Immortalitui // Faramir 🥀

Chapter Twenty-Six - Fire

Word Count: 3,941 words. 

Warnings: None. 

The Library of Lothlorien wasn't a place that Arathiel had been in a long time. The exact years or decades that it had been escaped her, but from the dust on the older tomes, the ones that she herself had put there, it had been too long.

The others slept, or at least they attempted to, but Arathiel could do nothing of the sort. She had thought herself numb to the pain... the grief... but she had thought Gandalf the Grey immune to death. To defeat. She may not know the year, but she knew that he had been there... always, or almost always.

"You bring darkness with you," Celeborn began, approaching her quietly.

Arathiel had noticed, there was very little that she did not notice. "It is contained." She had always felt that her relationship with Celeborn was strained. She always spoke so carefully around him, as he did her.

"You have brought it into the very heart of light in this world," he argued, calmly, if one could argue without emotion.

Arathiel turned, a dust-covered volume in her hands. She opened its first page, noticing the date. It was written before the creation of Mordor. "I do not agree with that statement," she countered. "There are many places on this earth that I think far more beautiful than your forest."

The elf took a step closer. "You are darkness Arathiel, you always have been."

She looked at him. "I do not disagree with that statement, but I assure you that Lothlorien is in no danger. I will run myself through with a sword before I let this Elven Kingdom fall. I know that you have never believed I cared much for my own kind, but I do. I care for Galadriel, and I would not let her fall to darkness... again."

"Galadriel has always been pure," he told her, closer.

Looking at the aged pages again, Arathiel sighed. "You know very little of your wife Celeborn. She has a power that must have darkness involved."

"She is the Lady of Light."

"And there is no need for light without darkness," she argued, her voice shrill. Celeborn was angry, and yet showed no outward sign of such an emotion. Where he was embarrassed by such a human thing, Arathiel wore it plainly.

She didn't allow herself to argue any further, returning the heavy book and walking towards Celeborn. Arathiel moved by him without a word.

His hand caught her arm tightly, pulling her gaze back to his. She did not pull herself from the elder elf's grasp, but only matched his expression.

"I will not let you ruin what we have built," he told her.

"That Galadriel has built," she corrected. "I do not remember you being much help. Do not fret Celeborn, I will be gone before my darkness can touch your braided hair."

Arathiel ripped her arm from him then, sending the elf a stern glance before leaving the Library.

ᵜᵜᵜᵜᵜ

She approached Aragorn first, placing herself on the stone beside him. Alone, he watched the Hobbits that sat across from them.

"Stop fretting," she told him in a friendly manner.

"I am not fretting."

"The danger lies outside this Kingdom, not inside. You must rest while you can," she explained.