Chapter Text
The sun shone down on Galadriel as she boarded the ship. It glanced off her polished silver armor, the armor he’d made for her with his mortal hands in the Numenorean forge. He’d embedded her breastplate with a diamond, liberated from the Queen Regent’s vault, that glittered not half so brightly as Galadriel’s eyes, finding his, as she stepped off the plank and onto the ship’s deck.
Sauron was stunned to silence at the sight of Galadriel, dressed for battle. He wondered, briefly, how he would be affected by the sight of the Elf swinging her sword, plunging her brother’s dagger into the black-blooded heart of one of his orcs. He wouldn’t have to wonder, if all went according to plan.
A seagull cawed. Galadriel extended her hand to him. After a moment that was not so much made of hesitation as it was filled with the realization that there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Galadriel, the Elf who would one day be his queen, Sauron encircled her forearm with his fingers in the grip of a comrade in arms.
Lovers, they might be, by night. But soldiers, in her mind at least, by day.
Sauron had time, still, to change her mind. To help her understand her destiny.
She was no soldier, not even a commander. She was a queen.
Already, to him at least.
The Numenorean sea captain called to his crew to square the sail. He said something else, no doubt announcing their destination, but Sauron didn’t hear him. And nor, he rather thought, did his Elven queen. Each was consumed wholly by the other’s gaze and grip.
It was not until they caught wind and the boat lurched, and Sauron had to steady his mortal body on Galadriel’s immortal frame, that either of them looked away from the other. And even then, when they had turned to face the bow, and their future, Galadriel glanced up at Sauron. He could not resist returning her knowing look, out of the corner of his eye, nor could he contain a slight smirk.
Onward, then. To Middle-earth.