Chapter Text
In recent years, Galadriel has begun to feel lost in her centuries of rage but now she is literally lost, clinging to a scrap of wood in the vast Sundering Seas alongside a mortal, infuriating in his complete lack of interest in her burning need to return to Middle-earth and the hunt for Sauron. Except for the fact that she had seen him loosen the planks of the raft to set the other survivors adrift and so increase the chance of his own survival when the sea-wyrm attacked, she would not have said that he has much interest in anything, so uncaring and cynical does he appear. Her finely honed anger at the innumerous orcs she has slain over the centuries and their abominable commander, responsible for the cruel death of a most beloved brother – this driving need for revenge is now joined by scorn for the Southlander running away from his people and their dire need.
She finds herself drawn into conflict with Halbrand from the first, as if his indifference is a hot, jabbing brand at the wounds of her grief. She has not yet let herself name the ache of Elrond’s betrayal gnawing at her, the shock of her oldest friend not seeing eye-to-eye with her unceasing mission to destroy every last orc in Arda; instead, it is a relief to pour out her bitterness on this stranger.
The storm that arises has her trying to convince him, shouting over the strength of the wind and smashing waves, to bind himself to her and the tattered mast, increasingly frustrated with his refusal to heed and follow her orders; she is used to giving them and the sting of the one and only time she had been directly disobeyed, by the company she was leading through the Forodwaith, is painfully close.
Suddenly neither her orders nor her subordinates’ imperative to follow her unquestioningly matters; she cannot command the sea. The rotting post she was lashed to is wrest from the raft and Galadriel feels herself plunging, swift and weighted, into the deep.
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Halbrand does not trust the Elf but he reckons he understands her. She is driven by an overpowering loss and almost incoherent in her desire to right something that will never be made right, at least not by one of the creatures of this world, and creature she is, even if lofty and superior in all her pointy-eared immortality. No amount of orc blood, not even the head of Sauron hewn at her feet, will bring back her dead brother.
When a wave like a solid wall throws the Elf from the raft, there is a brief moment in which the thought occurs to him that what his body is already propelling itself to is entirely illogical. This could be the last thing you do, fool, he thinks as he drops over the side into the steel grey depth of the ocean, pulling himself hand over fist down the rope she is entangled in, fifteen fathoms into the dark of the sea.
It is her own blade that saves her in the end, something so finely wrought it looks to have been forged at the beginning of time. Perhaps her claim to be the commander of a vast Elven host is not the exaggeration (or lie) he’d assumed it to be; he knows precious little of Elves up close but surely someone with the right to such a weapon is held in high regard among her people. What then is she doing cast out on the sea, alone? Unless, of course, she has stolen the blade; he would not put that past her.
Once he has hauled her back up from the surface of the waves, Halbrand tucks the dagger in at his own side and ties the two of them fast to the remaining planks of the raft while the cold waves continue to pound down on them. They will survive or perish this night together.
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He is in a Númenórean jail cell when Galadriel returns from the Halls of Lore and for some reason she finds this amusing. Far from discouraging her confidence that he is the heir to the throne of the Southlands, she sees the street brawl that led to his imprisonment as a sign that he chafes under the restrictions placed on common men. She is certain, so certain, that their meeting on the seas was no accident, that they are bound together in each other’s doom. Halbrand will be her way back to Middle-earth, will unite the men of the South under a single banner that, together with the armies of Númenor (she is letting herself dream widely here; she will work out practical details as they are needed), will root out and destroy Sauron and his plague of orcs. She sees herself at the front of this army, the captains of Edain and Southlander answering to her call, and she will lead them into glorious battle. Finrod will be avenged and she will redeem herself from every failure and weakness of these last centuries. And perhaps this man can redeem himself from whatever shadow hangs over him.
Convincing Halbrand of this, however, will not be easy. He does not respond with enthusiasm as she speaks out her hope for the future of Middle-earth free of Sauron’s forces. There is something akin to dread in his reply, thumb running over the emblem he wears. “Be careful, Elf. Not so long ago men like me were fighting alongside them.”
