Chapter Text
As bright light of day flooded her cabin, Galadriel ran her fingers over the map, tracing along their route.
Even as the chandeliers over her head swung slowly to the languish rhythm of the waves, she did not grow seasick. Nor did she when she spent her time reading about sea navigation and pirates, from the many bookshelves in her captain quarters.
Quarters she herself had designed to somewhat mimic the mansion she had left behind. A small piece of Port Tirion here, so far away on the open sea.
According to her measurements, they should have crossed the border of the Belegaer sea a few days earlier, and were now in the midst of the Valinor Ocean. An ocean known for its pacific waters. As of now, that held true, the water as calm as ever, especially on this sunny day.
She could see it through the many windows of her room: an endless painting of azure blue right up to the horizon, nothing else in sight.
They were alone in the middle of a vast ocean, and she had never felt more at home.
Galadriel had longed for the sea ever since she had been but a child. Her father, Governor Finarfin, would recount to her all the ways she used to waddle off the beach and into the water like it was calling for her. And of all the children she had known, she was the first to learn how to swim.
She brushed her hand over the medallion around her neck. It wasn’t all just about the sea calling for her anymore though. She had a mission.
A soft knock brought her attention to the door. She stashed the necklace under the collar of her white blouse. “Come in!”
“Captain,” Rian mumbled with a bow. “You told me to convey to you if the crew had any complaints. They are complaining right at this moment.”
Gods be good.
With a growl, Galadriel smacked her divider onto the table and strode towards the door in haste. Enough was enough. They had been doing nothing but complain for weeks now. It was driving her insane.
“We’ve been at sea for months, and nothin’ to show fer it.” She overheard just before she stepped up on the deck.
Her mouth twitched as they came into view. The whole crew was huddled in a circle as if to conspire against her. “What is the meaning of this?” she snapped.
To her annoyance, they seemed neither surprised nor scared at the sight of her. With all the casualness of the world, they slowly stood to face her.
“With all due respect, commander,” one of her more frustrating companions, Thondir, began. Will all due respect, yeah right. Galadriel knew he was lying through his crooked teeth. “We have been sailing for so long with no sign of any pirates, let alone Blackbeard. We are beginning to feel that this mission is futile. The crew is weary. We should return to Port Tirion.”
“We will do no such thing,” Galadriel snarled.
When the news of Blackbeard had caught her ear, she had never been more ready to set sail and seek him out. There were so many stories. And all she wanted was to find this mysterious pirate of whom so many people spoke, yet so few had seen. If he was real at all. And she was no longer the naive pirate-admiring girl she had once been. She knew pirates were dangerous and meant trouble. Still, that little part of her that was beyond fascinated wanted nothing more than to meet them.
But it all remained a dream, a theoretical escape. Until the Battle of Port Tirion changed everything. Now, she had another reason entirely to seek out Blackbeard. She pressed the medallion against her skin through her clothes. Finrod.
“We continue on,” she told them, ignoring their looks as she mounted the stairs to the quarterdeck.
Thondir watched her with squinted eyes, the way she marched up to the helm like she owned it. They all knew this was the first time in her life that the governor's daughter had been on sea. And yet she acted like she knew everything there was to know about sea travel. Which she didn’t. And even less was she made for leading. She didn’t know anything about being a captain, always stubborn in her ways, never even listening to their suggestions or grievances. From the start, Thondir had been suspicious of her anyway, and her story of how this was all some secret mission for the king's representative, Lord Gil-Galad Beckett. No person in their right mind would send the daughter of the governor, who had never stepped on a ship before, out onto the sea, and make her captain, no less. This could not go on. Thondir glanced from her to the others.
“Well,” he sighed. “Guess it’s time.”
“For what?” Rian asked, looking as confused as usual.
“To kill captain,” Thondir said, thrusting his knife into the wooden table next to him.
Galadriel grew weary of her crew as they grew weary of her. They spoke to her less and less that afternoon, giving her glances whenever they thought she wasn’t looking. Every hour, Galadriel prayed they would encounter something – anything – to set their minds at ease. A ship, an island. Anything.
But none of that came to pass. And so, with nothing new, she was met only with their scornful looks as she made to eat her dinner in her cabin, where she ate all of her meals, alone, as a captain should.
It was that night that it finally happened. What Galadriel had been dreading for some time now.
The creak from her door woke her up immediately. She stayed quiet and still as a mouse. Though it was the middle of the night, she knew her cabin well enough to notice the shadows creeping up on her.
The moment they were close enough, she pulled the dagger from under her pillow. Metal clanged against metal as Galadriel blocked her attackers.
