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The moon ascends slowly, a yawning and docile thing. A bite in the air, the harvest moon is the portend of the impending equinox, the evolution from autumn into early winter, the end of all things for the year.
The babe had been hard to put down this eve, unsettled in a way that flummoxed her mother. So sensitive, her little girl, to the astral comings and goings. There is power in a name, and perhaps she shares spirits with the silver moon. Celebrian. Reactionary and reliable, like the tides.
Galadriel finally stumbles into bed and into slumber, eyes glassy and arms aching from the constant rocking. She dreams, images shifting of the brook near her childhood home, her late brother smiling in the sunlight, a fantasy of her daughter grown up and regal—glancing over a shoulder at her, gazing with his eyes—
She is awoken by a creak across the wooden floor. Galadriel has turned into a light sleeper of late, scared to miss any sign of distress from her daughter. The wind would make the home groan in the night on occasion, but sure as the sun shall rise in the morning, she knew this wasn’t the cause. The air felt wrong, a disturbance in her sanctuary. About to turn over from her belly and survey the space beyond her, a hand grabs her shoulder, tugging her across the bed, back thrown across the mattress. The bedframe protests the new weight as muscled legs close in on either side of her waist, a hand placed on her sternum to keep her down, like a dog, like a prisoner.
The glow of the fire from the hearth cuts through the dim and softly illuminates the face above her. Flame reflecting in his eyes, he keeps his illusion of dark hair and human skin. How beautiful he was to her before she’d known his true nature. Cruelty plays with her now as a piece of hair falls across an eye. She fights against the urge to push it back behind his ear as she used to.
A log cracks, the sound reverberating in the silence. Time slows, seconds stretching out in long swaths before stopping completely. She forgets to breathe in the suspension of time.
“Galadriel,” He rolls the r in her name, mimicking the way her father used to pronounce it—the way her forefathers before him would pronounce it. Soft vowels, tongue almost sticking to the roof of his mouth on the first l. Her name had been harder, shorter, whenever he’d speak it before. Before.
It terrifies her, she realizes, at how chameleonic he can be. And as she feels the swell of it, of her fright, he tempers her body’s revolt by trapping her neck against the pillow, blade held over it. The hum of the light within it sings to her as the darkness atop her wields her family’s own heirloom against her.
Her brother would roll in his grave at his blade being used in such ways.
She makes to throw her shoulders, to be given a breadth of some space from him, but he presses ever harder, the sharp edge teasing the give of her flesh, the hilt biting her collar. He has her now, underhand and at his complete control. Equals he’d once called the two of them. But never here, never in a bedchamber.
“You—You cannot—” Galadriel tries to muster the words, to voice her displeasure. Her heart gallops, breaths coming shallow. She doesn’t care if he cuts her, if he defiles her, those are inevitable things. It is the babe he mustn't touch. Her own power, stifled in the presence of him alone. She wishes to reach out with her mind’s eye, to watch over her daughter and keep her asleep, to shush at the first sign of fuss so as not to alert the intruder. With desperate intent, she obscures the babe from notice, a nebulous web of redirection filling the nursery.
He will not have her—her Celebrian. She is Galadriel’s alone.
“But I already have, haven’t I? Has the distance made your memory grow weak?” He uses her stunned confusion to rip her shift from her body, a precursor, something he’d always enjoyed doing even when she was enthusiastic with him.
The illusion of violence has fallen to the wayside, making way for something real.
“Don’t,” she warns, nude and spread before him.
He presses the blade more firmly to her neck, the final resistance of her skin before he’d well and truly cut her. In another life, he’d do it. Kill her. She can feel the intent within him, the sickening desire to spill her blood. He is angry, furious, and his barely restrained violence hums through his body. It is that threat that keeps her still as he drops the knife beside her head and undresses himself. The sway he holds over her even now makes him smirk, his eyes never leaving hers as he shucks clothes to the floor.
