds his hands, a grounding touch, he holds hers, loosely, sometimes just a grazing of fingertips.

There is a particular hall they pass through quite often in their wanderings. Galadriel thinks of it as the Moon Hall. It was always lit in a dusky indigo, as if they were moving through a clearing under the light of a full moon. 

She reaches her hand out now and he takes it without second thought. The Moon Hall was bright but had inconsistent shadows that grew and moved abruptly, and she did not want to be parted.

He looks at their joined hands, lit in a purplish hue. Hands that had wrought so much, had held such power, and in his case, had inflicted and endured much pain.

Galadriel sees.

"All is remade here," she whispers a comfort. Then steps in front of him and lifts the flowy mantle about her shoulders. "Look," she says, pulling down the neck of her gown slightly to expose her chest to him.

She is hit with a flash of fire, the heat in his eyes returned, but he sees.

Her scar is gone, finally.

He was right, it had eventually faded from view. Only Nenya had ever been able to hide it on Middle-earth but here it was gone from her skin.

A forgiveness from the earth that he did not deserve.

Mairon slowly brings his hand up, the right one; the same one that had made the mark, the same one that had been cut itself and remade, and rests his palm flat against her chest. Galadriel does not flinch and nor does he. There is no pain.

He turns his wrist so his hand is more centred, resting it just under her clavicle, and just listens, feeling, breathing in time with her heartbeats. The solid, large presence of his palm is comforting and Galadriel sighs. 

His face crumples suddenly, brows pulling together, his eyes darting as he pulls away. She did not want him to shut her out, so she reaches out and pulls him into an embrace.

It is, for a second, torture for Mairon.

Every fibre of his body sparks to be so close to hers again.

She does not let go. And eventually, the sensation that he was going to burn up melts away into the warm, constant, comfortable feel of her form against his. 

His arms come up behind her to wrap around her middle, solid and strong.

Somewhere in Galadriel's uneven breathing he gets the sense that this might be as much for her as it is for him. He tightens his hands on her ribs, his shoulders held fast in her grip.

They rest against one another, breathing into the other's neck, reminiscing in the familiar warm scent of skin, and nothing more. Steady as the stars in the woods. Steady as the moon in their hall.

— 

They do not get lost in Mandos, not really. It is hard to get lost when you have no discernible destination. But there are times when they get turned around in their exploring and cannot go back the way they have come, forcing them into new unfamiliar rooms.

One such space unfolds before them at the end of a long thin corridor. Mairon steps into the room first. It is large and dark and exceedingly warm.

They move around following the wall, the room is completely circular and the ceiling rises to a point in the middle where it opens into somewhere else. If not for the two entranceways, it would have felt like the were inside a giant pot or wine jug.

The warmth seems to be coming from something in the centre of the round space. There is a low basin growing out of the ground, almost like her Mirror, and something filled it.

Mairon steps closer, unafraid of fire or burning. Galadriel hangs back at the wall, still close enough to feel the heat.

In the basin, rising colourless and without smoke was a black fire. Flames made of shadow, coming up straight from the earth. He reaches out to touch it and behind him Galadriel tenses.

His hand passes through the flames unharmed. It is hot to touch but not unbearably so, and it changes in his presence. Sparks come off his hand, rising like embers through the column of black flame. Spreading all through it like stars being lit, until the entire thing is alight with colour.

Mairon withdraws his hand and it stays like that. Like a real fire now only paler, more gold and less orange. 

He watches it for a long time, eyes drawn into the sparking flame, he looks at it like he knows it. The gold burnishing his hair and skin like the sun. 

"Mairon," Galadriel calls faintly.

And the spell is broken.

He turns, and comes to join her further back, his expression clear and open like he had been refreshed in its reflection. 

He stands at her side, then slides down the wall into a sitting position, reaching up and tugging her arm so she sat beside him. She does, content to sit for a while with their shoulders pressed together. They watch the golden fire swirl and move in glimmers, all the way up to the opening in the ceiling.

Something comes over Galadriel, not quite like she was tired, but relaxed and agreeable enough here that she could sleep, she thinks. She tucks herself closer to his side. Bending her legs, she rests them against his thigh, and he drapes his forearm over them. And like two travellers sitting by the campfire after a long day, they watch the fire's mesmerising dance.

Under his comforting touch and the calming effects of the warmth, she feels younger, lighter. Even though their pasts still weighed behind them, it all seemed to matter less and less these days. A subtle taste of the truth of Aman.

She wonders if he feels the same, wonders if it was possible. He was made in the Secret Fire by Eru Himself. Not a creature that was birthed but rather a fire that was set, pulled from thought.

And like an answer, Mairon clears his throat.

He does not want to make excuses, he meant it when he said he had chosen his path, had chosen it every step of the way.

"I wasn't always like this," he murmurs. It was pointless to bring it up, there was nothing they could do about it, but if there was one thing he could be with her, it was honest.

He does not take his eyes off the pale fire. "I think I would have liked to meet you…" 

When I was young, whole, complete— bright.

He had been bright once, had burned white-hot.

"Earlier," is what he settles on. A Mairon unmarred, he remembers her thought.

There must have been a time that he was young once. That he was young when he was corrupted, was young when he was broken apart, and could never be reformed the same. 

And what if he had been the one she had met in that glade instead of Celeborn? What might her name even be now if Celeborn had never called her Alatáriel?

