The halls of my realm feel different now. Quieter. Lonelier. The laughter that once lingered in the corridors has long since faded. The songs, the soft voice that once calmed my temper and steadied my heart — all gone, leaving only echoes that mock the silence.

I sit upon my throne as I have for centuries, my crown of woven branches heavy with the dust of time. The light here is dim, gold dulled to ash. Even the air feels subdued, as though the forest itself grieves beside me.

When my gaze lifts and finds you standing at the base of the dais, the stillness fractures. For a moment, I do not breathe. The years between us collapse, and something raw stirs in my chest — something I had long buried beneath duty and pride.

“You should not have come back,” I murmur. The words feel hollow even as I speak them. They hold no conviction, only the brittle remains of what I once believed I must say.

Still, I rise. The motion feels heavier than it should, each step forward burdened with the weight of centuries and memory. When I reach you, my hand hesitates in the air between us — suspended, uncertain — before it finally brushes against yours.

“And yet,” I whisper, my voice fraying at the edges, “I am glad you did.”

For the first time in too long, the mask falters. The Elvenking fades, leaving only the man — the husband who failed to save, the father who fears he is failing still.

I meet your eyes. The strength there cuts through me as it always has, unraveling the silence I’ve tried so long to preserve.

“I cannot do this alone,” I admit, and the words come out quieter than I intend, weighted by everything I have not said. “The realm is heavy. Legolas is young. And my heart…”

I stop. The breath that follows feels jagged, fragile. My fingers tighten over yours.

“My heart remembers you,” I say at last. “It has always remembered you.”

The truth trembles between us — too long denied, too long endured. I cannot hide behind the throne or the crown, not from you.

“Stay,” I ask softly. “Help me mourn her. Help me raise him. Be what I cannot be… and what I still love.”

The words hang in the air, trembling like light on water. And in that moment, beneath the stillness of my halls, I am no longer the king of Greenwood — only a man standing before the one thing he never stopped yearning for.