Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The wind had shifted.

It carried the scent of pine now, sharper than before—laced with damp moss and the faintest trace of woodsmoke. It was different from Imladris, different from any place Elrohir had ridden through in the last weeks. Wilder. Older. And ahead, nestled in the green dusk of the world, lay the forest they had never been allowed to enter.

They had stopped at a high ridge, the kind where the land fell away suddenly in long green slopes, giving way to distance. From here, the edge of Mirkwood was visible, dark and immense, its canopy spilling eastward like a great tide of shadowed green. Morning light had only just begun to touch the tops of the trees, catching silver in their upper boughs.

It was still early. Not quite time.

Elrohir stood apart from the others, his gaze fixed on the forest’s distant line. Sixty years, nearly to the hour. He had counted them all, first by season, then by moon, then by breath. He had trained and wandered, fought and written, stood beneath foreign stars with foreign blades in his hands. He had been everywhere but where he longed to be.

And now, almost, he was near.

He had never seen Mirkwood. Neither had Elladan. Not truly. Their people had not walked freely there for ages, not since his father’s silence had hardened into long mistrust and disdain, and Thranduil’s memory had grown roots like thorns. The Greenwood was not closed to all, but it had never truly opened to the Noldor. And not to the house of Elrond.

Old grievances ran deep—long before the war, long before his birth. The prejudice between their kindred had been slow and quiet, shaped by blood and pride, by ancient griefs that refused to fade. Too proud to kneel, too wounded to reach. They had watched one another from afar, forest and valley, each wrapped in the belief that the other could not understand.

Until now.

Elrohir’s fingers curled slightly at his sides—not in tension, but in awareness. The weight of the promise he had made, softly, brokenly, in the courtyard of Imladris with tears unshed, pressed against his heart like a memory with teeth.

He had vowed that he would be there the moment the ban was lifted. Not a day late. Not an hour. That when morning broke over Greenwood’s borders, he would already be waiting at its gates.

And now, the hour crept closer with the rising sun.

Somewhere ahead, past the shadowed vale and the waking birdsong, his heart was waiting.

He wondered if Legolas had already risen. If he stood, even now, by the watchtower’s edge or the forest’s threshold, looking westward for a rider’s silhouette. He wondered if the dagger still rested at his side. If the quiver was still used. If his hair still bore the same braids—the ones Elrohir’s fingers had once undone, reverently.

He wondered if Legolas would still know his song, the rhythm of his voice, the shape of his silence, the breath they once shared in a room gone quiet with longing. If he would remember the hush of closeness between their bodies, the ache and awe of love made wordless beneath the boughs of starlight.

Or if the weight of sixty years had drawn too wide a distance. If time had made them strangers.

He thought then of the letters.

So many, across so many seasons—each one a thread spun between them, binding heart to heart over leagues of silence. They had written with devotion, with ache, with the tenderness of those who could not touch. Ink for breath. Parchment for skin.

Elrohir remembered how he would hold each page for long moments before reading, as though the warmth of Legolas’s hands might still linger in the parchment. His fingers would trace the edges, careful and slow, reverent as prayer. And always, he would bring the corner of the page to his lips—where Legolas had signed his name in that same careful, slanted hand: elegant, poised, like branches drawn under snowlight.

He had kissed each one. Every letter. Every page. As though, if he lingered long enough, the ink might breathe again. As though the words might carry taste and warmth and the memory of skin.

And Legolas—he had written not only with longing, but with laughter tucked between the lines. He had teased Elrohir gently about his Tengwar, mocking the way his hand grew wild and impatient when emotion overtook him. Once, he had said Elrohir’s script looked like the efforts of a raven drunk on miruvor, attempting to woo a hawk.

Elrohir had smiled until his cheeks ached.

He had held that page to his chest and whispered into the fold not words, but breath. Love, unspoken and yet known.

Word by word, letter by letter, they had built a bridge through time.

But there had been more than letters. More than words penned and sent across leagues of distance.

There had been drawings. Sketches that had steadied him when longing clawed too deeply. Countless renderings, some fine and shaded with care, others hastily born in moments of restlessness, on the back of old travel maps, in the margins of ledgers, across the torn edges of forgotten correspondence. Elrohir had drawn Legolas from memory, again and again, until the motion lived in his hand like muscle memory: the elegant slope of his cheek, the way his hair fell like sunlight across one shoulder, the gentle gravity that rested in his brow when he was quiet and still.

There were sketches of his hands—long-fingered, sure, calloused in the places Elrohir knew best. Of his mouth, half-formed into a smile that has always undone him. Of the line of his back, as Elrohir had seen it lit by firelight. The tilt of his chin when he was amused. The bare curve of his hips beneath a sheet, remembered only by moonlight and breath.

And always, his eyes.

Elrohir had tried a hundred times to catch them—those eyes that had silenced storms, that had met his own across a crowded hall and seen through every armor he’d ever worn. The gaze that steadied him. The gaze that had asked nothing of him but truth.

There had been nights when he sketched by firelight until his hands cramped, the ink smudged at the edges by unwashed fingers. The world would fall quiet but for the scrape of charcoal or the whisper of the brush, and still, he would keep drawing—not because he feared forgetting, but because remembering was the only way he had endured.

Each stroke had helped him carry the weight of the years. Each sketch had been a kind of prayer. A promise. A vow not to let time undo what love had made.

And now—now he was close enough that remembering might give way to seeing.

“I know that look.”

The voice came from behind, dry as ever and edged with mischief, weathered by millennia of brotherhood.

Elrohir did not turn. He didn’t need to. “What look?”

“The one you wear when composing poetry in your head,” Elladan said, coming to stand beside him. His boots barely disturbed the grass. “About golden hair and sighing trees and reunions so tragic they require a minstrel.”

Elrohir exhaled through his nose, his gaze never straying from the distant shadow-line of the Greenwood. “Do you want me to push you off this ridge?”

“I’d prefer not,” Elladan replied, entirely unbothered. “Glorfindel would scold you, and then we’d be down one poet and one heir to the House of Elrond.” He folded his arms across his chest, tilting his head in exaggerated thought. “Though I suppose I could still fulfill both roles.”

That made Elrohir turn. He raised a brow, cool and unconvinced. “You cannot draw a straight line, let alone write a verse.”

“True,” Elladan allowed, with the magnanimity of one conceding something unimportant. “But I can read. And I have read—at least one of your letters.”

Elrohir blinked. A flicker of real alarm broke through the practiced calm in his face.

“You what?”

“Oh, calm down, dear brother,” Elladan said, grinning, clearly delighted. “It was unintentional. The wind had caught it—I thought it was one of mine. Until I reached the third line and found mention of—what was it? Your ‘craving ache’? Or was it ‘fevered longing’? Something about the curve of his mouth and how you would happily die there, I believe.”

Elrohir groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If the Valar have mercy, they will strike me down now.”

