Chapter Text
'Cause we were just kids when we fell in love, not knowin' what it was
Ed Sheeran - Perfect
They met because the volcano in the Southlands, unexpectedly, decided to erupt.
Orodruin, known locally as Mount Doom, had been dormant for so long that the locals had forgotten why the mountain had that moniker. But the violent and explosive eruption that happened when Halbrand Maia was 8 and a half years old, swiftly reminded everyone that the volcano was not to be underestimated.
When the pyroclastic flows had stopped incinerating the landscape and the giant ash cloud that had blotted out the sun had finally dispersed, it became clear that large parts of the Southlands had been utterly devastated. Casualty numbers were high and whole communities were displaced, including Halbrand and his family.
The Arda Relocation programme was set up, with other states supporting those in need of new homes through a sponsorship scheme.
And that was how Halbrand Maia found himself moving across Middle Earth to Eregion and making his new home in the quiet suburb of Ost-in-Edhil.
*****
Halbrand didn’t like the new house.
It was too big. Too posh. Too fancy.
Like all the others on the pretty little cul-de-sac.
But as Halbrand stood in the middle of the lawn, he decided he quite liked the trees at the bottom of the garden belonging to his new home. They were tall mallorn trees with thick branches that looked excellent to climb. He missed his favourite trees from the woods around Tirharad, now all buried under metres of ash.
As he turned to go back inside the house to help distract his younger sister, Melian (mainly so his mother, Yavanna, could continue with the unpacking) a movement in the garden next door caught his eye.
A girl similar to his own age was sitting high up in a treehouse, swinging her legs back and forth. Halbrand noted the grass and dirt stains on her t-shirt and leggings and the leaves and twigs stuck in her long blonde braid.
Halbrand saw her nose scrunch as her sharp blue eyes scrutinised him carefully, looking down from her vantage point.
“You’re the new boy from the Southlands.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.
“Emmë said you had to move because of the volcano.”
Again, another statement rather than a question.
“I’m Galadriel. What are you called?”
“I’m Halbrand.”
She cocked her head to one side and then grinned, as if she had made a decision about him.
“Want to come and play in my fort?”
*****
Galadriel Noldor was the youngest of 4 children, with 3 older brothers. Halbrand saw them sometimes when he went over to her house for dinner during that first summer in Ost-in-Edhil. The twins were loud and boisterous, about to start secondary school, and her oldest brother, Finrod, was about to sit his A Levels.
They had little time for a younger sister and Halbrand got the impression Galadriel was left alone a lot to run free in their spacious back garden. It was very similar to the one attached to his own home, except that it had a large treehouse fort.
She’d decided he was trustworthy enough to be shown where the fence panels in the back corner of the garden were loose and could be moved aside. Behind their houses was the parkland and woodland of Eregion, perfect if they wanted to escape and go on an adventure. Galadriel was smart and funny; she made up her own stories and quests that Halbrand was more than delighted to take part in. Armed with their wooden swords, the weeks passed in a blur of skinned knees, grass stains, and only two falls into the River Glandiun.
But whenever they encountered other neighbourhood children, they ran into trouble. Galadriel could be very blunt, wanting to take charge of the games and run headlong into something daring, which the other children found frustrating. Sometimes all they wanted to do was laze around on the riverbank rather than go off on quests to fight orcs or seize treasure from a dragon hidden away in a mountain. Halbrand saw the disappointment in Galadriel’s face whenever the other children laughed at her and told her she was silly for imagining such ridiculous things and didn’t she just want to sit down and be quiet for once?
On those occasions, he did his best to distract her and soon her scowl would fade away, to be replaced by a beaming smile as they ran home through the long grass.
******
Ost-in-Edhil Primary School was not large, but Halbrand still felt nervous on his first day. He’d never gotten to complete his last school year, what with the volcano erupting and destroying his school, and he was worried he’d forgotten everything and would look stupid in front of his new classmates (and Galadriel).
