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The orcs seized Celebrían in the mountains, flying down in a swarm from where they hid. She hadn’t been wary enough and she was surrounded before she could think, orcs before her, beside her, blocking her retreat, pulling her from her horse. She hit the ground shoulder-first and rolled as the horse went down, and thought a desperate sorry, sorry, so sorry to the beautiful kind animal swarmed by monsters as she pulled the knife from her belt. She kept them at bay for a little while just with her speed and her skill, and despite the panic she felt rising within her she kept it at that, just the knife, just the movement, nothing a skilled elf couldn’t do, mentally reciting the voices of her parents over and over and over again in her mind: don’t show it, or he’ll find you. Don’t show it, or he’ll find you.
If it had just been a roving band of orcs, she’d have managed. But it was not that. More of them, more and more, not just orcs now, and she understood this was planned. They’d waited for her. They’d followed her. They’d timed this perfectly, halfway between her husband and children on one side of the mountains and her parents waiting for her on the other. They had come for her.
Never show it, her mother’s voice from her earliest memories. Never show it. Never show it. Never, unless you have no other choice.
Backed into a rock outcrop, her arm bleeding from an orc-blade wound, half her cloak ripped away and her hair soaked in her own blood, she allowed herself one last indulgence of thought: of her kind, wise, loving husband; of her son Elladan, quiet and brave with a biting dry humour that never failed; of her son Elrohir, so fast in mind and in body she had never known him still since his babyhood; of her daughter Arwen, dreamy and quick-witted both, an endless, unquenchable love for the stories of legend. She thought of all she would lose if she did this, and all she would lose if she did not.
And then she turned her face to the sky and screamed with all the force she had, and watched the full power of her half-Maia fury pick up her would-be assailants and throw them away from her like leaves in a storm.
“Galadriel,” the man she’d known as Halbrand said, quite pleasantly. “A word with you.”
They were in Númenor again, him in his smith’s clothes, sitting beside her at a table in an open courtyard. Galadriel knew full well it was a dream - his dream, his creation - but all the same it was as real as anything she remembered, the buzz of crowds around them, the heat of the sun, the smell of sizzling fish from dockyard market stalls. “Do you miss Númenor?” she asked, almost casually. She hadn’t been back for so long, and now none would ever set foot there again. “Is that why you chose here?”
“I do miss Númenor, yes. Very much. I am quite annoyed that the Valar chose to take it from me. And speaking of things that have been kept from me, I think we have something to discuss.”
She breathed in the clear, sharp sea air with its faint tang of salt. No matter that it was an illusion - no matter that it was his illusion - if he was going to bring her here, she was going to take her time to savour it. And the knowledge that it took him such great strength to appear to her like this now, that he couldn’t slip in and out of her dreams with ease the way he once could, did not incline her to hurry.
His face darkened. “Take that off,” he gestured at her hand.
Nenya was a cool, reassuring tether on her finger, reminding her that this was not real. He was not here. The form he chose to appear to her in now was long gone, and all of Numenor down in the waves with it. “So you can force me to speak with you longer than I choose?”
“So I can speak with you face to face, properly, about our daughter. Really, Galadriel - you didn’t think I’d find out?”
“You didn’t find out,” she pointed out. So many years they’d kept the secret, she and Celeborn and Elrond, and Celebrían too as soon as she was old enough to know. Galadriel had felt such shame and horror at first, once she realised what she carried. But long before the birth all of that was replaced by fear, then the fear replaced again by an absolute determination of the one thing she owed the life growing within her: he must not know. He must not know, because once he knew, nothing in Arda would keep him from coming for his child.
He breathed a sharp hah, and she expected rage but instead his hand soft as sunlight caressed her face. “Which time was it, love?” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his fingertips linger on its sensitive tip. “Was it the time I had you in the woods under the mallorn trees? The night in the fortress? You used to give so much to me. Now I have to send spies listening around the edges of the mountains just to learn what name you gave our child. Celebrían, silver queen. Very beautiful.”