“I had to set it down and go for a walk,” Elladan went on, utterly remorseless. “I was scandalized. Nearly wept for our family’s dignity. Considered retreating to the library for a decade to cleanse my mind with Quenya declensions.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I’m older. That’s my right.” He leaned a little closer, voice low and mock-grave. “Though I must say, I’ve never seen such… florid metaphors. Did you take a blow to the head that day, or were you simply possessed by some lovesick Maia?”

Elrohir made a sound that could have been a laugh, or a curse, and shook his head. “Remind me to never leave my correspondence unattended again.”

“Oh, I’ve learned my lesson,” Elladan said lightly. “Next time, I’ll read all the way to the end.”

“You read one page.”

“Half a page,” Elladan corrected, hand to heart. “I am not so heartless as to have read more.” A pause followed, the mischief dimming slightly, though the warmth remained. “You miss him.”

Elrohir didn’t answer. Not with words. But the look he cast eastward, quiet and unflinching, was answer enough.

Elladan followed his gaze.

The trees of Mirkwood loomed in the distance, vast and unyielding. A land older than memory, closed to them since before their youth. A kingdom their kin had barely touched.

And yet, soon, they would cross into it. Not as envoys. Not as strangers. But as kin bearing hope.

Elladan’s voice came again, softer now. “He’ll be there, waiting.”

Elrohir nodded once, the motion restrained but certain. “I know.”

Elladan’s gaze lingered on his brother, noting the subtle shift in Elrohir’s posture, the stillness that wasn’t ease, the quiet that wasn’t peace. 

“You’re frowning,” he said, lightly.

“I’m thinking.”

“So you say,” Elladan murmured, stepping closer. He reached out and gave a sharp tug to one of Elrohir’s braids, the gesture practiced, almost fond.

Elrohir slapped his hand away with a scowl. “Must you always do that?”

“How else am I to know you’re still breathing?” Elladan gave him a look of mock concern. “You’ve gone so grave, I feared you’d become one of those standing stones the Rohirrim pray to.”

Elrohir didn’t rise to it. His eyes remained fixed on the far shadow-line of the Greenwood, where morning still lingered pale and silver. Most called it Mirkwood now, darkened by sorrow, thickened with shadow, but to him, it would always be Greenwood. The name he knew from Legolas’s voice. The name written in flourished hand across the edges of old letters, where sunlight filtered through leaves, not fear.

Elladan’s tone gentled, just slightly. “What is it?”

A pause.

“My heart aches,” Elrohir said softly, “to see him again.”

Elladan was quiet for a moment, then exhaled. “Of course it does.”

He clapped a hand to Elrohir’s shoulder in a rare moment of unsarcastic affection.

“But,” he added a beat later, the familiar glint of mischief returning to his gaze like sun through mist, “I suspect that is not the only part of you aching.”

Elrohir turned toward him, only to find Elladan already watching him with one brow arched in open mirth, eyes bright with implication.

His sigh was long and pained. “You are incorrigible.”

“I’m observant.” Elladan raised his brows, utterly unrepentant. “Sixty years, and not so much as a wandering eye. Not that I expected otherwise. Anyone with eyes could see you were his, heart and soul, long before the ban began.”

He leaned slightly, voice lowering in mischief. “Still—it's impressive. I do recall a time when your bedroll saw more company than your saddle.”

Elrohir gave him a flat look but said nothing.

Elladan tilted his head, feigning solemnity. “You, who once argued that love and exclusivity made uneasy companions, who swore that fidelity was for statues, not for sons of Elrond, now speak as though there were no one else in Arda.”

“I need no other,” Elrohir said, quiet but firm. “Not since him.”

A rare flicker of something unguarded passed across Elladan’s face—surprise, perhaps, or something softer, shaded with respect.

“Well,” Elladan said at last, voice gentler, but no less amused. “So falls the great heartbreaker of Imladris. The roving eye, the terror of moonlit gardens and wine-soaked feasts, felled not by scandal, nor conquest, but by a single arrow, straight to the heart.”

Elrohir didn’t deny it. He only gave a quiet huff through his nose, a breath that might’ve been amusement, might’ve been exasperation. His fingers brushed the hilt of his dagger at his hip, a touch as instinctive as breath.

“I think,” he said finally, his gaze distant, steady, “my eyes were always searching for him. I just didn’t understand what they were looking for until they found him.”

He stood still, the wind tugging faintly at the ends of his braids. His gaze remained fixed on the distant green veil of Mirkwood, and when he spoke again, his voice was low—measured and unguarded in a way Elladan rarely heard from him.

“He is it for me.”

No drama. No flourish. Just the weight of conviction laid bare.

“I wish to call him my husband,” he went on, softer still. “To speak our vows before both our kindreds, to the valar, with no need for distance or restraint. I want to bind myself to him openly. Fully. As I have already in every other way.”

Elladan looked at him, the mischief tempered now by something steadier. “Then you will,” he said simply. “And when that day comes, I’ll be proud to call him brother.”

He stepped closer and laid both hands on Elrohir’s shoulders, fingers curling lightly over the worn fabric of his travel cloak. His eyes searched his brother’s face—so similar to his, so familiar, and yet changed in ways that had nothing to do with age.

“Imagine it,” he murmured, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “My baby brother, once wild as spring rivers and twice as restless, speaking now of vows and hearths and binding his soul to another’s for all time. Who would have thought?”

Elrohir’s brow arched. “You are older by minutes.”

“A fact of fate,” Elladan said gravely, though his grin betrayed him, “but a fact nonetheless. And with those minutes came the sacred right to be astonished by your maturity.”

He paused, his tone softening. “I may jest, but I see you, Elrohir. I see how you’ve changed. You carry yourself differently now. There’s a steadiness to you that wasn’t there before. And I have no doubt that it is love that made it so.”

He gave his brother’s shoulders a brief, grounding squeeze. “It suits you. Loving him. Letting it show.”

Elrohir said nothing at first. He only looked at Elladan—truly looked at him, with a gaze full of warmth and the quiet knowing that comes from sharing every shadow and light of a life.

Then, wordlessly, he stepped forward and reached up, his hand gentle against the back of Elladan’s neck as he drew their brows together. Their eyes closed, instinctively, as they always had in moments like this, shutting out the world to let only their bond remain.

The touch was familiar. Ancient.

A gesture they had shared since childhood—when words were too slow for what they felt, when only closeness could speak for them.

For a long breath, they stood like that—forehead to forehead, the space between them hushed and still, filled with something older than speech. The bond between them, forged in the womb and tempered in battle and laughter, was something no parting had ever severed. They had walked through millennia side by side, through the ruins of battlefields, the halls of wisdom, the forests of memory, and always, always found their way back to each other.

Few things in the world were as certain as the love between them.

Their eyes opened at last, brows still pressed together, breath shared between them.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” Elrohir said at last, his voice quiet against the wind. “For this.”

Elladan’s hand came up in turn, gripping the back of Elrohir’s neck in a mirror of the gesture.

“There is nowhere else I would be,” he answered, and though his voice held its usual lightness, there was steel beneath it. “Not when my brother rides to claim the hand of a prince.”

Elrohir let out a soft, choked laugh, but he didn’t pull away. Not yet.

