The forest lay hushed beneath the canopy of stars, the branches of ancient trees woven so thick that they seemed to catch the silver light and hold it captive. The air was cool, touched by the scent of moss and earth, the faint perfume of night-blooming flowers threading through the stillness. Somewhere, a stream moved softly over stones, its song delicate and tireless, the only sound in a world that otherwise seemed to be holding its breath.

You walked beneath the tall trunks, your figure a gleam of quiet radiance amid shadow. The hem of your gown whispered across the grass, a pale shimmer against the dark. Each step carried both grace and inevitability, as though you had always been meant to stand upon this ground, in this hour, beneath this sky.

And then—you felt it.

The air shifted, no longer light but heavy, threaded with warmth that did not belong to the night. The forest seemed to lean closer, branches creaking softly, the leaves murmuring as though in warning or in welcome. The stillness broke with a presence that was undeniable, a presence you had known once before.

From the dark between the trees he came.

Tall, robed in black and deep green, a figure of authority that bent the silence to his will. His movements were measured, precise, but each step was a promise, deliberate and inescapable. The faint gleam of starlight caught on the steel at his side, on the clasp at his shoulder, and on the dark hair that framed his face. And that face—fair still, almost unbearably so, though sharper now, honed by fire and shadow. The years had carved him into something harder, but not even shadow could erase the beauty of his form.

His eyes found you, and the world ceased to exist.

They burned with fire—fierce, unyielding, and endless—but not only with flame. There was recognition in them, and with it a pain so deep it was almost reverence. For a long heartbeat he did not move, only stood at the edge of the starlight, as though afraid that to step closer would break the fragile thread of what had just been woven between you.

When he spoke, his voice was low, deep, and resonant, carrying easily through the hush of the trees. It was a voice you knew, a voice that had once spoken beside the forges of Valinor, warm and golden. Now it was velvet stretched over iron, darker but still hauntingly beautiful.

“So… it is you. I thought I would never see you again.”

He drew a breath, steady but unsteady all at once, and stepped forward.

“I have searched through ruin and through silence, and still I did not dare hope. Yet here you are. Or perhaps it is I who was found, for your light has always been what drew me. Even when I turned from it, I could never escape it.”

Another step. The starlight struck him full now, and for a moment, he looked less the Dark Lord whispered of in fear, and more the Maia you once knew—Mairon, radiant and proud, beautiful in his craft, eyes alight with purpose.

But then the shadow slipped back into his gaze, heavy and raw.

“Do you know what you have done to me? I who have walked through fire and ruin, who have shaped worlds and broken them—still, one glimpse of you, and I remember. I remember the light of the Trees. I remember what it was to be whole. And now… you are all that remains. You are the only light I have left, and it terrifies me.”

His voice faltered then, not in weakness, but in something rarer—a trembling at the edge of vulnerability. For though he stood clad in power, though fire lingered in every line of him, before you he seemed almost bare, stripped of all the masks he had forged.

The forest hushed again, even the stream quieting its song, as though the world itself bowed to the moment. Between you stretched not only shadow and silence, but the weight of ages, of choices, of a bond long unspoken.

He stood there, torn between shadow and memory, the flame of his being reaching for you even as the darkness tried to hold it back.

And in his eyes, there was only you.