(no subject)

[laurenande]

WHO: Galadriel and you!
WHAT: Catch all for Firstfall/November, specifically includes Sulevin Blade/Mirror of Galadriel adventures.
WHEN: All of Firstfall.
WHERE: Various, largely Skyhold but also the Warden Camp.
NOTES: To be edited if needed.

Comments

[laurenande]

"I wish to see what was."

Sina is enraptured by the idea of the mirror and, like this, the art seems so very innocuous. There is no dark presence to stare back upon them, there is little need for concealment, but there is still some risk in this. Galadriel debates showing her but, in the end, is that not her purpose this evening? To see what may be done?

They are alone in the garden, after all, and seeing through Sina's eyes would barely differ from seeing through anyone else's.

"Hold the basin," Galadriel commands wearily and settles the bowl in Sina's hands. The water ripples for a moment until Galadriel passes her hand over it and it goes perfectly still. "Look into the distance between the surface and the bottom and, perhaps, the mirror will show you something."

It was a poor replica of her mirror. The bowl reflected little, the image would be muddled and faint if it appeared at all, and the gardens were hazy with influences and sound. This would be no grand revelation, nor even as solid as a daydream, but even a flicker of a distant thought would be something. It would be more than she had drawn from it thusfar.

[eolasemah]

That makes as much sense as anything else lately, and because Sina gets the sense she's being trusted with something very important, she doesn't ask further. She carefully takes the basin and does as instructed, relaxing her eyes and finding a strange calm in looking into the starry water.
She's begun to let her mind wander when the briefest flicker of an image appears: a frantic young sandy-haired elf, twisting on the ground in a wild panic as several larger, armored elves close in on her like cats on a dying rabbit.
It's not even there for a full second, but Sina feels it with the intensity of a burning-hot needle. She gasps gracelessly and nearly drops the dish, instead just sloshing some of the water out with the reactive jerk of her hands.

Just as quickly, she sets it back in front of Galadriel and hunches over with her face in her hands, trying to block out the treacherous memory.

[laurenande]

Galadriel feels the pull of the mirror as keenly as anything; it is a familiar embrace, however numb it seems here. Sina has helped her find where that power resides, where the veil pools around it, and she is overjoyed at the discovery. She takes the basin as it is pressed back into her hands and silence settles as Sina recovers. Galadriel feels a distinct sense of triumph but, as it fades, a hollowness settles against her heart.

Guilt overtakes triumph quite easily, it seems.

"You have my apologies, Siuona," she says softly. "I expected failure and did not warn you: not all the mirror shows is pleasant. Often it is the hardest sights that it forces us to witness, but always for a purpose."

Sina's vision had been brief, too brief to truly share, but Galadriel has a mild sense of it.

"Are you haunted by the sight that was reflected, mellon nin?"

[eolasemah]

Sina has fallen into quiet tears behind her hands, trying to keep her quick, hitching breaths quiet and her presence unobtrusive as the memory ravages her mind. She feels helpless and small, shameful, afraid. How could other people have made her feel this way? She must have failed somehow.

She nods silently to Galadriel's question, using the back of her hand to wipe her face. "Ir abelas," she says again, "I didn't mean to spill it."