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Galadriel was surrounded by enemies.
They came from all sides, encircled her in this forest, these monsters of the night, the orcs she had so often defeated, but in their numbers they seemed impenetrable and invincible. Dark blood dripped from her hands as she struck one after another, piercing their throats. But it was in vain. Her bow was broken somewhere in the distance, no arrows left to shoot. They would not let her go in the darkness, and since the last time when it had only been a remnant army that she had been able to overcome with allies, their power had grown. And she feared the worst for Elrond and the others, nowhere to be seen between the swallowing darkness. Galadriel had barely time to think about them before she had to prepare for the next blow. But she closed her eyes as the blackness splashed onto her face, hoping with all her might that her friends were at least safe, for she would not be able to hold out much longer on her own. All her strength, training and agility, long honed in countless battles, seemed useless all of a sudden.
As she gritted her teeth and braced herself for whatever was to come, she only regretted that it would happen this way. Galadriel had hoped to meet her end in a different way. At the hands of someone else... an enemy worth dying for as she tried to bring him down.
She closed her eyes, pressing her lids tightly together, not wanting to see how it happened. She inhaled one last time.
A wind blew over her. She felt heat in the world outside her eyelids and a tremor in the earth. The vibration of an ancient, long-forgotten power.
Galadriel breathed out. Despite the sudden disruption, she was still conscious and her mind was still racing. She almost didn't want to open her eyes, expecting only a new threat awaiting her. But she did it anyway, driven by curiosity to see why she was still alive.
The first image that penetrated her slightly lifted eyelids made her shudder and her eyes flushed wide open in an instant, her whole body tensing as she stood in this forest that was now surrounded by lifeless bodies and smoking tree stumps. A wave of sadness washed over her at the extinction of these creatures of nature. But she did not let the sadness linger for long, for she knew who was the cause of this violence, who was now standing too far in the shadows of darkness, wafts that hovered around his figure and made him almost recognisable.
Galadriel had been expecting him to appear one day, had imagined the moment when she would see him again, with a weapon of destruction in her hand and a ring of power on her fingers. But to actually sense his presence, not far from her powerless self, threatened to shake her to the core and a sudden hesitation crept into her resolve. He stood there behind the rows of burnt orcs as if he was just watching, and for a while Galadriel was left to her own thoughts. Was he alone? Would anyone be able to save her? Had... he actually just saved her?
Galadriel had somehow sensed that he had been close. How could she not, with all the shadows around her heralding his presence?
Then the figure stepped out of the darkness into the last light the night had to offer. For the first time since the moment of his illusion in Eregion, she saw him. Back on the sea and the raft, right where he had revealed to her the vision of their future. A deceptive promise.
He wore the disguise of an elf, but she recognised that face, the same one he had chosen as Halbrand, only with the elegance of an elf and long blonde hair falling smoothly over his shoulders. The appearance made her blink, her reaction sheltered by darkness. But he was still him .
He’s Sauron , she told herself over and over again as shadows loomed around his shape with a stillness that captivated the silence around them. He held his head high, as he always did when he revealed his power. His body was at full height in a dark tunic, held together by a golden band that shimmered towards her. Sauron had taken his mission seriously. She had to warn the elves somehow.
"Why are you here?" Galadriel whispered into the smoky silence. The only breaths came from a battle-worn she-elf and a fallen Maiar.
He moved closer to her, or he levitated, his steps barely discernible but his tunic wavering in the air. „I said I would make sure that everyone remembers how you helped me. I said, I never lied to you.” His voice sounded dry, much like the moment, when Sauron had revealed who he was to her, and she remembered when he had leaned down to her in the hall of Eregion. His breath so close to her neck, his words pushing to find a way to get under her skin… and succeeding.
“It was not a threat, not only…” he paused and looked at her from the few steps he was still apart, only separated by bodies of orcs lying between them, killed in an instant without hesitation. “It was also a promise.” A promise that no one else would kill you.
The rest was a whisper from somewhere, but she did not let herself fall for it. Inside her, a tempest manifested with enveloping heat.
“I don’t need your promises”
Galadriel could almost see him raising an eyebrow at her response as he stepped closer and between the orcs as if it did not matter.
“You need the darkness to protect you more than you think.” He continued, his voice different now, more like when they had spoken and fought in the forge many many days ago. “You witnessed it yourself. We are more akin than you think.”
She could see his face so clearly now, only a few spaces between them in the cold atmosphere. He seemed different, more honest, more like himself. He had given up trying to find his peace elsewhere. A path that Galadriel had taken away from him.
“You, Galadriel, are a light but you carry a shade of darkness with you. You always have."
"There are no shades of darkness," she pressed, "Look at you, there is only a pitch blackened abyss."
He narrowed his eyes, a rush of emotion marking his usually undisturbed face.
“You know that’s not true.”
Suddenly the atmosphere around them broke with a crackling, heat-threatening sound, as if on the verge of combustion. Then flames erupted from his hands and illuminated the night with a powerful radiance. Galadriel took only a small step back. She did not fear him.
Sauron focused her with an intense glow through the blaze, “Look at the flames. The light is flickering in the darkness, the periphery between the two elements, don’t you see the shades?” His voice changed from softness to determination and back again.
Galadriel closed her eyes again, not wanting the image that showed too much of her inner self to be reflected in the flames... too much . But she could not resist opening her eyes and gazed into the fire that flickered in his eyes, playing around the blackness, turning it grey.
She grabbed the last weapon she had left, a dagger, not Finrod's, but good enough to meet this new threat of truth.
She let the weapon rush down on him. And as before, he blocked her attack with an effortless movement of his hand. The strength of her will rested in his touch. Sauron called the flames back, but Galadriel sensed they weren't completely silenced.
He twisted his mouth into an almost scornful snarl. "You know very well that you cannot stop me like this. Have you no other weapon?"
"I'm working on it," she looked up at him, feeling his hand so firmly on her arm as it had when he had revealed himself and stopped her the first time. He was no more an elf than he had been Halbrand, and yet his movements were not different. The touch had not changed. Even then he had been nothing but Sauron.
"Perhaps," she began, "I wanted to see how it feels."
To touch the darkness.
For a moment he seemed to reconsider. Had she said something unexpected? Galadriel's attack had pushed them intimately closer together and drawn her to his darkened eyes. No light in them.
"You foolish elve. Are you trying to threaten me... or tempt me?" His hand, still resting on her arm, froze in the moment, wavering only for a flicker but Galadriel noticed. Looking into his eyes she somehow felt that she could feel the deep, hidden anguish and a sense of uncertainty within him. He did not trust her. He had opened up to her and she had denied him, had shattered his vision into pieces.
Galadriel's heart felt clenched in a strong fist and her eyes watered with suppressed emotion. It wasn't how it had happened on the raft, not for her. But she knew there was a thin line of light glowing in the ashes.
"That depends," she answered.
He came closer, his whole body almost leaning over and above her. His breath touched her as she responded by lifting her blood covered chin up to his undefiled face.
"On what?" he whispered into the dusk, his voice deeper than time.
She felt no weakness, not from him but neither from her. Just a harmonising strength, her breaths entangled. Nothing about his presence frightened her. She knew who he was, no more secrets to reveal. Somehow a smile appeared on her lips, unconscious but sincere.
"What shade of darkness you turn out to be," she finally replied. And I.
Neither of them moved.
Only the air around them seemed to gather momentum, ignited by a power, ancient and promising.
Then he smiled down at her, soft eyes shimmering through the darkness.
A shade lighter.