She is forced to face the fact that it was already too late for him at that point. And another sneaking dangerous thought, that maybe even if he had come to her marred and corrupted by Morgoth then, she may still have gone with him. She had not lost as much at that time. She was not immune to a pretty face, she thinks, allowing herself a small smile.

Eventually, Galadriel rests her head on his shoulder and says, "I think I would have liked that too."

The golden sparks of the fire become fewer and fewer, slowly fading out. The warmth fading back to what it was when they entered, but the pale gold was so bright that to be away from it feels colder than before. It seems a natural death though and so he does not touch it again. 

—

Eventually, they find the tapestries. Vairë's complete histories of the universe told in intricate, impossible weavings. They are enormous, taking up the entirety of the walls they were hung upon.

Unlike all other rooms they had been in, here large hanging lamps descended from the domed ceiling above them, reflecting the threaded cloth of gold and rich jewels which had been spun so fine they were nearly invisible to the naked eye. Richly detailed, imbued with colour and light, the tapestries seemed to glow from within, almost moving they were so alive.

They wander slowly through the long hall that holds them. Reading, recalling, looking on in amazement. It goes on and on.

Both find themselves depicted multiple times. But for the majority of their time in history they are footnotes, smaller characters dwarfed by the Valar and the great heroes of previous ages. 

There is much they cannot understand. Galadriel has a hard time deciphering much that happens in the tapestries that depict the time before the making of Arda. They stretch further back to a time that even Mairon does not recognise, before the Ainur. And all throughout, there are events that neither were around for, figures they had never met and do not have names for.

They seperate slightly each stopping to take in different things along the way. Mairon stares blank-faced up at the stern pale visage of Morgoth looming over the Two Trees. Galadriel blinks away a rush of tears to see Finrod standing as a King before Nargothrond.

Eventually comes, the tapestry of the making of the Rings, turning into what is undeniably the figure of Celebrimbor atop the Siege of Eregion. Mairon's eyes sting, his vision growing blurry. 

The One Ring, Sauron stands, a thing of fire inside the mountain. The flood, the great wave crashing over the temple, over all. The loss of the Ring, the Last Alliance, Isildur, Narsil.

So much had happened in those years, so much in the spaces between those events, none of it depicted. He looks over at Galadriel. Her shoulders have dropped but her face is stoic. He would like to reach out to her suddenly but is halted by what he sees beyond her.

There is nothing. The wall beside the last tapestry is empty. The hall continues on endlessly, the histories ended where they stood. Nothing of Lothlórien, nothing of the War of the Ring after that, no destruction of the Ring.

They both stare up at the blank space like it was all there anyway. Most likely, it had not been made yet, was so recent it was still being woven by the Valië. Galadriel did not know how these things worked. She is mostly relieved not to have to look upon it.

Mairon's face is sharp, brows pulled together, his eyes fierce, building to something that looks like it could become anger. Galadriel grasps for his hand and takes it, pulling him away. She drags him back down the hall, nearly all the way. Eventually they come to one of the first tapestries.

It is of a time before Arda, swirling spirits of fire and light, a universe abound in colour, perfect in its imperfection. No recognisable figures, no Eru— just the Ainur, the children of his thought.

Mairon had stared at it for a long time initially, an unreadable expression on his face, the only discernible thing in his head a faint humming. And Galadriel sits them in front of it now, on a long stone step that ran along the opposite wall.

They sit and rest, both feeling small in comparison to the enormous tapestries, to the length of the hall, the even larger Mandos around them, of the entire history of their world stacked up before them. Two small beings amongst the larger picture. It is calming, the weight of unimportance, of insignificance.

There is no time in Mandos, but Galadriel thinks they may spend days sitting there in the one spot. She spends a good amount of the time reconciling the being that has laid down next to her, dropping his head into her lap, who for all intents and purposes looked like a Man, with one of the primordial spirits that had helped create the very earth they sat upon; now that she had beheld a visual of the event. She cannot make it align in her mind. It did not matter, she supposes and continues to run her hand over his hair.

Galadriel had not spoken it, but she had a growing sense inside that her time was coming to leave. She knew he felt it too. Something deep inside her mind had emerged and pulled elsewhere. They were not meant to live here forever with the most lost of her kin.

"You cannot stay here forever," she says softly to him.

"I disagree," Mairon hums, looking up at her with warm eyes from his reclined spot.

She waits to hear more of the argument but that is all there appears to be. 

Galadriel had felt the pull of moving on to the Blessed Realm, Mairon knew where he was being pulled and thought Mandos sounded an acceptable alternative. It was not so bad a place.

She pulls a stern face down at him and he sits up, sighing, to look properly at her.

"You cannot avoid judgement, the Valar— "

He already knew her position; that he was already here, it was worth it to try.

"I do not ask for it." He stops her. He did not believe himself worthy of redemption, and therefore would not get it even if he did ask. 

He had avoided them for eons, and yet had faced judgement anyway, had faced the consequences anyway.

"Even if I did express sufficient regret," he starts, quietly. He felt it, but could not make himself express it properly. He was still too prideful, would perhaps always be, had been made that way. "What then, Galadriel?"

She does not reply, watching him carefully, her hands clasped in her lap.

"I am tied to what I thought was Arda, but turns out was you!" His voice rings out clear in the large space.

"Oh," she inhales a soft sound of surprise. "You said you were in between, that you could feel some of your spirit in Middle-earth."