Swift as the wind, she swirled around them, dodging their swords that swung and hit her bed frame and bedside table. She grabbed one of her swords from the display above the mantelpiece.
Moonlight reflected on the blades as her very own crewmates came upon her. A symphony of grunts and sword clangor filled the night. She managed to hold them back from grazing her skin and yet, slowly but surely, they began forcing her back.
“Cease this madness!” she grunted after another blow almost hit her arm.
“Yield!” one of them huffed.
“In your dreams,” she snarled, going in for the attack. But they were coming at her, three versus one. She couldn’t stop them from moving her back until she was forced out of her cabin and onto the deck.
A sharp prick in her back stopped her in her tracks.
Galadriel held her breath as she turned around. The entire rest of the crew was standing there, swords all held up towards her.
“The journey ends here, Captain Noldor,” Thondir announced, sheathing his own sword.
Galadriel did not know if it was anger or sorrow that swept through her then, as her chest heaved, seeing the whole lot of them looking at her with those cold, emotionless eyes. All of them. Every single-
“Drop your sword.”
Galadriel glared at him as she smacked her sword and dagger onto the deck. It was over.
---
“This is insane,” she snarled, balancing on the plank that wobbled under her feet. She still couldn’t believe this was happening. All of them, turning against her for what? Because they were bored? Because life on a ship wasn’t as luxurious as life was in Port Tirion? Had they forgotten about the gold she had promised them?
Perhaps they had actually gone insane. Who else would have their very own captain walk the plank?
Rian gave her a look, stepping closer, his blade held up, forcing her back on the board that shook high above the waves. All the while, a couple of men lowered a row boat onto the rocky waters.
Dawn was breaking over the horizon, the sky turning red.
This wasn't real. This wasn't happening. How could it? She spun back to her crew. “Blackbeard is still out there.”
How could they just let that go?
“Blackbeard’s but a tale,” Thondir sighed.
Oh how she hated him. And the rest of them, while she was at it. “You are monsters. The whole lot of you.”
“Stop complaining. We could have killed you right here right now.”
She didn't see how this was any better. She looked down at the foaming waves. They were in the middle of the ocean. If she-
“I will die on the sea,” she gasped as it slowly sunk in. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to them or to herself. This slow death was no better than a swift one.
“You should have thought of that before dragging a whole crew into this useless mission.”
“Besides,” another one said, throwing a little package onto the row boat just as it touched down. “We packed you a sandwich as a farewell gift.”
“Monsters!”
“We starved, got sick, and longed for home, all for your stupid little delusional trip. You ignored our requests and fears all along the way. You had it coming.” Thondir came closer, forcing her back with his sword, until she was at the very edge of the quivering plank. “Now go on, off you go.”
A clamor brought Galadriel's attention to the row boat. They had let it loose.
“Quickly now, or you’ll lose your precious ship, captain.”
“Please don't do this, I swear, I'll-”
Thondir gave a warning slash of his sword, cutting along her side. Galadriel hissed as she held her hand over the gash.
“You’ll pay for that,” she hissed, nostrils flaring. But her words only made the men laugh. She was just about to shout at them again when she noticed that the row boat was beginning to drift off further and further.
“Fuck you,” she snarled at last. “Fuck all of you.”
With one last deadly glare at her mutineers, she turned away and graciously dove into the vivid blue sea.
The icy water hit her completely, waking her up from one second to the next. With quick movements, she swam up to the surface.
In cut-off gasps, she struggled to breathe, spluttering the salty water from her mouth as she looked around. The row boat was difficult to distinguish over the windy waves that were much taller than they had looked from above. She ignored the great ship that sailed away, those aboard cheering her departure. At last, she saw a shimmer of light wood. With great strokes, she swam towards it. At soon as it was in reach, she grappled the side of it and heaved herself up with a groan.
The ship that had once been hers grew smaller in the distance as she sat up on the boat, the sounds of those she had once considered crew becoming more and more faint until only the sounds of waves and wind were left as her companions.
As she caught her breath, Galadriel looked down at her side, red beginning to spread over her wet gown like a blooming flower. She was still in her sleeping garments, a simple white dress. She ripped off the end of it, exposing her ankles, to wrap fabric around her waist and put pressure on the wound.
It did not feel deep, not like it mattered anyway. She had a couple of days at most before she died of thirst, after all. And they had not even granted her a weapon to end her own suffering.
Perhaps they would turn sail and return to her once they saw reason again. Perhaps they would take pity on her.
Galadriel watched as the top of the sail mast of Noldor's Revenge slowly sunk over the horizon, shimmering in a mirage until the entire ship disappeared from view.