“Men like you, not you yourself.”
“You’re wrong.” He turns away inside the cage he is in, speaking with his back to her. “You don’t know what I did before I ended up on that raft. You don’t know how I survived. When these people discover it they will cast me out. So will you. I am not the hero you seek.”
Yet somehow she persuades both this reluctant king hiding himself in a smithy and the Queen Regent of Númenor to sail across the sea with her, bringing an army of three hundred soldiers and horses to the aid of the Southlands. Galadriel can taste the sweetness of victory ahead.
Until it tastes like ashes.
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He isn’t sure why he lets himself be swept along in the Elf’s determined quest to slaughter orcs and run down Sauron in whatever lair he now resides. Halbrand had not been lying when he said he found the mark of the Southlands on a dead man nor when he told the Elven warrior that he had done unforgivable things, justifying them to himself at the time as essential for his survival. He senses the darkness in her, a kinship in the rage that is driving her and the inability to forgive others or herself, but there is also a light in the Elf that he is certain burned out for him a long time ago.
All his compromises, all the evil deeds willingly done, none of it was enough to keep him and the people he loved from the flames. After a mere decade in the service of the smithies of Sauron, the swords and axes made by his hands were turned against his own hometown when some thrice-damned fool decided to rebel against the unstoppable reign of darkness over the Southlands. The consequence is something he can barely name to himself and can likewise never cast from his mind: the very blades that he had crafted ended the lives of his mother, his two brothers and their young families, and his sister, not yet full-grown. He abandoned his post in the camp forges the moment he heard where the company of orcs had been deployed to but by the time he arrived on the outskirts of Afenbyge, days later, there was nothing left but ashes. No one had made it out alive.
He has been fleeing for over two years now, from the punishment that awaits his desertion but mostly from himself, and there is no solace to be found.
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He is not a soldier at war; he is a man in a fury, about to slay the orc commander in cold blood, and Galadriel recognizes every ounce of this rage within herself. She does not know what terrible thing has been done to him to elicit such murderous intent but is surprised at the compassion that wells up within her at the sight of it. She needs the captain of the enemy forces alive for practical purposes, for the information he no doubt holds, perhaps even the knowledge of the whereabouts of Sauron, but more than this she needs whatever great hurt Halbrand bears to be healed. She knows in the depth of her being that this healing cannot come at the gore-smeared tip of a spear. And while she has been willing to choose vengeance over healing for herself, she does not wish it for this Man. There is light in him yet and she would have it remain, in part, she can admit to herself, because she longs to come close to it.
Their foe is pinned beneath his boot and she is barely in time to stop Halbrand from sticking him through the throat but he hears her voice, and heeds her though it takes all his willpower to do so, and she is awash with hope. Perhaps there is the possibility of freedom from the darkness for both of them.
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It’s not until a moment of quiet following the fury of battle, sheltered inside the forest after the defeat of the orcs and the interrogation of their despicable father, that he is able to identify the touch of something other than darkness on his soul; it is her light, the light of Galadriel. He dreads marring her with any assertion that they are the same but speaks anyway, tells this immortal Elf that for the first time since his sins pulled down into ruin everything that had ever mattered to him, he had felt the possibility of freedom from his own darkness when fighting next to her. He longs desperately to hold onto that feeling, to bind it to his very being, but expects her to cast him away at the admission, to rightfully put him in his place. Instead, he turns to her in astonishment when she admits she felt it too.
It is perhaps this moment of honesty that inspires the next. For, just minutes later, when the Queen Regent presents him to the leader of the scattered villages and he is asked if he is the long-looked-for king, he replies, “No.”
There is little time for the confused furor of the crowd to build, Tar-Míriel’s shock warring with the Elf’s anger, demanding answers, when chaos breaks out in the form of the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Orodruin in the distance.