"I thought I could." He shakes his head, looking back out at the tapestries. "There is nothing for me there."

It was all here. His salvation had always laid with her. It would be closer to an unkindness to tell her that now, so he does not. Thinks she knows anyway.

She was meant for Valinor. "You cannot go to Valinor…" She mumbles.

He could. He had been there before. It was his home once, as it was hers. But it was locked to him now without seeing them.

"I know."

"I cannot return to Middle-earth," she says, almost a whisper.

Mairon's head snaps back to hers. "You are going to Valinor," he says sharp. An order, as if to disobey would reap consequences. It makes her want to smile.

"I will…" He continues, pausing to think. "Follow the wind." There was a path in it— somewhere, he could almost see it. He would not mind being a spirit now, reverting back to his Unbodied state, it might be nice, he thinks.

Had not realised until coming to Mandos, that he had come to like the way the breeze felt as it made and unmade him. It ripped him apart, but it helped his anger dissipate and it felt like penance. A penance of his own choosing, not one bestowed upon him by them.

Galadriel has dipped her head to look deeper into his eyes. Her own blue depths pooled with worry.

If he had his way it would not end, they would stay there, just looking at each other, forever. Which reminds him too much of his master and the Silmarils. The inclination towards him not gone. 

"Perhaps I will rejoin my master. I know he waits." That was, at least, one who could hear him, see him. It would not be a kindness.

"You cannot," Galadriel says, turning her body so she faces him more, so he would hear her more clearly. "He is not your master anymore, you are not like him."

He holds her eye contact, unblinking, there is the faintest flicker of fire in them, far away, a reflection from the past. There is an unflinching nature to him now. Something that was immovable and ancient. 

She could still try. "It will be an exile you can never return from. It will mean death for you…"

His eyes shutter over a small smile. "It is no less than I am used to."

Galadriel thinks, for a being who craved control over all things, the worst possible fate might have been becoming a powerless ghost, unable to exert his will over anything ever again.

Mairon thinks what Melkor might say of his reappearance. Anger that he had taken his titles, used his name in vain? Disappointment over another failure?

Strange that he could not get his master out of his head, but did not know his mind anymore like he once had. He had been Melkor's servant longer than he had been anything else. Longer than he had been himself— alone, longer than he had been his own Dark Lord. Longer than he had been Galadriel's…

His mind chafes at the thought of Melkor alongside the thought of her.

"Did you know Melkor?" He asks her abruptly.

She balks. Still Melkor, not Morgoth, in his head. But they had both just seen a tapestry showing a Morgoth, newly released from these very halls, trying to turn Elves to his service.

Galadriel hums, "An enemy of Fëanor, recruiting Noldor, perhaps I did once."

Mairon huffs a light laugh and shakes head. She saw through Fëanor, saw through himself. "You would have known if you did, even then."

She peers away in the direction of one of the further tapestries. "Is it a good likeness?"

Stern, cold, pale, strong. "As much as it can be," he sighs. As much as it can, being made of thread and song, and not fire and chaos. As much as he could recall. "Early on he was something different."

"Attractive?"

Her question catches him entirely off guard, and all he can do is dip his head to the side, a half-nod.

She makes another small sound. "Perhaps had he come calling, I would have listened then."

It is as small a joke as she can make about the one who had wrought so much death and destruction to her people.

Mairon smiles anyway, even as he begins to tear up, his eyes shining in the low lamplight. Because Melkor had been, could make himself so, could make himself anything.

"I believed I loved him at the start," he murmurs, quietly as if to himself. He did not know any better, he did not know love as well as he did now. "But there was nothing there inside him, he was a pit in which life went into and nothing returned."

It was a horrific depiction that she knew he could only have discovered in close quarters with the Great Foe.

And then, as if he were a gate that had been unlatched, he continues, speaking to most of it for the first time. His old secrets not seeming so important now, here with her. Mairon tells her he had lived at that time with a deep-seated, almost religious devotion inside himself. He had forsaken Eru and all associated with him— there was only Melkor and the promise, the spell that he was so deeply under.

"I believed that only he could save me." He pauses here, his eyes becoming glossy and unfocused. "Even with his hands circling my throat."

He stares up at the tapestry. Were they really both in there? He and Melkor, made of the same essence at the core of it.

Galadriel understood something of that. Salvation and love, how similar those things could look. How easy it might be to mistake violence for passion if it was all you had known.

"And throughout it all, I still wanted what he could offer," he breathes over a small scoff, leaning back against the stone wall.

That Morgoth had offered Mairon power, a crown on his head, an army at his back— the same things she had tried to give him in Númenor. Back when she thought him just Halbrand, King of the Southlands. Galadriel shudders to think of herself akin to the Great Enemy. But it was undeniably true, she saw the repeating motif, of promise, of power, of deception. 

He takes her hand casually and threads their fingers together. A solid presence that said she did not need to worry about it. He had tempted her exactly the same, a small shared revenge between them.

Then, he tells her, it was too late. Morgoth was gone and all Mairon could see was his title, his allegiances, and how to use them to his own gain, to correct it all. She listens, a little detached, still thinking of herself and Morgoth aligned in their temptation of Mairon.

"It is the way of things," she tells him, focusing instead on the distracting back and forth rub of his thumb over her hand. "As Curunír tried to do to you and so on." 

"To varying degrees of success, I think," he huffs.

