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To be fair, Arafinwë did not mean to get involved with the hobbits. Unlike Gandalf, Arafinwë liked to think of himself as content to watch the Age of Men come.
That was, of course, a bold lie he told to himself to stop himself from interfering with things that by all right he should not interfere with. It did not, however, stop Arafinwë from following the hobbits—Sam and Frodo, he believed their names were—and that poor, twisted thing following them.
It was not as if Arafinwë was worried about being caught, he had led armies across a sinking continent at the end of the First Age and scouted the fields of Mordor in the Second Age. He wouldn’t be caught until he wanted to be caught. Not even Sauron, for all his might and wrath, would be able to see an ember that didn’t want to be seen.
So Arafinwë followed them, closely, carefully, and entertained himself with thoughts of what his daughter would think of him interfering in an event such as this. She nearly had a heart attack when she caught him on the fields of Mordor the first time. Galadriel had understood why he was there, she was there too after all, but neither of them had been pleased to see the other in the middle of a battlefield.
Galadriel, Arafinwë thought, might tie him onto a boat headed westward sooner than he’d like. She’d have every right to, she was after all a leader of the elves and Arafinwë’s job for the past three or so thousand years has been to fuck around and find out. Granted, very few things wanted to fuck around and find out with an elf older than the Sun itself, which made Arafinwë slightly disgruntled and prone to fits of melancholy.
“Am I old?” He had asked his daughter once after he had too much wine. He had draped himself over a lush chaise that he knew Galadriel had bought just for him but he also knew that his daughter would never admit it.
Galadriel had looked at him and no pity was apparent on her face.
“Father,” she had said in Quenya, “I am old. You are fucking ancient.”
Arafinwë had wilted like the flower he was, and had refused to move from the chaise in his room for several hours as he moped.
Being, as Galadriel had put it, fucking ancient, did have it perks however. For example, it allowed Arafinwë to pop out at the exact moment he needed to grab the hobbit—Frodo, Arafinwë believed, it’s hard to tell which hobbit is which if he’s honest—push the rounder hobbit backwards and step sideways and to watch the poor wretch of a hobbit like creature leap to its own death in an attempt to push Arafinwë and Frodo off the edge of the cliff face.
“Hm,” Arafinwë said and stared at the hobbit. Frodo had done remarkably well in his handling the ring. It had cost him his finger, and the sense of peace he felt in the lands of Men, but Frodo was, for all accounts, the hero of this tale.
“Step back,” Sam shouted, “Let Master Frodo go!”
“Sorry,”Arafinwë apologized and carefully let the Song steep into his voice, “But I think it’s time for you two to sleep.”
Sam collapsed. Arafinwë made a mental note to check him later. Frodo thrashed and struggled but when Arafinwë began to hum he too fell to the allure of Arafinwë’s Song.
With that, and with the scent of burning flesh and sulphur still in the air around them, Arafinwë unfurled the glamour he casted around him. He could have done it gently, he could have let the creeping sense of dread linger and mock Sauron as Arafinwë slowly, slowly made himself known.
His choice not to do that says more about the cruelty in him than it does his abilities. Arafinwë unleashed himself like a sunstorm. His presence razed across the plains of Mordor and into Gondor. He was the sun at noon, he was the fire that burns away the dark to let new life flourish. He was ancient, and he was terrible and the light of two suns burst from him for the first time since the War of Wrath and laughed at the dark around him.
Arafinwë made himself known, and Sauron shivered.
In the second it took for Sauron to realize what had happened, to realize that the King of Elves was here, Arafinwë had taken the Ring, fought its promise and let it fall into the forge that had created it.
Sauron died with a curse in his mind, Sauron died with a hatred of all things gold and sunlike.
Arafinwë left with two hobbits.
Arafinwë was not wrong about being sentenced to sail by his remaining family. Not that he had any qualms with that. For all that he had enjoyed his time in the realms of Men, even Arafinwë’s wanderlust had to admit to being homesick.
It was the night before he left the shores of Men for good when Galadriel finally asked him what he saw when he held the Ring.
“You are not infallible,” his daughter had said, “You do not crave power, but you crave peace, justice, love. The Ring was known to twist these things, so I must ask you, what did you see?”
Arafinwë hummed, took a sip of wine and smiled at his daughter. His grin was sharp as a wolf, as sharp as it was the day he took Sauron’s heart out of his chest.
“It promised me family, the power to protect what is mine. The power to keep my children safe.”
“And you rebuked it so quickly?” A thin golden brow raised, Arafinwë’s laughter rang out and echoed down from the cracked window in his room.
“That is not all it offered, but what it offered pales in comparison to what I have.” Arafinwë’s light turned knife sharp for a second. “You must remember, they took my sons from me. Your brothers from you. I fear my hatred for Sauron may run in a different fashion than yours. It is no less deep, but our methods are different.”
“Then explain.”
“You sought to use his power for protection, for freedom, to fight Sauron and win with his own tools.” Arafinwë paused. “You wanted him dead, and you would do anything to make that come true. Meanwhile I want him dead, but I wanted him dead by my own power. I wanted him to see me as an equal, I wanted to take his heart a second time and tear into it with my teeth. I wanted him to suffer for what he had a hand in. I wanted him writhing in pain under my foot for what he did to Findaráto. The difference is that I while I was tempted, my hatred burned through whatever he could offer me. You would not torture Sauron, my daughter, but I would rejoice in it.”
“Perhaps you are crueler than I.”
“I never denied that. I never will. I fear my father’s flame burns too brightly in me at times. Different from my brothers, and yet the same.”
Galadriel shook her head.
“A pity Fëanáro never saw you this way,” she said at last, “I’m certain it would have changed things.”
A wry smile broke through Arafinwë’s steel face.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think it would have.”