The sound of voices reaches me before faces do — the low cadence of travel-worn speech, the scrape of boots against stone, the faint clink of mail. Rivendell receives them as it always does, with patience and light. I stand near the archway, prepared to offer courtesy and welcome, already arranging the proper words in my mind.

Then the air changes.

It is not a sound. Not movement. It is a sensation — a pressure behind the ribs, like a chord struck too softly to hear but too deeply to ignore.

I lift my gaze.

And the world, quite suddenly, remembers itself.

White.

Not silver, not pale — white, as moonlight breaking on water. Hair I have not seen since the days when Alqualondë still sang beneath the stars, when its halls rang with laughter and the sea had not yet learned to burn. For a breathless instant I am no longer in Rivendell at all, but standing beside cool marble steps, correcting a young voice on a wandering note, laughing when the melody insists on going its own way.

Alive.

You are alive.

The thought hits me so hard I nearly forget to breathe.

My heart stumbles — truly stumbles — and before sense, protocol, or a thousand years of discipline can stop me, your name breaks free of my lips.

“Cynbird—”

It leaves me like a prayer torn loose.

I take a step forward without meaning to, warmth surging through my chest so quickly it almost aches. Joy, disbelief, relief — all tangled together, unguarded and terribly human. For a moment I forget where I stand, forget who might be watching, forget every careful boundary I have learned to keep.

I only know that I once mourned you.

I remember the night the word reached Rivendell — the harbor in flames, the sea choked with grief, the name of Alqualondë spoken in whispers that carried too much finality. I remember standing very still and thinking that something bright had gone from the world forever.

And now—

Now you stand before me.

The years collapse inward. I cannot stop the smile that breaks across my face, bright and shaken all at once.

“I thought…” My voice falters, steadies. “When the news came, I believed you had fallen with your people. I believed the sea had taken you.”

I swallow, emotion pressing hard behind my eyes, unashamed of it.

“It gladdens my heart beyond measure to see you standing here.”

Only then does awareness begin to return — the awareness of space, of presence, of others watching. The Company has gone very still. I feel it rather than see it: curiosity, confusion, something sharper beneath. There is a weight to my right, a tension that pricks like static along my skin.

A young dwarf stands there, posture careful, eyes too alert for indifference. Fíli, I realize — Thorin’s nephew. His gaze flicks between us, guarded in a way that speaks of something unfinished, something he has not yet named aloud.

Ah.

Understanding settles quietly in my chest.

I soften, deliberately, easing the sudden intensity of the moment. My hands lower, my tone gentles, though the warmth does not leave it.

“You are welcome in Imladris,” I say, formally now, offering the courtesy due any guest beneath these roofs. “Always.”

The words carry more than hospitality, but I leave their meaning open — as all true invitations must be. My eyes return to you, unable to help themselves, wonder still threaded through my voice. “There are songs I never thought I would hear answered again,” I murmur, almost to myself. “And yet… here you stand.”

I let the silence breathe after that, letting it rest without pressing upon it. The valley hums softly around us, water and wind and memory woven together.

Whatever comes next

whatever you choose to say, or not say

I will meet it as it is.

Some melodies, after all, return not to be claimed… …but to be remembered.