He had caught Curunír in a net of greed, of his own making, and used him until he was of no use anymore. Was that what Melkor had intended to do to him? Would he ever have let him go?

Mairon's memory jolts. Curunír— Saruman. "The Istar died I take it?" 

It was hard to see all the things that had happened in the intervening time, hard to tell what happened when he had been stuck between worlds, made of nothing and yet tied to her.

"Yes." Galadriel keeps her voice intentionally light. "The White Wizard struck down by his own servant."

He recalls suddenly being struck down by his own servant once, his own orcs stood above him. He sighs deeply.

"The road goes ever on…"

"It is ended here."

Just like the tapestries.

Time passes, it might be hours, it is hard to say. They stay where they are, hands intertwined.

Mairon spends the time, now that she had brought it up, thinking about his attempt. Here in the tapestry hall, surrounded by the past, it runs through his mind, fresh and painful over and over again.

He should not ask, there was no reason to. No right time to ask and nothing to do with the answers once he had them. And yet he knew he was going to.

"What of the halfling?"

She is taken aback, fingers tightening around his hand as her eyes flash to his.

Galadriel had begun to think he would never want to talk about that.

"Frodo? The Hobbit?" She clarifies slowly.

"Yes, him," Mairon returns, no tone to the words.

She inhales deeply, closing her eyes.

He was not going to like the answer. He was not going to like any answer she gave him, any truth she told. She did not fear his wrath, only did not want to undo any work they had done. Any peace he had carved for himself here, now, at the end.

"Please, Galadriel, I want to know how it happened." 

There is concern colouring her face and it fills him with discord. He wanted her concern and he did not deserve it. He pulls their joined hands closer to him, resting on his thigh. 

"So you might take it in and change your methods for next time?" She asks only half-joking, her voice deep with worry.

He falls forward slightly, like he wanted to laugh but could not. "Next time?" He repeats, then remembers, 'You think too much of me'. His face pulling into a half-grimace, half-smile.

He was right, there would be no next time. But she was still hesitant to see how he would react to finding out just how close he had come to succeeding. Surely it would break him— again.

"Something to torture yourself with for all eternity, then?"

"I am going to regardless." His voice is like gravel. Mairon knew his pride, his desire for power was going to eat away at him for the rest of his existence. It was his nature.

He pleads with his words and with his eyes and Galadriel thinks, not for the first time, just what she would have given him if only he had begged like this early on.

And she really has no right to keep this from him. She wonders again about the tapestry. Was it missing just so she should be the one to explain it to him, her own role to play in this?

She lets out all the air in her lungs, sits up straighter, and tries. "Frodo Baggins sailed over to Aman on the same ship as me. He has by any estimation passed through these very halls, and now resides in Valinor…"

Mairon stares and waits for her to continue, his eyes like open plains. He has not breathed.

Galadriel runs her thumb over the skin of the back of his hand. "With only four fingers on one hand."

His eyes become distant for a second, then drop down to his own hands— remade in their entirety. Frodo's would have been too, she was sure. Just as the mirroring Morgul wound she shared with the Hobbit had been healed. That the young one had endured both their physical injuries fills her with a swift rush of emotion that she blinks away.

Mairon opens both hands to stare intently at his palms, incidentally letting go of her and she lets him, folding her own hands in her lap again and watching him.

It was the same thing that had happened to him. It was taken from them both. "He claimed it at the end," he croaks. He had felt that, thinks he remembers feeling that. "He snuck all the way into Orodruin and still claimed it."

His tone is thoughtful as he falls further forward, hunched over now, elbows on his thighs, still staring at his hands.

"Yes, an impossible task from the outset," Galadriel whispers.

"Yes, on purpose," he returns, just as quiet. Mairon did not think even he could have destroyed the Ring with intention.

She looks over the strong curve of his arms and wrists, at the hands she had held and grabbed as a lifeline many years ago. 

"But he had a friend." 

Mairon's head slowly turns to look back up at her face.

She continues, "Someone to pull him back from the brink of darkness."

His gaze is heavy upon her, eyes kindled with the same memory running through her own mind. The two of them sat side by side in a forest clearing in a time before all this, the smell of fire and battle creeping into the clear green air. Here he was the one hunched over, her sat slightly more upright, looking across at one another, trying to see the truth behind the other's face. 

She breaks the spell of their gaze first, continuing to talk to distract herself. "It was the creature Gollum who toppled into the fire with your ring."

He drops his head into his open hands. He knew much of his folly of the Halflings and the Battle at the Black Gate but this was new.

He'd had the creature— had him in Barad-dûr and let him go. Eru was truly laughing at him. If he had killed the creature when he had the chance, if he had—

If, if, if.

He lost it. He lost it all and not through some great deception or trickery but with both his eyes wide open.

He knew it did not do to dwell on now and that was growth, but it would haunt him, as many of his choices would haunt him, for the rest of his life, for the rest of eternity. He would have a millenia to think on it.

His head stays down there for a long while, it seems an age, until he drops his hands again and peers back up at the tapestry. It seems incongruous, so much had changed since he had last looked upon it, and yet the colours swirl, unchanged.

"I died in Barad-dûr that day."

He had built and then rebuilt the tower that would end up being his own funeral pyre. Had lain the foundations himself. A quiet part of Galadriel's mind reminds her that the same had happened to Finrod, her brother died in a tower he had originally built. Another shared revenge.

