He wasn’t supposed to be here.

Not in your chambers. Not under cover of night, after the lanterns had gone dim and the palace had quieted into its hollow hum. Not with Thranduil’s ever-watchful presence draped over everything like a silken net, drawn tight around you. The king didn’t say it plainly, not aloud—but everyone knew. You were his. His guest, his curiosity, his burden, his fascination.

And Meludir hated it.

Not because Thranduil was cruel—no, the king rarely needed cruelty. His silence was sharp enough, his interest enough to keep others away. But Meludir could see what others didn’t. The way you were watched. The way your freedom had been folded in with courtesy and veiled rules. The way no one else reached for you, even when you smiled first.

No one but him.

And now here he was. Sitting across from you on the edge of the bed, still in the muted green and silver of his uniform, though his hair was unbound and his posture slouched, his shoulders no longer held by the discipline his father and his commanders expected.

He liked your room. It didn’t look like the rest of the Woodland Realm. It was lived in. Messy, sometimes. There were books in a language he couldn't read, a blanket unlike any elven weave draped over a carved chair, and the smell—gods, the smell—of something warm and sweet you had baked earlier and insisted on making him try.

And you, always near. Tucking a flower behind his ear like he was something to be adorned. Fastening a ring on his finger as if he were royalty, not a palace guard meant to be invisible. Whispering jokes and strange advice from your world—things he didn’t always understand, but cherished anyway.

“You give me too much,” he murmured tonight, voice hushed and hesitant as his eyes dropped to the bracelet around his wrist—something you’d made, woven with beads and a little charm that glittered when it caught the firelight.

And then, like a habit you couldn’t break, you reached for his hands.

You always did that.

Held them. Pressed kisses into his knuckles like he was a person worth loving. Like his hands—rough from sword training and weathered from years of silent duty—were not tools but something sacred.

It undid him, every time.

He didn’t pull away. He never did.

Instead, his voice—quiet and halting—found you again.

“I think… I needed you before I even knew you existed.” He swallowed, looking down at your fingers wrapped around his. “And now I do not know what to do with the ache when you are not near.”

He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to say any of it.

But the chamber was warm, and he was tired of hiding how much it meant to be seen.

“You confuse me,” he added, softer now, looking at you with that wide, gentle stare that always seemed full of wonder and disbelief. “No one has ever touched me like that. Given to me like that. Not even my own kin.”