Sandbox Love by Rocky41_7

Sandbox Love

Read Sandbox Love

Sandbox Love

Doriath was alive with gardens, an endless riot of trees and flowers and trailing vines, more than Galadriel had ever seen in one place. Already she has gotten lost in them a dozen times, and wandered around in increasing frustration, unwilling to admit to passers-by that she couldn’t find her way out of a garden. (If that news had gotten back to her brothers, they would never have let her live it down. She could hear them lamenting their poor baby sister who needed a chaperone to even make it to Thingol’s back door.)

However, she was also unaccustomed to long stretches spent underground, and at times—coincidentally, often when her lessons with Queen Melian were going poorly—Menegroth felt positively claustrophobic.

Melian hadn’t even agreed to teach her yet. She’d only shown Galadriel parlor tricks, as she had petulantly called them in an unsent letter to Aegnor, but even those were apparently beyond Galadriel’s mastery she thought sullenly as she swept past a clutch of bulbous purple blooms. She stopped beneath a small cluster of thin, knotted trees, hands fisting beneath her sleeves. It was right that she should learn from Melian—or perhaps it was only that she wanted it so badly she could feel it like a toothache.

“Blast these lessons,” she said aloud, sourly.

“Mother wearing on you?” A melodic voice floated down from overhead, making Galadriel jump and snap her attention to the trees. Above, partially obscured by small, glossy green leaves and swells of orange fruit, was Princess Lúthien, lounging on a tree branch.

Galadriel cursed her momentary lapse.

“Never,” she replied far more graciously. “I fear only that my abilities are not up to par.” Lúthien laughed lazily, fiddling with something in her hands. A bit of yellow-orange rind fell to the base of the tree. There was a moment, not yet come to be, when she would place sweet chunks of this fruit’s flesh into Galadriel’s mouth, and Galadriel would have to refrain from licking her fingers as she did it, seeking the taste she craved more. “…what are you doing?” she asked, when Lúthien said nothing else.

“Being dreadfully bored,” said Lúthien. “Daeron promised me he would be back this morning so we might continue work on our new routine, but he is not, and so what am I to do?” She swung a foot through the empty air. Wood-elves were casual about heights and trees in a way Galadriel still found alarming. “What is Mother working you at?”

“’tis nothing,” Galadriel demurred, but Lúthien was not deterred. She shifted above, casting the remains of her fruit out into the foliage, and then dropped down into the grass and rose up to her feet in seemingly a single fluid movement.

“Perhaps I can help,” she offered. Up close, Lúthien was taller even than Galadriel, and certainly taller than her brothers. Her almond-shaped gray eyes, so dark in the right light they looked black, seemed to see some other dimension to the world invisible to mere Elves. “I have some expertise with these matters.” The smell of fruit clung to her porcelain skin, contrasted against the twilight blue of her loose gown.

“Magic?” Galadriel asked.

“Mother,” Lúthien corrected.

Expertise in the matter of the queen was no small achievement—even when she spoke kindly and moved gently, there was power in Melian, and something unknowable to the Children. Galadriel did not know what kind of Elf wed with an Ainu.

“Come! We will review what she has told you and she will be very impressed when she sees you again!” Lúthien did not make it sound like an invitation. She strolled off into the plants, bare feet against the dirt, and after only a momentary pause, Galadriel followed.  

***

            Perhaps underground was less strange for Wood-elves as they had already become accustomed to the shaded light of the forest. It was not so for Galadriel, habituated to the open streets of Tirion (and later, to the relentless exposure of the Helcaraxë), and she at times found herself vexed with the dim light, which was inescapable outside the height of day, unless one wished to climb.

            Lúthien led them into some fresh quarter of this garden into which Galadriel had not ventured—nor even known to exist—until she found some location which satisfied her, where she seated herself cross-legged in the gloom, half obscured by shadow.

            “Is there something special about this place?” Galadriel asked, looking around before lowering herself down across from Lúthien. The growth here was heavier, the paths virtually nonexistent. The air seemed thicker. The princess shrugged and flashed a toothy smile. The swoop of the bridge of her nose was particularly elegant, befitting a princess.

            “I like it,” she said simply. “Give me your hands.” Galadriel reached her hands out, uncertain. Lúthien’s fingers were cool and smooth against hers, the skin of her palms unexpectedly soft. She held Galadriel’s hands but lightly, and Galadriel wondered how much strength was hidden in those neat hands.

            She made Galadriel run through her earlier lesson from the beginning, which was irksome enough that Galadriel was tempted at times to refuse, but she still obeyed. Lúthien was another kind of teacher from the queen—but she found this gave her a new perspective on the same thing the queen had been trying to show her. Lúthien seemed to see the whole thing differently—as if Galadriel were looking at a painting of trees, but Lúthien was standing in the woods. When Galadriel got a taste of the princess’ magic it shocked her with its breadth, but the moment Lúthien drew back, Galadriel wanted more. Thoughtlessly she reached out, seeking a closer connection with the electric power of Lúthien’s mind and spirit.

            “Now,” Lúthien reprimanded her lightly, throwing up a barrier that pushed Galadriel’s questing mind back from her. “That isn’t what Mother is showing you today.”

            Galadriel drew in a quick breath and straightened up, blinking as if she had just resurfaced from a deep dream as she was jolted away from Lúthien’s expansive spirit. What had she been doing? At once, horror at her own misstep washed over her—what had come over her? She had never felt such power in another Elf.

            “I’m terribly sorry—” she began in a rush, but Lúthien put up a hand and interrupted.

            “No need for that. But if you wish for my help, you will need to learn more restraint,” she said. “Such things are my own, unless I choose to share. But it was an…interesting response.” She tilted her head slightly, regarding Galadriel, and the young Noldo had the uncomfortable feeling Lúthien was cataloguing her apparent intoxication by Lúthien’s magic.