Not until the moment had been properly felt.

Not until the ache of sixty years was ready to turn toward hope.

They parted slowly, reluctant but composed, the weight of memory and vow still lingering between them like a warmth not yet spent. Their foreheads drew back, but the closeness remained, etched into the set of their shoulders, the hush of their breath.

It was then that footsteps sounded, light but purposeful, crushing dry grass and scattering the hush.

Glorfindel crested the ridge path with the ease of one long accustomed to such terrain. His golden hair was unbound, wind-tossed and catching the light like a living banner. His face, serene as ever, bore the faintest spark of amusement behind his eyes, as though he’d seen more than he would admit and chosen silence only out of mischief.

“Am I interrupting a heartfelt confession?” he asked, voice dry as old wine. “Shall I return after the tears have been tenderly wiped away?”

Elladan turned without missing a beat, his hand still resting lightly on Elrohir’s shoulder. “Hardly. I left you and Erestor alone for a reason.”

Glorfindel’s expression did not shift, but the gleam in his eye sharpened.

“Then your timing was exquisite,” he said mildly. “We had just reached the part of our morning where words become…entirely unnecessary.”

Elladan snorted. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard Erestor describe a morning that way.”

“My dear husband doesn’t describe such mornings,” Glorfindel replied, gaze flicking westward as if remembering something far more pleasant. “He simply ensures they happen. Regularly. Even while camping. Especially while camping.”

Elrohir groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Please. I am begging you. Do not finish that thought.”

Glorfindel’s smile curved, wicked and serene. “I wasn’t going to. But you must admit—it had promise.”

He stepped beside them with unhurried grace, brushing stray leaves from his cloak. The breeze lifted the edge of his it, the sunlight catching in his hair like fire through silk. Though seasoned by ages of war, council, and duty, his presence still carried a youthful ease, a glint of mischief that had only sharpened with time.

Elladan gave him a sidelong look. “You seem in high spirits.”

“I slept well,” Glorfindel said, folding his hands behind his back. “And woke to excellent company.”

“Valar,” Elrohir muttered, casting a desperate look skyward. “I do not wish to hear how my childhood mentors spend their mornings. Truly.”

Glorfindel glanced at him, a golden brow rising. “Ah, but your memory is convenient. Shall I remind you how many mornings I was forced to cover for you and the Prince of Greenwood, vanishing from guest chambers, slipping out past the stables, conspicuously absent from the feasting halls?”

“That was different,” Elrohir said at once, straightening. “We were—”

“In the woods,” Glorfindel supplied helpfully. “Often. And loudly. I seem to recall a hawk circling overhead once, confused by the noises. I feared you were being attacked.”

Elladan coughed into his fist, shoulders shaking.

“I still don’t know how you convinced the gardeners not to report you,” Glorfindel went on, utterly unbothered. “Or how Erestor managed to look Elrond in the eye after retrieving your garments from the bramble patch.”

Elrohir groaned again. “I am going to walk into Greenwood alone and never return.”

“Good,” Glorfindel said, entirely cheerful. “But do wait until after you’re reunited. We’ve waited sixty years for the conclusion to this tragic romance. It would be rude to leave us hanging now.”

Elrohir turned toward Elladan with the air of one enduring great trials.

“Tell me again,” he said dryly, “why Glorfindel and Erestor had to accompany us—was silence too heavy a burden to bear alone?”

Before Elladan could answer, likely with something outrageous, another voice joined them from the ridge above, calm and precise.

“To ensure the two of you don’t get yourselves killed before reaching the forest,” Erestor said, appearing with the quiet surety of a shadow long kept in step. The morning light caught the lines of his tunic—simple, travel-worn, yet undeniably fine. It was deep blue, belted close, and tailored in a way that drew a flicker of unmistakable appreciation from Glorfindel’s eye.

Erestor’s gaze, however, was all clarity and cool scrutiny as it moved over the three of them. His dark hair was bound back in a single plait, wind-lifted, and his boots showed the dust of many leagues.

“And,” he added, beginning his descent with the same unhurried grace that had carried him through centuries of court and council, “to investigate what remains of Dol Guldur’s reach. The shadow has not slept. Orc numbers rise along the southern borders of Greenwood, and now the northern trails, too, continue to see movement. Tracks. Camps. We do not yet know if they are scouts or something worse.”

The weight of his words settled like mist on the ridge, cool, heavy, undeniable.

Even Elladan, usually the first to deflect solemnity, said nothing for a breath.

But Glorfindel, as ever, was undeterred. He tilted his head and cast Erestor a sidelong glance, golden hair bright against the morning haze, his tone light as wind over water.

“You wound me,” he said. “And here I thought I came only for the pleasure of your company.”

Erestor didn’t look at him, but one dark brow rose with stately precision. The faintest twitch of his mouth gave him away.

“You’ve had more than enough of my company this morning,” he replied, dry as summer dust.

Glorfindel’s answering smile was slow, knowing, and far too pleased. “Never enough.”

Elrohir made a strangled sound beside them, pinching the bridge of his nose like a long-suffering tutor forced to endure a lesson he’d once assigned. “Valar preserve us,” he muttered. “Do you rehearse this?”

Glorfindel looked far too innocent. “We’re only speaking of company, young one.”

“I am older than most mountains,” Elrohir snapped without heat. “I know precisely what you mean.”

“Then perhaps stop asking questions you don’t want answered,” Glorfindel said, brushing a stray leaf from Erestor’s shoulder with insufferable grace.

Erestor cleared his throat.

It was not loud, but it was the kind of sound that had ended council squabbles, silenced restless halls, and made even Glorfindel straighten on occasion.

“If the three of you are quite finished,” he said, with the cool authority of one who had wrangled lords and warriors alike, “we have ground yet to cover, and more days remaining than I would like. Best not to waste them lingering over sentiment.”

He looked to Elrohir, gaze steady, sharp beneath the dark sweep of his brow. “Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind and no longer wish to reach the Greenwood by week’s end?”

Elrohir blinked once, then shook his head, quiet but resolute. “No. I still wish it.”

“Then come,” Erestor said, already turning with the unhurried ease of someone who would never fall behind. His dark tunic, worn and elegant, caught the morning breeze as he stepped downhill. “There is bread left to be had. And Glorfindel has hidden what remains of the pears. Again.”

“That is slander,” Glorfindel said at once, stepping after him with the graceful indignation of the thoroughly guilty. “I was merely safeguarding them from Elladan, who eats like a warg at a feast when he thinks no one is watching.”

“I have no shame,” Elladan called, already following, “but I do have speed. And if I get there first, you’ll all go hungry.”

Erestor sighed, an ancient, exhausted sound, as the three vanished down the slope, their voices tangling together in well-worn rhythm.

But Elrohir lingered.

He remained at the ridge’s crest, still and upright, the wind brushing lightly over him as if reluctant to disturb his thoughts. His eyes turned east.

He could feel it. The pull of it. The quiet gravity that had drawn him for decades.

His chest ached with it.