But she knew, he meant more than just his physical self. 

"Yes," she hums, "Some say it was chance, some say it was the work of the One Himself." 

It was all the work of the One, Mairon thinks, no matter what. The Allfather had said that from the very beginning. He could see that now.

They stay there on the stone bench in the tapestry hall, the outside of their legs brushing but otherwise not touching. He needs time and she gives it.

Sometime later, Mairon sits up. He breathes deep and lasting, like the first breath of air after being submerged in water, after being buried under ash.

"I— " He starts then stops. A deep calm has come over his features. "I do wish for peace now."

He had looked inside and found himself not so different, but he knew how to learn from his mistakes and there was still a path in his future; somewhere, to something, and Galadriel was there too. He did not need to unmake and create in his image, it would all be destroyed and remade regardless, that was the nature of Arda; he knew now. And it could still be perfect for him— for her.

"You wish for peace now?" Galadriel repeats, her voice louder than he had expected in the large hall. 

Mairon turns, she has tilted her head to look at him, a strange expression on her face. Her eyes are wide and intense, but her brows slowly raise and he watches the corner of her mouth pull up slightly. "For yourself?" She questions sharply, but cannot stop the grin from spreading across her face. 

She bites her lip and intentionally looks to the long room they are in. "I fear it may be too late, Mairon."

Then, she leans away from him and she is laughing.

He rocks his head back, watching her incredulous laughter. She covers her mouth but he smiles right along with her, helpless to stop it. She was right.

Still trying and failing to quell her laughter, Galadriel puts a hand out to hold onto his arm. "I do hope you get it," she says. She had grown more magnanimous in her years.

It is the last they ever speak of the Ring, of any of it.

— 

Mairon is lighter afterwards, he has been absolved by her laughter.

He watches her now unburdened, with an intensity, a fervour. With something approaching the fire of his past, powerful certainly but not dangerous. A fire that would never burn her but only ignite her own.

There was always a feeling in Mandos that they were being sensed by something else. As if the halls themselves, that grew and changed constantly around them, were also aware of their presence. 

Despite that, his constant attention now made her want to reach out and touch him, to feel her own answering fire brought to the surface, made her want to pull him into one of the many dark alcoves they passed. 

She had grown extremely fond of the way he would hold her hand as they went down stairs, would wrap an arm around her waist when he switched to the other side of her, would graze a hand over her hip or the small of her back as he moved past her, would hold her close when they were resting. Comfortable and familiar with her and her body.

And every time she reached out to him in return, she was met with an answering smile.

They have wandered down a long rocky corridor, talking about nothing in particular, following glints like gold embedded in the rock the whole way along. The path ends in ascending steps built out of the stone. They begin to climb, the steps becoming taller and taller until the very last one Galadriel cannot climb, confined by the long dress under her robe, even flowing as it is there is simply too much material. And she thinks they might have to go back the way they have come.

He chuckles a bit at her predicament, he was much quicker with a smile and a laugh now. Then he takes his own robe off, under which he had trousers and a soft looking tunic, laughs even more at her annoyance with that, and throws his robe up the step before hoisting himself up. Once up, he reaches back down for her.

Galadriel sighs deeply.

He brandishes his hands at her. "Come on," he says around a grin, "I'm not leaving you behind now."

Galadriel reaches up and lets herself be pulled up onto the ledge with only a small grunt of effort Mairon's part.

At the top she does not let go of him. Confronted now with the arresting visual through the neck of his tunic, of the exposed muscles and hair of his chest, of his latent physical strength on display.

She pulls him to the side into another narrow hallway. This one hidden in shadow, and leans her back against the wall once inside.

He smiles softly down at her, his eyes fluttering and lit with warmth as they flicker over her lips and throat. She swallows. His hands are as familiar to her as her own now, and they still draw a shiver from her as they circle her waist, large and hot, twisting the fabric of her robe there.

Mairon opens his mouth to say something but it falls closed and he frowns suddenly, his eyes losing their focus.

"What?" She reaches up and touches his face lightly.

"Can you hear that?" He asks, turning his head better to hear. His eyes flicking in the direction of the shadowy passageway they were stood just in the entrance of.

Galadriel listens over the top of her thudding heartbeat, and realises she can hear something.

It is like a melody on the wind, a faintly lingering song blown in on a breeze. There are constant sounds in the halls, but this melodic hum has a low resonance under it. 

They follow the sound down the narrow passage and come to another new room.

It is a dark chamber with columns spread through it like trees, making it even darker with shadows and hidden corners, like a forest. An underground forest. The columns are ornate and have dimly lit sconces of fire built into them. The sconces are made of stained glass and the fire reflects all the different colours, turning the muted light to something strangely cozy and warm.

She wanders around trying to find the source of the sounds. It echoes deeply, like music being sung from another room, somewhere just out of sight. Like it is coming from the very air, unseen. She cannot make out words, but it is beautiful, the melody familiar and ancient.

Mairon smiles. It sends a long suppressed memory through him with a shiver. He has heard it before. He watches her for a moment before reaching a hand out to her, palm up, an offer.

Galadriel's smile matches his cautiously as she tilts her head at him, trying to check if he is serious or not. Mairon lifts his eyebrows once in a light jump. 

She lifts her hand, undoing her own robe and letting the light material fall. His smile turns up at one corner flashing his teeth, becoming wolfish. She takes his hand, placing her palm in his larger one.