She refuses to look at his body, to marvel at the form she’d once traced with her tongue. Refuses to see the amalgamation of twisted anger and desire between his legs.
He flips her on her stomach in a quick move, Galadriel blinking in surprise before he lifts her hips to him, presenting her to his need. Her hand instinctively reaches beside her, fingers wrapping around the hilt of the dagger.
“Ah, ah, Galadriel. Let’s not play with sharp things,” he tuts, his own hand wrapping around her wrist and pressing along tendons, forcing her fingers to spasm open, releasing the blade. She tries to turn her head to glance back at him, incredulous.
He presses her face into the pillows, pinning her, and ignores her sounds of protest. She tries to slap at him, blindly reaching behind her. He swats her hands away, little corrections as he pushes her legs apart with his own.
“No,” Galadriel whines, mouth full of pillow.
“What was that, sweetheart? Couldn’t quite hear you,” evil and mean above her, she doesn’t see him spit into his free hand, running his palm over himself. They both know he’ll find her wet anyways.
“No,” she tries once more before he spears her with his cock, her cunt pinching as muscles stretch, her breath pushed out of her as he fully sheaths himself. He gives her enough freedom to turn her head, cheek still buried in linen. He leans down, his chest flush against her back. A heavy weight, her overwhelm is stifled by the languid roll of his hips, making space for himself within her.
“This tight hole is mine, little girl,” words purred into her ear, teeth nipping at the lobe. She whimpers, she thinks, as he pulls out almost entirely. “How I’ve missed it.”
“Get off of me, you leech,” words hissed through teeth as he shoves himself back inside. She is but a space for him to fill, to conquer. She can’t help that her back arches, her body sinking further into bed, her inner walls tightening around the intruding cock.
As much as Galadriel protests, he is known. He is familiar. He plays her like a harp, plucking away at her body until she surrenders entirely.
In the space of a breath, stunningly bright pain fills her, a crack of sound bursting.
He’d just spanked her.
“Such a mean thing to call me, little elf. Your months away from me have given you bad manners,” taunting, he spanks her again, and a third time in quick succession.
Galadriel feels impossibly small, a scorned child being reprimanded.
Fucking into her once more, a wave of unwanted pleasure at the stretch radiates through the deepest parts of her. She hears the fourth hit before she feels it, her body tensing at the pain. He grunts at the feeling of her contracting down around him.
“I always knew the House of Finarfin enjoyed violence. How the noble line rebels against proper elf etiquette,” he’s smug and it endlessly irritates her. Galadriel pleases him even at her lowest, at the time where she most wishes to harm him back.
“Do not speak of my family,” she warns weakly, “pride and honor guide us.”
He laughs at her before taunting her, “Let’s look at you, shall we? I want to see the pleasure you seem so determined to hide.”
A quick move, a marionette on a string, and she’s on her back beneath him again. And she doesn’t think she can stomach it, this exposure to him. Driving back into her, he grabs her jaw, keeping her face open to him. She slaps his hand away, a small concession. and instead takes her knee in his grasp, pinning her leg up to the side, opening her body to him.
Stretching around him, the pinch of pain at the size. She’d grown unaccustomed to him, her body failing to adjust to the size as easily as it once did. He reaches depths within her she’d forgotten about. Galadriel retreats within herself, afraid to face him in this darkest hour.
A stiff smack at her cheek, softer than the spanking, but still enough of a bite to leave the red lines of a hand behind, has her eyes flying open again.
“Stay with me, Galadriel, no running off to wherever it is you go. I want you to remember this.”
A tortured moan is worked out of her as he finally catches her clit between thumb and forefinger, pinching the bundle of nerves and making her hips buck.
“Wait, please—”
“You think saying ‘please’ will make me stop? Is that it? I’ve searched,” he presses down on her clit, just short of abuse as shocking delight races up her body, “for nigh a year for you, and you think I’m stopping now?”
“I don’t want this, I don’t want you— why can’t you accept that?” Galadriel cries in exasperation, her chest heaving as he leans down and bites the space of skin between neck and shoulder.