Sixty years of longing, of letters passed through borders and trust carried in ink, had not dimmed the memory. If anything, it had sharpened the ache into something crystalline. A tether pulled taut across time and silence.

Somewhere beneath those trees, Legolas walked.

And soon, Elrohir would walk beside him again.

He let himself breathe it in: the weight of waiting, the closeness now. He could almost see the line of Legolas’s mouth, the tilt of his head, the sea-glass eyes full of mischief.

He lingered one moment more. Just one.

Then he turned, quietly, and followed the sound of laughter and footsteps down the path toward the trail, toward the camp, and toward the home his heart had already found.

The wind stirred behind him, rustling the grass where he had stood.

The forest was quiet, but not still.

A hush clung to the Greenwood floor, dense and low as fog. Birds had gone silent. No breeze stirred the ferns. Even the trees, ever-whispering, held their breath.

But silence, here, was no comfort.

It was a warning.

Twelve shadows moved through the canopy with the seamless grace of wind through leaves. They made no sound, save the faint whisper of boots on bark, the creak of a bowstring drawn taut. Cloaked in the hues of their woodland home, they became part of it—root and limb, leaf and bough, unseen until they chose otherwise.

The patrol had tracked the signs since dawn, webbing spread like torn linen across the underbrush, the twisted remains of a wood-rabbit, long legs scuttling just out of reach. The spiders had grown bolder again.

And now, too close to the heartwood for comfort, they had found a nest.

Legolas ran the high limbs ahead of them, swift and sure, never faltering in his steps.

The trees knew him. They bent for him.

His golden hair was bound in braids away from his face, and his cloak snapped lightly behind him with each leap. His bow was already in hand, arrow notched, eyes fixed on the black shimmer of movement below. He did not need to signal. They were ready.

A sudden shriek split the hush as the first spider lunged from the thicket.

Before its legs could fully extend, an arrow struck home, clean through the mouth. It fell back twitching.

Another dropped from above. Legolas turned without pausing. His next shot sliced through its swollen body, anchoring it to the tree trunk like a pinned leaf.

Around him, the patrol of twelve moved as one.

Caleth’s blade sang as it sliced through a web-thickened bough, clearing the way for the others. Thalion, quiet and precise, dropped from a branch with a double shot, felling two spiderlings mid-scuttle.

No one spoke.

This was how the wood-elves hunted. Fast. Clean. Wordless.

Another spider tried to flee, too slow. An arrow took it through the thorax. Another crumpled as Thalion drove his knife beneath its jaw with brutal efficiency.

The fight was brief.

When the last leg ceased twitching, the stillness returned, but not the peace.

Legolas descended from the trees in a crouch, landing soundlessly on moss-strewn ground near the smoldering ruin of the nest. His eyes swept the surrounding woods, watchful, listening.

“All clear,” Caleth murmured behind him, lowering his bow.

Legolas gave a slight nod but did not yet sheathe his weapon.

The darkness was retreating, but not gone.

The air still tasted wrong.

Legolas did not move at once.

Instead, he stepped to the edge of the clearing, where the roots of an old beech curled outward like weathered fingers sunk deep into moss and stone. He pressed one hand to its trunk, fingers splayed, palm bare against the cool bark.

The others waited behind him, silent and still.

The beech tree stood ancient and listening. Its leaves trembled faintly overhead, catching the filtered morning light, and the hush beneath the canopy thickened.

Legolas closed his eyes.

The stillness around him was not empty, it thrummed. Beneath the bark, beneath the earth, a warning stirred like a breath drawn sharp. A tremor in the rootline. A scent of wrongness, old and crawling. The trees did not speak in words, but the meaning rose in him like instinct.

He opened his eyes.

“More,” he said, already turning. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the glade like a drawn blade. “They are coming. From the east. The forest is trying to hold them back.”

He lifted his bow in the same breath.

No sooner had the last word fallen than the bramble wall shattered with sound.

They came pouring through in a surge of dark limbs, larger than before, their eyes glinting with hunger and something worse. Madness. Compulsion. They did not hesitate at firelight or blades. They came because they were driven.

The patrol snapped into motion.

“Form wide,” Legolas commanded. “Intercept and drive them back.”

Caleth surged up a low rise to gain elevation, his bow string already taut. Thalion stepped forward into the breach without pause, blades drawn, his movements swift and brutal as he carved into the foremost spider’s soft eye cluster.

Arrows sliced the air. Webs thickened it.

The forest erupted in screeches, not pain alone, but fury. A tide of chittering rage.

Legolas loosed an arrow that struck a spider mid-lunge, spinning it backwards into the underbrush. He darted forward beneath a low branch, leapt onto a fallen log slick with moss, and fired again, the shaft sinking deep into a mouthful of fangs.

The spiders were fast. Too fast.

And still they came.

Dark limbs scuttled across the forest floor, dislodging leaves and shards of bark. The scent of them was rot and venom, and the trees above quivered, their branches whispering in agitation.

Webbing hissed past Legolas’s ear and caught against the tree behind him. He twisted aside just in time, rolling beneath the thrust of clawed legs and driving a second arrow up into the vulnerable underside of another spider’s thorax.

A shriek tore through the clearing.

Legolas landed lightly and moved on.

The patrol shifted with him, tight, silent, precise. A dance they had learned by necessity. And still the trees whispered above, warning in tones older than language. The forest was not at peace.

It was bracing.

It was trying to hold.

The last spider fell with a twitch of limbs and a low, guttural hiss, its body collapsing in a shuddering heap. The silence that followed was thick, sodden with blood, silk, and the sharp stench of venom. All around them, the glade hung heavy with the aftermath.

Branches sagged beneath the weight of torn webs. Leaves curled and blackened at the tips. Even the light filtering through the canopy seemed dulled, veiled by rot and shadow.

Legolas stood still, breath steady though his chest rose and fell with the exertion of battle. His bow lowered, fingers relaxing from their long tension. Slowly, he turned, his gaze sweeping the patrol with the precision of long-trained eyes.

“Is anyone hurt?” he asked. His voice was quiet—but it carried, low and steady, the kind of voice the forest paused to hear.

One by one, the answers came.

“No, my prince,” said Caleth, already sliding his sword home, brown hair plastered to his brow with sweat and gore.

“Nothing but spider-blood,” Thalion muttered, flicking dark ichor from his blade with a look of grim distaste. “And perhaps my pride.”

A few more murmurs of assent followed, boots shifting among damp roots and crushed brush.

Legolas nodded once, but his eyes had already moved past them.

The glade was wrong.

It pulsed with the memory of the spiders, an aftertaste of fear, of malice woven into root and leaf. The trees stood like wounded sentinels, their bark blistered, the limbs tangled with silk. One great tree to his left trembled faintly, as if recoiling from the very earth it grew in.

Legolas moved toward it without a word.

The others watched in silence. They knew what this meant.

Legolas knelt before the elm whose crown had once filtered sunlight like green glass. Now, it wept amber resin from deep cracks along its trunk. One branch hung broken, draped in silk, half-severed by a spider’s passage. The tree shuddered faintly when his fingers brushed its bark.

