Work Text:
“You never told me.”
Melian reclines among the tree roots, her hair a swath of midnight tossed over the bark. She is all softness and warmth, rounded cheeks over full lips, and eyes as gentle and dark as a summer night with the stars glimmering deep within. Galadriel is not like her. She has hollows where Melian has curves, her features lean and hungrier beneath the smooth mask she has learned to wear. Melian would seem all the delicate maiden in comparison, were it not for the steady thrum of power that prickles Galadriel’s skin even now. Melian was not weak; Galadriel had made that determination long ago. She was simply rain, where Galadriel was ice.
From her space at Melian’s side, Galadriel plucks a tart red berry from the bowl in her lap and puts it between her lips. Even as her eyes drifted over Melian’s form she had not forgotten her words. “Told you what?”
“Why you don’t eat meat.” Melian’s smile is wide, her eyes unburdened. Somewhere in the treetops, birds sing songs as sweet as chimes on the breeze. The day is fair, the sunlight warm. Galadriel feels a chill settle in to her skin.
“Many of your brethren still partake of it,” Melian continues when Galadriel did not answer. “The Sindar elves, for one.”
Galadriel selects another berry, crushes it between her teeth. The taste is tart on her tongue. “With a bounty such as this, why should we want for flesh?”
Melian rolls her eyes, the coals of an old argument stirred to life. “Oh come now, Galadriel. You are so tight-lipped with your people’s secrets it’s a wonder you can breathe. Surely you can indulge me this once?”
Indulgence is all you know. Galadriel bites back the words. The taste in her mouth has turned bitter. She remembers the bitterness of the smoke as it blew over the wide waters, how it had stung the eyes and the heart as one. She had thought she had known hardship then, before her eyes and the eyes of her kin had turned to the north. They had thought themselves strong. That was before they knew hunger.
Galadriel’s memories are untouched, frozen and perfect. She carries it all inside of her: An unending plain of white beneath, the field of night above. Cold so deep it strangled the life out of everything it touched. Fingers and toes bulging black with frozen blood. Limbs that trembled madly, then stilled. Eternal stillness lay not far beyond. Their supplies had run out within three weeks. That was when their eyes had turned to the dying ones with careful, hungering eyes.
The flesh was so cold it was impossible to chew. You had to keep it in your mouth, taste the blood as it thawed enough gnaw through with frozen teeth. There was no time to wait. If the flesh cooled any further it would be impossible to saw through. At times, Galadriel had wondered whether they were truly even dead yet. She had kept cutting all the same. Friends had fallen to their knees never to rise again, begging with their last breaths please, not me, don’t do it to me. Galadriel had promised them that, their ice-blackened hands clenched in hers. And after they had died, she had eaten them anyways.
There are still empty spaces under her ribs where the flesh of her people had settled. She can feel it inside her still, a cold lump in the pit of her stomach. She had seen the first dawning of the moon with the taste of her own people in her mouth. The first taste of animal flesh she had in a settlement in the north of Arda had her vomiting all night. The hot, greasy chunks of meat caught in her throat like grasping hands. And yet part of Galadriel had thought: the flesh of my friends tasted sweeter.
She wonders what Melian’s face would look like, if she told her this. Part of her wants to see Melian appalled, wants to take her by the shoulders and scream this is what I am, this is what I’ve done. The thought is almost too tempting, just to see the horror creeping over those gentle features. To see her realize what Galadriel truly is, a serpent in her idyllic garden. Almost. But not quite.
Galadriel reaches down to pluck another berry from the bowl in her lap. She leans forward, holding it delicately, and offers it to Melian with a practiced smile. The Maia opens her lips obediently to accept it. Galadriel watches as the soft flesh of the fruit disappears behind them. At long last, she answers Melian’s question: “I suppose we lost the taste for it.”
Melian says nothing, recognizing when she’s been pushed away. Galadriel could not hope for her to understand. She was born in the light of Valinor, bound by love in Arda and ever-protected by magic. Her skin is so smooth, so soft. Beneath it the meat is firm and ripe, marbled with warm fat.
Galadriel can imagine exactly what she would taste like. Idly, she wonders which parts of her she’d eat first.
She slips a berry onto her tongue. It stains her mouth red.