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The lakes by the marsh that Galadriel knew by heart — as her feet had made their permanent print on the humid soil, resulted by walking up and down the trail a million times in her life — were the perfect places to sit down and write. Galadriel believed that the dewy skies that loomed over the grey-blue waters carried such a tragic romantic flavour that produced the finest poetry and prose.
This lake was the hometown of every word Galadriel had ever written, her love for writing blooming under one willow when Finrod caught her hand and guided it to write an A, for Artanis, oh, was he the most splendid teacher. She wrote and wrote and mourned her brother, husband, and friends here. Her tears fell into the water every time she came to confide in the daisy beds by the lake and were carried away to depths beyond her imagination. Elrond trailed in her footsteps as a child on this very ground, he sought her comfort here when he lost Elros and held her when she lost Celeborn, it was the last place he saw her before he went off to pursue a career.
Nothing lasts forever, Galadriel knew this and had it proven to her countless times. Nobody can live forever. Children do not stay children no matter how young they look in their elders’ eyes. And sadness, like happiness and rage and guilt, is not permanent. Her five poetry collections were huge successes, the latest one climbing up the bestseller charts rather quickly, which left Galadriel bewildered and wondering. She believed this place was the magic behind it all, she believed a part of Finrod now lived within her readers’ minds, the enchanted, bewitched water of the lake mixed with Galadriel’s grief and love and yearning gave her what she now called her pride and joy.
Elrond called to congratulate her, Elendil, peeking behind Míriel’s shoulder on video call, made a remark about her giving him some expertise, and many friends sent her emails praising her writing, which made her miss them all more. This was why today’s visit to the lake was lonelier than usual, why she looked deeper within and sought a mere sapling of a feeling that’d died and scattered its seeds over the soil of her heart before disintegrating, why she wrote and wrote once again, more driven than ever, only to find that every verse and rhyme was tied to the one emotion she never believed would take home in her heart once more.
She’d read and reread Mairon’s widely praised series that he’d hastily named ‘Feebly Grasping Onto My Nonexistent Penance’ for press countless times in the past few months, favouring the latest instalment for some reason, feeling some deep connection to it that she couldn’t explain unless she saw the man behind it again. She missed him. He’d written one of the reviews for her own The Two Trees that was printed on the mass market copies, publishing it on the blog under his pen name first, and capturing Galadriel’s gratitude and heart with it all the same. “Oh, Artanis, I could not find the right words until I opened that first page again.” He wrote, knowing she’ll pick up on what he meant. It was a private letter posted to the public.
Galadriel longed to see him again. She never even gave him a way to keep contact with her, and her guilt manifested a yearning that presented itself to her so boldly. As chance has proved its trustworthiness to her so, she came to rely on it to a fault. Some childish part of her believed she would see Halbrand again, and not just in a dream, and not by something so mundane as human-made arrangement.
She quickly learned that all the aimless verses she wrote on her trip were about him, in one way or another. She sat on her bed flicking through the pages, a teenage girl's smile playing on her face every time she skimmed over the words “green”, “rough”, and “enchanting”, wishing, even if only a little, that he was sitting opposite her and patronising her with his clever tongue. Galadriel pulled out her phone then, seeking the picture of him holding out her book and pen for her, a bashful smile on his face, his cheeks rosy from embarrassment, the tip of his nose red from the cold.
She cursed herself for being so rash once again, convincing herself that she felt for him after having only seen him once, then she contradicted this traditional notion, remembering that Halbrand had been her acquaintance from long before she saw his face, that his words were the keys to her heart before his regal face became so. Her eyes landed on the stack of books on her bedside table, the worn, tabbed and indexed copies marking his residence here in her house. She laid back on the bed.
