Far Horizons
by ALC Punk!

They call her the Golden Lady of the Golden Wood. Rumor considers her perilous to behold, something akin to madness to encounter. She weaves her wiles in the daylight, sending flowers to bloom and leaves to rustle golden and enchant anyone who walks the edge of her Wood. Lothlorien, they call it. There are few who know her as well as he does. Most of them no longer exist in Middle Earth, having gone to the West.

Around her, the garden spreads its vastness, the silvering of the moon transfering ethereal light to the leaves of the trees, the petals of the flowers open. Luminescence limns a spray of baby's breath, incandescence the closed furl of a rose, and in the center, she sits, head bowed as though in penance to the earth beneath her feet.

Silent, he approaches her until close enough to scent the lightness of her hair.

"What would you have me do?" Her voice falls into the silence with crystal clarity, ringing out against the bark of the trees.

"Despair is not our way." He reminds her. He who is king to her queen, who graces her arm and delights her life. As ever was the way with the elves, their souls are entwined and neither can depart without the other. His hand touches her shoulder.

"My beloved," she turns, hand taking his, eyes distant as though he doesn't stand within her sight, "I may do nothing but despair."

"For him?"

"Celeborn." She stands, graceful as always, and reaches out to touch his cheek. "We have wrought his downfall. Wrought it with our cares and plots, our devices..." Her eyes slide past him as her voice drifts away.

"Beyond the things we have done, Galadriel, are the things he chose himself." His soft rejoinder falls flat in the garden.

A slight discordance with the will of the Lady, and she suddenly laughs, but the sound refuses to be bell-like. "I can not believe that is so."

"We were all given a part to play."

"And his was the highest price of all," she replies, troubled. "Would that we could take the shadow of his burden from him."

"Evil long-held leaves its taint."

"And good long-held may redeem it."

"What would you wish, my lady?" Celeborn asks, dreading the answer.

The moonlight drifts around them, dancing among the silvered leaves, skirting the short-bladed grass beneath their feet. If he closes his eyes, he can smell the river even from this distance. The lush, green things and the dew that will come with the dawn to provide a glimmer of hope for the future.

"What I wish may never be granted."

"You wish to take him with us."

Her eyes close, and she nods, once. As if the admittance would be too much, has been too little.

Around them, the wind picks up, sensing their turbulence and echoing it out into the natural world. Celeborn turns slightly from Galadriel and feels the wind, touches it, lets it caress them both like a lover, then releases it. The wind dances for a time through their hair, comingling the silver and the gold, changing the shadows from moment to moment.

Dark to light to silver to dark again. And Celeborn almost smiles as he turns back to his lady. "You know the answer they would have given in the olden times."

"Hidebound elves too intent on their own graciousness, yes." Her tone is bitter.

"What answer has your mirror given you?"

She starts. "It speaks not of the halflings and their Shire. As you would know were you to listen to my rambling stories of tongue and place."

He reaches out and fingers the hair spilling down her back, "I listen to what is needed."

"So you do."

"We will take them," the words are abrupt, and Celeborn feels dismay at this humanity creeping into his speech. "Take them to the Grey Havens and beyond. We owe them this much."

Her eyes close, but a smile plays upon her lips. "And what will we, then?"

"We will hope that they find healing as they can." Celeborn leans towards her and kisses her chastely. "That is all that we can do. More than some would say we should."

"And do you now say that?" The words are whispered against his lips.

"I do not know."

The silence falls again, shadows rustling as he pulls back, her face still cupped in his hands. An odd sadness touches her eyes, and she looks behind him. "You should go and prepare for our departure, my love. I must..."

"Be well, Galadriel."

"As I can be," she returns, turning away to reclaim her seat upon the bench.

Celeborn walks away, stops as he reaches the archway out of the garden. Looking back at her, he can see her limned in silver.

She sits there in the moonlight, calm and still. Resolute as a statue carved from alabaster and gilded with gold.

-f-

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© 2005 ALC Punk!