“I hear you,” he murmured. “I’m here.”

He laid his palm flat.

A hum stirred beneath his hand, faint, uncertain. Like a song half-remembered. The old power, the one he had carried since childhood, awoke beneath his skin: soft and green and strange. He was not yet his mother, and he knew it, her strength had been a flood; his was a spring just breaking the frost.

But he was her son.

And the woods remembered that.

Legolas closed his eyes.

He breathed in, slow and even, and let the warmth pool in his palm. It pulsed outward in a gentle wave, not brilliant, not blinding, but warm. Steady. Like morning sun breaking through fog.

The resin flow slowed.

The leaves above trembled, and then eased. Just slightly. Just enough to feel the change.

Around him, the webbing slackened. Threads began to loosen where they clung to bark. A single leaf, browned and curled at the edge, straightened toward the light. It was not healing—not truly. But it was the beginning.

A push forward.

A breath of new strength.

When he opened his eyes, the forest around him was no longer silent. A hush still lingered, but it was softer now, watchful. Listening.

Behind him, none in the patrol spoke.

They stood still, as if afraid to disturb what they had just seen.

Thalion was the first to bow his head. Caleth followed, silent in awe. And then the other warriors, still and breath-held, watching the heir of their realm lay a blessing upon wounded earth.

And the trees, once shrouded in grief, stirred ever so faintly, alive to him once more.

Legolas then rose slowly, eyes never leaving the tree. And though his face bore the composure expected of a commander, there was sorrow in his gaze. Not for the battle, nor the dead, but for the forest itself. For every wound that did not bleed, yet suffered.

Legolas stood a moment longer with his hand pressed to the elm’s bark, fingers splayed as if to hold together a wound no salve could reach. The tree’s sorrow pulsed faintly beneath his skin, muffled, muddled, like a song half-drowned in water. He bowed his head as though in apology, his brow brushing the trunk, his breath stirring the moss.

Then he stepped back.

The others waited, still and silent.

His gaze lifted to the canopy, tattered by webs, grimed with rot, and then swept outward, across the bowed trees, the hanging strands, the sickly hush that settled like smoke over the glade. His patrol watched him, not as a prince, but as something elemental, one who walked with the blessing and burden of listening.

“They are crying,” he said at last, his voice low, almost mournful. “The trees. The roots. The leaves are too weary to fall. They cry out—not with fear, but with grief.”

He turned slightly, speaking not only to the warrior but to the forest itself.

“They long to be healed,” he went on. “To remember the touch of unspoiled light, to drink deep of rain untainted by shadow. But the rot spreads faster than they can mend. The darkness leaves no time for rest.”

A breath stirred the air, soft, sap-sweet, laced with bitterness.

“The shadow lays down its roots,” Legolas said, his eyes narrowing faintly. “It sinks low into the soil, and from that poisoned ground crawl its children, fanged and many-legged, ravenous and blind. They devour the light not only with hunger but with hatred. As if it offends them.”

He stepped to a patch of webbing where a young beech stood bent, its bark blistered beneath silk. With a flick of his knife, Legolas sliced the threads away and let them fall. The beech’s leaves fluttered as though in faint relief.

“The woods still fight,” he said, quieter now. “But they are growing tired.”

Behind him, the glade remained still.

Even the wind seemed to hesitate—listening.

“I would give them peace,” Legolas murmured, almost to himself. “But I am only one voice. One seed from the tree that bore me. I can lend them strength, not salvation.”

His fingers curled loosely at his sides, damp with sap.

“But still,” he said, straightening, his gaze sweeping over the trees again, “I will answer when they call.”

And in the hush that followed, it seemed the forest heard him.

Then, a quiet voice broke the silence, reverent and sure.

“Our prince is a blessing upon these woods,” said one of the warriors near the edge of the glade. His tone was not loud, but solemn—spoken as one might speak in the presence of something sacred.

Thalion, voice low, added, “We would not walk this deep into the dark if he did not walk with us.”

Caleth nodded, glancing toward Legolas with quiet pride. “It is his steps that guide us. His voice that steadies. His hands that give the woods their breath again.”

Others murmured assent, the kind that needed no prompting. Some lowered their weapons. Others touched bark in silent thanks, as if the forest itself bore witness.

They looked at him not as royalty, not as something lofty or distant, but as kin, beloved and steadfast. The one they followed into shadow without hesitation, because his heart beat in rhythm with their own.

Legolas turned to face them, his expression steady but touched by something softer—an emotion not worn openly, but felt.

“I am no blessing,” he said gently, his voice carrying through the still-sickened glade. “Not more than any of you. The Greenwood is full of light yet. And it is you, your blades, your watchful eyes, your unyielding steps, who guard it.”

He moved slowly, gaze meeting each of theirs in turn. “You stand when others falter. You listen when others close their ears. You carry the songs of this forest, even when the songs grow quiet. That is no small thing.”

He placed a hand once more on the wounded elm beside him.

“She remembers you,” he said quietly. “You and those who came before you. All who bled to keep her roots strong. I am only one voice among many.”

A long silence held.

Until Caleth gave a dramatic sigh and broke the spell. “You are far too humble, your grace,” he said, half exasperated, half fond. “It’s terribly noble. Very poetic. But it’s doing our reputation no favors.”

Legolas turned, brow lifted in mock offense. “Reputation?”

“Yes,” Caleth said, slinging his bow across his back. “You’ve heard the stories. The Prince of Greenwood walks through moonlight and never stumbles. He speaks to trees, and they answer in song. He once bested three spiders with a glare and a stick.”

Thalion stepped forward, eyes gleaming. “I heard it was five spiders. And he wasn’t even wearing boots.”

Another warrior snorted. “And he leapt from a tree so high, the wind bowed before him!”

Legolas rolled his eyes, but amusement tugged at his mouth. “I’m fairly certain none of those things happened.”

“Ah,” said Caleth, crossing his arms with mock solemnity. “And now he’s modest. You’re making it very difficult to be properly awed.”

Legolas stepped lightly toward him, brushing past with a dry smile. “I’ve spoken with many trees, Caleth. Not one has ever whispered of your legendary modesty.”

“I keep it quiet,” Caleth said, placing a hand over his heart. “Like all great virtues.”

“As quiet as your archery breath control,” Legolas returned without pause. “Which vanishes the moment a butterfly sneezes.”

Laughter rippled through the patrol, low, genuine, welcome.

Even amid silk-strangled branches and soil gone dark with ichor, the sound of it lifted like wind through high leaves.

They did not laugh because there was no danger. They laughed because they had survived it.

And because he was theirs. Their prince. Their kin.

The child of the woods, golden-haired and keen-eyed, who stood among them, not above them.

The laughter lingered like a balm, softening the edges of bloodshed and toil. The warriors spoke among themselves in low voices, of their arrows, of old hunts, of the ridiculous tales Caleth insisted were true.

Legolas smiled faintly, listening. The sound of their joy, brief and real, warmed something in him. These were his people. This was his forest. Even in the wake of death, they could still laugh. Still live .

