Chapter Text
"Admit it, elf."
Low and feral, the ragged growl reverberates between her thighs, sending rippling shivers over her skin, through her soul; she is unable to look away, watching him knelt between her legs, feasting on her own lust for him.
She grips his hair harder and tugs. She will admit nothing.
"You are obsessed with me," he breathes, a serpentine hiss, ghosting over her tormented flesh; it is raw and dark and shameful and true. His fingertips tighten on her thighs, a dull bloom of pain in the rising current of pleasure stirred by his mouth, and she rises against him, driving him deeper.
She is obsessed with him. She always has been.
"And yet it is you on your knees," she says, aware that it's more of a groan than the cold indictment she'd intended. "Worshiping me."
At this, he looks up, and his eyes blaze with the truth of it. She dares not look away as one hand joins his mouth and coaxes her up and over the edge. She sees the triumph flickering in his eyes as she comes apart.
"Yes," he murmurs into the crease of her thigh as her trembling subsides, sweeping his hands down her legs, back up to her hips, to the ripple of her ribcage, to her heart that beats and batters against the press of his rough, calloused palms. "I do worship you."
The admission is easy, and the way he lays his face upon her skin - eyes closed, breath a ghost over her hip bone - feels like worship. Like a penitent come to beg for mercy. Her mercy - hasn't he said the world needs her mercy? Hasn't she wondered every moment hence if she chose wrongly? Hasn't she already broken her spirit beyond repair by making an oath she can never fulfill?
What, now, could she do in even her darkest and least merciful moments that would be worse than the evil she has already wrought upon this Middle-Earth?
"Even now," she hears herself speak, and it's a question, and the beginning of an answer, and her voice sounds broken and wrong. She has been sent here to negotiate the terms of her sworn enemy’s surrender, for the salvation of the world - but she does not ask for the council, or for the world. "Even now, would you not do this for me?"
A tickle as he turns, chin and lips pressing her belly, low. How can it be that in all of time, only this being has ever kissed her there?
"What would you have me do, my lady?"
Again she seizes fistfuls of his hair, demanding he look at her, as much as it cuts her now to look so long and so closely at him. Are they so very changed, after all this time? Do they not still come to one another as they always have, broken ancient souls hiding in beautiful young bodies unscarred by war? She can still find the leaves of green within his eyes, but there is a fire that now threatens to consume them.
"Would you not make peace?" she pleads. She will deliver him herself to Valinor to face judgment if he will go.
At her offer, recalling their first tentative steps in this eternal dance, he moves up from his knees on the floor. With one arm he steadies himself and with the other, scoops and pulls her swiftly underneath him, filling the valley between her still-spread, shaking thighs. Finding both her hands, he guides them above her head, holding her there, utterly vulnerable beneath his might.
"Peace," he echoes, the slightest question.
Her wrists flex within his grasp, against the large, work-roughened hands he uses to touch her. She knows he could kill her with a thought; she is almost as certain that he would let her kill him if she tried.
She cannot remember the last time she tried.
Tonight there is no violence. He gathers her wrists in one hand, while the other moves between them to make her ready, if she could be any more so. Have they not made peace already, here in the sanctuary of this bed? If they have not, then surely it is a war crime, the thick, hot slide of him filling her, her gasping yes, yes. Surely she speaks words of treason into his ear.
"Please, meldanya." My beloved.
"You know that I would."
She can feel the words as much as hear them. He releases her hands, which float to touch him, enjoying the heat of his skin, the shape of his body. He leans up, pressing one hand to her just so, just how he knows she likes it, and she watches their union through eyes heavy with lust and grief.
"Stay with me," he tempts her, his voice low and powerful, dark with desire as he watches them, too, the fire flickering bright in his eyes. Dark and light, pushing and pulling, the ever-present balance between them. "We will have peace."
Ever do they come to this. The only thing she cannot offer is the only thing he asks, and her negotiation will fail. She has been here so many times, her body and spirit open in supplication, offering everything she has leave to give, and yet never enough.
"You must do this of your own choosing. Not under my command."
He bends closer, the ghost of a kiss to her lips.
"Yet ever do I fail without you."
"You have not tried," she bites the words off, practically spitting them at his face. A small, crooked smile bends the corner of his mouth as he draws back, propped on one hand, considering her face. She knows tears have welled and spilled from her eyes. Let him see; has she ever really been able to hide from him, anyway? Have they not been as one all these years? Has she not tasted his own tears - his own blood?