            She assumed then that Lúthien would call an end to their little tutoring session, but to her surprise the princess merely set aside the incident and carried on with her efforts. Still, Galadriel thought she sensed Lúthien keeping her more at a distance when they connected after that.

            “Did she give you such lessons?” Galadriel asked at length, when there was sweat beading at her hairline and beneath her breasts from her focus. Lúthien’s hands were still cool and soft.

            “As a child, yes,” Lúthien said, smiling. “She wished to see how much of her power I had inherited.”

            “And how much is that?” Galadriel asked. And how long ago had it been? She realized then she hadn’t the slightest inkling of how old Lúthien was, except that she was younger than Cuiviénen.

            “Not much,” Lúthien said. Galadriel thought she detected a thread of disappointment, but perhaps she imagined it—perhaps it was her disappointment (or disbelief). “But not nothing,” she added, reaching out to thread her fingers through a patch of grass—in the wake of her touch, niphredil sprang up dewy and white. Lúthien smiled and flicked her eyes back over to Galadriel, whose gaze was fixed on her.

            It seemed to her it would be rude to ask questions about her blood, but the curiosity burned in Galadriel’s breast.

            “Are there others, like you?” she asked at last.

            “Of course not,” said Lúthien, kicking her legs out with a smile. Her toes wiggled, bottoms dusty brown from their walk. “There are none like you either.”

            “’tis not what I meant,” said Galadriel.

            “You meant about my blood,” said Lúthien. She ran her fingers through the niphredil and plucked one out, twirling it between two delicate fingertips. “As far as I know, I am the only one. I know of no other Maiar who wed with one of the Children. But who can say for certain?” She took another by the stem and began to make a chain of them.

            In the darkness of the woods of Middle-earth, to learn that there was an Ainu who had wed with an Elf and lived among them as one of them was shocking enough that Galadriel had to reform her expectations of what life was like on this continent. Maybe there were other Ainu/Elf marriages there. The rules of Aman seemed to govern less here.

            Galadriel sensed she was edging along territory which might not delight Lúthien to discuss, and the thought of either annoying or boring the princess was intolerable. She withdrew and left her questions stinging her tongue.

            “I hear the Noldor are poor climbers,” said Lúthien, rising up. “Is that so?”

            “Compared with yourselves? I imagine we are,” said Galadriel, looking up at the princess. Lúthien made a faint moue.

            “Will you not argue for your pride even a little?” she asked.

            “Against a woman whose life has been spent half in a tree? I think not,” said Galadriel. Lúthien’s expression did not change, and for a moment Galadriel braced herself for a snit of royal temper (being of a prodigious royal line herself, she was familiar with these), but Lúthien’s face relaxed into a faint smile.

            “Pity,” she said. “Perhaps I shall have you another time.” With this, she grasped a low-hanging tree branch and disappeared up into the trees, leaving Galadriel in the dirt, along with the chain of niphredil.  

***

            Galadriel got the sense Lúthien had not expected her to keep up so well on this walk. When Lúthien had invited her out, Galadriel had agreed at once, before considering what a half-Maia princess considered a suitable casual walk. Unsurprisingly, Lúthien’s stamina was considerable—and more, she seemed to be trying to tire Galadriel out, although it was possible Galadriel was crediting her with more intent than was warranted.

            They were several hours out under a toasty autumn sun, the thick, damp forest air clinging to Galadriel’s skin and urging her to drain the waterskin at her waist, though she refrained—she needed to parse it out sparingly, with no idea how long Lúthien intended to keep them out.

            For the last hour they had been on an increasingly steep incline.

            “The view is one of the best in the forest,” Lúthien promised Galadriel, her eyes bright, her throat slick with sweat. Despite this sign that the long walk was having some impact on her, Lúthien’s step remained perky and she led them on at an uncompromising pace.

            “Let me know if you wish a rest!” Lúthien called from a few steps ahead, as she had several times before.

            “I will!” Galadriel said, with no intention of doing that. Her be the one to call a rest? She’d cough up a lung first, especially in front of Lúthien.

            Nevertheless, Lúthien predictably reached the top of the cliff first, though Galadriel soothed herself that it was not by much.

            “See?” she said, gesturing out. They were indeed above a considerable portion of the tree canopy, allowing for a view that stretched out in swaths of green and made Galadriel once again aware of the vast size of Doriath’s woods. From this height, there wasn’t even a hint of the many Elves who lived beneath that canopy. She let her hands drop from the straps of her backpack and marveled at the far reach of the horizon and the brilliance of the sky’s blue backing the vibrant colors of the earth. “Is it not beautiful?” the princess sighed. “On occasion I look at this and I want to walk all the way yonder!” She pointed to some indiscriminate point out on the horizon.

            “Why there?” Galadriel asked.

            “To see what lies there,” said Lúthien with a grin. She exhaled a gusty sigh and slipped her backpack off her shoulders, lowering it down to the grass. “How do you feel about making this climb again?” she asked.

            Galadriel lifted her chin.

            “Why, did you wish to race?” she asked. Lúthien laughed.

            “I think we know already who would win that,” she said, not unkindly.

            “But I would make you work for it,” said Galadriel.

            “You would, I am certain!” Lúthien agreed. “But ‘tis not that which I had in mind.” She removed the pouch at her waist and set it beside the backpack on the ground. Galadriel leaned over the edge of the cliff to spy a body of water below.

            “No,” she said, deadpan. Lúthien smiled a sweet smile.

            “Bring my things down, won’t you? Or else we will have to come back up for them,” she said. Presumably this was if Galadriel intended to join her. She took several steps back from the cliff edge.

