Galadriel did not often take rest, not until it was forced upon her, and she had avoided it for as long as she was able. Sleep came upon her like the tide; it swallowed her whole and rarely provided anything as valuable as restoration. When she was awake and could recline and ponder, that was when she recouped the energy she had spent; slumber was a wild land that drew upon ancient shadows and fears, that dragged her into a raging sea of old terrors and graces as her unconscious mind was made to unpack all the long centuries of her life.

The snow that fell around Kirkwall, that encased the Gallows, had done much to tint the shade of her dreams this night. Cold was a sensation that transalted roughly to the sleeping mind, to memory and recollection as a whole, and it was always dulled and tinted by emotions. This cold had been sharper than any in her long memory and it persisted, even through sleep, all around her, as she walked, and walked, and walked. It pressed downward, consumed her, and with great glassy jaws it ground down against her limbs. It was nothing so dramatic as a storm, indeed there was little to the memory but darkness and ice and the sound of waves, but rather a pervasive presence. Occasionally, faint starlight would glimmer off some facet in the distant reaches of her mind, but it was always lost before she could turn her attention to it.

The ice below was silent but ominous, there was a perpetual threat to it, even if her mind could not recall what it was. There was a hunger in the darkness and Galadriel ignored it for the sake of walking. Walking was all that mattered.