“Your cunt tells me differently, listen to how wet you are,” he emphasizes his words with several hard and deep thrusts, the sound of flesh meeting flesh accentuated by the sound of her wet arousal. Even now, her body betrays her.
“That doesn’t—” she tries to deny him, tries to withstand his barrage of sensation.
Her mind is wiped clean as he changes his angle, hitting up into the sensitive spot in her cunt that he knows so well. She begins to feel it, the shimmer of release on the horizon. Cold horror fills her at the realization she cannot escape it. Tormenting her, he fucks up into that space inside her again, again, until she’s dragging her nails at his sides, trying to find a way to let out her rising emotion, her overwhelm. She bites her tongue, nearly biting through it as she resists telling him to keep fucking her right there, yes, please, don’t stop don’t stop don’t-
He knows he has her, his eyes glinting in the fading firelight. A shark scenting blood in the water, he continues his motion, his thumb pressing and twisting against her bud, the pressure of his cock, of his hand, has her gasping. Her lips shape around words but no sound comes.
“Say it. Say it! Say my name, the name of the one who truly knows you, body and soul,” he bites out, voice rumbling across Galadriel’s skin. The command rings through her, persuasion washing over her better judgment. His hips grind down, burying himself ever deeper inside of her.
He mouths at her breasts, her nipples oversensitive from feeding, and she cries out in pleasure. He rumbles his approval, nipping at skin, small bites of ownership.
Galadriel’s thoughts are scattered, bits and pieces of language that when puzzled out in the right sequences, might resemble a thought. He pries her lips apart, fingers becoming slick with her saliva, jaw opening. She fights valiantly, short sounds of protest escaping.
“Speak,” he snarls before his lips twist, spitting down into her mouth. A branding, this treatment of her. She swallows before she knows better, a reflex she can’t ever untrain.
Tossing her head to one side, his fingers dig against the edge of her mouth before dragging trails of her across her cheek, she cannot bear to look at him as shame crawls up her chest.
“Halbrand,” watery and meek, she speaks the name out loud. His hand grips her face, fingers pressing in tightly against her cheeks. He will crush her, she thinks.
“My name, Galadriel. What is my name?”
A rough thrust, her body shoved higher up the bed, he will compress her down into the smallest pieces until there is nothing left of her. She whimpers, her body thrumming with frenetic pleasure.
“Please, I can’t—”
“Oh, but you can, Galadriel. You say my name so sweetly. All I can think about is how your mouth fits around me,” a hand at her belly presses down, a weight that tethers her to the present. He speeds up, the tempo reaching a fever pitch.
It’ll be done soon, Galadriel reassures herself. She isn’t sure how much more her body and her heart can take. Breathy gasps escape her, the force of his thrusts working the soul from her body.
“C’mon, Galadriel, say it,” he grinds out, fingers playing at her clit once more, her body beginning to tense up. He is relentless as he chases after her release.
And she doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to acquiesce and give him the satisfaction of her orgasm and his name. If anything has come from their time together, it is how the world has turned so unfair. A wave of impending pleasure swells, her breaths punching out of her, short and fast as she begins to crest.
“Sauron,” she bleats, tears escaping her as she comes, world exploding into color and unwelcome bliss. Her cunt flutters, the extra encouragement he needs before finding his own release. Galadriel feels it, the branding inside her, of him marking her once more as his.
“Fuck,” he groans, “fuck.”
She can’t stop the tears from forming, her heart in her throat. She hates that he wields so much control over her, hates that he can make her see stars. Hates him for the hurt she’s felt in the months since he revealed who he was. Hates that he’s found her. Hates that despite the betrayal, despite the intrusion of tonight, despite her lack of open participation, she still came harder than she thought herself capable of.
He catches a tear with his fingertips, a sick smile on his face. Galadriel watches him lick it into his mouth, consuming her sorrow.
