Chapter Text
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No man is an island
Oh, this I know
But can't you see, oh
Or maybe you were the ocean
When I was just a stone
— Ben Howard, “Black Flies”
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“If you hate Fëanor so much, then why are you joining him?” Galadriel hollered at her brother, unable to believe that he would abandon his family—his beliefs—all to follow their uncle across the sea to Middle-earth and lead their people to their doom.
Finrod sighed at his sister, glancing down at the table before him instead of meeting her eyes. He held his sword within his hands, sheathed inside its intricate scabbard with the leather strap dangling below, and lowered it onto the wooden table in the workshop.
Despite having spoken against their uncle, he had declared his intent to follow Fëanor, so Galadriel knew she would find him here in the workshop of their father’s home, gathering his supplies for his journey to war.
While they had no such need of these supplies for war, their people still had a fondness for craftsmanship and forms of art, and so their parents’ home had a place for it. Aulë’s servants had taught the Elves the art of smithing, of making beautiful, and useful, objects, including the different pieces of armor as well as swords and daggers. Swordmanship was also seen as another form of dance, and so their people had learned it ages ago, and still taught it to others en masse.
But war? War was a new word to Galadriel. Disagreements were abundant amongst the Elves, and disputes were common—but war, this was new, and her fear of it was very real.
Finrod had not yet spoken, and Galadriel feared she had offended him. Slowly, she placed her hand down upon the table—on top of the scabbard which held his blade.
“You cannot go,” Galadriel whispered, feeling her voice shake within her throat and tears sting at the back of her eyes.
“I must,” Finrod simply said, raising his eyes at last to look at her. They were deeply sad, so full of it that they glimmered with a sheen of tears, too. “You misunderstand my reasons, my dear sister. For our hate towards our uncle is a shared burden that lies between us, and it is the deepest chasm in my heart, but hear my words and understand my purpose. I will not abandon my people and my friends alone to Fëanor’s rule. He has a wicked heart. You know this, and so do I. Am I to leave them thus to be poisoned by his wicked words? His leadership will lead our people to their doom.” His eyes gleamed with unshed tears, which he refused to let fall. “I must go, dear sister, to save what people I may from his reign.”
“And abandon your own family in the process?” Galadriel demanded of him, her own tears following freely now.
“It is my family that leaves with him, Galadriel,” Finrod threw back at her, though his voice remained soft as he leaned over the table closer to her. “It is not just friends and distant kinfolk who are following his call. Some of them I have known my whole life, and they are as dear to me as you—” Finrod shook his head, refusing to make a comparison. “You will be safe here. They will not be safe out there. It is not only that, though. If they are subjected to Fëanor’s rule alone, it will corrupt their hearts to his cause. His words will poison what sense they have left in them, and then they will speak his truths instead of their own. He will divide us, one by one, until we all stand alone because he cares about no one but himself and his own pride. I must stop that, Galadriel, from happening. That is why I must go to Middle-earth. Not to back Fëanor or support his needless cause, but to make sure our people are not left alone with him to struggle and fend for themselves. The ones he turns his back on, I will take them under my wing. I will protect them, Galadriel.” Finrod reached out his hand to place it upon Galadriel’s knuckles, curling his fingers underneath her palm and squeezing it gently within his grip. “Someone must.”
Galadriel stared across the way at his hand, at the way it laid atop her own.
“Mother and Father are staying here,” she tried to argue next without lifting her eyes, her voice no more than a whisper. She said it as if it was enough to make him stay, but with his armor picked out and his sword at the ready and his dagger hanging on the belt at his side, she knew he had long since made his choice and her words would do little to sway him.
“They are,” Finrod agreed, withdrawing his hand from hers at last. “And you will be here with them. All of you safe.”
“I will not stay,” Galadriel blurted out, raising her eyes to his. “If you are this intent on leaving, I will not stay behind and watch your back as you go. I will go with you.”
“No, Galadriel—”
“—I will go with you,” Galadriel snapped, turning around at once to yank a sword in its scabbard from the hooks on the wall. She whirled around in a fury to face her brother, slamming the sword down on the table next to his. “I will not let you go alone.”
“It is too dangerous for you, Galadriel,” Finrod tried to argue with her. “You should stay here with Mother and Father where it is safer for you—”
“—It is safer for me wherever you are,” Galadriel announced without fear, “and if you are halfway across the world, you cannot protect me.”
Finrod’s eyes shone from the unshed tears within them as he pressed his lips together tightly, gazing at her with a hurt look upon his face and so much sorrow in his gaze. “I will not always be there, Galadriel, to protect you. This is a lesson you must learn sooner rather than later.”
Galadriel remained unshaken. “Then, I will be there,” she said steadily, “at your side until that day comes.”
Finrod’s lips trembled at her admission as he lowered his gaze back down. He knew better than to argue with her any further. His sister had a stubborn mind, and once it was made up, there was no changing it. “You will need a better sword than that,” he finally said, nodding his head at the one she had chosen out of all the ones in the room in her little fit of anger. “And you will need armor,” he added, raising his eyes to meet hers again.
Slowly, she nodded her head in understanding. In that moment, Galadriel knew he had accepted that she would come with him—and he would speak no other words against it.
Together, they stepped outside of the workshop into the cool night air, passing over the threshold of a doorway into darkness that had now covered the land from shore to shore. No light shone in the skies, for Telperion and Laurelin were diminished and destroyed—withered, blackened stalks of the bright, blooming majesty they once were.
It was colder now without them—as if Laurelin had given off the very heat and warmth of life within its light that was no more.
“Our homeland is different now,” Galadriel said with sadness in her voice. “I will not miss it, Finrod, if it stays like this.”
“This is not our homeland,” Finrod told her, shaking his head. It shocked Galadriel as she turned to look at him with widened eyes. He glanced to meet her gaze with the smallest quirk of a half smile, though sad it was, at the very corner of his mouth. “If there is one thing Fëanor speaks true, this is not our home. The Elves were born in Lake Cuiviénen near the Sea of Helcar in the far east of Middle-earth.” Finrod turned his gaze towards the East as if he could peer through vast, untold leagues of space in between and see it again with his own eyes. “In a way with our leaving, we are going home.”
Glancing down at her brother’s side, Galadriel reached out for his hand and took it into her own. She curled her fingers around his hand and gripped it hard within hers, clenching onto it with the ferocity of everything she felt—her anger at their uncle, Fëanor, and her love for her brother, from whom she would not be parted. Not for anything in the world.
Morgoth could take their trees. He could take their light, but he could not take away her family from her.
“Together,” Galadriel said in a fierce whisper. It caught on the wind, blown away with a whistle through the surrounding trees as their leaves all rustled in the dark.
Nothing but dark.
“Together,” Finrod agreed so softly, though she could hear it in his voice and see in his eyes as he still stared forward at the vast darkness ahead—that he knew he would not be at her side forever.