She let out a gasp when she realized she was all alone.
And they weren't coming back. She knew that. She wasn’t delusional. Not yet anyway. Perhaps she was as horrible a captain as they had said. She should have listened to them.
With a groan, she laid back. Not like there was anything she could do about it now. All she could do was accept her fate, however cruel it was, and pray to the gods of the sea that she would wash up on an island, or that a ship might find her.
But something deep down inside of her knew the odds of either were null.
---
The sun was unforgiving as it stung her. Her clothes dried quickly under the heat, but her skin burned under the blaring light.
The sandwich, when she finally did take a nibble of it, was dry and crusty. But soon enough, it became all she could think about – even if she only allowed herself a tiny bite every now and then. Her eyes were set on the horizon around her, on the lookout for any sign of movement or land.
But there was nothing of the sort. Nothing but the waves, moving up and down, up and down. Some foam, now and then. A stick riding the current. The waves were all she could hear or see. Something that had soothed her day and night in the past, that had called for her since she had been but a child. For what? For her to die like this?
She thumped back down, still unable to fathom that her very own crew would do such a thing to her.
She would have cried, but she had no tears to spare. Even her mouth had grown uncomfortably dry, the bits of sandwich only going down in painful gulps.
If only she had but a drop of water... She looked to the sky. It was bright blue from horizon to horizon. No clouds in sight. No chances of rain. And she knew she could not satisfy her thirst by drinking seawater.
Galadriel closed her eyes, trying to calculate the probability of a ship finding her.
But it was useless. Firstly because she already knew the probability, and secondly, because she couldn't concentrate enough to calculate anything.
It was in her attempt at focusing that she drifted off, waking up with a start in the night. The wind was chilly, but her skin was still burning from the sun of the day, so it was a welcome change. That was until the cold began to sift into her bones. Galadriel held herself tight as she lost feeling in her fingers and feet, trembling under the stars.
The whole night and the sweltering day after it, she was adrift, nothing but her wits to keep her.
The sun bore down on her so violently the second day, that she had it not in her power to keep her eyes open for long amounts of time, making to sleep through the day.
Once more, she awoke in the dark, her mouth painfully dry. The moon was out, the stars clear.
For a few seconds, she was calm, having forgotten what had come to pass. But then the waves brought the memories back.
Her comrades had abandoned her. Had left her to die.
With difficulty, she sat up. Her back ached, her wound stinging like incessant needles. Her arms were heavy, her legs were numb.
Taking a deep breath, she scanned the horizon for the millionth time. Was it just her, or were the stars brighter than usual?
It reminded her of charting the constellations with her childhood friend, the way they would lay on the soft grass in the night. How he told her that he wished to become a cartographer.
How she had told her friend Elrond that she wished to become a pirate.
Galadriel chuckled despite herself. The thought of the delusions of her nine year-old self were quite amusing.
Perhaps this was the beginning of the dehydration symptoms she had been waiting for.
Her throat was dry. In dire hope for rain, she scanned the sky again. Some clouds passed by, but it was far from being enough to even cause anything close to a downpour.
By the time the sun rose after that night, Galadriel had finally finished the sandwich.
It was a few hours or minutes later, she wasn’t sure, that she started seeing islands where there were none. Islands with waterfalls and children playing tag on the beach, laughter echoing through the air. Commoners roasting meat over open fires, the steaks sizzling, oil flying. She leaned over the edge of the boat, longingly gazing at the sight with big eyes. Her mouth would have watered if she had enough water in her.
But then a wave would block her sight, and, as soon as it lowered, the island would be there no more, gone from one second to the next.
She leaned back against the side of the boat, letting the waves soothe her cracked and bleeding lips as she laughed deliriously. It was kind of funny, wasn’t it?
She had brought those people on that stupid trip. She had been the delusional one. They were right.
She gave a groan as her eyes blurred in and out of focus.
It was then that she saw a great ship with black flags approach her. Ha. Pirates. Who’d have thought?
A part of her mind begged her body to lift up and wave at them. Or at least move.
Another part told her it was but a vision, a hallucination, like all the rest of what she was seeing now.
But she was too weary to react, let alone debate whether what she saw was real or not.
So instead of standing or shouting, she merely blinked, her eyelids growing heavier until they fell shut, her head lolling to the side and fatigue taking her consciousness.
She dreamed of a dark sail drifting over the sun, fluttering in the wind as it engulfed her in its coldness, the soft fabric slithering around her, dripping under her neck and back, lifting her from the boat and into nothingness.