Halbrand never let his publisher hire cover artists for his books; he always drew them himself. Concept art, character art, landscape visionaries, everything was important to build his stories up with the intensity he’d weaved into them. He needed to see what he was working with, and so his writing and world-building experience was always solitary. No one knew exactly what he had in mind or how it all came to mind, and that was part of the fun. For his Sauron looked exactly like him, but the green eyes were replaced with yellow and red ones, and what was inside Halbrand was on the surface of Sauron. He was a map of Halbrand’s entire inner monologue pressed into an abominable, unforgivable monster. He didn’t want people to know that, though, the label of ‘genius’ placed upon him for creating such a complex protagonist pleased him, and kept people behind a veil such as his anonymous persona did.
The other characters were mostly inspired by people in his life, had he known them directly or indirectly. Everyone had an effect on sculpting who he was turning into, or rather, adapting him to realities that changed too quickly in small periods of time, and late into his time at university did he realise this, making it almost the main theme of his writing career later on. He mimicked the mistreatment he received as a child, the destruction that burned too close to his skin, and the trauma that chewed him up and left him out to dry all into a form of corruption using magic. He did turn himself into a monster, but he turned his dead father into an invincible demon, the one he had to serve for decades by delving ever so deeply into the darkness, his long-since lost friends into calculating masterminds, serving him yet mutinying against him in the shadows. It was a series of twisted intentions and evil upon evil that does not waver, a world and a mind that knows nothing but creating darkness and feasting on it. But no one, except those who looked closer, saw the ever-growing light that took the story over as it went on. The clarity that Halbrand made sure mirrored his own real one as he grew wiser and more worn with time, was seen by a few critics and reviewers, and by her, most probably, of course.
His character had no clear motive to his evil doings and his need to conquer, but he did have what made his foundation shake, what made him less of an evil, and it was his grief. It was not even close to the other monologues he’d written in his seminars years ago nor the elegies for the ever-changing world that didn’t fit lonely, passionate, young adult Halbrand. This was something entirely new. He’d taken the wretched cobwebs of his wasted youth and made them a tragic beauty. A desire for power that played the role of a curtain, hiding his fragile, beating, bleeding, real grief far away.
In the medical prescriptions he writes, he was Sauron. Manipulative, cunning, coy Sauron. He diagnosed his fictional counterpart with the coldness that destroyed worlds, the terminal addiction to tyranny and the selfishness that he injected his pages with was so contagious that he couldn’t see himself abandoning telling his story in this abysmal conduct anytime soon. In the real world, though, the world he’d abandoned as soon as he could, the one where he served himself and himself only, he was Mairon, or Halbrand. Reclusive Halbrand, with no friends or parents to call, no children to fret over, no blonde bookstore beauty to lean against graffiti walls with everyday to smoke and talk and kiss. He was not, as what could be presumed, trapped in a cycle of nothingness, either. His existence was a poetic, near invisible one. He wanted to see the end with his eyes, even though the brown duvet on his bed every night resembled the unmistakable finish line his past self would have revelled in.
The Two Trees sat on his desk, waiting to be picked up a fifth time. He’d written a review for it months ago for the author’s New York Times Bestseller event, and he’d taken the chance to tell Artanis how the book truly was after he couldn’t find an open end to contact her privately about it, or…about things. At first, he believed his review was far too personal and sentimental, but his longing disobeyed him, or rather, he’d seized it by the throat and told Galadriel he’d missed her in front of the entire world.
And he did, he really did. He had nothing on him to see her lovely face again, it was just the deliberate signature on the book that’d grown to become a Holy Grail for him that connected him to her now. He wished fate would entwine them again, however that might play out, he needed to see her again and tell her…what would he tell her if he saw her? That her words made him feel human? That she was beautiful and talented and special and beloved to him? That he didn’t need her physical form to fall in love with her? That her words were enough, the beauty they’d represented made him, as they’d made many others, fall for her, but that her hands would complete him like the sun at noon and like a flock of birds returning home in the spring?
Or was it none of these? Was he to hide all of these compromising feelings forever, then?
Sauron wouldn’t. Sauron would move mountains and slay a thousand men for one. He would run to her and give her a crown and a star and his hand. He could subtly hint to her how much he needed her and he could scream it from the rooftops, too. And who was Sauron, if not Halbrand? And who was Halbrand to deny his fate? He picked up the book for the fifth time.
