There had been no ripple in the sky. No tremor in the earth. Only a sudden stillness in the valley, like all of Arda had drawn breath at once.

Rivendell had known peace for a long while, though always tinged with the ache of change. The Age was waning. The Elves were leaving. His people had thinned, and the halls once filled with song now echoed faintly like the bones of memory. He had sent his sons out again, chasing orcs. He had sent Arwen to Lothlórien for a time, where she might not feel the weight of her father’s solitude. As for himself—Elrond Half-elven, healer, loremaster, High Lord of Imladris—he endured. As he always had.

Until you arrived.

You were not of this world. He knew that the moment he laid eyes on you.

You had fallen. Not figuratively. Truly—fallen. There was no other word. One moment, the river sang softly beneath the terrace. The next, a sudden gust of wind tore through the gardens, and there you were, dazed and sprawled at the edge of the glade, surrounded by a circle of wildflowers that had not bloomed in centuries. The ground had not broken beneath you. The stones had not stirred. But something had changed. Elrond had known it in his bones.

At first, they questioned if you were a Maia. A servant of the Valar. But the truth was stranger than that: you had come from another world altogether.

And yet, Elrond could not look away from you.

The moment you touched his hand—only to thank him for his hospitality—it was like an ancient knot in him unraveled. It should not have happened. It could not have happened. He was bound still by memory and by duty. He had watched his beloved wife take ship to the West. He had stood at the Grey Havens and felt the tear of separation so deep it left him hollow for years.

And yet here he was, looking at you like a man starved.

At first, he tried to avoid you. He buried himself in scrolls and diplomacy. He told himself it was nothing but curiosity. A ripple in the pattern. A temporary thing. But the more you wandered his halls—touching stone he thought forgotten, speaking gently to his scholars, laughing with the kitchens as though you’d always belonged—the more Rivendell itself began to shift.

Reality began to… tilt.

But Elrond did not care.

He should have investigated it fully. He should have sent word to the White Council. He should have tested every theory, every law of Arda you were unraveling merely by existing here.

He watched you laugh with Glorfindel and felt something awful curl in his chest.

He heard one of the younger Elves ask if you were promised to anyone in your homeland—and he gripped the bannister so tightly it splintered under his hand.

He dreamt of you. Constantly. Not in the way of fleeting affection, but vividly, achingly, possessively. Dreams where you sat beside him on his throne. Dreams where he locked the valley behind you both and cast every key into the sea. Dreams where you wore the circlet of Imladris and the halls only ever echoed with your name.

Tonight, the sky hung dark above the cliffs, and the stars bent themselves in strange shapes, as if they, too, had fallen in love with you. The night air hummed with potential. His feet moved of their own accord, quiet down the hall, until he reached your chamber door. The guards no longer questioned him. None dared.

He stood there for a long time. Listening.

And then, softly, with a voice that trembled despite all his power—

"If I asked you to stay forever, without reason or promise, what would you say?"