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As Elrond’s hand creeps over the dry earth to find hers — a hairsbreadth at a time, as if it cost him all his pride to do so — all Galadriel can think is that if there has ever been a worse time for this, she cannot recall it. She would welcome a reconciliation, yes, but this is not what this is. Not with how Elrond is looking at her.
She hasn’t been looked at in this way since the days when she would dance with—but no, it is better not to think of a past as far as that, as sweet as that. The future, Ring-inspired and Sauron-stained, is already giving her nightmares enough without the past weighing in on her, too. The mind is a treacherous thing, and dangers on the road are not the only reason she has volunteered to take the first watch.
Sleep has been eluding her these days, and it’ll be harder still to come by if Elrond insists on trying to prove himself her equal in the last way that he should. Allowing anything to happen between them today would be a mistake, another distraction she cannot afford.
Besides, they’ve already been outrunning each other’s lingering glances for years; there is no reason why they cannot endure it for another night. Nothing has changed.
So before Elrond can take her hand, Galadriel covers his instead, lightly and tenderly as a friend would — or a sister, or a mother, or any of the other things she would be willing to be to him. If what he wants from her is the one type of love she is unwilling to share, he must ask again for it at another time. Vorohil, Camnir, Rían and Daemor are asleep around them, for one, and for another, perhaps Sauron and his shadow are only too awake.
Elrond of all people should be clear-sighted enough to see their peril, to see her fear, to see through her. He always has been.
But it is not insight which he chooses to display now. With all the clumsy loudness of a half-Man, he stubbornly shifts to go up on his elbows, crushing a dry leaf as he does so. The sound and the movement echo in the stillness of the night, but Galadriel forces herself to continue to stare straight ahead. It is no victory. Against her will and without trying to, the corners of her eyes tell her she is herself being watched with a hunger and a loneliness that she sees most often in the mirror.
Elrond reaches out again, faster this time, less proudly, his aim truer.
“Galadriel—”
He sounds lovelorn. She wrenches her hand off his.
“That would be madness, Commander Elrond,” she whisper-shouts, part angry sneer and part desperate plea. She has been doing a lot of that lately. Soon she'll forget the difference between anger and despair. It wouldn't be the first time. When has she ever known which way is up and which way is down?
Elrond answers first with a wry smile, then with a noise that might be a scoff or might be a sigh. He, too, has been doing a lot of that lately. What emotions he is confusing, she doesn’t know. “I did not think you cared about madness, or folly.”
“I care if it is you!”
Her voice comes out sharper than she means it to be, but sharper still is the intake of breath as Elrond shifts uncomfortably to look away from her and back up towards the sky.
In the starlight Galadriel can see he’s blushing, as if the smallest admission of care from her were akin to a vow of love. It is sweet, how little he asks of her, and how much he gives in exchange for it. His devotion is all-encompassing and naïve, like that of an Elfling first learning the ways of love. In many ways that is what he is, and this should put a stop to their near-dalliance if nothing else does. She’s seen him grow up from frightened child into whatever this is.
But there is so little of the boy left in him lately — what is it that has aged him so suddenly? The mortal blood in his veins, or the certainty in his heart? Or is his certainty really only fear wearing the armour of obsession, as hers had been? Either way, she is watching Elrond’s innocence slip through her fingers.
Her fingernails dig into her palms. This is not a defeat she is willing to accept without fighting.
She turns to meet his eyes, steeling herself enough to reassure them both.
“I told you before, Elrond. I won’t let you drown. I won’t let you be—” She chokes on her words, or on her pride. “—marred.”
Elrond frowns, his head tilts searchingly. For a moment, he says nothing, and the silence lies heavy between them. Then his hand comes rest on her shoulder. His touch has lost all semblance of lovesick shyness, but that hasn’t been replaced by the easy comfort of their friendship, either. This is a heavy touch, almost kingly in its scrutiny.
“Is that what you think you are?” he asks, searching something deep in her eyes. “Marred?”