            “Lúthien,” Galadriel began, but Lúthien did not stay to listen. With a running start, she flung herself off the edge of the cliff, still dressed in her tunic and trousers, shrieking with delight, her black braid whipping out above her like a ribbon as she plummeted towards the water. She drew her knees up to her chest and hit the surface with a colossal splash. For several moments, the water began to still, and Galadriel felt a surge of anxiety. She resisted the urge to call out for Lúthien. Moments later, the princess resurfaced and waved up to Galadriel, calling something that Galadriel couldn’t hear.

            “Confound it,” she sighed, looking down as Lúthien began to cut a backstroke across the water. She moved her backpack over by Lúthien’s, and dropped her waterskin beside it. She loosed her braid down from its bun, knowing her pins were unlikely to survive from cliff to shore, and tucked them into her backpack. Then, before she could give it much more thought, she copied Lúthien’s running start and leaped over the edge.

            Conceptually, it was not far removed from things she had done back home. This was just higher than she was accustomed to. The air rushed by, blowing her hair back from her face, cooling the sweat on her body, until she hit the water like an explosion, driving straight down into the plants and muck at the bottom. She heard Lúthien crying out until the water filled her ears and the world went still but for the bubbles streaming up around her. It was not as cold as she had feared, and after the initial shock it was deeply refreshing, as if she were a thirsty plant suddenly drenched. She hovered there in the water until her chest began to ache and then she surfaced.

            Lúthien was waiting nearby and she grinned at Galadriel, beads of water gleaming on her face and hair like a dew-washed meadow.

            “I was uncertain if you would come,” she said.

            “And let you have all the fun?” Galadriel scoffed. Lúthien splashed her, so Galadriel splashed back, and they chased each other into the shallows and then back out into deeper water.

            “I love coming out here,” Lúthien sighed, floating on her back. “It’s so marvelous, isn’t it?”

            “It is,” Galadriel agreed, treading water beside her, looking at the Elf beside her rather than the landscape. Her fingers tingled lightly in memory of where they had grazed Lúthien’s skin during their horseplay.

            “I’m glad you came,” Lúthien said, turning her head to look at Galadriel. “Now that I know how well you keep up, I shall have more adventures for us!” Galadriel was quite content to consign herself to adventures that did not involve frostbite or murder. A smile tugged at her lips. “Ah! There, I knew I would have it eventually!”

            “Have what?” Galadriel asked, sobering again.

            “Your smile,” Lúthien said, kicking her feet to drift just past Galadriel.

            “Do you find me so serious?” Galadriel asked, the corners of her mouth turning down.

            “You are, rather!” said Lúthien. “But no matter, it isn’t a problem. Only I should like to know you enjoy your time in my kingdom.”

            “I do,” Galadriel said genuinely. “And it has been most kind of your family to welcome me here.”

            “And you enjoy your time with me, too?” said Lúthien. Galadriel snorted, and splashed the princess in the face in response, making her duck under the water. When she resurfaced, Lúthien was laughing.

***

            If there were only a few things Galadriel had learned about the Wood-elves since she had come to Middle-earth, among them was certainly how they loved a good party. Doriath seemed to have a kingdom-wide party at least twice a season (Thingol always seemed to have a party prepared when Finrod or Aegnor or Angrod stopped to visit) and they bore a closer resemblance to the bacchanalias of some of the stranger Ainur-worshipping sects in Aman than the formalistic affairs of court parties in Tirion. The Iathrim had made a close study of the effects of various mushrooms, and they were prevalent when the sun went down on a festival.

            Generally, Lúthien took well to them, dancing wildly among her people until the sun had come up above the horizon once more, often followed at the heel by Daeron in his crown of ferns, piping whatever tunes most pleased the princess, if she had not pulled him into a dance along with her. They were together then, not feigning not to speak, as they did sometimes in court, when Galadriel was certain they were conversing volubly by ósanwe even as they stood passive and still by the side of the king and queen.

            Galadriel had been looking for her.

            As Lúthien leaned down to put her lips by Daeron’s dark head, she touched the great ruby at her throat, and Galadriel was reminded of their preparation for this party:

            Lúthien had swept into her rooms, wanting to see what Galadriel planned to wear. Lúthien herself was radiant in lavender and yellow, as she would have been dressed in a burlap sack. There was nearly a glow about her, which came at least as much from the energy with which she carried herself as the loveliness of her face and form.

            “Help me with this,” she had said, and somehow managed it in a way that made one wish to help, rather than merely be annoyed at the demand. Even when Galadriel had the thought that Lúthien had been spoiled as a child, she could never do it with malice. Lúthien had held out the necklace, which Galadriel had taken. The metal was warm where Lúthien had held it.

            The princess had turned, leaving it to Galadriel to gather her thick inky hair away from her neck and shift it over Lúthien’s shoulder. She had stood behind Lúthien, transfixed by the nape of her neck and the ridges of her spine and the dusting of delicate hairs there. The smell of Lúthien’s gardenia perfume had enveloped her like an dreamy embrace invented by Galadriel’s own mind in the middle of the night.

            “If you would lower yourself a little, my lady,” said Galadriel through a dry mouth. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but it would make her job easier.

            “Ah! My mistake,” Lúthien had giggled, crouching slightly to put her neck more within Galadriel’s reach. “Better?” With one hand, she held her hair out of Galadriel’s way.

            Galadriel had slipped the silver chain around the princess’ graceful neck. Her fingers brushed against the warmth of Lúthien’s throat and her shoulders as she brought the clasp together. Her breathing trembled; her chest felt hot. She did not want to let go of Lúthien, did not want her to move away; there was a kind of swelling in her throat and tongue; she thought of how she and her cousins had slept all piled together on the ice to stay warm and thought of lying so pressed near to Lúthien, sharing the warmth of her breath and the heat of her body. When she’d hooked the chain in place, she gave it a tug to make sure it was secure, and then Lúthien twirled away from her, her hair falling back into place, and she beamed into Galadriel’s vanity mirror.

