Chapter Text
The sea was endless gray with a storm coming that threatened the man and a woman who rode the waves on a raft made from the broken remains of a ship. The man and woman were special, but in appearance they seemed like ragged castaways, which they were. The woman was Galadriel of the Eldar, daughter of the Golden House of Finarfin, and a descendant of three royal houses of the Elves, including the house of the High King. She did not recognize the man on the sea with her. That man called himself Halbrand, apparently a man, but one with a secret. Halbrand was the sole survivor of the ship that was wrecked, and Galadriel was his guest whom he pulled from the waves. Halbrand was more than he seemed. He recognized Galadriel for what she was when he encountered her on the ocean, but she did not recognize him.
Something else alien rode with them unknown, secret, and powerful. When it chose to reveal itself, everything they knew would change. It studied them down to their souls, but they felt nothing nor sensed its presence. It was the will of the unknown prescence that it not be noticed until it chose to reveal itself. It would reveal itself soon.
Wind lashed the raft as Galadriel kneeled on the boards, teeth gritted, one hand clutching the frayed rope. Halbrand rested on the other side, his eyes half‑closed and his chest rising shallowly. “Stay awake,” she said urgently to Halbrand. “If you fall asleep, you will slip into the sea”. Even under duress she retained the noble tongue and commanding presence of a great princess of the Noldor.
Halbrand opened one eye, smirking faintly despite his exhaustion. “If I slip, you’ll just drag me back,” he said. He found that he could get under her skin easily with his playful words. He enjoyed that feeling. Halbrand enjoyed manipulating people. He particularly enjoyed manipulating her, because he saw what she was, though she did not yet see what he was. Galadriel exhaled, annoyed, but of course she would be. Their banter had continued for some time, sometimes playful, and it disturbed her that she enjoyed it sometimes when this mortal man spoke so to her.
Suddenly, the world stopped. The waves flattened. The wind died mid-gust. The air became heavy with the feeling of a Presence. Galadriel felt the Presence instantly, something larger than the world, focused on them Halbrand sat up, startled. He felt the Presence too, something dreadful, powerful, and beyond his reckoning. He feared the Presence, for reasons of his own.
The Presence’s voice filled the air. It was not loud, but it was everywhere. “Enough of this,” it said. “It is time for something new. A better pattern. A new struggle for both of you. You are unprepared for what comes next, but you will learn and you will survive.”
Galadriel looked around sharply, scanning the horizon. There was nothing. Only flat gray sea and the flat gray sky. “Who speaks?” she asked. “Where are you?”
“I speak,” says the Presence. “I am here.”
Halbrand rose to his knees, swaying slightly on the unstable wood. Halbrand was afraid. In his mind he considers several possibilities, all of them frightful to him. Halbrand spoke uneasily and his voice was rough with fear. “What are you,” he asked.
“I am not of The Music,” said The Presence. “I am not of the Valar, nor of Eru. I am The Other.” It spoke its name as if written down the name would be emphasized.
The words sank into them like lead. Galadriel’s eyes narrowed, and now she felt fear. She had other names in her mind, ones that she respected but ones who did not terrify her. Now, she was confused and frightened like Halbrand. “What do you want,” she says. She spoke in her authoritative tone, but there was a tremor of fear in her voice.
They felt The Other focus on each one of them and then look upon them together. “You are no longer what you were,” said The Other.
Galadriel’s ears ached. She clapped her hands to them. Her ears were smooth and round. She felt a change in her body. Pain and weakness were greater than anything she had ever experienced. Her eyes widened in horror. “What have you done,” she cried.
Halbrand felt his connection to the spirit world and to the minds of others fail. The Maia thread in his being was severed like a cut string. He remembered all the events of his long existence, but he was now separated from them as if they were dreams. Halbrand felt pain and weakness beyond any that he had felt before. His chest felt heavy, and his heartbeat was deafening. “I can feel my heart,” says the shocked Halbrand. He had played the part of mortal man. Now it was real.
“You are mortal,” said The Other. “Both of you. You are of the race of Men, but you are Númenórean. Long will you live. Longer than the lives of other mortals, but not forever.”
Galadriel stumbled slightly, catching herself on the raft. Her voice was sharper, more frightened, and more desperate. “Why?” she wailed to the unseen Other.
“Because I choose it,” said The Other. “Because I can.”