He holds their hands up above her head and spins her slowly, taking in her warm glow from every angle. Then holds her still and circles around her himself, glancing over at her with a sly look and Galadriel laughs. He stops at her front, pulling her in and wrapping an arm about her waist. Her hand comes up to land solidly around the back of his shoulder and he holds them together, closer now they were without their outer robes.

They dance, the colours playing over both of their forms as they move and sway. The fingers of their other hands loose and grazing, glancing fingertips over fingertips, echoing the lightness of their step before fully clasping.

Mairon hums along with the refrain, pulled from somewhere deep in his mind, somewhere from long ago but never far from his mind, never far from the surface.

She rests her head on his shoulder, relaxing into the vibrations, into the feel of his strong embrace. He revels in the feeling between them, wondering at it the same way one might watch the sunset or the stars in the ripple of the ocean, beautiful, curious, unattainable.

The glints of gold from the previous tunnel have continued into the rocky walls of this space. Mairon's eyes unfocus in concentration and with their joined hands he unleashes a pulse of light that illuminates the golden deposits. The grains of gold hold their own light now, like stars, spreading across the walls and columns in veins, like constellations.

And now that Galadriel looks, she thinks their formations do look similar to the constellations the Valar had placed in the Menel above Middle-earth. A different tapestry down here, one made of stars.

He turns them slowly before the golden formations, looking only at her in their light. It was exceedingly nice to do something different in a place where there was not much to be done besides walk and sit and talk. Not that Galadriel would have minded doing those things with him for an embarrassingly long an amount of time. 

But in the flickering golden starlight here something under her ribs, something that had taken root in her long ago, pulls towards him, pulling them ever closer. As they were, it was already the closest they had physically been in an age.

Galadriel does the only thing her body is telling her to do. She slides her hands over his arms, bringing them up to hold his face. His skin is warm under her palm. He smiles and says her name. She leans in and seals her mouth over his.

It is perfect, like the stars around them, made from a pure, light desire. The sparks running up and down her spine, cascading all around.

It is a searing kiss, burning through her from her lips slowly into the rest of her body. They collide with a heated breath, her body through her fine dress moulding to his perfectly, with no space left between, made for the other. 

She is so soft and so golden, and he runs his tongue over her lip just to taste it.

They kiss just to do so, just to be together with no ulterior motive, no other destination in mind. Like they had been waiting entire lifetimes to do just this. Like they had known each other for longer than was possible, had been doing this for longer than that. 

Their mouths working in unison, waking dormant memories in a rushing deluge. Too strong and familiar to be a coincidence. 

The thought lingered that there would always be a realm, a universe where they loved, where they had forged something together. Even if it was only in their heads, even if it was only confined to memory.

And he was going to part from her in that same realm.

It was strange, having lived so long with his spectre, and before that with the real thing, with the threat of the Great Shadow. To know that he will not be there, will no longer be tethered to her mind. That neither of them could ever come back from this.

Galadriel gasps, pulling away from his mouth, resting their foreheads together instead. Shutting her eyes in thought, in the strong feel of his hands around the small of her back.

It was the same foreboding feeling Galadriel had encountered on Middle-earth. Their time here drawing to a close, but the feeling inside her was not that one of them had to leave first. Mandos was closing in on both of them simultaneously.

That this would be the end of it. That it might just be a sudden drop, a sudden fall backwards off a cliff. She did not want it to be this way.

They had said goodbye to each other many times in the past, a countless number of times, but never on such good terms, never with such a bittersweet sorrow before. In the air above Eregion, in the fires of Mount Doom, under the great flooding wave of Númenor, and here, in the earth of Mandos, of Aman.

She knew he did love her, in his own way. He had said he would have liked to meet her earlier, and what did that mean except he would have liked to love her for longer than they were allowed? 

He could be both light and dark, pure and terrible, admirable and cruel, in equal measure, and in all her thousands of years, she had never met another like him. Despite it all, knew no other like him existed.

Her sense of doom suffuses into him through her form, pressed so close to his. It would have been impossible not to feel.

Mairon was suddenly choked on the grief that they will be longer apart than they ever had together. He had to let her go. A cruelty, no less than he deserved. He had to let go, time and again. They both did. 

And the version of Galadriel that lived inside his mind, inside his soul, is all he would have left of her. An imagined Galadriel.

He holds her tightly in his arms, neither of them breathing, trying to think of how to tell her, to tell her this was everything.

There is a deep far-off vibration from the floor below them, becoming a soft tremor through him as it rose to their level.

"Did you hear that?" He repeats, turning from her sharply. Galadriel, left suddenly cold by his absence from her, does not have a chance to answer.

There is a low groan as the air around them shifts, and Mandos steps out of a gloaming shadow.

Incredibly tall, robed, and veiled, his face is half covered in shadow, but there is no other it could be. No other could have imparted such a sense of dread upon them here.

The Doomsman of the Valar speaks, "You are not supposed to be here, Maia. You do not belong in my halls."

It takes Mairon a second longer than it should to understand what has been said. It had been so long since anyone had spoken the Eldest Speech to him, and Valarin was always sparingly spoken aloud even in its time. It sounded like an insult, like he was being talked down to, but Mandos was right, had merely stated a fact in his pragmatic way. 

"Your kind only venture here for one of two reasons," he continues.