But then—

A hush.

Not of the glade.

Of him.

It crept in quietly, like breath turning to frost. A sudden cold slid beneath his skin, threading down his spine and coiling in his chest. The mirth of the patrol dimmed in his ears, as though the world had drawn back, leaving only silence and wind.

He stiffened, head lifting slightly.

Something watched.

He could feel it, more certain than if he’d seen it with his eyes. A gaze, distant but piercing. Cold as damp stone. Old. Cruel. It pressed against his senses like a shadow pressing against a door.

The southern air shifted.

A breeze stirred, wrong in its weight, no woodland sigh, but a thread of chill seeping from a place where light dared not dwell. It carried nothing on it. No scent. No birdsong. No echo. But it touched his skin like a whisper, thin and invasive, and the fine hairs along his arms rose in warning.

He turned.

Southward.

Toward Dol Guldur.

The trees there loomed darker, even at a distance. Black-tipped, hunch-shouldered, as if bowing under a weight unseen. The very line of the horizon blurred there, shadows twisting in ways that did not match the sun. The branches seemed to claw at the sky, a silent scream of limbs entangled in their own grief.

And then—

A sound. Or something like it.

Not wind. Not words. A whisper, not through air but within .

Like thoughts not his own slipping through the cracks of his mind—soft, curling, and wrong. Not a voice, and yet— intention . It crept along the bones of his skull, insinuating itself like smoke through hairline fractures in stone.

The language was foreign, indecipherable, harsh and low, but threaded with a rhythm that felt almost musical. Not the Common Tongue. Not Elvish. And yet it carried a kind of dreadful grace. The syllables slithered like oil across water, like mildew weaving through roots, sweet on the surface, then sour beneath.

He did not know what it was.

Only that it was near .

Filtered. Cloaked. Hideous in its softness.

He could not make sense of it. But it reached for something in him with uncanny familiarity, like fingers brushing the edges of a long-buried thought, or a shadow glimpsed once in childhood and never truly forgotten.

His breath caught.

His pulse faltered for the barest instant.

And then, he moved.

One step. Then another. Southward. Toward the edge of the glade. Toward the quiet.

He was not forced.

Not commanded.

But something in him leaned toward it, some uneasy part of his spirit that needed to understand what it was. What had reached for him. What hid behind the cold and the stillness and the wrongness in the wind. The pull came not from without, but within: a tension born of vigilance and fear, the kind that demanded sight, demanded knowing. It was not surrender. It was the first step of a hunter tracking an unseen shape in the dark.

His bow remained at his side, forgotten, not discarded, but momentarily meaningless.

His gaze had narrowed, not widened. Not vacant, but sharp in a different way, focused inward, as if trying to decipher a dream upon waking.

His face, so often lit with quiet joy or set with princely resolve, was unreadable now—held in a kind of stillness that came not from enchantment, but from listening .

Not a spell.

A question.

Unanswered. Unnamed.

And he was walking toward it.

Behind him, the laughter of his patrol carried on, unaware. The scrape of knives on stone. The quiet shift of leather. Caleth’s voice rising in mock outrage, followed by Thalion’s scoff. They spoke of hunts and boasts and the promise of hot broth back at camp.

And the prince walked, quietly, unknowingly, toward the whisper that had no name.

“My prince?”

The voice came from behind—steady, uncertain.

Caleth.

The call anchored him.

Legolas blinked. The shadows pulled away like water draining from stone. The whisper was gone—vanished as if it had never been, leaving no echo but a chill in the hollows of his bones. The warmth of the glade returned around him: birdsong, the rustle of leaves, the quiet hum of living trees.

“Your grace?” Thalion’s voice followed, sharper now, lined with concern. “Are you well?”

He turned at last.

His expression had smoothed by instinct. Calm. Open. Composed. Only the faint tightness around his eyes betrayed anything amiss—something a less seasoned warrior might have missed. But not the two who had ridden at his side for decades.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice easy. “The glade is clear. We should return to camp before the light shifts.”

He turned to lead them, stepping lightly over twisted roots and the broken carcasses of slain spiders. The others followed, though not without glancing at each other.

“You went quiet for a while,” Caleth said lightly, falling into step beside him. “Thought you’d taken root. Or perhaps you were off in some blissful dream of your Noldo.”

A ripple of warm laughter passed through the patrol like a breeze through leaves.

Legolas didn’t turn, but the corner of his mouth curved. “Would that be such a crime?”

“Not a crime,” Thalion said behind them, voice dry. “Just…unexpected. Of all Elves in Arda, our prince chooses a Noldo?”

Caleth snorted. “He always did favor the brooding, poetic sort. Must be the hair. Or the height.”

Laughter rippled through the patrol, warm and familiar, full of long affection. No one spoke with spite. They had long since made peace with this bond, strange though it might have once seemed. They had fought beside Legolas too many times, seen too much of his heart and steel, to question where it had led him.

And they had seen what those letters had done.

Each one arriving after weeks or months, tucked into saddlebags or slipped between rations, softened the prince’s silence. They would find him smiling without reason, humming without thought, staring a little too long at the horizon as if listening for a voice carried on the wind.

“I suppose we must give him credit,” Thalion said. “He found the only Noldo who doesn’t quote poetry before drawing his blade.”

Legolas laughed now, a real sound—low and easy, edged with fond exasperation. “And you are all insufferable.”

“We are,” Caleth agreed with a dramatic bow. “But our hearts are true.”

More chuckles followed, boots crunching over loam and root. For a while, the woods rang only with their voices—ease woven between warriors who had bled together, watched each other grow, mourned and laughed under the same trees.

But Legolas’s gaze wandered once more as they walked.

Southward.

Toward the place where the shadow had touched him.

He said nothing.

Not yet.

Not until he could name what it was.

The forest camp glowed with quiet life.

Night had nearly fallen, but Greenwood’s canopy held the dusk in soft pockets of gold and green. The patrol’s fire burned low and steady in a ring of stone, its flickering light casting long shadows over moss and root. Around it, the warriors gathered close, leathers dusted with web and soil, blades newly cleaned, their laughter worn at the edges but still warm.

Someone passed a ladle from pot to bowl. A murmur of thanks followed. The scent of broth, herbed, rich with forest roots and wild onion—rose into the air, curling through the chill.

They sat easily, sprawled like the brothers-in-arms they were. Caleth leaned back on one hand, gesturing animatedly with the other as he spun some tale about how Thalion had once mistaken a moonlit owl for a spider and nearly shot a hole through his own tent. Thalion, for his part, swore it had hissed .

Legolas sat a little apart.

Not by distance, but by stillness.

The weight of command often set him just slightly outside their circle, though none there would have called him distant. His presence, like the trees themselves, was felt even when silent. His bow lay beside him, limbs stained faintly with spider-blood. He set his bowl down at his side—unspilled, untouched.

And from his tunic, he drew a letter.

The parchment was creased at the folds, the ink just beginning to soften where it had been read too many times. He held it with care, fingertips brushing reverently along the edges as if the parchment itself carried warmth.