            “There, that will do, won’t it?” Her expression faltered for a moment, but she brushed it off and had turned back to Galadriel. “Are you ready to go?”

Seeing Lúthien’s fingers on the necklace again drew Galadriel temptingly back into her room, where she had hung that jewel about that throat, touched her fingers against the pulse of life in that neck. Did Daeron clasp her jewels as well? Lúthien was smiling at something Daeron had said (in Galadriel’s mind, Daeron’s best personality trait was his ability to make Lúthien laugh—and his willingness to do anything to that end), but when he moved away from her, that more solemn expression which had been only briefly on her face in Galadriel’s room returned.

            Galadriel began to push with more insistence through the crowd towards her, but when she finally made it over to the tree where Lúthien had been standing, she was gone again. Catching sight of straight-backed Mablung, she briefly turned towards him with the intent of asking if he had seen where Lúthien had gone, but then held back. She didn’t wish Lúthien to think she was chasing her down if Mablung found her first.

            “Looking for someone?” Elves simply seemed to bleed out of the mass of revelers, so Galadriel should not have been surprised to be addressed. She turned to see Lord Celeborn, a flute of mead pinched between his fingers, a wreath of dark green leaves upon his fair head.

            “The princess, she was just here,” Galadriel said, allowing some frustration to bleed through her tone.

            “Ah, I believe I saw her over yonder,” said Celeborn, pointing off in a wholly different direction. Galadriel sighed. “Care for a drink, my lady?” he asked, holding the cup out to her.

            “No, I believe I have more walking to do,” she said. “Excuse me, my lord.” She turned away, tugging her tunic flatter against her chest, and waded off through the crowd once more in search of Lúthien.

***

She didn’t find her until the next morning. At some point in the raucous night, Galadriel had simply given up. If Lúthien wished to find her, she would. And if Lúthien did not wish to be found—well, she had other friends. There was no requirement she spend time with Galadriel, even if it left a sour taste in her mouth that there might be others with whom Lúthien preferred to spend the party. So Galadriel had surrendered the chase, taken several cups of mead, and followed Lord Celeborn to a friend’s house where a dozen of them had lounged for some hours over food and a few tender, bitter mushrooms before Galadriel had finally fallen asleep on a floor cushion.

It could not have been more than an hour or two at most when the rising sun cast its rays through the unclosed shutters of the treehouse, dragging Galadriel back to the physical realm with the sticky, blurry feeling in her eyes. Groaning, she hauled herself upright and picked her way through the slumbering Elves carpeting the floor, wishing she had gotten herself back to the palace before falling asleep.

Not terribly desirous of taking a ribbing from the palace personnel about her current state, she decided to slide around a side entrance, which involved stairs and one of the many labyrinthine balcony systems common in Doriath.

It was on one of these balconies in the tender glow of the dawning day that she found Lúthien.

Lúthien also looked like she had not been back to her rooms since the night before, but the difference was that on her, it was a look of careless and carefree lack of concern for trite things like night and day and the passing of time, and not a look of having spent the night on a wood floor with a baseboard digging into the back of her head.

“Good morning, Arwen,” she said, only turning to flicker a tired smile at Galadriel after she’d said it. “It looks that you had fun.”

“Oh, I was foolish to stay out so late,” Galadriel sighed in mild vexation, plucking a tiny brown leaf from her hair and tossing it aside, too worn out to keep up appearances. “I spent the night on someone’s floor.”

“Whose?”

“You know, I don’t even know.”

Lúthien laughed quietly and looked back out at the brightening orange of the sky. Galadriel tentatively came to join her at the railing.

“I did not see much of you last night,” she ventured.

“Ah, forgive me, little daffodil,” said Lúthien, turning to tuck a bit of Galadriel’s hair back behind her ear, instantly silencing the Noldo’s ability to speak. “Were you looking for me? So much of last night is a blur!” She spoke to Galadriel, but her attention was on the horizon. Galadriel followed her gaze and for several minutes they stood in silence, the warmth of the climbing sun washing over them, making Lúthien look as if she herself was responsible for the return of the light, as if Arien returned at the call of the princess of Doriath.

Galadriel’s feet and back and eyes still wanted her to get down to her bedroom and fall into bed, but she was reluctant to pull away from this moment alone with Lúthien. However, as the silence went on, she began to wonder if Lúthien had come here to be alone, and now Galadriel was intruding on that. As she gathered herself to say goodbye and carry on, Lúthien spoke.

“Have you ever had the feeling,” she asked, “that you are not where you are supposed to be, or that you are missing some grand events which you could be party to if only you were able to seek them out?”

“…I have not,” Galadriel said slowly, turning her attention to the princess’ profile. Lúthien sighed and tilted her head from side to side. Abruptly Galadriel felt that she was looking at something raw and exposed.

“There is a restlessness in me sometimes,” Lúthien confessed softly, the ruby glinting at her throat. “I have thought it an effect of my mother’s blood yet…I have never known her to be restless.” There was that look again, the one Galadriel had seen on her face at the party.

“No?”

“If there was more to her life before she wed, she does not mourn it. She has always seemed wholly content, with my father, with me, with Doriath…Perhaps because she knew something more, she can afford not to miss it. My mother has known the unknown. But I…I wonder if one such as myself can ever be ‘settled.’ How can I, when I have never wandered? I feel I grow less content over time.”

“One such as yourself?”

