#halgal

“He had no heir,” Galadriel spits, throwing the scroll at his feet. Halbrand stares down at it, expressionless. It is not what she expected. She does not know whaat she expected but it certainly was not this. “Say something! Who are you?”

“I told you that I found this on a dead man,” Halbrand murmurs, closing his eyes in guilt. When he opens them again, he meets Galadriel’s eyes unflinchingly. “I told you that I had done . . . unsavory things to survive. You did not question me. You just assumed.” 

“And you did nothing to correct me,” Galadriel snaps, knowing that it’s a half-truth. He had tried. Half-heartedly. But what else could he do in the face of her fervent conviction, in the face of her anguish and rage? Galadriel swallows anymore half-truths and forces herself to face the reality. “I saw what I wanted. What I needed.”

Halbrand steps over the scroll with such earnest hope. It makes Galadriel’s fragile heart fracture a little more. She cannot do this. What this is. She cannot and she will not.

“And I have tried to fulfill that need,” Halbrand says, reaching for her hand before stopping himself. Had she flinched? She can barely feel her own body. “I have tried to be the king you wanted of me. I fought for the Southlands, for its people - my people.”

“And what a convincing performance it was,” Galadriel says.