For the first time she felt something uneasy shift within her: this wasn’t his to know, and yet he’d learned it. As he would learn more. As he would come for his child, no matter what they all did to hide her.
“She can be a queen, Galadriel,” he said. “My daughter ruling alongside me. My regent in the land of elves and men. Why would you deny her her birthright?”
“You mean, why would I deny you your property.”
He laughed again. “You think so little of me? You were most generous with me, once.”
“I didn’t know what you were then.”
“Oh, yes, you did,” he croons, letting the words dance on his lips. “Certainly by that time in the fortress, you did. Isn’t that why they sent you? To distract me and lure me and trick me? I knew full well you were bait, Galadriel, I just couldn’t resist. And nor could you as I recall. Centuries I’ve been without any physical form now, and I can still remember how sweet you tasted that night. Do you remember it? Your own taste on my lips and my fingers? Your mouth around me? Do you remember the little noises you made? If the Valar cast me into the void forever I won’t forget the way you sounded.”
Without moving, without giving away a flicker of a thought, she called to Nenya and was rewarded with peace: the ice of mountain streams, the softness of falling snow, the stillness of deep waters.
He frowned at her calmness, then pushed further. “Was that when we made her? All that night, every way I had you before I sent you back to your army and your husband. What a good little sacrifice you were, my love. So willing. I think sacrifices are traditionally a little less enthusiastic than that, in fact, but no mind, you’ll always be flawless to me.” His hand on her face again, her cheek, her lips. “We can tell your husband I forced you, if you want. I’ll keep your lies.”
Nenya, she thought again, and was still. “This will not work.”
He sat back and shrugged, good-natured. “It’s worked before, can’t blame me for trying. Anyway, as I was saying: give me my child, Galadriel.” And the sky turned to storm around him, rain began to fall, plates blew from tables and people (who don’t even exist, she reminded herself, this isn’t real, this isn’t real) shrieked in surprise.
She stayed unmoving, unmoved. “You have already threatened her safety once.”
“I didn’t know who she was then. I just thought she’d be a useful way to get to you. Besides, she threw two dozen of my orcs down a mountain. She must be magnificent, Galadriel. Please won’t you let me meet her?”
“That’s for her to choose.”
He snarled. “If you cared about her choices, you’d have let her see me long ago. You hid her.”
“I saved her.”
“Hmm. Well, I’m quite prepared to tear Middle-Earth apart looking for her, so if you want to save her from that then let me see her now and save us all the bloodshed.”
“Bloodshed.” She leaned forward on the table, her bare forearms against smooth wood. “And how goes your work to save Middle-Earth?”
“It hit a few snags.”
“You gave up?”
He laughed. “I was younger when you knew me first. Had my head turned by a pretty elf.”
“And yet, you still say: if the Valar cast you into the void.”
He propped his head on his folded fist, knuckles against cheekbone, and looked her slowly up and down. “My daughter, Galadriel. My child you kept from me for centuries. Send her to me, or I’ll come and get her. That’s a kinder offer than I’d make for anyone else.”
Nenya, she thought, and the ring soothed her fear with falling rain, with quiet mist, with the gurgle of a woodland stream.
He reached out for her again, and she didn’t pull away but denied him the satisfaction of reacting to his touch. He stroked the back of his fingers down her cheek, cupped her chin, and then took a single, quiet kiss from her lips. “What’s she like, Galadriel?”
Little use to lie; no fiction would deter him from this anyway. “Something like you. Something like Celeborn, who raised her. Something like me.”
“Ah…” He laughed softly, and she thought he was going to kiss her again but instead he leaned his forehead against the side of hers, as though they were young sweethearts who feared to be parted. “And tell me, did she grow up loved? Is she loved still?”
“Every day of her life.”
“Well, then,” he breathed, and then he flicked his hand, and for a moment it was only the two of them left as all of Númenor crumbled into dust around them, only the two of them alone as the world turned black. Then he pulled away and it was just her, waking alone in her bed.