He was not here of his own accord. He did not know how he came to be here. But no— no excuses. He did not want to implicate Galadriel.

It takes him less time to think of how to word his answer.

Mairon nods. "I am leaving."

"Good," the Vala replies. No hint in his tone that he thought it was anything of the sort, that he was anything other than annoyed.

"Though, there is something you should know before you follow your old master..."

Galadriel could not understand what the inexorable Mandos was saying.

But she had not missed the way Mairon had almost imperceptibly stepped in front of her as the Vala appeared. A protective, half-step that spoke as much to his feelings for her, as his distrust towards the Valar.

It was he who should be afraid of them, not her. He who may be kept and chained here as his master was. But he was still willing to oppose them.

Mandos speaks to him in their old, original language. And it is so like his Black Speech, she had not realised before. Had he been thinking about his origins when he devised his own method of communication? Had he been seeking to perfect the language and his own past in doing so?

Mairon replies, his chin dipped but spine straight. Almost deferential— almost, if not for the fierce, steady eye contact he held with the being above him.

The Vala's face was unmoving and stoic, almost like it was made of stone as he delivers a speech. Where Mairon runs through a gamut of expressions, interest, confusion, all the while listening, unquestioning.

There are many names she can decipher: Manwë, Tulkas, Melkor. The name Túrin Turambar is said untranslated by Mandos, then repeated softly by Mairon. And Galadriel is truly confused as to what they could be talking about.

Finally, Mairon looks back at her, pausing, then questions the Vala.

He answers. 

Whatever it is, Mairon accepts the reply with a nod. Inclining his head towards him in another final bow. "Námo."

Mandos nods back to him, then turns his cool gaze onto Galadriel. 

She is pinned by Mandos' divine bearing. And shocked at finally having been included in the discourse, she simply nods too.

He hesitates a moment. "You are sure?" He questions in Quenya, so she could understand. His voice rough and slow, like falling rocks. "No great song? No pleading? Many have tried. None as successfully as Lúthien Tinúviel."

There was a note of curiosity to the Vala's voice, almost like he wished them to try.

Galadriel's heart pounds in her chest. She looks over at Mairon. He was still watching Mandos, silent and solid.

She shakes her head. "I am leaving." 

The barest hint of a smile ghosts over Mandos' face, then he turns and disappears.

Mairon turns back to her again, face clear though somewhat lost in thought. She wants to ask, but he smiles at her and shakes his head. That had been his last question, she thinks.

They start to walk to another room. They knew now where to go without thinking too much about it. It is a long corridor that in the middle has an arched entrance on either side. A crossroad of sorts. It is somewhere they had both passed many times, though the arched doorways had always remained unventured. 

He cannot see where either of them lead, he cannot see anything beyond Galadriel.

They meet in the middle, between the two arches. And it was truly the end of all things, but there was no rush. They had all the time in the world to do this.

He was even lighter now, something in Mandos' appearance had unburdened him further. Mairon tucks a small strand of her hair back behind the pointed tip of her ear before retracting his hand. This is all he will allow himself.

His fingers had always burned to think of touching it. They did not now. They did not shake either. 

He calls her something here, something in Valarin, a softer word from the language. "Ithīrnya," falling from his mouth like a song.

My Light.

He had not called her anything other than her name since they arrived here. No more 'Elf', 'my lady', 'my Queen', he had dropped all possession of her until now. This small thing she would allow. This one she did not mind. 

The arch behind her pulsed in her mind with a solid presence. It pulled against the part of her mind she felt him in. She did not want to forget him, forget this.

"Would you do something for me?" Galadriel asks on a whisper.

Anything. His heart screams.

He nods once.

"Would you call me Artanis?" 

So that I know it's you.

He nods again, he understood.

Mairon and Artanis, his first name pressed up against her first name. 

He holds her hands, bringing them up to his mouth and kisses the knuckles of each. "Until we meet again, Artanis."

Her face drops. "This is it, Mairon. There is no other time."

His head knocks to the side, a delicate light across his features. "I can see you anytime." He gestures to his temple. "In my dreams."

In the same way he knew the sun was still there at night. Even in the Everlasting Dark, he would know she was still there. That would be enough, he thinks, to know that she was there. 

He smiles and Galadriel returns it. She could not forbear a smile from him, not now.

"Dream me something perfect," she sighs.

His smile deepens, slow and genuine, until it is a deep crinkly-eyed thing, teeth blinding her in almost a laugh.

If he is not a Mairon unmarred then— something else, something closer to Halbrand. Something he had become for her, in her reflecting light. Something he would never have been otherwise. And he will never have a chance to see Valinor again. Galadriel knows she is the closest he will ever come to any of that again.

She bows her head and falls forward into his embrace, resting her head on his chest. His hands naturally fall around her waist and without lifting her head she circles his wrists, pulling his hands up to the back of her head— to her hair.

They still and Mairon's chest heaves in a long deep breath. Hesitant even after all this time. Galadriel's own hands burrow and press reassuringly around the hard muscle of his lower back.

And eventually they move over the back of her head, slowly, with quiet contentment, massaging lightly. His hands run over her hair, down the tresses, brushing through the ends.

Mairon is extra grateful to have all of his hand at his disposal again. He twirls one of her soft waves around his fingers. The locks are sweet amber gold beneath his touch.

And he is more gentle than she thinks she has ever seen him. He gathers it up and then lets it fall again, watching it tumble down her back, making her laugh.

