empty spaces by queerofthedagger

Galadriel: Impenitence

This one comes with art by the incredible magicinavalon - you can find it on tumblr here! <3

If anyone were to ask, Galadriel would claim that there was a moment when she doubted leaving Aman.

There was not. She knows that there was for her brothers, much as they try to hide it. Obviously knows the uncertainty of her father. What it resulted in.

She wishes she could. That she could claim to have wavered, doubted; that she was what they all wanted her to be—not a storm, not a cataclysm. Someone to sit with her mother, to weep over spilt blood, to practice forgiveness.

She is not. She cannot. She refuses to regret that, too.

One by one, her brothers die.

She learns regret then, the way it slides beneath your skin. How it steals your breath, kneeling in the dark forest, hands to the cold and living earth of it.

Most days, she is grateful. To these people that have taken her in, taught her, let her wander. Most days she breathes the clear air of the forest and feels like she can do anything.

But some days—some days, she rages until the regret is drained from her once more.

Amidst it all, she still never once wishes that she had not gone.

When her father follows, it tears the land apart.

That makes it sound like accusation; by then, Galadriel has lived in Sirion for too long to make it into any such thing.

Still, she cannot help, in dark and bitter hours, to find irony in it. Her father, always the most peaceful of Finwë’s children. The one to turn, to stay. To beg for pardon.

Now he blazes on the battlefield beside Manwë’s herald. Now he brings salvation, most his children long-since dead.

Beleriand sinks. The Eldar are summoned to return. Galadriel turns East once more and swallows her regret.