They meet again. By some graceful, ever-so-powerful verse written in the songbook of their destiny, they meet again.
Galadriel was at the supermarket in the middle of town, searching for a cake mix, or a pre-baked or store bought cake, which would be better in her case, for her annual lonely celebration of her late Finrod’s birthday. It was absurd, how almost everything in day-to-day life was designed for tall people, she thought as she walked out of the store after embarrassing herself in front of an employee, trying to reach a shelf that was too high and almost knocking it all down. She shook her head repeatedly as she walked towards the parking lot to chase the redness out of her cheeks.
On the way home, she decided she would stop at her usual Waterstones, to see what’s new in and to grab a couple of books she’d said she would read soon. She bought two essay collections and stood in the same spot as last time, glancing around at the fairly quiet bookstore, imagining that busy February morning again, wishing he was here again.
“And in the gloomy depths of the sea, with the hand that has endured centuries of tear
He bound himself to me
With his knowing, enchanting eyes
He gave me a second try
Oh, how willing was I to try”
“By the Valar!” She cursed, kneeling to pick up her phone from the concrete ground of the pavement. She was so occupied loading her bags in the trunk that it slipped from her zipped hoodie’s pocket. She stared miserably at her cracked phone screen, dreading a trip to yet another store today. She blew gently at the shattered particles of glass and sighed. She cursed again as she slammed the trunk shut.
“Must a poor car endure such anger?” She heard a familiar accented voice muse behind her and whirled around, almost dropping her phone again. Her breath and snide remark died in her throat and her eyes widened to twice their usual size.
“Halbrand,” she exclaimed and his face broke into a grin.
“Hey,” he sent a short, hesitant wave her way and stepped closer to her.
Unsure of whether she should shake his hand or not, in her bewildered state, she ran into his arms, almost knocking him down to the floor. He laughed loudly then, his sweet joy filling the street and winning them stares from everywhere. “Missed me that much?” He said, wrapping his arms around her lithe form and rocking her back and forth.
She hit his chest gently, “It’s been ages.”
“Believe me, Gal, if I could, I would have run around this town like a Victorian madman with a strand of your hair asking if anybody knew you,” he quipped. “But this is the twenty-first century, my dear.”
“It’s good to see you again.” She pulled back and rested her hands on his elbows.
“Looks like fate has one more for us in store, eh?” He tilted his head at her, the strands of hair that framed his face brushing against his nose with the movement. His hair was in a bun at the back of his head, and he wore a cozy grey tracksuit that suited the mid-April weather.
“More like a million more.” She smiled. “D’you wanna get coffee somewhere?”
“Ehm, sure thing, I was actually headed there,” he pointed to a corner coffee shop at the end of the street and Galadriel shook her head.
“I know a better place,” she unlocked the car with her remote. “Come on!” She jogged to her car door and he stood contemplating for a few beats until he gave in.
When he got in and put on the seatbelt, he looked up at a bashful Galadriel who held an AUX cord for him and he took it, quickly scouring his music library for a song she might like.
On the drive to the café, Halbrand thought of the ease that came with the woman sitting beside him in the car. She was like a companion who’s been there for the entirety of his life and only recently materialised in front of him. She hugged him the second time she saw him, Lord help him. And like the fool who couldn’t think straight that he’s become, he played a heavy metal song instead of the calmer one that came after it. Galadriel sniffed.
“I should’ve known,” she playfully rolled her eyes.
“What,” He turned his head to face her, a smirk playing on his lips. “that I like Pantera?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I like them, too,”
“Really, you?” He raised his voice so she could hear him over the music, “I took you for a ‘Radiohead on my drives to work’ kinda lady.”
She’d laughed, and Halbrand considered lowering the volume just to listen to her. He settled for going silent and looked at her. It scared him. How genuine and radiant her laugh was, how fair and terrible she was, how strong her hold was on him. He didn’t need a picture anymore, her face was carved into the inner membrane of his brain now, memorised by his body like it memorised the need to eat and sleep.