Celebrían kneeled before the mirror basin that was almost like her mother’s, and yet still unfamiliar. The lawns were soft under her knees with little star-shaped flowers delicate in the dark grass. Birds wheeled and sang in the air somewhere far away. She drew in three long, cooling breaths, touched the necklace her own daughter had given to her, and looked into the water. “Father.”
The water seemed to burn for a moment, a furious eye catching her in its glare. He had been searching; she was right. He would not stop searching, and she dared not wear a ring like her mother. This was the only way. The water darkened, and stilled, and then showed her a man’s face. “Daughter,” he said. “Celebrían.”
“This is how you look?”
“This is the form your mother knew. I thought, for consistency.” She saw the movement of his hand caught somewhere in the pool’s depths, and wondered if he was trying to reach for her.
“What do you want of me?”
“To know you. I never had a child. I wish to know what mine is like. And you’re Galadriel’s child too, so…” His voice trailed off into soft laughter. “What would you like of me? Power? Land?”
“Peace, maybe?”
“You ask for peace, when your sons keep riding out to hunt my orcs?”
“They’ll continue in that. I am proud of them.”
He laughed again. “There’s Galadriel’s daughter. You know, I could give you peace. But I’m somewhat limited in action, these days. It’s hard to do much diplomacy without a physical form. I would need your help.”
“What sort of help?” She knew, of course she knew. Of course her mother had told her, had warned her, again and again and again all these long years as a caution, and then most recently as a warning, as a threat, as a plea. Still: the question would not go just because it was not asked.
He frowned slightly, tilting his head from side to side as though he could see past and through her. “My turn for a question. If you don’t mind.”
She nodded, slightly - go on.
“Your mother has a ring,” he said. “It’s kept her well hidden from me for many years now. I can barely find her most of the time. And your husband has a ring, which keeps Rivendell closed off from me. Your mother tells me you are loved. I believe her. So why did neither of them give you their ring, to keep you safe?”
She looked down at her hands, bare of rings, although with a thin silver bracelet on her wrist - a gift from Elrond, pressed into her hands with tears. “I refused."
“You refused?”
“That sort of power would have been too dangerous in one like me. You could have used me to do worse than you have done already.”
“Oh, I would not,” he said. “Your mother is - well, I wouldn’t say she lies, but she deceives herself sometimes. I would have offered you power to use as you chose.”
“And I would have wanted it and accepted,” she said. “And with my will, you would have done worse than you have done already. This is why I could not let you find me.”
He pulled back, startled - but he didn’t seem to doubt her. It was, after all, true. She wanted the kind of peace where her sons hunted every single orc in the mountains until none were left but the piles of burning corpses; she wanted the kind of peace where the long trail of strays and orphans that her kind husband took in were given armies and sent back out to retake their own lands. She wanted the kind of peace where her children could choose lands of their own, as vast and beautiful as ever they liked, and grew and flourished and had children of their own in the knowledge that nothing would trouble them again. She wanted the kind of peace where she would never have to rein in her own power, where never show it were words she never had to think to herself.
“Daughter,” he said quietly. “Where are you? Let me come to you.”
“Far away.”
“All the same. Let me see you. Let me speak with you. Let me explain to you. Please.” And the will and the need in him, even over this great distance, even speaking like this, almost overwhelmed her.
“You may come,” she said. “Whenever you choose. But I am in Valinor, now. To see me you will first have to speak with the Valar and face their judgement.”
His voice became a howl of rage, and the surface of the water boiled, and the face she saw through its surface was no longer the one she had been speaking with. She leaned closer, close enough that if there was any way for him still to see her and hear her he would, close enough that her lips were almost touching the water, and said: “Bring my mother, too.”
The howl and the violence of the water were dying away, and his face was no longer visible. She was not sure whether she heard or imagined the faint voice telling her: one day, daughter. One day.