This was written more than three years ago, and I realized I never put it up.

Ten moments, Celeborn and Galadriel, at the end. I warn for angst.

~*~

i.

“You won.” 

“Yes,” she says.

You lift her hands to your lips; her fingers tighten. She holds on for a moment before pulling away.

“It has not ended yet.”

A long, slow breath. “That is a pitiful excuse for comfort.” Your voice hardens. “My congratulations, lady.”

People call walking away a dramatic exit, but you know there are no theatrics in silence.

ii.

Long ago, she told you that you were fighting her war, and so it was only fair that you used her weapon as well.

You told her it was rather magnanimous of her to realize that.

The weapon is gone. It is now empty glass on a white finger, an ironical reflector of the light that once illuminated her.
 
“Throw it away.”

“I cannot.” Her voice is weary.

“Try.”

“I have.”

“I did not think you would have so little strength.”

The words have hurt her. You can see it in the sharp intake of breath, the tightening of the face. She’s become too thin, all bones and cheekbones, darkness framing the inscrutability of her eyes. A year ago, she would have verbally ripped you apart. Now she just stands.

A terrible, terrible smile. “Kicking the wounded, Celeborn?” She turns away because she doesn’t want to hear your answer. You never thought she would be the type to run.

“Do not mistake the wounded for martyrs.”

“How pleasant it is to finally know your thoughts, husband.”

You take a step towards her, furious – at her, for her, at all the worlds that are allowing this to happen and leaving the two of you to bear the brunt. “You have the strength to fight this!”

“No,” she says, calmly, decisively. “I do not.” Without a backward glance, she walks away, melting into the white gold of dawn.

It’s astonishing, really, how she still manages to say the last word.

iii.

In Sirion – you will not stop to count the years – hers was the first face you saw through the haze of delirium. You tried to say her name, but you couldn’t. The pain was too great, the effort too much, and you did not say it. She had placed her finger on your lips, relief making her hand shake.  

She’s dying. She’s been dying for ten thousand years, and you’re noticing it only now. But she’s living too; every time she smiles, she lives. She’s making a new harp, agile fingers barely conscious of working as she talks to some of her handmaidens. Every once in a while, she’ll laugh, but just barely.

She doesn’t know you’re there. You’ve always loved watching her, from the trees, from the council chair, from across a room.  Elu had once said that she would be a breathtaking piece of living art. A single movement - so much more beautiful than a pose. The arch of the neck, so much lovelier than the neck itself. 

You walk into the clearing, and the other women rise to their feet. She looks up at you.

“Do I intrude?”

“No.”

You sit next to her, but on the ground. She dismisses everyone else with a gesture and returns to the harp. She ignores you with practiced ease, and you are amused with her thorough knowledge of what irritates you.
 
You lean against her knees, head falling back to look into her face. She puts the instrument aside – since you arrived, three strings have been knotted wrong which would otherwise have been done perfectly.

“It will fade,” she says quietly, “This – all this – will be gone. Soon. Your heart will break, Celeborn. There will be no song of the trees left.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

“It isn’t dead yet.”

“And after it dies?”

“Then we shall see.”

She looks away, angry. “Sentimental fool.”

“Correct, lady.”

She closes her eyes. “I-”

You silence her by drawing her head down and placing your mouth over hers. The words are lost, but you know what she was about to say. You’ll call yourself a coward later, because it is much too painful to hear it and you know how little it matters now.

She traces the path of your eyebrow, and says, “I would make what I can of the time we have left.”

What a pair you make. She has been reduced to romanticism, and you to stability. 

iv.
 
“Would it be fair to ask you to stay?”

“No.”

You shake your head, smiling a defeated half-smile. “I know.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because I’m helpless.”

She places a hand on your cheek. For a moment, silence; she’s afraid you’ll say more. Her eyes stare into yours  - blue, blue, bluer – the discomfort is not as much. Ironic that Nenya’s shards still can hurt you.