Unconsciously, he began to laugh with her, and her surprised turn to him made him aware of what he was doing. Pantera faded into a Nirvana demo, and their laughs turned into occasional giggles and tapping against the steering wheel. Galadriel didn’t ask Halbrand what drink he’d take from the café, nor did she ask him to accompany her inside, but she got it just right.
He found out later that it was because she orders the exact same thing with the same amounts of every little addition. It made his useless heart leap.
Galadriel parked her car at the peak of a cliff, close to the marsh where she wrote her poetry, and she and Halbrand leaned against the engine hatch, Halbrand playing music and Galadriel overwhelmed with an urge to hold his hand.
“I wrote something,” he blurted and pulled a folded piece of paper from his hoodie pocket. “I haven’t written anything since the release, only last night did I get the inspiration.”
“Oh?” Galadriel looked at the folded yellow paper, and Halbrand handed it to her, pulling a cigarette from the same pocket when Galadriel took the draft. She gave him a second look.
“Is it okay to…” he trailed off, gesturing to the cigarette in his hand.
“I don’t mind.” She shrugged, unfolding the paper in her hands and squinting in surprise. “Poetry?”
“Vertical prose.” Halbrand whispered under his breath, and Galadriel burst out laughing again. It was as if he was blessed with miracles today. He smiled at her and lit the cigarette between his lips.
“I’ll just write horizontal poetry next time.” She raised a quizzical eyebrow. Halbrand reached back to perch his arm at a comfortable angle, and by doing so, he pressed on a song that was too good to change, even though it coloured his cheeks and made him want to disappear from Galadriel’s side and despite her nervous chuckle. For a moment, he didn’t want her to read what he wrote anymore, feeling self-conscious and embarrassed, knowing damn well she would read between the lines and sit further away from him, but as the soft afternoon breeze moved her hair back, she kept her eyes glued to his as the slow tempo of the song blended with the synths and the lyrics made both of their stomachs twist with something profound.
“That’s just rhythmic Arabic poetry, Galadriel,” Halbrand murmured, the emotion that overtook the atmosphere claiming him slowly but surely.
She rolled her eyes playfully. “Don’t break my stride, Hal,” and forced her attention away from his eyes, focusing instead on the writing in front of her.
Halbrand subtly watched her read, slowly nodding along to the song, and his mind went to observe how easy holding her hand would be, as it rested mere inches within his grasp, how easy taking her in his arms again was, how all of his dreams since February were unfolding right before his eyes and he only just picked up on it. He threw his finished cigarette to the ground, stepping on it to put it out.
She turned to him, her eyes glossed over, and he took her hand at last. The sky turned orange as Halbrand led Galadriel into a dance, her golden hair shining ever so persistently in the sunset as he spun her around. She leaned into his chest and rested her head in the crook of his neck, silently begging him to stop and hear what she thought. He only took that to his advantage, leading her into a dance so intense she couldn’t speak. Her eyes speared him, but as he placed his hands on her waist, lifting her up in the air for mere seconds, she felt green and blue alloy at last. Halbrand stopped and resorted to slow rocking instead when the singer said something significant that had Galadriel look up from their feet at him. His gaze was so tender, his hold on her guarding her like his homeland at war, his mouth so—
“Galadriel,” Halbrand called, grasping for her attention like an anchor. “I can’t move on.”
The ring of his accent in her ears made her insides melt, the way he said her name sounded both new and old, like her favourite song that she’d played a thousand times already. What can’t he move on from?
He never explained it in words, but the nonverbal permission he’d asked of her told her what he wanted, what he couldn’t move on from wanting. Halbrand placed his hand on the back of her head and pulled her in so quickly as if he’d been a stowaway coming upon a bit of water, and Galadriel felt like crying. She pulled him in instead, gently tucking his hair behind his ears and holding his face with all the care she could muster, pouring the love in her heart into one kiss that wasn’t enough for all of it, and in the haze, part of her noted how dedicated he was to it, giving her all the warmth and passion and sincerity he’d hidden for far too long, showing the man she knew in the books, somehow making her want him more.