"Many times I have failed," he admits, and the next words are not shared even with the darkness around them, only between them, a shimmering current that moves without effort. But that does not mean I have not tried. I am weak, and I have never been worthy of you, my queen. But even now I would have you by my side and do as you command.
His lips brush the tip of her ear, and then her cheekbone, tasting her tears. She will be burned alive by this love, in the end, ruined by this accursed undying hope. It lives and flares and flows within her like the poisoned mountain, ever wounded and burning.
Why, if not for hope, would she continue coming here? Why yet touch the very heart of darkness if not in search, in service, of the light?
Nothing truly compels her to be here, yet still, she comes. She could reach out across the distance, but still, she allows herself to be drawn in just far enough to feel it all - the heat, the pain, the hope and the shame. It makes her feel both helplessly weak and completely powerful. In her darkest moments she has wondered if he will one day make her a prisoner, or, perhaps worse, if she will one day snatch that cursed ring and do the same to him. She is almost certain that she could.
My warrior, my queen. It makes you proud, she feels him say, another terrible truth, his forehead pressed to hers, her hips driving steadily against him. You feel pride that you love me, and that I love you. That you have safe passage here. That you have such power over me, that I would let you bind me to your spirit like a prisoner.
"Yes," she cries, and tries to bury the sound in a kiss, biting his lip. Yes, she burns with pride to see him fall on his knees for her, to hear him beg her, to feel the radiant power that rises when they make love.
Pride has been my rise and my fall. Pride has seen me do evil that can never be forgiven. It will keep me forever from following you across the sea, from bending to anyone but you. But for you I will bend.
He moves, kneeling up, and draws her into his lap. Her chest is pressed to his, her head falling to his shoulder, her hair spilling around them. With one arm he holds her and with the other hand, he sweeps and gathers her hair into a thick, shimmering rope, tugs on it gently so that she looks up, drawing her face from its hiding place.
"Look at me, vanimelda."
She looks - first down at their bodies, how she sits astride him, her skin so fair and her body so small, her hands clutching his biceps, fingertips pressing sweat-slick skin. She looks to the joining of their bodies, watches as he guides the slow, gentle pace, rocking into her, all heat and strength and tightly controlled power. She can feel it all around her, whispering to the answering currents within her. She looks up to his face, to the scruff on his jaw, the unruly mane of hair. He comes to her thus, cloaked in the humble human body she first met, first touched, and she can almost imagine that they are in the same dark ship's cabin where she promised him her heart, her hand.
This evil will not rise, she told him then, believing it. You will be a good king, she said, and she meant it.
I will be your queen, she promised.
A sob shakes loose from within her as she looks up and sees the same storm of emotion and memory reflected in his eyes.
What have we done?
A small, sad smile.
The only thing we could have. How was I to know your weakness for human smiths with unkempt hair?
Her laugh at this still sounds like a sob.
I knew no such weakness before you. Will you still not go with me? Complete your quest for peace at last.
She will not beg him aloud again. She is tired of begging him at all.
The last time she was here, she shouted and stormed, leading with an argument and leaving in anger with a final insult echoing through the tower as she descended. I will not debase myself further here tonight, Sauron.
He met her at the gate and she only stopped to slap him across the face, sparks of silver light at her fingertips as she struck him; he caught her wrist on its retreat and said calmly, Did you come here only to waste our time with insults?
What followed - there was no tenderness between them that day, and she thought perhaps it was less perilous to leave in anger. Let the anger carry her far away, and fast.
She considered not returning.
Yet here she is. Once again she arrived with a righteous fury simmering within her, but he greeted her with a kiss and a don't start, and now -
Now, the world outside - the war, the council, her dead brother, her not-dead husband, her child, her realm, her duty - it is all but a wisp of smoke on the breeze, all lost to the deep darkness of this night. She imagines - or perhaps does not - that she can see the flames dancing beneath his skin, within him as she hovers here, in the greatest peril she can ever endure, in the arms of her lover.
She watches a tear escape from his eye and feels her own spilling in answer. She wonders what he yet conceals from her. How long can this go on? How long before she cannot find the one she loves buried within the rage, the hubris, the evil deeds? How long until he casts her out for even daring to ask? Will there come a day when even she is not safe here?
And what will become of him, then?
What will become of her?
Will you not stay?
She does not answer, and he ducks to nuzzle her ear, still holding her hair. How, of all who have ever been or will be, is it he for whom she aches, he who drives almost all sense and reason out of her mind?
I cannot stay. It is a refrain she tells herself as surely as she tells him, even as her whole being sings out in pleasure while he kisses her neck. This is but a moment. I cannot stay.