“You’re not,” she says finally.

“Try being me.”

She lowers her gaze, an uncertain movement. Then she laughs quietly, and says, “I couldn’t.”

“You give me too much credit.”

“And too little thanks.”

You reach out, placing a hand on her waist, pulling her to you. Your voice is the barest murmur. “Alatariel…”

For a moment, lightening erupts, shines, disappears without a trace. All in her eyes. An invisible enemy fights from within her body; it mocks you with the glee of the triumphant. You look away; it would be better if she did not know it was so plain.

She watches you fight because you love her. She will pretend not to know for your sake, because it would spare you some guilt. Sometimes you wish you could just catch her, shout at her and let it out; then these games would not have to be played. 

Then she smiles, so beautifully, because you’ve proved once again just what lengths you would to go for her. She runs her hands through your hair. “Braids?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Braids, then.”

v.

“The sea you yearn for is the grave of my son.”

She has no reply to that because Amroth was hers too. Her once-proud eyes stare blankly into the distance. But she speaks, because you both have realized that this is the time. “Do you hear his voice in the wind?”

Your heart clenches. Golden, flightly prince-child, dancer with the grace of a thousand peacocks. “No.”

“I do.” She pauses, looks straight at you, into you; now she wants you to hurt as much as she does. “I hear him sing, and scream. I hear his conversation with you over and over again. I hear you tell him that love is not a means to the running of this world, that immortality is a stage curtain for the end.”

“Stop it, Artanis.” Your voice is strange to your ears, and it is suddenly exhausted. You have not called her that for at least twenty thousand years.

She closes her eyes, and everything falls from her– wrath, frustration, radiance. A wraith left, a hollowed structure of bones and blood. Galadriel, Galadriel. Now you know how invincibility can die.

You go to her, she does not move. Placing a hand on her shoulder, you turn her around, and she rests her head against your chest. 

You’ve fought with each other before, in public and in private. Curses, broken furniture, flashing eyes – it was rumoured that Galadriel and Celeborn took lovers’ spats to a new height altogether. Those who did not understand shook their heads pityingly, and whispered about how those two were just never meant to be together. Passion, they told their adolescent daughters and sons, is a rather tricky affair. Those who understood stayed silent.

You want her back. But it is difficult being a saviour when you don’t know what to save.

Very slowly, she takes a step backwards. There are tears in her eyes.

“I despise you.”

You say nothing, and turn around. You do not know when she leaves.

vi.

“Galadriel!”

You run down the flight of stone steps to the mirror glade. When you pick up her body, her eyes flutter open. She is frighteningly light, pale and so, so tired. A streak of blood trickles down her lips, the rich crimson unnatural against her skin. She bleeds; you breathe a little. You wipe it with the back of your hand, the metallic smell jarring because that’s what everyone’s blood smells like, and her blood should not be like everyone else’s.

The mirror smokes. Iridescent colours float in the once-clear liquid, leaving you to wonder what exactly happened.

You turn back to her. Her hand is spread over the ground, clutching a fistful of grass tightly, so tightly that her knuckles are bloodless. She opens her eyes, looks every bit her age, and whispers, “One more betrayal.”

Anger gone, and both of you are only voices in this eternity. “It will be all right.”

She looks like a shattered star, but tries to smile. “Liar.”

vii.

Her mood is contemplative tonight, but you’re not sure because her voice is no longer in your head; Nenya’s fading has taken care of that. She doesn’t seem devastated by it. The only sign that you sometimes decipher as sadness is a slight furrow of the brow when she looks at you, a visible attempt at vocal communication where silence would have once sufficed.

She’s watching you like that now. “What are you thinking of?” she asks.

“You.”

“I thought as much.”

“I do think of other things at times, Galadriel,” A feeble attempt to make her smile. 

“Tell me what is on your mind.”

“Nothing of earth-shattering importance.”

“Allow me to be the judge of that.”