“Where will I sit?” he whispered to Galadriel as they lined up in the playground after the first bell rang, ready to go into the classroom.
She’d turned round so quickly her braid almost whipped him in the face and rolled her eyes at him as if it was obvious.
“Next to me, of course.”
By Christmas, they’d had to be separated by their teacher, Miss Mirobel, because they wouldn’t stop talking and passing notes to each other during lessons.
When one of the boys in their class, Throndir, continued to make fun of Halbrand’s Southlander accent, and the way he couldn’t quite say all the vowel sounds correctly in their Quenyan classes, Galadriel lost her temper and finally retaliated by punching Throndir in the face.
She had sat outside the head teacher’s office with a smug look on her face, her knuckles red and swollen, until her parents had come to collect them both at the end of the school day.
Eärwen Noldor had been horrified at Galadriel’s behaviour, hissing comments like "wherever did you learn to do that,” and “honestly I have never been so embarrassed in my life,” the entire car ride home. Galadriel’s father, Finarfin, had seemed more impressed with the power in his daughter’s punch, giving her a small smile as she climbed into the car, but dared not contradict his wife out loud.
“And you should have told a teacher about the bullying and not taken matters into your own hands,” Eärwen finished her tirade, turning to glare sternly at her daughter in the back seat.
“But I have been telling our teacher,” Galadriel huffed, her return glare matching her mother's intensity. “Throndir’s been picking on Halbrand for weeks and Miss Mirobel hasn’t done anything. I was defending my friend.”
Halbrand had looked across at her, unsure of the feeling bubbling inside his chest at her words. He gave her a small grateful smile and reached out to take her hand, gently stroking the sore patch of skin across her knuckles.
Galadriel winced slightly, but smiled back at him, letting him hold her hand for the whole car ride home.
That was the first time Halbrand thought of her as his best friend.
*****
When they started at the much larger Eregion Secondary School, Halbrand had been worried that being placed in separate classes would impact their friendship, but it didn’t.
They caught the bus every morning, ate together in the canteen at lunch time and then gossiped on the bus on the way home, filling each other in about what had happened in the classes they didn’t share.
Their new wider friendship circle very quickly latched onto the fact that they came as a pair. Where one was, the other couldn’t be far behind.
We’re all going out at the weekend to the Mírdain shopping centre, are Hal and Gal coming?
There’s a revision session for chemistry at lunch time, are Hal and Gal going?
What are Hal and Gal planning for their birthdays this year?
Even as their interests diverged, their support for each other didn’t.
When they were 14, Galadriel made the swim team. On the mornings when she had an early training session, Halbrand would still travel with her, to keep her company on the bus he said. Whilst she completed laps in the pool, he sat in the viewing gallery, catching up on homework or reading. Some of her teammates thought it was weird that he was there so often, and Rian made a snide remark that Halbrand only came because he wanted to see Galadriel in her swimming costume. Galadriel had refrained from a repeat performance of what had happened at primary school with Throndir, but it had been a close call.
Not wanting to be out done by her successes and record race times, Halbrand tried out for the hockey team, immediately making the starting line up of the main squad and setting a new school record as the top goal scorer in the local league. Galadriel went to all their home matches (and some of the away games), cheering from the sidelines. If one of her club competitions clashed with a home game, she’d appear on the spectator benches late into the second half with her long blonde hair still damp from the pool, to watch the final 5 minutes and see Halbrand inevitably score at least one goal. If Círdan, one of Halbrand’s team mates, saw them hugging after a match, he would wolf whistle in a way that would make Galadriel blush with embarrassment and let go of Halbrand as if she had suddenly been burnt. The third time this happened, Halbrand ran into Círdan "accidently" during a training session and knocked him over in retaliation.
When they were 16, Galadriel had wanted to try something different and auditioned for the school play that year, The Tempest. She’d wanted to play Ariel but instead was given the part of Miranda, and only got over her disappointment after being promised she could help design her costume. Determined not to be left out, Halbrand joined the backstage team, building and painting the set.
