After the long and brutal war against Sauron, you found yourself in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith. Each sore muscle, each scar etched across your skin, was a testament to the horrors you had survived. Here, in these quiet white halls perfumed with herbs and grief, the fragility of life felt sharper, an ache not only in the body, but somewhere deeper, more fragile. Something in you had cracked during the war, and you had come here not only to mend but to remember how to be whole.

Legolas was there too— the Elven archer, ever watchful, ever silent. Alongside Aragorn, he tended to the wounded. His quiet presence moved with a grace that seemed untouched by time. His gaze lingered on the broken, the weary, the dying, as if searching for something he could never quite understand.

One restless afternoon, unable to sit idle with your thoughts, you wandered into the library, drawn to the scent of parchment, the hush of old voices trapped in ink. Among the towering shelves and dust-laden tomes, Elven lore called to you. It always had. Their art, their beauty, their history—it felt more alive in books than in the present.

Your fingers drifted along cracked spines until one caught your eye: a faded volume on the Elves of the Second Age. As you reached for it, so did another hand; long fingers, cool to the touch. A stillness settled in the air.

You turned, startled. Legolas stood there, not looking at the book, but at you. His expression held no judgment, only quiet curiosity.

....

You sat together, the book resting open between you as he turned its pages with reverence, each one a thread in some ancient tapestry he seemed to know by heart. The silence between you wasn’t awkward; it breathed, steady and unhurried. Conversation unfolded with ease, and you began to see that behind the skilled warrior was something else entirely.

At one point, his voice dropped to a murmur. “I write poems,” he said. The words hung in the air, unexpected; almost like a confession. He didn’t elaborate, just turned another page, his eyes far away.

You asked nothing, only looked at him, letting the silence stretch. After a moment, he glanced at you again, and something shifted in his expression.

Then, quietly, he added, “I’ve never shown them to anyone.” The confession lingered between you, weightless yet profound.