Galadriel glared into the empty sky, at nothing. Her fists tightened, her voice was low and furious. “This is not yours to do,” she cried to the sky. “This is not your right to take this from me.”
"All things are mine to do,” said The Other. “You think this is a curse. You will know it as a gift, in time.” Both Galadriel and Halbrand felt the awful presence of The Other focusing on them again. The Other pushed them again, harder. The weight of its presence became almost unbearable.
“You will have no secrets now,” said The Other. “Galadriel, this one that you call Halbrand and who now is a mortal man, he was Mairon the Maia, called Sauron by his enemies including you. Skillful and wise in all works of craft. Haughty and mighty in his own eyes but fallen from the station he once held.”
The words hit her like a hammer. Her eyes snaped to Halbrand with cold fury flashing. Before she could speak, The Other spoke again.
“Halbrand,” said The Other. “This woman was Galadriel of Valinor, daughter of Finarfin, Lady of the Noldor and a rebel against the commandments of the Valar. A descendent of three royal lines of the Eldar. Proud and strong in all her ways.” Halbrand’s breath catches. He stared at her realizing that she was the Elf that he once opposed and now she was a mortal woman.
“Now you are neither Maia nor Elf”, said The Other. “You will bleed. You will age. You will die. You will live as mortals do.”
“Prepare yourself,” said The Other. “You have many days remaining on this raft before you reach land. The storm is coming. You must depend on each other. If you chose to live, you must continue to save one another.” And then, the voice was silent. The Other was gone. But the sea churned again, rocking the raft.
Galadriel dropped to her knees, one hand clutching the rope and the other hand feeling the round edge of her ear. “This cannot be,” she despaired. She continued to feel the weakness and pain that she had never felt before.
Halbrand sat heavily, running both hands down his arms as if feeling the weight of his own body for the first time. “I’m warm,” he said. “I never felt warm before. I never felt anything like this before. Do mortals feel everything so strongly?”
Galadriel looked at him, her eyes filled with anger and shock. “Sauron,” she hissed.
“Sauron is dead,” said Halbrand quickly. “He was already dying, and now completely slain by whatever that thing was that we just encountered. I am Halbrand. Only the man Halbrand. I remember the Maia, but its nature is taken from me.”
Halbrand looked up at her. For the first time, he did not see the unearthly light of an Elf. He saw a woman. Still striking, still powerful, but human. And her clothes, soaked, clinging to her skin, registered in a way that startled him. Halbrand realized that he was in the presence of a beautiful woman wearing a flimsy gown soaked by sea water. He realized that he was completely human.
Galadriel snapped her gaze at him. She saw him, really saw him, as a man. The same face as before, but now she noticed things she never let herself notice. She saw the way his wet shirt clung to his chest, the rough stubble on his jaw. Her breath caught in her despite herself. She looked away sharply, furious at the heat rising to her face. “Do not look at me like that,” she said.
Halbrand was startled and he looked down. He scowled defensively. “I wasn’t,” he said, but he realized that he was.
The raft lurched as the storm continued to build. Galadriel gripped the rope again, trying to steady herself but she was acutely aware of how close they were. Her bare shoulder brushed his arm. She jerked away instinctively. His jaw tightened; he shifted too. The uneasiness of their situation and their closeness distressed them both.
Halbrand was uneasy, muttering “We don’t have the same control that we did.”
Galadriel looked at him. Her eyes were sharp, but her voice trembled slightly. “We are mortal,” she said. “Mortal in body. Mortal in mind. Mortal in desire.”
That last word hung between them. Halbrand swallowed, looking away to the endless horizon.
“This doesn’t mean … ,” Halbrand began. Galadriel cut him off. “It means nothing,” she said.
Halbrand looked up at the sky. “We don’t have time to fight,” he said. “Or for anything else. The storm is almost upon us. I don’t think The Other is going to help us. I choose to live.”
Galadriel paused. “I choose to live also,” she said as she pulled on the ropes binding the raft. Halbrand joined her.
There was silence between them. As the waves crashed, they were both flushed. Not from heat, wind, and waves, but from the jarring awareness of mortality that was not there before. Neither spoke. Then, there was no opportunity to speak except for shouting at each other as they struggled against the storm that hit them with its full strength. Neither realized that at the moment they were acting as mortals fighting to preserve their lives, a motivation once alien to them both.