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[laurenande]

(Galadriel is fairly used to getting mail but she'll be a bit shocked to receive any in Thedas. For any notes, missives, letters, or other communications.)

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[laurenande]

[There is a long silence as Galadriel considers how to explain. This is a topic fraught with sensitive subjects and she knows not what Thranduil has said about them, if anything.]

Do you know of them? Maedhros and Maglor? Fingon?

They are my cousins by blood and they have all known me since I was a child. I am...very old, far older than the most of them combined, and I had forgotten what it was to see a face so familiar.

Maedhros, in little more than a turn of phrase, excluded me from his reckoning, from what he considered family, and his apologies all beg forgiveness for his illness.

[She is quiet a time. She is crying once more, though it is mostly silent.]

I recall him helping me climb trees when I could barely walk. Riding with me to meet my brothers. He was my elder once...and now he is a pitiable fool.

[elegiaque]

I suppose even immortals aren't immune to feet of clay.

( she knows enough not to have questions from only that; knows thranduil's wariness and distaste most, and so can hardly be surprised to hear that one of them has disappointed. the words aren't terribly sympathetic, but she is—knows well and intimately that moment of seeing an ugly truth in someone once trusted.

the lack of responsibility, though, that is contemptible more than simply flaw alone. )

Do you know, so many people that I loved were ill the same way. You, and Thranduil. Alistair. Fucking Coupe. ( a beat. ) Not that I'd count her among them.

( mmmmmmm the judges give that save a four. )

The point is—I saw you all. Spoke with you all. Do you know how many of you were uncharacteristically unkind to me? Who said things you'd not have said? It's none. Fucking none of you, Galadriel, so if he didn't feel it, he'd not have said it, and he's a coward who doesn't deserve your tears.

[laurenande]

I agree...so why, then, can I not withhold them? [She sounds miserable about it, but she has not fallen into sullen silence.]

He feared I would use a weapon to slay the lot of them, that arming me would risk his family . Then, as he spoke again, claimed we were kin and that he loved me.

[She sighs and ceases recounting.]

Thranduil still harbors distaste for me...for what they did to his people. Even my husband could not truly forgive me for being their relation. I blame neither of them for their grudge, it was well earned, even if I had no hand in that.

I have never truly been able to cleave myself from the lot of them, not in ten thousand years, so this is not so surprising. I am simply weary of it all...to call you cousin is infitely simpler, and I cherish that.

Please do not accuse me of perfidy, at least not unduly, it would break my heart again.

[elegiaque]

You are ma belle cousine and have done nothing but love me. And I you. So I will never break your heart.

( how young she truly is, to sound so sure. as if it is that simple, and always will be, even knowing—

even knowing a great deal of unsimple things. like: )

And—I know something, about the weight of familial sin. I'd never give you anything that isn't yours.

[laurenande]

Thank you, melda nin, your words gladden my heart. [And they do, despite how they may change in time. Galadriel has lived long enough to recognize the good times when she sees them.]

Fortunately for you, the only familial sin you must be wary of on your husband's behalf involves crimes of fashion. What I carry cannot become yours.

[elegiaque]

Oh, I—

( a quiet exhale. )

You know something of how it is, for elves in Thedas. My mother by birth wasn't my mother by law. She was the elven chatelaine of the Vauquelin estate. My lord's housekeeper.

( she did not think of thranduil, when she spoke of familial sin. )

It still can't be spoken of. And there's so many questions that won't ever be answered. I know it's only a small thing, but—I understand. How family can be.