“I think you forget sometimes that I am only half an Elf.” If you think for even a moment I forget how special you are…Galadriel thought. “There is another half which is ill-contented being so restrained, yet lacks the power to be anything but what I am.” She sighed from low in her belly and for the first time, Galadriel saw something approaching unhappiness on the princess’ face, and it was baffling.

“Where would you go?” asked Galadriel, who had all the excitement and potential she could hope for there in Middle-earth. “What would you do?” For a moment, she had a vision in her mind of their leaving Doriath together, side-by-side on horseback, riding off into the great unknown of Beleriand, but she batted that aside.

“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” said Lúthien. She flicked her eyes over Galadriel’s face. “It it such a strange idea?”

“You are safe here, in Doriath,” Galadriel pointed out. “And there are few who would deny you anything and even those would keep little from you.” Galadriel had rarely known the king to ever say “no” to his daughter, and she had a near-endless font of power and wisdom in the queen.

“Ah. Worry yourself not,” said Lúthien with a faint half-smile. “Shall we find Daeron to play us a tune? He can always lighten the mood.”

While it was true Daeron had a talent with jaunty tunes—as he had a talent with all tunes—his freestyle tended more towards trembling notes of aching yearning, such that Galadriel wondered that Lúthien should characterize his playing as ‘light.’

Fortunately, Lúthien observed Galadriel more closely for a moment and then said:

“Oh, how thoughtless of me. How tired you must be, poor thing! Go and rest.” She put a hand on Galadriel’s upper arm and squeezed lightly. Galadriel felt the press of her fingers long after the princess had let go. “I have selfishly kept you. Go, we shall talk another time.”

But Lúthien never did raise the topic of her restlessness again, at least not with Galadriel.

***

            If Galadriel closed her eyes, she could hear Doriath’s cheery chorus: crickets among the leaves, birds chasing them down, the chatter of the frogs in the reeds, the slosh of water as Lúthien kicked off the muddy pond bottom. If she opened them, she could see Lúthien’s pale breast gleaming against the dark water, slick and pebbled with faint chill as she floated on her back. The heat of the day was fading fast in the darkness.

            The very first time they had done this, Galadriel had managed to perfectly humiliate herself by blurting out something about Lúthien’s parents wondering where she was, to which Lúthien had just laughed. As if Galadriel hadn’t sneaked out herself! She couldn’t imagine why such a thing had passed her lips.

            The princess drew in a deep breath and straightened up, water cascading down over her sleek black hair as she turned her sharp, heavily-lidded eyes on Galadriel and made her shiver.

            “We should stay out tonight,” she said. Faint beams of moonlight filtered through the trees and fell along the calligraphic line of Lúthien’s cheekbones. Galadriel thought of her warm, dry bed in her small apartment. She thought of combing the pond water out of her hair, and dabbing a bit of scent on her wrists before pulling on a silk nightgown and burrowing down among the covers. She thought of the absence of mosquitos indoors, and a good night’s sleep.

            She looked into Lúthien’s eyes. They were not luminescent in the way of Galadriel’s or Thingol’s, as Lúthien herself had never seen the Trees—but there was a shifting glimmer there, a whisper of Melian’s blood which once again made Lúthien unique, even among the Calaquendi.

            She didn’t argue.

            Lúthien came out of the water to lay beside Galadriel on the great boulder, water streaming off her and pooling onto the rock beneath, the thatch of black hair between her legs springing up again at once.

            “Tell me something about where you come from,” she said, closing her eyes. The topic of Aman had fascinated her initially, then repelled her when the truth of the Kinslaying at Alqualondë had come to light, but had begun to open up as a topic again when the king’s forgiveness had had time to settle. For her part, Galadriel was simply relieved to not have been cast out, nor put aside as Melian’s student, though she sensed she had lost Melian’s trust in a way that could not be regained. But now wasn’t the time for those thoughts.

            “Oh, never mind about there,” Galadriel said. “Things are far more interesting here.”

            “Are they?” Lúthien peeked open her gleaming eyes. “Do you mean ‘more dangerous’?”

            “I mean there is more opportunity,” said Galadriel.

            “You miss it not?” said Lúthien.

            “I do not,” Galadriel lied. “I harbor no regrets about leaving. There was nothing for me there.”

            “Well, then, I am glad you came,” said Lúthien, smiling. “For I have benefitted of your friendship, Galadriel.” Galadriel breathed deeply to stave off a flush and Lúthien giggled. “’tis a lovely nickname, truly. And very appropriate! Why, when I heard, I was cross I had not thought of it myself!” She reached out to twine a lock of Galadriel’s hair around her finger. “Radiant you are indeed!” She sat up and stretched. “Shall I braid your marvelous golden hair for you?”

            “If it pleases you,” said Galadriel, belying, she hoped, the way the offer made her stomach twist and churn. She knew by then that such offers did not carry the weight among the Sindar that they did among the Noldor, but the shocking intimacy of it made Galadriel’s heart leap all the same, and purr with satisfaction at the thought of being dear to Lúthien.

            Lúthien hummed and sang as she plaited Galadriel’s damp hair, her sweet voice filling up the space around the trees, lulling Galadriel into a place apart from the rest of the world. Her deft fingers brushed irregularly against Galadriel’s bare back and shoulders until Galadriel nearly trembled with desire for a more forceful touch from her. That night, after they had wandered enough, she took them deeper into the woods—Lúthien never seemed to lose her way—and found a satisfactory (in her mind) place for them to sleep. The ground was lumpy and cold under Galadriel’s light robe and her cloak, but the stars glimmered up through the holes in the tree canopy and Lúthien lay awake beside her, watching the wispy clouds drift by overhead.

            “Are you cold?” Lúthien asked.

            “I’ve known colder nights,” Galadriel said. Lúthien liked her nights out in the woods, and Galadriel would not be the cause of their returning. Nor was the cold anything worth complaining about—not for her. As long as she could still feel her fingers and toes, she would not complain. But Lúthien drew off her own deep blue cloak and threw it over both of them, with the better part over Galadriel.