The first time Halbrand saw Galadriel standing on stage in her costume during the dress rehearsal, he forgot to breathe. She looked like something out of a fairy tale. A long forgotten queen of the fairies. Her blonde hair was half-braided down her back with tiny beads and shells woven into the strands and the long loose sea green dress floated about her body. He only remembered they were halfway through a scene change when Arondir nudged him with the painted rock they were supposed to be moving to down stage left.
*****
“When are you going to ask Galadriel to the Leavers Ball?”
Arondir asked Halbrand the question about three times a day in the final months ahead of their A Levels and the big school Leavers Ball that was thrown at the end of the exam period.
“You have to ask her. Then maybe you can finally tell her how you feel.”
How Halbrand felt about Galadriel was too big. Too complicated. All of his feelings were tangled up with the fact that she had been the first friend he’d made after the move from the Southlands. She had been this loud, constant presence, effervescent in sharing everything with him without question and he didn’t want to lose that by telling her how he felt.
But the Leavers Ball did seem like the perfect opportunity to finally open up about his feelings for her, so Halbrand kept saying to Arondir that he would ask Galadriel soon.
He practised the conversation in his head.
Once. Twice.
Hundreds of times.
Planning for every nuance and variation.
Galadriel, would you like to go to the leavers ball with me?
Can I be your date for the leavers ball?
You know how I’ve liked you forever, Gal, well, I was wondering if…
And yet, the moment she was in front of him across the lunch table or sat next to him on the bus journey home, or revising together in her room (or his room), the words just wouldn’t come.
And then somehow, one lunchtime at the beginning of May, two weeks before their A Level exams were due to start, Shelly Ungoliant was standing at Halbrand’s elbow asking him if he would be her date to the Leavers Ball. The pressure of the moment made him panic and Halbrand found himself mumbling a hasty yes before he’d really processed what was happening.
Arondir and Galadriel stared at him across the lunch table, equally unable to process the exchange.
“You don’t mind, do you Gal.”
Turning quickly, Shelly stood there, a smug smile on her face.
Galadriel’s face had gone blank, but Halbrand swore he saw something flare in her bright blue eyes for a fraction of a second before it vanished.
The smile that she gave Shelly in answer was far too fake and her tone, when she eventually spoke, was tense.
“No, of course I don’t.”
*****
“There you are, I’ve been looking for you all evening.”
Galadriel was standing out on the terrace of Eregion Hall, overlooking the beautiful gardens. She looked up when she heard Halbrand’s voice. He sounded out of breath, as if he had been rushing.
Halbrand stopped in front of her, his auburn curls looking more dishevelled than usual, despite his attempts to smarten up for the Ball. When he reached up nervously to run his hands through his hair, she understood why it looked so untidy.
“I know I’m here with Shelly but-”
I wish I was here with you.
That was how she wanted the sentence to end.
“You look beautiful, Galadriel”.
Her cheeks flushed at the complement and she nervously smoothed the front of her emerald green gown, with gold embroidered trim, gazing at a point on the ground in front of her, unable to look at him.
“Thank you.”
Halbrand’s shoes appeared in her line of sight as he stepped closer, his hand reaching out and ghosting down her bare arm to take her hand, rubbing small reassuring circles across her palm.
When Galadriel finally dragged her gaze upwards, Halbrand was looking at her like she was the most precious thing in the world. His hazel eyes flicked down to study her lips for a moment and he leaned down towards her.
“Halbrand! There you are! You need to come quickly, it’s Shelly, she’s had too much to drink and she’s fallen over.”
Arondir was in the doorway to the terrace and at least had the decency to look mortified when he saw the scene he was interrupting.
Halbrand backed away from Galadriel, his eyes panicked and hurt as all the possibilities running through his head died in that moment as the universe took them on another path.
“I’ll find you later”
But he didn’t.