“It is nothing.”

She looks a bit taken-aback. But you’re in an uncommunicative mood, and circular conversation was never a favourite pastime.

She watches you, hands folded primly in her lap. Then she laughs. “You’re very pretty when you’re irritated.”

“I’m not irritated.”

She walks over to you and places a hand on the back of your neck. You shiver, close your eyes and say, in the most normal voice possible, “If she had left, Elu would have stayed.”

“If you had died, I wouldn’t.”

“My death is not an impossibility, even now.”

“If you do, will I know?” She strives to keep her voice blank.

“No.”

You press your face into her stomach; she releases a breath. Do not leave, Galadriel. I will plead at your feet if I need to.
 
 

viii.

It was almost a throwback to the earliest days. Light, sometimes lingering touches, stolen glances. A touch on the waist; private, amused smiles. 

“You’re better than any aphrodisiac,” she whispers, and softly bites the side of your neck.

“Such flattery, lady.”

You kiss her lightly, traveling along her cheek to her jaw and then back to the side of her mouth. 

She smiles a coquettish smile, and kisses you back. Her hands wrap around your neck and she doesn’t let go. You trace the contours of her spine lightly; she arches. You smile as your kisses become softer, more teasing, a press of the lips on her collarbone. She pushes you back on the bench, pressing herself closer, impatiently finding your mouth once more. It doesn’t matter that this was supposed to be your seduction. 

A long time ago, you met the sun in the guise of a woman. She arrived, and you loved her. The simplicity of it all, Celeborn, almost makes you believe in destiny and star-crossed lovers. 

Anar falls, the sun sets, and it is one of those ironically literal moments that poets so revel in.

ix.

It is raining, and the surface of the water shimmers. 

She picks up the basin, long fingers straining against the heavy stone. She looks into it, a glance lingering against the restraints of her heart. You want to cover her eyes, turn her face into your chest and force her to weep. It would be better than watching her do this to herself.

But you will not do it, she will not weep, you’ll continue to watch, and she’ll know you are there.

Tilting the basin, she pours the water onto the ground. It flows over her feet, mingling with the streams and streams of rainwater that runs off everything. She watches it pool around her, a shallow sea swirling with currents of its own.

Can you walk on water, Galadriel? 

She turns. You wonder what tempest went into the making of her eyes.

A wordless command. Come, dance.

You forget Galadriel and Celeborn and the fate of the world. She demands your attention. 

You haven’t danced like this in years. Where is the music? There is none needed. Galadriel is the rhythm. Lightning flashes, rain pours, and the Lady makes no effort to stop the havoc because she cannot. With cold palms, she pushes the tunic off your shoulders. You tremble beneath her touch.

Later, much later, when the rain has subsided and the dance is over, you paint a silver tree on her body.

x.

“We did throw ourselves against destiny.”

You chuckle. “And is this payback time?”

“Perhaps destiny did watch, after all.”

“Impossible,” You say expansively, amused at the laughter in her eyes. “We were much too clever.”

“Blasphemy, Celeborn?”

“Rehearsed often enough, lady.”

“Destiny won’t be pleased with us, then.”

“Do you really care?”

“No.”

You watch each other from across the floor of the talan. Twilight is about to descend; the first glimmers of stars can be seen through the mallorn canopy.

She looks down at her hands, then lifts her eyes to yours again, and you’re lost. There is an endearing wonder in her voice. “Is this my penance?”

“I cannot answer that.” You move sideways, so that she can’t see you fully.

“Who will?”

“I don’t know.”

She watches you like a child watching a remarkably gullible parent. “You always know everything.”

“I don’t know this.”

She laughs. You turn around but she’s not looking at you. She’s just laughing, on and on, shoulders shaking in mirth, helplessness and agony. Its tempting to join, to be able to laugh with her again and not because it would be reassuring.

Sound travels, two voices now, and there is laughter between the sky and the trees.

~*~