Galadriel: There and Back Again by Himring

Chapter 2: Does not apply

Galadriel in conversation with her eldest brother Finrod Felagund

‘How can you bear to associate with them?’, she demands of her brother, meaning the sons of Feanaro, of course. ‘I am no more keen to pursue feuds to the detriment of all than you are. But they stink of death and doom!’

Findarato throws her a glittering sideways glance, takes her hand and sniffs it carefully.

‘No stink’, he pronounces, solemnly.

She tries to snatch her hand away, unsuccessfully.

‘That isn’t funny, Ingo!’, she exclaims, outraged.

He holds her hand, tightly.

‘Honestly, Artanis’, he says, ‘the way you behave, sometimes, it is almost possible to believe that you were not really party to the Flight of the Noldor, that you were just going on a trip of exploration and accidentally got mixed up with us at Alqualonde—that you do not fall under the Ban of the Valar yourself.’

She does not blush, quite. He looks her straight in the eyes, entirely serious now.

‘It does not displease me, always. I see you walking around as if you were carrying a sign saying Does Not Apply, and sometimes I dare to hope that, if you believe that firmly enough, the Valar will, too. I would like my little sister to be the one of us to survive.’

‘I’m not little’, she objects, upset, protesting against the one thing she knows how to protest against.

‘No, but I remember you when you were’, he says, smiling.

‘As for our cousins, the answer is simple’, he continues, ‘I love them, still. I remember them when they were more whole than they are now. They carry a heavy burden, and they are not likely to end well, I do not need a prophecy to tell me that. But I will not abandon them before I must.’

It would take Ingo to call an answer like that simple, she thinks.

Chapter End Notes

Note on names: Findarato=Finrod (Quenya), Ingo is a nickname, a shortened form of his mother's name Ingoldo.