Galadriel: There and Back Again by Himring

Chapter 1: Home is behind, the world ahead

Shortly after her arrival in Middle-earth, Galadriel visits the beach of Losgar

The sea’s breakers have done their work at Losgar. She has heard—although not at first hand, for she has not spoken about it to anyone who was actually there at the time—that, when the Feanorians left here, hulks of burned ships were still to be seen adrift in the shallows, the charred remains of swans that had once been white and graceful. But in the intervening years the impact of the waves has completed what the flames had begun, breaking up the wreckage into smaller and smaller pieces, grinding them down, scattering them.

Now, as she walks along the beach, there is no sign of the ships anywhere, but underfoot, among the grains of sand, little bits of charcoal crunch at every step, colouring the white sands grey. Artanis tries to imagine the scene as it played out on this beach—and then tries not to imagine it.  She used to be afraid of her uncle Feanaro. She used to be ashamed of being afraid of him. She wanted to be afraid of nothing.

It was night when the ships burned at Losgar, the long night after the destruction of the Trees. Now she walks the beach of Losgar under the Sun, although the sun is veiled in cloud today, a grey northern day and a chilly breeze to match it. The beach curves, gently, before the shoreline bends back eastward.

Artanis reaches the westernmost point and halts. She looks out across the straits. Over there lies Araman. She remembers the bleak tundra bordering the Sundering Seas on their western side, growing bleaker the farther north they advanced, even the southern reaches barely touched by the Light of the Trees when they still gave light. There was not much wood for fires and little game over there, and even less of either after the host of the Noldor passed through.

She peers across the waves, but there is nothing to be seen of the western shore. Not so long ago—a  lifetime ago—she was standing on a similar beach over there, on the other side,  under the night sky, as she saw the flames of burning ships light up the horizon. And now she is here, where Feanaro did not intend them to come, and Feanaro is not.

She could wait until nightfall. She could spend many days building a huge bonfire, collecting driftwood from along the shore and great branches from the woods on the slopes of the Ered Lomin. She could wait until a clear night with no moon, until the darkest hour, and light the bonfire.

We are here. We made it.

But there would be nobody to see it over there, now, even if maybe the power of the Valar would not veil their sight. There is no reason to think that anyone would be watching out for a sign of them, over there. It is childish to imagine that her father would have posted watchers, wished to or been able to, in that no man’s land.

She shrugs. Be that way, then. She knows she is being unfair. She knows she does not know what happened to her father when he turned back towards Valinor. She has no way of knowing whether the Valar punished him, whether the Teleri attacked him, whether her mother chose to stand by him after what had happened. There is nothing whatever she can do about it now.

She walks back along the shore to where Findekano is waiting for her among the sand dunes, Findekano, who did not want her to come here, fearing that she wanted to nurse old grudges, but nevertheless insisted on accompanying her, because after all she is his cousin and this is part of his realm. Having taken care, meticulously, of their horses, he is still standing uncomfortably where she left him, unwilling to even sit down in this place. He looks at her with worried eyes.

He makes her impatient sometimes, does Findekano. She knows it is partly jealousy. He has so clearly arrived where he was going, in Hithlum, in Beleriand. She has not. She has quite a long way still to go.

Chapter End Notes

Note on Quenya names: Feanaro=Feanor; Findekano=Fingon;