He didn’t read the words. He didn’t need to.

He knew every line by heart, the firm, slanted script that never wavered, even when the message within faltered with things too heavy to say plainly. It was Elrohir’s final letter. The one he had written before setting out for Greenwood.

Legolas let his gaze move over the page.

And slowly, softly, he smiled.

Not the kind of smile worn in court or battle. This one was quieter, barely there. A ghost of joy brushing the edges of his mouth, made brighter by the faint color that touched his cheeks. His pulse quickened, not with warning, but with the anticipation of reunion. The knowledge that sixty years of silence, of distance, of aching restraint was nearly at an end.

In his mind’s eye, he could see it: Elrohir in the saddle, eyes fixed eastward, the wind tugging at his cloak as Greenwood’s shadowed trees rose to meet him. His hair, dark as storm-clouds, streamed behind him like a banner. The thought struck something deep, something half longing, half ache, as though the forest itself had begun to stir in answer.

“You’ll wear the ink off that one,” Caleth said lightly from across the fire, his voice a gentle intrusion, rich with amusement.

Legolas blinked, then glanced up. His smile did not fade.

Caleth smirked around a spoonful of broth. “The day of the ban draws close. Soon you’ll have the real thing in front of you.”

Thalion, hunched over his bowl with his usual wolfish appetite, paused to glance over. “Then Lord Elrohir is truly on his way?”

Legolas didn’t answer right away.

He folded the letter carefully, with fingers as practiced as a bowstring pull, and slipped it back into the pocket over his heart.

Then he looked west.

“Yes,” he said simply. “He is.”

The fire crackled.

And for a moment, no one spoke.

The warriors around him had fought beside him, laughed and wept beside him, watched him lead and falter and rise again. They had seen him haunted by silence some nights, restless as a hound, eyes fixed on the trees as though listening for hoofbeats that would not come. They had seen the way his shoulders eased when letters arrived, how his lips would soften, the way he would step out into the glade to read them alone, and return later with a lightness in his tread that no one dared name.

Now, they saw something else.

Hope.

Old, patient, bone-deep hope, rising at last.

No words were needed. The moment held its own reverence.

They looked to their prince—not as a commander now, nor a warrior, but simply as a beloved son of Greenwood. A friend. A brother. One who had waited long and loved well.

The firelight caught on his hair, turning it to molten gold. His face, lit from within by memory and expectation, was soft with something more powerful than longing.

He was not reaching toward the past.

He was waiting for the future to arrive.

Caleth leaned back against a mossy log, cradling his empty bowl with one hand and gesturing loosely with the other, a familiar twinkle in his eyes. The firelight danced across his cheekbones, throwing flickering shadows over his braid as he grinned. The scent of broth and pine smoke mingled in the cool evening air.

“So, my prince,” he said, tone casual but threaded with mischief sharpened by long friendship, “what does Lord Elrohir look like, then? Does he resemble most Noldor, black hair, grey eyes, that usual distant stare like they’re contemplating the music of the stars?”

The warriors chuckled, low and warm. Someone murmured, “Probably writes poetry to the moon,” and another stifled a snort.

Thalion, crouched near the fire with a ladle in hand, looked up from stirring the embers. “He does have the black hair and grey eyes,” he confirmed, voice smooth with certainty. “But taller than most. Broad, too—there’s mortal blood in him. You can see it in the set of his shoulders, the way he carries a blade. No mistaking it.”

He paused, allowing the memory to resurface, then added with dry amusement, “And he scowls. Constantly. Walks about looking like someone’s just stolen his horse.”

A ripple of laughter spread through the patrol.

Legolas gave a sudden, bright laugh, nearly spilling his broth in the process. “Yes. That sounds like him.”

He leaned back slightly, gaze softening with quiet, unmistakable pride. His fingers curled loosely around the rim of his bowl. “But he is beautiful. The light of Maia, Edain, Sindar, and Noldor mingle in him. You see it in his bearing, he was made for light and war both, and he carries both with grace.”

For a moment, silence followed, not awkward, but reverent. The kind of silence that warriors offer each other when they know something is sacred.

Then from the far side of the fire, a voice broke through, familiar, teasing, and entirely unrepentant. “A lord of so many lineages...but is he as gifted in other pursuits, your grace?”

A smothered groan came from one of the older warriors, who jabbed the speaker lightly with an elbow. “You cannot ask that!”

“Why not?” the first replied easily. “The prince smiles at his letters like a maiden in spring. Surely he will forgive us.”

Legolas let out a groan and buried his face in his hands, cheeks blooming red. “Valar help me…”

But before he could mount a protest, Thalion gave a sharp snort of laughter, clearly savoring the moment. “I will say only this. The day we rode back from Imladris, our prince could barely sit straight in the saddle.”

The patrol howled, laughter rising like birds from the underbrush. Several choked on mouthfuls of broth. A few slapped their thighs or leaned against one another for support.

Legolas remained hidden behind his fingers for a long breath, then let out a laugh of his own, helpless and full of exasperated affection. “You are all insufferable,” he muttered, though his voice shook with mirth.

“Aye,” Caleth agreed, raising his bowl with mock solemnity. “But your suffering gives us great joy.”

Even as the teasing rolled on, none of it bit deep. It was all fondness, woven through the years like thread through linen. There was no cruelty in their laughter, only the comfort of kinship born in forest and firelight. And in their eyes as they watched their prince, who smiled at them with love in his face and embarrassment in his cheeks, there was no mockery.

Only fierce loyalty. Only warmth.

Only love.

Caleth’s smile faded, not out of defiance, but memory. He set his half-finished bowl beside him on the log, the firelight glinting off the curve of the tin.

“Even if Lord Elrohir is your beloved, my prince,” he said, voice low but clear, “we have not forgotten. And we have not forgiven him.”

The words fell gently, without malice, yet their weight was unmistakable. Around the campfire, the easy hum of conversation stilled. Some of the younger warriors glanced toward their prince, uncertain. Others looked to Caleth, waiting.

“We heard the stories,” Caleth continued, meeting Legolas’s gaze across the fire. “How he spoke to you. How he wounded you before he ever touched your hand with love.”

The flames cracked softly between them, casting gold and shadow across the prince’s face. Legolas did not flinch. He had already tucked the letter away into the inner fold of his tunic, but his hand lingered there a moment longer, pressed just above his heart, as if steadying something that stirred beneath.

“I have forgiven him,” he said at last, his voice soft but unwavering. “And he has paid the price for what passed between us.”

He looked up, meeting each of their eyes in turn.

“Sixty years of banishment,” he said. “Not just from a realm, but from love. From laughter. From what we built with our own hands. That is no small sentence.”

Around the fire, there was no reply at first, only the sound of wind shifting the leaves overhead, and the long stretch of shared silence that came with listening to something true.

Then Thalion gave a single nod, firm and slow. The fire lit the edge of his jaw.

“And he’ll pay further, if our king has his say,” he said, matter-of-fact. “We’ve heard the shape of the trials. He is to learn our tongue. To dwell as one of us, without lordship. To take up arms by our side. No fanfare. No titles. No silks from Imladris.”