“Are all of these tears for me?” he mocks her, false concern lacing his words, “A welcoming gift all mine.”
A small cry escapes her as she tries to draw breath in, to gather the strength to speak. Quivering lips try to form words of protest, but her mouth is smothered instead by his own, teeth clicking against teeth, his tongue pressing in her mouth, demanding obeisance. For all her might in the art of combat, she is but a lamb beneath the evil atop her.
Another thrust, hips meeting hips, and another. They’re slow and smooth, riding out the release still filling her. Her hand at his jaw keeps him close, their kisses near-violent in intensity. She wants to push him away. She wants to drag him deeper inside her. He catches her lip, a sharp burst of pain tells her he’s drawn blood. Retribution. A marking more visible than the spend leaking from her core. He presses his forehead to hers, his body finally stilling.
Bodies pinned together, his chest heaves against hers. In a suspended space, high above where she lays, Galadriel drifts through the post-orgasm blur. She can almost imagine it is just Halbrand atop her. The human king, the lover, the friend. Another tear streaks down her temple, getting lost in her hairline. How unfair it is. She cannot separate evil from man.
He pulls out, his spend spilling from her. She feels equally used and desired, a dichotomy that messes with her mind. Where was her fight? Where was her honor?
Distantly, beginning to cut through the haze, Celebrian stirs, small sounds of displeasure and failed self-soothing are precursors to a full wail. Sauron stills, his body going rigid above her. She is reeled back inside herself, her heart stuttering.
Galadriel had done well, distracting him for so long. It had always been easy to be the center of his attention. The concealment she’d cast over her daughter dissolves as Sauron cocks his head to the side, eyes fixed on a spot on the wall beyond Galadriel’s head. A tapered ear peeks through dark hair, picking up the noise. His eyebrows furrow, understanding washing over his features. His face almost appears serene.
“Who—”
“No.” Vehement, her maternal fight roars within her, a panic unlike any she’d known before swallows her whole. Nails dig into Sauron’s thighs, tethering him to her.
He looks down at her once more, eerily calm, an almost feral wonder in his eyes. Galadriel can see it, the calculations happening in his mind, explanations laid out before him. She waits for the anger, the rage at what she has denied him.
He quietly remarks, “And so you ran and hid,” before he leaps from the bed, dagger falling to the floor, making his way towards the hall—the nursery —
It isn’t even a formed thought and she’s followed suit. She beats him to the threshold, facing the greatest source of evil the realm has ever known head on. A hand at his neck, fingers curled, there hadn’t been time to grab the weapon. Power hums within her so fiercely her hair begins to lift from her back, her shoulders.
“You will not touch her.”
It is the first time she sees disbelief in his eyes, genuine apprehension bleeding into them. Here, he beholds, is a power unlike any he has seen. Transcending the dynamics played out between them moments before, beyond what has ever happened between the two of them previously, a new facet of Galadriel is revealed to him.
She has no time to mourn another part of her being known.
“A fearsome opponent on any battlefield, my elf.”
The anger, the rage, the punishment she expected—where was it? Where was the unending wrath? The final nail in her coffin? His voice is soft, placating. A somber reassurance. In this, he is not the opposition. Just now, he is not a threat. Galadriel cannot make sense of it.
Celebrian cries out in earnest, fully roused from sleep, needing her mother.
“What is her—” Sauron begins, voice still quiet.
“She is mine, ” Softly snarling, Galadriel bares her teeth at him.
“As much as she is mine, Galadriel. It took more than you to make her,” He wraps a hand around the wrist at his neck, anchoring himself to her in a second place, needing more contact.
Her rage reaches a fever pitch, her face crumpling. Galadriel does not move from her position at the door. Sauron mirrors her.
“She is not some blade from your forge. She is not a tool available at your disposal. All that you are, all that you have taken from me, she is the one thing untainted by your grasp. The one thing I have that is still beautiful. There is nothing left for me, Sauron. Nothing beyond this roof. My own people have shunned me for opening my heart to you, let alone my legs. My life has been ruined, but she is the last pillar of compassion and goodness. I will not have you take her from me, too,” A tear streaks down her cheek, the sorrow of the past year bubbling up her throat, threatening to break free.