            “Get some rest,” said Lúthien, and Galadriel had the strange feeling Lúthien did not intend herself to sleep. But the day had been long, with the queen testing Galadriel’s power to its limits, and she drifted off quickly, replaying the scenes from the pond over in her mind. Memory bled into dreams, dreams where she dragged her tongue over Lúthien’s fair breasts and her imagination supplied what the princess’ cries of pleasure might sound like. Galadriel woke atremble and could not see Lúthien beside her in the darkness, but she squeezed her eyes shut and went back to sleep, which offered no relief.

            In the morning, Lúthien was there, pink-cheeked and full of song, and Galadriel could not decide if she had dreamed of Lúthien’s absence or not.

***

            Lúthien’s restlessness eventually turned all of Doriath upside-down. Galadriel had oft considered Daeron impulsive and short-sighted, yet she could not disagree with aught that he said about Beren of the Edain, and she wondered at what madness had come over Lúthien that she would think to pledge herself to a mortal Man.

            Through many trials, Beren and Lúthien returned once more to Doriath, but Carcharoth haunted still their steps, and the king prepared his warriors to take down the great wolf. Galadriel had sat in the throne room as Beren and Lúthien gave the tale of their quest to the king and queen, and she watched Thingol soften to his daughter’s will, and release the resentment and mistrust which he held for Beren, and was shocked to feel herself reject his change of heart. It could not be, that he meant to allow this mortal to claim Lúthien’s heart! Who was Beren, to lay claim over one so treasured by all of Doriath?

            But before his throne Lúthien took Beren’s hands, and Galadriel perceived that Lúthien was slipping away from her, that the sweet days in which they had passed their time since Galadriel passed behind the Girdle were coming to a close, and she fought against despair that Beren had succeeded so well in his appointed task.

            Lúthien had no further patience for those who did not understand her. Galadriel had tried to speak to her before, but Lúthien allowed none but her old friend Daeron into her treehouse prison. Galadriel still was not sure what she would have said—how could she of all people counsel restraint? Yet how could she encourage this pursuit, which would surely only end in fatal grief for Lúthien, taking her so far beyond Galadriel’s reach? Even now, Galadriel hesitated, but she could not leave so much unsaid between them.

            Lúthien answered the knock on her door with a prompt call to enter, and Galadriel did. There was a new tension in Lúthien’s voice, in the way she moved; a new wariness in her eyes: she had something to protect now, something she feared to lose, and she carried herself differently for it. Galadriel understood more in the last few weeks about Lúthien’s power than she ever had in the years before. 

            “Is Beren here?” Galadriel asked.

            “He is with Mablung,” said Lúthien at her loom. “He would learn to fight with just the one hand, now.”

            “I have not seen you much since your return,” Galadriel said.

            “There has been much afoot,” said Lúthien. She was weaving bandage cloth. “What troubles you?” She paused, then lifted her eyes, and seemed for the first, uncertain. “I have yet to give condolences for your brother,” she admitted, rising to her feet and moving away from the loom. “Finrod’s passing has grieved me greatly; I have known fewer souls kinder or more well-intentioned.”

            Truly, Galadriel had not meant to speak of Finrod with Lúthien. The grief was still a shock to her; despite the losses of Aegnor and Angrod, she had somehow still believed that she and Finrod would survive longer. The better part of her mind continued to insist he was off in Nargothrond, learning about Edanic weaving techniques or lounging around the baths or plotting new summits among the Elven lords. It would take time for that to settle in, and she could not afford it to now—she needed to focus. She could not think of Finrod now.

            “Mean you truly to do this? To leave?” Galadriel blurted out. Lúthien was only momentarily flummoxed by this response before switching gears along with her guest. Her back stiffened.

            “I will swear no oaths on it, but presently it is our intention,” said Lúthien. “Mother and Father would welcome us here now, but I have decided I wish to experience more of the world.” What about her experience nearly being forcibly wed to Celegorm or battling Sauron and his minions in Tol-in-Gaurhoth had made Lúthien want to see more of the world Galadriel couldn’t fathom.

            “A sojourn,” Galadriel said. Lúthien tilted her head from side to side.

            “It may be a very long one,” she said. Not longer than Beren’s life, Galadriel guessed. When her mortal love was gone, then Lúthien would come back—if she survived his passing. The alternative struck her to the quick and she found herself resentful once again that Beren had ever found his way into Doriath.

            “There is something on your mind,” said Lúthien, nearly short in her tone. “I would have you say it, Arwen.”

            “I am sure it is nothing you have not considered already,” said Galadriel.

            “Still, I would have it said.”

            “Mean you truly to bind yourself to a mortal?”

            The way Lúthien looked at her then made Galadriel wither in a way she had not felt since she had been a silly child. There was a kind of cold disappointment there, as if Lúthien had expected this, but had hoped Galadriel would surprise her. It was not a look Galadriel had ever received from the princess.

            “I believe I have made myself quite clear on this point,” said Lúthien. “Have you a new criticism to launch at me?”

            “It is only…how short are their lives, Lúthien! And this man...is he truly worth the cost?” It was a losing battle, of course—Lúthien was not even on the battlefield with her—yet the anguish in her heart urged her on. “You would surrender everything you have here—”

            “How like the rest of them you sound!” Lúthien cried in frustration.

            “I am only concerned with—”

            “Oh, so everyone is concerned!” Lúthien jerked away and paced several times, snapping her dark gaze back over to Galadriel, a wrathful smolder there unusual in its intensity. “Even now, even after all I have done, you think I know not what I desire? You think I do not see the world clearly? I have lived many more years than you, Arwen, perhaps you ought consider that! Perhaps it is you who is failing to see things clearly!”