He pushes his fingers through the front locks, gathering some of it up again, exposing the tips of her ears. He holds her head with large hands around the base of her skull and tilts his head, pressing a kiss right up against her ear. Chaste and soft and lovely in a way that makes her sigh. Then moves to the other side and does the same.

He looks at her like this is a gift— she is, one that can never be repaid. 

Galadriel could admit some things now, secrets she no longer wished to bury. His warmth, his presence alongside her, his love had been gift enough. He had taught her about the true nature of things and she would have that inside her forever now.

They had both been flayed open in their lives. There was no part of the other that they would refuse to share now.

He has not retreated from her, still holding her head. Her fingers anchor around his spine, digging in.

"Mairon," she breathes against his lips, the lightness of her form echoing in the sound. The soft scratch of his stubble against her face as he leans forward, grounds her as it always had. 

Their lips press tight and open against each others and they do not part again. Savouring the heat, the taste, the movement together. Holding onto this one last kiss.

He exhales everything he could never say into her lungs.

And Galadriel glows white, bright gold, as if seen in the Unseen World. Almost too bright in this place, bright as the Two Trees, as the Lamps she had never seen. 

He drinks in her light like it might be the last time, like he could see all the ages in front of them.

And Mairon, now to be facing down another death, could think of no complaint to utter. He glows with his own light; his original form, seen and Unseen. An effervescent fire, an ancient fire, unseen for centuries, but just as beautiful for its absence.

Something passes between them, something at the meeting place between a moan and a sigh. Something between a promise and a farwell.

Maybe next time, she gets to be the corrupted god, unable to look in the face of redemption. And he, the wise Elf, forced to live with both light and dark inside himself. And maybe in another universe they are both allowed to live.

Do not forget me. She does not speak the words but presses them against his lips all the same.

I could not. Mairon returns. The stars would sooner go out. 

And she feels the truth of it in his ancient will.

Mandos had said she would forget, that was why he should not tell her of the prophecy. She might forget anything that happened in her previous life, and almost certainly would forget what had happened here in his halls. Mairon was not so sure, Galadriel was a singular presence. If any one being was to remember such a thing he knew it would be her. 

But in the case that she did, if this was only to be remembered by him, by one, doomed to remember it forever. He was going to remember every last detail of their secret lost to time. He would commit it all to memory and remember her for longer than he had known her.

And though it seemed impossible she knew, like she knew herself, that they would find each other again. And if they were separated, they would find each other again, and again, and as many times as it took, good and bad.

The light between them parts, but does not dull.

Namárië, he tells her for the first and final time.

Galadriel steps up into Aman. Feeling for all the world, like she would be gone only a moment, would be coming right back. Her feet land on rolling green hills, just as she remembered, under the light of the sun. To be embraced by all who have come before her. 

She did not need to look back to know, she knew in her heart he would be watching her.

I will be waiting for you, she thinks.

Mairon lets the thought flow through him and steps down, sweeping past Arda. Following a winding path trod few times before. It is an endless journey, taking full lifetimes to reach. Towards a timeless place, but nonetheless full, of darkness, of dark matter. He could hear laughter in the forward distance, haunting and mocking his every step, getting closer. It was familiar enough. It felt like a penance.

He would only need to bide his time there, until his fated return.

Chapter Text

At the Battle of all Battles,

There is a field. Fracturing in a time and place with no meaning. Where dusk meets dawn, where the sky meets the sea. Where the sun shines out, and so do the stars and moon.

A place where both sides engage. The ending of the world and the dawning of a new one.

A figure steps out of the darkness, another steps out of the light. 

They cross into no man's land to meet, to come together, as it was always predicted they would be. And though it took 'til the end of days, it could not have come a second sooner.

They stop in front of one another. Suddenly at the end of a rope that had been pulling them for an eternity. 

He stands tall, relishing the light, the warmth. He can finally feel the sun from both sides. The trial of his recent existence ended here, in her presence.

She is a beacon of gold. Her gleaming blue eyes look upon his, reflecting everything around them into his green ones. The depths of the sea meeting a shaded glade. 

"I recognise you," she hums.

He inclines his head in a slight bow. "I knew you in another life, Artanis."

There is a singular moment, a pulse where something otherworldly passes between them, and she smiles.

"Mairon."

A name scratched into her heart somewhere.

In the sunlight glowing on his face, she recognises him and suddenly there are no others around, no other could possibly compete for her attention. 

He grins and its familiarity feels as if this might be a dream. She reaches up and touches his face, delicately.

The emotion pooling in his eyes reminds her of something. She had come here for a reason, with a new purpose.

"The war…" Her face turns away slightly, her hands dropping.

He paid no attention to the war around them, to the ending of the world, his had ended many times, and yet here they were again, standing under the sun.

He smiles and draws her attention again. "We can fight, if you'd like."

"I do not wish to fight you," she tells him, her voice sure and strong.

He did not wish to fight her either. He had no allegiance to any here, none other than her.

"Together, then." 

She takes his hand in hers, almost as if to say, 'Let's try again.'

The Great Enemy will not win, and the only one she was concerned with was standing right in front of her, rubbing his thumb over the skin of her hand. The truth in his heart made visible in his gentle touch, in every muscle of his form.

They remain, hands clasped, eyes open, breathing in a warm summer air that held a promise of all things remade.

Beyond them, the battle wages on.