Their endless negotiation, this - she will plead reason and mercy and humility. She will offer to go with him and stand as intercessor and end these wars. He will ask her to stay and stand at his right hand and make everything new. She will wish that she could believe it; she knows it is his last desperate hope. The great deceiver has convinced himself of this beautiful lie - that she can heal him, and that for her, he will do right.
She turns her head and finds his lips with hers, kissing him fiercely as he wraps both arms around her, keeping her close and rocking her hips just so, just -
Stay. There is no peace for me across the sea. Stay with me and do wonders here.
She can only see and feel and hear him.
She has made her choices, and he, his own. She has made promises she will not break. But there is little room in her mind to consider them, now, as the whole world falls away, leaving only them, clutched and bound together, his body inside her own and his voice in her mind.
Have we not also made promises to one another?
There is no way to deny it. Deceived or not, she offered herself freely, gave herself with abandon.
You would hold me to promises made to a man who did not exist. To lies.
She cannot imagine that loving a mortal man and burying him centuries ago would have hurt less than this. She should be cast into the void for this. Perhaps one day she will be.
He strokes callused fingertips down her spine, driving her shuddering against him, eyelids fluttering shut as she gasps.
No. A million tiny sparks of light erupt behind her closed lids as she feels his answer. No, vanimelda. The one you loved then is still the one who loves you now. I would hold you until the end of days. In another form, if it pleases you. We have never been a lie.
At this, her eyes open wide, flicking up again, searching his, drawn so deeply into this moment, unable to guard herself, the naked fear that it has all, always been a lie. He catches her hand as she raises it to stroke his face; he draws the tip of her thumb between his teeth, in turn tasting each fingertip. She would not ask him to appear otherwise, and he knows it.
Have I not been a faithful lover?
Her heart clutches. It should not matter.
Would you not stand at my side and bind me to yourself, to the very light of the Valar? The queen of everything, fair as the sun and mighty as the sea. You may have this mortal man, let me age and perish if you choose. You may have me as your most faithful servant for all ages to come if you wish. You may make all things new. Heal every ruin.
The call to power stokes the fire within her even hotter, the dizzying rush of it beautiful and terrifying. She has seen glimpses of what could have been and what still could be. She would make all things new. All would love her.
Are they not the same, but for a few choices made differently and the ripples of effect flowing out from those choices? Did not the treachery in her own spirit bring her directly to him, like drawn unto like? She yearns to make the world as he imagines she could. She burns with the temptation to let her will be done, to cast off duty and embrace her own power.
Do you deny that I offer your heart's deepest desire? You searched to the ends of the earth determined to bring me to justice, but you found me long ago, and here we still are. You do not wish to bring me to judgment any more than I wish to go.
She clings to him. She cannot deny that she longs to see justice done rightly upon him, in some way that does not end in the great darkness of the void. Yet there is no path to lasting peace that begins with her doing as he asks.
I would not imprison one as mighty as you, turn this devotion into hatred. To do this would destroy us both.
An impatient little huff. Are we both not already destroyed?
Destroy everything else, then. All of Middle-Earth. Is that not consequence enough?
And here, he stills. Because she knows. It is not. Which is why she cannot, will not, must not accept.
There will be no resolution tonight; she swallows a rise of panic that there will never be resolution.
Summoning her composure, she springs forward, pushing him down hard onto his back. He tumbles in surprise, then gladly lets her overpower him. A dark, appreciative smile grows on his face as he settles back, stretching out beneath her, arms crossed behind his head. Watching. Her skin burns under his gaze. Her body hums in tune with his as she moves atop him, rising up onto her knees, arching her back and letting her hair brush along the tops of his thighs. With one hand she reaches between them, and the other she presses flat to his chest, feeling the thunder of his heartbeat as she seats herself, taking him deep inside. A queen on her throne indeed.
"Enough," she says, tired of weeping for what can never be. "If you will not agree, let us speak of this no more."
She wipes the lingering tears from her eyes and presses her fingertips to his lips; he suckles them clean and waits, watching hungrily, for her next move. When she reaches for his hands, pulls them to her breasts, he murmurs, "As you wish, Galadriel," and the fire flares brighter and clearer still in his eyes, and the negotiation is ended. She utters a curse, a forbidden wish in a forbidden tongue, and he surges up to answer as she gives herself over to the flames.
They will not have resolution. But for tonight, here in this dark fortress, far from duty, she will be the queen of everything. And she will have her king.