            “My youth does not negate what I have experienced already!” Galadriel snapped back.

            “Perhaps you would have more perspective were you not convinced perpetually that you are the cleverest person in the room!”

            “I do not think that, except when it is true, and you will not even stop to consider you may be doing what spoiled children always do and grabbing for what you want with no thought for—”

            “I am the spoiled child?” Lúthien demanded. “As if you have not considered it your right to learn at my mother’s foot since first you came here, even when you concealed your bloody truths from us?”

            “Will that never lie!”

            “You merely seemed so keen to dredge up the past!” Lúthien replied. “If you have come only to dissuade me, you may take your leave. I have not done all that I have done to be chastised by you. Make your decisions. I have made mine.”

            Galadriel drew in a breath and forced herself to try to calm. Was this how she wished to bid goodbye to Lúthien? Truly?

“I do not understand you,” she confessed, lowering her voice. “That is all. I wish to understand.”

            “You do not need to understand,” said Lúthien. “I need none to understand.” But then she softened and approached Galadriel. “This is what I want,” she said, almost urged. Some of the tension Galadriel had not realized she was holding bled out of her shoulders. “Surely you understand seeing so clearly the direction of one’s future! I have no doubts, Galadriel. None at all—I have never been so sure of anything in my life. I know many of our kind see a tragedy in this, but that is not what I see. Someday you will feel this kind of love,” she said, pressing a hand to her breast. “The kind that fills you to the brim, that wraps around you like a warm fur, that reaches into your core. Then, you will understand my choice.”

            Galadriel did not understand it. She did not understand what was so special about Beren. She did not understand willingly giving up her life for anyone. She did not think she ever would. Then, unbidden, she thought of her brother whom she had been trying not to think of—and how Beren said that when Sauron’s wolf came at last for him, Finrod had burst his chains to throw himself at it, and died to spare this mortal another day of life, not knowing Lúthien was right on their heels.

            It occurred to her dimly then, that Finrod might have done such a thing for her. Would I have done it for him? she wondered.

            “Worry yourself not,” Lúthien said at last when Galadriel had been silent a time. Before she took her seat at her loom again, she said: “You need know only that I am making the right choice for myself. Someday, you will see it.”

***

            Menegroth was not still, never still, but there was a subdued air over it, and indeed over all of Doriath. Beren and Lúthien had gone on good terms, with Beren seated at the left hand of the king himself, and so while at the end Lúthien’s parents had willingly parted with her—and indeed, been in great joy after the end of her seeming death and the restoration of Beren—it did not lessen their grief at her departure, nor over the fact that she was bound now to a mortal life, and would then pass beyond their reach until the breaking of the world.

            Thingol was melancholy, distracted, perpetually looking east in the direction which Beren and Lúthien had gone. Even Melian was withdrawn; she pressed little during Galadriel’s lessons, and despite her earlier prescience that Lúthien would part from them, Galadriel guessed she bore still a mother’s loss. Daeron had simply never returned; no word had come of where their chief loremaster had gone, nor even if he knew that Lúthien lived.

            Galadriel thought for the first time in a long time—she had grown quite practiced in sequestering her thoughts even before she’d first touched a toe in the mud of Middle-earth—of her own mother, sitting alone in a house suddenly still. Did she look out over the sea, as Thingol looked to the edge of the wood? Did her hands grow still all of a sudden at her tasks, as if some memory had gripped her tight, as Melian did? Was there silence too in her house, an emptiness where there had once been joy?

            But mostly she thought of Lúthien.

            Often she took out the things Lúthien had gifted her, simply to run her hands over them. There were quite a few from just before her final departure, when Lúthien had pressed into Galadriel’s hands things she insisted she would not need in her new home with Beren. Sometimes, she sneaked into Lúthien’s own rooms and sat there, still, focusing her mind on the past, as if she could use some lesson of Melian’s to conjure up Lúthien’s ghost and the sound of her laughter, her teasing, her touch. As if she need only focus hard enough, and she could feel the brush of Lúthien’s hands through her hair or hear the sweetness of her voice.

            “You cannot bring her back that way,” Melian had said when she’d caught Galadriel sitting in the nook where Lúthien had once read—where they had once read together. She felt as if she’d been caught pawing through the queen’s silks.

            “I had not meant to,” Galadriel lied. It had been a very long time since she had tried to lie to Melian—it never went well, so at some point she had given up. Easier to lie with what she did not say.

            “It does not do for the Children to dwell in memory,” said Melian, “and the Quendi are particularly susceptible to this. You must enjoy your recollections of her without losing yourself in them.”

            Galadriel almost said something about Eärwen, but held her tongue.

            “Forgive me,” she said instead.

            “There is nothing to forgive,” said Melian, but Galadriel took her leave regardless, and stayed away from Lúthien’s rooms afterwards, if she passed by them more often than necessary.

            Her lessons became less frequent. Galadriel did not press the matter—she could not, not so soon into the queen’s mourning. Instead, she tested herself, driving her to stretch her abilities until she swayed on her feet and nearly swooned. Celeborn fretted, but Galadriel brushed his worries off. It kept her mind busy, and helped her fall into bed at the end of the day too exhausted to ruminate or even dream much. When she did dream, it was of running through the forest, with a presence by her side she could never quite see; or of swimming endlessly through one of the murky forest ponds, seeking something; or strangest of all, of Valinor and the places she had once occupied.

One afternoon, on one of the balconies near the rear of the palace, she found the king leaning forward against the railing.

