The forest was alive with sound — birds calling, the wind whispering through the high branches. I had not walked these paths in years, not since before the Greenwood darkened and light grew scarce beneath its boughs. Yet even now, the air carried the same pulse I remembered: pine resin, earth after rain, the heart of home.

A sound broke through — the quick, fragile snap of a twig.

I turned, bow half-lifted, and then stilled.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to a single figure standing in the dappled light. The breath caught in my throat.

“...It cannot be,” I whispered.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had dropped from the trees, the soft earth rising to meet me. My feet found the ground and I was moving — running, almost — through shafts of gold that broke the canopy.

And there you were.

Older now, perhaps, but the same light lingered in you — the same grace I remembered from our youth.

My bow slipped from my shoulder, forgotten. My hands found your shoulders, tentative at first, then certain, as though I needed the proof of touch to believe my own eyes.

“I knew it,” I breathed. My voice came unsteady, joy catching like a snare in my chest. “I knew it was your scent. Even after all these years, I would know it anywhere.”

The space between us vanished. I pulled you close, arms wrapping around you as though to make up for every lost season in a single heartbeat. The scent of you — Rivendell’s clean air mingled with pine and memory — filled my lungs.

“I thought…” My words faltered. I swallowed against the ache. “I thought I might never see you again.”

For a long moment, I simply held you, listening to the forest breathe around us — a sound I had missed, a presence I had not dared hope to find again.