“Imagine a Noldo trying to learn Silvan,” Caleth muttered with a grin that broke the tension. “He’ll tangle himself in his own vowels.”

A few of the others chuckled. One of the archers gave a theatrical sigh, then lapsed into a mockingly grand cadence, an Imladris lilt laid thick over Silvan words. “Your humble and most reverent greetings, O mighty tree of bark and blossom…”

“Stop,” Thalion groaned, throwing a pebble across the fire pit. “You’ll curse the patrol.”

Even Legolas laughed then, soft and unguarded. He shook his head fondly, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear.

“They jest,” Thalion said, glancing at him again, voice lowering. “But not in cruelty.”

“I know,” Legolas replied, the warmth still in his smile. “And you are right to be cautious.”

Thalion’s face turned grave again, shadow shifting over his brow. “We are not cruel, your grace. But our memory is long.”

Legolas inclined his head. “As it should be. Wounds must be remembered, not erased. But they must also be given the chance to heal.”

He looked toward the fire again, but his hand drifted briefly to the place where the letter rested, close to his heart, hidden, but not forgotten. Not now.

“Elrohir comes not as the son of Elrond,” he said. “Not as a lord of Imladris. He comes as a suitor. And a guest. And an elf who means to earn what he once thought was already his.”

A quiet murmur passed through the circle, low and thoughtful, not quite agreement, but acceptance. The sound of warriors turning over old memories and weighing them against the truth laid bare before them.

Caleth exhaled, the ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. “We won’t make it easy for him.”

Legolas’s answering smile was calm and steady. “I did not expect you to,” he said softly. “Nor will the forest.”

That drew a few solemn nods. The trees had long memories, too.

Thalion leaned back against a moss-draped stone, one boot stretched toward the fire, the other planted in the dirt. He arched a brow, the gleam in his eyes unmistakably wicked. “I confess,” he said, “I’m most looking forward to the faces in the court when Lord Elrohir arrives.”

Caleth snorted. “Oh, you mean the Sindar advisors who look like they swallowed thistle whenever someone speaks Silvan?”

Thalion nodded, grinning. “The very same. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when the king informed the court of what transpired in Imladris. That the prince had been slighted, insulted by Elrond’s own house—” he paused, letting the weight of it settle, “and that the son of that house would come to Greenwood, once the ban lifted, to earn not just the king’s leave…but the people’s, for our prince’s hand.”

“It was the first time I ever saw Thalandir drop his quill,” Caleth added, grinning into his bowl. “And he’s the one who drafts the royal edicts.”

A ripple of laughter followed. Thalandir, ever the picture of Sindar formality, had stared slack-jawed for a full breath before the quill slipped from his fingers and blotted ink across a decree meant for the Western Border. He’d tried to recover his dignity, of course, clearing his throat, straightening his collar, but the damage had been done, and none of them had let him forget it since.

Legolas laughed softly, a hand rising to brush hair from his face. “You all gossip worse than the weavers.”

“Gossip?” Thalion echoed. “It’s called firsthand observation, your highness. Some of us were in the hall that day.”

“And some of us,” Caleth said, lifting a finger with mock seriousness, “are merely passing along stories told with great passion at the barracks fire.”

Legolas shook his head, but there was warmth in his gaze. “You’ll get me banished next, for mocking my father’s court.”

Thalion smirked. “If so, you can join your Noldo in exile. It would make for a poetic scandal! Greenwood’s golden prince, fleeing to live off lembas and longing.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Legolas said dryly, lifting his bowl again. “There are worse fates.”

Before Legolas could lift the spoon to his lips, a voice from the other side of the fire rose in song, badly sung and wholly unserious, cracked with laughter even before the first line was through.

“Oh, the Greenwood’s prince with golden hair,
Fell for a Noldo, tall and fair!
He stole his heart with brooding grace—
And kissed him ‘neath the starlit lace…” 

A few of the patrol groaned. Someone choked on their broth. Caleth muttered something about secondhand embarrassment.

Thalion, however, moved with the reflex of a seasoned warrior.

His boot flew through the air in a single, smooth arc and struck the offending singer squarely in the chest with a dull thump, just shy of the bowl he nearly dropped in surprise.

The guard squawked, flailed, and caught the bowl against his stomach with both hands, splashing broth down his tunic.

“Finish that verse,” Thalion said, voice utterly dry, “and I’ll throw the other boot. And then my belt. And then Caleth’s.”

“That last one is a threat to us all,” Caleth muttered, pretending to shield his own belt with a solemn frown, though his shoulders shook with laughter.

A ripple of chuckles went around the fire, some quiet, some doubled over. Someone whistled in mock appreciation of the aim. The balladeer raised his hands in surrender, grinning sheepishly, red in the face but unrepentant.

And then—

Legolas laughed.

Not the reserved, court-polished chuckle of a prince. Not the quiet exhale of amusement he wore among diplomats.

He laughed.

Truly.

Head tilted back, the sound bursting from his chest, unguarded and bright. He leaned back against the log behind him, the spoon forgotten, his fingers loose around his bowl, his eyes gleaming like starlight caught in water.

It hit them all at once.

The patrol quieted, not out of awkwardness, but reverence. That laughter, so rare and unburdened, settled over them like a blessing.

They watched him, this prince of theirs, so often poised, so rarely free of duty’s shadow, and saw joy.

Not a diplomatic smile. Not the distant gentleness he wore like armor in council.

But real, gleaming joy. The kind born not of ceremony or pride, but of love. Of being among kin who knew him not as a symbol or heir, but as the boy who once climbed trees barefoot, who stole pears from the kitchens, who bled beside them on the borders and grieved their dead in silence.

To the outside world, he was the jewel of Greenwood, one of the fairest Elves in all of Middle-earth, praised in halls he’d never walked, longed for by lords and minstrels alike. But to them, he was simply Legolas.

And they smiled too.

They laughed again, louder, some shaking their heads, others clapping the balladeer’s shoulder, all of them caught in the warm pull of shared affection, drawn close by the rare, golden sound of their prince’s delight.

Whatever lay ahead, be it trials, or Noldorin suitors, or the shadows breathing out of the south, they sat beneath Greenwood’s stars with fire in their bellies and a vow settling wordless among them.

They would guard this joy.

They would see to it he never wore grief so long again.

And if it took flinging boots, or mocking courts, or singing bawdy verses of forbidden love until their voices cracked with mirth, then so be it.

He was theirs. And he was smiling.

Beyond the laughter, the stars wheeled overhead, pale and distant and bright.

Somewhere west of them, across leagues of woodland and shadowed vale, a rider crossed under those same stars, heart fixed eastward.

And somewhere ahead waited a clearing where old wounds might close, where the air might taste of cedar and silk again, where two long-parted souls would find each other not in memory, but in truth.

The woods would watch.

The trees would remember.

And when the moment came, when footstep met footstep, and the years fell away like breath—

The Greenwood would bear witness to a promise kept.

A reunion long delayed.

A love, returning home.