Galadriel feels bare before his eyes, but when she half-heartedly tries to shirk away, he holds her fast. “Elrond—”
“I must know this, Galadriel. Answer me, for the sake of this company, if not mine. Is that truly what you think you are?”
She shakes her head, breathes in the stifling air. “The High King—”
“The High King,” Elrond squeezes her shoulder, “is no less under the Enemy’s shadow than you are. I have told him so. That you are not to blame for Halbrand’s deceit. That is not what I’m asking. I ask only that you—”
“The Rings are not—”
“—trust me. You used to, once.”
The words catch her wrong-footed.
If Elrond were wielding his sword, he would have drawn blood. The instinct to defend herself is strong, and no love in the world can quell it.
“What you want from me, Elrond,” she accuses haughtily, “is something quite other than trust.”
Elrond graciously acknowledges her parry with a small smile. “It is. But I offer only what you would want if you thought you could have it. Is it not?”
There is also something haughty in how he says it, and Galadriel tries to pretend it is anger which makes her heart dash and break itself against her breastbone. But she cannot convince even herself of it, and under Elrond’s simmering anger, her lies fall apart with a crack, like a frozen lake thawing too fast.
Against her best judgement, Galadriel reaches to press his hand, the one still on her shoulder. “I will not take what you offer, Elrond.”
He, too, thaws.
A shadow passes over his eyes before they glimmer again, not in challenge but in heartbroken, guileless begging. “It is freely and willingly given. It has long been.”
Even as a child, Elrond had never looked this helpless. It hurts her to see it, but it is also a blessing, in a way. Comforting him is easy as nothing else has been since she cast herself adrift.
“It will be better given to another one day,” she whispers, stroking the back of his hand. If it is an empty platitude, it is at least not a lie. Elrond would be hard pressed to find an unwiser aim for his devotion, and if even she has found it in her heart to love again after Celeborn, so shall Elrond. He is still very young, younger than she has ever been. They do not belong together. In a twist of fate, he has the innocence of Valinor in him, and she the bitterness of Middle-earth. They can only ever meet in the middle, adrift in the Sundering Seas where they will both perish if she does not rescue them both. “Can you not trust me in this?”
She smiles, raises her eyebrows in what she hopes comes across as a friendly challenge. If it does, Elrond refuses to rise to it. He averts his gaze instead. They are standing close enough that as he lowers his eyes, she can see the shadow of his eyelashes shifting upon his cheek
Galadriel cannot remember when they have gotten as close as they are now, and it would be wiser to move away — or perhaps closer. Which way is up and which way is down? Is the alluringly warm light in Elrond’s half-lidded eyes more like the guidance of his father’s star, or the phantom-filled sea of his brother’s realm? Is she rising or falling as she shifts forward to press a kiss on his cheek, on the edge of where the cast shadows begin to fail in the moonlight?
It might not matter, in the end.
The warmth of his skin lingers on her lips even after she pulls back, and she feels just as uncertain having touched the light as she had felt before.
The current is still trying to pull her under, the stars are still whispering promises of love and hope and more. Nothing has changed.
Even Elrond seems frozen in time, frowning at her in a daze.
“Loro, Elrond,” Galadriel whispers to him to break the spell. He will not drown. He will not. Not him. Never him.
Something behind Elrond’s eyes hardens. A word forms on his lips, too, but he never speaks it. His hand slips from underneath hers and leaves her shoulder.
She cannot have been feeling the heat of his palm through leather and chainmail, but she can feel the chill of its absence somehow. It is strange, how one can miss something without ever having it. Is longing a form of self-deceit?
Galadriel knows what Elrond would say to this. It's better not to ask.
Instead she watches as he turns to lie back on the ground, on his side facing away from her. Close enough that she could easily reach out and tuck around him the edge of his cloak, which has slipped off his shoulders. She does not.
If she cannot yet heed the stars, she has at least learned not to cast herself into the water. That much has changed.