            “Am I disturbing you, Your Grace?” she asked

            “No,” he answered. “Stay, if it pleases you.” He was looking east. Galadriel came to the railing and looked out, a faint breeze stirring the hair at her temples. Somewhere out there was Lúthien. Happy with the fate she chose? Galadriel could only imagine it was so. So absorbed was she in this consideration that it startled her to hear Thingol speak. “Do you miss her also?”

            She turned to look at him, and for a moment there was not Elu Thingol, King of Beleriand, an emissary to Aman and the Valar, an Elf of great age and power—only a father, struggling to let go of his only child. Startled, Galadriel said:

            “I do.” Then she said: “Do you wish that she had stayed, Your Grace?” Thingol exhaled and turned his weary gaze out onto the trees.

            “I cannot,” he said, “for if she had stayed she would have been unhappy. When I understood her feelings for Beren were not a temporary madness or some spell, I knew she could never be happy in her old life again. I knew I had already lost her. But as long as she is happy…as long as she is safe…” Galadriel couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince her, or himself. Lúthien’s fate after death must have occupied him a great deal—Galadriel knew it occupied her. He turned his Tree-lit gaze once more on Galadriel.

“You loved her,” he said, and Galadriel felt as cold as if she had just been stripped to the skin. Speechless, she fumbled frantically for a response, and then Thingol said: “She inspired that, didn’t she?” He made a quite noise that did not quite pass as a laugh. “After she came into our lives, we never even considered other children. Lúthien took all our time, and that felt right. And why should we want for others, when we had her?”

“I told her not to go.” The words tripped right out of Galadriel. “She…” She was disappointed in me. She thought less of me. She made me feel like a child.

“There was none who could dissuade her,” said the king kindly, inclining his head to Galadriel. “This was a pivotal choice for Lúthien.”

I was a poor friend. But Galadriel could not decide if it was because she had not persuaded Lúthien to be less hasty, or because she had even tried.

“I do not understand her,” was what she said.

“I think there are few who do,” said the king reflectively. “She is, after all, one of a kind. And yet…as the queen has pointed out…she is perhaps not so different from ourselves. I should have seen that earlier.” There was a rueful chagrin in Thingol’s voice at the tardy realization that his daughter’s marriage drew some near parallels with his own. A child of Lúthien’s, even if she had been pure Elf, would also be one of a kind. “Some things are the same. That’s her brooch, isn’t it?” He gestured to the clasp at Galadriel’s throat. She nodded.

            Grief had made her stupid: Galadriel began to unpin it.

            “No, no, it is yours to keep,” the king reassured her, pressing a long-fingered hand over hers to stop her. For a moment, his touch made her remember his daughter’s, and her throat constricted. “All of Lúthien’s gifts are yours to keep. She would wish them to be used.” His touch lingered just a moment, a fresh unhappiness in his gaze. “There is something else for you, as well. I had meant it for—ah, I had meant it for Finrod. But now it shall be yours. A book—a piece of Daeron’s treatise work. It may not be of particular interest to you. But I should like you to have it all the same.”

            They had spoken already at length about Finrod’s death, and while Thingol did not share much with Galadriel of his feelings on anything, she could see how much her brother’s death weighed on him. They had buried him, Lúthien had said, in the grass on Tol Sirion (for so it was called again). That was perhaps for the best; what use had Galadriel of her brother’s lifeless body? His spirit was gone—he was gone. Gone to join Aegnor and Angrod in the Halls of Mandos. Gone, leaving her the last of Finarfin and Eärwen’s children in Middle-earth. Galadriel found she could only nod; there was too much to say, too much she risked saying, and her throat had grown achingly tight.

            “Thank you, Uncle,” she whispered. That was what Finrod had called him; he would prance into Menegroth after months abroad, his eyes agleam with tales of what he had seen, ready and eager to ask more questions of Thingol and have his updates on Galadriel’s life in Doriath.

            Breaking away, she excused herself before she could be more foolish than she had already been, and she returned to Lúthien’s rooms for the first since Melian had caught her there. She shut the door behind her and paced three times around the bedroom.

            “I don’t understand you!” she cried aloud, throwing her hands out, her frown turning into a scowl. “To make such a choice! For this man! Who is he to take so much from you? From all of us?” To willingly walk away from her crown! To walk away from her immortality! To walk into obscurity! To let go of her Maia’s power! Galadriel wished to see her friend’s perspective, but it was obscured from her; Lúthien may as well have said she intended to kill herself and was pleased with the choice. She had gone from the possibility of death to the certainty of it—to choose a mortal life! If Galadriel knew slightly less of Beren, she too would have wondered if he had cast some ill spell over Lúthien.

            She jerked open one of Lúthien’s armoires and drew out one of the fine silken dressing robes Lúthien had not found time to give away before leaving, and gathered it in her hands. She buried her nose in the collar, seeking a last trace of Lúthien’s scent, but found nothing, and a cracked noise of pain parted her lips. She sank to the carpet, pressing Lúthien’s robe against her face.

            “I don’t understand you,” she said again, and she wept.

***

            Shortly thereafter she sought out Celeborn, and came to him matter-of-factly in the stable.

            “I am leaving,” she said. “It is time for me to go.” He regarded her a long moment, but Galadriel said nothing else, and then he said:

            “I shall pack, then.”

---

Chapter End Notes

AUGH I hope Galadriel is believable in this. I wanted to get her obviously having already experienced some very serious things, but still somewhat emotionally immature. I think by the late 3rd Age/4th Age Galadriel will have a different view on this, but she is still emotionally immature here, and her grief and jealousy cloud her ability to see Luthien's perspective further.

If you liked this, I have more Galadriel/Luthien fic here and here, where their relationship is explicitly sexual.

I would also recommend these:
- The Sound of Water Falling Over Stone by LiveOakWithMoss
- It's the Secret that We Keep by Loriand_Lost
- Upon a Carven Throne by Innin

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