#first Galadriel-centric thing I've ever written!

[polutrope]

For the silm phrase prompt list- Galadriel, "wandering free in the woodlands".

Thank you for the prompt! Here I have adopted the LotR version of Galadriel who came over the mountains before the fall of Nargothrond.

Celeborn/Galadriel, G, 550 words. On AO3.

The creek ripples over Galadriel’s feet. The water cools the ache of many leagues cutting their own path over the rough, uneven ground of these ancient woodlands. She curls her toes, kneads the muddy bottom. Across from her, Celeborn splashes the water in his cupped hands over his face. His tongue darts out to taste a drop, and he smiles when he catches her watching.

“It is clean,” he says. “It seems the Enemy's poisons have not reached this place.” He sighs and scans the dense black canopy. Galadriel watches the droplets of water trickle over his bared skin and remembers the first time she saw him this way, bathing beneath a fall of water that leapt over slick shining stone into a pool of the Esgalduin. 

“It is strange to trace the steps of my people back over the mountains,” Celeborn says. "My grandsire must have passed through these woods, seeking the light in the west; and now we return, fleeing the darkness we found there.”

Galadriel hums but offers no answer. The first time she fled a home in the west, she followed the thrum of longing in her heart. That thrum had been her constant companion from the earliest years of her youth, before even the rumour of another land across the sea had entered her child’s fantasies. Rebellion had kindled her longing, so that she blazed bold and bright as if drunk on the very starlight that illumined the cold bitter paths to Middle-earth. A longing to rule turned to a longing for vengeance turned to a longing for wisdom; but ever did her spirit burn with purpose. 

Until Finrod’s light went out in the pits of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the last of her brothers, and the light within her was extinguished also. She might have mouldered beneath the damp stony vaults of Menegroth had not Celeborn woken her from her hollow grief and bid her journey east beside him, leading a small company back over the mountains.

Yet no purpose scorching the soles of her feet has driven her onwards on this, her second flight from darkness. 

“My love?” Celeborn’s voice, soft as morning mist, clears the murk of her thoughts. “You are troubled.”

Galadriel hums again and looks up from the dark gleam of the river into the dark gleam of his eyes. “And for what have we fled?” she asks him. “To what purpose do we wander in these woodlands, having left our kin behind?”

Celeborn comes to sit beside her and clasps her hands in his. “Is it not purpose enough to endure? To be free, so that the traditions and ambitions of our people might live on with us?”

“What ambitions?” Galadriel asks. “What is there here but unchanging stillness and silence? Have we come all this way only to wander, singing the memory of our people to the unhearing trees?”

Celeborn smiles and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, but for a long time says nothing. At last he answers, “Yes,” and kisses her brow. “For now, that is all we have to do.” 

Not for no purpose, Galadriel thinks, and captures Celeborn’s lips in hers as he lowers them from her brow. Despair and darkness drove her from Beleriand, but it was love and hope that carried her feet over the mountains.

[niennawept]

3, 8, 15 and 27 c:

Hi friend! Thank you for taking the time to ask!

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

I haven't written all that many, but to prevent Scars from stomping the others (it's the longfic and my BABY), I'll pick one of the one-shots too. For that, I think "Until the Stars Burn Out," which was inspired by the fic of a friend. I tried to match styles and it was a little outside my comfort zone. I'm very proud of how it turned out.

8. What project(s) are you currently working on?

A longfic called "Scars of Silver and Gold", which is almost half done now. A Galadriel/Melian one-shot. A "Finrod's last moments" one-shot, that might not ever see the light of day, tbh, because it's starting to feel more like the climax of a longfic and I Don't Have Time for that. A fic of drabble-length conversations between Melkor and Mandos during the former's long imprisonment. And a one-shot about Nerdanel in the wake of the First Kinslaying. Those are the fics that currently have words written for them. I've started outlining two longer pieces (A Gothic Romance AU Adar/OC and another non-Adar centric RoP fic, that I've been calling the Oathbreaker King AU - what if Halbrand was the ghost king from RotK instead of Sauron?, think shifting narrator chapter to chapter, telling the story until the Last Alliance)

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

Uhhh. For Scars, I spent a long time thinking about the themes that I wanted the fic to have. About how even with restoration, you can still see the marks left by the past. And I remembered that in Japan, they sometimes put broken ceramics back together with silver or gold in an artform called "kintsugi." So that's why Scars of Silver and Gold is called that. For one-shots or chapters, I don't take nearly as long. I just kind of sit quietly and think about the things that stand out to me about the chapter for about 15 minutes before I post it. Very rarely do I use more than a few words or take longer than that.

27. Is there a fic you were nervous to post/share? Why?

Maybe the first time I posted anything spicy? But I also specifically made this account to be spicy and secret from IRL people. So ... I mean, what's the worst that was going to happen, lol. I think in the future, if I venture into Silm fic, I'm going to be very nervous about some things. Most of my headcanons are pretty different from popular fanon, so ... [concerns]

Ask game here.