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Galadriel closed her eyes and turned from the battle as she felt the power of Sauron snap like the moment Mount Doom had erupted. She knew he was gone, so she turned, cutting down the orcs along the way as she fought for her path away from this battle and this truth – Sauron and Halbrand, and all he meant to her and took from her was gone.
She touched Nenya and knew that her time in the affairs of Middle Earth was now changed. She would go to the River Anduin, as she had planned with Celeborn all those years before and settle there. Create for herself a realm where she could spend the remainder of her days in this land. Where she could keep an ear on Mount Doom and the hollow depths of Moria – lost now to all dwarf-kind. She left her sword in the last orc she encountered on the battlefield, shedding armour with each change of scenery until she was in nothing but her shift. She stepped into the waters of the Anduin and allowed the blood, gore, and pain wash away in the cool waters. Galadriel dipped her head below the water as the first tears fell; swept away in the passing of water and the memory of time spent on a raft, time fighting for lands and peoples lost, time in Númenor, time she was deceived and all she had lost to her foolish heart. As she stepped from the water as night fell across the land, she promised that her realm would be a safe haven and she would guard it with Nenya, she continued into the valley and through the trees and sat at the point which would be the centre of her realm and promised to protect her elves as though they were the children she now knew she would never bear.
She reached into the secure bag tight at her ribs and buried the mallorn seeds gifted to her by Gil-Galad. She reached down into the earth and asked that they grow strong and true with the waters of Anduin and the wish for her realm's future.
Ten years passed within the blink of an eye. Galadriel welcomed her friend Elrond to this land she now called Lothlórien. He stayed as the first of the tree houses was completed. One for each family of elves that had escaped from homes and realms ravaged by Sauron and the war. Elrond told her all she didn't know of the battle. Gil-galad falling, Elendil lost to sword, Isildur cutting the One Ring from Sauron's finger and saving the peoples of Middle Earth but losing himself to the ring which was now lost as was Isildur, his son now King of Arnor and Gondor. His fear that Galadriel too was lost when he found her sword in the body of an orc until he heard tell of the Lady of the Golden Wood and the Lady of Light who was welcoming elves to a realm hidden even from Elrond until he came to Lórien. She touched her fingers to Nenya and then looked at his hand where Vilya sat. He nodded, willing now that Sauron was gone to wear it for their elves. He left to return to his own realm; Rivendell building faster than hers but a beacon to all of Middle Earth that the elves were one of the peoples of Middle Earth, even with the dawn of the Third Age.
Galadriel and Lothlórien did not welcome Elrond to their shores again for fifty years…until he came with an unexpected companion.
"There is a new realm to the West, where songs of a Grand Elf are sung and Mithrandir visits." Elrond explained. "There an elf was found, brought to us in Rivendell and allowed to recuperate. He remembers nothing of his life before being found and many would not know his face, but I recognised this elf as my memory is long and I am one of the few left in this land who knew him."
Elrond stepped to the side and a tall blond elf stepped from his shadow. Galadriel froze, Nenya cold on her finger. She pushed a smile onto her face but the desire to step forward to bury herself in his chest and allow his arms to envelop her were unconscious to her mind as it whirled.
"Galadriel," he whispered in her ear, arms tight and strong and real around her.
Galadriel held herself back from saying anything in response.
Elrond smiled blissfully. "Celeborn lives."
Galadriel pulled back from the elf holding her and smiled at her friend. "Thank you, Elrond, please rest within our lands while I speak with…Celeborn."
Galadriel waited until they were alone, standing withing her dwelling, the tree protecting their words and Nenya protecting everything else.
"Sauron," she spat, glaring at the elf in front of her.
"No longer," Sauron said, holding his hands wide.
"I knew you would not pass from this land while the One Ring remained."
"And yet you did not tell Elrond your suspicions."
"I wished to know why you would do this to me," Galadriel said, not allowing the knowledge that her wound did not react to him as it had to Sauron until the moment that ended the war.
"I died truly when the Ring was cut from my finger, as I died when Adar and his children murdered me, as I died at Morgoth's hands, yet this time I am not whole. I have not the skills of a Maia. I woke with this face and slept many years in the River Baranduin until I was raised back to consciousness by a halfling."
"More deception?"
"You know my powers of deception no longer sway you and haven't since my crown pierced your skin." Sauron dropped to one knee before Galadriel. "I can no longer reach the parts of me that are Maia…I can no longer call myself Sauron as I have not his abilities or skills, I come here and offer to live within your realm if you would have me, but a humble servant to my Queen."
"And when your powers come back, and you decided once more you would care to save Middle Earth through subjugation?"
"I once offered to make you a queen, let me be one of your subjects."
"As Celeborn…wearing his face?"
"I did not know this Celeborn nor his face, this face was given to me by some power beyond my own."
"My husband and you did not know him, but you now wear his face? This you expect me to believe?"
"Am I lying?" he asked, looking up at her with eyes she remembered…almost.
"I cannot tell."
"I will submit to any trial you place before me to prove my truthfulness. I wish only to have you by my side as we were in the Southlands."
"Now that you can no longer bend Middle Earth to your will?"
"You think so little of me."
Galadriel stepped close to him, glaring down at him from fierce eyes. "I think that much of you, of your insidious evil and the honeyed words you use and your belief that we would choose to be subjugated and call it peace and that somehow I asked for all that came by trying to find a way out of the darkness."
Sauron smiled with Celeborn's lips and yanked Galadriel the final distance down, pressing his lips to hers. Galadriel pressed close, hating her grief for holding her in his arms, and kissed him back.
Galadriel welcomed a daughter but one year after Celeborn returned to her side.
The Third Age passed them and their golden realm, the Age of Men rose higher, and with the Third Age came a thief ending the reign of a drake and the rise of a Necromancer. Yet, Celeborn remained at her side. Galadriel travelled with Mithrandir, leaving Celeborn to guard their realm as she fought with the shadow of the man who had been Halbrand on a lost ruin. Celeborn was not good, was not peaceful, was not unwilling to be the sword of Lothlórien should she be threatened. He was not suddenly the beacon of sweet care and light that the real Celeborn had been, but he had stood at her elbow for all the ages of Lothlórien. The Necromancer was real and evil, and she felt Sauron in the curl of his power and the wisps of magic upon the stone beneath her feet, in the thrum of her old and healed wound. That night, when she rested her head next to Celeborn she breathed deeply for the first time in all of the years between them.
When hobbits, brave and true, with Men, elf, and dwarf at their side came to her forests she offered them sanctuary and watched Celeborn from the first touch of the One Ring's power. Celeborn stood at her back, hand soft on her shoulder blade, as the Ring and its company left their shores.
"I told you once I wished to place a crown upon your head and I would not have rested until all of Middle Earth had been brought to their knees to worship the light of their queen…how true it turned out to be."
Galadriel turned to him, one hand touching gentle fingertips to the gold and mithril crown upon her head.
"When they succeed," he continued. "You will travel to the Undying Lands, and I shall follow to see if the Valar will allow me passage but I shall travel alone to ensure no other elf falls to the worm with me."
"No," Galadriel corrected. "We will enter the Undying Lands together or fall to the worm as one, my love."
"As you wish, my Queen."
The End