Galadriel will not fall apart in front of him. To do so would be her ultimate damnation. She wills the rest of her tears to stay at her waterline.
Her weeping before had been different, had not come from a place of soulful brokenness. It had been reactionary, an overwhelm in sensation, in fear. It was not a true surrender, not like the emotion that threatens her now. Another wail from the nursery makes Galadriel swallow, clear her throat, look away.
“This exile you live is from the elves, not from all that walks Middle Earth, Artanis,” Galadriel recoils at his use of her name. To be seen by him will never not be unnerving. His attention holds weight, always has. How naïve of her to ever doubt he was anything but a man. She recognizes now how fear can be mistaken for thrill.
How far the once-great Artanis has fallen.
“So brave, enduring pregnancy and childbirth alone. How isolating. Foolish, stubborn elf,” Sauron is nearly rueful in his tone. “The days may grow short and the land as we know it snuffed out, but my devotion to you is unending. My devotion to our daughter is eternal. You and I have created the brightest light, Galadriel, can’t you see?” Slowly, he steps towards her, eyes searching hers.
They are just words, Galadriel tells herself, he lies and deceives. She refuses to believe him. He wouldn’t have hid his true self from her if he meant it.
Hackles still raised, Galadriel watches him in equal measure. So smoothly, deception at his best, Sauron moves past her and glides towards the nursery. She follows closely behind, heart in her throat.
“Please, don’t do this,” torment in her voice, she clutches her hands to her breast, bare skin covered in gooseflesh in the hallway’s draft.
Pausing in front of the nursery, Sauron looks on in the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of his progeny. Galadriel holds her breath.
“My life has stretched across millennia, as yours has. But the length of your life is but a flicker compared to mine.”
“Sauron,” She tries to beseech him. He’s too close to Celebrian now, she cannot physically fight him without risking her daughter. Hopeless, she watches him stand at the threshold of the nursery, almost reserved in his approach to their daughter.
“To what end? What real purpose did I serve without a legacy?” He’s speaking to Galadriel, but he could be speaking to himself. “Look just here, at the essence of all good.”
He steps into the nursery and Galadriel falls to her knees.
She hears a soft hush, quiet placating, the gentle coo of a father whisking his daughter back to sleep. Celebrian settles almost immediately. Galadriel hangs her head, face in her hands. In every facet of her life, she has failed.
“She’s beautiful, Artanis.”
“ Please don’t use that name,” even to her own ears, Galadriel sounds ruined, a broken tone in her voice.
“What shall I call you, then? Queen? Wife?” A slow, measured cadence of steps across the floor lets her know he carries his daughter, bringing her out to her mother.
“I’m so sorry, Celebrian,” Galadriel whispers.
“I’ll call her Mama, shall I?” Sauron says conspiratorially, and Galadriel imagines him leaning towards that small, angelic face, plotting against the babe’s mother already.
Sauron stops before her. A nude heap on the floor, Galadriel thinks this the beginning of the end of her.
“There was never any place across this land you could hide from me. I am with you, always, even when you feel most alone— especially then,” He crouches down to her level, a knee popping as he squats, falling into his role naturally.
Cold realization creeps from her scalp down her spine. This has been inevitable. He was always going to find her. Had her evasion been allowed by him, then? Had he allowed her to run and lick her wounds? How was she unable to hide herself?
Lifting her head, she looks at him holding the sleeping Celebrian. A painting in the filtered moonlight of the hall, Sauron is undeniably stunning. Some mythical god cradling the beginnings of a world. The rest of her daughter’s life stretches out between them, a perfect family unit. She won’t accept the vision. Not tonight.
“She has your eyes,” Galadriel laments, voice hoarse.
“You showed me in a dream.”